by Jones, Rick
Hakam nodded. “It is Allah’s will to see this through. Your Vatican Knight doesn’t stand a chance against Aziz and his team.”
“No,” said the pope. “It’s your people that don’t stand a chance. If you allow this to continue, then they will surely die.”
Hakam hesitated before answering. “We shall see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They had taken the stairs to the lower level where gray light filtered in through the porthole windows. A lone man, impossibly tall and broad shouldered, his face of forced indifference betrayed only by the mild clenching of his jaw, stood in the shadows. Around his neck he wore the starched white collar of a Catholic priest. And inscribed on the pocket of his cleric’s shirt was the blue shield and silver Pattée, the insignia of the Vatican Knights.
Aziz’s Team did what was natural; they grouped together in a refined area and converged on their target, a priest who was a warrior and soon to be a doomed savior.
In a slow draw, Kimball withdrew his commando knives from sheaths attached to each thigh and stirred one in an act of distraction, first in circular motions, then in figure eights, a practice that kept the attention of his opponents from focusing on the second blade, the striking weapon.
Aziz’s Team moved into position to engage the faux priest, each man already knowing when and where to strike.
“I have been ordered to take your head,” said Aziz, holding up his knife and showing off the keenness of its edge. “And I shall not disappoint.”
Kimball stepped closer, his attractor blade continuing to slice deliberate figure eights through the air, ready, waiting.
Aziz inched closer, taking the center position, his movements matched by his team.
And then there was that brief suspension of time when a man suddenly feels his blood coursing through his veins or hears his heartbeat drumming within his ears. It was the moment before the final engagement where time stood still, a time where a man reconsiders his actions but rarely concedes.
And then from Aziz, a war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”
The commandos of Aziz’s team struck out and slashed with killing blows. But Kimball countered their strikes with blinding speed, deflecting knifes, the contacts coughing up sparks as the blades pounded against each other as metal struck metal.
With uncanny skill Kimball’s motions became faster, his circular motions repelling the blows that seemed to come faster and with far more brutal force. By the inches he pushed back Aziz’s Team, who was losing ground, the strikes coming to the point where everyone’s arm was moving in blurs and blinding revolutions. Sparks radiated in numerous pinpricks of flame before dying out. And then came an opening.
With surgical precision Kimball drove the edge of his blade across the bicep of one of Aziz’s commandos, severing the muscle. The man screamed in agony, took to a knee, then tumbled out of the battle line and was gone, disappearing into the shadows and toward the fore of the plane.
As the fight waged on Kimball seemed to pick up steam rather than lose it. His motions were deft and with purpose. The odds of two blades now warring against two seemed to favor Kimball as he pushed his opponents back toward the front of the fuselage.
And then came a second opening, something so slight it could only be seen by the seasoned eye.
In a fluid motion Kimball bent down to a lower point of gravity, and made a horizontal slash just above the patella of the commando standing to the right of Aziz, nearly severing the muscle that attached the upper and lower leg. With a banshee-like wail the commando moved surprisingly well on his good leg as he hobbled toward the trapdoor.
Fighting at a level that transcended his own technique, Kimball was now in his element as he backed Aziz against the fuselage wall, pinning him. But Aziz’s will to finish the battle had become ingrained from years of tough mental training. And to surrender would be a cowardice brand against the Aziz name and his religion.
“Put down the knife,” Kimball said in perfect Arabic. “I won’t ask you again.”
Aziz flashed a cocky grin. “Not on your life.”
“Then I’ll make this a fair fight.”
Without taking his eyes off Aziz, Kimball returned one of the knives back to its sheath.
In that moment Aziz sized Kimball for an opening, circled, found what seemed to be an opportunity, and tried to cut Kimball with a sweeping horizontal arc across his abdomen. But Kimball grabbed the attacker’s wrist, forced the man’s arm over his head, exposing his armpit, and drove the sharpened point of his nine-inch blade deep into the unprotected area until the pommels of the knife could go no farther.
Staggering along the fuselage in a drunken gait, Aziz reached for the weapon’s hilt, gave minimal effort to withdraw the knife, found it impossible to do so, and fell to his knees coughing up blood from a perforated lung. “Hakam was correct,” he said, speaking through bubbles and wetness. “You’re no priest . . . No priest . . . can fight like you.” And then he fell forward, hard, his face slamming flush against the floor before rolling to its side, his life gone.
If Aziz saw the light of his Paradise, it did not reflect on his face. What Kimball saw as he stood over Aziz and jerking the knife free, was a man who looked surprised by his own mortality.
So his name is Hakam, he thought. Well, Hakam . . . here I come.
After wiping the blade of his knife clean on Aziz’s shirt, Kimball sheathed the weapon.
#
The trapdoor sprung open like the lid of a jack-in-a-box and Aziz’s team bolted to the main deck. Aziz was not among them. Nor was the head of the Vatican Knight.
The man with the wounded leg slammed the door shut behind him, and lay on the carpet in agony with the tendons along his neck sticking out like cords. His face was flushed as he bled from a gash above the knee. The other assassin sat against the wall fighting for air, his lungs pulling desperately while his face blanched to the color of whey. With his good hand he grabbed his torn bicep, the wounded arm having been rendered entirely useless, and cried out in frustration.
When Hakam heard the cry he rounded the wall leading to the trapdoor. He was riveted by what he saw. Blood flowed from rented flesh, the cuts deep and disabling as their bleeding showed little sign of slowing down. “Where’s Aziz?” he asked.
The man with the wounded bicep winced before speaking, his teeth clenching as his arm became white hot with pain. “He’s dead,” he said. “The priest took him out.”
Hakam appeared fazed. “Aziz . . .”
“Three against one,” said the assassin with the wounded leg. “Three against one and he toyed with us.” He situated himself against the wall, groaned, and applied pressure to his leg to staunch the bleeding. “This priest,” he began, “fights like no other.”
“That’s because he’s not a priest,” Hakam quickly corrected.
And then he watched their blood fan out onto the carpet.
“And what about Aziz?” he asked. “You just left him behind?”
“We had no choice,” said Wounded Arm. “The priest, who is not a priest, took us out, so we fell out of the skirmish line.” Leaning his head against the wall and looking ceilingward with an almost dreamy gaze, he then spoke as if in homage. “He was so fast,” he said. “So incredibly fast. And Aziz was the best in double-edged combat. Plus with two more by his side . . .” He let his words trail before facing Hakam. “We were nothing to this guy. I don’t think he even broke a sweat.”
Hakam raked the man with a fierce eye. Homage is to be paid to Allah and to Allah only, not to dissidents who believed in false gods or prophets. “Do not appreciate this man too much,” he said. “He is your enemy.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Hakam. The man is an enemy to Allah; therefore, an enemy to us all.”
Hakam nodded, accepting his statement as an apology. “Just make sure you understand that.”
The assassin with the wounded arm tried to stand up, his world becoming dizzy, and sat back down.
The man with the
wounded leg was beginning to shiver, and sweat, his pallor going gray and his lips turning blue; the signs of slipping into shock. Hakam then got to a bended knee and placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. “You fought valiantly, al-Kadeen.” And then turned to face Wounded Arm: “As did you, al-Marid.”
Wounded Arm gingerly smiled at the praise and rediscovered his boldness. “In the name of Allah and for the honor of Aziz, let me go back down there with a firearm and—”
Hakam waved him off. “And if an errant bullet should pierce the fuselage, al-Marid, then the mission will be over long before it even has a chance to begin.”
“But my aim is true, Hakam. You know that. I was a Master Gunnery in the Guard.”
“And Aziz was the best at what he did, as well. And now he lies dead somewhere in the fuselage of this plane. No, al-Marid, this priest who is not a priest, this . . . Vatican Knight, is a different breed of warrior. I think it best to use caution at this point.”
Al-Marid quickly disagreed. “He’ll wait for us,” he said, “like he did last time—inside the shadows. But when he realizes that we’re not coming to him, then he’ll come to us.”
Hakam shook his forefinger back and forth. “No, my friend, he won’t. The best way to stay safe from a hungry tiger is to keep it caged.” Hakam stood. “He can go nowhere once we disable the elevator and lock this trapdoor.”
“But the weapons, the payload . . .”
“There’s nothing he can do,” he stated. “They have commenced their sequences and are now at the point of no return. He won’t do anything knowing a foolish act on his part may cost the life of the pope whom he is sworn to protect. No, this man will try something else. And when he does, I’ll be there waiting.”
#
The Garrote Assassin had seen to the wounds of al-Marid and al-Kadeen. Al-Kadeen, however, was slipping into shock, his body surrendering to the trauma as he lay wrapped in a wool blanket. Al-Marid, on the other hand, was full of piss and vinegar and vowed to fight on, even with his arm in a makeshift sling fashioned from a pillow case.
With Aziz dead, that left Hakam with three able-bodied men and a marginal warrior in al-Marid, which worried him. Not even three hundred miles into their journey and half his team was down.
Walking to the First Class cabin where Pius sat, Hakam took the seat next to him but did not speak.
“I begged you,” said Pope Pius. “I pleaded with you. I implored you. But you wouldn’t listen and now a man lies dead.”
Hakam remained silent, his eyes focused to an imaginary point on the wall in front of him.
“How many more will you kill or send to their death unnecessarily?” asked Pius. “How many more are going to die for this twisted cause you call justice?”
Hakam was not in the mood. “Who is this man?” he asked. “Who is this Vatican Knight? And if you say ‘your personal valet,’ I will have another bishop killed.”
Pope Pius looked at Hakam’s profile and saw a man who was fighting to remain calm.
“He is an elite soldier,” he answered evenly, “with credentials rivaled by no one, as you have just witnessed. There are fourteen more like him who are willing to make everything wrong with this world right.”
Hakam hesitated before speaking. “When I was seventeen and living in New York,” he said evenly, “I stood on the sidewalk and watched a vendor, an Arab, get accosted by three men because he was praying.” His gaze remained fixed. “They grabbed him, a man who loved his God as much as you love yours, and they nearly beat him because of what he was, an Arab. They did not know this man or the content of his character. They did not know if he was good or bad or wished ill of his neighbor. All they saw was an Arab. And that was the day I realized no matter what, I, and those like me, have become inherently mistrusted because of what happened on Nine-Eleven. Since then my life has become a constant struggle.”
“So you think God has given you the impunity to kill because of what three men did a long time ago?”
Hakam shook his head. “I do what I do because Allah has shown me that under one God, the one true God, that tolerating false gods is evil in its whole. As long as the masses continue to worship false deities, then true evil will never fall and the world forever divided.”
Pope Pius could not believe his ears. Did this man think he was some kind of savior?
“My team is similar to your Vatican Knights,” he continued. “They are soldiers who fight for a particular cause in the name of Allah, but condemned by the masses. Your soldiers fight for a cause and their actions are justified by the Church. Yet you keep these Vatican Knights hidden in fear of worldwide denunciation because the measures they use to achieve the means are no different in principle, as long as the desired result is obtained. Both kill under the waving banner of God. So tell me the difference between our soldiers, Your Holiness, since they fight under the same fundamental causes of redirecting the world to a more glorious path. And please try doing it without sounding hypocritical.”
The pope leaned his head closer to Hakam’s ear, his lips less than a foot away. “You’re missing the one fundamental point that matters most,” he said. “The intent of the Vatican Knights is to preserve and save lives, not take them away.”
“I see. So those three men who accosted the Arab vendor, if they believed that beating him would somewhere down the road save and preserve lives because they thought he would ultimately cause harm, would that come under the same guidelines as your principals? Keep in mind that this man who openly worshipped his God was branded at the scene as someone inherently mistrusted, his only crime.”
“You’re speaking theoretically rather than fact. The Vatican Knights go into volatile situations already existing.”
The plane took a jolt from an air pocket before resettling.
“You will die,” Hakam stated with apathy. “And so will I. But what better way to serve as a symbol to a dying religion while another rises for all to inherit without condemnation: one law, one religion, one God.”
“Your God is the same as mine,” said Pius, prompting Hakam to face him. “Your God, my God, the God of the Jews, the God of Islam. We are all His children no matter how differently we perceive him. There is already that one God you speak of—the God of many faces but only one voice. And what you speak of is intolerance. And intolerance is the plague of man, which you seem to be infected with.”
Hakam turned away. “Intolerance paves the way to Oneness.”
“Intolerance paves the way to insanity. If you get your way of one god and one religion, then you’ll always find something else to forbid. Perhaps it would be the way a man wears his beard or the way he dresses. In time the rules become such a stranglehold on the masses that He would be viewed as an unmerciful God who could never be pacified. The people would then turn and look for a more benevolent God, which will put you back right where you started from—with several gods and several religions.”
“Allah would not allow that,” he said. “Once the people see Allah’s ways, then they will accept no other.”
Pius eased back into his seat disturbed by this man who was blinded by irrationality and bipolar in his reasoning. This man of calmness was totally corrupted by fanaticism, leaving the shell of a person who appeared visibly sound but fundamentally insane.
For an awkward moment neither man spoke. They simply stared at the wall before them, the plane riding flat pockets of air like a mini-roller coaster before leveling off.
“Your Knight will not save you,” Hakam finally said. “And that is the will and power of Allah, the will and power of the one true God.”
“I wouldn’t cut my man too short,” he countered.
Hakam proffered a lazy smile. “Oh, but I can,” he said. “Because there isn’t anything he can do with what’s in the hold.” Hakam stood with a cherubic smile on his face. “If you wish to pray to your God,” he said, “you may do so.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Raven Rock (Presidential Bunker)
The cavern beneath Raven Rock had become increasingly active, the list of investigating principals growing. The Director of the FBI had been flown in to navigate his troops from the same vantage point as the president and the attorney general. Aides, secretaries and political staffers had been repositioned from their White House posts to the Raven Rock Underground, their roles to amass data from varying intel sources and submit them to the principals as corroborated information. House and senatorial giants now filled the once vacant seats surrounding the presidential table. And space was beginning to run thin as people milled about the cavern. The proverb ‘beehive of activity’ could not have been more appropriate with the generators putting out a waspy hum.
President Burroughs was tired and haggard, the gray half moons beneath his eyes more obvious, darker, the lines surrounding them more pronounced. For several hours he had gone without sleep, his world sometimes going fuzzy with fatigue, forcing him topside to walk the compound, only to return hardly refreshed.
So far he had nothing. The Muslim Revolutionary Front was not on anybody’s radar and did not exist by any conventional means to find them. If a shadow group were ever present, they were it.
“Mr. President.”
Burroughs looked up from a stack of documents. His attorney general had just been given a detailed message from Homeland Security and the FBI’s Los Angeles field office regarding the discovery of Shepherd One’s entire flight crew found dead.
“Shepherd One?”
Dean Hamilton expounded. “Shepherd One is the pope’s plane,” he said. “Apparently the crew had been murdered. And preliminary reports suggest the victims were strangulated in similar fashion.”
President Burroughs appeared lost, not quite sure why his attorney general made such a reference in light of the current situation. The connection escaped him.
“Shepherd One took off less than an hour ago with a full crew,” said Hamilton. “And this has been confirmed by LAX Admin.”