CABAL (The Vatican Knights Book 9)

by Rick Jones

  Nothing.

  “I said, step . . . out.”

  When there was no response he extended his hand, grabbed the latch, and yanked the door wide. The stall was empty. After examining the inside of the confessional and noting that the screen that divided this side of the box from the confessor’s side was closed, he fell back slowly with his AK-47 directed to the opposite side of the box.

  “Step out,” he reiterated.

  When there was no response he reached out and tried the latch.

  The door was locked. Or jammed. Or both.

  Ghazi leveled his weapon. “If you come out now, then you will live. If not, then you die. The choice is yours.”

  “I choose to live.” The voice came from behind him, not from the confessional. When Ghazi turned on the balls of his feet, he was staring directly into the cerulean blue eyes of a man who seemed as broad as he was tall. His face was painted over with the colors of desert camo, a soft tan with streaks of off-browns. From the waist down he wore the military garments of a soldier—a pair of BDU’s with cargo pockets, combat knives secured within sheaths attached to both thighs, and government issued boots. From the waist up he wore the pious dress of a priest, a cleric’s shirt, though it was tan to uniformly balance with the overall colors. And wrapped within the collar of his shirt was the pristine white band worn by clerics. On the breast pocket of his shirt was a dime-sized logo Ghazi didn’t recognize. The emblem was a silver Cross Pattée set against a blue background, which was all meaningless to him. All he knew was that the man standing before him was a Catholic priest.

  This devil’s magician had simply appeared out of nowhere.

  The moment Ghazi tried to swing his weapon around, Kimball lashed out with an elbow strike to Ghazi’s cheek that sent the man sprawling to the ground. Though ISIS were battle-seasoned soldiers, they were not particularly skilled. For the most part they had been thrown into the mix of war with minimal training by those who had served on the battlefield to some capacity, but not as special operators. But this guy was more than quick. He was lightning fast as he came across with his leg and swept Kimball’s feet out from under him, upending the Vatican Knight who fell on his back, and hard, the impact lifting plumes of dust around him. The MP7 Kimball was carrying fell from his grasp and skated across the floor beyond his reach.

  As Kimball quickly maneuvered to his feet, so did Ghazi. In the terrorist’s hand was a knife ready to slice and gut. Then Ghazi began to circle Kimball with his arm ready to thrust the weapon forward with a series of lethal jabs.

  Always up for a challenge, Kimball undid the snap to his sheath, slowly withdrew his knife, and set his feet by grinding them against the surface for a better stance. Then Kimball invited Ghazi to attack him with a beckoning finger.

  Ghazi spat against the floor, then offered a hard look of hateful intolerance, and launched himself forward slashing with sophomoric sweeps of his knife that were easily deflected by Kimball. Though the attacker was unskilled in double-edged swordplay, he was insanely fast.

  Kimball continued to repel the blows with simple sweeps of his hand, the blades striking like flint which caused sparks to flare, dance and die.

  Ghazi pushed ahead with no designed artistry to his movements at all, just overexcited motions.

  Then Kimball went into a well-designed choreography of his own. He countered with perfect sweeps and arcs as the blade of his KA-BAR knife cut across Ghazi’s wrist. Ghazi grunted as the knife fell from his grasp. Just as the insurgent was about to cry out, Kimball silenced him by driving the butt of his knife against Ghazi’s temple with enough power to shatter the temporal bone into a sharp wedge that traveled deep into Ghazi’s brain, killing him.

  After Kimball rested Ghazi’s body along the floor, he lowered his lip mic. “Tango One down,” he whispered. “I have five actives inside and three outside. Isaiah, have the team maintain a secure perimeter. I need you to keep me safe. If anyone attempts to enter the narthex from the outside, then you’re to run interference and terminate on site.”

  “Copy that.”

  Kimball reached for his suppressor-tipped MP7, ejected the magazine, checked it, and reseated it.

  With his MP7 firmly gripped, Kimball silently made his way into the church’s main area of the nave.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Nabi Sayed headed the convoy unit of three additional pickups with truck-mounted .50 caliber machine guns, and were less than twenty-five kilometers from Father Jenkins’ church and closing fast.

  Sayed was one of Mabus’ right-hand men. If Mabus wanted to spread death along the Syrian landscape, then Sayed would see this done. Right now they were heading south where Father Jenkins’ orphans had been found.

  And surely the son of Mabus would be among them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Office of Vatican Intelligence

  The Servizio Informazione del Vaticano, the SIV

  Vatican City

  The co-directors of Vatican intelligence, Fathers Auciello and Essex, both Jesuits, managed one of the best intel gathering agencies in the world that rivaled the likes of the Mossad, the CIA, and MI6. On this day, however, their efforts and attention were drawn to a small patch of desert land in central Syria, where an old church was under siege by a deadly cabal of killers.

  On the fore wall inside a bomb-blast encased chamber were banks of monitors showing hotspots around the globe, such as cities and villages in North Africa; places of turmoil in the Middle East, especially Iraq; Syria; and areas close to the European Front. On the largest screen, which was a permissible live feed from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency in Virginia, was an overview image of Father Jenkins’ church from a zoom-level of 5,500 feet. From this point the church appeared as a speck upon the desert landscape. What bothered the co-directors, however, were the moving vehicles approximately twenty kilometers northwest of the church and moving south.

  When the satellite’s eye zoomed in on the dust clouds that had been kicked up, it was clearly established that weapon-mounted vehicles were making their way across the desert floor.

  “How far?” asked Father Essex.

  Father Auciello tapped a few buttons on the keyboard which brought up a legend on the screen, or a line that measured the distance from point A to point B, the distance between the caravan and the church. The divided space between them was eighteen kilometers, or nearly eleven miles.

  “ETA?” asked Father Essex.

  “In this terrain, I’d say thirteen minutes. Fifteen at the most.” Then after a beat: “We need to inform the Vatican Knights that a fully-armed force is coming in from the north with an ETA of ten minutes. Which means they have to be at the extraction point in nine.”

  Father Essex knew that that particular time frame might be impossible, since they hadn’t expected a team of terrorists to take control of the church’s perimeter. It was supposed to be a simple task: Go in, secure the assets for removal, get them to the extraction point, and leave. But everything always worked best on paper and never in real life.

  Father Essex promptly made the call to the Vatican Knights

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sat phones work by way of connecting to orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial ones. So when Isaiah’s state-of-the-art earbud vibrated after receiving an orbital signal, he tapped the ‘engage’ button. “Go.”

  “You have company closing fast from sixteen kilometers northwest of your position. All heavily mounted with what appears to be .50 caliber hardware.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  That would make six vehicles all together, three at the church and three on the road. Which meant that they would be outgunned and outmanned. And MP7s were no match against .50 caliber machine guns.

  “Copy, Home Base. We’ve run into a situation here. We didn’t expect hostile elements.”

  “We understand that. But time is not a luxury. ETA is now eight minutes. You need to get to the extraction point in seven.” />
  “I hear you. Copy that.” Isaiah closed communication.

  Jeremiah turned his way. “Troubles?”

  “Oh yeah. Another hostile unit is getting close to our position. We need to be at the extraction site in seven.”

  “Seven?”

  Isaiah nodded. “That’s all we have.”

  But it wasn’t enough.

  They knew they would have to hold the perimeter while Kimball extracted the children. They also knew that they could only hold their positions for so long before they were eventually overtaken.

  After a pause, Isaiah reached for an earpiece that rested in the opposite ear of the sat bud, and tapped the ‘connect’ button that was tied in to a particular band. When he spoke into his lip mic there was no mistaking the downcast measure of his voice. “Kimball,” he said, “got some news you’re not going to like. Got a call from Home Base. We have a heavily armed group closing with an ETA of eight minutes. We’ll hold the perimeter.”

  “I need more than eight.”

  “I can’t give you what I can’t control.”

  There was a thoughtful pause. Then: “Give me five.”

  The connection was severed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The five members of ISIS had found the door leading to the lower level, which was off the eastside transept.

  Hadee Kader was tracing a hand over the wooden door, a massively thick gate that was bolted tight from the other side. When he called out to Wahhaj Abu, the unit’s second in command and whose temperament was as vile as he was caustic, smiled as if discovering a great treasure.

  When Abu came upon the door he, too, traced a hand over the aged wood and the black bands that tied the boards together. Then he pressed his weight against it. “They’re definitely in there,” he said. He looked at Kadar and stepped back. “Take it down.”

  Kader concurred with a nod of his head. “Yes, Abu.”

  With the aid of the Abu’s team, Hadee Kader and other team members began to pound their shoulders against the door. At first gains were minimal, the door reliable in its ability to hold. But Arabs were a patient people. And though the door itself may not give, the jamb surrounding it would, since the door was supported by stones and mortar rather than reinforced steel. Sooner or later the stones would react like loose teeth against the constant pounding and eventually fall free.

  Though it took a while, Wahhaj Abu thought he had sufficient time to achieve the means, which meant that Ghazi’s knife would have to wait just a bit longer.

  But Wahhaj Abu was wrong.

  He only had moments.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Father Jenkins corralled the children into a tight circle in the lower chamber along with Sisters Patty and Kelly. In the feeble light cast by the heads of flaming torches, they could see the desert stones surrounding the door begin to wobble and loosen. The mortar holding them together began to crack and flake away. Then the rocks the size of human heads started to fall until the metal rod that once bolted the door firmly into place was exposed. The end piece of the bolt was still locked into place by a few remaining stones. But they, too, were beginning to lose their hold.

  With every blow against the door a veil of dust cascaded from the ceiling. The children cried, and sisters Patty and Kelly were powerless to calm them. In the gloom of the basement that provided more shadows than light, Father Jenkins prayed by mouthing words to a prayer he knew would never be answered.

  But Father Jenkins was wrong.

  Sometimes prayers do come true.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Five against one. Kimball Hayden didn’t like the odds. But he never expected an ISIS team, either. When the Vatican Knights first heard the church’s bell toll in warning they were less than two klicks out. So they triple-timed their way to the frontline where they discovered that ISIS had taken command of the church.

  Now time had run down to minutes. There were hostiles inside and out with more on the way. And since the Vatican Knights worked on the premise that death was to be avoided unless the situation absolutely warranted it, Kimball worked by his own guidelines. Time was not a luxury; therefore, certain protocols had to be dismissed and lives had to be saved. He didn’t think about the Light of Loving Spirits or the Darkness at the other end of the spectrum. All he knew was that he walked in the Gray, the area between both worlds, knowing he would do anything to save those children.

  He became hardened on the inside by becoming a man of cold fortitude. He would become an angel to some and a demon to others, with the members of the Islamic State becoming the objects of his wrath. He would show no mercy, no compassion. And he would sweep through ISIS as if they were a blight that needed to be cut away like a cancer, and perform this procedure with surgical precision.

  When Kimball entered the area of the nave, he noticed that some of the walls and columns were in disrepair with pews either broken or missing. It was obvious that the church hadn’t been used in quite some time.

  After working his way behind the remains of a turned-over altar, his mental clock was ticking inside his head. He had—maybe—five minutes.

  By the east transept, Kimball watched two extremists trying to shoulder their way through a large door. A third stood by waiting for the breach to happen, while two others walked the aisles between the pews.

  Four minutes plus.

  Slowly, as the two made their way down the aisles between the pews, Kimball raised his weapon and drew the first rover within the crosshairs, quickly bounced his sight to the other target to gauge the distance between them, then sent off two muted shots so close together that they almost sounded as one.

  . . . Phfttt . . .

  . . . Phfttt . . .

  Bullet holes magically appeared in the foreheads of both soldiers as the kill shots dropped them to the floor as boneless heaps.

  As one fell silently to the ground, the other had a finger-jerk reaction and pulled the trigger of his weapon as he went down. The AK-47 went off with a short burst that drew the attention of Abu and Kader. The third man continued to shoulder the door with urgency.

  The moment Abu and Kader directed their weapons in the direction of the Vatican Knight, the door finally gave with its steel bolt breaking free from the stone and mortar.

  Abu quickly issued an order to Kader. “Go below,” he told him. “And kill them all with the exception of the one we seek!”

  Kader didn’t hesitate. He disappeared into the opening and descended the stairway, while Abu and the third man held their positions topside.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hussaini was irate when he heard the gunfire. “Did I not tell them to bring everyone to me alive?” The two men standing beside him said nothing, knowing the question to be rhetorical. Then Hussaini held the knife up so that the light of the sun cast fiery glints from its mirror polish. He may not serve up his sacrifices to Allah after all, he thought. Apparently Abu decided to offer those up to Allah by way of the bullet instead of the knife.

  And for such a thing to happen meant one thing to Hussaini: something wasn’t right.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Abu and the third man responded by firing off long bursts as rounds strafed and smashed into the walls behind Kimball. Bullets pocked and pitted the stones, with each strike punching away small chips of desert rock. Above the altar additional rounds tore into the suspended image of Christ upon His crucifix, the impacts causing the porcelain statue to swing wildly upon its tethers until one of the wires finally snapped, which sent the crucifix to the floor where it smashed into several chalky pieces.

  Kimball was pinned down by the gunfire.

  Three minutes plus.

  Kimball knew the Islamic State’s weapon of choice was the AK-47 with the 30-round magazine. And with sixty bullets traversing the space between them at a rate of 2,330 feet per second, he knew they would soon run empty due to random shooting, a sophomoric mistake since ammo was never to be wasted. When the time finally came when their weapons started
to sound off with a series of dry clicks, and with neither capable of seating their magazines in time, Kimball rose from his position, took aim, and set off a volley of shots.

  Bullets peppered the chests of Abu and the third man. And both men jerked as if receiving electrical charges instead of live rounds, with gaping wounds the size of peaches opening like the blooming petals of red roses a moment before they fell.

  Kimball immediately headed for the entryway.

  But it was too late.

  Coming from the depths of the cellar was the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 firing off.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kader entered the doorway and was immediately greeted by the light of the torches. The illumination was weak as the flames casted feeble glows that lit up a few meters instead of tens of meters.

  He descended slowly and cautiously with the point of his weapon forward. Down below the children were crying. And somewhere in the shadows he could hear a man praying.

  Above him—the exchange of gunfire. Allah will see us through, he thought.

  Now he could see the floor of the lower level and the vague shapes that tried to hide within the shadows. The children were shepherded into a tight group with two nuns trying their best to shield them. One nun held her hands out imploringly to him and spoke in a tongue that was not his own.

  Kader, who was about as huggable as a prickly cactus and had no sense of mercy or remorse, raised his weapon, curled his finger around the trigger, and smiled with malice. He would spare the one they seek. A boy. And slaughter the rest. Then he began to pull the trigger.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Though a good man driven by faith, Father Jenkins was also a creature given to ways of self-preservation. Not only for himself, but also for the good people in his life. As much as he believed in God and the goodness He expected from all men, Father Jenkins also understood that faith and prayer only went so far in certain situations.