by Rick Jones
The third vehicle was almost upon them.
“You need to get going,” said Father Auciello.
But Leviticus didn’t seem to hear.
He simply watched the tablet to see how Kimball’s life was about to play out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Sayed’s group moved along the terrain with incredible ease, missing the ruts, dips and protruding rocks that could easily damage axle rods. Their night-vision goggles proved to be a clear asset under the cover of darkness. Their quarry, however, depended on headlights that were old and antiquated, which perhaps gave them direct visibility of several meters.
The two trucks were close together, about three meters apart, side by side. The dust was minimal because the dirt was hard-packed in this part of the desert. The moon was nothing but a thin sliver, which meant that no silver beams alit upon the land to give away Sayed’s position as his team approached. Allah was truly blessing them.
In the vehicle to the left was Kimball. He was manning the .50 caliber as if expecting Sayed’s group. Another did the same in the second vehicle. A smaller man but a soldier, nonetheless.
“The devil’s magician knows we’re coming,” said Lukose.
“He’s a soldier, which means he’s not one to be complacent. Since he did not see our lights, I can only assume that he knows that we are equipped in ways that he is not.”
“Do we pull back?”
“No. He won’t see us until we’re right on top of him. If Musha’s aim is true, if Allah guides him well, then this devil’s magician as you call him, will be dining in Hell soon enough. The advantage is ours to take.”
“And Farid?”
“Do you see him?”
“No.”
“Get closer.”
Lukose did, driving to within 100 meters when Sayed spotted Farid in the other vehicle sitting next to Sister Kelly.
“There he is,” said Sayed. Sayed turned and opened the small window that divided the cab from the pickup’s bed area. “Musha.”
Musha looked down to the window’s opening. His hands were clutching the vertical handles of the machine gun.
Sayed peeled back his goggles so that his face could be framed comfortably within the small gap. “Farid is in the truck on the right. Do you understand?”
Musha nodded. He did.
“Make your aim true to the vehicle on the left.” Sayed donned the goggles and faced forward. Then to Lukose he said, “Engage.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
With the vehicles so close to one another, and with the noises they made as they took the dips and jolts, Kimball never heard or saw Sayed’s vehicle until it came right at them from a veil of darkness to Kimball’s right, then drove alongside Kimball’s vehicle with a terrorist directing a .50 caliber right at them.
Kimball tried to reel around with the point of his weapon to counter. But the terrorist’s weapon beat him to the punch by going off in quick succession. The mouth of the weapon flared with comet-shaped bursts of fire as rounds slammed low. The thin metal panels surrounding the wheel wells exploded outward like flower petals blooming, the rounds decimating the truck. A tire blew and the explosion was loud. Even with the gunfire.
The children were screaming.
The demons had come to steal away their souls.
And as Kimball’s truck began to list and threatened to tip and roll, a second volley went off. This time the bullets rode high as rounds pierced the walls of the cab. Metal pared back against the impacts as bullets smashed through bodies with the ease of going through gelatinous tissue.
Kimball tried to come around and up with his weapon while pulling the trigger and setting off a burst. But the rounds went wild and were far from striking Sayed’s vehicle.
Musha began to realign his sights to put Kimball within the crosshairs. But it was difficult, the vehicles moving too fast and too roughly over the terrain. Then when Musha was about to strafe the vehicle from fore to aft, the cap of his skull came away as a mist of blood and gore. It had been sheared off with strafing gunfire from the second vehicle, which pulled back and came up behind Sayed.
Musha was as still as a Grecian statue as if he was weighing the moment and trying to determine his mortality. Then in a sudden realization that he was dead, he released the handles of the weapon, fell out of the vehicle’s bed, and rolled loosely along the hard-packed floor of the earth for several meters before he finally came to a halt.
The second pickup, with Jeremiah driving, started to give chase. But Sayed’s vehicle veered quickly out of the scope of Jeremiah’s headlights, while Isaiah continued to send off rounds in Sayed’s direction hoping to strike his mark.
He didn’t.
Sayed got away.
And the cries of children filled the night.
#
Solomon struggled to slow and stop the pickup, which was too critically damaged to go on any further. The tires were blown. And a round pierced the engine block, which caused a banging within the engine parts that sounded like a death rattle.
Suddenly the air became filled with the stench of copper. Blood marred the interior walls of the bed with Pollock displays that appeared to be random splashes. Sister Patty had taken a round to her chest, which left a gaping hole that exposed organs too smashed to make out what they once were. Her eyes were wide with the surprise of her own mortality. But in one hand, which was closed into a tight fist, she held a crucifix.
Four children were also gone due to bullets caroming off metals and striking down children of three different faiths without prejudice. Among them was Yara, her tiny body as limp as a doll.
Kimball could feel his rage surface from deep inside. It was unbridled and uncontrollable. Then he reached into the cab, grabbed tiny Yara’s body, and pulled her close to him. Then he whispered softly in her ear, pleading and telling her to wake up because the bad dream was now over.
But she didn’t wake up. Those once beautiful eyes that were always filled with star-point glitters and perhaps, as Sister Kelly had stated, a school-girl’s crush, would forever be closed.
Then Kimball cupped his hand gently over the back of her head and pulled it as close to his heart as he possibly could. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said in Arabic. “It’s all over. You can wake up now.”
But he knew she was gone.
And as a soldier he should have shown more fortitude. Losing people to the battlefield was a way of life. But something seemed to tap into his most humane side. Within his arms was a little girl who had been robbed of her life, and perhaps of having a family of her own someday. And there would be no more playing of a simple children’s game like patty-cake, since her lifeless hands were growing cold.
Kimball carried tiny Yara to the fringe of the vehicle’s lights and stared out into the darkness. The cries of children filled the air behind him, wails and lamentations of terror. He could hear Isaiah trying to gather the team and provide order. Things he was supposed to do.
But he stood as a monument of anger with tiny Yara in his embrace.
Then with a bubbling rush of phenomenal rage, Kimball cried out. “Sayed! . . . Sayed! . . . SAYED!”
His voice carried true and far.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Lukose had pulled the vehicle over after they were well out of range. From their vantage point high on a hill, they spotted the silhouette of the large man standing against the beams of the pickup’s lights. In his arms was a small child.
Lukose took his place beside Sayed. “Musha will be remembered well,” he stated softly.
“Sayed! . . . Sayed! . . . SAYED!” The words sounded hollow and distant, but carried far across the desert plain.
“The devil’s magician calls out your name,” said Lukose. “That is not a good omen, Sayed.”
Sayed waved a hand dismissively through the air. “He’s suffering through the anger and loss of a loved one,” he simply said. “He’s not going through anything that you and I haven’t already suffered thr
ough.”
“But he calls out your name. He knows . . . your name.”
“That’s because of the two nuns, I suspect. I’m sure they informed this man about me. And about Farid and Mabus.”
“Sayed! . . . Sayed! . . . SAYED!”
“And yet he continues to call out your name.”
Sayed smiled at this. “Then those who listen will know of it as they already know the names of Mabus and Ismail.” He pointed a finger at Kimball. “But he will know me best when I bring my knife to his throat and lop off his head with my name the last thing he cries out.”
“Sayed! . . . Sayed! . . . Sayed!”
It was like a mantra, thought Sayed, a chant. Then: “Ismail will be here soon,” he said pointedly. “Even if they try to make a go of it by loading a single truck to capacity, they’ll fall short of their goal.”
There was a hush upon the wind.
And then the distant cry of a warrior.
“Sayed! . . .
. . . SAYED! . . .
. . . SAAAAYEEEEEED! . . .”
CHAPTER SIXTY
As the plane was taxiing down the runway, Leviticus was watching what he could from the tablet’s screen as a battle unfolded from satellite view, while the rest of the Vatican Knights took nearby seats. The fight was fast and furious as the attacking vehicle performed a classic hit-and-run maneuver, then retreated to the north.
But the images were far from high-quality, just distant specks of thermal light that didn’t clearly identify as to who was who. The only thing the tablet was able to do was to provide live aerial footage. From what he could determine, two vehicles remained on the move whereas one was unmoving and most likely crippled, with one circling back to the unmoving pickup.
They’re down to one, he told himself. Then he zoomed out to get an overall image of the Syrian landscape. Running three hundred kilometers behind and coming in from the west was the second team. If Kimball was down, if one of the vehicles was crippled, so was Kimball’s chances to get back on the move with any real efficiency. One overloaded vehicle against a fleet of fast-moving pickups wasn’t much of a contest at all.
Leviticus returned to Kimball’s position on the screen. Several thermal images the size of dust motes appeared to be moving about the two vehicles. To the pickup in the north, two images. There were also images lying on the ground, at least six, all unmoving. And Leviticus wondered if this was the kill result of the battle. If so, then who was among the dead?
At the fringe of light thrown from the vehicles stood a single thermal image, the speck larger than the others, and appeared to be facing north where the retreating vehicle had taken refuge from Kimball’s team.
“There you are,” Leviticus commented softly to himself. You’re still with us.
Then as the plane began to ascend to its cruising altitude, he shut off the tablet and laid it aside.
Regardless of the outcome, he considered, and should the mission come down to a single operation to amass the dead, they would not leave behind anyone who belonged to the brotherhood of Vatican Knights. Leviticus prayed that this would not be a mission of retrieval. But time was running out, as was hope and opportunity. At the moment Kimball was limping along in a race where the finish line was at an impossible distance away.
Leviticus looked at his watch.
Time was not a luxury.
Then he looked out the window and into the night.
Darkness can hide you for so long, my friend. And soon it’ll be dawn where everyone can see you.
The plane began to level off at cruising altitude.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Mabus could not sleep, his mind working throughout the night knowing his cabal was on the cusp of striking a damning blow against the Vatican. More so, he thought about his son, Farid. He was a delicate boy much like his mother, with a soft heart and softer skin. But the mettle of a child can be hardened as the steel blade of a knife. He would eventually see the Light of Allah and come to understand the meaning of Islam. This he was sure of.
The action of Farid running away would be forgiven. The action of him seeking the salvation in the arms of Christians was another matter altogether. And for this Farid would be punished by caning with the strikes upon his back scarring over as a reminder of who he was: a member of the Islamic State.
From the latest progress report from Sayed, one of the two vehicles had been crippled, making their journey all that much more difficult if not impossible. But the boy was fine, Sayed claimed. And, of course, looked well.
When Sayed begged Mabus for the opportunity to strike down the devil’s magician in homage to Allah, he was summarily denied. Mabus had decided that this man would have his life taken by Farid as his first step toward the Light of Allah. Where Mabus had failed in the past, he would not do so in the future. He would reign over his son with zero tolerance. He would guide him in the ways of the knife and its cutting edge. Should Farid fail him this time, should he remain as soft and cowardly as his mother, then he would not hesitate to use the teaching implement on his own son. Either you see the Light of Allah . . . Or the Eternal Fires of Hell. There is no in-between.
Mabus closed his eyes and saw his son as a young and powerful man who ruled by his side. And in this illusion he beamed over the accomplishments of a boy who would grow to be a man and one day rule over once-Christian nations with Islamic law. Fields would burn with the bodies of infidels. The planet would be cleansed of a mighty cancer. And in the end Farid would hold the Qur’an high and as the scepter of absolute rule.
Then the images segued to greater feats of accomplishment. Mabus pictured his son standing by his side next to the papal throne as Rome burned. The seat was empty as surrounding tapestries that told of false histories were being consumed by fire, as Christianity struggled in its final death throes of agony.
In a few hours his team would strike at the heart of Christianity.
And once again Rome would be destroyed in flames not sparked by the madness of Nero, but by the blessing of Allah.
Mabus smiled with the corners of his lips edging dreamily upward.
Then the image faded as soon as the sat-phone by his side chirped.
He picked it up, saw that it was Ismail, and hit the ‘on’ button.
“I just received word from Sayed that he had taken out a means of the infidels’ transport, leaving them with little hope,” said Ismail.
“Sayed has already informed me of this,” he told him.
“Sayed keeps us posted regarding their position. When this group started to move east we lost valuable time.”
“And now?”
“Now we’ll be upon them in three hours, maybe less. We’ll bring your son home to you, Mabus, where he belongs by your side.”
“He has a long way to go,” Mabus returned. “My son has a lot to learn.”
“He’s young. He’ll learn quickly. They always do.”
“When you arrive on scene there will be a man there, a large man. A soldier, in fact. He may be harmed but not killed. I want him to serve as an example to others who wish to aid those who refuse to follow Islamic Law.”
“Understood.”
“Farid’s training will start with him. My son will cut off the head of this man and hold it high for all to see.”
“Believe me, Mabus. I’ll have this man before you and on his knees soon enough.”
“And Ismail?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful. This man we speak of . . . He may be the one who is referred to as the priest who is not a priest.”
Ismail laughed on his end. “The priest who is not a priest,” he said.
“You’ve heard of him, yes?”
“Him? Perhaps. I’ve heard of a man who has branded us as heathens and terrorists, and responds accordingly by killing us as if we were the minions of Shaytan when he, in fact, is truly the devil’s advocate. If this man is who you say he is, then I want to be there to see the life go out of his eyes the moment you
r son runs the blade across his throat.”
“Bring him to me, Ismail, and you shall see this done.”
“I’ll have your son back to you within the day.” Then Ismail severed the connection.
Mabus set the phone aside. Everything was working according to plan. Farid would soon be by his side. The Vatican was about to fall. And the man considered to be a demon to some and an angel to others was about to fall by the will of Allah.
So far, Mabus was feeling good about life.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
As Sayed’s name echoed across the valley for the last time, a hand fell lightly upon Kimball’s shoulder. “We have to go,” Isaiah told him softly. “We have to go now.”
Kimball continued to stare into the darkness while holding tiny Yara close to him. He got a whiff of her blood that was seeping into the fabric of his camo shirt, could feel her warm wetness on his skin underneath. “If it’s the last thing I do, Isaiah, I will find Sayed and bottle his last breath.”
“It’s not what we do, Kimball.”
“It’s not what you do.” Kimball turned and walked away with tiny Yara in his clutches with a hand to the back of her head so that it wouldn’t loll loosely about. When he approached the crippled pickup, he saw five bodies lined up on the ground in gentle repose within the glare of the headlights. Four children and Sister Patty. Kimball gently eased tiny Yara down beside Sister Patty, folded the young girl’s arms over her wounded chest, and kissed her cooling forehead.
When he got to his feet he examined the vehicle. Blood was everywhere inside the pickup’s bed, splashes of deep red. And the thin sheets of metal had been decimated by the pounding rounds. How he and three other children escaped the onslaught was beyond him.
“There’s another one over there,” said Jeremiah, pointing to the shadows to the north. In his hand was an NVG monocular that was encrusted with blood and gore that appeared as bits of flesh and gray matter clinging to the headband. “It still works.”
Kimball took the NVG. “From Sayed’s guy?”