by Rick Jones
That left Raamiz and his team, who took the direct route to the residential quarters and to the papal chambers. After hearing the massive blast and the subsequent rattle of the Earth beneath his feet, Raamiz immediately realized that Pothen and his team were in Paradise.
I will join you soon, my brother. Real soon.
His team moved on.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
“That was close,” stated the Eminent Cardinal Rabini. He was one of two cardinals from the Vatican’s State Council who had taken refuge inside the papal chambers along with other cardinals, who were chiefly from the Pontifical Commission.
Bonasero Vessucci continued to sit at his desk. “We must have faith in our defenses,” he said.
“Are the Vatican Knights not here?” asked Rabini.
The pontiff did not look at him when he answered. “I’m afraid that the world is in such a state that we’re spread thin. We must depend upon the Swiss Guard and the security detail. I’m sure those of the Gendarmerie are doing their part as well.”
The chamber remained quiet. No one inside had a voice or the need to express an opinion or two. Everyone knew that Death was approaching. All they could pray for, all they could hope for, was that the skill sets of the Swiss Guards were strong enough to hold the fort. But as good as they were—what every man inside the room was thinking—they were not Vatican Knights.
Then there was a blast, close and powerful.
Death was now knocking on their front door.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
Raamiz’s team had taken the stairs to the second level of the Palace uncontested, only to be met by a large force of Swiss Guards and Vatican Security. There was no way Raamiz and his team could move forward without taking massive casualties.
But this was the moment they had planned for.
This was the moment of martyrdom.
The moment gunfire erupted and rounds started to chip away at the surrounding stone columns and walls, Raamiz called forward his two youngest soldiers, brothers, one two years older than the other but sharing the same mindset, and told them that their time to enter Paradise had come. “You will be heroes,” Raamiz told them. But he could see the terror in their eyes, a natural response to approaching death. “You won’t feel a thing,” he told them. “Nothing. And in a few moments you will be in Paradise where I shall soon follow. Do not forget that Allah favors you in this. Allah favors all of us.”
The brothers nodded, with the younger of the two trying to swallow back a sour lump of bile that was climbing up his throat.
“You know what to do,” Raamiz told them over the gunfire. “We’ll provide cover for as long as possible.” Raamiz then took up a position behind a stone post. Then, motioning to the two gunmen to provide cover on his count, the brothers readied themselves.
Raamiz started to tick off his fingers from three . . .
. . . two . . .
. . . one . . .
And then the gunmen exposed themselves to fire off rounds at the Guards and the security detail. Immediately one of Raamiz’s men was taken out with a well-placed shot to his eye. The bullet passed quickly through the skull and blew out an exit-wound the size of a peach, downing the team by one less terrorist. But Raamiz and the other gunner continued to fire upward with enough firepower to force the Guards and the security detail to fall back from the lip of the top stair, which gave the brothers the time they needed to storm the second tier.
The older brother went first with his thumb on the detonator, screaming Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! His face was a mask of rage. Cords stood out along his neck. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! And when he topped the final step to the second tier, he was strafed by bullets that rammed his chest and thighs, opening wounds that blossomed in red. As he fell to the floor his thumb jerked and pressed the button.
A red and orange fireball exploded along the tier. The blast was powerful and strong, the flames rolling along the corridor like a wave. Many of the security team were killed instantly, as were the members of the Swiss Guard. Those who weren’t killed were stunned by the blast the same way a flash-bang would cause a moment of disorientation.
It was also the time for the second brother to follow through, which he did. He mounted the stairway by taking two at a time. When he reached the top—and just as some of the members of the Swiss Guard started to wheel their weapons around, though they remained foggy and uncoordinated in their efforts to do so—he cried out Allah’s name and depressed the button, finishing off what his brother had started.
All that was left on the second tier now was gore, torn bodies and red splashes.
Raamiz and his lone operative took the stairs.
Thick smoke filled the hallways. Hanging tapestries burned along the walls. And coming from the opposite end of the hallway were the approaching footfalls of additional forces.
“Move,” said Raamiz. “Quickly.”
The footfalls grew louder.
Raamiz and his teammate knew exactly where to go and what to do. They raced down the corridor to a door that looked strong and medieval, a door of thick planks that were held together by black bands and rivets.
Raamiz placed a small explosive charge against the lock of the door, stood back, and set it off. The charge went off and splinters of wood blasted outward. The locking mechanism was severely damaged and the door blew inward. As soon as the smoke settled, Raamiz stepped inside the room while his teammate stood outside to hold off the coming forces.
For a long moment Raamiz stood there with his gun leveled on the cardinals. But it was Bonasero Vessucci he pinned his gaze to as they met eye to eye.
“You know what this means,” Raamiz told him.
Bonasero Vessucci stood. “If you kill me, if you kill us,” the pontiff indicated to the team of cardinals standing inside the chamber, “you may start a path to war so brutal and so horrible, that people on both sides will cry for the mercy of death. There will be no winners here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Raamiz answered. “Allah favors us. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be standing before you now.”
Pope Pius XIV, Bonasero Vessucci, longtime friend and sometimes surrogate father to Kimball Hayden, closed his eyes.
Outside the chamber, Raamiz’s teammate set off a series of shots as he attempted to maintain the perimeter, but failed as his life was quickly stolen away by gunfire.
Raamiz, while asking for Allah’s acceptance, raised his hand high with his thumb on the plunger, and pushed the button.
The room was completely engulfed in flames as incredible pressure blew out the entire row of windows to the papal chamber, sending glass and debris to the courtyard below. Rolling fireballs immediately jettisoned from every window opening as angry boils of fire, which were then sucked back inside the chamber like a backdraft, where they turned to smoke.
Raamiz had completed his mission.
Pope Pius XIV was gone.
And angers would rise as more than one billion people worldwide would cry out against those responsible in heated anger, demanding retaliation of the highest order.
In less than ten minutes time, a group of radicals had stormed the Vatican and brought the world to the brink of global war in a senseless and brutal act.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
Syrian Desert
The Mk 19 grenade launcher from a Stryker operates specifically from the remote weapon station, or the RWS, from the top of the vehicle, and is also equipped with thermal imaging that has a visual range of 7,800 feet, or 2,400 meters. So when the Stryker units were approximately one kilometer away from the children who were taking refuge beneath the rocky overhang, they set off a series of grenades from their RWS, the shots taking out two trucks.
When the thermal-imaging monitor revealed more than a half dozen pickups converging to the location of the refuge, the gunmen inside the Strykers navigated the weapons on the RWS with a laser designator, sighted the vehicles with computer coordinates, and then shot off streams
of gunfire from the heavy caliber machineguns.
Rounds covered the distance in split seconds, hitting the pickups and chewing up flesh and bone and metal with perfect strikes. Glass windshields exploded. Splashes of blood erupted inside moving cabs. Some pickups veered off in directions with a deceased driver behind the wheel. But those who remained untouched passed the overhang and headed for the new threat of the Strykers.
Ismail’s group started to weave and zigzag across the terrain, making for difficult targets to strike as they approached the armor-plated vehicles. And though Strykers were thick-skinned, they were not invincible.
The five remaining pickups closed in while two others stayed behind: Sayed and Ismail.
The attacking vehicles weaved.
And zigzagged.
Bullets from the Strykers strafed and raked the ground around them, missing.
Then Leviticus set the laser designator that would feed location demands to the machinegun on the RWS. He spotted a single vehicle, locked it in, then set the commands and initiated the firing burst. Though the firing platform was stabilized, it was still remarkable in its ability to lock on and hit its mark, as long as it was within a 90-degree range of its sight.
The high-caliber bullets smashed through the grill and engine block, incapacitating it. As the vehicle began to roll to a stop, the radicals, including the gunner, jumped from the pickup only to be mowed down with demolishing impacts that ripped through their bodies.
That left four vehicles.
And twelve fighters.
One Stryker broke to the west, the other to the east, the units flanking the pickups. Leviticus manned the cannons in one vehicle, whereas Jonah followed suit in the other. Then in coordinated fashion they set off cannon lobs to pepper the area around the pickups like cluster bombs.
The cannon shots went off like grenades. Two vehicles erupted immediately, and the gunners took immediate flight as the pickups lifted off the desert floor and somersaulted through the air before coming down on the tops of both cabs, crushing the occupants inside the vehicles.
Another pickup lost control and fell into a crater newly created by a blast, causing the metal of the frontend to collapse inward like an accordion. The driver and passenger were killed immediately. The gunner injured his shoulder but appeared fine. As soon as he left the truck’s bed, however, he was cut down by gunfire from the Stryker’s turret system.
The one remaining pickup that was now caught behind a thick and cloying wall of dust, headed west.
That left the two vehicles posted to the north.
Leviticus zoomed in to their location through the monitors inside the Stryker’s cab. Two men were standing over the body of a large man. The man on the ground was raising a hand to those who stood over him, but not imploringly so. It was more like a feeble attempt to grasp and throttle.
When Leviticus zoomed in further, he noted the face of the man lying on his back was smeared with soot. Yet the face was clearly recognizable.
When one of the two men standing over Kimball removed a firearm from his side holster, Leviticus ordered the Stryker to break formation and head north to Kimball’s location.
Since the armament turret was stabilized and was more to demolish rather than to target an individual for a well-placed shot to center mass, Leviticus had to get as close as possible, go topside of the Stryker, and take out the threat with his Barrett .50 caliber.
Leviticus grabbed the rifle stowed on its rack, went topside, took position next to the RWS, which looked like a multi-tentacle turret, and told Amos to stop the Stryker so that he could line up his shot.
Through his sight he could see the two men conversing. They were at least a half kilometer away, a third of a mile, a long shot for sure. Given the light breeze and the chance of the Coriolis Effect altering the path of the bullet, there was no guarantee that the shot would fall true from this distance.
But Leviticus didn’t have a choice.
Time was running short.
And the man with the firearm began to direct the point of his weapon to Kimball’s head.
Leviticus put the shooter within the crosshairs, steadied his aim, and then began to take shallow breaths.
Just as the shooter took firm aim at Kimball, Leviticus pulled the trigger.
Everything happened within the blink of an eye.
Just as the shooter’s chest burst wide with red, his finger apparently jerked at the moment of impact and discharged his weapon.
Within Leviticus’s weapon’s sight he watched Kimball jerk just as the shooter’s bullet entered his body.
Leviticus closed his eyes.
What he had done was all for naught.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Three Weeks Later
Izmir Air Force Base, Izmir, Turkey
The Izmir Air Station is a strategically located military base run by the U.S. Air Force approximately 300 kilometers from Istanbul. Since its position is close to the Aegean Sea, it has direct access to the Middle East. But when the United States provoked and turned against Turkey during their conflict with Cyprus, the Turkish government closed down all the American bases on its territory with the exception of Izmir, which—even though it’s run by the U.S. Air Force—strictly concentrates on NATO activities.
As soon as the extraction inside the Syrian Desert was completed, wounded members of the operation were stabilized in Iraq, and then sent to Turkey for quality care. Inside a room on the fifth floor that overlooked the base, Kimball Hayden was just coming around.
When his eyes blinked open he saw the ceiling.
The lights.
The walls.
The saline stand and bag.
The heart monitor.
And he knew exactly where he was. He was inside a hospital.
For several hours nurses catered to him as the fog in his head slowly cleared. He took small sips of water. Was slightly elevated with a propping of soft pillows to watch TV and listen to a language he did not understand. And wound across his chest like an ammo bandolier was a clean wrapping of gauze. His pain was minimal, especially in the lower back where he’d been anesthetized by a numbing solution. It wasn’t until later that a doctor informed him about two cracked bones in the spine at the lower vertebrae, which would mend with no lasting damage. As for the gauze, apparently he had taken a bullet to the shoulder just below the left clavicle. Though not life threatening, a severe infection had set in. But that, too, had been neutralized with antibiotics.
Kimball laid there looking out the window, his mind elsewhere when Sister Kelly entered the room and took the seat by his bed. Her arm, or what was left of it, had a cleft at the point where it was amputated just below the elbow. It continued to look red and angry.
She raised the partial limb for Kimball to see. And then she smiled. “It’s a small price to pay for my life,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“For what?” He sounded incensed, though it was directed more to himself than it was to her. “Children are dead and Sister Patty is gone.”
“Mr. Hayden, you were involved in a situation where fourteen children and two nuns should have died, and turned this event to where eight children survived, including myself. You need to see the glass as half filled rather than half empty.”
“Eight? We had nine children.”
She held up her arm. “We lost another when this happened.”
“Farid?”
She nodded. “He’s fine.”
“You didn’t tell the authorities who he was, did you?”
She shook her head again. No. Of course not. “If those in authority knew he was the son of Mabus, then they would have taken him to some far-off place to question everything about his father. He’s a child, Mr. Hayden. So he should have the opportunity to grow up as one without any further complications in his life.”
“I agree.”
She lowered her partial limb. “Eight children,” she stated simply. “Eight children who can grow up in a world where Jews a
nd Christians and Arabs can rise together and see eye to eye with one another.”
“Yeah. Until they get older.”
“But that’s the point, Mr. Hayden: until they get older. They now have the opportunity to grow old together. All of them.”
Kimball nodded. “You’re seeing the glass half full,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“So what will you do now?” he asked her.
“I’ll continue to work in Christian orphanages,” she told him. “Albeit in lands far safer than Syria. I assure you. And you?”
Kimball drew in a deep breath and released it through his nostrils. It was as if he was mulling something over, something difficult. Then: “I’ve things to do,” was all he said.
“Will you go back to the Vatican?”
“Maybe . . . Perhaps.” I’m not sure.
She placed a warm hand on his forearm. “I think the Church needs you more now than ever,” she told him evenly. “You’re going to hear things, Mr. Hayden, horrible things, things you won’t want to hear, but hear them you must.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I believe your superiors are waiting to see you. Are you ready for them?”
“My superiors?”
“They’re here, waiting.”
“For what?”
“Remember, Mr. Hayden, the Church needs you more than ever. The decision is yours to make, of course.”
“Why are you talking in circles?” he asked.
She removed her hand. “Good-bye, Mr. Hayden. And thank you once again for everything you did.”
As she stood to leave, Kimball saw Leviticus and Isaiah standing by the doorway. When she made her way toward the exit they parted, gave her a wide berth, and smiled to each other in passing. When Sister Kelly was gone they sat in two of the three chairs by Kimball’s bed.
Leviticus reached a hand out to Kimball’s good shoulder and gave it a light squeeze in greeting. “How you doing, buddy?”