The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020)
Page 24
Washington, DC
. . . Breathing . . .
. . . Breathing . . .
. . . Breathing . . .
And then the snort of coming to.
Shari’s eyes fluttered, opened, the world a blur.
Above, a face that was both familiar and alien to her at the same time as she tried to get a fix on her memories. The features, now coming into focus, was that of a man she knew and recognized. It was the face of Kimball Hayden. In his hand he held hers while casually stroking her hair lovingly with the other. His eyes had a red and rheumy look to them, either from tears or from fatigue, she didn’t know which.
Laboring to remove her oxygen mask, she smiled as best she could, light and faint, then stated weakly, “Hi.”
For a moment, Kimball’s face appeared as though it was about to break. Though it didn’t, his eyes did well with tears. “How are you doing, baby girl?”
“Just fine . . . Be jogging in a day or two.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Then her smile evaporated as new concerns took over. “You spoke to the doctor?”
He nodded. “I have.”
“Cancer.”
A tear slipped from the corner of his eye as he continued to stroke her head with loving caresses. “You’re going to be fine,” he told her. “Early stages. The cyst that erupted wasn’t cancerous. The other cyst was, though they were able to remove it before it spread. The stage is early. You’re going to beat this. Doctor says that the outcome looks good.”
She folded her brow as though confused. “Is your face dirty?”
He chortled. “Yeah. Just got off a mission. Didn’t have time to shower.”
“You came back.”
“For you? Of course.”
Then she started to cry, her tears streaking along her face. That was when Kimball took the point of his index finger, wiped a tear from her cheek, then streaked that tear against his cheek to leave a wet trail. The message was obvious: Your pain is my pain. And we’re in this together. I will share your grief, your passions, and your undying love. We are bound together as one.
Shari started to sob, her delight overwhelming.
“It’s all right,” he told her softly. “There are a few spots, but the doctor assures me that a few bouts of radiation will take care of everything. You’re going to live a long time.”
She stopped sobbing, though the tears continued. “I can’t have children.”
Kimball smiled at this, the meaning behind it to calm her fears. “It’s all right,” he said. “We have each other.”
“But your dream. The American Dream. A white-picket fence. Children. A dog.” She sounded extremely tired and Kimball knew that she was starting to fade, her exhaustion too great.
“Look, the fence is nothing more than the image of what the American Dream should be, right? But it’s not. My American Dream is to be happy with the woman I love. I’m already there. Besides, the white-picket fence around the cabin looks ugly. I want to take it down.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted. The fence.”
“It was until I realized that you’re all I really wanted or needed. In fact, I really do want to take the fence down. It’s ugly.” He smiled.
But her face once again began to crack. “I wanted us to have children.”
Now, it was Kimball’s turn to square off with warring emotions between stoicism or giving in to raw emotions. In a compromise, as his chin barely quivered, he decided upon taking the center road. He would show enough to want to sob but held back. “We can adopt if that’s want you want,” he said softly, soothingly. “There’s a solution for everything.”
As Shari’s words started to drift, Kimball patted her hand and laid it against her chest, kissed her forehead, then gingerly returned the oxygen mask, where he watched it fog up with every wonderful breath.
The physician laid a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” he told Kimball, whose eyes continued to well as he watched the woman that he loved struggle.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Stage one. Blood count is good. The radiation treatment is simply a tool to kill off any errant cells before they have a chance to attach themselves to tissue. She’s in a good spot, Mr. Hayden.”
“How long for the treatment?”
“Maybe three months.”
“And she’ll be good?”
“She’ll be just fine.”
Kimball nodded as he clearly fought back the tears, which was evident by the way his features twisted and then collected itself. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s really, really good.”
* * *
Kimball was standing on the deck of their cabin that overlooked the lake. Somewhere, a loon cried out, a call he got used to over the months they’d shared the cabin together. But on this night, the cabin seemed hollow and empty without her. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to sleep in a bed that now seemed too large because she was not there to share it with him. So, he decided that he would sleep on the lounge chair on the deck, until she returned.
Still wearing the ash-laden uniform and with his face still carrying the warpaint of greasy and sooty smears, Kimball looked at the rows of fencing that surrounded the cabin. They were ugly and incongruous, he thought. But Shari did it for him to bolster his sense of what the American Dream should be. But he was wrong. Shari was his American Dream. And to lose her would be devastating. Even the thought of losing her drew a tear from him, which he wiped away with the sleeve of his grimy shirt.
The white-picket fence was just a picture he envisioned of living a suburban lifestyle of owning a small but comfortable home, having the statistical one-point-six children, a fenced-in yard with a barbecue and a dog—just a place where he could live in peace, which had eluded him over a lifetime.
The fence was not the dream, it never was.
Shari was.
After descending the steps, Kimball started to tear down that fence. And he did so with relish and he felt a strange liberation with each board being pulled apart. Once the kindling had been piled high along the beachfront of the lake, he torched the wood to create a bonfire that went on into the night.
For hours he stood before the flames feeling an odd kinship with the fire, then he listened to the wood crackle and the knots explode. Fire. Smoke. The man he was and the man he had become. Everything leaned towards him having found the Light of Loving Spirits. Though as he stood there, he remained unsure.
As the night wore on and the fire dimmed with some of the charred pickets still glowing orange, Kimball laid down upon the lounge chair on the deck and looked skyward. Without the light pollution of city skies, nothing was more beautiful, he considered.
Then as time moved along and as the coals of the fire finally expired, Kimball kept to his promise by falling asleep on the lounge chair and would continue to do so until Shari returned.
The bed would have to wait.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
One Month Later
In Vienna, as the cleanup and removal of the Kristallpalast was still going on, the consensus was that the hotel was more of an eyesore given that the modern construction did not fit well with the highly decorative and theatrical style of its Baroque surroundings. In fact, no plans had been made for its reconstruction, at least not yet.
In regard to the Austrian Imperial Treasury, a replica of the Holy Lance now sat in display inside the Secular Room for the one that had been stolen and never recovered. History had asserted that when Hitler died inside his bunker, the true Spear of Destiny was handed over to the Allied Forces, but chiefly to the United States. In time, the United States had returned the Holy Lance to Austrian authorities, who had questioned its authenticity since the article appeared slightly dissimilar. The spearhead appeared newly forged and the gold sheath that surrounded it newly minted.
In Maryland, Shari Cohen sits on the deck of their log cabin with a heavy blanket covering her. As a direct result of her treatment, her hair had fallen
out, so she wears a head covering. But she is still beautiful, still glamorous, the woman going to be all right as she sits alongside Kimball with the two holding hands. Today, the lake looks beautiful as a layer of mist blankets the surface.
In the Middle East, recruitment was at fever pitch after Adolphus Hoorn’s video, though short, whipped up enough frenzy through social media that young men joined the ranks of the Islamic State in great numbers. And now that the United States had withdrawn their military might with only a small number of Coalition Forces to man the reservation, ISIS was once again building their numbers. What Hoorn had done was to stoke the flames of fanaticism by allowing the world to see Ali Mustafa’s handiwork. And if Ali Mustafa can take down a tower with just a handful of soldiers, then what could an entire legion do? Darker days would surely follow.
At the Vatican, Cardinal Favino begins his lifelong mission to better himself and atone for the ultimate sin of lacking true faith. He prays and he gives, the man becoming a beacon of Light within the College of Cardinals while trying to maintain that image in the eyes of God.
However, Darkness continued to follow the pontiff as he overlooks St. Peter’s Square from the balcony. It’s night, and he stands upon the very spot where he once pushed Pope Gregory over the edge, killing him, with the purpose of the action to usurp the pontiff’s seat. But the position had been granted to Bonasero Vessucci, a longtime mentor to Kimball, who had long become a thorn in his side ever since he took leadership. Just the thought of Kimball Hayden caused him to clench his teeth. But there would be more missions and more chances to place the commando’s life in jeopardy, he considered. In the end, he would glory in the moment when he finally heard that Kimball Hayden had been killed in action, something he would pray for.
Inwardly, the pontiff smiled, knowing that patience was key.
Patience.
EPILOGUE
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C.
In a subterranean level beneath the Pentagon exists a warehouse that stores numerous TS documents in regard to U.S. secrets that contained the truths behind the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, the killing of Martin Luther King, the facts about Project Blue Book and the hidden truths that were secreted away within government satellite stations, namely Areas 51 and 52, along with other historical and factual evidence that contain the dark realities of U.S. history.
Peter Holman, who was a TS-classified employee of the federal government, was taking inventory with a digital reader. He would go along the rows tagging barcodes that would instantly download onto the recorder as encrypted information, which would later be transferred to a secured database.
In Row G sits a metal vault. It is perfectly cubed at 15x15x15. The entryway, which appears like the door of a bank vault that had a mirror polish to it, can only be accessed through a card and ocular scanner.
By swiping his card, he also enables the ocular scanner, which lights up to take a live reading. Placing his eyes over the lenses, the scanner measures the pulsations and the routing of capillary lines. These coupled features were failsafe measures to assure that the eye had not been removed from the owner’s socket and dangled before the scanner to initiate a fraudulent access. As a second measure to confirm identity, the scanner then calculates and examines the laces of red stitching that run throughout the cornea, with this personal signature as unique as fingerprints.
As the bolts to the vault sounded off by pulling back from their circular sockets, the door opened and the lights within flickered and turned on. Inside and seated directly in the center of this chamber was a nondescript wooden crate, aged, maybe seventy-five years old. It was small, about 3x3x3. Hanging from the corner of the crate was a tag. So Holman, with the remote scanner, recorded the barcode, which the scanner accepted as symbols and numbers that made no outright sense to him.
As soon as the series of characters had been accepted into memory, Holman stood back, appraised the crate, and wondered about its value, which he had done dozens of times before. If he had known Latin, and if he had taken more notice and interest of the small print written on the back of the tag, he would have read the words: Aeacidae telo iacet libatis.
. . . The Spear of Destiny . . .
THE END
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Epilogue
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Epilogue