by Rick Jones
Good . . . girl.
And then Kimball’s world started to go black. First starting with the periphery of his vision, until complete darkness settled over him like a cloak.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
When Vick Pastore heard of Travys’s arrest on charges related to attempted rape, she found the courage to join Kathy Redfern’s side by filing a police report against Travys D’Orazio for the charge of rape, a heavy-ended crime that carried a sentence of five years to life in the state of Massachusetts, depending on the case, for which he was subsequently charged with. But the Attorney General sited the case to be weak, stating that she needed to come forward at the time of the violation, since the defense attorney would have a field day with her on the stand claiming the act to be one of consensual behavior between two people, as Travys professed.
As expected, Vicki became the subject of rumors and gossip, which caused her to drop out of classes, at least until the trial, and continued to earn her credits at an educational institute that was far removed from the legal matter.
And as promised Kimball stayed by her side. He talked to her and kept her stable as much as he could. He defended her in school when she could not. And he would become the key witness against Travys D’Orazio as to what happened that night on Waite’s Mountain, and what he saw when he came upon the scene with Redfern. And with Kathy Redfern’s face beaten and bloody, with her clothes having been torn free and with her testimony alongside Kimball’s, that part of the case was a slam-dunk with Travys most likely pleading to a lesser charge, one that would garner a minor sentence. Vicki’s charge of rape, however, would be a much higher mountain to climb in order to prove his guilt. Everything looked bleak. But what they didn’t know was that a light shined at the end of the tunnel.
And her name was Paula Howard.
CHAPTER SIXTY
When Paula Howard ran away she didn’t run too far. She was in a home in Boston that sheltered woman who’d been battered, beaten or violated in the most horrific ways. Since her shame ran so deeply she had provided a false name, which is why a missing person’s report on Paula Howard never rang a bell with staff members.
While reading the newspaper she immediately saw a story about a five-star recruit, a football player who was a prospect for major colleges around the nation from Malden, who had been arrested and charged with rape and attempted rape by two different people. This player was identified as Travys D'Orazio and he was looking at five years to life in prison. The victims’ names were not released.
It was here that she finally felt a lifting of her soul, the vanquishing of a dirty secret that ate away at her with a never-ending appetite. With this action she made a truthful admission to her counselor as to who she was by giving her true identity, a missing teen from Malden.
Her parents were called. Tears of joy were shed as a parent’s worry finally ended. And Paula Howard committed herself to stand tall. She would file a report against Travys D’Orazio, another charge of rape, this time setting Travys up to appear as a serial rapist by the prosecuting attorney.
Travys was now on the defense, sticking with his claims of consensual behavior.
Reports by Paula’s counselors would be readily available regarding the happenings between her and Travys on that night, though Travys’s name was not mentioned specifically in the reports. But Paula would make it very clear in court before God and country, and with her hand pressed firmly against the cover of the Bible, would swear that all testimony to be true . . .
. . . So help her God.
The case took place in the Boston District Court with the trial lasting three weeks. Of course it was highly publicized, a star athlete on trial for two counts of rape and one for attempting to do so. There were no plea deals since Travys maintained his innocence of consensual activity, and in fact, was arrogant enough to ask for a fast-and-speedy trial despite protests from his attorney. So a fast-and-speedy trial took place with the session opening with damning photos of Kathy Redfern taken right after the assault. Her face was swollen and bruised, an eye had closed shut, and a deep laceration had split her lip.
In the end, the jury deliberated for three hours before they found Travys D’Orazio guilty on all counts. Now he was looking at five years to life in the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster.
Suffice it to say, all scholarships from the colleges were summarily revoked.
Then on the day of sentencing, when Travys D’Orazio was handed a sentence of thirty years, he wept openly like a ten-year-old girl and sobbed for the cameras, which was played for the six and eleven o’clock news reports.
Travys D’Orazio was no longer a demi-god in the eyes of his devotees.
Oh, how the mighty had fallen.
PART III
ORIGINS: EPILOGUE
CURTAIN CALL
One Year Later
It had been a month since Travys D’Orazio was sent to the correctional facility, and already rumors were starting to surface that Travys was the recipient of prison payback by becoming Bubba’s bitch. Of course it was unfounded and probably not true. But stories abounded, nonetheless.
Becki Laurent was doing well. She entered an in-patient program, was attending NA, put on weight, was staying clean, and once again had thoughts of becoming a physician. She was productive around the Hayden household and acted like she belonged, which she did, usurping the position of Kimball’s mother to at least fill that slight vacuum within the house, even though it was impossible since his mother was irreplaceable.
Kimball’s father, on the other hand, was never the same after the death of his wife. No longer did he feign the veneer of toughness. From that point on his father never smiled unless it was artificial, never walked with his shoulders up or his chin raised in defiance without cause, like he once did. Instead he appeared broken, the man shrinking within himself. And during the year when father and son tried and succeeded in developing a positive relationship, his father had been taken by a fast-moving cancer. Kimball always suspected his father knew, but he also suspected that his father’s place was more by the side of his mother.
Whatever remained of Cooch’s organization crumbled. Those left behind were either found within shallow graves or inside garbage-laden Dumpsters, usually with a bullet to the head. Now another took his place, a man by the name of Eddie Betano, a ruthless gang member from Boston’s North End.
Once Travys D’Orazio’s trial ended, Vicki Pastore disappeared along with her family to start fresh. Word had it that they moved to California to be as far away from Massachusetts as possible. Some reports had them pegged in Miami, Baltimore, and Albuquerque. Some even said they set roots down in the United Kingdom, a great spot. But wherever they landed Kimball knew he would never see her again. And he never did.
Same story with Paula Howard and Kathy Redfern. Once the trial ended both girls, along with their families, headed for unknown points to separate themselves from everyone they knew, taking with them the tragedies of what had happened, and tucking them deep in the closet along with other skeletons.
Kimball, however, graduated and took a job as a laborer working for a wage just above minimum. The job was OK and he was getting by, especially with Becki helping out. But it was certainly nothing he wanted to do for his entire life. Instead, his interest grew to serving in the military as a special operative, and he romanticized ideas of becoming a Delta or Navy Seal. He would not entertain thoughts of becoming anything less.
You’re right, Mom. I’m finding my own way. It takes time, just like you said. And, Pops. You were right, too. The world isn’t as pretty as Mom made it out to be. You knock down one evil and another takes its place.
And in that world, Mom, I killed people. Lots of people . . . And I don’t feel a thing for having done so: there’s no guilt, no pleasure, there’s . . . nothing.
. . . I . . .
. . . Feel . . .
. . . Nothing . . .
So please forgive me. Forgive me for what I’ve
become. Like you said, I would eventually find my way.
And this is who I am.
All these thoughts and remembrances over the past year ran through Kimball’s mind as he stood over his parents’ gravesite. There wasn’t much to it but a grassy plot of land and a brass placard commemorating the birth and deaths of those who lay beneath, along with the signature quotes: Loving Wife and Mother, and Loving Husband and Father.
For hours Kimball stood there holding mental conversations with his parents until the last streamers of sunlight began to fade toward the horizon. As the sun settled and night began its run, Kimball noted the guiding light of the North Star shining brightly high in the sky. It stood out from the rest, a star-point glitter that shined exclusively like a premier diamond sitting amongst chips of diamonds on black velvet.
His sight gravitated to it. And he watched the glow and sparkle of light that pulsed like a human heartbeat for the longest time.
Here was his guide, a simple lamp in the sky that would show him the way.
But Kimball felt most comfortable in the shadows, or in the ‘Between’ where the area was Gray. And for the rest of his life he would walk the line between the Darkness and Light because of free will.
And in this journey he had so much to learn. If all it took for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing, then he needed skills beyond his current ability. He would learn to fight. He would learn to become the best of the best. And when other combatants were referred to by the commanding brass as skilled practitioners who were the tip of the spear, Kimball wanted to stand above them as the absolute tip of the same spear. He wanted to be the operator of operators.
This was his path.
This was his choice.
Turning from the sparkle of the King Star, Kimball pulled the hood over his head, which masked his face in darkness, and took to the shadows.
The night was young and the city was alive.
After all, only the creeps come out at night.
And somebody had to stop them.
Amazon Bestseller: #1 in Thriller
#1 in Suspense
#24 in Amazon Top 100
While on a visit to the United States, Pope Pius XIII is kidnapped by a terrorist cell calling itself the Soldiers of Islam. If the United States and its allies do not meet their demands, they will execute the pope. FBI Specialist Shari Cohen is called to duty to track down the terrorist cell responsible, and she soon learns that she is not alone.
Deep behind the Vatican walls, a secret order dispatches a clandestine group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. Their mission: bring the pope back alive. As Cohen and the Knights work in tandem they uncover a White House conspiracy involving high-ranking members on Capitol Hill. As Cohen begins to get too close to the truth about the pope's kidnapping, she becomes the target of indigenous forces trying to keep the conspiracy safe. However, in order to get to her they must first go through the Vatican Knights...
Amazon Bestseller: #1 in Thriller
#1 in Suspense
Amazon Top 100
While traveling across the United States during the Papal Symposium, the papal plane, Shepherd One, is commandeered by a terrorist cell calling itself the Muslim Revolutionary Front. On board: a nuclear payload with half the yield that destroyed Hiroshima. Their demand to the U.S. government: assassinate the five leading principals of Mossad. While the American leadership is forced to follow through with a proposition that would cripple the intelligence network between the allies, Pope Pius XIII is not without his own weapon. On board Shepherd One is his personal valet, a man who is the leader of a clandestine op group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. His mission: retake the plane and remove all hostile opposition. Using his very particular set of skills, Kimball Hayden must neutralize the situation before thousands of lives are lost, including that of Pope Pius XIII.
AMAZON BESTSELLER
Kimball Hayden is the Commander of an elite commando group known as the Vatican Knights, a black-op force that works for the Church to protect its sovereignty, its interests, and the welfare of its citizenry. But Kimball is being stalked by someone from the past, a soldier that is stronger, faster, and far more brutal—an assassin so deadly not even the Vatican Knights can stop him. This Alpha Assassin has set Kimball within the crosshairs and is systematically destroying his old team of elite fighters, the Force Elite. Kimball is then sent to confront this killer who leaves behind lettered clues carved into the flesh of his teammates: ISCARIOT. Not only does Kimball have to battle something far more dangerous than anything he has ever encountered, but he must destroy this Alpha Assassin before this killer brings his personal war to the Vatican.
AMAZON BESTSELLER
Thirty years ago the world was in the exploratory stages of creating a technology capable of artificial intelligence. Thirty years later that technology has been perfected. In a lab somewhere in a remote mountain region in Iran, nanoparticles, or micro-bots, have been created to be self-sustaining and self-reproducing, each day evolving and learning from experience. They have been programmed to be the ultimate predator, devouring everything in their path and leaving nothing behind. Now in the hands of a terrorist group, the Vatican has come within the crosshairs. Using the Ark of the Covenant as a Trojan Horse, Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights must stop the promise of complete destruction of Rome by combating something unseen, and something that can kill within seconds.
AMAZON BESTSELLER
While vacationing in Paris, Shari Cohen’s children are kidnapped by Jadran Božanović, a Croatian kingpin who runs a human-trafficking cartel who is as deadly as the knife he wields. Few dare to challenge him. And even fewer dare to defy him. With time running out and her resources running thin, Shari calls upon the aid of Kimball Hayden and his team Vatican Knights—an elite group of commandos dedicated to protect the sovereignty, interests and citizenry of the Church—and are once again reunited. But Kimball finds that his team is quickly outmanned and outgunned, the death toll climbing against forces that are the deadliest the Knights have ever faced. With his back against the wall, Kimball is forced to choose Justice over Law by taking on Jadran Božanović in a contest that only one man can survive. But Kimball soon learns that the Croatian is as ruthless as his legend and just as powerful, if not more so, than the Vatican Knight himself.
AMAZON BESTSELLER
In a Galveston, Texas lab, a lethal strain has been stolen by a terrorist faction.
In New Mexico, the population of a small town is completely wiped out.
In Las Vegas, a vicious underground clan called the Community surfaces at night to prey on the weak.
In Paris, two old foes of Kimball Hayden reunite as a kill team to hunt him down.
Now considered dead by the Vatican, Kimball Hayden is leading a secretive life living on the streets of Las Vegas. But when a parish comes under the threat of a vicious mob, he finds himself thrown back into a world of violence.
Once again Kimball finds himself in the role as the ‘priest who is not a priest’ fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves. And when Vatican City is threatened with complete annihilation, he returns to fight a battle against a foe he cannot possibly defeat.
Three years ago the papal airliner goes down over the jungle of Brazil never to been seen again.
Three years later those considered lost on that fatal flight begin to show up at Vatican disconnected from reality.
When the pope is gunned down in an assassination attempt, Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights follow the conspiracy’s trail to a cathedral deep inside the Brazilian jungle—a place of taboo to locals who fear the Huecuvus, the Evil Spirits who protect those within the ‘Ruins of Lost Souls.’
The cathedral is a place of damnation and dark secrets—a hub of moving shadows that reach out to Pope Pius with a hand from the past, a hand that holds a dark secret: the pontiff may not be who he appears to be, but a man whose past may have been as sinful
as those within the lost cathedral, a dying breed of Nazis who once called the pontiff ‘brethren.’
As Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights try to neutralize the threat against the Vatican, they find themselves fighting against overwhelming odds. Shadows and shapes converge, the weapons they yield sharp. Can the Vatican Knights defeat a sect where life has little meaning? Does the pope hold a dark secret? Was he once evil incarnate who now sits upon the papal throne? The answers lie within a temple of ancient evil called the Lost Cathedral.
AMAZON BESTSELLER
AMAZON #1: ACTION/ADVENTURE
In southeast Turkey where the heads of the four main rivers once met, a magnificent temple created 14,000 years ago is discovered beneath the desert floor. Believed to have been created by lost technology, it is quickly determined by a team of archeologists to be the centerpiece of Eden, a once illustrious civilization and the cradle of mankind. But what if Eden is not the Paradise texts make it out to be? What if it held dark secrets and unholy terrors instead? As Senior Archeologist Alyssa Moore and her team of experts discover the truth of man’s beginning, she realizes that the secrets of man’s true origins lie within the sacred tombs inside the temple. But the journey for the truth is not without its dangers or pitfalls . . . Something walks the warrens within.