by Rick Jones
“Excellent. But don’t take this man lightly or for granted. When you think you have Hayden within your sights, that’s when he throws a curve ball.”
“Don’t worry, Senator. You can begin to dig his grave.”
Senator Rhames chortled at this. “He’s already got one,” he said. “In Arlington. It’s empty, though. But how I would love to fill it with his corpse.”
All three passed off light laughter, their arrogance that this was already a done deal paramount.
“All right,” said the senator. “By the time the explosives go off in Malta, I’ll be at the Hart Building. Keep me posted over a secured line. Both of you.” Then to Hartlin with a final mention to emphasize a definitive point. “Remember: Maximum . . . Effect.”
“Yes, Senator.”
Then the feeds went dead.
Chapter Forty
Valletta, Malta
CIA operative Chesney Bates was a demure man with bleached-pale skin and limbs as spindly as broomsticks. His real asset was his mind and the genius heights he was able to achieve academically. He had no friends, no associates, no one to be close to, male or female, which made him a prime candidate for the CIA, since he had no one to speak of. No background. No history. The man was almost nonexistent. And in the hallways of Langley he was nonexistent, the man barely drawing a nod or a look from coworkers and associates alike.
So by his own choosing he had become a pariah, an outcast, a man who meant little to anyone but to those who served above him, the principal gods of the Central Intelligence Agency who saw him for what he was, a strategist who saw everything in its place and a person who knew how to balance an act.
And when he worked he did so exclusively, the man working best alone with a list of objectives handed down by his gods. Whether it was to kill or maim or to execute an international subversive, Chesney Bates was the technician who drew the plans to see this done. Though in order to achieve the means he always incorporated skilled field workers, those foot soldiers who had no qualms about battle engagement. They would follow his commands, do his deeds, ask no questions, and complete the mission. And this gave him a sense of power and entitlement as if he was a god of the CIA arena, a gladiator who was at the top of his game and he let everyone know this despite his thin, wispy features and milk-pale skin.
Now that ‘Operation Incite’ with ticking down to its last glorious moments, taking lives meant little to him as long as the means got him to sparkle in the eyes of those in Langley.
Sometimes, without friends to guide you, a moral compass had no true direction as to where right or wrong was. In fact, Chesney Bates had no moral compass at all. He didn’t care if one hundred people died or one thousand. It was a job. A mission. One that would help aid the United States on some level or cause.
As he lay there in bed thinking how the Santa Marija festival was about to become a moment of bloody mayhem, he thought he heard the creaking of a floorboard.
He opened his eyes and raised his head, the darkness around him showing the outlines of furniture that were mere shadows that were blacker than black.
Silence.
He laid his back against the pillow and closed his eyes, knowing that sleep would not come to him on this night.
Another creak.
A floorboard.
He opened his eyes and sat up on his elbows, scanning the room.
Nothing.
He laid back down, this time keeping one eye open.
Then he closed it.
Silence.
But something didn’t feel quite right to Bates.
When he opened his eyes once again a figure was standing over him, a shape that was large and wide and as black as pitch against the shadowy backdrop, the shape then bringing a massive hand down over his mouth that was moving in mute protest.
Even in the darkness Kimball could see the stark white of the man’s eyes as he hoisted him off the bed and into the air, the man’s weight not more than 135 pounds, and cast him against the far wall.
Chesney hit with such impact that the air was knocked from his lungs. He lay on the floor, squirming, the man desperately trying to fill his lungs to capacity, to breathe. Then Kimball grabbed the small man by the back of his skinny neck, a pencil neck, and dragged him to a nightstand where a lamp with a pull chain sat.
A hand reached through the darkness and grabbed the chain. The light went on, filling the room with bitter brightness. The small man’s eyes narrowed against the sudden flood of brightly lit discomfort.
Kimball stood over the man, a towering behemoth, and looked down at Bates with eyes that were deeply cold.
Bates brought a hand up as if to say ‘no more.’ “Please,” he begged, Bates’ voice cracking with the hint of raw terror.
Kimball knew the difference between field operatives and field soldiers. The people of the Special Activities Division had walnut-hard shells that needed some serious cracking before getting to the information underneath. But guys like Bates cracked quickly because a shell like his was as thin and fragile as a sparrow’s egg. Field operators weren’t built like soldiers, didn’t have their strong resilience. Kimball knew this and used it to his benefit.
In the background behind this large man stood three others, all carrying weapons and wearing cleric’s collars like priests. The man standing above him, however, though dressed similarly, was without one.
“Your name is Chesney Bates, yes?” Kimball asked him harshly.
“Please.”
Kimball reached down, gripped the man’s throat hard enough to cause his eyes to bulge somewhat from their sockets, and sat the operative on the bed. Then again with the same measure of harshness: “Your name is Chesney Bates, yes?”
The man started to nod his head in denial. “I don’t know who—”
Kimball grabbed the man by the hair and yanked it hard, drawing a yelp from Bates as his head was forced back so he could look deep into Kimball’s eyes. “Let’s get one thing straight,” Kimball told him. “I’m giving you a test to see if you’re telling me the truth or not. Now I know the answers to some of the questions I’ll be asking you. Some I won’t. But you won’t know if I know the answer to the question I’m going to ask you. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. These are called control questions. If you’re dishonest to me about a question I know the answer to, and on a question I definitely know you know the answer to, I’ll know you’re lying. And if you lie to me, I guarantee that you won’t like what I’ll do to you. Do you understand me?”
Bates nodded.
“Very good. Then let’s get started, shall we?”
Another nod. Yes.
“Is your name Chesney Bates?”
The man nodded. Yes.
“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Another nod, this time ‘no.’
“Answer out loud,” Kimball told him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Sir. That’s a nice touch, Chesney. I’m liking you already. Give me honest answers, and no harm will come to you. Do you understand this?”
Chesney’s eyes darted around his sockets, the man looking at the Vatican Knights and the weapons they carried.
“Do you understand this?” Kimball repeated with forced patience.
Even though Bates drew a tongue over his dry lower lip before answering, he told him ‘yes.’ But he believed otherwise. He knew the business and knew it well. Those who lived could compromise a plan already in motion, probably something this group would never allow.
“Who are you people?” Bates asked Kimball.
“Are you a field strategist for Langley? Are you CIA?”
Bates hesitated. This was vital information. But it was obvious that this man knew who he was, this particular line of inquiry a set of control questions.
Kimball grabbed the man’s hand and held it up in display, then wrapped his hand and fingers around the man’s pinky. “I’ll tell you what,” Kimball said evenly, “we’ll start small and move our way up, how’s
that sound to you?”
“It’s true! Yes!” he answered. “I’m CIA.”
“Field strategist?”
“Yes.”
“Are you here on a mission or on vacation?”
“Vacation.” He didn’t know why he blurted it out so quickly. Logic told him as soon as he barked the answer that this large man already knew he was lying. After all, why would these people be here if it wasn’t a matter of grave importance? Of course he was tied to a mission.
Crack.
The bone snapped like a stick of chalk, the small man screaming. This was when Kimball placed a large hand over the man’s mouth and forced him down against the bed. “You’ve been warned, Mr. Bates. I need answers. And you’re going to give them to me, even if I have to break one bone at a time to get what I want.” He removed his hand from the small man’s mouth. “Are you ready to talk?”
Tears flowed from the edges of Bates’ eyes. Then weakly: “Yes.”
Then a hand alit on Kimball’s shoulder. It was Isaiah’s. “Kimball, not like this.”
Kimball brushed the hand away but kept his eyes on Bates. “Leave the room,” he said without any measure of emotion. “All of you. I don’t wear the collar anymore. I don’t wear it for a reason. And that reason is that I’m too far gone. I always have been.” Then he looked at Isaiah and Leviticus and at Job, the whites of his eyes laced with red stitching caused by a brewing anger. This particular Kimball Hayden was cold and without feeling. “I will not bring any of you down with me. Not one of you. I will get the information at hand. It’s up to you to diffuse the situation. Do what you do best. Save lives. Protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
“Kimball—”
“No,” Kimball held up a halting hand. “I kill people. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. And apparently . . . it’s the only thing I’m good at.” After a beat he said, “Now leave the room.”
The Vatican Knights stood there until Leviticus, second in command, ordered them out. As a parting remark to Kimball, he said, “Don’t hurt him.”
Then he was gone.
When Kimball looked down at Bates, he could see the sudden light of recognition in the small man’s eyes.
Bates pointed to him with his good hand. “You’re Kimball Hayden. You’re the object of the targeted killing.”
“Then you know what I’m capable of doing to you.”
The meek man nodded, his eyes welling with tears because he was a coward beneath it all.
“You know about the targeted killing, yes?”
He shook his head. Yes.
“Out loud,” Kimball told him.
“Yes.”
“Where is their Base Command?”
“They’re at the Excelsior Hotel. I don’t know where exactly. What room.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
This could have been a plausible answer, since the SAD always masked their numbers. Plus, few had been taken out already, diminishing their figures. “Who’s their team commander?”
“A man by the name of Cooper.”
“First name?”
“I don’t know. We go by call signs and last names.”
This was true, for the most part.
“You’re doing well, Mr. Bates. Keep it up.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Tell me about ‘Operation Incite.’”
“I just know that I was to provide explosive devices to a field operation team.”
“Cooper’s team?”
“I guess.”
Kimball grabbed the man’s hand and went for the forefinger.
“Yes!” cried Bates. “Some big guy picked them up.”
“A roid freak? A guy that’s juiced? Maybe walked with a limp?”
“That’s the guy.”
Then the mission was twofold, thought Kimball. He was scheduled as a targeted killing, while the devices were to be planted for the sake of promoting an agenda laid down by Senator Rhames. This way Rhames could kill two birds with a single stone.
Kimball released the man’s hands, who then brought them together in an attitude of prayer and began to plead in earnest. “Please don’t kill me.”
“As long as you give me what I need, Mr. Bates, my war is not with you, I assure you. Now tell me about ‘Incite.’”
Bates took in a deep breath and let it out with an equally long sigh. Then: “It’s an operation spearheaded by Senator Rhames in order to coerce the Malta government to lease the air bases to the United States. This would give the U.S. an air advantage to locations in the Middle East and Northern Africa, since our relationship with Turkey is somewhat strained . . . And further relationships with them questionable.”
“It’s all about military placement?”
Bates nodded. “Yes.” Then he cradled his injured hand as the pain started to become white hot.
“And the necessity of the explosive devices?” asked Kimball, feeling little compassion for the man.
“Three devices. Three separate points at one location for positive effect. Once the devices go off, more than one hundred people will be killed in the blast. Red-herring chat rooms have been created to indicate ISIS.”
“So the explosives go off killing more than a hundred people, ISIS gets blamed, then Rhames comes in with a proposal promising future national security to Malta against future terrorist actions, if they lease the airfields to the United States.”
“That’s exactly right.”
Then: “The bombs. Where are they?”
Bates appeared to hesitate on this subject.
“You’ve been doing fine up to this point, Mr. Bates. Don’t fail me now. Where are they?”
Bates looked at Kimball with cowardice eyes that always revealed the truth. This Kimball knew because he had seen these eyes many times when he was an assassin, always promising his victims they would be spared if they told the truth—only for him to kill them in the end when they gave it up. It was a look he would never forget. And it was a look that would haunt him all the way to the Darkness.
“Tell me, Mr. Bates, where are they?”
Bates’ eyes were red and glassy. “If I tell you, are you going to kill me?”
“Let’s put it this way,” said Kimball. “I’ll kill you if you don’t. And that’s a promise.”
Bates’ chest started to heave and pitch with sobbing.
“Where are they, Mr. Bates?” Kimball started to reach for the man’s inured hand.
“Inside the St. John’s Co-Cathedral,” the small man blurted.
It came so fast and so loud, it couldn’t have been anything but the truth.
“Where inside the Cathedral?” Kimball asked him.
“Three devices. One beneath the altar. One beneath the pew in the tenth row. One beneath the pew in the twentieth row.”
“Specific times of detonation?”
“Twelve fifteen,” he answered. “At the height of the Mass. They’re to be placed one hour ahead of time.”
“Remotely active?”
Bates shook his head. No. “Only if the time-fuses fail to ignite the Semtex.”
“Semtex.” Kimball knew the power of the plastic explosive and the devastation it was capable of doing. “Any other devices?”
Bates nodded vehemently. “No. There are no others.”
“If you’re lying about that, Mr. Bates, you know that your lifespan will be quite short. You understand this, correct?”
“I do.”
Kimball nodded. He was satisfied. Yet he had no appreciation for a man who would strategize an operation that would kill for the sake of promoting a political agenda.
Kimball tapped his earbud. “You guys get all that?”
It was Father Essex from the Vatican: “Loud and clear. Everything’s been logged.”
“Jeremiah?”
“I have everything backed up on my end as well.”
“Nice.” Kimball removed the earbud and closed a fist over
it. Then he called Leviticus into the room.
Bates was lying on the floor by the bed as a sobbing, huddled mass who cradled his injured hand.
“He’ll be fine,” Kimball said. Then he held his fisted hand out to Leviticus who held out an open palm, and dropped the earbud into Leviticus’ grasp. The false passport and the matching credit card he kept, the items tucked away in his pocket.
“What’s this?” Leviticus asked him, holding out the bud.
“I’m done,” said Kimball. “There are three explosive devices. One beneath the altar. Two beneath the pews in the tenth and twentieth rows. They’re set to go off at the height of the Mass inside the St. John’s Co-Cathedral. The SAD has been informed to place them one hour beforehand, which I’m assuming is to lower the chance of discovery.”
“And you?” Leviticus held the bud for Kimball to take. But Kimball rejected it.
“I have a battle to fight,” he told him. “And it has nothing to do with the Vatican Knights. This fight is all mine. And there is no god that will condone what I’m about to do.”
“We can protect you.”
“Leviticus, you’ve always been a good friend to me. A brother. But the things I’ve done in my past—what these people who are after me are reminding me of—tells me that I will never reach the Light.”
“You reached it a long time ago.”
“If I did, Leviticus, then I would know this in my heart. But I don’t. I feel . . . empty.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, two brothers saying good-bye. Then Kimball pointed to Bates on the floor. “He’s your problem now. Take care of him.”
“Kimball, wait. Hear me out.”
But Kimball was gone, the man passing his teammates while swiftly making his way into the shadows where he felt most comfortable.
He had forsaken his quest for the unreachable Light . . .
. . . Truly . . .
. . . And moved through the Darkness as someone who killed with the cold fortitude of a machine.