by Rick Jones
“That’s exactly the reason.”
“And you want to use this situation to your benefit. Something to add to your résumé when you run for my seat when my term ends. Isn’t that correct, Senator?”
Rhames said nothing.
“Let me tell you something,” began the president. “Malta has rejected our proposals in the past because that’s their right. We do not have a right to force anything upon them. If they choose not to allow us a leasing proposal of their airfields, then the matter is closed.” There was a beat, the president wanting to make an additional point. “Nor do we have the right to stage-manage affairs to achieve the means. In the end, Senator, it is still an act of terrorism, and this country will not be a part of your conspiracies and collusions with shadow groups within this government.”
“It is for the better good of the nation.”
“By killing innocent people?”
“It’s for the bigger picture.”
“And when does it stop, Senator? When do you stop taking the lives of innocent people only to chalk them up as collateral damage?”
The senator looked to the floor, sighed.
“We disabled the red-herring chat rooms,” Burroughs told the senator calmly. “No one is following them because there’s nothing left to follow. This country will never hold the airfields in Malta because that road has already been travelled. And the answer was ‘no.’”
“Our relationship with Turkey is a tenuous one at best. If they suffer another coup attempt, or if the relationship between our nation and theirs diminishes completely, at least we have the Malta airfields to position ourselves for the advantage.”
“The battle against ISIS is a slow progress, but one we’re winning.”
“That’s crap and you know it. The intel groups are feeding you information to fit your narrative in order to keep the people of this nation from knowing the truth, which is to give them a false sense of security. That’s . . . the truth. At least I’m trying to shore up our defenses to protect our interests here and abroad.”
President Burroughs seemed to be taking this in with patience. “In the end, Senator, those means of achievement are no different than acts of terrorism, which makes you no different from those we are combating. Therefore, I want your resignation by the end of the day.”
Senator Rhames seemed genuinely surprised by this. “I have been a reigning senator for more than thirty years,” he told him.
“One who lost his way the moment he sanctioned the assassination against Senator Cartwright years ago, along with others.”
Senator Rhames’ mouth began to drop.
“That’s right,” said Burroughs. “We know all about that as well. And believe me, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence would like a hand at interrogating you and others regarding that matter, including ex-Senator Shore, who recently tendered his resignation, and is willing to sign a deposition admitting in full your involvement, for leniency.”
“Leniency? You think you can create a dog-and-pony show out of this? Before the public? With the current state of mistrust the public sees regarding this government, you’re willing to do this?”
“This government means a lot to me and to others like me, who believe what the forefathers handed down to us was the gift of rights and freedoms. So yes, I’m willing to take this risk in my final term to right a sinking ship. You will mark the beginning of the end of corruption within my administration as an example, and hopefully the administration of others. You, sir, will never become president of the United States because you don’t have a moral center.”
This came as a hammer blow to Rhames, who had visions of taking over the highest political seat in the land after more than three decades of sitting at ringside. “What I do, I do what’s best for the nation.”
“What you do, Senator, is commit murder.”
Senator Rhames appeared to be beside himself, the man lost as his eyes looked from one point to another inside the room, as if trying to get his bearings. He had been a top-level politician, had proposed Bills and voted on change, all for the betterment of the country. But here he was, sitting on the wrong side of the presidential desk being asked to hand over his resignation. Then: “I can’t resign.”
“You will.”
“But—”
“If you don’t resign, Senator, then you will face a lifetime in a black-site hellhole, I assure you that much. Or . . .” He let the word hang.
“Or what?”
“Tell me where the devices are?”
Rhames suddenly realized that Burroughs was leading up to this very moment, a game of political poker where the man now showed his hand. “Are you bargaining with me?” he asked him.
Then from the attorney general: “He is, Senator. But your time is limited. Those devices are slated to go off within twenty minutes. The problem is, nobody from your team seems to be responding to any of the calls from Langley.”
“That’s probably because a team no longer exists,” he told them. “The man who was conscripted to murder Senator Cartwright, the man I deemed as a threat to national security for the things he knew and of the black operations performed, is no ordinary assassin.”
“You’re talking about Kimball Hayden,” the president offered.
“I am. He was our targeted killing who became the predator. I know he’d been picking off the team one at a time. Knowing Hayden . . . I doubt there’s anyone left to diffuse the explosives.”
“Did you know he was part of a team? The Vatican Knights?”
“I’m not aware of such a team.”
“They’re a specialized force of commandos protecting the Vatican and its interests. Though he seems to be off the grid. His team remains. They’re on sight. They can diffuse the explosives. But the intel on their locations was bad because you altered the plans.”
“That I did, Mr. President. And for good reason.”
“For maximum effect.”
“Yes.”
“Time is getting critically low, Mr. President,” said the attorney general as a reminder.
The president nodded and understood. “My proposal to you, Senator, is your resignation and a call for leniency.”
“Not good enough,” he answered immediately.
“If those bombs go off and people are killed, there will be no leniency. Your resignation will still be effective. And you will be tarred and feathered before the court of public opinion. You will become a pariah in the eyes of your peers, and you will serve the rest of your life inside a windowless pit.”
Senator Rhames appeared visibly shaken by this. “And what is this so-called act of leniency you’re offering for my cooperation?”
“A life far from the pit . . . As long as you keep quiet about your past misconducts and remain far from the public eye. To break either of these conditions spells out a lifetime of Hell for you, this I promise.”
“Time, Mr. President,” the attorney general stated with urgency.
Then from Burroughs to Rhames. “Where are the devices? And keep in mind that your life is over if people get killed.”
“They’re still inside the church,” he told them.
“The on-site team looked everywhere.”
“They’re obviously not looking in the right places.”
“Where are they?”
Senator Rhames told him. They were high up, by the ceiling between the supports and the ceiling ribs of the cathedral.
President Burroughs appeared fazed by this admission. “Instead of taking out a hundred people, you wanted to collapse the church and kill everyone inside?”
“Like I said, Mr. President, maximum effect.”
Burroughs turned to the attorney general. “How much time?”
Hamilton checked his watch. “Thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds.”
By the time they were able to relay the message to the archdiocese, then from the archdiocese to Jeremiah in Dingli, then from Jeremiah to Leviticus, they had less than ten minutes
to work with.
Chapter Sixty-Four
St. John’s Co-Cathedral
Valletta, Malta
. . . 00:04:15 . . .
. . . 00:04:14 . . .
. . . 00:04:13 . . .
Maximum Effect.
To the Vatican Knights, that could have meant anywhere with a high volume of traffic inside the city of Valletta, especially during the Santa Marija. But there would have been a much greater impact inside the church, as originally planned.
. . . 00:04:12 . . .
. . . 00:04:11 . . .
. . . 00:04:10 . . .
Jeremiah, Isaiah and Job were standing before the cathedral’s facade, scanning the square. Homage statues of Jesus and Mary spotted the areas as people mingled and congregated in worship.
“There’s a lot of places in Valletta to hide explosives,” commented Isaiah, expecting no answer to something so obvious. But the underlying meaning from the Vatican Knight was that the crowds had grown and time was running short. Even if the explosive devices were discovered within the timeframe, would they be able to clear or disable the units in time? Especially if those devices had been spread across Valletta.
Leviticus’ earbud chirped—an incoming call. He tapped the piece. “Go.”
“Leviticus, the units are inside the church,” said Jeremiah. “Their positions reworked to provide maximum effect.”
Leviticus turned on his feet to view the wide doors that were closed, because the service was five minutes in with more than four hundred people in attendance. “Where are they?” he asked, looking at his watch.
. . . 00:03:43 . . .
. . . 00:03:42 . . .
. . . 00:03:41 . . .
When Jeremiah told him, Leviticus looked upward to the finial structures and slanting crockets of the churches design. The explosives were replanted in order to compromise the supports. The ceiling of the entire cathedral would collapse and rain down with tons of debris, killing just about everybody inside.
. . . 00:03:18 . . .
. . . 00:03:17 . . .
. . . 00:03:16 . . .
“Confirmed?” asked Leviticus.
“This is coming directly from the main source.”
“Copy that.” Leviticus tapped his earbud. Then to Isaiah and Job: “The explosives are inside,” he said with a measure of urgency.
“We’ve checked everywhere,” said Isaiah.
“No,” said Leviticus, pointing to the upper points of the cathedral. “Not everywhere.”
Isaiah and Job looked upward and got the gist of the Vatican Knight’s gesture. The hardware had been moved to locations to bring the entire church down by taking out its supports.
. . . 00:03:06 . . .
. . . 00:03:05 . . .
. . . 00:03:04 . . .
“We need to evacuate the church,” said Leviticus.
“There won’t be time to get everyone out,” stated Isaiah. “There’s nearly five hundred people inside, and that’s not counting those inside the co-cathedral’s museum. We’ll be able to get some out . . . But not everyone.”
Job was the youngest and quickest among them, a young face who had the agility of a monkey. “I can remove the devices from the supports,” he told them.
. . . 00:02:58 . . .
. . . 00:02:57 . . .
. . . 00:02:56 . . .
Leviticus knew it was asking a lot for someone, even with Job’s capabilities, to climb to the church’s upper level to collect the units with no way to disable them.
“You know what you’re saying, Job? There’s not enough time.”
“I can at least clear them from the supports to reduce maximum effect.”
Leviticus and Isaiah appreciated Job’s meaning here: that there was no greater act than self-sacrifice. And since the quality of altruism had been instilled into every Vatican Knight since the moment they entered the team as an orphan, passing on was never feared because the end of one life was a rebirth in another.
. . . 00:02:42 . . .
. . . 00:02:41 . . .
. . . 00:02:40 . . .
They entered the cathedral, the doors opening wide enough to allow long slants of light to spread down the aisles of the nave. The service continued, however, with the audience singing a chorus from open hymn books in their hands.
Job went wide left to the transept area and took the steps to the second tier.
. . . 00:02:18 . . .
. . . 00:02:17 . . .
. . . 00:02:16 . . .
Isaiah and Leviticus raced to the altar and stood before the steps, both men holding their hands in prayer before the priest as a way of apology for the interruption, then hurriedly climbed the steps.
The service stopped.
So did the singing.
People appeared confused by the sudden halt the service.
Standing on the altar’s stage were three men and two altar boys, with two of these men appearing as priests—though their garments had differed greatly from the waist down with their dress more military—who were expressing some kind of urgency to the lead cleric.
One of the men broke away and stood at the edge of the staging area and faced the audience in the pews.
“Please,” said Isaiah, his voice ringing out hollowly. “Quietly and calmly, please vacate the church. There’s no reason to be alarmed. Please vacate the church.”
Everyone continued to stand with their books in their hands, most looking nonplussed. So Isaiah repeated himself, but this time with the aid of the priest who first spoke in English, and then in Maltese.
People began to work their way slowly down between the pews, only to meet in the aisles like merging cattle, which made the process of evacuation even slower.
The altar boys raced down the steps, their gowns flowing softly behind them as they fell in with the crowd. The priest, however, remained beside Isaiah and Leviticus as they watched the slow headway.
“They’re not going to make it, are they?” asked the priest.
Leviticus’ answer was straightforward and to the point. “No,” he said.
Then he looked ceilingward, as did Isaiah, both Knights thinking that Job’s task would be all for naught. The devices would go off with only a lucky few, those who managed to clear the entryway, able to find salvation.
All else would be consumed by falling debris.
Despite their attempts to save those who couldn’t save themselves, Isaiah and Leviticus stood tall knowing they had done all they could do.
They simply ran out of time.
. . . 00:01:13 . . .
. . . 00:01:12 . . .
. . . 00:01:11 . . .
#
The last thing Kimball Hayden wanted to do was bring a war to the Vatican. Even more so, he didn’t want to put any of his brothers in harm’s way or force them to compromise their standards to kill or injure others, as he was built to do. He was a different animal from the Vatican Knights, someone whose standards of achievement involved acts of violence. The Vatican Knights weren’t constructed to bend the rules like him. He could never ask them to kill repeatedly in order to save his life from a moving conveyor belt that would spit out one assassin after another. It was not what the Vatican Knights were created for. So with a heavy heart and the immeasurable grief of never reaching the Light, Kimball decided it was best to leave the church as a way to protect it and the brothers he served with.
Using the credit card that came with his new passport, Kimball was able to charter a small fishing vessel for a large sum that would take him beyond the maritime border, where a second vessel would be waiting to transport him to Sicily. This was to avoid any detection from the CCTV cameras at the airport. If he was exposed by VisageWare while purchasing a ticket, then the SAD would hack into the airline’s database to see what identity he travelled under, and to what destination. The moment his plane landed, a dispatch team would be waiting for him. But he would avoid their software programs and move on to Sicily, then from Sicily to Europe and
places elsewhere.
Kimball stood behind the transom and stared at the island of Malta as the boat drifted further north. It was a gloriously beautiful country, he reminded himself. The architecture, the beauty, everything was pristine and almost virginal in which its society remained segregated from violence.
Until recently.
He closed his eyes, wondering if the violence would leave Valletta and give chase, since violence always seemed to shadow him. At least Valletta would be free.
The boat pulled away.
The island of Malta shrank, the distance growing between them.
And Kimball thought of his brothers and the love he had for them.
But the life of a Vatican Knight was no longer for him, since the draw of the Light seemed impossible to reach.
He was alone now, the man sliding deeper into the Gray and closer to Darkness. And once again Kimball Hayden was becoming the man he used to be.
The old fishing vessel chugged along.
#
Job discovered the utility lanes on the upper level, a thin walkway where the exterior supports butt against the interior walls for support. The corridor had a low-lying ceiling and a width wide enough for the breadth of his shoulders to skin the walls to his left and right. From the transept end of the hallway a stained-glass window allowed natural light.
So far he could not find the Semtex bricks. And since they had no warning properties such as scent or sound, Job’s search for the devices became much more difficult due to the time depletion.
Then he saw a red light, the LED numbers of the unit ticking down to zero moment.
. . . 00:00:43 . . .
. . . 00:00:42 . . .
. . . 00:00:41 . . .
The device was adhering to a rib that reinforced the ceiling. Further on down the hallway was the second, also attached to point where the support column meets the ceiling rib.
. . . 00:00:33 . . .
. . . 00:00:32 . . .
. . . 00:00:31 . . .
At the end of this long hallway at a location by the cathedral’s entryway that led into the square, was the third and final piece. He grabbed it, the device coming off with difficulty due to the strong adhesive, and cradled the units: three bricks, three pounds, the explosives counting down in perfect unison with one another.