Crosses to Bear (Vatican Knights Book 6)

by Rick Jones

  He thinks I’m dead.

  “Please, Seth,” she brought his hand up to her cheek. “It pains me to see you so unhappy, so angry. I know you want to go back. At least tell me that much.”

  “I do.”

  “Then promise me that you will go back and make things right.”

  “You don’t understand, Sister. I’m notorious for screwing things up. Every time I take one step forward in the right direction, I always do something stupid right after that sends me two steps back. . . . I can never get ahead.”

  “It’s not about getting ahead, Seth, It’s about doing the right thing. How can it ever be wrong to embrace your father?” And then: “Go back to him, Seth. Promise me.”

  He looked at her straight on, their blue eyes meeting, and the emotions between them growing soft. “I promise,” he finally said, committing himself.

  She smiled. “You won’t regret your decision.”

  He took another sip of his coffee, the cup almost empty. “And what about you?” he asked her. “Is Saint Viator’s your mission in life?”

  She shook her head. “Sadly, no.”

  This caught Kimball off guard. What?

  “I love Saint Viator’s,” she went on. “I love Father Donavan and I love serving the people. I love making a difference in the lives of those who are truly hard-luck cases. But the sacrifices are beginning to weigh me down, Seth. I’m ashamed to say that my needs are beginning to outweigh my penchant to serve.”

  “You want to leave the church?”

  “Yes and no,” she said. “I want to serve God as much as I can. And I will continue to do so. But I need more than what I have. I know it sounds selfish, Seth. And maybe it’s something maternal, but I want a family. I want to be able to embrace both the church and family. Does that make any sense?”

  “Can you just up and leave like that?”

  “It happens all the time,” she answered. “When sisters of the order decide to leave, they simply leave their habit and wimple on the bed and disappear, never to be heard from again due to shame. Those who leave the order and confide in a priest are usually compensated financially by the Holy See. I would at least give Father Donavan the courtesy.”

  “How long have you been weighing this?” he asked her, probing intently.

  “Off and on for over a year, always weighing the pros and cons. But if you do that, if you don’t surrender yourself completely to God and have to reason with yourself why you should stay or shouldn’t, then it’s clear that this life is not for me.”

  “It happens.”

  “It doesn’t mean that I don’t love God any less.” When she said this she knew that she came off sounding like she was desperately pleading and fishing to be told that it was OK by Seth, that God would not forsake her.

  “You’re a good person, Sister Abigail. If He wants you to have a family, then you will have a family. Perhaps this is His way of telling you it’s time.”

  Her smile broadened, appreciative of his support. “Thank you, Seth.”

  She leaned into him and placed her head against his chest, closed her eyes, and thanked God for bringing Seth into her life. For months she weighed the reasons why she should stay or go, but it was Seth who kindled latent emotions which made her see things clearly.

  Kimball corralled his arm around her and pulled her close, which drew stares of disapproval from those milling about. But this was Vegas.

  “Sister Abigail—”

  “Abby,” she corrected. “Call me Abby.”

  “All right, Abby. When do you plan to do this?”

  “Soon,” she said, pulling away and drawing distance. “I’ll need to stay until Father Donavan brings in someone to replace me. Of course he’ll try to talk me into staying, but in the end he’ll understand. This is not a unique situation to him.”

  “Nuns leave the order that often?”

  “It’s not as rare as people think. It’s a hard life. And commitment needs to be absolute.”

  “And what will you do?”

  She cocked her head to the side, looking demure. “I’d like to meet your surrogate father,” she stated as if this was common knowledge. “I’d like to meet the person behind the good man I see before me.”

  Kimball suddenly felt an indescribable euphoria sweep through him. Not since Shari Cohen had he felt so connected. He wanted to hug her, to kiss her, and to draw her close. But Abby was still Sister Abigail. “You will,” he said to her softly. “

  “I just want to make sure that you keep your word to me, that’s all.”

  But Kimball knew that it was much more than that. She was telling him that she wanted to be with him. He nodded: In time, Abby . . . In time.

  “Now,” she continued, “I know Seth isn’t your real name. So . . .” She led him on.

  “You’re right,” he said. It was time to open up with as much of the truth as he could tell her. “My real name is—” He quickly cut himself off, his eyes staring at something behind her.

  “What?” she asked

  “Don’t turn around.”

  “What’s the matter, Seth? You’re scaring me.”

  Kimball had seen these men inside the mission, all six, who were now gathered by the front doors of the Golden Nugget.

  The moment Kimball made them, Bulldog and his team began to approach them with the determination of hunters.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They had gathered outside by the glass doors that led into the Golden Nugget, the six of them standing like a pack of wolves with Bulldog keeping a watchful eye on the large man and the nun.

  They were sitting on a concrete bench drinking specialty drinks from one of the nearby coffee houses, laughing. It was quite clear to Bulldog that the admiration between these two ran deep.

  But when the big man’s smile suddenly disappeared and looked directly at Bulldog with recognition, Bulldog galvanized his team into action.

  #

  “Seth, what is it?”

  As Kimball stood he also ushered Sister Abigail to her feet. Then in a voice almost too low for her to hear, he whispered, “Ferret.”

  Sister Abigail pivoted on the balls of her feet like a ballerina. Six men were making haste towards them with vicious intent written all over their faces.

  She pulled closer to Kimball, her jaw dropping.

  Kimball grabbed the backs of her arms with his hands and drew her so close that their noses were inches apart. “Get to Saint Viator’s,” he told her.

  She saw the rush of men coming towards them, then turned back to Kimball. “We’ll call the police,” she stated frantically.

  “This will all be over by the time they get here.”

  “Over. What are you talking about?”

  He gave her a slight, goading push in the direction for her to run. “Just go, Abby. I’ll be fine. Just get to Saint Viator’s.”

  Sister Abigail hiked the dress portion of her wear and began to take quick steps in the opposite direction to an alley that led to a neighboring street. And on that neighboring street was Saint Viator’s, the parish less than 300 yards away.

  Kimball turned to face off with Bulldog’s group as the familiar rush of a warrior’s blood coursed through his veins. But then he took note that there were only four, not the six he had originally counted. Apparently when he turned his head long enough to address Sister Abigail, two had left the pack.

  And they were on the hunt, he considered.

  With Sister Abigail as their prey.

  Kimball closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed a sour lump in his throat. Oh no!

  #

  They were known as the Tanakas. Riku and Daisuke, American-born twins who found employment with an American chapter of the Yakuza, Japan’s notorious mob that had Vegas ties and dabbled with skimming and prostitution. But when it was discovered that they were dipping into funds for personal reasons and pocketing a percentage not approved by Yakuza leadership, a bounty was placed on their heads, literally, with their heads to
be lopped off by a katana and brought before Yakuza principals in a bag. So they took to the underground and sided with the Community, the last place a Yakuza enforcer would look.

  And it didn’t take long for Ferret and his crew to welcome those with such deadly skill sets, either—those who had the ability to kill a man with power strikes from lethal hands and flashing feet.

  But as soon as they saw the large man address the nun, they both realized with an umbilical sense that the large man and the nun were about to separate, so no words had to be spoken between them. They also knew that she would head for Saint Viator’s, her point of salvation. And as soon as the nun began to draw distance from the large man and began to head in the opposite direction, the Tanakas broke free from the pack and headed on an intercept course through the Golden Nugget, and ran out a door that led to the alleyway where they would eventually meet.

  Sister Abigail never had a chance.

  #

  Bulldog strutted up to Kimball with his shoulders held back and his chest puffed out, an obvious show of macho posturing, until he was an arm’s length away. Although several inches shorter, Bulldog was quite stocky. And as he and Kimball pinned each other with unflinching stares, the other three circled around, one behind and one on each side of him.

  “Something I can do for you?” asked Kimball.

  Bulldog nodded. “I came here to bring you a message, boy. One you ain’t gonna forget, neither.”

  “Is that so?” Kimball started to look around to appraise his current situation, already seeing in his mind’s eye how this was going to play out.

  “Yeah. That’s so.”

  “And what’s the message?”

  “The message, boy, is that you need to let things be. And when you don’t, then there’s consequences to be had.”

  “Are you Ferret?” Kimball asked.

  Apparently this was funny as it drew light chuckles.

  “No, man. I’m not. But I stand on his right side.”

  “Too bad,” stated Kimball. “I was hoping to meet this gutless wonder instead of his band of flunkies.”

  The cocky smile on Bulldog’s face quickly inverted to a glowering frown, his fists tightening until they became white-knuckled.

  “If that’s the message,” Kimball added, “then I want you to tell that gutless wonder it’s been received. But I also want you to tell him that the message has gone through one ear and out the other. Am I making myself clear, you ugly son of a bitch?”

  Bulldog was suddenly taken aback, his mouth dropping. No one had ever spoken to him like that before, especially when he was surrounded by teammates who were willing to bring on their own brand of hurt. Puffing up his chest and cocking his right hand for a follow-up blow, he said, “I got one more message for you, tough guy” he said. “And you ain’t gonna like it.” And then his right fist shot forward, his arm like a piston.

  But Kimball deflected Bulldog’s punch with ease by redirecting it with a quick swat of his hand, the punch carrying through and missing Kimball completely, the momentum causing Bulldog to stumble off balance in a drunken waltz and then to the ground, the man hitting the pavement with a face-first approach.

  Kimball reacted swiftly and fluidly, his movements practiced to the point of perfection. He brought the blade of his right hand up and across, hitting the man to his right in the throat, then came across with an elbow strike, the two moves so smooth it appeared as a single action, the strikes taking less than a second to achieve.

  Before the man could raise a hand to his damaged throat, the elbow strike rendered him unconscious after it struck the cheek bone, the man’s head snapping wildly from the blow, the body following as he fell limply to the ground.

  Before the body hit, however, Kimball was already in motion. In lightning fashion he brought his leg up, turned his ankle so that the blade of his foot was revealed, and placed a perfect kick to the maxilla bone, the area beneath the nose and above the upper lip, of the man standing behind him, the bone crunching. And then he fell to the ground, hard.

  Kimball wheeled around to the man on his left and brought his fisted hand across in an arc, hitting the third attacker across the bridge of his nose, the audible crack of the bone breaking was reminiscent of a stalk of celery being snapped in half.

  As soon as the third man hit the ground, Bulldog was just getting to his feet. What he saw astonished him, his mouth dropping. His three teammates were laying on the ground, unmoving, one lying in mock crucifixion, while the other two appeared weirdly tangled and almost boneless in the way they lay on the ground.

  By the time it took Bulldog to get to his feet, and in a period of time he considered not more than three seconds, the big man had laid waste to his entire team.

  A crowd was beginning to gather, but neither man seemed to notice.

  Then: “You’re not the only one who can throw a punch, bitch,” Kimball told Bulldog.

  Bulldog screamed in rage and charged Kimball, who brought his leg up in a forward kick and connected with Bulldog’s solar plexus, a perfect hit sending Bulldog off his feet and six feet through the air before landing on his backside and skating another two feet. Before he could raise his head Kimball was already on top of him.

  He grabbed Bulldog by the lapels of his soiled jacket and raised him up until their faces were inches apart. “There were six of you,” he said. “Where are the other two?”

  Bulldog smiled, showing rows of discolored teeth that were slightly irregular in their setting. “You think just because she’s a nun that she’s untouchable?” His smile blossomed. “If you go against Ferret and Ferret can’t get to you, then he’ll get to you by going through the people you care for. No one is immune. Father Donavan—“

  Kimball didn’t allow him to finish. He quickly raised his hand and brought it down, hard, the blow knocking Bulldog out for the count. By the time Kimball got to his feet a rather sizeable crowd had gathered. It would be a matter of time before security arrived, he thought, and then Metro. And Kimball couldn’t afford to be detained.

  Working his way through the crowd, Kimball did the only thing he could do. He followed the path taken by Sister Abigail.

  #

  The alleyway leading from the Experience to the neighboring street where Saint Viator was based, smelled of spoiled milk as garbage bins lined against the walls along both sides. Graffiti marred the walls, symbols and signs from local gang members. And loose trash and debris lay everywhere.

  The moment Sister Abigail made the half-way point down the alley, a Tanaka brother emerged from behind one of the trash bins and blocked her path. The second Tanaka brother materialized behind her, appearing from some dingy recess to block her way back.

  Sister Abigail’s eyes pivoted from one brother to the next. They were dressed in suits that may have been expensive at one time, the clothing now soiled and dirty. The expressions on their faces were immobile, neither man exposing or betraying what they were thinking at the moment, men with skinny ranges of emotion.

  They closed in on her, slowly, with each step in sync with the movement of his brother, the two so symbiotic to the other that they moved as one.

  Sister Abigail pressed herself against the wall.

  The brothers closed in.

  And there was nowhere for her to go.

  When they were feet away she could see that the resemblance of the two to be identical. Two who had come from a single egg, a single womb, and shared a single mind. They didn’t speak. But the way they carried themselves, even with the flatness of emotion, they still spoke volumes to her. Their intent was a simple one communicated: There would be no mercy. There would be no compassion.

  So she closed her eyes and wondered if God was punishing her for wanting more from life. And then she asked herself why the price of the punishment had to be so great. But then she realized that God loved her deeply. Loved her for all the good she had gone. Loved her for the person she had become. And He loved her unconditionally. This was not of His doi
ng.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at the two brothers. And with words that were soft words and filled with traces of unbridled love, she whispered, “I forgive you.”

  The Tanakas closed in.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The White House

  President Burroughs sat behind his desk talking with his team regarding the current status of the Fourth Man.

  “It appears that the factions realized that their communications were being compromised and appropriated,” stated CIA Director Doug Craner. “Chats have all but disappeared from radar. And we’re talking about the Michigan and Canadian factions, as well as Iranian transmissions. If they’re communicating, they may be doing it through couriers.”

  Burroughs shook his head. “Too slow considering the magnitude of this operation,” he said. He turned to Larry Johnston, the FBI Director. “Larry, how wide is the net?”

  Johnston had that wizened look about him—that of an aging man with deep sets of crow’s feet, the markings of a learned man. “Mr. President,” he began, “we have every available field-office hand working. But no matter how tight we make the net, there will always be gaps.”

  “Do you think that the Fourth Man has managed his way north to the Dearborn Group?”

  “That is a possibility, Mr. President.”

  Back to Craner. “And there’s no appropriated chats to confirm this?”

  Craner leaned forward. “Once they learned that their lines had been targeted for info retrieval, they immediately shut down. But the last transmission indicated that the Fourth Man had not arrived at the Dearborn location yet. Further intel—before Iran went into blackout phase—indicated that high-end principals were considering to use the pathogen against Israeli and U.S. targets. Since the blackout, Iran has been confronted and proffered proof of intercepted transmissions, which they claim to be the fabrications of Israeli and American Intelligence, in order to undermine them in the eyes of the global community.”