by Rick Jones
Moving closer to Rome with the False Prophet as his companion, a man came to destroy the sanctity of one of the most religious stages on the planet, that of Vatican City.
As from the immortals who sit above as they do from below with the Vatican the most coveted prize between Heaven and Hell, the Vatican was about to become the battlefield on two fronts: one from the Bangladeshi, and the other from the Nocturnal Saints.
The only thing the co-directors could do, along with their Jesuit team, was wait. And for every moment that time pressed on without the Vatican’s ability to confront an approaching threat, so did the possibility of a successful strike against them.
Within twenty-four hours, this dual threat would place the Vatican in a position of being leveled and forever removed from Earth, with parts of Rome becoming a dead and poisonous spot for thousands of years.
With patience, the co-directors waited for messages abroad. Unfortunately, they would come too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Safe House
Five Miles from Jerusalem
Baghdadi was sitting with his legs bent in Native American Indian style on the floor, when a man who exuded uncontested power entered the room. He was wearing the uniform of the military operatives that stormed the safe house. But instead of wearing the Kevlar helmets with the boon of gadgetry that lined the head covering like a Mohawk, this man wore a scarlet beret. He was tall and well-built with his frame that of a man who worked out excessively, though his face appeared aged as someone who was in his sixties.
“Saheem Baghdadi,” was all he said.
The extremist remained silent.
“A recruiter who promotes the cause of terrorism,” Leibowitz continued. “We’ve been great admirers of your work and have been trying to locate you for some time now, only for one IP address to be as fictitious as the other. But we were able to finally home in and, apparently, not a moment too soon.” Leibowitz looked around the room and its poor conditions, along with the bodies of Baghdadi’s team that lay about in odd and contorted positions. “Nice place you’ve got here,” he added. And then: “Now, tell me about the man called Pierre Labron. What was his mission as you understood it?”
Baghdadi, however, gave Leibowitz a genuinely perplexed look. “Who?”
“The man you picked up in the fields twenty-five miles outside of Jerusalem about an hour ago.”
Baghdadi swallowed.
“I need to know what the mission plans are,” Leibowitz added. “I need to know what your target site was.”
This was where Baghdadi puffed out his chest and feigned courage by raising his chin in defiance.
“If that’s the game you want to play,” said Leibowitz. Then the team leader made a gesture to one of the commandos who removed a KABAR combat knife, grabbed Baghdadi by a hank of thick hair, pulled Baghdadi’s head back to expose his throat, and then he placed the blade along Baghdadi’s flesh with the intent to slice a deep and linear groove.
“All right! All right! All right!” Baghdadi pleaded.
The knife-wielding commando released the radical and summarily backed away.
“Tell me everything you know,” said Leibowitz. “And I do mean everything. Leave one thing out, you die. Tell me lies, you die. Is that understood?”
Baghdadi nodded.
“In the other room with Labron is a suitcase, an explosive. What was the target site?”
Baghdadi sighed heavily. Around him lay the members of his team, the outcome of weakened soldiers who were not even close to the combat level of the Metsada. In fact, he felt duly responsible since he filled their heads with the false promise of happiness. All they got in the end was a premature death.
“What was the target site?” Leibowitz repeated evenly.
“Tel Aviv,” he finally answered.
“Where in Tel Aviv?”
“That you would have to ask him, this Labron guy. My duty was to get him inside the city unseen. The rest of the mission was up to him.”
“And your handler? And don’t lie to me, Baghdadi. Keep in mind that I know the answers to some of the questions I ask in order to ferret out the lies. Perhaps I know who your handler is, perhaps not. But if I were you, I would not risk the chance of providing me with falsehoods.” Leibowitz crouched down so that he was eye level with Baghdadi. “Now, tell me, who’s your handler? Who contacted and assigned you with the task of meeting Labron?”
“You know who it was.”
“Tell me. Give me a name.”
Baghdadi looked away, ashamed. “Ahmed Jaziri.”
“Of course, it was. And where is Jaziri now?”
Baghdadi turned to face off with Leibowitz and shook his head. “That I don’t know. No one knows where Ahmed Jaziri is.”
Leibowitz feigned a smile. “Of course not. So, tell me, where do you think he is?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you know nothing outside of Labron’s mission other than that his target site was somewhere in Tel Aviv, is that right?”
Baghdadi nodded.
“And you, after being commissioned by Ahmed Jaziri, were to pick up Labron at a predetermined site outside of Jerusalem, take him to this safe house, and then come up with the best possible way to get him into Tel Aviv unseen, with the suitcase he carries?”
Another nod.
“And you know nothing else?”
“No.”
Leibowitz got to his feet. “I believe you,” he told him.
From behind, the commando, after returning his knife, removed his suppressed Glock from his holster, pressed the gun’s point to Baghdadi’s temple, and pulled the trigger. After a muted spit of gunfire, Saheem Baghdadi joined his team by being among the dead.
Then from Leibowitz: “Bring me Labron and the suitcase he carries.”
Within thirty seconds, a clearly shaken Labron was forced to his knees before the Metsada leader, who smiled at the Man from Paris with ruler-straight teeth. “Now,” Leibowitz told him, “it’s your turn.”
The Man from Paris, who after looking to his left and seeing Baghdadi bleeding out on the dirt floor, said, “I’ll answer anything you want me to.”
Leibowitz maintained his false grin. “I know you will,” he answered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Underground Containment Facility
Forty-Five Miles from Tel Aviv
Believing that Pierre Labron had been mined for all he was worth, which included the names of his associates—that of the Bangladeshi and one other known only as the ‘Man from Munich’—his lifeless body had been left alongside Saheem Baghdadi with a bullet wound to his temple.
After extracting what Leibowitz believed was significant information from the Man from Paris, he had the suitcase placed within a lead chamber inside of Leibowitz’s truck, then secured it for transport.
Approximately forty-five miles outside of Tel Aviv was a Mossad bunker and a subterranean facility that operated as a satellite station to the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center. After the unit had been carefully removed and scoped, the determination was that the device had a one-ton yield that had been modified with Israeli parts. This also confirmed the data that Abesh Faruk had somehow attained Israeli parts to revise and improve the old Soviet versions.
Further intel that had been gleaned from channels over time also suggested that Faruk had developed a small arsenal of nuclear suitcases and had labeled them accordingly as the Unholy Trinity: Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet. It was conjecture by foreign principals that no such arsenal existed, considering that there had been no definitive proof outside of intercepted transmissions that led to nowhere.
This, however, validated that Abesh Faruk, an arms dealer who fell to a Kidon assassin due to his willingness to sell his wares to terrorist factions, truly had a cache of WMDs. It was now obvious that the weapons were in the hands of terrorists who were now in motion, which was not only cause for
concern within the Mossad community, but a concern amongst intel agencies across the planet.
According to Labron, or the Man from Paris, he had seen three suitcases inside a lead-lined tomb that was known as the Goliath Chamber. Apparently, it had housed the Unholy Trinity somewhere beneath Faruk’s estate, then was later moved to a ramshackle home on the outskirts of Paris by a man known as the Bangladeshi, months after Faruk’s assassination.
On each suitcase was a symbol that represented each member of the Unholy Trinity, Labron had confirmed to them and something they already knew. On the first aluminum suitcase was the character that was represented by an oval shape with curved outcroppings that depicted horns that classified Satan, which was slated for Washington, D.C. On the second suitcase, which was now in Mossad possession, possessed three sixes to indicate the Antichrist, which had been planned for Tel Aviv. And on the last suitcase that exhibited the image of an angel-like figure with demonic wings and a halo, was the mark of The False Prophet that had been scheduled for Vatican City.
Labron, however, knew nothing as to the course the operatives were taking to get the units to their detonation points.
While the suitcase was being dissected and the parts removed deep within this subterranean level, Efrayim Leibowitz and his principal agents started to contact intel agencies across the world—Germany, France, the United States, Italy and many others were brought into a concerted loop of intelligence sharing.
But it was Leibowitz who contacted the co-directors of Vatican Intelligence to inform them of one thing: Death was coming to the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vatican Intelligence
The Vatican, Vatican City
Soon after the Antichrist was broken down in Israel, Efrayim Leibowitz contacted Vatican Intelligence to provide updated information regarding the dark treasure that was known as the Antichrist. It appears that the Metsada was able to attain a mobile package that contained a one-kiloton yield. It was also a Frankensteinian amalgamation of old and new parts with the nuclear sphere believed to be part of an old Russian suitcase package from the Cold War era.
While standing on an elevated tier of the Vatican’s Intel Comm Center, Fathers Auciello and Essex listened and nodded, the two men taking everything that Efrayim Leibowitz had to say with absorption.
“And Mr. Labron?” asked Father Auciello.
Onscreen, Efrayim Leibowitz appeared transparent since the monitor was constructed entirely of Plexiglas. “Pierre Labron, who we now know is the Man from Paris, is no longer a part of the equation.”
“And the Antichrist?” asked Father Essex.
“Under the jurisdiction of the Israeli state where it belongs.”
“So, one down and two to go,” Father Auciello stated rhetorically, “with one of those suitcases believed to be heading towards the Vatican.”
“We have not been able to confirm this, however,” Leibowitz answered. “But we do believe that two units exist and are on the move. Once we were able to confirm the Paris location of the Bangladeshi’s residence, we dispatched a unit. What they discovered was a lead-lined, sarcophagus-type crate that was made of stone with bas-relief carvings of demons, something Labron said was the vault that contained the Unholy Trinity. The inside was empty. But it was clear that it had at one time contained three items by the way the space was created to lock in three suitcases.”
“We haven’t been able to intercept anything regarding the two existing suitcases,” said Father Essex.
Onscreen, Leibowitz nodded. “Yeah, well, like I said, we believe that the units are on the move, one to the United States and the other to Vatican City. But we have yet to discover a track to follow. However, Labron did say that the Bangladeshi was heading to one location, while a second man called the ‘Man from Munich’ was making his way to another.”
“Did you find out who the Man from Munich is?”
“No. Nor do we know where the Bangladeshi is.”
“Did they say when the weapons were to go off?”
Another onscreen nod from Leibowitz. “According to Labron, the weapons were set to go off at a coordinated time according to time zones. He informed us that in the United States, the device was to go off at twelve noon, whereas in Vatican City the detonation would take place at six p.m., and in Tel Aviv, at seven p.m. The explosions would take place at the same exact moment, even though the time zones are different.”
“On what specific date?”
“That was something Labron claimed to have been unaware of since he was to receive orders from the Bangladeshi as to the ‘timing’ of the operation. Obviously, those orders have yet to be received.”
“How do you know this?”
“Labron had on his possession a burner cellphone, unused. The assumption is that contact will be coming soon. At that time, we’ll attempt to triangulate the Bangladeshi’s origin point when he calls.”
“And, of course, you’ll notify the Vatican of the results?”
“Of course. That is a constant between our two agencies, to give and to receive.”
“Thank you, Commander Leibowitz,” said Father Essex. “We appreciate your efforts on this matter.”
“Look,” Leibowitz continued, “if the Bangladeshi is moving towards Vatican City, there’s a good chance that he’s already arrived, and the weapon placed. This is, of course, speculation. But the timeframe of their departures, as indicated by Labron after we were able to mine him for all he was worth, implied that the remaining operatives had ample time to reach their destinations. The Bangladeshi might be standing at your front door looking in, as we speak. The Americans share a similar problem with the Man from Munich and have launched a nationwide hunt.”
Fathers Essex and Auciello continued to stare at Leibowitz’s transparent and ghostly image on the Plexiglas screen. Then from Father Auciello: “Of course, Commander Leibowitz, the Vatican appreciates your agency’s involvement in all this. Be assured that we will leave a direct channel open for immediate communication.”
“Understood.”
Once the onscreen interaction between the three ended, Fathers Auciello and Essex determined that having close council with the pontiff was paramount. What had been confirmed to a degree was that the Goliath Chamber, once a thing of myth, was real. The Unholy Trinity that was alleged to be encapsulated within this tomb that served as their eternal and unescapable chamber, was considered to be something of fiction. Yet these demons took on a different form, a different shape. These monsters did not possess the diaphanous wings of demons but were the technical makings of men willing to profit from misery and mass chaos. Fiction had become reality with the monsters that made up the Unholy Trinity very real. They may not have appeared as they had in the biblical versions, but they were just as awful and infinitely deadly.
Now that the Antichrist had been laid to rest, the world was now on the hunt for Satan and the False Prophet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Apostolic Palace
Vatican City
It was late evening inside the pontiff’s chamber when Fathers Essex and Auciello asked Pope Clement XV for a moment of his time due to great urgency. With the priests sitting across from the pontiff outlining the recent intel regarding the movement of a WMD with the Vatican a target, the pontiff listened and nodded. When everything had been spelled out, the pope simply stared at a fixed point on his desktop.
And then from His Holiness, he asked, “And this has been absolutely verified? That the Vatican is a primary target?”
“No,” Father Auciello answered. “The intel from the Mossad strongly suggests to a high degree that the information obtained is factual, and that the device is headed for Vatican City.”
“Still, it’s conjecture at this point.”
Father Auciello nodded lightly. “But something we need to strongly consider, regardless.”
Pope Clement XV started to drum the fingertips o
f his right hand against the desktop, the rhythm in perfect measure. As a means to thin the herd of the Vatican Knights to set a course for the Nocturnal Saints to operate without interference, he had sent a majority of the Knights on missions that were considered by the Society of Seven—a democratic league of cardinals who agree or disagree on mission parameters—as unnecessary. But since the pontiff no longer engaged or listened to this team of advisors, he made his decision without their input. And the reason, of course, was the ulterior motive that the Vatican Knights would be beyond Kimball Hayden’s reach, should Kimball decide to call upon them. What had been left behind was a severely weakened crew of three Vatican Knights with Kimball, Isaiah and Nehemiah serving as the onsite team.
“Galvanize Vatican Security,” the pontiff finally said. “Have them search every building including the Palace of the Governatorate, the Basilica, the Palace of the Tribunal, the Mater Ecclesiae Convent, every station people have access to. Close the city borders and tell the masses that the closure is due to an observance, but don’t specify what that observance is. The media will take care of that with baseless speculation.”
“How long should we close the borders for?” asked Father Essex.
“As long as it takes to discover the operators transporting the devices, or the devices themselves.”
“That could take days, weeks, maybe months.”
“Do you prefer that we allow the barbarian who stands at the gate to waltz in with a weapon of mass destruction?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what would you propose?”
Neither priest had an answer, at least not one that provided a safety net.
“Exactly,” stated the pontiff as he eased into his seat.
“Perhaps, Your Holiness,” Father Auciello began, “it would be best if you leave the Vatican for a safer haven.”
“Until it’s been undeniably proven that someone’s trying to annihilate the city, only then will I leave. But until then, I will remain seated upon the papal throne. I have all the faith in the world when it comes to my security team, not to mention the Swiss Guard.”