by Rick Jones
Bienemy’s adversary was a man of massive built—that of broad shoulders and barrel chest, and someone who moved with a freakish ability for a man his size. Around his attacker’s collar, which told Bienemy all he needed to know, was the band of a Roman Catholic collar. Here was Kimball Hayden, the most elite of the Vatican Knights, a man who was considered to be an angel to some and a demon to others.
Here was Bienemy’s demon.
After Kimball Hayden slapped aside the weapon’s barrel, he began to throw a series of forward strikes with his arms and hands moving like pistons. Kimball struck the helmet, the throat, and points along the Kevlar vest with every hammering thrust knocking Bienemy off balance, the ex-SEAL staggering backward like a drunkard.
More blows were coming faster and faster as the shadows continued to aid the Vatican Knight as though he was in allegiance with it, the darkness a longtime devotee. Every time Bienemy tried to bring his weapon around, the Vatican Knight slapped it aside as the ex-SEAL pressed the trigger. The night lit up with a series of muzzle flashes and staccato bursts of light. In the stop-and-go illumination, Bienemy could see the red, threadlike laces of anger that crossed the whites of Kimball’s eyes, and the seething rage that had surfaced. Here was a man in the throes of savage anger, a person who was commanded by his own personal demons.
Blow after blow, thrust after thrust, with arms and hands and feet beginning to weigh on Bienemy, the ex-SEAL quickly cast aside his weapon to free his arms for close combat, and started to deflect Kimball’s blows.
He held his arms close to his torso to minimize the effect of Kimball’s punches. And when the opportunity availed itself, Bienemy spotted an opening and began to throw his own jabs—lefts, rights, uppercuts and power-driven hooks. At first, Bienemy was making gains by driving Kimball back with a combination of offensive strikes and defensive moves, the operative now throwing punches as much as he was deflecting them.
But Kimball Hayden was a master among masters and a truly gifted warrior who came once every generation. After taking Bienemy’s blows and counterstrikes, the Vatican Knight revved up his quality of combat by throwing combinations with impact power.
. . . Left . . . Right . . . Jab . . . Uppercut . . .
Everything came with coordinated and fluid strikes that were so fast, his movements became blinding.
. . . Left . . . Right . . . Jab . . . Uppercut . . .
And then came the most devastating of Kimball’s hand-to-hand combat arsenal, the elbow strike.
As Bienemy appeared to lose awareness of his surroundings and beginning to see internal stars, Kimball came across with additional elbow strikes, one right after another—left, right, left, right, left, right—all striking Bienemy along the chin line beneath his mask.
The ex-SEAL cocked his head back as if to look at the canopy of the night sky, and with his back straight and firm, he fell back and landed hard against the terrain.
Though down, Bienemy tried his best to gain his feet but failed, the operative moving about like an infant who was trying to manufacture his first crawling move. But before Bienemy’s mind could adjust, Kimball was on top of him and pinned the operative to the turf.
After peeling off the Kevlar helmet with the skeletal face, Kimball quickly tossed it aside. In the glow of the half moon, Bienemy’s face appeared ghostly and wan within the moon’s shine.
“Shari Cohen,” Kimball began. “Where is she?”
Bienemy smiled. Even in the moonlight, Kimball could see that his teeth were coated with blood.
“Where is she? The bunker?”
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” said the ex-SEAL. “You broke the rules, man. You broke the rules. And now she’s as good as dead.”
“I break rules all the time. Now, where is she?”
Bienemy pointed in a direction to indicate a bunker. It was something Kimball knew an elite soldier would never do—to give up a position unless there were ulterior motives. What Bienemy was trying to do was to lead Kimball into the hands of others, and most likely into a stauncher line of defense.
“How many are in your team?” Kimball asked him.
More laughter from Bienemy, a low chuckle.
“How many in your team?” Kimball repeated, this time shaking the man.
“None,” Bienemy lied. “We were it besides the woman.”
Kimball immediately recognized the dishonesty. Bienemy wanted to lower Kimball into a sense of complacency, hoping that he would walk into a situation unaware of Bienemy’s remaining team.
“How many?” Kimball asked him once again.
“Are you deaf? We . . . were . . . it.”
“You’re lying.”
Bienemy stared at Kimball, the two now pinning each other with hard glares. And within this quiet moment of time, Kimball realized that he was still on the clock that ticked off towards the end of Shari’s life.
And then Bienemy made a move. His hand was fast with his fingers even faster as they wrapped around the handle of Stallworth’s knife that was now attached to Kimball’s leg, and slid the weapon free from its sheath. His move was smooth as though he had practiced the step a million times, the knife now coming up to punch through Kimball’s temple in an attempt to drive the point fatally deep.
But the Vatican Knight moved with the same quick efficiency, grabbing Bienemy's wrist, wrenching it hard until the bones snapped, then removing the weapon and bringing it down in a perfect arc where he drove the knife deep into the ex-SEAL's throat.
Bienemy’s eyes started in surprise by the quickness of oncoming death. As wet gagging sounds originated from the operative’s mouth as though he was trying to speak, while blood bubbles foamed and burst along the edges of his lips, the light in Bienemy’s eyes began to fade. And then there was a final disconnect as he eased into death while lying upon the grass.
Kimball, after returning the knife to its sheath, grabbed Stallworth’s assault weapon, which was a higher quality brand than Bienemy’s.
As he stood over the body, he noticed a star-point glimmer on the soldier’s right hand, a ring. Examining it, he noted the symbol of the upside-down V which tented over the letters of NS, for the Nocturnal Saints. Stallworth also had a similar ring, that with the jeweled signature of the cabal.
Now, Kimball wondered, how many more are waiting for me in the shadows wearing the same signature rings and holding to the standards of extremism? After removing the ring, Kimball examined it with somewhat of a preternatural ability inside the dark. He noted the markings and their suggested ties to Catholicism. Then he concluded that these people did not just show up on his doorstep to exact revenge for what had happened in Washington, D.C. years ago. These people had been sent for. The question was: by whom?
Enclosing his fist over the ring, Kimball made it his personal mission to find out.
Getting to his feet, the Vatican Knight quickly disappeared into the shadows and headed for the bunker at the top of the rise.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Monte Soratte Bunker
30 Miles North of Rome
Shari Cohen could feel the throbbing of the knotty rise against her forehead, something that had turned into awful hues of blues and purples that gave the impression that it was a port-wine stain, a birthmark. On top of that, she had no doubts that she was suffering from the aftermaths of a concussion with mild ringing in her ears, marginal distortions of vision, and nausea. But she was resolved to remain awake, no matter how close she would come to losing consciousness whenever her vision started to fade.
Sitting within the feeble glow of candlelight with her hands bound behind her, Shari spotted the green flare of eyes that watched her from the shadows. The man behind them had no shape or contours. They were simply spectral lights that floated from behind the dark veil.
While Shari was toiling with her flexcuffs—though her efforts were ineffective—the glowing green eyes behind the wall of darkness rose and then hovered,
the operative now on his feet. And then he took a few steps forward to stand along the fringe where darkness and light met. His skeletal face appeared like malefic smoke in the gloom, something that was inherently evil. And his glowing eyes appeared alive and ominous and calculating all at the same time.
“I thought you’d like to know that he’s here,” he said with his metallic sounding voice.
Shari stopped her unsuccessful attempt to free herself to look upon the man who skirted the light. And then she asked: “Who?”
“The sinner.”
“The sinner. I assume you’re talking about Kimball. I don’t suppose he walked right through the front door as you expected him to, did he?”
Silence.
“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t think so.”
“It matters not,” her captor stated. “My team are masters at this type of game. They can use the dark just as well as the sinner. He doesn’t have an exclusive franchise to operate within the shadows as he may think he does.”
Shari went back to struggling against her binds. “You people have no idea what you did or what you’ve called forward, have you? No idea at all.”
“He’s one against few,” returned the automaton voice. “And the few are more than capable of taking him down. Kimball Hayden is a man who bleeds like any other. And though he may have his specialized skillset, he’s not a man to be mythologized as he was in the Middle East. One man alone against four elites still has his limitations.”
“Four against one,” she countered. “The way I see it, the odds seem to favor Kimball. You might want to add another four to level the playing field.”
“You trying to be funny?”
“Do I appear to be in a humorous situation here?”
After a quiet moment, her captor stated evenly, “Be assured that when I say that Kimball Hayden will be sharing the space beside you to beg for your lives, he will be heard, judged, and then condemned for his unpardonable sins.”
Shari shook her head disbelievingly. How could soldiers of military value who once served their country to their fullest ability get caught up in the rhetoric of fanaticism? These were men of strong moral values who had somehow slipped into the perspectives and beliefs that lacked tolerance of what they determined to be alien viewpoints. Anything beyond their thinking was considered a threat; and therefore, an enemy to the core values of the Holy Roman Catholic church. Apparently, extremism had the ability to touch all people of all religions all over the planet. The Nocturnal Saints were no different than those who killed in the name of Allah. The link was always the same, which was to deactivate a threat.
Shari continued to look at the figure who stood along the border between the darkness and the light. While his flaring eyes drew a bead on her, he then guided the mouth of the gun’s barrel slowly in her direction, which did not go unnoticed by Shari.
“Perhaps you will not be judged so harshly,” he told her.
“I see,” she said with a hint of sarcasm. “You think I can be saved, is that it?”
“Most souls are redeemable.”
“You sound lost,” she told him. “And that’s unfortunate.”
“Lost?” The figure shook his skeletal head. “Unfortunate? Nothing is clearer to me or to my associates. Kimball Hayden murdered innocent women and children in what he believed to be just causes. So, you tell me, Ms. Cohen, how does that differ from what’s happening in the Middle East or Africa, where innocent women and children are either bludgeoned to death or hacked to pieces by a machete, for so-called just causes?”
“Kimball is not that man. He hasn’t been for a long time. And not a day goes by that he doesn’t regret his actions. In fact, he sees his victims every night in his dreams. They call to him. And every night I’m there to catch him when he wakes screaming in a cold sweat. I’m his safety net.”
The shape silently stood his ground along the fringe. And then he backed away from the light to take refuge once again in the shadows. All that existed was the pair of glowing lights, the spectral lights, lights that haunted Shari as she tried to undo her binds.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Monte Soratte Bunker
30 Miles North of Rome
Kimball Hayden was a master of his domain and darkness was a familiar companion that was more than an associate to him. It was a necessary appendage like an opposable thumb, and without it would render the hand as virtually useless. So, the shadows made him whole.
He was silent, the man invisible as he moved toward the bunker. As he hunkered down close to the stone-built walls of the shelter, he heard nothing—not the chitter of insects or the footfalls of guards. The silence in itself, Kimball knew, could be as loud and as discordant as a klaxon. The hushed insects and the lack of sentinel movement could be signs that conveyed a predacious presence, he considered. Secondly, this was bolstered by Kimball’s sense that danger lurked nearby, a predator that was offered by the night.
Moving with the utmost caution through the high grass and weeds, Kimball’s senses became stronger and more in tune, like radar, that something dangerous was close by.
He stopped.
He listened.
Nothing.
Yet he could feel the presence as though it was hanging close enough to gather his scent.
Kimball pressed on.
* * *
Shonn McKinley had maintained his post as the second line of defense. After several attempts to contact Stallworth and Bienemy only to receive white noise and static, it didn’t take him long to realize that communication had been sacked for a reason. Both men had served together as Navy SEALs, people who were the best of the best at what they did and who they were. They were also top-notch individuals when it came to warfare with few equals. So, when radio contact disappeared and the channel ran silent, McKinley had no other choice but to consider that both individuals had been deactivated, since radio contact was critical and absolute silence went against the protocols.
McKinley, through the lenses of his Kevlar mask, could see the landscape that was well lit due to the mask’s NVG capabilities. Above him, the stars twinkled with spangles of light as they rotated like chips of diamonds. But in front of him, the surrounding terrain was lime green with every bush, leaf and bent limb of a tree clearly in sight.
Then he spotted movement, a glimmer, and then it was gone.
A moment later and elsewhere, the same thing: a glimmer of something moving within the brush . . . and then gone.
McKinley lifted his Kevlar mask and brought his weapon’s scope to his naked eye. Then he tried to home in on the subject’s last known position by using the scope’s zoom lens, the brush now becoming a close field of study.
Nothing.
Not even the leaves moved to give away the position of whatever it was that roamed about.
McKinley continued to examine his surroundings through his scope and zoomed in to discover little outside of natural growth and trees. And then to the left of the last sighting was the slight movement of a tree limb that was nearly imperceptible, a marginal waver.
So, the Nocturnal Saint homed in and sharpened his focus, something the mask was unable to do from long distance.
And there it was, a glimpse of white against dark with the shape and meaning behind it unmistakable. And then it was gone, like magic; here one second and gone the next. But it was all that McKinley needed to know. What he spotted was the white band of a Roman Catholic collar, the accessory belonging to a Vatican Knight.
The Knight had moved far through the darkness, he considered. But in order to do so, he had to have taken out the first line of defense, which was Stallworth and Bienemy, and a task that was far from easy.
Returning the mask to give him an overall view of the landscape instead of the pinched view through the scope, McKinley started his way towards Kimball for a full-on engagement.
With the stealth of a master warrior, Shonn McKinley, a former Army Ranger who in t
he name of God operated as a soldier of the Nocturnal Saints, began to close the gap between two alpha predators.
* * *
Kimball Hayden could sense the approach of something moving through the brush, a stalker that remained soundless and unseen. Yet Kimball could clearly identify its intention to maim and injure, something that was a true predator who had mastered the technique of stealth.
I know you’re there, Kimball thought.
Yet the surrounding growth remained still, even as something approached him from within.
Kimball raised his appropriated assault rifle and was fully aware of the knife attached to his thigh rig. He had come with nothing as required, the Vatican Knight believing that he may have been under surveillance since he found the recorder on his bunk. But here he was, now fully stocked with weapons.
But will these be enough? he asked himself.
Standing within the growth of waist-high shrubbery, Kimball waited for the lion to pounce.
* * *
“I have him within my sights,” McKinley whispered into the internal lip mic.
Then from Mannix, who was on the other end, “Wound him if you must but don’t kill him. The handler would like to have a word or two with the sinner before final judgment is passed.”
“Copy that.”
McKinley was an expert of stealthy movement. He knew that people were never tracked by tamped down grass or by the stamps of footprints in the soil. Elite soldiers always tracked their subjects by making observances from the waist up, such as broken stems or the redirection of leaves. But in the case of the Vatican Knight, the man was apparently a master of sanitizing his traces. If not for his NVG capabilities, McKinley would not have even seen the Vatican Knight at all.