Vatican Knights

by Jones, Rick

  On the mattresses, still affected by the sedative, the bishops were moving humorously about like corpses in a George Romero film, as they reached mindlessly for the purchase of something not there. On the last mattress lay the governor, a silver thread of drool spilling from the corner of his lips as he lay unmoving.

  “Tomorrow, my dear governor,” whispered Team Leader, “we’ll start with you and write a new chapter of history.” And then he turned to wake his team from their short, but granted time for rest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Washington, D.C.

  September 23, Late Evening

  The distance between the Archdiocese of Washington and the Sacred Hearts Church was less than a mile. The Vatican Knights walked through the soup of an early morning fog, their footfalls quiet and catlike.

  When they arrived, the church’s brownstone walls bore the greasy sheen of wetness. The stained-glass windows emitted a faint glow from candles burning within, flickering with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

  When they stepped inside the church, the fog did not follow, as if the hallowed interior prohibited its wisps. Kimball closed the door, the snicker of the bolt echoing throughout the church.

  The church’s interior was a magnificent blend of Gothic and Baroque design with a few medieval touches. The altar, adorned with alabaster statues of angels and cherubs taking flight above a crucified Christ, served as the focal point. The surrounding rows of pews remained empty and waiting.

  Kneeling before the altar, Father Juan Medeiros, in full vestments, prayed silently with his head bowed, his lips moving and his hands held together. When finished, he gained his feet, gave the sign of the cross, and turned toward the Vatican Knights, who stood in the shadows by the archway.

  “How can I help you at so late an hour, my brothers?”

  Kimball stepped into the sallow light, the candles’ flames throwing odd shadows along the walls as he and the other Knights made their way to the altar.

  “You would be Cardinal Medeiros?” asked Kimball.

  Medeiros came forward and lifted the sleeve of his cleric robe to offer a hand. “Kimball Hayden. I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

  “And this is my unit.”

  Cardinal Medeiros smiled, his face hardly seamed by age. “Yes, of course,” he acknowledged. He observed the Knights’ black berets, each bearing an embroidered coat of arms, the symbol of their unit.

  “Please,” he said, pointing toward the rear of the altar, “this way. We’ve much to do and talk about.”

  The Knights followed the priest through a warren of hallways to a door. Crossing the threshold, they descended a staircase, then maneuvered through a dank corridor cluttered with discarded furniture destined for Goodwill Industries. Finally, they halted before a metal fire door.

  “No doubt Cardinal Vessucci has told you of my position here in the States.”

  Kimball shook his head. “Only that we were to contact you for intel, nothing more.”

  The cardinal felt slighted at being identified as “nothing more” than an intel source, but he said nothing.

  To the left of the fire door, Cardinal Medeiros typed in a numeric code on a keypad, which drew back an electronic bolt. When the door opened, the men descended another set of stairs leading into sepulchral darkness. With every step the air became noticeably cooler and damper, carrying the smell of must and earth. At the bottom of the stairwell was a brownstone wall with several outcroppings of fieldstone arranged like diamonds set within a pendant. Prudently, Cardinal Medeiros began to push certain stones while ignoring others, causing the false wall to slide inward and grate against the concrete floor.

  “The stones act as a combination,” he said. “It’s a safeguard against unwanted entry. Very few people are authorized to see what’s in this room.”

  Once the wall closed behind them, the darkness becoming complete, Cardinal Medeiros called out a voice command and tracks of bright fluorescent light flicked on, illuminating a room with antiseptically clean white walls. Behind numerous glass cases were a displayed range of weapons, from handguns to automatic rifles. Some of these were modified firearms, unrecognizable even to Kimball, who considered himself an authority on weaponry.

  Kimball and the rest of the team moved toward the displays, mesmerized by the quantity of weapons. In several display cases were state-of-the-art Kevlar vests, engineered with fiber resilient enough to stop high-caliber bullets. In the center of each vest was the embroidered coat of arms of the Vatican Knights. Other cases held headgear, laser sights, double-edged weapons, gadgetry and attachments. To the company of soldiers, the chamber seemed more like a museum than an armory.

  “This, my friends, is what I do,” said Medeiros. He walked along the displays with satisfaction. “You’ll find that for this mission the HK XM8 with the baseline carbine and common side-loading 40-millimeter X320 grenade launcher will suffice. The weapon can be quickly modified to a compact carbine, a sharpshooter variant, or an automatic rifle, depending upon your needs. The only drawback is that you must carry all the segments with you to make the necessary adjustments.”

  Kimball examined the myriad displays of weaponry and turned to Medeiros. “You engineered these?”

  “Not the HK XM8,” he answered. “But most of the others that you see here.” The priest traced a finger along a glass case featuring his designs. “Like you, Kimball, I am a former covert operator, but now my skills are employed to craft the instruments you use.” And then he sighed, almost dreamily. “My years of soldiering are long behind me.” Kimball thought he picked up a sorrowful hint in the man’s tone. “Now I engineer weapons of defense for the Society of Seven.”

  “I didn’t know the Society of Seven had any say in weapons development.”

  “I’m sure there’s a lot that goes on within the Vatican that you and I don’t know about,” Medeiros said. Then, after sliding back a glass panel to access the HK XM8s, he said, “As you know, the Society of Seven is the Pope’s true line of defense. Although the Swiss Guard is the official army that protects the fortress of the Vatican, it is the Vatican Knights who are considered a very special group with very special needs. Therefore…” He let his words trail as he held out his hand toward the exhibit. “Your special needs.”

  Suddenly, the cardinal became somber. “If the pope is killed,” he said gravely, “the world will truly be divided.”

  Kimball understood. If the pope was killed, he would become a martyr, dividing Christians and Muslims, almost certainly triggering retaliatory attacks, and putting people of all faiths in danger.

  “For the sake of everybody on this planet, Kimball, bring him back.”

  “I will.”

  Within an hour the Knights had received their equipment and learned to break down and reassemble the modified HK XM8 with little effort. When his team was geared and ready, Kimball proffered a hand to Cardinal Medeiros.

  “Remember, Kimball, do what is necessary to accomplish our goal . . . bring him back.” Medeiros lowered his hand. His face now appeared haggard beneath the lights, the deepening shadows under his eyes giving him the look of a man aging by the minute.

  “Now for the details,” said Medeiros. “The powers that be have assigned Billy Paxton of the FBI to negotiate with the Soldiers of Islam, but our sources say that Shari Cohen is the true head of the investigation over at the Bureau. She’s the one you need to contact, Kimball. She’s the one you need to create an alliance with.” Medeiros handed over a dossier. “Everything you need to know about her is in there.”

  Kimball glanced over the pages of text, then over the eight-by-ten photo. He noted Shari’s almond-shaped eyes, her smooth features, and how her widow’s peak came to a point on her forehead. After a moment, he closed the file.

  “God be with you, Kimball. And good luck.”

  In a unified act, each Vatican Knight placed a closed fist over his heart, bowed his head, and got on bended knee. “Loyalty above all else,” they said, “except Honor.
”

  With another blessing from Cardinal Medeiros, the Vatican Knights left the church, disappearing into a living fog that immediately enveloped them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Tel Aviv, Israel

  September 24, Early Morning

  It was night.

  Yosef Rokach sat before his PC in the darkness of his apartment, the light of the monitor casting ghoulish shadows upon his face. During the six hours he sat before the computer, trying to decode the encryptions on the data stick, Yosef’s studious eyes hardly looked away from the screen.

  On average, it took approximately two hours to decode a single page of data, leaving three pages remaining, which would take him into the dawn hours. So far he had been able to bring up photos of the Soldiers of Islam and their personal histories—low-level material. In fact, this same material had already been forwarded to multiple intelligence agencies that day. So why would such data be protected by the LAP?

  With rapid fingering on the keyboard, Yosef undid the visible stitching and continued to open the cyber gates, producing readable material.

  And then the first of the security lights came on, blinking.

  A security screen to the right of the PC monitor was divided into quarters, showing a different part of the residence on each segment. The top left portion showed three men scaling the small gate to his building, which was always kept locked. The second security lamp lit up. The intruders were now at the front door of the building, one hunkering by the lock to disengage it.

  Yosef typed even faster, realizing that he wouldn’t have time to decipher the rest of the encryption. He saved the partially decoded document onto his desktop.

  The third security lamp began to blink, the intruders now in the hallway making their way up the stairs to his apartment.

  Yosef quickly brought up the email addresses of Washington’s FBI office and the CIA and attached the desktop document. As the file uploaded, the computer suddenly appeared to work with glacial slowness. The message, when received by the American constituencies, would be from a Mossad ISP address in order to protect the identity of the operative. Mossad would appear as the direct sender.

  The fourth and final lamp lit, the amber bulb blinking in rapid succession. The intruders were now milling at his doorstep, their voices hushed, talking, deciding.

  Just as the document loaded, Yosef hit the SEND button.

  At that moment, the door to his apartment crashed inward.

  After hitting the reset button to quickly clear the computer screen, Yosef stood to face his aggressors. “What is this? What do you want?”

  Three men stood silhouetted against the light of the hallway.

  “I demand to know—”

  “What you demand means nothing to me,” said the first man. Even silhouetted, the man appeared slight—hardly a physical threat, but his voice possessed something strong and unyielding.

  The small man stepped closer, his features clearer. His hair was dark and his face was lined with age and wisdom, the creases also denoting years of pain, anger and persecution. Here stood Yitzhak Paled, head of the Lohamah Psichlogit.

  “How much did you decipher?” he asked calmly. “And who did you send it to?”

  Yosef shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talk—”

  Paled reached out with a quick hand and cuffed Yosef in the face. “How much did you decipher?” he repeated. “And who did you send it to?”

  Yosef stood there with his hand to his face, the thrill of espionage no longer a romantic ideal, as reality set in like an anchor. His gut was churning.

  “If I have to ask you again, Yosef, which I doubt is your real name, then I’ll break every bone in your body until I get what I want, starting with your fingers. Is that clear?”

  Yosef didn’t respond, his tongue bound by paralytic terror.

  “Case in point,” said Paled, removing three Polaroids from his shirt pocket and splaying them across the table in the glow of the computer monitor. Even in the feeble light, Yosef could see the brutally battered face of his LAP contact, David Gonick. His features were bloodied, his mouth slightly agape, teeth missing. His eyes had rolled up into their sockets before he died. “He was caught on tape dropping the data off on your level,” Paled added. “And you were caught on tape picking it up.”

  Yosef’s eyes traveled back to the photos.

  “If I don’t get what I want, Yosef, then I’ll be adding three more Polaroids to this set.”

  Yosef broke down. Some spy, he thought, crying like a ten-year-old child. But he held true, revealing nothing, even until the moment Paled took Yosef’s pictures to add to his collection.

  Spurred on by a single hand gesture from Paled, the two toadies grabbed Yosef and forcefully ushered him out of his apartment.

  “If you play, Yosef, then you have to pay.” It was Paled’s final statement to a man who held no hope of seeing dawn’s early light as he had anticipated.

  With a gloved hand Paled shut off the security monitors and wondered who Yosef’s liaisons were. To find out, he would take the PC, examine it at Mossad Headquarters, and get the answer that way.

  Once he did find out, he’d instruct Mossad’s department heads to deny everything on the document to all United States constituencies, especially the FBI and CIA.

  Removing the data stick from the PC, Paled examined it, turning it over between his fingers as adeptly as a magician passes a coin from one digit to the next. It was incredible how something so small could hold enough information to start a war, he considered. Then, with little effort, he snapped the data stick between his fingers and placed the broken pieces in his pocket.

  #

  One of Shari’s team members heard the annoying ping indicating that an email had been received. Taking immediate notice that it had been sent to the FBI and the CIA, she burned the document onto two CDs. Per protocol, she then deleted the email to minimize the risk of misappropriation by hackers, despite the FBI’s state-of-the-art firewalls and anti-theft software. She marked one CD to be placed into the vault as a backup file.

  The other CD was placed into a jewel case marked VITAL and hand delivered to Shari’s team leader, who, after signing the chain of custody log, hand delivered it to Shari per departmental procedure.

  Within moments, Shari was in possession of the disc that initiated from Tel Aviv.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.

  September 24, Early Morning

  Laces of red stitching had formed within the whites of Shari Cohen’s eyes. Not even her fourth cup of coffee was strong enough to drive away the exhaustion, as she operated on compulsion and willpower alone. The only thing that kept her motivated was her direct communication with national and international intelligence agencies, including the DST from France, the SIS from Britain, the BND from Germany, the AISI from Italy, the SVR and FSB from Russia and, of course, Mossad. Not a single moment was wasted.

  “So now what?”

  Shari turned to Paxton, whose face sported the beginning of a new beard. “Go home,” she told him. “Get some sleep.”

  “And miss the biggest day of your career?”

  She immediately picked up the undertone of sarcasm. “Look, this wasn’t my call, okay? So get over it. If you can’t, then take it up with the attorney general or deputy director.”

  Paxton stared her down for a brief moment before turning away. “I’m just tired,” he said. It was a poor cop out, but he didn’t care.

  Shari glanced at her watch; it was 6:15, a new day.

  The conference room staff, in communication with Mossad throughout the night, remained at full force. The emailed encryptions given to Shari regarding the Soldiers of Islam were at best incomplete.

  According to the compiled dossiers, the Soldiers of Islam were only marginally capable of any type of military sophistication. Although they did spend time training in al-Qaeda camps, they were primarily groomed for their computer ex
pertise. Their central purpose was to search for soft spots in the American defense system and then relay those weaknesses to their superiors for possible exploitation.

  Paxton saw the wheels turning. “Got something?”

  Deep lines of deliberation creased Shari’s forehead. “The Soldiers of Islam,” she said, “or at least what we know of them, doesn’t make any sense.”

  “How so?”

  “You read the files, the dossiers. These guys are computer geeks. They hardly have the military capacity to take out the president’s Special Security Force.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe Mossad doesn’t have all the answers?”

  Shari shook her head. “Mossad is legendary,” she said, “and thorough. I don’t think these files are incomplete. I think we have everything there is to know about the Soldiers of Islam.”

  “Meaning what?”

  She chewed softly on her lower lip for a moment before answering. “I don’t know; I’m not sure. I just don’t see these guys, outnumbered as they were, taking out such a highly trained force. I just don’t.”

  Paxton leaned forward and rubbed his raw, fatigued eyes. “Well, apparently they did.”

  Shari wasn’t totally confident in this assessment.

  Paxton loosened the knot of his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “Maybe you should head home for a bit,” he told her. “I’ll call you if we hear anything.”

  “Sure you don’t want to go home?”

  “Positive. There’s no point in both of us falling asleep on the job, right?”

  She feigned a smile. “I guess.” She gathered the files and placed the recently-burned CD into its jewel case.

  “Where’re going to need those,” he said.

  Shari shook her head. “I’m going to the DHS Building to see if they can help me with these encryptions.”