Vatican Knights

by Jones, Rick

  Team Leader reached down and grabbed a thatch of the governor’s hair, forcing his head in line with the camera, a pre-established cue for Boa to zoom in and capture the governor’s terrified features.

  “Governor Steele is to be our first moral sacrifice,” Team Leader said. “A sacrifice which, in the eyes of Allah, is justified to gain what is right.”

  Team Leader released the governor, who fell to the floor in a fetal position. From the camera’s right side, Kodiak entered the video and lifted the sobbing Steele back into a kneeling position, then disappeared once again beyond camera range.

  Team Leader stood behind the governor and brandished a pistol. Within view of the camera, he securely attached a suppressor and held the gun by his side.

  The governor barked something undecipherable, then pleaded for his life, first calling on God, then on his assassin. “Please don’t do this,” he said. “Please.”

  Team Leader pressed the mouth of the barrel against Steele’s temple. “This is because your government is a lying whore dog,” he said.

  At that moment, the governor doubled over, a writhing, sobbing mass. Team Leader grabbed him by the collar of his pajama top and yanked him back into a kneeling position. Then, with one deft move, he grabbed a hank of the governor’s hair and forced his head back, making it compulsory for the governor to look deep into his assassin’s eyes.

  The governor didn’t understand Arabic, but the intentions behind the Team Leader’s words rang clear. “Please,” he whispered. “Don’t.”

  The hatred within the assassin’s eyes seemed to fade, with perhaps a softening in judgment, but Team Leader acted without conscience and pulled the trigger. The Sig went off in a muted report as the governor’s head snapped hard to the direction of the shot, then recoiled. With a detached gaze, the governor continued to kneel there as if deciding whether or not he was dead. When the governor fell hard against the floorboards, Boa zoomed in to catch the blood pooling in a halo around his head.

  Team Leader stepped back into the camera’s frame, the weapon by his side, the mouth of the barrel smoking, a dramatic effect.

  Off camera, Kodiak dragged the governor’s body from the stage and began wrapping it in plastic sheeting and duct tape. On camera, Team Leader continued his address.

  In perfect Arabic he reiterated the policy of “no discussions, no debates and no negotiations.” If their demands weren’t met in a timely fashion, the pope would be executed for the sins of the Great Satan.

  The message was clear. Allah required that every last man, woman and child not of Arab heritage be eliminated from Arab lands. In Allah’s eyes, the blood of Arabs is sacred, the blood of all others expendable.

  Boa rewound the tape, ejected it from the camera and handed it to Team Leader.

  “It’s absolutely necessary,” he told Boa, “for this to work. We must all share the same passion. If we’re without a shared passion, the cause will founder.”

  Boa and Kodiak understood. If they didn’t become dehumanized, they would fail.

  Looking down at the body, neither showed any evidence of remorse.

  #

  Shari Cohen stayed active in the Operations Room trying to glean current information from the Italian, Russian, French, and German intelligence agencies. So far nothing had come from the Islamic sources residing in those countries besides praise for the Soldiers of Islam, which only fueled her frustration. She was trying to track something that seemed to have no substance.

  Needing time alone to regroup her thoughts, she returned to her office when the phone began to ring. “Special Agent Cohen.”

  Pappandopolous’s bass-heavy voice was unmistakable. “Paxton’s about to address the nation on behalf of the president,” he said, “and the attorney general wants you to sit up and take notice. When Paxton gets off the dais, the AG wants you to take over the reins.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Just watch,” he said. “You got a couple of minutes before Paxton goes on.” He abruptly hung up.

  She placed the receiver back into its cradle and rubbed her eyes. Looking into a full-length mirror on the wall and not liking what she saw, she retrieved a brush and compact from her purse and did a cursory makeover. After trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her skirt that had grown into pleats, she gave up and went to the luncheon area where TV screens projected from every corner of the room.

  Billy Paxton appeared on each monitor, looking polished. He wore a fresh shirt and tie, the colors matching, a dark blue tie against a baby blue shirt. His hair no doubt had been coiffed by an on-site stylist.

  Once at the podium he went into the scripted diatribe against the Soldiers of Islam. He revealed who they were, where their cell group initiated from, their backgrounds, and then the photographs of the six remaining terrorists.

  Shari was pleased. Now the Soldiers of Islam could no longer hide behind their masks.

  For thirty minutes Shari watched Billy Paxton take center stage before returning to her office, her mind racing, only for her thoughts to come to a startling halt when she saw Punch Murdock sitting in her office. She recognized the man by his broken nose, the appendage leaning noticeably to one side of his face.

  “Can I help you?”

  Murdock stood holding his hat in one hand and a manila envelope in the other. “Ms. Cohen?”

  “Yes.”

  Murdock smiled and gave a perfunctory nod in greeting. “My name is Marion Murdock,” he said. “I’m here because—”

  “Punch Murdock,” she interrupted.

  His smile broadened. “You know of me?”

  “Of course.” She held her hand out to him.

  “Oh, yes.” He laid his hat on the chair and took her hand warmly. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you,” he told her. “I’ve always heard about the great things you’ve done for the department over the years.”

  “And the same goes for you,” she said. “I’ve finally met the man behind the myth.”

  Murdock nodded, his face flushing just a bit. “I think perhaps the legacy has been embellished,” he informed her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “The word in the White House corridors is that you’re the real deal.”

  All of a sudden the man’s smile left him, making him difficult to read. “Not anymore,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve heard about my detail?”

  She nodded. “I have. And I’m sorry for the families who have lost a loved one. Please accept my condolences. I know it’s never easy to lose team members who have become friends.”

  “They were good people. They didn’t deserve this.”

  “Nobody deserves something like this.”

  Then, pointing to the seat where he had just laid his hat, Murdock asked if he could sit down.

  “I’m sorry—yes, of course. Please, have a seat.”

  After removing his hat from the chair and placing it on the corner of Cohen’s desk, Murdock handed her the manila envelope.

  “What’s this?”

  “CSI reports regarding the findings within the Governor’s Mansion and the complete and extensive dossiers on the Soldiers of Islam. I understand you’re to be privy to all the facts. And just to let you know, Ms. Cohen, the president has the same set of paperwork, as does the attorney general and the other responding agencies who want to know where the blame lies so they can cover their asses.”

  She looked directly into his eyes and noted the solemn despair behind them. “I’m truly sorry for the loss of your team,” she said.

  “I appreciate it, but you know as well as I do that all political fingers will be pointing in my direction. That’s the business we’re in, Ms. Cohen. So that legacy you alluded to earlier seems a bit less meaningful, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not your fault, Punch. You weren’t even there.”

  “That’s the point. As team leader on such an important detail, I should have been.”

  Shari observed the classical signs of survivor’s guilt.
“Nobody knew this was going to happen.”

  “Of course not, and that’s why my team became complacent. They should have been better prepared. And if I had been there, they would’ve been.” He raised his hand as if to apologize for his sudden rise in volume. “I’m not yelling at you,” he said. “I’m just frustrated, that’s all.”

  He then pointed to the envelope in her hand. “You’ll probably want time alone to read that over,” he added. “So I’ll be on my way.” He stood, grabbing the fedora off her desk. “I just wanted to meet the Shari Cohen that I’ve heard so much about,” he added.

  She smiled. “You’re very kind.”

  At that point he raised a finger, indicating one last thing. “As a courtesy to me,” he began, “and since the hammer is about to fall on me because of the failure of my detail, all I ask is that you keep me in the loop if you should come across anything.”

  Shari hesitated, her shoulders slumping in apology.

  Murdock understood. “Don’t worry. Nobody wants to jeopardize his own career by dealing with damaged goods,” he stated, putting on his hat. “I can’t blame you.”

  “It’s not like that at all.”

  “Really.”

  “Protocol dictates that we deal only with the agencies directly involved in this matter, for fear of misappropriation. You know that.”

  Murdock feigned a smile. “It’s nothing personal, Ms. Cohen. I was just asking for a favor, and I fully understand your position. I probably would have done the same if I was in your shoes.” Before closing the door behind him he made one last remark. “I was told to bring that report to you because it appears I have been relegated to the role of gofer. So much for the myth you were talking about earlier,” he said. “I guess you’re only as good as you were the day before. So be careful, Ms. Cohen. Even though you’re a legend today, you may be a has-been tomorrow. Have a good day.”

  After he closed the door she opened the flap and took out a manuscript at least seventy pages thick.

  She began to read. The report covered every aspect of the crime scene testing.

  Only indigenous prints had been found; however, there was absolute proof that some areas had been sanitized. She had to wonder why the Soldiers of Islam had concealed some facets of the slaughter and then deliberately left behind the bodies of al-Hashrie and al-Bashrah as a calling card.

  She then cross-referenced the dossiers with the assassins’ methods. The president’s men had been murdered either by garrote or by well-placed kill shots, methods of specially-trained assassins. Yet the dossiers of the Soldiers of Islam stated that they had gone through nothing more than basic training. Even if she assumed that their basic training was a precursor to more specialized military training, the facts did not add up. According to the timeline, after their basic training was completed, they were immediately shipped off to the States to become computer jockeys for recruitment purposes and cyber spying. They were not soldiers of elite status.

  Yet they were.

  She closed her eyes. Nothing seemed to make sense. After reading the report in its entirety and finding other evidence of sanitation, all she could do was nibble on her lower lip in bewilderment.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The wrapped body of the governor had been placed in the false bottom of the cargo hold. Team Leader drove the vehicle southbound on Route 1 without complication. The roadblocks had thinned considerably since their northward trip, the troops having been redistributed to more centralized positions near D.C.

  Apparently, that was where the body politic assumed the Soldiers of Islam to be. Team Leader found himself unable to dispel the preamble of a smile that was forming on his face.

  By nightfall he reached the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and drove the vehicle into a storage unit large enough to hold the truck and a sedan. Team Leader lifted the corpse from the hold and placed the body in the trunk of the diplomat-registered car. Once done, he checked the packaged video of the governor’s execution to make sure everything was neat and untraceable then drove away from the facility.

  Since D.C.’s populace is strictly a workforce, the streets had emptied by eight o’clock. By ten o’clock it was a ghost town.

  Team Leader then drove the sedan to M Street where he parked on the top floor of a parking garage, tucked the video into an inner pocket of his combat fatigues, and took the stairs to the entrance to rendezvous with his contact.

  As he waited in darkness, police cruisers made their rounds, which was why he hadn’t parked the sedan outside. A car bearing diplomatic tags parked along M street at such a late hour would only draw suspicion.

  “You’re getting sloppy,” a voice said.

  Team Leader turned and drew a stiletto with the quickness and agility of a cat. An eight-inch blade shot from the hilt, the point directed at Judas’ throat.

  “Take it easy,” Judas said, throwing up his hands. “No need to get your bowels in an uproar.”

  Team Leader pressed the knifepoint into Judas’ throat and indented the flesh. “Do that again, Judas, and I will kill you. I don’t care what your position is or what Yahweh will think when I tell him why I cut your throat.”

  Judas backed away from the knife. “Relax.”

  “You’re a lucky man.” The blade fell back into the hilt and Team Leader packed it away.

  “You’re still getting sloppy,” Judas told him. “Letting an old man like me creep up on you.”

  Team Leader curbed his anger and removed the keys to the sedan from his pocket. “You know where the car is,” he said. “You know what to do.”

  “How come I get all the crap jobs?”

  Team Leader couldn’t see Judas’ face, obscured as it was by the brim of his hat and the deep shadows. “You do it for ten million reasons. I do it for only one. And in this case, my one outweighs your ten million.”

  Judas accepted the keys. “What about the video?”

  “Yahweh wants to see it before we send it off to the proper authorities.”

  “That’s macabre-ish of him.” Judas slowly backed into the shadows and was gone, silent, quick, and wraithlike.

  Team Leader worked the muscles in the back of his jaw, admonishing himself for letting a man like Judas sneak up on him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Washington, D.C. Tidal Basin

  September 25, Early Morning

  Unlocking the sedan and opening the door, Judas was met by the faint odor of body rot. As he descended the levels of the garage, he decided on his route to the Tidal Basin, the path of least resistance. He wanted to scope the area to see if it was heavy with law enforcement.

  He paid the garage fee and drove west, then north, making sure he kept below the posted speed limit and used his blinker at every turn. Driving along South Capitol Street to Independence Avenue, he turned east, then north, passing the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court. After making a single pass and sighting no one, he moved south to Independence, then west to the Tidal Basin.

  The time was now 2:17 a.m.

  Judas drove to the Basin and parked the vehicle right at the water’s edge.

  After placing the vehicle in PARK, he moved quickly to the rear of the sedan, opened the trunk, and pulled the governor’s body to the ground. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, Judas feverishly peeled away the plastic wrap that covered the governor. As he pulled back the plastic, his nostrils were assaulted by the stench of death. Disgusted, he tossed the materials back into the trunk.

  Standing over the exposed body, Judas hardly recognized the man. The governor’s pajamas stretched too tight across his flesh, the methane gas build-up beneath the tissues bloating the body. The fluid in his skull provided pressure so great that the eyes bulged fantastically from their orbital sockets. And his skin, having marbled, held the purple arterial lines of lividity, marking the regions where the blood had ceased to circulate. To Judas, the governor didn’t even come close to resembling the person he was when he was alive.

&n
bsp; Cupping his gloved hands beneath the governor’s arms, Judas dragged him to the edge of the Tidal Basin and set him sailing across the water, the body floating dreamily across the surface from the gases still trapped in his lungs and tissue.

  After checking the area thoroughly for anything he may have left behind, Judas got into the vehicle and worked his way northbound.

  #

  Yahweh sat at the upper echelon of the American political pecking order, one of the most powerful men in the world. In the light of day, he was beloved by the people, devoted to his country, and willing to fight for the cause of justice. But in the darkness he was corrupt and vile, willing to do anything necessary to achieve his own aims, even if that meant bypassing the laws he was sworn to protect and killing innocent people.

  As far as Yahweh was concerned, the pope was a pawn in his scheme—a man whose death would usher out the ways of old and serve as a new beginning. Regrettably, he saw no other way.

  Yahweh was a man who catered to the public and reveled in their cheer. He found no excitement in the obscurity of clandestine meetings. But Team Leader insisted that all matters pertaining to the cause be discussed in a sterilized environment, free of any type of surveillance. A federal limo in constant motion apparently fit the bill.

  Yahweh’s chauffer drove his black Fleetwood to the front of the M Street garage and stopped. The limo’s door opened in invitation, and Team Leader stepped inside, taking a seat opposite Yahweh in the darkness.

  “Is it done?” asked Yahweh.

  Team Leader nodded. “Judas is dealing with the governor’s body as we speak.”

  “Good.” Yahweh’s voice remained impassive. “And was it quick?”

  “What?”

  “The killing.”

  “Of course.”