by Rick Jones
The landing before the stairwell went up in a fireball explosion. Bodies were carried through the air like rag dolls, all weightless, the terrorists landing in a neat and equal distance from the center of the grenade’s explosion. Jeremiah repeated the process by reloading the weapon within a split moment, took aim, and fired off a second round, this time further from the stairwell and into the distant shadows.
Another fireball, red and orange and yellow, erupting upward like the cap of a mushroom until the ceiling of the room halted any further rise. More bodies took flight as arms and legs pin-wheeled through space with men screaming and dying, their cries no longer calling out to Allah, but merely crying out.
Jeremiah reloaded as he descended the stairwell.
Another shot.
Another explosion.
Shapes that once hid in the shadows were falling back, running, with some firing their weapons wildly as they ran, the rounds not even close to the intended target of the Vatican Knight.
...Whumph...
...BAM!...
Another explosion that rocked the repository.
Jeremiah pressed on.
* * *
In the darkness of his chamber, the shape that was blacker than black continued to sit as gunfire went on all around him. He did not appear fazed by the action, nor did he respond with jolts every time the building shook from grenades that were strong enough to shake the repository’s foundation, or the beams that supported it. He sat there with one leg crossed over the other in leisure, as if he was listening to an old LP recording from a gramophone with the quality of music that was tinny and whinny. The floor shook beneath him, as did the walls and ceiling around him. Yet he continued to sit there and listen, the immovable shape taking everything in with absorption.
More gunfire.
More explosions.
In the shadows, the man waited for the finale.
* * *
Leviticus, Isaiah and Ecclesiastes began to backpedal with a sense of urgency, while Jeremiah was creating the advantage to escape. Just as they were about to hit the landing before the staircase, the floor around them erupted, the level first rising, then dipping before it disappeared altogether, the Vatican Knights then falling to the level below. Rolling smoke and dust circled in cloyingly thick clouds as the air became congested with particles. As Leviticus tried to regroup his thoughts while laying on a pile of debris, he looked upward to see that the ceiling, once the floor, had been blown by charges specifically placed to destroy the entire landing. Everything had been planned to the finest detail, he considered. The Vatican Knights were allowed to enter by the only means granted, but their means of escape had been cut off.
We never had a chance, he thought.
Then he looked to his left where Isaiah lay, his chest rising and falling in even rhythm, the man alive but unconscious. The same with Ecclesiastes to his right, the man down and out but still alive. Further examination revealed that they had fallen into a walled-up chamber with no method of escape. And the breach was at least twelve-feet above them.
Grimacing against the pain in his right arm, Leviticus tapped his lip mic:
“Jeremiah.”
“Go.”
“The unit is down. I repeat, the unit is down. Meet up with Roman and vacate the area ASAP.”
There was a slight hesitation before Jeremiah answered. “Where are you?” he asked.
“That’s negative, soldier. You are to meet up with Roman and vacate the area as ordered. Is that clear?”
Reluctantly from Jeremiah: “Yes, sir.”
Then from Leviticus in a tone that was much softer and less demanding, he said: “Godspeed to you, Jeremiah. Make the Vatican proud.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Out.”
After tapping the mic off Leviticus looked upward. Through the dissipating smoke he saw a half dozen terrorists standing along the edge with their weapons directed at him. Feeling a darkness springing in from the edges of his sight, Leviticus finally gave in to it and lost consciousness.
* * *
When Jeremiah created a pathway out of the repository, he heard an explosion not of his making. Then when Leviticus ordered him to vacate the premise and to drive himself forward, he knew that the team had been lost. Even with all the weapons he carried, he knew he could not be their salvation, which was something Leviticus already knew. Beneath the moonlight, Jeremiah raced across the landscape with rounds being fired from the windows of the repository. The bullets, however, missing by a wide margin as tufts of dirt coughed up several meters from his position from the strikes. Once he reached the berm, once he crested the hill, he spotted Roman lying on his back with his eyes looking skyward and his mouth moving in mute protest. The Vatican Knight had been butchered, his legs missing just above his knees. It was a macabre calling card to Jeremiah that he was not alone, the message clearly stating that they had been waiting for him in the shadows, the insurgents emerging from the surrounding veils of darkness with Roman serving as a distraction.
Roman’s eyes shifted in his sockets, the man wading through shock and cold, and pinned Jeremiah with a stare, one of pointed warning. “Behind you ...Four
...Waiting for you.”
Jeremiah pivoted quickly on the balls of his feet, saw the shapes within the moonlight, advancing. He saw the sword that had separated Roman’s legs from his body, could see the keen edge of its blade, even in the silver light, as the insurgent wielded it. Jeremiah raised his grenadier and got off a single shot. A grenade launched and exploded against the desert floor, the blast powerful enough to send two terrorists airborne while losing their own limbs, which, at least to Jeremiah, was divine justification for what they did to Roman. Since the grenadier had to be loaded after every discharge, Jeremiah did not have time to reseat another grenade inside the chamber; nor did he have time to turn the weapon against the man to his left, the one with the sword. The blade came across in a blinding arc, the metal of the sword’s blade striking the assault weapon and coughing up sparks, with embers dancing in space and quickly dying off. Then the hostile in black came across again in a horizontal slash, a skilled swordsmen, only for Jeremiah to deflect the blow.
Metal continued to strike metal.
Additional sparks erupted.
Then the strikes started to come fast and furious as Jeremiah backed away from the blows while unknowingly drawing closer to the second insurgent, who was also holding a sword. Two cats at play with a mouse it appeared, the toying of the prey as both men seemed to be smiling with malicious amusement.
“Jeremiah,” Roman’s voice was raspy and weak, “behind you.”
But Jeremiah sensed the man, could feel his presence by the power of a sixth sense that was wired into every good soldier. As the attacking terrorist brought his sword across in a horizontal direction, Jeremiah ducked beneath the sweeping blow, could feel the graze of the blade against his scalp, a bare caress, and swung his leg out to cut the man’s feet out from under him. The terrorist grunted as he became upended, his feet suddenly skyward as the back of his head hit the ground first, and hard, the man suddenly seeing the flashing spiral of internal stars. As the second terrorist descended with his sword held high, Jeremiah was able to swing his grenadier around and engage the automatic firing. The weapon immediately erupted, the night flaring with muzzle flashes as the air became heavy with the scent of gunpowder. Though many rounds had struck center mass, a wound had opened the man’s face like the blooming petals of a rose, the kill shot that smashed the terrorist off his feet and to the ground. Then in an act that was purely born from instinct and self-preservation, Jeremiah pressed the mouth of the barrel against the chest of the first assailant before he could gather himself, and pulled the trigger.
After the echoes died away, there was nothing but silence.
Jeremiah immediately went to Roman’s aid and saw that the cuts had been clean, the edge of the sword apparently having been honed to a scalpel’s sharpness, with both legs set in
a standing position to one side in a sick and perverse display by those who had taken them. While looking up occasionally to see if the enemy was advancing from the repository, Jeremiah tied off Roman’s wounds by using whatever he could use as tourniquets.
“You’re going to be all right,” Jeremiah told him. Even in the gray light, Jeremiah could see that Roman was beginning to blanch from shock. “You hang in there,
Roman, you hear me?”
Roman nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said weakly. “The fire fight in the repository ...I was trying to get a fix on the windows to provide aid. I never heard them coming ...I failed as a Vatican Knight.”
“You failed at nothing,” Jeremiah returned, tying the tourniquet. “This was a set up. They were waiting for us. And the Intel was wrong because this wasn’t a typical cell. It was a regiment with military sophistication.”
Roman’s eyes started to flutter, showing nothing but slivers of white.
Jeremiah jarred him. “Hang with me, Roman. We’re getting out of here.”
After running a dry tongue over drier lips, Roman asked: “The others?”
Jeremiah, however, did not answer him. Instead, he hoisted Roman off the ground and to his back. Then he carried a legless Roman off into the shadows and to a Jeep that was hidden beneath a camouflage net two clicks away.
CHAPTER FOUR
––––––––
The man didn’t have to wait long inside the shadows of his chamber when the door opened and Hassan Maloof walked in with three prisoners, who were bound at the wrists with their hands behind their backs. After being forced to their knees, Hassan stood back with the rest of his armed team. The man who was blacker than black appeared to be looking elsewhere, almost unaware of their presence. Then after a long moment he faced them, though his features remained hidden by the darkness. “I see by the Roman Catholic collar you wear as part of your uniform, and the emblem on your shirt, that you’re Vatican Knights, yes?” His voice was calm and even, like a scholarly professor. “The signature of the powder-blue shield with the Silver Cross Pattée as its center, along with the heraldic lions supporting the shield from both sides ...is this not the symbol of your organization?” he asked further.
None of the Vatican Knights answered.
Nevertheless, the man waited patiently. Then finally: “Your silence will benefit you little if you avoid my questions. You do realize this, don’t you?”
“What is it that you want?” Leviticus asked.
“Why did you come here? Did you come for the cardinal?”
“What do you think?”
“I think, Vatican Knight, that you failed your mission.” The black figure leaned closer, but avoided the light. “And you failed miserably.” Then he eased back into his seat. “I’ve heard so much about the Vatican Knights. How they were an elite force of commandos rivaled by no one. Yet here you are, kneeling at my feet.”
“Did you kill the cardinal?” asked Leviticus.
“He lives,” said the shape, “since the ransom on his head still stands.”
“And us?”
“That is the question now, isn’t it?” And then: “But first I need to know your value?”
“Value?”
“Yes,” said the Shadowman. “I need to know your value. So tell me, Vatican Knight, tell me about the man I seek. The one who is said to walk through a wall of fire as if he was a part of it, rather than to be repelled by the heat of its flames.”
Leviticus didn’t have a clue as to what the shape was alluding to.
Then from the man in the shadows: “Are you he?”
“Am I who? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Leviticus.
The man seemed to nod at this, his head a black orb moving up and down, slowly. “Are you the one?” he asked again, and patiently.
“Who?”
“The priest who is not a priest. The one who is an angel to some and a demon to others.”
And then it occurred to Leviticus and to the rest of the Vatican Knights that the man in the shadows was referring to Kimball Hayden.
“No,” said Leviticus. “I am not. None of us are. If he was a part of this mission, I can say to you with confidence that we wouldn’t be kneeling here before you, and that all of your men instead of most, would be dead, including you.” The shape looked at Hassan. “How many men did we lose?” Hassan appeared uncomfortable as he shifted from one leg to the next. “Six- teen,” he answered. “Another eight are seriously injured, with six of those critically wounded.”
“And how many Vatican Knights were lost?”
“We found no bodies, I’m afraid.”
Leviticus was inwardly pleased by this. Jeremiah and Roman had gotten away, so the casualty count was zero percent. “Not exactly a good outing for your team, is it?” said Leviticus. “Losing so many men against so few.” Though it was unworthy for a Vatican Knight to boast about endeavors, Leviticus couldn’t help himself. But the Shadowman ignored him and questioned Hassan further. “Are you telling me that we’re left with fourteen able men?”
“Yes, Commander.”
Then he slapped the armrest of his chair, the first sign of the man’s anger.
“More than three dozen men, and we’re down to a little more than a dozen?” he stated the obvious.
“Much apologies, Commander.”
The shape seemed to have fought for calm and won. “It is what it is,” he finally said, waving his hand dismissively through the air. Then to Leviticus: “As Vatican Knights you’re likely considered to be valuable assets in the eyes of the church. A shame, however, that you’re not the priest who is not a priest, since his value to the Vatican is coveted enough to fetch a substantial sum that would further our cause.”
More silence, a period that was long and uncomfortable, the man obviously mulling over his options.
Then: “Tomorrow,” he said evenly to Hassan, “a price of twenty-five million dollars will be demanded from the Vatican, in exchange for the cardinal and the Vatican Knights. A time and place will be specified within five days. On the fifth day at the twelfth hour Damascus time, the numbers to a Middle Eastern bank account will be given to the bishops of the Holy See, who will have a one minute window to wire the funds into this account. Should this account be frozen upon the transfer, the captives will be executed immediately. Since the Vatican has proven to be un- trustworthy by sending a tactical unit, they’ll be no more face-to-face transfers.” He turned to address Hassan: “Contact the principals to see this done,” he told him. “Allow them their commission for the transfers, if reasonable. Then make arrangements for the middleman to launder the funds into bitcoins. I would rather deal with them at a charged percentage, instead of the church who charges no percentage.” “And the prisoners?” Hassan asked, pointing to the Vatican Knights. “Since our location has been compromised, we need to move. Prepare them but keep them separate. The last thing I want is for them to talk and give each other false hope. Remember, these are Vatican Knights. Do not underestimate them or give them any opportunity. Never become complacent in your duties, or they will certainly take advantage of this.”
“You seem to know us well,” said Leviticus.
“Well enough.”
“And your English is perfect. Fluent, in fact.”
“I speak many languages. All fluent.” And then to Hassan: “Prepare them. And quickly. We move on our agenda. With that being said, however, we will need to make an example to the Vatican, informing them that any further attempts on their part to refuse any negotiation by sending forth another unit to contest us, will be met with violence in ISIS fashion.” He pointed to Ecclesiastes. “This one,” he said.
“Take him to the courtyard and give him a necklace.”
Leviticus and Isaiah tried to get to their feet in unison, only to be forced back to their knees by the armed troops.
“You don’t have to do this!” Leviticus screamed. His face was flushed with anger, and the veins in his neck
stood out like cords. Isaiah, also crying out in opposition, appeared just as angry. The only one who didn’t seem affected was Ecclesiastes, who was mouthing words of a prayer. Having been forced to his feet, Ecclesiastes was forcibly ushered to the court- yard by several members of the Shadowman’s team.
“You don’t have to do this.” This time Leviticus implored the man, giving off a sense of weakness and playing into the Shadowman’s hands by giving him a sense of power.
The man sitting in the shadows willfully sighed. “Impressions have to be made,” he said. “When we’re attacked, then we strike back. That has always—and will always be—the way of the ISIS machine.” Then he waved to Hassan to have Leviticus and Isaiah taken away. “Remember what I said,” he added. “Keep everyone separate.”
When the door closed and the room was totally immersed with a comforting darkness, the man got to his feet, went to the window, and parted the drapes.
Down below was the courtyard. And lying in the center of this courtyard sat the necklace.
The man waited patiently by the window with his hands clasped behind the small of his back.
And down below, as Ecclesiastes was ushered into the arena, the man in the shadows could feel his heart thrumming against his chest.
The show was about to begin.
* * *
Ecclesiastes was forced into the courtyard and did nothing to fight off their efforts to do so, as if surrendering to his faith and to his fate. Once there, he was forced to his knees. Hassan Maloof went to the necklace, which was a tire, grabbed it, and slipped it over Ecclesiastes so that it was snug around his midsection. Hassan then grabbed his cellphone, engaged the record feature, and directed one of his armed soldiers to pour fuel over Ecclesiastes.
The air smelled of petrol as Ecclesiastes coughed and gagged while the fluid was emptied over him from a large, red canister. Once the canister was cast aside, Hassan focused his cellphone so that the image of the Vatican Knight was clear.