Vatican Knights (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Washington D.C.

September 25. Early Evening

The last trails of light from the
sun’s westward trajectory dispelled into magenta twilight. It was a magnificent
view apt even for an artist’s canvas, but Shari didn’t notice the beauty of the
colors painting the heavens as she made her way home. Her eyes were focused
elsewhere beyond the road, her movements to steer the car in the right
direction governed by reflex and habit alone, since she had driven the same
course for years. 

Since her debacle meeting with Abraham Obadiah, she made
constant calls to Mossad and got nowhere. She even went as far as to talk to
the Director of Mossad, who was no different from Abraham Obadiah, just another
stone wall who denied everything. 

For the first time in her life she felt like she was
spiraling downward into an abyss that held nothing but a deep despair. The
actual mindset of ‘not knowing’ terrified her.

As soon as she turned into her neighborhood her eyes focused
the moment she spotted her brownstone. After turning into the garage she knew
that she should regroup and train her thoughts on her family. But she found it
impossible. So she sat there with her mind working to the point where her
thoughts detained all the vagueness of a drunken stupor, that sense of feeling
utterly lost and alone.

As brilliant as she was, she stood by alone in this
political nightmare.

And for a moment she felt a deep and shameful pang of
self-pity.

In her mind’s eye she could see her grandmother’s hardened
face that was much older than her given years. Yet her voice was strong and
gentle and carried the weight of courage and resolve. It was a voice recalling
a moment when the sky over Auschwitz rained ashes for days on end—the buildings
and camp becoming laden with gray soot, the image somewhat ghostly and pale,
the demeanor somber and cold. And of course there was the repugnant odor of
burning flesh, which no one dared to speak of. Yet she never became hollow,
always propelling herself mentally, believing that willpower overcame the
abhorrence of those who cruelly bound her. In the end, she was right.

Shari closed her eyes and pulled deep with her nostrils,
taking a lungful of air to soothe her, then released the air in an equally long
sigh. She had no right to feel dismayed when her grandmother had suffered
through much greater. So she admonished herself quietly and thanked her
grandmother for all the stories that held lessons to draw from in moments like
this.

Reaching for the key in the ignition, she saw the crumpled
business card in the ashtray, untouched since she placed it there earlier.
Grabbing the card and unfolding it, she smoothed out the creases. It was just a
simple business card—no fancy fonts or styles—just sophomoric typeface with the
phone number of the D.C. Archdiocese. She brought the card to her brow as if
she might glean something from it through osmosis and tried to recall the man
who gave it to her. For a brief moment she struggled for clarity. Then it came
to her: Kimball Hayden, a name from the past she had heard before only in
whispers, forgotten until now.

Approximately six years ago as an upstart in the
counterterrorist program, Shari was in the company of men who didn’t realize
her presence until after the name of Kimball Hayden was spoken with a measure
of reverence and referred to as “a man who was as deadly as he was without
conscience.” When the attorney general at the time and top-ranking official
from the Joint Chiefs realized her presence, they immediately drew upon another
topic. But Shari had already taken in snippets of conversation that had painted
Kimball Hayden as a brutal killing machine.

She placed the card back into the recess of the ashtray.
This man, professing to be an emissary of the Vatican, couldn’t have been the
same
Kimball Hayden. The man she recalled was an unrelenting and remorseless killer.

With the thoughts of Kimball Hayden ebbing, she decided to
research data on the CD and scrape together whatever information she could. At
best, she may open a gate that would lead her down the right path. At worst,
she would resign herself to the fact that there was nothing she could do to
save the pope. It was literally a crap shoot.

After making the rounds with the children and sharing an
awkward moment with her husband, by shying away at the notion of joining him in
bed, Shari sheltered herself at the work station in the den area and booted the
PC. Within moments the screen downloaded the dossiers and, while fighting
fatigue, probed every page until she finally nodded off into a deep sleep.

#

Washington D.C.

September 25. Late Evening

At 10:39 Yahweh
received the
call in his study. Outside, the moon was in its gibbous phase which cast an
eerie glow upon the land that was the color of whey. It was the only light
granted as he sat silhouetted in front of the window overlooking the grounds.
As the phone rang, his mind was drifting, when he reached for the phone and
lifted the receiver. “Yes.”

“It’s Obadiah.”

Yahweh’s spoke without emotion. “Yes, Mr. Obadiah, what do
you want at so late an hour?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

“You know I am a man-of-position. And the situation with the
pope is taking up a majority of my time.”

“We seem to have a problem.”

“Which would be?”

“Shari Cohen,” he said.

Yahweh remained quiet.

“I’ll come directly to the point,” said Obadiah. “It appears
that Ms. Cohen has some rather delicate information that could prove
catastrophic, if she’s able to make the proper ties. And our associates
supporting the cause are not happy with that situation.”

 “The proper ties with what?”

 “Apparently, someone from Mossad sent the United States
Government an attachment of encrypted pages holding something of value to the
project.”

 Yahweh’s attention was fully captured. “I’m listening?”

 “The pages hold the graphics that could tie a lot of people
involved with the cause, including prominent leaders in the United States,
Russia, Israel and Venezuela. It was never meant to be seen outside of the
Defense and Armed Forces Attaché and the Mossad Director.”

“Then why is it in the possession of Ms. Cohen?”

“It was passed through black channels without the knowledge
of the Director or the Attaché. It seems that American sleepers within the
Lohamah Psichlogit and the Research Department obtained and forwarded the
information to the FBI.” 

After feeling his neckline prickle with heat, Yahweh undid
the top button of his shirt. “What exactly is in the encryption?”

 “Diagrams,” he answered, “and some photos. But if a
connection between the diagrams and dossiers are made, then the matter could
open up a Pandora’s Box.”

Yahweh wanted to strangle something, anything. “We need that
CD back,” he finally said. “And I think we both know what needs to be done. I
want you to contact Judas immediately and have him direct Omega Team to
dispatch Ms. Cohen
tonight
. . . And get that CD before it ends up in
the hands of the NSA.”

“I have no problem with that, but so you know, the
encryptions contain inbred viruses. If anyone outside of Mossad or the Attaché
tries to decipher the code without having the proper knowledge to do so, then
the viruses will ignite and completely wipe out the file, dossiers and all.”

Yahweh closed his eyes and slowly dropped his head into his
hand. “I don’t care what toys you put into the program, Mr. Obadiah. I just
want you to put Ms. Cohen out of my misery.”

“I understand.”

“Do you, Mr. Obadiah? Then understand this.” Yahweh slammed
the phone down as a measure of his discontent.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Washington Archdiocese, Washington D.C.

September 25. Late Evening

He lay between the two mounds of
sand with a hand on each mound, his eyes looking skyward for the face of God.
In between the great distances of the stars, he tried to glimpse something
celestial, to make him believe there was something heavenly beyond the blind
faith that led men to believe an existence beyond the five senses. All he saw
was the glimmer of stars shimmering like a cache of diamonds on black velvet.

Beneath his hands the soil began to undulate, the tenants
below trying to force their way to the surface. Applying great strength through
his massive arms, Kimball employed himself to keep them below the depths of the
plane and, as always, failed. When their heads broke through the layers of
sand, Kimball tried to force them back down, their strength far greater than his.
Their faces, remarkably similar to his own in shape and contour and with eyes
the color of ice,
held the mottled skin tones in the putrescent
hues and shades of decay.

Crying out against the surge, Kimball exerted all the
power he could call upon. But the shapes continued to rise, the jaws of his own
rotting features opening to impossible lengths and revealing a darkness in the
throat that was blacker than black.

Kimball always woke at this juncture and searched his
surroundings for the reality of the moment. Once calm settled in and the moment
less surreal, he would always ask this question:
Could You ever forgive me
for the things that I have done?
But Kimball believed forgiveness would
forever elude him, since he gave up one war to wage another against his
personal demons. And these demons never allowed him to forget, coming night
after night and eroding what little hope of someday being free of a past laden
with the bloodshed of others committed by his hands.

It would take him almost twenty minutes to shake off the
images, and ten more before he could commit himself to his duties. 

Kimball sat in the van outside the Cohen brownstone, with
Isaiah in the back monitoring the audio receiver and listening to every
movement within the Cohen household.

As Kimball sat with his back against the paneled wall, he
wondered why Isaiah’s faith remained so entrenched after living in a culture of
hardcore misery.

Isaiah, or Christian, was born in 1984 to a family who lived
in makeshift huts of discarded wood and corrugated tin in a Mexican shanty
town. Dung piles and rancid water drew mangy curs and blow flies. And as time
went on and their world a constant state of suffering, the only possession they
held was their faith in Christ.

After Christian’s father succumbed to the ravages of
dysentery, wasting away until his body withdrew into itself, the rack of his
ribs threatening to burst through flesh, he was buried with little ceremony in
a scratch of earth marked for the dead not far from the dung heaps. The stark-white
crosses, too numerous to count, seemed to saddle the small stretch of land. But
after six months, as the land dwindled, the family was forced to pay homage
from a distance, since additional grave markers took over the trails leading to
his father’s burial site.

As Christian and his faith grew, he never questioned his
abject poverty, but accepted it as a test of diversity to achieve a higher
level. But when his mother was taken from him—her body found in a muddy
waterway with her skirt hiked up to reveal unspeakable violations—he became
lost and frightened, and sought union with anybody who would have him.

He found himself alone and unwanted, however, just another
mouth to feed in an already famished world. So he migrated to the north through
hot winds and an unforgiving sun, his mind falling into delirious bouts of fog
and images.

Sometimes he imagined the worried faces of his parents as
they beckoned him with ghostly hands to follow a certain path. But when his
body could push no more, the environment having sapped him dry, he surrendered
to the elements and took to the earth.

Two days later when he awoke he knew he was in heaven. The
angels surrounding him were smiling and wore habits. Around their necks they
wore chains bearing the symbol of the Catholic crucifix that was as gold and as
bright as the emblazoned sun. When Christian sat up his eyes searched for his
parents, who had led him to this wondrous place that smelled of clove and
burning candle wax.

“You’ll be fine, my child. You were lucky that a missionary
found you,” said one of the angels. Her face was aged and tanned, her eyes
sparkled with alertness. “You came from such a long way, so God must have
something very special in store for you.”

“Where are my parents?” he asked, the pitch of his tone that
of pubescent.

 “I’m afraid you were alone.”

Christian shook his head vehemently. “I saw them. They
showed me the way.”

But when his mind sobered, he came to realize that his
parents were truly gone, and that God had used them as vessels to save his
life.

As he grew to manhood during his tenure at the mission, the
boy’s body took on an athletic tone. His hunger for knowledge became as urgent
as his need for sustenance. This caught the eye of a stranger who came from a
faraway land called the Vatican. After holding counsel with the heads of the
mission, he recruited the boy.

The stranger’s name was Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci.

Christian, upon learning his fate, cried and refused to
leave the only true slice of heaven he had ever known. “To do this is a great
honor,” said Father Hernandez, who held the boy in the clutches of a strong
embrace. Even the Father was choking back tears. “On the day you came to us we
always said that God had a purpose for you. And now that time has come, my son.
You must go with the cardinal who is a messenger of God and fulfill your
destiny. You are special.”

Christian left the mission behind, never to see or hear from
the angels and orphans again.

Now, at such an early hour, Christian—Isaiah—was on the
front lines of the most important and noble battle of his life. He was a
Vatican Knight. 

And Kimball watched him, wanting desperately to know how
Christian found faith in such hardship, when Kimball held little after growing
up in privilege. Reason would indicate that it should have been the other way
around—that those of good standing would have faith and be thankful for their
bounties, whereas the disadvantaged would hold none.

But Isaiah was lost in his own world, listening through his
headphones and hearing what sounded like the slight passing of air through a
seashell.

#

Leviticus was in
the vault of
the Sacred Hearts Church working at the computer terminal. Highly adept at his
craft, he also had the unethical dexterity to tap and hack into programs and
networks to obtain information without leaving a trail.

After loading the Keystroke Logger, he expertly moved his
fingers across the keyboard and began to draw data from Shari Cohen’s PC. By
logging the sequence of keystrokes that enabled her access to certain sites,
Leviticus was able to obtain her password, which afforded him entry into
restricted areas of information.

Numbers and symbols relating to computer vernacular came and
went as the PC spoke to other networks along the information highway, pulled
data from files established in ISP address records, then left a bogus trail in
its wake. By the time the hacked parties learned of the breach, the trail would
lead the tracking experts to a desktop computer located in a library at a
prestigious California college. It was a wonderful red herring on the part of
Leviticus, which was also a part of the game he enjoyed too much, almost
impishly so.

After establishing the link to Shari’s PC, he realized she
was live with booted information regarding the Soldiers of Islam. And with all
the ingenuity of a practiced hacker, he downloaded the data.

But it the information was coming in much too slowly.