Vatican Knights (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Along with Omega Team, Judas stood
in the shadows provided by the copse of trees in the park across from Cohen’s
brownstone. Each man was dressed in tactical gear except Judas, who wore his
wide-brimmed fedora and long coat. The tails of his jacket moved slightly in a
course of faint breeze. 

Judas turned to Dark Lord, the lead for the three-man unit
of Omega Team. The commando appeared without emotion, a killing machine waiting
to act without question or reservation.

“You know your duties,” said Judas. “And I don’t want you
going in there like a bunch of ball-swinging commandos, either. Get the CD,
take out Cohen, and get the hell out of there. It’s that simple—one-two-three.
Now go.”

#

Kimball saw movement
, a mere
motion from the outermost range of his peripheral vision. At first it was
brief, then nothing, then movement once again as living shadows stayed close to
the darkness and made their way to the brownstone. From his point of view he
saw only two, but his mindset knew there were more. After telling Isaiah to
stay behind and maintain watch for other insurgents, Kimball was out of the van
and sliding toward the brownstone as quietly as the shifting shapes around
him. 

#

It had taken
Dark Lord a
moment to work his way into the Cohen residence. Moving silently across the
room, he withdrew his knife and used the point of the blade to push the door
open. Shari was asleep at the desk with the pages of encrypted code on the
monitor.

It can’t be this simple
, he considered.
It just
can’t be
. Dark Lord seemed contrite in his thinking because of the lack of
opposition, especially from someone like Cohen who was held in such high regard
from the political elders.
It’s like stealing candy from a baby
.

Slowly and prudently, he entered the den, knife in hand,
with the stealth of a learned assassin, and moved in for the quick kill.

He was about to grab her hair and force her head back to
expose her open throat when Shari’s husband ran into the den and slammed
himself against the intruder’s back, causing the knife to fall from Dark Lord’s
hand, driving him to the floor. The surprised assassin immediately maneuvered
to gain advantage and grabbed Gary’s wrist. With a deft and sudden move, a
simple flick of his hand, he snapped the twin bones in Gary’s arm, causing
white-hot agony to race along its length and to his shoulder.

Having yet to register the magnitude of danger, Shari
snapped her eyes wide. But it wasn’t until Gary’s cry of absolute pain that she
propelled herself into action. While both men battled for position in a drunken
tango, Shari reached out and hit the assassin on the back of his head, only to
receive a savage backhanded blow that sent her across the table and knocking
the PC to the floor, smashing its outer casing.

In the heat of panic she tried to get to her feet, failed,
her sight dizzy from the blow. Dark Lord thrust a left fist into Gary’s
abdomen, a stinging blow, and then a right cross to his chin. For a moment Gary
seemed detached, his conscious mind suspended between darkness and light, and
then his eyes rolled up into his head as he hit the floor as a boneless heap.

In an quick move, Dark Lord swept up the knife and exhibited
the chrome polish of the blade and sharpness of its tip. “It’ll be painless,”
he told her, then began his approach. “And just so you know, there are worse
ways of dying than bleeding out.”

 Through the haze of her sight, she noted that the assassin
was not alone. Two shadows joined alongside him, each brandishing a knife.

Shari crawled to her husband and held him close, tears
coursing her cheeks as she thought of her children. “Please, don’t hurt my
babies,” she pleaded.

Dark Lord placed the blade of the knife within inches of her
throat and smiled maliciously through the opening of his mask, as if to
indicate he was doing this for simple gratification. “First I’ll take you, then
the hubby, and then the kiddies. How’s that?”

Weeping uncontrollably, Shari pulled an unconscious Gary
close to her.

With a quick move, Dark Lord grabbed her hair and pulled her
head back to expose the soft tissue of her throat.

Slowly and deliberately, he raised the blade for the final
cut.

#

Washington, D.C.

September 26. Early Morning

Donning familiar and
comfortable black fatigues, Abraham Obadiah changed his game face back to Team
Leader, then drove northbound on Route 1, toward the Massachusetts border. The
truck moved smoothly, hitting the occasional pothole. But his trip went without
incident.

At 0245, a coordinated effort was scheduled by Judas and
Omega Team to assassinate Shari Cohen. Knowing Omega Team was always punctual
in their endeavors, Obadiah considered the matter closed, and that Agent Cohen
was no longer a part of the equation. The constituents from Russia and
Venezuela would be happy to hear that damage control had succeeded, and that
Cohen would no longer be a troubling factor.

Now that he had quelled the suspicions of his foreign
liaisons, there would be no reason for Obadiah to return to D.C. until after
the death of Pope Pius. Within a few hours he would assassinate a member of the
Holy See, and remind the world that the list of people leading to the pope was
getting shorter. And with every death, with every symbolic assassination of
faith, came dwindling hope.

Believing Ms. Cohen was no longer among the living, Team
Leader drove on.

#

Judas stood within
the grove
of trees, the collar of his jacket hiked against the cold, the vapor of his
breath an indicator of a chilly night.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement. A single man,
larger than most men, moved past him beyond the trees with the grace of a
feline—smooth and sleek with the purpose to make a kill.

“Well, well, well,” whispered Judas. “And whose little boy
are you?”

It had become obvious that Cohen was under surveillance from
someone outside his circle. And then he realized he had no way to warn his
team. No matter, he thought. It was still three against one.

#

Dark Lord held
the knife
blade at the point of its zenith for the final downswing, a macabre display to
incite paralytic terror. “This is for looking in places you shouldn’t have,” he
said. Just as the blade fell toward the openness of Shari’s throat, Dark Lord
and his two companions were sent sprawling across the room. The rear assault
hit like a hammer blow. But each man got his feet at once. And with athletic
grace and practiced agility, they spun toward their attacker. Their knives
poised to kill. 

A lone man, impossibly tall and broad shouldered,
black-faced with streaks of grease paint, stood between the Cohens and Dark
Lord’s commandos. Around his neck he wore the starched white collar of a
priest. His chest was protected by a black tactical vest that held the emblem
of the crest and silver Pattée. 

Omega Team did what was natural; they banded together in a
refined area and converged on their target, a priest, an unlikely savior.

In response measured in milliseconds, Kimball withdrew
knives from sheaths attached to each thigh and stirred one of the black-bladed
commando knives about in an act of distraction, first in circular motions, then
in figure eights, a practice that kept the attention of his opponents from
focusing on the second blade, the strike weapon. 

Omega Team moved slowly into the danger zone, close enough
to engage, to slash, to kill the priest knowing when and where to strike.

Circling, Dark Lord studied this man, his opponent, and
noted similarities of a man he once knew and coveted as a mentor and leader—the
build, the height, the breadth of the man’s shoulders, all reminiscent of a
hero in the judgment of the Pentagon brass. And then he looked into the man’s
cerulean blue eyes and the gold flexes that peppered the irises like glitter.
For a brief moment his chest grew cold, the reality surreal and sobering at the
same time. And then realization set in. There was only one man who held such
remarkable eyes.

Dark Lord stopped his advance. The other two followed, as if
attached to an umbilical tie in which their hesitation was simultaneous. 

“Kimball?” he said almost too softly. “Kimball Hayden?”

Kimball’s eyes flared. Recognition came on his part as well.
At one time he and Dark Lord worked closely together in covert operations as an
unholy alliance.

“Word is . . . is that you’re dead.” Dark Lord lowered the
point of his knife, but not enough to appease Kimball, who kept his weapon at
the ready. “So what’s this about?”

Kimball said nothing.

Dark Lord’s lips curled visibly. “It’s about redemption,
isn’t it? Goddammit, Kimball Hayden has gone religious. Look at that collar.”
Dark Lord’s smile vanished as quickly as it appeared. The tone of his voice
suddenly took on a level of managed anger. “This isn’t your fight, Hayden. Now
get the hell out of the way before you get hurt by the big boys.”

Kimball stepped closer, his attractor blade continuing to
slice deliberate figure-eight patterns through the air. Hesitation flickered in
Dark Lord’s eyes.

“Don’t do this,” warned Kimball. “You know you’re no match
for me.”

“Still the same old cocky son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you,
Hayden? Think your two blades can match our three? I don’t think so.”

Dark Lord inched closer, his actions matched by his two
imitators. “Last time, Hayden. Get out of the way and let us do our job.”

“I’m not going to let you hurt these people.”

“Then you’re crazier than I thought.” Dark Lord suddenly
struck.

The commandos of Omega Team struck out and slashed with
killing blows, but Kimball met their strikes with blinding speed, deflecting
the knifes, the contact coughing up sparks as the blades pounded against each
other as metal struck metal. Shari’s mouth dropped in amazement as she watched
her champion ward off deadly blows with fluid effort.

With uncanny skill Kimball’s motions became faster, his
circular motions repelling the blows that seemed to come faster and with far
more brutal force. By inches he pushed back the Omega Team, who was losing
ground, the strikes coming to the point where everyone’s arm was moving in
blurs and blinding revolutions. Sparks radiated in numerous pinpricks of flame
before dying out. And then came an opening.

With surgical precision Kimball drove the edge of his blade
across the bicep of a commando, severing the muscle. The man screamed in agony,
took a knee, then tumbled out of the battle line and was gone, disappearing
into the hallway and into the night.

As the fight waged on Kimball seemed to pick up steam rather
than lose it. His motions were deft, and with purpose. The odds of two blades
warring against two appeared to favor Kimball as he pushed his opponents back
to the far wall. They were running out of room. 

In another motion Kimball bent down to a lower point of
gravity, and made a horizontal slash just above the patella of the commando
standing to the right of Dark Lord, nearly severing the muscle that attached
the upper and lower leg. With a banshee-like wail the commando moved
surprisingly well on his good leg, dove through the study window, and landed on
a parked car below. His weight caved in the roof and shattered the windshield;
then, after rolling off the vehicle and getting to his feet, he half ran, half
limped for the cover of trees.

#

Judas watched from
the
shadows across the street as a dark figure smashed through the second story
pane of the brownstone in a spray of glittering glass and landed on a parked
car, caving in the roof and shattering the windshield. The man rolled off the
vehicle, got to one foot, and hobbled toward the copse of trees. Moments later
Judas watched a second man run through the front door of the brownstone holding
his arm. The wounded commando crossed the street and merged with the shadows
beneath the trees.

#

Dark Lord was
backed against
the wall, his will to complete the battle ingrained from years of tough mental
training. To surrender would be a cowardice brand against his moniker, losing
the respect from his peers.

“Put the knife down,” said Kimball.

“Not on your life.”

“Then I’ll make this a fair fight.” 

Without taking his eyes off Dark Lord, Kimball returned one
of the knives back into its sheath.

Dark Lord sized Kimball for an opening, the man circling,
then found what seemed to be an opportunity and tried to cut the man with a
sweeping horizontal arc across Kimball’s abdomen, before Kimball could realize
that he had been gutted. But Kimball grabbed the attacker’s wrist, forced the
man’s arm over his head, exposed the armpit, and drove the sharpened point of
his nine-inch blade deep into the unprotected area, until the pommels of the
knife could go no further.

Staggering, Dark Lord reached for the weapon’s hilt, gave
minimal effort to withdraw the knife, found it impossible to do so, and fell to
his knees coughing blood from a perforated lung. “I knew this day would come,”
he managed. “But I didn’t think it would be by your hand.” He fell onto his
side with his eyes taking on a detached gaze.

After dropping to a knee, Kimball pulled Dark Lord close to
him.

“Why these people?” he asked.

Dark Lord’s gaze shifted to the smashed PC lying on the
floor beside him, and extended his hand. “For the truth,” he said. And then he
was gone, his hand falling to the floor as a blood bubble burst from the corner
of his lips, his eyes fixing on a point of no importance as he expelled his
final breath.