Shepherd One (15 page)

“You haven’t heard of them because they do not exist in the
eyes of the world.”

“And why would that be?”

“Sometimes they engage in missions and use techniques that
are against everything the Church teaches, but necessary to achieve the means.”

Hakam appeared incredulous. “They’re assassins,” he said.

The pope shook his head. “Not at all,” he stated. “They
exist to serve the Church in search-and-rescue operations. Other times they’re
sent in to dismantle insurgent risings before innocent people are killed.”

Hakam could not dispel his look of incredulity. “I see,” he
finally said. And then, “About twenty minutes ago your Knight worked his way
out of his binds and is hiding somewhere below, like the coward he is. I sent
three of my men after him. Good men. The best in the Elite Guard Regiment who
were the professors of warfare who trained others in the Republican or
Revolutionary Guard to be the best they could be in combat. There are none
better. Not even your Vatican Knight. To prove this I will have his head
sitting beside you. This I promise.”

The pope looked at him, folded his hands in an attitude of
prayer, and held them out in a pleading manner. “Please,” he said, “no more
need to die. Please call them back before it’s too late.”

Hakam nodded. “It is Allah’s will to see this through. Your Vatican Knight doesn’t stand a chance against Aziz and his team.”

“No,” said the pope. “It’s your people that don’t stand a
chance. If you allow this to continue, then they will surely die.”

Hakam hesitated before answering. “We shall see.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They had taken the stairs to the
lower level where gray light filtered in through the porthole windows. A lone
man, impossibly tall and broad shouldered, his face of forced indifference
betrayed only by the mild clenching of his jaw, stood in the shadows. Around
his neck he wore the starched white collar of a Catholic priest. And inscribed
on the pocket of his cleric’s shirt was the blue shield and silver Pattée, the
insignia of the Vatican Knights. 

Aziz’s Team did what was natural; they grouped together in a
refined area and converged on their target, a priest who was a warrior and soon
to be a doomed savior.

In a slow draw, Kimball withdrew his commando knives from
sheaths attached to each thigh and stirred one 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 striking weapon.

Aziz’s Team moved into position to engage the faux priest, each
man already knowing when and where to strike.

“I have been ordered to take your head,” said Aziz, holding
up his knife and showing off the keenness of its edge. “And I shall not
disappoint.”

Kimball stepped closer, his attractor blade continuing to
slice deliberate figure eights through the air, ready, waiting.

Aziz inched closer, taking the center position, his
movements matched by his team.

And then there was that brief suspension of time when a man
suddenly feels his blood coursing through his veins or hears his heartbeat
drumming within his ears. It was the moment before the final engagement where
time stood still, a time where a man reconsiders his actions but rarely
concedes. 

And then from Aziz, a war cry, “
Allahu Akbar
!” 

The commandos of Aziz’s team struck out and slashed with
killing blows. But Kimball countered their strikes with blinding speed,
deflecting knifes, the contacts coughing up sparks as the blades pounded
against each other as metal struck metal.

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 the inches he pushed back Aziz’s 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 one of Aziz’s commandos, severing the muscle. The man
screamed in agony, took to a knee, then tumbled out of the battle line and was
gone, disappearing into the shadows and toward the fore of the plane.

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
now warring against two seemed to favor Kimball as he pushed his opponents back
toward the front of the fuselage. 

And then came a second opening, something so slight it could
only be seen by the seasoned eye.

In a fluid 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 Aziz, 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 as he hobbled toward the trapdoor.  

Fighting at a level that transcended his own technique,
Kimball was now in his element as he backed Aziz against the fuselage wall,
pinning him. But Aziz’s will to finish the battle had become ingrained from
years of tough mental training. And to surrender would be a cowardice brand
against the Aziz name and his religion. 

“Put down the knife,” Kimball said in perfect Arabic. “I
won’t ask you again.”

Aziz flashed a cocky grin. “Not on your life.”

“Then I’ll make this a fair fight.”

Without taking his eyes off Aziz, Kimball returned one of
the knives back to its sheath.

In that moment Aziz sized Kimball for an opening, circled,
found what seemed to be an opportunity, and tried to cut Kimball with a sweeping
horizontal arc across his abdomen. But Kimball grabbed the attacker’s wrist,
forced the man’s arm over his head, exposing his 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 farther.

Staggering along the fuselage in a drunken gait, Aziz
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 up blood from a
perforated lung. “Hakam was correct,” he said, speaking through bubbles and
wetness. “You’re no priest . . . No priest . . . can fight like you.” And then
he fell forward, hard, his face slamming flush against the floor before rolling
to its side, his life gone. 

If Aziz saw the light of his Paradise, it did not reflect on
his face. What Kimball saw as he stood over Aziz and jerking the knife free,
was a man who looked surprised by his own mortality.

So his name is Hakam
, he thought.
Well, Hakam . .
. here I come
.

After wiping the blade of his knife clean on Aziz’s shirt,
Kimball sheathed the weapon.

#

The trapdoor sprung
open like
the lid of a jack-in-a-box and Aziz’s team bolted to the main deck.   Aziz was
not among them. Nor was the head of the Vatican Knight.   

The man with the wounded leg slammed the door shut behind
him, and lay on the carpet in agony with the tendons along his neck sticking
out like cords. His face was flushed as he bled from a gash above the knee. The
other assassin sat against the wall fighting for air, his lungs pulling desperately
while his face blanched to the color of whey. With his good hand he grabbed his
torn bicep, the wounded arm having been rendered entirely useless, and cried
out in frustration.    

When Hakam heard the cry he rounded the wall leading to the
trapdoor. He was riveted by what he saw. Blood flowed from rented flesh, the
cuts deep and disabling as their bleeding showed little sign of slowing down.
“Where’s Aziz?” he asked. 

The man with the wounded bicep winced before speaking, his
teeth clenching as his arm became white hot with pain. “He’s dead,” he said.
“The priest took him out.” 

Hakam appeared fazed. “Aziz  . . .”

“Three against one,” said the assassin with the wounded leg.
“Three against one and he toyed with us.” He situated himself against the wall,
groaned, and applied pressure to his leg to staunch the bleeding. “This
priest,” he began, “fights like no other.”

“That’s because he’s not a priest,” Hakam quickly corrected.

And then he watched their blood fan out onto the carpet.

“And what about Aziz?” he asked. “You just left him behind?”

“We had no choice,” said Wounded Arm. “The priest, who is
not a priest, took us out, so we fell out of the skirmish line.” Leaning his
head against the wall and looking ceilingward with an almost dreamy gaze, he
then spoke as if in homage. “He was so fast,” he said. “So incredibly fast. And
Aziz was the best in double-edged combat. Plus with two more by his side . . .”
He let his words trail before facing Hakam. “We were nothing to this guy. I
don’t think he even broke a sweat.”

Hakam raked the man with a fierce eye. Homage is to be paid
to Allah and to Allah only, not to dissidents who believed in false gods or
prophets. “Do not appreciate this man too much,” he said. “He is your enemy.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Hakam. The man is an enemy to Allah;
therefore, an enemy to us all.”

Hakam nodded, accepting his statement as an apology. “Just
make sure you understand that.”

The assassin with the wounded arm tried to stand up, his
world becoming dizzy, and sat back down.

The man with the wounded leg was beginning to shiver, and
sweat, his pallor going gray and his lips turning blue; the signs of slipping
into shock. Hakam then got to a bended knee and placed a gentle hand on the
man’s shoulder. “You fought valiantly, al-Kadeen.” And then turned to face
Wounded Arm: “As did you, al-Marid.” 

Wounded Arm gingerly smiled at the praise and rediscovered
his boldness. “In the name of Allah and for the honor of Aziz, let me go back
down there with a firearm and—”

Hakam waved him off. “And if an errant bullet should pierce
the fuselage, al-Marid, then the mission will be over long before it even has a
chance to begin.”

“But my aim is true, Hakam. You know that. I was a Master
Gunnery in the Guard.”

“And Aziz was the best at what he did, as well. And now he
lies dead somewhere in the fuselage of this plane. No, al-Marid, this priest
who is not a priest, this . . . Vatican Knight, is a different breed of
warrior. I think it best to use caution at this point.”

Al-Marid quickly disagreed. “He’ll wait for us,” he said,
“like he did last time—inside the shadows. But when he realizes that we’re not
coming to him, then he’ll come to us.”

Hakam shook his forefinger back and forth. “No, my friend,
he won’t. The best way to stay safe from a hungry tiger is to keep it caged.”
Hakam stood. “He can go nowhere once we disable the elevator and lock this
trapdoor.”

“But the weapons, the payload . . .”

“There’s nothing he can do,” he stated. “They have commenced
their sequences and are now at the point of no return. He won’t do anything
knowing a foolish act on his part may cost the life of the pope whom he is
sworn to protect. No, this man will try something else. And when he does, I’ll
be there waiting.”

#

The Garrote Assassin
had seen
to the wounds of al-Marid and al-Kadeen. Al-Kadeen, however, was slipping into
shock, his body surrendering to the trauma as he lay wrapped in a wool blanket.
Al-Marid, on the other hand, was full of piss and vinegar and vowed to fight on,
even with his arm in a makeshift sling fashioned from a pillow case.

With Aziz dead, that left Hakam with three able-bodied men
and a marginal warrior in al-Marid, which worried him. Not even three hundred
miles into their journey and half his team was down.

Walking to the First Class cabin where Pius sat, Hakam took
the seat next to him but did not speak.

“I begged you,” said Pope Pius. “I pleaded with you. I
implored you. But you wouldn’t listen and now a man lies dead.”

Hakam remained silent, his eyes focused to an imaginary
point on the wall in front of him.

“How many more will you kill or send to their death
unnecessarily?” asked Pius. “How many more are going to die for this twisted
cause you call justice?”

Hakam was not in the mood. “Who is this man?” he asked. “Who
is this Vatican Knight? And if you say ‘your personal valet,’ I will have
another bishop killed.”

Pope Pius looked at Hakam’s profile and saw a man who was
fighting to remain calm.

“He is an elite soldier,” he answered evenly, “with credentials
rivaled by no one, as you have just witnessed. There are fourteen more like him
who are willing to make everything wrong with this world right.”

Hakam hesitated before speaking. “When I was seventeen and
living in New York,” he said evenly, “I stood on the sidewalk and watched a
vendor, an Arab, get accosted by three men because he was praying.” His gaze
remained fixed. “They grabbed him, a man who loved his God as much as you love
yours, and they nearly beat him because of what he was, an Arab. They did not
know this man or the content of his character. They did not know if he was good
or bad or wished ill of his neighbor. All they saw was an Arab. And that was
the day I realized no matter what, I, and those like me, have become inherently
mistrusted because of what happened on Nine-Eleven. Since then my life has
become a constant struggle.”

“So you think God has given you the impunity to kill because
of what three men did a long time ago?”

Hakam shook his head. “I do what I do because Allah has shown
me that under one God, the one
true
God, that tolerating false gods is
evil in its whole. As long as the masses continue to worship false deities,
then true evil will never fall and the world forever divided.”

Pope Pius could not believe his ears. Did this man think he
was some kind of savior?

“My team is similar to your Vatican Knights,” he continued.
“They are soldiers who fight for a particular cause in the name of Allah, but
condemned by the masses. Your soldiers fight for a cause and their actions are
justified by the Church. Yet you keep these Vatican Knights hidden in fear of
worldwide denunciation because the measures they use to achieve the means are
no different in principle, as long as the desired result is obtained. Both kill
under the waving banner of God. So tell me the difference between our soldiers,
Your Holiness, since they fight under the same fundamental causes of
redirecting the world to a more glorious path. And please try doing it without
sounding hypocritical.”

The pope leaned his head closer to Hakam’s ear, his lips
less than a foot away. “You’re missing the one fundamental point that matters
most,” he said. “The intent of the Vatican Knights is to preserve and save
lives, not take them away.”  

“I see. So those three men who accosted the Arab vendor, if
they believed that beating him would somewhere down the road save and preserve
lives because they thought he would ultimately cause harm, would that come
under the same guidelines as your principals? Keep in mind that this man who openly
worshipped his God was branded at the scene as someone
inherently
mistrusted, his only crime.”

“You’re speaking theoretically rather than fact. The Vatican Knights go into volatile situations already existing.”