Shepherd One (21 page)

Unknowingly, the media had come to serve as a public
relations nightmare and became an unwitting ally to the terrorists on board
Shepherd One. And because they had the art of deception, they could no longer
be employed as a tactical advantage in the scheme of things, since the world
was now watching.

“Abort!” The president hollered at Spaatz. “Abort the
mission!”

The Chief Commander of the Air Force nodded. “If it’s not
too late,” he said, and then he promptly ordered his mission team to abandon
all prior orders and fall back.

The response was an overwhelming resonance of static.

#

The Flight Commander
laid his
thumb on the button, the moment to conclude the matter coming in a sudden rush
of horrible and overwhelming regret for what he was about to do, but a
situation that had to be accomplished, nevertheless.
Forgive me
. . .

“
Two-Six-Four-Three, you are to
abort
your mission
immediately!
. . .
Do you copy, Two-Six-Four-Three
? . . . Abort . .
. Your . . . Mission . . .”

He quickly pulled his thumb back as if the button pricked
his flesh. Relief washed over him, an incredible weight lifted from his
shoulders.
Let somebody else bear the responsibility of terminating the life
of the pope
, he told himself. And then he flipped the crucifix over and
looked into the forlorn eyes of Christ.
Thank you.

“ . . . Two-Six-Four-Three, did you copy
? . . .”

He tapped his mike. “I copy,” he said, and then he pulled
back along with his team. But they continued to maintain a visual of Shepherd
One, which was now flying over L.A. proper.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Vatican City

As a very young man, Cardinal
Bonasero Vessucci led the crusade against Nazi Germany who touted neutrality
with the Church when, in fact, the pope protested profound sorrow with Germany’s state of religion that proposed the renewal of Catholic persecution. The Nazi’s
even went as far as to declare a new Church in Germany entirely independent
from Rome with a
denunciation of Roman Catholicism as
a "Mediterranean Jewish myth." In reprisal the Vatican broadcasted that all Germans expressing a desire to become priests were liable to
internment, and that all convents and monasteries would be closed all over Germany with the priests falling liable to expulsion from their parishes at the slightest
cause.

In an effort to challenge the
outcome of these charges, the Nazi regime turned around and answered with an
assertion by suggesting that a new Catholic prayer book include special war
prayers such as "Victory in the German Struggle for Liberty." But
Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry missed an obvious deduction, which was that Germany's Catholics were praying for peace, not victory.

Nevertheless, a spiked increase of
tension remained between the Nazi regime and Rome. And fearing that Pope Pius
XIII may be assassinated for political and religious motives, created a
clandestine force of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights, a special
group of fighters who possessed a very particular set of skills.

For the past half century the
cardinal recruited waifs and those with minimal family ties, but those who also
possessed the traits, skills and learning abilities to uphold the dictum of
‘Loyalty Above All Else, Except Honor.’ He had taken them as young men and gave
them the need for purpose and significance. He also gave them pride, but not so
much where it became a crippling vanity. And in time he assembled and developed
a team whose members were from all over the globe, their devotion to the pope
above the sanctity of their own life—the best in the world.

And then there was Kimball Hayden—an
assassin for the American government who killed without any set of principles
or ethics, but with cold fortitude. Yet there was something deep inside the man
that Cardinal Vessucci saw with his keen and unaided eye. He saw Kimball as
someone who was more than just a man without conscience or core, but a person
who let his pride lead him until the very moment of his epiphany when he killed
two boys for the sake of duty. And it was then that the cardinal saw Kimball
for what he really was: the fulcrum between sinner and saint. 

For years his covert connections
within the American political hierarchy kept a watchful eye on the man who was
allegedly without soul, a killing machine, and knew everything he did from
afar.

In 1991 he knew of Kimball’s
mission into Iraq, and sent two of his elite Knights to trail him through the
desert. It was a test for all three: one to see if his Knights would be spotted
by Kimball, which they were not; and a test for himself, a measurement of his
own insight to see if he was right about Kimball Hayden possessing a measure of
decency, or if he was someone truly soulless. Everyone passed on all accounts.

When he learned about what Kimball
did—when he buried the boys and mourned their loss—he saw a gateway open and
took the opportunity to offer Kimball what he believed to be missing, which was
his soul. When Kimball decided to abscond from service and leave the Iraqi
desert, the cardinal continued his surveillance up to the moment Kimball Hayden
showed up in a little tavern in Venice.

It had become his recruiting point—a
place where a new alliance was born, and hopes to a man in search of his soul.

Since then, however, he had grown old;
his body losing its youth and energy, his one-time vigor lost to the futile
battle against aging as he sat in
the living quarters of the cardinals,
the
Domus Sanctae Marthae
, and watched the television with gripped
attention.

The United States had tried to take down Shepherd One, the
White House scrambling for the reason ‘why’ in order to appease the masses. But
the preliminary indication is believed to be that Shepherd One has been
commandeered by terrorists, was now holding a circular pattern over Los Angeles
and refusing to land.

At that time Cardinal Vessucci turned to Cardinal Sollozzo,
another ranking member of the Society of Seven, a body of rulers who, along
with the pope, determine the missions of the Vatican Knights, and spoke to him
in subdued manner. “I believe a meeting is necessary at the Round Table,” he
said. “Gather the others and meet me in the Forum.”

Sollozzo nodded and left his seat. Vessucci did the same but
had to labor to stand, his legs having weakened over time, and moved toward the
Forum chamber with the alacrity of a man twenty years his senior.

#

Very much to
Hakam’s pleasure,
the plane leveled off at 30,000 feet and maintained a pattern over Los Angeles. In those moments where Shepherd One was in its descending freefall, Hakam
failed to entrust his faith in Allah. And in those moments he neither prayed
for salvation nor asked to be accepted into His glory. He simply embraced
panic.

Sitting with his hands clenching the edges of the
navigator’s table with his head bowed and eyes closed, with his chest laboring
to pull in air and subsequent calm, Hakam was entirely grateful to Enzio for
his skills as a pilot.

And then he caught himself once again. On the norm he would
assign the pilot’s skills as Allah’s will, the plane surviving because it was
meant to be. But deep inside he realized he was drifting from his once
unyielding belief that death was a gateway to Allah’s kingdom. More so, he had
zero doubt that Allah had faulted him for his weakness.

He then opened his eyes for a quick view of the sky—a
confirmation of his continuing life before closing them once again and sending
up a prayer of thanks. With repentance he was sure he could fall back into Allah’s
good graces. And what better way to do it than to send Him a few words of
gratitude?

“We are alive because it’s Allah’s will,” he said half to
himself. But Enzio didn’t appear to be responsive or caring, his eyes looking
straight ahead.

Yet his tone wasn’t quite confident, his inflection weak, as
if forcing this belief upon himself. For the past several hours his demeanor
had vacillated from losing his calm to forcing composure, the markers of
indecision. And if he was losing faith within himself, then most certainly his
team would lose faith in him. This he could not afford.

“We are alive because it’s Allah’s will,” he repeated with
more passion. But still he got no response from Enzio.

Lifting the lid of the laptop attached to the navigator’s
table, Hakam brought up the unrefined image of al-Rashad with the simian
features of his prognathous jaw and sloping brow staring back at him. When
al-Rashad spoke he did so in a manner that was brusque—the Arabic language
flying from his lips in a fast clip while Hakam patiently listened. Although
Enzio did not understand the verbal communication, he did recognize the
syllables ‘Ponte Felcino’ reoccurring often.

When the interaction was over Hakam gingerly lowered the
screen and stated nothing for a long moment, his eyes transfixing on the laptop
as if deliberating. And then: “Allah has used you as a vessel,” he said. “And
through you we are still here to see the cause through.” He turned to Enzio.
“So I say this to you: Your family is fine.”

Enzio eyed him cautiously, Hakam’s face unreadable. The man
with the cool bearing was back. “And this is the truth?”

Hakam stood and looked over the city sprawl of Los Angeles below them. “This is the truth,” he answered. But again, conviction was
lacking in his tone.

Turning quickly, Hakam left the cockpit with the need to pay
penance.

#

They were known
as the
Society of Seven, a political body of rule consisting of the pope, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, and five of the Curia’s ruling cardinals. Together they were
the exclusive acknowledgers of the existence of the Vatican Knights who
determined missions.

Within the hour Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci amassed the five
cardinals inside the Forum—a small room within the basilica whose walls were
made of slump stone assuring their privacy, as well as the impossibility of
appropriating information from covert conversations.

The room was small, humid, with two stained glass windows that
offered a profusion of light. Where torches once burned flames in metal sconces
now stood as supports for electric lighting. And everything around them—the
walls, the floor, even the low-lying cathedral ceiling—held the color of desert
sand which was suffused with gold flexes of mica. In the room’s center, an
oval-shaped table fashioned from ebony wood served as their Round Table.

Cardinal Vessucci looked at the images within the stained
glass and saw the likeness of Michelangelo’s Pieta, the Death of Christ, his
body cradled by his mother, the Virgin Mary. In it he saw an end of His life,
but also a depiction of a new beginning with His resurrection. But the life of
Pope Pius XIII would hold no such revelation, his life ending with a finality
promising hatred between religious factions all over the world.

“Our hands are tied,” Cardinal Tomaso Angulio said bleakly.
“If Shepherd One truly is under the command of extremists, then we must lean
toward finding a new pope. Until then, all we can do is to pray for their
safety.”

“We can do that,” Vessucci said flatly. “But let’s not
forget that Kimball is on board as well. And we all know Kimball to be a man
with a very particular set of skills.”

“Kimball is but one man who is unarmed against several. He
does not have the Vatican Knights to back him on this.”

“You have little faith, my friend. You know as well as I do
that Kimball thrives on moments like this.”

“Of course, I do. But I’m also a realist, Bonasero. What
should happen if an errant bullet rips a hole in the side of the plane, sending
Shepherd One to earth? Or what if the pilot is incapable of landing her for
whatever reason? Or maybe—”

Vessucci held up a halting hand. “Believe me, Tomaso, you
have valid concerns which are shared by everyone at this table. But the fact
remains that Kimball Hayden provides us with continuing hope.”

“Nevertheless, Bonasero,” said Cardinal Corsaro, a man with
a hatchet-thin face and a cast to his left eye. “The chances are remote, at
best, since we cannot utilize the Knights on this one. So we at least must
prepare the Conclave for the next pope—someone we can trust with the knowledge
of the Vatican Knights, someone who will keep their secret. And you know as
well as I do that you are the most renowned within the College.”

“I would prefer to put my fate in Kimball’s hands before we
start talking about my succession as the next pope,” he said. “Besides, I’m in
the twilight of my life. So let’s not begin to anoint me yet.”

“We should not turn a blind eye to the existing
probabilities,” said Corsaro. “Kimball is the man we all want to be in the
trenches, no doubt. But we all know he has limited options. And even they are
beyond his control.”   

Cardinal Vessucci sighed. Corsaro was absolutely right: he
was one man alone against a terrorist faction 30,000 feet in the air. The
improbability of the dark reality certainly outweighed the reasonability of
Hayden’s success. “I will inform the Camerlengo to be prepared,” he said. “But
don’t give up on Kimball.”

“I know what he can do,” returned Corsaro. “My faith hasn’t
totally escaped me.”

Vessucci eased back in his seat and turned his eyes to the
glass stained image of the Pieta, this time his mind wondering if the Vatican Knight was even alive.

#

Barring the bump
on his head,
Kimball was fine. What wasn’t fine, however, was the laptop he was using to
contact the Vatican, which had been destroyed during the plane’s maneuvers, the
screen shattered. He hoped the additional laptops he left behind in the
fuselage held up during the violent course.

Passing through the hatch with more effort than he cared to
exert, Kimball realized he was running out of time. The wild path of Shepherd
One was no fluke, the plane obviously in evasive maneuvers which were confirmed
by the dual rocket explosions that sent a concussion wave that drove the jumbo
jet into a downward trajectory before righting itself. No doubt Enzio had done
a masterful job in eluding the sortie. But then to regain control of the
airliner which was not built for aerial exercises was absolutely expert on the
part of the seasoned pilot. But Kimball knew he would soon have to utilize his
own set of skills if they were to survive the day:
I kill people. It’s what
I do. It’s what I’m good at.

Somehow he would eventually have to work his way topside and
take his chances.

Stepping into the tube of the fuselage, it looked like it
had been tossed about by a gorilla wreaking havoc. Clothes, suitcases,
paperwork and miscellaneous items were strewn across the floor. Crates not
tethered properly to the surface were lying on their sides. But in the center
of the fuselage were the two aluminum cases, unmoved, secured, the tethering
suction cups doing their job well.

Standing over the weapons, Kimball held his hands over them
like someone standing before a comforting fire burning beneath the mantel of a
fireplace, then got to a bended knee. Gently, as he knelt between them, he
placed a hand on each of the neighboring cases and sensed their coldness.
First, he carefully opened the case on his right. When he did he saw the
burnished spheres and listened to the waspy hum. And then he repeated himself
with the second case and used great care as he lifted the lid, revealing a twin
rendition of the first—the burnished spheres undamaged and very much alive.
With the same prudence he closed and fastened the latches, and then rummaged
the area for a working laptop. After finding two useless units broken in the
freefall, he finally found one intact.