Shepherd One (23 page)

Pope Pius XIII leaned back into his seat, closed his eyes,
and began to pray.

And when prayer was over he thought about one thing. He
thought about Kimball.

But even this was too much for one man to conquer alone.

#

Hakam paced the
twin aisles
of the jet airliner, up one aisle, then down the other. Something was clearly
on his mind, his demeanor not escaping the insight of the Garrote Assassin, who
held a steady eye on him.

“Are you all right, al-Khatib?”

Hakam raked his hand nervously through his hair and feigned
a smile. “Fine,” he said, and then moved on.

He had penance to pay for losing his faith. This much he
knew. What he didn’t know is if Allah would forgive him for the transgression
of losing faith, and then accept him into His Glory upon his death. The moment
Shepherd One began its steep decline, the ideology of self-sacrificing his soul
to Allah had become reality. His faith wasn’t even a consideration, only
self-preservation. So now he had to rediscover himself in a way to appease his
God by regaining his conviction and prove his worthiness. And he would start
with prayer.

While making his way back to the fore of the plane he
observed the pope who appeared distant, his eyes vacuous, as if staring through
the solid masses before him and toward that beatific plane of existence only he
could see. Perhaps he, too, Hakam considered, was in prayer.

“Are you in prayer?” asked Hakam.

The pope never altered his gaze. “I am.”

“And what do you see?”

“I see hope.”

Hakam nodded. “One man’s hope is another man’s apathy. You
want to live and I want to die,” he lied. “Only one of us can have their way.”

“Hope drives men forward while apathy inhibits growth. Hope
will prevail.”

“My hope is that we shall die for a cause. So does that mean
my concept of hope will prevail over yours? Or will the semantics of ‘hope’ be
left to the subjective interpretations of men of distant philosophies, such as
yours and mine? There is no clear answer.”

“No, but there is a clear path,” he returned. And then he
faced Hakam. “I pray for the hope of good will, whereas you pray for its
downfall.”

“I hope for the progress of my people.”

“And the price of progress is destruction?”

Hakam did not counter, although he was fascinated by the art
of debating. “Keep praying,” he told him. “So we shall see whose hope is the
greater.” 

Pope Pius turned away, his eyes once again growing distant.

From the periphery of his vision, Hakam saw a jet fighter make
its way to the pilot’s side of the plane. “Keep praying,” he said dully, his
sight tracking the flight of the jet’s path. “But I think your words will fall
on deaf ears.” And then Hakam moved toward the cockpit with urgency.

But Pius knew his hope to be the stronger.

And his hope lay within Kimball Hayden.

#

The Flight Commander
of
Fighting Falcon Two-Six-Four-Three positioned himself alongside the cockpit
window of Shepherd One.  When Enzio saw the pilot gesturing to him by tapping
the lip-mike area of his helmet to reopen communication, Enzio didn’t hesitate
and flipped the toggle.

“Go ahead, Two-Six-Four-Three.”

“ . . .
Shepherd One, Base Command would like to
establish open communication with the hostile factions on board your flight. Do
you copy
? . . .”

“Copy, Two-Six-Four-Three—will have to get back to you on
that.”

“ . . .
I’ll be waiting
. . .”

The Fighting Falcon never left its position, its wing tip
less than thirty feet from the cockpit window.

#

Hakam would make
penance
later. Right now he would show Allah his true devotion and commit to the cause
through immediate action. Prayer would come later.

When he stepped into the cockpit he saw the jet fighter
about twenty meters away. “Has he made contact with you?”

Enzio nodded. “He wants to reestablish communication with
you.”

“Then let’s not disappoint,” he said. “Open the line.”

Enzio handed Hakam the lip mike and headpiece, then flipped
the toggle.

“And with whom do I owe the pleasure, since you are the one
who tried to knock us out of the sky?”

“ . . .
Shepherd One, this is Fighting Falcon
Two-Six-Four-Three, I have a message from Command Base who wishes direct
communication with you. Do you copy
? . . .”

“It all depends on who it is at the Command Base who wishes
to speak with me,” he said.

“ . . .
That would be the Commander-in-Chief
. . .”

Hakam didn’t even flinch. This was the moment he’d been
waiting for—a moment with the president of the United States.

“ . . .
Do you copy, Shepherd One?
. . .”

“Shepherd One accepts the invitation,” he said.

“ . . .
The Commander-in-Chief has requested a live feed
from your position
. . .”

“Then they shall have it.”

The Flight Commander gave Hakam the ISP coordinates to open
communication with the staff at Raven Rock.

Once Hakam entered the contact address into his laptop on
the navigation desk, he opened communication and viewed the president’s team from
his monitor. “So tell me, Mr. President . . . how are you today?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

President Burroughs tried to show no
sign of weakness, but an unyielding strength with the projection of his jaw.
“I’m going to ask you once, Mr. al-Khatib Hakam. Do you have weapons on board
that plane?”

Hakam’s image peered back at them from the large viewing
monitor, the image grainy. “You know who I am. Very good, Mr. President, but as
you can see the advantage is mine. First, let’s get several things clear: I run
the show, I make the demands, and you follow them to a T. Or Los Angeles
becomes a wasteland. This I guarantee.”

“So you do have the weapons?”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Or maybe they’re well hidden somewhere
in Los Angeles.”

Then why were you trying to make it to Washington before
your mission was compromised?
he wanted to ask.
It wouldn’t make sense
to leave them behind when you could have used them to destroy the highest
political seat in the land. 

No,
he thought,
they’re on board.  And they would
have used them over D.C., if they had made it.

“What do you want, Hakam?”

“And that’s what it really comes down to, doesn’t it, Mr.
President?”

“I suppose you want us to release your terrorist clan
members from custodial facilities throughout the world and other impossible
considerations, right? So tell me, Hakam, what do you really want?” 

“So terse, Mr. President . . . I don’t think I like the tone
of your voice.”

“I don’t give a damn what you like.
What . . . do . . .
you . . . want
?”

“For the moment . . . a change in attitude,” he said calmly.
“Mr. President, if you believe for one moment I would allow you to press your
authority on me by trying to impress your staff by the way you address me, then
you’re sadly mistaken.” And then the screen went dead, the image winking off.

Burroughs raised his hands. “What the hell just happened?
Did we lose contact?”

CIA Analyst Doug Craner nodded. “We did,” he said. “But from
his end.”

The president looked briefly at Doug, then back at the
screen. “That son of a bitch turned me off.”

“Mr. President, we still don’t have confirmation if the
weapons are on board.” This came from Thornton.

“He’s maintaining leverage. He wants us to believe that if
we should drop the plane, then the additional unit would still be alive
somewhere in LA. He doesn’t want us to think all the eggs are in one basket.” 

“Maybe they’re not.”

“Before their position became compromised,” he said, “I
believe they were heading for the most powerful political city in the world
with the intent to destroy it. Now that they’ve been found out, they’re creating
a new agenda for which maintaining leverage is the key. And Hakam knows this.”

“But what if his plan all along was to set off a blast in LA,
and then another over Washington? A nuclear blast is a nuclear blast. Not only
would he have destroyed the highest political seat of the nation, but wreaked
havoc with the populace of LA as well.”

Burroughs considered this. Hakam maintained a huge advantage
by handing the president and his team the idea of ‘not knowing.’

“I wish we could get the pilot to confirm something for us,”
he said.

“Maybe he doesn’t know.”

“Then get that little prick Hakam back online,” he ordered.

“We’ve tried,” said Hamilton. “But he’s locked us out.”

The president fell back into his seat and pitched a sigh.
That
little son of a bitch
!

#

Hakam closed the
screen to
the laptop. After terminating the transmission with the president, he knew that
Burroughs was trying to position himself as a man with a strong and unyielding
constitution by confronting the face of adversity with a sense of bravado. His
tactic, however, never made it beyond the first stage.

As with most negotiations, psychology was the key to the
outcome of any situation. And Hakam knew this, letting the president know by
cutting off the transmission that he was not in charge of the circumstances,
only Hakam. Therefore, Hakam employed his own brand of psych posturing by
letting the president stew over the prognosis of whether or not there was going
to be future contacts. Which, of course, there would have to be; otherwise, the
mission would hold no purpose for the Muslim Revolutionary Front. But Hakam
knew that the president would appear far more passive on the second broadcast,
which brought an inward smile to the Arab who was holding the greatest country
in the world on its knees. And for the moment he could no longer hold back the
vanity of his pride as that inward smile of his made its way to the surface.
Game one went to him. 

But the game was far from over.

No doubt the president would try to reestablish contact by
sending the F-16 forward. But Hakam would ignore the calls. 

In two hours he would contact Burroughs and his team with a
desired game plan with demands to be issued at that point in time. In the
interim, Hakam would make penance. And for those two hours he would pray for
Allah’s forgiveness and guidance, along with the courage and strength to see
this mission through. 

If Allah was testing his faith, Hakam vowed never to fail
the test again.

But something inside him that could not be wholly exorcised
clung to him with unwavering dependence. It was the fact that his faith
remained shakable. And if he couldn’t fool himself, then how could he fool
Allah? 

 Grabbing his prayer rug from an overhead bin, Hakam went to
the rear of the plane, removed his shoes, got on bended knees, and began to
pray with devotion, hoping this act of homage would grant him Paradise. 

He was sure Allah would give him his needs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When Dr. Ray Simone attended Harvard
University and spent the majority of his time working at the Science Center, he
fell in love with something more than just his work, though most people thought
it impossible, given his academic acuity that nothing truly existed beyond the
world of academia.

But there was.  

Her name was Tia-Marie Castellano. By most standards she was
not pretty. Nor was she displeasing to look at. She was, however, an academic
with a thin face and soft brown eyes that appeared too close together. And
whenever she parted her lips to display slightly irregular teeth, her face
beamed with the afterglow and warmth. It was the little things about her that
drove him pleasantly and deliriously crazy with desire, such as the way she cocked
her head in that silly little slant of hers, or the way she held that odd look
of trying to analyze a problem but couldn’t quite grasp an immediate solution. In
time they gravitated toward each other, two unique people who found comfort in
each other’s interests—talking about atoms and flows and theories that drove
most people from the room. And in the course of human primal urges, uncovered a
world beyond the pages of books and discovered each other romantically. She was
his only woman, and he her only man.

Three years into their relationship and having moved on from
Harvard, she began to act differently, her mood shifting with sudden changes
and becoming prone to rages and bouts of impatience, then fits of severe
depression. In the apartment they shared in Boston she often flew into
unprovoked rages, which convinced him that she was suffering from bipolar
disorder. That changed, however, when she began to slur her speech, her words coming
forward in drunken effect.

Within a week of testing, a diagnosis confirmed a tumor on
the amygdala portion of her brain, which controlled the emotions of fear and
aggression. And with all the intellect between them, there was nothing either
could do to save her. Her life was ending due to malignant cells running wild.

Almost two months later she was gone.

And he wept.

And he mourned.

And he continued to think of her constantly.

If she was at Area 4 right now, there was no doubt in his
mind that she would have found the solution to disable the payload circling
above Los Angeles. As intellectually stellar as Tia-Marie was, however, her
only setback, at least in his eyes, was that she lacked common sense.

One night while driving through Roxbury, one of Boston’s seedier suburbs, she noted the black markings of graffiti on a block wall,
prompting a comment that the walls should be painted black, so that no one
could write graffiti on them. And he could remember his response clearly: ‘Then
all they would have to do is write with white paint. Black paint does not wash
things away forever.’ And for some odd reason she thought that was the greatest
solution to a marginal problem. To him it was simply common sense. To her it
was something that never entered her mind because the matter did not prove to
be highly analytical. And for the rest of the evening she continued to tell him
how brilliant she thought his answer was—which really wasn’t brilliant at all.
Just something he noted with little consideration.

And then a thought struck him as he sat next to his locker
staring at an aged and creased photo of Tia-Marie. She had seen the world
differently than he did, with fewer dimensions and more of a straight-on and
singular approach, reminding him that
his
world possessed a negative
side to her positive, black verses white. He viewed the situation of Shepherd
One being the black wall, and tried to find the solution with white paint. She
viewed the white wall in Roxbury with black paint, the other side of the
spectrum

Of course
!

For hours he was trying to figure out a way to breach the
payload’s brain by initiating a virus through the altimeter to kill the CPU.
But what if he looked at the situation as the white wall, like Tia-Marie? What
if he looked at the altimeter instead of the CPU?  He could readily access the
altimeter and reprogram its detonation attitude to as low as 10 feet above sea
level, not the 10,000 feet it was locked in at. The CPU would still read the
memory as being active since a numerical balance of attitude remained, but
could only detonate at 10 feet. Surely the sea level of LAX was above that.

Dr. Simone kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed them
endearingly against the faded photo of his one-time love, quickly recalling a
Simone-ism he created for her upon the moment of her death. Soul-mate: Two
people who are forever linked by unconditional love, never sees fault in the
follies of their loved one, and is willing to self-sacrifice their personal
needs for the welfare of their companion without consideration of their own
consequences. It is a connection that is timeless and cannot be cut off by
distance or events. It’s a connection that takes a moment to create, but exists
for a lifetime. 

“Thank you,” he whispered.
You always did show me the
way.

After that he sprinted to the lab.

#

In the inconstant
light
provided from the flicking bulbs on the Avionics board, Kimball could hardly
see the keypad of the laptop as he typed a message to the Vatican.

As the plane took its rises and falls, making the situation
much more difficult to manage, he was able to type a message to Cardinal
Bonasero Vessucci.

Bonasero:

Shepherd One commandeered by terrorist faction of six;
however, one has been terminated and two disabled. At least one bishop is dead.
Pope Pius, at least for now, well. Options limited due to being locked in the
lower level, with no access to upper.

Heightened hostile intent; two nuclear weapons on board!

Enzio flying under duress; family believed to be held
captive in Perugia—maybe at the Ponte Felcino Mosque or the old munitions
factory on the outskirts. Send the Knights to secure their safe release. Have Leviticus
lead the team.

I’ll do what I can from my end. Contact me ASAP.

KIMBALL

And then he hit the ‘SEND’ button, the screen reading
MESSAGE SENT.

#

In a restricted
chamber
situated beneath the Basilica, seven chairs were situated on a marble platform
rising four feet from the floor. The pope’s chair, a king’s throne layered in
gold leaf with carvings of winged cherubs and angels, sat vacant. The six
corresponding chairs were less imaginative; three to each side of the pontiff’s
centered seat were quasi-thrones occupied by the remaining members of the
Society of Seven, all dressed in full regalia. 

The hall was grand, ancient, an underground recess where
past popes and their secret allegiances met time and again. The walls were made
of lime, the ceiling vaulted and supported by massive Romanesque columns, and
the acoustics were poor, words often traveling across the room as echoes. The
only light provided came from the gas-lit lamps moored along the walls, giving
the room a medieval cast to it.

As the Society of Seven waited an echoing cadence of
footfalls sounded from beyond the chamber door, the pace quick with urgency and
the steps weighted as if something colossal was making its way toward the
sequestered room. From the opposite end of the chamber a door of solid oak
labored on its hinges as a man of incredible height and stature walked toward
the platform with a gait and bearing that spoke of power and self-assurance.
His shoulders were broad, his massive chest and arms denoting atypical strength
with the facial features of a warrior scarred in combat. When he reached the
base of the staging area he removed his beret, dropped to a knee, and placed a
closed fist over his heart.

“Loyalty above all else,” he said, “except Honor.”  This was
the salute of the Vatican Knights.

Cardinal Bonasero Vessucci remained seated, as did the rest
of the cardinals who watched Leviticus from their raised vantage point.

“Stand, my friend,” said Vessucci. “We’ve received word from
Kimball for which you are to be the recipient of.”

Leviticus, a smaller facsimile of Kimball, stood to his full
height. “And what has become of Pope Pius and Shepherd One?” he asked. 

“For that, there is nothing any of us can do,” he returned.
“For the moment the pope is alive and well. And Kimball is doing what he can
from his end. But I’m afraid the odds are not in anyone’s favor but the
terrorists.”

The shadow lines on Leviticus’s face undulated with the
movement of the torches’ flames, his features coming alive when, in fact, he
remained neutral.

“You, my friend,” said Cardinal Vessucci, standing, the
sleeves of his garment sliding to his elbows as he clasped his hands in an
attitude of prayer, then made his way to the edge of the stage. “Kimball has
sent word that the family of the pilot flying Shepherd One is being held
against their wishes, either in the Ponte Felcino Mosque in Perugia or the old
abandoned factory that borders the city. We need you to find them,” he said,
“and bring them back well. There may be nothing we can do for the pope. But we
can at least provide Enzio with the peace of mind that his family is safe, if
something should happen to Shepherd One.”

“The Ponte Felcino Mosque is under tight security,” he said.
“Getting in won’t be easy.”

“No, it won’t. But the probability of them being housed
inside the old factory is more practical, since the Italian government has been
keeping the mosque under close surveillance ever since it was raided a few
years ago for terrorist insurgency. And it is for this reason we believe the
clerics wouldn’t risk the future sovereignty of the temple, if this was
discovered.” The cardinal turned and labored away from the edge of the stage,
his steps choppy, and took his rightful seat next to the papal throne.
“Therefore, you will begin with the factory,” he said.

Leviticus bowed his head. “Understood.”

“Leviticus, please be discreet in your dealings as much as
possible. War is war, we understand this. But if something tragic should occur,
then the Vatican will have no choice but to disavow any knowledge of the
Knights since we cannot afford any unwanted attention toward the Church.”

Again: “Understood.”

“Then bring them back, my friend. And with the blessing of
God,” he gave the sign of the cross, “and with the blessing of the Society of
Seven, be it known that the Church holds faith in those who believe in true
righteousness.”

Leviticus got to a knee and placed a closed fist over his
heart. “Loyalty above all else,” he said, “except Honor.”

The cardinals stood, an act of homage, each man placing a
closed fist over their hearts. In unison they praised the Vatican Knight in
perfect concert. “Loyalty above all else,” they said, “except Honor.” 

Leviticus stood, turned, and walked away from the cardinals
with his footsteps echoing off the ancient stone walls in haunting cadence.

#

Dr. Simone took
careful
effort to avoid the roving laser grid inside the unit by precisely cutting an
oblong hole in the case with a laser that allowed minimal passage to the
underside port of the altimeter, which led to its processing unit. With a
mechanical arm and its automated hand, the end of the relay connection was
carefully guided by the hand-clamps which inserted the cable from the
facility’s mainframe to the altimeter, securing a linkup.

Immediately the large screen against the wall showed a
series of binary numbers, a primitive code, the series easily altered or
manipulated to raise or lower the altitude range. The code was a simplistic
form of figures provided by the BlackBerry’s minimal capability to supply
complex data to the CPU.

With the seasoned skill of a programmer, the binary code was
reconfigured with mock courses running on the screen to see if the newly
encoded instructions could lower the altitude score. On the monitor it did,
going as low as one foot above sea level. The CPU in the weapon continued to
maintain its memory read. 

He then reconfigured the data to be programmed into the
altimeter and hesitated before depressing the ‘SEND’ button. Although the unit
was considered dead because the activation code was never fully entered, and
with the exception of setting the weapon off by breaking the snare of the
roving laser grid, which was not going to happen, he couldn’t help wonder if
there was another catch hidden somewhere within. Something he didn’t know
about.

Taking in a long breath and letting it out with an equally
long sigh. He looked around the lab, which was as vacant.

And then he pressed the button, the informational relay
going through.

The numbers in the altimeter’s readout window started to
move downward from the 10,000 foot mark and rapidly picked up pace, the digits then
moving so fast they could not be discernible from one numeral to the next. And
then the pace slowed at a hundred feet and more so at ninety. It finally
stopped at ten feet above sea level.

Simone smiled and nodded in approval. “Gotcha,” he said. He
immediately contacted the president. 

#

“I can’t fully
disable the
weapons,” said Simone from the viewing monitor, “but I can certainly
reconfigure the data to well below the ten-thousand-foot mark so that Shepherd
One can land at LAX.” 

The president sat with his hands and fingers tented, his
eyes staring with a marginal spark of hope. “How?” he asked.

“All this time I’ve been looking at the approach by
attacking the main CPU in the device when I should have been looking at it from
other points as well—white wall, black paint; black wall, white paint.”