Shepherd One (4 page)

He is not a member of the Swiss Guard.

Nor is he a member of an Italian military faction.

He is a Vatican Knight.

Kimball Hayden sat up in bed, his partially naked torso that
of a well-developed body builder—his upper arms, including his triceps, as
large as a common man’s thigh.

Seeking salvation through the Church had always given him a
comfort zone, but not one that was complete and absolute. He had been
repeatedly plagued by this dream time and again, the same scenario never
changing, the Freudian calculation being an overwhelming guilt for killing two
children which led to a sudden epiphany that was apparently not enough.

Closing his eyes, Kimball asked these questions:
Will You
ever forgive me, Lord? Could You ever forgive me?
But deep inside Kimball
believed that true forgiveness would always elude him for the fact that he had
given up one war to wage another against his own personal demons. And these
demons would never let him forget, coming night after night eroding what little
hope he had of someday being free of a past laden with the bloodshed of others
by his hands.

Climbing out of bed, now fully nude in the glow of the
moonlight, he stood before the sliding glass doors overlooking L.A. The pinpricks of light reminded him of the night in the Iraqi desert, as he lay there
looking skyward and praying for forgiveness so long ago with the bodies of two
youths lying buried beneath his outstretched arms.

It remains, without doubt, his darkest memory.

In the shadows he sighed, then took a seat before a window,
craving a drink.

What . . . really . . .  is different
? he considered.

Although his agenda had changed, his criteria had not. Under
Kimball’s command his team of commandos had entered the jungles of the
Philippines and South America to save the lives of missionaries held hostage,
often implementing tactics hardly acceptable in the eyes of the Catholic
citizenry, but acceptable in the eyes of the Church in order to achieve the
means. Other times they traveled to eastern bloc countries to aid in the
protection of priests against dissident insurgents, and often interceded in
bloody skirmishes between opposing factions of religious orders in Third World nations. The differences always dispelled upon the appearance of the Vatican Knights.

The bottom line:
People continued to die.

But this time it was under the quiet acceptance of the Church.

So again,
what really is different
? The question
caromed off the walls of his mind as his headache continued to rage on. The
answer, however, continued to elude him.

Although his comfort zone was the front line of the battle
zone, Kimball Hayden needed a reprieve from everything that was a major part of
his world. What he needed was a sabbatical, a vacation away from the dark side
of man’s constant wages of sinning. And he got that by serving as the pope’s
personal valet during the Papal Symposiums.

Of all the damaging dreams he was mired in, Kimball Hayden
never dreamed he would have to utilize his very particular set of skills to
save himself, the pope . . . and most of the free world.

He looked at the emblazoned numbers on the clock: It wasn’t
even midnight.

Nevertheless, he would sit and wait for morning.

CHAPTER FIVE

Arizona/Mexico Border

Night had settled.

Team One of the Arab league could see the boundary marker
dividing the United States from Mexico, a simple barbed wire fence held in
place by hitching posts, which hardly seemed worth the effort since it didn’t
appear to be much of a deterrent.

In the far distance the glittering lights of Naco, Arizona winked intermittently. 

The three Arabs hunkered down next to the aluminum case,
each man listening for anything out of the ordinary that would give fair
warning as to what really lay beyond the fence line other than the coyote
standing on a rocky escarpment silhouetted against the moonlit night. In the
darkness its eyes radiated something mercuric, that stark oddity of quicksilver
flashes against a darkened shape. After a brief study the coyote released a
quick series of yelps before trotting off into a grove of tangled brush. 

In the lighted phase of the gibbous moon, the Arabs
continued to wait, sit, and listen, their patience a learned virtue.

Now the silence became as unsettling as the coyote’s cry,
because everything seemed far too easy with Arizona less than sixty meters away
without a hurdle to provide them a meager challenge to stop them. Which is
probably why this area had become a popular crossover point for illegal aliens
over the years; the possibility of getting caught was minimal. 

Getting to his full height of six three, Abdul-Ahad quietly
ventured several feet forward with a noticeable limp, his bad leg acting up
after the long journey across the desert terrain after the van was held up in
sand, then took to a knee between the divides of two sand dunes and held up an
open hand, the signal to his team to hold their progress.

In the distance the lights of Naco continued to burn and
twinkle as an incentive of a new beginning for those who crossed over. Yet the
Arab discerned something was amiss, the one-time elitist of the Republican
Guard sensing a peculiarity only a seasoned soldier could intuit. 

After closing his eyes and letting his hand fall in defeat,
he considered how close his team had come to fulfilling Allah’s wishes.
Unfortunately, he and his team would enter Paradise much sooner than anticipated.

Reaching into the cargo pocket of his pants, the Arab
withdrew the BlackBerry controller of the nuclear weapon and flipped back the
lid, revealing the lit face of the keypad, knowing all too well what was
waiting for them in the darkness. 

With a finger poised over the pad and waiting to strike the
keys to initiate the device, Abdul-Ahad thought,
I know you’re out there . .
. I can feel you .
. .

And the man intuited correctly.

As if on cue a row of floodlights positioned along the
crossbar of a Border Patrol Jeep kicked on, bathing Abdul-Ahad and his team in
bitter brightness. 

“Border Patrol! Get down on the ground! Get . . . Down . . .
On . . . The . . . Ground!” And then in Spanish, same thing:
“¡Patrulla de
frontera! ¡Consiga abajo en la tierra!”

Sorry, Padre, I don’t speak Spanish. 

In an instant Abdul-Ahad began to type with a pianist’s
speed and dexterity, his fingers never missing a mark as the password set in
Russian characters began to show up on the display window, the device talking
to the payload as the frequency worked its way across cyberspace to initiate
the weapon’s triggering mechanism inside the aluminum case.

“¡
Patrulla de frontera! ¡Consiga abajo en la tierra
!”

And then a warning shot, a quick burst in the air from an automatic
weapon by the Border Patrol, an illegal maneuver against policy, but one that
caught Abdul-Ahad’s attention nonetheless. 

“Majid, Qusay, hold them off.” His Arabic came in a rush,
his tone bearing the weight of urgency as he fell behind a small sandy rise and
away from any direct line of fire. “I need time!”

Majid and Qusay ambled forward in the soft sand aiming their
side arms before firing in quick succession, the shots taking out half the
spotlights while others coughed up sparks when they hit the Jeep’s metal
bumper.

Abdul-Ahad’s men were pretty much on target as they were
able to drive four officers from the Jeep’s cab, and to the useless cover of
sage before they hunkered down into the prone position to return fire. Bullets
zipped passed them with the sounds of angry wasps, each man in the patrol
knowing that a particular sting may prove fatal should it find its mark. And
then they returned their own volley, the cacophony of gunfire carrying north to
the Arizona town.

Abdul-Ahad’s team moved beyond his position, giving him a
protective front line as he brought them closer to Paradise, as three of the
ten characters needed to begin the countdown of the nuclear payload surfaced on
the BlackBerry’s screen.

. . .
Now a fourth character . . .  Six more to go
.
. .

His fingers continued to strike the plate in blurred
fashion.
  

. . .
A fifth character . . . Another step closer to
Allah
. . .

Several meters ahead Majid and Qusay’s aim remained true,
keeping the officers pinned until Qusay’s torso suddenly erupted into a
wellspring of red as bullets stitched across his chest, his wounds opening and
paring back like the petals of a rose bloom as the impacts lifted him off his
feet and carried him backwards. Majid never wavered, knowing all risks hold the
possibility of getting caught before the mission was completed. When his weapon
ran dry, he expertly released his empty magazine and quickly seated another,
then fired at the muzzle flashes. All around him pieces of earth kicked up as
bullets trailed along the sand, the strikes getting closer to Majid, who
maintained his position on a bended knee.

Abdul-Ahad tapped the keyboard at a frantic pace, the
characters on the LED screen appearing much too slowly for his liking with six
of the ten characters in place. Next to him a bullet hit the sand. But the man
carried on without reacting, his fingers continuing to move with pinpoint
accuracy.

From minimal cover, an officer lying in the prone position
leveled the sight of his assault rifle and drew a bead against Majid’s temple,
his breathing now shallow and controlled, his patience forced until the moment
he pulled the trigger.

In a measure of time that seemed much too slow and surreal,
Majid’s face above the jaw line scattered to the winds, leaving nothing but
pulp, gore and glistening bone, as he fell back on the sand with his arms
splayed outward in mock crucifixion.

“Surrender your weapon!” someone shouted. It was the same
voice that Abdul-Ahad heard earlier, the command voice who quickly translated
into Spanish, “
Entregue su arma
!”

. . .
Eight characters, two more to go
. . .

“¡
Ésta es su oportunidad pasada de entregar su arma, o .
. . abriremos . . . el . . . fuego!” This is your last opportunity to surrender
your weapon , or . . . we . . . will . . .  open . . . fire!

In what was left in the feeble lighting—of the lights that
had not been cleared or doused by Abdul-Ahad’s team—the Arab went for his
sidearm stuffed in the waistband of his pants. All he needed was a few precious
moments to punch in the last two codes that would make this part of the world a
no-man’s-land of blistered earth for the next ten thousand years. It would be a
symbol of Allah’s power. And his will to die for the cause a symbol of his
peoples’ faith.  

The moment he directed his weapon to fire off a few rounds
to keep them at bay, there was a retaliatory burst of gunfire, clean and
precise, the bullets punching fist-sized holes into Abdul-Ahad’s chest, which
drove him back and knocked the BlackBerry from his hand.

And then an awkward silence followed—a momentary lasting of
something intangible that hung in the air like a shroud—like that brief moment
of uncertainty of whether or not the situation was totally contained.  

With measured prudence the agents pressed ahead with their
weapons directed to points forward, and policed the area by motioning the end
of their weapons from left to right, each man scoping his surroundings for
insurgents.

When the bodies were checked and confirmed dead and the area
cleared, the officers lowered their weapons and stared at the bounty.

Undamaged in the firefight with its shell dulled and coated
with a misting of fine dust, lay the aluminum case like some obscene Ark mired in the sand. Next to it laid the Blackberry.

“Drugs?” The question was obviously rhetorical since the
transportation of illicit narcotics was generally considered the norm.

Sergeant Cary Winslow, a seasoned vet of quiet demeanor and
heavy moral value, labored to a knee, grabbed the BlackBerry, then gave it a
once over and noted the eight symbols markedly similar to Russian print in the
display window. Snapping the faceplate shut, he then fit the unit into his
shirt pocket and made his way to the aluminum case.

In the glow of the spotlight he could tell that the outer
shell was burnished to a chrome finish, but had lost a lot of its luster having
been layered with a fine coat of desert sand.

“How many kilos you think something like that holds, Cary?” Officer Roscoe Winchell was basketball tall and appallingly thin. When he spoke he
did so with a Mid-Western drawl, even though he was born, bred and raised in
upper New York. “Looks like a cartel run.” 

Winslow didn’t answer. Instead, he undid the clasps and
lifted the lid with all the prudence of releasing the ills of Pandora’s Box.
What he found inside was not what he expected. Beneath a Plexiglas shield were
three spheres surrounded by electronic plates, panels and a hard drive.

“OOO-wee,” remarked Winchell, removing his cap then
scratching an itch at the edge of his scalp before returning it. “What you
reckon that be, Cary?”

Winslow fell back, his eyes remaining fixed. In better
lighting one would be able to see the sudden gray creeping across his face or
the goose bumps racing along the length of his arms. As someone who was trained
to detect anomalies crossing the border, Sergeant Winslow immediately fastened
the case and ordered his team to back away. “I need all personnel to maintain a
perimeter,” he ordered.

“What is it?”

“You never mind, Roscoe. You’ll find out soon enough. Right
now I want you to get on the mike and call headquarters. Tell them to contact
the FBI immediately. Tell them we got us a Dante Package.”

“A what?”

“A ‘Dante Package!’ Now go!”

The deputy was off and running. In the background the other
deputies stood silent and mute.

With less than one year away from retirement, Sergeant
Winslow shook his head in non-belief and looked skyward. Stars glittered like
fairy dust and the smell of the desert air was crisp and clean and
unadulterated. And then he closed his eyes.
They did it,
he thought.
They
finally tried to get one across.

And then he reconsidered. After sweeping his gaze across the
feebly placed borderline with its crooked posts and barbed wire fencing, there
was no doubt in his mind that at least one nuclear device crossed over the
boundary.

He had no doubt at all.

#

‘Dante Package’ was
the code
name for a low-yield nuclear weapon packaged to be mobile, such as in a
suitcase or a backpack. During the Cold War, Russia processed dozens of such
devices that looked like a five-gallon drum fitted into a canvas backpack. But
what the members of the FBI, NSA and Cisen—Mexico’s CIA counterpart—were
looking at was anything but.

This device was state-of-the-art, a far descendant of the
Cold War version.

Within a brilliant cast of lighting, provided by a perimeter
of lamps set up in a perfect circumference around the scene, the aluminum case
was spotlighted as the centerpiece of attraction, with the dead Arabs lying
supine in the blood-stained sand next to it.  

The marginal wind, however, cooled off the landscape, as if
to settle the scene.

At three-thirty in the morning the deputy director of the
FBI’s Phoenix field office didn’t bother with the tie or expensive shoes, but
wore jeans, sneakers, and a tan shirt that was tucked in just enough to reveal
his belt badge. Beneath the armpit of his left shoulder he wore a pancake
holster with the stock of his sidearm in easy reach.

For six minutes John Abraham stood as if deliberating, his
eyes fixed, staring, absorbing everything at the scene and making a mental note
before approaching the case and the bodies of those who surrendered their lives
to protect it.

Alongside him several NSA officials stood silent, deducing,
with every member clad in formal dress attire and conservative hairstyles that
were perfectly coiffed. And Abraham had to wonder how this was possible given
the short notice to be on the premise, like him. In marginal adherence to his
appearance, he tucked the tail end of his shirt to somewhat conform to his law
enforcement constituency. 

Far be it if NSA should show up the FBI
, he
considered.

Two men in hazmat suits ventured into the established
perimeter zone, the soles of their boots making tracks in the soft sand
reminiscent of the lunar imprints left on the moon’s surface. With Geiger
counters in hand the men swept their wand over the aluminum shell.

Just a minimal amount of Geiger ticks, nothing more.

Getting to a knee, one of the hazmat officers undid the
clasps of the aluminum case and opened the lid while his colleague continued to
wave his wand slowly back and forth.

The ticks remained at minimal, the threat of radiation
emission at safe levels. Whatever concerns there might have been regarding
toxic levels were summarily dismissed.