The Hand of Christ (9 page)

Michael survived only by sheer luck.

Running down the mountain and away from the campsite, the operative – a teammate – in front of him took a stray bullet to his liver. He was thrown backward into Michael while screaming in agony. All Michael could do was to press one hand over the wound and the other over the man’s mouth in an effort to muffle his screams and avoid drawing further attention. Within minutes the man’s thrashing ended along with his breathing.

Michael carried his fallen teammate down the mountain. Over one-third of the men didn’t make it out of Ahaggar alive. It wasn’t until the Medic aboard the extraction chopper explained the fatal nature of a gunshot to the liver that Michael stopped believing he had suffocated him. The medic reassured him that the operative didn’t have a chance, but at least his family would have a body to bury “unlike the others.”

Unlike the others
, Michael had thought.

There would be no way that Michael would not go back to Ahaggar to retrieve the fallen.

A second mission to Ahaggar was more successful; there were two objectives on that day. A series of Tomahawk cruise missiles not so subtly destroyed the camp, a clear and very loud message to the Armed Islamic Group. The first objective was successful; the second objective was next. Michael led a second Special Operations team back into the mountainside to retrieve the bodies of the fallen team members.

Before joining the CIA, one never to be forgotten lesson that Michael learned during his training to become an Army Ranger was that a Ranger never – not ever – leaves a man behind.

He brought this lesson to the CIA.

Michael was physically separated from his section chief whilst screaming at him to authorize the mission to go back. He told the chief in not so cryptic of a fashion that he would cut off his testicles and shove them down his throat if he didn’t approve the mission to retrieve the bodies of the fallen men.

Michael received a Commendation of Valor (Classified) for carrying his fallen comrades out of the mountain and a promotion. Last Michael had heard the section chief was pulling duty at a one-man listening post outside of Anchorage.

Much like his teammate’s death from a bullet to the liver, Yousef died the same way, too.

Yousef was dead.

Michael closed Yousef’s eyes.

Chapter Seven

Umayyad Mosque

Damascus, Syria

A blast nearby cracked violently through the air and forcibly snapped Michael’s thoughts back to the situation at hand. The concussion from a second and even closer detonation was created by the explosion of a 3.6 kilogram warhead tipped, Iranian made, Toophan round and threw Michael violently against the wall of the great room; pieces of ceiling were falling around him.

The brief concussive effects were abating, but had spun him into a short-lived fit of painful vertigo. The room spinning around him, Michael jumped awkwardly to his feet having forgotten that his right thigh still had a few small fragments of grenade buried beneath his skin.

Persistent shelling could be heard amidst the sounds of small arms fire, and was occasionally interrupted by the distinct sound of a fifty-caliber machine gun; it was a weapon so large it would certainly be mounted upon a vehicle’s framing and capable of putting a ten-inch hole through six inches of solid concrete.

This was no disorganized attack by a small force or splinter cell, but an all out coordinated and controlled attack on the diplomats of each nation. The talks were supposed to be held in secret.

How did they know?
Michael thought.

Confused by what was happening, and fully unprepared for a military assault, Michael shoved the ancient book into the waist of his pants and staggered through the smoke filled corridor of the Grand Mosque of Damascus.

The decision to hold the negotiations between Syria, Israel, the US, and Lebanon at Umayyad was partly out of geographic pragmatism, but mostly because of the comforting significance of the location. The talks between the four countries were in progress for some time, for generations really. This time there seemed to be real and palpable headway being made.

Unannounced to the rest of the world, the talks had to be held in secret. Few in the room had reason to trust one another or the outcome, but were putting forth a real attempt at a solution.

Unfortunately, the concepts of social evolution taught by Sir James Frasier of magic leading to myth, which in turn led to religion were widely ignored throughout the world, including the Middle East. Had they not, a solution might have come long ago, but the twisting of certain fundamental aspects of religion by religious leaders had long worked to discourage peace in the Middle East. All religions were culpable of social manipulation; the only real difference was that one had a head start over the other.

Much like fighting for your political candidate, Yousef caucused hard amongst the delegations to have the talks at Umayyad. The decision, he argued, would carry an additional significance, one that every religion could truly appreciate.

Built at one of the holiest sites in Damascus, the mosque appeals to the Syrians. Its design was based on the house of the Prophet in Medina. Construction took place on its current site in the early 8
^th
century and during the Umayyad Caliphate.

However, the ground on which it stands had been holy ground for millennia and first used by the Arameans, a full one thousand years before Christ. During the first century AD, the Romans built a temple in honor of Jupiter on the site, which gave way three hundred years later to a Christian church that was dedicated to John the Baptist. Of Byzantine and Corinthian influence, at one time, the mosque was one of the largest in the world, and is still one of the holiest sites in history: the Grand Mosque of Umayyad is revered by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The minaret in the southeast corner of the mosque is often referred to as the Minaret of Jesus. It is prophesized that upon the return of god’s son – at the end of the world – it is at this minaret that Jesus will appear.

The religions of the world have their beliefs of Umayyad and its minaret, but there were only three people in the world that knew the real truth.

Beneath the minaret is a narrow winding wood staircase; its entrance can only be found after moving a heavy slab of stone from the floor. Ingeniously designed, the stone’s movement is commanded by the insertion of a golden, star shaped key-like device into a hole hidden behind one of the many carved stones that adorned the wall.

There were dozens of them.

Most were faded by time, but carved into each were a number of ancient symbols still possible to be read. The symbols were from a secret, unspoken language taught only to and able to be deciphered by a member of an esoteric group called the Order.

Descending nearly three stories beneath the earth, the feeble and narrow wooden staircase ends at the door of one of antiquity’s most guarded secrets. The door is made of heavy lengths of acacia planks that are bound together by wide strips of copper. Pressed into the copper is a motif of the image of a sphinx and the moon and stars of the mother goddess.

Secreted behind the rustic door are the heads of John the Baptist and of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet, which rest in honor at the easternmost corner; both stare toward Mecca. For many generations the caretakers of the Mosque have believed that these heads were on the ground floor of the mosque, marveling visitors. They weren’t completely wrong, just only about their precise location.

In the center of the room stands an odd-shaped rock, its top was chiseled flat. Placed on top of the rock is a non-descript ossuary carved from ancient porphyry. Usually meant for the remains of a deceased loved one, the ossuary of igneous rock held a different purpose. If one were to have inspected it before the arrival of the diplomats, it would have been quite apparent that the cover, still ajar, had recently been moved, exposing its one content, which was missing.

The missing item was now in Michael’s hands.

The man who had taken it was dead.

Three stories above the room, the ricochets of bullets and the rumblings of explosions continued; Michael felt his way along the corridor and stumbled somewhat. Another series of successive and louder blasts shook the mosque and Michael along with it. The blasts preceded another round of multiple explosions and were laced with small arms fire.

The attack was still ongoing.

The detonations were getting closer.

He had to keep moving.

Michael could feel the adrenaline surging as wildly as the pain that radiated through his body – the surge of the hormone would help and was welcomed – he would need all of his strength to get out of the ancient Mosque alive.

Michael took pride in his ability as a thinker and would on any day prefer the pen to the sword. It is not that he was physically incapable of the sometime arduous and physically demanding requirements of the Clandestine Services of the CIA; to the contrary, he was more than capable, proven on a number of missions and with his favorite hobby: Ironman triathlons.

Plato once eschewed the benefits of physically demanding competition so long as there remained a connection between the pursuit of victory and moral virtues; any disconnect and competition resorts to a degradation of social norms based on ego-driven male fantasies. Michael really liked Plato. Michael craved the need to be elite, but wanted to stay connected to his core values; to his father’s disgust (but certainly to Plato’s agreement) he had entered the military.

Enlisting in the Army really did not emanate from some great sense of nationalistic pride; Michael does love his country – immensely so – just not blindly. Joining the armed services provided him the means to push himself physically, and, likewise, allowed him to gain opportunity to areas of government service where he felt that he could provide the most benefit to society.

Initially, Michael had joined the infantry. He wanted to be a grunt, to stand in the same shoes of those forefathers who gave there lives whilst staring at the tip of a bayonet on the front lines. So many battles Michael had studied: Thermopylae, Trenton, and Okinawa (to name a few). He aspired to truly understand and appreciate what it meant to fight for freedom and not just talk about it. He needed to understand how it felt to sacrifice willingly his life for a set of ideals.

His leadership in the military recognized his physical gifts and academic strengths and quickly reassigned him to Military Intelligence where it was off to the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California to learn both Spanish and German.

Later, Michael picked up Arabic, Russian, and a bit of Italian.

Michael spent his early years conducting counter-drug operations. But it was when the Berlin Wall fell along with the sudden, unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union that Michael shifted his professional sights.

Middle East terrorism was the new focus.

After DLI, Michael had attended the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona for training in interrogation and counter-intelligence.

His first assignment was to the 82
^nd
Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but before making his way there, he had to complete airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Jumping out of planes had been one of the most fantastic experiences of his life even though he intensely hated the flying part. When the men in the “chalk” were given the command to stand up, a form of blissful anxiousness always flowed at hyper-speed through him. And when the door of the plane opened, the rush of wind always roared through his brain and erased any ability to think. The sudden loss of any thought was better than any high he could imagine.

Then the Green Light flashed.

It was at this moment, when the illuminated red light flipped to green and the jumpmaster shouted, “Green light, go!” that the built up anticipation was satisfied. Trailing the men out the door and stepping away from the plane has always been the single most enlightening moment of his life. It was a nearly indescribable feeling of being separated from anything physical that one could imagine; it was nirvana, the apex of an orgasm – the height of bliss. The irony was that Michael would have to fly, the thing he hates most, just to leap from a plane, one of things that he loves the most.

Jumping from planes was a quickly gained skill and interrogation came even easier to the young paratrooper, he always had a gift with communication. Michael took great pride in his ability to understand people.

Early in his career with Military Intelligence, Michael was recommended for Ranger school where he received training in mountain operations, jungle warfare, desert training, and advanced infantry tactics.

Assignment to a Ranger detachment brought further military training that was designed to challenge both physically and psychologically; one such training was SERE school, teaching the necessary lessons on Surviving, Escaping, Resistance, and Evading when confronted by an enemy combatant.

Michael made damn sure he would not have to lean on the resistance portion of his training. He was not going to allow himself to get caught by whoever had attacked the mosque; he would use every ounce of his special ops training to survive.