The Iscariot Agenda (8 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rome

Pope Pius rested comfortably at
Gemelli Polyclinic, his bed raised so he could better view the television. Beside him sitting in a chair was Cardinal Vessucci.

“Bonasero.” The pope reached out to him with a bony and frail hand, and Vessucci grabbed it with ease. “You’re a good friend and favored by the College to succeed me—”

“Let’s not talk about this, Your Holiness.”

“Bonasero, death is only a new beginning. It’s a way of life.”

“Of course it is, but yours is far from over.”

Pius smiled, becoming passive. And then: “I’ve lived a good life, my friend. But we both know that I’m in the twilight of my existence. I don’t need a doctor to tell me that. I know just as you do.”  The pontiff sighed and laid his head against the pillow, their hands still clutching. “It’s time to see my Heavenly Father,” he added.

“Amerigo—” The cardinal cut himself off.

“Bonasero, you’re my good friend and the College favors you to succeed me. You have the tools to win the masses, and the gift to give hope when hope is needed the most. Use them wisely.”

The cardinal relented. “If I should succeed you, if the College of the Cardinals deems me fit to sit upon the papal throne, then I will not disappoint.”

The pope smiled. “I know that.” And then the pontiff fell into a severe coughing fit, more blood, his face growing crimson. Red flecks ended up on the back of Pius’s liver-spotted hand, which the cardinal wiped clean with a tissue.

Within moments the pontiff eased back into a calm repose with a hand to his chest as his breathing fell into a more rhythmic, a more normal pattern.

“On my passing,” he told the cardinal, catching his breath, “you’ll need to fill the vacant seat within the Society of Seven. There are those who are too conservative to see the need for the Vatican Knights. But there are those who recognize the Church’s right to protect its sovereignty, its interests and the welfare of its citizenry. Choose wisely, Bonasero, to avoid an insurrection by conservative factions within the Vatican, those who are most politically minded.”

The cardinal nodded in agreement. “The secrets of the Knights will be well kept and held to the Society of Seven. There are many within who recognize the right of the Church to protect itself. So don’t worry, Amerigo. I’ll find someone to fill the void without a setback.”

“What about the status of the Vatican Knights?”

“Isaiah and Leviticus are meeting with marginal resistance and no collateral damage, but far from being relieved of duty to aid Kimball. We still haven’t found those on sabbatical.”

Pius sighed. “And have you heard from Kimball?”

“No. But he did land safely in Las Vegas where he was met by SIV who informed him of Mr. McMullen’s fate. From what I understand he’s now on his way to the next perceived target.”

A man of Lincolnesque statute, tall and lanky with wispy limbs beneath his medical coat, entered the room wearing a feigned, if not uneasy, smile. As he stood at the foot of the pontiff’s bed the man rung his hands nervously.

With an encompassing smile magical enough to sooth the man, the pope put the doctor at ease. “And how are you today, Doctor Simonelli? Blessed, I hope?”

“Your Eminence—” The man took a step closer, the pretend smile gone. “Your Eminence, I’m afraid I have some rather disturbing news regarding your condition.” The physician hesitated for a brief moment, the lapse of time, however, seemingly long and surreal. “I’m afraid you have cancer.”

“Advanced?”

“Yes, Your Holiness, I’m afraid so. The cancer has metastasized to tissues to both lungs and neighboring organs. You’re at stage four, in fact.”

“Stage four?”

“I’m afraid it’s terminal.”

There was another pregnant pause, the moment awkward.

And then: “How long?”

“I’d say anywhere from three to six months. It all depends upon how your body responds to chemo and radiation.”

“There’ll be neither,” he said. “I’ll simply let nature take its course.”

“But, Your Holiness—”

Pius raised a halting hand. “No, Bonasero, God is calling me home. There is no need to prolong the inevitable.”

“Are you in any pain?” asked the doctor.

“No, just tired. I thought I was just overworking myself.”

“If you want, Pontiff, I can prescribe morphine.”

“There’s no need, Doctor.” He turned to the cardinal. “I’ll need around-the-clock care until I can perform no longer. You’re the secretary of state, so I’ll need to groom you to cover my duties until my passing. From then the Cardinal Camerlengo will take over the duties upon
the moment I die, and continue those duties until a successor is chosen.”

    
The cardinal nodded sadly. “Of course, Your Holiness.”

The pope laid his head against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “I’m going home.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The assassin had no idea that Kimball Hayden had just driven within fifty feet of his location as he holed himself up inside a cheap franchise motel along Tropicana. Behind the drawn drapes the assassin sat on the edge of the bed going over aged dossiers of the Pieces of Eight. The dossiers of Walker, Arruti and Grenier were closed out, the files bound by an elastic band and sitting on the nightstand between twin beds. The five remaining dossiers sat on his lap. The profile of McMullen was open, the aged photos yellowing at the edges, the detailed information regarding the one-time government assassin spelled out in seventeen pages.

Taking the photo of the Pieces of Eight in pose, the assassin traced a finger over the face of McMullen where the letter ‘A’ was scribed within his circled head.

I-S-C-A, the top row was now complete.

And there was no doubt that those on the bottom row would soon coalesce into a fighting force and strike up a plan for self-preservation, with Kimball as their lead.

But they would be fighting blindly, he considered, the core members not knowing who they were up against—how many or how little—with every sound or moving shadow a possible threat.

The assassin then closed the folder and slipped it beneath the band with the other closed files, then placed the active files on the bed beside him.

The first to fall would be the Indian from New Mexico, he mulled, the one they called The Ghost. And then the brothers who were by nature passionately reckless, with Kimball to be the last to feel the bite of his pick. 

The man got to his feet, went to the window, and parted the drapes. The lights of the Las Vegas Strip were truly magnificent; the city the bedrock of dreams of becoming wealthy beyond imagination usually going unfulfilled. It was a place created on romantic illusions of penthouse living, caviar snacks and champagne brunches, only for the city to spit you out in the end once it bled you dry.    

It was a cruel place that took McMullen by the inches. He just finalized the inevitable.

Returning to the bed, the assassin picked up the final folder and peeled back the cover. Inside was an old photo of Kimball Hayden, very young, a stoic pose, the man without remorse or contrition. It was the photo of a killer.

The assassin traced a finger over the picture. “After I take
those around you
and there is no one left
, I will
take your life before your soul has a chance to find the salvation it so badly seeks

. . . I will send you to Hell where you belong.”  

Closing his eyes, his breathing finding the even rhythm of meditation, the assassin shut the file and found himself at peace.

#

Kimball Hayden had
flown into Albuquerque and rented a car. His eyes were weighted, his entire body fatigued with more than thirty hours of going without sleep. But he pressed on towards the Mescalero Apache Nation.

Around him the land was made up of multiple color blends in shades of reds and pinks and mauve. The buttes, the rocky rises, all lined with the strata lines formed millennia ago, lent somewhat of a primal, prehistoric look to the terrain. Sage and desert flora dotted the landscape. And the sand was the color of Mississippi mud, red with alluvia lines formed by the push of hot winds rather than the force of running water.  

The flight to New Mexico was minimal in time expense. The drive, however, was time consuming.

 By mid afternoon he had found the cut off leading to the reservation. But according to the dossier, Victor Hawk’s ranch was on the border between his people and the people he lived with, the White man.

Taking the dirt road, his vehicle kicking up rooster-tail plumes of red earth in its wake, Kimball could see a ranch-style house in the distance and a barn that was surrounded by posts that corralled horses.

Leaning against the corral posting stood a large man. But Kimball was too far to see if it was Hawk.

What he could tell, however, was that the large man was looking right at him.

#

The Native American
leaned his elbow against the corral posting and stood there in leisure, eyeing the vehicle that was making its way down the dirt road to his ranch. Next to him was a German shepherd. A growl rumbled in the back of its throat. 

“Dog,” said the Indian, “hush.” But the shepherd continued his growling.

As the car neared the Indian stepped away from the posts and closer to the road’s end. He was tall and broad with the beginnings of a paunch. And beneath the ten-gallon hat he wore his raven hair was fashioned into a thick braid that went down to the small of his back. His eyes were dark, the edges surrounding them were deeply lined with crow’s feet from spending too much time beneath a sun that had ripened his skin to the color of tanned leather.

The shepherd matched him step by step, its growl hardly abating.

“Dog, I said hush.”

When the car drove up it was coated with dust. The windshield, however, was marginally clear after a mopping of the wipers. When the driver exited the vehicle he stood before Hawk with a briefcase in his hand. The first thing the Indian set his eyes on was the Roman Catholic collar, and then the cleric’s shirt, and military-styled pants and boot wear.

“Something I can help you with?”

The driver took a step closer. “It’s been a while, Hawk. You still go by Ghost?”

The Indian cocked his head, his mind working with recall. And then his jaw dropped as his eyes flared with incredulous disbelief. “Kimball?”

He smiled sheepishly. “How’s it going, big man?”

“You’re supposed to be dead. Died before the first war with Iraq.”

“Apparently I didn’t”

The dog began to growl.

“Is the dog friendly?”

“When he’s not hungry.”

The Indian walked closer, appraising Kimball, his eyes staring in wonder.

And then: “What happened?”

“Truthfully, Hawk, I just walked.”

The Indian tilted his head. “You absconded?”

Kimball nodded. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t continue to do all the horrible things we did. Not anymore.”

Hawk stood within a foot of Kimball. And after what seemed to be an awkward moment embraced him. “It’s good to see you again, my friend. On the word of your passing I prayed to the spirits for many nights on your behalf. And here you are many years later.” He pushed away and pointed to Kimball’s white collar. “And what is this? Are you a priest of your people now?”

“Hardly.”

“Then, why the collar?”

“It’s a long story, Hawk.”

“All I have is time. All I do is stand here all day and watch my Appaloosas roam the land.”

“They are beautiful,” he commented.

In the pen behind Hawk were six horses, all mottled with different patterns in different shades and sizes.

 “But enough about my horses,” he said. “Why are you here?”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As night fell the sky was filled with a multitude of pinprick lights, the constellations alive with the movement of starlit glitter. In the distance coyotes bayed at a moon in its gibbous phase, the canine language causing Dog to raise his head in the direction of the howl, but nothing more.

In the meantime, as a slight breeze blew in from the west, Kimball confided in Hawk the reason why he absconded prior to the first invasion of Iraq—about the two boys he killed to keep them from compromising his position.  He told him about his epiphany and the opportunity of redemption given to him by the Church to seek the ‘Light’ of his inner self. But he omitted the part about the Vatican Knights since they were a clandestine group, telling Hawk in mention that he served as a low-ranking emissary within the Church’s hierarchy.

While they sat on a wraparound porch in wicker chairs Hawk listened, once in awhile giving a perceptible nod of understanding as his eyes focused to a landscape that was the color of whey under the watchful face of a semi-full moon.

As Kimball spoke, he did so in a manner and tone that beseeched forgiveness from the Native American for absconding from his duties as a warrior. As a soldier of the Pieces of Eight, as an elite commando of the Force Elite, absconding was considered the most magnificent act of cowardice in the eyes of your brethren.

When he finished he sat back and remained quiet, waiting on a response from the Indian that never came.

And then: “It’s really peaceful here, Hawk. The way the stars shimmer, the quiet of the surroundings.”

“It’s the land of my ancestors,” he finally said. “It’s my home.”

Kimball sighed. “You’re disappointed?”

“You were an Elite,” he answered. “But if your inner spirit cannot commune with the spirits that show you a path you truly do not wish to take, then there is disharmony. Your inner spirit must find its place by following a journey that leads to inner peace. Without that, a man is never whole.” The Indian turned to Kimball. “I can tell you that you are still on your journey.”

“I am.”

“With age comes maturity and wisdom. And I am not without the mindset that we did horrible things, Kimball, things that should never have happened now that I have been wizened by the spirits of my ancestors.” The large Indian hesitated, staring out at the scenery. “On most nights the spirits show me the errors of what I was,” he said, “of the things I’ve done. And every night I see the faces of those I killed, the faces of those who are now the spirits who haunt me.” He turned back to Kimball to punch his point home. “But I never ran.”

Kimball nodded. “I didn’t come here to seek forgiveness, although it would be greatly appreciated. What we did, we did a long time ago. We need to move on.”

Hawk turned back to view the landscape, his chin raised; something about him stoic in the way he sat. “Then I will ask you once again: Why are you here?”

Kimball reached for the files sitting on the table between them and grabbed the top folder. “I’m here,” he said, “because we’re being hunted.”

“Hunted?”

Kimball opened the folder and grabbed the top photo. It was of the Pieces of Eight. The faces of those on the top row were circled with letters etched over the faces, I-S-C-A. Hawk was the first one kneeling on the left side of the bottom row, a machete in one hand and an assault weapon in the other.

Kimball handed Hawk the photo and grabbed the next photo in the folder. “A few days ago,” he began, “Walker was hit in the Philippines.” He handed the Indian the second photo, that of Walker lying on the table, an ‘I’ cut into his back.

“He has no legs,” the Indian said simply.

“He lost them in an attack while serving as a mercenary. In fact, he worked for a militant group that was seated on top by Arruti and Grenier.”

Hawk accepted the third and forth photos, that of Arruti and Grenier lying face down with the letters ‘S’ and a ‘C’ notched into their backs.

“Both dead obviously?”

“Within a day of Walker’s murder.”

“They were in the Philippines. It can be a dangerous place.”

“You know as well as I do that Arruti and Grenier were at the top of their game. Yet someone had the military sophistication to take them out.” He pointed to the first photo in Hawk’s hand—that of the Pieces of Eight lined up in pose. “Whoever is doing this is choosing their targets sequentially from left to right, top row first, and presumably the bottom row next. And you, Hawk, are next in line.”

“But why now?”

“I’m not sure. But it’s somebody who obviously has the connections to send forward an elite military unit as a disposal team. Politicians, a government insurgency group, anyone who believes that we can be a detriment because of the things we know.”

“Then my guess would be the powers that be who applied our skills to better promote their rankings. But that was so long ago. So why now?”

Kimball shrugged before falling back into his seat.

The Indian examined the photos for a long moment before setting them aside. And then he looked over the landscape with a keen eye, nodding every once in awhile as if communing with his inner self. “He’s here,” he finally said.

Kimball looked out at the desert, seeing nothing but the shadows of distant mountains and the darkened shapes of cacti and saguaros. In the far distance to the west, thunderheads were gathering and the sky grumbled. “How do you know?”

“I know with this,” he said, pointing to his nose. “And also with this.” He then patted his chest over his heart with the flat of his palm. “I was ‘The Ghost’ because I know the skills of a hunter. I know stealth. And I know every hunter watches his prey before he strikes. Even prey is wary of what he cannot see.”

Kimball chalked it up to Apache instinct, the man simply spouting off since it was truly impossible to tell if anyone was out there or not. But Kimball also knew that Hawk was truly amazing with his skills of intuiting what others could not.

“He’ll watch, and then he’ll strike when it’s opportune.”

“Are you prepared for a defense?”

The Indian looked at him quizzically. “Are you kidding? What I miss, Dog will pick up. And if he—or they—should break the first line of defense, then I’ll be there waiting for them. I may be old, Kimball, but I haven’t lost my skills.”

“I have no weapons.”

“I’ve plenty. Wait here a sec.”

The Indian got to his feet and went into the house, the hinges of the screen door whining in his wake as Kimball was left to view the desert wondering if he was caught in the crosshairs of an NV scope.

When Hawk returned he did so with a minor arsenal. Strapped to his leg was his Bowie, a knife he cherished due to its size, always saying that a sizeable blade provided a psychological edge; bigger was always bad, he would say. Seated on his head was a pair of night vision goggles with a monocular lens. And in one hand he carried an assault weapon with an attached suppressor that was as long as the weapon’s barrel, an MP-5, and in the other hand was a top-of-the-line rifle used by snipers, the CheyTac M200, which was effective for up to 2000 meters.

“This only scratches the surface,” he said. “In the back is a hidden room holding all the toys I covet.”

He handed Kimball the CheyTac, which had heft to it but was extremely manageable.

“And with these,” Hawk lowered the monocular lens over his eyes and switched the unit on, the goggles powering up as the batteries whirled the apparatus to life, “I’ll be able to see him coming no matter what point he wishes to attack from. The CheyTac will then take him down the moment he steps out into the moonlight.”

“I know I’ve lost credibility in your eyes, Hawk, but I need to fight by your side on this one.”

The Indian smiled. “Like old times?”

“Like old times.”

Hawk nodded in approval. “But right now you need rest. How long has it been since you slept?”

“Over thirty hours,” he said.

“You’re no good to me unless you’re sharp. Get some sleep. Dog and I will watch the compound.”

“But if you’re right about him—”

“I’ll be fine, Kimball. I’m ‘The Ghost,’ remember? I know what to look for in a predator since I am one myself. If he comes, I’ll know it. And once I know he is here, then I’ll make sure that you’re fighting by my side.”

“We’ll need him alive, Hawk. Or them. I’m not sure how many there are since I find it hard to believe that one man is capable of taking out Arruti and Grenier.”

“We’ll soon find out, won’t we?”

“I just need a couple of hours, maybe three.”

Hawk smiled, a wide grin, the wage of pride. “I’m ‘The Ghost,’” he said. “At first you would see nothing but jungle, then the flicker of a shape, and then you were dead by my hand. That’s me, ‘The Ghost.’”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Then don’t worry and get some sleep. I’ll need you at the top of your game.”

Kimball lay the folders down and got to his feet. His face was beginning to hang with fatigue and his eyes were growing glassy and red.

“Take my bed,” said Hawk. “It’s comfortable.”

“Thanks, man. And, Hawk?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s good to see you again.”

Hawk turned toward the landscape while resting the CheyTac across his lap. “Yeah. You too, brother.”