In Between God and Devil
Page 13
Everyone is dispensable, he considered, if they prove to be a constant threat to the cause should they remain unreliable in performance of their duties. That has always been the way of the Islamic State. And it was a strike against Ali, which he knew put him precariously close to the edge with Junaid Hassad. All Hassad needed to do was to give a simple shove that would send him into a permanent darkness, so is the way of the Islamic State. What Ali could not afford any more were glaring mistakes.
Staring at the satellite phone, which was an umbilical tie to Junaid Hassad, Ahmed Ali admonished himself for not being more precise with his responsibilities.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Command Center
The Green Zone
Baghdad, Iraq
Above and beyond anything in Kimball Hayden’s life, he was a soldier. And like a soldier he did his due diligence before liftoff. He scouted the digitally created map of cave tunnels that had been charted by the mini drone. The system had numerous runoffs that appeared like the arterial system of the human body, with many branches. It also mapped out pertinent points of interest, such as Ahmed Ali’s chamber and the stockpile of weapons that were crated. After committing the routes to memory to breach said points through the quickest means possible, Kimball picked up Shari Cohen’s file. Before he opened it, however, he stared at the folder trying to recall the woman who held him as someone she openly cherished. When nothing came to him, he opened the folder and started to go through the papers and documents. Paperclipped to the front page was a black-and-white photo, though she was younger. Nevertheless, she was strikingly beautiful. Nibbling on his lower lip, Kimball beseeched himself to remember this woman, then tried to force recall upon himself. But nothing came, not even a snippet of memory or a glimmer of a past they once shared together. More so, he was impressed by reading her biographical history, something he probably knew at one time, but had been erased by the explosion that nearly killed him.
Why can’t I remember you?
Then he read of her impressive stint with the Bureau, the woman receiving several accolades due to showing testicular fortitude in the heat of battle, which Kimball thought was a good sign. She was a star in her field, a thinker, someone who could negotiate her way through scenarios with seemingly dead-end options, only to rise above the chaos holding the staff of victory.
More reading.
More history.
Then a few years ago in D.C., her family had fallen victim to a domestic terrorist with ISIS ties. Her husband and two daughters had been killed when their Escalade exploded from a planted bomb, leaving Shari to live with indescribable pain that was perhaps created by cruel design, until she took a bullet that cost her a piece of her lung and bowel, the assassin failing to bring down his mark.
More reading.
Although her life with the Bureau was stellar, if not entirely spectacular, she opted from a career that would have seen her chair the Division as a supervisor but opted for change with Langley. The standards of operating within the Bureau compared to the standards needed to operate within the CIA were two different animals that existed on opposite ends of the spectrum. The Bureau did not work under covert conditions where the targeting of individuals who were presumed to be a threat had to be neutralized. Did Shari have it in her to become an assassin when required? he asked himself. Subjectively thinking after reading her history, he was leaning towards the direction that she did not. Even though this popped up as a red flag, though it wasn’t glaring, it was something to take into consideration come crunch time. Could she take a life under the direction of her superiors to terminate an enemy rather than to take a life in self-defense? He did not see in Shari, at least by the reports, anything that would suggest otherwise. The Bureau had its way of doing things, and so did the CIA.
When he reached the end of the report, when there was nothing left to glean from, Kimball returned the documents in full as requested by Jacoby and set it aside.
Closing his eyes to create a screen within his mind’s eye, Kimball pictured Shari’s face, could see the outline of her features clearly. He saw the perfect rows of teeth that when she smiled, gleaming flashes sparked from them like spangles of light. Her skin was cocoa colored and naturally tanned, perhaps a hint of her Greek ancestry through the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Greece, until the near destruction of the Jewish community after Greece fell to Nazi occupation during World War II. With her family having been callously wiped away except for her grandmother, who had survived Auschwitz, Shari kept the inheritable factor going, the Byzantine and Ottoman genes. But when Kimball looked upon her as a stranger, he saw the slow and disheartening fall of her face and the sudden slump of her shoulders that took on the crookedness of an Indian’s bow. At one time, he considered, he was something special to her . . . and perhaps she to him.
Why can’t I remember her?
Opening his eyes, Kimball Hayden became flustered with himself because of his inability to recall things that mattered most to him. First there was Leviticus, and now Shari Cohen.
Grabbing the file, Kimball still had much to do. He would brief the Vatican Knights until they knew everything about the cave system and their operational duties, with their paramount objective to seek out the hostages and bring them home safely. The second aim would be to pave a way for Shari Cohen so that she could complete her objectives, which were independent to those of the Vatican Knights.
With six hours left before they lifted off towards the combat zone, Kimball went to prepare his team of Vatican Knights.
* * *
Even with a heart heavy, Shari Cohen was above all else a professional. Deciding to bury her emotions deep, she readied herself after her briefing from Jacoby, who outlined her duties, which were to be completed without hesitation and without a moral compass. She would access Ali’s chamber and confiscate all electronics, all documents, anything that could detail Junaid Hassad’s movements—this was first and foremost. Secondly, she was to neutralize Ahmed Ali by the standard code of assassination: one bullet to the head and two to center mass.
Working for the Bureau there had been no such code; the ethics between the two institutions with opposite ends of the scale, a teetering effect that had no fulcrum to balance the two. In the CIA there were targets to be handled by the concept of addition by subtraction. Place your mark within the crosshairs and feel no pang of conscience as you pull the trigger.
Beside Shari and laying on the cot was a suppressed Glock. She picked it up and examined it as if it was something novel. She had carried weapons in the past, was an excellent marksman, her scores on the range always at the top of the class. But as she held the weapon in her hand, she looked at it differently. At the Bureau she wielded the sidearm to detain a suspect or as a tool to defend her person. This weapon, however, its only purpose, was to take a life. Shoot first and ask no questions later.
Getting to her feet after she ran the scenarios through her mind as to how to approach her duties once she reached the site, she stood before the mirror. What she saw was a beautiful woman and a descendant of an Auschwitz survivor. Was her goal after being gifted with life to kill others the same way as those who were killed within the camp, with blackened hearts? Could she kill a man openly, even if he was impotent to protect himself or utter a word in his defense—just simply pull the trigger. Isn’t that what they did to those in the camps in places like Treblinka and Sobibor?
Shari closed her eyes and called upon the wisdom of her grandmother who survived Auschwitz, she could hear her voice immediately within her mind, the sound distant as if calling out from the bottom of a well.
. . . Ah, my littlest one . . . My Shari . . .
The voice was as Shari remembered, sweet and kind and benevolent.
. . . Grandmama . . .
. . . My littlest one now finds herself at a crossroads, does she not? . . .
. . . I don’t know if I can do this . . . To take a life of someone willingly . . .
. . . To ta
ke a life depends on the perspective behind the act . . . Some take away the lives of those who are in pain and misery, only for their death to bring them peace. Others steal away the lives out of pure malice. Whereas others take lives to save themselves or to protect the lives of those who cannot protect themselves . . .
. . . I’ve been told to take the life of a man, regardless. To kill him . . .
. . . There will always be reasons, my littlest one, why people need to die, just or not. When the time comes to decide, when the choices are made evident, you will act accordingly to your beliefs . . . In the end, what you feel deep inside you will never betray who you really are . . .
Shari immediately thought of Kimball, how he used to be an assassin whose actions eventually blackened him until he rotted from the inside out, until he was given a second lease on life by forgetting pieces of his past.
Will I suffer the same fate? she asked herself. Will I rot from the inside out until I can no longer stand myself or what I have become?
. . . This man, did he not find his way after he suffered for so long? . . .
. . . I don’t know . . .
. . . Perhaps this man learned that the ways of old were ways that caused his great suffering, only because he was led to believe that his actions were just, only for him to learn otherwise in the end that they weren’t . . . Even in this man, my littlest one, he had seen the wrongness in his heart because his heart was good, and he suffered greatly through the change . . . Your heart will show you your path as well, believe me . . . When the time comes, you will do what your heart commands from you . . .
. . . What if make the wrong decision? . . .
Silence.
. . . Grandmama? . . .
The voice in her head that was so wise and kind and benevolent was gone.
Shari opened her eyes. In the mirror was the image of a woman who was conflicted. In her hand was a suppressed weapon, the tool that would enable her to become a heartless assassin.
PART THREE
THOSE WHO STANDS BETWEEN GOD AND DEVIL
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Green Zone
Baghdad, Iraq
At exactly zero-hundred hours, two choppers, one housing Kimball, Shari, Isaiah and Jeremiah and the other containing Jonah, Joshua and Noah, lifted off and headed west. They were to fly beneath the radar until they were within approximation of the camp, then land three clicks away, or nearly two miles. The team would hustle to the point of attack, follow the rules of engagement, conquer and acquire, and have the choppers move to within a click of the site for a quick extraction.
Even with the mufflers on to quiet the rotors, it was still difficult to hear inside the chopper’s bay.
Having stared at Shari since takeoff with inquisitive curiosity as to what she meant to him, Kimball leaned forward and tapped her thigh to get her attention. “Ms. Cohen—”
“Don’t call me that,” she fired back. “It makes me feel old. Call me what you always called me by—my first name.” When she spoke, she came off with a rebuke that was much sharper than she intended, her words obviously driven by frustration due to Kimball’s lack of recall, even though it was by no fault of his own. On the day of his near-death experience she was willing to offer herself completely to him, two people in love. But now they weren’t even two people they could consider as working associates. They were simply two people who shared the same space.
Kimball raised his hands in surrender. “My bad.” And then: “Tell me, how do we know each other?”
Shari turned to Isaiah, who watched a moment before averting his eyes out the porthole window to watch the darkened landscape pass quickly below.
“We were friends,” she told him stiffly. “Something I’d like to believe as being close.”
“Brother and sister close?”
She turned her head and looked out the window. Admitting the truth would have too painful. So, her answer was no answer at all, which baffled Kimball because he could not understand the hostility behind her words or actions.
“Did I do something wrong?”
She shook her head while staring out the window. “No,” she told him. “You did nothing wrong.”
“I was just trying to see if something you could tell me, anything at all, might jog my memory of you.”
She turned to him with those copper-colored eyes of hers, the irises having somewhat of a metallic and orangey shine to them. As beautiful as they were, they continued to simmer with a hotness that coincided with how she was feeling at the moment. Even though Kimball had no control over his situation, she still felt betrayed because his memory of her was nonexistent. It was as if she had been swept aside by someone who showed no concern or care after the breakup, as if she had meant little to him. But this was not the case. Kimball had been dealt a bad hand, one that robbed him of his love of her, and something he wanted more than being a Vatican Knight. Regardless, it was a hump she could not get over emotionally, and something she regarded as an unpardonable sin. I’m being unreasonable, she thought. He doesn’t deserve this.
She turned to him and managed a smile, though it was artificial. “We were becoming very good friends,” she told him. “In the end, before what happened to you, we spoke of things that will probably never be.” There, I said it. Reality laid out between the two of us.
“Why would these things we spoke about never be?” he asked.
“Because what happened to you robbed us both.”
Kimball had no idea what she was talking about, her words cryptic. Then Shari turned to look out the window once again, striking the conversation dead.
After easing back into his seat with Shari’s body English making it clear that the discussion was over, and like her, looked out the porthole window to see nothing but darkness below.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Syrian Theater of Operation
Though the Vatican Knights were the best in the world at what they did, that did not alleviate the adrenaline flow or the uptick in nervous tension. They were human with very human fears and follies. They were creatures with natural instinctive vibes and sensations, with their olfactory senses kicking in without the use of the five natural senses.
Using blackface grease for the mission with the night-vision scopes of their weapons to guide them, the only starkness against their black Robocop attire was the small white square of their Roman Catholic collar.
Kimball went over the mission parameters once again with Shari looking on, even with her asking questions, until every person on board knew their duties forwards and backwards. The Vatican Knights would become the spear’s head that would drive a swath through the enemy, with the means to do so quiet and effective. The problem with firearms, however, was the muzzle flashes and the distinct odor of gunfire. Knives were also an option, the silent killer, and a weapon that was Kimball’s choice because it never ran dry.
Remember, Kimball had reminded everyone, there are fifty-two tangos, mostly recruits, all unseasoned. None are battle tested, with the advantage belonging to us. Calculate the moment and decide upon a course of action when you encounter a faction. Be quick, be efficient, and let instinct be your guide.
Not your conscience? Shari wanted to say. But she held her tongue while wondering if the Vatican Knights operated by their conscionable soul, or if they were, like most soldiers, trained to set aside their conscionable moment as they pulled the trigger.
Over the intercom, the pilot said, “We’re five clicks away. Get ready.”
Kimball looked at Shari, Shari looked at Kimball, both in blackface. Neither spoke to one another, yet they looked upon each other as mere strangers wondering what the other was thinking.
Then as the choppers landed with the rotors kicking up sand dust, the teams disembarked and began to trot towards the hotspot. Shari, who wore a near empty backpack except for an NVG monocular to carry all the data, moved surprisingly quick, the woman showing incredible endurance, even with a missing piece of her lung.
After whispering commands to his team, the Vatican Knights spread out along the berm and disappeared inside the darkness. Shari, who appeared to be suffering from the shakes because her adrenaline was coursing through her veins like a fast-moving opiate, prompted Kimball to reach out and touch her shoulder to calm her. “It’ll be all right,” he told her. “There’s a first time for everyone. You’ll do just fine.”
The touch upon Shari’s shoulder was electric, a stimulating charge that seemed to calm her, though her heart continued its driving pace that was perhaps more out of ardent caring for the man who was touching her, rather than that of warring excitement.
Returning a smile, one that was not feigned, she nodded and placed a hand over his. The touch between the two was suddenly off the charts, the captivation like magic and something relished. It was also something Kimball didn’t quite understand, yet his underlying instincts that had been dug deep were beginning to surface. This he could feel and sense, and it was wonderfully alive.
After she nodded confirmation and removed her hand, the spark left as quickly as it came. Whatever he felt, whatever it was that was coming to the surface, had crawled back into its dark space.
With their attention now focused on the training camp, Kimball lowered his lip mic and powered up the unit.
* * *
The two guards standing on a hillock above the cave system did so to get a vantage point that overlooked the valley. From their position they could see the perimeter guards, though they appeared murky beneath the wan light of the crescent moon.
They stood side by side speaking Arabic, mostly about their families and less about the cause. After the conversation ended, one of the guards began to make his rounds by walking along the crestline of the hill. Isaiah, who moved so softly that the grains of sand beneath his feet barely shifted, took position along the rise and laid his assault weapon aside. Slowly, he removed his KABAR combat knife from its sheath, then gripped the hilt firmly. There were to be no firearms or muzzle flashes to alert others, only direct and silent kills.