The Hand of Christ

by Joseph Nagle

  The sailor expertly plugged in the cord and plug assembly of the mask along with the breathing hose that would feed Michael his oxygen from the onboard oxygen generation system. He then connected a second Pressure for Breathing in G (PBG) hose. During the entire procedure he explained to Michael how all of this would help.

  None of what the sailor explained had any real discernable calming effect on Michael’s anticipation of the flight. In fact, it just made things worse knowing that he would need so many special devices, suits, cords, and tubes to stop him from dying.

  Damn, I really hate flying, Michael thought to himself.

  It also didn’t really help when the sailor, unprovoked, turned the flight seat around one-hundred-eighty degrees and then tilted it back about ninety degrees. Michael was now staring at the black ceiling of the Shadow.

  “Hey, what are you doing, am I going to fly like this?” Michael couldn’t hide his fear.

  The sailor bent over Michael’s face, appearing just a tad omnipotent, and replied, “Just for the take off, sir; when you are at full speed the seat will automatically right itself. I suppose it doesn’t really matter though, it’s not like you will be able to look out of any windows. Listen, sir, flying to hypersonic is better when you are eye-balls in and when the forces on your body are perpendicular to the spine. You are going to be heading up at a pretty steep climb and this will help, I promise.”

  In an effort to bring his own sense of levity to the situation, Michael snorted, “Oh, now I feel much better.”

  The sailor smiled, showing two rows of big and white, glowing teeth.

  Without warning, the seat Michael was sitting in began to rumble slightly. The low sound and vibration of the aircraft’s engines could be heard and felt coming to life.

  The sailor let out a guffaw and slapped Michael on the shoulder and snapped shut the silicone rubber face piece. Leaning over and close so that Michael could hear him he shouted above the now deafening roar of the engine, “That’s my cue, sir. Remember, squeeze the abs. Keep that blood from flowing away from the brain. If you start to go hypoxic just squeeze harder but don’t freak out. Eventually you’ll come to.”

  The sailor double-checked the mask ensuring that it was in place across Michael’s face and slapped Michael one more time on the shoulder; then gave him the customary aviators' thumbs-up. Without saying another word, the sailor turned and left.

  The door to the Shadow closed casting Michael into an oppressive and claustrophobic darkness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hotel Azadi

  Tehran, Iran

  The assassin answered the ringing cell phone. He knew who was calling and simply stated, “It is done. The Ayatollah is dead. It was fast and without any problems. Unfortunately, his wife and servant were at home.”

  The Messenger replied, “Collateral damage, Allah has shown you the correct path. They now perish in Jahannam where they belong until Allah decides otherwise. You have done well. Did you leave the weapon as you had been instructed?”

  “Of course,” responded the assassin. “I etched the serial number that you provided onto a chrome-plated American Colt .45 weapon, and precisely as was required, I did it myself. I left the weapon on the Ayatollah’s desk.”

  “Good. I have another assignment for you. Your credentials, ticket, and money are waiting for you in their usual place. There is a new cell phone as well; you will find it with everything else. I will contact you on it within twenty-four hours with further instructions.”

  The line disconnected, the Messenger had another phone call to make.

  Another assignment, thought the assassin. There had been a growing number of them lately. Starting early in the year, the assassin had carefully wired the car of Hezbollah’s security leader using a Syrian Intelligence explosives technique – techniques that were taught to him by the Messenger.

  The bomb detonated late in the evening in the Kafr Suseh neighborhood of Damascus. As planned, to their anger and dismay, the Syrians were blamed just like the Messenger had said they would be.

  Again, another apostate met his necessary fate, and, in his place, the Messenger had been promoted.

  Growing curious; beginning to question the Messenger’s motives, the assassin had asked his leader for an explanation. The Messenger had told him that a Zionist plot had absorbed the minds of these men. That, in an effort to end the fighting between Lebanon and Israel, these men had been secretly meeting to recognize Israel’s right to be in the Middle East, to allow them to own permanently the lands belonging to Muslims.

  The men were apostates, and were willing to compromise their religion for personal gain. Never would a true Muslim bend to Zion; he had felt ashamed for having questioned the Messenger’s motives.

  After the assassination of the security leader, the Messenger had swiftly taken the man’s place in an effort to “wash Hezbollah of Zionist sympathizers,” to bring purity back to Hezbollah. The assassin was proud of what he had done; he was helping to cleanse Islam’s ranks of soldiers that had no longer felt it necessary to adhere to Islam’s pillars. He viewed his work as the highest form of religious ablution he could imagine.

  There was a growing movement of Muslims, the Messenger had said, that were working to concede to the demands of the West, of Zion. This could not be allowed. Muslim land belongs only to Islam, to God. No one could question this, not even a Muslim.

  The assassin stood in front of the hotel’s wash basin in preparation for his own minor ablution. Beginning with his face, he washed it slowly and then continued on to his arms. With the moisture from his hands he slowly wiped his head and then his feet.

  He stepped onto his musallah, the traditional Islamic prayer mat. The assassin faced in the qibla; the direction of the black silk adorned Kaaba, the cube shaped building in Mecca and the place all able Muslims must visit at least once in their lifetime: an act that is one of Islam’s pillars. He began the rituals of the Nafl Salat, a voluntary prayer. He had to hurry; the sun would soon be setting.

  Before any mission, the assassin always prayed before Allah asking Him to lay in front of him the right path. When the mission was completed, he would do so again thanking Allah for having showed him the right way, for protecting him.

  This mission had come as a surprise; it shocked the assassin to learn that the Ayatollah of Iran had become an apostate. But it wasn’t up to him to question the will of Allah. The Koran is very clear; apostates deserve nothing less than death. It was required.

  Killing was his profession, and he wanted to do so only for his faith. He was a man strong with his religion and its fundamentals; he had convictions; he killed only for Allah: that’s what he told himself.

  It was Allah that had sent him the Messenger, the man that had rescued him from a life that had lost its direction. He didn’t believe that he was a murderer or sociopath; he did not want to be a man that killed only for gain or to quell any urge.

  He was wrong: he killed only to satisfy an urge.

  As the number of his victims grew, the assassin felt a growing intensity building within him and between his kills. The feeling would come sooner and be stronger than the last, and, at times, seemingly uncontrollable. Between missions, the assassin would walk the streets salivating, as if in search of prey. Every man he eyed was a potential victim. He would visualize how he could kill him: a blade to the throat, or the snapping of his neck.

  In his mind he had slain a dozen men in the last week. He wanted to ravage them, to mutilate their bodies. The urge to slaughter grew with each passing day and caused him to break into cold sweats. Mostly, he would pray until it passed; sometimes praying for days. He often wondered how soon it would be before he gave in to the temptation, to kill just to kill. But the discipline required to be a Muslim helped to keep him from straying, from killing those that didn’t deserve to be killed.

  Throughout his entire life, as a Muslim, he had been taught that death is the one and only true remediation for certain transgres
sions against Islam. The assassin felt that it was his duty to submit to and to serve his religion in this manner. If he was born with a God granted, insatiable desire to kill than killing should only be God’s will and not of his own; he often reminded himself of that during his prayers. But still, his urges persisted.

  As a younger man and while a member of VEVAK – the intelligence arm of Iran – he had been taught his life’s skill. Naturally, he had been adept and a quick study in the craft of death. The assassin had been hand picked by the President of Iran himself to become his personal bodyguard. Large for a Persian, the assassin was dark and formidable. At just over six-feet tall and a well formed 240 pounds, the assassin was a capable and devastating opponent to any man that found himself in his way.

  He had single handedly stopped two attempts on the President’s life; one attempt had been by an American operative. The assassin had skillfully tracked and killed the American operative who had been sent with the US and Israeli backed mission to murder the President in his sleep.

  The mission had almost ended with their success and the assassin’s failure. However, he was able to find the American just as the man had entered into the President’s bedroom, but not before the American had shoved a silenced pistol into the temple of the President’s head. The assassin had walked carefully toward that American operative with his own weapon raised toward the two men; the assassin was not surprised that the American had wanted to negotiate. There had been no conversation.

  The assassin didn’t hesitate, and had expertly depressed the trigger of his weapon. While the horrified leader of Iran and his wife had sat in their bed clutching one another, a single bullet had entered the throat of the agent and exited through the base of the skull. The shot was designed to instantly paralyze the man rendering him unable to pull the trigger of his own weapon, but had left him alive, albeit for only moments.

  Americans were so predictable and weak; unlike Muslims, they feared death – dying was not a well accepted option to them – this one had been no different. The American operative had fallen to the ground unable to move as his life quickly escaped; it had been just as the assassin had planned. He hadn’t been finished with him.

  The assassin remembered how he had looked down at the nearly dead agent, and how he had removed the small curved blade that was hidden in the buckle of his belt. He then, to the horror of the President’s wife, had swiftly removed the agent’s eyes. The man would not be able to see in the afterlife. How he had enjoyed that moment. It was his first taste of death inflicted by his own hands. Killing the man had been easier than he thought, and it had satisfied him more than he realized it would.

  The President had gazed upon the assassin with the same look that a proud father casts upon his son.

  After that moment, the two men had become very close; saving a man’s life has a way of making the saved man beholden to his savior. The President soon became like a father to him giving the assassin something that as a child he never had.

  And then it changed.

  Less than one year later, the assassin had become distraught when the President had died under mysterious circumstances while traveling. The assassin had been asked by the President to stay back in Iran, to take some time off. After the burial, and suffering from the loss of his father-figure, the inconsolable assassin changed. It was as if a hidden switch had been flipped. Rage would build within and he would explode. It didn't matter who was near. On one day, when his rage nearly overflowed, a younger member of his unit made the mistake of showing up late for target practice. The young soldier was found half-dead, severely beaten, and with all of the fingers broken on his left hand – his firing hand.

  It was never proven, nor did the young soldier admit who had attacked him, but his superiors suspected who it had been. The assassin was dismissed from the service of VEVAK.

  For a number of years he had led a life of relative isolation in a small two-room home on the northern slopes of the Alborz mountain range in the Mazandaran Province of Iran. He had been content to live a simple life and only under the eyes of God. With the absence of other people to remind him of his rage, his need to kill had abated.

  One day, nearly seven-years ago, everything suddenly had changed. A heavily bearded man appeared outside of his home during one afternoon. Unsure upon who he was looking, or why the man was there, he had politely asked him to leave. The man wouldn’t respond, but had just stood there defiantly. From underneath the rim of his cap, the man’s stare had mockingly burned into the assassin.

  Losing his patience and a cold sweat starting to mist at his color, the assassin had run at the man. But just as he had reached him, the man stepped aside faster than he had ever seen any man move. The stranger thrust out a sharp kick to the assassin’s shins that was followed by a fist to the back of his head. The barrage of blows had sent the assassin sprawling into the foliage of the temperate rainforest.

  The assassin, angered at his own lack of discipline, jumped to his feet for a counter-attack. He moved to him slowly, carefully, and was circling him, looking for the strange man’s weakness. But the man had just stood there unmoved. His face was hidden by his thick, black beard and the only thing he had moved were his strangely colored eyes: one intensely blue, and the other black.

  The assassin remembered how he had lashed out a series of blows and attacks that the strange man effortlessly had blocked and easily countered. A solid, single and vicious punch to the assassin’s sternum by the strange man had thrown the assassin to the ground. The assassin remembered how he had just laid there staring straight at the heavens above as he had gasped for air. He had felt a number of ribs crack.

  The strange man was hovering over the assassin, but didn’t continue his attack. Instead, he had reached his hand to the broken assassin, which, in an act of concession, the assassin took. The strange man gently and gingerly had pulled the assassin to his knees. The two men had stared upon one another in silence when the assassin, holding onto his broken ribs and with a grimace, had screamed out, “What do you want? Are you here to kill me? Then do it quick, I am not afraid to meet Allah!”

  “Are you so ready to die already?” the strange man had replied, “Why so soon? There is yet so much work to do for God.”

  When he had heard this, the assassin slowly raised his head until their eyes met. The man’s strange two-toned eyes pierced him no different then they do today. The man had told him that he was sent by God, that the assassin’s work was not yet finished. He had been sent there as his personal Messenger: to find him, to train him, and to use him to cleanse Islam.

  For the next three years, the Messenger trained the assassin in intelligence tactics, killing techniques, and how to use explosive devices and weapons that he never knew existed. For three years, he worked to turn him into what he called Allah’s Hashshashin – God’s Assassin.

  As the years passed, the Messenger rose to greater power in the Islamic world; partly due to the work of the assassin. The Messenger spoke of a great and secret wealth that belonged to Islam. Stolen long ago, it was now in the hands of the infidels and being used to make Islam weak and apostates of its leaders. He said that for Islam to extend its reach world wide, they would need to recover what rightfully belonged to them.

  The path to Islam’s final glory was unfolding, just as the Messenger had said. He would do what Allah wanted; he would take his guidance from the Messenger.

  Finishing his prayer, the assassin stood from where he had laid prostrate moments ago. He rolled up the musallah and placed it in the hotel’s small closet. After, he put his shoes back on and then left the hotel for a walk. Through the back alleys, he slowly made his way, enjoying the respite from the day’s heat brought by the sudden cool breeze; the sun approached its nadir at the horizon, readying to set.

  On his stroll, he came upon a beggar that sat cross legged on a dirty piece of colored textile. The thin skinned old man was severely emaciated and had a head of nearly non-existent silver hair. Be
nding down to the ancient man, the assassin placed a thick wad of rial notes onto the beggar’s dented tin plate. There were one-hundred notes, all of them denominated in Iran’s highest face value of fifty-thousand rials. In total, the amount roughly equated to around five-hundred US dollars, a fortune for the beggar.

  The old man smiled widely and revealed a mouth nearly free of all of its teeth. The few that remained were horribly blackened and chipped from a hard life of class-induced poverty and lack of care. The man softly grabbed the assassin’s hand and placed it upon his own forehead offering him a sign of his gratitude. With his other hand, shaking from age, he reached beneath the soiled cloth and pulled out a manila envelope and handed it over to the assassin.

  The assassin waited until he returned to the hotel to open the envelope. Once in his room, he spilled its contents on the bed: a passport, a new, unused cell phone, a wad of rolled Euros, and an airline ticket. Pushing aside most of the contents, he picked up the plane ticket attached to which was an itinerary.

  Holding the ticket closer, he read it and his destination was revealed: Leonardo da Vinci Aeroporti (ADR) – the Airport of Rome, and the home of the Vatican.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mach Fifteen Plus

  Into the Stratosphere

  Inside of the sealed Shadow, the darkness enveloped Michael adding to the suffocating effects of the mask that was now strapped firmly across his face. An irritating crackle permeated the small speakers built into the ill fitting flight Helmet.

  The sterile and deep voice of the Captain metallically piped into Michael’s head: “Dr. Sterling, how are you doing inside my bird?”

  Michael spoke into the M-169A/AIC microphone that was built into the specially designed face mask, “Probably no different than if I had been tied up, blindfolded, and locked in a trunk.”