The Hand of Christ

by Joseph Nagle

  She passed CPT Scott as she walked toward York. The Captain stopped mid-stride, and followed her with his mouth half-way agape as she walked past him. The Captain mouthed an indiscreet, “Well I’ll be a son of a bitch,” and then turned and left.

  “I thought you weren’t going to show; what happened?” she said.

  “Long day, really long day.”

  York pulled her stool closer to his own. She sat down and touched his knees with hers and said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Maybe later if that’s okay, right now I just want to continue where we left off.” York folded the pamphlet back up and shoved it into his pocket; picking up his beer, he toasted, “To another day and to new beginnings, it’s always the best part.”

  Smiling at one another, they tapped their mugs of Hefe-Weizen and exchanged a delicate kiss that was proper for their surroundings.

  The bartender rolled his eyes and walked to some new customers at the other end of the bar. Lucky bastard, he thought.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Novice

  Paris, France

  The Novice was engrossed in one of the darkest chapter’s of Herman Melville’s classic novella: Billy Budd. He marveled at Melville’s ability to write esoterically an allegory about Jesus, Judas, and Pontius Pilate. If only Melville had known the truth, the Novice thought and smiled. The glow from the nearby reading lamp intermingled with the color of the walls casting an orange tint onto his book.

  These were the moments in his day that the Novice cherished the most; held dangerously in his left hand was the evening’s faux aperitif, the current season’s Beaujolais Nouveau from Duboeuf and chilled to the proper temperature of fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit. It was a delectable red wine that paired well with Melville and the slight humidity that was bound to the summer day. Once opened, he would be required to finish the entire bottle. Beaujolais rarely holds well once uncorked, and is meant to be heartily and rapidly consumed, not really an issue for the Novice: wine was just one of his birthrights.

  The glass was tipping precariously, and readied itself to spill what was left of the fermented gamay grape onto his lap. In his right hand, the Novice held the century-old classic; his attention was unfettered by the potential and minor sacrilege of a Frenchman spilling French wine without being, first, red-faced and drunk.

  Billy was aboard the HMS Bellipotent – not the HMS Indomitable as those reckless and horrid first edition misinterpretations of Melville’s unfinished manuscript tried to purport – it was 1797. The conscripted seaman, an innocent idiot with a speech impediment, was the beloved and personable mascot of the rest of the ship’s crew.

  At this point in the novella, Billy had been standing before the ship’s captain unable to verbally defend himself from concocted accusations of mutiny by the ship’s Master-at-Arms, and had just lashed out viciously at his personal antagonist striking him dead. Chills turned into those annoying little bumps along the Novice’s arm as each individual hair stood erect. He was about to continue reading when the phone rang once more, disturbing his literary delights.

  “Ah! Mon Dieu – que plus?” The Novice righted the near disaster in his left hand and set the hand made, mouth blown Riedel crystal glass of wine properly onto the table. He then carefully marked his place in Melville’s modern reincarnation of the events leading to the Crucifixion, and placed it next to the wine. He waited for the phone to ring once more, when it did he answered without emotion, “Oui?”

  “The Messenger for the Other.”

  Quickly and with a recently tried proficiency, the Novice pounded out the commands for a second time in the same day and on the keyboard in front of him. It only took moments for the confirmation to flash on his monitor. Entering the appropriate codes, the phone of the Other rang.

  Hitting another button he muted the phone, but didn’t hang up.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Imam Khomeini Airport

  Tehran, Iran

  The assassin sat blazingly indignant in his seat, stuck between two men that insisted on speaking through him, around him, and over him to one another. Flight number 217 was scheduled to take just under five-hours, about 2100 miles; he hoped that they would soon tire.

  As Murphy’s Law dictates, naturally, the Iran Air flight was delayed which had forced the passengers to sit aboard the cramped guts of the fuselage for the last two hours. The plane had made it only twenty feet from the gate after being de-positioned, and before having been completely shut down. Stranded on the blistering tarmac of the Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran they sat, the air conditioning no doubt was shut off to conserve power.

  The two talkative Iranian passengers in seats 7A and 7C apathetically bellowed back and forth impervious of any thought or courtesy for the assassin between them in seat 7B. The first hour turned into a second, and their cacophony rose steadily in stride with the cabin’s stifling temperature. The humidity that derived from the recycled hot breath and body heat of the 189 passengers and seven crewmembers beaded continuously on the interior cabin windows. The droplets trickled down as if each one was racing the other. The assassin’s sweat was drizzling downwards, too, but his was a cold sweat.

  Silently he sat and attempted without success to stay focused on a Salat, his prayer. His mind flashed between his prayer and the two men. Which should he kill first? He had trouble purging the frenzied, disorganized, and violent thoughts from his mind. He saw clear images of their moving lips, their yellowed teeth, and their dirty stench filled beards raging relentlessly through his head. With each picture that scourged through his mind, he imagined the many ways he could rid the world of them: he could slash the lips from their faces; he could pull out each tooth excruciatingly slow; those beards could be ripped violently from their chins; he could deface them and make them unrecognizable, robbing them of their identities, of their souls.

  The assassin rocked slightly in his seat and prayed reminding himself that death should only come to apostates. Still, the sweat poured from him cold as his mind continued to swirl; to this end he had no choice. He could feel his hands shake as he kept them balled tightly: he wanted to kill. He would silently pray for the right path until Rome. He would pray for control.

  The icy blast from the small round air portal above the assassin's seat splashed across his face without warning. The sudden onset of cold air forced a few praises to Allah from the other passengers of the full flight.

  Almost as if Allah had sensed the assassin’s struggle with Islamic morality, the assassin could feel the divine force of the three large Pratt & Whitney JT8D low bypass turbofan jet engines roaring to life. The Boeing made 727 is classified as a stage II aircraft making it one of the world's loudest, but the massive rise in the rumbling noise of the engines didn’t help to drown the two loud-talking men out, it made things worse. They just spoke louder and moved in closer to one another.

  The assassin closed his eyes and continued to pray, but was met with a desire to reach up and crush each man’s larynx. He knew the feeling would soon pass; he would have to manage in until then. His next victim was in Rome only hours away and would pacify his growing hunger to kill. He had to wait.

  It's getting worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  CIA – New Headquarters Building

  Langley, VA

  The drive along the slow waters of the dreary Potomac anticlimactically blended in with the cold cloud cover that filled the sky: grey, bleak, and irresolute. The Director’s tormented surroundings fit well with his current state of mind. After leaving the White House Situation Room, he took the George Washington Memorial Parkway out of Washington DC and toward his office at the New Headquarters Building in Langley.

  The drive was fast and uneventful. The ever present and permanently assigned protective detail of his personal Security Officers was in the chase car behind the Director; the Security Officers thought the same thing.

  Registered with Fairfax County as parcel 22-3
-01-00-40, the CIA’s expansive property and large buildings was shielded by centuries-old foliage and couldn’t be seen from the road. The entrance at the South Gate was as equally unassuming as the headquarters’ location. If it weren’t for the contentious green road sign (which has disappeared and reappeared over the years) that boldly stated the location of the entrance to the grounds of the CIA, any visitor would just drive on by the compound. At the South Gate, the Director identified himself through the faceless intercom and was instructed to move forward. The chase car followed. Soon he arrived at a small shack; the guard quickly checked his badge and wished him a good day. The Director did not return the courtesy and drove onto the grounds.

  Usually the forest that he drove through toward the headquarters building was inviting and lush with vacillating shades of green: magnolias, weeping cherries, and tulip trees. Not today. Colors had no effect on him, the trees might as well have been barren and near death. He sighed heavily as he continued to his assigned parking spot at the New Headquarters Building.

  The Director parked his car; a young officer that he barely recognized, but who was obviously aware of his seniority, immediately offered a polite, “Good afternoon, sir.”

  The Director could only return a weak smile and a nod. With his coat over one arm and black leather Kenneth Cole bag slung over his shoulder, he entered CIA Headquarters. The Security Officers from the chase car kept their distance but remained close behind the Director. They would be heading to their office which was directly across from his.

  As soon as he entered the building, the two cellular phones that he carried – a government issued Blackberry attached to his belt and the other in his inside jacket pocket – sounded a nearly imperceptible chime. It was a warning really, signifying that he was now under the protective copper grid of the building, and would be protected by the grid from any electronic eavesdropping. The two phones switched to an alternate digitally scrambled and secure network.

  The Director shuffled his feet almost listlessly as he headed to the elevator that would take him four stories beneath the earth’s surface. On many occasions he would walk under the now hanging overhead A-12, U2, and D-21 large scale models of no longer used spy planes and think of missions past. Today would not be one of those occasions. As he walked under them, he was oblivious and uncaring to their history.

  The curved hallway led to a private elevator. Standing in front of it, he inserted his identification card, and, quickly, the doors opened. He pushed the button that would take him four stories underground and then waved off the Security Officers as they tried to join him, he wanted to be alone. Once inside, and safely behind the confines of the closed reinforced doors, he leaned toward the elevator wall and allowed his head to sink to his chest. Thinking to himself, smart enough to not speak his thoughts out loud least he risk them being captured by the elevator’s recording devices, he drifted to his long planned mission with the Messenger. We are dangerously in way over our heads. Why the hell is Michael still alive?

  At his office door, once again, he was required to insert his identification in order to be vetted by the door. The automated locks turned allowing him entry. The Director threw his overcoat and bag on one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk. Immediately, he found himself slumped into his own padded chair and reclined backward imagining that he had a window out of which he could look.

  As a Director, his office was appointed, comfortable, and refined. It was the exact opposite decor that he had in his former drab, gray carpeted work space on the seventh floor in the Old Headquarters Building. His new office may have been more comfortable, but, being below ground, gave up the appropriate view for a man of his seniority. It was the only thing that he missed from his old unassuming office.

  The underground location of his new office was an unfortunate, uninspiring necessity to help keep him safe in the remote case of an attack on the building.

  Right now it would have served him well to be sitting in the fresh air near the fish pond of the courtyard. It would have been an easy walk to the spacious lawns that were conjoined with well groomed and grounds and expertly maintained flower beds of daffodils and tiger lilies. But that would have required him to be around other CIA Officers, something he was trying to desperately avoid.

  If only he had a window, he could try to relax himself by reencountering the beauty of the Virginia countryside that he knew existed some forty feet up. The emerald ash trees would usually offer him a palette within which he could lose himself. However, with the damage to them caused by the recent infestation of the exotic Asian borer beetle he doubted that any calming effect would be found.

  Poetic, he thought.

  The beetles themselves did little noticeable damage and were actually glorious looking insects. It was their larvae that fed on the inner bark of the tree and that caused the damage that disrupted the tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients that caused the greater travesty.

  With each passing cycle of the year, fewer healthy ash trees were springing back to life. They were slowly becoming weaker, losing the strength and resilience that only generations of nurturing, growth, and survival can bring. The ancient, strong, and steadfast forest was dying from the parasitic attachments of the beetle; the cyclical degradation of the forest is no different than what is done by the weak and worthless masses of society. The small and parasitic minds of the weak latch onto the elite and are no different than the Asian borer beetle; suckling the strong and steadfast, clinging to them for all of their wants and needs, draining them of all that they have created, of the things that made them strong, and without giving anything in return.

  The beetles are an appropriate metaphor to the wretchedness of this life. His brow was furrowed as he contemplated: this is precisely the matter that we are working to amend.

  Instead of finding his center in the unseen nature outside, he settled on attempts at serenity through the Zen garden that sat on his desk. Picking up the miniature wooden rake, the Director began to push the sand around into nonsensical, random piles. The small black rocks that were part of the garden just seemed to get in his way so he raked them into one corner of the garden.

  The events that had just transpired were drifting beyond the plan, beyond his control. His mind was listless with questions. Michael? The Pope? Why had the Messenger deviated so far from what they had agreed upon? The level of risk has just elevated beyond quantification.

  The buzzing of his private cell phone caused the Director – the Other – to jolt from his lack of any real transcendence through the Zen garden. Only two people have access to his private number, the Primitus and the Messenger. He knew precisely which of the two it would be; he answered without saying a word.

  Void of any formalities, the Messenger issued a cold, “Hello, Director. Go secure, encryption channel Bravo 2 Bravo.”

  The Director didn’t respond, his temper suddenly replacing his worries. The Director could feel his face begin to flush and the skin near his collar beginning to warm with a slight film of perspiration. He entered in the right combination of numbers on the cell phone to create the secure environment.

  The Messenger waited for the sequence of tones that would confirm the secure connection was complete; it only took a few moments for it to be finalized. He knew the Director was angry, he had expected this and continued, “Don’t be so concerned, Director. I know precisely what you are thinking. You are taken aback by the unannounced shift in our plan.”

  “Taken ‘aback’? A bit of an understatement wouldn’t you say? Just what in God’s name are you doing? The Pope, what does he have to do with any of this? And what about Sterling, he was to be blamed for the Ayatollah’s killing, but he was not to survive! Iran knows that he is CIA; they have proof. This is not what we planned! And for Christ’s sake, how did Sterling get our book?”

  “Mr. Director, the Pope has everything to do with my plan; I did not include you in my decision to terminate his Holiness’s young and illegitimate
Papacy and to let Sterling live only because it wasn’t necessary to include you.”

  “Not necessary to include me!” shouted a furious Director.

  The Messenger interjected, “Director, the Pope is a fraud, and, I needn’t remind you, his kind is the reason our Order came into existence. It was the vicious attacks, the vile deeds by the Church that led to our beginnings. They must pay for tormenting us, for the torture of previous masters of the Order, for trying to wipe the earth clean of our history; the Pope’s death begins that repayment. They have forsaken what is right, and the truth; solely for the glory of power!”

  The Director voiced his fury and spat out, “Spare me your lesson in our history, I am the one who taught it to you!”

  The Messenger ignored the Director’s anger, “You would have never gone along with my greater vision in the beginning, now you have no choice. You are my rook, Mr. Director, and the Pope is my Queen, he is the most powerful piece under my control. Dr. Sterling is, well, let’s just call him my pawn. This is what is known as checkmate.”

  “Checkmate! It was our plan, not yours; Sterling was to die! Sterling has led some of the greatest defeats against Islamic terrorists and was the perfect choice. You were supposed to make it look like he was working with Israel’s Mossad; the blame for the Ayatollah’s death was to fall solely on Sterling and Israel. He was to be Israel’s connection to the assassination! Now, there is none! To make matters worse, Iran’s President is blaming the US; he is giving us forty-eight hours to hand over Sterling, or it’s fucking war!”

  The Messenger couldn’t understand why the Director didn’t see the perfection of his plan and said, “Of course it’s war; war was our plan. Don’t you see that the only difference is that a World War will bring us to the end of our mission, to our final goal, much faster? Or are you as blinded by personal ambition as is the Primitus?”