The Hand of Christ

by Joseph Nagle

  Michael replied, “Yeah, I do. It looks like a rare drawing by Michelangelo, a pretty good one, too.”

  The sketch was of the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica, and, Michael was right, it was one of the rarest items by Michelangelo. Near his death, the famed artist ordered most of his sketches destroyed making such a find even rarer. This one had been lost for years and its disposition unknown. A stroke of recent luck allowed a Vatican office worker to stumble across its unknown resting place in one of the Basilica’s offices; the sketch had no reason to be there.

  “Listen buddy, I know you academia types love all this artsy shit, but we’ve got some work to do. What do you say we get started?”

  Jimmy turned and led Michael to the end of the hallway. There was no additional room, just a window that overlooked Piazza Mincio. The walls on either side of the window had decorative paneling that were partitioned into square sections. Jimmy reached up to a small painting that was in the middle of one of the panels and slid it to the side; he revealed an electronic panel and punched in a code.

  “Michael, this place is set up to blend in with any other apartment in the building. Should it ever be compromised there is nothing in the place that would reveal its true nature. That is, nothing except for what is behind this wall.”

  Hitting the final button and then placing his hand on a pad so that his palm print could be read, the wall slid ten inches backward on a hidden rail system. The room was climate controlled and pressurized; the difference in pressure blasted slightly dank and musty air onto their faces. Once the wall was fully recessed it slid two feet to the left exposing a small room that was dimly lit by numerous panels of small blinking lights and LCD screens.

  “Now that’s more like it, Jimmy, you were beginning to worry me with all this fancy furniture and lessons on Italian architecture.”

  “After you my good man,” Jimmy said, and motioned Michael inside.

  Michael stepped into the room, his weight signaled the floor sensors to turn on the lights. In an instant, the operation center of the safe house was bathed in bright fluorescent lights. Jimmy walked in and headed toward the central control panel. He punched a few buttons and fired up the central computer system; without hesitation, the system sprung to life.

  After a few moments Jimmy was comfortable that everything was up and running and said, “Alright, Michael, where should we begin? How do you propose we find this guy?”

  Michael pulled up a chair next to Jimmy and said, “The assassin’s last known location was in Tehran, at the home of the Ayatollah. To get here, the only means of effective transportation would be by air and it would have to be commercial. Iran flies directly into Rome from Tehran. Let’s start there. Check all the flights from Tehran from the approximate time the Ayatollah was killed. Can you get a flight manifest?”

  “Just watch me work my magic, Michael,” Jimmy furiously tapped away at the key board. Soon, he had cracked into the airport’s database. Multiple lists of passengers were flooding the screen.

  “There were only two flights, Michael.”

  Michael stared intently at the manifests, “That one is too close to when the Ayatollah was killed. There is no way he got to the airport with enough time.”

  Jimmy pushed that manifest aside and was now focusing on Flight 217 from Tehran, “One-hundred-ninety-six names, Michael.”

  “Get rid of the names of the crew.”

  “Now were down to one-eighty-nine.”

  “Okay, now filter the list for only men.”

  It only took a few strokes of the keys; the long list was cut by only a quarter. One-hundred-forty-two names were left; most of the passengers had been men.

  “What now?”

  “Show me all of those that boarded with an Iranian passport, get rid of the tourists and those traveling through Iran.” Another quarter of names dropped from the list, ninety-eight were left.

  “Get rid of anyone under the age of twenty-five and over fifty.”

  “Fourteen names left, Michael.”

  “The guy is strong, smart, and experienced. Scrub those fourteen for names that are between the ages of thirty and forty.”

  Only three names remained.

  “That’s where we’ll start, put those names into Interpol, Jimmy. See what you come up with.”

  Jimmy did as he was told. The first name came back belonging to a Persian carpet salesman, “Michael, this guy has been flying to and from Rome once each month for the past eleven years, he’s listed at 5’3 and 215 pounds. Doubtful he’s our man.”

  The second name came back with no pertinent Interpol data. He was average height and weight and was traveling with his wife and two kids; there was nothing that indicated anything peculiar about him.

  The third name, however, caused Jimmy to jump in his chair; “Check this out, Michael!”

  Michael leaned in closer and smiled at what he saw; he slapped Jimmy on the back and said “Well hello, Mr. Hami, I see that it’s been awhile since you’ve been out of the house.”

  Jimmy chuckled, “You think the flight attendants would have noticed the dead guy sitting in seat 7B.”

  Interpol’s database had come back confirming that Mr. Mujtaba Hami had been deceased for the past three years. The assassin had been using the dead man’s passport.

  “What now, Michael?”

  “Run the passport, if he checked into a hotel they would have recorded his passport information into the local police database.”

  Jimmy did as instructed, tapping into the Carabinieri’s computer network. Michael was amazed at how easily his friend could work the electronic systems.

  “Oh shit!”

  “What? What did you find?”

  “Michael, take a look at this, you are not going to believe it. It would seem that the local cops are already looking for our man.”

  “What?”

  “I guess he wasn’t satisfied with just killing the Ayatollah. Take a look here; he has continued his killing spree. The body count is at four including a local cop.”

  “Jesus, what the hell is this guy doing?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s more,” Jimmy typed a few more keys and within moments a grainy black and white image appeared on the screen in front of the two men. “We now know what he looks like.”

  Michael stared at the man for a few minutes something on the man’s face was holding his attention, “Jimmy, can you focus in on that part and blow it up?” Michael was pointing to the side of the man’s head.

  Doing as instructed, Jimmy enlarged the spot Michael was looking at, “Well all-be-god-damned, Michael, he’s hurt. That’s blood running down the side of his head.”

  “Find out what happened,” Michael commanded.

  Jimmy was one step ahead of him having already found the answer, “It says here that he was hit by a bus in front of Piazza Pio XII.”

  A map appeared on one of the screens next to the assassin’s face, “That’s right in front of the Vatican, Michael.”

  “He must have been conducting reconnaissance.”

  Jimmy replied, “That would make sense. The timeline puts him there after the two killings at the hotel and right before the next two. This is one guy that could have used an extra hug or two in his life.”

  “He’s losing his sense of control, Jimmy.”

  “He is getting a bit sloppy isn’t he?”

  “I don’t think sloppy is the right word. The man is a trained killer, a pretty good one at that by all accounts. The thing that is most important to a guy like this is his religion. The name he used to get on the plane, Mujtaba Hami, is Farsi for “Chosen Protector.” Jimmy, this guy isn’t getting sloppy, he just doesn’t care anymore. I don’t think he plans on making it out of Rome and doesn’t care if he takes a few more lives with him.”

  “A fundamentalist? I don’t get it, Michael; he killed the Ayatollah, a fellow Muslim, and seems to me like this guy is doing contract work, and not really putting too much thought into religion.”<
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  “Jimmy, what you don’t know is why I was in Syria,” Michael leaned closer to his friend and spoke lower as if there was someone else that might overhear him. “We were on the verge of negotiating a complete handover of long fought over and disputed territories between the countries. We were so damn close, everyone was in complete agreement, and all we had to do was formalize the matter in writing. Even the Ayatollah had given his tacit approval of this.”

  “The Ayatollah had agreed?”

  “Shocking, I know, but yes, he had agreed.”

  “But, Michael, you were attacked by Hezbollah, an Iranian backed terrorist group!”

  “Yes, this is how it appeared, Jimmy.”

  “You don’t think it was Hezbollah do you, Michael?”

  “I don’t believe that it was Hezbollah that ordered the attack, but I do think that whoever is behind this was using Hezbollah forces to make it look like Hezbollah. Someone in that organization ordered the attack, but I think it was outside of their normal channels of command. Someone has gone rogue.”

  Then a thought crossed Michael’s mind: Someone has gone rogue in the CIA, too.

  Jimmy scratched his head for a moment until it hit him and said, “So, if the Ayatollah had given his approval to your meeting’s outcome, then he would appear sympathetic with the US and Israel.”

  “That’s right. That’s why I think this guy is a hardcore Muslim. What kind of Muslim would dare kill the Ayatollah?”

  “One that believes the Ayatollah is an apostate!” snapped Jimmy.

  Michael sat back but didn’t speak; his mind worked furiously as he tried to put together the missing pieces. After a few moments he lifted his head up and had a look in his eyes that signaled that he was on to something.

  “Jimmy, toward the beginning of this year Hezbollah’s security leader was assassinated. His car had been wired using a Syrian explosives technique. Can you access DESIST?”

  “I am almost offended by your question. Of course I can hack it, but it will take some time.”

  “Good, see if you can find a picture of the man who replaced the killed security leader. Does this place come stocked with coffee?”

  “Do Italians eat spaghetti? Of course I’ve got coffee,” Jimmy motioned back down the hallway and then went to work.

  Michael turned to walk away but stopped short of the door and said, “Jimmy, one other thing.”

  “Yeah, what is it?”

  “Find out what you can about what’s going on between the US and Iran. See if there is anything new.”

  “Got it; don’t forget to bring me a cup. Two sugars and a lemon peel - twisted.”

  Michael stopped and peered down at Jimmy before asking, “You want me to rub your back for you, too, maybe read you some of my favorite poems?”

  “Very funny, Michael,” responded Jimmy, “you can kiss my ass.”

  Smiling, Michael told Jimmy, “Get to work.”

  The computer systems at Langley were some of the toughest to break into in the world. Some would say they were impossible to crack, Jimmy wasn’t one of them. DESIST contains the most extensive database on terrorists available, it would take some time to hack it. Jimmy was focused intently on his task; Michael walked out of the room to find himself and Jimmy some coffee.

  In the kitchen, he was happy to see that it came with an authentic copper espresso machine and was stocked with fresh beans. It took him a little why to figure out how to use the contraption, but soon he was pulling the correct levers and turning the right spigots. After the pleasant sound of a pressurized hiss, he was carrying a double espresso in either hand. Heading back to the control center, Michael walked down the gray hallway, and stopped at the Michelangelo sketch that had caught his attention earlier.

  Staring at the nearly four-and-a-half-century old drawing, he made out faint marks that penetrated through the yellowed paper. This struck him as odd, he put down the two cups of espresso on the Victorian era table that stood beneath the sketch and reached up to turn over the piece of artwork.

  “What is this?” he whispered. Michael was surprised by what he saw. On the back of the piece of art were sentences scribbled in Italian. He knew that the original sketch was kept by a supervisor of the project to build St. Peter’s dome, and the supervisor had used the backside of the sketch to write notes about the problems he was having moving the dome’s large stones throughout Rome. This one had that same hand written complaint.

  Scratching his head he said, “Pretty damn good for a copy,” and returned the sketch to the wall, and himself, with the coffee, to the operations center.

  “Just in time, Michael, I found what you wanted.” Jimmy looked at the second cup of steaming espresso with a grateful stare, happy to see a little twisted lemon peel hanging over its edge. Reaching for it, Jimmy said, “Thanks for the java; I could use some. Take a look at this, Michael.” The shaggy face of a Middle Eastern man was on the LCD screen.

  Taking a sip of espresso from the small porcelain cup, Michael looked over Jimmy’s shoulder at the face of the new Security Leader of Hezbollah. The man was wearing a green military hat that was pulled close to his brow. Dark black hair curled from underneath and flowed to his shoulders. The man had a thick black beard that typified his heritage. For the most part, the new Security Leader’s obscured face fit every stereotype for a Middle Eastern man; that is, except for his eyes. Michael stared at them and was glued to the unusual image staring back: one eye was as black as one could imagine; the other was fiercely blue.

  He studied the man’s face and was hit with a wave of déjà vu. “I feel like I’ve seen this man before, but I can’t place where.”

  “That’s not a face you would forget easily, Michael.”

  Jimmy was right, his Middle Eastern features may have been typical, but those eyes could not be forgotten. He didn’t know the man, but couldn’t shake how familiar he was.

  “What else have you found?”

  “Glad you asked, Michael, I’ve got a couple of surprises for you.”

  Jimmy went back to work on the keyboard and almost instantly a second photo was on the screen. In it, the new Security Leader was standing next to a really large man. The satellite photo’s quality was poor. The image was shot from a KH-12 series satellite (one of four assigned to the Middle East) that was stationed in geosynchronous orbit nearly five-hundred miles above the planet, but that didn’t change the obvious.

  “Look familiar, Michael?”

  The man in the photo certainly did and Michael proclaimed, “That’s the same guy hit by the bus; he’s our assassin! A hundred bucks says he’s the one that wired the car of the former security leader.”

  “I am not taking that bet, Michael; talk about your office politics. Whatever happened to getting ahead by hard work? You ready for your next surprise?”

  “Yeah, Jimmy, what do you have?”

  A couple of taps on his keyboard and a written dossier appeared on the screen. Jimmy said, “I did another check with DESIST, I ran his picture through their face recognition program. This guy was VEVAK; he was the personal bodyguard to the last President of Iran. He disappeared from the grid after the President of Iran was killed. You were right, Michael, this guy is well trained. Aren’t you glad I tagged along now?”

  Michael smiled, “Good work, Jimmy.”

  “So, you think this guy is behind the Ayatollah’s death and is planning to kill the Pope next?”

  “I am absolutely sure of it,” Michael paused, recollecting the attack on his wife and home, “Jimmy, someone in the Company is part of this too.”

  “You mean Trevor and Chris’s Handler?”

  “Yes, but the Handler’s orders had to have been coming from someone else, someone higher up in the Company. Not too many people knew about my meeting in Syria, and Chris and Trevor were waiting for me the moment I arrived to the US from the Mediterranean.”

  “No shit? That means the Handler knew about Syria.”

  “Right, and I recogni
zed him; he was on my flight to Denver from San Francisco. The bastard was sitting right next to me; he was tailing me the whole time, but he’s just another middle man.”

  “Jesus, talk about balls! Who do you think he was reporting to?”

  “I have no idea, Jimmy, but my hunch is that it is someone in a senior leadership position, someone that had access to knowledge of the negotiations in Syria. My meeting was compartmentalized and those with that level of clearance are on a really short list. The intelligence that my asset passed to me in Damascus, not only contained information on the two assassinations, but outlined the structure of the group behind them; they call themselves The Order. My asset told me he had been tracking the organization for some time and that they have infiltrated a number of governments including ours.”

  “The Order?”

  “Yeah, are you ready for more?”

  “Ready for more what?”

  “According to what I have found out they have been around for centuries. They believe that Christ didn’t die on the cross and that the Church covered it up in order to maintain power rather than give it to any of Christ’s descendents. The Order is comprised of Christ’s descendents and handpicked followers. Instead of trying to reclaim their rightful control of the Church, The Order has worked behind the scenes to grow their influence and power.”

  “When you say more, you really mean it," responded Jimmy. "Do you have any idea, even the slightest, just how absolutely ridiculous what you just said sounds? I mean, come on, Michael, it sounds like you're pitching a movie."

  “I know it's a bit on the far side of reality; I thought the same thing, too. But I did some digging. Jimmy, Christ was of the Tribe of Judah. History has taught this as fact.”

  "Yeah? So what. I'm from Brooklyn, but that don't mean my people are from Mars."

  Michael ignored him and pulled the book out of his jacket. Opening it to the first page, he showed it to Jimmy. Jimmy looked at it and Michael explained, “As you know, it is pretty easy to distort and manipulate truths. Hell, that’s what we do for a living, Jimmy. The truth that was left out of history was that Christ married Magdalene of the tribe of Benjamin. The marriage bound the Davidic line. Quite simply, Jesus didn’t die on the cross and he was married with children. He lived out His days as an exile in Egypt and His family in France. This page here is called the Hand of Christ.”