Pandora's Ark (Vatican Knights)

by Jones, Rick

  It was a credo he lived by as a Vatican Knight. It was also a credo he lived by as a missionary who now served the orphanage he had grown up in.

  Dressed in a cleric’s shirt and Roman Catholic collar, wearing faded dungarees and work boots, Christian worked the garden tilling the soil with a hoe, the muscles of his arms becoming ropy and sinewy with every strike that drove the implement’s blade into the ground.

  After mopping his brow with his forearm and leaving a greasy smudge, he rested against the hoe’s handle for a brief moment.

  “Christian Placentia?”

  The former Knight turned toward the voice. Beneath the bullet-shaped entryway leading into the garden stood two priests, one a near facsimile of the other in appearance with the exception that one was slightly taller. While one stood idle with his hands crossed before him, the other remained just as idle with an aluminum suitcase in his grasp.

  “Yes.”

  “May we have a word with you?”

  Isaiah nodded and gestured them forward with a beckoning of a dirty hand. “Please,” he said, “come in. The garden is for all to share.”

  They pressed forward and took a seat upon a decorative bench bearing the faces of smiling cherubs. On their pockets of their robes were the emblems of the SIV.

  “You’re from the Vatican,” Christian stated rhetorically.

  The man with the suitcase nodded. “We are.”

  “What can I do you for?”

  “As you know a new pontiff was elected.”

  “The venerable Cardinal Vessucci—a good man.”

  “That’s correct. And since we are SIV, we come under the rule of the pope regarding undisclosed matters that must remain unknown to the clerical population of the Vatican.”

  Christian waited.

  “We know that you were a Vatican Knight,” the Jesuit finally said.

  “And you came all the way from the Vatican to tell me this?”

  The priest with the suitcase laid it against the ground, undid the claps, and opened the lid. Inside was a pristine uniform of a Vatican Knight. “The pope has requested, should you approve and accept, that you return to the Vatican as a Knight. The unit is being reinstated.”

  At first Christian appeared unemotional until the Jesuits saw that the Knight’s eyes insisted otherwise. They were bright and dazzling and filled with undeniable joy.

  “Pope Pius the Fourteenth has respectfully requested that you rejoin as a Second Lieutenant—the same position you held six months ago before the unit was disbanded by Pope Gregory. Others are returning to the Vatican as we speak.”

  Christian got on a bended knee and lifted the shirt from the case, noted the emblem on the pocket, and drew it close.

  “Do you accept the pontiff’s invitation to reunite?”

  He looked at them, his eyes saying it all. “Of course,” he said. “Yes.”

  The priest then nudged the aluminum case closer to Christian with his foot. “Welcome aboard, Isaiah,” he said, placing an emphasis on his moniker. “The pontiff will be pleased by your decision.”

  “When am I to return?’

  “After you conduct your first mission,” he quickly answered.

  “And that would be?”

  “To Las Vegas,” the Jesuit answered, standing.

  The other Jesuit followed his partner’s lead and took to his feet as well.

  “Las Vegas?”

  The taller of the two Jesuits answered him with a sad wilt as he spoke. “There’s someone there who needs your help, Isaiah—a friend who may be losing his way.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “Kimball,” said the other. “We’re talking about Kimball Hayden.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Las Vegas, Nevada, The Following Day

  It was night in downtown Las Vegas and the canopy of the Experience was in full cartoonish display with brightly lit images playing across the awning, as a vintage Rolling Stones song served as the musical soundtrack.

  Kimball stood beneath the canopy eating shrimp from his parfait glass. Tonight he had chosen to work the swing shift. The bruise above his eye drew inquisitive questions, which he deflected with untruths, saying for the most part that he walked into a wall, or a cabinet, or an open door with no two answers alike.

  When the show ended and the overhead canopy winked off, Kimball made his way home walking the seedy avenue of Freemont Street. The whores, the pimps, the homeless and drug dealers staked their territorial claims—living within the same dark corners and the same dark recesses with their faces obscured by half shadow and light.

  Kimball ignored the calls of the bartering pimps, refused their offers, and dismissed the pleas of hardened meth whores looking for their next fix without so much as acknowledging their existence, when they shared the same sidewalk.

  Sirens and lights of two police cruisers passed him, stopping at a nearby motel advertised as a daily, weekly or monthly rental when, in fact, they served as places of ill repute.

  Taking the steps to his apartment, Kimball suddenly felt a glaring shift in awareness the same way the hackle of an animal rises after sensing great danger. The windows were blacked out, the place looking as he left it, untouched. But he had learned to trust his senses long ago.

  He tested the knob with a slow turn, locked.

  Nor did he carry his weapon of choice, a commando blade. It was inside, hidden.

  With careful prudence he inserted the key, turned, the click audible only to his ear, and swung the door open with ease.

  The apartment was dark, a mistake on his part. By working the swing shift he had forgotten to turn on the lights before he left, the sun still shining at that time.

  As he took a step inside shadows pooled around him, his eyes trying to adjust, to focus, to see if the darkness within was taking on a life of its own and edging closer with the intent to kill.

  He saw nothing.

  But there was definitely a presence.

  He then stepped back onto the landing before the doorway, a slow exit, the animal instinct in him telling him to take flight rather than fight, to come back to live another day.

  And then a light went on from inside, the lamp on the nightstand casting a feeble glow.

  Kimball stood at the fringe of the light’s cast and noted the man who sat in a chair with his legs crossed in leisure, a smile on his face. For a moment he thought his heart would misfire.

  Isaiah sat there in full Vatican Knight regalia including the beret, the Roman Catholic collar and mixed military array. On the pocket of his shirt was the embroidery of the Vatican Knights, the shield and silver Cross Pattée. Beside him sat an aluminum suitcase.

  If Kimball was happy to see his old friend he didn’t show it. “It’s a little early for Halloween, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him.

  “You knew I was here.”

  “I knew somebody was here.”

  “That’s good,” Isaiah said evenly. “Your senses are still sharp.”

  “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”

  The moment Isaiah gained his feet Kimball crossed the floor and the two men embraced each other. As they backed off Kimball took appraisal of his former second lieutenant, taking in the man’s dress, saw the whiteness of the clerical collar and the memories it suddenly wrought.

  “Why are you dressed like this?” he asked. “I thought you were going back to the orphanage.”

  Isaiah returned to the seat. “I did,” he answered. “Up until yesterday I was tilling the soil in the garden. Now . . .” He let his words fall away as he held his arms out in an act that said it all: Now I’m here.

  There was a momentary pause between them. But it wasn’t awkward by any means. It was more of an intake of a cherished friendship, an umbilical tie between brothers reconnecting. “As good as it is to see you,” he finally said, “I need to know why you’re here, Isaiah?” He looked at the suitcase. “Are you planning to move in or something?�
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  “No, Kimball. Or would you prefer to be called J.J. Doetsch?”

  Kimball smiled. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me.”

  “Actually, no, I haven’t. But the Vatican has. And as for this,” he said, sliding the suitcase forward. “It’s for you.”

  Kimball stepped forward. “Well, I have to admit,” he told him, “that I like a man who bears gifts.”

  “Then you’ll like this one.”

  Kimball studied the suitcase.

  “Go ahead,” said Isaiah, “open it.” He then slid the suitcase across the floor until it rested at Kimball’s feet.

  Kimball gave him a suspicious, sidelong glance.

  “Open it,” he pressed.

  Kimball bent down, laid the suitcase on the floor, undid the clasps, and opened the lid. A black clerical shirt with the Roman Catholic collar already fitted around the loop of the shirt’s neckline lay neatly folded. The emblem of the Vatican Knights stood brightly against the shirt’s pocket.

  Kimball just stared at it. Whether he was transfixed, confused, or in simple awe, Isaiah couldn’t quite decipher Kimball’s reaction. “It’s your uniform,” he finally said. “Bonasero is calling us home to serve the Church once again.”

  Kimball knelt beside the case with the stillness of a mannequin for a long and silent moment before closing the lid with mechanical slowness. He then locked it shut. “I can’t,” he said softly.

  Isaiah tilted his head questioningly. “What?”

  Kimball looked him squarely in the eye, gained his feet, then went to the refrigerator where he grabbed his bottle of Jack and took the seat opposite Isaiah. “I said . . . I can’t.”

  Isaiah fell back in defeat, his face drawing amazement and shock, his mouth wanting to say something, anything, but words were lost to him.

  Kimball opened the cap and took a long swig before coming up for air. And then: “Do you remember the day when Ezekiel tried to kill me?” he said. “When Ezekiel betrayed us all?”

  Isaiah obviously accepted this as rhetorical, so he remained silent and waited as Kimball drew a second pull from the half-empty bottle before setting the container on the armrest.

  “It was then that I realized something about myself,” he continued. “When I served as a Vatican Knight I believed that I was serving the Church to maintain the integrity of the Vatican by protecting its sovereignty, its interests, and its citizenry. I killed only as a last option because I believed that even God recognizes the fact that good people have the right to protect themselves, or to protect the lives of good people who can’t defend themselves. I really believed that. And then I realized that it was nothing more than a feeble justification for killing another man. I led myself to believe that I killed because I had to, not because I wanted to. But after Ezekiel killed my old team of the Force Elite, when he murdered members of the Vatican Knights to cover his deeds, it was then that I realized who I truly was.” He turned and stared at the bottle, the muscles in the back of his jaw working furiously as if containing his rage. “I learned that I wanted to kill Ezekiel so badly that I could taste it. I didn’t want to kill him because I had to. I wanted to kill him because I wanted to.” He never took his gaze off the bottle. “It’s just the way I am, Isaiah. The difference between me and you and the other Knights is that I want to kill.” He then looked at the hard shell of the suitcase, thought of the uniform inside, what it used to mean to him as he sought his own salvation. “I don’t deserve to wear this,” he finally said, then kicked the suitcase back to Isaiah. “Take it back.”

  Kimball tipped the bottle back and took another swig, the liquor going fast.

  “Kimball,” Isaiah’s voice was beseechingly calm. “Ezekiel did what he did because he was filled with anger that had festered over a period of time.”

  “And I was the one who fostered that anger because I was the one who killed his grandfather. Tell Bonasero that I love him and that I’m sorry. But it is what it is. And the truth is, Isaiah, is that I kill because I want to. Not because I have to.”

  “You’re selling yourself short and letting your emotions warp your sense of reasoning.”

  Kimball snapped the bottle away from his lips angrily. “Really, Isaiah? Is that what you think?”

  “Kimball, you tried to save Ezekiel, not hurt him. He was the one who lost his way. Not you.”

  Kimball stared at him, his face betraying nothing. And then: “I still plan to kill him,” he said lightly, “when I find him.”

  “You plan to find him at the bottom of that bottle?”

  Kimball took another long pull before setting the bottle aside. “Maybe,” he answered.

  “I so looked forward to being your second lieutenant once again.” Isaiah appeared dour, his face hanging with incredible sadness within the cast of feeble lighting. “And so was Leviticus.”

  “He’s retuning to the fold as well?”

  “We all are,” he said.

  “No. Not everyone.”

  Isaiah sighed. “I wanted to return to the Vatican with you as a team member. Perhaps we could talk tomorrow when you have had a little bit less to drink?”

  “Don’t count on it.” He sipped from the bottle again.

  Isaiah stood.

  “Don’t forget the suitcase,” Kimball said coolly.

  Isaiah declined. “I’m leaving it here,” he told him. “Maybe you’ll change your mind when you sober up.”

  “I’m not drunk yet.” He held the bottle out to him. “But I’m working on it.”

  Isaiah was deeply saddened. Kimball could see it on his face. He didn’t intend to hurt his friend by driving a wedge of disappointment to the very core of his soul. But Kimball knew in his heart that he was not fit to don the uniform with a mindset that would offend God, the Church, or Bonasero Vessucci.

  I kill because I want to . . . Not because I have to.

  I kill people . . . It’s what I do . . . It’s what I’m good at.

  “All I ask is that you think about it. That’s all I’m asking. Try on the uniform. Get the feel of it. And remember all the lives you saved while wearing the collar. Remember the good, Kimball. All you have to do is remember the good. If you do that, then the rest will take care of itself.” With that he nudged the suitcase back to Kimball’s direction with the toe-end of his boot, the aluminum case sliding next to Kimball’s chair.

  Kimball refused to acknowledge it.

  After tipping his head in a gesture meaning good-bye Isaiah left the apartment, leaving Kimball to stew alone with his bottle of Jack.

  #

  Once Isaiah left Kimball did not drink. In fact, the bottle remained untouched beside the chair. He sat there with a detached daze looking straight ahead. The activity playing out across his mind’s eye, however, was clear and crisp. He visualized old memories—saw the battles he partook while in the Philippines and in third world countries where innocent people such as children, women and old men who could not protect themselves had looked upon him with impossibly large eyes, imploring eyes that were slick with the glassy onset of tears begging him to become their champion, to save them.

  They were good people who wanted to till the soil and to raise their children under a friendly sky, to embed values of goodness to pass on to subsequent generations in order to create a better standard of living, a better place to live.

  But there were hard-line factions, there were always hard-line factions, who yielded to personal hatreds and prejudices warped by the interpretations of religious texts or the hardcore ramblings of religious extremists. The subversives tended to lean toward annihilation, the cost of a human life insignificant.

  And Kimball reveled in these moments, laying down his law as a Vatican Knight to save those who could not save themselves, fighting until his adrenaline caused his heart to palpitate with raw excitement. In the end he was fulfilled by the dark cravings of battle that served as sustenance. Not by the plight of salvation he so badly sought.

  And here was the problem: H
e was by nature a killer and resigned himself to that fact. Therefore, he was not fit to wear the uniform of a Vatican Knight.

  He sat there with his eyes cast forward.

  . . . I kill people . . .

  . . . It’s what I do . . .

  . . . It’s what I’m good at . . .

  The aluminum case lay beside his chair, ultimately drawing his eye.

  Despite what he had come to believe of himself, he could not deny the goodness the uniform provided him either. He had saved lives and felt good about it. He could remember the numerous times when the bony hands of those he had saved reached out and grabbed his hand, only to speak by drawing it close and kissing the backside with eternal gratefulness. And then in summation they would draw the backside of his hand to their cheek and look up at him wallow-eyed, the message clear: You saved my life. And by doing so, you have saved the lives of future generations. My children will be good people. As will their children.

  . . . But I kill people . . .

  . . . It’s what I do . . .

  . . . It’s what I’m good at . . .

  He closed his eyes.

  Then in a voice not his own: You saved my life. And by doing so, you have saved the lives of future generations. My children will be good people. As will their children.