Sanctuary Creek
Page 26
Clarence chambered a shell.
“Johnson. Valenti. Put your guns on the floor,” Knight ordered. “And you, Lieutenant Mannbet. You’re aiming at the wrong person. Aim at the former Peter the Second. Aim at the bastard child of Sixtus.”
Mannbet nodded slightly, then lowered his rifle. Valenti tossed his gun aside while Clarence bent over to set his gently on the carpet.
“Now. Holiness. How shall we resolve this misunderstanding?” Knight asked.
“What’s to resolve? You’re a murderer, a conspirator with the Cult and a betrayer of the Church.”
Greater love no man hath…
“Ah, yes. Yes, Peter. All you say is true. But if I must be banished to hell… in this world or the next… I’d like to know I’d at least balanced the books. Are you man enough to sacrifice your life for another? Do you walk the game or just talk the game?”
“Try me.”
Greater love no man hath…
Knight howled maniacally then throttled Mary Beth. “Your life for hers, neh?”
“Peter, don’t,” she pled. Tears silently dropping.
“Your life for hers!”
The Pope took a step forward, hesitated then knelt.
“God damn you, Peter!”
Greater love no man hath…
“I’m sure He’s got a file on me. I’ll ask for mercy. I’d suggest you do the same. Let her go and I’m all yours.”
As the kidnapper pushed her away, Samson dove forward yelling: “No!” Knight instinctively turned and his gun discharged once, the bullet ripping into Samson’s chest, dropping him to his knees like an altar boy puppet. But he kept his eyes locked on the man long enough to see the smoking revolver rotate in what seemed a dream sequence, everything warm and pale. The angle was perfect to witness the thumb reset the hammer. Aim ease right. Stop. Raise. The report from Mannbet’s weapon was muffled: a distant clap of thunder, a cherry bomb two blocks away. It seemed like magic, the way the half of Knight’s face he could see suddenly disappeared in a cloud of pink. There were other voices, other noises he couldn’t process. He was on his back as Peter’s face appeared above him.
“Hang in there. Hang in there.”
I don’t know if you’re listening, Sir. But something’s very wrong with me. I don’t feel… I must be hurt or something or…
Then Annie’s. She looked like an angel as her hand brushed the hair off his forehead.
Just one more confession, Sir. That’s all I ask. “Father, it’s been… “
Peter quickly made a sign of the cross, hugged him then whispered in his ear, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for… I am… I really must be sick or… is this where… I don’t know if you’re listening, Kim, but…
Epilogue
Iscariot was launched into the Supernet at 2:26:26 a.m., CDST the morning following the events at Sanctuary Creek from a car traveling southbound on a side street in Malibu, California. At 2:26:29 it was intercepted as it entered a computer at an RCC storage facility in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Less than ten seconds later, Silver Piece had identified and processed the strain and countered with SPV.7 that not only discovered 25 other entry points then plugged them but also inoculated the entire superstructure and baffles before the clock struck 2:27.
The ease of the vaccination had been accomplished by three related circumstances. First, an earlier version of Silver Piece had been running in deep background on AMI’s master SAN computers for over a month and had fingerprinted more than a dozen pinprick Iscariots, filling in some of the tricky holes the admittedly powerfully written virus had earlier managed to cover. Second, on a hunch, Juan Castro and his private staff of former consulting AMI techs had floated a tip sheet Trojan Horse disguised as a C6 general com that a member in Venezuela had foolishly forwarded to the party or parties responsible for Iscariot’s light and watering that, in turn, left behind a pair of cookies nobody bothered to bake. Finally, the files downlinked from Juan Castro’s files to Terry Samson’s home then captured by a computer in Archie Knight’s Transponder Electronic Data office contained the double blind false positive SPV.6.6 that, as planned, transmitted enough flawed data to assure Iscariot would be hung out to dry from the nearest digital tree.
Within 48 hours of the failed attack, 29 individuals outside of Sanctuary Creek, including Perrin Bronsen, were arrested in seven countries and three from the United States. The minor charges included murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion and various RICO violations. The major charges included multiple violations of the International Supernet Protection Act. Though Carter Sherwood, Mitchell Mitchell, Julianne Pratt and John Primovich were eligible for immunity under the SCEA, Peter II directed, after excommunicating the four and defrocking the pair of clerics, that they be transferred to the Federal Supernet Crimes Prosecutor, Great Lakes Region, for disposition. The next morning, Mitchell Mitchell entered into a plea bargain for a sentence of 20 to 30 years in exchange for his full cooperation with the FSCP.
By the following Sunday, between two press releases issued by Eugene Cardinal Mannherz and a lengthy article by Morgan Fitzgerald in the Chicago Tribune, it became clear that the Cult of the Six, like its namesake, was born to lose.
The attempt to extort the Church specifically and the world cyberspace environment generally might have succeeded if the conspirators had been more patient and thorough. But their unimaginable undoing came from a wild card they never could have expected to be dealt.
At a holiday party the previous December for the Acer elite, Angelique Caulfield had been introduced to a man she couldn’t recall previously meeting named Peeb. There was something vaguely familiar about his looks she couldn’t pinpoint at the time. A few of his comments and the deference he was shown by others led the singer to conclude he was much too savvy to be the logistics technician he purported to be. Over after-dinner drinks he’d jokingly suggested it would be funny if she agreed to do a cameo in a video with Guralski, her pretending to attempt to seduce the Pope during a song titled “I Loved Peter Once (So He Asked Me to Do It Again).” A few weeks later, Julianne Pratt made a similar suggestion even though she hadn’t been present at the party and Caulfield had never mentioned the conversation with Peeb. More weeks later, she’d been introduced to Margie Krell by Pratt, who’d offered it might be valuable to keep Krell on a small retainer in the event they’d ever “required a body double for stuff that you’re not interested in doing.”
The Guralski murder, coupled with her estranged husband’s increasing fascination with the C6, his ongoing threats to blackmail her with a video, Pratt’s continuing entreaties to “move our relationship beyond strictly business” and some other tidbits gathered along the way made the singer worry for her welfare and that of the Pontiff. Perhaps it was paranoia, but she decided she couldn’t take the chance. Annie Knight had promised to return the favor for Caulfield’s support of the St. Scholastica project so she contacted the heiress, saying her divorce proceedings were spinning out of control and that only an expedited annulment would put out the fire. Annie replied she’d do anything to help so the singer requested the arrangement of a personal telephone conversation between herself and the Pope. Peter II accepted the call the next day and Caulfield reported everything she knew.
Once Krell went missing, in tandem with the very dangerous ledge the singer had climbed out on, preparations for the multiple potential attacks became the primary order of business for the Pope and three aides above suspicion: Juan Cardinal Castro, Angelo Cardinal Valenti and Kenley Cardinal Linhart whose death had been faked earlier for other reasons yet to be explained.
It was postulated that the Cult and Archie Knight feared Juan Castro’s expertise and personal vehemence toward them more than anything else, so that in order to draw the conspirators out, the Cardinal would have to be erased from the picture. Though the SPV.5 program had been resident in Castro’s computer
for months waiting to be seized, divided among the folders STO, PIS, CAR and IOT, the traitors hadn’t been known to have attempted capture, possibly in fear of a magnet Castro might have attached to one of the beams in an addition he’d added to the flame walls. So a scheme was put into motion that succeeded beyond even the Castro’s vast imagination.
The basic outline? Castro dies from the immense professional and personal pressures he’s under. The Pope, dealt a serious emotional blow, atop his fears of assassination, along with the inconceivable judgment call on The Diaries and the Pebble, lets go the string of his kite. Acting irrationally, he places the Finance portfolio into the hands of someone the Cult and Knight think they can roll over like a puppy. But the shill had to be kept in the dark so as not to tip the plan. Additional distractions were added to make it appear everyone at the Creek was focused in different directions—smokescreens to insure possible Infiltrators were kept off the scent.
A sense of chaos.
The helicopter crash—remotely controlled from start to finish, containing the corpse of an elderly woman who had willed her body to the Church to be examined for the physical evidence of sins, along with a pair of SRRS Medical Training Units and a 55 gallon drum of jet fuel—provided the fireworks display. A few other trusted individuals including Beetsee Esposito, Jeffery Gayle (who had previously expressed his concerns to the Pope about a suspicious alliance among Primovich, Carter, Mitchell and Knight), Mary Beth Rehmer and Angelique Caulfield were enlisted to assist in the counter plot. Terry Samson was chosen as the vehicle to deliver it.
Under Annie Knight’s prenuptial agreement—and seeing her husband had died prior to any prosecution under the ISPA—the less-than-grieving widow took possession of all of his assets including the AMI and TED stock, exponentially increasing her status as the wealthiest woman to have ever lived. Archie Knight’s remains were cremated and, following a short requiem at an undisclosed location, were scattered over Lake Erie.
Terry Samson spent 11 days in the Creek’s hospital recovering from his injuries and another two weeks at home convalescing.
Three days after his physicians gave him a clean bill, an extravagant gathering hosted by Peter II and Annie Knight was held at the Mansion. At the top of the ceremonies, after thanking the guest of honor for saving his life and perhaps even that of the Church, the Pontiff related the creation of a new Cabinet position: the Secretariat Strategy, then presented its first occupant with a token of appreciation on behalf of the Church—the Lionne-Demilunes painting COMBAT RISK.
After dessert was served, his co-host took the podium, stating she had two announcements and one entreaty.
“At noon today, I transferred Archibald Knight’s previous holdings in Analog Machinery Incorporated to the Sanctuarian Party Papal Trust to assure the SPPT absolute working control of both the corporation and the Supernet which it has so excellently protected in the past and I’m certain shall in the future. Secondly, I have also transferred his previous Transponder Electronic Data shares to a newly-established trust, Silver Piece Limited, to be used by majority vote of the Council of Twelve for whatever purposes it deems fit in furtherance of the welfare of others not as fortunate as those of us here this evening.”
The ovation lasted over a minute.
“Thank you. And now, one small request,” she grinned, looking to Samson. “Terry? Promise me the first waltz or I’ll revoke everything.”
He looked to Peter, who gave an approving nod, then advised, “Your table. Your rules.”
“I’d be delighted, Miss Maxwell,” he responded.
“Emmie?” she called. “Que up my number one?”
The couple met in the center of the makeshift dance floor as “The House of Love” streamed from the speakers.
And they danced close. Very close.
About the Author
John Patrick Kavanagh, aside from his writing and design projects, is also a member of the Illinois and California bars. A Chicagoland native, he currently lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania with his wife Susan. https://www.johnpatrickkavanagh@facebook.com , https://www.twitter.com@johnpkavanagh
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