by Rick Jones
Special Services and those in military wardrobe—black fatigues, composites guards and helmets with convex face-shields—fanned across the lab of the Image Analysis Unit. A man by the name of Arthur Abington immediately dismissed the operators manning the consoles, and replaced them with team members who were nonaligned with Senator Rhames, Hartlin or Butrose.
Hartlin didn’t say a word regarding the usurping of his position as stage manager. He simply removed his headpiece, placed it on a nearby console, and looked directly at Abington.
“You’re dismissed, Mr. Hartlin,” Abington told him in a no-nonsense manner. “The center is now under the complete authority of the president of the United States. You will follow these men” –Abington pointed to four members of the Secret Service—“who will escort you to a location for conduct review.”
Conduct review. Hartlin sighed dejectedly through his nostrils. Conduct review was the same as hand-in-your-resignation. Your career’s over.
Hartlin followed the team out of the facility, the man never to return.
#
Just as Hartlin was being escorted from the Analysis Lab, Senator Shore was just leaving his house when three black SUVs drove up to the front of his house. Nothing was stated since body English said it all.
The passenger in the middle SUV got out of the vehicle, opened the door to the backseat, then he gestured to Shore to take his rightful place inside the vehicle.
Shore looked down at the ground, his eyes cast in dishonor and humiliation. Then he walked toward the SUV like a condemned man, his shoulders slumping in defeat. Once inside the vehicle, the well-dressed man closed the door behind the senator, returned to the passenger-side seat, then followed the lead SUV to a destination unknown to Senator Shore.
#
Abington’s team worked to countermand everything that Rhames and the Company created. Abort instructions were created by the commander in chief, the orders clear: cease and desist all actions regarding ‘Operation Incite’ and the targeted killing of Kimball Hayden.
A moment later, orders were sent through a secured channel to the BGAN system in Malta.
The cease-and-desist command had been received on the other end.
But nobody answered the call.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The Excelsior Hotel
Valletta, Malta
The doorknob turned nicely in Kimball’s hand.
Kimball could hear voices in the room at the far end of the hallway.
To his left was a closed door. And behind the door he could hear the rush of water flowing from a faucet: the bathroom.
He reached for that knob. And it turned in his hand just as nicely as the entry door.
#
Dill was hunkered over the basin spooning water onto his face, refreshing it. After reaching for a towel on his left and drying his face, he stood to measure himself in the mirror. However, his reflection was not the only one looking back at him. Kimball Hayden stood behind him, the man no more than two feet away with somewhat of a psychotic look of hungry vengeance.
Before Dill could respond, Kimball reached out with his hand, grabbed the operative by the hair on the back of his head, and rammed it hard against the mirror, cracking the glass into concentric circles. Then he forced Dill’s head against the corner of the porcelain basin one, two, three times—the forehead denting and caving as the skull fractured and collapsed, with the corner of the basin finally breaking away from the force and falling to the floor.
Kimball held Dill aloft for a moment before releasing the operative’s body slowly to the tile. Then he looked at his fragmented reflection in the broken mirror. His features were twisted and distorted, almost monster-like as the face looking back at him appeared to be in ruins.
Turning away from his shattered image, Kimball went to work with the devil riding his back.
Chapter Sixty
Neither Cooper nor Ripper heard Kimball Hayden as he entered the room with his suppressed weapon directed on them, both completely caught off guard. When Ripper took a glance past Kimball, Kimball intuited the reason why: He was looking for Dill.
“Don’t worry about your boy in the can,” he said. “He won’t be answering the call anytime soon.”
Cooper nodded, expecting as much from someone like Kimball Hayden. “I do have to say that your reputation is spot on,” he told him, “The last place I expected to see is you standing inside my front door. Especially when you’re the subject of a manhunt.”
“Yet here I am.”
The muscles in the back of Ripper’s jaws began to work.
Kimball turned to him. “You want a piece of me, don’t you?”
Ripper nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
“How’s that gimp leg of yours?”
Ripper didn’t answer.
Then to Cooper. “Your entire team is gone. So when I go after Rhames, I want him to see the trail of bodies leading right up to his door. I want him to know that nothing will stop me. Not you. Not him. Nobody. I was nothing but a dirty little secret of American history buried away somewhere inside the Pentagon Archives. He should have left me there.”
“You’re a threat to national security,” Cooper fired back.
Kimball kept his cool. “You’re no different from me,” he said. “Neither of you. You’re taking orders because you believe you’re doing the right thing. I get that. I took orders from Rhames because I believed I was doing the right thing. I wasn’t. I was given narratives to fit the mission objective, with that narrative having been distorted to fit the needs of the mission. Just like you.”
Ripper looked at Cooper, then to the assault weapons sitting on the couch.
“You think you can make it?” Kimball asked Ripper. “Go for it.”
When Cooper took a step forward, Kimball redirected the point of his pistol to center mass. Cooper stopped.
“You murdered Senator Cartwright,” Cooper said.
“Under the orders of Senator Rhames.”
Cooper appeared nonplussed by this.
“You only know enough to achieve the means of the mission without question,” Kimball added. “Manipulation has always been a part of the game.”
The laptop pinged; a message from Langley. It was classified as URGENT.
Cooper pointed to the computer. “It’s from Langley.”
Kimball pointed the suppressed weapon at the laptop and fired off two shots, both rounds hitting their marks and destroying the unit. “That’s pretty much how I feel about Langley at the moment,” he said.
“You think this is all about you?” Cooper asked him.
“I know about Incite,” Kimball said. “Believe me, that’s being handled as well.”
“You think so?” Ripper said rhetorically, a grim smile at the corner of his lip.
“I know so.”
Ripper squared off with Kimball, the man’s shoulders wide and massive. “So now what? You’re going to kill us just to make a point to Senator Rhames?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Cooper dove for the couch, the man reaching for an MP7.
Kimball aimed his weapon, got off a shot with the bullet penetrating Cooper’s shoulder. A sudden burst of rose-petal red bloomed from the impact point of Cooper’s wound, but he managed to grab a weapon and swing it in an arc, the bullets stitching the walls behind Kimball as he took cover.
Ripper also took to the floor and assessed the situation.
Kimball was close, the former wetwork assassin coming up for the kill shot to Cooper.
Cooper continued to fire off in random, plaster exploding from walls as rounds penetrated.
Kimball raised his weapon, took aim—two pulls of the trigger, one round to the chest and the other to the throat, not kill shots like he wanted. Cooper’s eyes ogled with disbelief, showing mostly whites as he dropped the weapon to the floor and brought his hand to his throat, the man gurgling with a wet sound as blood ran through the gaps of his clenching fingers.
Kimball tried to wheel his weapon around on Ripper.
Too slow.
The big man had swung the rod of a lamp at Kimball, striking his gun hand and sending the weapon from his grasp and across the room. Ripper was on his feet, the large man uncannily quick for someone so big. The same could be said of Kimball. Two behemoths freakishly athletic meeting in the center of the room.
They converged on one another, the assassins gripping and throwing punches and elbow strikes with one gaining the advantage over the other, only to lose it with a subsequent blow from his opponent, usually a defensive strike.
Ripper cried out with rage, a warrior’s cry, as he came across with the point of his elbow against Kimball’s jaw, sending the Vatican Knight against the wall. After the starburst of light faded from Kimball’s eyes, he threw a straight kick at the approaching assassin and struck him in the knee, sending the large man to the floor on both knees. The man gritted his teeth in agony, then grew angry. Kimball quickly came around with a roundhouse kick, his heel striking Ripper in the temple with the force that sent the man in flight.
Ripper slid across the floor on his backside, got to his feet, squared off with fists raised. Kimball did the same, looking for an opportunity, though one was hard to find against such a seasoned fighter.
Then Ripper came at him throwing blow after blow with Kimball deflecting the strikes and sending a few hard shots of his own to the center of Ripper’s body mass. The huge man fell back against Kimball’s hammer-like thrusts. Then blood began to form at the edges of Ripper’s lips, the result of internal injuries.
Kimball went after him, his punches fluid and well-coordinated. Strike after strike, blow after blow, the large man being forced across the room and toward the glass doors of the balcony. Kimball was relentless as darkness took over—as the devil continued to ride his back.
Then he threw a kick that landed squarely against Ripper’s chest, the force of the blow driving the large man through the glass doors and onto the balcony. As the momentum carried him through the panes, the doors exploded on impact with diamond-sized chips of glass spreading across the veranda.
With feeble effort, Ripper fought back in defense as blood foamed and bubbled along the edges of his lips. And then Kimball threw two more elbow strikes to the man’s face one right after the other in quick succession, first a left and then a right.
. . . Whup . . .
. . . Whup . . .
Ripper’s head snapped back, the man leaning over the balcony’s railing, which was a good six stories high. Kimball grabbed the man’s collar, saw the rolling whites of the assassin’s eyes, and knew he was out for the count.
Kimball looked over the side. They were facing the ocean side, a grand view.
Then from Ripper, who managed to speak weakly, said: “I don’t want to die.”
“Neither did I. But that didn’t stop you from trying, did it?”
“Please.”
“Tell it to someone who cares.” Kimball raised the large man up and over the railing, sending Ripper in flight. The large man didn’t cry out—something Kimball had to respect—as he pin-wheeled his arms on the way down. Even from his level, Kimball could hear the man strike the concrete like a melon hitting the pavement.
Since Darkness had muted him emotionally, Kimball fell away from the railing with no regrets. Leaving the balcony and reentering the room, he grabbed his weapon from the floor and fitted the firearm in the waistband at the small of his back.
Lying by the couch with the life gone from his eyes was Cooper.
Kimball looked at the team leader, then at the BGAN system and the bullet riddled laptop with its final message from Langley that had never been opened.
Then he thought of Senator Rhames, his Victor Frankenstein.
It was now time for the monster’s return.
Chapter Sixty-One
Lab of the Image Analysis Unit
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Abington was waiting for the message to open on the receiving end that expressed an immediate abortion of all missions in Malta. But the encrypted message had yet to be opened.
“What about Bates?” Abington asked his comm-control operator.
“Negative. No response from either locations.”
Abington began to rake his fingers nervously through his hair. ‘Incite’ was still alive until they got verification stating otherwise, per protocol. Right now the consideration had to be that the devices were somewhere in Valletta, with the timers ticking down to zero moment.
“Keep trying,” he told the operator. Then to another operating a console on a tiered level behind him, he said, “Get the president on the line. And I mean yesterday.” He turned back to the screens showing live feeds of Valletta. Throngs of people milled about in celebration. “Tell him that ‘Operation Incite’ has yet to be diffused.”
Abington looked at his watch. Time was running dangerously down to the zero mark, he thought.
. . . 00:43:06 . . .
. . . 00:43:04 . . .
. . . 00:43:03 . . .
Chapter Sixty-Two
Headquarters of the Servizio Informazione del Vaticano, the SIV
The Vatican
Father Essex was leading the SIV Command Center beneath the Basilica, when Jeremiah made contact over a secured line.
Essex was standing in front of a large plasma screen with his hands clasped behind the small of his back, and wore a headpiece with an attached lip mic. The Skype program came into full view.
“We just hit a stone wall,” said Jeremiah.
“How so?”
“The devices are not at the locations specified. And Bates believes that the placement designs have been altered by leading principals for maximum effect beyond what was proposed. He’s in the dark as much as we are. Advice?”
Father Essex looked at the clock against the far wall. It was a digital timer counting down to zero hour in Malta, the detonation time based on the information provided by Bates.
. . . 00:37:58 . . .
. . . 00:37:57 . . .
. . . 00:37:56 . . .
“The devices could be anywhere in Valletta,” Father Essex said. “Standby, Leviticus. I need to advise Cardinal Calcagno and Father Auciello of the current situation.”
“You need to hurry on this, Father. We don’t have a whole lot of time.”
“Understood.”
The feed to Jeremiah was cut off and a connecting cyber line to Father Auciello was established through the lens of the co-director’s tablet. “Go.”
“Problem,” said Father Essex. “Operation Incite remains active. The devices were moved elsewhere for a greater measure of maximum effect.”
“Any idea where they might be? Any idea at all?”
“We . . . have . . . nothing.”
“How much time do we have left?” Father Auciello asked.
Father Essex looked at the timer. “Just over thirty-six minutes.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Copy that.”
The connection went dead.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Oval Office. The White House
Washington, D.C.
Senator Rhames was ushered into the Oval Office by members of the Secret Service and kindly asked to take the seat before the presidential desk. President Burroughs refused to acknowledge him as he looked over recently proposed data.
Also inside the office was Dean Hamilton, the attorney general, who sat on a couch beneath the portrait of a former president, who also refused to acknowledge the senator, while looking over the same data as the president.
The president dropped a sheet of paper on his desk and eased back into his chair, giving the senator an appraising look, though his features remained impartial. Then: “Operation Incite.” It was all the president said. His measure stoically even.
Senator Rhames looked at the attorney general, then at the members of the SS—all who were carrying
stiff looks about them. “What about it?”
“You spearheaded this drive of terrorism. Now I want to diffuse the situation.” President Burroughs lifted the top sheet from his desk and held it up in display. “This just came from the archdiocese here in Washington. From the president of the Vatican State. We received information from one of your in-theater operatives that three devices were to be planted inside the St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Malta, which are to be detonated at the height of the noon Mass. However, it appears that those devices have been relocated for what has been deemed for the purpose of achieving ‘maximum effect.’”
The senator brought up his hands and tented his fingertips.
“You, Senator, have become crazed with ambition for whatever reason. You’ve lost sight of your proper station within this government. And that is to serve the public trust by upholding the laws, not betray them.” Burroughs flipped the paper angrily onto his desktop. “Why?”
“Why? Because we’re failing to serve the public, as you just suggested, by turning a blind eye to what’s going on in the Middle East which, by the way, is on fire with chaos and extremism.”
“So your answer is to kill innocent people in Malta?”
The senator leaned forward in his chair to emphasize his point. “My intention, Mr. President, was to obtain additional access fields of operation into the Middle East, by leasing Malta’s vacant airfields. We can establish another front in the war against terrorism. Even if our relationship with Turkey buckles, we’ll have the fields in Malta from which we could fly our sorties.”
“So you deliver the explosive hardware to Malta, have your operatives strategically plant the devices, and then point an accusing finger at ISIS for attacking a predominantly Roman Catholic nation that’s relatively isolated.”
“Exactly.”
