by Rick Jones
The edges of Phinehas’s lips curled but marginally, the beginnings of a sly grin. “You’re wrong, Kimball. Not even close. There is no Bonasero. There is only Kleimer-Schmidt.”
“And the Knights?”
“Is Kleimer-Schmidt dead?”
“And if he’s not?”
“Then they will come. One law, one rule, one religion.”
Kimball was completely frustrated. Auciello was wrong. There were no answers in riddles, just more questions. “Phinehas,” Kimball started as he fought for reserve, “would you like to go back to this cathedral?”
The smile vanished. What took over were the facial features of want. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Very much so.”
“We can’t do that unless you tell us where it is.”
Phinehas suddenly appeared disheartened. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said. “You want me to lead you to the Luminaries. To the lost cathedral.”
Kimball slammed the backs of his fists down against the table, hard. He had had enough. Brother or no brother, Phinehas would talk. He reached over, grabbed Phinehas by the throat, and pulled him close. Phinehas was gagging while his face turned a deep shade of crimson. “Now you listen to me. I don’t care if you’re a Vatican Knight or not. You tried to kill the pope. Now I want to know why. I want to know who these Luminaries are. I want to know where they are. And you’re going to tell me. Is that clear?”
Phinehas tried to fight back, but was restrained by the chain that was tethering him to the table.
Kimball could hear the outside doors open. Gendarmerie officials were approaching to keep Kimball from committing harm. This he knew.
“Where are they?” he hollered. “Phinehas! Tell me where they are!”
The bolts to the door’s locks were pulling back.
Phinehas’s eyes were beginning to roll, showing nothing but slivers of white.
“Phinehas!”
When the door opened a full team of Gendarmerie officers entered the room and attempted to subdue Kimball, who retaliated. In frustration Kimball lashed out with the blade of his hand and struck an officer in the throat, sending him to the floor, the man retching and heaving. With his leg Kimball kicked out with a forward thrust that caught an officer in midriff that sent him off his feet and into two others, bowling them down.
Then Kimball felt incredible pain as the prongs of a Taser connected and filled his body with crippling voltage.
Falling to the floor and feeling hands all over him and cuffs binding his wrists, he continued to cry out. “Where’s the cathedral, Phinehas? WHERE IS IT?”
The last thing Kimball saw while being dragged out of the cell was Phinehas rubbing his throat.
#
The Vatican’s Secretary of State is the second leading man in charge behind the pontiff. When he heard what happened with Kimball and Phinehas inside of the Gendarmerie headquarters, he immediately sent a team of cardinals to meet with the Gendarmerie’s Inspector General to plead for certain actions against Kimball to be dismissed. Which they were, since the request had come directly from the Secretary of the State.
Inside the Secretariat’s office, Kimball sat before the desk of Cardinal Antimone with his tongue roving against the inside wall of his cheek, a rare display of nervous habit.
“Do you have any idea how embarrassed I was to learn that you had been arrested by the Gendarmerie?” asked Cardinal Antimone. “And more so, to send two esteemed cardinals to plead before the Inspector General for your release. Any idea at all?”
Kimball leaned forward. “People are trying to kill Bonasero,” he answered. “And Phinehas holds the key to stop this.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right to climb over the table and throttle the man.”
“He was pissing me off!”
The cardinal sighed and let the moment pass. He could see that Kimball was fired up. Then: “Kimball, as long as you wear the uniform of a Vatican Knight, you must uphold a higher standard. Even Bonasero—”
“Stop right there,” Kimball interjected. “Don’t even consider using Bonasero’s name as a tool for this discussion. Right now a good man lies in his bed inside the Apostolic Palace fighting for his life. And there are four more Vatican Knights out there, somewhere, maybe to finish off what Phinehas and Mordecai started. So if I have to leap over a table to choke the answers out of Phinehas in order to see that this doesn’t happen, I would do so in a heartbeat. So with or without your blessing, Cardinal, and with no disrespect intended, I’ll do whatever it takes to see that Bonasero no longer has to look over his shoulder wondering where the next bullet will come from. He didn’t deserve this.”
“No. He didn’t. But your methods of information gathering leaves much to be desired. We’re not the Inquisition here. We’re the Holy Roman Catholic Church!”
Kimball sighed. Cardinal Antimone was right . . . to a degree. Phinehas held the answers and gave him marginal leads, such as when they left and from what airport. At least he had a date and location to start backtracking from. Then after a long and uncomfortable pause between them, he finally said, “My apologies.”
The cardinal sounded much softer. “Kimball, I understand your frustration. And I know you care for Bonasero in the same way that a son looks to a father. I understand that. But please understand that violence, no matter the circumstance, is never acceptable. As a Vatican Knight, however, certain liberties are extended under extreme conditions only. To protect your life or the lives of those who cannot protect themselves. Don’t allow your emotions to rule you, Kimball. Don’t let them carry you away.”
Kimball was starting to simmer once again. He felt that the cardinal was chastising him like a child. But it wasn’t for Kimball to put such a man in his place. The cardinal had earned his position and appointment. And for that he held Kimball’s respect. Kimball just needed to tolerate him—to have enough patience to let the words roll off his back.
“I understand what you’re saying,” Kimball told him. But it’s not that easy.
“Look, Kimball. I know what I say burns you. I can see it in your face. But there are ways and measures to see this through. I love Bonasero, too. He’s been a close colleague of mine longer than the two of you have been friends. Now that we know that Shepherd One didn’t crash, we’ll find the other Knights and the cardinals and bring them home. But what I need from you is restraint. Can you give me that?”
Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
“Kimball?”
“Yes,” he confirmed with a hint of annoyance. “I can restrain myself.”
The cardinal nodded, pleased with the response. Then: “So that you know, the Society of Seven has already authorized you to gather a team and seek them out now that this has turned into a search-and-rescue mission.”
“I may need to talk to Phinehas again.”
“Then you do it through Isaiah or Leviticus.”
“You don’t trust me? Even after this soul-searching talk we just had?”
“Kimball, the Inspector General of the Gendarmerie doesn’t want you within a ten miles of the office.”
“That would put me outside of Vatican City.”
“That’s how much you angered him.”
“Can he do that?’
“Of course not. My point is that you’re becoming too visible when you shouldn’t be. You’re a Vatican Knight. Which means low . . . profile.”
Kimball’s hard edge started to subside. Cardinal Antimone, again, hit it on the head. Vatican Knights were never to draw attention to themselves, even in Vatican City. And too much attention often draws too many inquiries that have to be quashed. Losing his temper inside the Gendarmerie station would be cause for damage control once questions from gendarmerie officials asked about the man who dressed piously from the waist up and military from the waist down, was released by the orders of the Vatican’s Secretary of State.
“Do you see where I’m coming from, Kimball?”
Kimball appeared humbled. “I do.”
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“Control.”
“Control,” he said.
“And so that you know, Phinehas is going to be transported to Rome for arraignment. He’ll no longer be under the jurisdiction of the Gendarmerie or the Vatican.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. First thing.”
Kimball needed more answers, more leads. And Phinehas was too much of a challenge.
Kimball looked toward the ceiling and sighed through his nose. Control. Then: “Phinehas spoke of a lost cathedral. He told me that they departed from the Padre Aldamiz International Airport in Peru three days ago. I’ll have to backtrack from that.”
“Do it. Gather your team and find the rest. Bring them home, Kimball.”
“Easier said than done. If the other Knights have been corrupted like Phinehas and Mordecai, there’ll be a battle. You know this. One set of Vatican Knights going up against another set of equally skilled combatants is a guarantee for a high body count.”
“They’re still our brothers,” said the cardinal.
“I pray they still are. But Phinehas and Mordecai prove otherwise. It’s idealistic to believe that they’ll be fine and that their values will hold. But realistically, it would be prudent to go in believing they’re not.”
Kimball could see that the cardinal had reservations.
“You know what I’m saying is true,” Kimball told him.
“It’s not supposed to be like this. Brother against brother.”
“Which is regrettable. But as long as those Knights remain unaccounted for, Bonasero’s life will always be in jeopardy for whatever reason by these Luminaries.”
“How long?”
“For?”
“To find these people—our people—and bring them home where they belong.”
“I have to find them first. A cathedral sitting inside the Brazilian jungle won’t be an easy find. I’ll need the help of the SIV to help me backtrack Phinehas’s and Mordecai’s actions from Peru.”
The cardinal nodded, concurred, and then he leaned forward toward his desk. “Kimball, if at all possible, use your skills to disable them enough to bring them back alive. We’ll deal with their mindset here.”
“Again: idealistically, that would be fine. Realistically, however, combat is combat. It’s not child’s play. I’ll certainly do what I can. But I can only do what the situation dictates.”
“Understood.”
Kimball got to his feet. “They’re my brothers,” he stated. “I care for them. I trained them. They’re part of the Knights’ brotherhood. I’ll do everything in my power to see that your idealism becomes a reality. The cardinals we can secure. The Vatican Knights . . . I can try.”
“Please, Kimball. They’ve been stripped of their souls. And souls we can give them back.”
Kimball wondered about this. For years he’d been searching for the Light. And for years it had eluded him. Salvation was not an easy thing to find. At least not for him. So what made Cardinal Antimone believe that souls could be taken and returned at will? Or that they could be saved or unsaved?
“I’ll do what I can,” Kimball repeated.
As he walked out of the Secretary’s office he thought of one thing: All this starts with the Luminaries. They‘re the head of the snake. As long as it wasn’t a Hydra, then he would simply lop of its head and be done with it.
But Kimball knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
It never was.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The SIV Inner Chamber
Vatican City
Kimball was sitting inside a partitioned workstation with Fathers Auciello and Essex, which was adjoined to the SIV’s main computer facility. The room was high-end top security with minimal staff having access. On the wall was a large flat-screen with state-of-the-art capabilities to sharpen pixels to crystal clarity. More so, the system was connected to the VisageWare Project, a facial-recognition software program capable of picking out landmarks on a person’s face, then locating them anywhere on the planet after hacking into security or CCTV cameras that were posted around the globe.
At the moment they were pouring over footage taken from the Padre Aldamiz International Airport Terminal three days earlier. The software program was very active, the computer capturing faces and allowing a series of dots to scope and analyze measurements, and searching the data banks for identification.
So far Phinehas and Mordecai had yet to show inside the terminal during scheduled flights to the U.S., London, Paris and Rome.
“That son of bitch lied to me,” said Kimball.
The dots continued to connect to faces, the landmarks continuing to feed information into the computer.
“Maybe he got the day wrong?” Father Auciello said more as a question rather than an answer. “We’ll go back a day,” he added. “Several if we have to.”
They poured over videos for hours from every Peruvian airport, the software system analyzing tens of thousands of faces and calculating feeds in milliseconds.
Nothing.
“It would make sense that they would embark at an airport closest to this cathedral,” said Kimball. “Think about it. These lost temples are deep in the jungle, right?”
Auciello nodded.
“So roads for the most part don’t exist. It’s like getting from point A to point B with the geometrical pattern of a straight line, the shortest distance between two points. From the cathedral to the terminal, wherever the cathedral may be.” Kimball had Auciello cut the feeds and bring up a map of boundary lines that ran along the borders of Columbia, Peru and Brazil. What was interesting was that there were three airports in Columbia that neighbored Brazil, with two airports directly on the border: the La Pedrera and the Leticia, with the Leticia right at the borderline of Peru, Columbia and Brazil.
“He could have been talking about Leticia,” commented Father Essex.
Kimball nodded. “No. He specifically said the Padre Aldamiz International Airport. He knew what I wanted, so he threw me off.”
“There are, however, ancient temples east of La Pedrera.”
Kimball turned to him. “You know this for a fact?”
“They’re on the Brazilian Register listed as historical sites protected by the Laws of Preservation. All restricted areas, however.” Father Auciello changed the video to bring up the Brazilian Registry of Preserved Sites. There were four sites close to La Pedrera. All within a hundred kilometers of one another in deep, jungled terrain. Hitting a series of buttons on the keypad, Father Auciello was able to bring up a gallery of photos of the ancient temples once belonging to indigenous tribes who were probably descendants of the Incas and Mayans. And secondly, related Incan and Mayan images carved on temple walls in Brazil supported that theory, though slightly.
He clicked through the pictures like a slide show, the same photos that were on the Registry’s video file. They were black-and-white stills of temples being reclaimed by the landscape, with climbing brambles and vines. The last photos, they noted, had been taken in 1956.
“Nineteen fifty-six?” Kimball commented. “Nothing after that?”
“Not on the Registry files. No.”
“Something else is odd,” said Father Essex.
“How so?” asked Kimball.
Father Essex asked Father Auciello to start from the beginning, which he did, and click through the photos, starting with the first still that was dated in 1926. Each photo was marked with the name of the sites: The Bochica, the Sinaa, and the Amana. What was missing were photos of the fourth site: the Huecuvus. Not a single photo existed.
“We appear to be missing records of a fourth site,” said Essex. “The Huecuvus. Why would the Registry diligently maintain photos of three of the four protected sites within that region?”
“You know anything about Huecuvus?” Kimball asked him.
“Not much. Only that the name Huecuvus when translated means Evil Spirits.”
Kimball looked at the screen and narrowed his eyes. Evil Spirits. R
ecorded history notes that places in South America, especially Argentina and Brazil, though neutral during World War Two, continued to trade with the Axis Alliance and were sympathetic to their cause. When the Nazi’s took flight, they did so to the safe havens provided by these countries. Kimball had to wonder if the Huecuvus site was more than just a safe haven, but a safe house. That would account for no photos or existing records other than a document of protection, since it was declared a precious area of historical antiquity.
And sometimes people who maintained old-time beliefs also kept folklores alive. The word Huecuvus meant Evil Spirits. Kimball could only wonder if there was an attachment that Huecuvus was the landing site of Nazi’s. And the Nazi’s, at least in the minds of people who still believed in magic over science, simply saw them as something awful and vilified them as something immoral and wicked. All myths were somehow based on a foundation of truth.
“And where is this Huecuvus located exactly?” Kimball asked. “How far from La Pedrera?”
Father Auciello cross-referenced several sources, bypassing the Registry for historical accounts. After several minutes he fell back in his seat and pointed to the screen. Huecuvus was less than twenty kilometers from the La Pedrera Airport, about twelve miles.
“That’s got to be it,” said Kimball. “Get VisageWare up and running. Go back and look for Phinehas and Mordecai inside La Pedrera. Several days if you have to.” Then after a pause, he whispered to himself: “It all makes sense.”
When VisageWare was up and running, they were able to tap into the La Pedrera security system, which had hundreds of cameras from every angle. Which meant lots of faces to scan.
“Kimball, this can take a while.”
“How long?”
“The system’s fast. It could be from an hour to several, depending on how many days we have to go back. And that’s if we find them at all. If the system doesn’t get a hit based on our inputs, it’ll keep searching until it’s told otherwise.”
