The Bridge of Bones (Vatican Knights)

by Rick Jones

  She then reached up to place a hand behind Gary’s head. She pulled him close, until the tips of their noses were touching. “Kimball was a dearer friend than most,” she told him softly, almost apologetically. “I’ll admit to that. But it’s always been you, Gary. It’s always…been…you.”

  They kissed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Washington, D.C.

  Five Weeks Later

  The man stood well away from the brownstone, watching the family who resided within from a stand of trees across the way.

  He had been there for a while, waiting.

  And in such a neighborhood as this, where houses were upper-end and the landscape expertly manicured, he did not belong.

  As a shadow, his outline could be determined as someone whose hair was in a wild tangle, his beard unruly and unkempt. And that was why he stayed within the trees, hiding, waiting, and watching.

  He had surveyed the family through the windows of the brownstone, seeing the mother and daughters hugging, then laughing, and sometimes arguing. He had seen the woman hug, hold and kiss her husband—the husband then tracing his fingers down along her pretty cheeks in loving fashion.

  The man had watched this repeatedly—could feel the love coming from within the home, even from a distance.

  Then the man looked skyward at the canopy of stars, noting the gemlike sparkles and thinking that time was getting close.

  It had to be.

  In the shadows, the man waited.

  It was late, and Shari sat alone in the den, nursing a glass of warm milk. It was quiet with Gary and the kids in bed. And she savored these moments alone, a time where she could reminisce without interruption.

  Her bruises had faded, but Gary’s still lingered, with contusions that had faded to a deep yellow and green. For a few days thereafter, he had spent time in a Parisian hospital for a concussion. He had been released just prior to the commencement of Ceremonial Services at the Vatican.

  She closed her eyes and could feel the warmth of the cup clutched within her enfolding hands. She remembered everything.

  Pope Pius spoke not with a voice that was strong or powerful or with anything that hinted at emotional detachment. It was weak and frail, his voice often cracking with emotion too great to control, the weight of Kimball’s loss too heavy to bear.

  And she broke as well, Pius’s sentiments becoming infectious to all those around them.

  When it was over, when they had said their good-byes, the coffins, Joshua and Samuel among them, were taken away to be buried in a place of honor beneath the Basilica.

  It was one of the most painful things she had ever endured.

  Now, more than a month later, she still wondered about Kimball, praying and hoping that he had found the salvation he had been seeking. Had he seen the Light of Loving Spirits? Or was he somehow caught within his own darkness, along with the demons that had always plagued him?

  In the end, however, sixty-four families were reunited with their loved ones. Sixty-five, should hers be included in that count.

  That was a lot of lives affected by the actions of a few people.

  She took a slow sip from the cup, then allowed the cup to rest against her lap, as she sat on the couch with her legs up.

  Since their return to D.C., things were somehow getting back to the norm. It was amazing how resilient children could be, she thought. After their ordeal, they were beginning to fall back to the ways of old. They were once again rolling their eyes against authority, house rules were once again ‘lame,’ and bedroom doors slammed in the wake of teenage angst.

  It was good to get back to normal, when everything was anything but.

  The only one who really changed was Gary, smiling and accepting the girls’ attitudes as a momentary way of life, because he had daughters who were now safe. No longer did he take things for granted. Instead, even when doors slammed and eyes rolled, he cherished every single moment that they were here to do so.

  Shari on the other hand, thanked Kimball with silent prayers, for making their family whole.

  Setting the cup aside, and feeling fatigued since the night was getting late, she stood up, stretched, and shut off the light.

  Within moments, she was in bed lying next to her husband, who was sound asleep.

  In the neighboring rooms, her daughters were also asleep.

  She then closed her eyes, and smiled.

  Thank you, Kimball, for making my family whole again.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Jadran Božanović had watched the last light turn off inside the brownstone.

  Quietly, he removed his knife from its sheath and toyed with it, the same way that a majorette would twirl a baton between her fingers. He would wait an hour before entering. Then he would commence with his butchering, by killing the husband first, and then maiming the wife. He would then relish the kills of the two young girls, before their mother’s eyes. He would use his knife as a tool to wonderfully carve out a macabre feature that would serve as a message. It would run far and deep within media circles, stating that no one, not even the FBI’s elite, was safe in their twenty-four carat neighborhood.

  The Croatian’s hands were visibly shaking, the anticipation of the hunt was beginning to act like a narcotic coursing through his veins. The uncontrollable lust and passion behind his eagerness to kill was almost too much for him to handle.

  And these were the moments he reveled in, the instances of making a statement with the hallmark brand that was uniquely his own, for the world to see. In this brownstone, when it was over and done with, the brutal mastery of Jadran Božanović would be shaped by the broad strokes of his knife.

  After waiting the required hour, he finally made his approach with footfalls that were silent. And the moment his foot took the first step that led to the first of two doorways of the residence—the entrance and the foyer doors—a voice that was low and even and with all the cold fortitude of a machine sounded off behind him.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  The Croat wheeled on the balls of his feet with his knife already poised and leveled. Standing there was a man who was silhouetted against the backdrop of a street light, his outline proposing that he was a man with an unkempt and unruly beard, and hair that suggested that it was caught in a wild tangle.

  Božanović raised his knife. “You have no idea what you just walked into,” he said.

  The man remained unmoving.

  So Božanović took a step forward, smelling a hint of alcohol coming off this man.

  In a flash of movement, the man launched a series of punches, striking Jadran Božanović repeatedly with crushing blows to the face and abdomen. The Croatian’s eyes rolled as internal stars orbited around his mind’s eye. And when his eyes finally focused, he quickly discovered that he was lying on the turf with his assailant standing over him, the man’s head oddly surrounded by a halo of light that shined from a distant lamp.

  Božanović slowly got to his feet, his knife aimed directly at his assailant’s heart. From under his breath he said something obscene in his native tongue, but the man remained unmoving and perhaps unconcerned. But Božanović couldn’t tell what the man was thinking, since his face was masked by darkness.

  Božanović ground his feet and set himself. But his opponent didn’t move into any position of self-defense—no bending of the legs, no raising of the arms. He didn’t move at all. And because he didn’t move, Jadran Božanović found the moment to be an opportune one. He lashed out with a straight jab.

  But the man snapped out a hand and grabbed Božanović by the wrist, twisted it, and broke the bones underneath. In an equally fluid move, the man came across with his free hand and grabbed the knife, as it was falling free from the Croatian’s grasp. He had sole custody of the weapon.

  Božanović’s eyes started as he cradled his arm—the man was so quick.

  Then, without warning and within the pulse of a single heartbeat, the knife came up and
sliced Božanović’s unscarred cheek. The Croatian brought his uninjured hand to his face and traced his fingers over the lips of the fresh wound. The gash was wide and deep. He drew back fingertips that were tacky with blood.

  This time when the Croat backpedaled, the man followed, matching Božanović step by step. When the Croat reached the first step that led to Shari’s residence, he ascended the stairway while keeping his eyes on his attacker—and the knife the man wielded. Once Božanović reached the landing, he fell to his knees, the pain in his arm and the slice to his face suddenly going white-hot with agony.

  The man loomed and leaned over him. With a voice that was cold and detached, he said, “This is for Joshua.”

  The Croatian gave him a questioning look. Who?

  And that was when the man punched the knife home, driving it into Božanović’s chest.

  Stepping back and watching the Croatian trying to register the moment of his death, the man lifted his leg and kicked it forward, hard, the impact of his foot driving the knife through the man’s body until the point exited through his back.

  The man then watched Božanović as, in his last effort at life, he tried to get to his feet. But with another frontal kick, the man sent the Croatian through the paned glass window of the door and into the foyer, where he lay dead, as shards of broken glass littered the area around him.

  Immediately, the lights to the second-floor hallway came on.

  The man looked upward.

  Then the lights to the stairwell illuminated.

  Shari Cohen descended the staircase with her Glock.

  Gary descended with a bat.

  When they reached the first floor landing and opened the door that led to the foyer, Shari’s heart threatened to misfire in her chest. Jadran Božanović lay dead in her home, with his eyes rolled so far back that nothing but the whites were showing. A knife was buried to the hilt in his chest, so there was no need to check for a pulse that she knew would not be there.

  Slowly and cautiously, she made her way to the landing’s threshold with the point of her firearm taking the lead.

  The night was dark beyond her doorway. Whoever had left Božanović behind was making a statement of his own: You’re safe now.

  She looked over the landscape that was barely lit by the phase of a crescent moon. It was a big world out there, she considered, with endless places to hide.

  Whoever killed Jadran Božanović did so with a penchant for justice rather than following the letter of the law. Whereas the law would have brought Božanović before the leading principals of international courts, simple justice was to send him to Hell.

  She looked down at Božanović, feeling an undeniably one-sided effect that she was glad the man was dead. She knew he had finally come for her and her family.

  And from this she became overjoyed. Not because Jadran Božanović lay dead at her feet, but because he lay dead by the hands of the man who had become her savior so long ago.

  She then looked out into the darkness and into the shadows, her eyes spying for a shape. And then she realized that the night was a dark and lonely place that harbored many secrets, some that would never be solved or understood. But there was no mystery here tonight with Božanović lying in her doorway. In fact, it was all too clear: her savior had come once again.

  She lowered her firearm. Then with the corners of her lips beginning to arc into a smile, and with the onset of tears beginning to sting, she had a single thought:

  Thank you, Kimball.

  EPILOGUE

  Washington, D.C.

  The Following Morning

  “All right, buddy. Let’s go. No one’s allowed to sleep on a public bench.” The officer tapped the bottom of the homeless man’s shoes with the tip of his ASP baton. “C’mon, move! If you need a place to sleep, then get yourself to the shelter on Concorde.”

  The man, with his hands tucked beneath his armpits for warmth, labored into a sitting position with narrowed eyes that were still on the cusp between awake and sleep.

  “C’mon, buddy, let’s go.”

  The homeless man nodded.

  “You might want to grab yourself a shower, too. You could definitely use a good once over to get that stink off you.”

  After the officer walked away, the man held his gloved hands out in front of him. But they weren’t gloved at all. They were covered with blood that had dried to the color of burgundy. In a nearby puddle where pigeons cooed along its edges, the man took the full liberty of washing away the wine-colored flakes, until the water became a blend of whatever color black and burgundy makes. Once the surface settled, the man appraised his mirrored image.

  His hair was in a wide mess, with pointed licks and tufts going everywhere. His face was smudged, the lines of his crow’s-feet caked with grime, which made them look deeper and more pronounced. And his beard was completely unruly, with loops of curly hair standing out in all different sizes and lengths. The only constants were his cerulean blue eyes—those lonely orbs that spoke of a man who had served as the fulcrum between sinner and saint, who constantly seesawed from one side to the next in turmoil.

  Returning to the bench, he raised and rotated his left shoulder and arm. Over the past few weeks, the pain had subsided and his strength had returned. And with his strength had come agility. And with his agility had come a particular set of skills that had made him one of the world’s elite as a killer. Or in the eyes of others, a savior.

  When he’d slid down the ship’s transom and toward the turn of the screw, he had conceded to his fate, believing that the mystery of what laid beyond this life was about to be answered with either the realm of the Light of Loving Spirits, or by him becoming the centerpiece of some dark orgy in Hell. But as soon as he hit the water, the power of the screw kicked him away from the ship with a punch that was like a blast from a fire hose, hard and ramming. The force pushed him into the pilings beneath the docks, where he slipped in and out of consciousness.

  What happened thereafter remained a blur, his memory not as keen.

  But he did remember Jadran Božanović was a man of reciprocity, who knew no boundaries when it came to retaliation. If nothing else, the man had considered, the Croat was predictable and would remain true to his psychological profile. And since people were by nature creatures of habit and fell in love with a certain lifestyle, he knew that Božanović would be no different.

  So he had to make the world believe that he was dead. If Božanović thought otherwise, then he would have sliced his way through the Vatican to get at him. And should that have been the case, a lot of lives would have been lost as a consequence of allowing the Croat to live.

  So the dead man waited in the copse of trees across the way from the brownstone, knowing that Božanović would someday arrive. And as he stood there night after night, when temperatures plummeted to near freezing, he would watch the family go through the paces of life… Then he wished he had a family of his own.

  When Božanović finally showed up with knife in hand, it was all he needed to do to make everything wrong in the world right again. He had chosen justice over law. And by doing so, he literally deposited the man’s body at Shari’s doorstep, letting her know that she and her family would now be safe.

  The world was once again right, at least for the moment.

  This, the dead man was sure of, as he took note of the park’s surroundings, watching people walk their dogs along greens that were perfectly manicured. To the east, streamers of morning light were beginning to show in colors of reds and yellows, perhaps promising another beautiful day with a uniform blue sky peppered with a few scudding clouds.

  Everything is so peaceful, he thought.

  So…

  …calm.

  I like being dead.

  He then reached into his shirt pocket and removed a Roman Catholic collar that was as soiled and as black as the shirt he was wearing. He had removed it a long while back, knowing the Vatican would never condone his personal actions when it came
to Jadran Božanović. He had chosen free will over the objectives of the Church.

  And for that, he had damned himself for eternity.

  Then with all the tenderness of treating something as the greatest of holy relics, he placed the soiled collar against the bench, and with the blade of his hand tried to smooth away the creases, but he failed miserably with the effort.

  Holding the collar before him, he remembered in kind the memories it brought him. So he kept it, tucking it away in a shirt pocket that had the embroidered emblem of a powder-blue shield with a silver Pattée at its center.

  The insignia of the Vatican Knights.

  The dead man stood, stretched, and allowed his eyes trace the walkway that wended through the park. With freshly-cleaned hands, he followed the winding path to see where it would lead him.

  COMING IN 2014

  BOOK 6 OF THE VATICAN KNIGHTS

  CROSSES TO BEAR

  READ THE EXCERPT

  PROLOGUE

  Paris, France. One Year Ago.

  The Day After The Election Of Pope Gregory XVII.

  Ezekiel sat at an outdoor eatery with a small cup of latte before him. In his hands was the Le Parisien, a Parisian newspaper.

  After escaping Necropolis all bloodied and fatigued, he was able to find his way to a hack doctor who healed his wounds for a nominal fee on top of an upfront charge to keep him quiet. But when the doctor hinted that he would renege out of the deal unless Ezekiel came up with more of the original sums agreed upon, Ezekiel grabbed a scalpel and threw it across the room, impaling a cockroach that was scaling the wall.