by Rick Jones
“Where? The tunnels run for miles,” said Kimball.
“We live under the Flamingo!”
The Flamingo was the main intersection between Flamingo and the Las Vegas Strip.
“Where’s the access tunnel?” When the Slim-Bar Thief began to fidget, Kimball didn’t even threaten. He struck the thief so hard with his open hand that the man’s eyes rolled up into his head, showing nothing but slivers of white until they rolled back into place. The Slim-Bar Thief calmed down. “You’re going to tell me what I need to know, punk. And I mean everything. Now where’s the access tunnel?”
“At the Flamingo Wash!” The Wash was at least three miles from the Strip, still a hike.
That was at least a three- to four-mile journey, thought Kimball. And that’s on the course of a straight line.
“Is this how you people survive? By robbing this parish?” Kimball stated angrily.
“Not only this parish,” the Slim-Bar Thief returned. “We take from all parishes.”
This seemed to catch Kimball off guard. “What?” And then with rage in his voice: “Why?”
“It’s what keeps the Community alive, man.”
“Instead of ripping off churches, why don’t you get a job like everyone else?”
The thief did not answer.
“I’m asking you a question!”
“Get off me!”
Kimball twisted the man’s collar and lifted his head off the floor until their noses were inches apart. “Now you listen to me and you listen hard, punk.” When Kimball spoke he did so through clenched teeth. “Saint Viator’s is off limits to this Ferret guy. You understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yeah. I understand. But Ferret won’t.”
“He’d better, because I know how to get to him if I have to. Through the Flamingo Wash.”
The Slim-Bar Thief couldn’t help but laugh, which irked Kimball to no end. “You’re a one-man army, is that it? You’re just gonna walk right into the tunnels and take on the Community all by yourself?” His laughter peaked.
“Don’t test me, punk. You have no idea what I‘m capable of.”
“You have me shaking in my—”
Kimball came across with another open-handed slap, one that was loud and cracked the air.
The Slim-Bar Thief barked in pain.
“I don’t want to see one scratch or graffiti marks on the walls of this church. Ever. I don’t even want to see you or your loser friends around here ever again. Is that clear?”
The Slim-Bar Thief conceded by nodding.
Kimball released him and got to his feet, while Slim-Bar labored to his, then drew distance between them.
“Now pick up your friends here and get out,” said Kimball.
Slim-Bar looked around. One of his teammates was out cold and the other two were on the floor moving sluggishly about. “You expect me to move these guys on my own?” he asked.
“No. In fact, I’d be glad to help you out.”
From the doorway leading into Saint Viator’s, three bodies were launched from the church and to the sidewalk outside, the bodies landing hard on the pavement, where they continued to move about on their elbows and knees, trying to shake away the cobwebs.
Kimball turned to Slim-Bar. “How’s that? Good enough?”
The men outside continued to move about like George Romero’s living dead, slow and without purpose.
The Slim-Bar Thief left the church after moving in a wide berth to avoid Kimball’s space, and aided his friends to their feet. Once done, he turned to Kimball, raised his hand in a gesture as if it was a mock pistol, aimed it directly at Kimball’s heart, raised his thumb as if it was the trigger, and then pretended to shoot the former Vatican Knight.
Kimball scoffed inwardly, thinking how much this guy was a joke.
“You don’t know who you’re messing with, man.” Slim-Bar said one last time, then left with his rag-tag unit.
Once they disappeared into the night, Kimball removed his prized possession of the stained cleric’s collar, placed it in his pocket, and patted it for good measure. On this night when evil would have prevailed if it wasn’t for his action as a good man, Kimball served as a cavalier to do what he was meant to do all along. And that was to protect the church.
Now the question was: Had he started a war in the process?
Only time will tell, he thought, closing the door to Saint Viator’s.
Only time will tell.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Mountain Lake Inn
Escondida, New Mexico
Abraham Obadiah was nine years old when he lost his mother and sister to a suicide bomber one day in Ramallah. After going to the market with his mother and twelve-year-old sister, and after a long, hot day and boarding a bus for home, he could still recall with vivid clarity the memories of the coming explosion as if it had just happened.
His mother had removed her shoe to massage her foot, his sister sitting quietly beside her. From his position at the rear of the bus he watched a man board, his coat much too bulky for such a warm day, and took a seat a few rows ahead of them. As the bus moved along its route picking up passengers and filling to capacity, he could not take his eyes off this one particular man who appeared nervous and uneasy, his brow slick with sweat as he took several glances around him, until he spied the boy in the back. In an instance of time their eyes locked, and somehow the man knew that this boy was uncannily perceptive, while those around him had no suspicion of what he was about to do.
Offering a scarcely perceptible smile, the man gave Obadiah an affable nod, then raised his hand high in display. In his grasp was a switch that was to be depressed by his thumb. “To the occupiers of the nation of Islam, Allah is great!”
Just as Obadiah was about to turn to his mother and ask her who Allah was, the man pushed the button.
With the slowness of a bad dream, Obadiah watched the man break up into countless pieces. Flame and pressure blew out the walls of the bus. People sitting close to him disappeared within licks of fire and ash. Piercing cries filled the air, hanging as thick as acrid smoke. And propelled by the force of the blast, a piece of metal caught the boy on the chin, gashing his flesh into a horrible second mouth that would eventually cure into a pink, wedge-shaped scar.
After that he could only remember seeing a swatch of blue sky tainted with greasy black smoke and feeling the heat of a nearby fire.
Only when he awoke several days later to the haggard face of his father whose skin was as loose as a rubber mask, did he finally feel the agonies of his pain. With second degree burns over thirty percent of his body and the severe gash beneath his chin, the boy was incredibly lucky. The real pain came when he learned that his mother and sister had died in the blast.
When he asked why the man did what he did on the bus, his father confided in him.
That was the day Abraham Obadiah learned what life would be like for a Jew living in a land of open hostilities.
And it was on that day that Obadiah never let go of his resentment for those who killed his entire family, including his father, who died four months later after giving up on life emotionally.
Left to his own devices, Abraham Obadiah ended up with well-to-do relatives. He was schooled at the best institutions, wore the finest clothes, learned and excelled at the finest college, and eventually wound up as a key player with Mossad’s Lohamah Psichlogit Department, also known as Literature and Publications or the LAP, which was responsible for psychological warfare, propaganda and deception operations.
A few years ago he orchestrated the kidnapping of Pope Pius XII and deceived the world in believing that a hostile terrorist faction had spearheaded the cause, which nearly caused the world to collapse into chaos, especially in the Middle East.
The one factor he did not count on to change that, however, was Kimball Hayden. The man had entered his world and tipped it upside down, the man a crusader unlike any Obadiah had ever seen before.
Hayden had rescued t
he pope and made all that was wrong right, which made Abraham Obadiah a failure in the eyes of the Lohamah Psichlogit, who needed the mission to succeed.
Abraham Obadiah closed his eyes for a brief moment, even while he was behind the wheel of the car, driving, clearing the images from his mind’s eye.
To his right sat Ezekiel, who shared the same animosity towards Kimball Hayden as he. But for very different reasons.
While Ezekiel served on a mission with the Vatican Knights against a fundamentalist group working deep in the south of the Philippines, Obadiah and his team, on unrelated endeavors and had no knowledge that the Vatican Knights were undertaking a similar mission to breach and conquer, watched as the Knights skillfully took out their opponents and rescued the hostages.
One Knight in particular, Ezekiel, caught his eye. Whereas the other Knights were involved with sparing the lives of their enemies by wounding and rendering them harmless rather than killing them, Ezekiel was different. He was vicious with his onslaught and took down opponents with brutal attacks with his knife, killing rather than wounding, the opposite of his teammates, the man a rebel who needed to be under Obadiah’s tutelage rather than the guidance of the Church, which was somehow failing him.
So Obadiah had Ezekiel’s movements traced from the Philippines to the Vatican, where he discovered by serendipity that his mentor was Kimball Hayden, the man who had tormented him for years in his dreams and thoughts. In the end, however, Obadiah had come to realize that Ezekiel had his own agenda, albeit one that they shared: they both wanted Kimball Hayden dead. After failing to kill his teacher Kimball Hayden, Ezekiel had gone rogue, so Obadiah tracked down and incorporated him into the deceptive workings of the Lohamah Psichlogit, and guided him through as the Navigator, always filling Ezekiel with promises that they would someday team up and kill the great white whale of Kimball Hayden.
And that time had come.
Obadiah turned to his passenger, who remained quiet.
Then he looked into the rearview mirror and saw columns of black smoke rising into the sky. They had set fire to the Mountain Lake Inn, destroying and sanitizing the area completely, killing the innkeeper and two residents. The fire would do its job in destroying any trace evidence. Should the NSA discover the point of the hacker’s origin, they would find nothing but smoldering lumber and charred timber.
In silence, they drove south toward Mexico.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Las Vegas’ Underground
Geno “The Ferret” Ferretti had spent most of his thirty-six years either behind bars or in juvenile detention centers, his crimes ranging from petty theft to manslaughter, the latter earning him seven years at High Desert, a prison facility twenty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas.
After being paroled he reported for about six months to his parole officer before he absconded, which resulted in a warrant for his arrest and an automatic trip to High Desert for an additional seven years, should he get caught outside the tunnels.
And it was here beneath the streets of Las Vegas that he found his need to rule, no matter the kingdom. His throne was an old recliner made of faux leather that had rips and tears that were patched over with duct tape. The trash of old tables and battered furniture once earmarked for thrift shops ended up in the tunnels instead. And the feeble lighting was provided by simple Brooklyn lanterns that had been pilfered from a nearby department store.
In the low cast of light from a nearby lamp, which drew shadows along Ferret’s face as he sat on his recliner with one leg draped leisurely over the chair’s padded arm, he listened as the Slim-Bar Thief explained in earnest the reason why his pockets came back with half of the money expected. Especially when Ferret viewed the world by seeing the glass as half empty and never half full, he always wanted the glass over flowing so there would always be excess rather than the empty coffers of a poor economy. Especially where the Community is concerned. Coming back with little-than-expected cash always drew an eye of concern with his brow arcing with skepticism, the expression letting everyone know that Ferret was wondering if Slim-Bar was stealing from the till and lying about the take.
“I’m telling you,” said Slim-Bar, “This guy was huge.”
“And the four of you—” he started, then cut himself short as he appraised the other three who accompanied Slim-Bar on the raid, all of them looking worse for wear with markedly large bruises and abrasions. Behind them stood a jury of six men, all armed with pipes and bats should Ferret find the four guilty of stealing funds, thereby stealing from him. And to steal from Ferret was to steal from the Community. And to steal from the Community had its retributions.
After shaking his head in disgust, Ferret continued with his line of thinking. “Are you trying to tell me . . . that the four of you couldn’t handle this one guy? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Ferret, this guy was as big as a house. I’m not kidding.”
Ferret leaned forward in his chair with veins sticking out of his neck like cords, and his eyes bulged with laces of red stitching running through them. When he spoke he did so through clenched teeth. “So . . . what!” he said, then he fell back into his chair. “There were four of you.” He then raised his right hand and held up four fingers. “Four!” And then he held up a single finger. “And only one of him. You see the problem with the math here?”
“There was something else,” stated Slim-Bar. “The guy was wearing a priest’s collar.”
This seemed to pique Ferret’s interest. “A priest?”
“Unlike any I have ever met,” he returned. Slim-Bar fidgeted in his stance, feeling the want and need of the jury behind him to wail down on them with their pipes and bats. He then gave them a sidelong glance and noted smiles of malicious glee on their faces. Then he turned back to Ferret. “He, um, was wearing this collar. But it was dirty, you know. Not clean.”
Ferret appraised him for a long moment with a pinning stare before addressing him. “This time, and only this time, I will give you the benefit of the doubt. However, with that being said, I want compensation. You go to this priest at Saint Viator’s—what’s his name?”
“Father Donavan.”
“Father Donavan. You go to Father Donavan and explain to him the rules of the street. You explain that his parish is servicing the needs of the people within the Community. After all,” he opened his arms wide as if to receive Slim-Bar into his embrace, “are we not in need?” Ferret proffered a cynical smile.
“You don’t understand, Ferret. Father Donavan is not the problem. The big guy is.”
“There hasn’t been a problem the Community couldn’t handle,” he said. “A problem the Community couldn’t solve.” Ferret stood and walked over to Slim-Bar and his acolytes, and then he placed his hand on Slim-Bar’s shoulder, a comforting touch, one of forgiveness. “You know the adage regarding the first time you don’t succeed, right?”
Slim-Bar nodded. “Try, try again.”
“That’s right.” Ferret patted Slim-Bar on the shoulder and walked toward the jury where he held out a hand to receive a pipe from a member. “You try, try again,” he said, hefting the metal rod. It felt good in his grip. He turned to Slim-Bar. “You try, try again.” In a flash Ferret came across and struck Slim-Bar across the upper arm, a hard blow, and then he came downward in a vertical arc, striking the man’s shoulder, the clavicle snapping with an audible crack that echoed throughout the tunnel, the hit knocking him to his knees.
Slim-Bar raised his good hand in surrender, his tone one of agony. “Please, Ferret! It wasn’t my fault!”
But Ferret was in a rage, his eyes flaring from their sockets, even in the feeble light. “There were four of you!” he ranted. “FOUR!” He raised the bar for another strike, but held it high as Slim-Bar folded into himself and whined, the man waiting for the next blow that never came.
Slowly, Ferret lowered the pipe, then handed it back to the jury member. “Get him to a hospital,” he said to no one in general. And then he return
ed to his seat.
As Slim-Bar was being carefully hoisted back to his feet with his arm dangling gingerly by his side, Ferret looked on with indifference, and began to rule from his throne, calling out directions to the members of the jury. “I want you to pay a visit to Saint Viator’s,” he told them. “And I want you to pay a visit to this one man in particular, this priest. And I want you to make him a learned person. I want you to teach him that if someone should get in the way of the Community, then the Community will strike back. I want that lesson to be taught fast and furious.”
One of the jurors slapped his pipe into his open palm; message received.
“Secondly,” Ferret continued, “make Saint Viator’s an example to nearby parishes. Destroy everything in sight. Let everyone know that this is what happens when you go against the Community. No one is immune. Not even the church. Only the Hand of Providence can save them now.” Ferret snickered.
What he didn’t know, however, was that the Hand of Providence went by the name of Kimball Hayden.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Inside the Oval Office.
Washington, D.C.
President Burroughs sat behind his desk surveying his political team around him. There was Alan Thornton, his Chief Advisor; CIA Director Doug Craner; Attorney General Dean Hamilton; FBI Director Larry Johnston; and Jason Melbourne and Jerald Seymour from the NSA and the Department of Counter Terrorism, respectively, the latter two returning from the Bensenville site to brief the president.
“Thank you all for being prompt,” stated President Burroughs. “Especially to Misters Melbourne and Seymour, who I understand travelled all the way here from New Mexico at my sudden request. Gentlemen, I thank you.” Burroughs leaned back into his chair with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and the knot of his tie loosened. This less-than-stately dress always promised a long session within the Presidential Office. “As you all know by now, the breach in the Galveston lab was perpetrated by a known terrorist faction from Dearborn, Michigan. You also know that the asset taken was a very toxic virus known as the Omega strain. This strain, according to the leading principals of the CDC, has a mortality rate of one hundred percent. That means, gentlemen, that there is no cure and no defense. This strain is as lethal as lethal gets.” President Burroughs then addressed Jason Melbourne and Jerald Seymour, his tone steady and neutral, the voice of a leader. “And you gentlemen have seen firsthand what this pathogen can do, correct?”
