Crosses to Bear (Vatican Knights Book 6)

by Rick Jones

  “If this is the case, then why would he kill Obadiah?”

  “That, Mr. President, is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. If it is the Fourth Man, then we believe him to be in sole possession of the vial. And we don’t have any information from Mossad intercepts, either. It’s like they knew that we’d be watching.”

  “Do we know where they were going? Was Madrid their stop?”

  “No, Mr. President.” Craner examined data on a tablet he held in his hand. “Our intel has them under fictitious names with an origination point out of Mexico City with their disembarkation point being Rome. Madrid was serving as the layover.”

  “Then he got on the plane to Rome?”

  “No, sir. He did not. He never made the flight.”

  “This doesn’t make sense. Unless he plans to take the vial to the Black Market.”

  “That is a very real possibility, Mr. President,” stated Thornton. “A very real possibility, indeed.”

  “Contact French and Italian authorities,” Burroughs stated immediately. “Inform them of the situation. You may want to notify the authorities in Portugal as well, in case this guy decided to go west instead of east in order to throw us off.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s highly unlikely that he’s airborne. He’s most likely traveling by car or bus or train with the assumption that Italy is his final destination.” The president appeared to be mulling over additional thoughts when he added: “And get me the Prime Minister of Israel.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Las Vegas, NV

  Kimball Hayden once again became the monster of his past—a man who responded with the cold fortitude of a machine. A man without conscience or contrition or semblance of emotion.

  At the Salvation Army located on West Owens, lockers could be rented for a nominal fee. And it was here that he kept his most prized possessions. In a small bag was his old uniform of a cleric’s shirt, military-styled pants, and boots. Also inside the bag were his favorite weapons of choice: a pair of Ka-Bar combat knives. But inside a side pocket was his greatest treasure of all, a cleric’s collar he had worn as a Vatican Knight.

  It was dirty, as if it had been run through charcoal dust, with creases that could never be smoothed out with the blade of his hand, no matter how many attempts he made to do so.

  To him this collar was everything. And when he wore it he did so with honor. It was much more than a band, he considered. It was a symbol of who and what he was, a Vatican Knight, the kingpin who led a globetrotting team of elites to help those who could not help themselves. More so, it was a way for him to seek salvation—something he never truly found.

  He removed the bag from the locker, shut the door with a slam, and headed for the Flamingo Wash, the gateway to the Community, where he would shed his old clothing for new, and once again become what he was always meant to be, a Vatican Knight.

  They had taken Sister Abigail away from him, away from the world, a bright soul who shined amongst the blight of mankind, and giving hope where hope was needed most.

  He moved with the gait and swagger of a man not to be contested. His eyes blazed with undeniable fury. And his mouth was set so firmly that the muscles at the back of his jaw stood out. Though it was too late to save the life of the woman he had grown to love in Sister Abigail, it was never too late to ensure that the pitiful likes of Ferret and those who followed him would never rise from the tunnels again.

  Once he reached the Wash, a concrete canal built to channel rain waters from flash floods, he went to the tunnel’s opening where a homeless man sat with his back against the wall, a wan-looking sentinel. His face was deeply sallow, and his flesh held the sickly pallor that was as gray as the underbelly of a fish. When the man held a hand out to him with fingernails caked with filth, his lips parted, showing irregular rows of teeth that had rotted to pointed stubs. “You gotta pay a toll,” the man told Kimball. “Whatever spare change you got will be good enough.”

  Kimball got to a bended knee beside the man, getting a strong whiff of urine and dirty laundry. He put the knapsack down and looked deep into the tunnel’s mouth, seeing a juncture about ten feet in with parting corridors, one to the left, the other to the right. “The Community,” he said to the man. “Which way? Which tunnel?”

  The man’s raw-looking eyes settled on Kimball’s soiled collar. “Are you a priest?”

  “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

  “You still have to pay a toll.” The old man flexed his fingers, the gesture meaning ‘give.’

  “I’ll tell you what,” Kimball said, grabbing his knapsack and undoing the zipper. “How about some clean clothes instead? You look like you could use them.” When Kimball pulled out his shirt and pants, his Ka-Bars falling out with them, along with a small flashlight, and landing on the ground.

  When the man picked up a sheathed blade, Kimball snatched it immediately from the old man’s grasp.

  “Hey!”

  “They’re not toys,” Kimball told him, holding up a clean shirt. “How about this?”

  The man looked at the shirt, which no doubt would hang on him like drapery. “I’d rather have the knife.”

  “Knife’s not for sale.” Kimball slid the shirt and pants in the direction of the man. “Clean clothes. Now which way? Left or right?”

  The man grabbed the shirt and brought it to his cheek, the softness of the fabric causing his eyes to roll back as if the moment was something orgasmic. And then be began to stroke the material. “Nice,” he said.

  Kimball was becoming taxed. “Which . . . way?”

  The man’s eyes refocused. “You don’t want into them tunnels,” he said. “Not now.” He pointed to the sky with a finger that was as thin as the tine of a pitchfork. The daylight was in its twilight phase as the sun began to settle. “It’s almost time for them to come out.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.” The man’s eyes began to roll once again as he petted the material of the shirt.

  Kimball stood up and switched on the flashlight, one small enough to fit comfortably in the grip of his palm, but powerful enough to emit a fairly strong beam.

  “Stay to the right,” the man finally said. “Always stay to the right. It’ll take you directly beneath the Trop and the Strip. There you’ll find the Community.”

  Kimball stepped passed the man who seemed to adore his new treasure of fresh clothing, and entered the tunnel on the right. The flash of the light’s beam penetrated at least twenty feet. Beyond its fringe, mysteries steeped in darkness.

  He set the flashlight down and began to adorn his Ka-Bars, first attaching one sheath to his left thigh, and then the other to his right, pulling the straps tight until the knives were as much a part of him like limbs. He undid the snaps and pulled them free from their sheaths, feeling the weight and balance, deeming them to be the perfect weapon that never ran dry like the firearm.

  With practiced skill he turned the blade over in his hands the same way a majorette would twirl a baton between her fingers, the knives whipping around in blinding revolutions, the movements flawless as the spinning blades whipped around with the skill and ease from someone who had practiced the trade to perfection. Then in a motion that was just a quick, Kimball halted the exercise with the pointed ends facing downward, and stabbed them neatly into their sheaths without looking.

  “They only come out at night,” the old man called out behind him. But Kimball considered him to be speaking into open space since his only audience had moved deeper into the tunnels with his flashlight forward.

  But the words seemed to echo off the walls: They only come out at night.

  Kimball didn’t know what the old man was talking about.

  But he would soon find out.

  #

  Kimball took the tunnels to the right, as the old man directed.

  And things moved in the darkness beyond the fringe of light.

  In the distance things moved, feet shuffling, all behind a wall o
f darkness.

  Whenever he maneuvered the light from left to right, he often caught the glimpses of ghostly images of those running from its beam and taking refuge in the shadows. When he tried to trace their path, they were gone as if they’d been nothing more than phantasmagoric shapes that disappeared like commas of mist.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” he called out.

  The response to his statement was a beer bottle rolling slowly across the concrete floor until it finally stopped about a yard from where he was standing.

  When he flashed the light to the bottle’s point of origin as to where it came from, he discovered nothing but a pile of debris.

  They only come out at night.

  Kimball stood for a long moment taking in his surroundings, realizing that there was nothing divine or supernatural about the sixth sense. It was simply a matter of instinct that had been lost or forgotten by most. And right now his hackles were raised in the same way a dog senses great danger. Kimball slowly removed his Ka-Bar from its sheath and held it forward.

  Whatever it was that surrounded him in the darkness, though he could not see anything beyond the fringe of light but knew that something was there, eventually retreated into deeper shadows.

  “I’m looking for the Community,” he called out.

  After his voice echoed off the tunnel walls and petered off, a voice that was weak in inflection responded. It was the voice of a very aged man. “And what is your business with the Community?” he asked.

  Kimball raised his flashlight in the direction of the sound, the beam catching a feeble-looking man that was perhaps in his late seventies or early eighties, and wearing mismatched clothes. His face was overly seamed with deep creases, and the color of his eyes had faded to the dull luster of battleship gray.

  “State your business,” the old man repeated. “What’s your business with the Community?”

  He’s a distraction, Kimball thought, sensing a threat. The old man’s a distraction.

  From the shadows to his left a man with a lead pipe attacked Kimball screaming in rage, the pipe held high over his head. Kimball reacted with a rotating kick by spinning on the ball of his left foot, and with his right foot he came around and struck his attacker in the chest, hard, the man taking flight and crashing into a pile of rubbish piled high with empty cans and bottles. The man was down for the count.

  A second and third opponent rushed him from opposing sides, a broken bottle in each of their hands.

  Kimball raised his knife and slashed downward with a sweeping arc that caught the forearm of the man to his right, the blade slicing deep into his attacker’s forearm, forcing him to drop the bottle. Just as he was about to open his mouth and cry out in agony, Kimball came across with the pommel of his knife and struck the man in the temple, hitting his attacker so hard that the man was lifted off his feet and spun around almost three times in the air before landing on the floor.

  Kimball then confronted the man to his left with the point of his Ka-Bar directed to his opponent’s center of body mass with the promise of punching the blade home. When the attacker saw this he minimized the speed of his attack, pulled up, and appraised the situation by looking to his left, and then his right, seeing the bodies lying prone. After dropping makeshift weapon of the broken bottle, he slowly retreated into the shadows and disappeared, leaving the old man behind.

  As the old man tried to hobble away swearing and cursing, Kimball was upon him in moments and drove him against the wall with his hand around his throat. The old man fought feebly against Kimball’s grasp, his blows so weak he probably couldn’t fight off a fly. Kimball released him and stepped back, keeping the man within the circular beam of his flashlight.

  The old man coughed as he brought a liver-spotted hand to his throat.

  “Consider my releasing you as a gift,” Kimball told him.

  The old man shot him the bird.

  At least he has spunk, Kimball thought.

  The aged man took a seat on a nearby crate.

  Kimball followed, keeping him well within grabbing range.

  When the old man finally caught his breath, he waved his hand dismissively at Kimball in defeat. “Do whatever you want,” he told him. “I’m too old to care anymore.”

  “I don’t want to do anything to you.”

  It was here that the old man noticed Kimball’s collar. He pointed. “You’re a priest?” Now he appeared puzzled as he looked about as his comrades lay on the ground around them. He shook his head. “You ain’t no priest. There ain’t no priest who can do what you just did.”

  “That’s because I’m not a priest.” Kimball moved closer.

  And then it dawned on the old man as to who Kimball was. “You’re the big boy from Viator’s, ain’t you? Coming to make the world right again. I heard about you. We all did down here in the Community.” The old man chuckled a moment before breaking into a phlegmatic cough. When it subsided, he still managed a wry grin. He then waved his finger back and forth as if to say tsk-tsk. “And now you’ve come for Ferret.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Are you kidding? Do you know what you’re walking into? Do you even have a vague idea of what’s down this corridor waiting for you?”

  Kimball leaned so close to the old man that he could smell the hint of cheap whisky rising through the pores of his flesh. “Suppose you tell me.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he returned. “The man you allowed to escape, the one who left me—” He let his words trail as a tease that left Kimball hanging, with the corner of his lip rising into a smirk.

  “What about him?”

  The old man’s mile beamed, as if relishing the moment. “He’s letting the Community know that you’re here,” he finally said, then once again broke into a wet-sounding laugh. When he maintained himself, he added, “You’re a dead man.”

  “Not if what I’ve seen so far is any indication of what I’m up against,” he answered, pointing to those lying on the concrete.

  The old man’s smile faded. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?” Kimball mused over this question a moment before answering. Then: “I’m an angel to some,” he declared softly while pulling away from the old man. “And a demon to others.”

  Then he was gone, leaving the old man to sit alone upon his crate in darkness that was complete and absolute.

  #

  The Slim-Bar Thief, along with four others, were standing around a makeshift stove of a 55-gallon drum with flames casting eerie shadows against the walls, when a man came running up the tunnel half out of breath.

  The moment he reached the barrel, he put his hand out and placed it against the wall, and used it as a crutch while he caught his breath. In the light of the flames his face was so youthful that it was without a single seam to mar his features. Yet his eyes, which reflected the orange of the fire, seemed much older than his eighteen years of age. He then pointed down the tunnel from which he came.

  “What is it?” asked Slim Bar.

  The flames crackled inside the drum.

  “He’s here,” the boy finally managed.

  “Who?”

  “The big guy from Saint Viator’s.”

  Slim-Bar stepped away from the fire and cocked his head. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “Big guy. He was wearing a priest’s collar.”

  “And the others?”

  The kid shrugged. “We surrounded him and used the old man as a distraction. You know, like we always do when green-ears walk the tunnels so we can take whatever they have. But this guy—” His words trailed.

  “What about him,” Slim-Bar coaxed.

  “He took us all out. Bam! One, two, three. I never seen anything like it.”

  Slim-Bar nodded. Yeah, that’s him all right. Then: “The others?”

  Another shrug. “They were laying on the ground, man. They didn’t get up.”

  “What about the old man?”

  “I don’t know. I had to leave him.
”

  “You left the old man alone with this guy?” one of the men standing the fire asked angrily.

  “I had to tell you guys, didn’t I?”

  He got no argument from Slim-Bar, who met Kimball head-on and had a damaged arm to show for it. “Where is he?”

  “Not far. Maybe a quarter of a mile. Maybe closer.”

  “I got to tell Ferret,” Slim Bar said. “And you,” pointing to the kid, “will stay your post this time. Got it?”

  The kid nodded.

  Slim-Bar went to the wall where several 2x4s were leaning against the concrete. One end had been rounded and smoothed for gripping, the other end was a spiked tip with at least a dozen six-inch nails hammered through it, making it the Community’s lethal weapon of choice. He then grabbed the closest one, walked over to the kid, and jammed the weapon into his hand rather than waiting for the kid to grab it.

  Slim-Bar faced those standing by the barrel. “You know what to do,” he told them. “He does not get past this point, clear?”

  Each man grabbed a 2x4 then stood in a row across the tunnel, waiting, the men slapping their cudgels into the palms of their hands as a force of intimidation, the strikes sounding off in rhythm as if the act had been practiced many times before.

  After issuing the order, Slim-Bar went to inform Ferret about the man from Saint Viator’s.

  #

  Kimball heard the distant measure of what sounded like rhythmic clapping.

  . . . clap . . . clap . . . clap . . .

  While keeping to the tunnel on his right, the clapping became louder. And then he saw the glow of orange light, an aura, which beckoned to him.

  . . . clap . . . clap . . . clap . . .

  At the end of the tunnel was a chamber, an intersection where the tunnels from the four major points of the compass converged, so that waters from a flash flood could drain through a massive grate in the center of the chamber’s floor, with the flow being redirected to Lake Mead.

  . . . clap . . . clap . . . clap . . .