by Jones, Rick
Kimball smiled. “You’ll do fine, Ezekiel. I have faith in you. Sometimes you have to work harder than others in order to achieve greatness.”
“I don’t want to work harder. I just want to be good.”
“Look, Ezekiel, I will work with you until you get it right. And before too long you will be better than Job and Joshua combined.”
“I doubt that. They’re really good.”
“You doubt it? Well, let me tell you something. Remember a few years back you could barely hold a sword?”
He nodded.
“Well, you said the same thing back then. But look at you now. You’re the best I have in Chinese Kenpo in your age group.”
Ezekiel sighed.
Kimball brushed a hand across the boy’s head, messing his hair. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll show you my secrets, how’s that? I’ll show you things that even Job and Joshua have never seen before.”
The boy beamed. “Really?”
“If you promise to show me more heart.” Kimball stood and patted Ezekiel on the crown of his head. “Off you go,” he said, giving him a little push toward the hallway. “You’re going to have a long day tomorrow, so get a good night’s sleep.”
Ezekiel responded by racing down the stone-arched corridor. “Tomorrow!” he shouted.
Kimball watched the boy disappear beyond the light of the torches.
“He’s quite a project, isn’t he?” Cardinal Vessucci came forth from the shadows opposite the hallway.
“How long have you been watching?”
“For a while,” said the cleric. And then: “The boy’s struggling, Kimball.”
“He’s struggled with everything he’s done,” he returned. “But that’s okay since success does not come without struggle.”
“Kimball, the boy does not have the natural tools to be a Knight. What you do you do for yourself—not for the boy.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“You’re trying to right this boy by hoping it will right you. To save him is honorable, yes. But save him some other way. Do not make him a Vatican Knight when he does not have the tools to become one.”
“I believe in him.”
“Kimball, it’s noble to believe in someone who is down, but it’s even nobler to let someone go if you know in your heart the truth. If he goes into battle as a warrior for the Church and is weak at his trade, then he will surely be killed. Can you live with that knowing all along that he never really belonged?”
Kimball was heated. “You took me in believing I could find salvation within myself, yet I still haven’t found it. Not yet. So maybe I don’t belong.”
“I see. You demand of the boy what you don’t demand from yourself.” The cardinal turned and walked to a stairway leading to the second tier that led to an outside balcony. As he climbed the stairs lifting the hem of the robe as he ascended, he continued to speak. “I believe in you, Kimball, as does the pope and everyone within the Society of Seven. You have given us no reason otherwise.” When the cardinal reached the doorway leading to the outside loggia, he turned and faced Kimball. “But don’t expect from the boy what you don’t expect from yourself.”
And then he opened the door, the chamber illuminating with a bright and dazzling . . .
. . . Light.
Beautiful, glorious morning light.
When Kimball’s brain registered the light beyond the folds of his lids, he immediately reacted purely on instinct by bolting from the mattress with his hand reaching for the KA-BAR strapped to his thigh. In a skillful move the blade was in his hand in a firm grasp, his legs parted, knees bent, the man ready to rock and roll.
He knew he had overslept, the fatigue carrying him deeper than he wanted to, the hours slipping by.
“Hawk!”
He checked his watch. He should have been up hours ago, when it was still dark.
“Hawk!”
No response—just an uneasy silence.
And then he saw it—on the night stand. Dog’s head sat sentinel with his ribbon of tongue hanging out, his eyes already taking on the milky sheen of death.
He could have killed me, Kimball thought. He was here, in this room. Dog’s head was testament to that, a perverse message.
Hawk?
Kimball hunkered low with blade in hand, his head on a swivel as he moved slowly from the room and into the hallway.
The front door was open, giving view to a landscape cleansed by a rain he was oblivious to, fresh and pure and unadulterated.
He moved down the hallway, his senses kicking in, the feeling of not being alone paramount.
And then: Why didn’t he kill me? He was right beside me—had every opportunity. Why didn’t he do it?
The surface of the porch was beaded with drops of rain and the air smelled like ozone, usually the promise of more rain to come, even though the sky was clear.
Kimball carefully scanned the terrain, close and afar, sighting nothing.
Next to the chair was the MP-5 Hawk left from the night before. Kimball picked it up and snuck back into the house for cover, checking the chamber and noting that the weapon was ready for fire action.
He then brought the weapon up until the scope met his eye. With his head on a swivel and his body low to the ground, he exited the house and onto the porch.
With head shifts to the left and right, Kimball pointed the weapon in the direction to the east, and then the west in grid fashion, always moving in case he was caught in the crosshairs, a hard target to hit.
Twenty minutes later he found Hawk lying face down in red clay that used to be sand until it rained. His shirt was torn and parted, revealing the Indian’s backside.
Carved into the flesh was the letter ‘R.’
Kimball then turned the man over, the wet clay making a perfect imprint of Hawk’s face and body. Little clumps of clay stuck to the man’s face and Kimball brushed it off. And then he looked out over the desert terrain knowing that the assassin was gone.
He was keeping with the sequential order of the photo, the brothers being next, Kimball last.
If he wanted Kimball dead, then he could have done it when the opportunity availed itself as he lay in bed, an easy kill. It was apparent he wanted him alive to the very end and was probably off to engage the twin brothers to complete the kills sequentially.
Kimball lowered the point of the weapon and stood to his full height.
He was, after all, alone here.
Looking down at Hawk, he recalled that his skin once held the deep, rich tone of tanned leather, but was now the color of ash.
Kimball took in a long deep breath, and then let it out with an equally long sigh. Closing his eyes, he whispered, “Iscariot.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“We were worried about you,” said Bonasero Vessucci. “You missed your contact mark.”
Kimball hesitated on the other end. And then solemnly, “He could have killed me, Bon. He had the opportunity.”
“But he didn’t.”
“That’s not the point,” he returned curtly. “I’m slipping. I was too fatigued to hang in there when I had to. I’m not a kid anymore. It’s getting harder to fight time.”
“Kimball, all that matters is that you’re alive—”
“You’re missing the point,” he said. “He killed Hawk and he could easily have killed me. I don’t think I can keep up with this guy, whoever he is.”
“Are you sure it’s just one?”
“I think so. The rain from last night washed away most of the prints. But I found a pair beneath a precipice approximately four hundred yards east of the ranch where the rain couldn’t get at, and again in the barn. Same set of prints from the same pair of boots—G.I. issue.”
“Government issue?”
“You got it.” Kimball walked by the corral, the appaloosas paying him no attention. “Look, Bon, you got to find me a team and quick. I need them. My old team is dropping around me.”
&nb
sp; “The SIV is still searching. We’re trying to get a fix on them through GPS signals from their cell phones.”
“Any luck?”
“We may have found Job in Switzerland, close to Lake Lucerne. Joshua and Ezekiel are nowhere to be found.”
“What about Isaiah and Leviticus?”
“They’re still tied up with missions.”
Kimball sighed. “Bon, whoever this guy is—he’s a real pro. I’m starting to feel naked and lonely, if you catch my drift.”
“Trust me, Kimball. We’re not sitting idle on our end. We’ll assemble a team as soon as we can put one together. If we find Job before we find the others, then we’ll send him ASAP.”
“Job’s a good man. I’d feel better with him attached to my hip than those crazy brothers I have to track down.”
“They’re in Maryland, yes?”
“They are.”
“Then if we find Job, we’ll send him directly to the Sacred Heart s Church one mile east of the Washington Archdiocese.”
“I know where it’s at.”
“Then find the brothers and hold up. Having them is obviously better than being alone.”
“I agree. And, Bon, do whatever you can to find my team. I’m running out of time and friends.”
Although Kimball could not see him, Bonasero nodded agreement on his end. “I will.”
“Thanks.”
“And Kimball?”
Yeah.”
Another pause, then, “I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now.”
“What news?”
“About Amerigo.”
“No. I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive. Is he all right?”
“It’s not good news,” he said. “The pontiff’s ill—very, very ill.”
Kimball could tell by the heavy weight of the cardinal’s voice that the situation was dire. “What’s the matter?”
“He has cancer,” he stated. “Stage four . . . And it’s terminal.”
Kimball stopped in his tracks, his mouth slowly dropping, and let his hand holding the phone fall to his side. He could hear the cardinal talking, the voice coming through the receiver that sounded tinny and distant from half a world away. Slowly he brought the phone up. “I’m coming home,” he finally said.
“No! The pontiff has time. You need to find this assassin, Kimball. If you come home, then the assassin will surely follow you and bring the fight here. We cannot allow that under any circumstances.”
Kimball clenched his jaw, the muscles in the back working furiously. “Then assemble my team, Bon. Get them to the Sacred Hearts. In the meantime, I’ll take care of Hawk and be on my way to find the Brothers Grimm.”
“Who?”
“Just something we used to call them,” he said, and then ended the call by closing the lid of the phone.
Kimball was suddenly without sensation, his world suddenly disjointed like the random scatterings of a Pollock design, the kaleidoscopic pieces creating a surreal existence where life appeared to be spinning out of control: There was the assassin. The murders.
The game of sequential killings, the killer taking away everyone he knew.
And now the final curtain call of Pope Pius.
Kimball sat on a corral railing, the log bowing beneath his weight, and brought his hands up to cup his face. He had been bred to deal with combat and confrontations. And seeing friends die around him was a part of battle and war, something to be expected. What he was not prepared for was the hurtful emotion that swept through him regarding a man whom he had come to love—a man who saw in him the Light he did not see within himself.
So Kimball did something he hadn’t done since he was a child.
He wept for Pope Pius.
#
Kimball Hayden spent the better part of the morning digging two graves—one for Dog, one for Hawk—next to a towering cottonwood tree situated along the bank of a small reservoir less than a hundred yards away from the stables. The view was breathtaking. The saw-tooth mountain range to the west was a deep purple in the late afternoon shadows, the sky as blue as Jamaican waters, and the one cottonwood in the entire valley stood as a behemoth with a widespread canopy, provided a comforting shade over the graves.
Kimball leaned against the handle of the shovel looking over the two dirt mounds—one small, the other large—as a cool wind blew in from the northwest.
The leaves of the cottonwood began to sway in concert, first in one direction and then in the other. Everything seemed to be in peace where there was so much madness—a nice reprieve, even if it was just for a moment.
Kimball examined the landscape, knowing this is how Hawk would have wanted it—to be buried on the land of his people with his canine companion alongside him.
He made no crosses. He said no words.
The man who was ‘The Ghost’ was now with the spirits of his ancestors.
After returning the shovel to the barn, Kimball released the appaloosas, the horses taking flight as their hooves kicked up dust trails as they vanished somewhere close to the horizon.
The scene was beautifully majestic.
After gathering his items, Kimball left the ranch to begin the final leg of his journey.
He would find the brothers, engage the assassin, and hopefully come out the victor.
But if he failed in his endeavors, then he hoped to be buried somewhere as undisturbed as Hawk’s grave, a place that would provide him with the peace and serenity that had eluded him throughout his entire life.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There was something about the passenger of the four-seated Cessna the pilot did not like. Whenever he asked a question, the man usually spoke in monosyllable answers of ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ And when negotiating a set price from Albuquerque to Maryland, the man always spoke in a clipped manner, his answers always brief and to the point with no interest in small or gregarious talk beyond the settled cost.
The man always held his head low, the brim of his boonie cap covering most of his face with the exception of his jaw line. Beneath his clothes the pilot could see that the man was well honed, his body kept in shape by regimental exercise. On the ground next to him was a drab, olive green duffel bag, the type used by the military.
Without a doubt the man was evasive. And with the economy the way it was, the pilot was not about to let a willing customer go. So they settled upon $1,200/hour flight time with a guaranteed minimum of $6,000.
When agreed upon the man paid willingly, in cash, the $6,000 paid up front.
Once the Cessna was loaded with the man taking the rear seat behind the pilot, the pilot called the tower for departure rights and taxied the plane onto the runway. During this time the customer remained silent and always kept his head low, the brim of his hat concealing a major portion of his face, as he periodically gave sidelong glances out the window.
The pilot, in his forties, and with grizzled features of gray-brown hair and premature wrinkles, cocked his head and spoke. “It’s going to be a long flight—say, six hours. Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes.” Again—a monosyllable answer.
The pilot snapped on a few switches on his console. “Whatever.”
Within moments they were flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet.
#
The assassin knew he was being evasive. He also knew that such actions prompted suspicion from most people. But he also sensed desperation in this man who would sell his principles if the price was right.
The price was fixed at $6,000 in cash; all up front and paid immediately with no further questions and with the clear understanding that the pilot was to fly him to Maryland.
After loading the duffel bag into one of the rear seats, he took the seat behind the pilot, the act in itself telling the pilot that he wasn’t interested in camaraderie, talk, or any type of amity.
With his head hung low he often took sidelong glances out the window, the landscape in the distance a primitive horizon of mesas and peaks in blends of reds and oranges,
the strata lines running across them marking the ages.
From the front the pilot spoke. “It’s going to be a long flight—say, six hours. Mind if I smoke?”
“Yes.”
The pilot then hit the switches on the console in what the assassin took to be an action of someone in a huff.
Then: “Whatever.”
Once the Cessna leveled off at 20,000 feet, the assassin ran the palm of his hand against the duffel bag next to him. And by feel he found what he was looking for. Beneath the fabric he located the outline of the CheyTac M200’s stock, the weapon broken down and neatly packed.
It was something he obviously could not get aboard a commercial flight; therefore, the private route.
After he had taken the life of the Native American, he saw the CheyTac as an asset and took it not as a trophy, but as a necessity since he was about to go up against the Hardwick brothers.
So keeping his head held low, the assassin remained silent throughout the flight as he kept his palm against the bag as a constant reminder that the weapon would always be within reach.
#
Kimball Hayden was on a flight path of his own under the false credentials afforded him by the Vatican’s SIV Unit. He sat in the economy class, the breadth of his shoulders an inconvenience to the two women sitting on each side of him, their space minimized by his size. But neither said a word once they spotted his collar. They only nodded and feigned smiles, a show of politeness to the priest who was not a priest.
After he spoke with Cardinal Vessucci from Hawk’s ranch, the SIV immediately set up the next available flight to Annapolis in Maryland. Once there he would head west toward Baltimore, home of the Hardwick brothers, two of the most hedonistic people who were insubordinate, stubborn and roguish beyond principle, but excellent soldiers, nonetheless.
On the foldout table before him he had the photos sitting in a neat pile. In his hand was the glossy of his old unit. Everyone who had been terminated had the spelled marking of the letter in the name of ‘Iscariot’ beside their name with the exception of Victor Hawk. Using a marker, Kimball simply wrote the letter ‘R’ over Hawk’s image, then sighed.
