by Jones, Rick
He also dreamed of sermonizing, of passing The Word.
But his father would have none of it and obligated his son to work the fields of the homestead alongside his brothers knowing that the true measurement of a man was calculated by the crops he yielded rather than the knowledge of academia, which in this village took a man nowhere.
So having been taught by his mother at home, having read and memorized all the passages of the Bible, having learned the basics in rudimentary math, and having tilled the fields with his siblings for nearly a decade, Amerigo Giovanni Anzalone had become a learned man with calloused hands from driving the yolk, and came to realize that tilling the soils was not his calling in life.
Every Sunday he went to church with his mother and siblings. And for every day thereafter, as he worked the soil beneath a relentless sun, he dreamed of wearing the vestments of a priest and giving sermon. What Amerigo wanted, what he needed, was to be empowered by the Church to give direction.
Upon his eighteenth birthday, and against his father’s wishes—but with the aid of the village priest, which his father was unwilling to contest—Amerigo gave up the yoke and headed to the Divinity School in Florence, his first stepping stone toward Rome.
In the years to follow, Amerigo was recognized as a cardinal and became a respected member within the Curia, which ultimately led the College of Cardinals to choose him as the successor to John Paul the Second. Upon his acceptance, Amerigo took the name of Pope Pius the XIII.
And like his predecessor, Amerigo would offer a hand to every race and religion, leaving nobody out, nobody alone. He would simply embrace the world with love and tolerance, beginning with the United States.
With that thought on his mind, Pope Pius XIII fell asleep with his hands slowly drifting apart, and then falling idly to his sides.
CHAPTER FIVE
He was nine years old when he lost his mother and sister to a suicide bomber on a trip to Ramallah. After going to the market, the boy, his mother, and his twelve-year-old sister boarded a bus for home.
Even to this day his memories recalled the pain and confusion of the explosion with fresh intensity, as if the blast happened just the day before.
It was a hot day in Ramallah. His mother had removed her shoe to massage her foot, and his sister sat quietly beside her. From the rear of the bus, the boy 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 man.
The man appeared nervous and uneasy, his brow slick with sweat as he took several glances around him, finally spying the boy in the back. Their eyes locked, and somehow the man knew that the boy was perceptive, while others all around him had no suspicion of what he was about to do.
Offering a scarcely perceptible smile, the man gave him what seemed to be an affable nod, then raised his hand. In it he held a switch that was to be depressed with his thumb. “To all occupiers of the nation of Islam, Allah is great!”
Just as he 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, the boy 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 the licks of fire and ash. Piercing cries filled the air, hanging as thick as the 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 seemed to open wide with the awe of confusion.
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, his skin 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 told him.
That was the day he learned what life would be like for a Jew living in a land of open hostilities.
Taking a deep breath, and with the images of his childhood fading, Team Leader opened his eyes to see the members of his team meditating as the van made its way to the Governor’s Mansion. Every soldier, every stolid commando, as dictated by his constant training, was visualizing in detail his every movement, to assure that there would be no room for mistakes during actual combat.
Each man was equipped with an Israeli Bullpup assault weapon—a product of Israeli technology with devastating capabilities—and dressed identically, from the black tactical jumpsuit to the ski mask and night-vision monocular. Nobody on his team deviated in appearance.
Unwilling to carry a Bullpup, Team Leader opted for a Sig Sauer P220 40-caliber with suppressor and grip-attached laser sighting. It was his weapon of choice—a weapon he had become accustomed to as an assassin.
On the floor al-Hashrie and al-Bashrah lay cuffed and dressed in pressed military fatigues, the men praying softly in Arabic, which Team Leader allowed without punitive action from anybody on his team.
For the third time in the last five minutes, Team Leader looked at his watch, realizing that months of preparation would soon bear the fruit of their labors. And then he closed his eyes once again, the images of that day in Ramallah reminding him why he was about to go to war.
The time was 0128 hours.
CHAPTER SIX
Annapolis, Maryland
September 23, Early Morning
The Governor’s Mansion was a two-story Colonial, situated on a manicured rise. Columns and expensive fascia designs enhanced the house’s appeal, while Boston ivy climbed the brick and trellises with reckless abandon.
On the gravel-laden driveway leading to the mansion’s cul-de-sac, two state police vehicles sat on the perimeter with an officer in each unit. They were no match for Team Leader’s recon group; they were dispatched quickly, quietly and efficiently.
#
Agent Nedza had a good view of the grounds from the mansion‘s wraparound porch and examined the landscape through night vision binoculars, making a slow scan. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he lowered the device and moved along to the porch’s south side. The moment he started to ebb from sight, Team Leader’s recon group scaled the wall and landed behind a row of pruned hedges.
Unslinging the world’s most accurate sniper rifle, the Barrett M82A1, Team Leader’s sniper took aim through the crosshairs of an emerald green lens, drew a bead, slowed his breathing, and pulled the trigger. With the sound of the gunshot muted, Agent Nedza’s head snapped forward with the bullet’s impact, and fell to the floor as a boneless heap.
#
The lighting in the hallway was somewhat subdued as an agent from the president’s detail walked into the governor’s darkened library and stood silhouetted within the door frame, listening. The moment he raised his hand for the light switch, three muted pops sounded off in quick succession, the muzzle flashes winking intermittently from the darkest edges of the room. With cold efficiency, the perfectly placed bullets hit the center of body mass in a tight triangular pattern, dropping the agent as fast as gravity would allow.
#
On the second-tier landing where the bedrooms were located, two agents stood vigil at opposite ends of the corridor. When one of the agents began to toy with his earpiece, a darkened shape moved along the wall with feline stealth, drew a garrote around the agent’s neck, and pulled him silently into the shadows, strangling him with such surgical precision that the agent was unable to emit a sound upon the moment of death.
After the assassin lowered the body to the floor, he melded so easily with the surrounding darkness that he became a part of it. And then he was gone.
#
Agent Cross stood alone at the opposite end of
the corridor, unaware he was surrounded by a group of hostiles. The moment he raised his hand to adjust his lip mike, he was taken down. The action was so quick, so proficient, he was numbed by surprise.
Now, with the front line of defense taken out, all that remained was the task of securing the designated targets.
#
Darlene Steele was unable to sleep. The sound of the wind blowing the leaves outside sounded to her like a symphony of distant tambourines. Even from where she lay she could hear the wind driving the already fallen leaves along the cul-de-sac in a cacophony that sounded like the crackle of fire.
After releasing a barely audible sigh, she turned to her husband who lay beside her, his chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. Apparently the stirring of autumn winds was more of a lullaby to him than an annoyance. So she lay there for hours, watching patterns on the ceiling as sleep eluded her. Her eyes remained open and sighs escaped her. Her restless motions were unable to elicit even a single uncouth comment from her husband, as he lay undisturbed by her actions. In time she slid the covers back, got out of bed, and embraced herself against the unseasonable chill. Grabbing her robe from the post of the bed, she left the room and closed the door behind her.
In the hallway she turned up the thermostat before descending the spiral staircase of their state-funded $650,000 home—one of many political perks that made her marriage tolerable. As the wife of a prominent governor, Darlene Steele found comfort in the prestige and material goods her husband’s position provided. She knew her marriage was not about love. It was a business arrangement. Her job was to be the dutiful first lady, projecting a public image of grace and beauty and elegance. Meanwhile, her husband was mired in affairs, an acceptable vice since she no longer cared to try to fulfill him sexually. She would tolerate his violations as long as she garnered the prize in the end, the status of senator’s wife.
Passing through the living room, holding the robe tightly around her, Darlene was already anticipating a warm glass of milk to exorcize the chill from her bones.
Once in the kitchen she felt for the island, found it, then made her way to the refrigerator, a stainless steel unit built into the wall. When she opened the door, a feeble beam of light shone across the kitchen, barely touching the darkest reaches of the room. It wasn’t until she brought the milk to the island that she saw something black and amoeba-like standing against the far wall, something that finally took the shape of a man with a weapon.
Before her mind could register that she was not alone, her breath hitched in a tiny gasp. And just as she was beginning to sober to the seriousness of the situation, the figure stepped into the outer edges of the light. He wore a tactical uniform, black, with matching boots, and his face was partially obscured by the headgear of his night-vision monocular. In the intruder’s hand, which he raised for the kill shot, was a .40 caliber Sig Sauer equipped with sound suppressor and laser-grip sighting.
“I’m sorry,” the man whispered, directing the red dot of the laser sight to her chest, then to her brow. “But I’m afraid it’s necessary that you become a casualty of the cause.” With that he pressed the trigger, the muted sound barely audible as the well-placed bullet struck her forehead and exited out the rear. The pulpy expulsion from the exit wound cast a Jackson Pollack design of blood and tissue along the wall behind her. As Darlene Steele pirouetted soundlessly before hitting the floor, the assassin was already gone from the room.
#
Jonathan Steele was in the midst of a bad and slow-moving dream when he awoke to find his wife missing. His hand was searching the warm area of her side of the bed when he spotted the phosphorous-green circles moving around his bed like lazy fireflies. With a rare ability to speak out powerfully, he called out to the living shapes in his room.
The glowing circles stopped moving.
Then, from the depths of the shadows, an emotionless voice said, “Governor Steele.” A threatening figure moved closer to the bed. “You’ve been deemed a moral sacrifice.”
The governor galvanized himself into action by swiftly throwing the covers aside, the unfamiliar voice striking an undercurrent of terror as several hands pushed him back onto the mattress. “What do you think you’re doing? You have no right to do this to me! Let me go!”
Steele could see the phosphorous eyes moving, could feel the strength of his attackers as one of the intruders lifted the sleeve of his pajama top and inserted a needle into his arm. Immediately the governor saw a nebula of light, felt the slowing of his mind, then fell into complete and utter darkness.
#
The noise was distant, but enough to wake Pope Pius XIII from a vague dream, of which he would have no memory. While he lay there he listened for the obscurest of sounds, but heard nothing more than autumn leaves blowing against the window panes.
As he labored to a sitting position, he thought he saw the shadowy movement of feet along the floor beneath the door to his room.
“Hello?”
Even though the movement stopped, Pius knew somebody was standing on the other side of the door.
And then in a more prudent tone, he asked, “Governor?”
The door opened slowly and two men in military dress stood silhouetted against the backdrop of the hallway. The only light was the faint blue glow of moonlight through the window. One man reached up and engaged a switch on his monocular headset, activating a phosphorous green light and giving him the advantage of night vision.
“Your Holiness,” one of them said, but in the darkness the pope couldn’t tell which one spoke. “We’re not here to harm you.”
The pontiff’s voice remained calm. “What is it you want?”
“Your cooperation.”
“For?”
The men in uniform looked at each other for a brief moment before turning back to the pontiff.
“Please, Your Holiness, don’t make this difficult.”
“Difficult? I’m merely posing a question.”
Then one of the voices became a little less congenial. “Roll up the sleeve of your shirt.”
Both men moved forward in unison, the one with the monocular holding a syringe, the other an assault weapon. To drive his point home, the commando with the Bullpup pressed the mouth of the weapon’s barrel against the pope’s temple. “Roll up your sleeve . . . now.”
“I don’t understand—”
“You’re not supposed to. Now roll up your sleeve.” The commando forced the mouth of the weapon deeper into the soft flesh.
The pope did as instructed. He felt the prick of the syringe and gave way to its effects.
The mission was complete.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Team Leader was thoroughly pleased that the operation took less than ten minutes, with zero casualties to his team. Those dispatched on the opposing team were done so quickly and dispassionately.
Moving his operation to the dining room, Team Leader felt awash in glory as cold, blue light shone through the west wall windows. Behind him, the eyes of past governors watched the proceedings with mute detachment.
At the end of the dining table, with the wide brim of his hat casting his face in even deeper shadow, a man sat with one leg casually crossed over the other. “Your team did well,” he said. “Much better than I expected.”
Team Leader made his way toward the man, the green glow of his NVG monocular lending him sight as he took position before the operative. “Your job is done here, Judas. Your services are no longer needed.”
“And miss the final scene of this magnificent production? I don’t think so.” The man remained still, the tone of his voice as cold as the stone tiles beneath his feet.
Team Leader bowed his head. “So be it.”
“Then let’s get this show on the road.”
Al-Bashrah and al-Hashrie were ushered into the dining room and forced to their knees. The mouth of a Bullpup was positioned at the base of each man’s skull. Neither captive was willing to show fear, each having resolved to meet hi
s fate head on.
Team Leader circled them in appraisal, wondering what drove such men to give up their lives for an afterlife that he considered highly implausible. Then, in Arabic, so that the understanding was between Arab and Hebrew only, Team Leader spoke.
“You came to this soil to make history for your people,” he told them. “So history you shall make. But not as you dreamed or imagined.” Team Leader turned his back on them and began to walk away. “Today marks the onset of a brave new world; the beginning for some, the end for others.”
Even though the man sitting in the shadows didn’t understand the exchange, he couldn’t help but laugh with malicious amusement.
Team Leader closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. His hatred for Judas was enormous. Judas was a mercenary whose only cause was to line his pockets with blood money. But since Judas’s presence was deemed a necessity for the advancement of the cause, he held his tongue.
“Did you tell them?” said Judas, his voice dripping with malice. “Did you tell them that they’re about to die?”
“What we do, Judas, we do without malevolence, which you seem to have forgotten.”
“What we do,” he returned, “we do for money. Now get on with it.”
The muscles in Team Leader’s jaw began to work. Judas was a major player, the one who opened the door and made the cause possible. But Team Leader was not accustomed to taking orders from a man whose only motivations in promoting the cause were financially based. To Team Leader, Judas was nothing but a whore.
However, Judas was right. He needed to move this along.
The last standing member of the president’s detail, a man by the name of Cross, was guided into the room with a Bullpup pressed to the base of his skull.
“The area’s secured,” stated the commando holding the Bullpup. “Their entire defense force has been eliminated.”
