The Golgotha Pursuit

by Rick Jones

  “Chahine goes to Raqqa daily to meet with couriers to provide them with messages from Mabus that are to be carried on to other cells. Rendezvous point is always the same place at the same time. The Busqua Bazaar between ten and eleven in the morning.”

  Beckett by nature was an impatient man. But he also knew that Arabs were a patient people. Everything was done by courier now, which meant that everything had a much slower process to it. But it was also a proven method where intel had less of chance of being intercepted.

  Beckett sighed because he so badly wanted the True Cross inside his vault of special collections. But he also knew that he had been rendered impotent to make any demands, and that Atwa had him by the short hairs. These Arabs knew his tastes, his wants, and they knew how to play a man like him who possessed little to no patience by dangling a precious item just beyond the reach of his grasp.

  “There is one more process to this deal,” Atwa finally said. “One you have the power to do at this moment.”

  Oliver Beckett waited silently for Atwa to proffer the demand while beginning to stew inside. At the moment he was beginning to feel quite subservient to the Arab. And appearing as such before his men was rather humiliating.

  “You will contact your people now, in Mexico, regarding the five rifles that are to be delivered promptly within two days,” Atwa went on. “I will give you the location and time for the transaction to go down. Once this is done, word will get back to Mabus that a deal has been done. The True Cross will be yours pending the resourcefulness of this particular weapon.”

  “This is doable.”

  “If that’s the case, then the True Cross will be yours.”

  Beckett smiled falsely at this. Though disappointment filled him deeply for not possessing what he considered to be his already, he knew that Atwa was canceling all doubt of deception and betrayal. There would be none; the True Cross for a cache of specialized weapons.

  “I believe you,” said Beckett.

  “Good.”

  Beckett removed his cellphone and made the call per Atwa’s demands and provided information. Five rifles were going to a specified warehouse in Bethesda, Maryland, with the pickup time in two days at approximately 2015 hours. Once the call was completed, Beckett held up the phone in Atwa’s direction and said, “Done. The weapons will be at the location as requested, and at the desired time.”

  “Thank you,” said Atwa. “The arrival time for those rifles are most critical.”

  “Something going down that’s time restricted?”

  “Like I said before, there are certain things you need not know about.”

  Beckett held up a hand, a gesture to promote additional camaraderie between them for the sake of good faith. “Whatever,” he said. Then in a more congenial manner, he said, “I understand you to be a man of special gifts.”

  Atwa appeared confused by this.

  Beckett went on: “I’m told that you’re the person they call the Man-of-Many-Blades.”

  Atwa’s features softened. “I have a special skill set. Yes.”

  “Then as a token of good will,” said Beckett. “As a token of my appreciation for putting a final stamp to this deal–” Beckett snapped his fingers to a mercenary standing behind Parker. He was a big man, quick, and spoke only when asked to by Beckett. The mercenary grabbed a small bundle that was trussed up like packaged meat and handed it to Atwa, who looked at it with curiosity.

  “A token,” said Beckett. “Hoping that a good future in trade between us continues.”

  Atwa placed the package along the railing, undid the bindings, and peeled the flaps of the brown paper back. Inside was a bandolier. Attached to the bandolier were several knives, small, sharp, and perfectly weighted and balanced. Atwa removed a single blade and held it up. The entire body of the knife had a mirror polish to it, as did all the knives.

  Atwa turned to Beckett, and for the first time offered him a genuine smile of gratitude.

  Mehmoud Atwa no longer felt naked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The members of Group 13 heard a sharp crack of gunfire. The distance, however, could not be pinpointed to exact coordinates. But the evaluation and consensus among those within the team put the approximation of the gunfire at no more than two to three kilometers either west or southwest of their position. With the Citroën and SUVs in their sights, they knew that Beckett’s mercenary unit had to be close by. And probably Mehmoud Atwa too. So Twelve-Gauge contacted HQ for satellite assistance, asking for God’s Eye to zero in on coordinates west-southwest of their position. If Beckett and Atwa were there, that would only encourage the positive side of the situation by becoming a coup.

  Right now Group 13 was maintaining a lock at the reserve.

  There would be no escape for Beckett or the Syrian.

  John Moreland and the Vatican Knights were on their way with an ETA of less than five minutes to shore up the lines.

  Skilled practitioners; all of them.

  But in the end it always came down to everything working as planned on paper.

  But things rarely worked by design.

  Rarely.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Washington, D.C.

  Just as the sun was rising in London, it was late evening in Washington, D.C.

  As strong as Shari tried to be, as much as she tried to remember the precious words her grandmother handed down to her about digging deep for inner strength in the midst of tragedy, she continued to agonize over the loss of her family.

  She wondered how her grandmother had dug so deep and so soon right after she and her family stepped off the trains at Auschwitz-II at Birkenau. She and her sister went to the right after Mengele’s flick of the cane, her mother and father to the left. An hour later they witnessed several Jews in striped clothing managing a cart from the gas chambers. The bodies of her mother and father were amongst the many lying within with their eyes at half-mast and their faces blanched. Fifteen minutes later the chimneys began to belch smoke, which littered the landscape with a mantle of gray ash. Yet her grandmother persevered, even when her sister died of sickness a year later when her limbs had atrophied to the thickness of broomsticks due to starvation.

  Shari simply felt drained and alone. Her grandmother at least had her sister, even briefly, as a shoulder to lean on. She had no one.

  She was sitting at the corner of the couch leafing through the photo albums of happier times, such as trips to the Cayman Islands; trips to the mountains to a nice little cabin by a lake to fish from.

  Memories swarmed back, causing her to weep with sorrow as if these pictures had somehow opened a horrible wound. Then she closed the book, softly, and let the tears flow as a form of catharsis.

  Then the phone rang.

  It shrilled once, twice, three times with Shari wondering if it was Kimball calling from Vatican City. It would be morning, she considered. Early. So she wiped away her tears and cleared her throat, wanting to sound strong rather than fractured.

  She picked it up. The incoming-call screen read PRIVATE NUMBER.

  Then she said: “Hello.”

  There was a slight pause on the other end. “I’m surprised you picked up,” said the voice.

  It wasn’t Kimball.

  “I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you. Not by a long shot.” It was Mohammad Allawi, sounding as cool as a man with no worries.

  Shari sat ramrod straight. Whatever sorrows and sadness she felt before were completely washed away by indescribable rage and anger. She could feel her pulse quicken and the sweeping flushness of her face as it reddened with heat.

  Allawi continued. “How does it feel, Ms. Cohen? How does it feel to have loved ones taken from you the same way you took two of my brothers from me?”

  “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. I will find you.”

  “And
then what will you do?”

  She hesitated, just for a moment. She thought about Kimball and how he always expressed a difference between her sense of duty to law … to his form of justice. She never understood his reasoning until this very moment.

  “I know you’re there,” Allawi said. “I can hear you breathing. What will you do?”

  She gripped the handle of the phone until she became white-knuckled. “Then I’ll kill you,” she said evenly.

  Allawi said. “That’s my girl … Now the game begins.” Then after a beat he added: “I’ll be close by … watching. I’ll always be watching.”

  And then he hung up, leaving Shari to hold the phone for quite a long time before she finally set it upon its cradle.

  Like Kimball once told me, she thought. There was no more time for Band-Aids. Now it was time to cut away the cancer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  United Kingdom

  God’s Eye was the term given to satellite imagery. Inside MI5 headquarters was a specialized theater that monitored and controlled UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles commonly known as drones, as surveillance and intelligence gathering tools. Orders had come directly from Director General George Henry to the Floor Commander, and requested an immediate flyover to specified coordinates. Once the coordinates were established, a remote pilot from a manned console operated a drone by directing it west-southwest from its current position in the east.

  At a cruising speed of 194 miles–or 310 kilometers–per hour, the drone was zeroing in with an ETA of thirteen minutes. At that time Group 13 and the Vatican Knights would be notified of an actual theater of operation to begin its campaign.

  While the Floor Commander issued orders, a man standing in the back of the room with his features guarded by shadows, typed in an encrypted text message on his cell, and pressed ‘SEND.’ Less than a second later, the screen read ‘MESSAGE RECEIVED.’ The man pocketed his phone, then he left the arena.

  Since everyone was so absorbed in what they were doing, no one had seen the man in the shadows.

  #

  Beckett’s cellphone went off with an annoying chirp. He removed the device from his pocket, hit the button, and spoke curtly. “Yes.”

  Beckett’s phone had decryption software that translated encrypted voice patterns to something recognizable, though the voice coming across sounding highly metallic as though speaking through a telephone scrambler or voice changer. “Your whereabouts has been noted but not verified. A drone is en route for visual confirmation with an ETA of ten minutes.”

  “How is that even possible? My team took out the MI5 unit.”

  “Unknown. And another thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Group Thirteen has set up by your vehicles. They know you’re close but don’t know where. The drone will pinpoint your location, however. ETA is now nine minutes.”

  “How many?”

  “Three. Group Thirteen’s chief commander and a field unit of soldiers from the Vatican are on their way by chopper. They’re about two minutes out.”

  “The Vatican?”

  “They call themselves the Vatican Knights. Don’t know much about them. A bunch of priests, I guess. What they seek is the True Cross.”

  “So they seek Atwa while Group Thirteen wants me?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “How many of these Vatican Knights will be attached to Group Thirteen?”

  “Three.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s seven total. My boys will take’em out handedly. Though I do have some concerns about Group Thirteen. Not so much for these Vatican Knights.”

  “Intel states that they’re not to be messed with.”

  “What? The Vatican Knights?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “How tough can three priests be?”

  “Rule number one: take no one for granted. That’s how battles are won and lost.”

  “I don’t need a lesson in battlefield ethics from you. I’ve made a living by staying two steps ahead of the other guy.”

  “You got my message. I did as required. Now release me.”

  “Not on your life. Not when you’re too valuable to me.” Beckett clicked the phone dead.

  Atwa turned to him. “I heard my name. I’m being sought, yes?”

  Beckett jabbed his finger angrily in the direction of Shadid. “I’m guessing that that idiotic driver had some type of tracking device on his vehicle. As we speak an elite shadow force is surveying our vehicles, exactly where the Citroën sits. Four more are on their way. In about eight minutes a drone is about to pass overhead to confirm our position.” He turned back to view Shadid’s body. “Idiot!” Then to Atwa. “When this is all said and done, Mabus should give me a damn medal for keeping you clear.” Then he became quite animated, barking orders and gesticulating urgently with flailing arms to his mercenaries.

  Parker was to take his team of ten and deal with Group 13 and the Vatican Knights. No one was to be left standing alive. As soon as this task was completed, Atwa was to be transported to a safe house in the north until he could establish roots in London. While Beckett–and this was optimum–was to be moved uncontested and safely to his compound in the southwest.

  “Move! We have minutes before the drone confirms our position. Take to the cover of the thicket, move west, and engage Group Thirteen before they know what hits them.”

  As they moved westbound they left Shadid’s body behind as the only casualty on the field.

  But more would soon follow.

  #

  The man behind the call was thoroughly disgusted with himself. But he had family, two daughters and a wife he cherished deeply. And if Oliver Beckett had a way to get a stranglehold on somebody, it was letting a man know that his family was always within reach of Beckett’s harmful intent. Do my bidding, or watch your family die. And this was no idle threat, either.

  Beckett had always made it clear to him the power of his reach. He would send a photo of a suicide bomber wearing a Semtex vest, the face digitalized with the photo of his children not less than five feet away from where the photo had been taken. They would be at a mall or at a bazaar. Or perhaps at a soccer game or a playground, his family completely unaware that they were being watched. If surveillance was suspected by MI5, there would be no stopping a suicide bomber. His family would be lost.

  And it didn’t stop there, either.

  He received photos of his parents, his siblings, those living in other countries and they were just as unmindful of the killer who stood less than a few feet away when a photo was taken. So Beckett’s message was clear: the world isn’t big enough to hide in. I can get anyone anywhere. And there’s nothing you can do about it because there isn’t enough people in the agency to watch over them.

  The man behind the desk sighed.

  He never felt so dirty.

  But he was incapable doing anything about it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  When the chopper landed approximately one-half kilometer from where Group 13 was surveying the area, Moreland and the Vatican Knights disembarked from the craft and triple-timed their way to group up. Within minutes they came together on a landing that overlooked the black SUVs and the Citroën.

  “We heard gunfire coming from the south-southwest,” Twelve-Gauge told Moreland, who was hunkering low behind the heavy thicket. Behind him were the Vatican Knights, whose garments drew a bit of curiosity. Pious from the waist up, military from the waist down. In their hands were powerful-looking assault weapons never seen by anyone in Group 13.

  “We know,” said Moreland. “We’ve been informed by HQ. God’s Eye will confirm their location in two.”

  Twelve-Gauge pointed to the Vatican Knights. “And what do we bloody ‘ave ‘ere? God is my co-pilot?”
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br />   Moreland pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “This is Kimball Hayden. Team leader of the Vatican Knights. The other two are Leviticus and Isaiah.”

  From Chance: “Bloody priests. On a mission like this? Really?”

  “We’re not priests,” Kimball said in a hushed tone. “We’re emissaries from the Vatican.”

  “Swiss Guard?” asked Hammerhead.

  “No. We’re a commando force.”

  “And why would the Vatican send someone like you?” asked Twelve-Gauge.

  Moreland answered for Kimball. “They’re here because of mutual interests. That’s all you need to know right now. We want Oliver Beckett and they want the man he’s with: Mehmoud Atwa.”

  Twelve-Gauge gave Kimball a once-over. The man was huge, he considered. And definitely no slouch, either. In fact, he looked the part of a warrior. A man who was as broad as he was tall. But can you bloody fight? he wanted to ask him.

  Leviticus was a slightly smaller facsimile to Kimball, tall and broad. But the one they called Isaiah was short and slender with ropy-looking muscles that moved like cables along his arms as he gripped his weapon tightly.

  “You will all show them the same bloody respect you show me,” Moreland said to his team. “Is that clear?”

  It was.

  Moreland quickly peered at his watch and looked skyward. He knew a drone was directly overhead, but it was at an elevation so high it was unperceivable to the naked eye, something that was smaller than a miniscule dot.

  Then he looked back to his watch and said, “She’s here.”

  #

  God’s Eye had zoomed in to the specified coordinates given to Base Command. The field was open, but it was surrounded by thick brush and trees so thick, even infrared lighting couldn’t penetrate the canopy enough to pick up any heat signatures. What the drone did pick up, however, was a signature lying prone on the ground. After the lens adjusted and closed in, it was clearly determined to be a body. The shirt was white, but it was stained with a bloody patch that had originated from center mass, a perfect kill shot.