The Golgotha Pursuit

by Rick Jones

  The Floor Commander studiously appraised the image. “Move imaging to the east,” he ordered.

  The remote pilot did as requested, picking up nothing but treetops that, from this level, looked like heads of broccoli joined together.

  “Son of a bitch,” commented the Floor Commander. “They’ve been informed.” Then: “Contact Thirteen!” he said. And then more to himself, he added. “I think they’re about to have company.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Moreland received communications from Base Command through his earbud. God’s Eye had picked up a single casualty. The targets in question, however, were absent.

  Moreland slapped his lip mic downward so that the stem was beneath his chin. “It appears that Beckett and company disappeared before God’s Eye could get a visual.”

  “It could mean that they’re heading back,” stated Hammerhead.

  “It could also mean that they’ve been informed and are circling us like sharks,” Moreland answered.

  “Question is,” began Chance, “how many of them are there.”

  Then from Kimball: “This isn’t good,” he said. “And I think you’re right. They’ve been tipped and we’re blind. Furthermore, we don’t know how many there are. I strongly suggest that we abort and regroup until the intel’s more considerable.”

  Moreland considered this. God’s Eye was supposed to give them the great advantage, at least enough to dominate the situation. Now they were dealing with an unknown number of ghosts with skill sets to kill. Moreland spoke into his lip mic and tapped a button on the top of his earbud. “Echo One to Base Command,” he said in a tone just above a whisper.

  “Go, Echo One.”

  “Requesting permission to abort the mission and to evacuate the area.”

  “Stand-by, Echo One.”

  Moreland waited while keeping a keen eye on the vehicles. Along with the SUVs and the Citroën there was a rather expensive-looking car amongst the pack, perhaps a Bentley, he thought. And more likely to be Beckett’s personal drive.

  Then: “Echo One, this is Base Command.”

  “Go, Base Command.”

  “Request denied. You are to engage the faction and claim the priority packages.”

  “You want to repeat that, Base Command?”

  “Request denied. You are to engage the faction and claim the priority packages.”

  “Copy.” Moreland angrily slapped his lip mic downward so that it hung beneath his chin, and then he turned off the feed to Base Command. “Apparently we’re in this, boys.”

  “You were denied by Base Command?” asked Kimball.

  “Exactly.”

  “And who was issuing the orders? Henry?”

  “Unknown.”

  “The mission has most likely been compromised,” said Kimball.

  “I can only assume that Henry is a man of desperation since he wants these packages wrapped so nice and neat,” said Moreland.

  “The question is: why put us in jeopardy?” asked Kimball.

  “We’re not sure if it’s Henry.”

  Truth was, Moreland didn’t know for sure if it was Henry who set down the orders. More so, why would George Henry place Group 13 and the Vatican Knights in such a precarious position? The best answer he could come up with for such a gamble was perhaps the easiest of all explanations: for the sake of national security. There may never be another opportunity, even if they were able to regroup with better intel.

  This was a one-shot deal.

  “All right,” said Moreland. “We follow the orders of Base Command,” he said. “We move forward, claim the packages, and follow procedure and training. If we bloody do that, then we all go home tonight, you hear?”

  There were thumbs-up and nods from Group 13. Nothing from the Vatican Knights.

  Then Moreland added: “Spread out. Eyes forward and ears sharp. You men know your duties. And remember, we all want to go home tonight.” Then to the Kimball and his team. “You form a second line of defense with your team. Support and engage. We’re blind out here. All of us. But the optimum achievement here is to secure Oliver Beckett and Mehmoud Atwa.”

  Moreland then gestured to his earbud and lip mic, telling his team to stay in communication. Then he signaled to Chance to follow him to the east, then waved his hand to Twelve-Gauge and Hammerhead to go west.

  After they disappeared into the brush, Kimball said to Isaiah and Leviticus, “You know what to do. Support and engage. I’ve got a gut feeling they may need us more than we need them.”

  And just like that the Vatican Knights disappeared into the brush without so much as moving a single leaf on its stem.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Washington, D.C.

  The moment Mohammad Allawi got off his burner with Shari Cohen, he received another text. This from a courier working inside D.C, a secondary messenger since his primary carrier suddenly disappeared from the confines of the Brockbridge Correctional Facility:

  CHURCHILL SINGS.

  IN TWO DAYS.

  PARTY OF 5.

  12 MONTHS IN 2016.

  Cryptic, yes. But Allawi knew its exact meaning. A deal had been struck in London and in two days he would receive five very special weapons at warehouse #12 located in Bethesda, Maryland, at precisely 2016 hours, or at 8:16 P.M. He would not be late since Mabus had bestowed upon him a great honor, if not a greater responsibility.

  In the next few days reigning political principals from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Israel and Belgium were going to arrive for a summit regarding recent attacks by ISIS on the European Front, and discuss how to neutralize future threats.

  You can’t fight what you can’t see, Mohammad thought. And no matter who you are or where you are, I’m going to prove that the reach of the Islamic State is everywhere. Even here.

  Mohammad looked at his burner, a disposable cellphone purchased in a store like Target or Walmart. There were no contracts, no records–just prepaid minutes and limited texts. Once the limit was maxed out, then the phone was useless unless a decision was made to purchase additional time by the owner. Mohammad, however, never did. He simply tossed the unit away. And though he had just under sixty minutes and more than twenty texts left in the account, he decided to toss the phone away after speaking with Shari Cohen. Even signals from a burner could be triangulated from the pings of a tower. But with no name on the account, such tracking would only prove, in most cases, futile. Nevertheless, Mohammad remained cautious.

  For a long moment he sat inside his parked car that was beneath the cone of a streetlamp, and allowed himself to decompress through meditation. His eyes were closed. His breath measured. And as much as he tried to clear his mind he couldn’t. Shari Cohen remained so clear in his thoughts, as did the task before him of changing the landscape, political and otherwise. And he would begin with Shari Cohen.

  He will hunt her.

  He will kill her.

  And his attempt to take her life would be his first shot across the bow against the Great Satan.

  Finding comfort impossible to come by in meditation, and with his heart and thoughts racing, he started his vehicle, put it in gear, and drove slowly until he hit the highway.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Black-Site Facility

  West Virginia

  It was very early in the morning and loud music from a heavy-metal band from the 80’s was being piped over the intercom system. Trayveon Scott–or Qasim Ali–was suspended by chains and wrist-cuffs hanging from the ceiling, and looked every bit as much as Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketch of the Vitruvian Man. He was nude with the exception of soiled garments around his pelvic region. The stench was awful.

  The music had kept him from sleeping, the fatigue almost intolerable as he fell into bouts of uncontrollable weeping. And then Millette entered the
chamber managing a food cart. On top was a domed stainless-steel cover. Suddenly the room smelled like baked fowl, causing Scott’s stomach to twist into a slick fist with hunger.

  Millette stopped the cart about six feet from Scott and raised the lid. Sitting on a plate was a rotisserie-styled chicken with ground pepper-laden skin. The scent was wonderful, the aroma tremendous. Scott hadn’t eaten since he arrived at the site.

  Using a remote, Millette aimed it at a box against the wall and killed the sound. Then: “Good morning, Mr. Scott. I do apologize for the early hour.” He was wearing a leather apron that was covered with blood and traces of gore. And Scott had to wonder if there were others like him who were on-site and less cooperative, or if Millette dressed himself as such for purposes of psychological torture to make him think and wonder. Either way, neither scenario was pleasing.

  Millette then began to pull at the fowl’s skin, which peeled nicely away to expose juicy white meat underneath. Plucking a thick strip about as large as a chicken tender from the breast, and with the juices flowing, Millette brought it to his mouth and ate with a dramatized look of unspeakable pleasure. “You have no idea, Mr. Scott, how wonderful this tastes.”

  Scott licked his lips. “I think I do.”

  “I’m sure you could only imagine.” He took another bite. Then after sucking the juices from his fingertips, he took position in front of Scott with his hands clasped behind the small of his back. “Would you like to share, Mr. Scott? It is quite good, you know.”

  “Please.”

  “Gladly. But first, Mr. Scott, if I may be frank, I believe you may be holding out on me.”

  Scott looked at Millette quizzically. “I told you everything.”

  “Everything?” He walked back to the cart and peeled off another strip. “I’m thinking not.” Then he ate it, which drove Scott to another uncontrollable crying bout.

  “It’s all right, Mr. Scott. Tell me what I need to know and I promise that the rest will be yours to eat. The entire bird. You have my word on this.”

  Scott was so hungry it felt like someone had punched a hole in his gut. “Please.”

  “Information, Mr. Scott, or I eat the entire bird in front of you. This I also promise.”

  Scott wept for a long moment, eventually gathered himself, and then asked dejectedly: “What do you want to know?”

  “You mentioned to me that Allawi was to head a mission regarding a possible attack on certain principals sometime in the near future. You said you didn’t know who. And at that time I believed you. Now I’m not so sure. So, I will pose additional questions until I feel completely satisfied that you have told me all.”

  “I did tell you all.”

  Millette took another bite of white meat, making sure that Scott saw the juices slide down his chin. “Who are the targeted principals? And how is this to be achieved?”

  “I told you, man … I told you everything.”

  Another strip of meat was peeled away and consumed by Millette as he pinned Scott with a middle-of-the-road stare. “I can do this all day,” he finally said. “All … day.”

  Scott ran a dry tongue over his lips. His hunger was like a maddening pain, an itch that couldn’t be reached or scratched. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he conceded.

  Millette stopped eating. “I’m listening.”

  “The targets are the members attending the summit.”

  “The principals from the UK, Belgium, Paris, Israel and such?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  Millette knew they were slated to arrive in three days and leave on the seventh. “How?”

  “Specialized weapons.”

  Millette needed Scott to expound on this. “Explain.”

  As soon as Scott was about to slip into another uncontrollable bout of tears, Millette crossed the floor and offered Scott a juicy tender. It was literally the best thing Scott had ever tasted. Once devoured, Millette stood back. “The rest of the chicken is yours, Mr. Scott. All I need is some more information. But the caveat is this: I need to know everything in two minutes. Everything. If you lie to me, if you hold back on me, I will walk out of this room along with this cart. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Two minutes, Mr. Scott … Go.”

  “Three years ago the plans for a specialized weapon was appropriated from an employee of the DOD from an arms dealer named Oliver Beckett. That man and his entire family was killed. Over those three years the model had been perfected.”

  “To do what?”

  “It has a kill rate close to ninety percent for up to six hundred yards with a single shot. It’s a sniper’s wet dream.”

  “And this weapon is to be used against these principals coming for the summit?”

  “That was the plan, if possible. If not, then they were to be used for soft targets around D.C. No matter the person yielding the weapon, they become the perfect sniper with a single pull of the trigger. Men, women and children will die–soft targets. And by the time the bullet strikes, the person who pulled the trigger will be gone.”

  “And Allawi is to pick up these weapons?”

  “Yes.”

  “When exactly?”

  “That I don’t know. Obviously soon since the international principals are about to arrive.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. You took me out of Brockbridge before the final message was sent. Now it’s common knowledge that I’m not there anymore. Suspicions will rise as to what happened to me, but they’ll remain as suspicions because no one knows for sure. By now a second courier has taken my place. Allawi will be informed by the surrogate as to when and where to go. That’s how cells work. Remove one head from the Hydra and two grows in its place.”

  “You must know where Allawi is.”

  “I don’t. The man’s been mobile for the most part after his cell was taken down by the Feds.”

  “So Allawi is going to confront the principals himself? Seems like a stretch.”

  Scott nodded. No. “Recruits are coming in from New York and Boston. They may be here already.”

  “And where would they most likely meet up?”

  “Like I said, you removed me out of Brockbridge before the final message was received. But I will tell you this: the cell never meets in the same place twice.”

  “Are these weapons to be smuggled close to D.C., or elsewhere?”

  “Again, I’ve no clue. My departure from Brockbridge changes everything. New courier, new commands, new locations.”

  Millette stared at him for a moment making assessments as to whether Scott was telling the truth or providing fabrications. After a moment he went to the wall where two buttons were, pressed the lower of the two, and watched as the lines lowered Scott to the floor. When Scott landed he was too weak to stand on his own. So with the aid of Millette he was assisted to a small wooden chair in the corner of the room. Thereafter, Millette rolled the cart across the room and let it stand before Scott. The chicken smelled wonderful as a battery of heat still rose from the meat.

  Millette gestured towards the partially eaten fowl. “As promised,” he said. “The bird is yours.”

  Scott attacked it like a savage, pushing food into his mouth faster than he could swallow.

  Millette watched him. As far as he was concerned he had mined Scott fully for all information necessary. Now it was up to the Feds to carry what he discovered and push it forward. If Scott had been an Arab, chances were that he never would have prospected a single nugget of worthy intel. Arabs could be a contentious lot, he thought, tough. They would have let their flesh slip right off their bones with continuous lashes of the whip before they surrendered anything useable. And that was the difference between those who claimed to have faith and those who truly possessed it.

  Those who truly possessed faith had a hard shell to smash thro
ugh.

  Those who claimed to have faith usually had tissue-thin exteriors and minimal resolve.

  Trayveon Scott–Qasim Ali–was a claimer.

  And thank God for that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The Game Park

  The man Oliver Beckett called Parker was a former Special Ops commando from an elite paramilitary group that was once attached to the United Nations. But the man was completely and morally bankrupt, his honor nothing but a faded pastime. During his tenure as team leader he had commanded kill-squads in Afghanistan and Iraq, often raping and killing young women before wiping out their entire families to keep these secrets safe.

  He was never caught. Neither was his team.

  Now he commanded a group from all pockets of the military with training that equaled the best assassins on the planet. They were quick, smooth, and made snap decisions as if the decision itself was more of an involuntary act rather than deductive reasoning. And if there was one thing Parker enjoyed as much as engaging hostiles alongside his teammates, it was the very deep pockets of Oliver Beckett.

  As his team spread out into a skirmish line and advanced forward through the thicket, they slowly closed the gap between them and their enemies. And though dawn was gradually advancing, the shadows beneath the canopy of trees remained dark and deep.

  Beckett, however, trailed far behind with a single mercenary by his side for added protection. Once Group 13 and the Vatican Knights had been terminated, he would then be whisked away to his compound north of London.

  Parker pressed forward with his team spread out in a single line, their weapons trained forward. The leaves of ferns parted with their advancement. And the moist humus of the earth and the decaying leaves beneath their feet made little noise as they advanced.