by Rick Jones
Kimball knew the special forces units of other countries, small and large. Though Ahmadi’s unit had the means to contest the Vatican Knights, Kimball knew the skillsets of his team and how good they truly were in the field. To go up against a Vatican Knight, no matter the opponent, would only find themselves in a heated confrontation with little chance of winning.
As the truck took the bumpiness of a terrain that was beginning to test Kimball’s bladder, the Vatican Knight looked out the passenger side window and at the stars. It was a magnificent view, he considered, untouched and perfect. The lights, the constellations, and the grouping of stars were perhaps the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and admired. It truly was a celestial Heaven, he thought, this House of God.
For hours the truck continued on its course until it could go no more, the landscape too rough, too jagged. Stones ranging from the size of a Volkswagen Beetle to the size of a man’s fist littered the landscape. It would be a hike from here on in.
Gearing up with their weapons and backpacks, Sherpa, who held his AK-47 firmly within his grasp, led the Vatican Knights towards the Jabal al-Lawz Mountain range.
They were close.
But so was Zahid Ahmadi’s team.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Bangladeshi took point since he was the eyes and ears of Abesh Faruk and had all the information necessary to get from points A to B lodged inside his head. The man was like an engine who operated with machine-like fortitude, cold and uncaring. Other than taking occasional glances at his watch to check their coordinates, his actions appeared programmed, otherwise. He even promoted this visual by walking stiffly and regimented, the man almost entirely robotic in motion. Perhaps it was the rocky terrain, Ahmadi thought, which caused Purakayastha to walk strangely to avoid injury, like overturning his ankle while stepping on a loose stone. Ahmadi’s people, however, crossed the wasteland with ease because it was their home and nothing novel to them.
The unit moved quietly through the darkness under the light of a gibbous moon that gave the terrain a silver cast to it. From a distance they were vague shapes moving across the desert like nomads, with each man striving ahead to an unknown future, some believing that the future held the promise of something greater.
As the partial face of the moon looked down, its rays highlighted a ridgeline in the distance. It had a serrated dorsal outline to it, that sawback pattern of the Jabal al-Lawz Mountain range.
Amal Purakayastha had done Ahmadi’s team well.
But underneath, Zahid Ahmadi stewed. He was a man who was used to manipulating the strings, a master puppeteer. But he was doing the bidding of Abesh Faruk, who had all the power and controlled all the cords that made Ahmadi dance to his whims. It was Abesh Faruk who had the WMDs and all the power. But once the golden calf was attained, then there would be a massive power shift. It would be Zahid Ahmadi who would govern the fate of the planet and those who resided on it. One God under One Rule, which was not only his dream but a preordained destiny. In his mind, Zahid Ahmadi would lead the masses to a new world where Allah was the true puppeteer, and not Faruk.
All he needed was the golden calf.
And Amal Purakayastha, and only Amal Purakayastha, seemed to know where it was.
Following the Bangladeshi across the hostile landscape, Ahmadi, for now, would be the proverbial second fiddle to Purakayastha’s Stradivarius, though he would constantly fight for the calm needed in order to be so.
Once he received his prizes in exchange of the golden calf, no other man would have as much power. And once the dust settled after the targeted cities had been laid to ruin, an investigation would be demanded by the world community and the world court. As soon as the residue of Israeli components were discovered in the weapons, there would be no louder cry that would outpour from the lands in the Middle East. Israel would tumble and fall, which would mark the beginning of a jihad that would also be the final stroke of Allah’s sword.
As Ahmadi saw his fantasies play out in his mind’s eye, the man more of an idealist instead of a realist, as he saw the world burning with the black banner of the ISIS machine being raised to unpretentious heights. He also imagined himself standing upon a raised tier with his fist held high in victory, while tens of thousands cheered him on by praising the names of Allah and Zahid Ahmadi with a shared chant.
. . . Allah . . . Ahmadi . . . Allah . . . Ahmadi . . .
Then he wondered if the Bangladeshi dreamed at all, or if he had any goals outside of serving his master. Perhaps, Abesh Faruk had stripped him completely of everything that made Amal Purakayastha human. As long as the Bangladeshi got them to their location, Ahmadi cared little of what Purakayastha was—servant, machine, or perhaps both. Nothing else mattered as long as he led them to the golden calf.
Taking the steps in line with Purakayastha, Zahid Ahmadi and his band of trained killers followed the Bangladeshi under the silver light of a gibbous moon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Angelika Hartmann remained awake all night, the woman unable to sleep. Abesh Faruk was enamored with her, this she knew since her ability to read a man’s demeanor was as easy as rudimentary math, something like one plus one. She had read Faruk’s conduct and behavior as a man whose appetite for beautiful women was lusty and—sometimes—uncontrollable. It was also his weakness.
Sitting inside her apartment, Angelika Hartmann watched a light rain dapple the pane of her window. And as she watched the droplets race downward along the glass, with some tracking slower than others, she thought about Faruk’s Trophy Room. It was so much more than that, she considered. It was a museum that would rival the likes of the Louvre. The antiquities, the relics and artifacts that were all tied to history, made the room a marvel of historical findings. And according to Abesh Faruk, the best was yet to come: the golden calf.
It would not be a straight-cash payment or a government imbursement. This was going to be a strict trade of goods from Faruk’s arsenal to the hands of what she believed to be a mercenary group of terrorists. Faruk, however, neglected to forward any further information—valuable information—that she could present to her handler. This mercenary order, was it the Islamic State? The Taliban? Someone else? Was this barter for weapons of mass destruction as her intel suggested? And what about Israel? Was the country targeted for a major-event strike once the barter was complete? Abesh Faruk wouldn’t say.
Angelika closed her eyes knowing that she would have to ply her wares to suck Faruk dry of everything he knew. She would have to use her wile and beauty to whittle him down to his core where all the information was stored. The thoughts of her compromising herself in such a way, however, disgusted her, with the visuals of her unclothed before such a vile man degrading, but a necessity if it came to that.
As for Hans Wulfgar who died on the autobahn, it was because he lost control and overcorrected his vehicle, causing it to roll numerous times with the result of the rollovers snapping his neck. He had been an operative from the start to gather intel on Faruk but was replaced by Hartmann upon his death. Like Wulfgar, her background, too, was fabricated with the backstory of her German heritage as a child, to her cultivating rise as a black marketeer who had a taste for third-party profit.
Getting to her feet, Angelika went to her bedroom. Inside the closet was a safe. After typing the code on the safe’s keypad, the door opened. She then removed an Ismarsat BGAN tablet, turned it on, then brought up a particular screen after decrypting a series of ciphers. Once she was online, she went to her bed, sat along its edge, and waited for a response. After a long and seemingly infinite period of time, the screen suddenly became active with a response from her handler.
HANDLER: DID YOU HAVE FUN?
ANGELIKA: NOT FUNNY.
HANDLER: WHAT HAVE YOU GOT FOR THE PRINCIPALS?
ANGELIKA: CONFIRMED THAT SUBJECT IS BARTERING FOR THE GOLDEN CALF. WOULD NOT CONFIRM WHO HE EMPLOYED OR VERIFY THE GOODS BEING BARTERED. INTEL LEANING TOWARD LEGITIMACY.
/> HANDLER: BUT NOT FACTUAL. STILL HYPOTHESIS BASED ON FRAGMENTED DATA. CORRECT?
ANGELIKA: YES.
HANDLER: WE NEED THE SUBJECT TO VERIFY THE DATA. USE WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY TO ELICIT INFORMATION. SUBJECT NEEDS TO BE STRATEGICALLY MINED FOR INTEL.
ANGELIKA: UNDERSTOOD.
HANDLER: TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE. NOR IS IT A LUXURY. YOU HAVE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
ANGELIKA: THAT’S NOT ENOUGH TIME.
HANDLER: TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
And then the transmission went dead, the image shrinking down to a mote of light in the center of the screen, and then gone. As per protocol, she scrubbed the message clean from memory. To send a follow-up message, she would have to reprogram the device to a new set of cyber coordinates.
Returning the BGAN tablet to the safe and locking it, she returned to her chair by the window. There would be no sleep for her tonight, this she knew because her mind was too active and continued to race. Compromising herself to a man she detested would take everything she had. But it was a requirement of espionage to attack your opponent’s weakness using whatever means necessary. In the case of Abesh Faruk, it was the draw of a beautiful woman.
On the wall behind her, a clock ticked off the seconds. It was the only sound in the room, a steady and rhythmic beat.
Tomorrow night, she would meet with Abesh Faruk with contained revulsion.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jabal al-Lawz Mountain Range
Saudi Arabia
Just as the Vatican Knights reached the base of the mountain range, colorful streamers of morning light were beginning to rise. And it was one of those rare mornings when the sun and the moon shared the sky with the sun in the east and the moon in the west.
The land was rocky and without sage or brush. And though the sawback mountains were towering in some locations, they were not insurmountable since there were multiple inclines that were between 45- to 60-degree angles.
The Vatican Knights, who were guided by Sherpa to the base of Jabal Maqla, hiked along serpentine routes until they reached the top of the first peak. The view was outstanding, and the vantage point magnificent. But the journey forward would not be an easy one, especially when they came to walls that would be sheer verticals. But Sherpa was equipped to handle such climbing measures. In his backpack was a piton gun, which was a device that operated by using gas cartridges that were strong and forceful enough to thrust pitons securely into the wall. This would also be a time-saving maneuver by way of a single injection from the gun, rather than to pound the piton into the given cracks with a hammer. Once the lines made of titanium wire were secured, they would climb the walls with the use of mechanized ascenders. This electronic device, after it was attached to the line, would automatically pull the climber along the wire with the use of motor-driven pulleys. The maneuver of scaling sheer walls was to carve extensive time from negotiating trails that would take several hours to hike, rather than the few minutes it would take by going vertical.
“Out there,” said Sherpa, who pointed to a distance rise, “is Jabal Maqla. It is surrounded by jagged peaks and uneven terrain, but manageable. Once we come to the location where Moses buried the golden calf, if it exists, we may have to spend more time searching for it. More importantly, Zahid Ahmadi’s cell will be on the march for the same prize, as well.” He turned to Kimball who was looking over the mountain range, then added evenly, “There will be conflict.”
Kimball faced Sherpa with his steely blue eyes. “We’ll be ready for anything Ahmadi throws at us,” he answered him. “If the relic is out there, we’ll find it. And if we have to put Ahmadi’s team down like a pack of rabid dogs, I don’t have a problem with that, either.”
Sherpa proffered Kimball a one-sided smile. “There’s nothing wrong with a leader having confidence with his team,” he told him. “Let’s hope that Ahmadi does not hold the same confidence with his, since the cause between two men cannot be equally just. Only one can be right.”
Kimball looked over the rugged landscape once again. “This isn’t a war between good and evil, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “If both sides see their cause to be the just one, which they always do, then it’s a war between us and them. And I’ll take us over them any day of the week.”
Sherpa looked over the team of Vatican Knights, who appeared well trained and well-developed, the team working as a collective of one body and mind, with each man an appendage of the other while working in harmony with the master brain that was Kimball Hayden. “Perhaps,” he finally said.
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” Kimball returned. “You’ll see this for yourself when you get a front-row seat.”
And then from Sherpa: “The day is young. Still, the long journey begins with a single step. So, shall we?”
Kimball gestured to Sherpa by sweeping his hand before him, which was a message to Sherpa to lead the way, which he did.
For hours they traversed the Martian-like terrain, the team careful not to twist an ankle on a loose stone. But the Vatican Knights were swift as their endurance seemed to wax during the hike rather than to wane. In fact, Sherpa was having a difficult time of maintaining lead, even though he was in peak condition. By nightfall, they had covered more territory than anticipated. Jabal Maqla, though it remained several hours away, could now be seen as the foreground mountain, instead of one that was hidden behind others.
In the darkness after the sun had settled, and since there could be no fire that might give away their position, Kimball Hayden was sitting with his back against a boulder and looking skyward. The stars shimmered with glimmers of light the size of pinholes.
Isaiah, who had a strip of beef jerky, took a seat beside Kimball, who had his elbows resting on knees that were drawn up into acute angles.
Jabal Maqla was silhouetted against the backdrop of the moon with the mountain a blacker-than-black outline along the horizon.
“Thirty-five hundred years ago,” Isaiah said, “Moses walked up that peak to receive the Ten Commandments. Thirty-five hundred years later, we’re about to mirror his footsteps.” After the brief moment of silence between them, Isaiah asked Kimball, “Do you think it’s up there? The golden calf?”
“Maybe,” Kimball returned. “There are too many documents with too many interpretations, however. Either way, we’ll canvas every inch.” Kimball continued to look heavenward and at the glitters of stardust. He knew that Isaiah was devout in his beliefs, that the sky was a gateway to a celestial playground of existence filled with absolute peace, a place where anything wonderful can happen. But Kimball was appraising everything above him with a scientific viewpoint—that everything was made up of gaseous clouds and luminous spheroids of plasma that were being held together by their own gravity.
Then Isaiah looked skyward as well, the Vatican Knight joining Kimball’s hypnotic gaze of looking upward at this marvelous canopy. “Up there,” he began, “lies Heaven whose beauty cannot be denied.”
Kimball gave a lopsided grin at this and thought: There’s nothing up there but gaseous clouds and luminous spheroids being held together by gravity.
“Can you tell me about the Light, Kimball? Can you tell me what you saw? Or would you rather not discuss it?”
Kimball nodded lightly, then said, “I remember being in incredible pain. I remember my body being broken after the explosion, all twisted in ways it was never meant to be. And then the pain went away—just . . . slipped away.”
Isaiah looked at Kimball’s profile, which was still staring at the sky.
“I was inside of this dark tunnel,” Kimball continued. “And at the end of this tunnel was a small square of light. And then I heard the voice of an angel calling me back from the dark end, back towards the pain. But the Light grew brighter, became warmer. Then it started to grow as it came closer . . . And I wanted to go to it.”
“But?”
“There was something about the voice of my angel, which gave me
a reason not to leave. But the Light was too great and too peaceful, it was something I wanted more than my angel.”
“But you chose your angel.”
Kimball nodded. “No. I was rejected by the Light. I was sent back to the incredible pain that had crippled me.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“It’s what I know. Why tease me with the Light and bring it within arm’s reach, only to rescind if only to be a cruel joke?”
“I think you’re looking at it all wrong,” Isaiah said. “Perhaps It showed Itself to you because It’s telling you, in Its way, that the Light is there for you, and to let you know that this was your receiving gift of redemption—that you made it. It just wasn’t your time. But, maybe in Its way, the Light was telling you that this was going to be your final stop at life’s end.”
Kimball wanted to scoff at this, but he refrained himself from doing so because he did not want to infringe upon Isaiah’s faith. Isaiah was deep inside his conviction of God and never used Him as a crutch, but as a spiritual guide. Kimball admired this because he wished he had such positive faith and outlook. But all he had were his staunch doubts and the belief that the Light had scorned him.
Kimball finally answered. “I guess we all have to make that stop someday, don’t we?”
“Dying comes to all of us. But I look at it as a new beginning.”
Kimball wanted to believe him. Then: “Let’s hope that the mountain over there is not our last hurrah. I wouldn’t mind avoiding the Light for a few more years.” Although Kimball meant this in jest, it somehow didn’t have that ring to it. It sounded more sober and real, perhaps a Freudian slip.
“Well,” Kimball said, “I think it’s time to get some rest. We’ll need to be our best come tomorrow.”
