But Gregory’s mind was clearer than he thought, the pontiff calling out in the darkness of his suite, somehow knowing that he was not alone, which caught the cardinal off guard.
Like a wraith that appeared to glide inches above the floor rather than walk across it, he quietly made his way to the balcony with a hand raised, and with a mighty shove sent the pontiff airborne, the big man clearing the railing and falling to the cobblestones below.
From his vantage point he watched the life bleed quickly out of the man and across the stones, the old man raising a clawed hand skyward, towards him, accusing him one last time before it fell the moment he took his last breath.
Angullo closed his eyes at the memory of what he had done so clear in his mind’s eye. But the images of what he did that night never haunted him, his conscience remaining clear and undisturbed. And at that very moment he had come to terms believing that what he had done was truly justifiable — and that upon his succession to the throne he would rule the Church the way Gregory should have.
And then he opened his eyes and raised his hand before him — the murdering hand, he considered, the one willed by God to shove Pope Gregory to his death for the good of the Church.
And since it was against Vatican law to perform an autopsy on the pope, the poison would never be discovered. And the cardinal was convinced that this was all due to the Lord’s wishes. Lowering his hand, his eyes once again returning to the Basilica, Cardinal Angullo realized that another within the Preferiti stood in his way. And should Cardinal Vessucci garner enough steam before the conclave, then God may see fit that Cardinal Vessucci follow the same fate as the late pontiff.
After all, he told himself, it was God’s will.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the eyes of the Islamic Revolutionary Front, Umar al-Sarmad, although not a leader, possessed the qualities to become one. He was twenty-eight, brash, and full of bravado, the young warrior always romancing the idea that fighting in the name of Allah was a prestigious one.
For the past four years he held the front lines along the Afghan mountain range, always the first into battle, the last to leave. Often he would pray alongside his fellow combatants in the complex cave system as bombs hurtled over their heads, with the tremors beneath his knees or the cascades of dust falling from the cave tops affecting him little.
But in reality Umar al-Sarmad had constantly prayed to a god that was not his own and fought alongside the revolutionists with bravado that was nothing more than veneer.
For Umar al-Sarmad was not as he seemed.
His true name was Aryeh Levine, a Hebrew growing up outside the city of Jerusalem.
And he was Mossad.
At the age of twenty-four and having served three years in the Israeli Army and then an additional three years as a commando, Aryeh Levine caught the eye of one of the most recognized, if not the most legendary, intelligence agency in the world.
He was smart with the ability to make snap judgments hinging on instinct rather than the timely process of deductive reasoning. His judgments were usually correct in the most difficult situations — his leadership recognized and never questioned. So he was recruited for the welfare of the state of Israel.
From day one he was “processed” as if he was a prisoner, going through rigorous interrogation techniques to withstand any punishments meted out should his role as an infiltrator be compromised. He learned the enemy’s language and dialect, their culture and prayers. And the transformation from Aryeh Levine to Umar al-Sarmad was a successful one that culminated in a final makeover as an Islamic terrorist.
His commencement began in Yemen, at the Zaydi Great Mosque, where his anti-sentiment rants against the United States and Israel caught the attention of radical fundamentalists. Within months his seemingly sound reasoning earned him prestige within the Circle, which subsequently became a call of duty to serve Allah on the battlefield alongside his al-Qaeda brothers. Within a span of three months, from the time he entered the mosque to the moment he first set foot on the battlefield, Aryeh Levine had successfully infiltrated the Islamic Revolutionary Front.
It wasn’t, however, too long thereafter when he caught the eye of his leader, Adham al-Ghazi. On a frigid day deep in the mountain terrain, al-Ghazi’s team happened upon a counterforce of a dozen troops who were killed in an ambush, their bodies scattered, bloodied and unmoving. In the event, however, two survived the skirmish, both wounded, one holding his bullet-ridden arm, the other weak with a badly rented shoulder.
When they were forced to their knees before al-Ghazi, their eyes resigned to the fact that their lives were about to come to a horrible and violent end, the same way that a cat plays with its prize before the kill.
And al-Ghazi was that cat, his quiet demeanor as powerful as a feline’s paw swiping at them, his dark eyes serving as the talons that drove deep beneath their skins by peeling back the layers to reveal their inward secrets until he knew who and what they were without even questioning them. Without a second thought or consideration, he simply knew they were Mossad.
They had stumbled upon a recon mission.
In his manner of questioning them they gave little, most likely false data in the form of red herrings, as they were trained to do under such circumstances. To make his point, however, al-Ghazi shot the man with the badly wounded shoulder dead, the black-edged bullet hole emitting a ribbon of smoke from the man’s forehead as he knelt a brief moment before falling dead beside his aide.
“The truth,” al-Ghazi said, his voice cold and flat and naturally uncaring to the surviving Mossad. “I want… the truth.”
But the truth never came. Instead, al-Ghazi was met with silence.
“Very well, then.” And at that point he handed his pistol to Umar al-Sarmad, to Aryeh Levine, and without looking at him said, “You know what to do.”
The moment he hefted the pistol and regarded its weight in his hand, he turned to the agent. At the same time the agent turned his oily and soiled face to the mouth of the weapon, then to the eyes of Levine. In an instant his eyes started, recognizing Levine, even with the growth of beard. It was a fatal mistake. Within a measure of a heartbeat Levine pulled the trigger, the bullet dicing the man’s brain and killing him instantly.
In al-Ghazi’s eyes Levine knew he had made an impression. But deep down he agonized over the trigger pull, having been forced to kill one of his own in order to maintain his cover.
In the aftermath he notified Mossad, telling them it was an unfortunate necessity. And in the end Mossad chalked it up to collateral damage that could not be avoided.
It was also the move that put Aryeh Levine under al-Ghazi’s wing as his trusted trigger man who killed anyone at al-Ghazi’s say without impunity. And by doing so, Al-Ghazi had elevated himself as a man with ultimate power by having others kill for him. Anyone can take the life of a man, he always said. But to get others to do it for you is absolute power. And it was this idea alone that he relished.
And Aryeh Levine was all too happy to oblige him, as long as he maintained his cover. Soon, he thought, he would kill al-Ghazi as a courtesy of Israel and its allies with the gun he had been handed.