“We need to get inside,” said Hakam. “Now.”
The time was 9:16 a.m.
The pope was minutes away.
Kimball Hayden sat in the gubernatorial limo alongside Pope Pius XIII. The trailing vehicles, three black SUV’s, transported the additional members of the Holy See.
Kimball stared out at the Los Angeles skyline, taking in everything he once took for granted. The graffiti strewn bridges and cement overpasses, the congestion and constant tie-ups, the haze of pollution that hovered above the city like a tarnished crown would seem bleak and hollow to most. But to Kimball it was home, a place he missed, his self-exile making him a criminal to his country and to his conscience.
Once he left the limo to aid the pope aboard Shepherd One, he would have to wear his scarlet beret bearing the emblem of the Vatican Knights, and a neat pair of shades. Most likely nobody would notice a forgotten man once renowned as an elite assassin in the covert circle of the White House staff, namely the president of the United States. But if he should be discovered, would he become targeted to keep matters quiet? Since Kimball didn’t know the current political mindset, he couldn’t answer his own considerations. Nor did he want to assume that all would be forgiven or forgotten, since he was a wealth of black information of past administrations.
“You miss it, don’t you?” asked the pope.
Kimball eased away from the window and donned his sunglasses. His scarlet beret was folded into the shoulder strap of his specially designed cleric’s shirt. “I do,” he answered. “It’s my home.”
“As much of a great service you provide the Vatican, Kimball, we still recognize the fact that God has given you free will to choose whatever it is you want.”
“What I want and what I must do are two separate things,” he stated somberly. “Right now the Church is where I belong. I leave this behind because I choose to.”
The pope smiled, his features looking upon Kimball in a paternal gesture. “You’re a good man, Kimball. I know you seek the Light of Forgiveness for things you have done in the past.”
“It’s hard,” he said. “I can never seem…” His words trailed.
“What? See an actual blinding light at the end of a tunnel?” The pontiff leaned forward and placed his hand on Kimball’s forearm. “The Light, Kimball, is not just ‘The Light.’ It’s also the Light of Enlightenment. You have seen the ways of your past and are in conflict by trying to fill the void with contriteness. To me, Kimball, your repentance is that Light of Forgiveness.” He retracted his hand. “Although you may feel that you have not found It… I believe It may have found you.”
Kimball turned toward the pope, not knowing if he was silently casting judgment against him for what he truly was, an assassin. “I killed two children,” he said as if it was common knowledge.
The pope briefly closed his eyes and nodded his acknowledgement. “And if you hadn’t, how many more people would you have killed by now?”
Kimball did not reply. He turned his gaze to the passing landscape.
“Those two children became your saviors,” he added. “And their deaths served to make you change your life. Their deaths were not in vain, Kimball.”
Kimball thought otherwise. “Then why do I see their faces every time I fall asleep. There’s never an escape.”
“All I can say, Kimball, is that your service to the Church is invaluable and you have proved your worth to God time and again. You have committed yourself to saving the lives of good people.”
And Kimball thought: As an assassin I was killing despots and international tyrants who threatened the sovereignty of the United States — and by doing so I was saving the lives of good people, as well. So what’s the difference? That I do the same exact thing for the Church in the name of God instead of the Holy American Empire? People are still dying by my hand, only this time it’s viewed as acceptable under the scrutiny of God instead of the acceptable examination of a reigning politician. Only the request for doing so was far less in demand. It was kind of like… Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, type of thing.
“I feel totally lost within myself,” he finally said. “I feel… confused.”
“Sometimes a person needs more than faith, Kimball, since faith alone does not get a man by despite what you may have heard. Sometimes men, all men, need something more.”
Kimball faced him. The man looked daunting wearing his shades. “And that would be?”
“That Vatican has a battalion of psychologists for a reason,” he answered. “And there’s no shame or weakness in seeing one. In fact, I highly recommend it.”
Kimball gave a perceptible nod. He was more than willing to try anything in order to vanquish the demons in his sleep.
Staring out the window with LAX in view, Kimball wondered if he would ever gravitate away from the extreme violence that seemed so much part of his life.
He would soon get his answer.
And the answer would be no.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The dimensions of the 787-9 Dreamliner are that it’s 206 feet long and 56 feet high, with a cargo volume of 5,400 cubic feet. Its configurative measurement is a little more than two-thirds of a football field and stands nearly as tall as a six-story building. It had taken Hakam’s team less than ten minutes to load the cargo bay, which seemed to extend impossibly long in either direction from the center of the fuselage. Crates and packaged goods were tethered down with straps. However, as scantily loaded as the bay was, there remained so much available space that whenever anyone spoke, their words would echo throughout the cargo area.
Fashioned between a series of crates were the two nuclear armaments. The two cases separated by no more than two meters, and were securely fastened to the floor by vacuum cups and bonded seals to assure that nothing could lift them from their anchored positions. If separated manually, then the central processing unit would immediately recognize the movement as antagonistic and initiate the detonation sequence.
After securing the cases, Hakam stood back and appraised the units. Although separated, each would accept the other as a single element with a six-kiloton yield, once he instructed the CPU with a shared command to detonate simultaneously.
Removing the BlackBerry from the inner lining of his Alitalia Airline jacket, he began to type in a series of passwords on the keypad to create the ten characters needed in the display window, the ‘one true password to initiate the weapons. Once completed, and with the password now appearing on the screen as a blinking declaration to commence, he pressed the ‘SEND’ button.
Immediately the units began to work as one, the CPU’s recognizing the frequency which instructed the detonation pins to activate and remain expectant for the final sequence. Once done, he began to type in a second arrangement of characters, this time for the altimeters. After Hakam pressed the ‘SEND’ button, nothing special happened. The altimeters windows remained blank. But Hakam knew the altimeters would not respond until they reached an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet. Once engaged, then the plane could never land, since the altimeters were set to go off automatically once Shepherd One reached the descending altitude of ten thousand feet.
Placing the BlackBerry into the inner lining of his jacket, Hakam became aware that he had fallen behind schedule. The pope was arriving, and Shepherd One needed to be taxied onto the runway since the airspace was closed.
Quickly, he made his way down the lengthy fuselage and to the stairway that led him to the upper level.