“I’m running out of patience, Your Holiness. I like to know who my enemies are before I go into battle with them.”
“Your enemy,” said the pope, “is yourself. You kill in the name of God when there is no God that would ever condone the killing of another human being. By doing what you do — what all of you do — you condemn yourselves to Hell when you should be living life to full measure.”
Hakam leaned forward, his smile gone with his normal demeanor of placid indifference taking on a harder look. “His name,” he said. “And what is he?”
The pope remained silent as both men stood a meter apart, eyes connected, a test of wills, one Pius was about to lose.
“I have never killed a man in my life,” said Hakam, his voice even and calm. “And I have never laid my hands on a firearm. Taking the life of a man only proves that the assassin has dominion over the life for which he takes and nothing more. True power comes from directing others to kill for you. Not only does the one with true power have dominion over the life he orders to be killed, but the authority over the person he orders to do the killing. Dominion over everybody is the key to getting what I want. And I shall have it.” Hakam never took his eyes off the pope when he held his hand out and snapped his fingers.
From the corner of his eye Pope Pius saw the man with the garrote step into view, the fine cord stretched taut between his two hands, the assassin’s face neutral as he waited.
“Now watch true power,” said Hakam. He simply pointed out his target, the bishop who earlier made a futile attempt to escape to the rear of the plane, a man who was still dazed from the blow to the head as the assassin with the garrote raced to him. “He’s half dead anyway,” Hakam commented.
“Please don’t do this,” said Pius.
“Then you should have given me what I wanted.”
Wrapping the garrote around the bishop’s throat, the cleric fought feebly by clawing and raking his hands through the air, and then at his throat, the line digging, squeezing the life from his body, his glazed eyes further detaching themselves from reality, and finally his life. When it was over the assassin carefully postured the bishop in his seat with the dead man’s chin resting against his chest.
It was over in less than a minute.
“Do you have that kind of power?” asked Hakam.
The pope was racked with sorrow. “You didn’t need to do that. What I told you was the truth!”
“What you told me was the half truth. Now I want the whole truth or you will be down to ten bishops. Who is your valet? What am I up against?”
Pope Pius closed his eyes. The muscles in the back of his jaw began to work in serpentine motion. “He’s a Vatican Knight,” he finally said.
Hakam tilted his head. He made it a point to keep on top of most things regarding counter military faction groups in order to be well prepared and always guarded. But he never heard of such an order. “He’s a what?”
“A Vatican Knight.”
“And what is a Vatican Knight?”
Hakam could tell the pope was hesitant to speak. But no further prompting was needed as Pope Pius finally did so. “He is part of a specialized group of elite commandos created to serve the Church,” he said. “They serve in a military capacity far beyond the skills and range of the Swiss Guard.”
Hakam stood back, inwardly astonished, his features betraying little, if anything. “Commandos?” It was more of a statement of disbelief rather than a question. “And why would the Vatican need such an elite group of commandos to serve them?”
Pius turned to him. “To stop people like you from doing things like this,” he said. “The Church is always under the constant threat of attack.”
Hakam now understood. The man was not a priest but a soldier, a commando, a man who harbored the nature of a warrior. The reason why he was omitted from the passenger list was because he was not supposed to exist. Apparently the Vatican Knights were a ghost faction well hidden under the auspices of the Church. “Why have I not heard of them?”
“You haven’t heard of them because they do not exist in the eyes of the world.”
“And why would that be?”
“Sometimes they engage in missions and use techniques that are against everything the Church teaches, but necessary to achieve the means.”
Hakam appeared incredulous. “They’re assassins,” he said.
The pope shook his head. “Not at all,” he stated. “They exist to serve the Church in search-and-rescue operations. Other times they’re sent in to dismantle insurgent risings before innocent people are killed.”
Hakam could not dispel his look of incredulity. “I see,” he finally said. And then, “About twenty minutes ago your Knight worked his way out of his binds and is hiding somewhere below, like the coward he is. I sent three of my men after him. Good men. The best in the Elite Guard Regiment who were the professors of warfare who trained others in the Republican or Revolutionary Guard to be the best they could be in combat. There are none better. Not even your Vatican Knight. To prove this I will have his head sitting beside you. This I promise.”
The pope looked at him, folded his hands in an attitude of prayer, and held them out in a pleading manner. “Please,” he said, “no more need to die. Please call them back before it’s too late.”
Hakam nodded. “It is Allah’s will to see this through. Your Vatican Knight doesn’t stand a chance against Aziz and his team.”
“No,” said the pope. “It’s your people that don’t stand a chance. If you allow this to continue, then they will surely die.”
Hakam hesitated before answering. “We shall see.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They had taken the stairs to the lower level where gray light filtered in through the porthole windows. A lone man, impossibly tall and broad shouldered, his face of forced indifference betrayed only by the mild clenching of his jaw, stood in the shadows. Around his neck he wore the starched white collar of a Catholic priest. And inscribed on the pocket of his cleric’s shirt was the blue shield and silver Pattée, the insignia of the Vatican Knights.
Aziz’s Team did what was natural; they grouped together in a refined area and converged on their target, a priest who was a warrior and soon to be a doomed savior.
In a slow draw, Kimball withdrew his commando knives from sheaths attached to each thigh and stirred one in an act of distraction, first in circular motions, then in figure eights, a practice that kept the attention of his opponents from focusing on the second blade, the striking weapon.
Aziz’s Team moved into position to engage the faux priest, each man already knowing when and where to strike.
“I have been ordered to take your head,” said Aziz, holding up his knife and showing off the keenness of its edge. “And I shall not disappoint.”
Kimball stepped closer, his attractor blade continuing to slice deliberate figure eights through the air, ready, waiting.
Aziz inched closer, taking the center position, his movements matched by his team.
And then there was that brief suspension of time when a man suddenly feels his blood coursing through his veins or hears his heartbeat drumming within his ears. It was the moment before the final engagement where time stood still, a time where a man reconsiders his actions but rarely concedes.
And then from Aziz, a war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”
The commandos of Aziz’s team struck out and slashed with killing blows. But Kimball countered their strikes with blinding speed, deflecting knifes, the contacts coughing up sparks as the blades pounded against each other as metal struck metal.
With uncanny skill Kimball’s motions became faster, his circular motions repelling the blows that seemed to come faster and with far more brutal force. By the inches he pushed back Aziz’s Team, who was losing ground, the strikes coming to the point where everyone’s arm was moving in blurs and blinding revolutions. Sparks radiated in numerous pinpricks of flame before dying out. And then came an opening.