Kimball turned away from the view offered by the hole and eased his head back into the cushion of his seat. For the past two hours the flight had grown increasingly erratic as the noise became unmusical, the ride itself in a flutter as the unsteady aerodynamics of the plane began to grow in magnitude, threatening its structure.
On Shepherd One’s descent it became worse; the shuddering was like riding the downhill slope of a roller coaster, the plane now in a buffet with its aerodynamic components in excitation because the pilot was manipulating the speed brakes. To Kimball it seemed like the plane was being shaken by the Divine Hand of Providence.
Yet Kimball did not pray. Instead, he faced the gaping hole to view the stars one last time, wondering if a higher order existed.
He was positive that mystery would soon be answered.
Shepherd One was coming in unbalanced, the wings tipping from side to side, a distinct signature that the spoilers and flaps were oscillating between the pilot’s control and the plane’s attempt to take on a life of its own.
It was a battle Enzio was losing.
Parked in a gauntlet alongside the tarmac, the bar lights of the fire engines were in full swing, the colors of red, white and blue lighting up the night sky as the plane neared.
When Shepherd One approached and passed overhead of the vehicles, one of its wings clipped a truck, shearing its rooftop hose assemblage and a piece of Shepherd One’s wing. In the aftermath the plane overcorrected itself and swung to the other side, the wing tip striking the tarmac and raising a rooster tail of sparks, before the plane landed hard on its wheels and righted itself. The impact, however, caused the fragile metal surrounding the hole to crumple inward with the fuselage taking on a slight V appearance, as it sped down the runway faster than normal.
As Enzio applied the brakes and fixed the flaps, the metal creaked in protest as Shepherd One neared the runway’s stop barrier. Beside him Pope Pius firmly pressed his legs against the floorboard and braced himself against the impending collision against the barrier, that rushed at them with amazing speed.
Knowing he would not be able to stop in time, Enzio advised the pope to ‘hang on,’ then closed his eyes as the nose of Shepherd One came to an immediate halt when it struck the sand hill, the dirt flying everywhere in grand explosion as the sudden stop in momentum caused the bended wreck of the fuselage to take on more of a V shape.
What had been crippled was now completely lost. Shepherd One was dying as its engines wound down to their last revolution.
In the end, however, she had done them well.
Shepherd One was surrounded by fire engines and their flashing array of lights. On board was the six-man team of federal agents. Soon after, Dr. Simone discovered the weapons secured in the cargo bay with the altimeters’ reading at 5431 feet.
Pope Pius, although rattled, remained stalwart as he and the bishops were helped off the plane and to more peaceful quarters.
Captain Enzio Pastore, one-time hero within the Aeronautica Milatare, looked every bit as the shell of a man who lost his entire family. But when he stepped off the plane he was quickly reunited via telephone with his wife. They were fine, she told him. Soon afterward he resigned his post as the Vatican’s pilot and moved to Venice to start a family business. Somewhere in all of this his son, Basilio, no longer needed to be a man, but steadily played out what was left of his youth and resumed his play as a soccer star.
However, a mystery remained.
When they cleared the plane everyone surviving the ordeal was accounted for with the exception of one man. Father Kimball. When the authorities questioned Pope Pius regarding this priest, the pope emphatically denied anybody with the surname of Kimball, which was the truth. Nor was he a cleric as they alluded to.
This man, Father Kimball, if he existed, was nowhere to be found.
They stood at the summit of Raven Rock: the president, his Chief Advisor Alan Thornton, CIA Director Doug Craner, and Attorney General Dean Hamilton. The rest of the team headed back to Washington.
From their vantage point they viewed miles of green treetops in all directions and a perfect blue sky without a cloud to be seen. The morning air was crisp, clean, and had a snap to it. No one could have asked for a better day.
“It is beautiful,” commented the president as he nodded appreciation. “It just makes you wonder how much longer we have until the next go-around when someone actually sets off a nuke on American territory.”
“We might not be so lucky next time,” said Thornton.
“That’s what I mean.” The president then pointed to the luscious landscape. “All this could be wiped out in a matter of a split second,” he said. “All of it.”
“A lesson learned,” said Dean. “Obviously we need to shore up our borders.”
The presidential team remained quiet as they admired the scenery. In the air, wafting lightly in the breeze was the smell of honeysuckle.
“Any further word on Father Kimball?” asked Burroughs. The matter had to come up sooner or later — the mystery too deep not to be bandied about.
“Nothing,” said his CIA Director. Craner moved beside him and leaned against the corral fencing, his eyes locked on the panoramic view. “The remaining survivors were all accounted for with the exception of the one man not on the passenger list, this Father Kimball. My agents said all the priests on board that plane couldn’t have punched out a clock, let alone punch out a terrorist. They were elderly men in their sixties, hardly soldier material.”
“And no one was willing to talk about the mystery of Father Kimball, including the pontiff?”
“Not a single soul.”
“It’s unlikely for the pope to lie.”
“Perhaps he didn’t. Maybe he manipulated the facts to hide the truth. The Church, after all, is not without its secrets.”
The president shook his head. “But for what reason? I mean, we know he was on board that plane. Where the hell could he have gone? The moment Shepherd One landed we were all over her like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat.”
Nobody had an answer.
In the background the rotors of Marine One were beginning to spin, the revolutions picking up into blinding speed. It was time to go back home.
From that moment no one mentioned Father Kimball, nor did they speak of the self-proclaimed soldier and personal valet of Pope Pius XIII. Obviously the man never existed.
For the president, for them all, the mystery as to who Father Kimball really was would remain just that, a mystery.
EPILOGUE
Three days after Shepherd One landed safely at Denver International Airport, the news talked about nothing else. The focus, of course, was on the terrorists’ capability to bypass all security measures and commandeer the jumbo jet. And, of course, the justification from airport officials was that Shepherd One and its staff was not considered a faction of ‘hostile intent.’ Congressmen and senators from all over the nation were up-in-arms and called for a dog-and-pony-show Hearing. Obviously somebody at TSA and the regulatory system had to be held accountable, right? And senators would have to yell into their mikes from their seated stations in examination of TSA principals, who would get dressed down with stern reprimands. And of course they would appear humble and on the defense, pointing the accusing finger at standing regulations. Just another political exercise in futility, which Kimball had seen many times before while he sat inside the terminal of the Hartsfield-International Airport staring up at a TV screen watching CNN as he waited for his flight.