Dark Lord was backed against the wall, his will to complete the battle ingrained from years of tough mental training. To surrender would be a cowardice brand against his moniker, losing the respect from his peers.
“Put the knife down,” said Kimball.
“Not on your life.”
“Then I’ll make this a fair fight.”
Without taking his eyes off Dark Lord, Kimball returned one of the knives back into its sheath.
Dark Lord sized Kimball for an opening, the man circling, then found what seemed to be an opportunity and tried to cut the man with a sweeping horizontal arc across Kimball’s abdomen, before Kimball could realize that he had been gutted. But Kimball grabbed the attacker’s wrist, forced the man’s arm over his head, exposed the armpit, and drove the sharpened point of his nine-inch blade deep into the unprotected area, until the pommels of the knife could go no further.
Staggering, Dark Lord reached for the weapon’s hilt, gave minimal effort to withdraw the knife, found it impossible to do so, and fell to his knees coughing blood from a perforated lung. “I knew this day would come,” he managed. “But I didn’t think it would be by your hand.” He fell onto his side with his eyes taking on a detached gaze.
After dropping to a knee, Kimball pulled Dark Lord close to him.
“Why these people?” he asked.
Dark Lord’s gaze shifted to the smashed PC lying on the floor beside him, and extended his hand. “For the truth,” he said. And then he was gone, his hand falling to the floor as a blood bubble burst from the corner of his lips, his eyes fixing on a point of no importance as he expelled his final breath.
In homage Kimball held him for a long moment, somewhat saddened by old memories, before laying the assassin gently to the floor.
“You knew him?”
Without facing Shari, he answered her evenly. “At one time,” he told her. After taking a deep breath, Kimball jerked the knife free from Dark Lord’s body and sheathed the weapon.
Shari’s eyes took on the size of communion wafers. Her children! Kimball had seen the same look many times before, just before he killed his quarry. It was the look of abject terror, and of not knowing as to what existed on the other side of life once he took away their final breath. But this was a mother’s torment of not knowing if her children were still alive. “Your daughters are fine,” he assured her.
But her maternal instincts were not comforted. She ran to her children’s bedroom and opened the door, allowing light from the hallway to spill into the room. Her daughters were sleeping soundly, their chests rising and falling in peaceful rhythm. Upon seeing this she instantly brought a hand up to stymie a cry of gratitude, but failed as a tearful sob escaped her. When she gained control of her emotions she turned to Kimball with the repose of appreciation. “You saved my life, Mr. Hayden, and the lives of my family… Thank you.”
Kimball took a position beside her at the door, his figure casting a long shadow. “As I once told you, this is what I do. I save lives. Now… are you willing to let me help you?”
Shari focused on the whiteness of the Roman collar, then on the man. “Yes, Mr. Hayden, I will allow you to help me.”
A new alliance was born.
Isaiah was hiding in the late night shadows in front of the brownstone when he heard the sound of glass breaking, and seeing a commando take flight through the window and land on the roof of a parked car before hobbling away. A second commando quickly followed through the front door and ran in the same direction, where they met a third man standing within a grove of trees. Then they were gone, each man swallowed by the darkness of the landscape.
The limping commando was in absolute agony, his adrenaline rush released as Judas guided him into the back seat of his sedan parked beyond the copse of trees. With the commando pressing his hands against the gash above his knee to stem the blood flow, he could almost hear the panic bell going off in his head. The other commando fell into the front seat and held his good hand against his torn bicep, his face going pale as blood flowed between the gaps of his fingers.
“What happened in there?” asked Judas, putting the sedan in gear. “Where the hell is Dark Lord?”
“This guy,” said the commando in the back seat. “This guy came from nowhere and took us out like no other.”
“And he was fast, too,” added the commando with the torn bicep. “I mean, this guy was the best I ever saw with double-edged weapons.”
“I’ve never seen anything like him,” said the first commando, shifting his weight to assuage the pain.
The commando with the torn bicep glanced into the distance to assure no one followed. “This guy wore a priest’s collar,” he added.
Judas gave the man in the back seat an inquisitive look through the rearview mirror. “He was wearing a what?”
“A Roman collar,” he said. “The guy was wearing a Roman collar.”
Judas fought for calm. “What about the CD?”
“Didn’t get it… this guy came in just as Dark Lord was about to take out Cohen.”
“You left the CD behind?” Judas brought a hand up and massaged his temple with the calloused tips of his fingers. Yahweh wasn’t going to like this.
Neither commando spoke, their eyes pinched against excruciating pain.
Heaving a sigh, Judas ran a hand along his face as if to wipe away his frustration. It didn’t work. ““What else can you tell me?” he asked.
The commando with the injured leg repositioned himself in the back seat. There was no way for him to get comfortable. “Dark Lord knew him… called him by name… He called him something like Hayden… Yeah… Kimball Hayden.”
Judas’s eyes shot to the rearview mirror. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’m positive.”
Judas stopped the sedan in its tracks, tires skidding along the dry plane. The sudden lurch of the vehicle stopping caused both men to cry out in pain. “Are you sure he said that name? He said Kimball Hayden?”
“How many Kimball Hayden’s can there be?”
Judas looked back to the area where they had just come from. The lights from the brownstone seemed so far away. Kimball Hayden: a name synonymous with the art of killing, a man without conscience or remorse. He heard the name many times during his tenure within White House circles. He’d even seen the man on many occasions but dared not speak to him, afraid that the wrong look, the wrong word, might have been his last since the man’s brutality had levitated him to legendary status, whereas his reputation was as intimidating as his size.
Judas pressed softly on the accelerator and the sedan began to roll.
But you’re supposed to be dead, Hayden.
Now the mystery of what happened to Dark Lord was a mystery no longer. It was obvious to Judas he would never see him alive again.
“That name means something to you?” asked the commando in the rear seat.
“A long time ago,” he said, “when soldiers became legends.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“There were three men,” said Isaiah. “One was waiting across the street hidden among the trees.”
“Which puts the count to a minimum of four,” said Kimball. “Obviously he was maintaining watch.”
Kimball moved to the couch where Gary sat with an ice wrap on his broken arm. Shari sat beside him, patting his forehead and jaw with a damp cloth. The body of Dark Lord lay on the floor covered with a sheet.