Pandora's Ark (19 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN

Vatican City
, Three Days after
the Conclave

Inside the papal chamber, Jesuit
priests Gino Auciello and John Essex from the
Servizio
Informazioni del Vaticano
sat before Bonasero Vessucci, the newly appointed Pope Pius XIV.

Both men sat with
their knees crossed in leisure while the pontiff sat more stiffly, more
agitated, his hands tented as he rested the points of his fingertips against
the bottom of his chin, as if in thought.

“This is good,”
said Essex, his London accent quite apparent. “Your position here is deserving
and long overdue.”

“Thank you,
John. I feel where I need to be,” he said. “But I do have concerns.”

“And they would
be, Your Holiness?”

“I have reason
to believe that Pope Gregory may have been murdered.”

The Jesuits
stared at him incredulously.

“The last time I
visited you in the SIV chamber, the day you were watching the Temple Mount on the monitors, do you remember?”

“Of course,”
answered Father Auciello.

“I had my
suspicions even then.”

“But you said
nothing.”

Bonasero nodded.
“At that time it was just a notion,” he said. “But now . . .”

Father Essex’s
face maintained the look of incredulity. “But why? And who?”

Bonasero
Vessucci hesitated a brief moment as if choosing his words carefully. And then:
“Cardinal Angullo,” he finally said.

“Angullo.” The
simple word came from Auciello’s lips as a whisper, almost too light for anyone
to hear. He leaned forward in his chair. “Your Holiness, do you understand the
magnitude of what you’re saying?”

“Clearly,” he
stated. “The rule of the pope not coming under the guidelines of an autopsy is
due to the very reality that popes have been murdered in the past, and that
said proof would divulge the unbelievable corruption that exists within the
shadows of the Basilica. Centuries ago there were outward signs that poisons
were used, but never spoken of.”

“You think
Cardinal Angullo poisoned Pope Gregory?”

“I think
Cardinal Angullo is a very ambitious man with a very aggressive agenda,” he
said. “I believe the man’s life has become a monstrous corruption whose soul has
been lost, his sense of morality shattered. I believe that he has allowed his
ambitions to take him away from the true nature of God.”

“And you have
proof of this?”

Another
hesitation: “No.”

“With all due
respect, Your Holiness,” said Essex, “may I ask what is prompting this
suspicion?”

“Intuition.
Observation. This man conspired to usurp my position as secretary of state to
position himself for the papal throne upon the expiration of Pope Gregory. Six
months later Gregory is gone, setting him up as lead
Preferiti
.”

“Again, Your
Holiness,” said Auciello, “other than intuition, what is there?”

“Gregory was a
strong man. When another man’s ambition turns to impatience, then he makes his
own path to Glory.”

“But surely Pope
Gregory would have defended himself. He was a powerful man.”

“Not if he was
sick or knew his murderer, placing him in a position of vulnerability or
complacency.”

“I don’t know,”
said Farther Essex. “Cardinal Angullo may be a man of moral questioning, but
murder?”

“On the night of
Pope Gregory’s death, did you check the monitors of someone, anyone, moving
through the hallways in the early morning hours around the time of the pope’s
death?”

Auciello nodded.
“We did, Your Holiness, thoroughly. But there was nothing with the exception of
Vatican Security stationed down at the entrance of the hallway. And they
maintained their position throughout their shift.”

Bonasero sighed,
his eyes searching for thought as if it was imprinted in open space. “The old
tunnels,” he finally said. “Are there cameras situated in those passageways?”

“No.”

“So someone with
the knowledge of Vatican schematics, someone who knows where the security
cameras are positioned, could possibly pass unseen?”

The Jesuits
nodded. However, it was Essex who spoke.

“The passageways
are all but known to a few—mostly by Vatican Security and the SIV.”

“And also to
those within the Vatican hierarchy such as the secretary of state,” he added.
“Those tunnels are historic and excavations are providing us with a history as
new discoveries are made. But they’re there and Cardinal Angullo is clearly a
cunning man.”

“Again, Your
Holiness, and with all due respect, everything is speculation on your part.”

Bonasero had to
agree. No images on the cameras, nothing to alert the guards standing post that
someone had unlawfully breached the corridors leading to the pope’s chambers,
nothing to indicate that Cardinal Angullo was even there. It was as Father
Essex had said: pure speculation.

“Regardless,” he
said, “I may be in a place of position to fear for my life.”

“If you wish, we
can double the efforts of security.”

“I have
something better,” he said. “I will give the cardinal the chance to prove me
wrong. He will either act on his compulsion, or surrender to it and do nothing.
But most men who have lost their way often give to their temptations.”  

“And what is it
you propose?”

“Before I left
for Boston I asked you to do me a favor. Do you remember what it was?”

Essex nodded. “You asked us to maintain the whereabouts of the Vatican Knights.”

The pope nodded.
“And where is Leviticus?”

“In Rome,” said Auciello. “He’s a civilian working with an Italian security agency
specializing in measures dealing with identity theft for companies abroad.”

“And Isaiah?”

“He’s in Mexico working with the mission you adopted him from.”

Bonasero nodded.
Then: “What about Kimball?”

There was a
hesitation on the parts of the Jesuits.

“Kimball?” he
repeated.

“He’s living in Las Vegas,” said Essex. “He’s working in a casino under the alias of J.J. Doetsch.”

“As?”

“A janitor,”
said Auciello. “The man’s a janitor.”

Bonasero did not
judge Kimball for what he was, which was a man seeking a simple life after
living an incredible life of hardship. Perhaps it was the best thing for him,
he considered.

“And there’s
something else,” said Father Auciello.

“And that would
be?”

“He’s involved
with cage fighting,” he said.

“What?”

“There are fighting
venues in Las Vegas where men fight against men for money. Kimball has been
involved in three fights . . . He nearly killed the last man.”

Bonasero closed
his eyes, feeling the encroachment of a certain sadness creep over him. Some
people cannot run from their fate, he considered. No matter how hard they try.

And then: “You
are SIV and what we say here is confidential, yes?”

“Of course.”

“I want you to
contact Leviticus and Isaiah,” he said. “I want them to find Kimball and bring
him back.”

“And if Kimball decides not to
return?”

“Then he does so
with the decision of his own choosing? But I want to afford Kimball every opportunity
to make his decision based on free will. Make sure he knows that my need for
him is paramount. Tell him of my concerns.”

“Of course, Your
Holiness.”

“But the
ultimate decision is his obviously.”

After a
congenial valediction, the Jesuits left the chamber. Bonasero then went to the
balcony and traced a hand over the smooth railing where Gregory took his fall.
There was no doubt that everything he considered was based on intuition. But it
was intuition that guided him all these years, intuition of how to handle each
person differently based on his convictions regarding God and religion, and the
intuition to promote the Vatican Knights as a unit to save the lives of those
who could not save themselves.

The air was
sweet like honeydew, the breeze soft and caressing, the day clear and the sky
blue, but as magnificent as everything appeared to be, he couldn’t help the
feeling that dark clouds were brewing and that a terrible storm was on the
horizon.

It was his intuition
that told him this—a voice he had come to trust and recognize, a voice that
never failed him.

Under the canvas
of an immaculately blue sky, he sighed.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT

Mount Damavand. The Alborz Region, The Facility

Three
days after Levine was informed of his future role in the scheme of Sakharov’s
discovery, he’d been deciding on the course of action to take, working the
steps through his mind. The Quds that shadowed his every move had to go, quick
and efficient kills. Then he would have to make his way to the Comm Center on the second tier, forward Sakharov’s findings, the facility’s coordinates for
an illegal sortie into Iran, and take out the facility using the fuel cells as
triggering mechanisms to implode the lab and turn it into a coffin. 

Secondly, he was not about to be so cavalier to do this at
the sacrifice of his own life. The Comm Center was also the monitoring station
and a means to open and close facility doors. He would open the vault door to
the outside, during darkness when the shadows would become his ally, and hope
that the machinegun nests wouldn’t cut him down during his flight to freedom.

Feeling his heart palpitate with the reality of the moment,
he took in deep breaths and released them as a reaction to settle his nerves.
Getting into the proper mindset, he left his residential capsule and entered
the hallway.

The trailing Quds soldiers were there wearing their
prescribed tan uniforms of the elite force, their berets set to specs at the
proper tilt, their eyes filled with disdain and suspicion, staring him down.

Levine gave a nod that went unacknowledged and walked past
the soldiers. As expected they followed, trailing ten meters behind, which
posed a problem since he needed to get up close and personal and take them out
with his particular set of skills.

As he passed the lab he saw the Quds reflections mirrored
against the glass, watching and carefully maintaining their distance.

He continued to walk as if in leisure, entering tubes and
taking bends, listening to their footfalls as they followed, whereas he wore
soft-sole footwear to mask his.

Rounding another bend he finally took to a wall, his body
rigid, waiting.

And when they rounded the corner he acted.

Levine came across with the blade of his hand, chopping the
first Quds soldier across the throat, the man’s eyes widening in surprise as he
fell to his knees clutching his neck. The second soldier went for his firearm,
his hand falling on the stock as Levine forced the heel of his hand into the
blade of his nose, forcing the bone into his brain and killing the man
instantly.

The first soldier got to his feet, wobbled, and tried to
recalibrate his stance. But Levine was on him within the second, grabbed the
soldier by placing a hand at the point of his jaw, another hand at the base of
his neck, and wrenched the man’s head with such incredible force that his neck
broke with an audible snap.

And then silence, Levine listening for backup of more Quds.
But no one appeared.

Levine then dragged the bodies to a nearby capsule that stocked
supplies and piled them into the given space. He then took their weapons,
placing one firearm within the waistline of his pants while managing the other
with a tight grip.

Now to the Comm Center.

Levine did not hesitate in his approach, but moved quickly.

Running along the landing of the second tier he could see
the monitors through the smoke-screened glass, could see the myriad of blinking
lights—the nerve center of the facility.

The two techs never saw him enter, but heard the whoosh of
the door opening. When the first turned to see who entered, a well-placed
bullet struck him in the forward, throwing him against the console, blood and
gore exploding from the back of his head and against the wall in a wide fan,
the bullet exiting into the background monitor, shattering the glass and
causing a cascade of sparks to fly, dance and die out.

The second tech put up his hand as if to ward off the blow
of the coming shot, a feeble attempt at self-preservation as the weapon went
off, the first bullet taking off two fingers, the second shot finding its mark
of the tech’s left eye, the man’s head snapping violently backward, his good eye
flaring with the surprise a moment before sliding off his chair and to the
floor.

In a fleeting move he took to the chair, keyed up the board
with typing commands to accept verbal instructions, put on the headgear, and
spoke quickly and articulately. As he spoke, words appeared on the screen as
code-red data requiring an immediate incursion into enemy territory with the
intent to annihilate the facility with extreme force. Coordinates were given,
the intentions of the use of nanotechnology forwarded, as well as the location
of the Ark.  

Time was limited, he knew, so the data proffered had to be
minimal with the confidence that the information given could be deciphered by
Mossad. He did not state what the Ark was going to be used for—no time to
expound on that fact. He figured that the Ark could not be saved since the
technology, the data, and the facility needed to be leveled.

As he spoke, it was always on the back of his mind that
time was running short. There was no doubt that the reports of his gunfire
galvanized others to react. 

And then the sirens went off in a shrill that told him that
time had run out.

#

Al-Sherrod
raised his
head from his pillow, unsure if
what he heard was the report of gunfire, three in total, or if it was some
obscure dream for which he could not remember.

With his head slightly raised, he listened.

Silence.

And then the wild keen of internal sirens sounded off.

Al-Sherrod shot up from the bed bleary-eyed, his heart
pounding, and quickly threw on a shirt and grabbed his firearm. Stepping into
the hallway, bullet-shaped lights mounted above the doors blinked in calibrated
flashes as sirens blared loudly.

Quds soldiers stood in the hallway looking disheveled and
lost, their shirts buttoned incorrectly as they rushed to get into uniform.

“Where’s it coming from?” yelled al-Sherrod.

“We don’t know,” said a soldier.

“Then find out!”

The Quds grouped together and branched out, the points of
their weapons forward, searching. Al-Sherrod took the rear with his head on a
swivel, purposely hanging back, the man’s true courage lacking since he was
more of a politician than a warrior. The gun in his hand was a simple prop that
made him feel secure and nothing more. It was also unlikely that he possessed
the skills to hit a target of any kind, even one that was stationary. But the
weapon was far better than an empty hand.

“Find the problem! Quickly!”

The Quds fanned out, searching, their weapons poised to
kill.

#

Levine spoke quickly, giving as much information as he
could, checked the screen before forwarding the information, deemed it proper,
and then hit the SEND button.

With the speed of cyberspace, data was downloading at
another point. His mission was done.

Now it was time for self-preservation.

Levine checked the console, the instructions written in
Farsi.

No problem.

He noted the monitor giving a specific view to the cavern’s
vaulted entrance and tapped the quick instructions labeled on the keyboard
beneath the screen. With another tap of the SEND button, the vault-like door
leading to the outside began to open with a horrible slowness that was almost
too much to comprehend at such a moment.  

Grabbing his firearm from the console, Levine left the room
and began to make his way out of the facility.

#

The Quds quickly
converged, seeking the source of the warning.

From the
second tier Levine peered over the edge, a gun in his hand. Quds were moving
with due diligence, searching.

And then they saw Levine with a firearm in his hand, a
serious breach of his right to possess one inside the facility. As Levine fell
back out of sight, bullets stitched across the wall where he just been
standing, decimating it.

He ran down the hallway as the Quds took the steps to the
second tier, nearing.

More gunfire, the report of the assault weapons outmatching
his firepower at an unimaginable scale, the bullets missing as he took a bend,
the floor and the walls of where he had just been taking on additional damage,
the air chalked with dust.

Levine could sense that the air was noticeably cooler,
the door of the vault opening enough to
allow the
cold mountain air in, and
an aperture of escape.

He ran.

At the end of the corridor he saw a glass partition that
overlooked the first tier, a twenty-foot drop. Fifty meters beyond that was the
Alborz region.

He lifted his pistol and shot the glass, the tempered chips
falling like a cache of diamonds to the floor below. Standing along the edge of
the upper tier, the floor below looked more like a hundred-foot drop rather
than twenty, he gauged his landing.

More bullets passed around him in waspy zips, prompting him
to take the leap.

Although he performed admirably by bending his knees and
rolling with the motion of the flow upon landing, twenty feet was too much and
the impact too great. Levine struck hard, rolled, the snap of his ankles
sounding out like gunshots, the bones shattering to the degree that his feet
hung at awkward angles.

Gritting his teeth in agonizing pain, Levine refused to cry
out. His weapons skated across the floor beyond his reach.

At least
, he thought,
I
gave a valiant effort. Long live Israel
!

As he lay there shadows poured over him. When he looked up
he noted multiple barrels of assault weapons directed at him.

Within moments al-Sherrod made his way until he stood over
Levine.

For a long moment he looked at Levine with a searching and
calculating look. “Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you really?”

Levine remained silent.

“You are not al-Qaeda, are you?”

More silence.

“It appears that al-Ghazi has made a grave misjudgment in
your character.”

Levine lowered his head to the floor. His life was over and
he knew it.

A Quds officer burst through the line. “Al-Sherrod, the
techs in the Comm Center are dead. And it appears that a message was sent.”

“Find the point of contact,” he ordered.

“Yes, al-Sherrod.” The soldier was gone.

Al-Sherrod bent over Levine. “Umar is not your real name,
is it?”

Levine wanted to spit in the man’s face.

“Are you Mossad?”

No reply.

“Is that what you did?” he asked. “Did you contact Mossad?”

Levine finally groaned, his nerves becoming a tabernacle of
pain. Al-Sherrod smiled and then set a foot upon one of the operative’s broken
ankle, causing Levine to bark out in exquisite pain. “I can do this all night,”
he told him. He ground his foot and the injury, causing Levine to clench his
jaw and tears to course from the corners of his eyes. “What did you send to
Mossad?”

Levine’s breathing was becoming erratic, the man slipping
into shock.

Al-Sherrod once again ground his foot against Levine’s
injury, driving another cry from Levine. “What did you send to Mossad? I will
not ask again.”

“Then don’t . . . ask. You’re just wasting  . . . your
time.”

Al-Sherrod sighed, and then looked at the man with contempt.
“Your pathetic life is over. You know that, don’t you?” And then to his team:
“Close the vault and secure the facility,” he said. And then he looked at the
man’s broken ankles with a measure of admiration at the awkward way the feet
were turned backwards. “Prepare the vacuum chamber and carry this man inside,”
he ordered. “Let’s see firsthand how the good doctor’s discoveries work against
the organic matter of a man’s flesh.”

Levine was lifted harshly off the floor, his seemingly
boneless ankles flopping horribly against the tile as he was dragged away.

“Keep him alive for another day,” he said. “I may need to
mine him for information.” The truth was, however, that he wanted Levine to
suffer pain beyond endurance, beyond human comprehension, and then snuff out
his life with a simple order.

Al-Sherrod, the Devil’s Companion, did all he could to
suppress a smile of satisfaction.