The Iscariot Agenda (11 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“We were worried about you,” said Bonasero Vessucci. “You missed your contact mark.”

Kimball hesitated on the other end. And then solemnly, “He could have killed me, Bon. He had the opportunity.”

“But he didn’t.”

“That’s not the point,” he returned curtly. “I’m slipping. I was too fatigued to hang in there when I had to. I’m not a kid anymore. It’s getting harder to fight time.”

“Kimball, all that matters is that you’re alive—”

“You’re missing the point,” he said. “He killed Hawk and he could easily have killed me. I don’t think I can keep up with this guy, whoever he is.”

“Are you sure it’s just one?”

“I think so. The rain from last night washed away most of the prints. But I found a pair beneath a precipice approximately four hundred yards east of the ranch where the rain couldn’t get at, and again in the barn. Same set of prints from the same pair of boots—G.I. issue.”

“Government issue?”

“You got it.” Kimball walked by the corral, the appaloosas paying him no attention. “Look, Bon, you got to find me a team and quick. I need them. My old team is dropping around me.”

“The SIV is still searching. We’re trying to get a fix on them through GPS signals from their cell phones.”

“Any luck?”

“We may have found Job in Switzerland, close to Lake Lucerne. Joshua and Ezekiel are nowhere to be found.”

“What about Isaiah and Leviticus?”

“They’re still tied up with missions.”

Kimball sighed. “Bon, whoever this guy is—he’s a real pro. I’m starting to feel naked and lonely, if you catch my drift.”

“Trust me, Kimball. We’re not sitting idle on our end. We’ll assemble a team as soon as we can put one together. If we find Job before we find the others, then we’ll send him ASAP.”

“Job’s a good man. I’d feel better with him attached to my hip than those crazy brothers I have to track down.”

“They’re in Maryland, yes?”

“They are.”

“Then if we find Job, we’ll send him directly to the Sacred Heart s Church one mile east of the Washington Archdiocese.”

“I know where it’s at.”

“Then find the brothers and hold up. Having them is obviously better than being alone.”

“I agree. And, Bon, do whatever you can to find my team. I’m running out of time and friends.”

Although Kimball could not see him, Bonasero nodded agreement on his end. “I will.”

“Thanks.”

“And Kimball?”

Yeah.”

Another pause, then, “I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now.”

“What news?”

“About Amerigo.”

“No. I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive. Is he all right?”

“It’s not good news,” he said. “The pontiff’s ill—very, very ill.”

Kimball could tell by the heavy weight of the cardinal’s voice that the situation was dire. “What’s the matter?”

“He has cancer,” he stated. “Stage four . . . And it’s terminal.”

Kimball stopped in his tracks, his mouth slowly dropping, and let his hand holding the phone fall to his side. He could hear the cardinal talking, the voice coming through the receiver that sounded tinny and distant from half a world away. Slowly he brought the phone up. “I’m coming home,” he finally said.

“No! The pontiff has time. You need to find this assassin, Kimball. If you come home, then the assassin will surely follow you and bring the fight here. We cannot allow that under any circumstances.”

Kimball clenched his jaw, the muscles in the back working furiously. “Then assemble my team, Bon. Get them to the Sacred Hearts. In the meantime, I’ll take care of Hawk and be on my way to find the Brothers Grimm.”

“Who?”

“Just something we used to call them,” he said, and then ended the call by closing the lid of the phone.

Kimball was suddenly without sensation, his world suddenly disjointed like the random scatterings of a Pollock design, the kaleidoscopic pieces creating a surreal existence where life appeared to be spinning out of control: There was the assassin. The murders.

The game of sequential killings, the killer taking away everyone he knew.

And now the final curtain call of Pope Pius.

Kimball sat on a corral railing, the log bowing beneath his weight, and brought his hands up to cup his face. He had been bred to deal with combat and confrontations. And seeing friends die around him was a part of battle and war, something to be expected. What he was not prepared for was the hurtful emotion that swept through him regarding a man whom he had come to love—a man who saw in him the Light he did not see within himself.

So Kimball did something he hadn’t done since he was a child.

He wept for Pope Pius.

#

Kimball Hayden spent
the better part of the morning digging two graves—one for Dog, one for Hawk—next to a towering cottonwood tree situated along the bank of a small reservoir less than a hundred yards away from the stables. The view was breathtaking. The saw-tooth mountain range to the west was a deep purple in the late afternoon shadows, the sky as blue as Jamaican waters, and the one cottonwood in the entire valley stood as a behemoth with a widespread canopy, provided a comforting shade over the graves.

Kimball leaned against the handle of the shovel looking over the two dirt mounds—one small, the other large—as a cool wind blew in from the northwest.

The leaves of the cottonwood began to sway in concert, first in one direction and then in the other. Everything seemed to be in peace where there was so much madness—a nice reprieve, even if it was just for a moment.  

Kimball examined the landscape, knowing this is how Hawk would have wanted it—to be buried on the land of his people with his canine companion alongside him.

He made no crosses. He said no words.

The man who was ‘The Ghost’ was now with the spirits of his ancestors.

After returning the shovel to the barn, Kimball released the appaloosas, the horses taking flight as their hooves kicked up dust trails as they vanished somewhere close to the horizon.

The scene was beautifully majestic.

After gathering his items, Kimball left the ranch to begin the final leg of his journey.

He would find the brothers, engage the assassin, and hopefully come out the victor.

But if he failed in his endeavors, then he hoped to be buried somewhere as undisturbed as Hawk’s grave, a place that would provide him with the peace and serenity that had eluded him throughout his entire life.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

There was something about the passenger of the four-seated Cessna the pilot did not like. Whenever he asked a question, the man usually spoke in monosyllable answers of ‘yes’ and ‘no.’  And when negotiating a set price from Albuquerque to Maryland, the man always spoke in  a clipped  manner, his answers always brief and to the point with no interest in small or gregarious talk beyond the settled cost.

The man always held his head low, the brim of his boonie cap covering most of his face with the exception of his jaw line. Beneath his clothes the pilot could see that the man was well honed, his body kept in shape by regimental exercise. On the ground next to him was a drab, olive green duffel bag, the type used by the military.

Without a doubt the man was evasive. And with the economy the way it was, the pilot was not about to let a willing customer go. So they settled upon $1,200/hour flight time with a guaranteed minimum of $6,000.

When agreed upon the man paid willingly, in cash, the $6,000 paid up front.

Once the Cessna was loaded with the man taking the rear seat behind the pilot, the pilot called the tower for departure rights and taxied the plane onto the runway. During this time the customer remained silent and always kept his head low, the brim of his hat concealing a major portion of his face, as he periodically gave sidelong glances out the window.

The pilot, in his forties, and with grizzled features of gray-brown hair and premature wrinkles, cocked his head and spoke. “It’s going to be a long flight—say, six hours. Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes.” Again—a monosyllable answer.

  The pilot snapped on a few switches on his console. “Whatever.”

Within moments they were flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet.

#

The assassin knew
he was being evasive. He also knew that such actions prompted suspicion from most people. But he also sensed desperation in this man who would sell his principles if the price was right.

The price was fixed at $6,000 in cash; all up front and paid immediately with no further questions and with the clear understanding that the pilot was to fly him to Maryland.

After loading the duffel bag into one of the rear seats, he took the seat behind the pilot, the act in itself telling the pilot that he wasn’t interested in camaraderie, talk, or any type of amity.

With his head hung low he often took sidelong glances out the window, the landscape in the distance a primitive horizon of mesas and peaks in blends of reds and oranges, the strata lines running across them marking the ages.

From the front the pilot spoke. “It’s going to be a long flight—say, six hours. Mind if I smoke?”

“Yes.”

The pilot then hit the switches on the console in what the assassin took to be an action of someone in a huff.

Then: “Whatever.”

Once the Cessna leveled off at 20,000 feet, the assassin ran the palm of his hand against the duffel bag next to him. And by feel he found what he was looking for. Beneath the fabric he located the outline of the CheyTac M200’s stock, the weapon broken down and neatly packed.

It was something he obviously could not get aboard a commercial flight; therefore, the private route.

After he had taken the life of the Native American, he saw the CheyTac as an asset and took it not as a trophy, but as a necessity since he was about to go up against the Hardwick brothers.

So keeping his head held low, the assassin remained silent throughout the flight as he kept his palm against the bag as a constant reminder that the weapon would always be within reach.

#

Kimball Hayden was
on a flight path of his own under the false credentials afforded him by the Vatican’s SIV Unit. He sat in the economy class, the breadth of his shoulders an inconvenience to the two women sitting on each side of him, their space minimized by his size. But neither said a word once they spotted his collar. They only nodded and feigned smiles, a show of politeness to the priest who was not a priest.

After he spoke with Cardinal Vessucci from Hawk’s ranch, the SIV immediately set up the next available flight to Annapolis in Maryland. Once there he would head west toward Baltimore, home of the Hardwick brothers, two of the most hedonistic people who were insubordinate, stubborn and roguish beyond principle, but excellent soldiers, nonetheless.

On the foldout table before him he had the photos sitting in a neat pile. In his hand was the glossy of his old unit. Everyone who had been terminated had the spelled marking of the letter in the name of ‘Iscariot’ beside their name with the exception of Victor Hawk. Using a marker, Kimball simply wrote the letter ‘R’ over Hawk’s image, then sighed.

For a long moment he stared at the images, at the young faces, and then he remembered the camaraderie they shared together as an elite force, and their shared arrogance that they were too good to take down because they were unstoppable.

Now the arrogance had come back to bite them, and ironically.

There
was
somebody out there that was better, stronger, faster, and far more deadly. And he was taking his team down with seemingly little effort.

For a lengthy moment Kimball stared at the photo, the team who posed in front of a camera so many years ago. A photo that now had three surviving members. With his marker he circled the face of the soldier next to Hawk, the person next in line and most likely within the assassin’s sights. Jeff Hardwick.   

After laying the glossy down, Kimball glanced at his watch. It would be another two hours before he would touchdown in Annapolis. And perhaps another thirty minutes to Baltimore, once he rented a vehicle.

And then he wondered one thing:
Was the assassin one step behind or one step ahead?

Either way, he was about to find out.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Baltimore
, Maryland

Jeff Hardwick always killed with impunity because he could. Having been a member of the Pieces of Eight—a black-op unit from the Force Elite—a one-time government wetwork team, he and his brother had found life difficult. At first, when he was given his release for younger, more athletic super soldiers when age became a factor, he was sent off with a pension, an atta-boy pat on the back, and the following parting words:
Oh, and by the way, if you disclose any information regarding the Pieces of Eight or the Force Elite, expect to be buried inside a pauper’s grave moments after the divulging words leave your lips.

Nice! Especially from a government you served well and without question.

Nevertheless, with his little government stipend which was pooled with his brother’s, they amassed enough to purchase an army/navy store in downtown Baltimore. At first they struggled by taking over a business that was floundering, trying to rebuild it from the ground up with potential connections in the military field, such as mercenaries in need of special hardware.

The first year was a struggle, most deals falling through until they were contacted by old teammates—Walker, Grenier and Arruti—who established their own militant organization for hire in third-world nations by governments with first-world money.

They had become their sole arms’ connection, profiting beyond imagination by supplying items such as claymores, sentry turrets or RPG’s—basically illegal wares of all types.

So within a year the store had become nothing less than a front for selling illegal arms.

And the Hardwick brothers flourished.

Now with padded bank accounts in the Caymans, and with vast sums across countries such as Belize, Brazil and Costa Rica, Jeff and Stanley Hardwick relished in the fact that there was a profitable market for just about everything.

And
their
market was destruction.  

Walking beneath an overcast sky that was uniform gray, with his collar hiked up against a mild wind coming from the east, Jeff Hardwick walked as if he owned the sidewalk, the city, the world. With his lofty chin held high he moved with the authority of a man who believed that rules weren’t made for him, and everyone else should step aside as he passed them by. It was also this mindset of self-anointing shared by his brother, Stanley, who was eleven months older.

With a conservative haircut and regimental gym-build, the man looked years younger. He was lean with broad shoulders, thick thighs and massive biceps, much like his brother who was a physical facsimile. Neither brother was to be messed with on a one-on-one situation. To mess with one Hardwick brother was to mess with both. And it was this reputation throughout the streets of Baltimore that allowed them to bend the rules without impunity and rule by fear.

If organized crime had a title or name associated with it, it was ‘Hardwick.’

Walking east for a stretch before turning south, Jeff moved into an area hardly considered a decent neighborhood. There were aged store fronts with barred windows and cracked glass that were pieced together with strips of duct tape. Fruit vendors kept their produce beneath canopies that were torn at the edges and wagged with the course of a slight breeze. And drug-addled punks often hung out in the mouths of alleyways and street corners, sometimes congregating at the base of stone stairwells that led into apartments infested with vermin, rats and roaches. But whenever a Hardwick walked by chatter always ceased, as if in homage, until the man walked by.

Grabbing a key ring from his pocket, Jeff inserted a key into the lock and twisted, the bolt drawing back, and then he opened the door, entering.

The foyer immediately lit up from a light with a motion sensor, which revealed a second door that appeared stronger and firmer, that of cast iron. On the wall was a keypad. He quickly typed in a code—eight characters—and disabled the alarm. Once done he typed in a second set of codes, this time twelve characters, and the keypad mechanically pushed outward from the wall and tilted downward to reveal an optical scan. Placing his eyes against the lenses, the computer read the orb sequence calibrated to read the uniqueness of the Hardwick brothers roadmap of eyes, and confirmed his identity. No one else held the right to enter, especially when there was well over a million dollars of illegal arms stashed away in the lower vault.

After scanning his eyes, a massive bolt from the door automatically pulled back and the door swung open with mechanical slowness.

The store was dark, no windows, old uniforms and military helmets lined shelves that were heavy and laden with dust. Shadows remained unmoving with some shadows and shapes darker than others. And when he turned on the lights everything seemed bleak and gray and still, a coating of dust usurping everything.

After all, everything on this level was a prop and nothing ever moved. Everything of value was down below.

Tossing the keys on a glass countertop that was so dusty the items within the casing could hardly be discernable, Jeff Hardwick checked his answering machine by dialing in another code for retrieval.

Nothing.

Jeff, nor his brother Stan, had heard from Grenier or Arruti in over a week, which was cause for concern knowing they had something going on in the Philippines with a high-priority need for goods and wares.

Hanging up the phone that was specially built to encrypt all incoming calls and deflect all others not recognized by the computer, Jeff pulled out his cell phone and called his brother.

When Stan answered, he said one thing: “The vendor inquiring about the uniforms never called back.”

And it was cryptically understood: The firm of Grenier and Arruti, for whatever reason, had put current purchases on hold.

Something’s wasn’t right.

“
I see
,” he returned evenly. And without adding anything further, he hung up.