Kimball laid a hand on the broken computer. “Is there any way you can take information from what’s left on the PC?”
She surveyed the large hole broken into the side of the machine. The circuit boards inside were clearly cracked. “Maybe, but I doubt it.” She pointed to a circuit board inside the computer. “The memory board is busted. All we can do is hope that the CD wasn’t damaged.”
She fell back into the couch and tried to keep her chin from quivering and her eyes from welling, but the stress became overpowering. In a sudden mood shift that took her from being totally composed to a totally fragile state of mind, Shari broke, which shocked Kimball.
“And what the hell are we going to do with him?” she said, pointing to the body. “We can’t leave him here, you know!” And she quickly cracked, almost without warning as her hands flew to her face.
Kimball was at a sudden loss. He was never one to provide emotional comfort with a hug or cooing words. To him, showing emotion was somehow a vulgar display. Nevertheless, he took the seat beside her. “Ms. Cohen, I need you to be at your best,” he said. “I’ll take care of the body, but we need to take care of business.”
She turned to him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’re expecting me to conduct business as usual knowing that the most powerful man on this planet has just sent his goon squad to kill me?”
“We’re only guessing that Shady Tippet may be from the Force Elite,” he said. “This really doesn’t make sense since the president wants you to find information regarding the Soldiers of Islam. So why send somebody after you when you’re making progress? Because on one hand, we know that the principal of Israeli’s Defense Attaché was resistant to your efforts — at least to a degree — which may mean that he had more motive than anybody else. But on the other hand, it doesn’t make sense that Shady would leave the umbrella shield of the Force Elite to join a league attached to Mossad. He wouldn’t work as a mercenary for foreign liaisons after fighting against them for so many years.”
“So what you’re saying is you really don’t know where he comes from?”
“I can only tell you where he came from. Right now the pieces of the puzzle aren’t fitting properly. Maybe the Force Elite folded or maybe the stove got too hot in the political kitchen for the White House to keep it going, forcing him to apply his skills elsewhere.”
For a moment she said nothing, then, “I’m scared, Kimball. I’m really scared.”
“I know,” he said. “The fear comes from not knowing who or what is out there.”
She placed a hand on his forearm. “Have you ever been afraid, Kimball? I mean, really afraid?”
Kimball appeared wounded by the question. “I’m afraid every day of my life,” he admitted. “I barely sleep because I’m afraid of what I see in my dreams. I’m afraid because of the horrible things I’ve done in the past. And I’m afraid that on Judgment Day He’s going to turn me away… I’m afraid of not knowing.”
She squeezed his forearm. “You’re a good man, Kimball Hayden. Whatever darkness you inherited from your past is gone… I can see the light in your eyes.”
Kimball doubted her, but nodded his appreciation regardless. “We can beat this,” he told her. “But I need you to keep on doing what the president has asked.”
“Kimball, we’re right where we started. We’re at squat. The information may be totally lost.”
“Did you download the CD into the PC?”
“It was the first thing I did after putting the girls to bed.”
“Then perhaps we’re not at squat after all,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He remembered the Logger placed to the circuitry by Leviticus. “It means that an opportunity may still exist, after all.”
She gave him a dumbfounded stare.
Team Leader fumed after finding out that Omega Team failed in its task to remove the target. There was no doubt Yahweh would be displeased. But even more so, his international constituencies would grow increasingly uneasy knowing that slight bumps in the road were forming into formidable knolls.
The name Kimball Hayden meant nothing to Team Leader. But apparently it threw tremors into Judas. If this man Kimball Hayden posed a threat to the cause, Team Leader would apply his own skill set as an elite killer to take out Ms. Cohen’s champion.
Fail me one more time, Judas, and I’ll run my own blade across your throat as testament to your repeated failures, so that everyone can see that failing is not an option.
He turned the cargo truck onto the New Jersey Turnpike, his anger lasting until he arrived in Boston.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The wrapped body of Dark Lord was taken to the archdiocese where church authorities would give it a private service and burial.
People like Shady Tippet had no family ties or connections that adversary groups could associate him with. The man had no identity, no background, and no history; nothing that could bind him to the human race.
This was also the case with Kimball Hayden before he united with the Vatican Knights. Per protocol, Kimball was nonexistent to the outside world. But when he laid Tippet’s body to rest on a slab within the sub-basement of the archdiocese, he gave the man identity by recalling events they had shared as companions.
He remembered the times they laughed, and joked — and killed. He even recalled the moment he saved Shady Tippet’s life in Palestinian territory, only to take it away almost seventeen years later in the den of a brownstone apartment. How ironic was that? How much more twisted could fate be?
Bowing his head in respect while placing his hand on the breastplate of Shady’s Kevlar, Kimball prayed in hushed tones. When finished, he left the chamber in a solemn mood wondering how many more of his old group he would have to kill.
A band of coyotes moved in crisscross fashion looking for mice, voles or ground squirrels beneath a hot Mojave Desert sun. In their wake, as the sun felt white hot against their coats, a battery of heat waves shimmered off the desert floor.
The temperature was unbearably hot, the air oppressive, the climate in general inhospitable as the earth gave off scents that caught the coyotes’ acute sense of smell, drawing them closer to the unmistakable odor of carrion that no doubt cured over time.
The single sexed pack moved back and forth, searching, then pawing, trying to gauge the location of the carcass detected by their olfactory senses. The smell appeared to be rising from several locations, confusing them, and then they collectively realized there was more than one source of meat. So they dispersed into small groups, each unit wending and following a scented trail.
To the east, next to a rocky embankment stemming from the ground like a half shell, the smell of carrion radiated strongest from a point where the soil appeared recently tilled.
Being natural burrow diggers, the coyotes began to dig and paw at the sand, kicking up clouds of choking dust and digging to a depth of nearly two feet before they uncovered a bounty of meat.
Hands, paired together by flex-cuffs, the flesh having aged and gone tender, proved to be a ripe harvest as one of the coyotes began to yip and bay, announcing its find.
Before the day was over, however, five more bodies would be unearthed and the coyotes would gorge themselves with the true Soldiers of Islam.
When Shari met her husband, it was in a small bedroom inside the rectory located next to the archdiocese. He was wearing a cast and slept in a high-back chair in quarters too tight, too cramped, yet simple. Lying asleep on a twin-size bed were her daughters, still wearing pajamas, and both huddled together in a tangle that only children could sleep through, as their arms and legs crisscrossed each other as they slept. The adornments were simple — a crucifix hung over a characterless bureau; a watercolor depiction of Christ holding a lamb hung over the bed, his face kind and gentle; and a single window provided a view of a wonderfully bright flowered garden in the center of the courtyard.