“And the area of your choosing?”
“There’s a World War Two bunker thirty miles north of here. It was once a shelter for Mussolini and his Fascist party. Since then, however, it has become a tourist attraction. Currently, the bunker is under renovations and is closed off to visitors. The bunker is isolated and sits off a less-traveled road between neighboring fields and a copse of trees. This secluded area will become your battleground. Here, you will kill the woman and the Vatican Knight, and then you’re to pitch their bodies inside a grave so deep that they’ll never be found. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“After their disappearance, I will forward the presumption that the two have decided to live a life away from the church and Rome. This, of course, may be questioned and perhaps viewed suspiciously by the Vatican Knights, but the presumption would be hardly contestable since Kimball has often separated himself from the church to commit himself with personal odysseys, most of which was to run from his demons. But his demons never seemed to have a problem in tracking him down.”
“Once the mission has been completed, then we’ll sanitize the killing ground for trace evidence,” she informed. “When we’re through, there won’t even be a fiber of hair left on the premise.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear, Sister. The last thing I want is for anyone to discover anything that would point an accusing finger at the Vatican. Sanitize your trails and abscond from the continent as soon as it’s done.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
“Let me worry about Kimball Hayden, not you. I’ll take care of him.”
“When Kimball Hayden’s involved, there’s always cause for worry.”
“Once you have the woman, he will do everything that’s asked of him. He will not call upon the aid of the Vatican Knights or contest us knowing that Shari Cohen might be killed in the process. Believe me, Kimball Hayden may possess the devil’s soul, but he bleeds like all men. Remember that. I’ll get the coordinates of the bunker’s location to you soon. See that this goes off without a hitch.”
“Yes, Your Holiness.”
Killing the call by tapping the speaker button, the pontiff eased back into his seat, tented his fingers, then began to bounce his fingertips against the point of his chin in thought. Kimball Hayden was a man like any other, though much larger than life than most men, he considered. Nevertheless, the woman and her team of Nocturnal Saints would be up to the task. For years, Kimball Hayden had been a deeply embedded thorn in his side and a nuisance. But the man who had become his obstacle would soon be erased, and the Vatican Knights would be completely under his thumb and rule.
All due to Kimball Hayden’s deep affection for a woman, the pontiff thought.
She would also be his Achille’s heel.
* * *
“Yes, Your Holiness.” As Antle hung up, she was standing next to Michelangelo’s Pietà, while her team knelt before the altar with their hands held together in prayer to pay their devotions.
When the unit was done with paying their observances, the woman led them to an awaiting vehicle, a truck. Inside the bay which appeared more like an armory with assault weapons and dragon-skin body armor, the woman closed the doors and then hammered the heel of her fist against the wall, three hard knocks. After that, the truck began to move.
With the bars of light inside the truck giving off excellent illumination, the woman took a seat along the bench that ran along the interior’s wall. Her face was heavily seamed from premature aging due to heavy smoking adding decades to her features instead of years. At forty-seven, she looked to be more in her late sixties or early seventies.
With a birdlike hand, she pointed to body armor that hung from hooks. Next to each vest was a Kevlar helmet with an attached mask that imitated a human skull. The bottle-green eyes, however, were NVG lenses for night vision. And the circular mouthpiece that was roughly the size of a silver dollar was an automated voice changer. Whenever someone spoke into the built-in mic, the voice changer would automatically distort the speech pattern by giving the tone a metallic sound, though the communicative dialogue would remain articulate.
“Try on the helmet,” she stated to Bienemy while pointing at the unit.
The Nocturnal Saint removed the helmet from its peg and slipped it on. After adjusting the headgear, he powered up the unit by pressing a small button that was situated where an earbud would be if located inside his right ear. As a whirring started to whine into a higher pitch with the mask upcycling, the lenses burned brightly with the color of emerald green, which gave Bienemy the ability to see inside shadows.
“Say something,” the woman demanded.
“Testing . . . one, two, three testing.” The voice sounded metallic. The pronunciations, however, were quite clear.
Removing the helmet, Bienemy said, “Very nice.”
As the truck continued on, plans were being spelled out in detail. The optimum factor here was to draw Kimball away
