The Hand of Christ (43 page)

A couple of neighboring passengers in first class stirred in anger at his faux pas. Some were perplexed that a cell phone rang at thirty-six thousand feet. Pulling the phone out of the coat pocket, he gruffly answered, “What is it?”

“
Sir, this is Professional Trainee Hicks, one of your eyes-only officers just went off the grid.”

“
Off the grid? Who, when?”

“
It was Dr. Michael Sterling, about three minutes ago, sir.”

Damn.

“
Notify no one else, Hicks, I will handle this matter personally.”

The Director hung up.

Chapter Forty-Three

Bar Tomas

Rome, Italy

The assassin stood amidst the crowd that had gathered outside Hotel Bramante and reveled in his recent conquests. In the last twelve hours, he had killed two apostates for Allah. They had deserved nothing less than death; this was his will.

He stared at the two large Carabinieri standing at the front door. The assassin had been readying to leave when the high-pitched female cry spilled out into the street.

He smiled at the Italian woman’s pain, and was glad that he had waited.

Inside of his jacket, he held close to his chest the envelope that contained the weapon that would bring down Christianity. The pain of this woman would be amplified throughout the world when he killed the Pope.

Tomorrow could not come soon enough.

In need of a place to stay for the evening, he made his way to the Mosque of Rome, not a far walk from the hotel. There he could find safe harbor and, likewise, a proper place to pray. This evening’s prayer was the most important of his life.

He would pray to Allah to show him the path to victory

He would pray for the path to the end of all apostates.

Before heading to the mosque he needed to, first, make one stop. Turning from Hotel Bramante, he walked away.

Hotel Bramante was located close to the Vatican and the assassin had easily found Via della Conciliazione, which was littered with hordes of those that he hated the most. Each way he looked Christian tourists with gazes of extreme superiority filed idly down the sidewalks. The cafés were buzzing with them and each turn of his head filled his eyes with more hate invoking images. His pulse quickened at the truly evil thoughts that streamed through his mind.

He saw the dome of St. Peter just ahead, breaking the skyline in an obtrusive fashion as if declaring its holy dominion over all in front of it. St. Peter’s square was just ahead.

He stepped off the curb as he approached Piazza Pio XII; almost immediately a green and yellow four seat, pedal-powered buggy filled with tourists that happily pedaled the contraption nearly ran into him.

He jumped forward to the ugly words of the teenage American boy in the back seat, “Watch where you are going, dickhead!”

Seething, he spun around intending to slap the insolent little apostate only to be met with a blaring horn and a hideous yellow bus that was bearing down on him with ferocity.

The squeal of breaks filled the air.

The bus’s tires locked up.

A foul, burnt rubber smell filled the air as smoke from the bus skidding toward him surrounded him. Instinctively, the assassin threw his hands up to shield his face just as the bus hit him head on. The collision threw him with force backward to the pavement.

The back of his head hit the road with a loud crack.

The assassin lay in the street not moving, he was unconscious. Instantly, he was surrounded by dozens of onlookers; a few of them were trying to help. Blood pooled beneath his skull.

“
Signore, are you okay?”

The young Italian woman was gently shaking him, his eyes fluttered as he regained his senses. Looking left and right he could make out the blurred shapes of the people standing over him.

“
Let me help you up,” gently she tried to raise him to his feet; a siren was coming closer.

Becoming fully aware of his predicament, the assassin pushed the woman, flinging her lithe body helplessly away. He jumped to his feet, which caused a sudden rise in blood pressure. The pain that throbbed throughout his skull caused him to stagger.

Doubling over, he let out a small howl as he reached to the back of his head. Putting his hand on the spot that hurt, he felt a sticky and wet sensation. Removing his hand from the spot it was covered with blood.

“
Signore, you are hurt. Here,” an old, Italian man that worked at the sidewalk café handed him a towel. “Take this, put it on the wound; you should sit down and wait for the paramedics.”

The assassin looked at him for a moment, snatched the towel, and ran awkwardly from the scene. Running past the bus, the irony was lost on him as he read the large words printed on its side that said: San Pietro Christian Rome.

The crowd stood bewildered as the assassin fled. A young officer from the Polizia arrived on his motorbike with flashing and spinning blue lights.

The assassin’s head ached. He walked quickly through the smaller streets of Rome, staying off of the main throughways. He knew the Mosque of Rome was approximately three kilometers northeast from the Vatican and on the other side of the Tiber, so he headed in that direction.

Instantly it struck him, the envelope was in the inside jacket pocket precisely in the spot where the bus had struck him. A shiver of fear sent waves of angst through him as he thought,
had the device been damaged!

Standing on Viale Maresciallo Pilsudski, he stopped in front of an opened iron gate that allowed entry onto Viale del Settanta and into Parco di Villa Glori. Quickly, he headed into the luscious park and found a quiet spot. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out the envelope and its most nefarious content. Turning the pen over, perhaps one too many times, he could see that it appeared unscathed.

He let out an audible sigh and looked to the sky and said, “
Rahmatulahi wa-baraktuhu,
” uttering to the mercy and blessing of God.

Putting the thick pen back into the envelope, he slipped it into his jacket’s pocket and walked through the gate and out of the park. He was going to take a left, but two Polizia were standing at the hood of their Alfa Romeo, smoking cigarettes and having a heated discussion about the upcoming football match between Italy and Spain.

Walking away from them he would have to backtrack a bit before making his way to the mosque. The two Polizia paid him no attention.

He followed the road until it met with Via Guidubaldo Del Monte where he went left. A few blocks later he saw a line of powder blue and white cars. By now, he was familiar with their significance: he had happened upon a local precinct of the Polizia.

“
These people are like bugs, they are everywhere!” he stammered to no one in particular.

The streets empty of any Polizia, the assassin took his chances and confidently walked pass the precinct. Two blocks later he stopped to find his bearings.

To his left was Teatro Euclide.

He stood staring upon it, not in admiration but in anger; the arches carved between the large columns were clearly Arabic.
These insects have even robbed them of their architecture,
he thought.

Staring, his angry thoughts were distracted by the rough laughing of two men and the muffled protests of a woman.

Behind him was Bar Tomas, no different than any of the numerous little street-side bars that plagued this city. In its small courtyard the assassin was shocked at what he saw. Two Persian men, the same two that he sat between on the plane, were pawing at a young Italian waitress. They had her cornered and were laughing and touching her in a way that only a husband can. She managed to push her way angrily through them and went back inside the bar.

The two Persians, clearly drunk, went back to their wine.

The assassin was disgusted and enraged.

One of the men pushed away from the table, got up and walked into the bar. Without thinking, the assassin followed.

In the corner, the waitress was fuming as she folded silverware into cloth napkins. The bartender was wiping down the long mahogany bar in the mostly empty room.

Drunk in his footsteps, his words were slurred, as the Persian demanded, “Where is the toilet?”

The bartender glared at the slightly overweight Persian and just pointed to the back.

The Persian grunted an indecipherable reply and followed the path laid out by the bartender. Walking into the bathroom he didn’t see that the assassin had followed him inside.

Just as the door closed behind the two men, the assassin reached around the man’s throat and with expertise squeezed his larynx crushing it just as he had envisioned doing on the plane.

Reaching back for the door’s lock he turned it.

The assassin spun the Persian around whose eyes were wide with fear as he grasped at his own throat. The Persian remembered him and could barely force out his recognition, “I… know you…”

The assassin was filled with the need to rid the world of this man and declared, “It is written that an apostate deserves one fate.”

The Persian yelled as loud as he could, as a Muslim he knew what that fate was. The scream was less than anything proper for his situation; the sounds of his fear blended in with the music being played throughout the bar.

Looking around, the assassin quickly found what he needed. He yanked the old heavy towel rack from the wall and squeezed one end of the iron rod until his knuckles went white. The Persian was wearing a pair of loose shorts, which would make it easier for the assassin to find his mark.

He kicked the heavyset Persian in the gut doubling him over and then hit him on the head with the rod. The blow was fierce. Immediately, the five-inch gash split by the rod spewed a fast flow of cranial blood. The assassin could see the white of the man’s skull as it peaked through the folds of ripped skin.

The blow dazed the man but left him conscious enough to be aware of what the assassin would do next.

Grabbing the man by his collar, he yanked him up and onto the sink. The man’s body collided with a large porcelain bowl, spilling its contents of individually pre-wrapped, perfumed soaps wildly about the restroom and the bowl to the floor where it shattered.

An ear-splitting, reverberating sound echoed sharply.

Both the waitress and the bartender heard this above the music, and looking at each other ran to the door. The bartender turned the handle and pushed, but the door remained steadfast.

The crushed larynx could not hold in the Persian’s scream as the assassin punished him with the rod. The pain was just too much. The blood-curdling shout caused the waitress to jump; the bartender began to shout, “Signore! Signore! Do you need help?” He was shoving his shoulder into the door as more screams of agony belted through.

The bartender shouted to the waitress, “Call the Polizia, do it now!”

The waitress turned and ran to the phone, the second Persian sat outside, gawking at the pretty Italian girls that passed by, and was oblivious to the goings-on inside of the bar.

The assassin bent the Persian over the sink rammed the iron rod as far into him as he could; the man’s face was pressed against the drain. The blood from the wound on the Persian’s head pooled in the basin, he could feel what he somehow knew would be his last breath escape from his lips. His eyes remained fixed, staring ahead.

Outside of the bathroom, the bartender continued his shouts while trying to knock down the door. It was futile. He looked around for something heavier, something to use as a battering ram. In the corner was a heavy statue of Michelangelo’s David – made out of metal instead of the customary marble – he ran to pick it up.

With a grunt he ran toward the door, statue in hand; the collision shattered the bolted door through its heavy frame, causing the bartender and statue to fall heavily into the bathroom as the door gave way.

The waitress ran to him and stopped immediately in her tracks as both employees saw the assassin’s latest victim in front of them. She screamed louder than any woman the bartender had ever heard. He jumped to his feet and put his arms around her taking her from the room. He could feel her shaking in his arms and sat her down to calm her.

He shook a bit, too.

Within moments two Polizia stormed into the bar to the confusion of the second Persian still outside, he was still drunk and still oblivious.

The bartender pointed to the bathroom to which one of the Polizia went. He stared at the victim and asked one question of the bartender, “The person who did this, was he Middle Eastern?”

“
Yes, Signore, he looked like he was Arabic.”

“
How long ago did this happen?”

“
Just a few minutes, he must have gone through the window and into the alleyway behind us.”

The armed Polizia barked at his partner to stay at the bar and to call in the information. He then ran to the front door and around the building. Stopping at the restroom’s window, he could see footprints coming from a puddle of water that was beneath the window.