The Hand of Christ (62 page)

Surprised to hear his voice, the President questioned, “Dr. Sterling, the Vatican has publicly stated that the Pope had suffered a heart attack. What are you talking about?”

“
Mr. President, I am sorry if this comes off as rude, but fuck the goddamn press! You and I both know that the story was a cover up! There was an assassination attempt; I was there. It was the same man that assassinated the Ayatollah! The man behind both of the assassinations is part of a group that conspired on both!”

“
Dr. Sterling, from what I understand, you may have had a hand in the Ayatollah’s murder.”

Michael nearly stopped in his tracks.

Some of the staff at the CORe center gasped when they heard this. Lt. Williams suddenly wished that she had taken more student loans to pay for college instead of joining ROTC.

“
Sir, you know that I didn’t have anything to do with that! The Ayatollah’s killer is dead, and I am chasing the man that helped him!”

“
Dr. Sterling, I am in the Oval Office with senior members of my staff. Right now we are faced with something more important that I must deal with. I am sorry about the Pope, but this is a waste of my time, there are more urgent matters that concern me than the Pope’s attempted assassination. It would be in your best interest if you turned yourself in, and…”

Michael interrupted the most powerful man on the planet, something that the President was not used to. “Right now Iran has lined up twelve Ghadr’s on a highway outside of Khorramshahr! The weapons are nuclear tipped, Mr. President, aren’t they? You know about them don’t you, you know about Operation Merlin?”

The President caught the stare of General Diedrick; The President’s eyes silently asked the question,
how does he know about Operation Merlin?
The General shrugged.

“
Dr. Sterling, how is it possible that you know this?”

Michael was moving fast down Via dei Corridori, his breathing was shallow and hard. He ignored the President’s question, “Sir, the man that I am chasing is part of a group that planned both assassinations; killing the Pope was supposed to look like retaliation from Iran for the Ayatollah’s murder. He has the codes to the guidance system for those nukes! He intends to use them so that we have no choice but to respond with ours!”

In the middle of the interchange, CPL York was not wavered in his focus to find the Monsignor. He worked with the two NRO satellites instead of the normal three, but that only made him more determined. On his feet once more, his intensity was strong enough that his fellow soldiers maintained a safe distance from him as they watched. Like a pitcher in the ninth inning on the verge of a no-hitter, no one spoke to him, encouraged him, or even dared breath near him.

He was on his own.

The large screens in the CORe center had three-dimensional images of the streets of Rome. Two quite large screens were being used, one for each satellite in his control. Encased in an amber glow all of the tourists and city-dwellers showed up as glowing thermal images. The images on the screens moved fast, and not from their own volition, but moved from the Corporal’s. He was controlling the field of view like a soldier possessed.

Nothing could distract him.

Left, right, back and forth.

The buildings and people showed up as a blur as he dissected one image to the next, and faster than any other member of CORe could.

Where is that son of a bitch!

The Corporal was determined; sweat formed heavily on his brow. Then, he stopped. On the screen was a hot outline that caught his attention. He knew it was the man the first moment he saw the glow around his body. It was different than all of the others.

The large screen in front of the CORe center and to the left of the second screen was frozen; on it was the thermal outline of a man moving fast but erratic. His path wasn’t straight, he was staggering. The thermal image of the priest ran into another thermal image and shoved the second one out of the way.

CPL York zoomed in and the glowing body was now larger than life. The right hand of the man was much darker than the rest and appeared deep red next to the amber outline of his body.

The President was going to ask his question again but was interrupted once more; twice in one day, a precedent was being set.

“
I’ve got him! Professor, I found him!”

“
Where! Where is he?” Michael shouted.

CPL York panned out slightly. Using a designed feature for human satellite tracking he
tagged
both Michael and the Monsignor – he couldn’t lose them. The street names automatically appeared on the screen. “Straight ahead of you, less than half a kilometer is a large building. It rises above everything else. Can you see it?” CPL York asked.

Michael looked ahead and shouted back, “I see it!”

Castel Sant’ Angelo was almost as dominant in the nearby skyline as St. Peter’s Dome. It wasn’t difficult to find.

The President bit his tongue; he stood and listened. General Diedrick was now standing next to the President with a note in his hand. The President took the note and read it. He looked at the General realizing the significance of what was written:

“
If true, without those codes, Iran has nothing!”

The President spoke, “Dr. Sterling, listen carefully to me. The Iranian missiles have moved upright on their launchers and are in the firing position. If those weapons are fired, I will have no choice but to retaliate with the full arsenal of the United States’ nuclear inventory. Right now, the 6
^th
and 7
^th
fleets are positioned within striking distance of Iran. If what you are saying is true, I do not need to tell you how critical it is that you do not let that man use those codes! Dr. Sterling, catch that son of a bitch!”

The little blips on the screen were the tags; wherever they moved a tag was permanently affixed. Michael’s tag suddenly moved much faster.

York shouted out, “He’s on the other side of the building and heading toward a bridge. He is crossing the river!” Michael was catching up.

Michael had heard his President’s command but couldn’t speak. His heart was racing faster and his breathing coming harder. He was in a near full-sprint and needed every ounce of available air.

It didn’t take him long to find the bridge and cross the river. Before him was the long open air Piazza Novana; the site once used for ancient Roman games and street-markets. There were hundreds of people scattered about the stone covered Piazza.

In his ear the Corporal commanded, “Keep moving south, he’s at the far end and on the east side of the Piazza. When you get to the end of it, there is a street called Pasquino. He just went left there!”

The words that rang in his ear were eerily familiar; at least this time there wouldn’t be random soldiers lining the rooftops with hand-held rocket launchers. At Via di Pasquino, Michael went left as instructed.

“
Careful! He stopped moving!”

The moment that York shouted out his words of caution Michael saw the Monsignor; the priest was leaning against a railing. His chest heaved in and out of rhythm, and his disfigured hand was clenched firmly against his stomach. The purple sash that he used to wrap the injury was now a deep shade of maroon, changing colors from the flow of blood that it soaked up. Michael ducked behind the corner of a building. Geoffrey stood, cast a glance behind him, and continued to move.

The two men were playing a game of cat and mouse only the mouse didn’t know the cat was chasing him. Michael wanted to know to where he was going and with whom he was meeting. In the Pope’s apartment the priest had made a phone call before the Colonel shot him. The priest was on his way to meet the person he spoke with. Michael needed to end this group’s hold on power once and for all. Like Ahaggar, his mission was obvious: sever the head of the leadership.

Michael stole a peak around the corner, but couldn’t see him, “He’s gone! Do you still have him?”

“
Got ‘em, sir! I have him tagged. I won’t lose him.”

“
Which way?”

The priest moved fast, too fast to be on foot. The amber outline of his body was in a seated position. In front of him were two other images: an outline of a car’s hot engine and a driver.

“
He’s in a cab!” shouted the Corporal.

Shit!
There was silence on the line as Michael stood in the street taking in his surroundings.

The moments of nothingness were too much for the President. He opened his mouth and was about to ask just what the hell is going on, but was met with the sound of screeching tires and the frightened shouts of a woman.

Michael was in Rome, he knew that it would only be a short time before he would see what he needed. The whine of the three-cylinder scooter was obvious. The young Italian woman driving the motorbike stared straight ahead in disbelief. A man was running at her with a gun in his hand. The sound of the squeal coming from the two small tires was high-pitched, and caused most of those at CORe and in the Oval Office to cringe.

“
Get off the bike! Give me your purse!” Michael held the gun in his outstretched hand, but was careful not to point it directly at the terrified woman. She didn’t speak English, but, to her, it was clear that she was being robbed. She handed over her purse, and Michael went through it. Finding what he needed, he put her plastic identification card in his inside coat pocket and gave the purse back to the confused woman.

“
I am really sorry for this; I will make sure that you get your scooter back.”

He cranked back on the handle causing the bike to accelerate with a spin of the rear tire. The woman stood in the middle of the street with her purse in one hand and the other outstretched as if to say, what just happened?

CPL York went back into tracking mode, and directed Michael, “Take a right at the next street. A few blocks ahead he turned left onto Corso Vittorio Emanuele.”

The young soldier’s Italian pronunciation left something to be desired, but Michael understood him well enough. He swerved around traffic and saw the street in less than a minute. The light was red, but this wasn’t a time to be a slave to man’s rules. He turned the accelerator harder throwing the scooter’s engine into a whining fit. Through the intersection he bisected two oncoming cars that were headed at him from both sides. The drivers of both cars slammed on their brakes nearly missing Michael as he weaved between them. One was so close Michael could have reach out and touched its hood.

Damn that was close
, thought York.

York continued to efficiently guide the intelligence officer through the streets never losing site of both tags. Michael was racing the scooter down Piazza del Colosseo on the northern side of the nearly two thousand year old elliptical amphitheater: the place where countless gladiators fought and died to placate the nation’s citizens’ need for savage blood-filled entertainment.

Down the road, the cab stopped, and the priest exited.

York shouted out to Michael, “He’s back on foot! He’s on a street called Matteo. It’s about eight-hundred meters straight ahead and to your right.”

Michael didn’t make it, his luck ran out. Driving is inherently dangerous, and that danger grows exponentially when the factors involved are pushed to their limits. Rome is a well-traveled city by both tourists and its citizens. Everywhere, there are cars, cabs, motorbikes, trucks, little dogs, and people. Eventually, one of them gets in the way.

The President and his staff heard Michael’s deep, curdling scream at the same moment that the CORe center did. The sound of crumpling metal was all too easy to discern.

Time was slowing down again for Michael. He hated when this happened as it was only during moments of real duress and danger that it occurred. One second before, perhaps less, he had been expertly racing through the streets of Rome. Near Via Matteo he made the mistake of looking at the street sign for a fraction of time that was just too long.

The falling dominoes in life were typically random, and most times unseen until the one next to you was crashing down.

On the sidewalk, an ice cream vendor was handing a freshly scooped cone of chocolate ice cream to an old man. It was the old man’s favorite. Once per week he allowed himself the devilish delights that his doctor had told him to stay away from. Each day he left his flat with his small and energetic Jack Russell Terrier for a walk. Each day he passed the same ice cream vendor only smiling as he walked by, but silently counting down the days until he allowed himself to stop. Today was that day.

While reaching his hand out for the cone, a tourist, with her back to him, was taking a photo of the Baroque roofline of the building towering overhead. It was her fascination: intricate carvings that adorned the edges of architecture. She was too close for the photo that she had wanted and was backing up to better fill the frame of her camera when she bumped into the old man. The small collision caused the single scoop of chocolate to fall from the cone and to the sidewalk and the startled old man to jump.

Out of instinct, the old man quickly grabbed out for the falling scoop. The movement meant that he would have to let go of his dog’s leash. The newly freed and energy filled little Terrier ran impulsively into the street.