Shepherd One (6 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

Los Angeles
, California

0930 Hours

Al-Khatib Hakam graduated from Columbia University with honors at the age of nineteen. He stood five six, was willow thin,
and possessed the face of a child, but the mind of a leading academic. Subdued
in manner and usually in control of his emotions, Hakam spoke little but walked
with the air and confidence of a man twice his size.

He is also a natural born citizen of the United States—from Dearborn, Michigan.

And he is al-Qaeda.

Growing up in Dearborn held little reprisal since the
community in general was of Arab ethnicity. However, having been accepted into
Columbia University proved difficult, even for an emancipated child prodigy
whose life changed dramatically by the age of seventeen.

Less than a week after his seventeenth birthday, and
standing on the southeast corner of 42
^nd
and Madison Avenue in New York City, al-Khatib Hakam had a reawakening. Across the street he observed a food
vendor, an Arab, who was taking a quick respite from his duties by paying homage
to his god. The man was bowing and kneeling over a prayer rug, his hands held
out before him in reverence, his eyes closed and lips moving in silence as he
raised and lowered himself over the carpet in constant motion.  

And in a land that preaches tolerance as a virtue, al-Khatib
Hakam beheld the intolerable.

In a city that was alive with throngs of people crowding
every inch of walking pavement, al-Khatib Hakam watched as three powerfully
built males surrounded the Arab as he prayed, the men chiding and laughing
until one of them hauled the Arab to his feet by the collar of his shirt. From
a distance al-Khatib Hakam could
hear the crude remarks regarding the
man’s religion and his ‘apparent’ audacity to pray with Ground Zero just a few miles
away. He heard the word ‘disrespect,’ which was quickly followed by a racist
slur and a tirade of spewing profanity.

And nobody appeared to take care, as smartly dressed people
from every direction took a wide berth and ignored the situation completely,
moving on as if the norm was to close their eyes to things that did not affect
them.

And then al-Khatib Hakam understood, his epiphany striking
him as if a door suddenly opened to a room of wondrous secrets: Although he was
born American, he would never truly be American because of the vilification of
his people.

Raising a hand before him, the young Arab examined it,
turning it over and noticing the pigmentation on his palm was lighter than the
rest of his flesh—still white, but different. When he lowered his hand he
noticed the three men gone, leaving the vendor on his knees weeping into the
fabric of his carpet, which he pressed close to him as if it was an ailing
child. It was at this standstill moment of time when something clicked inside
of Hakam.

For nights and weeks and months he never forgot that moment
of persecution as a wicker slowly burned inside him, working its way to
igniting the time bomb he had become. What he needed was something more than
what the world of academia could offer him, something that would make him whole
and responsive and utterly complete.

What he found was faith.   

In New York City mosques were everywhere. However, Hakam
found his true calling when he was introduced and infused with fundamentalist
Muslim rhetoric. The cleric’s words were powerful and pulling, drawing young
Hakam into the clutches of obsession for which he desperately needed to know
his true fate in the eyes of his new-found god, Allah. And like many others
like him he was anointed as a soldier in the eyes of his god, for which there
was no greater honor. Al-Khatib Hakam was now complete.

His mantra:
Allahu Akbar
. Allah is the greatest. 

In the pursuing years young Hakam had an affinity for
learning foreign languages and excelled in International Studies, becoming
fluent in nine languages by the time he graduated from Columbia. By twenty-one
he was a reigning member of al-Qaeda, his intelligence serving him well on the
American front.

Now his fate as a soldier was about to commence. 

Leaning over the lip of the bathtub filled to capacity,
Hakam carefully shaved his chest, arms and face, preparing and purifying
himself for Paradise. After dabbing his face with a cloth, he sprinkled himself
with rosewater and closed his eyes, his lips moving silently as he rubbed the
perfume along his torso in gentle, circular sweeps.

Six months ago he met with Yorgi Perchenko in a land that
was constantly cold, gray and depressing. The Russian and an Arab sitting
across from each other in a wasted barn seemed an unlikely scenario given the
Afghan war. But when Perchenko had the opportunity to conclude a deal for the
sum of thirty million dollars, he didn’t care who the client was and no longer
held the one-time prejudices that once bound him. He even told this to Hakam
who responded with stares of indifference. But when Hakam had to speak he did
so in perfect Russian without accent or dialect, making sure his answers were
brief and to the point. His mission was simply to move the weapons into
al-Qaeda hands as fast as he could.

Six months after that transaction he was in Rome, securing the leverage necessary for the next step of his operation by acquiring the
Italian woman and her children, and immediately had them transported to an
abandoned warehouse in Perugia, Italy, which was within eyeshot of the Ponte
Felcino Mosque.

Now, back in the States after his brief spell in Italy, Hakam had just been informed by his contacts that the Arizona-Mexico team failed in
its run to get their device across the border. The other two teams, however,
succeeded, which in itself was good news.

Putting on a newly ironed shirt, Hakam stared at his image
in the mirror as he dressed. When he moved his right hand to button his shirt,
the mirror image moved its left. When the corner of his left lip curled into a
semblance of a smile, the mirror image lifted the right. Everything—motions,
tics and expressions—reflected the opposite. When he gazed upon his appearance
one last time, the image staring back at him was the reflection of youthful
innocence.

#

Perugia
, Italy

0930 Hours Pacific Standard Time in the United States

All around them shadows not their
own seemed to ebb and flow inside a room choked with free floating dust and
sepulchral dampness. Somewhere water dripped from a pipe or aged spigot, creating
rancid-smelling puddles teeming with bacteria Vittoria Pastore didn’t even want
to consider.

For three days she and her children were holed up in this
room where cold, blue light filtered in through the marginal seams surrounding
the boarded up windows. The walls that held them were made of corrugated tin,
which were firmly riveted in place to steel framing. And the door was
stalwartly solid with a small access door at its base that opened and closed
for the proffering of food, water and the occasional clean blanket.

For days she remained strong, huddling the girls close
together on the bunk bed stroking their hair softly, her eyes staring at
nothing in particular as she sat there with all the fortitude of a machine,
each day wondering if this was the day her children would breathe their last.

But Basilio wanted none of this motherly action, considering
himself too old and manly to be stroked endearingly by his mother, even at the
age of fifteen. 

But she was proud of him.

When she wasn’t staring at a fixed point on the opposite
wall, she would watch him pace from one side of the room to the other, noticing
the striking similarities to his father, such as the way he kept his shoulders
straight when he walked in a gait synonymous with confidence and strength, the
gait of a leader. Yet she couldn’t help notice the worry and uncertainty
regarding their fate in the young features on his face. And if her eyes could
readily adapt to darkness, she might have seen the hairs on his arms stand out
like the hackles of an animal sensing great danger.

Once the girls were asleep she would carefully set them
aside so as not to wake them, and with Basilio by her side, they would search
for a small opening around the window’s seam that would offer a minimal view of
their captors.

In the three days held captive, they were able to conclude
there were no more than six captors, all the same faces, same voices, always
speaking Arab. Dressed in camouflaged military fatigues, they also wore the
red-and-white checkered
keffiyeh
,
an attire of their faith, and noted the weapons they carried.     

Although she knew nothing of weapons in general, she knew
without a doubt the weapons they possessed looked powerful enough to obliterate
whatever target they were aiming at.

The outlook was not good.

Grabbing the fabric of her shirt, Basilio tugged at it to
get her attention. When she faced him she could see the forced calm on his
face, the way it belied his underlying and true sense of agitation . . . Just
like his father would if he was in the same predicament.   

“It’s been three days,” he whispered. “Nobody’s coming.
Nobody even knows where we are.”

Unlike his father who had patience, Basilio did not.

“And what do you propose we do, Basilio? Take on soldiers
fully armed?”

“Would you rather we wait and be slaughtered?”

“Basilio.” She reached out and placed a warm hand against
his cheek. “Your father will figure this out. And when he does, everything will
be fine.”

“Papa is in America. And we are . . . wherever this place is.
Papa cannot do anything, and you know it.”

Vittoria knew he was right. Her husband was halfway around
the world flying the pontiff from one destination to another for the Papal
Symposiums. Even she didn’t know where they were, which was duly pointed out by
her son. Nevertheless, she was not about to let Basilio make any propositions
that would put them all in jeopardy.

“We have to find a way out of here. Perhaps when the guards
fall asleep we can—”

“Basilio, no!” Her words came out harsher than expected.
“There is always one guard awake, you know that. There is no way out. The walls
are solid. We looked.”

He stood erect, his chest pumped out in macho pomposity.
“Then we will die like cowards,” he said, moving away. But Vittoria knew better—knowing
her son was simply venting because underneath he was scared like the rest of
them. If one of the captors pointed a weapon at his face, she knew Basilio
would break in a heartbeat.

Vittoria stood away from the slight aperture in the window
frame that granted her a view of the world beyond tin walls and closed her
eyes. After taking a long breath into her lungs, she then exhaled in an equally
long sigh.

It wasn’t so much as dying like cowards as her son had
suggested. It was the fact of dying period.

Why are they keeping us alive
? she asked herself.
And
for how much longer
?

CHAPTER EIGHT

Los Angeles
, California

1045 Hours Pacific Standard Time

Kimball Hayden, like most nights,
slept little but never looked haggard or deflated. Instead, he always looked
rejuvenated, his cerulean blue eyes always sparkling, the color of his face
never pallid or dull, but always carried the sun-baked hue of tanned leather.

The nightmares plaguing him never drew from him physically.
They only weighed him down emotionally.

Standing before the mirror, he noticed the marginal creases
forming at the edges of his eyes and along the forehead. He was aging, no
doubt, as nature does to a man by robbing him of his youthful appearance. But
the man still maintained enough strength and power to remain at the top of his
game.

When he was a newbie coming up through the ranks as a
presidential assassin, he carried with him the claim that he was the ‘best the
world had to offer’ when it came to double-edged weapons, for which he was
master of the silent kill and combat engagement. Having run his blade across
the throats of numerous enemies with impunity and undeniable skill, made him a
lethal prodigy within the power halls of the White House. In fact, the
principals were so enamored with his skills that they placed him amongst the
current gods of Mount Olympus until the moment of his epiphany. Nobody had seen
anything like him.

Now, several years later and seeking the salvation he’s been
so desperately searching for, Kimball Hayden had found only a medial calm
within himself.

He still had long way to go. 

Dressing in the room of his suite, his clothes neatly
pressed and laying on the edge of the bed, Kimball always took care and pride
of his vestments. Although a soldier of the Vatican, he wore the assigned
clothing of a cleric with the crisp black shirt and Roman collar. On the shirt
pocket was the emblem of the Vatican Knights, a coat of arms that set him and
his team apart from the rest of the clergy. Centered within the coat of arms
was a Silver Cross Pattée, which was set against a blue background. The colors
were significant for the fact that silver represented peace and sincerity, and
blue the traits of truth and loyalty. Positioned alongside the design were two
heraldic lions standing on their hind legs with their forepaws holding the
edges of the shield, stabilizing it. The implication of the lions was a
symbolic representation of bravery, strength, ferocity and valor. His black
pants, however, were more martial in appearance with his pant legs deliberately
blossoming at the top of military boots that were polished to a spit-shine
finish. This was the uniform of the Vatican Knights.

Making sure he was properly dressed to specs, his creases
sharp, his Roman collar centered and pristine white, Kimball Hayden marginally
resembled a priest rather than the killer he once was.

Taking one last careful note of his appearance in the
mirror, Kimball realized he would soon have to pass the mantle of leadership to
someone younger and aptly capable to lead his team into covert situations
sanctioned by the Church. In the meantime, he hoped to find that elusive
salvation he sought, that alleged ‘Light of Loving Spirits’ that would absolve
him from all the horrible wrongs he committed as an assassin for the United
States government.

In the meantime, as Pope Pius XIII spent his final day in
the United States dealing with the local bishops of the Holy See in social
communion, Kimball Hayden went off to find his own ‘spirits’ in a bottle of
drink.

#

Washington
D.C.

1130 Hours Eastern Standard Time.

President Jim Burroughs, thus far,
was able to keep the news about the portable nuclear device out of the media’s
grasp. But for how long, he didn’t know. Certainly it would only be a matter of
time before the information started to pour through the gaping wounds of broken
containment, once the first few drops of info escaped the dam. But for now, the
president did what he could to make sure that anyone leaking information would
be dealt with at the highest level, barring a direct threat of handing out
corporeal punishment.

The administration had been meeting all day in the Oval
Office trying to come up with the best possible approach to determine the
whereabouts of other weapons, if any, and their locations. And to do that they
had to start at the first stepping stone, which was to find out who proffered
the weapons to begin with. And to do that you had to start with the usual
suspects and follow the money trail. 

CIA Director Doug Craner stood on the Presidential Seal
before the president’s desk leafing through sheets of paper, confirming that the
constant rush of data brought to him by the intelligence networks were
indisputable before enlightening the top principals of Burroughs’ staff.

“Yorgi Perchenko,” he began, “is definitely in the black
market servicing clients who have enough money to purchase plutonium for the
construction of dirty bombs and Dante Packages for the right price.  Last year
his known bank accounts in twenty-seven nations have registered deposits
totaling one hundred thirty-seven million dollars. Not bad for a retired
assistant director for the Directorate S.  But everything we discovered from
intel confirms that Perchenko is
definitely
packaging portable nuclear
weapons, which gives me reason to believe he’s the only runner in the campaign
providing weapons of mass destruction.”

“And this is clear and precise?”

“Yes, sir. By intercepting Russian communication we were
able to ascertain the fact that six months ago the amount of three million
dollars was traced from a dummy corporation in Minsk, which was owned by
Perchenko, and wired to accounts in the Cayman Islands, Russia and the United
States where it was discovered by our sources that an additional twenty-seven million
was wired to those accounts from the Central Bank of Iran the day before. After
that the entire amount was wired to multiple accounts across the world until
the trail became so diluted it was hard to follow.”

“So Perchenko took the earnest deposit of three million,
regardless if the Central Bank of Iran faltered?”

“Exactly,” said Craner. “Black marketers are usually paid
ten percent of the gross total as a commission, whether or not the deal is
consummated due to the risk involved. In this case the deal went through and
the money dispensed until it eventually disappeared. At the very least, Mr.
President, Yorgi Perchenko is following the protocol of every black marketer.
And with such a large sum of money coming from a known terrorist front as Iran, I’d say Perchenko continues to top the list.”

Chief Advisor Alan Thornton agreed, since the jihad
crusaders were Arabs in possession of Russian-made goods. But the scenario fit
too well and appeared too simplistic, whereas Thornton cautioned the president that
this could be a red herring to throw the administration off and into a
different direction.

“But it’s the only direction we have at the moment,” the
president commented. And then he mused for a brief moment before coming up with
directions of his own. “By tracking the Russian communiqué, were you able to
pinpoint Perchenko’s location?”

“Not exactly, but sources believe him to be in Minsk. In fact, there’s a variety of clubs and bars he likes to frequent there.”

“Then you know what I want,” he said. “I want that man found
and I want your resources to do whatever it takes to make that man talk. I want
to know how many weapons are out there.”

“It might be hard since this guy is old school and knows
elusive techniques.”

“Look, Doug, I’m not asking you—I’m telling you. Make sure
you find this guy and get the right answers. I want to know how many units this
guy sold to the Arabs before the Russians get to him.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“And I mean immediately, Doug. Who knows how much longer we
have before they try to detonate a portable, if another exists.”

“Yes, sir.”

The president eased back into his chair. “Now the question
is this: What are the potential target sites? Obviously Washington D.C. and New York City. Give me something more.”

“It could be anywhere, Mr. President,” said Thornton. “Nuclear reactors, populated cities, the Pentagon—the list is endless.”

The president bit hard, the muscles in his jaw working.
“Then get with the international agencies and mine them for as much information
as possible. Especially Mossad. See if they can give us whatever data they have
regarding the Arabs killed at the infiltration site. Find out what cell they’re
from, their associates, anything that will give us a possible line to follow.”

“Yes, sir. But if I may?”

“Go ahead, Al.”

“Since we don’t know the target sites, I would suggest that
we get you to a safe location immediately.”

“You’re suggesting Camp David?”

“No, sir. Since the terrorists may assume you’re leaving for
Camp David, and that Camp David is listed as a top-ten targeted site, I
suggest Raven Rock.”

The Raven Rock Mountain Complex, also known as the
 
RRMC or Site R, is a nuclear presidential
bunker located on a mountain in Pennsylvania. After the
 
Soviet Union
 
detonated its first nuclear device in
1949, a high priority was created for the Joint Command Post to be placed in a
protected shelter near
 
Washington, D.C.
, for the
speedy relocation of the
 
National Command Authorities
 
and
the
 
Joint Communications Service
.
It was also frequented by
 
Vice President
 
Cheney
 
following the
9/11
attacks.

“Then we’ll leave tonight,” he said. “By morning I want a
complete base camp and Comm Center set up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And may God have mercy on the souls of the American
people.”