Apocalypse Ark Read online

  “Indeed. So nearly half of our remaining time is gone. That smells like failure.”

  “I prefer to judge a contest when it is completed,” Bouchet said.

  “That’s fair enough, Luis, bearing in mind that this is your contest, not simply...what’s his name, again?”

  “Brother Halloran.”

  “Has he served you long?”

  “Long and well, Your Eminence.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. The trouble and this American he picked up in his travels have accomplished nothing.”

  “I must disagree respectfully, Your Eminence.”

  “Perhaps I should have said, ‘Besides a glut of corpses scattered from Messina to East Africa.’ They have not kept our enemies out of striking range of Rome, you must agree. As for the savagery our followers have suffered in attacks around the world—”

  “Those incidents don’t reflect on anything that Brother Halloran has done or failed to do,” Bouchet retorted. “He can’t defy the laws of time and space. I gave him one job to perform—”

  “And he has yet to finish it! It may already be too late.”

  “Your Eminence, he has reduced the hostile force by half its starting number. With the Swiss Guard and Gendarmerie on full alert around us, and the Carabinieri outside, a dozen men or less will never penetrate the Holy See.”

  “They have no need to penetrate it, if their weapon is as advertised,” Saldana said.

  “You think they have the Ark? That even if they did, our Lord would let its power be employed against His church?”

  Saldana turned cold eyes on his subordinate. “What I believe—and this, I’m authorized to tell you, is a view the Holy Father shares—is that our enemies wouldn’t travel so far and risk so much without believing they possessed a weapon that can ruin us. Whether that proves to be a bomb, some sort of pestilence or just a figment of diseased imaginations, it is dangerous.”

  “But—”

  “Dangerous because our enemies believe. Because if they inflict some catastrophic damage on the Holy See, it damages our credibility. It undermines the Holy Father’s mandate from our Lord, the very right to speak for Him. You understand? Taken to the extreme, it could inaugurate a new age of apostasy.”

  “Your Eminence—”

  “Luis,” Saldana interrupted him. “It’s critical that no disaster be permitted. You must not permit it.” With a finger-jab to Bouchet’s chest, he said, “As Brother Halloran’s American might say, the buck stops here. With you. We still have leper colonies in need of pastors, eh?”

  “I understand, Your Eminence.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “You’ll be relieved to know that Brother Halloran and his American are on their way to Rome,” Bouchet replied. “In fact, they should be landing any moment now.”

  Washington, D.C.

  “NO OTHER TRACES on that phone?” Hal Brognola asked.

  “Nothing since Naples,” Aaron Kurtzman answered. “They’re approaching Rome by now. Nothing to talk about, unless their poobah tries to call them off.”

  “That isn’t happening,” Brognola said, with grim conviction. “No one jams through all this interference just to sit down on the five-yard line.”

  “I’d say it’s down to Striker and his buddy, then,” Kurtzman replied.

  Or the thousands of police and soldiers on alert in Rome, Brognola thought, knowing that Bolan wouldn’t lift a hand to save himself from them, if he was trapped.

  “At least they got an airlift,” he acknowledged. “Should be on the ground by now, or nearly there.”

  “Cutting it close,” Kurtzman observed. “How’s that supposed to work?”

  “I wish to hell I knew.”

  “No way to put a word in for him with the locals?”

  “I’ve been on the line,” Brognola said. “They naturally don’t appreciate the meddling.”

  “Did you let them know about the church connection?”

  “I considered it. Decided that it’s not my place to blow an ally’s cover.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I know, okay? It was a judgment call. I wouldn’t want somebody from the CDF telling the world what Striker’s up to, either.”

  “Right.”

  “You think I blew it?”

  “No, no,” Kurtzman said. “Making hard decisions is the reason you keep getting giant paychecks every week.”

  “Yeah, right. At least I know you haven’t hacked my bank account.”

  “Well, if I ever need a burger in a hurry...”

  “No one likes a smart-ass, Bear.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me.”

  Brognola didn’t want to say the last bit, but he had to get it out. “Listen, if anything goes wrong—”

  “It won’t.”

  “But if it does...”

  “Deniability’s preserved,” Kurtzman assured him.

  “And you’ve got Phoenix Force on standby?”

  “With Jack Grimaldi. He’s already pissed that no one brought him in at the beginning. Says he would’ve sunk the Ark, day one.”

  “Guy needs to brush up on his Bible,” Brognola replied. “If it turns out we need them—”

  “They were ready yesterday,” Kurtzman said.

  “And it’s scorched earth. The home team goes, no matter where they try to hide, however long it takes.”

  “And after that?” He was asking about the so-called bishops of Custodes Foederis, tending their temples worldwide.

  “Some of them obviously knew about the other hits,” Brognola said. “No reason they should skate for free.”

  “Okay. We’ve got a list.”

  “Hang on to it.”

  Some of the cult’s midlevel leaders were already under lock and key, awaiting trial on charges ranging from conspiracy to murder. Where the law could do its job, Brognola was content to let procedures run their course. But if he thought the guilty parties had a prayer of ducking punishment, he wouldn’t hesitate to use the mandate he’d been given when the White House had established Stony Man. There’d be no amnesty for zealots whose doctrine included mass murder of innocents.

  And walk away from taking out Brognola’s oldest living friend? No way.

  No way at all.

  Valmontone, Italy

  TWENTY MINUTES SOUTH of Rome, with Franco Arieti at the wheel, still eating up the miles, Claudio Branca finally began to think that they might make it after all. From the beginning, although steeped in faith and dedicated to the grand crusade with every fiber of his being, he had harbored doubts, had begged forgiveness from his Savior for the weakness that is part of every human born in sin. Each step along the way, he’d dealt with fear of failure and disgrace. But now, with Rome nearly in view, Branca began to think once more in terms of triumph.

  Were they quaking at the Vatican? Did each news bulletin arriving via satellite increase anxiety among the servants of the Scarlet Whore? Branca devoutly hoped so, since a frightened, anxious enemy was less efficient than an adversary who maintained his confidence.

  And he’d begun to think about the Ark.

  His problem: no one knew exactly how it worked—or if it worked, for that matter. Descriptions found in holy writ were vague, at best. God ordered his disciples not to touch or look upon the Ark, and those who disobeyed were stricken down. As for the rest, it was obscure. A mystery.

  Branca had brought no trumpets made from ram’s horns with him, to repeat the tactic used by Joshua at Jericho. And even if he had, the Scarlet Whore’s police weren’t about to let him march around the Vatican for seven days, until a shout brought down the walls. He would be lucky if they gave him seven minutes, once he’d reached the Holy See.

  What then?

  Another tale from scrip
ture told of how Israel had lost the Ark in battle to the Philistines, which led Branca to wonder if the weapon was infallible, or simply fickle. It had been constantly in motion, plaguing with tumors the residents of each town where it stopped, until it was finally surrendered after seven months. It had been lost again when Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, in 586 BC, then finally surfaced at Axum seven centuries later.

  But how did it work?

  There’d been no opportunity to test it, for two reasons. First, they had been on the run since snatching it from Ethiopia. And more importantly, perhaps, Branca had feared that any premature attempt to prime the Ark for battle might produce disastrous results. Suppose he and his team were wiped out on the spot? Or what if one exposure vented all the Ark’s reputed power at some point along their journey through the hinterlands, leaving Branca empty-handed when he got to Rome?

  And worst of all: what if the Ark did nothing? How could he proceed, asking his men to sacrifice themselves without a hope of victory, knowing the superweapon that they carried with them was a dud?

  It was unthinkable.

  Turning to his soldiers in the van’s cargo bay, he cautioned, “Everyone be ready when we cross the city limits into Rome. Expect the opposition to be anywhere and everywhere. We’ll be making our final approach on Viale Vaticano. Anything can happen there. Be ready when it does.”

  Branca supposed the lecture was unnecessary, since they’d covered it a hundred times before. The handpicked members of his team had all accepted the inherent risks involved in their crusade, had made their peace with God and were prepared to die if necessary. But Branca needed them prepared to live, to fight and kill with overwhelming odds against them, in the name of Christ their Lord and Custodes Foederis.

  This day, he had no fear that they would let him down.

  As for the Ark...well, he would have to wait and see. If God abandoned them, Branca was powerless to stop it, but he wouldn’t lie down and surrender like a coward. He preferred to go down fighting and to be transformed at death. March on into the golden streets of paradise.

  Amen.

  Rome Ciampino Airport

  EN ROUTE TO Rome, Brother Borelli explained that he couldn’t access the heliport within Vatican City. The CDF’s prefect had warned him of dissension in the church’s upper ranks, specifically a fear of being linked to any action that Bolan and Halloran might engage in after touchdown. Meanwhile, Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport was located twenty-two miles from their target, with a risk of getting stalled in downtown traffic.

  The solution was Rome Ciampino, aka Giovan Battista Pastine Airport, seven and a half miles from the city’s center, just outside the Greater Ring Road that circled downtown Rome. Five million passengers per year used Rome Ciampino Airport, compared to some thirty-eight million passing through Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino. But enough daily flights would cover the arrival of one private chopper coming in from Naples.

  Bolan assumed the airport had security in place, but no one bothered coming out to check on the Koala’s passengers as they deplaned. Two cars were waiting near the helipad, a red compact beside a snow-white limousine. The limo’s wheelman didn’t bother stepping out or taking off his sunglasses. The compact’s driver stood with dark hair whipping in the chopper’s rotor wash, a tight smile on his face, and handed its key to Borelli. He passed the key to Halloran in turn, while its deliverer retreated to the limo’s shotgun seat. Without a parting wave from either man, the big vehicle pulled away.

  “Your car,” Borelli said. “Untraceable. I won’t delay you further.”

  “About that other item,” Bolan said.

  “Of course. On the rear floorboard, I believe. You’ll want to check it?”

  Bolan did. A duffel bag was lying in the borrowed car, as advertised. Unzipping it revealed a rifle with a telescopic sight and folding stock, plus half a dozen loaded magazines.

  “Not quite the easiest to find,” Borelli said.

  “But worth the effort,” Bolan said.

  “It pleases you?”

  He checked the weapon’s action, keeping it below the line of sight for anyone outside the car, and said, “It should be fine.”

  “In that case,” Borelli said, “I will say goodbye and wish you good luck.”

  “We could use it,” Bolan answered, engrossed in preparing his weapon.

  The rifle was a venerable Beretta BM59 Mark III, based on the American M-1 Garand but chambered for 7.62 mm NATO rounds, fed from detachable 20-round box magazines. The Mark III was designed initially for mountain troops, with a pistol grip and folding metal stock, together with a folding bipod and a combination flash suppressor-grenade launcher at the business end. Removed from military service in 1990, the BM59 was still a formidable weapon, with selective fire and a full-auto cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute. The addition of a Schmidt & Bender 5-25x56 PM II LP telescopic sight with a stadiametric range-finding reticle made the “obsolete” weapon a crack sniper’s rifle.

  The alternative had been Accuracy International’s Arctic Warfare Precision Marksman, present standard-issue for Italian military snipers, chambered in the same caliber and equipped with the same Schmidt & Bender telescope. Its drawbacks, for the present mission, were the rifle’s bolt action and its magazine capacity of ten rounds maximum.

  No good in this case, when the Executioner had no idea how many targets he’d be spotting, and a rapid rate of fire might make the difference between success and a catastrophe.

  “Ready?” Halloran asked.

  “I will be, by the time we get there,” Bolan said. He closed the compact’s door behind him, settling in the backseat with his new best friend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The trick was finding somewhere to set up and wait. Halloran was quick to find an exit from the airport, tooling north on Via Appia Nuova into Rome. They crossed the Tiber River and continued on northwestward toward Vatican City, with the numbers running down to doomsday inside Bolan’s head.

  Two points of entry to the Vatican were available to tourists. On the north, pedestrians had access to the Vatican Museum. On the southeast, they could stroll into Saint Peter’s Square and visit the Papal Basilica of Saint Peter, arguably the most famous cathedral on earth. Neither approach was open to outside motorized traffic, however, which meant Bolan’s adversaries either had to crash the Holy See headlong or park outside and haul the Ark by hand through one gate or the other.

  His problem: while Vatican City was the world’s smallest sovereign city-state, covering only 110 acres, no external vantage point granted equal coverage of the two public entryways. He had to choose one or the other, and decided that his best bet was Saint Peter’s Square, picking a sniper’s nest somewhere along the east-west straightaway of Via della Conciliazione. A drive-by showed him that his best shot, literally, would be from the rooftop of a hotel on Via Rusticucci, fronting on Piazza Pio XII.

  Dressed once again—and for the last time, he devoutly hoped—in priestly garb, Bolan stepped out of the car, shouldered his duffel bag and ducked his head for a farewell as Halloran lowered the driver’s window.

  “I’ll be just inside,” the brother said, “covering the ground approach.”

  “Don’t try to stop them by yourself,” Bolan advised, for all the good that it would do. “If I don’t see you afterward—”

  “Then go with God,” Halloran said, and pulled away without waiting for a reply.

  Bolan passed through a service entrance into the hotel and caught an elevator to the fourth floor, where a door marked Privata—Persone Autorizzate! barred access to unauthorized personnel. He ignored it, passed on through and climbed a flight of concrete steps to reach another door, then opened that in turn to reach the roof.

  The hotel’s southwest corner was his vantage point, granting a long view of Saint Peter’s Square past its o
belisk, the hub of rail traffic inside the Holy See, to the looming columns of the great basilica. Tourists roamed freely over the width and breadth of the piazza, with nearly tame pigeons milling around their feet, spinning occasionally into whirlwind flights that rose and fell without apparent rhyme or reason, like a form of living artwork.

  Ready for the long hunt to be over, Bolan made a last check of his BM59 and settled down to wait.

  * * *

  “I’M TELLING YOU we can drive in, as far the facade of the hotel,” Claudio Branca said. “The barricades are farther back, inside the square.”

  “That’s for official cars, from the hotel or Vatican,” Franco Arieti replied. “You may recall I checked the place myself.”

  “And if someone complains, we’ll reason with them,” Branca said, patting the Spectre submachine gun resting in his lap.

  They were rolling northwestward on Corso Vittorio Emmanuele III, crossing the Tiber’s green water to reach Via della Conciliazione: Conciliation Street. But there would be no conciliation this day. No appeasement. Only bloody reckoning.

  Via della Conciliazione ran one-way from east to west, spanning four hundred meters between Piazza Pia and Saint Peter’s Square. Within the next few minutes, Branca knew, it was slated to become the world’s most famous avenue. The place where God Himself—with Branca’s help, of course—fired the opening shot in a war to purify the planet.

  Arieti signaled for the left-hand turn, leaving the flow of traffic that continued north on Via di Porta Castello. A white hotel shuttle bus made the turn in front of them, showing Franco the way if he’d had any doubts.

  “An escort,” Branca said, smiling. “How thoughtful.” Then, to his tense soldiers riding in the back, around the Ark, “Be ready!”

  None of them responded, but he knew they would be peering past him, through the van’s windshield, or out through its tinted windows in back. They would alert him to the first hint of a hostile tail, but it was already too late to stop them short of their objective now.

  Branca had half expected ranks of armored vehicles—or at the very least, police cars—to be blocking Via della Conciliazione. He was surprised to find the way wide-open, with nothing to obstruct them but the shuttle bus, and even it was hastening as if to clear their path. A few more seconds and the Ark would yield its secret: blazing power to eradicate the Scarlet Whore, or else a dud that left his team to fight and die alone against all odds.