Authors: CG Cooper
If the threat frightened the devout priest, he didn’t show it. Instead, he nodded, and turned to his people.
“Please kneel, and pray with me.”
Father Pietro watched as they all obeyed, whimpering at the danger just feet away, all kneeling with the priest whose magnificent voice had gathered them together for the celebratory mass.
Father Josef, joined by what remained of his congregation, bowed his head and began praying, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”
The rest of the words were drowned out by the thundering rattle of machine gun fire, rounds assaulting the bodies of the assembled innocents, blood spraying and bodies slumping into piles. All Father Pietro could do was watch in horror, fists clenched, hoping that their murders would one day be avenged.
Chapter 2
Zapata District
Acapulco, Mexico
12:21am, March 11
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Father Pietro stepped down into the tub so he wouldn’t have to see the carnage, his hands cupped over his ears as soon as he hit the ground. His heart ached for the children, for the mothers and for Father Josef. When the gunfire stopped, he sat and waited. The familiar voice of the leader still spoke in Spanish for some reason, even though Pietro’s mind had already deduced that the man was some sort of Islamic fanatic. But when he’d gotten a glance at the man’s face, he was sure it wasn’t Arabic, maybe Spanish or even Italian, but not Arabic.
“You two, go next door and make sure the old man was telling the truth. Meet us back at the warehouse after you’re done.”
There were grunts from the men and the sound of doors opening and closing. Father Pietro knew he had to go, but where? Surely they would come in from the front and the back entrances. That’s what he would have done. That’s what he and his men had done.
The back door was the closest, so he decided to close the gap, his senses heightened by the thought of getting his hands on the murderers. It wasn’t what a proper Catholic priest should do, but in that moment, Pietro slipped back into his former role, his training taking over.
Doing a quick scan as he crept forward, nothing that could be used in his defense came to mind. He’d have to do it the hard way since there was no time to go to the tiny kitchen for anything that resembled a weapon.
He said a prayer as he settled in next to the rear entrance, his back soaked in stale sweat as he leaned against the wall. The light switch was on the other side, but the intruder wouldn’t know that.
Father Pietro heard the front door slam open just as the back door did the same. He caught sight of the tip of a muzzle, its owner scanning the entryway.
Stupid
, thought Pietro. You never gave your enemy a glimpse. He knew what was coming.
The man with the gun rushed in, looking right, then moving to look left. That was when Father Pietro’s clasped hands crashed down on the man’s hand, making him bobble the rifle.
The priest bowled the man over. There was a brief struggle for the weapon, and thankfully he never pulled the trigger, but he did call out for his friend. “Help!”
Father Pietro almost panicked, grabbing the man’s head with both hands. But then his anger drove him, all thoughts of forgiveness flew from his mind. He slammed the man’s head into the tiled floor, once, then again, and again. After the third thud, the man was no longer moving.
The priest didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the man’s weapon and moved into the next room, padding quietly as the dead man’s accomplice called from the front.
“Where are you?”
Pietro kept moving. A light flicked on in the front hall, then another in the kitchen.
Another stupid move
. If it had been Pietro, he would have left the lights off. Better to stalk his prey. But as he’d found in countless operations against the Mafiosi, most human beings were scared of the dark. The only shadows Father Pietro feared were the demons in his dreams.
Weapon scanning, lungs and heart settling, Pietro kept his eyes over the front sight post, a small part of him relishing the feel of a gun in his hands. He wasn’t helpless anymore.
No more calls from the front, only the noisy whirr from the ancient refrigerator in the kitchen. As Pietro peered from the darkness, ready to slip around the final corner, machine gun spat lead into the hallway, taking out chunks of cheap drywall and shattering a mirror to the priest’s right.
Instead of falling back, Father Pietro rolled into the next room, well below the stream of bullets. It was almost always the same. Enemies rarely aimed low.
The barrel of his automatic weapon came up, his muscle memory taking over. Eyes aligned and finger poised, the head of his attacker came into view for a split second. It was all Pietro needed. He depressed the trigger as he got to his feet, every fiber in his still muscular frame working in harmony, tracking his target to the right and through the thin wall. The intruder was no match for his bullets.
Burst after controlled burst rattled from left, then down and right; the exact trajectory of the falling man. Father Pietro knew before he rushed around the corner what he would find.
The submachine gun had fallen from the masked man’s hands and was a few feet away. He was still moving, and writhed even more when Father Pietro stomped a foot on the man’s chest, pinning him in place.
Pietro ripped the black balaclava from the man’s head and two wide eyes looked up at him. Blood ran from his mouth and it opened and closed like a fish that’d been dropped out of water. Father Pietro knew what was coming. There was no saving this man. So he said a silent prayer for the man’s soul, and shot him in the face.
By the time he got to the bar, the owner was closing shop.
“Oh, hello, Father.”
“Hello, Ignacio. Don’t tell me it’s already closing time,” Father Pietro said, his voice strained from the fifteen-minute sprint away from the massacre.
“Slow night, Father.” He paused and looked closer at priest. “Are you well?”
Pietro gave him a quick nod. “Yes, yes. I was just hoping to catch you before you went home.” He knew it was a risk. Soon the entire neighborhood would know what had happened. It wasn’t that wholesale slaughter was new to the coastal city. Acapulco had gone from a luxury resort town that hosted international celebrities on its beaches for decades, to the most dangerous city in Mexico. Not only had tourism disappeared, but the per capita murder rate had skyrocketed. There was talk of a renewed push by the Mexican government and several rich benefactors to kick out the narco-traffickers, but so far the lost city was still firmly in the hands of Mexico’s ruthless drug lords.
The bar owner glanced at his watch, then back at the priest.
“I do have some paperwork to do before tomorrow. Twenty minutes?”
“Thank you, Ignacio.”
Father Pietro sat at the sticky bar and stared at the bottle of vodka sitting next to his half-full glass. He’d heard the sirens in the distance, but resisted turning on the television. He didn’t want to disturb the owner, who sat at the end of the bar, no doubt keeping tabs on how much his late night patron was drinking.
The sullen priest’s mind wandered back to Italy, to his days on the soccer fields around Naples, along the Amalfi Coast and then finally in Rome. He’d been a gifted athlete. His parents hoped and prayed he would become a professional footballer, maybe even playing for their native Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli. Back then he’d been Gabriel Fusconi, the treasured oldest son. But the Fusconi dreams of soccer stardom came to an end when sixteen year old Gabriel came out of a routine knee operation with unexpected complications. Apparently the surgeon, Gabriel would later find out, had obtained his so-called license through the help of a certain powerful Mafiosi. Such practice was common in Italy. Why work hard in school when you can do a few favors and get a law or medical degree in the process just for having the right connections?
Recuperation from the complications took over two years, and by that time Gabriel’s window to play his favorite sport had passed. Those were dark days for the entire Fusconi clan. His parents didn’t have much, but they worked long hours to see their beloved son through painful physical therapy, all in the hope that he might strap on his cleats again and take his rightful place on the field.
That never happened. The teams that had once been so anxious to sign him now saw him as a liability. Soon phone calls were not returned, and Gabriel was struggling to complete his final year of school. It was on one of those dark days that he happened to pass by a local coffee shop. There were a handful of Carabinieri cruisers and a military troop transport outside, along with a growing crowd of onlookers.
It didn’t take long until two men, obviously Mafiosi, were escorted out not by the police, but by six grim faced soldiers in all black military gear. Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off of the scene as the two men were placed into the back of the troop transport by five of the soldiers.
The final soldier, who Gabriel now saw was an officer (although he didn’t understand the rank), went back to talk to the head Carabinieri. Something inside Gabriel stirred. Thoughts of the crooked doctor, images of his mother going to mass every night to pray for his healing, the sound of his father beating his hand on the kitchen table as he tried to figure out how they’d pay all their monthly bills… Gabriel pushed his way through the crowd, somehow slipping through the rest of the gawkers. He waited for the burly soldier to finish, and then cut him off before he reached the gray transport.
“Excuse me, sir. How can I do what you do?”
The soldier stopped and looked at Gabriel.
“What makes you think you could do what I do?”
Gabriel didn’t back down. He was almost as tall as the man, just over six feet according to his last doctor’s visit.
“I used to play soccer. I’m a good athlete. I work hard.”
The soldier’s eyes narrowed. “It takes more than hard work to do what I do. Go home and play soccer, boy.” The soldier continued on his way.
Gabriel felt his world slipping away again.
“I can’t play anymore, sir! A Mafiosi doctor messed up my knee in surgery. But I’m better now. See!”
Gabriel squatted down to the ground and jumped as high as he could. The solder turned around again. There was something in his eyes. Compassion, maybe?
“If you really want to do what I do, enlist in the army, and prove yourself.”
“But how do I—”
The soldier cut him off with the shake of his head.
“You’ll have to figure the rest out on your own. If you want it, you’ll figure it out.”
And the soldier had been right. With a renewed sense of purpose, Gabriel edged by with his grades and managed to graduate. The same day he went to the local army recruiting station and enlisted. It would be three long years of trials and training before he would get to the elite special forces unit of the 9
th
Parachute Assault Regiment (also known as Col. Moschin, or “Moschin Hill”), and their recently formed anti-terror squad. It was a natural fit for the young Italian, and soon he was leading his own secret raids across Italy.
But he didn’t want to think about those now. He’d lost himself in that world, and was afraid that he’d somehow get sucked back in. The hate and violence were no longer who he was, except in his nightmares.
Father Pietro shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. What he needed was time. Time to think. Time to come up with a plan. Time to somehow get out of Mexico. Then an idea came to him.
“Ignacio, may I use your phone?”
“Yes, Father.”
Ignacio set his cell phone on the bar and slid it down to the priest. Father Pietro scooped it up and said, “Do you mind if I take it outside? Just for a moment.”
The owner waved him to the door and went back to his work.
Father Pietro dialed the number from memory, a long ago promise for aid giving him hope for the first time that night. He waited through two rings, then a third. Maybe he’d dialed wrong? Maybe his old friend was no longer alive? Maybe…
Just when his hope seemed as if it would fade into the night, someone answered.
“Yes?”
Despite the one word answer, Father Pietro recognized the raspy voice immediately.
“My friend, I need your help,” Pietro whispered.
“Gabriel?”
The priest almost didn’t answer.
“Yes, it’s me.”
A grunt and a chain smoker’s wet cough came through the phone before the voice replied, “Tell me how I can help.”
Chapter 3
The Vatican
Rome, Italy
10:49am, March 11
th
The Pope stepped into the private waiting room without his normal retinue. His snow white cassock swept over the threshold, and all five robed men in the room went to their knees.
“Rise, my most cherished brothers. Please.”
One by one they rose, taking their cues from the smallest form in front, a hunched man in a brown monk’s robe. His eyes glistened when he looked up.
“Holy Father,” the monk said, punctuated by a wet cough.
The pontiff embraced the old man and whispered into his ear, “I see time is catching up with you as well, old friend. We are a long way from our running days in Argentina.”
The man nodded and stifled another cough. “I apologize for disturbing you, Holy Father.”
The Pope smiled and waved the apology away. “Who better than a beloved friend to excuse me from the babbling of Vatican accountants?” He chuckled but his eyes were searching the old man’s face. He waved the five visitors into seats at a simple round wooden table. “Now, why was it you wanted to see me?”
The head of the Brotherhood of St. Longinus clasped his hands in his lap, his eyes hard, like he’d just remembered who he was.