The Iscariot Agenda by Rick Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

scarlet drapes with scalloped edges and gold fringe covered the floor-to-ceiling windows. Polished brass sconces surrounded six-foot portraits of past popes, the gallery lining the walls in the chronological order they served the Church. The chamber held the sizeable dimensions of a ballroom that served as the nerve center of papal activity.
    After Kimball entered the room, the enormous wooden doors closed behind him with mechanical slowness. His footfalls echoed throughout with the poor acoustics as he neared the pontiff’s desk, which bore the ornate carvings of angels and cherubs on the mahogany panels.
    Sitting in a button-studded chair made of Corinthian leather sat Pope Pius. Beside him stood Cardinal Vessucci, wearing the normal vestments of the simar with scarlet trim and a scarlet biretta. The cardinal appeared to be holding photos, obviously engaging the pope of the matter in hand before Kimball entered the chamber.
    Pope Pius fell back in his chair and gestured for Kimball to take one of the two chairs before his desk. “I’m glad you could make it, Kimball. My deepest apology for interrupting your session with the monsignor, but the situation requires your immediate presence.”
    Kimball sat down. “We were done anyway. How can I be of service, Your Holiness?”
    Pius turned to the cardinal, a cue to Vessucci to take over. The cardinal then handed three 8x10 glossies to Kimball. “We just received these from Vatican Intelligence,” he told him.
    Having diplomatic relationships with more than ninety percent of the world’s countries, the Vatican’s Intelligence Service, the Servizio Informazione del Vaticano , better known as the SIV, was created to counter early 19th century efforts to subvert the power of the Vatican . So the Church saw the need in creating an “unofficial” security agency to solve problems by conceiving a system of confidential communication and information gathering. But with the growing threat of extremist groups, the SIV had grown to a major organization since the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.
    As Kimball examined the photos his shoulders began to soften and slump. “I know these people,” he said. “They were a part of my old unit, the Pieces of Eight.”
    He inspected the glossies further, noting the dead faces, the whites of their eyes holding at half mast.
    “The photos you’re holding were taken in makeshift morgues in the Philippines. These, however,” he handed Kimball three additional photos, “were taken at the scene where the bodies were found.”
    The bodies were facedown, unrecognizable, their shirts ripped and parted, a letter carved into each man’s back. He also noted that Walker was tied to the legs of a table, his own legs missing.
    “Somebody cut off Walker’s legs?”
    “No. Mr. Walker was apparently—for lack of a better term—a mercenary who lost them in an IED attack in Iraq. Misters Grenier and Arruti, however, where operating a military agency in the southern Philippines while looking after Walker, who remained in Manila.” 
    “A band of brothers,” he whispered. And then he took notice of the carvings. “Symbols?”
    “Letters,” Vessucci immediately stated.
    “Are you sure? One looks like a lightning bolt and the other looks like a sideways V, like Greek runes or something.”
    “At first glance—yes, but the SIV has concluded that they’re nothing more than crude carvings. It’s been determined that the bolt is actually an S, and the sideways V—as you put it— the letter C.” He handed Kimball another photo, this one of his old unit posing for the camera’s lens. Kimball was kneeling in the bottom roll, the last one on the right, his face maintaining the appearance of cold fortitude in a time that seemed so long ago. In the top roll the faces of  the Pieces of Eight—Walker, Grenier and Arruti, who stood side-by-side from left to right—were circled in red marker, the letter ‘I’ in Walker’s circle,