Page 7 of End of Days

Like the other two women, all he’d wanted was what she had offered. A chance to connect with her. Someone who wouldn’t care about his deficiencies.

Everything had gone well, right up until she’d pulled his pants down. He couldn’t get an erection. She’d worked furiously, and he’d encouraged her on and on, and then she’d tried to cup his testicles. Located his shame.

“You got no balls? What is this?” she said.

And then the rage had struck. A red level of violence he had lived with for four years, which cost the woman her life.

He knelt down and recited the Lord’s Prayer, then glanced at the body, a niggling bit of his subconscious realizing that he was growing used to the killing. Scarier still, he was growing to like it, wanting to inflict pain in an attempt to release his own.

This time he was in a decrepit Airstream trailer on the outskirts of a greenspace in the center of the same neighborhood he’d killed the other two. Called Esposizione Universale Roma, or EUR, it was south of the city center of Rome, Italy.

Built by Benito Mussolini in preparation for the world’s fair in 1942, it was designed as a new urban hub celebrating fascism and his rule. World War II put a stop to that fantasy, and now it had the ignominy of being known as the red-light district of Rome. While the city looked away from the street walkers in the area, it still didn’t allow actual brothels, which meant the men and women had to get creative to ply their trade. In this case, a trailer on the edge of a park.

He rose from his knees and leaned over the soiled mattress where the woman lay. Ignoring her open eyes, he kissed her cheek, whispering, “I’m sorry.”

He glanced at his watch, seeing it was almost sevena.m.He’d been unconscious for nearly six hours, making him late for the meeting with his men at the Priory. Even worse, making him late for the command of the next attack.

He hurriedly searched the room for any traces he’d left, using his cell phone to call his men, not worried about anyone tracking him through the cell towers because he was calling through the Wi-Fi in the woman’s trailer. She’d paid for the service with a portable Mi-Fidevice to show porn videos to prospective clients. But it hadn’t helped his mood. In fact, it did nothing but elevate the rage when he saw the virile men.

Using an app called Zello, he connected and said, “Hey, I’m running a little late, but I’ll be there soon. Are we good for today?”

“Yes. He’s headed south just like he’s done every single weekend.”

“We can’t make a mistake here. The PMU in Iraq needs to be blamed. Keta’ib Hezbollah.”

“They will be. We have the note ready to go.”

“What’s the timeline?”

“Probably an hour. Maybe more.”

“And Paris? What’s happening there?”

“I’m waiting on the news now. Nothing yet.”

He said, “Okay, I’m headed to the Priory. See you soon.”

He opened the trailer door, peering out the grimy window first to make sure he wasn’t seen, then jogged to his vehicle.

Driving north out of the neighborhood, he knew it would take him a good thirty minutes to get to the Priory in Rome’s city center, and every second was precious. He traveled as fast as he dared without drawing attention, eventually circling around the Colosseum, the crowds much sparser than they would ordinarily be on a June morning before the pandemic, but coming back to life. Reaching Via Sistina, he miraculously found a parking spot adjacent to the top of the famed Spanish Steps—a luxury even considering the lack of traffic due to COVID.

He leapt out of the car, not even bothering to lock it. He bounded down the wide steps like he was running from the police, ignoring the small smattering of tourists taking selfies on the ledges. Still wearing masks, they reminded him of sprouts of flowers after a horrendous winter—the first beginnings of new life in Rome.

He hit the lower level, reaching the Piazza de Spagna and the fountain there, then raced to the narrow alley of Via Dei Condotti. Full of expensive stores, it was the high-end shopping district of Rome. Most were closed still because of the pandemic, but a few were open, and the slowly recuperating tourist industry was helping that along, with more and more people coming to shop. He ignored them. While many were drawn here to buy the latest in fashion, he was going to a building that had been bequeathed to his organization almost two hundred years before.

He reached a stone archway leading to a courtyard, sandwiched between a store selling Hermès on the left and Jimmy Choo on the right. He went forward to a small security checkpoint and presented his credentials. A man checked his identification and let him through without issue, but he could tell the attendant wondered about the sweat cloaking his body from his jog in the cloying June heat.

He speed-walked across the courtyard to the main door of the Magisterial Palace of the Knights of Malta. Known formally as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta, it was an organization that had been around since the First Crusade in the eleventhcentury, and was one of the last papal sovereign orders of chivalry.

Formed initially by a Benedictine monk to help the faithful on their path to the promised land, it had morphed much in its history. First, a hospital to help the pious on their quest to Jerusalem, then, when the faithful were attacked, as an army to defend them, and finally, when they were defeated in the defense of the Holy Land, they became a sea power protecting the Catholic empire, first on the island of Rhodes, and finally Malta.

As with most of the papal benedictions of the day, the order eventually lost favor as it grew in power—perceived as a threat to the HolySee. But the Knights of Malta were cunning. They’d learned early on who the true authority was. When the famed Knights Templar were burned at the stake as heretics, even as they did the bidding of the Holy Roman Empire, the Knights of Malta knew it was because they had become too powerful. The Grand Master of the Knights of Malta had learned a valuable lesson: It doesn’t pay to be the king. Better to be the court jester.

When the Templars were destroyed, the benefactor had been the Knights of Malta. They were bequeathed the lands and treasures of that order. Having been kicked out of Jerusalem, then Rhodes, and finally Malta—from no less than Emperor Napoleon in the late eighteenth century, which was a legitimate black eye, as the Knights had literally saved the European continent from the Ottoman hordes in the sixteenth century—they had been given a plot of land in Rome. They had existed there ever since.

Now returning back to its roots of charity, the Knights of Malta worked worldwide to help the downtrodden. They were a weird anachronism of history. They had their own passports, produced their own currency and postal stamps, had observer status in the United Nations, but owned no terrain. In effect, they were a state entity without a state. Given its nonprofit work around the world, and the support of the Holy See, it still had its pedigree, but no longer had a martial bent. At least that’s what they said on official documents.

Garrett was the marshal side of the house. A devout Catholic, he had been contacted by the Knights when they went into Syria the first time, during the barrel bombings of the Assad regime in early 2013.

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