Shepherd One Read Free Page B

aluminum case and placed his palms flat
against the container. Even under the hot desert sun the shell was cool to the
touch. Undoing the clasps, the Arab lifted the lid.
    Everything was in its place beneath the Plexiglas shield,
the circuitry secured, the spheres undamaged, which the Arab worried about over
the course of the rough terrain. The Russians had manufactured well. 
    After closing the lid and clamping it shut, the Arab stood
and surveyed the distance toward the American border. “We will take the van as
far as we can, and then dump it.”
    With a sweeping gesture of his hand, his comrades lifted the
aluminum case and returned it to the van.
    Less than five minutes later they began to traverse the
difficult terrain in the van. And less than half mile from their launch point the
vehicle became mired in sand, the van going nowhere.
    Juan Pallabos was right after all.
     
    #
    On the western approach to
the American/Mexican border from the Baja, California route, a separate team of
three Middle Easterners crossed over into American territory undetected. The
aluminum case they carried was safe and secure, the spheres inside undamaged.
And in the end no one could believe how simple it was to maneuver over to the
other side. There was not a single border agent, helicopter or roving patrol
vehicle in sight. There were no dogs or fences or obstacles to act as a
deterrent. Getting the aluminum case and its cargo into the United States proved to be less of an adversity than initially planned for; there was
absolutely no challenge from the opposition, absolutely no one to stop them.
    It was that simple.  
     
    #
    Team Three also managed to
slip undetected across the American border from the New Mexico point, a part of
the 2,000 mile stretch with Mexico that was habitually thin when trying to keep
a vigilant eye out for those who cross over illegally. Now with the second
device easily into New Mexico, the team had received word that Team Two had
crossed over from the Baja route unchallenged.
    All that was left to do was to rendezvous with Team One,
which had yet to be heard from on the Arizona front.
     

 
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
    Los Angeles , California
    Early Evening
     
    The Papal Symposiums began in
Washington D.C. a day after Pope Pius XIII arrival at Dulles, and ended up at
the Rose Bowl in California twelve days later, the circuit sometimes grueling
and contentious, the topics discussed before the masses numbering into the
millions about the need for Christian conservatism over the desire of Christian
reform. 
    For years congregates had been abandoning the traditional,
if not antiquated, mores of the Roman Catholic Church with growing liberalism
and a call for change. Pius, however, served to unite his dwindling flock by
rekindling the spark of religious hope, sermonizing that certain liberties can
only summon the beginning of the end, if traditions of old were not maintained
with discipline. The rebuttal, of course, was the Medias stance regarding the Vatican’s unwillingness to conform to the wishes of its Catholic citizenry, citing there
could be ‘no progress without evolution. The Church, on the other hand,
judiciously retorted with an aphorism stating that ‘the price of progress is destruction.’
    Fighting an undeclared war to resurrect a waning faith by
marshalling a new crusade, Pope Pius realized that the Church had survived
numerous insurrections in the past and would continue to do so in the future. 
How to promote unity, however, had proven to be a huge undertaking which had
sapped the old man to a state of near exhaustion. Although he found his inner
strength on several occasions, he realized that it, too, was in decline and
found it far more difficult to summon as the days wore on.
    Releasing an exhaustive breath, the pontiff crossed the
Berber carpeted floor of his hotel suite and poised himself before a chair made
of soft leather and let his knees buckle, which allowed him to fall back with
ease