The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021), Rick Jones [e ink epub reader .TXT] 📗

THE GOLIATH CHAMBER

By

Rick Jones

© 2021 Rick Jones. All rights reserved.

This is a property of EmpirePRESS & EmpireENTERTAINMENT, LLC

The Vatican Knights is a TRADEMARK property

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information e-mail all inquiries to: rick@rickjonz.com

Visit Rick Jones on the World Wide Web at: rickjonz.com

Also by Rick Jones:

Vatican Knights Series

The Vatican Knights

Shepherd One

The Iscariot Agenda

Pandora's Ark

The Bridge of Bones

Crosses to Bear

The Lost Cathedral

Dark Advent

Cabal

The Golgotha Pursuit

Targeted Killing

Sinners and Saints

The Barbed Crown

The Devil’s Magician

The Nocturnal Saints

The Brimstone Diaries

Juggernaut

Original Sins (a prequel)

In Between God and Devil

The Sinai Directive

The Barabbas Connection

The Eye of Moses

The Crimson Dagger

The Goliath Chamber

The Vladorian Keep (coming)

The Baal Manifesto (coming)

The Eden Series

The Crypts of Eden (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

The Thrones of Eden (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

City Beneath the Sea (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

The Sacred Vault (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

City Within the Clouds (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

City Beneath the Ice (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

Stand Alone Novels

The Man Who Cast Two Shadows

Jurassic Run

Mausoleum 2069

with RICK CHESLER

First Strike

Standalone ADVENTURE

The Menagerie (A John Savage/Alyssa Moore Adventure)

The Hunter Series

Night of the Hunter

The Black Key

Theater of Operation

 

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

Zurich, Switzerland

Seven Months After the Sinai Directive

Early Morning Hours

Though his name was Amal Purakayastha, those within his orbit knew him as the Bangladeshi and as the man who neither had a first nor last name. All they knew was that he was a qualified assassin who had trained with the Bangladesh Special Operations Forces. He was tall and thin and had a skinny range of emotions as someone who neither smiled nor grimaced. Though when a humorous moment or a flash of anger had been presented to him, he would only reveal his emotional state with a facial tic.

While sitting in the back of a moving truck with his four-man team, the Bangladeshi brought to mind memories of an arms dealer by the name of Abesh Faruk, his one-time handler. He recalled the moments when he served Faruk as an operator who performed with the cold fortitude of a machine. If Faruk Abesh needed an assassin, Purakayastha was there. If Faruk Abesh needed someone to transport weapons on the black market, Purakayastha was there. If Faruk Abesh needed someone he could trust under any circumstance . . . Purakayastha was there.

But seven months ago, while trying to hunt down the Golden Calf, the Bangladeshi had failed to achieve the treasure, which was something that left him with a bad aftertaste. Faruk had negotiated the terms of trading black-market weaponry to a terrorist faction in exchange for the Golden Calf, a barter agreement, so long as the Bangladeshi served as the middleman between the trade once the relic had been unearthed.

Now that the hunt was on and the terms agreed upon between the principals, it was Purakayastha who lead the guerilla unit to the top of Mount Sinai. But everything came to a crashing halt when the Vatican Knights interceded and brought down the terrorists with the exception of the Bangladeshi, who had escaped.

Though the Bangladeshi had failed Faruk, it mattered little since the arms dealer was found dead in what was believed to be a professional hit before he had been informed of the Bangladeshi’s failure. The arms dealer had been discovered sitting inside the glass chamber that was supposed to display the ancient relic with a bullet to his head and two to center mass.

As the truck hit a bump that jarred him from these memories, the Bangladeshi took inventory of his team. They were mercenaries who had been informed by the Bangladeshi that they were picking up a special load from a hidden chamber beneath Abesh Faruk’s stately mansion, in what the Bangladeshi had told them was a ‘deal maker.’

As the truck turned onto the estate, the vehicle quickly made its way along the long stretch of a driveway. At the top of the incline where the FOR-SALE sign was posted, the Bangladeshi started to see the manor that was hidden behind thick tree lines. After Faruk’s death, the estate had been placed on the market for twenty-six million dollars in American currency, an amount few could afford, but it featured a one-of-a-kind museum that displayed hard-to-find artifacts. There was a movie theater; an indoor swimming pool; a pair of chefs’ kitchens, one at both ends of the house; a ballroom for entertaining; a racquetball court; twelve bedrooms; eight bathrooms; the list went on. But there was only one room that the Bangladeshi was interested in.

When the vehicle stopped before the mansion’s main entryway, the Bangladeshi jumped down from the truck’s bay along with his teammates, then ordered the driver to take the vehicle around back where he was to park it within the brambles

As the truck took the winding road to the rear, the Bangladeshi led his team to the front door, which was locked, but he had the key. Removing a suppressed firearm from his holster, he placed three muted shots that destroyed the lock’s mechanism, then pushed the door wide. Knowing that the alarm system had a twenty-second window before the distress signal would sound, he knew exactly where to go. Finding the unit’s keypad within the foyer, he typed