The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020), Rick Jones [free ebooks for android txt] 📗

“If that’s his name.”

Müller stepped away and gave the building a once over with his eyes scaling the tall building as though he was watching the slow trajectory of a rocket. Then: “They’re housed on the seventieth level? Is this also accurate?”

“If that’s what you’ve been told, then I’m sure your information is quite precise—better than mine, in fact.”

Müller continued to look over the building. “The lobby,” he began, “is it still a point of entry?”

Zeller shrugged. “All I know is that Mustafa has set the terms of the condition. No one is to step inside that building or, as he put it, there will be consequences.”

“I’m sure. But we don’t cater to the demands of terrorists. The more time they’re granted, the more difficult it becomes to storm the castle. Right now, they’re fortifying their position inside the hotel.”

“That may be true,” said Zeller, “but they also made it known that they would not hesitate to kill a dignitary, should an advancement of any kind be made. They established that fact by blowing a man up right in front of me. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

“In some cases,” returned Müller, “there’s the unfortunate incident of collateral damage.”

“Tell that to the Vatican. I’m sure they’d appreciate that the life of the church’s second in command is somewhat meaningless in the scheme of all things.”

Müller turned on Zeller, though his features remained unreadable. But Zeller could clearly see the sizzle within the man’s eyes.

“I’m just saying,” Zeller finished up.

Continuing to draw a bead on Zeller, Müller cried out. “Ready up!” to his team.

“You’re actually going to do it, even after Mustafa has outlined his promises.”

“My team wasn’t called here to be spectators.”

“Then, perhaps, you should talk to the man yourself.” Zeller removed the cellphone that was given to him by Klein, then he tried to hand it over to Müller. “A direct line to Mustafa. Dial nine and you’ll be connected. I want nothing to do with this operation if it goes sideways. I know the jurisdiction of the scene is assumed by the command of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. Have at it.”

Müller, however, refused the phone. Instead, he echoed his call for his team to ‘ready up.’ They were going to raid the Kristallpalast.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Zamir moved like a man with purpose, with his call to Allah a summoning of servitude and obedience. Inside his backpack was a C-4 brick, three claymores and a pair of det cords. After setting the plastique underneath the computer’s console and then wiring the cords, Zamir strategically placed the claymores per Mustafa’s specifications.

“Predictably,” he told Zamir through his earbud, “they will go to the heart of the operation. As soon as they discover their oversight, they will come together to reestablish themselves and decide upon another point of entry. We will not be able to hold them off forever, but this will buy us the time necessary to see us through. It’s all about creating the advantage of time, Zamir, something we don’t have much of, but something we must create.”

“Understood.”

“Stay close, Zamir, and be patient. Set your bodycam on the console so that I can see all that goes on. On my command, do exactly as I tell you. If there are lessons to be learned today, then it will be I who will be the teacher.”

Performing his duties as instructed by Ali Mustafa, Zamir also believed that he was a vessel of Allah’s mighty hand if not the hand itself. As he was tactically placing the claymores and then stringing them together, he knew that time was running short. Soon, the Einsatzkommando Cobra would make a hard entry into the hotel, fan out, then try to commandeer the Kristallpalast’s heart of operations. But since the process of warfare was often predictable, common reasoning would suggest that the Einsatzkommando unit’s primary objective would be to take absolute control of the nerve center, which was the mainframe that controlled just about everything inside the hotel. So how do you countermand the Einsatzkommando Cobra advancement team? By deactivating the building’s mainframe to take away every possible advantage of the commando unit.

Into his earbud mic, Zamir said, “Done.”

“Take refuge, my friend, and wait for my command.”

“Yes, Mustafa.”

As directed, Zamir found a safe haven just as the Einsatzkommando Cobra team started to storm the building.

* * *

Müller was a skilled practitioner when it came to the art of war. He had fought in several excursions as part of the Allied Forces when in the Middle East, with the taste of battle still fresh in his heart. He had seen terror and watched his friends either killed or maimed. War had its exhilarations, he thought. But it had its downside, too. Still, an indescribable hatred continued to bubble and brew like hot lava mud deep in his gut. He hated the fact that he had left the Middle East with unfinished business, as cabals and regimes and caliphates once again started to shape themselves to create a league of terrorists.

Now that it came to his doorstep in Austria, he was seething. His primary obligation was to neutralize the enemy. And to neutralize the enemy was all he focused on as his team mounted a silent attack against the Kristallpalast.

They entered the building as two lines, one going to the left and the other to the right, the commandos fanning out to clear the area of any possible hostiles or IED devices, while surveying the area through the scopes of their automatic weapons.

Gore and bloodied sludge lay all over the floor, the commandos unable to avoid the carnage as they stepped on the chum-like bits and tracked blood across the tiles, the team relentless with their search efforts.

Comm Central.

The entry keypad to the door had been damaged—two rounds by the look of it. And the door stood wide, as though an invitation.

Müller and his team entered with their weapons swinging about in search of a target, though the room was