The Eye of Moses - Vatican Knights Series 22 (2020), Rick Jones [learn to read books txt] 📗

he would often stop and listen for a member of France’s Police Nationale, should they have been alerted. When silence bounced back, he continued his efforts to loosen the tomb’s cap. Within three hours, and after working up enough perspiration to reveal the Rorschach sweat stains that formed on the back and underarms of his shirt, the man was able to move the lid, though it was only a few inches. With more hammering, he was able to loosen it enough to slide the entire cap off the tomb and to the floor. Grabbing a flashlight, the man in dark clothing scanned the tomb’s interior. Scattered bones were lying within the vault—a femur, a tibia, ribs, a grinning skull. While running the light, he questioned if these were truly the reinterred bones of Nostradamus, since some were stained a deep-coffee color, whereas others appeared to have been bleached white.

Casting the bones aside as though they were nothing more than annoying playthings, he brushed away an area of cement where the head would normally lie, then brought the head of a steel mallet to the vault floor. Cracks began to show themselves, the floor weakening. Then after being nearly spent with the weight of the hammer almost too heavy to bear, the vault’s floor finally gave way. Reaching inside, the man started to toss broken stones and debris aside until he saw a glitter of gold within the recess.

After setting aside more stones, he grabbed the item and held it aloft. In the cast of burning candles, the polished gold-plating of a crucible that was about the size of an ancient column krater, which was a vase-like bowl, shined as though it was truly divine. On the side of this vessel was an emblem. It was the Red Cross of the Knights Templar.

The man with the incredibly pale eyes smiled. “The key,” he whispered. In his hands was a world of riches that was far greater than the wealth of the Templars, he considered. Here, cupped within his hands, was the key that could access a power so great it could diminish continents down to ruins.

Quickly, the man gathered his items, stowed them into his bag, and just as he was about to get to his feet, heard approaching footsteps. His mission had been compromised, which really came as no surprise to him with all the hammering.

The footsteps became louder, grew closer. At least two people, he considered, maybe three.

Two officers of the Police Nationale rushed into the chamber with their weapons drawn, both demanding in French for the man to take to the floor in the prone position.

Then in a moment too fast for the officers to comprehend, the man removed his hand from the satchel, drew a suppressed weapon, and pulled the trigger in quick succession.

. . . Phfft . . .

. . . Phfft . . .

. . . Phfft . . .

. . . Phfft . . .

Four muted shots were divided equally between the officers, with two shots each to center mass.

After the officers fell to the floor as gelatinous heaps, the man whose eyes were so pale that they appeared entirely white within their hollows, placed the crucible within the bag and took flight.

In the background, as the keen wail of sirens drew closer to the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, police would discover two downed officers inside the chamber along with the scattered bones of an aged seer, and a vault whose floor had been compromised.

Somewhere in the dark streets of Salon-de-Provence, a killer ran free.

* * *

The assassin was breathing heavily as he closed the door of his apartment, went to a nearby table, and dropped the satchel to the floor. Clamped to the edge of this table was a jeweler’s magnifying lamp with a 5-diopter distortion free lens and a Circline spotlight to eliminate shadows.

After hitting the ‘on’ switch to the spotlight, he delved into the bag and retrieved the crucible. The assassin carefully placed the receptacle on the table, moved the lens over the bowl to shed light against the crucible’s interior, then looked through the magnifier.

There were countless symbols engraved onto the bowl’s interior wall—script, ciphers and ancient markings circled inside the crucible in a pattern that resembled a nautilus spiral. There were thousands of small etchings that had been created to serve as keys to unlock the world’s greatest mysteries.

The assassin, with his pale eye magnified in the lens, looked on with studious admiration.

Here was the crucible that had been used by Nostradamus to forecast the future.

Easing back into his seat, the assassin picked up a cellphone and dialed a quick-contact number with a single tap on the keypad. After a series of clicks, he was connected.

“It’s Salt,” he said. “I have the key. It was exactly where Mr. Copernicus said it would be.”

“Are you sure it’s a true relic and not a red-herring facsimile?”

“It’s the true article,” the assassin stated evenly. “But it’ll need further evaluation by the Master Tech to confirm the finding.”

“Very well, then. Get it to Deep Mountain as soon as you can.”

“It’ll be there by tomorrow,” Salt told him.

When the call was severed, the man who called himself Salt removed the SIM card from the cellphone and destroyed it.

After placing the crucible inside the satchel, the assassin headed for the home base of Deep Mountain, which was a stronghold facility located along the peaks of the Swiss Alps.

 

CHAPTER THREE

Apatin, Croatia

Present day, Early Morning Hours

Hister is the Latin name for the part of the Danube in what is now northwestern Croatia. And on the night of a gibbous moon and standing close to the banks of the river, a six-man unit dressed in Robocop shin, knee, forearm and elbow guards constructed from a special composite, and Kevlar helmets that had a boon of gadgetry that ran along the top of their heads like a Mohawk, moved through the shadows with military sophistication.

Approximately fifty meters from their position after Team Leader halted his troops within a