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

authorities anywhere between ninety minutes and two hours to extract maybe a hundred people who remained trapped.

Mustafa had played his hand well, even though the gamble was high. What if the Kristallpalast burned at a greater rate than anticipated, like within two hours instead of four, especially when the sprinkler system had been downed the moment the building’s Central Command had been destroyed.

Müller looked upward to see the flames climbing at a driven rate, the fire voracious in its appetite.

Then as he shook his head begrudgingly, he thought: We’re not going to make this. The fire’s moving too fast.

Then he looked at the door that led into the lobby. The Vatican Knights, he considered, better be everything they’re alleged to be. And I mean everything.

Once again, he looked skyward at the flames, sighed, then said to Zeller: “Two things. First, find someone to turn off the gas lines before that building turns into a complete bonfire.”

“And the other?”

After a pause, Müller added, “Get me Central Command.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Vienna, Austria

As the tower continued to burn while black smoke billowed and rose from the level of broken windows, the news chopper containing Wilhelm Heickert and Adolphus Hoorn flew the distance between two points, that of a straight line, from the station to the Kristallpalast. While police choppers tried to intercept them and with bullhorn warnings demanding that they divert their course, these orders apparently fell upon deaf ears as Hoorn remained fixed on adjusting his camera in order to catch live images of those who were trapped 500 feet above the city streets. As the police choppers drew dangerously close, Heickert expertly maneuvered his aircraft to create distance.

Up ahead, Heickert’s chopper continued to close in on the tower as curls of black smoke rolled heavily from the fiftieth story. Licks of flames in hues of orange and red and yellow continued to lap at the building’s exterior, climbing and blackening the glass on the upper tiers. Behind them, the police choppers began to peel back and move away.

“Ah-ha,” said Heickert. “The boys finally fell back.”

“You do know we’ll be jailed for this, right?” Hoorn said as he continued to toy with his camera.

“Just an overnighter,” Heickert replied. “I’ve spent more time inside the ol’ dungeon sleeping off a drunken binge after getting into a fight or two. Company will bail us out come morning on their dime, as long as we have the footage.”

As their chopper approached, they could see the state-of-the-art skyscraper that was surrounded by the Baroque architecture that dated back centuries, with this blend of the new construction versus the old appearing strangely odd and out of place. And in the eyes of some, it was a blight on the landscape. But it was even more so as ribbons of smoke drifted lazily skyward while the flames on the fiftieth level burned uncontrollably from natural gas fuel.

“Not too close, now,” Hoorn cautioned. Then he raised the camera to eye level to catch a live feed. The exterior of the Kristallpalast was beginning to char with grimy scales wherever the fire scorched the surface. But Adolphus Hoorn could not catch anyone beyond the darkened glass, the smoke too thick, too heavy.

Hoorn then turned to Heickert, and with his thumb he began to jab it skyward as a gesture to the pilot to take an upward path. Nodding, Heickert pulled back on the cyclic stick and started his climb to the building’s tallest reach.

* * *

Ghazi was a man who tried everything in his power to appeal to his father. No matter what he did, no matter the strides he made or the goals he achieved, it was never enough. His father had treated him like a pariah, the outcast who never measured up. When Ghazi had been accepted into the King Abdullah ll Special Forces Group, he thought his father would finally beam enough to open up his heart. But his father remained cold and distant, giving his son a disinterested harrumph as though to clear his throat, before walking away. Ghazi had never been so crushed or so defeated, knowing that his father would never see him in a greater light.

When his stint with the special forces group was over, Ghazi quickly discovered his calling with the Islamic State, who embraced him like a brother and gave him the family he always wanted. Within this newfound band of brothers, Ghazi had never felt so needed or wanted, the man finally discovering his self-worth. Here, I am the light in the eyes of those that my father has never shown me. Here, I am respected as any man can be. Here . . . I am somebody. When Abd-al-Mumin and Ali Mustafa accepted him as part of the brotherhood, that was the day Ghazi offered his mind and soul to the Islamic State. Now, less than a year later and not having spoken a word to his father since, Ghazi was a true warrior whose value was far greater than when he served with the King Abdullah ll Special Forces Group. And with a lingering and thoughtful smile, he thought: To serve Ali Mustafa is to serve Allah.

That was when the building rocked beneath him, a terrible spasm as though the Kristallpalast was about to topple. When the tremors stopped and the building steadied, then came the coils of rising black smoke, slow and steady, the smoke an indicator that not all was well within the Islamic State with his world and his place in it no longer perfect.

Ghazi carefully looked over the edge of the Kristallpalast and noted the billows of rising smoke, as well as the accompanying flames about twenty-five stories below. When he finally achieved contact with Mustafa, he was told to maintain his post and that all was moving according to plan. But Ghazi could not get a grip on the idea since the building was burning underneath him. How is everything fine? he wondered.

More smoke, darker and more menacing, rose