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

acid etchings of Latin above the doorway: Pietas Maxime Praeter Honestatem, which translated to ‘Loyalty Above All Else Except Honor,’ Kimball stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

The room was midnight dark. But what caught his attention was the green blinking light on his cot. When he approached his bed, he saw a hexagon-shaped device as thick as a hockey puck lying on the sheet. The device fit within the palm of his hand. In the center of the unit was the blinking button that begged to be pressed. Kimball had seen this before, this hexagon-shaped device. It was a recorder and a tracker with the magnetic backside strong enough to cling firmly to the underbelly of moving vehicles for tracking. What such a device was doing inside his chamber had boggled him.

The button continued to blink.

Using his thumb, Kimball pressed the button, which stopped blinking and turned red. From the unit came the recording of a metallic voice, one that had been purposely disguised. The button at the center of the hexagon recorder continued to flare an angry red.

To the Vatican Knight that is Kimball Hayden, began the preamble. We have the woman. We have Shari Cohen. If you do not follow my instructions with full accuracy, the woman will undergo severe consequences due to your failure to follow through. If you call upon your team of Vatican Knights, then she dies. If you contact law enforcement, she dies. If you in any way decide to do anything other than what we tell you, she dies.

Kimball could feel his heart skip inside his chest.

Following is a list of demands added to the already mentioned conditions. You are to leave Vatican City upon the end of this recording. There will be a vehicle waiting for you at the Pantheon, license plate number DH 730NB. The keys are inside an envelope under the front seat. Keep the tracker with you. Inside the sedan you will find that the GPS unit has been programmed to a set of coordinates. Follow them. Bring no weapons, especially your KABARS, which you seem especially fond of.

The mention of Kimball’s weapon of choice suggested that the operation was being conducted by an enemy who knew him well, meaning that this person was a professional. And most likely, someone who was not alone.

The distance from your location to the location programmed into the GPS has a drive time of thirty minutes. Be advised that the moment you pressed the button, an alert signal was communicated to our device. You have one hour to reach our location. Failing to do so, then Shari Cohen dies.

It was like a punch to the gut to Kimball, a direct blow that left him breathless. Had Shari been abducted by a terrorist cell inside of Rome? But Kimball dismissed this. The voice, though disguised, carried no foreign inflection whatsoever, the pronunciations crisp. In fact, it sounded very American.

While looking at the red light of the button, Kimball suddenly realized what the Voice had told him and what it meant—that he would soon find himself standing at a crossroad.

. . . And there will come a time, Kimball, where you will have to decide between the love of the woman you covet, or the safety of the church which has provided you a chance at redemption.

Kimball closed his eyes and fully understood. It was a warning. He would have to choose between serving either the church or leave the grounds to save Shari Cohen.

One has given you love, the other the opportunity to seek the Light. Now you must choose between the two. Do you forsake the Light for the love of the woman? Or do you sacrifice the love of the woman in order to continue your journey to seek the Light?

Standing at a crossroads never appeared darker.

Grabbing his cellphone, Kimball immediately dialed Shari’s number.

On the other end a woman answered, but it was not the voice of Shari Cohen. It was a gravelly voice that was rough and prickly. And when the woman spoke, Kimball Hayden knew exactly who he was talking to.

* * *

The moment Jennifer Antle saw Kimball’s name light up on the screen of Shari’s cellphone, she answered. “Vatican Knight,” she said, “it took you long enough.”

There was a pause on Kimball’s end. Then: “I know you.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Shari has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with this,” Antle returned. “She’s an advocate to the one who is a godless man who wears the clothing of a priest. She sees the darkness within you, yet she turns a blind eye to the corruption which has become your very base and an anchor for which you will work from . . . in order to destroy the church from within.”

“You’re out of your mind. You and the entire Nocturnal Saints organization. Apparently, nobody’s redeemable in your eyes, no matter what. You simply erase away lives because you believe that the answer to alternative ideas is punishment through radicalism, that it’s the panacea to maintaining the old tenets through measures of fear and violence. You may be half a world away from the Middle East, but your ideology is a shared one. You’re just a different variety of people with the same attitude: you tolerate nothing outside of your own philosophies. But in the end, it’s still terrorism.”

The woman gave a breathy laugh over the line. “Not only is the woman you covet blind,” she finally said, “so is the one who lives within Satan’s shadow to become the speaker of lies. You think you’re doing God’s work when you have killed innocent women and children? Is that what you honestly believe? That God would condone such actions? Perhaps, Vatican Knight, you should take examination of your past and come to a proper conclusion, yes? Perhaps you should stop speaking the lies that everything can be justified, no matter how heinous the act, believing that it was always God’s will.”

Now it was Kimball’s