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

a bullet spent and a life taken. There had been no mercy, clemency or forgiveness on the part of either terrorist as they pulled the trigger again and again, with both devaluing lives because they were in the act of killing infidels and, in their mindset, justifiably so.

Once the slaughter was completed and the floors were cleared, Zamir was on his lip mic to Abd-al-Mumin. “Lower levels clear.”

“All the way down to the fifty-first level?”

“That floor is much too hot, as are floors fifty-two to fifty-five. The flames are moving fast, Abd-al-Mumin. I hope Mustafa knows what he’s doing.”

“Trust in him.”

Still, Zamir maintained his doubts. “Now what?” he asked.

“Police the floors until they can be covered no more, move up, then wait for my call.”

“And those being held inside the suites?”

“Let them burn as moral sacrifices to Allah.”

It was obvious to Zamir that Ali Mustafa was simply using the lives of the guests as bargaining chips to achieve his means of escape, though the chips had no true value to anyone outside of Austrian authorities. This Mustafa obviously understood, so he used this knowledge to his advantage. He had no intention of showing the Islamic State’s soft side. In fact, their deaths would further serve as ISIS’s show of power.

“Yes, Abd-al-Mumin.”

“That goes for everyone. Maintain vigil and take nothing for granted. There may be that one person hiding within the shadows waiting until it’s too late for you to react. Stay focused. When it’s time to leave, you’ll be called topside.”

“Yes, Abd-al-Mumin.”

After hitting his earbud to shut off his lip mic, Zamir started to search the shadows.

Soon, they would be crawling with unfriendly shapes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

The Vatican Knights met at the bank of elevators on the lower level, which was one flight down from the teeming smoke of the level above. Job, the big man who even dwarfed Kimball, stood before an elevator, slipped the tips of his fingers within the seam that divided the doors, and forced them apart.

The shaft was dark, and heat billowed at them as though Job had just opened an oven door.

Kimball, sticking his head inside the chute, looked upward. The area two stories above their position was as black as pitch, but no flames were visible.

“All right,” Kimball started, “it’s not going to be easy. But it’s clear. It’s hot. And the climb, I’m guessing, is somewhere between ten to fifteen floors that way.” He pointed skyward. “Stay close and be careful.” He pointed to the ribs and struts inside the elevator shaft which appeared like ladder rungs and beam supports, the foot- and handholds of their climb.

Kimball stowed his weapon behind him so that it angled across his back, reached inside with his gloved hands, though fingerless, and felt the steel ribbing that was nearing the point of becoming too hot to handle. After blowing on his fingertips, Kimball gripped a rail and swung himself over the shaft’s drop. Clinging to the wall as sweat immediately began to surface on his brow, he began to climb. With hand over hand and foot after foot, Kimball made excellent time. But with every foot climbed towards the topside level, the heat was becoming more noticeable and the metal almost too hot to touch. One floor up, Kimball started to wonder if the route taken would be disadvantageous to his team. But it was the only course available, the only route.

As the rest of the Vatican Knights followed, they climbed the walls with the aid of the beams and struts and ladder rungs, with the only challenge the sting of the warming metal against their fingertips, and the intensifying escalation of heat.

. . . The forty-eighth floor . . .

. . . The forty-ninth floor . . .

They continued to climb with the heat at least forty degrees higher than it was a few floors below.

The metal ribbing, the jutting struts and the ladder rungs, all were becoming too hot, so the Vatican Knights used their berets as a mitt to dampen the scorching touch of the steel.

. . . The fiftieth floor . . .

The enclosed space was literally as hot as Hell. If not for the darkness, they would be able to see the air shimmering as a battery of heat that swirled around them and upward, as heat always rises. The temperature here was nearing one hundred forty degrees, the limit any man can tolerate for a period of ten minutes before suffering heat stroke.

The Vatican Knights continued to climb and pushed themselves beyond their capabilities, even as the heat mounted with the fiftieth floor the origin point of the explosion.

“Keep moving, guys.” When Kimball spoke, he did so not as a strict commander who used fear as a motivator, but as a friend whose soft tone said that ‘we’re almost there.’

They pushed themselves upward and onward with every measurable foot of climbing beginning to sap their strength. Though they were the best the world had to offer as a fighting force, they were also humans that had limitations.

. . . The fifty-first floor . . .

Kimball continued to gently goad them along. “Just a few more floors, guys . . . Just a few more.”

. . . The fifty-second floor . . .

Now, their uniforms had become saturated enough to show Rorschach stains of sweat that appeared on their backsides and underarms. Their breathing started to labor as the high heat started to affect their lungs, the air at near-scorching levels.

. . . The fifty-third floor . . .

Though the heat began to abate some, it was still hellishly hot as the Vatican Knights continued their upward climb.

Just as they were about to reach the fifty-fourth floor, that’s when Hell finally came calling.

CHAPTER FORTY

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

When the hotel’s central nervous system shut down after the mainframe was destroyed, doing so did nothing to neutralize the gas lines, which were alternate and separate from the computer system. As