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

natural gas continued to be piped through the lines, it also stoked the flames on the fiftieth floor. As the flames intensified, so did its power of wanting to spread its fiery wings. Just as city workers were working to kill the feed to the pipelines, there was a massive eruption and the pipelines ruptured, which introduced the flames that were inside these pipes to additional oxygen that created explosions and backdrafts. The pipelines that coursed along the building’s east and west sides went off in a chain reaction, with each floor detonating from the fiftieth floor down to ground level in a domino fashion.

. . . whump . . . whump. . . whump . . . whump . . . whump . . .

It appeared as though the building had been rigged with charges to implode the structure, with each level from top to bottom going off in perfect sync—

. . . whump . . . whump. . . whump . . . whump . . . whump . . .

—all the way down.

Glass and metal debris exploded with dangerous and forceful trajectories. People ducked and placed their arms over their heads in acts of self-preservation. Cars rocked. And people screamed.

Just about every glass in the building was either shattered or cracked or completely broken, the building now a skeleton of its former self. Ribbons of smoke climbed from every open port and through every smashed pane. The Kristallpalast was nothing more than a burning husk with its steel framework showing on the central levels.

Since the sprinkler system was down and the ladders from the firetrucks could only reach the tenth level, all Müller, Zeller and the Einsatzkommando operators could do was watch. The lower levels of the building were entirely engulfed in flames. Even if the Einsatzkommando force wanted to perform a hard entry, there would be no way with the exception of a topside assault. But the flames were moving faster and appeared far more voracious in appetite than before, meaning that the timeclock had moved ahead prematurely. Ninety minutes all of a sudden had been recalibrated to sixty.

And as for the Vatican Knights, the needle regarding their level of difficulty had ratcheted up a few notches on the seismic scale. If time was not a luxury before, it definitely was not one now.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

Ali Mustafa’s world rocked unexpectedly beneath him as the building shook with a high degree that was capable of destabilizing the foundation. Though Mustafa was not a structural engineer, he knew enough to know that no building could take this much punishment.

Getting to his feet, he tapped his earbud. “Abd-al-Mumin.”

“Here.”

“Are you all right?”

“We’re fine. What happened?”

“The gas lines blew. The idiots did not shut them off in time.”

“Has the structure of the building been compromised?”

“I’m thinking so, yes. This forces a faster timeline, one I’m not sure can be met.”

“Shall we prepare for Paradise?”

Mustafa looked at the Holy Lance, then said, “Not yet. Wait until my call.”

“Yes, Mustafa.”

Tapping his earbud off, he grabbed the cellphone and thumbed the number nine. After three rings Müller answered.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

Hell had literally opened its doors to the Vatican Knights. As they were climbing the rails, a powerful explosion rocked the Kristallpalast. The walls of the shaft rocked and shook, causing Isaiah and Job to lose their grip, though each was able to hang on to a hot metal rung with a gloved hand.

They had clung to the walls as though the walls themselves were trying to shake them free. And the elevator doors from levels fifty to fifty-three exploded into the shaft with incredible force, then caromed off the shaft’s opposite wall and bent as easily as thin sheets of aluminum, with the twisted pieces of metal then falling into the dark abyss below.

Tendrils of fire entered the shaft to provide light where there was none before. Terrifying flames and an all-consuming heat started to climb upward taking new ground with the walls becoming charred.

When the walls stopped shuddering and the flames continued their upward reach, something in the shaft above started to protest on their metal cords, something that sounded like straining violin strings being stretched to their max. What Kimball realized was that the moors that held an elevator cab suspended above their position was starting to give.

This time Kimball’s voice wasn’t the voice of softness, but that of a menacing commander who screamed to instill fear as a means of motivation. “Move it, people! Now! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

Each member of the Vatican Knights reached deep into themselves to find that extra reserve and began to scale the rails beyond the fire’s reach. They hauled themselves upward with hand over hand, despite the heat of the rungs, by tucking the pain somewhere deep.

Overhead, there was a creaking metallic sound. Then came the sound of something being pulled at, a whine. It was the complaint of something that was straining and giving, like the multiple strings of that violin which had finally reached their breaking points—

—And then there was a loud snap that was crisp, clean and sharp.

* * *

Above the elevator cab is the cable network deriving of magnets and pulleys. Since steel hawsers had their limitations regarding weight management after the magnets had failed, the heaviness of the elevator began to put a strain on the wires. And since it takes several thin wires wrapped around each other to create one steel cable, these wires began to stress and break one at a time; therefore, the cable began to thin and weaken under the pull of gravity with each snapping strand.

The cab began to slip with the elevator falling inches with each wire breaking, with the hold of the side rails beginning to lose their grips. The breaking of wire strands sounded off as twangs that carried throughout the shaft. And the pulleys sounded as if they were straining to hang on as well, though