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

Appraising the soldier momentarily within the green light of his NVG, Team Leader then snapped his NVG monocular upward over his helmet and grabbed the sentry. Pulling the guard close enough for him to see eyes so pale that they appeared entirely white, Salt, after placing the point of his suppressed sidearm against the guard’s temple, pointed to the ocular scanner on the wall and said, “You know what to do.”

“I won’t do it. Not on my watch.”

“Yeah. You will.” Salt took a step back and fired off a single shot into the sentry’s leg, causing the surprised man to bark with pain. The agony was suddenly white-hot as the sentry started to cave. But Salt grabbed the man by the collar of his uniform, hoisted him back to his feet, and coerced the man to the eye scanner with a vicious shove.

The sentry, however, was not being cooperative.

“Open your eye,” Salt told him.

The sentry refused.

“So, you want to be a hero to the end, is that it?” Salt directed his aim to the back of the man’s leg and pulled the trigger. As the area lit up with a muzzle flash of gunfire, the sentry screamed. In knee-jerk reaction he opened both eyes, which enabled the scanner to process the pulsating roadmap of both orbs.

As the bolts to the door were pulling back from their circular sockets that had been built into the surrounding wall, Salt pointed the gun to the back of the sentry’s head and quickly ended the man’s life.

When the vault-like door swung inward, a battery of lights within the tunnel immediately ignited themselves. There was a small stairway that led to an arterial system of tunnels that eventually ran to an underground bunker.

One by one, Salt’s team took the stairway with their assault weapons leading the way and made their way toward the Master Chamber that housed the relic they sought.

CHAPTER FOUR

Cochem, Germany

Present day, Early Morning Hours

Mr. da Vinci had been the leading head of the Consortium for more than two decades and ruled as the Grand Master of the organization. When the balance of global power appeared to be shifting to favor one, it was his job to act as the Scales of Justice so that no government had an upper hand that could toss the world into chaos. He was the balance that made the planet turn and rotate, though not in harmony as he wished it would. Wars continued to wage; battles were lost and won; people died, and did so unnecessarily; greed motivated some to seek advantages, which he took away; and whereas others wanted to bathe in uncontrollable power as if they were gods, Mr. da Vinci would show them how human they truly were.

He believed that the success of the Consortium was due to the power of its belief—that there should be a ying to a yang, darkness and light, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, with an equal balance between them. Neither would rule over the other since balance was the answer to sustainability. Though war was a terrible thing and something he wished he could minimize, he realized that it was also a means to curb a greater evil. Should a global peace prevail, would not the burden of overpopulation encourage diseases, plagues, epidemics, and starvation? Would the spread of communicable diseases not only filter out the weak from the strong, but also threaten the strong should a plague have no remedy or cure? In the end, the issue of morality was not his guide. The matters for which the Consortium was created for was to maintain balance on the global landscape, without having the threat of the Sword of Damocles hanging over mankind.

Mr. da Vinci had never navigated by way of a moral compass outside of knowing that he had an umbilical tie with God, because he provided stability to make the world a safer place to live. And it was by his rule to create ‘balance’ that provided order that kept the planet running by whatever means necessary. But over the decades he had been losing his footing due to warring factions growing in greater numbers, and from the lack of humanity that was beginning to outweigh those who endeavored to rule with civility.

As he sat at the piano playing Edvard Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the strikes of his fingers were coming down on the keys harder and harder, his anger bleeding out as he played the chords faster and faster, banging and hitting and striking the keys until he could play them no more.

Sitting on the piano bench with trails of sweat running along his brow and cheeks, Mr. da Vinci tried to catch his breath. When he did so and was able to stand, he crossed the massive chamber deep inside the Consortium Stronghold and took a seat behind an ornately designed desk. It was early morning and he could not sleep, which exactly wasn’t news since he was an insomniac to begin with.

As he was wondering about all the successes and miscues in life, he noted a small plaque next to his nameplate that summed up his obligations as the Grand Master of the Consortium. It read: BALANCE.

That’s what we’re about, he thought. That’s what we promote . . . Balance.

As he sat considering his role and the roles of those within the Consortium, he was completely unaware that one of the organization’s most treasured vaults was being raided in Croatia.

In time, but long before the dust would settle, Mr. da Vinci would release the hounds in order to restore balance that would not be achievable.

Nevertheless, the Consortium had its place in the scheme of all things.

CHAPTER FIVE

Apatin, Croatia

Salt’s unit moved quickly through the thin warrens of the bunker. Despite the numerous cutoffs and branches, the team knew exactly where to go after the principals that Salt operated for had acquired the blueprint design of the facility.

They took the shortest distance between two points