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

timer that gave him time to climb to safety, the Semtex exploded.

The doors blew inward into the passageway as the speed of flying shrapnel skated across the floor until they finally came to rest. Smoke plumes filled the hallway, which was vacant. Then the team rappelled to the lower level with the points of their weapons raised, took the corridor along with Kimball Hayden—who was certainly no novice to the game—and moved through the passage with the precision of seasoned practitioners.

In the distance, panicky voices could be heard.

The Consortium team had knocked on their door, and hard, the intrusion obviously not welcomed.

Then Mr. Spartan turned to Hayden. “We’ve no blueprints to go by, so we’re running blind down here. We’ll move forward to create a swath. You, however, at some point, will need to find your own way to seek out the relics.”

Kimball Hayden nodded.

Then from Mr. Spartan. “You good?”

Hayden made a final check of his wares. He had a fully loaded MP7 and a holstered Glock. On the other thigh he had a knife, a Ka-Bar, sheathed and attached, his weapon of choice. In his rucksack, which was getting lighter with every stage of the operation, were the straps to securely tether Aaron’s rod to his person. The rucksack would be used to carry the crucible.

Kimball Hayden nodded and gave a thumbs up. “I’m good.”

“Grab the relics and meet Misters Michelangelo and Archimedes topside. They’ll provide you with support back to the south face. Find those relics, Kimball. They’re the difference between heaven and hell on this planet, depending on who controls them.”

Kimball Hayden was a master of combat and stealth. He also knew the burden should he fail to retrieve the items, which was tantamount to the mission’s success. To garner Aaron’s staff and the crucible were Kimball’s core objectives. And the Consortium crew were simply the tools for the Vatican Knight to achieve the means. Then from Kimball: “I’m good,” he repeated.

After nodding, Mr. Spartan, along with the others, headed forward into the Deep Mountain base.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY

Salt’s team had heard the muffled pops of explosion.

“We’ve got company,” he mentioned. “And keep in mind that this is our territory, our terrain, we know the layout. They don’t. So, the advantage belongs to us; therefore, I expect complete annihilation of the Consortium team with zero difficulty. I want to make myself absolutely clear on that, people?”

It was.

“Remember,” Salt continued, “Mr. Caspari wants their corpses lined up in a neat row so that the failure of their efforts can be memorialized for Mr. da Vinci to see. It was a promise I made to Caspari as a show of our might. Make it happen!”

After Salt outlined the necessary actions to his teammates while trackers’ fever coursed through their veins, Salt’s predators were finally released to relish the hunt.

 

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The lead technician heard the muffled explosions and realized that Deep Mountain had been compromised. His team, who was not combat trained and did not possess any vicious bones in their bodies, began to panic as self-preservation kicked in.

They scattered along the lab’s floor like cockroaches scrambling from light, with every man and woman seeking a nearby exit. For most, that simply meant concealed rooms encased by stone walls. For others, they simply ran for the nearest corner to hide.

The lead technician, whose nametag read Bjornson, took another alternative. He ran to the central area of the lab where the chest containing Aaron’s rod and the crucible of Nostradamus lay in wait for transport.

Seeing a radiance of light coming from the seam between the lid and the chest, Bjornson lifted the cover and gazed upon the wonder of the dark particle. It glowed and throbbed with the beat of a human heart, the particle possessing a life of its own. Encased within its crystal cocoon since the beginning of time, he thought. And perhaps for good reason. Its power could never be harnessed properly without the consequence too catastrophic to imagine. Some things were never meant to be toyed with or discovered, he considered.

The glow of the light pulsated against his face and cast a warmth against his skin, something that was both comforting and terrifying at the same time. And for the first time he saw the staff differently. Not as an implement to extract data from, but as a relic that predated Christ.

Feeling shame for his blindness to Elias Caspari and what Caspari wanted to gather from its strength, Bjornson, in that precise moment, rediscovered something that had been lost to him years ago: he had rediscovered his faith.

Reaching into the chest and grazing the tips of his fingers along the staff, he found it petrified to the touch, the surface smooth. The staff, he told himself, that parted the Red Sea.

He smiled.

Then he closed the lid with reverence in his heart, though a brilliant light still beamed from the chest’s seam.

Keeping his hands on the trunk, his eyes slowly drifted to the second great treasure: the crucible that once belonged to Nostradamus, which was sitting upon a nearby pedestal. When filled with a concoctive fluid, it was supposed to aid Nostradamus in portending the future when, in fact, it was the key to fabulous secrets. The quatrains, when interpreted correctly, not only gave away truths regarding treasured riches such as rubies, sapphires, jade statues, mounds of gold or scrimshawed ivory, but a wealth of scientific advancements and knowledges for human growth.

Here was the encyclopedia for rich improvements, not for the development of weaponry that Elias Caspari was obsessed with.

Bjornson sighed willfully. He had blemished his moral integrity by allowing Elias Caspari to massage his ego by telling the technician that his innate ability to control a universal power with his intellect, was a greater force of understanding than that of the cosmos.

It was not.

Now, in the face of drawing disaster, Bjornson realized that he was nothing more to Elias Caspari than a tool who allowed himself to be manipulated by the strings of a puppeteer.

Feeling disgraced as people rushed