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

Vatican is a terrible place that’s filled with terrible people?” The judge then chuckled with a dry laugh that was brief and somewhat sarcastic. “What I don’t like about you, Cardinal, is you, being a man of the cloth and someone who is high up on the totem pole of the Vatican hierarchy, possesses such little faith.”

“Faith is not going to get us through this mess.”

“And that, Cardinal, is why you worry so . . . Because of your lack of faith. It takes more than just wearing the robes of your position or preaching words from the Bible. I understand fully the position we’re in. And I allow my faith to carry me forward knowing that no matter what happens . . . this is not the end. And you, Cardinal, of all people, should know this.”

“We wear vests that hold explosive bricks, and yet you sit there wanting to tell jokes,” the cardinal returned.

“And wallowing in self-pity, as you are, is going to change that? The only thing we can do, Cardinal, the only thing we’re in control of, is to make the best of a bad situation.”

But Cardinal Favino did not draw from the judge’s advice. Instead, he continued to rake his fingers through his hair again and again and again.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

Job was a huge man with little body fat whose contoured muscles were highly pronounced beneath the fabric of his sleeves. So, when kicking in doors, the wooden jambs immediately splintered on contact. Rooms were cleared with quickness and efficiency with his shoutouts for trapped guests going unanswered.

It wasn’t until he reached the level above that he came across the room where people had been herded inside, nearly a dozen.

The Vatican Knight held the point of his suppressed weapon steady, determining that everyone within the room was a hostile until proven otherwise. The frightened faces of men, women and children, which appeared like the faces of war-torn refugees, spoke volumes that they posed no threat to the Vatican Knight.

“Is anybody else inside the suite?” Job cried out.

A man stepped forward and pointed to the cleric collar surrounding Job’s neck. “Are you a priest?”

“Is there anybody else in the room outside of what I’m seeing?” Job repeated.

The man shook his head. “No. We’re it. But there are more. Some were killed, however. Executed. We were told to stay inside the room or suffer the same fate.”

Job lowered his weapon. These people were stuck between a fire below and with assassins above, hardly a place anyone would want to be in. Yet Job knew his primary objective, which was to see these people and others through. “You said there are others?”

The man, who spoke with a British accent, said, “In the rooms close by. Same thing: if they leave, they die. That was when two people with guns executed a couple to make their point.”

“Do you know where the rooms are? Where the others are kept?”

“On this floor? Yeah.”

“Follow me and stay close. Stay quiet. And do exactly as I say. Do you understand?”

The man nodded. Then he turned to the others within the room with his gesture corroborating their understanding of the orders given by Job. They did, with everyone confirming that they were all on the same page.

Job, who then checked the hallway only to see the beginnings of a smoky haze developing, led his newfound flock to safety.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Inside the Kristallpalast

Vienna, Austria

Zamir was on the sixty-fifth level where the conference rooms were, the man parading up and down the hallways as though he was master of his terrain. With his sidearm and khanjar, it was all he needed in order to rule this kingdom.

Behind him . . . a noise, something that was as small as the creak of a floorboard and barely perceptible, but enough to trigger his imagination that it could be anything else but.

Zamir turned and listened. Nothing but silence.

Another sound, the same creak, like a loose board being disturbed, even when the floor was layered with Berber carpet.

The terrorist moved down the hallway with the point of his suppressed Glock directed in front of him. His footfalls were quiet as he moved with feline grace and silence. Then he stopped to listen, his head turning like a radar dish so that his ears could scan for sounds.

Nothing.

He continued forward, the man on high alert.

Up ahead after turning the bend of a hallway, he glimpsed what he thought to be someone entering a room. It was quick and fleeting, like catching something that hangs on the periphery of your vision, only for it to dart off the radar when you cast your sight in that direction.

Zamir was not hesitant at all. He moved down the corridor with quickness to give chase. When he reached the Conference Room door, he discovered that the door was not flush with the doorjamb. It was open but a mere crack, as though an invitation to Zamir. As he pushed it wide with the tips of his fingers, the door whined in protest on its hinges. It was a sound that made Zamir wince.

The room had been designed with a multi-Asian theme. On the walls hung shadow boxes displaying crisscrossing pairs of Japanese katanas, each with twenty-nine-inch blades. Though katanas were not the best swords in the world, they were the sharpest. And as for the Chinese adornments that shared along with the Japanese motif, were the floor-to-ceiling tapestries that contained the images of serpentine dragons and elongated tigers. The windows that surrounded the room had been shattered, as were all the windows on this tier. As strong breezes blew in through these openings, the long tapestries shifted with the dreamy movements of flowing silk.

Outside of the blowing wind, Zamir heard and saw nothing, but he sensed that he was not alone. With instinct kicking in, he sensed that something was in the shadows drawing a bead on him.

When Zamir took a