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

Isaiah’s kick lifted Abd-al-Mumin off his feet and punched him through the door of a suite, the wood splintering in loud report.

At first, the terrorist saw the gauzy pattern of cobwebs inside his head.

And then the ceiling.

The expensive wall hangings.

A nearby bed.

Furniture.

Abd-al-Mumin quickly realized that he was lying on the floor of a suite the same time his attacker was squeezing himself through the smashed doorway. Getting to his feet, Abd-al-Mumin attacked the Vatican Knight with his hands and feet moving with perfectly designed movements, all which the Vatican Knight easily defended.

The two men warred with each other, sometimes grappling with one another in what appeared to be a drunken tango, only for them to part and do battle. They engaged one another with flurries of punches and kicks, with some landing and some missing.

Then Isaiah went into high gear. Having mastered many arts and many routines, he had combined the best of most techniques into his own personal brand. With lightning flashes of thrusts and kicks and elbow strikes, Isaiah moved as a man possessed and one who would not be denied a victory. His fists, the sharpened points of his elbows, the balls of his feet, these myriad parts of his body all served as weapons that struck major blows to Abd-al-Mumin.

The fists came as straight jabs to the face and chest area, all undefendable while striking with powerful forces that broke the terrorist’s nose and drew blood. And then the blows came faster and faster, like moving pistons, with the driving impacts moving Abd-al-Mumin closer to where a window once stood.

. . . whap-whap-whap . . .

Abd-al-Mumin fought back as best he could with his hands and arms throwing wild and powerless shots as darkness closed in along the borders of his periphery vision, with the man now on the verge of passing out.

. . . whap-whap-whap . . .

Isaiah continued this fight with relentless power and with speedy thrusts, the terrorist edging towards the opening, a deep drop.

. . . whap-whap-whap . . .

The edges of Abd-al-Mumin’s vision began to pinch inward with the light closing, then fading. And there was a smell of blood. His blood. Metallic and coppery. With his legs sustaining him, he continued to fall back . . . back . . . back . . .

And then Abd-al-Mumin, with his eyes closed, could feel himself smiling as he was floating above the Earth, the man free. The wind blew against his skin, soft and cool and satisfying. The mayhem of the fight was over with the pain little more than throbbing discomforts. The Vatican Knight had relented through his weakness of mercy, he considered. But this was all mere fiction. When the terrorist opened his eyes, he saw the pavement of the street racing toward him. In the time he had left, within those few precious seconds between life and death, he wondered why Allah did not flex His might on this day. Why?

Unfortunately, Abd-al-Mumin would never get his answer.

But he would discover darkness.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

After extending the perimeter line around the Kristallpalast to a zoned area marked safe from a potential building collapse, Müller had to use a binocular to spy the tower. From his out-of-range position, he noted through his binoculars that the billowing flames were becoming more forceful in their upward climb, and that the smoke had coated the sides with black soot. As he zoomed in to focus on the topside level, he saw a dark speck that was in free fall. Increasing the focus, he was able to see that it was a person spinning and pinwheeling through space. As soon as the body struck the pavement, Müller lowered the binoculars, pointed to Zeller, and said, “You. With me.”

The two quickly got into a Jeep and drove to the body’s landing zone. Even from half a block away, they could see someone lying in the street as a wild tangle of broken bones. As the Jeep came to a skidding halt, Müller and Zeller quickly exited the vehicle to examine the corpse. With Abd-al-Mumin’s face remaining intact, though his body was a twisted mangle, Müller recognized Abd-al-Mumin immediately from the photos of his biographical record.

“Abd-al-Mumin,” he stated evenly. “Ali Mustafa’s lieutenant.” Then he looked skyward to view the top of the tower, which was obscured by rising smoke. “Let’s assume that the Vatican Knights made it,” he stated as a hypothetical matter. “Then we can also assume that they’re moving on Ali Mustafa’s position.” He turned to Zeller and commanded: “When the Chinooks come in, I want them up and running on my call. No shut down.” He glanced at his watch. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

“Understood.”

Müller, with Zeller taking the passenger seat inside the Jeep, looked skyward at the building aflame. The flames were steadily eclipsing the upper floors with incredible speed, with the danger here eliminating the much-needed time necessary to evacuate the guests.

Zeller, who clearly intuited Müller’s thinking as the Einsatzkommando leader put the vehicle into DRIVE, asked, “You don’t think they’re going to make it, do you?”

“No. I don’t. Not at the pace in which the fire is claiming the floors. The Vatican Knights were granted a timeframe to work with, but exigent circumstances dictate otherwise. The window will close long after the flames reach them, so I’m breaking my order to ‘stand down.’”

Zeller looked at his watch and performed a quick calculation. “Twenty minutes for the choppers, maybe another fifteen to thirty minutes to evacuate the guests. And that’s if they’re ready for extraction.”

Müller, driving back to the safe zone, agreed. “That’s the problem,” he said. “There are too many variables. That’s why my team and the Chinooks need to be ready. The fire’s moving too quickly for my comfort.”

“Twenty minutes for the choppers to arrive and another thirty or so minutes for the extraction, you don’t think it’s enough? That’s almost an hour.”

“In my line of work,” he told Zeller, “there’s always one constant: