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

Mr. Spartan continued to approach with a savage look about him, seemingly unaware that a bullet just missed him by inches.

Then Hayden, along with Salt, quickly got to their feet.

Just as Salt was beginning to swing his weapon against the bigger threat in Hayden, the Vatican Knight grabbed Salt’s wrist and torqued it hard to the left, forcing Salt to drop the weapon. But Salt countered with a series of straight jabs with blow after blow driving Kimball back until his body began to lose coordination and balance, the impacts coming fast and furious. This man, this Salt, had a skillset that could match that of a Vatican Knight, a rarity.

But Hayden drew on his training and brought his arms and elbows up to shield himself, with Salt’s blows doing little to exact punishing blows or make them count. So, when Hayden discovered an opening of opportunity, he took advantage.

As Salt’s blow was deflected and his left arm went wide of its mark, Kimball Hayden slipped a perfect shot with his palm and drove it forward into Salt’s jaw. The effect was instantaneous and brutal as Salt’s eyes began to roll upward to show slivers of absolute white. Then in a subsequent landing of his fist, Hayden connected once again to the point of Salt’s chin, which caused the assassin to see internal stars a moment before falling back.

As Salt began to lose connection with his surroundings, Kimball Hayden became very aware of this. The Vatican Knight sensed that a kill was within his reach, the takedown blow just a swing away.

But as he approached, Salt responded with a forward thrust of his leg which caught Kimball Hayden in the midsection, with the result knocking air from his lungs and driving him to a knee.

Then as Salt began to collect his faculties, as his world began to emerge through the veil of cobwebs, and just as he was about to come down on the back of Kimball Hayden’s skull with the point of his elbow, Mr. Spartan tossed his weight into the mix by throwing a series of kidney punches to the small of Salt’s back.

Gritting his teeth against the sudden pain, Salt kicked his leg behind him and caught Mr. Spartan at the point of his wounded knee, which drove Spartan to the floor where he cradled the area of his wound.

Now Hayden was back on his feet and searching for an opening, found it, then pressed forward with his hands punching Salt with extraordinary speed. His arms moved with choreographed blows that landed and counted. Blood erupted from Salt’s nose, an explosion. Then there was a crack of cartilage and more blood, enough for Hayden to feel victory, a conclusion.

But Salt, a man who had skillsets that most men did not, recalibrated himself and went into defense mode. As Hayden brought his arms and elbows up to absorb the blows, so did Salt, twisting and turning his body as Hayden’s streak of landing precise punches came to a quick and sudden halt.

Then the men grabbed each other and went into an obscene dance trying to gain the lead position. Both failed, however, as blows continued to be exchanged with little effect.

Then Mr. Spartan, who was not as blinded by rage as Hayden had thought, but was motivated by it, and with Herculean effort despite his ailing knee, wrapped an arm around Salt’s throat with the grip of a python and began to constrict the airway.

Salt gagged as he pawed feebly at the arm, the man behind him then hoisting Salt off his feet to take away the platform of the floor, the man now dangling as if hanging from the end of a rope on the gallows.

A mistake.

With his feet suspended, Salt thrust both legs forward with a mule kick and caught Hayden in the chest, knocking him backwards and to the floor. Then in the succeeding maneuver, he forced his head backward that caught Mr. Spartan in the face with a violent hit that caused Mr. Spartan to release the assassin.

As Salt wheezed oxygen into his lungs, his world became a little less dark and a little less gray. Now Hayden was in front of him and an enraged Mr. Spartan behind him. Two against one, a match he found to be, at least in his mind, equal. Such parallelism, however, could not go on forever. This he knew. Sooner or later a two-man team, even with Mr. Spartan’s wounded knee, would eventually rise to the top to conquer since both men were skilled fighters.

With his eyes rolling in his sockets searching for escape, Salt decided to fall out of the field of battle so that he could live to fight another day. Wobbling in his stance while his mind tried to wax its way towards clarity, he had the cognition to exit through one of the portals that led to the system of tunnels throughout Deep Mountain.

Moving in a staggering gait with a hand to his throat, Salt was eventually able to turn his bearing into a man who was as agile as a monkey. Leaping over a pair of tables, he then sprinted to the outer reaches of the chamber and disappeared into a dark warren.

Getting to his feet with a hand to his chest, Kimball Hayden quickly reached down to aid Mr. Spartan, only for the man to labor back to solid footing.

On the floor was Aaron’s rod and the rucksack containing the crucible.

Mr. Spartan, still feeling the numbing effects from Salt’s headbutt, pointed to the items. “Take them,” he said to Kimball. “Get to the mountain’s face and rappel to the bottom. We’ll provide you with the time.”

“You can barely stand.”

“Salt may be on the run, but he hasn’t been neutralized. And we have no idea where Caspari is.” After a brief pause, he added: “This is what it was always about, Kimball. A difference in agendas. My team cannot leave until we finish