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

which was at least a thirty-foot climb, the techs debated in hushed whispers.

And then from the vocal tech: “You said you could lead us to safety, yes?”

“I can try.”

“Trying isn’t good enough.”

Mr. Plato once again held the face of his watch for everyone to see.

It read: 08:17.

“I’m not your Savior,” he told them. “But I’m the best you’ve got and we’re running short on time.”

Finally conceding with a nod of his head, the tech said, “Lead the way.”

Mr. Plato, not knowing whether their chances were great or nonexistent, escorted them towards salvation at the risk of his own life.

Because that’s what I was bred to do.

 

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Kimball Hayden raced through chambers and stockpiles with Aaron’s rod and his rucksack containing the crucible once belonging to Nostradamus securely attached.

Then he glanced at the timer of his watch:

. . . 08:04 . . .

. . . 08:03 . . .

. . . 08:02 . . .

He needed to get to the elevator shaft.

And quickly.

He meandered through hallways and moved swiftly through tunnels, his mind charting a course from one point to the next that was not only the path of least resistance, but the shortest distance, as well.

When he reached the elevator doors, he discovered that they had been parted. Looking up into the shaft, he saw the rappelling lines. Reaching out and grabbing the one closest to him, Kimball Hayden gripped the line with both hands and started his climb.

Thirty feet.

That’s how far the climb was.

Climbing hand over hand while using his feet to buoy him against the metal framework, Hayden was making considerable gains.

Twenty feet.

The door leading to the lobby and his escape seemed both distant and near.

Then as he was about ten feet from conceived liberty, that’s when Kimball Hayden heard gunfire from above.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTY

Elias Caspari opened fire without any sense of moral conflict. High-caliber rounds smashed through the entryway framework, the metal lifting from their rivets and flying inward into the lobby. The marble tile along the walls smashed like glass with chips and pieces exploding outward like shrapnel. And Mr. Archimedes, who had no chance despite wearing dragon-scale, was ripped apart. Bullets smashed into his chest, his joints, the massive power from the minigun simply punching through one side of his body and out the other, with exit wounds in sizes greater than a man’s fist.

As Mr. Archimedes was lifted and carried off his feet and to a distant part of the lobby, Mr. Michelangelo raced for cover only to have a round strike him in the left side. As he lay on the floor sensing the encroaching wave of numbness and shock, he looked at his wounded side. It was horrific. It appeared as though a shark had taken a clean bite with the radius a perfect half-circle.

Then as he looked at the enemy within the shadows beyond the gates, he saw the shape cast aside his weapon that had gone dry, then run to the cable-car.

Finding incredible reserve in what Mr. Michelangelo knew would be his final act, the man raised himself to his feet, held a hand to his wound, and in a gait that was half-jogging, half-stumbling, gave chase.

* * *

Elias Caspari never felt such power at the point of his fingertips as he sprayed round after round into the lobby. Bullets smashed uncontested into stone and marble, the minigun an unstoppable force. Then as he moved the weapon from right to left, he saw one of his enemies being ripped apart from the impacts. Blood gouts and gore erupted, the man dead before he hit the floor, and then he continued with his cross action to strike the second man until the weapon clicked empty, though the barrels continued to rotate with a metallic sound.

Removing the harness that held the weapon to his person, Elias Caspari tossed the minigun aside and ran for the cable-car.

Getting inside and closing the door behind him, he opened a panel and manually enabled the battery source. As the lights kicked on and the engine whirred towards full power, Caspari depressed the green button with the pad of his thumb. After a hitch, the cable-car started to descend toward the platform across the gorge.

Because Caspari was approximately a mile away from freedom, he couldn’t help his smile because he knew he had beaten the odds. More so, he had beaten the Consortium.

The cable-car continued its descent.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

Salt.

With his shock-white hair against a blood-red face and stark pale eyes, he was the perfect picture of madness as he scrambled upward along the skinny and winding staircase to reach topside.

His world was becoming unglued, unhitched, the chaos of his surroundings about to get greater.

While he was descending to the topside level, he heard the battery of machinegun fire.

Then as he stood and waited in darkness for it to subside, it finally did so twenty seconds later.

And then silence.

Twenty seconds later, Salt continued his climb towards freedom.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Mr. Spartan’s climb was exhaustive. He had discovered the doorway Salt had used as his escape route with the stairway behind it thin and winding, which would no doubt contest Spartan’s bad knee on his climb.

Taking the staircase, Mr. Spartan clenched his teeth against the gruesome and burgeoning pain, which always seemed to explode with every step taken. He hitched in his stride and forced his pace, despite the white-hot agony as Salt drew distance between them.

He thought of his wife, her smile, and the face of his daughter, a pretty girl who would have blossomed into a beautiful woman who would have provided him with grandchildren. But Salt had stolen that from him by taking away his future, his lineage. And now with darkness and pain in his heart, with indescribable misery he had endured over the years, he would do the same to Salt. Even as stars exploded before his eyes with every step taken, he would not be denied. So, with the heart of a warrior and the soul of a man possessed, Mr. Spartan continued the chase.

 

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