by Rick Jones
. . . Phfft . . .
. . . Phfft . . .
. . . Phfft . . .
. . . Phfft . . .
Four muted shots were divided equally between the officers, with two shots each to center mass.
After the officers fell to the floor as gelatinous heaps, the man whose eyes were so pale that they appeared entirely white within their hollows, placed the crucible within the bag and took flight.
In the background, as the keen wail of sirens drew closer to the Collégiale Saint-Laurent, police would discover two downed officers inside the chamber along with the scattered bones of an aged seer, and a vault whose floor had been compromised.
Somewhere in the dark streets of Salon-de-Provence, a killer ran free.
* * *
The assassin was breathing heavily as he closed the door of his apartment, went to a nearby table, and dropped the satchel to the floor. Clamped to the edge of this table was a jeweler’s magnifying lamp with a 5-diopter distortion free lens and a Circline spotlight to eliminate shadows.
After hitting the ‘on’ switch to the spotlight, he delved into the bag and retrieved the crucible. The assassin carefully placed the receptacle on the table, moved the lens over the bowl to shed light against the crucible’s interior, then looked through the magnifier.
There were countless symbols engraved onto the bowl’s interior wall—script, ciphers and ancient markings circled inside the crucible in a pattern that resembled a nautilus spiral. There were thousands of small etchings that had been created to serve as keys to unlock the world’s greatest mysteries.
The assassin, with his pale eye magnified in the lens, looked on with studious admiration.
Here was the crucible that had been used by Nostradamus to forecast the future.
Easing back into his seat, the assassin picked up a cellphone and dialed a quick-contact number with a single tap on the keypad. After a series of clicks, he was connected.
“It’s Salt,” he said. “I have the key. It was exactly where Mr. Copernicus said it would be.”
“Are you sure it’s a true relic and not a red-herring facsimile?”
“It’s the true article,” the assassin stated evenly. “But it’ll need further evaluation by the Master Tech to confirm the finding.”
“Very well, then. Get it to Deep Mountain as soon as you can.”
“It’ll be there by tomorrow,” Salt told him.
When the call was severed, the man who called himself Salt removed the SIM card from the cellphone and destroyed it.
After placing the crucible inside the satchel, the assassin headed for the home base of Deep Mountain, which was a stronghold facility located along the peaks of the Swiss Alps.
CHAPTER THREE
Apatin, Croatia
Present day, Early Morning Hours
Hister is the Latin name for the part of the Danube in what is now northwestern Croatia. And on the night of a gibbous moon and standing close to the banks of the river, a six-man unit dressed in Robocop shin, knee, forearm and elbow guards constructed from a special composite, and Kevlar helmets that had a boon of gadgetry that ran along the top of their heads like a Mohawk, moved through the shadows with military sophistication.
Approximately fifty meters from their position after Team Leader halted his troops within a copse of pines was a concrete bunker. Its vault-like doorway was built into the side of a hill that was blanketed with manicured grass. On the wall next to the door was a high-tech ocular scanner. In order to gain access, not only did the system measure the threads of red lining in one’s eye, it also measured the pulsations to assure that the authorized member was still active. This state-of-the-art technology was an insurance policy against those who believed they could gain access by plucking an eye from its authorized owner, then placing the detached orb before the ocular scanner as the key-of-entry. The system, however, was developed to completely nullify this action.
Looking through an Infrared GoPro monocular, Team Leader was able to scan the landscape with the images a green hue. There were two guards by the bunker’s door and four more walking a perimeter around the area, though they were divided into two-man units.
Team Leader continued to watch the soldiers as they made their rotating rounds, with the two-man units passing each other every three minutes like clockwork. After examining the routine and making sure that it remained habitual, he gestured to his teammates with a series of hand signals. Team One was to go west and Team Two to the east, where they would maneuver into position to neutralize the sentries that paraded the grounds. Once the perimeter threat had been removed, Team Three would converge on the bunker and take out the remaining sentries.
When everyone understood the rules of engagement, the teams separated and headed towards the target site.
* * *
Francois and Franchot Archambault were French Nationals and brothers who were also generational clan members who served the Consortium, which was a clandestine organization who righted the wrongs to maintain global balance between the superpowers. Before doing so, however, they had served in the COM FST (Commandement des forces spéciales Terre), which was France’s elite Special Forces Group. It was here that they had honed their combat skills, which was a prerequisite to serving with the Consortium.
The night was raw and held an uncomfortable chill to it, the sky often opening with a miserable drizzle. But the clouds had broken to give way to the face of a near full moon whose celestial cast of light had pigmented the landscape the color of whey.
The brothers were regimented and equally classed as superior fighters. When they rounded the bunker as duty dictated, they did so without complacency. Then on one of their sweeps it was Francois who detected something improper. In the same way that a dog raises its hackles when sensing great danger, the former COM FST stood rooted, the commando searching.
After holding back his brother with a raised fist, the two then scanned the surrounding shadows with their weapons raised and leveled.
Nothing but silence.
In tandem they sensed something but saw nothing. And then a breeze swept across the meadows which forced the treetops to sway in concert from side to side, their vacillating motions beautifully entrancing.
The brothers continued to maintain their composure, kept their wits. Shadows within the copse of trees remained still and unmoving, all statuesque. Yet the brothers took the initiative to investigate the height of any threat.
As they moved towards the tree line, Franchot Archambault slowly slid the attached NVG monocular over his eyes and powered up the unit. As soon as his lens flared green, a bullet smashed through the glass and penetrated deep, a perfectly muted kill shot from the shadows, the man dead on his feet, falling.
At the same moment as Francois went to a bended knee, a high-powered round punched through and caved in his face to create a sphincter-like pucker wound. As though he was indecisively caught between life and death, Francois wavered for an impossibly long moment before registering and accepting his fate, then fell hard against the grass with the face-first approach.
From the pines, a two-man unit who had their weapons raised to eye level and their heads on a swivel, emerged from the shadows to retrieve the bodies, then dragged them quietly into the thickets beyond the tree line.
Now it was up to Team Two to finalize the mission.
* * *
Team Two blended perfectly with the background of darkness wearing black attire. As they waited, an audio feed over their earbuds confirmed that Team One had succeeded and achieved the means with takedowns.
In accordance with the predetermined rules of engagement, Team Two had trained their suppressed weapons in the direction of two approaching sentries. After dividing up the targets between them, and then placing the Consortium team within the NVG crosshairs of their rifles, the pair of snipers coordinated the timing of their trigger pulls so close together that they sounded off as a single muted shot.<
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After gathering the bodies and whisking them into the shadows beyond the tree line, both teams, and from opposite sides of the bunker’s mound, converged on the Master Gateway with their weapons readied.
* * *
Team Three, which had been headed by Team Leader, tapped his acolyte on the shoulder to begin their advance toward the bunker. From the trees, they pressed forward with their weapons raised. Since the mobile sentries had been neutralized, that left the two standing by the doorway.
They moved with stealth that had been practiced to perfection over the years through relentless training.
When they came within fifty meters of the bunker, Team Leader watched from his position as Teams One and Two converged on the sentries with the skilled traits of elite commandos.
Everything worked out perfectly.
* * *
The sentries remained as poised as British guards watching over the gates of Buckingham Palace, stiff and no nonsense. But as soon as they noted armed shadows flanking them, the first guard raised his weapon, the maneuver inviting his death as a round summarily pierced center mass with a kill shot to the heart, rupturing it. The second guard, realizing that he had no chance, dropped his weapon, and raised his hands in surrender.
Appraising the soldier momentarily within the green light of his NVG, Team Leader then snapped his NVG monocular upward over his helmet and grabbed the sentry. Pulling the guard close enough for him to see eyes so pale that they appeared entirely white, Salt, after placing the point of his suppressed sidearm against the guard’s temple, pointed to the ocular scanner on the wall and said, “You know what to do.”
“I won’t do it. Not on my watch.”
“Yeah. You will.” Salt took a step back and fired off a single shot into the sentry’s leg, causing the surprised man to bark with pain. The agony was suddenly white-hot as the sentry started to cave. But Salt grabbed the man by the collar of his uniform, hoisted him back to his feet, and coerced the man to the eye scanner with a vicious shove.
The sentry, however, was not being cooperative.
“Open your eye,” Salt told him.
The sentry refused.
“So, you want to be a hero to the end, is that it?” Salt directed his aim to the back of the man’s leg and pulled the trigger. As the area lit up with a muzzle flash of gunfire, the sentry screamed. In knee-jerk reaction he opened both eyes, which enabled the scanner to process the pulsating roadmap of both orbs.
As the bolts to the door were pulling back from their circular sockets that had been built into the surrounding wall, Salt pointed the gun to the back of the sentry’s head and quickly ended the man’s life.
When the vault-like door swung inward, a battery of lights within the tunnel immediately ignited themselves. There was a small stairway that led to an arterial system of tunnels that eventually ran to an underground bunker.
One by one, Salt’s team took the stairway with their assault weapons leading the way and made their way toward the Master Chamber that housed the relic they sought.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cochem, Germany
Present day, Early Morning Hours
Mr. da Vinci had been the leading head of the Consortium for more than two decades and ruled as the Grand Master of the organization. When the balance of global power appeared to be shifting to favor one, it was his job to act as the Scales of Justice so that no government had an upper hand that could toss the world into chaos. He was the balance that made the planet turn and rotate, though not in harmony as he wished it would. Wars continued to wage; battles were lost and won; people died, and did so unnecessarily; greed motivated some to seek advantages, which he took away; and whereas others wanted to bathe in uncontrollable power as if they were gods, Mr. da Vinci would show them how human they truly were.
He believed that the success of the Consortium was due to the power of its belief—that there should be a ying to a yang, darkness and light, Heaven and Hell, good and evil, with an equal balance between them. Neither would rule over the other since balance was the answer to sustainability. Though war was a terrible thing and something he wished he could minimize, he realized that it was also a means to curb a greater evil. Should a global peace prevail, would not the burden of overpopulation encourage diseases, plagues, epidemics, and starvation? Would the spread of communicable diseases not only filter out the weak from the strong, but also threaten the strong should a plague have no remedy or cure? In the end, the issue of morality was not his guide. The matters for which the Consortium was created for was to maintain balance on the global landscape, without having the threat of the Sword of Damocles hanging over mankind.
Mr. da Vinci had never navigated by way of a moral compass outside of knowing that he had an umbilical tie with God, because he provided stability to make the world a safer place to live. And it was by his rule to create ‘balance’ that provided order that kept the planet running by whatever means necessary. But over the decades he had been losing his footing due to warring factions growing in greater numbers, and from the lack of humanity that was beginning to outweigh those who endeavored to rule with civility.
As he sat at the piano playing Edvard Greig’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the strikes of his fingers were coming down on the keys harder and harder, his anger bleeding out as he played the chords faster and faster, banging and hitting and striking the keys until he could play them no more.
Sitting on the piano bench with trails of sweat running along his brow and cheeks, Mr. da Vinci tried to catch his breath. When he did so and was able to stand, he crossed the massive chamber deep inside the Consortium Stronghold and took a seat behind an ornately designed desk. It was early morning and he could not sleep, which exactly wasn’t news since he was an insomniac to begin with.
As he was wondering about all the successes and miscues in life, he noted a small plaque next to his nameplate that summed up his obligations as the Grand Master of the Consortium. It read: BALANCE.
That’s what we’re about, he thought. That’s what we promote . . . Balance.
As he sat considering his role and the roles of those within the Consortium, he was completely unaware that one of the organization’s most treasured vaults was being raided in Croatia.
In time, but long before the dust would settle, Mr. da Vinci would release the hounds in order to restore balance that would not be achievable.
Nevertheless, the Consortium had its place in the scheme of all things.
CHAPTER FIVE
Apatin, Croatia
Salt’s unit moved quickly through the thin warrens of the bunker. Despite the numerous cutoffs and branches, the team knew exactly where to go after the principals that Salt operated for had acquired the blueprint design of the facility.
They took the shortest distance between two points until they came upon a bullet-shaped doorway that looked more medieval than contemporary. Thick piles of wood were pieced together with black metal bands and rivets to hold them tight. Behind it was a chamber that was seven hundred years old.
After a commando placed Semtex pads along hinges whose bolts were deeply embedded inside the castle-rock doorjamb, he then inserted detonation plugs, cleared the area, then flipped the toggle on his remote. The explosion was so powerful that splintered wood and fist-sized chunks of stone skated across the floor, while rolling plumes of dust raced through the corridors. As thick eddies of smoke continued to roll and swirl, the team entered and swept the room for targets, only to discover zero threats.
Within, great treasures sat in pyramidal-shaped mounds—rubies, sapphires, jade, and gold coins—with each pile having their Aurora-Borealis-like illuminations attempting to touch the ceiling. Ancient torches that had burned for seven centuries continued to remain as antiquated remnants, since the room had changed to electric lamps decades ago.
Lined against one of the walls were some of the Gold Shields of Solomon, with every shield having a mirror-poli
sh to them. There were more treasures in the form of golden idols and Christian crosses, some weighing hundreds of pounds.
Here were the hidden treasures of the Knights Templar.
After the team completed its sweep, they converged to the central point of the room. Sitting upon an ivory platform was the Templar’s most prized possession: The Ark of the Covenant. It was brilliantly crafted, having been made from the wood of the acacia tree and covered with the purest gold. It was a cubit-and-a-half broad, a cubit-and-a-half high, and two cubits long with the upper lid, the mercy seat, surrounded by a rim of gold. On each of the two sides were two gold rings where two wooden poles were placed so that the Ark could be carried. Situated on top of the Ark were two cherubim figures that faced each other with the tips of their outspread wings touching the others, forming the throne of God while the Ark itself was judged to be His footstool.
After circling the Ark both in appraisal and admiration, Salt called for the lid to be removed. In quick response, four commandos each took a corner and hoisted the top from the golden cradle, then set it carefully upon the floor. Without hesitation, Salt looked inside the Ark and was perhaps the first man to do so for millenniums.
Inside the Ark were four items: the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, a bowl of manna whose contents had turned to dust long ago, and the petrified staff of Aaron's rod. At the head of the staff and embedded within the aged wood was a crystal that cocooned a glowing ember, a small particle that seemed to spin slowly upon its axis within this quartz-like mineral. It pulsated with a life of its own and to the measure that was in tune with the beat of a human heartbeat.
Salt—after snapping his fingers to galvanize one of his commandos—stepped away from the Ark as another took his place. Festooning across the soldier’s back like a bandolier was a rectangular container that was sizeable enough to hold a billiard cue. After placing the box on the floor next to the Ark and opening its lid, Salt told the operator to use care when transferring the relic.
