by Rick Jones
“No. I only know of him.”
“Then you agree with his co-operative status?”
“From what I know, yes. He’ll be an asset for sure.”
“I’m glad you agree, Mr. Spartan. Because he’s on his way here as we speak.”
For another hour they spoke about the potential movement of the Templar treasure to a more secure location, and how to obstruct any future assaults on any of the cache of vaults the Consortium had worldwide. Advanced technology when it came to security had its appeals, but they could also be circumvented as the Shadow Klan had recently proved.
Once the meeting concluded and the members dismissed, the High Chamber seemed much too large and hollow to Mr. da Vinci. The ceiling appeared too high, the walls too far, and the opulence overly done. Normally, Mr. da Vinci never gave this room a second look or thought, always taking for granted that it would always be there. But now he sensed an alien weakness that left him feeling open and abandoned, the room now as big as a wasteland. For the first time in Mr. da Vinci’s life, even when surrounded by opulence, he had never felt so impotent.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Deep Mountain
Switzerland
Elias Caspari was sitting in the penthouse suite of the mountaintop estate that overlooked the snow-capped peaks along the horizon and the cerulean-blue waters of Lake Lucerne. From his stately office, floor-to-ceiling windows gave him a panoramic view of the entire vista. He was a small and diminutive man who stood five-six and had a gangly build, which often made his expensive suits hang on him with the looseness of drapery. With a hatchet-thin face and a hawk-shaped nose, Elias Caspari, whose captivating eyes were as black as obsidian glass, radiated power that was much greater than his physique would suggest. Here at the mountaintop high above the valley floor, he was the king who ruled the Shadow Klan.
As he sat at his desk with his fingers tented and bouncing them off his chin in deep thought, he was ruminating about Salt’s successful conquest in attaining the crucible and the staff, a coup that could have only been managed by few.
He had always been a powerful man because he had come from money. And money dictated a lot of what he could do by greasing the palms of the needy and the greedy in order to conform situations to meet his demands. Over time he had powerful people on his payroll, those who were willing to turn a blind eye to his activities. But those who eventually discovered a conscience and found his actions objectionable, summarily disappeared and were never seen again. So was the might of David who stood as tall as Goliath.
Now, at the age of fifty-two and having created a financial empire from illegal weapons sales, Elias Caspari was one of the wealthiest men in the world who had laundered his funds through several dummy corporations and hid his assets in offshore accounts that were far from Interpol’s reach.
His mode of operation had always been consistent and never strayed. He would have his techs hack through the firewall systems of major weapons and munitions facilities to misappropriate the blueprints to prototype weapons. Then his engineers would glean enough from these designs to develop state-of-the-art weaponry for the black market, long before the original architects of the blueprints could finalize their wares. His people were adept at what they did illegally and thoroughly sanitized their cyber-fingerprints so that nothing was left behind, not even a trace element.
But what he had in the lab beneath the topside facility was the Holy Grail of all weapons once the engineers were able to properly harness and utilize the power of the dark element. In his mind’s eye he could imagine warheads that contained an atom-sized particle that was more powerful than the bolide that had leveled more than 800 square miles of Serbian forest in 1908. In fact, he realistically pictured a circumference of destruction in the thousands of square miles. With such power, he could wield demands of his choosing with confidence to world leaders without being contested. And should the desire from certain government principals decide to flex their muscles against Caspari, he would retaliate by flexing an even larger muscle of the dark particle.
For years he had been obsessed by the self-destructive ways of the human race with wars and prejudices and religious hatreds all coming to a heated point of contention. So, he hastened the process by selling armaments to weaken governments, believing that the price of progress was destruction. Once man placed himself on the brink of extinction, that’s when he would become a savior and show the world a new way under one government, under one rule. Totalitarianism, in his view, was the way to global peace. The price, however, would be the collateral damage of lost lives amounting into the hundreds of millions. And the power of the dark particle would give him this staff that he could wield with a mighty swing, as though it was the trident of Poseidon.
Salt had done well.
Standing and walking towards the window that overlooked the purple chain of mountains in the distance and the glimmering surface of the lake below, Elias Caspari clasped his hands behind his back and admired the beauty of the scenery before him. If man did not correct his course, he thought, these mountains would eventually become black from nuclear fires and the lake a boiling cauldron. It was up to him to shift the trajectory of man’s continuous journey to this eventual end, even if government leaders labeled him to be mad, egotistical or a megalomaniac. But if there was one thing that Elias Caspari learned over a lifetime; it was that the people on both sides of war believed that their cause was the just one.
After nodding lightly in appreciation of the landscape, Elias Caspari returned to his desk. There was so much more that he had to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Maryland
Shari Cohen was a strikingly beautiful woman who loved her lakeside cabin and the new life that was forming with Kimball by her side. Understanding that he was fated to perform certain duties, she did not voice her disappointment when he got the call from the Vatican. Though her concern became tantamount when she learned it was a solo mission and highly dangerous, this made her insides crawl as though a legion of ants were marching across her organs—her heart, especially. When she had fallen in love with Kimball for his unpresumptuous ways, she quickly realized the umbilical tie between them—that soulmate attachment. And when she could tell that he wanted to propose marriage to her but lacked the courage to do so, and not because of chest puffing or out of manly machismo, but because he was too shy, she couldn’t have been more blissful, more ecstatic, or more appreciative of their moments together, and decided to let Kimball ask for her hand when he felt the moment right. But fate, along with its cruel hand, always seemed to intervene at the most inopportune time and, in its way, was unjustifiable in her eyes. So, she prayed that Kimball would return to her, and that Fate would not stand between them and cruelly rip the rug out from under them.
Unable to concentrate on the book she was reading, Shari looked at the wall clock and noted the time. Kimball had been in the air for seven hours. Then closing her eyes and fisting her hands over her heart, which she believed was the seat of emotions and not just a muscle, she whispered, “Come back to me, Kimball. That’s all I ask . . . Please, come back.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lake Lucerne, Switzerland
Salt had slept so deeply that he felt fully rejuvenated. His wife was on the balcony sitting on a lounge chair reading a magazine. The kids were at school. After pouring himself a cup of hot cocoa, he joined her on the balcony and took the seat beside her.
A splendidly beautiful woman who had a dark complexion and eyes that were the color of deep chocolate, she had the heritage traits of her Greek ancestors.
Setting her magazine on her lap, she turned to him with a lazy smile. “You must have been really tired,” she told him. “You’ve been asleep for close to twelve hours.”
Salt said nothing as he stared at the scenery with his hands wrapped around the steaming cup of cocoa to keep them warm.
“You hungry?” she asked him.
“No. I’m fine.�
�
“Are you sure? I can heat up some Swiss chard.”
He nodded. “I’m good, sweetheart . . . Really.”
“Then tell me about your trip. I’m dying to know.”
“Like all my trips,” he told her, “it was uneventful.”
“Still, I’d like to hear about it.”
“You know I can’t talk about work.”
“I’m sure you did things that were not work related. So, tell me about them.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he insisted.
Then in jest, she said, “Are you seeing another woman behind my back?”
The only woman Salt saw on his journey was Mr. Copernicus’ wife, recalling the moment a bullet punched through her forehead and knocked her to the floor. “Of course not, my dear,” he lied. “I didn’t see a single soul outside of my work.”
Raising her magazine and returning to the article she had been reading, Salt continued to stare at the wonderful scenery that could have only been created by the Hand of Providence, then wondered how long it would take for the demonic hand of mankind to demolish it if corrections weren’t made.
While these thoughts ran through his mind, he brought the cup to his lips and sipped from it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LaGuardia Airport
New York City, New York
When Kimball Hayden landed at LaGuardia and before he embarked on a private jet, he immediately called Shari, who picked up on the first ring.
“Kimball.”
“How are you, kiddo.”
“I’m missing you already.”
“I bet you are.”
“I am. Seriously.”
Hayden smiled. “I know you do. I miss you, too.”
“I assume you’re in New York?”
“You assume correctly.”
There was a lapse of silence between them.
Then from Shari. “Kimball, please be careful.”
“You know I will.”
“I mean it. Every job has its limits. Remember that.”
“I will.”
“I want you to come home to me. You know why?”
“Why.”
“Because I’m looking at something. You know what I’m looking at?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“I’m looking at the land surrounding our cabin. The lake. The trees. Sunsets to die for.”
Kimball Hayden could feel a sour lump forming in his throat but found the strength to push it back. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be back. That’s a promise.” He expected her to say something like, ‘Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.’ But all she said was ‘OK.’
After exchanging ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you,’ Kimball Hayden closed his cellphone and made his way to the chartered jet, hoping that this wasn’t the last time he would speak to Shari Cohen.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Deep Mountain
Switzerland
Elias Caspari was surrounded by a legion of armed guards as he stood before the bell-chamber that contained Aaron’s rod. From a bank of monitors lined up on a table, he could see the rod rotating on its platform inside the container. And with every revolution, Caspari took notice of the glimmering Eye of Moses that was embedded within the head of the petrified staff.
“Have you made no advances?” he asked the senior engineer.
The engineer had an unkempt look to him because his lab coat looked like the sheet of an unmade bed, and his hair was in a wild tangle. From a mouth that had a set of teeth that were as small and yellow as kernels of corn, he answered, “We’re doing all we can to promote safety by attempting to neutralize its volatile effects.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. So, let me ask it this way: With safety in mind, how long do you think it will take to break the particle down to its finite matter so it can be treated for military applications?”
“Weeks. Months. Years. It depends if we can neutralize the dangers by learning how to harness it.”
“Harnessing the particle,” Caspari said. “I’m going to assume it’s doable?”
“Yes. The CERN is examining the constant bombarding of particles to discover the creative forces that developed the universe in a way to recreate the Big Bang, and the physical cosmology that came thereafter. We can mimic their efforts safely and, in time, learn how to govern the product within the crystal.”
This is what Caspari wanted to hear. What he didn’t want to hear was the length needed to develop the element into a weaponized tool. “Day and night,” he told the engineer. “I want people on this 24/7/365 to defuse any potential dangers as soon as possible. Then I want the team to extract potential data that can recreate the particle’s effects.”
“We’re trying.”
“Try harder.”
“With all due respect, the CERN is using equipment far more advanced than what we have here.”
“As you just stated, the CERN is looking to discover the creative forces that developed the cosmos. We already have the created force sitting inside that bell; a gift from the universe which was not manufactured inside of a module at the CERN. We’re talking about two different things here. One is research to discover the effects of the Big Bang . . . And then there’s our need, which is to exploit the particle for the development of a WMD.”
The engineer nodded. “Understood.”
“24/7/365,” Caspari repeated. “Use caution . . . But make gains.”
After the senior engineer nodded once again in acknowledgment, he returned to the monitors and began to read the power output of the particle in joules, electric and kinetic energies. These surface readings were the beginnings of the particle’s expressive strength to better understand what they were dealing with.
After Caspari was escorted back to his office by his armed entourage, he was at his desk reflecting about a new world order and pictured himself sitting on the highest political seat in the land. It had been the shared ambitions of many before him, all failing in their endeavors. But Elias Caspari was backed by endless finances that would bankroll an armory of weapons second to none.
In his lifetime, he knew, he’d be condemned with the title of the anti-Christ. In his mind, he saw himself as a savior who would pull mankind back from the brink of annihilation and curb their self-destructive mindset with threats of his own. Killing hundreds of millions to see this done would be a small price to pay, he considered, to allow man to live on under one government and rule. Getting there, however, would be an impossibility.
“But the word ‘impossible,’” he stated softly to himself, “doesn’t mean that something can’t be done. It only measures the degree of difficulty.”
In the labs within Deep Mountain, a weapon so powerful was being analyzed. What Elias Caspari neglected to see, what other leaders who shared the same ambitions neglected to see, was how much power was too much before someone ended up destroying themselves in the undertaking.
Elias Caspari was about to be challenged on that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Cochem, Germany
After disembarking at the Frankfurt–Hahn Airport, Kimball Hayden was met by a chauffeur who wore the tacky little hat as part of his dress ensemble, then drove in silence through the major avenues until they started the climb along a private road that led to a medieval fortress. Like most castles that had turrets, ramparts, and battlements, it also had a touch of modern-day elegance to it as well. The portcullis, for instance, did not operate by the movements of pulleys and weights, but by state-of-the-art electronics that used facial recognition software as a means to identify its members, which would prompt the gates to open and give passage.
The courtyard was enormous with flowerbeds that would normally bloom in riots of color if not for the dormant season. A gold-plated statue of Nostradamus served as the courtyard’s centerpiece as water bubbled from the crucible in his hands and into the fountain’s well, an impressi
ve display. And the castle’s entryway, which was made entirely of bomb-blast resistance glass and steel framework, was heavily guarded.
“It really is a fortress, isn’t it?” said Hayden. The chauffer remained silent, however, as he pulled the vehicle over, got out, removed Hayden’s bags from the trunk, placed them on the gravel, opened the vehicle’s rear door, then stood as still as a Grecian statue while Kimball exited the backseat. “Dude, relax. I’m not that important.”
The driver acted as though he didn’t hear a word Kimball said, then returned to the vehicle and drove off towards the carpool.
With his bags sitting on the gravel and the heavily armed guards looking at him with indifference, Kimball said, “And?”
“Someone will be with you shortly, Mr. Hayden,” said one of the guards. “Please be patient.”
“Thank you.”
From his point of view, the vista was magnificent as the trees began to turn with the colors of the foliage. There were reds and oranges and yellows that should be memorialized and painted on canvas, he considered, the display truly an artist’s topic for a landscape portrait. As he was admiring his surroundings, a pair of bellboys hastened from the castle and grabbed Hayden’s bags. With practiced smiles, they ushered Kimball Hayden inside the castle and passed through several security measures until they entered the main atrium. In the center of this marbled vestibule was a statue equal in size to the Colossus of Rhodes, about ninety feet, and a facsimile of the fountain statue of Nostradamus holding a crucible within his cupped hands. The most outstanding features about the statue was the entirety of it being overlaid with gold leafing, with the symbol of the Knights Templar upon the crucible encrusted and fashioned with rubies.
How much money do these people have?
After walking the myriad hallways large enough to drive a truck through, Hayden was finally escorted to his chamber. The room was as large as his cabin space in Maryland—maybe larger—but definitely grander. The bed was larger than a continental, something Hayden believed could sleep five people comfortably but was too gaudy for his taste. The windows were floor-to-ceiling with towering drapes that had scalloped edges and gold tassels. The furniture was ornate and expensive, with single pieces costing more than his entire furniture collection inside his cabin. This place was too extravagant, which was not Kimball’s taste at all. In fact, surrounded by these high-end luxuries made him feel uneasy.
