The Eye of Moses - Vatican Knights Series 22 (2020)

by Rick Jones

  Or perhaps, Hayden considered, they knew what was ahead of them, such as the hardships and the impossibilities they were about to face. If this was the case and by the nature of what he was witnessing, their chances to succeed were apparently slim.

  Nevertheless, the itch inside Kimball was too great. They were on the hunt for Aaron’s rod, one of the greatest religious icons ever to exist outside of the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. The staff, which was carried by Aaron and wielded by Moses, was something he wanted to behold and touch, and perhaps raise it over his head to feel its heft and power. He was already drunk with anticipation.

  After they landed and entered the terminal, Kimball Hayden removed his cellphone. Mr. Spartan, who gently placed his hand on Hayden’s forearm to keep Kimball from raising the phone to his ear, said, “One call, Kimball. After that, we go dark. Mission protocol.” Mr. Spartan removed his hand and drew distance from Hayden to give him privacy.

  After a few rings, Shari answered. “Kimball.”

  “Hi, Shari. Miss me?”

  “What do you think?”

  Kimball Hayden smiled. “I just needed to hear your voice again,” he told her.

  “What’s the matter? Is something wrong? I can hear it in your voice.”

  “I’m fine,” he answered.

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.” After saying this, Hayden felt dirty and ashamed. He had never lied to Shari and always confided in her with his deepest secrets until there were no skeletons left in the closet. And she reciprocated with the same openness. But being worlds apart, Hayden believed he was doing the right thing by keeping her from pacing the floor night after night worrying. What you don’t know won’t hurt you . . .

  . . . Unless I don’t return . . .

  “How’s the operation moving along?” she asked.

  “Still a way to go,” he answered. “But we’re moving. How’re things at home?”

  “I found another snare, so I posted signs all over the property telling the owner to come get his trap. So far, no one wants to take ownership.”

  “Good girl.”

  After a lapse of silence, Shari asked, “OK. What’s the matter, Kimball? You don’t sound right.”

  “Just the sudden change in time,” was all he said, which was partially true. Going halfway around the world and then to hit the tarmac running was a lot to ask. But Hayden was more than capable of handling these sudden time shifts and remain alert.

  Standing twenty feet away was Mr. Spartan, who gestured to Hayden to hang up.

  “Look, hon, I’ve got to go. I won’t be able to call you hereafter due to protocol. I know that’s something you understand.”

  “You can call me after the mission, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “I know you will. Love you.”

  “Love you, too. And Kimball?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You know I will.”

  After hanging up, Mr. Spartan held his hand out to receive the phone, which Hayden gave to him. Detaching the back and removing the battery and SIM card, Mr. Spartan said, “Just a precautionary measure we take,” he told him. “If the Shadow Klan should discover your identity, they’ll discover everything there is to know about you, including your phone number. Once they have that, they’ll try to track you. And we don’t want to help them out in that department, do we?” He returned the useless cellphone to Hayden.

  Tucking the phone inside his pocket, all Hayden could think about was his Shari. Just the image of her in his mind’s eye brought a smile to his lips, a marginal grin of adoration.

  After collecting their bags, Kimball Hayden, along with his newfound teammates, started their journey in the hunt for Aaron’s rod and its coveted power, the Eye of Moses.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Lucerne, Switzerland

  Salt did not leave Deep Mountain until the following morning. After taking the cable car to the station, he left the facility and decided, instead of going to his residence, to go to a coffee house. The shop was packed with people using laptops. Few conversed. But Salt found solitude out on the patio beneath a parasol-covered table with a hot steaming cup of cocoa. Sometimes he relished these moments alone. Though he loved his wife and children, he also had a need for separation.

  Since the air had such a morning chill to it, he was forced to hike the collar of his jacket around his neck while sitting in a wrought-iron chair. Plumes of vapored breath escaped his lips while appearing detached from his surroundings. Then with a subtle shift of his eyes, he traced the cable of the cable-car all the way up to the mountain precipice. In time, as the Shadow Klan pushed forward with its agenda to create a totalitarian society, that mountaintop estate, he knew, would someday be the ruling throne of a new king.

  Taking a sip of his drink, Salt’s thoughts once again centered on his family life. A wife and two girls, a family he could be proud of and cherish. Yet he knew his station in life was a dangerous one. Should he be targeted, it would be his family that the opposition would go after to bring him out of the cold, since they always attacked the weak points. That was how he was able to bring Mr. Copernicus to his knees, by attacking his weakness. And because Mr. Copernicus relented, the Shadow Klan was not only in the possession of Nostradamus’ crucible, which unlocked the secret of absolute power, it also enabled them to tap into that power by obtaining the Eye of Moses.

  In time, if given that luxury, he knew that Elias Caspari would sit upon the throne at the top of the world to rule with an authoritative fist and have no equal. This had been the dream of madmen over the ages. But Salt genuinely believed that Elias Caspari had the drive, the finances, and the weapon of the dark particle which no country would dare to contest.

  Finishing off his drink and discarding the cup into a waste bin, Salt got to his feet and readjusted the collar of his jacket. It would be his first faux pas—one that would open a gateway for the opposition to take advantage of. Salt had looked directly into the face of a CCTV camera without giving it a second thought, then headed home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Consortium Stronghold

  Cochem, Germany

  “We have a hit!” The tech manning the console stated as he transferred the facial-recognition strike from one of the grid-patterned monitors to the lab’s primary screen. It was a verified match with a gauged indicator of 99%. The subject: Johannes Bossert; AKA, Salt.

  Within seconds, Mr. da Vinci was linked from his personal PC inside his office so that he had a full-face view of the monitors that were stretched across the lab’s wall. “What’s his location?” he asked.

  “A coffee shop in Lucerne.” The tech gave Mr. da Vinci the exact coordinates.

  “How long ago?”

  “Minutes. We captured his image live from a CCTV scan.”

  “Continue to track his movements,” said Mr. da Vinci.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The tech, along with several others who were sitting at the console, homed in on Salt via the use of numerous CCTV cameras that were stationed at every street corner and intersection, by leapfrogging from one set of scanning eyes to another.

  Big Brother was everywhere.

  * * *

  There was little doubt in Mr. da Vinci’s mind that Lucerne was a major hub of Shadow Klan activity. As he sat at his desk watching the video play out on his PC monitor, he observed Salt walking the streets of Lucerne as camera angles shifted from lens to lens to capture his movements. As he walked out of range from one CCTV, he was caught by another as he approached it.

  Mr. Da Vinci had never met Salt up close and personal, but he knew everything there was to know about a man who fell in alliance with the core tactics of a Christian terrorist group, and then justified his actions in the name of Heaven. How many have died by his hands because he had lacked tolerance towards others? This was a question
Mr. da Vinci asked himself whenever he looked into the cold and unforgiving eyes of Johannes Bossert.

  As the cameras continued to skip from eye to eye to monitor Salt’s movements, Mr. da Vinci opened a second channel with a small grid appearing at the lower left corner of his screen. After typing a few commands from his keyboard, he was summarily connected to Mr. Spartan, who had set up a BGAN system in Lucerne.

  Inside the box at the lower left corner of Mr. da Vinci’s screen, Mr. Spartan’s image appeared. “Mr. da Vinci,” he said in greeting, though it sounded more like a statement.

  “Mr. Spartan . . . we have contact.” And then the Grand Master began to tell the field principal everything he needed to know.

  * * *

  Salt enjoyed times like this when the day—though it had a cold snap to it—was sunny with absolutely zero chance of raining or snowing to tarnish the moment. The sun was high and brilliant, the mountain peaks capped, and the sky was as blue as he could ever remember.

  God’s gift to man, he thought. Yet it’s slowly being diminished to a wasteland that could end up as a rock floating through space.

  Then from the magical beauty that surrounded him, his thoughts eventually gravitated towards his purpose in the scheme of all things. Over the ages, mankind had suffered through the consequences of war, genocide, and persecution. And ruled by the governing principles of greed, individualism, and competition. Totalitarianism would prove to be a benefit that would establish concentrated ways of thinking and living and the worshipping of the one true God. Greed, individualism, and competition would be completely stamped out, as would war, genocide and persecution.

  Is this the dream of madmen? he considered. Or is it the dream of finally creating Utopia by ushering in the New Age of Enlightenment. In time, fail or succeed, he knew that history would brand him as a sinner or a saint, depending upon the outcome.

  He hoped it would be the latter as he looked heavenward and at a uniform blue sky with not even a smoky contrail from a jet to blemish it.

  Then he looked at the lake, which was as smooth as glass and as pure as ‘pure’ could be.

  Beauty was the landmark of Switzerland, he thought.

  How long would it take before someone pressed ‘the button’ and made it all go away under a sweeping wave of nuclear fire? Leaders were like children with loaded guns who knew little about how to use their powers appropriately. And then: It’s just a matter of time.

  Taking a sidelong glance at a distant precipice that housed the Shadow Klan, Johannes Bossert honestly believed that mankind, if something wasn’t done to curb their suicidal path of self-destruction, would not last another ten years. If this was the case, then he might not see the birth of his first grandchild. So, everything depended upon Elias Caspari and the power of the Eye of Moses.

  In Salt’s mind, everything he did was due to the design of God’s plan. He would kill those who compromised his position without a conscionable pang of guilt, knowing that he would be forgiven. And possessing the Eye of Moses, once a celestial gift to free the Jews from bondage, was now a gift to free mankind of sinful ways. Johannes Bossert, who was a zealot but didn’t see it that way, honestly believed that extremism was the only true measure to take.

  Walking the streets of Lucerne with his thoughts in the proverbial clouds, the CCTV cameras continued to observe Salt as he walked within eye-capturing ranges, all the way to his residence, which was a high-end apartment complex.

  From their home base in Cochem, Germany, the Consortium now had their starting point.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Lucerne, Switzerland

  Inside a safehouse in Lucerne, the members of the Consortium were setting up base command. Mr. Spartan had set up the BGAN system, which was a mobile workstation that if it had a line-of-sight to one of the three geostationary satellites to receive a feed from, then Mr. Spartan’s team would have global coverage on a secured line. Currently, Mr. Spartan was in communication with Mr. da Vinci over the satellite feed.

  “Salt is still in Lucerne,” Mr. da Vinci told him. “We have him entering an exclusive residence for those with high incomes, which says a lot about the pay of mercenaries.”

  “Where?”

  Mr. da Vinci told him.

  “I’ll assign a unit to locate and mine whatever we can from him,” said Mr. Spartan. “It’ll be up to you as to what you want done to him after we obtain the necessary information, however.”

  “Confirm the data to see if he’s being truthful . . . Then terminate him. Salt will never surrender his extremist views when it comes to achieving the means. He’ll keep killing those whom he thinks will stand in his way. Always. There’s no salvation in his future.” Then he added: “Your primary objective outside of finding the relics is to terminate Elias Caspar as well. Allow Hayden to seek out the relics. He’s more than capable of handling that part of the mission core. I want you and your team to neutralize all hostile elements and then blow the facility after it’s been located. Caspari is a cancer that needs to be cut away before it has a chance to metastasize.”

  “Understood.”

  “Killing is not our way of fulfilling a mission, Mr. Spartan. I know this. And I can see the warring of your conscience despite the even measure you maintain on your face. But we both know that certain measures have to be taken against certain individuals who deal with creating chaos. In this instance, killing the opposition is a means of accomplishment. We’re not dealing with novices here. We’re dealing with trained assassins.”

  Again from Mr. Spartan: “Understood.”

  “To find Salt is to learn the location of Aaron’s rod. Corner him. Mine him. And then terminate him. Find the rod, the crucible, then head back to the Stronghold.”

  Mr. Spartan nodded.

  “Godspeed to you, then,” said Mr. da Vinci. Then: “Out.”

  After shutting down the BGAN system, Mr. Spartan fell back into his seat and began to rub the itch and fatigue from his eyes. That was when he realized that he was not alone. “Hello, Kimball,” he said while looking at the blank screen. “You’ve heard?”

  “I did.”

  “What we do is different than the Vatican,” he told him.

  “To a degree. But in my view, which is outside the protocols of the church, is not to waste my time by putting a Band-Aid on a situation when the cancer needs to be cut away.”

  Mr. Spartan turned to Hayden, who was entering the room with his arms folded across his chest. “We’re not assassins,” he told him. “But we will, on occasion, take out those who we believe will continue to prove to be an egregious threat on a global scale.”

  “And that’s your call to make?”

  “Salt is a killer who will murder at will to win at any cost. He has killed women and children whom he believed would compromise his position. He’s even murdered children in front of their parents to make a point, believing that God will forgive him because he’s working for a goal that’s often unachievable, though he also believes it to be Biblical in nature. He’s a sick man, Kimball. One who perceives violence as the means to cure the ills of the planet, the people, or to bend circumstances to promote stability. We have a dossier on him a mile long regarding his crimes against the innocent. He has no boundaries, no parameters, nothing to steer him right.” Mr. Spartan continued to stare at the empty screen.

  Kimball, while continuing to mull this over, finally said, “I’m not judging you,” he told him. “Or the Consortium. What I do wonder, however, is if we take on Salt, do we also take on the entire Shadow Klan?”

  After sighing through his nostrils, Mr. Spartan said, “Most likely.”

  Hayden was a practiced fighter in his own right, a master, in fact. Taking on skilled commandos was not above his pay grade. And seizing the Eye of Moses was paramount. Conflict was all but guaranteed.

  “Your job,” Mr. Spartan continued, “is to locate the rod and the crucible. The job of the Consortium team is to pa
ve the way for you to do so. Not all of us will make it. But our sacrifices, Kimball, as were the sacrifices of the Knights Templar, will assure that you find these treasures and return them to either the Vatican or to Mr. da Vinci.”

  “Of course.”

  “The Eye of Moses must be forever locked away and made safe from people like Salt and those he works for.”

  While standing there, Kimball Hayden heard the hint of defeat coming from Mr. Spartan. It was as if Mr. Spartan’s tone inferred that the odds were highly against them with success only a marginal possibility. It was also something Kimball was accustomed to as a Vatican Knight—to go against insurmountable odds but to come away as the victor. What he was about to do was nothing novel.

  Then from Mr. Spartan, “You’ll be fine, Kimball. All you have to do is locate the items and make sure they find their way into the proper hands.”

  “I’m not the one I’m worried about. And you’re sounding like you won’t be by my side for some reason. Is there something I should know about?”

  It was here that Mr. Spartan feigned a smile, which Hayden clearly detected. Then getting to his feet, Mr. Spartan said, “Kimball, mission plans always look great on paper, but rarely are they ever performed to perfection. Be alert, be aware, and never lose sight of your goal.”

  Without saying anything further, Mr. Spartan left the room leaving Kimball Hayden to stare at a blank monitor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Lucerne, Switzerland

  The Consortium had dozens of safehouses located across the globe, especially in the European zones. The one in Lucerne was in a quiet community that had high-brick walls, manicured lawns, and brush that were artfully designed with ornamental pruning. The Consortium safehouse was small in comparison to most in the area, about 1,700 square feet with most of it hidden-vault space.