by Rick Jones
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The two-man defense team that was manning the Deep Mountain gun turret was engaged in conversation when Mr. Galileo scaled the exterior ladder to reach the port. Hand over hand, foot after foot, Mr. Galileo climbed over the edge and hunkered down in the shadows, listening.
They were bantering in German over a recent fútbol game, the two so complacent about their surroundings that Mr. Galileo was able to move behind them without drawing their attention. Once the central emplacement was no longer between them and the two sentries a pair of standing silhouettes against the backdrop, Mr. Galileo leveled his weapon, bounced the crosshairs from man to man, then fired off a pair of silenced rounds.
. . . Phfft . . .
. . . Phfft . . .
Both men dropped to the platform, straight down, their lives over before they hit the floor.
Mr. Galileo checked their carotids with his fingertips; both deceased, no question. Then he inspected the double barrels of the gun, which were more like cannons, that sat on a rotating platform. It was a high-caliber weapon capable of disastrous effects. Any airborne vehicle would have easily been knocked from the sky from its pelting gunfire.
Slinging his weapon over his back, Mr. Galileo descended the platform and reached bottom. Then into his lip mic, he whispered, “Clear.”
The troops moved forward and met at the turret’s base.
“Circle the facility,” Mr. Spartan told everyone. “Locate any or all possible breach points so that we can determine the path of least resistance. Clear?”
In chorus, they did.
“Misters Archimedes, Donatello and Michelangelo will follow my lead around the facility’s eastside. Misters Galileo and Plato will circuit the westside along with Mr. Hayden. We’ll meet back here in five.” Without adding anything further, Mr. Spartan took lead and his recon group followed. Mr. Galileo, who took point, started his way alongside the westside with Mr. Plato behind him and Kimball Hayden taking rear.
* * *
Misters Galileo and Plato stayed close to the wall, as did Kimball Hayden. They discovered that the cement foundation was uniform all the way around with no seams, openings, cracks, or fissures, nothing that offered a means of getting inside except for the main entryway that was off the helipad and cable-car platform. AI Dynamic truly was a fortress in every sense. One way in and only one way out.
As blustering winds continued to swirl viciously along the mountaintop enough to kick up eddies of snow, Kimball Hayden found himself strangely comfortable in this element. The brutal winds, the cold, it all brought him back to a Maryland winter, and the thought of Maryland brought him back to Shari. Within the swirls of snow, which were like clouds in the sky, images began to take shape. In miniscule moments of time he thought he had seen the face of Shari within the veils of whipping snow. He saw her mischievous smile and the lift of one brow that was higher than the other. It was a look she always had when she was about to play a harmless and joyful prank. And then she was gone, the wind scattering her like dust and smoke.
Shari?
The wind was beginning to pick up and howl, the disturbances becoming greater across the landing.
When the team returned to the original location at the base of the turret, Mr. Spartan and his unit were already there, waiting.
“Nothing,” Mr. Galileo informed. He nearly had to yell over the course of the wind to get his message across, even from three feet away.
“The only thing in our favor,” Mr. Spartan said, “is the element of surprise. But the only point of entry is through the front gates of the castle. From my position I noted four tangos. If any takes to hostile action, do what has to be done to see this through.” He turned to Kimball Hayden. “Kimball, we’ll clear a path for you as best we can. Once inside, it’ll be up to you to work your way to the Eye of Moses and the crucible.”
Kimball Hayden nodded.
“There may be times, Kimball, where you might be alone in your search.” Then he pointed to the suppressed MP7 in Hayden’s hands. “From what I understand, you’re an expert with that.”
“This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.”
“No . . . I guess it isn’t.”
Mr. Spartan stood up; his figure caught within swirling white eddies of snow. “As practiced, gentlemen. You know what to do and how to do it.” Then raising his weapon to eye level and viewing the world through an NVG scope, Mr. Spartan led his unit to the front gates of AI Dynamic.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“Oh come, little children. Come.” Salt had seen it all from his bank of monitors. He understood the astuteness of the Consortium and knew that their cunning easily matched their stealth. To scale the southside of the mountain had never occurred to him. It was too sheer, too high, the elements too caustic and too harsh.
Yet here they were.
The two sentries inside the turret were posted by Salt as moral sacrifices to the cause, should the Consortium team find their way topside, which they did. But he expected a mobilization unit dramatically rappelling from the bays of helicopters with the choppers coming from the southeast, from the city of Lucerne.
As for the cable-car platform across the valley, one of Elias Caspari’s seasoned units watched that point with the keen eyes of trained soldiers. To access the mountain stronghold from that location would have been virtually impossible. So, Salt had wagered that the Consortium, as quickly as they were moving, were most likely to strike at a moment of great surprise. In order to counterstrike their raid upon Deep Mountain, Salt had night-vision cameras posted along the walls of the fortress and inside the gun turret.
From the communications and security lab, Salt, along with Elias Caspari, watched these blackened shapes approach the mountaintop lair, and followed their trail until they were lost from camera view in the swirling winds.
But they had watched the takedown within the gun turret and witnessed the executions of two men in an action meant to pave the way for the team’s advancement.
Two kill shots to the head, both clean and precise.
“The marks of a commando,” Salt commented softly when he observed the tape.
“You sound like you admire these bastards,” said Caspari.
“I admire their resourcefulness,” he answered. “I—we—were both wrong in believing that they would intrude the compound by chopper. Or to make a daring attack against the cable-car station to gain access to the precipice. Neither sufficed as a means of intrusion. And yet that was where we kept our eyes—at the points of predictability. And if the Consortium is one thing,” he said, “they’re not predictable.”
“All right, so they’re here. Now what?” Caspari asked Salt.
“I do what you hired me to do,” he returned. “My team is ready to protect the fronts.”
Elias Caspari got up from the neighboring seat and stood erect. “Make sure that this ends tonight,” he told Salt. Pivoting on the balls of his feet, Elias Caspari started to walk away. But before he left the chamber, he called over his shoulder and said, “The Eye of Moses is everything to this organization. Make sure that it stays in our hands.”
After Caspari got onto the elevator leaving Salt alone in his office, Salt whispered more to himself in confirmation, “The Eye of Moses isn’t going anywhere. This I promise.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The glass doors to AI Dynamic were locked. But with a few muted pops of gunfire, the tempered glass shattered into little chips that scattered across the floor like a cache of diamonds. One by one the Consortium team entered the lobby with Misters Spartan, Archimedes, Donatello and Michelangelo fanning to the left, and Misters Galileo, Plato, and Kimball Hayden fanning to the right.
All four people inside the lobby were armed security. As the Consortium team spread themselves across the lobby while panning their weapons from left to right and then from right to left, the security officers went for their sidearms, with each man instantly catching a do
uble-tap to center mass for their troubles. All four guards went down hard, apparently novices and non-trained personnel who were the first line of defense. What was coming next would not be an easy encounter with the approaching legion of fighters about to rachet up a few notches on the combat scale.
After the Consortium team cleared the lobby, they regrouped.
“So far so good,” said Mr. Archimedes.
“Believe me,” returned Mr. Spartan, “it’s not this easy. Look around you.”
There were cameras everywhere.
“They know we’re here. They were watching to see how many of us there were, inside and out, to get an actual read on our numbers and placement.”
Kimball Hayden pointed to the bank of elevators against the far wall. “Then let’s not disappoint them,” he said. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
In unison, the group made their way to the only means of reaching the lower levels.
* * *
Salt had gathered his unit, all experienced veterans who had either witnessed or dispensed carnage. There was Max Ueli with his disfigured face and misshapen eye, the man ready for battle by the way he chambered a round in his weapon with authority. And then there were others like Thibault, Grander, Ulysses, and Momeyer to name but a handful of team players—all who were trained soldiers and assassins, men with high-end battle techniques and specialties. Salt had surrounded himself with some of the deadliest men on the planet who devoutly shared the same ideology of one voice, one rule, and one order.
“Please keep in mind, gentlemen,” Salt’s voice remained even and formal, “that the objective here is to protect the Eye of Moses. Without it, we would never be able to reach our goal to claim superiority. The Consortium will prove to be a challenge, for sure. But keep in mind that we bested them once before, and we’ll best them yet again.” He turned and pointed to a bank of monitors on the wall. On the screens taken from different angles was the lobby. The Consortium team was maneuvering about. “Six are already dead. Four inside the lobby,” Salt stated. “And two more lie dead inside the gun turret.” He brought his hand down and looked directly at his team, his eyes bouncing from man to man. “No more will die tonight unless you’re a member of the Consortium, yes?”
There was a concerted cry similar to ‘hoorah’ from Salt’s teammates.
Then Salt added, “Now, let us go and greet our friends accordingly.”
With that, Salt, along with the members of the Shadow Klan, pressed ahead to meet the Consortium head on.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Maryland
Shari Cohen had a daunting, if not surreal, vision. It had come to her like a splash of cold water upon her face, something that was startling and eye-opening at the same time. She had imagined Kimball inside a cold, dark place. He was standing alone within this land of unseen boundaries, as he embraced himself against a chill. She could see his lips moving, though no words had been spoken. And as quickly as his image flashed within her mind’s eye, and just as he was reaching out to her with an imploring hand, Kimball Hayden was gone.
Feeling as if her heart were about to misfire inside her chest, Shari placed a calming hand to her breast and took a seat. Her knees suddenly felt weak, almost numb. And sweat began to bead on her brow. Since her relationship with Kimball, they had grown so close to one another that their tie had become umbilical in a way that the other could identify with the other’s pain, grief, sorrow, sadness, joy or elation, even when they were distanced apart by half a planet. Nevertheless, she could sense him as though he was in Maryland, with the man she loved reaching out to her from the darkness of a strange wilderness . . .
. . . And then gone in a whisper of time.
Looking out the window of the cabin, she could see the snow whipping about like a blizzard snowfall, hard and unforgiving, the weather a sudden anomaly and perhaps a foretelling of a pending storm to come; or worse, the symbolic encroachment of immeasurable sorrow. Then as a knot of wood exploded from a log in the fireplace, she barked a startled cry.
Closing her eyes to glimpse a photostat memory of Kimball once again, she found it impossible to do so.
Then softly: “Come back to me, Kimball . . . Please come home.”
In the fireplace, the logs continued to burn.
* * *
Inside the Apostolic Palace
The Vatican, Vatican City
Pope Clement XV was standing along the balcony that overlooked St. Peter’s Square. It was dark with sleep eluding the pontiff.
As he looked over the stone railing, he recalled the moment, at this very banister, when he pushed Pope Gregory over the hurdle with a mighty shove to set things straight with God, and watched as the pontiff bled out on the pavement below. Then he looked at the culprit hand as he held it before his eyes, flexed his fingers, and then let it fall by his side believing that the action, at least in his mind, was necessary for the good of all things.
With the lights of Rome serving as glittering sparkles in the backdrop, and with the lamps aglow in the Square, Pope Clement XV admired his kingdom with slight nods of appreciation.
Here, he was king. And he was a king who would set new precedents of rule in times to come. When mobilizing the Vatican Knights, he would do so without the council of the Society of Seven. In fact, he would have the full and complete authority of any and all decisions when it came to the Vatican Knights. Employing Kimball as a man alone without his team was novel, since the Vatican Knights found their strength in unity. But by cutting away Kimball’s strength the same way that Delilah robbed Samson of his power by cutting his hair, Clement had stolen from Kimball his might by severing his team from his side. And with this amputation, Clement was sure that Kimball would not find success in his endeavors against the Shadow Klan.
One deadly shot, the pontiff considered, directed by God’s hand will ease me of my suffering, by removing the crown of thorns that is Kimball Hayden from my head. It was a wish and a prayer that Kimball Hayden would finally find his Darkness that he had so often worked from in order to serve the Light. Perhaps with a well-placed bullet, the pope considered further, Kimball will discover his deliverance for past sins and burn within the Eternal Lakes of Fire.
More so, it would also cull away the pontiff’s greatest enemy within the Vatican.
Silently, Pope Clement XV prayed for Kimball Hayden’s demise.
* * *
The Consortium Stronghold
Cochem, Germany
Mr. da Vinci watched as much as he could from the Consortium Stronghold in Cochem, Germany, by way of following GPS hardware built into their Kevlar helmets. The unit showed up as separate blips on the screen as glowing red orbs the size of pencil erasers, until a windstorm kicked up and deleted the signatures.
After pleading with his techs to bring up the signals, they could not. There was too much interference, the climate not cooperating.
Sighing through his nostrils in frustration, Mr. da Vinci realized that he was powerless in a world that subsisted and operated on the power of technology. Without it he was not only weak, he was also blind and rudderless.
The Consortium team, with the aid of a Vatican Knight and under the management of Mr. Spartan, remained on their own.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Once the Consortium unit reached the elevators, two things came to mind. One: leave a two-man team behind to cover the rear. And two: disable the elevators to cancel any means of transport for hostile elements. For them to move from one location to another, the Consortium team would have to rappel from level to level.
After bypassing the security scans and forcing the elevator doors open, the teams attached Semtex wads to the cables, applied the detonators, cleared the area, and discharged the plastique by setting the timers to countdown from five . . .
. . . to four . . .
. . . to three . . .
. . . to two . . .
Detonation!
Th
ere were the dual sounds of whump as the Semtex wads exploded. The cables snapped and both lifts descended as gravity took over and sent them to the bottom of the shaft. Then there were the sounds of the elevators impacting, the noise greater than the initial explosions that created their falls.
Ordering Misters Michelangelo and Archimedes to maintain position at the lobby level to cover their backsides, Misters Spartan, Galileo, Plato and Kimball Hayden summarily removed their rappelling lines from their rucksacks, engaged the clips to metal framing, and allowed the lines to fall into the shafts. The lines, however, were only forty feet in length.
Quickly, they kicked off the landing and began to descend, the operatives bouncing off the walls every few feet as they lowered themselves to the first set of doors. Mr. Donatello, who quickly set a Semtex charge against the panels, warned his teammates to take cover above the level. After setting the timer that gave him time to climb to safety, the Semtex exploded.
The doors blew inward into the passageway as the speed of flying shrapnel skated across the floor until they finally came to rest. Smoke plumes filled the hallway, which was vacant. Then the team rappelled to the lower level with the points of their weapons raised, took the corridor along with Kimball Hayden—who was certainly no novice to the game—and moved through the passage with the precision of seasoned practitioners.
In the distance, panicky voices could be heard.
The Consortium team had knocked on their door, and hard, the intrusion obviously not welcomed.
Then Mr. Spartan turned to Hayden. “We’ve no blueprints to go by, so we’re running blind down here. We’ll move forward to create a swath. You, however, at some point, will need to find your own way to seek out the relics.”
Kimball Hayden nodded.
