The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020)

by Rick Jones

  Abd-al-Mumin did not hesitate as he motioned his team towards the gates of the Austrian Imperial Palace.

  * * *

  The entryway to the Austrian Imperial Treasury is located at the Schweizerhof, or the Swiss Courtyard, which is the oldest part of the palace that was rebuilt in the ‘Renaissance’ style, meaning that there was a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman culture during the sixteenth century reconstruction. The gateway into the treasury was consistent with these conjoined designs, with a bullet-shaped doorway made of ornamental wood that appeared heavily constructed. Situated above the door, however, was a pair of CCTV cameras, with each catching certain but different areas within the courtyard.

  Abd-al-Mumin kept his unit at bay.

  Tapping his earbud to enable it, he whispered, “Khalifa, two cameras posted at the entryway.”

  Then through Abd-al-Mumin’s receiver: “I’m working on it.”

  Abd-al-Mumin checked his watch. They were already more than a minute behind schedule.

  * * *

  Khalifa received a message from Abd-al-Mumin through his earbud: “Khalifa, two cameras posted at the entryway.”

  “I’m working on it.” The Arab continued to type with grace and speed, his fingers missing none of the keys necessary to marry the programs that would allow him to hack into the exterior system to alter the live feed. Encrypted numerals scrolled along the screen as he continued to type. Slowly, the encoded numerals began to take the shape and form of a readable code. Recognizing the numeric values, it didn’t take him long to finalize the steps and succeed. After the security code was breached, Khalifa brought down the point of his forefinger with emphasis and hit the ENTER button. And just like that, he was in. The live feed had now been altered to show a video recording that was thirty minutes earlier than real time.

  Khalifa hit his earbud. “You’re good to go.”

  * * *

  Inside the sublevel of the Imperial Treasury was the nerve center of the security station. Four guards were manning their posts by the room’s entryway, two were heavily armed with Steyr AUG assault rifles. The two who were manning the monitors were wearing Austrian Glock pistols.

  As the two sat before a bank of monitors that showed live feeds of the entryways, corridors and rooms of the building, there was a brief flutter on two screens with the images going squirrely for a moment before returning to the norm. Nevertheless, both sentries narrowed their eyes in study with one immediately recognizing the change in the timestamp, which was late by thirty minutes. After tapping the screen with the point of his finger and then bringing attention of the anomaly to the heavily armed security officers, both guards thought it prudent to make their topside rounds early. With their Steyr AUG assault rifles at the ready, the two guards headed for the upper level.

  * * *

  Qusay was a Jordanian national whose discipline in the King Abdullah ll Special Forces Group was Explosives and Ordinance. Not only did he know how to care and disable explosive devices, but he also knew how to properly plant and detonate them as well.

  After removing a small C-4 wad that was roughly the size of a silver dollar and then adding a pair of det cords along with attached frequency-receiving modules, Qusay strategically placed the explosive over the door’s locking mechanism. Once done, he stepped away from the blast zone, held up the detonator, and waited on Abd-al-Mumin to proffer the order.

  Abd-al-Mumin whispered into his lip mic. “Khalifa, we’re in position.”

  “I need thirty seconds.”

  “We’re already running behind.”

  In those thirty seconds where time seemed eternal, Khalifa finally spoke: “Done.”

  Abd-al-Mumin then motioned to Qusay, who pressed the lever in return.

  The blast was oddly muted, almost like a ‘whumph’ rather than a loud report. Nevertheless, the concussion of the blast could still be felt as the door splintered around the lock. Fractured shards of wood from the door were thrown into the courtyard as rolling smoke boiled at them through the air. As soon as the smoke dissipated, Abd-al-Mumin led the raid against the Treasury.

  * * *

  Though Khalifa could not hack into the Treasury’s mainframe unit to alter the live feeds of its internal cameras, he instead applied a virus to combat the program and bring it down. Though the mainframe would eventually identify the cause of the intervention and fire up its protective protocols, it would give more time for Abd-al-Mumin’s team to maneuver into position.

  “Khalifa, we’re in position.”

  The terrorist tapped his earbud. “I need thirty seconds.”

  “We’re already running behind.”

  As the door to the Treasury was being prepared to be compromised, Khalifa finally empowered the virus. Within seconds, the mainframe computer that governed the entirety of the Treasury’s internal system had winked off and shut down. Khalifa had bought Abd-al-Mumin seven minutes of down time before the mainframe terminal would reconfigure and reboot itself.

  Into his lip mic, Khalifa said, “Done.”

  * * *

  Inside the Control Center, the monitors started to shut down one by one across the board. The screens turned to white snow, all of them, and then the fluorescent lights to the room went out, causing the red incandescent bulbs to flash and swirl in warning.

  The mainframe had crashed.

  * * *

  The Austrian Imperial Treasury was a massive building with several hallways and incredibly large rooms. When the door that led into the building from the Swiss Courtyard was breached, neither guard was aware of the break. In fact, when they reached the main level via the staircase, everything sounded ominously quiet. What was different, however, was the scent of gunpowder, though faint, but something that was enough to register a red-flag warning.

  The first guard hit his earbud. “Control, are you getting a read of a possible breach?”

  “The system crashed. It’ll take about seven minutes before she’s back online. Press ahead with caution.”

  “Yeah. Copy that.”

  The heavily armed security officers followed protocol by positioning themselves at opposite sides of the hallway, then began to move forward with their weapons raised to eye level.

  * * *

  Though the armed sentries were stationed in the sublevel, the unarmed group remained within a topside office. These were the officials who performed routine rounds every ten minutes like clockwork. Unlike the armed sentries who patrolled the entry areas and especially the Secular and the Ecclesiastical Rooms, these officers were unarmed security guards who acted as the first line of defense.

  Though trained to meander about to notice miniscule details that may raise red-flag issues, they were also underpaid employees who had no military training and were often complacent by nature. What had been a job that once stimulated them because they were surrounded by treasures, it had turned them into jaded individuals over time as the novelty of their surroundings eventually escaped them.

  Sitting inside the room watching a small flatscreen TV, all four members of the team felt a vibration, a tremble, one that was strong enough to cause the TV to fall forward. After one of the security guards righted the TV, each man wordlessly grabbed a flashlight and quickly began to investigate.

  * * *

  Everything was quiet. Yet there was a stench in the air, something acrid with a smoky scent.

  The unarmed security team operated as two-man units, per protocol.

  As Unit One investigated the Secular Room, the lights from the flashlights panned through the shadows to briefly showcase the jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, which included the Imperial Crown and Imperial Sword; the Holy Lance; the Austrian Crown Jewels; the treasury belonging to the Order of the Golden Fleece; and the original insignia of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was comprised of the scepter and the orb. Nothing appeared out of place or strange.

  A young man by the name of Franz Wagner was investigating the are
a that contained the ceremonial objects that once belonged to the Archduchy of Austria, items he had seen a thousand times before. The beam of his light passed over the objects, then over and around the cases, searching. As he panned his flashlight to the left, a figure that was blacker than black was standing beside him and at arm’s length. The shape made no noise or offered any clue of its advancement from the nearby shadows. It was a wraith whose eyes were as black as the balaclava that covered the majority of its features. In its hand and in full display was a khanjar, an Arabian curved dagger.

  Before Franz could utter a word as his eyes flared to the size of communion wafers, the blade of the knife came across and slit the young man’s throat. There was a horrible sound as air bubbles surfaced around the gash that appeared as a second horrible mouth. Dropping the flashlight and bringing his hands to his throat, the wraith reached out, grabbed Franz by the collar of his shirt, and pulled him into the shadows.

  * * *

  Manfred Holler was at the opposite side of the room from Franz when he heard the sound of a flashlight striking the floor. Turning his own flashlight to the abrupt sound, he noted that Franz’s light was resting on the floor next to the Archduchy of Austria display case. Franz, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  Holler took a few tentative steps towards the flashlight sitting on the floor. “Franz?”

  Nothing.

  Then louder: “Franz?”

  Silence.

  Then the shadows around him became alive with movement. A number of arms lashed out at him from different points of attack, from behind and beside him, as the blades of khanjars struck and scored deep gashes, causing Holler’s flesh to part and divide. Then a hand reached out from the darkness to cup a hand around the security guard’s chin, pulled his head back to expose the bare flesh of his throat, then neatly ran the blade across Holler’s skin. And like Franz Wagner, his body was dragged into the shadows.

  * * *

  Inside the Ecclesiastical Room where the devotional images and altars from the Baroque era were, Brücker Reiter and Werner Strobl also met with similar fates as Holler and Wagner. Stilled shadows had come alive to become uncontested predators who took their prey with ease. And like Holler and Wagner, they followed them in death when the sharpened edges of Arabian khanjars slit their throats.

  * * *

  Unlike the unarmed sentries, the armed personnel were from a seasoned stock of warriors. Both men had served with Austria’s Jagdkommando Group, a highly elite special-forces unit. These men were bred to be the best and learned how to skillfully use their trait of the sixth sense.

  They maneuvered through the hallways and corridors using the NVG capabilities of their rifle scopes to guide them through the darkness. Still, the stinging odor remained, now a faint hint. But both had processed, and then realized, that the scent was that of C-4, which had a distinct smell to it. Since C-4 was a military-grade explosive obtained only through black-market channels, both had considered this to be a specialized operation with the treasures inside the Secular and the Ecclesiastical Rooms the targeted areas.

  Both men moved with grace that had been performed repeatedly over the years. They moved in whispers as they approached the Secular Room, which held the greatest of all the treasures.

  As they entered the chamber, they fanned out with one operator moving east and the other moving west.

  Hiding within the shadows, things of wicked natures awaited.

  * * *

  The digital display on the console deep in the sublevel chamber read 3:06, the minutes and seconds counting down to the restart of the mainframe program.

  . . . 03:05 . . .

  . . . 03:04 . . .

  . . . 03:03 . . .

  Time never seemed to drag as it did at this moment, with the two operators who were manning the console powerless to do anything about it.

  Behind them, even within the hellish red glare of lights that swung in their warning globes, a shape loomed tall. It was a silhouette of pure darkness that was as black as pitch.

  . . . 03:02 . . .

  . . . 03:01 . . .

  . . . 03:00 . . .

  In its hand something glimmered red in the light, as though aflame. And then it threw off beams of light because this particular item had a mirror polish to it. It was a blade of a khanjar.

  Like those who moved topside, the two who manned the monitors were skilled operators who had worked the fields countless times; therefore, they, too, operated more from instinct than practice. Though something remained out of sight, they could somehow sense its heartbeat.

  As if on cue, both men wheeled around in their seats and started to stand to confront and fight. But the shape was uncannily fast and moved with a skillset of a professional.

  The curved blade of the dagger moved swiftly in diagonal sweeps and arcs, cutting and slicing flesh.

  When the console operators went for their firearms, the slasher’s accuracy was surgical and precise as the edge of the khanjar cut across their hands to sever tendons, which disabled their ability to unholster their Glocks. The seasoned vets then began to lash out with straight, side and roundhouse kicks to keep the assassin at bay. But the intruder deflected these kicks easily while waiting for the opportune moment.

  . . . 02:46 . . .

  . . . 02:45 . . .

  . . . 02:44 . . .

  The attacker in dark clothing noted the time on the LED readout. Time was ticking off with his opportunity slipping away. He needed to get at the console to completely disable the mainframe before she had a chance to reboot.

  The assassin, who was wearing a balaclava, moved with clinical proficiency and was no stranger with double-edged weaponry by the way he moved his khanjar in choreographed sweeps. Though the former Jagdkommando operatives were holding their own, they knew their inability to fully contest the assassin was not going to eliminate the threat, either.

  . . . 02:13 . . .

  . . . 02:12 . . .

  . . . 02:11 . . .

  The assassin then found his mark, a clear opening that was quickly closing. As the operator to the assassin’s right lifted his leg in a straight kick that was directed to the solar plexus, the assassin hooked his arm around the leg behind the knee, held it firm, then drove the blade deep to sever the femoral artery. As he pulled the blade free, a rope of blood erupted forcefully from the wound. There was a cry, a bark, the ex-Jagdkommando suddenly going to the floor. The assassin turned against his standing foe, the two elites now eyeing each other, appraising, and then the assassin moved on his prey by slashing his knife through the air in blinding slashes and arcs, the blade cutting and driving deep to part muscle and tissue. The operator tried his best to deflect and defend while being driven back toward the console.

  . . . 01:39 . . .

  . . . 01:38 . . .

  . . . 01:37 . . .

  The cuts and slashes of the ex-Jagdkommando quickly turned from red-hot pain to white-hot agony.

  The assassin that was blacker than black continued to drive the man back.

  And then the ex-Jagdkommando realized the inevitable as he was pressed against the console, and that he was too incapacitated to challenge the attacking fury of this black mass. So, he turned to face the computer console knowing the pain that would soon follow. But he was happy knowing that he would die as a Jagdkommando, and that he would do so as a moral sacrifice.

  To the left of the keyboard was a failsafe switch that would disengage the mainframe from the command center, so that the system could work independently in order to guarantee a reboot. Just as he lifted the cap to expose the plunger, the ex-Jagdkommando officer felt the blade of the khanjar drive deep into his back with the blade as cold as ice, and then a quick withdrawal. As his bloodied palm came down on the plunger, the knife drew swiftly across his neck.

  But the killing stroke came too late. The timer locked on 01.06, which was the disconnect time between the mainframe and the console.

  As the ex-Jagdkommando slid to his knees wh
ile his life bled away from a number of wounds, he turned to see his comrade lying on the floor in a pool of blood, though his motions were undeniably slow because his life was obviously slipping away. Then as the edges around his vision began to close in until his sight turned into pinpoints of light, he finally fell forward when his lungs expired a final breath.

  The assassin, who looked over the console, suddenly appeared angry and lost. Sitting at the console and setting his bloody blade aside, the assassin began to type with incredible speed. He tried to hack and log in, only to be DENIED ACCESS. He repeated the task, and then took different routes to access the system’s programming, always failing. In frustration, he brought the heel of his hand down hard against the console. Then he followed this up with more attempts and subsequent failures.

  In time, the countdown had completed itself. In the background was a humming noise as though something was powering up. It was the sound of the mainframe gathering steam to reboot.

  * * *

  In the shadows of the Secular Room, the former members of the Jagdkommando maneuvered about. Though they could see no one, they could feel them.

  They took caution and moved with purpose. The display cases exuded little light, usually a feeble cast to highlight the object of interest within. But as they neared the edges where the shadows remained darkest, that’s where they trained their NVG scopes. But the recesses were vacant and offered no surprises. Then from behind, a whisper that would be imperceptible to most untrained ears but not to an Jagdkommando, was the sound of a foot sliding across the tiled floor.

  The former Jagdkommando pivoted around to redirect the point of his weapon. But a dark shape that was caught within the light cast from the cases attacked with full force, and knocked aside the point of the weapon, which fired off with a short burst that lit the area with muzzle flashes.