The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020)

by Rick Jones

  Just as Kimball cut through the final strap, a magnificent beast broke through the wall of smoke with this monster emerging and making itself known, this fantastical dragon. But it was not something of wild imagination. It was a Chinook whose rotors were spinning at full force.

  Salvation had come from above.

  And its savior, an angel, who stood within the open bay, was Müller.

  * * *

  The sound of a beating helicopter.

  The wonderful noise of spinning rotors.

  The sound of rescue.

  Job, Jeremiah and Isaiah were maneuvering through the smoke laden corridors to reach topside. The heat, the fire, everything was moving with accelerated speed. Few people wept, whereas others barked anxious cries the moment they heard the supports beginning to strain.

  The Kristallpalast was about to fall.

  With Isaiah and Jeremiah each carrying a child, and with Job leading the masses, the smoke was becoming a nuisance. They were making people sluggish, and the gaiter masks they wore were starting to prove ineffective. But as they neared the top of the stairwell that led to the helipad, Job kicked open the door.

  Air, though mixed with toxic but diluted fumes, spilled into the stairwell. It was enough to keep everyone going, with most being driven by self-preservation.

  On the helipad was an awaiting Chinook.

  Job egged the people on with waves, telling them to ‘board as quickly as possible.’

  No one had to be told twice.

  In queue high above, two more Chinooks waited for their turn to land and load. The operation should take no more than ten minutes. But down below where the metal supports were becoming molten soft, these supports began to buckle and bend with the hotel starting to lean, though not at a high degree.

  The judge, the CEO, and the cardinal were the first to board the Chinook. Children and their mothers, all who appeared as bedraggled orphans and refugees, were second, with the remaining women then boarding until the chopper had reached its capacity. After Kimball slammed the bay door shut, he slapped the hull and made a wheeling motion with his hand, the chopper then lifting and peeling away. Then the Vatican Knight directed the second chopper to the helipad.

  The operation was moving along smoothly.

  Then the building began to lean, a slight but noticeable pitch that caused people to scream.

  Kimball hurried the people inside the second chopper, one right after the other with urgency.

  Another metallic protest from the supports that started to bend on one side of the building, causing its lean to become a major cause for concern.

  “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” Kimball waved on. “The building’s about to collapse!”

  Since a Chinook can carry thirty-six people including its crew, the two choppers were able to load and carry the entirety of the remaining guests. The third chopper was for the airlifting of the Vatican Knights.

  As soon as the second aircraft lifted and banked, the third chopper started its landing procedure. That was when the tilt of the building became too great of a risk for the vehicle to land as it slanted to a much greater degree, about fifteen percent. The chopper would not be able to stabilize itself on the landing.

  Kimball waved it in, though it remained short of landing as the Chinook hovered above the helipad. Isaiah jumped on the chopper’s skid and climbed inside the bay; Jeremiah quickly followed with Job right behind him. And just as Kimball was about to make the leap, the building shifted once again, the angle now steep enough to cause Kimball to fall and slide. The Vatican Knight clawed at the flat surface as the edge of the building rushed at him with the drop-off an eight-hundred-foot dive. Mustafa, whose lifeless body was at the mercy of gravity, slipped over the rim and into space in freefall. Kimball, however, used his boots to break his speed and was able to stop his slide six feet from the building’s edge. As he clung to the helipad’s surface like an insect, the smoke started to darken and thicken around him. He could also feel the heat of nearing flames, which were directly beneath the surface of the helipad and trying to punch through.

  Another shift, the building leaning to the point where the gravity of its weight would cause it to tumble.

  The Vatican Knight tried to claw his way from the edge but couldn’t, the climb too steep.

  And then the Chinook emerged through the concentration of black smoke. It hovered with its skid close to Kimball, though it remained beyond arm’s reach.

  The building, with its support beams trembling and straining to hang on, though with seconds before they finally gave, Kimball launched himself and hooked an arm around the chopper’s skid and hung on for dear life, with the hold a tenuous one. Arms and hands reached for Kimball and lifted him safely into the bay as the chopper continued to hover over the building. Once Kimball was settled in and took a deep breath, he said to the pilot, “Hold on.”

  Kimball removed the Holy Lance from his waistband and looked at it. Mustafa’s blood still crusted on the blade and on the gold, tainting it. Then Kimball wondered about the tales of the artifact and the powers it exercised. Throughout history, the Spear of Destiny had been the hands of gentle souls and madmen with the item exchanging between good and evil minds, between the Darkness and Light. And he had to wonder what it was within man that they wanted to take such a glorious artifact and weaponize it. To create massive and powerful armies. To rule with uncontested challenge. Or to sit upon the highest throne and dictate who lived or died, depending on the mindset of the one who held it as the scepter of rule, be it with good intentions or bad.

  What mankind needed was a person of reasonable thought and someone who understood that such a belief in an article with divine attachments should never be looked upon as either a weapon or as a king’s staff.

  Below, the building was starting to give, and then tilted, this time unable to hold itself upright.

  And it was at this moment that Kimball understood why he worked within the Gray. It was because he was the Balance Keeper.

  As the building tumbled and the flames reached skyward as if to claim the chopper, Kimball held out the Holy Lance and released it to the flames. Oddly, the fire retracted as though appeased now that the gift had been accepted.

  Feeling the eyes of the Vatican Knights upon him, no one questioned his action. Kimball Hayden was always a man who had operated to the tune of his own making.

  Then as the Chinook lifted and started to bank, the Vatican Knights watched the plumes of rolling smoke and fire as they drew distance from the scene.

  * * *

  After the second chopper landed safely to unload the surviving hostages and guests, Müller received word that all were accounted for with the exception of a Vatican Knight and four others, who had been lost. Five lives, the Einsatzkommando team leader considered, was a small price to pay against overwhelming odds. Yet the Vatican Knights performed the impossible, which earned his utmost respect of the unit.

  Looking skyward as the choppers moved west of his position, he knew he would never see Kimball Hayden again or the members of his team. They surely are elite, he thought.

  Then sighing, he focused his attention to what used to be the Kristallpalast, a building so luxurious that few could measure up to it, with those competing structures only in Dubai. Right now, as his team and Zeller looked on in dismal silence, the tower now lay as a heaped and smoldering ruin. 9/11 had come to the soil of Austria. But like all Austrians, they would rebuild and come through with resolve, since the fortitude of these people often remained strong in adversity.

  Once again Müller looked to the sky and with the choppers moving away, they were little more than pinhead dots.

  And then they were gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Somewhere Between Vienna and Rome

  The flight back to Rome took on a somber tone. Inside the chartered jet a pall seemed to linger, something that was both heavy and dark.

  Cardinal Favino sat in a chair looking out the window,
though cloud cover obscured his view of the landscape 15,000 feet below. He appeared deflated, perhaps emotionally wounded by his newfound revelation as to where he stood within his faith and his level of conviction to God. He had sobbed and wept and cowered, instead of drawing strength from his spiritual devotion. The judge even pointed out his significant weakness, which was obviously apparent. The judge had been stoic. The woman, though she had shed her rightful number of tears, eventually raised her chin in defiance. Whereas he remained spineless throughout the entire ordeal.

  Where was my faith when I needed it most?

  The plane hit a slight bump of turbulence, but it did not appear to shake the cardinal from his thoughts.

  When the judge proved to him that he was a man of weak substance given his station as a cardinal, only then did the Cardinal Secretary look deep into himself. Not only was he afraid of death, but the consequences for not entrusting himself completely to his Lord and Savior. All he could think about was existing in an afterlife filled with lakes of fire and the smell of brimstone.

  Then the cardinal, as though in self-debate, nodded. He would atone for his sins. He would reach out to find his God, and he would cherish Him with bounties of prayer and with acts of kindness.

  As the plane rode another wave of turbulence, Kimball Hayden took the seat opposite the cardinal, who continued to stare out the window and refused to acknowledge him.

  After a long moment of silence, though the cardinal could feel Kimball’s eyes, he asked, “Something you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  Cardinal Favino was one of the pontiff’s—for lack of a better word—lackeys. He was a major contributor in Pope Clement’s camp who fostered beliefs that the then-cardinal was best suited for the position of pope since he had been a long-standing member of the preferiti. He had lobbied hard with political acumen, which catapulted the then-cardinal to the top of the rankings who would later become one of the highest spiritualists in the world. But the pontiff was riddled with corruption and misdeeds, always formulating strategies not to benefit the church but to benefit himself. This Kimball knew.

  “I’m waiting,” the Cardinal Secretary repeated.”

  “That chair you’re sitting in,” Kimball said.

  “What about it?” The cardinal turned to face Kimball, who was still wearing his ash-laden uniform and smelled highly of smoke. His face also remained greasy and stained with the smudge marks of soot.

  “I’m talking about Daniel.”

  The cardinal nodded humbly. “The one who was lost.”

  “He was not much more than a kid. Young. Devoted. Had his whole life ahead of him. But in the end, Cardinal, he turned out to be a real man who was lost during the operation to free you.” Then Kimball leaned forward as though to emphasize his final point. “The rest of your life better have meaning, Cardinal. One life for another.”

  One life for another, four words that cut deep to the cardinal’s core as Kimball’s message became clear: a good life was gone; therefore, another good life shall take its place to carry on.

  The cardinal cast his eyes downward, the man entirely ashamed of himself for the way he acted for casting doubts regarding God. Then: “I understand.”

  Without saying anything further, Kimball rose from the seat and joined his team in the rear of the jet, leaving the cardinal to reassess his future.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  The Apostolic Palace. The Vatican.

  Vatican City.

  As soon as the chartered jet landed at Fiumicino Airport in Rome, a transport vehicle for the cardinal and the team of Vatican Knights was waiting. The return drive to the Vatican was pin-drop quiet. After the SUV stopped at the cardinal’s quarters in Rome, the cardinal and Kimball locked eyes. The message between them was silently adamant: keep to your vows and promote the tenets of good men and even better principles. Remember, you have been granted a second chance. A good life was taken; therefore, another good life will take its place to carry on.

  In that umbilical moment between them, the cardinal was humbled. And then he nodded to Kimball, the message received and understood, even when a single syllable did not pass their lips.

  After the driver, a bishop of the Holy See, escorted the cardinal to his apartment, Kimball looked at the dressed wound of Isaiah’s arm, and at the stark white wrapping of gauze. In time, since Kimball could attest to this, it would turn into a scar and perhaps one of many that would be accrued over a lifetime. That was when Kimball removed his glove to look at his hand. The flesh had been burned and discolored, the skin having melted and cooled. But there were other damages as well, such as the remembrances of dimpled flesh to mark bullet wounds, the diagonal scores which had bound themselves into lateral scars, and flesh that had burned like the tallow of wax. When the driver returned, Kimball immediately placed the glove back on to hide the wounds of his past.

  As soon as the driver made it to the Vatican and the Vatican Knights exited the vehicle, the bishop, who was a slight and spectacled man with a nice smile, turned to Kimball. “The pope wishes to hold a personal meeting with you,” he told him, “as soon as we arrive.”

  “I don’t even get to shower?”

  “I’m only passing on the pontiff’s instructions.”

  Kimball, with tongue in cheek, knew what the topic was going to be: The Spear of Destiny.

  After given passage by the Swiss Guards who guarded the gates of the Apostolic Palace, Kimball was escorted into the pontiff’s chambers. Once the door closed softly behind him, he found himself alone with the pontiff, who sat behind the desk displaying a skinny range of emotion. The man did not appear happy or saddened by Kimball’s presence. All he did was arch an eyebrow, which Kimball considered to be a condemnation of his dirty uniform.

  “You asked to see me, Your Holiness?”

  The pope nodded, then stood. “The Spear of Destiny?”

  “Are you not concerned over the welfare of the cardinal?”

  “The Spear of Destiny, did you bring it back or not?”

  After a paused moment, Kimball said, “Not.”

  The pope’s chin dropped, and his eyes started. “You were specifically told to bring back the relic. That was a priority.”

  “Pardon me if I had to juggle a number of things at the same time, like trying to save the lives of nearly fifty people.”

  The pontiff clenched his teeth, which caused the muscles in the back of his jaw to work. And from eyes that were as black as obsidian glass, they pinned Kimball with anger. “You were to bring back the relic.”

  Kimball stood rooted several feet before the pontiff’s desk, with the Vatican Knight refusing to divulge any narration of the Holy Lance, even when he had it in his possession.

  The pontiff sighed with his chest deflating in defeat. Then he cast his weary hand in dismissal of the Vatican Knight. “Leave,” he told him. “Leave my chamber.” In dismay, the pope buckled into his seat and turned away from Kimball.

  “By the way, the cardinal’s just fine,” Kimball told him.

  As Kimball waited for a sharp response, the pope remained silent as though wallowing in self-pity. And Kimball could only shake his head disappointedly. Pope Clement XV never cared about the welfare of Cardinal Favino. He was just an excuse, a tool, a reason for the Vatican Knights to get within arm’s length of the relic. And it was at this moment that Kimball looked upon the pontiff as a man of a truly weak constitution and thin moral fiber.

  After Kimball wordlessly left the pontiff’s chamber, he headed for the quarters of the Vatican Knights. But he was intercepted by a bishop outside the Apostolic Palace who communicated the fact that he was wanted by Father Auciello, who was one of the co-directors of Vatican Intelligence. Furthermore, Kimball was told to prepare himself because the news was not good.

  The news was never good, he considered, when it came to Vatican Intelligence. All they did was monitor hotspots across the globe, such as the killing fields in the
Middle East and Africa, places where the Vatican Knights needed to be dispatched.

  Wanting so badly to take a hot shower and to get some much-needed sleep, Kimball Hayden made his way to the nerve center of Vatican Intelligence beneath the Basilica.

  Once there and passing through all the required security stations, Father Auciello appeared shocked to see the Vatican Knight. Kimball didn’t know if it was because he arrived so quickly, or perhaps the soiled nature of his dress. Maybe both.

  “Father,” Kimball greeted.

  Father Auciello was a tall and slender man who was educated at Oxford. His hair was the color of pewter and his complexion olive. But his features, normally neutral, appeared dire. “I was told you returned not too long ago. I wanted to catch you as soon as you left the pontiff’s chamber.”

  Kimball looked at the multiple wall screens and watched the mayhem play out all over the planet: wars, fighting, chaos, rogue bands conscripting children for their legions while killing off their parents. The world was a mess. “All right,” he said, pointing to the multiple screens, “what have you got?”

  Father Auciello closed his eyes and shook his head. “What I have to say is not up there on the monitors, Kimball. It’s something far more personal, I’m afraid.”

  At first, Kimball did not understand.

  “I received a call from the United States. From FBI Director Johnston, who I believe is a friend of yours and to Shari Cohen.”

  Kimball’s mouth started to drop. “That’s right.”

  Father Auciello, swallowed, then hesitated as if he was trying to find the right words.

  “What happened? Is she all right? Is Shari all right?”

  And then: “I’m sorry, Kimball . . . I’m so sorry.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  Medstar Washington Hospital Center