The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021) by Rick Jones (good novels to read .TXT) 📗

where it parked inside of the Piazza del Risorgimento. Car 336, now missing for almost two hours, was hiding in plain sight and close to the Vatican.

Under the direction of Vatican Intelligence, Isaiah and Nehemiah were summarily dispatched to the Piazza del Risorgimento to work with the authorities with joint interests. Kimball, however, was not among them, even as Fathers Essex and Auciello attempted to contact the Vatican Knight on multiple occasions, only to come up empty. And since the Piazza del Risorgimento was a wide-open lot, there were no CCTV cameras or means to locate or identify the driver. What was telling were the Rorschach-shaped blood stains on the passenger seat, which left little to the imagination in regard to the officer’s fate.

With vehicle number 336 having been located a few hundred yards from the wall that divided Vatican City from the Piazza del Risorgimento, Isaiah smashed the window with his elbow, opened the door, found the trunk-release button, and pressed it. There was a click as the trunk lifted.

Hooking his fingers underneath the trunk’s lid, he lifted it. To Isaiah, it was like discovering that ‘thing’ that hid under the bed or within the closet. Outside of the cache of weaponry such as a shotgun and rounds of ammunition, there was also an aluminum suitcase. And beside that was a small laptop. But what caught the Vatican Knight’s attention was the emblem on the baggage, that of an angel with a halo and outspread demonic wings.

Here was the False Prophet.

Isaiah and Nehemiah looked at the Vatican wall that divided the city from the Piazza del Risorgimento, a poor barrier.

“Open it,” said Nehemiah, though his words were heavily weighted with a strong hint of caution.

Isaiah hesitated, “We don’t know if it’s rigged.”

“And we don’t know if we have seconds or minutes or hours, either.”

But it was a member of Italy’s Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza who suggested that a bomb squad expert take lead, though it would take fifteen minutes for him to arrive on scene. But fifteen minutes could also be valuable time wasted. Since the Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza and the Polizia di Stato had jurisdiction inside the Piazza del Risorgimento, even though it was a stone’s throw from Vatican City, they also believed it prudent to contact the bomb-squad unit. But the fifteen minutes ‘wasted’ would also turn out to be ‘fifteen minutes of needed time’ that would, unfortunately, push them beyond the point of no return.

At the moment, the Vatican Knights found themselves limited by jurisdictional laws, even with the Vatican a few hundred meters away.

Isaiah, who was normally a man of calm reserve, found himself struggling for composure.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

30 Miles North of Rome

Kimball Hayden had driven the route that had been programmed into the vehicle’s GPS system. The monitor showed the thread of road that led to the Monte Soratte mountain ridge with his car a red dot that moved in a northbound direction. On the passenger seat was the hexagon-shaped device. The red button was now blinking, telling Kimball that it was now operating in tracking mode.

Soon, he would be at Monte Soratte range, a vast and isolated location where a body could be buried and never discovered. After speaking with the woman with the rough voice, he knew that his skillset would most likely have to be employed against a team of elite commandos.

The Nocturnal Saints would be well-equipped and ready, whereas he would have to go into battle with nothing more than his bare hands and feet—though these, too, were formidable weapons. At the moment, however, Kimball knew that the NS team had the advantage since they knew the terrain and were more than likely to possess high-end weapons. They would also be seasoned in the ways of Navy SEALS, Deltas, or other special operation groups.

But Kimball had a weapon of his own, that of a swelling Darkness that began to bubble, boil and rise, and something that was markedly dangerous and unyielding when in combat mode. He would come to punish and steal. And he would do so with the savageness of a warrior who believed himself to be the last man standing and the last of his kind. There would be no Light in his actions, no mercy. And he was good knowing that as long as he was able to save the life of the woman he loved, then he would be good with an afterlife consumed by an eternity of damning Darkness.

He would no longer stand along that fine line that was known as the Gray. Nor would he work from the Dark in order to serve the Light. Kimball Hayden had made his choice of taking no prisoners, since consequences had to be handed out for the egregious act of harming a solitary hair on Shari Cohen’s beloved crown. He would become the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, he considered. Famine, War, Pestilence and Death all rolled into one.

As the vehicle started its climb towards the ridgeline, he promised himself that he would not stop his rampage until his last breath had been spent, should his wounds of engagement prove mortal. Whether in pain or reduced by crippling agony, he would move mountains to get at Shari because she was everything to him. Life was nothing without her.

. . . I kill people, he thought . . .

. . . It’s what I do . . .

. . . It’s what I’m good at . . .

Kimball drove on.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Piazza del Risorgimento

Rome, Italy

Vatican City was a stone’s throw away from police cruiser #336 as members of the bomb-squad unit were discussing ways to neutralize the unit. After receiving intel from the Mossad and the CIA regarding the WMDs that had been seized from the Man from Paris and the man from Munich, there didn’t appear to be any tripwires or booby traps that would set them off prematurely. With that being communicated, however, it did