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

taking an immediate right, he followed the light stands that guided him. And then he came to an intersection that was steeped in total darkness. Here, at this juncture, the lights had been turned off. It was either the end of the trail . . . Or the mouth of a snare.

Kimball remained close to the wall and remained deathly still.

Something was hiding behind the wall of darkness, a predator, something that was lying in wait and extremely patient. Even from a distance of fifty feet, Kimball believed he could faintly hear the sound of its beating heart—those calm and even drumbeat measures.

Then came the sound of something powering up, the whirring of an upcycling system.

Two green lights, like fireflies, hovered close together and suddenly appeared in the darkness.

The NVG mask.

Then came the sound of footsteps as something approached, the slow click-click-click of footfalls echoing off the walls.

A man emerged from the shadows to stand along the border that divided the light from the darkness. He was a large man who had well-developed muscles, wide shoulders and a barrel chest. If not for the shorter height difference of an inch or two, he’d be a perfect facsimile of Kimball Hayden.

The operator took another step into the pale light. His face was representative of a human skull with the exception of the glowing green eyes and the circular, silver-dollar-sized mouthpiece. His Kevlar vest also had the designs of the skeletal anatomy, that of painted-on ribs and a spinal column. And he also wore the composite shin and forearm guards as well. In his hands and directed at Kimball was the point of his assault weapon. “Sinner,” was all he said, his voice having a metallic sound to it.

Kimball slowly began to backstep towards a cutoff that was approximately ten feet behind him. “And you would be?” he asked.

The operative remained silent for a moment before asking, “And the rest of my team?”

“The same that’s going to happen to you if you don’t get out of my way.” Kimball reached the opening of the tunnel and slipped behind the wall with only his head visible.

“Look at us,” said Mannix. “Two elite warriors meeting head-to-head, yes?”

“If you say so.”

“A Vatican Knight against a Delta.” Mannix took another step forward with his gun directed at Kimball, which was the outline of a silhouetted head peeking out from behind cover. “I’m impressed that you’ve made it this far. Pushing your way through the lines of defenses, especially when those defenses were made up of ex-SEALs and an ex-Army Ranger, it speaks heavily of your skillset.”

“We can both walk away from this,” Kimball told him as his words echoed off the corridor walls. “All I ask is that you hand over Shari Cohen.”

“You broke the rules, Sinner. You were supposed to surrender yourself willingly and be judged accordingly. Cutting a swath through my teammates only adds to your continued wrongdoing. What you did was to take down the soldiers of God. And because of your transgression, the woman, as promised, was executed. And that falls on you Vatican Knight.”

Kimball fell back behind the wall. His breath was coming in labored hitches and pulls as though he was hyperventilating. He was a man who always exemplified grace under pressure. But as reality started to sink in, he began to second guess himself by questioning his methods. He was driven and perhaps even blinded by his love for Shari with his thoughts to rescue her shortsighted. He envisioned himself as a crusader whose moral compass could not be bent or broken, with his chivalry the uncontested valor of folklore. As a Vatican Knight he’d been mythicized as something that was both demonic and angelic, depending on which side you were on. And perhaps, he thought, he believed too much in himself with vanity his most egregious sin.

Did I kill her?

Was I remiss in my thinking?

And then he tried to justify his actions, which was the easiest thing any man could do no matter how heinous an act he committed, telling himself that he knew the odds going into this. If he had surrendered himself into the hands of the Nocturnal Saints as they requested, then he and Shari would have been tried and found guilty of past sins, and therefore, summarily executed. Still, his mind continued to war with a multitude of other emotions regarding her loss. There was anger and fear of being without her, as well as a sudden vacuum that would never be filled with the emptiness too hollow and too great. And there was sadness and denial and refusal to accept her loss, even as he knew the truth that she was gone.

“Sinner,” said the metallic voice. “I can show you her body, if you like.”

Kimball continued to labor with his breathing while his mind spun chaotically with a myriad of thoughts.

“Sinner?”

Kimball's stomach started to coil into a slick fist as rage and fury took over. Nothing else no longer mattered: his life, the church, his future. Everything had been stolen from him the moment he learned of Shari Cohen’s death. Now, as he stood within the shadows of his faith, that which divided the Darkness from the Light while living precariously within the Gray, Kimball Hayden had given himself fully to the Shadows.

With his right and dominant hand, he swung the point of his weapon around the wall’s corner and at the operative, then pulled the trigger. The area lit up with muzzle flashes of bright light. Over the suppressed spits of gunfire, Kimball’s scream could be heard as something that was primal and savage, the cry a throwback to less civilized times.

As bullets stitched along the floor and across the neighboring walls that surrounded Mannix, the operative stood his ground and returned gunfire. Rounds continued to skip along the surrounding surfaces close to Mannix, while Mannix’s return volley was taking out silver-dollar-sized chips of stone from walls close to Kimball.

The Vatican Knight popped his head behind cover as the barrage continued. Stone