The Eye of Moses - Vatican Knights Series 22 (2020) Rick Jones (amazing books to read TXT) 📖

“Security at the cable-car platform has been alerted. They’re heavily armed and highly skilled, so we’re covered on that front. The second means of access is by chopper. Should they try to maneuver from an overhead position, my men will take them down with canons. Everyone is standing ready for the Consortium team’s arrival.” He turned to face a dust-laden Salt; whose clothes appeared chalky from the drywall after he smashed through the wall in his house to manage his escape. Then he returned to his desk.

“What about Kristoffel?” Salt asked. “Has he checked in?”

Caspari nodded. “No. He’s either presumed dead or in the custody of the Consortium. But his status matters not since we’re fully prepared to take on the Consortium wetwork team. In the meantime, I need two, maybe three days at the most, to move our operations to a fortress island in the Pacific. Since the Consortium is inching closer by the minute, I need you to build us time, should they not be stopped by the obstacles thrown their way.”

“Understood.”

“Make sure that you do.”

Standing, Salt brushed his clothes which allowed dust to fall and settle on the plush carpet, an act that made Caspari wince. When finished, Salt left the office to summon his team.

A war was about to begin.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

The lead technician was disturbed by the rushed techniques being used to remove the rod and the crucible. Members of his team had removed the staff and placed it inside a chest, with the particle casting a halo from its core until the lid closed over it. Still, a glowing radiance continued to shine from the seam between the lid and the trunk, the light too great to be contained completely.

Once the chest containing Aaron’s rod had been set upon a marble plinth as if it was being showcased, the lead technician went to the adjacent research lab where Nostradamus’ crucible was being examined by a separate investigative unit that specialized in cracking encryptions.

Beneath an odd spectrum of light, roving mechanical arms with pea-sized lenses attached to the ends circled about the interior plate of the crucible. The symbols within the inner side of the bowl were captured by the lenses and transmitted to a mainframe where it was studied, the symbols decoded, proper syntax determined, and then relayed the information as viable and readable data.

Of the thousands of quatrains written by Nostradamus over his lifetime, the secrets they contained had finally been spelled out by the hundreds. Details of hidden treasures, religious or not, were brought to light, as well as the enigmatic mysteries that had been maintained in the works by Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Not only that, somewhere in the Middle East lay the bones of Jesus Christ. Whereas deep inside a cavern on Mount Sinai lay the Golden Calf. Treasures abounded across the globe as well, locations that marked the remnants of Noah’s Ark and the massive skull of Goliath. From the worlds of Galileo and Copernicus were the secrets of the universe, such as mathematical formulas and blueprints that would lead mankind towards greater universal discoveries.

Since the software had been able to determine in days what the human mind would take centuries to interpret, the quatrains were being thoroughly exposed. The crucible had become the perfect key to unlocking the mysteries from the greatest minds and overseers that the planet had ever seen.

How Elias Caspari planned to use these secrets remained unknown. But it wasn’t the lead technician’s job to question or challenge, either. As required, he systematically shut down the lab for breakdown. The data was saved, and the arms and lenses were to be summarily dismantled and then reassembled as soon as they reached their new stage of operations.

With the same care shown to Aaron’s rod, the lead technician made sure that the crucible was placed inside a small chest as if the key were not only priceless, but irreplaceable.

Now, with all the machines and hardware needing to be broken down, the Master Tech knew he needed weeks to be crunched into days, with his teams working around-the-clock to manage such a feat.

Though Elias Caspari simply barked his commands without explanation, the lead technician knew that there had to be a reason for the hastening. What he didn’t know, however, was that a team of Consortium operators were closing in on their position to regain the priceless tools that had been stolen from them.

The lead technician, as he stood and watched his team operate, had no idea of the complications that were about to come their way.

 

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Plans had been made within the Consortium safehouse in Lucerne. They would breach the mountain compound by scaling the south face of the mountain, a climb of over one-thousand feet. Since Misters Donatello and Michelangelo shared expertise in scaling techniques, they would head the climbing expedition, reach topside, then aid the others for regrouping.

Under cover of darkness, Misters Donatello and Michelangelo would begin the climb using a piton gun, which was a device that operated by using gas cartridges that were strong and forceful enough to thrust pitons securely into the wall. This was a time-saving maneuver by way of a single injection from the gun, rather than to pound the piton into the given cracks with a hammer.

Secondly, and after securing the lines made of filament strands of titanium wire, those who would follow would do so by climbing with the use of mechanized rope ascenders. This device, after it was attached to the line and the lithium batteries engaged, would automatically power the climber along the wire with the use of motor-driven pulleys. And at a climb of twenty feet-per-minute, the ascent from base to cap would take close to an hour.

For this to happen, everything would begin and end with Misters Donatello and Michelangelo successfully making the initial climb and blazing a course for all to follow. Such a climb would take at least five to seven hours, even with the use of piton guns. A slippage