The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020) Rick Jones (ebook reader play store txt) 📖

swordplay continued as the blades moved with a designed pattern that had been perfected from years of training, with strikes and counterstrikes.

At first, Zamir pushed Kimball back, and then Kimball pushed Zamir back with the fight a seesaw battle.

Then Kimball interpreted Zamir’s pattern, one in which he never deviated from. The terrorist was performing the same repeated actions without mixing up his game plan, which was a mistake. On the next go around, Kimball intuited the move before it happened and stole the advantage. When Zamir brought his sword down in a vertical curve, Kimball stepped aside from the path of its downward glide, performed a full pivot on the balls of his feet, and followed through by coming around and driving the blade horizontally through Zamir’s lower back.

Zamir’s eyes ogled with the surprise of his mortality as darkness approached the moment the katana sliced through bone and muscle with the proverbial ease of a hot knife slicing its way through a warm cake of butter. With a marginal grunt of astonishment, Zamir’s halved body fell to the floor.

As Kimball stood over the cleaved body, that was when Talib entered the room with his AK-47 firing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Qusay had heard the communication from Ali Mustafa about the Vatican Knight, then weighed the evident concern in his voice. A Vatican Knight rarely fights alone. Where there is one, there will be others. Find them. And with the blessings of Allah, destroy them.

But the Vatican Knights were a different breed of animal that was cunning and dark and had the powers of devils. No matter how good he was when he used to serve as an elite commando for special forces, he would rather go up against an fully armed unit with his bare fists than to go against a Vatican Knight with all the weapons he could carry.

Carefully scoping the corridor of the sixty-sixth floor with his suppressed sidearm, he listened for every noise and searched for any movement, which included living shadows. Everything was quiet, the darkness remaining still. But that meant little to him since a Vatican Knight always used the shadows to his advantage by remaining as still as a Grecian statue within, until he decided to make himself known. By then, however, it was often too late. One would first see a flash, a glimmer, and then you were dead.

Qusay could feel his heart hammer against the wall of his chest, hard and relentless.

The corridor appeared almost too long, a surreal image, the odd stretch having been triggered by his imagination of believing that something menacing lurked somewhere along its length, watching. The walk would be a long one, a fearful one, and one that would pass with glacial slowness. Though he was devout in his beliefs, Qusay was also human with very human concerns. Life was a gift granted to him. Death was a gift granted to Allah. But within this moment where the hallway appeared too ominous and too silent, he begged for the gift of life.

The terrorist continued to move with care and caution. His Glock remained aimed before him, ready to make a kill shot. With Allah his guide and the power of the Holy Lance his shield, Qusay discovered a false sense of security that Allah would prevail through him. Qusay, however, would discover otherwise.

Moving along the corridor, which operated on dying power cells, the light was somewhat feeble and the area gloomy. Shadows remained still with the presence of darkness all around. Vatican Knights were clever and knew how to manipulate their surroundings by becoming a part of it. In any terrain, they could become chameleons to any backdrop.

For Qusay’s comfort, however, the area was too quiet. It was something similar to being in a jungle when the cries of the animals suddenly stopped and absolute silence fell, which was usually a telltale sign that an alpha predator was nearby. Qusay could not shake off the feeling that he was not alone, and that this jungle was still for a reason.

The power-cell lamps started to wink in a semblance of Morse Code, in dots and dashes of failing light before they eventually died off, leaving him in the shadows barring the minimal light that came in through a shattered window at the end of the hallway.

Qusay froze, listened, the terrorist trying to home in on anything close. Nothing sounded.

Then the terrorist took a few tentative steps forward while imploring to Allah with his prayers so soft, it was as if he was mouthing his words.

Directly to his left as though it came directly through the wall instead of a veil of deep shadow, Qusay saw the point of a gun’s barrel extend from the darkness. The tip was so close that he could see the opening of the silencer, that circular black hole. And oddly, as he stared at Death’s eye, and instead of thinking of his mortality or preparing for a transition to the afterlife, Qusay wondered how the Vatican Knight appeared so suddenly from the moments between the dying lamps and the subsequent darkness, with the fluctuation from one to the other happening so abruptly.

While he was in the midst of this thought, the eye of the suppressor erupted in a muzzle flash of light. Qusay’s head snapped back as the round punched through his forehead and exited through the back, with the wall behind Qusay suddenly the splashed canvas of blood and gore. For a moment Qusay staggered in his stance as his mind tried to process and register his death. And then in one defining moment, he suddenly collapsed and fell straight down after his knees buckled underneath him.

Jeremiah emerged from the shadows. Then into his lip mic, he said: “One tango down.” When Kimball did not respond, the Vatican Knight repeated the call: “Kimball, do you copy? One tango down.”

But Kimball Hayden had problems of his own.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Talib entered the conference room the moment Zamir’s