The Goliath Chamber - Vatican Knights 24 (2021) Rick Jones (best classic books of all time .TXT) 📖

removal. Driving is not an option—not enough time to draw distance from a populated region. But a chopper provides us with a chance.”

“To do what?”

Isaiah pointed to his east. “We take it as far as we can into the Tyrrhenian Sea where we can dispose of it.”

“With the time remaining,” the field commander pointed at the timer, “it would be a one-way trip.”

“Sacrifice the life of the few to save the lives of the many,” the Vatican Knight returned.

“Uh-huh. And the one who would serve as the moral sacrifice here would be?”

“Me,” Isaiah answered.

The field commander stared at Isaiah, who couldn’t determine if the man was measuring him with admiration, or if he was considering him as someone running a fool’s errand. And then: “You’ll have your chopper. Finding a pilot, however, who is willing to sacrifice his life might be difficult to find, however.”

“I fly,” said Nehemiah. “Small planes and choppers. I’m one of three men in the VK unit trained to do so for specific operations when the mission calls for extractions.”

The field commander looked at both men, and then at the suitcase. “The moment you move that thing, even an inch, may set it off. You know that, right?”

“That’s why you need to clear the area,” Isaiah told him. “Evacuate as many people as possible from the location. Take your team and draw distance.”

The field commander looked in the direction of Vatican City and at the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatican City had been the throne of Catholicism for centuries. The bones of Saint Peter, along with other religious treasures and troves, were about to be incinerated. The pontiff himself, a leader of more than a billion people, was about to be lost within the consuming flames.

“We now have less than forty minutes,” Isaiah told him. “We need that chopper.”

The field commander did not hesitate from this point on. He quickly contacted his leadership at the Nucleo Operativo Centrale di Sicurezza to dispatch a chopper immediately to the Piazza del Risorgimento, with the helicopter arriving from Fiumicino International Airport.

By the time the orders were relayed, there was less than thirty-five minutes remaining.

CHAPTER

FIFTY

Monte Soratte Bunker

30 Miles North of Rome

Mannix was sitting in the shadows keeping watch over Shari while trying to communicate with his unit. Stallworth, Bienemy and McKinley had all gone dark, something that went against operational conventions, since communication was paramount to any mission. There had been no orders to ‘go dark.’ Yet Mannix received nothing in return but static and white noise. Apparently, Kimball Hayden was proving himself as an elite soldier who led a selected few known as the Vatican Knights.

After making several more attempts over the course of several minutes and receiving no feedback, Mannix had no choice but to consider his team neutralized. Kimball Hayden had been cutting his way through the lines with surgical precision, while leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.

From beyond the circle of light and sitting within the shadows, Mannix got to his feet and approached Shari Cohen. In the dim illumination of candlelight, he appeared wraithlike in his skeleton-painted mask.

“The sinner,” he started with his metallic-sounding voice, “approaches.”

“You already told me that.”

Mannix remained silent.

After the stare off between them, the Nocturnal Saint looked at his weapon and examined the chamber to see if a round was chambered. There was, which was something he already knew, but he did so in front of Shari to let her know that the weapon was ready.

Then from Mannix: “When situations in the field of operation changes,” he said, “then as a good soldier, I must adapt.”

“That goes for both sides,” she told him. “Kimball is just as adept, if not more so, in adjusting to his surroundings and to his situations. In fact, one might say that he’s rather unique at it.”

“The sinner is a man like any other. And I’ll prove that to you when I lay him down by your side to bleed out at your feet.”

Shari remained silent. Somehow, this man’s voice, even masked, held something powerfully cold and sinister about it.

“Now,” Mannix said, “I will find the sinner. And then we shall see who bows to who.”

Backpedaling from the candles’ radiance and settling beyond the dark veil that divided light from dark, Shari could see the spectral lights of his NVG lenses. And then they were gone, the dual set of lights suddenly winking off.

Shari Cohen was now alone inside this cold and feebly lit chamber.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Piazza del Risorgimento

Rome, Italy

With less than twenty-seven minutes remaining on the timer, an Airbus H155 with an air speed capable of hitting 200 miles per hour was one of the fastest transport helicopters in the world. With a capacity load to carry thirteen people, which did not include the one- or two-man crew necessary to fly it, the craft was more than ample to achieve the means.

As the aircraft began its descent into the plaza, the heavy wash of the rotors was so great that dust kicked off the bricks. Once the chopper landed, its rotors continued to rotate at blinding speeds. While the helicopter continued to idle, the pilot quickly exited the chopper, opened the bay door, then made his way to an awaiting vehicle that was being driven by the field commander.

As soon as the pilot entered the vehicle, the field commander gave a thumbs up to the Vatican Knights, and yelled, “Good look!” Without waiting for a response, the field commander put the car into gear and sped away with its lights swinging furiously inside the lightbar.

Isaiah pointed to the helicopter and, yelling above the sounds of the rotors, asked Nehemiah, “What do you know about it?”

“Good chopper! An H155 with a top speed of two hundred miles per hour!”

Isaiah performed a quick math problem inside his head. The coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea was twenty-three miles away. At two hundred miles per hour, it would take approximately seven minutes to