Andrea brings her pistol up to fire, but Laura is faster. Swinging the knife hard around, she cuts deep into Andrea’s right cheek, feeling the knife find bone.
“Bitch!” Andrea screams as she tries to block the second cut Laura is making, causing Andrea to lose her grip. She falls backwards off the shelf, hitting her head hard against the wall just before landing on the ground, knocking her unconscious. Quickly Laura climbs down, then drags Andrea’s body out of the light farther down the path. Laura listens for Phil’s footsteps. Did he hear anything? No sounds of footsteps. Laura tiptoes back to the room where the computer is with the decryption software. Quickly she closes the door and sits down at the computer. Pulling the thumb drive with the pictures on out of her pants pocket, she inserts it into the computer. Phil has already set up everything, and a messagebox on the screen is asking for the files to be imported. Selecting all the pictures she has, Laura presses the import button.
The application gives her a message that it is busy processing and will take ten minutes. Impatiently Laura taps on the desk with her fingers, her nerves at breaking point and her heart pumping as fast as it can.
Laura stares at the screen as the seconds tick by, eight minutes left. Instinctively she starts to bite her nails, but then remembers her mother always telling her that women do not bite their nails. “Sorry Mom,” she utters without thinking.
“Andrea, are you in there?” A cold chill goes down Laura’s back as she hears Phil’s voice and glances over her shoulder to see the door knob turning. Laura jumps up just as Phil starts opening the door and kicks it as hard as she can, using a front kick Victor taught her. The door catches Phil directly in the face, knocking him backwards against the shelf behind him.
“Ahhh, my nose!” Phil yells and looks up just in time to see Laura open the door fully and come out of the room. Phil swings at Laura with his right, but Laura blocks the punch and kicks him in the groin. As Phil bends over from pain, Laura grabs him by the back of the head and knees him as hard as she can while pulling his head down. Phil staggers backwards against the shelf. Everything is a blur, but still he swings wildly like an animal. Laura blocks two blows, waiting for an opening, and then uses the palm of her hand to drive a punch upwards with all her power under his nose. She can feel the soft cartilage bone in his nose breaking, sending massive pain to Phil’s brain, knocking him out. He is unconscious before his body reaches the floor.
Quickly Laura goes back inside, her hands shaking and her heart beating wildly, five minutes remaining. “Come on, come on,” she urges the computer, who ignores her and changes the estimated time to seven minutes. “Aaahhhh,” Laura utters, looking from the computer to Phil and back. Frustrated she paces the room, while keeping an eye on Phil. Suddenly a short musical tune comes from the computer, and a message indicates that the process is complete. Laura quickly saves the results on her thumb drive, then opens up the command prompt on the computer and enters the command to format the main drive without prompting for confirmation. A technician once showed her the command when he worked on her computer at the library, informing her to type it in if she ever got cross with her employer. Quickly she pulls the thumb drive out and runs towards the elevator. Reaching the elevator, Laura tries to stop but slips on the tile floor, and comes to land hard on her bum.
Laura immediately jumps up and presses the elevator button continuously, trying to get the lift to come down faster. The elevator comes down slowly, and Laura opens the outside door, as the inside door opens automatically. Just as she steps inside, sparks fly off the door, and she can hear bullets ricocheting off the wall. Laura jumps from the shock of being shot at and quickly presses the up button while closing the outside door. Andrea runs towards the elevator while shooting at the door.
“Bitch, I’ll get you!” Andrea screams as the inside door closes just in time and the elevator starts to slowly move up. For a moment, the two women stare at each other through the glass window.
Then Andrea fires a few rounds through the window. The lift is just high enough to cause the angle to be wrong and the bullets zip past Laura’s face, missing it by half an inch, burying themselves in the top of the elevator. Laura drops to the bottom of the elevator and starts to pray.
When the elevator stops, Laura opens the door. Her heart is racing, and she has to force herself to breathe slowly. Laura brings her hands up and holds them in front of her. They are not shaking anymore, how strange. A small display is to the left of the door with a vase full of flowers on it. Keeping her left foot in the path of the door to stop it from closing, she drags the display over and puts it in the path of the door, then runs down the corridor. Andrea furiously presses the elevator button below. She does not know where the emergency exit is, and Phil is still unconscious on the floor.
Laura takes the first door she can find leading out of the passage, just before one of the altar boys comes out from another door, sent down to bring Laura some tea. Careful not to spill any tea, he walks to the elevator. Curiously, he looks at the display blocking the door from closing. The elevator door repeatedly slams against the display as it closes and opens. Putting the tea down, he looks around, but sees no one. Probably some of the other altar boys playing a joke on me, trying to trap me down below. Hah, they misjudged the time it took me to get here. I would have gotten here sooner, had I not slipped and dropped the tea.
It took me 20 minutes to go back and make a new pot.
They think I am scared of the dark, but it does not matter if they do trap me below with Laura, she is so beautiful, and full of energy, and friendly. I am not a priest yet. Timoteo smiles as he takes the display away, and then quickly catches the door with his foot, stopping it from closing while he picks up the tea. Eagerly Timoteo gets in the elevator and watches as the door closes.
“Finally,” Andrea comments as the down button starts blinking. Impatiently she paces up and down while she waits for the elevator to make its way down. As soon as the elevator arrives and a click sound informs her that the outside door is unlocked, Andrea swings it open just as the inside door opens. Andrea and Timoteo stare at each other, blood dripping down Andrea’s face from the cut. Timoteo is about to ask if he can help, when Andrea shoots him twice in the chest. The force of the bullets slam Timoteo into the back wall of the elevator and the tea falls with a clatter to the ground. Timoteo looks down at the blood staining his robe as he slowly slides down the wall. Before Timoteo hits the ground, Andrea jumps into the elevator, grabs him by the front of his robe and pulls him out of the elevator, throwing him on the ground. Annoyed she looks at the boy, lying on the ground moaning as she waits for the door to close.
“The hell with it,” she utters as she lifts her pistol to finish off Timoteo, but the inside door closes just in time, blocking her view. With a rattle, the elevator takes Andrea up, while she reloads her pistol.
When the elevator stops, Andrea opens the door and looks down the hallway, unsure as to which way Laura went or which door she took.
The hallway has four doors leading from it. Walking over to the first door on the right, she opens it and is about to enter when something on the ground catches her attention. Kneeling down she smiles, it is a few drops of tea. Timoteo had spilled a few drops as he struggled to open the door. Laura could not have gone this way, else she would have warned the boy not to go down. Walking over to the door on the left, Andrea looks at the door knob and smiles. “Got you.”
There is a faint red covering over the door knob. When Laura had dragged Andrea’s body out of the light, some of her blood from the wound on her cheek got onto Laura’s hand. Laura did not manage to totally clean her hand, and left a faint fingerprint in blood on the doorknob. As Andrea enters through the door, Laura is making her way back towards the door.
Laura had gone through a number of rooms and passageways, but got lost and is trying to find her way back to the Pope by retracing her steps to the passage the elevator is in. Running as fast as she can down a corridor, she passes a
nother corridor joining into the one she is in. Peaking down the corridor as she passes it, Laura is surprised to see the Pope walking down the corridor, talking to two priests. Laura tries to stop, but the floor is too slippery from all the wax, and she loses her footing, coming down hard on her bum and sliding down the floor just as the door at the end of her corridor opens. Looking up, Laura’s heart almost stops.
Andrea enters the corridor and sees Laura on the floor. Raising her pistol, Andrea runs towards Laura while aiming, a sadistic smile spreading across her face.
Aiming carefully, Andrea pulls the trigger.
Suddenly a priest opens a side door, and Andrea runs head-on into it, knocking Andrea and the priest to the floor, causing Andrea to miss. The bullet slams into the ground inches to the right of Laura’s head, who desperately tries to get up, but falls down again as she slips on the smooth tiled floor. Trying a second time, Laura gets up more carefully and runs towards the Pope. Bullets slam into the wall just behind Laura as she clears the corner, entering the corridor the Pope is in.
“Your Holiness, Phil has hired someone to kill you! We must run!” Laura is out of breath, and it feels as if her heart is going to jump out of her chest.
“Calm down child, who-” The bullet takes the Pope high in the right shoulder, knocking him to the ground. The two priests next to him immediately run towards Andrea, blocking her view as Laura helps the Pope up and to a side door. Andrea shoots both priests in the head before they can reach her, blood freely running down her face. Her wound opened up again from the run-in with the door. Laura and the Pope find themselves in a large display area. There are a number of statues against the walls, some of saints and priests, others of previous Popes. Two are dressed in knight’s armor with a Knights Templar symbol painted on their metal shields. Laura spots a door to the back of the room and slowly helps the Pope towards it. The Pope is old and hurt, causing him to be unable to move fast.
Laura does not have the strength to hold the Pope’s full weight, and they both fall down. With a struggle, Laura helps the Pope up again, and slowly they shuffle to the back door. As they struggle to the door, Laura looks up.
A number of large statues of angels are hanging from the ceiling. One, in particular, catches her attention. It is a statue of Archangel Michael with his wings fully open while holding a massive shiny sword and shield.
Wish you were real, for then you could have helped me.
“Bitch!” The yell rips Laura from her thoughts and the Angel. Quickly she glances at the doorway where the sound came from, while still helping the Pope towards the exit at the back. Andrea is holding her right cheek, blood dripping down from where Laura cut her. Andrea shoots at Laura but misses, and the bullet hits the shield of one of the armored statues and ricochets around the room. Laura ignores her and tries to help the Pope to the door faster; they are almost in the middle of the room. Andrea looks at the door next to her and notices that the key is inside the lock. Turning it, she locks the door, and then breaks the key off in the door lock. No one is going to stop her from killing Laura and the Pope.
“You cannot get away from me, little girl.”
Laura looks back again and is just in time to see Andrea take aim at the Pope. Laura had her back to Andrea and spins around, facing Andrea, her back to the Pope, protecting him. The first bullet takes Laura high in the chest, slamming her into the Pope. It feels as if Laura got kicked in the chest by a mule, and she almost cannot breathe. Everything goes black for Laura as the second bullet hits her. She can feel herself being slammed repeatedly into the Pope, while bullet after bullet rips into her. Andrea keeps firing and six bullets slam mercilessly into Laura.
The shock of Laura repeatedly being slammed into the Pope causes him to stumble, and both fall to the ground. As Laura goes down, Andrea scores another hit on the Pope, catching him in the left arm. The Pope hits his head hard on the floor, knocking him half unconscious. Laura is lying next to him, her head on his shoulder; her world turned upside down. Through the stars and the buzz in her head, she looks down at her stomach. Blood is starting to flow from under the jacket and her T-shirt, staining her clothes. Laura touches her side and looks at the blood on her hand just as Andrea comes to a stop next to her, her pistol empty.
Releasing the magazine catch, Andrea lets the empty magazine drop with a clatter on the floor. While loading a new magazine and pulling the slide back, chambering a round, she speaks. “Why do you protect him? The church is corrupt. They are just like governments, lying and cheating, telling one to live this way while they secretly do the very things they preach you should not do.”
“Governments and churches do not lie; people do. We make mistakes, and learn from them, but we have the ability to change, to make right what we did wrong,” Laura answers back, breathing hard.
“Not when you are dead.”
A sadistic smile spreads on Andrea’s face as she pulls her pistol up to aim at the Pope’s head, slowly starting to squeeze the trigger.
“No, please don’t!” Laura pleads, and with her last energy turns and crawls over the Pope’s body to try to protect him. There is a crack sound behind her as a floor tile breaks. Did Andrea shoot at where Laura was and miss?
Laura waits for Andrea to shoot again; nothing.
Suddenly Laura hears a gasping sound coming from above, where Andrea is standing. Slowly, Laura turns her head and looks up; shock fills her face. Andrea is shaking, a six-foot steel sword is pinning her to the spot. The sword went through her throat and slammed into the tiled floor exactly where Laura was seconds before. Looking up Laura sees that Archangel Michael no longer has his sword. The bullet that ricocheted around the room must have hit the statue and damaged the statue’s hand, causing the sword to fall from the ceiling. An unlucky shot for Andrea.
Movement from Andrea pulls Laura’s attention back to her and the pistol in her hand. Andrea again raises her pistol, now aiming directly at Laura’s head. For a moment, their eyes meet, and then suddenly Andrea jerks back as Laura kicks her in the stomach as hard as she can. The kick causes Andrea to be pushed a foot backwards, changing the angle of the large sword. There is a sickening sound as the sword’s hilt drops to the floor while its edge is stuck in the tile floor. The sword slices Andrea in two from the neck down as it drops under its own weight. Guts and blood spill over the floor as the sword’s hilt comes down with a thud on the floor, causing the tip of the sword to break free and bounce up. Andrea’s body falls forward, and her head hits the end of the sword, embedding her skull into it, half cutting it open. Blood and brains spill out and mix with her guts on the floor.
Slowly, Laura looks up to the roof at the angel while saying, “Thank you.”
Laura gasps. Did the angel just smile at me? No it cannot be, it is a statue.
Suddenly the door to the room bursts into pieces as the Swiss guard blows it open and storms into the room. Even the hardiest of them look on in shock at the scene in front of them. Laura is still half covering the unconscious Pope; slowly she tries to get up, and pain fills her body causing her to roll over and lay next to the Pope. Immediately she is surrounded by guards and two medics while others quickly put the Pope on a stretcher and inspect his wounds. With concern, one of the medics attending to Laura looks at the bullet holes in her jacket and the blood on it. Slowly, he unbuttons the jacket and lifts up the bottom of her t-shirt. The shirt is sticking to her skin due to the blood, and he carefully pours fresh water from a canteen over her stomach to see the wounds. Fear fills Laura.
“How serious is it?” she asks weakly.
“You are very lucky,” the medic replies.
“I know. That sword could have pinned me to the ground as well.”
“No, I mean of the six bullets she fired, only one bullet missed your bulletproof vest, and it is merely a flesh wound. Although you will have some bruising from the impact of the bullets, and I think you broke two ribs, you will be okay once we stop the bleeding.”
“Bulletproof
vest? But I don’t have one,” Laura replies puzzled.
“Well, this under jacket stopped the bullets. It’s technology I have never seen before.”
“The Pope gave it to me. It’s his jacket. He said I might need it as it can get cold in the archives.”
“I think he knew something you did not. Now lie back while we get you onto a stretcher and to a hospital.”
Laura lets the guard slowly lower her to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see the Pope already on a stretcher being taken away. He is awake and winks at her as she touches the jacket he gave her.
***
Three days later.
Pope John Paul II intently stares at the report in his hand, a puzzled look on his face. After a few minutes, he slowly looks up at Sergio in front of him, patiently waiting for the Pope.
“No damage at all?”
“None, your Holiness.”
A cold chill runs down the Pope’s back, slowly he glances down at the report again. There was no damage found on the hand of the angel statue that the sword fell from. The bullet fired by Andrea that ricocheted off the shield and around the room, was found in one of the walls.
“Did the sword’s hilt fit into the statue’s hand easily?”
“No your Holiness, we had to remove the hilt and reassemble the sword on the statue, just as it was made by its designers, the fit was perfect with no possibility of the sword slipping out. There are, however…”
“Yes?”
“There are cracks in the paint on the knuckles of the statue’s hand holding the sword,……as if it had opened and closed again.”
Holding the report out to Sergio, the Pope softly speaks. “A miracle in the Vatican, very interesting. Please file this in my personal archives. Anything else?”
Taking the paper from the Pope, Sergio pushes another paper forward on the Pope’s desk for his attention.
Laura 02 The God Code Page 30