by Rick Jones
Then from Mr. Spartan. “You good?”
Hayden made a final check of his wares. He had a fully loaded MP7 and a holstered Glock. On the other thigh he had a knife, a Ka-Bar, sheathed and attached, his weapon of choice. In his rucksack, which was getting lighter with every stage of the operation, were the straps to securely tether Aaron’s rod to his person. The rucksack would be used to carry the crucible.
Kimball Hayden nodded and gave a thumbs up. “I’m good.”
“Grab the relics and meet Misters Michelangelo and Archimedes topside. They’ll provide you with support back to the south face. Find those relics, Kimball. They’re the difference between heaven and hell on this planet, depending on who controls them.”
Kimball Hayden was a master of combat and stealth. He also knew the burden should he fail to retrieve the items, which was tantamount to the mission’s success. To garner Aaron’s staff and the crucible were Kimball’s core objectives. And the Consortium crew were simply the tools for the Vatican Knight to achieve the means. Then from Kimball: “I’m good,” he repeated.
After nodding, Mr. Spartan, along with the others, headed forward into the Deep Mountain base.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Salt’s team had heard the muffled pops of explosion.
“We’ve got company,” he mentioned. “And keep in mind that this is our territory, our terrain, we know the layout. They don’t. So, the advantage belongs to us; therefore, I expect complete annihilation of the Consortium team with zero difficulty. I want to make myself absolutely clear on that, people?”
It was.
“Remember,” Salt continued, “Mr. Caspari wants their corpses lined up in a neat row so that the failure of their efforts can be memorialized for Mr. da Vinci to see. It was a promise I made to Caspari as a show of our might. Make it happen!”
After Salt outlined the necessary actions to his teammates while trackers’ fever coursed through their veins, Salt’s predators were finally released to relish the hunt.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
The lead technician heard the muffled explosions and realized that Deep Mountain had been compromised. His team, who was not combat trained and did not possess any vicious bones in their bodies, began to panic as self-preservation kicked in.
They scattered along the lab’s floor like cockroaches scrambling from light, with every man and woman seeking a nearby exit. For most, that simply meant concealed rooms encased by stone walls. For others, they simply ran for the nearest corner to hide.
The lead technician, whose nametag read Bjornson, took another alternative. He ran to the central area of the lab where the chest containing Aaron’s rod and the crucible of Nostradamus lay in wait for transport.
Seeing a radiance of light coming from the seam between the lid and the chest, Bjornson lifted the cover and gazed upon the wonder of the dark particle. It glowed and throbbed with the beat of a human heart, the particle possessing a life of its own. Encased within its crystal cocoon since the beginning of time, he thought. And perhaps for good reason. Its power could never be harnessed properly without the consequence too catastrophic to imagine. Some things were never meant to be toyed with or discovered, he considered.
The glow of the light pulsated against his face and cast a warmth against his skin, something that was both comforting and terrifying at the same time. And for the first time he saw the staff differently. Not as an implement to extract data from, but as a relic that predated Christ.
Feeling shame for his blindness to Elias Caspari and what Caspari wanted to gather from its strength, Bjornson, in that precise moment, rediscovered something that had been lost to him years ago: he had rediscovered his faith.
Reaching into the chest and grazing the tips of his fingers along the staff, he found it petrified to the touch, the surface smooth. The staff, he told himself, that parted the Red Sea.
He smiled.
Then he closed the lid with reverence in his heart, though a brilliant light still beamed from the chest’s seam.
Keeping his hands on the trunk, his eyes slowly drifted to the second great treasure: the crucible that once belonged to Nostradamus, which was sitting upon a nearby pedestal. When filled with a concoctive fluid, it was supposed to aid Nostradamus in portending the future when, in fact, it was the key to fabulous secrets. The quatrains, when interpreted correctly, not only gave away truths regarding treasured riches such as rubies, sapphires, jade statues, mounds of gold or scrimshawed ivory, but a wealth of scientific advancements and knowledges for human growth.
Here was the encyclopedia for rich improvements, not for the development of weaponry that Elias Caspari was obsessed with.
Bjornson sighed willfully. He had blemished his moral integrity by allowing Elias Caspari to massage his ego by telling the technician that his innate ability to control a universal power with his intellect, was a greater force of understanding than that of the cosmos.
It was not.
Now, in the face of drawing disaster, Bjornson realized that he was nothing more to Elias Caspari than a tool who allowed himself to be manipulated by the strings of a puppeteer.
Feeling disgraced as people rushed about him to take cover, Bjornson, Elias Caspari’s lead technician, took flight alongside his comrades as the enemy approached.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Mr. Spartan led his unit deep inside the mountain facility. The surrounding walls had been bored to the smoothness of glass. The chambers and labs were as large as ballrooms and the equipment state-of-the-art. The problem for the Consortium Operations Unit was that they had no concept of the facility’s layout. Obviously, these chambers had been burrowed deep into the mountain with numerous branches and channels. Finding Aaron’s rod and the crucible was going to be a timely affair.
As Mr. Spartan hunkered low inside a lab, he noted a bell-chamber in the center of the room. Straight ahead was a console and multiple screens, all which monitored the bell’s interior.
Mr. Spartan, along with his team, maneuvered to the console with Mr. Plato watching point and Mr. Galileo watching rear. Sirens blared and red lamps flashed in warning, giving the area somewhat of a fire and brimstone quality to it.
Mr. Donatello, who examined the monitors also noted the timestamps, which had been locked to an earlier timeframe, meaning they were recorded files. “I got this,” he said, taking a seat at the console. “Keep me safe.” Then removing his helmet, after finding it cumbersome as well as impeding his ability at the keyboard, he placed it on the console.
Mr. Spartan obliged by spreading his team across the floor. He sent Mr. Plato to the left and Mr. Galileo to the right, but he kept Kimball Hayden close. Somehow, the Vatican Knight gave Mr. Spartan the vibes that he was the perfect fighting machine; therefore, Kimball became a comfort to him.
With Mr. Donatello’s fingers dancing across the keyboard with the agility of a skilled pianist, the Consortium operative was able to activate the files. With a few adjustments, Mr. Donatello was able to key in on certain parts of the facility with live feeds.
On most screens, technicians were scrambling for safety, whereas on another monitor a military force was converging against their position.
“We’ve got company,” Donatello stated.
“How far off?” asked Mr. Spartan.
Donatello shrugged. “Unknown.”
“Can you get a fix on the relics?”
“I can try.” Mr. Donatello worked his fingers to bring up numerous spots within Deep Mountain. Screen after screen seemed to flip from one image to another, nothing but labs and offices.
On the middle screen Salt’s unit was beginning to divide and separate, the teams maneuvering into a flank position.
Mr. Spartan counted a dozen. “We’re running out of time,” he mentioned.
“I can only do so much so fast,” Mr. Donatello returned while typing commands at a furious pace.
Mr. Spartan began to examine the surroundings and the many access tunnel
s. Salt and his unit could come from any one of them to divide and conquer.
Then Mr. Donatello caught the image of a vessel that once belonged to Nostradamus. It sat upon a pedestal as a place of honor. And in front of that was a chest. Along the seam that divided the lid from the trunk came the glow of a pulsating light.
Gotcha!
Panning the camera, he discovered that the items were in L-6: Laboratory Six, which was noted by the bright yellow characters stenciled on a concrete pillar.
Mr. Donatello then tried to tap into the facility’s blueprints, which he was able to do after locating the files. Laboratory Six was close to the southside of the mountain, a long journey.
“Here,” said Mr. Donatello, who addressed Kimball Hayden. “The relics are in L-6. Laboratory Six.” Then he pointed to an outlet at the opposite end of the chamber, a bored out opening that had a bullet-shaped archway. “Straight down that corridor for six hundred yards,” he told him.
Hayden studied the facility’s blueprints on the monitor and committed to memory all the numerous twists and turns. It was a labyrinth within a labyrinth, he considered, a funhouse maze which he had to negotiate on recollection alone.
“You think you can handle it?” Mr. Donatello asked him.
Kimball nodded. “I can.”
Just as Mr. Donatello was about to add ‘good luck,’ a bullet smashed into his temple which snapped his head violently to the side. Then with a lazy sideways roll from his chair, his body slipped away and fell to the floor with gaping eyes of surprise. The precise kill shot had left Mr. Donatello with a bloodless wound to his skull.
Mr. Spartan, however, appeared to react impersonally to Donatello’s death and appeared numbed by the action, as though it was the norm of battle. Then to Hayden, he yelled, “Find the relics! From this point on my team’s agenda is to give you opportunity! This was an expected scenario! We’re the soldiers in this war! Not you! Make sure the items find their way back to the Consortium Stronghold and the Vatican!”
Kimball Hayden nodded as gunfire erupted all around them. He also saw the sadness that clung to Mr. Spartan like a cancer—that malignant piece that could always be cut away to allow healing, only for it to return more aggressively to metastasize the soul.
“I’ll see you topside,” Hayden told him.
Mr. Spartan feigned a smile, one that said, ‘not likely.’
Keeping low to the ground as bullets skipped off the floor around him, Kimball Hayden made his way toward the bullet-shaped outlet.
* * *
Salt had Mr. Donatello within the crosshairs of his sight and pulled the trigger. It was a clean shot, the round entering through one temple and exiting out the other. As the body slipped away from the chair and to the floor, he saw a member of the Consortium team race his way toward the vault that contained the Eye of Moses. The operative, however, was dressed differently from the others, more like a priest.
Commanding his team to stay behind to terminate all hostiles, Salt gave chase.
* * *
Mr. Spartan keyed up his lip mic and said, “Mr. Plato, Mr. Galileo, do you copy?”
They did.
“We lost Mr. Donatello and Kimball’s on the move. Mr. Galileo, I need you to provide cover for Mr. Galileo.”
“Copy that.”
“And Mr. Galileo?”
“Right here.”
“You still have your Sem-charges?”
“I do.”
“Place them strategically so that we can take this mountaintop down. Mr. Plato and I will provide you with proper cover. Once the Sem-charges are positioned, set the timers for twenty minutes. Once done, communicate that they’ve been set and enabled. Everyone on the team will synchronize the countdown using their watches as the timeframe reference to withdraw.”
“Twenty minutes?” Mr. Plato sounded nonplussed. “Are you kidding me? You think that’s enough time for Hayden?”
“It’ll have to be. We need to conclude this in ten. If we fail, the charges won’t. The facility stands upon the precipice. The horn of the mountain will collapse.”
“Spartan,” it was Mr. Galileo. “If Kimball doesn’t make it, if the dark particle is aggravated by the Semtex concussions, you’re taking a risk of not only blowing away this mountain, but the city of Lucerne and God only knows what else. Maybe half the planet for all we know.”
Mr. Spartan knew that Mr. Galileo was right. No one knew the true power of the dark particle embedded inside the head of Aaron’s rod. It was, after all, a remnant of the Big Bang, a powerful explosion so great that particles continued to race and stretch across the universe.
One particle.
One element.
And one chance to see the mission through.
“Then I guess we’ll have to put our faith in Kimball, won’t we?”
And then from Mr. Galileo came a flat ‘Copy.’
Gunfire continued to erupt all around them as members of the Shadow Klan closed in from all sides with their weapons raised and leveled.
Mr. Spartan, after reaching for Mr. Donatello’s rucksack and dragging it close, rummaged through the pack and discovered the Semtex charges. Wadding some of the clay into a small brick, Mr. Spartan slapped the wad underneath the console and readjusted the method of detonation by using a dead man’s switch. Keeping the switch close, Mr. Spartan, now crawling along the floor using his elbows and knees to pull him along, could sense the Shadow Klan closing in on his last known position.
Bullets and rounds continued to punch holes in the surrounding walls or skipped off the floor around him. Shards of shattered concrete broke off into pieces that nicked the skin of his cheek, causing it to bleed. But Mr. Spartan pressed on, the man crawling on his belly to gain new ground, new territory. Then as he was about to reach cover, the point of an assault weapon pressed against the crown of his helmet.
Mr. Spartan, looking up to see his assassin, saw the twisted and smiling face of Max Ueli.
“Well, hello, Sunshine,” the Klansman told him. “Did you really think that you had a chance?”
The man’s disfigured smile flourished.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
As sharp as Kimball’s mind was, he still erred in direction only to realize it abruptly and got back on track, though valuable time was lost. Within three minutes, despite the numerous turns, the emblazoned characters of L-6 stenciled on the pillar caused him to feel a measure of relief.
He had made it to the Vault.
Racing across the floor of this immensely sized room, he saw the pedestal and the crucible that sat upon it. Before him was the treasure chest that contained Aaron’s rod. In awe, Kimball approached the chest as though it were the Ark of the Covenant, and as something so prestigious that it was worth the slow advance. Then as he stood over it, he could see a light pulsating from the seam that parted the trunk’s lid from the actual chest, even with the clamps locking the trunk tight. Was the Light so powerful?
Then with his outstretched hands, he laid them upon the trunk’s lid. It was warm to the touch with the sensation somewhat all-encompassing in an uplifting way. Slowly, and at one clasp at a time, Kimball Hayden undid them and raised the lid. An aura of amber light eclipsed his features with the illumination so bright that the red light of the chamber’s alert system had given way to the magnificent cast. The glow was radiant and warm, if not pleasing and oddly inviting. As bright as the particle was, the light did not appear to bother his eyes.
Reaching into the chest, Kimball was careful not to grab a part of the staff close to its head. Gripping the rod and finding it smooth to the touch, he removed it from the container and held it before him. Here was a relic that pre-dated Jesus, he heard himself say. And in the head of this staff encased within its crystal cocoon, the particle of all life.
Inside the crystal cocoon, the dark element seemed to rotate slowly on some unseen axis, the atom rolling and spinning as if to showcase its true wonder.
/> With reverence, Hayden carefully placed the staff upon the floor, removed the tethering devices from his rucksack, and began to prepare the item for transport. It had always been biblically noted that anyone who touched the surface of the Ark of the Covenant often died from the action. Kimball Hayden attributed this to science, however. The particle was electrically charged and the ark itself covered with gold, a precious metal that also happened to be a conduit. If the crystal cocoon was somehow touching the metal, then the particle’s charge could have ignited the entire Ark as a live wire. Anyone who had touched the Ark would simply have encountered a fatal electrical dose. If this was the case, which he believed it was, Kimball Hayden brought a rubberized sleeve, then slipped it carefully over the head of Aaron’s rod. Since rubber was a nonconductor, it would also neutralize the staff’s effects.
Now to secure the crucible, the vessel that summarized the future according to Michel Nostradamus. Kimball quickly noted the odd symbols inside the wall of the bowl, the cyphers that were the key to unlocking many fantastical secrets. In the hands of some, these mysteries could be used in black measures, such was the way of Elias Caspari. But in the hands of those who held good intentions and even better hearts, perhaps a new Enlightenment.
Grabbing the vessel with both hands, he lifted it from the pedestal and brought it to his rucksack. Tucking it inside and securing it to minimalize its movement, he donned the pack, grabbed the staff, and was about to sling it over his shoulder when he saw Salt aiming his gun directly at his face.
The man’s eyes were so pale blue they were almost colorless. And they weren’t the kind of blue that was as warm as Jamaican waters, either. They were the blue of Arctic ice. “Well,” Salt stated while stepping forward with precise aiming, “it looks like you’re on the wrong end of a retreat.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Elias Caspari was watching everything unfold inside Deep Mountain from the comfort of his office. Against the far wall was the large TV monitor. The screen had been broken up into several grids to get numerous viewpoints throughout the facility. So far, Salt had mismanaged security efforts to contain the threat, which walked right through the front door. Though people like Salt had his advantages, he simply did not live up to his billing on this particular undertaking. The Consortium had circumvented the obvious by scaling the wall of the south face, the route of extreme danger. Still, it was something Salt should have prepared for, Caspari fumed. Something he should have seen coming.