Vatican Knights

by Jones, Rick

  “King Snake, let’s move!”

  “I’ll hold off the advancement! GO!”

  Boa and Kodiak went to the monitor room where Diamondback and Sidewinder were arming their body armor attachments by loading up with as much ammo as their duty belts would carry. Boa and Kodiak followed suit, knowing that King Snake would soon be out of ammo.

  “Where’s Team Leader?” asked Diamondback.

  “Gone,” said Boa.

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “Just gone!”

  All four had geared up to the max as if they knew there would be no tomorrow.

  In the hallway at the top of the stairwell, King Snake had run out of ammo.

  The sudden quiet seemed somewhat odd.

  #

  Two choppers lifted off from Logan Airport’s Air Operations helibase, flew over the depository and hovered over the rooftop. Ropes and cables were thrown from the bays and the assault commandos began to rappel from the choppers until a Strike Force of twelve had secured the rooftop. With a gesture from the top commando the choppers veered off and returned to base.

  The Descending Angels had landed.

  #

  Kimball and Leviticus immediately advanced up the north stairwell with Kimball holding his weapon forward, while Leviticus prepared flash bangs to disorient any hostiles who may be maintaining position.

  Reaching the second level they saw a single hostile standing on the third floor level charging a Sig, his lone weapon. Taking careful aim, Leviticus locked onto the man with his weapon and immediately pulled the trigger. The quick burst found its mark. The commando, dancing like a marionette, jittered as each bullet punched into him, and then he collapsed to the floor.

  When the area was clear Leviticus made his way up the stairs with Shari Cohen behind him. Kimball maintained cover by keeping the point of his weapon steady, as they made their way to the final level. After they maneuvered into a safe position at the top of the stairs, Leviticus was close enough to the dead man to reach out with his fingers and place them against the man’s carotid. There was no pulse, the man was dead.

  Kimball pushed his mike button. “Leviticus?”

  “One down, at least five . . .” He cut himself short. To the right of him lay the body of Micah; unmoving, twisted in such a way that Leviticus knew he was dead.

  “Leviticus?”

  “We lost Micah,” he whispered. “And I don’t see Isaiah.”

  I’m Code-4 and working south, Isaiah returned.

  “Copy that,” said Kimball. “Leviticus, any visuals?”

  Both Leviticus and Shari peeked around the corner of the wrought-iron banister and surveyed the hallway. Huddled against the wall were the remaining four members of the Holy See, all alive—and absolutely terrified.

  “That’s affirmative on four of the packages,” Leviticus whispered. “But I don’t see the big picture, though.”

  “Hostiles?”

  “Negative.”

  “They’ve pulled back into the shadows. Maintain your position,” Kimball told them. “The Descending Angels will be moving in from the south with Isaiah.”

  “Copy that.” Kimball pulled his lip mike even closer. “Shari, go ahead and send in the ground troops as backup. I’m going to take over your position as rear guard and secure the second floor.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I’ve got to make sure that there are no surprises since we’re unable to maintain a visual of the hostiles,” he said. “They have to be somewhere.”

  “Copy that.”

  When Shari made the call, the rear of the depository quickly filled with Metro’s Assault Unit.

  #

  Team Leader saw Isaiah moving stealthily down the hallway, clinging to the shadows with his weapon aimed directly in front of him. Quietly, Team Leader melded into dark shadows and pressed himself against a false wall leading to a ladder that led down to the second level. When he pushed the wall it gave way, providing an aperture large enough for him to pass through, and quietly slid the wall back into place before Isaiah could have noticed him.

  Cramped by the small area, Team Leader shuffled sideways between the inner and outer walls until he reached the crudely constructed ladder of lath and broken boards. After descending to the second floor he found himself in a tight space identical to the one above. With some effort, he pushed on another false wall that opened into a dusty room.

  Stealthily making his way to the hallway, keeping his head on a swivel, he was all but home free.

  #

  Leviticus had often been in combat before, and quiet was not a good sign. Right now it was too quiet. Hunkering close to the floor, he crawled to Micah and removed his helmet. His comrade’s eyes stared at nothing in particular. A bloodless bullet wound marred the center of his once porcelain-like skin on his forehead.

  He gently placed his fingers over Micah’s eyes and closed them, then recited The Lord’s Prayer in hushed tones, the words carrying the length of the corridor in haunting whispers. The remaining members of the Force Elite froze at the sound of Leviticus’ voice.

  “What’s that?” hissed Boa.

  Kodiak shushed him. The whispers echoed from all points of the hallway as if they came from more than one entity.

  Then finally: “It’s definitely not King Snake,” whispered Kodiak. “He wouldn’t know a prayer if it slapped him in the face . . . So I guess it’s time to rock and roll, boys.”

  Diamondback leaned close. “What about the hostages?”

  “We do what we were hired to do,” Kodiak muttered. “If we get the chance, then we kill them . . . Starting with the pope.”

  #

  Isaiah had the bishops of the Holy See within sight. Like Leviticus, his hackles rose instinctively over the silence, but he pressed on.

  When Leviticus saw Isaiah coming in from the south, he moved in to converge, but motioned Shari to keep position and provide cover.

  When Isaiah nearly reached the Monitor Room, all hell broke loose.

  #

  Kodiak exited the room first, unaware Isaiah had quietly worked his way down the corridor and hid behind the door. Kodiak, however, immediately saw Leviticus pressed tight against the wall and coming toward him. As he trained his weapon on Leviticus, Isaiah sprang from behind the door and rammed the butt of his assault weapon to the lower part of Kodiak’s spine. The big man dropped to his knees, twisting toward his attacker and leveling his weapon as he fell. Isaiah kicked the pistol away, the firearm skating across the floor.

  Kodiak came immediately to his feet and with a roundhouse kick, knocked the much smaller man’s weapon aside. With a straight forearm jab Kodiak placed a powerful shot to Isaiah’s face shield, shattering the plastic and sending Isaiah to the ground.

  The helmet no longer an asset, Isaiah ripped it away, leapt to his feet and assumed a stance reminiscent of tae-kwon-do.

  Leviticus held his fire for fear of shooting Isaiah and maintained his position in the corridor as the two men sized each other up. Kodiak, with incredible agility for such a large man, came across swiftly with a roundhouse kick that missed Isaiah and hit the wall like a cannonball, causing chunks of plaster and lath to scatter across the floor. Kodiak’s follow up punch missed as well, hitting and fracturing the wall as if it was constructed of aluminum foil.

  More explosions reverberated through the depository. The Descending Angels, having breached the rooftop at the north and central sectors, began rappelling into the building.

  Both men continued to square off, obviously intent on one another. “It’s all over,” hollered Isaiah. “Give it up.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Kodiak. “I would die with a smile on my face knowing that I broke your neck.” He came at Isaiah with savage forearm thrusts and deadly kicks, each missing its mark as the much nimbler Isaiah dodged or deflected the blows in seemingly effortless fashion. Kodiak, in what he thought was an opening, lifted his massive arm to strike a crushing hammer blow to Isaiah’s skull, bu
t Isaiah lashed out with his foot and drove Kodiak backward.

  Quickly employing kick after powerful kick, blow after powerful blow, Isaiah attacked the much larger man with such incredible speed and skill, Shari, watching from the corridor, was transfixed by the talent of his martial arts. He was smooth and graceful, the movements hypnotic, and in quick fashion had Kodiak pinned against the opposite side of the hallway with his back pressed against a boarded window. In bestial rage Kodiak screamed as Isaiah came around with a powerful kick that connected squarely on Kodiak’s chest. The impact was so great, the contact so forceful, the impetus drove the large man through the window, his body tumbling in speedy revolutions to the graveyard below. His death sounded like a melon hitting the pavement.

  Isaiah immediately gathered his assault weapon. Now with Leviticus by his side, the Descending Angels swarming the hallway, and ground forces moving up the stairwell, the two Knights and Shari entered the Monitor Room expecting an all-out assault.

  But the room was empty.

  #

  The Force Elite had prepared well for the contingency of being surrounded by the opposition. While Kodiak combated Isaiah, the others used the opportunity to escape through a false panel built into the old floor disguised as a series of removable tiles. They descended immediately to the second level. Once assembled, they made their way down the hallway and took position beneath the room where the pope was held, and aimed their assault weapons at the ceiling with the intent to kill.

  #

  After checking on the remaining four members of the Holy See and finding them justifiably shaken, Shari left Leviticus and Isaiah to tend to their needs while she continued to search the vacant rooms that bordered the corridor.

  In a room that held little light, Shari spotted a lump of darkness gathered against the far wall. It was amoeba-like in its form, but moving, its breathing labored and wet, however. When she neared the shape it began to take on an outline of an old man holding another closely. The two masses together, from a distance, indistinguishable. Up close, she could see that the pope had drawn a dead man into his embrace.

  “Your Holiness!” She kneeled and gently touched the old man’s forehead and felt the heat of fever. “Your Holiness, you’re ill. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.”

  “Who are you?” he asked weakly while she wrapped blankets around him.

  “FBI Special Agent Shari Cohen, I’m here with the Vatican Knights.”

  His brows rose. “Kimball’s here?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re acting as my Critical Incident Response Group.”

  “Then it’s truly over?”

  “Yes, sir, you’re safe.”

  The pope raised his hand. The chain that tethered him to the wall for so long was now broken, a perfect shot by Team Leader freeing the man. “I don’t know why he did this,” the pope explained.

  Shari sidestepped the body of Bishop Angelo. “We’ll come back for him. I promise.”

  In that instance the floor suddenly erupted in shards of wood and bullets. So Shari grabbed the pope and forced him close to the wall, shielding him with her body. From underneath gunshots perforated the floorboards and strafed the ceiling, causing bits of wood and old tar to cascade down on them like rain. All around feathers floated in the gloom as bullets penetrated the old mattresses, the feather stuffing swirling and dancing about in lazy eddies. Bishop Angelo’s body also took multiple hits, the punching bullets animating his corpse into jiggling fits. And in desperation, Shari cried out as the room became a world of spinning lead, gently floating feathers, and choking dust.

  #

  Kimball moved discreetly down the second floor corridor. Thirty yards ahead the area was lit by multiple muzzle flashes, marking the spot where the members of the Force Elite were shooting at the ceiling.

  Over Kimball’s earpiece he heard Shari cry out over her mike, not an order nor a battle cry, but a shout of extreme anxiety.

  He quickly converged with his grenade launcher loaded and ready. Less than a second later a grenade corkscrewed through the quasi-darkness and exploded with an eruption that scattered the commandos throughout the corridor as bits and pieces of gore. None of them knew what hit them.

  At the base point of their attack, Kimball looked up and noted the perforated ceiling above him. When he called out Shari’s name numerous times but received nothing but feedback, he became particularly concerned for her welfare.

  And then a voice, distant and hollow, came from behind. “You would be Kimball Hayden, I assume.” Kimball turned quickly, his finger on the trigger of an empty weapon, and then with his free hand removed his helmet and lip mike and tossed them aside.

  At the end of the hallway a man stood near the collapsed stairwell, sizing Kimball.

  Kimball took a step toward him, the mouth of the grenade launcher pointing downward.

  “I have heard so much about you,” the man said, his accent thick. “I hear that there is no better warrior than you.”

  Kimball moved closer, the face of the man clearer in the feeble light. Beneath the chin, a wedge of scarring, the distortion of tissue as identifying as a tattoo.

  “And you would be Abraham Obadiah,” he said.

  “That would be, at least for today, the name you would know me by, yes.”

  Obadiah reached down and methodically withdrew his black-bladed commando knives from sheaths on both thighs. It was an invitation to Kimball who lowered his weapon to the floor and withdrew his own knives.

  “Now,” said Obadiah, the points of his blades pointing wickedly. “I would be so honored to be the one to kill the legend.”

  Kimball took a fighting stance. “Don’t count on it.”

  They closed the gap swinging the blades with precision and savagery.

  #

  Dust and feathers floated with cloying thickness. When Shari pulled back from the pope she saw that the floor was marked by countless holes inches apart. How she and the pope escaped the volley was beyond her, but she couldn’t quite rule out a miracle either. Removing dusty blankets from the pope, she saw he was untouched by the fusillade. His eyes were glazed with fever, his skin hot to the touch, but he smiled and raised a bony hand to brush his fingers softly against her cheek. “I thought you said I was safe, young lady.”

  She returned his smile. “You are now. For some reason I have the feeling Kimball got involved.”

  “You know something?” the pope said. “I think you might be right.”

  #

  The blades deflected off one another as they fought viciously. With metal striking metal sparks flew abundantly before dying out, only for new ones to take their place. Each man moved with poise and skill, their actions motivated by instinct rather than deduction since their movements were too fast for the mind to comprehend the next move.

  Obadiah came across in a series of upper cuts and horizontal slashes, while Kimball countered with deflections and straight jabs, his maneuvers also deflected. In Kimball’s mind he was amazed how good this man was with double-edge weapons. He had never actually been tested before, until now.

  As their arms moved with blinding speed, Obadiah came across and slashed Kimball’s vest, the razor sharpness of the knife cutting easily through the Kevlar. Vests, after all, were made to stop bullets, not knives.

  Backing off for the moment, Kimball reexamined his position while Obadiah paced from left to right like a caged animal.

  “You’re good,” he told Kimball. “But not good enough.”

  “I’m just getting warmed up.”

  “Then let’s get this over with,” he said. “I’ve things to do and people to kill.”

  They converged on each other for the last time.

  #

  Those who had seen the perforated floor were amazed it was still strong enough to support weight. The aged and decimated wood protested beneath Leviticus and Isaiah as they carefully removed the pope and placed him in the care of the Metro Unit, who quickly ushered the man away
under the cloaking of their shields. The Descending Angels examined and secured every room on the third floor, while the ground troops maintained their post on the first floor entryway and stairwell.

  Leviticus drew close to Shari.

  “The pope is in good hands,” he told her in hushed tones. “So we must go.” He turned toward Micah’s body. “We’ll be taking him with us. There can be no questions.”

  “I understand.”

  Isaiah stood beside them. “Kimball will meet us on his own terms,” he said. “But we’re thankful for all you’ve done.”

  Isaiah and Leviticus dropped to a bended knee and placed a closed fist over their hearts. “Loyalty above all else,” they whispered, “except Honor.”

  Shari felt absolutely flattered at this display of gratitude to the point of feeling the sting of tears. Then, placing a closed fist over her heart, said, “Loyalty above all else, except Honor.”

  For her, this was closure.

  Milling with the Descending Angels and ground troops, Isaiah unobtrusively lifted the body of Micah and draped it over the shoulders of Leviticus, trying to give the impression of a ‘man down’ requiring immediate medical attention. Shari watched the two Knights merge into the crowd and within moments they were gone.

  Only when Kimball didn’t answer his mike did she become concerned.

  #

  The blades moved faster, beyond the comprehension of human sight, their arms moving in blurs and blinding rotations as each man’s brow drew the sweat of his efforts. Neither man rescinded his space, maintaining his territory. And neither man by the plateau of his pride was willing to concede to defeat by the fatigue beginning to weigh on both of them.

  Breathless, both men reached into their inner selves and mustered whatever reserve power they had left before being entirely sapped.

  When Obadiah finally went in for a stabbing motion, Kimball came down and slashed his blade across Obadiah’s forearm, a score that severed the muscle that incapacitated him.