The Crimson Dagger - Vatican Knights Series 23 (2020) by Rick Jones (romantic novels to read txt) 📕

He recalled the exact moment when a feverish Pope Gregory believed that he was not alone in his room. He even called out the visiting specter of the cardinal who lay in wait within the shadows. And then in a moment that took no thought or hesitation, he emerged from the veil of darkness with a hand extended, then shoved the pontiff over the railing. After hearing the impact of what sounded like a melon striking the pavement below, only then did he look over the banister.

Pope Gregory, however, was still alive, though barely, as he raised a hand skyward to point an accusing finger at him. As the pontiff’s blood that was as black as tar in the nightshade spread beneath him like a halo, and as time seemed to move with the slowness of terror, the hand lowered to the cobblestones as Pope Gregory finally exhausted his final breath. That exhalation of air from Gregory’s lungs, like a tire hissing, continued to sound through Pope Clement’s mind with clarity. Though he managed to create a vacancy for which he would surely win the papalship, it was Bonasero Vessucci who had won the post.

Pope Clement XV, who at the time was Cardinal Angullo, foolishly attempted another try at the life of Vessucci, only to fall short when it was Kimball Hayden he confronted. The Vatican Knight, he could see within his eyes, had an inner and sometimes uncontrollable darkness. The cardinal had seen unbridled anger and fury and the willingness to kill him. If not for the interference of Bonasero Vessucci, he was sure that Kimball Hayden would have followed through to commit some type of carnage against him. The Vatican Knight was brutal, savage, and someone who had the ability to destroy anything within his path with little regard to his personal welfare. The man was a wrecking machine who operated with ice-cold fortitude.

Sighing through his nostrils, Pope Clement knew that he had blundered. Though he had been exonerated from the accusations that Pope Gregory had died by his hand, it was because there was little evidence to support this. But the conjecture remained in the minds of Bonasero Vessucci and Kimball Hayden. And though Bonasero Vessucci had been killed in a terrorist attack, Kimball’s hostilities remained very much alive and remained a considerable threat.

When Angullo, now Pope Clement XV, returned those skeletons back inside the closet and buried them deep, he wondered if Kimball still held the key that unlocked that door.

He imagined he did.

But he was hamstrung to act against Kimball, because the man had the following of his team and their respect. To diminish Kimball’s role would only weaken Clement’s ability to lord over the Vatican Knights, which he needed to serve his needs, justly or otherwise. The only way to remove Kimball was to place him in positions of lethal consequence, hoping that a bullet would strike him down. But Kimball was a man of endurance who had lived through the horrors that most men could not.

Turning away from the balcony and returning to his desk, Pope Clement XV, a man who murdered another because his ambition became too great to control, began to muster Machiavellian ideas to achieve the means, with those means resulting in the death of Kimball Hayden.

For hours, as the wall clock chimed off the early morning hours, Pope Clement would devise, conceive and consider every possible option, every possible means, to remove Kimball Hayden from the equation, so that his authority over the Vatican Knights would be complete and absolute. But Kimball Hayden was a man who had been constructed from a different cloth. He was wired differently than most men. When he operated, he often did so at the control of something very dark. Though the church had its operational guidelines, Kimball Hayden often left a trail of bodies behind him a mile long and a mile wide. Yet his actions seemed oddly justifiable.

Finding no resolution to the problem that is Kimball Hayden, Pope Clement XV would not surrender his desire to see the man dead. No doubt the Devil has laid claim to your soul, he thought. How to put you firmly within his grasp is the question.

Within the hours to come, Darkness would once again settle over the interests of the Vatican. And once again, Pope Clement would see an opportunity, though Chance would have to be a factor.

Since Kimball Hayden seemed to carry with him the luck of the devil, the pontiff would pray for divine intervention.

He would pray for the end of Kimball Hayden.

And this time, his prayers might come true.

CHAPTER NINE

Vienna, Austria

Early Morning Hours

It was just after midnight when a cube van that had been stolen two days prior, drove down the Heldenplatz, a road that ran along a parking lot that fronted the Hofburg Palace. Sitting laterally from the palace was the Austrian Imperial Treasury.

The van was rather unremarkable with a muted color that was dark gray or brown beneath the flare of the street’s sodium-vapor lamps. There were no markings or anything to suggest that the vehicle was a company van of any kind. Nor did it sport registration plates, front or back.

Abd-al-Mumin was sitting in the rear with his team of six who had been pieced together with elite forces from different nations, and those who honestly believed that they were being governed by the blessings of Allah. Abd-al-Mumin was simply a tool of Allah’s guidance, and the holiest minion within the group outside of Mustafa.

As the vehicle pulled over and idled by the curb with its lights off, the Austrian Imperial Treasury remained in the driver’s sight along with a pair of guard shacks. At night, the Treasury was under the aesthetic lighting of magnificent looking lamps.

Abd-al-Mumin was fully dressed in black attire with the majority of his face covered by a balaclava. Working his way to the front of the vehicle from the rear, Abd-al-Mumin made his way to the driver, who