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

Recognizing the numeric values, it didn’t take him long to finalize the steps and succeed. After the security code was breached, Khalifa brought down the point of his forefinger with emphasis and hit the ENTER button. And just like that, he was in. The live feed had now been altered to show a video recording that was thirty minutes earlier than real time.

Khalifa hit his earbud. “You’re good to go.”

* * *

Inside the sublevel of the Imperial Treasury was the nerve center of the security station. Four guards were manning their posts by the room’s entryway, two were heavily armed with Steyr AUG assault rifles. The two who were manning the monitors were wearing Austrian Glock pistols.

As the two sat before a bank of monitors that showed live feeds of the entryways, corridors and rooms of the building, there was a brief flutter on two screens with the images going squirrely for a moment before returning to the norm. Nevertheless, both sentries narrowed their eyes in study with one immediately recognizing the change in the timestamp, which was late by thirty minutes. After tapping the screen with the point of his finger and then bringing attention of the anomaly to the heavily armed security officers, both guards thought it prudent to make their topside rounds early. With their Steyr AUG assault rifles at the ready, the two guards headed for the upper level.

* * *

Qusay was a Jordanian national whose discipline in the King Abdullah ll Special Forces Group was Explosives and Ordinance. Not only did he know how to care and disable explosive devices, but he also knew how to properly plant and detonate them as well.

After removing a small C-4 wad that was roughly the size of a silver dollar and then adding a pair of det cords along with attached frequency-receiving modules, Qusay strategically placed the explosive over the door’s locking mechanism. Once done, he stepped away from the blast zone, held up the detonator, and waited on Abd-al-Mumin to proffer the order.

Abd-al-Mumin whispered into his lip mic. “Khalifa, we’re in position.”

“I need thirty seconds.”

“We’re already running behind.”

In those thirty seconds where time seemed eternal, Khalifa finally spoke: “Done.”

Abd-al-Mumin then motioned to Qusay, who pressed the lever in return.

The blast was oddly muted, almost like a ‘whumph’ rather than a loud report. Nevertheless, the concussion of the blast could still be felt as the door splintered around the lock. Fractured shards of wood from the door were thrown into the courtyard as rolling smoke boiled at them through the air. As soon as the smoke dissipated, Abd-al-Mumin led the raid against the Treasury.

* * *

Though Khalifa could not hack into the Treasury’s mainframe unit to alter the live feeds of its internal cameras, he instead applied a virus to combat the program and bring it down. Though the mainframe would eventually identify the cause of the intervention and fire up its protective protocols, it would give more time for Abd-al-Mumin’s team to maneuver into position.

“Khalifa, we’re in position.”

The terrorist tapped his earbud. “I need thirty seconds.”

“We’re already running behind.”

As the door to the Treasury was being prepared to be compromised, Khalifa finally empowered the virus. Within seconds, the mainframe computer that governed the entirety of the Treasury’s internal system had winked off and shut down. Khalifa had bought Abd-al-Mumin seven minutes of down time before the mainframe terminal would reconfigure and reboot itself.

Into his lip mic, Khalifa said, “Done.”

* * *

Inside the Control Center, the monitors started to shut down one by one across the board. The screens turned to white snow, all of them, and then the fluorescent lights to the room went out, causing the red incandescent bulbs to flash and swirl in warning.

The mainframe had crashed.

* * *

The Austrian Imperial Treasury was a massive building with several hallways and incredibly large rooms. When the door that led into the building from the Swiss Courtyard was breached, neither guard was aware of the break. In fact, when they reached the main level via the staircase, everything sounded ominously quiet. What was different, however, was the scent of gunpowder, though faint, but something that was enough to register a red-flag warning.

The first guard hit his earbud. “Control, are you getting a read of a possible breach?”

“The system crashed. It’ll take about seven minutes before she’s back online. Press ahead with caution.”

“Yeah. Copy that.”

The heavily armed security officers followed protocol by positioning themselves at opposite sides of the hallway, then began to move forward with their weapons raised to eye level.

* * *

Though the armed sentries were stationed in the sublevel, the unarmed group remained within a topside office. These were the officials who performed routine rounds every ten minutes like clockwork. Unlike the armed sentries who patrolled the entry areas and especially the Secular and the Ecclesiastical Rooms, these officers were unarmed security guards who acted as the first line of defense.

Though trained to meander about to notice miniscule details that may raise red-flag issues, they were also underpaid employees who had no military training and were often complacent by nature. What had been a job that once stimulated them because they were surrounded by treasures, it had turned them into jaded individuals over time as the novelty of their surroundings eventually escaped them.

Sitting inside the room watching a small flatscreen TV, all four members of the team felt a vibration, a tremble, one that was strong enough to cause the TV to fall forward. After one of the security guards righted the TV, each man wordlessly grabbed a flashlight and quickly began to investigate.

* * *

Everything was quiet. Yet there was a stench in the air, something acrid with a smoky scent.

The unarmed security team operated as two-man units, per protocol.

As Unit One investigated the Secular Room, the lights from the flashlights panned through the shadows to briefly showcase the jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, which included the Imperial Crown and Imperial Sword; the Holy Lance; the Austrian Crown Jewels; the treasury belonging to the Order