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

Cyber Dynamic Corporation, which was located in the heart of Bonn, Germany. It was a center that developed the software programs of artificial intelligence that were to be integrated with the advanced hardware of the robotics industry. Their main benefactors were Japan and the United States. Being a CEO for such a mushrooming commerce had its perks as well, such as an annual pay that amounted to an eight-digit salary.

As Hoffman was being dragged into the master suite by two of Mustafa’s men, he was ready to spew out a few figures to pay for his release. Start low, buy high, make Mustafa believe that he was getting the better of the deal, make him feel like ‘the man.’

Tossed to his knees before Mustafa, who maintained a neutral appearance as though he lorded over the CEO, Hoffman clasped his hands together in an attitude of prayer and held them imploringly before the master terrorist. Mustafa lifted a corner of his lip into a one-sided grin that indicated malicious delight.

Hoffman, with his clasped hands shaking, said, “Please, I can give you money. A lot of money. Do you know who I am or who I work for? My company will pay a lot of money for my release, believe me. I’m a man of importance where I come from.”

“Your name is Alexander Hoffman,” said Mustafa. “And you are the chief executive officer for Cyber Dynamic Corporation, which deals with artificial intelligence.”

Hoffman smiled at this because he accepted this as a measure of hope. “Then you know who I am?”

“Not really. I got your name from the hotel’s guest list.” Mustafa pointed to the computer monitor, which showed nothing but snow. “Before the network went down,” he added, “I simply looked up your history.”

“Then you confirmed who I am?”

“I did.”

“Now we can talk numbers, yes?”

“Numbers? You think this is about money?”

“Everything’s about money.”

“Really.”

“Isn’t that what you people are all about?”

Mustafa gave Hoffman a quizzical look. “You people?”

“Yeah. Terrorists. Isn’t that how you bankroll your causes? By ransoming high-profile assets.”

Mustafa shook his head disbelievingly. “We’re crusaders, not terrorists. And for a CEO, Mr. Hoffman, you are far from being an intelligent man.” Then with a tilt of his chin towards the balcony-pool area, which was a predetermined gesture, Hoffman was dragged to the glass-bottom pool that hung seventy stories over the street, and tossed him in. Mustafa, who moved along the cement walkway that surrounded the pool, eventually stood along its edge with his hands to his hips. With his tongue-in-cheek habit, Mustafa watched Hoffman tread water. Then to the CEO, Mustafa asked, “How’s the pool? Warm? It’s supposed to be with the latest and greatest in solar energy.”

Hoffman, while treading water, looked underneath. The glass-bottom gave him an eerie feeling of being suspended seventy stories above the street without a safety net. He saw the swirls of lights, the cruisers, and the gathering of masses, all beneath him. Then he looked into Mustafa’s eyes where nothing existed outside of a man who operated with the cold fortitude of a machine.

“I can pay you a lot of money to support your cause,” he said to Mustafa with panic in his voice. “What? Ten million? Twenty? Thirty? That’s a lot of money to support a lot of causes.”

Mustafa held out a hand and snapped his fingers. A moment later, an AK-47 was slapped into his palm as though it were a surgeon’s scalpel. Then the Arab, while listening to Hoffman’s exhaustive pleas, pulled back on the bolt to see if a round was chambered. It was. Then he held the weapon by his side. “You think money is the panacea to all causes and the cure-all situation to any problem? It’s not, Mr. Hoffman. At least not to me. My conviction to see Allah’s plan come to fruition comes from here.” He tapped the area over his heart. “And it shall, seeing that I now hold the Holy Lance and the power of Allah. You, I’m afraid, are nothing more than a pawn in the scheme of things. You’re nothing but an example.”

“Oh God, please! You don’t have to do this!”

When Hoffman swam to the pool’s edge and tried to lift himself onto the walkway, Zamir kicked Hoffman back into the pool.

“Goodbye, Mr. Hoffman. Thank you for being an illustration of what it’s like when someone does not obey the strict commands given them, and the consequences that follow.” Mustafa lifted the point of his assault rifle and directed it into the pool.

As Hoffman continued to plead and wade, Ali Mustafa pulled the trigger. Rounds pierced through the surface of the water, and though buffeted by the liquid, the impacting rounds still had enough impact to cause spiderweb cracks along the pool’s bottom. After he ejected the empty magazine and reseated another, he unleashed additional rounds as the reports carried across Vienna in sounds of pop-pop-pop.

Cracks and fissures started to spread from one impact site to another, connecting. The circular wounds in the glass-bottom started to weaken and give, the glass starting to bow.

Hoffman continued to cry out while desperately trying to exit the pool, only to be cast backward from a kick or a push. Escape was impossible. And those who looked down on him did so with smiles of relish, the entire exercise a game of malicious amusement.

More cracking; like thin ice shattering beneath one’s footfalls.

And then the bottom gave way as shards of glass and tons of water fell into open space, with Hoffman tumbling and pinwheeling his way downward within a flume of wetness, a seventy-story-drop where the flashing lights rushed at him with incredible speed, the swirls now growing brighter, even blinding, all the way to the moment of impact where everything suddenly went dark.

* * *

Everyone below had heard the multiple shots from a high-end assault rifle high above, the rat-a-tat-tat that never seemed to end. From seventy stories below, as cracks raced from one side of the pool to the other until the glass-bottom was fully compromised,