The Eye of Moses - Vatican Knights Series 22 (2020) by Rick Jones (best novels to read for students .txt) 📕

the seconds, which was the only sound inside the apartment that beat with the measure of Salt’s heart, calm and collected instead of racing.

Once he took the turn from the hallway into the kitchen, he tried not to show how crestfallen he truly was to see his wife and daughters bundled together as a single mass for comfort. What gave him away, however, was the marginal flinch of his left eye, a half wink. They were sitting at the end of the table, a mother, and her daughters, with the children’s faces wet with tears.

“It’ll be all right,” Salt told them.

“Johannes—” was all his wife could say. And then her face began to crack, then break.

“Minerva . . . everything will be all right. All I ask is that you trust me.”

She nodded as she held their children close.

Behind them were two men, Misters Donatello and Archimedes. Each was holding a suppressed pistol, though the points of their weapons were pointing towards the floor.

Mr. Archimedes pointed to a vacant chair with a gloved hand. “Sit.”

“I prefer to stand.”

“I’m not asking you; I’m telling you. Sit.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me in front of my children? Is that the Consortium way?”

Mr. Archimedes pinned Salt with his hard stare. Obviously, Salt and his crew had come to the realization that Lucerne was crawling with Consortium agents.

“Oh yes,” Salt added. “We know. The organization I work for is not without their discoveries . . . the same way the Consortium is not without theirs.”

Minerva shook her head. “Johannes, what are you talking about? Who are these people? What do they want?”

“Shh-shh-shh,” he told her. “In all due time, my dear.” Then back to Mr. Archimedes, he said, “You’re here for something you cannot have.”

“Salt,” Mr. Donatello began, “let’s get one thing clear. We’re bound by ‘exigent circumstances,’ which this situation happens to be. We follow certain restrictions and protocols regarding violent means, but sometimes—just sometimes—a state of affairs will come up that will strip away those boundaries.” He raised his suppressed firearm and directed it to the back of his wife’s head. “The consequences will be real, should you decide not to cooperate. Where is the Eye of Moses?”

Salt’s wife barked a cry, which galvanized the children to sob.

Salt challenged him. “You wouldn’t dare. It’s not in the Consortium mindset to kill for the sake of achievement. You’re not terrorists.” And then: “Exigent circumstances or not.”

Mr. Donatello did not lower his weapon, turning this into a stalemate between two powerful wills.

“Your turn,” Salt told Mr. Donatello, while maintaining a one-cornered smile.

“I don’t want to do this,” Mr. Donatello admitted. “But you’re leaving me no choice in the matter. I will do this.”

“Then get on with it, if you must.” Salt’s smile never wavered.

“Johannes!” his wife cried out with the quality of her tone between anger and dread.

“Trust me, my dear. These people don’t have it within them. They’re not hardwired to be the callous people they’re making themselves out to be.”

“Are you sure?” asked Mr. Donatello.

“Quite.”

“Then I’ll ask you one more time: where’s the Eye of Moses?”

Salt’s smile was beginning to stretch into arrogance.

“Then you leave me no choice.” Mr. Donatello took a step back, redirected his aim, and pulled the trigger. A muted burst of a gunfire went off, a loud spit, causing Minerva to cry out sharply as a round passed through the soft tissue of her shoulder and lodged itself in the tabletop. It had been a well-placed shot that avoided the children and scored her flesh.

Salt’s features immediately shifted. His smile was gone as he tried to hurdle himself forward. But Mr. Michelangelo held him back.

“You son of a bitch!” he cried.

“The Eye of Moses! Where is it?” He redirected his aim to the top of Minerva’s head. The kids were screaming. “There’ll be no more freebies next time, Salt! None! Tell me where it is!”

Salt’s eyes shifted from Minerva to the gun, then from the gun to Minerva. This was exactly what he did to Mr. Copernicus. Mr. Donatello had found his greatest weak spot and was using it against him. Now the proverbial shoe was on the other foot, Salt’s foot. Now it was Salt’s turn to wonder if Mr. Copernicus felt equally the same when Salt controlled the weapon against him; that sense of absolute impotence to change an undeniable fate.

“I’m waiting, Salt.”

Unlike Mr. Copernicus who had lacked skillsets, a man like Salt was rich with them. And destinies were only altered when a man decides to take a stand and change his course, which Salt decided to do.

Feeling the point of Mr. Michelangelo’s gun pressed against the base of his skull, Salt performed a windmill move. With sudden speed and fluidity, Salt came around with a sweep of his arm and knocked Mr. Michelangelo’s gun to the side. Then with a series of straight jab blows to Mr. Michelangelo’s face until Michelangelo’s eyes began to roll and show nothing but white, Salt stole the gun away and shot Mr. Michelangelo twice at center mass. The double impacts drove the Consortium operator to the floor, and hard. In a follow-up maneuver, Salt quickly turned on Misters Donatello and Archimedes, and fired off additional rounds.

But the Consortium operators dove to the sides and rolled out of view as the ammo stitched across the walls behind them, missing. Salt, while prompting his wife and children to leave the table with furious waves to join him, continued to fire off round after round, bullet after bullet, to keep Misters Donatello and Archimedes at bay.

When Salt’s wife and children huddled by his side, he checked Minerva’s wound. It was superficial, the flesh scored. Whether Mr. Donatello meant to do this he wasn’t sure. But it was enough to garner his full attention.

“Johannes,” Minerva whispered in pain, “what’s going on? Who are these people?”

The children were crying.

And Salt continued to fire off rounds, but more conservatively. The last thing he wanted to hear was a series of dry clicks, meaning no ammo.

He