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

As the cable-car casually made its way upward at a 45-degree angle to the platform, the officers noted the pulse and glow of flashing red lights inside the facility’s main lobby. With power down and communications lost, it must always be assumed by staff that flashing red lights meant an immediate moment of battle readiness.

Racking their weapons, the security guards knew their jobs well. They would enter the facility with guns leveled, fire off commands for everyone to ‘get down,’ and those who refused to follow through with the orders were to be regarded as hostiles and summarily terminated.

The action had been proficiently practiced by this unit hundreds of times until their actions became instinctive rather than trained.

Now, as the cable-car neared the precipice, the winds began to buffer the gondola, which caused it to rock mightily above a valley floor.

When the wheels of the cable-car reached its final stop and locked into place, the doors to the vehicle swung open, and the team rushed forward into the cold towards the facility with their weapons raised to kill.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Misters Galileo and Plato heard the explosion. They even felt the slight push of the concussive blast that caused them to waver in their stance as they took strategic positions within the chamber.

Mr. Plato observed three soldiers from Salt’s military Klansman maneuvering through the corridors with weapons raised to eye-level, searching for targets.

Mr. Plato had wedged himself in between a bevy of stacked 55-gallon drums, which gave him a small visual window of opportunity. As the Klansman began to enter his attack zone, Mr. Plato, through a ridiculously small opening between the barrels, slowly projected the point of his MP7 forward.

As soon as they crossed into his kill zone, Mr. Plato pulled the trigger. After a multitude of muted pops and the area lighting up with muzzle flashes, Mr. Plato immediately hit his mark with the point man, whose head erupted with a ropy gout of blood before he fell. The other two, after receiving rounds to their Kevlar that obviously caused minimal damage, dove for cover.

Surrendering his position, Mr. Plato moved into the corridor to finish the job. With the point of his weapon elevated, he stepped over the body of the first Klansman and made his way towards a wall of darkness, which was also a great place for concealment. Then Mr. Plato began to strafe the area with gunfire. The muzzle flashes illuminated the area with quick bursts of light.

But the shadows were empty.

During that moment which confused Mr. Plato, the two Klansman had repositioned themselves. Instead of diving for the natural surety of cover that shadows provided, they had spread themselves wide to circle back on Mr. Plato, who was concentrating on what may be ahead of him instead of those who were surrounding him.

From the outermost corner of Mr. Plato’s vision, he saw movement from his left. Mr. Plato responded accordingly by bringing his weapon around in a sweeping arc that caught the point of his opponent’s Ak47, which knocked it off target the moment the Klansman pulled the trigger. Errant rounds went off to punch holes into a concrete wall with the bullets stitching across in a diagonal design.

Then finding himself in a close-quarter’s fight, Mr. Plato tried to raise his weapon to get off a burst. Couldn’t. The second Klansman closed in and put Mr. Plato into a clench. Since a firefight at such proximity would only spell disaster with ammo striking everyone in the zone, Mr. Plato tossed his weapon at Klansman Number One to distract him, while throwing a bladed chop of his hand into the throat of the second Klansman. Eyes popped fantastically from their socketed orbs as the second Klansman clutched his throat and fell to his knees, the man gasping for air. In a subsequent move, Mr. Plato kicked the weapon from his grasp and reverted his attention back to Number One, who was trying to reposition the point of his weapon onto Mr. Plato. In a move so fast as hands and feet rearranged themselves for combat mode, Mr. Plato came across with a roundhouse kick and struck Number One along the temple, dazing him. In the opportune moment that his opponent was phasing in and out of awareness, Mr. Plato grabbed the Klansman’s weapon while it was still within the Klansman’s clutches, jammed the rifle’s point against the soft tissue beneath the man’s chin, placed his finger over the Klansman’s, and pulled the trigger. As soon as the AK47 discharged and took off the crown of his assailant’s head, Mr. Plato turned on Number Two, who was beginning to labor to his feet. Removing his knife fluidly from its sheath with a sweeping move, Mr. Plato closed in and drove the point deep, a mercy-kill right through the heart. Even with the man wearing a vest, a Kevlar was not made to stop the point of a knife.

Standing back to check his handiwork, Mr. Plato knew that he had whittled Salt’s team down to a remaining few.

After grabbing his weapon, he went off the find the head of the snake.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Mr. Galileo did not move through the facility without problems of his own. Having been assigned to strategically post charges to bring the establishment down, Mr. Galileo discovered that it was difficult to plant Sem devices without being observed by the keen eyes of Salt’s assassin team. Though the unit had been diminished greatly in numbers by the Consortium, a severe threat remained.

As Mr. Galileo was planting charges against concrete pillars and attaching timers not yet activated, he was about to set another Semtex wad against a major support beam when he glimpsed a pair of shadows moving towards his position. It was obvious by the way they moved that he had been spotted. After applying the detonators and retreating into the shadows, Mr. Galileo lost sight of his hostiles. Now with three charges left in his