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

Mr. Plato’s life had been mapped out on the day he was born. Like all members of the Consortium, membership is by hereditary peerage only. He had been raised to believe that most people who never wielded a weapon were basically good of heart. But until all people were like them, then there would always be a need for the Consortium, who would need to keep their swords ready against the Elias Casparis of the world.

Granted, these techs had operated for misguided reasons which were often for financial gain. But that alone did not disbar people like Mr. Plato from doing his job as a member of the Consortium. These technicians wielded great minds that seemed to aid Elias Caspari in his venture, all employers who were hellbent on tearing the world apart. Still, they deserved their consequences to be mandated by members of The Hague, which was a court of justice. Not a judgment of death.

Mr. Plato hustled the group to the southernmost position of the mountain, which was quite a distance from the armory stations. Still, with the Semtex charges posted at the most desirable positions closer to the north face of the mountain’s horn, there was no guarantee they would survive the aftermath. However, with thick stone walls to hide behind, there was still a chance greater than zero.

Staring at the frightened faces around him, Mr. Plato wondered if this mountain was to become his final resting place, his tomb.

Then he looked at his watch.

. . . 07:45 . . .

. . . 07:44 . . .

. . . 07:43 . . .

In just under eight minutes, Mr. Plato would get his answer.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Mr. Michelangelo made it to the precipice before falling to his knees. He was losing a massive amount of blood, which caused the edges of his eyes to darken and close in.

From where he knelt, he could see the cable car descending to the valley across the gorge. In a few minutes, if he didn’t respond appropriately, Elias Caspari would make his way to the streets of Lucerne and eventually find his way off the grid.

Mr. Michelangelo took in a series of deep and regulated breaths, hoping that this would fight off the sensation of losing consciousness. Seeing the cable-car draw further away, he whispered, “Not on my watch.” Then he labored to his feet with a hand to his side, while blood spilled amply through the gaps of his clenching fingers.

Mr. Michelangelo, having made his way to the gun turret, stared upward. The rungs of the ladder leading to the overhead platform seemed to be endless, the climb heavenward. Then with a strong constitution and will, he began his upward hike.

Ascending with a hand so slick with blood that he nearly lost his grip on a couple of occasions, he was able to reach the top. The high-caliber cannon sitting on its pivoting platform looked like a throne to him, something wonderful. Staggering to his feet, he quickly realized that trying to maintain his consciousness was a fight he was eventually going to lose—probably sooner than later—so he took the seat behind the weapon.

Using the keypad to maneuver the cannon into position, the platform began to rotate until the twin barrels of the weapon were positioned directly over the gorge. The moving cable-car was now in sight. Positioning the barrels to draw a bead on the moving target, Mr. Michelangelo set the scope, put the gondola within the night-vision sight, and set off a wondrous barrage of gunfire that filled the night sky with dashes of moving light.

* * *

Elias Caspari heard the multiple pops of gunfire. Confused, he looked out the rear windows of the cable-car to glimpse the precipice of Deep Mountain. At first, he saw sparks of light and brief flashes, only to realize that they were tracer rounds being fired in his direction from the turret gun.

With his mouth becoming a perfect O that worked in mute protest, these tracer rounds approached with incredible speed and velocity, then smashed their way through metal and glass. As Caspari fell to the floor and covered his head, openings the size of cantaloupes magically appeared against the walls of the cab. The vehicle began to rock heavily against the overhead wires as the rounds continued to pelt the gondola in a wave of strikes. Heavy-caliber rounds continued to shred the vehicle as if its walls were fashioned from rice paper, thin and fragile. Glass continued to shatter and break. And rounds continued to assault the arm that connected the cable-car to the wire.

As the gondola continued to rock heavily from side to side, heavy rounds ricocheted off the arm, the wheels, smashing and denting them, then warping them until they became nonfunctional and useless.

The car continued to swing like a pendulum, back and forth with reckless abandon.

Elias Caspari was screaming, begging for it to stop.

But bullets continued to tear at the car and at its supporting arm and wheels that drove the vehicle, until they could no longer sustain its weight. As the arm bent slowly downward in its weakened state, as the cab began to drop from the cord, the gondola system finally gave way and the car dropped to the valley below. Elias Caspari, having been tossed from the remains of the vehicle, cried until his screams eventually fell silent.

Witnessing this from his seat high on the mountain, Mr. Michelangelo leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and cleansed his lungs with a final and departing breath.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

. . . 06:32 . . .

. . . 06:31 . . .

. . . 06:30 . . .

Kimball Hayden climbed the final ten feet of the shaft to the lobby above. After parting the doors, he was greeted by a cold and blistering wind. The entire front entry was nothing but a vast opening to the precipice. Shattered glass and twisted framework lay on a broken marble floor that had been riddled by gunfire. Lying on the floor in the