Kimball gained his feet and attempted to brush away the dust with futile swipes of his hands. “You were cutting it close,” he said. “Too close.”
“Had to make sure my aim was true,” said Isaiah. He removed the knife from the Arab, the blade extracting wetly, and wiped it clean across the Arab’s clothing.
“Eyes peeled,” whispered Kimball, pointing to the stairwell. “Now we have to work our way up.” And moving up was never easy, the advantage always belonging to those who maintain the high ground.
Kimball, grabbing the assassin’s gun, and then extracting the clip and checking to see if it was full, reseated it.
The Knights moved forward.
There was no mistaking that the lobby had been breached, thought the Arab maintaining the upper level. With the two NAS officers lying dead at his feet, he stacked one on top of the other to provide a marginal barrier as he hunkered behind them. If his teammate didn’t stop the incoming wave, then it was up to him to impede them long enough for Sayyid to complete the mission.
There was an unsettling quiet, a disconcerting hush.
He wanted to call out his comrade’s name, but didn’t want to give his position away.
He held the pistol firmly within his grip, using the bodies of the NAS officers to steady his aim.
The stairway was quiet.
And sweat was beginning to surface on the Arab’s brow, causing him to sweep his arm across his forehead.
The air was stifling, and the minutes seemed to drag on for hours, the Arab wondering if Sayyid had tooled the laptop to initiate the program.
He looked at his watch. His heart palpitating. Giving his life to Allah was not as spectacular as he thought it would be. The act of martyrdom was overrated, he considered, the thought of Paradise no longer alluring.
He wanted to run, to live. His mind raced feverishly like a desperate animal trapped against the corner of two walls with nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, his killer edging closer with the intent to kill, emblazoned in his eyes.
Although his killer went unseen, he could sense him coming closer.
He swallowed, looked at his watch. Sweat was coursing profusely along his face. And then self-preservation took over. The Arab stood, yelled, his eyes going feral, and descended the steps shooting blindly at the shadows, at anything that appeared to move, striking nothing but wall, pocking them. When his clip emptied he fumbled to seat another, the time wasted a fatal one. A bullet found its mark, a shot to the center of body mass, rupturing the man’s heart.
The Arab fell like a stone, dead the instant his knees began to buckle and before falling down the stairwell in a tumble.
Leviticus took the man’s weapon, grabbed the remaining clip, seated it, and along with Kimball and Isaiah, climbed the last leg of the staircase.
Sayyid was unaware of what had taken place inside the hotel, since the weapons were geared with suppressors. But he was not totally without the perception that the hotel had been breached, since he saw glimpses of shadows attempting to maneuver across the Viale Vaticano in clandestine manner. It was like sighting something at the edge of his periphery vision, but not quite seeing it in its totality.
But it was there no matter how obscure it may have appeared.
He ratcheted up his agenda, his fingers dancing, typing, the encrypted runes becoming letters, the letters becoming commands, the commands initiating the program.
He typed faster, sensing that he was not alone. Something was coming closer — up on his backside.
“Stop right there, Sayyid.”
The Arab stared at the monitor. His mission was all but complete. The encryptions were completely deciphered, the program waiting to be initialized with a single push of the ENTER button. His finger hovered over the key and hung there.
“I’m afraid that you are too late,” he said. “What will be, will be. And there’s nothing you can do to stop this from happening.”
“It will if I put a bullet in your brain.”
This time the voice sounded nearer, which meant to Sayyid that they were edging closer to his position. So he slowly lowered his finger, but not touching down.
“If you take another step, I will initiate the program. I may not have eyes in the back of my head, but my hearing is exceptional.” The Arab turned to face his attackers. He noted the odd configuration of uniform; saw the black clerics’ shirts and Roman Catholic collars, the incongruous combination of military wear, and the attached sheaths with combat knives.
“You are not Swiss Guard or Vatican Security, are you?”
They said nothing, their weapons poised.
“Step away from the computer,” said Kimball. “It’s not our intention to harm you.”
The Arab chortled. “I have already resigned to my fate and gladly offer my life in the name of Allah,” he said. The tip of his finger now touched the button. “Should you fire off your weapon, then I will push this button by reaction.”
Kimball aimed the firearm at the man’s head.
And the Arab saw the directed aim. “Head shot or not, my body will react all the same.”
Kimball drew in a breath. The Arab was right.
So in a quick and fluid motion, Kimball directed his aim and shot the computer.
Unfortunately, his aim was not true.
Sayyid saw the quickness of Kimball’s motion and immediately realized his intention. The Arab quickly shifted his footing, his body acting as a shield as he turned into the bullet’s path, taking the strike, the computer untouched as the bullet entered his body and ricocheted until it lodged in his lung, causing considerable damage but not the killing blow.
Before falling to his knees, Sayyid depressed the button.
Kimball had taken the gamble and lost.
Stepping to the laptop, he watched the commands on the screen scroll downward.
And then he leaned over Sayyid, grabbed him roughly by the collar, and yanked the man so close that their faces were inches apart. “What have you initiated?” he asked fiercely. “What have you done?”
The Arab laughed. And when he did so blood bubbles formed and burst at the corners of his lips. “You’ll find out within minutes,” he told him. “Within… minutes.”
And then his head fell back, slowly, his eyes growing vacant as his life left him.
When Sayyid was dead Kimball released him, and then looked over the railing at the Basilica with grave concern.
What have I done?
The mood inside the Basilica was a festive one. The Ten Commandments sat inside the Ark, two bullet-shaped tablets with engravings detailing the laws brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses.
People heralded the Ark, the tablets, defining this moment as a great time in history for all of mankind.
People banded about, smiling, Arabs and Jews and Catholics becoming a unit of one. Politicians had their spirits lifted, willing to take back with them what they had seen and felt, the goodness of overwhelming light and indescribable being, and then to share it amongst their constituencies.
And then the joviality came to a resounding halt, smiles withering, ears perking to the sound of something alien.
From the depths of the Ark came the resonance of a hum, low at first, but growing in volume like the nest of agitated wasps ready to take flight.
People backed away.
The waspy hum grew louder.
And then there were cries of pain and fear and the misunderstanding of what was happening.
Their skin begin to itch and turn red, like the beginnings of a rash, their flesh being needled as pinprick bites began to take their toll.
Outside the Basilica doors, no one could hear their screams.