More explosions reverberated through the depository. The Descending Angels, having breached the rooftop at the north and central sectors, began rappelling into the building.
Both men continued to square off, obviously intent on one another. “It’s all over,” hollered Isaiah. “Give it up.”
“Are you kidding?” said Kodiak. “I would die with a smile on my face knowing that I broke your neck.” He came at Isaiah with savage forearm thrusts and deadly kicks, each missing its mark as the much nimbler Isaiah dodged or deflected the blows in seemingly effortless fashion. Kodiak, in what he thought was an opening, lifted his massive arm to strike a crushing hammer blow to Isaiah’s skull, but Isaiah lashed out with his foot and drove Kodiak backward.
Quickly employing kick after powerful kick, blow after powerful blow, Isaiah attacked the much larger man with such incredible speed and skill, Shari, watching from the corridor, was transfixed by the talent of his martial arts. He was smooth and graceful, the movements hypnotic, and in quick fashion had Kodiak pinned against the opposite side of the hallway with his back pressed against a boarded window. In bestial rage Kodiak screamed as Isaiah came around with a powerful kick that connected squarely on Kodiak’s chest. The impact was so great, the contact so forceful, the impetus drove the large man through the window, his body tumbling in speedy revolutions to the graveyard below. His death sounded like a melon hitting the pavement.
Isaiah immediately gathered his assault weapon. Now with Leviticus by his side, the Descending Angels swarming the hallway, and ground forces moving up the stairwell, the two Knights and Shari entered the Monitor Room expecting an all-out assault.
But the room was empty.
The Force Elite had prepared well for the contingency of being surrounded by the opposition. While Kodiak combated Isaiah, the others used the opportunity to escape through a false panel built into the old floor disguised as a series of removable tiles. They descended immediately to the second level. Once assembled, they made their way down the hallway and took position beneath the room where the pope was held, and aimed their assault weapons at the ceiling with the intent to kill.
After checking on the remaining four members of the Holy See and finding them justifiably shaken, Shari left Leviticus and Isaiah to tend to their needs while she continued to search the vacant rooms that bordered the corridor.
In a room that held little light, Shari spotted a lump of darkness gathered against the far wall. It was amoeba-like in its form, but moving, its breathing labored and wet, however. When she neared the shape it began to take on an outline of an old man holding another closely. The two masses together, from a distance, indistinguishable. Up close, she could see that the pope had drawn a dead man into his embrace.
“Your Holiness!” She kneeled and gently touched the old man’s forehead and felt the heat of fever. “Your Holiness, you’re ill. We’ll get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“Who are you?” he asked weakly while she wrapped blankets around him.
“FBI Special Agent Shari Cohen, I’m here with the Vatican Knights.”
His brows rose. “Kimball’s here?”
“Yes, sir. They’re acting as my Critical Incident Response Group.”
“Then it’s truly over?”
“Yes, sir, you’re safe.”
The pope raised his hand. The chain that tethered him to the wall for so long was now broken, a perfect shot by Team Leader freeing the man. “I don’t know why he did this,” the pope explained.
Shari sidestepped the body of Bishop Angelo. “We’ll come back for him. I promise.”
In that instance the floor suddenly erupted in shards of wood and bullets. So Shari grabbed the pope and forced him close to the wall, shielding him with her body. From underneath gunshots perforated the floorboards and strafed the ceiling, causing bits of wood and old tar to cascade down on them like rain. All around feathers floated in the gloom as bullets penetrated the old mattresses, the feather stuffing swirling and dancing about in lazy eddies. Bishop Angelo’s body also took multiple hits, the punching bullets animating his corpse into jiggling fits. And in desperation, Shari cried out as the room became a world of spinning lead, gently floating feathers, and choking dust.
Kimball moved discreetly down the second floor corridor. Thirty yards ahead the area was lit by multiple muzzle flashes, marking the spot where the members of the Force Elite were shooting at the ceiling.
Over Kimball’s earpiece he heard Shari cry out over her mike, not an order nor a battle cry, but a shout of extreme anxiety.
He quickly converged with his grenade launcher loaded and ready. Less than a second later a grenade corkscrewed through the quasi-darkness and exploded with an eruption that scattered the commandos throughout the corridor as bits and pieces of gore. None of them knew what hit them.
At the base point of their attack, Kimball looked up and noted the perforated ceiling above him. When he called out Shari’s name numerous times but received nothing but feedback, he became particularly concerned for her welfare.
And then a voice, distant and hollow, came from behind. “You would be Kimball Hayden, I assume.” Kimball turned quickly, his finger on the trigger of an empty weapon, and then with his free hand removed his helmet and lip mike and tossed them aside.
At the end of the hallway a man stood near the collapsed stairwell, sizing Kimball.
Kimball took a step toward him, the mouth of the grenade launcher pointing downward.
“I have heard so much about you,” the man said, his accent thick. “I hear that there is no better warrior than you.”
Kimball moved closer, the face of the man clearer in the feeble light. Beneath the chin, a wedge of scarring, the distortion of tissue as identifying as a tattoo.
“And you would be Abraham Obadiah,” he said.
“That would be, at least for today, the name you would know me by, yes.”
Obadiah reached down and methodically withdrew his black-bladed commando knives from sheaths on both thighs. It was an invitation to Kimball who lowered his weapon to the floor and withdrew his own knives.
“Now,” said Obadiah, the points of his blades pointing wickedly. “I would be so honored to be the one to kill the legend.”
Kimball took a fighting stance. “Don’t count on it.”
They closed the gap swinging the blades with precision and savagery.
Dust and feathers floated with cloying thickness. When Shari pulled back from the pope she saw that the floor was marked by countless holes inches apart. How she and the pope escaped the volley was beyond her, but she couldn’t quite rule out a miracle either. Removing dusty blankets from the pope, she saw he was untouched by the fusillade. His eyes were glazed with fever, his skin hot to the touch, but he smiled and raised a bony hand to brush his fingers softly against her cheek. “I thought you said I was safe, young lady.”
She returned his smile. “You are now. For some reason I have the feeling Kimball got involved.”
“You know something?” the pope said. “I think you might be right.”
The blades deflected off one another as they fought viciously. With metal striking metal sparks flew abundantly before dying out, only for new ones to take their place. Each man moved with poise and skill, their actions motivated by instinct rather than deduction since their movements were too fast for the mind to comprehend the next move.