The Eye of Moses - Vatican Knights Series 22 (2020)

pines appeared as specks that dotted the landscape. And a river which had not frozen over meandered like a thin thread along the mountains’ passageway.
Once the cable car reached Deep Mountain, Salt headed for the bank of elevators. On the wall beside the elevator doors was a touchscreen and keypad that asked for ID and password. With the dexterous fingers of his right hand, he typed in the required data.
AGENT ID
* * * * * *
PASSWORD
* * * * * * * *
Less than a second later it read:
ACCESS GRANTED
Then the magnets galvanized themselves into action and started to raise the elevator from a lower level. Once the elevator arrived and opened its doors in invitation, Salt stepped inside and said: “Lab Six.”
The elevator’s voice, which was female in character, answered: “Thank you, Mr. Salt. Please head to Laboratory Six.”
After descending about thirty feet, the elevator reached its destination of Laboratory Six.
Once inside this massively hollowed-out cavern, Salt made his way to the bell-chamber that contained Aaron’s rod. There were banks of TV monitors situated on the table, all which viewed the staff that rotated slowly on a pair of stanchions inside the compartment.
“Mr. Salt.” Elias Caspari smiled as though he was pleased with Salt’s on-time presence. “You’re just in time.”
“For?”
“The emitting power-readings of the Eye of Moses have been holding steady at safe levels,” Caspari answered, “ever since your unit confiscated the item. We’re sending a team inside to remove the crystal from the head of the staff so it can be further studied under alternative conditions.”
Salt appeared apathetic as he watched a two-man team dressed in hazmat suits and face-shields. “I thought you said the readings were safe.”
“They are. But we always prepare for the unknown, especially when we’re dealing with a dark particle.”
After the men suited up, the two-man team entered the bell-chamber. Once inside, the door automatically closed and locked behind them. Outside the bell, everyone was watching the monitors closely.
One of the men in the hazmat suits ordered a stop to the rod’s rotating platform by raising a gloved hand towards the screen. As soon as the stage stopped moving, the men moved in for a closer look.
The particle continued to pulsate with a life of its own, the crystal it was embedded in glistening like the shell of a diamond. After walking around the staff and making detailed observations as to how to extract the jeweled crystal from the head of Aaron’s rod, a tech turned on the audio feed so that everyone in the lab could listen to what was being said inside the bell.
“Team One, you read?” asked the console operator.
A hazmat tech gave a thumbs up. “Loud and clear.”
“Readings are stable.”
From a small satchel, a hazmat tech removed two items: A laser scalpel and a pair of long-nosed tweezers. “Approaching the element,” he said.
“Copy that,” acknowledged the lab tech who managed the console.
With careful precision, the hazmat-tech started to slice away slivers of petrified wood that were the size of fingernail clippings. Careful not to strike the crystal, the tech moved to weaken the area surrounding the mineral in order to extract it like a loose tooth. After forty minutes of shaving away at the borders surrounding the quartz-like cocoon, the tech raised the tweezers and held them close to the mineral.
“Moving in for extraction,” he said.
“Proceed, Team One.”
The moment the two sides of the tweezers closed on the crystal; blue bolts extended from the cocoon at the speed of light. Electrically charged tendrils struck out blindly to defend itself with the stabbing points of the bolts striking and scorching the bell's interior wall with quarter-sized circles. Blue charges continued to lash out at the techs, causing them to spasm like marionettes at the end of a puppeteer’s strings, the bolts then punching through their suits and piercing their flesh. The material—made of plastic, fabric, and rubber—ripped to vent tendrils of smoke as their skin bubbled and charred. Their face-shields were no longer clear but painted over with a color that was more burgundy than red. And in the subsequent moments as the bolts withdrew back into the crystal, the techs fell to the floor as smoldering remains.
Elias Caspari felt nauseated as to what he had just seen. Not because of the loss of life which he had witnessed on occasion without drawing sentiment, but because of the failure involved. This particle was not about to relinquish its hold on the rod, which had become its home for millenniums. To touch it obviously invited death. The question now was: how were they going to extract it? Let alone harness it. This particle was like a bronco that neither wanted to be yoked nor controlled.
This setback, however, was just that to Elias Caspari: an obstruction that needed to be resolved. The best minds in the world were working inside Deep Mountain. He knew his team of researchers would come up with a solution since there was a solution to everything.
“Find it!” he cried. “I want the answer to harnessing the power of that particle!”
With his hands clasped behind his back, Caspari stormed away leaving Salt to wonder about the type of power they were dealing with, of whether it was spiritual or celestial. In the end, Salt concluded that it had to be divine in nature because the power within the crystal was too great.
When the door to the bell-chamber unlocked and opened, the acrid scent of burnt flesh permeated the entire lab, a sickening odor. But Salt appeared unmoved by the scent and was already thinking that it would take time to exploit the power of the dark particle.
And time, he considered, is never a luxury when there’s an agenda at stake.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Consortium Stronghold
Cochem, Germany
Deep beneath the Consortium lair was a tech lab with high-end equipment that featured state-of-the-art technology. There were Plexiglas monitors where technicians used specialized gloves to move holographic apps around the panes to open files and images. On the far wall was a mega-screen that