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

copse of pines was a concrete bunker. Its vault-like doorway was built into the side of a hill that was blanketed with manicured grass. On the wall next to the door was a high-tech ocular scanner. In order to gain access, not only did the system measure the threads of red lining in one’s eye, it also measured the pulsations to assure that the authorized member was still active. This state-of-the-art technology was an insurance policy against those who believed they could gain access by plucking an eye from its authorized owner, then placing the detached orb before the ocular scanner as the key-of-entry. The system, however, was developed to completely nullify this action.
Looking through an Infrared GoPro monocular, Team Leader was able to scan the landscape with the images a green hue. There were two guards by the bunker’s door and four more walking a perimeter around the area, though they were divided into two-man units.
Team Leader continued to watch the soldiers as they made their rotating rounds, with the two-man units passing each other every three minutes like clockwork. After examining the routine and making sure that it remained habitual, he gestured to his teammates with a series of hand signals. Team One was to go west and Team Two to the east, where they would maneuver into position to neutralize the sentries that paraded the grounds. Once the perimeter threat had been removed, Team Three would converge on the bunker and take out the remaining sentries.
When everyone understood the rules of engagement, the teams separated and headed towards the target site.
* * *
Francois and Franchot Archambault were French Nationals and brothers who were also generational clan members who served the Consortium, which was a clandestine organization who righted the wrongs to maintain global balance between the superpowers. Before doing so, however, they had served in the COM FST (Commandement des forces spéciales Terre), which was France’s elite Special Forces Group. It was here that they had honed their combat skills, which was a prerequisite to serving with the Consortium.
The night was raw and held an uncomfortable chill to it, the sky often opening with a miserable drizzle. But the clouds had broken to give way to the face of a near full moon whose celestial cast of light had pigmented the landscape the color of whey.
The brothers were regimented and equally classed as superior fighters. When they rounded the bunker as duty dictated, they did so without complacency. Then on one of their sweeps it was Francois who detected something improper. In the same way that a dog raises its hackles when sensing great danger, the former COM FST stood rooted, the commando searching.
After holding back his brother with a raised fist, the two then scanned the surrounding shadows with their weapons raised and leveled.
Nothing but silence.
In tandem they sensed something but saw nothing. And then a breeze swept across the meadows which forced the treetops to sway in concert from side to side, their vacillating motions beautifully entrancing.
The brothers continued to maintain their composure, kept their wits. Shadows within the copse of trees remained still and unmoving, all statuesque. Yet the brothers took the initiative to investigate the height of any threat.
As they moved towards the tree line, Franchot Archambault slowly slid the attached NVG monocular over his eyes and powered up the unit. As soon as his lens flared green, a bullet smashed through the glass and penetrated deep, a perfectly muted kill shot from the shadows, the man dead on his feet, falling.
At the same moment as Francois went to a bended knee, a high-powered round punched through and caved in his face to create a sphincter-like pucker wound. As though he was indecisively caught between life and death, Francois wavered for an impossibly long moment before registering and accepting his fate, then fell hard against the grass with the face-first approach.
From the pines, a two-man unit who had their weapons raised to eye level and their heads on a swivel, emerged from the shadows to retrieve the bodies, then dragged them quietly into the thickets beyond the tree line.
Now it was up to Team Two to finalize the mission.
* * *
Team Two blended perfectly with the background of darkness wearing black attire. As they waited, an audio feed over their earbuds confirmed that Team One had succeeded and achieved the means with takedowns.
In accordance with the predetermined rules of engagement, Team Two had trained their suppressed weapons in the direction of two approaching sentries. After dividing up the targets between them, and then placing the Consortium team within the NVG crosshairs of their rifles, the pair of snipers coordinated the timing of their trigger pulls so close together that they sounded off as a single muted shot.
After gathering the bodies and whisking them into the shadows beyond the tree line, both teams, and from opposite sides of the bunker’s mound, converged on the Master Gateway with their weapons readied.
* * *
Team Three, which had been headed by Team Leader, tapped his acolyte on the shoulder to begin their advance toward the bunker. From the trees, they pressed forward with their weapons raised. Since the mobile sentries had been neutralized, that left the two standing by the doorway.
They moved with stealth that had been practiced to perfection over the years through relentless training.
When they came within fifty meters of the bunker, Team Leader watched from his position as Teams One and Two converged on the sentries with the skilled traits of elite commandos.
Everything worked out perfectly.
* * *
The sentries remained as poised as British guards watching over the gates of Buckingham Palace, stiff and no nonsense. But as soon as they noted armed shadows flanking them, the first guard raised his weapon, the maneuver inviting his death as a round summarily pierced center mass with a kill shot to the heart, rupturing it. The second guard, realizing that he had no chance, dropped his weapon, and