“Copy that, Base Command… Out.”
The pilot shook his head. Those men, he knew, if they didn’t get out now, were as good as dead.
He tapped a button on his headgear. “Romeo-One to Team Leader Bravo. Come in, Team Leader Bravo…”
Kimball stood back from the vault when his ear bud went off. “Romeo-One to Team Leader Bravo. Come in, Team Leader Bravo…”
“This is Team Leader Bravo. Go ahead.”
“I just got word from Base Command that IDF has launched eagles and are bearing down with an ETA of thirty.”
Thirty minutes?
“Copy that, Romeo-One.”
“You want me to start evacuation process?”
“Negative. Stand by and wait for my command.”
“Copy that.”
Kimball appeared worried — something Leviticus never thought he’d see on the Vatican Knight’s face. So he had to ask. “What’s the matter?”
Kimball turned to him. “It appears that Israel is committing to a preemptive strike quicker than we planned.”
“You’re telling me that they’re in flight?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“How long?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“That’s cutting it close, Kimball.”
“I agree.” Kimball then walked toward Ezra — whose exclusive skill and purpose was setting explosive charges for maximum effect — with urgency to his gait. “Ezra, we need to get inside ASAP.”
Ezra sized up the door. “I can place explosives against the wall, which is approximately three-feet thick, the same as the door. It’ll take three, maybe four discharges before we breach the facility.”
“How long to set them off?”
“Ten minutes.”
“You have five. Get us in there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kimball fell back to access the situation only to be met by Leviticus, who grabbed him by the crook of the elbow and pulled him into close counsel. “We’re cutting it close, Kimball. I say we cut our losses and blow the facility before their jets rain down on us. At least we can keep Israel from committing themselves to a situation with serious ramifications.”
“We have thirty minutes,” he told him. “We can be well on our way to Turkey in twenty.”
Leviticus released him. “You do realize that the Quds aren’t exactly going to let us walk right in and take the Ark, right? You know that, don’t you?”
“Leviticus, this is what we’re all about. Is it not? Is this not why we are Vatican Knights?”
Leviticus stood motionless, considering, and then he nodded. “Twenty minutes,” he said.
“That’s all I ask. If we’re not in possession of the Ark by then, then we’ll bug out and destroy the facility.”
“Agreed.”
Both men turned toward Ezra who placed a packet of Semtex to the right of the door and against the stone wall. It was Ezra’s thought that blowing through concrete was the more expedient way than trying to breach the steel of the vault door.
“All right, boys,” he said, activating the detonator. “It’s time to make some noise.” And then: “Cover!”
Kimball looked at his watch: twenty-seven minutes to go. Do it!
Ezra pressed the command, setting off the Semtex. The explosion was massive as rock and debris went everywhere. When the dust settled a gaping hole the size of a small entryway was situated beside the vault door, the door itself was blackened and charred, but held nary a dent.
The team examined the break and saw that it blew inwards of nearly two feet. As far as Kimball could tell it was a great mining tool, but they were still outside the facility and time was running short.
Twenty-five minutes.
“One, maybe two more charges,” said Ezra. “But I’ll get us in.”
Kimball looked skyward, could almost hear the approaching jets.
No doubt the explosion alerted the Quds inside, causing them to side up in defense formation.
“How much Semtex you got left?” he asked.
“Two bundles.”
“Use them both as one discharge,” he told him.
“That’s a lot of power, sir.”
“Ezra, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Use them both. We’re running out of time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ezra worked quickly, piecing the explosives as a unit of one. Since Semtex was one of the most volatile explosives ever created, the blowout would be massive. After setting the charges, Ezra cautioned the team to fall way back.
Twenty-two minutes.
“Cover!” He pressed the button. The stone wall, the world, the ground beneath them, all shook with apocalyptic reverberations that seemed never-ending as cloying dust as thick as a London fog circled in lazy eddies, refusing to settle.
But through that fog they could see the light within the complex. The center had been breached.
“MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”
Kimball led the way with his MP-5 directed front and center, the mouth of the weapon’s barrel poised to kill. He easily breached the hole, which was massive, the force of the explosion blowing hot chunks of rock throughout the center with scalpel-like intensity, the energy of the blast causing the stones to act as shrapnel that destroyed everything in its path perforating the walls with numerous holes. If Quds forces had been standing at the end of the corridor waiting in defense, then they would have been cut down to pieces, their bodies’ most likely ending up as tangled masses of freshly sliced meat.
But no one was there.
The lab was empty.
The complex completely evacuated.
Whatever machines that once filled the center were now gone.
Kimball lowered his weapon, slowly, as if dismayed by his surroundings.
The entire facility had bugged out, leaving a minimal force behind for cosmetics. Most likely as an excuse to use their deaths against the sortie that was coming. Iran was bracing itself for war. And Israel was falling right into the spider’s web.
Eighteen minutes.
“There’s nothing here!” yelled Leviticus. “We have to go!”
“Check the facility for the Ark,” yelled Kimball. “We still have time. Just keep your head on a swivel, just in case!”
The Vatican Knights branched out, their weapons at eye level as they moved along the corridors clearing the way.
With the exception of a single broken monitor that was lying on its side, the lab was completely hollow. The only telltale sign that anything existed at all were the scuff marks along the tiled floor indicating that something of volume had once stood in its place. To the left was another chamber. And when Kimball entered he knew immediately that this was the chamber that housed the Ark of the Covenant.
And like everything else, it was gone.
“That’s it,” he finally said. “We’re done! Everybody out!”
The Knights quickly banded together, exited the facility, and raced for the high ground of the helipad.
Kimball spoke into his mike. “Romeo-One, this is Team Leader Bravo! Do you copy?”
“Copy, Team Leader Bravo.”
“Get that chopper to the extraction point now!”
“Copy!”
The jets were zeroing in on their target and less than fifteen minutes out.
In Tehran, as expected, they were picked up on radar, a blatant and illegal incursion into Iranian airspace which drew immediate condemnation from Iranian officials. In response Iran immediately sent their jets to retaliate, knowing full well that they were too far away to engage the enemy. But the retaliatory action was for cosmetics to show the world that Iran was well within its rights to protect itself as a sovereign country against the Zionist state of Israel.