The silence in the north-side tunnel was a living thing, as the Vatican Knights' moved through the corridor in a practiced choreography of hand signals and shared glances. Checking corners, clearing each office with methodical precision, the only sounds were the rhythmic clicking of their boots.
Reaching Jonah's chamber, Isaiah raised a hand, halting his squad. A wave of putrid, burnt wood odor thick and cloying wafted through the chamber. A dim, orange glow was emanating from a repurposed 55-gallon drum with its top-end glow casting an eerie, hellish light on everything within to paint long, distorted shadows on the walls.
Situated on top of an old desk, the computer screen displayed a skull and crossbones image rendered in garish red and green. A mechanized voice, devoid of any human inflection, mocked them with a chilling, repetitive "Ha-ha-ha . . . Ha-ha-ha . . . Ha-ha-ha. . ." It seemed to echo throughout the room, bouncing off the bare walls.
By the keyboard, a single sheet of paper lay on the otherwise bare desk, pristine white against the grimy surroundings. Isaiah grabbed the paper and read the cryptic message scrawled in messy handwriting:
In the realm where shadows play,
Here you are, but see me not, I say.
For I am a shadow, dark and fleet,
Once here now gone, a whispered beat.
Like a Vatican Knight, swift and bold,
In silence, my tale is told.
But not to dread, for I am there,
In the whispers of the midnight air.
For the explosion of light, you'll soon see,
Will lead you to the Light you sought, dear me.
So fear not the shadows that dance and sway,
For they guide you to the break of day.
The disturbing nursery rhyme left a cold dread inside of Isaiah, the rhyme a hint to something horrible.
"There's no sign of Jonah," Samuel said. “Jeremiah and I checked everywhere. He’s gone.”
The unease tightened in Isaiah’s gut as he glanced back at the flickering screen with its mocking laughter.
For the explosion of light, you'll soon see . . .
. . . Will lead you to the Light you sought, dear me.
Isaiah nodded to acknowledge Samuel, then he returned his attention back to the rhyme. For the explosion of light, you'll soon see. There was something cryptically wrong with that one line, he considered, but his mind couldn’t quite pinpoint the message, perhaps a warning.
Then Nehemiah said, “Hey, guys, I think you need to look at this.”
On the opposite side of the room and locked within a cage were a pair of Semtex bricks with each on a separate timer. The LED readout counted down:
. . . 3:12 . . .
. . . 3:11 . . .
. . . 3:10 . . .
Isaiah let the letter drop from his hand.
. . . 3:09 . . .
. . . 3:08 . . .
. . . 3:07 . . .
“Semtex,” Jeremiah said, stating the obvious. “And we have just over three minutes. And this place is a bloody tinderbox with all the military supply munitions. Jonah’s sanitizing the area with us in it.”
Isaiah turned to Nehemiah. “This is your specialty. Can you do anything?”
Nehemiah aimed his weapon and shot off the lock. Removing it, he reached inside the cage to examine the wiring.
. . . 2:57 . . .
. . . 2:56 . . .
. . . 2:55 . . .
“It doesn’t seem overly complex, but I need to get a further look. I’m just worried about the time.”
. . . 2:51 . . .
. . . 2:50 . . .
. . . 2:49 . . .
“And if I were the rest of you,” Nehemiah continued, “I’d be running as fast as I can.”
Isaiah immediately gave the command for the Vatican Knights to clear out, though he remained behind. Then to Nehemiah, as he was fingering through the wires, Isaiah asked, “Do you want me to stay behind?”
“No. I got this.”
“Are you sure?”
Nehemiah pointed to the timers that were running in sync.
. . . 2:43 . . .
. . . 2:42 . . .
. . . 2:41 . . .
“The Vatican needs you, Isaiah. The Vatican Knights need you. So, go.”
Isaiah, who stood his ground for a few seconds longer, turned and ran from the chamber, leaving Nehemiah to neutralize the explosives.
* * *
The Vatican Knights were running at an unimaginable pace through the corridors. They wove in and around crates, sped down corridors, going the way they came from, with each stride a step toward salvation and life. Behind them, Isaiah was closing, the commander urging his troops on, telling them to move faster.
They did, the Vatican Knights moving until their lungs and legs ached.
But was it fast enough?
* * *
Nehemiah was the Vatican Knight’s demolition expert. He knew the intricacies of timers and det cords, along with computer components that were either real or simply props to delay the process of deactivating the units.
. . . 1:33 . . .
. . . 1:32 . . .
. . . 1:31 . . .
Nehemiah looked through the wires, their coloring, and the boards they were connected to.
. . . 1:26 . . .
. . . 1:25 . . .
. . . 1:24 . . .
Sweat was beading on his brow, which he wiped away with the back of his hand.
. . . 1:09 . . .
. . . 1:08 . . .
. . . 1:07 . . .
Carefully, he grabbed the end of a wire and, with his knife, cut it.
The units continued to tick along.
He grabbed a second wire, processed its meaning with the explosive, took his knife, and cut that wire. The unit whined as though the energy source was powering off. And then the numbers on the timer disappeared.
That left the second unit.
. . . 0:44 . . .
. . . 0:43 . . .
. . . 0:42 . . .
Examining the live explosive, he noticed that the wiring and configuration was different than the first.
He continued to study the wiring and its components.
. . . 0:29 . . .
. . . 0:28 . . .
. . . 0:27 . . .
He curled a wire and placed the blade of the knife against it, ready to cut. But he hesitated since he was not entirely sure that it was the right wire. Then he cut it, the timer still working. That left one wire out of seven to choose from.
. . . 0:15 . . .
. . . 0:14 . . .
. . . 0:13 . . .
He got it down to three wires. Cutting the wrong wire, however, would set off the Semtex prematurely.
. . . 0:08 . . .
. . . 0:07 . . .
. . . 0:06 . . .
He grabbed the striped wire and cut it.
The unit whirred with a pitch that heightened, but not in a good way. He had cut the wrong wire, causing the unit to automatically enable itself for self-destruct. Nehemiah, accepting his fate and sitting back, waited for the inevitable.
* * *
Jonah was standing on a nearby peak that overlooked the cap of the bunker, about two clicks east.
He was looking at his watch that was in countdown mode.
. . . 0:03 . . .
. . . 0:02 . . .
. . . 0:01 . . .
“Boom,” he said softly.
Two clicks away, on the crest of a mountain two clicks away, the earth writhed. A tremor, a shudder, then a monstrous heave that sent a plume of fire and debris skyward. Jonah, perched on a lonely, windswept hilltop, watched the spectacle unfold with a detached satisfaction. Rain lashed against his face, a cold counterpoint to the inferno raging in the distance.
The bunker. It had gone according to plan, perhaps even better. The stale air, the decades-old munitions, all transformed into a monstrous pyre by his parting gift. He'd left behind a little surprise – two rigged explosives that shook the earth was a testament to its potency.
Trees, once rooted giants, were ripped from the ground, launched skyward like flaming projectiles. Boulders, heavy and unyielding, traced fiery arcs against the bruised, twilight sky. The world, momentarily suspended in a grotesque ballet of destruction, seemed to scream in agony.
Jonah felt a surge of exhilaration and morbid satisfaction that coursed through him like a forbidden pleasure. He had rewritten the script and torn a page from the narrative of normalcy and replaced it with a scene of unbridled chaos. The Vatican Knights, he was sure, were likely vaporized in the blast, their holy crusade extinguished in an instant.
As the rain intensified with a downpour that threatened to drown even the inferno raging on the mountaintop, Jonah, unfazed, turned his back on the spectacle with his silhouette a solitary figure against the backdrop of Europe teetering on the brink. He had grand designs that stretched far beyond a single, spectacular explosion. This was just the beginning, he told himself, a spark to ignite the coming storm. As he strode away with his boots crunching on the rain-soaked gravel, a single thought echoed in his mind – the world would learn to fear the light he offered.