GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (65 page)

Zito’s
body could not
find
any more oxygen
.
He had lost a lot of blood
,
and there was no air left
—
none! His body screamed
in agony.
Impulsively turning his head up to the right and dropping his weapon,
he stood and
us
ed
his good hand in a failed attempt to stop the gas
from
escaping
...

The room was by now completely saturated with the inert gas. Falling to his knees
,
the man could not even gasp for life
—he held
his throat frantic
ally
as froth began to exude from his lungs
.
With only a matter of seconds for him left to live, his final thought
was one
of disbelief
:
Beaten by an
a
mateur
...
.

Agent Zito c
ollaps
ed
onto the ground and inhaled no more
...
the deadly
,
inert gas polluted his body.
Agent Zito was dead.
The sound of the
hissing
Halon gas eventually seemed to fizzle out
...
.

Despite the hole in her hideaway,
Francesca was still alive!
She tried to stuff the
puncture
with
part of her shirt and then w
ait
ed
for the right moment to go
...
she too could not breathe!
Taking a final series of shallow breaths
—
there was not enough air for deep
breaths—she readied herself.
This was it!
It was time to move fast!

Francesca knew that the gas was her saviour and might also be her undoing
.

Unlocking and opening the duct door, she entered the server room and saw the man lifeless on the floor, froth around his mouth, his face blue
.
Not wanting to waste precious seconds, s
he ran past him towards the security door
.
Francesca
did not give the
VIA
Agent any more
thought
than she would a dying snake.
So much had happened that her nature had changed.
The girl had become ruthless.

When Francesca reached the security door
,
she typed her code
quickly
and then realised
with a heart-wrenching surge of disappointment that she’d
dropped
her
access card somewhere
.
It could be anywhere between the dungeons and
the
catacombs
....
My
G
od
,
I do not have it!
Oh
G
od, I will die!

Frantically banging on the door with her fists, she was a woman possessed
, though dying
.
There was nobody to
hear her, unfortunately
.
In that last moment
,
she looked over at the
agent,
realising that she would join him in death
...
when abruptly she fell backwards against the wall
as
t
he door burst open!
Wearing her dark purple
Proxima
Eco
-
Cleaning Utilities
overalls, the cleaner woman Agata
burst into the room.
For
all
her size
,
this
little lady packed a punch
—she
pick
ed
Francesca up easily
,
with the strength of a
f
irem
a
n!

The small woman quickly put the girl over her shoulder
.
She recognised that the man lying down was dead
, and she was willing to leave him so.
There was absolutely no air
left in the room
as
the
women escaped
,
and
the security door
banged
shut behind
them
!

Agata
sat Francesca gently down outside against the outside wall
to the comms room, and
Francesca looked up
at her friend wearily,
s
truggling still to catch her breath.
Her senses recognis
ed
the woman
’s smells, realising once more that the old lady
smoked and liked
to take
a secret drink from the executive offices
every now and then
.
No one would ever know
...
Francesca
would make sure of it.
T
he woman’s old
,
scaly skin
was rough on Francesca’s cheek
.
How nice it seemed
...
.

She was still alive!

CHAPTER IX

SECRETS BEHIND THE VATICAN WALLS

Sitting with her back against the wall
,
Francesca
heaved deep, ragged breaths,
still struggling to
fill her blood with oxygen. She still
could not move, feeling intensely cold and light headed.
But s
he was alive!
For a short moment
,
the young
woman
reflected
on all that
had happened
...
.

Thinking of how she’d proved
more than a match for the dead agent, Francesca opened her eyes
.
Why was I to be “rescinded”?
she wondered.

Rescendition was the clinical term used for the assassination of
an individual, and the term had held
deadly consequences for poor Massimo.
What about those apparitions
she saw
behind the Vatican walls
...
what were they?
Francesca imagined
that the creatures were hallucinations
brought on by being drugged.
It would have been easy for
VIA
to
drop
a slow-acting drug
into
her
water.
It all made complete sense.

Francesca’s mind
had begun
to clear and her breathing
came
much easier
.
A
ir flow
ed
back into her lungs
joyfully
...
and
then her mind jolted into reality!

‘What is happening
,
Francesca, what is going on?’
Agata
asked frantically
,
her
voice panicking at her close involvement at the site of the mayhem! The cleaner had
had
no time to think on hearing the alarm and the frantic banging on the inside door!
Having the required security access to designated areas to clean and tidy
, t
he woman rescued the girl.
She was still confused
about what had happened
and needed some answers.

‘I’ll get you an ambulance, wait here
,
’
she said,
r
unning off quickly
.
Francesca thought it
was odd to see
the woman
as she picked up her bucket
and ran
off to a nearby office to phone for help
.

That was close
,
the girl
thought,
still shattered when a great urgency came upon her.
I must get the
p
olice and the commissionaire’s help; Agata will have to catch up later!
she realised.

Standing up unsteadily at first, Francesca started running along the corridor towards the elevators with the claxons still resounding behind.
As she fled
the elevator
on the first floor,
the girl quickly scanned the area
—
the crystal fountain dominated the foyer with its crashing water
,
which
plummet
ed
and splash
ed
into the round pool.
The clattering noises resonat
ed
off the polished marble walled interior and reflect
ed
from the clinically clean floors inside the main foyer.

Francesca passed the
c
ommissionaire’s desk
,
observing
that the
electronic security alarm dashboard displayed a red alert flashing madly on fifth floor!
There was no fire, she knew this
.
But the
c
ommissionaire was nowhere to be seen
.

It was late evening
,
and Francesca could
see
only some of the fine gardens beyond
the front doors
.
The floral arrangement
,
engineered in all its holiness
,
had been
grown in the shape of the papal seal; the Swiss guards were preoccupied at the far end in the car park, checking a suspicious vehicle!

They are too far away
—
they will not hear me!
Turning
a
round and looking into her office from the commissionaire desk
, she wondered if
s
omebody was still
in there,
working late
.

‘Great!’ Francesca
said out loud when she spotted someone.
O
h
,
it is Jonathan!
Her face automatically sneered.
The man was standing over Guielletta
as
t
he girl typ
ed
some program coding instructions into the computer.

They
must be
working on
another system upgrade.
They just did one last week! Still
,
I never thought I would be so glad to see them
.

Francesca
knocked on
the door
frantically, having
lost her card entry.
Jonathan stood to the right side of his colleague with his arm and hand over her shoulders
,
almost embracing his subordinate
—
both
contractors
looked up and turned around
,
surprised to see Francesca banging at the office door
.

Jonathan saw
her evident
distress and
anxiously
ran
over to
help
Francesca inside
. When he opened the door,
the girl collapsed in on top of him!
Catching the technician
in his arms
and holding her up, he star
ed
in disbelief at her state.
She looked awful
—
totally shabby!
She
had
dirt and blood
all
over her face, knees and hands,
and every bare patch of skin was
cut and grazed.
Her jeans were ripped at the knees and her top
was
torn
—her
hair was bedraggled
and matted.

‘Francesca!
My goodness, look at you
—
are you ok?
Have you had an accident or something?’
Jonathan spoke
to the girl with genuine concern
.
‘Come with me along here and sit down
at your desk.’
He
led her away from the door
.
‘Now
,
let me see, I will fix you up here and now.
You’ll be just fine.’

Guielletta
watch
ed
closely as both stumbled
into
the office
.
A
few moments later
,
Francesca was sitting and resting on her own chair.
Jonathan
offered her a cup of water from the dispenser.
Francesca declined
,
al
though she was dry as a bone
...
.

‘Guielletta
,
phone for an ambulance and bring me a first aid kit quickly
,
please
,
’
Jonathan commanded.

‘How is Francesca?’ she asked.

‘Francesca will be al
l
right
—she’s just had
a little accident
,
that’s all.
To be on the safe side
,
call
an ambulance
anyway.’
Guielletta nodded and picked up the phone
,
asking for the emergency services as Francesca looked around
,
her vision blurred.