Rise of the Beast: A Novel (The Patmos Conspiracy Book 1) by M.K. Gilroy Page B

Father and the Vatican. He was certain he would be selected. He met all the qualifications: he was Catholic, handsome, physically fit, a Swiss citizen, had military training and combat skills, and was between the ages of nineteen and thirty-one.
    Some claimed the Swiss Guard was the finest fighting force in the world. What an honor that would be. He passed the physical tests with flying colors. But then the rejection letter arrived. When he pressed for an answer on why he was passed over, a nervous bishop who found Jules waiting for him in his office unannounced, let it slip out that Jules had not passed the psychological testing.
    The Holy See’s loss was Alexander’s gain.
    So how could he have let down the man who gave his life purpose and meaning?
    I will find her. When Mr. Alexander has what he needs, I will cut out her eyes for my collection.

19
    Bentonville, Arkansas
    ALEXANDER’S MIND TRAVELLED BACK TO the first man he killed in cold blood. Everyone called Alexander, Jonto, at the time. He was only fifteen years old, working on a shipping vessel that was delivering cargo from Athens to Marseilles. There was a large wooden crate not listed on the manifest. Amongst the omnipresent barrels of olive oil, it concealed a few identically marked drums filled with snowy white powder wrapped in clear kilo packages. He and the man who hired him, Gabriel Lefebvre, were instructed to fit in with the other hands. There was a predetermined time and place where they would transfer the product to two men who would load the heroin on a freighter bound for Liverpool.
    Under cover of darkness and fog—a smuggler’s most beautiful kind of night—he and Lefebvre moved the heavy drums in a rowboat. The handoff went beautifully. But when they returned to their ship the second mate was waiting at the top of the ladder for them. He was also the ship’s medical doctor and watch keeping officer. Either he was personally vigilant at all hours of the night or he had been tipped off by a crewmember that Alexander and Lefebvre were up to something.
    The second mate confronted the two men alone. Big mistake. He informed them that all he wanted in return for graciously ignoring whatLefebvre and Jonto had just done was their full cut of the transaction. Every penny. He let them know they should feel lucky he hadn’t already manacled them together in the brig to turn over to the police at the next port. A bigger mistake. Despite his youth, Jonto was not someone to threaten unless you were willing and ready to act immediately. It would have been much wiser for the ship’s watch keeping officer to threaten him after he was restrained.
    Gabriel stood slack jawed and submissive. Quick as a snake, Alexander gutted the man with a switchblade, spilling his blue, gray, and purplish intestines and a bucket of bright red blood slippery goo on the deck. He wiped both sides of the knife on his pants, snapped the silvery razor-honed blade in its holder, and pocketed it.
    “What did you just do?” Gabriel whispered, dark eyes gleaming, barely able to control the quaver in his voice.
    “The only thing there was to do,” Jonto answered calmly. “The man was going to steal what is ours.”
    “Vous tromper!” Gabriel hissed, pushing Jonto backwards.
    Already playing the long game, Alexander was patient and slow to anger even at this young age, but he would not suffer anyone to call him a fool without consequence.
    The second man he murdered was Gabriel Lefebvre. Two seconds after he hissed “vous tromper!” at him, Alexander slashed Gabriel’s throat, the knife retrieved from his pocket and opened with near magical speed. Lefebvre stared at Jonto in astonishment through lifeless eyes before slumping atop the second mate on the bloody deck. Alexander took Lefebvre’s cut of the fee from the inside pocket of his oilskin windbreaker and relieved the second mate’s corpse of the generous wad of francs and other currencies in his wallet. He threw both men