by Rick Jones
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Within the fieldstone barracks that housed the Vatican Knights, Kimball was in his chamber sitting on the edge of his bed. He stared at the votive rack and the podium with the Bible across the room. Then he looked up at the stained-glass window situated on the wall above his bed. The image of the Virgin Mary held her arms out to him as the sun’s rays shone through the pane, giving it a halo effect.
When Kimball stood he did so within the light’s glow, as baptismal warmth eclipsed him.
So he closed his eyes.
And he basked within the light.
His life away from the church had been a struggle. And in his personal journey he had lost a woman he loved in Sister Abigail. Though he could not defend her when she needed him most, he still became a savior to those who could not protect themselves.
Though he was still burdened with the grief of losing her, he knew that Sister Abigail was looking down at him. And she was proud of him. What happened to her was not his fault. He cannot control the manipulations of some men because the world is what it is. But at least he tried to become that good man to see that evil never prevails.
With his eyes still closed he could see Sister Abigail in his mind’s eye, smiling.
He smiled back.
And though he could not hear her, he could read her lips as she mouthed ‘thank you.’
Then she was gone, her image fading toward a great and blinding light.
He opened his eyes and continued to stare at the stained-glass window of the Virgin Mary.
Suddenly he felt different. He felt . . . lighter.
The guilt and burden of Sister Abigail’s death was no longer with him, which was one less cross to bear upon his shoulders.
Then he took a seat and for a long time stared at nothing in particular, his eyes becoming distant. Then the edges of his lips curled into a marginal smile as a single thought struck him:
It was good to be back home.
Also from Rick Jones
Vatican Knights Series
The Vatican Knights
While on a visit to the United States, Pope Pius XIII is kidnapped by a terrorist cell calling itself the Soldiers of Islam. If the United States and its allies do not meet their demands, they will execute the pope. So when FBI Specialist Shari Cohen is called to duty to track down the terrorist cell responsible, she learns that she is not alone. Deep behind the Vatican walls a secret order dispatches a clandestine op group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. Their mission: bring the pope back alive. As Cohen and the Knights work in tandem they uncover a White House conspiracy involving high-ranking members on Capitol Hill. When she begins to get too close to the truth about the pope’s kidnapping, she becomes the target of indigenous forces trying to keep the conspiracy safe. However, in order to get to her they must go through the Vatican Knights.
Shepherd One
While traveling across the United States during the Papal Symposium, the papal plane, Shepherd One, is commandeered by a terrorist cell calling itself the Muslim Revolutionary Front. On board: a nuclear payload with half the yield that destroyed Hiroshima. Their demand to the U.S. government: assassinate the five leading principals of Mossad. While the American leadership is forced to follow through with a proposition that would cripple the intelligence network between the allies, Pope Pius XIII is not without his own weapon. On board Shepherd One is his personal valet, a man who is the leader of a clandestine op group of elite commandos known as the Vatican Knights. His mission: retake the plane and remove all hostile opposition. Using his very particular set of skills, Kimball Hayden must neutralize the situation before thousands of lives are lost, including that of Pope Pius XIII.
The Iscariot Agenda
Kimball Hayden is the Commander of an elite commando group known as the Vatican Knights, a black-op force that works for the Church to protect its sovereignty, its interests, and the welfare of its citizenry. But Kimball is being stalked by someone from the past, a soldier that is stronger, faster, and far more brutal—an assassin so deadly not even the Vatican Knights can stop him. This Alpha Assassin has set Kimball within the crosshairs and is systematically destroying his old team of elite fighters, the Force Elite. Kimball is then sent to confront this killer who leaves behind lettered clues carved into the flesh of his teammates: ISCARIOT. Not only does Kimball have to battle something far more dangerous than anything he has ever encountered, but he must destroy this Alpha Assassin before this killer brings his personal war to the Vatican.
Pandora's Ark
Thirty years ago the world was in the exploratory stages of creating a technology capable of artificial intelligence. Thirty years later that technology has been perfected. In a lab somewhere in a remote mountain region in Iran, nanoparticles, or micro-bots, have been created to be self-sustaining and self-reproducing, each day evolving and learning from experience. They have been programmed to be the ultimate predator, devouring everything in their path and leaving nothing behind. Now in the hands of a terrorist group, the Vatican has come within the crosshairs. Using the Ark of the Covenant as a Trojan Horse, Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights must stop the promise of complete destruction of Rome by combating something unseen, and something that can kill within seconds.
The Bridge of Bones
While vacationing in Paris, Shari Cohen’s children are kidnapped by Jadran Božanović, a Croatian kingpin who runs a human-trafficking cartel who is as deadly as the knife he wields. Few dare to challenge him. And even fewer dare to defy him. With time running out and her resources running thin, Shari calls upon the aid of Kimball Hayden and his team Vatican Knights—an elite group of commandos dedicated to protect the sovereignty, interests and citizenry of the Church—and are once again reunited. But Kimball finds that his team is quickly outmanned and outgunned, the death toll climbing against forces that are the deadliest the Knights have ever faced. With his back against the wall, Kimball is forced to choose Justice over Law by taking on Jadran Božanović in a contest that only one man can survive. But Kimball soon learns that the Croatian is as ruthless as his legend and just as powerful, if not more so, than the Vatican Knight himself.
Eden Saga
The Crypts of Eden
In southeast Turkey where the heads of the four main rivers once met, a magnificent temple created 14,000 years ago is discovered beneath the desert floor. Believed to have been created by lost technology, it is quickly determined by a team of archeologists to be the centerpiece of Eden, a once illustrious civilization and the cradle of mankind. But what if Eden is not the Paradise texts make it out to be? What if it held dark secrets and unholy terrors instead? As Senior Archeologist Alyssa Moore and her team of experts discover the truth of man’s beginning, she realizes that the secrets of man’s true origins lie within the sacred tombs inside the temple. But the journey for the truth is not without its dangers or pitfalls . . . Something walks the warrens within.
The Menagerie
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FINAL EXTINCTION EVENT...
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS...
THE RISE OF APEX PREDATORS…
Nearly sixty-five million years ago an asteroid collided with the Yucatan Peninsula in the fifth and final Extinction Event that nearly destroyed all life on Earth. But when a recent earthquake exposes something unusual 2000 feet beneath the Yucatan Peninsula, cryptanalysts Alyssa Moore and John Savage are called in to investigate this peculiar structure that bears uncanny resemblances to writings discovered in Eden.
Working with the Department of Defense, John and Alyssa discover the remains of what is believed to be the cataclysmic bolide to have struck the Earth sixty-five million years ago is actually a broken-off section of an intergalactic ark.
Inside this remnant, they discover a zoological lab containing a menagerie of apex predators gathered from all points of the universe. But as John and Alyssa begin to tie in the writings on the ship to writings they discovered in Eden, a DOD military faction seeking intel unwitti
ngly disrupts matters by awakening sleeping giants.
Finding themselves fighting for self-preservation and for the salvation of Earth, John and Alyssa battle soldiers trying to kill them for the sake of completing a hidden agenda . . .
. . . and against the most vicious predators in the universe.
The Thrones of Eden
More than a year ago John Savage and Alyssa Moore nearly lost their lives after discovering the Temple of Eden. Now, two more temples have been discovered: The Temple of God, which holds the answers to mankind’s inevitable fate, and a third temple that houses Earth’s future once mankind has been eliminated. As John and Alyssa find themselves in a life and death struggle against hidden dangers within these ancient sanctuaries, they become the keys that would either serve as mankind’s salvation . . . or condemn them to the dark fate that was prophesied within the Temple of God. But when they reach the halls of the third temple they awaken something that’s been lying dormant for centuries. Programmed to protect those who sit upon the Thrones of Eden, these sentinels are one with the darkness and the protectors of a new regime. They are the saviors paving the way to a new future and the promise for mankind’s destruction. But the only ones who stand in their way, the only two who can provide any hope of salvaging the future of mankind, are John Savage and Alyssa Moore.
Familiar Stranger
How can a killer be 3000 miles away and at your doorstep at the same time?
Ashley Quinton is on the verge of madness after the release of a killer she helped put behind bars nineteen years ago. Upon the exact moment of his discharge, she immediately receives calls from a local payphone from someone who tells her things only the killer would know. And then she begins to see items connected to her past–items that were given to her by this man when she was a child, only for them to disappear in a haze of smoke and mirrors before others can confirm her claims. As much as she points an accusing finger at the killer as the culprit, he’s proven to be three thousand miles away. Yet as far away as he is, he knows everything that’s going on in Ashley’s life because he’s also at her doorstep.
*Formerly published as The Man Who Cast Two Shadows
Game of Drones
In Pakistan, Muhammad al-Zawahiri is finally taken into custody after the United States pressures the Pakistani government to take action.
Inside a highly secured installation not too far from Washington D.C., five Reaper drones with state-of-the-art technology are stolen by a terrorist cell with military sophistication.
The demand: if Zawahiri is not released, then a wave of attacks will begin with an arsenal of weaponry so devastating that it would cause the United States to collapse into chaos.
As America becomes subject to horrifying attacks, one man heads his team of select warriors, the O.U.T.C.A.S.T.s (Operational Undertaking to Counteract Active Stateside Threats), ex-operatives from elite organizations that counteract threats, to track down and eliminate the cell before they bring the nation down to its knees.
With time running out and the Frankenstein’s monster of American technology running wild, can Tanner Wilson and his team of O.U.T.C.A.S.T.s destroy the threat before the threat destroys the United States?
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue
Table of Contents
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PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
Escherichia coli
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Yaqui Valley
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
respirations
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bir Gifgafa,
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Epilogue