CABAL (The Vatican Knights Book 9) Page 18

  But the Church needed him now more than ever. The world was in an upheaval. Churches and mosques were burning all over the globe as retaliatory hate crimes. In the United Kingdom, in France, Spain, the United States, the list went on and on. But the place that remained within the crosshairs was the Vatican. And Kimball’s desire for a new life was being outweighed by his obligation to return, to fight, and defend.

  ISIS had come but they did not conquer.

  And deep inside Kimball’s heart he knew they would come again. Bonasero’s death was only the beginning.

  He looked at the sky. In the distance he saw a column of smoke rising, a slow-moving twister, and wondered if it was a church or a mosque or something far simpler, like the stack of a factory chimney.

  Then he wondered if he could move forward and make a difference with Bonasero no longer overseeing his missions. But he would return to the Vatican and enter the burial chambers below the Basilica. And there he would hold council with Bonasero, man to headstone, and do a little soul searching between the living and the dead.

  He would ask questions and wait for the timbre of Bonasero’s voice in his mind to give him direction. He would sit by the grave for hours and grieve over the loss. And then in the end, with his conscience now wired to surrender his wants and needs over the needs of the Church, he would once again don the cleric’s collar and fight for the cause of all good people, and for those who could not protect themselves.

  There would be no picket fences. There would be no family, no children, no dog to call by name or lick the back of his hand, and there would be no other future than what he was created to do.

  Kimball Hayden was a Vatican Knight.

  But without Bonasero to steer him true, he wondered if he would fall and never get back up.

  It’s time to walk on your own, he decided. It’s time to seek the Light of Salvation by the tools that Bonasero has given me.

  Standing, Kimball exited the park with thoughts continuing to accelerate through his mind. Despite all the ways Bonasero had shown him, Kimball was still Kimball; therefore, he was circuited differently than most.

  There were things that needed to be done, something Pope John Paul III would not see eye to eye with. But slates had to be cleaned and dragons needed to be slain.

  And Kimball knew exactly right where he wanted to start.

  And he knew exactly with whom.

  Kimball was moving on.

  EPILOGUE

  Raqqa, Syria

  Same Day

  Few knew what Mabus looked like. And that included most of his lieutenants, including people like Ismail and Sayed. Most of his commands were issued through people like Chahine, who closely managed and directed the couriers. It was simply a protective feature to remain faceless and blameless from the intel community. Even as rocket strikes from American drones rained down on Raqqa, Mabus knew they were not to remove the head of the snake. They committed their sorties because Raqqa was considered an ISIS stronghold deep inside Syria.

  As soon as the strikes ended and the sky cleared for the next pending strike, Chahine entered Mabus’ chamber with a small satchel in his hand. It was a leather pouch with the Arabic letters of Mabus’ name spelled out on its surface. “Mabus.”

  The radical leader faced him. “Chahine.”

  “Sayed is dead.”

  “So I’ve been informed. As is Ismail. Any word about my son?”

  “Not at this time,” said Chahine. “His body was not found at the site. So we don’t know if he lives or not.”

  Mabus nodded acceptingly.

  Then Chahine held up the pouch and dangled it.

  Mabus shrugged. “What?”

  “This was brought by a courier after Sayed’s body was discovered in Deir ez-Zor.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “The pouch,” Chahine said. “It has your name on it.”

  At first Mabus appeared quizzical, then curious. “Did you check it out?”

  Chahine nodded. He did.

  “And?” asked Mabus.

  “Inside is a bottle. Inside the bottle is a note.”

  “Did you open it?”

  “No, Mabus. Not if it is for your eyes only.”

  Mabus held his hand out. “Give it here.”

  Chahine gave him the pouch.

  Mabus fumbled with the strings, opened the top of the small leather satchel, and removed the bottle. It was small and faintly blue in color. Inside was a small scroll. After removing the small cork, he worked the letter from the bottle and opened it.

  It was in English.

  “What is this?” asked Mabus. “It’s not Arabic.”

  “I know, Mabus. We have no one to translate.”

  Mabus looked at the old parchment, then at the bottle. “This is meaningless to me,” he said.

  “Still, it comes with your name. It is not up to me to decide its importance. But for you.”

  Mabus agreed and discarded the letter by tossing it to the hard-packed floor of earth. Then he tossed the bottle to a small bucket reserved for rubbish on the other side of the room, missed, and told Chahine to learn of his son’s welfare as they walked out of the room together.

  Sitting on the floor with the note exposed for anyone who could read English, it said:

  THIS IS SAYED’S LAST BREATH

  FOR WHICH YOURS WILL SURELY JOIN

  I WILL FIND YOU

  And then a whisper of a breeze swept in through the doorway and lifted the parchment off the floor, only to carry it off to some obscure corner of the room where it would never be seen again.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER: #1 IN THRILLER

  #1 IN SUSPENSE

  #24 IN AMAZON TOP 100

  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. FBI Specialist Shari Cohen is called to duty to track down the terrorist cell responsible, and she soon learns that she is not alone.

  Deep behind the Vatican walls, a secret order dispatches a clandestine 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. As Cohen 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 first go through the Vatican Knights...

  AMAZON BESTSELLER: #1 IN THRILLER

  #1 IN SUSPENSE

  AMAZON TOP 100

  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.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  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.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  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.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  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.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  In a Galveston, Texas lab, a lethal strain has been stolen by a terrorist faction.

  In New Mexico, the population of a small town is completely wiped out.

  In Las Vegas, a vicious underground clan called the Community surfaces at night to prey on the weak.

  In Paris, two old foes of Kimball Hayden reunite as a kill team to hunt him down.

  Now considered dead by the Vatican, Kimball Hayden is leading a secretive life living on the streets of Las Vegas. But when a parish comes under the threat of a vicious mob, he finds himself thrown back into a world of violence.

  Once again Kimball finds himself in the role as the ‘priest who is not a priest’ fighting to protect those who cannot protect themselves. And when Vatican City is threatened with complete annihilation, he returns to fight a battle against a foe he cannot possibly defeat.

  Three years ago the papal airliner goes down over the jungle of Brazil never to been seen again.

  Three years later those considered lost on that fatal flight begin to show up at Vatican disconnected from reality.

  When the pope is gunned down in an assassination attempt, Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights follow the conspiracy’s trail to a cathedral deep inside the Brazilian jungle—a place of taboo to locals who fear the Huecuvus, the Evil Spirits who protect those within the ‘Ruins of Lost Souls.’

  The cathedral is a place of damnation and dark secrets—a hub of moving shadows that reach out to Pope Pius with a hand from the past, a hand that holds a dark secret: the pontiff may not be who he appears to be, but a man whose past may have been as sinful as those within the lost cathedral, a dying breed of Nazis who once called the pontiff ‘brethren.’

  As Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights try to neutralize the threat against the Vatican, they find themselves fighting against overwhelming odds. Shadows and shapes converge, the weapons they yield sharp. Can the Vatican Knights defeat a sect where life has little meaning? Does the pope hold a dark secret? Was he once evil incarnate who now sits upon the papal throne? The answers lie within a temple of ancient evil called the Lost Cathedral.

  Growing up with a sheltering mother and a belligerent father, Kimball Hayden’s young life goes from one of innocence to the depths of chaos.

  When a vicious syndicate of murderers and extortionists begin to run the streets, Kimball soon becomes the focal point of their attention. His family is placed within the crosshairs, friends go missing or are found dead, all messages from the Gangster Prince.

  But when Kimball’s world shatters and grieves a great loss, the sleeping giant within him awakens. It is dark and ugly and exists with the cold fortitude of a machine. It rises and walks a fine line between the Darkness and Light. And it will define Kimball as a dark savior for the rest of his life, choosing damnation over salvation to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

  But then the Gangster Prince quickly discovers that he may have overstepped his boundaries at the approach of an unstoppable force, he realizes one thing , , ,

  . . . Every legend has a beginning . . .

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  AMAZON #1: ACTION/ADVENTURE

  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.

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  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 unwittingly 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 . . .

  AMAZON BESTSELLER

  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.

  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 because he’s also at her doorstep.

  *Formerly published as The Man Who Cast Two Shadows

  When a highly sophisticated terror cell steals a contingent of deadly Reaper drones from a U.S. military base, no one has to wonder for long what they'll be used for. As America's own top military technology is turned against its homeland, it looks as though, for the first time in history, the president will have no choice but to give in to terrorist demands.

  Enter OUTCAST (Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats)--six ex-operatives from six of America’s most powerful organizations. Each has been unceremoniously released by their respective former employer for alleged misdoings that leave their pride wounded but their essential skill-sets untouched. After uniting over their shared bond of dismissal from the nation’s most elite outfits, the disgruntled spooks realize that they can work together like never before to take down threats to their beloved country, a country that branded them as outcasts but needs them now more than ever.