Blood Relics (A James Acton Thriller, #12)

  Blood Relics

  A James Acton Thriller

  by

  J. Robert Kennedy

  From the Back Cover

  FROM USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR J. ROBERT KENNEDY

  A DYING MAN.

  A DESPERATE SON.

  ONLY A MIRACLE CAN SAVE THEM BOTH.

  As Jesus Christ suffers an agonizing death, a blind Roman soldier named Longinus is miraculously healed after lancing the crucified body, yet though the miracle restores his eyesight, it marks a new beginning to his troubles as he and his friends flee the authorities determined to suppress any word of what truly happened during those fateful events.

  Two thousand years later Professor Laura Palmer is shot and kidnapped in front of her husband, archeology Professor James Acton, as they try to prevent the theft of the world’s Blood Relics, ancient artifacts thought to contain the blood of Christ, a madman determined to possess them all at any cost.

  Acton’s desperate pleas for help spur his friends to action, Interpol Agent Hugh Reading, the CIA’s Dylan Kane and Chris Leroux, and the Delta Force’s Bravo Team, all answering the call to help save the woman he loves and the most precious relics the world has ever known.

  From USA Today bestselling author J. Robert Kennedy comes his twenty-first novel, Blood Relics, a heart pounding thrill ride filled with non-stop action, humor, heartache and intrigue where he once again takes a well-known event in history and expertly weaves it into today’s headlines.

  About the James Acton Thrillers

  "James Acton: A little bit of Jack Bauer and Indiana Jones!"

  Though this book is part of the James Acton Thrillers series, it is written as a standalone novel and can be enjoyed without having read any of the previous installments.

  About J. Robert Kennedy

  USA Today bestselling author J. Robert Kennedy has been ranked by Amazon as the #1 Bestselling Action Adventure novelist based upon combined sales. He is the author of over twenty international bestsellers including the smash hit James Acton Thrillers series of which the first installment, The Protocol, has been on the bestseller lists since its release, including occupying the number one spot for three months. He lives with his wife and daughter and writes full-time.

  "If you want fast and furious, if you can cope with a high body count, most of all if you like to be hugely entertained, then you can't do much better than J Robert Kennedy."

  Amazon Vine Voice Reviewer

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  Find out more at www.jrobertkennedy.com.

  Books by J. Robert Kennedy

  The James Acton Thrillers

  The Protocol

  Brass Monkey

  Broken Dove

  The Templar's Relic

  Flags of Sin

  The Arab Fall

  The Circle of Eight

  The Venice Code

  Pompeii's Ghosts

  Amazon Burning

  The Riddle

  Blood Relics

  Sins of the Titanic

  Saint Peter's Soldiers

  The Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers

  Rogue Operator

  Containment Failure

  Cold Warriors

  Death to America

  The Delta Force Unleashed Thrillers

  Payback

  Infidels

  The Lazarus Moment

  The Detective Shakespeare Mysteries

  Depraved Difference

  Tick Tock

  The Redeemer

  Zander Varga, Vampire Detective Series

  The Turned

  Table of Contents

  The Novel

  Acknowledgements

  Get a Free eBook!

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  In memory of Frédéric Boisseau, Franck Brinsolaro, Jean Cabut, Elsa Cayat, Stéphane Charbonnier, Philippe Honoré, Bernard Maris, Ahmed Merabet, Mustapha Ourrad, Michel Renaud, Bernard Verlhac and Georges Wolinski.

  “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

  John 19:34, King James Bible

  “When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

  Tecumseh

  “Pale Death beats equally at the poor man's gate and at the palaces of kings.”

  Horace

  Preface

  The pace of scientific progress is breathtaking at times, the gap between discovery and market incredibly tight now. What is discovered today can be in consumer hands within twenty-four months, if not sooner. In the past, scientific discoveries often took many years, sometimes decades to make it into the public’s hands. This gave scientists, politicians, ethicists and the general public time to evaluate whether some of those advancements should actually be permitted to happen.

  Today that buffer once provided by time is gone.

  Now the question is whether or not that is a good thing.

  Scientists are now considering trying to bring back the wooly mammoth, confident they have the technology to actually accomplish this. But should this be allowed? If we can bring back extinct species, should we? If we can bring back the wooly mammoth, what about others more recent like the dodo? And if we bring back the mammoth, then decide it was wrong, do we have the right to then kill it?

  And what if the technology is taken to the next step? With a single blood cell we can create a clone of an animal and in theory, a person. With the pace of progress racing forward at breakneck speed, some of these experiments are discovered by the public after the successful results are already completed, meaning Pandora’s Box could be unleashed on humanity before it even knows it exists.

  And what if we take it beyond animals and to human beings?

  Or one human being.

  Born two thousand years ago.

  Author's Note

  A portion of this book deals with the crucifixion of Christ, the rest dealing with the characters’ beliefs around this event. Whether you believe or not is immaterial to the enjoyment of the book as it serves as a backdrop to other events. Though loosely based on the Gospels, artistic license has of course been taken for these scenes and no offence is meant.

  Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France

  Present Day

  “Oh my God, Laura!”

  Professor James Acton dove across the room, sliding on the marble floor as bullets flew overhead, glass and shards of ancient stone raining down upon him as he desperately tried to reach his wife. Screams of agony from one of the cathedral’s defenders momentarily drowned out his wife’s own cries as he scurried on his stomach trying to cover the few short feet to her prone form, his hands, cut and bleeding from the shattered display cases, leaving a crimson trail.

  He winced as something sharp sliced into his knee.

  “Hold on!”

  He could see the agony on the face of his wife, Professor Laura Palmer, as she gripped her stomach, a rapidly expanding red stain oozing out from between her fingers, her blouse already soaked with blood.

  Bullets tore open the floor in front of him causing him to scamper backward, taking cover behind a large display case. He looked for his friend, Interpol Agent Hugh Reading and spotted him behind a pillar on the opposite side of the room from him.

  And closer to Laura.

  “C
an you reach her?”

  Reading poked his head out and immediately a bullet ricocheted off the stone pillar. He jumped back, shaking his head. “I’m pinned down.”

  Acton tried once again to reach his wife, and again was sent diving for cover. He looked behind him at the French police, their gunfire dwindling, their numbers severely thinned by the explosion, caused he guessed by a grenade of some type. Their attackers, so effective over the past few days, had always arrived well equipped and well organized.

  And always unexpectedly.

  But today they had been expected.

  Or at least anticipated.

  The gunfire from the defenders diminished yet again as someone cried out. He watched as one lone man, covered by a pillar, returned fire, followed by the distinctive click of an empty magazine.

  The gun clattered to the ground and the opposing fire immediately stopped.

  He dove.

  Boots pounding on the marble were ignored as he finally reached his wife, cradling her in his arms as he moved her hands to see the wound. “It’s okay, I’m here,” he said, his beloved looking up at him, her intense pain overwhelming, her face weary.

  And pale.

  She’s lost so much blood.

  Suddenly Reading was at his side, his cellphone pressed to his ear. Acton lifted his wife’s blouse, blood oozing from the wound, unsure of what to do other than press on it.

  Then an idea struck him.

  A final, desperate, crazed idea that he couldn’t believe he was even contemplating.

  He jumped up as their attackers rushed past, ignoring the unarmed trio. Reaching into a shattered display case, he grabbed a clay jar and returning to his wife, reached inside, scooping its dried contents with his fingers. As he began to remove his hand he felt something press against the back of his head.

  “I’ll kindly ask that you not do that.”

  He opened his hand, its contents falling back into the jar, then slowly placed the ancient piece of pottery on the floor beside him, raising his hands, Reading already doing the same.

  “You have to let me save my wife.”

  Another man rushed up beside them, decked out in gear any Special Forces soldier would feel at home in. “All clear, sir.”

  The gun was removed from the back of Acton’s head. “Secure these two.”

  Acton was hauled to his feet, his hands quickly zip-tied behind his back. He watched as the same was done to Reading while another man began to examine Laura.

  “We need to get her to a hospital, now!” cried Acton. A gag was shoved in his mouth then one end of a roll of duct tape slapped against his chest. Within moments he found himself taped tightly to a pillar, Reading struggling nearby in the same predicament.

  “Status?” asked the man apparently in charge, his accent distinctly German. Decked out head to toe in black, his only discernable features a tanned, chiseled chin with a thick moustache above his grimacing mouth.

  “She’ll die without immediate help.”

  A whip of the leader’s hand had his men jumping to action. “Take her with us.”

  “No!” screamed Acton against his gag as he wriggled his shoulders and waist in a futile attempt to get loose. Laura cried out weakly as she was lifted by two of the men and carried from the room.

  “Status on the relics?”

  “All have been retrieved,” said another man as he held up the jar.

  “Then we’re done here.”

  The room quickly emptied of their attackers as sirens sounded in the distance. Acton slumped against his bindings as he gave up his struggle to free himself, all hope lost.

  His wife was gone, taken from him with a stomach wound that looked fatal, and he was powerless to help her, to stop these men who hadn’t yet hesitated to kill in their mad quest.

  He sobbed into his gag as he realized he would probably never see her alive again, never hold her in his arms, feel her breath on his face, caress her cheek as they made love, or start the family they had been talking about having.

  She would die alone.

  And he swore he’d kill every last one of those responsible.

  Jerusalem, Judea

  April 7th, 30 AD

  The Third Hour

  “What’s happening?”

  Longinus cocked an ear, trying to pick out from the amassed crowd any tidbit that might reveal what the commotion he was hearing was all about. His eyes, failing him for years now, revealed only dark shadows in front of him, details of his surroundings long since lost to the ravages of what the garrison doctor had called cataracts.

  Incurable.

  “You’ll never see properly again, and in time, you won’t be able to see at all. At least anything we would call seeing.”

  “How long?”

  The doctor had shrugged. “A year. Years. There’s no way of knowing, it’s different for everyone. If you’re lucky you’ll finish your term of service and get your pension before it gets too bad.”

  Well, he hadn’t. With only a few months left before he was due to return home, he was now pretty much useless as a soldier. But his friends were helping him as best they could, he well liked in his contubernium.

  And his best friend, Albus, was almost never far from his side.

  Including today.

  “Looks like another crucifixion.”

  “Again?” Longinus frowned, shaking his head. One of the few blessings of being blind was not having to see another person nailed to a cross, left out in the sun to die for all to see, their crime sometimes written on a piece of paper, sometimes wood, tacked to the cross as a warning to anyone else who might dare to break the law. “I wonder what this one has done.”

  “Who knows nowadays? The Prefect might just have been in a bad mood.” There was a grunt of surprise from his friend. “There’s two others with this one.” Albus gasped. “By the gods! You should see the first one, he’s in rough shape. His back is so bloodied it’s soaked completely through his robe. And”—there was a pause, Albus’ gentle hold on his arm slipping for a moment—“there’s something on his head. It looks like thorns! A circle of thorns!”

  “What? Like a crown?” Longinus had never heard of anything like that being done before, and he had seen countless crucifixions in his time, and now, with his poor eyesight, it was one of his more common duties to join the guard at the crucifixion site and wait for the death of the convicted.

  “They can’t run away from you up there!” his commander had cried, roaring with laughter. Longinus had laughed with him, used to the constant jabs at his expense, those low in the ranks, condemned to the menial tasks of a soldier, always on the lookout for an opportunity to revel in the misery of their peers.

  But he was thankful. His commander could have dismissed him, but instead had found a purpose for him.

  Just three more months!

  Then he’d be heading home to his family.

  It had been so long since he had heard from them, and even longer since he’d seen them. The pessimist in him wondered if they were even alive, and on the bad nights, when doubt and loneliness welled up with the self-pity he sometimes gave into over his condition, he couldn’t seem to bring up an image of them, a frustratingly crushing experience that would send him rushing into the darkness that was his existence, to drown his sorrows in drink until he forgot why he had been sad in the first place.

  It’s been so long!

  He felt tears flood his eyes as a pang of sorrow stabbed at his chest.

  “Longinus! Albus!”

  Longinus immediately recognized the voice of their commander. He was close. He felt Albus’ grip tighten slightly, gently guiding him so that he’d be facing the man, then they both snapped to attention. Decanus Vitus knew full-well of his condition, but those more senior didn’t. If it became too obvious to those around them that one of Rome’s finest wasn’t up to par—such as by standing at attention facing the wrong direction—Vitus would be forced to do his duty and dismiss him.

  Thu
s violating his contract, thus forfeiting his pension.

  If only I had lost my sight in battle!

  But no, he was cursed to have lost it naturally, from old age and weak stock apparently.

  “I want you two to accompany this procession to Golgatha, help with the crucifixions, then stand guard until the last of them passes.”

  “Yes, sir!” they both replied.

  Vitus lowered his voice and Longinus could see his shadow lean in closer. “You should hear this one’s story. Ridiculous! Clearly mad.” The hot morning sun quickly returned to its assault on his face as Vitus stepped back. “I’ll see you back at the barracks. Report to me as soon as they’re all dead.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Longinus heard the commander walk away, Albus taking him by the arm and leading them toward the ruckus. “Stand aside!” shouted Albus, the crowd of the subjugated immediately parting to let them pass, and once they had done so, returning to their shouts. Most were hurling insults or taunting the condemned men, something he had heard every single time he had drawn this duty over the years.

  In his experience most of those lining the streets never knew the convicted, never knew their crimes, instead merely thrilled in taking a break from their daily struggles to enjoy seeing someone whose day was guaranteed to end worse than their own.

  The distinctive sound of the wooden crosses, dragging on the hard packed dirt and stone filled his ears, the jerking motions as they advanced with each halting step bringing their bearers inexorably closer to their own doom, seemed particularly slow today.