Showing results by author "Rick Jones" in All Categories

In an exclusive restaurant in Budapest, Kimball Hayden confronts his protégé, The Black Monk, for the final time. Two weeks later, in a Texas town, Kimball finds himself embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy after the shocking and violent murder of a news reporter in an adjacent room. When the body is discovered, it becomes the catalyst for an explosive cover-up involving high-end corruption linked to a local mining company.

As the Vatican mourns the loss of Kimball Hayden, Isaiah, branded as the new Master Commander, is tasked with confronting the Black Monk, who has utilized AI technology to spread disinformation across Europe, but with an even greater focus on the Vatican to undermine the pope’s authority. When Europe begins to erupt into chaos and violent protests, the pontiff has also been targeted by this campaign with lies and mistruths, with public opinion turning against him.

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.

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 US government: assassinate the five leading principals of Mossad.

In France, a member of a secret guild is killed for the secrets he keeps. In Croatia, a stronghold is breached, and a treasure is stolen. At the Vatican, a corrupt pontiff views Kimball Hayden as a threat to his rule. When a Croatian stronghold is breached and scores are killed, a religious icon is stolen that contains a dark particle that’s powerful enough to either create worlds or destroy them. With a corrupt pontiff who sees Kimball Hayden as a threat to his power, Pope Clement XV mobilizes the Vatican Knight without his team to retrieve the dark particle.

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.

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 who is stronger, faster, and far more brutal - an assassin so deadly not even the Vatican Knights can stop him.

When the Vatican Knights are called upon to seek the Holy Grail of the dark messiahs that is the tome of the Baal Manifesto, Kimball Hayden and his team must go against their most lethal enemy that surrounds himself with tier-one mercenaries. With the manifesto having been mythicized as being created by the master of the Unholy Trinity, the Vatican Knights soon find themselves in a battle against a man who might have the power of Satan behind him.

Beneath the city of Venice lies a mysterious warren filled with dark secrets. When Vatican Intelligence discovers that a sacred artifact is about to be claimed by a treasure hunter, the Vatican Knights are sent on a mission to stop the thievery of the church’s most cherished article. But to reach the treasure, they must solve the Templar riddles that are as deadly as they are complexing while opposing an elite group of assassins, the Russian Spetsnaz.

Long before Kimball Hayden became a Vatican Knight, he once served as an elite assassin for the US government. After the ordered assassination on a United States senator by a cabal within the US command, Kimball is set up for failure and is believed dead by the Pentagon brass. But when a leading political principal involved with the senator's murder discovers that Hayden is alive, he's immediately seen as a threat to a certain few on Capitol Hill regarding the sanctioned hit on the senator, and those involved.

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 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.

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 that the texts make it out to be? What if it held dark secrets and unholy terrors instead?

In the Apuseni mountain range in Romania, it’s said that a fabled Keep made from the bones of Vlad the Impaler’s victims stands high enough to touch the sky. At night, things run through the forest claiming those who get too close to the truth. Some people call them demons and trolls known as the Vladorians; others say they don’t exist at all but are the creations of imagination. So, when Kimball Hayden and his team of Vatican Knights are called to investigate, they discover a horror that’s far greater than folklore.

In a hidden chamber beneath an estate in Zurich, a tomblike vault is discovered containing the Unholy Trinity: Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet. In Paris, an elite assassin resurfaces with the intent to raze three major cities through acts of terrorism. In Rome, an old and deadly faction rises once again to remove Kimball Hayden permanently from the ranks of the Vatican Knights.

When the Spear of Destiny is stolen by members of the Islamic State with its leader believing that the possessor of the Holy Lance has the ability to command powerful legions, they quickly find themselves in a position of "no escape" inside a towering skyscraper. Now that the power of the Holy Lance is in the hands of Ali Mustafa, he now finds himself with the opportunity to test its value and strength against those who dare oppose him.

During a visit to the United States, Pope Pius XIV is caught within the crosshairs of a lethal assassin. After scores of people are killed during an event featuring the Pope's address, a conspiracy theory emerges that the killings were conducted by one of the CIA’s own. As the data trickles in, it becomes clear that the assassin is none other than Shari Cohen.

In central Syria, villages are razed as young men are conscripted to join the ISIS faction. In a Doctors Without Borders camp which is overrun by members of the Islamic State, people are abducted along with a priest Father Savino. He also happens to be the brother of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. From the green zone in Iraq, Shari Cohen, now a CIA consultant and operator, learns that she must appropriate intel from the resurging ISIS force to stop them from striking international targets.

In Egypt, those within the Saint Catherine Monastery are brutally attacked and a secret that has been hidden for more than 3,500 years is stolen. In Zurich, an arms dealer makes an agreement with a band of elite terrorists for one-of-a-kind weapons of mass destruction, for a treasure that was presumed destroyed during the Exodus. When a conversation between two men is covertly videotaped by an operator of the CIA, Vatican Intelligence and the Mossad realize that the partial message received was filled with enigmas.

In Virginia, a Blacksite facility is assaulted with military sophistication to free a homegrown terrorist who once attempted to assassinate FBI Specialist Shari Cohen. Within days, two of America’s most iconic symbols of freedom are razed. In Rome, Kimball Hayden’s demons are at their worst, the man becoming a shell of his former self. But when he learns that Shari Cohen’s assassin is on the loose, he embarks on a trip of rediscovery that unites him with the woman he loves.

On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, was bombed, killing four young girls. Who were the perpetrators? Due to reluctant witnesses and racial prejudice, the FBI closed the case without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., claimed, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Bending Toward Justice is a detailed account of this key moment in our national struggle for equality and the long road to prosecuting those responsible for the tragedy, related by an author who played a major role in the investigation.