The Thirteenth Legion (A James Acton Thriller, #15) (James Acton Thrillers) (8 page)

Laura
reached out and took his hand. “It’s been so long, we’ve been worried.”

Chaney squeezed
her hand, smiling. “I’ve missed you guys too. And Hugh? How’s he been doing?”

Acton
sighed. “Not that good. He fell in love.”

“What! I
don’t believe it!” Chaney noticed the gloom on their faces and his eyes
narrowed. “What went wrong? She didn’t leave him, did she?”

Laura
shook her head, her eyes glistening. “She was”—she took a quick break—“killed.”
Laura’s hand darted to her mouth and she closed her eyes, shaking her head,
unable to go on.

“He met
her in the Amazon. A native girl. He fell hard for her and they spent a
spectacular few days together, but there was trouble and she was shot.” Acton stared
blankly out the window. “She died in his arms.”

Chaney
bit his finger, fighting back his own tears. “My God, the poor bastard.”

“He took
it hard. Really hard.” Acton sighed, turning back toward Chaney. “He’s sworn
he’ll never love again.”

Laura
rested her head on Acton’s shoulder, wiping her tears away with a tissue
retrieved from her purse. “He’s missed you, you know.”

Chaney
frowned, guilt sweeping over him at the thought of not being there for his best
friend in his time of need. “I know. It wasn’t by choice that I disappeared.”

Acton
put his arm around Laura. “He said he saw you in Berlin and Rodney tried to
shoot you.”

Chaney
closed his eyes for a moment, his head bobbing. “Hard to believe it, but it’s
true. Rodney and I have been friends for years. But that’s what the Triarii has
come to.”

“But
why?” asked Laura, returning the tissue to her purse. “Aren’t you all Triarii?
Or is he one of the Deniers you told us about? The ones who want to take all
the skulls and bring them together, to try and harness their power?”

Chaney
sighed. “Professors, I’m ashamed to tell you that the Triarii has been taken
over by the very people we’ve been fighting for years.” He looked at them both.
“We’re all in danger.”

Bride Lane, London, United
Kingdom

Reading took the call.

“Hello?”

“Hello,
Agent Reading.”

“Who is
this?”

“This is
the proconsul of the Triarii. How can I help you?”

Reading
looked about, finding himself still alone. He tossed the cardboard in a bin, staring
up at what was now confirmed to be a monitored camera. “We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Martin
Chaney.”

“Phones
are so unsecure, Agent. I suggest we meet.”

“Where?
I’m at your old headquarters but it seems to be abandoned.”

“That
was unfortunately necessary after recent events.”

“What
events are those?”

“All
will be explained when you come in.”

Reading
frowned, his eyebrows rising slightly. “Come in? There’s no way I’m coming in.
We’ll meet somewhere public.”

“I
thought by now we could trust each other.”

Reading
grunted. “You have Martin call me and I’ll trust you.”

There
was a sigh. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because
your former partner has betrayed us all. He’s no longer part of the Triarii.”

Leaving Annapolis, Maryland

“What? But I thought they were a small splinter group?” Acton glanced
at his wife who appeared equally shocked, then back at Chaney. “And why were
they after us?”

The Proconsul
turned. “Apparently he’s always wanted to reunite the skulls, only none of us
knew. He was just waiting for the thirteenth skull to be found.”

“How did
you find out?”

“When we
were returning from Venice we got word that he had put out a hit on us. I had
suspected something might happen, I just had never imagined it would be him. We
immediately went into hiding and have been on the run ever since.”

Laura
squeezed Acton’s hand, her fingernails digging into his palm. “So why are they
after us?”

“To get
to me. They’ve been watching everybody I know in the hopes I might make contact
seeking help. We’re desperate, with nowhere to go. And now he’s given an order
to take all the skulls.”

Acton’s
eyes narrowed. “I thought they were all hidden around the world and only two
people on the council knew where any one skull was for security purposes.”

Chaney
nodded. “This is true, but unfortunately half the council split with him. And,
as you well know, many of the skulls are actually in public. They only needed
to know where a few of the more hidden ones were to get them all.”

“And he
has them?”

“We
believe so. We’re hearing rumors on our secure networks that there have been
hits all around the world.” Chaney’s head lowered. “Many are dead. Many good
men and women.” He looked up. “He needs the thirteenth skull to complete his
plan.”

“Of
uniting all the skulls.”

“Yes.”

“Which
you believe is a bad thing.”

“Yes,
absolutely. We’ve seen what just three did to London in 1212. The resulting
blast almost wiped out the city, killed thousands.”

Acton
glanced at Laura. “Again, so you say.”

Chaney glared
at him, a little frustration creeping into his voice. “Yes, so
I
say!”
He held up a hand, closing his eyes. “Sorry, Professor, but these are tense
times. Me and my team have been on the run since you found the thirteenth skull
in Venice. I’ve had to keep in hiding, unable to contact my friends or family
lest they be used against me.”

“Yet you
reached out to Hugh. Why?”

“I need
his help.”

Acton’s
eyes narrowed. “How can he help?”

“I was
hoping he might be able to help me find the new location of the Triarii.”

Acton
chewed his lip for a moment. “We were just talking to Hugh, really just minutes
before you arrived. He called us while we were in Home Depot. He said he went
to Fleet Street and they weren’t there.”

“He
did!” Chaney shook his head. “Well, that means he’s been compromised.” He
sighed. “They moved about a year ago, after I contacted them that the
thirteenth skull had been retrieved. The Proconsul moved the headquarters to a
secret location he had apparently been preparing for some time, then dismissed
any of the council he knew would oppose his plans, replacing them with people
who would support his cause. We need to find this location and retrieve the
skulls so they can be returned to their rightful resting places and this coup
can be put down once and for all.” Chaney slammed his fist into his other hand.
“The Triarii has been split since 1212, though it had always been a tiny
minority since that wanted to unite the skulls. It was only three skulls in
London, and look what happened! Now the arrogance of modern man believes it is
time to unite all thirteen! Whether you believe or not, these are bad people
who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.”

Acton’s
eyes narrowed, thinking back on his dealings with both sides, tranquilizer
darts almost always used. “I thought both sides abhorred violence?”

“Professor,
dozens have died in the past several days as the Deniers have moved to retrieve
the skulls. Our policy of non-lethal force has been abandoned. This is an
all-out civil war, and in the end, only one side will be left alive.”

Farrington Street, London, United
Kingdom

Reading hesitated as the door was thrown open to the SUV that had
just pulled up, its tinted windows allowing no view of those inside, or of him
to those outside, once he committed.

Rodney’s
face appeared from the darkness, smiling. “If you would, please?”

Reading
frowned then climbed inside, closing the door behind him. His chest was tight,
his heart thumping hard as he realized he might be about to die. Though if
these were indeed the Triarii he had encountered before, then they didn’t kill.

Then
why had Rodney tried to shoot Martin?

Rodney
handed him a dark hood. “If you don’t mind.”

Reading
pursed his lips, drawing a breath as he eyed the hood, the vehicle already in
motion.

Rodney
smiled, patting what Reading assumed was a shoulder holster. “I can always
tranquilize you if you’d prefer.”

“Uh
huh.”

Reading
took the hood and placed it over his head, the claustrophobic feeling
immediately taking hold as his breath, hot and moist, quickly dampened his
face. “Where are we going?”

He could
almost sense Rodney’s smile. “That would defeat the purpose of the hood.”

Reading
rolled his eyes, a wasted action. “That’s not what I mean. I mean, are we going
to your headquarters, or somewhere else?”

“Somewhere
else. It’s a place we use for these types of meetings. Private and secure,
nothing of value. Except our staff, of course, who are always valuable.”

“You
didn’t seem to think so in Berlin when you were firing at Martin.”

“Martin
is no longer one of us, and
his
people drew first blood. We’re in a
fight for our lives, Agent Reading, and this fight that has been brewing for eight
hundred years is finally going to end, one way or the other, in the coming
days.”

Reading
closed his eyes, taking in a slow breath, then sighed.

Lovely.
And once again, I’m caught in the bloody middle.

He had
been stunned that there was actually a two-thousand-year-old organization,
descendent from the Roman Empire, that worshipped and protected crystal
carvings of skulls. In fact, he wouldn’t have believed it if his own partner
hadn’t been a member, and he had seen the violence surrounding trying to obtain
just one of them.

Laura
was a scientist and had studied them most of her career, and she swore she
couldn’t explain them. He knew what his own research on the web had told him,
most saying they were fake, others claiming they were from aliens or lost
civilizations. He dismissed the fantastic, though with the Triarii themselves
admitting to swapping out the genuine articles with fakes whenever sent for
testing by the likes of the BBC, it did explain why the mainstream scientific
community now dismissed them.

But
Laura he trusted, and he knew she wasn’t daft. She was highly intelligent and
didn’t go spouting off crazy theories. All she would admit to was that they
were of unknown origin and method of manufacture. He had held one himself,
feeling its perfectly smooth surface, a feat apparently quite remarkable before
the twentieth century, and these skulls definitely predated that. Apparently, a
large tech company in the United States had tested one in the seventies, and
couldn’t explain how they had been carved.

According
to them, and confirmed by Laura, each were carved from a single piece of
crystal quartz, and stunningly, they were carved
against
the grain, which
no modern sculptor would do, it almost guaranteed to shatter. Even modern
lasers couldn’t duplicate their construction. And the smoothness was also
unexplainable pre-twentieth century, Laura having suggested the only way to get
them so smooth would be a combination of sand and water running over the
surface for hundreds of years.