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The Flaming sword
Also by Breck England
The Tarleton Murders: Sherlock Holmes in America
The Day of Atonement: A Novel of the end
The Day of Atonement
Volume II
The Flaming sword
A Novel of the End
Breck England
Mango Publishing
Coral Gables
Copyright © 2019 Breck England
Cover & Layout Design: Elina Diaz & Jermaine Lau
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The Flaming Sword: A Novel of the End
Library of Congress Cataloging
ISBN: (print) 978-1-63353-972-3 (ebook) 978-1-63353-973-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932092
BISAC category code: FIC022080 FICTION / Mystery & Detective / International Mystery & Crime
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Preface
And the Lord God placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
—Genesis 3:24
A unique, high-tech, high-security energy field known as “Flaming Sword” encloses the famous Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the storied site of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, of Solomon’s Temple, and of the Dome of the Rock, which is revered by Muslims everywhere.
Why this exceptional need for security?
Because the Temple Mount is the most dangerous place on Earth. Three great religions—Islam, Judaism, and Christianity—all claim this holy spot as their own. Despite an edgy truce among them, the slightest shift in the status quo could bring war to the whole world.
In The Day of Atonement Volume 1, a radical Pope dies brutally, and a most sacred artifact is stolen. Thrown unwillingly together, Ari Davan, an Israeli intelligence agent, and Maryse Mandelyn, an Interpol art expert plagued by a violent past, detect in these events the dim outlines of a conspiracy that threatens to destroy the holy mountain.
Independent of each other, Ari and Maryse discover a startling image on the ceiling of the Papal Chapel in Rome, a sign that leads them to the mysterious Cathedral of Chartres, where they decipher a countdown to apocalypse in the famous Labyrinth.
Then, as they leave the Cathedral, Ari notices something strange about a statue on the façade and leaves Maryse stranded there. What did he see? What does it mean? Where will it lead?
Now Maryse is left alone to make some sense out of the fragments of evidence she has collected—a pair of gold rings with an enigmatic inscription, an ancient Tarot card with the same inscription, an illogical spatter of blood on the Papal Altar, a missing DNA sample, the disappearance of a holy icon that had not been moved in a thousand years.
She doesn’t believe what the tabloids say, that “the world will end on Monday”; but she can’t shake the feeling that the menacing hour is coming around at last.
And now, The Flaming Sword, Volume 2 of The Day of Atonement…
Chapter 1
Thursday, October 7, 2027
Hotel St. Regis, Rome, 0515h
Just before waking, she dreamed of the face of Christ withdrawing slowly into the silver petals of a cloud, then of a city of domes and towers vaporized in a flood of brimstone, grainy and white rising against the sky.
The city is a cauldron. It shall be laid waste, the altars made desolate.
By a dim nightlight, Maryse Mandelyn stared at the flowered plaster of the ceiling overhead and recognized it as late nineteenth century. She smiled at David Kane’s influence, how he was able to find her not just a hotel room in the rapidly filling city, but one of the best.
She had hoped to astound her old mentor—and current Interpol boss—with the story of the inscription on the rings, but he had only said he was “satisfied she was making progress.” It hurt just a little; but then again he was right. Simply uncovering the meaning of the inscription had brought her no closer to the Acheropita. She could still make nothing of the disappearance of the priceless icon of Christ, stolen in plain view of a crowd of people and a battery of television cameras.
In reality, the problem had only deepened.
The city is a cauldron. A passage from the book of Ezekiel. It shall be laid waste.
Certainly, Rome was a cauldron. With the violent death of the most controversial Pope in a millennium, the city boiled over. Massive street fights raged within sight