Relic

by Roger Weston

The henchman fired two shots at Jake, but he ducked around the corner. He came slightly back around, leading with his AK-47 and firing. The shooter screamed as if he was being tortured, but it was just fear after being hit.

  When Jake saw two more shooters appear in the hallway, he beat them to the trigger. They fled into a room for cover when Jake heard feet pounding up the stairs. He ran, taking another flight of stairs up onto the roof.

  “There better be a way off here,” Jake said.

  He didn’t have time to look before a gunman came out shooting. Jake dropped him, but ran out of bullets in the process. He threw his gun down and thought he heard helicopter. He ran along the edge looking for a fire ladder, but it was wishful thinking.

  “Now you die, Sands. I’m going to kill you myself.” It was Ajax dressed in his pink tuxedo. Jake saw a gold Rolex and bracelet on his wrist, but he was holding an AK-47.

  “Well, that makes sense,” Jake said. “Killing an unarmed man is probably your style.”

  “Whatever. Say good-bye.” The shot was crisp and loud. It cracked from a far distance. The bullet took Ajax in face and cut him down like grass before a weed-eater. He crashed down on the ground. A sniper had taken him out.

  A helicopter rose above a patch of trees and swooped over the house. A gunner cut down two more henchmen as they stepped out onto the deck. Jake took cover and was happy to be alive. He caught a glimpse of his stepfather Stuart in the helicopter as it circled the house.

  No more thugs ventured out on the roof. The pilot gave Jake the thumbs up, then circled the house as the gunner by the door took shots at the house. Jake heard shattering glass.

  What he saw next surprised him. He saw a dozen shooters approaching the house, but they were hostiles—shooting at the house. They were engaged in a gunfight with Ajax’s people inside. El Jefe Rosario was with the attackers. Jake recognized him because of the many news-clipping photos of El Jefe he’d seen when he infiltrated the Rosario’s house on their private island in the San Juan Islands.

  Wearing a bullet-proof vest, he was now taking cover behind a giant planter and firing shots at the house.

  Jake saw several attackers who were carrying RPGs. Why not? Jake thought. After all, El Jefe had been the godfather of arms trading for the past five decades.

  The attackers were well-armed and eager to use their ammo. Hiding behind the numerous brass planters, they riddled the house like Swiss cheese.

  A storm of resistance poured back at them. From Jake’s estimate, there were at least a dozen thugs working for Ajax. They’d all rushed to the house to take Jake out. Now they’d been caught in their own trap.

  Waves of bullets were flying in both directions. There were no more sounds of shattering glass. No glass could have survived this long.

  Then Jake saw an attacker aim a rocket-propelled grenade launcher at the house. He fired it with a boom. A secondary explosion rocked the house. Up on the roof, Jake could feel the rumble and the vibration. He could not estimate the damage, but he knew it was bad.

  Then, as shooters continued to unload on the house with magazine after magazine of bullets, he saw three men with RPG launchers fire at once.

  The entire house was shaking and seemed to be erupting, but it did not collapse. One explosion from below blasted upwards and left a gaping hole in the roof.

  That was enough for Jake. He had to get out of there. It wouldn’t be easy, either. Despite all the explosions, it sounded like there were still live shooters in the house.

  He scooped up Ajax’s AK-47 and a .40 cal semi-automatic handgun. He descended the stairs. Then he crawled down the hall as bullets punched holes through walls. As he shoved open one riddled door, a shooter on the inside turned and fired at him, but he fired high. Jake was laying on his chest. He squeezed off two shots to neutralize the threat. The thug staggered backwards and was hit from shooters outside as he gave a banshee scream and fell out the second floor window.

  A gunner came out of the next door yelling and firing, but he was also falling because Jake had got him through the wall before he could see him. The henchman collapsed into the hallway and got of one last shot, but it missed. Jake dove on his gun and pushed it away.

  Crawling onward, Jake stayed low. Another volley of five explosions rocked the mansion. Jake lay flat on the floor, but a fragment of something slashed his ribs. Blood soaked his shirt.

  Another explosion rocked the house. Bullets swarmed in and punctured walls and doors. Shooters fought back from various positions.

  It was total chaos. As Jake crawled, wall board fragments and wood chips were falling on him like snow. The people outside had unlimited ammunition, and they were making sure that they made their point.

  A bullet glazed Jake’s calf muscle. He stopped moving, but once he realized it was just a flesh wound, he continued his crawl though the death-trap mansion. Along the way, an insane shooter with half his face blown away came running at him like a vision from a nightmare. The man had pistols in both hands, and he was blasting away with poor accuracy. Jake gunned him down.

  Jake tore down a riddled door and dragged it along with him to the stairs. Holding the door to his chest, he fell forward down the stairs. As he landed and slid, the door was his sled. At the bottom he was launched into a summersault. He came up shooting, but the shooter he saw was already dead. It was not pretty. Another gunner had also fallen. A thin mist of gun smoke hung on the air, and sun rays lit up floating dust particles from chewed-up wall board.

  Irina was laying there against the wall in her blood-stained pink dress, clutching an MP5 submachine gun, blood covering the left side of her face. She had fallen in El Jefe’s gauntlet.

  But she was still alive.

  “Help me,” she begged.

  This was not an appealing offer. This lounge was taking heavy fire. If Jake scrambled down the hall and left her, his chances of survival would be much higher. The world might even be better off without Irina Rosario.

  Jake made a fast decision. On his hands and knees, he stayed low and scrambled to her. Bullets pelted the house from several directions. One burst of gunfire caused Jake to drop to the floor and lay flat for a few seconds. The smell of cordite was strong in the smoky room. The floor was covered with shattered glass. Jake pulled a piece of glass from his chin and crawled to Irina.

  “Come on. We have to get out of this area.”

  “My head,” she pleaded. “I’m not sure I can make it.”

  Jake made a rapid appraisal. Her strawberry-blonde hair was pasted to the side of her face with sticky blood. The source appeared to be a bullet that had grazed her head and probably cracked her skull. Jake could smell the musty odor of blood.

  “You’ll be alright,” he said, “as long as we get out of here fast.” She’d also been hit in the arm, so Jake helped her along. They crawled for the hallway. The amount of gunfire made it sound like a war zone and bullets were stitching walls and destroying furniture. A Rembrandt painting that had taken heavy fire crashed to the floor. One bullet passed so close to Jake’s ear that he felt the air move.

  They got to the hallway. Crawling, Jake helped Irina toward the east-wing library. Bullets punctured walls above them. An explosion rocked the house somewhere behind him. Then another… and another. The floor shook. A chandelier above them swung on brass chains. Crystal fragments rained down on them. Jake felt insignificant and vulnerable. Never had it been more obvious to him that life was fragile and fleeting. Life came like a moth to a light, but sometimes the moth got burned and the flight was over. Life was measured in seconds only because he didn’t know if he’d be alive when the next minute came around. Jake sensed a man crawling with them. He saw nothing, but he sensed a presence. Maybe it was an angel. When he looked, nobody was there. Smoke filled Jake’s nostrils, and he guessed the house was on fire. For a moment it occurred to him that he might not get out, but he didn’t waste time courting fear.

  The windows in the library were not even broken because the east wing was
protected by the rock walls around the private garden. The fighters on both sides had ignored this area. Jake recovered the Confession from the hollowed-out dictionary. He shot out the main window then helped Irina through the opening. They walked through the garden, which was protected by the high walls. Irina was unsteady on her feet, but Jake helped her over where he had climbed it before.

  Amazingly, the gunfire had not let up at the mansion. A massive amount of gunfire was directed at the house, but Jake wasn’t sure how many fighters could possibly still be alive in there to return fire.

  Limping, he escorted Irina through the woods to the gardeners’ shack. Then they walked cautiously. If they walked out in the open, there was no telling who might shoot them. Fortunately, he was beyond where the shooters had positioned themselves. The mansion was barely in sight as he emerged from the woods with no assault rifle.

  Although Jake’s tuxedo was in tatters, he walked away from the gunfight toward the parking lot. He looked like one of many wedding guests—except he was escorting the bride, whose pink dress was torn up and bloodstained.

  “Mother!” A young man ran to Irina. “Are you alright?”

  “Francisco! Francisco!”

  “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  Irina turned to Jake. “You saved my life twice, Jake Sands. I thank you again.” Then she pulled a gun. It looked like a Smith and Wesson .45. “Now give me that Confession!”

  “No, mother.”

  “Give it to me,” she screamed.

  Jake handed it over.

  “I am going to destroy it. I saw something back there, Francisco.” She passed out. Francisco caught her. The Confession fell to the grass, and Jake picked it up. It was evidence that might be needed to clear his name.

  Francisco carried his mother toward the parking lot.

  A helicopter shot overhead.

  Jake got out his phone and made a call. “Stuart, can you pick us up at the road? We need a ride to the hospital.”

  “Affirmative. I always said you bring trouble. Glad you’re still alive.”

  CHAPTER 54

  September 16

  Recoleta Cemetery

  To Jake, a cemetery was a place with grass and tombstones. Not Recoleta Cemetary. Here, the brick streets were lined with marble mausoleums, 12- to 15-feet high, maybe ten feet wide—many of them with soaring crosses and statues of angels. Some featured domes, other pillars. The bronze doors, the bell-towers, the elaborate work of masons, the art and architecture—it was like an outdoor museum.

  The crowd gathering around Ajax’s and Irina’s tombs filled the narrow street. Jake guessed there were close to a hundred people. He stood back twenty feet from the crowd, but he noticed a few familiar faces from the underground meeting of the Augean Command at Irina’s wedding. Jake was surprised they even showed up here. He guessed it was probably for El Jefe’s sake. One guy stood out to Jake—a bald guy who’d almost gotten his head smashed with a baseball bat. I’ll be he’s really mourning Irina’s death, Jake thought. Jake wondered what would happen to these men. They were still in business, but it was business as usual—not Irina’s dark vision. Maybe now Stuart and his people would take action against the Rosarios and the other members of the Augean Command. Jake also recognized a young man with a Bible as Irina’s son, who’d come to the wedding.

  Jake was standing well back from the invited guests, but he was close enough to hear the words of Irina’s son, words of hope and the mystery of life and death.

  Jake listened with reverence. Afterwards, after words drifted into silence, tears were shed, and the crowd started to thin out, Jake walked away.

  He couldn’t believe it. He had expected Irina to pull through. He had thought her injuries were fairly minor. Yet he’d just heard her own son read scriptures over her coffin.

  Heads Up: Thank you for reading this far! The next book in the series, THE TARGET, is now available on Amazon. Grab a copy today. Now back to RELIC.

  CHAPTER 55

  September 17

  Jake held a last-minute press conference at an undisclosed location in Buenos Aires. Ashley had arrived less than an hour ago. Her presence gave Jake great comfort. It was also a relief to know that she was safe. As Jake stepped up on the platform, he looked over at her, into her transfixing brown eyes beneath her lovely red bangs. He loved her eyes. They were full of warmth, but they were also doors to the past. When Jake looked into her eyes, he saw a wonderful person, but he also saw centuries of maritime history.

  Over a hundred reporters filled the chairs of the old theatre. “I’ll keep this short,” Jake said. “As promised, I have news about the Christ Confession, which made such big news several days ago. I just came from the hospital where I was talking with Dr. Julian R. Cooper, world-renowned, Oxford-trained antiquarian and metals analyst. Dr. Cooper is recovering under police protection from wounds that he suffered under torture by the people behind the efforts to pawn off the Christ Confession as an authentic artifact. When he is ready, Dr. Cooper will verify that the Confession is a deliberate fraud.

  “At the misleading press-conference several days ago, hosted by Irina Rosario, untrue information was given to the press. The story was false. In time, you will have expert testimony backing up what I am telling you. For now, you can rest assured that the artifact called the Christ Confession was commissioned in the 17th century by a man who called himself the world’s greatest sinner. His name was Camilo Torres. He was a Spaniard living in Peru, taking part in the exploitation of the New World. He paid an expert Peruvian artisan to make the Christ Confession. Camilo Torres died in 1654 on a treasure galleon on its way back to Spain.”

  “Mr. Sands,” a reporter said, “unnamed sources have indicated that … Let me put it this way: you may not have heard, but we have just broken news story about Irina Rosario. A yacht she allegedly bought two days ago was sailing south toward Cape Horn. Less than an hour ago, a fire burst out on her boat. Distress calls were sent out. Rescue crews say it is highly unlikely that she survived. Do you have any comment?”

  “Irina Rosario is dead. It’s a sad story. I don’t know who was on that yacht.”

  “Sir, as you may have heard, there are rumors that she may not have died in the hospital.”

  Jake had considered this possibility. He’d considered why El Jefe would possibly go along with staging a funeral for Irina if she’d gone into hiding. Why would he do her a favor? He’d been unkind to her in the past. Jake guessed that by helping Irina, El Jefe would benefit in a couple of ways: He would avoid a lot of legal problems and unwanted attention that she would bring to the family if she were alive. Also, with Ajax dead, Irina was the only parent left for El Jefe’s grandson. If he cared about his grandson, he would probably have to be kind to his mother after all they’d been through, but it was all speculation on Jake’s part.

  “I’m sorry. What’s your question?” Jake said.

  “I said there are rumors that Irina may be alive, that her funeral was staged. If this is true, if her yacht did catch on fire, then she may have died the day after her funeral.”

  “Extraordinary.” Jake was quiet for a moment.

  “Professor Sands, you are the world’s foremost expert on shipwrecks. Do you believe that Ms. Rosario perished in the fire? After all, she was thought to have died in a similar accident five years ago, but she did not die after all.”

  “We can only hope for the best,” Jake said.

  As he left the stage, dozens of cameras clicked.

  “Mr. Sands!... Mr. Sands!...”

  POST SCRIPT

  Padre Diego was a real priest who really did survive the Maravillas shipwreck in 1654. Most of the details of the shipwreck are historically accurate. Padre Diego did confess many people in the final minutes before the ship broke up in the Bahamas Channel. It has been reported as true that he really did confess a man who called himself the world’s greatest sinner; however, his name was not really Camilo Torres. RELIC is a work of fiction. The detail
s of unknown man’s confession and his true sins remain unknown. The lead book referred to as the Confession, or the artifact, is fictional.

  The history of Pedrarias Davila, the governor of Panama City who was responsible for the deaths of two million Indians, is a matter of historical record. He did not really found the Augean Command, nor was he grandmaster. The Augean Command is fictional even if it does resemble reality.

  Description of THE TARGET, sequel to RELIC

  Available now!

  THE TARGET: A Jake Sands Thriller (Book 3)

  Book 3 in The SANDS Series

  The search has begun. And death has been unleashed.

  For over seven decades a secret has remained hidden on one of the world’s most remote islands—South Georgia—closer to Antarctica than to civilization. South Georgia is uncivilized, and indeed, savagery has awoken at the remote abandoned whaling station of Grytviken.

  A team of scientists is missing. An explosion has devastated a ship carrying the latest group of academics and scientists, and a mysterious killer lurks among them.

  Stranded at Grytviken, shipwreck expert and maritime historian Jake Sands is caught in the middle. He and a group of research scientists are relentlessly targeted for extinction. They are hunted by an unknown group of commandos—and an unknown assassin from within.

  With scientists dying around him, Jake sets out to infiltrate a mysterious secret operation on the island, but little does he know he may actually be racing directly into the hands of a madman.

  The Gitano, the third episode in an action-packed globe-spanning series of thrillers certain to leave you with adrenal fatigue syndrome. If you enjoy fast-paced adventures in the style of Clive Cussler, Earnest Dempsey, and James Rollins, then you’ll love this maritime story of archaeological suspense.

  Grab THE TARGET now, and uncover a thriller unearthed from decades in hiding …