Relics

by K. T. Tomb

  “We will respect that wish, Eli,” she responded, looking around at the others who voiced their agreement.

  “As you already know,” Eli began again as they started down the long tunnel, “we are in the belly of the lion here. Were we to be compromised, it would not only mean instant death, likely by beheading, but would jeopardize some major operations that are taking place throughout the region.”

  “Massad?” she asked.

  “Miss Phoenix,” he warned. “Please respect what I told you earlier. All you need to know is that my name is Eli and that we are going to get you and two of your team members to Guy Phillips. We have coordinated with the extraction team that was contacted by your boss, thanks to some fancy work by one of your team members in getting a tracking device planted on the subject.”

  “Two team members, actually,” she corrected.

  “Excellent,” he responded. They arrived at a point where another tunnel branched off and Eli stopped and turned toward the group. “Which one of you is Jeremy?”

  Jeremy spoke up. “I am.”

  “Please go with Jacob and help brief our electronics team.”

  “May I go with him, sir?” Eric glanced at Phoe, knowing that she would not object. The two often worked together, so it was not out of the ordinary.

  Eli looked at Phoe. “It’s your team, Miss Phoenix.”

  “Go,” she said, simply.

  She, Peter and Jonathan were led further along the tunnel, eventually arriving in a hollowed-out, underground room with adjoining smaller rooms accessible by doorways only large enough to crawl through.

  “This is a command center, which is linked directly to the surveillance center where we sent you other two team members. As soon as they have briefed our electronics teams, they will be escorted out of here to the extraction group. It is our hope that if someone happens to have discovered our existence that they will follow them rather than be alerted to your movements.”

  “Understood,” Phoe replied.

  “Ma’am, I would offer the three of you a place to relax for a few moments”—he waved toward the smaller rooms—“but I have been informed that time is of the essence.

  “We have your subject located and know exactly how to deliver you to him. I have no idea what your plan for him is. Your boss was pretty secretive about that and I respect that. It is your prerogative to let me in on your intentions and ask for advice if you like, as I will be accompanying you. However, that will put an end to my time here, due to the fact that we cannot risk having me connected to the operation. I’ll go out with you and your team when you are extracted and will not ever be allowed back in the region again.”

  “You’re being relieved of your command on our account?”

  “Ma’am, you can ask as many questions about me as you like once we’re extracted safely, but let me assure you that I have done plenty and am more than ready to rotate out.”

  “Understood,” Phoe replied. She then went into the best detail that she could about what it was that they intended to do once they caught up with Phillips.

  Before she could finish, however, one of the nearby operators called out.

  “Eli, we’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “The surveillance team just told me that the subject is on the move and headed directly toward a large, heavily armored coalition division outside of the city. Satellite is picking up only one civilian carrier, but the subject is definitely in that vehicle. What the hell is he doing?”

  “He’s going to test the ring,” Phoe whispered to Peter while Eli stepped over to the monitor alongside his subordinate.

  “Do you really believe the ring works?” Peter replied in the same tone.

  “I do,” she said. “But even if I’m wrong, we damned sure won’t be able to find that ring once that armored column finishes scattering him everywhere.”

  “Miss Phoenix, if you intend to recover the item that you are after, we better get a move on,” Eli interrupted. “If we move right now, we can cut him off.”

  “What about Jeremy and Eric?”

  “They’re already on their way out,” Eli replied.

  “Wow!” Jonathan exclaimed. “I didn’t even have a chance to hang up my hat.”

  Eli allowed one corner of his mouth to turn up in a smile as he glanced at Jonathan. “Trust me, nobody really wants to stay here long. Let’s get moving then.”

  The next fifteen minutes passed by so rapidly that it seemed to Phoe like she had blinked and missed it all completely. One moment they were running down a tunnel. The next moment they were in another narrow alley. Quickly after that, they were in the back of a small pickup brandishing a machine gun turret and rushing across the desert at a pace that scared the daylights out of her. How the small pickup remained upright was one mystery that even Thalia Phoenix and her team would never be able to solve.

  True to his promise, however, Eli’s driver was able to cut off the “civilian carrier,” which turned out to be a dark SUV, eerily similar to the one that had been sent to retrieve them from the airport. They turned toward the approaching SUV and once they were within range, fired several shots in front of it, bringing it to a stop.

  As casually as though he had arrived at a restaurant, Phillips stepped out of one of the rear doors of the SUV, while two other passengers bearing AK-47s slipped out of the other rear door and took up positions to fire.

  “Well, there he is,” Peter said, nudging her.

  Phoe took a deep breath and started to climb out of the pickup. Jonathan pulled her back to him.

  “Make sure you stay in front of him. If you get behind him, you’re screwed.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “Stay in front of him.” Jonathan repeated his warning a bit louder a couple more times so that everyone in the pickup heard him.

  Phoe slipped out of the pickup and called out. “Guy, stop! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Ah ha, Thalia Phoenix,” he laughed. “I should have known that you’d track me down. Rather quickly, too; your team is impressive. I suppose you had to come see if the ring actually works.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” she called back to him. “We need to deliver that ring to the Vatican where it will be kept hidden and not be able to do any damage.”

  “If the Vatican didn’t intend to use it to do damage of its own, then why did they send you looking for it? Why didn’t they just let it stay hidden? Aren’t you curious as to why they want it?”

  “Just give me the ring, Guy.”

  Phillips just laughed at her and turned the ring on his finger so that the seal was on the palm side of his hand. He raised both hands above his head and smiled at her. “We’ll know if it works in a moment,” he called out in a maniacal voice.

  “Guy, no!” she screamed.

  “By the power of Solomon,” Phillips cried out.

  The explosion of energy that followed was beyond intense.

  Chapter Twenty

  Phoe, followed by her team, strolled casually down the fishing pier that extended well out into the water in the Port of Haifa. She’d invited Major Levi Mizrahi, who had answered tons of her questions once they were extracted safely, but he had declined her offer.

  There was some good-natured ribbing being passed back and forth between them as was normal, but, for the most part, they were pretty solemn, watching the sun dip closer toward the horizon.

  Phoe, lost in her own thoughts about what had taken place a little more than 24 hours before didn’t hear most of the playful banter, but instead, only saw the last image of Alfred Guy Phillips the Fourth at that frozen moment after the name of Solomon left his lips.

  She hadn’t been fond of Phillips from the moment they met, but she wasn’t a brute and did not particularly relish watching someone die, especially the way that Phillips had died. The entire moment replayed in her mind, complete with images, sounds, tastes and smells. She was
pretty certain that it would never leave her.

  Once Guy had pronounced the invocation of the ring, there had been only a split second before the powerful explosion of energy engulfed, not only him, but the SUV, the driver and the other two passengers.

  Phoe had instinctively flattened herself into the sand, but looked up to see Phillips, those with him and the SUV, literally vanish in front of her. They were there one moment, particles like on a pixilated monitor in another and then gone.

  The instant the explosion took place, it finished and seemed to be sucked right back up into the ring, which fell to the desert sand.

  She had taken several steps forward and was standing in front of the small pickup that had carried them out to the desert to intercept Phillips. After the explosion, she looked back over her shoulder at the small pickup, which was completely unharmed.

  “Is everybody okay?”

  In response, heads began popping up from behind whatever cover the others had taken as each stared at what they were no longer seeing.

  “What the hell just happened?” Peter asked.

  With no one able to offer an explanation, the question simply hung in the air.

  Pushing herself up from the ground, Phoe moved forward, as casually as she could manage and then squatted in the sand next to where Phillips had been standing. She just as casually reached between her feet, scooped up the ring and stood, putting her hands in her pockets as she strolled forward several more paces as if she was looking for traces of the SUV.

  “Something from that armored column must have hit them,” Jonathan finally suggested.

  “But what the hell was it?” the one who had been manning the machine gun in the bed of the pickup asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Whose armored column is that?” Peter asked, hoping that he could play along with Jonathan’s ruse.

  “Russian,” Eli replied. He glanced over at Peter with a knowing look on his face.

  Peter winked at him and shook his head ever so slightly.

  “Do the Russians have some new weapon?” the driver asked Eli. “It was almost like some sort of laser.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the machine gunner added. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

  “I’ve heard that the Russians have developed some sort of new laser weapon,” Eli said casually.

  “Jesus,” the driver said. “I’m glad they’re on our side this time.”

  The machine gunner, seeing the grim expression on Phoe’s face as she turned back toward them, mistook it for disappointment. “Oh, shit, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll bet that laser totally destroyed your ring.”

  “Yeah,” she responded with a frown. “I’m pretty sure it’s nothing more than a few thousand more grains of sand.”

  “We need to bug out of here and get to the extraction point,” Eli broke in. “Won’t do us any good to get caught out in the open.”

  With everyone back in the pickup and clenching every muscle in their bodies as another terrifying ride across the desert began, Phoe leaned closer to Jonathan. “Another gut feeling?”

  “Nope, pure fact,” Jonathan replied.

  “How did you know that we needed to stay in front of it?”

  “The fisherman turned his back and raised his hands over his head,” Jonathan replied.

  “You do realize that up until now, that was only a myth, right?”

  “Yep, just like that ring is another thousand grains of sand,” he winked.

  It wasn’t much of a surprise to her when their extraction team scooped them up in a mish-mash of military vehicles from various countries of manufacture. Neither was it a surprise when they arrived at an Israeli border checkpoint and waved through without incident.

  Well inside the border of Israel, Eli had turned to her and introduced himself. He told her of some of the operations that they had been able to carry out right inside the “belly of the lion,” as he liked to refer to it. His conversation was not only filled with pride for the accomplishments that they were making in Raqqa, but he was elated to finally be rotating back home.

  “Those little rooms where we slept weren’t all that wonderful,” he said.

  By that point in her reverie, her team had reached the end of the pier in the Port of Haifa and a nudge from Peter brought her back to the present.

  “So, what are we doing out here?” Jeremy asked.

  “We have one last thing to do before wrapping up this mission,” Phoe announced. “However, I want to allow each of you to get a glimpse at what we worked so hard to find before we send it back to where it belongs.”

  Phoe pulled the ring out of her pocket and passed it around to each of them. There was no sound, but the lapping of the waves against the pier. Each had a turn to examine it for as long as he wanted and pass it along to the next.

  “It does look a lot like a lily,” Eric said, breaking the silence with his comment.

  Once the ring had passed through everyone’s hands, it was returned to Phoe. “I hate to do this, but, well, you know…” She turned the ring over in her hands for one final look and then reared back and threw it with all of her might out into the water. It made a loud plunk and was gone.

  Strolling back down the pier, no one spoke for several minutes.

  “That’s really where it belongs,” Jonathan finally said.

  Everyone agreed and they resumed their typical banter, as if the statement was the closing of a finished novel.

  When the others had gotten a few paces ahead of them, Peter put his arm around her and leaned in close in order to speak in a low tone. “What are you going to tell Simon?”

  Phoe shrugged in response and then grinned as her phone started to ring. She fished it out of her pocket, pressed the button and spoke only one word. “Yelp.”

  “I figured as much,” Simon Kessler replied.

  The End

  Phoenix returns in:

  The Shroud of Turin

  Return to the Table of Contents

  THE SHROUD OF TURIN

  by

  K.T. TOMB

  A Phoenix Quest Adventure #7

  The Shroud of Turin

  Published by K.T. Tomb

  Copyright © 2016 by K.T. Tomb

  All rights reserved.

  The Shroud of Turin

  Prologue

  The Shroud of Turin, named such because it is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, is perhaps the most controversial of all of the venerated icons of Catholic traditions. Though on numerous occasions, investigations into the authenticity of the shroud have been questioned, it is still regarded as the actual burial covering of Jesus Christ, and the image imprinted on it is that of the crucified Messiah transferred permanently to the cloth.

  Its controversial history has proponents creating arguments on both sides, though carbon dating has placed its likely origin to have been in the 13th or 14th century. What has made it continue to be considered a venerated object was the declaration made by Pope Pius XII, in which he stated the image in the cloth was the Holy Face of Jesus.

  The evidence in favor of the shroud’s authenticity is the appearance of wounds consistent with crucifixion, as well as the additional wound where the body had been pierced by a spear. Also, a part of the evidence is the three-to-one herringbone twill weave, which was certainly a possibility for the makeup of linen cloth originating in the first century and before.

  One of the most intriguing pieces of evidence against the shroud’s authenticity, besides that of the carbon dating, is concerned with the fact that there seems to have been no record of the shroud’s existence before it was put on display for the first time in France in 1357, no doubt, in an attempt to bolster the moral and spiritual authority of the papacy which had been struggling during that time. Some say that the timing itself makes its authenticity suspect.

  In spite of the controversy surrounding it, the Shroud of Turin still remains one of the most celebrated of the vene
rated symbols of the Catholic Church, though there is certainly plenty of intrigue surrounding its origin.

  Chapter One

  “Jesus Christ, did you have to wake me up so early?” Casey moaned.

  “I’m not Jesus and it’s only 7:30. So, suck it up, Princess,” Thalia Phoenix growled. To begin with, she hadn’t been particularly happy to have to drag her cousin along with her. It was something she’d had to do to keep her mother and her aunt happy.

  “He’s an archeological student and he’s interested in seeing what you do,” Angelica Phoenix had pleaded. “Just let him tag along.”

  “What I do can be dangerous!” The moment that she said it, she wished she hadn’t. That had opened up the whole ‘why do you have to make it so dangerous’ discussion all over again. It wasn’t like she enjoyed being kidnapped, shot at or even disintegrated; it just happened because the things that she typically went after were things that other people either wanted for themselves or didn’t want her to have.

  “Thalia Diane Phoenix, you’re a beautiful young lady and you ought to be settling down instead of running all over the world trying not to get yourself killed.” Usually, when her mother used her full name in that way, she wasn’t happy and Phoe was about to be in serious trouble, which was ridiculous since she was a grown woman, but since when did that stop anyone’s mother from trying to set their child straight? That was the other reason she wished that she hadn’t said what she did. The danger discussion always led to the ‘when are you going to settle down and start raising children’ one. Frankly, she preferred getting kidnapped, shot at or disintegrated.