Cursed Days Read online

  CURSED DAYS

  J.M. LeDuc

  Book Three

  Trilogy of the Chosen

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2012 by J.M. LeDuc

  Originally published by Suspense Publishing All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonEncore are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  eISBN: 9781477880500

  Cover Designer: Ryan Sturm Raab

  This title was previously published by Suspense Magazine; this version has been reproduced from Suspense Magazine archive files.

  PRAISE FOR “CURSED DAYS”

  “LeDuc once again takes us on an adventure with his Christian protagonist, Brent Venturi, and his SIA team. Often, by the third book of a trilogy, we feel obligated to finish, but not with “Cursed Days.” The novel starts with intrigue and action and never stops as we globetrot with these tough-as-old-bomber-jackets, covert Christians as they face betrayal, murder, and revenge. LeDuc has outdone his previous work with this one. Get in on this mission and hold on!”

  –Patrick Kendrick, author of “Papa’s Problem,” a Florida Book award Winner

  “I predict J.M. LeDuc’s trilogy will be a best-selling series. So buckle up . . . it’s going to be a thrilling ride!”

  –Marsha Glenn, Editor of International Best Sellers including, “A Child Called “It” ” and select titles of Chicken Soup for the Soul series

  “Take “The Da Vinci Code,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Unit,” and “24,” add some twists and turns and you have “Cursed Days.” As a writer of provocative humor, I thought I had an imagination. But, J.M. LeDuc is in another world...The story is fiction. However, I sure hope God is on the side of the good guys, as the Chosen suggests. This book gets five stars.”

  –Bob E. Sherman, author and freelance writer

  “Often I read second or third of a series or a trilogy and they tend to fall flat. But not “Cursed Days.” If anything, this is the best of the three.”

  –Starr Gardinier Reina, author of “One Major Mistake”

  “Just when you thought, Satan was back in his box, Evil finds a way. J.M. Leduc has delivered again! “Cursed Days” is a heart pounding, adrenaline filled trek across the globe that will leave you breathless. From traitors among their trusted allies, to kidnapping of their loved ones, the Phantom Squad must race against time and Evil to save their world and ours.”

  –Leslie A. Borghini aka The Angel of Horror: Author of “Angel Heat”

  DEDICATION

  To my daughter, Chelsea, you inspire me daily with your independent spirit and your love of life. I thank God for the gift he gave me twenty one years ago.

  I love you,

  Dad

  Of course, that gift wouldn’t have been possible without the gift He gave me four years before that, so I also dedicate this book to my beautiful wife, Sherri. Thank you for putting up with me.

  I love and adore you,

  Me

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  I have so many people to thank, so I hope I don’t forget anyone.

  Shannon Raab, your representation and friendship make all of this possible. You work tirelessly for your clients, and I would be lost without your guidance. I want to thank you for your late nights, your lost weekends, and your bounty of knowledge and inspiration. You have been and continue to be a blessing in my life.

  To everyone at Suspense Publishing, I want to thank you for the dedication you show your authors and for the incredible amount of time and effort you put into promoting each one of us. I couldn’t ask for a better publisher. You have gone above and beyond everything I have expected.

  To my editor, Starr Gardinier Reina, thank you for putting up with my repeated mistakes. You are the best.

  To Ryan Sturm Raab, the incredible graphic artist—who is just fifteen years old—who designed the cover for “Cursed Days.” Her talent is only outdone by her future.

  To all my readers, the trilogy may be coming to an end, but the Phantom Squad will live on.

  And foremost, I thank God for . . . Everything!

  J.M.

  CURSED DAYS

  J.M. LeDuc

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Red walked at a brisk pace. Head pointed strai
ght ahead, chin tilted downward. This was neither the time nor place to be looking people in the eye. With purposeful strides he never wavered from his intended destination.

  Traditional Palestinian clothing; an ankle length robe, a throbe and a kaffiyeh, a black and white turban adorned his body. He kept his hair covered so not to look out of place. Everyone he passed seemed angry. It didn’t matter which side of this narrow strip of land you were on, all the people wore the same expression. It had been years since he’d been home, since he walked the streets of Khan Younis. The city was now the second largest along the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian stronghold.

  His eyes darted back and forth with the urgency of a medic after a suicide bombing. Never relaxed. Always alert to his surroundings. Years of training made these movements instinctive. Though his posture was tense, his mind was free. Free to think how he truly felt.

  “Fools,” he mumbled under his breath. Simple minded fools. Whether their messiah is Mohammad, Jesus, or someone else, they are all limited in their thinking. The time has come for all of them to bow to a new messiah.

  An evil grin crossed his thin parched lips. Thoughts of grandeur trounced about his head. Red’s pace slowed as he entered the ruins of a once grand structure. Inside al-Qal or the Khan as outsiders called it, his pulse slowed and his sweat cooled. The building, once the centerpiece of a thriving trade route during the Ottoman Empire was now more ceremonial than functional. Much of it was in disrepair.

  It was here that Red would meet with Omar. A meeting that would change the world. The lower he descended into the bowels of al-Qal the more anxious he became. He took a deep breath, inhaling centuries of dust. The dust of wars fought. Wars won and wars lost. His chest extended, shoulders back, he walked with a confident air. His mind always funneling thoughts.

  The Khan, this building, it is like the Brotherhood of Gaza. Once it was great, but time and circumstance have not been kind to either. Red’s upper lip rose on the left side in a sly smile as his next thoughts raced through his head. But unlike this building, the Brotherhood has begun its resurrection. In the next few days all the world will know of us and they will bow to our magnitude.

  Entering the final passage, he took on a new persona. One of servitude. One that would acquiesce to his superior.

  Red stood in the domain of the one who led the Brotherhood. He was silent and looked at the ground. Omar would speak first. He had been his trainer for eleven years, from age seven to eighteen. Red’s head bowed, his eyes rotated upward, glued to the man walking around the room. The feeling was electric.

  “Are you sure of your Intel?” Omar asked. He spoke with a coarseness that sounded like his throat had been scarred or he had spent too many years in this dust filled underground grotto.

  Once spoken to, Red was free to raise his head and speak to his mentor as an equal. “I stake my life on it,” he answered in a heavy Irish brogue.

  Omar stopped—stared. One look from his steel-grey eyes made Red weak. Daggers pierced his soul. It took every bit of fortitude to remain stoic and not cower like a child.

  The old man waited to see how his protégée would react, how he would answer.

  “All prophesy is in place,” Red said. “The Brotherhood knows the Ark of the Endowment has been recovered and now ‘The Enlightenment’, the time written by John the Revelator has passed.”

  Omar’s bushy brow elevated in response. He paced about the chamber, hands clenched behind his back. In his eighties, he still moved like a young man. “They say the new Keeper of the Keys—The Ambassador, is a gifted man. A man like David. A man after God’s own heart.”

  The left side of Red’s mouth quivered with hate. “He is still a man. All men bleed. . . and die,” he replied.

  The old man shook his head. “This one’s different. He defeated Satan in battle. He is no ordinary man.”

  Red licked his cracked lips, biting his lower lip to help him remain calm. He had to choose his words wisely. “I’ve heard him speak, watched him breathe, saw his wounds. He is only flesh and blood.”

  Omar ran his branch-like fingers through his scraggly grey beard, nodding in slight agreement.

  “How confident are you of our man on the inside?” he asked. “The Brotherhood has waited centuries for this day. We will only get one chance.” He took a step closer to Red. Eyes fixed on his chosen one. The one chosen at the age of seven to one day recover the Ark of the Covenant. He stood so close that Red could smell the Turkish coffee on the old man’s breath. “You know what failure means?” Omar said.

  Lip quivering, almost spasmodic in movement, Red inhaled through flared nostrils. Teeth gnashed as the words spilled forth. “Death to me, my team and our destiny.”

  “My faith in you is strong,” Omar said, stepping back, “but your emotions run high.”

  “I’ve managed to keep them in check for the past five years in that hellhole,” Red shot back.

  “Mmm,” Omar groaned. “That hellhole is why we know that the time is right to reunite the Trilogy of the Arks.” He stopped stoking his beard and continued to pace. “This man on the inside, he has been there for a long time.”

  “Sixteen years,” Red said.

  “You have no doubt of his loyalty?”

  “He is loyal to the Brotherhood.”

  Omar again responded with a flick of an eyebrow. “Your team, where are they?”

  “We know from the scrolls translated by our scribes that the search begins near Jerusalem. They are there. Waiting on me.”

  “When will the hunt begin?”

  “As soon as the name of the first messenger is revealed,” Red said. Omar opened his mouth to speak, but the younger man didn’t give him a chance. “We believe in the next twenty-four hours.”

  Omar returned to his seat. He stared at his desk. The scrolls appeared to stare back at him. “Join them. The time to lift the curse has begun. The time for world domination has arrived.”

  Inside Saint Peter’s Basilica a similar conversation was ongoing.

  “Has there been any word from The Ambassador?” the pontiff asked.

  “Not yet, but Brent will not fail us,” Cardinal Bullini answered.

  The Pope rose from his knees and sat back in the pew. “I wish my faith was as great as yours.”

  “It’s not faith, your eminence.”

  “Oh.”

  The cardinal blessed himself and he too sat back in the pew. “The scroll of Enlightenment, both of the lost Arks in his possession, the words of Arch-angel Gabriel: this is why I know he will take on the quest.”

  The pontiff stood and looked down at his faithful servant. “I only hope he makes his decision soon. Time is not on our side.” Cane in hand, he walked toward the exit without looking back. “Evil finds a way,” he said. His final words echoed about the vast basilica. “Evil finds a way.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Brent Venturi, the Ambassador and the deciding factor in a possible holy war was thirty-five thousand feet in the air. Having left the Vatican a mere three hours ago, Colonel Venturi, the Phantom Squad and the directorate of the SIA, (Strategic Intelligence Alliance), the world’s most covert intelligence agency, were on their way home for some well needed rest.

  Only two weeks ago, Brent had almost lost his life while defeating The Omega Butcher indwelled with Satan’s spirit in a battle which had been predicted since the first century of our Lord.

  The light above his seat glowed an incandescence that could only mean one thing—insomnia. The cabin of the SIA’s 707 was dark except for the one light. All others on the flight had found the peace that accompanied sleep. Too many thoughts buzzed Brent’s brain for him to relax. His eyelids grew heavy, but he fought the urge to close them. There was too much to think about, too many decisions to be made, too many lives depending on his decisions.

  I used to think putting my life in God’s hands wou
ld make things simpler, he thought. A slight grin materialized on his face. A face etched with lines not normally found on a 36 year-old. Then again, he was no normal 36 year-old. Brent was this generation’s Ambassador, the heir to a secret that had been kept since the time of Noah. Brent was also God’s chosen, the one who had to go up against Satan in a battle for man’s free will. . . and now this. Rubbing his eyes, he could almost feel the dark circles that rode the top of his cheek bones. His eyes ached with a dryness that came with lack of sleep and more stress than he knew what to do with.

  From the outside, his life was one to be admired, one that others would want to emulate. But from where he sat—things were different.

  He looked about the cabin at those who were the closest to him, his family, some blood born, others love born, all God sent. Brent blindly reached beside him for his coffee cup. A sip of cold coffee made his facial expressions twist in pain. Why do we let Seven make the coffee? he thought. We hope that somehow, someday it will turn out different, but. . .

  He swallowed as he grandfather’s words came to mind. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”

  Brent looked down at the dossier on his lap. He inhaled a deep breath, a breath that brought with it answers. Closing the folder, he reached up, shut off the light and tried not to think about the arguments to come. Twenty minutes later, exhaustion won the battle over consciousness and he fell into a fitful slumber.

  CHAPTER 3

  Back in Palm Cove, things did not get any easier for Brent.

  Brent eyed the clock. It was almost three in the morning, and their conversation had been going on for over an hour. God, this is going to be a long night, he thought. His eyes grew in apprehension as he continued to watch his wife pace back and forth across their bedroom.

  “I just don’t get it,” Chloe seared as she stormed about the room. “I understand when you get called out on a mission with the squad. I even understand when SIA business takes you away from home, but this. . . I don’t get.”