Vatican Fiction

Before Kimball Hayden became a Vatican Knight, he was the commander of the Pieces of Eight, a kill squad that worked as part of a black-arm force of the CIA. He kills with impunity and acts with the cold fortitude of a machine. But when he begins to question the morality of his actions and the motives of his superiors, he is placed within the crosshairs by high-end principals who want to see him dead.

In a Galveston, Texas lab, a lethal strain has been stolen by a terrorist faction. In New Mexico, the population of a small town is completely wiped out. In Las Vegas, a vicious underground clan called the Community surfaces at night to prey on the weak. In Paris, two old foes of Kimball Hayden reunite as a kill team to hunt him down. Now considered dead by the Vatican, Kimball Hayden is leading a secretive life on the streets of Las Vegas. But when a parish comes under the threat of a vicious mob, he finds himself thrown back into a world of violence.

In central Syria, villages are razed as young men are conscripted to join the ISIS faction. In a Doctors Without Borders camp which is overrun by members of the Islamic State, people are abducted along with a priest Father Savino. He also happens to be the brother of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. From the green zone in Iraq, Shari Cohen, now a CIA consultant and operator, learns that she must appropriate intel from the resurging ISIS force to stop them from striking international targets.

In Washington, D.C., three priests have been murdered and mutilated with their corpses hanging upside-down in mock crucifixion. The only indicator as to the culprit is a 500-year-old order known as the Nocturnal Saints, an underground faction that had been borne from the Protestant Reformation and acts as judge, jury, and executioner against those deemed to be in contradiction of old-time traditions. So when Special Agent Shari Cohen of the FBI is called to track down this faceless enemy, she’s joined by the Vatican Knights, who have been dispatched by the pontiff to counteract the order.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943, a place where ashes rain down on a daily basis to cover the ground with a mantle of gray, a rebel force of Jews band together in a fight for survival. Frederic Becher, an SS guard who falls in love with a Jewish girl, lays the groundwork for the creation of one of the most formidable forces in the world - the juggernaut that would eventually become the Vatican Knights.

While traveling across the United States during the Papal Symposium, the papal plane, Shepherd One, is commandeered by a terrorist cell calling itself the Muslim Revolutionary Front. On board: a nuclear payload with half the yield that destroyed Hiroshima. Their demand to the US government: assassinate the five leading principals of Mossad.

As the Vatican mourns the loss of Kimball Hayden, Isaiah, branded as the new Master Commander, is tasked with confronting the Black Monk, who has utilized AI technology to spread disinformation across Europe, but with an even greater focus on the Vatican to undermine the pope’s authority. When Europe begins to erupt into chaos and violent protests, the pontiff has also been targeted by this campaign with lies and mistruths, with public opinion turning against him.

In Virginia, a Blacksite facility is assaulted with military sophistication to free a homegrown terrorist who once attempted to assassinate FBI Specialist Shari Cohen. Within days, two of America’s most iconic symbols of freedom are razed. In Rome, Kimball Hayden’s demons are at their worst, the man becoming a shell of his former self. But when he learns that Shari Cohen’s assassin is on the loose, he embarks on a trip of rediscovery that unites him with the woman he loves.

In Geneva, a highly valued product with the power to cause major destruction is stolen from the CERN. Eighty kilometers from the Austrian border, a young girl becomes the key that controls the will of the man with the power to create and destroy. In the mountainous regions of Switzerland, a hostile force from a pariah regime attempts to extract a scientist from a fast-moving train.

In Mindanao, Philippines, a terrorist faction holding members of the clergy hostage is summarily liquidated. On the same night in Manila, a separate team of sophisticated thieves with a considerable amount of military training enter a high-tech security facility to steal the coveted Scepter of Light, a staff once used by Saint Peter as he spread the Gospel of Jesus. In Greece, the buyer of the relic learns that the item he purchased for one hundred million in American funds had hit a hurdle, galvanizing his team to aid in the scepter’s recovery in the Philippines.

In Egypt, those within the Saint Catherine Monastery are brutally attacked and a secret that has been hidden for more than 3,500 years is stolen. In Zurich, an arms dealer makes an agreement with a band of elite terrorists for one-of-a-kind weapons of mass destruction, for a treasure that was presumed destroyed during the Exodus. When a conversation between two men is covertly videotaped by an operator of the CIA, Vatican Intelligence and the Mossad realize that the partial message received was filled with enigmas.

When the Vatican receives a third necrology report that outlines the impending time and death of the top-tier abductee, the Vatican Knights are forced to operate within a small window of opportunity to locate and extract the hostage before the final obituary comes to completion.

In an abandoned church deep inside the Syrian Desert, Father Jenkins watches over a group of children who'd been orphaned by war and unrest. Having been marked for extraction by the Vatican Knights, a cabal of ruthless killers from the Islamic State cripples all attempts of safe passage and gives chase across a desert landscape that's completely ruled by scorpions and snakes.

It's 1978 and the whole country, exhausted from the twin traumas of Vietnam and Watergate, is suffering from a massive hangover. Chucky O'Malley knows how the country feels; approaching fifty, he finds himself in the grip of a debilitating midlife crisis. As he travels the world, from the Vatican, where a new pope is to be selected, to Jimmy Carter's White House, where an overwhelmed president struggles to find a cure for his nation's malaise, Chucky searches for a way to renew his weary spirit.

Iron-fisted Pope Leo XIV emerges from open-heart surgery with the chilling realisation that his reforms have devastated the Church. As he struggles to overcome the policies he himself put in place, he must battle enemies from within the Vatican, as well as Islamic terrorists determined to assassinate him. Amid political intrigue and counterespionage, his brilliant Surgeon, Salviati, becomes a target, too, along with Salviati’s beautiful mistress, Tove, and her fragile daughter, as the plot builds to a dramatic climax.

In a hidden chamber beneath an estate in Zurich, a tomblike vault is discovered containing the Unholy Trinity: Satan, the Antichrist and the False Prophet. In Paris, an elite assassin resurfaces with the intent to raze three major cities through acts of terrorism. In Rome, an old and deadly faction rises once again to remove Kimball Hayden permanently from the ranks of the Vatican Knights.

When the Spear of Destiny is stolen by members of the Islamic State with its leader believing that the possessor of the Holy Lance has the ability to command powerful legions, they quickly find themselves in a position of "no escape" inside a towering skyscraper. Now that the power of the Holy Lance is in the hands of Ali Mustafa, he now finds himself with the opportunity to test its value and strength against those who dare oppose him.

In France, a member of a secret guild is killed for the secrets he keeps. In Croatia, a stronghold is breached, and a treasure is stolen. At the Vatican, a corrupt pontiff views Kimball Hayden as a threat to his rule. When a Croatian stronghold is breached and scores are killed, a religious icon is stolen that contains a dark particle that’s powerful enough to either create worlds or destroy them. With a corrupt pontiff who sees Kimball Hayden as a threat to his power, Pope Clement XV mobilizes the Vatican Knight without his team to retrieve the dark particle.

Thirty years ago, the world was in the exploratory stages of creating a technology capable of artificial intelligence. Thirty years later, that technology has been perfected. In a lab somewhere in a remote mountain region in Iran, nanoparticles, or micro-bots, have been created to be self-sustaining and self-reproducing, each day evolving and learning from experience. They have been programmed to be the ultimate predator, devouring everything in their path and leaving nothing behind.

After the march on the Vatican by the Islamic State, the radical group begins its push deeper into the European and American Fronts. But when the True Cross - the wooden remnants of the cross Jesus was crucified upon and the holiest of all relics - is stolen from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by the Islamic State, it becomes clear that the relic is to be bartered to an arms dealer for weapons so devastating that Europe and the United States could be rocked to their very foundations.