Free The Thirteenth Legion (A James Acton Thriller, #15) (James Acton Thrillers) by J Robert Kennedy

rationalize it by doing
the math. A plane ticket to her was like buying a coffee to him.
    And he
wouldn’t think twice if she or her new husband bought him a coffee.
    “Okay,
fine. I’ll make the call. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Talk to you soon.”
    “I’ll
keep you posted with what I find out. Goodbye.”
    Reading
ended the call and spun on the others in the room. “Jim and Laura have been
kidnapped,” he said, striding quickly toward them, rage in his eyes, Rodney
stepping in front of the Proconsul, sensing Reading’s desire to tear out someone’s
throat. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
    The
Proconsul shook his head. “Absolutely not.” He turned to another guard standing
near the door. “Get me the Maryland detail, now!” The guard nodded and left,
returning only seconds later with another person who rushed into the room with
an outstretched cellphone.
    “Sir,
it’s for you, urgent!”
    The
Proconsul took the phone, his side of the conversation mostly grunts before he
hung up. He handed the phone back then turned to Reading. “I’m afraid you’re
right. Our agents that were tailing them report an attack.”
    Reading
felt himself turn purple as anger and concern consumed him. He glared at
Rodney.
    “Get me
to my flat, now!”
     
     

 
     

     
     
    Motel 6, Annapolis, Maryland
     
    “This is the case.”
    Chaney
handed Acton the rather heavy case, everyone now crammed into a too small motel
room on the outskirts of Annapolis. Acton rested it on his knees and slid the
locks aside, the case opening with a hiss. Gently lifting the lid, his eyes
widened and he felt Laura shiver beside him as they gazed upon the skull they
hadn’t seen since discovering it in Venice over a year ago.
    It still
gave him the heebie-jeebies.
    “As you
can see, it’s form-fitted for the skull, so we’re hoping they’ll just use it rather than transfer it to their own case.”
    Acton
snapped it shut. “Unlikely.”
    “Perhaps
not. Each skull is a little different, and since they’ve never seen this one,
they won’t have a case that fits as well. They’ll want to keep it as safe as
possible, so they could very well use it.”
    “They’d
be fools if they did. They’ll know you’ll try to plant a tracking device
inside.”
    “Oh,
absolutely, they’ll scan for tracking devices, but it will be turned off. When
you arrive, they’ll open the case to confirm its authenticity. When that
happens, a timer will be activated. Ten minutes later the tracking device will
be activated unless the case is closed, at which point the timer will reset to another
ten minutes.”
    “Why?”
    “Just in
case they leave it open, we want the tracker to activate so we at least know
where you are. Our hope is that they will use the case, so we want to delay the
activation to give them time to scan it for signals.”
    Acton
nodded. “I see. If they find one, they’ll know we’re working for you.”
    “They
won’t find it. The tracker will be turned off, but if something goes wrong and
they do find it, just plead ignorance. If you stole the case from us, then it’s
a very plausible story that you wouldn’t know it was bugged.”
    Acton glanced
at Laura. They hadn’t yet had time to talk about it, to come to some sort of
agreement on whether they should actually go through with this, or to simply
wash their hands of the entire affair and hunker down until the Triarii and the
Deniers figured things out among themselves.
    Yet they
could be in danger. If the Deniers were now killing, and they thought they
could use them to get to Chaney and the thirteenth skull, then there may be no
escaping getting involved and helping to bring down the Deniers. It might put
an end to the Triarii in their lives.
    Laura
squeezed his hand, he knowing her well enough to know she was having the same
thoughts. He turned to Chaney. “Okay, so the case is bugged. They’ll scan it
for signals then hopefully decide it’s clean and use it to