The Milestone Protocol by Ernest Dempsey (best books to read in your 20s txt) 📕

He aimed high, though, and soaked the wood around the flames before it could ignite the rest of the building. Then, Alex gradually worked the stream back and forth, and downward, extinguishing the fire much faster than anyone expected.

One side of the barn was scorched black from the blaze. It still smoldered, so Alex continued to spray water on it to make sure it didn’t reignite.

Meanwhile, Sean and the rest of the group, their weapons raised, approached the men on the ground.

“Don’t move,” Adriana ordered. “Keep your hands on the backs of your heads.”

Sean liked the take-charge sound in her voice. He’d always appreciated strong women, and she was the strongest he’d ever met.

The one who’d fallen out of the window continued to groan. His left arm and shoulder were way out of their normal position. Sean figured it was probably a combination clavicle fracture and shoulder dislocation.

“The more you move,” he warned, “the more it’s going to hurt.” Sean had experienced a few dislocated shoulders in college and knew exactly how uncomfortable it could be. The broken clavicle, on the other hand, was something he’d never experienced, but he heard it was one of the most painful breaks a person could suffer.

The henchman took Sean’s words to heart and stopped rolling around as much, though the pain he was in was written on his face. He was lucky he hadn’t broken his neck.

“What are you going to do with them?” Adriana asked, peering at them with venom in her eyes. Her thoughts were, no doubt, far away in Madrid, where she feared her father and Miyamoto were under attack.

“I figured I’d let Emily decide that. Or maybe Tabitha.”

The two women approached along with the others who’d been flanking the barn.

“What about me?” Tabitha asked.

Tommy fielded the question first. “We were wondering what to do with these four since we don’t really need to interrogate them.”

“He’s right,” Sean said. “We already know where Magnus is going, so they’re no use to us for information.”

The three men on their knees hung their heads, while the injured one looked up desperately into the eyes of the man he figured was the leader. “Please,” he said to Sean, “if you let us go, you will never see us again. I swear it. Just let me get some medical attention. Please.”

“No, I’m not letting you go.”

“I thought you said I get to make that call,” Emily said, half joking.

Adriana merely stared at them with furious loathing. Niki did as well. These had been his brothers, now he found himself on the other side of the war he’d helped his master start. So much had changed in the last few hours. He’d questioned his motives, his reasoning, but when Odin—rather, Magnus Sorenson—had said what he said, and so callously, there was no going back to the order after that.

“Be my guest,” Sean said, extending his hand toward the four prisoners.

“You’re doing fine. Besides, you have more on them than I do. I just got here.”

“Fair point,” Sean agreed and faced the men again. “We know you are all with the Cult of Thoth, the ancient order that has served that deity and his designs for the planet for thousands of years.” Emily’s poker face didn’t crack at the information. She could tell Sean wasn’t bluffing, and listened as he went on.

“We also know Odin’s plans for the planet, and what he intends to do to billions of people.” He watched each of the captives intently. “You also know of this plan, yes?”

The men slowly nodded. The injured one nodded fiercely. “Yes. We know. Please. We’ll take you to one of the arks. There is a bunker near here. Less than an hour away. We can get you access before the machine is activated.”

Adriana cut into the inquisition. “Next question,” she said. “Is the Fellowship carrying out an attack in Madrid?”

The hurt one nodded again. “Yes. There are enemies of the Fellowship there. We only heard rumors about it, though. We’re not sure who the target is. Only those who were sent know those details. I swear, if I knew more I would—”

His voice was cut off by the muted sounds of gunfire as Adriana squeezed the trigger of a pistol. The first bullet burrowed through the injured man’s skull and into the ground behind him. Then she turned to the other three and emptied her magazine, executing every one of them.

“Whoa!” Tabitha shouted when Adriana’s trigger clicked several times.

The men fell in various directions, dead long before they hit the ground.

“What are you doing? I thought we were questioning them. And you just killed four men that had surrendered.”

Adriana turned on Tabitha. The blazing fury in Adriana’s eyes was enough to melt steel. “These four men just admitted they were complicit in a plan to murder billions. They also told me that my father’s estate is under attack. There was no remorse from any of them. If we let them go, they will rejoin others, and could eventually shoot one of us, or all of us, in the back. And I will not send them to a prison to spend the rest of their lives talking about the good old days to any listening, sympathetic ear. From one come many.”

“Isn’t the quote from many, one?” Tommy asked. “E pluribus unum?”

She ignored him. “They are a cult,” Adriana continued. “Just like a terror cell, one can create ten. Ten can create a hundred. It spreads like a virus. We already know that they have infiltrated most of society. They had to die. As do all the rest.”

Tabitha couldn’t think of an argument beyond that.

Sean drew close to her. “Do you want me to go to Spain with you? We can stop them. Find your dad.”

“No,” Adriana said. “Then everything they have fought for, trained me for, will have been in vain. Generations of my family worked toward this time, this threat. It’s my destiny.”

“You can’t go alone.”

She shook her head. “I’m not going at