The Sacred Sword

The Sacred Sword
Scott Mariani

IAN ANCIENT SWORD. A LONG BURIED SECRET.ONE MAN WILL UNCOVER THE MYSTERY.It’s Christmas, and on a trip back to the UK to try to sort out his stormy personal life, ex-SAS soldier Ben Hope runs into two old friends. Simeon and Michaela were once his fellow students at Oxford – now they are the Reverend and Mrs Arundel.Ben senses that Simeon is deeply troubled and frightened, but before the truth can emerge about his secretive research project concerning a mysterious, ancient ‘sacred sword’, both he and Michael are wiped out in a devastating road crash. Convinced that his friends’ deaths were no accident, Ben is propelled on a global quest to unlock the enigma of the sacred sword. At every step, he is pursued by ruthless agents of the sinister organisation that will stop at nothing to acquire it.In the course of his investigations, Ben will discover an incredible secret, not just about the history of Christianity but about his own past.BEN HOPE is one of the most celebrated action adventure heroes in British fiction and Scott Mariani is the author of numerous bestsellers. Join the ever-growing legion of readers who get breathless with anticipation when the countdown to the new Ben Hope thriller begins …

SCOTT MARIANI

The Sacred Sword

Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

This ebook edition published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

First published in paperback by HarperCollinsPublishers, 2012

Copyright © Scott Mariani 2012

Cover design © Henry Steadman 2016

Scott Mariani asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780007342815

Version: 2018-07-18

Dedication

To B.D., without whose inspiration

this story would never have been written

Contents

Cover (#u1593669c-0d72-5ce8-85bb-e3010498cc7a)

Title page (#ub7218581-f5b4-59e0-a1c3-fed6eec1c9d1)

Copyright (#u5b4accc4-dad3-5e3a-aa89-59170f8b8a7f)

Dedication (#u187cce82-0fdd-532b-baa7-47aac24de2f2)

Prologue (#u979a6b12-c450-5b07-8f67-8fd6d8e32dab)

Chapter One (#udf76e379-a825-5565-a749-ce047f5db2df)

Chapter Two (#u57f25f01-30e2-52a6-85d1-649a631956ac)

Chapter Three (#ufea45b9c-1c4f-5fe7-a6b1-4943ed8bc136)

Chapter Four (#u14b89c25-c4f2-5614-a963-410798eff731)

Chapter Five (#u40199041-db53-5e48-979d-bb7c3168769a)

Chapter Six (#u66df2649-8aef-594a-a620-de3fdcd27e5c)

Chapter Seven (#u6ea5bbca-c332-592e-8b2f-b46d3d6d3f73)

Chapter Eight (#ue97ec759-aadd-5776-abe7-a1939c6098e5)

Chapter Nine (#u322da609-c487-56c3-a694-26bbc74e730f)

Chapter Ten (#ubd6c8bbf-7470-5e18-947d-b34a30e51194)

Chapter Eleven (#ue7d60453-fdab-530c-9d8c-d511533c7e0b)

Chapter Twelve (#u434453c0-5b2c-5088-b596-118bfb392bfd)

Chapter Thirteen (#ucf496d5a-a156-5f8f-8800-f66ab58eacde)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)