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436 pages

English

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Ten years after his tour in Vietnam, ex-Marine Jake Goodson finds himself back home in another war with a Neo-Nazi religious cult that has not only stolen the heart and mind of his ex-wife, but has stolen his young children. The resulting struggle not only presents an enemy who is diabolically calculating and elusive, but who is able to stay three steps ahead of him. The ensuing battle resurrects demons from his past that he has never been able to put to rest.

It is 1979 in Macon, Georgia, when Jake Goodson embarks on a quest to rescue his children from the clutches of a religious cult that has already charmed his ex-wife, Madeline, into its snares. But when the Vietnam War veteran begins receiving unwarranted attacks on his character and threats to stop his quest from Madeline’s attorneys, Jake must act fast or lose his children forever. Unfortunately after he decides to take matters into his own hands, he must deal with the consequences.

Now as he faces several criminal charges, Jake begins seeing a psychologist. During their intense sessions that resurrect the past trauma of the war as well as his memories of his one true love, Jake relives his time while stationed in Southeast Asia. As Jake is drawn back into his recollections of the beauty of his romance and the searing pain of its end, he notices an awakening within beyond his obsessive visions of the end of the world. But as he valiantly battles his internal demons, Jake soon realizes he has a formidable enemy with an uncanny ability to foresee his intentions and outmaneuver him at every turn.

Volume One of A Jeweler’s Eye View begins a fierce battle between two adversaries that will ultimately bring the forces of good versus evil to collide with heroic implications.

Sujets

Adventure

Fiction

Action

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Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	22 juillet 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781480891210
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A Jeweler’s Eye View

Volume One: Diamond in the Rough

J. D. RILEY

Copyright © 2020 J. D. Riley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-9122-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4808-9123-4 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4808-9121-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913313

Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/29/2022
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Epilogue
For Matt,
Who was my Sam
The problem of Evil has baf fled
mankind since Eden;
Perhaps because it can only be approa ched
Through facing the mystery of Good,
And we do not like to acknowl edge
That Good is a mys tery.
D. M. Dooling, “Fire Proveth Iron”
Prologue
Now that he hold s It
He knows this trea sure
Above all ot hers
Faith so cer tain
Shall never be sh aken
By heaviest so rrow
Bhagavad Gita
The wind blew through the vast sea of yellowed grass, effecting the illusion of a billion reedy acolytes bowing and rising—always bowing and rising—as in endless litany to an unseen purpose.
Eternity resided here it seemed.
The wind soughed softly across the expanse, and undulating swells of amber rolled tranquilly as far as the eye could see. The mid-afternoon sun of early autumn stood timelessly still in the unblemished sky.
S pace…
—Silent, enigmatic, and forbidding—and filled with mys tery.
Hidden within its dark folds, protoplanetary remnants of the solar system’s violent birth—the asteroids—circumvallate the sun in Amyclaean silence. For millennia, these lumbering leviathans have tumbled and rolled through the heavens, tethered by forces beyond recko ning.
Until now…
A rock suddenly breaks free, throwing off the gravitational shackles of its orbital decrees and moves with reckless abandon through the hea vens.
A solitary figure appeared on the eastern horizon, moving to the west with purpose. Haggard and worn, the man pushed headlong through the grass, heedless of the wake he left on the seamless twill of yellow.
Fatigued, he paused and adjusted the threadbare knapsack across his back while catching his breath. He looked ahead, studying the western horizon; then glanced back to the east before pressing on.
A sudden shift in the wind caused him to again whip around and look behind. The gusts smelled wet with foreboding, and he again scanned the skyline to the east, watching for any shift as if he were being pursued. As the breeze resumed its gentle course through the grass, he turned back and with determination, moved on.
Hidden in the inky blackness of space, and cloaked in the rays of the sun, the trillion -t on rock caromed through the firmament, gaining momentum as it tumbled towards the earth, plummeting ever faster. As it drew closer to the planet, it took on an anticipatory glow. The thin veil of earth’s outer atmosphere was no match for the six - m ile -w ide stone plunging through it at 50,000 miles per hour—seventy times faster than the speed of sound. The ionospheric sentries that normally incinerated meteoric marauders were no match for the enormous rock and were instantly stripped of the very electrons that held them together. It blasted through with detonative ferocity. In a flash, the entire upper atmosphere ignited into a 50, 000 -d egree incandescence that blazed around the entire pl anet.
A searing bolt of light flashed across the heavens and was gone. Alarmed, he stopped and looked up. Within seconds the sound of a faint, distant rumbling from the east grew louder and louder until it thundered directly overhead. He again glanced behind and studied the horizon. Though the blue sky remained unblemished, he knew the storm was coming. He turned back to the west and picked up his pace.
“No…” He whispered as he ran. Cacophonous gusts swirled around him, as dried yellow stalks whipped upward on the wind. He began to run.
The asteroid continued to barrel through the atmosphere, shredding it like confetti. From the time it entered the earth’s atmosphere to the moment it impacted the Atlantic Ocean was . 78 seconds: approximately, “the blink of an eye.” The resulting explosion in the water was equal to 100,000 nuclear warheads going off at the same mo ment.
With the last of his strength, he pushed through the grass, determined to move on. Wheezing, he slowed and then stopped, studying the horizon ahead.
It had changed.
He again began to move, but at a slower pace, keeping his eyes ahead. The very berm of the world’s edge shifted at the skyline with every step he took, and though the shift was at first subtle, it was definite, and drew him on.
After one hundred paces, he knew the shift in the land had not been his imagination. He sprinted the last few paces, then slowed as he approached an enormous precipice. The hem of the sky dropped away before him, creating the effect that he approached the very edge of the earth. Within moments, he stood at the edge of an enormous cliff, and looked down. Another world stretched thousands of feet below him and he gasped with wonder. He brushed aside the last of the yellowed stalks in front of him and peered more closely at the land below. The contrast between the drier, high plains world in which he stood from the lush land below left him feeling that he was looking down at a world of an entirely different essence. Its beauty was beyond anything he had ever imagined. He pulled off his backpack to get a closer look and peered over the cliff. Again, he gasped with wonder.
Peering down, he looked through clouds and mists that quilted the landscape thousands of feet below him. The shifting colors, shades and shadows blanketing the land was nothing short of magical.
Vertigo suddenly gripped him, and he reeled backwards, stumbling to his knees. Struggling to regain his bearings, he reared back on his haunches, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a moment, he looked back over the cliff. The precipice stretched to either side of him endlessly in both directions. It appeared to create an impregnable barrier from the world below.
He sat back, looking around, he felt he was at the very edge of the world—at least where one ended. Swallowing back light-headedness from the dizzying drop before him, he placed his hands on the rock for balance and once again looked over the edge.
He breathed deeply and the downy, cool breeze rolling up the enormous rockface soothed his tired senses. The fine mist forming on the higher, dry air poured over him, carrying soft, piquant aromas from the world below. It was an intoxicating balm, and he breathed in deeply.
He looked to either side, cautiously pulling forward to peer over the rockface. It seemed to mark the misalignment of two enormous tectonic plates, creating an impassable shift in the earth. As he studied it, he realized the geologic barrier separating him from the world below could not have been more unassailable than if the Angel Gabriel had been positioned with a fiery sword at the gates of Eden. Yet, he remained drawn to looking at its beauty.
At such distance, everything at first appeared dreamlike and vaporous. He squinted and was able to make out more cl