After drinking from the Holy Grail, a pair of time-traveling assassins must battle a shadowy government organization intent on controlling the future by altering the past.

SYNOPSIS:

The Time Spiral is the first part of the epic Anyman Chronicles which span human history from its inception to its demise -to its ultimate resurrection. At the heart of the intrigue is Cronus Core, a shadow government organization whose goal is to alter history by eliminating its key players before the consequences of their actions have a chance to ripple down the Spiral. Their means? Anymen: anonymous time-traveling assassins trained to kill and to avoid capture at all costs. An Anyman never misses his mark.

The Time Spiral opens in the 12th century as a team of Anymen, one man and one woman, overcome a group of medieval knights, gaining control of an ancient relic. It is this relic that will prove to be the source of Cronus Core's enduring power. It is a grail. The Grail. Their mission is to bring the cup back untouched and untainted. However, pulled by an insatiable curiosity, the two drink from the cup and the balance of power is subtly shifted forever.

Typically, (and unbeknownst to the teams themselves) Anymen do not survive the journey back through time. The energies involved are too powerful, and the tender tie between spirit and flesh cannot be maintained. Typically, they are one time use only. But then, typically, Anymen do not drink from the Holy Grail. When our team returns from their mission, extremely sick but otherwise intact, Cronus Core is presented with an enigma. Only the elite know of the Grail's true power. In order to keep their secret, and to save themselves the cost of training a replacement unit, they decide to keep the team active. After all, even the most precise predictions allow for the occasional anomaly. Since the team itself is unaware that its survival is unique, Cronus Core decides that in them lies a golden opportunity: a chance to test the limits of an Anyman's endurance . . . and his loyalty. But, no one knows what repeated time travel will do to a human being.

The Anymen kill, and kill well. At each return from a successful mission, they require less time to recover before they are sent out again. Their bodies become accustomed to time travel and Cronus Core is glad. The experiment appears to be a resounding success. But secretly, the two begin to suspect that the true nature of their missions are being hidden from them. Perhaps Cronus Core is not the benevolent entity it appears to be. Perhaps the heart of Cronus Core is dark and sinister. Perhaps Cronus Core is somehow in league with the dark beings that have begun to reveal themselves to the Anymen in the swirling aether of the path between times . . .

Meanwhile, the Operative in control of their missions begins to have doubts of his own. He is privy to more information than the team under his command, but there is much he is not told. He too begins to piece together the pieces revealing the true nature of their mutual employer. He decides to risk his career, and perhaps his very life to speak to the team outside of the Cronus Core complex. But when he reaches their rendezvous point in the midst of the walled city known as Old Town, he finds them lying in a pool of mingled blood -the victims of an apparent assassination attempt.

When it is determined that the surviving Anyman's own weapon was used to kill his partner, he is sentenced to internment in the prison facility known as Hell Penitentiary. While being tortured, he discovers a side-effect of his Grail-enabled repeat travels through time. He no longer needs the Cronus Core facility's powerful "Time Displacement Array" to time travel. With the proper stimulus, he can do it at will.

With the power of this newly discovered ability, a plan begins to form in his mind. He will escape. He will discover the truth behind the evil organization that lies at the heart of humanity's sorrow. And he will exact his bloody revenge.

An Anyman never misses his mark.