Soldier From the Sky, Book Six: Immagine

Soldier From the Sky
A sweeping, twice-told warriors' tale of love, bravery, time and treasure in six books

World War II. Nick Mancuso, a Brooklyn-born, deadeye gunner on a B-24 bomber is severely wounded in aerial combat, bails out over the wintry Apennines and loses consciousness while still in his parachute, his last thoughts on his lover, Theresa.
He awakens displaced in time, under the care of Italian partisans. By ancient magic and force of fate he’s become his own medieval ancestor and leader of a peasant rebellion in collusion with the tyrant's dangerously enchanting daughter.
To return to Theresa and parallel existence Nick must fight for his life in a world of hidden treasure, superstition, star-crossed love, intrigue, brutality and betrayal, and show fierce bravery in an epic battle for gold, glory and survival in 14th Century Italy.

Book Six: Immagine
Nick reawakens in Nico’s reality, cognizant of both lives. Antiocha closely resembles Chiara. He knows he must lead the rebel attack on Sudbury, and reach San Michele to get back to Theresa.
Keeping her in foremind, he leaves Antiocha behind to protect the aged seer and rejoins his militia. When they ambush Sudbury, Nick’s heightened senses make him fast and fierce. Many die and his brother Giorgio surrenders, claiming he’s Sudbury’s agent. Nick realizes the secrets of gunpowder can keep him alive, so hides it in the wagon of a traveling glover.
The escaping rebels make for San Michele, outriding Sudbury’s rolling advance. Antioocha abandons the old woman to follow Nick, leaving him trapped in the brutal age. He focuses on Theresa and arrives in San Michele shortly before Sudbury surrounds the walls. Antiocha’s reappearance, alliance with Nick and revelation of Filippo’s illegitimacy turns Filippo's army against him. She exchanges her brother for Giorgio and the glover, along with the cargo of concealed powder.
Prisoners traded, Sudbury attacks the town. Nick’s one thousand-arrow battery works, but can’t stop the enormous Gold Rose Army. Peasants are violently massacred. Sudbury’s cannon blows the town gates down and his troops lay waste.
Defeated, Antiocha and Nick’s brothers give him up to Sudbury. Antiocha swears there is no treasure in San Michele. Under torture, Filippo confesses the tale of gems and talk of gunpowder were ruse, to corner Sudbury.
Sudbury locks Nick and Annunziata in a hog cage in the plaza, for execution next day. Filippo’s counselor diverts the guards with gold. Nick’s loyalist rebels kill them and free him and his sister. Nick and Antiocha had planned his capture and escape. In the palace, Antiocha talks her way into Sudbury’s chamber, to paralyze him with poison, so he will feel the blade when Nick cuts his head off.
Nick knows he can't survive the plots for power and greed and prepares to make for Florence, by himself, to find the alchemy to traverse time. But he is assassinated by a trusted peasant who lost everything for Nico’s gain. Life flows from him.
He blinks awake in the blind forager’s hut. Chiara is there, with Miro and two English commandos, ready to take him past the Nazi front.
Nick reunites with Theresa and the fortune of her love and life 1944, never after mentioning his previous existence. The Cathar tattoo on his foot conveys the truth. Decades later, returned to the bombed ruins of San Michele, in memory flash, Nick realizes where the Jewels of Saladin are still hidden, in a medieval rock wall..