The Revelation Code

10

Nina slowly emerged from a troubled sleep. The room was already uncomfortably warm, even early in the morning. She pushed the sheet down her body, shifting to find a cooler patch on the mattress—

Someone was standing over her.

‘Jesus!’ Nina shrieked, sitting bolt upright. Her unexpected guest was Miriam. The young woman squealed and jumped backwards. ‘What the hell, Miriam? Why didn’t you knock?’

‘I did, I did!’ she replied, hands flapping. ‘You didn’t answer, and I was worried, so the Prophet unlocked the door.’

‘I was fine, until you scared the crap out of me! God damn it!’ Nina pulled the sheet back up to her shoulders as she got out of bed. ‘Never frighten a pregnant woman, it’s not good for the baby.’

‘I’m sorry, really I am.’ Miriam turned her back.

‘Dunno why I’m bothering covering myself; your creepy voyeur boss is watching me from six different angles,’ Nina muttered with a glare at the nearest camera as she found her clothes. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘The Prophet sent me to get you. The angel’s here.’

That caught Nina’s attention. She paused, half dressed. ‘Already?’

‘Yes. The Witnesses arrived by helicopter about thirty minutes ago.’

The archaeologist’s expression hardened. ‘You know that Simeon and Anna killed people to get it, don’t you? They murdered two security guards in Rome.’ Seeing Miriam’s shock, she pushed on: ‘And those two men are dead because your Prophet forced me to find this angel by torturing my husband.’

She shook her head. ‘No, no, I… I don’t believe…’

‘This place has got nothing to do with God, or Jesus,’ Nina insisted. ‘The people in charge are murderers. You’re complicit in that just by being here. But if you help me get away, or just tell the authorities where I am, I can—’

‘Good morning, Dr Wilde,’ came a new voice, seemingly from all around her. Cross. There were loudspeakers as well as cameras inside the house. ‘Miriam, I think you should return home. Norvin is on his way to bring Dr Wilde to me.’

Miriam bobbed her head obediently and went to the door. ‘Yes, Prophet.’

‘How many of them know?’ Nina demanded loudly as she exited. ‘Huh? How many of the people here know what you’re doing in their name? You murdering bastard!’

‘Everyone here believes in my cause,’ said Cross as the door closed. ‘They believe that the prophecies in Revelation will soon be fulfilled. I am God’s instrument on earth; any actions I take in His name are justified.’

‘So said every despot, whack-job and psycho for the past ten thousand years. I’ve met people who believed they had a hotline to God before, but they were all just lunatics. What makes you so different?’

‘The difference, Dr Wilde, is that I really do.’

There was unshakeable conviction behind his words. ‘Jesus,’ whispered Nina, shaking her head. ‘You’re worse than I thought.’

‘You’ll soon see the truth. You won’t be able to deny it once you’ve seen the angel. Now get dressed. Norvin is here.’ A sharp rap came from the door.

‘He’d better not come in while I’m naked.’ Cross did not reply, but neither did the door open, though Nina still finished dressing as quickly as she could.

Once she was ready, Norvin escorted her through the Mission. The helicopter pad was empty, she noticed, so the pilot had not stuck around after delivering the Fishers and their cargo. At the church, he took her to the control room. The vault-like door was open, Cross inside. As well as his usual pristine white robes, he also wore a pair of fine cotton gloves of the kind she had sometimes used herself to handle delicate artefacts. ‘Dr Wilde,’ he called. ‘Good to see you.’

‘The feeling’s about as unmutual as it could get,’ she said.

Not even insults could dampen his smug elation. ‘Come in. I want you to see what you’ve helped bring us.’

She entered the laboratory, Norvin at her back. Within, Simeon and Anna Fisher regarded her with unfriendly eyes. Beside them on the stainless-steel bench was a metal case; the same one Trant had carried the previous night.

Cross saw her flash of recognition. ‘Yes, this is it. The second angel.’ He opened the case.

The angel was revealed within, cleaned and polished, its metal wings glinting under the lights. It was made from a smooth grey material, cast rather than carved: pottery or ceramic fired in a kiln.

That was consistent with how Cross had described the artefact from Iraq. She glanced at the fragment of the first angel, still sitting inside its protective glass case, then back at the new arrival. ‘Is it the same as the one you found?’

‘Apart from the head, yes. That was a lion; this is an ox. Or a calf, depending which translation of the Bible you use.’

‘It looks more like an ox to me,’ Nina noted.

‘I know. The King James version seems closer so far.’

She peered more closely at the statue, spotting something inscribed into the surface. ‘There’s something written on it. Have you had it translated?’

‘I don’t need to. I already know what it says. The angel I found in Iraq had the same words.’ Cross carefully lifted the statue with his gloved hands, turning it to follow the text around its body. ‘Revelation chapter four, verse eight: “And they rest not day and night, saying ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’” It doesn’t literally mean that they’re talking non-stop, but that the words written upon them are an eternal statement of God’s greatness. Another of John’s hallucinogenic interpretations of what he’d read.’

‘You should put all this stuff in a book,’ said Nina, not willing to be convinced, even though she couldn’t fault his logic. ‘There’s always a huge market for explanations of the Bible. Call it The Revelation Code or something, I’m sure it’ll be a best-seller.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not interested in money, Dr Wilde. I’m only interested in the truth; God’s truth. Which is now one step closer to being revealed.’

‘Well, it is called Revelation,’ she said, but he was distracted from her facetious comment by a noise from outside — the roar of a helicopter coming in to land. ‘Expecting company?’ she asked.

‘A… friend,’ he replied. ‘Norvin! Go and meet him.’ The big man nodded and hurried from the lab.

Cross returned the angel to the case. Nina eyed it, but the close proximity of Simeon — and his gun — deterred her from getting nearer. ‘So that’s two angels accounted for,’ she said instead. ‘What about the others?’

‘That’s up to you,’ said Cross. ‘The Throne of Satan, and the Place in the Wilderness — we still have to figure out where they are. But since you found the Synagogue of Satan so quickly, I’m sure you won’t have any problems.’

Nina forced herself not to show any reaction to the first undiscovered location. She had known where it was from the moment Cross had initially mentioned it: the only possible thing it could be was the Pergamon altar in Berlin. If the former CIA man or any of his followers had possessed an archaeological background, they would have worked that out already. Fortunately, fundamentalists — of any stripe — were prone to sticking solely to their existing beliefs rather than exploring anything that might challenge them. ‘To be honest, I’m amazed that actually paid off,’ she told him. ‘My picking the Villa Torlonia was just a guess.’

‘Not just a guess,’ Cross replied. ‘You were guided.’

‘By whom?’

‘God, of course.’

‘God guided me?’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t think so! If God were giving me a helping hand, he wouldn’t have let you kidnap me and torture Eddie.’

Something about her words briefly affected the others, glances — unsettled? Concerned? — flicking between Simeon and Cross, but whatever the cause, it quickly passed. ‘He’s not guiding you,’ said Cross. ‘He’s guiding me — but as part of that guidance, He brought you to me. Everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve survived, that was all His will.’

‘Really,’ Nina said flatly.

‘Really! You’ve fallen out of airplanes, escaped sinking ships, gotten through deathtraps — and you’ve had so many people try to kill you that you’ve probably lost count. Divine intervention is the only possible explanation for your survival. Wouldn’t you say?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she insisted. ‘I’d put knowledge, determination, desperation and sheer dumb luck above God keeping me safe so you could use me for your crazy plan.’

‘It’s not just his plan,’ said a new voice from behind her. ‘It’s mine.’

Nina spun towards the entrance — only to freeze as she saw a horribly familiar face. ‘Son of a bitch…’

Victor Dalton, the disgraced former leader of the free world, regarded her mockingly. ‘If you don’t mind, Dr Wilde, I prefer to be called Mr President.’