The Revelation Code

38

‘Watch her,’ ordered Cross as he went to the front of the cabin. It was equipped for sightseeing, ranks of aluminium seats on each side of the central aisle. Norvin and Hatch shoved Nina into a window seat opposite the door, the hulking bodyguard squeezing beside her to block her in as the other man took the place directly behind.

‘So this is your plan?’ Nina said over the buzz of the engines. ‘You’re going to drop the angel on the UN and kill the “kings of the world”?’

‘Babylon will fall, Dr Wilde,’ Cross replied. He put down his rifle and took the eagle-headed statue from a bag. ‘The prophecy will come true.’

‘But it can’t come true,’ she insisted. ‘We stopped Simeon’s attack in Mecca, and his statue’s been secured. It’ll never be loosed, which means the sixth angel’s instructions can’t be carried out. Until that happens, it’s impossible to fulfil the prophecy.’

Cross glared at her, eyes wide in mania. ‘It doesn’t matter! The Witnesses are dead. That means the seventh angel is about to sound — and when I destroy Babylon,’ he held up the figurine, ‘the end time will come!’

‘No it won’t!’ Nina shot back. She realised how dangerous he now was, clinging to his delusion even as it crumbled in the face of the evidence, but she couldn’t help challenging him. ‘You’re picking and choosing pieces of Revelation to suit yourself! What happened to the seven angels who pour out their vials of plague over the earth? What about the Beast, and the dragon? Where are they? You’re ignoring anything that doesn’t fit your interpretation!’

‘I found the angels!’ he shouted. ‘That proves my interpretation is right. I saw through all the layers of hallucination and metaphor in John’s writing — I saw the truth. The only truth! God’s word was revealed to me, and now I’ll reveal it to the world!’

‘You’re insane,’ was the only response she could manage.

Fury clenched his face. ‘You’ll soon see,’ he growled. The airship was now passing over the Williamsburg Bridge, the United Nations complex visible on the west bank a few miles ahead. ‘The gas will kill everyone at the UN. “And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning.”’

‘And how are they going to do that if they’re all dead?’ Nina demanded. Cross did not reply, instead regarding the view ahead with growing anticipation. ‘You can’t answer that, can you? You’ve lost it.’

He stalked back down the aisle, getting in Nina’s face to snarl: ‘After Babylon falls, so will you, Dr Wilde.’ His gaze flicked towards the cabin door. ‘Right on to its ruins from five thousand feet up!’

‘Look, just get everyone out of there!’ Eddie yelled into the phone at Seretse. ‘The airship’ll be there in a few minutes!’

‘A full evacuation in such a short time will be impossible,’ the alarmed diplomat protested. ‘There are thousands of people here; even if we get the leaders out first—’

‘Just do what you can,’ Eddie snapped before ending the call. He stared helplessly at the receding Airlander, which was still gaining height, then had an idea. He found another number in his contacts and hurriedly dialled it.

Infuriating seconds passed. He watched the airship retreat — then a shrill of engine noise told him that he was through. ‘Harvey! Harvey, it’s Eddie Chase — can you hear me?’

‘Eddie? Yeah, sure,’ Harvey Zampelli replied, sounding puzzled. ‘Where you been? I phoned you a coupla days ago, but—’

‘Harvey, we’ve got trouble,’ the Yorkshireman interrupted. ‘Where are you?’

‘Right now? Just comin’ back from a tour of Liberty Island.’

‘I need you to pick me up. I’m at Brooklyn Navy Yard, the airship landing field.’

‘Pick you up?’ the helicopter pilot exclaimed. ‘Eddie, I got passengers, I can’t—’

‘Can you see the airship?’

A moment’s pause. ‘Yeah. Hey, I thought it was supposed to be grounded ’cause of that thing at the United Nations.’

‘It was, but someone’s stolen it to attack the UN. Harvey, they’ve got Nina, my wife, aboard. I’ve got to get after them!’ When there was no immediate reply, he went on: ‘You said you owed me a favour. Forget flying lessons — this is it. A lot of people will die if I can’t stop this!’

‘You’re not kiddin’, are you?’ said Harvey, worried. ‘Okay, I’ll come find you. Not sure how I’m gonna break it to my passengers, though.’

‘Just get here,’ Eddie said. He stared upriver once more. The airship was still heading relentlessly towards its destination — but had now been noticed by the forces guarding it, helicopters changing course to intercept.

Paxton listened to a message through his headphones, then turned to Cross. ‘They’re ordering us to turn back to the Navy Yard and set down.’

‘Of course they are,’ Cross replied, surveying his target through binoculars. The United Nations was now only two miles away, and the Airlander had reached its cruising speed: two minutes’ flight time. ‘There’s a lot of activity on the ground. They know we’re coming.’

‘They’re evacuating,’ Nina told him. ‘The VIPs’ll be out of there before you can drop the angel.’

‘In two minutes? No, they won’t. There are one hundred and sixty-five world leaders attending the General Assembly, and they’ll all be fighting over who gets to escape first. I know how these things work. The Secret Service won’t let anyone else leave until President Cole’s been secured, and they haven’t even gotten a police helicopter on the ground, never mind Marine One.’ He raised the binoculars to check the sky ahead. ‘Paxton, NYPD choppers coming in.’ He indicated a white-and-blue Jet Ranger heading towards them.

‘I see them,’ Paxton replied. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Stay on course. I’ll deal with them.’

‘I’ll have to slow down,’ the pilot warned. ‘The wind at this speed’ll throw your aim off.’

‘I can handle it. Just hold us steady.’ Cross went to the port-side door and opened it. Wind rushed into the cabin, the rasp of the propellers rising to ear-splitting volume. He squinted into the slipstream. ‘Come right five degrees so I can get a clear shot!’

Paxton obeyed, turning the Airlander slightly to starboard. Cross leaned against the door frame as he aimed the rifle through the opening at the nearer of the approaching helicopters. ‘Steady, hold it steady,’ he called, fixing the cross hairs in the telescopic sight on his target. ‘Steady, and… now!’

He fired. Even over the roaring engines, the retort made Nina jump. For a moment, it seemed that he had missed — then the leading helicopter slewed around, dropping into a corkscrewing descent.

Cross hurried to the front of the cabin to watch as its fall picked up speed, spinning like a sycamore leaf until it smacked down on the river. The rotors sliced into the water’s surface and kicked up a great swathe of spray before the downed aircraft rolled over and began to sink. ‘You got it!’ Paxton crowed.

‘There’s still another one.’

The second helicopter started a sharp climb, taking a course that would pass directly over the airship. Paxton leaned forward to follow it, then turned in alarm to Cross. ‘He’s going to use his rotor downwash to force us down!’

‘Will that work?’

‘Against a ship this big? Probably not, but it’ll throw us around and make it almost impossible to steer.’

Cross returned to the door with his rifle, but the Jet Ranger was now out of sight above the airship’s bulbous twin prows. The cabin shook, forcing its occupants to brace themselves. Nina held on tightly to the seat in front as the Airlander rocked despite Paxton’s best efforts to stay level—

She felt something protruding from the aluminium frame. A latch. The lightweight seats were designed to be easily disassembled and removed…

The idea that formed was quashed as the Airlander wallowed, pitching sickeningly like a ship on stormy seas as the chopper’s downdraught pounded it. Cross grabbed a ceiling strap. ‘Up, take us up!’ he roared.

Eddie shielded his eyes from flying dust as the red, white and blue tour helicopter swept in to land. He scurried beneath the whirling rotor blades. ‘Come on, everyone out!’ he yelled to the passengers. Even after Harvey had explained the situation, they were still bewildered and frightened. ‘You’ll be a lot safer on the ground, trust me!’ He helped them down. ‘Sorry about this, but I’m sure Harvey’ll give you a refund.’

‘Refund?’ said the pilot as Eddie clambered into the front seat and donned a headset. ‘They got a longer flight than they booked — they should be payin’ me!’ He checked the passengers were clear, then applied throttle and raised the collective control. The LongRanger left the ground and turned up the East River.

‘There’s the airship!’ said Eddie.

‘It’s kinda hard to miss,’ Harvey replied sarcastically. Even from almost two miles away, the Airlander still loomed like a floating football stadium. He frowned, spotting something above it. ‘The hell’s that guy doing?’

Eddie saw an NYPD helicopter flying directly over the enormous airship. ‘Must be trying to force them down.’

The pilot grimaced. ‘Hell of a chance he’s taking. If the airship comes up underneath him, the displaced air’ll maybe cause a vortex ring!’ The Yorkshireman gave him a blank look. ‘That’s a bad thing.’

‘What about the airship? Can he make it crash?’

‘Only if he completely wipes out on it, and hopefully he ain’t that stupid. Probably the most he’ll do is slow it down.’

‘Good enough for me. The longer it takes it to get to the UN, the more chance there is of evacuating everyone.’ The LongRanger cleared the Williamsburg Bridge, rapidly closing the gap to the airship as the huge craft veered right, its nose tilting upwards — towards the buzzing fly above it. ‘Oh shit! They’re going to hit each other!’

Harvey stared at the police helicopter in horror. ‘Move, you asshole, move!’

‘Full power!’ screamed Cross. ‘Ram him!’

Paxton shoved the throttle levers to maximum. The engine noise rose to a scream, the airship forcing its way through the downdraught—

A muffled whump reverberated through the vessel as it hit the police helicopter’s skids. The impact threw everyone around in their seats. Paxton struggled to maintain control, wrestling with the joystick.

Nina pulled herself upright, her hand again finding the latch. This time, she tugged it. It opened with a clack, but the noise was drowned out by the roar of the propellers. The seat back came loose, aluminium tubing sliding freely inside its frame. If she raised it, it would detach.

But she kept it in place as Norvin levered himself up beside her. She now had a weapon, however improvised: what she needed was the right time to use it.

Paxton pulled back the joystick. The Airlander pitched upwards once more — and another blow shook the cabin.

‘That guy’s crazy!’ said Harvey, unable to look away from the slow-motion collision.

‘The chopper pilot, or the airship pilot?’ Eddie asked.

‘Both!’

The police helicopter reeled drunkenly as it bounced off the Airlander’s upper hull, the tips of its main rotor coming perilously close to the envelope’s Kevlar skin. It levelled off, trying to climb out of trouble, but the airship rose after it like a killer whale. The pilot finally decided that discretion was the better part of valour, accelerating away before turning to flank the enormous craft from a safe distance.

The Jet Ranger’s rear door opened and a cop leaned out — holding a sub-machine gun. He opened fire, shots spraying the airship’s port lobe. The envelope was tough, but designed to resist impacts from birds and hailstones rather than bullets. It puckered and ripped, helium gushing out with a piercing shrill.

But the airship was not slowed. Only one of its internal compartments had been violated, and the others provided more than enough buoyancy to keep it afloat. Magazine empty, the cop withdrew.

‘Now what’s he doing?’ Harvey asked as the helicopter descended.

Eddie saw the cop return to view, holding a different weapon. ‘He can’t shoot down the airship — so he’s going to shoot the pilot!’

A red light flashed insistently upon the instrument panel. ‘We’re losing helium,’ Paxton warned.

‘How bad?’ Cross demanded.

The pilot checked the display. ‘Only looks like one cell.’

Cross looked to port, seeing the helicopter drop back into sight. He hefted the rifle and went back to the door. ‘Hatch, give me cover fire. I’ll take him out.’

The cult leader braced himself against the bulkhead. Hatch unslung his gun and crouched alongside him to take aim at the helicopter—

The police sniper saw them and fired first. The round ripped through Hatch’s thigh. He screamed and fell through the opening, tumbling into empty space.

But Cross had now locked on to a target of his own — and pulled the trigger.

The sniper lurched, then toppled out of the Jet Ranger. Nina gasped in shock, flinching as he jerked to a stop in mid-air, hanging from a safety line. The helicopter jolted violently with the abrupt shift of weight. It peeled away from the airship, the wounded cop throwing the aircraft off balance as he swung back and forth.

Cross tracked the chopper as if about to shoot the pilot, then drew back inside the cabin, returning his attention to the view ahead. Nina lifted the loose seat back slightly. He was barely six feet from her, beside the open door. If she could reach him, she was certain she could push him out… but Norvin was a wall of flesh obstructing her. ‘Don’t try anything,’ the bodyguard rumbled, as if reading her mind.

She looked away, seeing that the airship had been knocked from its flight path by the helicopter. Roosevelt Island bisected the river ahead, the UN complex off to one side. ‘Bring us back on course!’ Cross called to Paxton.

The pilot adjusted the rudders, the behemoth angling to the left. ‘We’ll be overhead in a minute,’ he announced.

‘Excellent.’ Cross returned to the front of the cabin, putting down the rifle and collecting the angel. He gazed down at the approaching tower of the Secretariat Building and the broad domed sweep of the General Assembly beyond, the ground around it a seething mass of people. ‘“Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down…”’

Norvin glanced back through the rearmost window as the airship turned. ‘Prophet!’ he cried in sudden alarm. ‘There’s another chopper coming in behind us!’

Harvey’s helicopter was gaining fast on the airship. Eddie picked out the mooring lines hanging over its sides. ‘Get above it,’ he said. ‘I’ll jump down on its top!’

‘You’ll what?’ said the Bronxite in disbelief.

‘Those cables — I can climb down one and get to the cabin.’ The lines were affixed to the upper part of the hull; Eddie was sure he could reach one before the envelope’s curvature became too steep for him to keep his footing.

‘The hell you can! There must be an eighty-foot overhang between the side of the blimp and the cabin.’

‘I can swing that far. I’ve done it from bridges—’

‘That ain’t a bridge! It’s a floating bag of gas doin’ sixty knots! Eddie, I know you’ve done some wild shit — I’ve seen you do some of it — but there’s no way you can swing from the side of that thing like Spider-Man and jump into the cockpit. You try it, you’ll be killed. Hell, even just thinking about trying it’ll probably tempt fate!’ Harvey briefly took his left hand off the collective control to finger the gold cross around his neck.

‘I’ve got to do something,’ Eddie protested. ‘How about slicing it open with the rotors?’ Harvey’s expression told him that was a very bad idea. ‘Okay, maybe not— Shit!’

He saw movement in the cabin’s open door: Cross aiming his rifle—

A hole exploded in the windscreen — and Harvey jerked back with an agonised shriek as a bullet tore through his upper left arm. ‘Jesus!’ Eddie cried, feeling hot blood on his face and neck.

The pilot’s wounded limb flopped nervelessly to his side. He clapped his other hand over the torn flesh, trying to contain the gush of blood… and the LongRanger pitched sharply towards the river.

Eddie grabbed the co-pilot’s controls. ‘What do I do, what do I do?’ he yelled. But Harvey’s only response was a keening moan. ‘Shit! Two fucking lessons! That’s all I’ve had!’ he shouted at the universe in general. ‘Two fucking lessons and I have to fly a fucking helicopter that’s — that’s about to crash into the United fucking Nations!’

The LongRanger had overtaken the airship, heading straight for the Secretariat Building. Eddie increased power and tried to gain height, pushing hard on the rudder pedals — but they refused to move, Harvey’s feet wedged against his own set in his pained paralysis. The green glass tower loomed ahead; even at its maximum rate of climb, the chopper would still hit its upper floors. ‘Harvey! Move your feet! Move your fucking—’

He changed tack, leaning over to deliver a solid punch to Harvey’s jaw. The pilot fell limp. ‘Sorry,’ Eddie told him, cringing, but the duplicate pedals were now free to move as the other man’s feet slid off the main set. The LongRanger’s tail swung around — and the helicopter veered away from the skyscraper, the rotor tips slicing within mere feet of the windows.

Cross watched the LongRanger begin its uncontrolled descent, then put his rifle on a seat near the door and reclaimed the statue as the Airlander approached the United Nations. ‘“And the earth was reaped”,’ he said, returning to the opening ready to throw the angel out at the crowds below — then he froze as the chopper swung crazily back towards the airship.

Eddie gasped in relief at having avoided the crash, only to realise he still had no idea what he was doing. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, desperately trying to remember what Harvey had taught him. ‘Centre the stick, level out, keep the throttle at… at something, fuck knows what.’ The East River and Brooklyn beyond blurred across his view as the helicopter continued its sharp turn. ‘Stop spinning, that’d be a good start! Okay, level the rudder pedals, and— Fuuuuuuck!’

The Airlander’s swollen hulls loomed in front of him.

He jammed the chopper into a dive. Nausea rose in his stomach as it plunged, the rotors whisking just below the port lobe—

A sound like a concrete block being thrown into a wood-chipper — and he was flung hard against the door as the helicopter whirled like a top.

The LongRanger had hit one of the airship’s mooring cables.

Squeals of rending metal sounded behind Eddie as parts of the overstressed rotor assembly disintegrated. The steel-reinforced line had tangled and jammed the rotor head — and the engine’s torque was instantly transferred back to the fuselage. The dangling aircraft spun around, its forward momentum swinging it upwards behind the Airlander’s stern before gravity pulled it back down like a pendulum.

But the airship was also affected. Even with its huge lift capacity, it still had to be properly stabilised in flight, and the sudden addition to one side of almost a ton of corkscrewing metal threw it wildly off balance.

The savage lurch as the helicopter snagged the mooring line sent the airship’s occupants flying. Paxton was hurled over the instrument panel, his flailing foot kicking the throttles to full power, while Norvin crashed to the floor in the central aisle. Nina ended up on her side in the bodyguard’s seat, clutching the now-detached seat back.

Cross came off worst. The impact flung him against the thin Plexiglas window in front of the door, smashing it. He dropped the statue, which skittered under the seats. The cult leader lunged after it — only to reel as the swinging helicopter jerked the dirigible sideways.

He fell backwards through the open door, barely catching the sides of the frame with his fingertips. The Secretariat Building rolled past behind him as the craft overflew the United Nations complex. ‘Norvin!’ he screamed. ‘Help me!’

‘Prophet!’ Norvin yelled, scrambling to the door. ‘I’m coming, hold on!’ He gripped his leader’s arms and hauled him back inside.

Cross collapsed on the seats behind the door, eyes wide with shock — then his expression became one of alarm as he saw something behind his bodyguard. Norvin turned—

Nina smashed the seat back into the big man’s face. He stumbled over Cross’s sprawled legs — and fell through the open doorway, plummeting over seven hundred feet with a terrible scream.

Cross jumped up at Nina — only to crash back into the chair as her makeshift club swung again and hit with a bang. ‘Fasten your seat belt, asshole!’ she yelled, snatching up his rifle.

He froze as she pointed it at his chest. ‘Put it down, Dr Wilde.’

‘The hell I will,’ she replied, glancing over her shoulder to see Paxton pushing himself off the console. ‘Tell your man to land this thing, or I’ll shoot you.’

‘You’re not a murderer.’

‘No, but you are. And you’re a direct threat to the world’s security.’ The United Nations complex dropped out of sight beyond the open door as the airship continued into the city. ‘I’ll do whatever I have to in order to protect it.’

‘Protect it?’ he spat. ‘Corruption, decadence, blasphemy — evil and ungodliness everywhere? This is the world you want to protect?’

‘It’s the only one we have!’

‘It needs to be cleansed! Babylon must be destroyed to bring about God’s kingdom on earth! The prophecy will come true — I’ll make it come true!’

‘You’re not God’s prophet,’ Nina shouted back. ‘You’re a delusional lunatic!’

Hatred glinted in Cross’s eyes. ‘“The fearful, and unbelieving, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone…”’

‘Shutteth the hell up,’ she snapped. Paxton finally dropped into his seat; she looked back at him. ‘Hey, pilot guy! Take this thing down right now, or I’ll shoot your boss—’

Paxton gasped in fear, but not at her threat. Nina looked back — to see the black glass monolith of the Trump World Tower looming directly in the airship’s path. ‘Shit!’ she gasped, grabbing the nearest seat.

The pilot yanked back the joystick. The Airlander pitched upwards, the forward engine nacelles pivoting to speed its ascent. It swept over the corner of the seventy-two-storey tower’s roof, narrowly clearing it — but still demolishing a couple of communications masts as it climbed. Nina gripped the chair more tightly, holding her breath as the building’s edge passed barely a foot beneath the gondola… then they were clear.

Paxton reduced power and put the airship into a hard turn back towards the river. ‘Hey!’ she yelled at him. ‘I told you to set us down! If you don’t, I’m gonna—’

She was thrown to the floor as the vessel slammed to an abrupt stop.