The Revelation Code

Prologue

The half-moon cast a feeble light over the desolate sand-swept plain. The region had been marshland not long ago, but war had changed that. Not directly; the islands spattering the expanse between the great rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates had not been destroyed by shells and explosives. Instead spite had drained it, the dictator Saddam Hussein taking his revenge upon the Ma’dan people for daring to rise against him following the Gulf War. Dams and spillways had reduced the wetlands to a dustbowl, forcing the inhabitants to leave in order to survive.

That destruction was, ironically, making the mission of the trio of CIA operatives crossing the bleak landscape considerably easier. The no-fly zone established over southern Iraq gave the United States and its allies total freedom to operate, and the agents had parachuted to the Euphrates’ northern bank earlier that night, their ultimate objective the toppling of the Iraqi leader. Had the marshes not been drained, they would have been forced to make a circuitous journey by boat, dragging it over reed-covered embankments whenever the water became too shallow to traverse. Instead, they had been able to drive the battered Toyota 4x4 waiting at their insertion point almost in a straight line across the lowlands.

‘Not far now,’ said the team’s leader, Michael Rosemont, as he checked a hand-held GPS unit. ‘Two miles.’

The driver, Gabe Arnold, peered ahead through his night-vision goggles. He was driving without headlights to keep them hidden from potential observers. ‘I can see the lake.’

‘Any sign of Kerim and his people?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Might have known these Arabs would be late,’ said the third man, from behind them. Ezekiel Cross was using a small flashlight to check a map, focusing it on an almost perfectly circular patch of pale blue marked Umm al Binni. ‘Nobody in this part of the world can even do anything as basic as keep time. Savages.’

Rosemont let out a weary huff, but let the remark pass. ‘How close is the nearest Iraqi unit, Easy?’ he asked instead.

‘Based on today’s intel, about nine klicks to the north-east. Near the Tigris.’ Cross’s pale grey eyes flicked towards his superior. ‘And I’d prefer not to be called that.’

‘Okay, Cross,’ Rosemont replied with a small shake of his head. Arnold suppressed a grin. ‘Any other units nearby?’

‘There’s another fifteen klicks north of here. Forces have been building up there over the past week.’

‘They know Uncle Sam’s gonna come for ’em sooner or later,’ said Arnold.

Cross made an impatient sound. ‘We should have flattened the entire country the day after 9/11.’

‘Iraq didn’t attack us,’ Rosemont pointed out.

‘They’re supporting al-Qaeda. And they’re building weapons of mass destruction. To me, that justifies any action necessary to stop them.’

‘Well, that’s what we’re waiting on the UN to confirm, ain’t it?’ Arnold said. ‘Got to give ’em a chance to give up their WMDs before we put the hammer down.’

‘The United Nations!’ Cross spat. ‘We should kick them out of our country. As if New York isn’t enough of a pit of degeneracy already, we let a gang of foreign socialists and atheists squat there telling us what to do!’

‘Uh-huh.’ Rosemont had only known the Virginian for a few days, but that had been long enough to learn to tune out the agent’s frequent rants about anything he considered an ungodly affront to his values — which, it seemed, was everything in the modern world. He turned his attention back to the driver. ‘Still no sign of Kerim?’

‘Nothing — no, wait,’ replied Arnold, suddenly alert. ‘I see a light.’

Cross immediately flicked off the flashlight, dropping the off-roader’s interior into darkness. Rosemont narrowed his eyes and stared ahead. ‘Where?’

‘Twelve o’clock.’

‘Is it them?’ said Cross, wary.

The CIA leader picked out a tiny point of orange against the darkness. ‘It’s them. Right where they’re supposed to be.’

‘On schedule, too,’ added Arnold. ‘Guess they can keep time after all, huh?’ Cross glowered at him.

The lake came into clearer view as the Toyota crested a low rise, a black disc against the moonlit wash covering the plain. Arnold surveyed it through his goggles. ‘Man, that’s weird. It looks like a crater or something.’

‘That’s the theory,’ Rosemont told him. ‘They think a meteorite made it a few thousand years ago; that’s what the background data on the region said, anyhow. The lake used to be a lot bigger, but nobody knew that was at the bottom until Saddam drained the marshes.’ His tone turned businesslike. ‘Okay, this is it. I’ll do the talking, get the intel off Kerim. You two ready the weapons for transfer.’ He turned to regard the cases stacked in the Toyota’s cargo bed.

‘And after?’ Cross asked.

‘Depends on what Kerim tells me. If he’s got new information about the Iraqi defences, then we call it in and maybe go see for ourselves if HQ needs us to. If he doesn’t, we give the Marsh Arab rebels their weapons and prep them for our invasion.’

‘Assuming the UN doesn’t try to stop us,’ said Cross scathingly.

‘Hey, hey,’ Arnold cut in. ‘There’s something by the lake. Looks like a building, some ruins.’

Rosemont peered ahead, but there was not enough light to reveal any detail on the shore. ‘There wasn’t anything marked on the maps.’

‘It’s in the water. Musta been exposed when the lake dried up.’

‘Are Kerim and his people by it?’

‘No, they’re maybe two hundred metres away.’

‘It’s not our problem, then.’ Rosemont raised the M4 carbine on his lap and clicked off the safety. Cross did the same with his own weapon. They were meeting friendlies, but those at the sharp end of intelligence work in the CIA’s Special Activities Division preferred to be ready for any eventuality.

Arnold brought the Toyota in. The point of orange light was revealed as a small campfire, figures standing around the dancing flames. All were armed, the fire’s glow also reflecting dully off assorted Kalashnikov rifles. To Rosemont’s relief, none were pointed at the approaching vehicle.

Yet.

The 4x4 halted. The men around the fire stood watching, waiting for its occupants to make the first move. ‘All right,’ said Rosemont. ‘I’ll go meet them.’

The CIA commander opened the door and stepped out. The action brought a response, some of the Ma’dan raising their guns. He took a deep breath. ‘Kerim! Is Kerim here?’

Mutterings in Arabic, then a man stepped forward. ‘I am Kerim. You are Michael?’

‘Yes.’

Kerim waved him closer. The Ma’dan leader was in his early thirties, but a hard life in the marshes had added a decade of wear to his face. ‘Michael, hello,’ he said, before embracing the American and kissing him on both cheeks.

‘Call me Mike,’ Rosemont said with a smile.

The Arab returned it. ‘It is very good to see you… Mike. We have waited a long time for this day. When you come to kill Saddam’ — a spitting sound, echoed by the others as they heard the hated dictator’s name — ‘we will fight beside you. But his soldiers, they have tanks, helicopters. These are no good.’ He held up his dented AK-47. ‘We need more.’

‘You’ll have more.’ Rosemont signalled to the two men in the Toyota. ‘Bring ’em their toys!’

‘You’ve got the intel?’ asked Cross as he got out.

‘Show of good faith. Come on.’

Cross was aggrieved by the change of plan, but he went with Arnold to the truck’s rear. Each took out a crate and crunched through dead reeds to bring it to the group. ‘This fire’ll be visible for miles,’ the Virginian complained. ‘Stupid making it out in the open, real stupid.’

Kerim bristled. Rosemont shot Cross an irritated look, but knew he was right. ‘You should put this out now we’re here,’ he told the Ma’dan leader. Kerim gave an order, and one of his men kicked dirt over the little pyre. ‘Why didn’t you set up in those ruins?’

The suggestion seemed to unsettle his contact. ‘That is… not a good place,’ said Kerim, glancing almost nervously towards the waterlogged structure. ‘If it had been up to us, we would not have chosen to meet you here.’

‘Why not?’ asked Arnold, setting down his case.

‘It is a place of death. Even before the water fell, all the marsh tribes stayed away from it. It is said that…’ He hesitated. ‘That the end of the world will begin there. Allah, praise be unto him, will send out His angels to burn the earth.’

‘You mean God,’ snapped Cross.

Kerim was momentarily confused. ‘Allah is God, yes. But it is a place we fear.’

With the fire extinguished, the ragged ruins were discernible in the moon’s pallid light. They were not large, the outer buildings and walls having crumbled, but it seemed to Rosemont that the squat central structure had remained mostly intact. How long had it been submerged? Centuries, millennia? There was something indefinably ancient about it.

Not that it mattered. His only concerns were of the present. ‘Well, here’s something that’ll make Saddam fear you,’ he said, switching on a flashlight and opening one of the crates.

Its contents produced sounds of awe and excitement from the Ma’dan. Rosemont lifted out an olive-drab tube. ‘This is an M72 LAW rocket — LAW stands for light anti-tank weapon. We’ll show you how to use them, but if you can fire a rifle, you can fire one of these. We’ve also brought a couple thousand rounds of AK ammunition.’

‘That is good. That is very good!’ Kerim beamed at the CIA agent, then translated for the other Ma’dan.

‘I guess they’re happy,’ said Arnold on seeing the enthusiastic response.

‘Guess so,’ Rosemont replied. ‘Okay, Kerim, we need your intel on Saddam’s local troops before—’

A cry of alarm made everyone whirl. The Marsh Arabs whipped up their rifles, scattering into the patches of dried-up reeds. ‘What’s going on?’ Cross demanded, raising his own gun.

‘Down, down!’ Kerim called. ‘The light, turn it off!’

Rosemont snapped off the torch and ducked. ‘What is it?’

‘Listen!’ He pointed across the lake. ‘A helicopter!’

The CIA operatives fell silent. Over the faint sigh of the wind, a new sound became audible: a deep percussive rumble. The chop of heavy-duty rotor blades.

Growing louder.

‘Dammit, it’s a Hind!’ said Arnold, recognising the distinctive thrum of a Soviet-made Mil Mi-24 gunship. ‘What the hell’s it doing here? We’re in the no-fly zone — why haven’t our guys shot it down?’

‘We first saw it two days ago,’ said Kerim. ‘It flies low, very low.’

‘So it gets lost in the ground clutter,’ said Arnold. ‘Clever.’

‘More like lucky,’ Cross corrected. ‘Our AWACS should still pick it up.’

‘We’ve got some new intel, then,’ Rosemont said with a wry smile. ‘They need to point their radar in this direction.’

Arnold tried to locate the approaching gunship. ‘Speaking of direction, is it comin’ in ours?’

‘Can’t tell. Get the NVGs from the truck… Shit!’ A horrible realisation hit Rosemont. ‘The truck, we’ve got to move it! If they see it—’

‘On it!’ cried Arnold, sprinting for the Toyota. ‘I’ll hide it in the ruins.’

‘They might still see its tracks,’ warned Cross.

‘We’ll have to chance it,’ Rosemont told him. ‘Kerim! Get your men into cover over there.’ He pointed towards the remains of the building.

The Ma’dan leader did not take well to being given orders. ‘No! We will not go into that place!’

‘Superstition might get you killed.’

‘The helicopter will not see us if we hide in the reeds,’ Kerim insisted.

‘Let them stay,’ said Cross dismissively. ‘We need to move.’

‘Agreed,’ said Rosemont, putting the LAW back into its case. The Toyota’s engine started, then sand kicked from its tyres as Arnold swung it towards the ruins. ‘Come on.’

Gear jolting on their equipment webbing, they ran after the 4x4, leaving the Marsh Arabs behind. It took almost half a minute over the uneven ground to reach cover, the outer edge of the ruins marked by the jagged base of a pillar sticking up from the sands like a broken tooth. By now, Arnold had stopped the Toyota beside the main structure, its wheels in the water. He jumped out. ‘Where’s the chopper?’

Rosemont looked over a wall. He couldn’t see the helicopter itself, but caught the flash of its navigation lights. A reflection told him that it was less than thirty feet above the water. A couple of seconds later, the lights flared again, revealing that while the Hind wasn’t heading straight at them, it would make landfall a couple of hundred metres beyond Kerim’s position.

‘If it’s got its nav lights on, they don’t know we’re here,’ said Cross. ‘They’d have gone dark if they were on an attack run.’

‘Yeah, but they gotta be using night vision to fly that low without a spotlight,’ Arnold warned. ‘They might still see us.’

The helicopter neared the shore, the roar of its engines getting louder. Tension rose amongst the three men. The Hind was travelling in a straight line; if it suddenly slowed or altered course, they would know they had been spotted.

The gunship’s thunder reached a crescendo…

And passed. It crossed the shore and continued across the barren plain, a gritty whirlwind rising in its wake.

Arnold blew out a relieved whistle. ‘God damn. That was close.’

Rosemont kept watching the retreating strobes. ‘Let’s give it a minute to make sure it’s gone — Cross, what the hell? Turn that light out!’

Cross was shining his flashlight over the ruined structure. ‘I want to see this.’

‘Yeah, and the guys in that chopper might see you!’

‘They won’t. Look, there’s a way in.’ A dark opening was revealed in the dirty stone; an arched entrance, still intact. Cross waded into the lake, the water rising up his shins as he approached the passage. ‘There’s something written above it.’ Characters carved into the stonework stood out in the beam from his flashlight.

‘What does it say?’ asked Arnold, moving to the water’s edge.

Rosemont reluctantly joined him. ‘I don’t know what language that is,’ he said, indicating a line of angular runes running across the top of the opening, ‘but the letters above it? I think they’re Hebrew. No idea what they say, though.’

‘We should find out.’ Cross aimed his light into the entrance, revealing a short tunnel beyond, then stepped deeper into the water.

‘Cross, get back — God damn it,’ Rosemont growled as the other man ducked through the entrance. He traded exasperated looks with Arnold. ‘Wait here and watch for the chopper. I’ll get him.’

He splashed into the lake. Cross had by now disappeared inside the ruined structure, spill from his flashlight washing back up the tunnel. ‘Cross! Get out of there. We’ve got a job to do.’

There was no reply. Annoyed, Rosemont sluiced through the opening and made his way into the building’s heart, turning on his own flashlight. The water rose to his knees. ‘Hey! When I tell you to—’

He stopped in amazement.

The room was not large, only a few metres along each wall. But it had clearly been a place of great importance to its builders. Stone columns coated in flaked gilding supported each corner of the ceiling, bands of pure gold and silver around them inset with numerous gemstones. Not even the grime left by the long submersion in the lake could diminish their splendour. The walls themselves were covered in the skeletal ancient text he had seen outside. There were more Hebrew passages too, but the other language occupied so much space that these were relegated to separate tablets laid out around the room’s waterlogged perimeter.

It was obvious what the temple had been built to house. The wall opposite the entrance contained a niche a little over a foot high, more gold lining it. Above it was a faded painting, a stylised seven-branched menorah — a Hebrew lampstand — with several letters over it. Carvings resembling the sun’s rays directed Rosemont’s eyes to its contents.

A strange stone figure filled the nook. Its body was human — but the head was that of a lion. Wrapped tightly around the statuette’s torso, shrouding it like wings, were several metal sheets embossed with a pattern resembling eyes.

Cross stood at the alcove, examining the artefact. ‘Do you see it?’ he gasped. ‘Do you see it?’

‘Yeah, I see it,’ Rosemont replied. There was a new edge to the other man’s voice that he had never heard before, a breathless excitement — no, wonderment. ‘What is it?’

Cross gave his superior a glance that was somewhere between pity and disdain. ‘You don’t see it, otherwise you’d know.’

‘Okay, then enlighten me.’

‘An apt choice of words.’ He leaned closer for a better look at the leonine head. ‘It’s an angel.’

‘Yeah, I can see that, I guess. It does kinda look like an angel.’

‘No, you don’t understand. It doesn’t just look like an angel. It is an angel! Exactly as described in the Book of Revelation! Chapter four, verse six — “Four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion.” And there’s more: “And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him.”’ He crouched, the water sloshing up to his chest. ‘There’s something written on its side. I know what it says.’

‘You can read it?’ asked Rosemont, surprised.

‘No — but I still know what it says. 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.’” They aren’t speaking day and night — the words are written on them, always visible. That’s what it means!’

‘That’s what what means?’

‘Revelation! I understand it, it’s all coming to me…’ Cross stared at the angel, then turned to face Rosemont. The older agent was momentarily startled by his expression, an almost messianic light burning in his eyes. ‘You said this lake was a meteorite crater. Revelation chapter eight, verse ten — “There fell a great star from heaven, burning as if it were a lamp.” Wormwood, the falling star; it’s describing a fireball, a meteor strike — and this is it, this is where it landed! It’s the bottomless pit!’ He faced the alcove once more. ‘The prophecy, it’s true…’

‘All right, so you’ve had a vision from God,’ said Rosemont, his discomfort replaced by impatience. ‘We’ve still got a mission to carry out. This is a job for archaeologists, not the CIA — let Indiana Jones take care of it. We need to get Kerim’s intel on those Iraqi positions.’

‘You do that,’ Cross replied as he took out a compact digital camera. ‘This is more important.’

‘The hell it is.’ Rosemont stepped closer as Cross took a photo of the alcove and the surrounding text-covered wall. ‘You’re coming with me, right now—’

‘Mike!’ Arnold’s shout reached them from outside. ‘The chopper, it’s coming back!’

‘Shit,’ said Rosemont. The Iraqis had probably spotted the Toyota’s tracks cutting across the dried-up marshlands. ‘Okay, Bible study’s over — move out!’

He splashed back down the tunnel, readying his rifle. Cross hesitated, then almost reverently took the angel from its niche, finding it surprisingly heavy for its size, and followed.

The two men joined Arnold near the broken pillar. ‘They’ve turned out their nav lights,’ he warned.

Rosemont listened. The pulsing thunder again grew louder, coming from somewhere to the south-east. He couldn’t see the aircraft, but with night-vision gear, its pilot’s view of the lake would be as clear as in daylight. ‘We need to get away from the ruins.’

‘You sure? The walls’ll give us cover—’

‘Not against rockets. The moment they see the truck, they’ll assume we’re inside and blow the hell out of the place! Spread out and try to reach Kerim’s people.’ He started to move, then caught sight of what Cross was carrying. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I can’t leave it behind,’ Cross replied.

‘Put it down and take up your weapon! That’s an order, Cross!’

The two men glared at each other, neither willing to back down… then the deadlock was broken by Arnold’s cry. ‘Incoming!’

A flash of fiery light in the sky — and something streaked overhead. The CIA agents threw themselves flat—

The rocket hit the Toyota, the truck exploding in a dazzling fireball. Two more missiles hit the temple itself, shattering stonework and causing the roof to collapse with a crash that shook the surrounding sands. Then the gunship blasted over the ruin, swinging into a wide loop above the lake.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Rosemont called. His two companions responded in the affirmative.

‘We lost the truck,’ said Arnold unhappily, looking back at the burning wreck. ‘How are we gonna get out of here?’

‘We’ll walk if we have to,’ said Rosemont, ‘but let’s worry about staying alive first.’ He glanced towards Kerim’s position. ‘We’ve still got two LAWs over there. We might be able to bring down that chopper.’

Arnold was not convinced. ‘It’d take a miracle.’

‘God’s on our side,’ said Cross, unshakeable conviction in his voice. He held up the angel. ‘We found this for a reason. The Lord won’t let us die now.’

‘We need firepower, not faith!’ said Rosemont. ‘Leave that damn thing here — we’ve got to get those rockets.’ Cross gave him an affronted look, then reluctantly placed the angel at the foot of the pillar. ‘Okay, Gabe, find Kerim. Cross, with me.’

The agents set off at a run. Rosemont searched for the Hind over the dark water, but saw nothing. He could tell from the changing pitch of its engine note that it was turning around, though — another attack could come at any moment—

More fire in the sky — and dusty geysers erupted as cannon fire ripped across the shoreline. The gunner had spotted the Ma’dan and opened up as the Mi-24 swept in. The Marsh Arabs returned fire, muzzle flashes bursting from the reeds, but the AKs were useless against the Hind’s thick armour. Tracer rounds homed in on the gunmen and hit home, screams rising over the helicopter’s clamour as bodies were shredded by a storm of explosive shells.

Cross and Rosemont dived to the ground. The gunship roared over the shore, then vanished into the blackness once again. Kalashnikovs crackled after it in futile rage.

Rosemont raised his head. ‘Jesus Christ!’ He felt Cross bristle at the blasphemy, but had no time or inclination to consider anyone’s religious sensitivities. ‘We’ve got to get those LAWs before these bastards cut us to pieces.’

They ran again, men racing past them in the other direction; fear of whatever haunted the temple had been overpowered by an instinctive urge to seek cover behind solid stone. The two agents vaulted the torn remains of several Ma’dan. ‘There!’ said Cross, spotting the campfire’s still-glowing embers.

Rosemont picked out the two crates in the moonlight. ‘We only get one chance at this.’

‘We’ll do it.’ Cross snatched up the LAW from the open case as Rosemont retrieved the second weapon from the other. Both tugged out the pins to release their launchers’ rear covers, then pulled hard to extend the firing tubes—

‘Incoming!’ Arnold cried.

The agents dropped again as the Hind swept in along the lake’s edge. Rockets lanced from its wing pods, explosions ripping down the shore. More screams, some abruptly cut off as another fusillade scattered mangled bodies.

‘No!’ Cross cried as the line of detonations reached the ruins—

The saw-toothed pillar disintegrated in a flash of flame. More rockets hammered what remained of the temple into rubble, then the Mi-24 veered back out over the lake.

Rosemont jumped up, raising the LAW to his shoulder. He peered through the sight, fingers resting on the rubber trigger bar. ‘Cross! It’s coming back around — get ready!’

But the other man was staring in horror towards the ruins. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘The angel can’t have been destroyed. It can’t!’

‘Worry about your damn angel later. We’ve got—’ Rosemont broke off as a new sight was picked out by the flickering light of burning reeds.

Something was swelling on the shore, a dirty mustard-yellow mass. It took a moment for the CIA leader to realise that it was a cloud, some sort of gas boiling up from the edge of the ruins. But it was like nothing he had ever seen before; far thicker and heavier than the smoke from the vegetation, almost like a liquid as it churned and spread outwards.

It reached a dazed Ma’dan, roiled around him — and the man screamed. Clutching at his face, he tried to run, but could only manage a drunken stagger before collapsing. The still-expanding cloud swallowed him, and his cries became a gurgling wail of agony before abruptly falling silent. Other men nearby joined the terrifying chorus as the gas reached them.

Rosemont’s eyes widened in fear. ‘Holy shit, they’re using chemical weapons! MOPP gear — suit up! Suit up!’

The United States had long accused Saddam’s regime of possessing weapons of mass destruction, and now it appeared that the proof was rolling towards them as the deadly cloud kept growing. The CIA agents had come prepared, their webbing holding a pack containing Mission-Oriented Protective Posture clothing — an oversuit, gloves and mask to protect against nuclear, chemical and biological agents — but they had not expected to need them.

Panic rose in both men as they dropped the LAWs, shrugged off their gear and tore open the pouches. More sounds of terror and death reached them as the sulphurous fog spread, swamping the fleeing tribesmen. Cross worked his arms into the thick nylon overalls and tugged them up over his shoulders, then hurriedly pulled on the gas mask before zipping up the garment and drawing the hood over his head. Rosemont sealed his own outer covering a few seconds later, closing the hood tightly around his mask before starting to don his gloves. He looked back down the shore— ‘Gabe!’ he cried, seeing a familiar figure in the firelight.

Arnold was thirty metres away, desperately trying to secure his gas mask as he ran. Its straps were twisted, costing valuable seconds as he attempted to straighten them. At last he managed it and raised the hood, but his hands were still uncovered.

He pulled on one glove, fumbling with the other as the cloud reached him—

Contact with exposed skin was enough to kill, Rosemont saw with horror. Arnold suddenly grabbed at his unprotected hand, clawing it as if being bitten by a million insects. His shriek was clearly audible even through the mask. Then he dropped, writhing in the sand before the yellow haze consumed him.

The Marsh Arabs all suffered the same fate as the wind carried the cloud along the lake’s edge. Kerim was among the last to fall, firing his AK-47 into the malevolent yellow mass in a final act of defiance before he too succumbed.

His second glove secured, Rosemont was about to run from the approaching miasma when he remembered that there were still other threats to deal with. The Hind’s roar grew louder. ‘The rockets!’ he yelled to the fully suited Cross. ‘Get the rockets!’

They retrieved the LAWs. There was nothing to aim at in the black sky, and with their thickly lined hoods up, it was hard to pinpoint the source of the noise. Rosemont took his best guess and stared down the sights, the mask’s eyepiece smearing his vision. ‘Wait for it,’ he told his companion. ‘Wait…’

Staccato bursts of flame as the Mil’s cannon fired—

‘Now!’

Rosemont squeezed the trigger bar. The rocket shot from the launcher with a loud bang, the back-blast smacking up a rooster tail of dust behind him.

But Cross hadn’t moved. ‘Fire, now!’ Rosemont shouted, watching the orange spot of the rocket’s motor race towards the gunship—

The Hind suddenly banked hard. The pilot had seen the incoming missile and was taking evasive action. Rosemont cursed as he realised his shot was going to miss…

Cross finally fired — and Rosemont realised why he had hesitated for a crucial moment. The Hind had swerved away from the first missile… but would fly right into the path of the second.

The cannon fire ceased, the Hind disappearing against the black sky. The first rocket continued pointlessly along its course, but the second was still angling to meet the aircraft. The engine note changed, the pilot applying full power as he tried to climb away from the incoming missile—

A flash — and for a split-second the Hind was fully illuminated as the LAW struck home.

It exploded against the helicopter’s tail boom. The Mil’s heaviest armour was concentrated around the cockpit and engines, but even if it had covered the entire fuselage it would not have been enough to stop a dedicated anti-tank round. The warhead ripped a jagged hole through the chopper’s flank, severing the mechanical linkage to the tail rotor.

The result was instantaneous.

Without the smaller rotor to counteract the enormous torque of the main blades, the Hind was hurled into an uncontrollable spin. Engines screaming, the helicopter cartwheeled overhead, Cross and Rosemont both ducking as it hurtled past. It smashed into the ground barely fifty metres beyond them, the mangled remains tumbling through the sand in a searing ball of flaming aviation fuel.

Rosemont lifted his head, heart pounding at the close call — only to freeze in fear as the yellow cloud rolled over the two men.

Everything went dark. He didn’t dare move, or even breathe, terrified that doing so would open up a gap in his hastily donned protective gear and let in the poisonous fog…

Seconds passed. No pain. He risked a breath. The mysterious chemical agent had not found a way to his lungs. ‘Cross!’ he gasped. ‘Are you okay?’

No reply. Worry rose at the thought of being trapped far behind enemy lines, alone — then he heard a voice. ‘Yeah. I’m fine.’

Another gasp, this time of relief. ‘That was a hell of a shot.’

‘I was a championship hunter before I joined the Marines. I hit what I aim at.’

‘Good to know. Your suit’s holding?’

‘So far.’

‘Whatever this stuff is, MOPP-1 can resist it.’ He carefully moved in the direction of the other man’s voice until his fingertips made contact with Cross’s suit. ‘I guess we’ve got our smoking gun. Saddam has got chemical weapons, and is willing to use them. We have to call this in.’ He reached for his radio before remembering that it had been attached to his discarded webbing.

‘I don’t think this was anything to do with Saddam,’ said Cross thoughtfully.

‘What do you mean? You saw it — one of that ’copter’s rockets blew up and released it.’

‘No, it blew up, but the gas came from something else.’ Cross suddenly gripped his wrist. ‘It came from the angel! We’ve got to find it.’

‘If it got hit by a rocket, there won’t be anything left bigger than your pinky,’ Rosemont pointed out. He made out the other man’s shape as visibility started to return. ‘Help me find the radio.’

‘This is more important. Don’t you see? Revelation chapter nine, verse two — “And there arose a smoke out of the pit—”’

‘I don’t give a damn what the Book of Revelations says!’ Rosemont barked. ‘This isn’t Sunday school; this is a Special Activities Division operation. You’re an agent, not a preacher; now shut the hell up and carry out the mission!’

Cross regarded him for a moment, his face unreadable behind the mask, then he turned away. ‘Don’t you walk away from — son of a bitch!’ Rosemont yelled after him. ‘You’re finished, you hear me?’

Cross ignored Rosemont’s angry shouts as he jogged back towards the ruins. The wind had shifted, wafting the yellow mass off the shore and out over the lake. The fires from the crashed helicopter and the burning reed beds cast a hellish glow across the landscape.

Appropriate, he thought. From the moment he first saw the angel inside the temple, he was absolutely sure, more than he had ever been about anything, that he knew what he had found — and what it meant.

But there had been only one angel. According to the Book of Revelation, there were three more. So where were they?

He approached the spot where the broken pillar had stood. The only thing there now was a rubble-strewn crater.

From which the gas was still rising.

He reached the edge of the gouge in the earth. A shallow pool of dark water was at the bottom. Amongst the debris around it, his light picked out a shape that was clearly not natural. Part of the statue. One of its wings was still attached, but the embossed metal that had been wrapped around the angel’s body was now twisted and torn where the figure had been smashed by the explosion, exposing a darker core hidden inside.

The strange gas was belching from this black stone. The wind was enough to blow it clear, though he resisted the temptation to remove his mask for a better look. The sight put him in mind of a smoke grenade, but…

‘Where’s it all coming from?’ he whispered. Smoke grenades contained enough chemicals to produce a screen for ninety seconds at most, but this was pumping out a colossal volume, and showed no signs of stopping.

He stepped down cautiously into the pit. A sound became audible even through his hood’s charcoal-impregnated lining, a sizzling like fatty bacon on a grill. The dark material at the statue’s heart almost appeared to be boiling, blistering with countless tiny bubbles, each releasing more gas as it burst.

Another wisp of the gas to one side caught his eye. A chunk of the broken statue, smaller than his little finger, had landed at the very edge of the pool. He crouched to examine it. There was a sliver of the dark material embedded in the cracked ceramic shell, partially beneath the water’s surface. The exposed section was burning away just like its larger counterpart, consuming itself in some reaction with the air. As he watched, the top of the splinter spat and bubbled to nothingness… and the thin line of yellow smoke died away.

Intrigued, Cross gently lifted the fragment from the water. It was warm, even through his glove. After a moment, the strange substance fizzed and puffed a new strand of yellow fumes into the wind. He dipped it back into the puddle. The reaction stopped.

A light swept over him. ‘Cross!’ called Rosemont from the crater’s lip. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I found the angel,’ Cross replied, climbing out to meet him and indicating the larger hunk of the statue. ‘That’s where the smoke’s coming from. It wasn’t a chemical weapon; it was here all along, hidden in the temple. Waiting for us to find it. Waiting for me to find it.’

Rosemont shone his flashlight over the broken figure. It was still belching out its seemingly endless plume of oily yellow gas. ‘Damn. What the hell is that?’

‘It’s a messenger from God. Look.’ Cross illuminated the little pool. The dark water was revealed as a bloody red, the discoloration spreading outwards from the fragment like ink across damp paper. ‘“And the third part of the sea became blood…”’

The lead agent snapped his light at Cross’s face. ‘I don’t want to hear one more goddamn Bible quote out of you, okay? This whole situation has gotten way out of control.’

‘I know what we have to do. We have to take the angel out of here.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ Rosemont protested. ‘It killed Gabe, it killed Kerim and all his men! We’re not taking it anywhere.’

‘Putting it in water stops the smoke. If we find a container, we can transport it—’

‘Water, huh?’ Rosemont jumped into the crater. Before Cross could intervene, he had hauled the remains of the angel from the ground. The toxic gas swirled around him as he stomped back out of the pit, heading to the lake’s edge.

‘What are you doing?’ Cross demanded as he followed.

‘Making this safe.’ He drew back his arm — and hurled the statue out into the water.

‘No!’ yelled Cross, but it was too late. The broken figure spun through the air, a poisonous vortex spiralling in its wake, before it splashed down some sixty feet from the shoreline. Both men stared at the water until the ripples subsided.

Rosemont turned back to Cross. ‘Right. Now we radio in and—’

He froze. Cross had raised his gun and was pointing it at his chest. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said the Virginian in a voice that, while level, was straining with anger. ‘You’ve just interfered with God’s plan.’

‘God’s plan?’ said Rosemont, trying to control his fear. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The Day of Judgement. It’s coming. The first angel bound at the Euphrates has been released. The seals will be broken, the seven trumpets will sound, and…’ He paused, new realisation filling him with greedy wonder. ‘And the mystery of God should be finished…’

Rosemont shook his head. ‘You’re crazy. Lower your weapon, right now, or—’

Cross pulled the trigger.

A single bullet ripped through Rosemont’s heart and exploded out from his back. Eyes wide in shock behind his mask, he crumpled to the ground.

Cross stared at the dead man, his face unreadable, then bent to take his radio. He set it to an emergency frequency. ‘Wintergreen, Wintergreen, this is Maven,’ he said, using the operation’s code names. ‘Wintergreen, this is Maven. Come in.’

A female voice responded. ‘This is Wintergreen. We read you, Maven. Sitrep.’

‘Mission failure, I repeat, mission failure. We were ambushed — the Iraqis had a gunship on patrol. Rosemont and Arnold are dead. So are our contacts.’

A pause. When the woman replied, it was with clear concern even through the fuzz of the scrambled transmission. ‘Everyone’s dead?’

‘Yes, everyone but me. Our transport was destroyed. I need immediate evac.’

‘We can’t give you evac with a gunship in the air.’

‘It’s been shot down. I need to get out of here before they come to see what happened to it.’

A long silence as the controller conferred with a superior. Finally, she responded: ‘Okay, Maven, can you reach Point Charlie?’ A backup rendezvous point some miles to the south. ‘If you hole up there, we’ll get an extraction team to you asap.’

‘I’ll make it,’ Cross answered. ‘I’ll contact you when I arrive.’

‘Roger that, Maven. Good luck.’ She paused again, then added in a softer voice: ‘I’m sorry about Mike and Gabe.’

‘So am I,’ said Cross, giving Rosemont’s corpse an emotionless glance. ‘Maven out.’

He switched off the radio, then surveyed the area. The cloud had now mostly dispersed, but he didn’t risk removing his MOPP gear; there were still drifting patches of haze in the air. Instead he returned to where he had donned the suit to retrieve his equipment webbing. There was a water flask attached; he took it, then went back to the crater.

The small sliver of the angel was still submerged in the blood-red water. He removed the flask’s cap, then carefully picked up the shard and dropped it inside before it started to smoke again. The thought occurred that he should find one of the dead agents’ canteens, as there was no way of knowing how long it would be before he was rescued, but he dismissed it. He knew he would find what he needed to survive. ‘“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of waters…”’ he said quietly as he firmly secured the cap.

His cargo secured, he set out into the wilderness.