The Revelation Code

20

‘Ee bah gum,’ said Tom Harkaway in an exaggerated attempt at a northern accent. ‘It’s Eddie Chase!’

‘That’s Lancashire, not Yorkshire, you thick southern bastard,’ Eddie replied, grinning up at the large bearded man on the deck of the motor yacht. ‘We say “Ay up!” not “Ee bah gum!”’ He shook his head. ‘E. B. G. Chase? You daft twat.’

‘Whatever, you’re all bloody barbarians as far as I’m concerned.’ Tom tramped down the gangway to the wooden dock, shaking his fellow Englishman’s hand before clasping him in a bear hug. ‘So, how’s things?’

‘Right now? Been better,’ Eddie replied as he extricated himself. ‘In the past few days I’ve been Tasered, waterboarded and shot at, I’ve driven a Porsche off a bridge, and just since I arrived on this island someone’s tried to kill me. Oh, and my wife’s been kidnapped by a bunch of religious nuts.’

Tom cocked his head to one side. ‘Business as usual, then.’

‘Yeah, more’s the fucking pity. Thanks for agreeing to help me out.’

‘Us SAS boys have to stick together,’ replied his old squad mate. He gave Nelson a concerned look. ‘Someone tried to kill him? You okay?’

‘Fine, both fine,’ said Nelson, sounding aggrieved. ‘But my taxi got a bullet hole! Who gon’ pay to fix that?’

Tom’s eyes went to Eddie. ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘You’re the one with the yacht.’

‘Yeah, and you arrived on a private jet!’ The older man sighed, then told Nelson: ‘I’ll sort it out. Take it to Viv at the boatyard.’ He gestured across the harbour at a cluster of industrial buildings. ‘He’ll patch it up for you. Elena doesn’t have to know anything about it.’

The taxi driver looked relieved. ‘Thanks, Tom.’

‘Cheers for the lift,’ Eddie said as Nelson departed, before turning to take in the moored yacht beside them. The name Flirty Lady was painted on the hull of the seventy-foot white and blue vessel; he was no nautical expert, but from its decided lack of sleekness compared to the other craft nearby, he guessed it was a good few decades old. ‘Never imagined you as a navy man. Go cruising with Seaman Staines and Master Bates, do you?’

‘Ha ha. Fuck off, Eddie. This is how I make a living now — tourist trips. We go out around the island, drop anchor off some of the nicer beaches and let ’em go snorkelling before partying on the way back.’

‘Sounds like really hard work,’ Eddie joked, surveying his surroundings. Jolly Harbour was an attractive and clearly wealthy enclave with rows of houses right on the waterline, many having their own docks. Steep little hills rose around the bay, providing a backdrop of lush tropical vegetation. ‘Nice place. My mum always wanted to come here. You’ve got a tough life.’

‘You can joke, but you try keeping up with the payments on a ship this size, even a third-hand one,’ Tom told him as he ascended the gangplank. ‘Then there’s the insurance, fuel, berthing fees, all that crap. It’s not exactly a licence to print money.’

Eddie followed him into the main cabin. ‘So,’ said Tom, with a penetrating look. ‘You ring me last night, tell me you’re coming to Antigua on some kind of urgent mission for the UN, I agree to help you… and now I find out that your wife’s been kidnapped and someone wants you dead. Kept that part quiet, didn’t you? What the bloody hell’s going on?’

‘I’m not exactly sure myself,’ Eddie admitted.

‘Okay. And do you know who these people are?’

‘Nope.’

Tom pursed his lips. ‘Riiiight. Do you even know where they’re keeping your wife?’

‘Nope again. Although,’ he added, taking out his phone, ‘if I’m lucky, I’ll find that out soon…’

Even locked in her house with a pair of guards posted outside the door, Nina couldn’t miss the clatter of a helicopter coming in to land. Soon afterwards, Cross’s disembodied voice summoned her. A clack from the door lock, and two men entered to escort her through the compound.

Some of the Mission’s white-clad residents were rushing about, excitedly passing on news to their neighbours. Nina saw someone familiar. ‘Miriam?’ she called. ‘What’s going on?’

The young woman hesitated, nervousness plain on her open face. The current news wasn’t the only gossip; Nina’s attack on Norvin had also done the rounds. But whatever had happened was so exciting, she couldn’t hold it in. ‘They’ve found the third angel!’

‘It’s here?’ The redhead looked towards the helipad in alarm. If Cross’s people had taken it from Eddie already…

‘Yes! One of the Witnesses just delivered it to the Prophet.’

‘I guess I’m going to see for myself,’ said Nina as her guards directed her onwards.

‘It’s wonderful!’ Miriam called after her. ‘There’s only one more angel to find, and then the seventh trumpet will sound!’

‘You say that like it’s a good thing,’ she offered in parting. She had now studied Revelation enough to know what followed the last trumpet: war, destruction and death on a colossal scale.

She tried to hide her foreboding as she was brought to the church. The Fishers emerged in a rush as she arrived. Simeon’s left hand was clamped tightly around his right, blood oozing between his fingers. Anna ushered him along, face full of concern for her husband. Both glared at Nina as they passed.

Their anger gave her a perverse feeling of hope. Even if they had taken the angel from Eddie, he had certainly put up a fight.

The cult leader was waiting inside with Dalton. The two men smiled when they saw her, though in the former president’s case it was decidedly gloating. Cross, however, was almost ecstatic. ‘Dr Wilde! This is one of the most important days in the history of the world — and it wouldn’t have happened without you.’

‘I’m absolutely thrilled to have helped,’ she replied, in a tone acidic enough to peel paint.

Dalton’s smile slid into a smirk. ‘Cynicism’s so unbecoming in a mother-to-be.’

‘Oh, cram it up your ass, Mr President.’ Nina reached them, seeing a carry-on bag on the front pew. ‘Where’s Eddie?’

‘Still alive, unfortunately.’ She wasn’t sure which gave her more pleasure: the news itself, or the former politician’s discomfiture at announcing it.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Cross. ‘What does matter is that three angels are now accounted for. The one destroyed in Iraq, the second from the catacombs in Rome, and now the third.’ He indicated the bag. ‘There’s only one more to find — and we know where to look. We’re already making preparations for the search. You’ll join us, of course,’ he added. ‘You’re right: we might still need an archaeologist on the ground.’

‘Trekking around a desert while pregnant? Boy, I can’t wait.’

‘You won’t have to wait long. We’ll be leaving tonight.’ Cross opened the bag. ‘But first I wanted you to see this.’

He donned white gloves, then carefully lifted out an object cocooned in bubble wrap. One end had been pulled open, revealing a hint of what was inside. ‘The third angel — the eagle,’ he said, showing it to her.

Nina couldn’t help but feel a thrill at the sight. However dangerous it might be, the angel was still an incredible find. But the feeling passed almost immediately at the thought of how Cross intended to misuse it — for devastation, not discovery. ‘Is it intact?’ she asked. ‘After everything it went through, you were damn lucky it didn’t get broken in Berlin.’

‘You can blame your husband for that,’ said Dalton.

‘If it had broken, it would have been God’s will,’ Cross said as he started to peel away the wrapping. ‘It doesn’t matter where the angels are released, just that they are.’

‘Although some locations are better than others, obviously.’ The ex-president seemed to be enjoying some private joke.

Cross paid no attention, fixated on freeing the statue. ‘Here,’ he said with reverence as the last wrapping came away. ‘At last.’

Dalton came to see for himself. ‘Three down, one to go.’ He turned to Nina. ‘What do you think, Dr Wilde?’

Nina didn’t answer, her attention fixed on the statue. Something was wrong, she realised. Compared to the second angel, it was different — the way it caught the light, the tint of the ceramic, the arrangement of the metal wings surrounding the body…

Cross caught her confusion. ‘What are—’ he began, before looking sharply back at the relic. He ran his gloved fingertips over its surface, then turned it to examine the inscribed text, almost squinting as he tried to make out details.

‘What’s the matter?’ Dalton demanded.

‘It’s… it’s not real,’ whispered Cross. He gave Nina a frenzied glare, as if it were her fault. ‘It’s a fake! Look at the lettering! It’s stepped — like a low-resolution copy!’ He tugged off one glove to scratch the statue with his fingernail. Tiny flecks of the surface broke away.

Nina almost laughed. ‘I think you’ve been scammed. Or scanned, rather. Eddie must have put the real angel into that laser scanner at the museum and 3D-printed an exact copy. It’s nice work, though. Somebody’s even gilded the wings to make them look like real metal.’

‘But… but why?’ asked Dalton. ‘He must have known we’d realise it was fake, so he couldn’t have exchanged it for you.’

‘He wasn’t going to exchange it,’ said Cross. He turned the statue upside down, examining its base. A small length of metal was set into the flat surface — something that had not been present on the angel taken from Rome. ‘It’s an antenna!’ Fury filled his voice. ‘It’s a tracker, a GPS beacon. He wanted Simeon to take it from him. Now he knows where we are!’

He raised the statue as if about to smash it on the marble floor, then forced back his anger, regarding the replica for a moment before lowering it again. ‘We need to move up our schedule,’ he said more quietly, calculating.

‘Wait — where’s the real angel?’ said Dalton.

‘Chase must still have it, or has gotten someone to bring it to Antigua for him. He needs it to get his wife back.’ Cross looked at Nina. ‘He’ll be coming here. But we’ll be ready for him.’

Eddie zoomed in on the map on his phone to a small island off Antigua’s eastern coast. ‘That’s where they are — where Nina is.’ He had bought the GPS tracker and its phone app from a spy shop in Berlin that morning, getting the bruised but otherwise unharmed Derrick to conceal it inside the replica. ‘You know it?’

Tom nodded. ‘Elliot Island. Never landed there, though — it’s private property. You get too close, and the residents turn up and wave you away. Not a big deal; its beaches aren’t great, so it’s not a prime tourist spot.’

‘Know anything about the people who own it?’

‘Some religious commune, I think. There’s a church. Apart from that…’ He shrugged.

‘I need to get out there, without them seeing me. It won’t take ’em long to realise that wasn’t the real statue — oh, and there we go.’ The tracker’s dot vanished, a message popping up to announce that the signal had been lost. ‘Still, it told me what I needed.’

‘When you say you need to get out there,’ said Tom warily, ‘I’m assuming you want me to take you?’

Eddie smiled. ‘That’d be helpful, yeah.’

‘I told you, they’ll see us coming. The Flirty’s not exactly a stealth boat.’

‘That’s why it’s perfect. How quick can it get out there?’

‘At full pelt? An hour and a half, maybe.’ He looked through a porthole at a call from the dock. ‘Who’s this?’

‘That’s for me,’ said Eddie. He went out on to the deck to find Maureen Rothschild at the bottom of the gangway. ‘Hi, Prof! You made it, then.’

‘Yes, I did,’ she replied, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. ‘I waited in the plane for ten minutes before going through customs, as you asked, and by that time, a jumbo jet full of tourists had arrived! I had to wait in line behind three hundred people. And when I finally got out, it took an age to find a cab. Why couldn’t I have come with you?’

‘Trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to be in my taxi,’ he told her, marching down the walkway to pick up her travel case. ‘I had a reception committee. And they weren’t there to give me cocktails in a hollowed-out pineapple.’

Rothschild’s eyes went wide. ‘You were ambushed? Are you all right?’

‘I didn’t know you cared.’ He ascended the gangway.

‘I’m displaying simple human decency, Mr Chase,’ she replied tartly as she followed. ‘Something in which you apparently still need lessons. What about the statue? Did they take it?’

‘Yeah, just like I’d hoped. So now I know where they are.’ He helped her on to the yacht. ‘You’ve got the real one?’

Rothschild huffed. ‘No, I left it on the plane. Of course I brought it!’

‘Sarcastic, snappy… you’re more like Nina than either of you’d want to admit.’ Eddie put down the case. ‘Tom, this is Maureen Rothschild. Prof, this is Tom Harkaway, an old mate of mine.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Tom, extending his hand.

She shook it dubiously, eyeing a pouting pin-up girl painted on a bulkhead beside the vessel’s name. ‘Thank you. This is a… nice boat.’

He chuckled. ‘It’s seen a fair few parties.’

‘Speaking of which,’ said Eddie, ‘how fast can you drum up some passengers? A party boat without partiers’ll look a bit suspicious.’

Tom pointed beyond the houses along the harbour’s western edge. ‘There are two big resort hotels just over there, the Tranquility Bay and the Jolly Beach. It shouldn’t be too hard to find some people who want a cruise.’ He paused. ‘You want me to give them a free cruise, don’t you?’

‘Quickest way to fill up the boat, innit?’

‘And who’s going to pay for all this?’

‘There’s a bloke at the United Nations called Oswald Seretse…’

Rothschild shook her head. ‘Poor Oswald. He’s in for a shock.’

‘Not as much as the arseholes who took Nina.’ Eddie took the gun from inside his jacket and checked the magazine.

‘Jesus, put it away!’ cried Tom, eyes wide. ‘You don’t want to get caught with that. The Antiguans had a big crackdown on guns after some tourists were murdered a few years ago. Shoot someone and you’ll get anything from twenty-five years to the death penalty.’

‘Didn’t seem to worry the bloke who took the statue,’ Eddie replied, slipping it back out of sight. ‘You know any local cops?’

Tom nodded. ‘I’ve got some friends.’

‘Could be worth bringing ’em in. Pretty sure I’ll need backup.’

‘But the police won’t land on a private island without a good reason.’

‘They’ve kidnapped Nina, for fuck’s sake!’

‘They don’t have proof that she’s there,’ Rothschild pointed out.

‘She’s right,’ said Tom. ‘They’d need a warrant or probable cause to go and look.’

‘All right, then they can fucking come and arrest me for trespassing!’ The Yorkshireman frowned, then an idea came to him. ‘You’ve got distress flares, haven’t you?’ His friend nodded. ‘Okay, if I fire off a flare, that means either I’ve found Nina, in which case they can come ashore and arrest ’em for kidnapping, or I’m being shot at, in which case they can come ashore and kill the bastards! How does that sound?’

Rothschild and Tom exchanged looks. ‘I’ve heard better,’ the latter admitted.

‘This is how you come up with all your plans?’ exclaimed the elderly woman, incredulous. ‘Random improvisation? It’s amazing that you’re still alive!’

‘I’m not hearing anything better, and the clock’s ticking.’ Eddie regarded the case. ‘All right, Prof, I need the angel. Tom, we need to set things up.’

‘I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?’ muttered the older man, but he nevertheless went back into the cabin to search for a flare.

‘You’re really going to do this?’ asked Rothschild as she opened the case. ‘You’re going to give them the statue, even though they want it for something dangerous?’

‘Yep.’ Eddie took out another bubble-wrapped item; this time, it was the real angel.

‘You are insane, you know.’

‘You’re not the first person to say that. But I’m not planning on letting them keep it. Why do you think I want to get the cops involved? I’ll talk to Ozzy too, see if we can bring Interpol and the State Department into it. Pretty sure a US citizen being kidnapped should get their attention, especially when it’s someone famous like Nina.’

‘Nina,’ she echoed, with a wistful nod. ‘You really do love her, don’t you?’

‘Course I bloody do,’ said Eddie, surprised by the question. ‘I’m married to her, she still puts up with me even after all the crap we’ve been through — and she’s having our baby. Why would you even have to ask?’

Her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. ‘No reason.’

He was sure there was one, but he had neither the time nor the inclination to discover it. ‘Right,’ he said, removing the angel from its padding. ‘Let’s get this party started.’