The Revelation Code

35

‘You’ve got the angel?’ Nina said into her phone. ‘Thank God! What about Simeon? Did you catch him?’

‘No, the ground did,’ her husband answered. ‘What about you? Don’t suppose you convinced the Pope to postpone his talk?’

‘Ah… nope.’ She regarded the covered stage standing before the great facade of St Peter’s Basilica. A figure in white robes stood within, his words resounding from loudspeakers around the vast expanse of St Peter’s Square while his image was relayed to numerous giant screens for the benefit of the hundreds of thousands attending the papal audience. ‘He just started.’

‘Oh. Great. And I’m guessing you haven’t found Anna yet?’

‘No, we’re still searching. Her picture’s been put out to all the police and security personnel, but there are a lot of people here.’ She turned in the other direction to survey the square. In front of the stage was a large cordoned area with thousands of seats reserved for those who had either obtained tickets or been specially invited — most near the front were priests and nuns. Beyond it, the rest of the square was standing room only, a mass of faces watching the address. ‘But she might not even be this close. She could release the gas outside the square and still kill thousands of people.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Eddie said gloomily. ‘She could be half a mile away. Simeon was going to use a drone.’

‘That might not work here. The cops have sharpshooters on the rooftops, and Massimo — he’s in charge of security,’ she explained, glancing at the rangy Italian as he spoke with one of his officers — ‘told me they’ve been prepared for potential drone attacks for a few years now. So she’s probably hiding in the crowd. But,’ she added with a sigh, ‘it’s a big-ass crowd.’

Massimo Rosetti gestured for her to join him, his expression suddenly excited — and tense. ‘Hold on,’ she told Eddie, going to the Italian. ‘What is it?’

‘A guard saw her,’ he replied, pointing towards one of the checkpoints at the perimeter of the seating.

‘What, she’s in here?’ Nina exclaimed.

‘Yes, but that means she cannot get out.’

‘She doesn’t want to get out. I told you, this’ll be a suicide attack — she thinks she’s one of the Witnesses from Revelation, who both have to die before the prophecy can come true. And the other one just did!’

Rosetti gave orders over a walkie-talkie. ‘I have told my men to look for her in the seats,’ he said, starting for the checkpoint. Nina followed, limping from her leg wound. ‘Quietly, so they do not alarm her — or anyone else. If a panic starts, many could be killed.’

‘Many could be killed anyway,’ she pointed out before returning her attention to the phone. ‘Okay, Eddie, I’ll call you back. Love you.’

‘I love you too,’ he replied. ‘And the baby!’

She smiled, then pocketed the phone. ‘Do we know what she’s wearing?’

The Italian shook his head. ‘That will not help us.’

‘But if he recognised her—’

‘That is why we are going to talk to him.’

They made their way down an aisle between the banks of seats. Nina became acutely aware that Anna knew her by sight. But if she had been spotted, there was no sign, the crowd watching the Pope with rapt attention.

They reached the checkpoint, a booth with an airport-style scanner to check the personal items of those entering. Two uniformed guards manned it. Rosetti spoke to one, frowning before turning to Nina. ‘He remembers the statue on the X-ray, but not the woman carrying it,’ he said, annoyed.

‘Why not?’ she asked.

The young guard shrugged helplessly. ‘She was a nun.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘A nun!’

Nina looked back, seeing more habits than she could count. ‘Well that’s really useful!’

‘We must find her,’ said Rosetti. ‘Dr Wilde, you will recognise her if you see her?’

‘Yeah, and she’ll recognise me! If she realises we’re looking for her, she might release the gas.’

‘But you say she will release it anyway, so we must try.’ Transmitting more instructions, he led her back up the aisle.

Nina looked along each row as she passed, but the sheer number of people was visually overwhelming even when she tried to focus solely on the nuns. ‘Great, it’s like finding one particular penguin in an entire colony.’

Rosetti stopped to speak to a small group of his subordinates, who rapidly dispersed, giving orders through their own radios. ‘Every man I have here is now looking for her,’ he told Nina. ‘But if you could also help…’

‘I’ll do what I can.’ She scanned the crowd, wondering where to start.

From the front, she decided. Cross’s cult considered the Catholic Church a heretical organisation, which would make its leader practically the Antichrist in their eyes. While it made no difference in terms of the prophecy from Revelation whether he died or not, the Pope would almost certainly be Anna’s primary target: his murder would be a massive blow to the faith. Nina had seen how quickly the gas spread, but if Anna were too distant, the pontiff’s staff could still get him to safety.

So where was she? The first five rows, ten? The stage was at the top of the broad steps outside the basilica, at least seventy feet from the front row of seats. Movement above caught her eye: fluttering flags atop the building…

The wind. It was blowing roughly south-east, away from the Pope’s position. If Anna was too far back, the breeze would slow the gas cloud, or even stop it from reaching him.

She tried to picture the square from above. When Miriam had broken the angel at the Mission, the initial release of gas had been extremely forceful, mushrooming outwards for about a hundred feet before the wind finally caught it. The breeze was more gentle here, so assume a radius of a hundred and fifty feet to be sure of reaching the stage…

The first twelve rows, she estimated, and in the sections of seating to either side of the broad central aisle. If her assumptions were correct. She could be wrong — about how the gas would expand, about Anna’s plan.

But it was all she had. ‘I’m going to check these two blocks of seats,’ she told Rosetti, pointing them out.

‘You think she is there?’

‘Maybe. But it’s just a guess.’

‘I will come with you,’ he said, following her.

‘You do that,’ she said distractedly, her gaze already sweeping the ranks of visitors. The seating was divided into eight rectangular blocks across the width of the square, around twenty chairs to each of their twelve rows. That meant almost five hundred people in the two-block section to which she had narrowed her search. Even limiting it to nuns alone left over a hundred suspects. And would she pick out Anna? With her hair covered, a pair of glasses could be enough of a disguise…

She and Rosetti reached the front of the crowd and moved across it. Nina surveyed the guests, slowing to check each face beneath a headscarf or habit. Annoyed glares came back at her; some not welcoming the attention, others simply irritated that she was obstructing their view.

She crossed the first block to the central aisle. ‘Have you seen her?’ Rosetti asked quietly.

‘No, but I couldn’t get a good look at all of them.’ Some nuns had been obscured behind taller audience members, or had their faces turned away.

They crossed the aisle, Nina glancing sideways to see the Pope still delivering his sermon. A message crackled through the policeman’s radio. ‘More men are coming from the rest of the square to help us,’ he said.

‘Tell them to hurry up.’ Nina’s nervousness was rising; the attack could happen at any time. She looked over the next sea of faces. It seemed that half of them were nuns. Young, old, fat, thin, white, black, and all points in between, but the one she wanted to find was nowhere to be seen…

Her eyes met a nun’s, just for a moment — and the woman hurriedly turned away.

Nina flinched with a shock of adrenalin… and fear. ‘Have you seen her?’ Rosetti asked urgently.

‘I don’t know.’ She looked back at the nun, but saw only the top of her head: she had leaned forward as if picking something up from the ground. ‘It could be her, about eight rows back.’

The Italian stared into the crowd. ‘Which one? I can see ten nuns around there.’

‘The one who’s trying to keep her face hidden!’ Nina increased her pace, eyes locked on the hunched figure as she reached the aisle and turned down it. The woman in question was just under halfway along the row — and as Nina drew level, she saw that the nun was pulling something from a small bag.

The angel.

‘Shit, it’s her!’ she cried. A few visitors reacted with offended shock at the obscenity, but she didn’t have time to worry about wounded feelings. ‘She’s got the statue! There, there!’

Rosetti pushed down the row, drawing his sidearm as he shouted a warning in Italian—

The statue was not the only thing Anna had taken from the bag.

Her arm whipped up — and Rosetti staggered, a slim black throwing knife jutting from his throat. He fell heavily on to an elderly man beside Anna. The other people nearby were momentarily stunned, then the screams started.

Nina was already forcing her way along the row. ‘Down, stay down!’ she shouted, pushing a panicked nun back into her seat before she could block her path.

Anna had the statue in one hand, the other tugging the carbon-fibre blade from Rosetti’s neck. ‘Back, bitch!’ she yelled, stabbing it at the redhead.

Nina jerked away from the bloodied tip, then overcame her fear and lunged for Anna’s arm. The blade caught her palm, making her gasp, but she managed to grab the cultist’s wrist. ‘That’s Doctor Bitch to you!’ she yelled, twisting the knife away—

Her heart froze as she saw Anna’s other arm draw back… and hurl the statue.

It flew over the front rows of the crowd. Time seemed to slow, the angel falling towards the base of the steps…

It hit the ground — and shattered. Nina stared at it, paralysed with terror—

The broken pieces came to rest. She drew in a startled breath. There was no gas, no eruption of yellow poison. Anna was equally stunned, mouth open in disbelief. ‘But… it can’t…’

‘It can,’ Nina replied, realising what had happened. It was not the real angel. Cross had given Anna the fake Eddie had used to locate the Mission — and it was clear that the biochemist knew nothing about the deception. ‘He lied to you. Your Prophet lied to you!’

‘No!’ Anna jerked her arm free and slashed the blade at Nina’s face. The redhead jumped backwards to avoid it, only to stumble against a chair. A burst of pain from her injured leg, and she fell.

Anna shoved past Rosetti and stood over Nina as others in the crowd fled. But she didn’t stab her, instead holding the knife to her throat. ‘Back off!’ she cried as a uniformed cop pointed a gun. ‘Back off or I’ll kill her!’

The cop retreated, but kept his weapon raised. Shouts in Italian reached Nina as more officers closed in. ‘You’ve failed,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You and your husband. Neither angel has been released. We recovered the one in Mecca.’

Anna stared at her, anger and panic in her eyes. ‘What happened to Sim— the other Witness?’

Nina hesitated, feeling the blade against her skin. But she knew she had to tell her. ‘He’s dead.’

The other woman did not react for a moment, as if she hadn’t heard, then anguish joined the other emotions. ‘Dead?’ she repeated, voice cracking. ‘He can’t… No, he—’ She broke off, her anger resurgent. ‘Killed by the minions of the Beast… so now the prophecy can be fulfilled!’

She pulled back the knife, about to stab it into Nina’s neck — only to hesitate after a glance at the redhead’s abdomen. Then she leapt on to the now-empty seats, letting out a demented scream as she charged at the nearest cop.

He fired. The bullet hit her chest. More screams came from the crowd as she crashed to the ground.

The cop ran to her, kicking away the knife. Other armed men hurried to join him. ‘Wait, get back from her, get back!’ Nina called, staggering to her feet. A brief glance told her that the Pope was being rushed into the safety of the basilica. ‘Anna,’ she said, crouching beside the dying woman, ‘Cross lied to you — he used you. He always had three targets, because he thought he’d have three angels, but he had to change his plan when he destroyed one angel at the Mission, didn’t he? He gave you a fake and kept one for himself, so he could attack the biggest target personally. He sent you to die as a decoy! Where is he? Where’s the real angel?’

Anna turned her head weakly, coughing blood. Red speckled the white cloth of her habit. Despite her pain, she was almost smiling. ‘No, doesn’t matter, he’s… succeeded. When the Witnesses… die, the second woe is past, and then the seventh angel sounds!’

‘No it doesn’t!’ Nina protested. ‘The seventh angel doesn’t sound until after the Witnesses are resurrected and taken to heaven in a cloud — and that’s not going to happen because this is the real world! Cross himself thinks John was hallucinating when he wrote Revelation: there is no prophecy, it’s all nonsense. You and Simeon have died for nothing!’

‘If it’s… nonsense, then how did you find… the angels?’ The smile twisted into mocking disdain.

A policeman clambered over the seats to check on Rosetti, surprise and concern in his voice telling Nina he was still alive. But she had no time to be relieved — or to argue theology. ‘Where’s the last angel?’ she demanded, leaning closer. ‘What’s Cross going to do with it?’

‘Loose it,’ Anna gasped. ‘Of course… the Prophet will release the angel…’ An expression almost of joy crossed her face. ‘And bring down… Babylon. The kings of the world… will witness…’

‘What do you mean?’ said Nina. ‘Tell me!’

But the other woman’s eyes grew unfocused. One last sigh of escaping breath, then she fell still and silent. ‘God damn it,’ Nina whispered.

The cops closed in around her. ‘É morta?’ asked one.

‘Yeah, she’s dead,’ Nina replied. ‘And so are our chances of finding the real angel.’