‘Wilde lied to us?’ said Anna.
‘Maybe – or she hadn’t figured it out when she told us where to look. But she has now. She’s down there!’
‘Wilde’s here?’ said Dalton, disbelieving. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s her. I’m certain.’ He turned to the pilot. ‘Paxton, bring us down as close to the sinkhole as possible.’
Dalton became even more unhappy. ‘We’re not going back to refuel?’
‘We won’t need to. The angel’s down there.’
‘And so are Wilde and Chase,’ Simeon reminded him.
‘Not for long,’ said Cross as the helicopter began its descent.
Nina watched with nervous anticipation as the mercy seat was inched upwards.
‘Almost there,’ Eddie told Jared. ‘Move it over on three.’
Jared nodded. The Yorkshireman counted down, then with loud grunts they shuffled sideways to set it down on the stone floor with a heavy clunk.
Nina leaned over the chest to see what was inside. Her flashlight beam found the very items named by legend. A scroll, supposedly the first part of the Torah, written by Moses himself; a wooden staff, which she took to be the rod of Aaron, brother of Moses; an earthenware jar, which had contained some of the manna sent by God to feed the Israelites in the desert . . . and two flat slabs of stone, inscribed with ancient Hebrew text.
Her heart quickened. She was looking at the tablets holding the original Ten Commandments.
But she forced herself to ignore them for now. There was one more relic inside the Ark.
The fourth angel.
It was of the same design as the other two she had seen, a dense ceramic body shrouded by metallic wings. The head of this figure was that of a man, his brow creased in stern warning. She carefully lifted it out, feeling the weight of the deadly meteoric material trapped in its core. ‘That’s what you’re looking for?’ Jared asked.
Nina nodded. ‘The last angel – the last harbinger of the apocalypse, if you believe Cross. But we’ve beaten him to it. Whatever he had planned, he can’t go ahead with it without this.’
‘Unless he decides, “You know what? Bollocks to it, I’m going to do it anyway”,’ Eddie said grimly. ‘He’s still got one angel he can release somewhere.’
‘I know.’ She held up the statue. ‘But at least we can secure this—’
She broke off as she saw dust motes falling through the flashlight beams, the first few specks quickly joined by more, and more, drifting from the tent’s roof. ‘What’s doing that?’ Eddie demanded. He glanced at the Ark. ‘We haven’t bloody brought down the fury of God and the wrath of sixty special-effects people, have we?’
‘It’s outside,’ said Jared. A deep rumbling sound gradually rose in intensity.
Still holding the statue, Nina hurried back through the veil. More dust was falling in the tent’s outer room, scraps of rotted fabric dropping to the floor. She pushed through the curtain into the throne chamber. The noise grew louder—
The light coming through the giant opal in the ceiling suddenly flickered. A moment later, a shadow passing over the crack above briefly plunged the room into darkness. Then the illumination returned to its spectacular norm, but the bass rumble continued.
‘It’s a chopper!’ Eddie said. The aircraft had gone right overhead, coming in to land on the mountain above them.
‘Cross,’ said Nina. ‘It’s Cross!’
‘How do you know?’ asked Jared.
‘Because who else would it be? This always frickin’ happens to us!’
Eddie drew the Desert Eagle. ‘Looks like I’ll find out if this thing’s as good as my Wildey.’
Jared produced his own, smaller gun. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘We’ll never get clear,’ Nina realised. ‘There’s no way we’ll be able to climb down the cliff and back to the jeep in time. And even if we could, they’ve got a helicopter! We can’t outrun them.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Chuck that thing in the sinkhole,’ Eddie suggested, nodding at the angel. ‘They won’t have brought scuba gear. It’ll take ’em ages to find it, if they ever do.’
‘Yes, but we’ll probably be dead!’ the Israeli objected.
‘And they might still find it,’ added Nina. ‘We don’t know how deep the sinkhole is – if it’s only ten feet, it won’t take them long to search the bottom.’
‘Then drop it off the bridge down the big shaft,’ Eddie persisted.
‘But if it breaks, then as far as Cross is concerned the angel has been released, and he wins.’
‘What, then?’ he demanded, exasperated. ‘We can’t run, there’s nowhere to hide the thing, and if we smash it, that’s the same as letting him get it? What the bloody hell are we supposed to do?’
‘I don’t know!’ She turned her eyes to the refracted daylight coming through the ceiling as the noise of the helicopter settled . . . then began to die down. It had landed, the pilot shutting off the engines. ‘You’re SAS,’ she told Eddie, turning back to the two men, ‘and Jared, you’re Mossad – what would you do?’
The question galvanised the younger man. ‘They’ll have seen our truck – it’s probably what made them land – so they know we’re here. They’ll expect an ambush.’
Eddie nodded in agreement. ‘We’ll have to decoy them.’
‘Yeah. But how?’
The Englishman looked back at the tent. ‘If Cross is such a Bible-basher, he’ll know what that is, and what’s inside. We need to keep his attention on it.’ A moment’s thought, then: ‘There’s an app for that.’
Simeon swung down from the lip of the sinkhole into the sheltered cave beneath, whipping up his MP5 sub-machine gun and sweeping it across the entrances. Nobody moved within them. He brought his left forefinger to the trigger of the M203 grenade launcher mounted under the weapon’s barrel, ready to fire a shrapnel-filled high-explosive round at any hint of activity.
Still nothing stirred. He took cover beside the right-most opening as more of his men dropped down and spread out to check the other archways. ‘Clear,’ one soon reported. The others gave the same message.
Simeon cast a wary eye into the underground chamber before moving to look up to the surface. ‘Nobody here.’
Cross, Anna and Dalton gazed back down at him. ‘Good,’ said the cult leader. He lowered himself to the cave, Anna following. ‘What have we got?’
‘Four entrances. I don’t know which they took.’
Cross surveyed the arches, then pointed at the left-most. ‘That one, with the symbol of the twenty-four Elders. Prepare to move in.’
‘Hey!’ came an aggrieved shout from above. ‘You going to leave me up here?’
‘Simeon, Norvin, help Mr Dalton down,’ said Cross, the upward flick of his eyes as much a disparaging roll as an indication of the disgraced politician’s location. Simeon let out a sound of contempt, then he and the bodyguard took up positions to catch Dalton as he clumsily clambered over the edge.
Even with their support, the ex-president touched down with a thump. He shook himself free of them. ‘All right, I’m here,’ he announced. ‘Now, what’s the situation?’
‘They’re down there,’ Cross told him, going to the entrance. One of his men, a jut-jawed blond named Hatch, crouched to examine the floor; faint footsteps in the dust confirmed his leader’s statement.
‘And what else is down there?’
‘The angel, is all I can say for sure. Other than that . . .’ He regarded the symbol above the opening with intense curiosity, then signalled for his team to advance.
Simeon took point, Norvin behind him. The others followed in single file. They cautiously made their way up the sloping passage, listening for sounds of activity. But they heard none. It wasn’t until they reached the growths of mushrooms that Cross broke the silence. ‘Manna?’ he wondered in a whisper, pausing for a closer look.
‘Sir!’ Simeon hissed. ‘I heard voices – and there’s something u
p ahead.’
The mushrooms forgotten, Cross made his way to the front of the group, joining Simeon at the edge of the cenote. The cult leader aimed his flashlight into the depths, revealing water a long way below. His right-hand man, meanwhile, used his own light to track the rope across the rickety bridge. ‘Through there,’ he said, seeing the open doorway.
‘I hear them,’ Cross murmured. Two people were speaking; the words were indistinct, but one voice was male . . . and the other female. ‘It’s Wilde.’
Simeon raised his MP5, aiming the grenade launcher at the doorway, but Cross pushed it down. ‘No! You might damage the angel. We need it intact.’
Anna listened to the voices. The discussion seemed casual, unworried. ‘They don’t know we’re here.’
‘It could still be an ambush,’ her husband warned. ‘And I don’t like the look of this bridge.’
‘They got across it; so can we,’ said Cross. He tested the rope. It held.
Dalton squeezed past the other team members. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Simeon growled. Dalton twitched in anger, but the African-American went on: ‘They’re on the other side of this shaft. We’ve got to get across without letting them know we’re here.’
‘Norvin, you go over first,’ Cross told his bodyguard. ‘If the tunnel on the far side is clear, cover it while the rest of us follow.’
Norvin nodded, slinging his MP5 and taking hold of the rope. He sidestepped across the bridge. His companions watched with growing anxiety, a few stifled gasps escaping when the structure swayed under his weight, but after steadying himself he was able to continue on to firm ground. He quickly readied his gun and checked the tunnel, then signalled that the way was clear.
‘Maybe you should wait here,’ Cross suggested to Dalton.
‘Like hell,’ Dalton replied. ‘I want to see the look on Wilde and Chase’s faces when we take the angel from them.’
‘As you wish.’ The white-clad man turned his back on him, waiting for Simeon to cross before starting his own journey. ‘Come over after Anna. Hatch, watch out for him.’
One by one the group traversed the cenote. By the time the last man made it, Cross had already instructed Simeon and Norvin to advance. They crept along the decorated passage, guns raised. The voices became louder as they neared its end. ‘I see lights,’ Simeon whispered.
‘Careful,’ said Cross, but he was already almost unconsciously increasing his pace, glimpsing wonders waiting ahead. Gold glinted under a strange rainbow glow. He forced himself to slow and listen. ‘It’s definitely them.’
Nina’s voice reached him. ‘. . . way beyond what I’d expected to find. I mean, we came looking for the angel, but to discover this as well? It’s incredible.’
‘Yeah.’ The other speaker was Eddie Chase. Simeon’s hands tightened on his weapon, while Dalton gulped faintly, his mouth suddenly dry.
‘This will change Biblical archaeology for ever,’ Nina went on. ‘It’s quite possibly the biggest thing I’ve ever discovered. The actual Ark of the Covenant, intact, and in God’s temple as described in the Book of Revelation? Amazing!’
‘Uh-huh,’ came the reply.
Simeon reached the entrance, silently panning his gun across the chamber. The voices were coming from a tent at the far end, lights glinting through thin patches in its ancient coverings. ‘They’re in that,’ he said, his own voice barely above the volume of a breath. ‘Room’s clear.’
‘The Tabernacle . . .’ Cross whispered, astounded. The cult leader entered the room, then stepped aside to let his armed followers past as Dalton stood beside him. He knew where he was, almost overcome by religious awe at the sight of God’s throne beneath the shaft of spectral light, but managed to restrain his wonderment. His first priority was securing the angel.
Which would be easy. The archaeologist was still talking, her husband muttering the occasional reply. Cross issued an order: ‘Take them.’
Simeon took command, using hand signals to direct the others towards the tent. The men spread out to surround it, while Anna hung back inside the circle of thrones to cover a wider area. The African-American silently made his way to the entrance, reaching out to pull back the curtains . . .
‘Ay up.’
The voice came not from the tent – but from behind Cross and Dalton.
28
Both men whirled – to see Eddie and Jared emerge from behind the tapestries, guns raised. ‘Chase!’ Dalton cried.
Simeon and the others spun, but the two ambushers had already moved to use Dalton and Cross as human shields. ‘Drop your guns!’ Eddie commanded, grabbing the politician and spinning him around to shove the Desert Eagle’s blocky muzzle hard into his back. Jared simultaneously jammed his own gun into Cross’s face. ‘Do it, or they die!’
‘Drop them!’ shrieked Dalton. ‘He’s a psycho!’
Cross was more restrained, but his face still creased with anger as Jared pulled him around. ‘Do what he says.’
The team lowered their weapons to the floor – with the exception of Simeon, who brought up his MP5 and took careful aim at what he could see of Jared. ‘Let them go,’ he growled.
Cross raised a hand. ‘Put it down, Simeon. That’s an order.’
Confusion crossed Simeon’s face. ‘But—’
‘We’re in God’s temple. I won’t allow it to be desecrated. Only God has the right to take a life in here.’ When Simeon did not respond at once, he shouted, not in fear but anger: ‘Do it!’
With deep reluctance, Simeon placed his sub-machine gun on the floor. ‘Okay, hands up and kick ’em away,’ said Eddie. Guns skittered across the floor, Simeon’s ending up between two of the thrones. ‘Nina? You can come out now.’
Nina emerged from the tabernacle, even with Eddie’s assurance nervous at the sight of Anna, Simeon and five other men watching her. She gingerly slipped past them and crossed the chamber. In one hand she held the angel; in the other, Eddie’s phone, its voice memo app playing a recording. ‘Right,’ said Eddie’s voice from the speaker. She thumbed the screen to silence it, then pocketed the device.
‘Clever,’ said Cross, almost approving. He looked at the tent. ‘So you found the angel, but . . . is the Ark of the Covenant really in there?’
‘It is,’ said Nina, joining Eddie. She gave Dalton a scathing glare. ‘Oh, hey, Mr President. You’re a long way from the campaign trail, aren’t you?’
‘What are you going to do with us?’ Dalton demanded. He had outwardly regained his composure after his near-panic at finding himself face to face with the Englishman, but there was still fear in his eyes.
‘We’re gonna leave you in here,’ Eddie told him. ‘The Israelis can pick you up once we’ve taken that statue somewhere safe.’
‘And how exactly are you planning on holding us?’ asked Anna, sidling closer.
‘Stay where you are,’ Jared warned. ‘Keep your hands up. All of you.’ The biochemist’s hands were already half raised; she scowled, but brought them higher.
‘We’ll take out that bridge,’ said Eddie, answering her. He addressed Cross. ‘So you’ll have plenty of time to spend with the Ark.’
‘What’s inside the Ark?’ Cross asked Nina. ‘Is it what the Bible described?’
There was no sense that he was trying to buy time to regain the advantage; he was genuinely desperate to know the truth. ‘It is,’ she replied. ‘The angel was in there, but so were Aaron’s staff, a scroll of the Torah – and the Ten Commandments.’
‘I have to see them.’ He tried to move towards the Tabernacle.
Jared yanked him back. ‘Don’t move!’
‘Let him go!’ Anna darted closer, halting only when the Israeli pushed his gun into the cult leader’s cheek.
‘It’s okay,’ Cross told her. ‘Stay where you are.’
‘And you, back off,’ Eddie warned Simeon, seeing that he had used the moment of confusion to move closer to his gun. The black man scowled, but retreated.
Jared lowered his weapon, pressing the muzzle into his prisoner’s back.
‘Consider it a trade,’ Nina said to Cross. ‘The Ark for the angel. Whatever you wanted the statue for, after what happened at the Mission there’s no way we’re going to let you take it.’
Dalton shook his head in aggravation. ‘You got something to say?’ asked Eddie.
‘Only that you two have already caused great harm to America by refusing to see the big picture, and now you’re going to do it again,’ he complained. ‘Yes, what’s inside the statue is extremely dangerous, and yes, regrettably lives have been lost. But what I’m doing will strengthen the security of the entire nation, whether or not you’re willing to realise that. That’s what being president is all about: knowing when force has to be applied, and making hard decisions for the greater good.’
‘Nice speech,’ Nina said. ‘Just one minor point – you’re not the president. And the reason you’re not is that you proved you can’t be trusted.’
‘The reason I’m not is because Travis Warden and those other cocksuckers in the Group threw me to the wolves rather than getting their media outlets to spin things my way!’ Dalton exploded. Cross gave him a disapproving glare. ‘Oh, don’t get up on your damn moral high horse, Ezekiel. Not with what you’re going to do. A bit of bad language is nothing compared to—’ He stopped abruptly.
‘Compared to what?’ Eddie prompted. ‘Come on, don’t make this the one time in your life when you don’t want to hear the sound of your own voice.’
Nina stood before Dalton, holding up the angel. ‘You thought you’d have two angels, so I imagine you also had two targets for them. What are they?’
‘Damned if I’m going to tell you,’ the former president growled.
‘Damned if you don’t.’
‘Dead if you don’t,’ added Eddie.
Nina shook her head. ‘Face it, Victor, you’re finished. You’ll be directly linked to what happened in Antigua; the place was full of security cameras, so there’ll be plenty of proof that you were there when Cross killed almost a hundred people.’ A flash of fear in the politician’s eyes told her that was something he had either not considered, or been fervently hoping nobody else had. ‘The best you can hope for is to plea-bargain your way into a minimum jail term, but there’s no way you’ll ever get so much as a sniff of power again.’