Clack.
The noise came from the door. She went to it and tried the handle. This time, it opened. She stepped outside.
Heat rolled around her again. The sun was low, the view ahead lit by a dazzling golden glow. She was in a village, numerous small white buildings spread out before her. It had the same artificial, too-clean feeling as her room, a carefully maintained holiday resort rather than a place where people lived and worked. Or some kind of private gated community? A religious one, apparently; the tallest structure was a church rising up beyond the houses, a cross atop its spire. The symbol of the eye was affixed behind this too, an outline in wood or metal.
Nina stepped out of the shade. She was near the village’s perimeter, seeing a dense swathe of palm trees beyond a chest-high wire fence with a barbed top strand. There to keep people in, or out?
Where were the people? Nobody was in sight, even though the weird little village looked large enough to house several dozen. But she knew someone was here, observing her. A high white pole nearby was topped by a grape-like cluster of glossy black spheres. CCTV cameras, pointing in every direction to give her mysterious hosts 360-degree video coverage. More such posts dotted the settlement. As she regarded the cameras, one of them rotated to stare back at her.
Not only was she being watched, but it was being made unavoidably obvious. God’s eye – or that of a follower, at least – was upon her wherever she went.
She considered running into the trees, but instead advanced into the village. Right now, she needed to find out what was going on – and for all she knew, the jungle was also under surveillance.
There was still no sign of life as she moved between the pristine houses. Some had their shutters raised; she peered through a window. The interior was as neat and as impersonal as her suite, with another large cross and eye on the far wall. Increasingly unsettled, she reached the end of the street.
A path led to the helicopter landing pad, now empty, near the edge of a low, rocky cliff. Beyond it stretched the ocean. A brisk wind kicked up whitecaps as waves struck the stony shore below. She was facing away from the lowering sun, looking east – across the Atlantic, most likely. Was she on one of the Caribbean islands? Given the length of the journey, that seemed a safe bet. But which one?
She looked to her right. The church was fully visible from here, atop a little hill. Steps led up to it. If nothing else, she decided, it would give her a better view of the surrounding landscape.
She was halfway up the steps when a bell rang loudly from the steeple – and suddenly the village burst into life.
The church doors were thrown open. A throng of people poured out, hurrying towards her. All wore white clothing. Fearful, Nina tried to retreat, but they swarmed around her. There was no hostility, the group merely blocking her way, and everybody was smiling, but the silent uniformity of expression was somehow more disturbing than if they had been aggressive.
‘Welcome, Dr Wilde!’ a voice boomed. Nina searched for its source, seeing loudspeakers above the church door. ‘Welcome to the Mission. My friends, bring her to me.’ The words echoed from other speakers throughout the village.
A plump middle-aged woman gestured towards the entrance. ‘This way, please.’ Others moved aside to form a clear path up the steps. ‘The Prophet is waiting for you.’
‘The Prophet?’ Nina asked, but the only response was a polite nod. Smiling faces watched her expectantly. Feeling increasingly unnerved, she went through the human corral to enter the church.
The interior was clean, white and devoid of any warmth or comfort, a place of worship that was entirely about the act rather than the feelings behind it. Even the tall, thin stained-glass windows were less inspiring than forbidding, the same eye motif topping simple grids of coloured squares.
At the far end of the central aisle was a raised pulpit, in which stood a man dressed in white robes. Simeon and Anna flanked it. The former slipped a hand into his jacket to make it clear to Nina that he could draw his gun in a moment if necessary.
She retreated, only to find that the people behind her had closed ranks to block her exit. ‘Let me through!’ she protested, trying to push between them. ‘I’ve been kidnapped! Let me out!’
‘The Prophet wants to see you,’ said the woman amiably. Then, with a sterner undertone: ‘Don’t keep him waiting.’
The figure in the pulpit signalled that Nina should approach. Realising that she would not find any support from the cultists – that was the only way she could think of the smiling white-clad crowd – she reluctantly started down the aisle.
The voice resounded from more speakers inside the church. ‘Dr Wilde, I’m glad you decided to see me.’
‘Did I have a choice?’ she called angrily.
‘God granted you free will. Of course you had a choice. But making any other one might have had consequences. Something I hope you’ll remember.’
Nina approached the pulpit. ‘So you’re Number One. Who are you? Or do I just call you Mr Prophet?’
The man appeared to be in his late forties, with dark hair that was greying at the temples. His eyes, an extremely pale blue that appeared almost glowing, fixed unblinkingly upon her. ‘That’s the title my followers gave me,’ he said. She was now close enough to hear his unamplified voice. ‘Their choice, not mine. My real name is Ezekiel Cross.’
‘Appropriate,’ Nina replied, indicating the symbol dominating the wall behind him.
‘Yes. When I realised I’d been chosen as an agent of God’s will on earth, everything about my life made sense.’
‘And when was that?’ she said, mocking. ‘Did an angel appear before you?’
Simeon scowled, but Cross gave her a thin smile. ‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ He descended from the pulpit. ‘Come with me.’
He led the way through a door at the rear of the church. Nina followed, Anna and Simeon falling in behind her. The robed man walked down a short passage, opening another door and ushering his guest inside.
Nina stopped in surprise. She had expected a study, but what she found was more like the control room of a television studio. The entire opposite end was a wall of monitor screens, curving around a large white leather swivel chair. The seat had touchscreens at the end of each armrest, which she guessed Cross used to operate the system.
But what had brought her to a startled halt was not the digital panopticon, but its subject.
Herself.
Every screen displayed a different picture, but all had one thing in common: they were following her. Literally, in some cases, as the camera tracked her movements. Most of the footage had been shot in the last few minutes, showing her blindfolded arrival in the Mission, her search of the suite and subsequent exploration of the settlement, right up to her entering the church.
But, she realised with increasing alarm, there was older material too, recordings of her on the streets of New York. Entering and leaving her apartment building, visiting stores, her therapist – even the medical centre where her obstetrician was based. That meant Cross’s people had been watching her for some time, as her last appointment had been a month ago.
Eddie featured in some of the spy shots. The sight of her husband reignited her anger – and her fear for his safety. ‘Where’s Eddie?’ she demanded. ‘What have you done with him?’
Cross faced her. ‘I’ve had him kidnapped to force you to do what I want.’ On seeing her surprise at his blunt answer, he went on: ‘I used to work in intelligence, for the CIA. For a job that was supposedly about finding facts, there was far too much hiding of the truth behind walls of lies and evasion. And then, one day, I had . . . a revelation.’ A faint smile. ‘Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to truth, to clarity. Which is why I’m not going to waste time with veiled threats.’ He stepped closer, staring coldly at the redhead. ‘You’re going to help me find something. If you don’t cooperate, your husband will be tortured. Clarity, as I said.’
It took Nina a few seconds to stammer out a reply. ?
??And if I do cooperate? What happens to us?’
‘That’s up to God’s judgement.’
Fury rose inside her. ‘That’s not clarity, you son of a bitch! That’s evasion—’ She broke off with a gasp as Anna seized her by the hair.
Cross raised a hand. ‘I’m not being evasive, Dr Wilde.’ Anna let go, and Nina drew away from her with a hate-filled glare. ‘You’ll see what I mean when I get what I want.’
‘What do you want?’ she growled. ‘Why do you need me – and why kidnap me and torture Eddie rather than just, y’know, asking nicely?’
‘I have my reasons. One of which is that I had to be certain you would help me.’
‘I still might not.’
His cold eyes flicked towards one particular screen. ‘You will.’
Nina followed his gaze to see a slumped Eddie sitting in – no, secured to – a chair in a darkened room, apparently unconscious. Her blood froze. Somehow she knew it was a live image.
‘What do you want?’ she asked again, this time pleading. ‘Whatever it is, just tell me, and I’ll try to find it for you.’
Cross moved to survey the wall of screens. ‘Do you believe in God, Dr Wilde?’
Being in a church, she should have been prepared for the question, but it still caught her off guard. ‘Not . . . no, not particularly.’
‘Then you’re an atheist?’ There was a venomous undercurrent behind the word.
‘No.’
He frowned. ‘Belief in God doesn’t work on a sliding scale. You either do, or you don’t. You’re a believer, or you’re not.’
‘Then I guess I don’t share your belief.’
‘I thought so.’ His eyes returned to the screens. ‘My people have been watching you for some time. You’ve been to a lot of places, but not one was a church. And even a cesspool of sin like New York has churches.’
Despite her fear, Nina still felt annoyance at the slur on her home town. ‘I don’t have an opinion on whether or not God exists, because it’s not an issue that comes up a great deal in my everyday life. God might be real, or not, but either way the subway still runs late.’
‘Ah, an agnostic, then,’ said Cross in a patronising tone. ‘In some ways that’s worse than an atheist, because at least they have conviction. You don’t believe in the Lord because you can’t be bothered.’
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that sloth is a deadly sin?’
He shook his head. ‘Nowhere in the Bible says so directly. Proverbs eighteen, verse nine comes close – “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster” – but the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins is an invention of the Catholic Church.’ His obvious disdain for that institution was almost as great as for atheists. ‘Only what’s written in the Bible itself matters. Which brings me to why you’re here.’
‘Which is?’
Cross came back to stand before her. ‘Are you familiar with the Book of Revelation, Dr Wilde?’
‘If you’re asking me if I can quote chapter and verse, then no – but yeah, of course I’m familiar with it. The last book of the New Testament, also known as the Apocalypse of John, written in exile by John of Patmos – who may or may not be John the Apostle, depending which school of thought you follow – accepted into biblical canon at the third Council of Carthage in AD 397 over considerable opposition . . . and argued about ever since.’
The white-robed man seemed almost impressed. ‘More familiar than I expected given that you claim you can’t be bothered to believe.’
‘I’m an archaeologist – ancient history’s kind of my thing.’
‘Then you accept the Bible as a historical document?’
‘I accept some of it as a historical document – the parts that can be corroborated with other contemporary accounts. Revelation definitely isn’t one of those parts, though.’
‘Why not?’ His gaze became challenging. ‘Have you read it?’
‘When I was a student, for historical context. It reads like something you’d hear from a crazy guy living in a dumpster.’ Cross and his two followers showed irritation at the criticism, but she pressed on: ‘Visitations by angels, stars falling from the sky, plagues, a pregnant woman being chased by a dragon, the four horsemen of the apocalypse . . . and the end of the world. It’s completely at odds with the rest of the New Testament. There were other equally crazy apocalyptic gospels that were rejected from canon – Paul, Ezra – so why this one got through is a mystery.’
Cross shook his head. ‘It’s not a mystery. The reason is because the Book of Revelation is true.’ He leaned closer, a new and frightening intensity in his eyes. ‘And I’ll prove it to you.’
4
Cross led Nina across the control room to a vault-like metal door, using a thumbprint scanner to unlock it. Beyond was something even more incongruous within a church: a chamber that appeared to be a laboratory. Walls, floor and ceiling were all tiled in gleaming white, a stainless-steel bench standing before a glass and metal cabinet. A laptop on the countertop was the only loose item.
Nina felt a new unease. She had been in a similar lab before, part of a Russian biological warfare centre. Whatever Cross kept in here, he considered dangerous.
He went to the cabinet. ‘Do you know what that is?’ he asked, pointing at its contents.
She peered through the toughened glass. On top of a small pedestal sat a fragment of pottery or ceramic. It seemed to have been burned, a dark charcoal smear on the surface. ‘It looks like . . . a piece of a statue?’
‘It is,’ said Cross, nodding. ‘But it’s also something else. I told you I’d seen an angel, Dr Wilde. There it is.’
‘You mean you saw a statue of an angel?’
‘Yes. But I believe – as firmly as I believe in the word of God and Jesus – that they’re the same thing.’ On her questioning look, he went on: ‘The Book of Revelation talks of four angels, bound by God. Chapter nine, verse thirteen: “And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, ‘Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.’” And I’ve seen one of them with my own eyes. This was it!’
Nina held back the more scathing of her immediate thoughts. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I was on a mission for the CIA in Iraq, before the invasion. There’s a lake between the Euphrates and the Tigris called Umm al Binni – we had a rendezvous with a group of Marsh Arabs there. Saddam had drained the marshes to drive them out, and because of that, the water level had dropped enough to reveal something in the lake. A temple. I went inside, and found the angel. The unbroken angel.’ He held one hand about twelve inches above the other. ‘It was this tall, and looked exactly as John described in Revelation – the body of a man but with the head of a lion, wrapped in six wings full of eyes.’
‘If you say so,’ said Nina warily.
He rounded on her. ‘I don’t need to say so!’ he barked. ‘I can show you!’ He flipped up the laptop’s lid. ‘Here!’
The screen came to life, displaying a photograph of the interior of the temple. The resolution was relatively low, but still clear enough for her to realise that whatever else she thought of her captor, he had made an impressive discovery.
He had also accurately described the angel, which rested inside a gold-lined nook. It did indeed have a lion’s head on a man’s body, metal wing-like shapes tightly encircling it. But she found herself more intrigued by the surroundings than the centrepiece. The walls were covered in inscribed text – she recognised it as Akkadian, a long-extinct language of ancient Mesopotamia. It wasn’t one she could translate, though, those words visible through the dirt and shadows remaining indecipherable.
She also recognised another language: ancient Hebrew, carved into stone tablets propped against the wall. Their lower halves were lost beneath the flooded temple’s murky waters, leaving only a few lines visible. Again she couldn’t read the language; La
tin and Greek had been her specialities.
‘This was under the lake?’ she asked, intrigued. She knew she was falling prey to her own weakness, her obsession with learning more about lost treasures of the past, but couldn’t help wanting to know more.
Cross nodded. ‘It had been under twenty feet of water until Saddam drained the region. The Marsh Arabs avoided the area even before then; they thought it was a place of death.’
‘And was it?’
‘I was the only person who got out alive after the Iraqis attacked, so yes. The temple was blown up by a helicopter gunship.’ He gestured at the sliver inside the cabinet. ‘That was the only piece of the angel I recovered.’
Nina was still examining the photograph. ‘I don’t know what you expect me to do with this. I can’t translate Akkadian, and I only know a small amount of ancient Hebrew. I don’t have a clue what this says.’
‘You don’t need to. This was taken twelve years ago. I’ve had it translated since then. In pieces, so that no outsider would know what it all meant.’ Cross brought up another picture.
Words had been overlaid upon a copy of the original image. But they were positioned almost randomly across the wall, a scattershot translation. Nina frowned. ‘These are only fragments. Is there even a complete sentence there?’
‘Only a few,’ he replied, with clear frustration at the fact. He pointed them out. She read them: The guidance of God led His chosen through the desert and showed them water when they thirsted; Three times shall it be said, seven is the number of God, and man is always lesser; And the Elders sent their people into the lands around. ‘They were all we could find, even after the picture was enhanced. But it told me enough.’
‘Which was?’
‘That this place was used by the twenty-four Elders – the ancient Hebrew leaders who sit around God’s throne in His temple, just as Revelation says.’ Cross indicated some of the translated text. ‘You see? The Akkadian symbols for the number twenty-four – and here in the Hebrew text,’ he added, pointing out one of the half-submerged slabs, ‘it actually uses the word “Elders”.’