‘Why thank you, Maureen,’ replied Nina thinly. ‘But if you were to take a wild, crazy gamble, would you suggest looking for sites facing either due east or due west to catch the sun?’
‘Due east is more likely,’ said Rothschild. ‘The dawn has far more symbolic importance to ancient religions than sunset. But I’m sure you knew that already.’
‘Yes. I did.’
The two archaeologists exchanged frosty smiles, then Rothschild nodded. ‘But . . . good luck anyway, Nina.’
‘Thanks,’ she replied, before giving the older woman a quizzical look. ‘Can I ask you something, Maureen?’
‘What?’
‘You still don’t like me. So why did you agree to help Eddie find me?’
Rothschild seemed reluctant to answer, so Eddie stepped in. ‘For the baby,’ he told Nina. ‘A baby shouldn’t suffer because of its parents. That’s what you said, right, Maureen? Especially an unborn one.’
His wife was taken by surprise. ‘That’s . . . Maureen, thank you so much,’ she said, this time with genuine gratitude.
Rothschild hesitated again before speaking. ‘There was a little more to it, actually,’ she admitted. ‘You’re having a child. It’s a great gift, maybe the greatest. I, ah . . .’ Her voice lowered. ‘I was going to have one, once. But . . . he never came to term.’
‘My God,’ said Nina. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’
‘It was a long time ago. But I still think about what might have been . . .’ A moment of sad reflection, then she looked back at the couple. ‘I wish you all the best with the baby – and with what you’re about to do. I hope you find the last angel.’
‘So do I,’ said Nina. ‘Because I’ve seen what’ll happen if we don’t.’
24
Israel
‘Colonel Brik,’ said Cross with a smile, shaking hands with the Israeli officer. ‘Meshulam, my old friend.’
‘Ezekiel,’ Brik replied. ‘It is good to see you again.’ He looked up as a second passenger emerged from the jet – another man he recognised, though in this case not from any personal encounters. ‘Wait, that is—’
‘President Dalton is not officially here,’ the former CIA operative told him. ‘This visit is . . . off the record.’
The Israeli nodded. ‘Our mutual friend in Tel Aviv said you were travelling with someone important. But this I did not expect!’
Dalton stepped down on to the concrete, already looking uncomfortable. The temperature at Ovda airport – a small civilian terminal that shared runways with the sprawling military base to the east – was not excessively hot at this time of year, but the morning air was extremely dry and dusty, stinging his eyes.
‘Mr President, this is Colonel Meshulam Brik,’ Cross told him. ‘Colonel, it’s my honour to introduce President Victor Dalton.’
Brik offered his hand. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Colonel,’ said Dalton, giving him a firm but brief shake. He surveyed his surroundings. The airbase was located on a long plain, crumpled mountains rising to the east and west. ‘Kind of an isolated facility you have here.’
‘We do not mind,’ Brik replied. ‘When your country has enemies on all sides, it is best to keep your defences far from their eyes.’
‘I guess so,’ said Dalton, nodding politely. ‘Although Egypt,’ he waved to the west, ‘and Jordan,’ another flick of the hand in the opposite direction, ‘aren’t your enemies right now.’
The Israeli gave him a somewhat patronising smile. ‘Mr President, Israel has only one true friend in the world – the United States. Everyone else either is or could be our enemy. We are prepared for all possibilities.’
‘Well, we’re glad to be Israel’s friend. And I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to make our relationship even stronger.’
‘Thank you, Mr President,’ said Brik. He glanced at the plane as more people emerged, Simeon and Anna leading the group. Cross had already sent a team to Antigua’s airport before evacuating the Mission; the expedition now numbered ten in total. ‘There is a helicopter ready for you, as requested. The facilities of my base are at your disposal – if you need food or sleep, we can give you whatever you need.’
Dalton looked about to take him up on the offer of sleep, but Cross spoke first. ‘Thanks, but we’re ready to go. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.’
‘Of course.’ Brik nodded. ‘Still dedicated to duty and secrets, Ezekiel? You have not changed.’ He raised his voice to be heard over the roar of a helicopter gunship taking off from the base. ‘You will have free access to Israeli airspace in this region, along with complete discretion from myself and all my men. You also have my personal assurance that you will receive whatever help you need.’
‘That’s much appreciated, Colonel,’ said Dalton.
Cross shook Brik’s hand again. ‘Thanks for this, Meshulam.’
Brik shrugged. ‘I owe you a favour, my friend. All I ask is that one day, you tell me what all this is about.’
The American smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I guarantee you’ll know soon.’
A few hours later, and some twenty miles to the south, another business jet landed in Israel, this one at the commercial airport of Eilat at the northernmost tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. Its occupants were as tired following the lengthy transatlantic flight as Dalton had been, but their journey had been more productive.
‘So we know where to look,’ Nina said with a yawn as the flight attendant opened the hatch and lowered the stairs. ‘We’ve got four possible locations for the Place in the Wilderness.’ She had used the IHA’s extensive databases en route to search for places where the terrain matched her theory: an area of high, inaccessible land featuring both a narrow passage and a sinkhole, with current or exhausted copper deposits. Even with the assistance of a computer program, it had been a tiring task.
‘Assuming you and Rothschild were right,’ Eddie said, donning his battered black leather jacket.
‘I found the other two angels, didn’t I?’
‘Cross found ’em,’ he reminded her. ‘He did all the groundwork, anyway. But that doesn’t mean he got the last one right too.’
‘We can’t take that chance. Not after seeing what that gas does to people.’
They descended the steps, harsh sunlight striking them. ‘Ay up,’ said Eddie on seeing the tall, lean young man waiting for them. ‘Hope Mossad sent you to take care of us and not take care of us, if you know what I mean.’
Jared Zane gave the Englishman a mocking smile. ‘If I was going to kill you, you wouldn’t even have known I was here.’ He was an agent of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, who had worked with Eddie and Nina to hunt down a group of escaped Nazi war criminals – the last survivor of whom had sought revenge on the couple only a month earlier.
‘Ah, but you might be saying that to lull us into a false sense of security!’
‘Oh, shut up, alter kocker.’ The Yiddish insult roughly translated as old fart.
‘Cheeky little bastard.’ Both men grinned.
‘Ah, boys,’ said Nina with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Have you finished shaking your peacock feathers at each other?’
Jared smiled. ‘Hi, Nina. Good to see you again.’
‘You too! And thank you.’
It was more heartfelt than simply meeting them at the airport warranted. Jared regarded her curiously. ‘What for?’
‘For saving my life – again. If you hadn’t warned Eddie that one of the Nazis from Argentina had survived and was out for revenge . . .’
He dipped his head modestly. ‘You and Eddie saved my life, so it was the least I could do.’ He glanced down at her baby bump. ‘I’d heard you were pregnant. Congratulations!’
‘Don’t remember telling you,’ said Eddie.
‘I’m from the Mossad. We know everything.’ Another grin, then he became more businesslike. ‘Although in this case, we don’t know everything – or at least, I don’t. It seems I don’t have a high enough security clearance. After you pho
ned,’ he said to Eddie, ‘I tried to find out if this Ezekiel Cross and ex-President Dalton were coming to Israel. It wasn’t long before I was called into my superior’s office and told to stop asking questions.’
‘So someone’s covering it up?’ Nina asked.
The young man nodded. ‘It must be somebody high up. Whether in the Mossad, or the government, I don’t know. Dalton was very popular here in Israel.’
‘Surprised Mossad let you help us,’ said Eddie.
A small grimace. ‘Actually, I’m not technically on duty right now. My superior let me take a leave of absence on short notice – very short notice – so I could show some visiting friends around the country.’
‘Very generous of him,’ Nina remarked knowingly.
‘Even bosses get called into their boss’s office sometimes. And they don’t like it either.’
Eddie smiled. ‘Good to know spooks have office politics too.’
‘It’s not all hanging from cliffs and car chases. Anyway, I’ve got a jeep waiting, and all the gear you’ll need. Including something for you, Eddie. I know you need to compensate for your inadequacies with big guns, so I brought you a fifty-calibre Desert Eagle.’
Eddie pulled a sarcastic face. ‘So what did you bring for yourself, a bazooka?’
Jared laughed. ‘Don’t worry about the customs check; I’ve dealt with it,’ he said as the attendant brought out the couple’s luggage. ‘Nina, let me take that.’ He picked up Nina’s travel bag.
‘You can take mine an’ all if you want,’ Eddie suggested.
‘Carry it yourself,’ Jared replied cheekily. ‘You’re an old man, but not that old.’
‘Fucking kids!’ Eddie mock-grumbled, picking up his bag. He and Nina followed the curly-haired Israeli to the terminal.
‘So,’ said Jared, ‘since you didn’t want to tell me the details over the phone, what’s this all about?’
Twenty minutes later, Nina and Eddie finally finished their explanation. ‘Okay,’ Jared said unhappily as he drove a Land Rover Discovery north into the Israeli desert, ‘what is it with you two? Everyone else’s archaeology involves carefully digging junk out of the dirt, but with you it’s always maniacs trying to destroy the world!’
‘You think I want that?’ Nina hooted. ‘I’d love nothing more than to spend three months excavating a site with only a trowel and a sieve.’
‘Me, not so much,’ said Eddie from the seat behind her. ‘I’ll be on the beach with the kid while you’re doing that.’
‘No you won’t, you’ll both be with me. And enjoying it.’
‘You need to do more research on what kids actually like.’
‘I liked it when I was a kid!’ she protested.
‘Yeah, but you’re weird.’
Nina glared over her shoulder at him. ‘You’re lucky I needed the space up front, or you would so be slapped right now.’
Jared smiled. ‘Okay, so: crazy ex-CIA guy with chemical weapons, here in my country to look for more. How do we make sure he doesn’t get them?’
Nina took out a map of southern Israel. ‘I found four places where the last angel might be. If Cross is still working from the theory that it’s near a sinkhole in a river valley, then he shouldn’t go near them.’
Jared glanced at the map. ‘If he’s searching in this area, he’ll never be far away. Israel is only about twenty kilometres east to west at the Timna Valley, and it gets narrower the farther south you go.’ He gestured to the right. ‘The border with Jordan is only a kilometre away.’
‘He’ll still have almost a hundred square miles to cover,’ Nina insisted. ‘And he’ll be looking at the valleys when he should be searching the highlands. We can beat him.’
‘Assuming your theory is right.’
Her face became rueful. ‘If it’s not, then a lot of people could die. So I have to hope that it is.’
They drove on. The highway stretched north through a sandy plain, small settlements and sparse patches of irrigated farmland soon surrendering to the desolation of the desert. Barren mountains rose on the horizon to each side. Eventually they neared a turn-off, a side road heading west towards a small village. ‘Okay, that’s . . . Be’er Ora,’ said Nina, struggling with the pronunciation. ‘We go past it and head up into the mountains. The first site is about three miles, five kilometres, from here.’
Jared made the turn. ‘How accessible is it?’
‘We should be able to see it from the ground. We may need to climb to check it, though. You brought climbing gear, didn’t you?’
‘Everything you need.’ The Israeli indicated the equipment in the 4x4’s cargo bed. ‘You shouldn’t climb when you’re pregnant, though.’
‘I shouldn’t be kidnapped or chased or jump over cliffs in speedboats when I’m pregnant either,’ she snapped.
‘But it could be—’
Eddie leaned forward and put a hand on Jared’s shoulder. ‘When you hear that tone of voice, trust me, mate, that’s when you shut up.’ He added in a stage whisper: ‘Then you do what you were going to do anyway without telling her – Ow!’
Nina swatted the side of his head. ‘Warned you.’ He withdrew, amused.
Jared drew in a breath. ‘My mother keeps pushing for me to get married. I think I might wait a while longer . . .’
The Discovery headed through the little village, the road rising into the parched peaks beyond. Asphalt quickly gave way to a stony track. Jared switched the 4x4’s terrain mode to maintain grip. ‘This could be rough,’ he said. ‘How far do we follow the road?’
‘Until it runs out,’ said Nina, examining the map. ‘It’ll take us over this range and into a valley – we go south down it and then turn west again.’
‘I don’t think this first one’ll be it,’ Eddie said dubiously. ‘It’s too close to that village. Somebody would have found it already – I mean, this whole area’s a national park, isn’t it?’ Jared nodded.
‘We still have to check, though,’ said Nina.
The Land Rover picked its way between the peaks, scrabbling up a steep pass before dropping back into a flat, sandy valley. Had Nina stuck with her original theory of the angel’s location, this would have been one of the places to search: it was bone dry at the moment, but alluvial channels carved into the ground proved that when water did flow through this part of the desert, it did so with force.
They headed south. ‘There should be a smaller valley about half a mile away,’ she told Jared. ‘It leads into a canyon; the place we’re looking for is another half-mile along it.’
‘Let me see the map,’ said Eddie. Nina passed it to him. ‘Still don’t think this can be it. It’s too easy to get to. If we turn off and follow this ridge here,’ he pointed to it, ‘we could drive to the bloody place. There’s probably a falafel stand there for tourists.’
‘Soon find out,’ she replied. But he had already convinced her that they were unlikely to find anything on their first try.
That turned out to be the case. Jared took Eddie’s advice and, rather than continue along the canyon floor, ascended a steep rise to the top of one of its sides. From there they had a clear view of their intended destination. Nina was the first to look through a pair of powerful binoculars. ‘You were right, Eddie,’ she admitted. ‘There are no signs of any copper deposits. I can see a sinkhole in the canyon, but it’s not very deep, and the passage in the rock above it is too wide and too shallow to look like, ah . . .’ Her cheeks flushed as she glanced at the young man beside her. ‘Like what we think it should look like,’ she concluded lamely.
‘She means a woman’s bits,’ Eddie informed him, failing completely to hide a smirk.
Now it was Jared’s turn to look faintly embarrassed. ‘You mean like, uh . . . breasts?’
‘No, kid,’ said the Englishman, trying not to crack up. ‘The other bits.’ Even Nina couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Okay, okay,’ huffed the Israeli.
‘You do know what I mean, right?’
‘Yes, I do! Tahat.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Jared,’ said Nina, unable to resist a little teasing of her own. ‘I think it’s sweet.’
‘I should leave you two here,’ he muttered. ‘But this isn’t the place, is it?’
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t match the clues hidden in Revelation. We should move on to the next one.’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Eddie. ‘How about we go straight to the one that’s the furthest from anywhere, and work backwards? Like I said, if this place was too easy to find, somebody would have done it by now.’
Nina opened the map. ‘We’re here,’ she tapped one of the marked spots, ‘and the one deepest into the desert is . . . here. About five miles north-west.’
Eddie examined the contour lines around it. ‘Steep cliffs. Looks like that mountain from Close Encounters.’
‘It’s joined to the rest of this higher range to the north, so it might be reachable that way.’ She looked at the two men. ‘Shall we do it back-to-front, then?’
‘If we’d done that four months ago, you wouldn’t be pregnant,’ said Eddie. It took her a moment to figure it out, and when she did, he hurriedly ducked away from another swat of her hand. ‘But yeah, I’m up for it.’
‘It’ll take us a few hours to get there,’ Jared warned. ‘There isn’t a direct route – we’ll have to follow these valleys and cut through this pass.’ He traced the path with his fingertip.
‘So long as we can get there, that’s the important thing.’ Nina folded the chart back up. ‘Okay, let’s get started.’
She looked towards the distant peaks, catching a glint of light in the cloudless sky. A helicopter, crossing the desert. She watched it for a moment, wondering if her enemies might be aboard conducting their own search, before deciding it didn’t matter. If it was Cross and Dalton, they were some distance from any of her potential sites.
Victor Dalton shifted in his seat, uncomfortable and annoyed. The Bell 430 helicopter was large enough to accommodate all the members of Cross’s expedition, but the window seats were occupied by those scouring the ground below through binoculars. With Paxton piloting and Cross in the co-pilot’s seat beside him, the ex-president had ended up sandwiched between two of the cult leader’s men, without much of a view. ‘It’s too damn hot back here,’ he growled into his headset’s mic. ‘Can you turn on the air con?’