The clock hand jolted, almost shaking him loose. He squeezed both arms against it to pin himself in place. But he still began to slide sideways . . . and downwards.
The minute hand was moving – and at a much faster rate than sixty seconds per minute. Loud cracks came from the gear mechanism at the hub’s end as teeth were stripped from an overstressed cog—
An explosive bang of shearing metal, and the long hand swung freely from its axle, six tons of steel and composites sweeping down towards the vertical. Eddie slithered along its edge – until it dropped out from under him.
He plunged, both raised arms scrabbling helplessly for a hold—
His feet hit a jagged slab of carbon fibre. It snapped under his weight, but slowed him for the fraction of a second he needed to thrust his left arm into the crack down the clock hand’s damaged rear.
Broken shards tore through his jacket and slashed his skin, making him scream, yet he still managed to grab a thick skein of wiring. Some of the LEDs embedded in the front of the huge pointer tore out, but more held. He jerked to a stop as the minute hand swung pendulously back and forth over the six o’clock position.
Eddie gasped for breath. Directly below him was the observation deck. He saw the curved supports of the protective netting, and considered letting go and dropping on to it, before realising that would be suicide. The net was pulled drum-tight; falling on to it from this height would be like landing on a trampoline, catapulting him over the edge.
But the hand’s tip was less than fifteen feet above the netting. If he climbed down further, he might make it . . .
A fierce jolt cancelled all thought beyond holding on. He looked up. The entire axle assembly was visibly shaking, more fragments of the ruptured clock face falling past him. The wind drew a streamer of smoke out through the hole; it became darker and thicker as he watched, swirling away into the sky. The overloading motor was catching fire.
Simeon appeared at the opening. He looked down, expression changing to an almost offended anger as he saw Eddie still alive below. He ducked back inside with a barely suppressed obscenity, returning holding a broken metal spar – which he threw at the Englishman.
Eddie whipped his right arm above his head just fast enough to take the painful blow. If it had struck his skull, it would have knocked him senseless. The steel bar fell away, bouncing off the netting to be flung into the void.
Another violent shudder. He managed to jam the statue inside his jacket before taking hold of a carbon-fibre spearhead with his right hand, forcing himself to ignore the pain as it cut his palm.
Above him, the hour hand was now rocking violently against the axle like a ruler twanged on the edge of a desk. More panels in the clock face buckled outwards. The smoke grew more dense, and even over the wind he could hear a fearsome electrical growl. It wasn’t just the clock’s motor: the overload was feeding back into the transformers powering it, and he knew from experience that could have explosive results.
The same thought occurred to Simeon. A concerned glance back into the room, then he leaned out and gripped both edges of the minute hand. ‘You might as well let go!’ he called down to Eddie as he held himself in place, then pressed the insteps of his boots hard against the pointer’s sides. ‘Because it’ll hurt a lot more if I have to come down there!’
‘And I thought suicide was a sin!’ Eddie shot back.
‘Don’t worry – you were always going to Hell!’ The American started a controlled descent towards him.
Eddie looked back at the netting. It now offered his only chance of survival, but he had to get to the bottom of the clock’s hand before Simeon caught up. He shifted position, easing his grip on the wires – only to clamp his fingers tight again as the pointed carbon shard in his right hand creaked menacingly under his weight. Blood oozed as the sharp edges sliced his skin.
Simeon came closer, muscles visibly straining with the effort of holding on, but he showed no signs of slipping. He was now only six feet above the Englishman. Above him, the escaping smoke turned black. ‘Hey, how you hanging?’ he said with a malevolent grin.
Eddie searched for a better handhold, but the only possibilities were either too fragile to support him, or even more razor-edged. And now Simeon was upon him—
One foot swiped down, grazing the back of his left hand. It was only an exploratory attack, the American unsure if he could maintain his hold – but the second strike, with his other foot, was more confident. The carbon shard Eddie was holding snapped off at the base as Simeon’s heel stamped down on his knuckles. The Yorkshireman swung and fell a few inches as more wires in his left hand ripped away before the remaining ones again just barely caught his weight.
Simeon lowered himself further, about to smash his foot down on the other man’s head—
Eddie stabbed the composite spearhead deep into his calf.
Simeon screamed, almost losing his grip. Eddie twisted his makeshift dagger deeper into his flesh, then tugged at his ankle as hard as he could. The American’s hands slipped down the pointer’s edges. ‘Time’s up!’ Eddie yelled—
The cultist finally lost his hold and fell – only to slam to a stop after barely a foot. Another protruding carbon spike had caught him, impaling him up through his abdomen and behind his ribcage. He shrieked, blood and stomach fluids gushing from the wound.
A loud detonation from above. The whole clock shuddered as if kicked by a giant. Eddie looked past the flailing American to see flames belch out of the hole, dirty smoke spewing from the widening gaps between the panels. The machinery was on the verge of destroying itself, the hub about to rip away and take the long fall to the ground.
Still gripping Simeon’s leg, Eddie released his hold on the wires and hurriedly clamped his hand around the pointer’s edge. He followed the American’s example, pressing his insteps against its sides, then let go of the other man – and dropped.
He managed to grab the edge with his right hand as he fell, but his palm was slick with blood. He squeezed harder, but wasn’t slowing fast enough, the great pointer narrowing to just two feet wide at its tip . . . and then nothing.
Eddie plummeted towards the balcony—
The netting caught him – but it was drawn so tightly that it felt almost solid, pounding the breath from his lungs. He clawed at the nylon lines as the rebound threw him towards the edge, finding grip with one hand. Fingers clenched so tightly he could have crushed coal into diamond, he flipped over, landing hard on his back. Muscles and tendons strained to their limit, arm joints almost wrenching from their sockets . . .
But they held.
He bounced once, twice, then came to rest on top of the mesh. Gasping, he looked up. Simeon was still pinned gruesomely to the minute hand, his screams echoing down the building.
Another blast from the machine room – and the centre of the clock face disintegrated as the hub was ripped out of the motor, dragging girders and lighting panels with it. Both hands toppled forward – then the tip of the minute hand hit the elaborate golden relief around the clock’s circumference and flung the entire assembly outwards, away from the tower’s face.
Simeon was still screaming as he fell past Eddie. ‘I should’ve said “Time’s down!”’ the Englishman yelled after him. Seconds passed – then a colossal crunching boom reached him as the clock hands smashed apart a quarter of a mile below, their unwilling passenger reduced to a bloody pulp amidst the storm of carbon shards.
Eddie caught his breath, then groped inside his jacket. The statue was still there. ‘Thank God,’ he said, before looking at the Grand Mosque below. ‘Or thank Allah. Or Yahweh, or whatever he’s called.’ He rolled over to get a hold on the netting with both hands—
Twang!
The tightly stretched net jerked beneath him – and he suddenly found himself slipping towards the balcony’s edge. Falling debris had ripped the mesh, and now the rest of it was tearing free from the support posts, one strand after another breaking with an insistent ping-ping-ping of s
napping nylon.
‘Oh, come on!’ he cried, pulling himself up hand over hand, but the netting was rolling towards the void faster than he could climb. The observation deck slithered past behind his outstretched arms, followed by the balustrade—
Hands locked around his wrists.
Eddie raised his head to see al Farhan braced against the low wall, teeth bared with the strain of holding him. He shouted in Arabic; several policemen ran over and raised the Yorkshireman on to the balcony.
‘Thanks,’ he wheezed, looking around. The observation platform was strewn with debris, but he was relieved that the tourists had all been evacuated. He hoped the same was true at ground level.
‘What happened?’ al Farhan demanded. ‘Where is Rajhi – and did you get the statue?’
‘I got it,’ Eddie replied wearily, producing it from his jacket. ‘Rajhi’s in the clock’s machine room; he’s hurt. So are some other people. You need to get paramedics up there.’
The Saudi prince issued orders, then regarded the figure in Eddie’s hands. ‘So that is the angel? Is it safe?’
‘I think so,’ he said, checking it for signs of damage and finding none. ‘That’s one taken care of. I hope we can do the same for number two . . .’
35
Vatican City
‘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 a
lone 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!’