The Revelation Code (Wilde/Chase 11) (7 page)

‘The Library of Pergamon still existed for centuries after John wrote Revelation,’ Cross told her dismissively. ‘Either Mark Antony didn’t really take its entire contents, or some were hidden from him. John was still able to visit and read what he found there.’

‘That’s just supposition, though,’ she objected. ‘You’re making things up and presenting them as facts to fit your theory.’

‘It’s not a
theory
!’ he barked, making her flinch. ‘It’s the truth! I know it’s the truth, because God led me to it!’ Another stab of his forefinger at the image of the angel on the laptop. ‘I found the angel! I witnessed its power with my own eyes!’

Nina tried to control her returning fear. Cross was revealing himself as a zealot, and she knew from experience that such people were most dangerous when their beliefs were directly challenged. ‘What power?’ she asked, hoping to calm him by bringing him back to his pet subject.

He ignored her. ‘I found the truth on Patmos. I know what caused John to write the Book of Revelation – and I know it holds something real. I came here and established the Mission away from the corruption and sin of the world, and it gave me clarity. I’ve seen the truth. I believe it, my followers believe it, and you’ll believe it too. You won’t be able to deny it when I find the other angels!’

‘That’s what this is about?’ she said. ‘Finding the rest of the angels from Revelation?’

Cross nodded. ‘The Elders kept one of them at the temple in Iraq, but hid the other three for safety. I believe they wrote down where they hid them, and that this text ended up in the Library of Pergamon, where John read it.’ He stared at the remains of the statue once more. ‘He might not have realised its significance, at least consciously, but when he had his visions in the Cave of the Apocalypse, his mind, guided by God, brought it all back to him. He wrote down everything he saw during the vision. It was all mixed up, scrambled, surrounded by other hallucinations, but it was still based on what he’d read about the Elders and the angels.’

He whirled back to face Nina, white robes swirling. ‘
That’s
what I believe the Book of Revelation is, Dr Wilde. It’s a code. And I’ve spent twelve years reading it, uncovering its secrets – cracking that code. The texts I found in the temple gave me the clues I needed to decipher it.’

‘This?’ Nina protested, waving at the laptop’s screen. ‘This is gibberish!’

‘You don’t need to read every word in a book to understand the story. It told me enough. I know where to find the angels – at least, I know which parts of Revelation contain the clues leading to them. What I don’t know yet is where these locations are in the real world.’

Realisation dawned. ‘And that’s why you need an archaeologist.’

‘Exactly,’ Cross replied. ‘Someone with the knowledge and experience to join the dots, to make the connections between the places John saw in his visions and where they are today.’

‘But why
me
?’ objected Nina. ‘Your followers have obviously given you plenty of money if you’ve been able to build all this. You could have just hired somebody to work it out. Why kidnap me and Eddie?’

‘I didn’t want to involve an archaeologist until now, because they have their own biases that would have made them deny the truth. Just like all scientists. But you don’t have the
option
to deny it. And . . .’ The cult leader smiled. For the first time, the sense of malevolence lurking beneath the surface came out into the open. ‘You were highly recommended by an associate of mine.’

The words sent a chill through her. That suggested Cross was working with someone with a personal grudge against her – but who? She and Eddie had made a lot of enemies . . .

She didn’t have time to worry further about it as Cross spoke again. ‘Three locations are given special significance in the text of Revelation: “the Synagogue of Satan”, “the Throne of Satan”, and “the Place in the Wilderness”. I think they’re where the other angels are hidden.’ He closed the laptop and gestured towards the door. ‘Your job, Dr Wilde, is to find them.’

Nina suddenly realised that she already knew the true identity of one of the locations – but managed to hide her recognition of the fact, not wanting to give anything to her kidnapper. Instead she summoned up resistance. ‘I’m not doing a damn thing until I know Eddie’s okay.’

Simeon advanced on her. ‘You were warned—’

‘Wait, Simeon,’ said Cross. ‘I was always going to let you see your husband, Dr Wilde. This way. Please.’ The unpleasant smile returned.

That alone made Nina feel more worried than ever, but she followed him back into the control room, Anna and Simeon again shadowing her. The screens were still cycling through clips of her at the Mission and in New York, but her eyes went straight to the single monitor showing the live feed of Eddie.

Cross went to his chair and tapped at a touchscreen. The dizzying display before him faded to black. Another command, and the curved video wall came back to life, the image of Eddie bound to the chair spread across it. The camera was offset to his right, looking down at him. ‘Mr Irton,’ said Cross. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes, sir, I can hear you,’ came the reply. The new voice was American, like Cross and his lieutenants, the accent suggesting that the speaker was from one of the south-western states.

‘Dr Wilde is with me. Could you wake her husband, please?’

‘I sure can.’ Nothing happened for several seconds – then a plume of water lanced in from the bottom of the screen and hit the Englishman in the face.

Nina gasped as he thrashed and coughed. ‘
Eddie!
’

5

E
ddie slammed painfully back to wakefulness as the frigid water hit him. He struggled to breathe, the sudden cold squeezing his chest tight – then realised he couldn’t move. His arms were pinned painfully behind his back. Still straining to draw in air, he shook and writhed, trying to get loose.

No joy. Something was biting into his wrists. Handcuffs. No way to break them, but if there was enough slack in the chain, he might be able to bring his hands in front of him . . .

He couldn’t. He was in a chair, a single metal pole supporting its broad back, and couldn’t spread his arms far enough apart to lift them up around it. His ankles were secured too, tied to the chair’s legs.

But he felt the whole seat flex slightly as he struggled. If he kept going, he might be able to crack a weld or strip a screw—

Movement nearby. He looked up, shaking icy water from his eyes, and knew he wouldn’t get the chance.

Three men stared stonily back at him. The same bastards who’d attacked him on the street, shooting him with a Taser and bundling him into a van to be gagged . . . and drugged. They’d stuck him with something to knock him out. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but he was both hungry and thirsty, with a groggy headache and raw, gritty eyes.

His surroundings came into focus beyond the trio. A warehouse or factory, derelict, grey daylight leaking in through grubby windows high above. Dirty crates and unidentifiable rusting machinery glinted with cobwebs. Closer by were some metal cases, their cleanliness telling him they had been brought by his kidnappers. His leather jacket lay crumpled on the floor nearby.

He also saw a video camera mounted on a tripod, connected to a laptop on a wooden bench. The red light by the lens suggested that he had an audience—

A voice cut through his fear. ‘
Eddie!
’

‘Nina!’ he yelled back. ‘Nina, where are you?’

‘She’s not here,’ said the older man mockingly. ‘Prophet? He’s awake.’

‘Yes, I can see,’ came another disembodied voice from the laptop, an American man. ‘Dr Wilde, you can talk to your husband. Briefly.’

‘Eddie!’ Nina cried over the speakers. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ve been better,’ he replied, blowing more dripping water off his face. ‘And I’m fucking freezing. These twats just woke me up with a bucket of ice water!’

‘Watch your mouth,’ said the blond man, a plaster across his broken nose.

‘Fuck off.’

The man’s face twisted with anger. Eddie saw the punch coming, but was completely unable to resist. It hit his stomach, hard, leaving him breathless.

‘No, stop!’ Nina shouted. ‘Leave him alone!’

‘Mr Chase,’ said the man with Nina, ‘I’d advise you to watch your language. Go on, Dr Wilde.’

‘You son of a bitch,’ she muttered, before raising her voice again. ‘Are you all right, Eddie?’

‘Like I said,’ he wheezed through gritted teeth, ‘been better. Where are you?’

‘I don’t know – somewhere in the tropics, I think. They took me from the apartment and brought me here.’

Worry gripped him. ‘Is the baby okay?’

‘Yeah, as far as I can tell. They were going to drug me, but when I told them I was pregnant, they backed off.’

‘Oh, so they’re the
caring
kind of kidnappers. Good to know. What the hell do they want with us?’

‘They’re . . . they’re using you to force me to cooperate. Eddie, they say they’ll torture you if I don’t do what they want.’

A different cold ran through him as he guessed what was in the cases. ‘Why? What are they after?’

‘It’s about the Book of Revelation, they—’

Sudden silence as the call was muted. ‘Nina?’ Eddie shouted. ‘Nina! Put her back on, you fucking shithead!’

The blond man punched him again as the unknown voice returned. ‘You’ve seen that your husband is still alive, Dr Wilde. Now I want you to see what’ll happen to him if you don’t do as you’re told. Mr Irton?’

The Taser man opened one of the cases. ‘Oh,
fuck
,’ Eddie gasped as Irton produced a cattle prod, a black baton two feet long with a pair of stubby electrodes protruding from one end.

‘No!’ cried Nina over the speakers. ‘I’ll do what you want; you don’t have to hurt him! Please, don’t!’

But Eddie knew from the look in Irton’s eyes that nothing she said would stop the shock from coming. The thin-mouthed man wasn’t being sadistic or taking sick joy from inflicting pain on another human being – it was just business, part of the job, the professional detachment of the slaughterhouse worker. This was something he had done before, many times. He pushed a button. The electrodes crackled.

The Englishman set his jaw. ‘I’m going to kill you and all your mates,’ he growled. ‘That’s a promise.’

‘They all say that,’ Irton replied dismissively – as he activated the cattle prod and shoved it against Eddie’s soaked chest.

Nina’s scream almost drowned out her husband’s. ‘
No!
No, you bastard!’ She threw herself at Cross, but Simeon easily intercepted her. ‘Stop him,
stop
! Please! Let him go!’

She looked back at the screens as Simeon dragged her away from the cult leader. Eddie convulsed in the chair, face twisted in agony as Irton moved the sparking rod up and down his body. ‘Why are you
doing
this?’ she shrieked. ‘You’re insane!’

Cross spun to face her, a sudden anger behind his piercing gaze. ‘I’ve never
been
more sane, Dr Wilde! God Himself has set out this path for me, for His Witnesses,’ he indicated Anna and Simeon, ‘for all of us. We will follow it to the end, and you’re going to light the way.’

He turned back to the screens. ‘Enough.’

Irton retreated, the prod’s high-voltage sizzle cutting off. Eddie slumped, wisps of smoke still rising from his T-shirt. Another man, younger than Irton, checked his pulse. ‘He’s okay,’ he announced.

‘Good,’ said Cross. He tapped the touch screen, and the video wall went blank. ‘Dr Wilde, your husband’s safety is now entirely up to you. If you locate the other angels, he’ll be released.’

Nina was unable to answer at first, shaking with fear and fury. ‘I don’t . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,’ she finally said, voice quavering. ‘I’m not a Biblical expert, it’s not my field. Why me? Why do you think I can do it?’

‘Because you have a talent for finding truth where others only see myths. Atlantis, Valhalla, the Garden of Eden. You found them. And you’ll find the angels of Revelation too.’

It took a moment for the full significance of his words to strike her, but when it did, it felt almost like a physical impact. ‘Wait – you believe I found the Garden of Eden?’

‘Yes.’

‘But the way the media spun the story, it made me look like a kook. The whole thing was deliberately done to discredit me.’ It had taken her discovery of the lost Pyramid of Osiris in Egypt to restore her reputation.

‘I know you found it. In Sudan. And I know it was destroyed by an American stealth bomber.’ Lines of disapproval formed around his eyes; he was as angered at its obliteration as Nina had been, though she imagined for very different reasons.

‘How do you know that? I never told any of that to the IHA – and I sure as hell wasn’t going to put it in my book.’

‘I have friends in the US government,’ Cross replied. ‘There are plenty who believe in the Lord and His plan as strongly as I do. And there are others whose faith is . . . weaker,’ he said, with another frown, ‘but who are willing to work with us. Yes, I know what you found.’

‘And you also know that what I found in Eden contradicts the Book of Genesis? That humans weren’t created in God’s image – that we weren’t even the first intelligent species on the planet?’

Nina knew that challenging his core beliefs could go badly for her – and Eddie. But while Simeon and Anna were affronted, it did not trigger Cross’s anger. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘About the Veteres – the race that walked the earth before us.’

That revelation was even more startling, as her discovery of the Veteres was something known only to a handful of people. ‘And you accept it?’ she asked. ‘But if you know that the first book of the Bible doesn’t match reality, why are you so certain about the last book?’

‘I told you, the Bible isn’t to be taken literally. It was written by men, and men are fallible. It has to be studied and interpreted to find God’s truth. It’s not easy, but it’s not
supposed
to be easy. Only people who’ve proven themselves worthy of God’s truth will get to see His plan.’

‘And you think you’re worthy?’

‘I know I’m worthy. God has chosen me, Dr Wilde. He led me to the angel hidden in the temple in Iraq, and it’s now my job to find the others.’

‘Seems like it’s more
my
job,’ Nina said, acerbic.

‘Then you should get started. Simeon, Anna, take her back to her house. You’ll have everything you need, Dr Wilde – Biblical texts, historical reference material, maps, and limited internet access. You’ll be monitored at all times,’ he added, raising a warning finger. ‘You’ll be cut off immediately if you try to contact anyone or access a site that might give away your location – such as by trying to log in to the IHA’s servers.’

‘I quit the IHA over six months ago,’ she protested. ‘Why would I have access?’

‘Because you’ve still got friends there. I know that your UN liaison, Oswald Seretse, gave you clearance even after you left. I also have friends in the intelligence services. We weren’t only observing you on the streets.’

‘You’ve been monitoring our internet too? Oh great, now you know all Eddie’s favourite websites.’

Anna’s face creased as if she had just smelled a dead animal. ‘Yes, and they’re disgusting.’ Her offence gave Nina an odd feeling of pride.

‘Enough,’ said Cross impatiently. ‘Now, Dr Wilde, it’s up to you to find where the Elders hid the other three angels. Or your husband will suffer.’

Fear returned, though this time with a sense of determination, a refusal to let Eddie’s torturers win. ‘If they really exist, I’ll find them,’ Nina told him.

‘If you’re as good as I’ve been told, I don’t doubt it.’ Cross turned away.

Anna and Simeon escorted Nina from the room. Her mind was already working, but not on the task she had been given. The foremost question was: told by
whom
?

An answer had not come by the time Simeon and Anna brought her back to the little house. The Mission’s residents had dispersed from the church to their own homes, a few giving her friendly greetings.

Nina ignored them. However cheery the inhabitants seemed, the fact remained that she was a prisoner, and nobody was willing to help her escape. And she was being watched every step of the way, cameras pivoting to track her. Even if she broke away from her escort, the alarm would be raised in seconds. How far could she get?

Simeon ushered her inside. ‘So housekeeping’s visited,’ she said, seeing that a number of books and a laptop computer had been placed on the desk. ‘Any chance of some room service?’

Her companions were not amused. ‘Get to work,’ said Simeon.

‘Get bent,’ Nina shot back. ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Do you know how cranky pregnant women get when they’re hungry?’

The sorrowful look Anna gave Simeon made it clear to Nina that they were a couple. ‘We haven’t been blessed with a child,’ she said.

‘Maybe you don’t deserve one.’

‘Maybe
you
don’t.’ Simeon took a step closer to Nina, his glare ice-cold.

‘Simeon,’ Anna said. His angry scowl deepened, but he retreated. ‘There’s plenty of food. But if you want to cook, do it yourself. We’re not your personal wait staff.’

‘I’m gonna give this place
such
a bad review on TripAdvisor,’ Nina snarked as they left. The door closed behind them, and as she’d expected, the lock clicked. Even so, she tried to open it, with no success. ‘Shit.’

She was in no mood to cook, so made do with throwing together a salad sandwich and devouring it before moving on to a box of crackers. Munching on the dry biscuits, she looked through the cupboards again. Her captors had at least stocked her prison with a decent selection of provisions.

A small bottle amongst various packaged ingredients and condiments caught her eye. Spirit vinegar. That jogged a memory, something Eddie had once told her. She looked back through the fresh vegetables. Corn, green peppers, chilli, onions, some bulbs of garlic . . .

She glanced up at the camera silently watching her from the corner. An idea had come to her, but she would have to be extremely careful and patient to carry it out – if she even could. But if it worked, it might give her the chance she needed to run for the Mission’s boundary.

For now, though, she had to at least make the pretence of working on Cross’s assignment. If her watchers thought she was wasting time, Eddie would pay the price. Delaying tactics had caused Macy’s death; she couldn’t allow the same thing to happen again.

Another thought. Cross was insistent that she find the angels as soon as possible. Was he working to a deadline? And if so, why? The angels, if they existed, had been hidden for thousands of years. Why the rush?

She turned towards the desk. Sitting atop the stack of books was a copy of the Bible. The Old and New Testaments; Genesis to Revelation. Maybe the answer really
was
in there . . .

‘Let’s see what John of Patmos saw in his visions,’ she said to herself as she thumbed to its final book.