The Revelation Code

by Andy McDermott

  Nina stared at him, unsure how to respond to his sudden messianic shift. ‘God’s secrets? What . . .’

  ‘It’s written in the Book of Revelation!’ Cross continued, as if offended that she didn’t know. ‘Chapter ten, verse seven – “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” Do you know what that means? It means that as the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, all of God’s secrets will be revealed to his prophets. And I am one of those prophets!’

  He turned to his followers, who watched enraptured even as Dalton seemed faintly uncomfortable. ‘Seven angels are given a task in turn by God. The sixth angel is ordered to loose the four angels that were bound at the Euphrates. These are those angels!’ He stabbed one hand at the fragment behind glass, the other at the closed case. ‘One has already been released, in Iraq. We’ve found the second angel – so there are only two more to locate.’ He whirled back to face Nina, his pale eyes wide and terrifyingly intense. ‘Two more for you to locate. When we have them, they’ll be released. President Dalton will get his war, but I’ll get something more important. Once all the statues have been loosed and the sixth angel’s task is completed, the seventh angel will sound – and God will reveal everything to me. His plan, His secrets, the meaning of everything. I’ll know it all.’

  Nina was speechless for several seconds, the sheer madness of his plan almost too much to process rationally. ‘So you think,’ she finally said, ‘that loosing the angels, releasing this gas and killing who knows how many people will persuade God to let you into his inner circle? You’re insane!’

  Both the Fishers reacted angrily, Simeon advancing with his fists balled, but Cross waved him back. The cult leader was also furious, but contained it – just. ‘Unbelievers throughout history have accused God’s prophets of being mad,’ he growled. ‘Noah, Moses, even Jesus Christ – they’ve all faced mockery. But you’ll see the truth once all four angels are loosed. The army of the horsemen will be unleashed upon the earth, just as Revelation says – and as Babylon falls, I will know God’s plan.’ His voice rose to a shout. ‘I will know!’

  Appalled, Nina turned to Dalton. ‘You can’t believe any of this? You’re a politician – you’re in this for yourself, not to fulfil some Biblical prophecy!’

  ‘Thank you for that vote of confidence, Dr Wilde,’ Dalton said sarcastically. ‘But you’re wrong. I do believe; I believe that finding and unleashing the rest of the angels will make America stronger. That’s my duty to my country, as a true patriot.’

  ‘Patriot, my ass,’ Nina snarled. ‘You’re so crooked, you make Nixon look like Mother Teresa.’

  Now it was Dalton’s turn to be angered, but before he could reply, Cross, his composure now recovered, cut in. ‘I’m not asking you to believe, Dr Wilde. I’m asking you to obey. There are still two more angels out there. The Throne of Satan, and the Place in the Wilderness – where are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. And even if I did know, now that you’ve told me what you’re planning, there’s no way I’m going to help you find them.’

  ‘I didn’t only suggest using you to find the angels out of revenge – although I have to admit, that was a bonus after everything you and Chase did to me,’ said Dalton. ‘I genuinely believed you were the person most likely to succeed. But if you’re not going to cooperate, then you’re . . . surplus to requirements.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Cross, holding up a hand. ‘She will find them for us.’

  ‘Did God tell you that?’ Nina said with a sneer.

  ‘No. You did.’ His gaze intensified. ‘I was an intelligence officer, Dr Wilde. I know people – how they think, how they’ll respond to specific situations. And I know that you’ll do what I ask to protect your husband.’ He led the group back into the control room and went to the video wall. ‘I’ll demonstrate.’

  A tap on the controls, and the screens blinked on – showing Eddie still secured to the chair. The camera had changed position, now staring down at him from his left side. He looked around, mouth moving as he responded to someone out of frame, but the audio was muted.

  ‘Waterboard him,’ said Cross. ‘Don’t hold back this time.’ Irton appeared, a towel in his hands.

  ‘God damn you,’ Nina gasped as Eddie tried in vain to break loose. A silent shout at Irton, who responded by punching him in the stomach. The torturer’s two assistants prepared to tip the chair backwards as their boss swaddled the Englishman’s head in the thick cloth. ‘Don’t do it, please!’

  Cross was unmoved. ‘It’s up to you how long this goes on. A minute, an hour . . . all day. He won’t die, but he’ll wish he could.’ The chair was lifted and tilted back until its occupant’s head hit the floor. ‘All you have to do to stop it is tell me where one of the other angels is.’

  ‘But I don’t know,’ she protested.

  Irton brought a bucket to the chair. ‘I think you do,’ said Cross. ‘You already know something, and you’re keeping it from me. Do you think I’m an idiot? I know when someone’s hiding the truth. Finding it is what I do. Irton!’

  The bucket tipped, sending a gush of water over Eddie’s cocooned head. He convulsed, mouth open in a silent scream beneath the sodden material. Nina gasped in sickened, helpless fear.

  ‘I really think you ought to do what you’re told,’ said Dalton, tone patronising.

  ‘Your choice, Dr Wilde,’ Cross added. ‘There’s only one way to stop this.’

  She stared in anguish at the man she loved, the father of her child choking as more water filled his airways. She tried to resist, but felt surrender swelling inside her as his torment continued, unable to contain it—

  ‘Berlin,’ she whispered.

  Cross jabbed at a control, the monitors going black. ‘What?’

  ‘Berlin,’ Nina repeated. ‘The Throne of Satan from Revelation – there’s only one thing it can be, and that’s the Altar of Zeus from Pergamon. John had obviously been there, because he knew Antipas the martyr, so he would have known about the altar as well.’

  ‘Isn’t Pergamon in Turkey?’ demanded Dalton.

  ‘The whole thing was transported to Germany in the late nineteenth century. It’s a Greek relic, though – I don’t know of any connection to ancient Judaism or Christianity.’

  ‘But there must be one,’ said Cross. He touched the control pad. ‘Irton, let him go. For now.’ He turned to Nina. ‘Get back to work. Research this altar, find anything that might link it to the angel or the twenty-four Elders.’

  She nodded, despondent. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘What about the Place in the Wilderness?’ he added. ‘Are you keeping that from me too? Because if you are . . .’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she insisted, truthfully.

  His unsettling eyes stared into hers, then he nodded. ‘Okay. Focus on the altar for now.’

  ‘Do you want us to fly to Germany?’ asked Simeon.

  ‘No, Trant can handle it. Tell him to get the team to Berlin. You work out a plan to extract the angel once we find it.’

  ‘If we find it,’ said Dalton. ‘If this altar’s been moved, the angel might already have been discovered when it was dismantled.’

  Cross shook his head. ‘No. It’s waiting to be found. I have faith. In God’s plan . . . and in Dr Wilde’s love for her husband. She won’t let him suffer.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ Nina muttered, filled with shame for having capitulated. She looked at the case containing the angel. ‘I should have smashed that thing when I had the chance.’

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ said Dalton. ‘You’re doing what’s best for America. You’ll see.’

  ‘Anything that involves you can’t be what’s best for America.’ But there was almost no defiance left in her, just sullen resignation.

  ‘Norvin, take Dr Wilde back to her house,’ ordered Cross. ‘She has a lot of work to do.’ The bodyguard escort
ed Nina out.

  Dalton waited until she was gone before speaking again. ‘Two angels found already? I knew she was good, much as I hate to admit it, but I’m surprised she located them so quickly. Mind you,’ he added, gesturing towards the empty screens, ‘you did give her an incentive.’

  ‘We got lucky,’ Cross said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean this.’ He tapped the touchpad again. The image of the warehouse reappeared – but this time it was a freeze-framed scene of chaos.

  Dalton flinched as he saw a body at the end of a smeared trail of gore. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Chase happened,’ came the reply.

  ‘Chase?’ The ex-politician rounded on Cross with a sudden flash of fear, which he had to fight to keep under control. ‘You mean he’s escaped?’

  ‘He broke out late last night. I don’t know what happened after he killed Berman – this was the last image before the video link was cut off – but since I can’t contact Irton or Raddick, I have to assume they’re dead too. What I just showed Wilde was a recording, flipped so she wouldn’t realise it was the same thing she saw before. If she hadn’t caved in when she did, I would have run out of footage, and she would have realised we don’t have Chase any more.’

  ‘But – but he could bring this whole thing down!’ Dalton’s words rose in pitch despite his best efforts to maintain a calm front. ‘If he finds this place, if he rescues Wilde, it’ll all point back to me!’

  ‘Irton’s tracks are covered,’ said Cross, with more than a hint of impatience. ‘Chase won’t find the Mission.’

  ‘Chase once found his way into my house, into my goddamn bedroom, and that was when I still had Secret Service protection! You underestimated him, Ezekiel. That’s a big mistake.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing, Mr President.’ Dalton was taken aback by Cross’s warning tone, but the cult leader ignored his reaction. ‘If Chase tries to interfere with the plan . . . we’ll kill him.’

  12

  Berlin

  ‘Nice day for it,’ Eddie sighed, watching the rain-drenched outskirts of the German capital crawl past beyond the clogged autobahn. He and Rothschild had unluckily landed at Tegel airport just in time to catch the evening rush hour. ‘Everyone’s drowning in Berlin.’

  His companion didn’t get the reference to the old pop song; either that, or she was simply ignoring him. ‘Why are we going this way?’ she complained instead. ‘The Saatwinkler Damm would be much more direct.’

  ‘Calm down, the IHA’s paid for the ride.’ The Mercedes had picked them up at the terminal. ‘It’s not like the driver’s trying to rip you off by taking us via Poland.’

  Rothschild’s pinched little mouth shrank further, but rather than make a sarcastic rejoinder, she instead spoke in German to the driver. ‘There’s been a car crash,’ she told Eddie. ‘So we’re having to go a longer way around. But at least this way we’ll see more of the city.’

  Eddie peered at the heavy slate-grey sky and the wet tower blocks silhouetted against it. ‘Terrific, I’ll get my camera ready. So you know Berlin pretty well?’

  ‘It’s been a while since I was last here, but yes. I even lived here for several months after I got my masters in archaeology.’

  ‘Yeah? Did you meet the Kaiser?’

  ‘No, of course not, that was a long time before—’ She finally got the joke and treated him to a withering glare. ‘I’m no fan of Nina’s, but I always thought she was at least intelligent. Her seeing anything in you makes me question that, though.’

  Eddie shrugged, grinning. After putting up with the elderly woman’s barbs on the long journey across the Atlantic, he’d been unable to resist getting in one of his own. ‘Is that how you know the bloke at this museum?’ he asked, changing the subject.

  ‘Markus? Yes. We’ve been friends for a long time. And by that, I mean since the 1970s, not the 1910s,’ she added peevishly.

  The Englishman smiled again, then turned his attention back to the city. His only prior visits to Germany had been brief, and he had never been to Berlin itself. What he’d seen of it so far was what he had expected, however: lots of post-war tower blocks, though with more green space around them than similar developments in London or Paris. The car crossed over a river – or given its straightness, a canal – and continued towards the capital’s heart, more unappealing concrete buildings rolling by before the visitors passed over another bridge and before long entered a large swathe of parkland.

  ‘That’s the Siegessäule,’ said Rothschild, pointing ahead.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The Victory Column. There.’ Eddie looked past the driver and saw a tall pillar at the end of the road, a winged golden figure at its top. ‘It used to be in front of the Reichstag, but Hitler and Albert Speer had it moved. A good thing, otherwise it would have been flattened by Allied bombers. This park leads all the way to the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, actually.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Eddie, not particularly interested. Monuments to the common soldiers who had fallen in wars meant more to him than extravagant celebrations of the politicians who claimed to have won them. But as the Mercedes negotiated the large roundabout circling the edifice, he had to admit that it was quite impressive, floodlights making the statue at its summit gleam even in the rain. ‘The Brandenburg Gate’s where the Berlin Wall was, right?’

  ‘Yes, and it was the site of the signing of German reunification. So you know some history, then.’

  ‘Military history I’m pretty good on. I even surprise Nina sometimes.’ He looked ahead as the car turned on to a long, broad tree-lined avenue, but saw nothing through the traffic and the dull haze of rain. ‘How far is it?’ he asked, peering at the driver’s satnav to get an idea of the city’s layout. A winding river bisected the capital, its wide, snaking curves running north of their current position.

  ‘Over a mile,’ Rothschild told him.

  ‘Glad we’re driving, then. Don’t fancy getting wet – I had way too much of that recently.’ His expression darkened as he briefly thought back to his waterboarding ordeal. Rothschild gave him a curious look, but decided not to voice any questions.

  The Mercedes continued down the long avenue. Eventually the towering triumphal arch of the Brandenburg Gate came into sight, though to Eddie’s slight disappointment the road didn’t go through it, traffic instead diverting around a broad pedestrianised area. Even in the bad weather, there were still plenty of tourists at the monument. ‘Not far now,’ said Rothschild as the gate passed out of sight behind a building.

  ‘Great,’ Eddie replied. ‘This friend of yours, Dr Derrick – he’s an expert on this altar, right?’

  ‘It’s been his life’s work, and he’s in charge of overseeing its restoration, so you could say that, yes.’

  ‘Good. ’Cause I’ve been thinking—’

  Flat sarcasm. ‘Really.’

  ‘A hardy har. I’ve been wondering how this angel could be hidden in it without anyone having found it already, even if it’s behind a secret panel or something.’

  Rothschild smiled patronisingly. ‘Do you know how big the Altar of Zeus is, Mr Chase?’

  ‘I dunno. But an altar’s basically a fancy table, so . . . ten feet long and six wide?’ he guessed. ‘Twelve feet?’

  She could barely hide her amusement. ‘A little bigger.’

  The Brandenburg Gate reappeared behind them as the car turned on to a wide boulevard and headed east for roughly half a mile, then picked its way north through smaller streets before finally stopping. ‘This is it?’ Eddie asked. Another glance at the satnav told him that their destination was actually on an island.

  ‘That’s it,’ Rothschild replied. ‘The Pergamon Museum.’

  A footbridge spanned a waterway in front of the imposing classical building, steps leading up to a plaza between the two long wings of the museum. A far more modern structure, a cylindrical tower, occupied most of the space. ‘Big place just for an altar.
’

  ‘The Altar of Zeus isn’t the only exhibit; there’s also the Museum of Islamic Art, the Middle East museum and the antiquity collection. But Markus can show you . . . Ah, here he comes.’ A tall figure beneath a large black umbrella scuttled down the steps and crossed the bridge to meet them.

  The driver opened the door for Rothschild, Eddie following her out. ‘Markus, hello!’ she trilled, embracing then kissing the new arrival. ‘It’s so good to see you again!’

  ‘You too, after all these years,’ said the square-jawed German. Eddie guessed him to be in his sixties, although his hair was a chestnut brown suspiciously rich for someone of that age. ‘Ah, Maureen. Willkommen zurück, welcome back. Come, come inside, out of this rain.’

  Rothschild took shelter under his umbrella and was about to go with him when Eddie cleared his throat. ‘Oh. Yes,’ she said, with faint irritation. ‘Markus, this is Eddie Chase. Mr Chase, Dr Markus Derrick.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Eddie, offering his hand.

  Derrick shook it with enthusiasm. ‘Mr Chase.’ He gave Rothschild an expectant look, awaiting a more detailed introduction, but none came. ‘Okay! Please, come with me.’ The group headed across the bridge, Eddie getting wet as his travelling companion stayed beneath the umbrella. ‘So, you have come all this way to see the Pergamon altar, yes? It is a good thing Maureen is my friend; that wing of the museum will be closed to the public for some years as we build a new roof. But I can get you in. As the director of the altar’s restoration, it is a perk of the job!’ He chuckled.

  They reached the glass doors leading into the cylindrical structure, which housed a lobby and visitor centre. The museum was still open, though the tourists were now mostly leaving. Derrick nodded in greeting to a security guard, who let the group through a side gate, and they headed into the building proper.

  ‘Now, what is this about?’ he asked. ‘Your phone call was very mysterious, Maureen. You want to examine the altar for . . . angels? Christian symbols? You can be sure there are none. I have looked very carefully at it for over twenty years!’