Revelation

* * *

'Well?' Romella asked.

Findhorn was pacing up and down. 'It might be coincidence.'

'It might. Whatever you're talking about.'

'It so happens there's a doomsday cult with a centre near Davos. The Book of Revelation is one of their props.'

'Meaning what?'

Findhorn stopped pacing and Romella handed him his tea. 'I think the diaries were taken from us by the Temple of Celestial Truth. They might even be in this Piz Radont temple.'

'Fred, don't get too excited. It's all circumstantial. Who was that anyway?'

'Mike? An old pal, a hard-drinking friend from my student days. He trained as a rabbi, did a stint in a kibbutz and came back as university pastor. He lost the use of his limbs after a motorcycle accident and now spends his time keeping up with trends in religious thought everywhere. He's become quite an authority and he makes pots of money out of it.'

'It's a compensation, I suppose.'

'I have to pull over the last batch of diaries. They're scanned into a computer. It'll take me a couple of hours.'

'Okay, I'll grab some sleep.'

'Didn't you sleep?'

'Not a lot. I was surfing the net, trying to get info on Mercedes car sales in Switzerland.'

'Any luck?'

'Sod all.' Romella left the study, looking puzzled at Findhorn's unexpected grin.

I should learn to have a little trust in people, Findhorn told himself as he tapped his way into the cookies, the record of the last five hundred keyboard instructions.

* * *

Stefi turned up in a green blouse and skirt, with a black choker and heavy eye shadow and hair freshly blonde and hanging down in ringlets. She was driving a large red Saab with cream upholstery, leaving Findhorn to wonder how close his credit card was to breaking point. She gurgled the car round to the rear lane where Romella and Findhorn tossed holdalls into the boot. She handed Findhorn a folder containing air tickets; Findhorn gave her the key to Doug's flat. Romella sat in front, while Findhorn tried to look invisible in the rear seat.

Stefi took them west, away from the city centre, handling the big car with ease. She drove through the Corstorphine suburbs and onto the M8 towards Glasgow and, beyond it, Prestwick International Airport. She took the car up to a steady eighty and Findhorn felt that he could at last safely poke his nose above windowsill level.

* * *

They slept all the way across the Pond.

* * *

'The parting of the ways,' Romella announced. She had a small green holdall at her feet and was glancing from time to time at the taxi queue on the other side of the airport glass.

Findhorn, on the other hand, was looking in the opposite direction, at the Dulles Airport departure screens. 'Would you believe I'm still weary?'

'We could find a hotel,' Romella suggested, leaving Findhorn to wonder what she had in mind.

'There's no time, Ms Grigoryan. The competition must be going flat out.'

'You still don't want to say what you've seen in the diaries?'

Findhorn rubbed his overnight stubble. 'It's too fantastic to be believable, Romella. The chances are it's nothing. I'll have to see what I can find out in Los Alamos, if anything.'

'There's something weird here, Fred. If Petrosian was escaping to Russia he didn't need the diaries to tell them what was going on. So why was he escaping with them?'

Findhorn nodded his agreement. He was still nervous about standing openly in a crowded place. 'I think I need to get to Phoenix and connect to Los Alamos from there.'

The taxi queue was shortening. Romella picked up her bag and Findhorn walked with her towards the automatic doors. She said, 'And I'll see what I can rustle up from old FBI files in Washington. I expect they're public domain by now.'

'Which leaves us with one last question, Romella. Where, in these Yoonited States, shall we meet up?'

Romella said, 'Make it some place where we can't easily be followed. Not a town like Los Alamos or Washington.'

'Sparks flew between Lev and Kitty at the Grand Canyon.'

Romella gave a surprised, sunny smile. 'What's this, Fred? Could there be romance buried somewhere in the depths of your soul?'

'I'm mad, bad and dangerous to know.' He yawned. 'The south rim of the Grand Canyon, then, just as soon as we can make it.'

'Be careful, Fred. Remember you're still a target.'

Findhorn made a face. 'Tell me about it.'

A taxi drew up and Romella turned as she opened the door. 'And don't speak to any strange women.'

17 Los Alamos

YOU ARE ENTERING AN ACTIVE EXPLOSIVES TEST RANGE. AREAS ARE POTENTIALLY CONTAMINATED WITH EXPLOSIVE DEVICES. STAY ON THE ROADS. DO NOT TOUCH OR DISTURB ANY ITEMS. IF ITEMS ARE FOUND CALL THE WHITE SANDS POLICE.

The morning sun was already hot. The wind which gently shook the sign was tumbling sagebrush along the high desert landscape and Findhorn, feeling like a fried tomato after his six-hour taxi ride from Phoenix, was grateful for it. The cab trailed dust as it vanished, its driver weary but richer.

Two men were waiting just outside the barbed wire, next to a yellow sports car. One of them, surly, in a tan uniform with a black belt and bearing a holstered side-arm, appraised Findhorn with small, deep-set, suspicious eyes. The civilian was about thirty, tall, bespectacled, slightly stooped and had receding, balding hair. He also had stubble and the air of a man who hadn't slept overnight. A cluster of observatory domes glinted a few hundred yards away.

'Cartwright of The Times, I presume,' said the man. His handshake was tired, his hand clammy in spite of the dry air.

'My friends call me Ed or Eddie.'

'I'm Frank. I don't have any friends.'

Findhorn waved an arm towards the observatory domes. 'Isn't that where they hunt for threat asteroids?'

The guard looked as if Findhorn had just introduced himself as an armed terrorist.

'Hey, how did you know that?' White asked.

Findhorn smiled. 'That's another story.'

The guard wasn't returning any smiles today. 'Before this goes any further, let's see your ID, mister.' Findhorn produced passport and a hastily forged letter of authorization with a Times letterhead scanned in from the newspaper.

'Yes, that's one of the LINEAR telescopes,' said White, while the guard examined Findhorn's papers with an air of deep suspicion. 'Part of the Air Force GEODSS system. If you want clearance for a visit it'll take you two months and three layers of bureaucracy, and that's if you're American.'

'Listen, it's good of you to meet me down here. We're still about two hundred miles south of Los Alamos, n'est ce pas?'

The guard returned Findhorn's papers looking like a man who knows he's being conned but can do nothing about it. White motioned Findhorn towards the convertible Corvette, and waved his arm wearily at the receding guard. In the car, the black leather seat threatened to roast Findhorn's backside and thighs.

The little machine took off with a satisfying, sporty roar. Findhorn assumed that, this close to the ground, the alarming speed was an optical illusion.

'Sure,' White said. 'But you seemed in one hell of a hurry to write your piece about this Petrosian. And as it happens I had overnight business here.' The nature of the business went unexplained, but White added: 'We're only a mile from the Trinity Site. Now clearance for that…'

Findhorn laughed but the speedometer was showing eighty five and it came out a bit high-pitched.

Through the terracotta desert, with its wonderful pinks and purples, and distant mountains covered with snow. Past the Santa Ana Reservation, and the roadside Navajo women selling jewellery and rugs and Clint Eastwood ponchos.