They reached the back porch. Behind them, the hall filled with dense smoke. Flickering, orange-red light glowed in the choking clouds. Shots from outside ripped through the porch screens as they burst through the back door. Glass shattered behind them. Ronnie and Nick fired at the same time and a voice cried out. Selena triggered a burst and her gun locked open. She couldn't hold onto the piece of the Ark and load a magazine at the same time. She let the MP-5 hang from its sling and drew her pistol and began firing at moving shadows as they ran for the woods.
Then they were in the safety of the trees.
Behind them, the house burned with fierce, roaring flames. The fire broke through the roof. Glass blew out of the windows as the flames raced through the upper stories. Nick had never seen anything burn so fast.
No one was shooting at them anymore. They moved farther back into the trees.
Then the house exploded. The burning roof lifted into the air. A column of flame a hundred feet high erupted into the night.
"Holy shit," Ronnie said.
They ducked as debris whistled through the woods and burning pieces rained down from the sky.
"Must have had something nasty in the basement," Nick said.
They waited. No one came after them. The sound of big diesel engines starting up came from the direction of the water.
"McKenzie's boat," Nick said. "He's leaving."
Ronnie looked a question.
"No, let him go," Nick said. "We'll let someone else worry about it."
He coughed and gasped and bent over in pain.
"You're hurt," Selena said.
"Armor saved me. But I think I've got a couple of broken ribs."
He looked at her. Her face was blackened, one side of her hair was singed.
"Let's find a boat and get out of here," Ronnie said.
Nick looked at the fire raging where the house had been. "The Ark is gone."
"Not all of it." Selena held up the piece of the broken cherubim.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
The piece of the Ark lay on Elizabeth's desk. It was the kneeling figure of a cherubim, minus the wings. They had broken off when the lid struck the floor.
The figure was carved from a solid piece of wood, finished with a flat base. Some of the thin gold covering remained, some had been lost in the mad dash from the burning house. Now was the first time they'd all had a chance to examine it.
But it wasn't the first time Selena had looked at it. She hadn't even told Nick what she'd found.
"It's hard to believe you found the Ark and now it's gone," Stephanie said. "It's a terrible loss."
"Maybe it's not quite what you think," Selena said.
"What do you mean?"
"Director, take a look at the bottom of the cherubim, on the lower right corner. You have to look close."
Harker picked up the fragment and turned it over. She peered at the lower corner.
"I don't see…wait a minute." She got a magnifying glass out of a drawer and held it over the piece.
"This can't be right. There's something written here." She read it out loud.
Bernardus fecit me anno domini MCCCVII.
"That's Latin. What's Latin doing there?"
"Exactly," Selena said. "It says 'Bernard made me in the Year of Our Lord 1307'."
The silence was electric. Nick found his voice.
"You mean the Ark was a fake?"
"Yes. That inscription was under the cherubim, where no one would ever see it. The ark we saw was made in 1307, by someone named Bernard. Probably a Templar."
"Why make a fake?" Ronnie said.
"Deception," Selena said. "1307 was a bad year for the Templars. De Molay suspected treachery. I think they had the real Ark and he ordered a copy made in case King Phillip and the Pope managed to seize the Templar treasure. The letter was probably meant to throw them off the scent."
"But they never found it."
"No."
"Then it may still exist," Harker said.
"Along with the rest of the Templar treasure."
Nick started laughing.
"Want to share the joke, Nick?"
"Sorry, Director. All those clues we followed. For a fake. Harrison went to a lot of trouble chasing it down and got himself killed. All for a fake."
The alarm on Elizabeth's desk beeped five times. The display turned red.
DEFCON1.
Elizabeth's phone rang. She picked up, listened, set it back down.
"Stephanie, pull up the Iranian missile base."
Stephanie's fingers flashed over her keyboard. The monitor lit with a live shot of the missile base at Badr. There was frenzied activity on the ground.
"The silos are hot," Nick said. "Look at those heat signatures."
"They're going to launch." Elizabeth was pale. "If they've mounted that nuke, all hell is going to break loose. Steph, give me a split screen over Israel. Rabat-David Air base, in the north."
A second picture appeared on the screen. Rabat-David was one of Israel's major air bases, home to a large part of the Israeli Air Force. Planes were taking off at a steady rate. Nick saw dozens more waiting.
"They're putting everything into the air," Nick said.
"Switch to Egozi," Harker said.
Egozi military base wasn't on the tourist maps of Israel. It was where the Israelis kept their nuclear missiles in underground silos.
"The silos are open," Stephanie said. "It's what Nostradamus predicted. A nuclear war."
The silo openings had been concealed under desert sands. Now they were exposed. White vapor rose from the openings. Israel was preparing to launch.
"They're launching in Iran," Stephanie said. Her voice was hoarse.
The screen showed intense heat at one of the silos, then at half a dozen more. The missiles began to rise into the air. At lift off, the deadly shapes were still visible. It was like watching a slow motion ballet of death.
"Oh, Jesus," Ronnie said.
Then the screen went white in a violent burst of light and blanked out.
"What happened?"
"I don't know." They watched. The image returned, distorted with lines of static and visual debris. A towering, brown mushroom cloud rose into the desert sky over Iran. The missile base at Badr had ceased to exist. There was no sign of any Iranian missiles, no readouts of projected trajectories, arrival times, targets. They were all gone.
No one said anything. They watched the cloud, billowing up into the atmosphere.
Elizabeth's phone rang.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
President James Rice sat in a comfortable, brown leather chair at the head of a long table in the Situation Room, watching events spin out of control.
This can't be happening, he thought. But it was, right in front of him.
Air Force officers and technicians manned a long console and monitored satellite feeds to a dozen screens set on the wall. Others present in the room included General Price from the Joint Chiefs, the National Security Advisor, Hood from CIA and the Secretary of Defense. The Vice-President was on his way to shelter in West Virginia, just in case. The Secretary of State was in England. Marine One idled on the White House lawn, ready to ferry Rice to Andrews and Air Force One in case he decided to take his command center airborne.
The Israeli and Iranian force deployments were laid out on the screens for all to see. The Middle East crawled with military activity. Israel's planes were in the air and heading for Iran. The Iranian silos were hot. The Israeli silos were going hot. Iran was scrambling its fighters.
The Israeli PM and the Iranian Supreme Leader were not responding to calls from the White House. Half a dozen world leaders were clamoring for the President's attention. The only ones Rice was talking to were the Russians and the Chinese, the only ones that mattered at the moment. He had them on speakers so the others could hear.