‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she insisted. ‘I’d put knowledge, determination, desperation and sheer dumb luck above God keeping me safe so you could use me for your crazy plan.’
‘It’s not just his plan,’ said a new voice from behind her. ‘It’s mine.’
Nina spun towards the entrance — only to freeze as she saw a horribly familiar face. ‘Son of a bitch…’
Victor Dalton, the disgraced former leader of the free world, regarded her mockingly. ‘If you don’t mind, Dr Wilde, I prefer to be called Mr President.’
11
‘I can think of plenty of other things to call you,’ said Nina, struggling to hide her shock. While in the White House, Dalton had collaborated with religious extremists to try to kill her and Eddie to suppress their discovery of the Garden of Eden. He had then been forced to resign after Eddie leaked online a graphic video of his affair with the woman who had plotted the nuclear attack on New York, only to resurface seeking revenge on both the couple and a cabal of the world’s wealthiest people, whom he considered to have betrayed and abandoned him.
The last she had seen of him was on television, being arrested by the FBI. ‘So you didn’t end up in a supermax prison? Damn.’
‘People like me don’t go to prison,’ Dalton replied, his smile becoming caustic around the edges. ‘You can’t jail the President of the United States, even a former holder of the office. It would be a national embarrassment.’
‘You were a national embarrassment!’
Any trace of good humour vanished. ‘I was a better president than the idiot who replaced me. But in America, anyone can be rehabilitated — and actually, I have you to thank for giving me my chance.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know what you and your psycho husband did, but the Group went chasing after you into Ethiopia… and never came back. You did, though, so I assume you killed them.’ She didn’t reply, not wanting to give him any leverage against her. ‘Hey, no need to be coy — I’m happy about it! Those bastards set me up, but after they disappeared, nobody at Justice had the balls to push the charges. So everything was quietly dropped.’
‘Everyone still remembers that you were busted for security violations, though.’
He shrugged. ‘The American public has a really short memory. There’s always some rock star doing drugs or an actor making an ass of himself to distract them. Once the media stops pushing a story, it becomes a footnote.’
Nina smiled a little. ‘Like your political career.’
‘It’s not over yet!’ he snapped. ‘That’s why I’m here. I knew Mr Cross’ — a brief look at the robed man — ‘from my time on the Senate Intelligence Committee; our paths had crossed, no pun intended. And I knew he shared my views about the state of America, and the state of the world.’ His tone became more oratorical. ‘I’ve joined with him to continue what I started in office… and soon, I’ll regain that office. I was hounded out of the White House as a philanderer. But I’ll be voted back into it as a saviour.’
Nina treated him to slow, sarcastic applause. ‘Nice stump speech. Who’s it aimed at — adulterers and snake-handlers?’
‘It’s aimed at everyone, Dr Wilde,’ Dalton said, with a flash of anger. ‘Everyone in America. And they will all support me.’ He moved to examine the statue, brushing past her. ‘So this is it?’
‘That’s it,’ Cross told him. ‘One of the angels of Revelation. The clues to finding it were in the Apocalypse of John all along, but it took me to crack the code.’
‘And me to find the statue for you,’ Nina said, cutting.
‘For which we’re both very grateful,’ said Dalton, politician’s smarm back at full intensity. ‘But the angels will let me finish what I started in office. Once they’re… used’ — he glanced at Cross again, as if to check that he wasn’t giving away some secret — ‘religious conflict around the world will reach new highs. All those jihadist groups, all those terrorists, they’ll be targeting America like never before — and that will create the unstoppable desire at home to unify behind a single banner. One religion: our religion. This won’t be some fake populism backed by billionaires who want tax cuts and the EPA disbanded. This will be real, and you’ll either be with it, or against it.’
‘Sounds like my idea of hell,’ she said with distaste.
‘Then get out.’ There was a sudden vehemence to his words. ‘You don’t like America? Leave. We don’t need you, or want you.’
‘I guess you don’t need or want the Constitution or the Bill of Rights either. The First Amendment ring any bells?’
‘We’ll be taking them back to their true intent. The next election isn’t far off, and by then, the world will be in chaos. America will be crying out for strong leadership, and that’s what I’ll give them. I’ll be standing as an independent against that jackass Leo Cole, and whoever the other side puts up against him — and I’ll win. Once I’m back in power, I’ll secure the homeland, and kick out anyone who’s a threat to it. Including your friends at the UN,’ he added. ‘America shouldn’t kowtow to anyone else’s laws. We make the laws. And enforce them.’
Nina could hardly contain her disbelief at his new-found megalomania. ‘America has treaties with the United Nations — are you just going to ignore them?’
‘The United Nations!’ Both turned at Cross’s outburst. ‘The most corrupt and evil organisation in history. It shouldn’t be kicked out of America, it should be destroyed!’ He gazed reverently at the angel, then stepped away and spread his arms to make a proclamation. ‘The kings of the world will witness God’s judgement soon enough. Babylon will fall. And then the kingdom of God will be founded here on earth!’
Both the Fishers and Norvin watched their Prophet, enraptured, while Dalton, clearly surprised, could only stare. But Nina was looking not at Cross, rather at the statue, exposed and unattended just a few feet away.
Her chance—
She shoved the startled Dalton aside and snatched up the figure. The others all whirled, Simeon drawing his gun, but she had already raised the statue above her head. ‘Back off or I’ll smash it!’ she cried.
They froze — but from the fear on Dalton’s face and Anna’s expression of horror, they were scared of something more than the destruction of a religious artefact. ‘I mean it,’ Nina continued, trying to cover her anxiety.
‘Don’t!’ said Dalton, holding up both hands. ‘That would be a — a very bad idea. For all of us.’
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Is it dangerous?’
‘Yes. It’s dangerous,’ said Cross. He indicated the glass case. ‘I keep that piece of the first angel in there for a reason. It shouldn’t pose a threat, not any more, but I’m not willing to take chances.’
‘What kind of threat?’
He gestured at the artefact above her head. ‘Will you put it down?’
‘Nope,’ she said defiantly. ‘If anyone tries anything…’
‘If you break open the angel,’ said Cross, ‘we’ll all die. Not just us in this room, but everyone in the Mission. Please. Put it down.’
Nina looked up at the statue. It didn’t appear deadly, but it was unusually heavy for its size. ‘Is there something inside it? Is that what you’re all so scared of?’
Cross nodded. ‘You remember I told you the Umm al Binni lake was a meteor crater? The meteorite that hit there wasn’t just a rock. There was something more to it — something deadly. “And I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth.” Revelation chapter nine, verse one. The pit was the impact crater, and I saw the smoke myself, in Iraq. When the first angel was broken.’