‘Yeah, I should have guessed,’ was Nina’s sullen reply. ‘A control freak like you wouldn’t stop at watching people in the bathroom.’
‘So what do we do with her?’ demanded Simeon.
‘She should be punished,’ added Anna. Norvin, the skin around his eyes a blotchy red, nodded in agreement.
Dalton, sitting in the front row of pews, spoke up. ‘As much as I’d like to see her suffer, we need her. Even if we get the angel from her thug of a husband, she still has to find the last one.’
Anna gave him a cold look. ‘If you hadn’t insisted on getting revenge on them, we could have paid another archaeologist. Chase being at the museum in Berlin proves that someone else could have worked it out.’
The ex-president glowered at her, displeased that anyone would challenge him, but was interrupted by Nina before he could reply. ‘The Altar of Zeus was the easiest to connect to what John wrote in Revelation,’ she said. ‘Finding the one in the catacombs in Rome was much harder — and there was a hell of a lot of luck involved as well.’
Simeon’s unfriendly gaze turned upon her. ‘I knew she was sandbagging us. If she’d told us about Berlin first, we would have gotten the angel without our entire team being wiped out!’
‘You think the statue in Berlin would have been sitting on a desk waiting for you if Eddie hadn’t gone there?’ she countered. ‘Someone with a great deal of knowledge of the altar found it for him, and you don’t get that by waving guns around.’
Cross raised a hand to silence the argument. ‘Her husband’s on the way with the angel now.’
‘You’re sure?’ asked Dalton.
‘I checked with a contact of mine at Langley. He left Berlin on a United Nations flight this morning; it lands at VC Bird this afternoon.’ He looked to his right-hand man. ‘We’ll be there to meet him — with backup.’
‘If you hurt him, I’ll never cooperate with you,’ said Nina.
‘That’s up to him,’ Cross replied. ‘But I get the feeling Mr Chase isn’t the type to give up without a fight.’
‘You’re goddamn right about that,’ muttered Dalton.
‘If he fights us, he dies,’ Simeon said flatly.
Again Cross waved for silence. ‘I’m not worried about the third angel. It’s the fourth one that concerns me — the one hidden in the Place in the Wilderness. We need to find it, soon.’
‘Why?’ Nina demanded. ‘Are you on a timetable?’
He gave her a patronising shake of the head. ‘You’ve read Revelation, but you haven’t taken it in. So many things in it happen according to a schedule set by God.’
‘Yeah, I remember.’ She indicated the Fishers. ‘How long have your Witnesses been prophesying? They only get one thousand, two hundred and sixty days of walking around in sackcloth before people get fed up of their yammering and kill them.’
‘And then they are reborn.’ Cross lifted his head, looking up not at the ceiling but at the heavens beyond. ‘After that… the seventh angel shall sound.’
Nina could only respond with sarcasm. ‘And God lets you in on all his secrets.’ She turned to Dalton. ‘And you get cheered back into the White House, and Charlie Brown finally kicks that football. I know which I think’s most likely to happen. Hint: it involves a cartoon kid with a big head.’
‘There’s something else you know, isn’t there, Dr Wilde?’ said Cross. The change in his tone made her suddenly uneasy; he sounded extremely confident. ‘The location of the last angel.’ His pale eyes fixed on to hers, as if drilling into her soul for the truth.
‘There’s nothing to find,’ she replied, trying to conceal her nervousness. ‘Even if you’re right about it being in the Place in the Wilderness — which you might well be, considering you’re two for two so far — the clues are too vague to pin down. You could be looking at practically anywhere in the Middle East, from Egypt all the way over to Iraq.’
‘But your research suggests that you’ve narrowed it down to the route of the Exodus.’
Nina felt even more unsettled. Everything about Cross’s attitude implied that he somehow knew about her own personal revelation before the escape attempt. But that was impossible. Her notes, her internet usage, even the pages of the reference books she had checked — none could have given it away. ‘That was just a possibility, and it’s not as if I’m the only person to have thought of it.’
Cross stared down at the redhead for a moment, then descended from the pulpit to stand in front of her. ‘Then explain why, at ten thirteen this morning, you had a sudden surge of adrenalin.’
She looked back in confusion. ‘I… what?’
‘Those aren’t just video cameras in your house. We monitor your heartbeat, respiration, temperature, perspiration, even involuntary eye response, all remotely. It’s the same gear the CIA uses. I can track every tiny physical fluctuation of your body and know what you’re feeling even before you’re consciously aware of it.’ An unpleasant smile, then he took a single step closer. Nina tried to back away, but Norvin moved to block her. ‘Now. The response you had was exactly consistent with that of somebody who’s just made a great discovery… and then immediately tried to hide it.’
‘The CIA’s been doing this for a long time,’ Dalton chipped in. ‘They really can tell what you’re thinking.’
‘It’s not mind-reading,’ continued Cross, ‘not yet. But it’s the next best thing. So, what did you find?’
‘I didn’t find anything,’ Nina insisted.
He loomed closer, their faces just a few inches apart, then abruptly drew away to walk across the church. ‘My mission in life has always been about seeking the truth, Dr Wilde. The truth of individuals, of nations, of God. So I find it almost personally offensive when someone tries to keep that truth from me. Don’t insult me by trying to deny it,’ he snapped as she opened her mouth to do just that. ‘Even if you don’t know exactly where the angel is, you know which area to search.’ He turned to face her. ‘And now you’re going to tell me.’
‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know.’
He came back towards her, eyes narrowing to threatening slits. ‘But you do know. So I’m going to give you a very simple choice. Either you tell me…’ His right hand slipped inside his robes — and drew a slim steel dagger. ‘Or I’ll kill your baby.’
The room closed in around Nina as he held up the knife. She looked to the others, but found no support. Only Dalton was anything other than stone-faced, the former president clearly shocked. ‘You — you wouldn’t,’ she gasped.
‘I will if I have to,’ he told her, advancing slowly. She tried to flee, but Norvin grabbed her. ‘I don’t want to. I consider the murder of the unborn a sin against the Lord. But the mission God has given me is more important than one innocent life. I’ll make it quick and painless for the child. One stab will do it. You won’t need more than minor treatment to survive.’
‘You’re insane!’ Nina cried, desperately trying to pull free of Norvin’s hold. ‘You’re out of your fucking mind! Dalton — Mr President!’ she wailed. ‘You can’t possibly agree with this!’
Dalton stared back, for once at a loss for words. ‘I — this shouldn’t, but…’ he stammered, before jumping to his feet. ‘For God’s sake, Nina! Tell him!’
Cross stopped in front of her. He lowered the dagger towards her belly—
‘All right!’ she screamed. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you! Just don’t hurt my baby, please!’