"AND BEHOLD, A PALE HORSE. AND THE NAME OF HIM WHO SAT ON IT WAS DEATH, AND HADES FOLLOWED WITH HIM. AND POWER WAS GIVEN TO THEM OVER A FOURTH OF THE EARTH TO KILL WITH SWORD, WITH HUNGER, WITH DEATH, AND WITH THE BEASTS OF THE EARTH."
"Go away, crazy man," one of the guards shouted, but he was distracted when his comrade tugged on his elbow and nodded to a man who was walking toward them. Their job was to watch for sudden increases in interest from people watching the theater or police activity. They'd grown more nervous as people filtered toward Times Square, but most of the celebrators had skirted the construction zone cones and yellow tape in front of the theater by crossing to the other side of the street. The stranger ducked under the tape, nodded to them conspiratorially, and hurried up the steps and into the theater.
"Must be a brother from the Philippines," one of the men said to the other. "An ugly people, if you ask me."
"Maybe. I saw some who looked like him when I was fighting for the jihad in Chechnya," the second man replied. "But he looks like a fighter, so I'm glad to have him on our side. Can you see if he made it past Ahmad?"
"He's giving him the password now."
Inside the theater's front door, Ahmad, the same large Yemeni who'd confronted the twins, stepped in front of John Jojola. "A salaam alaikum," he said.
"Wa alaikum salaam," Jojola replied.
The big man relaxed. "Why are you so late?" he asked.
"I'm supposed to report on the crowds," Jojola said, nodding in the general direction of Times Square.
"Well, you better hurry; they're almost finished with our little surprise for the infidels."
Jojola hurried in, glancing at his watch. He had three minutes to find the surveillance equipment. He saw a door marked Employees Only and, on a hunch, opened it and went up the stairs. Sitting at a monitor in what would otherwise have been the theater's technical booth were two sleepy Middle Eastern men.
"A salaam alaikum," he said.
"Wa alaikum salaam," they replied. "What are you doing here? You should be in the tunnel. There're only three hours left."
"Charlie Many Horses sent me with a message," Jojola said.
"Charlie who? What message?"
"Charlie said to say, 'Fuck you, you scumbag,'" Jojola snarled, drawing his knife from its sheath and lashing out with a foot that caught one of the men in the throat, propelling him into a wall.
The second man reacted by reaching for the radio headset he'd removed after Jojola got past Ahmad. But Jojola pinned his hand to the table with the knife. The man's scream was cut short by the bullet Jojola put in his temple with the small.380 handgun with silencer he'd secreted in a boot.
Jojola turned to the other man, who sat with his back against the wall, trying to breathe through a crushed larynx. "Happy New Year," Jojola said, pumping two rounds into his skull. He then whipped out the radio headset from his pants pocket, flipped the switch, and said, "Let's go."
Outside, a woman accompanied by a large dog came jogging down the sidewalk toward the two men out front. "Go around," they shouted and waved.
"I don't want my dog to get hit by a car," Marlene shouted back, ignoring the fact that there were no cars on the street.
The two men looked at each other and shrugged, stepping back to allow the dog and woman to pass. "Nice doggy," one said just as the woman made a movement with her hands. The next thing the man knew, the nice doggy had him by the throat. But there was hardly time for him to be frightened as with a shake of his head, the dog tore his throat out.
The second man backed away in horror but there was little to do but scream once before the dog was on him. Gilgamesh's powerful jaws smashed through the arm the man had thrown up to protect himself, then bore in at the man's neck. With a crunch, the man's neck snapped.
Marlene looked up the steps just as a large black man emerged from the doors drawing a gun. "Help me," she cried. "My dog's gone crazy."
"Stand back," the man yelled, waving her out of his line of fire at the ferocious beast that was killing his comrades. Then a surprised look came over the man's face and his gun clattered to the ground; he groped once at the hunting knife that protruded from his back and then collapsed.
Jojola appeared and wrenched his knife from the dying man and dragged the body inside. At the same moment, the white van pulled up in front of the theater and the rest of the team jumped out and hurried up the stairs, carrying several suitcases, except for the two Vietnamese "police officers" who quickly hauled the bodies of the two guards into the van.
"Nice doggy," one of them said to Gilgamesh, who wagged his tail as blood dripped from his jowls. There was a sharp whistle and the dog turned and ran up the stairs, following his mistress and the others into the theater.
The two faux police officers set up traffic cones around the front of the theater and van, which they then festooned with crime scene tape.
The two officers then sprinted into the building.
The group made their way into the basement, Tran's sappers easily taking out two guards at the entrance to a hole that had been dug in the foundation and led into an older sewer line. Electric lights had been strung along the main route, past side tunnels and holes in the walls where the brickwork had collapsed. Jojola noted tracks from many men as well as motorized vehicles. "Carrying something heavy," he said, "probably how they brought the barrels into the tunnel."
The electric lights ran out at a particular large hole in the sewer line but the tracks led through it into a large, dark cavern. The team put on their night-vision goggles and proceeded through with Tran's men, Jojola, and Gilgamesh on point.
The team had stopped to discuss their next move when Gilgamesh began growling at the dark space in front of them, and then at places on each side. Where there had been no one, suddenly the goggles' infrared sensors began picking up figures moving in the shadows.
"We're surrounded," Marlene said. The team formed a circle, guns bristling and pointed at the people moving in the dark.
"There must be a hundred of them," Ned whispered. "Do we shoot?"
"No," Lucy said. "I think we've found who we're looking for…or he found us."
The figures closed in around them and now the team could pick out individual faces-strange, emaciated, hollow-eyed faces, many disfigured or covered by sores-and made more ghastly by the green imaging of the goggles. They wore an assortment of clothing that appeared to have been scavenged from Dumpsters as well as more primitive robes and sack cloths. They carried weapons although these, too, were makeshift-a few guns, spears, knives, and even clubs.
Two of them, both wearing hooded robes that covered their faces, stepped forward. "So we meet one last time at the end of all things," the taller of the two said and threw back his hood.
"David," Lucy cried.
"Hello, Lucy." He smiled but only briefly before his face grew grave again. "You shouldn't have come, unless it is your wish to die here with us."
"We might die, but first we have to stop these evil people from setting off that bomb," Lucy replied.
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," Grale said. "I…we've decided that this is the will of God. Jesus's kingdom on Earth cannot be established until the last battle and this will be the beginning of it."
"How can you say that when it means tens of thousands of people will die?" Lucy asked. "Innocent people, David. What happened to the good man who used to work in the Catholic soup kitchens and championed the poor?"
"Every man has to follow the path God has set for him," Grale replied. "I am just an instrument of the Lord. I have hunted the demons in the depths below the Sodom of our times, but they are gathering in ever greater numbers. This explosion will also destroy them. I know it may be hard to understand, dear Lucy, but what is it if thousands die but the world and mankind are saved?"