Another gasp, this time of relief. ‘That was a hell of a shot.’
‘I was a championship hunter before I joined the Marines. I hit what I aim at.’
‘Good to know. Your suit’s holding?’
‘So far.’
‘Whatever this stuff is, MOPP-1 can resist it.’ He carefully moved in the direction of the other man’s voice until his fingertips made contact with Cross’s suit. ‘I guess we’ve got our smoking gun. Saddam has got chemical weapons, and is willing to use them. We have to call this in.’ He reached for his radio before remembering that it had been attached to his discarded webbing.
‘I don’t think this was anything to do with Saddam,’ said Cross thoughtfully.
‘What do you mean? You saw it — one of that ’copter’s rockets blew up and released it.’
‘No, it blew up, but the gas came from something else.’ Cross suddenly gripped his wrist. ‘It came from the angel! We’ve got to find it.’
‘If it got hit by a rocket, there won’t be anything left bigger than your pinky,’ Rosemont pointed out. He made out the other man’s shape as visibility started to return. ‘Help me find the radio.’
‘This is more important. Don’t you see? Revelation chapter nine, verse two — “And there arose a smoke out of the pit—”’
‘I don’t give a damn what the Book of Revelations says!’ Rosemont barked. ‘This isn’t Sunday school; this is a Special Activities Division operation. You’re an agent, not a preacher; now shut the hell up and carry out the mission!’
Cross regarded him for a moment, his face unreadable behind the mask, then he turned away. ‘Don’t you walk away from — son of a bitch!’ Rosemont yelled after him. ‘You’re finished, you hear me?’
Cross ignored Rosemont’s angry shouts as he jogged back towards the ruins. The wind had shifted, wafting the yellow mass off the shore and out over the lake. The fires from the crashed helicopter and the burning reed beds cast a hellish glow across the landscape.
Appropriate, he thought. From the moment he first saw the angel inside the temple, he was absolutely sure, more than he had ever been about anything, that he knew what he had found — and what it meant.
But there had been only one angel. According to the Book of Revelation, there were three more. So where were they?
He approached the spot where the broken pillar had stood. The only thing there now was a rubble-strewn crater.
From which the gas was still rising.
He reached the edge of the gouge in the earth. A shallow pool of dark water was at the bottom. Amongst the debris around it, his light picked out a shape that was clearly not natural. Part of the statue. One of its wings was still attached, but the embossed metal that had been wrapped around the angel’s body was now twisted and torn where the figure had been smashed by the explosion, exposing a darker core hidden inside.
The strange gas was belching from this black stone. The wind was enough to blow it clear, though he resisted the temptation to remove his mask for a better look. The sight put him in mind of a smoke grenade, but…
‘Where’s it all coming from?’ he whispered. Smoke grenades contained enough chemicals to produce a screen for ninety seconds at most, but this was pumping out a colossal volume, and showed no signs of stopping.
He stepped down cautiously into the pit. A sound became audible even through his hood’s charcoal-impregnated lining, a sizzling like fatty bacon on a grill. The dark material at the statue’s heart almost appeared to be boiling, blistering with countless tiny bubbles, each releasing more gas as it burst.
Another wisp of the gas to one side caught his eye. A chunk of the broken statue, smaller than his little finger, had landed at the very edge of the pool. He crouched to examine it. There was a sliver of the dark material embedded in the cracked ceramic shell, partially beneath the water’s surface. The exposed section was burning away just like its larger counterpart, consuming itself in some reaction with the air. As he watched, the top of the splinter spat and bubbled to nothingness… and the thin line of yellow smoke died away.
Intrigued, Cross gently lifted the fragment from the water. It was warm, even through his glove. After a moment, the strange substance fizzed and puffed a new strand of yellow fumes into the wind. He dipped it back into the puddle. The reaction stopped.
A light swept over him. ‘Cross!’ called Rosemont from the crater’s lip. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I found the angel,’ Cross replied, climbing out to meet him and indicating the larger hunk of the statue. ‘That’s where the smoke’s coming from. It wasn’t a chemical weapon; it was here all along, hidden in the temple. Waiting for us to find it. Waiting for me to find it.’
Rosemont shone his flashlight over the broken figure. It was still belching out its seemingly endless plume of oily yellow gas. ‘Damn. What the hell is that?’
‘It’s a messenger from God. Look.’ Cross illuminated the little pool. The dark water was revealed as a bloody red, the discoloration spreading outwards from the fragment like ink across damp paper. ‘“And the third part of the sea became blood…”’
The lead agent snapped his light at Cross’s face. ‘I don’t want to hear one more goddamn Bible quote out of you, okay? This whole situation has gotten way out of control.’
‘I know what we have to do. We have to take the angel out of here.’
‘Are you out of your mind?’ Rosemont protested. ‘It killed Gabe, it killed Kerim and all his men! We’re not taking it anywhere.’
‘Putting it in water stops the smoke. If we find a container, we can transport it—’
‘Water, huh?’ Rosemont jumped into the crater. Before Cross could intervene, he had hauled the remains of the angel from the ground. The toxic gas swirled around him as he stomped back out of the pit, heading to the lake’s edge.
‘What are you doing?’ Cross demanded as he followed.
‘Making this safe.’ He drew back his arm — and hurled the statue out into the water.
‘No!’ yelled Cross, but it was too late. The broken figure spun through the air, a poisonous vortex spiralling in its wake, before it splashed down some sixty feet from the shoreline. Both men stared at the water until the ripples subsided.
Rosemont turned back to Cross. ‘Right. Now we radio in and—’
He froze. Cross had raised his gun and was pointing it at his chest. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said the Virginian in a voice that, while level, was straining with anger. ‘You’ve just interfered with God’s plan.’
‘God’s plan?’ said Rosemont, trying to control his fear. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘The Day of Judgement. It’s coming. The first angel bound at the Euphrates has been released. The seals will be broken, the seven trumpets will sound, and…’ He paused, new realisation filling him with greedy wonder. ‘And the mystery of God should be finished…’
Rosemont shook his head. ‘You’re crazy. Lower your weapon, right now, or—’
Cross pulled the trigger.
A single bullet ripped through Rosemont’s heart and exploded out from his back. Eyes wide in shock behind his mask, he crumpled to the ground.
Cross stared at the dead man, his face unreadable, then bent to take his radio. He set it to an emergency frequency. ‘Wintergreen, Wintergreen, this is Maven,’ he said, using the operation’s code names. ‘Wintergreen, this is Maven. Come in.’
A female voice responded. ‘This is Wintergreen. We read you, Maven. Sitrep.’
‘Mission failure, I repeat, mission failure. We were ambushed — the Iraqis had a gunship on patrol. Rosemont and Arnold are dead. So are our contacts.’