… standing on a hill looking to the east for new stars in old friends, as those like us have done since the beginning of time.
What the hell did that mean? It wasn’t enough to go on. He didn’t have time to look up every old observatory in the world and then go and check them out on the off chance that Kinderman might be there when all he really wanted to do was get on a plane and fly to southern Turkey.
He froze as a thought struck him.
He clicked on the ghost icon and scrolled quickly through the document looking for the second lot of CARBON results. There they were:
GOBEKLI TEPE
HOME
There was a link next to the first one and he clicked it open to remind himself of what it said.
Göbekli Tepe Turkish: [
][2] (‘Potbelly’ or ‘Home Hill’ [3]) is a Neolithic (Stone Age) hilltop sanctuary erected at the top of a mountain ridge in the southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey. It is the oldest known wholly human-made religious structure and also the oldest observatory, believed to have been constructed by the proto-religious tribe known as the Mala [4] c. 11,000 years ago — predating its more famous British counterpart Stonehenge by around 8,000 years.
He clicked back to the map still open from earlier and typed Gobekli Tepe into the get directions field.
The map widened a little and marked a route there from Gaziantep. It was just over an hour’s drive east. Ruin was a half hour’s drive northwest. Shepherd closed the laptop and started the engine, his mind made up and his destination set. He could decide which way to go when he got there.
86
The phone buzzed.
The Novus Sancti rose from his chair and quickly walked out of the building, answering it as he passed through a door and into the chill of the day.
“Yes?”
“Archangel is dead.”
Miss Boerman’s voice sounded tense and stretched thin. Behind her he could hear the clamor of people.
“Where are you?”
“At the police station. They gave me my phone call so I called you.”
The Sanctus nodded, his mind working through the ramifications of this news, moving the various pieces in play around in his head as if he was resetting a chessboard. “Archangel has served the Lord well, and so have you. Say nothing and the Lord will provide for you, both in spirit and of course in the more earthly matter of legal counsel.”
He hung up, uncomfortable about talking on an open line coming from inside a police station. He powered the phone down, prised the back off, removed the SIM card then crushed it under his boot.
Back inside the building he settled behind his desk, his face lit by the glow of a computer screen. He tapped a code to unlock it and an e-mail program opened up. It was an online account operating behind a daisy chain of virtual networks, so anything sent to or from it was totally untraceable. He reread the message he had been composing, his lips moving slightly, as if uttering a silent prayer:
This is a warning.
Attached to this message is a countdown clock, discovered in the files of Dr. Kinderman and Professor Douglas, two eminent astronomers who have gone missing.
The world knows something is coming. The armies are refusing to fight, snow falls in deserts and we are all feeling the spirit of God moving through us, sending us back to our homes so we might be ready for His arrival.
Judgment Day is upon us. You still have time but this countdown shows that time is measured in days not weeks. Show Him we still have faith and be ready for what is coming.
Repent and return to God while you still have time.
A friend
Novus Sancti
He checked the addresses against a list he had spent months compiling. It contained direct contacts for every major news outlet across the globe as well as the press offices of most major Western governments. He rechecked the various attachments: the countdown application found on Douglas’s laptop; copies of the latest FBI and police reports regarding the events at Goddard and Marshall so they would take the message seriously. When he was satisfied everything was in order he typed three words into the subject line:
REVELATION OR DEVASTATION?
Then pressed send and watched his message fly.
87
Liv came to with a start. The citrus smell was stronger now and mixed with something acrid and dry that burned the back of her throat. Someone was standing over her, holding a bottle under her nose and she turned, raising her hand at the same time to bat it away.
“Hey, take it easy. You’re okay. It’s just smelling salts.”
She blinked and looked back into the gentle eyes of the Italian doctor.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You passed out.”
Liv tried to get up but he laid a hand on her shoulder and firmly eased her back down. “You should stay here for a while, get some rest. I’ve put you on a saline drip to get some fluids into you and there’s some Perfalgan in there too to get your temperature down: you were up at 104 degrees — not good. I also took the liberty of stealing a little blood.” He pointed at a small Band-Aid in the crook of her arm.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Giorgio Giambanco — hell of a mouthful, no? You can call me George if you like. What’s yours?”
“Liv — Adamsen,” she added, defaulting to formality in the face of a medical professional.
“Okay, Miss Adamsen, talk me through your fainting episode, was it sudden or did it come on gradually?”
“It was the heat I think. I started to feel feverish so I headed inside.”
He tilted her head up, checking the glands in her neck with his fingertips. “Any nausea?”
“Yes, a little, and the ground felt like it was moving. I started getting tunnel vision. There was a smell too, like lemons.”
He frowned, checking her blood-pressure readings from a cuff. “When did you notice the smell?”
“When I was still outside, though it was stronger inside the building. In fact I can still smell it.”
He was about to respond when one of the new people stepped into the room and placed a small tray on the countertop. It contained two small vials filled with blood and a piece of paper with various results written on it by hand. The new doctor shot her a smile that was hard to read then was gone. George ripped the Velcro of the pressure cuff from her arm. “Sounds like heat exhaustion,” he said, turning to the blood results and picking up the piece of paper. “You need to rehydrate and take it easy. No more demolition work in the midday sun for you.” He studied the results and frowned. “You said you experienced nausea?” He looked up at her in a way that made her feel vaguely nervous.
“Yes.”
“Have you vomited at all?”
She shook her head.
“And you said you smelled the lemons while you were still outside the building.”
“Yes, I can still smell them.”