He had spent the long flight poring over the latest FBI reports, leaked to him as soon as they were updated. They didn’t tell him much he didn’t already know but the appearance of the Hubble images on the mala.org Web site had. They made him realize that it was too late now to make an example of Dr. Kinderman. There was something happening out in the desert, something momentous that was tied in to the myths and beliefs of the old enemy, the Mala.
He had studied their legends and beliefs until he knew all their heresies. He was aware of the prophecy they clung to, predicting their return to power. It had always seemed fanciful to him before, but not anymore, not now that the established Church had been so discredited and the holy bastion at Ruin had fallen. They were preparing for their new beginning out in the desert, in their new Eden — the end of days. But the days of the true Church were not over yet, not while faithful servants of the true God like himself, and all the others like him, were ready to take up the sword.
The taxi pulled up in the middle of the street and he told the driver to wait. He would not be long and he had a helicopter to catch that would fly him into Iraq for the final part of his journey. He pressed one of the bells at the side of the door and waited. It was even hotter on the street and the cuts on his skin had become distinctly uncomfortable. But it would not be long before all earthly concerns were behind him and he would take his place with the martyrs at God’s right hand. He had spent his life gazing up into heaven and imagining what it would be like, and soon he would be there.
A lock sounded inside the door and it opened wide enough for a round, moonlike face to look out. Restless, bloodshot eyes surveyed the street for a few seconds then the door opened a little wider to let the Sanctus pass.
108
Liv’s water broke an hour after dusk.
She was walking by the edge of the central pool, trying to cool down a little after the heat of the day, when she felt a small pop followed by an incredible, breath-snatching pain. Liquid gushed down her thighs as she crumpled to the ground, ending up on all fours, trying to breathe and calling out for help between breaths.
People came running and she was helped up and toward the main building.
“No,” she said, feeling a sudden panic as the yawning door approached. “I don’t want to be inside. I want to stay out here.”
Dr. Giambanco appeared. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get you lying down and take a look at you.”
“I don’t want to lie down.”
“I need to examine you.”
“Then bring a bed outside — it’s cooler out here.”
Panic continued to flutter madly in her chest. She couldn’t bear the idea of being confined, not now. There was a sail strung up for shade over a table on the beach area by the pool. “I want to go there,” she said, walking stiffly toward it. She had a sudden flashback to a natural birth she’d once witnessed a lifetime ago when she was writing a story. Her panic rose a few notches higher as she recalled the screaming agony of it all.
I’m going to be fine—she said to herself—women have been giving birth forever. It’s just pain — and you get a baby at the end of it.
She reached the table and lowered herself onto one of the benches, gritting her teeth against the pain that shot up her back. It hurt so much already and yet it had only just started. She couldn’t imagine how it could possibly get any worse and the thought that it would frightened her.
“Better to walk around,” said a small voice at her side. She turned, and saw the little girl who had arrived that afternoon. “It helps the baby come and stops your back from hurting so much.”
Liv stared at her as if she was a small angel sent to look after her. “How did you know the baby was coming?”
Hevva shrugged. “I’ve seen a lot of babies being born.”
“Her mother was a midwife.” Liv looked up and saw the man the girl had arrived with.
“Do you mind if she stays nearby?” she asked him, smiling down at the girl. “Can you stay? I’m a bit scared and I think you might make me brave.”
The girl nodded, looking up at her father for approval.
“If you want,” the man said. “I’ll stay close by — in case you need me.”
More people arrived carrying a mattress and sheets taken from one of the dorms inside the building. All around there was a hum of activity as stakes were found and driven in the ground to hold up privacy screens while others brought battery-powered lights on stands and set them up. They laid the mattress on the table and the doctor took Liv’s arm. “Let’s get you up here and take a look at you,” he said. But Liv didn’t hear him as sudden pain exploded inside her, blotting everything else out.
109
Shepherd walked away feeling anxious.
After what had happened at Göbekli Tepe he didn’t like letting Hevva out of his sight. They had only just arrived here; everybody had been very kind and welcoming, but even so. He stopped by the water’s edge, close enough for comfort but far enough so that the hiss of the fountain drowned out some of the noise coming from the makeshift maternity ward.
The stars were out already, millions of points of light speckling the night. He turned to face east where Taurus was rising and saw the new star shining between Zeta Tauri and Nath. He’d missed it the night before because he’d been sleeping like a dead man in the back of a moving car. It was odd seeing a new thing in something so familiar.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Kinderman joined him, his eyes tilted up to the same patch of sky. “I thought you were asleep,” Shepherd said.
“After all those caffeine pills, chance would be a fine thing. Besides, I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
Shepherd looked back up at the bright new speck in the sky. “Miss what — what did Hubble see exactly?”
“What do you think it saw?”
“I don’t know. A dark star maybe?”
“Now wouldn’t that be something! Interesting that you naturally assume it has to be something destructive.”
“It’s not an assumption, it’s based on the evidence of what I’ve seen. And you did write ‘end of days’ in your diary.”
“Ah yes, so I did. You’re being very literal though, don’t you think? You’re ignoring the universal law that tells us energy never dies, it just turns into something else. Therefore, the end of one thing must also be the beginning of another. In point of fact you already know what Hubble saw, because you have seen it for yourself.” Shepherd thought back through all the things he had come across since the investigation had begun but nothing came to mind that might answer his question. “You might want to start with the one thing you are sure is connected to the question,” Kinderman prompted, ever the teacher.
“The countdown?”
“Exactly. Now in order to answer your own question you need to take a tip from Marcus Aurelius and ask, ‘What is it of itself?’—and don’t fall into your usual trap of making assumptions.”
Shepherd thought hard. What was a countdown? It was a steadily reducing measure of time, a prelude to something, like the start of a race or the launch of a rocket. Or was it? Kinderman’s question seemed to suggest it wasn’t the prelude to anything at all — it was actually the thing itself.
“The countdown is what Hubble saw.”
“Bravo, Agent Shepherd.”
Shepherd reached into his pocket, looking for his phone but his hand found something else. He pulled out the small, hard object — the woman’s small gun.