The Revelation Code (Wilde/Chase 11) (17 page)

‘The style really doesn’t match any other part of the Gigantomachy,’ Rothschild reluctantly reminded Derrick.

The German scowled, but finally nodded. ‘Okay. I will use the ultrasound. But we will not damage it unless we are sure this angel is there. Agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ said Eddie, nodding. He released his hold.

Derrick reclaimed the block with relief. He returned it to the box, then opened a cabinet and took out a piece of equipment. ‘Now, this will take a few minutes to set up. But we will soon see what is inside.’

Outside, the rain continued to fall, spraying off a tram as it rumbled past the museum. Night had arrived, the darkness deepened by the thick clouds. A guard looked through the lobby’s glass doors, glad he did not have to go out into the deluge.

He was not, he mused, even supposed to be on duty tonight. But there had been some sort of security scare, extra staff called in to keep watch. Being summoned on very short notice was inconvenient, but the overtime pay would make up for it.

The guard was about to continue his rounds when something drew his attention. The parking spaces immediately in front of the museum were reserved for buses, but whoever was driving the black van that had just arrived in a hurry clearly didn’t care about such restrictions. The driver and passenger emerged, as did another four men from the vehicle’s rear.

All wore peaked uniform caps, glimpses of dark clothing visible under rain capes. One was carrying what looked like a small suitcase. ‘Hey, I think the cops are here,’ the guard called to a colleague stationed at the front desk.

The older man looked up from his Sudoku puzzle. ‘What do they want?’

‘Don’t know.’ The six figures made their way across the bridge. ‘Must be something to do with this security alert.’

The second guard huffed, then joined his comrade as the new arrivals reached the door. The lead cop, face hidden in shadow beneath his hat’s dripping visor, rapped sharply on the glass. ‘Police!’ he barked.

‘What’s going on?’ asked the first guard.

‘Police!’ He gestured for the door to be opened.

The pair swapped looks, then the older guard unlocked the doors. ‘Come in, then,’ he said sarcastically as the cops bundled into the lobby, shaking off water. ‘What do you want?’

The lead cop threw back his rain cape – revealing a compact MP7 sub-machine gun, a bulky suppressor attached to its barrel. ‘Sorry, I don’t speak German,’ said Trant as he fired.

The guard fell backwards, blood spouting from three tightly spaced bullet wounds in his chest. His companion fumbled for his holstered handgun, but another man had already brought up his own MP7. A second trio of rounds tore into the younger guard’s ribcage.

Trant gave both bodies a brief glance to confirm that they were dead, then marched across the lobby. ‘There’ll be more guards. Spread out and find them.’ He tossed away his cap, then donned the camera headset he had worn in Rome. ‘We’re in,’ he announced.

‘Good,’ said Cross through the earpiece. ‘Secure the building, then find the angel.’

Eddie watched as an image formed on the monitor. ‘God, I thought it was hard to work out what I was looking at on
Nina’s
ultrasound,’ he said. All he could see was a shimmering grey fuzz.

‘This will not give such a clear picture as a medical ultrasound,’ Derrick told him as he edged a pencil-like probe across the rear of the carved stone block. ‘Marble is hard to penetrate. But if this is hollow, we will soon know.’

Rothschild looked on, fascinated. ‘This is a much more advanced model than anything I’ve seen before.’

‘It is German, of course,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I am not the expert, but I have used it to look for cracks and flaws inside pieces of the frieze. And . . . there
is
a flaw.’ He pointed at the monitor.

Eddie saw only a slightly different shade of grey. ‘What is it?’

‘That is where someone used another material to patch a hole. It is probably marble dust mixed with pitch.’ He adjusted a dial. ‘Now we are looking deeper inside. The patch is still there; this flaw also goes deep. But . . . yes, there!’

A dark smudge appeared amidst the electronic haze. ‘Is that a hole?’ asked Eddie.

‘Yes, it
is
hollow,’ confirmed Derrick. More movements of the probe expanded the shadowy gap in the image. He muttered in German as he tweaked the scanner’s settings again, and something far brighter leapt into view. ‘That is not stone,’ he said. ‘That is metal!’

‘Metal?’ echoed Rothschild. ‘The Gigantomachy frieze doesn’t have any metal pieces, does it?’

‘No, it does not.’

‘Then this isn’t part of it,’ Eddie concluded. ‘It’s like you said,’ he told Rothschild, ‘this sculpture was made by somebody else. Whoever they were, they did it to hide this angel – and they hid it inside the Throne of Satan. Maybe they liked the idea of giving the Greek gods a kick in the nuts by putting a symbol of their own religion right in the middle of them.’

‘That is an interesting way of putting it,’ said Derrick, amused, ‘but yes, there may be something to it.’ He turned his attention back to the monitor. ‘These white areas are definitely metal, surrounding . . . I am not sure. Pottery, perhaps, but there is something else – something very dense. Lead? I cannot tell.’

‘So get out the hammer and chisel,’ said Eddie.

He shook his head. ‘No, no. We have to study it, decide how to proceed—’

The Englishman’s patience was wearing thin. ‘I
know
how to proceed. Get the bloody thing out of there! The longer we piss about arguing, the more chance the bad guys’ll force Nina to tell them that it’s here.’

Derrick was still not convinced. ‘This is a priceless historical relic! There are procedures that must be followed. I shall have to—’

‘The same people who kidnapped Nina kidnapped me too,’ Eddie said. He indicated his bruised face. ‘They did this to me, and more – and they killed two people in Rome. They might kill more here. Please, open it up.’

Support came from an unexpected source. ‘This
is
an IHA investigation, Markus,’ Rothschild said quietly. ‘It’s what the agency was created to do – find and protect archaeological finds that may have global security implications.’

The German put down the probe and stared at the stone block for several long seconds. ‘If the IHA wants to take charge,’ he said at last, his displeasure plain, ‘then the IHA can take responsibility for any damage. The German government supports the agency, so I am sure it will back you. But I will not let this fall on me, Maureen. I am sorry.’

‘I’ll call Oswald Seretse to confirm,’ Rothschild told him. She took out her phone.

‘While she’s doing that,’ said Eddie, ‘how about you get started?’

Derrick gave him a dirty look, but stood. ‘I will get the tools.’

‘Dr Wilde,’ said Cross as Norvin brought Nina into the control room. ‘My team has entered the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Now: where is the angel?’

Nina didn’t reply at once, gazing in mortified sadness at the monitor screens. Several showed live headset feeds – one looking down at a uniformed man sprawled on the floor. She had no doubt at all that he was dead. ‘You bastards,’ she finally said. ‘You didn’t need to kill anyone.’ She glared at Dalton, who had an unsettled expression. ‘You’re just as guilty as he is.’

‘If they’re worthy, they’ll sit with God in heaven on the day of judgement.’ Cross turned back to the video wall. ‘The angel. Where will it be?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been to the Pergamon Museum, and I’ve never studied the Altar of Zeus, so I don’t know.’ Simeon, standing to Cross’s right, glared at her. ‘Really! I
don’t know
. Just because I’m an archaeologist doesn’t mean I have total knowledge of every artefact from every period of history.’

Anna was on her leader’s left. ‘Then what use are you,
Doctor
?’ she demanded, sneering.

‘Anna,’ Cross warned, before addressing Nina again. ‘You found the first angel. I’m sure you can find the second, if only to save your husband any more pain. Think! What do you know about the altar that we haven’t already found out online?’

Nina blew out a frustrated breath. ‘I don’t . . . Okay, let me think. Built in the early second century
BC
, surrounded by a frieze showing the war between the Olympian gods and their enemies the giants . . .’

‘Giants could be a reference to the giants in Genesis,’ suggested Simeon. ‘Or the Nephilim?’

‘It’s not the Nephilim,’ Nina countered. ‘I’ve met them. Okay, not “met” – they were long-dead – but . . . anyway, that doesn’t matter,’ she said on seeing the questioning looks aimed at her. ‘The altar’s been on display in Berlin for over a century. If there was anything obviously non-Greek about it, we’d already know – it would be mentioned in every piece of literature about the altar, and probably the subject of a dozen Discovery Channel specials linking it to ghosts and UFOs and Bigfoot.’

‘Then what about the parts that
aren’t
on display?’ said Dalton.

‘It’s still being restored, so yeah, something might have been overlooked. But I can’t tell you what, because I just. Don’t.
Know
. Okay?’

Cross regarded her with cold annoyance, but nodded. ‘All right. So where would they keep these other pieces?’

‘I don’t have a floor plan!’ she cried. ‘They probably have storage and archives somewhere off-limits to the public.’

He turned back to the screens. One of his men was still in the lobby, having dragged the two corpses out of sight of the main doors. ‘Ellison, check the security station. See if there’s a plan of the building.’

Ellison’s camera darted around as he searched before locking on to a display board for the fire alarms. ‘Found it,’ came a voice from the speakers.

‘Good. Are there any archives?’

‘Second floor, there’s a section marked “Archivieren”. I think that means archives?’

Cross glanced at Anna, who nodded. ‘Okay, that’s where we’ll start the search. Trant, leave two men to cover the entrances and get the rest up there.’ The various monitors broke into dizzying motion. ‘Dr Wilde, if you see anything, tell me immediately. Or—’

‘Or you’ll torture Eddie – yes, I know.’ Defeated, all Nina could do was watch as Cross’s men moved through the museum.

Eddie peered over Derrick’s shoulder as the archaeologist worked. Breaking into the hidden cavity inside the stone block had not taken long; the substance used to seal the hole was relatively fragile, splitting after just a few taps with a small chisel. Once the first crack had appeared, Derrick’s reluctance to damage the artefact quickly gave way to professional curiosity about what was hidden inside.

‘Careful,’ warned Rothschild as the German made his final delicate strikes.

‘I know what I am doing,’ he replied testily. Eddie smiled at her getting a taste of her own medicine, then watched as Derrick gently used the chisel’s tip to lever the freed section upwards.

The interior was revealed beneath, light reflecting dully off copper.

‘There is definitely something inside,’ he announced with rising excitement. He lifted the piece away.

‘So that’s an angel, is it?’ said Eddie, gazing at what lay within.

The figure had the body of a man but the head of an eagle, several metal wings wrapped tightly around its torso. It fitted the space inside the block almost perfectly, the gaps filled by fine dry sand to act as a cushion. Whoever had concealed it had also wanted to protect it.

Rothschild adjusted one of the lamps. ‘There’s some text on the body. It looks like Akkadian.’

‘Will you be able to translate it?’ Eddie asked.

‘I can, of course,’ said Derrick. ‘It is hardly Linear A!’ He and Rothschild shared a chuckle.

‘Archaeology jokes, always hilarious,’ said the Englishman, straight-faced. ‘But it
is
an angel, right?’

‘I think so,’ Rothschild replied. ‘Although by the letter of Revelation, the eagle head would actually make it one of the “living creatures” – or “beasts”, depending which translation of the Bible you choose – before God’s throne. They summoned and released the four horsemen.’

‘What, as in the horsemen of the apocalypse?’

‘Yes, although they’re never called that in Revelation. Markus, can you get it out of there?’

Derrick blew sand off the figure and lifted it from its resting place. ‘It is very heavy,’ he noted, surprised. He set it down on the table. ‘Hmm. The wings, they seem to have been pressed into the clay before it was fired. But they are only thin; I wonder how they kept them from melting? Perhaps—’

A loud bang echoed down the corridor outside. Eddie’s head snapped up. ‘What was that?’

‘It is just the security guards,’ Derrick replied. ‘But they know they are not supposed to slam the doors – the vibrations can damage the exhibits.’ He stood at another thump. ‘I will talk to them.’

Eddie and Rothschild looked back at the statue as he crossed the room. ‘I must admit,’ said the elderly woman, ‘I honestly didn’t believe anything would come of this. Revelation is open to a great deal of interpretation, to put it mildly. But whoever kidnapped Nina was right about where to look.’

‘And now they’re making her tell them what to look for,’ Eddie reminded her grimly. ‘But we beat ’em to this. If I can persuade your friend to let me use it to get her back . . .’ He glanced at Derrick as the German reached the door—

Someone outside kicked it open.

Derrick staggered back. A man dressed in black burst into the room – a sub-machine gun in his hands, laser sight dancing over its targets.

14

‘N
obody move!’ the intruder yelled.

Eddie’s first instinct was to grab Rothschild and duck behind the workbench, but the laser spot had already locked on to his chest—

Derrick reeled back in front of the gunman. ‘
Was ist
—’

The man in black’s finger tightened on the trigger – then, at a command through his headset loud enough for Eddie to hear, he changed his attack to a physical blow, striking the German’s head with his weapon. Derrick crumpled to the floor.

Eddie shoved the fear-frozen Rothschild down, then grabbed the angel and dived after her as the man spun back towards him—

Bullets ripped into the workbench, cracking off the stone block, which exploded into pieces. Rothschild shrieked as fragments rained down on them. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ Eddie cried. ‘Just once, just fucking
once
, I’d like to find the thing and get out
before
the bad guys turn up!’

Running footsteps from outside – the attacker was not alone. Someone shouted an order as three more men rushed through the doorway. Eddie looked around. There was another exit at the room’s far end, but they would never reach it before being cut down.

Trapped.

Unless—

Eddie felt the weight of the statue – and realised he had one chance of survival. ‘Any closer an’ I’ll smash your fucking angel!’ he yelled.

The sounds of movement stopped abruptly, replaced by muttered discussion. Eddie shuffled backwards to take shelter behind the laser scanner. He raised his head just enough to see that the nearest gunman had a compact camera – night-vision, from the LED illuminator beneath the lens – mounted on a headset. Somebody was observing the operation. The mysterious Prophet?

Whoever it was, he had Nina. ‘All right,’ said Eddie loudly, the thought of his wife strengthening his resolve, ‘Everyone put down your guns. Otherwise bird-face here gets his wings clipped.’

Another brief exchange, the first gunman responding to a message over his headset; then, with his gun still in one hand, he reached into a belt pouch and pulled out a gas mask. ‘Okay, not quite what I was hoping for . . .’ Eddie muttered in dismay.

The other men followed suit. ‘Mr Chase!’ called one, voice muffled by the mask’s filters. ‘If you break the angel, it’ll release a deadly gas. You’ll die, but we’ll be safe.’

‘You still won’t get what you’re after!’ Eddie shouted back.

‘Yes we will! The Prophet
wants
to release the angel. He’d rather not do it here, but if it’s the will of God that it happens, then it happens.’

‘Bollocks! You’re bluffing.’

‘Then smash it, Mr Chase. You’ll see. For your last few seconds on earth. Ellison, move in.’

‘Shit,’ Eddie hissed. His own bluff had been called – and now the first gunman was advancing again, his suppressed MP7 raised.

Nina stared at the screen, elation rapidly overcome by terror. Eddie had somehow escaped from his torturers – only to fall back into the hands of their collaborators. The lead gunman, Ellison, moved through the room, his camera picking out Eddie hunched behind a large piece of equipment.

‘They’re not in full MOPP gear,’ Anna warned Cross. ‘If he drops the angel—’

‘I know,’ the cult leader replied. That told Nina that he wasn’t as blasé about the angel’s destruction as Trant had informed Eddie, but her husband was still in grave danger.

Ellison rounded a large workbench. Nina glimpsed someone else hiding behind it at the edge of the screen, but he continued to advance. His gun rose into frame, its laser spot a dazzling flare as it fixed on the Englishman—

‘Ellison, wait,’ said Cross sharply. ‘I don’t want the angel damaged if we can help it.’ He turned towards Nina. ‘Remind him that we have his wife!’

Eddie tensed, retreating further behind the open scanner as Ellison drew level with the tracked shelves. He would have a clear line of fire within seconds . . .

Ellison suddenly stopped, head tipping quizzically as he listened to another order via his headset. He looked back at the other intruders for confirmation. ‘Do it,’ said the leader.

‘We’ve got your wife,’ the gunman called to Eddie. ‘Give up the angel and she won’t get hurt.’

They weren’t willing to let the statue be destroyed, then. That gave him an edge, however small. ‘Let me talk to her,’ he replied. ‘To prove you’ve got her.’

Another brief exchange through the earpiece, then Ellison took off the headset and held it out as he edged closer. Eddie warily watched the other armed men as he shifted the statue to his left hand. All were alert, staring back at him, but while their guns were up, their forefingers were off the triggers. They were obeying the order to let him talk to Nina . . . but it would only take them a fraction of a second to fire.

He had to make the fullest possible use of that moment.

Impatient, Ellison twitched the headset to prompt Eddie to take it. Eddie raised his left hand to make it clear that the statue would be dropped if anything happened to him, then reached out with his right. Ellison leaned closer—

Eddie lunged – grabbing not the proffered gadget but the hand holding it, He bent the other man’s fingers backwards, hard, as he yanked him nearer. Ellison’s little finger snapped at its first joint.

His scream of pain jolted his comrades into life, laser sights flashing on to their target. But Eddie had already pulled Ellison to him, turning the gunman into a human shield.

His prisoner overcame his initial shock and tried to slam an elbow into Eddie’s chest, but the Englishman easily absorbed the blow and savagely wrenched the broken finger around by almost ninety degrees. Ellison let out a blood-curdling shriek. ‘All right, let’s try this again!’ Eddie shouted. ‘Guns down, back off, all the rest.’

The other attackers briefly remained still, but instructions soon came over their radios. They spread out to round the first workbench, keeping their guns fixed on the whimpering Ellison, ready to shoot the man behind him the moment they had the chance . . .

‘Oi! Prof!’ Eddie called to Rothschild, still curled behind the second bench. ‘Can you catch?’

‘Wh-what?’ she asked, blinking up at him.

‘Can you catch this?’ He waved the statue.

‘I . . . I don’t know. I can try.’

‘Good, ’cause here it comes!’ He lobbed it at her.

She gasped, flinging out both arms to catch it – more by luck than judgement, as her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

Trant and the other masked men flinched, but when it became clear the statue had survived, they resumed their advance, MP7s raised and locked as Eddie backed behind the scanner. They would soon reach Rothschild – and the angel.

He spotted a control panel on the machine’s side. One of the illuminated buttons read
SCAN
. Rothschild’s eyes were still closed—

He stabbed the button.

The scanner hummed – and a swathe of brilliant green light lanced from the laser.

The intruders instantly fell into disarray as the dazzling beam overpowered their optic nerves. Eddie took advantage, slamming Ellison face-first against the shelves, then shoving the stunned gunman’s head into the gap between two of the storage units and spinning the nearest wheel.

The units rolled smoothly along their tracks – and a splintering crunch came from the shrinking space between them as Ellison’s skull suddenly became a few inches narrower.

The laser continued its sweep, but even blinded, most of the attackers had dropped into cover. One man was still standing, though, reeling with a hand over his eyes—

Eddie grabbed Ellison’s gun and felled the man with a three-round burst, then hurried to Rothschild and pulled her to her feet. ‘Come on!’

He directed her past the scanner to the second exit. ‘My God!’ she shrilled, opening her eyes to see Ellison’s limp corpse slumped between the shelves.

‘Don’t look at it, just get to the door. And keep hold of the angel!’ He backed up behind her with his gun ready.

Nobody poked their head above the workbenches. Rothschild opened the door, Eddie following her into a corridor. ‘Which way?’ she cried.

He spotted a green sign, an arrow beside a running stick-man. ‘There!’ They ran to the emergency exit as furious orders were shouted behind them.

Eddie kicked the door open to find a narrow stairwell. He descended two at a time. ‘What about Markus?’ Rothschild wailed.

‘They just knocked him down. He’ll be okay,’ Eddie replied, hoping he was right.

He reached the foot of the steps and barged through another door to find himself back in the museum proper. They were in the long hallway he had seen earlier, the walls decorated with gleaming tiles displaying paintings of stalking lions. At its far end he recognised the Ishtar Gate, but his only concern now was getting out of the building. The gunmen had made no attempt at stealth; that meant the museum’s security staff were either prisoners or dead, and after what had happened in Rome, more likely the latter.

The restoration work had blocked off the nearest apparent exit, but he spotted another emergency evacuation sign. ‘Down here,’ he told Rothschild, going right at a run. Past the stairs they had ascended with Derrick was the marked door. ‘Okay, through this,’ Eddie said as he reached it—

He flinched back as if the handle were electrified, hearing noises beyond, getting closer. Not all of the Prophet’s men had gone to the upper floor. ‘Or not,’ he amended, rushing to a smaller door across the corridor only to find it locked. The only way out was through the Ishtar Gate. ‘Hurry up!’

‘I’m sixty-seven years old!’ gasped Rothschild. ‘I can’t go any faster!’

‘You’ll have to if you want to be sixty-eight!’ He reached the great arch, throwing aside the barrier and charging through.

They emerged from the Miletus Gate on the other side. Eddie looked back as another black-clad gunman burst through the emergency exit. A moment later, Trant appeared from the stairwell, his surviving companion behind him. The Englishman fired another three-round burst to force them into cover, then caught up with Rothschild as she reached the doors to the room containing the Altar of Zeus.

Nobody was waiting for them in the cavernous space. The entrance through which Derrick had brought them was in the centre of the long wall to the left, facing the temple. He glanced at Rothschild as they ran towards it. The old woman still held the statue, and despite her heavy breathing was maintaining her pace – fear was a great driver. They might get out alive after all— A shadow stabbed along the floor from beyond the glass doors.

‘Shit!’ Eddie cried, pulling back and firing a wild burst as a man appeared at the entrance. One of the doors exploded into fragments, the gunman hurriedly jerking back.

Shouts from behind. Trant and the others were in the Roman room, cutting them off, and if they tried to reach the other exit in the far wall, the man at the shattered door would have a clear shot—

‘Up there!’ yelled Eddie, swinging Rothschild towards the towering altar.

‘There’s no way out!’ she protested.

‘I bloody know!’ They reached the broad marble steps. ‘Set off the fire alarm – I’ll try to hold ’em off until the cops arrive!’ He turned, trying to cover both the entrances from which their enemies would come.

The man at the glass door leaned into view. Eddie loosed another burst. All three rounds went wide, smacking against the wall, but it forced the gunman to retreat. The Englishman reached the top of the stairs and darted behind a column. Rothschild still had several steps to go. ‘Quick! Get—’

Trant appeared at the other entrance, firing wildly on full auto.

Bullets ripped into the marble stairs, a line of dust-spitting impacts chasing after Rothschild. Splinters hit her legs. She screamed and tripped just short of the top. The statue was jolted from her grip – and rolled back down the steps, loud clunks echoing around the room.

Trant had taken off his gas mask; his expression was a flash of pure panic as he watched the angel’s clattering descent. ‘Back, get back!’

Eddie also watched the stone figure with alarm. The attackers’ fear confirmed that they hadn’t been lying about the danger . . .

Clunk
,
clunk
– and the angel finally reached the floor, skittering across the polished wood before coming to a halt. For a moment, all eyes were upon it, tension rising . . . then Trant spoke. ‘It’s safe! I’m gonna get it – cover me!’

Gun raised, Eddie whipped around the pillar – but he held his fire, conflicted. The doorway was a choke point, meaning he might be able to hold the gunmen back while he made a desperate run for the angel . . . but doing so would leave Rothschild unprotected in the open.

His indecision lasted only a split second, but that was enough for Trant to run into the great hall – and for the two men with him to aim up at the altar from the doorway.

Eddie grabbed Rothschild and dived with her over the top of the stairs as they opened fire. Chunks of pale stone exploded from the columns, ricochets twanging and screaming across the room. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped.

‘I’ve got it!’ Trant shouted. ‘Get to the sluice channel!’

More guns blazed with suppressing fire as the others followed their leader. Eddie crawled to cover Rothschild as debris pummelled them, then raised his gun to catch anyone climbing the stairs to finish off the two fugitives . . .

Nobody came for them. The gunfire stopped. Eddie waited for a moment, then cautiously lifted his head. There was no one below – and the statue had gone. ‘Shit!’ he growled, standing.

‘What’s happening?’ Rothschild asked plaintively.

‘They’ve got the angel. Stay there.’ He raced down the steps and went to the glass doors. Nobody was in sight, though he heard a door bang from the direction of the lobby.

He ran after them. They would be heading for a getaway vehicle; if he caught up, he might be able to shoot the driver or a tyre, or at the very least get its licence plate for the police.

He reached the lobby. No rearguard – the gunmen were in a hurry to escape with their prize. He went to the main doors, spotting a couple of corpses behind the security station. The rain was still streaking down outside, a large black van parked in front of the bridge.