The Doomsday Prophecy

by Scott Mariani

  Once or twice he’d tried to break away. Then out came the photos again, and the threats.

  But this time was different. This was worse. The approach had come through a different channel. The place he’d been called away to, out in the Montana wilds, was dark and run-down. The whole setup wasn’t right. The subject wasn’t some sullen prisoner that he could convince himself was some threat to homeland security. She was just a slip of a girl, and he was being coerced to destroy her. Jones terrified him. They all did – even Fiorante, the tall, attractive auburn-haired woman who was the youngest and sole female agent on the team. She might be beautiful, but he was damn sure she was deadly.

  Joshua stared again at the bottle on the table and he knew he couldn’t go through with it. He was going to get her out of there. And then he was going back to New York and tell Emily everything. Let the chips fall. He didn’t care any more.

  He left the diner and continued on his journey, planning what he was going to do. He stopped at a small town on the way and found a little general store where he bought what he needed and hid it in the back of the car. Then he followed the long, winding road out into the wilds.

  The hotel loomed up in front of him as he parked the Honda near the entrance. He stepped out, got his things from the car and buttoned up the long overcoat he was wearing, then walked briskly up the steps to the glass doors. Punched the security code into the panel on the wall, waited for the click and pushed through the door.

  The familiar, detested smell of the place hit him as he strode through the dingy corridors. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. He checked his watch, sweat breaking out on his brow. His heart was thumping rapidly.

  He made his way quickly up to the top floor, to Zoë’s door. The same big man in the dark suit was standing there as usual, eyeing him as he approached.

  ‘What’s with the heavy coat, doc?’

  ‘Got a chill,’ Joshua said. He sniffed for effect.

  ‘You’re sweating.’

  ‘Maybe coming down with flu. Can you let me in?’

  ‘You’re not scheduled to see her,’ the agent said.

  ‘I just realised,’ Joshua stammered, ‘I left my BlackBerry in there.’

  ‘No signal up here anyway, doc.’

  ‘Sure. But I need it. It’s got important stuff on it.’

  ‘Careless,’ the agent said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘One minute,’ the agent said. ‘No longer.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Joshua smiled weakly and pushed through the door. It shut behind him and he heard the click of the lock.

  Zoë had been sleeping. She sat upright in the bed, eyes wide at the sight of him standing there with his hair a mess, not in his normal white coat.

  ‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ he whispered. ‘Do as I say and don’t ask any questions. I’m getting you out of here.’

  The agent was thinking about his coffee break when he heard the commotion from inside the room. He cocked his head and listened for a moment, then unlocked the door and burst inside.

  The girl was lying on the floor beside the bed. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and she was shaking violently. The guard stared down at her.

  The doctor was kneeling on the floor next to her. He glanced up in alarm. ‘She’s sick. Really sick.’

  ‘What the hell happened?’ the agent asked, horrified.

  ‘Some kind of episode,’ the doctor said. ‘She woke up when I walked in and the next thing I know, she’s convulsing. Wait here – I’ve got some medication in the car.’ He jumped up and headed towards the door.

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Do nothing. Don’t touch her. Just stay with her.’

  The agent stood and stared at her. Her whole body was shaking, rigid. Her hair was wet. She was foaming at the mouth. His mind was suddenly full of what they’d do to him for letting her get sick on his watch. Thank Christ for the doctor.

  That was his final thought.

  Joshua had stepped out of the room. He’d quickly unbuttoned the overcoat and drawn out the baseball bat that had been thrust through his belt, the handle trapped under his armpit. He strode back into the room, holding the bat in both hands. His mouth was dry. He’d been a reasonable ball player in college. The thought of smashing a bat into a man’s head made him cringe, but he’d no choice. He swung hard and felt the horrible thud vibrate down the shaft. The agent crumpled to the floor, face down.

  Zoë scrabbled to her feet, spitting foam and undissolved pieces of Alka-Seltzer. She stared down in horror at the spreadeagled body of the agent.

  ‘Hurry,’ Joshua whispered. He dropped the bat. Took off the overcoat and wrapped it around her slender shoulders. Seizing her arm, he led her out of the room and locked the door behind them.

  Zoë was glancing frantically this way and that as he guided her down the corridor and towards the backstairs that nobody ever seemed to use. She was weak from captivity and lack of exercise, and breathing hard as they ran down the stairs. He kept a tight grip on her arm. His own heart was hammering frantically.

  Next landing down, he glanced furtively out of the fire doors and saw that the corridor ahead was deserted. He jerked her arm and they ran on. She stumbled, and he helped her to her feet.

  ‘Slow down,’ she wheezed.

  ‘I can’t. We’ve got to get out. It’s not far now.’

  A door opened to one side, and suddenly Joshua found himself face to face with the female agent, Fiorante. They both stopped dead, eyes locked.

  But the woman didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

  Something told him to keep running. He pressed on quickly, dragging Zoë behind him.

  ‘She saw us.’ Her voice was panicky.

  He didn’t reply. The entrance foyer was just up ahead. He was running hard now.

  Ten yards to the entrance foyer. Five.

  His hand was on the cold steel handle of the front door.

  Then a voice cut through the empty building.

  ‘Just where is it you think you’re going, Doctor?’

  Joshua whirled around. Jones was standing a few yards up the corridor. Beside him was the Fiorante woman. Two more agents were running up behind, pistols drawn.

  Joshua yanked his car key from his coat and pressed it into Zoë’s hand. ‘Blue Honda,’ he panted. ‘Just go. Get out of here. Now.’ He knew they wouldn’t shoot her. He didn’t care about himself, not any more.

  Jones stepped forward, his gun held loosely at his side.

  Zoë hesitated.

  ‘Go!’ Joshua yelled at her.

  ‘There’s nowhere to run, Zoë,’ Jones said calmly as he walked up closer. He was smiling. ‘It’s a wilderness out there. You’re safer here with us.’

  Zoë stood frozen in the doorway. She stared helplessly at Joshua, and then at the agents. The woman agent wouldn’t meet her eye.

  Then Jones took three more steps and she screamed as his strong fingers gripped her wrist and yanked her hard away from the entrance. He flung her into the hands of the two other men. She fought and kicked, but she was weak. They held her by the arms as Jones turned towards Joshua Greenberg.

  ‘Don’t hurt him,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t –’

  As the two agents dragged her back up the corridor, she heard the shot and threw her head back over her shoulder to see the blood splatter up the glass door and the doctor slump to the ground at Jones’s feet.

  She screamed all the way back up to her room.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Georgia

  It was just after 1.30 p.m. when Ben left Cleaver’s house and slipped away through the crowd. A few minor competitions were still in progress, but with the main event over the throng was thinning out. He spotted Miss Vale near the marquee, talking to reporters.

  She didn’t notice Ben as he made his way quietly back towards the parking field. He felt bad about slipping away without goodbyes or explanations, but he needed to be alone to think.

  He go
t into the Chrysler and drove aimlessly, heading vaguely west and vaguely south. He crossed over the Altamaha river. Drove through farmland, past tumbledown shacks and corrugated barns, huge open fields where the earth was rich and red under the blazing sun. Past trailer camps where mean-looking white-trash inhabitants stood at the side of the road and gesticulated at his car as he drove by. After about an hour he was lost deep in country with no idea where he was.

  He drove feeling numb and defeated. He’d made mistakes in his life before, but this time he’d been completely wrong; as mistaken and off the mark as he could have been, and then a bit more. He’d been so sure that he was on the right track with Clayton Cleaver. All he knew now was that the man was a rogue, a conman and an opportunist. But that didn’t make him a kidnapper or a murderer.

  He tried to salvage what he could from the mess inside his head and make sense out of what was left. But he had only questions, lots of questions, swirling around in his mind without a hint of an answer. Was Zoë still alive? Maybe even still on Corfu? Had he come to the States for nothing? He’d taken the truth of Kaplan’s word for granted. Maybe that had been a mistake too.

  He thought about the piece of pottery Zoë had discovered and used to blackmail Cleaver. She’d told Skid McClusky that the prophecy would make her rich. What had she discovered? If she really could prove her claim, its impact on Christian theology would be massive. Cleaver had been perfectly right: revisionist scholars had been waiting in the wings for years for the ammunition they needed to shoot the Book of Revelation down as an illegitimate Bible text. But the implications went well beyond simply ruining the career of one obscure Southern Bible-thumper. It could be the biggest event for years – as important as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Turin Shroud. Maybe even bigger, if it could force a major revision of the Bible itself.

  He kept coming up with the same questions. Who else would be threatened by Zoë’s discovery, and so threatened that they would go to such lengths to suppress it? Or was suppression the aim? Perhaps her discovery of ancient pottery tablets had some other intrinsic value – a monetary value that someone was prepared to kill for?

  Basically, he was guessing. He was adrift in a sea of possibilities. He needed to act, and act fast. But he didn’t know what to do, or where to go. Back to Greece, hoping to pick up the pieces and not be caught by Stephanides again? Or simply back to Oxford, admitting defeat and facing telling the Bradburys that he’d lost their daughter? It was a disaster.

  The sudden sharp blast of a siren jerked him back to the present. A police cruiser filled his rear-view mirror, the light bar on its roof flashing red and blue through the dust on his back window. It gave another screeching burst, and he swore and flipped on the indicator to pull off the road. The car crunched to a halt in the dirt, and the police cruiser pulled in behind him. Dust floated in the air around the two vehicles. He watched in the mirror as the doors opened and two cops jumped out and walked towards him, one either side of the Chrysler.

  It wasn’t a routine check or a speeding ticket. The cops had their weapons ready. The one on the left had pulled a revolver from his belt. The one on the right was clutching a short-barrelled pump shotgun. This was serious. The cops were acting on specific information, and whatever they’d been told about him, it was making them jumpy as hell.

  Ben sat quietly with his hands on the wheel, watching them, thinking fast. Why was he being picked up? What did they know?

  The cop with the revolver stalked round to his window and twirled a finger. Ben rolled the window down and looked at him. He was young, mid-twenties. His eyes were round and nervy.

  ‘Kill your engine,’ he yelled.

  Ben reached out slowly and turned the key. Silence, apart from the chirping of the cicadas all around them.

  ‘Licence,’ the cop said. ‘Nice and easy.’

  Ben moved his hand carefully to his pocket and slipped the licence out. The cop snatched it from him, glanced down it for a brief moment, and nodded to the one with the shotgun as if to say it’s him, all right. Now he looked even more scared.

  ‘Step out of the car,’ he yelled. ‘Hands where I can see them.’

  Ben opened the door and stepped slowly out. He kept his hands raised and held the cop’s gaze, sizing him up. The young officer was jumping with adrenalin, his face tense and twitchy. The revolver muzzle was trembling slightly as he pointed it at Ben’s chest.

  The gun was two feet away. It was a Smith & Wesson Model 19. There were two ways to fire it. With the action cocked, it took only a light flick of the finger to drop the hammer. The alternative was the double-action mode, simply pulling the trigger to rotate the cylinder and bring the hammer back to fire. But that required a heavy tug, and Ben knew that unless the cop’s pistol had been specially worked on by a gunsmith, the Model 19 had quite a tough action. More effort meant more time needed to shoot.

  The gun wasn’t cocked. What that told Ben was that he had about half a second longer to step in, disable the cop and take his gun away. Then about another half a second to turn it on the one with the shotgun. He wouldn’t hurt them badly, just take them out of circulation for a while.

  But that would lead to all kinds of trouble that he didn’t want. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said quietly instead.

  The cop flicked his gun at the car. ‘Up against the vehicle. Hands on the hood.’

  Ben sighed in exasperation and spread his hands on the warm metal of the Chrysler. The one with the shotgun covered him from three yards away. The other walked back to the police car and started talking into his radio, looking nervous and fidgety.

  Ben heard the sound of tyres on the dirt and the low rumble of V8 engines. Keeping his hands planted on the car he craned his neck to look. Two big black muscular Chevrolet SUVs were pulling up behind the police cruiser. Clouds of dust rose and settled. Sunlight reflected off the tinted windows of the vehicles.

  The doors opened. Ben counted five people, two men and a woman from one car and two more men from the other. They were all smartly dressed in dark suits. The oldest was the guy stepping forward with the craggy face, slicked-back hair and the dark glasses. He was about fifty, lean and rangy. He was smiling, showing uneven teeth. The youngest was the woman. She might have been about thirty-five, with sharp features and a scowl on her face. Her auburn hair was tied back, gently ruffled by the warm breeze.

  The lead guy flashed a badge at the two cops. ‘Special Agent Jones. We can take it from here, Officers.’

  The cops stared at the badge like they’d never seen one before. They lowered their weapons.

  Jones motioned to one of the agents, who walked round to Ben’s passenger door, yanked it open and grabbed the canvas bag from the seat. Jones took a pair of surgical rubber gloves from his jacket pocket and slipped them on before taking the bag from the other agent and reaching inside.

  ‘Well, now, look what we found,’ Jones chuckled as he drew out the .475 Linebaugh. He dropped the bag on the ground at his feet and turned the big revolver over in his gloved hands, admiring it. Flipped open the loading port, spun the cylinder. Then he twirled it around his finger, cowboy-style, and one of the other agents laughed. Jones turned to Ben with a ragged smile. ‘Now that is a nice gun.’

  Ben didn’t reply. He was thinking hard and fast.

  The agents all stepped closer. The woman’s eyes were fixed on Ben, and as he watched her he thought for a second he could sense some kind of doubtful hesitation on her face. The scowl was gone.

  Jones took out his phone and dialled. ‘It’s me. Good news. Got your Mr Hope right here. OK.’

  Ben frowned. This was weird procedure.

  Jones snapped the phone shut and turned to the two cops. ‘I don’t think we’ll be needing you any more, Officers,’ he said, dismissing them with a gesture.

  The cops glanced at one another and started walking back to their cruiser. They had their hands on the door handles and were about to climb inside when Jones seemed to have an afterthought and called them. ‘H
old on a minute, Officers. Just one thing.’

  The younger cop narrowed his eyes at him. ‘What?’

  Jones smiled again, a knowing kind of smile that made his whole face crease up and his eyes become slits. He glanced at the .475 revolver in his hand.

  Then he thumbed back the hammer, raised the revolver out to arm’s length and shot the younger guy right through the face from ten feet away.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The Richmond House

  Montana

  With a whirr of pulleys and thick steel cables, the cable car glided smoothly out across the abyss. The cold mountain wind whistled around it, buffeting the metal capsule and making the floor judder under the feet of the two men inside.

  Irving Slater loved it up here. Suspended high over the rocky valley, he could see for miles all around and it gave him a feeling of invulnerability. He felt like an eagle perched on his mountain vantage point. That’s what predators did – take the high ground, survey their territory from a position of complete control. Nobody could touch him up here, and nobody could listen in on sensitive conversations. The howling wind would kill the signal from even the most sophisticated listening device. Slater was fanatical about surveillance and even though he’d had the Richmond House swept for bugs a hundred times and never found a thing, this was the one place he was truly comfortable when it came to talking serious business.