The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) (11 page)

Mutterings in Arabic, then a man stepped forward. ‘I am Kerim. You are Michael?’

‘Yes.’

Kerim waved him closer. The Ma’dan leader was in his early thirties, but a hard life in the marshes had added a decade of wear to his face. ‘Michael, hello,’ he said, before embracing the American and kissing him on both cheeks.

‘Call me Mike,’ Rosemont said with a smile.

The Arab returned it. ‘It is very good to see you … Mike. We have waited a long time for this day. When you come to kill Saddam’ – a spitting sound, echoed by the others as they heard the hated dictator’s name – ‘we will fight beside you. But his soldiers, they have tanks, helicopters. These are no good.’ He held up his dented AK-47. ‘We need more.’

‘You’ll have more.’ Rosemont signalled to the two men in the Toyota. ‘Bring ’em their toys!’

‘You’ve got the intel?’ asked Cross as he got out.

‘Show of good faith. Come on.’

Cross was aggrieved by the change of plan, but he went with Arnold to the truck’s rear. Each took out a crate and crunched through dead reeds to bring it to the group. ‘This fire’ll be visible for miles,’ the Virginian complained. ‘Stupid making it out in the open, real stupid.’

Kerim bristled. Rosemont shot Cross an irritated look, but knew he was right. ‘You should put this out now we’re here,’ he told the Ma’dan leader. Kerim gave an order, and one of his men kicked dirt over the little pyre. ‘Why didn’t you set up in those ruins?’

The suggestion seemed to unsettle his contact. ‘That is … not a good place,’ said Kerim, glancing almost nervously towards the waterlogged structure. ‘If it had been up to us, we would not have chosen to meet you here.’

‘Why not?’ asked Arnold, setting down his case.

‘It is a place of death. Even before the water fell, all the marsh tribes stayed away from it. It is said that …’ He hesitated. ‘That the end of the world will begin there. Allah, praise be unto him, will send out His angels to burn the earth.’

‘You mean God,’ snapped Cross.

Kerim was momentarily confused. ‘Allah
is
God, yes. But it is a place we fear.’

With the fire extinguished, the ragged ruins were discernible in the moon’s pallid light. They were not large, the outer buildings and walls having crumbled, but it seemed to Rosemont that the squat central structure had remained mostly intact. How long had it been submerged? Centuries, millennia? There was something indefinably ancient about it.

Not that it mattered. His only concerns were of the present. ‘Well, here’s something that’ll make Saddam fear
you
,’ he said, switching on a flashlight and opening one of the crates.

Its contents produced sounds of awe and excitement from the Ma’dan. Rosemont lifted out an olive-drab tube. ‘This is an M72 LAW rocket – LAW stands for light anti-tank weapon. We’ll show you how to use them, but if you can fire a rifle, you can fire one of these. We’ve also brought a couple thousand rounds of AK ammunition.’

‘That is good. That is very good!’ Kerim beamed at the CIA agent, then translated for the other Ma’dan.

‘I guess they’re happy,’ said Arnold on seeing the enthusiastic response.

‘Guess so,’ Rosemont replied. ‘Okay, Kerim, we need your intel on Saddam’s local troops before—’

A cry of alarm made everyone whirl. The Marsh Arabs whipped up their rifles, scattering into the patches of dried-up reeds. ‘What’s going on?’ Cross demanded, raising his own gun.

‘Down, down!’ Kerim called. ‘The light, turn it off!’

Rosemont snapped off the torch and ducked. ‘What is it?’

‘Listen!’ He pointed across the lake. ‘A helicopter!’

The CIA operatives fell silent. Over the faint sigh of the wind, a new sound became audible: a deep percussive rumble. The chop of heavy-duty rotor blades.

Growing louder.

‘Dammit, it’s a Hind!’ said Arnold, recognising the distinctive thrum of a Soviet-made Mil Mi-24 gunship. ‘What the hell’s it doing here? We’re in the no-fly zone – why haven’t our guys shot it down?’

‘We first saw it two days ago,’ said Kerim. ‘It flies low, very low.’

‘So it gets lost in the ground clutter,’ said Arnold. ‘Clever.’

‘More like lucky,’ Cross corrected. ‘Our AWACS should still pick it up.’

‘We’ve got some new intel, then,’ Rosemont said with a wry smile. ‘They need to point their radar in this direction.’

Arnold tried to locate the approaching gunship. ‘Speaking of direction, is it comin’ in ours?’

‘Can’t tell. Get the NVGs from the truck … Shit!’ A horrible realisation hit Rosemont. ‘The truck, we’ve got to move it! If they see it—’

‘On it!’ cried Arnold, sprinting for the Toyota. ‘I’ll hide it in the ruins.’

‘They might still see its tracks,’ warned Cross.

‘We’ll have to chance it,’ Rosemont told him. ‘Kerim! Get your men into cover over there.’ He pointed towards the remains of the building.

The Ma’dan leader did not take well to being given orders. ‘No! We will not go into that place!’

‘Superstition might get you killed.’

‘The helicopter will not see us if we hide in the reeds,’ Kerim insisted.

‘Let them stay,’ said Cross dismissively. ‘We need to move.’

‘Agreed,’ said Rosemont, putting the LAW back into its case. The Toyota’s engine started, then sand kicked from its tyres as Arnold swung it towards the ruins. ‘Come on.’

Gear jolting on their equipment webbing, they ran after the 4×4, leaving the Marsh Arabs behind. It took almost half a minute over the uneven ground to reach cover, the outer edge of the ruins marked by the jagged base of a pillar sticking up from the sands like a broken tooth. By now, Arnold had stopped the Toyota beside the main structure, its wheels in the water. He jumped out. ‘Where’s the chopper?’

Rosemont looked over a wall. He couldn’t see the helicopter itself, but caught the flash of its navigation lights. A reflection told him that it was less than thirty feet above the water. A couple of seconds later, the lights flared again, revealing that while the Hind wasn’t heading straight at them, it would make landfall a couple of hundred metres beyond Kerim’s position.

‘If it’s got its nav lights on, they don’t know we’re here,’ said Cross. ‘They’d have gone dark if they were on an attack run.’

‘Yeah, but they gotta be using night vision to fly that low without a spotlight,’ Arnold warned. ‘They might still see us.’

The helicopter neared the shore, the roar of its engines getting louder. Tension rose amongst the three men. The Hind was travelling in a straight line; if it suddenly slowed or altered course, they would know they had been spotted.

The gunship’s thunder reached a crescendo …

And passed. It crossed the shore and continued across the barren plain, a gritty whirlwind rising in its wake.

Arnold blew out a relieved whistle. ‘God damn. That was close.’

Rosemont kept watching the retreating strobes. ‘Let’s give it a minute to make sure it’s gone – Cross, what the hell? Turn that light out!’

Cross was shining his flashlight over the ruined structure. ‘I want to see this.’

‘Yeah, and the guys in that chopper might see
you
!’

‘They won’t. Look, there’s a way in.’ A dark opening was revealed in the dirty stone; an arched entrance, still intact. Cross waded into the lake, the water rising up his shins as he approached the passage. ‘There’s something written above it.’ Characters carved into the stonework stood out in the beam from his flashlight.

‘What does it say?’ asked Arnold, moving to the water’s edge.

Rosemont reluctantly joined him. ‘I don’t know what language that is,’ he said, indicating a line of angular runes running across the top of the opening, ‘but the letters above it? I think they’re Hebrew. No idea what they say, though.’

‘We should find out.’ Cross aimed his light into the entrance, revealing a short tunnel beyond, then stepped deeper into the water.

‘Cross, get back – God damn it,’ Rosemont growled as the other man ducked through the entrance. He traded exasperated looks with Arnold. ‘Wait here and watch for the chopper. I’ll get him.’

He splashed into the lake. Cross had by now disappeared inside the ruined structure, spill from his flashlight washing back up the tunnel. ‘Cross! Get out of there. We’ve got a job to do.’

There was no reply. Annoyed, Rosemont sluiced through the opening and made his way into the building’s heart, turning on his own flashlight. The water rose to his knees. ‘Hey! When I tell you to—’

He stopped in amazement.

The room was not large, only a few metres along each wall. But it had clearly been a place of great importance to its builders. Stone columns coated in flaked gilding supported each corner of the ceiling, bands of pure gold and silver around them inset with numerous gemstones. Not even the grime left by the long submersion in the lake could diminish their splendour. The walls themselves were covered in the skeletal ancient text he had seen outside. There were more Hebrew passages too, but the other language occupied so much space that these were relegated to separate tablets laid out around the room’s waterlogged perimeter.

It was obvious what the temple had been built to house. The wall opposite the entrance contained a niche a little over a foot high, more gold lining it. Above it was a faded painting, a stylised seven-branched menorah – a Hebrew lampstand – with several letters over it. Carvings resembling the sun’s rays directed Rosemont’s eyes to its contents.

A strange stone figure filled the nook. Its body was human – but the head was that of a lion. Wrapped tightly around the statuette’s torso, shrouding it like wings, were several metal sheets embossed with a pattern resembling eyes.

Cross stood at the alcove, examining the artefact. ‘Do you see it?’ he gasped. ‘Do you
see
it?’

‘Yeah, I see it,’ Rosemont replied. There was a new edge to the other man’s voice that he had never heard before, a breathless excitement – no,
wonderment
. ‘What is it?’

Cross gave his superior a glance that was somewhere between pity and disdain. ‘You
don’t
see it, otherwise you’d know.’

‘Okay, then enlighten me.’

‘An apt choice of words.’ He leaned closer for a better look at the leonine head. ‘It’s an angel.’

‘Yeah, I can see that, I guess. It does kinda look like an angel.’

‘No, you don’t understand. It doesn’t just
look
like an angel. It
is
an angel! Exactly as described in the Book of Revelation! Chapter four, verse six – “Four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion.” And there’s more: “And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him.”’ He crouched, the water sloshing up to his chest. ‘There’s something written on its side. I know what it says.’

‘You can read it?’ asked Rosemont, surprised.

‘No – but I still know what it says. Revelation chapter four, verse eight – “And they rest not, day and night, saying ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.’” They aren’t
speaking
day and night – the words are written on them, always visible. That’s what it means!’

‘That’s what
what
means?’

‘Revelation! I understand it, it’s all coming to me …’ Cross stared at the angel, then turned to face Rosemont. The older agent was momentarily startled by his expression, an almost messianic light burning in his eyes. ‘You said this lake was a meteorite crater. Revelation chapter eight, verse ten – “There fell a great star from heaven, burning as if it were a lamp.” Wormwood, the falling star; it’s describing a fireball, a meteor strike – and this is it, this is where it landed! It’s the bottomless pit!’ He faced the alcove once more. ‘The prophecy, it’s true …’

‘All right, so you’ve had a vision from God,’ said Rosemont, his discomfort replaced by impatience. ‘We’ve still got a mission to carry out. This is a job for archaeologists, not the CIA – let Indiana Jones take care of it. We need to get Kerim’s intel on those Iraqi positions.’

‘You do that,’ Cross replied as he took out a compact digital camera. ‘This is more important.’

‘The hell it is.’ Rosemont stepped closer as Cross took a photo of the alcove and the surrounding text-covered wall. ‘You’re coming with me, right now—’

‘Mike!’ Arnold’s shout reached them from outside. ‘The chopper, it’s coming back!’

‘Shit,’ said Rosemont. The Iraqis had probably spotted the Toyota’s tracks cutting across the dried-up marshlands. ‘Okay, Bible study’s over – move out!’

He splashed back down the tunnel, readying his rifle. Cross hesitated, then almost reverently took the angel from its niche, finding it surprisingly heavy for its size, and followed.

The two men joined Arnold near the broken pillar. ‘They’ve turned out their nav lights,’ he warned.

Rosemont listened. The pulsing thunder again grew louder, coming from somewhere to the south-east. He couldn’t see the aircraft, but with night-vision gear, its pilot’s view of the lake would be as clear as in daylight. ‘We need to get away from the ruins.’

‘You sure? The walls’ll give us cover—’

‘Not against rockets. The moment they see the truck, they’ll assume we’re inside and blow the hell out of the place! Spread out and try to reach Kerim’s people.’ He started to move, then caught sight of what Cross was carrying. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I can’t leave it behind,’ Cross replied.

‘Put it down and take up your weapon! That’s an order, Cross!’

The two men glared at each other, neither willing to back down … then the deadlock was broken by Arnold’s cry. ‘
Incoming!
’

A flash of fiery light in the sky – and something streaked overhead. The CIA agents threw themselves flat—

The rocket hit the Toyota, the truck exploding in a dazzling fireball. Two more missiles hit the temple itself, shattering stonework and causing the roof to collapse with a crash that shook the surrounding sands. Then the gunship blasted over the ruin, swinging into a wide loop above the lake.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Rosemont called. His two companions responded in the affirmative.

‘We lost the truck,’ said Arnold unhappily, looking back at the burning wreck. ‘How are we gonna get out of here?’