Veil of the Goddess (3 page)

"Don't touch—” but he was too late. Once again, that damned curiosity and willful disobedience of women, the sins that had led Eve to entrap Adam with the apple, proved to be Satan's path to a place
He
could never reach without human contrivance.

"Wooh! Some kind of electrical charge or something. What's that about?"

Too late. “I told you to back away, Sergeant. But since you insist on interfering, you can help me lift The Cross from its temporary grave.

"You don't think this is...” the Sergeant essayed a chuckle. “I mean, there's no way
it
could still be around."

The ugly sin of Pride tugged at him, tempted him despite the many hours he'd spent at prayer. Smith wanted to tell Newland how his own research had traced the Medieval accounts of how the Crusaders had lost the rediscovered Cross to Saladin, of how Saladin had taken it back to Kurdistan, his home, before losing it in the supposedly honorable pagan's failed siege of Mosul.

Smith was not immune to the power of Pride, but he was armored by his faith, and fully aware that the creeping fingers of Lust had something to do with his desire to impress the female.

"It certainly would be a miracle if the True Cross had survived the millennia,” he observed dryly. “Now lift."

The cross was surprisingly heavy. Without the energy he gained from the artifact itself, he doubted he would have been able to lift it, even with the woman's help. But then, his Lord had been vastly more than human and even He had fallen under its weight.

One of the tanks flashed its searchlight past him and he suppressed a curse—taking the name of the Lord in vain had been one of the hardest sins for him to break.

Could the tank crew have recognized what he held? He couldn't be certain. The Foundation had made their requirement clear. Until the time arrived, there would be no witnesses.

He set the ancient relic in the cart behind the mini-dozer, then jumped back into the hidden crypt and lifted the crosspiece.

"Felt heavier than I'd think wood would be,” the Sergeant said. “Father O'Brien will be fascinated when I tell him about this, though.” She unbuttoned a couple of buttons on her uniform blouse and swabbed between her breasts.

Smith felt the tightness of temptation in his groin. Satan was fighting dirty now that
His
back was to the wall.

"Get behind me, Satan."

"Huh?"

He thought fast. “Sergeant. Insurgents. Watch out."

She spun around, her automatic rifle coming up against the perceived threat.

He'd pray over her later, hoping that the Lord would accept her sacrifice to
His
greater glory.

Drawing the knife from the pocket where he kept it always, he drove it into her back.

It bounced off the body armor.

He blamed the distraction that brief sight of her exposed chest had caused in him for the stupidity and poor-aim of his attack, but he reacted instantaneously, redirecting the energy from the knife's bounce to drive it upward, toward the carotid artery in her neck.

He'd been through the CIA schools. Before he'd been given this assignment, he'd trained in every weapon, every method of killing. And he was filled with the grace and power of the savior.

"Lord, aid me as I smite your enemies,” he prayed.

His sharp knife parted her skin as easily as if it had been cotton candy, exposing tendons, veins, and arteries.

He jumped back as blood spurted from her neck. Sergeant Newland was dead already, although she was still standing. It would just take a moment for the message to reach her body.

Reacting on training, instinct, perhaps strengthened by the demonic power of Ishtar, Sergeant Newland spun around, the muzzle of her M16 flashing death in a broad circle of automatic fire.

One bullet from that vast swarm caught him in his stomach, its power throwing him back, as if he had been caught up by a giant hand and discarded as wanting.

But even Ishtar cannot control a corpse for long. The sergeant stumbled and fell, her body splashing blood like a drunkard spilling cheap wine.

Smith looked down and saw the hole in his midsection, then felt his mind begin to drift. He'd done his best, been a soldier in the army of the Lord. Satan had taken him down, but Smith felt no sorrow. He was assured of his place, certain of the Lord's promise of eternal life. Surely the Lord would accept him despite his many failures. Amen.

Captain Zack Herrera had been facing away from where Smith and Newland did their excavation, using the tank's sophisticated night vision equipment to watch the subtle movement of the locals as they crept around, tried to approach the bombed-out mosque without coming in range of the Abrams’ deadly machineguns.

The sudden burst of an automatic weapon sounded too close, but didn't have the characteristic low rattle of the Kalasnikov.

"Soldier down.” His gunner, Billy Jensen's voice bumped up an octave. “Jeez. Looks like Newland and Smith both."

An Iraqi sniper could had gotten past the perimeter. With only Zack's company and the few soldiers in Newland's squad available, their perimeter had been porous at best. But something about this didn't smell right and he'd heard only the rattlesnake snarl of an M16.

"Full reverse,” he ordered. “Other units, cover our vector. And button up Newland's infantry. We may have to make a run for it."

Almost invisibly in the moonless darkness, the chopper's cannon traced the path of his tank. What the hell?

"Sonders, see if you can raise the helicopter on wireless. Tell them I'll blow their cannon right off the chopper if they don't point it the other way."

"Yes, sir."

An Abrams can move when it needs to, and it only took the massive engine's turbines a few seconds to bring him alongside the bodies of the two Americans.

"Searchlight,” he ordered. It would make them a target for every insurgent within ten miles, but he needed to see and he couldn't believe what his eyes seemed to be showing him.

"Off,” he ordered a second later. He didn't know what it meant, but he didn't need a million candlepower to see the carnage.

Newland lay across a couple of huge logs with her throat slit. Smoke still trickled from her M16. And Smith held a bloody knife in one hand and his guts in another.

The civilian had killed her, but she'd gotten last licks in before dying. What the hell was this about?

"Unbutton. I'm going outside."

"Captain, the chopper started its rotors and they're still targeting us. Not sure I like the looks of it."

It didn't make sense, but then, nothing about this mission had made sense.

"Put them in the sights of the 120 millimeter and let them see how they feel about turnaround. And for God's sake, button up again once I'm out."

"Right, Sir.” The idea of shooting back cheered Jensen right up.

Herrera knew it was hopeless, but he jumped out of the tank and knelt down by the CIA agent, pressing his fingers to the man's neck.

Nothing.

"Call for another Medevac,” he shouted. “We've got at least one dead."

He was moving toward Sergeant Newland's body when all hell broke loose.

The huge black helicopter lifted about five feet off the ground and fired at his tank.

The explosion blasted over the tank, shook the remains of the old mosque like an earthquake, and knocked Herrera to the ground.

But an Abrams is a hairy beast and Jensen had been watching for exactly that move. The tank's 120 fired back almost instantaneously and the helicopter went down in a ball of fire that made the earlier searchlight glare look like nothing.

The second explosion shook the mosque like a dog shaking fleas and knocked Herrera the rest of the way to the ground. If he'd been on the other side of the tank, unprotected by its huge bulk, he would be a dead man. As it was, he was shaken, disoriented, and pissed.

Herrera pushed himself to his knees, then realized he'd been pushing on something soft.

"What happened?"

It took a moment for reality to penetrate. Dead women don't talk, right? Which meant Newland wasn't dead. What had appeared from a distance to be a huge slash across her neck was simply a scratch.

Or was it. The pool of blood around her didn't come from any scratch. To all appearances, she'd bled out. But she was alive, and talking. The situation was clearly impossible.

Before he could answer Sergeant Newland, the tank's hatch popped open. “Captain, we've got trouble. Our IFF shows multiple aircraft incoming. They're signaling Friendly, but the signature doesn't look right for Air Force.” Sonders was practically babbling now. “I think we may have some more where this black helicopter came from.

Herrera thought fast. Whatever he decided, there would be no going back. He didn't need to be a genius to know that taking on the CIA or whatever other secret government agency was behind Smith and his black helicopters was a fool's game.

"Understood, Sonders. Good shooting, Jensen. Cancel that Medevac order and clear out. I want the entire company to head back to base at full speed. And for God's sake take Newland's squad with you. Don't stop for anything but a valid chain-of-command order."

"What about you, sir?"

What about him? When you grow up in south Dallas, the Army was one of the few options that take you away from street gangs, drugs, or a lifetime of menial work. If he stayed with Newland, he would be pissing away everything he'd spent the past ten years working for—and would probably spend another ten years or so in the stockade for desertion as well.

But he was an officer, and someone in covert ops had knifed a soldier while he'd been on guard duty. He wasn't going to let anyone finish what Smith had started.

"Let whoever does the post-op know that I ordered the shot that downed the chopper. My responsibility. Now move."

As his tank company roared into the night, he bent down to pick up the wounded woman.

She pushed his arms away. “I'm all right. What's going on?"

"Your CIA friend went off the deep end. Tried to kill you. You must have got him before he could finish the job. Now we've got to get out of here."

"Okay. Help me with this.” She gestured at the wooden joists she'd fallen upon when Smith had killed her.

"We don't have time for construction debris. We've got to go underground before the insurgents put on a show of force."

"I don't know what's going on, but I do know that Smith tried to kill me over what you're calling construction debris. According to him, it's The Cross."

He must have looked as confused as he felt because she shook her head impatiently. “
The True Cross
. The one Jesus was crucified on. Not symbolically but literally. I don't know if that's true, but it's clearly important. We need to get it to safety."

Safety was something Herrera suspected would be the last thing they'd find around here.

Newland stood, exactly as if she hadn't just been lying their with every drop of blood in her body spilled on the foundation stones for the old mosque, then lifted up the crossbeam as if it weighted only a few ounces.

"We can hide in the ruins back there. Bring that other piece."

Without waiting for him to answer, she set off at a jog.

Zack eyed the twelve foot long piece of timber. Herrera was as good a Catholic as the next Latino, but he expected the artifacts of the Saints and Angelic Hosts to be in churches where they belonged, not lying on some remote battlefield.

He picked up what Newland claimed just might be half the True Cross and was amazed that it seemed practically weightless. So much so that he was able to grab Smith's body and his briefcase and carry those as well.

From the evidence of the wounds, he'd assumed that the agent had been the one who'd flipped out. Now that he'd heard the Sergeant, he wondered if he'd made a truly monumental mistake.

Ivy headed toward the sound side of the mosque complex where a couple of outbuildings were more or less intact.

Her mind whirled with impossibilities but she'd been long enough in Iraq to know that survival came first. In Iraq, understanding what was going on rarely happened anyway.

Running full speed, she hit the door to what looked like it had once been a supply shed and smacked it open, then put her M16 on her hip and stood guard.

Captain Herrera was lugging not only the main piece from the Cross, something she and Smith had both struggled to lift, but also Jones’ corpse and his briefcase.

"What did you bring
him
for?"

"You want to leave his body there for the insurgents to put on T.V.?” Herrera shoved the broken door shut behind him.

She hadn't realized she was poking her rifle into his chest until he used one finger to push it out of the way, then set down his cargo.

"All right,” he collapsed onto the earthen floor. “I'm going to assume you know what you're doing. So tell me what you know. We'd better pool our knowledge if we're going to stay alive."

She considered, nodded. She didn't know any secrets. She had no idea why her squad had been assigned to work with Smith and Jones in the first place, how he'd guessed that what he claimed was the True Cross would be here in Mosul, or why he'd decided to try to kill her. But she was interested in learning what she could. Because there was one thing she was certain of. Given the way theater command had responded to Smith, what he was doing was approved at high levels within the government. Which meant the woman who had killed him was likely to be in a heap of trouble.

"I don't know much,” she admitted. “Smith hand-selected me and my squad—you know women don't normally fight combat missions—but he didn't tell me anything about the mission. I certainly didn't have a clue what he was looking for until I saw this.” She gestured toward the two timbers that made up the alleged True Cross. “He used a smaller Cross from the briefcase like a dowsing rod."

Herrera shook his head. The Captain was a good-looking guy, maybe an inch under six feet with a nice build on him and intelligent brown eyes. The burning helicopter provided enough light for her to see him clearly even without the night vision gear that had never arrived.