The Sign

understand each other?”

Chapter 42

Deir Al-Suryan Monastery, Wadi Natrun, Egypt

Tucked away behind the crumbled wall four hundred yards west of the monastery and veiled by their desert camouflage netting, Fox Two and his two men watched silently through their high-powered binoculars, and waited.

Beside them, nestling under the truck’s canvas top, the long range acoustical device unit sat patiently, ready to wield its unseen power again. It had been painted a matte sand-beige in preparation for their mission, a color that had been matched perfectly to blend in with the terrain outside the monastery and farther up, on top of the mountain, above the cave. They’d left the directional microphone in its casing on this occasion. Today’s event had been planned strictly as a one-way conversation, unlike the long hours they’d spent during all those weeks and months, up on the mountain, when Father Jerome had occasionally seen fit to ask a question or two.

Fox Two studied the restless crowd below. So far, he’d been able to push the right buttons and generate the responses he needed without a problem. Father Jerome had reacted as expected to the gentle prodding he’d given him on the rooftop, after the sign had appeared above him—but then, he’d been well primed to react that way. A few whispered words, aimed at the more visibly heated pockets in the mob, were also enough to trigger a cascading reaction, to nudge them into a frenzy at the sight of an escaping car. A high-frequency, ultra-loud pulse using the crowd-control setting was more than enough to hobble their fervor when it was no longer needed and get them to pull away in order to facilitate an escape.

Remarkable, he still thought, even after using the LRAD device so often that it had become second nature to him. A simple concept, really—projecting noise in a tightly focused audio beam, the same way a film projector’s lens magnifies and focuses a shaft of light, so that only the persons—or person, for it was as accurate as a sniper’s rifle—in the device’s crosshairs could hear it. Even at that distance. And either make it appear as if someone’s voice, live or taped, was actually inside the target’s head, or—using the less subtle crowd- control mode—send an unbearably loud, caustic sound pulse into the target’s ears that, at its highest setting, caused nausea and fainting and crippled the toughest enemy.

Simple, but hugely effective.

His master’s voice, Fox Two mused.

The power of suggestion was particularly effective in this case, when the subjects were already burning with the desire to do what was required of them, as in the case of the selected targets in the mob outside the monastery, or, as in the case of Father Jerome, when they’d undergone weeks of forced indoctrination. Electroshocks and sleep deprivation sessions, followed by cocktails of methohexitol to take the edge off. Transcranial mental stimulation. A complete psycho-chemical breakdown. Tripping the switches inside the brain, disarming it entirely before bombarding it psychologically. Implanting visions, thoughts, feelings. Conditioning the brain to accept an alternate reality, like hearing the voice of God or overcoming one’s humility in order to embrace the notion of being the Chosen One.

He panned his binoculars across the desert, west of his position. Even though he knew what he was looking for, it still took him the better part of a minute to locate Fox One and his unit. The four men and their gear were also virtually invisible, huddled under camouflage netting in the sand dunes a couple of hundred yards away. Their contribution had been flawless, as expected. Its effect, staggering. He’d seen it before, in a video of a test in the desert. But not like this. Not live. Not in front of an unsuspecting audience.

It had taken his breath away. Even for a battle-hardened cynic like him, it was a heart-stopping moment. A one-two punch that, he knew, would resonate around the world.

Fox Two turned his attention back to the hordes at the monastery’s gates. He’d soon be able to leave this dump for good, he thought with a degree of relish. It had been a hellish assignment. Living in hiding, on call at dawn and at dusk, climbing up and down the mountain, lugging the gear, day in and day out. He’d been out here in the desert way too long. He missed the feel of a woman’s skin and the smell of a good barbecue, but most of all, he missed living among people.

Soon, he thought.

But before he could do that, he needed to make sure that the mission ended as smoothly as it had begun.

Chapter 43

Woburn, Massachusetts

The smell of fresh coffee tripped Matt’s mind and coaxed him out of a dreamless sleep. Everything around him looked hazy. He tried to sit up, but did so too quickly and almost blacked out and had to try again, a bit slower this time. His head felt like it was filled with tar as he took in his surroundings and awareness trickled in.

The TV was on, though Matt couldn’t really make out what it was showing. He tried blinking the fogginess out of his eyes. Jabba was sitting by the small table next to the window, watching the TV. He turned and grinned at Matt, a smoking cup of coffee in one hand—a venti or a grande or whatever quirkily-original-yet-misguidedly- obnoxious name coffee shops had replaced large with these days—and a half-eaten glazed doughnut—or was that “glaze”?—in the other, with which he pointed at the two other oversized cups and the box of doughnuts on the table.

“Breakfast is served,” he said, in between mouthfuls.

Matt acknowledged the venti-sized scientist with a weary smile before noticing the daylight streaming in.

“How long was I out? What time is it?”

“Almost eleven. Which means you’ve been out for,” Jabba did a quick mental calculation, “sixteen hours or so.”

Which Matt had needed.

Badly.

He also noticed a couple of newspapers on the table. The headlines were in an unusually large font—the type only used when a major event had occurred. An almost quarter-page photograph of the apparition, in color, was also emblazoned across the front pages, next to older, file portraits of Father Jerome.

Matt looked up at Jabba. Jabba nodded, and his expression took a detour into more ominous territory. “The Eagle has landed,” he said somberly, aiming his half-eaten doughnut at the TV.

Matt watched the footage from Egypt in silent disbelief. Breathless reports coming in from around the world also showed the explosive reaction to what had happened at the monastery.

In St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City, tens of thousands of people had assembled, hungrily awaiting the pope’s guidance on how to treat the apparition. In the Praca da Se in Sao Paulo, hordes of euphoric Brazilians spilled into the square from in and out of the city, invading every available inch of the Se cathedral, also looking for answers. The reactions reflected the local variations in faith and the different levels of appetite for the supernatural across the planet. The scenes were repeated in frenzied massings outside churches and in city squares in other centers of Christianity, from Mexico to the Philippines, but were different elsewhere. In the Far East, the reaction was generally more muted. Crowds had taken to the streets in China, Thailand, and Japan, but they were mostly orderly