to the holding lagoon.
The horse looked up as he approached. He held out his hand and stroked it, talking softly as he loaded his few supplies into the saddlebag and fitted Hyde’s M4 into a saddle holster. He thought of his father, lying on the bed next to Liv in the sick bay, and finally understood the sacrifice he had made. He hoped one day Liv would forgive him too for what he was about to do, just as he now whispered his own belated forgiveness to his father.
The horse splashed through the mud and pools of water until the dry earth began.
Gabriel fixed his eyes on the horizon. He did not look back.
He did not trust himself.
He kept riding north, the smell of oranges following him, until he disappeared into the desert.
115
Arkadian was back at his desk on the fourth floor of the police building. He knew that everything he had been working on would soon be public knowledge, so he saw little point in continued caution. He finished his report and read it through.
Gabriel’s email had provided all the missing links. He could now connect the Church with Dragonfields, the map with the ancient location of Eden and the timing of the huge loan to the Church that had underwritten the whole covert venture. They had been seeking buried treasure after all, but not the legendary hoards of Alexander the Great and King Croesus. They had been looking for more modern riches. All underground oil reserves start out as prehistoric trees and shrubs that decay over millions of years to become carbon-rich crude. Because of its size, its age, and the secrecy that had always surrounded its location, the Garden of Eden had become, over time, the largest, most enriched untapped oil reserve on earth. The Church had not been trying to locate Eden for any sacred reason but so that it could mine its past — everybody’s past — in order to safeguard its own future.
Arkadian attached the report to a mailing list he had prepared including the addresses of as many news outlets as he could find — large and small, local and international — as well as several independent political blogging sites. The list also included Interpol, the press offices of a number of governments — and the Vatican. He had left the addressees visible so that each one would know who else it had been sent to and those who were already compromised would realize a cover-up was impossible. It was his way of casting the seeds as widely as possible so they could take root wherever they found purchase. He liked the biblical implications of this.
Finally he emailed his report to the entire Ruin City Police Department, copied it on to a flash drive that he slipped into his pocket, then grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and went home to his wife.
VII And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. Revelation 12:16
116
She was in a dream of darkness, like before, but this time she did not fear it; this time she knew what the darkness contained. Waking from the dream, she reached out for Gabriel, as she had in the cave, expecting her hand to find his solid form, but he was not there.
Liv opened her eyes.
She was in some kind of medical room, but, though it was unfamiliar to her, she felt she belonged here, as if she was — home.
There was another bed. It was occupied by John Mann, resting at last. She could tell that he was dead, but she could also feel his peace. Slipping from her bed, she moved across to stand beside him, laying her hand on his. She felt anxious for Gabriel, wondering where he was and why he was not sitting vigil beside his father, whom he had found and lost again in the space of a few hours. Now he truly was alone in the world — like her. But he was not alone. He would never be alone. He had her, and she him.
Liv drifted out into a corridor, drawn by the noises from outside. The building seemed deserted, all sounds coming from the compound beyond. She moved down the corridor and spotted the door at the end with the splintered frame.
The Starmap was lying on the table where Gabriel had left it. Her eye traced the constellations marked on the surface, recognizing Draco, Taurus, and the Plough. She noticed an extra star in the last one, cut deeper than the rest, with a line drawn from it to a section of the text. There was no whispering sound to herald the arrival of a translation; this time she found she could just read it.
The Sacrament comes Home and The Key looks to Heaven
A new star is born with a new King on Earth to bring order to the end of days
It was as if some of the substance of the Sacrament had permanently rubbed off on her. She picked up the heavy tablet and turned it over, hoping there might be more on the other side. What she found was a note. My darling Liv, Nothing is easy, but leaving you is the hardest thing I have ever done. I know now what pain my father must have felt when he had to leave us. I hope to return when I can. In the meantime, do not look for me, just know that I love you. And keep yourself safe — until I find you again. Gabriel
117
Dr Harzan paced around the rim of the pit where the Sikorsky lay buried.
Most of the relics had now been retrieved and were ready to be shipped to Turkey where they would finally enter the great library, as they should have done twelve years earlier. The sense that this long-unfinished business was about to be resolved gave him huge satisfaction.
And yet…
They had all heard the distant gunfire coming from the direction of the compound. Since then he had been unable to raise anyone on the radio. All he got was a whispering static. It made him uneasy. Maybe their radio was faulty; the damned sand got into everything. His encounter with John Mann earlier had also unsettled him. It was a potent reminder that history could return to cause trouble, even when you were sure it was dead and buried. These relics, with their alternate telling of the stories enshrined in the Bible were solid proof of that. The sooner they were locked away, where no one else could get them, the better.
His head recoiled as the round hit him in the eye and took away most of the back of his head. He toppled over and slid to the bottom of the pit, coming to rest against the metal fuselage of the dead dragon just as the sound of the gunshot caught up with the M4 round then echoed away across the desert.
118
Cardinal Clementi was at his desk, staring at his computer screen. His phone was ringing but he didn’t seem to notice. He was slumped in his chair, his head sunk down almost to his chest, his shoulders loose and sloping as if the great bulk of his body was pulling everything down. A cigarette dangled from his marshmallow lips, almost an inch of ash hanging from the end. On the screen was an opened email sent by Pentangeli: We are calling in our secured loans as of start of business on Wall Street tomorrow. Should you fail to honor these debts here is a facsimile of tomorrow’s city edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Beneath the text was a mock up of the front page with the splash headline:
CHURCH BANKRUPT
Through the constant sound of his ringing desk phone he heard footsteps approaching, hurrying towards him down the marble corridor, several people by the sound of it. The first arrived and started banging at the door.
