Scott Mariani - The Doomsday Prophecy

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.

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 got 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.