"This is only the tip of iceberg," Stark said. "Let's fast-forward to last week." He pointed out a 3.3 quake. "That one is within minutes of Brandt getting shot." Without waiting for anyone's response, Stark went to another point. "That one is approximately the time Rebecca and Vakasa were captured by Frellan's men." He whisked to screen to the next point. "And that one is when the crocs attacked."
"The Congo is a very geologically active area," Prenner tried to explain. "Those could all just be aftershocks."
Stark shrugged. "Okay, then how about Egypt? You are seriously going to tell me that an aftershock reached several thousand miles away?"
"This is all speculation and-"
"Then speculate about this..."
The tech brought up a new screen. It showed small quakes across the Mediterranean. In a line across the Mediterranean. "These microquakes are exactly in line with his plane's flight path. Stark then overlaid this map with that of a plane's trajectory. They were a direct match.
"I think Vakasa is leaving us bread crumbs," Stark finished.
Bunny was glad she was already sitting down.
Davidson trotted up to the private hangar, his new gear in tow. It looked like the rest were already loaded onto the plane, with the exception of Levont, who was packing their gear into the hold. Davidson tossed him a bag.
"Got a couple more for you."
"Don't know how much more it can hold," Levont said. "This plane is lean."
Lopez came out of nowhere and took the bag from Levont. "No, this 'plane,' this Marchetti SF Five Hundred, is not just the fastest, most sophisticated plane to ever grace the world, it is the Porsche of planes, it is a true work of art, and I won't have you scratching her."
Levont put his hands up in defeat. "Sorry, man. I'll take care of your girl."
"That's better," Lopez said, then headed to the steps that led up to the plane.
Davidson helped Levont load the rest of the gear, then joined Brandt and Rebecca in the tight cockpit. The thing was built for four, but they were going to have to make do for six. Make that five. Talli wasn't with them. Not that Davidson was grieving all that much over the loss of their "sniper." The other men seemed to have barely blinked at the loss, either. Was this how they had felt after his betrayal? Had they just moved on like this?
Brandt rose and went to get into a jury-rigged jump seat. Apparently, the sergeant thought he was going to cram his large frame into that tiny chair.
"Sarge, I got it," he said, shaking off his concern. They had a mission to complete.
Brandt looked to argue, but Davidson held up the video camera. "Lopez has already asked me to tape his beating the airspeed record for a four-seater."
"No way we can beat that," Levont said, settling into his copilot seat. "We've got five people, plus all the gear."
"You doubt me?" Lopez asked.
The point man laughed. "Hell no."
"All right. Let's go make history."
Brandt shook his head but rose, taking the seat next to Rebecca.
As they rolled out of the hangar and onto the tarmac, Davidson pointed the camera toward the front window. "Guinness Book, here we come."
Frellan walked down the gangway. The spices of Morocco filled his nostrils. Despite the late hour, the airport was still filled with gamblers trying their hand at slot machines, desperate to win back some of what Morocco had taken.
Benedicto stopped mid-stride, though, looking to his phone. "The child is not with Brandt." Frelland waited as the priest read the rest of the text. "She was taken by a British agent."
Another turn of luck. Brandt was the bane of the Disciples. This British agent did not know what hurt he had invited upon himself. "Then they head north?"
Shaking his head, Benedicto reread the text. "They head east. Their flight path appears to be directed straight at Jerusalem."
The Holy Land? Could God truly smile down upon them?
Then a man trotted up to Frellan and handed him a slip of paper. His joy dashed by the note. "Brandt is not on the train to Lourdes."
Monnie's smooth skin creased at the brows. "They must have found something in Cuellar that indicated where the British would take her."
"We must hurry," Benedicto stated, heading back to the plane.
Frellan, though, simply sat down in one of the chairs, opening his phone.
"What are you doing?" the priest asked. "We are hours behind."
"You are not the only one with contacts," Frellan reported, dialing his Russian brethren.
Bunny had given up trying to keep track of the alarms. A cacophony rang around them. Some were breaches, others were earthquake alerts, while still others were based off facial-recognition programs at every major airport, train station, or port in Europe. Hence the variety of buzzes.
"Can we turn some of these down?" Prenner asked.
Stark just waved him away. "This high-speed plane must be Brandt's team," the tech said, showing a flight path nearly identical to Vanderwalt's British jet. Better yet, they were catching up with Vakasa.
"Where are the Disciples?" Emily asked.
"I picked them up in Morocco, but they fell off the map after that."
Another alarm rang.
Bunny tensed. "Is that another breach?"
"Nah," Stark answered. "The eighth wall is holding strong." He flicked through several different screens until he finally found the one sounding the alarm. "It is the earthquakes..."
"What's wrong?" Prenner asked.
Stark shook his head. "They've diverted from a straight path to Jerusalem, heading ten degrees north."
"Why?" Bunny asked.
The tech shrugged, sorting through a variety of screens, finally settling on an air traffic control feed. "Yep, the plane is heading north. They informed Atarot Airport that they are not landing there but haven't registered a new flight plane."
Bunny picked up the sat phone. "We've got to warn Brandt." Even as she dialed, she knew it was futile. Davidson must have removed the small crystalline battery from the sat phone. It rang and rang with no answer.
"We've got to figure out another way," Bunny said, slamming down the phone.
Before Stark could answer, the room filled with the sound of klaxons as the lights blinked out and red flashing strobes replaced them.
"That," Stark stated, "was the eighth firewall coming down..." He fussed for a few more moments, then threw up his hands. "All right. That's it." He turned to Bunny. "Go get Mom."
"I'm sorry?" Bunny said.
"Oatmeal-and-raisin cookies," Prenner stated, "no matter how good, are not going to get you out of this mess. We need to move on."
Emily nodded. "Agreed."
Stark ignored the other two and addressed Bunny directly. "Get. My. Mom."
Not knowing exactly what else to do, Bunny obeyed.
Rebecca held on to the armrest as her seat shook from the airspeed that Lopez was attempting to achieve.
"Sorry, dude," Levont reported. "Only two hundred and fifteen knots."
Only 215 knots? That meant they were traveling around four hundred miles per hour. No wonder the seat was shaking. Rebecca would put up with the annoyance. They were less than an hour out of Israel. They would start descending as they passed the coast and head inland. At that point, Lopez would have to cut speed, but clearly he was not willing to give up the record just yet.
"The wind is against you," Davidson stated beside her. "With our weight and that headwind, you just aren't going to be able to overcome the air resistance."
While Lopez didn't argue, he certainly did frown.
Rebecca let the men's discussion flow over her. She knew that they really didn't care about their airspeed-well, Lopez might. No, the others, even Brandt, had taken part in this race to keep their minds off of Vakasa. Rebecca wished she were as adept at blocking out the fear and pain.
She'd replayed the scene in the Cuellar cloister over and over again. Should she have let Vanderwalt take the girl? Should she have let Brandt try to shoot it out? Or would they have had a high body count and still no Vakasa?
"Whoa!" Levont yelled, pointing ahead.
Lopez squinted. "What the...?"
Rebecca looked out the window, to find the Mediterranean water roiling, bubbling, churning. It was pretty far down there, but something massive was happening to the usually calm Mediterranean waters. Then a plume shot up from the sea, creating a wall of water in front of them. An undersea volcano.
"Crap!" Lopez yelled, diving them nose down.
They streaked away from the plume, the plane shaking violently. Rebecca looked over her shoulder. The water turned to steam as ash sailed high above them. Volcanoes could shoot debris twenty-five kilometers into the air. They weren't safe until they were outside of the plume radius.
"Another one!" Levont shouted, pointing ahead.
Only, this one wasn't just shooting water and ash. Lava burst from the cone, nearly taking out their wing.
"Turn south!" Rebecca yelled. "Due south."
Lopez banked the plane hard as wind screamed around them.
"We aren't going to make it," Rebecca moaned. Lopez was good, but he wasn't that good.
"Make a-" Brandt started to say, then stopped as a third volcano erupted in front of them. It was twice the size of the others. The blast slammed into the wings, sending them reeling to the right as if they were nothing more than a paper plane.
They were flying straight over the Aegean Arc. A set of four ancient volcanoes. The increased seismic activity must have destabilized the mantle cap. As the fourth exploded directly under them, lava splattered against their underside as the rest of the molten-hot spray coursed around them.
"Hang on!" Lopez shouted as he laid them over ninety degrees, cutting through the eruption.
They cleared the lava, then the smoke, then the steam, exiting out into the clear evening sky.
"Just like dodgeball!" Lopez announced. "Only, with lava."
Rebecca looked over to Brandt, who wore the deepest frown she'd seen yet. She reached her hand out. He didn't take it.
"The end of days."
For a moment, Rebecca didn't know what he meant, but then realized he was putting together the earthquakes and now the volcanic eruptions. If Vakasa truly was the Messiah, would she fulfill other prophecies? Prophecies like the apocalypse?
Apparently, Brandt's faith that Vakasa was not the Messiah seemed to be wearing a little thin.
"We're looking pretty good," Lopez said, easing them down in altitude, getting ready to make the approach toward Israel.
"Um, except we are kind of on fire," Davidson noted.
"Well, yeah, there's that."
"And we've got incoming!" Levont yelled over the sound of the inferno behind them.
"Incoming?" Lopez asked. "Who in the hell-"
Brandt felt the sonic boom all the way down to his marrow, and it didn't let up. They must have been in the jet's sonic carpet, feeling every last molecule displaced by the other plane. Then the tail boom, which nearly jarred him out of his seat, restraints and all.
Lopez banked them to the left. "How did the Disciples get a supersonic jet?" When no one answered him since they were too busy holding on for their lives, Lopez continued. "Seriously? How? I want one."
Finally, they came out of the sharp bank, but the supersonic jet wasn't idle. They were making a tight turn to come back around for another pass. If the jet got close enough, the force could shake the bolts holding their little plane together.
His concern nearly made Brandt miss the minor detail that Lopez was heading back toward the volcanoes. "Lopez..."
"What?" the corporal asked, never wavering from his course. "Nobody is stupid enough to follow me in."
"That is kind of what I am worried about."
Lopez rolled his eyes. "Please."
And then they were back into the smoke plume. The world contracted down around them as ash and airborne lava shot past them.