The most forward man reached the outer temple door.
Davidson kept his finger from the trigger. Harvish, Lopez, and Brandt could handle a few shock troops.
Then the crack of a shot split the air and one of the men fell.
Davidson swung his scope to the right. It was Talli. He fired again, scattering the men. Then a blast came from a tower far across the plaza, tagging Talli in the shoulder. And the firing didn't stop there. Bullets peppered Talli's nest.
Every instinct Davidson had told him not to fire. To stay hidden. To hold back for the shot he knew he needed to take, but Talli was getting hammered. Without cover fire the guy was toast.
Taking aim, Davidson leveled his rifle at the enemy's perch and pulled the trigger. The high-powered shot went straight through the salt wall. A scream told Davidson he'd hit his man. The blood saturating the white tower told him he'd killed him.
Then another shot, coming from behind Davidson, sent him spinning to avoid a bullet. Still the shot caught him in the hip. From the pain screaming down his leg, it had ricocheted off the bone.
The enemy had two shooters in the sky just like they did.
Davidson let go of the wound and aimed at the lower tower, firing once, then twice. A man clutched his chest and fell from the window. Whistling air through his teeth, Davidson struggled to stay conscious. The pain crashed over him in waves, threatening to sweep him along with it.
But he couldn't faint. Because the shot that had got him had been lucky. Neither of the shooters had been the man Davidson had faced before. For one thing they were too close. And too sloppy.
Which left the question. If the guy wasn't up in the towers...
Where the hell was the sniper?
Rebecca covered her head as bullets flew above them, hitting the mineralized wall, pelting them with salt shrapnel. Bunny knelt beside her, sobbing quietly. What did the woman expect? At least when Rebecca wanted to fulfill the quest to retrieve the tablets she knew there would be bullets.
Okay, maybe she didn't realize this many, but she knew the Disciples would find them. The religious fanatics always did.
She risked a glance over the mound of broken statues, quite aware of the irony that the false god Moloch was in fact protecting them, whether he wanted to or not. Harvish was holed up behind a pillar near the door, making sure that no one came rushing through. Lopez and Brandt flanked on either side, making use of the scant cover left to them.
They were just three against how many?
A chilling thought seized her, nearly freezing the sweat on her skin. The Disciples had a long history. Clearly. They hadn't been born at the foot of crucifixion, they had been born upon Mount Sinai or at least the base of it. Which meant they might know of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps not their exact locations, but the layout of the cities? That they might know very well.
Which gave the Disciples a considerable edge.
"Conserve your ammo!" Brandt yelled to Lopez, who of course was firing a few miles per minute.
So besides greater manpower and weapons, the Disciples also had better tactical knowledge. Yeah, Brandt had been right. Way better to have confronted the Disciples with an aircraft carrier at their back.
Murmuring drew Rebecca from her thoughts. Bunny must be praying or something. But she found the younger woman holding the small chunk of tablet Rebecca had held back from the rest.
"Know that not all shall hear the words of the Messiah. Hearts will harden to the message." Bunny translated from the passage on the other side of the stone. "Stones the size of boulders will be thrown. Yet their message is my message."
Rebecca put her hand over Bunny's. "We've got to be ready to move."
"To where?" the younger woman asked as tears streaked down her cheek.
Shouts and gunfire consumed the entrance to the tomb. There would be no getting out that way. Rebecca scanned the walls around them. They seemed as solid as the rest.
"Let me die doing what I love," Bunny pleaded.
Having no better option, Rebecca released her hold, then pointed to several words. "Be careful of rushed translating. 'Hearts' could easily be 'souls.' And 'thrown' is most likely 'hurled.'" Bunny looked up at Rebecca. "Hey, if we're going to do this, let's do it right."
Rebecca put on what she hoped was an encouraging smile. It must have done its job as Bunny nodded.
The younger woman sniffed once, cringing as the gunfire intensified, then continued. "I shall send others before my Messiah. Prophets all to spread my word. Then shall come my son..." Bunny cocked her head. "No, that may be 'child.'"
Looking over the woman's shoulder, Rebecca went back and read the entire text. Hebrew was so context sensitive. And ancient Hebrew? Triple so. Her lips moved rapidly as she read the passage silently. Yet she too stumbled on the last word. The problem was they were missing a tiny sliver of stone. A rather important piece of stone that could have an arch on the first letter of the problematic word. If that bit of script went left it meant "son." If the tail of the letter went straight it meant "child," and if it went right, well that would be "daughter."
"Perhaps farther down there is clarification," Rebecca stated.
"'This child shall come...'" Bunny grinned. "Well, that clears that up." The younger woman continued. "Unto you. Once these tablets are discovered and known to the heathens, my child shall then-"
"Wait," Rebecca interjected. "That second 'child' reference. I don't think..."
Bunny brought the fragment of stone closer, squinting. "You are right. It does have a tail..."
"Pointing right," Rebecca finished for her.
That couldn't be though. That would make the Messiah a...
The implications drowned out everything else. The sound of gunfire, the men's shouts, even the bitter taste of gunpowder in the air. Nothing existed except for that one symbol. That one impossible symbol.
"That could just be a chip in the stone," Bunny said, her voice shaking. "There must be another explanation."
Could there though?
"My 'child' shall come unto all the people, all the men, all the nations of the world and declare my word." Then Bunny stopped and the fragment dropped from her hand.
Rebecca snatched the stone from the floor and read aloud the next passage.
"She will come in peace. She shall deliver the olive branch. She will show my full might to the world."
There was no mistaking the text now. There was no disputing the tablet's meaning. Rebecca's eyes sought Brandt. He was focused on the door, firing through the pocked surface. His jaw clenched. His eyes focused. But she knew the blow that these words would have on him. Look at Bunny. Her head was in her hands.
How could she ever tell Brandt that his Messiah was really a woman?
CHAPTER 24.
Gomorrah, Jordan 11:44 p.m. GMT This was not going well, Brandt thought.
No shit, was the follow-up to that.
Out of all the scenarios Brandt had run in his head, the ending never went well. But never this badly. What the fuck was the point in having two snipers if they didn't actually help? The damned chick leading this crew should have been dead by now and the other men scattered.
As the bullets flew, they didn't seem very scattered to Brandt. However, the Disciples hadn't come at them full-on either. Almost like they were baiting them into wasting their ammo. Which by the way was working.
Death by attrition. Not exactly what Brandt wanted carved into his gravestone.
He glanced over to check on Harvish. Blood ran down his arm. That very first wound he took in Moscow must have opened again. Brandt wouldn't have given it another thought except halfway down the streak of red, something glistened.
Fuckers.
"Lopez and Harvish!" Brandt shouted. "Switch out!" The corporal cocked an eyebrow, but Brandt wasn't in the mood to explain. "Now!"
In a flurry of firing, Lopez took over the primary position as Harvish backed away, taking up a stance near Brandt. He crept forward making sure that Lopez held the door.
"You've got a tracker on you," Brandt informed Harvish.
"No, Sarge," Harvish protested, "I swear, I'm clean. I'm-"
Brandt held up a hand to stop his point man's frantic speech. "I know. It's not your fault."
To prove it, Brandt pulled off the bandage over Harvish's arm wound. Silver sparked on the cloth.
"What the-"
"Microtransmitters," Brandt explained, wiping the wound hard. Hard enough for Harvish to wince. Too bad. He needed to get the last remaining beads out. "They shot you up with them back at the GUM mall."
"Sarge, I am so sorry. I never even-"
Again, Brandt held up his hand. That was the point of these transmitters. In retrospect he should have suspected something was up when the sniper hadn't killed Harvish, instead just winging his arm. He hadn't meant to kill the point man. He'd meant to tag him.
As Brandt squeezed more and more of the tiny silver beads from the wound, Harvish asked, "How the hell didn't I feel them?"
"After a gunshot wound?" Brandt asked as Lopez set off a burst of bullets. The corporal was having way too much fun. "That's the point," Brandt answered Harvish. "Either you chalk up the pain to the injury or if people find the beads they just think they're bullet fragments."
Brandt was trying really hard to hold his temper. One of his men had been a goddamned beacon this whole fucking time. No wonder the Disciples had the jump on them since Moscow.
Harvish helped milk the beads out from the top of the wound. "But how the hell are they getting power?"
"They are fueled by gyroscopic movement just like self-winding watches, only at a microscopic level," Brandt explained as he ripped another strip from his shirt. If it kept going like this, he was going to running around bare-chested.
Brandt glanced over to the women's hiding place. Their heads were down. Good. The last thing he needed was for one of them to go all hero on him. He had enough trouble keeping Lopez in line.
"Conserve!" Brandt yelled, for the hundredth time.
As Harvish went back to his post, Brandt hung back. They were missing something else, not just the microtransmitters.
There was something fundamentally wrong. Not the fact they had been tagged. Not the fact that they were duking it out in ancient biblical, salt-city Gomorrah. Nor the fact that they may or may not have found the tablets given to Moses by God. No, it was the fact that the Disciples were a little splashier than this. The attack on the temple was almost by the book. Where was the grand play? The big move? The sweeping strategy?
The bitch who had hounded them across a couple of continents didn't make her bones playing it subtle. He'd best figure out their- The back wall of the temple exploded inward. He twisted, holding his fire so as not to hit one of the women, ready to take down the attackers as soon as he had a chance, but he never got that opportunity.
Ducked down, two men grabbed Rebecca and Bunny, jerking them to their feet, creating human shields, then pulled them out the ragged hole.
Guess Brandt just got to see their major play in action.
"Hold the temple as long as you can, then fall back to our rally point," Brandt shouted. As much as he wanted to take Lopez and Harvish with him, their best chance of getting the women back was to keep the Disciples' forces split.
Which meant keeping their own force split. Which meant that they didn't have two snipers in place at the back of the temple. Which meant Brandt was going out there.
Alone.
Rebecca bit the hand holding her. The man yelled, releasing his grip, then backhanded her. She stumbled sideways running into a "man," shattering the salt figure.
Bunny fought as well, struggling against her kidnapper.
Taking a handful of salt, Rebecca threw it into the eyes of her assailant. He bellowed, kicking at her. She threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding the blow. Bunny and she were not going to win this war. Not weaponless.
No, all they needed to do was buy some time for Brandt to come charging out here to save the day.
Right?
As she crawled on hands and knees, grinding the salty earth into her palms, she certainly hoped so. Then a glint caught her eye. Ignoring the man yelling at her, pawing at her feet, trying to recapture her, she looked up.
The barrel of a gun poked out of the tower above them. Her head snapped toward the temple just as Brandt's gun muzzle flashed, firing, scattering the kidnappers as he charged the gap in the wall.
"No!" Rebecca screamed, but the sound of her desperate warning was lost as the sniper fired from above, hitting Brandt square in the chest, then again and again. The impact blew him back, out of sight. "Brandt!"
Long fingernails dug into her hair, pulling Rebecca up against a woman's cheek. "If you do not want that to happen to you, I suggest you come with me, quietly."
Rebecca though did anything but go quietly. Clawing with her own fingernails, she dug into the flesh holding her. Then the muzzle of a gun pressed up against Rebecca's temple.
"I said quietly," the woman hissed as blood dripped down from her hand onto Rebecca's face.
Even though it would be suicide, Rebecca still wanted to struggle. To fight. To scream her anguish, but she had no doubt the Disciple would shoot. Rebecca let herself go slack, pulling in the pain and fear. Balling it up, preparing to unleash it when the moment came.
Which happened to be within a heartbeat.
Another shot echoed, kicking up salt at her captor's feet. The woman danced back, releasing Rebecca. As another shot drove the woman away, Rebecca used all that adrenaline she'd stored and leapt across the distance between her and Bunny. Grabbing the younger woman's hand, she tugged Bunny forward.
"Where are we going?" Bunny choked out.
"Anywhere but here," Rebecca answered, scrambling to get to cover as shots peppered the area.
That had to be Davidson providing cover. But did it really matter with Brandt down? More than likely dead?