LAS VEGAS.

The instant Stokes attempted to close the vault's door, Flaherty s.n.a.t.c.hed the clay map from Brooke and bolted after him. He was only four steps away when the door stopped short from seating against the doorframe. On the other side of the door, Stokes tried pulling harder on the handle, yet the door didn't budge. It took mere seconds for Stokes to detect the problem: the dead-bolt was slightly engaged so that the thick slide bolt protruded just enough to keep the door from seating. While no one had been watching, Flaherty had tampered with the deadbolt just before he'd come into the vault.

Immediately, the door swung inward.

But Flaherty was already in a wide pitcher's stance with the clay tablet c.o.c.ked back above his right shoulder.

On the other side of the door, Stokes was raising his gun to prepare for a cautious re-entry. His eyes, however, went to the room's centre - not directly in front of him.

Flaherty's faster reaction time won out. He launched the five-pound tablet at Stokes's head.

The tablet whirred through the air on a direct line for the pastor's face. Stokes nimbly bobbed sideways so that the tablet instead skimmed his right ear. In the process, he managed to fire one misaligned shot that sailed past Flaherty and thwacked into the thick security gla.s.s on the front side of the display case containing Lilith's head.

Before Stokes regained his footing, Flaherty charged forward like a linebacker and buried his right shoulder in the preacher's abdomen. The tackle lifted Stokes, brought him crashing down on to the floor with his chest catching the brunt of the impact.

There was a loud pop and Flaherty felt something under him give way. He was shocked to see a glossy wingtip sticking up over his shoulder. Flaherty realized it was the business end of the pastor's prosthetic limb - tangled under his arm.

Stokes was quick to respond and the gun came arcing towards Flaherty's face.

With both hands, Flaherty grabbed at Stokes's wrist and forced the Glock sideways. A second shot rang out and punched through the wall.

Getting into a wrestling match with Stokes was a losing proposition, Flaherty was certain. But Stokes had two things working against him: a missing leg and Anthrax-tainted lungs. With the struggle escalating, Flaherty could hear bubbling sounds coming from Stokes's chest.

Stokes responded with a head b.u.t.t that caught Flaherty on the bridge of the nose and made him see stars.

'Aaaghh!' Flaherty screamed out. He managed to hold on to the gun. At the same time, he buried his shoulder in Stokes's face.

Choking, Stokes struggled to push Flaherty away.

Then Stokes let out a m.u.f.fled scream and Flaherty felt the gun pinned hard against the floor. He glimpsed a chunky black clog grinding down on the gun.

'Let it go, Stokes!' Brooke yelled. She pulled her foot up again and stomped down a second time. Finally the gun fell free from his mashed fingers. A swift kick sent it skittering across the carpet.

Desperate for oxygen, Stokes flailed and bucked, trying to use his liberated stump for leverage.

Like riding a bronco, Flaherty couldn't control the crazed pastor. To regain his balance, he had to relinquish his grip on Stokes's wrist. That meant he had no choice but to pull his shoulder off Stokes's mouth.

The pastor coughed fiercely, spraying blood on Flaherty's neck.

Another forceful buck sent Flaherty tumbling on to the floor.

Stokes rolled on to his elbows and retched blood and bile on to the carpet.

It was the opportunity Brooke had been waiting for. In her hand, she clutched the nearest solid object she could find - the clay tablet. With all her might, she swung the map of Eden down at Stokes's head. It connected. The pastor collapsed on to the floor.

64.

IRAQ.

'Jesus Christ,' Jason gasped, standing at the top of the stairs. He had to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve to fight off a fetid stench.

In the room to the right, he caught a quick glimpse of the two men he'd struck blindly from downstairs. In opposite corners of the room, each body lay face down and twisted on the splintered floorboards.

'In here, Google,' Meat called again.

Jason lowered his AK-47, stepped over the dead guy Meat had gunned down on the landing, and went into the second room. The horrid smell sharpened, and its source was immediately apparent.

Sprawled atop a mattress that was the room's only furnishing, Fahim Al-Zahrani lay in a gory mire of blood, vomit and tissue. Since much of the stringy red slime still draped from the corpse's blue lips, Jason a.s.sumed it to be a puree of Al-Zahrani's innards. Blood streamed like tears from the corpse's lifeless eyes - the orbs solid red. And the entire mattress beneath his lower half was completely saturated in red, suggesting that blood and liquefied organs had found their way out every possible exit.

'Man,' Meat said from the far corner, 'what the h.e.l.l's going on here?'

An elderly Arab - unarmed - sat on the floor beside Meat, legs tucked to his chest, rocking back and forth. He was chanting prayers in Arabic. Every few seconds, a spate of coughing interrupted the recitation. The old guy displayed the same pallid complexion Jason had noticed in the man whom Meat stabbed in the throat.

'I mean, what did these guys do to him?' Meat said.

'They didn't do this, Meat. They couldn't couldn't have done this.' have done this.'

'Then who did?'

As if on cue, Jason's sat-com vibrated. He dug in his pocket to find it, saw that it was Flaherty.

'Tommy?'

'Yeah, it's me.'

'Everything all right in Vegas?'

'No. Not by a longshot, I'm afraid.'

Jason listened as Flaherty rehashed the candid tell-all discussion he and Brooke had had with Pastor Randall Stokes - the discovery of an ancient contagion that USAMRIID scientists under Frank Roselli's guidance had weaponized for ma.s.s transmission throughout the Middle East. Staring over at Al-Zahrani, Jason felt his nerves turn to ice. When Flaherty detailed Stokes's sinister objective - to annihilate the Arab male population - he could feel a dark cloud settling over him. He'd had a similar response when in September 2001 his sister Elizabeth had called to report that Matthew had officially gone missing at the World Trade Center.

'Not sure if I'm buying what Stokes was saying about this virus he and Roselli concocted. Seemed a bit out there to me ...' Flaherty said.

'He's right, Tommy. Trust me. We just found Al-Zahrani and he's dead.'

'Dead?'

'Yeah.'

'But you only pulled him out of that cave a few hours ago.'

'That's right. We thought he had a fever. But now ... G.o.d, it looks like something minced his organs and pushed them out his throat. We killed a few others that had been in contact with him ... it's a long story. But they weren't looking too good either. If you ask me, I'd say they were showing early signs of being infected with this virus.'

'Virus?'Meat said, looking alarmed.His eyes wentwide with concern as he looked at Al-Zahrani again. 'What do mean "virus"?'

'Virus,' the elderly Arab echoed grimly. 'Yes ... virus,' he said holding out his hands and staring at them with vacant, yellowed eyes.

'Shut up!' Meat demanded, kicking the old man.

Jason stifled Meat with an abrupt hand gesture.

'The others you killed ... were they Arabs?' Flaherty asked in a low voice.

'They were.'

A pause.

'So it's true,' Flaherty said in a grim tone. 'It only kills Arabs.'

'For our sake, I hope so.'

'Stokes was pretty proud of the fact that this virus could specifically target Arabs,' Flaherty reiterated. 'Let's not go making any a.s.sumptions. I hope you'll be fine. Are you okay?'

Jason wasn't so sure. 'You said this thing can spread through the air?'

'What?' Meat said, startled by the bits and pieces he was overhearing. 'You mean just breathing it-'

'These men you've killed ...' Flaherty said, thinking it through. 'You've got to get rid of the bodies. Burn them or something. Until we find out what's really happening, we can't risk letting this thing get out in the open.'

'Agreed.'

'There's something else too. However Stokes was planning to spread the virus, it's in that cave. He referred to it as a "delivery system". I don't know how or what that might mean, but he implied that it somehow uses nature, not warheads. Our friend Crawford has been in on this thing all along. And he's determined to finish this, understand? So you've got to wrap things up there quickly and find a way to get back to that cave and stop Crawford.'

'I'll do that,' Jason said, ruing the fact that he didn't force the issue of calling for backup earlier. 'Hey, is Stokes dead?'

'No. But he will be soon. And not from the b.u.mp on his head. Seems there was a mutiny among the ranks. Frank Roselli, the USAMRIID guy, managed to infect Stokes with some military-grade anthrax. Talk about poetic justice. Anyway, when Stokes comes to, I'll see if we can get anything else out of him.'

'Great work, Tommy. I'll take it from here.'

65.

'How long till Candyman gets here?' Meat asked, uncapping another of the five-gallon gas cans they'd liberated from the shed where the stolen truck had been hidden.

'Ten minutes,' Jason replied with little emotion. His vacant eyes fixated on the elderly Arab whose chant had come to an abrupt halt, thanks to a single shot Meat had pumped through the top of his head. All things considered, the execution was truly a mercy kill. The old man had offered no resistance.

In every way, the mission added new meaning to the phrase 'take no prisoners'. The death toll Jason had witnessed over the past nine hours was as deep as it was wide. Undoubtedly, the demise of Al-Zahrani and his militant underlings was to be celebrated - and in time, would be. After all, he reminded himself, these men were terrorists of the worst variety: extremists h.e.l.l bent on indiscriminately destroying civilization; brainwashed by radical interpretations of the Qur'an and the Hadith; convinced that sacrificing innocent lives was sanctioned by Allah.

But for Jason, a disturbing truth was fast coming into focus: terrorism was a two-way street. If Stokes were to succeed in unleashing his wretched apocalypse on the Middle East, the combined acts of terror carried out by the minuscule minority of Muslim extremists would seem trivial in comparison. And the fact that evangelical fanaticism stoked the pastor's fervour was all too similar to the enemy Jason had been fighting all these years. What could have pushed Stokes over the brink of sanity? he wondered. Jason knew firsthand that war could easily blur the lines. Even as he stood over the grand trophy of this conflict - the body of Fahim Al-Zahrani - he felt no true sense of victory.

'Come on, Google,' Meat said. 'We don't have much time. Soak him really good.'

'Right,' Jason said. He uncapped another gas can and began dousing Al-Zahrani and the mattress, trying to avoid breathing.

'It's a f.u.c.king shame, really,' Meat said, motioning to Al-Zahrani.

'How's that?' Jason said, pouring out the last of the gasoline.

'We're about to light up a ten-million-dollar barbecue. We actually bagged this f.u.c.ker and now we're going to destroy any proof of it. For the record, though, it's not about the money, Google,' Meat confessed. 'I'm just glad this f.u.c.ker's dead. You know, for Camel and Jam.'

'Me too, buddy,' Jason said, patting him on the shoulder. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the camera he'd confiscated from the crash site. 'But don't worry, we're going to show the world this guy's toast.'

Meat smiled. 'Awesome.'

Jason snapped a dozen photos of Al-Zahrani's corpse, including close-ups of the face. 'That should do it.' He slipped the camera back into his pocket.

'Show time,' Meat said. He handed Jason one of the match-books he'd found in the downstairs kitchen. 'I'll give you the honour. I'll take care of the other room. The downstairs is ready to go. We just need to light it on the way out.'

When Meat left, Jason set the gas can down and filed the image of Al-Zahrani in his memory. He peeled back the match-book's cover, tore off a match and struck it.

'Burn in h.e.l.l,' Jason said.

He flicked the match on to the mattress.

66.

'Oh that is some nasty s.h.i.t.' Disgusted, Private Miguel Ramirez aimed his light down on the slippery red goop smeared over the rocks. Seeing that some of the slime was dangling between his fingers - long strands of black hair clumped together by mocha-coloured skin - stimulated his gag reflex. So he looked away, flung the fleshy chunks off his fingers, and wiped his hand clean on his pants.

'Man up, Ramirez. We've got work to do,' Shuster said.

The pallid marine slid down the steep rock pile and cycled a few calming breaths.

'You good?' Shuster asked.

'I'm good,' Ramirez unconvincingly replied. He pulled the M-16 off his shoulder and slid the flashlight into the mounting clip on the rifle's muzzle.

'All right,' Shuster said. 'I'll take the lead. Ramirez, you're behind me ... then Holt.' He turned to address the surprisingly resolute Kurd, whose primary concern seemed to be the handgun, which he handled as if it were on fire. But the man had plenty more to worry about, because up close in the glow of the flashlight, Shuster now noticed how pale Hazo looked. The tiny veins in his eyes now formed a web of red around his irises. It wasn't the most opportune time to come down with a cold. 'Hazo, you'll be in the rear. Keep a safe distance, and if for some reason we have company in here, don't wait around to ask questions. Just make it out as fast as you can. Understand?'

Hazo nodded.