The Revelation Code: A Novel (Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase) - Softcover

McDermott, Andy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1101965290 ISBN 13: 9781101965290

Publisher: Dell, 2016

Synopsis

For fans of James Rollins and Matthew Reilly comes the next exciting, globe-trotting adventure in Andy McDermott’s explosive series featuring American archaeologist Nina Wilde and ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase.
 
The Bible’s last book hides a secret that could end the world.
 
In the heart of Iraq, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a CIA special forces unit met with Arab rebels near long-hidden ancient ruins, a place from which the Americans were direly warned to stay away. But team member Ezekiel Cross didn’t listen and made an astounding discovery—one worth killing for.
 
Now Cross is a ruthless cult leader on an ominous mission. Convinced that he’s unlocked the secrets of the Bible’s Book of Revelation, he’s determined to gather four stone angels that will trigger God’s promised End of Days. And he’s not alone. A former U.S. president, with a vision of all-out religious warfare, plays a role in the dark plot. But while Cross may have the clues to tracking down the remaining angels, he hasn’t been able to match them to real-world locations. For that he has coerced famed archaeologist Nina Wilde into assisting him, using her husband, ex–special forces soldier Eddie Chase, as collateral.
 
With Eddie held hostage, Nina is forced to recover relics of untold power from Rome to Israel. She must find a way to halt Cross’s mad quest, because the last piece of the puzzle is at hand—and with it comes the most terrifying revelation of all.
 
Praise for The Revelation Code
 
“There is no end to the mischief that husband and wife team Eddie Chase and Nina Wilde can get into; no archaeological mystery is safe; and if X marks the spot you can bet that that’s where you’ll also find Nina and Eddie, no doubt looking a bit battered. . . . This is such a strong series and I can never get enough of it. The Revelation Code is a fine addition to it, combining a great plot and mystery with a new phase in Eddie and Nina’s relationship. I cannot wait to see what happens next. Nothing will be the same again.”—For Winter Nights
 
“A fun, frantic read that moves along at a breakneck pace, even through heavy scenes of torture, religious insanity, and political posturing . . . big-time popcorn adventure fun, complete with a dose of history and humor.”—Beauty in Ruins

About this title

About the Author:

Andy McDermott is a former journalist and movie critic who now writes novels full-time following the international success of his debut thriller, The Hunt for Atlantis, which has been sold around the world in more than twenty languages. He is also the author of The Tomb of Hercules, The Secret of Excalibur, The Covenant of Genesis, The Pyramid of Doom, The Sacred Vault, Empire of Gold, Return to Atlantis, The Shadow Protocol, The Valhalla Prophecy, Kingdom of Darkness, and The Revelation Code. He lives in Bournemouth, England, with his wife and son.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

9781101965290|excerpt

McDermott / THE REVELATION CODE

1

New York City

Twelve Years Later

“Has everything I’ve done in my life been worth it?”

Nina Wilde sat facing Dr. Elaine Senzer, but her eyes were lowered, avoiding the psychotherapist’s gaze. Instead she fixated on small, irrelevant details—­a scuff on the other woman’s shoe, indentations on the carpet where her chair had been moved—­as she tried to put her fears into words. “That’s the question I’ve been asking myself recently,” she went on. “And the thing that’s worrying me is . . . is that I’m not sure it has.”

Elaine leaned forward, adjusting her glasses. “I’m curious why you’d say that. You’ve already achieved more in your life than most people—­I mean, it’s fair to say that you’re the most famous archaeologist in the world. You found Atlantis, you discovered the lost city of El Dorado, a hidden Egyptian pyramid, and all those other amazing things. That’s something to be proud of, surely?”

“Is it?” Nina caught herself leaning back in her seat, as if subconsciously trying to maintain the distance between them. “Yeah, I found all those things—­and I got a lot of people killed in the process. Too many people.”

“You didn’t kill them personally.”

“Some of them I did.” Even without looking directly at Elaine, she could sense the psychotherapist’s shock at the revelation. “They were trying to kill me, it was always in self-­defense . . . but yeah, I’ve killed people. And you know what’s really scary? I’ve lost count of how many.”

Elaine hurriedly scribbled a note. “I see.”

Nina gave her a grim smile. “You’re not going to have me committed to Bellevue, are you?”

“No, no,” the dark-­haired woman hastily assured her. “I actually think it’s good that you feel able to tell me about it at this relatively early stage. If you remember, when we started these sessions last month, it was quite a challenge for you to open up about anything at all. The very nature of post-­traumatic stress causes sufferers to try to internalize it—­there’s a great deal of anger, guilt—­”

“Tell me about it,” Nina muttered.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” said Elaine, with sympathy. “You have to tell me.”

“You want me to tell you about my guilt?” Nina snapped. “Okay—­about four months ago, one of my friends was murdered right in front of me. And it was all my fault! Macy wouldn’t have been there if not for me . . .” Her voice faded to inaudibility.

A long silence was eventually broken by the psychotherapist. “Nina . . . are you okay?”

“If I was okay, I wouldn’t be seeing a shrink, would I?” the redhead replied, wiping her eyes. “What kind of a stupid question is that?”

Elaine shrugged off the insult with professional calm. “Tell me about Macy. I know you’re reluctant, but I really think it would help. Please,” she added, seeing her patient clench her fists. “In your own time; you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

“For a hundred and fifty bucks an hour, I’m not going to sit here in silence. I could do that for free at Starbucks, and the coffee would be better.” Nina took a deep breath, then a second, before continuing. “Macy . . . she was an archaeology student when I first met her. She had a case of”—­a brief smile at the memory—­“hero worship.” Her expression darkened once more. “Spending time with me soon cured her of that.”

“But she was your friend,” Elaine said.

“Yes. She could be annoying—­God, she could be annoying!—­but yeah, she was. She was young, that was all. And she thought life was there to be enjoyed, so she went all out to enjoy it.”

“Whereas you . . . ?”

A wry shake of the head, her shoulder-­length hair swinging. “I’m not exactly a party animal. Never have been. But Macy threw herself headfirst into everything. And that . . .” Her voice broke. “That got her killed.”

“How so?”

“She invited herself along on my last job for the International Heritage Agency. I could have said no, sent her home. But I didn’t. I don’t know why, maybe because . . . maybe because I was afraid it might be the last chance I had to spend time with her.”

Elaine flicked back through her notebook. “Your illness—­you thought it was terminal at that point?”

Nina nodded. She had been under a slow death sentence, poisoned by a toxin from deep within the earth. “Yeah. There was a treatment, but I didn’t know about it then.” She kept the full truth to herself: that the “treatment” was nothing less than the legendary fountain of immortality sought by Alexander the Great. After the horrors she had been through to find it, she’d vowed to keep its location a secret, to prevent the inevitable further bloodshed if others fought to control it. “So I let Macy come with us, and . . .” She choked up.

“Are you all right?” Elaine asked. “Do you need a Kleenex or something?”

Nina rubbed away a tear. “No, no. I’m okay. It’s just, talking about it . . .”

“I understand.”

“It’s . . .” Nina sat sharply upright, looking Elaine straight in the eye for the first time. “It’s not fair! She was so young, she was practically still a kid! And this man, this bastard, killed her like she was nothing—­just to get to me. If I hadn’t gotten involved, or if I’d done what I should have done and told Macy to go home, she’d still be alive! I got her killed!”

She slumped forward, head in her hands, trying to hold in her sobs. Elaine looked on with concern. “Nina, I’m so, so sorry. But you must know deep down that’s not true. You didn’t kill your friend. Someone else did.”

Nina forced out a reply. “If it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive. The same goes for Rowan Sharpe, and Jim McCrimmon, and Ismail Assad and Hector Amoros and Chloe Lamb and—­and so many others I can’t even remember all their names!” She looked up in despair. “This is what I mean, Elaine. Yes, I made all those discoveries—­but this was the cost. Hundreds of people have died because of me.”

“It can’t be that many,” Elaine said, though with uncertainty.

“Trust me, I was there. My whole career, everything I’ve accomplished, has been surrounded by death and destruction. Even when I was still a kid, my parents died—­were murdered—­while they were hunting for Atlantis. Which is why I’ve been asking: Was it all worth it?” She looked down at her abdomen, where a small but distinct swelling revealed the presence of her unborn child. “Do I want to bring a kid into my world? What right have I got to put a baby at that kind of risk?”

“But you’re not working for the IHA anymore,” Elaine pointed out.

“Maybe, but you know what?” Nina said with another flare of anger. “Last month, a Nazi tried to kill me, right here in New York!”

The therapist’s eyes widened. “A . . . Nazi?”

“Yeah, an actual goddamn Nazi. You see? I can’t get away from this shit! I tried to, I just wanted to stay out of trouble and write my book, but it keeps finding me!”

“Your book,” said Elaine, relieved at a chance to change the subject. “How’s that going? You told me last time that you’d been having difficulty maintaining focus . . .”

Nina huffed sarcastically. “Oh, it’s going super fine, better than ever. No, I’m now almost completely blocked. My publishers are gonna be thrilled that they’ve paid over half a million dollars for three and a quarter chapters. Some people I know in Hollywood want to buy the screen rights.” Macy’s boyfriend, the film star Grant Thorn, had unsurprisingly withdrawn from the idea after the young woman’s funeral, but his business partner had since made tentative inquiries about reopening negotiations. “Right now, though, it’d make a really short movie.”

“Why are you blocked?”

“Why? Because every time I start trying to write about what I’ve discovered, it makes me think of the people who died in the process. It’s . . .” She sagged, feeling emotionally drained. “I can’t move forward.”

“In what way?”

“In every way. With my life. All I keep thinking about is whether it’s all been worth it, and I don’t know the answer, and . . . and I’m stuck. Going nowhere.”

“But you are going somewhere,” said Elaine. “You’ve made progress over just the last month—­you realized you were in denial over Macy’s death, and the fact that you sought help from a therapist shows that you’re able to start moving on.”

“I might be able to start, but that doesn’t mean I have started. On that, or anything else. The book’s stalled, I can’t even do something as simple as come up with baby names . . .”

“Do you know the sex?”

“Yeah. I had an ultrasound last week, and they could tell what it was. My husband, Eddie, told them not to say anything—­he wants it to be a surprise—­but I sneaked back in and asked. It’s a—­”

Elaine held up her hands. “No, no. I’m like your husband, I like surprises too. I didn’t know what either of my kids was going to be until they were born.”

“I guess I prefer to plan everything in advance. He’s more the make-­it-­up-­as-­you-­go type.”

“So how have things been between you since you learned you were pregnant? Has he been showing any tension, or . . .”

“No, no.” Nina shook her head. “He’s been great—­he’s absolutely thrilled at the prospect of having a kid, and he’s been doing everything he can to help me. No, it’s . . . it’s me.” She sighed. “I’m angry, I’m depressed, I’m confused—­I’m a hundred and one negative things, and I’m taking all of them out on him.”

“Why?”

“Because there isn’t anyone else. Since I left the IHA, it’s just been me and him. I’ve been horrible, and I know it, but . . . but I can’t help it.”

A sympathetic nod. “Pregnancy hormones can really affect your mood. It’s often a lot harder with a first pregnancy, because you don’t know what to expect. It’s good that he’s been so supportive.”

“Maybe, but . . .” A lengthy pause as she struggled to make a terrible admission. “I can’t help thinking that he’s putting up with it for the baby rather than for me.”

“But do you really believe that, Nina? Deep down, I mean?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I believe about anything right now.” She stared back at the marks on the carpet.

The therapist made more notes before speaking again. “I don’t know your husband, but from what you’ve told me, it certainly seems that he loves you. He wants to help you, but you’re reluctant to allow it. That’s understandable—­you’ve been through a traumatic experience, and you’ve put up barriers to protect yourself from further harm. The problem is that you’re not letting anyone through them, even the person who cares about you the most.”

Nina managed a sarcastic grin. “Well, duh. I didn’t need a psychiatrist to figure that out. I need one to tell me how to deal with it.”

“I can’t tell you to do anything, Nina. I can suggest, and advise, but in the end only you can come up with the answer. Although one thing I would suggest is couples therapy. If you both came in together, we could address some of these issues.”

Another mocking little smile. “Eddie seeing a shrink? I can’t imagine that ever happening. He has his own ways of dealing with things . . .”

···

The helicopter dived toward the Statue of Liberty. Eddie Chase gripped the controls, trying to regain height—­

“Little advice, Eddie? Remember that thing I showed you called the stick? You might wanna pull it back.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Grimacing, Eddie brought the cyclic control joystick toward him. The Bell 206L LongRanger’s nose came up, and the aircraft unsteadily leveled out. “That okay?”

“You didn’t crash into Lady Liberty’s face, so yeah. But we oughta go back out over open water. I’m havin’ some bad flashbacks to when I first met you!” Harvey Zampelli took the controls, bringing the red, white, and blue helicopter around across the great expanse of New York Bay. The spires of Manhattan rolled into view as he notified air traffic control of his course.

“Well, it’s only my second lesson,” said the stocky, balding Yorkshireman once the exchange in his headphones had concluded. “And I haven’t crashed it yet, so I’m not doing too bad.”

Harvey quickly touched the cross hanging from his neck on a chunky gold chain. “Jeez, don’t say things like that! It’s bad luck.”

Eddie decided not to tell him how many plane crashes he’d been involved in. “Thanks again for letting me do this,” he said instead. “I’ve been meaning to learn to fly for ages.”

“Hey, no problem,” the black-­haired pilot replied. “I mean, jeez, you saved my life! That’s gotta be worth the price of some avgas. I sure as hell hope so, anyway! Right? Right?” He laughed, then added, with a hint of insecurity: “Right?”

“Right,” Eddie told him with a grin that revealed the gap between his front teeth. “But it’s not a problem for you, is it? Doing this in the middle of the day, I mean.”

“Nah, I had an empty slot, and if there ain’t any paying customers, I gotta leave her sitting on the pad with the engine running anyway.” The LongRanger’s flight had begun from the heliport at Manhattan’s southern tip; Harvey’s aircraft was one of the many offering tourist tours around New York.

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“Not as expensive as having to do a full check every time I shut down and restart the engine. Quicker too. Besides, I’m a pilot. Any chance to fly, I’m gonna take it!” He laughed again, then surveyed the surrounding airspace. “Okay, take the controls. Remember what I told you—­keep the cyclic tipped forward to maintain airspeed, but don’t push it too far or we’ll lose height. We wanna stay between a thousand and fifteen hundred feet. Got it?”

Eddie checked the altimeter, then closed his hands around the two control sticks. “Yeah.”

Harvey raised his own hands. “Okay, all yours.”

The Englishman gingerly edged the cyclic forward. He had flown as a passenger in numerous helicopters during his military career with the elite Special Air Service, and in many more since, but his only attempts to fly an aircraft himself had been when the pilot was incapacitated or dead. Which, he mused, had happened alarmingly often.

Today nobody was trying to kill him. Operating a chopper even in peaceful conditions was still tricky, however. The Bell twitched and squirmed with every shift in the wind, and the fuselage felt as if it were swinging from the rotor hub like a hanging basket. But he held it steady, making slight adjustments to balance the airspeed indicator and altimeter.

“You’re doing fine,” said Harvey. “Okay, we’re gonna follow the land.” He indicated the shores of New Jersey and Staten Island. “Use the pedals like I showed you before, real easy.”

Eddie carefully depressed one of the anti-­torque pedals, adjusting the power being fed to the tail rotor. The helicopter slowly turned. “That okay?”

“Yeah, that’s great—­whoa, hold on.” A new voice came through Eddie’s headphones: one of the heliport’s staff, telling Harvey that he had a phone call. “Eddie, I gotta take this. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

The Englishman gave him an okay as the call came through. “Lena, hey hey!” said Harvey, his Bronx accent becoming even more rapid-­fire. “How you doin’? Great night last night, huh?”

Eddie tried not to be distracted by what very quickly became a personal conversation, concentrating on following the shoreline. The huge jetties of the New Jersey container terminal rolled by. He glanced down at them, only to realize with alarm when he looked back at the instruments that the altimeter was falling toward the thousand-­foot mark. He moved the cyclic, but the descent continued. “Oh bollocks.”

“Babe, I gotta call you back,” said Harvey over the hea...

About this edition

• Publisher: Dell
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1101965290
• ISBN 13: 9781101965290
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480