Angels of Wrath Read Online Free PDF Page B

religions would surely try to stop the new. And so she stopped associating with the group. She quit her job and took what amounted to an entirely new identity, working for herself in middle America until she was needed. All record of her involvement in the church had been wiped out. She even went as far as to stop communicating directly with her brother, a great sacrifice, as they had been extremely close as children and adults, certainly much closer in her case than her spouse, a boob who fortunately spent much of his time away from home on business. But the sacrifice was of temporal time only; the Reverend Tallis promised that they would be reunited in the new age, and Coldwell knew this to be true.
     
    It would arrive soon, perhaps within the year. The stage was already set for the first war; it would take only a small spark.
     
    Coldwell took the medal with her to the bedroom, where she retrieved a thin silver chain from the bottom of her jewelry box. Slipping the chain through the small hole at the top of the medallion, she placed the medal around her neck, under her shirt. Tears began to slip down her cheek, grief for her brother.
     
    She had a sudden impulse to fly to the Middle East to fulfill Benjamin’s mission. But she couldn’t, or rather she shouldn’t, not without hearing from Tallis. And in any event she didn’t know what Benjamin would have been asked to do. She could guess: money or weapons were to be provided to groups eager to make a catastrophic attack on a holy site, be it Jewish, Christian, or Islamic. There were many such groups, ready fools fired by wrath they did not understand.
     
    Wrath was the hallmark of the old age; hatred was its sign: hatred toward other religions, subjugation of other races. In the new age, all would be different.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    4
     
    CAIRO
    A DAY LATER . . .
     
    Ferguson walked along the long street that paralleled the Cairo meat market, slipping through the knots of tourists and locals. A variety of sharp odors filled the air: cooking spices mixing with diesel fuel and dung. He took a left, then a quick right, turning suddenly to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
     
    Ferg’s father was a career CIA man, an officer with a long and varied history. By the time Ferguson had come along, most of his real adventures were over and his service in the Middle East was fairly routine. Still, there had been some harrowing times: the alley where he’d been shot in the head was a few blocks away.
     
    He’d been shot, hit, wounded, but lived to tell about it. That was thepoint of his dad’s story, one of the few he told. Anyone could get themselves shot in the head. Living to talk about it was the trick.
     
    Ferguson crossed the street and kept walking, catching a glimpse of Al-Azhar, the grand mosque and university, before following a zigzag to the address on Radwan.
     
    The address belonged to a kahwa , or coffee shop, a gathering place that didn’t figure prominently in any of the Mossad dossiers about Cairo activity. Though the CIA regularly cooperated with Egyptian intelligence, Ferguson—with approval from CIA Deputy Director, Daniel Slott—had decided not to contact them in this case. The Egyptians were not necessarily the most tight-lipped group in the world and tended to get especially antsy if they thought the Mossad was involved.
     
    For its part, the Mossad had agreed to provide only “distant support”: fake IDs and some equipment. Which was fine with Ferguson; it was safer to keep them at arm’s length here. He’d drawn on two CIA officers in Cairo for additional support, one of whom could liaise with the Egyptians if necessary.
     
    Ferguson walked past the building, glancing down the alleyway next to it. The area was popular with tourists; an American such as Ferguson—or Thatch, whose ID Ferg had doctored and was carrying—fit right in. He stopped at a small stand where a man was selling scarves. His Arabic was a little rusty, but the