"Ask and it shall be opened," Mercury said.

"Isn't it 'knock and it shall be opened'?"

"Whatever. I opened it, didn't I?"

"So what does 507 mean?"

"507?"

"The date the Apocalypse is supposed to start. Five oh seven. That was the number the lock was set to before."

"Ah," Mercury said. "Synchronicity. Don't read too much into it. It tends to happen when there is a spike of activity in the SPAM. You'll likely see more of it as things progress."

"Things?"

"The End Times. Armageddon. The Second Coming. The seams are starting to show."

"So this is... really happening?"

They were sitting at a park bench at a rest area off Highway 4, just west of Sacramento. In light of Mercury's inexplicable knowledge of the attache case in her trunk and General Isaakson's death, Christine was finding herself entertaining some truly absurd notions regarding all that had transpired recently.

"Like clockwork," Mercury said. "They're following the SPAM to the letter. Guess they didn't need me after all. Although I bet they're freaking out about Isaakson's missing briefcase by now."

"And you're really...."

"An angel, yes. Wanna see another card trick?"

"No!"

"Easy. Man, you're jumpy."

"Jumpy? This is the end of the world you're talking about!"

"I know," Mercury said. "Blows, doesn't it?"

"Can't you do something to stop it?"

"Not likely. Somebody's obviously got a transplanar energy trace on me. You saw what happened with my card trick. Imagine what would happen if I really started to interfere with things."

"So you're just going to let this happen?"

"Who do you think I am, Christine? I'm a friggin' cherub cherub. Do you know where I rank in the angel hierarchy? Cherubim are the bottom of the angel food chain. h.e.l.l, if we were any lower, we'd be...."

"What?"

"It's not important. Trust me, there's nothing I can do. It's not personal; I like this place. I'd rather not see it end. That's the main reason I'm not helping out with the...."

"The main main reason? You kinda sorta like Earth, so you're not going to help out with blowing it all to h.e.l.l? What other reasons do you have?" reason? You kinda sorta like Earth, so you're not going to help out with blowing it all to h.e.l.l? What other reasons do you have?"

"Well... I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not really a team player."

"Oh for... Remind me to thank you for your lack of partic.i.p.ation when the moon falls out of the sky. So what is this d.a.m.n thing anyway?"

Mercury tapped the power switch, and the computer began to boot up.

"This," he said, with a flourish, "is one of the Four Attache Attache Cases of the Apocalypse." Cases of the Apocalypse."

"One of the four... Isn't that supposed to be hors.e.m.e.n hors.e.m.e.n of the Apocalypse?" of the Apocalypse?"

"You have to understand that these things are allegorical. They didn't have laptop computers when John had his vision on Patmos."

"And the closest thing he could come up with was hors.e.m.e.n hors.e.m.e.n? That's not even close close. How about... I don't know... magic boxes of the Apocalypse?"

"Oh, yeah, because 'the four magic boxes of the Apocalypse' sounds really ominous."

"It's just the first thing I thought of. I'm sure he could have..."

"Watch out!" Mercury cried. "Here come the four magic boxes of the Apocalypse!"

A nearby family moved to a more distant picnic bench.

"Fine," said Christine. "So this is one of the Four Attache Cases of the Apocalypse. What do they do?"

"Depends which one it is. This happens to be the Attache Case of War. See?"

He held the case so she could see the black insignia of a sword-bearing horseman. Christine recalled wondering about the symbol when the case was on Isaakson's table. Mercury set it back down. The screen now showed what looked like a satellite image of the globe.

"Got it. So what do we have to do, teach this thing tic-tac-toe so that it will understand the futility of war?"

"Not that simple, I'm afraid. The case isn't much use to us. But in the right hands..."

"Like General Isaakson's."

"Right. Potentially very useful. It's basically an intelligence device. Watch."

Mercury brushed his finger across the screen. The globe spun obediently. He tapped it and it stopped moving. He tapped it twice, in the vicinity of the Middle East. The screen zoomed in on the area west of the Mediterranean. He double-tapped it two more times, until the screen showed the border of Israel and Syria. She noticed that near the border on both sides were cl.u.s.ters of red dots.

"What are those?" she asked.

"Violence," Mercury said. "More precisely, violent intentions. The Attache Case of War is patched into an extraplanar system that monitors violent thoughts occurring anywhere on earth. Red patches are generally battlefields or gatherings of terrorists. Or soldiers."

"So this is how the Israelis knew where to hit. How they were able to move so quickly into Syria."

"Correct."

"But the Palestinian school.... Isaakson said something about getting bad information. One third of the 'tips' were wrong, he said."

"Yeah, that's the rub with the Attache Cases of the Apocalypse. They're rigged to give you inaccurate information. Only two thirds of those dots are actually centers of violence. The others could be..."

"Schools. Libraries. Mosques."

"Anything," Mercury said. "Generally something that looks like it could be a legitimate target."

"Why two thirds?"

"That seems to be the maximum acceptable threshold. If it were less accurate, the political backlash would be too great. But using the case in conjunction with conventional intelligence, the Israelis could be certain of being right often enough to outweigh the costs."

The phrase echoed in Christine's brain. Outweigh the costs... Outweigh the costs...

"Also, there is some significance to the fraction two thirds two thirds."

"And that is...?"

"In the Bible, perfection is represented by the number seven. Imperfection is represented by the number six. The decimal representation of two thirds is point six repeating."

"So the number goes on forever..." said Christine.

"Yeah," replied Mercury. "Always falling just a little bit short."

"So the number of the beast isn't six six six...."

"Technically, no. It's point six repeating."

"But... why?"

"Why what?"

"Why give the Israelis a faulty intelligence tool?"

"In a word," said Mercury, "Mayhem."

"Mayhem?"

"I'm only guessing, but I think the idea is to provoke the Israelis into escalating the violence in the Middle East. Give them a weapon that promises to shift the fundamentals of the conflict in their favor, but at the cost of additional, entirely pointless violence."

"Violence that will inevitably provoke a response from the other side."

"Right," said Mercury. "Humans are nothing if not predictable."

"Why did General Isaakson want you to have the case?"

"He said that?"

"His last words were 'Take it to Mercury.'"

"Well," said Mercury. "That could mean anything."

"He was holding the case when he said it."

"Okay, but maybe he meant another Mercury."

"That's what I thought at first," said Christine. "I actually thought he meant the planet."

"The planet?"

"You do realize you share your name with a planet?"

"Don't remind me. Smallest planet in the solar system," said Mercury. "After everything I did for the Romans. That's grat.i.tude for you."

"Mercury isn't the smallest... Wait, you're saying the planet is named after you named after you?"

"You know any other Mercurys?"

"Well, there's the G.o.d...."

Mercury grinned.

"You're not a G.o.d," said Christine.

"No," admitted Mercury, "but you'd be amazed at the impression you can make with a few miracles and a funny hat."

"How old are are you?" you?"

"Let's just say that I could tell you some stories about Tarquin the Proud that would make your hair curl."

"I have no idea what that means. And you haven't answered my question. Why did General Isaakson want you to have it? How does he even know you?"

"I may have... sort of... given it to him."

"What? Why? I thought you said you hardly knew anything about him."

Mercury shrugged. "I don't. It was my job. Besides, I thought it might be a good thing, you know, helping the Israelis get rid of the terrorists and suicide bombers. I didn't know the whole thing with the olive branch was going to happen. I hadn't really thought it through at that point."

"You didn't know it was one of the Four Attache Cases of the Apocalypse?"

"Why would I? I thought they were supposed to be hors.e.m.e.n hors.e.m.e.n."

"So who told you to do this?"

"My boss, a seraph named Uzziel. He a.s.sured me it was in the SPAM."

"And was it?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure," said Mercury. "The SPAM is ridiculously long and hard to interpret. n.o.body knows who wrote it, and it's written in High Seraphic, a language hardly anybody speaks any more. I understand it has something like fifty different words for snow."

"You're thinking of the Eskimos."

Mercury snorted. "I think I would know if the SPAM was written by Eskimos. The point is that sometimes we just have to take it for granted that the higher-ups know what they're doing. So I did what I was told. But when I found out about the plans for the Apocalypse, I went AWOL."