Inching forward on the concrete balcony, the two Special Forces soldiers took aim at their targets just as a third man armed with a long sniper rifle stepped from the shadows on the opposite side of the cavern."

"Whoa, didn't see that bloke!" the corporal whispered.

Crawling up behind the two soldiers, Alon withdrew his pistol and took a bead on the third man. "On the count of three, we all shoot."

The corporal checked the distance through his rifle scope. "That's too far for a pistol shot, sir."

"We don't have any other choice," Alon said. "If I miss, the gunfire will probably distract him long enough for you to get a bead on him with your rifle after you take out the first two targets."

"It's worth a try, mate. Let's do it."

At the count of three, all three men fired their weapons. The two armed men by the exit door dropped instantly, but the man with the sniper rifle was just too far away. Alon's pistol shot missed. Stunned by the sound of a bullet whizzing by his head, the remaining gunman ducked down and aimed his long rifle up at the balcony, but before he could get off a shot the corporal swiveled his rifle and squeezed off two quick shots, dropping the man in his tracks.

"Nice shooting, corporal," Alon said, holstering his weapon. "Thanks."

"Any time, mate. Let's get these people out of here."

From their elevated perch, they all made their way down five flights of stairs to the cavern floor and stopped. Spread out before them were rows of red velvet seats that faced a concrete stage.

"What's all this?" Ariella asked.

"This is the auditorium," Childs said. "Because of the cavern's immense size and natural acoustic properties, they've been holding concerts down here since Victorian times. Come on, let's spread out and head down through the aisles. These seats will give us some cover if there are any more surprises waiting up ahead."

The thought that they might be in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle made the hair on their necks stand out as they slowly made their way toward an exit that now seemed very far away. Passing between the rows of red seats, the tension matched the humidity of the cave as they peered into the shadows looking for phantoms in the thin shaft of light that marked their only way out.

Suddenly the corporal stopped and motioned for everyone to get down. In the light shining from the exit, he had just spotted the end of a rifle barrel jutting out from a small alcove by the door.

Immediately everyone began moving behind the seats to the walls along the sides of the auditorium. They had almost made it to the far side of the cavern when eight heavily-armed men entered through the exit door and stopped to look around. Using only hand signals, their leader stationed two of his men by the exit, while the remaining six began spreading out as they headed toward the stage. They had barely taken five steps before they discovered the bodies of their three comrades.

"We're running out of options here," Alon whispered to the corporal. "Only four of us are armed ... we wouldn't stand a chance against that many men with assault rifles. Give me your pistols."

"What's your plan, mate?"

"We need to even up the odds a little, and two people in this group are ex-Special Forces soldiers." Alon pointed to Lev and Doug Peterson. Without hesitating, the two soldiers handed their pistols over.

Taking a deep breath, Alon peered over one of the seats. "We can't go forward and we can't go back, and since they've found the bodies of their men, they know someone is down here. Maybe now would be a good time to break radio silence and call for backup. They already know someone is down here."

"I already tried, but I couldn't get through. It looks like they're jamming our radios."

"Great. They're one step ahead of us. Is there another way out of here?"

"There's another cavern below, but there's no way out."

"At least it will give us a place to hide for awhile. You have timed radio checks, don't you?"

"Yes, sir ... every ten minutes."

"Good. When your commander doesn't hear from you in the next few minutes, he'll realize something's wrong and send reinforcements. How do we get down to that other area?"

"There's a tunnel behind that big boulder behind us, but we'd have to make it across twenty feet of open space without being seen, and there are thirteen of us, including the old guy ... who by the way looks like he's on his last leg."

"Don't worry about him, Corporal. He always looks like that."

"I heard that, Mr. Lavi," Eduardo whispered.

"Sorry, Mr. Acerbi." Alon motioned to Childs and pointed to the boulder concealing the tunnel entrance just as a couple of the men who had just entered suddenly began walking in their direction.

The corporal's face hardened as he looked back over his shoulder at Childs and Alon. "Looks like we just ran out of time." Pulling two smoke grenades from his webbed combat belt, he handed them to Alon. "We're going to toss a couple of shrapnel grenades at the two blokes headed this way before we start laying down covering fire. As soon as we do that, you pull the rings on those smoke grenades and leave them on the floor here while all of you run for the tunnel. Pass the word on ... and do it fast."

"What about you two?" Alon said.

"We're going to keep anyone who pokes his head up pinned to the ground until you people make it into the tunnel. Don't worry, mate. We'll be right behind you. We go on the count of three."

Alon slapped the corporal on the shoulder, but just as they began passing word of the plan down the line to the other members of their group, one of the men walking toward them pointed and shouted to the others. There would be no time to count to three as the corporal and the other soldier immediately threw their grenades and ducked down while Alon pulled the rings on the smoke grenades.

The explosions from the shrapnel grenades shook the cavern and took out the men who had been walking toward them, and as clouds of red smoke filled the area, the two British soldiers rose up and began laying down a burst of automatic covering fire as the group ran for the tunnel entrance.

As soon as he was sure everyone had made it into the tunnel, Alon stopped in front of the large boulder next to the entrance and squinted through the billowing red smoke. Gunfire continued to erupt all around him as bullets ricocheted off the surrounding rocks, but there was no sign of the British soldiers. Looking off to his left, he could see flashes of gunfire through the smoke coming from the direction of the exit door. He quickly dropped to one knee and steadied his pistol before empting his clip. The flashes stopped.

Glancing back off to his right, he breathed a sigh of relief when the two soldiers emerged from the smoke at a dead run, and within seconds all three men had made it safely behind the boulder just as a small explosion rocked the area and showered the rock protecting them with razor-sharp shrapnel.

"Sounds like they're returning the favor with some grenades of their own," the corporal said.

Alon slapped another clip into his pistol. "Yeah. I figure we just took out half of them, but these guys are fanatical."

"Terrorists?"

"Could be. They're obviously dedicated and well-trained. Let's keep going and pray that reinforcements come looking for us soon. I'm almost out of ammunition, and there's not much telling what other tricks these guys might have up their sleeves."

Ahead of them, the others had made their way through a short, twisting tunnel into a brightly lit cavern filled with conical, multi-colored stalactites suspended from a porous limestone ceiling. Aside from the beauty of the space, the first thing they noticed was the absolute silence interspersed only by the sound of dripping water echoing inside the chamber all around them.

The sudden quiet was a welcome diversion from the hail of bullets they had all been dodging only moments before, but the momentary reprieve from the violence behind them was only a cruel illusion, giving them time to ponder their fate and wonder at the fact that someone wanted them dead. Whoever was after them had no qualms about sending an organized group of men on a seemingly suicidal mission against a fortified position full of Special Forces soldiers. Someone wanted to make sure they never lived to see the light of day again. The only question was-why?

As soon as Alon and the two soldiers entered the cavern, an enormous explosion in the tunnel behind them knocked them to the ground. For a moment it felt as if all of the air had been sucked from the cavern as the lights flickered off and a wall of dust and rocky debris shot from the mouth of the tunnel, leaving them all in choking darkness as they struggled to breathe through the fine grit that swirled around their heads.

"That was no grenade!" the corporal shouted in the darkness. Switching on his flashlight, he slowly crept back to the tunnel entrance. "They blew the tunnel!" he shouted over his shoulder. "We're trapped down here!"

Alon picked himself up off the floor and, with Leo and Childs following, they walked up next to the corporal and peered inside. Having worked in a mine before, Leo could tell right away that the damage was extensive. The roof of the tunnel had completely collapsed, leaving a wall of crushed rock that was compressed so tightly that not even light could penetrate from the other side. Even under the best of circumstances, it would take days to clear the debris, and then there was still the matter of structural integrity and the possibility of a secondary cave-in.

"No grenade could have done this much damage," Alon said, squinting in the dusty haze. "Probably a satchel charge."

"A what?" Leo asked.

"A satchel charge, Cardinal. It's a backpack-like explosive device military demolition teams use when they want to breech a fortified position made from stone or reinforced concrete. Satchel charges usually contain a very strong explosive ... something like C-4. These guys came prepared. They were probably going to use it to blow the maintenance tunnel, but we made it to the machine room before they had a chance."

"What now, Leopold?" They all turned to see Pope Michael standing next to the corporal in the dusty gloom behind them.

"I have no idea, Your Holiness, but we're definitely not going anywhere for awhile."

"Where are we anyway?" Alon asked.

"I can answer that question for you, mate," the corporal said, stepping over some rubble. "Back in World War II, the cave above us ... the one they call Saint Michael's Cave, was being prepared for use as a military hospital. The engineers decided they needed to create an alternate entrance to improve air circulation and provide an emergency exit in case of an airstrike, but when they were blastin' the rock for the new opening, they discovered this deeper cavern. It's called Lower Saint Michael's Cave." The corporal glanced at the pope. "Quite a coincidence your bein' here, sir, if you don't mind me saying. I mean, what with your name being Pope Michael and all."

The pope's smile stood in stark contrast to the black soot that covered his face. "I found it an interesting coincidence myself. Are there any other ventilation tunnels down here?"

"No, sir. By the time they discovered this cave the war was pretty much over, so they stopped construction. This cavern is mostly just a tourist attraction nowadays, but I wouldn't go wanderin' around down here by yourself, especially in the dark. People have disappeared in these caverns ... and then there's the legend."

"The legend?"

"Yes, sir. Most people have never heard of it. Kind of spooky, actually."

"That's OK, Corporal," the pope nudged Leo. "We're kind of used to spooky things. Why don't you tell us about it? I have a feeling we'll be down here for awhile."

"Sure thing, Your Holiness, but I think we need to move away from this tunnel before the whole thing comes crashin' down on our heads."

"Good idea."

Following behind the soldier, they made their way back out into the open cavern where they saw that the others were building a small campfire next to a path that wound off into the darkness. Walking toward the fire, Pope Michael glanced over at the British soldier. "What's your name, young man?"

"Niles ... Niles Wentworth, Your Holiness." The corporal jerked his thumb toward the other soldier. "And that there's me mate, Charlie. We're soldiers in Her Majesty's Horse Guards. Up until four months ago we was guarding Buckingham Palace, but then they sent us here. It's been pretty good duty so far. Better than Afghanistan, I reckon ... at least up until today."

"What about those spooky legends?" the pope asked, his eyes gleaming in the campfire like a Boy Scout at camp.

"Well, I'm no expert mind you, but this place does hold a few mysteries. The strangest one involves a disappearance back in 1840. A British colonel by the name of Mitchell decided to explore some of the caverns around here with another officer, and that's the last anyone ever heard of them. Their commander sent out search parties that scoured every inch of the place, but no trace of them was ever found. Seventeen years later the army decided to search the entire cave system again, but they still never found anything. They even tried to solve the mystery again back in the 1930's. They sent out two scientific expeditions that went through the whole cave system, but still no human remains were ever found."

"Sounds to me like they deserted," Alon said.

"Not likely, sir. We're talkin' about career military officers who had just written letters home tellin' their wives how much they liked their duty here. No, sir, from what I heard those men were good family men, and they were loyal to the Crown. Something happened to them that took them away from everything they loved. Some people think they found the tunnel that runs under the Strait of Gibraltar all the way to Africa and got lost somewhere down there."

"A tunnel to Africa?"

"Yes, sir," Niles continued, "there's a legend that harkens back to the old days when people believed there was a subterranean tunnel that ran right under the Strait of Gibraltar and ended up in Africa. Then there's the Barbary Macaques ... the monkeys you see runnin' all over the rock. Some said they came here through the tunnel, but just like the officers who went missin', no evidence has ever been found to prove that a tunnel like that ever existed."

The others leaned in closer, caught up in a story that had stirred memories of days when they had gathered in their youth around the campfire at night to listen to ghost stories. Only Shane Trent seemed immune to the romance of the soldier's tales as his analytical mind raced ahead. "Is this the lowest cave in the Rock?"

"Yes, sir. Our engineers have used ground-penetrating radar and they said there's nothing below us."

"Well, then, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the missing men never disappeared into some fictional tunnel to Africa. For one thing, the most likely terminus for such a tunnel would be the lowest point in the Rock, which would be this cavern. But since it was sealed off from the rest of the cave system until World War II, there's no way the missing men ever made their way down here in the first place. Your engineers have probably searched every inch of this cave, so if there ever was such a tunnel it would have been discovered by now."

"That's true, sir, but there are cracks in this cavern that breathe."

Ariella coughed in the smoke from the fire as she waved her hand in front of her face. "Did you say walls that breathe?"

"I know it sounds strange, ma'am, but there are several fissures along the eastern wall at the end of this path, and if you put your face close to them you can feel fresh air blowin' against your cheek."

"That probably indicates there's some connection with the surface," Leo said. "Anything else?"

"There's also a lake down here. Clear blue water ... and its fresh. It comes up from a deep blue hole that looks like it goes down forever. No tellin' how deep it is."

Leo held his head down while he brushed the dust from the explosion out of his hair. "Hmmm. Fresh water and fresh air. We have two things that are better than gold to trapped miners. We shouldn't have any problem holding out here until we're rescued."

"Have you tried your radios again?" Lev asked, staring down the path into the darkness.

"Yes, sir. Still jammed."

"I'm pretty sure reinforcements have arrived in the upper cavern by now. One way or the other, the people who were trying to kill us are probably long gone, but it will take days for rescuers to get to us."

"Then what, Professor Wasserman?" Doug Peterson asked. "We still don't have any idea who just tried to kill us. They could be anywhere, just waiting for us to show our faces after we've been rescued."

Eduardo smiled absent-mindedly as he looked around at all the faces staring blankly into the fire.

"What's so amusing, Mr. Acerbi?" Trent asked, his irritation at their situation increasing.

"You'll have to forgive me, Mr. Trent. It's just that I find our current predicament most appropriate. You might as well get used to sitting around fires in caves, because as I mentioned earlier, your world is about to be hit by a computer worm so powerful that it's about to send you all back to the Stone Age unless you cooperate with its maker."

"Is that some kind of threat?"

"Yes, it's a very real threat, Mr. Trent, but I'm not the one making it. Please, allow me to continue with what I was about to say before we were interrupted in the mess hall."

"Yes," Trent said, tossing a stick into the fire. "I guess the word interruption would be a good description of what just occurred. Go ahead, Acerbi. We're listening."

Acerbi's smile narrowed as he eyed Trent. "Let me begin by saying that, as I mentioned previously, a great destroyer has arrived in our world, and he's about to take advantage of a species that has evolved to the point where we have come to rely on computers for almost all of our needs. We have allowed technology to take control of practically everything we do, and although technology can be a wonderful thing, we have attached a god-like status to it. Science has gifted modern man with a lifestyle that would have been completely unrecognizable to people who lived only fifty years ago, but it has also given us a tool for control of one another like none that has ever existed before in the history of man. In the blink of a cosmic eye, computers are everywhere, and we don't even notice them. They're already in your cars, appliances, your cell phones, the new credit cards with the radio frequency chips that provide access to your bank account ... even your home thermostat that can be controlled by the power company. We're linked to computers in hundreds of ways we don't even know about. They're being absorbed into our surroundings, and soon they'll be embedded in everyday things like watches, jewelry, neckties ... even the walls of our homes. We'll probably have computer chips imbedded within our own bodies in the next few years, and soon anyone with the power, like a government for instance, will be able to know everything about you by merely tapping a keyboard. They will know who you are, where you are, who you're talking to, how much you're spending, what you're doing and who you're doing it with ... in other words, you'll never be alone.

"Computers are literally dissolving into our environment ... like an electrical current flowing through society. Billions of sensors are probing every aspect of our lives, and some even predict that the Earth will soon be wrapped in a digital skin transmitting signals via the internet, like a living creature that relays impulses through its nervous system. Even now we're all connected to orbiting satellites, enabling our movements to be tracked by a central control center, and that, my friends, will be our ultimate undoing. It will be through the marvels of technology that the destroyer will take control of our lives, and after I escaped to Paris I finally realized how he planned to do this.

"The destroyer will not need guns and bullets and bombs to beat us down into submission, because once he controls every aspect of our daily existence he can rule from afar, safely hidden away from prying eyes, and anyone who unplugs him or herself from the destroyer's computer-controlled world will be left out in the cold, unable to access even the most basic necessities of life."

Acerbi paused because he could see by all the stunned faces staring back at him that his words were having the desired effect. "All this talk of a computer-controlled world brings me to the point I was trying to make earlier. Who will be our destroyer?"

Eduardo's face began to take on the look of a man who was letting go of years of pent-up anger. "I can see from the looks on your faces that you are all at a loss for words, so please ... allow me to answer that question for you. The destroyer is none other than my own son, Adrian Acerbi."

Gwyneth Hastings inhaled sharply. "Your son! What on God's earth are you talking about?"

"God's Earth," Acerbi responded. "A very insightful, if accidental comment, Ms. Hastings, because the world we live in now will no longer be God's Earth when my son comes to power."

The corporal looked up from sharpening his knife as he sat before the fire. "What's the old bloke talkin' about?"

"Quiet!" Lev Wasserman hissed. "Go on, Mr. Acerbi."

"First let me say that, whatever your own personal religious beliefs may be, they will have little bearing on the events that are about to take place, for the days ahead will be very dark indeed for believers and non-believers alike. For lack of a better term, let's just say that there is now an evil force in the world that will soon rule over everything we hold dear, and that force ... the destroyer I just spoke of ... has another name. He is the Antichrist, and he is now alive and living in the world of men. A dark star has risen in the heavens announcing his presence, but before he can take his place at the head of a shadow world government that will soon rule over us all, he must undergo a transformation from his human form to that of the Beast."

Leo's expression had taken on a dark cast. "How do you know about all of this, Mr. Acerbi?"

"The code, Cardinal ... the one Professor Wasserman discovered in the Old Testament. It's all there. Once I heard about the dark star and its connection with the birth of my adopted son Adrian, I began running my own computer analysis. It was all laid out before me."

"But we've run literally thousands of computer scans of the code looking for clues about Adrian's birth," Lev said, "and to date we've found no mention of any transformation, especially a transformation that's linked to the Antichrist."

"The code in the Bible was just the first step in my search, Professor. I had to dig deeper. What have you learned so far from the book you took from Satan's Cathedral in the Negev Desert ... the book you refer to as the Devil's Bible?"