Veil of the Goddess by Rob Preece Read Free Book Online Page A

the Cross. Move."
    Most of the guys Ivy knew would have argued. Herrera picked up Smith's cash-filled briefcase, the assault rifle, and his section of Cross then jogged toward the truck.
    That didn't feel right. And Ivy's hunches had kept her alive before. “Leave the truck."
    "But we'll never make it to the border without transportation."
    "Run."
    She grabbed the crosspiece and took off, heading straight up into the mountains. It wasn't the shortest way toward the Turkish border, but it felt right. Today, she intended to follow her gut.
    A sudden wiggle tore the Cross from Ivy's hands. She dropped into a narrow gully washed into the hillside by a bigger rainstorm than she'd seen since she came to this desolate country. Zack joined her, ducking deep into the wash. He looked at her quizzically, obviously trying to figure out whether she'd gone crazy.
    "I felt some kind of warning from the Cross,” she explained. It sounded idiotic, out loud. Even if the Cross was supernatural, why would it waste its time warning her ? She was just a National Guard Sergeant who was at least as woo-woo as she was Christian. Why not warn Herrera. From the way he talked, he had to be a lot better Catholic than she was.
    "If you're wrong, no harm done. If you're right, I'm grateful,” Herrera said. He peered over the edge of the gully, looking for any enemy.
    It took her a moment to realize that the hum she heard wasn't all coming from the Cross. A small plane flashed overhead and circled around the farmhouse.
    "Predator,” Zack whispered.
    The Army was stingy with these unmanned flying weapons. There had been plenty of times Ivy wished she'd had better intelligence from above, someone looking down and spotting insurgents before they started shooting—it had been a wish that had never been realized. Clearly someone in charge thought finding the Cross was more important than saving a few uniformed lives. Ivy wasn't sure they were wrong.
    The drone circled the abandoned farmhouse again, then a white flash temporarily obscured it.
    She barely made out the streak of light that plunged from the drone—into the truck that had carried them so faithfully away from the burning city.
    A second flash and the abandoned farmhouse where they'd hidden disappeared into rubble.
    The drone continued to circle, watching perhaps, to see if there were any survivors. The missiles made it more likely that the drone was CIA rather than military since the army used its Predators mostly for surveillance rather than attacks.
    Ivy swallowed hard trying not to vomit. She'd known they would be hunted, but knowing and seeing were different.
    "Crap.” Zack pointed to the west where twin lines of dust rose toward the sky.
    "Oh, great. Looks like we're about to have company."
    It figured that the CIA would attack first from a distance, then send in resources to pick through the pieces. Unlike the army, the CIA couldn't stand the heat of real battle.
    "Think we should move?” she asked.
    Herrera glanced at the Predator, then at the approaching Kurdish militia.
    "If we stay here, we're dead anyway."
    She picked up the crosspiece and set off up the wash, trying to take advantage of what cover this land offered.
    Fortunately, there was a fair amount of it.
    Low shrubs, scattered windswept olive trees and multiple rocky outcroppings made their journey higher into the Kurdish foothills a challenge, but at least it would be largely inaccessible to the wheeled vehicles the Kurdish militia and their CIA sponsors used.
    At first, Ivy thought carrying the Cross would slow them. Even the shorter crosspiece she carried had to weigh fifty pounds and the bulky timbers were awkward, with a tendency to dig into her shoulders. As they struggled deeper into the mountains, however, she realized that she wasn't growing tired as she normally would. Could the Cross provide energy to her? She wasn't prepared to believe that, but she could no longer doubt that something weird was going on.
    Whoever