The Armageddon Conspiracy (15 page)

‘
And what were
the
other
objects?’

‘
The word ‘Grail’ comes
from the old French word
graal
, which comes from the Medieval
Latin word
gradalis
, meaning dish.
So, when Chrétien de Troyes first mentioned
the Grail, he was talking about a dish.
He described it as made of
gold and encrusted with jewels.
Robert de Boron, the second Grail
writer, then said it was Jesus’ cup.
Arguably, a deep, small dish
might not be too unlike a cup, so this isn’t such a great leap, but
Wolfram von Eschenbach denied it was either a cup or a dish.
He
said it was a stone of a very pure kind, and he gave it another
name –
lapsit exillas
.

‘
A dying human who held
the stone would not die, he said, and anyone who possessed the
stone would never age.
Lapsit
exillas
was poor Latin and posed yet
another mystery.
Some scholars thought he intended to say
lapis lapsus ex caelis
meaning
the stone fallen from
heaven
.
Alternatively, he might have
meant
lapis philosophorum
–
the philosopher’s
stone
.
That was the miraculous object
sought by alchemists that could turn base metals into gold, provide
an elixir of life, and cure all diseases.
Later, Wolfram said the
stone was an emerald jewel from the crown of Lucifer that fell to
the earth when Lucifer’s army fought God’s host and lost.
So, take
your pick.’

Vernon peered at the green globe the
prisoner had brought in.
‘You don’t think…’ He pointed at the
object.

‘
You think this is an
emerald from Lucifer’s crown?’
Gresnick smiled.

‘
Well, look what it
supposedly did to the prisoner.’

‘
It’s not doing
anything to me, is it?’
Gresnick held it up to the light and
squinted at it.
‘I told you we’d have it checked out, but it seems
like a cheap glass ball to me.’

‘
Give it to me.’
Vernon
took the ball from Gresnick, held it for a moment then, without
warning, let it drop to the floor.

‘
What the hell do you
think you’re doing?’
Harrington yelled.

Vernon picked up the ball.
‘Whatever it
is, it isn’t glass.’

‘
You can’t be
suggesting we have the Holy Grail here with us right
now.’

Vernon shrugged.
‘I’m not sure what I’m
saying.’

There was a knock on the door.
A
soldier opened it and Caldwell came in, looking flushed.

‘
You had better look at
the TV.’

‘
Why?’
Harrington
asked.
‘What’s happened?’

‘
The Ark of the
Covenant has just been found.’

‘
What!?’

‘
It’s in the middle of
the south lawn of the White House.’

20

T
he men switched
on the BBC’s
News 24
.
A reporter was talking excitedly, only just managing to stop
garbling his words.
He was framed against a long shot of the White
House, lit up in the dark.

‘
I’ve just come from a
press conference,’ he said.
‘The Press Secretary announced that an
hour ago a security incident occurred outside the White House
perimeter.
A military truck drove up to the front gates.
The driver
got out, was picked up by a motorbike and rode off.
No trace of him
has been found.

‘
The Secret Service
suspected that the truck contained a fertiliser bomb and ordered an
evacuation of the White House.
An anonymous caller then contacted
the White House press office, claiming that the Ark of the Covenant
stolen from Ethiopia was in a crate in the back of the truck.
The
call was recorded and played back to us.

‘
The caller, British
and well-spoken, said that the world had become Godless and that
the coordinated thefts of religious icons three days ago were
intended to jolt the world into re-engaging with the divine, or to
suffer the consequences.
The Spear of Destiny and The Holy Grail
would also be returned if the crate were unloaded in the centre of
the White House lawn in full view of the world.

‘“
What better
demonstration of divine power versus earthly vanity could there
be,” the caller said, “than to have the ultimate symbol of God
placed on the lawn of the centre of worldly power.
It’s time for
the people of the world to choose once and for all where their real
allegiances lie.”

‘
The Press Secretary
announced that the Secret Service were convinced that, in the
unlikely event that the Ark was actually inside the crate, it was
probably accompanied by a WMD – a dirty bomb more than likely – and
strongly advised against unloading it.
They wanted to drive the
truck to a military base, or do a controlled detonation.

‘
However, we were told
that President Adams, renowned for his born-again Christianity,
overruled the Secret Service.
“A God-fearing nation has nothing to
fear from God,” he apparently declared.
“He will never harm
us.”

‘
So, in the last
fifteen minutes, the truck, driven by a Secret Service volunteer,
was admitted into the grounds of the White House.
We are now
waiting for the crate to be removed from the back and placed on the
floodlit South Lawn, in front of the world’s TV
cameras.’

The anchorman in the BBC studio
appeared.
‘We’re interrupting Tim’s report to bring live pictures
of the crate being unloaded by U.S.
Marines.
This is an
extraordinary development.
For thousands of years, people have
believed the Ark of the Covenant was irretrievably lost.
If this is
indeed the Ark then we’re looking at a miraculous time machine,
taking us right back to the time of Moses.
Some claim that God
himself resides within the Ark.
In the next few minutes, we’ll
discover the truth for ourselves.’

The camera shot showed the Marines
manoeuvring the heavy crate onto the lawn and carefully dismantling
it, eventually revealing an object under a red velvet cover.
One of
the Marines went forward and removed the cover.

Vernon, Harrington, Gresnick and
Caldwell all gasped at once.
They didn’t doubt that everyone
watching across the globe was reacting in exactly the same way.

The Ark was beautiful
beyond imagining.
The camera zoomed in on the glistening gold chest
bearing engravings of Biblical scenes.
It seemed literally made in
heaven.
Its lid had a crown of gold, and on each side were two gold
rings, in which two gold poles were placed.
On top of the lid were
two winged-creatures
, the famous
cherubim,
made of solid gold,
with their
faces turned
towards each other and their outstretched wings almost touching.
The wings formed a seat – a throne for God, according to the
Bible.

‘
It’s all true,’
Harrington said, ‘everything they said about it.’

Vernon shook his head and glanced at
Gresnick.
‘You can’t be buying this.’

The colonel seemed even more awestruck
than Harrington.
‘My grandfather’s theories don’t sound so crazy
now, do they?’

‘
This is as suspicious
as hell,’ Vernon muttered.

‘
Look,’ Caldwell
blurted, ‘President Adams is walking towards it.

The camera tracked the President as he
moved towards the Ark, his hands clasped in prayer.
He circled it
for a few seconds, tears streaking his cheeks.
He closed his eyes,
as though he couldn’t believe that the world of Moses had come to
life in the twenty-first century.

He knelt in front of
it, with the two cherubim directly in front of him.
He held out his
hands and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.
‘
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy
kingdom come
…’

And then the Ark exploded.

21

L
ucy wanted them
to slow down.
The roads near the convent were too narrow, too
twisting, for vehicles travelling at high speed.
Above all, there
was the darkness.
It was one o’clock in the morning, so it ought to
be dark, but not
this
dark.
It had a special quality, as if extra layers of black
had been added.
It was thicker, murkier, more resistant to light.
The beams from the vehicles’ headlights were swallowed almost
before they’d lit the way.

To Lucy it seemed that
her life had become full of lights like these, ones that failed to
reach as far as those in other peoples’ lives.
Everyone else had
their bright, wide, beams illuminating everything they did.
They
were all so certain of the direction in which they were going.
She’d been like that once.
Once
.

She was in a convoy of
five black Land Rovers: 4-door
Defender
110
s.
The soldiers, twenty or so of them,
had smuggled her out of the rear door of the chapel and made her
run to the Land Rovers, parked on an old sports field.
Cardinal
Sinclair was pushed into the front vehicle, she into the second
while a wounded soldier was helped into the rear Land Rover.
From
what Lucy could make out, two dead soldiers were left
behind.

It was hard to accept
that people were actually dying and somehow it was her fault: they
wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.
That soldier really would
have shot her, wouldn’t he?
Captain Jurgen Kruger, he said he was.
He had
that
look in
his eye.
For an instant, she’d wondered if that was the best way
out for everyone, but when she saw the barrel of that gun pointing
at her, her nerve failed her.

Now, staring out of the
window as the countryside, illuminated by the underpowered
headlights of the convoy, raced past, she repeated her
mantra:
Out of the
depths
.
She feared she was about to descend
deeper than ever.

The headlights picked out dark hedges
and low stone walls lining the roads.
There were never any people
or houses, and no signs of other vehicles.
Was there some sort of
curfew in force?
From what she could figure out, two groups of
soldiers had arrived at the convent at almost the same time from
opposite directions.
Captain Kruger led the group that found her.
A
tall, wiry man with short dark hair, he had blue eyes that always
seemed to be scanning around him.
She didn’t know what army he
belonged to, or who his men were shooting at.
His black uniform
didn’t bear any insignia.

She suspected Cardinal Sinclair knew
exactly who Kruger and his men were, but she had no opportunity to
ask him before they were separated.
Had she been kidnapped?
If they
knew Sinclair then surely she was safe.
But in that case why did
the captain threaten to kill her?
It was impossible to work out if
these were the good guys or bad.
As for what they expected from
her, she was clueless.