The Armageddon Conspiracy (26 page)

Kruger stood over her in the wind.
‘Do
you believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour?’

Lucy raised her
head.
Believe
?
Once, it all made sense to her.
She went to Mass every Sunday,
confessed her sins every six weeks, prayed for absolution and
believed it when it was granted.
She believed in good deeds,
justice, divine grace, the intercession of saints.
When she took
Holy Communion, she didn’t doubt that’s exactly what it was – by
swallowing the host the priest offered, she was in direct, sacred
communion with the body of Christ, the divine essence, the holiest
of holies.

But now she believed nothing.
According
to the Church, her father was a suicide, guilty of a mortal sin
that could never be forgiven, a man damned for eternity.
So, there
was no justice, no heavenly grace, no mercy of Jesus Christ.
There
was nothing at all.

‘
Your life is a
wasteland, Lucy Galahan.’
Kruger pointed his torch down at her as
she lay sprawled on the grass.
‘That’s what happens to those who
turn their backs on God.
The whole world is becoming a wasteland.
When humanity rejected God, it was just a question of time before
God rejected them.’

She thought he was about to kick her as
she lay there looking up at him.
Bizarrely, she pitied him.
He
placed such store in absurd things.

‘
Do you think I’m
happy
you
were
chosen?
Why not me?
But God always works in mysterious ways.
So,
we’re stuck with you.
Now get up.’

Lucy didn’t move.
She wasn’t going
anywhere with this man.
The world could take care of itself.
Closing her eyes, she lay flat, pressing her face against the wet
grass.
She didn’t want to look at Kruger, to hear that scolding
voice any longer.
The ground beneath her was frozen hard.
She felt
her body heat draining into the rocks and soil.
Maybe Kruger would
realise she was a hopeless case and leave her alone.

She was amazed when Kruger dropped down
and lay beside her on the grass.
He’d tossed his torch away.
What
was he going to do?
It was as if he’d been broken by everything
that had happened tonight, by all his efforts that would be so
futile if she refused to help him.

‘
I can’t save anyone,’
she whispered.
‘Leave me alone, I beg you.’

Kruger’s head was turned away from hers
and he was prostrate, lying in an awkward position.
She assumed he
couldn’t hear her because of the wind.

‘
Why won’t you listen
to me?’
She strained to raise her voice.
As she stared at him, she
realised how much she wanted to hear his voice: to be forgiven,
pardoned, told that all of this could happen without her.
Kruger
was so unlike James.
Whenever James hugged her, he made her feel
safe and loved.
Not Kruger.
Where was the kindness, the humanity?
He was the one in need of help.

Stretching out her hand, she tried to
touch him.
There was something dreamlike about the way her hand
moved, as though it didn’t belong to her.
Was she hallucinating?
She wanted to stroke Kruger’s hair.
He was such a strong man; that
rugged, silent type that sometimes seemed so attractive.
If she
touched his hair, maybe she could draw on his power, feel his
strength running through the strands and into her body.
She’d been
so weak these past months.

Why was he so still?
Was he weeping?
Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t turn his face towards her.
She knelt
up.
Her knees were soaking wet.
The wind was whipping around her,
much more ferociously than before.
Kruger continued to lie there,
as if he’d simply given up and just wanted to rest.
He was
vulnerable, fragile, just like everyone else.
Would he let her
touch him?
No, not Kruger.
He was so tough, so brittle, he’d detest
it if she put her hand on him.

But her hand kept
stretching forward.
Moving in the beam of Kruger’s abandoned torch,
it cast a long shadow, much larger than her own hand, so much more
definite.
Umbra Sumus
.
She and Kruger had become shadow people, their silhouettes
more real than they were.
Her hand suddenly made contact with the
back of Kruger’s head, pressing against his hair.
He didn’t speak,
not a word.

Why was his hair so sticky?
Sweat?
Rain
continued to lash down on them.
Her hand grew wetter as she moved
it through his hair.
This was all wrong.
None of this was
happening.
It couldn’t be.

She snatched her hand back and squinted
hard at the captain.
It took her several seconds to make sense of
the thick, dark liquid spreading out over his head…to properly
register its colour.

And then she began screaming.

32

V
ernon, standing
at the front entrance of Lucy’s convent, watched the Chinook’s
pilot pacing up and down in front of the cockpit, and wondered what
he was thinking.
Without him, they’d all be dead.
What the hell had
they encountered up there?

It was odd, he thought, that he hadn’t
heard a single soldier mentioning what happened in the air less
than an hour earlier.
Everyone was getting on with their jobs,
pretending everything was normal, pretending no winged creature
attacked them.
But he’d seen it with his own eyes.
They all had.
At
the time, most of the SAS troopers were content to dismiss it as a
freakish bird, or some kind of giant bat.
Even the bible thumper
McGregor kept his mouth shut.
The co-pilot had unconvincingly
written it off as a mirage, caused by the odd atmospheric
conditions, but the pilot said nothing.
Vernon knew it was none of
those things, yet the alternative was preposterous.

The shape had frozen for an instant
outside the cockpit, its wings extended, as though it were being
crucified.
It was man-shaped.
No light came from it and no light
reflected from it.
Vernon shivered.
Did he really believe a dark
angel had trailed them from London?

At university, he was
mystified by George Orwell’s concept of
doublethink
.
It was idiotic, he
thought, for Orwell to argue that people could simultaneously hold
two contradictory beliefs and accept both completely.
Now he
understood it perfectly.
It was the only way to stay sane in a
situation like this.

The helicopter, sitting in the middle
of the deserted car park, resembled a huge bug.
It was bathed in
the glow of three floodlights that the nuns had used to illuminate
a bronze sculpture of Jesus Christ overlooking the iron gates of
the chapel.
As SAS troopers drifted past, heading towards the
loading ramp at the rear of the helicopter, Vernon wondered how
much longer the nuns would insist on lighting up their Saviour.
They had their own generator, but it wouldn’t be able to supply
them indefinitely.
Sooner or later, they’d have to switch off
Jesus.

The first SAS troopers back from the
sweep confirmed that the convent was clear.
The bodies of four
soldiers – two Americans and two Swiss – were lying in a temporary
mortuary in the convent’s small gymnasium.
There was no sign of
Lucy, and none of the remaining Swiss Guards or Delta Force
deserters.
Tyre tracks in the grass behind the convent’s chapel
showed that five vehicles left at high speed on a southbound road.
There were other tracks on the opposite side of the convent,
indicating two trucks.
Vernon had already alerted local police,
telling them to get in touch immediately if they sighted any
unexpected convoys.

As for the nuns and nursing staff, none
was hurt.
The Mother Superior said they hid in their rooms as soon
as the shooting began.
She was keen to get information from Vernon
about what was going on, but he said he couldn’t reveal anything
because of the Official Secrets Act.
As it turned out, she was
better informed than he was.
Not only did she know he had come for
Lucy, she was able to tell him that Cardinal Sinclair, the
Vatican’s No.
2, was here a few hours earlier, specifically to see
Lucy.
It seemed he left with her and the soldiers.
Presumably, he
was in charge of the Swiss Guards.
Did that mean Lucy was safe?
But
perhaps the deserters arrived first and took Lucy and the cardinal
with them.
There wasn’t enough evidence to say either way.

The Mother Superior kept saying how
sweet Lucy was, and how she was praying she’d come to no harm.
Vernon had made his excuses and left.

As one of the last SAS
troopers trudged past him, Vernon noticed that the soldier was
carrying a slide projector.
Just as he was about to ask him what he
was doing with it, his mobile rang.
He glanced at the
display:
Commander
Harrington
.
Their conversation was brief.
Harrington said a policeman based in Tintagel village in Cornwall
had reported a gunshot.
Several Land Rovers were parked near the
castle.
When Vernon asked if there was any news of the two escaped
prisoners, Harrington cut off the call.

‘
Let’s get going,’
Vernon shouted at Gresnick.
The colonel was sitting on a wall
several feet away.
He hadn’t bothered helping with the search of
the convent, preferring to spend his time studying his files.
Vernon disliked the way Gresnick had taken a few troopers to one
side before the sweep began and whispered conspiratorially to
them.

Earlier, Vernon had noticed the
American continually staring at Lucy’s photograph.
It annoyed him
that Gresnick was so interested in looking at her.
Didn’t he have
something better to do with his time?

Lucy was perhaps pretty rather than
beautiful, but that didn’t make her less striking.
There was
something beguiling in her expression, a sad, soulful look.
She had
those big blue eyes and that raven hair that sometimes formed a
curl under her jaw, sometimes fell as a fringe over her face.

Again, he thought of Sergeant Morson’s
comment that she was the most important person in the world.
Did
Morson believe she was some kind of Messiah?
Lucy would have found
the idea so funny.
What did Messiahs look like anyway?
He once read
a book claiming that Jesus Christ was a five-feet-tall woman with a
genetic disease that made her resemble a man.
The book made the
valid point that anyone who wanted to help the weak, the meek, the
poor, and the rejected was hardly likely to be a six-feet-tall,
hunky, blue-eyed, blond Aryan with an enviable six-pack,
particularly since perfect Aryans were rather thin on the ground in
ancient Judea.
Why not a repulsive, freakish, diseased woman?
Who
better to champion the downtrodden?

Gresnick closed his file, climbed off
the stone wall and walked towards Vernon.
‘We don’t know for sure
why the deserters want Lucy,’ he said as they both returned to the
Chinook.
‘It’s critical we find out.’

‘
Why?’

‘
If the deserters need
Lucy alive at any cost, you know what that means.’

‘
I’m not sure I
do.’

‘
Come off it, you know
exactly what I’m getting at.’

‘
Why don’t you say
it?’

‘
Very well.
To
guarantee the enemy can’t use Lucy, we may have to kill
her.’

33

T
hey were
running towards Lucy, shouting something, but she couldn’t make it
out because of the noise of the wind.
The light from Kruger’s torch
shone onto her hands.
Blood was everywhere, even under her
fingernails, dripping from her.