The Armageddon Conspiracy (36 page)

‘
What were your orders
if you couldn’t rescue me?’

Gresnick couldn’t hold her gaze.
‘I
guess there’s something I should let you know,’ he said after a
long pause.
‘James Vernon told me that if he had to, he was
prepared to kill you.’

44

K
ill
Lucifer
?
Vernon shook his head.
That was as
absurd as trying to kill God.
‘I just want to find Lucy, that’s
all.’
He tried not to sound too dismissive.
He got up from his seat
and wandered to the back of the room to look at Lucy’s paintings.
‘You didn’t give me a straight answer before.
You had no intention
of taking Lucy out of the country, did you?’

‘
One way or another,
everything will be settled here in England,’ Kruger replied.
‘My
brother believed Glastonbury was the key, where Joseph of Arimathea
hid the Holy Grail in the first place.
He said it was no accident
Lucy was living in a convent in Glastonbury.’

‘
We’re going back to
Glastonbury?’

‘
This ship is taking us
to Bristol.
My brother always thought we were likely to be pursued.
His plan was to make a sea journey to take our enemies by surprise,
guaranteeing no one could follow us.
Fresh transport is waiting for
us in Bristol, and it’s only a short drive from there to
Glastonbury.
Unless you have any other ideas, that’s where we’re
going.’

Vernon turned
away.
I’ve been so
stupid
.
If Lucy was everything people
claimed she was then her life was inextricably linked with the Holy
Grail.
Maybe Gresnick was right and the Holy Grail was actually
hidden in Lucy’s convent.
It ought to have occurred to him straight
away that Lucy didn’t end up in Glastonbury by accident.
She was
obsessed with that place, dragging him there far more times than
was healthy.
It was a beautiful little town, but suffered from
severe TOD – tourist overload disease.

Every new-age believer was convinced
Glastonbury was the legendary Isle of Avalon, the Apple Island
where the fatally wounded King Arthur was taken after his final
battle.
It was known that the land around Glastonbury was inundated
centuries ago by the floodwaters of the Bristol Channel, meaning
that the high ground may well have stood as an island in a great
lake in those ancient times.

He turned and peered at Raphael’s
mural.
Something was wrong.

‘
We can’t go to
Glastonbury.
That’s not where the Americans are taking Lucy.’
He
went over to the image and pointed at the panels showing the
Arthurian scenes.
‘Look, we’ve just been to Tintagel where King
Arthur was conceived.
The next panel shows the battle of Camlann
where Mordred fatally wounded Arthur.

‘
Didn’t Lucy think
Camlann was near Tintagel?’
Kruger asked.
‘I think she said that in
her book.’

‘
No, Slaughter Bridge
was one of the possible sites for Camlann, but Lucy was convinced
the real site was somewhere else.’

‘
Where?’

Vernon pointed at the painting, but
then his hand dropped.

‘
I’m sorry, I can’t
remember.’

45

L
ucy stood up.
‘I want to be on my own.’
She walked away from Gresnick, appalled
by his suggestion.
It was impossible that James was ready to kill
her.
There was no one on earth less likely to harm her than James.
Why had Gresnick lied?

She went to the toilet and splashed
water over her face.
Gazing at herself in the small mirror, she
found it hard to recognise herself.
In the convent, she encountered
few mirrors.
She hated her reflection.
To see her face was to see
what life had done to her.

When she left the toilet, Sergeant
Morson was waiting for her.

‘
Come with me.’
He led
her out of the chapel, and took her on a short walk to a viewing
point on the edge of the mound.
It offered a clear view of the
nearby River Cam, tinged red by the sky.

‘
All things pass away,’
he said.
‘Can you imagine King Arthur fighting down there on the
mud-banks of the river, Excalibur in his hand?
The river that day
must have run red with blood.’

As Morson spoke, it began to snow.
Lucy
pictured Arthur and his shining knights swinging their swords to
the bitter end as blinding snow swirled around them while their
enemies closed in for the kill.
The flakes were an astonishing
white against the deep red of the sky.

‘
Beautiful,’ Morson
commented.
‘No one could ever accuse Satan of not having an
aesthetic sense.
He’s the greatest artist of all, don’t you think?
No one knows how to manipulate beauty like Satan.
His understanding
of humanity is peerless.
All our weaknesses are laid bare for him.
He knows every button to press.
That’s why he has so much power
over us.’

Lucy suddenly understood with whom she
was dealing.
People who spoke of Satan in that way could only be
one thing.
‘You’re Gnostics, aren’t you?’

Morson smiled.
‘You are too, Lucy.
You
just don’t realise it yet.’

‘
I don’t believe in any
of these things.
I mean, everyone else says Lucifer and Satan are
the same person but, for you Gnostics, Lucifer is one of your most
revered figures while Satan is your most hated enemy.
Satan is
Jehovah, the Creator, Allah, God, Yahweh, Rex Mundi, the Demiurge
or whatever else it is you call him.’

Morson snorted.
‘How could Lucifer be
Satan?
Lucifer is the Angel of Light, standing on the right hand of
the True God.
Satan is the monster who tried to usurp the True God.
He was expelled from heaven and, in revenge, he created this world
of matter – hell itself.
It says in the Bible that it took six days
to create hell, and on the seventh day Satan rested, satisfied with
the abomination he’d constructed.
How could any person worship that
beast?
How could they possibly confuse him with Lucifer?
Human
history is full of perversity, but that comparison is the most
obscene of them all.’

‘
Are you going to kill
me?
This whole thing is building up to some form of sacrifice,
isn’t it?
Am I the lamb being led to the slaughter?’

‘
You keep mistaking us
for our enemies, Lucy.
Sacrifice, animal or human, is repellent to
us, but not to Satan, or Jehovah as you choose to call him.
He
always preferred blood and horror.
All of us have memorised the
tale of Cain and Abel so that we never forget, even for a moment,
Jehovah’s sickening savagery.’

Morson stared up at the
falling snow and recited a passage from the Bible:
And Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a husbandman.
And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered, of the
fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord.
Abel also offered of the
firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect
to Abel, and to his offerings.
But to Cain and his offerings he had
no respect: and Cain was exceedingly angry, and his countenance
fell.

‘
Don’t you understand?’
Morson said.
‘Cain was a vegetarian who offered the Creator fruit
and vegetables that he’d grown by his own ingenuity and toil.
But
the Creator detested such things.
He wanted the sacrificial blood
and gore that Abel offered.
Right there, in that fatal preference,
even the blindest person ought to be able to see the truth.
Cain is
gentle, a farmer, his thoughts turned towards the True God.
Abel is
a bloodthirsty savage, a killer hunter, who feasts on flesh and
revels in slaughter.
Who can doubt that the God Abel worshipped was
Satan?’

‘
But Cain killed
Abel.’

‘
It was self-defence.
When Abel saw how contemptuous Jehovah was of Cain, he took that as
a sign that an even better sacrifice to Jehovah was Cain himself.
He stalked Cain as if he were the prey he hunted every day, and
attacked him in a small glade.
Cain managed to overpower him and
use Abel’s weapon against him.
No murder was done.
The only person
with murder in mind was Abel, Jehovah’s beloved.’

Lucy was unsure how to respond.
The
story had a chilling logic.
She’d always found the tale of Cain and
Abel problematic.
Why would God despise the fruits of the earth?
Why would he prefer animal sacrifice?
It was stated as a simple
fact, one not apparently in need of any explanation.
Yet wasn’t it
vile that God wanted things killed rather than grown to honour him?
In the name of God, hundreds of millions of people had been put to
the sword over the centuries.
Didn’t God’s glorification of Abel
and contempt for Cain show that’s exactly what he desired?
An
arrogant, violent, blood-soaked, angry and vengeful God?
That
sounded like a perfectly good description of Satan.

When Muslim hijackers
slaughtered thousands of Americans in the cruellest and sickest
way, was it an act done in the name of a god of love and
compassion?
Or was the ‘Allah’ of those hijackers a creature that
feasted on human sacrifice, that bathed in blood and gloried in the
multiplication of pain and misery?
Not Allah –
Satan
.

The Inquisition, the endless pogroms
against Jews, the Crusades, the massacres perpetrated by Muslims
and Hindus in India, the Beslan Massacre, the Moscow Theatre siege,
crucifixions, martyrdoms, beheadings, the burning of witches, the
extermination of heretics, the endless litany of death, the
sanctification of slaughter…all done in the name of God, or of
Satan?

‘
You have no idea how
special you are, do you?’
Morson said.
‘You’re the last person in
the world we’d ever harm.
All of us have sworn to protect you.
We’d
die for you.’

Snowflakes fluttered around Lucy.
‘Stop
saying that.
It sounds crazy.
You’ve kidnapped me, that’s the truth
of it.’

‘
Lucy, it doesn’t
matter that you don’t recognise how extraordinary you are.
In fact,
I’m glad you don’t.
Imagine how insufferable you would be if you
thought you were a Messiah.
I assure you, the very last thing the
world needs is a second Jesus Christ.’

‘
Tell me what you want
with me.’

‘
All in good time,
Lucy.
You feel we kidnapped you.
By the time this business ends,
you’ll understand that you’re our guiding light.
You don’t yet see
the clear path, but you will, and then you’ll know that we’ve
merely taken you into our custody for your own protection.
There
are those out there who wish you only harm.
They’ll kill you
without hesitation if they get the chance.
Those soldiers you were
with before, they wanted to kill you.
After a little persuasion,
your precious Cardinal Sinclair told us that they were Swiss Guards
and they had orders to eliminate you.
Hardly your benefactors.
We’re your family now, Lucy.
You’re one of us.
You always have
been.’

‘
Stop talking in
riddles.’

‘
It would be wrong to
burden you with knowledge of what’s in store for you but, when the
time comes, I have no doubt you’ll know exactly what you must do.
The future of humanity lies in your hands.’