The Armageddon Conspiracy (60 page)

‘
Enough,’ Morson said.
‘We’ve learned all we needed to know.’

‘
The True God has given
us this gift for testing men’s souls, and he has given us you,
Lucy,’ Sinclair said.
‘You have found three of the Grail Hallows.
Now you must find the last – the Holy Grail itself.’

76

L
ucy tried not
to look at what was in front of her.
She gazed back up the valley,
at Carbonek Castle on the crest, a red moon sitting above it.
The
valley, deep in snow, was illuminated by pale blue floodlights
hidden within the woods that lined the valley.

Sinclair had brought her to an
ornamental stone bridge built across a circular lake at the foot of
the valley, but he hadn’t allowed her to change out of her
bloodstained uniform.
He claimed that her soul, knowing how close
it was to freedom, was detaching itself from its physical jail,
causing her bodily functions to go haywire.
She was unconvinced.
She felt repulsive.

They were alone at the centre of the
bridge while the others were gathered at either end.
She prayed
that the last of the Grail Hallows, the most famous of all, was
concealed somewhere in the stonework of the bridge.

‘
Where do you want me
to look?’
Her voice was scarcely audible.

Sinclair stared at her.
‘You know where, Lucy.
In the blue, Lucy.
In the blue
.’
He stabbed his finger at
the lake.

‘
Before this bridge was
built, one of my predecessors ordered his men to drain the lake and
do a fingertip search.
They inspected every inch to find the Holy
Grail.
They didn’t manage it.
Only
you
can do that.
You’re Galahad’s
successor.
Do you know what symbol he wore on his white
mantle?’

Lucy shook her head, her face burning
with the night’s coldness.

‘
He wore a red Cross
pattée like the one on my mantle.
Galahad was one of us –
a Templar
.’

‘
But you’re wearing
black.’

‘
We wear black because
Cain’s priesthood did; the same reason why Hitler’s SS wore black.
They, like us, displayed the Death’s Head.
Today, more than ever,
that’s our most sacred symbol.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Because this is the
eve of the Apocalypse.
In a few hours, the world will die.’
He gave
a signal and all around the circular lake, blue floodlights
flickered on, bathing the lake in intense blue.

Lucy gazed at the lake, at the
reflections in the surface of the water – her terrors taking shape:
blue shadows and whispers, all her blue nightmares coming true.

‘
You’ve heard the
legend that Joseph of Arimathea hid the Holy Grail in a well at the
foot of Glastonbury Tor.
It was no legend.
The Knights Templar, at
the end of the twelfth century, searched the well and found the
Grail.
They brought it here.
The Holy Grail lies hidden at the
bottom of this lake.
You can find it for us, Lucy.
Everything
reaches its fruition in you.
You’re the first and last, the
beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega.’

‘
Don’t say
that.’

‘
It’s true.’

‘
How can it be true?
I’m
terrified
.
I
can’t go into that water.’

‘
This is the way it
must be, Lucy.
These are the most momentous hours in human history.
Nothing great can be achieved without sacrifice.
You must overcome
the most difficult opponent of all –
yourself
.’

Lucy tried desperately
to think of something to say.
Anything to avoid the
water…the
blue
.
‘Colonel Gresnick told me religious sites were raided all over the
world,’ she said, ‘places associated with the Grail Hallows and the
Ark of the Covenant.
He thought Morson was responsible but Morson
denied any knowledge of it.’

Sinclair smiled.
‘I ordered the
raids.’

‘
What
?’

‘
They were a calculated
ruse.
We already knew none of the sites contained anything we were
looking for, but our enemies weren’t aware of that.
We wanted to
sow confusion, to put religion at the forefront of people’s minds
as the cause of the worldwide disasters.
A member of my Round Table
was in charge of an elite Scottish commando unit supposedly on
secret training exercises in the Arctic.
They were the ones who
performed the raids, not the Americans.
Morson wasn’t even aware of
our existence until now.
All he knew was that there were
influential people in Britain who could assist him with his
mission.’

‘
Why use Morson at all?
You already had your own Special Forces unit.’

‘
It was Morson’s
captain we were interested in.’

‘
The captain?
Why?’

‘
Because your task is
impossible without him.’

‘
I don’t
understand.’

‘
You’ll soon have all
the answers, Lucy.
Right now, you must fetch the Holy
Grail.’

Lucy remembered that
Morson said something about his captain having a significant
name.
Lucius
, that
was it, wasn’t it?
The counterpart of
Lucy
.
But what was the captain’s
surname?
Did Morson tell her?
She couldn’t recall.
As she stared at
the glowing water, she started to cry.
‘I can’t do
this.’

‘
You’ll do it for the
sake of the oldest of sins – love.
If you don’t dive for the Holy
Grail, we’ll kill James Vernon.’

Morson was standing
beside James, gripping his arm.
In her mind, Lucy heard Gresnick’s
voice: ‘
Let him die.
He tried to murder
you.
Don’t help these people
.’

Sinclair nodded at Morson and the
sergeant put his pistol to James’ temple.
James closed his eyes and
braced himself.

Lucy turned away and watched the
spotlights reflecting off the surface of the water.
She’d never
seen water so blue: the colour of suffering, the measure of pain.
No matter what James did, she couldn’t watch him die.
It was
unthinkable.
‘Give me a blindfold,’ she said.

‘
But you won’t be able
to see anything under the water.’

‘
I don’t need
to.’

Sinclair reached under his mantle and
brought out a black cloth covered with a silver skull and
crossbones.
‘I was intending to wrap the Holy Grail in this.’
He
blindfolded Lucy then helped her onto the parapet of the
bridge.

She stood for a moment,
dangling in the breeze.
The water, she knew, would be ice cold.
She
was in a heavy army uniform, and she couldn’t see a thing.
This
would be the most difficult dive of her life.
God help me
, she mouthed before
plunging into the water.

At first, she felt nothing but the
numbing, overwhelming shock of freezing water.
The lake was much
deeper than she expected and her uniform dragged her down to the
bed of the lake.
As she touched bottom, something remarkable
happened – she felt her old strength returning, the experience born
of a thousand dives.

Twisting round, she
pointed herself towards the surface.
Even with her blindfold on,
she could see a blue glow.
She’d found herself in the interior of
the colour blue, inside its core, absorbed by it.
It was in her
heart, her mind, every cell.
Her
soul
colour.
Her body started to
shake.
Waves of distorted sounds bombarded her.
She realised they
were human voices; just whispers at first but rapidly amplifying.
Hundreds of them: men, women, children, even babies.
They were
talking to her, telling her things.
Voices in her head.
They were
back, worse than they ever were in the convent.
Losing it
.
Her recovery, her
cure
, was all an
illusion.

She struggled for
breath.
Got to get back to the surface.
Air
.
Kicking off from the bed, she
pushed her way upwards through the water.
She rose fast, the water
seeming to part in front of her.
Reaching the surface, she took in
as deep a breath as she could manage, trying to release the burning
sensations in her lungs.

‘
Anything?’
Sinclair
shouted.

She didn’t answer; just
tumbled and dived again.
The voices were still bombarding her.
She
imagined hundreds of ghost swimmers, different shades of blue, all
of them translucent, surrounding her.
Like
angels
.
At last, she understood.
They were
her soul-line, her past lives.
All talking to her at once.
All
together.
She was whole again, all her pasts reunited.
Everything
she was, had been, or ever could be.
Linked through time and space.
Connected for eternity.
She cut through the water effortlessly,
just as she did in the old days when her mum and dad were still
alive.

Groping amongst the
reeds on the bed of the lake, she imagined her father’s hands
guiding her.
When she was a baby, he involved her in a strange
ceremony.
Surrounded by men in black robes with the skull and
crossbones on their silver rings, he plunged her into a river.
He
spoke in a language she’d never heard before.
Was it Aramaic?
It
was all for
this
,
wasn’t it?
All along, it was her destiny.
A water child, born to
find the Holy Grail in the blue.

She visualised the Grail’s location.
Others had searched for it and found nothing.
Why?
Buried somehow,
or concealed.
In the sand and gravel beneath the reeds?
Concentrate
harder, she thought.

Her fingers touched a boulder amongst
the reeds.
Instantly, an image flashed into her mind.
It had been
deliberately hollowed out, hadn’t it?
The Grail was concealed
inside that rock.
Then the hole was sealed with gravel and the
boulder placed in the centre of a reed bed.

Feeling around the boulder, she located
the gravel in the seal and cleared away as much as she could.
Reaching inside, she touched something regular, cold and metallic.
A current surged through her, more powerful than anything she’d
ever experienced, firing up every cell in her body.

The souls all around
her, all her pasts, were visible.
Even though she was blindfolded,
she could see them clearly, as real as she was, smiling at her.
And
foremost amongst them was Nostradamus.
The entire lake had lit up,
every molecule of water glowing, a pool of eerie light.
She
pictured the glow extending to the bridge, the snow-covered valley,
to the dark woods on either side, the castle on the crest.
Everywhere
.