The armageddon conspirac.., p.16
The Armageddon Conspiracy, page 16
Lucy stood there, rooted. She couldn’t think of any words. The whole sea was shining now, as if every marine creature, no matter how small, was luminescent.
‘You see that glow?’ Kruger said. ‘I know what’s causing it. Something is very near. It will change everything. If you’re not ready to fight it, you might as well be dead. We’ll all be dead soon enough unless you get your wits about you.’
Lucy wanted to say, ‘I don’t understand,’ but that would be lying. Something had changed. Every part of her sensed it. An odd electricity was in the air. She felt a presence nearby, a creature of some kind, yet so much more. Something had come to the earth, ancient and unspeakable. It was here right now, watching. Everything in the sea was glowing because of this creature. She knew its name, but refused to say it.
Soon, everyone would be dead. She would join her dad. She leaned back against the hand. Do it she felt like saying. Maybe it was what love demanded. But she couldn’t face that blue sea. Any death except that.
Kruger pulled her back from the cliff edge and twisted her round until they were face to face, his arms wrapped securely around her back. It took a second for her to realise he was shaking. Overwhelmed by emotion? He wasn’t the type. But he was trying to compose himself, wasn’t he?
‘You’ve seen Raphael’s mural,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think we’ve examined every part of it? Don’t you think we’ve done everything in our power to understand it? You’re the key, Lucy. We’re certain several of the panels on Raphael’s mural form a map of where you’re going to be over the next seventy-two hours. One of the panels shows King Arthur at Camelot, and there’s no doubt Raphael thought Camelot was here at Tintagel. He painted this place exactly. I didn’t bring you here, Raphael did.’
He put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a scrap of paper and read out a bizarre sentence: Arthur’s conception. Only the chosen one can do what no other can. The suffering place. The death plunge. Death of one, or death of all.’
Lucy swallowed hard. ‘What is that?’
‘Nostradamus wrote a note for each panel. They’re all cryptic, but this one is clear enough, don’t you agree? Arthur was conceived at Tintagel. Your father leapt to his death here. This place makes you suffer unbearably, doesn’t it? You’re trembling like a little girl, but it’s time to grow up. Somehow, you’ll do something here that will remove any doubt about who you are. If you fail, we’ll all die.’
Lucy shook her head. Kruger kept saying these things to her and still they made no sense. She had no great talents. There was nothing special about her. Anything that depended on her was already doomed. Anyway, how could Raphael be responsible for her presence here? Kruger was the reason. He was twisted. Why did he insist on telling her how important she was? Could there be a sicker joke?
‘You’ve been in a mental prison, Lucy.’ Kruger’s expression was a strange mixture of desperation and kindness. He seemed confused, as if he didn’t know whether to despise or love her. ‘I’m trying to release you. You need to confront your demons before you can move on. This is the place that will destroy you or set you free.’
‘Set me free?’ Lucy echoed. There was only one thing that could do that. She needed her medication. Needed to close her eyes. Drift away into tranquillity.
‘Snap out of it,’ Kruger barked. ‘The world needs you. I don’t care whether or not you believe it, I do.’ He yanked down the front zip of her parka and thrust his hand inside her uniform, gripping first her left breast and then her right. She was too shocked to scream. Snatching out her medicine bottle from her right breast pocket, he held it in front of her like a trophy.
‘Give me that you sick bastard.’ Her hands flailed in front of Kruger, but he hurled the bottle past her into the sea.
Her mouth fell open as she tried to conceive of a world without the oblivion, the chemical mercy, her medication brought.
Kruger gripped her arms and shook her…so hard she thought she’d snap. His expression was fanatical. Then he let her go. She collapsed, sobbing, dropping her torch. She lay on the damp grass near the edge of the cliff.
‘I can’t bear any of this. I can’t go on.’
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.
Chapter 32
Vernon, 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.’
Chapter 33
They 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.
The soldier who’d guarded her in the Land Rover was first to reach her. She thought he was going to scream at her, but instead he bent down to look at Kruger. Two soldiers grabbed her and dragged her back the way they’d come. Other soldiers took cover behind the castle’s ruined walls and fired machine gun bursts into the darkness. Some of the bullets formed glowing arcs across the sky. Lucy tried to remember what name was given to bullets like that. Tracer? They were incredibly beautiful, like speeding fireflies. The night glowed.
The soldiers pushed her down the rough path towards the little beach that lay beneath the cliffs, adjacent to ‘Merlin’s Cave’, the great hollow under Tintagel Castle where legend said Merlin was born.
Cardinal Sinclair was already there on the beach with several soldiers. Waving torches, they were standing beside five motorised dinghies that had been dragged onto the beach. Kruger must have arranged for them to be picked up here so that they could continue their journey by sea. There was probably a ship waiting for them off the coast. Lucy shook her head. If they thought she was getting on a ship, they were crazy. The sea was a forbidden zone, a graveyard with waves for headstones.
Staring at her bloody hands, she wanted to throw up. Kruger would still be alive if it weren’t for her. She had to get the blood off, but she didn’t want to go near the sea. Turning with her torch, she spotted a pool amongst the rocks. Something glinted in the water. The soldiers shouted at her as she hurried towards it, but she ignored them.
Kneeling down at the edge of the pool, she dipped her hands in. The water was freezing cold and she let out a gasp. After rinsing off the blood, she scooped up the water and splashed it over her face.
‘Get into the dinghy,’ one of the soldiers yelled at her. ‘Stay low, for Christ’s sake. There’s a sniper out there.’
Again, she ignored him. Shining her torch into the water, she looked for the glinting object. She had an inkling of what it was, but it seemed impossible. Her heart was pounding.
There.
It had got itself tangled amongst some pebbles. She breathed in hard. Frantically at first, then more slowly, she cleared away the pebbles until the object lay in clear view. Mother of Mercy. First Kruger, now this. She didn’t want to look at the object, to be reminded of everything it represented. Tears welled in her eyes, stinging and burning. A single word was engraved on the silver medallion gleaming up at her from the pool – Lucy.
Could she bear to touch it? Maybe it would take some of her pain away. Closing her eyes, she pulled it out. Perhaps she should hurl it into the sea where it belonged. It needed all the water in the world to dilute the emotions it contained. She still remembered how amazed she was when her father’s body was found without his medallion on its chain. She never saw him without it. Even when he went diving, he wore it. Now, clasping it against her heart, she bowed her head. All over again, she was in the blue, being dragged down to oblivion.
Her eyes flashed open. The water in the pool was rippling. She felt something strange in the air, just as she had on the clifftop. Something was here, watching.
She glanced back at the dinghies. She needed to get out of here, but the sea was out of the question. Even if she had the nerve to go near the water, the conditions were getting wilder. The soldiers in the dinghies screamed at her to get in. All around, bullets slammed into the sand and sea from machine-gun fire from the clifftops.
