The Armageddon Conspiracy (14 page)

‘
That sounds like the
oaths Freemasons take,’ Vernon said.

‘
That’s no
coincidence,’ Gresnick said.
‘The Freemasons were probably founded
by the Templars.
They were the next step of the revolt against
Catholicism.’

‘
So, you’re saying the
Cathars, the Templars and the Freemasons are all really the
same?’

‘
I believe so.
The
papacy forbade Catholics from becoming Freemasons and accused the
Masons of worshipping a false god.
The Freemasons’ ceremonies and
rites are all connected with the Temple of Solomon, and the proper
name of the Knights Templar is
The Order of
the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon
.’

Harrington leaned forward.
‘OK, for
argument’s sake, let’s say you’re right.
How do the Nazis fit in?
Are you implying that they’re linked to the Cathars and the
Templars too?’

Gresnick gave a
sardonic smile.
‘I don’t have any conclusive proof, but it’s well
known that Himmler thought of the SS as an order of knights: as the
modern successors of the Knights Templar and their Germanic
counterparts, the Teutonic Knights.
He was obsessed with the Spear
of Destiny and the Holy Grail, both of which are strongly linked to
the Templars.
The Holy Grail was rumoured to be the Cathars’ most
sacred treasure.
Otto Rahn, an expert on the Cathars, was
personally appointed to the SS by Himmler and was sent on
expeditions to the Languedoc to look for it.
There’s no doubt
Himmler was fascinated by the Cathars and the Templars, but I think
it goes further than that.
The Cainite
Destiny
suggests that the Nazis thought
they could trace their lineage back to Cain and I think that two of
the stopping-off points in the Nazis’ ancestry are the Cathars and
the Knights Templar.
When Otto Rahn was exploring caves in
the
Sabarthès Mountains in the Languedoc,
he found hidden chambers where the walls were inscribed with
Templar and Cathar symbols, side by side.
There were also
depictions of the Spear of Destiny, the Holy Grail, and the Ark of
the Covenant.
’

‘
You know what you’ve
done?’
Vernon said.
‘You’ve linked just about every conspiracy
theory imaginable: Atlantis, Cathars, Druids, Freemasons, Nazis,
the Knights Templar, the Ark of the Covenant, the Spear of Destiny,
the Holy Grail – they’re all in there.’

‘
What if all the
conspiracies we’re familiar with are subsets of a much bigger
conspiracy?’
Gresnick replied.
‘A
superconspiracy
, if you will.
Each
minor conspiracy theory gives us a tantalizing glimpse of the
superconspiracy – a taste of the truth but no more than that.
So,
we’re always left with unanswered questions and room for new
conspiracy theories.
But, with the superconspiracy, every smaller
conspiracy is explained, every answer given, every loose end tied
up.
All along, there weren’t separate conspiracies, just one huge,
misunderstood conspiracy.’

‘
What would your
superconspiracy be about then?’
Vernon asked.
‘Who’s doing the
conspiring and who or what are they conspiring against?’

‘
Don’t you see?
– every
conspiracy is connected with religion.
What were the Knights
Templar really up to, what did the Cathars really believe in, why
did the Catholic Church hate and fear them so much, what was the
ultimate Nazi objective, what was the quest for the Holy Grail
really about, what power does the Spear of Destiny really have,
what was the Ark of the Covenant really used for, and so
on.’

‘
What are you saying,
colonel?’
Harrington asked.

‘
It’s simple.
Every
conspiracy comes back to just one thing – the identity of the True
God.’
Gresnick started making a chopping gesture with his hand, as
though he were cutting the problem into pieces.
‘Imagine you were
in a world where you knew the truth but were forced on pain of
death to embrace a lie.
Openly expressing your opinions would get
you killed, so you were forced to create secrets and codes that
your enemies wouldn’t notice or understand.
But your enemies
weren’t stupid.
They cracked your codes, exposed your secrets and
killed you in huge numbers.
The survivors had to create ever more
complex codes and pass on the keys to unlock them.
What if the keys
were lost?
What then?
Without the keys, the codes would eventually
become incomprehensible; their true meaning lost.
Unless, of
course, there was one group that never lost the key, that
maintained the secret perfectly intact right from the beginning and
through everything thrown at them by their enemies.’

‘
You’re saying such a
group exists?’

Gresnick nodded, but didn’t
elaborate.

‘
Well, are you going to
tell us?’

‘
I think that when
Section 5 interrogated the Nazi officials in 1945, they were told
what the conspiracy was.
I think half of Section 5 went along with
it and the other half didn’t.
The half that bought it killed the
others to stop them revealing the secret.’

‘
That’s unlikely, don’t
you think?’
Vernon commented.
‘Why would some be persuaded and the
others not, and why would the former be willing to kill the latter?
Surely the evidence would have to be irrefutable, in which case
everyone would have believed it.’

Gresnick rattled his pen against a jug
of water.
‘But what if the half that believed had a particular
reason to believe, and the others didn’t?’

‘
I don’t
follow.’

‘
Well, imagine the
Nazis provided physical proof of their claims.
In fact, imagine the
only reason they revealed the conspiracy in the first place was
that they knew some of the Americans were sure to believe them
because of that proof.’

Vernon had to intervene.
‘Some of the
Americans had a mark on them, is that what you’re telling us?
A
mark which meant that they and the Nazis were somehow on the same
side.’

‘
That’s exactly what
I’m saying.’

‘
What kind of mark?’
Harrington asked.

‘
The most famous mark
of all, sir.’
Gresnick pointed at his forehead.
‘
The Mark of Cain
.’

19

T
hink about it.
Half of Section 5 murder their colleagues and preserve the Nazis’
secret.
They go home to America and involve their children, and
later their grandchildren, in a conspiracy.
It would have to be
something dramatic that would make them do that, something that
removed any possibility of doubt.
My grandfather’s theory was that
there was more than just a historical link between the elite
members of the Cathars, the Knights Templar, the Freemasons and the
Nazis.
There was a physical connection too – they were related by
blood, and all of them bore the Mark of Cain.’

‘
But the Mark of Cain,
if I remember right, was a crescent-shaped red mark that appeared
on Cain’s forehead,’ Vernon said.
‘It would have been obvious if
every surviving member of Section 5 had a distinctive mark on their
forehead.’

‘
The truth is no one
knows what the Mark of Cain looked like.
It wasn’t explicitly
described in the Bible.
My grandfather speculated that the mark
appeared only when it was activated by the presence of a specific
holy object.
He had in mind the Spear of Destiny.’

‘
Why that in
particular?’
Harrington asked.

‘
My grandfather was
convinced it wasn’t a Roman spear at all.
It was much older.
In
fact, he thought it was actually the weapon Cain used to kill Abel.
It practically says as much in
The Cainite
Destiny
.
That’s why it was so revered by
the Nazis.
It seemed to have special powers.
Perhaps it revealed
hidden marks.’

‘
This is just
speculation.’

‘
Conventional
approaches haven’t got us anywhere, commander.
Scientists don’t
have a clue what’s going on in the world right now.
They haven’t a
single theory between them.’

‘
But this is so far
fetched.’

‘
And when Dr Wells says
one of our prisoners is becoming an angel, that isn’t?
To use a
cliché, it’s time to think outside the box.’

‘
Well, tell me this
much.
I remember reading somewhere that the Holy Grail wasn’t an
object at all – it was the bloodline of Jesus or some such thing.
What do
you
think
it is?’

‘
Listen, the reason the
Holy Grail is so mysterious is that no one has ever been clear what
it is.
That was deliberate, of course.
The best way to camouflage
something is to give it multiple identities, or no identity at
all.’

‘
Well, how much do we
know about it?
It must have a beginning.
It must be
something
even if it’s a
coded something.’

‘
OK, here’s the quick
history of the Holy Grail.
The three main Grail Romances all
appeared at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth
centuries, exactly when the Cathars realised they were living on
borrowed time.
The first person to mention the Grail was a man
called Chrétien de Troyes who lived in the second half of the
twelfth century.
It’s not known when and where he was born and when
and where he died.
His life was shrouded in mystery – exactly what
you’d expect from someone with secrets to hide, someone who didn’t
want to be too conspicuous.
In fact, it’s not even clear what his
name really was.
Chrétien is the French for Christian, and Troyes
is simply a French town, so Chrétien de Troyes is literally,
‘Christian from Troyes.’
In fact, maybe it’s just
a
Christian from Troyes.
It’s not telling us much, is it?

‘
Robert de Boron was
the next person to write about the Grail.
De Boron was a French
knight who fought in the Holy Land as a Crusader.
He was the first
of the Grail writers to introduce an unmistakable Christian theme
into the Grail story, identifying it with the cup used by Christ at
the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea later used to collect
the last drops of Christ’s blood.
It was Robert de Boron who said
Joseph brought the Grail to Glastonbury in England.’

‘
So, no doubt, you
don’t think it’s any coincidence that Lucy is in Glastonbury,’
Harrington said.

‘
No coincidence at all.
Anyway, the third main player in the Grail stories was Wolfram von
Eschenbach.
As with the others, few facts are known about him.
Many
suspected he was one of the Knights Templar, and he explicitly
claimed the Templars were the guardians of the Grail.
This was long
before the Templars were suspected of heresy.
Interestingly, he
claimed to have been told the story of the Grail by a man called
Kyot from the southwest of France.
Even less is known about Kyot
than about Wolfram von Eschenbach, but some experts think Kyot was
both a troubadour and a Cathar.

‘
My grandfather
believed all three Grail authors knew each other and were writing
different versions of the Grail legend to sow confusion, and make
it impossible for any outsiders to make sense of the story.
I mean,
these three writers produced three different Grails, one of which
was highly Christian, and the other two scarcely Christian at all.
So, it meant that no one could be sure what you were talking about
when you spoke of the Grail.
If the Inquisition asked, you could
say the Grail was Jesus’ cup.
If someone else asked, you could say
it was one of the non-Christian objects.’