The Armageddon Conspiracy (18 page)

No one involved with COBRA would be
impressed if Barnes were forced to explain what MI5 thought might
be going on.
It would be embarrassing to admit the nature of what
they were contemplating.
But with TV pictures coming in from all
over the world showing people flocking to places of worship, maybe
it was hard not to be caught up in the religious hysteria.

‘
We have no other lines
of enquiry,’ Barnes said.
‘The contents of your report are bizarre,
Mr Vernon, but we don’t have anything else.
From a political
perspective, we have to be seen to be doing something.
I’ll tell
the PM that we’re pursuing leads concerning the stolen religious
artefacts.
If we recover them, we’ll be able to demonstrate that
they have no connection with the natural disasters.
You and Colonel
Gresnick will be supplied with whatever resources you
need.’

To achieve
what
?
Vernon wondered.
He didn’t have a
clue what to do with the information he already had.

‘
I’m not going to
comment on some of the remarks about the escaped prisoners,’ Barnes
said.
‘I want them recaptured as soon as possible, and a detailed
explanation of how they got out in the first place.
Commander
Harrington can look after that.’

She placed her hands on the table as
though she were trying to find something solid to hang on to.
Vernon knew how she felt.
Everything was crumbling, every certainty
disappearing.

‘
I want you to know,’
Barnes said, ‘that I’ve been in touch with the heads of every major
intelligence service in the world.
None of them is any better off
than we are.
Most are saying that global warming is responsible for
everything that’s happening, and they’re focusing their efforts on
helping the scientific community.’

Vernon glanced at Gresnick.
Before the
American’s arrival, he would have agreed with that.
Now, after
everything Gresnick had revealed, maybe there was a chance
something else was at the root of this.

‘
There’s a helicopter
waiting for you on the roof-pad,’ Barnes said.

‘
Where are you sending
us?’
Vernon grimaced, hating the idea of venturing outside.
‘Anyway, nothing can fly.
The birds out there – a helicopter could
never get through them.’

‘
The Chinook has been
fitted with a device that emits an ultrasound frequency.
I’m
assured it drives the birds crazy and clears them get out of the
way, at least temporarily.
I believe Mr Gresnick’s flight to
England used the same technology.’

‘
We had no problems at
all,’ Gresnick said.

Vernon wasn’t convinced.
He thought the
birds were unlikely to be scared off by any gizmo.

‘
An SAS unit has been
mobilised to accompany you,’ Barnes added.
‘Commander Harrington
will stay here to coordinate things at this end.’

‘
Where are we going?’
Vernon repeated.

‘
Your mission is to
find your ex-girlfriend.’

Vernon tried to hide his shock.
So, it
was actually going to happen.
Whatever you feared most was bound to
happen – you attracted it in some crazy way.

‘
We’re going to
Glastonbury?’
He hated that place.
It was a New Age circus, full of
every religious nut imaginable.
They had more religions there than
people.

‘
Yes and no,’ Barnes
said.
‘You’ll be picking up the trail there.’

‘
Trail?’

‘
We received a report
half an hour ago that a firefight broke out at the asylum where
Lucy Galahan was being kept.
Four soldiers are dead.
The police
scanned their fingerprints and we ran them through our database of
Special Forces’ personnel.
We’ve now had positive IDs.
Two belonged
to the Delta Force deserters.
The other two...’

‘
The deserters have got
Lucy?’

‘
She’s with the
others,’ Barnes answered.

‘
Others
?’

‘
I was about to tell
you that the other two dead men have also been identified.
They’re
Swiss Guards.’

Vernon shook his head.
‘You mean the
people who guard the Pope?’

25

L
ucy peered out
of the window and tried to see what was going on.
The convoy had
halted five minutes earlier, with Captain Kruger and a colleague in
the front vehicle getting out, their torchlights cutting the
darkness.
What were they doing?
Kruger, clutching a pair of
night-vision binoculars by the looks of it, scrambled up a rocky
hill overlooking the road.
His colleague was busy studying a map,
his face lit by torchlight.
Lucy wondered if they were checking to
see if they were being followed, looking for the best route to
avoid pursuit.

She turned to the soldier sitting
beside her.
He hadn’t said a word during the journey.
Every time
his long legs threatened to brush against hers, he pulled them
away.
Did he think she had something contagious?
Now and again, she
caught him staring at her, the same way people stared at modern art
exhibits they didn’t comprehend.

‘
Can I get some fresh
air?’
she asked.

‘
I’ll give you a few
minutes to stretch your legs.’
His English was impeccable, tinged
with only the slightest foreign accent.
He twisted round, leaned
into the back of the vehicle and grabbed something.
‘We have a
spare uniform for you.’

Lucy took off her parka and slipped the
black uniform over her pyjamas.
The soldier handed her a pair of
army boots and socks.
The boots were a bit big, but she tied the
laces tight, and the thick socks helped.

Before she opened the door, she put her
parka back on and zipped it up to the top until only her eyes were
exposed.
As she was about to get out of the car, the soldier tapped
her arm.

‘
Wait,’ he said.
‘You’ll need this.’
He handed her a black rubber torch.

Once more, she reached for the handle
to open the door.

The soldier patted his machine pistol.
‘I’m watching.’

Lucy took a few steps away from the
Land Rover.
Did the soldier really think she’d try to escape?
It
was pitch black apart from the lights of car headlamps and a few
torches, and the temperature was below freezing.
She had no idea
where she was, and she was sure to die of exposure if she stumbled
off into the dark.

At the convent, she’d
begun to think of the outside world as a forbidden zone: it would
kill her if she ever went out there.
Yet here she was.
Still alive
, actually
feeling quite strong.
She knew it wouldn’t last.

Shining her torch
around her, she discovered that the convoy had stopped next to a
picturesque stone bridge over a brook.
She
knew
this place.
It was called
Guinevere’s Sigh
because
this was supposedly where Queen Guinevere realised her love for
Lancelot was too strong to be resisted.
James Vernon brought her
here once, keen to show her an old, stone water well with a wooden
canopy bearing carved angels at its corners.
Legend said this was
the wishing well where Guinevere made her fateful choice to sleep
with Lancelot, sealing Camelot’s fate.
After their illicit affair,
Camelot was plunged into civil war and ultimate collapse, taking
all the dreams of a golden world with it.

Lucy shuddered as she pointed her torch
at the well, but it wasn’t the cold making her shiver.
This was
where she came the night she decided to end her relationship with
James.
Was it perverse to have come here of all places to make that
decision?
Did she need to commune with the ghost of her former self
before she could go ahead with it?

James made no secret of what he wished
for when he threw his coin into the well that first time.

‘
I wish that we’ll be
married before the year’s end,’ he said gleefully.

She didn’t say yes to him.
She didn’t
say anything.
She closed her eyes and tried to wish too.
But
nothing came.
No desires, no dreams.
What she wanted was for things
to stay exactly as they were.
She told James she was scared and
couldn’t give him an answer right now.
Yet he really was the ideal
boyfriend.
He had a job in MI5 that he never spoke about, but she
liked that.
It made her feel safe, and she knew any secret could be
safely entrusted to him.
They’d been getting on so well.
It amazed
her how lovingly he looked at her, as if she were some rare beauty.
He once said he wasn’t sure whether she was his idol or ideal.
At
first, it scared her – how could she ever live up to his
expectations?
But, whatever she did, James was never disappointed
with her, even when she disappointed herself.

He didn’t complain when she made him
join her for scuba diving, and he said he loved listening to her
theories about the Arthurian legends.
He seemed to mean it.
When
her book was rubbished, he quoted Jonathan Swift to console her:
‘When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this
sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.’
She
loved him for that.

It was the day after
their trip to
Guinevere’s Sigh
that the phone call came.
Her dad had sounded like
an automaton.
‘Your mother has breast cancer,’ he said.
‘It’s
aggressive.
Stage four.
She has less than six months.’
That was it.
Her dad put the phone down.
From that moment, she started to
unravel.
She had friends who had been in the same position.
They’d
been distraught, of course, but somehow it was all superficial.
They brushed it off like dust.
They had a funeral and got on with
their lives, and people said how brave they were and how their
parents would be so proud that they’d kept the show on the
road.

‘
The last thing your
parents would want would be for you to be miserable,’ they’d say.
Did these people not
feel
?
How can you go on when the
people who made you aren’t there anymore?
The sun has been stolen
from the sky.
The heat has gone.
Nothing can continue, nothing at
all.

‘
Lucy, can I have a
word?’
Cardinal Sinclair wandered over from the lead Land Rover.
Several soldiers were watching him.
One pointed a torch at his
face, forcing him to raise his hand to block the beam.

The night had a weird thickness, as
though it were made of cloth.
Lucy wondered how long the nights had
been like this.
Her convent cell was windowless.
She saw the
outside only when she went into the convent garden for her daily
exercise.
Not so long ago, she hadn’t even managed that much, and
had to be pushed around in a wheelchair.
Then, lately, just as
she’d started to feel stronger, they’d stopped anyone from going
outside at all, and given no reasons – now she knew why.

Watching Sinclair approaching, Lucy was
still unsure whether she trusted him.
She was convinced she was a
captive, but what about him?

‘
What do you want?’
Her
tone was much sharper than she’d intended.
‘I hope you’re going to
explain what’s going on.’

She wondered if he were in the same
mould as Grand Inquisitors like Torquemada.
They didn’t get the
chance to torture anyone nowadays, but maybe in their hearts it was
still there, that desire to make everything clean, to root out all
dissent, incinerate every impurity.

‘
I assure you,’ he
said, ‘I didn’t expect any of this.’

‘
You know who these men
are, don’t you?’

‘
They’re Swiss Guards
from Rome.’

‘
Swiss Guards?’
Lucy
was taken aback.
‘I thought their job was to guard the Pope.’
Another question occurred to her, but she didn’t say it: if they
were from the Vatican, why didn’t Sinclair know they were coming?
But he seemed to anticipate her concern.

‘
Kruger said they were
a special unit, reporting only to the Pope,’ he said.
‘No one else
in the Vatican knows about them.
They were formed a year ago and
have been training with the French Foreign Legion ever
since.’

Lucy groaned inwardly.
A secret Vatican
military unit?
This was getting worse.
‘But didn’t you say the Pope
was dead?’

‘
That’s the thing.’
Sinclair lowered his voice.
‘The captain said the Pope ordered them
to carry out this mission no matter what.
Even if he died, they
were to keep going.’

‘
I don’t get it,
cardinal.
Why wouldn’t the Pope tell you about Kruger’s
team?’

Sinclair looked away.

Lucy had almost forgotten how to
interpret body language like that.
In the convent, no one hid
things.
She felt painfully rusty analysing Sinclair.
Why was he so
uncomfortable talking about the dead Pope?
Something else bothered
her.
Why had these Swiss Guards shown up now, when things were so
dire?
Why didn’t they come weeks ago?

‘
Are we prisoners?’
she
asked.

‘
No, but we can’t come
and go as we please.
We must do everything Captain Kruger
says.’

‘
So, we
are
prisoners.’

‘
They’re protecting
us.’

‘
From what?’

‘
Lucy, other soldiers
are chasing us.
Kruger knows who they are.’

Lucy stared at Sinclair then started to
turn away.
She hated this.

‘
American Special
Forces, Lucy, that’s who’s after us.
Kruger reckons they’re only a
few miles behind.’

‘
What?’
Lucy hadn’t
formed any idea of who might want to harm her, but Americans were
at the bottom of the list.

‘
Deserters,’ Sinclair
said.

Deserters?
Did that make it any easier
to understand?
Had they deserted just so that they could come to
England to murder her?

‘
Get back in the
vehicles,’ Kruger shouted, coming down the hill.
‘We’re
leaving.’

‘
Where are they taking
us?’
Lucy asked Sinclair.

The cardinal shook his head.
‘Kruger
wouldn’t say.’
His breath condensed in the freezing air.
‘I haven’t
told you the codename for Kruger’s mission.’

Lucy watched Kruger climbing back into
his Land Rover.
She sensed he was one of those men who didn’t give
up.
Once he had his orders, he would go on relentlessly until they
were carried out.
The late Pope chose him precisely for that
reason, didn’t he?

She closed her eyes and stood there for
a moment.
The wind was seeded with tiny ice particles, biting into
her flesh.
One word came into her mind, just as had happened back
in the convent.
She knew it was the same word Cardinal Sinclair was
about to use.
She had no idea why she was so certain, and it
frightened her.

‘
I already know,’ she
said, opening her eyes.
‘Their mission is codenamed
Armageddon
.’

26

T
he helipad on
the roof of Thames House was a recent innovation, only three months
old.
To make room for the helicopters, the building contractors had
no choice but to vandalise the beautiful gold-coloured sloping
roof.
The whole aesthetic look of Thames House was destroyed in one
swoop, Vernon thought.
Everyone else loved the convenience but,
then, they were all keen flyers.

He stood outside the small air control
office, slapping his hands together to keep warm.
Although he was
in a warm uniform – he’d managed to borrow spare kit from one of
the soldiers in the basement – he didn’t have gloves.
It was 1
o’clock in the morning.
Most sensible men were at home with their
wives and children instead of getting ready to head out into this
darkness, the sort of murk that made you think you wouldn’t be
coming back.

As for his own wife and baby, Vernon
was convinced they couldn’t be in a safer place.
A sparsely
populated island near Stockholm, with plenty of food and water, was
as good as it got.
Besides, he had other ghosts to haunt him.
Or
just one.
All of his emotional energy now swirled around Lucy.
She
had discarded him, so it was perverse to still be holding a torch
for her, but you don’t have control over that type of thing, do
you?
That sort of torch is sure to scorch you one day.
Unless the
miraculous moment arrives when you realise you’ve stopped loving.
But what’s so great about that?

The Chinook, painted in camouflage
colours, looked brand new.
It had two toughened glass-fibre rotor
blades, one at the front and one the rear.
The SAS – Britain’s
elite Special Forces unit – used it on their missions because of
its reputation for ruggedness.
Its fuselage was watertight, so it
could make amphibious landings.
Vernon prayed it didn’t come to
that.
The last thing he wanted was to go swimming in the dark.
The
two M60 machineguns were more to his liking.
He suspected they
might see a lot of use.

He was also worried about the noise:
last time he was in a helicopter, he couldn’t hear a thing over the
sound of the rotor blades and engine.
For the whole of the
following day, he was partially deaf.
NASA had apparently recently
helped helicopter manufacturers to make the cabins much quieter
environments where you could actually hold a civilised
conversation, but Vernon remained to be convinced.

One by one, SAS troopers climbed into
the Chinook.
Vernon was startled by how short they were, not one
taller than about 5’6’’.
They were tough, muscular little men,
mostly with shaved heads.
Four of them had broken with convention
and sported long, straggly hair and almost comical drooping
moustaches.
As he listened to their conversations, he realised that
nearly all of them were Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish.
There
were only two English: a Geordie and a Scouser.

The troopers wore camouflage uniforms
and helmets, bulky packs on their backs, and black gloves.
If
anyone looked like they were going to war, they did.
Armed with
Colt Commando assault rifles, Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine
guns and Browning High Power handguns, they were bristling with
weaponry.

Vernon made a point of shaking hands
with the unit leader, Captain Kerr, a gruff Glaswegian.
The captain
deliberately used one of those ridiculously macho grips, designed
to show who was the boss.
Vernon hurriedly pulled his hand
away.

He was the last to climb into the
helicopter.
On vacation in San Francisco three years ago, he and
Lucy took a sightseeing trip in a small chopper.
It was the
scariest journey of his life.
When the helicopter flew under the
Golden Gate Bridge, he thought he was going to lose control of his
bowels, but Lucy simply laughed all the way through.
She once told
him she suffered from motion sickness.
Not anymore, it seemed.
It
frightened him how exhilarated she was, almost as if she were
revelling in overcoming her natural limitations.
When she chose,
she could be incredibly determined.
More than once, he’d decided
she was the most obstinate person he’d ever met.
Mostly, he admired
her for it.
At other times…

Gazing up at the sky as he clambered
inside, he was convinced the birds would be an insurmountable
problem.
Thousands of them were wheeling above Thames House, making
that interminable screeching noise.
It drove him crazy.
He’d heard
reports that, for some unexplained reason, the birds were
congregating only over cities, and whole stretches of the country
were now entirely devoid of bird life.

He took his seat beside Colonel
Gresnick, just behind the cockpit, and strapped himself in.
Several
SAS troopers joined him on the same side of the Chinook, while the
others sat opposite, about ten men on either side.

‘
What did the Vatican
say about the Swiss Guards?’
Vernon asked Gresnick as the Chinook
prepared for takeoff.

‘
They said the matter
was a religious one and they didn’t wish to involve secular
authorities,’ Gresnick said as he casually flicked through a file
of intelligence reports.
‘When Commander Harrington pointed out
they were kidnapping a British citizen they told him not to
interfere in matters that were God’s concern.’

Vernon couldn’t help grunting with
amusement.
‘I wish I could use a line like that to get people off
my back.’
He stared at the SAS men as they smeared their faces with
black paint.
‘Did the Vatican say anything about the Delta Force
deserters?’

‘
The Vatican said, and
I quote, “The deserters are working for Satan.”’

‘
I hear he pays
better,’ Vernon muttered, squinting at Gresnick’s fashionable
sheepskin flying jacket and fur cap.
Who
does he think he is
, he thought – some ace
fighter pilot?

He grabbed the armrests of his seat as
the helicopter’s rotor blades whirred into action, and prayed the
pilot would have time to abort the flight if the birds didn’t clear
out of the way.
Seconds later, the Chinook was airborne.
As it rose
fast, Vernon listened for the sound of shrieking birds, but the
rotor blades drowned out everything.
Seconds later, something
smashed into the cockpit.
Vernon’s heart jumped.

‘
Just a stray,’ the
pilot said over the intercom.
‘The flight path is
clear.’

Within seconds, they were racing over
the deserted streets of London.
Vernon glanced at Gresnick and
breathed out hard.
He’d been doubtful this mission was ever going
to happen.
Now, he could no longer avoid thinking about the
mission’s objective.
It was really going to happen – he was going
to see Lucy again, and discover why she was at the centre of world
events.