The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (48 page)

Thirty minutes later it was
reported that the President of Iran had resigned, and that at ten a.m. Tehran
time, six- thirty London time, his successor would make an important
announcement on Iranian television.

Across the world billions
tuned in their TV monitors to view the new Iranian President. His message was
surprisingly gracious. His country, he declared, wanted better relations with
its neighbours and with the whole world. Iran was misunderstood. Far from
condoning terrorism, it was doing everything in its power to combat this
terrible scourge. As immediate proof of this he was happy to report that the
terrorists who had planted bombs in various world capitals had been arrested,
and had revealed the exact location of the devices, together with instructions
for their de-activation. The government of Iran had already instructed its
ambassadors to pass this vital information to their counterparts in Moscow,
Peking, Tokyo, Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Washington. Regrettably, he added,
the terrorist who had planted the devices in London had only given their
approximate locations, refusing to reveal the precise co-ordinates. Under
interrogation he had swallowed a poison capsule and died.

Soon after two a.m. Washington
time, less than two hours before the expiration of the deadline, the hunt for
the bombs began in all eight cities. It was a desperate operation, carried out
by helicopter-borne bomb disposal experts guarded by elite paratroopers who had
to fight their way through angry mobs to reach their objectives. Miraculously,
by two-thirty a.m. Washington time, the devices planted in all seven capitals
had been located and de-activated.

It was known that three
devices had been planted in London, one in St. Paul’s Cathedral, one in The
Stock Exchange, one in the Houses of Parliament. During the last two hours,
teams of bomb disposal experts had been scouring all three buildings. It was
eight-thirty in the morning. In thirty minutes the bombs would explode, and so
far not a single device had been found.

In Parliament Square in front
of the Houses of Parliament, in Old Broad Street, Throgmorton Street and
Threadneedle Street around the Stock Exchange, and in the streets by St Paul’s,
Cheapside, Newgate, Paternoster and Martin’s le Grand, the crowds gathered,
fearful, but silent and subdued.

In the last few hours the mood
of the mobs had changed dramatically. It was as if the people of London were
resigned to their fate, having lost all hope. Hunger, thirst and fatigue had
drained their bodies, rage and despair their spirits. They were stunned by the
anarchy of the last few days, and ashamed at having been a part of it. Hundreds
of thousands had already taken refuge in the sewers that lie beneath the
streets of London, in ravaged stores and office buildings, in theatres and
cinemas, churches and museums, in underpasses and underground car parks,
anywhere that offered the slenderest hope of surviving the catastrophe that was
now inevitable.

As the final minutes ticked
away, millions sat huddled together for comfort on the streets, parents hugging
their children, men and women their loved ones, doing what little they could to
protect them from the horror to come.

Five minutes to nine. Through
the pall of smoke and dust covering the city, the pale ball of the morning sun
was dimly visible. For a few seconds a single ray of sunlight pierced a small
hole in the clouds, as if to offer hope. But then more clouds moved across, and
the gloom descended once more. In Parliament Square the eyes of a hundred
thousand people were focused on Big Ben.

Two minutes to nine. Across
London, and throughout the country, millions of men and women who had long
since abandoned their faith in God, prayed to Him now. Embracing each other,
the crowds in Parliament Square wept and said their last farewells. Lips moved
silently, measuring the last precious seconds of their lives.

One minute to nine. The crowd
stirred, moved, it seemed, by the same thought. Men, women and children rose to
their feet. Everyone was standing now. Heads bowed as the great mass of people
began hesitantly to recite the dimly remembered words of the Lord’s Prayer.

The minute hand of Big Ben
clicked to the vertical. The murmur of voices died. A fearful hush descended.
As the massive clock chimed the hour, a hundred thousand souls closed their
eyes and waited for death. But the explosions did not come.

Dreading what might happen,
people opened their eyes again and raised their heads slowly, inch by inch.
Looking about fearfully they stared, first in amazement, and then in disbelief.
The Houses of Parliament were no longer there. Nothing was there, nothing but
level ground. Across the Thames was an unobstructed view of County Hall, St.
Thomas’s Hospital and the Albert Embankment. No Big Ben, no House of Commons,
no House of Lords. The Palace of Westminster had vanished into thin air.

So had St. Paul’s and the
London Stock Exchange. It was impossible, it could not be, it had not happened.
Across London crowds of people rubbed their eyes and looked away, and then
looked back again, not believing what they were seeing, or rather what they
were not seeing.

There were no celebrations,
only hugs and tears of joy, and heads shaking in bewilderment. No one knew what
to say, where to go, what to do. Aimlessly the crowds drifted, some to the
smouldering ruins of Buckingham Palace, some to Trafalgar Square, some to
Piccadilly Circus, many to the City or Parliament Square, to see for themselves
if the incredible rumours were true. When eventually they arrived to swell the
already vast crowds, the new arrivals gazed in silent wonder, and looked at
each other in amazement, hoping that someone would explain these extraordinary
events. But no one did, no one could; for no explanations were possible.

The first bells to ring were
those of Westminster Abbey. Then one by one the churches of London responded,
until the whole city resonated to the joyful sound of pealing bells. The Deputy
Prime Minister appeared briefly on television to urge people to return to their
homes so that the streets could be cleared, and public services resumed. He did
not mention the disappearance of any buildings, saying only that the danger had
passed, and that the government would do all in its power to ensure that life
returned to normal as soon as possible.

Television newscasters were
naturally less circumspect and so the speculation was endless. Who had made
these buildings disappear? And why? Some insisted it must have been the
terrorists. Others scorned the idea. What possible motive could they have had?
And anyway, weren’t they all either dead or in jail? Many were convinced the
government was responsible and was concealing the truth. Was that not what
governments always did? But then, as others shrewdly pointed out, governments
invariably claimed credit for every good thing that happened. In this case they
had not, so obviously they were as mystified as everyone else.

One reporter addicted to
science fiction suggested that some alien, though presumably friendly entity,
had made the buildings disappear in order to locate and de-activate the bombs
but since he was unable to explain how such a thing was possible, no one took
him seriously.

Still the question remained.
Where were the Houses of Parliament? Where was St. Paul’s? Where was the London
Stock Exchange? Had they really disappeared? How could they? There were no
answers, only theories, and of those there were plenty. Perhaps the most
popular one was that they had not disappeared at all, and that the whole
phenomenon was in reality some kind of mass illusion. Many psychiatrists and
medical experts agreed that such an illusion was theoretically possible, and
that in the panic and confusion of the moment the crowds could simply have been
duped. Those who disagreed pointed out that such phenomena were normally
transient; but then, as it turned out, so was this one.

For when the sun rose the next
morning, touching with gold the veil of dust and smoke that lay over London,
there they were where they had always been – The Houses of Parliament, St
Paul’s Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange.

At about the same time, the
news broke that the three buildings that had allegedly vanished in Tehran had
also reappeared, thus seeming to confirm the mass illusion theory. Those who
only twenty-four hours before had seen those vast empty spaces with their own
eyes were utterly confused, those who had not were deeply sceptical. But almost
everyone now accepted that no buildings had actually disappeared. It was
generally agreed by knowledgeable observers that these strange events were the
product of mass trauma. Fear, it was said, could paralyse normal rational
thought processes, so that people confused fantasy and reality.

It was the sci-fi addict who
was the first to ask an interesting question. The devices concealed in London
were never found. That they existed was beyond doubt. So what had happened to
them?

But even as the TV morning
newscasters were attempting to rationalise these extraordinary happenings,
stripping them of mystery and magic, and putting everything into sensible and
reasonable perspective, something even more extraordinary was taking place in
the skies over London. And not only over London. For as the dust cleared, and
the sun burned away the mist, a light blazed, a light as powerful as a hundred
lightning flashes. Across the world billions witnessed the same phenomenon that
day.

In the sky hung a great sword,
its blade glowing so brightly that no one dared look at it for more than a
second or two, fearing permanent blindness. As the sun rose higher in the
heavens, the sword shone brighter and brighter. In the afternoon its light
began to dim. At the day’s end, when the sun sank below the horizon, the sword
glowed blood red, fading from view with the dying light.

There were a few, a very few,
who recognised that sword and understood its meaning, proclaiming as it did
that the ancient prophecy had been fulfilled, and that Arthur had come again to
save the world.

The
End
of
the
Beginning

Other books by the author
Alan
Fenton
will be soon available on Amazon Kindle and Paperback.

The Hour of Camelot
,

Shadow of the Titan

And already on Kindle

Kill or be killed