The Inca Prophecy (15 page)

‘Thank you, ma’am, for another thoughtful question. I do indeed think we’re in the End Times. God’s wrath is being visited upon us in the form of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought and wildfires, financial collapse, and an increase in warfare. In Matthew 24 God says, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.” As to America and our allies being in Bible prophecy, right now we’re incurring God’s wrath by supporting the Palestinians’ bid to annex a part of Israel. If this administration has its way,
Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus, Galilee and a host of other places of the greatest importance will be ceded to the Muslims. Mr President, I would remind you again: Turn against Israel, and God will curse America and her allies in the most horrific way!’

A chorus of ‘Amens’ reverberated off the auditorium walls.

Pastor Buffett lowered his voice. ‘As I speak, the Iranian ayatollahs are well on their way to acquiring the nuclear bomb. Mr President, we need to bomb Iran, before they bomb us!’

Aleta Weizman raised her hand.

‘Yes, ma’am … the lady over there in the fourth row,’ Buffett said, indicating Aleta to the microphone usher.

‘Don’t you embarrass me,’ Ryan whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

‘My question is in two parts, Pastor Buffett,’ Aleta began, her confident voice tinged with an educated Spanish lilt. ‘I notice that you refer to the Palestinians as intruders, yet aren’t we rewriting history here? It’s quite right to claim that Islam has only been with us since the Archangel Gabriel revealed God’s word to the Arabs, just as it was revealed to the Christians and Jews through the prophets and Christ. But if I have my Bible right, Pastor Buffett, the Hebrews didn’t arrive in what we now call Israel until, at the earliest, around 1400 BC, some hundreds of years after the Palestinians.’

Audible gasps of ‘Shame!’ echoed around the auditorium. The chief of security glanced at Pastor Buffett, but the pastor shook his head. It was one thing to eject journalists who asked irritating questions, but the public-relations risk in ejecting an educated woman was too great.

‘So the first part of my question is,’ continued Aleta, ‘given the
Palestinians’ longer claim to the land, shouldn’t we be trying to reach a consensus between both sides?’

‘They’re Arabs!’ the man behind her rasped.

‘Sit down, Aleta!’ Ryan ordered, but Aleta ignored him.

‘Secondly, given that Jerusalem contains the remains of the Jewish Second Temple, as well as the church of the Holy Sepulchre, allegedly built over the site of Christ’s crucifixion, and the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, it’s uncontestably the focal point of the three great monotheistic faiths. Wouldn’t it make sense to turn it into an international city that would guarantee access to everyone?’

The usher snatched the microphone from Aleta, to the accompaniment of more angry whispers of ‘Sacrilege!’ and ‘Apostasy!’

‘As soon as this conference is over, we’re over,’ Ryan hissed, his face flushed with anger.

‘What makes you think I’m staying until the end of it?’ Aleta shot back.

The night before, Aleta had sent Anna Mitchell-Hedges an email. The Mitchell-Hedges skull was still in Anna’s care and the delightful old lady was over ninety. But even at short notice, she had replied immediately:

The skull has already revealed some of the information embedded by the ancients, and I will ask Lena Begich to join us. Lena is very skilled in channelling, and she has demonstrated a remarkably accurate connection to the skull many times. But the channelling sessions have also revealed the crystal skull holds information that is destined to be revealed to a specific person, and I have a feeling that person could be you. We shall see.

A stony-faced Pastor Buffett, his jaw set determinedly, stared at Aleta for some time. ‘To say that I’m disappointed in the question is an understatement,’ he said finally.

A chorus of ‘Amen to that’ came from the audience, none speaking more loudly than Ryan.

‘But I will, of course, answer it. Firstly, Golda Meir was absolutely right when she said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people … it’s not as if we came and threw them out and took their country … they didn’t exist.” The Palestinians, as a separate people, are a myth. They exist only in the media’s imagination.’

‘And you complain about Holocaust deniers,’ Aleta muttered.

‘Secondly, if you read your Bible more carefully, you will find the Old Testament mentions Jerusalem 669 times, while there are another 154 references in the New Testament. Do you know how many times the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Dhammapada, or the Tao Te Ching or the Zend Avesta refer to Jerusalem?’

Aleta returned Buffett’s glare.

‘Not once,’ came the answer from the same portly gentleman who consulted the Rapture Index on a daily basis.

‘That’s right, sir! Not once! And if you visit Jerusalem today, you will find tunnels under the Old City where fluorescent bulbs throw light, even for an unbeliever,’ Buffett added, staring at Aleta, ‘on archaeological diggings exposing ancient water systems that were built in King Herod’s time. There are sewers there that the Jews used to escape the Romans when the city was attacked.
Inalienable proof of Jewish occupation.’

As the audience erupted in another round of clapping and cheering, Aleta left her seat and headed out of the auditorium, leaving Buffett to repeat his warning to the President of the United States, a warning that was garnering increased airplay and gaining traction around the corridors of power in Washington.

‘We have to strike Iran now, Mr President, before it’s too late!’

Chapter 18

‘The pen, Jafari!’

Jafari instinctively went for his left-hand jacket pocket then suddenly remembered and made as if he’d misplaced it, before going to the right-hand pocket and extracting the pen O’Connor said would pass inspection.

Golzar turned the silver pen around in his hand and pressed the button that would have activated the microphone. The ballpoint retracted and Golzar unscrewed the top half, exposing the spring-loaded mechanism. He shook the contents out on to the coffee table and inspected them before handing the shell to Jafari.

‘Quite finished have you, Golzar?’ Jafari said, feigning anger.

‘You’re a junior major, Jafari. I’d be very, very careful if I were you,’ Golzar sneered. ‘In the meantime, General ul-Haq would like some company for the night. See that he has a choice.’

‘And how do you suppose I arrange that, Golzar? I doubt the
local female commanding colonel would be overjoyed if we order her to provide some of her officers for a visiting Pakistani general.’

‘You really are an idiot, Jafari. This is Qom. It might be the theological heart of this country, but it’s also known as the city of pilgrimage and pleasure. Ring this number. They’re expecting your call.’ Golzar gave Jafari a slip of paper. He rose and walked away, consulting a computer printout he’d demanded from the desk earlier in the day. The printout contained a list of the occupants of the hotel.

Jafari heaved an inward sigh of relief and looked at the number on the piece of paper and shook his head at the hypocrisy of the ayatollahs. Prostitution was illegal in Iran, but demand was still high. To get around the problem, the ayatollahs had promoted an interpretation of the law that had long been abandoned in most Muslim countries. Iranians could legally buy sex, as long as they married the prostitute. According to the Shia interpretation of
mutah
, it was legal to go to a mullah and get married temporarily – for twenty-four hours, six months or whatever period was stipulated. In addition, it was legal for a man to have as many temporary wives – or prostitutes – as he wanted. And now, the ayatollahs were considering legislation under which brothels in Iran would be renamed ‘chastity houses’.

The duplicity was breathtaking, Jafari thought, as he dialled the number Golzar had given him. When Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs took control, they embedded the Qur’an in the constitution, and acts that had previously been a matter of personal morality were suddenly deemed to be crimes. A woman’s testimony was worth only half that of a man; and not only were women in Iran forced to ride in the back of a bus and use segregated building entrances, but many had fled forced marriages to older men and had to resort to
prostitution to survive. The Ayatollah had also banned contraception, which had effectively doubled the population. It was a ticking generational time bomb.

‘
Salaam
… hullo.’ The voice was that of an older woman.

‘This is Major Jafari. I was given this number …’ Jafari faltered, suddenly wondering how you ordered a prostitute.

The woman on the end of the line laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Major, we’ve been expecting your call. The bill’s already been paid, and I have some of our best young women ready for the general’s inspection.’

Twenty minutes later, five young Iranian women, all dressed in black chadors, were discreetly escorted through a rear door of the hotel.

The next morning, snow was still falling, dusting the desert in a carpet of white, but it hadn’t been heavy enough to build up on Highway 56. The long, wet ribbon of black asphalt stretched across the desert towards the small city of Arak, beyond which the snow had fallen more heavily on the mountains to the east, south and west. The convoy of black Mercedes, accompanied by a military escort from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, sped through Arak towards a small fertile valley to the west, and twenty minutes later the escort slowed as they reached the nuclear plant. Observation towers dominated a high fence that protected the sprawling compound built in the foothills of the mountains. Guards snapped to attention and saluted as the convoy wheeled through the main gate and onto the long dual-
carriage driveway, lined with trees, which led to the heavy-water production facility on the eastern side. The lights on the towers and storage tanks gave it the appearance of a massive oil refinery. Major Jafari leapt from the car and opened the rear door for General ul-Haq. Colonel Rostami had organised hard hats and white coats, and General Shakiba led the delegation into the heavy-water production plant.

‘We’ve gone with the proven Girdler distillation process to separate the heavy water,’ Shakiba said, pointing to the banks of cylindrical columns rising above the ground. Trails of vapour from the tallest column condensed in the cool, crisp air. ‘We have a total of twelve production units, including the main liquid hydrogen sulphide and distillation units.’

‘And the capacity?’ Dr Yousef asked.

‘At present, we’re producing around eight tonnes of heavy water a week, but once the final distillation units come on line, we expect to double that. The reactor will require a starting load of nearly 100 tonnes, so this plant will be critical.’

Dr Yousef nodded in approval. The Iranians had chosen production methods that had already been proven in the Western world. By running ordinary water down the towers at different temperatures, and bubbling hydrogen sulphide gas up through a series of perforated plates, a chemical exchange took place that produced weapons-grade heavy water at a purity of almost 100 per cent.

Jafari listened closely as the doctor and the general talked, committing the conversation to memory. He could sense he was never far from Major Golzar’s attention, and he dared not take notes or produce the pen with the recording thumb drive.

General Shakiba took the delegation on an inspection tour of the production plant, past a maze of tanks, pipes, pumping stations and laboratories, and on to the adjacent nuclear plant itself.

The inspection complete, the delegation returned to the briefing room. A portrait of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, hung prominently on one of the panelled walls and tasteful indoor plants lined the room.

General Shakiba opened the conversation. ‘At the nuclear plant, we’re using nitric acid to separate the plutonium from the used uranium, but we’re still facing problems with the waste actinides. Neptunium, americium, curium, caesium-135, iodine-129, strontium-90 … We’ve discovered these waste products hold a great deal of heat.’

‘And they’re highly radioactive,’ Dr Yousef agreed, ‘but I think we can help with that. We’ve brought the plans for a process involving treatment with calcium carbonate that will enable you to incorporate the dry material into borosilicate glass, which can be stored much more easily. You should be able to do this on-site.’

General Shakiba smiled broadly. ‘That’s excellent news. Despite our problems,’ he continued, nodding to Jafari to flick on the PowerPoint presentation, ‘the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan, which you can see on the slide, is now almost fully operational, with twenty-one of the twenty-four workshops completed. We currently have some 3000 scientists at this plant, primarily to facilitate the conversion of uranium yellowcake to uranium hexafluoride gas.’

Major Jafari flicked on the first slide. The Esfahan plant covered 60 acres around the base of a mountain range 250 kilometres to the south-east of Arak. ‘The base is protected by anti-aircraft missiles,’
Shakiba said, ‘but some of it is being moved underground, at depths that will make the facility impervious to attack.’ He indicated the tunnel entrances that led to subterranean caverns deep within the mountains.