The Armageddon Conspiracy Read online

  Vernon stared at the space on his desk where the framed picture of his wife and baby once took pride of place. Now it lay at the back of his top drawer. The future was all he thought about when Louise was born eight months ago. Now he wondered if she had one: if anyone did. At least Louise was too young to understand.

  He kept a second photograph, this one in his bottom drawer, as far from his reach as he could manage. It wasn’t of his wife or child. A picture of a ghost, maybe – it had haunted his marriage from the beginning.

  Reluctantly, he focused on the TV pictures. He’d never get some of these images out of his mind. Two days earlier, a series of apocalyptic earthquakes hit Turkey, destroying forty percent of the country. Istanbul was in ruins. Millions were dead, their mangled bodies lying in open view as overwhelmed emergency services dug trenches to bury the corpses. In some places, the bodies were gathered into mountainous heaps and set on fire.

  In Southeast Asia, two Tsunamis, triggered by huge underwater earthquakes, struck one after another. Most people managed to escape the first, but not the second. No one dared estimate the number of dead. Then reports came in from Thailand telling of people being healthy at breakfast time but dead by noon. They’d complained of nothing more than a sudden heavy cold, but virulent avian flu was soon diagnosed, the start of the lethal pandemic the experts had feared for so long. Despite attempts to impose quarantine zones, it was spreading rapidly across Asia. It wouldn’t be long until it reached Europe.

  Everyone knew it was just the beginning. The most obvious sign was the sky. Across the world, it was changing colour, turning to the blood red now so familiar to Londoners. The history books said there had been nothing like this since Krakatoa in 1883. That volcanic eruption produced the loudest sound ever recorded by humans. The veil of dust it threw into the sky blocked so much sunlight that the global temperature was reduced by 1.2 degrees Celsius. The deflection of the sunlight from the suspended dust particles changed the sky’s colour for months. Normal weather was disrupted for years. A sideshow, apparently, compared with what was happening now.

  South of the Equator, storms covering hundreds of square miles were raging, lit by flashes of lightning so fierce that the U.S. meteorological planes monitoring them said they resembled atomic bombs detonating. The video images they transmitted to TV stations were extraordinary. It seemed the weather systems of hell had come to earth.

  Vernon closed his eyes and gripped the edge of his desk. As a kid, whenever something on the TV frightened him, his parents told him that if he shut his eyes, the ‘monsters’ would vanish. Not in the adult world: here, they just got bigger and loomed ever closer.

  He heard a gasp and hesitantly opened his eyes. Everyone was still looking at the screens, but all the monitors now showed the same image – a yellow screen imprinted with three flashing scarlet letters: UGT. It was the first time in history it had happened. Vernon swivelled round on his chair and gazed at the analysts sitting behind him. They were as stunned as he was. UGT was known as the ‘Word of God’ because no one was sure whether it really existed, and it only appeared if it was time to say your prayers.

  ‘Now it’s official,’ Gary Caldwell mumbled.

  Vernon swallowed hard. It was official all right: Unspecified Global Threat.

  Chapter 3

  ‘James Vernon, please go to the detention cells immediately,’ a voice said over the tannoy.

  Vernon got up from his seat, grabbed the jacket of his suit from its hanger, and headed for the door. All around him, UGT kept flashing. The UGT protocols could be declared only if every government in the world concurred because they meant that each service had to share its secrets with its rivals to combat the common danger – usually anticipated as an extraterrestrial threat of some sort.

  Vernon shook his head. Once you let others see your secrets, that was it. Right now, requests from all over the world would be arriving, asking for access to the highest security files, the ‘black’ files, forbidden to all but MI5’s most senior staff, and MI5 would be doing exactly the same in reverse.

  As he walked along one of the endless corridors in Thames House, heading for the central block of lifts, Vernon wished the building wasn’t so enormous. Built in 1930, it had two symmetrical wings connected by a linking block, and visitors always fretted about getting lost. The miles of corridors kept the staff fit, that was for sure. With its riverside location and neoclassical architectural style, Thames House was once described as ‘the finest office building in the British Empire’. Its elegant façade was made of Portland stone, decorated with several fine sculptures. Not a building you’d normally associate with the secret services, but the perfect stage, Vernon thought, for the grim announcements that would surely be made in the next day or two.

  The bulletproof windows in the corridors didn’t benefit from blinds. Normally, Vernon hurried past, but now he stopped, morbidly drawn to look at what London had become. The streets were deserted. It was frightening how fast the city had gone from thriving metropolis to ghost town. Although Europe and North America were largely untouched by the natural disasters, normal life had come to a standstill even here.

  Most Londoners fled from their workplaces as soon as the birds appeared and never went back, the stock market suffered the greatest crash in history, and the transport system was overwhelmed. For once, the Government responded fast, using an emergency plan drawn up years earlier in anticipation of London suffering a catastrophic terrorist attack. Within 36 hours, military and police control was fully established. Only a skeleton Tube service operated now, and it stopped at 8 p.m. when the curfew began. Army convoys rolled through empty streets. Under the Government’s emergency powers, all of the major utilities – gas, electricity, water, telephones, fuel – were brought under central control until further notice, and key personnel were being forced to work whether they liked it or not. Tanks and barricades ringed Parliament, and similar arrangements had been made at all key civic and administrative buildings. Most TV and radio programmes were cancelled, replaced by constant news reports. Newspapers were still being produced, but probably not for much longer.

  It was only natural, Vernon thought, that people wanted to be with their families at a time like this, those lucky enough to have them. Most of those still at work had nowhere else to go.

  At first, the Director General ordered every member of staff to remain at their posts. Soldiers prevented anyone from leaving, but some people became hysterical, begging to be allowed to go home to their families. For practical reasons, the DG relented; there was simply no point in trying to get productive work from staff no longer mentally fit for duty. The majority of the family types were allowed out. A handful, determined to do their duty, stayed behind. Practically all of the non-attached members of staff volunteered to remain.

  Vernon wondered if he ought to have tried to get to Sweden, but he didn’t want to spend his last hours with the wife he didn’t love, and seeing baby Louise would make him unbearably sad. There was only one person he wanted to be with at a time like this, but there was no chance of that particular reunion happening.

  Six crows swooped down and perched on the window ledge, staring at him. He banged on the window to frighten them off, but they didn’t move.

  Making his way down the corridor once more, he swore as he tripped over piles of litter – mostly crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and Coke cans. Conditions in Thames House had deteriorated fast. Bins hadn’t been emptied for days. The toilets were in a foul condition, many blocked and leaking. Everything throughout the building stank.

  The corridors were practically deserted. A couple of days earlier, the activity was frantic, with everyone racing backwards and forwards from one emergency meeting to the next. Not now. In a way, Vernon was glad. Several times, he’d bumped into people in tears, and he’d been unsure what to do. Console them? Ignore them? Tell them to get a grip? Tell bad jokes? Nothing seemed right.

  It surprised him how many beautiful women were stil
l left. When he was a teenager, he always imagined that if he were told the world were ending, he would find as many gorgeous women as possible for sex. Now, he realised, no one would be having sex as the world ended. Imminent extinction wasn’t any kind of turn-on.

  As he was about to step into the lift, he got a call on his mobile phone. Caldwell informed him that within seconds of the UGT declaration, identical requests had come in from three completely different sources. They all wanted an obscure document called The Cainite Destiny. It was the identities of the three intelligence organisations that was so intriguing – Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, Bundesrichtendienst, the German foreign intelligence service, and Sodalitium Pianum, the Vatican’s ultra-secretive intelligence service.

  ‘The Vatican, the Israelis and the Germans?’ Vernon blurted. ‘What the hell is this document they all want?’

  ‘I’m looking at our database entry right now,’ Caldwell replied. ‘It says The Cainite Destiny is a single page from a diary. It was written in 1938 and came into our possession at the end of WWII. Only three people have accessed it since then. Two of them were Director Generals, and that was several decades ago. The third was your boss: twenty-four hours ago.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘That’s what the database says.’

  ‘What’s the high-level description of this document?’

  ‘The Cainite Destiny was handwritten in German by one of Heinrich Himmler’s senior adjutants. The British army arrested him after the German surrender in 1945. According to our database, this document gives some inexplicable version of the Nazis’ ideology, based on the occult. A professor analysed the document and said its implications were terrifying. His interpretation was rejected out of hand. Nevertheless, the document was given the highest possible security classification because it was feared it was a coded reference to a Nazi plot that might be resurrected by neo-Nazis at some future date.’

  There was a long pause. Vernon wondered why Caldwell had stopped speaking. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Listen to this. The reason the document is called The Cainite Destiny is that it suggests a direct link between the Nazis and the Biblical figure Cain.’ He hesitated again. ‘And there’s one more thing.’

  The Nazis and Cain? Vernon shook his head. Hokum. Why would three of the world’s best intelligence services be giving something like this even the slightest credence? And why had his boss looked at it so recently? ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to mess around. What’s the final thing?’

  ‘Sir, it predicts the end of the world.’

  Vernon swallowed hard. Once, those words seemed so abstract. One day, they were certain to come true. He just hadn’t expected it to be in his own lifetime.

  He pushed the button to call the lift. As he waited, he studied the MI5 crest above the lift doors, showing a combination of a golden, winged sea-lion on a blue background; six red roses; three five-pointed green cinquefoil heraldic flowers, and three portcullises. The crest also displayed MI5’s motto: Regnum Defende – Defend the Realm. Right now, Vernon didn’t know from what he was defending it. Hitler reaching out from the grave?

  When the lift doors opened, Vernon was startled to see Old Harry, the veteran lift operator. Still in his pristine bottle-green uniform, Old Harry hadn’t abandoned any of his normal habits.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Old Harry squinted at Vernon’s badge.

  Vernon couldn’t believe he was still having his ID checked. Perhaps it was reassuring: the world hadn’t completely gone to pieces if Old Harry was still following the rules. He’d even taken the trouble to spray the lift with air freshener – a welcome relief from the sour smell that permeated the building.

  Vernon stepped inside and the doors swooshed shut.

  ‘Which floor?’ Old Harry asked.

  ‘Basement.’

  ‘Right you are, sir.’

  Vernon couldn’t avoid seeing himself in the lift’s mirror. An exhausted man gazed back, with black rings round his eyes, a gaunt face, a crumpled suit and crooked tie. He took out a comb and tried to tidy himself up.

  The lift stopped and the doors opened again. A girl came in, dabbing her eyes. Vernon looked away. They’d had a casual fling on a training course in Cardiff six months earlier. Another ghost of the past.

  ‘Well, don’t acknowledge me,’ she snapped.

  That’s all I need, Vernon thought as he awkwardly stepped past her into the detention block’s reception area.

  ‘Good luck,’ Old Harry said as the lift doors closed.

  Vernon nodded half-heartedly then watched as the changing lights on the panel above the lift doors showed the lift making its way to the top floor. It wouldn’t be long before the lifts were shut down; too much of a drain on the building’s limited electricity. MI5 and MI6 had already taken themselves off the National Grid and were using their own generators to ensure they didn’t suffer power cuts. Soon, everyone would be tramping up and down stairs.

  He placed his security smartcard against the electronic reader and pushed through the turnstile. Glancing at the security guard, he noticed that the man was clutching a set of Catholic Rosary beads. He tried to think of something to say, but nothing came. Normally, he would make a comment about football, but every game had been cancelled and it seemed meaningless now.

  ‘Sir,’ the guard said once he’d gone past.

  Vernon stopped and turned. ‘Yes?’

  The guard fidgeted. ‘Sorry, nothing. It’s just that…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it? Ever since they brought that man in…’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’ The guard lowered his head and went back to counting his Rosary beads.

  Vernon shrugged and headed for the coffee machine. The world was full of riddles these days. He needed something to wake him up before the next shock arrived. It wouldn’t be long judging from what the guard had said. The cells definitely weren’t a place for innocent meetings.

  He’d rather have stayed in the Situation Room. There was so much new work to be done now that UGT had been called. Strange times required the strangest procedures. Computer programs would be searching databases for any documents that mentioned words like Armageddon, Apocalypse, End of the World, Doomsday, Extinction, End Times, Judgment Day. Analysts would be scrutinising prophecies by every nut and mystic. Even an old favourite like Nostradamus, debunked or not, would be back in the frame. It was the moment when the secret services gave credence to the supernatural. Not because they believed any of it, but because there was nothing else to go on. And those programs would no doubt soon locate The Cainite Destiny. He hoped he’d get an opportunity to study it.

  He vaguely recalled something about Godwin’s Law having a habit of cropping up everywhere. The precise wording, if he remembered right, was, ‘As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one – certainty.’ The same was obviously true of apocalyptic predictions.

  Maybe it wasn’t so odd that the supernatural was being taken seriously. Right from New Year’s Day, newspapers were reminding their readers that the Mayans long ago predicted that the world would end on 21 December 2012. It started as a bit of a joke, one of the ‘things to look out for this year’, but no one was laughing now. On top of that, the only notable thing that happened immediately before the chaos descended was the series of spectacular thefts that had grabbed worldwide attention, seemingly taking place at precisely that three a.m. moment when the whole planet shivered.

  The Treasury in Axum was just one of seven high-profile locations raided by expert thieves. It soon became obvious they were looking for very particular, highly prized artefacts, all of a religious nature. Religious leaders were openly saying that these thefts were the cause of the natural catastrophes. They were the ultimate insult to God, they claimed, forcing him to decide that humanity must be purged, just as in the original End Days of Noah
’s Flood.

  Hysterical nonsense, Vernon thought, but always there lurked that one flicker of doubt. After all, not only had the thieves apparently stolen the Ark of the Covenant, they were also said to have found perhaps the most elusive treasure of them all.

  The Holy Grail.

  Chapter 4

  Vernon wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he arrived in the detention area, but it wasn’t this. These cells hadn’t been used in anger for years; prisoners nowadays were taken to the high-security police facility at Paddington Green.

  Soldiers in camouflage uniforms were everywhere. There was an odd atmosphere: the soldiers silent and visibly agitated. Normally, soldiers could be relied on for their black humour. Not these ones. Whoever the mystery prisoner was, his presence had spooked them.

  Vernon was starting to feel the same way. He guessed that a terrorist had been apprehended, someone who needed to be interrogated immediately. His boss probably wanted him to provide detailed background intelligence on the prisoner, to try to work out his movements over the last twenty-four hours, discover who was helping him and so forth. Maybe the terrorist had tried to take advantage of the current chaos to stage a ‘spectacular’.

  When he reached the battleship-grey block that contained the detention cells and interview rooms, a soldier inspected his ID badge.

  ‘Commander Harrington is waiting for you in Room One,’ the soldier said. He was jumpy, his eyes darting around.

  ‘Why all the extra security?’ Vernon asked.

  ‘You’ll soon find out.’ The soldier knocked on the iron door. A second soldier looked through a viewing slit then opened the door.

  Vernon stepped into the main detention block with its austere walls and worn-out black and white floor tiles, his unease accelerating fast. He loosened his tie.

  The soldier who greeted him was nervous and on edge. He escorted Vernon to the main interview room, knocked, then punched in a security code to open the door.