End of Days, page 4
‘Not before you taste my harissa!’ David Weiss shouted from the kitchen.
David walked towards Lawrence carrying a ceramic bowl filled with a thick porridge from Kolkata and fat rich meat.
Lawrence took a large spoonful and closed his eyes. ‘Ah! Memories of when we slept under the stars at the Ararat Plain.’
‘And of course washed down with mulberry oghi,’ David laughed. ‘Can I twist your arm to stay for dinner, Professor?’
Lawrence embraced David warmly. ‘It would be my honour, but I am meeting with General Assad.’
A loud pealing of church bells resounded through the streets. Lawrence crossed himself, then checked his watch. ‘Three p.m. precisely. The monastery of St James. Luckily some things never change.’
He kissed Rebekah tenderly on both cheeks.
‘I shall be in touch. With the plans.’
‘Bubbe, look. Look at this!’
Alex sat beside his grandmother, watching the old television.
‘It’s Adrian De Vere,’ Rebekah said. ‘He’s lying in state. In our Temple. An abomination.’
No, bubelah,’ said David Weiss. ‘The abomination has not even begun.’
Alex grasped the television remote. ‘His funeral is being broadcast in over two hundred nations, to six billion viewers. Live.’
‘Turn it up, Alex.’
The newscaster’s voice filled the small chamber. ‘Adrian De Vere, President of the Axis Ten, lies in state in a casket placed on a catafalque – a decorated wooden frame – in the Third Temple in Jerusalem. Over one thousand leaders have flown in to pay their respects.’
‘The state funeral is planned for the third day,’ David muttered. ‘Today is Wednesday, so Friday.’ He scowled. ‘Turn to the BBC. Turn it up.’
‘Never has there been such a day,’ the emotional BBC commentator reported. ‘Today millions of people throughout the world are trying to find words adequate to express their overwhelming grief at the cold-blooded assassination of President Adrian De Vere. The reaction to the deaths of John F. Kennedy or Princess Diana cannot come near the outpouring of grief we are seeing displayed on the streets of every major city in the world. Workplaces are closing as I speak. Friday has been designated an international day of mourning for the President. He will lie in state for three days. His state funeral will be broadcast across the whole world.’
The commentary was accompanied by images of streets across London, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, New York, lined with sleeping bags: thousands of men, women, and children clutching votive candles that illuminated saint-like pictures of Adrian De Vere. Then the commentator announced, ‘We cross over to our BBC correspondent in Jerusalem.’
‘The first three-and-a-half years of Adrian De Vere’s presidency had felt like a new beginning,’ the intense red-haired Irish reporter said, struggling to keep her composure. ‘His negotiation of the Solomon Concordat, the groundbreaking Israeli – Palestinian Peace Agreement; his skillful peace negotiations ending the Third World War; his rejuvenation of the Western world’s banking system and industrial military complex; and his removal of the threat of nuclear annihilation.’
The Weisses and Alex watched, riveted to the screen, as cameras zoomed in on the dead and embalmed Adrian De Vere, lying in the open coffin in Jerusalem with thousands of men, women, and children lined up behind ropes, waiting to pay homage to the beloved President who had beamed his glamour and charisma directly into people’s living rooms across the globe.
His assassination had been the consistent and unrelenting fodder of every major newsfeed from London to New York, Berlin to Moscow, Beijing to Islamabad. Adrian De Vere, President of half of the Western world, was dead. Every other news story had been buried in obscurity for the past thirty-six hours.
The images of the dead President in his casket were plastered over every newspaper front page, broadcast on every internet outlet, beamed to every digital television. Network television channels were even cancelling commercials to capture the event.
Thousands of arrests had been made in the UK. Military police stationed at 10 Downing Street, where Adrian had served as British Prime Minister for ten years, were attempting to keep the enraged and grieving public calm. Mont St Michel in Normandy, Adrian’s European Summer Palace, was surrounded by officers under the Commandement des Opérations Spéciales.
All flights to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv had been closed to the general public. Axis Ten special forces were stationed all across the perimeter of Jerusalem.
The volatile, half-demented public had only one thing on their minds. They were baying for the blood of Adrian De Vere’s murderer.
Jason’s face filled the screen.
‘A manhunt is being conducted in all Axis Ten zones for Jason De Vere, the cold-blooded murderer of President Adrian De Vere. If anyone catches sight of him, do not approach. We repeat, do not approach. He is a killer and likely armed.’
Ten phone numbers for each Axis Ten zone appeared on the screen.
‘There is a $50 million reward for him to be brought in alive.’
David clicked the remote, and the screen went black.
‘Oh god,’ Alex whispered. ‘We have to get him out of Israel. Now.’
‘It is in hand, Alex. All is in hand.’ Alex looked up from the television. His right hand started to shake, and he reached inside his leather jacket for the hip flask.
His grandfather placed a steady hand on his shoulder. ‘Enough of the gin, boychik,’ he said with gentle reproof.
Rebekah Weiss closed her eyes in pain. ‘The things they did to you, Alex. I will get you something.’
‘I don’t want anything, Bubbe.’
Alex was shaking again.
His grandfather stood over him. ‘Remember what the therapist said. Breathe in deeply. Count to three. And out.’
Rebekah hurried back in with a white pill.
‘Take this,’ she said. ‘It will calm you.’
Alex swallowed the pill
Rebekah’s eyes fell on the photograph standing on the television. She studied the picture of Rachel Lane-Fox. Supermodel. Her beloved feisty daughter. Alex’s mother.
Killed on 9/11, the day Rachel had boarded the Boston–Los Angeles flight when Alex was only three months old.
She looked from the photograph of Rachel, back to Alex. He was so handsome that all the girls had chased after him since kindergarten. He had Rachel’s perfectly carved features: the high cheekbones, aquiline nose, penetrating dark eyes, and thick, glossy dark-brown hair that fell below his collar. The girls never left him alone. But he also had his mother’s spirit, her strength . . . her stubbornness.
Rebekah sighed. ‘You’re so like your mother, boychik. Especially when you’re angry! May she rest in peace.’
She clutched David’s hands tightly.
‘It is time, my darling. He is old enough.’ She looked back over at Alex. ‘Show him our Rachel’s papers. I go to sit with Julia.’
As the door closed, David walked over to the far side of the room and picked up a bulging old leather briefcase.
‘It is time for you to know the truth about 11 September 2001. About your mother’s death.’
Alex sighed. ‘Zayde, I’ve researched 9/11 for over six years. I know everything there is to know about it. The case is closed, Zayde. Closed.’
‘No, Alex, it isn’t,’ David answered. He walked over to a tall antique chest of drawers and returned with a thick file of papers and a thumb drive. ‘You’ve only scratched the surface. She was a truth-seeker. She wouldn’t rest until she got to the truth. Neither will you.’ He hesitated, then handed Alex the bulging file. ‘Your mother’s papers.’
‘My mother’s . . . what papers?’
David handed Alex a file labelled Mossad.
‘You’re not telling me she was Mossad?’
His grandfather nodded.
‘You’ve always known this?’
He nodded again. ‘You weren’t ready. Now you are. This is what she was working on the two years before her death.’
He passed Alex the memory stick. ‘And this is what your godfather was killed for.’
‘Alex? Alex Jennings? Zayde, he died of a heart attack.’
‘No, Alex. He was murdered.’
Alex cast his mind back to his godfather, the tall, fit former Naval Intelligence officer, who had died when Alex was just fourteen.
‘Your investigation into 9/11 revealed only the tip of the iceberg.’ David sighed. ‘Alex, for forty years, your grandmother and I have been members of a group known as the Illuminus. Your mother’s investigation was connected with the events of 9/11. And your godfather was murdered because he linked the two. Never forget this one thing, Alex: they cast no shadows.’
Dawn
It was 3 a.m., and Alex hadn’t slept. He poured his sixth cup of coffee and rolled another cigarette. What his mother had uncovered was not merely revelatory, it was explosive. For two years before her death, Rachel Lane-Fox, supermodel, photographer, and Mossad agent, had been investigating a covert multi-billion-dollar operation.
He rifled one more time through the documents headed Project Hammer. It was a four-pronged attack. The stability of the rouble had been undermined. The treasury of the Soviet Union had been pilfered. Amid all this, money had been siphoned to a group of generals in the KGB to fund a coup against reformist premier Mikhail Gorbachev. And a massive grab had been made for the gigantic nation’s most crucial industries – defence and energy.
That was just the tip of the iceberg.
The next piece of information had blown his mind.
His mother’s major investigation had revolved around a covert war chest of gold worth trillions of dollars, which had been completely concealed from Congress for over sixty years. The elite and the shadowy masters of the military industrial complex called this hoard – a veritable war chest – the Black Eagle Trust.
Alex pushed his hair back from his face, incredulous.
But what was the link to 9/11?
He looked up to find his grandfather standing over him.
‘Pack up, Alex,’ he said. ‘General Assad and the Professor are arriving in two hours. We’re evacuating.’ He nodded at the documents. ‘Take them with you. They’re yours now. Your mother would have wanted you to have them.’
Alex removed the thumb drive from his X-pad and placed it in a compartment in his rucksack. He gathered the documents, stacked them back in the grey Mossad file, and laid them on top of his computer. Then he limped past his grandfather and disappeared down the hall.
He reappeared minutes later, clutching his bulletproof vest, slinging a second rucksack and two cameras over his shoulder.
David Weiss stared at him in horror.
‘I’ll be back in good time, Zayde.’
‘Where are you going?’ he shouted after Alex. ‘They’ll shoot you in cold blood if they catch you this time.’
‘I’m the proverbial cat with nine lives, Zayde,’ Alex grinned.
‘Alex, what do I tell your grandmother? Alex!’
But Alex had already disappeared.
CHAPTER THREE
Gabriel
Gabriel walked silently through Eden, deep in contemplation.
He frowned, then raised his exquisite features to the heavens. Far in the distance, he saw the monstrous black apparition winging its way towards him.
Soon the grotesque birdlike creature was hovering directly over Gabriel’s head. It had the skeleton of a raven but was at least forty feet in length, with a curved beak, three heads with beady red eyes, and a long, violently swishing leathern tail.
‘Deliver your master’s missive!’ Gabriel cried. ‘Then be gone.’
Gabriel watched as the monster flew toward the Palace of Archangels until it vanished through the walls directly into Lucifer’s old West Wing chambers.
West Wing
Palace of Archangels
Gabriel stared up at the soaring gold-columned palace that towered high above the western wall. The Palace of Archangels, where once he and his two elder brothers, Chief Prince Michael and Prince Regent Lucifer, had dwelt for thousands of moons in an unbreakable kinship, the walls of their inner sanctum resounding with camaraderie and laughter.
The realm of the First Heaven, in worlds long gone, never to be recaptured.
Aeons had passed since Lucifer, seraph, great archangel, light-bearer, had been banished. Now only the grand wings containing Michael’s and Gabriel’s chambers were occupied.
The majestic West Wing of Yehovah’s Prince Regent, the Son of the Morning, had lain desolate since his defection. The soaring golden and jewel-studded doors engraved with the emblem of the Royal House, had stood barred and shackled since the dusk of his betrayal, when the darkening shadows of insurrection had fallen across the realm of the First Heaven.
Gabriel strode towards the West Wing, past Lucifer’s abandoned orangeries.
He bowed to the six fiery seraphim guarding the entrance to Lucifer’s chambers. They bowed in deep reverence to the Revelator.
Gabriel’s beautiful features were still flawless: the perfectly carved cheekbones; the long, fine platinum locks; the regal, heart-shaped countenance. But aeons in his office as Yehovah’s Revelator had transformed him into the fierce, holy, noble warrior he was today. The tender, vulnerable young Revelator that Lucifer had toyed with and manipulated emotionally was long gone. In the Royal House of Yehovah, Gabriel, Chief Prince and Archangel, was second only to his beloved brother Michael the Valiant.
He removed a large, ornate golden key from his belt and unlocked the heavy iron chains that shackled the heavy doors to the West Wing. He pushed them open and walked inside. As they closed behind him, his footsteps echoed through the marbled palace corridors, the walls adorned with frescoes and art.
Finally, he reached Lucifer’s chambers.
He stood quietly outside, then gave a sigh of long regret and pushed open the doors.
Gabriel flung his deep-blue velvet cloak onto Lucifer’s throne and walked over to the pools where the brothers used to swim and raise their goblets in merriment. They were now murky and tepid.
This was the only place in the First Heaven that manifested deterioration and decay.
He tugged the dust cover loose from the huge picture still lying against the wall, and stepped back. He stared, strangely transfixed by the painting, transported all those aeons ago . . . back to the time when he, Michael and Lucifer had been inseparable.
Before the shadows had fallen on their perfect world.
He closed his eyes.
Remembering that exact day.
‘Gabriel.’ Lucifer kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Beloved Gabriel, a great day dawns for you.’ He had stepped back with the pride of an elder brother glinting in his sapphire eyes. This is a great honor, are you ready to receive this responsibility? Are you ready to join Michael and me in rank and in service of our Father?’ One third of the angelic host wholly at your command. Are you ready to take on the mantle of power, the weight of accountability?
With Lucifer’s hand laid protectively on his shoulder and looking straight into Lucifer’s eyes without fear or guile, ‘I am,’ was the firm reply.
Lucifer, with his brilliant smile, clapped his hands, gesturing towards an enormous object covered in gold cloth, just inside the doorway. ‘I have a gift for you, my beloved brother. The muslin fell to the floor, revealing an exquisite painting depicting himself before the Seat of Kings at his inauguration.
Gabriel replaced the dust cloth swiftly over the painting, to drown out the searing memories.
He walked in the direction of Lucifer’s writing desk where his brother used to spend his evenings writing his missives in his elegant italic hand.
The missive lay there, exactly as he knew it would. Black smoke rose from the ominous black seal of Perdition.
Gabriel tore it open.
You continue to return my missives unopened, brother. Silence. Then more silence. You are afraid of my eternal influence over your soul.
I know you still mourn for me.
There are nights I still come to you unawares. Guarding your slumber. Watching as you toss and turn, your dreamings filled with Megiddo.
The Final Great War. Lucifer versus the Nazarene.
Armageddon.
Gabriel crumpled the missive in his fist, then walked over to the soaring casement doors.
He unlocked them, flung them wide open, and stepped out onto the balcony.
He surveyed the First Heaven, staring out to the Labyrinths, a mammoth golden tower that peaked into seven spires, disappearing into the clouds, guarded by his white eagle revelators. He could see the Angelic Kings to the east gathered in council on the Tower of Winds, where the angelic zephyrs of wisdom and revelation raged in eternal cyclones. His gaze fell to Yehovah’s Eden. In the furthest corner of the lush hanging gardens stood two trees, their fruit glistening blue and gold in the lightning, almost wholly enveloped by swirling white mists. To the north of the two trees, a colossal golden, ruby-encrusted door, ablaze with light, was embedded into the jacinth walls of a palace – the entrance to the Throne Room. It was here where the One dwelt, whose hair and head were white like snow from the very radiance of his glory, whose eyes flashed like flames of living fire with the brilliance of his multitude of discernments, and great and infinitely tender compassions.
Yehovah.
The only one whose very name brought his brother Lucifer trembling to his knees.
Lucifer.
Gabriel moved his hand across the breathtaking vista.
A vision of Lorcan De Molay appeared, standing in the centre of an enormous valley. His thick raven hair fell loose past his shoulders, blowing in the icy Israeli wind. He stood in the centre of a vast plain, his Black Jesuit robes blowing tempestuously.
‘Gabriel,’ the priest murmured, his back to his brother. ‘I knew you would come.’
‘Megiddo,’ Gabriel whispered. ‘Armageddon.’
The priest turned slowly.
A voracious smile spread across his face. ‘The Jezreel Valley. In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, “the most natural battleground of the entire earth”. Thutmose III versus the Canaanites; Deborah and Barak versus Sisera; Saul versus the Philistines; Solomon versus Pharaoh Shishak; Saladin versus the Crusaders; Napoleon versus the Ottomans; General Allenby versus the Ottomans.
