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Foreword

The archive section of MI5’s headquarters in Thames House, London, contains a document referred to as The Cainite Destiny that to this day has never been explained. On 22 May 1945, shortly after the end of WWII, British soldiers arrested SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Veldt, an adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The soldiers found a document concealed in a compartment in the heel of one of Veldt’s shoes. As soon as MI5 officers questioned him about it, Veldt committed suicide by biting down on a cyanide capsule that he’d hidden in a fake tooth.

The document is a single page from Veldt’s personal diary. The rest of has never been recovered and is presumed lost or destroyed. The entry describes the moment on 12 March 1938 when Hitler took possession of the Spear of Destiny – the lance thrust into the side of Jesus Christ at the Crucifixion.

Reinhardt Weiss, the German-born Cambridge University History professor employed by MI5 to translate and interpret the page, said its contents defied any conventional version of history, or of Nazism, of which he was aware. He believed it was the most significant document on earth and claimed the world’s very future depended on it. When MI5 rejected his conclusions and dismissed The Cainite Destiny as the fantastic ramblings of a Nazi madman, Weiss gave up his job and moved to America to prepare for what he was certain was coming.

1

24 April 2012, London

Even before it happened, people knew it was coming. At three a.m. GMT, everyone in the world in every time zone felt the same sudden dread, as though the planet had stepped over its own grave. Not a single person chose to speak about it. Those who’d been woken from their sleep closed their eyes and prayed it was just a nightmare; those who were in their offices went back to their computers; those who were in the middle of conversations tried to continue with what they were saying.

By seven a.m. in London, the city was getting ready for what everyone prayed would be an ordinary Tuesday. Londoners went to work as usual, had the usual conversations with the usual people, made all the usual journeys on trains, buses and the Tube, performed all the usual routines. For the last month, a heat wave had gripped the southeast of England and today followed the same pattern. Most workers wore light summer clothing to try to make the sultry conditions more bearable. The next few hours passed normally.

At one p.m., Senior Analyst James Vernon left MI5’s HQ overlooking the River Thames and went for lunch with his assistant Gary Caldwell. As always on these hot days, they went to the nearby open-air Italian café on the riverbank.

Vernon tried to take his mind off the task he and Caldwell were assigned first thing that morning. He’d seen many frightening intelligence reports over the years, but none to compare with the one that had landed on their desks five hours ago.

‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ Gary Caldwell said. ‘That report…it…’

Vernon put his hand on his younger colleague’s shoulder, trying to be supportive, but the gesture was half-hearted. He could barely support himself. As he looked around, everything appeared normal, but he knew there had never been a day like this.

He and Caldwell, following their normal routine, ordered identical lunches: penne arrabiata accompanied by mineral water. After a few minutes, Vernon excused himself and went to the toilet. Ever since three a.m., he’d been feeling unwell. Not in any specific way, in the sense that his whole life was somehow wrong.

When he rubbed his hands together, he was disgusted by how clammy they were. At 5’11” and 170 pounds, he was an athletic man – MI5’s current squash champion – and people often commented on how rarely he sweated, but now his shirt clung to him. Even though he was only thirty, he liked to portray the image of a tough, unruffled senior member of the secret services. His colleagues nicknamed him Captain Scarlet after the TV puppet character because of his blue eyes and short, neat black hair. Before three a.m., he thought he was as unfazed and indestructible as the good captain, but it was long after three and everything had changed.

Trying to urinate, he couldn’t manage a drop. He turned away, went to the basin, washed his hands then stared into the mirror. Just for a second, he thought he caught a glimpse of his own ghost. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s line ran through his mind: In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning. Somehow, he’d become that three o’clock man.

He stood there, his hands shaking. Was he having a breakdown? Over and over in his mind, the details of the intelligence report rewound themselves. Vulcanologists all across the world had reported a dramatic increase in volcanic activity. There were approximately 1600 volcanoes in the world and they were producing alarming signs of pre-eruption activity. All of them.

Leaving the toilet, Vernon made his way back to his table. As he weaved between tables, several things happened at once, almost blurring into each other so that when he later tried to recall the precise sequence, he couldn’t. All the lunchers, including Caldwell, had stopped eating and were staring at the sky. Some were open-mouthed, others reaching for their mobile phones. All along both banks of the Thames, thousands of Londoners and tourists stood perfectly still, their gaze fixed upwards.

It took Vernon a moment to register that it was no longer sunny. Also, he could now hear the oddest of sounds – an ear-grating screeching coming from directly above. Reflexively, he clamped his hands over his ears.

Caldwell, pushing his chair back, stood up and craned his neck upwards. ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ The young man pointed his picture-phone upwards and started to snap images. ‘There must be millions of them. I swear, the sky was empty a few seconds ago.’

When he looked up at the sky, Vernon felt sick. A witch’s curse had come to life. There, overhead, was a seething black mass, like a bubbling cauldron. Birds – sparrows, rooks, swallows, jackdaws, seagulls, starlings, pigeons, magpies, buzzards, thrushes – were wheeling and flocking in countless numbers. They were flying in from every direction, huge formations of them, great V-shapes cutting through the air, squawking, squealing, cawing.

The sky, so blue a minute earlier, was now visibly pink in the few places where it could still be glimpsed through the bird formations, and was rapidly getting redder.

‘We better get back to HQ.’ Vernon slapped a twenty-pound note on the table and he and Caldwell shoved their way through the throng.

As they hurried past a shop on their route back, Vernon stopped, his attention caught by a TV in a shop window, showing the lunchtime news.

‘Don’t you recognise that?’ He pointed at a building on the screen.

Caldwell shook his head.

‘We need to hear what they’re saying,’ Vernon said, leading Caldwell inside.

‘Axum is Ethiopia’s holiest city,’ a sweating reporter declared, ‘and the building behind me its most sacred shrine. This small, unspectacular building is known as The Treasury, and has been the centre of obsessive curiosity for decades. The Patriarch of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has refused to make a statement, but rumours are rife. What is certain is that the people of Axum are inconsolable. They’re claiming that the odd phenomena being witnessed all across the world in the last few hours are a direct consequence of this sacrilegious act.’

‘Are you following any of this?’ Caldwell asked.

‘Sshhh,’ Vernon said. On vacation last year, he’d had his photo taken outside the very building now on the screen. Like every tourist, he’d been dying to see what was inside, but that was something permitted to only the person who permanently lived there.

‘Until we hear officially from the authorities,’ the reporter went on, ‘I can’t tell you anything more about the alleged theft of the western world’s most potent religious symbol. Ethiopia’s claims to possess this holiest of objects have always been controversial, but many experts have insisted there is persuasive evidence that this small building in Axum contained the sacred treasure.’

‘I don’t believe this.’ Vernon’s three a.m. feeling was back worse than ever.

‘However, for the time being,’ the reporter concluded, ‘we are no closer to discovering if it has indeed been stolen. The whole world now anxiously awaits news of its fate…the fabled Ark of the Covenant.’

2

(Three Days Later)

Situation Room, MI5 Headquarters, Thames House, London

Some people were in tears, others bowing their heads in prayer. James Vernon stared at the matrix of TV monitors that were showing pictures coming in from across the globe. The Situation Room, with more than a hundred members of staff crammed inside, was a bland, magnolia-painted space. Much of it resembled a call centre filled with dozens of featureless booths and black plastic seats. Enormous screens on the front wall showed virtual reality computer simulations of whatever situation was the present focus of analysis. Currently, several had crashed and IT consultants were trying to resolve the problems. The TVs remained in full working order, though many people in the room wished they hadn’t.

‘God help us,’ Caldwell groaned as a Breaking News sign flashed across the Sky News feed. A ticker tape message ran along the bottom of the screen saying, ‘Vatican confirms death of Pope. Time of world crisis. Election of new Pope to take place immediately. Sacred College of Cardinals already assembling in Sistine Chapel.’

Vernon put his hand to his head. He wasn’t a Catholic but somehow this news was more devastating than the rest. Hours earlier, he had watched the Pope giving a speech in front of millions of stunned people packed into St Peter’s Square. Unlike the UK’s prime minister and the American president, the Pope had managed to capture the world’s mood. While the politicians talked of facts and figures and practical steps to be taken, the Pope spoke of his own frailty, his private fears, of how he could hardly bear to think of the suffering being endured by so many.

‘This is humanity’s night in Gethsemane,’ he said. ‘Our Golgotha is surely not far away. Only God can save us now.’ Then one of his aides handed him a note. As soon as he looked at it, the Pope collapsed, clutching his heart. The Vatican had still refused to divulge the note’s contents.

Vernon shuddered. Only God can save us now. Days ago he would have laughed but now he felt like getting on his knees to pray like so many others flocking into churches, temples, synagogues and mosques all over the world.

‘Our sins have brought this punishment upon us,’ religious leaders were saying. According to atheists, it was a freak combination of natural disasters caused by worsening global warming, but even they were running scared. They whispered of tipping points being passed, of possible ELEs: Extinction Level Events. Just a different way of saying what the holy men had already pronounced – maybe the end of the world was really happening.

It now seemed bizarre that people were so slow to respond to that first sign three days earlier. They all experienced the ‘three a.m. event’, as it was now being called, but everyone ignored it. Then animals everywhere on the planet started behaving oddly, scampering around in every direction, whelping and whining. It wasn’t just some animals – it was all of them. Cats, dogs, horses, lions, elephants, rats, reptiles, insects, the whole list: stampeding, running, scurrying, fleeing, desperately trying to find whatever refuge they could. People still tried to pretend there was nothing to worry about. It was only when the swarms of birds appeared over the cities that it became impossible to deny something catastrophic was taking place.

As one of MI5’s senior intelligence analysts, James Vernon was seconded onto an emergency team that included his most talented MI6 counterparts, and experts with high security clearance from top universities. For the last three days, he and his colleagues had waded through classified reports from British agents in every part of the world. It was his job to collate all of the data, summarise it and present it to MI5 and MI6’s decision makers.

A week earlier, he’d been thinking he was at the top of his game, that fast-track career opportunities to the top of the organisation were lining up for him. Now he doubted he’d see his thirty-first birthday. He felt so exhausted, mentally and physically. There was a security shutdown and no one had been permitted to leave the building for the last thirty-six hours. He’d snatched a few fitful hours of sleep in the rest room, but it wasn’t enough. The Director General had sanctioned the use of amphetamines to combat tiredness.

Vernon glanced around at his colleagues. Everyone was as dishevelled as he was. The sour reek of body odour was everywhere. Even the women, normally immaculately turned out, had abandoned their grooming routines.

‘Coffee?’ Caldwell asked.

Vernon nodded. He was in the habit of stretching his legs every half hour: anything to avoid staring at the data on his computer and the pictures on the TVs.

The two men went to the vending machine and each selected a strong black coffee. In the old days, they would have gone to the window and admired the view over the Thames while they sipped their drinks. Now, the blinds were permanently drawn. No one in their right mind would enjoy looking at what was out there. Without speaking, the two analysts took their drinks and headed in the opposite direction, towards the small lounge adjoining the Situation Room.

‘We can’t keep running away,’ Vernon said, stopping abruptly.

Caldwell peered at him. Only twenty-two-years-old and fresh from Cambridge University, the younger man was already impressing as an analyst. At 6’4’’, he was an ungainly figure, notorious for his ill-fitting suits, but no one doubted his ability.

As they made their way back to the window, several of their colleagues watched them. Vernon pulled on the cord to open the blinds.

‘What does he think he’s doing?’ one of the analysts grunted.

Even though it was a spring afternoon, no light came into the room, just a fluttering darkness. The birds were out there, just as they had for the last three days, going round in circles. It was as though they were trying to find some place of safety but always failing. So they just kept flying. Many had dropped dead from the sky, exhausted. All air traffic had to be suspended; no planes could fly through the swarms. The ground was covered with bird droppings. On the first day, the authorities tried to clean it away. On the second day they gave up. The smell was appalling. Thousands of dead birds lay rotting in their own excrement in every street.

Black vultures that had flown north from Spain took a liking to the Gothic buildings along the Thames and settled on the roofs like medieval gargoyles. But it was the crows that unnerved people, looking as though they’d come straight from hell. When they swooped low over people’s houses, they stared with dead, black eyes at anyone who dared to look back.

Vernon rapped his knuckles against the triple-glazed windows, relieved they so effectively blocked out the sound of the outside world. Some people claimed they would get used to the noise – the interminable racket of the screeching birds – just as they had to aircraft noise in the past, but he wasn’t one of them.

Jesus!

He recoiled as a black object came hurtling towards the window. At the last moment, he ducked. A crow thudded into the centre and disintegrated. Mush oozed down the windowpane. The crow’s blood matched the queer new colour of London’s sky. In the brief moments when it appeared through the gaps in the bird mass, it threw a sickly, rust-coloured light over the city that had caused headaches, nausea and migraines to reach epidemic proportions. At sunrise and sunset, the light was particularly lurid, forming great impressionistic coloured streaks across the sky as though some mad artist was at work.

‘Close the damned blinds,’ a woman snapped.

Vernon pulled the cord and turned away, his queasiness worse than ever.

‘I bet you’re glad your wife and baby are well out of all this,’ Caldwell said. ‘Sweden, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’ Vernon was confident there was nowhere on earth safer than the island of Björkö, eighteen miles from Stockholm, where Anna was living on a farm with baby Louise. But it wasn’t a recent move: Anna left him six months ago. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘No girlfriend waiting for you somewhere?’ In all the time he’d spent with Caldwell, Vernon had never once asked his colleague about his private life.

The response was typically terse. ‘No one special.’

Talking was difficult for everyone. The whole of Thames House had surrendered to a peculiar quiet. Voices, when they were heard at all, rarely rose above a whisper. The volume controls on the TV monitors were turned down so that people could barely hear what was being said. Everyone preferred it that way.

The two men finished their coffees and returned to their desks. Vernon found it impossible to concentrate. When governments realised they couldn’t conceal what was happening then, for good or ill, they let the media floodgates open, and now one grotesque image rapidly followed another.

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.

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 still 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.

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.

The first thing Vernon noticed as he entered the room was the polished black table in the centre, at which two men were sitting. One was his pin-stripe-suited, fifty-year-old boss Charles Harrington; the other a black man wearing the uniform of a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, and with a typically severe military crew cut.

The American stood up and held out his hand. ‘I’m Colonel Brad Gresnick of the Defence Intelligence Agency. I’ve just flown in from the Pentagon.’

Vernon peered at him. A clean-cut type, probably in his early thirties, the colonel was over six feet tall and about 190 pounds, with a muscular build. Vernon didn’t like to acknowledge it, but Gresnick was a dead ringer for Hollywood’s top black heart-throb actor Jez Easton. Immediately, he felt a desire to put Gresnick down. A by-the-numbers soldier, he decided, a yes man who’d do anything to climb the greasy pole.

Vernon was no fan of the DIA, having worked with them a couple of times before. They were the military counterparts of the CIA, responsible for gathering foreign military intelligence, analysing military threats to America, making sure the American armed services were ready for any eventuality. They provided the Secretary of Defence and Joint Chiefs of Staff with all the information they needed to make decisions. Vernon found them pedantic, lacking the flair of the CIA. What was one of their men doing over here at a time like this?

‘I thought all flights were suspended because of the birds,’ Vernon said.

‘Military flights have special equipment for dispersing them.’ Gresnick resumed his seat.

‘Sit down, Mr Vernon,’ Commander Harrington said. ‘We have a lot to get through.’

Putting down his coffee, Vernon took a seat opposite the others. Numerous documents were laid out on the table, all bearing ‘Classified: Eyes Only’ stamps. Next to the paperwork, sitting on a black cloth, was a translucent globe, emerald green in colour, the size of a tennis ball. A paperweight of some kind, Vernon thought. Finally, there was a small microphone.

‘Why don’t you bring Mr Vernon up to speed, colonel?’ Harrington said.

Gresnick nodded. ‘Four days ago, the thirty men of our top Delta Force unit went awol from their base at Fort Bragg. Within twenty-four hours, one of our analysts discovered an extraordinary and hitherto unknown connection between all of them. Without exception, they were grandchildren of members of Section 5, a military intelligence unit from World War Two. In April and May of 1945, Section 5 interrogated Nazi officials responsible for part of the vast treasure hoard the Nazis looted from all over Europe. The treasures these particular Nazis looked after were of an esoteric, religious nature, and were stored in deep bunkers beneath Nuremberg Castle.’

‘That’s quite a story.’ Vernon realised he was going to have trouble avoiding the Nazis today.

‘All these Delta Force guys were single and childless,’ Gresnick said. ‘Before they deserted, they sold their homes and withdrew all of their money from their bank accounts.’

Vernon had no idea what any of this had to do with MI5. Intriguing for sure, but it seemed like an internal American Army issue, of trivial importance given world events.

‘You’re probably wondering what the punchline is,’ Gresnick said. ‘No doubt you’re aware of the recent thefts of religious artefacts from various sites around the world.’

Vernon nodded. Three of the seven sites were in the British Isles.

‘The DIA has concluded that all of the thefts bore the hallmarks of operations by U.S. Special Forces – unauthorised, I must emphasise. We’re certain these deserters were responsible.’

Vernon sat upright. ‘Why would American Special Forces go renegade and start stealing religious relics?’

Gresnick slid a folder towards Vernon.

‘Finish your coffee and take a few minutes to read that file. I think I can safely say it’s the strangest document you’ll ever read.’

5

Defense Intelligence Agency

Classified: Eyes Only

For circulation amongst Sigma Access Group only

Alpha Summary – supposed theft of iconic religious artefacts as hypothetical cause of current global environmental instability.

Beta Summary: On 24 April 2012, at 3 a.m. GMT, seven locations said to be associated with three famous religious relics were raided. All of the raids were synchronised and took place under cover of darkness. Within hours of the raids, reports came in from across the globe of cataclysmic earthquakes, an alarming increase in volcanic activity, formation of multiple category-5 hurricanes, and acute weather conditions in almost every country. The colour of the sky across the earth was observed to start changing to blood red.

Religious leaders declared that the thefts were a blasphemy and the direct cause of the natural disasters. They demanded the safe return of the treasures and stated that, otherwise, the world would suffer the ‘Wrath of God.’

All governments agreed that the severity of the natural disasters posed an unprecedented threat to the future of life on earth. The United Nations met in emergency session to coordinate a global response. It was decided a twin-track approach should be adopted. While scientific solutions were urgently sought, governments would, at the least, pay lip service to the possibility of the current crisis having a supernatural origin. To prevent possible religious hysteria breaking out amongst billions of believers, governments of all major powers agreed to use their intelligence services to apprehend the thieves and retrieve the stolen artefacts.

At present, scientists have been unable to account for the pattern of extreme environmental events. Investigations, analysis and data gathering are ongoing. Emergency conferences involving the world’s leading scientific experts have been organised and will be given the full support of all governments. Religious leaders will also be consulted about ways forward. For the sake of public morale, it’s critical for governments to be seen to be taking all possible courses of action at this time.

****

(His Eminence Thomas Cardinal Lenihan of the Archdiocese of New York and Rabbi Dr. Menachem Grien, Professor of Theology at Columbia University, were consulted in the preparation of the following.)

The three holy relics said to be connected with the seven raids are the most famous in Western religious history:

1. The Ark of the Covenant

2. The Holy Grail.

3. The Spear of Destiny.

The seven locations raided are:

1. Temple Mount, Jerusalem.

2. The Church of Saint Mary of Zion, Axum, Ethiopia.

3. Chalice Well, Glastonbury, England.

4. Schatzkammer (Imperial Treasury), Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria.

5. Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.

6. Rosslyn Chapel, Edinburgh, Scotland.

7. Hill of Tara, Republic of Ireland.

Brief descriptions of the three artefacts are provided below:

1) The Ark of the Covenant

A portable wooden vessel, the size of a large chest and overlaid inside and out with gold. According to the Book of Exodus, God commanded Moses to make the Ark and furnished him with a precise set of instructions. The Ark was the container for the two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The Ark was mentioned many times in the Old Testament before abruptly vanishing. Many conflicting theories have been proposed concerning its fate and current whereabouts.

In the present context, it is important to highlight that the Ark was considered to have many dangerous properties, including the characteristics of an early Weapon of Mass Destruction.

The following is a list of powers attributed to the Ark:

1. Levitation: it could raise itself and other nearby objects off the ground.

2. It emitted light and sparks.

3. It had a flamethrower capability, which it allegedly used to kill two sons of Aaron, the Ark’s first High Priest.

4. It was associated with a fiery cloud that materialised above it and from which a voice spoke to Moses and Aaron.

5. It could induce leprosy and tumours in people.

6. Those who touched it without permission, even accidentally, usually died. Ordinary people could not safely approach within half a mile of it.

7. During battles, it rose into the air, emitted a terrifying sound and sped into the heart of the enemy army. In one battle, it allegedly killed 50,000 enemy soldiers.

8. During the siege of Jericho, Jewish priests circled the city on seven separate days. Some priests blew trumpets as they went round the city walls while others carried the Ark in procession using special poles so that they did not come into direct contact with it. It has been speculated that the Ark may have amplified and directed the sound waves like a sonic cannon, eventually bringing down the walls of Jericho.

9. The High Priest had to wear special protective clothing whenever he approached the Ark.

10. When the Ark killed Hebrews, Moses insisted that their bodies be taken far from the Israelites’ camp to be buried, contrary to normal religious practice. No explanation was ever offered as to why Moses took these extraordinary precautions.

11. The Ark was said to give off a dazzling supernatural radiance.

2) The Holy Grail

Usually defined as the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. This event supposedly took place in the house of Joseph of Arimathea who may have been Jesus’ uncle. Reputedly, Joseph used the cup to catch a few drops of the blood shed by Jesus at the Crucifixion, and the blood was said to be miraculously preserved in the cup. Another legend said that the cup was originally made for Abraham, the great patriarch of the Hebrew People. Like the Ark of the Covenant, the Grail was said to emit an unearthly radiance.

Other theories say that the Grail is a dish, a stone, a person (Mary Magdalene), the head of Jesus, the skeleton of Jesus, or even Jesus’ bloodline following his alleged marriage to Mary Magdalene and birth of a daughter. As with the Ark, many conflicting theories have been proposed concerning its fate and current whereabouts.

3) The Spear of Destiny

A Roman Centurion thrust this spear into Christ’s side as he hung on the cross. The spear was highly prized, and many powerful figures throughout history went out of their way to possess it, including several emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and Adolf Hitler.

It became a museum piece and was put on display in a prestigious palace in Vienna as part of the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire. Note that the Holy Roman Empire is sometimes referred to as the First Reich. Bismarck created the Second Reich and Hitler ruled over the Third Reich.

****

Brief descriptions of the seven locations that were raided are provided below:

1) Temple Mount, Jerusalem

Temple Mount contains secret underground passageways that belonged to the original Temple of Solomon and survived the temple’s destruction by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

The raiders on 24 April blasted open one of the sealed tunnels using plastic explosives. There is evidence that the explosives were detonated using timers. However, no indication has been found that anyone entered the tunnel or that anything was removed. The Israeli Defence Force has sealed off the area, and no one is currently being granted access. No further investigations are possible at this time.

Rioting broke out in Jerusalem within minutes of the explosions, with Muslims accusing Jews of attempting to blow up the Dome of the Rock – one of Islam’s holiest sites. The gold-domed mosque is built above the ruins of the Temple of Solomon and the later Temple of Herod.

2) Treasury of the Church of Saint Mary of Zion, Axum, Ethiopia

Axum is Ethiopia’s holiest city, and the Church of Saint Mary of Zion its holiest church. The Treasury, a separate building located just behind the church, was said to house the Ark of the Covenant, supposedly brought there by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. (Menelik means ‘son of the wise man’, and the ancient kingdom of Sheba is believed to have incorporated Ethiopia.) A monk known as the Keeper of the Ark protected the Ark at all times. He was shot dead during the raid. The Ethiopian authorities did not allow investigators to enter The Treasury. They refused to confirm that the object they claimed was the Ark of the Covenant was taken.

3) Chalice Well, Glastonbury, England

Legend says that Joseph of Arimathea was imprisoned after Jesus’ death. When he was released, he fled from the Holy Land and took the Holy Grail to the safe haven of Glastonbury in England. He hid the Grail at the bottom of Chalice Well at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, a sacred mound overlooking the town of Glastonbury. The well’s water is allegedly tinged red and reputed to have healing powers. The April 24 raiders climbed into the well and removed a section of the well’s wall, revealing a small, rust-free iron chamber, previously unknown. There is no indication of what, if anything, they discovered.

4) Schatzkammer (Imperial Treasury), Hofburg Palace, Vienna, Austria

The Schatzkammer houses the Imperial Regalia of the Holy Roman Empire: the European empire created by Charlemagne and dissolved centuries later by Napoleon Bonaparte. The only item stolen from the collection of treasures was the so-called Spear of Destiny. All alarm systems and CCTV cameras at the Hofburg Palace were disabled during the raid. A top-secret tranquillising gas knocked out security guards. Only U.S. and U.K. Special Forces are known to have access to this gas.

5) Oak Island, Nova Scotia, Canada

A small, remote island off the east coast of Canada, practically uninhabited, and reputed to be the site of a vast, inaccessible buried treasure located at the bottom of a booby-trapped, intricately constructed 200-feet-deep vertical shaft known as the Money Pit. Originally, pirates were thought to have buried the treasure; Captain Kidd and Blackbeard being the most likely candidates. However, some experts have said pirates lacked the engineering skills to construct such a complex structure. Leonardo Da Vinci has been mentioned as a possible designer of the pit. Other theories claim that Freemasons or the Knights Templar created it. Following the forcible arrest of the Knights Templar in 1307, those leaders of the Order who managed to evade capture gave instructions for their treasure to be hidden from their enemies. It was removed by the ships of the Templar Fleet and vanished from history. Some accounts say it included the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. Several experts believe the Templars discovered the Americas before Columbus, and that the Templar Fleet possibly went to North America to bury the treasure.

The raiders at Oak Island appeared to know exactly how to access the Money Pit. A previously unknown route through the booby-traps was cleared, leading to a large subterranean, waterproofed chamber, the walls of which were carved with swastikas, many hundreds of years old. A couple of Roman coins were discovered near the mouth of the pit. The coins were from ancient Judea, with one side showing the head of the Emperor Tiberius and the reverse the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.

On a tombstone near the Money Pit is a Latin inscription: I tego arcana Dei meaning Begone! I conceal the secrets of God.

6) Rosslyn Chapel, Edinburgh, Scotland

Rosslyn chapel was built between 1446 and 1486 and is often described as the most mysterious Christian chapel in the world. Like Oak Island, Rosslyn is linked with the lost treasure of the Knights Templar, including the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant. Many Templars fled to Scotland in the years after 1307 because the Scottish king, Robert the Bruce, having been excommunicated for killing a rival in a church, wasn’t bound by the Papal edict to suppress the Templars. Several experts believe the Templars regrouped in Scotland and eventually emerged in a new guise – the Freemasons. Informed speculation says that Freemasonry originated specifically at Rosslyn.

The Rosslyn raiders disabled all of the chapel’s alarm systems and CCTV monitors. As at the Schatzkammer, security guards were rendered unconscious by tranquillising gas. The raiders removed a section of wall from the crypt, revealing a sizeable stone chamber. There is no indication of what, if anything, they discovered.

7) Hill of Tara, Republic of Ireland

Ancient Ireland’s most sacred site where the High Kings of Ireland were crowned. Legend says that the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah brought the Ark of the Covenant to Ireland for safekeeping after the destruction of King Solomon’s Temple, burying it somewhere on the Hill of Tara.

The raiders used an excavator stolen from a nearby building site to dig a trench several yards away from a feature known as the Mound of Hostages. A large bronze chamber was exposed. It is unknown whether the raiders found anything.

Conclusions

The raiders at each location used similar methods. The top-secret tranquillising gas used in two of the locations indicates the involvement of U.S. or U.K. Special Forces. Thirty U.S. Special Forces’ personnel went absent without leave on 23 April. It appears probable that these individuals were responsible for the raids.

The raiders clearly had access to secret information concerning each site. However, the only object that has definitely gone missing is the Spear of Destiny from Vienna’s Hofburg Palace.

It is speculation whether the raiders also retrieved anything that might be described as the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, or any other religious treasures. It is unknown whether the raiders found a particular religious relic at each of the seven locations, or if they were looking for the same objects at different locations. However, given their detailed knowledge, it is likely the raiders knew precisely what they would find at each site. On the other hand, it’s possible they carried out some fake thefts to create confusion and mask their true intentions (the raid at Temple Mount may be one example). Were they seeking publicity by targeting high profile sites? By their actions at the Temple Mount, were they seeking to generate unrest between Jews and Muslims? No claims of responsibility have been issued.

The blood of Jesus Christ is an obvious connection between the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny, and these two items are historically regarded as two of the four so-called Grail Hallows. These four objects appear in the legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail and are said to have enormous power, particularly when brought together. The other two Grail Hallows are a sword and dish. There is no known link between the Grail Hallows and the Ark of the Covenant. The Hallows are associated with the Christian New Testament while the latter is an Old Testament, and specifically Jewish, sacred artefact.

The Ark, by reputation, is a potential WMD. The Spear of Destiny allegedly confers great power on its owner. The Holy Grail is said to be the goal of the ultimate spiritual quest of humanity. The Grail Hallows, as a collection, supposedly possess unprecedented power.

Do these fabled religious relics have the capacity to be the centrepieces of some hitherto unsuspected Armageddon conspiracy? Cardinal Lenihan and Rabbi Grien concur that they do. Prominent scientists have ridiculed this notion, but have at this time been unable to explain the current global crisis, and have provided no suggestions as to what ought to be done.

REPORT ENDS

6

Vernon laid the document back on the table. Well, Gresnick wasn’t exaggerating. Days ago, he would have considered that everyone involved in compiling this report was nuts. Now he didn’t know what to think. Crazy things were happening everywhere and no one had any answers. It was the duty of the intelligence services to follow all possible leads. In an odd way, Sherlock Holmes’ formula was the right one: ‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ If there were no credible leads, you had to look at the far-fetched ones, and they didn’t come much more far-fetched than the theory outlined in Gresnick’s document.

‘Let me get this straight, colonel,’ Vernon said. ‘The DIA are claiming that a few days ago an elite Special Forces unit deserted en masse and became – how shall I put it – Tomb Raiders, or Raiders of the Lost Ark? And now their activities may have brought down, um, God’s fury on us.’

‘That’s as good a way of putting it as any other. We think all of the deserters are now in the UK…in the southwest of England, to be precise.’

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