‘Trespassers will be shot on sight.’ The soldier raised his gun, Charlene screamed and two gunshots rang out into the Ozark Mountains.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Six
Mongolia, Central Asia.
The long, drawn out sound came again. Metal on metal: the sound of a knife being sharpened.
Sarah struggled against her restraints as the slow methodical noise continued. Images of Dagmar Sorensen holding a scalpel flashed before her eyes, the horror of her enforced surgery dredged up from the past by the terror of the present.
She struggled again, but despite her best efforts she remained immobile as the sound continued to drive fear deep into her heart.
And then, without warning, it stopped and Sarah opened her eyes to stare at the cracked stone of the fissure in which she’d been lodged. She had no idea where she was, but from the dim light she guessed it was some kind of cave. A cloth gag filled her mouth, something she’d tried to spit out without success.
A fire burned nearby. The pervasive smoke from sizzling wood burned her nostrils and filled her lungs. She turned her head, which allowed her to glimpse the figure of a man at the periphery of her vision. He sat hunched down on the floor. The cowl of his robe made her think it was Ruben at first, but then she recalled the tattoos on her captor’s face and her hope vanished.
The manic eyes of the Russian, Alexander Konstantin, replaced those of Dagmar Sorensen in her mind’s eye and her dread deepened. I have to get out of here, she thought, trying to suppress her rising terror.
The sound of the knife being sharpened resumed, the slow methodical hiss of metal on metal echoing through the cave, but this time it didn’t stop, it grew louder, and Sarah’s eyes grew wider.
Someone grasped her arm and dragged her to the floor. Bound hand and foot, she stared up into a tattooed face of a man she didn’t know.
A razor-sharp blade touched her throat and she froze.
‘Leave her be,’ said a voice.
The man who held her withdrew the blade, looked round and said something in Russian.
‘Her death will come soon enough,’ Konstantin said, appearing next to the man who leaned over her. He looked down into Sarah’s eyes. ‘But for now, I need what she knows. Get her up.’
Sarah was lifted into a sitting position in front of a small fire, allowing her to confirm she was indeed in a dingy cave, the entrance to which was hidden from sight by an outcrop in the rock wall.
Her eyes were drawn to the knife in the tattooed hand of the man who’d wanted her dead. Like his master, his shaven head glinted in the light of the fire, highlighting the mass of black tattoos that flowed over his head, face and neck.
Konstantin tore the gag from her mouth and sat down opposite her on the other side of the fire.
Neither man spoke as Konstantin held Sarah’s gaze.
The silence dragged on and Sarah swallowed and said, ‘Where are my friends?’
A blow to the head sent her sprawling to the ground.
Hauled up a second later, she glared at the man who’d struck her.
‘You answer my questions,’ Konstantin said.
Sarah dragged her gaze from her assailant and onto her captor.
‘What have they found at the site?’ he said, his eyes intense.
Dirt clung to her face and she spat out some grit. ‘Not until you tell me where my friends are.’
The man next to her raised his hand again and she tensed before Konstantin barked out something in Russian.
The man lowered his fist and Sarah relaxed.
‘You speak of the two climbers,’ Konstantin said. ‘A man and a woman?’
Sarah knew it must be Trish and Jason; who else had climbed up on their own?
‘They arrived a day before you,’ Konstantin said.
Sarah felt her hopes rise before she remembered the blood in their tent. Her eyes narrowed. ‘What have you done with them?’
‘They were gone when we arrived.’
‘LIAR!’ She surged up, but was dumped back down onto her backside.
‘I have no interest in your friends, but if I had found them they would be dead, as you will be if you do not answer my questions.’
She shrugged off the guard who’d been holding onto her shoulder. ‘I don’t believe you. You were in their tent. I saw the blood.’
Konstantin considered her and then dismissed his fellow Russian with a flick of his head.
The guard left without a word and Sarah was left alone with the leader of the Knights of the Apocalypse.
‘The blood was a message to the devil-worshippers you serve,’ Konstantin said.
‘I serve no one.’
‘Is that so?’
Sarah gritted her teeth. ‘Where are my friends?’
He made a noise of displeasure. ‘Ask your masters.’
‘Avery?’ she said, confused.
Konstantin stared deep into her eyes, which made her frown and say, ‘Zinetti?’
‘The Satanists are everywhere,’ he said, holding his hand in the fire. ‘They kill and abuse our children, enslave our brothers and sisters. They plot and weave their web of lies and lead their flocks blindly to their deaths.’
Konstantin removed his hand from the flames and inspected the blistered skin.
He’s insane, she thought. Of course he’s insane, she told herself, he just stuck his hand in the damn fire! What about Trish and Jason? Where are they if Konstantin doesn’t have them? She thought back to what she’d overheard outside the cardinals’ tent and realised it was Zinetti who had them, and worse, Avery had no clue. Zinetti was playing them all for fools!
Konstantin grasped a knife lying on the ground and held it up until it reflected the fire into Sarah’s eyes.
Her stomach clenched in fear.
He ran his thumb down its razor-sharp edge, drawing blood. He held it up to her. ‘What have they found at the site?’
Sarah’s mouth ran dry. She stared at the knife. ‘The blood of the sacrificed will open the gates,’ she said, quoting Zinetti. ‘That’s what I heard them say.’
‘Who?’
‘Zinetti.’
‘What else?’
‘There’s nothing else.’
Konstantin fixed her with his manic eyes. ‘What else?’ He held the blade over the fire.
Sarah tried to think what else she could tell him and how she could keep herself alive, for she was under no illusion, the man before her would kill her as soon as he had what he wanted. Avery had said as much and looking into the Russian’s crazed eyes told her he hadn’t been mistaken. ‘I thought they wanted to find Agartha,’ she said in desperation.
‘Agartha, the underground world,’ Konstantin said, staring at the tip of the knife which now glowed red hot. ‘But you thought wrong ... didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are they here?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes,’ – he stood up – ‘you do.’
Sarah struggled against the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles.
He moved round the fire towards her. ‘Shhh,’ he said, and stroked her hair. ‘Shhh, it’s okay.’ He grasped the back of her neck. ‘It’s only death.’
‘If you let me go,’ Sarah said, hearing the terror in her voice, ‘I can find out what they’re planning.’
He smiled and touched the knife to her chest, singeing her Deep Reach jacket. ‘Tell me now.’
‘There’s something affecting the artefacts,’ she said, suddenly remembering.
‘What do you mean ... something?’
‘It made the previous expedition ill, sent people crazy, some died, some said things – things they shouldn’t have known.’
Konstantin withdrew the knife a fraction. ‘What things?’
‘Only in God’s light is our path unbroken,’ she said.
‘What else?’
‘Only in God’s word is Heaven’s Gate opened.’
‘Heaven’s Gate,’ he said, and then
bent down to stare into her eyes, his face inches from hers. ‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I’m not, that’s what happened. It was in a report made by the expedition’s leader, Dr Nicola Dowling.’
Konstantin increased his grip on her neck. ‘The same Heaven’s Gate you saw written on the Anakim frieze?’
‘Yes,’ Sarah said, ‘yes, that’s why they’re here, for the frieze, that’s what’s affecting everyone.’ How does he know what I saw in the Vatican vault? she wondered.
‘Wrong,’ he said, ‘they’re not here for the frieze. He stared into the fire. ‘They’re here for something else.’
‘Heaven’s Gate,’ Sarah said.
‘Perhaps. What do you know of it?’
‘It might be a way to get into Sanctuary.’
‘The Americans’ secret base,’ Konstantin said. ‘No, it’s something else, something ... more.’ He pressed the knife back to her chest. ‘Tell me.’
‘Agartha?’
He switched the knife to her throat. The heat burnt her skin and she struggled against his grasp.
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know.’ A tear rolled down her cheek as she realised there was no way out.
‘Then,’ he whispered into her ear, ‘you’re of no use to me.’
Sarah’s hands shook from fear and she closed her eyes. Her time had come.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Seven
Sarah waited for the killing blow to come, but the silence continued and she remained alive. She opened her eyes and found Konstantin staring at her, his face a mixture of discontent.
‘You would rather die, than tell me what you know?’
Sarah shook her head, while trying to keep her neck away from the blade hovering next to it.
‘Then why do you resist?’ he said.
‘I don’t know what they’ve found.’
He frowned in confusion. ‘How can you not know? You must know.’
Sarah had no idea what he was talking about, but she was still alive, and if she wanted to stay that way she had to convince him she was worth keeping around. The only problem was, how? ‘Why must I know?’ she said, as she furiously tried to think of something else he might find useful.
He bent down and looked into her eyes, then put his mouth to her ear and whispered, ‘Because it was your drawings that led us here.’
Sarah looked at him in shock. ‘What? What drawings?’
He laughed. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’
‘I don’t,’ Sarah said, ‘I really don’t.’ She peered down at the knife and closed her eyes again to hide it from view. ‘What drawings?’
He released her neck. ‘The drawings the GMRC stole from you.’
She heard him walk away and she cracked open an eye and let out a sigh of relief. She lived ... for now.
Konstantin disappeared around a corner before returning a moment later with a handful of papers, which he threw at her feet.
Sarah gazed down at photocopies of drawings she’d forgotten existed. When she’d drawn them she hadn’t been in her right mind. She remembered Dagmar Sorensen had also been very interested in their meaning, but she hadn’t been able to give him anything, much to his fury. She stared at the images in the dim light of the fire, images of pentagrams and sphinxes, accompanied by detailed symbols and depictions of various constellations, none of which she’d drawn from memory. She still didn’t understand it now. Why had she drawn such things? It was like her mind had gained the knowledge from somewhere else. If it had happened after her incident with the giant on the train she would have thought it was some kind of transference, but it wasn’t; she’d drawn them almost a year before. She thought back to her time in the cloud forest reserve in Costa Rica, where she’d been found by Malcolm Joiner and the GMRC. Something had happened to her in Sanctuary, besides almost dying, and whatever it was had resulted in the drawings she was looking at now. She couldn’t explain it then and she couldn’t explain it now.
‘Those drawings,’ – Konstantin pointed at her artwork – ‘are the reason we’re all here.’ He gestured at the cave around them. ‘And you say you don’t know.’
‘I don’t, I swear I don’t know what they mean – any of them.’
‘Your friends back at the dig site know. They deciphered them.’
‘What?’ Sarah shook her head. ‘No, they told me they found this site using artefacts from an Anakim canister, not my drawings.’
‘They lied.’
Sarah looked down at the drawings again and wondered what it could mean. Wondered what they could mean. Obviously, they were a map of some kind, or how else would the Vatican’s expedition have known where to look? She remembered that the dig had started the year before, around the same time she’d been taken back to Sanctuary and Dagmar Sorensen’s laboratory.
‘My drawings brought us here,’ she murmured, still not believing she was the source of information.
‘You know something,’ Konstantin said. ‘Even if you think you don’t.’
Sarah shook her head, and stared at the drawings, lost in thought.
‘And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority,’ Konstantin said, quoting the Bible, ‘but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgement of the great day.’
Sarah looked up at him.
‘These are the words spoken by the GMRC man in Sanctuary,’ he said.
‘Richard Goodwin, yes.’
‘The same words you told the Vatican conclave.’
Sarah nodded.
‘They say he conversed with a demon that shone with an eerie light.’
Sarah shuddered at the memory. ‘The Pharos.’
Konstantin approached her and held up the knife for her to see, and then pointed it at himself. ‘I was also visited by an angel of light and given a mission of glory.’ He crouched down before her, his eyes fixed to hers, the light of the fire casting half his face in shadow. ‘Like this Goodwin, I was given a mission by God. The End of Days is upon us, the signs cannot be denied. The battle between good and evil has begun.’
Sarah could almost feel his madness, such was his fervour. ‘And you are the good?’ Sarah said, trying to humour him.
Konstantin nodded.
‘Then who is the evil?’ Sarah said. ‘The GMRC?’
‘No, but there are those who work within the Council’s ranks that are. The Satanists call themselves the Apocryphon. It is they who have infiltrated the Holy City.’ He grasped the blade with his hand until blood pooled between his fingers and dripped to the ground. ‘But they are one group of many who have plotted to let the surface burn. And burn it shall, if they are not stopped. They hide in plain sight, but are full of deadly lies.’
‘In plain sight?’
‘They call themselves the Committee, the ruling elite who think they’re above the law, but no one is above the law of God. We are few in number compared to them, but we are growing. Yes,’ – he examined the cut on his hand – ‘we are growing.’
‘How can it be the End of Days?’ Sarah said. ‘The apocalypse has come and gone.’
Konstantin’s head came up and he searched her face with his eyes.
‘The asteroid has come and gone,’ she continued, fearing she’d said the wrong thing, ‘the dust cloud has all but gone.’
He cut the rope that tied her legs, grasped her arm, and then dragged her forward, round the outcrop of rock and towards the mouth of the cave.
It was dark outside. An icy wind took her breath away and she staggered over an uneven surface.
A gathering of fifty cloaked men looked up at their leader, their tattooed faces cast in the shadows created by their fires. Snow drifted down from above and a fierce wind continued to batter the mountainside on which they stood. Konstantin drew her closer and pointed up at the night sky. ‘Do you not see? The planets align; Jupiter the King has impregnated the virgin Virgo and is born nine months later as her child.’
/> Sarah shivered against the cold and wondered if Major Lanter had seen the fires with his drones. ‘The constellation Virgo?’
‘Like in your drawings,’ he said and then pointed lower in the sky. ‘And the sun rises behind Virgo.’
Sarah glimpsed the first vestiges of a sunrise on the horizon.
He pointed at the moon. ‘And the moon rests at Virgo’s feet.
Sarah followed his finger as it pointed higher in the sky.
‘The constellation of Leo, nine stars and the three planets,’ – he pointed to each of the three brighter lights in the night sky - ‘Mercury, Venus and Mars, makes twelve.’
He looked at her as if he wanted her to say something.
‘Does that mean something?’
‘Revelation 12:1,’ he said. ‘And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.’
One of Konstantin’s followers stepped forward. ‘And another sign appeared in heaven, behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.’
‘You think it’s a sign?’ she said.
Konstantin pointed to another light in the sky. ‘Saturn makes five.’
‘Is that significant?’ Sarah said, recalling something from the past that made her think.
‘The Sumerians called the five visible planets the Vault of Heaven. Do you know how often all five appear at the same time alongside Virgo, the moon and the constellation of Leo?’
Sarah shook her head.
‘Every twenty-six million years.’
Sarah frowned. ‘There’s evidence in the archaeological record of mass extinctions every twenty-six million years,’ – she looked back up at the stars – ‘but AG5 has come and gone and we’re still here.’
‘Armageddon is coming,’ Konstantin said, and turned her round to face the other way. He pointed to another light in the sky, a light bigger than all the rest around it. He put his mouth to her ear and whispered, ‘And it’s almost here.’
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 86
