♦
John Henry felt his heart beating out of his chest as the professor gave him the signal. ‘Launch!’ John said. ‘Launch! Launch!! LAUNCH!!’
‘Huǒ dǎodàn!’ Liang stood up next to him. ‘Huǒ dǎodàn! HUǑ DǍODÀN!’
Out in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of missiles erupted from beneath the waves and emerged from ships’ decks to light up the night sky as they raced into the heavens.
All along the East Coast of America, into its Central states and across to its Western edge, white smoke trails of intercontinental ballistic missiles lanced up into the night sky, elongated jets of flame from the projectiles themselves a thousand more stars in a ’verse of trillions.
‘This is Dark Knight Echo One,’ said a stealth pilot, cruising at high altitude. ‘Fox five!’ A rocket dropped down from beneath his plane and then roared up in a steep curve towards the super-bright light of the asteroid above.
‘Echo Two, fox five!,’ said another pilot.
‘Dark Knight Echo Six, fox five!’
Alongside, other bombers released similar payloads, the missiles’ jets arcs of light in the black.
Elsewhere, around the world, other ballistic missiles powered up through night and day towards the dark of space and the massive elongated rock which continued to hurtle towards New Mexico faster than a speeding bullet.
Screens inside the White House bunker switched to images of the immense assault and then Tyler Magnusson reappeared in a graphical window beside them. ‘Launch trajectories look good, Professor.’
One of the live feeds switched to a view from a military satellite, and then two others changed to a vantage point from the GMRC Stealth Space Station, which Tyler Magnusson had sought refuge on after his ship had been destroyed the previous year.
John held his breath as the missiles thundered towards their target. ‘Were we too late?’
‘We may never know.’ Steiner came to stand by his side as the laser breached the blast door. ‘It’s been an honour serving with you, Mr President.
‘Call me John.’ He smiled as a red beam of light lanced into the bunker. ‘And the honour’s all mine.’
Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Two
High above the United States, in the furthest reaches of the atmosphere’s outer rim, the first nuclear explosions lit up space in a dazzling display of light.
Shockwaves rippled out towards the asteroid, which sped through the explosions unimpeded.
Further out in space, Tyler Magnusson watched the scene unfold from aboard the GMRC’s stealth space station, one man alone in the black. He wondered if he could even call himself a man anymore, knowing what lurked within. He pushed the thought away and prayed the nuclear assault would work. He knew his family’s lives might well depend upon it, as he’d long since come to the conclusion that if NASA and its astronauts were surplus to requirements, then the GMRC wouldn’t think twice about leaving their families stranded on the surface instead of relocating them below ground, as promised. It was a sickening notion, as it made Tyler all the more aware of how he’d failed those he loved the most.
The world’s nuclear arsenal continued to detonate in an unrelenting explosive cascade and yet despite the enormous power unleashed against it, the asteroid remained intact, its trajectory ... unchanged.
♦
Deep beneath the White House, Professor Steiner watched the first nuclear explosions light up the night sky. Meanwhile, the red beam from Joiner’s laser faded and died, leaving a scorch mark on the wall next to the command screen.
‘It’s not working,’ Jessica said, as the asteroid cut through the first wave of detonations.
A grenade exploded outside the bunker and the blast door sagged inwards, the laser having weakened its internal structure.
Dust billowed into the bunker, and armoured soldiers stormed inside, their visors aglow and rifles raised to shoot.
But no one turned at their approach and Jessica reached out and took Eric’s hand, while Steiner held hers, with John Henry and Liang Junhui standing alongside.
No one spoke as they tensed for a death that would surely come, and as the last of the nuclear explosions shrouded the asteroid from view, Steiner heard the sound of heavy metallic footsteps approach from behind.
‘Did we win?’ said a gravelly voice.
Steiner glanced round to see Colonel Samson standing behind him, his cracked and bullet-riddled Terra Force armour damaged beyond repair. The soldiers who were with him weren’t GMRC, as Steiner had first thought, but U.S. Marines.
Steiner turned back to look at the screen and allowed himself a small smile. ‘Where’s Joiner?’
Samson grunted. ‘Gone.’
Steiner felt Jessica’s grip tighten, despite the news they weren’t to be cut down in cold blood.
‘What’s that?’ Eric said, pointing to the display.
The asteroid cut through the Earth’s atmosphere, turning into a massive fireball, but as it continued to arrow towards Earth, large chunks separated from the whole.
‘It’s breaking up,’ John said. ‘The asteroid, it’s breaking up!’
Seconds passed before the giant rock exploded into a million pieces and Steiner’s smile broadened into a grin. The Earth’s dense shroud of air was finishing off the fracturing process started by the nuclear onslaught.
‘We did it,’ Jessica said. ‘I can’t believe it. We did it!’
A billion fragments of flaming rock traced arcs of light across the heavens and Eric whooped with joy and hugged Jessica, while the president and the Chinese premier congratulated one another in kind.
‘We need to sound curfew sirens, John Henry,’ Bic said, his hologram reappearing nearby. ‘The delayed strike means there’s about to be a rain of fire of Biblical proportions, five per cent of which will be radioactive.’
‘Do it,’ John Henry said. ‘Assuming you can?’
Bic grinned. ‘Do one-legged ducks swim in circles, Mr President?’ The hacker’s image vanished as he went off to sound the alarm and moments later the wail of air raid sirens sang out across the United States.
Steiner continued to watch the asteroid’s demise, not quite believing they’d achieved what they’d set out to do, against all the odds. He heaved a sigh of relief, and was about to thank Samson for his timely arrival, but the colonel had wandered over to the body of his daughter. The man who Steiner knew all too well, scooped Brett up from the floor and left the bunker without another word, the two score of U.S. Marines he’d brought with him, following him back out into the complex they’d just retaken from the GMRC.
Steiner felt his melancholy return at the loss of the woman he’d grown to love like a daughter. He then remembered their job was only half done. He turned his gaze back to the screen and the fire-lit skies and murmured, ‘One down,’ – Steiner’s expression grew grim – ‘five to go.’
Chapter Two Hundred Sixty-Three
Sarah Morgan lay on the great eye at the centre of the Anakim pyramid. Her life blood pooled onto the floor around her, while the man who’d shot her stood over her, a trail of smoke drifting up from the barrel of the pistol still grasped in his ageing hand.
‘Sarah, oh God, Sarah.’ Sobbing, Trish untied the ropes around Sarah’s wrists. ‘Please, don’t die. Please, please don’t die.’
Cardinal Avery Cantrell looked down as Trish cradled Sarah’s head in her lap and a distraught Jason wiped away tears which ran down his cheeks.
Avery turned his gaze to Ruben, on his knees, struggling against the rope that bound his wrists.
‘Keep fighting, Ruben,’ Avery said, ‘and you’ll end up like poor Cardinal Zinetti, there.’ He gestured behind him, to where the Italian cardinal lay slumped on the floor, impaled through the chest by Ruben’s longsword, wielded by Major Lanter.
The Swiss Guard’s leader, decked out in his dark-red armour, hefted his own sword as if to make the point.
Avery glanced to where the dark mass of black, oozing liquid continued to pour out
of the mouths of the three stone sphinxes positioned in the pyramid’s corners. ‘We need to get that gate open,’ he said to Lanter, as the liquid continued its steady advance towards them.
The major motioned to one of his two remaining men, who shoved Trish away with a metal-clad boot and then dragged Sarah towards the centre of the Anakim eye.
‘What are you doing?!’ Trish said to Avery, as Jason was held back by the other Swiss guard. ‘Leave her alone! She’s dying. Haven’t you done enough?!’
Sarah felt herself positioned on her side and she groaned and opened her eyes to see the decapitated body of a Swiss guard lying four feet away. The stench of death filled her nostrils and a river of blood funnelled down from the corpse onto the large altar between them, the sacrificial stone having sunk down flush with the metal Anakim eye sculpture surrounding it.
‘Make sure her blood touches the altar’s centre,’ Avery said, overseeing the Swiss guard’s work.
‘You’ve lost your mind,’ Ruben said.
‘Have I?’ Avery prised open Zinetti’s dead hand, as he still clutched the scroll he’d taken from Konstantin. ‘The prophecy Sarah gave in her delirium,’ Avery said, pocketing the scroll, ‘which you recorded, says the blood of the sacrificed will open the gates of heaven or hell.’ He gestured around at the gloomy chamber, the two mirrored walls casting an eerie glow over the pyramid’s interior. ‘The hole beneath leads to Heaven’s Gate.’ He pointed at the sunken altar. ‘And a way out via an underworld. She predicted her own death.’ He held up the Anakim pendant in his hand. ‘And Sarah herself told Dagmar Sorensen that her blood was the key to activating the altar in Sanctuary.’ He bent down, holding the pendant in one hand, and placed Sarah’s unresisting hands palm down on the rune-encrusted stone surface. ‘Although if you’re worrying that we may need more of your blood at some point, my dear,’ he said to Sarah, ‘you needn’t. Both Sorensen and my trusted doctor made sure to extract enough that your death would not hinder our efforts in harnessing the Anakim’s power.’ He pressed her hands down harder on the surface and a circle of carved constellations glowed to life, their blue light adorning the outer edge of the pentagonal stone block. ‘And, of course, we now have a second pendant.’
Another booming sound pulsed forth from the mirrored walls and the black ooze rippled in response.
‘It’s not opening!’ Lanter shouted, gazing down at the altar stone.
Avery uncovered his ears after the noise had subsided and stood back as the glowing carvings dulled one by one in succession. ‘I guess it’s a countdown to whatever comes next.’
‘The trial,’ Lanter said.
Avery nodded. ‘And our way out to freedom.’
‘The other cardinals will see through you,’ Ruben said, his eyes seething with rage. ‘Your mask will slip and when it does—’
‘And when it does, what?’ Avery said. ‘I’ve been a cardinal for a decade and I’ll continue to serve on my return. As for my fellow cardinals, half of them are too blind to see what’s right in front of their wizened faces, while the others are quite aware of whom I serve.’ Avery smiled. ‘Does that shock you, Ruben? That your beloved Church has been so corrupted? That half of its halls are trod by those that seek to harm those who worship them?’
‘The people don’t worship you, they worship God.’
‘Are you sure about that? They worship the Pope and he is just a man elected by men. They do as we say and abide by our laws. We control them and they obey us as if our word is God’s. In fact, as we can amend what the Bible contains, and the Bible is the word of God, simple deduction means ...’ – he smiled – ‘... we are their God.’
Ruben said nothing. He glanced at Sarah as she struggled weakly, the blood continuing to drain out of the bullet holes in her Deep Reach jacket and her chest beneath.
‘You seek to distract me?’ Avery said to Ruben. The Irishman crouched down beside Sarah and brushed the hair from her eyes.
Ruben clenched his teeth. ‘Don’t touch her.’
‘I always knew you would save me, Ruben.’ Avery rubbed his throat where Sarah had tried to throttle him. ‘Although it would have been so much sweeter had you’d been the one to kill her. But alas, it wasn’t to be.’ He touched Sarah’s face. ‘Can you hear me, Sarah?’
Sarah focused on Avery’s eyes, while the pain in her chest made her groan in pain.
‘I hope you understand, this is nothing personal.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘Although I admit, the drugs we gave you were designed to worsen your condition, not improve it. I imagine you thought you were losing your mind and, in fact, you were. The drug breaks down synapses, suppresses memory and fractures the psyche. It’s quite awful, but it ensured your vulnerability to our coercion and, of course, the entity that possessed Nicola Dowling.’
Sarah winced and Avery went momentarily blurry as she fought to maintain consciousness.
‘Yes, this might be hard for you to hear.’ He glanced at the glowing symbols on the altar, which continued to count down. ‘We knew the Pharos was visiting you at night and we wanted to make sure you weren’t resistant to its needs.’
‘You killed Chen’s men,’ Sarah whispered. ‘You exposed them ... to the artefacts.’
‘We did. We also gutted the explorer after we murdered him. He was trying to convince Chen to leave and we wanted it to look like you did it, to turn her team against you. It worked quite well, although we didn’t anticipate your abnormal strength. It seems the Pharos changed you faster than we thought. Yes, Sarah, there’s one inside you, like in Dowling. Your blackouts and rages are the first signs you’re turning. Dowling was the same.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘It seemed she was also able to change her physical appearance. I always knew it wasn’t you who murdered all those people, but it was pleasing to make you believe it was so. Your friends and Zinetti, on the other hand, really did believe you were to blame. You scared them half to death and still do. Your friends will never know your innocence,’ – his voice grew louder again as he looked up at Trish and Jason – ‘although it’ll only be a matter of time before the thing inside you emerges to savour their flesh. Have you had the cravings? I think it’ll still be able to form after your death; we’ll have to see. At least your friends will, as I’ll be long gone before that happens.’ He gave a sigh of relief. ‘This really is quite liberating, I’m not sure you could understand how exhausting it is to act like something you’re not. Pretending to care, making sure you stayed alive long enough for the purpose you’re now fulfilling.
‘And with Zinetti out of the picture, I’m now free to murder the Bishop of Rome and assume my rightful place in his stead. Did you know the Vatican is the easiest place on Earth to murder someone, Sarah?’ Avery looked at Ruben, whose green baleful eyes stared right back at him. ‘You see, there’s no police force in the Holy City and what better way to create a Church to Satan than to subvert one that was made for God?’ He smiled and clasped his hands together in pleasure. ‘The rest of humanity is easy prey, of course, especially those without faith. We use the mass media to corrupt them, while at the same time enslaving them to debt and lacing their feeble minds with hate against other religions, races and nations, which we use to divide all who follow God. And then, as they war against one another, we, the elite, live lives of privilege and plenty on the backs of their suffering and rub shoulders with the very people against who we foster hate. It’s almost too sweet for words. And we get to rape and murder children, at the same time.’ His smile broadened. ‘Someone has to do it, after all, so why not us?’ He looked at the expressions of horror on the faces of those before him. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, do you think such things don’t exist? Do you think only “good” people have religions?’ His face darkened. ‘It’s time you knew what the real world is about. How the real world is ruled and by whom.’ Avery stood up, as another booming sound sent reverberations shuddering through the room.
Sarah felt vibrations pulsing through her body and it was all she could do to kee
p breathing as Avery kept talking to her.
‘You see, Sarah, my kind are a necessary evil. Without us, what would you have to fight against? Without evil, good wouldn’t exist. You need us, the world needs us. It just so happens our pleasure comes from everyone else’s pain. It’s quite simple, really, when you think about it. You suffer and we rejoice, and when we torture and sacrifice innocent children in our rituals, where is your God? When we gut newborns for pleasure and eat their hearts? Where is your God then? When we orchestrate wars to progress our wealth and power? Where is your God then? Is it even evil when we further science by killing others with the weapons we create? If it wasn’t God’s plan, why do you think he allows us to continue? Why? Because we are necessary. We create a balance against the stupid and weak who whimper and whine, while we work hard to make them suffer and ourselves rich from their addictions and fears. Their fear of grief, boredom and pain. We are the strong, you are the weak, Sarah, and we reap the reward our hard work produces. And, the best thing of all, those who don’t believe in God are far easier to seduce with lust because they lose faith in others and in themselves. I suppose Ruben gave you his little speech on lust?’ He glanced at the monk and his smile broadened. ‘Of course he did, and he’s quite right, as well. Oh, how we enjoy seeing the weak suppress their spirit with drugs, pornography and alcohol. We work hard to corrupt those fools who believe they know everything when they know nothing.’ Avery’s expression turned to one of contempt. ‘We ensure the masses are kept in ignorance. We poison their pop songs, encouraging lust and violence, we poison their films, desensitising them to lust and violence, we ensure free easy access to hardcore porn, to damage their mind and relationships, and we poison their spirit by mocking the true message of religion and God. We use religion for war and pit one side against another, destroying both, while we glory in the death and destruction. It is true, we are many, we are blessed, and the ignorant sheep are born into debt as we remain rich in wealth, mind, body and spirit. What did you say?’ Avery bent down as Sarah whispered something.
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 132
