‘And we’re using it on Aisha to go sight–seeing,’ Ethan said dryly.
Hellerman nodded, equally uncomfortable with the procedure.
‘I don’t like it, but if Aisha struggles at any point I’ll stop the device,’ he said. ‘Normally, a patient undergoing ECT is sedated with general anesthesia and given a muscle relaxant to prevent movement during the procedure. But our friends the Russians forego that safety measure in order to provoke the seizures that lead to the girl’s visions. Worse, instead of passing electric currents through the brain for sixty seconds, Ivan does it for ten minutes or more.’
‘We’re not Ivan,’ Lopez reminded Hellerman. ‘Are there any side–effects?’
‘Headaches and muscle aching, upset stomachs and memory loss,’ Hellerman replied. ‘Research has found that memory problems seem to be associated with the traditional type of ECT called bilateral ECT, in which the electrodes are placed on both sides of the head, the process the Russians were using. We’re using unilateral ECT, where the electrodes are placed on just one side of the head—typically the right side because it is opposite the brain’s learning and memory areas.’
‘What happens to Aisha after this?’ Ethan asked.
‘I’ll have her sent to Social Services and looked after,’ Hellerman promised. ‘She’ll be fine.’
Lopez sighed. ‘Okay, let’s get it over with.’
Hellerman nodded, and then he reached out and one finger hovered over a switch on the keyboard before him as he spoke softly into a microphone.
‘Okay Aisha, here we go in five, four, three…’
*
Aisha heard Hellerman’s voice echoing gently through the room around her as she did her best to relax and focus on the subjects that the Russians had demanded her to, just like Hellerman had asked. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady, and apart from Hellerman’s voice the room was utterly silent.
‘three…’
Aisha’s heartbeat fluttered in her chest as she cleared her mind of thoughts.
‘two…’
Her breathing slowed, and she almost felt calm. She knew that she had to be as still as possible before the machine started.
‘one…’
Aisha sighed softly to herself and let a smile drift onto her face as she thought of home and of happier times. That worked sometimes, made the transition easier, less stressful. She focused on the object that Warner and Lopez required, set its image in her mind.
‘Switching on, now.’
For a brief moment of time nothing happened, Aisha adrift on a dark sea of serene solitude. Then the darkness was ripped apart by blinding light that seared her retina as live current surged through her brain, giving her a vision that she had been denied her entire life. For an instant she felt as though she were in the center of her own mind, a blazing sphere as large as the entire universe rippling with brilliant but confusing whorls and jagged lines of light that zipped and raced in random directions and bored into her eyes.
Aisha felt her body shuddering and twitching on the bed, but it seemed as though she were floating above it in a quivering haze of energy at the same time, both a part of her body and beyond it. The image of the tablets lurched out at her as though hurled from the abyss of light and then it shot away from her again.
Aisha saw rows of shelves, endless rows stretching away into the distance. The spines of boxes on the shelves were inscribed with Latin and red wax seals, the light low, the air musty. She saw an elevator shaft nearby, old shutter doors upon it, saw an ageing building of sandstone. Towers. Spires. Bright blue sky. Crowds milling everywhere.
A wide open square opened up beneath her, and in its center soared a towering obelisk engraved with strange symbols that she recognized but could not quite place. The symbols drew her in deeper, and despite wanting to get away she found herself obsessed with them. They rushed closer, and she saw the huge obelisk enveloped in a roiling dust storm, the huge plaza and milling tourists vanishing to be replaced with sprawling deserts.
Aisha felt her sanity trembling, as though the universe was imploding around her beyond the vision now searing her retina. She felt great heat choking her, the desert sand scalding below, the sky burning blue above. She saw massed ranks of men laboring in the heat, saw huge constructions before her.
A temple.
Massive columns soared upward, chambers buried deep into the living rock, more strange symbols etched into them. The laborers marched in teams, the dust swirling in golden vortexes about their feet as they hauled immense stone blocks across the desert, the rocks sliding on a wooden path slick with pooled water.
A voice spoke to her, a girl’s voice.
‘It is his time.’
Aisha looked for the source of the voice. She turned and saw a girl shimmering like a phantom before her as behind the girl the desert was swallowed by a vast dust storm, lightning crashing across darkened skies. Strange lights hovered in the tumultuous heavens as Aisha kept her gaze on the girl. Young, pretty but sad, like a reflection of Aisha herself. The girl looked at Aisha, her expression somber.
‘They are coming. You must find the tomb of Tjaneni.’
Aisha tried to speak but her lips would not move, and instead she thought the question in her mind.
‘Who is Tjaneni?’
The girl smiled. ‘He who spoke with the gods. Within his tomb resides the word of God, and only Amenhotep knew its location. The tablets, you must find the tablets.’
‘Where are you?’
The girl looked around her. ‘I am in Homs, Syria. You must hurry or we will all die here.’
Aisha felt concern for the young girl, saw the fear in her eyes as she spoke again.
‘There is little time. Run, Aisha, for the American will kill us all.’
‘The American?’
The girl nodded, looking around her now as though she were being pursued and she began to back away.
‘I have to run!’ she yelled. ‘I have to run!’
‘No!’ Aisha cried out, reaching out for the girl through the flying sand biting into her skin.
‘Warner!’ the girl yelled. ‘Warner will…’
The vision was suddenly shattered and plunged into darkness. Aisha cried out and felt her body jerking spasmodically around her, felt the DTCS being lifted from her head as her heart thundered in her chest. In her mind she heard the thunder echoing away into the distance as the eye–protectors were removed and the straps pinning her in place loosened.
Aisha felt Lopez wrap her arms around, her voice soft in her ear.
‘It’s okay, you’re done. That’s enough.’
Aisha trembled as Lopez held her, and sensed Warner and Hellerman standing nearby. Aisha found herself focusing on Warner the most, more aware now than ever of the aura of danger that surrounded him, a determination to get a job done no matter what the consequences.
‘Are you okay?’ Lopez asked her as she drew back.
Aisha nodded, wiped tears from her eyes with one arm that twitched and trembled uncontrollably. Lopez helped her as she dried her eyes.
‘What did you see?’ Hellerman asked. ‘I know that this is tough but memory loss can be acute after such a procedure.’
‘What about the girls, did you see them?’ Lopez asked.
Aisha nodded slowly, recalling the same worries of the Russians that anything the oracles saw would be lost to the side–effects of the procedure itself.
‘They are in Homs,’ she replied. ‘They do not have long left. You must hurry. The object you seek, the Tulli Tablet, is in Italy,’ she said. ‘It’s in the Vatican, underground in a vault where everything is in Latin.’
Hellerman raised an eyebrow. ‘The Secret Archives? Can you see where the object is hidden?’
‘I saw enough to get you close,’ Aisha promised. ‘It’s at the back wall of a subterranean section concealed from view, the lower levels of the archive. There is an elevator. I saw something else, too.’
‘What was it?’ Lopez
asked.
‘I saw the past, but I think also the present,’ Aisha said. ‘I saw Egypt and a great storm, and great danger.’ She turned to Lopez. ‘A girl told me that we must find the tomb of somebody called Tjaneni.’
Hellerman’s jaw dropped open. ‘The scribe of Thutmose III,’ he gasped as he rested one hand on the DTCS. ‘Man, this stuff actually works!’
‘The tablets of Amehotep will lead you to the tomb,’ Aisha said softly, and Lopez caught a sense of sadness in her tone.
‘What is it, Aisha?’
Aisha chose her words with care.
‘It wasn’t what I saw,’ she said softly, ‘it was what I felt.’
Ethan moved closer, and Aisha spoke as the visions filled her mind’s eye once more.
‘There is something coming,’ she said, ‘something that is dangerous and…, cruel. There were storms, confusion, images in my mind of world leaders, of struggle and suffering. One word kept coming up over and over again: Megiddo.’
The room seemed to darken as Aisha spoke, an oppressive air weighing down upon them as Aisha whispered almost to herself.
‘This thing that you’re chasing, this event, everything that is happening right now, it leads to great sorrow. Everything leads to Megiddo, to flames and smoke.’
Lopez frowned and glanced at Hellerman, who swallowed thickly.
‘You got any idea what that means?’ Lopez asked.
Hellerman nodded.
‘Megiddo is in Israel and was the sight of a great battle won by Thutmose III thousands of years ago,’ he replied. ‘Tjaneni recorded that battle. But the city is known now by a different name popularized by the Old Testament, in which the final battle between all good and evil will be fought.’
‘What name is that?’ Ethan asked, already knowing the answer.
Hellerman appeared ashen faced as he stared at Aisha and replied.
‘The city is more popularly known as Armageddon.’
***
XV
Ilha Ferando de Noronha,
Atlantic Ocean
The deck of the yacht flared white in the brilliant sunshine as Jarvis leaned back in a recliner and let the warm sunshine wash across his body. Anchored in a harbor off the bay of an island most people on earth had never even heard of, the massive vessel dwarfed most of those around it.
One of an archipelago of twenty–one islands in the Atlantic Ocean and over two hundred miles from the Brazilian coast, Fernando de Noronha had long been one of Garrett’s favorite bolt–holes. Although the island promoted tourism, it was a difficult place to reach and some three quarters of the entire island was designated as a national maritime park. Thus, the population was less than three thousand and the interferences minimal, especially when Garrett remained on the deck of his vast vessel and had local cuisine shipped aboard at his pleasure.
Beside them was stacked a mountain of papers, folders and archive boxes that littered the deck.
‘This is going to take us years.’
Amber Ryan and Lucy Morgan sat on the deck near Jarvis and watched Rhys Garrett quietly as he spoke.
‘Perhaps, but the point of us doing this is to begin to unravel what Majestic Twelve’s purpose was. While we also have our mission to root out corruption within world government, we must also ensure that we understand where our new–found wealth originated. Doug, I know that you’re better versed in these matters than I?’
Jarvis nodded, basking in how much more agreeable a briefing on the deck of a luxury yacht was compared to one in a dingy conference room at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
‘The cabal known as Majestic Twelve was formed during an extraordinary meeting between military leaders and President Harry S. Truman via an Executive Order in 1947, in direct response to the recovery of an extra–terrestrial craft from Roswell, New Mexico during that year. That recovery, along with a now famous sighting of “flying discs” by pilot Kenneth Arnold in Washington State the same year, prompted a unification of government and the military industrial complex that continues to this day.’ Jarvis looked at the rest of his team to see if any of them appeared bemused by his statements. None did, all of them more than aware in their own way of the incredible history of what Majestic Twelve had been investigating. ‘Majestic Twelve had originally been composed of senior military figures and one or two prominent heads of industry, but had evolved over the decades to be comprised entirely of immensely powerful businessmen who had ultimately become ever more corrupted by their wealth and power. It is that cabal which we destroyed six months ago in South America.’
Garrett took over for a moment after Jarvis gestured in his direction.
‘Majestic Twelve operated through a secretive annual meeting of world leaders in government, industry and banking known as the Bilderberg Group. Members of the Bilderberg, together with their sister organizations – the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, are charged with the post–war take over of the democratic process. The group provides general control of the world economy through indirect political means.’
‘Despite everything I’ve heard,’ Lucy Morgan said, ‘that sounds too much like conspiracy.’
‘I’ve attended Bilderberg myself,’ Garrett replied, ‘and they have a website you can view for yourself. For the most part they are immensely constructive meetings which allow politicians to speak freely without fear of journalistic interference, the media not being allowed to attend the meetings. It’s that more than anything that builds the conspiracies around Bilderberg, but of course there is no smoke without fire. If you’re a powerful figure looking to commit crimes beyond the reach of prying eyes with other like–minded politicians and businessmen, there’s no better place to plan it than Bilderberg.’
‘So is that our next target, this Bilderberg Group?’ Amber Ryan asked.
‘No,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Bilderberg is merely a vehicle with which Majestic Twelve were able to move freely and recruit other figures of power to support their cause. Our mission is to expose their original cause. My department at the Defense Intelligence Agency was not the only one performing these kinds of investigations, and with the collapse of Majestic Twelve we have created a power vacuum which is already being filled by Russian agencies keen to take advantage of the opportunity. Mat’ Zemlya, or Mother Earth, is a small but well equipped unit we suspect has been picking up the threads of our work, based on that conducted by a Russian oligarch named Yuri Volkov.’
‘Volkov,’ Garrett explained, ‘was a billionaire who devoted much of his later life to the exposure of the falsehoods of all religions. He was hated by established religious figures for his straight–talking manner, which made all religious claims of divinity look ridiculous. The only claims he found it difficult to refute were those by amateur archeologists who claimed that what ancient peoples called “gods” were in fact visitors from other worlds whose technology was so advanced that to our ancestors would appear literally to be magic.’
‘Volkov died a few years back,’ Jarvis went on. ‘Now, the Russians are keen to continue his work. Lillian here has been going through the reports of Majestic Twelve and has uncovered evidence of a recent televised report by a former Soviet official with impeccable credentials that may have given us the edge on these new competitors. Lieutenant general Alexey Savin, a PhD and fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences, reported that in the late 1980’s researchers from the Expert Management Unit of General Staff appeared to make contact with another civilization.’
A wall of silence confronted Jarvis, which lasted for a long time before anybody managed to speak.
‘They made first contact?’ Lucy Morgan finally whispered.
Jarvis nodded, clearly as amazed as anybody by the recent findings, and gestured for Lillian to speak.
‘The report was followed up by FIB Major General Vasily Yeremenko, academician of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law Enforcement,’ Lillian said. ‘A former KGB and Air Force officer, he was responsible for collat
ing information on the appearance of unidentified flying objects over the Soviet Union, which had become a regular occurrence in the early 1980’s. Missile units were even given a directive in case of detection of UFOs. The main task was not to create opportunities for reciprocal aggression. In 1984 at the testing grounds of the Academy of Sciences by Vladimirovka, the Ministry of Defense and the KGB organized a large scale study of paranormal phenomena. The choice of a military training site was not random, as their experts had long before come to the conclusion that UFOs inevitably appeared in places where military equipment and weapons were tested.’
Amber Ryan frowned. ‘So what, they switched on all the lights and hoped for the best?’
Jarvis took a breath as he prepared for his next revelation.
‘By all accounts, the Soviets learned to actually summon UFO appearances,’ he said. ‘They purposefully massively increased the number of military flights, movement of troops and equipment and missile tests around specific sites, often at the risk of attracting the ire of the United States, with the express purpose of attracting the attention of UFOs.’
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. ‘What were their conclusions?’
‘Threefold: firstly, that modern science was unable to identify such phenomena,’ Lillian said. ‘Second, it could be some kind of exotic reconnaissance aircraft deployed by America or Japan. Third, it could be the presence of an extra–terrestrial civilization. Vasily Yeremenko pointed out that both civilian and military pilots across the globe see these things all the time, but they have a veto on the topic and do not discuss it publicly. That veto comes from their employers, and their employers are directly influenced by the governments of their respective countries who have policies in place based on the supposed desire to prevent damaging public trust in pilot’s mental stability should they report sightings of UFO’s. Many of the solid reports Majestic Twelve did get were made anonymously, although witnessed at the same time by many other staff and civilians not bound by the same protocols. The 2006 incident at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport would be a good example.’
The Genesis Cypher (Warner & Lopez Book 6) Page 10