The Doomsday Prophecy

by Scott Mariani

‘Good.’ He smiled. ‘We’re making really good progress, Zoë.’

  ‘Can I go soon?’

  ‘Soon,’ he said.

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘I can’t say yet. It all depends on your recovery.’

  ‘What am I supposed to be remembering?’ she asked, her voice rising fast. ‘This isn’t therapy. I’m being held against my will. What’s so important that I’m being kept prisoner in this place?’

  The doctor had no answer to that. ‘Let’s take this one step at a time, OK?’

  When the session was over, he left her in her room. As the guard locked the door behind him, the doctor closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

  You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to be helping people. This is all wrong. What the hell did you get mixed up in?

  ‘Jones wants to see you in his office,’ the guard informed him.

  ‘Later,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Jones says right now.’

  The doctor sighed again. His shoulders drooped.

  He got there three minutes later. Knocked on the door and walked in. The room was small and square. The walls were plain, the floor bare concrete. Jones’s desk was clear apart from a phone and a laptop. Jones was leaning back in his chair, smirking at him.

  The doctor found it harder every day to hide his hatred of this man. He would have loved to smash that smirk off his face – but he knew what Jones would do to him. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

  ‘Got any good news for me?’ Jones demanded.

  The doctor hesitated. ‘Not the news you want to hear, certainly.’

  Jones grunted. ‘I didn’t think so. I wouldn’t say this so-called therapy of yours is getting us anywhere, would you?’

  ‘Yes, actually I would. Besides, it’s still early days.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t realise what’s going on here, Dr Greenberg. We’re on the clock with this.’

  ‘You can’t just click your fingers and make severe retrograde amnesia disappear overnight. Her GOAT results are improving steadily.’

  ‘What the hell is a goat?’ Jones snapped.

  ‘Galveston Orientation and Amnesia Test,’ the doctor said, trying to preserve his calm.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me with medical jargon. She’s lying.’

  ‘You saw the polygraph result.’

  ‘The lie detector isn’t reliable. You know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ the doctor hissed. ‘We’re close. Really close. A few more days, a week. Maybe two, and it’s my guess that her memory will come back completely.’

  Jones shook his head. ‘Why is it I get the feeling that you’re stalling me?’

  ‘I’m not stalling.’

  ‘Yes you are. You sympathise with the bitch. Buying her time. Let me tell you something. You’re not paid to sympathise. You’re paid to get results, and you ain’t getting them. I’ve given you all the leeway I’m prepared to give. We even redecorated the whole goddamn upper floor so we could move her to a nice little room, because you said the gentle approach would help. But I’ve had it with gentle.’

  The doctor looked down at his feet and balled his fists at his sides. ‘So what are you suggesting we do?’

  ‘Apply more pressure. There are ways.’

  ‘What kind of pressure?’

  Jones shrugged. ‘Whatever works. I don’t give a shit.’

  ‘You’re talking about torture.’

  Jones shrugged again. ‘Like I said, whatever gets the job done.’

  The doctor stared. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  Jones said nothing. His eyes were steady and cold.

  ‘You apply any kind of severe stress to her, and all you’ll do is drive the memories deeper,’ the doctor said. ‘She’ll regress dramatically. And I won’t have anything to do with torture. That isn’t what you hired me for.’

  ‘You’ll do what I tell you to do,’ Jones said. ‘And this is where we’re going to start.’ He grabbed a sheet of paper from his desk and brusquely handed it across.

  The doctor scanned it quickly. There was just one name scrawled on the sheet. It was the name of a chemical. He looked up in alarm. ‘You can’t give that to her. You’re not authorised to use it. It’s experimental. And illegal.’

  ‘I can give anything I want to her,’ Jones said softly. ‘Now tell me. This shit goes a lot deeper than sodium pentothal, right?’

  ‘I’m not happy with this.’

  ‘Like I give a fuck. Answer the question.’

  ‘It’s designed to repress higher cortical functions and remove all inhibitions,’ the doctor muttered. ‘In theory, potentially, it’s the most powerful truth serum ever developed. But –’

  ‘That’s what I heard too.’

  ‘The only people who ever used this drug are terrorists and mass murderers,’ the doctor said. ‘This is America, not Sierra Leone.’

  Jones just smiled, showing yellow teeth.

  ‘You’ve heard about the side effects?’

  Jones didn’t answer.

  ‘Ninety-five-plus per cent chance of complete, irreversible psychosis. Those are the stories, and there are lab results on chimps to confirm it. That’s what you want to do to this girl? Fry her brain down to the size of a peanut so she has to spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital?’

  Jones nodded slowly. ‘If I can get what I need from her first, yes.’

  ‘Just so you can get this information from her. You’re willing to make that trade?’

  ‘Absolutely. This matters a great deal to the people I work for.’

  ‘Then you can find someone else to help you. I won’t be party to this.’

  ‘Think you have a choice, Greenberg?’

  ‘I don’t answer to you.’ The doctor turned to go. But the metallic sound of the gun being cocked behind him stopped him in his tracks. He turned back to face Jones.

  The man was aiming a pistol right at his head. In his other hand he was holding a phone. ‘You’re going to make a call, doc. You’re going to get me some of that serum. And then you’re going to administer it to our little patient in there, and we’ll see who’s right.’

  The doctor hung his head. He was powerless here. They had him. ‘All right. I have a contact. But I can’t just write out a prescription for this stuff. It might take a few days.’

  ‘Too slow,’ Jones said. ‘My employer isn’t a patient man.’ He checked his watch. ‘You get it for me by tonight.’

  ‘Tonight!’

  ‘Fail me, and you’ll watch me torture the girl before I put a bullet in your eye,’ Jones said. ‘Your choice.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Savannah, Georgia

  Ben spent the afternoon in Augusta Vale’s luxurious guest quarters, sitting on the four-poster bed and poring over Cleaver’s book.

  The book was two things. First it was an account of how the humble preacher from Alabama had become the mouthpiece of John the Apostle after the saint had appeared to him years before in a miracle vision. Much of the text was devoted to persuading the reader of the truth of this, which the author did in fine style. Ben noticed that the last page of the book was a detachable slip for readers to mail their donations to the Cleaver Foundation, part of whose function was to raise funds for the author’s political ambitions.

  Secondly, the book was a scalding doomsday forecast based squarely on the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic text of the New Testament and the key biblical reference for millions of evangelical Christians, predominantly Americans, who believed in the coming End Times.

  Cleaver certainly knew his Bible. His style was pounding, insistent, articulate and utterly sincere. His book went into enormous detail about what was coming, any time now, all closely referenced from the Book of Revelation: global meltdown, the destruction of social order and the rise of the Antichrist, soon followed by the battle of Armageddon, when the returning Christ would vanquish his enemies forever and lead the faithful into eternal glory.

  Ben
noticed that, like most evangelical Christians, Cleaver assumed without question that all the ‘John’ books of the Bible were the work of one man, John the Apostle – Christ’s loyal follower, ‘the disciple Jesus loved’, present at the Crucifixion and the first to believe that Christ had truly risen. The traditional account, reflected in Cleaver’s book, was that after the crucifixion John had travelled widely preaching the Gospel. Then, seized by the Romans and thrown in boiling oil, he had miraculously escaped without so much as a blister. After the embarrassing miracle the Roman authorities had banished him to the remote Greek island of Patmos, off the Turkish coast. There he had penned his strangest and darkest work, the doom-laden Book of Revelation in which he set out his vision of the future. A book so dramatic and thunderous in its terrible imagery that, millennia later, it remained more imprinted on the public consciousness than ever.

  The rest was Cleaver’s unique twist on the tale, explaining how St John had personally appeared to him and confirmed in no uncertain terms that the End Times were truly coming, and that the faithful must rally. Things were about to get nasty.

  But Ben wondered how deeply Cleaver had looked into the theological studies surrounding Revelation. Many modern scholars didn’t agree that the author of the Gospel of St John and the Book of Revelation were the same man. They distinguished between at least three different biblical Johns: John the Evangelist, John the Presbyter and John of Patmos. John of Patmos, most agreed, was the author of the apocalyptic book. But was he the same John who had been numbered among Christ’s twelve apostles? The blood and violence of Revelation, contrasted with the milder and more philosophic Gospel of St John, seemed like the work of two different writers.

  Theories abounded. Some scholars were more moderate, suggesting that St John might have been the author of Revelation but written it under the influence of hallucinogens. Others were more hard line, pointing out that this John of Patmos could be just about anybody; in which case Revelation might have no legitimate claim to be included in the New Testament at all and should possibly be scrapped. But the frustrating lack of proof either way prevented the issue from being settled once and for all.

  Meanwhile, as Ben could see from Cleaver’s book, core evangelical belief remained untouched by the raging debates within academic theology circles. As far as the Georgia preacher was concerned, his direct line to St John was all the proof anyone needed that this generation was living in the Last Days.

  And somehow, this all had something to do with what had happened to Zoë Bradbury. Whatever hold it was she had over Clayton Cleaver, it involved Bible prophecy.

  But how?

  Ben thought about it for hours. He was still thinking about it as seven o’clock approached and it was time for dinner with Miss Vale and the man himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ben left the carriage house and wandered over to the main residence. Mae greeted him with a smile, and chatted warmly as she led him into the grand hallway. He could hear Miss Vale’s voice, and a man’s, coming from the drawing room. He was shown inside. Miss Vale’s visitor stood up and strode over to meet him.

  He was a man in his mid-fifties wearing a well-tailored light grey suit that looked Italian. He obviously played squash or tennis and was in good shape, with only a little spare padding around the middle and under his chin. He was about Ben’s height, just a little under six feet. His hair was thick and dark, swept back from his brow, maybe tinted to hide the grey. He approached Ben with a broad smile and an outstretched hand.

  ‘Clayton, this is the young man I was telling you about,’ Miss Vale said. She gestured towards Cleaver with a glow in her eyes. ‘Benedict, it’s my great pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend Clayton Cleaver. Or should I say Governor Cleaver?’

  Cleaver flashed a white grin at her. ‘God willing, Augusta. God willing. But we’re not there yet.’

  ‘With ninety per cent of Georgia behind you,’ she said, ‘you soon will be.’

  Cleaver seized and shook Ben’s hand in a dry and powerful fist, greeting him like a long-lost brother. ‘It is a true pleasure to meet you, Benedict,’ he said with absolute sincerity. ‘May I call you Benedict?’

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you too, Mr Cleaver.’

  ‘Please. Call me Clayton. Augusta tells me you’re a believer. That’s just wonderful. Just wonderful.’

  The maid came in with a tray of canapés and martini cocktails. They made small talk for a while, chatting about the difference between English and Georgia weather; the things Ben really had to see while he was staying in Savannah; what it was like to study theology at Oxford.

  ‘Final year, I guess you would have branched out a little,’ Cleaver said. ‘Do you have a specialised interest, Benedict?’

  ‘Actually I do.’ Ben sipped his drink. ‘My special subject for my final year dissertation is Bible prophecy.’

  Miss Vale and Cleaver exchanged knowing, approving glances. ‘I just knew this was meant to happen,’ the old lady said. ‘You couldn’t be in better company, Benedict. Did you get a chance –’

  ‘To read Clayton’s book?’ Ben filled in. ‘I’ve been reading it this afternoon. I couldn’t put it down.’

  ‘Why, thank you, son. I can sign that copy for you, if you’d like.’

  ‘That would be an honour.’

  The butler came solemnly into the room and announced that dinner was served. Ben followed Miss Vale and Clayton into a spectacular dining room. The table was more than fifteen feet long and glittering with silverware beneath a crystal chandelier. Miss Vale sat at the head of the table. Ben was shown to a seat on her right, as guest of honour, and Cleaver sat opposite him. The maid lifted the lid of a silver dish in the centre of the table.

  ‘The smoked salmon is from Miss Vale’s own fishery,’ Cleaver said. ‘It’s the best in all of the South.’

  They ate and drank champagne. Cleaver looked completely at home.

  ‘So, Benedict. We were talking about Bible prophecy …’

  ‘Ask him anything you like,’ Miss Vale urged Ben. ‘Nobody knows the Bible like Clayton.’

  ‘For a young Bible student, you couldn’t be living at a more exciting moment of our history,’ Cleaver said. ‘The time isn’t nigh. It’s now.’

  ‘I noticed that in your book, you were very insistent that the great apocalyptic prophecies of the Bible are about to come true.’

  ‘You’ve read it, Benedict,’ Cleaver replied. ‘You know it’s going to happen.’

  ‘I know about the various interpretations that scripture scholars have made,’ Ben said. ‘For instance, some theologians say that the Book of Revelation isn’t a legitimate part of the New Testament.’

  Cleaver reddened. ‘Interpretations my ass.’ He glanced at Miss Vale. ‘Excuse my language, Augusta, but I’m about sick of hearing about these scholars. The way I see it, these fellows are walking around with their eyes shut.’ He clenched his fist against the table. ‘Look around you at the signs, Benedict. Governments, the rule of law, economies, cultures, our whole world system is just about ready to collapse. Total chaos and destruction are right around the corner. Exactly as the Good Book tells us.’ He wagged his finger for emphasis. ‘All the signs are there. Time to get ready and accept our Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, because we are standing right now on the brink of the End Times. And all these scholars can do is chase their own tails talking about interpretations? How do you interpret the literal word of God? What’s wrong with just opening our ears to what he’s telling us?’ Cleaver paused for a sip of champagne.

  The performance was beautifully polished. Cleaver was a fabulous showman, winding himself up into full-on televangelist mode, and it was all for Miss Vale. Ben could see from the rapt look on her face that she was completely captivated by this man. As far as she was concerned, he was worth every penny of her hundred million dollars. He wondered whether Cleaver had had his big payday yet. He might have, judging by his absolute confidence and composure.
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  ‘You know, Benedict,’ Cleaver went on, ‘a poll in 2002 showed that sixty per cent of Americans believe the prophecies of John in the Book of Revelation will come true. Twenty per cent – that’s fifty million Americans I’m talking about – believe it will happen during their lifetime. That’s any time now. We could walk out of here this very minute, turn on the TV and see the events have already started rolling right before us.’ Cleaver’s eyes were locked hard on Ben’s. He stabbed his finger on the tabletop. Then he smiled. ‘Notice anything strange last spring, Benedict?’

  ‘All the plants came out too early.’

  ‘You got it. Not just in England. It’s happening here too. Weather systems are shot to hell. The seasons aren’t seasons any more. Earthquakes and great floods in places that never had them before. They call it global warming. I call it a global warning. And you know what, it’s all right there in John’s Book of Revelation. Disasters that level cities. The sun heating up so much, everyone is scorched.’

  ‘Don’t forget the giant hailstones,’ Ben said. ‘“And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent.”’

  ‘You know your Bible. That’s about seventy-five pounds,’ Cleaver said. ‘Then there are the plagues. Well, Benedict, I hardly need to remind you about the superbugs that threaten us all, the rise of other diseases like the avian flu and untreatable new strains of tuberculosis.’ He waved his hands in the air expansively. ‘Then you open up New Scientist magazine and what do you see? Plagues of African locusts in the south of France. Just like the Bible says. And who knows what else is just around the corner?’ Cleaver thumped on the table with a flourish. ‘I’ll tell you who knows. John knows. And he tells me everything.’

  ‘Just to hear it the way Clayton tells it,’ Miss Vale breathed, ‘it sends a shiver down my back.’

  ‘I wish that was all of it,’ Cleaver replied. ‘But in the middle of all this chaos, John already predicted the rise of the one-world government. Satan’s one-world government. “And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name”.’ Cleaver smiled. ‘Does that sound familiar, Benedict?’