The Doomsday Prophecy

by Scott Mariani

  Fire was crackling up the side of the cowshed, blocking his way. He ducked inside the wrecked storeroom, battled through the flames and ran out through the front entrance into the yard just in time to see Jones stumbling over to the big barn. He was moving clumsily in his tactical gear. Ben crossed the yard after him and walked inside the barn. It was one of the few buildings that hadn’t caught fire.

  It was dark and cool inside. Ben looked about him.

  Then Jones was bursting out of the shadows and the prongs of a pitchfork were flying at Ben’s chest.

  Ben sidestepped the thrust, and the fork embedded itself in the timber wall.

  Jones staggered away, hatred in his eyes. He reached down and ripped away the Velcro strap holding his tactical combat knife in its leg sheath. He whipped the blade out and crouched low, like an animal about to pounce.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ Ben said quietly. ‘Big mistake.’

  Jones let out a wild scream and charged at him. He swung the knife at Ben’s throat. Ben stepped into the arc of the swing, caught the wrist and twisted it hard. The knife spun out of Jones’s grip.

  The CIA man cried out in pain. He writhed away and backed further into the shadows of the barn, moving towards the ladder that led up to the hayloft, glancing wildly around him for anything he could use as a weapon. He stumbled over an empty drum and knocked over a stack of fencing poles. Grabbed one of the poles. It was five feet long, thick pine, sharpened to a crude point. He tried to throw it like a spear, but it was too heavy and crashed against the rusted housing of a large circular saw with its point sticking upwards at an angle.

  Ben kept coming. Jones had nowhere to run to now.

  ‘You’re in my world now,’ Ben said. ‘You’re weak and you’re unarmed, and you’re finished. You should never have got in my way.’

  Jones let out a strangled noise and scrambled up the rickety ladder. Ben followed him up to the raised platform thirty feet above, where cobwebbed bales were stacked up in the dusty shaft of light streaming from a gable window. He raised the pistol and aimed it at Jones’s head.

  Jones dropped down on his knees in the hay, his face contorted. ‘Don’t kill me. Please.’

  Ben lowered the gun and thrust it in his belt.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to kill you.’ He reached into his bag.

  Jones screamed in horror as Ben took out the bottle and syringe. He unslung the bag, let it fall and stepped towards the CIA man. Jabbed the needle into the bottle and pulled back the plunger. Jones tried to scrabble away. He was blubbering with terror now. Ben grabbed him, threw him down in the hay and jabbed the needle deep into his neck. He pushed the plunger home.

  Jones screamed again, broken teeth bared in gibbering fear. ‘What have you done to me?’

  Ben stood back. He tossed the empty syringe into the shadows.

  Then Jones went to pieces in front of his eyes. He battered his head against the floor. Tore out his hair. Stuffed his fingers down his throat in a desperate attempt to vomit the drug from his system. Tears poured down his face.

  ‘Tell me how it feels, Jones,’ Ben said. ‘Knowing that in a few hours you’ll be as insane as the poor bastard on the video.’

  ‘Kill me,’ Jones sobbed, bits of hay stuck to his wet face. ‘Please just kill me.’

  ‘No chance,’ Ben said. ‘You’re going to tell me everything.’ He leaned back against the hay bales and watched as the drug circulated through the man’s veins. After a minute or so, Jones’s frenzy diminished and he seemed to relax. He slumped down in the hay.

  The transformation was weird to watch. It took a few more minutes for the man to start loosening up. His face hung expressionless, as though the muscles had been anaesthetised. His eyes rolled back in his head. Then he began to talk, in a mumbling voice.

  Ben knew what he had to do. He was at the end of a thousand-mile trail of dead government agents and police. That added up to some of the worst trouble he’d ever been in, and it was going to take a lot of very persuasive evidence to get him out. He only hoped that Jones was about to provide just that.

  He reached back into his bag and found the oblong shape of his phone. He took it out, turned it on and activated the video camera function. Pointed the phone at Jones.

  He spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Tell the camera who you are.’

  The agent’s eyelids fluttered. ‘My name is Alban Hainsworth Jones,’ he muttered without hesitation. ‘I work for the CIA.’

  Ben nodded. Looked like the stuff was working. Now to press on. ‘Tell the camera the name of the person who was kidnapped on Corfu by former Government agents Kaplan and Hudson, with the collusion of active members of the CIA.’

  Jones’s eyes darted back and forth. His fingers were twitching and clawing, as though there was some desperate internal struggle going on to hold in the truth despite the chemical signals flooding his brain. ‘Zoë Bradbury,’ he mumbled. ‘Zoë Bradbury was kidnapped by US agents and brought to an unauthorised secure facility in rural Montana for questioning.’

  ‘What was your part in this, Agent Jones?’

  ‘To extract the information from her using brutality and torture if needed,’ Jones said. ‘And to eliminate any opposition, which is why I murdered Dr Joshua Greenberg and two Georgia police officers.’ Sweat was pouring off his brow. His face was contorting, veins standing out in a livid Y-shape on his forehead. The conflict inside him seemed to be tearing him apart.

  Ben held the camera closer. ‘Why was Zoë Bradbury’s information so important?’

  ‘Because of Jerusalem.’

  ‘Explain that.’

  Jones’s eyes rolled back in his head, so that just the whites showed. His lips peeled back to show his jagged teeth. He looked like a zombie. It sent a shiver down Ben’s spine.

  ‘Too late to stop it now,’ Jones muttered. ‘It’s in motion. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen in less than twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Too late to stop what?’

  ‘It was never about the girl. It was about war.’

  ‘What war?’

  Jones’s eyes rolled back down and focused on him. He smiled weirdly. ‘The war in the Bible,’ he said.

  Ben processed the words. They were like a slap in the face. They wouldn’t sink in. ‘Keep talking.’

  Sweat dripped down the man’s nose. It was pouring off him faster than anything Ben had ever seen. Pooling in the hollow at the base of his throat, soaking rapidly through his clothes. He seemed to be on fire. His eyes were rolling and darting alarmingly. ‘The end of the world,’ he croaked. ‘The End Times. Armageddon. They’re starting it. They’re going to make it happen. Starting in Jerusalem.’

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Something massive,’ Jones said. ‘And there’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop it.’

  Ben was stunned, hardly able to think straight as his mind raced to make sense of this. ‘Slater’s in charge of all this? Who is he?’

  Jones’s grin was frozen and wild. He was beginning to shake violently. He mumbled something incomprehensible.

  ‘Speak clearly,’ Ben said.

  Jones looked up at him. His eyes were rimmed with blood. ‘I’m going to go mad,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes. You are. Now answer the question.’

  It might have been the effect of the drug, or it might have been just the horror in the man’s mind, knowing that he was going to spend the rest of his life as a babbling lunatic. But something snapped in Jones’s head. Ben read it in his eyes – but reacted too slowly.

  Jones was suddenly rearing up to his feet. Ben reached out to press him back down, but there was some kind of mad power in him that allowed him to force past.

  Before Ben could stop him, Jones had covered the ten steps to the edge of the hayloft platform. There was no rail or barrier to stop him. He didn’t slow down. He hurled himself off the edge and sailed out into space, twisting in midair. Ben caught a glimpse of the wild light in Jo
nes’s eyes as he dropped towards the floor below.

  He didn’t hit the floor.

  His fall was arrested by the upward-pointing fence post that he’d tried to spear Ben with earlier. It caught him between the shoulder blades, and his falling weight drove it right through him, through organs and ribcage and right out of his chest. The wooden point protruded grotesquely, slick with gore.

  Jones stared upwards at Ben. His head was thrown back at an unnatural angle. The blade of the old circular saw was embedded in his skull. Blood and cranial fluids oozed down the rusty steel disc, down the housing of the machine to the dirt floor.

  Ben shut off the phone, dropped it in his pocket. He grabbed up his bag and climbed back down the ladder. His mind was still reeling from what Jones had said.

  They kidnapped Zoë to start Armageddon.

  It seemed insane, and for a moment he wondered whether what he’d heard was genuine or the brain-frazzling effects of a drug that turned men insane.

  But no. There had been something in Jones’s eyes, even as his sanity was slipping away. He was telling the truth.

  Ben stood staring at the CIA man’s corpse, trying to understand what he had meant.

  Then he tensed, alerted by the sound outside. He ran to the barn door and out into the sunlight. The wreckage in the yard and the alleyway was still blazing, hot on his face. Through the shimmering heat-haze and the slowly rising pall of smoke he saw the helicopters landing beyond the farm gate. Four of them, so dark green as to be almost black, the letters FBI in white across their sides.

  The first one to touch down was the big twin-prop Boeing. Ben hadn’t seen one since his army days. Hatches slid open. A man stepped out. He wasn’t wearing tactical clothing, but a grey suit. His sandy hair fluttered in the whipping blast of the rotors as he hurried across the grass, keeping his head low.

  Behind him was Alex. Her eyes were wide as she took in the devastation of the farm, the burning buildings, the wrecked choppers. Then she caught sight of Ben and her face lit up.

  Ben walked towards them out of the carnage. He reached for the Beretta in his belt and tossed it away into the dirt.

  More personnel were spilling out of the helicopters as they landed. The grey-suited man strode purposefully up to Ben. His hand went to his jacket, and came up holding a badge. Armed agents swarmed round his flanks, pistols trained on Ben.

  Ben wearily raised his hands.

  ‘I’m Special Agent Callaghan,’ said the grey-suited man. ‘And you’re under arrest.’

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Ben was frisked and ushered briskly into one of the choppers by big, silent men in dark suits and dark glasses. He watched through a window as Callaghan put Alex and Zoë on the second chopper and boarded with them.

  The flight took a long time, and it was evening when the helicopters touched down at a private airstrip where black SUVs stood on the runway together with men with guns. Ben was escorted across the tarmac to a sleek jet. The guards kept him away from Alex and Zoë.

  Some time later, the jet landed at what looked like a military airfield. More black cars were waiting for them. Ben was marched across to one of them, a door held open for him, an agent sitting either side of him. Callaghan climbed into the front passenger seat and the car took off at high speed, leading the way for a procession of vehicles. Nobody spoke.

  But Ben could guess where he was being taken.

  Langley, Virginia, CIA Headquarters. As the cavalcade of cars approached the vast sprawl of buildings, he saw his guess was right. Armed security personnel guarded the tall steel gates that bore the eagle-and-star seal of the Central Intelligence Agency. Callaghan flashed a card as they went through, and a series of gates glided open for them. They drove through building complexes with thousands of windows, illuminated like starships in the dusk, past floodlit lawns where rows of US flags fluttered in the breeze. Everything was immaculate, a monument to unflinching national pride and self-possessed superiority.

  Then the car stopped and Ben was led inside a building. The place was milling with activity, more layers of security to pass through and hundreds of workers swarming through the wide corridors. Callaghan walked briskly, and Ben followed, aware of the men in black suits right behind him. Glancing over his shoulder he spotted Alex fifteen yards behind. She was being escorted along by more of the same dark, taciturn men. She smiled at him, but it was a nervous smile. Zoë was nowhere to be seen.

  Ben followed Callaghan through an open-plan labyrinth of operations rooms that were heavily cluttered with desks and computer terminals, staff and security personnel swarming everywhere. The place looked like the London Stock Exchange. Rows of clocks displaying the times in different countries. Hundreds of monitors flashing and blinking, giant screens on the walls showing news broadcasts from all over the world. Brightly lit electronic political maps of the globe, animated to show movements and developments that Ben could only guess at as he walked by. Everywhere he looked, scores of people were glued to the screens as though American national security would collapse into rubble and anarchy if they glanced away for just an instant.

  At the far end of the last operations room they walked through was a set of glass sliding doors. The room beyond was hidden behind vertical blinds. A security guard rose from a desk as they approached. Callaghan handed him a card. The doors glided open with a slick whoosh, and Ben followed Callaghan into a long conference room.

  In the middle was a glistening table, surrounded by leather chairs. Three walls were panelled with wood, the fourth was a large mirrored window flanked by a pair of flags, the US Stars and Stripes on the left and the emblem of the CIA on the right, embroidered in white and gold thread. The ceiling was low and studded with spotlights.

  The silent agents ushered Alex into the room and left. The doors glided shut and clicked. She glanced at Ben, clearly full of things to say but feeling compelled to stay quiet. He held her gaze for a second, putting reassurance in his eyes.

  Seated at the head of the conference table was a large, broad-shouldered black man in his early sixties, wearing a sombre suit and a navy tie. There was an air of gravity about him, like a judge. Callaghan walked around the table and took a seat to his right, straightened his tie and looked to him for the first word. It was obvious who was in charge here.

  ‘My name is Murdoch,’ said the big man. His voice was deep and mellifluous. Ben could clearly see the intelligence in his eyes. He gestured at the chairs on his left, calm and slow in his movements. ‘Please. Take a seat.’

  Ben sat, and Alex sat three feet away. She coughed nervously.

  Ben was determined to seize the initiative here. The place was designed to intimidate. That wasn’t going to happen. ‘Where’s Zoë?’ he demanded.

  ‘Miss Bradbury is in very good hands,’ Murdoch replied calmly. ‘Agent Callaghan here is in charge of her protection.’

  ‘She’s in CIA custody?’

  ‘She’s safe,’ Murdoch said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’ He pursed his lips, formulating his thoughts. He leaned heavily on the table and gazed at Ben with penetrating eyes. ‘This is a very ugly situation. For all of us,’ he added meaningfully. Then his eyes darted across and the steady gaze landed on Alex. ‘Agent Fiorante, you realise you’re in a lot of trouble here. Before we get started, have you anything to say?’

  Ben could feel the tension in her, like a crackle of electricity next to him. She clearly knew what he’d already guessed, that on the other side of the mirrored window there were people watching and listening, filming and transcribing every word that was being said in the room.

  ‘Nothing that isn’t already in the statement I made on the way here,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Let’s run through it again, for the record,’ Murdoch said.

  Callaghan smiled coldly.

  Alex spoke carefully, measuring every word. ‘I was part of Jones’s team, under the impression that we were taking part in authorised operations. However, during that time I witnessed
a number of incidents that I found highly suspect, to say the least. I can testify that Jones personally executed the two Georgia police officers as well as Dr Greenberg at the facility near Chinook, Montana. It all happened right in front of me. I will further testify that Jones and his associates were using the Montana facility to imprison, and, if we hadn’t intervened, to torture and murder Zoë Bradbury.’

  ‘And you didn’t think to report any of this to your superiors at the time,’ Callaghan cut in from across the table, staring aggressively at her.

  ‘Sir, Agent Jones was my immediate superior. And I was concerned for my safety. That said, I regret my actions.’

  Murdoch’s face was impassive. He nodded gravely. ‘This is an issue we can address later on.’ He turned to Ben. ‘Let’s talk about you. I’ve seen your military record. We know exactly who you are. So there’s no point whatsoever in pretence.’

  Ben returned his steady gaze. ‘I had no intention of concealing anything from you.’

  ‘You were hired by Miss Bradbury’s family to locate her.’

  Ben shook his head. ‘I was helping a friend. I had no professional involvement.’

  ‘Whatever you say. But the body count is beginning to look like one of your old military operations. First Greece. Then Georgia. Then Montana. Our investigation team is still pulling dead men out of the Mountain View Hotel. All either active or former government agents. The farm where we found you resembles a war zone. From what I can see, Major Hope, you leave a trail of devastation and mayhem in your wake everywhere you go.’

  ‘Only when people stand in the way,’ Ben said. ‘And you can call me Mr Hope.’

  ‘Right. I see you’re retired.’

  ‘I’m a theology student.’

  Murdoch’s lips curled into the faintest of smiles. ‘So would you mind telling me what exactly has been going on with this Bradbury kidnapping?’

  ‘It was never really about Zoë Bradbury,’ Ben said. ‘She’s only an incidental part of it. It’s about something bigger. Much bigger.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like war,’ Ben said. ‘The war to end all wars.’