The Last Oracle: A Climate Fiction Thriller (Sam Jardine Crime Thrillers Book 3)

by Christopher Hepworth

  ‘He’s come here to apologise,’ Cantara interjected, frustrated at Sam’s reservedness and aggressive tone. ‘And he has critical information you need to hear.’

  Sam stole a glance at Cantara and his heart soared at the sight of her. Her multi-toned fair hair shone in the winter sun and she was dressed elegantly in a light grey knitted dress, black tights, stylish calf-length boots and a fitted black Balmian leather jacket to protect her from the cold. Sam knew Cantara had risked everything she held dear to locate his brother and smuggle him out of the country. He also knew both Cantara and Rania would have lost their jobs, reputation, and even faced arrest had she been caught.

  ‘They made me feel special,’ Jack said. ‘No-one’s done that before except Uncle Roy.’

  Sam felt Cantara’s eyes on him and a wave of guilt hit him like a tsunami. ‘I’ve tried to look after you whenever I could, Jack, but it’s not been possible for me to stand in for our parents.’

  ‘I know that, Sam. An’ I’ve been a bit of a lout meself.’

  ‘But these guys you called friends are terrorists. They murder good people who don’t agree with their strict religious views and justify their actions by wrapping themselves in a black flag. They made you feel special because they wanted to turn you into a ruthless killing machine.’

  Jack kicked at the cigarette stub once more. ‘I didn’t kill nobody who wasn’t firing back at me.’

  ‘Apart from the executioner and an insurgent at the temple. That was you, wasn’t it Jack?’

  ‘Aye, but how did you know it were me?’

  ‘Sienna spotted you.’ Sam clipped Jack on the shoulder with his hand and smiled. ‘That was the best bloody shooting I’ve ever seen. First you shot the knife out of his hand and then put one right between his eyes.’

  Jack broke into a grin; happy his brother had appreciated his handiwork. ‘It were easy. I couldn’t miss from there.’

  ‘Come here, you ruffian.’ Sam grabbed his half-brother by the shoulders and hugged him hard. ‘You’re safe now, Jack, thanks to Cantara and her sister. I’m going to make sure you’re looked after properly. No-one has to know about your so-called friends.’

  Jack shook with emotion as he lost his composure and wept. ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ he said through streaming tears as he slumped against Sam’s chest.

  ‘They manipulated you, Jack. I’m going to show you how to fight back.’

  Sam looked over Jack’s shoulder at Cantara, who was dabbing her eyes with a tissue. He mouthed a silent ‘thank you’ to her and held out his hand for her to join the brothers in their moment of reconciliation.

  * * *

  The conversation stopped as the waitress brought two coffees for Sam and Cantara and a Coke for Jack. They were in a cheap café across the road from The Willard, in a quiet booth away from the other customers. Sam sat next to Cantara and without thinking, he hunted down her hand under the table. She pulled his hand towards her lap and squeezed it hard. Sam gazed into Cantara’s eyes and smiled. Cantara returned his smile and moved closer towards Sam. Across the booth, Jack sipped on his Coke and chased the lemon slice around the glass with his straw.

  ‘You were saying this terrorist, um... your friend Jamal was planning an attack that would lead to a massive loss of life?’ Sam prompted Jack.

  ‘Aye. He said he could get hold of a nuclear warhead.’

  ‘Did he say which country he was planning to attack?’

  ‘America or England. But then he was worried about security so it might be somewhere else. And he wanted it to be on a Christian holy day.’

  ‘Easter? Good Friday, maybe? That’s tomorrow,’ Cantara reminded Sam.

  ‘Jack, this is important. Did he say what kind of a building he was going to attack?’

  ‘He didn’t say, but he kept wanting to know about your oil company.’

  ‘An oil rig?’ suggested Cantara.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jack.

  ‘Perhaps they are going for an environmental impact like Deepwater Horizon. Does Daingerfield drill offshore?’ Cantara asked.

  ‘No, they specialise in onshore fracking. What did you tell Jamal, Jack?’

  ‘I told him your company were in The Woodlands in Texas.’

  ‘We’re going to have to report this to the police, Sam,’ said Cantara. ‘That means they will want to interrogate Jack about his links with the insurgents.’

  ‘Not necessarily. I’m in a conference with eighty of the most powerful men and women in the world. They control most of the world’s security apparatus. Bending the rules seems to come naturally to them.’

  Sam was interrupted by a commotion at the entrance to the café. A flame-haired woman holding a microphone was arguing with a member of staff. A cameraman and film producer flanked her. They barged their way past the waitress and scoured the café. Sam recognised the woman as the anchor to the downmarket current affairs show The World Today. He ducked his head low and watched her as she scanned the café. Failing to locate her target, she scowled and was on the point of leaving when her cameraman glanced over and caught Sam’s eye. He tapped Shaw on her arm and pointed in Sam’s direction. Shaw steeled her strong jawline and marched towards their quiet booth holding out her microphone towards Sam like a taser.

  ‘Mr Jardine!’ she said, thrusting her microphone into Sam’s face. ‘What do you say to the viewers of The World Today who are accusing you of supplying faulty materials to the oil wells in the Canadian tundra? Did your actions lead to the formation of the sinkholes and the environmental crisis we face today? Are you going to apologise?’

  Sam stood and faced the reporter with a warm smile. ‘Miss Shaw. I have long been an admirer of your television programme. May I introduce you to my friends? This is Miss Sharif, Managing Director of the Sirius Motor Company.’

  Cantara stood and smiled at the reporter. She held out her hand to Shaw. Shaw looked confused but after a few seconds, shook Cantara’s hand.

  ‘And this is my young brother Jack, who is over from England on a short holiday. He is a big fan of the Smithsonian museum.’

  Jack did not look up. He slurped the last dregs of his Coke noisily with a straw and crunched the ice with his teeth.

  ‘I would consider it an honour if you would join us at the table. Can I order you a coffee?’

  Shaw remained standing. ‘Why are you trying to hide from my viewers, Mr Jardine?’ Once more she thrust her microphone towards Sam.

  ‘Hide?’ Sam laughed. ‘Not at all. Please take a seat, Miss Shaw. I promise you full cooperation if you turn off your cameras.’

  Shaw looked at her producer, who nodded his agreement. ‘Grab a booth over there, guys. I’ve got this,’ she said to the producer and cameraman. She slid into the seat next to Jack. ‘What do you have to tell me, Mr Jardine?’

  ‘I know we are facing a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, and I’m not just talking about sinkholes in the tundra. I would like to share your investigative resources – and we might need them in a hurry.’ Sam noticed her firm expression had relaxed.

  ‘This is an exclusive, right?’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘I thought you would be... well, you know... a bit more chauvinistic,’ she said.

  Sam laughed. ‘That’s what you get for taking an idiot like Crawford at face value.’

  ‘What makes you think the sinkholes are related to Daingerfield’s fracking activities?’ Cantara asked Shaw.

  ‘You are the only company drilling in the Canadian tundra. It stands to reason.’

  ‘This conversation is off the record, isn’t it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘You will cooperate with my investigation, won’t you?’

  ‘We are both on the same side, Miss Shaw. Cantara and I have dedicated the last year of our lives to building two separate companies that will reduce the world’s carbon emissions by ten per cent. I don’t fit your profile of a climate saboteur.’

  ‘I will agree to take this conversation off the record and share my
network’s resources if you tell me the location of Daingerfield’s rigs. We’ve been searching for them for a year, but it is a massive area and I’m sure they’re well hidden.’

  ‘Daingerfield has never drilled in the Canadian tundra to my knowledge. Are you sure it’s not one of his competitors?’

  ‘Chuck Crawford told me himself they had rigs in the tundra, but refused to disclose their location.’

  ‘It seems like he’s trying to throw you off the scent,’ Cantara said.

  ‘Since Rex Daingerfield went into hiding, no-one at Daingerfield Oil’s saying anything apart from Crawford,’ Shaw said.

  ‘Rex once told me about an oil spill on a rig in Greenland last year. He thought you were already onto it,’ said Sam.

  ‘We’d heard rumours,’ said Shaw. ‘That was when Crawford pointed me in the direction the Canadian tundra.’

  ‘It sounds like he played you for a sucker, but then you stumbled on the sinkholes instead.’

  ‘So the rigs are in Greenland. What are we waiting for? I’ve got a chartered plane on standby.’ Charlotte Shaw began to stand up but Sam placed his hand on her arm.

  ‘Do you know how big Greenland is? It’s at least one and a half times the landmass of the Canadian tundra. We need something more specific.’

  ‘You’re not bullshitting me are you, Sam? I could throw your ass to the wolves if you doublecross me.’

  ‘I believe Sam is already aware of your tactics, Miss Shaw,’ said Cantara. ‘We’re only cooperating with you because we have a common objective. At least for now.’

  Shaw flicked her long hair at Cantara and delved into her bag. She pulled out a dog-eared business card and slid it towards Sam. Cantara reached over and picked it up.

  ‘We’ll get back to you once we have narrowed the search area,’ said Shaw.

  * * *

  Sam returned to the Grand Ballroom and slid back into his chair alongside the other guests. The woman to his left who had been studying the Sapientus manuscript was standing on the dais addressing The Brandenburg Group.

  ‘…the text could be some little-known natural language, written unencrypted but with an invented alphabet. In my opinion the word structure is similar to that of many language families of East and Central Asia, including Sino-Tibetan or Austroasiatic. If The Brandenburg Group would consider a six-month loan of the manuscript to my office at the Cognitive Semiotics and Ancient Languages faculty of Lund University in Sweden, then I’m sure we could develop this hypothesis to its natural conclusion.’

  ‘Thank you, Professor Nyström. An interesting view, although it may be more appropriate to divert our energies to establishing the new world government during the oncoming global catastrophe. Now if you would be so good as to pass the book to Sam Jardine on your right.’

  ‘Here, take the manuscript,’ said Professor Nyström poking him in the ribs with the weighty book.

  Sam took the book and sat down. There was a break coming in fifteen minutes and he would explain the problem of the nuclear warhead to Silverwood in private.

  ‘Where are your gloves?’ hissed Professor Nyström.

  Sam ignored the woman and leafed through the first few pages. The book was fragile and smelled musty. As Sienna had suspected, it had been written in proto-cuneiform like the document she had shown him at the temple. On each page, there was a drawing surrounded by symbols and an elaborate but fanciful script of an unknown or lost civilisation. Sam thought the drawings must be botanical or astronomical in nature, but there were several grotesque anatomical images and a few scenes that could have been diabolical or apocalyptic. The drawings lacked the charm and innocence of the ancient temple document Sienna had shown him. Yet Sam found himself drawn to the pages. I can understand why this book has intrigued the best minds for four hundred years, he mused.

  Sam ignored the strange script as he knew it had no meaning and tried to focus on the artistry behind the strokes of the quill. He picked a page at random towards the middle of the book and let his mind absorb the graphic image of a medieval castle, while also letting the patterns of the script dance in front of his eyes. Sam imagined that a series of indistinct images might flicker in his head, but nothing presented itself to him. He suspected Sienna had shown him the most elementary example of proto-cuneiform in the temple’s library, whereas the Sapientus manuscript was dark, brooding and complex.

  I should really hand it to the Frenchman, Sam thought, preparing to pass the book to the guest seated to his right, but he found himself unwittingly drawn into a depressive mindset and continued to flick the pages of the manuscript. The voices around him became irritating and inconsequential and he despaired at the so-called leaders of the free world whose self-interest disgusted him. He developed an empathy for the renaissance author who, four hundred years before, had faced a similar world crisis when he scratched at the vellum pages of the manuscript with his quill. Sam understood Sapientus’s intense anger at the rich merchants and powerful nobles who had demonised his liberal views and threatened him with charges of heresy.

  Sam turned the pages with increasing frequency as he tuned out of the meeting taking place around him. The author’s life story played out in his mind like a black and white newsreel. The man born as Michel de Sage had been a gifted but idealistic priest who had left France to search for adventure in the exotic temples of Egypt. Sam experienced the priest’s searing mental anguish and gut-wrenching despair when his illicit love affair with the Oracle was discovered, and his lover was put to death.

  Sam continued to flick the pages of the manuscript and watched the author’s life story play out in the depths of his subconscious. He experienced the emotions of confusion and anger as the priest verged on a mental breakdown and returned to Europe. He experienced deep admiration as de Sage developed a keen sense of politics and a razor-sharp analytical mind that allowed him to predict the political fortunes of his famous clients with incredible accuracy.

  Sam watched as Michel de Sage changed his name to Sapientus and accumulated incredible wealth as his fame spread across Europe.

  For his own amusement and to keep his persecutors at bay, Sapientus decided to spend the rest of his life writing a four-hundred-year almanac of world events based on his premonitions, in a language he knew his persecutors would never be able to decipher.

  Sam looked up from the pages and closed his eyes, experiencing an affinity with the author. Sapientus was a man ahead of his time who had succumbed to a mild form of insanity brought on by the death of his lover, and the petty squabbling and self-interest of the rich and powerful of renaissance Europe. He wondered at the process by which the manuscript had conveyed the inner workings of a tortured mind into his own subconscious.

  He glanced around the room and noticed a five-star general was speaking to the hushed audience about plans to establish a safe zone known as ‘The Sanctuary’ for the new world government led by The Brandenburg Club. He was describing his plans to repel unwanted refugees who would be drawn to The Sanctuary by war and starvation brought on by catastrophic climate change. There was no alternative, he suggested, but to use massive and lethal force to protect the new world government from those refugees.

  Sam shook his head in disgust and tried to refocus on the manuscript. The white-gloved man to his right tapped Sam on the shoulder and whispered in his ear in a French accent. ‘Monsieur Jardine, s'il vous plaît. I think you have had the manuscript long enough. I am something of a linguist and may be able to shed some light on the syntax used in the sentence structure logic. Would you mind passing it to me?’

  Sam ignored the Frenchman and tried to free his mind of distractions as he skipped several pages. His eyes settled on a crude picture of a grotesque gargoyle that brought a chill to his heart. He allowed his eyes to see through the details on the page and he imagined he was looking at a death-bed scene. Sapientus was an old man riddled with gout lying prostrate in a four-poster bed. A Roman Catholic priest was holding his hand and administering last rit
es. Candles flickered in the gloom and the smell of death permeated the room. The old man grasped the priest’s long black sleeve and pulled him closer so the cleric would hear his last words.

  ‘There is one who would follow me who understands the dangers that lie ahead and the choices that must be made. If he does not have the heart for the task, he must stop reading the manuscript for there will be no turning back.’

  ‘What if he decides to read on?’ asked the priest, anxious to complete the rites as it was clear the old man had moments to live.

  ‘He will learn secrets from my manuscript that will strip him of his sanity and he will be assigned responsibilities that no man should have to bear. If he fails, he will know he has brought about the end of times. If by some miracle he brings the world back from the precipice, he will live out the rest of his life scorned and persecuted by those he has saved, just as I have been.’

  ‘And what if he stops reading your manuscript?’

  ‘Then there shall be no heaven, no earth. Only hell, fire and water. The floods will destroy all that the poisonous vapours leave behind, but the rich and powerful shall cling to the soil in their wretched sanctuary like limpets to a sinking ship.’

  ‘The church has already scolded you for your views, Michel. Do not repeat them now for fear of eternal damnation.’

  ‘I am already damned, Father, just as the one who follows me is damned. He and I will share an ale together in purgatory.’

  Sam was snatched away from his apocalyptic vision of the dying man by a persistent tapping on his arm.

  ‘I must insist on reading the manuscript, Monsieur Jardine. You’ve had your allotted twenty minutes and I can tell you are confounded by the script, n'est-ce pas?’

  Sam glared at the Frenchman. ‘If you poke me one more time, I’m going to shove this manuscript down your throat. Do you understand?’ He turned his broad back on the Frenchman.