by Leo Mark
Each of the monks carried a key hanging on a string around his neck. This key had been passed from father to son down the centuries. Each of the members there present held a seniority within the society which went from one to twelve, with the grand master holding the highest level. The monks removed the black strings from their necks and one by one, starting with the lowest in seniority, they placed their keys in a certain lock. The movements were synchronized, in that only when a monk of a lower level had turned his key could the next senior monk´s key be fitted. Thus the white monk´s key was the last one. After he had turned his key, once again a noise was heard from the other side. And when the noise stopped, three of the monks pushed against the great iron door, which opened.
Through the door they could see a small marble room decorated in gold and silver, with some drawings on the wall and some cuneiform inscriptions, a mixture of Egyptian and Sumerian. At the end of the room there was a big stone table and on it were twelve wooden boxes, side by side. The boxes had no locks or any apparent means of opening them. They were covered with dust. Then, one by one, each of the monks picked up a box. One of them should contain what was known as the Holy Grail, the holy chalice used by Jesus Christ at the Last Supper with his disciples, and which had been used by Joseph of Arimathaea to collect his blood when he was crucified. All the monks - important men, businessmen, politicians and even a prince - were the protectors of the Holy Grail and its secret, not of their own choice but because of a legacy passed down from father to son through the ages. These men were members of a secret society which called itself the Priorate of Sian. The name was no longer of much importance, as they had been unmasked in the previous century. Moreover, others had created secret societies with the same name. However these men were the members of the true Priorate of Sian, created centuries before to protect the Holy Grail and the secret of Jesus Christ on earth.
What none of the members knew was that the real Holy Grail was not in any of the boxes. One of them contained a perfect replica of the chalice, but the real one had been very well hidden under the control of the grand master since the beginning; it had never been far from his family and would stay near them until the time arrived. Everything that had happened that night was only a show, to direct attention away from the real location of the most precious relic on earth. The theater was necessary, for amongst the members there could be traitors, or one of them could let slip information to an outsider without meaning to. The same show had been staged centuries before when the false Grail was buried in the little church. Perhaps at that time some information got out, because their enemies had got very close to the place where the false Grail was hidden. If there really was a traitor in their midst, the whole simulation would not be in vain.
The grand master knew this. The idea was that each of them should keep a box. So, in theory, none of them would know which box the sacred relic was in. In single file the monks left the chamber. They closed the main door, took the keys back and returned to the church, closing all the doors and passages through which they had passed. When they got back to the church they carried out some society rituals, were informed about some other matters, then embraced each other and left by the back door. Each one got into his car, which disappeared into the night. They returned to their own countries, to their homes, where they would conceal the box that each of them had taken, until the right moment came.
CHAPTER 5
Washington DC, 21st February 1991.
The US Senator for New York, George Griffin, was asleep in bed beside his wife. It was Sunday and the sun had not yet risen. It had been a cold night and the silence outside their big house was unusual for a Sunday. Normally the neighbors gave parties or dinners which lasted well into the night, infuriating the senator with music at top volume, which could be heard blocks away. George couldn´t understand how today´s young people could enjoy that sort of music, let alone at that volume. George and his wife lived in a big house, number 3053 on P Street Northwest in Washington DC. They had moved there from New York in
the eighties.
After a few minutes, the first rays of the sun began to shine through the glass door which gave on to the veranda of the senator´s suite. The next thing that happened was that a buzzer began to sound insistently, at the frequency of those dog whistles, tormenting and without let-up. The senator´s wife Jane was the first to hear it. She started to shift around in the bed, and tried to cover her head with the blanket, but in vain: she couldn´t get the noise out of her head. It wasn´t six a.m. yet, and on Sundays they usually got up after ten. She tried shutting each ear with a pillow but this didn´t work either, so Jane decided to wake her husband and get him to find out where the damned noise was coming from, and to put a stop to it. Lying face down with the pillows over her head, Jane, who slept on the right hand side of the bed, stretched out her long right arm and started shaking the senator, who had always been a heavy sleeper. They could be dropping bombs on Washington just then and the senator would sleep through it. He realized that someone was shaking him but preferred to ignore the fact, hoping that it was just a dream, or even a nightmare, or simply that the unfortunate person that was doing it would stop. Jane knew her husband wouldn´t wake up easily, so she decided to take the pillows off her head and call him by name.
‘George, can´t you hear that damn noise?’
‘Er… What noise?’ grumbled the senator still half asleep, and lacking the courage to open his eyes.
‘That infernal buzzing, what could it be?’
The senator had no choice, he would have to get up and find out where the damned buzzing was coming from, or he wouldn´t be able to get back to sleep. Gradually he got his eyes open, rubbed them with his hands to help him wake up, and slowly struggled to his feet like a zombie. He and his wife had stayed up late watching old movies. It was a rare privilege, as they were almost always invited out for dinners or other social events.
‘That noise really is most irritating!’ exclaimed the senator, as he fumbled for his glasses on the bedside table.
He got up then and started walking round the room, trying to see where the noise was coming from. He went from side to side, but the volume of the buzzing didn´t seem to vary. He looked through the glass of the door which gave on to the veranda, trying to see if there was anything in the road responsible for the noise. He opened the veranda door and went out. The sound diminished. Then he closed the veranda door from the outside: the sound stopped.
‘The noise can only be coming from inside the house. Could it be something to do with the wiring?’ he asked himself.
He went back into the room, walked over to the door, opened it and went out. Once again the noise ceased. How could the sound be audible only from inside the room? He went back in and closed the door. He went over and unplugged the TV and DVD player, but the sound continued. It was just then that he felt a twitch of unease, remembering what was hidden in his room and what his father had said to him years before.
‘It’s not possible. Could the time have come?’ he thought aloud.
‘What did you say, honey? Time for what?’ asked Jane, who was frightened at the expression on her husband’s face. ‘What’s
going on?’
‘Honey, please, get away from the bed, I’ve got to move it,’ said the senator, plucking up his courage.
‘Move the bed? What are you talking about?’ answered his wife, getting increasingly worried.
‘Help me push!’
The two of them started to push the bed, dragging it across the wooden floor.
‘I have to open the safe.’
‘But honey, the safe isn’t under the bed, it’s in our dressing room. Are you feeling OK?’
George kneeled down, applied pressure to one of the floor boards and slipped his hand behind the wall, where he had pressed the wood down. He pulled a lever which was hidden behind the wall and at once, as if by magic, a piece of the floor gave way, revealing a hole where a safe attached to the hidden wall cou
ld be seen.
‘This safe!’ exclaimed George with an enigmatic look.
‘But how did that safe get there? Why didn´t you ever tell me about it?’ asked his wife with a rather hurt expression.
‘Honey, I couldn´t tell you or anyone about this safe. If someone had threatened you you’d have told them all about it.’
‘What do you keep in this safe?’
George supported his weight with his hands on the floor and lowered his legs into the hole. He began to enter the combination of the lock. There were more than ten numbers and ten letters. Then they heard the click as the workings of the old safe slotted into place. George pulled the door towards him and they could see a fluorescent green light coming from the back of the safe, from inside an ancient wooden box which was hidden under some papers. He took hold of the box and pulled it slowly towards him. He lifted it very carefully with his two hands and placed it on the wooden floor. He re-locked the safe and, supporting himself on the floor, pushed up with his legs and got out of the hole.
With the wooden box removed from the safe the buzzing had got even louder, and was now almost deafening. George pulled a lever set at one end of the hole, and the floorboards returned to their original position.
George picked up the box carefully and with both hands placed it on the bed.
‘Honey, please, tell me what that thing is. Is it radioactive? What’s that light?’ asked Jane, still worried.
‘Calm down, woman, you will understand. Don´t worry, it isn’t radioactive - at least, I don´t think it is.’
The senator opened the old wooden box and slowly, with one hand, drew out of it a chalice which was also made of wood.
‘Look at that, honey. Can you guess what it is?’ asked the senator with a wide smile on his face.
‘No idea. An old wooden jug?’ replied his wife sarcastically.
‘It’s what they call the Holy Grail.’
‘The Holy Grail? My God, then it’s been with you the whole time?’
‘The Holy Grail never left the hands of our family. My ancestors made a number of replicas and scattered them around the world. Wars and more wars have been fought because of it. Many people thought they were in possession of the true Grail, millionaire collectors and even the Vatican have replicas they believe are the real thing. If the true Grail had fallen into the wrong hands, humanity today would be lost.’
‘But how so? How can a mere relic have such power over humanity?’
‘My dear, the Holy Grail isn’t just any old relic. It’s the source of the power of God here on earth. It contains the blood of the son of God and it’s through this blood that Jesus will be born again on earth to save us once more.’
‘I’m sorry honey, but I don’t see any blood there. And what’s this light shining out of the base of the chalice?’
The senator gripped the chalice with his two hands against his chest. With an effort he broke off the base.
‘Honey have you gone mad - you´ve just destroyed the Holy Grail?’ said Jane, desperately trying to stop her husband.
‘Watch this.’
George, holding the chalice by the handle, twisted it against the palm of his right hand. A shining object slipped out onto his hand. It was obvious that the noise was coming from the object. In a few seconds the noise stopped and the bright green light went out.
‘Honey, this is the real Holy Grail. This container holds the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, who is also our distant ancestor.’
‘Ancestor?’ asked Jane, who was quite bewildered by all this.
‘Honey, sit here on the bed, I´ll tell you the whole story. You and I are distant cousins. Our great-grandfathers were brothers. For safety’s sake the surnames were changed, something we always do when danger gets close. Our family is directly descended from Jesus Christ. Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a daughter called Sarah, and we are descended from Sarah. How do you think the Holy Grail got into my possession? Joseph of Arimathaea left it in Sarah’s keeping for her to pass to her children and them to their children, and so on. Of course, the family of Sarah never faced difficulties; there were always people close by to protect the keepers of the Grail. For centuries the Holy Grail has been hidden, guarded and protected. A secret society was formed to guard the secret and the true whereabouts of the Grail. This society, centuries after the death of Christ, after wars and tribulations and a break-up, has been brought together again and given the name Priorate of Sian.
‘Heavens, this is all just so amazing,’ said Jane, her eyes full of tears.
‘At the time Jesus died, an angel went to Joseph of Arimathaea and gave him this cylinder. The angel told him to collect the blood of Jesus and keep it in here, and said that only those with traces of the DNA of Jesus could open it. And what’s more, he said that Jesus would be reborn from the blood which Joseph saved. The idea was to keep the DNA practically intact, and so in the first century, after Sarah had had children and grandchildren, it was decided that our family would only marry within itself. I think that this too was an instruction given to Sarah herself by the angel, years after her first children were born.’
‘And how are you proposing to get Jesus reborn from this blood?’
‘By cloning!’
‘Cloning? I don´t believe it. Who could make a human clone?’
‘Someone very close to you,’ said George, and she fell silent, thinking, for a few seconds.
‘Ah, now I understand, that was why you insisted that Thomas should take up genetic engineering. It’s your plan for him to make a clone of Jesus?’ asked his wife, angry now, trying to organize her thoughts and recollections, and remembering how George had channeled the desires and the studies of her son Thomas towards genetics. ‘But a human clone has never been made before, how could it be done?’
‘It is possible; our current technology is very advanced. It only hasn’t been done yet because no government or company was willing to fund the research, but theoretically it’s possible and that’s what Thomas studied. We need him to make the clone. This secret, Jane, cannot go outside our family. And one more thing: Jesus will have to be born in the womb of our granddaughter Sarah.’
‘My God, my little granddaughter!’
‘I always knew that the Grail would manifest itself around this time, but I didn´t think it would be so soon. Luckily Thomas has become a specialist in the field, and our granddaughter is mature enough to have a baby.’
‘But what if Sarah refuses?’
‘She can´t refuse, the future of humanity depends on her. My problem isn’t with Sarah, it’s with her father. He could be the one who’s reluctant, with all that stuff about ethics.’
‘I don´t get it. Why do you say the future of humanity is at stake?’
‘Jesus came to earth the first time to save us. God wanted to destroy the human race because we were losing faith and we were very disobedient. That was when Jesus intervened, to show God that we weren’t so bad after all and that we deserved a second chance.’
‘And we weren’t so bad after all. To prove it we just went ahead and killed the son of God,’ retorted his wife sarcastically.
‘I think all that was staged. If Jesus hadn’t died and risen again, perhaps he wouldn´t be remembered as he is today, and the human race wouldn´t have recovered its faith in God. I think his mission was partially fulfilled.’
‘And why does Jesus have to be reborn from his blood? Can´t he just come back again?’
‘Humanity has to be prepared for his return and we can only prepare humanity with the help of Jesus himself. Maybe Jesus will be made flesh in this clone we are to make, maybe not, I´m not sure. I have some theories, but nothing certain; we will only know for sure when the baby is born. Honey, you can´t talk about this to anyone. Now we are in greater danger than before: if our enemies discover our plans we will all be killed. The lords of the world are controlled by hidden forces, and the same lords of the world have been after us for years.’
‘These lords
of the world you talk about - are they part of that secret society the Illuminati you´re always mentioning?’
‘Exactly that; the Illuminati are controlled by Satan and he is the one most interested in preventing Jesus from returning or being reborn. Otherwise he will be unable to rule our planet. Let´s accept that many members of the Illuminati are only in it because they believe they are doing good, but they have no idea what is really going on. They control a secret society called the Bilderberg Club, you must have heard me mention it. Its members are no more, no less than the owners of the world. Kings, princes, queens, presidents, bankers, press magnates, politicians, billionaires. Their intention is to control the world and create a single government, strong enough to run things as it wants in whatever country. When this happens, Satan will take power, for this is the only way he can dominate the whole world. Just imagine if Satan became president of the USA today. If he was unmasked and started doing what he plans to with the planet, other countries would go to war with America and even America couldn´t survive with the whole world against it. If he takes power through a single world government, no one will be able to stop him, countries wouldn´t go to war with their own government. Then we will live in eternal slavery, and the human race will be lost. Only the return of Jesus can stop that.’
‘But honey, you talk as if Satan was a being of flesh and blood.’
‘Jane, Satan is as much flesh and blood as you or I.’
CHAPTER 6
New York, 21st February 1991
The old telephone started ringing at eleven in the morning. The phone was in the living room and Thomas was in his bedroom. He had gone to bed at eight a.m., after a night spent poring over the results of researches and tests in his personal laboratory, which was set up in one of the bedrooms of his New York apartment. Thomas could hear the phone ringing in the distance, but he didn´t have the strength to get up and go to the living room to answer it. He decided to ignore it and hope they’d give up. Who’d be calling him at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning? Thomas lived alone in a large apartment. His wife had left him several years earlier precisely because of his obsession with research, his unending work and the unearthly hours he kept, leaving no time for the family. His wife, who was fed up with the whole thing, decided to move in with their daughter Sarah until she found her own place, but ended up staying. The phone went on ringing, they didn´t give up, and Thomas had even more difficulty getting up than his father George. But it seemed he had no choice: either he answered the damned phone or it would go on ringing all day. He got up with his eyes still shut and fumbled his way along the wall until he found the light switch. He switched on the light, opened the bedroom door, and dragged himself along the corridor, in his under-pants and slippers.