The Apocalypse Fire (Ava Curzon Trilogy Book 2)

by Dominic Selwood

  “I wasn’t,” she blustered.

  He slid his arm around her shoulders. “Still, it’s nice to know you care.”

  Ava felt her ears heating up. “I didn’t say that.”

  “No.” He smiled, pulling her into a hug. “No. You didn’t.”

  Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around him, and placed her cheek next to his, feeling a warmth and calmness settle over her for the first time in longer than she could remember.

  There was a sound over by the entranceway, and Ava turned to see two armed French gendarmes standing on the wooden walkway at the top of the stairs.

  “Dr Ava Curzon?” the one in front asked, stepping forward.

  She nodded.

  He held up an official-looking piece of paper with the word ‘INTERPOL’ stamped across the top. “This is an Interpol Red Notice. I’m arresting you for the murders of Sir Mark Jennings and Alan Swinton.”

  Chapter 73

  The Old Town

  Sana’a

  The Republic of Yemen

  IT WAS LATE in Sana’a, one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. Tradition said it had been founded by Shem, son of Noah, who had settled on the Yemeni plateau after the waters of the great flood subsided.

  Al-Irlandi headed through the ancient walls and into the Old Town, oblivious to the mad beauty of the brightly coloured adobe houses, plastered in exuberant geometric designs and wiggly white cake-icing decoration.

  The anarchy across Yemen suited him well. The civil war of the Arab Winter kept the place awash with fighters – rival governmental factions, foreign forces, militias, mujahideen, al-Qa’ida, Islamic State, and endless bands of mercenaries.

  Society had broken down completely.

  So no one looked twice at another foreigner. No one monitored his phone calls or e-mails. No one cared what he bought and sold. No one was interested in who he associated with. And no one had any idea who he was.

  It was a free-for-all, and it provided him with everything he needed in an operational base.

  As he headed deeper into the warren of buildings – some over a thousand years old – his phone rang.

  Glancing down, he saw the country code was +507.

  Panama.

  He knew immediately who it was. And also that the call was coming from somewhere far east of Panama. Far to the east even of Sana’a.

  From Guangzhou.

  He answered the phone smartly.

  “Wanshang hao.” The familiar Chinese voice was polite but distant. It was being processed through a pitch shifter.

  Al-Irlandi knew that the caller would not identify himself.

  He did not need to.

  It was the Dragon Head.

  He would not stay on the phone for long. His carefulness was one of the reasons why he and his organization were so effective – and had been for centuries.

  Al-Irlandi was not a member of the Dragon Head’s sworn brotherhood. Far from it. But one of the Dragon Head’s lieutenants had been the first to recognize al-Irlandi’s special gift – all those years ago in Northern Ireland, in Lisburn’s notorious Maze prison.

  Since then, the Dragon Head had taken an interest in al-Irlandi, helping him find his feet when he had finished serving his sentence.

  For that, al-Irlandi would always owe him a debt of gratitude.

  The Dragon Head sounded agitated.

  “Something highly unfortunate happened tonight,” he began. “One of the Invisible Brothers of the Red Crane has been killed. In France.”

  Al-Irlandi was listening attentively.

  “We had invested much time in certain events due to transpire in Damascus this evening. We had set them all up very carefully.”

  “I can be in Syria in a few hours,” al-Irlandi replied.

  “No. The moment has passed. But the French gendarmes arrested an English woman at the scene. They have placed her into Police Nationale custody in Toulouse. This is not the first time she has interfered. There was another occasion, before, at Wewelsburg Castle. I now require bao chou.”

  “I will avenge you,” Al-Irlandi replied. The line went dead.

  A few seconds later, a photograph arrived by SMS.

  Al-Irlandi studied it carefully.

  It showed a woman with brown eyes and long dark hair. She could have been anyone.

  Pretty, though.

  Unusually, she was standing beside an old-fashioned-looking motor bike.

  He swiped the photograph away and pulled up his phone’s address book.

  He had good men in Marseille.

  Reliable. Ex-military.

  They had done a good job with him in the Paris catacombs against that pathetic professor.

  They knew what to do.

  He would rendezvous with them in Toulouse at first light.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  POST SCRIPT

  Turin Shroud

  The Turin Shroud remains one of the Catholic Church’s most controversial relics. Despite its fame, it is only exhibited on special occasions. The Church’s official view on its authenticity is cautious.

  MI13

  By the end of World War Two, the UK War Office’s Directorate of Military Intelligence had seventeen ‘MI’ sections. MI13 was responsible for Special Operations. Today, only the domestic Security Service (MI5) and the foreign Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) have known functions.

  The Apocalypse

  The last book of the Bible has many titles, usually involving the word ‘Apocalypse’ or ‘Revelation(s)’ and a name such as John, John the Apostle, John the Divine, John of Patmos, John the Elder, John the Theologian, and other variants. Christian tradition says that its author was John the Apostle (son of Zebedee), who is usually believed to be ‘the beloved disciple’. He is also credited with writing the Gospel of John and the three letters (epistles) of John. Nowadays, mainstream scholars think this is unlikely. The Greek writing style in the gospel and letters is refined and uses a similar vocabulary, whereas the Greek in the Apocalypse is different, rougher, and contains errors. The Apocalypse recounts that it was written on the Aegean island of Patmos, whereas the gospel and letters are generally thought to have originated in the Christian community at Ephesus. Parts of the Apocalypse may date from AD 60, with the majority likely to be from the time of the Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96). The Gospel of John is the latest of all the gospels, usually dated to AD 90–110.

  Skoptsy

  The Skoptsy were a real group of castrati from Oryol in Russia. They flourished from the late 1700s into the 1930s. Some small pockets of believers remain, and they continue with their ancient faith and rituals.

  La Santa Muerte

  La Santa Muerte is an increasingly popular religion in Mexico and the southern states of the US. It is based on a syncretic fusion of Catholicism and indigenous Mexican religions. There is no single gang called La Santa Muerte, although the cult is strong in the world of organized crime. Individual members of various gangs worship La Santa Muerte, and bold tattoos showing allegiance and devotion are commonplace.

  Knights of Saint John | Order of Malta

  In over a thousand years of continuous history, the order has had many names, including the Hospital, the Hospital of St John, the Knights Hospitaller, the Knights of Saint John, the Knights of Rhodes, the Knights of Malta, and the Order of Saint John, It’s official name today is the Order of Malta. It still exists as a military order of the Catholic Church, and it is an independent country with observer status at the United Nations. Its armed wing is the Military Corps of the Association of Italian Knights of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Corpo Militare dell’Associazione dei Cavalieri Italiani del Sovrano Militare Ordine di Malta), whose soldiers serve with the Italian military. Its recent military peacekeeping deployments have included Albania, Kosovo, and the former Yugoslavia. Its Prince and Grand Master is answerable directly to the pope. The last two knights to hold this position, from 1988 to the present, have both been English.

  Ou
r Lady of Philermos

  The icon of Our Lady of Philermos is real, and is the most sacred relic of the Order of Malta.

  Cathars

  The Cathars were first recorded in Europe in the early 1100s. Although they appeared in Germany, Italy, and France, the epicenter of their activity quickly became the Languedoc. Pope Innocent III launched a crusade against them from 1209–29. It was the only Crusade ever called against Christians. The Cathars were destroyed, and the Languedoc was annexed to France. The last traditional Cathars were gone by the 1320s. The mass burnings at Montségur in 1244 are commemorated by a monument in the Prat dels Cremats, as described in the book.

  Count Raymond VI of Toulouse (1156–1222)

  Raymond was count of Toulouse, Saint-Gilles, Rouergue, and Melgueil, duke of Narbonne, and marquis of Provence and Gothia. He was also a grandson of King Louis VI of France. He was excommunicated in 1208–9, and again from 1211 until he died excommunicate. Despite his ongoing excommunication, he became an affiliate (confrater) of the Knights of Saint John in 1218, and was received as a full brother of the order on his deathbed in 1222. He was buried in the Knights of Saint John’s chapel of Saint-Rémi in Toulouse. There is a mural of him in the Supreme Court Chamber, Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.

  Arnaud Amalric (died 1225)

  Arnaud Amalric (or Amaury) was abbot of the great abbey of Cîteaux. When the crusader army assembled before Béziers in 1209, he is alleged to have told a crusader, “Kill them all, God will know his own.” However, most modern historians do not take this as accurate history, as it was recorded by a monk called Caesarius of Heisterbach, living miles away in Germany, who wrote about it in a book of stories for novices. Caesarius also admitted that he had no source for the story, except that “it was said” that Amalric spoke the words. The exact phrase Caesarius ascribes to Arnaud is: Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. (Kill them. For the Lord knows who are his.) The second part is a direct reference to Saint Paul’s second letter to Timothy: cognovit Dominus qui sunt eius (the Lord knows who are his, 2 Timothy 2:19).

  Peter Bartholomew

  The story of Peter Bartholomew is told by many chroniclers of the First Crusade. They relate how, in 1097–1098, Peter Bartholomew experienced visions which led him to find the Holy Lance at Antioch. They also relate how, the following year, Peter failed a Trial by Fire to prove he had been honest about the visions, and died of his injuries.

  Saint Margaret Clitherow (1556–1586)

  Margaret Clitherow was caught harbouring Catholic priests in Yorkshire during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Despite being pregnant, she was stripped, laid onto a sharp rock the size of a fist, and the door from her house was placed on top of her. It was piled with rocks until her spine broke and she was crushed to death.

  ARAMAIC

  Aramaic was the mother tongue of Jesus and his earliest followers. It first appeared around 1000 BC as the language of the Aramaeans, and was later taken up by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. It became widespread across the Middle East, where for a while it acted as a lingua franca. When the Hebrews were carried off to Babylon in the sixth century BC, they switched their day-to-day language from Hebrew to Aramaic, and Aramaic remained their common spoken language throughout the centuries of their return, the Roman occupation, and the early diaspora. Therefore, in Jesus’s times, Aramaic was the ordinary language of Jews in Judaea and Galilee.

  The Aramaic words used in the book are listed below in alphabetical order. As Aramaic had its own alphabet, the words are written as pronounced. (The apostrophe represents the letter ayin.)

  Knista | Synagogue

  The Aramaic word knista means ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly’ (originally the people rather than the place). The Greek word synagoge (συναγωγή) is a translation of the Aramaic and Hebrew word meaning ‘gathering’. The Aramaic and Hebrew words have the root KNS, which gives the name of the modern Israeli parliament: the Knesset.

  Meshiha* | Messiah or Christ

  The original Hebrew word is Mashiah, and its Greek translation is Christos (Χριστός). In all three languages it means ‘the anointed one’.

  Rabbuni | Teacher

  This Aramaic/Hebrew word is used in the Bible in Mark 10:51 and John 20:16, where it appears in Greek letters as ῥαββουνί. Scholars do not agree whether it is Aramaic or Hebrew.

  Sheliah (pl. Sheliahin*) | Apostle

  The Aramaic word Sheliah, and its Greek translation, Apostolos (ἀπόστολος), are both based on a meaning of people being ‘sent forth’ or ‘dispatched’.

  Urha* | The Way

  The Acts of the Apostles records that the earliest Christians in Jerusalem called themselves ‘the Way’, or he hodos (ἡ ὁδός) in the biblical Greek.

  The original Aramaic names used in the book are:

  Bartalmai | Bartholomew

  Matai | Matthew

  Shim’on Kepha | Simon Peter

  Kepha is Aramaic for ‘rock’. The Greek for rock is Petros (Πέτρος), and the Latin is Petrus. They are the root of the modern name, Peter.

  Shim’on Qan’ana’ | Simon the Zealot

  The Aramaic word Qan’ana’ means a member of the Zealots (political group). In biblical Greek this is Zelotes (ζηλωτής) or Kananaios / Kananites (Καναναῖος / Κανανίτης). See the text of the book for a fuller discussion.

  Tauma | Thomas

  Ya’qov | James

  The literal translation of Ya’qov is Jacob, which later evolved into James. For example, the followers of King James II of England and VII of Scotland were called Jacobites.

  Yehuda Siqari’ | Judas Iscariot

  The Latin sicarius (pl. sicarii) means dagger man. The Aramaic word is siqari’ (pl. siqarin). The traditional etymology of Iscariot (Ishkariota) is Ish Kerioth, meaning a man from Kerioth. See the text of the book for a fuller discussion.

  Yehuda Thaddai | Judas Thaddeus

  Yeshua | Jesus (Joshua)

  The correct translation of Yeshua into English is Joshua. But, traditionally, people have always used the Latinized version of the name, which is Jesus.

  Yohanan | John

  Andrew and Philip

  These two apostles had ordinary Greek names: Andreas (Ἀνδρέας) and Philippos (Φίλιππος).

  * The last ‘h’ in the words meshiha, sheliah, sheliahin, and urha is pronounced with a guttural sound like the ‘ch’ in the Scottish word ‘loch’ and the German name ‘Bach’.

  SOURCES CITED

  Bible references

  For consistency, all biblical quotations are taken from the King James Bible. Quotations by Danny Aronov are taken from the English edition of the Tanakh by the Jewish Publication Society.

  Chapter 11. The reference to prophecies of the End Times in the Tanakh are in Nevi’im: Isaiah 24–7, 33–5; Jeremiah 33:14–26; Ezekiel 38–9; Joel 3:9–17; and Zechariah 12–14. ‘As I looked on’ is from Ketuvim: Daniel 7:9–10 (JPS).

  Chapter 19. ‘For there are some eunuchs’ is from Matthew 19:12.

  Chapter 24. ‘For if we believe that Jesus died’ is from 1 Thessalonians 4:14–18.

  Chapter 31. The Biblical accounts of Jesus’s siblings are from Matthew 13:55–6 and Mark 6:3.

  Chapter 33. ‘From Lebanon come with me’ is from the Ketuvim: Song of Songs 4:8 (JPS).

  Chapter 51. ‘There was war in heaven’ is from the Apocalypse 12:7–11.

  Chapter 55. ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day’ is from the Apocalypse 1:7–11.

  Chapter 55. ‘Hail, thou that art’ is from Luke 1: 28, 42.

  Chapter 56. ‘I John, who also am your brother’ is from the Apocalypse 1:7–11.

  Chapter 64. ‘These are they which came out of great tribulation’ is from the Apocalypse 12:7–11.

  Chapter 65. ‘And did all drink the same spiritual drink’ is from 1 Corinthians 10:4. ‘For I am already being poured out’ is from 2 Timothy 4:6. (New King James Version). ‘I saw a woman sit upon’ is from
the Apocalypse 17:3–6.

  Chapter 66. ‘And the angel took the censer’ is from the Apocalypse 8:5. ‘Babylon the great is fallen’ is from the Apocalypse, 18:2, 3, 8. ‘These shall hate the whore’ is from the Apocalypse 17:16. ‘And again they said, Alleluia’ is from the Apocalypse 19:3.

  Chapter 67. ‘And there followed hail and fire’ is from the Apocalypse 8:7. ‘The time has come for judging the dead’ is from the Apocalypse 11:18

  Chapter 69. ‘But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable’ is from the Apocalypse 21:8

  Chapter 70. ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ’ is from Apocalypse 1:1 (my translation)

  Acknowledgements

  As usual, I have a long list of friends to thank for their deep expertise and friendly guidance.

  For heroic help with everything from maths to grenades: Dr James Campbell, Rosaria Galeota, Claudia Gold, Charles Pierre MacDonald, Henrietta McMicking, Philip Rubenstein, Andreas Selwood, Rev. Dr Simon Thorn, Tom Ward, and Robin Wilson.

  A special thank you to Dr Lindsay G H Hall, Mrs Claire Powell, and Dr Mark Shuttleworth for going above and beyond in their willingness to answer my endless questions.

  For artwork: Delia Selwood for Rasputin’s soulful sketch of John the Baptist, and Mrs Claire Powell for the extraordinarily cool Aramaic inscription.