Fallen Masters (2 page)

“You mean you were serious about that?”

“If you don’t put it on the teleprompter, I’m going to try and wing it, and that will make it worse.”

“All right, all right,” the studio floor manager said. “Just a minute.”

Dave stared into the three teleprompters, which were just below the camera lenses. “I’m waiting.”

“Coming up—now,” the director said.

The story on the teleprompter changed, and Dave acknowledged, “Thanks.”

“We’re going to hear about this one, Dave. This is the kookiest of them all.”

“I wish you were right,” the studio floor manager said.

“Come on, you mean you actually believe this?”

“I’m afraid I do,” she said.

“Ten seconds, stand by.”

Dave nodded and looked at the camera. When the red light came on, he began to speak.

“Have you ever had one of those feelings that nag at you? You know what I’m talking about, a smell that is familiar but you just can’t place it, a voice, face, or event that is just on the other side of memory, or a tune that haunts you from your past?

“I’m having just such a sensation now. There is something up, something going on—and though I don’t know what it is, I know that it is
mon-u-ment-al
! It is of earth-shaking proportions, and when I say earth shaking, I’m not just engaging in hyperbole.

“Whatever this is—and for lack of a better word, I am going to call it a sinister shadow—it is hanging over our heads now like the fabled Sword of Damocles. Is this merely another one of Crazy Dave’s conspiracy theories?

“No, I’m not saying that there is a Nazi settlement on the moon, or there are aliens among us in high-ranking positions. I’m not saying that the Illuminati control all the governments of the world.

“I can’t be weaving a conspiracy out of this, because I don’t have enough of a grasp on this to formulate a hypothesis, or even to ask a question.

“Let me keep this very simple: Responsible and believable people, speaking off the record and with the assurance of anonymity, have told me of a disturbing paradigm, great and troubling movements that are taking place in religious, scientific, and political circles. I don’t know what it is—but I do know that it is making strange bedfellows, bringing about cooperation between the most disparate sectors of all human society. And while this cooperation would normally be considered a good thing, I am told these meetings are not the result of some universal brotherhood of man. This coming together is not anything born of altruism but rather a desperate seeking of the deliverance of humankind from this—sinister shadow.

“I feel as if all humanity is in a car, driving toward the edge of a cliff, headed toward one final catastrophic car accident. And the biggest problem is that while some of us can see the accident coming at us in slow motion, we can’t figure out how to put on the brakes. I don’t have the answers, but I can promise you that I am going to do my level best to find the truth and bring it to you. The one thing that I know in my heart is true is that something of epic proportions is coming toward us, and we soon might be faced with making some pretty important choices.

“Choices, ladies and gentlemen. Choices that might change the world.”

Hampton, in his signature sign-off, held his hand up, palm facing the camera. “From New York, this is Dave Hampton. Good night, America.”

As soon as he had delivered the sign-off, the telephones in the cable network studio began to ring off the hook, and within the hour, emails and tweets flooded into Dave’s own phone and swamped his website. Dave looked at the response and was both relieved and afraid. He had taken a gamble tonight and knew that the network would be breathing down his neck for what it would probably consider a bold stunt just for ratings.

But people were interested in—no, deeply concerned about—his report and felt they had to reach out to him to express their emotional responses to the news. He just wished he knew what he was going to tell them, for if his sources were correct, the truth was far worse than anything they could imagine.

CHAPTER

2

Vatican City

Giovanni Giuseppe Battista, known to the world as Pope Genaro I, strode purposefully along the corridor of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican with two of his most senior and trusted cardinals. The Holy Father, as spiritual leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, felt the burden weighing heavily on his shoulders this day.

He was a tall man, rail thin at age seventy-two, who wore thick wire-rimmed glasses that gave him an intellectual look, which belied his deeply held commitment to charity for all people and his natural personal humility. In the deep pocket of his white cassock, the familiar “uniform” of his religious office, he fingered a simple wooden set of rosary beads and prayed silently, almost unconsciously.

As Genaro walked to what might be most important meeting of his life, he found himself thinking about the nature of time. With a heavy heart, Genaro was struck by a sense of ending rather than beginning—on the line of human history that stretched back some tens or hundreds of thousands of years, depending on where one pegged the creation of the first man. And to his sorrow, he silently prayed for the billions of souls who currently resided on the planet Earth, whose ultimate salvation was his greatest care, for he feared that in this most crucial hour he might fail them as their shepherd.

He and Cardinals Luigi Morricone and Zachary Yamba were the last to walk into the meeting of representatives from the world’s greatest religions, representing a huge percentage of the entire world’s population. The pope sat in a high-backed chair (with his cardinals at designated spots behind the pontiff) at a huge conference table that had been set up on the floor before the altar in one of the most familiar worship spaces on the planet: the Sistine Chapel. Countless prayers had been offered to heaven in this sacred space but never had it been the site of such a meeting that crossed over such ancient and complicated divides—chasms even—between and among the faiths of the world. Never had there been an event that would warrant a gathering like this. Until now.

The major religious traditions were represented by nine persons, one person each for this ad hoc council, called the Council of Faith. “Cataclysmic change is descending upon the earth,” the Holy See had stated in its invitation to the various religious leaderships. “We invite you to gather to discuss the opportunities for great change.” Rather a mysterious summons, yet the response had been unanimous. All those bodies who had been invited had dispatched an ambassador to Rome, for each had held a piece to the enigmatic puzzle that faced them. The duty to save their followers trumped any conflict in ideology.

The Dalai Llama, exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists and one of the most recognized faces in the world, had flown in from London for this “summit of summits,” as some in the press had dubbed it. “Enlightenment not shared is not enlightenment at all,” he had said upon his departure from Heathrow amid extraordinarily high security.

A Hindu holy man of Mumbai, India, had provided this insight: “This is but another turn in the eternal cycle of death and reincarnation. In our belief, Shiva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver are forces of dark energies and light and are the fabric of our universe.”

Representatives of Judaism and Islam, two faiths that had sprung from the same patriarchal figure, Abraham, came to sit side by side for this conference of world religions, as had Orthodox and Protestant Christians. The Tao, the ancient “way” to faith and salvation, was represented as well, as were Sikhs, who believed in a continual cycle of reincarnation until all beings merged with One God.

Genaro welcomed them to his home and the members of the extraordinary body listened to his words, spoken in Italian and English, with translations provided by linguists brought along for that purpose. Only the Dalai Lama sat imperturbably alone, a solitary saffron-robed figure among a collection of clerics vested in the differing styles of their religions.

“Our human situation is being affected, or perhaps I should say
afflicted,
in a way not seen since some of our most ancient scriptures were written down by distant ancestors. Both science and religion are reporting strange phenomena in this age, unlike any in memory. These forces, which may be called ‘evil’ are manifesting themselves in the lives of many billions here on Earth. Why? Well, that is for us as theologians to attempt to answer. But even before that, it is our responsibility to
act
to save our fellow human beings from a dark terror unlike any other known to mankind.

“There have been natural phenomena of late that, in themselves, are not threatening to the entire world, but taken together indicate the possibility of malevolent forces at work: earthquakes, floods, potential pandemics of disease, even mental instability that manifests itself in man-made catastrophes such as war and genocide. There have always been events that have created misfortune and disaster for man, but the level of instability has struck us as something new. Something which may endanger all of humanity.”

Pope Genaro looked around the table that gleamed and reflected the room on its brilliant surface.

“But we do not represent all the faiths of this world. We cannot be universal, by our very nature. Therefore, how can we speak for any who are not represented here? There must be millions of them…,” stated the imam, a world-renowned Muslim scholar from Alexandria, Egypt. He spoke the words aloud, but each of the men at the table—and all were men—held the same thought in his mind.

“Of course, we can only do our best, both in the name of those of our own faiths and for all the people of the world. That is what we are called to do,” the chief rabbi of Jerusalem responded.

The Sikh leader, a tall man in a somber gray suit with a starched white turban, smiled sadly and said, “All gods are subject to mankind’s ways, whether they care to be or not. That is, when we choose the path of evil over the path of good and betray the soul for base purposes, not only do we ourselves suffer, but so does the force for all good in the universe.”

“Let us be faithful, then, to our beliefs and in one another,” the pope said. “And let us convoke this urgent meeting with prayer. I ask that each leader present offer a prayer of his choosing, in the words of his faith, to move our minds and stir our hearts with purpose in this hour. For we each have been given signs, regardless of our beliefs, and these signs point to a coming event that threatens the future of man. We may not be able to avoid this fate, but we must strive to help all of mankind face this crisis.”

*   *   *

Outside Rome, in the Italian countryside, farmers awoke that day to discover that a large meteorite had fallen to earth and scorched their land. Livestock lay dead throughout a several-square-kilometer area, and crops, mostly barley and corn, were ruined. Their lives were ruined, as well, with the loss of half a year’s income and the need to replenish the dead livestock that would have provided milk and meat for hundreds of families in the region.

The event made the local newspapers and television news but got little mention beyond that.

CHAPTER

3

Marcus Jackson was a very popular President of the United States. As an African American who had faced cultural and political obstacles all his life with quiet determination and a solid core of honorable ethics, he worked tirelessly toward his goals, and those traits helped him to achieve the nation’s highest office. Married to a Vietnamese woman who was a naturalized citizen, this power couple was a poster for tolerance and social cohesion. It didn’t hurt that their fifteen-year-old son was a charming and intelligent young man who seemed to be cut from the same cloth as his father. While his parents worked hard at shielding their son from the world and its evils, his sunny personality had shone through and he succeeded in winning the hearts of the most recalcitrant. Not since the Kennedys had a presidential family been so embraced by all Americans.

POTUS, as he was called now (because he had spent twenty years in the military and felt most comfortable with this nickname), stared at a large flat-paneled television screen displaying the huge devastation caused by a massive earthquake in Turkey. Deep in his heart he knew that this would be yet another crisis for his office to deal with. Although he was given the immediate reports of the quake from his State Department personnel, he wanted to see how the media were covering the cataclysmic event.

“The unusual thing about the earthquake is the area that it has affected,”
the announcer was saying. The scope of the earthquake was unprecedented. It had covered almost 200,000 square miles, or roughly two-thirds the total area of Turkey. Equally alarming was the strength of the earthquake, which at 9.5 on the Richter scale, matched the Chilean earthquake in May of 1960, one of the most severe in history.

“We, of course, have no way of determining yet the extent of casualties from the earthquake, but estimates run as high as two million,”
the announcer said in somber tones.

“Obviously, we are unable to get to some of the more remote parts of Turkey, but here are pictures for Istanbul.”

The screen was filled with images of the city, now reduced to piles of rubble, dazed-looking survivors walking around as if lost.

“Here is the famous Blue Mosque, built by Sultan Ahmed in the seventeenth century. As you can see, the cascading domes have all collapsed, as have the six minarets.”

It was during this initial report that the breaking news came that Charlene St. John, the internationally known song diva, was going to give a concert from Mexico City, with the total proceeds “one hundred percent,” the announcer stressed, “to be given to Turkey relief. We are told that not even the normal expenses of producing such a show will be deducted from the gross proceeds.”

“Charley, find out if that is true,” POTUS said to his appointments secretary. Charley was Charley Crawford, the captain that POTUS had pulled from a burning Humvee at Saba al Bor, Iraq, nine years earlier, and was POTUS’s most trusted aide.