Prophecy. An ARKANE thriller. (Book 2) (17 page)

“I don’t believe Marietti has changed,” Ben replied. “Which is why I worry for you working with ARKANE.” He waved his hand, as if to brush away the past. “But no matter, you must make your own decision.”

“Did Arkady continue to work for Marietti?” Morgan asked.
 

“No, they had a violent difference of opinion on the Antarctica trip. Arkady never worked well with others anyway, especially if he wasn’t in charge. He became dangerously obsessed with the occult. Marianne told me that he coveted the treasures they sought and spent a great deal of time studying the black arts.”

Ben walked to the window, looking out at the summer rain that had cleared the quad. “Then something serious happened and Marietti severed all ties with him.”

Morgan waited for him to continue.
 

“Arkady had become involved with a girl, Aniela, very young and beautiful. Few had seen her, as she mainly stayed hidden in his rooms, and no one was friends with her. Poor girl, so isolated. She was found one morning, strangled, badly beaten and cut in what looked like a ritual pattern. It seemed the occult had turned Arkady’s mind.”

“Was he arrested?” Morgan asked.

Ben turned, shaking his head.
 

“It was covered up, considered too high a risk for the expedition to have a police investigation. After all, they sought occult objects and it was a religious trip funded partially by the Vatican secret archives. Aniela was Polish with no family they could trace. So her body was cremated and Arkady was just sent away.”

“But he was clearly a dangerous man? What happened to him after that?”

“I only found out about it later but I ask forgiveness for what happened daily. Marianne always worried that he would come after you or Faye, and when she died, she made me promise to always watch over you. When I saw the braying horse’s head, the sign of Thanatos, it made me think that Arkady had returned. I hadn’t seen that sign for many years and now here it is again, in a new incarnation.”

“But what connects Thanatos to Arkady? He would be an old man or maybe dead now?”
 

Ben sighed.
 

“Later on he had a family and a son but he remained obsessed with the prophecy. I believe that this is the beginning of the fulfillment of Arkady’s dark plan started long ago and the son has found a way to take the plot global.”
 

“How can you be sure?” Morgan asked. “No one has that kind of global reach.”

Ben picked up a glossy magazine and handed it to her. The front page was emblazoned with the angular face of Milan Noble, CEO of Zoebios. The glowing lead article extolled the virtues of the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical business that had expanded from the West into Africa, and now China and India. It portrayed Noble as the ‘Lord of Life’, a man on the brink of changing the world with his focus on birth control, education for women, mental as well as physical health.
 

“He’s the spitting image of Arkady,” Ben said. “I look at him and it’s as if I’d just walked off the dig. If Arkady’s son runs that company, then he has the power to change the world. He holds the health of millions in his hands, Morgan. You need to find out if he’s behind Thanatos and what he’s up to before he unleashes the prophecy on those he’s meant to serve.”

London, England. 1.13pm

Michael Jensen rolled over in bed and looked at the time again. The cheap blue digital watch had a cracked plastic cover but at least it still worked. It had only been two hours since the last pill but they helped to quell his anger and he wanted to experience the sensation once more. Without the pills the audio program had made him feel calm and relaxed, affording him a brief space of sanity in an increasingly crazy world. That was addictive enough, but the new pills and the headset made him feel as if he was in the presence of the Divine and he wanted that feeling again. The note that had come with the couriered package said that the pills should be taken once daily before the audio for the full effect. But what harm could come from being in that place for a longer period? It was as if the clouds had parted in his mind and he could perceive more than the human eye could see. He was like an eagle soaring above the earth, and the voice that spoke made him feel chosen.
 

Michael hadn't thought much about God since he was a teenager. A brief flirtation with a Christian youth club provided him with girlfriends but certainly no inner belief. He had answered the questions on the Zoebios website saying that he was a Christian but it had been years since he had been to church. Still, the stories from Sunday school stuck with him and he had prayed at times of desperation. He knew that he was responsible for where he was now, but that didn't make it any easier. He'd lost his job at the factory when his anger had spilled over one time too many after repeated warnings and in this economy, it was proving hard to find other work.
 

At the beginning, he had been to the Job Centre every day, determined to beat the odds, sure that he wouldn't be just another statistic. But then it had become harder and harder to get up, as he had nothing to show for his efforts, so what was the point of trying anymore? As Michael reached for the pills, he looked at the picture by the bed. Jenny's smile had been real back then, before he had driven her away. He glanced over at the door, splintered in places where he had punched and kicked it in frustration. He clenched his fists as the anger rose again.
 

But in the last few days he had felt some hope. The audios he had downloaded from Zoebios had made him start to think that he could change something, that his actions could make a difference. The pills supercharged the feeling so how could it be a bad thing if he took more now? He popped a pill from the packet, placed it under his tongue and put on the large headset. Michael started to feel a presence as he listened, an entity that was just out of the corner of his eye. He sensed it was there but now he wanted to see it. Was it God? Was he seeing the manifestation of Jesus?
 

Here in North London, faith was a complicated thing. He was only a few streets from the Finsbury Park mosque where extremist Islamic clerics had once preached a message of hate. Michael had always considered the Muslims he worked with as his friends, but then he had seen them keep their jobs when he lost his. Perhaps Britain should be only for the truly British after all.
 

As the audio played, it seemed that God was speaking to him directly, and the things He said resonated with Michael’s own feelings of increasing isolation. He talked about how the Muslims weren’t like us, they deserved to die. Look at the terror they had inflicted on the world and how they were marginalizing British people in their own country. The music behind the words changed tempo and became a call to arms, a thumping in Michael’s blood. Where there had been peace and calm, he now found empowerment for his deep seated anger, a rage that could explode into violence and a target that was now identified. As the drugs raced through his system he listened to the words of God, his fists tightening in anticipation.
 

New York, USA. 9.12am
 

Shahzia Mohammad sat in the tiny bathroom and put the new headset on. It was the only place she felt private, as if Kamil could feel she had been doing something forbidden in any other room even when he wasn’t there. She ignored the stained bathtub and cracked sink and pretended the hard toilet seat was a soft cushion. She pushed one of the tiny pills from the packet and swallowed it, her throat catching in her haste to get it down. She needed the calm the audios brought her and she trusted that the new pills would just enhance the experience.
 

Shahzia had identified as Muslim on the Zoebios site so she knew the program would be appropriate for her. It had to be better than the women at the health center who preached Jesus in one breath and insulted her in the next. She pressed Play on the tiny mp3 player, closed her eyes and let peace wash around her like a warm pool. It strengthened her and made her feel safe. She had tried to blend into this American world, so far from her own, but she desperately missed her mother and sisters. She knew Kamil wanted his children to be brought up as true Americans with no trappings of the past, but her own anxiety had grown because she had no anchor for her life. There was no longer any ritual or extended family to ground their new life in this alien place. Their roots were growing in thin soil here and she didn’t know how to make things better.
 

As Shahzia relaxed she began to feel a presence with her in the tiny bathroom, a glimmer of someone or something hovering just out of reach. The God of her childhood had been there when she was afraid; maybe now He had come back to help her again. She began to pray fervently, rocking back and forth on the seat. It squeaked rhythmically but Shahzia didn't notice. Her words were desperate pleas for God to help her, to show her the path. How could she change this life in which she had found herself?
 

Suddenly she stopped rocking. She could hear words now, faint but surely coming from God himself. He spoke of how she could change her life, show her obedience and make a difference. An image filled Shahzia’s mind of St Mary’s Catholic School, the bowed heads of rich white Christians in the classroom overlooking the road. She walked past it every day, taking her own two girls to the predominantly Muslim school a few blocks away. Shahzia felt bile rise in her throat. She felt sick at what she was being asked to do but it seemed that God himself wanted her to act. He wanted her to be an instrument of his judgment and this school was the way she could show her obedience.
 

British Museum, London, England. 6.41pm

As the evening sun cast lengthy shadows across the courtyard, Morgan walked up the steps to the British Museum. Tonight’s event was a private viewing for a collection of religious relics where the gruesome manner of the saints’ death was depicted in excruciating detail on the caskets that held the grisly mementoes. Morgan had been an advisor for the research on the psychological motivation of martyrs, and although it had been months since she had been part of the University team, she now needed the connection for the investigation. With Ben’s tentative recognition of Arkady’s son, she needed evidence that Milan Noble was the one they sought. Marietti wouldn’t normally have sanctioned any overt investigation into the multinational CEO without further evidence, but his own past with Arkady Novotsky had forced the Director’s hand.
 

The Museum also had experts in medieval manuscripts, some of which were in the collection tonight, so Morgan hoped to gain some insight into where the missing pages of the Devil’s Bible might be. She had seen from the advance publicity that the Zoebios Foundation was one of the major donors and Milan Noble had been particularly interested in this exhibition. He had even called in favors to help source some of the reliquaries from churches that would have otherwise refused to lend their treasures. Milan would be there tonight and Morgan intended to see what he was like in person. Given the setting, there was no danger so she went independently, much to Jake’s chagrin at being left behind.
 

Checking her coat, she walked into the great hall of the museum, lit from above by the vast skylights. Even though it was nearly seven, the sun still lit the cream colored walls of the rotunda. Passing into one of the museum's great halls, Morgan took a glass of Semillon Blanc from one of the waiting staff and walked through the giant basalt pillars into the Enlightenment Gallery. There were a few early patrons wandering the high ceilinged hall, speaking in hushed whispers and clutching their glasses of wine. This was one of Morgan's favorite places in the Museum, representing the age of reason, discovery and learning, a time when men had wanted to unlock the mysteries of the universe by studying natural and man-made objects. Great collectors, some would say pillagers, wanted to classify and catalogue, to understand and control their environment.
 

This room contained objects from all over the known world and Morgan began a slow circle of discovery, since there was time before the speeches began and the new exhibition was opened. She ran her fingers over the surface of the Rosetta Stone, gently skimming the words in hieroglyphics, Greek and cuneiform. This stone had unlocked the knowledge of ancient Egypt, enabling the revelation of treasure and curses buried for generations. Civilizations with no writing die, Morgan thought, with no way of finding out what they believed, or how they lived. In a way, it was as if they hadn’t even existed. It was part of the reason to come to the museum, a kind of memento mori, a reminder of the short span of our existence, to make the most of our time before we become dust. She passed by a Sati stone, an 18th century sandstone memorial to an Indian wife who had thrown herself onto the pyre of her husband. Morgan shuddered at the knowledge that most went unwillingly and the brief reminder of how Pentecost could have ended for her twin sister, Faye, immolated on top of a madman’s pyre.
 

The walls were lined with books in glass fronted cases that rose to the balcony and then up to the ceiling. Morgan gazed into the cabinets, wishing she could take the books from the shelves and delve into their crumbling pages. ‘The History of British India’ and ‘Lives of the Queens of England’ lined up next to bricks from ancient Babylon inscribed with the name of Nebuchadnezzar. This was a treasure house of collective memory that resonated across time.
 

Morgan bent over another case where precious stones had been burnt and shriveled from a great heat. This was considered evidence of the divine retribution that befell the Biblical Near East, evidence of God's punishment when fire rained down on the sinful cities. Morgan smiled. We see whatever we want in these ancient stones, she thought, but that is the beauty of the past, for we can read into it our own fate. In another cabinet were wax seals from the astrologer and mathematician John Dee, known as the magician of Queen Elizabeth I. They were inscribed with occult symbols for conjuring divine spirits. The thousands of years separating these objects demonstrated that humans never changed. They will always grasp after the supernatural, a glimpse of the divine, and a reason for this brutish and short existence.