Prophecy. An ARKANE thriller. (Book 2) (24 page)

Her wrist was caught from above. She whipped around, ready to strike and saw Jake, his palm out to placate her even as she broke from his grip.
 

“It’s alright,” he said. “Better not kill him, we might need him later.”
 

Morgan breathed out, letting the tension briefly subside. She could see her own anger reflected in his burnt amber eyes.
 

“You’re late,” she said. JP laughed and moved forward to help her off the man.
 

“We got a little sidetracked but you clearly didn’t need the help,” he said.
 

“Please evacuate. Five minutes to detonation.” The voice said again. Jake moved to the computer terminal.
 

“We need Martin on this,” Morgan said, pulling the jeweled cross from around her neck. She clicked the middle garnet and a slim USB key popped out the bottom. Morgan plugged it into the terminal and they waited a few seconds. The light on the stick changed from red to green and a little video screen opened in the window. The face of Martin Klein was pixellated at first and then resolved into his eccentric smile.
 

“Morgan, you’re OK.”
 

“All good here, Martin, but right now we need you to work some magic and stop a countdown. This place is about to explode.”

“I’ll get right on it.”
 

They could see him working away, fingers flashing across the keyboard. He muttered and then disappeared from the screen before rushing back and tapping again furiously. Jake was systematically searching the office, trying to find some evidence linking the site to Zoebios that they could use in the case against Milan Noble.
 

“Please evacuate. Four minutes to detonation.”

Martin didn’t even raise his head at this latest impassive announcement. Morgan watched him and felt a curious sense of displacement because it was too late to get out now. A few hours later and she would have been one of these nameless women, sedated and used to grow a new generation of smart people. It seemed like a parallel life, one she didn’t recognize but she felt as if she was saving herself by saving these women. And if it wasn’t to be, if the explosion happened, then she felt a sense of completion at that possibility. She was drawn to death, hunted it even, as she chased the memory of Elian. To die in a rain of fire as he had done would be right and she would perhaps join him in an exploded heaven. But was there something to live for now?
 

She glanced over at Jake, hastily scanning through papers in a filing cabinet. He had come to find her again and she had seen the deep concern in his eyes. He would never speak of it but they were bound together in some way.
 

“Got it!” shouted Martin. “Sending the code now. It’s an elegant design so I’ve written an elegant solution.”

He pressed a button.
 

“Wait for it,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose and gazing at them on the screen.
 

They waited. Seconds passed.
 

“Please evacuate. Three minutes to detonation.”
 

The voice over the loudspeaker announced yet again. Jake came over to the screen.
 

“Spooky, we don’t have much time here. Skip the elegant code and just nail this bastard.”
 

Martin flushed. Morgan knew he hated to disappoint.
 

“Sorry Jake, give me another minute.”
 

“We don’t have much more than that, my friend,” Jake said.
 

He looked over at her, a question in his eyes and Morgan could see that he wanted to say something to her. Jake glanced at JP who was still questioning the prisoner and getting nowhere. He walked towards her, his eyes locked on hers.

“Trying again.” Martin’s voice came from the screen. Jake stopped midway across the room and the moment hung in the air, like smoke from distant gunfire. Then Martin exhaled, a whoosh of triumphant air.
 

“Detonation cancelled. Evacuation no longer necessary.” The disembodied voice came over the loudspeaker. The moment passed. Jake turned and walked back to the screen.
 

“Get the team down here Martin. These women need immediate medical attention and we need to move quickly now.”

“And we have to find those missing pages before Milan does,” added Morgan. “It’s the only thing stopping him from igniting all-out war.”

ARKANE, Trafalgar Square. London. 10.07am

Morgan strode purposefully down the long corridor, past the well-lit workrooms of the ARKANE research departments towards the dark den that was Martin Klein's office. Her anger at Milan and Harghada burned even more fiercely now as the body count rose with increasing attacks by people who had suddenly turned into religious extremists. The rhetoric from all sides was escalating and with their methods about to be exposed, it would only be a short time before Thanatos executed their final plan in order to capitalize on the carnage. The missing ten pages of the Devil's Bible were the key for without them, Milan would not be able to embed and release the curse that would tip the bloodshed over into total destruction. He might have the book, but he didn't yet have the final words to fulfill the prophecy on the intended scale.
 

Marietti hadn't been able to dig up anything from the Vatican archivists on where the missing pages might be. Ben had hit a similar dead end, but the pages of the Devil’s Bible she had glimpsed were seared onto Morgan’s brain. When she had looked at the pages of the illuminated book in the Palermo crypt, Morgan had felt the stirrings of recognition. She had seen some of those images before; she just had to work out where. Martin’s virtual library was the place to start.
 

Morgan arrived at Martin's door and knocked with a tentative hand, knowing that the eccentric genius didn't like to be disturbed. A second passed before the door was wrenched open. Martin was clearly in the middle of something as his rough-cut mop of blond hair was spiked where he had been tearing at it. The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up in precisely matching creases. He pushed his wire rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.
 

“Morgan, come in, come in,” he said, standing back to let her into the chaos of his office. For someone so painstakingly neat in most ways, his office was evidence of a more disordered psyche. Morgan was pleased to find he seemed genuinely happy to see her, even without Jake.

“I’m working on the data downloaded from the terminal you were able to access,” he said. “We’re close to finding the other labs. The legal liaison are swinging into action, but they take so long to do anything. Not like you and Jake.” He grinned.

“I need to use the pod, Martin. Jake said you wouldn't mind?”
 

She gestured at the stand up module in the corner of the office.
 

“I still haven't quite finished the alterations but if you don't mind the beta version, then please go ahead. It's quite intuitive, and of course, you know the Bodleian Library anyway.”

Martin sat down and clicked on his laptop. The door slid open and Morgan stepped into the booth, the door sliding closed behind her. It was dark except for a tiny light that illuminated a headset complete with visor.
 

“I forgot to mention.” Martin's voice came over a hidden microphone. “The sensors will read your body movements so just pull information from the shelves or page through the books. You're also on a rolling platform so you can walk through the physical space. You'll get the hang of it. Just leave the library when you've finished.”

Morgan pulled on the helmet and incredibly the high domed ceiling of the Radcliffe Camera loomed above her, the top stacks in shadow. Sun streamed through the glass windows onto the wooden desks. Morgan felt like she was indeed back at Oxford researching her latest academic paper. Although the library was digitized, there was still serendipity in wandering the physical environment and seeing what else caught her eye. She walked towards one of the stacks. It was a strange sensation and she wobbled at first but soon stabilized.
 

“Can I help you?” a voice asked, and she turned to see a librarian in classic cardigan, brunette bun and glasses. She must be Martin’s fantasy, as Morgan couldn't remember any of the librarians she knew being this stunning.
 

“I’m looking for art related to the Revelation of St John and more specifically, the four horsemen of the apocalypse,” Morgan said. The librarian paused, then indicated the stacks behind her. The shelves where Morgan was standing now had hundreds of books about the apocalypse on them. She pulled one down, put it on the wooden lectern and opened it. To her surprise, the images popped up in front of her, floating in the air. She could touch them and flick through them, making the search much easier.
 

Morgan knew that the word apocalypse meant unveiling, an uncovering of secret knowledge about heavenly realms. It had become synonymous in popular consciousness with the Revelation of St John, the final book of the Bible which described the end times and the second coming of Christ. It was Revelation as an allegory of history, of things already fulfilled and a prediction of what is to come. The author John, possibly the same man as the gospel writer, wrote the book in exile on the Greek island of Patmos after he had survived the tortures of Domitian. There were those who claimed Revelation was a heresy, the visions of a lunatic, hallucinations brought on by fasting and dementia. To others it was the reality that lay as a foundation to all Christian belief. It had also spawned a great body of artistic work where Morgan hoped to find clues to the missing pages of the Devil’s Bible.
 

She touched the virtual page. The first painting was by William Blake, an English poet and painter whose work delved into the spiritual realms. It showed Death on a Pale Horse leaping across the canvas. The figures were strong and muscled, Death as a powerful King with sword outstretched while the flames of Hell flickered beneath. Morgan brushed the image and more of Blake's paintings were arrayed before her. She gazed at the demonic brawn of The Great Red Dragon, curled horns and outstretched wings, about to devour the woman clothed with the sun. Blake saw the power of evil incarnate and portrayed him as thick limbed, unyielding, solidified muscle, not ethereal air. Morgan shivered for she felt the presence of a figure like this behind their current foe. The apocalypse was unveiling the true evil behind a global company that the material world saw as a life-giver. There was a marriage of opposites, as Morgan read from Blake's poem, 'In one evanescent moment, the Devil, boldly with eyes afire, clasps a shining angel in his embrace'. But Blake's images were nothing like the Devil's Bible; they were all his own visions.
 

She swiped the files away and pulled another virtual book from the shelves. This one contained paintings from John Martin, images of destruction in mezzotint, a manipulation of light and darkness. The apocalypse as holocaust and beatitude, heaven and hell combined. One caught her eye, so different from the rest of the annihilation portrayed in other paintings. Golden light suffused the image, the angel of revelation appearing from the sky above an open sea, almost a mirage. In the foreground, the silhouette of John, his hands raised to heaven, standing on a rocky outcrop receiving knowledge from On High. Morgan focused on the picture, sanity juxtaposed against the visions of massacre and ruination. But she sought darker art here and touched the screen again.
 

More paintings from John Martin appeared, no longer lit by heaven but more like the edge of hell, cracked open earth with fire spewing from it in Pandemonium, the Devil’s court. Next to it, ‘The Great Day of His Wrath’ showed the world upended and folded over on itself, darkly thunderous apocalyptic majesty above an unholy abyss. The searing end to the world was dramatic but it wasn’t what she sought.
 

The next image made her gasp. It was incredibly detailed and was unmistakably the same as the pictures of Revelation in the Devil's Bible that she had seen in the ossuary. It was a black and white print from a woodcut attributed to Albrecht Durer, dated 1498. Four horsemen rode across the scene as if into battle, trampling the fallen beneath the hooves of their wild horses. The Conquerer on the white horse wore a crown and carried a bow, arrow notched in place to slaughter all before him. War raised his sword to swipe the heads from the unfaithful while Famine was depicted as a rich man, weighing scales in his outstretched arm. In the foreground rode skeletal Death on the pale horse, pitchfork in hand, as the devil Hades devoured with fiery mouth below him. Billowing clouds of coming destruction completed the scene. This had to be copied from the Devil's Bible, but how had Durer seen the book?