Son of Perdition (Chronicles of Brothers) (32 page)

‘The Pale Rider.’ Charsoc smiled in satisfaction. ‘Ah . . .
the Fourth Seal . . . Nisroc’s gruesome precursor to the Sixth Seal.
’

He replaced his slippers and the eye mask in his bag.

‘And I beheld when he had opened the Sixth Seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.’

Charsoc unscrewed the cap of his blood-pressure pills and slung two in the back of his mouth. He swallowed, then grimaced.

‘And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth . . . And the heavens departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.’

‘Breathtaking. Seeing that I am trapped in this infernal human form, I shall invest in a small cabin in the highest mountains of this planet immediately on my return to Normandy as a safeguard to ensure my survival.’

And, snatching the missive with the Rubied Seal out of Jether’s hand, he walked out into the lobby, past the trembling Obadiah, and into the open elevator.

Jether stood in the doorway, watching him in silence.

Charsoc looked back at Jether and yawned deliberately.

‘Of course, no one will ever realize that the Rapture even occurred,’ he said nonchalantly.

The iron gates of the elevator began to close.

‘The disappearance of the Christians will be passed off as a complete non-event. Overlooked in a natural disaster and the resulting pandemic that caused the death of untold millions.

‘As they say in some sectors of this planet,’ he added, ‘have a nice day.’

Jether watched as the elevator disappeared from view.

He hesitated as though hearing something, then turned to the youngling. ‘Obadiah, hold the fort until my return.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘I have urgent business to attend.’

Chapter Thirty-four

Dossiers Secrets Du Professeur

The De Vere Mansion, Belgrave Square, London

Jason got out of the army van and thanked the lieutenant who’d given him a lift. Inwardly he thanked Adrian for arranging him a special pass. Although the London Pact had been signed six months ago, the UK curfews implemented in 2023 were still in place. It was five minutes past nine and the Belgravia streets were deserted. He walked towards the front door. Maxim waited for him on the brightly lit porch.

‘Master Jason,’ the butler said, wringing his hands in distress, ‘how is Madam Lilian?’

‘She’s in intensive care but stable,’ Jason said, removing his jacket and handing it to Maxim. ‘It’s a waiting game.’

He loosened his collar and rolled up his shirtsleeves.

‘Master Adrian called at lunchtime,’ Maxim said.

‘I talked to him from the hospital,’ Jason replied. He looked at his watch. ‘He should be landing any minute. Mother’s tough, Maxim. The doctors say she’ll pull through.’

‘Tough as an old boot,’ Maxim said, taking a handerchief from his top pocket. He dabbed his eyes, then blew his nose loudly.

Jason opened the drawing-room doors.

‘Mother’s not herself,’ he said. ‘She’s hallucinating. Kept saying that they took her baby.’

Jason looked up at the butler, pale and drawn. ‘Maxim . . . ’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘After Nick’s death, his friend Weaver sent me a disk with information Nick had emailed him before he died. It was a copy of a letter from my father and some other documents. I sent them to St Cartier for safekeeping.’

He studied Maxim closely.

‘You knew my father well. I was too young to notice anything . . . or care. Was there ever any evidence that Dad was involved with anything
clandestine
?’

Maxim looked into Jason’s eyes for a long time before he spoke.

‘It came to my knowledge that Master James was a long-term member of a secret society of the elite. I was once a reluctant witness to a fight between Master James and Madam Lilian. Unfortunately I heard more than was suitable for me to be privy to.’

‘And?’

‘It was about your grandfather, Julius De Vere.’

‘Julius? He kept to himself.’

‘The father was different from the son,’ Maxim said quietly. ‘There were things Master James would have to do that he felt violated his moral code and he despised himself for it. He did it to ensure that you boys would remain unharmed. And free from their clutches. That is all I know.’

‘Thank you.’ Jason stood in the hall deep in thought. It was not the answer he wanted to hear. ‘Maxim, what was the appointment Mother had in Wimpole Street two days ago?’

‘I assumed it was the doctor’s, Master Jason.’

Jason frowned. ‘That would explain it.’

‘All I know is she took a taxi yesterday morning. Refused the chauffeur. Said it was private. I should have told you.’

‘You did just fine. Now get some rest. I’ll stay up in case the hospital calls.’

Maxim bowed. ‘Your whisky is on the cabinet.’

‘One last thing. Mother mentioned a document that had arrived.’ He paused. ‘A document from my father.’

‘From Master James?’ Maxim frowned. ‘But Master James is deceased.’

‘Yes, Maxim, we know that,’ he said patiently.

The butler wrinkled his brow.

‘A Fedex package
did
arrive on Tuesday addressed to Madam. She signed for it. She refused supper that night.’

‘Thank you, Maxim.’

With a bow, the old butler closed the heavy mahogany doors behind him.

Jason walked over and switched on a small side lamp on the liquor cabinet, then picked up the whisky that Maxim had poured. He gazed out of the large arched drawing-room window into the night sky, then reached over and switched on the television remote.

He switched from Sky to CNN, then to VOX USA. The usual images of looting and soldiers patrolling the curfewed streets of New York filled the screens. He watched the bread lines in Los Angeles and sighed. America had collapsed into anarchy. The United States was unrecognizable. Indeed, it was being divided into thirty-three regions that very month. Each region’s government would be autonomous.

Thank God he’d moved VOX headquarters to Babylon when he had – thanks to Adrian.

The grandfather clock struck 2 a.m. He switched over to BBC News 24 and sat down on the sofa. He watched in the dim half-light as Adrian’s face came onscreen.

‘Adrian De Vere, President of the European Superstate, ended the World Summit today with the unveiling of a fifty-trillion-dollar bail-out . . . ’
Jason flicked the TV off and pressed the video-player remote. Pictures of Adrian, Nick and Jason when they were young flickered onscreen. He sighed and leaned back into the sofa, his feet up on the coffee table, to watch a young Lilian holding Nick on her lap as he blew out three candles on a huge birthday cake. Jason and Adrian stood behind, dressed in bow ties.

Jason recalled his seventeenth birthday party at the De Vere Mansion in Narragansett. Nick had run around with a camera, snapping Jason, Adrian and anything that moved.

‘Nick.’ Jason sighed. It had been over three years since his brother’s death and he wished with every passing day that he could have had just one chance to put things right. He looked down at his phone. A new text from Aunt Rosemary. Adrian had just arrived at the hospital. Lilian was sleeping. Still stable.

He turned to look at the Annigoni painting hanging over Lilian’s writing desk, then walked across the room and carefully removed it from the wall.

Facing him was a small iron safe. He punched in a combination. The door sprang open and Jason took out a wad of aged and bulging files. Carefully, he sifted through them.

James and Lilian’s marriage certificate. James’s death certificate. Nick’s death certificate. He paused. Copies of Julia and Jason’s marriage certificate and Lily’s birth certificate.

Why on earth did she keep this stuff?

There, right at the bottom, exactly where Lilian had said it would be, lay the thin black file with James’s private De Vere insignia embossed on the front.

Jason placed it on Lilian’s writing desk, then replaced the files in the safe and relocked the combination.

He poured himself a second whisky, sat back on the sofa and opened the file, sifting through the top papers.

Three records of money deposits . . . bank-account numbers . . . no names. Nothing else except an innocuous-looking bulky blue linen envelope. He looked at the postmark and frowned. The Isle of Arran.
Scotland
?

He opened it. Inside was a wad of cheap lined paper of the sort available at any stationery shop in England.

He studied the ten stapled-together pages of shaky black handwriting, then flipped through to the end. He stared at the signature.

‘Hamish MacKenzie. The Gables Retirement Home’.

Jason started to read . . .

Chapter Thirty-five

Aveline

2017
Gables Retirement Home, Isle of Arran, Scotland

Professor Hamish MacKenzie sat at a writing desk in his bathchair. He gazed out through the window at the vast loch glimmering in the early-morning mist at the edge of the manicured lawns of the Gables.

He picked up his pen with trembling fingers . . .

30th December 2017

To James De Vere

Please do not dismiss what I am about to disclose to you as the senile ramblings of a very old man. As I write this I am ninety-seven and my time on this earth is complete. They cannot harm me now.

I am not a religious man. My god was the God of Science. But before I meet my Maker I feel it essential that I divest myself of the great burden of conscience that I have carried for over three decades.

Proof of these incidents has been lodged with my lawyers for decades, but my lawyers were paid huge sums of money to mislay them. What you have in your hand is the only actual proof that any of the events I am about to disclose to you ever happened.

When I was younger, like many genetic scientists of my era, I placed science and the pursuit of knowledge above ethical considerations . . . to my shame.

MacKenzie dipped his nib in the violet ink and continued his meticulous scratching.

In 1962, I concluded the successful nuclear transfer from a diploid cell of a frog to an unfertilized egg cell from which the maternal nucleus had been removed.

From there my work came to the attention of global intelligence agencies. And to the attention of the Directorate of Operations, the branch of the CIA that ran covert operations – UFO design and testing, HAARP technology, anti-gravitational propulsion research and a host of Black Ops initiatives, including a highly advanced covert eugenics and biogenetic engineering programme.

For over two decades I conducted thousands of macabre experiments in the military’s deep underground bases – the core of the Directorate’s operations and the military-industrial complex. I journeyed between Groom Lake, Dreamland, Area 51, Los Alamos – Dulce to name just a few.

We performed gruesome experimentation on thousands of abducted and supposedly missing children. We used young women as incubators for our grisly hybrid experiments. We conducted alien/human genetic research in our covert laboratories far below the surface of the earth. I will spare you the lurid details, only to say it is a part of my life I deeply regret. By 1976 I was regarded as the top genetic scientist in the world.

Unknown to the general public, in 1974 we had already successfully cloned five equivalents of ‘Dolly the sheep’ and were just weeks away from the first human cloning.

In February 1981 my Black Ops handlers were approached by their extremely powerful masters – a covert organization controlled by a mysterious Jesuit priest.

I was personally offered multiple millions for my research to insert a genome provided by them into an unfertilized egg whose genes were to be removed. There were mutterings about the Immaculate Conception.

I was not a religious man. I asked no questions and obeyed my masters. I did as I was instructed to the letter.

By December of 1981, I had one ambition – to leave the depraved world of covert biogenetics behind.

With the money I had earned from this project, I planned to create my own foundation – The Aveline Foundation for Genetic Research – and return home to my native Scotland.

2025
The De Vere Mansion, Belgrave Square, London

Jason scrabbled in Lilian’s desk drawer for a pack of cigarettes. She didn’t smoke, but he knew she still kept a pack of James’s favourite brand even years after his death. They were there, just as he’d thought.

‘Aveline.’ The name rang a bell. He shook a cigarette out of the packet. Julia had always disapproved of his smoking.
C’est la vie.

He took out James’s lighter and lit the cigarette.

‘Of course – Aveline was the name on the back of the photograph his father had sent Nick.’

Jason looked at his watch, then picked up his phone and dialled.

* * *

St Bernadette’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner

Adrian stood over Lilian. Her face was covered by an oxygen mask. His mobile phone rang.

‘Yes, Jas,’ he said, smiling down at Lilian. ‘Relax. Mother’s fine. I’ve sent Rosemary off to get some shut-eye. Of course I’ll stay with her until she wakes. I’ll let you know as soon as there’s any change.’

The De Vere Mansion, Belgrave Square, London

Jason clicked off his phone, then continued reading.

* * *

2017
Gables Retirement Home, Isle of Arran, Scotland

I had never seen genetic material like that before. Not even in my experiments with alien DNA. The genome was unequivocally not of human matter. Its genetic make up was like nothing I had ever encountered.

Hamish MacKenzie gazed out at the still grey surface of the loch.

I well remember the day when he came to the safe house in Marazion. He was dressed in the black robes of a Jesuit priest.

I never knew his name.

But I will never forget his face . . .