The Armageddon Conspiracy by Mike Hockney Page B

the whole structure.
    The final side-panel was the most
striking of all. It showed the city of Rome in a mirror. The
Vatican was displayed upside-down in an egg timer. In the upper
section of the timer was a miniature universe of dazzling
lights.
    Lucy’s eyes opened
wide. She could hear voices directly outside her cubicle, speaking
in German. What’s
happening ? The language changed. Cardinal
Sinclair was with them, talking in Italian. He was evidently
angry.
    Without warning, someone kicked the
cubicle door open. A soldier stared down at Lucy, a machine gun
slung over his shoulder. ‘If you want to live, you must come with
me immediately,’ he said in good English.
    ‘ I don’t want
to.’
    The soldier gripped his machine gun and
pointed it at her. ‘Then I’ll kill you.’
     
    16
     
    ‘ Y our
grandfather was Professor Reinhardt Weiss of Cambridge University?’ Harrington asked, seemingly dumbfounded.
    Gresnick nodded. ‘He
moved to Harvard at the end of 1945 because of the way MI5 treated
him. They agreed his translation of The
Cainite Destiny was accurate, but said the
document was patently meaningless.’
    Vernon remembered what
Caldwell had told him about The Cainite
Destiny . Now Gresnick was confirming it. He
wondered if he should confront Harris about his accessing The Cainite Destiny within
the last twenty-four hours. He decided to wait.
    ‘ Reinhardt Weiss signed
the Official Secrets Act,’ Harrington said. ‘He agreed he wouldn’t
discuss this matter with anyone.’
    ‘ My grandfather said
you were all blind. If you weren’t willing to help, he was prepared
to go it alone. He made it his life’s work to discover the truth
behind The Cainite
Destiny . Before he died, he passed on all
of his work to his daughter, my mother. She’s now a History
professor at Harvard. When my mum married, she made sure it was to
a leading authority in Esoteric Studies. My father, at Yale, was
her perfect match.’
    Vernon felt queasy. Esoteric Studies
was what Lucy taught at Oxford. Would Lucy – the old Lucy rather
than the shadow she’d become – be attracted to Gresnick with his
Hollywood good looks and his expertise in all the same stuff she
loved?
    ‘ Your grandfather made
an unauthorised copy of The Cainite
Destiny ?’ Harrington was irate. ‘He
bequeathed it to his daughter and she to you, is that
it?’
    Gresnick nodded.
    ‘ Commander,’ Vernon
interrupted, ‘I know for a fact that you accessed The Cainite Destiny yesterday.’
    Gresnick stared at Harrington with
sudden curiosity.
    ‘ How…?’ Harrington
shook his head. ‘No matter.’ He stared into space. ‘When I joined
MI5 from Oxford, I was appointed special assistant to the then
Director General. One night, just before he was fired, he got drunk
in his office. He was in an odd mood. I think he knew he was about
to be kicked out. “If the world ever looks like it’s going to end,”
he told me, “seek out a document in our archives. It’s
called The Cainite
Destiny . I swear to you, Harrington, it
brings me out in a sweat whenever I think about it.”
    ‘ The DG then made one
of the strangest comments I’ve ever heard. “If any of it is true,”
he said, “we’re kidding ourselves that we know anything. It means
there are people out there who are party to an incredible secret
that the rest of us can only guess at – a secret history of the
world, a world stranger than we could ever imagine.”’
    Harrington shrugged. ‘I had a quick
glance at the document out of simple curiosity, but it didn’t make
any sense. I agreed with the official assessment that it was
nonsense. I honestly can’t remember much of it. The Spear of
Destiny was significant – that’s all that made an impression on
me.’
    Gresnick gave a
half-smile then slid out a paper from one of his folders. ‘My
grandfather knew the document would be buried and forgotten. He
couldn’t let that happen. Although The
Cainite Destiny was baffling, my
grandfather