Contents

BOOK I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

BOOK II

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Acknowledgements

Adrian d’Hagé was educated at North Sydney Boys High School and the Royal Military College Duntroon. He served as a platoon commander in Vietnam where he was awarded the Military Cross. His military service included command of an infantry battalion, director of joint operations and head of defence public relations. In 1994 Adrian was made a Member of the Order of Australia. As a brigadier, he headed defence planning for counter-terrorism security for the Sydney Olympics, including security against chemical, biological and nuclear threats.

Adrian also holds an honours degree in theology, entering as a committed Christian but graduating ‘with no fixed religion’. In 2009 he completed a Bachelor of Applied Science (Dean’s Award) in oenology or wine chemistry at Charles Sturt University, and he has successfully sat the Austrian Government exams for ski instructor, ‘Schilehrer Anwärter’. Adrian is presently a research scholar and tutor at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (Middle East and Central Asia) at ANU. His doctorate is entitled ‘The Influence of Religion on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East’.

ALSO BY ADRIAN D’HAGÉ

The Omega Scroll

The Beijing Conspiracy

The Maya Codex

To Sophie, Ella and Chloe

BOOK I

Chapter 1

A crystal skull lay at the feet of the mummified king. It glistened in the flickering light of the oil lamps hanging on the walls of the Inca tomb, deep inside the snow-covered Andes mountains.

Almost hidden in the gloom, the shaman sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor. Directly descended from the Inca Q’ero people, Carlos Huayta was short and stocky, his brown oval face weathered by the years, his eyes the colour of coal, his greying black hair tied into a ponytail. Huayta pulled his hand-woven woollen poncho more tightly around his shoulders. The bright red, blue and yellow diamond patterns identified the old man’s birthplace: a remote village, high in the Andes to the north of Lake Titicaca. Huayta focused on the skull at the feet of the mummy and began to breathe deeply in a deliberate, practised rhythm as his heart rate gradually slowed.

Save for the visits of a select few shamans, the burial chamber of Pachacuti Yupanqui, the ninth ruler of the Inca, had lain undisturbed since 1472, when the ancients had brought their ruler to his final resting place and positioned him on a solid-gold throne, his hands folded across his chest. His death mask was intricately inlaid with gold, silver and jade. A silver necklace hung around his neck and gold bracelets adorned his mummified wrists. Beyond the body of the king, untold riches glinted from niches carved into the granite walls of the tomb: gold statues and figurines, silver chalices, vases full of emeralds, and priceless filigreed gold face masks and necklaces. An unassuming pottery urn stood in a niche in the furthest corner of the tomb, but Huayta knew that what appeared to be of little worth held the most valuable objects of all.

Huayta gazed at the crystal skull. It had taken modern science until the twentieth century to understand the extraordinary capabilities of crystal to store information, but the Inca had understood the power of crystal long before. Huayta pondered again the ancient Inca prophecy that had been passed down from shaman to shaman. When the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken.

The crystal skull suddenly sparked into life and Huayta recoiled involuntarily as the images appeared in the eye sockets. The Alborz mountains in Iran were shrouded in mist, stretching from the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the west to the southern edge of the Caspian Sea, and on to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan in the east. Mount Damavand, the highest volcano in the Middle East, soared above the range and clouds of sulphur billowed from fumaroles near the summit. The images faded to desert, and on to another instantly recognisable landmark, the golden Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. As it faded, another image appeared, and another … and then another; all of the landmarks irreplaceable.

An hour later, deep in thought, Huayta extinguished the oil lamps and made his way across the cold granite floor to the inner entrance that protected the tomb. He bowed towards the mummified remains of one of the Inca’s most revered kings and backed slowly into a narrow tunnel hewn through the rock. Huayta reached behind the gold figurine in a niche above the tomb’s entrance and activated the obsidian mechanism. The solid rock door slid soundlessly from the recess in the granite and locked into place. Huayta retraced his steps up the steeply sloping tunnel, extinguishing each oil lamp one by one, until he reached the outer rock door. Huayta waited until the stone slid silently across, sealing the entrance.

Early the next morning, a giant condor circled slowly over the Sacred Valley. Huayta watched from the Inca trail below as the magnificent bird, referred to by the Inca as ‘son of the sun’, soared effortlessly on the thermals. The condor’s massive wings spanned over three metres and its black feathers, flared at the wing tips, glinted in the early morning mists. A ring of white feathers formed a distinctive collar around its neck. Huayta wondered if the appearance of the sacred messenger was another omen. Centuries before, a condor had been attacked by a swarming flock of falcons over the ancient Inca capital of Cusco. The condor had been forced out of the sky and had fallen into the city square where the priests had worked desperately to save it, but to no avail. The priests duly reported to the eleventh Inca king, Huayna Capac, that the loss of the condor was an omen of disastrous times to come. Not long after, the king received reports of light-skinned bearded foreigners landing to the north, carrying strange metal sticks that erupted with fire. The magnificent Inca civilisation would soon be annihilated by the Spaniards.

To Huayta, the modern omens were equally clear. Unprecedented wild weather had battered thousands of cities and towns around the world. In the last decade, hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis had wreaked deadly havoc. And Huayta knew that even worse death and destruction were coming. In December 2012, the fifth sun of the Inca would come to a close. Each of the previous four ages on the Inca calendar had ended in catastrophe. If the modern world was to avert another cataclysm, Huayta knew there was very little time to change course.

The shaman resumed his climb towards the Puerta del Sol, the Gate of the Sun, pondering a long-hidden artefact of immense power: the Golden Sun Disc of the Inca. Whoever was to discover and interpret the Inca prophecy would, he knew, first have to find the ancient disc. But the disc was well hidden, and fiercely guarded.

In a few days Huayta would turn sixty-seven, but he handled the steep path with ease. The mists had descended into the tropical forest, drifting through the leaves of chalanque, pisonay and tasta trees and enveloping the rocky Inca trail. Huge fern trees, colourful bromeliads, wiñay wayna orchids and pink passionflowers lined the path up to the mountains overlooking the Machu Picchu ruins. A raccoon-like brown coatimundi with a long ringed tail scuttled across the stones. In the queña tree above, a bright red-crested cotinga bird hopped from one branch to another.

Huayta reached the saddle where the ancients had built Intipunku, the defensive gateway to Machu Picchu, and he climbed further up the ridgeline to a quiet rock known only to a few. Above him to the south, the crest of Machu Picchu – the mountain from which the Inca city had taken its name – soared through the clouds. To the Inca, Machu Picchu was the old mountain, or the mountain of experience. Further south, the snow-capped summit of Salcantay towered over the surrounding Andes ranges. To the north, the mists clung to the granite pinnacle of Huayna Picchu, the young mountain, the mountain of learning and apprenticeship. In the ravine below, the sacred Urubamba River tumbled past the base of the cliffs.

Huayta’s gaze came back to the ruins. Below him, the terraced agricultural areas gave way to the grassy main square. To the left, Huayta could clearly see the fortifications surrounding the Sacred Plaza, the Principal Temple and the Temple of the Three Windows. A group of university students had gathered in an area beyond the temples and Huayta delved into his shoulder bag, woven in the same diamond pattern as his poncho. He adjusted his binoculars and focused on the leader of the group.

Dr Aleta Weizman was in animated discussion with her students. Her long black hair tumbled over the tanned olive skin of her shoulders, partly covering the fine features of her oval face.

‘It’s generally accepted by archaeologists that Machu Picchu was built as a royal retreat and sacred centre for Pachacuti, the ninth Sapa Inca, or king,’ Aleta explained, sweeping her arm to the west, where far below, the Urubamba River wound through the rainforest on its way to join the mighty Amazon. ‘Just imagine!’ Aleta’s dark eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. ‘For centuries there’d been rumours of a mysterious city, built high amongst the clouds in the Andes, never found by the invading Spanish. It was hidden here all that time until a young American adventurer, Hiram Bingham, discovered it in 1911. Now,’ she said, her dark eyes still dancing, ‘we’ll take those granite steps beyond the north wall of the Principal Temple to the highest point of the ruins, the Pyramid of the Sun!’

The brilliant young archaeologist led the way past a polished stone in the shape of the Southern Cross and on towards the entrance to a small, exquisitely constructed sacristy where Inca priests and priestesses had sat to meditate, facing towards the stunning snow-capped peak of the sacred Pumasillo Mountain to the west. She climbed a series of staircases, each step carved from a separate but matching block of granite, the students following.

As she climbed, Aleta briefly reflected on where her life might be headed. Her marriage to Ryan Crosier, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Guatemala City, was in deep trouble, and this trip with her students had come as a welcome relief. But tomorrow, she would have to return and face reality. Soon she was to accompany Ryan on a trip to Washington for a biblical conference in support of Israel. Aleta shuddered. It seemed to her that religion, or at least Ryan’s take on it, had all but destroyed their relationship. At least she had managed to keep Weizman as her professional name. Perhaps that was a portent of things to come, but she’d resolved to give her marriage one last try. She put the trip to Washington and the Israel conference out of her mind, and refocused on her charges.

‘These beautifully constructed steps are an indication that this peak, the Pyramid of the Sun, was of great importance to the Inca,’ Aleta explained as they reached the top. ‘This is the space of the Apu, the spirit of the mountains.’ She felt a surge of energy pulse through her body. Machu Picchu, she knew, was one of the earth’s great energy vortexes: locations where the earth’s electromagnetic energy was strongest. It was something Machu Picchu had in common with other sacred places like the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Mount of Olives and Uluru.

‘The Inca constructed their buildings and sacred stones to align with the movements of the planets and the sun, and the stone you see in front of you is the famous Intiwatana Stone, or the place to which the sun is tied.’ Aleta pointed to a massive granite block carved in the shape of the pinnacle of the Huayna Picchu mountain across the Urubamba Gorge. ‘At the equinoxes, the sunrise and the Intiwatana Stone are aligned with the highest peak of the Veronica mountain range in the east. At the winter solstice, the stone and the sunset are aligned with the highest peak in the Pumasillo range, the snow-covered mountains you can see to the west.’

Below the snow line, mists swirled around the towering forests. Aleta shivered. The ruins had not yet yielded all their secrets. Somewhere quite close to Machu Picchu, a dark prophecy lay hidden.

Chapter 2

From the shadows of his garret above the Rue des Abbesses, CIA agent Curtis O’Connor focused the laser beam past the black wrought-iron balcony and on to the window of the apartment on the other side of the narrow, busy thoroughfare. It was eight in the morning and Montmartre’s sidewalk cafés were already filled with locals grabbing a quick coffee on their way to work, and tourists taking a more leisurely breakfast.

O’Connor, tall, fit and solidly built, trained the tiny green dot on the top right-hand corner of the window opposite where, unless someone was specifically looking for it, the laser beam would go unnoticed. Any conversation in the targeted room would, O’Connor knew, generate minute vibrations against the glass. The state-of-the-art suitcase-laser system assembled by the back-room boys in Langley was designed to bounce an infrared beam off the window and back to a laser optical receiver which converted vibrations into electrical pulses. In turn, the pulses were converted into an audio signal.

If the latest intelligence the US had on Iran was correct, two Pakistani nuclear scientists would shortly arrive to meet with the occupant of the apartment – Brigadier General Hossein Shakiba. Shakiba headed the nuclear division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and was one of the most powerful military officers in Iran. As a member of the Supreme National Security Council, he reported directly to the President. O’Connor reached for his binoculars and focused them on Shakiba, who was studying some papers in the sitting room. Pale and thin, with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, Shakiba did not fit the profile of some of the Revolutionary Guards Corps thugs O’Connor had encountered in the past, but he knew this man was far more dangerous. A brilliant nuclear scientist, Shakiba had trained at Harvard in the days when Iran had been a trusted ally of the US in the Middle East, when the Shah, along with his wife, had been honoured guests in the White Houses of Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Nixon and Carter.

‘One moment … come on up.’ Shakiba’s response to the door buzzer came through clearly in O’Connor’s headphones. O’Connor focused his binoculars on the street-level entrance. The two Pakistanis were unmistakable. O’Connor had one of the sharpest minds in the Firm, as the CIA was known to insiders, and he’d committed the files on both men to memory.

Major General Vijay ul-Haq, a swarthy-faced man in his fifties, had long been one of the driving forces behind Pakistan’s nuclear arms program; the second man, Dr Wasim Yousef, was a nuclear scientist from the AQ Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta in the Punjab, and an expert on heavy-water reactors, centrifuges and the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. It had taken Mohamed ElBaradei and his team at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency years of painstaking research, but eventually the UN investigators had unearthed the sinister tentacles of AQ Khan’s network, tracing the criminal activities of the Pakistanis to over thirty different countries. The revelations to date had been frightening enough, but O’Connor was convinced that now the nuclear technology was out of the test tube, there was worse to come. But the US needed proof. He watched as Shakiba greeted his Pakistani counterparts, offering them coffee.

‘We’re having trouble getting enough components for our P1 centrifuges,’ Shakiba began, unrolling a set of technical diagrams on the coffee table. ‘Especially the bearings, and we’re also having some problems at our heavy-water reactor site at Arak.’

O’Connor took a deep breath as Shakiba unfurled a further set of designs on the coffee table. A heavy-water reactor could only mean one thing – plutonium.

‘For the P1 centrifuge components, we may be able to put you in contact with a reliable supplier in China,’ General ul-Haq offered, ‘but we can do better than that. The P2 design is far superior, although it will be expensive.’ There was more than a hint of avarice in the general’s smile.

‘Money won’t be a problem, General. This program has the highest priority, and that comes from the very top,’ Shakiba assured his guest. ‘Would you be prepared to come to Iran?’

‘That would not be without risk,’ General ul-Haq observed.

‘We would make it worth your while,’ Shakiba replied easily.

The general raised a thin dark eyebrow.

‘Would a million dollars US … each … together with remuneration for your scientists be enough to cover the risk?’

Ul-Haq and Yousef exchanged glances.

An hour later, O’Connor whistled softly. The Iranians might be having problems with their nuclear program, but they were a lot further ahead with it than Washington, the International Atomic Energy Agency or even the Israelis had allowed.

O’Connor sent a short, encrypted burst transmission to Tom McNamara, the Deputy Director of Operations back in Langley, switched on the cable television and tuned in to Al Jazeera. The Arab network was beaming live, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was addressing the World Without Zionism conference in Tehran. The diminutive, dark-haired Iranian president was standing in front of a huge hourglass, the top of which contained a globe of the world. Two countries, the United States and Israel, had ominously fallen through the neck and shattered in the bottom section.

‘Een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods, bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shaved!’ Ahmadinejad said, extending his fingers for emphasis. ‘This regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of history!’ The audience of representatives from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, members of the Society for the Defense of the Palestinian Nation and hundreds of university students all cheered wildly, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar! God is great! We love you, President Ahmadinejad!’

O’Connor shook his head. The world was going barking mad, he thought, and he flicked off the television, locked his laptop in the room safe and headed out towards the closest Métro station. It took only minutes to walk down the bustling Rue des Abbesses, where beneath the white-shuttered windows and wrought-iron balconies, wine shops competed with fruit stores and brasseries. The aromas of freshly baked bread wafted out of the patisseries, and waiters dressed in black served café, thé and chocolat on the pavement tables. Scooters, motorcycles and vans took up every available cobblestoned space between the plane trees and maples.

The Art Nouveau entrance to the station, Metropolitain Abbesses, with its striking green wrought-iron and glass roof, had been designed in the early nineteen hundreds. It was one of the deepest stations on Paris Métro Line 12, and O’Connor scanned the surrounds warily before taking the stairs. Lifts enabled an attacker to operate at close range.

O’Connor changed trains at Pigalle and a short while later the train arrived at Gare du Nord. With 190 million passengers passing through the station each year, the huge terminus was Europe’s busiest. O’Connor took up a position opposite the platform where the train for Auvers-sur-Oise was ready to depart and waited. With less than thirty seconds to go, he strode across to the last of the red, blue and white carriages and boarded. Why make it easy for anyone tailing him?

Chapter 3

Cardinal Salvatore Felici’s driver eased the big black limousine off the E80 Grande Raccordo Anulare, Rome’s greater ring road, and headed towards the city’s second airport. The guard on the VIP entrance snapped to attention at the sight of the cardinal’s coat of arms fluttering from the small silver flagstaff on the bonnet of the Mercedes.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith alighted and walked the few steps to where his Russian-made Beriev Be-103 amphibious aircraft was waiting. Tall and powerfully built, Cardinal Felici had a good head of fine, black hair, flecked with grey and combed straight back under his scarlet zucchetto. He had a long rectangular face, and a large aquiline nose. His piercing grey eyes were hooded, underscored by dark circles, but, like a peregrine falcon, Salvatore Felici missed nothing.

As soon as the cardinal was strapped in, his pilot radioed for permission to depart and was given an expedited clearance in front of five commercial passenger jets. They taxied towards the end of the airfield, and Felici watched as a 737 on late finals approached, the pilot adjusting as a sudden gust of wind lifted the starboard wing. Felici’s pilot brought the stylish twin-engine red Be-103 to a stop just short of the runway. Manufactured by the same Russian company that made Sukhoi jet fighters, when the Be-103 landed on water, it floated on its wings. Unencumbered by floats, it was capable of an impressive turn of speed. Never known for his patience, Cardinal Felici found the Be-103 a perfect match for his travel requirements.

‘Ciampino Tower, this is India November Oscar Juliet, holding short of runway three three.’

‘India November Oscar Juliet, you are cleared for an immediate take-off, runway three three, direct to Lake Como. Contact departures when airborne and have a pleasant flight.’

‘Oscar Juliet, roger, cleared for immediate take-off, runway three three.’ Felici’s pilot eased the aircraft on to the ‘piano keys’ and moved the throttles forward. The Continental engines growled in response and as the Be-103 reached 70 knots, the pilot eased back on the stick and they climbed rapidly.

Felici reclined in his leather seat behind the pilot. Through the haze to the west he could make out the Tiber River and the distinctive dome of St Peter’s Basilica surrounded by the walls of the Vatican City. It was a city that in the not-too-distant future Felici was determined to rule. Just two months shy of his sixty-third birthday, Felici contemplated the age factor, aware that some might still believe him too young to be considered papabile, one who might likely be elected Pope. After the long reign of Pope John Paul II – twenty-six years and 168 days – the curial cardinals would, he knew, be wary of electing someone who might be Pope for a long time. Felici smiled to himself. John Paul II’s predecessor, John Paul I, had lasted for only thirty-three days, but he had made the mistake of trying to reverse the Church’s stance on contraception. Even more threatening to some of the curial cardinals in Rome had been his plans to investigate the sinister activities of the Vatican Bank. After it became known that John Paul I was about to dismiss a number of powerful cardinals and bishops who were all members of the notorious P2 Masonic Lodge, the pontiff had been found dead in his bed. Felici stroked his powerful jaw thoughtfully. The Curia would need to be brought on side.

Felici opened his soft Italian leather briefcase and extracted the briefing notes for the meeting he’d convened at his private villa, out of sight of prying eyes. Could ancient crystal skulls pose a threat to the Holy Church? The meticulous Felici was not prepared to take any risks. Centuries before, the Holy Alliance, the Vatican’s intelligence service created by order of Pope Pius V in 1566, had recovered a crystal skull and kept it hidden ever since. Now there were reports of others.

Three hours later the plane began its descent towards the dark-blue waters of one of the deepest and most stunning lakes in Europe: Como. During the Ice Age, a massive glacier had ground the mountains aside, forming the lake in the shape of an inverted Y. Cardinals had long been associated with the luxurious villas that graced the shores of the lake. More recently, the likes of George Clooney, Madonna, Gianni Versace, Sylvester Stallone and Richard Branson had added their names to an illustrious list.

On the western side, Felici could make out Isola Comacina, Lake Como’s only island. A ferry, smoke belching from a single black funnel, was pulling away from the little jetty below the famous Locanda restaurant. Beyond the island, the red terracotta roofs of the small lakeside towns stretched towards the Alps: Lenno, Mezzegra, Tremezzo, Menaggio; and on the east, San Giovanni, Bellagio and Varenna; each with their distinctive churches, some turreted in Romanesque stone. To the west and to the north, jagged snow-capped granite peaks marked Italy’s border with Switzerland.

Felici’s pilot searched the lake for an area clear of the hydrofoils, ferries and myriad smaller craft that plied between the towns. He set the flaps at 30 degrees, came in low over the smooth waters and held the aircraft nose up with the power still on, allowing the wings to finally settle onto the lake in a burst of spray. The pilot maintained a nose-up attitude until the Be-103 slid off its bow wave, gently bobbing on the lake about a kilometre from Villa Felici, which was clearly visible in the distance, nestled amongst cyprus pines, sycamores and candelabra plane trees on one of the lake’s many promontories. Almost immediately, a classic polished mahogany Italian speedboat emerged from behind the stone sea wall of the villa and powered towards the plane.

Within minutes, Felici was on board and the throaty, throbbing inboard echoed around the lake as his boatman gunned the sleek wooden craft, Felici’s personal coat of arms flying from the flagstaff at the stern. They planed across the water at nearly 30 knots and Felici looked towards his villa with a sense of deep satisfaction. Left to him by his father, Alberto Felici – Gentleman of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, and Papal Knight Commander of the Order of Sylvester and banker to the Vatican during the Nazi years – the eighteenth-century property covered several acres and was considered one of the finest in all Italy. The villa was dominated by a magnificent stone loggia with views towards Isola Comacina and the Gulf of Diana to the south, while the Gulf of Venus, and the towns of Tremezzo and Bellagio beckoned from the north. Climbing fig trees were entwined around stone arches connecting a chamber music hall on one side with the library on the other. A secret passage, known only to Felici, led from the library, providing an escape route to the waterline. A gravel path, flanked by marble statues and gnarled wisteria, wound its way down to the main buildings below the loggia, red terracotta roofs reflecting the last of the sunlight. Just above the private wooden jetty, twin stone bell towers, remnants of a thirteenth-century Franciscan monastery, rose above the sycamores.

Felici’s boatman manoeuvred the speedboat through a narrow stone gap that led to an enclosed subterranean boathouse beyond, and nudged the tyres around the two piers either side of the stone steps leading to the main house. The deckhand leapt on to the steps and steadied the boat, offering his free hand to assist the cardinal. Sister Bridget, who had driven up from Rome the day before, was waiting at the top of the steps, her long dark hair tied neatly under her veil. Sister Bridget was a striking beauty, with soft blue eyes and flawless creamy skin, and her appointment to Felici’s household had raised more than one eyebrow in the Vatican.

‘Welcome, Eminence,’ she said, smiling demurely. ‘Everything is ready,’ she added, anticipating her master’s first question. ‘Professor Macchiarolo is waiting for you in the fumoir.’

The professor was not only a respected world authority on the crystal skulls, but he was also a staunch Catholic.

‘And the wine for dinner?’ Felici asked.

‘Chef has procured some Clos des Goisses 1975 and he has managed to acquire another case of Château Haut-Brion 1989.’

‘Excellent.’ Château Haut-Brion, Felici knew well, was one of Bridget’s favourites. The smile that appeared on Felici’s lips was almost as rare as the wine.

Eighteenth-century wood panelling lined the walls of the villa’s smoking room. Renaissance paintings on leather hung from brass hooks on the picture rail. Exquisite Louis XV and Louis XVI side tables were matched with comfortable leather chairs and a deep-blue felt sofa. Elegant blue and gold lamps threw a soft light onto the Persian carpet. The mantelpiece above the log fire was dominated by a softly lit wooden case containing Italian Renaissance bronze statuettes. It was a setting Cardinal Felici considered only fitting, given his status as a prince of the Church.

‘Professor, how good of you to come,’ he said, offering his fine, bony hand to the tubby professor.

‘The pleasure is all mine, Eminence. Before you arrived I was admiring the view. It’s a beautiful part of the world.’

‘It is indeed, Professor.’

‘But I must confess, Eminence, I’m puzzled as to why the Vatican would be interested in the crystal skulls,’ queried Macchiarolo, peering over his tortoiseshell glasses.

Felici smiled enigmatically, waving Professor Macchiarolo towards a leather chair. ‘I will come straight to the point, Professor. Every so often, the Church is faced with threats; some real, some imagined. You were interviewed for this article in Panorama.’ Felici withdrew the glossy magazine from his soft leather briefcase. The cover featured a photograph of Silvio Berlusconi, flanked by two beautiful models, but it was the equally striking photograph of an ancient crystal skull below the cover story that had caught the cardinal’s attention.

Professor Macchiarolo nodded, a wry smile on his lips. ‘Ah, yes. The article on the Inca skulls.’

‘You’re smiling, Professor?’

‘That article was written by a journalist who is not an expert in this field, Eminence. Despite my best efforts, I’m afraid there are a number of errors, reported from … shall we say, more sensationalist sources.’

‘Then we can perhaps be more relaxed about the journalist’s assertions that these ancient crystal skulls might pose a threat to the doctrine of the faith?’

Professor Macchiarolo’s smile vanished. ‘No, you are right to be worried. The Inca held to a spirituality that was sharply at odds with the scriptures, and if the Inca crystal skulls should come to light, the knowledge they contain will, at the very least, promote fierce debate. They may even change the way many people think. All crystal can be programmed with information – at the heart of information storage in a modern computer, for example, is a tiny silicon crystal chip – and I have seen ancient archaeological reports that indicate three such skulls exist. If linked together, they may contain a complete message … a message that will be explosive.’ The eminent academic outlined what he suspected the Inca crystal skulls contained as the colour drained from Felici’s face.

‘Dr Rossi is on the line, Eminence,’ Sister Bridget announced, once the cardinal’s guest had departed.

‘Thank you, I’ll take it in the library.’ The cardinal briskly walked to the library phone extension and picked up. ‘Dottore, buongiorno. Come stai?’

‘Bene, grazie, Eminenza,’ the papal physician replied, ‘but I’m afraid His Holiness is not at all well.’ Cardinal Felici, he knew, liked to get straight to the point. ‘His Holiness has just been diagnosed with bladder cancer … a tumour on the bladder wall. We’re scheduling surgery next week.’

‘Shocking news indeed,’ said Felici, his mind racing. ‘What’s the prognosis?’

‘This particular cancer is very aggressive. It will depend on whether it has perforated the bladder walls and spread to the lymph nodes. I thought you should be the first to know.’

‘Of course, thank you. I will return to Rome at the earliest opportunity.’

Felici rang off and immediately dialled the pontiff’s private secretary, Monsignor Abati.

‘I have just spoken with Dr Rossi, Monsignor. A terrible business. I trust His Holiness is resting.’

‘I’m not sure that resting is part of His Holiness’s vernacular, Eminence, but we are doing our best to shield him from his in-tray.’

‘I understand completely, Monsignor.’ Felici had long maintained a close relationship with the fearsomely efficient monsignor, not because of any particular fondness for him, but rather as a means to increase his own power base in the Vatican. ‘It’s a difficult task, but if anyone can do it, you can. In the meantime, it is important that this information is very tightly held. I will shortly draft a media release, which I will copy to you, but I don’t think it necessary to apprise the Curia at this early stage. We will describe His Holiness’s tests as routine.’

‘Absolutely, Eminence.’

Felici put down the phone and moved to the big French windows. The sun had sunk behind the snow-capped mountains and cold shadows extended across the deep waters of the lake. It was time. On his return to Rome, Felici resolved to begin his campaign for the keys of St Peter in earnest. He already held detailed files on every possible competitor, but the one that worried him most was the Cardinal Secretary of State. Cardinal Sabatani, an eminent lawyer and one of the few Jesuits in the college, was a progressive, and Felici considered it unthinkable that a liberal might be elected pope. His thoughts turned to the crystal skull already in the Vatican’s possession.

In 1805, a crystal skull had been recovered by the Holy Alliance. The skull and two yellowed parchments – an ancient cipher along with a translation of an Inca prophecy handed down by word of mouth – had originally come into the possession of the Spanish conquistadors. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro had captured the Inca king, Atahualpa, and slaughtered thousands of innocent Inca at Cajamarca. The Inca had been forced to convert to Catholicism, and the skull and parchments had passed into the hands of the priests and friars who had accompanied the conquistadors. Unable to crack the cipher, and fearing the power of the skull, the priests had eventually alerted the Holy Alliance, who arranged for the artefacts to be brought back to the Vatican and placed in the secret archives, where most believed they had lain ever since.

Felici crossed to the bookcase at the far end of the library. He reached behind a volume of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ and pressed a small black button. The library shelf revolved noiselessly, revealing a wooden staircase. Felici descended the stairs until he reached the stone steps of a narrow passage excavated through the rock of the promontory, its walls dank and covered in moss. The secret passage had been constructed in 1850, by order of Cardinal Dorino, who had need of an escape route during the reign of Pope Pius IX when the north of Italy and the Papal Army were under siege from the Austrians. The passage led to rooms on the lower floors of the villa, and from there to the boat landing, but Felici had made one important addition to the passage – a private vault chiselled out of the rock, just above the waters of the boathouse. It was this vault that now housed the priceless crystal skull and the ancient parchments.

A small bulb, protected by a rusted cage, probed the shadows around the vault’s heavy steel door. It was fitted with dual locks, and Felici dialled in both combinations. The door moved easily on its massive hinges and Felici took an involuntary step back at the sight of the skull. Something about the exquisitely carved crystal masterpiece unnerved him deeply. A curious blue light emanated from it, and Felici’s approach caused orange and red flashes of light to spark around the eye sockets. It was as if the skull was somehow communicating.

In the past, Felici had contemplated smashing the skull, but he was now determined to decipher the information within it. But how? Suddenly an image appeared in the left eye socket, followed by another in the right. A strange mist enveloped the inside of the skull and Felici steadied himself against the rock wall of the vault. Deep in the crystal, images of some of the world’s most precious sites were being blown apart with horrific force. Felici watched, mesmerised as the images slowly faded from view. He waited until his breathing returned to normal before moving to the small safe that was anchored in the rock wall. It was designed to withstand intense heat, but more importantly, high humidity. Felici dialled the combination and extracted two crimson folders embossed with his gold coat of arms.

The first document had been translated from the Quechua dialect, and although it was easy to read, its meaning was obscure:

Advertencia – a warning

When the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken.

Twelve thousand years ago, the last remnants of the ancient civilisations of Atlantis and Lemuria were destroyed. Their scientists had ignored the warnings from the Masters against experiments that upset the planet’s delicate balance. The Masters assembled the most precious of their sacred documents for safekeeping.

The Atlantean Golden Sun Disc, along with the most important documents, were secured in the Temple of the Sun in the Inca capital, Cusco. But when the Spaniards came, the Sun Disc and the documents were removed and taken to the Lost City of Paititi.

Felici had read Plato, and he knew that the revered Greek mathematician and philosopher had mentioned the existence of Atlantis in 360 BC. In the past, Felici had dismissed the lost continent as a figment of Plato’s imagination, but now he wasn’t so sure. Felici had recently learned that in the third century BC, another Greek philosopher, Crantor, had also written of Atlantis. Crantor had visited Egypt, and, after conversations with priests in the ancient capital of Alexandria, he had been shown hieroglyphs the priests kept hidden from view. The hieroglyphs not only confirmed the existence of the Atlantean civilisation, but indicated the Atlanteans were highly advanced, particularly in science and mathematics. Felici turned to the second page of the yellowed Inca prophecy:

The Lost City of Paititi lies deep in the Amazonian jungle. The Sun Disc is now hidden in a subterranean temple, in the Monastery of the Brotherhood of the Seven Rays. It will remain there until human-kind is ready to receive it, and able to use its extraordinary power for the greater good.

Those who are called the Conquistadors have not found the hidden monastery, nor have they found the citadel of Machu Picchu, for they are focused on gold and greed.

There will come a time when Planet Earth, like the continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, will face destruction, but disaster can be averted. The Source energy enters the planet in two locations. The masculine ray enters in the Himalayas, and the balancing feminine ray enters at Lake Titicaca, the earth’s highest lake. From these two points, a magnetic grid radiates, on which all the ancient sites of power are located. To avoid the destruction that beset Atlantis, you must unite the three crystal skulls, when the sun is at its zenith. But those who seek Paititi must first find the outer sanctuary in the Hidden Valley.

The Great Cipher provides the key. Both the ancient map and the Golden Puma are critical.

Felici returned the parchment to the safe and opened the second folder. As he’d done many times before, Felici pondered the single yellowed document containing a series of mysterious numbers:

The Cipher

299 4 164 177 3 228 45 287 36 224 84 200 83 232 50 145 194 219 101 10 125 127 9 166 216 113 241 38 158 1 3 61 306 187 199 272 217 206 6 183 152 67 145 200 106 306 253 310 231 218 12 108 156 23 126 111 78 219 279 281 260 145 287 166 106 304 7 6 225 66 270 246 204 223 126 218 171 108 140 273 170 281 50 272 243 145 307 270 6 27 250 295 314 107 146 48 207 189 108 304 53 204 180 126 158 210 78 279 68 3 9 105 124 108 6 253 172 280 125 256 78 71 206 225 7 6 70 206 279 225 126 218 9 108 125 212 182 101 291 106 147 219 61 218 152 190 38 24 150 243 189 145 217 55 125 35 234 152 71 158 38 156 6 123 101 219 96 187 125 69 217 117 169 223 270 250 3 225 252 158 68 240 182 104 38 158 196 6 107 124 218 125 79 112 232 114 78 241 55 111 247 170 227 137 145 162 38 192 253 33 96 206 125 69 293 52 287 78 69 147 70 125 78 168 17 152 33 239 52 219 140 3 254 158 309 207 242 75

The cipher had made no sense to Felici, so he’d given a photocopy of the numbers to Monsignor Lorenzo de Luca, the head of the Holy Alliance, and directed him to solve it. The priests in the cipher section had gone to work, using the most sophisticated computer programs available, but so far, without success. Felici had also provided them with a photocopy of the first page of the Inca prophecy. Once the cipher was cracked, he surmised that it would provide a series of compass bearings, but the critical information on the Andes and Lake Titicaca he had kept to himself. Felici was convinced that if the cipher could be decoded, he’d have a way to find Paititi.

To his annoyance, further evidence for this had surfaced in the public domain. A few years before, another document had been discovered in the Jesuit archives in Rome that described an ancient Inca city in the Peruvian jungle, which the natives called Paititi, reportedly rich in gold and precious jewels. Various archaeological expeditions had ensued, which Felici had followed closely, but to date they had all been unsuccessful. He returned the cipher to the safe and locked it, resolving to check on progress when he returned to Rome.

‘You look worried, Eminence,’ Sister Bridget observed as she served an asparagus and mushroom frittata from the green marble top of the elegant Louis XVI sideboard.

‘The Pope’s health,’ Felici replied, not altogether truthfully. ‘He’s just been diagnosed with bladder cancer.’ Bridget was one of the few Vatican insiders Felici trusted.

‘Oh, no …’ Even though her loyalties lay firmly with her own cardinal, the news came as a shock. ‘When will you want to go back?’

Felici reached across the table for Bridget’s hand. ‘We are all entitled to a break, my dear. I’ve already approved a media release for both Vatican and wider public consumption. Dr Rossi and His Holiness’s private secretary are aware of the Pope’s condition, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, and that includes the curial cardinals, His Holiness is merely undergoing a routine check-up. You and I will get an early night, and tomorrow, we’ll take a drive in the mountains. We will return to Rome soon enough.’

Bridget smiled and squeezed his hand in return.

Chapter 4

O’Connor alighted from the train and scanned the small redbrick platform that served Auvers-sur-Oise. Apart from a group of tourists, the platform was clear. He made his way through the station exit, towards the headquarters of the self-styled Iranian government-in-exile in Rue des Gords, less than two kilometres from the station. Auvers-sur-Oise was an interesting location for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, he thought.

Auvers on the Oise River, a peaceful little commune set amongst rolling fields on the fringes of the north-west suburbs of Paris, was better known for the great artists who had once painted there than for governments-in-exile. Daubigny, Pissarro, Cézanne, Henri Rousseau, Freundlich and Van Gogh had all lived and painted in the idyllic village. O’Connor glanced at his watch. Just after midday. He’d arranged to meet his contact from the NCRI in the Commerce de Vins, a small restaurant on the ground floor of the Ravoux Inn, not far from the station.

O’Connor crossed the road and headed west down Rue du Général de Gaulle. High rock fences and tall elm and oak trees shielded old stone houses opposite quaint village stores. Canvas awnings in reds, blues and dark greens, and wrought-iron balconies hung over the narrow street. The traffic was light, but here and there, O’Connor had to work his way past parked cars and small delivery vans. Even narrower laneways led to houses hidden amongst the trees.

Within minutes O’Connor sighted the two-storey white-stone building with a moss-encrusted brown slate roof. Van Gogh had lived above the Commerce de Vins restaurant, which boasted a red wooden frontage on the ground floor. White lace curtains made it difficult to see the interior of the restaurant from the road. O’Connor casually but carefully surveyed the leafy car park opposite. Satisfied, he pushed open the wooden door.

O’Connor’s contact was already sitting at one of the small wooden tables in a far corner. In his late forties, Jalal Ashtar was possessed of a square, swarthy face, thick dark hair, and a neatly trimmed black beard and moustache. He wore rimless glasses and he was dressed in a casual, open-necked blue shirt under his dark-blue jacket. Ashtar’s CIA file indicated he was one of the more astute members of the NCRI, but could his contacts inside Iran be trusted? O’Connor wasn’t so sure. The restaurant was already half full, and as O’Connor made his way across the black-and-white tiled floor, smoke from a dozen cigarettes drifted up into the old-fashioned lamps suspended from the roof.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Ashtar,’ O’Connor said, pulling out a wooden chair. ‘Préférez-vous parler en anglais ou en français?’

‘You’re clearly a man of many talents, Mr O’Connor, but English will be fine. Cigarette?’ Ashtar asked, proffering a gold-tipped Sobranie Black Russian in a black and gold pack.

‘Not one of my vices, monsieur.’ O’Connor smiled at the young, attractive waitress as he ordered a country terrine of pork, chicken and pistachios, and a crock of pickles.

Ashtar ordered the salmon with honey sauce and grilled onions and waited until the waitress had withdrawn before he began to speak in a low, urgent voice. ‘The world is running out of time, Mr O’Connor. The West is grossly underestimating the preparations Iran is making to join the nuclear weapons club, particularly since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the 2005 presidential election.’ Ashtar’s voice carried the heavy Iranian accent of a man who’d been born and raised in Esfahan, a city some 400 kilometres south of Tehran. His CIA file indicated he’d fled the country in 1979, when the Shah was exiled to the United States after Ayatollah Khomeini seized power during the Iranian Revolution. Over the years, Ashtar had worked his way up to a position of influence in the Iranian government-in-exile.

‘The International Atomic Energy Agency doesn’t seem to think so,’ O’Connor remarked. ‘They inspect fairly regularly.’

‘The IAEA are having the wool pulled over their eyes and Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei are making sure the UN inspectors are kept well away from any sensitive areas. Are you aware that the Iranians are running two nuclear programs?’

‘Two?’

‘Washington is watching the program based on the nuclear research centre at Tehran University and the nuclear reactors the Russians are building at Bushehr in the Gulf – but that’s the public program. The top-secret program is run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. They’ve established a strategic research and technology unit, which is run by a Brigadier General Hossein Shakiba. Shakiba reports directly to the Supreme National Security Council and the President. Very few outside that unit know of its existence. Not even the parliament is briefed on the military program.’

‘How’s it funded then?’

‘The same way you fund many of your operations, Mr O’Connor.’

O’Connor nodded. There were, he knew, dozens of ‘black operations’ run by US Special Forces and the CIA that were funded without the knowledge of even the President, let alone Congress.

‘And the budget is in excess of a billion dollars US,’ Ashtar added.

‘Impressive.’ That put Shakiba’s million-dollar bribes to the two Pakistanis in the petty-cash tin, O’Connor thought.

‘Particularly when Iran’s economy has been blacklisted by most of the Western world.’ Ashtar slid a small, buff-coloured envelope across the table and lit another cigarette. ‘The headquarters of the Guards’ nuclear division is located in the north of Tehran near Vanak Square. The thumb drive inside that envelope details appointments, programs and what we believe are the Iranian’s current and future plans – including the construction of a heavy-water reactor at Arak, new centrifuge facilities at Natanz and other sites that we suspect are being constructed deep beneath the mountains.’

‘Suspect?’

‘It’s difficult for us to gain confirmation,’ Ashtar admitted, ‘and both the Zagros and the Alborz mountain ranges are extensive.’

O’Connor nodded. Iran was a very mountainous country. It had only two major lowlands: the marshy Khuzestan plain in the southwest and the longer, narrower Caspian Sea plain in the north. Many of the rugged peaks in the Zagros and Alborz chains soared close to 4000 metres.

‘Iran’s progress towards obtaining a nuclear capability is still not well understood in the West,’ Ashtar continued. ‘We suspect the Natanz centrifuge facilities will include 60 000 machines buried beneath reinforced concrete, but again, we’re not certain, as we no longer have many of our own people on the ground in Iran.’

O’Connor studied his informant’s face, wondering how much he really knew.

‘But it’s the heavy-water plant at Arak that should give the West most cause for concern.’

‘Plutonium?’ O’Connor’s mind went back to the discussions between General Shakiba and the two Pakistanis.

‘Precisely. Your intelligence agencies are focusing on the enrichment of uranium-235 and the manufacture of missile warheads, but you should be more worried about the amount of plutonium that will be available as a by-product of the Arak heavy-water reactor.’ Ashtar paused, fingering his closely trimmed beard. ‘And I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that it will be used in a nuclear warhead, although there will be more than enough to arm any missiles.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that although ultimate power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader, that power is underpinned by the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards are fiercely loyal to the Ayatollah, but they are even more fiercely loyal to Islam – Shia Islam – and we have reason to believe that General Shakiba, in particular, bears careful watching. He is not what he seems.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’

Ashtar waited while the waitress delivered the country terrine and the salmon.

‘Shakiba is first and foremost a Muslim … but a Shi’ite,’ he continued. ‘His wife and only son were murdered by Sunni extremists during a pilgrimage to the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in all of Shia Islam, and Shakiba has now sworn vengeance against the Sunnis. Iran’s access to nuclear weapons is bad enough, but General Shakiba’s access to weapons of mass destruction may have consequences well beyond Sunni–Shia sectarian violence.’

‘Do you have proof that Shakiba is linked to Hezbollah?’ In the West, Hezbollah was classified as a terrorist organisation, but in much of the Arab and Muslim world, it was seen as a Shia political and resistance movement.

‘After the successful overthrow of the Shah, the hardline conservatives in Tehran turned their attention to Beirut,’ said Ashtar. ‘Lebanon is the next target in their quest to Islamise the world, and they won’t stop until they’ve successfully turned Lebanon into a Shia Islamic state.’

O’Connor nodded. Lebanon and its capital Beirut, once known as the Paris of the Middle East, was a bloody quagmire. A brutal civil war had erupted in 1975 in a struggle for power between Maronite Christians, Druze, Sunnis, and Shi’ites. On the southern border with Israel, Palestinians fleeing Israeli persecution only complicated the deadly situation. Israel had invaded Lebanon twice, and since 1976, the thuggish Syrian army had been taking bayonets and axes to anyone who opposed the Syrian regime. O’Connor reflected on his own country’s brief, naïve flirtation with the conflict. In 1983, 241 US marines and 58 French paratroopers from the Chasseur Regiment had been slaughtered, their barracks pulverised by Shia extremists ramming trucks laden with explosives through the front gates. Many in the CIA believed Iran had been behind the attacks. The Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin had got it right, O’Connor thought ruefully. Whoever set his foot on the Lebanese mud would sink.

‘The Iranians will not stop until the world is ruled by Sharia law, and the struggle has now moved to Lebanon,’ Ashtar emphasised. ‘Are you familiar with the technology associated with plutonium nuclear suitcase bombs, Mr O’Connor?’

‘Yes, although I’m not an expert,’ O’Connor lied, intimately acquainted with the nuclear physics. The advantages of creating a nuclear weapon that fitted neatly into a suitcase were many. He also knew the Russians had achieved a successful design, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, O’Connor had heard reports that eighty of these ‘nuclear suitcases’ were missing. Western intelligence agencies around the world were on alert, but none of the missing suitcases had ever been found, and O’Connor knew that by now, the initiating devices in the bombs would need replacing.

‘Then you’ll be aware that just one kilogram of plutonium has the explosive power of over 20 000 tonnes of TNT. We suspect that Shakiba will attempt to develop suitcase bombs once the supply of plutonium from Arak comes on line.’

O’Connor listened to the Iranian dissident with growing alarm. Like the Russians, the United States had experimented with small tactical nuclear weapons, but the complex technology had been tightly guarded.

‘You’re sure of this? Where would they gain access to the expertise?’ O’Connor asked finally.

‘The Pakistanis, the Chinese and the Russians are all possibilities, monsieur.’

‘But you don’t have proof?’

‘Perhaps the US should be putting a lot more effort into finding that proof?’ Ashtar countered.

‘And this policy comes from the top?’

‘In all likelihood, although we don’t have proof of that either. But just as the President of the United States doesn’t know everything that’s going on inside the CIA, President Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei are unlikely to be aware of the details of Iran’s myriad nuclear projects. Nor is the Iranian hierarchy in agreement on all aspects of policy. Iran has its hardline conservatives, but the parliament also has a number of liberals. If details of the Iranian nuclear program were common knowledge, cooler heads might prevail. But one thing is certain, Mr O’Connor: if the fanatics in Iran perfect the suitcase bomb, it will put the suicide bomber in another dimension …’ Ashtar’s voice trailed off.

‘Why are you handing all this to the CIA? Why not just go public with it? It wouldn’t be the first time.’

Ashtar exhaled towards one of the pear-shaped glass ceiling lamps and smiled. ‘Two years ago, one of our people revealed the existence of an Iranian program of weapons of mass destruction, which was based at the Lavizan-Shi’an Technological Research Center north-east of Tehran.’

O’Connor nodded in agreement. The CIA had followed the disclosures with interest.

‘That centre was originally known as Lavizan 1, but when the site was disclosed, the regime moved all the nuclear and biological equipment to another site on a 24-hectare military facility near Tehran, known as Lavizan 2.’

‘I thought the IAEA had inspected that site?’

‘Not Lavizan 2, and by the time the IAEA arrived to inspect Lavizan 1, there was nothing to see. The site had been bulldozed to the ground and six inches of topsoil removed to ensure there were no traces of enriched uranium or biological weapons. If we were to go public with what we suspect is really happening in Iran, that would give the regime enough warning to cover its tracks. The United States and Israel are the only two countries who are able to stop this …’

‘How, exactly?’

‘The United States is Israel’s greatest ally, and once your population is aware of the threat posed by Islam, Sharia law and a nuclear-armed Iran, there are many, at least on the Republican side of politics, who will be pushing for Iran to be attacked to protect Israel.’

O’Connor knew better than to ask whether the same information was being supplied to Mossad. Israel had struck her enemies before without seeking approval from the United States. When the then president of Egypt, Gamal Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal in 1956, Israel had secretly joined forces with Britain and France and attacked. President Eisenhower had been furious. In O’Connor’s view, one thing was certain: Israel would already have plans in place to attack Iran.

‘That still doesn’t explain what you and the NCRI expect out of all this,’ O’Connor probed.

‘It’s quite simple. The NCRI represents the large silent majority of Iranians who want their country back. In the seventies, the Shah and the SAVAK, his murderous secret police, tortured and assassinated countless thousands of my countrymen. One of the SAVAK’s favourite forms of torture was to insert broken glass into the rectum, followed by boiling water.’ Ashtar raised an eyebrow and dragged deeply on his cigarette. ‘Many of those in SAVAK were trained by the CIA, Mr O’Connor. Not one of your finest achievements.’

O’Connor said nothing.

‘I was brought up in one of the poorest areas of Iran, in Vali-asr, a little village not far from the ruins of Persepolis.’

‘The ancient capital?’

‘Parsa, or City of the Persians,’ Ashtar agreed. ‘To understand why we want our country back, you must understand a little of our history. In 1971, when I was just eight, the Shah threw a celebration at Persepolis to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian throne. Six kings, four queens and twenty presidents drove past our village in Rolls-Royces, and Maxim’s of Paris provided the catering. While my family was struggling to put a bowl of rice and potatoes on the table, the Shah celebrated his wife’s birthday with a menu of crayfish tails, quails’ eggs, truffles and roast peacocks stuffed with foie gras.’ Ashtar exhaled contemptuously. ‘As I’m sure you know, the Shah’s regime was backed to the hilt by your government because Iran provided a buffer against Soviet expansion into the Middle East, and Iran’s oil reserves are the third largest in the world. When Khomeini seized control in 1979, many Iranians supported him, because we all thought that the days of misery under a Shah backed by the US were behind us.’

O’Connor could hear the anger in Ashtar’s voice. How much did this affect his analysis of the current situation?

‘In fact, they were only just beginning. Under the ayatollahs, life became a nightmare of strict Islamic law. Article 102 of Iran’s new Penal Code states that if you commit adultery, you will be stoned to death. You are placed in a hole and covered with soil, a man up to his waist and a woman up to her chest. Iran’s new legal codes are based on the seventh century – Khomeini turned the country back 1400 years, and his successor Khamenei has kept it there.’

‘Barbaric,’ O’Connor agreed, but the stoning of adulterers paled against the nuclear threat. ‘So you hope that the US will intervene, and in doing so, remove the ayatollahs from Iran. But what makes you think the Supreme Council will order a nuclear strike against the West?’

‘The ayatollahs’ intentions are very clear, at least to us. It’s to be hoped your people in Washington don’t make the same mistakes they made in 1978.’

‘The Iranian Revolution?’

Ashtar nodded. ‘Washington had no idea how bad things were in Iran under the Shah. Carter’s advisors didn’t have a clue. The Shah had pissed off the clergy, the merchant class, the farmers, the intellectuals, the students … the only thing propping him up was the army.

‘But even after the police and the army started killing protesters in the streets, the US government naïvely believed that the uprising was the work of a few disgruntled extremists.’ Ashtar leaned forward. ‘This Iranian regime will not stop until the entire world is subject to Islam and Sharia law. It’s written in the Iranian constitution, a public document. The final statement is clear, Mr O’Connor: this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.’ Ashtar lowered his voice still further. ‘Don’t be swayed by claims of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The ayatollahs are determined to acquire nuclear weapons, and they’re well on the way. It’s imperative that the US and Israel strike now, before it’s too late.’

An hour later, O’Connor left the restaurant and scanned the road leading back to the train station, his mind filled with foreboding. If what Jalal Ashtar had passed on was true, the United States might not be the only country facing annihilation. But could he be trusted? Was the NCRI hoping to use the United States and Israel to knock out the current regime so that they could assume power? Everything he’d been told was uncorroborated and would have to be exhaustively checked. It was time to report back to his boss in Langley.

Chapter 5

‘Come in, buddy. Take a seat.’ Tom McNamara, the CIA’s Deputy Director of Operations, motioned O’Connor towards one of two old and cracked brown leather sofas in front of a desk stacked high with briefing papers and crimson files. The DDO was the second most powerful man in the CIA, responsible for running all the CIA’s agents and countless international ‘black’ operations. McNamara’s manner matched his office chairs, old-world and comfortable, but manners could be misleading. The furniture had been scheduled for replacement more than once, but McNamara had told ‘those jerks’ down in Administration that he’d garrotte the first one of them who tried to replace them. In pride of place on the wood-panelled wall behind McNamara’s desk was the seal of the CIA, an eagle atop a shield with a sixteen-point compass star, which represented intelligence sourced from all points of the globe.

‘I’ve had a look at the Ashtar stuff,’ McNamara began. ‘What’s your take on it?’ The barrel-chested ex-marine leaned back in his swivel chair and put his feet up on the desk. McNamara had a big round face, greying hair cropped very short and piercing blue eyes.

‘It might be genuine, but it’s a big “might”. Given the clusterfuck we’ve got ourselves into in Iraq, we’ll need confirmation before we can take anything to the White House,’ O’Connor responded easily. He and McNamara had served together in some tough neighbourhoods since McNamara’s days as station chief in Moscow, where O’Connor had worked in the field undercover. Theirs was a trust forged in adversity.

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said McNamara. ‘I’m still not convinced all that bullshit about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction wasn’t fed to the Pentagon by Iranian intelligence.’

‘Not helped by the defense secretary and his neo-cons setting up their own intelligence unit … What was it called again?’

‘Ah yes … the Office of Special Plans. Code for “If there’s not sufficient intelligence to justify a war, we’ll make it up.” They wouldn’t know shit from clay at the Pentagon,’ McNamara grumbled.

The 2003 US invasion of the Iranians’ old adversary, Iraq, had played right into the hands of the Iranian ayatollahs. With Iraq now a smouldering train wreck, Iran was on the rise as the Shia powerhouse of the Middle East, something that was not lost on Sunni Arab countries like Saudi Arabia.

‘Confirming details of the nuclear program in Iran is going to be tough, though,’ O’Connor observed.

‘I know. Especially since those fuckwits in the Pentagon convinced the White House we don’t need people on the ground any more. Satellites can do it all, apparently, except where it comes to nuclear facilities that are buried so deep in the fucking mountains that even if we could find them, our biggest bunker buster wouldn’t touch them.’

McNamara reached for a crimson file marked Top Secret – NOFORN, meaning that in addition to the watertight security afforded to CIA secret files, the information was not for release to foreign nationals. ‘Which is where you come in,’ he said.

O’Connor grinned. ‘I was afraid of that.’

‘We’re ignoring the Pentagon and are now in the delicate first stages of bringing a defector on board – a member of the Revolutionary Guards. His name’s Farid Jafari and his details are in this file,’ McNamara said, pushing the file across the desk. ‘We’re about to train him in the finer points of staying alive.’

‘Here? Doesn’t that raise alarm bells in Tehran?’

‘Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your point of view – Jafari has a sick uncle in Maryland, so he’s here on the pretext of visiting him.’

‘Have they got him under surveillance?’

‘Not as far as we can tell, which is a sign he’s not high on their watch-list, but he’ll be interrogated when he gets back to Tehran. Nothing surer. We’re in the process of getting his wife out, so they can’t get to him through her.’

‘So where do I fit in?’

‘You’re going to help bring him up to speed with survival skills, and then we’re going to send you into Iran to run him and verify as much of Ashtar’s story as we can. For all we know, Ashtar might be another “Curveball”.’

Iraqi defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball, had fabricated the intelligence the US administration had used to bolster the case for invading Iraq. The German intelligence agency, BND, had warned the US they had doubts about al-Janabi’s claims, but the warnings were ignored, enabling the US to claim irrefutable and eyewitness proof of mobile biological-weapons laboratories.

‘Is there something in particular I’ve done to piss you off lately?’ O’Connor asked with a lopsided grin.

‘No, although you usually do, so you can hold this one on account. We’d normally use an Iranian, but thanks to the secretary of defense, they’re pretty thin on the ground, and you’re one of the very few people we’ve got who can speak Farsi,’ McNamara responded, more serious now. ‘Even hailing a taxi in Tehran without the lingo can be problematic.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something? The last time I looked we don’t even have an embassy there.’

‘More’s the pity,’ McNamara agreed. The DDO came from the old-fashioned school of hard negotiation and diplomatic arm-twisting, rather than the neo-con school of storming in with every available aircraft carrier and tank regiment. ‘But money talks, and we’re pretty confident we can fix a dead-letter drop in Tehran. It will include a Glock 21, which if I remember rightly is your persuader of choice, along with a satellite phone that will connect you with one of our Seal teams if we have to get you out in a hurry. Your codename for this operation is Cyrus and the codename to activate an extraction is Asman.’

‘Nice touch,’ O’Connor allowed. Asman was the ancient Persian god of the sky, and Cyrus the Great was the most successful king to ever rule over the Persian Empire, expanding its boundaries over a vast area of Asia, Africa and Europe. And it was Cyrus the Great who, in 540 BC, had freed the Jews from their Babylonian captors.

‘As cover, you’re going in as an academic on a research mission, and there we’ve had a stroke of luck – or perhaps turning a tragedy to our advantage would be a better way of putting it.’

The DDO pushed another thick crimson file towards O’Connor. ‘The life and times of Associate Professor Darragh McLoughlin. Everything he’s ever written or published. Two years younger than you, and there’s a rough likeness, particularly once you’ve grown a beard. He’s a lecturer in political science, specialising in Islam, at Trinity College Dublin … or was.’

‘Was?’

‘Died of a heart attack two months ago. We’ve managed to sanitise that small detail from websites and anywhere else our friends in Tehran might care to look. Fortunately McLoughlin was single, and pretty much a loner. The Irish government and the university are cooperating, and if the Iranians were to check on him, they would conclude McLoughlin’s still alive and kicking. The file also contains a detailed background brief on his personal habits, such as they were … just in case.’ The DDO allowed himself a sardonic smile. ‘McLoughlin didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and, unlike you, he had absolutely no interest in women, but I’m sure you’ll be able to restrain yourself in Iran.’

‘Batted for the other side?’

McNamara shook his head. ‘Why do you assume everyone who’s not interested in women bats for the other side? He just didn’t spend his life trying to get into bed with every woman he met.’

‘Iranian women are very attractive,’ O’Connor countered, feigning a hurt look.

The DDO shook his head and looked at O’Connor over the top of his glasses. ‘And being stoned to death is equally unattractive, so I suggest you concentrate on finding out just what the Iranians are up to. We’re going to need confirmation of every nuclear plant, including location, purpose, staffing numbers and types of equipment.’ McNamara placed his glasses on the desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘Your initial meeting with Jafari is set up for tomorrow at noon in the Watergate complex. After that Jafari’s scheduled for some intensive training at the farm.’

O’Connor smiled to himself. Located north of Route 64, not far from Williamsburg and about 150 kilometres south of Washington, DC, ‘the farm’ covered over 3500 hectares on the south bank of the York River in Virginia. One of the Agency’s top-secret training areas, it had been closed to the public since the early 1950s but O’Connor knew it well. He’d spent many weeks there, learning the darker arts of his trade.

‘Any questions?’

‘Why does Jafari want to defect?’

‘Like a lot of Iranians, Jafari’s family ran foul of the ayatollahs. His father was a scientist who studied here at Yale in the seventies, when we were helping the Shah build up Iran’s nuclear capabilities. But after 1979, Iran was a very different place. Jafari’s father refused to cooperate, even when the secret police raided the family home and beat him up. When the Ayatollah’s thugs came back, Jafari was away, serving as an engineer on a patrol boat in the Iranian Navy, but this time no one else survived … father, mother, and two sisters beaten to death.’

‘Jesus. I knew there was a reason I wasn’t religious. So with his father’s background, how come Jafari was accepted into the navy?’

‘It’s all in his file,’ McNamara said. ‘Like a lot of young Iranians, Jafari was originally attracted to the regime, but he’s intelligent, and he’s come to realise that Iranians are far from free. Now that Iran’s ramping up its quest for the bomb, he’s been transferred from the navy and promoted to sargord … a major in the nuclear division of the Republican Guards. He’s young to hold that rank, but he holds a Master of Science in nuclear physics so he’s obviously impressed his superiors and is being marked for a bright future. Although …’ McNamara paused thoughtfully. ‘There’s no guarantee he’s not a double agent,’ he warned. ‘But given what happened to his family, that’s unlikely.’

O’Connor walked back to his office, three floors below that of his boss, thinking carefully. Everything was falling neatly into place. Perhaps too neatly.

Chapter 6

Cardinal Felici rose from his plush, red leather chair and stood by the windows of his opulent office. The Palazzo della Sacra Inquisizione, a forbidding grey and ochre palace, still went by its ancient name of the Sacred Inquisition. The palace had been built in 1571 by Pope Pius V to house what was then known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. In the sixteenth century, the Holy Church had supported the Inquisition’s widespread use of torture of those who refused to follow the Catholic faith, a policy that turned the Inquisition into one of the most feared offices in Europe. The Holy Church’s successor organisation to the Inquisition had been given a softer title – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – but it was still in the same palace and it was still charged with investigating heresy. A painting of Tomas de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, occupied pride of place on Felici’s wall. A staunch guardian of the Faith, Torquemada had been a strong supporter of the Alhambra Decree, which had ensured Jews were expelled from fifteenth-century Spain, and he had also been violently opposed to Muslims. Torquemada and Felici were in lockstep.

Deep in thought, Felici stared across the Piazza San Pietro towards the 300-year-old columns of Bernini’s Colonnade. Dr Rossi would shortly provide him with a private report on the pontiff’s health, and the prognosis would determine Felici’s next step in his quest for ultimate control. Monsignor Lorenzo de Luca of the Holy Alliance was scheduled after Rossi, and that meeting was equally critical. Felici fingered the large diamond-encrusted ruby in the centre of a gold pectoral cross that was suspended from a heavy gold chain over his scarlet silk sash. So far, he’d managed to keep the cross’s provenance quiet, but if it ever became public, Felici knew he was finished. Felici’s father, Signor Alberto Felici, had enabled several top-ranking Nazis to evade the Allied advance into Germany by disguising them as priests and spiriting them down what became known as the Vatican Ratline. Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, Adolf Eichmann, the Master of Death, Josef Mengele of Auschwitz and a host of others had escaped to Central and South America. The gold cross had been a gift to Felici’s father from one of the escapees, the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Karl von Heißen.

Von Heißen, Felici knew, had been personally selected by Himmler to head one of the least known but most brutal facilitations of the Final Solution. But von Heißen would have been just another stitch in the tapestry of the Holocaust had the German SS officer not kept meticulous diaries. The Church had provided von Heißen with a new identity as Father Hernandez and assigned him to the little parish of San Pedro on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Von Heißen was now in his eighties, and despite Felici’s threats to expose him, he still stubbornly refused to hand over the diaries, intimating in turn he would make them public if Felici carried out his threat. Felici was convinced he would soon have to take more drastic steps. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the heavy office doors.

‘Dr Rossi is here, Eminence,’ announced Felici’s private secretary, Father Cordona.

‘Doctor. How good to see you again,’ Felici said urbanely, clasping the papal physician’s hand in both of his and offering one of the deep-blue velvet couches that graced one corner of his office. ‘Coffee? Tea?’

‘No, thank you, Eminence,’ Rossi replied, lowering his tall, angular form on to the couch. ‘I won’t keep you, but I thought you ought to know the operation has been a success … for now.’

‘For now?’

‘For now. The tumour was the size of an olive and although I’ve taken as much of the surrounding tissue as I could, as I said, this is an aggressive cancer and the pontiff will require follow-up treatment.’

‘Hospitalisation?’ Felici asked, his thoughts immediately turning to how the pontiff’s condition might be kept from the wider world.

Rossi, well versed in Vatican intrigue, smiled wanly. ‘No. The treatment is not pleasant, but it’s relatively straightforward. We insert a tube into the bladder and pump in Bacille Calmette-Guérin, a bacterium used in tuberculosis vaccines. In this case, it’s designed to boost the immune system. It will mean the pontiff is out of action for one day a week for six weeks, but we can do it in the papal apartments.’

‘And the prognosis?’ Felici asked matter-of-factly.

Dr Rossi considered his answer before replying. ‘Normally there is a reasonable chance of a cure, and it’s possible His Holiness may go into remission for several years. On the other hand, with the pontiff’s advanced age …’

‘How do we monitor his progress?’

‘We’ll carry out cytology every three months. Any cancer cells in the bladder tend to flake off, so they’ll show up in urine tests.’

‘Good,’ Felici said, thinking out loud. ‘For the moment this can all be put down to routine check-ups.’

‘And the Curia, Eminence?’ Rossi asked. ‘The other cardinals may be a little put out if we keep them, come si dice … how do you say it? Out of the loop?’

Felici masked his irritation. ‘Unfortunately, Doctor, the Curia leaks like a sieve. You handle His Holiness’s condition, and I will handle the media and the Curia. I’ll have a draft media release sent over and I’d appreciate your comment.’ Felici stood and offered Rossi his hand. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ he said, showing him to the door.

Felici buzzed for his private secretary. Father Cordona appeared almost immediately. ‘Eminence?’

‘I’d like a list of every foreign cardinal visiting Rome over the next few weeks, together with the names of anyone else in their delegations, the purpose of their visit, and their program while they’re here.’

‘Certainly, Eminence. Monsignor de Luca is waiting.’

‘Show him in.’

Father Cordona ushered in the head of the Holy Alliance and closed the heavy double doors behind him.

‘Have a seat, Monsignor,’ Felici said, offering the hard-backed chair in front of his desk, his usual urbane manner replaced by an icy determination to get to the bottom of the cipher. ‘So … what do you have for me?’

‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, Eminence,’ de Luca replied, extracting a crimson file from his soft leather briefcase. ‘This particular code or cipher is like no other we’ve ever seen.’ The greying Jesuit had been the head of the Holy Alliance for nearly ten years, carrying on a tradition of Vatican spymasters that had been central to the papacy and the Holy City for centuries.

‘Code or cipher? There’s a difference?’

‘Ciphers are mostly focused on a single letter that will stand for another letter or number, Eminence. Codes, on the other hand, can stand for a single letter or a symbol or even a paragraph. The ancient Egyptians and Chinese used simple substitution codes, as did the Hebrews when they wrote the book of Jeremiah. But that was schoolboy stuff, where the alphabet was reversed and Z stood for A and Y stood for B, or where one alphabet is superimposed on another, but out of sync by a number of spaces, so Z might stand for D and so on. The Inca, however, left no written documents. We’ve assumed the friars who were with the conquistadors transcribed these documents from an oral history, but even allowing for a much greater degree of sophistication on the part of the Inca, our most powerful computer programs haven’t been able to unravel the cipher.’

‘There’s no key?’

De Luca shook his head. ‘Not that we can find, and we’ve compared the Inca to other tracts and beliefs such as Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, the Jewish Kabbalah …’

Felici wrinkled his nose in disgust. There was only one religion, one true faith, and the rest he held as heresy.

‘Leaving aside the Kabbalah,’ the Vatican spymaster continued, conscious of the cardinal’s annoyance, ‘we’ve made other comparisons. For example, there’s a mathematical system in the Hebrew writings known as Gematria, where every letter in the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a number. It’s complex, but in essence, where the letters of different words add up to the same number, a hidden connection between the words can be revealed, but this does not appear to apply to the Inca encryption.’

‘I’m not interested in what doesn’t apply. I want this code … cipher … whatever it is solved,’ Felici demanded irritably.

‘I understand, Eminence.’

‘Which brings me to a related issue. You’re aware that when we acquired the cipher and the Inca prophecy, the documents were accompanied by a crystal skull?’

Monsignor de Luca nodded. ‘Yes, although I’ve never had the privilege of viewing it, Eminence.’

‘Viewing it is not important, Monsignor,’ Felici snapped. ‘Last week I had a discussion with Professor Macchiarolo from the National Museum of Rome. He tells me that in addition to the Inca crystal skull that’s already in our possession, there are two others. I want them found before they’re discovered by anyone else.’

De Luca remained devoid of expression, a result of years of experience in espionage. ‘That will require considerable resources, Eminence. And possibly the approval of Cardinal Sabatani.’ Technically, the Vatican’s intelligence and counter-espionage services came under the jurisdiction of the Cardinal Secretary of State.

‘Any resources you require will be met by my office, Monsignor,’ Felici replied icily. ‘The operation to recover the crystal skulls is to be assigned the codename Apollo. Other than your most trusted staff, no one else is to be cleared into the Apollo compartment, and that includes the Secretary of State.’ The codename had been chosen for a reason. Felici had long been scornful of the Ancient Greek priestess known as the Oracle of Delphi, whose prophecies were said to have been inspired by the Greek god Apollo – prophecies that were potentially damaging to the Church.

De Luca remained inscrutable. He knew better than anyone the fierce rivalry that had erupted when the liberal, widely read and well-respected Sabatani had been preferred over Felici for the second most powerful position in the Holy See.

Felici reached towards his in-tray and extracted another crimson file, embossed with his gold coat of arms. ‘This file is normally housed in the secret archives. It contains all the information we have available on the Inca skull, as well as a report on the Mitchell-Hedges skull.’

‘That is not one of the three you’re searching for, Eminence?’

Felici shook his head. ‘The Mitchell-Hedges skull is Maya, not Inca, and it is very well known. It was discovered in 1924 by Anna Mitchell-Hedges, the adopted daughter of a British explorer. That said, it may provide some clues. Sister Bridget has also typed up a report on my meeting with Professor Macchiarolo.’

‘Sister Bridget is aware of what we’re doing?’ de Luca asked, taken aback.

‘She’s a member of my trusted staff, Monsignor. As such, she is cleared to have access to Apollo. The other person you may find useful is Monsignor Matthias Jennings, a Jesuit like yourself. You may have heard of him?’

‘I’m not familiar with the name, Eminence,’ de Luca lied. He knew the man – and he also knew that if the sexual proclivities of the arrogant Jesuit priest-turned-archaeologist ever surfaced, the scandal would swamp the Vatican, and all those who had protected Jennings.

Felici reached for one of two files he kept on Monsignor Jennings and handed de Luca the sanitised version. ‘His details are in this file. He’s currently serving in Guatemala City, but I will arrange for him to be posted to Lima as soon as you need him.’

‘I’ll let you know, Eminence, but I’ll need to do some research first,’ de Luca said. The way things were going, it might be a long time before he needed any help from someone like Jennings, if at all.

‘Of course. Do you have any questions, Monsignor?’

‘Just one, Eminence. It might help if I knew why these missing skulls are so important. Or perhaps that is explained in the files?’

‘It is sufficient to know that anything that threatens the uniqueness of Christ threatens the Church itself. I expect this to have the highest priority,’ Felici emphasised, getting to his feet.

After Monsignor de Luca had left, Felici opened the second file he kept on Jennings and refreshed his memory on the reports he’d received. Satisfied there was more than enough to keep the monsignor in line, he moved to the rear wall of his office, his Italian leather shoes sinking into the rich pile of the crimson carpet. He reached towards St Jerome, Leonardo da Vinci’s priceless oil on wood, on loan from the Vatican’s Pinacoteca. In 393 AD, St Jerome had exhorted that ‘a woman should be submissive to a man. She should remain silent, and never be permitted to teach.’ Of all the saints, Jerome was Felici’s favourite. Felici swung the painting aside, dialled the combination of his wall safe and returned the file.

Felici crossed to the palace windows, contemplating how to manage his run for the papacy. It would need subtlety. Overt canvassing of voting blocs ran the risk of alienating the powerful Curia, but at the same time, he was determined his arch-rival, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Sabatani, be neutralised.

Chapter 7

Farid Jafari felt vulnerable and alone. A biting wind was blowing off the Potomac and the record snows of the previous week were still hugging the ground, albeit reduced to dirty clumps of ice. Short and swarthy, Jafari fitted the media’s stereotypical description of ‘a man of Middle Eastern appearance’, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable in the capital of a country his superiors routinely referred to as ‘the infidel’. Tehran’s traffic was more chaotic, he thought, as he walked briskly down 19th Street towards M Street, but at least Tehran was familiar territory. And now, Jafari was sure he was being followed.

Forcing himself to remain calm, Jafari tried to remember the instructions he’d been given for situations like this. He waited until the red numbers on the pedestrian intersection lights counted down the last couple of seconds before dashing across 19th Street. The tall, muscular man in the black overcoat stayed on the other side. Perhaps he wasn’t being followed at all, Jafari thought, but then the man picked a break in the traffic and crossed to his side of the road. Jafari abruptly turned left into L Street and then did a U-turn and doubled back. The man in the overcoat stopped, entered an office block and perused the occupant directory in the foyer. Jafari again turned down 19th Street just as the 929 bus pulled up at the stop on the corner. Jafari boarded, but the man boarded behind him and Jafari allowed him to pass. As the driver was about to pull out, Jafari leaned towards him.

‘Sorry … wrong bus. Very sorry …’

The driver shrugged, re-opened the door and Jafari leapt on to the sidewalk. He didn’t look back into the bus, but he could almost feel the frustration of the man in the dark overcoat as the bus disappeared down 19th Street. Jafari doubled back along L Street and down Connecticut Avenue to the Farragut North Metro. As instructed, he’d memorised the lines, and he made the change to the Orange Line without incident. Fifteen minutes later he alighted at the Foggy Bottom platform and took the escalators to the intersection of I Street and 23rd, emerging outside the George Washington University Hospital. The traffic was lighter here, and Jafari searched the streets. There was no sign of the man in the dark overcoat. He hailed a cab for the short ride past the Saudi Embassy and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to the Watergate complex.

The four-hectare complex on the banks of the Potomac River took its name from the western steps of the nearby Lincoln Memorial, which had originally been designed as a landing platform for dignitaries arriving by river from nearby Virginia. The five horseshoe-shaped buildings included office blocks and apartment blocks, many of the latter tenanted by congressmen and women, and a hotel–office complex that had been the scene of the third-rate burglary into the offices of the Democratic National Committee, leading to the eventual downfall of the Nixon presidency.

O’Connor was waiting for Jafari in one of the CIA’s safe apartments at Watergate, this one with sweeping views past the Potomac’s Key Bridge to the north-west, and across Theodore Roosevelt Island towards Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon to the south.

After introductions were made, both men took a seat on the couch. ‘You did very well today,’ O’Connor congratulated Jafari with a grin. ‘You managed to throw off one of our most experienced operators … who right now is pretty pissed.’

Jafari nodded nervously, somewhat relieved. He had been tailed – by the CIA.

‘How do you feel about going back to Iran?’ O’Connor asked, probing for any signs of weakness in his latest charge. O’Connor had run agents out of Moscow, Beijing and the Middle East, but they had been much more experienced than Jafari and there had been more time to train them. Although they’d only just met, O’Connor was far from sure Jafari was up to the task. He wanted to be convinced.

‘I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get my country back,’ Jafari replied. His voice was gravelly, and hinted at controlled anger. ‘Ayatollah Khomeini was very strident in his criticism of the Shah. We loved him for that – everyone hated the Shah and his secret police. But when the revolution gave the ayatollahs control, they were just as brutal in repressing opposition. In the months after Khomeini seized power, almost 10 000 Iranians were murdered. We thought we would finally get democracy with the ousting of the American puppet,’ Jafari added, ‘but instead, we got another dictator in the robes of a cleric.’

O’Connor listened as Jafari vented his anger against the unrestrained power of the ulema, the religious scholars. ‘And now it’s Khamenei. The Supreme Leader has absolute power, and as you know, the Council of Guardians underneath him decide who can run for parliament and who can run for president.’

‘And anyone who doesn’t conform to the Ayatollah’s views is not allowed to run.’ It was a statement, not a question. O’Connor had studied Iran for years.

‘They have to conform to the views of the Council as well. Khomeini’s original revolution has been taken over by the fanatics who demand absolute loyalty to an Islamic government, a government that’s totally out of touch with the people,’ Jafari fumed. ‘None of us wanted to be dominated by the West, or by the Communist East, but we don’t want hardline fundamentalist Islam either.’

‘I imagine a lot of Iranians – especially women – feel the same way,’ O’Connor mused.

Jafari laughed, but it held no mirth. ‘Ahmadinejad wants separate lifts and sidewalks, designated for men only and women only. Over a thousand Iranians applied to run in the 2005 presidential election, and the Council of Guardians approved just seven candidates – all men. We might have overthrown the Shah, but as a result we’re back in the dark ages.’

‘How much do you know about the regime’s nuclear plans?’ O’Connor asked.

Jafari’s face clouded. ‘Not as much as my father did, but I’ve learned enough to know that things are about to get very dangerous, especially for the West. But a nuclear-armed Iran should concern Iranians as well.’

‘I’m not sure I follow. Retaliation if Iran strikes first?’

‘Partly …’ Jafari paused. ‘Are you familiar with the nuclear fuel cycle and heavy-water reactors?’

‘Just the basics,’ O’Connor lied easily. The Iranian might hold a Master of Science in nuclear physics but O’Connor was no slouch in that department himself.

‘The CIA will be aware that Iran is constructing a heavy-water production plant for a reactor in a remote area outside the city of Arak, 260 kilometres to the south-west of Tehran. Do you have a pen and paper?’

‘Sure,’ O’Connor responded, retrieving some notepaper from the drawer of the bureau.

‘Heavy water, or D^2O, is essentially water or H^2O, but with the hydrogen atoms replaced by deuterium – heavier atoms of hydrogen that contain a neutron as well as the normal proton,’ Jafari explained, penning the formulae for the different types of water. ‘Normal water contains minute quantities of heavy water, but it’s less than one part in 5000, so heavy water’s expensive to separate and it requires leading-edge technology and infrastructure.’

‘I seem to remember the Germans tried to produce it during World War II.’

Jafari nodded. ‘It was a race between the Allies and the Germans as to who could produce the first nuclear bomb. The German program was based on plutonium, but for that, they needed heavy water for their reactors. In the mountains west of Oslo, they came very close to pulling it off – until a team of Norwegian commandos blew up the plant and sank the ferry that was shipping the heavy water across to Germany.’

‘One of the most daring raids of World War II,’ O’Connor agreed. ‘Now it seems we have another plant on our hands.’

Jafari nodded. ‘The Arak plant is part of Iran’s two-pronged approach to gaining nuclear weapons, the other being uranium enrichment to weapons grade. In any nuclear reactor, the process starts with neutrons bombarding uranium in a controlled reaction that splits the atoms, producing more neutrons – and more and more, splitting in a chain reaction,’ he explained, sketching another diagram.

‘This reaction produces an enormous amount of heat, which is used to boil water, with the steam driving the turbines just like a normal power station. But the process needs to be moderated, otherwise the neutrons travel too fast for the reaction to proceed,’ he explained. ‘Heavy water is one of only two moderators that will allow you to use ordinary natural uranium as a fuel, the other being graphite,’ said Jafari, lowering his voice, although he needn’t have bothered. The safe apartment was swept regularly.

‘And since the IAEA doesn’t check on natural uranium usage, the Iranians can keep things under wraps,’ O’Connor observed.

‘Yes. It’s not the reactor itself that Washington should be worried about, but the reason it’s been constructed. Once you have plutonium-239, you’re very close to having a bomb small enough to be placed in a suitcase. The West hasn’t much time left,’ he urged.

O’Connor felt a shiver run down his spine. Jafari’s intelligence was corroborating the information on Ashtar’s thumb drive. O’Connor knew that raw intelligence could be dangerous. It had to be tested and verified from another source, and Jafari had just become the second source.

Chapter 8

‘The Jefferson’s on the corner of 16th and M streets,’ Ryan told Aleta as the cab driver crossed the Potomac on the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge, ‘so it will be handy to the Convention Center.’

Aleta nodded numbly, dimly registering the name of the hotel. Her mind was still focused on Machu Picchu. She glanced at her husband, wondering why she’d been so attracted to him when they first met. Ryan came from a wealthy Massachusetts family who had ensured their only son had every privilege, including a Harvard education in political science. The warning signs were there when she’d first met Ryan’s father, Aleta thought. An irascible, ultra-conservative evangelical lawyer-turned-Republican senator, and now one of the Elders on the Hill, Senator Austin Crosier had for many years served on the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Her first encounter with him had been a meeting Aleta would never forget.

‘So, Ryan tells me you come from Guatemala, right?’ the bull-faced senator had asked, the first time they were alone on the verandah of the three-storey family mansion overlooking Nantucket Sound. ‘You must find the United States a pleasant change.’

‘I was brought up on the shores of Lake Atitlán, Senator.’ Ryan’s father had not invited her to be on first-name terms, and Aleta stuck to formality, although she was determined not to be intimidated. ‘Aldous Huxley once described it as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world – Lake Como with volcanoes.’

‘Huxley!’ Senator Crosier snorted. ‘An atheist, or good as, damn it! Got mixed up with the Hindus and one of their mystical sects. Ryan tells me you’re a Catholic, though Weizman sounds like a Jewish name. Are you religious? Do you fear the Lord?’

The rapid-fire questioning had taken Aleta aback, and she hesitated, collecting her thoughts, before meeting the senator head on. ‘My father’s parents were both Jewish, Senator, and they both died in the Holocaust. My father escaped from the Mauthausen concentration camp in the back of a laundry truck when he was only ten, along with my aunt Rebekkah, who was just eight. Rebekkah drowned when the freighter they were escaping in collided with another ship in the Bosphorus.’

‘That doesn’t explain why you’re a Catholic, though, does it?’ the Senator demanded. ‘We’ve only ever had one Catholic in the White House, you know, and he was a Democrat – my father was astounded when the American people voted for him.’

Aleta smiled disarmingly. ‘My father was Jewish, Senator, but he owed his life to the Papal Nuncio in Istanbul, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII. Roncalli used to sit up until three in the morning forging Catholic baptism certificates for Jewish children.’ Aleta fought back tears. ‘Papa used to say that Roncalli was everything a priest should be, and he never forgot Roncalli’s kindness. My grandparents both had great faith, but I think Papa practised his faith as a Catholic out of respect for Roncalli.’

The senator had grunted and got up from his chair. As she followed her future father-in-law back into the grand New England mansion, Aleta reminded herself she wasn’t marrying Ryan’s family.

It was a pity Ryan’s father had not pressed her further on her own faith, Aleta thought, as the cab driver turned on to the E Street expressway. If he had, Aleta would have felt compelled to tell the cranky, one-eyed old bastard that she had long ago abandoned any notion of a wrathful God and the Christians’ claim that they were on the only true path. And that, she thought with a touch of bitterness, might have ended it all. Then she washed her thoughts down an imaginary drain. She had promised to give her marriage one last try.

Once they’d settled into a palatial suite at the hotel, Aleta’s thoughts again returned to the mysterious crystal skulls. ‘Is there any chance we can go home via Indiana? It would be a pity not to see the Mitchell-Hedges skull while we’re here.’

‘We’ve had this conversation already, Aleta,’ Ryan snapped. ‘Crystal skulls are on a par with voodoo, witchcraft and false prophets, and the Bible is very clear on this – we dabble with them at our peril.’ Ryan took out his old King James Bible from his attaché case and opened it at Paul’s second letter to Timothy. ‘“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” It can’t be clearer than that, can it?’

Aleta sighed inwardly. ‘Okay, well, why don’t we find a nice restaurant and have a quiet dinner downtown?’ She reached for the glossy guide to the capital sitting on the coffee table. ‘Some Chesapeake Bay chowder and a bottle of champagne to celebrate the trip?’

‘You need to watch your drinking, Aleta,’ Ryan warned.

Aleta took a deep breath. ‘I’ll take that as a no?’

‘I need to prepare for tomorrow’s conference. The pastor and his team have done a lot of work on the Israel–Palestine problem, and the least we can do is make sure we’re across the issues.’

‘They’ve done a lot of work on the Israeli side of the problem,’ Aleta shot back, ‘but I can’t see too much evidence of any work on behalf of the Palestinians. They’re people too, Ryan. What does Pastor what’s-his-face —’

‘Buffett!’

‘What does Pastor Buffett suggest we do with the Palestinians and the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have been forced from their homes?’

Ryan put down his Bible very deliberately. ‘We’ve been through this before as well, my dear. How many times must I remind you that Palestinians are Arabs? They’re Muslims.’

‘And that means they don’t count? You speak about Muslims as if they’re another species!’

‘They’re certainly not God’s chosen people, but that said, they’re free to go wherever they want.’

‘That’s just it, Ryan. They’re not free! The bloody Israelis come along in the dead of night with their bulldozers, destroying homes and ripping out olive groves that are hundreds of years old. Then they build a wall between the Palestinian villagers and their farmland, preventing the villagers from making a living while the Jews build more settlements on territory they occupy illegally … all of which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice!’

Ryan sighed. ‘The International Court of Justice carries no weight in the Promised Land, Aleta. We’ve been over this before. This is God’s business, and not the business of some court staffed by ignorant, overpaid lawyers.’

Aleta felt like shaking him. ‘And what sort of a God creates seven billion people, and then turns around and says, “You Christians are okay”, oh, and let’s not forget God’s chosen people,’ she added, ‘“but the rest of you are fucked”? Not any God I want to know!’

‘Aleta!’

Aleta grabbed her coat, torn between rage and despair. ‘You’re not the man I married, Ryan. You’re becoming more like your father every day – a Bible-bashing bigot,’ she fumed, fighting back her tears. ‘When we get back to Guatemala City, we need to talk!’ Had the door not been on a lever-spring, she would have slammed it behind her.

Ryan shook his head, frowning. Guatemalans could certainly be hot-headed. Confident in the rightness of his position, he felt sure his wife would soon come to her senses. He picked up his Bible, as he often did, and turned to the last book, The Revelation, and began to read: ‘Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.’

Chapter 9

The lights were ablaze on the cooling towers soaring above a mass of pipes and storage tanks, giving the heavy-water plant and adjacent nuclear reactor the appearance of a massive oil refinery. The heavily guarded facility was set into barren, rocky hills in a sparsely populated area some 60 kilometres to the northwest of Arak, between the towns of Gazran and Khandab. The hills were patched with snow and the small valley below was dotted with irrigated fields where the local farmers eked out a meagre living.

‘Major Jafari! General Shakiba is here. He wants to see you in the colonel’s office now,’ the corporal said, out of breath as he caught up with Jafari outside one of the laboratories in the heavy-water plant.

Jafari’s heart sank. The commanding general. He’d only reported for duty this morning, and already they were on to him. Fleetingly he thought about making a run for it, but he knew he had little chance of getting past the guards on the front gate, and even if he did, they’d be watching the air and sea ports. And even if he could make the borders, to the east lay war-torn Afghanistan and Pakistan, under siege from the Taliban and Islamic extremists; to the west, the shambles that was now Iraq. The only hope might be crossing into Turkey through the Kurdish areas, but that border was a long way from Arak.

‘Did he say what it’s about?’

A quizzical look crossed the corporal’s face as he shook his head and Jafari immediately regretted his nervous question. Commanding generals were not in the habit of confiding in corporals.

‘So, you have returned safely from the clutches of the infidel, Major Jafari.’ Colonel Davood Rostami’s expression was inscrutable and Jafari could feel his heart thumping against his chest. ‘This is the young officer I was telling you about, General,’ Jafari’s stocky commanding officer explained, turning to General Shakiba.

Jafari snapped his heels together and saluted.

‘Remind me of the purpose of your visit to the United States, Jafari?’ the general asked. Shakiba was dressed in immaculate camouflage fatigues, his black shoulder boards embossed with a large gold star, surmounted by gold crossed swords and a gold wreath.

‘I have a sick uncle in Maryland, sir. He has cancer, and not long to live,’ Jafari replied, struggling to keep his voice steady.

‘I see. Well, now that you’re back, we have a very important task for you. A high-level scientific delegation is arriving from Pakistan this afternoon, and Colonel Rostami has recommended you be assigned as their liaison officer. Your colonel has the details, but shortly you will accompany me to the airport. Tonight, I’m hosting a dinner in honour of our guests at the Qom International Hotel. You’re to remain with the delegation for the duration of their stay, and you will be on call twenty-four hours a day. It will be your responsibility to ensure their needs are met, and that includes any after-hours requirements, the cost of which will be met from our budget. The delegation includes General ul-Haq and one of Pakistan’s leading nuclear scientists, Dr Wasim Yousef. Both men are fond of whisky and other night-time pleasures, so you will be authorised to ensure there are adequate supplies of both … Whatever they require.’

‘Whisky, sir?’ Jafari asked.

General Shakiba and Colonel Rostami exchanged glances. ‘The Pakistani delegation is here to assist with our technical difficulties, Major,’ the general said. ‘Until the whole world is governed by Sharia law, we sometimes have to look the other way … This is one such occasion.’

‘This trip to the United States … was Jafari under surveillance over there?’ General Shakiba asked, after Jafari had left.

Colonel Rostami shook his head. ‘I’m told we don’t have sufficient assets. There were higher priorities, apparently.’

‘Do you think he can be trusted?’

‘He’s one of the most promising officers we have, General, and one of the few with a nuclear science degree, so he’s suited to this task.’

‘Nevertheless, given that he’s been to the US, I want him placed under surveillance until we’re certain.’

Rostami nodded. ‘I will ask Major Golzar from the Close Personal Protection Unit to keep an eye on him.’

‘Good. In the meantime there are some problems in Tehran that will bear careful watching, Rostami. What I’m about to tell you is for your ears only, no one else. Is that perfectly clear?’

‘Perfectly clear, General,’ Rostami replied gravely.

‘For the moment, Ahmadinejad is secure, but we live in turbulent times. The ultimate responsibility for the defence and protection of Shia Islam will fall to the Revolutionary Guards, and those of us in senior positions have to plan for every eventuality. We need to ensure the nuclear program underpins our security. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, General. It has not escaped our notice, even out here, that the younger generation is restless. They will need to be controlled, although some of the younger guards are squeamish about opening fire on their own.’

‘We’re dealing with that. Law and order on the streets is best controlled by the Basij.’

Rostami nodded. Set up after the Iranian Revolution to protect the Iranian Republic, the Basij, a paramilitary volunteer militia, could mobilise more than a million members. Many of the Basij had fought bravely when Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran in 1980, and in the eight years of war, over half a million soldiers lost their lives; but now, the Basij had a very different role. Young men equipped with clubs, hoses and iron bars broke up demonstrations on the streets and on university campuses, attacking their opponents with a vicious zeal that rivalled the worst days of SAVAK, when the Shah’s dreaded secret police had roamed the streets. Each city and town had its own Basij, and the volunteers had also assumed the role of religious police, beating those found guilty of attending mixed parties or fraternising with members of the opposite sex, and arresting women who were not wearing the hijab.

‘But it’s not so easy to control the internet or cell-phone cameras,’ Shakiba continued. ‘We can shut down internet sites that operate from inside Iran, but people are changing their tactics, and instead of mass demonstrations, they’ve taken to uploading images of the Basij on to YouTube, or they’re using Facebook and Twitter, and the Great Satan is encouraging that.’ Shakiba paused, weighing his next remark. ‘The other problem we face is the Ayatollah’s health.’

‘He’s still not well?’ For months rumours had been circulating about the health of the Supreme Leader.

Shakiba lowered his voice. ‘Terminal cancer. He may have months, or he may last longer, but if the Islamic Revolution is to succeed … if we are to institute Sharia law throughout the world, then our nuclear program has to be at the cutting edge. That’s where you come in.’

‘I’m not sure I understand, General. I’m a soldier … I know very little about nuclear physics.’

‘It’s your capability as an administrator that’s important, Rostami. The nuclear physics we can leave to the scientists. Ahmadinejad can only run for one more consecutive term, so it will be up to us to protect the state of the nation post-Ahmadinejad. There are some in the Majlis who want this country to become a liberal Western democracy, Rostami! They’re a bigger threat to Islam than even the United States or Israel, and in Tehran we’re working to ensure they don’t gain control.’

Rostami nodded. For the moment, the Majlis, or Iranian parliament, was controlled by hardliners who were devoted to the expansion of Islam and to the downfall of the West. But a growing number of moderates, supported by younger Iranians, wanted freedom of speech and a dialogue with the West, along with greater freedoms for women and the media. Both Rostami and Shakiba knew that any dialogue with the West would result in the US demanding a scaling back of the Guards’ nuclear program. For Shakiba, that was unthinkable.

‘If one of the moderates is elected to the presidency, then the nuclear plan will be at risk. To guard against that, I’m setting up a program that will be outside the control of the Majlis. Only our most trusted officers will have access to Operation Khumm.’

Rostami smiled knowingly. ‘Muhammad, peace be upon Him, would be pleased,’ he replied. The pond of Khumm, in Saudi Arabia, was the place Shia Muslims believed Muhammad had anointed his son-in-law Ali to be his successor. Sunni Muslims vehemently contested the interpretation. Since Muhammad’s death in the seventh century, the succession debate had been at the core of the Sunni–Shia split.

‘There are to be no progress reports, Rostami,’ the general said, withdrawing a file marked Top Secret – Operation Khumm from his briefcase, ‘but this file contains the directives governing both our nuclear missiles and an additional capability I’ve described as a battlefield nuclear weapon. In essence, it’s a plutonium suitcase bomb. The aim of Operation Khumm is to ensure that the development of our nuclear weapons program proceeds, regardless of what happens in Tehran.’

Colonel Rostami scanned the directives. ‘I’m up to date on the intercontinental missile capability, sir, but a mini nuclear capability?’

‘Ultimately – Insha’allah – our missiles will be able to target any city in the United States or Europe, but that will take time, Rostami, so for the moment, our missile program is concentrated on defence. We’re determined that the Americans will never be able to attack us in the way they attacked Iraq, but I’ll come to that directly. The new battleground is Lebanon, and with the help of Hezbollah, Lebanon will become the next Shia Islamic Republic.’

‘You want to equip Hezbollah with mini nukes, sir?’ As dedicated as Rostami was to the defence of Shia Islam, arming suicide bombers with nuclear suitcases was not something even he had considered.

‘Not for the battle in Lebanon – Hezbollah are already winning the hearts and minds, and we’re making progress towards Lebanon coming under Sharia law. But when it comes to the Sunni Arabs and the United States and the rest of the West …’ The general’s dark eyes were fired with a deep-seated hatred for the infidel.

‘Think about it, Rostami. Lebanon can be taken by stealth, as can Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and even Saudi Arabia, but if we attack Israel or the United States with a nuclear missile, they will retaliate on a massive scale. Every one of our major cities would be destroyed. So we wait. And in any case, once we are equipped with nuclear warheads, the US and Israel will think twice about launching a pre-emptive strike. While we wait, we recruit dedicated young men to join a special elite suicide squad, Yawm al-Qiyamah Jihad.’ It translated as the day of reckoning or judgement. ‘Then … if our scientists can overcome the technical difficulties, this squad can be equipped with nuclear suitcase bombs. As soon as the Pakistanis have left, I’m putting Major Golzar in charge of the recruitment and training, and he will report directly to you.’

The ingenuity of General Shakiba’s plan slowly crystallised in Rostami’s mind. ‘And the infidel will not only have to deal with the massive devastation, but he won’t know where to strike back.’

‘Exactly. The infidel has had trouble working out how to wage a war on terror ever since Bush and his cronies declared it. On the world stage, Iran will be at arm’s length from the bombings, and our politicians can genuinely claim to have no knowledge of the attacks. But the plutonium suitcases will be produced here in Arak, and the design we’re working on is extremely powerful. The infidel might think his banking systems and stockmarkets are in trouble now, but when one Western city after another is reduced to radioactive rubble, the entire capitalist system will collapse. At that point Yawm al-Qiyamah Jihad will go public and release its requirements for peace, included in which will be a demand that Western governments rewrite their constitutions and institute Sharia law.’

‘And if they don’t?’ Rostami asked, eyes wide at the enormity of the general’s plan.

‘We keep striking until they do. We have an inexhaustible supply of martyrs who are prepared to die for Islam, and where Hitler failed, we will succeed, Rostami. Fear is contagious. As city after city is destroyed, the people will force their governments to comply with our demands. Ultimately, the world will be subject to the one true religion of Islam, as Allah intended.’

‘But General … the technical difficulties,’ Rostami interjected. ‘A uranium bomb is difficult enough, but plutonium …’

That’s where the Pakistanis come in. We’ll discuss it over dinner tonight. If the morally bankrupt and corrupt Americans can perfect a plutonium bomb, we can too, Rostami, eh? Allahu Akbar … God is great!’

Chapter 10

O’Connor rubbed his eyes as Lufthansa’s flight LH 600 taxied towards Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, built on the fringe of the desert to the south of the capital. No American airline flew into Iran, but Lufthansa had been a good substitute, even if O’Connor had to fly economy with a six-hour stopover in Frankfurt. ‘Impecunious academics don’t fly business class,’ the DDO had reminded him, without a hint of sympathy. O’Connor looked at his watch. One-thirty a.m. It was a bizarre time to arrive, and he detested long flights, although at least the Lufthansa stewardesses were attractive, unlike the grumpy flight sergeants on military aircraft.

O’Connor took his place in the Men Only line. Security was tight, as he’d expected, with a heavy presence of Immigration Police and Revolutionary Guards. The CIA had not yet determined whether the Imam Khomeini Airport was fully integrated into the country’s security system, but he knew the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and the Revolutionary Guards maintained watch-lists. But O’Connor also knew the regime was so paranoid about the transfer of information in Iran, and the dangers of the watch-list being hacked through the internet, that arrivals and departures were copied down manually and driven by car into town, which meant the list was always out of date.

‘Reason for visit?’ The young immigration officer’s dark eyes were burning with suspicion, but O’Connor kept his cool.

‘I’m a professor of political science, here on a study trip.’

The officer scrutinised the photograph the boys and girls in one of the back rooms of Langley had attached to Darragh McLoughlin’s passport. He stared at O’Connor, and scrutinised the photograph again, before entering the details into his computer. The machines were fitted with cameras, but O’Connor noted that facial recognition technology had so far eluded the regime’s security apparatus.

‘You’re Irish?’

O’Connor suppressed a smile and simply answered ‘Yes’. What the young revolutionary behind the entry barrier lacked in experience and guile, he more than made up for with zeal.

‘And what would an Irish professor know about Islam?’ the guard asked contemptuously.

‘That’s why I’m here … to learn.’

The officer scrutinised his screen again, stamped Professor Darragh McLoughlin’s passport, and handed it back.

‘Enjoy your stay in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Professor McLoughlin,’ he said unconvincingly.

By the time O’Connor reached the carousels, his luggage was already circulating. Apart from a mandatory bag X-ray, customs was uneventful, and O’Connor made his way to the cab rank where a fleet of cars awaited: Tehran’s ubiquitous locally produced yellow Samands and Paykans, another local car based on the British Hillman. From previous experience, O’Connor knew that the Paykans were mobile shit-boxes of the first order and he headed instinctively towards the Samands. He waved the first driver away, looking instead for a Seiro-Safar-branded cab, identified by the company number. As was the norm in many countries, an airport cab driver would overcharge in a heartbeat, but the Seiro-Safar cab drivers had a good reputation. As for the cars themselves, while the Samands might be superior to the Paykans, Tehran’s traffic soon put paid to any notion of speed.

Even at three in the morning, it was over an hour before they swung into the Homa Hotel, which had started life as the pre-revolution Sheraton. Located a few hundred metres from Vanak Square and the bazaars, it was still one of Tehran’s better hotels, although O’Connor wouldn’t be staying long. And he kept his newly minted credit cards out of sight. American Express, Visa and MasterCard were of little use in a country like Iran – you needed cash. Wondering how many cab drivers back in the States would drive an hour for fifteen dollars, O’Connor handed over three crumpled brown 50 000-rial notes, embossed with the stern portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini. O’Connor grinned to himself. At least cash would make things more difficult for the account Nazis back in Langley to audit his expenditure.

O’Connor checked in, settling his hotel bill in advance. Minutes later, he pulled the curtains on his fourth-floor room. The peaks of the snow-capped mountains to the north of the city were bathed in the orange rays of the dawn. The power and beauty of Iran’s landscape seemed incongruous when juxtaposed against the ruthless theocracy of the Iranian regime, he reflected. His thoughts were interrupted by a text message from Jafari on his encrypted cell phone:

Wife departed Tehran last night for Frankfurt. Back on duty in Arak. Assigned as escort officer for visiting VIP Pakistanis arriving today – Qom International Hotel tonight.

It didn’t happen often in this game, but sometimes you could get lucky, and O’Connor wondered if this might be one of those moments. A visit to Arak by high-ranking Pakistani officers would almost certainly be linked to General ul-Haq’s offer of assistance with the new P2 centrifuges and the reprocessing of plutonium. It looked as if Qom, 150 kilometres to the south and the theological heartland for scholars of Shia Islam, would be his first stop. O’Connor deleted the message, pleased that his protégé had kept the transmission short. The cell phone provided to Jafari by the CIA had been manufactured to look like any other that might be purchased in downtown Tehran, but it was programmed with a 1024-bit asymmetric algorithm, along with a 256-bit random key that changed every second. The encryption made Jafari’s text and voice messages almost impossible to break.

O’Connor left his room, locking the hotel door behind him. It was time to case the layout of the hotel while most of the guests were still asleep. Then he would head towards the markets and attempt a retrieval of the dead-letter drop.

Chapter 11

The sun sank slowly beyond the Mediterranean, bathing in a fiery orange glow the terraced hilltop orchards, vineyards, olive groves and the terracotta roofs of the cinder-block houses in the town of al-Bazourieh. Located not far from Tyre, Lebanon’s southernmost city, al-Bazourieh was just 16 kilometres north of the border with Israel, where once again, war clouds were gathering over the tiny strife-torn nation, once better known for its beautiful cedar forests and the haunting beauty of its snow-capped mountains.

An air of excitement permeated al-Bazourieh’s narrow streets and the souk was crowded. Cars, minibuses, motorcycles and scooters weaved their way past stalls selling everything from spices and fruits to cell phones and computers. The distinctive Lebanese national flag, with its green cedar tree imposed over a broad white stripe flanked with two red stripes, fluttered from every pole and awning. Huge posters of al-Bazourieh’s favourite son, Hasan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, adorned the sides of stone buildings and billboards on the roads leading to the village. Although not without its Sunni malcontents, the hill town was overwhelmingly Shia, and for the past month, the occupants had been fasting during the daylight hours for the holy month of Ramadan. It was a practice of discipline, self-sacrifice and prayer, but now the new moon was on the horizon and Eid al-Fitr, the festival that marked the end of Ramadan, was in full swing.

For Mansoor Shahadi and his family, it was a double celebration. Mansoor’s only son, Ahmed, was home from the American University of Beirut, having just graduated magna cum laude in engineering. Ahmed’s mother, Jamila, and his three sisters, Soraya, Yada and three-year-old Rashida, had been in the kitchen all afternoon, and the heavy wooden table on the balcony was already groaning under the appetisers: olives, stuffed zucchinis, tabbouleh, eggplant dip and hummus. A delicious aroma of freshly baked bread wafted on to the deck as Mansoor, dark hair streaked with grey and his hands gnarled from years in the olive groves, faced south-east towards Mecca and led the family in the mahgrib, the sunset prayer, the fourth of the five daily prayers of Islam.

Allahu Akbar … Allah is great …

Subhanak allahhuma … You are glorified, oh Allah …

Mansoor’s voice carried across the palm trees towards the family olive grove and the Shahadis prepared to assume the sujood position, kneeling on their prayer mats. Ahmed helped little Rashida and then bent his head so that his forehead and nose touched the ground.

Allahu Akbar … Allah is great …

Subhana rubbiyal a’ala … How perfect is my Lord, the most high …

Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah … peace and mercy of Allah be on you …

At the end of the prayers Ahmed turned to help Rashida, but this time she was having none of it.

‘I can do it,’ she protested, her dark eyes flashing. ‘I’m a big girl now. I’m three!’ Ahmed turned to his mother and raised his eyebrows.

Jamila smiled as she watched her youngest daughter wrestle the prayer mat back into the house. ‘She’s going to be a handful, that one,’ said Jamila, and she disappeared back into the kitchen to retrieve the main courses: falafel, baked lamb with spicy rice, chicken shawarma, and eggplant, capsicum and burghul salad.

‘Hassan Nasrallah is speaking tonight. They’re broadcasting it on al-Manar,’ Mansoor said, pasting a healthy serving of garlic sauce on his chicken.

Al-Manar, or ‘the Beacon’, Hezbollah’s television station, broadcast from a secret location in al-Dahiye, the desperately crowded southern suburb of Beirut where Hezbollah had established control. Al-Manar broadcasts had become immensely popular throughout the Middle East and, as a result, Israel had vowed more than once to take the station it called Terror TV off the air, but the network was stronger than ever.

‘Hezbollah were recruiting in the village today. I’m thinking about joining,’ Ahmed announced proudly. Jamila exchanged glances with her husband. Jamila and Mansoor had both lost their parents when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. Over 17 000 Lebanese had died in the bitter fighting. Now tensions were on the rise again. The previous evening, an Israeli patrol had penetrated the Blue Line, the border imposed by the United Nations in 2000 to ensure Israel had fully withdrawn from southern Lebanon. In the gunfire, three freedom fighters from Hezbollah had been killed. This had only served to strengthen Mansoor and Jamila’s determination that their children would pursue careers away from the military.

Yada, who was just six, her eyes filled with adoration for her brother, turned to her ten-year-old sister Soraya. ‘Wow!’ she said in hushed tones.

‘Over my dead body, young man,’ admonished Jamila. ‘We haven’t given you an education so you can join a guerrilla group. The world needs engineers, and you will make a very good one.’

Ahmed turned to his father, a pleading look on his young face.

‘Your mother is right, my son. Leave the fighting to those who are not as gifted as you. We can support Hezbollah in other ways. One day you might even study overseas. In the meantime,’ Mansoor added, flicking on the television, ‘we can listen to what Hassan Nasrallah has to say.’

An image of the secretary-general of Hezbollah appeared. Bespectacled, bearded and dressed in his customary brown robes and black turban, he was assuring Muslims around the world that there was hope in the afterlife.

‘Martyrdom, according to our culture and thought, is the door through which one passes from false life to real life. It is the door through which one passes from mortal life to eternal life. It is the door through which one passes from a life of amusement, games, procreation and pride, to a life of eternal bliss, continuous peace, happiness and bounty …’

Ahmed listened, deep in thought. From an early age, he’d been brought up to trust in the will of Allah, and he’d always been encouraged to aim high. Ahmed had also been encouraged to be proud of his country, and the Israelis’ contempt for Lebanon’s southern border infuriated him. Lebanon’s myriad political parties spent their time squabbling for power, and in Ahmed’s mind, Hassan Nasrallah was the only one who was standing up to the Israelis. Hezbollah offered hope and a way out of the morass.

‘Some Lebanese may know more than us about economics or politics. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t,’ the secretary-general observed with a shrug. ‘I don’t want to go into this. But with all due respect, on the issue of Israel, we do claim to be experts. We follow what the Israeli officials say. We have a military presence on the ground and we follow what they are doing in detail. Some people say – and the Israelis repeat it daily – that Hezbollah wants to kidnap and take Israeli soldiers hostage, as if it were a crime. It’s not a crime at all! From now on, we must be clear and agree on this. It is our natural right to capture Israeli soldiers. Can I say it more clearly? It is our right. And it’s more than just a right – it’s our duty! How long has it been since our last prisoner exchange? Two years! And meanwhile, our people remain in Israeli prisons. The fisherman, Faran. Who is concerned with his fate? For two years we’ve been negotiating, but to no avail. Our experience with the Israelis has shown that if you want to get prisoners back, you have to capture Israeli soldiers. When we do, that shouldn’t surprise anyone.’

That night, fifty small teams of Hezbollah fighters fanned out along the southern border with Israel, taking advantage of the heavy cloud obscuring the moon, and using the orchards and olive groves for cover. Each team carried an Iranian-modified Soviet Katyusha rocket launcher that struck fear into the hearts of ordinary Israelis.

Chapter 12

O’Connor breakfasted in the hotel and ordered another Samand cab. The driver dropped O’Connor outside the main entrance to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, in Khordad Avenue; but instead of disappearing into the myriad laneways and corridors of the bazaar, O’Connor made his way into the courtyard of the adjacent Imam Khomeini Mosque. It was an ironic choice for a dead-letter drop but fortune favoured the bold, he thought.

A guide was addressing a large group of tourists in the mosque courtyard and O’Connor melded into the rear of the group while he cased the surrounds. Two minarets and a clock tower dominated one end of the courtyard while the dome of the mosque towered over the opposite side. A large pool and fountains filled the middle, and the courtyard itself could be accessed from several areas of the bazaar. As a result, the pedestrian traffic across it was heavy, which suited O’Connor admirably. He focused on the area around the drop zone. The courtyard was lined with dozens of pot plants, including two particularly bushy plants either side of a red wooden box containing a fire hydrant. The tourist group moved towards the mosque and O’Connor moved with them, stopping to admire the exquisite tiling around the large main entrance. Then he saw him.

The thickset older man moved to the fire hydrant and sat on the pool wall beside the larger of the two pot plants. He casually lit a cigarette, as if to take in the early morning sunshine. Although O’Connor knew his contact would have been paid handsomely, he was still wary. He looked for any sign of communication between his contact and the Basij, who could be concealed in any one of the busy entrances to the bazaar. The contact finished his cigarette, removed a parcel from within his coat, placed it behind the pot plant, stood up and walked away. O’Connor waited. There was one gardener in the courtyard, tending the pot plants, but he was at the far end of the square. O’Connor carefully checked each entrance, and then turned his attention to the galleries on the minarets from whence, five times a day, the mosque’s muezzin would face Mecca and issue the call to prayer. O’Connor was more concerned with the uninterrupted view the minarets afforded the courtyard. Had he been in the Basij, that’s where O’Connor would have been. The galleries were devoid of movement, and O’Connor wandered across and sat down on the pool wall. Again he watched, aware that the gardener was approaching with his watering can. Another group of tourists came by and O’Connor waited until they assembled in front of him. He reached behind the pot plant, retrieved the package, tucked it inside his leather jacket and casually walked towards the main entrance of the bazaar.

Women in full-length black chadors and younger women in elegant hijabs jostled through the crowds, somehow avoiding contact with the men. Porters wearing padded harnesses struggled under impossibly heavy loads, delivering goods down the ten kilometres of narrow corridors that formed the largest bazaar in the world, one that dated back before the sixteenth century. Some corridors featured gold, jewellery, copper, paper or precious stones, while others exuded exotic aromas from brightly coloured spices. Huge brass bowls of red paprika, yellow turmeric, black pepper, orange saffron, nutmeg, curries, mustards and chillies, pistachios and pecans, apricots and dates were accompanied by shelf upon shelf of large glass jars of olives and oils. Other corridors were made even narrower by bolts of cloth, silks, and colourful scarfs and dresses suspended from racks protruding from every available anchor point. Bookbinders competed with shoemakers, knife artisans with tinsmiths, saddlers with tailors. Beams of light, diffused through opaque glass in the tiled domes above, probed through the dust and on to the cobblestones.

As O’Connor stepped aside to allow a wizened old porter past, he spotted them. The Basij were instantly recognisable. Two young thugs had pulled up on a motorcycle and were watching him. O’Connor moved casually into a corridor lit by naked bulbs suspended from tiled archways festooned with frayed cabling and rusted pipes. The stores here were jammed with glass-topped brass tables, mirrors, heavy brass chandeliers and ornate trays supported by metre-high brass statuettes. O’Connor used the mirrors to his advantage and grinned. The Basij were following close behind. They wouldn’t, he thought, pass even the basics of any surveillance course back at ‘the farm’.

O’Connor sped up and the young thugs matched him. He slowed down, and so did they. O’Connor had long ago memorised the bazaar’s layout, and he waited until he was 50 metres from the next corridor before suddenly turning into one of the shops crowded with brass tables and chandeliers. Just as quickly he dropped to a crouch, and using the piles of brass as a cover, re-emerged into the crowded thoroughfare. Bent double, O’Connor threaded his way through the shoppers and turned into a lane of Persian carpets. Woven in every shape and size, from the tiny ‘rugs’ for the tourists to the exquisite masterpieces destined for palaces, castles and mansions around the world, they were coloured in deep reds and blues, ochres, chocolate browns and greens of every hue.

Using a large pile for cover, O’Connor scanned the laneway behind him. The two Basij thugs, openly brandishing their wooden clubs, were arguing at the intersection of the two corridors, looking in all directions. O’Connor slipped down a side alley leading to an entrance the carpet porters used. He closed the old wooden door behind him, leapt down a flight of rusted metal stairs on to the sidewalk below, disappeared into the throng of shoppers on the other side of the tree-lined road and hailed the first passing taxi.

‘Zayandah Rud, loftan … please.’

The Raees coffee bar was only a few hundred metres from his hotel, the green and white logo identical to Starbucks, save for the mermaid with the flowing locks of hair, who had been replaced by a man in a top hat. The bar was full of young men and women, all smoking, but most sitting separately. Those sitting together who were not married ran the risk of being arrested by the Basij or worse. When Ayatollah Khomeini had taken over in 1979, scores of coffee shops were closed on the grounds of immoral intermingling of the sexes outside marriage. Any fraternisation between young men and women was banned under the Iranian hardliner’s strict interpretation of Sharia law.

O’Connor ordered a black coffee and took stock. There was no doubt he was being watched, and he wondered if the Iranians had tumbled to his alias. Time would tell, and perhaps there was a connection between the hotel desk and the Basij. It was time to get out, but first he would have to check the contents of the drop. After finishing his coffee, he walked the two blocks back to his hotel and took the stairs to the fourth floor, two at a time.

He sat down on the bed and undid the heavily taped package. As DDO McNamara had promised, it contained an Iridium satellite phone, a razor-sharp Ka-Bar Hawkbill Tanto knife and a brand -new 45-calibre Glock 21, along with 200 rounds of ammunition and a note from the DDO: If you need any more than this, we’ll need to come and get you. M.

O’Connor cradled the Glock in his right hand, testing it for balance. The Austrian pistol had been O’Connor’s weapon of choice ever since he’d joined the CIA. He removed the magazine and, out of habit, checked the chamber was empty and removed the slide. Satisfied, he reassembled the weapon, removed the thread protector from the specially modified barrel and fitted the silencer. Although it was superbly engineered, the Glock 21 shared one disadvantage with all other 45s – it was loud. But the silencer contained a series of small chambers that sequentially absorbed the enormous pressure behind a bullet so effectively that the ‘click’ of the slide-reloading action was louder than the pistol shot itself.

He then checked the contents of the sat-phone pack: solar and wall charger, an additional rechargeable lithium-ion battery and a specially designed antenna, all compatible with US satellite communications in Afghanistan and Iraq. For the moment, he would stick with his encrypted cell phone, but as he put his computer into his backpack, he had a feeling he would finish up in areas where cell phones were about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

O’Connor descended the stairs to the lobby, only to find the same two young thugs he’d given the slip earlier walking in through the front door. O’Connor retreated to the first floor, doubled down the corridor and took the fire exit to the loading dock he’d reconnoitred earlier in the day. A battered old Khawar truck loaded with water bottles had pulled in, and O’Connor waited until the driver disappeared with his first load on a trolley. He slipped by the truck and doubled down past the tennis courts at the back of the hotel and on to Vanak Street, where he hailed a cab.

‘Loftan man o bebarin be … take me to the South Bus Terminal.’ The driver gave him a toothless grin, let out the clutch with a grinding crunch and they lurched into the traffic, leaving a plume of blue smoke behind them.

The huge South Bus Terminal beside the Be’sat motorway was packed, with seventy buses docked at a circular hub which handled over 70 000 passengers a day. The hourly service to the city of Qom, 150 kilometres to the south, was about to depart, and O’Connor handed over 2000 rial and boarded, taking a seat at the back from which he could observe the rest of the passengers. Thirty minutes later, the suburbs of Tehran gave way to ploughed fields, then to salt-pans and desert, and O’Connor’s mind turned to how he and Jafari might gain access to the Iranian nuclear program, without having to fight their way out.

Chapter 13

‘I want Ahmed to read me a story!’ Rashida demanded of her mother. Jamila kissed her daughter and retreated towards the deck, where Ahmed was deep in conversation with his father. ‘I’m afraid the after-dinner conversation will have to wait,’ she said. ‘Rashida won’t have anyone other than her big brother read the story tonight.’

Ahmed grinned and headed for his little sister’s room, leaving his mother and father on the deck.

‘There was more trouble with the Sunnis in the village today,’ Jamila confided in her husband.

‘I heard. They will just have to learn to get along with us,’ said Mansoor. ‘We have enough enemies across the border without fighting amongst ourselves.’

‘Tell that to Omar,’ Jamila complained. ‘Did he really throw a shoe at the imam?’

‘Yes, although he was immediately bundled out of the mosque.’ Their next-door neighbour, Omar Abbasi, was vehemently Sunni; one of those who considered all Shi’ites to be heretics and deserters of the true Islam.

‘Although we need to cut him a little slack,’ Mansoor added. ‘He’s just lost his brother in Beirut.’ Shia Hezbollah forces had taken over parts of Sunni West Beirut and Omar’s brother had been killed in the ensuing violence.

‘How about The Princess and the Pea?’ Ahmed suggested as he sat on the side of Rashida’s bed and reached towards her bookcase.

‘The pirate book,’ Rashida demanded.

‘The pirate book! That’s not a book for girls. What about A Bear Called Paddington?’

‘No, the pirate book,’ Rashida pouted, her dark eyes flashing. ‘I’m a big girl now!’

‘So you keep reminding me,’ Ahmed said, suppressing a smile and opening So You Want to be a Pirate, one of the few children’s books on pirates that had been translated into Arabic.

‘Pirates come in all shapes and sizes,’ Ahmed began. ‘Some are tall and skinny, others are big and muscled,’ he read, lowering his voice to give it a sinister tone. ‘But they’re all …’

‘Very mean and very wicked!’ Rashida cried, completing the sentence. ‘And they all wear spotted handkerchiefs on their heads, and some … some have wooden legs, and some have hooks instead of hands!’

‘Yes, and black patches over their eyes and the captain of the pirate ship has a parrot.’

‘Aarr!’ Rashida growled, giving a remarkably good imitation of the universal pirate expletive. ‘Eight pieces and shiver timbers!’

‘Yes, pieces of eight and shiver-me-timbers … and the pirate ships have a big, black flag …’

‘And it’s very nasty and it’s called the Happy Roger!’ Rashida cried. ‘And it’s got a mean and horrid skull and bone-crosses!’

Close enough, Ahmed thought. ‘Avast, me hearties!’ Together, he and his sister roamed the seven seas. They stormed desert islands and explored the secret map in the centre of the book that gave directions on how to find the buried treasure, until at last, Rashida’s eyelids began to droop. Ahmed quietly closed the book, kissed her softly on the cheek, turned out the light and retreated to the deck. His mother had retired to finish clearing up in the kitchen, and Ahmed resumed conversation with his father.

‘Now they’ve moved in, the Israelis will never give up the Palestinian land in the West Bank,’ Ahmed observed. ‘All this talk of peace is just that – talk. The Israelis have stalled for decades, and all the while they build more and more settlements on Palestinian land in the hope the Palestinians will give up and move out.’ The evening dark had cloaked the village of al-Bazourieh in velvet. Heavy clouds scudded across the sky above Lebanon’s border with Israel.

Mansoor Shahadi didn’t reply immediately. He puffed contentedly on the silver stem of his hookah. The smoke from the scented tobacco was cooled as it passed through the water in an ornate green glass bowl that formed the hookah’s base. The water pipe had been a part of the café culture of the Arab and Persian worlds for centuries.

‘Ordinary Israeli people want peace, just like we do,’ Mansoor said finally. ‘And many Israelis don’t support the settlers. It’s the hardliners, the extremists, who claim God gave them the land. They’re never going to change their view.’

‘Exactly,’ Ahmed said.

‘But it’s not as simple as that, Ahmed. Over half the Israeli population are not religious at all, but it’s the ultra-orthodox hardliners who hold the balance of power in the Knesset, particularly in the current government, and they effectively veto any moves that would halt the settlements and achieve peace.’

‘Which is why I support Hezbollah,’ Ahmed replied, his eyes blazing with indignation. ‘The only way we’re going to force Israel to negotiate is at the point of a gun.’

‘When I was your age, I probably would have said the same thing,’ his father responded, ‘but now I’m not so sure. Israel is becoming more and more aggressive, and as a result, more and more isolated. She has very few friends left in the international community, and even the Egyptians and the Turks are beginning to distance themselves. Ultimately, I think international pressure will force Israel to negotiate.’

‘In the meantime, I’d still like to join Hezbollah,’ Ahmed protested. ‘Cousin Kazim’s now a team leader,’ he added wistfully.

‘And your cousin Kazim doesn’t hold an engineering degree,’ Mansoor admonished his son gently. He puffed on his hookah and stared into the night. Way in the distance, he could just pick out the faint glow of the security lights that marked the Israeli border fence.

Kazim focused his treasured pair of battered binoculars and searched the barbed-wire fence and the dusty road beyond that marked the UN Blue Line border between Lebanon and Israel. For the moment, the road was empty. The stocky team leader from the Lebanese border town of Aita Ech Chaab was a veteran of more than a hundred raids against Israel. He knew every detail of the rocky hills covered with abundant laurel trees from which his family extracted oil and made soap.

Kazim motioned the two younger members of the team to begin setting up their Katyusha rocket launcher behind a thick clump of laurel trees. The bearing to the town of Ma’alot Tarshiha in Israel, five kilometres to the south-west, was 217 degrees magnetic. Kazim stood behind the short, stubby missile, with its eight-kilogram projectile, signalling the team to adjust the launch direction and elevation. Tonight, Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut had ordered all teams to set their timers for ten-fifteen p.m., when Israelis in the northern border towns would be in their homes. Once the missiles were positioned, a simple battery would trigger the firing remotely. As well as Ma’alot Tarshiha, the Israeli towns of Safed, Nahariya, and Karmiel were all on the target list. The Katyusha rocket, Kazim knew, was not known for its pinpoint accuracy, but that didn’t matter. The powerful payload of explosive was designed to strike terror into the hearts of the Israelis, and as long as they landed somewhere in each town, that was all that mattered.

‘Sooner or later, Insha’allah,’ Kazim muttered to himself, ‘the arrogant Israelis will get the message and stop building their illegal settlements on Palestinian land.’

Kazim set the timer on the battery and again scanned the border, less than a kilometre from his position. Suddenly, two Israeli armoured Humvees rumbled to a halt and then reversed onto the bend on the border road, just north of the Israeli settlement of Shtula. Clouds of dust rose into the circle of arc lighting from the fence. Fearing the Israelis might have their night-vision goggles trained for any sign of movement, Kazim took cover and signalled for the two younger guerrillas to do the same. The Israeli Defense Force was more active than usual, he thought, but by the time the deadly Katyusha arced into the night sky, he and his team would be long gone. Lying on his stomach, he focused his binoculars.

Reservists, he thought contemptuously. The Israelis had dismounted and put on a brew of coffee, leaving their vehicle-mounted machine guns unmanned. Kazim reflected on the secretary-general’s command that it was every member of Hezbollah’s sacred duty to capture Israelis. This might just be the chance they’d been waiting for. He signalled the other members to move forward and join him.

Using the laurel trees for cover, Kazim led his team towards the border. In addition to their AK-47s, each of his guerrillas carried an RPG-7 slung over their shoulders. The shoulder-launched, rocket-propelled anti-tank grenades had been supplied by the Iranians and were designed for just such an occasion as this. When they were only 50 metres from the fence, Kazim signalled his men to go to ground. Kazim had proudly qualified as a sniper, and his AK-47 had been specially modified with a silencing suppressor. He adjusted the telescopic sights and fired. The arc light to the right was abruptly extinguished. He fired again and the light to the left went out. Kazim waited, observing the Israelis to see whether or not he’d triggered any alarm, but they continued talking and laughing, brewing up their coffee.

Kazim led the way forward to the darkened fence and signalled for it to be cut. Even with the arc lights disabled, he knew the odds were against them; the fence was under constant surveillance by Israeli security cameras and at any moment the control centre might alert the patrol to the light failure, but it was a risk he was prepared to take. The guerrillas ran across the road and Kazim led them swiftly through the scrubby vegetation and up a slight rise towards the Israeli position. He reached the crest and quickly positioned the the RPGs, allotting each a separate Humvee.

‘Take your time,’ he whispered to his young charges. The Soviet-designed rocket grenade launcher had seen service in every conflict since Vietnam, and now, thanks to the Iranians, Hezbollah had acquired an RPG variant with a telescopic sight. The weapon was deadly accurate at a range of up to 200 metres, but Kazim had guided his team to a position less than half that distance from the Israeli patrol.

‘Breathe easily … aim for the open doors … fire!’ Kazim hissed. First one explosive charge, then another launched the projectiles towards the Humvees. Ten metres from the launchers, the rocket motors took over, boosting the high-explosive anti-tank rounds to a speed of nearly 300 metres a second. The unsuspecting Israelis didn’t stand a chance. First one round then another blasted into their targets with an explosive roar. Both Humvees burst into flames and Kazim raked the area with a burst of 7.62 mm automatic fire.

He slammed another thirty-round magazine onto his weapon. ‘Let’s go!’ he yelled, and he ran towards the Israeli position, firing from the hip. He covered the distance in less than twenty seconds and it took another few seconds to determine that four Israelis were dead and two were wounded, writhing in agony on the ground.

‘Fireman’s lift!’ he yelled, indicating the wounded Israelis. His two younger accomplices were both powerfully built, and neither had a problem with slinging their captives over their shoulders. More slowly now, they made their way back to the hole in the fence. The operation had taken less than ten minutes, and Hezbollah now had two prisoners with which to negotiate the release of their countrymen. Neither Kazim, nor the Hezbollah High Command in Beirut, had any idea of the firestorm that was to follow.

Chapter 14

The meeting of the Israeli cabinet had been called immediately after it became known that Hezbollah held two of Israel’s young soldiers. The mood was tense as the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff briefed the Prime Minister and his ministers.

‘The latest intelligence from AMAN indicates that Hezbollah’s strength may be as high as 5000, including up to 500 hardcore combatants who have undergone training in Iran with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps,’ the chief of staff said. AMAN, the Israeli Defense Force Directorate of Military Intelligence, had been working around the clock to try to pinpoint Hezbollah’s dispositions north of the Israeli border. ‘Our strategy is based on a ten-week operation,’ continued the Israeli defense chief, a former fighter pilot and veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. ‘The air campaign will focus on destroying Hezbollah’s rockets and mortars, and a ground operation in southern Lebanon will aim to destroy their bases.’

Several of the ministers around the cabinet table exchanged glances. The first Israeli invasion of Lebanon had been launched in 1982 to remove the PLO, Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organisation. Over 80 000 troops, 800 tanks and 1500 armoured personnel carriers had been sent in to crush the PLO, but by the time the Israeli Defense Forces had extracted itself eighteen years later, Israel had lost nearly 700 soldiers, and a further 2000 had been wounded, many maimed for life. The Lebanese had lost over 17 000, many of them women and children. Israel was war-weary, and the Prime Minister knew Israelis would not tolerate another major conflict, particularly one that would require the mobilisation of thousands of reservists.

The chief of staff flicked his laser pointer towards a map marked Top Secret. ‘Hassan Nasrallah’s command centre is here, in the Dahiye area of southern Beirut … essentially in the Haret Hreik region,’ he said, pointing to an area just north of the international airport. ‘The terrorist television station al-Manar is also located in Dahiye; al-Manar, the airport and the Haret Hreik areas are all high-priority targets, as are the port and highway bridges.’

Again there was more than one raised eyebrow around the table. The southern suburbs of Beirut were amongst the poorest, most highly populated areas in the world. Civilian casualties would be high, inviting more international condemnation. Worse still, the Lebanese had only just rebuilt a major part of their country destroyed in the last war, at a cost of billions of dollars. If the airport, seaport and vital bridges were to be targeted again, the international media would need careful handling.

‘Just to the north of Tyre, you can see the Litani River runs essentially from east to west,’ the chief of staff continued. ‘The area between the Litani is controlled by Hezbollah’s Badr Command, and it’s here that Hezbollah has deployed its longer range rockets. Our intelligence indicates Iran has supplied Hezbollah with up to one hundred Fajr-5 artillery rockets, which Hezbollah has renamed Khaibar-1.’ It was an ominous reference to the battle of Khaibar in 629, when the Prophet Muhammad had conquered a large group of Jews who had barricaded themselves in an oasis in the north of Saudi Arabia.

‘The Khaibar-1 has a range of over 75 kilometres,’ the Israeli chief observed, ‘putting northern cities like Haifa and Afula well within range. The Iranians have also supplied Hezbollah with Zelzal rockets, which have a range in excess of 120 kilometres.’

The minister for defense whispered to his deputy, ‘The Fajr-5 rockets are bad enough; the Sea of Galilee and over a million people are threatened. But 120 kilometres – that puts Tel Aviv in range!’

‘The area in the south, from the Litani River to the border, is controlled by Hezbollah’s Nasser Brigade, and large numbers of Iranian-supplied Katyusha rockets are located there. This area will be harder to target, although the border villages like Naqoura, Ramiye, Aita Ech Chaab and further to the north, al-Bazourieh, Hassan Nasrallah’s home town, will merit particular attention. Finally, we will also hit Hezbollah’s rear logistics and training base in the Beka’a Valley,’ the chief of staff said, pointing to the fertile region near the border between Lebanon and Syria. Known for its warm, dry summers and snowy winters, the Beka’a Valley had been a major source of agriculture. ‘But we will need to act quickly,’ the Israeli chief of staff urged, ‘before any of our detractors are able to mount pressure for international intervention.’

The discussion between the ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’ in the Israeli cabinet had been heated, but no one had any real stomach for another long and protracted ground war in Lebanon. As Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stood to address an emergency session of the Knesset, the Israelis were putting their faith in air power.

‘Madam Speaker, members of Knesset … Lebanon has suffered heavily in the past, when it allowed foreign powers to gamble on its fate. Iran and Syria continue to meddle from afar in the affairs of Lebanon. We insist on the return of the hostages, a complete cease-fire, deployment of the Lebanese Army in all of southern Lebanon, and the expulsion of Hezbollah from the area. We will search every compound and destroy every terrorist infrastructure. Israel will not agree to live with the constant threat of missiles or rockets used against its residents.’

But even as Prime Minister Olmert called for a complete cease-fire, the Israeli Defense Forces swung into action. In the pre-dawn darkness, a day after the hostages were taken, the Air Operations Centre in Tel Aviv was on high alert, the high-tech command engulfed in a babble of radio transmissions and target designations. The commander in chief of the air force ordered Israel’s Gulfstream G550 early-warning and control aircraft into the air, as well as the Searchers, the six-metre-long unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. The UAVs, with a ceiling of nearly 23 000 feet, were capable of staying aloft for twenty hours, and the real-time intelligence from the onboard cameras was already streaming onto the banks of screens in the operations centre. Further to the south, the UAV remote controllers were hunched over their computers at the coastal Palmachim Air Force Base.

The other Israeli bases, from the Ramat David Air Force Base in the northern Jezreel Valley, to the massive Hatzor Air Force Base in the centre of the country, down to the Ramon and Ovda bases in the south of the Negev Desert, were hives of activity. Squadrons of American-made General Dynamics F-16 Falcons and McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle fighters were being readied on the tarmacs. Ground crews were working under floodlights, sweating furiously as they attached 2000-pound laser-guided bombs. Others were working on the 600-pound air-to-ground Maverick guided missiles and, just in case the Syrians decided to join the fray, Sidewinder heat-seeking air-to-air missiles, named after the deadly rattlesnake that used its infrared sensory organs to close in on its prey. At Palmachim, the Northern Cobra Squadron’s attack helicopters were being armed with 70 mm rockets and belts of ammunition for machine guns that could fire 6000 rounds a minute. Hezbollah was about to be taught a lesson it would never forget.

Chapter 15

Jafari was nervous. He’d already activated the digital voice-recorder pen O’Connor had provided, and he placed it alongside a small notebook on the table in the private dining room of the Qom International Hotel. Hidden in the pen was a USB port for charging, and although the activation lights were all internal, Jafari could feel the sweat on the palms of his hands. Major Amin Golzar, the senior close personal protection agent sitting opposite, seemed to pay him more attention than anyone else at the table.

‘Nice pen, Farid. Did you get that in the States?’ Golzar asked.

Jafari shrugged. ‘It’s just a pen, Amin. I think I picked it up at the airport in London. Can you pass the rice, please?’

There were four members in the Pakistani delegation led by General ul-Haq, but where nuclear weapons were concerned, Dr Wasim Yousef was clearly the most knowledgeable. The Iranian delegation had been restricted to General Shakiba, Colonel Rostami and two of the Guards’ top nuclear scientists. It was the first time Jafari had been exposed to the way international visitors were entertained, and the table was groaning under huge bowls of zereshk polo, a dish of rice, chicken, barberries, onion and saffron; dolma, which were grape leaves stuffed with rice, pine nuts, currants, dill weed and cinnamon; and a dozen other dishes reflecting a diverse Persian culinary tradition. Jafari had also been surprised to find wine served with dinner. Once the dishes had been cleared away, the doors were closed, leaving the Iranian Revolutionary Guards assigned out in the corridor; and the talk turned to how the Iranians might achieve a workable design for a nuclear bomb.

‘The American attack on Iraq was based on a tissue of lies, and we’re determined that won’t happen to us,’ General Shakiba informed his guests. ‘And it’s not only the Americans. The Israelis have also been known to strike without provocation.’

‘The Israelis are the most dangerous,’ General ul-Haq agreed. Everyone at the table knew that in 1981, the Israelis had launched Operation Babylon, a deadly strike against a nuclear reactor the French and Italians were constructing for the Iraqis, 17 kilometres south-east of Baghdad. Six Israeli F-15s and eight F-16s equipped with 2000-pound bombs had flown nearly a thousand kilometres across Jordan and Saudi Arabia, using Jordanian and Saudi call signs to hide their identity. Once in Iraqi airspace, the Israeli pilots had dived beneath Iraqi radar, streaking towards the reactor at just 30 metres above the desert. The attack lasted less than two minutes, but the Iraqi reactor was completely destroyed.

‘The Syrians are building a nuclear reactor at al-Kibar near the Euphrates,’ General ul-Haq confided, ‘and are no doubt mindful of the risks posed to them by Israel. I wouldn’t put it past the Israelis to strike again. And you’re right to be concerned, General Shakiba. The Israelis may not limit their attacks to Syria.’

‘Which is why we’re planning for just such an eventuality,’ Shakiba replied. ‘Tomorrow we’ll show you around the centrifuge facility at Natanz, and from there we’ll take you to the new reactor at Arak, which is heavily protected by both radar and surface-to-air missiles.’ General Shakiba paused, allowing himself a smile. ‘We’ve also built a top-secret site about 30 kilometres to the north-west of where we’re sitting now. On the way back from Arak, we’ll show you that facility as well. Very few people are aware of its existence,’ he declared, a note of pride in his voice. Shakiba considered this one of his greatest personal achievements.

‘Uranium enrichment?’ Dr Yousef asked.

Shakiba nodded. ‘We’re in the pilot phase and we’ve installed 3000 of the latest P2 centrifuges. Ultimately, the facility will house more than 60 000 centrifuges, so deep underground that the American bunker-busting bombs won’t touch it.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure,’ warned General ul-Haq. ‘The Pentagon is working on a new version. They call it the massive ordnance penetrator … 15 tonnes of explosive designed to penetrate 60 metres of concrete.’

‘We know, and we’ve allowed for it. Our intelligence indicates that if the Americans struck now, they would have to drop the 5000-pound GBU-28, which can only penetrate six metres of concrete. But even if they get this latest bomb up to speed, we’re far deeper than 60 metres. That will leave the Americans and the Israelis with the unpalatable option of a nuclear strike, and we doubt that even the Israelis are stupid enough to try that.’

‘Again, I wouldn’t be too sure,’ ul-Haq said. ‘The Israeli politicians couldn’t care less what the international community thinks.’

‘Perhaps,’ Shakiba conceded, ‘but that only makes our own program all the more important, and we’re developing both the uranium and the plutonium options.’

‘Why do you want both?’ Dr Yousef asked.

General Shakiba and Colonel Rostami exchanged glances. ‘The uranium enrichment is not without its problems,’ Shakiba replied, sticking to the agreed line. ‘The plutonium is our fall-back option.’

‘Hopefully,’ said Dr Yousef, ‘the new P2 centrifuges will overcome any of your previous enrichment problems. But as the North Koreans found to their cost, when it comes to a plutonium bomb, your bomb will fizzle unless you can get the plutonium to compress uniformly into a critical mass. It will literally blow itself apart before the explosion reaches its maximum efficiency.’

‘But it’s possible?’ Rostami asked, his dark eyes glistening.

Yousef’s smile held no humour. ‘In theory. All the nuclear tests we’ve conducted in Pakistan to date have employed highly enriched uranium, not plutonium.’

‘But we’ve brought the designs with us,’ General ul-Haq confided, helping himself to another glass of wine.

Jafari knocked quietly on the door to Room 203: three taps, followed by two louder taps, then three softer ones. Sometimes the simplest methods were the best.

O’Connor ushered Jafari inside. ‘What are you doing here, Farid? I said no contact unless I initiated it.’

‘I know, but I wanted you to realise what they’re planning,’ Jafari replied breathlessly. ‘I’ve recorded tonight’s meeting, all of it,’ he said, extracting the silver pen from inside his jacket. ‘Major Golzar commented on the pen, but I told him I’d picked it up in London.’

‘Who’s Major Golzar?’

‘He’s in charge of the bodyguards – close personal protection for the Pakistanis. He established quite a reputation when he was part of the Quds Force.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ O’Connor swore softly, more than well acquainted with Iran’s Quds Force, or Jerusalem force, one of the best-trained special forces units in the world. Their primary focus, he knew, was to operate overseas, training and equipping Islamic revolutionary units like Hezbollah for their battles against the Israelis. But O’Connor also knew that the Quds Force had spread its deadly tentacles into Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the Sudan, Yemen, and even the republics of the former USSR. Its operations were deemed so critical that its commander reported not to President Ahmadinejad, but directly to the Supreme Leader Khamenei.

‘Do you know where Golzar operated?’

‘Mainly training Hezbollah forces here in Iran, and he’s spent quite a bit of time in southern Lebanon on the Israeli border.’

‘Listen to me, Farid.’ O’Connor placed his hand on Farid’s shoulder. ‘If someone like Golzar is taking an interest in you, be doubly careful. I don’t care what happens. Unless your life’s being threatened, you’re not to contact me again, except by encrypted text message on the cell phone. Understand?’

‘I’m sorry, I just thought …’ Jafari stammered, a crestfallen look on his face.

‘Always assume you’re being watched. Always,’ O’Connor said, ushering him towards the door and then closing it firmly behind him.

Major Golzar watched with interest from his position in a fire-hydrant alcove further down the corridor.

Elegant Persian carpets hung on the walls of the marble lobby of the Qom International Hotel, and the coffee shop was just off to one side. Major Jafari sipped on his Delster non-alcoholic beer, waiting for word the Pakistani delegation had retired for the night.

‘I was on the second floor just now, Jafari.’ Major Golzar suddenly materialised in front of him and Jafari’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Who were you visiting?’

‘Visiting?’ Jafari’s mind raced as he fought to remain calm.

‘You heard me. Who is in Room 203?’ Golzar’s voice was edged with steel.

‘Oh, him. He’s just a university professor … Irish, I think. He was asking me about Persepolis earlier and I promised to pass on some information about how to get there.’

‘His name?’ Golzar rasped. Major Golzar would not have been out of place in the Nazi-era SS. Just as the members of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, the Führer’s personal protection squadron, considered themselves superior to everyone else in the Third Reich, members of the Quds Force considered themselves above the Iranian Armed Forces and even the Revolutionary Guards, regardless of rank.

‘Professor … Professor O’Lach … Professor McLoughlin, that’s it. Professor McLoughlin. Why are you so interested, Golzar?’ Jafari asked, recovering some of his nerve.

‘Not everyone is who they say they are, Jafari, so I’d be very careful who you talk to.’ Golzar gave Jafari a searching look. ‘That pen you were using this evening … may I see it?’

‘What for?’

‘The pen!’

Chapter 16

The commanding officer of the Knights of the North F-16 Falcon squadron, Lieutenant Colonel Moshe Schiller, checked his watch: 0400 hours. It was time to move. Schiller, his eyes focused on the soft glow of the instrument panel, engaged the F-16’s nose-wheel steering, released the parking brake and armed his ejection seat. As he taxied out of the hardened shelter and past a line of eucalyptus trees towards runway 09, Schiller ran through his checklist, scanning the Heads-Up Display, or HUD, and instrument gauges for any warning signs. Four more bomb-laden F-16s lumbered along behind him, piloted by Israelis barely out of their teens. At just on eight and a half thousand feet, runway 09 was the longest at Ramat David, but Schiller knew they would need it. The F-16s were destined for Beirut, and they were carrying close to their maximum payload.

Schiller eased the fighter to just short of the runway, his right hand gripping the side stick control, his left holding the throttle at idle as he brought the aircraft to a halt with the toe brakes. The F-16 was the first aircraft in the world to be constructed to withstand 9 Gs, or nine times the force of gravity in a turn. The pressures on the pilot were immense, and under those stresses, a normal central joystick would have been difficult to control. The side stick enabled the pilot to anchor his arm on the armrest and control the stick with his wrist.

Schiller took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. The 52-year-old veteran pilot had seen his first combat flying F-4 Phantoms in the first invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but even though he had thousands of hours, the adrenalin still surged with every mission. Schiller scanned his instruments and controls once more: probe heat, flaps, radar altimeter, speed brake …

The voice of the air traffic controller crackled in his headphones. ‘Barak Zero One, you’re cleared for take-off runway 09.’

‘Barak Zero One.’

‘Contact the Air Operations Centre when airborne on one two zero, decimal three.’

‘One two zero, decimal three.’

Schiller moved the throttle forward and watched the rpm percentage climb steadily. As he rolled onto the runway, he scanned his instruments one final time, but all the warning lights were out. Satisfied, he thrust the throttle lever fully forward and then to the left to engage the afterburner. Schiller was rammed against the reclined seat as the General Electric F110 turbofan generated a massive 28 000 pounds of thrust. The F-16 thundered down the runway, leaving a long sheet of orange and blue flame trailing behind it. As the aircraft reached 160 knots, Schiller eased back on the side stick. The fighter left the ground, climbing at 30 000 feet per minute, and Schiller immediately retracted the landing gear. Undercarriages did not react well to an afterburner at full power.

Out of habit, Schiller glanced at the dark skies ahead through the single-piece polycarbonate bubble cockpit that allowed all-round visibility. With a bit of luck, the Syrians would be staying home today, he thought. Just in case, he flicked his radar on to search mode, but the radar showed an empty sky. Schiller set course for the first turn point at the Litani River, and scanned Beirut’s approach, tower and ground frequencies. All were quiet. He glanced at the bombs that had been attached underneath the wings. Each 2000-pound bomb had been modified with a $20 000 laser-guidance unit attached to the nose. Provided he could keep the laser beam on target, Schiller knew the system was accurate to within a few metres. Further inboard, an array of sensors was searching the skies and the ground below through the lenses of a ‘Litening’ targeting pod attached to the fuselage. The pod’s FLIR, or forward-looking infrared sensor, would enable Schiller to distinguish hot areas on a target, although at dawn, temperatures would likely be uniform, and Schiller switched to the CCD sensor that would give him a normal view of the target.

Fifteen minutes later the F-16s approached their target and Schiller concentrated on his HUD. The airspeed readout was showing 350 knots, and altitude was registering 25 000 feet. Each of Schiller’s pilots had been allotted a different target, and this morning, the Knights of the North had been ordered to destroy all three of Beirut’s runways.

Schiller rolled into the attack. He held the ‘consent’ button down to enable the aircraft computers to take into account the aircraft’s speed, altitude and direction and calculate the bomb release. Schiller felt a slight jolt as the first guided bomb left the starboard No 3 wing station and he held the laser circle on the centre of his target. A few seconds later, as he pulled out of his dive, a black shape shot across the HUD and the centre of runway 16/34 exploded in a massive flash of flame and reinforced concrete. Schiller continued to pull back on the stick and climbed, allowing his wingmen behind him a clear view of the other runways.

Just to the north-west, another squadron of F-16s was pounding Dahiye and the heavily populated southern suburbs of Beirut. Intelligence had indicated that Hassan Nasrallah’s headquarters and the al-Manar television station were hidden amongst the high-rise apartment buildings there. Further south and closer to the Litani River, Lebanon’s highways and bridges were being reduced to rubble. And more ominously for the Lebanese villagers who lived near the border, Israeli artillery was on the move.

The dust rose behind the convoy of M109 Paladin self-propelled artillery vehicles as they roared into position. The battery commander had positioned his unit along Israel’s border with Lebanon, not far from where the two Israeli soldiers had been abducted. Now, he thought, those responsible would pay. He double-checked the computer input on the suspected Hezbollah positions on the other side of the border and the gunners sweated as they manhandled the 155 mm rounds and the explosive charges into the breeches of the big guns. The turret motors whirred threateningly and the long barrels were adjusted on to the targets.

‘Alpha Zulu, this is Niner, target Bravo One Five Zero, five rounds, fire for effect.’

‘Fire!’

‘Fire!’

One after another the vehicle commanders gave orders to their crews and orange flame and black smoke belched from the barrels of the guns along the border. With a roar like an express train disappearing down a tunnel, the 88-pound shells arced towards their targets at more than 500 metres a second.

There was no warning for the residents of al-Bazourieh, just an ominous whistling sound before everything around them erupted in blasts of fire and smoke. Round after round slammed into the main street and the hills above, demolishing the little market and the surrounding buildings, the local mosque and many of the houses above the village.

Mansoor and Ahmed staggered out of the mosque, where the local imam had been conducting prayers. Blood streamed from Ahmed’s forehead where a piece of shrapnel had torn out a large chunk of flesh. He and his father gazed in utter disbelief at the carnage in the street. Minibuses and cars had been blown apart and buildings teetered on collapse, their rooms open to the elements. It was as if a giant can-opener had ripped away the walls. Dismembered bodies lay amongst shattered concrete and in craters where the souk had once thrived. Men, women and children wandered about, dazed and bleeding. Fires had broken out and Mansoor and Ahmed staggered up the hill towards their house. They rounded the bend in the road and Ahmed’s heart filled his mouth. He started to run towards the smoking crater where the house had once stood.

Chapter 17

‘Israel is in peril!’ Pastor Jerry Buffett thundered. ‘In recent days, hundreds of rockets have killed innocent Israeli citizens – citizens whose only crime is to try and live peacefully in towns near the Lebanese border.’ Renowned for his powerful speeches in support of the Promised Land, and one of the best-known televangelists in the United States, Buffett gripped the lectern and looked towards the huge audience packing the cavernous hall on the lower level of the Washington Convention Center.

Outside, near the entrance in Mt Vernon Place, a gigantic banner announced Let Your Voices Be Heard in Israel’s Hour of Need! Over 5000 Christian Zionists had heard the call, and they’d descended on the nation’s capital from all over the country.

‘Camera five, give me a close-up on the pastor,’ the producer ordered from the control room above the stage. The cameraman slowly zoomed in, capturing the televangelist’s tanned face, his square jaw and the intensity emanating from his deep-blue eyes.

‘The End Times are upon us,’ Buffett thundered. ‘Does anyone know what the Rapture Index stands at today?’

‘One hundred and eighty-four.’ The answer was provided immediately by a portly gentleman in the front row.

‘Absolutely, sir. One hundred and eighty-four! That’s the highest reading since recordings began!’ Many in the audience nodded in agreement. For some, it was the first thing they checked when they logged on to the internet. The ‘Rapture Ready’ website factored together a whole range of issues that were said to be precursors to the End Times, from the economy and oil supply to earthquakes, tsunamis and wildfires, and Israel, which today had recorded a maximum of ‘5’.

‘The rise of the Satanic forces of Islam is all part of God’s plan,’ Buffett continued in his broad Texan drawl, ‘and on the day when those who believe are raptured up to join the Lord, a truly terrible death awaits those who have not heeded the prophecies of the Bible.’

‘I have a message for the President of the United States and those around him who advise on foreign policy towards Israel: God is watching you!’ The audience burst into deafening applause. ‘It’s clearly written in this book, Mr President,’ Buffett thundered, lifting his worn leather Bible and opening it. ‘Right here in Genesis 12, where God says of Israel and His chosen people: “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you … and I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” God could not make it clearer, Mr President. God is demanding of this great nation that we stand by Israel in her hour of need!’

Shouts of ‘Amen!’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ rang out around the hall. Jerry Buffett grabbed the microphone and began to pace the huge stage. ‘The Lord always keeps his promises,’ he continued, ‘and when He said, “I give to you this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates,” he meant it! Not one square inch of Gaza, or the Occupied Territories on the West Bank, and not one square inch of Jerusalem can be returned to the terrorists!’

Applause again thundered through the supporting pillars of the vast ballroom.

‘Jerusalem was key to the first coming of Christ, and to His resurrection. And the Bible makes clear that Jerusalem will again be at the centre of the Lord’s return, and sooner than we think.’ Pastor Buffett returned to the lectern and threw the conference open to questions from the floor. ‘Yes, sir … down here,’ he said, directing the microphone usher to the portly gentleman in the front row.

‘Thank you, Pastor Buffett, for another wonderful speech, which raises a number of questions, one of which concerns the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the temple itself. Given that the Muslims have built a mosque on top of the ruins of the Second Temple, do you see a day when the Third Temple can be rebuilt?’ he asked, his voice tremulous, his face flushed.

‘That’s an excellent question, sir, an excellent question. Muslims are, tragically, on the wrong path. There is only one path to the hereafter, and the Bible warns us to beware of false prophets, because it’s the Bible – not the Qur’an, or the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, or the Buddhist Dhammapada, or the Taoist Tao Te Ching, or the Zoroastrian Zend Avesta. The Bible is the word of God, and Islam is an evil religion that is characterised by violence. Fourteen hundred years of violence since its inception, so don’t be fooled! As for the Third Temple, the cornerstone is ready, the Temple Institute has built the furniture and they have the priestly garments ready. But make no mistake, in the battle for Israel against the terrorists, we are seeing Bible prophecy play out to the letter. Right now, Jews and Christians are forbidden to worship on top of the Temple Mount, and near the Dome of the Rock, there is an inscription in Arabic that reads God Has No Son.’

Some in the audience put their hands to their mouths.

‘That’s right, my friends, but the Muslims have made a grave error. Because when Jesus, God’s one and only Son returns, there will be no Dome of the Rock … there will be no al-Aqsa Mosque … we are going to help Him destroy these pagan edifices and the Third Temple will be built in their place on the very foundations of God’s original temples!’

When the cheering died down, a well-dressed lady in the third row took the microphone.

‘Pastor Buffett, I’d like to add my thanks for a wonderful address, and ask if America and our allies are mentioned anywhere in biblical prophecy. Do you really think the End Times are upon us?’

‘Thank you, ma’am, for another thoughtful question. I do indeed think we’re in the End Times. God’s wrath is being visited upon us in the form of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, drought and wildfires, financial collapse, and an increase in warfare. In Matthew 24 God says, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes.” As to America and our allies being in Bible prophecy, right now we’re incurring God’s wrath by supporting the Palestinians’ bid to annex a part of Israel. If this administration has its way, Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus, Galilee and a host of other places of the greatest importance will be ceded to the Muslims. Mr President, I would remind you again: Turn against Israel, and God will curse America and her allies in the most horrific way!’

A chorus of ‘Amens’ reverberated off the auditorium walls.

Pastor Buffett lowered his voice. ‘As I speak, the Iranian ayatollahs are well on their way to acquiring the nuclear bomb. Mr President, we need to bomb Iran, before they bomb us!’

Aleta Weizman raised her hand.

‘Yes, ma’am … the lady over there in the fourth row,’ Buffett said, indicating Aleta to the microphone usher.

‘Don’t you embarrass me,’ Ryan whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

‘My question is in two parts, Pastor Buffett,’ Aleta began, her confident voice tinged with an educated Spanish lilt. ‘I notice that you refer to the Palestinians as intruders, yet aren’t we rewriting history here? It’s quite right to claim that Islam has only been with us since the Archangel Gabriel revealed God’s word to the Arabs, just as it was revealed to the Christians and Jews through the prophets and Christ. But if I have my Bible right, Pastor Buffett, the Hebrews didn’t arrive in what we now call Israel until, at the earliest, around 1400 BC, some hundreds of years after the Palestinians.’

Audible gasps of ‘Shame!’ echoed around the auditorium. The chief of security glanced at Pastor Buffett, but the pastor shook his head. It was one thing to eject journalists who asked irritating questions, but the public-relations risk in ejecting an educated woman was too great.

‘So the first part of my question is,’ continued Aleta, ‘given the Palestinians’ longer claim to the land, shouldn’t we be trying to reach a consensus between both sides?’

‘They’re Arabs!’ the man behind her rasped.

‘Sit down, Aleta!’ Ryan ordered, but Aleta ignored him.

‘Secondly, given that Jerusalem contains the remains of the Jewish Second Temple, as well as the church of the Holy Sepulchre, allegedly built over the site of Christ’s crucifixion, and the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, it’s uncontestably the focal point of the three great monotheistic faiths. Wouldn’t it make sense to turn it into an international city that would guarantee access to everyone?’

The usher snatched the microphone from Aleta, to the accompaniment of more angry whispers of ‘Sacrilege!’ and ‘Apostasy!’

‘As soon as this conference is over, we’re over,’ Ryan hissed, his face flushed with anger.

‘What makes you think I’m staying until the end of it?’ Aleta shot back.

The night before, Aleta had sent Anna Mitchell-Hedges an email. The Mitchell-Hedges skull was still in Anna’s care and the delightful old lady was over ninety. But even at short notice, she had replied immediately:

The skull has already revealed some of the information embedded by the ancients, and I will ask Lena Begich to join us. Lena is very skilled in channelling, and she has demonstrated a remarkably accurate connection to the skull many times. But the channelling sessions have also revealed the crystal skull holds information that is destined to be revealed to a specific person, and I have a feeling that person could be you. We shall see.

A stony-faced Pastor Buffett, his jaw set determinedly, stared at Aleta for some time. ‘To say that I’m disappointed in the question is an understatement,’ he said finally.

A chorus of ‘Amen to that’ came from the audience, none speaking more loudly than Ryan.

‘But I will, of course, answer it. Firstly, Golda Meir was absolutely right when she said, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people … it’s not as if we came and threw them out and took their country … they didn’t exist.” The Palestinians, as a separate people, are a myth. They exist only in the media’s imagination.’

‘And you complain about Holocaust deniers,’ Aleta muttered.

‘Secondly, if you read your Bible more carefully, you will find the Old Testament mentions Jerusalem 669 times, while there are another 154 references in the New Testament. Do you know how many times the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad-Gita, or the Dhammapada, or the Tao Te Ching or the Zend Avesta refer to Jerusalem?’

Aleta returned Buffett’s glare.

‘Not once,’ came the answer from the same portly gentleman who consulted the Rapture Index on a daily basis.

‘That’s right, sir! Not once! And if you visit Jerusalem today, you will find tunnels under the Old City where fluorescent bulbs throw light, even for an unbeliever,’ Buffett added, staring at Aleta, ‘on archaeological diggings exposing ancient water systems that were built in King Herod’s time. There are sewers there that the Jews used to escape the Romans when the city was attacked. Inalienable proof of Jewish occupation.’

As the audience erupted in another round of clapping and cheering, Aleta left her seat and headed out of the auditorium, leaving Buffett to repeat his warning to the President of the United States, a warning that was garnering increased airplay and gaining traction around the corridors of power in Washington.

‘We have to strike Iran now, Mr President, before it’s too late!’

Chapter 18

‘The pen, Jafari!’

Jafari instinctively went for his left-hand jacket pocket then suddenly remembered and made as if he’d misplaced it, before going to the right-hand pocket and extracting the pen O’Connor said would pass inspection.

Golzar turned the silver pen around in his hand and pressed the button that would have activated the microphone. The ballpoint retracted and Golzar unscrewed the top half, exposing the spring-loaded mechanism. He shook the contents out on to the coffee table and inspected them before handing the shell to Jafari.

‘Quite finished have you, Golzar?’ Jafari said, feigning anger.

‘You’re a junior major, Jafari. I’d be very, very careful if I were you,’ Golzar sneered. ‘In the meantime, General ul-Haq would like some company for the night. See that he has a choice.’

‘And how do you suppose I arrange that, Golzar? I doubt the local female commanding colonel would be overjoyed if we order her to provide some of her officers for a visiting Pakistani general.’

‘You really are an idiot, Jafari. This is Qom. It might be the theological heart of this country, but it’s also known as the city of pilgrimage and pleasure. Ring this number. They’re expecting your call.’ Golzar gave Jafari a slip of paper. He rose and walked away, consulting a computer printout he’d demanded from the desk earlier in the day. The printout contained a list of the occupants of the hotel.

Jafari heaved an inward sigh of relief and looked at the number on the piece of paper and shook his head at the hypocrisy of the ayatollahs. Prostitution was illegal in Iran, but demand was still high. To get around the problem, the ayatollahs had promoted an interpretation of the law that had long been abandoned in most Muslim countries. Iranians could legally buy sex, as long as they married the prostitute. According to the Shia interpretation of mutah, it was legal to go to a mullah and get married temporarily – for twenty-four hours, six months or whatever period was stipulated. In addition, it was legal for a man to have as many temporary wives – or prostitutes – as he wanted. And now, the ayatollahs were considering legislation under which brothels in Iran would be renamed ‘chastity houses’.

The duplicity was breathtaking, Jafari thought, as he dialled the number Golzar had given him. When Ayatollah Khomeini and his mullahs took control, they embedded the Qur’an in the constitution, and acts that had previously been a matter of personal morality were suddenly deemed to be crimes. A woman’s testimony was worth only half that of a man; and not only were women in Iran forced to ride in the back of a bus and use segregated building entrances, but many had fled forced marriages to older men and had to resort to prostitution to survive. The Ayatollah had also banned contraception, which had effectively doubled the population. It was a ticking generational time bomb.

‘Salaam … hullo.’ The voice was that of an older woman.

‘This is Major Jafari. I was given this number …’ Jafari faltered, suddenly wondering how you ordered a prostitute.

The woman on the end of the line laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Major, we’ve been expecting your call. The bill’s already been paid, and I have some of our best young women ready for the general’s inspection.’

Twenty minutes later, five young Iranian women, all dressed in black chadors, were discreetly escorted through a rear door of the hotel.

The next morning, snow was still falling, dusting the desert in a carpet of white, but it hadn’t been heavy enough to build up on Highway 56. The long, wet ribbon of black asphalt stretched across the desert towards the small city of Arak, beyond which the snow had fallen more heavily on the mountains to the east, south and west. The convoy of black Mercedes, accompanied by a military escort from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, sped through Arak towards a small fertile valley to the west, and twenty minutes later the escort slowed as they reached the nuclear plant. Observation towers dominated a high fence that protected the sprawling compound built in the foothills of the mountains. Guards snapped to attention and saluted as the convoy wheeled through the main gate and onto the long dual-carriage driveway, lined with trees, which led to the heavy-water production facility on the eastern side. The lights on the towers and storage tanks gave it the appearance of a massive oil refinery. Major Jafari leapt from the car and opened the rear door for General ul-Haq. Colonel Rostami had organised hard hats and white coats, and General Shakiba led the delegation into the heavy-water production plant.

‘We’ve gone with the proven Girdler distillation process to separate the heavy water,’ Shakiba said, pointing to the banks of cylindrical columns rising above the ground. Trails of vapour from the tallest column condensed in the cool, crisp air. ‘We have a total of twelve production units, including the main liquid hydrogen sulphide and distillation units.’

‘And the capacity?’ Dr Yousef asked.

‘At present, we’re producing around eight tonnes of heavy water a week, but once the final distillation units come on line, we expect to double that. The reactor will require a starting load of nearly 100 tonnes, so this plant will be critical.’

Dr Yousef nodded in approval. The Iranians had chosen production methods that had already been proven in the Western world. By running ordinary water down the towers at different temperatures, and bubbling hydrogen sulphide gas up through a series of perforated plates, a chemical exchange took place that produced weapons-grade heavy water at a purity of almost 100 per cent.

Jafari listened closely as the doctor and the general talked, committing the conversation to memory. He could sense he was never far from Major Golzar’s attention, and he dared not take notes or produce the pen with the recording thumb drive.

General Shakiba took the delegation on an inspection tour of the production plant, past a maze of tanks, pipes, pumping stations and laboratories, and on to the adjacent nuclear plant itself.

The inspection complete, the delegation returned to the briefing room. A portrait of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, hung prominently on one of the panelled walls and tasteful indoor plants lined the room.

General Shakiba opened the conversation. ‘At the nuclear plant, we’re using nitric acid to separate the plutonium from the used uranium, but we’re still facing problems with the waste actinides. Neptunium, americium, curium, caesium-135, iodine-129, strontium-90 … We’ve discovered these waste products hold a great deal of heat.’

‘And they’re highly radioactive,’ Dr Yousef agreed, ‘but I think we can help with that. We’ve brought the plans for a process involving treatment with calcium carbonate that will enable you to incorporate the dry material into borosilicate glass, which can be stored much more easily. You should be able to do this on-site.’

General Shakiba smiled broadly. ‘That’s excellent news. Despite our problems,’ he continued, nodding to Jafari to flick on the PowerPoint presentation, ‘the uranium conversion facility at Esfahan, which you can see on the slide, is now almost fully operational, with twenty-one of the twenty-four workshops completed. We currently have some 3000 scientists at this plant, primarily to facilitate the conversion of uranium yellowcake to uranium hexafluoride gas.’

Major Jafari flicked on the first slide. The Esfahan plant covered 60 acres around the base of a mountain range 250 kilometres to the south-east of Arak. ‘The base is protected by anti-aircraft missiles,’ Shakiba said, ‘but some of it is being moved underground, at depths that will make the facility impervious to attack.’ He indicated the tunnel entrances that led to subterranean caverns deep within the mountains.

‘This next slide will give you an idea of our trial production facilities at Natanz.’ Jafari flashed up the next slide, showing the Iranian enrichment facility 100 kilometres north of Esfahan, constructed in remote desert country in the shadow of a bare, rugged mountain. ‘You can see the pilot plant on the western side of the complex and if you look at this area here,’ he said, highlighting a hidden entrance in the centre of the complex with a laser pointer, ‘that’s where we’re constructing the major plant, which is designed to hold 60 000 centrifuges. Again, as you can see, it’s heavily defended. But even if there were a successful attack on this plant, there is another …’

At the end of the briefing, Colonel Rostami handed Major Jafari the general’s briefing notes. ‘Put those on my desk, Jafari,’ he said, and turned to escort General Shakiba and the Pakistanis to lunch.

Jafari waited until the group left the room before quickly inserting a spare thumb drive into the computer. His heart racing, he copied the top-secret presentation and headed towards the colonel’s office. He placed the file on Rostami’s desk and was about to leave when his attention was drawn to the uppermost file in the colonel’s in-tray. It was marked Top Secret – Operation Khumm. His heart pounding again, Jafari took out his CIA-supplied cell phone, with its high-definition camera and silent shutter. He photographed both pages in the file and returned it to the colonel’s in-tray.

After lunch, the VIP convoy headed back across the desert towards Qom and then turned north. When it reached the vast expanses of the Hoz-e-Soltan salt lake, the convoy turned off Highway 7 and headed west, past a huge airfield constructed in the middle of nowhere. It ground its way along the graded dirt road, and when it reached the foothills of a rugged mountain range, the convoy halted near a massive concrete tunnel entrance. White coats, hard hats and blue cover shoes were on hand, as were electric carts to ferry the delegation deep inside the mountain. Natanz and Esfahan were becoming known to Western intelligence agencies, but this facility was known to very few, even inside Iran.

Even Jafari was taken aback. The underground caverns were the size of football fields, and all constructed hundreds of metres underground, where no conventional bomb could penetrate. The only threat was from a nuclear attack. Hundreds of the new P2 centrifuges, each two metres tall, stood in rows of what looked like small metal telegraph poles. Thousands more lay ready to be unpacked. The rotors, made from the technically sophisticated and export-controlled maraging steel, spun on finely machined needle bearings at the bottom, while a magnetic bearing held the tops in place. The centrifuges were designed to spin in a vacuum, and a pulsating magnetic field produced revolutions of 90 000 rpm. Miles of piping lay ready to transport uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride into the centrifuge banks.

With his cell phone concealed in his hand, Jafari stood at the back of the group, quietly taking photographs.

Chapter 19

It was just before six a.m. Major Golzar took the call in his quarters at the heavy-water nuclear plant.

‘Major Jafari farewelled the Pakistani delegation last night as instructed, sir.’ The voice belonged to Captain Kashani, Golzar’s second-in-command, assigned to track Jafari’s movements in Tehran. ‘He left the airport at 9.05 p.m., just after the Pakistanis’ flight departed for Islamabad, but he stayed in Tehran overnight. This morning he drove south to Qom, where a short while ago, he entered the Qom International Hotel.’

‘Hmm … And what did you find out about Professor McLoughlin?’

‘There’s no specific intelligence, sir. McLoughlin is listed as a professor of political science and he’s been granted a business visa that’s valid for three months. The reason given on his visa application was to visit archaeological sites.’

‘And where are you now?’

‘About 100 metres from the hotel, sir. We’ve got the front entrance under observation, but it’s still very quiet. I’ve called up another team to cover the rear, and they’ll be here shortly.’

‘Keep the hotel under observation. I’m on my way.’ Golzar put down the phone and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Was it possible that the major had gone AWOL? Back to Qom to enjoy his new-found knowledge of what Qom had to offer, besides theology? Golzar doubted it.

Using the simple, pre-arranged signal, Jafari knocked quietly on O’Connor’s door.

‘This is the proof you need,’ Jafari announced, handing over the thumb drive containing General Shakiba’s presentation. ‘I’ve also recorded the details of a massive new underground enrichment facility that very few people are aware of.’

‘Location?’

‘About 30 kilometres north-west of Qom. They’ve built an airstrip to the west of Highway 7 and the facilities are further inside the mountains and hundreds of metres underground. I managed to take some photos of the centrifuges, and when you look at the images, you’ll see that each of the underground caverns is about the size of a football field. Eventually, that facility will house 60 000 centrifuges, and they’ll all be the latest P2 design.’

‘So if we knock out the enrichment centrifuges at Natanz, they’re not going to miss a beat,’ O’Connor observed. ‘You’ve done well, Farid. Are you sure you weren’t followed?’

Jafari’s face clouded. ‘I’m not entirely sure. There wasn’t anywhere to turn off to check, but there was a car, a black Peugeot 407, behind me all the way from Tehran. It turned off when I stopped a block from the hotel.’

O’Connor’s mind began to race. Expect the best, but plan for the worst. ‘It may be coincidence, but I’m going out for a look. Stay here, and don’t open the door – for anyone.’

O’Connor checked the chamber of his Glock 21 and cautiously opened the door, but the corridor was empty. It took less than two minutes to reach the loading dock area and he took to the back streets and doubled back towards the hotel’s front entrance in Helal Ahmar Street. O’Connor took up a position behind a large tree and spotted the Peugeot immediately. The day was about to get interesting, he mused, although surveillance was obviously not one of the Iranians’ strengths. The Peugeot was parked just off a dusty square in line of sight of the hotel entrance. Both the occupants were in uniform and one was observing the hotel through binoculars. Time to move, O’Connor thought.

‘We need to get out of here, now,’ O’Connor said, zipping closed his backpack that was always ready. ‘That Peugeot has a couple of Ahmadinejad’s gorillas in it, and my guess is they’ve already called for reinforcements.’

‘But I’m due back at work tomorrow …’

O’Connor shook his head. ‘That’s history, Farid. I’m betting someone has you under observation, and you’ll have a hard time explaining why you’ve detoured to Qom on your way back to Arak. If this lot want to stitch you up, you’ll spend the rest of your days in Evin.’ The dreaded prison at the foot of the soaring Alborz mountains had been constructed by the Shah of Iran. Back then, it had been run by the Shah’s feared secret police, but now the SAVAK had been replaced by the equally dreaded police and intelligence services of the Ayatollah. Under the Ayatollah’s regime, dozens of Iranians and foreigners deemed to be a threat to the theocracy had been hung in the prison’s courtyard, and women prisoners were routinely raped.

O’Connor led the way down the concrete fire escape to the loading dock, but the hotel laundry truck had parked in the dock and O’Connor moved back into the shadows as the driver loaded some calico bags and disappeared back into the hotel. O’Connor moved forward cautiously, only to see another black Peugeot 407 pull up 100 metres from the loading dock entrance.

‘Change of plan,’ he said, pushing Jafari towards the rear of the laundry truck. O’Connor climbed into the rear of the truck after Jafari, and he pulled six large calico laundry bags behind him. Ten minutes later, the driver returned and threw six more bags into the back, closed the rusted back doors of the battered Isuzu and leapt into the cab. The driver engaged the gears and the truck lurched out of the loading bay. O’Connor drew his Glock 21 and moved towards the doors.

‘Fuck it,’ he muttered as he peered through a gap, now convinced that Jafari had been traced to the hotel and they’d been spotted in the loading dock. The Peugeot that had pulled up at the rear of the hotel was following closely behind. The truck moved towards the centre of the city, but it slowed in heavy traffic and then came to a halt, the brakes squeaking in protest. The traffic was backed up near the courthouse where a large crowd had gathered. The driver of the Peugeot had allowed a dozen cars to get between him and the truck, and O’Connor seized his chance. He flipped the rusty door catch with his knife.

‘We’re going to make a run for it,’ he told Jafari. ‘Stay low and follow me.’ He eased one door open. To the surprise of the two men in the vehicle immediately behind, O’Connor dropped to the road and Jafari followed. Bent double, they weaved their way through the traffic until they were able to blend into the crowd. The Peugeot came to a stop a short distance away and the two officers from the crack 110 Rapid Response unit shouldered their way into the crowd, which had formed a semi-circle around a young Iranian woman, buried in a hole in the middle of a dirt courtyard.

‘Sharia law is clear!’ the mullah shouted at the woman. ‘In accordance with Article 105 of the penal code, my judgement is that you are guilty of adultery, and the punishment for that is death by stoning!’ The crowd of mainly young men roared their approval. The young woman, her face almost level with the dirt, shook her head from side to side in terror.

The mullah took several paces towards the petrified captive. In Sharia law, since the conviction was not based on the testimony of witnesses but the opinion of the religious judge, it was the mullah who would throw the first stone. The stone too, had been carefully chosen in accordance with Sharia law: not large enough to kill the adulteress with the first few strikes, but not so small as to be classified a pebble. The mullah took careful aim and threw. The rock hit the young woman’s face, smashing her cheekbone, but her anguished cry was drowned out by the crowd shouting Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!

‘Get down,’ O’Connor commanded, spotting the uniformed police amongst the mayhem. ‘Fucking barbaric,’ he muttered, cursing himself for being distracted by the stoning and pulling Jafari towards a crowded side alley. They reached another major road, and the roars of the crowd and the shrill voice of the mullah were distant now. Several cabs were drawn up near where O’Connor had exited the laneway, and he picked the taxi with the least number of dents in it.

‘How much to Qasr-e Shirin?’ O’Connor asked in fluent Farsi. O’Connor had already done his homework on the options for escape, such as they were. The border to the east with Afghanistan was a possibility, but that was over 1000 kilometres away, and once Jafari was recorded as missing, O’Connor knew it wouldn’t be long before Golzar brought in reinforcements. Instead, he’d decided to try for the border with Iraq, although that was still a good 500 kilometres to the west. Qasr-e Shirin was a small city in the foothills of the Zagros mountains near the Iraq border. It had once been a stopover for the ancient caravans using the Old Silk Road, and Alexander the Great had passed through the city on his way to invade Persia in 331 BC; but its attraction for O’Connor was that the long stretches of desert between Qom and Qasr-e Shirin were connected by well-constructed roads: Highway 56 and Highway 48. The main border crossing into Iraq was marked by a heavily fortified post at Khosravi, 20 kilometres to the south-west of Qasr-e Shirin, but O’Connor had no intention of trying that route. A dirt track through the desert to the north-west of Qasr-e Shirin connected with the border in a remote area that was sparsely inhabited, mainly by Kurds. He would need a lot of luck, but if he could call up a Seal team from across the border in Iraq, they might just make it out.

The wizened old taxi driver’s eyes widened and he shook his head vehemently. ‘Too far! Too far!’

O’Connor withdrew a large wad of rials from his backpack and waved them at the driver.

‘Too far!’ he protested.

O’Connor shrugged and pulled out his Glock 21 and pointed at the terrified driver’s face.

‘Drive!’ he ordered.

Chapter 20

The huge artillery round had exploded in the Shahadis’ lounge room, demolishing the cinder-brick building in a massive blast. Ahmed raced towards the smoking debris and screamed as he came across Rashida, both her legs missing, her face burned beyond recognition.

‘No, no, no!’ Ahmed cradled Rashida’s lifeless body. Mansoor struggled up the hill and Ahmed turned towards his father, tears streaming down his blackened cheeks. ‘The Israelis have done this!’ he yelled, his face a mask of grief.

Mansoor, his wizened features frozen in shock, moved further into the rubble, only to find the blackened, broken and burned bodies of his wife and two daughters lying together in the rubble of what had once been the Shahadis’ kitchen. Mansoor looked up to see Omar Abbasi, their Sunni neighbour, charging through the smoke, brandishing a pistol.

‘Shahadi! You Shi’ites!’ he screamed, his eyes wild with hatred and grief. ‘You heretics! Look what you and Hezbollah have done! You have brought the wrath of Allah on us all!’

Without warning Abbasi brought the pistol up in a trembling hand and fired. Mansoor, clutching his chest, slumped to the ground and fell against the body of his wife, a bloodstain spreading over his dust-covered clothes. Abbasi turned and fled down the hill before Ahmed had a chance to react.

Ahmed stood for a few seconds, stunned. Blinded by tears of grief, he gently laid Rashida’s body on the ground and ran towards his father. By the time he reached the shattered kitchen, Mansoor was dead.

CNN’s nightly news anchor, Walter Crowley, looked grave as he prepared to go to air with the lead item: Israel Invades Lebanon – Again.

‘International criticism is mounting,’ Crowley began in his mellifluous tone, ‘over what many see as Israel’s disproportionate response to the recent capture of two Israeli soldiers on patrol on the southern border of Lebanon last week. The Israeli Defense Force has launched a comprehensive air and ground attack across Lebanon, with continuous bombing sorties and barrages of artillery. The assault has put the Rafic Hariri International Airport out of action and reduced hundreds of buildings to rubble in the Haret Hreik sector of Dahiye.’

The producer cut to video footage of bombed-out buildings, streets blocked by huge mounds of twisted reinforced concrete, burnt-out cars and trucks, and electric wires dangling from poles leaning drunkenly towards the rubble. A massive fireball was seen erupting as an Israeli missile struck a high-rise apartment building in another densely populated area, sending clouds of smoke and debris hundreds of feet into the air. The vision shifted to exhausted rescue workers carrying the dead and wounded away from the twisted wreckage of the Halat Bridge in the Christian heartland of Beirut, and then to the side of a highway where the bodies of migrant workers, killed while trying to flee the attacks, lay in rows in a ditch.

‘An attack against the Jiyeh power station in the south of Beirut has sent 10 000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the Mediterranean,’ Crowley continued. ‘The Israelis have invaded Lebanon three times previously, and these latest attacks come at a time when the Lebanese have just finished rebuilding key infrastructure. In southern Lebanon, assaults on villages close to the border have resulted in over half a million Lebanese fleeing their homes.’

The vision cut to an old woman in a chador struggling over a pile of concrete, carrying what she’d been able to salvage from the wreckage of her home in plastic bags.

‘All major road bridges have been destroyed, and the highways are crowded with refugees. Aid organisations are trying desperately to provide food and water. The European Union has issued a statement expressing concern over the disproportionate use of force, and some senior officials in the United Nations have described the Israeli attacks as a violation of international law. But other officials have been equally critical of Hamas and Hezbollah for abducting the Israeli soldiers. The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued a statement deploring the loss of life and urging restraint on both sides, demanding that Hezbollah release the two captured Israeli soldiers.

‘Here in the US,’ Crowley continued, ‘calls for a ceasefire have been rejected by the Bush administration.’ The vision cut to the US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, saying, ‘The notion that you just declare a ceasefire and act as if that is somehow going to solve the problem, I think is simplistic.’

The producer flicked to live coverage of a rally on Manhattan’s East Side, where over a thousand people had taken to the streets in support of Israel, including Senator Hillary Clinton. ‘I want us here in New York to imagine, if extremists and terrorists were launching rocket attacks across the Mexican or Canadian border, would we stand by or would we defend America against these attacks from extremists?’ the senator asked. ‘Israel must know that Americans and people who value freedom and the rights and dignity of human beings around the world stand with Israel as she defends herself against these unwarranted, unprovoked attacks of Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors.’

‘And now to other news making headlines this day …’

The little village of al-Bazourieh was devastated, and the sheer number of bodies made it difficult for the community to adhere to the Muslim practice of burial as soon as possible after death. As the only remaining family member, it was Ahmed’s heartbreaking task to shroud the bodies of his parents and sisters. Three days after the Israeli artillery had levelled the town, the community gathered in the shell of the mosque for prayers for the Shahadi family. The coffins were all draped in the red, white and green Lebanese flag, the one covering Rashida’s tiny white coffin wrapped twice around.

Prayers complete, the men of the community shouldered the rest of the coffins while Ahmed carried Rashida’s, and the funeral procession wound its way from the shattered mosque to the cemetery on a small hill just outside the village. There the family was buried, each body facing Mecca. Long after the villagers had left, Ahmed stayed by the freshly dug graves, tears streaming down his face. By the time he rose, the sun had set, and he wandered numbly back to the makeshift tent he’d erected near the remains of the house, vowing that at the end of the obligatory three days of mourning, he would return to Beirut and offer his services to Hezbollah. If he were given the chance to avenge little Rashida and the rest of his family, he swore he would kill as many Israelis and their supporters as he could. And if he could avenge his father’s death, he would take out Sunnis as well.

Chapter 21

General Shakiba picked up the secure line to his office. ‘Shakiba.’

‘Rostami, here, sir,’ Colonel Rostami announced nervously. ‘There have been some developments. I’ve just received a report from Major Golzar. Major Jafari spent last night in Tehran, and this morning, he returned to the International Hotel in Qom … but now he’s vanished.’

‘He’s absent without leave?’

‘Yes, sir. He hasn’t reported for duty this morning.’

The line went ominously quiet. ‘You think he’s found an interest in Qom … or do we have a spy in our midst?’ Shakiba demanded finally.

‘Hard to say, sir. Jafari’s pretty naïve when it comes to women … Golzar’s all but ruled that possibility out. The major’s not sure what Jafari’s up to, but the night the Pakistanis were with us, Golzar found Jafari talking to a visiting professor from Trinity College Dublin. So far, the professor’s visa checks out, but we’ve checked with the hotel, and he’s disappeared as well, and Golzar strongly suspects the two events might be connected.’

‘Where’s Golzar now?’

‘In Qom, sir, directing the search.’

‘Tell Golzar to contact me,’ Shakiba rasped angrily. ‘Give him my direct line. I’ll have Jafari’s and this professor’s details placed on a priority watch-list at all the airports, ports and border crossings. There’s a lot at stake here, Rostami, and we relied on your recommendation with Jafari. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if he’s working for the infidel!’

‘Yes, sir.’

Rostami was wasting his breath. The line was already dead.

Fifty kilometres west of Qom, O’Connor ordered the terrified driver to pull over. He took out his encrypted satellite phone and dialled up the CIA’s operations centre in Baghdad.

‘This is Cyrus, how do you read me, over.’

‘Cyrus, this is Zero Alpha, five by five.’

‘Currently located grid 452821, will require extraction vicinity grid 547824, at first light tomorrow.’

‘Roger, Cyrus, grid 547824… wait … wait out.’ There was a pause on the line before the voice continued. ‘Cyrus, this is Zero Alpha, copied extraction grid … could that be a hot extraction, over?’

‘Quite possible, over.’

‘Roger, Seal Team Five is briefed. The team leader’s call sign is Alcatraz One and they’ll be in position west of the line by dusk tonight.’

‘Cyrus, roger out.’

O’Connor grinned to himself as he climbed back in to the taxi and ordered the driver on towards Kermanshah, a large city nestled in the shadow of the Zagros mountains. West of the line meant the Seal team would find a location as close as they dared to the Iraq–Iran border, without alerting the Iranians to their presence. It would be tricky stuff, but O’Connor had every faith in the Navy Seals. They were the best in the world.

Four hours later, they refuelled and grabbed some kebabs. The driver had relaxed a little, perhaps because O’Connor had insisted he take 150 million rials as compensation for the hijacking of his taxi. As night fell, they headed towards the city of Eslamabad-e Gharb. From there, if they weren’t intercepted, they would turn north towards Kerend-e Gharb and on through the remote mountains to Sarpol-e Zahab where, provided their luck held, they would be in striking distance of Qasr-e Shirin and the border.

Golzar checked his watch as he reached for the ringing phone in his room at the Qom International Hotel. It was well after midnight.

‘Golzar.’

‘It’s Captain Kashani, sir. I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I thought you ought to know a taxi driver’s been reported missing. He was due to finish his shift at six p.m., but he hasn’t shown up. His wife said it’s very out of character, so I’ve had the police here do a thorough search around Qom, but so far without results.’

‘You were right to call me, Kashani. Have a description of the driver and the registration number of the taxi sent to all the border crossings and all police stations. Call me immediately if you have something,’ Golzar said, his mind racing as he put down the phone. Was the missing taxi driver just a coincidence, or was he connected with the disappearance of Jafari and the Irish professor?

It was just past five-thirty a.m. when the taxi reached the outskirts of Qasr-e Shirin. The sky behind the high mountains that shadowed the city was tinged with pink and purple, and the driver slowed for a herd of sheep blocking the road. The shepherd shouted in Kurdish, and a mangy sheepdog started to herd the animals to the side of the highway, past a rusty water trailer and on towards some large, dirty tents where chickens were scratching for food around the base of a banana plant. O’Connor was reluctant to go through the centre of the city, but the remarkably modern dual-carriage highway, lined with eucalypts and palm trees, was the only route to the turn-off. The traffic was light, save for the odd truck belching black diesel smoke headed in the opposite direction.

As they came over the top of a rise, O’Connor’s worst fears were realised. A police roadblock had been set up, although at this hour of the day, Route 48 to the border with Iraq was deserted.

‘Fuck it,’ O’Connor muttered. ‘There’s always some bastard who’s going to spoil my day.’

‘What do we do?’ Jafari asked, a tremor in his voice.

‘Stay calm, for starters. There’s only one police car, so that evens things up … a bit. Pull up a few metres short of the roadblock,’ O’Connor instructed the driver.

They rolled to a halt and O’Connor watched the older of the two police officers, his face lined, his white beard neatly trimmed, immediately reaching for his radio. The younger officer, excitedly brandishing a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, screamed, ‘Get out of the car! Get out of the car!’ O’Connor judged he wasn’t much more than nineteen.

‘Do as he says, now,’ O’Connor ordered. The taxi driver opened the car door, which temporarily distracted the young officer. O’Connor leapt out and fired, hitting the policeman in the shoulder. The man dropped his machine gun and O’Connor kicked it towards Jafari on the other side of the taxi. The older officer reached for his SIG Sauer P220 pistol but O’Connor fired instinctively again, hitting him in the arm. The policeman staggered but didn’t lose his gun.

‘Drop it!’ the CIA agent yelled in Farsi. The older officer hesitated and O’Connor fired again, hitting him in the wrist. The old Iranian’s pistol gently arced towards the ground as the man clutched his wrist with his good hand, his face twisted in agony.

‘Face down in the ditch, both of you!’ O’Connor ordered, jerking his head towards the ditch on the side of the highway. The younger policeman hesitated and O’Connor put a round alongside his boot. ‘Face down in the ditch, or the next round will be through your head,’ he growled. ‘Cover them, Jafari.’ He turned to the taxi driver. ‘Have you got any rope in your trunk?’

The old driver nodded numbly, his eyes filled with fear.

‘Get it!’ O’Connor worked swiftly, taking the older police-man’s keys and handcuffing both officers’ hands behind their backs, by which time the taxi driver had returned with some oily old rope.

‘Get in the ditch with them,’ O’Connor said, winking at the old man so he would know he meant him no harm. The old man willingly joined his two countrymen. O’Connor lashed the taxi driver’s hands behind his back, leapt out of the ditch and retrieved the P220 and the police radio. He ran to the cab, shoved it into gear and parked it on the side of the road, shielding the ditch from view. O’Connor then grabbed his backpack and yelled at Jafari, who was holding the submachine gun as if it were about to go off. ‘Come on! We’ll take the police car, it’s in better nick.’

‘But won’t they …’

‘Jesus Christ, Jafari. Yes, they will, now get in!’

‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus,’ O’Connor called on his phone, one hand on the steering wheel as he accelerated towards the dirt turn-off into the mountains. ‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus, this is Cyrus, come in Alcatraz, over.’

His call was answered with nothing but distorted transmission, but then suddenly a voice came through clearly. ‘Cyrus, this is Alcatraz One, Alcatraz One, over.’

‘This is Cyrus, activate Asman, hot extraction, grid 547824, over.’

‘Alcatraz One, grid 547824, airborne in three minutes, over.’

‘Cyrus, thanks, out.’

O’Connor smiled inwardly. Seal Team Five would have spent an uncomfortable night on the ground in the Black Hawks, but the Navy Seals knew well that every second could mean the difference between success and failure. Remaining on three minutes’ notice to move through the night was world-class.

The police radio suddenly burst into transmission, border command wanting a progress report.

‘We have the taxi and the driver,’ O’Connor confirmed in Farsi, ‘and we’ve arrested Major Jafari and a Professor McLoughlin who was travelling with him. We’re bringing them back to Qasr-e Shirin, estimated time of arrival fifteen minutes, over.’

‘General Shakiba will be informed immediately. You have done well, Zardooz, out.’

Not well enough, O’Connor thought wryly. He slowed as the dirt track wound into a wadi and then accelerated up the other side. By O’Connor’s calculations, the landing zone, or LZ, was about four kilometres from here. It was still in Iran, about a kilometre from the border, and Seal Team Five would have to violate Iranian airspace, but O’Connor’s choice had been deliberate. The main highway led to the fortified border crossing to the south, but here, the track just continued across the border into the Iraqi desert. But O’Connor had figured that the Iranians wouldn’t leave it entirely undefended. His guess was correct.

The commander of Seal Team Five nodded to the captain of the first Black Hawk. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, buckling up his gear. ‘Cyrus is in trouble.’ The pilots fastened their seatbelts, the co-pilot radioed the other three aircraft and they immediately began their start-up procedures. The back-up team were in a second Black Hawk, with two Apache attack helicopters as escorts, armed with 30 mm automatic cannon, 70 mm rockets and Hellfire anti-tank missiles.

Chapter 22

Aleta collected her baggage at Chicago’s bustling O’Hare Airport, one of the world’s busiest, and picked up her hire car. She thought she might feel some regret, or at least a tinge of sadness in leaving Ryan, but an overwhelming sense of freedom enveloped her. In keeping with her mood, she upgraded to a red Mustang convertible. A cold wind blew across the snow patches on a frozen Lake Michigan, and it caught her long dark hair as she headed down Route 90 for Chesterton, just across the Indiana border. Aleta smiled to herself. Ryan would never have spent money on a convertible, much less have the hood down with the heater running full bore.

Anna Mitchell-Hedges led Aleta into her cosy living room, where the Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull sat on a black velvet cushion on a small coffee table.

‘It’s stunning … simply beautiful,’ Aleta gasped, captivated. The skull was the size of a child’s head and totally transparent. Accurate to the last millimetre, with a moveable jaw, the skull had been flawlessly carved. The crystal captured the light from a nearby lamp and seemed to play with the beams before reflecting the light back through its clear, silky-smooth surface. Aleta could feel an indefinable energy emanating from the object.

She realised she had been staring at the skull without speaking. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘you must think I’m very rude.’

Anna smiled. ‘Not at all. He has that effect on people. You can pick him up if you like.’

Aleta grasped the chillingly cold crystal, and carefully lifted the skull to face level. The eye sockets were finely chiselled and a light danced deep within them.

‘This came from the jungles of Belize, Ms Mitchell-Hedges?’ Aleta asked, eager to hear the story from the woman herself.

‘Yes, but please call me Anna. It was 1924, and for months rumours had been circulating about a lost city in the jungles. My adopted father, Frederick, who used to say that a life lived without zest and adventure was not life at all, set sail from Liverpool for what was then British Honduras – now Belize.’

‘And he took you with him?’

The old lady smiled. ‘I was just sixteen, but Frederick thought it would be good for my education. He was convinced that civilisation had begun not in the Middle East, but in the ancient city of Atlantis, and his studies led him to believe that the remnants of Atlantean culture were to be found in Central and South America. We paddled down the Rio Grande, which was infested with crocodiles, and when we were miles into the jungles of Belize we discovered a collection of moss-encrusted stone ruins, which turned out to be an ancient city.’

‘Maya?’

Anna nodded. ‘Undoubtedly. Pyramids, palaces, walls, subterranean chambers … all taken over by the jungle, along with a vast amphitheatre capable of holding 10 000 people. My father had forbidden me to climb on any of the pyramids, but one afternoon, the heat in my tent was stifling … I can still feel it now. My father and the excavation team were taking a siesta, so I snuck down one of the jungle tracks.’ The old lady’s eyes sparkled at the memory of it. ‘Howler monkeys were chattering up in the fig trees as I climbed to the top of the tallest pyramid. The view across the top of the jungle canopy was stunning, but something kept reflecting sunlight in my eyes, and I realised it was coming from deep inside the pyramid.’

‘Did you tell your father?’

‘I had to. I couldn’t get inside on my own. He gave me the most frightful ticking off, but when he mellowed, his curiosity got the better of him and he redirected the workforce on to the temple. It took weeks before we could get inside, and there were snakes and scorpions to worry about, but they lowered me down … and there he is,’ she said, her eyes misty.

‘What an amazing experience, Anna,’ Aleta said, reluctantly returning the skull to its velvet cushion.

Further conversation was interrupted by the sudden pealing of the doorbell. Anna excused herself, returning moments later with a thin, elegantly dressed woman whom Aleta judged to be in her late forties.

‘Aleta, this is Lena Begich,’ Anna said. ‘Lena has worked with the skull for some years now. We found out very early that Lena was able to interpret the messages embedded within the crystal.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Lena,’ Aleta said, feeling sceptical. The prospect of someone decoding messages from a crystal skull seemed like the stuff of science fiction. ‘How do you interpret the messages?’ she asked.

‘It’s known as channelling. Many people are very doubtful at first,’ Lena replied, as if reading Aleta’s mind, ‘but some of us have an ability to translate information from objects. We discovered my skill quite by accident. The first time I was introduced to the skull, I was in the company of some of Anna’s guests, and I drifted off … it was only when I woke up that everyone told me what incredible information I’d been able to retrieve from the crystal.’

‘Lena fell into a trance,’ Anna explained, ‘and she couldn’t remember a word she’d said, even though the channelling lasted nearly two hours. The psychic Edgar Cayce had a similar ability to channel while in a trance, and people were very distrustful of his powers until he predicted the Great Depression, World War II, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a host of other events.’

‘I seem to remember he predicted La Niña and El Niño as well,’ said Aleta, ‘although there’s still doubt cast over many of his predictions.’

‘Scepticism is a natural human reaction,’ Lena said. Her voice was low and husky. ‘We tend to rely on our senses, and particularly our sight. If people can’t actually see something, then they often refuse to believe it exists. Shall we begin?’

Anna placed the skull on a small turntable in front of Lena so she could move it as she wished. The beams of light deep within the crystal seemed to intensify.

‘Once I’m ready, you can ask the skull anything you like,’ Lena said, ‘but your questions apparently need to be quite specific, otherwise the answers won’t make much sense. And don’t be surprised if the skull anticipates what you’re about to ask … He does that a lot.’ Lena closed her eyes and began to rock slowly back and forth on the couch, reaching out and placing her hands on the skull. Her breathing slowed and her whole body was focused on the skull. Suddenly a humming sound filled the small room and Lena began to speak in a strange, high-pitched voice.

‘You are here because you are one of the few who will accept what you are about to be told, but even you are sceptical of what you might learn. That’s because you wrongly assume that every civilisation that follows has more knowledge than those which came before. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your scientists are at a loss to understand how I was made from crystal, a material that would normally shatter when carved against the axis of the quartz. But I, and others like me, were formed in civilisations that came before the ones you call the Egyptian, the Maya and the Inca.’

Aleta was about to ask her first question, but the skull continued speaking through Lena.

‘Your civilisation is in grave danger. In 2012, this planet moves into alignment with the dark rift at the centre of your galaxy, and it will fall to you and a few chosen others – including one man in particular – to alert your people to the dangers. Together you will recover an ancient Maya Codex, but the Maya Codex contains only one part of the warning. The other part of the warning is found within yet another civilisation, just as sophisticated as the Maya; a civilisation that built its cities and temples with such precision that you could not fit a knife blade between the stones.’

‘The Inca!’ Aleta whispered. The Inca had not discovered the wheel, yet somehow they had managed to construct their temples and walls using massive polished boulders, some weighing more than 30 tonnes, and without using mortar. The Inca stonemasons had shaped the blocks so perfectly that they fitted within thousandths of an inch, prompting some to wonder if the Inca had found a way of melting and setting rock.

‘Yes … it is the civilisation you refer to as the Inca. They left no written records, but a vital message from the Q’ero, the last of the Inca, was recorded and kept hidden in the place the conquistadors called La Ciudad de los Reyes. This parchment holds the key to the location of an ancient Sun Disc and the remaining two crystal skulls. One skull has already been found, and is in the hands of your enemies.’

‘Who are my enemies?’

‘You have several, and if you embark on this path, you will create many more … but to find the skull that is in the hands of your enemies, you must first discover from whence it was stolen. That will lead you to its whereabouts, a place of great beauty, but infused with evil. The clues to its location lie near an ancient fountain, beneath a large bronze pigna.’

The light within the crystal intensified still further, and Lena’s body was rocked by a spasm of energy.

‘How much time do we have?’ Aleta asked anxiously.

‘The time is almost upon you, and as you begin your search for the receptacles of knowledge, two powerful men in particular will intensify their efforts to eliminate you and your partner.’

‘Partner? Do you mean my husband? But I’m about to divorce …’

‘The one who is steeped in narrow religious dogma is not for you. There is another whom you will meet, and although at first he may not appear to be a seeker of higher knowledge, he has been here many times before … as have you. The annihilation of your civilisation will be at the hands of human forces … forces that are slipping out of your control.’

A mist gathered deep within the skull and the flashes of light and connecting links began to fade. Lena’s hands slid on to the table and she woke with a start.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she said, as her eyes struggled to focus. ‘I feel absolutely drained.’

The Mustang’s V8 4.6-litre engine growled as Aleta gained the open highway to Chicago and pushed the pedal to the floor. With her hair flying in the wind, she tried to gather her thoughts; she needed to process the information embedded in the crystal. Her mind turned to Anna and Lena. The session with the crystal skull had been as alarming as it had been intriguing. Fascinated as she was with ancient civilisations, Aleta wasn’t sure she was ready to tell anyone she’d spent over an hour talking to a vibrating crystal, but the accuracy of its knowledge had shaken her. How had the skull known about Ryan? Where was the skull that was in the possession of her enemies, and who was this enemy? Where were the other two skulls … and where might she even start looking for the ancient Sun Disc?

The channelling session had raised far more questions than it answered, and Aleta was still sceptical, but the information the skull had divulged rang so true that Aleta knew it couldn’t be coincidence. Humanity seemed to be lurching from one disaster to the next, and each natural, environmental and financial shock seemed more serious than the last. Your annihilation will be at the hands of human forces … forces that are slipping out of your control. The last message channelled from deep within the crystal was etched into Aleta’s consciousness as she struggled to understand the path ahead.

Chapter 23

‘Alcatraz Two, this is Alcatraz One, we’ll have to play this as it comes. No change to the LZ, but Cyrus is expecting a hot extraction, grid 547824. Satellite coverage of the area expected any moment.’

‘I don’t know who this guy Cyrus is,’ the co-pilot said, pushing the internal comms button, ‘but he sure as hell commands some support.’

San Quentin grinned. ‘I don’t know either, but I’m betting that it’s got the White House behind it, and I’d put my money on Christians in Action.’ Christians in Action was the Seals’ nickname for the CIA.

Sing Sing, San Quentin’s number two, depressed the internal transmit. ‘Intel’s coming in now,’ he said. The real-time analysis appeared on his laptop as the Black Hawk lifted off from the desert. ‘Shit … they’re not fucking around at the main border crossing. They’ve got a troop of Mobarez tanks moving in.’

‘What about the target area?’ the pilot asked from the right-hand seat as he hauled on the collective. Clouds of sand rose and he checked the vertical indicators on his instrument panel as he pushed the nose forward towards the border. Transmission and engine-oil temperature and pressure, turbine gas temperature, gas-generator speed, percentage rpm and engine torque were all in the green. The two Apache attack helicopters, Crazyhorse Four and Crazyhorse One Zero, were climbing, providing cover to the north and south.

‘Wait … coming in now,’ Sing Sing advised. The real-time satellite images were in infrared. ‘All stations,’ he called, switching to the external secure net, ‘intel analysis is three Soviet BMP 2 armoured infantry troop carriers located on the border, grid 546825, 1000 metres north-west of the LZ. BMPs armed with 30 mm cannon, 500 rounds per minute, range 3000 metres; and a 9K111 Fagot anti-tank missile, range 2500 metres. BMP 2 carries two crew and seven guards, so looks like a platoon all up. Acknowledge over.’

‘Alcatraz Two, out.’

‘Crazyhorse Four, out.’

‘Crazyhorse One Zero, out.’

‘Did you copy, Cyrus?’

‘Cyrus, copied that,’ O’Connor replied from behind the wheel of the police car. He smiled grimly as he negotiated the rough track, climbing higher across the mountains. ‘You’ve made my day, out.’

The pilot of the first Black Hawk concentrated on the primary flight display and digital map. The dual inertial-navigation system would, he knew, guide them to the target; it was a matter of the best approach, and that was a decision he would have to make. Any forces chasing Cyrus would have to come from Qasr-e Shirin, to the south-east, so better to cross the border well to the north of the armoured vehicles already there and come in from a direction they would least expect.

‘All stations, hold at 200 feet, course zero-four-zero, we’ll come in from the north-east, over.’

Each aircraft acknowledged, as did O’Connor.

The agent slowed the police car as he neared the landing zone. The track curved around a ravine, and onto a relatively flat ridge, before dropping again towards the border. O’Connor stopped the car, shouldered his backpack containing the vital thumb drive, grabbed the submachine gun and moved forward on foot, motioning Jafari to follow. Just before O’Connor reached the edge of the ridge, he dropped to the ground, crawled to a vantage point that commanded a view of the border and focused his binoculars. The three Revolutionary Guards’ BMP 2 infantry armoured fighting vehicles were deployed in a circle covering the crossing. The guards had lit a fire and were brewing up some coffee, but they were not completely relaxed. O’Connor counted three sentries posted outside the circle, their binoculars trained on the surrounding hills. O’Connor reached for his satcom.

‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus. Am in position, grid 547824 confirmed, directly above the border position. Be aware that the armoured group have posted sentries, who are scanning in your direction.’

‘Alcatraz One, copied, we’re inbound, three minutes’ time on target, out to you, all stations, drop to 100 feet, out.’ This called for exacting flying, but like the Seal teams, the men and women flying US Black Hawks in Iraq were the equal of any pilots in the world.

The sound of the inbound choppers was faint at first, but then unmistakable, and O’Connor observed first one, and then another of the sentries focus their binoculars to the north-east. Suddenly, the coffee was forgotten and the guards scrambled for their vehicles.

Heavy rounds whistled overhead, but they had come not from the armoured group on the border, but from behind. O’Connor turned and focused his binoculars on the valley to the south-east, only to find another patrol of BMP 2s roaring up the dirt road. Suddenly, the lead armoured vehicle ploughed to a halt in a cloud of dust. Flame and smoke burst from behind the command turret.

‘Get down,’ he yelled to Jafari. Moments later, the police car exploded in a fireball. O’Connor had hid it from the border patrol, but it was still clearly visible from the dirt track out of Qasr-e Shirin.

‘They’re very careless with their equipment, these Revolutionary Guards,’ O’Connor observed casually. Jafari looked at him in disbelief, his face drained of colour.

‘Alcatraz One, this is Cyrus, things are getting a little busy here. Second armoured patrol to the south-east, closing fast, over.’

‘Alcatraz One, copied.’ San Quentin’s voice had a steely edge. ‘Crazyhorse Four, you take the border patrol, Crazyhorse One Zero, the south-eastern group are yours, over.’

‘Crazyhorse Four.’

‘Crazyhorse One Zero.’

The Apache attack helicopters peeled off. The pilot of the first Apache kept low to the ground, rising just above the ridgeline to sight the Iranian patrol. The gunner locked the radar on to the nearest armoured BMP 2 and fired. The Hellfire anti-tank missile launched from the starboard pod in a burst of flame, and the pilot immediately dropped the helicopter from view. The missile’s on-board computers remotely tracked the target, slamming into the side of the BMP 2. Those inside didn’t stand a chance. The shaped charge burned through the armour and the vehicle exploded in a ball of flame and smoke.

‘Alcatraz Two, hold behind the ridgeline, we’re going in, over,’ San Quentin ordered.

‘Alcatraz Two.’

‘Let’s go!’ O’Connor yelled as the first Black Hawk crunched on to a desert clearing nearby. To the west, a second armoured BMP 2 exploded in flames, while to the east, Crazyhorse One Zero was engaging the group further down the valley. O’Connor covered the 50 metres to the chopper in less than ten seconds, and a few seconds later the crew chief hauled Jafari in after him. ‘Go, go, go!’ the crew chief yelled into his internal mike. The pilot hauled on the collective and the powerful turbo-shaft engines responded immediately. But the third Hellfire missile fired from the Apaches had only partially disabled the last of the Iranian armour. One of the crew had escaped, while another was able to engage the Black Hawk with a burst from his 30 mm cannon before a fourth Hellfire found its mark.

‘All stations, we’ve been hit,’ the Black Hawk pilot announced calmly, ‘we’re going down.’ The pilot struggled to control the stricken aircraft as smoke and flames spewed from the starboard engine, and he put it down hard, not far from the Iranian position.

‘This is Alcatraz Two, copied,’ the pilot of the back-up Black Hawk acknowledged. ‘I’m inbound behind you.’

‘Crazyhorse Four.’ The Apache hovered just behind cover, the gunner scanning the battlefield.

A burst of machine-gun fire crackled around them as O’Connor, Jafari and the Seal team dived out of the burning chopper. O’Connor spotted the surviving Iranian first. He returned fire with his newly acquired Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and the Iranian fell silent.

‘You can join us anytime!’ San Quentin yelled, grinning at O’Connor over his shoulder as he sprinted back to the burning Black Hawk to plant demolition charges. It was essential to destroy the helicopter – the equipment on board was so highly classified it was not on issue to any other military in the world.

As the second Black Hawk landed, the ground around the Iranian position erupted again in fire and smoke. The Apache gunner had raked the area with a burst of 70 mm rockets, just to make sure. ‘Go, go, go!’ the crew chief yelled again, as the last of the Seal team scrambled on board the helicopter. The Black Hawk and the two Apaches powered away towards the Iraqi border as a surviving Iranian BMP 2 gained the crest of the ridge. The driver raced his vehicle towards the burning Black Hawk, but before he’d covered half the distance, the aircraft disintegrated in a massive explosion.

The crew chief handed O’Connor a set of headphones, and O’Connor plugged his mike into the comms socket. ‘Thanks, guys, much appreciated,’ he said.

The pilot turned in his seat. ‘All in a day’s work. I don’t know who you are,’ he added with a grin, ‘but it’s a pleasure to have you on board, sir.’

BOOK II

Chapter 24

President William McGovern, the Democratic incumbent, was riding comfortably in the polls, but no one was taking anything for granted, least of all his chief of staff, Chuck Buchanan, a tall, sharp-eyed – some might say arrogant – political staffer from Springfield, Illinois. Three issues were on the afternoon’s briefing agenda, and any one of them had the potential to give the President’s Republican rivals a lift in the polls. Much to Buchanan’s annoyance, the President had asked his re-election campaign manager, Lauren Crawford, to join them in the Oval Office. The slim, straw-blonde microbiologist-turned-political-staffer from Chicago had worked on William McGovern’s previous campaign, and no one on the President’s team had a better instinct for vote-winning or vote-losing issues.

Crawford well understood the importance of the agenda slated for discussion. The Israeli Prime Minister had reacted badly to the President’s latest proposals to achieve a peaceful settlement to the Israeli–Palestinian problem, and that, Crawford knew, had the potential to influence the Jewish vote in the wrong direction. There was mounting evidence, too, that Ayatollah Khamenei, and his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were getting closer to obtaining a nuclear arsenal. The Republicans were becoming increasingly vocal in their calls for the President to take decisive action against Iran. But in Lauren Crawford’s world of grassroots voters, it was the third item on the agenda that had the potential to be the most explosive.

One of the CIA’s most respected and brilliant agents, Curtis O’Connor, had fallen foul of his superiors and was now on the run, along with a Guatemalan academic and archaeologist, Dr Aleta Weizman. Crawford was convinced that the CIA’s new Deputy Director of Operations, Howard J. Wiley, was lying through his back teeth about O’Connor’s disappearance. The DDO had now been called to give evidence to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. If this morning’s headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post were anything to go by, the case would capture the public’s imagination every bit as much as Watergate had in Nixon’s time, and the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame had during the Bush administration.

Crawford left her office on the second floor of the West Wing and made her way down the carpeted staircase, past the Roosevelt Room and into the office of the President’s unflappable private secretary, Donna Ferguson.

‘The President will see you now, Lauren,’ Donna said, nodding towards the corridor that connected her office with the Oval Office.

‘What’s the weather like?’ Crawford asked with a smile.

‘Chief of staff? Stormy. President? Fine … although he’s seen the headlines in the papers,’ Donna warned. Crawford raised an eyebrow and walked down the short corridor before knocking on the President’s door and opening it.

‘Come and join us, Lauren,’ the President said, easing his lanky form from behind the magnificent mahogany Oval Office desk that had been a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford Hayes in 1880. Almost every president had used the desk, which was made from the timbers of the British ship HMS Resolute. An American vessel had found the Resolute adrift amongst the Arctic pack ice in 1855 and returned her. When the ship was finally broken up, a grateful Queen had the desk made.

‘What do you two make of the story in the New York Times this morning?’ the President asked, addressing Crawford and Buchanan. The paper was lying next to a bowl of fruit on the marble coffee table between the Oval Office’s two cream couches. The headline read ‘Senate Intelligence Committee to Probe Missing CIA Agent O’Connor and Guatemalan Archaeologist Weizman’.

‘This Agent O’Connor … he was supposedly a pretty good operator before he jumped ship,’ the President observed. ‘Medal of Freedom recipient for his work on the Beijing Olympics.’

‘Yes, he was,’ Crawford agreed. The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the country, was equivalent to the military Medal of Honor. ‘I knew him pretty well in our days in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control. He’s one of the best we’ve got … or had. A few years back, O’Connor was responsible for obtaining some of the most damning intelligence on what the Iranians were really up to, well before it was reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency. My contacts in the CIA tell me O’Connor didn’t jump ship of his own volition,’ she added. ‘In the end he didn’t have a choice, and the information I have points towards a cover-up.’

‘Is DDO Wiley across this?’ the President asked.

‘I think he’s part of the cover-up, Mr President.’ Crawford had always been a straight shooter, one of the reasons the President had her on his team.

‘We don’t have any proof of that,’ Buchanan interjected, irritated by Crawford’s direct manner. Out of habit, he ran his hand through his fine black hair.

‘No, but my contacts are pretty solid,’ Crawford shot back. ‘I’m told Wiley sent O’Connor to Vienna on a two-bit assassination mission to eliminate this Guatemalan archaeologist, Weizman. She’d made public allegations that we trained some of the generals responsible for killing civilians in the Guatemalan civil war, and Wiley was incensed.’

‘Weizman was right,’ President McGovern responded bitterly. ‘Two hundred thousand Guatemalans were massacred in that conflict, and Clinton rightly apologised for our role in it. Not one of our finest efforts at foreign policy. But why in hell’s name would we want an obscure archaeologist out of the way? She wouldn’t even come close to a presidential authorisation as a clear and present danger.’

‘I’m told that’s the conclusion O’Connor reached, but the Weizman allegations were getting uncomfortably close to revealing the details of the CIA’s role in the genocide. At the time of the massacres, Wiley was chief of station in Guatemala City, which may explain why he took a particular interest in her claims.’

‘And my predecessor authorised this?’ the President asked, incredulous.

Crawford shook her head. ‘I doubt he even knew about it, Mr President, although the vice president undoubtedly did.’ She flicked a quick glance at her watch. ‘CNN are about to cover this live, and I think you should watch it.’

‘Mr President,’ Buchanan protested, ‘we have a very crowded schedule this afternoon.’

McGovern held up his hand. ‘Let’s see what the media are making of this,’ he said, reaching for the remote.

Newsreader Walter Crowley appeared, announcing the Senate investigation into the CIA’s involvement in the killings in the jungles of Guatemala and the disappearance of O’Connor and Weizman. ‘And we take you now to Capitol Hill, where Susan Murkowski has been following events at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence … Susan, what’s the background to this inquiry?’

The image of the CNN anchor was replaced by the network’s svelte dark-haired political correspondent, one of the media’s rising stars in Washington. A biting wind was blowing across the Potomac and Murkowski was dressed in a red overcoat, rugged up with a dark blue scarf. Pockets of snow covered the ground around the Capitol steps, and behind her, the wedding-cake dome of the Capitol building, topped by its bronze Statue of Freedom, formed an image of power against the clear winter sky.

‘You might recall, Walter, that not so long ago an ancient Maya artefact, the Maya Codex, was discovered in a tomb in the jungles of Guatemala,’ said Murkowski. An image of yellowed leaves of bark, inscribed with Maya hieroglyphics and bound in a concertina book, appeared on the screen.

‘And the codex contained a warning?’ asked Crowley.

‘That’s right, Walter. The Maya predicted a very rare planetary alignment – one that occurs only once in every 26 000 years. At eleven minutes past eleven on Friday 21 December 2012, our planet will align with what the Maya called a star gate, in the dark rift at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. NASA has now confirmed that not only were the Maya correct – and we should perhaps remember the Maya predicted this 800 years before Galileo even picked up the world’s first telescope – but NASA also says it has identified the Maya star gate as a supermassive black hole of unimaginable gravitational energy. Scientists are speculating that as we move into its gravitational field, our weather will become more unpredictable. And this gravitational field may well explain the extraordinary ferocity of the latest earthquakes, snowstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires. Some scientists are even warning of a geographic pole shift and a change in position of the world’s oceans, which would submerge coastal cities under hundreds of metres of water.’

‘So why is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence looking at this?’

‘It’s not so much the ancient Maya warning that it’s investigating, although no doubt that is of interest; it’s more the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the codex. There are claims of a cover-up over the disappearance of one of our most trusted CIA agents, Curtis O’Connor, and a Guatemalan archaeologist, Dr Aleta Weizman. The details are sketchy, but there are accusations from an unnamed whistle-blower that the CIA was involved in the attempted assassination of Weizman. Weizman had accused the CIA of training some of the armed forces responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans during that country’s civil war in the nineties. It was O’Connor and Weizman who brought the Maya Codex, which is secured in a museum in Guatemala City, to light, but both O’Connor and Weizman are now missing.’

‘And what’s been the CIA’s response?’

‘Howard Wiley has yet to take the oath at the inquiry, but I understand his denials are likely to come under intense scrutiny when Agent Ellen Rodriguez appears before the committee. My sources tell me she will give evidence that suggests there was not only a contract on Weizman, but that the CIA, or at least Wiley, wanted O’Connor eliminated as well.’

‘Rodriguez was on Wiley’s staff?’

Murkowski nodded. ‘Like O’Connor, Rodriguez is one of the most experienced and respected agents in the CIA. She served in the CIA’s Berlin, Vienna and Lima stations, and she was, for a while, on the staff of the Clinton White House. I understand she has a high opinion of both O’Connor and Weizman, and she reportedly clashed strongly with Wiley when she was at the Latin American desk at Langley at the time these alleged contracts were put out.’

‘And has Rodriguez said anything since the disappearance of O’Connor and Weizman?’

‘Not publicly, and she won’t until she appears before the committee.’

‘Do we know anything of O’Connor and Weizman’s whereabouts?’

‘The Maya Codex may not be the only ancient warning … an Inca warning is said to lie somewhere in the jungles of Peru and my sources tell me the CIA is pouring a lot of resources into tracking them down. We’ll have to stay tuned on that one.’

‘And where is Rodriguez?’

Murkowski smiled and shook her head. ‘That’s one of the most closely guarded secrets in Washington, Walter.’

The assassin turned left off the George Washington Parkway on to Route 120 and followed the road south into Arlington until he reached North Yorktown Boulevard. It was approaching mid-afternoon and rush hour was yet to begin, so the traffic was moving relatively freely. He drove past Yorktown High School and finally turned into North 27th Street, parking alongside Greenbrier Park, about one hundred metres from the safe house. A small two-storey grey and white house with a wooden porch, it was located in an area that more than met the criteria of anonymity. North 27th Street, Arlington, was a middle-class family neighbourhood. The assassin knew that the US Marshal Service was providing protection for CIA Officer Ellen Rodriguez, a slim, attractive brunette in her late thirties. Inside the safe house, Rodriguez was preparing for a meeting with her lawyer, scheduled for later in the evening. Her thoughts turned to O’Connor. She had long since ceased to contact him directly; those days were history, but she still cared. Without thinking too much about it, she did the next best thing. She texted Aleta on her cell phone.

Chapter 25

O’Connor and Aleta arrived at the Convento de San Francisco in Lima an hour before it closed to the public. Their meeting with the Franciscan friar, Brother Gonzáles, wasn’t until five p.m., but O’Connor had arrived early to check the exits, just in case. They paused, as any tourists might, to admire the Spanish baroque architecture. The magnificent old monastery had been built during the time of the Spanish conquistadors. The entrance to the basilica was guarded by two stone towers. Their façade featured a sculptured statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by cherubs, depicting the Immaculate Conception. The monastery itself was on the left, and like the towers and the basilica, it was rendered in yellow stucco with ornamental wooden balustrades adorning the roof. Dozens of pigeons populated the stone niches of the towers, and hundreds more c’too-cooed around the stone steps leading to the entrance.

O’Connor paid the entrance fee and he and Aleta walked into the gardens, dominated by a large fountain and surrounded by two levels of white, arched cloisters. They moved through the main cloister where huge oil paintings depicting the life of St Francis of Assisi hung on walls decorated with priceless Seville tiles.

‘Some of these paintings are by Francisco de Zurbarán,’ Aleta observed, a reverential tone in her voice.

‘The Spanish Caravaggio,’ O’Connor agreed, but his eyes were focused elsewhere, probing the endless corridors of the monastery. Aleta glanced at O’Connor, a wry smile on her lips. She hadn’t picked him as an art connoisseur, but his expertise didn’t surprise her. She already knew he had a mind like a steel trap – he was more a Renaissance man than a CIA agent, although she was learning he set the gold standard for both. They moved through the Passageway of the Geraniums, the walls rendered in red stucco and lined with geraniums in elegant pots. O’Connor marked it as a place to be avoided; there was no cover in the long stone corridor.

Moving upstairs, they found the exquisitely carved stalls of the friars’ choir on a mezzanine overlooking the interior of the church. O’Connor immediately noted the grates in the stone floor of the basilica, worn smooth over the centuries. Through the gaps he could see the steps to the catacombs and secret passages that dated back to the time of the conquistadors. Further down the nave, baroque altars were decorated in stunning blues and aquamarines, offset by gilt edging. O’Connor glanced at his watch.

‘Time to meet with Brother Gonzáles,’ he said, fingering the Glock 21 hidden in his jacket. ‘Let’s hope this isn’t a set-up.’

‘I’m only just beginning to understand the world you move in, but don’t forget it was José Arana who gave us the contact.’ Aleta reminded O’Connor of the old shaman who had guided them in their search for the Maya Codex. ‘His standing in Guatemala is impeccable.’

‘It’s not Arana or Gonzáles I’m worried about. The question is who’s operating around them,’ O’Connor warned, as they made their way to the agreed meeting place. An old friar was waiting for them at the entrance of the library, his weathered brown face etched with lines of wisdom.

‘Welcome to one of the oldest libraries in the Americas.’ Brother Gonzáles took Aleta’s hand first and then O’Connor’s. ‘This one contains over 25 000 books, and many of them are incunabula – printed before 1501,’ he said, closing the library’s outer doors.

O’Connor followed Aleta and the friar past the ropes that kept tourists out of the narrow room. Heavy teak bookcases lined the long walls and at the far end, two wooden spiral staircases led to narrow balconies, containing more shelves that ran the length of the room. Chandeliers hung from the pressed-metal ceilings and the floor was finished in exquisite cream and charcoal tiles.

‘Some of these volumes date back to the first printing presses in Peru,’ Brother Gonzáles continued, ‘and they cover the Franciscan Order from the time of the first missionaries, who arrived in the fifteenth century. The library also contains over 5000 Jesuit, Benedictine and Augustine scrolls, as well as a priceless collection of early Bibles and music scores.’ He pointed to a large Bible on display, beside which was a huge, yellowed, hand-written musical score supported by a large wooden stand.

‘But for you, the principal advantage of the library is its privacy,’ Brother Gonzáles opined, ushering O’Connor and Aleta towards carved wooden chairs at the far end of the room. O’Connor chose one with a view of the doors.

‘It would be frowned on by the Vatican, if they knew,’ Gonzáles said, his brown eyes twinkling, ‘but some of us maintain close contact with the descendants of the Maya and the Inca, and their spiritual advisors, one of whom you’re destined to meet. His name is Carlos Huayta, and he’s descended from the Q’ero people.’

‘Another shaman?’ O’Connor asked, keeping one eye on the library doors.

Gonzáles nodded. ‘As you’re both aware, shamanism has been practised for far longer than organised religion … it predates Christ by over 50 000 years. We’ve found evidence of the existence of shamans in France, where there are cave drawings that are over 30 000 years old; and in Norway, the remains of shamans have been found that are even older … perfectly preserved in the ice, with their sacred crystals and carved antelope figures safely secured in leather pouches.’

‘Are they really a threat to the Catholic faith, these shamans?’ O’Connor asked, wondering if his old nemesis, Cardinal Felici, had an interest in the Inca. Even O’Connor had been bemused by the lengths to which the Vatican intelligence services would go to protect both their doctrine and criminal priests. In the sixteenth century, Catholic priests had burned every Mayan codex, the precious books that recorded the entire history and culture of the Maya, including their mathematics, astronomy and beliefs. O’Connor had pondered the reaction of the cardinals if the tables had been reversed, and the Maya had burned every book in the secret archives and Catholic libraries.

‘Throughout history,’ Gonzáles agreed sadly, ‘too many priests and cardinals have been threatened by anything that lies outside the accepted dogma, but shamans are very different to priests.’

‘You don’t seem threatened,’ Aleta observed.

‘Unlike many of the Curia, I live in the real world out here, amongst the poor and dispossessed, as do the shamans. The shamans understand there is more than one path to the hereafter … but more importantly, they’re in touch with the energy of the natural world and the animal kingdoms. Many shamans, including Huayta, are able to change the frequency of their brainwaves through meditation. That enables them to connect with the planet’s sacred source field.’

‘The Russians did some work on that,’ O’Connor said, his interest immediately aroused.

‘Yes, although we still have a great deal to learn,’ Gonzáles emphasised. ‘But first there’s an old book I want to show you, and then we’ll visit the catacombs below the basilica.’ He rose from his seat and climbed one of the old spiral staircases that led to the bookshelves above. He returned with a slim volume covered with a cracked leather binding, which he handed to O’Connor.

‘This may help you in your quest,’ Gonzáles explained.

‘How do you know about our quest?’ Aleta queried as O’Connor leafed carefully through the yellowed pages.

‘José Arana was here a month ago. He arrived just after you disappeared from the rainforests of Guatemala.’

‘You know José?’ Aleta asked.

‘Quite well. Not only is José well respected amongst the descendants of the Maya in Guatemala, but he is well known internationally. José wasn’t sure when he first met you, but once you were successful in recovering the Maya Codex, he knew it would fall to you to uncover the rest of the warning. The second part is a prophecy hidden by the Inca.’

‘Is there a third part?’

‘That has been hidden by a civilisation even older than the Maya or the Inca, but the Inca must be attended to first.’

‘This book,’ O’Connor observed, ‘it’s a copy of the Beale papers.’

‘And very rare,’ Brother Gonzáles agreed, his eyes sparkling. ‘Not even your Library of Congress has a copy.’

‘What are the Beale papers?’ asked Aleta.

‘In 1885, one James B. Ward of Lynchburg, Virginia, published what has become known as the Beale papers,’ O’Connor explained. ‘They’re ciphers that will lead whoever is clever enough to decode them to a stone vault somewhere in the Blue Ridge mountains, full of gold.’

‘Along with silver and several million dollars’ worth of jewellery,’ Brother Gonzáles confirmed. ‘In 1820, a man by the name of Beale was befriended by a publican, Robert Morriss, who owned the Washington Hotel in Virginia. But Beale disappeared, leaving a strong box at the hotel. Twenty-three years after Beale’s disappearance, Morriss finally opened the box, only to find three number-based ciphers, along with two letters from Beale.’

‘Hasn’t one of the ciphers been solved?’ queried O’Connor.

‘Yes, but only one. The first allegedly contains the location of the vault; the second cipher – the one that’s been broken – details the amount of gold, silver and jewels that are hidden; and the third cipher details those who are entitled to a share of the treasure, all of whom are long since dead.’

‘But how does this help us?’ Aleta asked.

Brother Gonzáles smiled enigmatically. ‘We don’t know how the second cipher was broken, but we do know it’s a book code … a variation on the nomenclator codes that were used in Rossignol’s Great Cipher of the seventeenth century. That wasn’t broken until 1893 when Etienne Bazeries realised that each symbol represented syllables rather than letters; but if you are meant to discover the warning in the Inca prophecy, then things will eventually fall into place. Although time is not on your side – you have only two weeks until the sun reaches its zenith. The Inca prophecy is tied to the zenith, under which there is no shadow. Here in South America, the sun reaches its zenith on only two occasions each year and if you miss the one in two weeks, there won’t be another one for six months, which may be too late. In the meantime, there is something you should see.’ Brother Gonzáles rose and led the way to the basilica and the entrance to the catacombs.

‘This gets creepier than the Maya tomb,’ Aleta whispered to O’Connor as they descended a set of narrow limestone steps that led them into the first of several burial crypts, each filled with hundreds of human skulls and dimly lit by small cast-iron lanterns.

‘I suspect we haven’t seen anything yet,’ said O’Connor.

From one of the crypt’s darkest recesses, Monsignor Matthias Jennings, dressed in the brown robes of a Franciscan friar, eavesdropped on the discussion. Monsignor de Luca and the Holy Alliance were no closer to cracking the Inca cipher, but as soon as word reached Cardinal Felici that O’Connor and Aleta might be headed for Peru, Felici had reassigned the Jesuit archaeologist Jennings to Lima.

‘The Inca capital of Peru was in Cusco,’ Gonzáles explained, ‘but when Francisco Pizarro defeated the Inca, he founded his capital here in Lima, in the Rímac valley, and named it Ciudad de los Reyes, or the City of the Kings, because it was founded on the Feast of the Epiphany. Over time, the name fell into disuse in favour of the simpler native name Limaq, or Lima. What you see here,’ Gonzáles gestured, leading the way through a very narrow tunnel, ‘are the skulls of ordinary citizens. In the Spanish Colonial era, these crypts were used as a cemetery, and there are over 25 000 bodies here.’ His voice assumed a conspiratorial tone. ‘Anyone of any importance in the city was buried in specially designated vaults.’ Brother Gonzáles took a set of keys off his belt and unlocked the door to a secret passageway leading to the Government Palace on the north side of the Plaza de Armas in the historic centre of the city. The palace had once been Francisco Pizarro’s headquarters, and had since served as the headquarters for various Peruvian presidents.

O’Connor and Aleta followed Brother Gonzáles along the dimly lit passage until they reached a vault, directly below the palace.

‘In 1536, Pizarro’s conquistadors recovered a priceless crystal skull from somewhere along the banks of the Urubamba River in the Sacred Valley of the Inca, and for centuries it was kept down here,’ Gonzáles explained, opening the steel doors of the now empty vault. ‘The skull was accompanied by two documents. One was an old Inca prophecy that had been recorded by one of Pizarro’s friars. The other was a strange cipher, recorded by the same friar – a series of numbers which are reputed to have a connection to the Fibonacci sequence.’

O’Connor and Aleta exchanged glances. The Fibonacci sequence had already figured in their quest for the Maya Codex, and both knew the sacred numbers were revered in a number of ancient civilisations.

‘Over the centuries, successive generations of Franciscan friars tried to crack the cipher,’ Gonzáles continued, ‘but all failed. Early in the nineteenth century, a series of disasters struck our monastery. The friars blamed their misfortunes on the skull, and when word reached the Holy Alliance in the Vatican, the friars were ordered to send the skull and the two parchments to Rome.’

‘Holy Alliance?’ Aleta whispered to O’Connor.

‘The Vatican intelligence service, now known as the Entity,’ he replied. ‘So we don’t know where the skull is now, other than that it’s somewhere in the Vatican, and probably in the secret archives?’ ventured O’Connor.

Brother Gonzáles smiled. ‘The secret archives are, I’m told, very secure, but if you’re meant to find the skull and the parchments, you will.’

Monsignor Jennings waited a good half-hour until he was sure that all three of his surveillance targets had left the basilica. He sent a text to Cardinal Felici, quietly made his way out of the catacombs and the basilica, and slipped away into the night.

Chapter 26

President McGovern reached for the remote as Walter Crowley brought CNN’s coverage of the Senate inquiry to a close. ‘Sensational claims at the Senate Select Committee hearing. That was Susan Murkowski reporting from Capitol Hill. And now to other news making headlines this afternoon …’

An uneasy silence descended on the trio in the Oval Office. ‘Have CNN got it right?’ the President asked finally. Buchanan and Crawford exchanged a glance.

‘I can’t be absolutely positive, Mr President,’ Crawford responded, adjusting her elegant red glasses on her tanned, freckled nose, ‘but my sources agree with CNN. O’Connor reached his own conclusions as to what Wiley was up to, and instead of assassinating Weizman, he decided to protect her, and that’s when Wiley is alleged to have put out contracts on both of them.’

‘So where do we go from here?’

‘Two things, Mr President,’ Crawford advised. ‘Firstly, we have to let the committee conduct their hearing, and see what comes of it. And because of the sensitive nature of our covert operations, some of that may have to be in camera.’

‘I disagree, Mr President. We have to be seen to be transparent,’ Buchanan argued, ‘and you should stand Wiley down immediately.’

‘I agree with Chuck. We need to get to the bottom of this whole stinking business,’ the President said angrily.

‘I would suggest not, Mr President,’ Crawford responded, standing her ground. ‘The American image has had a pretty severe battering in the international press lately, and if you get involved in this in an election year, it will be a huge distraction from the messages you want to get out to the American people. As much as I detest Wiley, I think we have to wait until Ellen Rodriguez testifies. We don’t have any concrete proof of Wiley’s involvement, and my sources aren’t prepared to go on the record,’ Crawford added pointedly.

‘So what’s your second point?’ the President demanded.

‘Rodriguez, perhaps understandably, is unlikely to return to the CIA, at least in the short term, and they’ll need a replacement on the Latin American desk. Normally that sort of appointment is way below your pay grade, but I wanted to run an idea past you. We need someone we can trust to keep us in the loop on all of this.’

‘Do you have someone in mind?’ the President asked.

Crawford nodded. ‘Megan Becker.’

‘The environmental scientist?’ Buchanan snorted. ‘How the hell do we sell an environmental scientist to that rat’s nest down at Langley?’

‘We don’t have to, Mr President,’ Crawford replied, ignoring the chief of staff’s outburst. ‘She’s already there. Summa cum laude from Stanford, then went on to study international relations at Oxford before being accepted by the CIA a couple of years ago. I’m told she’s very highly regarded … at least in most circles.’

‘Most?’

‘Privately, she’s been critical of our involvement with the Gaddafi regime and the process of rendition and secret prisons, and she’s no fan of Wiley, although I doubt he’s aware she exists.’

‘Well, she gets my vote on torture and secret prisons, and Gaddafi was a thug,’ the President grumbled.

‘Becker’s served in Mexico City and Kabul, and she’s not long returned from Islamabad,’ Crawford added.

‘Those are pretty tough neighbourhoods … maybe she should come and work over here,’ the President remarked dryly. ‘Any languages?’

‘Spanish and French and a little Arabic,’ Crawford confirmed. ‘Given the gravitas of the Wiley issue, I think we can brief her to keep us up to speed. She’s pretty level-headed.’

‘I’ll give the DCI a call immediately,’ the President said.

‘With respect, Mr President, as far as the public’s concerned, you need to be at arm’s length,’ Crawford insisted. ‘Chuck should handle this.’ She gave the chief of staff one of her infamous stares. ‘That way, if it comes unstuck, we can claim you’ve never spoken with anyone at Langley.’

‘Sometimes I feel like a goddamn figurehead. Anything else?’

‘There’s one further complication, Mr President. There’s apparently a link between Wiley and the Vatican – Cardinal Felici, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, also has an interest in Weizman.’

‘Jesus Christ. Why would the Vatican be interested in a Guatemalan archaeologist?’ the President griped.

Crawford was about to reply that it was probably not because of Weizman’s stunning good looks, but she thought better of it. This morning, the President’s usual good humour was clearly missing in action. ‘The Vatican’s interest lies not so much in Weizman but in ancient civilisations; specifically, the series of warnings left by the Maya, the Inca and the Egyptians,’ she said. ‘The artefact Weizman and O’Connor found in the Guatemalan jungles threatens the Catholic view of the world, and that’s enough to send people like Felici into orbit.’

The President grunted. ‘As Galileo found to his cost when he suggested the earth revolved around the sun. Didn’t one of the popes throw him into prison for that?’

‘Pope Urban the 8th,’ Crawford confirmed, although she avoided mentioning the latest research on her desk that revealed a frightening number of Americans were on the side of Pope Urban. One in five US adults still believed the sun revolved around the earth. ‘But for the moment, it’s best the Vatican’s interest be kept under wraps.’

‘Goddamn it, Mr President, we can’t be party to a cover-up, just because there’s a link between the CIA and the Vatican,’ Buchanan argued. ‘That link’s been there ever since the beginnings of the CIA.’

Crawford was immovable. ‘Mr President, we won’t be party to a cover-up. The Senate committee will find the truth, and in the meantime, you have an election to win. There are over seventy million Catholics in this country, and we lost the mid-term elections, at least in part, because a sizeable number of them voted Republican. Holding an open inquiry and dragging the Vatican and the CIA onto Fox News and the front pages of the New York Times won’t help. If you need an open inquiry, hold it after you win the election, because unless the economy picks up, it’s gonna be tight. And while we’re on voting trends, Mr President …’

President McGovern sighed. ‘The Israelis?’

Crawford nodded. ‘I know you feel strongly about the Israeli– Palestinian question, Mr President, but we need to tone down our rhetoric in the lead-up to the election.’

‘Goddamn it, Lauren! That’s exactly what the Israelis and the Likud party are banking on.’ The President got up from the couch and walked across to the bay windows behind his desk. He stared out across the White House lawns. ‘This conflict in the Middle East is into its eighth decade,’ he said finally, ‘and we’re no closer to a solution than when Truman sat in this office.’

‘And as long as you stay in this office, Mr President, you’ll have four more years to do something about that.’ Crawford reached into her briefing notes for the ‘swing state’ map, which was annotated with a dizzying array of statistics on each of the crucial battleground states.

‘In terms of the Jewish vote,’ Crawford said, spreading the annotated map out over the coffee table, ‘it’s the swing states that will count … Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even California. As things stand, you can count on anywhere between 55 to 60 per cent of the Jewish vote. The Republicans are only guaranteed between 10 and 15 per cent. Which leaves roughly 30 per cent who might swing either way, and with these guys, the swing factor isn’t abortion or gay rights … it’s Israel.’

‘I’m not convinced,’ the President said irritably, ‘but I’ll think about it.’

‘If you come down hard on Israel, Mr President, you’ll be history,’ Crawford insisted bluntly. ‘Carter did it in 1980. He was a shoe-in to beat Ted Kennedy in the New York primaries, but when Carter’s ambassador McHenry voted for Resolution 465 against Israel’s settlements, Kennedy whipped Carter’s ass. That decision in the UN not only cost Carter the New York primary against Kennedy, but ultimately, the election.’ Crawford was not about to take a backward step. ‘Get tough on the Israelis, Mr President, but do it after the election.’

‘So what else is likely to come up in the security briefing tomorrow?’ the President groused.

‘The director of national intelligence will brief you on the latest on Iran,’ Buchanan replied, ‘although the CIA will take the lead. And as you requested, the Nuclear Weapons Council is sending an expert along too, a Professor Hunter Lapinski from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His bio’s in your briefing folder, but he worked on the development of our earth-penetrating mini-nukes in the nineties so he’s well qualified. As you’re aware, Mr President, there’s no doubt the Iranians are getting closer to producing weapons-grade plutonium, and the CIA is attempting to monitor the second centrifuge plant.’

‘The one that O’Connor and Jafari discovered buried beneath a mountain,’ Crawford reminded them both.

The President nodded. ‘Is Wiley going to be at this briefing?’

‘He’s obviously required at the Senate inquiry, but they’ve agreed to release him for a couple of hours,’ said Buchanan.

‘Hasn’t he got a deputy?’

‘Yes, Larry Davis – although to be honest, in the few dealings I’ve had with Davis, I’ve found him less than impressive,’ Crawford interjected. ‘I know you’d prefer to avoid Wiley, but you have to continue with him as normal,’ she insisted. ‘Both Wiley and Davis have a lot of support amongst the Republicans on the committee, Mr President, particularly from Senator Crosier, and if the press gets a whiff of any distancing on your part, all hell will break loose.’

‘We’ll see about that. Do we know where O’Connor and Weizman are now?’

Crawford shook her head. ‘We still don’t know, but we’re getting closer. The Maya Codex provided only some of the answers regarding 2012, but we’ve learned there’s a more detailed warning in the form of a yet-to-be-uncovered Inca prophecy. My guess is that O’Connor and Weizman will be on the Inca case – Peru.’

A presidential smile broke the tension. ‘You’ve been watching too many Indiana Jones movies, Lauren. Do you really believe all this stuff?’

‘I have an open mind, Mr President.’ It wasn’t the time or the place to be raising the ancient Inca, she thought, or the untapped power of crystal, but Crawford had been briefed on what was in the Maya Codex. She had an uneasy feeling there was a link between the warnings from the Maya and the fabled prophecy from their counterparts in the Andes.

Chapter 27

Howard Wiley headed towards the operations centre of Task Force Inca, the team charged with hunting down O’Connor and Weizman. Known throughout the intelligence community as ‘the Weasel’, the second most powerful man in the CIA had a square face, a long, thin nose and a high forehead. His reddish, spiky hair was brushed back without a part. He had thin red eyebrows, steely green eyes and a narrow mouth that rarely carried a smile.

Barely five feet four in his socks, Wiley waited for the biometric security scanner outside the door of the Inca operations room to turn green. No two irises were the same, and Langley’s powerful systems analysed Wiley’s eye in an instant. The light glowed green and he stepped into the room where his deputy, Larry Davis, was waiting for him.

Overweight and out of condition, Davis was only slightly taller than Wiley. He nervously wiped the sweat from his bald pate. He figured the Senate inquiry would have put his boss in a fouler mood than usual, and he was right.

‘Update me,’ Wiley demanded, positioning himself in front of the bank of computer and video screens that connected Task Force Inca with every CIA station in the field. ‘Any sign of Tutankhamun or Nefertiti?’ The codenames Wiley had assigned to O’Connor and Weizman had given the DDO a perverse satisfaction. Tutankhamun and Nefertiti had both died young, and their deaths had never been explained. Wiley had every intention that history would repeat itself.

Davis shook his head. ‘We’re monitoring their cell phone networks, emails, and checking bank statements, but so far there’s no sign of them.’

‘What’ve we got on Peru?’ Wiley demanded.

‘We’ve got it covered, sir.’ The voice belonged to Megan Becker. In her mid-thirties, the CIA agent had curly red hair, pale, porcelain-like skin and smoky blue eyes; at five foot ten, she towered over both Wiley and Davis.

Wiley glared at Becker. ‘And who the hell are you?’

‘Agent Megan Becker, sir,’ Becker replied evenly, holding eye contact with her angry boss. She’d been well briefed on the irascible DDO. ‘I spoke with the chief of station in Lima on the secure link yesterday. He’s deployed assets to the port at Callao, to the Jorge Chávez International Airport and to the major bus terminals. But if O’Con— Tutankhamun and Nefertiti were headed for Peru, they may already be there,’ she added.

‘And what do you base that assumption on, Becker?’ Wiley spat the question, his eyes narrowing.

‘I worked with Tutankhamun once, and he always minimises his exposure. He’ll be applying the same principle to us,’ Becker said pointedly. ‘There are seventy-three main airports in Peru, and another 161 airfields on top of that. If Tutankhamun and Nefertiti flew in, they’d expect us to be watching for them at Jorge Chávez. In my opinion, they’re highly unlikely to come in through the front door, even with false passports.’

‘We don’t deal in opinions here, Becker, we deal in facts. How do you know they’ve got false passports?’ Wiley demanded.

‘I don’t,’ Becker replied, hiding her contempt. ‘But I’ve read the files, and so far they’ve used at least two aliases – and they’re just the ones we know about.’

‘The instant we have a lead, I’m to be told,’ Wiley ordered, motioning Davis over to the small soundproof office that allowed Wiley to hold private meetings. ‘Who the fuck is Becker, and how did she get on this team without my approval?’ Wiley snarled, his face incandescent.

‘She was assigned by the director this morning … I assumed that since her appointment came from the top, you’d have known,’ Davis replied nervously.

‘Let’s get something straight, Davis. The director’s a fucking political appointee. When it comes to operations in the field, he wouldn’t know if a number nine bus was up his ass until the people got off. I call the shots around here, and no one’s allowed in here without my say-so. I don’t care if it comes from the fucking President. Is that clear?’

‘Absolutely. Yes, sir.’

‘The last thing we need is another fucking woman on the team. I had enough trouble with Rodriguez.’

‘Do you want Becker reassigned, sir?’

‘That might be a bit fucking difficult at the moment, given the DCI’s stuck his nose in things.’ Wiley stopped, infuriated by Becker’s knock on the door. He marched to the door and flung it open. ‘When I’m in here, Becker, that means I don’t want to be disturbed, if that’s not too difficult for you to grasp!’

‘I appreciate that, sir, but you did say you wanted to be advised the instant we had something.’ Becker smiled sweetly at Wiley, infuriating him even further. ‘Echelon has picked up a text message from Rodriguez’s Blackberry.’ She handed Wiley a printout. It had come from the highly classified system that allowed the US to view data traffic anywhere in the world. Day and night, the big dishes at top-secret satellite stations at Fort Meade and Yakima in the US, and overseas stations in England, Germany and Australia, intercepted and inspected private emails, faxes, phone calls and any other electronic communication ordinary citizens made as part of their daily lives.

Wiley absorbed the message:

Hope you and C are going well … wherever you are! Hearing tomorrow and hoping for good result. Stay safe. E.

‘So what’s your take on that, Becker?’ Wiley demanded.

‘It’s not definitive, sir. All we know is that it was sent from Rodriguez’s Blackberry at 3.05 this afternoon. The receiving cell-phone number is not on our data bank, but the service provider is Claro Peru.’

‘Peru’s a fucking big country, Becker. Exact location?’

Megan Becker kept her cool. Even before she accepted the assignment, she’d known that Wiley would be the biggest challenge. The White House would owe her big time if she survived him.

‘I was coming to that, sir.’ Becker’s response was slow and deliberate. ‘It appears that the cell phone is in the vicinity of the Convento de San Francisco, known in English as the Monastery of St Francis of Assisi. It’s in the old historic centre of Lima, in Lampa Avenue, not far from the Plaza de Armas.’

‘Vicinity? Are you telling me we don’t have an exact location?’

‘No, sir, I’m telling you what you already know …’ Or perhaps you don’t, you arrogant piece of work, Becker thought, as she faced down the DDO. ‘We only have a single text message to work with, and the receiving cell phone was either in or close to the church. The cell has not moved significantly, and we’re still working on a triangulation between antenna towers.’

‘And the service provider? Have you approached them?’ Wiley snapped.

‘I was waiting for your authority. This is Peru, sir. It’s not as if we control the network.’

‘I’m aware of that, Becker. Get me the Lima chief of station on the secure link now.’

Thirty seconds later, the square-jawed face of Rodriguez’s replacement in Lima, Cameron Reyes, appeared on the screen. It was not the ex-marine’s first assignment in the CIA but he still maintained his close-cropped Marine Corps haircut. Some habits died hard.

‘You’ve seen the Echelon printout?’ Wiley asked.

‘Just read it, sir.’

‘Assets?’

‘Four teams covering the airport, bus terminals and the port. I’m about to deploy another to the church. All are on thirty minutes’ notice to move.’

‘Bring them all down to immediate.’

‘All of them, sir? I thought …’

Becker smiled inwardly. She’d already christened Reyes ‘Jar-head’, and when it came to dealing with Wiley, Jarhead had a lot to learn.

‘The next time you think, Reyes, will be when you fart. Immediate notice to move, and I don’t care how you do it, but locate that fucking cell phone. Tutankhamun and Nefertiti are a clear and present danger and I want their heads on a platter!’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ve got a green light to eradicate. Go!’

Wiley cut the transmission and the screen went blank.

‘Let me know the second you have anything more,’ Wiley barked at Becker before turning on his heel and disappearing towards his office and a meeting with the visiting Israeli intelligence chief.

Wiley didn’t trust the head of Mossad, but that was not the fault of Avraham Lerner. Wiley didn’t trust anyone, and the relationship between the CIA and Mossad was not without its difficulties. Wiley was well aware that recent Israeli intelligence chiefs had sometimes had a different definition of ‘intelligence’ to that of the Americans. More than one American intelligence chief had believed that he was being briefed in secret, only to find substantial tracts of the Israeli so-called intelligence on Facebook and Twitter the following day. But Wiley doubted this meeting would ever become public. For the Israelis, there was too much at stake. If the operation they were to discuss was successful, it would equal that of the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.

‘Avraham, welcome back to Washington,’ Wiley said, mustering as much enthusiasm as was necessary.

‘It’s always a pleasure,’ Lerner countered. A man of average height and unremarkable features, Lerner distrusted Wiley as much as Wiley did him, but both men understood the dance of diplomacy. ‘This is Tomer Rosenstein,’ Lerner intoned, introducing the head of the Mossad section that dealt with the few high-profile Nazi criminals who were still evading capture.

‘Your first time in Washington?’ Wiley asked Rosenstein. He offered the two Israelis the comfortable couches in his office. The panelled walls were decorated with oils of the Civil War, and myriad photographs of Wiley with various visiting dignitaries were displayed around the office. Those behind his desk showed Wiley shaking hands with George W. Bush, and Pope John Paul II, together with the then Archbishop Salvatore Felici.

‘No, but I don’t get to Washington often,’ Rosenstein replied. ‘Most of my contact is with the Simon Wiesenthal Center so I find myself either in Los Angeles or New York.’

‘Anything we can do to help?’ Wiley asked, coming straight to the point.

‘Perhaps, although it might be a long shot,’ said Lerner. ‘There are still a number of Nazis on the run.’

‘After all this time? I thought they’d all be dead by now.’ Wiley knew well there was one Nazi in particular who was reportedly very much alive, but he played his cards close.

‘Far from it,’ said Rosenstein. ‘The Wiesenthal Center has ten prominent Nazis still on their most wanted list – murderers like Soeren Kam. Dr Albert Heim is another. Heim was colloquially known as Dr Death and worked at Mauthausen concentration camp. We have good reason to believe he’s one of those who’re still alive,’ Rosenstein explained. ‘Heim was responsible for the murder of hundreds of Jewish inmates and once killed a young prisoner because he had perfect teeth. But there’s another,’ he continued, ‘who is even more important. The commandant of Mauthausen, Standartenführer Karl von Heißen.’

Wiley remained inscrutable.

‘We believe that von Heißen escaped from Mauthausen disguised as a priest, and with the help of the Vatican, went to Guatemala, where the Church protected him. With a new identity as one Father Hernandez, von Heißen served for many years as the parish priest at San Pedro in Guatemala.’

‘He’s no longer there?’

Lerner shook his head. ‘Just before your agent – ex-agent – O’Connor and Dr Weizman arrived in Guatemala on their quest for the Maya Codex, we discovered Hernandez’s true identity. Within hours, we had a team on the ground, but someone tipped off von Heißen and we missed him by a matter of minutes.’

‘Since then, we’ve received more information,’ said Rosenstein, picking up the thread. ‘We’re convinced von Heißen escaped in a truck along with a large wooden crate of his possessions. He took the back roads to Puerto Quetzal, a major port to the south. From there, he boarded a freighter bound for Callao in Peru. The shipping company manifests confirm that the crate accompanied him.’

‘Do we know what was in the crate?’ Wiley asked.

‘Gold.’

The few who knew Wiley well would have recognised the change in his demeanour. His green eyes hardened with an almost metallic glint. It was a sure sign his mind was racing.

‘As commandant of Mauthausen, Standartenführer von Heißen was responsible for the murder of over 100 000 Jewish prisoners,’ Rosenstein added. ‘Von Heißen ordered gold fillings to be extracted from the bodies and melted down into ingots. Over the years, he accumulated more than 100 kilograms of pure gold, which at today’s prices is worth many millions of dollars.’

‘There is one flaw in your hypothesis,’ Wiley challenged. ‘How would a high-profile Nazi criminal be able to secrete that much gold across countries teeming with Allied soldiers?’

‘It’s not difficult when the Vatican is behind you, Mr Wiley. I’m sure you’re aware of the mounting evidence supporting allegations the Vatican was up to its holy neck in laundering the Ustasha Treasury.’

Wiley nodded.

‘There’s also very strong evidence to support allegations that a ten-truck convoy carrying Nazi gold entered St Peter’s Square in 1946 and was received at the Vatican Bank,’ Rosenstein continued, ‘but for decades the Vatican has refused all requests to open its wartime archives. And if you think the shady dealings of the Vatican Bank are a thing of the past, then you would be wrong,’ he said bluntly. ‘As recently as 2010, an Italian court froze twenty-three million euros the Vatican Bank was trying to move across international borders without identifying the source, destination or purpose of the money. That’s a lot of offertory coins.

‘So once von Heißen paid a hefty fee to the Vatican’s go-between and was disguised as a Catholic priest, I don’t think he’d have had any difficulty at all moving his gold. The average soldier at a border checkpoint is not going to question a priest, let alone open a crate which has Vatican seals and black-bag status.’

‘And what do you want from us?’ Wiley asked.

‘As you may be aware, von Heißen was responsible for the murder of Weizman’s grandparents at Mauthausen. Weizman’s father escaped the camp in the back of a laundry van. This, combined with Weizman and O’Connor’s arrival in Guatemala at the same time as von Heißen’s disappearance, is surely more than a coincidence. The link between O’Connor, Weizman and von Heißen might work to our mutual benefit,’ Lerner said, although the Mossad chief had no intention of giving up any information he had on O’Connor or Weizman. Lerner was aware of the very high regard his field agents had for the ex-CIA operative. ‘We’re also interested in von Heißen’s diaries. We think O’Connor may know something about their current whereabouts.’

Wiley said nothing. He knew Mossad and the Israeli Nazi hunters were not the only ones desperate to get hold of the diaries. Cardinal Felici had an even more compelling reason.

‘If von Heißen had the diaries in the San Pedro presbytery, why didn’t your team seize them when they were there?’ Wiley asked, never missing an opportunity to rub failure in the wounds of his competitors.

‘Mossad is not perfect, Howard, any more than the CIA. The team were so close to Wiley they kept on his trail without searching the presbytery. An unfortunate oversight,’ said Lerner, smiling deprecatingly. ‘We’re aware – in fact, the whole world is aware – that O’Connor and Weizman are still on the run, and probably in Peru. We’d like to be kept in the loop. Particularly if your search for them provides any leads on von Heißen, and the whereabouts of his diaries.’

Chapter 28

The assassin took a different route to the safe house this time and approached North 27th Street from the west. He parked just past the Cornerstone Wesleyan Church and settled down to wait. Inside the house, Agent Ellen Rodriguez was ensconced with her lawyer, the avuncular Dustin Coburn, one of Washington’s best-known attorneys.

‘The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has fifteen members, eight Democrats and seven Republicans. I’ve provided a list for you in your background papers,’ advised Coburn. ‘The chair is the Democrat senator from Connecticut, Mary Wheeler. She’s an environmental lawyer, as sharp as a tack, and nothing gets past her. But she’s fair, and provided you give straightforward answers, you’ve nothing to fear from her. Senator Austin Crosier, the minority chair from Massachusetts, is another matter. He’ll back Wiley to the hilt and he’ll try to intimidate you, and if that doesn’t work, he’ll try to discredit you. Nervous?’

‘A little. But I keep reminding myself that if Wiley is allowed to continue at the CIA, he poses a threat not only to the United States, but to the wider world.’

‘It’s a big call to describe Wiley as a threat. You’re going to need evidence.’

‘I am the evidence, Dustin. When I was posted to the Latin American desk at Langley, I finished up on Task Force Maya, a small top-secret operations centre that Wiley set up to track down O’Connor and Weizman, since renamed Task Force Inca. Once it became clear that O’Connor had not assassinated Weizman, and had in fact teamed up with her, Wiley was furious. Not long after, a Sicilian hit man, Antonio Sodano, was found strangled in a bin in Vienna. I couldn’t understand what that had to do with O’Connor, but Wiley became even more pissed.’

‘You think Sodano was contracted to eliminate O’Connor and Weizman.’

‘And he failed. Shortly after that, we tracked O’Connor and Weizman to a train headed for Germany. I was there, Dustin – I was in the room when Wiley deployed an asset onto the train and ordered their assassination. He categorised both O’Connor and Weizman as a clear and present danger.’

Dustin Coburn shook his head. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen an administration employ the term to get around a meddlesome Congress.

‘The German police found the body of Wiley’s asset in a toilet on the train when it reached Frankfurt. Wiley deployed another asset and had a go at O’Connor and Weizman after they left Mauthausen concentration camp, but the Austrian police found that asset in a burnt-out car in the bottom of a ravine in the Alps.’

‘O’Connor must be quite a guy.’

‘One of our best, or was.’ Ellen’s voice held a wistful note. ‘But it didn’t end there. Wiley had two more attempts. One on a cargo ship, and another when O’Connor and Weizman were diving for a jade figurine in Lake Atitlán, in Guatemala. Both attempts failed. The figurine led O’Connor and Weizman to the Temple of the Lost World in the Guatemalan jungles. By that time I’d been banished to Guatemala City as chief of station, and Wiley sent me into the jungle to track O’Connor, before flying in himself.’

‘The DDO left Langley and went to Guatemala?’ Coburn had been around Washington long enough to know the Agency’s chief spymaster never risked himself in the field.

‘Odd, isn’t it? But by then I think Wiley had given up on any of his assets getting the better of O’Connor, and he was determined to take charge.’

‘Why was he so intent on having O’Connor eliminated?’

‘O’Connor knew too much, and when he decided to protect Weizman, Wiley needed them both out of the way.’

‘And you think he would have killed them?’

‘I’m certain of it. When O’Connor and Weizman finally realised where the Maya Codex was, Wiley followed them into the tomb in the jungle. And so did I. I can still picture it vividly. By the time I arrived, he was holding O’Connor and Weizman at gunpoint, demanding to know what was in a jade urn. When they wouldn’t answer, Wiley went to pick up the urn himself, and released a pressure plate that activated a brace of spears tipped with snake venom. Wiley ordered me to keep O’Connor and Weizman covered, and when I refused, he said something that I’m not sure I should reveal tomorrow.’

‘Which was?’

‘Apart from threatening me with San Quentin, he said the operation to eliminate O’Connor and Weizman had the approval of the vice president of the United States.’

Coburn let out a low whistle. ‘Let me think about that one. That might be better left to a full-blown Congressional inquiry, although it’s rare for presidents to order inquiries into previous administrations. But one thing still puzzles me about all of this, and it’s something Senator Wheeler might probe you on tomorrow. I can see why Wiley fears O’Connor, but I still can’t see why he’s been so focused on Weizman. Our operations in Guatemala were sickening, but Weizman’s not the only one to point the finger at the CIA … There has to be more to it than that.’

‘There is, and when it becomes public, Wiley will not only face a jail term, but will drag down those who have backed him, including Senator Crosier. Weizman’s background is the key. Her grandparents were murdered in Mauthausen concentration camp, and she was brought up on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala by her father, who escaped from Mauthausen as a boy. Before she and O’Connor fled Guatemala, she told me the story of her father’s murder.’

‘Her father gave a controversial sermon, didn’t he? On the second anniversary of the murder of Archbishop Romero?’

‘Yes, and the official story was that the service was stormed by Guatemala’s death squads because Ariel Weizman was critical of the government. In reality his sermon made an explosive connection between the United States and the leader of the death squad which killed Romero – one Major Roberto D’Aubuisson, a vicious thug who used to throw babies into the air and use them for target practice. Ariel Weizman revealed that D’Aubuisson was an honoured guest in Washington and had received an award from Conservative lobbyists for his supposed efforts for freedom against the Communist insurgency.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve entertained ruthless dictators and hoodlums in Washington,’ the distinguished counsel said sadly.

‘True. But there’s more. When the Guatemalan death squads we helped train stormed the church, they massacred hundreds of parishioners. Aleta Weizman was barely ten when she not only lost her father, but her mother and younger brothers. She survived by crawling under the pews and escaping through a side door where she observed the soldiers afterwards in secret. One man, a civilian, stood out. Aleta told me she would never forget him … a very short man with a pale, freckly face and spiky red hair.’

Coburn took a deep breath. ‘Wiley?’

‘Got it in one. In 1982, the year of the massacre at San Pedro, Howard Wiley was chief of station in Guatemala City, which is why he will do anything to ensure Weizman is eliminated. She couldn’t have a better protector than O’Connor, but she won’t be safe until Wiley’s brought to account.’

‘And neither will you. I gather you’ve refused the offer to have a US Marshal stay here tonight?’

‘No offence, Dustin, but I value my own space. I’ll be fine. The marshal told me that the locations of its safe houses is a better-kept secret than the UFO landing at Roswell.’

‘Nevertheless, I’d be more comfortable if you agreed to someone staying with you. Your testimony tomorrow is going to rock this town to its foundations.’ In all his years in Washington, Coburn had never had a case as explosive as this.

‘It’s not only Washington, Dustin. Ever since the Second World War, the CIA has maintained a very close connection with the Vatican’s counter-espionage and intelligence services. Before Aleta Weizman and O’Connor fled Guatemala, Aleta told me the Vatican had been just as keen to get their hands on the Maya Codex as Wiley, and she suspected that Cardinal Felici, one of the curial cardinals in Rome, was part of the effort to silence her.’

‘Why would the Vatican be involved?’

Ellen smiled ruefully. ‘Let me rephrase the question for you. Cardinal Felici is ambitious and ruthless, and like Wiley, he’ll eliminate anything that stands in his way. Did you know his father served as an envoy to Hitler? At the end of the war, Felici Senior helped a number of key Nazis to disguise themselves as priests and escape down the Vatican ratline. One of those Nazis was Standartenführer von Heißen.’

Coburn let out another low whistle. ‘I remember reading about him … wasn’t he the commandant of Mauthausen?’ The attorney’s face lit up as the penny dropped. ‘The same camp that Weizman’s family was in?’

Rodriguez nodded. ‘O’Connor and Weizman think that von Heißen, courtesy of the Vatican, finished up with a new life as a priest in San Pedro on the shores of Lake Atitlán, and that he escaped to Peru just before they got there.’

‘And Cardinal Felici’s worried that if the truth about Felici Senior ever comes out, he’s pretty well finished,’ Coburn mused.

Rodriguez reached for the coffee plunger. ‘I used to be a Catholic, Dustin, and in my naïvety, I thought the Vatican was a church. But Hitler once described the Vatican as one of the most powerful governments he dealt with, and he was right. The Vatican has always been about power – and male power at that. Anything that threatens the Vatican’s view of the world is brutally suppressed, and I’m convinced that O’Connor and Weizman are on to something that will prove the Vatican – and every other religion – profoundly wrong.’

‘Do you know where they are? The committee will ask you.’

Rodriguez shook her head. ‘I will truthfully answer that I don’t, although I agree with those who think they’re headed for Peru.’

‘Have you got anything to base that on?’

‘The Inca shamans were even more advanced than the Maya, and both O’Connor and Weizman are convinced that whatever is in the Inca prophecy will turn out to be even more devastating than the Maya Codex.’

When Coburn left, Ellen checked all the windows were locked before double-checking the front and back doors. Perhaps she should have accepted the offer from the US Marshal for a modern-day Wyatt Earp to protect her, she thought. But Ellen had always been her own woman, and she put her worries to the back of her mind while she undressed and headed for the shower.

Outside, the assassin was making his move.

Chapter 29

Wiley took the call on his internal line. ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, and he headed down to the operations centre.

‘We’ve traced the cell phone to a restaurant in Lima,’ Becker briefed him, referring Wiley to one of four large video screens on the ops-room wall that carried a map of the Miraflores district of Lima. The crosshairs in the centre of a blinking blue circle were centred halfway down Calle Manuel Bonilla, Paseo de la República and Larco. On the next screen, Becker had connected the secure link to the chief of station in Lima.

‘What’s the situation, Reyes?’ Wiley demanded.

‘The closest team is the one at the convent,’ Reyes responded. ‘They’re on their way to Calle Manuel Bonilla as we speak. The next closest team is out near the airport, and they’re moving as well. If we find Tutankhamun and Nefertiti have split up, do you have a priority?’

‘Jesus Christ, Reyes, I want them both!’ Wiley rasped. ‘But if you want them in order, get the woman first. She’s the one giving us the most grief in the media.’ Becker listened carefully.

Wiley looked at his watch and turned to his deputy. ‘I’m due at this witch hunt on Capitol Hill tonight, Davis, but I want to know the moment you’ve got something.’

O’Connor had selected the hotel carefully. Like any big city, Lima had its fair share of dubious neighbourhoods, but the Miraflores district wasn’t one of them. It was known for its restaurants, shops and stunning views overlooking the Pacific. O’Connor had chosen La Faraona, a comfortable but unobtrusive hotel in a side street off Paseo de la República. On their return from the monastery, he and Aleta had found a small restaurant nearby, crowded with locals. The special for the evening was ceviche, raw fish marinated in lime juice and seasoned with chilli peppers and cilantro. Aleta could see the wizened old Peruvian chef, sweat running down his lined cheeks, creating the dish in what seemed an impossibly cramped kitchen.

‘¡Salud!’ O’Connor raised a wine glass.

‘¡Salud!’ Aleta responded, rolling the deep crimson wine over her tastebuds. ‘This isn’t bad. What is it?’

‘Gran Tinto 2005, an interesting combination of malbec, tannat and petit verdot,’ said O’Connor. ‘Peru isn’t one of the wine capitals of the world, but that’s probably because they only have three major wineries. This one comes from Tacama.’

‘Who needs a sommelier when they’re dining with you?’

‘Well, this place is a bit rustic, but the locals seem to like it, and that’s always a good sign.’

‘What do you think will be the outcome in Washington?’ Aleta asked, suddenly serious. Earlier, they had watched the same CNN broadcast the President and his advisors had viewed in the White House.

‘We won’t be able to breathe easily until Wiley’s behind bars, and even then, we’ll have to be careful. You – we – have seriously pissed off a lot of people, especially in the Republican Party, and they’re good haters. And until Rodriguez testifies, Wiley will have a lot of people supporting him.’

‘Thank God for Ellen Rodriguez. Another one of your conquests?’ Aleta raised a teasing eyebrow.

‘Perhaps,’ O’Connor responded evasively, his trademark lopsided grin in evidence.

‘Has there ever been a woman you’ve worked alongside that you didn’t finish up in bed with?’

‘You weren’t too keen when we first met.’

‘Firstly, I wasn’t working with you, and secondly, that might have had something to do with the fact you’d been sent to Vienna to kill me!’ Aleta’s eyes clouded at the memory, but there was no malice in her voice. ‘I’m just so grateful that you saved me from Wiley’s assassins,’ she said. ‘If you hadn’t arrived, I wouldn’t even be here. I guess I had no idea how ruthless the Wileys of this world can be.’

‘The world is full of assholes, and Washington’s got more than its fair share.’

‘And I thought academic politics were tough. Will you go back to the CIA if you’re cleared?’ Aleta asked, her emotions mixed at the thought. She had come to trust O’Connor, but when it came to surrendering her heart, warning lights flashed.

‘That would depend on who was DDO. If Tom McNamara came out of retirement, I’d be there in an instant.’

‘And where would that leave me?’ Aleta asked, immediately regretting the question.

‘One day at a time,’ O’Connor said, his mischievous blue eyes softening.

They ate in silence for a few moments before Aleta broached the topic that was always in the back of her mind. ‘The Mayans only gave us part of the prophecy. We know the next part lies with the Inca. But where to from here? Do we try to find those documents Brother Gonzáles told us about?’

‘Questions I don’t yet have answers to,’ said O’Connor, his brow furrowing. ‘And I’ve been reflecting on José Arana’s advice just before we left Guatemala.’ The Mayan shaman had predicted the world’s media would soon lose interest in the codex, and he’d urged them to remember the Inca. ‘But we’ve precious little to go on, other than what Brother Gonzáles has told us, and that encounter of yours with the Mitchell-Hedges skull, which I have to admit, I’m dubious about.’

‘Didn’t the CIA have a top-secret paranormal program where psychics were used for intelligence on the USSR?’ Aleta challenged, her full lips parting in a smile. ‘I seem to remember reading something about a psychic who could communicate with the mind of someone in the Kremlin and tell the CIA what was going on?’

O’Connor looked sheepish. ‘Project Stargate. It started in one of the electronics and bioengineering laboratories at the Stanford Research Institute, although we didn’t get into extrasensory perception until we discovered the Chinese and the Russians had their own programs.’

‘Yet if I remember correctly, once the program was declassified, you had a panel of sceptical scientists examine it, including two Nobel laureates no less, and they all concluded that the research stacked up. Apparently it’s quite possible to communicate with someone else’s mind thousands of miles away. So why so doubtful about the crystal skull?’

‘Just keeping an open mind,’ O’Connor responded defensively.

‘Well, keep that mind of yours open to the possibility Einstein might have been on to something when he was searching for a theory that would unite gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear forces,’ Aleta remonstrated gently.

‘The elusive theory of everything,’ O’Connor agreed.

‘A polymath like you would know there’ve been a lot of experiments that point to there being an energy grid – a unifying force that explains all the major theories in physics. It could be what Brother Gonzáles was on about when he spoke about the source field.’

‘I don’t discount it,’ O’Connor agreed. ‘The Russians have been leading the way on source-field studies since the 1950s, and until recently, most of their research was classified. I’ve seen some of the papers, and it’s fascinating stuff. We may finally answer the question of where we come from and where we’re going … But you think the crystal skulls are linked to this source field?’

‘From what the Mitchell-Hedges skull had to say, I think that’s entirely possible. The skull also told us that to decipher the Inca prophecy we need all three crystal skulls, and the road to finding them sounded pretty dire. Remember the warning? One skull is already in the possession of one of our enemies, and we’ll find the clues to its whereabouts near an ancient fountain, beneath a large bronze pigna.’

‘One skull is already in the hands of our enemies – that could well be the skull that Brother Gonzáles believes is in Rome. The bronze pigna …’ O’Connor’s voice dropped off as he thought. ‘It means the bronze pine cone. Wait – the bronze pine cone! I knew there was something about that,’ he said, his eyes alight. ‘The Belvedere courtyard in Rome connects the Vatican Palace with the Villa Belvedere. In Roman times, there used to be a fountain there, but in the seventeenth century they shut off the water and moved a huge bronze pine cone from the Roman Pantheon to the top of the fountain, and the courtyard has been known since as the Cortile della Pigna … the courtyard of the pine cone.’

‘It fits, doesn’t it?’ said Aleta, grabbing O’Connor’s arm in excitement. ‘And no pun intended, but for a lapsed Catholic you’re a font of knowledge, aren’t you?’ Aleta grinned. ‘So this could be where one of the skulls is?’

‘I suspect what lies beneath it might be the key. The Vatican’s secret archives lie directly below the pine cone. If we’re meant to find the skulls and the parchments, we will. This evening, I’ve got a meeting at the Israeli embassy, and then we’ll need to find a way to get to Rome without Wiley and his assassins tumbling to our movements.’

‘Your old friend from Mossad. Why does he want to see you?’

‘I suspect he’s still after von Heißen. He’ll want to grill me on what I know.’

Aleta’s face clouded. ‘They better get to that bastard before I do.’ She’d seen photographs of the Nazi commandant of Mauthausen, and his face was indelibly seared in to her memory bank.

Curtis placed his hand on Aleta’s. ‘It might have taken them fifteen years, but the Israelis tracked down Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. If von Heißen’s still alive, they’ll get him too.’

Aleta nodded, wiping away a sudden tear and folding her napkin on the table. O’Connor called for the bill and he and Aleta stood to leave.

‘I can’t believe we had all of that for less than twenty dollars,’ Curtis said, leaving fifty nuevo sol in a saucer on the table. Once they reached the foyer of their hotel, O’Connor gently touched Aleta’s hand. ‘Stay in the hotel room, and don’t answer the door. I may be a couple of hours,’ he said, and he turned and walked outside, where he hailed a cab.

‘Embajada de Israel, por favor. Natalia Sánchez Numero 125, gracias.’

‘Curtis! How good to see you again.’ The welcome from Mossad’s chief of station in Lima, Eli Shaked, was warm and genuine. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, offering a comfortable chair in his small but functional office. Shaked had the same muscular build as O’Connor, although his thinning hair was now grey.

‘Great to see you too.’ O’Connor shook hands with his old colleague. The pair had worked together in Berlin at the end of the Cold War and, as sometimes happened in situations of adversity, they had forged a strong friendship. That was not to say they shared all their intelligence, but there was enough collaboration to make the professional relationship more than worthwhile to both.

‘You’ve sure stirred up a storm with the Weasel,’ Shaked observed. ‘How are you travelling?’

‘One step ahead of him – and we’ll be fine, provided it stays that way until the hearing in Washington’s finished.’

‘Yes.’ Shaked’s smile held a touch of envy. ‘You haven’t lost any of your charm with the ladies. Weizman’s quite a stunner. How are things going there?’

‘None of your business. And give my best to Zivah.’ O’Connor grinned as he dropped the name of Shaked’s wife and accepted a cup of black coffee. ‘So who did you upset to earn a posting to Lima?’

‘Oh, the usual. The President, the Prime Minister, the head rabbi … None of them are talking to me, although there’s another reason I accepted this post,’ Shaked said, more serious now. ‘How much do you know about the whereabouts of von Heißen?’

‘Not a lot. Although you’d better get to him before Dr Weizman does.’

Shaked nodded. ‘I read up on her grandparents. You can assure her we’re doing everything we can to bring von Heißen to justice.’

‘I already have.’ O’Connor took Shaked through his discovery of von Heißen’s diaries. He’d found the former Nazi commandant’s diaries in an old trunk a few years before, in the home of Monsignor Jennings – the priest of a church on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Mossad had been briefed at the time but O’Connor had not spoken to Shaked about it. ‘I’ll make the diaries available to you when you bring him to book, but we don’t have the smoking gun, the one that charts his course out of Mauthausen, along with a substantial amount of gold.’

‘Any chance of getting hold of what you’ve got?’ Shaked smiled as O’Connor shook his head regretfully. ‘It was worth a shot. In the meantime, if you turn up anything else on von Heißen, this is my private number,’ he said, handing O’Connor a card.

‘I’m trying to get out of the country for a while, but when I get back I’ll keep my ear to the ground,’ O’Connor replied.

‘We have a Lear jet going to Tel Aviv tomorrow, if that would help?’ his old friend offered. ‘It will have to make a couple of stops for refuelling, but the price is right.’

‘Two seats?’

‘I shall look forward to meeting Dr Weizman in person.’

O’Connor’s taxi turned into Calle Manuel Bonilla just in time for him to see two men bundling Aleta into a black BMW four-wheel drive outside the hotel.

Chapter 30

The minority leader of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Austin Crosier, strode up the floodlit steps of the Capitol, determined to confront the crush of journalists and television cameras. The Senate hearing into the CIA’s possible involvement in the disappearance of Agent O’Connor and Dr Aleta Weizman was huge news.

‘Senator, do you have any comment on the allegations that the CIA tried to assassinate Curtis O’Connor and the Guatemalan archaeologist, Dr Weizman?’ CNN’s Susan Murkowski asked, leading the pack of journalists surging forward and surrounding the bull-faced senator from Massachusetts.

Crosier assumed a thoughtful look for the cameras. ‘I have no comment to make on those allegations before the committee has had time to thoroughly investigate them, but I will say this,’ he challenged, his eyes narrowing, ‘it’s not the first time America has been threatened by a rogue agent in the CIA, and if O’Connor or Weizman has disclosed information that is harmful to the security of this great nation, then we will hunt them down, just as we hunted down Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.’ Crosier’s square chin protruded and he glared at the pack, daring them to ask another question.

‘So you’re supporting Howard Wiley’s version of events?’

‘The Deputy Director of Operations has yet to give evidence, but Howard Wiley has served this country with distinction. The CIA is committed to keeping ordinary Americans safe, and Howard Wiley serves in the tradition of the honourable men who have gone before him.’

‘And the women?’ a female reporter asked, but the senator ignored the question.

‘Given Dr Weizman was married to your son, Senator, shouldn’t you disqualify yourself from this hearing?’ Murkowski asked.

‘I find that question offensive.’ Austin Crosier’s bull neck reddened and his chin protruded further.

‘Be that as it may, Senator,’ Murkowski persisted, ‘Dr Weizman’s relationship with your son could be construed as a conflict of interest?’ Murkowski smiled demurely at the senator and it had the desired effect, enraging him even more.

‘My son’s marriage to Weizman, which, I might add, lasted less than eighteen months,’ the senator snarled, ‘has absolutely nothing to do with this inquiry.’ To the accompaniment of a barrage of camera flashes, Senator Crosier turned on his heel and stormed into the Capitol building, leaving the print journalists scribbling furiously.

The large room set aside for the hearing into what had become known as Mayagate was packed to capacity with journalists, lawyers and staffers. Howard Wiley, a look of thunder on his face, sat with his counsel at the polished wooden witness table. All fifteen members of the committee were seated at the two-tiered mahogany benches at one end of the room. Twenty or more photographers sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them, some of the lenses on their cameras nearly half a metre long.

The majority leader and chair of the committee, Democrat Mary Wheeler, her blonde hair elegantly coiffured, leaned towards her voice-activated microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she began, ‘the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will come to order.’ She paused, waiting for the hubbub to die down.

‘Affixed to the wall behind me is the Seal of the United States Senate.’ All eyes were drawn to the red, white and blue shield of stars and stripes inscribed with E pluribus unum – out of many, one.

‘You will notice there is an olive branch on the left, symbolising peace, while the oak branch on the right symbolises strength. At the top is a liberty cap, and the crossed fasces at the bottom represent freedom and authority. Our founding fathers intended that out of many states we would become one nation – a nation of peace, strength, and freedom. The authority that is vested in the House and the Senate is part of the system of checks and balances that are enshrined in our constitution. No one branch or agency of government can operate independently from the rest. No agency can operate outside the law.’ She paused to look directly at Wiley. ‘The charges that the Central Intelligence Agency has been involved in an assassination attempt against one of its former agents and a Guatemalan national are serious, and it will be the task of this select committee to determine the veracity of those allegations. The first witness called to give evidence is Mr Howard Wiley, the Deputy Director of Operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr Wiley, would you please rise in order to take the oath.’

Wiley stood and raised his right hand, his thin lips compressed more than usual as the clerk read the oath.

‘Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give this committee is the truth, and the whole truth?’

‘I do,’ Wiley responded.

‘You may be seated,’ the clerk said.

‘Mr Wiley, you’ve been a loyal officer of the CIA for how many years?’ Senator Crosier began.

‘Coming up to forty this fall, Senator.’ Wiley smiled for the photographers.

‘And in that time, have you ever personally been involved in an assassination?’

‘Never.’

‘Have any of your colleagues?’

‘Not to my knowledge, Senator. No, sir.’

Senator Wheeler looked on with barely disguised contempt as her Republican opposite number kept serving up home runs on a platter, but when it came to her turn, she went for the jugular.

‘Mr Wiley, has the CIA ever had a manual of assassination amongst its training manuals?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘So the instructional guide on assassination that the CIA employed during Operation PBSuccess, the operation President Eisenhower endorsed to overthrow the democratically elected president of Guatemala – that’s just a figment of the media’s imagination, is it?’ A volley of camera shutters accompanied her question. ‘You haven’t seen the secret files on Guatemala the CIA was forced to declassify under Freedom of Information?’

‘Well, that wasn’t a manual as such. Just a few typewritten pages.’ Wiley smiled. ‘Ma’am,’ he added condescendingly.

‘Just a few typewritten pages. Do you remember what was in those pages?’

‘That was well before my time, I’m afraid.’

‘I see. Let me refresh your memory, Mr Wiley,’ Senator Wheeler remarked acidly, turning the flagged pages in a heavy folder, ‘I quote: “The simplest tools are often the most efficient … a hammer, an axe, wrench, kitchen knife, lamp stand, or anything hard and heavy will suffice, but puncture wounds of the body may not be reliable unless the heart is reached … Absolute reliability is obtained by severing the spinal cord in the cervical region.” That instruction booklet goes on to advise that to provide plausible denial, no assassination instructions should ever be written down or recorded. Do you recall how many names were on the CIA’s assassination list for Operation PBSuccess, Mr Wiley?’

‘Again, well before my time, I’m afraid.’ Wiley’s face was beginning to match his hair.

‘For someone who was chief of station in Guatemala, Mr Wiley, you have a remarkably short memory of our involvement in that country. There were fifty-eight names – and that was just the CIA’s “A List”.’ Senator Wheeler gave Wiley a withering glare. ‘I have in front of me another memo, Mr Wiley, from the head of the CIA division that organised the coup in Guatemala, asking personnel to initial any names within the Arbenz government they thought ought to be included on the CIA’s final list. You weren’t aware the CIA counted assassination as an instrument of foreign policy?’

Senator Crosier sighed deeply and audibly. ‘Madam Chair, are we going to spend much more time on ancient history?’

‘It may have escaped both your and Mr Wiley’s attention, Senator, but after Operation PBSuccess forced President Arbenz from power, the CIA helped install Colonel Castillo Armas, a small-town thug who would do as he was told. With our help and training, he formed the first of the death squads that were ultimately responsible for the torture and massacre of 200 000 Guatemalan people.’ Senator Wheeler gave her opposite number another glare and turned her attention back to Wiley.

‘For political assassinations, what guidelines does the CIA follow, Mr Wiley?’

Wiley shrugged condescendingly. ‘If you’re not carrying out assassinations, Senator, then you don’t need guidelines.’

‘Precisely,’ Senator Crosier snorted.

‘So you’re not aware of any that have taken place?’

‘No,’ Wiley replied.

‘You’re either incompetent or possessed of a very poor memory or both, and I’m warning you that if you continue to provide evasive answers to my questions, I’ll cite you for contempt of this committee.’

‘That’s an outlandish slur on a good man’s character,’ Senator Crosier growled.

‘Let me remind you of the precise nature of those guidelines, Mr Wiley,’ Senator Wheeler continued, ignoring the outburst on her left. ‘In 1976 President Ford issued an executive order banning political assassinations. President Carter strengthened this, banning any indirect involvement and in 1981, President Reagan issued Executive Order 12333.’

‘Which has severely limited the CIA’s ability to protect this country!’ Senator Crosier interjected, his bull neck red with anger.

‘And just in case you or anyone else in the CIA are in any doubt, Mr Wiley, I’ll quote this order for you: “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” Did you, or any of your staff, put out an order for Agent Curtis O’Connor to assassinate Dr Aleta Weizman? I’ll remind you that you’re under oath.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Wiley replied.

‘And what was Agent O’Connor’s view on assassination?’

‘O’Connor was a gutless traitor,’ Wiley growled, ‘and is a clear and present danger to the United States.’

‘So when he refused to follow your order to assassinate Weizman, that’s when you put out another order – to assassinate O’Connor?’

‘That’s an outrageous suggestion!’ Senator Crosier thundered.

‘Please answer the question, Mr Wiley. I would remind you again that you’re under oath. The penalties for lying to Congress are custodial, and there will be other witnesses called, including Agent Ellen Rodriguez.’

‘I absolutely deny the accusation,’ Wiley snarled.

Chapter 31

The assassin remained motionless in his car as a distinguished-looking man took his leave on Rodriguez’s front porch and drove off in a Jaguar. Was his target having a liaison with an older man? He smiled to himself. If she was, they’d just had their last rendezvous. He waited, but the lights in the house remained on. He considered his options. It would be safer to kill Rodriguez in bed, but it was more pleasurable to get his victims when they were awake. To see the fear in their eyes as they had to face their final moment. He checked the street behind and in front of him and quietly locked the car. Using the trees for cover, he crept up the driveway of the house.

He’d memorised the plans that had been provided and had decided to enter through the back, where there was less chance of being seen from the street. He stood quietly in the back garden, pulled on his leather gloves and listened. The shower was running in the bathroom. Excellent, he thought, and he chose one of two doors on the back verandah leading straight into the kitchen. Not surprisingly for a safe house, the lock proved obstinate. He chose another pick from his tool kit and eventually it yielded.

The assassin moved soundlessly across the black-and-white linoleum tiles, down the carpeted corridor, and stopped at the master bedroom door. The entrance to the ensuite bathroom was reflected in a large mirror above the dresser, and the assassin could make out Rodriguez’s naked form through the steamy shower screen. It would be risky to get her in the shower, but Psycho was one of his favourite movies, and now he was poised to re-enact the famous scene. He locked the blade of his KA-BAR Hawkbill Tanto knife into place and moved noiselessly past the bed to the ensuite. The bathroom was filled with steam, but through it, the assassin could see Rodriguez was facing away from him, soaping her breasts.

In two steps, he crossed the ensuite floor, flung open the shower screen and jammed his right elbow into Rodriguez’s neck, choking off her scream and smashing her back against the tiled corner of the shower recess. For a second, the assassin savoured the look of terror in his target’s green eyes. She frantically clawed at him as he thrust the knife deep under her rib cage again and again. Bright red blood gushed from her wounds and he stepped back out of the recess to let her body crumple to the floor. The assassin calmly wiped his knife on Rodriguez’s towel, snapped it shut and made his way out through the back door and to his car.

Chapter 32

Cardinal Felici responded to the beep on his iPhone and opened the text from Monsignor Jennings:

O’Connor and Weizman identified at Convento de San Francisco in Lima. Brother Gonzáles briefed them on crystal skull removed by Holy Alliance. Will keep you informed.

Felici was confident O’Connor would never trace the missing skull, but as a precaution he reached for his private line and dialled the head of security at Villa Felici. The call was picked up immediately.

‘Pronto, Eminence.’

‘I have received information that there may be a threat to the villa. Go to high alert, and double the security detachments until further notice.’

‘Certamente, Eminence. Of course.’

Felici put down the phone, deep in thought. The villa was already one of the most heavily guarded on Lake Como. With security patrols doubled, it would be impossible for O’Connor or anyone else to get near the place. The crystal skull and the documents would be safe.

At the soft knock on the heavy oak doors to his office, Felici looked up from the file marked Possible Origins of the Crystal Skulls.

‘Si.’

Father Cordona entered and closed the doors behind him. ‘Dr Rossi has asked if you’re free, Eminence. He said it’s urgent.’

Felici looked at his gold Rolex. ‘Postpone my next appointment and tell him to come across.’

It took the physician only minutes to walk from the papal apartments on the opposite side of the Piazza San Pietro.

‘Doctor, please, have a seat,’ Felici said, gesturing towards one of two blue velvet couches. ‘You said it was urgent?’

Dr Rossi nodded, his face grim. ‘As you’re aware, Eminence, the pontiff has been in remission for a number of years, but I’m afraid the cancer has now returned. The lab reports last week showed all three cytology tests were positive. I didn’t wish to alarm you, Eminence, until I was certain, but I’ve operated to remove two more tumours, or as much as I could.’

‘As much as you could?’ Felici queried, masking his irritation over not being informed earlier.

‘One growth was quite large and there is every indication it’s penetrated beyond the bladder wall.’

‘You’re certain of that?’ Felici demanded.

‘We’re conducting biopsies and further tests on the lymph nodes, but His Holiness is also complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath, and, more seriously, hemoptysis, which would indicate that the cancer has metastasised into the lungs.’

‘Hemoptysis?’

‘His Holiness has been coughing up some blood.’

‘And the prognosis?’

‘Very poor. Perhaps less than 15 per cent of patients recover, and at His Holiness’s age … As Camerlengo, I thought you should be aware.’ The responsibilities of the camerlengo of the Holy See included formally declaring the death of a pontiff.

‘I see. Is His Holiness able to attend to his official duties?’

‘I’ve advised him to rest, but he is stubborn. He seems determined to carry on with a full program.’ Rossi shrugged resignedly.

‘Who else knows about this?’

‘His Holiness’s personal secretaries and the sisters in the papal household are, of course, aware that His Holiness is undergoing tests, but they’re not privy to any detail.’

‘Please keep it that way, Doctor, until you are certain of your diagnosis. At the appropriate time, I’ll arrange for the Curia to be briefed. How long do you think he has?’

‘That’s hard to say, Eminence,’ Dr Rossi replied, taken aback by Felici’s blunt tone. ‘When the cancer is widespread, many patients deteriorate very rapidly, particularly after surgery. In the best case, a matter of weeks or perhaps months, but in the worst case …’

For a long time after the doctor had gone, Felici stood at the windows of his office, scarlet zucchetto covering his black hair, wide scarlet sash around his black cassock. He stared across the Piazza San Pietro towards the papal apartments on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace. On the day of his ordination, Felici had made an additional vow. He had promised himself that one day he would head the Church to which he’d devoted his life. And now, he mused, that time had come. But there was still one very dark cloud hanging over his candidacy.

Chapter 33

‘I’ll drive,’ O’Connor yelled in Spanish, shoving a fistful of nuevo sol into the startled driver’s face and doubling around to his side. O’Connor shoved him into the passenger seat and leapt behind the wheel. The BMW’s tyres screeched as the driver tore down the narrow street in front of them, and O’Connor knew the Daewoo Tico would be no match for the BMW on an open road, but Lima’s traffic was notorious, and O’Connor floored the little taxi in hot pursuit.

The BMW turned into the congested Larco and headed north. Brightly coloured buses belched thick, black smoke, and myriad taxis, minibuses and trucks fought for every centimetre of road. O’Connor had done the same driving course that every driver on the President’s Secret Service detail was required to pass, part of the gruelling training at the top-secret James J. Rowley Center to the north-east of Washington, DC. The centre was equipped with a fake airport, mock-ups of Air Force One and Marine One, multiple firing ranges and ten kilometres of roadway for advanced driver training. O’Connor had cut his teeth on retired presidential limos, Dodge Chargers and Suburbans. But this guy was good, O’Connor thought, as the BMW threw a sudden left around the Óvalo de Miraflores roundabout.

‘Duck!’ O’Connor yelled to the terrified taxi driver. The teenage thug in the back seat of the BMW, one hand on Aleta’s neck, leaned out of the rear window and fired again and again. O’Connor drew his Glock 21 and returned fire, hitting the gunman in the wrist. The BMW accelerated to the next intersection, in the centre of which a policewoman, dressed in skin-tight jodhpurs with long black boots, was directing traffic from within the security of a colourful yellow and blue box. She held up her gloved hand for the BMW to stop, but the driver ignored her and powered through the intersection with O’Connor in hot pursuit. O’Connor glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the policewoman talking into her two-way radio. A moment later, one siren and then another could be heard in the distance.

The BMW weaved violently through the traffic and veered into Malecón Balta and tore towards the Parque del Amor. The lovers’ park on the cliffs of Chorrillos overlooked the Pacific Ocean and was surrounded by romantic quotes laid out in mosaic tiles. The sirens were getting closer and O’Connor took aim at one of the BMW’s rear tyres. The BMW lurched to the right as its tyre exploded, mounted the curb and crashed into the huge statue of the two lovers in the centre of the park.

O’Connor leapt from the Daewoo. The thug in the back seat was holding his pistol in his good hand, pointing it at Aleta’s head, but then unsure, he wavered, moving his gun towards O’Connor. O’Connor fired twice. Aleta screamed as her captor collapsed on to her and the driver fell forward on to the steering wheel. O’Connor reefed a blood-covered Aleta out of the back of the BMW and bundled her into the Daewoo. Shoving it in to gear, he drove out of the park and mingled with the traffic, turning north towards the Israeli embassy.

‘You okay?’ O’Connor asked, squeezing Aleta’s hand.

Aleta nodded numbly, her eyes glassy. ‘I think so … Thank you,’ she said, squeezing his hand in return.

Aleta and O’Connor stepped into the back seat of a vehicle, diplomatic plates prominently displayed on the bumper. Not for the first time, Aleta had donned a hijab and O’Connor wore a beret and dark glasses as disguises. The Israeli chief of station, Shaked, sat in the front of the car, and he acknowledged the guard’s salute as they passed through the VIP entrance to Lima’s Jorge Chávez International Airport.

‘The hijab must take you back to that little episode at Lake Atitlán,’ O’Connor whispered. Aleta had helped O’Connor recover von Heißen’s diaries in Guatemala by keeping Monsignor Jennings busy with a lengthy confession. To hide her identity she had worn a niqab.

‘The things I do for you!’ she whispered back.

‘Father forgive me, for I have sinned,’ O’Connor mimicked, adding a touch of levity to calm Aleta’s shaken nerves. The session in the confessional had bought O’Connor priceless time, enabling him to seize most of the von Heißen diaries from the church presbytery.

The car drew up at the steps to the waiting Lear jet and Aleta, O’Connor and Shaked boarded. They strapped into the plush leather seats and the pilot immediately taxied for take-off. The jet powered down runway 15 as Aleta looked back to the terminal area. Her heart leapt into her mouth: two black cars were racing across the apron. But they were too late. The pilot lifted off and the jet powered into the sky above the Pacific.

‘Friends of yours?’ Shaked asked with a smile.

‘Definitely not. And thank you!’ Aleta replied. She slumped back into her chair and breathed a sigh of relief. The Pacific coast of Peru receded behind them and she closed her eyes. This is what it must have been like under the Nazis, she thought. Always on the run, always watching over your shoulder. The sooner Ellen Rodriguez testified, the better, she thought, as exhaustion took over and she drifted into a deep sleep.

Eighteen hours later, the Mossad aircraft began its descent towards Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. It was a clear, cloudless day over Israel and Aleta caught sight of the Dome of the Rock, its gold cupola glinting in the distance. Beneath the cupola, a hoofprint of Muhammad’s steed Buraq marked the spot where, according to Islamic doctrine, Muhammad ascended into heaven. Only a stone’s throw from Golgotha and the place Christians maintained Christ had been crucified, the Muslim shrine had been erected in the seventh century on top of the ruins of the Jewish second temple, and Suleiman the Magnificent had ordered that the exterior be covered with exquisite Iznik tiles. Many centuries later, King Hussein of Jordan had sold one of his homes in London to provide the 80 kilograms of gold needed to refurbish the dome. The Dome of the Rock, together with the al-Aqsa Mosque, 200 metres to the south, represented the third most holy site in all of Islam. Any attempt by the Israelis to demolish the two sites and build a third temple would, Aleta knew, likely start a third world war.

‘Rome awaits,’ said O’Connor. ‘Although there’s a report on the news that the Pope is gravely ill.’

‘What with? And will that affect our plans?’ Aleta asked, lowering her voice.

‘The Vatican’s not saying, but the rumour is he has cancer. I wish him no harm, but an ill pontiff might actually play in our favour. It means the attention of the Swiss Guards will be focused elsewhere,’ O’Connor replied.

Security at Ben Gurion Airport was amongst the tightest in the world, with both uniformed and plain clothes undercover police and Israeli Defense Forces personnel watching passengers’ every move. Unlike the US, where Homeland Security concentrated on baggage, and looked at liquids, shoes and computers, the Israelis searched passengers’ eyes, checking for any suspicious reactions or odd behaviour. With the help of Shaked, O’Connor and Aleta were fast-tracked through customs and immigration and within two hours, they were on an El Al flight bound for Rome.

Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport immigration was not nearly as tight as Ben Gurion, and within thirty minutes O’Connor and Aleta had cleared Terminal 3 and were in a taxi headed for the city. O’Connor took the same approach to accommodation in Rome as he had in Lima, using an alias and a false passport, avoiding five-star hotels and paying cash in advance.

‘This is lovely,’ Aleta said, as she looked through their third-floor window onto the cobblestones and sidewalk restaurants of Borgo Pio. The Hotel Sant’Anna had started life as a sixteenth-century palace. Stylish fountains and murals gave the paved courtyards and breakfast room an ambience akin to the ancient city.

‘More importantly, it’s only three minutes’ walk to the Vatican. I’m going shopping for a short while, but the rules remain the same – don’t answer the door.’

Aleta made a face. ‘It would be nice if I could go shopping occasionally too.’

‘As soon as Wiley’s behind bars,’ O’Connor promised. He headed out to purchase some clerical vestments.

Once he’d left, Aleta got herself a glass of water and flicked on the television to CNN. Her heart started to race.

‘In breaking news,’ announced Walter Crowley, ‘CIA officer Ellen Rodriguez, a key witness in the Mayagate case on Capitol Hill, is fighting for her life after a savage attack. We cross live to CNN’s Susan Murkowski on the Hill. What can you tell us, Susan?’

The feed switched to Capitol Hill, where a fresh fall of snow had blanketed the main steps leading to the Congress. Susan Murkowski, in her trademark red overcoat and dark blue scarf, was standing at the top, microphone in hand.

‘Some time last night, Walter, around midnight, CIA agent Ellen Rodriguez was attacked in the safe house she was staying at. She suffered multiple stab wounds, but somehow managed to crawl to her cell phone and dial 911. Ambulance, police and the FBI were quickly on the scene, but I’m told Rodriguez was unconscious by the time they arrived. She was taken to the Walter Reed National Military Hospital where she underwent surgery, and she’s now under heavy guard.’

‘Do we know anything about her condition?’

‘She’s been described as critical, and is in an induced coma in intensive care.’

‘So where does this leave the inquiry?’

‘A few moments ago, the majority leader Senator Mary Wheeler made a statement, and here’s a little of what she had to say.’ The vision switched to the elegant Democrat senator fronting a hastily called media conference in the panelled Senate committee room.

‘Our thoughts and prayers are with Ms Ellen Rodriguez that she might yet recover from these horrific injuries. As to the inquiry itself, it will not be suspended, as some in the media have suggested. There are a number of key witnesses who will be called before the Senate.’

‘Susan Murkowski, thank you. And now to the day’s main stories …’

Aleta, numbed by the news, rose and double-checked the room was locked.

Chapter 34

Cardinal Felici’s irritation was fuelled on a number of fronts. Ferdinando Sabatani, the Cardinal Secretary of State, had called a meeting of the Curia, which meant the urbane, articulate and well-respected Sabatani would be in the chair. What’s more, the meeting was being held in his suite of offices in the Apostolic Palace. Felici glanced around the huge polished oak table, scrutinising those who might be a threat. The prefects for the congregation of bishops, for Catholic education, for the clergy, for the causes of saints, for the oriental churches – all the key Vatican power-brokers were there. Felici was even more incensed by the agenda. There were only three items, but each of them was explosive: celibacy, contraception and sexual abuse.

‘I know how busy you all are,’ Sabatani began, ‘but this morning’s agenda is important. Put simply, my office is being bombarded with daily reports that the Holy Church is facing a crisis on several levels around the world.’

‘That sounds unduly pessimistic, Ferdinando,’ Felici interrupted, determined to stamp his own authority on the meeting. ‘The latest statistics on my desk show that out of a population of seven billion, 1.2 billion are now Catholic, a healthy increase of around 10 per cent.’

‘I’ve seen those figures too, Salvatore,’ Sabatani replied evenly, ‘but that increase is over ten years, so in fact, it represents a paltry one per cent a year. But the most alarming statistic is the loss of priests. Hundreds of seminaries around the world are empty, and if we take the United States as an example, 90 per cent of its seminaries have closed. By 2020 the number of priests worldwide will have halved, and of those that remain, half will be seventy or older. And it’s even worse for the sisters. In a generation there will be very few nuns left and thousands of parishes will be without a priest.’

‘So what does that have to do with the agenda?’ Felici grumbled.

‘Two of the agenda items directly affect our ability to recruit new priests,’ Sabatani continued, unruffled. ‘And the issue of contraception is impacting on our congregations. Some time ago, the Holy Father asked me to prepare some discussion papers, and the purpose of this meeting is to give you prior warning. The papers in front of you will be circulated more widely over the coming months, and you will be given the opportunity to comment. All I ask is that you keep an open mind,’ Sabatani concluded, looking directly at Felici.

‘And in what direction do these papers point?’ Felici persisted, his anger rising.

‘They all refer to sensitive issues, Salvatore, and I would anticipate that, ultimately, the Holy Father will want a debate at a formal consistory. I won’t go into detail, but the paper on celibacy examines whether or not allowing priests the option of marriage might address the problems of recruitment.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ Felici shot back. ‘Revoking our vows of celibacy would be nothing less than a fundamental betrayal of Christ!’

‘I think we should look at it,’ Cardinal Schäfer opined.

Felici glared at the prefect for the congregation of Catholic education. Felici had already allocated three stars out of a potential five to the young German cardinal and marked him on his list of contenders: Too young to be papabile – just turned fifty-four. Dangerous liberal views. Watch carefully.

‘Particularly since celibacy wasn’t even introduced until the Middle Ages. If priests are permitted to marry, that may have some very positive effects,’ Schäfer concluded, avoiding a direct reference to the sexual scandals enveloping the Church.

Sabatani nodded in agreement. ‘The other two issues are no less sensitive,’ he warned. ‘Some cardinals’ statements on contraception – alleging that condoms provide no protection against AIDS, for example – have been less than helpful,’ he emphasised. Some years earlier Cardinal Alfonso Trujillo, the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, had infuriated scientists and the World Health Organization when he claimed the HIV virus would easily pass through a condom. Labelling condoms immoral, Trujillo proposed they should be branded as dangerous, along the same lines as smoking.

‘The AIDS pandemic has already killed more than twenty million people,’ Sabatani warned, ‘and it affects more than forty million worldwide. If we want to avoid ridicule, we should at least acknowledge the scientific evidence that proves condoms reduce the risk of STDs by more than 90 per cent.’ Cardinal Sabatani paused to allow his fellow cardinals to challenge him, but he was greeted with silence.

‘The paper on contraception will also examine the plight of the desperately poor, who struggle to afford large families,’ he said. ‘As to the sexual abuse of children by some in the clergy, I think we need look no further than the cover-up in Ireland to realise how badly we’ve handled this. As of last week, the Irish government is now formally distancing itself from the Church, and there is no shortage of public support for the move. The paper on child abuse will advocate zero tolerance and excommunication for any priest guilty of sexual misdemeanours, no matter how minor. There will be a line in the sand.’

‘Meet Father Darragh McLoughlin,’ O’Connor said, coming out of the bedroom at the hotel in a full-length black cassock with a black sash and thirty-three buttons, symbolising the age of Christ at his death. O’Connor had assumed the same identity he’d successfully used in Iran, with an ecclesiastical twist. ‘How do I look?’

‘Frighteningly realistic,’ Aleta said, muting the television.

The Via dei Cestari and the nearby laneways were to religious shoppers in Rome as Fifth Avenue was to regular shoppers in New York. High-end boutiques like De Ritis, Barbiconi and the most famous tailor to the papal household of all, Gammarelli in Via di Santa Chiara, all provided a wide range of priestly garments.

‘Does this mean you’re celibate now?’ Aleta asked with a wicked smile.

‘I’m not planning to be that realistic … but as long as it gets me past the Swiss Guards and into the secret archives, this get-up will have served its purpose.’

The Swiss Guard on St Anne’s Gate snapped to attention as Felici’s black Mercedes, bearing the distinctive registration SCV 2, exited the Vatican. The traffic was heavy and a cacophony of scooter horns pierced the night as the Piaggios and Vespas weaved in and out, oblivious to the larger vehicles. Felici’s driver took the tunnel under the Tiber and moved on to the Lungotevere Tor di Nona on the east bank, before finally turning into Via dei Banchi Nuovi, where Felici’s apartment was. The location suited the cardinal admirably. Originally the Via dei Banchi Nuovi had been part of the papal road leading from the Vatican to the Lateran, and its elegance was only enhanced by the many palazzi owned by the powerful curial cardinals. Felici’s apartment was one of the Eternal City’s more luxurious, with priceless works of art hung in hallways, and reception rooms dominated by glittering crystal chandeliers. The Vatican museums contained many more works of art than there was space to display, and Felici’s apartment had become a private annex. The aura of power was only emphasised by a plethora of equally priceless sculptures and ancient pottery.

Felici found Sister Bridget waiting for him at the door.

‘You look tired, Eminence,’ she said, taking his cape. ‘Would you care for a champagne before dinner?’

‘An excellent idea,’ Felici said, the trace of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

‘Jacquesson, 1988,’ Bridget declared, handing the cardinal a crystal flute. The House of Jacquesson had been in existence since 1798 and had provided champagne for Napoleon’s wedding. ‘You not only look tired, Eminence, you look worried,’ the sister observed perceptively as the chef announced a Breton terrine of lobster with a spicy tomato sauce. The pair moved into the smaller of the apartment’s two dining rooms, where a silver service for two had been laid out on an immaculate white-linen tablecloth.

Felici didn’t answer immediately. He held his delicate crystal flute up to the soft light of the dining room chandelier, appreciating the fine and persistent mousse of the Jacquesson.

‘The cancer has returned,’ he said finally.

‘Oh no.’ Sister Bridget put her hand to her mouth. ‘Dare I ask for the prognosis, Eminence?’

‘Very poor. Dr Rossi didn’t put it in as many words, but reading between the lines, I think the pontiff’s riddled with it,’ Felici said bluntly. ‘We shall know a little more in a few days after the biopsy reports, but I suspect that the time has come to consider his successor.’

‘I know it’s too early to be talking about a conclave, Eminence, but do you think they will elect an Italian this time around?’

‘We have to be practical about these things, and I’ve already given it some thought,’ Felici said, reflecting on the files he kept on his possible challengers. ‘This time, only 121 cardinals will be eligible to vote.’

There were 203 cardinal bishops, priests and deacons in the College of Cardinals, but in 1971, Pope Paul VI had issued an apostolic letter, Ingravescentem Aetetem, declaring that once a cardinal turned eighty he was ineligible to vote, which ruled out eighty-two very disgruntled octogenarians.

‘And at the outset, it’s possible to eliminate some, no matter how they might perceive their own standing,’ Felici opined. ‘Given the problems the Americans have experienced with sexual abuse, it’s very unlikely that a conclave would entertain a cardinal from the US.’

‘And that would make it difficult for the Irish too?’

Felici waited until the terrine of lobster was served. ‘They don’t have a candidate under eighty, and in any case, the Murphy and Cloyne reports will ensure that an Irishman is out of the question for many years to come.’ The investigations into sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in Ireland went back decades, and the judicial inquiries had castigated the Irish bishops and priests for lying to authorities over allegations of sexual relations with children.

‘Are there any favoured candidates, Eminence?’ Bridget asked coyly.

‘Popes are said to be chosen by the Holy Spirit,’ Felici replied, a wry smile on his face, ‘but in reality, there will be the usual voting blocs jockeying for position, especially when the real state of the Pope’s health becomes public knowledge. Some are arguing that it is time we selected a Pope from one of the third-world countries. Their turn will come, but not yet.’

‘Arinze is one of those?’ Bridget had maintained her own black book, watching both her own interests and those of her cardinal, and she rated the Nigerian cardinal highly.

‘Yes. He’s charming, witty … He’s probably the leading African contender, but he’s not getting any younger.’ Felici was rarely able to relax, but he was alone with Bridget, and this was one such evening. The sister had chosen a Château Mouton Rothschild to follow the champagne, and Felici savoured the luscious black currant and truffle flavours.

‘There are others, of course: Ouellet from Canada, Llovera from Spain, Schönborn from Austria, Bergoglio from Argentina, Hummes from Brazil …’ Felici reeled off a dozen names that he’d marked with either four or five stars. ‘But we need to protect the traditions and the reputation of the Church.’

‘I have a confession to make, Eminence,’ said Bridget demurely. ‘There is an online betting site …’

‘Ah, yes. Paddy Power. It’s good to see we’re up there with the horses and the golfers.’

‘They have odds of seven to four for an Italian as the next pope.’ Bridget’s smile was full of warmth. ‘Africa is at fifteen to eight, and the Americas are at nine to four. But the rest are out in double figures.’

‘We shall see,’ said Felici. ‘Two hundred and seventeen of the 265 popes have been Italian, and although we only have twenty-five Italian cardinals, that’s a powerful voting bloc.’

‘You can bring the others with you?’

‘I think so,’ Felici replied, confirming that he had every intention of being the Italian bloc’s candidate. ‘Although now that we’re back to the two-thirds majority, the bar is fairly high.’ In 1996, John Paul II had issued Universi Dominici Gregis, which allowed a pope to be elected with just over half the votes if a conclave was still deadlocked after thirty rounds of balloting. But in 2007, the decision had been reversed. ‘One third plus one can block any candidate. It’s a much more demanding standard than a normal political election.’

‘Will there be any opportunity to …’

‘To influence?’ Felici smiled. If he were a politician, Bridget would be his first choice for campaign manager.

‘There are a number of foreign cardinals visiting Rome in the next few days,’ the sister said.

Felici nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, I’m aware of that. The Africans have twelve votes, and the Asian bloc has ten, so they will be important, as will Brazil and Mexico, with nine votes between them. Any meetings will have to be held discreetly. Campaigning for a conclave would be poor form.’

‘Perhaps I could organise an informal function for you here, Eminence? That shouldn’t raise too much interest, and you could take some soundings on where they stand?’

‘That would be a nice touch,’ Felici said. ‘For the good of the Holy Church, it will be important to elect a conservative. A progressive candidate would be a disaster.’

‘And the prophecy, Eminence?’ Bridget’s smile faded as she reflected on St Malachy’s ancient prediction. In 1140 AD, while Bishop Malachy was visiting Rome, he’d fallen into a deep sleep on the Janiculum Hill above the old city and started to talk in Latin. His scribes had recorded his statements and when he woke, Malachy confirmed that God had revealed to him the identity of every Pope until the end of time. The list had proven to be extraordinarily accurate, and Felici shivered involuntarily as he recalled the prediction for the second last Pope before the end of time. This pope was referred to as De Gloria Olivae, and Felici knew well that ‘from the glory of the olive’ was a reference to the olive branch being a symbol of the order of St Benedict. Benedict XVI was the name Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had chosen when elected.

‘I wouldn’t take too much notice of old Malachy,’ said Felici, sounding more reassuring than he felt. ‘The Holy Church has lasted for 2000 years, and by the grace of God, she will endure and prosper until the end of time.’

Felici poured the remainder of the Mouton and, glass in hand, led the way upstairs to his spacious bedroom where Bridget closed the heavy velvet curtains, switched off the lights, and moved towards her cardinal, slowly helping him to disrobe.

Chapter 35

Felici’s private secretary knocked quietly and opened the doors to the cardinal’s office.

‘Dr Rossi wants to see you in the papal apartments, Eminence. It’s urgent.’ Father Cordona looked grave. The papal physician, as a matter of protocol, would never summon the Vatican’s most senior cardinal unless … Both men knew the summons could only mean one thing.

‘Tell him I’m on my way.’

‘Certamente, Eminence.’

Cardinal Felici didn’t hurry across the cobblestones of the Piazza San Pietro. The Pope’s health was already the subject of intense speculation and Felici had no intention of fuelling any further intrigue in the Vatican’s corridors of power. He curtly acknowledged the salutes of the Swiss Guards, both armed with a halberd, a twin-bladed axe on a long pike. Dressed in their distinctive red, blue and yellow striped uniform, they were stationed outside the massive bronze doors that led to the Apostolic Palace and the papal apartments. Felici took the lift and strode down the corridor leading to the Pope’s private bedroom, where he was met by Dr Rossi.

‘Thank you for coming, Eminence. His Holiness’s condition has deteriorated rapidly overnight.’

‘You were right to call me. May I see him?’

‘Yes, but I warn you, he’s very weak and slipping in and out of consciousness.’

Felici stepped into the bedroom and moved closer to the bed, in which a pale old man lay with his eyes closed. ‘Holiness, we are all praying for your recovery,’ the cardinal said, his voice muted.

The Pope opened his eyes briefly and seemed to have trouble focusing. ‘Make sure the Church is left in good hands,’ he whispered, his voice rasping and feeble. His eyes closed again and his head lolled to one side of his pillow. From the opposite side of the bed, Dr Rossi reached for the Pope’s hand, his fingers wrapping around the wrist. Minutes passed, the two men standing in silence over the prone form. And then Dr Rossi looked up.

‘He’s gone,’ he said.

Two of the Pope’s household sisters started to weep and Felici motioned to Monsignor Abati, the Pope’s private secretary, for them to be removed.

‘Summon the papal master of ceremonies and the prelates of the Apostolic Camera to the library,’ Felici ordered briskly as soon as Monsignor Abati returned. ‘We’ll need to verify His Holiness’s death in their presence and these apartments will then be sealed.’

‘Certamente, Eminence.’

Felici turned to the Prefect of the Papal Household, Bishop Michalski, who had just arrived, looking shocked and pale.

‘Inform the dean of the College of Cardinals of His Holiness’s passing. He will need to inform the rest of the college and the heads of nations, although the media will undoubtedly beat him to it. And tell the director of the press office to report to me immediately.’ As camerlengo, Felici was now the acting head of state. He had long prepared for just this moment. He wasn’t responsible for governing the wider Church at a time of sede vacante, a vacant seat – that would be left to the cardinals – but as the one responsible for funeral arrangements and the conclave, Felici fully intended to maximise his position of power.

A short while later, in the presence of three other cardinals, Felici ceremonially cut the Fisherman’s Ring of the deceased Pope with a pair of shears, ensuring that it could not be used to sign any documents. He sealed the papal apartments and returned to his own office to run the interregnum from across the Piazza San Pietro.

O’Connor glanced at the television and reached for the remote. The broadcast was in Italian, but neither O’Connor nor Aleta had any trouble with the translation as the footage of the newsreader covering the breaking news switched to the Holy See’s Press Office Director, Monsignor Giovanni Mancini.

‘The Holy Father died this afternoon at 2.37 p.m., local time, in his private apartment, after a short illness. The Camerlengo and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Felici, and the Papal Physician, Dr Rossi, were at the pontiff’s side. Dr Rossi noted that the Holy Father passed away peacefully.’ The vision cut to the Piazza San Pietro, and a close-up of a group of nuns weeping on the steps of the basilica, and then back to the network anchor.

‘Messages of condolence are pouring into Vatican City from around the world, and crowds have gathered in St Peter’s Square. We cross now to the renowned Vatican watcher, Father Dennis O’Flaherty, for an analysis of the pontiff’s legacy, and what this means for the future of the Catholic Church.’

‘I need to move,’ O’Connor said, grabbing his soft leather briefcase and checking he had the security pass marked Access Authority – Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum. Shaked’s boys in Lima had turned out to be just as good at forging documents as those in the back rooms of Langley.

‘It will be chaos over there,’ responded Aleta. ‘Wouldn’t you be better off waiting a while?’

O’Connor shook his head. ‘Precisely why I should go now. When they get on top of things, they may close the secret archives until after the election of a new pope, and that might be enough time for Wiley to work out where we are. And don’t worry if I don’t get back tonight … I may be gone for quite a while.’

O’Connor left the hotel and made his way along the cobblestones of Borgo Pio, then across Via di Porta Angelica, crammed with people heading for Piazza San Pietro. He reached the Porta di Sant’Anna and strode purposefully through, giving a businesslike nod to the Swiss Guard. The noise of the street and the thronging crowd faded behind the high walls of the Vatican City and O’Connor headed unerringly towards the courtyard behind the papal apartments, and the entrance to the archives.

O’Connor showed his pass to the first of the Swiss Guards, who waved him through, but the second guard was more meticulous and closely scrutinised the request for access to the codex of the trial of Galileo Galilei. O’Connor had chosen it deliberately. It was a document the Vatican had already made available to scholars. To ask for one that was yet to be studied was courting refusal. Despite the Vatican’s avowed ‘opening’ of the archives, O’Connor knew no one was given carte blanche to browse the massive holdings, particularly those areas that covered the Vatican’s involvement with the Nazis. The Vatican had steadfastly refused to allow any outsider to see them. The guard pushed a buzzer and one of the archivists assigned to work amongst the massive collection appeared.

‘Father McLoughlin,’ O’Connor intoned, introducing himself. ‘A sad day.’

‘A very sad day,’ the archivist agreed. ‘In fact, very few people are here, even on the staff.’

‘Yes, I apologise for the timing, but my time is limited before I have to return to Dublin.’

‘Of course. If you’ll follow me.’

O’Connor followed the archivist past the shelving, of which there was more than 84 kilometres, past ancient wooden cabinets housing millions of documents bound in cream vellum and tied with lawyers’ ribbon. Some of the papers dated back to the early 800s. The priceless collection included letters between pontiffs and the giants of history: Michelangelo, Queen Elizabeth I, Voltaire, Mozart, Erasmus and Adolf Hitler. They reached the empty reading rooms of the Tower of Winds, where the computers looked strangely out of place on the old heavy wooden tables. It was an area constructed in 1580 to facilitate astronomical studies, and was characterised by its Pomeranian frescoes and a creaking wooden elevator surrounded by white marble steps leading to the Leo XIII study. O’Connor was told to take a seat.

A short while later, the archivist returned. ‘This is the document you’ve requested,’ he said, placing the ancient manuscript and a pair of white gloves on the table. ‘In view of the tragic circumstances, I’m afraid we’ll be shutting the archives early, at five p.m.’

‘Perfectly understandable. I won’t be long, I promise you.’ O’Connor perused the seventeenth-century Codice del Processo di Galileo. The brown ink on the parchment had gone fuzzy over the centuries, but it was still perfectly readable. The Inquisition had handed down its verdict on 22 June 1633, finding Galileo guilty of heresy, namely of believing that the earth was not at the centre of the universe; but that it moved around a stationary sun, contrary to Holy Scripture. O’Connor shook his head at the Church’s decision to place Galileo’s books on the prohibited reading and publication list, and to imprison Galileo at the pleasure of the Inquisition.

O’Connor left the document on the desk and quietly moved towards the staircase leading to the Diplomatic Floor above. Here, documents of the Secretariat of State going back to the 1500s were stored in hundreds of old wooden cabinets. O’Connor cast around for a place to hide until after closing time. The wooden cabinets stretched to the ceiling, and every room had a set of steps on wheels to facilitate access to the higher cabinets. O’Connor opened the high cabinets in the first room and then the second, but all were full. In the third room he found one with enough space to crawl into, and he pulled the door shut behind him.

An hour later, the lights were extinguished, and O’Connor waited, but shortly afterwards, the lights were switched on again and he could hear footsteps.

‘He may have left of his own accord, Excellency.’ O’Connor recognised the voice of the archivist. The person he was talking to was probably the Prefect of the Secret Archives, Bishop Romano.

‘He may have,’ the other voice replied, ‘but the guard on duty didn’t see him leave and it doesn’t hurt to check. It would be unthinkable to have someone roaming the archives unaccompanied.’

After a pause, O’Connor heard the unwelcome sound of cupboards being opened in the next room, moving ever closer to his hiding hole.

Chapter 36

President McGovern walked from the Oval Office downstairs to the situation room, where he received daily briefings from watch teams around the world. The original mahogany-panelled walls of the room, which had made it hard to hear video and teleconferencing calls because of reflected noise, had been replaced by high-tech ‘whisper walls’, with six embedded large flat screens. During the Gulf War and the assault on Baghdad, communication failures meant the screens were too frequently blacked out, but the latest technology ensured that encrypted conferences with other world leaders and American generals on battlefields around the world were uninterrupted. The lighting included a closed-circuit camera to enable the President’s Secret Service agents to see what was going on inside the room. The situation room had once been President Truman’s bowling alley, but after the Bay of Pigs fiasco President Kennedy’s security advisor converted it to its current function. ‘Watch teams’, monitoring events around the world, were on call to provide daily briefings. Curiously, Kennedy directed crises from the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room and Nixon and Ford had done the same, whereas during the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson spent so much time in the situation room, he had his Oval Office chair moved there. Clinton had many briefings there, and President William McGovern operated in a similar mode, insisting on daily updates in the room.

The long polished table had been designed to seat the twelve members of the National Security Council, and those who’d been invited this morning stood as the President entered the nerve centre: the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the director of national intelligence and the national security advisor. Chuck Buchanan and Lauren Crawford, along with Howard Wiley and Professor Lapinski, occupied some of the advisors’ chairs that were positioned against the walls.

‘Mr President, can I introduce Professor Lapinski, from the nuclear physics department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,’ the vice president offered. ‘Wiley will start with the current brief on Iran, and the professor will then give us his take on what the Iranians are up to.’

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance, Professor – I understand you’re also going to simplify nuclear physics for us,’ McGovern said, grinning as he stretched out his hand.

‘I’ll do my best, Mr President.’

‘Well, I warn you, the last time I saw a physics laboratory was way back in junior high, so go easy on the quantum mechanics!’

The President took his place at the near end of the table and Wiley flicked on the latest satellite imagery of Iran’s nuclear installations. The DDO presented a point-by-point brief of what the CIA and other agencies knew about Iran’s capabilities, before offering an opinion on the Islamic Republic’s pursuit of the bomb.

‘Mr President, there seems little doubt that Iran is pursuing a nuclear capability beyond that which is required for nuclear power. These satellite images are less than twenty-four hours old, and provide the latest data on Iran’s progress,’ Wiley said, as the crystal-clear photography appeared on the screen. Six months earlier, a massive US Delta IV rocket, over 50 metres high and capable of lifting over 13 tonnes, had blasted into space from the Vandenberg Air Force launch pad on the Californian coast, carrying the National Reconnaissance Office’s latest Keyhole spy satellite. The size of a school bus, the huge camera platform orbited as high as 1000 kilometres above Iran, passing over the Islamic Republic twice a day. The sensors operated in the visible light spectrum and in the near infrared, as well as having a thermal infrared system that could detect heat signatures. Thanks to this, intelligence analysts could read licence plates on trucks in Iran if they wanted to. And the massive Lacrosse satellites, with their 45-metre solar panels and radar antennae, complemented Keyhole. They were equipped with radar imaging sensors and orbited at speeds of up to 25 000 kilometres an hour. They could see through bad weather and could pick out surface-to-air missiles, even when the missiles were deployed in Iran’s oak forests of the central and western districts, or the forests of the limestone mountains to the north-east.

‘The Bushehr nuclear power plant, which is located here,’ Wiley said, using a laser pointer, ‘one thousand two hundred kilometres south of Tehran on the Persian Gulf, is expected to come on line in the next six months, producing 1000 megawatts of power. A Russian company, Atomstroyexport, has finished cleaning the interior of the plant, along with the main circulation pipeline, and has begun loading the uranium fuel rods. Some 800 kilometres to the north, at Esfahan, the Iranians have constructed a plant to convert uranium oxides, or yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride gas, which is the first step in enriching uranium to weapons grade.’ Wiley flashed his pointer over the images of mountainous desert country, detailing the Iranian’s nuclear facilities, including the heavy-water reactor at Arak.

‘Perhaps of greatest concern,’ Wiley continued, ‘are the underground centrifuge systems at Natanz, located here, 240 kilometres south of Tehran. And we also have evidence of a second construction, deep underground, just 32 kilometres north-west of the holy city of Qom.’ The satellite images clearly showed the massive reinforced-concrete tunnel entrances. ‘If the Iranians perfect the bomb using either uranium-235 or plutonium-239, then they already have the delivery systems,’ Wiley emphasised. ‘During the Holy Prophet war games in 2006, the Iranians unveiled the Fajr-3 missile system. More worrying still, the nose cone of this missile carries multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles, which means it could strike, for example, several Israeli cities at once. Iran’s latest missile, the Sejil-2, is an improvement on the Fajr-3, using solid fuel, which means it can be readied for firing much more quickly.’ Wiley activated a second screen, showing footage of Iran’s latest missile test.

The gleaming 18-metre-high two-stage Sejil-2 missile stood on its launch pad at Iran’s top-secret missile site in the Dasht-e Kavir, the great salt desert in Semnan Province, 200 kilometres due east of Tehran. A heat haze shimmered off the brown, pebbly sand as the warning sirens sounded, followed by the launch announcement in Farsi. Suddenly, a powerful sheet of flame erupted from the missile’s engines, sending clouds of sand billowing around the launch pad; the 26-tonne monster rose gracefully into the desert sky, the deadly nose cone arcing downrange behind a white exhaust trail.

‘The Sejil-2 has a range of up to 2500 kilometres,’ Wiley explained. ‘That puts all of Israel and every US base in the Middle East in range, as well as some key cities in Europe. In addition, we now have reports that Venezuela and Iran have signed an agreement to base Iranian missiles in Venezuela, which puts Miami and other major US cities in range as well.’

The President and the secretary of state exchanged glances. The Iranians were on the move.

Chapter 37

Cardinal Felici moved effortlessly amongst his guests beneath the chandeliers of the Louis XIV-style reception room. Some had wondered whether it was protocol to attend a function prior to the pontiff’s funeral, but in his position as Camerlengo, Felici had personally assured them that the pontiff would have wanted the affairs of the Church to continue as normally as possible. He had put equal care into selecting his guests. Twenty of the most influential cardinals from the Italian, African, Asian and Americas blocs, who in turn could influence others, had received invitations to his apartment. The waiters were immaculately dressed in white, carrying trays of freshly shucked oysters, warm scallops and dill, and a host of other delicacies. The wine waiters moved unobtrusively, with crystal flutes of Moët, and for those who preferred something else, two barmen were on duty at a discreetly located but well-stocked bar.

‘Frederic, I’m so glad you could come,’ Felici said warmly to the leader of the African delegation. ‘A sad occasion, but we must turn our attention to the future, n’est-ce pas?’ Felici took the trouble to address his guests in the language in which he knew them to be most comfortable. ‘And if not an African pontiff this time around, we must ensure that the next pontificate puts Africans in positions of considerable authority. It is high time we had an African secretary of state …’

Having planted the seed, Felici moved on to a cardinal from the Italian bloc. ‘It’s perhaps time we went back to our roots, Giorgio, non è vero?’

‘It’s been a long while since an Italian was chosen, Salvatore, but who do you have in mind?’ the cardinal patriarch of Venice probed.

‘Someone who can keep the Church on a steady course. At a time when there is so much pressure to relax our standards – to allow contraception, to allow homosexuals to receive the sacraments, to allow divorcees to marry again in the Holy Church – it would be a disaster to elevate a progressive,’ Felici argued, without once mentioning his arch-rival Sabatani.

‘I couldn’t agree more, Salvatore. We need a strong conservative at the helm.’ The patriarch of Venice put a reassuring hand on Felici’s shoulder, a look of understanding in his eyes.

‘If you like, Excellency, I could ask the Swiss Guard to make a more thorough search, although Father McLoughlin did say he wouldn’t be very long and it was just the Galileo document he wished to view,’ the archivist offered. Both men were standing directly beneath the cupboard in which O’Connor had hidden.

Bishop Romano considered his options. ‘No, I think you’re right,’ the prefect of the archives said finally. ‘The guards have enough on their hands at the moment, although I’ll see if we can track this Father McLoughlin down. Make sure everything’s secure, and we’ll call it a day.’

O’Connor listened to the retreating footsteps. Ten minutes later, he crawled out of the cupboard, descended the wooden steps and three further flights of stairs into the very bowels of the archives. O’Connor shone his torch around the kilometres of shelving. Finally, in the very far corner, he came across a heavy cedar door with a cast-iron lock. For all its security, the Vatican had retained the creaking wooden lifts and cabinets that went back to the Middle Ages. The priests had yet to join the twentieth, let alone the twenty-first century, O’Connor thought, and within thirty seconds the old door squeaked on its hinges and swung open. O’Connor followed the sloping passage downwards towards the crypts of the basilica. Fifty metres in, he came to another locked door, which yielded almost as quickly as the first.

‘Bingo,’ O’Connor muttered, as he entered a chamber containing a heavy oak table and two similarly heavy chairs, but it wasn’t the furniture that intrigued him. At the far end of the room, which had been excavated out of solid rock, a long-dead pope with something to hide had ordered the construction of a vault, sealed with a steel door. O’Connor was prepared for anything, including an electronic delay lock, and had even included a stethoscope in his bag in case the lock was simple. To his surprise, it would come in handy. The old Mosler vault door had only a single combination dial and handle and O’Connor spun the dial to clear the tumblers. He pulled out his stethoscope and placed the diaphragm on the edge of the gradations before slowly turning the dial to the right. O’Connor smiled as the cam and lever mechanism engaged with a click. Even the last number was standard: twenty-five. There were ninety gradations on the dial, and O’Connor was convinced the old mechanism only had three tumblers. He advanced the dial back and forth, over each gradation, until the soft nikt in his earpiece told him he had the first number: seventy-six. He grinned to himself as he picked up the second nikt on fifty-six, followed by the final number on forty-one. O’Connor cleared the tumblers and then dialled in the code in the old standard four-three-two-one revolution sequence. He turned the rusted wheel and the vault door swung open on heavy, greased hinges.

O’Connor felt for the light switch and moved into the vault. There were surprisingly few documents inside, although O’Connor knew there was a separate area of the basement above the vault that had been set aside for the mass of documents relating to the Vatican’s relationship with Hitler and the Nazis. Yet another area catered for the highly sensitive documents on the paedophilia scandal the Vatican had ignored for decades. Only the most sensitive documents of all would be stored in this vault, and it wasn’t long before he came across a small cream vellum file embossed with the title ‘The Third Secret of Fátima’. Intrigued, he opened it. Inside was a copy of the four-page public version of the Third Secret released by Pope John Paul II in June 2000, but attached to the binding in a clear plastic sleeve was a small, single sheet of paper, written in Portuguese. O’Connor set it aside. He knew many still believed the Vatican had hidden the real secret, and the hand-written version might well be that secret.

A few minutes later, he was convinced there was no crystal skull in the vault, but he could see that someone had been working on a file embossed with a coat of arms bearing the words Foedus Sanctus and marked Top Secret. O’Connor sat down at the table and opened the file. The Vatican might have changed the name of its intelligence organisation to the Entity, but the coat of arms still bore the Latin for its predecessor, the Holy Alliance.

‘Paydirt,’ O’Connor muttered, as he went through the papers. The file contained a photocopy of numbers headed simply:

The Cipher

299 4 164 177 3 228 45 287 36 224 84 200 83 232 50 145 194 219 101 10 125 127 9 166 216 113 241 38 158 1 3 61 306 187 199 272 217 206 6 183 152 67 145 200 106 306 253 310 231 218 12 108 156 23 126 111 78 219 279 281 260 145 287 166 106 304 7 6 225 66 270 246 204 223 126 218 171 108 140 273 170 281 50 272 243 145 307 270 6 27 250 295 314 107 146 48 207 189 108 304 53 204 180 126 158 210 78 279 68 3 9 105 124 108 6 253 172 280 125 256 78 71 206 225 7 6 70 206 279 225 126 218 9 108 125 212 182 101 291 106 147 219 61 218 152 190 38 24 150 243 189 145 217 55 125 35 234 152 71 158 38 156 6 123 101 219 96 187 125 69 217 117 169 223 270 250 3 225 252 158 68 240 182 104 38 158 196 6 107 124 218 125 79 112 232 114 78 241 55 111 247 170 227 137 145 162 38 192 253 33 96 206 125 69 293 52 287 78 69 147 70 125 78 168 17 152 33 239 52 219 140 3 254 158 309 207 242 75

The file also contained a photocopy of an ancient document, the edges of the page cracked and torn:

Advertencia – a warning

When the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken.

Twelve thousand years ago, the last remnants of the ancient civilisations of Atlantis and Lemuria were destroyed. Their scientists had ignored the warnings from the Masters against experiments that upset the planet’s delicate balance. The Masters assembled the most precious of their sacred documents for safekeeping.

The Atlantean Golden Sun Disc, along with the most important documents, was secured in the Temple of the Sun in the Inca capital, Cusco. But when the Spaniards came, the Sun Disc and the documents were removed and taken to the Lost City of Paititi.

The file contained what appeared to be diarised notes initialled by a Msgr dL, and it was these private notes that were explosive. Having dealt once before with Vatican Intelligence, O’Connor knew immediately that none other than the head of intelligence, Monsignor Lorenzo de Luca, had worked on the file, and the monsignor’s notes went back several years. De Luca must have been very sure no one else had access to the combination for the vault, O’Connor mused. O’Connor perused a series of early dot points:

- Cardinal F. not happy with lack of progress – although had to explain difference between code and cipher.

- Cipher subjected to most powerful cracking software available, but no result (except gibberish!)

- Not convinced we have the whole story here. Cardinal F. refuses to allow sighting of crystal skull. Thorough search of secret archives not found – located at his villa Lake Como?

- Not convinced we have the whole prophecy either.

- Cardinal F. adamant that sec of state not be informed of investigation – have to watch – could cause difficulties. Resources to come from Cardinal F’s budget.

O’Connor smiled to himself. Lake Como was delightful at this time of year. He headed quietly back upstairs to where he had seen a photocopier on the ground floor. He turned the corner around a line of bookshelves to be confronted by two waiting Swiss Guards.

Chapter 38

The tall, distinguished-looking Professor Lapinski adjusted his round tortoiseshell glasses.

‘As you’ve requested, Mr President, this morning I’m going to cover the key issues we face if we’re attacked with nuclear weapons. What makes the Iranian pursuit of nuclear arms so dangerous is that neither the clerics nor the politicians in Iran have absolute control. The Pasdaran, the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, was originally set up by Ayatollah Khomeini to guard the revolution.’ Lapinski flashed up a photograph of the elite special forces, identified by their ceremonial red cravats.

‘But since then they’ve become far more powerful. They’re involved in training organisations like Hezbollah for operations against Israel from across the southern border of Lebanon. In addition, the Guards have links with the black market and over a hundred engineering and construction companies with an estimated capital in excess of ten billion dollars. One analyst has described them as the Communist Party, the KGB, and the Mafia all rolled into one. Why is this important?’

Howard Wiley fumed in his seat, intensely irritated that an academic was straying way outside his brief and on to the CIA’s turf.

‘The armed forces of Iran number around half a million, Mr President, but the Guards are a separate force of about 120 000 with their own navy, air force and ground forces, including the Quds or Jerusalem Force. And it’s the Guards who control Iran’s nuclear installations.’ Lapinski opened up a metal suitcase, not much larger than an ordinary briefcase. Inside was a gleaming silver cylinder, less than half a metre long, together with a battery, neutron generators and an arming switch.

‘This suitcase bomb is inert,’ Lapinski continued, ‘although I must say, Mr President, your Secret Service took some convincing.’ He smiled wryly. ‘It’s a good replica of what the best nuclear scientists are now capable of producing in terms of portable nuclear weapons. A cylinder like this would contain either plutonium-239 or uranium-235. The bad news, Mr President, is that plutonium has a half-life of 24 000 years, and weight for weight, produces a far more powerful bomb than uranium. A normal light-water reactor, such as the one the Russians are completing for the Iranians at Bushehr, does produce plutonium-239, but in order to extract it before it becomes contaminated, the reactor has to be shut down. That’s why, I suspect, the Iranians have built a heavy-water reactor at Arak. They don’t need it to produce electricity, but the advantage of using heavy water is that the spent fuel can be reprocessed using relatively straightforward chemistry to produce weapons-grade plutonium without the reactor being shut down.’

‘Is there any good news?’ President McGovern asked.

‘If there is any, it’s that plutonium bombs aren’t easy to design. They have a nasty habit of pre-detonating, and for a long time our own scientists working on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War thought a plutonium bomb would be impossible to produce. To split a plutonium atom in what we call fission,’ Lapinski explained, ‘we have to hit it with a neutron.’ The President appeared to follow Lapinski’s explanations with ease. ‘And to create a nuclear explosion using either uranium-235 or plutonium-239, you need what we call a critical mass – enough of either material to ensure there’s sufficient for a neutron to hit and for the reaction to keep going. That might sound a bit strange, but most of an atom is made up of an electron cloud, and a neutron passes straight through. It’s the tiny nucleus we have to hit.’ Some of the President’s staff were looking puzzled, and the professor turned to an analogy. ‘It’s a bit like firing at a tree with a rifle. If you’re not a good shot, you’ll probably miss, but if there’s a whole forest of trees, even someone like me is going to hit a tree eventually.’

President McGovern smiled. He was beginning to like this no-nonsense scientist, and he made a mental note to bring him on to his staff as an advisor.

‘Once we have a critical mass, fission will occur, so our bomb designs generally either bring two halves of sub-critical masses together, or we compress the material until it’s so dense that fission is inevitable. As well as producing enormous energy,’ Lapinski continued, ‘a plutonium atom releases more neutrons as it’s blown apart, which starts a chain reaction, which, in a millionth of a second, produces a nuclear blast, accompanied by radiation and temperatures that are initially in the millions of degrees. Temperatures like that will vaporise anything in the immediate vicinity.’

‘And that’s the good news?’ the President asked.

Lapinski smiled wanly. ‘Plutonium-239 from a reactor, Mr President, is contaminated with plutonium-240.’

‘Which has one extra neutron, right?’ President McGovern offered, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

‘Absolutely. And it’s the extra neutron that makes plutonium-240 highly radioactive. It splits spontaneously, producing extra neutrons that can cause a plutonium bomb to pre-detonate before you can compress the rest of the plutonium into a critical mass. When the North Koreans conducted their first nuclear test in 2006 with a plutonium bomb, it yielded less than 1000 tonnes of TNT, compared to the 20 000-tonne yield of the Nagasaki bomb. We suspect the North Korean bomb blew itself apart before the chain reaction could be completed.’

‘Can the Iranians do better?’ the President asked.

‘My guess is they can, Mr President.’

‘We don’t deal in guesswork over here, Professor,’ Wiley interjected, but the President held up his hand and silenced the DDO.

‘Let me rephrase that, Mr President,’ Professor Lapinski replied urbanely. ‘It would be a mistake to underestimate the capabilities of the Iranian scientists. They’ve not only had a great deal of assistance from the AQ Khan Research Laboratories in Pakistan, but they’ve also had help from the Russians and the Chinese. And when you have your own heavy-water reactor, getting plutonium is easy. The hard part is compressing it into a critical mass in a uniform implosion. Our scientists solved that with what they called an explosive lens, which focused the force of the explosion over the entire surface of the plutonium. The Iranians are well aware of that technology, and they’ll be working hard to perfect it. The real danger, Mr President, lies in such a small bomb or bombs falling into the hands of a terrorist organisation – either by accident or design.’

‘We have no intelligence to indicate Iran has these devices, Mr President,’ Wiley interjected. ‘Nor do we have any intelligence to indicate the Iranians would deliberately arm a terrorist group with a nuclear bomb.’ Again the President held up his hand for silence.

‘We may not have any intelligence yet, Mr President, but by the time we do, it may be too late,’ Professor Lapinski observed. ‘Border security is not my field, but I think terrorists have realised that while airports in the US are relatively secure, the actual borders, including the vast coastline, the docks and the borders with Canada and Mexico, offer an opportunity to smuggle one or more of these devices into the country. And while it may seem reasonable to think Iran would not deliberately arm a terrorist group, I think it’s important you be prepared for such an eventuality. There are undoubtedly some in the regime who would be quite happy for a terrorist group to attack the US without the blame being traced back to the Iranian Republic, particularly if such an attack were on the scale of another 9/11, or worse …’ Professor Lapinski’s voice trailed off, leaving the awful spectre of a nuclear attack hanging in the already tense atmosphere of the situation room.

‘What sort of damage would a suitcase bomb do to a major city like New York or Washington?’ the President asked.

‘It depends, of course, on the yield of the bomb. The world’s first plutonium bomb, which we exploded over Nagasaki, yielded the equivalent of 20 000 tonnes of TNT, but we know that only one kilogram of the plutonium fissioned. Even so, it generated temperatures of 4000 degrees Celsius on the ground and winds of over 1000 kilometres an hour. Over 80 000 people were killed.’

An eerie silence descended as Professor Lapinski paused to allow the horrific figures to take effect.

‘Assuming that today’s improved technology produces just 50 per cent fissioning in a suitcase bomb containing 15 kilograms of plutonium, this would generate around 150 000 tonnes of TNT.’ The professor had anticipated the question, and he flicked a map of New York City on to the screen.

‘Let’s assume a terrorist is successful in detonating a bomb over Lower Manhattan, on Broadway, not far from Ground Zero. The inner circle indicates the area that would be totally destroyed by the blast,’ he said, pointing to a circle which took in the immediate financial district. ‘The outer circle extends all the way to Central Park, at which point windows will still be shattered. About half those in the inner circle will be killed by the blast. Most in a radius of about three kilometres will suffer second-degree burns, and beyond that a slower and more insidious suffering will be inflicted on those who receive lethal doses of gamma radiation, which will depend, at least in part, on the prevailing winds.’

Again, Professor Lapinski paused to allow those in the room to digest his remarks.

‘Finally, Mr President, there is the possibility of what we call a dirty bomb, which consists of normal explosive combined with radioactive material, both of which are relatively easy to obtain. In 1995, Chechen rebels buried a bomb containing caesium-137 in Moscow’s Izmailovsky Park, and although it didn’t explode, the psychological panic that surrounded the crisis was devastating to national morale and security. A dirty bomb in Washington, Chicago or New York might require you to evacuate a large area, although there might not be many killed.’

‘So we don’t have so much to worry about from a dirty bomb?’ the President asked.

‘I don’t want to play this down too much, Mr President. Caesium-137, along with strontium-90, is one of the most carcinogenic substances known. Caesium-137 and strontium-90 have half-lives of thirty years. They cause bone cancer, and it takes a lot of effort to clean up a contaminated area. But I suspect, Mr President, your biggest problem in a city like New York would be controlling the hysteria generated by the threat.’

‘One final question, Professor. You mentioned the vulnerability of our coastline and ports. What did you base those remarks on?’

Howard Wiley bristled. ‘Coast and port security comes under the auspices of Homeland Security, Mr President. Both the coast guard and customs and border protection —’

‘I’m aware of that, Mr Wiley,’ the President said frostily, cutting him off.

‘My observations are based on open-source reporting, Mr President,’ said Lapinski, ‘and on information I gather from international conferences. There are over twelve million shipping containers on the world inventory, and it’s no secret there are more than 300 ports in the US alone, with thousands of terminals into which we import six million containers a year. It may not be my field, but it’s quite widely known that only two per cent of those containers are ever inspected by customs, so the potential for terrorists to use the port system to bring in a device is, in my opinion, quite high.’

‘I seem to recall some intelligence on the Russians having nuclear suitcases back in the nineties?’ the President observed.

Wiley again interjected. ‘In 1997, Mr President, the former Russian security council secretary, Alexander Lebed, met with one of our congressional delegations. He claimed the KGB had ordered the development of suitcase bombs, and when the Soviet Union collapsed, eighty-two bombs went missing. We have found absolutely no evidence those bombs exist, and in fact,’ Wiley added, glowering at the Professor, ‘at the time Lebed made this claim, a spokesman for the Russian security service denied the USSR ever possessed that type of weapon.’

Lapinski’s response was once again calm and deliberate. ‘I’m inclined to err on the side of caution here, Mr President, and invoke the words of a previous secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who held the view that “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”. Nuclear suitcase bombs are technically difficult to manufacture, but I reiterate that it would be a mistake to think such technology is beyond the Iranians. As to the existence of such bombs, I’m sure the CIA is aware that after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there were over 300 seizures of stolen radioactive material in Europe alone. The material is out there, Mr President, and our borders are not impenetrable.’

Chapter 39

‘The library is closed, Father. What are you doing here?’ the older guard demanded. ‘And where are you taking those papers? It is forbidden to remove anything from the archives!’

O’Connor smiled deprecatingly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, putting the file down on the photocopier and taking a step towards the older guard. ‘I fell asleep,’ he added, still smiling as he slammed his knee into the guard’s groin.

The guard screamed and doubled over in pain.

O’Connor slammed his elbow into the man’s skull, just above his ear, and the guard fell to the floor unconscious. O’Connor ducked as the second guard swung his halberd axe. The blade swished past his head and embedded itself in one of the priceless vellum binders. In the moment the guard tried to free it, O’Connor pivoted on the ball of his left foot and raised his right leg parallel to the floor. With his body weight generating impetus, O’Connor continued to pivot, striking a rear roundhouse kick to the guard’s left kidney. The young guard grunted in pain and fell forwards. O’Connor hit him with a right palm heel to the face and smashed him with a left elbow to the side of the head. The young guard’s eyes rolled, and he folded slowly on top of his older colleague.

Knowing it wouldn’t be long before the guards were missed, O’Connor worked quickly, using binding ribbon to tie the guards’ hands behind their backs. He dragged the semi-conscious men to the conservation laboratory, bound their mouths with tape from a nearby drawer and secured them to the sturdy legs of one of the heavy lab tables. O’Connor quickly returned to the photocopier and copied the cipher and the notes and the Third Secret of Fátima.

Ten minutes later, the files were back in the vault and he’d hidden the halberd behind some shelving. O’Connor cautiously opened one of the secret archives’ bronze doors and crossed the car park. A few minutes later, O’Connor nodded to the Swiss Guard on duty at the Porta di Sant’Anna and disappeared down Borgo Pio.

‘Avanti!’ said Felici, impatient at being interrupted.

‘The commandant of the Swiss Guard is here, Eminence.’

‘Show him in,’ Felici said. When the commandant had entered the room, Felici waited for him to speak, not offering the man a seat.

‘At 4.10 p.m. today, a Father McLoughlin presented an authority for research in the secret archives, Eminence. The document he sought was quite innocuous, but he left it in the reading room without signing out.’

‘Did anyone see him leave?’ Felici asked curtly.

‘No, Eminence, although the guard ceased duty when the doors were locked at five p.m. The duty officer noticed the discrepancy and reported it to Bishop Romano. One of the archivists did a search, but Father McLoughlin was nowhere to be seen. A few minutes ago, two of our guards were assaulted in the archives by someone fitting Father McLoughlin’s description. I’ve brought the security footage, Eminence.’ The commandant placed a laptop on the cardinal’s desk and inserted the CD.

Felici felt the blood drain from his face as he recognised O’Connor. He buzzed immediately for his private secretary.

‘Tell Monsignor de Luca to come and see me – at once.’ He turned back to the commandant. ‘You may leave the footage with me, and I want this information tightly held. If anyone asks, it’s been dealt with.’

‘Of course, Eminence,’ the commandant replied, taking his leave.

Felici drummed his fingers on his desk impatiently. There was only one reason for O’Connor to be in the secret archives disguised as a priest.

‘Monsignor de Luca is here, Eminence.’ Father Cordona showed in the head of intelligence and quietly left.

Felici briefed de Luca and issued his directions. ‘I want an immediate search of the vault. You are to report to me if anything has been tampered with.’

De Luca paled, knowing that if the cardinal ever saw his notes, he’d be finished.

Wiley read Felici’s encrypted email and immediately forwarded a sanitised version to the chief of station in Rome. Three minutes later he was headed for the Task Force Inca operations room, where Megan Becker and Larry Davis were waiting.

The CIA’s top man in Rome, Mike Shelby, had seen DDOs come and go, some good, some suited to other roles, but never in his nearly forty years with the Agency had he worked for a bigger asshole than Howard Wiley. He read the latest cable requiring his presence on the secure, encrypted video link and sighed. Shelby, like many others under Wiley’s command, both liked and respected O’Connor, and was dismayed by the vendetta against him. The former West Point quarterback made his way down to the CIA’s communications section in the Palazzo Margherita. The embassy, a stylish three-storey pink and grey palace on Via Vittorio Veneto, had once been home to Julius Caesar, and to the first queen of Italy, Queen Margherita. Shelby thanked the duty comms officer and settled in for another grilling as Wiley, looking as angry as his spiky red hair, appeared on the screen.

‘We have a situation,’ Wiley announced. ‘A short time ago, Tutankhamun was identified at the Vatican, disguised as a priest. We don’t have a definitive lead on Nefertiti, but it’s a fair bet she’ll be with him. It’s possible they’re headed for Villa Felici on Lake Como, owned by Cardinal Felici.’

‘Do we know why he might be interested in the cardinal’s villa?’

‘That’s not important,’ Wiley snapped. ‘What is important is that you have the approaches and the area around the villa covered. And that includes the lake. I want twenty-four-hour surveillance.’

‘It might help if we knew what Tutankhamun was after,’ Shelby persisted calmly.

‘And it might not,’ Wiley growled, annoyed that he didn’t know the answer. Felici had not disclosed any intelligence as to what his villa might contain. ‘What assets do you have?’

‘Sufficient for the task. This is Italy, sir, a country not known for its shortage of assassins,’ Shelby said. Megan Becker supressed a smile.

‘I assume you don’t want any contact with the guards at the villa?’ Shelby continued.

‘And have the whole operation leak to the media? Of course not. Get on with it!’

Chapter 40

‘We’re moving. Tonight,’ O’Connor announced to Aleta as he strode in the door of their room at the Hotel Sant’Anna.

‘They’re on to us already?’

‘If they’re not, they soon will be,’ he said. He gave Aleta a short version of the afternoon’s events. ‘I’ve fixed the bill and rented a car, and we’ll leave as soon as you can assemble that toiletry bag of yours.’

Aleta rolled her eyes. ‘Just watch me. I’m travelling light,’ she protested.

‘Glad to hear it!’

‘Do you mind telling me where we’re headed, or is that another state secret?’

‘Como. The villa we’re going to is at the southern edge of the lake, about 500 kilometres away. With a bit of luck, we’ll be there for breakfast.’

‘You don’t want to get some sleep and drive when you’re fresh?’

O’Connor shook his head. ‘I couldn’t do anything about the security cameras in the archives, and when they discover Bib and Bub tied up in the lab in their blue and yellow pyjama suits, Felici’s bound to recognise me. Felici’s got a direct line to Wiley, so on past form, we’ll need to get out of here – and into the villa – as soon as we can.’

Aleta shuddered. Wiley’s previous assassination attempts were indelibly seared on her memory.

O’Connor drove sedately out of Rome and took the A1 to Bologna, and on to Milan, skirting the northern city and turning north on the A9 to the lake. Apart from the toll stops on the Autostrada, they made good progress. The immensely powerful Audi S5 V8 he’d rented was capable of over 250 kilometres an hour, but O’Connor kept it down to 120, and they rolled into the lakeside town of Como just as the sun was rising over the Alps. O’Connor had chosen the Hotel Metropolitan Suisse, an unobtrusive but comfortable hotel within a few hundred metres of the Como Nord Lago train station.

‘Don’t tell me … you have to go out for a while,’ said Aleta, once they’d breakfasted on the terrace.

‘You’re learning quickly, but —’

‘I know. Don’t answer the door for anyone. Fat lot of good that did me in Lima. They broke the thing down.’

‘Well, hopefully, as we speak, they’re still looking for us in Rome.’

O’Connor took the SS340, a narrow, twisting road that ran parallel to the lake shore on the east and the Swiss border to the west. He passed through the village of Laglio, where George Clooney had his villa, and north through Torriggia and Brienno, but when he reached Ossuccio, he parked the car in a side street and took the narrow track that led on towards a distinctive tree-covered promontory, on the point of which stood Villa Felici.

O’Connor left the track and, using the trees for cover, he approached slowly, stopping every 50 metres to listen. He worked his way to the top of a small rise and took up a position in the trees. O’Connor focused his binoculars, and the security at the villa was immediately apparent. Apart from the heavily guarded entrance, the villa was swarming with guards. Some were patrolling the shoreline and others were positioned on the roof of the library and the main residence, covering the road and the lake. O’Connor smiled grimly. Whatever Felici was hiding in the villa obviously merited fierce protection. Keeping to the tree line, O’Connor retreated down the path. As he drove back along the narrow road towards Como and to one of the local dive shops, he thanked the powers of the cosmos that Aleta was a qualified diver.

‘Security’s tight,’ he said, when he got back to the hotel, ‘and there’s no doubt Felici’s expecting us.’

‘He’s here? I thought with the Pope’s funeral …’

‘You’re right, he’s got his hands full in Rome, but there’s an army of thugs patrolling the grounds. I suspect that whatever he’s hiding will be worth finding.’ O’Connor fired up his laptop and Google Earth. He’d already researched the plans of the ancient villa, which a prominent firm of architects had thoughtfully posted on the net after they’d undertaken some alterations, but now he was searching for weak points in the guards’ defences.

‘We don’t want a long swim, so the best approach will be out of the town of Lenno. The lake is deep and cold, and at night it’ll be darker than the inside of a cow’s ass. Lights are out of the question, so we’ll have to rope together.’

Aleta shook her head determinedly, but she was smiling. She still hadn’t quite adjusted to O’Connor’s colourful language.

‘We’ll leave our car in Argegno to pick up later and get a bus to Lenno, which is closer to the villa. We’ll get some bags for the scuba gear so it doesn’t attract too much attention. There’s a grove of trees near Via Comoedia in Lenno where we can change. From there, there’s a little access track to the lake. Once we’re in the lake, we’ll follow the northern shoreline of the Felici promontory until we come to the opening of the marina, here.’ O’Connor indicated the sea wall that protected the entrance. ‘From the look of it, there’s some sort of boatshed. That might provide the best way in.’

O’Connor and Aleta went through their gear checks together: regulators, cylinders, depth gauges, tank-pressure gauges, wrist-dive computers, buoyancy compensation devices, safety reels, weights and knives.

‘Let’s go.’ O’Connor led the way down the narrow access track from Via Comoedia past some expensive waterfront properties and over a rock wall. They moved quietly to the edge of the lake where they put on their fins, checked they were securely roped together, pressed the deflation buttons on their buoyancy compensation devices and descended into the depths of the lake, Aleta swimming confidently behind O’Connor.

Visibility was poor, but O’Connor had calculated a series of compass bearings that would keep them on course. Thirty minutes later he stopped and waited for Aleta to swim up to him before making an ‘O’ out of his thumb and forefinger, the universal dive sign for ‘I’m okay/are you okay?’ Aleta returned the ‘O’ and he motioned her to wait while he rose to check where they were.

O’Connor surfaced quietly, his Navy Seal training ensuring there was hardly a ripple. The lights of the villa were blazing, extending silver fingers out on to the black surface of the lake. Every so often a searchlight probed the darkness, but as O’Connor had anticipated, the operator was combing the surface of the lake much further out. The entrance to the marina was about 100 metres away and O’Connor took a bearing with his wrist compass before sinking back into the depths.

They reached the stone wall of the marina and O’Connor cautiously led the way along it, sticking to the bottom. He swam past the steps and into the boathouse. Surprisingly, it was in total darkness. O’Connor glided under a speedboat rocking gently at its moorings and when he reached the far stone wall, he and Aleta climbed out on to a stone ledge, where they divested themselves of their scuba gear. O’Connor checked his Glock, its silencer already attached.

‘We’ll start with the library,’ he whispered. On the way out of the boathouse O’Connor stopped to examine a narrow two-metre-high niche in the rear wall. A solid wooden door was set inside it. He tried it, but it was locked.

‘I wonder …’ he said softly.

‘Where this leads to?’

‘Exactly. I don’t think it’s a cupboard.’ O’Connor reached into his waterproof bag and extracted a set of mortice-lock keys. At the third attempt, the old two-lever lock yielded and O’Connor cautiously opened the door.

‘Felici might have an army of guards,’ he whispered, ‘but his locks are no better than the Vatican’s secret archives. We’ll hide the tanks, just in case anyone gets the urge to check the boathouse.’ But no sooner had he spoken than the lights went on and a security guard appeared on the top of the steps that led down to the water.

‘Hey!’ he yelled, raising his Socimi 821 submachine gun.

O’Connor’s Glock recoiled in his expert hands and the sphut, sphut of the silenced rounds sounded unusually loud in the confined space. The guard’s yell was replaced by an anguished gurgle as he dropped his gun, clutched his chest and tumbled forward into the water between the speedboat and the steps with a loud splosh. He tried to clamber out, but O’Connor was there in an instant and he whipped the guard around, pinning his arms and holding him beneath the surface. The guard’s struggles finally ceased and O’Connor recovered his belt and a pouch containing four magazines of bullets. He wedged the body underneath one of the rubber fender tyres and was about to turn out the light when he noticed the ignition keys had been left in the boat. Very careless, he thought, as he put them in a zippered pocket of his wetsuit.

‘We’ll have to move fast,’ O’Connor whispered. ‘That probably raised the alarm. Did they ever show you how to use one of these in that pistol club of yours?’

‘I’ve fired an Uzi,’ Aleta replied.

‘Not much difference,’ O’Connor said, handing her the Italian version. He led the way to the back of the boathouse, through the solid wooden door and up the stone steps of a narrow passage. When they reached a wide stone ledge, O’Connor switched on the torch he’d fitted with a red filter. It gave just enough light but wasn’t visible unless someone was directly in the beam. The alcove in front of them led to more steps, while another alcove signalled the entrance to a passage carved out of the rock. O’Connor reasoned the steps in front of them would lead to the library above, but the entrance in the rock intrigued him and he beckoned for Aleta to follow him into a dank, moss-covered tunnel nearly 50 metres long.

‘Well, well,’ O’Connor exclaimed softly as they reached the heavy steel door of a vault at the end of the tunnel.

‘If this is what they’re guarding, it’s strange they haven’t posted someone here,’ Aleta whispered as she held the filter torch on the first of the combination locks.

‘The guards may not even know this exists,’ O’Connor replied. ‘Felici operates on a need-to-know basis.’

As yet unaware of O’Connor’s presence at the villa, the cardinal was engaged on a high-risk strategy of his own. Attired in an Armani suit and seated in the back of his black Mercedes, Felici acknowledged the salute of the Swiss Guard as the driver slipped out of the Vatican’s St Anne’s Gate for the short trip across town to a quiet bar with private booths. Felici’s arrangement with Luigi Campioni, a senior journalist writing for La Stampa and the Vatican Insider, was a long-standing one. Contact was always initiated by Felici and set up by Sister Bridget from a public pay phone. If there were any investigation into a leak, it would never be traced to Felici, or any of his staff. But the arrangement worked for both sides. Courtesy of Felici, Campioni had broken some amazingly accurate stories. This afternoon would be no different.

‘It’s very good to see you again, Eminence. A white or a red?’ Campioni queried, picking up the wine list. Campioni’s tab at the restaurant was mammoth, but given the explosive nature of the scoops, his editors didn’t complain.

‘I think a red. It’s going to be a difficult few days.’

‘Tahbilk,’ Campioni intoned after the waiter had left. ‘An Australian shiraz. The vines date back to the 1860s.’

Felici took a long sniff of the bouquet and swirled it around his tastebuds before passing judgement. ‘Excellent,’ Felici said finally. ‘Very fine tannins.’

‘Those Australians are giving the French a run for their money these days,’ Campioni replied, the relieved expression on his face quickly replaced with a professional look of interest. ‘I’ve been following the lead-up to the conclave with great interest, Eminence. You should not be surprised to find yourself as one of the favourites.’

‘He who goes in as a pope, comes out as a cardinal,’ Felici replied, reminding his inquisitor of the old Roman saying, proven correct on more than one occasion.

‘Yes, although not always,’ Campioni countered, ‘and of course, we all hope you’re successful. Even if that means I will lose a most trusted advisor.’

‘There are ways and means, even as pope,’ Felici replied, ‘but of course, Cardinal Sabatani is also a clear frontrunner.’

‘What would his election mean for the Holy Church, Eminence?’

‘In a word, disaster. If Sabatani is elected, I very much fear for the Church’s future. Many in his camp are seeking to water down Catholic doctrine with a sort of new-age theology they think will appeal to the masses: allowing contraception and remarriage for divorcees, and, worse still, allowing priests to revoke their vows of celibacy. Everything’s up for grabs at a time when we need to go back to our roots. Before you know it, we’ll be using crystals and chanting the mass in creole.’ Felici reached into his soft leather briefcase. ‘You may find these useful,’ he said, handing over copies of Sabatani’s discussion papers.

O’Connor held his finger to his lips for silence as he adjusted his stethoscope and listened for the first of the sounds that would indicate one of the tumblers in the lock falling into place. Another old lock – O’Connor shook his head at Felici’s carelessness. Despite the old design, it took O’Connor nearly ten minutes to crack it, rocking the gradations back and forth before he had both combinations, and with every passing minute, Aleta feared they would be discovered. At last, the old steel door moved noiselessly on its hinges and O’Connor probed the inside of the vault with the torch.

‘Look!’ Aleta gasped, grabbing O’Connor’s wetsuit. ‘A crystal skull!’ The life-size skull was nestling in a niche hewn out of the rock in the far wall of the vault. The filtered red beam from the torch seemed to explode within it, like a series of interconnecting neurons.

‘So the message you received about one of the skulls being in the hands of your enemies was right,’ O’Connor observed, fascinated by the kaleidoscope of red, blue and yellow impulses crackling deep within the crystal. But the extra light from the skull showed the outline of the small safe in another niche and O’Connor immediately moved towards it.

‘They’re not exactly high-tech with their security,’ said Aleta, shining the filtered beam on the single dial of the old safe.

‘Hopefully Felici’s loss is our gain, depending on what’s in this safe,’ O’Connor said quietly, placing the diaphragm of his stethoscope on the dial. Less than five minutes later, the safe gave up two thin crimson folders in a protective cover, each embossed with a raised gold coat of arms.

‘Copies of the documents in the secret archives?’ Aleta guessed.

‘The originals … and the documents in the secret archives weren’t complete.’ O’Connor glanced quickly inside the folders. ‘The cipher is the same, but the prophecy in this file has two pages, not one. I’m not sure why these are important enough for Felici to engage a small army to protect them, but it’s going to be fun finding out,’ he said, handing Aleta the files and closing the safe.

‘It would be fun lying on a beach in the Caribbean, too!’

‘At the end of this, we’ll go diving in the Bahamas, I promise.’

‘I’m keeping a tally of these promises of yours, and I’ll hold you to that one too. Although with my luck, we’ll be searching for those ruins of Atlantis off the island of Bimini.’

‘Excellent idea! One skull recovered, two to go.’ O’Connor grinned as he carefully lifted the crystal skull from its niche and placed it in the felt-lined box that sat on the floor of the vault. But no sooner had he secured the skull than a dull, wailing noise reached the depths of the vault.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Aleta’s pulse started to race.

‘It’s nothing to do with the skull. My guess is they’ve found the body in the boatshed, which might make things a tad awkward. Are you sure you’re comfortable with that thing?’ O’Connor asked, looking at the Socimi Aleta had slung over her wetsuit.

‘You stick to your Glock,’ Aleta responded, more confidently than she felt.

O’Connor led the way back down to the boatshed, his rubber booties silent on the stone steps. But when they reached the heavy wooden door, a shaft of light came from underneath it.

‘Get down,’ O’Connor hissed, reaching up for the old cast-iron handle. He eased the door open and was immediately met with a burst of machine-gun fire from two guards at the top of the far steps. O’Connor squeezed off two rounds instinctively, and both guards tumbled into the water. The noise had been enough to wake the dead, but all those hours on the CIA pistol ranges had been worth it, he thought grimly, as he grabbed the rope handle on the crystal skull box.

‘We’ll take the boat, it’s quicker!’ he yelled to Aleta. Pistol in one hand and the skull box in the other, O’Connor doubled along the ledge, flicked the motorboat’s mooring hawser off the wooden bollard and lowered the skull box on to the rear seat of the craft. By the time he had the key in the ignition, Aleta was alongside him. Another burst of machine-gun fire crackled over their heads as the boat’s massive twin V8 Cadillac engines burst into life.

Aleta fired two bursts in quick succession and two more guards tumbled into the dark but bloodied waters. O’Connor scraped the boat against the stone wall, putting a long gash in the polished mahogany as they roared out of the marina.

‘Hang on!’ he yelled as more bullets crackled overhead. ‘And hold fire. We’ll use the darkness.’ Orange flashes of light were giving a clear indication of their attackers’ positions along the villa’s stone balustrades. The operator of the searchlight was frantically trying to get a fix on the speedboat and O’Connor spun the helm back and forth, zigzagging like a Second World War destroyer avoiding torpedoes. Suddenly, another burst of fire crackled past the port side, but this time it was coming from the lake. Another speedboat was powering towards them from the opposite shore. Beyond the range of the gunfire from the villa, O’Connor spun the helm briskly. The superbly engineered boat turned on a dime and roared away from their attackers towards the marina at Sala Comacina, to the south of Ossuccio. But the other speedboat was powerful too, and well piloted. The boats were evenly matched as they roared across the lake at 35 knots, but Felici’s machine planed the better of the two and the bouncing ride was putting astray the aim of those behind. On the shore, sirens could be heard: the reports of gunfire had reached the local police.

‘Fire when I turn!’ O’Connor yelled as the marina came in sight. He veered closer to the shore and his pursuers came with him. O’Connor spun the helm and the boat turned in its own length, gathering speed as it raced towards the attacking boat. Aleta’s short, sharp bursts of fire found their mark, ripping chunks of mahogany from the hull of the other boat, shattering the windscreen and taking out the helmsman. Aleta gunned down the other assassin as the boat roared past, out of control, slamming across three luxury cruisers in a massive explosion of flames and smoke.

O’Connor continued to the east, seeking the darkness across the other side of the lake, and he cut the power to a slow, less audible cruise, before turning back to the west. Argegno was relatively quiet; all the action was further north. Every available police car had descended on the villa and the Sala Comacina marina, which was blazing fiercely. O’Connor grinned to himself as he steered towards a small beach to the north of the Argegno marina. Felici would be furious. Wiley would be apoplectic.

The boat crunched on the pebbles and O’Connor and Aleta leapt out. O’Connor’s meticulous planning had not gone to waste. Their Audi was only a short distance away, and twenty minutes later, they were headed south on the twisting, turning SS340.

‘Are you okay?’ O’Connor asked. When they reached the A9, he turned right instead of left, waiting for Aleta’s answer.

Aleta struggled with her emotions. Firing weapons at a pistol club had been one thing, but using them in anger was quite another. Yet, she reasoned, Felici’s guards were trained assassins, and it was them or her, and she forced herself to relax. ‘You’re going west?’ she asked, dodging the question.

O’Connor nodded. ‘I’m not sure if Felici will want to get involved, particularly when he’s tied up with the Pope’s funeral and the conclave, but he’ll try to get our description to the Italian police. The Swiss border’s less than five kilometres away, and if we can make it across, that might buy us a little time. I’m figuring we’ll be able to get out through Kloten, in Zurich, with our new passports from the Israelis. They’re in the false bottom of my bag.’

‘This will make the third change of identity since I’ve known you! Will the real Aleta Weizman please stand up,’ she said, as she released the slim file from the hidden compartment in O’Connor’s luggage. ‘What’s it to be this time, sir? Musician or banker?’

‘We’re going into Switzerland, so banker sounds fine. Yours is the personal secretary.’

‘Don’t push your luck,’ said Aleta, as the lights of the border crossing at Como Nord loomed in the distance.

The light-hearted banter helped to relieve the tension, but she could feel her pulse racing again as O’Connor rolled to a stop in one of the crossing lanes.

Chapter 41

Aleta need not have worried. No official descriptions had yet been circulated, and since Switzerland was part of the Schengen zone, the attractive Swiss border guard was relaxed about entry. O’Connor smiled at her as he handed over forty Swiss francs for the ‘vignette’, the sticker that proved the Swiss motorway tax had been paid.

‘Reisen Sie sicher … safe travel,’ she said, returning O’Connor’s smile.

‘Reisen Sie sicher,’ Aleta mimicked, when they were out of ear-shot.

‘Would you prefer she go through our bags?’ O’Connor responded, raising an eyebrow.

‘I think she would have been more than happy to inspect your bags, your aftershave, your underwear … including what’s in them,’ Aleta retorted with a smile on her face. ‘Which reminds me, how long do we keep this celibate thing going?’

O’Connor put his hand on Aleta’s knee. ‘I’ll have to organise things out of Zürich, and we can take a few hours off by the lake. We can’t take too long though. The South American zenith’s just ten days away.’

‘Not so urgent that we can’t catch our breath,’ Aleta insisted. ‘I need to inspect your underwear,’ she said, letting her hand drift over O’Connor’s taut thigh.

Suddenly O’Connor’s demeanour changed, his eyes riveted to the rear-vision mirror. There was a red Ducati 1198 behind them, with a muscular, thickset rider. The traffic was light, but as O’Connor slowed behind a truck, the Ducati slowed as well. O’Connor pulled out and passed, and a short while later, the bike pulled out as well.

‘Don’t turn around, but we’ve got company,’ O’Connor said, watching the bike in the mirror.

‘These guys don’t give up, do they? Wiley?’

‘Hard to say. Probably one of his, although Felici’s reasons for getting us out of the way are just as pressing. This guy’s on a Ducati racing bike, and it’s a big one. It’s as fast as this baby is, and we’re not going to outrun him.’

The bike followed 200 metres behind for kilometre after kilometre at a steady 130 kilometres an hour while O’Connor pondered his options. Either side of the motorway, the Swiss Alps soared towards the clouds, granite peaks covered in snow.

O’Connor glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Two trucks had entered the motorway and the bike was caught behind them, one overtaking the other. ‘Hang on!’ O’Connor said sharply. He hit the brakes hard and veered to the right. The two trucks and the bike roared past, with a bank-up of cars behind. O’Connor floored the Audi off the access road, and roared into the mountains towards the Passo San Gottardo, the St Gotthard Pass. The road corkscrewed up the mountain and the tyres squealed as O’Connor pushed the Audi to its limits.

‘Trained at Le Mans, did we?’ Aleta braced herself against the dash as O’Connor dropped down two gears in a racing change.

‘Baltimore. President’s Secret Service detail,’ he said with a grin, but it faded as he caught sight of the Ducati, the rider crouched over and almost touching the bitumen as he raced up the tortuous alpine road.

‘He’s back, and looking unfriendly,’ O’Connor observed, calmly sliding the Audi into the next corner. Aleta ducked instinctively as Wiley’s asset held the bike upright long enough to let go a burst from his Uzi.

‘Have a shot at him next time he’s on your side,’ O’Connor said between gritted teeth.

Aleta slammed a magazine into the Socimi, wound down the window and waited until the road twisted to the right. She let go three short bursts out the window and the bike wobbled, but the rider regained control and leaned into the corners, gaining with every one until he was only metres behind on the approach to the Teufelsbrücke, the famous stone bridge over the Schöllenen Gorge.

‘Hang on!’ O’Connor yelled as they roared on to the bridge. He hit the brakes hard, at the same time opening his door. The bike slammed into the open door, taking it off its hinges as the rider cart-wheeled over the side of the bridge. His helmet was no match for the sharp granite boulders and the sheer 60-metre drop to the river below. O’Connor slowly stepped out of the Audi and wheeled the bike to the guard rail. He heaved it over, watching it smash onto the rocks and slowly sink into the water.

‘They’re quite expensive, those Ducatis,’ he said, picking up the fallen Uzi and heaving the Audi door on to the back seat before climbing in behind the wheel. ‘But at least we’re adding to our weapons collection.’

‘The sooner we recover the other two skulls the better,’ said Aleta, shaken.

O’Connor nodded. ‘It won’t be long before the police find the bike and the body, so we’ll need to get out of Zurich as soon as I can arrange it … but Peru is nice at this time of year.’

O’Connor would have preferred to charter a flight into a minor airport in Peru, but time was running against them, and he had to accept the risk of flying into Jorge Chávez. He and Aleta used another alias to book two seats for the 10 000-kilometre flight from Zurich to Lima via Amsterdam. It would take them the best part of twenty hours.

‘What a pity,’ O’Connor whispered, as the KLM hostess showed them into the business-class cabin. ‘No first class on this leg, otherwise we could join the mile-high club. But it looks like it’s separate beds.’

Aleta grinned at him. ‘You’re probably already a member.’

He raised an eyebrow suggestively as he stowed the box containing the priceless crystal skull, along with his briefcase, in the overhead locker.

Three hours into the flight, Aleta and O’Connor had finally started to relax. The cabin lights were dimmed and O’Connor slid his hand along the inside of Aleta’s thigh. She leaned forward and kissed him before gently removing his hand.

‘That’s not fair,’ she whispered huskily, brushing the inside of his thigh in return. ‘We’ll get arrested!’

‘Cusco, you have a date,’ O’Connor promised, returning his attention to the documents they’d taken from Felici’s vault. O’Connor had devoted every spare moment to solving it, but without success. Suddenly he had a thought. He delved into his briefcase for Brother Gonzáles’ rare copy of the Beale papers. An hour later he tapped Aleta on the shoulder, looking disgustingly pleased with himself.

‘I’ve cracked the cipher!’ he whispered. ‘The key was in the Beale papers. The code was right under Felici’s nose.’

‘You’ll have to explain,’ said Aleta, bringing her seat upright.

‘Only one of the Beale ciphers was ever cracked, the one that gave the details of how much gold was hidden in Bedford County. But that’s not the point. It’s the way the cipher was cracked that holds the key. I’m sure that’s why Brother Gonzáles gave us the book.’ O’Connor spread the complete Inca prophecy they’d captured from the vault in Lake Como, together with the cipher, on Aleta’s tray table.

‘The second cipher of the Beale papers was cracked by linking the code with the words of the Declaration of Independence. If you number every word of the declaration like this …’ O’Connor began to pencil the beginning of the declaration, and to number every word:

When(1) in(2) the(3) course(4) of(5) human(6) events(7) it(8) becomes(9) necessary(10) …

‘And so on until you’ve numbered all 1322 words. The numbers in the second Beale cipher represented the first letter of whatever word in the declaration corresponded. So these numbers 115, 73, 24, 818, 37…’ he said, pointing to the start of the cipher in the rare book Brother Gonzáles had given them, ‘can be translated like this: the 115th word in the declaration is instituted. Seventy-three corresponds to hold, twenty-four to another, 818 to valuable, and thirty-seven to equal and so on, revealing Beale’s message: I have deposited in the county of Bedford … ten hundred and fourteen pounds of gold. Now,’ said O’Connor, ‘look at this. I’ve numbered every word in the Inca prophecy and come up with a translation. Although it still doesn’t make a great deal of sense,’ he whispered. He gave the paper to Aleta:

To the east lies Apu Veronica, to the west Apu San Miguel. To the south lies Apu Salkantay, to the north Apu Huayna Picchu. Look to the dissection of Intiwatana, as the Condor flies 8560 metres to the ancient capital. Through gold and obsidian it will be revealed.

‘Yes, it does!’ Aleta exclaimed, struggling to keep her voice down. ‘That has to be the sacred Intiwatana Stone at Machu Picchu!’

Chapter 42

‘How much time do we have before the zenith?’ Aleta asked. They had made it through the airport and booked into another nondescript hotel in a small cobbled street in Miraflores. If Aleta felt nervous being back in Miraflores, she wasn’t showing it.

‘It’s getting tight. Why?’

‘I’ve just had an email from my old archaeology professor, Professor Cardoza. He’s working here in Lima at the San Marcos University. Look at this.’ Aleta swung her iPad around so O’Connor could see an image of a gold bar. ‘He’s been asked to provide an analysis of an ingot the local authorities think has its origin somewhere near Lake Titicaca. But looking at the faint markings – I don’t think it’s Inca.’

‘If you’re thinking what I’m thinking, I think we should see him, but can he be trusted?’

‘Absolutely.’

The University of San Marcos was one of the oldest in the world, tracing its origins back to 1551. The archaeology laboratory, with its samples of Inca pottery, quipu cords and Spanish armour, seemed to have been there from the start.

‘The police are being cagey about the origins of this ingot, although I have my own contacts, and they all point to a police raid on the black market in Puno,’ Professor Cardoza explained after Aleta had introduced him to O’Connor, ‘and I’m curious about the markings. Whoever sold this has tried to chisel them off, without complete success.’ Cardoza brought up some pictures on his desktop that had been taken with the aid of a microscope.

‘Von Heißen. Unmistakable,’ O’Connor and Aleta agreed together.

‘When he was commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp, Karl von Heißen kept a smelter going in the basement underneath his office,’ Aleta explained, ‘where he melted down the gold stolen from the Jewish dead and made his own private stock of ingots. He was there until the death knock, when Hitler suicided. American troops from the 11th Armoured Division had crossed the Danube and the 41st Cavalry had reached the outskirts of Mauthausen itself. We know 100 kilograms of gold was secreted out of the camp under Vatican diplomatic immunity, along with von Heißen, who was disguised as a priest, and the gold disappeared. We found four ingots in a cave at the bottom of Lake Atitlán when we were searching for the Maya Codex, but the rest of it had vanished … until now.’

‘When the existence of this ingot becomes public, there will be a lot of journalists pushing the Lost City of Paititi line. You know how the tabloids love a good mystery – but you’re saying this is Nazi gold,’ said Cardoza.

‘Not official Nazi gold. The gold von Heißen collected should have gone into the Nazi coffers, but it never made it that far. Nazi ingots were produced by the German banks, and they were embossed with an eagle on top of a Nazi swastika surrounded by a wreath,’ O’Connor explained. ‘But there are a number of reasons this ingot was almost certainly not part of the official trading system. You can see the faint lines of the swastika and the image of the eagle, and the embossing’s a pretty good match, but there are no other markings. The Nazi ingots were not only embossed with the eagle and the swastika, they were stamped Deutsche Reichsbank. They also had serial numbers. Finally, I’d say this ingot weighs around ten kilograms, whereas the majority of Nazi ingots were much smaller – reduced to a more manageable one kilogram.’

‘Is there any chance we can compare this ingot with those you found at Lake Atitlán?’ Cardoza asked.

‘Only if it becomes absolutely necessary,’ said O’Connor. ‘We’re not on top of Washington’s Christmas card list at the moment. The less said about our being here the better. But you said you had your own contacts?’

‘My turn to ask for confidentiality. There is a Franciscan friar here in Lima, one Brother Gonzáles, who has contact with an old shaman in Puno. Gonzáles and I have been friends for years, and he tells me the shaman in Puno thinks the ingot originated from somewhere near Lake Titicaca. I can give you the friar’s details if you like.’

Aleta and O’Connor exchanged glances as the professor wrote down Gonzáles’ name and number.

‘Good luck with convincing the media that the Lost City of Paititi hasn’t been discovered yet,’ O’Connor said as they shook hands and took their leave.

As they left the campus, Aleta said, ‘Talk about six degrees of separation. Brother Gonzáles moves in interesting circles. That ingot has von Heißen stamped all over it … and if it was recovered in Puno, that’s one hell of lead. I know we should be at Machu Picchu, but have we got time to go to Puno?’ Aleta’s eyes were misty. The injustice of the murder of her grandparents and millions of others once was again at the forefront of her mind.

‘Only just. But I agree. If this is a von Heißen ingot, we can’t risk him getting away a second time. We owe it to your grandparents to bring this bastard to justice, and we still don’t have the critical diary. There’s enough in the ones we recovered from Lake Atitlan to ensure von Heißen hangs, but they don’t specifically connect him with the Vatican and Felici’s father. I suspect he kept that one as insurance. Next stop, Brother Gonzáles, and then we’ll head for Puno, via the Israeli embassy. If von Heißen’s there, we’re going to need some help.’

From a distance, Monsignor Jennings watched O’Connor and Aleta disappear into the Convento de San Francisco’s ancient library with interest. Jennings had wondered if the pair might return, and he’d secreted a digital surveillance transmitter underneath one of the library’s carved wooden chairs. It was a long shot, but one that had paid off. Jennings retreated to the tiny office he’d been allocated, retrieved the surveillance receiver from his safe and switched on the system.

‘You’ve done much better than I expected,’ Brother Gonzáles observed, once O’Connor had brought him up to speed on the Lake Como operation. ‘Your success may be confirmation that your mission to recover the crystal skulls has come from the cosmos itself.’

‘Well, I wish the cosmos would do something about the opposing forces,’ Aleta replied ruefully.

‘The best results are often achieved under adversity,’ Gonzáles responded, ‘and you still have a long way to go. Although I suspect there’s more to your visit to Lima than a chance to update me?’

‘You’re right,’ O’Connor said. ‘We plan to head to Machu Picchu, but there might be a short diversion in store. We’ve just come from Professor Cardoza’s office at the university.’

‘Ah, yes. The gold ingot from Lake Titicaca.’

‘He said you had a contact … a shaman in Puno?’

Gonzáles nodded. ‘Diego Chávez. The last time I saw him, he told me about the rumours of gold from Lake Titicaca.’

‘The Lost City of Paititi?’

Gonzáles shook his head. ‘The gateway to Paititi lies north of here, beginning with the Inca at Machu Picchu,’ he replied. ‘But as I’m sure you know, the ingot Professor Cardoza is examining is not Inca. More than once, Chávez has mentioned a retired priest who lives on one of the floating reed villages. In return for the villagers’ patronage, the priest has quietly supported the community financially. The rumours of gold are just rumours, nothing more, but Diego has always wondered where the old priest gets his money.’

‘How old is this priest?’ O’Connor asked.

‘Diego thinks he’s in his nineties. The priest doesn’t come into town very often, but he’s still quite spritely, apparently.’

Aleta looked at O’Connor. ‘Von Heißen.’

‘Every possibility,’ O’Connor agreed.

When O’Connor and Aleta returned to their hotel, the CNN coverage of the papal conclave was beaming live out of Rome.

The camera panned across what seemed like a sea of red. As they had since 1492, the cardinals filed into Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, each wearing a scarlet cassock, white lace vestments and a scarlet zucchetto, and as the last two disappeared from view, the image faded back to the news anchor, Walter Crowley.

‘And we cross now to Rome, and one of that city’s most experienced Vatican watchers and journalist for the Vatican Insider, Luigi Campioni. Your article this morning has caused quite a stir, Luigi. For those of us not familiar with the process of electing a new pope, what will happen inside the Sistine Chapel now?’

‘Well, as we’ve just seen, 121 of the 203 cardinals – those under eighty and eligible to vote – have retired to the Sistine Chapel, where they will stay until they elect one of their number as the 266th pontiff. Once inside, there is absolutely no communication with the outside world.’

‘So how does the Vatican police that?’

‘Since 1978, when Pope John Paul I died after only thirty-three days in office —’

‘In circumstances that still haven’t been adequately explained,’ Crowley interjected.

Campioni nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, the Vatican refused to carry out an autopsy and would not disclose who had discovered the body. There were a number of leaks from the 1978 conclaves, and since then, the rules on secrecy have been tightened considerably. The Sistine Chapel in its entirety will be swept for bugging devices each day.’

‘And the cardinals will actually live there until they reach a decision?’

‘Not quite. They used to, sleeping in cells adjacent to the chapel, but in 1996 the Vatican built a new residence on the edge of Vatican City. The cardinals will be bused to and from the chapel for the twice-daily voting sessions. It’s an improvement on the previous sleeping quarters, but it’s not a five-star hotel,’ Campioni added with a smile.

‘In your article, Luigi, you indicated that the Church is heading for a lot of controversy, and there’s been speculation as to what sort of a leader they will need to restore confidence … Given your inside knowledge, is there any one candidate who stands out?’

‘There are a number of likely candidates,’ Campioni intoned diplomatically, ‘but if it comes down to an Italian, then it will likely be a choice between Cardinal Felici, the Camerlengo and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Sabatani, the Secretary of State.’

‘And is this likely to be a lengthy process?’

Campioni looked to the heavens and shrugged. ‘It can be. The conclave in 1268 went for nearly three years, even after they rationed the cardinals’ food supplies. It was only when angry locals began to tear the roof off the meeting room that they elected Gregory X. The election of Pius XII in 1939, however, lasted less than a day.’

‘Luigi Campioni, thank you very much for joining us tonight.’

Across the Atlantic, Wiley’s mood had not improved. Rodriguez was still alive, threatening to bring him undone, although he took some satisfaction from the fact that she was still in a coma. And he was relieved that the Italian authorities were no closer to solving the mysterious speedboat chase on Lake Como, which had destroyed the marina at Sala Comacina, along with a dozen luxury cruisers. He scanned his encrypted emails and opened the one marked immediate from his counterpart in the Entity. Felici might be tied up in a conclave, but as Camerlengo, he was still managing to keep tabs on Tutankhamun, it seemed. Wiley read the latest intelligence report from Rome:

O’Connor and Weizman headed for Puno. Expect on return that pair may travel to Machu Picchu.

Wiley headed down to the ops room. ‘Get me Lima on the video link, now,’ he ordered Davis.

Megan Becker observed Wiley with interest. The longer O’Connor evaded capture, the more obsessive the DDO became. There was a desperation about his hunt for O’Connor that fascinated her. A few years back, she’d met O’Connor at a conference in Moscow, where they’d connected in more ways than one. They’d wangled a few days off afterwards for a blissful break in a secluded dacha in the mountains overlooking stunning Lake Baikal in Russia. He was a good man, and an even better agent. As ‘Jarhead’ appeared on screen, Becker silently willed O’Connor on.

‘Tutankhamun and Nefertiti are headed for Puno. I want an asset down there immediately,’ barked Wiley.

Cameron Reyes nodded numbly. ‘Yessir.’

The Lima chief of station looked exhausted, and Megan sympathised with him. As the failures mounted, sleep had been in short supply even in Washington.

‘If you can’t take them out in Puno, I want someone in Machu Picchu, and this time I don’t want any fucking mistakes!’

‘Yessir.’

Wiley strode from the room, leaving Becker wondering about the source of his intelligence.

Chapter 43

‘Whatever the world might think of Israeli politicians,’ O’Connor said, after they had booked into an unremarkable hotel in Puno, the harbour town nestled on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca, ‘Shaked and his Mossad people will be here within the hour. At grassroots level, they’re outstanding.’

‘Not so outstanding when they steal innocent Israelis’ passports and identities so they can assassinate someone in a Dubai hotel,’ Aleta shot back.

‘That island doesn’t accept any outsiders,’ the old boatman protested. It was early in the morning, and the city of Puno was just waking up. A light mist floated over Lake Titicaca. At 4200 metres above sea level, it was the highest navigable lake in the world and the largest in South America. The mists drifted amongst the forty natural islands between Puno and the eastern shores of Bolivia, but after discussions with Shaman Diego, it was only one of the man-made islands that O’Connor and Mossad were interested in.

Eli Shaked waved a large wad of nuevo sol in front of the old boatman. ‘I’m sure we can convince you otherwise,’ he said.

The boatman smiled, revealing gaps where four of his front teeth should have been, but he shook his head. ‘I can take you to one of the main islands, señor, but not that one,’ he said. ‘That island is off-limits.’

Shaked looked around. The pier was quiet. Most of the boat people were still asleep. Shaked reached inside his jacket and withdrew his pistol.

‘We go now,’ Shaked said quietly.

‘But my deckhand … he …’

‘We’ll handle the ropes. Now!’ Shaked emphasised, cocking his weapon.

‘Si, señor. Si, si. We go.’ The old boatman’s brown face paled visibly as he watched Shaked’s men file on board, followed by O’Connor and Aleta, both carrying bags of scuba gear.

The sniper had found a hotel away from the centre of Puno, on a peninsula overlooking the lake and the harbour. He stood on his private balcony, scanning the old wooden ferry through his binoculars, and shook his head in frustration. It might have been possible to take out one of the targets, but not both, and the company they were in made him wary. The men looked like military. He’d been paid over 80 000 nuevo sol, but that wouldn’t be much use to him if he didn’t live to collect. He settled down to wait for a better opportunity.

The old boatman may have been scared, but he could have done it blindfolded. For decades he’d been ferrying tourists around the sacred waters, and he set course for the narrow channel through the reed beds and the open lake beyond.

‘They’re up early,’ O’Connor remarked, returning the waves of the locals.

‘They have to be,’ Aleta explained. ‘Have you been here before?’

O’Connor shook his head.

‘The islands are all manmade, constructed out of totora reeds, but they only last for about three months. The reeds on the bottom rot away and have to be replaced with new ones on top. These days the locals can’t afford to take a day off to do it, because they’d miss out on the tourist trade, so they work before the tourists arrive.’

‘And there’s three or four metres between the bottom of the islands and the bottom of the lake?’

‘Sometimes a little more. The islands are tethered to heavy poles driven into the lake bed.’

‘So there’s more than enough space to hide something underneath an island,’ O’Connor mused.

‘Yes … but when this is all over, we’ll come back here as well … for a holiday, and no guns,’ Aleta said, dropping her voice.

‘I’d feel very naked.’

‘If I’ve got anything to do with it, you will be.’ O’Connor didn’t respond, just touched her arm softly, his eyes locking onto hers.

The islands were a further five kilometres past the channel and as they passed, the locals waved, expecting the ferry to land their cargo of tourists. The women wore bright dresses and blouses of primary colours, and broad-brimmed felt hats. The houses, like the islands, were woven out of totora reeds, and smoke from the stone-enclosed cooking fires drifted across the lake.

They powered on towards the furthest island, which had been constructed a little away from the main group. As they approached, two men appeared at the edge of the reeds and angrily waved them away, shouting in the local dialect.

‘Not very happy to see us,’ O’Connor said, fingering his Glock.

The boatman brought his ferry alongside the totora amid a torrent of abuse, but the Mossad team ignored the locals’ protests. They fanned out and began to search the huts, angering the locals even further.

Suddenly, a figure emerged from one of the reed huts and stumbled towards a small dinghy moored at the side of the island. He was carrying a rifle, and paused to fire four quick shots in the direction of the ferry, one of them shattering the windscreen. The Israelis, the ferryman, O’Connor and Aleta dived for the reed ground.

‘We want him alive,’ Shaked cautioned his men as they began to leopard crawl towards the man, who had made it into the dinghy.

‘I’m losing count of the number of fire fights I’ve been in since I met you,’ Aleta said to O’Connor, as another volley of shots crackled overhead.

‘Ah yes, but it’s worth it. Stay down,’ O’Connor urged Aleta, and he ran towards the hut closest to the lake. The tinny had set off and was now gaining speed. O’Connor steadied his aim and fired once, and the rifle flew out of the man’s hand and the boat’s speed faltered. O’Connor dropped his Glock and took a running dive from the nearby reed jetty, surfacing in the water of the lake in time to grab the gunwale as the tinny drew level. The old man inside reached for an oar but O’Connor pulled on the flimsy craft, tumbling the black-cassocked figure into the lake. In an instant, he had the gasping man in a vice-like grip.

‘Struggle and I’ll kill you, Standartenführer,’ O’Connor hissed in von Heißen’s ear.

‘Any time you want a job, you’ve got one,’ Shaked said to O’Connor as a shaken, trembling and bitter von Heißen was led away by Shaked’s men.

‘Doesn’t pay enough.’ O’Connor grinned as he walked over to Aleta. ‘You okay?’ he said, putting his arm around her shoulders.

‘I will be,’ she said, wiping away tears. ‘It’s a shock to finally see him in the flesh.’

‘Are you up to a dive? I can grab one of Shaked’s boys if you like.’

‘No, I want to do it. I owe it to my grandparents.’

Chapter 44

‘Extra Omnes,’ Felici ordered. The ancient Latin phrase was the order for all advisors, private secretaries and medical staff to vacate the Sistine Chapel. From this point on, the election would be run by the cardinals themselves. Six long, draped tables had been placed on each side of the chapel underneath Michelangelo’s creation fresco, each table seating ten cardinals. More desks had been placed near the altar for three scrutineers and three revisers; the latter’s task was to double-check the work of the scrutineers. The chapel’s inlaid marble floor had been protected by carpet and Felici had ensured that radio and cell phone jamming devices had been installed in the space underneath.

Cardinal Sabatani took his seat on the left of the chapel and looked around. Cardinal Felix Schäfer, Bishop of Munich and Freising, nodded from across the room. Schäfer was young, but precisely what the Church needed, and Sabatani had been working quietly in the background to gain the necessary numbers for him. Schäfer, for his part, had been working equally hard to garner support for Sabatani. Sabatani glanced at Felici. There would, he knew, be stiff opposition from the conservative camp.

‘It is distressing to have to raise this at the beginning of a conclave, Eminences,’ Felici intoned after he’d introduced the opening prayer, ‘but before we convened in lockdown, many of us were confronted with confidential Vatican discussion papers in this morning’s media, so I would remind you all of our oath of secrecy and the grave duty we have before us. We must proceed with the clear intention of doing what is right for the good of the Universal Church … solum Deum prae oculis habentes … having only God before our eyes.’

Sabatani’s gaze was inscrutable, but there was little doubt in his mind as to who had leaked his discussion papers. The damage was done. The ruthlessly ambitious Felici would stop at nothing.

‘I would also remind you to disguise your handwriting when filling out the ballot papers in front of you.’

Sabatani wrote Cardinal Schäfer’s name on the small, rectangular ballot paper marked Eligo in Summum Pontificem – I elect as supreme pontiff.

One by one, in order of seniority, the cardinals approached the altar, each holding his ballot above his head so that everyone could see it. Sabatani placed his ballot on the gold disc covering a large silver and gold urn embossed with the keys of St Peter and quietly recited the oath: ‘I call to witness Christ the Lord who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one before God I consider should be elected.’ He up-ended the paten and dropped his ballot into the urn under the watchful gazes of the three scrutineers.

The scrutineers mixed the ballots and then counted them to ensure there were 121. Satisfied, they extracted the ballots one by one. The first two scrutineers noted the names and the third scrutineer announced them to the college:

‘Cardinal Ferdinando Sabatani …’

‘Cardinal Salvatore Felici …’

‘Cardinal Felix Schäfer …’

‘Cardinal Felix Schäfer …’

Felici mentally tallied the results and wondered which bloc was supporting Schäfer. He considered Schäfer’s candidacy to be just as dangerous as Sabatani’s, as they were both in the same liberal mould. Schäfer was also very young. John Paul II had been only fifty-eight when he was elected in 1978, and he had led the Church for over twenty-six years. Schäfer was even younger. Some of his colleagues might need reminding that long papacies were not without risk.

Chapter 45

Save for some drifting weeds and silt, visibility was surprisingly good under the water. O’Connor swam slowly underneath the island towards the area below von Heißen’s hut, the bubbles from his and Aleta’s regulators mingling with the rotting totora reeds on the bottom of the floating island. O’Connor probed the area with his torch beam. He was about to tie off a length of nylon cord for a more detailed search when he saw it: the corner of what looked like a metal box protruding above the mud. He grabbed Aleta’s wrist and pointed with the torch beam, and they swam towards it. The metal trunk was half-buried in the silt, and O’Connor carefully scraped away the mud while Aleta focused her torch on the rusted hasps. O’Connor reached for his knife, prised the hasps apart and raised the lid, causing a flurry of silt and rotten totora reeds. Several heavy calico bags and a waterproof package were lying in the trunk. O’Connor opened one of the bags and two gold ingots glinted in the torch beam. He turned to Aleta. Even through the bubbles rising around her mask, he could see the excitement in her eyes. But the waterproof package intrigued them even more. Aleta spelled out DIARY in the silt and O’Connor nodded in agreement.

The sniper adjusted the focus on his binoculars and watched the ferry return to Puno harbour. Whatever the mission had been amongst the islands of reeds, it hadn’t taken very long, but again, there was no clear shot at his target. He would have to be patient.

O’Connor looked around the Puno railway station, but sensed nothing unusual about the other passengers; he and Aleta boarded the train for Cusco, en route to Machu Picchu. The zenith of the sun was just eight days away.

‘Do you ever slum it?’ Aleta asked, as she settled back into the comfort of a first-class seat on Peru Rail’s Andean Explorer for the ten-hour trip to the old Inca capital.

‘Not if I can avoid it … which used to give the boys and girls in accounts in Langley no end of grief. They caught me out once. I claimed some taxi fares to balance my allowances, but when they discovered I’d actually been on one of our aircraft carriers all hell broke loose.’

‘And what was your excuse? An honest oversight?’ Aleta raised one eyebrow.

‘I just sent a message to them asking them if they had any idea how big those carriers were. Prompted a rocket from my old DDO Tom McNamara, but he smoothed things over.’

Aleta shook her head and placed her hand on O’Connor’s knee underneath the table. ‘I meant what I said earlier. I’d like to come back here one day.’

‘We will.’ O’Connor squeezed her hand. ‘But there’s a little matter of two crystal skulls to uncover first,’ he said, reaching for his briefcase.

‘Not to mention the prophecy and the Lost City of Paititi. Do you think it really exists? Given how many expeditions have set out in search of it, you’d think someone would have found it by now.’

‘Not necessarily. The jungle can be impenetrable. Look how long it took to discover Machu Picchu. The Inca started building it in 1400, but Hiram Bingham didn’t uncover it until 1911. I suspect Paititi does exist, but it’ll be well hidden by the jungle.’

‘The question is, where?’ pondered Aleta.

‘Somewhere deep in the Amazonian basin, I suspect. There are still tribes out there who’ve never seen a white man. Perhaps if we uncover the second skull, which seems to be located somewhere in the area of Machu Picchu, there will be another clue.’

‘Felici would be beside himself if he knew we were getting close,’ Aleta mused.

‘That bastard’s been in cahoots with Wiley from the very beginning.’

‘You think he’s behind the leaks on Sabatani?’ They’d read about them in the newspapers.

‘Tom McNamara used to say that if you want to find out who’s behind a leak, find out who benefits. By discrediting Sabatani, Felici places himself in a strong position to be elected pope.’

‘Oh God, what a frightening thought. Although it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had a charlatan on the throne of Peter,’ Aleta said.

O’Connor grinned. ‘They don’t like you to know about their less than holy popes. I remember reading about the Ballet of the Chestnuts once … fifty of Rome’s most beautiful courtesans crawling naked between candelabra picking up chestnuts, guests mounting them from every direction, with the Pope’s servants keeping score of ejaculatory capacity so His Holiness could give out the prizes … Must have been quite a night.’

‘Yet my father would never hear a bad word said about the Church,’ said Aleta. ‘He absolutely adored John XXIII, and often told me the story of the night he arrived in Istanbul, without anyone in the world. Archbishop Roncalli, as John XXIII was known then, drove his old Fiat down to the docks at midnight to put my father on a ship to Guatemala. Von Heißen was waiting for them in the shadows, but Roncalli and the head of the Jewish Agency bribed the ship’s captain and he took my father and other children on board.’

‘Well it’s taken a while, but justice has finally been served to von Heißen,’ O’Connor said, opening the diary they’d recovered from the waterproof bag at the bottom of Lake Titicaca.

‘I’m amazed the Israelis let you keep the original of that.’

‘There’s honour amongst thieves, and they have a copy. Anyway, they’re more interested in prosecuting von Heißen for his role at Mauthausen rather than what went on in the Vatican. But this is the smoking gun we’ve been looking for, and when we fire it again, it will reverberate around the world. We’ve now got it in writing that Felici’s father, a gentleman of the pope, no less, laundered Nazi gold and spirited von Heißen out of Europe disguised as a priest.’ O’Connor turned to von Heißen’s spidery entry for 2 June 1945:

Alberto Felici demanded 50 per cent of the gold. Outrageous, but 11th Armoured Division are close and advancing rapidly. Reluctantly agreed as Vatican Bank will effectively cover any traces. Disguise as a simple priest very effective. American soldier guarding road from Mauthausen to Venice very apologetic after describing road as a ‘fucking mess’. American Mustang fighters screaming overhead. Road littered with burnt-out tanks and armoured vehicles of a once proud Third Reich. The military have betrayed the Fatherland! As part of my deal with Felici, I must part with the exquisite pectoral cross – solid gold, with a magnificent ruby in the centre surrounded by twelve large diamonds. Felici most impressed – expressed a wish that one day his son might wear it.

‘That cross was in my family for a very long time,’ Aleta murmured softly. ‘It was taken when the Nazis rifled through my grandfather’s apartment in Vienna. It originally came from an archaeological dig on the Mount of Olives. I think Grandpa Levi traced it back to Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade.’

‘Must be worth an absolute fortune, which would also appeal to Felici.’

‘It’s unique,’ Aleta agreed, ‘and only someone as arrogant as Felici would continue to wear it.’

‘If the cardinals knew about this, it would be enough to stymie Felici’s election, but it’s probably too late for that now. At the very least it will throw the spotlight back on the Vatican’s involvement with Hitler and the Nazis … there are a number of court cases against the Vatican Bank, and perhaps it’s time they opened up their books.’

‘You’re going to make the diary’s information public?’

O’Connor shook his head. ‘Like Mossad, the last thing you and I need now is publicity. When this is over, I’ll leak it to Campioni at the Vatican Insider, and regardless of who is elected, the cardinals will have to clean up the mess. When the contents of Felici’s vault on Lake Como and his relationship with Wiley become public, it’ll make the paedophile priest scandal look like a sideshow. Let’s go and sit in the observation car … I’ll shout you a pisco sour.’

In the observation car, the barman, attired in black waistcoat and bowtie, mixed Peru’s national drink: pisco, sugar, lemon, the white of an egg and angostura bitters. A band was playing beside the bar, and the soft panpipe sounds of ‘El Cóndor Pasa’ floated through the train.

The shores of Lake Titicaca gave way to the tufted grasses of the Andean highlands and the train reached Juliaca, where the tracks ran through the centre of town and a jumble of markets. Colourful tricycles, some with barbecues welded to the front with meats sizzling on the plates, added to the chaos of the streets. O’Connor was once again on alert, scrutinising the crowd to see whether anyone boarded the train. Children ran alongside the carriages as they moved slowly past the mud-brick buildings, just metres from the track, before the train began its climb to La Raya, a small village on the Altiplano dominated by towering snow-capped Andean peaks. The twin towers of a small church stood sentinel over the market – an oasis of colour in the desolate Altiplano, where everything from bolts of cloth to lollipops were on sale, and where native women, often with a baby sitting in a sling on their backs, came up to the windows of the train, asking for a few sol for stuffed toy llamas.

O’Connor walked casually through the carriages, hand on his Glock, making a careful check on the passengers. By the time he returned to his seat, the staff had served afternoon tea on crisp white linen and the train began to descend into the fertile valleys of the Urubamba Canyon, following the rocky beds of the Vilcanota and Huatanay rivers. Here the fields were dotted with workers and the rivers were lined with eucalypts and willow trees. Not long after, the train slowed as it approached the outskirts of Cusco. From there, it would be on to Machu Picchu.

To the north, the American embassy in Lima was a hive of activity. The New York Times had reported on the Wikileaks cables that accused the State Department of asking diplomats to spy on host nations. Over 1300 of the cables had come from Lima, and the CIA’s beleaguered chief of station, Cameron Reyes, was enduring another tirade from Wiley on the need for secrecy when deploying the sniper asset to Machu Picchu.

Chapter 46

The guard on the main entrance to the heavy-water reactor complex at Arak snapped to attention as Brigadier General Shakiba’s official car swept through. The general was expected.

‘The technical problems have been solved, General,’ Colonel Rostami informed his boss proudly as he escorted him into the lift that would take them to Arak’s underground laboratory, more than a hundred metres below the main reactor dome. They stepped into a tunnel at the bottom where the chief nuclear scientist, Dr Assad Khadem, was waiting. General Shakiba slipped into a white lab coat and overboots and followed Khadem and Rostami into the near-sterile laboratory.

‘The plutonium cylinders are loaded here,’ Khadem explained, indicating the array of computers where a technician was working at the remote controls of a robot, guiding the arm with pinpoint precision. The delicate task of loading the nuclear suitcase-bomb cylinders was being carried out in a sealed chamber with a thick glass viewing screen. Air had been evacuated from the chamber and the pressure was maintained at less than one atmosphere as a further precaution against any radioactive material escaping.

‘The cylinders each contain ten kilograms of plutonium,’ Khadem continued, ‘fashioned into a sphere. We’ve designed a tamper that will reflect any escaping neutrons back into the plutonium core, which has enabled us to reduce the size of the sphere in diameter.’

‘And the critical mass?’ Shakiba asked.

‘The tests on the implosion design have been successful, and we’re confident the plutonium sphere can be uniformly compressed into a critical mass. Once this is achieved, a fraction of a second later, fission will occur. Provided we get a uniform detonation, ten kilograms of plutonium will generate the equivalent of 200 000 tonnes of TNT.’

‘How confident are you of a uniform detonation?’ Shakiba asked.

‘That’s hard to predict, General,’ Khadem replied. ‘But even if we only achieve 50 per cent …’

Shakiba nodded, his eyes narrowing. Suitcase bombs yielding 100 000 tonnes of TNT, timed to go off in cities like New York, London and Sydney, would destroy most of Lower Manhattan, the key icons like Westminster, Buckingham Palace and St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in Sydney.

Major Golzar was waiting in the remote mountain location when General Shakiba’s car arrived at the training base set up as part of Operation Khumm. Fewer than fifty recruits had graduated from the Yawm al-Qiyamah Jihad elite suicide squad. The last group was scheduled to graduate in a week’s time and General Shakiba watched as Golzar put them through their paces on the obstacle course. Each carried a mock-up nuclear suitcase in a backpack.

‘Well done, Shahadi. Good effort!’ Golzar enthused as Ahmed Shahadi led his closest rival by a good twenty metres going over the two-metre wall. Judging his run, Shahadi leapt onto the rope hanging over the ‘bear pit’, a six-metre pit of water with snow and ice floating on the top. With perfect timing he released the rope, allowing his momentum to carry him to the other side. Without breaking stride, he dived forward and leopard-crawled under the razor wire to the finish of the gruelling kilometre-long course.

‘The Lebanese recruit Shahadi is by far the best student we’ve had on the entire course, General,’ Golzar confided when they retired to his office for coffee.

Shakiba nodded. ‘Hezbollah also gave him very high marks.’

‘He’s asked to be given the toughest assignment … says he owes it to his family. He keeps a photograph of them in his room.’

‘And he will get his wish.’ Shakiba had a very special assignment for the promising young suicide bomber. ‘Where are we at with the rest of the deployments?’

Golzar extracted a laser pointer from his top pocket and flicked on a large computer screen on the far wall. ‘Team Salahuddin is undercover in New York,’ he said. ‘Team Khalil is in position in London, Team Tamerlane in Paris, Team Mehmed in Sydney and Team Selim in Chicago. Six other teams are in the process of getting established,’ he said, indicating six more large Western cities. ‘All of them have been briefed to do nothing to draw attention to themselves. That includes attending the local mosque. For the duration of Operation Khumm, they’ve been given an exemption from Friday prayers,’ Golzar said.

‘Excellent. And the suitcases?’

‘They are being shipped as exports from a neutral third country, mainly in shipping containers of saffron, pistachios, dates and barberries. I received word yesterday that Salahuddin and Mehmed have successfully retrieved their consignments, and the others are close at hand. The infidel’s surveillance of his seaports is almost nonexistent,’ Golzar added, his eyes glinting.

‘You’ve done well, Golzar. And I have good news,’ General Shakiba said, extracting a set of insignia from his briefcase. ‘Congratulations. You are now a colonel in the Quds Force,’ he said, shaking Golzar’s hand.

The new colonel’s face cracked into a smile. ‘Thank you, General, I will wear them with pride,’ Golzar said, clicking his heels.

‘Now before I leave, I’d like a word with young Shahadi.’

Chapter 47

The scrutineers read out the results of another round of balloting. At the end of the count, the scrutineers tallied the results and the third scrutineer announced them to the college:

‘Cardinal Salvatore Felici, 37 votes …’

‘Cardinal Ferdinando Sabatani, 32 votes …’

‘Cardinal Felix Schäfer, 26 votes …’

The remaining votes were more or less evenly distributed amongst the other candidates, none of whom Felici rated highly. As the bus collected the cardinals for the short trip back to their accommodation, Felici was deep in thought. It had turned into a three-horse race, and he turned his mind to how he might approach those blocs he had not brought on board.

One of the scrutineers fed the traditional fumo nero candles into the antiquated stove and black smoke wisped from the makeshift chimney above the Sistine Chapel, indicating balloting was over for the day. A collective sigh of disappointment issued from the crowded Piazza San Pietro. There was no new pope just yet.

Over a simple buffet lunch provided by the nuns, Cardinal Schäfer was engaged in conversation with the leader of the African bloc. Cardinals were forbidden from permitting external influences to affect their vote, but they were only human; the notion that ‘the Holy Spirit decided the next pope’ was tenuous at best.

‘I’m flattered by the support I’ve been given, Victor, but I think it’s time to get behind the one candidate,’ Schäfer urged Cardinal Abasi, the Archbishop of Nairobi.

‘Sabatani? What about the media reports on the discussion papers? Contraception is one thing, but a greater role for women? What sort of a role does he have in mind, Felix?’

‘We shouldn’t take too much notice of articles that appear in the media, especially ones that appear just before a conclave. Cardinal Sabatani is one of the finest theologians I know. He’s not about to do anything rash, but unless we change the outlook in Rome, we’re going to be in trouble. Have you seen the latest figures for the seminaries?’

‘I know. Thankfully Africa is bucking the trend, but the figures out of places like the United States …’

‘Which is why we need someone like Sabatani, Victor, but we’re not going to get a two-thirds majority with two progressive factions – the liberal vote’s split down the middle. I’m only fifty-four, and if God wills it, there is plenty of time for my generation.’ Sabatani himself was nowhere to be seen. He was on his knees in prayer, alone in his sparsely furnished room.

Schäfer waited until Felici had finished speaking with two influential cardinals from the Asian bloc before strolling towards them.

The third scrutineer read out the results of the first ballot after lunch:

‘Cardinal Salvatore Felici, 58 votes …’

‘Cardinal Ferdinando Sabatani, 46 votes …’

‘Cardinal Felix Schäfer, 17 votes …’

Felici could see that his lobbying during the lunch break had some effect, but Sabatani was still very much in the race and Felici was still well short of the critical 81 votes needed for a two-thirds majority. He resolved to re-emphasise the dangers of a liberal papacy during the break between ballots.

The scrutineers threaded each vote on to a string and passed them over for burning in the stove. Another wisp of smoke drifted out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, and at first the crowd started to go wild. Someone had taken it to be white and shouted, ‘We have a pope!’ Some of the journalists amongst the huge contingent of media called it in straight away, only to retract it minutes later as the scrutineer in charge of the antiquated stove threw on more and more black candles in an effort to clarify the message.

Four hours later, the scrutineers rose to announce the result of the third ballot:

‘Cardinal Salvatore Felici, 82 votes …’

‘Cardinal Ferdinando Sabatani, 33 votes …’

‘Cardinal Felix Schäfer, 6 votes …’

Felici’s face jumped in a spasm of emotion but he quickly controlled himself. He had triumphed. The announcement was greeted with applause. In the end, wary of electing someone as progressive as Sabatani, and even warier of a long papacy, they’d gone with what seemed like the safest pair of hands. Felici remained inscrutable as the dean of the College of Cardinals approached.

‘Acceptasne electionem de te canonice factam in Summum Pontificem? Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?’

‘I do,’ Felici replied. His voice was strong and confident.

‘Quo nomine vis vocari? By what name shall you be called?’

‘Vocabor Petrus. I will be called Peter.’

A gasp echoed around the Sistine Chapel. Out of respect for the founding pope, St Peter, no pope had ever taken the name of the Apostle. But Felici was determined to meet the prophecy of Saint Malachy head on – the prophecy that predicted every pope until the end times, and that this papacy would be the last. The famous words read: In the last persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations: and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible judge will judge his people.

‘Are you sure, Holiness?’ the dean whispered.

Felici fixed the dean with a stony stare. ‘Petrus II,’ he said.

The dean nodded numbly and guided the newly elected Pope Peter II to the small red sacristy on the left of the chapel. The room was widely known as the sala delle lacrime, the room of tears, as more than one new Pope had been known to succumb to his emotions in the sacristy’s privacy. But Felici was not the emotional type. The tailors from Gammarelli, the prestigious outfitters, were waiting with his papal garments. Felici accepted the temporary Fisherman’s Ring from the dean before re-entering the chapel and assuming the throne that had been set up near the altar. One by one the cardinals approached Peter II, kissing his ring, and pledging obedience.

White smoke belched from the old chimney and the crowd in the Piazza San Pietro went wild, all eyes focused on the central balcony of the basilica. The senior cardinal deacon appeared on the balcony and the sound system carried his voice across the square:

‘I announce to you a great joy – Habemus Papam! We have a pope! Cardinal Felici of the Holy Roman Church, who takes the name Peter.’

Images of shocked faces in the crowd were beamed live to hundreds of millions around the world. Felici soon appeared on the balcony attired in the papal choir dress of an ivory silk cassock, gold-fringed white sash, a tunic of linen and lace topped by a red shoulder cape and a white zucchetto. An unusual gold pectoral cross was suspended from a chain around his neck.

Peter had arrived to claim his Church.

Chapter 48

‘Two train journeys in two days and this one is even more luxurious … I could get used to this,’ Aleta said, trying to relax as the Orient Express Hiram Bingham pulled out of Poroy, just to the north of Cusco. The zenith was less than a week away. She cast her eye around the carriage. Their table had been laid with gleaming crystal glasses and polished silver, and the carriage décor was true to the 1920s-style Pullman carriage: polished wood and brass.

‘Yes, although we’re getting into country that’s very different from the high Andes,’ O’Connor replied as the train headed into the rain-forests of the sacred Urubamba River, dominated by the snow-capped volcanic rock of the Andes.

The waiter approached carrying champagne and orange juice and a menu.

‘I suppose I’d better make the most of this,’ Aleta said, tossing up between corn tamales with tomato salsa, a herb and mushroom omelette and a roast of alpaca loin with an elderberry compote. O’Connor opted for the cannelloni of spinach, quinoa and chicken.

‘And for sweets, señora, señor?’ the waiter asked.

O’Connor shook his head and smiled as Aleta ordered the passion-fruit cheesecake.

Two hours later the train pulled into the station at Aguas Calientes, and O’Connor was on high alert. The little town was nestled on the banks of the Urubamba River at the base of Machu Picchu and surrounded by near vertical cliffs. A minibus was waiting to take them up through the hairpin bends of the roads to Machu Picchu, to the southeast. Once they’d reached the ruins, O’Connor and Aleta climbed the stone steps that led to the highest point in Machu Picchu, the Pyramid of the Sun and the granite slab at its peak, the Intiwatana Stone.

‘The last time I was here was years ago with a bunch of undergrads,’ Aleta said, ‘but it doesn’t matter how rarely I come, there’s something absolutely mystical about this place. A profound spiritual energy,’ she added, breathing the clear, cool air. Far below they could see the Urubamba tumbling towards the Amazonian basin. To the north, the peak of Huayna Picchu was shrouded in mists.

The Intiwatana Stone stood like an upturned keel of a yacht, the area around it deserted. O’Connor and Aleta took their bearings and together referred to the translation of the cipher:

To the east lies Apu Veronica, to the west Apu San Miguel. To the south lies Apu Salkantay, to the north Apu Huayna Picchu. Look to the dissection of Intiwatana, as the Condor flies 8560 metres to the ancient capital. Through gold and obsidian it will be revealed.

‘Machu Picchu is surrounded by sacred mountains. That’s the Veronica range over there,’ Aleta said, pointing towards a series of jagged peaks on the skyline to the east. ‘The highest point is Apu Veronica – over 5600 metres high.’

O’Connor took a compass bearing to the summit. Aleta turned towards the west. ‘There’s Apu San Miguel, and those snow-covered peaks way over there are part of the Pumasillo range. At the winter solstice, the sun sets behind the highest peak, Apu Pumasillo itself.’

‘So the location of the Intiwatana Stone is no coincidence.’

‘No, the ancients planned this precisely,’ Aleta said. ‘In the Quechua language Intiwatana means “hitching post of the sun”. Originally people thought it was just a sundial, but it’s much more complex than that, and the cipher bears that out. The Intiwatana Stone also enabled the Inca to pinpoint where the sun would rise at the winter and summer solstices, and at the equinoxes. You can’t see it from here, but Apu Salcantay, another sacred mountain, lies precisely due south of the stone. And the name Salcantay comes from the Quechua saliqa, which means wild, savage or invincible.’

‘Perhaps the Inca were trying to warn us,’ O’Connor said, only half joking. ‘I’m assuming “as the Condor flies” is the Inca version of a straight line. If we take the dissection in the direction of Cusco to the south-east, that would put our target in here.’ O’Connor pointed to an inaccessible area north-east of the Inca trail. He glanced at his watch. ‘Time to move,’ he said. He and Aleta shouldered their backpacks containing the Inca skull and their sleeping bags. ‘We’ll want to be well down the Inca trail by dark.’

Wiley’s asset kept well back, mingling with a small group of tourists moving more slowly up the steep, uneven stone track. There was, he knew, only one path ahead. If his targets moved on to the relative isolation of the Inca trail, he would at last have the opportunity he needed. He adjusted the straps on his rifle case, disguised as a guitar case, and waited while his group paused to rest before resuming the climb.

O’Connor and Aleta reached Intipunku, the Inca Gate of the Sun, and they turned to survey the ruins below, the white corkscrew track leading from Aguas Calientes clearly visible through the rain-forest.

‘Stunning isn’t it?’ Aleta stretched her arms as if to embrace the warm afternoon sun, occasionally shrouded by clouds drifting amongst the peaks.

‘Yes, although all may not be what it seems,’ O’Connor said, adjusting his high-powered binoculars and scanning the rocky path below. He focused on the guitar case, which looked out of place. Not that backpackers didn’t occasionally bring along a guitar, but their cases were invariably bashed and battered and covered in travel stickers. ‘Why would you be carrying a brand-new guitar case up to the Gate of the Sun?’ he wondered aloud.

‘You think it might not be a guitar?’ Aleta’s heart sank.

‘Every possibility. Let’s move; I want to see whether he follows us.’ They quickly descended the even steeper jungle path that led to the Urubamba River below. The trail took a sharp turn to the right and O’Connor moved off the track to find a hide, motioning Aleta to follow.

‘The path moves into open country after this, and if there is a sniper rifle in that guitar case, the last place we need to be is out there, silhouetted against the skyline,’ he whispered.

O’Connor didn’t have to wait long. From his position behind a cedar tree, he could see the dark-haired, thickset hiker treading quietly down the track. There was still a faint possibility that this was an innocent backpacker with a new guitar case, but there was only one way to find out. O’Connor knew that time was on his side – tourists usually arrived at the site around lunchtime, long past, and the trail was now, thankfully, deserted.

O’Connor put on a pair of leather gloves and screwed the silencer on to his Glock. He let the target pass and then stepped out onto the track. Wiley’s asset turned, made eye contact and in an instant produced a knife. O’Connor swayed to one side as the heavy hunting knife flashed past his face, missing him by centimetres. The assassin desperately tried to free his guitar case but while he struggled O’Connor fired once, aiming for his assailant’s heart. The man fell backwards, dead before he hit the ground. O’Connor moved forward and dragged the body off the track, into the depths of the jungle.

‘Heckler & Koch sniper rifle,’ O’Connor observed, opening up the guitar case as Aleta joined him.

The archaeologist shivered involuntarily.

‘Well, he’s clean,’ O’Connor said, after he’d finished going through the assassin’s pockets. ‘A professional, whoever he was.’ O’Connor wedged the body and the guitar case in a rock crevice and covered both with leaves. ‘With a bit of luck, we’ll be long gone by the time they find him – if the animals don’t get him first,’ he said, taking his gloves off and heading back to the trail, followed by Aleta.

They reached more open country as the trail ran parallel to the sacred Urubamba River and a kilometre or so further on, they came to a campsite beneath the Wiñay Wayna ruins.

‘This looks halfway civilised, so I’m betting we’re not stopping?’ hazarded Aleta.

‘Got it in one,’ O’Connor said with a grin. ‘But you can use the bathrooms.’

They pushed on, climbing steadily through open country until they reached the Phuyupatamarca ruins, a spectacular series of stone terraces built into the side of a mountain.

‘We’ll spend the night here,’ O’Connor said, leading Aleta into some thicker vegetation.

‘Five-star,’ Aleta observed wryly.

The next morning they woke early to tackle the Runkuraqay pass. They were getting up towards 3600 metres now, and the clouds drifted below them, reflecting the early morning sun amongst the tundra and the granite where small lakes had formed in the depressions. Occasionally they passed a viscacha, a furry rabbit-like animal dozing on the rocky outcrops amongst the brightly coloured red and white orchids.

‘This is very open country,’ Aleta observed, as they began the steep descent towards the Pakaymayu River below. ‘It’s hard to imagine anything being hidden out here.’

‘But look over there … that’s where we’re headed,’ O’Connor said, pointing up the Pakaymayu Valley, which ran sharply to the north-east, away from the trail.

‘Of course!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘The Inca called that the Hidden Valley!’

‘From the satellite photos, the vegetation appears very thick in parts,’ O’Connor agreed, ‘and there’s no reason anyone would venture in there, although I suspect the Inca will have taken great care to ensure whatever they’ve hidden isn’t easily found, regardless of how isolated the spot.’

Two hours later, O’Connor checked his GPS compass and they left the trail, heading north-east, following the bank of the river for nearly two kilometres until they reached a steep ravine in the shadow of a massive granite peak.

‘Three hundred metres … in there,’ O’Connor said with a grin, again checking the compass bearing. He drew his machete and began to hack a path into the rainforest when Aleta grabbed his shirt.

‘Look out!’

She pulled O’Connor back towards her frantically. O’Connor had disturbed a small, brilliantly coloured snake among the foliage on the forest floor. Dark blue, with striking cream-coloured stripes, it was ready to strike.

‘Micrurus annelatus,’ Aleta warned. ‘Otherwise known as an annelated coral snake. They may be small, but they’re absolutely deadly,’ she added as they waited for the reptile to slither away.

The jungle was thick, and O’Connor had to stop every few metres to hack a path through the foliage. Abruptly, they broke into the eerie half-light of a shady clearing. The decaying vegetation felt soft underfoot and small streams tumbled from the mountains above on their way to join the deep creek-line below. Suddenly Aleta tripped on something hard.

‘What’s this?’ she asked as she scraped away at the mulch formed by centuries of decaying leaves. ‘Look,’ she called, pointing at the stone she’d revealed.

O’Connor checked his GPS. ‘And according to this, we’re within metres of where the cipher says we should be.’

The two of them cleared more mulch to reveal a series of stones that looked to be an ancient stone pathway. ‘See how tightly these stones fit together?’ said Aleta in wonderment. ‘This has to be Inca!’

O’Connor bent down to get a closer look but as he did so, the stones began to move.

‘Get back!’ he yelled as the ground gave way beneath his feet. The rocky path collapsed in a rumbling roar as O’Connor grabbed a hanging vine and stopped himself from falling. Aleta, however, was not so lucky. As she fell towards a pit of deadly punji stakes, O’Connor lunged forward and locked his free arm under Aleta’s armpit, stopping her fall. He hauled her back to safety, breathing heavily.

‘Whatever’s here, the Inca didn’t want us to find it,’ Aleta gasped, struggling to regain her breath.

‘It seems we’re getting warm,’ O’Connor agreed, skirting around the punji pit and picking up the path on the other side. But a few metres on, the path finished at the base of a chunk of lichen-covered granite. ‘Trouble is, we appear to be at a dead end,’ O’Connor said, running his hand over the rock.

From his hide in the jungle nearby, shaman Carlos Huayta sent a silent prayer to the cosmos. Had the two who had been promised so long ago finally arrived? The ancient prophecy decreed they would have to solve this puzzle without his help. And if they were to find the Lost City of Paititi, he knew they would have to overcome even greater dangers than those they had already faced.

After hours of searching, it was Aleta who made the breakthrough. ‘Look,’ Aleta said, scraping the dirt away from what looked like a stone water channel at the base of a natural stream. ‘It’s an Inca disc!’

‘But this dirt looks quite fresh,’ O’Connor said, as he joined her on his hands and knees, helping her clear the leaves. ‘It looks like some sort of water system.’

‘That would fit,’ Aleta said. ‘The Inca were brilliant engineers. They built an 800-metre-long canal at Machu Picchu that guaranteed the city’s water supply, and it still works today. But why would they have a piping system here?’

‘And why is there a separate pipe to one side?’ O’Connor mused, watching the water splashing freely through the system. ‘So if we turn it …’ He applied a little pressure, and the ornately carved stone disc shifted easily, diverting the flow into a second channel. The water gurgled into an underground tunnel and after a time, the ground reverberated with a faint thumping sound.

‘I think I know what this is!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘The earliest civilisations understood hydraulics, and the Inca were no exception. I think this is an ancient hydraulic ram. If I’m right, there are two valves underneath here, and the weight of the water will close one and force another one open, allowing the water to flow into a second chamber. That will compress the air, which will create pressure on the water – enough to exert a strong force.’

The ground began to tremble and O’Connor and Aleta both stepped back as a stone the size of a small door slid into a recess in the granite, revealing a dark tunnel. O’Connor waited, then probed the opening with a long stick, waiting for another ancient booby trap to reveal itself, but the only sound was the gurgling of the water, deep beneath their feet.

‘I suspect as long as the water is diverted into the underground chamber, the stone will remain in the open position,’ O’Connor said, shining his torch down the steeply sloping tunnel. Together they stepped inside the mountain, O’Connor cautiously leading the way.

‘Lamps,’ he said, flashing his torch on the ornate pottery holders still full of oil. A hundred metres further in, they ran into solid rock.

‘There has to be another way,’ O’Connor said, shining his torch over the mossy granite. ‘What was that odd line in the cipher?… Through gold and obsidian it will be revealed?’

‘Up there,’ Aleta said, ‘there’s something glinting.’

O’Connor directed the torch beam onto the glinting dark object in the niche and cautiously put his hand in the small opening in the rock. ‘It feels like a statuette of some sort, but it won’t move … Wait, there’s a lever behind it.’

O’Connor and Aleta stepped back as the massive stone in front of them rolled silently aside.

Aleta gasped. A mummified king stared silently at them from his throne. ‘My God! It’s an Inca tomb!’

‘And seemingly intact, after all these centuries.’ O’Connor ran his machete around the entrance, half expecting to trigger more punji stakes, but there was silence.

‘And look!’ Aleta exclaimed again. ‘Near his feet – the second crystal skull!’

Together they shone their torches around the king’s ancient resting place.

‘Whose tomb do you suppose this is?’ O’Connor asked.

‘I’d have to take a closer look, but from the clothes, even though they’re in threads, I’d guess it’s the burial place of Pachacuti Yupanqui. He died in 1472, and nobody has ever found his tomb.’

O’Connor whistled softly. ‘So this chamber’s over 500 years old. Now I know how Howard Carter felt when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb.’

‘Well, let’s hope we don’t meet the same fate,’ said Aleta, playing her torch over the niches filled with solid gold and silver statues and urns overflowing with emeralds and tumbled turquoise, the stone of Inca royalty. Her torch beam rested on the furthest niche and a simple pottery urn. Intrigued, Aleta eased past the mummified remains of the king.

She beckoned O’Connor. ‘Come and have a look at this! It seems out of place.’

O’Connor felt the base of the urn for any signs of a pressure plate and lifted it carefully out of the niche and placed it on the stone floor. A strange blue light began to glow from deep within the crystal skull. Aleta extracted two leather-wrapped packages from the urn and carefully opened them. The first one contained a solid-gold puma head, and the second, an ancient map.

‘A puma head – it has to be the one in the prophecy, the one that will be critical to finding Paititi. And a map of the location of the lost city!’ Aleta exclaimed, her torch wavering in her excitement.

‘Yes, with a reference to the zenith of the sun and an insignia of a crystal skull. And it looks like it’s in the Amazon Basin, but there’s something odd here. This map has precise latitude and longitude, yet I was sure the Inca didn’t use that system,’ said O’Connor.

‘Don’t sell them short,’ Aleta said, ‘they were superb astronomers. But this map doesn’t look Inca to me. Someone knows this location. That water ram moved very easily … I think it’s been used quite recently.’

‘I think you’re right,’ O’Connor agreed, ‘yet the tomb’s in perfect condition. Perhaps one or two shamans have access. Do you remember the one Gonzáles mentioned? Huayta?’

‘Yes. I suppose it’s possible,’ said Aleta. ‘As to the zenith,’ she mused, ‘Gonzáles was right. The Inca put great significance on solstices and equinoxes, just like the Maya, but this confirms what he meant by the zenith.’

‘The sun directly overhead,’ O’Connor agreed. ‘Which means we have less than a week, and if the details on the bottom of this map are correct, we’re going to need some help getting in there. It’s time we found Huayta.’

Chapter 49

‘It’s just Señor Huayta?’ O’Connor queried the receptionist on the other end of the line. Earlier that evening O’Connor and Aleta had found a small hotel in Cusco for the night, dropped their bags and gone out to eat. Back in their room, O’Connor had taken a call from reception to learn that Carlos Huayta was waiting to see them. He was more than a little puzzled as to how Huayta might have found them. ‘Okay, send him up.’ He turned to Aleta. ‘When he knocks, open the door and step aside. If it’s necessary, I want a clear shot.’

‘You think this is a trap?’

‘We’ll soon know.’ When it came, the knock was firm and confident, and Aleta opened the door and stepped back.

Carlos Huayta stood at the door, looking towards O’Connor, who was pointing his Glock 21 straight at him.

‘You are right to be cautious, Señor O’Connor, but you can put your weapon away. I’m unarmed. You can check if you wish.’

‘It seems there are quite a few who are not on our side – you’ll have to forgive the welcome,’ O’Connor said, deciding against patting the shaman down. ‘This is Dr Aleta Weizman.’

‘Ah yes, the world-renowned archaeolo gist. It’s a great pleasure, señora. And my congratulations on finding the first two crystal skulls. Despite your enemies, you’ve done better than anyone before you. May I see the skulls?’

‘How do you know we have them, and how did you find us here?’ O’Connor challenged.

‘Your enemies have not been the only ones tracking your movements, señor. As to the skulls, the art of the shaman is arcane. If you are —’

‘I know,’ O’Connor grunted, ‘if we’re meant to find the other skull we will. They might be flawlessly sculpted, but these skulls seem to attract bad luck like flies to cow dung.’

O’Connor nodded to Aleta. Time was not on their side, and Aleta recovered the skulls from the bottom of the wardrobe. ‘They’re not unlike the Mitchell-Hedges skull,’ she said, placing the skulls side by side and stepping back, invigorated. A strange energy seemed to emanate from each crystal.

‘Yes, they’re impressive to look at, but what’s critical is the information they contain,’ Huayta said. ‘So far, you’ve only discovered two thirds of the warning.’

‘So the message from the Mitchell-Hedges skull was accurate,’ ventured Aleta. ‘We need all three?’

Huayta nodded. ‘The puzzle was created long ago. These skulls predate even the Egyptian civilisation, and now that you have recovered two of them, you must turn your attention to recovering the last. Decoding the cipher was just the start.’

O’Connor and Aleta exchanged glances. The theme of a preordained mission seemed a consistent one amongst the Maya and Inca shamans.

‘We recovered a map earlier today that seems to indicate the location of the Lost City of Paititi,’ O’Connor said, deciding to trust the shaman. ‘But I don’t know if that’s where we’ll find the third skull. I’ve examined the satellite maps and it’s a pretty remote area of the Amazon,’ he continued.

‘Yes. Many explorers have disappeared looking for Paititi,’ Huayta said. ‘As recently as 1970, an American journalist, together with two Frenchmen, was murdered during an expedition to uncover Paititi. But we should start where it all began. The Coricancha is only a short walk from here.’

‘Coricancha in Quechua means courtyard of gold,’ Huayta explained when they entered the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, built where the Coricancha had been. The Spanish had dismantled most of the Inca temple and used the stonework as the basis for the new church. ‘This was where the Inca held their most sacred object, a solid-gold disc inlaid with precious stones representing the sun.’ Huayta pointed to the holes in the beams above. ‘The disc was suspended from the roof before the temple was taken down.

‘The Inca covered the southern walls of the temple with solid gold, which reflected the rays of the sun and illuminated the temple, but when Pizarro sacked the capital in 1533, the Spaniards stripped the gold – about two tonnes of it, along with hundreds of gold statues and solid-gold ears of corn from an ornamental garden – and melted it down, shipping it back to Spain as ingots.’

‘So the stories of a fabulous hoard of gold in Paititi are just myths?’ Aleta suggested.

Huayta shook his head. ‘Far from it. When the Spaniards landed, the Inca took the Sun Disc, together with a large amount of gold, silver and jewels. Many fled into the jungle, where they built the city of Paititi. There’s a tunnel that runs from here, under the Plaza de Armas, and on to Sacsayhuaman, the ancient Inca fortress on the hill overlooking Cusco,’ Huayta explained. ‘Some have described Sacsayhuaman as a fortress, but there are deeper, spiritual meanings that we’re only just beginning to understand. The Inca capital of Cusco was laid out in the form of a puma, and Sacsayhuaman represents the head, and there’s little doubt the Inca used the tunnel as an escape route to Paititi.’

‘So it exists, this city?’ Aleta queried.

‘It exists,’ Huayta said, lowering his voice. ‘But as your map indicates, it’s in a fearfully inaccessible area.’

‘One thing puzzles me,’ O’Connor said. ‘You say you know where this lost city is, but why has nobody else managed to find it? And you’ve made no attempt to reveal it to the world. Why?’

‘Over the centuries, the Amazon jungle has taken over the site, much as the jungle took over the Maya pyramids, and Machu Picchu. As to revealing it, the wisdom of the ancients is entrusted to very few,’ Huayta replied, ‘and if I had produced the two skulls that remained in the Inca heartland, the Vatican would deny the existence of the third and the media would denounce the exercise as some sort of hoax. More importantly, the warning would be ignored. And no offence, Dr O’Connor, but it is far better that someone of Dr Weizman’s archaeological standing make the discovery, than you or I.’

‘I see you’ve done your background checks,’ O’Connor replied with a smile. ‘It’s been a long while since anyone addressed me as “Doctor”.’

‘An honours degree in chemistry from Trinity College Dublin and a doctorate on the effects of lethal viruses and biological weapons. You are right, Dr O’Connor, we have checked.’

O’Connor nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Then we’re going to need some local guides, supplies, and a means of transport,’ he said.

‘You’ll be able to get as far as Itahuania by vehicle, but the only way into the Amazon jungle is by foot,’ Huayta said, ‘unless you were to charter a helicopter. But helicopters are not the answer. No one has ever found a lost jungle ruin, let alone Paititi, from the air. Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu only because he hacked his way through the undergrowth for many days. Other ruins like Gran Pajatén, Espiritu Pampa and Gran Vilaya, which have all been discovered in the last fifty years, were found by jungle explorers. But my people can organise what you need for the journey. They’re trustworthy, they know the area and they speak the language.’

O’Connor wondered about the leak from the convent; his guard well and truly up.

‘Are you coming with us?’ Aleta asked.

‘That will be a pleasure, although the recovery of the final skull will be up to you,’ said Huayta with an enigmatic smile. ‘Now it appears that the time is at last upon us, but the road ahead is extremely dangerous, and the zenith is six days away. Not only will you have to deal with jaguars, anacondas and the deadly fer-de-lance and shushupe snakes, but the Inca ensured the city itself would be fiercely protected … even after their civilisation collapsed.’

Aleta felt a shiver run down her spine.

The convoy of five battered Toyota Prada four-wheel drives, with the expedition’s gear piled high on the roof racks, rolled out of Cusco. Monsignor Jennings followed it at a distance, although he knew it wouldn’t be possible to tail it for long. Once the traffic thinned out, his car would become obvious, but in the old area of Cusco, the traffic was heavy, and the convoy was heading southwest past the airport on the Via Expresa. Twenty kilometres further on, at the small town of Andahuaylillias, the convoy turned west on to Route 26. On either side of the valley, the volcanic peaks of the Andes reached towards the clouds, but from here there were not many roads to choose from. A bare five kilometres further on, the convoy turned north, on the only road to Paucartambo. Satisfied he knew which direction they were heading, Jennings turned around and headed back to Cusco. Once he reached his lodgings, he sent a text to Cardinal Felici:

O’Connor and party headed west on only road to Paucartambo, which leads on to Shintuya and Itahuania. One of their number, disgruntled at being overlooked for training as a shaman, proved open to my suggestion, and is now equipped with satellite communications.

Later that night, Jennings showered and changed and caught his regular taxi down to his favourite nightclub in San Sebastian. The area was one of the roughest parts of town, and despite the Peruvian authorities’ best efforts, child prostitution thrived. Jennings ignored the waves from the bricheras, young Peruvian hookers on the make for a hundred sol or so, while his driver headed down a narrow dirt laneway and dropped him off at El Buceo.

‘Señor … bienvenido,’ the bouncer said as Jennings approached, pocketing the fifty sol and opening the flimsy wooden door. ‘Ricardo is waiting for you.’

Jennings stepped through the curtains and his pulse quickened. Strobe lights flashed on the paint peeling from the walls, and young men in singlets and tight jeans ground together to the music. The barman wiped the sweat from his brow, flipped a silver cocktail shaker and caught it expertly with one hand. He waved to Jennings and reached for a bottle of Scotch.

Chapter 50

Wiley strode into the Task Force Inca ops room, armed with the latest intelligence report from Cardinal Felici.

‘Get me Lima on the secure link,’ he ordered Becker. It didn’t take Megan long to get Jarhead on the screen. The chief of station looked as nervous as he had the last time.

‘Now listen up,’ Wiley said. ‘Tutankhamun and Nefertiti are headed for Itahuania, in the Amazon Basin. USS Harry S. Truman is working up off Chiclayo. Her call sign is Lone Warrior, and three Navy Sea Hawks carrying teams from our Special Operations Group are on board, Reyes. I’ll arrive in your location at 1600 hours tonight.’

‘You’re coming here … sir?’

‘I’m taking command of this clusterfuck, Reyes. There’s been too many fuck-ups on your watch, so from here on in, I’ll be on the bridge.’

Becker watched the exchange with keen interest, making a mental note to pass the information on to Lauren Crawford as soon as possible. Other than for top-secret briefings with his counterparts overseas, a DDO would never venture into the field, let alone take command. Yet Wiley had gone to Tikal in Guatemala when Rodriguez was chief of station, and now he was deploying again.

‘I’ll make sure the ambassador is briefed, sir.’

‘The fucking ambassador isn’t cleared into the Inca compartment, Reyes, so other than telling him I’ll be on his turf for a while, leave him out of it.’ Wiley turned to Becker. ‘Kill the feed,’ he ordered, and Reyes’ face immediately disappeared from the screen. ‘Tutankhamun doesn’t know it,’ he said, addressing the rest of the ops room, ‘but a member of his party is in radio contact.’ Wiley handed Davis the details. ‘I want this call sign monitored twenty-four seven.’

Becker was again left wondering where Wiley was getting his intelligence, but she knew better than to ask. She still didn’t have the proof she needed.

Chapter 51

O’Connor checked more than once to see if they were being followed, but the road behind was clear. Driving the lead vehicle, with Aleta and Huayta and a local guide on board, he slowed as they rounded a corner. Ahead lay Paucartambo with its eucalypts and palm trees, its whitewashed buildings with terracotta roofs and brightly coloured wooden balconies. The cobblestone streets were narrow and the market place was crowded, and O’Connor had to stop for a herd of llama crossing an old stone bridge above a swiftly flowing river. Once through Paucartambo, they ground their way up a winding road that led into the mists and clouds of the mountains. The road deteriorated and O’Connor engaged the four-wheel drive more than once, and then permanently, as they crossed the smaller rivers that fed into the mighty Rio Alto Madre de Dios. Each time they crossed a river, they climbed into rainforest on the far side, only to descend into yet another misty ravine.

‘Good thing it’s not the wet season,’ O’Connor observed, as he kept the Toyota moving through water that skirted dangerously close to the tops of the tyres.

Huayta smiled knowingly. ‘It can still be done … but by raft and on foot.’

O’Connor gunned the Toyota out of another creek and into the jungle on the other side, where they moved more slowly. A troupe of howler monkeys swung from vine to vine, noisily alerting the other inhabitants of the danger approaching. Two yellow and blue macaws took flight and a hummingbird hovered over a beautiful purple cattleya orchid, wings beating at an astonishing 70 beats a second. They climbed steeply up a jungle-clad ridgeline, where they reached the village of Shintuya. Here the road turned south, heading deeper into rainforest; it was late afternoon by the time they reached the end of the vehicle track at Itahuania.

‘From here on, it’s jungle all the way,’ O’Connor said, stretching his legs. ‘We’ll camp by the river.’

While the guides set up camp and lit a fire to prepare dinner, O’Connor went for a walk. Outside a local bar, he noticed a shiny jeep. To his trained eye, the car didn’t fit. What, he wondered, would a brand-new jeep be doing in a frontier jungle village like Itahuania? Inside the bar, the locals were warming up. The Cusqueña beer was flowing freely and two men and a woman armed with panpipes and guitars were in full swing. O’Connor ordered an Inca Kola, and pretended to be listening to the music. His target, a dark-haired, wiry and fit-looking man, was sitting on his own in one of three old wooden booths.

‘We’ve got company again,’ O’Connor said to Aleta when he returned.

‘Fuck,’ Aleta said.

It wasn’t the first time he’d heard her swear but it was rare. The constant attacks were clearly playing on her nerves. ‘Although this bloke’s not the sharpest spine on the porcupine. His new jeep sticks out like a sore thumb. He’s unlikely to make a move until much later tonight, but as a precaution, you’d better sleep in the Toyota.’

The guides retired for the night, but O’Connor knew Wiley’s thug would not be far away. He stood outside the flaps of his tent in the light of the fire, giving anyone watching ample time to identify his tent. He stretched, yawned and disappeared inside, closing the flaps behind him, before crawling out under the far side. Like a marine negotiating a low barbed-wire entanglement at boot camp, O’Connor used some fallen logs for cover and leopard-crawled towards the jungle at the edge of the clearing. He screwed the silencer onto his Glock 21 and waited.

It was close to midnight before Wiley’s asset made his move. O’Connor picked him up on the other side of the campsite: a dark figure moving slowly but purposefully along the jungle edge towards O’Connor’s tent. He caught the flash of the assassin’s knife blade in the moonlight. O’Connor waited until his quarry reached the flap then moved towards him, silently closing the gap. Confused by the empty tent, the assassin reappeared but O’Connor was still ten metres away. O’Connor saw the assassin release his knife and he swayed out of the arc. His assailant reached for his gun, but O’Connor fired and Wiley’s asset collapsed to the ground beside the tent.

The phut of the silenced Glock had sounded loud and out of place, but no one stirred in the camp. O’Connor went through the assassin’s pockets, but apart from a Ruger P94 pistol, they were empty. O’Connor slung the body over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and walked up the hill to where two big lumber trucks were parked, loaded with cedar and ready for the morning trip to Cusco. O’Connor crawled under one of the trucks and released the inner spare tyre. He heaved the body into the space, closed the securing bars, hauled the tyre from underneath the truck and rolled it behind the lumber sheds.

O’Connor shook Aleta gently, but she woke with a start, her nerves clearly on edge.

‘What?’

‘Easy. It’s okay. You looked very uncomfortable and we have a long way to go tomorrow … today. Your blow-up mattress awaits.’

‘He’s gone?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’ O’Connor retrieved some tools from his kit in the back of the four-wheel drive and walked Aleta to the tent. ‘It’s safe now. Try to sleep. I’ll be back soon.’

The jeep was still outside the bar where the gunman had left it. A feral cat prowled the shadows, but there was no sign of any human presence. O’Connor put on his gloves and tapped a wooden wedge between the door pillar and the window. He inserted a small bag into the gap and quickly pumped it full of air. The gap was now large enough to work with; he inserted a plastic hook, latching it on to the door release. The break-in had taken less than thirty seconds. O’Connor rifled through the glove compartment, pocketing the gunman’s wallet and mobile before turning his attention to a large aluminium tool box in the back.

O’Connor cracked the lock and whistled softly. The box contained six Claymore mines, trip wires and flares, together with detonators, detonator wire and ‘clackers’, the plastic triggers that set off the blasting cap, detonating the mine. Claymores contained over 700 steel ball-bearings packed in front of C-4 plastic explosives, and they were deadly at up to 50 metres. The military had used them extensively in the Vietnam War, primarily in ambushes, but why, O’Connor wondered, would one of Wiley’s paid thugs have gone to the trouble of acquiring them? Unless … O’Connor grabbed a large backpack from the floor of the jeep, emptied it of its rations and other camping gear, and packed the mines, flares and trip wires inside. Two could play at this game, he thought, as he relocked the vehicle and headed back to camp.

‘How do you want to play the order of march?’ Huayta asked, after O’Connor had briefed him on the night’s activities.

‘Which of the guides knows the area best?’

Huayta turned and called one of the guides. ‘Renzo’s ancestors are from the Machiguengan people,’ said Huayta, introducing the short, stocky young man. O’Connor judged Renzo to be in his mid-twenties, but the man looked older. His right shoulder bore the scars of a battle with a jaguar and he was missing two of his front teeth.

‘¿Usted busca Paititi? You are looking for Paititi?’ It was an observation, not a question, delivered with a grin.

‘You think we can find it?’ asked O’Connor.

Renzo shrugged. ‘Many have tried before,’ he said, ‘but we will do our best for you.’

‘Can’t ask more than that,’ O’Connor replied. ‘Renzo here can lead,’ he said, turning to Huayta, ‘and I’ll follow immediately behind. You and Aleta can travel in the middle of the column, and we’ll need someone reliable as “tail-end Charlie”.’

‘Tail-end Charlie?’

‘The person who brings up the rear has to make sure that we’re not being followed. We’ve probably bought some time by taking out the latest asset, but it won’t be long before Wiley has another crack,’ O’Connor said, shouldering his pack.

Huayta turned to his men. Juan Carlos, an older man, volunteered for tail-end Charlie and dropped to the rear of the column.

O’Connor calibrated his GPS compass. The base map for this part of the world wasn’t particularly detailed and the local guides would be far better than any electronic input; but the altimeter was on line and the satellite provided accuracy on position down to less than a metre. Happy with the calibration, O’Connor adjusted the geocaching pointer, a thick red arrow that pointed to the coordinates revealed in the document they’d found inside the Inca tomb. The secondary pointer would, he knew, indicate whenever they veered from the required compass bearing, and in this terrain, that would happen often.

‘We’ll be able to follow a jungle path for the first few days,’ Huayta advised, ‘but after that, it will be up to you.’

They moved off in single file, into the half-light of the dense Amazon rainforest. Soft underfoot, the decaying carpet of leaves emitted a musty smell that rose through the foliage. Massive ceiba trees protruded above the rest of the canopy, the spaces between their buttressed roots wide enough to fit a small car. Fig trees and brazil-nut trees supported myriad vines, alongside huge mahogany and cedar trees, chicle and balsa. Lower down, palms, ferns, mosses and orchids competed for space. Above them, a band of spider monkeys swung from vine to vine. A flock of green and red mitred parakeets chattered noisily, and a toucan with its distinctive red, black and yellow beak poked its head out of a tree hollow. And high above, unseen by O’Connor and his team, a huge condor soared on the thermals.

Chapter 52

With the zenith now less than twenty-four hours away, the jungle seemed almost impassable. Using machetes, Renzo and O’Connor hacked their way through the thick undergrowth to an ancient jungle track on top of a ridgeline leading towards a distant mist-shrouded mountain. O’Connor stopped to listen. It was faint, but the sound of the Iroquois helicopter was unmistakable. Then he saw it. From the vantage point of the ridge, O’Connor focused his binoculars on the black dot far below, moving just above the canopy. It kept coming, and then disappeared into a small ravine. Suddenly there was a change in the rotor noise.

‘What is a helicopter doing way out here in the wilderness?’ Aleta asked, her face flushed, her sweat-soaked khaki shirt clinging to her breasts.

‘One guess,’ said O’Connor. ‘But what’s puzzling me,’ he said, turning to Huayta, ‘is that Wiley seems to be second-guessing our every move. Are all the guides here?’

‘All except Juan Carlos … he dropped back to go to the toilet. And now that I think of it,’ Huayta added, a cold understanding dawning, ‘he did that yesterday and the day before.’

O’Connor’s face changed. On a jungle patrol you never dropped back. ‘Well, we’ll deal with him later. In the meantime, it sounds like Wiley’s assets have found a clearing and landed … I’d say about a kilometre away, between us and the mountain ahead. I’m betting the track we’re on will link up with the clearing.’

‘How many will there be, do you think?’

‘An Iroquois can hold ten troops, so we’re going to be outnumbered, and Wiley’s thugs will have orders to shoot on sight. But even though they know where we are, they won’t be certain we’ve heard them land, and we can use that to our advantage. Set up camp here, while I do a reconnaissance.’

Five hundred metres further up the ridgeline, O’Connor found the piece of ground he was looking for. The jungle track wound through a shallow gorge, dominated by an outcrop above.

‘Have any of your men ever fired a weapon?’ O’Connor asked Huayta when he returned.

Huayta shook his head. ‘But I have.’

‘It will be dark in another half an hour, so we need to move quickly. The assets will be headed in this direction and I want to give them the impression we think we’re alone. Light a fire, and get some music on the radio.’

O’Connor led Aleta and Huayta to the ambush site, where he laid out the six Claymore mines in the undergrowth on the high side of the track. Once they were in place, he ran the cords back to the position he’d chosen for himself, overlooking the centre of the area. Still preferring his Glock, he gave Huayta the Uzi and positioned the shaman above the jungle path, just past the last mine and closest to the camp. The spot was hidden by an outcrop of ferns and O’Connor ensured Huayta had a clear view of the track. He would be firing along it, instead of across it.

‘The military call it enfilade fire,’ O’Connor said quietly. ‘I’ll set up a trip flare just in front of you, which will give you the light you need when the lead thug hits the trip wire. I’ll blow the mines and I want you to empty a whole magazine down the track, but keep your fire to the right of that big brazil-nut tree, otherwise you’ll hit Aleta. If anyone is still firing back, we’ll take them out individually. Tie this to your wrist,’ he said, handing Huayta the end of a thin, dark-green cord. ‘Two tugs on the communication cord means the assets are approaching.’

O’Connor walked quickly back to where he’d left Aleta in her position overlooking the other bend in the track.

‘Huayta’s at the far end, in amongst those ferns, so keep your aim to the left and on the track. There’s a trip flare near Huayta, and unless the assets are strung out, by the time they walk into the trip flare, they should all be in the killing ground. You’ll get a clear field of fire. There’s a command-detonated flare just in front of you that will ignite at the same time as the mines blow. You okay?’

Aleta nodded, her heart already racing. ‘This may come as a surprise to you, but this is not what I do for a living.’

O’Connor nodded, aware of the enormity of the responsibility he had placed on her. ‘Pull this cord twice when you hear them approaching. We’ll make a Navy Seal of you yet!’

Aleta shook her head, but she was determined not to fail.

O’Connor checked Aleta’s and Huayta’s positions to ensure they couldn’t be seen from the track. Satisfied, he set up the trip flare, placed the detonators in the Claymores, took up his own position and settled down to wait. The faint sounds from the radio at the campsite wafted through the cool jungle air. Skilled in close-quarter urban guerrilla tactics and jungle warfare, O’Connor had been trained to use his five senses, and even at this distance he could detect the faint smell of smoke from the campfire. Wiley’s gorillas, he hoped, would not suspect anything this far from the camp. Suddenly there was a movement behind him. The rustling sound was close, and O’Connor switched on his red-filter torch and slowly got to his feet.

Even in the soft filtered light, he immediately recognised the snake. The head was broad and the scales rough. Black triangular blotches ran the length of its thick, brown body. O’Connor judged it to be over three metres long, and he knew that a bite would be fatal. The largest pit viper in the world, a South American bushmaster, had chosen this moment to go hunting. Its long fangs were like hypodermic needles, injecting into its victims copious quantities of venom that destroyed red blood cells, causing haemorrhaging and, ultimately, the destruction of the body’s organs. O’Connor took a deep breath. He decided against using his silencer, and stamped his foot. Snakes, he knew, were deaf, but most avoided contact with humans and would move away from ground vibrations. O’Connor watched the snake slide down on to the track as he felt two tugs on Aleta’s communication cord. He cursed the timing of the reptile before giving the cord to Huayta two sharp pulls. There was movement further down the path, and the occasional swish of a machete blade. Wiley’s assets were approaching and the snake had stopped in the middle of the track, threatening to force the assassination team off the path and expose the presence of the Claymore mines before the flare was tripped.

Aleta willed herself to stay calm. She quietly eased the Socimi’s safety catch off and waited, her heart pounding. First one shadowy figure, then another passed her position. They were so close she could almost lean out and touch them. Aleta felt sure she could be seen, but reminded herself that O’Connor knew what he was doing.

Wiley’s men passed silently in front of O’Connor’s position. The deadly snake had slithered into the undergrowth and the assassins were moving easily on the jungle track, two metres apart, each carrying an M4A1 carbine used by the Special Operations Group. O’Connor counted seven men when the leader hit the trip-flare wire, which detonated in a flash of light. O’Connor pressed the Claymore triggers and the mines exploded with a deafening roar. From either end of the ambush, Huayta and Aleta opened fire, each emptying a full magazine. When the shooting stopped one gunman moaned and moved amongst the carnage on the path, and O’Connor fired. An eerie silence descended on the jungle, only to be shattered by a burst of fire from further down the track. Aleta screamed and fell back into the foliage. One of the gunmen had been trailing behind and was short of the killing ground when the mines exploded. The man fired again at Aleta, orange flashes giving away his position. O’Connor steadied his arm and fired back, and the jungle fell quiet.

O’Connor ran down the track to Aleta. ‘Where are you hit?’ he asked when he reached her. She was lying on the ground, her face pale, blood streaked across her forearm.

‘I’m okay. It just grazed my wrist,’ she said, smiling wanly.

‘Stay down,’ he said, after he’d inspected the wound. ‘We’ll dress that in a moment. I need to be sure no one else is lurking around out there.’

O’Connor worked his way stealthily past the body of the last gunman, checking for any movement, but the track was clear. By the time he returned, Huayta was moving the bodies off the track.

‘No point in burying them,’ O’Connor said, as they checked pockets and collected the weapons and ammunition. ‘They’ll be dug up and eaten anyway.’

‘Just one wallet. The rest are clean,’ said Huayta.

‘There’s always one who breaks the rules. He might give us a lead on the rest, though.’

O’Connor bandaged Aleta’s wrist and they gathered up the weapons and ammunition and headed back towards the camp. Not wishing to be mistaken for one of Wiley’s men, O’Connor stopped about a hundred metres away, allowing Huayta to call reassuringly in Quechua. When they got back, Juan Carlos had still not reappeared.

‘The track on this ridgeline hasn’t been used for a very long time, but the traces are still there to follow. Compared to some of the jungle we’ve had to hack our way through, it won’t be so bad,’ O’Connor observed as they prepared to break camp early. They had less than half a day before the sun would reach its zenith.

‘Your observations are accurate,’ Huayta replied. ‘Occasionally, a shaman may have used this track, but it hasn’t seen any significant traffic for centuries.’

‘Are we getting close?’ Aleta asked, shouldering her pack and looking towards the mountain in the distance. The jungle-clad peak was shrouded in mists.

O’Connor consulted his compass. ‘If the coordinates in the cipher are right, we have less than 20 kilometres to go,’ he said, picking up one of the carbines they’d captured the night before.

‘What about the rest of Wiley’s thugs?’

‘We can only assume they’re still with the helicopter. We eliminated eight men last night, but that leaves a possible two still out there. This morning, I’ll lead.’ O’Connor called over the young boy Huayta had assigned as the new tail-end Charlie. ‘Keep a sharp eye to the rear, Fernando. Juan Carlos may not be far behind.’

O’Connor headed out. They passed the ambush position where the trees and foliage were scarred from the Claymore explosions and the submachine-gun fire. The area where they’d moved the bodies had already been disturbed, and O’Connor knew it wouldn’t be long before only the bones remained. He stuck to the path along the ridgeline and they climbed steadily, breasting one false crest after another. Despite the mists, he was sweating profusely. The path dropped sharply towards a hidden valley, and O’Connor led the way down.

Two hours later, they reached a fast-running stream, gurgling and tumbling over rocks worn smooth by the ages. Renzo moved forward and tugged O’Connor’s arm.

‘Fernando says there’s movement behind us.’

O’Connor moved to the rear of the column and slid behind the cover of a tree, just before a bend in the track. He slung his carbine, cocked his Glock and waited.

Minutes later, Juan Carlos appeared around the bend, moving cautiously, and O’Connor stepped on to the trail.

‘Take off your pack,’ he ordered.

‘I’m fine,’ Juan Carlos replied.

O’Connor pointed his Glock at Juan Carlos’ head. ‘Take it off!’

The colour drained from the man’s face as Aleta joined them, Socimi submachine gun at the ready. He did as he was told.

‘Face down on the ground,’ O’Connor ordered, grabbing the pack and shoving it towards Aleta.

It didn’t take long for Aleta to find an Iridium satellite phone with three spare batteries, hidden in a secret compartment. O’Connor checked the call log. Since they’d left Itahuania, Juan Carlos had made two calls a day, all to the same number.

‘No prizes for guessing who owns the receiving phone,’ O’Connor muttered. He took a length of cord from his own pack and bound Juan Carlos’ wrists tightly, and heaved him into the buttress roots of the ceiba tree.

‘I apologise,’ Huayta said quietly. ‘I feel responsible – and betrayed,’ he added, a look of deep concern on his wizened face.

‘The bad apple in the barrel,’ said O’Connor, ‘but if we’re going to beat the zenith, we’ve got to keep moving, even if Wiley’s assets aren’t far behind.’

After another two hours, O’Connor called a halt and dropped to one knee. Beneath the decaying leaves and other detritus that formed the jungle carpet, O’Connor had spotted something unusual in the half-light. He reached for his machete and scraped away the leaves, revealing a series of ancient stones.

‘We’re getting close. The compass coordinates are within a hundred metres.’

‘Be careful,’ was all Huayta said.

O’Connor looked at his watch, unsure that being careful was an option. There was less than an hour to go until the zenith. They moved on, with Aleta close behind, the rest of the group following. The stones were just visible beneath the leaves. O’Connor followed them, hacking his way through vines and dense undergrowth, until they suddenly came upon a small clearing, crossed by the path. He took a step forward but something jagged against his leg.

‘Get down!’ he yelled, grabbing Aleta and pushing her into the jungle on the side of the track. An ancient mechanism had been set off that released a huge boulder enclosed in a wicker basket. Suspended on vines matted together into ropes, the primeval wrecking ball thundered past their position, brushing the path and missing them by centimetres. Aleta’s eyes were wide with shock.

‘Don’t move,’ O’Connor said calmly, and they waited for the massive boulder to swing backwards and forwards in ever-decreasing arcs, until it came to rest, gently oscillating up and down at the end of the vines.

‘One trap avoided,’ O’Connor said with a grin, helping a shaken Aleta to her feet.

‘But how many more?’ Aleta wondered aloud, gasping for breath.

They cautiously crossed the clearing and pushed along the moss-covered stones, deeper into the jungle, the canopy so dense now, it was almost dark.

‘If the lost city’s here, it’s easy to see why it’s never been spotted by satellite,’ said O’Connor. ‘If it gets any darker we’ll need a torch.’

They reached a point where the track passed a river and suddenly there was a high, moss-covered wall on the other.

‘A wall … And the stones are fitted so tightly together. Inca!’ said Aleta.

‘I think you’re right,’ O’Connor agreed.

Aleta grabbed O’Connor’s arm. ‘What are they?’

O’Connor had already seen them. Ahead two ancient skulls had been mounted on poles either side of the path, their jaws twisted in a deathly grimace.

They continued to follow the archaic wall and suddenly an entrance appeared ahead. The group passed through the archway and Aleta put her hand to her mouth.

‘The Lost City of Paititi!’

Chapter 53

The jungle had long since reclaimed the city, but the dark shapes of the buildings were unmistakable. The stone Plaza de Armas was covered in moss and surrounded by four massive pyramids, each standing sentinel at the compass points. Two stone towers stood between the pyramids, one at either end of the plaza. Beyond the towers and the pyramids, O’Connor could just make out more moss-covered stone buildings, overtaken by vines and jungle undergrowth.

Huayta followed close behind O’Connor and Aleta, his heart racing. He struggled with his emotions, wanting to warn them of what lay ahead, but disciplining himself against such a move. The prophecy, he knew, had to unfold the way his forebears had decreed.

The silence was eerie, and nothing stirred in the ancient city. Suddenly O’Connor caught a movement near the top of one of the pyramids.

‘Get down!’ He pushed Aleta behind an ancient stone altar with a wooden top.

Thwock! A poison-tipped arrow embedded itself in the wood.

‘The Yaminahua … the protectors of the city,’ Huayta explained. ‘Some of them have never seen a white man.’

‘Well, at least we know we’re in the right place, but I’m betting they’re not in the mood to chat,’ O’Connor said.

Huayta nodded. ‘The only thing they will understand is a show of force on your part. That will alert them to their own prophecy. They’ve been waiting for centuries, and they’ve always known that one day, the chosen ones would come.’

O’Connor took up a position behind the altar and adjusted the sights on his M4AI carbine. An Indian warrior appeared from behind the dark summit of one of the pyramids and O’Connor fired. The Indian’s cry echoed off the walls of the towers as he tumbled down the steps of the pyramid and into the plaza. O’Connor ducked behind the altar as a volley of arrows thundered into the woodwork.

Without warning the air was shattered by the crackle of rifle fire. Huayta’s guides were engaging the Yaminahua tribe from positions on the top of the ancient city walls. The brightly painted bodies of five more Indians tumbled lifeless into the stone plaza. Suddenly, the jungle was filled with the sound of panpipes.

‘Jesus Christ. What the hell is that?’ O’Connor asked Huayta.

‘They’re saluting you,’ Huayta said, smiling broadly. ‘Look!’

O’Connor judged there must have been 300 warriors. They appeared from behind the gloom of the pyramids, dressed in their ceremonial war tunics. Each wore gold amulets and some had golden headbands topped with brightly coloured feathers. The sound of the panpipes receded and one by one they retreated into the jungle. They had acknowledged O’Connor and Aleta as the chosen people.

‘I want sentries posted on top of all four pyramids,’ O’Connor said.

Huayta smiled. ‘It’s done,’ he said. Huayta’s men began scrambling into position.

O’Connor looked at his watch. Less than twenty minutes before the sun reached its zenith – not that you could tell from down here, he thought. Less than twenty minutes to find the third crystal skull and find out what to do with all three. The task seemed nearly impossible, and for a moment O’Connor thought it might be beyond them. He scanned the city, searching for a clue. ‘What do you suppose the towers are for?’ he asked Aleta.

‘I’m not sure, but there are steps leading up to the tops.’

‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ O’Connor replied. He moved carefully up the stone steps of the nearest tower, with Aleta close behind. When he reached the top, he whistled softly. A solid-gold flagstone block had been set at an angle in the middle of the stone parapet. Engraved in the centre was the Greek letter phi, .

‘The Mayans weren’t the only ones to use the golden ratio in their buildings,’ Aleta mused in wonderment.

‘The question is, what does it mean?’ O’Connor replied, placing his foot on the symbol but without result. ‘Unless …’

‘What do you think?’

‘This is somehow related to the Fibonacci sequence,’ O’Connor replied. Aleta knew that the sequence was a mathematical formula considered by many to be the core of the natural world. From the number of seeds in a sunflower to the spirals of shells and the branching of trees, the Fibonacci sequence was at the base of it all.

‘I’m wondering if instead of using the golden ratio, the Inca used the golden angle?’ O’Connor mused.

‘One hundred and thirty-seven point five degrees?’

‘And that might just be the clue we’re looking for,’ O’Connor said, his mind racing. ‘The Fibonacci sequence is embedded in nature and leaf patterns —’

‘The sunflower!’ they exclaimed in unison.

‘Exactly! The angle between the florets on the sunflower is 137.5 degrees,’ O’Connor said. Both knew the golden angle was obtained from two points on the circumference of a circle. The golden angle was easily calculated by dividing 3600 by and subtracting the answer, 222.5, which produced the golden angle of 137.508.

‘And the sunflower originated from the Americas. The Inca might have seen a connection?’

‘We’ll soon find out.’ O’Connor whipped out his compass and aligned it with the centre of the gold symbol. ‘Sixty-eight and three-quarter degrees … half the golden angle!’

‘And if there’s a flagstone on the other tower, that’s the other half!’

‘The intersection …’ Again, they both spoke together.

‘Carlos! Quickly!’ O’Connor shouted. We’ve only ten minutes before the sun reaches the zenith. I need you on top of the other tower,’ and he doubled back down the steps to the plaza. ‘Line me up,’ he called when Huayta had reached the opposite flagstone.

‘Move towards Aleta more,’ Huayta commanded. ‘Yes … Okay, you’re in line with me.’

‘Come forward,’ Aleta directed. ‘Further … a little more … stop,’ she called when O’Connor came into line with the direction of .

O’Connor grabbed his knife and scraped away the moss from the tightly fitting plaza stone beneath him. The knife sank deep into the moss as O’Connor cleared the centuries of debris to reveal an indentation in the shape of a puma head. O’Connor dropped his pack and retrieved the solid-gold puma head they’d discovered in the tomb. It was the exact size and shape of the stone indentation. Making sure that Aleta and Huayta were safely off the towers, he slowly placed the head into the corresponding shape on the keystone. To his delight, it clicked home. The ground began to tremble as the front of the left tower sank into the earth, revealing dusty stone stairs that hadn’t seen the light of the jungle since the Inca had fled the Spanish invasion and established the city centuries before.

Aleta gasped. ‘The walls … they’re lined with gold!’

Huayta nodded. ‘Twenty-two-carat gold sheet,’ he confirmed. ‘Like the walls of the temple in Cusco. If the Spanish had found this city, they would have melted down everything in sight, but Paititi has lain hidden from their grasp.’

‘We don’t have much time,’ urged O’Connor. ‘Two minutes to the zenith!’ He grabbed the boxes containing the precious crystal skulls and led the way into the citadel, probing the encroaching darkness with his torch beam. The stairs descended and took a sharp turn to the right before leading towards a large, circular catacomb with a domed roof. The niches in the walls glinted in the light of the torch. They were crammed with priceless Inca artefacts: solid-gold statues inlaid with emeralds and other precious stones, miniature replicas of the Golden Sun Disc, corn with stalks of solid silver and ears of gold, gold goblets and vases filled with emeralds and turquoise. But all of this paled in comparison with the inner sanctum. Here, the walls were lined with gold Inca mummies.

‘The Golden Sun Disc and the last crystal skull!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘And look at the diamond in the middle!’ The gold jewel-encrusted sacred disc of the Inca, once suspended in the Coricancha, had been fitted into a perfect circular groove in the stone floor. Beside it lay ropes of golden thread. A huge diamond, the size of a billiard ball, was embedded in the centre. Directly beyond the disc, a crystal skull identical to the ones carried by Aleta and O’Connor sat in a small carved niche. An eerie blue light glowed deep within the crystal. O’Connor continued to shine his torch around the room and across the granite flagstones.

‘And look!’ Aleta shouted, barely containing her excitement. Just inside the entrance, a golden icon of a skull had been carved into a flagstone. ‘And there’s another one on the other side!’ O’Connor and Aleta carefully removed the crystal skulls from their carrying cases and placed them on the carvings, where they locked in perfectly.

‘Now what?’ O’Connor wondered aloud, but as he spoke, a thin beam of sunlight appeared through the ceiling.

‘See!’ Aleta exclaimed, pointing to a small hole in the gold sheet on the roof of the cupola. ‘There must be a gap in the canopy.’

‘Which the Yaminahua tribe have maintained for centuries, waiting for just this moment,’ Huayta said, the awe in his voice clear.

‘Then the Yaminahua were really on our side?’ Aleta asked, watching the dust particles in the growing beam of sunlight.

‘Yes, but they treated you as an enemy until you successfully killed several of their number. That was the sign they were looking for. Those that gave their lives did so willingly, allowing the remainder of the tribe to retreat. Far from wanting any revenge, they are overjoyed that this moment has finally arrived.’

The beam strengthened, moving towards the centre of the disc and the diamond. At over 1000 carats, it was bigger than anything in the known world, dwarfing the Golden Jubilee and Cullinan diamonds.

Suddenly, the cuts on the diamond split the sun’s rays in three directions, shining at the three crystal skulls.

‘The sun is at its zenith,’ Huayta observed calmly. ‘The Inca prophecy will now be revealed.’

The power of Inti, the Giver of Life, energised the skulls and all three were instantly connected. Slivers of deep-blue electricity connecting the crystal crackled around the walls.

‘Stand back and let the images appear,’ Huayta advised.

‘It’s just like a hologram,’ Aleta whispered in awe, as the first of the images appeared over the centre of the Sun Disc. ‘That’s the President of the United States, and the Prime Minister of Israel.’

‘They’re in the Oval Office,’ O’Connor agreed, unable to tear his eyes away from the image. ‘Just the two of them.’

‘As you’re aware, Mr President,’ the Israeli Prime Minister intoned, ‘when Eisenhower sat in this office before the Suez Crisis in 1956, my predecessor, David Ben-Gurion, was deceptive. He didn’t tell Eisenhower about his secret meetings with the British and the French, and Eisenhower read about our invasion across the Suez in the newspapers. I don’t want to make the same mistake with you. A nuclear-armed Iran is simply unacceptable to Israel, and we’re going to attack the day after tomorrow. We don’t have a choice.’

‘Let me be blunt,’ said McGovern, his face set in determination. ‘An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will destabilise the entire Middle East, and that is not acceptable to the United States. Fifteen million barrels of oil a day – nearly a third of the world’s supply – passes through the Hormuz Straits and if you attack Iran, they will close them. That will double – quadruple – inflation overnight. The results would be disastrous for the US and for the world. You have to give diplomacy a chance.’

‘We’ve tried that, and it hasn’t worked. Neither have the sanctions.’

‘You don’t have many friends left in this world, Prime Minister.’ The President wasn’t pulling his punches. ‘After your disastrous attack on the Gaza aid flotilla in international waters, even Turkey’s against you – and in the Muslim world, they were the only friends you had. You attack Iran, and a billion Muslims are going to see this as an attack on Islam itself.’

The Israeli Prime Minister shrugged. ‘They said that when we attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, and they said it again when we attacked the Syrian reactor in al-Kibar. The world has to understand that Israel will not stand idly by while her enemies arm themselves with nuclear weapons that can achieve what Ahmadinejad has vowed to do – wipe Israel off the map!’

The anger between the two leaders was palpable and the power grid between the crystal skulls intensified as the hologram shifted to the massive Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev Desert of Israel, where Air Force Colonel Erez Rosenberg was briefing his F-15 and F-16 pilots.

Aleta held her hand to her mouth.

‘My God!’ she said. ‘That can’t be true.’

‘Unfortunately, it will be, unless our civilisation changes course,’ O’Connor said, ‘and the meeting between the President and the Prime Minister of Israel … before we left Cusco there was a report in the media of another one in three days’ time.’

‘We have much to learn about the nature of time,’ Huayta said. ‘Even the way holograms are created is not fully understood, but the meeting in three days’ time will follow the course of the one you’ve just witnessed. If you’re going to change the course of that prophecy, you will have to find a way to warn your president.’

‘Even if I could get to Washington without being arrested, words are not going to have sufficient impact,’ O’Connor replied, his mind racing. ‘Is this the only place and time the skull configuration can be energised? If we could find a way to direct a beam of light onto all three skulls at once, would that energise the crystal as it has now?’

Huayta nodded. ‘Provided you can replicate the conditions, the disc will do the rest.’

‘In other words, a beam of photons, a laser beam directly above the skulls, would simulate the sun’s zenith?’

‘Exactly,’ the old shaman agreed.

‘And where do you plan on taking these artefacts, which are the property of the Peruvian people?’

O’Connor and Aleta turned to find Howard Wiley, accompanied by a squad of the CIA’s Special Operations Group wearing black balaclavas and camouflage uniforms. Huayta’s guides, left on the perimeter of the lost city, had been no match for the most secretive paramilitary group in the United States.

Wiley turned to the commander. ‘The artefacts are to be loaded on to my helicopter. As for you two,’ he said, turning to O’Connor and Aleta, ‘you’re under arrest. You’ll be flown to our embassy in Lima, where of course, you’ll be given every support,’ he sneered. ‘From there, you’ll be extradited to the United States where you’ll be put on trial for treason.’ Wiley’s thin mouth twisted in a smile. ‘And the penalty for treason is death.’

Chapter 54

Megan Becker looked on in disbelief as the news video from Lima streamed into the Inca ops room at Langley. Images of O’Connor and Weizman, handcuffed and under heavy guard, faded to the media conference in the grounds of the US embassy in Avenida La Encalada.

‘I’m happy to announce to the people of the United States,’ Wiley began, ‘that the fugitive rogue CIA agent Curtis O’Connor, along with his accomplice, Dr Aleta Weizman, has been captured while attempting to remove rare artefacts from an ancient Inca site in the Amazon Basin. They are now under arrest.’ Wiley, a self-satisfied smirk on his face, surveyed the group of hand-picked reporters and opened the doorstop to questions.

‘Exactly what are the charges against them?’ one asked.

‘The charges include treason, although the precise nature of the remaining charges won’t be known until we’ve completed our investigations,’ Wiley replied. ‘In the meantime, the Peruvian authorities are cooperating and we expect extradition to be a formality.’

‘Will they be called before the Senate inquiry?’ another asked.

‘The evidence against both O’Connor and Weizman is incontrovertible,’ Wiley shot back. ‘I think the Senate has better things to do than go over ground that will be examined by the courts.’

‘And what about the artefacts? Is it true that O’Connor and Weizman discovered the fabled Lost City of Paititi?’

Wiley’s face flushed. ‘I think you will find that O’Connor and Weizman had very little to do with that discovery. The local guides have known about this location for a very long time. The main thing is the artefacts will soon be returned to the Peruvian authorities,’ Wiley said, abruptly terminating the conference.

‘Well, looks like O’Connor and Weizman are finally going to get what’s coming to them,’ Davis observed, flicking off the video feed.

Becker ignored him and went back to her desk. Her iPhone buzzed and her pulse quickened as she opened the text from an unknown number:

Rodriguez regained consciousness – wants to see you. Most urgent.

An hour and a half later, Becker was shown into the outer room of Rodriguez’s heavily guarded intensive-care suite in the military hospital.

‘Dustin Coburn.’ The avuncular lawyer stuck out his large hand to shake Becker’s.

‘Megan Becker. She’s regained consciousness?’

‘Yesterday morning, and one of the first people she asked to see was you.’

‘Has she identified her assassin?’

‘Yes, and it’s been proven, but I’ll let her tell you personally,’ Coburn said.

‘A few minutes only, ma’am, she’s still very weak,’ one of the intensive-care staff warned.

As Becker entered the room, Rodriguez smiled wanly. The agent’s painfully thin body was hooked up to a drip and festooned with tubes, but the ECG monitor was showing a strong, steady pulse.

‘Ellen … I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.’ Becker reached for Rodriguez’s hand.

‘Which is more than I can say for the bastard who knifed me … Wiley.’

‘Wiley tried to kill you?’ Becker gasped, her head spinning, dropping Rodriguez’s hand suddenly. ‘Ellen … forgive me, but are you sure?’

‘Wiley,’ Rodriguez rasped, her voice a whisper.

Dustin Coburn had come into the room silently after Becker, and he now spoke. ‘At the time of the stabbing, the FBI took samples of the skin underneath Ellen’s fingernails, but until now, they’ve not been able to match the DNA.’

‘And they’ve matched it with Wiley?’ Becker asked, still struggling to come to grips with a deputy director of operations who would personally attempt to assassinate a witness.

‘As soon as Ellen regained consciousness, she told us about Wiley. The FBI went over to his apartment, and the lab results are just in. The DNA matches.’

‘My God. I’ve got to get over to the White House.’ Becker leaned over and kissed Rodriguez gently on the forehead. ‘You’re so brave. I’m in awe. Know that I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘The chief of staff can’t be disturbed, Megan. He’s with the President.’ There were few people who would challenge Donna Ferguson, the keeper of President McGovern’s gate, but Becker was not about to be stymied.

‘You need to disturb both of them. Trust me, Donna. The President will want to hear this.’

Donna Ferguson shook her head. ‘The Israeli Prime Minister is due tomorrow, and the President is preparing for the meeting. Whatever it is will have to wait.’

‘I’ve just come from Bethesda, Donna. Rodriguez is conscious,’ Becker said. ‘I think the President needs to know who attempted to murder Rodriguez before CNN blurts it to the world, don’t you?’

‘This better be important, Becker,’ Chuck Buchanan snarled. He’d come out of his meeting with McGovern at Becker’s insistence.

‘Don’t take me for an idiot, Chuck!’ Becker responded. ‘Just listen.’

As she spoke, Buchanan’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. ‘Jesus Christ! Are they sure of it?’ Buchanan queried after she’d finished.

‘Would I be here if they weren’t? Dustin Coburn isn’t your average wet-behind-the-ears attorney, Chuck, and this isn’t going to stay quiet for long. More importantly, Wiley’s proven that he’s capable of murdering those who might be able to incriminate him – and I can think of two people, currently in Wiley’s custody, who fit right into that category. If you think there’s any guarantee O’Connor and Weizman will make it out of Lima alive, you’re kidding yourself. Their extradition needs to be personally overseen and fast-tracked now.’

Buchanan shook his head. ‘You’re boxing at shadows, Becker. The justice system can handle this. The White House isn’t going to get involved.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Chuck. Get real! How desperate do you think Wiley’s going to be when the Rodriguez news gets to him? The President needs to know now, and either he or you needs to get on the phone to the ambassador to Peru and have this monster arrested. Otherwise it’s on your head!’

‘I’ll ignore that last remark, Becker. I don’t take kindly to threats, from anyone, let alone you.’

‘And I don’t take kindly to being assigned to work with psychopaths, Buchanan. You and the President sold me a hospital pass at the outset. I’m resigning, and if you’re not going to take any action, I’ll tell the President via the media.’ Becker turned on her heel.

‘Wait!’ Buchanan said, suddenly unsure. ‘I’ll see if the President’s free.’

‘No, you won’t. You’ll show me in, or I’m out of here.’

Chapter 55

Ambassador Edwin Sanchez took the call in his office. The CIA had taken over most of the embassy since their arrival, but Sanchez’s office was still his sanctuary. Ever the diplomat, he’d quietly accepted the CIA’s ‘invasion’, but with grave misgivings. In his experience, the CIA was made up of essentially decent, honourable men and women, but there was a cowboy element, and he was convinced that the current black operation being run from his embassy fitted that description.

‘Edwin … William McGovern here.’

‘Mr President. How can I help?’

‘It’s a long story, but I’ll give you the abridged version.’

Sanchez listened with growing incredulity. In his nearly forty years in the State Department, he’d never had a situation as explosive as that which the President was outlining now. Partway through the conversation, he buzzed his secretary and handed her a note. A short while later, the leader of the CIA’s Special Operations Group, Hank Perez, a veteran of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, strode into the ambassador’s office.

‘You wanted to see —’

Sanchez held up his hand for silence and continued talking into the receiver. ‘I understand. He’s with me as we speak.’ The ambassador held the phone to one side and spoke to Perez. ‘You are now under my command, and Mr Wiley is to be arrested and detained until further notice.’

‘The hell I am. This is a black mission, and if you’re not cleared —’

Sanchez smiled and put the receiver back in front of his mouth. ‘Mr Perez seems reluctant to take orders from me, but perhaps he’ll listen to you.’ The ambassador handed the phone to the ex-Delta team operative.

‘Who the hell is this?’ Perez demanded.

Sanchez watched the colour drain from Perez’s face.

Chapter 56

The media was not aware that Rodriguez had regained consciousness, nor were they aware of the arrival of the CIA aircraft from Lima at Andrews Air Force Base. Two black Secret Service four-wheel drives dropped the passengers at the West Wing, where O’Connor, Aleta and Carlos Huayta were escorted to the situation room.

‘Welcome back,’ Becker said, extending her hand to O’Connor, a warm grin on her face. As she was introduced, Aleta found herself wondering what past relationship there might have been between O’Connor and the attractive, feisty environmental scientist but her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the White House chief of staff.

‘I’ve allowed ten minutes for this,’ Buchanan said. ‘The President and the Prime Minister of Israel have a very tight schedule.’

O’Connor glanced at the technicians, who were conferring with Huayta. Under the shaman’s guidance, they were positioning the crystal skulls and the ancient Sun Disc on a heavy stand at the far end of the room. A laser source had been bolted to the roof, directly above. O’Connor winked at Aleta and turned to the chief of staff.

‘Once the photons of light energise those skulls, I think you’re going to have to revise that schedule of yours, Buchanan.’

President McGovern and the Prime Minister of Israel took their seats at the end of the long, polished table. O’Connor deferred to Carlos Huayta, but the old shaman kept his remarks to the bare essentials. The holograms would, Huayta knew, have far more impact than any words. The shaman nodded to the technicians.

A narrow beam of green light struck the large diamond in the middle of the disc at precisely the same point the sun had when it reached its zenith in the jungle. The light split into three beams, striking each crystal skull. A deep humming emanated from each skull and the President watched intently. Blue slivers of light from within the skulls joined together, forming a crackling ring of electricity around the disc and a shimmering hologram rose over its centre. The Israeli Prime Minister recoiled in shock as he recognised Israel’s Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev Desert. Israeli Air Force Colonel Erez Rosenberg was briefing his F-15 and F-16 pilots for the first of many attacks on Iran.

‘The route will take us south, to the Gulf of Aqaba,’ Rosenberg explained. ‘Once we reach the border with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, we will turn east and follow the border, just inside Jordanian airspace, but remember,’ the veteran of the 2007 attack on the Syrian al-Kibar reactor emphasised, ‘we maintain 150 feet above the ground and we use Saudi call signs. All radio transmissions are to be in Arabic. The Jordanians have to be convinced we’re Saudi aircraft slightly off course. When we cross into Saudi airspace, we switch to Jordanian call signs. External fuel tanks are to be dumped here.’ Rosenberg pointed to an area in the northern Saudi desert. ‘The Americans are being briefed, and the Iraqi airspace will be open, allowing us a direct route to the Iranian border.’ Rosenberg turned back to the map. ‘The key targets are the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, and the heavy-water reactor at Arak, in this region here, 240 kilometres south of Tehran.’

The hologram changed from the briefing room to the deserts of central Iran. Israeli jets screamed towards the heavy-water reactor, metres above the sand. Suddenly, afterburner alight, the lead F-16 climbed rapidly, rolled and dived. At just 3500 feet, the pilot released a 2000-pound bomb. The dome of the reactor exploded in a massive ball of flame and smoke, releasing deadly radioactive particles that rose into the air, drifting north towards Tehran. More bombs hit the laboratories and the heavy-water plant.

The explosions faded, and the stone parapets of the Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem came into view. A large crowd of angry Palestinians were milling around the gate. A heavy Israeli security force, armed with rubber bullets, tear gas and foul-smelling water cannons, was preventing the Arabs from gaining access to the al-Aqsa Mosque and Friday prayers.

Suicide bomber Ahmed Shahadi was wearing a nondescript backpack. He grasped the nuclear detonator in his pocket and worked his way towards the police barricade. The Palestinians were being stopped, but the Jews were allowed through on their way to prayers at the Western Wall. A wizened Arab in a black and white keffiyeh was shouting abuse at the guards. Shahadi knew he was already more than close enough to destroy the remains of the second temple and the Dome of the Rock. He approached the barricade and a young Israeli soldier armed with a Tavor assault rifle stepped forward.

‘Allahu Akbar. This is for little Rashida!’ Ahmed yelled and he pressed the trigger, closing the detonator circuit. In a blinding white flash, the nuclear bomb reached a temperature of 50 million degrees, five times hotter than the surface of the sun. The Damascus Gate and the ancient walls of Jerusalem, which had withstood centuries of warfare and bombardment, were vaporised instantly. A massive plume of radioactive debris rose thousands of metres into the air, the cloud ballooning into an ever-expanding mushroom of death. The white heat was followed by a widening shockwave. The winds reached 600 kilometres an hour, and the rolling, thunderous blast destroyed everything in its path. The Old City of Jerusalem was wiped from history: the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque obliterated, the souks and alleys around them destroyed. Further out, the bodies of thousands of Jews, Christians and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, tourists and locals, lay where they’d been at the moment of the firestorm, the textures of their clothing seared on to their charred skin. Thousands more, still alive but horribly burned, screamed in agony. Unseen neutrons, alpha and gamma rays and electrons pulsed in all directions at nearly the speed of light. Many thousands of people would not survive the deadly radiation, and hundreds of thousands more would succumb to slow, agonising deaths from cancer.

The hologram faded and was replaced by another. A light plane had entered restricted airspace over New York and air traffic control was frantically trying to reach the pilot.

‘Beechcraft November one eight zero nine Victor, you are in restricted airspace. I repeat, you are in restricted airspace. Turn right heading 270. I repeat, turn right, heading 270, maintain 2000 feet.’ The desperate calls from air traffic control went unheeded and above the Beechcraft at flight level 150, a combat air patrol of two F-15 Eagles from the Massachusetts Air National Guard 102nd Fighter Wing rolled into an intercept dive.

The lead F-15 Eagle pilot held the target on his heads-up display, but before the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile could find its mark, New York City was hit by a cataclysmic nuclear explosion. The plutonium bomb vaporised the memorial at Ground Zero, and amongst the blazing ruins of Manhattan, the bodies of tens of thousands of office workers were burned beyond recognition.

Across the Atlantic, another blinding flash appeared between Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, boiling the River Thames. The hologram changed to reveal the smoking, twisted, mangled steel of what had once been the Sydney Harbour Bridge. A pall of radioactive smoke drifted over the crater where the Opera House had stood.

A shocked President Ahmadinejad appeared on Al Jazeera, condemning the Israeli bombings, and denying any knowledge of the seemingly coordinated nuclear bombing of Western cities. For once, he was telling the truth. General Shakiba and the Yawm al-Qiyamah Jihad had seized control, condemning Western civilisation to destruction. President Ahmadinejad pleaded for a ceasefire, but it was too late.

As its solid-fuel rocket motor belched smoke and flames, a gleaming white and blue missile lifted from its silo at the Israeli missile base at Palmachim, just to the south of Tel Aviv. The 15-metre-long, 30-tonne missile gathered speed and thundered into the clear Mediterranean sky, leaving a long trail of white smoke. Another missile followed the first, and then another and another, the onboard computers programmed to strike Tehran, Qom, Esfahan, Shiraz and a dozen other Iranian cities.

The hologram switched to an image of General Shakiba, who was in his command bunker in a remote mountain range in the north of Iran. Shakiba watched the satellite photographs streaming into his command bunker with a growing fury. Tehran was a smoking ruin, the Majlis and the Ayatollah Khomeini Mosque reduced to smoking radioactive craters. Tens of thousands of bodies lay buried amongst the twisted, shattered rubble that was once a city. Hundreds of thousands more lay dying from shocking burns, with no one to treat them.

‘The West is trying to destroy Islam! Activate Operation Badr!’ Shakiba ordered, his dark eyes blazing with fury. Badr had been one of Muhammad’s most significant battles against the pagan forces of Mecca, signalling to the world that a Muslim power had risen in Arabia.

Hydraulic rams opened the heavy concrete roofs on missile silos buried deep in the Zagros and Alborz mountains, revealing the deadly nose cones of the Shahab-3 ballistic missiles. The missiles were strategically deployed hundreds of kilometres apart, each allotted a different target. Dense clouds of flames and exhaust poured from the vents in the silos in the mountains to the north of Shahrak-e-Moallem, Chashmidar, and a dozen other covert launch sites. The giant missiles thundered unerringly above the carnage, powering out of the earth’s atmosphere at over 5000 kilometres an hour, some headed for Tel Aviv and other Israeli bases, while others headed for American bases in the Middle East, which were vital to the refuelling of the superpower’s warships and aircraft. The huge 5th Fleet Base in Bahrain erupted in a fireball, the twisted wreckage of ships still at their moorings reminiscent of Pearl Harbour. Three supertankers were ablaze in the Straits of Hormuz, closing the choke point and bringing oil supplies to a halt.

The hologram changed, returning to the White House, and a grim-faced President McGovern chairing the National Security Council. The vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, secretary of energy and the chairman of the joint chiefs were sitting in the very room in which the prophecy was unfolding. Advisors filled the chairs lining the walls, and video screens beamed live footage of the growing worldwide holocaust.

‘We have to respond, Mr President!’ the chairman of the joint chiefs thundered. ‘This is a declaration of war!’

‘The President of Russia is on the secure line, Mr President,’ the chief of staff announced. McGovern took the call.

‘We must stay out of this, Mr President,’ the President of Russia warned in a low, guttural accent. ‘Israel, and Israel alone, is responsible.’

‘We have no quarrel with Russia,’ the President replied, ‘but we can’t stand by while our own people are being slaughtered.’

‘I am warning you, Mr President, don’t escalate this any further.’

McGovern put down the phone. His jaw set, he briefed the room on Russia’s position.

‘That’s just a bluff, Mr President,’ the chairman of the joint chiefs barked. ‘The Russians won’t risk retaliation. We need to remove Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria from the nuclear equation!’

The humming of high-voltage electricity between the skulls rose to a crescendo as Minuteman intercontinental missiles, carrying their deadly payload of multiple nuclear warheads, roared out of their silos at the Vandenberg Air Force base on the Californian coast.

One after another, the big swing-wing B1-B Lancer strategic nuclear bombers rumbled down the runways at Ellsworth Air Base in South Dakota and Dyess Air Base in Texas, bound for Iran. The nuclear submarines USS Maryland, Nevada and West Virginia launched their Trident II nuclear missiles, and the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Ocean boiled as the missiles thundered from the depths into the skies above.

Russian R-36 ballistic missiles from silos near Nalobikha in southern Russia soared into the same skies, as did missiles from Nizh-Tagil in the Urals, and the hologram faded …

The images of total destruction were replaced by one of an icy nuclear winter settling over the planet. Hundreds of millions lay dead, and hundreds of millions more were dying. Huge fires in the cities had lifted millions of cubic metres of smoke into the troposphere, ten kilometres above the earth, where it was heated by the sun, sending it into the stratosphere where it would remain, blocking out the sun for years and sending temperatures on the earth to below zero. Millions of tonnes of soot absorbed solar radiation, heating the surrounding gases and breaking down the stratospheric ozone layer. An ozone hole the size of India had opened, allowing deadly ultraviolet radiation to saturate the planet. The earth’s once warm, grain-growing plains had been reduced to wastelands, and the food bowls of the world lay devastated. The images of people in their hundreds of millions dying of starvation faded from view, and the flashing blue bolts of electricity connecting the crystal skulls slowly subsided. A hollow emptiness enveloped the situation room.

For a long while, no one spoke, but the silence was eventually broken by Carlos Huayta.

‘The dangerous course of history you are charting will take you over the cliff and into the abyss. Just as the Inca accurately forecast their own destruction at the hands of the Spanish, the skulls have forecast your own civilisation’s destruction. Nuclear brinkmanship is the forerunner.’

The old shaman paused to let his words take effect.

‘But there is another way,’ he said, ‘and the key lies in the very first words of the Inca prophecy: “When the Eagle of the North and the Condor of the South fly together, the Earth will awaken. The Eagle of the North is the modern, developed world,”’ Huayta explained. ‘The powerful countries of the world have great material wealth, but many of your people are spiritually and culturally impoverished. The Condor of the South represents the peoples who remain close to the earth. They possess the wisdom that comes from being connected with the natural world. The Eagle of the North will never be free if it does not fly with the condor of the south. If we link them, a great harmony will result.

‘I am from the Q’ero people, the last of the Inca who moved to high altitudes to escape the Spanish conquistadors. For 500 years we have preserved this prophecy. Now we know the pachacuti, the great change, is upon us. The time has come to set things right.’

Huayta looked around the table. ‘The choice is yours, my friends.’

Acknowledgements

In July 2010, I had just descended the torturous switchback road carved out of the mountainside below Machu Picchu and was wandering the steep cobbled streets of Aguas Calientes. Browsing in a local bookshop, I came across Machu Picchu Forever, City of Pilgrims, a fascinating book by Mallku Aribalo. I contacted Mallku, who kindly agreed to see me in Cusco at very short notice. In two hours we could only scratch the surface, but I was grateful for his insights into the shamanic path and the extraordinary depths of the ancient Inca culture. Despite some prophecies heralding the end of the world in December 2012, Mallku does not agree. Rather, he sees this as a time of pachacuti, or great change – pacha meaning earth or time, and cuti meaning to set things right.

The Inca prophecy comes from the Q’ero people. For 500 years, the Q’ero, the last of the Inca, remained hidden high in the Andes. But in 1949, anthropologist Oscar Nunez del Prado was attending the Paucartambo festival when he encountered two Indians who spoke Quechua, the ancient language of the Inca; and the existence of the Q’ero was unmasked. Like Mallku, the Q’ero believe the time of great change is upon us, when the Eagle of the North (the West) and the Condor of the South (the native peoples, who are in tune with pachamama, or Mother Earth) will once again fly together. This will be a spiritual awakening, an awareness of the rhythms of the planet. But in my view, unless we change course, we will miss this last opportunity.

We have already come to the brink of nuclear destruction on no fewer than five occasions, yet still we contemplate an attack on Iran. Regardless of the rare planetary alignment in December 2012, we have already sown the seeds of our own destruction, and if we continue on this path, we won’t need any help from the elements. Far-fetched? Chillingly, it is not.

It is not widely known, but on the morning of 25 January 1995, in conjunction with Norwegian scientists, US scientists launched a Black Brant XII four-stage sounding rocket to study the Aurora Borealis in the Arctic. Thirty countries, including Russia, had been warned of the launch, as the trajectory took it to nearly 1500 kilometres above the Barents Sea at Russia’s northern border. But no one passed the information on to the crew at Russia’s Olenegorsk early warning radar station. As the stages of the rocket separated, they appeared similar on radar to images of multiple warheads from a US submarine-launched Trident missile; and the ‘warheads’ appeared to be headed for Moscow. Russian nuclear forces were put on alert and the Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, was advised of a nuclear strike by the United States. He was urged to retaliate with nuclear missiles. Fortunately, Yeltsin was sober, and he refused to believe that the US had attacked the Soviet Union. Had he not, the world might look very similar to the horrific scenarios described in The Inca Prophecy. Any nuclear capability, regardless of its origin – whether it be from the US, France, Pakistan, Israel or any of the nine nuclear-armed countries – is extremely dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, as I hope The Inca Prophecy attests. I have written this novel as a warning.

I’m indebted to my team at Penguin: publisher Ben Ball, editors Belinda Byrne and Arwen Summers, talented designer Adam Laszczuk, the wonderful marketing and PR team, headed by Sally Bateman and Anyez Lindop, and Peg McColl and Kate McCormack of the rights department, who do the hard yards at the world book fairs on my behalf. As usual, Clare Forster, my agent at Curtis Brown, has been much more than an agent: reading various drafts of the manuscript and providing insightful advice and guidance. I’m grateful to Barak Zero One for putting me straight on the finer points of flying an F-16 Falcon. And thanks to Urania, wonderfully fluent in Arabic, French and English, whose advice on the quagmire that is Lebanon was invaluable.

As always, Robyn, who sees me at my worst, has been a tower of strength. To Antoinette and friends, I am continually in your debt. Caroline Ladewig once again provided sage advice – a big thank you. To Tom and Wendy and the staff at Megalong Books, I shudder to think of an online world without bookshops – thank you for being there. Thanks to my two boys, David and Mark, and to Tammy and Catherine, for your humour and camaraderie.

Finally, in writing this novel, I’ve carried out considerable research, travelling to Peru and the Andes to experience that wonderful country at first hand. I’ve also reviewed hundreds of books and documents, but to list them all would be to footnote a novel. To all those authors, I’m in your debt.

MICHAEL JOSEPH

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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012

Text copyright Adrian d’Hagé 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted

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ISBN: 978-1-74253-623-1

ALSO BY ADRIAN D’HAGÉ

THE MAYA CODEX

DECEMBER 2012 – TIME IS RUNNING OUT

Deep in the Guatemalan jungle lies the Maya Codex, an ancient document containing a terrible warning for civilisation. Archaeologist Dr Aleta Weizman is desperately searching for the codex, but powerful forces in Washington and Rome will do anything to stop her. When CIA agent Curtis O’Connor joins Aleta in her dangerous quest, he also becomes a target.

The race is on for Weizman and O’Connor, and the very future of our planet is at stake. From the corridors of power in Nazi Germany to modern-day Washington, from the secret archives of the Vatican to the Temple of the Lost World pyramid in the jungles of Central America, The Maya Codex takes us on a heart-stopping journey to find the codex before it’s too late.

‘Fans of The Da Vinci Code et al will race through it.’

COURIER-MAIL