Revelation

'We know all this —' Jesus began.

'But I have an even greater enterprise to report. We have a nuclear suitcase operation nearing completion. I had thought to surprise our brothers and sisters with the result. However when we next meet I hope to report a spectacular success, involving a major European city.'

'You need no praise from me, Brother. Your successes speak for themselves. I can hardly wait until our next meeting.' Jesus nodded. 'And now, we come to the climax of our proceedings. Not only of our proceedings, but an opportunity which has come only once in all our history. It is a great moment for us all. Our brother from the United Kingdom will now report.'

Attention focussed on a man sitting across from Jesus. The man was about forty, gaunt, with thick lips, metal-framed spectacles and short, vertical sandy hair. He was unconsciously gripping the sheets of paper in front of him, and his cheeks were flushed. 'I have to report a temporary setback,' he said in a neutral, slightly northern accent.

Tata sensed fear in the man's face, felt her heart beat faster. Under the long oak table, her hand slid over to Tati's heavy thigh, and squeezed it tightly.

There was a heavy silence around the table. The Apostles waited.

'Our quest for the doomsday machine still continues,' he said. His voice was unsteady.

'I don't wish to interrupt,' said Jesus, 'but perhaps we should use plain language here. You were assigned to obtain certain documents. Did you, or did you not, fulfil that task?'

Unconsciously, the man's mouth was twitching. 'In plain language, I did not.'

Jesus spoke quietly. 'Perhaps you should explain the circumstances.'

Sweat was making the man's brow glisten in the light of the chandelier high above the table. He sipped nervously at a Seven-Up. 'As you know certain facts were brought to our attention by one of our brothers in NASA. A routine unclassified surveillance by a French satellite had revealed the presence of aircraft wreckage at the mouth of a glacier in Eastern Greenland. The location of the wreckage indicated that the wrecked aircraft was probably the one which was intended to transport the nineteen fifties atom spy, Lev Petrosian, to the Soviet Union, along with certain documents.'

'Was this information classified?' Takamara asked.

'It was in the public domain, but had attracted very little interest or attention. We had information suggesting that the documents in the aircraft —'

Jesus interrupted, '—were the key to the doomsday machine described by the fifth angel.'

The man gulped. 'Yes. An American scientific team, manning a weather station on the Greenland Ice Cap known as Shiva City, was nearby. Through a large donation by us to the Polar Research Institute which financed the station, we were able to persuade the team, reinforced by some of our people, to head for the wreckage. Unfortunately the glacier calved off and the Shiva City expedition found itself afloat on an iceberg. Although we had succeeded in infiltrating the group, our Brothers went down when the iceberg broke up. An icebreaker, however, had by this time reached the berg.'

'A simple rescue operation?' asked Ross.

'We suspect not. The icebreaker was the property of Norsk Holdings, the oil exploration company. At any rate an individual aboard the ship, a polar scientist by the name of Findhorn, acquired the documents and disappeared with them before we could get to him.'

Jesus snapped his fingers. The executioner leaned down to her handbag, pulled out a syringe and a small bottle with a straw-coloured liquid. The wooden floor creaked slightly as she tap-tapped her way across the room to Jesus. The rain battered the window, and the fire was crackling. And yet the big room was enveloped by a strange silence.

The UK brother licked his lips. His breathing was heavy.

Jesus contemplated the syringe. Then he stood up and walked over to the rain-lashed window. He was a surprisingly small man. The lights of the Castle showed a white-capped sea, merging into darkness beyond. The lights of a fishing boat were about a mile out; they were bobbing up and down: the boat was making heavy weather. Lighthouses flashed from Holy Island, Ailsa Craig and Pladda. On the horizon somewhere beyond, he knew, was Arran, but only an occasional glimpse of light could be seen in the black. Down and to the left was a boathouse; he could make out a dark figure: someone under an umbrella, talking into a mobile phone.

He turned to the UK brother. The man's face was grey. Jesus said, 'As we all know our human bodies are hosting our souls temporarily, pending our completion of the cleansing programme which the first wave initiated over five thousand years ago, when the Egyptians first worshipped our home star. That programme is to be completed within the first century of this millennium. Only by freeing the earth of its unclean souls can those of us who are the Apostles be freed to enter the bodies which await us on our true home, Tatos, the innermost planet orbiting the white dwarf Sirius B.'

'I know this, Tati.'

'But you need to be reminded of it.' Jesus nodded to Tata. She opened the Bible at a bookmark, and read out:

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit: and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and air were darkened. And there came out of the pit locusts upon the earth…'

Tata paused, threw a brief, mirthless smile at the UK brother and then said:

And in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.'

A fanatical edge was creeping into Tati's voice. 'What does this passage describe but a cosmic machine intended for the destruction of mankind? We have always understood this prophecy. How to explain the timing of this iceberg event, if it was not caused by the Angels of Revelation? They have clearly used their powers to send the doomsday machine of this Petrosian to us. They have given us the task of fulfilling their prophecy, a task which was delegated to you. You were entrusted with fulfilling our destiny.'

Bund said, 'You have failed not only us, depriving us of our homeward journey, you fail all of the Apostles going back five thousand years to Menes of the First Dynasty.'

'And you fail the Sothic brothers and sisters who await us on Tatos,' the Warden of All Souls pointed out.

Jesus said, 'Look what you have done to us.'

The man looked as if he was about to faint. He stared wildly around the table, but saw no compassion: the faces of his brothers and sisters were uniformly grim. 'It's only a temporary setback. I can find this man. I can get the diaries back.'

The executioner had been standing quietly, away from the table. Now Jesus nodded to her. She filled the syringe slowly from the bottle, approached the man slowly.

'Please…' He had seen the liquid at work.

Brothers on either side seized the man's arms. The executioner held the man by the hair. He felt the point of the needle on the side of his neck, at the carotid artery. 'I can retrieve the documents,' he gabbled. 'The man hasn't left Edinburgh. My entire northern chapter has converged there. He can't set foot on the Edinburgh streets without being seen. We know that the documents are in Armenian and we're combing the city for every translator of the language.' The woman was exerting a gentle pressure with the needle; the man felt the skin about to puncture; his eyes were wide with terror. 'He'll be found within days.'

'How many days?' Jesus asked.

'Three. Three at the most.'

Jesus looked around. 'What do you say? Shall we give this wretch another chance?'