The Armageddon Conspiracy by Mike Hockney Read Free Book Online Page B

in.’
    ‘ Why can’t I see them
in the flesh?’
    ‘ Just watch the video.’ Gresnick turned to the large LCD TV at the side of the room,
currently showing a screensaver of mathematical symbols. He pressed
a button on a remote control and the screensaver disappeared,
replaced by video images of soldiers bringing in, at gunpoint, two
handcuffed men in dark suits.
    One of the prisoners glanced at the
camera.
    God
Almighty . Vernon looked away in
revulsion.
    Gresnick froze the picture. ‘What age
would you say that man is?’
    ‘ Seventy? Eighty?’ Vernon was baffled by how an old man could be serving in Delta
Force, and even more perplexed by how an elderly man arrested in a
library ended up in such a horrific state. Surely he should have
been taken straight to hospital. Much of his flesh was charred;
third degree burns by the looks of it. Strips were flaking
off.
    ‘ He’s thirty-one,’
Gresnick replied. ‘A doctor said he’s been exposed to incredible
levels of radiation.’
    ‘ Thirty-one? Impossible .’
    Gresnick pressed
the play button
again.
    The soldiers took both prisoners to the
detention block and put them in separate cells. Dr Hugh Wells, a
friend of Vernon’s, laid the burned man on a prison bed and
attended to his wounds. Another doctor started to cut away the
prisoner’s clothes.
    Gresnick fast-forwarded the pictures
until they showed Dr Wells alone in one of the interview rooms,
talking quietly to an overhead camera.
    ‘ The man’s body is
covered from head to foot with blisters and sores,’ Wells said. The
doctor then mentioned that, as a young trainee, he was part of an
international team of doctors sent to the Soviet Union to treat
victims of the Chernobyl disaster. This prisoner’s condition, Wells
said, reminded him of the nuclear engineers who’d been nearest to
the site of the partial meltdown. Many died in agony within days. This man, according to Wells, was much worse off and unlikely to
survive hours never mind days. All they were trying to do now was
ease his pain.
    As for the second prisoner, Wells said
that although he seemed healthy, he was being kept in isolation as
a precaution. No one would be allowed to approach either prisoner
directly without protective clothing. Any interrogation of the
prisoners would have to take place remotely.
    Gresnick stopped the video and the
screensaver reappeared.
    ‘ I just don’t get
this.’ Vernon shook his head. ‘I mean, what happened to that man? A
radiation source? Where? How?’
    ‘ We have no idea.’ Gresnick reached forward and raised the emerald paperweight. ‘Something very odd happened when the armed police arrested the two
men. They told them to raise their hands and stay where they were. Instead, one of the men put his hand in his pocket and snatched
this out. A policeman thought he was reaching for a weapon and
opened fire. The bullet hit this ball. It didn’t leave a
mark.’
    ‘ It’s just a
paperweight,’ Vernon blurted.
    Gresnick shrugged. ‘Well, the prisoner
seemed to think it was valuable. The police had to prise it away
from him. There’s another curious thing – before he touched this
object, the prisoner was uninjured, and looked like a normal
thirty-one-year-old. The burns and rapid ageing appeared while he
was being brought over here, but he wasn’t exposed to any radiation
en route. The ball was seemingly the last thing he touched.’
    ‘ What are you saying? That the radiation came from that ball?’
    Gresnick tapped the back of the orb
with a pencil. ‘As far as I can make out, it’s just a coloured
glass ball. Several of us have touched it without mishap, but we’re
sending it to a lab to have it analysed in depth.’
    Vernon imagined he was looking at the
scattered pieces of some giant jigsaw, but he couldn’t form any
idea of what the big picture might be.
    ‘ The burned man is
Captain Lucius Ferris,’ Gresnick said. ‘His colleague is Sergeant
Samuel Morson. Both are highly decorated