The Rozabal Line (26 page)

Vincent fell to the ground and kissed the pages reverentially. He then hastened to the market where he could get the precious document photocopied. Photocopying done, he started walking towards the bus terminal, hoping that he could catch the bus out of Srinagar into Delhi. He was so completely absorbed in his own private little world that he did not notice General Prithviraj Singh coming up behind him till he felt the Mauser pressed against his back.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Srinagar, Kashmir, India, 2012

'Well done, Father Sinclair. I knew I was right to involve you in this matter. We finally have the document that the Illuminati has spent the last few hundred years searching for!' exclaimed Prithviraj Singh, while continuing to hold the gun against Vincent's spine.

'You, General, are no better than Osama-bin-Laden. The terrorist, in fact, is 165

merely a pawn that you move on your Illuminati chessboard!' hissed Vincent.

'So you think I am evil, huh? And what about Opus Dei? What about the Crux Decussata Permuta? Do you think that any religion other than Catholicism would have been allowed to survive on earth if they had their way? And what about the true believers of Islam? You think they would have left non-believers alone? We are the only force that could keep these forces in check! How dare you judge me!' thundered the general.

Vincent shot back, 'You cannot fight fire with fire. The best way to fight a fire is with water, General. Instead, you and your cronies have been throwing in fuel to keep the fires raging. It has been in your interest to keep the fires of hatred burning. Your approach is a thin veil that hides your greed for money and power. It is the powerful elite of this world that has created the Osamas of the world to further their own self-interest. You are a hypocrite!'

'Why are we arguing? We're both after the same thing. We have found it. Let us revel in the find,' said the general.

'But why should this document be of importance to you?' asked Vincent.

'Because it is the very basis on which the Illuminati was founded. This document that you call the Tarikh-Issa-Massih, is actually the Gnostic Gospel of Jesus. It was written by Jesus sometime in the last few days of his life. When he was in Kashmir.'

'But I thought that the Illuminati was a recent creation. The Bavarian Illuminati came into existence only in 1776. How can you say this document could have anything to do with your organisation?'

'Father Sinclair, let me explain. Jesus did not die on the cross. In fact, his suspension on the cross was merely a "ritual slaying" that had to be performed by Mary Magdalene, the high priestess, as part of the sacred Hieros Gamos.'

'How does this concern you or the Illuminati?'

'Jesus had already said that the illuminating light came from within. He was a great yogi, a great guru. But this aspect of his teaching would not have created a great religion. How would the Church have controlled its flock? So what did they do? They branded Mary Magdalene a prostitute. They "killed" Jesus on the cross. Instead of explaining the resurrection of the soul, they created the resurrection of Jesus's body.

Instead of the ancient yogic trinity of the creator, nurturer and destroyer, they created the Christian trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Most important, salvation was to be obtained only through

their Church!'

'I still don't get it.'

'Wake up, Father! Jesus talks in his gospel of opposites. Good must have bad.

Hot must have cold. Positive must have negative. Male must have female, and so on.

We, the Illuminati, decided that Christ must have an anti-Christ. This anti-Christ will bring down the Roman Catholic Church, once and for all!'

'But the same gospel that we have just found says that there is no anti-Christ! It says that illuminating light should be used for wisdom and inner peace, not power!'

'Ah! You now know why I need that document. I need to destroy it!' shouted 166

Prithviraj.

'The words of Jesus have been twisted and perverted throughout history. You plan to do exactly that. I will not let history repeat itself!'

'Then you must die!'

Waziristan, Pakistan-Afghanistan border, 2012

The Sheikh was looking at the message sent by Ghalib containing the detonation sequence. He re-read the words without a mirror once again and then proceeded to ignore all the characters other than 'O' and 'I':

U
O
Y.
O
T.HTA
O
.YM.MAM
I
.H
O

O
WT.M
O
TA.TA.M
O
TA.T
I
H.
O
T

HT33T.3HT.TA.M
I
A.HTU
O
M.3HT.TA.M
I
A TA3H.T
O
H.3T
I
HW.HT
I
W.YAWA.M
I
H.T
I
H

3
O
W.
O
T.M
I
H.3
I
T.Y
O
T.YM.HT
I
W.3YA 3W
O
.
I
.HTU
O
Y.YM.M
I
HW.YHT.
O
T

3M.HT
I
W.TU
O
.M
I
H.HT
I
W.TU
O

3M.3S
I
M
O
TA.
O
T.3M
I
T.YHT.T
I
AWA.
I
The resultant series was:

00010 00010 101 01111 001101 01010 10110 100111.

These were binary numbers, just the sort used by computers to transmit data.

He took a pen and began to convert the binary numbers to standard decimal numbers.190 The result:

2-2-5-15-13-10-22-39

He now had before him the detonation sequence. He picked up the Thuraya satellite phone that would communicate with the device and began to carefully punch in the digits. The digits entered by him were transported to the geostationary Inmarsat satellite from where they would be bounced back to another phone on earth. That phone would activate the bomb. Not in Priobskoye, Siberia, as imagined by Zvi Yatom.

But in the rocky landscape of Waziristan, just a hundred yards away from where the Sheikh stood.

The fireball from the x-ray-heated air sent a shockwave in all directions at the speed of sound. The frugal houses scattered in the arid and remote frontier simply dissolved. The circle of destruction was around one mile. Everything that was flammable burst into flame, glass products and sand melted into molten glass, and any humans were instantly vaporised by the blinding light, accompanied by radiant heat from the fireball near ground zero.

Around 2,000 people would be killed directly from the blast at the hypocenter and an equal number would be injured. The future impact would include nuclear fallout, cancer, and deformed or stillborn babies.

The damage would have been much greater if the bomb had been detonated in 167

a populated area. The hilly region of the North-West Frontier Province used by the Sheikh and his Master was in the middle of nowhere.

The Sheikh and his Master were now simply vapour in the air.

Frederick County, Maryland, USA, 2012

Yehuda smiled a quiet smile of satisfaction. The whole world thought Judas had betrayed Jesus. How ridiculous! Judas, in fact, had been the chosen one. The one who would perform the final act of an elaborate ritual. Ensuring that the nuclear device exploded near the Sheikh and his Master--this had been Yehuda's final act of obedience to his own master, Ghalib.

From the port at Pipavav, the truck containing the device had headed to Jammu.

The truck had proceeded along the interstate Punjab-Kashmir border westwards and had stopped short of the town of Rajouri on the Indian side. From here it had crossed over into Pakistani territory and, a few hours later, reached Mirpur.

The truck had then moved northwards to Muzaffarabad and from there westwards to Mansehra. From Mansehra it had headed in a gentle southwesterly direction towards Peshawar in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, where it had waited to cross the Khyber Pass.

Before crossing the Khyber Pass, it had unloaded the 'construction jig' near Waziristan and continued towards Jalalabad on its long journey to Tel Megiddo.

Yehuda remembered Ghalib taking him aside one day and reciting to him the Islamic Hadith of Tirmidhi. 'And God's messenger said: "In the last times men will come forth who will fraudulently use religion for worldly ends and wear sheepskins in public to display meekness. Their tongues will be sweeter than sugar, but their hearts will be the hearts of wolves."'191 He had then quoted the Qur'an 6:112: 'Thus have We appointed unto every Prophet an adversary--devils of humankind and jinn --who inspire in one another plausible discourse through guile.'

Ghalib had then said to Yehuda, 'It is in your destiny to be called a traitor. It is in my destiny to be called a terrorist. Why not make the best of the situation? It is better that both these men, the Sheikh and his evil Master, are destroyed, even if it means that we die in the process.'

'But why do you want me to betray you by taking money from Oedipus and the UNL Militia?' Yehuda had asked.

'I have a value. Isn't it better that the money is used to ensure that other orphaned children such as myself are not made into future terrorists? Think of the number of schools that could be established that would counter the actions of the madrasas. Yehuda, I was literally brainwashed into believing that my only duty was to die for Islam--is that any way to bring up a child? This will be my one good deed towards attaining paradise!'

'But, Barabba, why are we allowing these eleven events to happen all over the world? Why can't we stop them?'

'It is not in our control. You think that the instructions are from me?'

'Then from whom are they? The Sheikh? His Master?'

'Yehuda, my friend, you have a lot to learn. You follow my orders. I follow the 168

Sheikh's orders. The Sheikh follows his Master's orders. Whose orders does the Master follow?'

'I am not sure.'

'The Illuminati, my friend. You think that Islamic terrorism just happened one day without immense financial backing? Call them the CIA, the SAS, even the American presidency--all Illuminati. It has been in the Illuminati's interest to keep the fires burning. It ensures that Illuminati-controlled companies make money. It ensures that defence contractors get orders in Iraq. It ensures that the Catholic Church as well as puppet regimes of the Middle East are kept in check. It keeps India focused on Kashmir, Pakistan focused on India, China focused on Tibet, Russia focused on Chechnya, and the world focused on Osama.'

'I still do not understand why you want me to ask El-Azhar to betray you. This is going too far.'

'It is vital. Everyone needs me dead. It is vital that they think I am in custody. If this impression is not created accurately, the final result will not be what we want.

These are very intelligent people! They have used me as an anti-Christ to artificially fulfil the third prophecy of Nostradamus. They need to be handled very carefully.'

And then he had told him to 'betray' him to the Japanese woman.

Sitting in his suite at the charming Country Inn on Frederick Road, he was feeling quite proud of himself for having followed Ghalib's instructions flawlessly. He was now here to meet all the other eleven, and to explain to them the final words of Ghalib.

There was a knock on the door.

'Who is it?' he asked, as he headed towards the door.

'Room service,' came the reply.

The waiter brought the tray and placed it on the coffee table in the sitting area.

Yehuda thanked the waiter and signed the room service bill, adding a generous tip. He always ensured that his tips were generous when he was travelling abroad; it made the damned white man feel inferior! He started to hand back the leather folder containing the signed bill and the tip when he became aware that the waiter was now behind him.

The sudden tightening of a rope around his neck was when he realised that the tip had been of no use.

New Delhi, India, 2012

The Japanese woman was sitting in Tihar.

Tihar Jail, the largest prison in South Asia,192 was located in the western sector of Delhi, about eight kilometres away from Chanakyapuri, the diplomatic area of the Indian capital. It was one of the largest prison complexes in the world and comprised eight prisons in the Tihar Complex. With a total population of around 13,160 prisoners against a sanctioned prison capacity of 5,648, it was also one of the most overcrowded prisons in the world. There were eight jail blocks in the complex numbered CJ-1 to CJ-8. The lodging arrangement in the various blocks, located over 400 acres, was according to the court cases, and then according to alphabetical ordering of names.

Swakilki was in CJ-6, the women's block.

A special facility was provided to foreigners to have interviews with the diplomats 169

of their countries on any working day between 4 pm and 5 pm. The Japanese representative was meeting Swakilki in the office of the deputy superintendent of the jail, located near the entrance. His demeanour was polite and respectful. Typically Japanese.

'Konbanwa,' he said to her. ' O genki desu ka?' he enquired to find out how she was.

'Hai, genki desu,' replied Swakilki. 'I am fine.'

'Do you need anything?' he enquired.

'I need to confess. Get me a priest,' she said simply.

'Bless me, Father, for I am about to sin. It has been a month since my last confession.'

'My child, I cannot absolve you of a sin that has not yet been committed.'

'Yes, but I am about to kill a man. And I have already sinned.'

'How can you say that? You have not yet killed him, and you call it a sin?'

'I should have killed my father years ago. That is my sin--not having killed him yet. Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more. Amen.'

There was a startled pause. The priest recovered and continued, 'But why would you want to kill your own father, my child?'

Swakilki began.

'My mother had always brought me up to believe that I had inherited unusual powers. Unfortunately, I lost her at the age of six and many of my childhood memories were repressed.'