"Nephilim - 03 - The Revealing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marzulli L A)

Zach shook his head. "That's a big `I don't know.' I was up to my cerebral cortex with this," and he tapped his clipboard.
"Back to what you were saying," Fitzpatrick began again. "What are the calcs of any of this happening anytime soon .. . as far as you can make them out?"
"It's off the charts. Try a number with about sixty zeroes after it. It could happen at any moment."
"That's sobering," Joyce said, under her breath.
"The end of the world is on our doorstep and I haven't started my Christmas shopping," Mary joked. The rest of the group remained silent, stunned by the sudden possible reality of what had only seemed like a vague, entertaining theory.
"Maybe these seers, prophets, could somehow see through time," Fitzpatrick suggested. "They all tapped into the same event, but because of their diverse backgrounds they viewed the same event in different ways, filtered by their own worldview."
Zach shrugged. "Who knows. Anyway ... I'll give you the data after I load it all into the Beast and run the calcs on it. But it's my gut feeling that we'll soon move the clock to midnight."
The Beast was a supercomputer that had been especially constructed for the Tank. It was linked to all the major news services so that as the day's events unfolded, information would be sorted, analyzed, and then factored into the mix. The mix was the end result of all the dataЧspecifically, how the events of the world would mix together to reach a climax, or, in other words, a likely end-of-the-world scenario. When Fitzpatrick had begun work at the Tank, the doomsday clock had been set at twenty minutes before midnight. With the ongoing tension in the Middle East, the instability of the former Soviet Union, civil unrest in many African nations, the Iraqi war, North Korean nuclear capability, the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and random acts of violence by terrorists, the doomsday clock had moved so it was just ten minutes before midnight.
"Yeah, it should be interesting to see how it affects the mix," Fitzpatrick replied.
"The Hag will be very interested in this," Mary added.
"Speaking of which, Mary told me that the Hag invited you to the gala," Zach said, as he walked backward away from Fitzpatrick. "The Hag" was the name that think-tank members used to refer to their boss. This negative nom-de-plume was bestowed on the man due to several factors, the least of which was his horrific-smelling breath and liver spots that blotched the man's face, which he tried to hide with thick makeup.
Fitzpatrick nodded. "A first, I assure you."
"I heard they get really wild," Zach remarked, and he turned and walked away, not waiting for an answer.
Fitzpatrick wondered about the Hag, the man who was hosting the gala. Why would he invite me? What does he want? he thought.
He walked toward his desk and slid the Japanese Shoji screen in place for a modicum of privacy. Taking a seat at his computer, he logged on using a very elaborate password. His computer, like the others in the Tank, worked on multilevels of security. One password allowed him access to the main-frame of the computer, but no farther. Another allowed him to navigate the Web, another allowed searches of government files. There were layers and layers of top-secret files, a world within a world.
Fitzpatrick typed in a command, and then authorization codes allowing him access to secret government files from 1940 to the present. He typed in the date 1945 and began to look at very old black-and-white photographs of some of the Nazi hierarchy. Next to the pictures he found entries like Deceased 1978. Found guilty at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to death. Believed to have escaped to South America. Last seen in Argentina circa 1965. He was looking for his bossЧWolfgang Von Schverdt, the Hag.
Fitzpatrick had been somewhat reluctant at first to investigate his employer. But over the months he had a growing feeling that something wasn't right. He couldn't articulate what it was, but the feeling made him uneasy.
A decade earlier, he might have used religious terms to define that feeling, but he had abandoned his Christian. worldview as being too dogmatic and narrow. He now embraced a potpourri of spirituality, believing all religions were, in fact, based on a synthesis of universal truth. His ability to study and read ancient documents had opened his eyes to what he had termed "The Universal Truth of Man." Gone was his former dogmatic thinking that a Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, was the only way to salvation. He had come to realize that through the ages humankind had been given information. His research had led him step-by-step to the unmistakable conclusion that there was a force that seemed to meddle in the affairs of men. This force had manifested itself in the likes of Buddha, Muhammed, and Krishna. Other manifestations were obscure, living in remote areas of the globe with only a small band of devotees. Yet, incredibly, they all seemed to say the very same thing: that God was within each of us. All humankind needed to do was to somehow make the link that we were all, in fact, divine. Even the words of Jesus echoed the very same thing, didn't they? That "the Kingdom of God was within you" and "you will do greater works than I"? Supporting documents had come to light in the twentieth century, such as the obscure manuscript The Gospel of Thomas. Once suppressed by the church, it was now being read by the common man, causing the dogma and doctrines of all religions to be questioned. He felt that he was charting a cosmic dialectic, where the conflict of religious diversity was about to be resolved in a synthesisЧthat synthesis being a new one-world religion.
He had put the pieces together and published an article through the university where he had been employed at the time. From that one article he had been contacted by the Hag himself, and landed the head position in the Tank. But after a year he wondered what ends his talents were serving, which had given him the impetus to start his own investigation on his enigmatic employer . . . the Hag.
Fitzpatrick had been able to place the Hag in Germany during World War II, but as of yet he had been unable to find any direct link with the Nazi party. He scrolled down through another list of Nazis. He examined their faces, reading the comments posted, and then, when he was certain that there was no resemblance, or that the person he was looking at didn't quite fit the bill, he would note the entry, delete it from his database, and move on to the next.
There had been several hits where the Hag might have been the man pictured. Fitzpatrick had the face aged, using the latest computer-imaging process, but so far his hunt had turned up nothing. However, several days ago he had stumbled onto something that had caught his attention. He had been looking at German scientists, who, after the war, became involved in the United States space program. He realized that although one set of records showed that the men had been involved in the death camps, a later one seemed to have any such indication of heinous acts removed from the files. He had cross-checked his information several times, and noticed that on the top of the page two words had been typed: paper clip. At first he had wondered what it could mean, but after a brief search he discovered that the files of Nazis that had been differentiated with the code word paper clip had been integrated into the American scientific community. So now Fitzpatrick narrowed his search to the paper-clip Nazis only, assuming that the Hag had been a Nazi, which Fitzpatrick was inclined to think he was.
The telephone rang and Fitzpatrick picked it up. "Fitzpatrick here," he replied, as he cradled the phone with his chin against his shoulder. His attention was still on the screen and he had scrolled down to the next name on the list. "Hi, Fitz, it's Mary."
Fitzpatrick took his hands off the keyboard. "What's the scuttlebutt?"
"Are you going to go to the Hag's party or are you calling in sick at the last minute?" she asked. There was no mistaking the flirtatious overtones in her voice.
"Do I have a choice here?" Fitzpatrick asked as his eyes flashed back to the screen.
"I thought maybe we could go together," Mary suggested.
Having been a Dominican priest, he had missed the basic rudiments of dating, so he was taken aback by the woman's forwardness.
"Well, uh ..."
Mary interrupted, "The Hag is sending a car for me. I could pick you up."
Vinnie popped his head over the Shoji screen. "Fitz . . . the pope's dead. It's official."
"Mary, the pope just died. Meet me at the conference table," and he hung up, glad to be off the hook.
"It's official," Vinnie started again as Fitzpatrick got out from behind his desk. "I mean, it's official to us, but the media hasn't gotten the intel yet."
"When is it supposed to break?"
Vinnie looked at his watch. "Less than half an hour." Fitzpatrick thought a moment. "Give me a minute and I'll meet you all at the table."
"Got it," Vinnie chimed, and his head disappeared.
Fitzpatrick took one last look at the Nazis on the screen of his computer, earmarking the file so that later he could return to the same spot and renew his search. Following the links out of the database, he secured his terminal. A moment later his screen saverЧan ancient Syriac manuscriptЧappeared, and Fitzpatrick left his desk.



12


Nora tried to throw the pillow sack over the chain-link fence that fenced in the vacant lot at the end of the alley, but it was too heavy for her and bounced off the fence back at her. She tried again but met with the same results. Then she remembered seeing a few discarded tires a little ways back down the path. She looked around, making sure no one else was near, and left the sack by the fence, then hurried down the path to where the tires were. Selecting one, she picked it up. It was filled with water and some of it splashed out and got her pants wet. She dropped it and picked up one end, allowing the rest of the water to drain.
She heard a dog bark and saw Boy at the end of the alley-way, wagging his tail.
'All right, Boy, I got somethin' for ya, all right," Nora said, and she went over to the sack and brought out the package of bread, opened it, and took out a slice. She held it out in front of her. "Come and get it, Boy," she coaxed. The dog lay down, wagged his tail, and moved a foot or two towards her. "Come on, Boy, you can do it," she said again. Boy barked at her and kept his tail wagging and moved another foot. Finally, Nora gave up and threw the bread at him. The dog fielded it in his mouth and was back down the alley and out of sight in an instant.
She went back to the tire and picked it up again, rolling it down the path to the fence where she propped it up against it, using it as a makeshift stepladder. She grabbed her sack and got up on the tire. It gave her the added height she needed to get the sack over the top of the chain link. She then scrambled over the top, snatched the sack up, and headed for the Condos.
At the entrance of the subway tunnel she stopped and listened as she let her eyes adjust to the dark. The sound of a train in the distance echoed eerily, and she could feel the slight trembling of the earth as it approached. Making her way over to the side of the tunnel, she kept walking. A minute later the train passed. She looked at the commuters, in the brightly lit cars that flashed by, like a ghostly intrusion.
Turning into a connecting tunnel she saw someone coming toward her. She held the heavy pillowcase tightly, ready to use it to fend off anyone who would try to take it. A few steps later, Nora realized that it was a woman, and relaxed. As she got closer, she recognized Lizzie, a heavyset older woman who didn't live in the Condos but had set up house nearby on a utility platform above the tracks.
"Hey, Lizzie, that you?" Nora called.
Lizzie shuffled a few steps. Nora heard the woman clear her throat. "Who wants to know?" a gravelly voice answered. "It's me, Nora."