Newton’s Fire

FORTY-FOUR I

‘So you’re on a mission from God,’ mocked Luke. ‘What are you? A Blues Brother?’

Croke felt himself flushing. Perhaps foolishly, he’d expected his revelation to evoke awe rather than ridicule. ‘Aren’t you curious?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious?’

‘About what?’

‘About everything. About us finding the Ark today, for example. Today of all days.’

Luke frowned. ‘What’s so special about today?’

Croke squinted at him. ‘You don’t know? I thought you were a Newton scholar.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about his Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John. Haven’t you read it?’

‘Not for a while. It’s more Jay’s area than mine.’

Croke nodded. ‘We spent an afternoon together at the start of all this. I found his interpretation of the prophecies amusing at first. But the more he showed me, the less sceptical I became.’

‘You should check out the moon landings,’ said Luke. ‘They never really happened, you know.’

Croke turned to Rachel. ‘Were you aware that Newton predicted the date of Armageddon? That he predicted the time of the Second Coming and the end of the world as we know it? I wasn’t. I never even knew he was interested in such things. But he was. And he was very specific about them too. He stated that all of this would come to pass once the Whore of Babylon had held earthly power for a specific number of years. The Whore of Babylon, to Newton, was the Catholic Church. The Church acquired earthly power when Pepin first gave them lands to administer. And how many years were to pass from that moment until the Second Coming? I’m glad you ask. The answer doesn’t appear just once in the Books of Daniel and Revelation. It appears five times. Twelve hundred and sixty years. And when is 1260 years since the Second Donation of Pepin? What date does Newton predict for Armageddon and the end of everything we know? Yes, you’ve guessed it. This year.’

‘Is that really the best you’ve got?’ asked Rachel. ‘A prophecy from the Book of Revelation?’

‘Look around you,’ said Croke. ‘Earthquakes, wars, famines, pestilence, hurricanes, turmoil in the Catholic Church. All exactly as predicted for the Last Days. And then there’s the big one. Another prophecy of Daniel as interpreted by Newton, but even more specific this time: Armageddon is to take place seven weeks after the return of the Jews. Seven weeks is forty-nine days. A day in prophecy equates to a year in the real world. And do you know what was happening in Israel forty-nine years ago today? Forty-nine years ago today was the exact moment the Jews regained control of Jerusalem for the first time in two thousand years. Forty-nine years ago today. And when do we find the Ark? Today, of all days. And you still think it’s coincidence?’

‘Yes,’ said Luke.

Croke smiled and forced himself to relax. ‘It’s not just Judaism and Christianity that believe in the Messiah, Armageddon and the End of Days,’ he said. ‘They all appear in Islam too. Did you know that? All these great religions with a shared vision of a final battle between good and evil, the coming of a saviour. Do you know what the main difference is? The main difference is which faiths the various armies profess.’

‘People are tribal. What’s your point?’

‘You wouldn’t believe how many different scenarios have been predicted. Hundreds of them, all based on slightly different readings of the Tanakh, the Bible and the Quran. But there’s one tradition in particular that caught my fancy: that the Ark will be discovered and brought to Jerusalem by the Antichrist himself, enabling the Third Temple to be built. And then this Antichrist will be crowned king in the rebuilt Holy of Holies, and he’ll rule the earth for seven years.’ He leaned a little closer to them both. ‘That would be quite something, don’t you think? To be crowned king in the Holy of Holies? To rule the earth for seven years? Especially as one man’s Antichrist is really only another man’s Messiah, except with worse P.R. Though he does have the better titles, to be fair. The Man of Sin. The Son of Perdition. The Dragon. They have a certain ring to them, don’t they? You know what my favourite is? My favourite is the Prince of Rome. That has some real swagger to it, wouldn’t you agree? The Prince of Rome.’

‘And you take this stuff seriously, do you?’ asked Luke.

‘Don’t you ever get tired of your own scepticism?’ sighed Croke. ‘Doesn’t there come a point when the signs so mount up that belief becomes the rational option? Don’t you ever look up at the sky and get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all? I do. I’ll be thinking about orbits or gravity or electromagnetism or one of the myriad other things that have to be exactly as they are for us even to exist, and I’ll get dizzy.’

‘You should take a pill.’

‘So you’re immune to it, are you?’

‘People have been predicting Armageddon for two thousand years. Yet somehow we’re still here.’

‘You’re a scientist,’ suggested Croke.

‘I’m a believer in the scientific method,’ replied Luke.

‘Me too,’ said Croke. ‘Me too. I was raised that way. My father really is a scientist, you see. Not some wannabe hanger-on like you. A physicist, to be precise. He taught at MIT for a while, which you don’t get to do unless you’re very, very good, as I’m sure you appreciate. But then the US Air Force came calling, and he was too much the patriot to say no. He’s been with them ever since, developing surveillance, intelligence and weapons’ systems, that kind of thing. That’s how I got started in my line of work, if you’re curious. All those men with wings and stars on their uniforms who came visiting while I was a kid. I couldn’t have asked for a better contacts list.’

‘Your father must be very proud of you,’ Luke said.

Croke laughed. ‘He is, as it happens. But that’s not what’s under discussion right now. I’m trying to explain why I don’t share your certainty, though I largely share your outlook. And I’m also trying to answer your earlier question, about why I’m on this flight.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘There’s a town called Rome in upstate New York. Maybe you’ve heard of it?’

‘What if I have?’

‘The USAF has an important research base there. That’s where my father went when he left MIT fifty years ago. It’s where he’s spent his whole career. He’s actually run the place for the past three decades. He’s been running it so long, do you know what they call him?’

‘What?’

‘They call him the King,’ said Croke. ‘The King of Rome.’ And he laughed at the shock on Luke and Rachel’s faces, and he pushed himself to his feet and sauntered back to his office.

II

Benyamin had fallen behind the others on the race to the Dome. He was older than everyone but Avram, and far less fit. The intoxication of seeing the Ark had worn off too, leaving him wondering what the hell he’d let himself in for. He arrived inside as Danel pulled the fuses of two construction flares that he’d set up on the carpet beneath the cupola, banishing the great darkness with their fluttering orange light, lighting up the gigantic space above them. Benyamin had seen countless pictures over the years, of course. He’d seen videos. But it was an Arab achievement and so he’d always dismissed it as nothing, as swimming pool architecture. But standing here, staring upwards, it was impossible to dismiss. Impossible to feel anything other than awe. He’d had no idea at all it would