‘There’s a cabinet meeting shortly, but I’ll delay it. Is this Jackson available?’
‘Waiting for someone to call him in Gakona.’
59
I t was the world’s greatest archaeological announcement since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen. The hotel conference room, even though it seated over a hundred people, was way too small. The media conference had, perforce, been moved to the Great Plaza of Tikal, flanked by the massive Pyramid I and II: the Temple of the Great Jaguar and the Temple of the Mask.
Jose performed an ancient Mayan blessing and introduced Aleta as one of the finest archaeologists of the age. She stepped confidently to the microphone, which had been positioned on the steps of the North Terrace on the northern side of the plaza. Cameras flashed incessantly and television cameramen and women vied for the best shots. The broadcast beamed live to over 150 countries. Aleta had wanted to begin by thanking O’Connor, but he’d firmly dissuaded her. The game in Washington wasn’t over yet, he’d warned – not by a long shot. Just before Aleta took the microphone, Rodriguez handed her a note. It read: ‘Test-firing of Minuteman cancelled’.
‘The warnings are stark,’ Aleta emphasised, after she’d given the assembled media a short introduction to the Maya and the codex. ‘And the major warnings for our civilisation concern religion and the environment,’ she said, avoiding any reference to the shorter warning on the rocket launch. ‘The Maya built one of the greatest civilisations the world has ever seen; but the last recorded inscription on any stelae in Tikal is dated 13 August 869 AD, and by then the city was in deep trouble. By 950 AD, the entire Mayan civilisation had collapsed. The magnificent city-states, with their countless pyramids and temples, lay totally deserted. There has been much debate in academic circles as to the reasons, and until now the real cause has not been determined.’
Aleta’s flawless command of English, with its delightful Spanish lilt, echoed authoritatively from the steps of the great pyramids. Three hundred kilometres away, Monsignor Jennings watched the proceedings on his black- and-white television. He threw the empty bottle of scotch clanging into the metal wastepaper basket. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he muttered, reaching for another bottle.
‘It is now clear,’ Aleta continued, ‘that despite a series of warnings to the great Mayan kings – kings like Jaguar Claw, Zero Moon Bird Hasaw and his wife, Lady Twelve Macaw, Yax Ain II – the city-states of Tikal, Calakmul and Naranjo, the latter controlled by the powerful warrior queen, Lady Six Sky, were engaged in vicious continual conflict. Conflict that ultimately destroyed both their environment and their ability to feed themselves, and ultimately, their civilisation The Maya Codex makes plain that we will suffer the same fate unless we change course.’ Aleta paused to let the warning hang above the ancient plaza. ‘As a civilisation, we, like the Mayan city- states, are fearful of difference. We fight our wars in the name of religion, be it in Northern Ireland or in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, and we seem unable to tolerate, let alone accept, different cultures. Pakistan, for example, is close to being a failed state, and her nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of extremists. Those extremists would think nothing of engaging in suicide bombings on a nuclear scale, all in the name of their god, Allah.’ The print-media journalists scribbled furiously.
‘In the United States a powerful block of forty million evangelicals subscribes to the view that Christ cannot return until all of the occupied Palestinian territories – Gaza, the West Bank – until every last square centimetre of the so-called Promised Land is returned to Israel.’
Ten thousand kilometres away, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Salvatore Felici, sat glued to the television in his opulent office in the Palazzo della Sacra Inquisizione.
‘The Vatican has yet to release the real third warning of Fatima,’ Aleta charged, ‘but a single page of notes, handwritten by Sister Lucia, has been hidden away in the Vatican’s secret archives. When the Virgin Mary appeared to Lucia in 1917, she issued a similar warning to that contained in the Maya Codex. The Virgin’s warning was preceded by Saint Malachy’s claim of a vision from God given to him on the Janiculum Hill above Rome in 1140, a vision that has proved to be an extraordinarily accurate forecast of who was to take the Keys of Peter, and there is every indication that the last papacy will end in December 2012.’ Some of the media reached for their phones. ‘Nor are the ideas of Christ unique,’ Aleta declared. ‘The codex makes plain that the message of how we should do the right thing by our neighbour is common to a great many religions – Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam – and if you were brought up as a child in Baghdad, it is not Christ’s resurrection you would be taught to believe in, but rather the resurrection of the great Prophet Muhammad on his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and back again. No one can claim they have the only path. There are many paths to the Omega, as the codex makes clear, because religion is an accident of birth. If we do not learn to get along and respect our different cultures, religion will be one of the forces that destroys us.’
Cardinal Felici snapped a pencil.
‘But the most strident warning in the codex concerns our treatment of the environment, because it was this, in the end, that destroyed the mighty Mayan civilisation and forced them to abandon their cities. The conference in Copenhagen, like every environmental conference before it, was an abject failure, yet the evidence of dramatic changes in weather patterns is there for everyone to see. The Maya Codex is clear: if we don’t change course, the sceptics who advocate protection of jobs will find there are no jobs left to protect. Finally,’ Aleta said, ‘the Maya Codex is quite clear about the coming confluence of our solar system with a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.’ There was a look of expectation on the face of every journalist in the plaza. ‘NASA has confirmed the ancient astronomers were right, down to the last second. Added to that, the scientific evidence is clear that the earth’s magnetic field is now at its lowest strength in recorded history, and the poles are moving across the wastes of the Arctic and Antarctic at over thirty kilometres a year. Sunspot power is rising dramatically, and will peak in 2012, but I would caution against extreme action.’
Arana nodded knowingly from where he was standing beside O’Connor near the base of Pyramid I.
‘Governments should instead put in place plans for a possible pole shift, and issues such as the effect on communications should be addressed; that is only prudent. Governments should also ensure that our knowledge banks are stored in the ether, that hardware backups are secured on higher ground, and that plans for evacuation from coastal areas are developed and rehearsed. But again, I would warn against any alarmist action, because my dear friends amongst the Mayan elders have a different view.’ Aleta turned to acknowledge Jose and the other elders and warriors.
‘The elders are aware that 21 December 2012 will open a spiritual portal – a portal of great energy and hope, but it will only be accessible to individuals who are prepared to reassess their priorities, those committed to a more peaceful, calmer existence. The portal will also be accessible to powerful countries, but only those countries which realign their foreign policies towards a fairer and more balanced view of the world, and encourage their citizens towards not tolerance, but acceptance of different cultures. If that happens, there is great hope. If not, the codex is very clear. We will suffer the same fate as the powerful Maya.’
The Mayan warriors stood guard outside O’Connor and Aleta’s chalet. Inside, Jose was taking his leave.
‘We can’t thank you enough, Jose,’ Aleta said, her eyes moist as she kissed the shaman on both cheeks.
‘It is enough that you have recovered the codex,’ he replied, shaking O’Connor’s hand. ‘Although I fear the world will debate this for a short time, just as they have climate change, and the media will move on. When that happens, remember the Inca,’ he said enigmatically. And with that, he was gone.
‘Are we in the clear?’ Aleta asked.
O’Connor shook his head. ‘Washington will deny any knowledge of CIA involvement here, and of the experiments in Gakona. That’s standard procedure. Deny and deny and keep denying in the hope the media will lose interest, until incontrovertible evidence surfaces that demands a retraction. There are powerful forces in Washington who still want my guts for garters, and as long as Wiley’s still alive and kicking, he won’t rest until he’s silenced me.’
‘And me. So what do we do now?’
‘I’ve got some old friends in Mossad. They’re getting close to von Heien’s trail in Peru, which coincidentally, is the home of the Inca. There’s a cargo ship leaving Puerto Quetzal in two days’ time, and the captain’s an atheist.’
