‘Crick proposed that it must have come from a more advanced civilisation, from one of the billions of galaxies like our own that make up the universe, and that it had been delivered by rocket vehicle or spacecraft.’ Allegra placed a diagram of the hydrogen and phosphodiester bonding of the DNA helix on the table.
‘Crick’s view was fiercely opposed by many, particularly in the Church, as it directly contradicted the story of creation in the Bible. In the 1990s Michael Drosnin published The Bible Code which outlined the work of the Israeli mathematician Eliyahu Rips. Rips discovered hidden codes in the Torah which Yossi Kaufmann found replicated in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a three-thousand-year-old document, Rips found the words “DNA spiral” and “DNA was brought in a vehicle”. Drosnin concluded that the vehicle was yet to be found, but was somewhere near the Dead Sea.’
‘Yossi wasn’t so sure,’ David said. ‘For starters, he thought there was more than one vehicle.’
‘Even if just one was delivered to the ancient seas of Earth, it would explain DNA combining with the amino acids in the primordial soup that made up the world’s oceans four billion years ago,’ Giovanni said, thinking back to his sermon in San Marco.
‘Precisely,’ Allegra agreed, ‘and as David will translate, the Omega Scroll makes that very clear.’
David walked over to the second section of the Omega Scroll and read from the Koine. ‘And they came like stars from the sky, and were buried in the great sands of the desert, steel chariots bringing the seeds of life.’
‘So the Essenes found the vehicle?’ Professor Martines asked.
David nodded. ‘The Omega Scroll records the discovery and, as the translation suggests, it confirms there was more than one vehicle. As well as DNA, each contained a diagram of the structure of the acid and a map of its destination, which explains the Essene models, including the tenth planet which we have only just discovered. It might also mean that ours is not the only galaxy that has been targeted.’
‘A message we will ignore at our peril,’ Giovanni observed. ‘I think it is highly possible that another civilisation is trying to tell us that life on this planet is in our hands, but if we continue on our present course and annihilate the planet, in the scheme of the cosmos, that mistake will not be of great consequence. Other civilisations with greater wisdom will continue and take our place.’
‘There is still time to heed these warnings,’ Allegra emphasised, ‘and reverse the damage that has been done. I suspect there is a connection between the DNA element of the Omega Scroll and the balance of the feminine element. There are roughly three billion base pairs in human DNA organised into twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. We all have twenty-two pairs, but the critical twenty-third pair has always been different, two X chromosomes for females and an X and a Y chromosome for males. That delicate balance has been a deliberate part of the design of the cosmos from the very beginning and the Omega Scroll’s illumination of the origin of DNA contains a subtle message – any alteration of that balance will ultimately lead to our destruction.’
‘A lot of people are going to find this a little out there,’ Tom observed. His sceptical questioning was second nature to him.
‘And a lot of people have closed minds to anything that is beyond their experience, Tom,’ Allegra said firmly. ‘Crick pointed out that the universe is so vast, it is beyond the imagination of many of us. Our galaxy alone has perhaps a hundred billion stars. Billions of suns like our own energising the planets that are circling around them. Just in our galaxy,’ Allegra emphasised, ‘and there are at least ten billion more galaxies, which allows for trillions of planets. Are we seriously suggesting that among all of these, our planet is the only one to have life, or that we are the most advanced?’ Allegra spoke forcefully, then she continued more gently, ‘Less than four hundred years ago, one of the most brilliant scientists our world has ever seen dared to suggest that the Earth was not, as the Church stated, at the centre of God’s universe. He suggested that it revolved around the sun. That so enraged the Vatican that Pope Urban VIII had the scientist thrown into prison.’ Allegra was smiling but the challenge was in her eyes if Tom wanted to take it up.
Giovanni grinned. ‘Galileo Galilei, 1633. I’m sorry to say it took the Vatican more than three hundred and fifty years to apologise to Galileo. On 28 December 1991 we finally issued a press release admitting he had been right, although you both have a point,’ Giovanni added diplomatically. ‘Many people will close their minds to this, and nowhere more so than in the Church. When we close our minds, we close off many avenues of learning.’
‘That is especially dangerous when I tell you why the Essenes recorded their warning for our civilisation,’ David added ominously, but he got no further. The sound of a single gunshot from the floor below was deafening.
It took Professor Martines little more than a minute to reach the office of the Cardinal Secretary of State where he was met by a dazed Father Thomas.
‘His Eminence… he’s just committed…’ Father Thomas ran to an adjoining door.
Even for a seasoned psychiatrist Professor Martines was brought up short with what he found. Lorenzo Petroni’s brains, or what was left of them, were dripping down the wall opposite the window that overlooked the Piazza San Pietro. The autopsy would find a single shot through the roof of his mouth. Petroni’s body lay beside his desk on the royal blue carpet, the black. 38 Beretta Cheetah on the floor nearby. The back of his head was missing. Vincenzo Martines could hear Father Thomas being sick in the Secretary of State’s bathroom.
Professor Martines shut the double doors to the Secretary of State’s office and waited for Father Thomas. Several nuns and one or two priests, consternation marking their faces, were gathering outside.
‘Do you feel you can stay?’ Professor Martines asked Father Thomas when he emerged from the bathroom. ‘For the time being we need to make sure no one comes in here.’
Father Thomas could only nod in reply.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Hindu Kush
T he wind was light but at high altitude there was no warmth in the late afternoon sun that caught the granite and snow of the north-west frontier and Tirich Mir. Inside the cave complex Dr Hussein Tretyakov had handed over yet another of the deadly suitcase bombs to Abdul Basheer, who was now poring over a travel map of Sydney.
‘There has been a slight change in our plans,’ Basheer said quietly. ‘I have decided to hit the infidel in a way he will least expect. Sydney will be attacked first, followed by Manchester and Chicago. While he is distracted by those attacks, in the ensuing panic we will hit New York and London.
‘Sydney is especially vulnerable. We will deliver the bomb from the air and we have an excellent choice of surrounding airfields that are not subject to checks. The flight plan will be a standard vector into the nearby suburban Bankstown airfield. Our plane will not have to deviate from its flight path until the last minutes before final approach.’
‘That deviation will be picked up by air traffic control?’ Tretyakov ventured.
‘Of course, but by then it will be too late. In a few short minutes our aircraft will be over the central business district. Unlike the Americans, the Australian infidels do not employ fighter aircraft on patrols over their cities so they will not be able to stop us. What will be the effect of an air-burst over that city?’ Abdul Basheer asked.
‘It will be similar to New York and London,’ Hussein replied, ‘although the air-burst will cause greater damage to the buildings and infrastructure. I have calculated that if the bomb is exploded above the city, perhaps two hundred thousand people will be killed by the blast, and hundreds of thousands more will die of burns and radiation. The Sydney Harbour Bridge will be twisted and buckled, and buildings and people around ground zero will be vaporised.’