The Deceit

50

‘It’s just forty minutes,’ Herzog explained, as they descended the wheeled steps and walked towards a big, black, newish SUV, waiting in the desolate car park of Newquay Airport. Ryan stumbled, Helen assisted him.

Ryan measured his sight, looking into the distance: the sea was visible over the green damp fields, a mile north. A pale January sun was failing to warm the freezing wind. But there was a darkness on the horizon, like an eclipse, and it wasn’t bad weather.

Five hours’ flying had brought them from sunburned desert to wintry western England. For most of it he had been delirious, stretched out on an extended seat, praying and sweating. Dying, like Albert.

Now one of those rarer hours of lucidity had returned. But the blindness was definitely worse. It was as if he was gazing through shrinking binoculars: the rings of darkness had tightened and soon he would be totally blind. In an hour or two he would be dead.

The passport officials at the tiny airfield hurried them through, just as the Luxor Airport staff had similarly hurried them through, seeing Ryan’s condition. Everyone in Newquay appeared to know Herzog well: they bought entirely his story that he had rescued Helen and Ryan from the troubles in Egypt. Ryan was, allegedly, suffering from CS-gas poisoning: ‘the terrible Egyptian police, you saw the riots in Cairo …’

Two of Herzog’s men assisted him into the car. Ryan thought, in his darkening, despairing hours, this was all pointless: he was probably going to die.

Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

The car began its journey south through dark woods of wet pines and more vivid green fields. Or maybe the forests weren’t so dark, and Ryan’s blindness was colouring everything. He stared, desperately, out of the window. Helen clutched his hand.

Little granite cottages shivered next to little granite pubs. The old chimneys of mineheads pointed accusingly at God.

‘Moqqatam,’ said Helen.

Herzog turned. ‘What?’

‘The Zabaleen, in Moqqatam, they are your lab rats, yes? You have been testing all your stuff on them.’

For a few seconds Herzog seemed atypically thrown. He said nothing as the car burned along the damp black roads, but frowned blackly. At last he spoke. ‘You may as well know. Maybe you even deserve to know. Yes.’ He shrugged, staring ahead. ‘When I first became interested in parasites, I had no idea of the possibilities relating to monotheism. I was just interested in mind control, parasites that alter human behaviour. One such is Taenia solium — it causes bizarre behavioural changes that are just as subtle as those attributed to toxo: seizures, headaches, depression, but also psychoses.’ He gazed out of the car at a drizzly field. ‘Also restlessness, delusions of persecution, visions of divine fire and holy voices. Some versions of Taenia solium can give you hallucinations that are so bad and realistic you want to kill yourself. You see the worst things your mind can imagine.’

Helen insisted, ‘Moqqatam.’

‘I’m coming to that.’ The car accelerated onto a dual carriageway. ‘If you ever get the chance, Google the name Kevin Keogh. He was a nice ordinary salaryman, in Arizona, but he became subtly infected with Taenia solium. He went totally crazy, jumped to his death and—’

‘Moqqatam!’

‘Isn’t it obvious? All this evidence made me think. What if you could weaponize mind-altering parasites? Put them in aerosols you could broadcast from a crop-sprayer. Hell, put them in a fucking warhead. Israel’s ultimate defence. The Armageddon Bomb. So we started our initial experiments, in Israel, on animals. But we really needed human guinea pigs.’

‘The Zabaleen.’

‘Why not? Sassoon told me about them. They sounded ideal. Because those poor rag-picking schlubs are despised by everyone: even the beggars of Cairo’s cemeteries look down on the Zarraba, the pig people. The Zabaleen also needed a clinic in their City of Trash, and so we built them that clinic. And we also gave them real medicine: vaccinations, surgery, amputations.’

‘But not just that!’

‘What made the Zabaleen optimal for our purposes was that they do get a lot of strange diseases, from sorting through all that venomous trash.’

‘So no one would notice if you experimented on them as well?’

Herzog seemed to smile. Ryan could not really tell. He was losing the ability to focus his eyes.

‘The Zabaleen are therefore perfect cover. We look like charitable clinicians, yet in ten per cent of cases we give the Zabs a new and experimental injection, ostensibly for their hepatitis or their HIV. But really we’re testing synthesized or weaponized parasites. Then we sit back and see what happens. Usually it’s quite bad. But who cares? No one cares. Who would notice if another wretched Zabaleen went mad, or killed a priest, or turned out to be hosting a strange new screw worm? The Zabaleen get parasites and psychoses all the time, only my clinic assists them.’

Helen’s voice was angry. ‘This is just Nazi science. It is no better than Mengele.’

‘No, it’s better. So we turn a few into golems, sure. But we’re not trying to wipe out the Zabaleen. We just want to make sure the Jews are not wiped out ever again. Look —’ Herzog pointed — ‘we are nearly here.’

‘But the Zabaleen burned down your clinic, we heard on the boat.’

‘We had a few problems. They got violent. Maybe they suspected something. Anyway, we did our practical in-the-field experiments there, and we do our more intense research here, in Cornwall. We’re going to move the lab but at the moment this is the place where we analyse results, process the data, manufacture the first weaponized parasites. And now we are on to the God Parasite, trying to defeat the worst parasite of all.’

‘I could tell the world about this.’

‘Really? Yes, you could. I suppose. If this was Hollywood. But then I could get someone to infect you with espundia.’ The car turned onto a narrower road. ‘That’s an interesting organism. Eats away the flesh of the face, basically turns you into a living skull.’

Helen ignored this. ‘You’re moving the lab, why?’

Herzog gazed out of the window. The white spoil heaps dominated everything, it was an extra terrestrial landscape. Ryan could see whiteness ringed with black. And yet beyond it, something golden. Peace, at last; peace and reconciliation. He yearned for the quietness.

Herzog’s voice was a comforting drone. ‘Nearly there now. Yes, we’re moving the lab. And it’s not the first time. The Israeli government became hostile to my more interesting ideas vis-à-vis religion, and the abolition thereof. So, we decided to come to Britain, somewhere discreet, with access to English-speaking scientists. But now we’re going to move the lab to an even more friendly regime. Singapore perhaps. We’re working on it.’

Ryan spoke, for the first time in an hour. ‘Cats. We know they are fundamental, a crucial link. How?’

The Israeli stared at Ryan. ‘I was right to hire you.’ He sat forward. ‘Yes, there is a second Egyptian parasite which we have isolated. It also comes from Akhmim. We call it the Bastet Parasite.’

‘The god of cats.’

‘Because cats are the vector, as with toxoplasmosis. It’s rare but you can catch it from cats, and the Egyptians were the first to suffer from it. We think it explains the association of cats with evil, magic and the Devil throughout history, because, you see, some cats really do pass on a parasite which makes the human hosts believe they have charismatic powers, and in a sense, as I said, the hosts do. It seems that human hosts of Bastet can unwittingly hypnotize people, or bewitch them, convince others they are sorcerers, with special powers.’

The car turned onto an empty car park in the very middle of the spoil heaps. Several glass-and-black-steel buildings broke the monotony of white clayspoil and grey sky. Ryan was lifted from the car. He was in the last minutes of lucidity; he knew the cycle now, the symptoms. Death approached, smiling.

And still Herzog talked, as Ryan was laid on another stretcher, and wheeled towards the lab.

‘The Egyptians must have reacted, subliminally, to the Bastet Parasite: that’s probably why they revered cats so much, worshipped them for thousands of years. They sensed that cats had some strange potency to transmit to humankind. And this is why all occult and all hermetic magic is thought to derive from Egypt, because Egypt is the origin of the domestic cat. Neat, no? Of course, we’re not sure of the neurochemistry but then, we’re not quite sure why feline toxoplasmosis makes women more attractive to men.’

Herzog was still talking. Always talking. Supremely confident; boastful. ‘Indeed, I sometimes wonder how many wizards and holy men through history have simply been the unwitting victims, or lucky hosts, of the Bastet Parasite? We know of at least one example: an Englishman, Aleister Crowley, a Satanist who experimented with cat magic.’

They were heading into the laboratory, which was almost deserted. Chemicals in sturdy metal barrels with lurid haz-chem signs sat on large steel shelves. Glassware and machines lined the long walls, endless gleaming machines. Ryan lifted his head, and squeezed Helen’s hand.

Helen was insistent. ‘So why are you moving?’

‘Bastet. Bastet is, indirectly, the reason we are moving. We had a worker here, brilliant kid, Luke Rothley, one of the best neurobiologists. I recruited him in Tel Aviv: he came asking for a job. I told him we were setting up a new lab, because things were getting uncomfortable in Israel. He agreed to work here in Britain — but it was an error, my error. He couldn’t resist trying the Bastet Parasite, taking a snoot of the Crowley cocaine. The poor guy went psycho, wanted to kill me. He hated the fact we were going to kill off God, and then he stole much of our data, most of our more promising samples, all the mind-bending parasites about to be weaponized, and he is still out there, doing his absurd spells with his real science. The police will catch him, but it’s a warning. A siren.’ Herzog opened the door. ‘This is the main lab complex. OK, OK. Enough talking: these are my lab guys, my technicians. We need to get started. Hello?’

Ryan looked up at Helen; she was staring around, frowning. Something was wrong: something was even more wrong.

‘Samuel.’

What? Who was this?

‘Samuel Herzog. Hello.’

Ryan lifted himself on an elbow and squinted. A man had come from behind the door. He was in black clothes, tall, fair, athletic, holding a gun in one hand and a syringe in the other.

And next to him was a blonde girl, maybe eight years old, dressed entirely in white. Like a Victorian ghost.

The needle had already gone straight into Herzog’s neck.

Someone cried, ‘Rothley?’

Ryan’s sight was almost gone now: but he could see Rothley. Pulling out the steel needle. The girl just stood there. Barefoot in her white clothes, staring mutely into space.

The effect of the sudden injection on Herzog was quite extraordinary. His eyes were glazing over: the whites were occluding the pupils; he was hunchbacked. He lifted his dull eyes and gazed at Rothley.

The young man spoke. ‘Ampulex compressa. Ten millilitres. You of all people, Herzog, know what that means. Let’s go to the safe room. Come with us, Zara.’

Rothley led the shuffling older man down some shallow steps; the girl followed like a loyal spaniel. Herzog seemed to have partly lost control of his limbs. Rothley was like a stern but caring parent, leading his children. The three of them turned a corner and disappeared through a mighty steel door.

It was all done so smoothly, so shimmeringly, so magically, that for a moment everyone was silent.

Then one of the white-coated lab guys spoke up. ‘It’s on CCTV.’

Another assistant was weeping. ‘Ampulex compressa? Really? I can’t watch.’

Helen grabbed this assistant by the shoulder. ‘You have to help. My friend—’

The woman shook her head. She was still crying.

‘You mean he’s infected? Herzog has the parasiticide. He keeps it locked away.’

Ryan lay back. So he was going to die.

And he didn’t care.

But Helen did. ‘You have to get Herzog out of that safe room. Get the cure!’

‘We can’t!’ The second technician gestured, helplessly. ‘It’s lockable only from the inside: we can’t get him out. Look for yourself. Rothley has him trapped.’

The big lab-entrance door swung open behind them. Police with guns came running in, hurling questions. Police? Ryan wondered if he was hallucinating. If he was, it was fine.

Because he was going to die. Rhiannon was waiting. Everything was as it should be.

Helen slapped him. Hard. ‘Wake up! Ryan!’

The slap stung. Ryan felt a final, feeble surge of life force. He needed to fight. For a second the darkness cleared a little: he gazed around. The police were yelling questions, shouting about the girl, this girl, Zara, but it seemed they were as helpless as everyone else. The two men and the girl were locked in the steel cell down the stairs.

And so everyone turned: and watched the TV monitor. On the screen, Samuel Herzog was sitting on a metal bench behind Rothley, staring inanely into space. The girl stood at the back of the room, quite dumb. A mute little angel in white.

Rothley spoke to the CCTV camera, flourishing his syringe. ‘In this syringe is a weaponized version of the neurotoxin of Ampulex compressa, the emerald jewel wasp. Also known, colloquially, as the zombie cockroach wasp. As early as the 1940s it was reported that female wasps of this species are in the habit of stinging cockroaches, usually of the species Periplaneta americana, or Nauphoeta rhombipholia. The wasps do this as part of a truly remarkable reproductive cycle. Later studies have revealed the precise procedure adopted by the wasp. As we now know, don’t we, Samuel, the wasp stings the roach twice. Firstly, it stings the cockroach in the vicinity of the thoracic ganglia, so as to mildly paralyse the victim …’ Rothley was frowning, distantly, as he spoke. ‘This loss of mobility in the cockroach facilitates a second venomous sting, at a precise spot in the victim’s brain, which removes what is left of the victim’s escape reflex.’ He squirted a little of the fluid from the syringe. Even with his diminished sight Ryan could see the silvery sparkle of the venom. The girl’s eyes followed Rothley’s actions, quite bewitched. Or hypnotized.

Rothley continued, his voice flat and laconic. ‘In layman’s terms, the magic of the emerald jewel wasp is that by injecting its mind-altering venom directly into the little brain of the cockroach it induces the much larger, more powerful roach to become a slave. And now, Sam, the second sting.’

Turning to his left Rothley slid the needle into Herzog’s neck. The shining needle sank deep. The young man withdrew the syringe, then tapped it with a fingernail, scrutinizing it carefully.

‘With the neuromodulator injected in the roach’s tiny brain, the wasp has total control over the cockroach. So what does it do? The wasp then proceeds to chew off a segment of the roach’s antennae. Researchers believe that the wasp chews off the antennae to replenish its own fluids, or possibly to regulate the amount of venom in the victim.’

Rothley turned to Herzog. ‘I’m going to cut your hand off.’

Herzog meekly lifted a wrist. As if he was a bride waiting for the groom to kiss her hand. But Rothley was brandishing a knife; and it was large and serrated.

‘Oh Jesus.’ The lab assistant turned away from the screen.

The police crowded around the TV monitor. One of them, a young woman, snapped angrily at the nearest assistant, ‘Can we talk to him, to Rothley, in the safe room? Is there a speaker?’

The whitecoat nodded. ‘This is the button. Press and talk.’

The policewoman pressed. And talked. Her voice carried electronically to the safe room. ‘Rothley, I’m Karen Trevithick, I’m a detective, Scotland Yard—’

‘Yes, I know.’ Rothley’s voice was lucid and distinct.

The policewoman snapped out, ‘The girl, Rothley. Give us the girl. Zara Parkinson. Give her to us!’

Rothley seemed to shrug. ‘I need her.’

‘Rothley!’

But Rothley ignored the questions, turning to his hostage. ‘OK, Sam. Lift your arm a little more.’

Ryan gazed, and squinted. The few degrees of vision he had left were quite enough.

Rothley was now sawing at Herzog’s wrist. The job was laborious: the blood came in dribbles at first, but then it spat like stormwater from a gutter. The wrist bones split, and the severed hand fell to the floor. Rothley set the knife on a table. Herzog stared curiously at the stump of his own arm, squirting blood. The girl also stared at the stump. Frowning.

Meanwhile, Rothley gazed at the camera with confident languor. ‘OK. Having semi-paralysed the cockroach, the wasp completes the reproductive cycle. As the wasp is too small to carry the roach, it leads the cockroach victim to the wasp’s burrow, by pulling at the severed stumps of the roach’s antennae. Once they reach the burrow, the wasp lays a little white egg on top of the roach’s abdomen. The emerald jewel wasp then, finally, exits.’

Now Rothley seemed to be looking in a bag. He spoke as he rummaged. ‘With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach will simply rest in the burrow, even as the wasp egg hatches on its abdomen. The new-born wasp-larva then grows by chewing and feeding, for maybe five days, on the exposed flesh of the living roach. After that it chews its way right into the roach’s abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasite.’ Still he rummaged, and talked. ‘Over a further period of eight days, the wasp larva consumes the roach’s internal organs in an order which maximizes the likelihood that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage. Now it forms a cocoon inside the roach’s body. Only at this juncture does the roach finally die. All that is left is for the fully-grown wasp to chew its way free from the cockroach’s hollowed corpse, so as to begin its adult life.’ He turned, and smiled faintly. ‘Development is faster in the warm season.’

A lab technician slammed the button. ‘Luke, stop it, stop it, you’re not an executioner! Let the girl go. Let them all go. Sam doesn’t deserve to die like this! You’re infected: you think you’re Crowley, a magician, but it’s delusional, the Bastet Parasite—’

The policewoman was also shouting. ‘The girl! Just give us the girl — you don’t need her any more — you’ve got what you want!’

From the safe room Rothley’s voice was calm and distinct: ‘Come here, Samuel.’

Ryan could see that Rothley was holding something — some kind of glass vial, or large test tube.

Rothley spoke again. ‘Of course, I haven’t got any wasp larvae. But I do have a scientific correlative: one of your own offspring, Samuel. The saliva of the parasitic blowfly maggot, Calliphoria vomitoria — remember we developed a weaponized version of this saliva as a flesh-eater in our early days in Israel? Samuel?’

Herzog said nothing. He was still staring at the blood that dripped from his severed wrist. The girl stood behind them, a hovering shade in seraphic white.

Rothley nodded. ‘In sufficient quantities a synthetic version of Calliphoria saliva is equivalent to a Bronsted superacid. Dangerously strong, and formidably corrosive of mammalian flesh.’

He put on thick black rubber gloves. Flexing his fingers, he unstoppered the glass tube, paused and looked at Sam Herzog. ‘It will burn out your throat as it goes down, and then it will dissolve your insides. You will, essentially, melt.’ He lifted the unstoppered vial over Herzog’s head.

Herzog obediently nodded. He leaned back, and tipped his head up. Rothley poured the pale liquid down his victim’s mouth.

The reaction was immediate.

Initially, Herzog’s lips burned, then his entire mouth appeared to smoke, as the liquid scorched into his tongue and his cheeks. Seconds later, the fluid reached his throat. Livid scarlet holes appeared in his neck, bleeding sockets of flesh. And now the jawbone collapsed and just fell away. Blood was dripping creamily down his chest even as fumes rose from the remaining half of his face. Herzog was disintegrating.

Rothley stood back to watch his victim’s legs twitch and spasm as he lay, collapsed, on the floor. Half corroded. And surely dead.

His back to the camera, Rothley extracted another item from his rucksack, then he turned and held it up, so that everyone could see.

But Ryan couldn’t see, the last degrees of sight had very nearly gone. The blackness was triumphing. He whispered, to Helen, ‘What is it? What’s he holding?’

‘I don’t know …’

A loud ticking emanated. ‘The ticking is theatrical, the bomb is real.’ Rothley told them all. ‘The laboratory must also be destroyed. In toto. The girl’s immolation is the final act. What is a man, that he should presume to kill God? This bomb is therefore big enough to level the entire building. But you have four minutes to evacuate.’

The policewoman, Trevithick, slammed the button. ‘Stop it: stop the bomb. You’re going to die first. This is suicide! Why not give us the girl?’

‘Meginah, Elinala, Gelagon.’

Rothley intoned the strange words, slowly and deliberately.

‘Stop the bomb.’

‘Magid, Akori, Happir, Haluteb.’

‘Rothley!’

‘Sagal, Apara.’

It snapped into place. In his blindness, Ryan recognized the words. It was the Abra-Melin death ritual, the same ritual inscribed on the second Sokar papyrus. Ryan knew this spell, he knew it by heart. How many times had he read it these last weeks, trying to decipher the Sokar Hoard?

And the death ritual had a counter-spell. That was also on the Sokar papyrus.

If Rothley believed he was doing magic, he would necessarily believe in counter-magic.

Ryan shouted across the lab, ‘Sizigos, Iporusu, Maregan.’

The effect was instant.

With the last of his eyesight Ryan could see Rothley’s face, puzzled, frowning, staring intently at the camera. Angry.

Ryan continued: ‘Dodim. Abala. Darac.’

Rothley shouted back, but he was stammering now. ‘Sicafel, Sic — Sic — Iperige — Maregan—’

‘Zara, run — please run!’

‘Sizigos, KAILAH—’

‘Run, Zara, get out!’

The policewoman was yelling. Ryan squinted. The girl appeared to be stirring, her bewitchment weakening. Maybe she could sense Rothley’s faltering hold.

‘Zara! GET OUT!’

Zara was running for the door of the safe room. Yet Rothley didn’t even notice. He was staring straight ahead at the camera, his eyes wild and blazing.

‘Situk, Irape, Situk, Irape!’

Almost the last thing Ryan saw was the blonde hair of the girl, outside the safe room, as she ran to save her own life, ran into the arms of the policewoman — and then everyone was running. Ryan could hear urgent footsteps all around. The entire place was evacuating, the bomb was still ticking. But Ryan was stuck on the stretcher. For the last time, he tried to move: but he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t see. And it didn’t matter. He had saved the girl. He could die. Here. Listening to Rothley’s manic chanting.

Ryan lay back, but then he felt arms and hands — Helen, lifting him up, assisted by someone else, hauling him off the stretcher, hoisting him over their shoulders.

How much time was left? Maybe sixty seconds.

Doors slammed open, the shouts of fear echoed, as they dragged Ryan down the corridor, as they kicked open the final doors.

Fifty seconds.

Now they were in the fresh air: he could feel it, as they carried him, painfully, laboriously, to some kind of safety.

Forty seconds?

They carried him upwards, maybe up the white slopes of kaolin tailings.

Twenty seconds …

Moving higher still: surely they must be looking down at the lab?

Someone shouted: ‘Get down!’

The explosion was so vivid it gave Ryan a final few seconds of sight: he glimpsed a monstrous fireball surging into the air, poisoned with chemicals, hellish and glowing, then evolving into a wild tornado of smoke, and flame, and kaolin dust. Ryan stared. The policewoman was cradling the weeping blonde girl, in her arms.

And then the God Parasite sealed the last chink of light in Ryan’s mind; and it was just blackness. And silence. And infinity.