The bundle contained eleven texts, of which ten were earmarked for destruction. The eleventh would not be formally catalogued by Castro. It was called the Tarikh-Issa-Massih.91
For fear for his own life, Alphonso de Castro decided that it would be better for him to leave the document in India prior to his departure for Lisbon in 1770. He was, however, determined to store the document in a place where it would be preserved so that it may be discovered by future generations.
He first set out on a trip to northern India, including Kashmir. Upon his return a few months later, he visited the Church of Bom Jesus and knelt down to pray before the perfectly preserved body of St Francis Xavier, just before boarding the ship that would take him back to Portugal.
‘Agradeça-o Deus para dar me a força poupar este livro,’ he thought to himself as he prayed fervently.92
Chapter Fourteen
London, UK, 2012
Vincent was reading the document that had been entrusted to him by Terry Acton. It was a photocopy of an English translation of the Tarikh-i-Kashmir, a history of Kashmir written by a person called Mullah Nadri in 1421.93
…Raja Akh came to the throne. He ruled for sixty years. Thereafter, his son, Gopananda, took over the government and ruled the country under the name of Gopadatta. During his reign, many temples were built.
On top of Mount Solomon the dome of the temple had cracked. Gopadatta deputed one of his ministers, named Sulaiman, who had come from Persia, to repair it. The Hindus objected that the minister was an infidel.
During this time Yuz Asaf, having come from the Holy Land to this holy valley, proclaimed his prophethood. He devoted himself, day and night, in prayers to God, and having attained the heights of piety and virtue, declared himself to be a messenger of God for the people of Kashmir. He invited people to his religion.
Because the people of the valley had faith in this Prophet, Raja Gopadatta referred the objection of Hindus to him for a decision. It was because of this Prophet’s orders that Sulaiman was able to complete the repairs of the dome.
Further, on one of the stones, Sulaiman inscribed: ‘In these times Yuz Asaf proclaimed his prophethood,’ and on another stone, he also inscribed that Yuz Asaf was Yusu, Prophet of the Children of Israel.
I have seen in a book of Hindus that this prophet was really Jesus, the Spirit of God, on whom be peace and salutations, and had also assumed the name of Yuz Asaf. The real knowledge is with God. He spent his life in this valley. After his death he was laid to rest in Mohalla Anzmarah. It is also said that lights of prophethood used to emanate from the tomb of this Prophet. Raja Gopadatta died after having ruled for sixty years and two months.
Vincent came to the end of the page. Turning it over, he found another photocopied document. It was called the Tarikh-Issa-Massih and had originally been written in Urdu sometime around the eleventh century. The tedious passage read much like the sixteen verses of Matthew in the Bible, outlining the royal lineage of Jesus:
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and it was Isaac who fathered Jacob. In turn, Jacob’s son was Judas. The children of Judas and his wife, Thamar, were Phares and Zara. Phares would have a child—Esrom, and Esrom would have a child—Aram. Aram’s offspring was Aminadab who sired Naasson. Naasson would become the father of Salmon. Salmon had a child with Rachab by the name of Boaz. Boaz would father Obed with Ruth. Obed would produce Jesse. Jesse was the immediate predecessor of David, the great king.
The great King David married the woman who had been a previous wife of Urias and fathered the great Solomon. Solomon’s offspring was Roboam, who fathered Abia. Abia’s child was Asa. Asa’s son was Josaphat, who sired Joram. Joram fathered Ozias, whose lineage would be continued through Joatham. Joatham’s son was Achaz, and his grandson was Ezekias. Ezekias continued the dynasty with Manasses, who fathered Amon who, in turn, produced Josias. Josias had a son by the name of Jechonias around the time that they were carried off in captivity to Babylon. It was in Babylon that Jechonias had a son, Salathiel.
Salathiel continued the unbroken line with his son Zorobabel, who fathered Abiud. Eliakim was the son of Abiud. Eliakim produced a child by the name of Azor. Azor’s progeny was Sadoc. Sadoc’s offspring was Achim. Achim produced Eliud, who fathered Eleazar. Matthan was his son. It was Matthan who sired Jacob. Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Issa…
The Bible, of course, stopped right there. This document, however, went further:
Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Issa, who married Mary Magdala. Issa and Mary had a child by the name of Sara, who was born to them in India but was later sent to Gaul with her mother. Issa remained in India, where he married a woman from the Sakya clan on the persistence of King Gopadatta and had a son, Benissa. Benissa had a son, Yushua, who fathered Akkub. Akkub’s son was Jashub. Abihud was the son of Jashub. Jashub’s grandson was Elnaam. Elnaam sired Harsha, who sired Jabal, who sired Shalman. Shalman’s son Zabbud converted to Islam. Zabbud fathered Abdul, who sired Haaroon. His child was Hamza. Omar was Hamza’s son and he produced Rashid. Rashid’s offspring was Khaleel.
Vincent’s mind was in a panic. His head was reeling with this information overload. He needed to assimilate what he had just read. At the bottom of the page was written in Portuguese:
Satis est, Domine, Satis est, os dois anjos ditos. Mastrilli sem dúvida fêz a mais melhor cama de prata. Mas para guardar com cuidado um segredo dos mortos. O copo do ouro de Ignatius’ é melhor do que uma cabeça de prata. A cidade é ficada situada entre o’ norte 15°48’ e 14°53’54 e entre 74°20’ e 73°40’ para o leste.
Translated into English, it meant:
It is enough, O Lord, it is enough, the two angels said. Mastrilli, without doubt, made the best silver bed. But to carefully guard a secret of the dead, Ignatius’s gold cup is better than a silver bed. The city is located between 15°48’ and 14°53’54’ north and between 74°20’ and 73°40’ east.
Chapter Fifteen
Moscow, Russia, 2012
The Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti is an unfortunate choice of name, even when it is abbreviated to FSB. Particularly when one considers the fact that its brand equity was much greater when it used to be called the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or the KGB.94
Lavrenty Edmundovich Bakatin was sitting in his office, halfway through his customary bottle of vodka, when the phone rang. He picked it up and listened for a few seconds. He then said abruptly, ‘I’ll meet you at St Louis on the Malaya Lubyanka,’ and hung up.
Quickly putting on his overcoat, he headed downstairs to Lubyanka Square, which was where the FSB’s headquarters, and his office, were located. Just in front of the drab FSB building stood the Church of St Louis.
It was November, and the average daily temperature in Moscow ranged from 24°F to 32°F. The heavy woollens made Bakatin look even fatter than he actually was. He made his way inside the church and sat down clumsily on the last pew.
Throughout the glasnost era of Gorbachev, millions of dollars had been funnelled by the Vatican into Moscow using the good offices of Bakatin. This had been necessary in order to ensure that Poland be released from the Warsaw Pact.
The provider of those funds came and sat down next to Bakatin. Brother Thomas Manning looked closely at Bakatin, and then sniffed. ‘Have you been drinking the stuff or swimming in it?’ he remarked as he smelled the vodka.
‘Vali otsyuda!’ grunted Bakatin to Thomas in Russian.
Thomas grinned. ‘Fuck you too, old man!’ The two men enjoyed an excellent rapport that had been strengthened over the years by the continuous flow of cash. Thomas Manning prided himself on being greater than any other freedom fighter. His backdoor collaboration with Bakatin and Moscow had resulted in the independence of predominantly Catholic Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Ukraine from Russia as well as the indepen-dence of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia. All of this had been achieved at the behest of Alberto Valerio.
Lu
ckily, the entire American security establishment had been ultra-conservative from the Reagan years onwards. They had been quite happy to encourage Manning’s efforts, even partially fund them. In the post-glasnost era, Bakatin had become Manning’s conduit to the Sheikh.
‘So. Are they willing to deal?’ asked Manning.
‘Pacheemu ti takoy galuboy?’ asked Bakatin. Thomas was getting fed up with the insults. Bakatin was asking him why he looked so gay! ‘Perestan’ mne jabat’ mozgi svojimi voprosami!’ shot back Manning. ‘Stop fucking my brain with your stupid questions!’
Manning continued, ‘It’s vital that we get access to him, either in Kashmir or anywhere else. If that means purchasing equipment for the Sheikh from the Pakistanis or North Koreans, so be it.’
Bakatin looked at him through glazed eyes. He then turned serious and said, ‘The Sheikh wants it all. The reactor, the raw material, delivery systems, the drawings—and the cash. In return he will hand him over to you.’
He then held Manning’s face in his gloved hands and planted two stinging Russian vodka-breathed kisses on his cheeks before he got up and left.
Thomas thanked his lucky stars for having preached for some years at St Catherine of Siena in Virginia before moving to Switzerland. Otherwise he would never have met Bakatin through the FBI.
The Fox News anchor was saying, ‘There’s now disturbing information regarding the FBI operative being held for espionage on behalf of the Russians. Apparently, his activities, which were supposed to help the Russians, also succeeded in helping Osama-bin-Laden . . .’95
The report continued: ‘He sold the Russians a highly classified and secret piece of American technology, and by all accounts it seems that the Russians, in turn, may have passed on the technology to bin-Laden’s Al-Qaeda terrorist network.’
The FBI agent in question had been born in 1957 in Chicago. After attending Southern Illinois University, he had joined the Chicago police and then moved on to the FBI’s counter-intelligence wing. After fifteen years of selling secrets for a gross remuneration of $2.1 million, he had finally been arrested in his Virginia home. Throughout his years of treachery, he had continued to attend Mass daily and was a regular parishioner of St Catherine of Siena, a church in a Virginia suburb. One of the regular preachers at St Catherine of Siena was a priest called Thomas Manning. Thomas Manning would soon become friends with Bakatin through his parishioner.
Bakatin would receive millions of dollars from accounts in Switzerland operated by Brother Thomas Manning for Valerio. The Pacific News of May 2001 would write:
Rivers of money, much of it provided by Bill Casey’s CIA, poured into Warsaw and Moscow, and the Vatican found ready support from the US because the security establishment . . . was packed with conservative Catholics. The Vatican’s political work with Moscow paid off hand-somely with the independence of Catholic-dominant Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, and later, from Moscow’s nominal ally Yugoslavia, of Slovenia and Croatia.
Intelligence experts and congressional committees are puzzling over what motivated the FBI agent to spy for Moscow over the past fifteen years. Money does not seem to be the answer because he lived in an ascetic style. The search for a motive is complicated by the fact that his colleagues say that he was fiercely anti-communist and a devout member of Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative Catholic organisation. He was a regular parishioner of St Catherine of Siena Church, in a Virginia suburb of the capital. It may seem paradoxical that he would spy for the Soviet Union, a moral adversary and indeed a Satanic force in the eyes of Opus Dei. During Gorbachev’s glasnost era, however, there is evidence of behind-the-scenes collaboration between the Vatican and Moscow. In particular, Cardinal Alberto Valerio, a powerful Opus Dei supporter, pursued a policy of reaching out to Moscow with the aim of gaining Poland’s release from the Warsaw Pact.
The entire process of securing the independence of Poland had made one man very powerful: His Eminence Alberto Cardinal Valerio. Alberto Cardinal Valerio had earned his doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
Kahuta, Pakistan, 2012
Someone else had earned a doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven at around the same time. Not in theology but in metallurgy. His name was Dr Dawood Omar, one of the members of the scientific team reporting to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb.96 Dr A.Q. Khan and Dr Dawood Omar had attended the University of Leuven at the same time as Alberto Cardinal Valerio.
Dr Dawood Omar looked at the photographs of his nuclear facilities longingly, the way a parent looks at his child with love. He had nurtured the Khan Nuclear Research Laboratories in Kahuta since 1976. Twenty-five years later, they had succeeded in closing the nuclear gap with India. Omar had every reason to be proud, even though he was now rather old.97
Omar had received his engineering degree from the University of Karachi before moving on to Germany and Belgium, where he had finally earned his doctorate in physics from the Catholic University of Leuven, in 1972—the same time as Alberto Valerio, later to become His Eminence Alberto Cardinal Valerio, who was on his way to Pyongyang.
Pyongyang, North Korea, 2010
International intelligence agencies had begun to observe regular flights between Pakistan and North Korea, accelerating at the beginning of the 1990s when there were about nine flights per month. These flights reportedly followed the visit of high-level North Korean officials to Pakistan. Dawood Omar had also made thirteen visits to North Korea, beginning in the 1990s. This particular flight, however, was not clandestine.
North Korea’s official carrier, Air Koryo, flew into Pyongyang on only two days of the week—Tuesdays and Thursdays. Both flights were from one origin, Beijing. Air Koryo’s flight JS 152 from Beijing to Pyongyang had taken off at 11:30 am and arrived in Pyongyang at 2 pm. On board was His Eminence Alberto Cardinal Valerio, travelling under an alias. His visa to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea had been organised through FBI channels. For all intents and purposes, he was merely a consultant to the World Health Organisation. He was met at the airport by a member of the Ministry of Public Health. At customs, he was asked to hand over his mobile phone, for which he was issued a receipt. He would be allowed to take it back upon his departure. He was quickly escorted to the Yanggakdo Hotel along with his car, driver, ministry representative and official interpreter.
Another flight had arrived in Pyongyang the same day. Its lone Pakistani occupant had visited Pyongyang several times before as part of the delegations led by Dr A.Q. Khan. His name was Dr Dawood Omar.
He did not have a visa. He didn’t need one. He had valuable technology to sell; not only to Iran, Libya and North Korea, but also to Al-Qaeda. The bill would be paid by Thomas Manning on behalf of His Eminence Alberto Cardinal Valerio from the Oedipus trust.
The world’s longest railway journey without changing trains is of 10,214 kilometres. The train, operated by the Trans-Siberian Railway, starts in Moscow and ends in Pyongyang. It is the route least used for entering Pyongyang, and it was precisely for this reason that Lavrenty Edmundovich Bakatin was on it, along with the Sheikh.
Bakatin had drunk vodka throughout the journey. His friend, the Sheikh, had prayed to Allah throughout it.
The Washington Quarterly would report that:
The most disturbing aspect of the international nuclear smuggling network headed by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely viewed as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, is how poorly the nuclear non-proliferation regime fared in exposing and stopping the network’s operation. Despite a wide range of hints and leads, the United States and its allies failed to thwart this network throughout the 1980s and 1990s as it sold the equipment and expertise needed to produce nuclear weapons to major US enemies, including Iran, Libya, and North Korea.98
US intelligence had, at least partially, penetrated the network’s operations, leading to many revelations and ultimately, the dramatic seizure of uranium-enrichment gas-centrifuge components bound fo
r Libya’s secret nuclear weapons programme aboard the German-owned ship BBC China. Libya’s subsequent renunciation of nuclear weapons led to further discoveries about the network’s operations and the arrest of many of its key players, including Khan himself. Suspicions remain that members of the network may have helped Al-Qaeda obtain nuclear secrets.
The University of Leuven had spawned an interesting partnership between the Oedipus trust and the Isabel Madonna trust. Alberto Valerio and Dawood Omar.
Waziristan, Pakistan–Afghanistan border, 2012
The Sheikh’s Master, the ultimate beneficiary of the Isabel Madonna trust, was performing Salah, his daily prayer, for the fifth time that day. He had already completed his Wudu, the ritual ablution, during which he had washed his hands, teeth, face, nose, arms, hair, ears and feet, three times in specific order. He had started his Salah with the Niyyah, or the intention to pray, by reciting the first Surah of the Qur’an. He had then bowed, recited something, stood upright again, then sat on his legs. He had placed his hands and face down on his prayer mat and had then sat up, repeating this action once more before standing up and running through the entire sequence, or Raka’ah. He was now nearing the end of his prayers by looking right and left, saying, ‘Peace be unto you, and on you be peace.’99
Prayers duly completed, he sat down on his rug, turned around and stared into the eyes of the Sheikh, who was present along with Bakatin. He asked, ‘So what do the crusaders of the cross demand?’