abstract
| - Jonathan Banner is a new recruit to MI: 5 when a rogue agent from the past resurfaces and threatens the fine democratic balance in north Africa. Banner is sent in to follow the rogue with his partner Rosemary Carter, when he is catapulted into a peace threatening situation. Finding a hidden library underneath Karnak Temple, the rogue agent removes a set of scrolls that hold information that could, if released, threaten the existence of religion worldwide. After making contact with a mysterious soldier known only as Wolf who recruits him to a special unit called the SES (Secret English Unit), Banner and partner Carter manage to make copies of the scrolls but are unable to translate them leading them to raiding the Vaticans Secret Archives for information. After successfully infiltrating, Banner and Wolf, kidnap a young girl researcher called Charlie Lambent and flee while being chased by the police and the rogue agent. Discovering that Wolf is really a legendary soldier called Donald McCloud, Banner flees the offices only to walk into the rogue agent who he fights to the death in the streets of Leeds leading to his incarceration. After escaping and ransacking the rogue agents car, they find a clue leading them to Dufftown in Scotland where they discover the source of all the trouble, a clandestine group called the Calivari. Hidden through history the Calivari have perverted the course of time, fixing elections, creating war and now on the verge of exposing all religion for what it is. Managing to recover, Banner and Wolf translate the scrolls with the help of Charlie and head back to Karnak Temple. The scrolls speak of the Rapture and how to unleash it, saying that life was built by God with ten conditions (The Ten Commandments) and that since the laws of life have been broken it was possible to release the Rapture to cure the land of the sin. Finding the Alpha member of the Calivari leading a precession for the Rapture, Wolf and Banner find that Charlie was in fact working undercover for the Calivari and slowing them down just enough to not become involved with the ceremony. Yet when the ceremony begins, the Temple begins to fall down and as they were escaping Banner collects a parchment hidden in the mouth of a stone devil. After Wolf captures Alpha and imprisons him, Banner and Carter take a holiday together to get over what had happened and Banner finally reads the scroll that he had found. Deciding what to do with it, the two of them enjoy there time with each other. Finally, after Charlie rears her head again to assassinate Carter, Banner grieves his loss by wishing he could have released the Rapture and understands mankinds will to want to end it all.
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