The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel

During the twelfth century, an Irish Catholic priest named Saint Malachy had a doomsday vision while on a pilgrimage to Rome. In that trance, he was given knowledge of all the popes who would come until the end of the world. This grand accounting-a cryptic description of 112 popes-was recorded and safeguarded in the Vatican archives. Over the centuries, the descriptions of each pope in that book have proved to be oddly accurate-up to and including the current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI. In Saint Malachy’s prophecy, the current pope is listed as De Gloria Olivae, the Glory of the Olives. And the Benedictine Order, from which the pope took his name, does indeed bear the olive branch as its symbol. But most disturbing of all, Pope Benedict XVI is the 111th pope. And according to this oddly accurate prophecy, the world ends with the very next one. Could this be true? Only time will tell.

The Club of Rome is a real organization, a global think tank of scientists, politicians, economists, and business leaders. It formed during the sixties and continues to this day. Their mission is to offer a global perspective on current world crises, specifically those related to environmental issues. In 1972, they came out with a report titled Limits to Growth, where they proved that population growth would inevitably outstrip the world’s ability to produce food. Once that happened, their computer models predicted annihilation of 90% of the world’s population as a result of starvation, disease, war, and chaos.

This model has been tested by more modern methodology with the same results. How soon will we reach that point? You only have to watch the recent food riots around the world to know we’re at that brink already. Can it be stopped? Or are we too late? In The Doomsday Key, I offer a solution if we’re brave enough to face it.

As I mentioned above, the threat is real and it’s as current as today’s headlines. The world’s population is growing exponentially, while our ability to produce food is only growing arithmetically. We’re already at that tipping point. By United Nation estimates, over one billion people are currently starving worldwide. The introduction of genetically-modified food-corn that produces its own herbicide, soybeans that can be grown with less water-has definitely helped produce greater yields. In fact, it has helped offset this impending crisis, but for how long and at what cost?

Currently, there is very little regulation when it comes to genetically-modified crops. For example, of the forty GM crops approved last year, only eight have published safety studies. GM crops are a billion-dollar-a-year industry. And as we’ve seen with the current banking crisis, a lack of regulation opens the way for greed to overwhelm common sense. So it raises the question, what might happen to our nation’s food supply when corporations control it? And most frightening of all, it’s already happening. Presently in the United States, seventy-five percent of corn grown in America is genetically modified. So we’re already there.

We’d like to think so. But there continue to be concerns about what mankind will create in the name of science, especially with the lack of regulation in this industry. For example, in 2001, a biotech company called Epicyte developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. How might that be misused? What other abuses are already being engineered in secret? And once unleashed into the environment, can it be stopped?

It’s one of the greatest environmental risks with GM crops. Pollen migration and genetic contamination are a real threat. Pollen from GM crops blows in the winds, gets washed into neighboring fields. Some seeds have been found growing as far away as thirty miles. And as native species mix with engineered ones, new hybrids arise. One study states that 67% of U.S. farmland is currently contaminated with genetically-modified plants.

Another example, in 2000, a GM corn called StarLink (a corn not approved for human consumption) ended up contaminating food products across the country. More than three hundred brands. It was suspected of triggering allergic reactions and resulted in a massive recall. The Kellogg Company had to close its production line for two weeks just to clean out the contamination, requiring a government bailout of the industry. So when it comes to playing with Mother Nature, any mistakes could have dire consequences.

As a veterinarian, I always love sprinkling a few unique animals into my stories. In this particular case, I feature some sturdy ponies out of England, called Fell Ponies, whose lineage goes back to before the Vikings. I also highlight a unique means of defense that protects the security of the Doomsday Vault in Norway: namely roaming bands of polar bears. This little detail, by the way, is true.

I love to travel, and I’ve been to many of the locales depicted in this novel: from excavating the lower levels under the Coliseum of Rome to trekking through England’s Lake Country atop one of those Fell Ponies. It’s always a challenge to try to capture the beauty, wonder, and history of these places within the pages of a book.

The vault-more formally known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault-truly does exist. It’s basically a Noah’s Ark for seeds. The vault is located above the Arctic Circle on a remote island of Norway, buried five hundred feet under a mountain. It houses and protects millions of seeds against a global disaster: war, pestilence, nuclear attack, earthquakes, even climate change. It was because of this reason the seed bank earned its nickname the “Doomsday Vault.”

That’s simple. In fact, I open the book with this fact. During the years from 2006 to 2008, one-third of all honeybees in the United States vanished. Thriving hives were suddenly found empty, as if the bees simply flew away and never returned. The condition earned the nickname Colony Collapse Disorder. This massive and mysterious loss generated sensational headlines and fears. So what truly happened to the bees? With the pages of The Doomsday Key, lies an answer…and most frightening of all, it’s true.

Going back to the time of Galileo, science and religion seem to be at odds, drawing lines in the sand that dared not be crossed.  And I think this divide has grown wider and deeper as of late.  But I think it’s high time this gap be filled in with common sense, something sorely lacking in much of today’s debates.
The hope for our nation and our world lies within our ability to innovate and move forward technologically.  We’ve been losing ground, as test scores in science and math have dropped precipitously.  It’s time for knowledge, exploration, and scientific inquiry to be respected and nurtured in this next generation.

But that said, it does not mean we go blindly forward without considering consequences. The dangers of rampant technology and unregulated science are featured predominantly in my novels.  But it’s not the cogs and gears that make for a great story, it’s the way these questions test our morality and our mettle as a society.  There must be balance.

Some of mankind’s greatest innovators and scientists have been people of deep faith.  The two are not mutually exclusive.  There is common ground and it’s called common sense.

In this novel, I explore the manner in which symbols change and transmute over time, borrowed from one civilization to another. For example, there is an intriguing and startling analysis of the history of the Celtic Cross. It came from a book The Golden Thread of Time by Crichton Miller. It sets up a strong and compelling case that this unusual form of the Christian cross might actually have its roots as an ancient surveying tool, one used to build the pyramids of Egypt and to engineer the precise alignment of ancient stone rings of Britain. I love dabbling with such concepts, where the ancient and the modern blur together.

This winter, I’ll be coming out with the first of a series of stand-alone novels, something independent of the Sigma series. The title of this winter’s novel is Altar of Eden, and for the first time, I’ll be writing with a veterinarian in the lead role, a woman who gets involved with a genetic experiment gone awry.