Of course, if there were giants, there needed to be many of them so they could procreate. That was the problem with the Sasquatch and Loch Ness sightings—how could there be just one? But in the case of the giants, there were scores of reports of them clustered across the continent. So, again, at least the science seemed to work.
This “clustering” also rebutted another argument against giants: that the giant bones were skeletons of normal humans suffering from some kind of pituitary gland malfunction, causing a condition called “gigantism” (made most famous by the professional wrestler, Andre the Giant). Many of the graves contained multiple giant skeletons, which indicated a cluster of genetically-similar giants rather than a random medical condition.
So what next? There were a few museums around that claimed to have giant bones, but most of them seemed to be run by Creationist groups bent on proving the literal accuracy of the Bible—the consensus was these were fakes. And there were some pictures of giant skeletons on the internet, but many of them were doctored, which called into question the whole lot of them. It seemed the best place to look was Washington, but of course the Smithsonian wasn’t about to let Amanda go traipsing through their archives. She sat back. Without some actual bones she was at a dead end.
Webster Lovecroft tapped lightly on the office door of Georgia Johnston. He had been at his desk since 6:30 but knew better than to bother his staff before they’d had their first cup of coffee. They worked hard for him, many for little or no pay. The least he could do was treat them with dignity and consideration.
“Oh, Senator, come in,” she said. He had given her the largest office in the strip mall space they rented in Wichita; both she and his election staff had objected, but he spent most of his time in Washington or on the road so he had little use for a fancy office.
He ducked in, closed the door and waited to be asked to sit. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said, “but I overheard you yesterday afternoon on the phone.” He tapped on the wall between their two offices. “Not the best construction, I’m afraid.”
She flushed a bit and smiled. “And I tend to talk loudly on the phone.” She was what would have been described as ‘full-figured’ when he was growing up in the 1950s. Today, unfortunately for women like her, that fullness had gone out of fashion. But she was not unpleasing to look at.
“Yes, me too.” He grinned. “But at least we know how to use the darn thing. Most of the staff think a phone’s only good for texting and checking emails. They don’t realize you can actually talk into it.”
“We are a couple of dinosaurs, I suppose,” Georgia said.
Which reminded him: He had a meeting later in the morning with a major campaign donor who wanted to show him some old dinosaur bones, plus some oversized human skeletal remains.
Lovecroft refocused. “Anyway, as I said, I couldn’t help but overhear you say how you think we’re all a bit too nice out here in Kansas.” Smiling, he raised a hand to stop her from explaining. “I know you come from the rough and tumble world of the CIA, and things must seem pretty tame around here.” Originally had not been thrilled with having a CIA operative on his staff, but she was a skilled political consultant and her CIA duties did not interfere with her day job. “Every time I come from Washington to Kansas it is a bit of a culture shock. And that’s what I came to talk to you about. Do you think the country sees me as too … I suppose the word is genteel … to win this election?”
Georgia sipped from her coffee as she stared back at him. He valued her opinion—most of all because she was one of the few people around him who never seemed afraid to tell him the truth. Betty would have been honest with him, but cancer had taken her seven years ago at age fifty-four and he had remained single since. God might take him unexpectedly as well, and he didn’t want to waste time on his social life when there was important work to do. Not that he wasn’t lonely once in a while….
“I think that might be an issue at some point, but it is not at the top of my list,” Georgia said. “Before you can win an election you have to win a primary. And some of your positions, frankly, scare the … tar out of the right wing.”
He appreciated her not swearing in his presence; vile language undermined civil discourse. “We’ve talked about that, and my positions are non-negotiable. We need to do something to end the cycle of dependence among the poor of this country. I think getting them off of welfare and into school is the key. Same thing with gun control—I’m a big hunter, as you know, but I don’t need an assault rifle to take down a deer.” He shrugged. “The right wing is just going to have to make some concessions.”
“And I think they will. The nation is ready for a Christian President, one with true old-fashioned Judeo-Christian values. That’s why I came to work for you. Your message transcends politics and class and race; your message resonates with inner-city voters as much as it does in the Bible Belt.”
“You don’t think voters will see me as too pious or soft or nice?”
She shrugged. “You played Big Ten college basketball and your National Guard unit was deployed in the first Iraq war. You have plenty of macho in your resume.” She smiled. “And women find you attractive.”
Lovecroft felt his face redden; he shrugged and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Well,” he stuttered, “women seem to be attracted to power.” It always surprised him to hear that others considered him handsome. He thought of himself as grotesque, though of course all of God’s creatures were beautiful in their own way. Not only was he obscenely tall, but his hands and feet were proportional to a man almost eight feet tall rather than seven—his custom-made shoes were size 22. Betty had never minded, and he had become adept at hiding his hands by folding his arms while in public, but he often felt others’ eyes lingering on his snowshoe-sized shoes.
His size had bothered him more when he was a young man. While in college at Perdue he had read something Henry David Thoreau wrote, about an encounter on a Massachusetts road from Concord to Littleton with an abnormally tall young man. Thoreau called the man the Littleton Giant. The words had seared themselves into Lovecroft’s memory: There is at once something monstrous, in the bad sense, suggested by the sight of such a man. Great size is inhuman. Monstrous. Bad. Inhuman. Such was the judgment rendered by an American icon, a man young Lovecroft admired and respected, a writer known to see the beauty and goodness in all that God created. Only decades later, when Lovecroft had truly taken God into his heart, was he able to think of himself as more than some kind of monster. He was one of God’s creatures, made in God’s image—though perhaps while God was peering into one of those carnival mirrors as he did so….
“It’s more than that, Senator. Trust me.” Georgia’s words jarred him back. Yes, they were talking about women finding him attractive. Not monstrous. Attractive. She held his eyes.
The comment wasn’t inappropriate, or even flirtatious—merely matter-of-fact. He smiled back at her. He knew it didn’t hurt on the campaign trail to be considered good-looking. The term they used today was ‘eye candy,’ which wasn’t a bad expression though he doubted it often was used in reference to a sixty-three year old politician with half a dozen grandchildren.
“But speaking of macho, there is one thing showing up on the polling which may be problematic for you.”
“Continue.” He liked that Georgia was blunt and to the point.
“Your comments on Cuba. Some interpret them to mean you favor an invasion. I’m not sure most Americans would support that.”
He shifted in his seat. Even within his own mind he was unsure of his feelings about Cuba. As a man of God, how could he sit idly by while a Godless regime ruled less than a hundred miles from Florida? In the early 1990s, when anti-Christian discrimination in Cuba had been at its worst, Lovecroft—a young Congressman at the time—had called for a modern-day Crusade to overthrow Castro and allow Christianity to flourish again on the island. Things had improved since Castro’s resignation, but Christians were still discriminated again
st. With the wisdom of experience he now realized his call for a modern-day Crusade had been a bit over-the-top. “I of course do not insist that everyone in Cuba be a Christian. But I do insist that every Christian in Cuba be free to worship without penalty.”
“And if you are asked, let’s say during a debate, if you still support an armed invasion, what would your answer be?”
He sighed. There was no sense sugarcoating it. “If diplomacy failed, then I would support military action.” He sat up. “No man or woman should be denied the right to worship. It is a fundamental human right. As a country, we must stand up for these rights.” He turned up his palms. “Surely you would agree we have gone to war with far less justification.”
She nodded and scribbled some notes, her eyes not meeting his. Obviously it was not the answer she wanted to hear. “Well,” she said, “my advice would be to emphasize the diplomacy part of your answer. And perhaps remind voters of the historic ties between Cuba and Russia, and the dangers a revitalized and aggressive Russia seems to be presenting.”
“Fair enough. Always diplomacy first.” He changed the subject. “There’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about, a related subject.” This, in fact, was the real reason for his morning visit to her office. “My polling is showing that many Americans are uncomfortable with my belief that the Bible is the true word of God.”
“I’ve been thinking about that also. It’s not ideal, but you can’t very well back off that position now—”
He interrupted. “Nor would I want to.”
“Of course not. I think the key is to present it as your personal faith-based belief, but one that you have no desire to impose on others.”
“Which, in fact, is true.” He exhaled. “I was afraid you were going to suggest I tone things down. Other advisors have done so.”
She shook her head. “No, like I said it’s too late for that. And it’s the Fundamentalist Christians and Bible literalists who are your strongest supporters. They’re the ones writing checks, cheering you on at rallies, giving your campaign a grassroots energy that no amount of advertising or debating can provide.” She sat forward. “No, you’d be stupid to run away from your base. The people who believe in the Bible are the ones who are going to elect you President.”
He nodded. Yes, the people who believe in the Bible.
He ground his back teeth together. Unfortunately that meant every word of the Bible, even the parts which might prevent him from being elected.
Randall directed Cam to the University of Rhode Island campus in Narragansett. Ten miles due east, across Narragansett Bay and the island of Jamestown, stood the Newport Tower. “You ever see the Newport Tower?” Cam asked.
“Perhaps twenty years ago I visited Newport for a tennis tournament. While walking through a nearby park an acquaintance pointed the Tower out to me and informed me it was a Colonial grist mill.” Randall shrugged. “I recall thinking it did not resemble any Colonial structure I had ever seen. But it was a fleeting thought, gone within seconds with the summer breeze.”
“Your thought may have been fleeting, but it was spot on.” Cam often now caught himself using British phrases and terms. “If we have time, we should cross the bridge and go see it. I can’t promise the Templars built it, but I can tell you for sure it wasn’t the Colonists.”
“I have a feeling the Smithsonian agrees with you.”
“Really? I’ve never heard of them studying it.”
Randall raised an eyebrow. “Precisely.”
“What?” Cam asked.
Randall didn’t miss a beat. “What is on second base.”
Cam laughed and parked in front of a warehouse at the edge of campus. Randall pointed to a fenced-in yard containing dozens of boats. “All these vessels have been repossessed for unpaid taxes and are awaiting auction.” He turned to Cam. “A boat is a hole in the water into which one pours one’s money.” He smiled ruefully. “In my case, an ocean liner is a hole in the water into which my brother pours my money.”
Cam had been here before, but he didn’t know if Randall knew that. He tested him. “So you still haven’t told me what we’re here to see.”
“The Narragansett Rune Stone.”
He continued to play dumb. “This is where it is?” Cam knew that the boulder, carved with a runic inscription, had been taken from Narragansett Bay during the summer of 2012, hoisted from the water under the cover of darkness. It had been recovered by the police a year later—apparently an abutting waterfront homeowner with a large forklift and an even larger ego had aspired to add it to his trophy collection.
“Well,” Randall said, “the police could not very well drop it back in the ocean once they recovered it.”
Randall led Cam toward the warehouse, pushed the door open and flicked on a light. The warehouse was empty, apparently arranged somehow by Randall. The boulder—approximating the size of a row boat—sat on a platform in the middle of the warehouse, the marks from the forklift visible on its front edge. It had not moved since Cam saw it a few months earlier.
Cam and Amanda had first examined the runic engraving a couple of years ago while the boulder was in the water, but it had required wading out to their chest at low tide and peering at the inscription between wave action. According to experts, the water levels had been lower six hundred years ago so the boulder would have sat on the shoreline. The boulder’s location relative to the ocean level was one of the strongest arguments for the carving’s authenticity—who would bother wading out in the surf, chisel at neck level, to carve a hoax that few people would ever see? Had it not been for some clambers walking the shoreline during a rare astronomical low tide, it is doubtful the carving ever would have been discovered.
Now, out of the water and cleaned of the sea growth that had covered the inscription, the nine runic letters were clear. At least the forklift had not damaged the carved area.
Narragansett Rune Stone, Rhode Island
“It seems our scribe was a man of few words,” Randall said.
“You ever try to carve into meta-sandstone?” Cam smiled. “Even you might choose to use a single word where two would do fine.”
Randall raised an eyebrow. “Doubtful.”
Cam jumped onto the trailer, unable to resist again examining the boulder for more carvings or markings. “See, you can do it.” He peered under and around the rock: nothing but the two lines of runic writing on the top.
“But it pains me to do so. Perchance, do you have a translation?”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do. But I want to hear yours.”
“I’ve heard two different translations. Four victorious near the river is one. And Refuge from ice, here is another. Apparently runic translations are as much art as science. I prefer the second: there’s a sheltered cove close to the boulder’s original location. The style of the runes ties it back to the Kensington Rune Stone in Minnesota and the Spirit Pond Rune Stones up in Maine. Both are late 1300s.”
“And you believe it is authentic?”
“I do. That ‘X’ rune on the left side of the second line, the one with an extra fork at the top, is unique to North America—it doesn’t exist on any runic inscriptions in Scandinavia or Europe. But it exists on the Kensington Rune Stone in Minnesota and the Spirit Pond Rune Stones in Maine, in addition to this.”
Randall nodded. “What about the local man who claimed to have carved it as a teenager in the 1960s?”
“His story doesn’t really add up. He says he was trying to carve the word ‘Skraelings,’ which is what the Norse called the Native Americans, but the first letter isn’t even an ‘S.’ And other people claim they saw the carving in the 1950s.”
Randall smiled knowingly. “You are wise not to believe everything you read. Do you believe this artifact is related in any way to the Vinland Map?”
“Sure. All the rune stones, along with the map, are evidence of exploration before Columbus. Especially if you believe Vinland is around Cape Cod or
Narragansett Bay—then this carving and the map are pieces to the same puzzle.”
“And do you recall the name of the gentleman who donated the Vinland Map to Yale?”
“I think you said his name was Mellon.”
“Correct. Paul Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune.”
Cam jumped off the trailer and waited for Randall to continue. Randall paused dramatically until Cam met his glance—if it had been a movie Cam would have expected eerie music.
Finally Randall swallowed and spoke, enunciating even more clearly than usual. “Would you think it more than a coincidence if I told you the man who stole the Narragansett Rune Stone was Paul Mellon’s son?”
Cam sniffed. “So that’s what you meant when you said, ‘Like father, like son.’”
“Precisely.”
Astarte hated the third Tuesday of every month. That was the day the weird lady from the government came to school to meet with her and ask her dumb questions. Last time she asked if Cameron had ever touched her private parts. So awkward.
“Astarte January, please come to the principal’s office.” There it was. She sighed and stuffed the last of her turkey sandwich in her mouth.
The Oath of Nimrod: Giants, MK-Ultra and the Smithsonian Coverup (Book #4 in Templars in America Series) Page 8
