“Astarte’s in trouble,” Meghan sang as Astarte stood up.
Meghan was supposed to be her best friend. But when they were with a group it was more important for Meghan to be cool than to be nice. Astarte ignored her. “See you guys later.” She handed Julia the chocolate chip cookie she wouldn’t have time to eat. Meghan loved cookies, but not as much as she liked being cool.
The secretary brought Astarte into a small room next to the principal’s office. Mrs. Beliveau, wearing a fluffy pink cardigan like the mean Professor Umbridge in the Harry Potter books, sat at a table waiting for her. She had thick glasses which made her eyes look really big. “Good afternoon, Astarte.” She always pronounced it wrong, with the accent on the last syllable so it sounded like one of these fancy French words she heard on the cooking shows.
“Hello Mrs. Beliveau.” She was always smiling, but Uncle Jefferson told her anyone who shows their teeth all the time was just looking for a chance to take a bite out of you.
“And how are things going with Mr. Thorne and Ms. Spencer?”
“Good.”
“That’s all, just good?”
Astarte shrugged. What was she supposed to say? Of course she missed Uncle Jefferson. But he was dead now. “Her name isn’t Ms. Spencer anymore. It’s Ms. Spencer-Gunn. She added the Gunn part.”
“I see.” She said it like it was somehow important.
But Astarte knew it was just because Mum recently found out her family name, before she was adopted, was Gunn. And when they got married it would be Amanda Gunn-Thorne. Then they would formally adopt her.
“Speaking of names, it’s been fourteen months now that you’ve been living with them. Do you call them Mom and Dad?”
The only reason this woman was asking questions was because she wanted to make trouble. “I call them Mum and Dad-Cam.”
“Dad-Cam?”
She nodded. Mum was different than Mother or Mom, and Dad-Cam wasn’t the same as just plain Dad. They weren’t her actual parents so it seemed right to use different words. But that didn’t mean Astarte didn’t love them. “It’s just a name. He’s still my father.”
Mrs. Beliveau raised an eyebrow. “Do you call him Dad-Cam because, perhaps, he takes pictures of you?” She reached out and covered Astarte’s hand. “Perhaps in the bath tub?”
Astarte forced herself not to pull away. “I don’t take baths. I take showers.” The woman always treated her like she was still in kindergarten.
“Yes, of course. But what about my question?”
Astarte sighed. “I call him Dad-Cam because his name is Cam and he’s my dad. He takes pictures of my soccer games.”
Mrs. Beliveau seemed disappointed in the answer. “Well, then. Do you have enough food? Enough clothes?”
“Yes, lots.”
“And do you still go to the Mormon church?”
That had been the only argument she’d ever had with her new parents. At first they’d made her go to a Unitarian church. But she didn’t like it so eventually they let her go back to the Mormon temple every Sunday. “Yes. Mum made me promise I wouldn’t believe the stuff about men being better than women. Then she let me go back.”
“I see.” She focused her big eyes on Astarte for a few seconds. “And you’re sure Mr. Thorne never touches your private parts?”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “No. I mean yes, I’m sure.”
“He never touches you at all?”
She didn’t say that. “He kisses me goodnight. And gives me hugs. And sometimes we have tickling contests.”
Mrs. Beliveau sat forward. “And where does he tickle you?”
“Last time was on the living room couch.”
“No, I mean where on your body?”
This woman really wasn’t very smart if she didn’t know where the tickle places were. “All over, of course. It’s a tickling contest.”
“I see.” Mrs. Beliveau sat back. “All over. Indeed.”
After his morning meeting with Georgia Johnston, Webster Lovecroft made a few phone calls and read a report updating the status of the nuclear program in Iran. At 9:30 his driver, a thick-necked retired state policeman named Gus, knocked. “It’s a ninety minute drive to Emporia.”
Lovecroft nodded. He wasn’t looking forward to folding himself into the SUV again. Even with the seat pushed back he couldn’t straighten his legs. At least they didn’t have to drive all the way to Kansas City.
He grabbed his briefcase, a bottle of water and an apple—then doubled back to get a water for Gus as well—before settling into the front seat. He smiled at Gus. “Speed limit. And please no stops and starts. I’m going to try to read and you know I get car sick.”
Gus took a last drag on a cigarette before closing the door. “Okay boss.”
Lovecroft pulled out the notes he had made last week from the conversation he had with the donor, a guy named Metevier who owned a chain of nursing homes. According to Metevier, three giant skeletons were unearthed from a Native American burial mound in eastern Ohio in 1872. Each measured well over eight feet tall and each had a full second row of teeth both on the upper and lower jaws. Most of the bones were lost, but apparently Metevier’s great-grandfather preserved one of the skulls and it had been passed down to Metevier.
Native American burial mounds had long fascinated Lovecroft. His grandfather on his mother’s side, whom he called Agiduda, was a Cherokee elder who taught him the history of the Cherokee people. The Cherokee had originally migrated from Texas to the Great Lakes area; at some point the Iroquois drove them southeast to Appalachia before most of them were forcibly resettled via the “Trail of Tears” onto reservations in Oklahoma in the 1830s. Whether in the Great Lakes Region or Appalachia, the Cherokee practice was to bury their dead in earthen mounds. Pioneering American farmers often dug up these mounds, hoping to find burial treasure or other valuable objects. Many others were excavated by federal officials or university dig teams in the name of science. Others still were simply plowed over. As a result, few mounds remained.
None of this was particularly relevant now. But what was relevant was that Agiduda insisted that giants once lived in North America, and often interbred with the Cherokees. One summer he took young Lovecroft to North Carolina to see Judaculla Rock, a soapstone boulder covered with carvings. According to Cherokee legend the carvings were the work of a giant and provided instructions for entering the spirit world. The giant, named Judaculla, was believed to have come from across the Atlantic because he had Mediterranean features, which made Lovecroft wonder whether the markings might be some kind of map or astronomical chart tracking Judaculla’s journey westward across the ocean.
Judaculla Rock, North Carolina
Whatever the meaning of the Judaculla Rock carvings, the idea that a giant had carved it always seemed perfectly reasonable to Lovecroft. The Bible recounted many incidents involving giants in the Middle East—as the word of God this point was beyond debate. And if giants existed in the Middle East, why not in North America also?
After examining the Narragansett Rune Stone, Cam and Randall grabbed sandwiches and sodas for the car ride home. Randall was an enigma, and he blindsided Cam once again. “What did you think of the speaker last week, Jacques Autier?”
“I told you, I’m not buying the reptilian aliens thing.”
Randall sat back in his seat and smirked. “You might not want to be too hasty in rejecting the reptilian theory. The truth often comes down to us through our legends, our myths, our stories. Consider a few facts.” He held up one finger. “First, the serpent in the Adam and Eve story. A reptile, yes? Today the Church would have us believe the serpent represents the devil or temptation. But look closely at the story: God warns Adam and Eve they will die if they eat the forbidden fruit, commonly portrayed as an apple. The serpent appears and tells them it is okay, go ahead and have a taste, nothing will happen.” Randall smiled. “You know the rest. They eat the apple, but do not die. So who was correct, God or the serpent?
”
Cam began to object. “But they are punished—”
“But they do not die as God promised. Let us dig a bit deeper. The apple symbolizes curiosity. God wanted blind obedience, whereas the serpent urged humankind to explore and think and learn. Which brings me to fact number two…”
He held up two fingers. “The snake, or serpent, is the symbol for knowledge. Consider the icon of the American Medical Association—a snake encircling a rod. I have never considered the snake as particularly intelligent, have you? The owl, yes. A fox, perhaps. But the snake?”
Cam shrugged and Randall continued. “Fact number three. Crocodiles were venerated by the Egyptian pharaohs throughout the ages—crocodile fat was used in their anointing ceremonies. This is not particularly surprising, given the strength and power of the animal. But did you know this reptilian veneration continued in Europe, among the royal families? This, I suggest, is an odd practice given that crocodiles do not even exist in Europe.”
Cam nodded. “Continue.” It was a long drive home, and he found this kind of information fascinating.
Randall showed four fingers. “Fact four. Mary Magdalene. I know you are familiar with the legend that she fled Jerusalem, pregnant with Jesus’ child, and made her way to southern France—it is this line that became the French royal family known as the Merovingians just before the Dark Ages. What you may not know is that the Merovingians—which translates to ‘Vine of Mary’—trace their ancestry back to a union between a descendant of the Jesus-Mary bloodline and a sea monster.”
“A sea monster?”
“Yes. In other words, the Jesus bloodline interbred with some kind of reptile to form the French royal family that ruled for almost three hundred years.” Randall sat back. “So, as you can see, perhaps there is more to these reptilian theories than meets the eye.”
“Good stuff,” Cam said. “Thanks for the history lesson.”
Randall checked his watch. “So, I ask you again: What did you think of Monsieur Autier?”
He put on his blinker and switched lanes. “Maybe I was too quick to dismiss his reptilian research.”
Randall looked at him sidewise and sighed. “Please focus. I did not ask what you thought about Monsieur Autier’s research. I asked what you thought about him.”
Cam shifted in his seat. “Okay, I thought he was a pompous ass.”
Randall clapped his hands together. “Splendid.” He sat taller in his seat. “And what if I were to tell you that Monsieur Autier’s research—specifically, his theory that alien reptiles bred with human women to create a quasi-race that rules the world—was based on the work of an English gentleman by the name of Laurence Gardner? Sir Laurence Gardner, if we are to be accurate.”
“I’ve heard of Gardner, I think. But I’ve never read any of his stuff.”
“But you did not answer my question.”
Cam sipped from his bottle of Diet Coke. “I suppose I would say—despite what you just told me about reptilian legends—that Sir Laurence should stick to polo or grouse hunting or whatever it is English noblemen do these days. It’s a long way from legend to reptilian aliens ruling the world.”
Randall nodded and pursed his lips, apparently weighing a decision in his mind. “What if I told you Sir Laurence had done extensive research on the Ark of the Covenant, the Jesus Bloodline and the Holy Grail. Would you be inclined to take his work seriously?”
“I think you know the answer already. Probably not, no.”
Randall checked his watch. “This conversation—the portion of it subsequent to when I asked you to please focus—has taken less than four minutes. In that time I have explained to you my life’s work, and exactly how Project MK-Ultra functions.” He turned to Cam. “You see, Jacques Autier is my creation. His real name is Jack Arthur. I hired him, trained him, even taught him that horrid French accent. I created him for the sole purpose of undermining Sir Laurence’s research. And I have succeeded. By the time Sir Laurence died in 2010 his work had largely been discredited. Few people remember his writings on the Ark of the Covenant or the Jesus Bloodline or the Holy Grail, much of which relates to exploration of America before Columbus. Instead, he is the nutty nobleman who believed reptilian aliens ruled the world.”
“But how did just one aspect of his work come to define the man?”
The response was almost predictably obtuse. “Precisely.”
“Wake up, boss, almost here.”
Lovecroft opened his eyes, disoriented. He must have dozed off. “Okay, thanks, Gus.” He sipped some water, replaying his dream in his head. Grandfather Agiduda stood tall and powerful, wearing his Cherokee traditional garb, preaching from a pulpit in an ornate church like a modern-day clergyman. He had been reading passages from the Bible. Genesis 6:4; Numbers 13:33; Deuteronomy 3:11; 1 Samuel 17:1. All these passages spoke of giants. Lovecroft shook his head and took another sip of water. Apparently his grandfather was trying to tell him something.
He pulled himself from the car and approached a sprawling clapboard and brick ranch-style home surrounded by a white stockade fence; in the distance a few horses drank from a small pond. Mr. Metevier did well, hopefully not at the expense of his elderly patients. Lovecroft didn’t often visit people in their homes—most constituents were uncomfortable hosting a U.S. Senator in their living room. But Metevier’s collection was in his basement, so here they were.
His host, a heavy-set, middle-aged man wearing a blue blazer and a pair of gray slacks, met him in the driveway. “Senator,” he boomed, “it is an honor to welcome you.”
They made small talk as Metevier escorted the Senator down a wide, carpeted staircase to the basement. “Just came back from a ski trip in Utah. I have family out there,” he said. “When we bought this house, the basement wasn’t finished. I excavated it out to give us nine-foot ceilings, then I took this center room and enclosed it in concrete. It’s a safe room for me and my wife, but mostly I use it to store my collection.”
Lovecroft politely turned away as his host punched a series of numbers into a keypad. A steel door slid open electronically and the men entered a rectangular room the size of large bedroom filled with museum-style display cabinets. Recessed lighting brightened the room and a climate-control system hummed in the background. Metevier pointed to the far wall. “Back there is a living area—beds, kitchen, bathroom, food and water, other supplies. Hopefully we never have to use it. But this is my pride and joy.”
He showed the Senator a number of dinosaur bones. Dinosaurs were a tricky thing for Bible literalists like Lovecroft: Could dinosaurs have existed alongside humans during the past six thousand years, when God created the earth? Here, as in all things, a careful reading of the Bible provided the explanation: The Bible referred to dinosaurs in the Middle East as dragons or behemoths or leviathans. Other types of dinosaurs existed in other parts of the world. For example, his own Cherokee tradition of a thunderbird—a giant flying reptile—reflected the type of dinosaur that lived in North America. Like all creatures, the dinosaurs were taken onto Noah’s Ark. But the sudden change in environmental conditions post-Flood wiped most of them out.
Metevier then showed him some artifacts from Burrows Cave and the Michigan Stone Tablets collection—artifacts that many believed to be fake but which some felt proved European explorers had visited North America long before Columbus. Lovecroft had done some reading on these artifacts—common sense told him many cultures would have tried to cross the Atlantic over the centuries. “If these are fake,” Metevier said, “they are some of the most elaborate fakes I’ve ever seen. Take a look at this Map Stone from Burrows Cave.”
Burrows Cave (Illinois) Map Stone
Lovecroft peered closer as his host explained the artifact.
“The carving marks the journey up from the Gulf of Mexico—you can see the little boat in the water at the very bottom of the stone, next to the zigzag mark for waves in the water. They go up the Mississippi River, to the Ohio and eventually into southern Illinois. E
ach dot marks a day’s journey. What’s interesting is that if you look at the bottom of the Mississippi, where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, you can see that the river bends slightly to the east. That’s not the way it runs today—today it makes almost a ninety degree turn to the east toward Lake Pontchartrain before eventually turning south again. The difference is about fifty miles.” He crossed his arms. “So why the mistake? The rest of the map is accurate.”
Lovecroft smiled. “I presume you are going to enlighten me.”
“Yes. From what I’ve read, this map shows the historic course of the Mississippi, from about two thousand years ago, before it redirected itself.”
“And does that match up with the estimated date of the Burrows Cave artifacts?”
“Perfectly. The artifacts are believed to date back to the first century after Christ.” He pursed his lips. “And from what I’ve learned about this Russell Burrows, he wasn’t educated enough to know the ancient course of the Mississippi River.”
Lovecroft nodded. It didn’t prove the artifacts’ authenticity, but it was a compelling argument.
Together they stared at the Map Stone for a few seconds before Metevier escorted him to the center of the room. As much as his host appreciated the other artifacts in the room, his tone now turned reverential. Alone inside a square glass display case rested a giant humanoid skull. “There it is,” he whispered.
Lovecroft exhaled. It truly was massive, more than twice the size of a normal skull. “Very impressive.”
“I’ve had some anthropologists look at it. They say it’s proportional to a person nine feet tall.” He removed a key from his pocket. “I can take it out if you’d like.”
“Won’t that damage it?”
“I don’t take it out very often.” He grinned. “But I don’t often have a United States Senator visiting either.”
“You said there were originally three skeletons. Where are the others? And where are the bones that go with this one?”
The Oath of Nimrod: Giants, MK-Ultra and the Smithsonian Coverup (Book #4 in Templars in America Series) Page 9
