The window shattered, sending shards of glass along with gallons of fresh winter air tumbling into their prison.
But Astarte was not done. In fact, she suddenly realized the broken window might be her chance.
Without even waiting for Mum and Dad-Cam to wake, she snaked herself back under the black pipe for a third time and dropped through the ceiling hole just as the sound of footsteps came racing down the stairs. She crouched and watched as the man named Maxwell turned on the light and peered around the room, a black gun in his hand. She crouched lower as he walked slowly toward the storage room door.
Now was her chance. Crawling under the display cabinets, she crossed the room as Maxwell checked the door. Before he could turn she burst to her feet and sprinted toward the stairs. He called after her as she neared the top, and she could hear his footsteps in pursuit as she ran down the hall. But unless his smelly cats somehow were able to tackle her there was no way he was going to stop her from running out the door and getting help.
Amanda barely remembered being carried out of the basement, an oxygen mask on her face. The oxygen tasted like a tall glass of cold water after a long summer run. A young female paramedic told her the story on the way to the hospital.
“The girl saved your lives. Even with the window broken the carbon monoxide levels were pretty high in that room. Another ten, fifteen minutes and you’d all be dead,” she said matter-of-factly. “The furnace was venting right into there. The outside vent was blocked by a snow bank.”
A snow bank, how convenient. “Where is Astarte?”
“An officer is bringing her to the hospital. She’s fine.”
Amanda had seen Cam loaded into the ambulance next to hers; he had waved and given her a thumbs-up. “How is Herm?”
“The older guy? He’ll make it. He was closest to the vent and furthest from the window, so he had it worst.”
She closed her eyes, the movement of the ambulance making her nauseous. “Is this supposed to feel like the world’s worst hangover?”
The paramedic smiled. “Exactly.”
“Did they arrest Maxwell?”
“Not yet. He’s claiming it was all an accident. Said you three wanted some privacy to look at some of his collection so he left you alone for a while. When he went back down to check on you were all passed out. Claims he figured it must be carbon monoxide poisoning so he broke the window to let in some fresh air. Says he was just about to call 911 when the police banged on the door.”
“How does he explain the bloody locked door?” Amanda said.
“To the storage room? I was first on the scene with the cop—when we got there the door was opened. But he mentioned it gets stuck sometimes.”
“So it will be the word of a nine-year-old against him?”
“Her and the neighbor’s 911 phone call.” The paramedic smiled. “Unless you can get that giant skeleton to testify.”
Evgenia sprinted to the next corner, her heart thumping more from adrenaline than from exertion. She stopped and turned to make sure Antonopoulos hadn’t followed. Her body shivered. They made these kinds of encounters seem so uneventful on television and in the movies and even in Agency training videos. But she was a mess. A shaking, shivering, gasping, raw-nerved mess.
But she had done well. She had protected herself, protected her identity, protected her mission. Antonopoulos, his instincts sharp, suspected something was amiss but he had no idea what. And her performance tonight probably convinced him he was being paranoid. Hopefully he would get on a plane in the morning and get on with his life.
Yet something he said resonated. He sensed Rachel might be setting him up, believed the carving to be too pristine. And he was, after all, the expert. She had covered for Rachel with the lie about a stalking boyfriend, but the reality was she didn’t know anything about the girl other than what Dr. Jag had told her; he claimed to have vetted her, to have checked out her story about the artifact, but who knew what really went on inside that dandruff-covered head of his? Was there another game going on here, one in which Evgenia was a lowly pawn? It was one thing for Dr. Jag to compartmentalize things and keep her in the dark about certain aspects of her assignments. It was another to be lied to and manipulated….
And it still gnawed at her that she couldn’t figure out why the Agency cared about Antonopoulos and his research. Perhaps there were some clues in the other files Dr. Jag had given her.
Walking quickly, her heart still pounding, she covered the six blocks back to her apartment and dead-bolted her door. Unlocking her briefcase, she spread the folders across the kitchen table. She grabbed a light beer from the fridge and began with the file for Frank Glynn, a postal worker from Connecticut. Reading quickly, she learned that in the late 1960s Glynn set out to prove the truth of the legend of Prince Henry Sinclair and the Westford Knight. The legend recounted the exploits of Sinclair, a nobleman from northern Scotland, who, following ancient Viking maps, island-hopped his way across the North Atlantic in the 1390s. Eventually Sinclair found his way to what is now Westford, Massachusetts, where a kinsman by the name of James Gunn died. Sinclair ordered that an effigy be carved into bedrock as a memorial to this fallen knight.
Evgenia pulled some photos from the folder and sipped her beer. She could clearly make out the pommel, grip, cross guard and upper part of the blade of the medieval battle sword:
Westford Knight Sword, Massachusetts
The rest of the effigy seemed to have faded over time, though a rubbing done of the entire carving did clearly reveal the knight with his sword and shield:
Westford Knight Rubbing, Massachusetts
“Pretty cool,” she whispered. Not that it really mattered. How could Europeans have ‘discovered’ a continent that was already occupied by thousands of Native Americans?
In any event, apparently Frank Glynn spent many months cleaning and photographing the Knight carving. Eventually he began exploring surrounding areas in Westford, figuring there might be other evidence of the Prince Henry journey. He soon came upon the Boat Stone, a two-foot square rock with a medieval ship called a knorr, a crossbow arrow and the number 184 carved on its face. Interestingly, the technique used to carve these images—a pecking or punching motion using some kind of iron tool—was identical to that employed in the Westford Knight effigy carving.
Westford Boat Stone, Massachusetts
Gunn consulted with heraldry experts in Great Britain who suggested the Boat Stone may have marked Prince Henry’s winter encampment site. Returning to the location the stone was found, and believing the arrow and number 184 may have been directional markers, Glynn paced 184 paces into the woods and stumbled upon the remains of a rectangular stone foundation. The foundation, located in an ideal location for a winter encampment site, did not appear in the historical town records. She read further: Apparently the custom was that the group’s boats would have been turned upside down and placed on the low foundation stones to serve as the encampment’s roof. Evgenia pulled a drawing of it from the file, along with a photo showing three of the walls:
Drawing of Prince Henry Sinclair Encampment Site, Massachusetts
Foundation Stones of Prince Henry Sinclair Encampment Site
That summer Glynn conducted some preliminary archeological work—work that seemed to indicate the site dated to AD 1400—before falling ill. Then he did something that will forever remain a mystery to the outside world but which was explained in detail in the Agency file.
He sent a letter to the town historian explaining that he had recently returned to the site only to find it bulldozed over to make way for a housing subdivision. “Alas,” he wrote, “the site has been destroyed.”
The reality, Evgenia learned, was that Glynn had not returned to the site. Nor had it been bulldozed, though there had indeed been a new subdivision rising up nearby. Rather, an Agency operative had deceived Glynn and led him to believe that, while he was laid up in bed, another archeological team was snooping around, searching for the site and
hoping to excavate. Glynn, jealous and protective of his find, had lied about the site being destroyed in hopes of discouraging other would-be diggers. Glynn never recovered from his illness and died that winter. The encampment site, to this day, remained overgrown and unexamined in the woods behind the subdivision.
Poor guy, Evgenia mused. So close to fulfilling his lifelong work, but stuck in his death bed imagining some other guy rushing in to steal the credit.
But, again, why did the Agency care? So what if some Scotsman had been running around Massachusetts in the late 1300s?
She tossed the file aside. Last file, and half a beer left. Daniel Whitewood. An only child from a wealthy family, Whitewood spent his life—and his parents’ money—conducting archeological digs around New England, trying to find definitive archeological proof that European exploration of America predated Columbus.
By the time Whitewood reached his sixties he found himself insolvent with an elderly mother in a nursing home sucking away the last of his inheritance. But he had also finally hit pay-dirt: While digging beneath Rhode Island’s Newport Tower in 2007 he uncovered a piece of seashell imbedded within some old mortar in the Tower’s foundation—apparently in pre-modern times seashells, because they contain lime, were a key ingredient in making mortar.
The Newport Tower, Rhode Island
Whitewood had the shell carbon-dated: It dated to the early 1400s, a result that tantalizingly seemed to tie the Tower construction to the Prince Henry voyage of 1399. Prince Henry or not, the find offered definitive proof that the Tower was built long before Columbus arrived in America. But before Whitewood could publicize his find, a wealthy collector contacted him and offered to purchase the mortar sample for one hundred thousand dollars under the condition Whitewood keep the find quiet until the collector was ready to announce the discovery. Whitewood—in need of the money and with no reason to doubt the motives of his benefactor—agreed. Six years later Whitewood died; his discovery had never been publicized and the mortar sample remained locked away in a safe somewhere. Evgenia shook her head. That ‘somewhere’ was likely Langley, Virginia.
But, again, why did the Agency care? Why the need to discredit or bury this research? The common thread connecting all the men, of course, was that their discoveries debunked the “Columbus first” ethos that American schoolchildren were taught in second grade. But if eight-year-olds could come to grips with the loss of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, surely they could survive the tarnishing of the Columbus image.
Of all the things for the CIA to focus on, of all the threats to national security over the decades, why was the Agency wasting time on ancient history?
She sipped the last of her beer and tossed the files back into her briefcase. The answers, she sensed, were not in any files.
CHAPTER 6
The walk from the Back Bay to the North End was about two-and-a-half miles as the crow flies, twice as long as it would have been from Randall’s Chinatown apartment. But it was one of those rare winter mornings where the sun was shining and the temperature above freezing so Randall grabbed a walking stick, slipped into his winter garb and bounded out to Commonwealth Avenue.
Cameron had sent him a fascinating email late last night, outlining the various connections between the Mellon family, the CIA in general and Operation MK-Ultra in particular. He had been wise to bring the young researcher on—Cameron’s fresh set of eyes and sharp instincts were clearly bearing fruit. The man would have made an effective Agency analyst.
The sun in his face, Randall pondered the Mellon connections. This was how his brain worked best, slowly sifting through the information, categorizing and compartmentalizing. Later he would begin to look for connections and then, hopefully, draw some conclusions. But for now he was content to stroll east along the avenue’s tree-lined median called the Mall, dodging dog-walkers and baby-strollers and joggers, all of them funneled together by the snow banks intruding on the Mall’s walkway. Boston was alive, and he happy to be alive in it.
Commonwealth Avenue ended and he entered the Public Garden. A pedestrian bridge spanned the frozen pond—would this be the last year he watched young families ride the Swan Boats and picnic and feed the ducks? He hoped not. He felt damn good for a man of eighty, but the insurance companies did not rely on the actuarial tables because they were incorrect. Smiling, he recalled a recent conversation he had with his brother:
“The average life span for a man in this country is seventy-six,” his brother had said. “So we are living on borrowed time.”
“But the odds also state that one of us will live to eighty. So it behooves me to kill you now.”
He had done some research and phoned his twin an hour later. “Your actuarial table may be accurate, but the statistics also indicate that if one reaches the age of eighty, the expectation is that one will live another eight years in addition to that.”
Smiling at the memory of the exchange, Randall continued onto Boston Common. Eight more years. And if he lived to eighty-eight, then the tables gave him another four years after that. And so on. Perhaps he should go purchase a new suit.
The Common was a bit grittier than the Garden, especially in the winter, but a pleasant walk nonetheless. Just off the far edge of the Common stood the Masonic Grand Lodge, the third oldest Grand Lodge in the world and the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. Tonight he and Cameron and Amanda would be attending a lecture there given by a geologist from Bates College regarding pre-Columbian artifacts possibly connected to the medieval Knights Templar. Yesterday’s blogger attack had convinced Randall that MK-Ultra was continuing to target Cameron—there was too much vitriol and passion in the post, and too little leading up to it, for the post to be random. One of the things Randall hoped to do tonight was question the professor to see if he had been targeted in any way himself. And of course he wanted to discuss the Mellon research with Cameron.
Ten minutes later Randall emerged on the far side of the Common and entered Government Center. This was his least favorite part of Boston, the hulking, Brutalist-style, City Hall building dominating a barren, wind-swept plaza like some kind of giant concrete harmonica dropped from outer space. The structure had once been named the ugliest building in America, which Randall thought was perhaps the kindest thing ever said about it. Randall lowered his head and plowed forward.
He lingered at the glass towers of the Holocaust Memorial for a few minutes before skirting the Haymarket produce market and crossing the Greenway to Hanover Street and the North End. He licked his lips; the walk had given him an appetite, but he’d wait until after his Copp’s Hill visit to grab some pastries.
He checked his watch. Almost ten o’clock. Passing the Old North Church, he turned onto Hull Street and climbed the narrow way bordered by red-bricked buildings dating back to the early 1800s. The burial ground rose up on his right, one of the highest points in Boston. In the distance the sail-shaped Zakim Bridge loomed, its flowing white cables—meant to emulate the rigging of the nearby USS Constitution—in stark contrast to the rigidity of the neighborhood’s Colonial architecture. Some people thought the bridge design too modern for Boston, but Randall loved the structure, especially at night when it was bathed in purple or blue or yellow light. And as a minority in a city with a racially-charged past, he also appreciated that the bridge was named for a civil rights activist. No doubt Prince Hall, one of the country’s earliest Abolitionists, appreciated the civil rights memorial looming over his gravesite as well.
Randall passed through a wrought iron gate and followed a path to the back left portion of the grave yard. The sun had melted the snow in all but a few of the shaded areas of the cemetery. Much of the cemetery was in disrepair, with the slate grave slabs rising from the frozen ground crooked and chipped and discolored like a mouth full of neglected teeth. But the Prince Hall marker—an inscription carved into the base of an obelisk, the obelisk being a common motif in Masonic burials—stood polished and proud.
A splash of yellow caught Ra
ndall’s eye as he approached. Too early for dandelions—perhaps a piece of trash had blown against the marker. He increased his pace, his eyes narrowing as he peered ahead. Could it be? A single yellow rose stood propped against the base of the grave marker, its golden pedals framed against the purple-black granite of the memorial. The flower seemed to shiver in the cold, even as it bravely stretched toward the sun.
He froze and stared, unable to accept what he was seeing. So many lonely nights, so many lonely years, so many lonely decades. All erased by a single yellow flower.
Finally he stumbled forward. Hand shaking, Randall lifted the rose. A single tear fell and landed on a rose pedal as he lifted the flower to his nose. He dropped to one knee, closed his eyes and choked out a single word.
“Consuela.”
Cam recognized Randall’s number on the caller ID and answered on the second ring. He, Amanda and Astarte had slept in after finally being released from the hospital well after midnight. He and Amanda still had splitting headaches and bloodshot eyes, but at least the nausea had passed and the doctors didn’t believe they would suffer any long-term effects from the poisoning. Herm had not yet been discharged, but his condition had improved as well.
As if the headache was not bad enough, Cam was slogging through a particularly poorly-drafted Purchase and Sale Agreement. So he welcomed the late-morning interruption. “Mr. Sid. What can I do for you?”
“I am going to need to make a slight alteration of plans for tonight. I will meet you at the Grand Lodge at just before seven o’clock.” The lecture began at seven, and the original plan was to meet at six so Randall could give Cam and Amanda a tour. Randall continued. “The tour will have to wait for another time.”
“Okay. Is everything all right?” The old man was normally so … chipper. But he sounded lifeless this morning, sort of like the way Cam felt.
The Oath of Nimrod: Giants, MK-Ultra and the Smithsonian Coverup (Book #4 in Templars in America Series) Page 18
