“Why? It’ll just add to the tsunami of tourists passing through there. The Jesus Bloodline and the skull of Moses in one place. And it turns out Baphomet was Moses—no wonder the Templars worshipped the head. And that means the Templars must have known about the Isaac stuff.”
He nodded. “It makes sense. If the Freemasons know, the Templars must have known also.” Shifting, his mind alert, he continued. “You know what else? This all pretty much conclusively proves the case for early cross-Atlantic exploration. Brendan and the Druids, then the Templars, then Prince Henry.”
She yawned and stretched her arms. “So what next?”
“I guess we catch our flight.”
“So that’s it? End of adventure.”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“Incorrect, sailor.” She jumped from the bed. “I’m going to go wash up. We have all morning to kill, and I believe you owe me a backrub.”
Chapter 14
Just over eight weeks had passed since Carrington liberated the ancient skull from its stone prison within Rosslyn Chapel. She nibbled on a late breakfast of yogurt and granola, enjoying one of her last days in the castle. Bennu had returned to Cairo to live with her mother’s sister, and Carrington no longer needed or could afford the sprawling home. Her limited funds were best spent on other necessities, and if things panned out she’d soon have more status than a dozen castles could give her.
The final test results on the skull had come back after four days, confirming the preliminary findings she had texted to Cameron—the skull was indeed a male of Middle-Eastern or northern African origin dating from approximately thirty-five hundred years ago. There was no doubt in her mind that the skull was that of Moses. She smiled as she licked her spoon. Zuberi had been correct after all. How sweet it was that he had died not knowing.
Today, August 7, one of the four ancient cross-quarter days, marked the pagan holiday of Lunasa, a day celebrating the beginning of the harvest season, a time when Mother Earth finally began to yield her fruit. Carrington rested one hand on her abdomen as she ate. Would she, too, reap what she had worked so hard to sow?
The grandfather clock in the living room rang for the eleven o’clock hour and Carrington, dressed in a khaki skirt and pink blouse, ambled to the front door. Her mother, driving a navy blue compact car, pulled into the circular driveway, punctual as always. A worker bee, driving a perfectly middle-class vehicle. Carrington wanted more, deserved more.
“Hello Mother,” she said, getting in and offering a quick peck on the cheek. Her mother, as always, tasted like cold cream.
“Did you wire the money?” her mother replied, hunched over the wheel as she navigated the long drive.
“I can’t wire anything. It’s Sunday. I’ll wire it in the morning.”
“The agreement was the funds were to be wired at seven weeks.”
Carrington sighed. “I can’t change the banking laws, Mother.” She had already wired a half-million pounds, with two more installments of a quarter-million still due. The expenditures would wipe her out—representing the entirety of her savings, the proceeds of Zuberi’s life insurance, and what he had left her in his will. But it was worth it. It would all be worth it.
“If things don’t work out, you can come back home until you get back on your feet.” Her mother’s mouth contorted as she spoke the words, in the way it would had a bug flown in.
“That won’t be necessary, Mother. But thank you.”
“You can’t be certain.”
“The Americans have a wonderful expression, about putting one’s money where one’s mouth is. Were I not certain, I would not have wired the funds.”
“But you can’t be certain.”
Carrington rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Mother, you can be infuriatingly small-minded sometimes.”
They drove in silence. Sometimes the best way to shut her mother up was to sass her and let her sulk a bit.
Ten minutes later they turned off a main road and into the University of Edinburgh’s veterinary school campus. A hulking linear structure comprised of two parallel buildings, one resembling an elongated glass and mosaic jewelry box and the second an elongated mahogany toy chest, dominated one corner of the campus. “The two buildings are meant to represent two separate strands of DNA,” her mother said, breaking the silence.
“How appropriate,” Carrington said.
A sign identifying the company housed in the building dominated a wall near the main entrance. Had it been Carrington’s choice, instead of signage she would have commissioned a sculpture of a giant sheep. The sheep, along with the DNA-like buildings, would tell visitors all they needed to know.
This was, after all, The Roslin Institute.
Carrington and her mother stepped from the car and into the haze of an inordinately muggy August day.
“Looks like it might rain,” her mother said, sniffing the air like a beagle.
“It’s Scotland, Mother. It always rains.”
They had purposely chosen a Sunday, a day when the building would be mostly empty. Her mother swiped her ID card into the elevator and they ascended to the fourth floor. Dr Wilcox waited for them in his corner office. A heavy-set, humorless man with fleshy jowls and darting eyes, he remained seated behind his desk as they entered. “Did you wire the funds?” he asked by way of greeting.
“They will be wired in the morning,” Carrington said. “Assuming the test results are acceptable.”
He sighed. “They were due today.” He pointed across the hallway. “The technician is waiting for you.”
“Are you joining us?” Carrington asked.
He made a face. “I am a geneticist, not a medical doctor.”
And not a particularly ethical one. Though very well paid.
“Why don’t you wait with Dr. Wilcox, Mother,” Carrington said, making her exit.
She made a point of not making eye contact with the young female technician in a light blue lab coat. The less said the better. Carrington disrobed, climbed atop the examination table, and spread her legs. The woman lubricated a beige wand resembling an electric toothbrush and inserted it into Carrington’s vaginal canal. As far as the tech knew, Carrington was Dr. Wilcox’s mistress, here on a Sunday to avoid undue publicity.
The technician spoke matter-of-factly as she maneuvered the wand. “There’s the sac. And the fetus.”
Carrington lifted her head and peered at the monitor. It just looked like a blob to her. “How large?”
“About a centimeter in length, the size of a dried lima bean. Looks healthy. I can see some facial features. I can detect a heartbeat. A strong one.” She smiled for the first time as she removed the wand. “Everything looks fine. It’s a boy.”
“Yes, I know,” Carrington replied. Half-naked and spread-eagled, Carrington had never felt more confident. She lifted her chin. “His name is Moses.”
Only fifteen minutes had passed since Carrington had left her mother and Dr. Wilcox alone in the doctor’s office. But the world had changed.
“The fetus is healthy,” she announced. “Moses is healthy.”
The geneticist nodded smugly. “I will expect the funds first thing tomorrow morning.”
“So what are the odds of a healthy birth?” Carrington knew that a healthy heartbeat at the seven-week mark for traditional human pregnancies put the odds of a healthy birth at over ninety percent. But this pregnancy was anything but traditional.
“In other primates,” Dr. Wilcox replied, “the seven-week mark has been a tipping point. After seven weeks, viability jumps from twenty percent to almost sixty percent. I have no reason to believe it will be any different with humans.”
Carrington’s face flushed. He had said sixty percent, but in her heart she knew it to be a certainty.
Her mother, however, remained skeptical. “Yes, but with primates you were working with fresh DNA. This DNA is over three thousand years old.”
“That’s why this seven-week mark is so important. It seems we have o
vercome any shortcomings with the DNA we extracted from the molar.”
As Carrington understood it, the cloning process generally required undamaged cell nuclei that could be inserted into a surrogate parent, and even then the odds for success were low. Over the past decade researchers at Roslin had advanced the science, increasing the odds and making even damaged or old cell nuclei viable. Of course, nobody had ever tried to clone a human. Until now.
Carrington stood. She had no desire to spend more time with the geneticist. In fact, spending time together only increased their chances of getting caught. It had not been difficult, using her mother as an intermediary, to convince the rogue scientist to accept the million-pound bribe. For him it was a chance to both get rich and change the world. But that didn’t mean Carrington had to like him. Or trust him. In the end it might be safer to eliminate him the way she had eliminated other obstacles in her path. After all, his idea of changing the world might not run in lockstep with hers.
They walked in silence to the car. Once inside, her mother exhaled. “This is dangerous for me, you know.”
Carrington laughed. The woman’s daughter was about to give birth to the Bible’s most famous prophet, and all she could think about was losing her job. “I appreciate your sacrifice, Mother.”
They began to drive. “Does the American know?” her mother asked. “His research is crucial to all this.”
“Nobody knows. Just you and Wilcox.” But her mother was right about Thorne’s research. It would be possible to prove to the world that her baby had been cloned from DNA extracted from the skull. But to prove that the baby was a clone of the Biblical Moses would require a plausible explanation for how Carrington came to be in possession of Moses’ skull in the first place. For that she needed the research in Thorne’s new book. “As for his research, his book will be released a couple of months before Moses’ birth.” Just enough time to let people get used to the idea.
Her mother peered ahead, hunched low over the steering wheel. She took a deep breath. “Even sixty percent is no guarantee. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Yes, mother. I’m not an idiot. One hundred minus sixty equals forty. That means there is a forty percent chance of … non-viability.” They had been over the science a dozen times.
“Forty percent is significant.”
Carrington fought to control her tone. “Mother, do you believe in God?”
“That’s a ridiculous question. You know I do.”
Carrington had never been particularly observant, but she had never doubted the presence of some omnipotent power that first created and now controlled the world. “Well, then, let me ask you this: Why would God go through the trouble of allowing me—whose mother just happens to work at the world’s foremost genetic cloning laboratory—to recover the skull of Moses, clone him, and use my womb to carry the fetus, if the entire procedure was fated to fail?”
“One cannot hope to know what God intends for us.”
“No. But when God walks me to the front door and hands me the key, what am I to do but walk on in?”
The doorbell rang early one August morning, on one of the hottest, most humid days of the summer. The house was cool from the air conditioning having been on overnight and the thick, heavy air almost took Cam’s breath away as he opened the door. The sight of the white-haired Duncan Sinclair standing on his front porch served as a second blow to the gut.
Cam fought to find his voice. “Duncan,” was all he could muster.
“Mr. Thorne,” the elderly Freemason replied, his cream-colored dress shirt sticking to his body. “Good morning.” A dark sedan idled on the street in front of Cam’s home.
Cam had just stepped from the shower, his hair still wet. Amanda was doing yoga in the basement while Astarte, in her pajamas, sat on the living room couch watching cartoons. White index cards littered the kitchen table, remnants of last night’s effort to finalize the seating arrangements for their upcoming Labor Day wedding only a month away. They were hardly ready to receive company. But Cam couldn’t turn the man away. “Please come in. I apologize for the mess.”
Venus trotted over to sniff their kilted guest, surprising Cam by licking gently at the back of his hand. Normally she was a better judge of character. Or maybe Cam himself had judged the Sinclair clansman too harshly. Duncan bowed. “I apologize for coming unannounced, and at such an early hour. But today is Lunasa, and I thought it an appropriate day to pay a visit.”
Cam nodded. Lunasa marked the traditional beginning of the harvest season. It also was a traditional time to gather and trade. No doubt the Freemason was here to barter, but for what? Cam pushed the index cards aside and pulled out a chair for his guest. “Can I get you a cup of coffee, or maybe tea?”
“Just some water, if it would not be too much trouble.”
Cam served his guest and sent Astarte to tell Amanda they had company. Duncan sighed. “I am, frankly, exhausted. It is all we can do to keep the Middle East from erupting.”
“I’ve never understood why the Freemasons are so involved in this.”
Duncan fixed his watery blue eyes on Cam. “Governments, and their diplomats, come and go. But we have relationships in the region that go back centuries. A certain level of trust has developed.” He shrugged. “But we can only do so much. This Isaac Question revelation has been most unfortunate.” He brightened. “But it could have been much worse, had the information come from your book as Zuberi had originally planned.” He paused. “You understand, don’t you, that this is a secret we Freemasons have kept for millennia? It is at the core of our beliefs—that we Westerners all are children of the ancient sun-worshiping Egyptians. Jew and Gentile. All of us. The Judeo-Christian religions, at their most basic, are merely differing versions of pagan sun worship.”
Cam nodded. “The clues are everywhere—why else would you have so much Egyptian symbolism in your Masonic rituals? But what I don’t understand is, with the clues so obvious, why has it remained a secret for so long?”
Smiling knowingly, Duncan leaned forward in his chair. “Sometimes the truth is so incomprehensible, so inconceivable, that we simply can not fathom it. Even after all you have learned, do you think religious Jews or Christians will ever believe themselves to be descended from the pharaoh Tuthmosis III rather than from Abraham?” He waved a hand. “Of course not. The truth has remained a secret not because it is hidden, but because there is no desire to see it. Very few people have eyes that truly see. You are rare in that respect.”
Duncan broke the few seconds of silence that had settled over their conversation.
“Moving from the sublime to the mundane, I trust your problems with the polluted real estate are behind you?”
The retention tank had, in fact, done its job, and the contaminated soil been trucked away. In the end, even after the cleanup costs and attorneys fees, they would net a profit if they ever sold the land. “Yes,” Cam replied. “But I’m guessing you didn’t come all this way to discuss my legal problems, or even Judeo-Christian philosophy.”
“No. I felt the obligation to bring you some news personally, rather than by telephone or email.”
Cam leaned forward. “What news?”
Amanda entered the room in a t-shirt and shorts, her face flushed and her hair in a ponytail. Duncan greeted her, spread his arms, and responded, “Carrington is pregnant. Or, to be more accurate, she is carrying a baby in her womb.”
Cam and Amanda exchanged quizzical glances as she dropped into a chair. “I don’t understand,” Cam said. But his fingers tingled in a way that told him danger loomed.
“She has extracted DNA from the Rosslyn Chapel skull, from what she believes is Moses, and had it cloned. In seven months she believes she will give birth to a baby that is genetically identical to Moses.”
Amanda rose in her chair, as if standing to object. “How is that possible?” she asked. “Human cloning is still only theoretical.”
Duncan shook his head. “Publicly, yes. But The
Roslin Institute has been quietly pushing the envelope on this. Others also. Carrington was able to find a rogue geneticist to assist her. I just received a phone call: She underwent an ultrasound examination mere hours ago. The fetus is healthy and viable.” He paused. “A boy, of course.”
Cam picked up on an extraneous word Duncan had used. “You said she believes the skull is that of Moses. Do you have reason to doubt it?”
The Sinclair elder smiled. “I have every reason to doubt it. In fact, I know the skull is a fake because I placed it there myself.”
“A fake?” Cam asked. These guys were unbelievable. Everything was a house of mirrors, a parlor trick, a ruse. He recalled Duncan’s bemused smile the night Carrington stole the skull…
“Yes. The night before we all gathered at the Chapel, a trusted associate and I dug up into the pillar from the crypt beneath. We removed the skull that was hidden there and replaced it with the skull Carrington now possesses.”
“But testing showed the head to be Middle-Eastern and thirty-five hundred years old,” Amanda challenged.
Duncan shrugged. “It is not difficult to purchase ancient skulls in the antiquities markets in Beirut. We procured a dozen and tested them until we found a male that dated back to the time of Moses.”
“So Carrington is carrying the clone of some random Middle-Easterner?” Cam asked.
The Freemason smiled. “One of the tenets of Freemasonry is that any man can lift himself to greatness. Perhaps this baby she is carrying will, indeed, become a great prophet. But I assure you, he is not a clone of Moses.”
“Why are you telling us this?”
“Your book will be released next month I believe? As I understand it, Carrington will be making a public announcement soon thereafter. You will no doubt be questioned, since it is your research that makes it plausible that the head of Moses found its way to Scotland in the first place.” He bowed slightly. “We have not always been completely honest with you, Mr. Thorne. We feel as if we owe you this courtesy. I would not want you to go on record validating Carrington’s claim, only to later be repudiated. What is that expression you Americans use, egg on your face?”
The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Templars in America Series Book 5) Page 35
