“Good job, Cassidy, see you soon.”
* * *
Salvoni had his men park the bus at the bottom of the Magdalensberg while he drove up to get a better picture of the situation. A good dozen men dressed in black, some of them armed and carrying the most up-to-date equipment for retrieving relics, were getting ready for their assignment. They had received clear instructions from Salvoni. The operation should proceed as quickly and unspectacularly as possible. Under no circumstances should there be any direct confrontation or exchange of fire, since they didn’t have backup from the Austrian police.
Salvoni phoned Lambert. “We’re too late. They’re already inside. They apparently haven’t found anything important, if my men are to be believed, but we should still make sure.”
“Wait until they come out again, and then you’ll know what you have to do.”
“But Cardinal, we have to take advantage of the cover of night! What if they don’t come out until dawn?”
“Then you have free hand to do what you think appropriate.”
Salvoni repressed a sigh of relief with difficulty. Free hand. That was what he had been waiting for the whole time. An operation like this was his specialty, and he knew exactly how he needed to run it.
THE MAGDALENSBERG – NIGHT
Shane was working with Deborah to identify more of the scrolls. “My God, when I think about what we’ve found here! All these records contradict in every conceivable way our current understanding of what was handed down to us by the Druids and the Celts.”
“You mustn’t forget who was writing the history you read. The true history of the Druids couldn’t be written before now because we hardly knew it. One thing is certain, though: everything here suggests that they were the architects of the entire Celtic society.” Deborah carefully placed another scroll in the box they had set aside for that purpose. “We know, as far as Ireland is concerned, that there was always a balance between worldly and spiritual power that kings and Druids shared. The idea of an empire was completely foreign to them. There wasn’t even a word for it in Gallic or any other Celtic language. It’s no wonder that this culture couldn’t be maintained in the atmosphere of the Pax Romana. The ones Saint Patrick didn’t force to convert to Christianity ended up submitting themselves willingly. But here we find the source and...oh, look at this, a complete list of healing herbs and their applications. This must be worth a fortune.”
As Shane took another scroll out of the table, Deborah furrowed her brow and hastily scanned the text. “Take that too. That’s a description of the ability to communicate telepathically and to have an influence on the weather, animals, and other people. Even if it’s only a myth, it’s still interesting.”
“No, Deborah. I don’t think it’s just a myth. What if the Druids did have these abilities and this knowledge? That would have been yet another reason to persecute them. I mean, faced with such an accumulated knowledge, the Romans and the Christians must have been terrified. That’s why they needed this super god, the one true God. That’s the only way they could provide their armies with the necessary force to maintain an empire. I believe that the Druids really did have access to a universal knowledge, to a gift, that exerted an attraction and...”
Thomas had come back into the room. “As soon as we’ve filled all the boxes and chests that we want to take with us, I want to get out of here,” he said in a commanding tone. “In half an hour, I’m going to call MacClary and tell him that there’s no way we can retrieve everything here by ourselves.”
Thomas turned around and went back into the next chamber.
“And then what?” Shane asked.
“That’s it for us,” Deborah answered. “That’s the deal we made with MacClary. Ryan can take as much as he can and look for evidence that his ancestors left something here. The rest is for the archaeologists. Here, look at this!” Deborah translated another scroll. “Our time is past. They are torturing us to break our power, to make us come to their source, but they will fail. We know their lies... Damn, I can’t get anything else out of it.”
Shane had gotten up and was about to pack a dozen scrolls in one of the boxes they had left at the entrance. Then he saw Thomas, standing with his hand to his forehead. Dust and sand were raining down on him and another parchment, with which he was apparently quite preoccupied. He took a plastic container from one of the chests, which had a spiral inside it, so he could carefully store a parchment in it without having to touch the skin. He was concentrating so intensely on his work that he hadn’t noticed Shane at all.
“What are you doing there, Thomas?”
“This is something special. I’ll explain later.” Shane could tell Thomas was nervous, but he could also sense the relief that had washed over him. “It’s the scroll of Rodanicas,” Thomas continued, “one of my ancestors. This is what I’ve spent so much time searching for. It wasn’t a legend after all. I can’t let go of this parchment scroll again.”
Shane sat down next to Thomas. “But that’s not everything, is it?”
“No, Adam, that’s not it by a long shot. It’s not just about me and my family. What we’ve found here essentially belongs to eight Irish families whose ancestors at the beginning of the fourth century made it as far as Ireland. One of the secret schools we were talking about has survived, more or less, to the present day, so we were convinced that this place really existed and that we had to find it to learn more about our history.”
“Then it’s really true,” they heard from behind them. Deborah was headed to the exit with some scrolls.
“What is MacClary expecting from all of this here?” Shane asked.
“Oh, a lot. As you know, when his father left him with this riddle, it was a heavy burden. He also shares his father’s obsession about the early years of the Church. You mustn’t forget, the man is a jurist down to his bones, and he sees the genesis of the Church as more like the foundation of a criminal society. He wants to document these facts and arguments so the public will finally accept the truth and the Vatican will lose its influence.”
Shane had to laugh to himself. How naïve could these men be? Did Thomas really believe what he was saying? And the judge? Curb the influence of the Vatican! People were simply not ready for that. They had always looked the other way when a crime was committed in the name of faith—any faith. History, even recent history, was rife with this.
“In addition,” Thomas added, “a few months ago the British government officially recognized Druidism as a state religion. I’m sure we’ll also find proof here that the Vatican set aside considerable portions of our cultural assets and is hoarding them somewhere. But let’s stop talking now and make sure we get out of here.”
Shane shook his head in disbelief. “But Thomas, what’s going to happen? Who’s going to get into the Vatican’s secret archive to prove this?”
“Adam, there is no secret archive in the Vatican. That’s just one of many conspiracy theories.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me. There’s enough information out there that suggests exactly the opposite.”
Deborah jumped into the conversation. “The Archivio Segreto Vaticano is, as the adjective segreto states, private, and not secret. Only the pope decides which inventory will be declassified, but this archive has nothing to do with the archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. And the private archive of the pope is certainly not the place where such things are kept.”
“But where then?” Shane asked skeptically.
Deborah shook her head slowly. “The devil only knows, Adam. And I don’t use the word lightly.”
* * *
DUBLIN – MARCH 17, MIDNIGHT
MacClary couldn’t contain his nervousness anymore. My God, Ryan, just call already! he thought as he stood in the library. For the first time, he began to fear that Ruth’s warning might turn out to be a premonition. Jennifer had made herself comfortable under a blanket in a leather chair in front of the crackling fire in the library fir
eplace. He turned in her direction.
“So you want to quit. Did I understand you correctly?”
Jennifer looked up at him. “I do. Over the past few years I’ve started to realize that my career really isn’t fulfilling me anymore. The progress we’ve been able to make is negligible compared to the work that’s left to be done. I’m just tired, and I can’t take sleeping in hotels or a cold, empty bed at home anymore.”
MacClary hesitated a minute and then sat down next to her. For a while the only sound they could hear was the popping of the wood burning in the fireplace. Then he spoke again, softly. “It’s not that I’m happy when someone throws away her career, but as your friend, I’m inclined not to make any attempt to stop you.”
“You’d just let me go?”
“Do you think I don’t see what’s going on with you?” MacClary said as he stood up to get himself a whiskey. “Since the collapse of the UN reform, you haven’t had any of your old professional enthusiasm.”
The telephone rang. Both of them jumped, and Ruth, who happened to be walking by, rushed to the telephone to answer it. MacClary beat her to it, offering her a calming gesture at the same time. His hand on the phone, he paused for just a moment, as if he knew what Ryan was about to tell him.
“Thomas, is everything OK there?”
“More than OK. What we’ve found here exceeds all of our expectations, and above all, it has fulfilled mine.” Ryan’s euphoria was palpable. He sounded breathless and spoke so fast that it was almost impossible to understand him.
“Thomas, I’m completely overwhelmed! You really found the parchment scrolls? What else was there?”
“Suffice it to say that your father was right about everything. I can’t say anything more right now except that I’ve found all sorts of evidence here that we’ve been speculating about.”
“So you’ve finally found evidence of your family. I always knew you would, I—”
“There’s a problem, though. There’s just too much. It would be impossible to retrieve everything. My suggestion is that I send Adam and Deborah to Dublin with the most important scrolls. The rest has to be preserved immediately, otherwise—”
“I understand, Thomas. I’ll use my contacts in the Austrian Foreign Ministry to organize the immediate retrieval of the artifacts. That means that you need to get out of there.”
“Absolutely not. I’m staying here to make sure that no trespassers walk in on the site.”
Then, without even giving MacClary the chance to try to change his mind, Ryan hung up.
“Damn pigheaded mule,” MacClary said, beaming with joy.
* * *
Jennifer sat upright on the edge of her chair looking at MacClary expectantly. “What did they find?”
“What would you say if I offered you the opportunity to end your career with one of the oldest criminal cases in history?” MacClary was grinning as he only did when he was absolutely convinced of something.
Jennifer knew what was coming. How often had they sat together tossing all the legal, historical, and theoretical possibilities back and forth? Could they prove something against the Church? Did they have cultural objects from the Celts or the Druids in their possession? What if the descendants of those Celts or Druids could invoke international law and demand surrender of the objects?
Once, the only recognized subjects of international law were the states, not the people living in them. However, an increasing number of jurists throughout the world tended to view the entirety of humankind as a single subject of international law. If the international community were to get involved in this, the consequences would be incalculable. For example, no more trees could be cut down in the Brazilian rainforest without the agreement of a community of nations. The claim on cultural assets would also be affected—the pyramids, for instance, or the Buddha statues in Afghanistan, for which it was, sadly, too late. Ultimately the claim on historical truth would change as well.
“You’re referring to the efforts of Jackson O’Connor?” Jennifer knew the Irish foreign minister from her time in Brussels. O’Connor was an honorable man through and through, with a modern understanding of international law, even if he was as much of a dreamer as MacClary.
“Well, that too. He has always implied that the Irish government is prepared to return all Celtic cultural assets to the descendants in their own countries. And in the same way that Israel is the promised land for the Jews, Ireland is the promised land for the Celts.”
“But how in the world are we going to make the Vatican open its archive? Even if we could, they’d have enough time to clear everything out and hide it somewhere else. I mean, what do you want to do, get a search warrant from the United Nations?”
MacClary’s expression grew more thoughtful. “I want a signal, Jennifer. A beacon, you could call it. You don’t always have to win a trial to achieve justice or even equity.”
“In other words, you want to embarrass them. In reality, it’s not about justice or equity; you just want to embarrass them.”
“Wait until we see what Thomas and the others have uncovered. If Thomas says he’s found some piece of crucial evidence, then he has.”
* * *
MacClary was trying to calm himself down. As he reached for the phone to call the Austrian authorities and have them unobtrusively secure the site, his father’s last words came to mind. Sean MacClary had once said that the reason Rome was so afraid of his work was because he knew how to combine knowledge and rationality with a convincing logic. Had anyone seen Moses receive the Ten Commandments or Zeus help Julius Caesar to victory? He had never enjoyed destroying a person’s faith, but the religion that the Catholic Church preached was nothing more or less to him than theater for children, a ridiculous and primitive story, as despicable in its acts as it was dangerous.
He could have no way of knowing the spectacular way that the Curia would soon rush to his aid.
THE MAGDALENSBERG – MARCH 17, EARLY MORNING
The other two were at the entrance packing everything in airtight containers for transport when Shane felt himself pulled again into the room with the stone. He knew of no definitive meaning for the spiral, but scholars often believed it to be symbolic of the soul’s aspiration to higher spheres. In Ireland, it was often just a symbol for the sun.
Shane had another theory: the spiral stood for time and space. For the Druids, time wasn’t linear. It had a beginning and an end, but in between the soul could access everything that had ever happened and anything that would happen. Was that what Ryan had meant when he had explained the theory of the morphogenetic field?
Shane sat down on the stone to gather his thoughts. He had been deeply moved by the evidence left behind by the Druids. How could anyone call the standard-bearers of this culture barbarians? The longer he thought about it, the greater his respect grew for their love of creation and the true divine miracles.
He lay down on his back and suddenly noticed how the stone’s spiral was recreated on the ceiling in light, like a living galaxy. Sinking into what was becoming a familiar trance, he could again feel every cell in his body, each one tingling, and he saw the same collage-like pictures from history in his mind’s eye. He could recognize people and feel what they had suffered over the past seventeen hundred years from the hegemony of the Christians and the Church’s contempt for humankind. He saw Native Americans shot down by British troops, Australian Aborigines driven from their own country like cattle. He saw the enslavement of Arabian and African tribes, women burned in Europe, and so many more horrible things, until he completely dissolved in tears. He took a deep breath. He had begun to understand that he too bore responsibility for ending this insanity. In order for humans—all humans—to be able to heal, understand, and forgive, everyone had to be aware of the beginning of the story. Otherwise there would never be true justice.
He stood up and looked around the cave one last time. It must be so difficult for Thomas to leave this place without being able to see everything.
Stored inside this library cave was the legacy of his family. How many more secrets did it hold? He couldn’t resist the temptation to pull one more parchment out from one of the lower chambers. The scroll was a bit damp, but it opened quite easily.
“Adam, damn it!” Deborah said, shocking him with her presence. “We agreed that you wouldn’t touch anything on your own.”
She knelt down by Shane, only then noticing his tears. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Deborah, the historic truth of this place is immeasurable. I doubt if people will be ready to accept it, because to do so means acknowledging that we’ve been on the wrong path for so long.”
Deborah studied the parchment in his hands for a moment. “You picked out a very appropriate one,” she said, pointing at the document.
“What do you mean?”
“This was written by a Druid speaking about the return of the Druids. He says that they will return when people are ready to remember and to end the dark age. He goes on to talk about a legend. I’ll try to translate this in Dublin because I can’t do it here, but it talks of bringing to the world a new balance and about a few women and men who will make a beginning. The name of the Druid author is Dubdrean.”
“Well, we’ve found more Druids in a couple of hours than archaeologists have managed to find in more than a thousand years.” Shane held up the scroll. “Can we take this one with us too?”
“Actually, we have to. Otherwise it will fall apart. I’ll see if I can find another box. Then the two of us have to drive back to Dublin as quickly as we can.”
Shane was doubly confused. “Drive? I thought we’d be flying. And why just the two of us?”
“Ryan is going to stay here and watch over everything until the archaeologists from Vienna take over. Meanwhile, we could hardly board an airplane with this sensational cargo. We’ll drive through France, take the car ferry, then go through England, and then catch the ferry at Holyhead. At that point, everything will go into a prepared room that MacClary is setting up to preserve the scrolls.”
The Celtic Conspiracy Page 11
