The water was calm as he rowed slowly back to the mainland, docked the boat where he had rented it, got in his Cooper Mini and drove to Halifax.
Chapter Sixty-Five
At six am Harold Mulhaney sat in his pickup outside the Oak Island Inn. The sun would rise in twenty minutes – he and Brian wanted to be at the pit ahead of the work crew who had been told to arrive at seven.
They crossed the causeway onto the island and drove to the Money Pit. As he got out of Harold’s truck Brian called out to the guard but got no response. The men looked around and heard a noise. The guard struggled against his ropes and gag, still securely bound to a large oak tree.
They cut him loose. “This is exactly what I was afraid was going to happen,” Brian said after the man told him what had transpired during the night.
“When I woke up from being drugged I was tied to this tree. In a few minutes I heard a loud ‘whump’ and saw smoke come out of the Money Pit. I never knew what hit me, but I think someone sabotaged the project, Mr. Sadler. I let you down. I’ve let the whole crew down, and everybody in this area who thought they’d find out today what’s in the pit.”
Brian reassured the man. “Things are never as bad as they seem,” he said, more optimistically than the guard would have expected for having lost the prize he came for.
The guard asked, “Do you think we still can go down into the shaft and open the concrete vault?”
Brian and Harold walked over to the Money Pit. It was impossible to miss the seawater standing just thirty feet below them. One or both of the flood tunnels had burst and the pit had flooded up to sea level, just like every time before.
Chapter Sixty-Six
Oak Island/Dallas
By seven the entire crew had assembled at the site. Brian explained to them what had happened. Word had obviously gotten around the area the afternoon before. Plenty of people knew they had reached the bottom of the Money Pit and were preparing to open the concrete vault the next morning.
Someone had other plans – he either wanted to sabotage the entire project or he intended to open the vault and steal its contents. If it were the latter he would have needed more help. Brian was inclined to believe someone had decided to stop his search for the Most Holy Relics. The perpetrator of this act had put explosives in the shaft. Now the pit was flooded and there was no way to know how much damage had been done at the bottom.
To say the men were disappointed would be a vast understatement. They talked quietly among themselves, their eagerness to begin this exciting day quashed by the grim news of defeat.
The work crew was sent home. Brian and Harold went back to his cabin near the Money Pit, loaded a small crate into the back seat of the pickup and drove to the Oak Island Inn. Brian’s suitcase was packed and ready to go. He threw it and his backpack into the truck bed and they drove to Halifax.
At the Office of Culture and Heritage Development they met with the representative who had come to the pit two days earlier. They told him everything that had occurred since his visit to the site and handed over the crate they’d brought. The official was particularly concerned to hear about the assault on their guard and the bombing of the Money Pit. The official promised a governmental inquiry and said he would alert the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The man assured Harold and Brian the Mounties would be on site immediately to open an investigation. He thanked Brian for his efforts and for the forthright and efficient way he had conducted the entire mission in Nova Scotia.
Brian and Harold Mulhaney had a cup of coffee at the Starbucks near the Halifax airport. They talked about the amazing events that had transpired in the last week. They would keep in close touch; there was a lot left to do on the Oak Island project before they were finished. Harold would represent Brian on the scene from now on.
He caught the American flight to Philadelphia, made a connection and was in Dallas that evening. He hadn’t told Nicole he was coming and the doorman at her condo agreed to let him go upstairs unannounced.
Brian rang her doorbell and heard Shelia’s voice. “Who is it?”
“Pizza delivery for Nicole Farber,” he said loudly.
The caregiver responded, “We didn’t order a…”
Then Brian heard the sound of banging – someone was frantically trying to open the door. Finally the lock turned and the door opened wide. Nicole was standing there sobbing, a huge grin on her face. She jumped into his arms. Neither of them talked for what seemed like forever. Then she said, “You’re a bastard for not telling me you were coming back.”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, you did. Get in here, Brian. And Shelia, I’m good for tonight and hopefully longer if I can talk this man into sticking around Dallas for a few days. You’re off for now. I’ll call you tomorrow about when I’ll need you back. Oh, forgive me! Brian, you remember Shelia. She’s the best and she’s been a working miracles for me!”
The caregiver laughed at her exuberance. “You’re like a little girl, Nicole. Don’t you hurt yourself! Be careful with her, Brian. She’s mended well but she’s still fragile.”
Nicole smiled and hugged Brian tightly. “Don’t you worry, Shelia! I’ve been waiting for this guy for a long, long time. He’s the best medicine for my recovery. He takes good care of me!”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
A joint press conference was set for the afternoon after Brian returned to Dallas. Half of the broadcast was from the studios of CTV Halifax where the Minister of Culture and Heritage sat before the camera alongside Harold Mulhaney. The other half featured Brian in the Victory Park studio of the ABC affiliate, Channel 8 in Dallas.
The press conference aired at 5:45 pm Dallas time, coinciding exactly with ABC’s national news. A half hour before the conference a release was distributed to the international press. The headline read “Ancient Box Discovered in Nova Scotia; Money Pit Gives Up its Secret At Last.” Social media sites like Twitter were going crazy – this broadcast was certain to break records for viewership given its exciting news.
At the appointed time the Canadian reporter welcomed viewers to the show and introduced the Minister and Harold Mulhaney. “Mr. Mulhaney participated in the discovery of an ancient stone box over a hundred and fifty feet below the surface. The box was in a shaft built centuries ago by the Knights Templars,” the reporter announced.
The feed switched to Dallas where Brian was introduced and his background as a renowned gallery owner and wealthy amateur archaeologist was explained. Video footage of Oak Island and the Money Pit ran as Brian described the area and the background of what brought him to the fabled place. As the camera came back to him, he used a large poster to explain the Money Pit. It pictured the shaft in cross-section from the surface to its bottom. The flood tunnels were shown, as were the ten-foot platforms of timber and the area where the gold coins and jewelry had been found.
“Mr. Sadler, please explain to our audience how your foresight one afternoon a few days ago thwarted an attempt to sabotage your project.”
Brian explained what had happened the afternoon the work crew reached the concrete barrier at 154 feet. He had stopped the work for that day, retaining three senior members of his crew on site to strategize.
One day previously the men had discovered what appeared to be pirate treasure. By dusk word had spread like wildfire among the people living nearby. With a crew of twenty men it was impossible to keep a secret and Brian knew the townspeople would quickly hear that today they’d reached the bottom. Tomorrow Brian’s crew would open the concrete vault. This would be major news and everyone would be eager to learn what was up on Oak Island.
By 1:30 pm Brian and Harold had made a decision. Instead of waiting to ensure the shaft didn’t flood during the night, they would take a major chance. Clandestinely the three workers would descend into the shaft and cut open the concrete vault. They had several hours of daylight left, hopefully enough to remove whatever was in the vault itself. If they couldn’t remove it the five of
them would personally guard the site all night and pray to God the shaft didn’t flood before they could extricate whatever was there.
While Brian and Harold waited at the surface the three crewmen labored in the shaft. The concrete had held remarkably well for hundreds of years, withstanding flooding of the shaft numerous times. A tiny hole was the only evidence of test boring in the early 1800s, and it had long ago plugged itself up with mud. The men used picks and at 2:40 pm they broke through the top of the concrete.
Brian explained for the television audience that the vault itself was a cube four feet on each side. Tightly fitting inside it was a wooden box, the top of which came off easily. Nestled inside the box, protected on all side by cedar shavings, was a stone chest with ancient inscriptions and carvings of a fish on it. It was roughly a foot long, eight inches deep and ten inches tall.
The three men who had opened the vault were sent home with hefty bonuses and a promise of secrecy until the government could be informed of the discovery.
A picture of the box flashed on the screen. It was an ossuary with two parts: a lid and a base. Its purpose would have been to hold the bones of a deceased person. In ancient times ossuaries were used by many cultures; they would usually be placed in niches inside caves.
Before the news broadcast Brian Sadler had asked an expert to examine the ossuary. He said it was Jewish, made during the period known as the Second Temple, its style placing it roughly between 100 BC and 100 AD. The carvings on the box were faint and difficult to make out. Further tests would determine if the marks were words like those found on other Jewish ossuaries.
Switching back to the Canadian studio, the Minister of Culture explained what happened late that evening. Brian Sadler and Harold Mulhaney had placed a guard at the site. A police investigation revealed that an intruder landed a boat in Smith’s Cove, walked to the Money Pit and tranquilized the guard. He was tied up and gagged and the man dynamited the shaft, causing the flood tunnels to flow thousands of gallons of seawater into it.
For the sake of archaeology, the Minister continued, it was fortunate that Brian Sadler had decided to remove the artifact in secret. The ossuary was now in a safe place within the government of Nova Scotia awaiting further examination both in Canada and the United States.
The press conference ended with the Minister’s assurance of cooperation going forward. “We will engage in a close working relationship with Mr. Sadler and Mr. Mulhaney as we learn more about this incredible discovery.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Dallas
The day after the press conference Brian received a call from the Archdiocese of New York. He knew the Archbishop; they had met several times as a result of Brian’s involvement in high-profile antiquities and the Church’s interest in many of his discoveries. The Church was important to Brian’s work and played a major part in some of the important pieces he handled.
The Archbishop told Brian that the Pope was interested in the ossuary that had been found, especially in the ancient inscription that appeared on it. He asked if the pontiff could be informed ahead of the general public once Brian knew more about it.
“Excellency, although I want to be cooperative I can’t guarantee that. The decision’s not just mine to make. I have a partner, Harold Mulhaney, and the Minister of Culture in Halifax has a vested interest in this project too. I’ll see what I can do; shall I let you know what I find out?”
The Archbishop responded affirmatively and Brian asked, “If I may ask, why is the Pope personally interested in the box and its inscription?”
The answer was sprinkled with a little humor. “Sometimes his Holiness doesn’t let me in on his thinking, Brian. I’d speculate that he’s interested in whose bones are in the ossuary, assuming you ultimately find there are bones at all.”
Brian said he would try to let the Archbishop have advance notice of any discovery but couldn’t promise anything.
The ossuary hadn’t been opened. The piece was so old and potentially so fragile that it had to be handled extremely carefully, and only by experts. Brian had conferred with the Minister of Culture and reached an agreement to bring it to New York where experts at the American Museum of Natural History could perform a close examination in every respect. It would be flown from Halifax the following week and Brian would be at the Museum when it arrived.
It could take several days, maybe even weeks, before definitive information was known about the box. No one knew if this ossuary held bones, as one might expect, or if something else was in it. Brian knew the Templars called this the Most Holy Relics – plural. So it wasn’t just the box itself. It was what was inside. And the Pope undoubtedly knew about the Most Holy Relics from the research of Cardinal Conti.
He thought about what scenario would make the Pope the most concerned. If the ossuary was being used for its original purpose, then it held bones.
Brian was well aware of the furor that had arisen in the academic community a decade ago about another ossuary. A prominent Israeli collector turned up a first century bone box with the inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” A tremendous battle had occurred between the Israeli Antiquities Authority and the collector, including a seven-year court battle to determine if the inscription was forged much later than the first century.
The collector ultimately was found not guilty of forgery but the judge’s acquittal was accompanied by a caveat that he was not ruling on the authenticity of the inscription or that it was two thousand years old. To this day many scholars believed that ossuary proved the historical existence of Jesus for the first time ever. Many others labeled it a complete hoax.
Brian considered what he had learned. Taking the Knights Templars manuscripts at face value, this latest ossuary was the repository for the Most Holy Relics. They had been in the care of the Templars since 1129, had been in Ephesus and in the late 1400s were moved overland to Bruges, Belgium, then by boat to Bristol and across the sea to a new place where a hiding place was constructed.
Giovanni Caboto, or John Cabot, was the Voyager who carried the Templars and the Most Holy Relics. They built a pit and Cabot “involved himself in things best left to our brothers.” Much of his crew died of disease or food poisoning at the hands of the Templars. The rest, including Cabot, were “dispatched to their eternal fates” and the Cabot expedition of 1498 was never heard from again.
One coded Templars sheet was nothing but Bible verses – the story of Jesus on the cross entrusting his mother to his disciple John, and the verses about Jesus’ burial and resurrection.
Could the bones be those of Jesus himself? How could that be possible? Brian had been a regular churchgoer since he was a baby and he knew that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven. No bones. No reburial.
Brian knew this was what concerned the Pope. He was afraid the ossuary contained the bones of Jesus along with an inscription describing them. If Jesus hadn’t risen from the dead, John, the self-proclaimed “disciple whom Jesus loved,” would have been the natural choice to gather his bones. It was generally accepted by Bible scholars that John and the Virgin Mary went to Ephesus, where John continued his preaching and evangelizing, and Mary eventually died. There was even a shrine to her in Ephesus.
What if John had transported Jesus’ bones when he and Mary went to Ephesus? Had he buried the bones there and did Knights Templars protect them over the centuries? If all that were true, Brian couldn’t imagine the earth-shattering consequences. Non-believers would have a field day. If you couldn’t believe that part of the Bible, what parts could you believe? It would be catastrophic in its impact on religion.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Toronto
“This is a collect call from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York. This call is from…” – there was a pause – “John Spedino.” The recording continued. “To accept all calls from this number press *13. To decline all calls from this number press *15.”
The man in Toron
to who had destroyed the Money Pit pressed *13 on his single-use cellphone and immediately heard the godfather launch into a rage.
“Good job you did for me,” Spedino said sarcastically. “I guess you’ve seen the news. Brian Sadler found an ossuary in the Money Pit. And say, you know they record all these calls. Especially mine.” He laughed sardonically.
The man was careful in his response. “I did the job exactly as you directed. It was done as expeditiously as possible. If the timing was off that’s out of my hands.”
“Out of your hands?” the mobster exploded. “You idiot. You were supposed to make sure…”
The man disconnected. He wasn’t interested in the ravings of a man who could hurt him only with incriminating words. He tossed the phone in a trash bin as he walked down the street. John Spedino had been a powerful man once, the Canadian knew. But his upcoming trial and the massive evidence against him made Spedino completely powerless to retaliate. The mobster had no way to find the man, much less hurt him.
Chapter Seventy
New York
Two weeks later the examination of the ossuary was complete. Antiquities experts at the museum in New York opened the box, found decaying bones and immediately moved to preserve them from the air they hadn’t known in two thousand years. They would ultimately be carbon-dated to the first century AD.
Working alongside the museum staff were two linguists from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They took rubbings of the faint inscriptions on the outside of the box and created computer-generated enhancement to make them legible. Some words were missing a few strokes here and there due to the extreme age of the box itself.
The Minister of Culture and Harold Mulhaney agreed to allow Brian a courtesy call to the Archbishop in New York.
Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet Page 93
