I know this has something to do with the manuscripts.
It all started so innocently. I’d suffered from depression all of my adult life, but usually I’d retreat to my room and wallow around in my bed and pajamas until I could overcome whatever doom and gloom had crawled into the recesses of my mind and were burrowing in trying to take root. But during one particularly bad bout with it, I had gone overboard and everyone became extremely worried about me. My husband, my siblings and even my mentor, Jacob Margulies. So to help me out, he got me to go to Jerusalem with him for the jubilee anniversary of the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
That trip changed my life.
What I found in a file cabinet was something that would change humankind’s image of itself forever. Yeah, not buried under a millennia of dirt, stuck in a wall of a catacomb, or hidden by monks with clues that led me all over Rome. It was in the pages of a fifty-year old journal, in a file cabinet in an office on the second floor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Yep, it was just that simple to find.
Hidden with the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2,000 years ago, had been a manuscript that told the story of a technologically advanced man. Man that had cured all disease, could navigate through the stars and had learned how to mimic God.
I am a Biblical archaeologist by training and a Christian by desire. And what I found didn’t sit well with either of those things. But what I learned was unfathomable.
I heard a bump outside the door and my head popped up. I looked at the door and waited. The anticipation was starting to make me a little nervous. I took in a deep breath.
I shifted in the chair and leaned back. Why was I sitting in here so long by myself? If they were trying to create a panic in me, they knew what they were doing because now the wait was starting to put me on edge.
What could they want with me? My mind went back to my last conversation with Micah. “People.”
What people were after me?
I closed my eyes and said a little prayer. I prayed that I’d get out of there okay. I prayed for my son.
Lord, just let him be okay.
The last thing I saw of my son was him coming to my rescue. Who knew he could fight like that? I shook my head. I was pretty proud of him. “I just hope you made it home okay,”
“I hope I make it home okay,” I said a in almost a whisper.
Voices outside the room got me up out of the chair. I walked over to the door and put my ear next to it and held my breath. I couldn’t hear anything.
I stood back and stared at the door as if I my eyes could pierce through the thick wood and show me what – who - was on the other side. Letting out my breath, I turned my back to the door and leaned back on it. My eyes scanned the room. I needed something to protect myself from whatever was going to eventually come through that door. I needed a weapon.
What could I use for a weapon?
There was the long table in the center of the room with chairs around it. Nothing was on it. A few pictures hung on the walls, and a buffet sat over in the far corner. I walked over to the buffet and inspected its contents. There was a pitcher made of tin that was filled with water and several glasses. The sweat from the pitcher had collected on the top of the buffet. I took one of the napkins and wiped it up.
Nervous energy.
Then I looked inside of it. The liquid was clear – gleaming in the reflection of its tin container. There were only a few ice cubes left.
Maybe there was some kind of poison in it.
Maybe they wanted me to drink it. I looked at the napkin in my hand that I had used to wipe up the water and threw it down. I dragged the palm of my hand down my pants.
Could it seep in through my skin?
Ghazi had been poisoned.
I shook my hand. “Get a grip!” Why would they bring me here to poison me?
I breathed in through my nostrils. And how in the world could I get poisoned from touching the outside of it.
I blew my breath out through my mouth.
Now what was I doing?
Oh yeah. Looking for a weapon.
There were several carafes for coffee, but they were empty. Nothing hot to throw in my attacker’s face. Attackers?
How would I take them all?
Pshew. This was crazy,
Maybe I could break one of the glasses and use it. I picked up the glasses and turned it around in my hand.
Yeah, holding on to a chard of glass tight enough to do any damage would do more to injure me. The glass would dig into my hand and cut me before I could wield it effectively on anyone else.
This was hopeless.
I looked down at the palm of the hand that had held the napkin. A glass of water would be nice. I picked up the pitcher and filled up one of the glasses with its contents.
The ice clanged out and plopped into the glass, splashing onto the buffet. I picked up the glass and stared into it.
My friend Ghazi had been poisoned all because of those manuscripts. Manuscripts that I had started referring to as the AHM manuscripts. AHM standing for Alternative History Migration.
Dr. Margulies had introduced me to Ghazi at the Jubilee. He had been the one to lead me to the office where I found the journal. And then a woman, who found out that Ghazi and I knew about the manuscripts killed him and then for thirteen years laid in wait to do the same to me.
Hannah Abelson.
I don’t think that she ever even knew what was in the manuscripts, but she felt she knew enough to think that the information needed to stay hidden. And she did everything she could - kill Ghazi, shoot at me and my family and burn down the publishing house where my “tell-all” book was being printed - to keep those manuscripts hidden. Until someone killed her.
Looking around at where I had ended up, maybe Hannah was right. The information needed to stay hidden. And maybe Hannah would get her wish. I just might not come out of this alive.
I set the glass down. I was doing too much thinking. My heart had started racing. I could feel little beads of sweat collecting on my forehead. All the calmness I had claimed when I first was put in the room had drained into the pit of my stomach and turned into a hard knot. I could taste the bile that was rising into my throat and my breathing had started coming in short, quick bursts.
I needed to get out of there.
Then came a rustling at the door. Voices. Somebody was coming in. I didn’t know what to do. Should I try to hide?
Maybe I should sit down.
I pulled out a chair and plopped down, put my open palms on my cheeks, and shifted to face the door.
Maybe, I thought, I’d have a better advantage if I remained standing, just in case I needed to fight.
I heard the lock on the door click.
I jumped up. I folded my arms in front of me. Then put them in back of me. That didn’t work. So I placed my flattened palms on the table and leaned in.
The door knob turned. I pulled out a chair and stumbled back into it. In my haste I bumped my knee on the edge of the table. “Oh shoot! That hurt.”
While I moaned and rubbed my knee, the door opened and, to my surprise, someone I knew walked in.
Chapter Twelve
Giza Plateau, Egypt
It had gotten chilly in the air-conditioned trailer, but Aaron hadn’t noticed until he turned over an iced drink he had been sipping on. The clanking of the glass, and the liquid spreading and soaking his papers broke his concentration.
He grabbed his papers, slid back his chair and jumped up, holding his arms up in the air. “Shit.”
He threw the papers on a chair and grabbed a paper towel from the counter. Wiping down his pants, he grabbed another towel for the table.
. The papers were soaked. He picked them up and took them with him into the bedroom and spread them out on the bedspread. Already the ink was starting to smear. It didn’t matter. He knew what it said. He had read it enough times to have memorized it.
It was the history of excavation under the Sphinx.
H
e changed into a dry shirt and khaki shorts and sat on the bed.
Although Cayce had made his proclamation in the 1930s, no one looked until 1997.
It was then that Joe Jahoda and Dr. Joseph Schor had found a 25 x 40 foot underground cavern near the Sphinx. Try as they might, they were unable to get permission, once it was discovered, to do additional radar analysis. Far from being archaeologists or even scientists, they did the work on behalf of the Edgar Cayce Foundation. But it wasn’t who they were that made Aaron sit up and notice but what they found and the possibility of what else was there to be discovered.
Unfortunately, they were only allowed to do limited drilling so they had to drop cameras down and take a look that way. Initially, the cavity they found appeared to be a natural formation, but a few yards in, it made what appeared to be an unnatural, 90-degree turn. But that and a promise they could do more sophisticated analysis at a later date, was the last anyone saw or heard of Jahoda and Dr. Schor and the possibility of something more under the Sphinx.
They just let it go. Aaron shook his head and smiled. “Cowards. They didn’t understand that you have to fight for what you want.” He brushed his hand over his hair and walked back out to the living area of the trailer.
He wouldn’t give up until he got what he set out to find. No matter what it took.
He looked out of the trailer window. The day had been a good one. The pyramids were part of his front yard now. The Sphinx, he felt, belonged to him. He felt happy.
Aaron opened up the camper door and was met with the ink black night that enveloped the plateau. He switched on the flood lights that illuminated the canopy-covered area attached to the camper’s façade and sat in one of the yellow mesh folding chairs. Taking a sip of his drink, he gazed out at the star–filled sky. He could barely make out the outline of the monuments.
Excavations would start tomorrow.
He couldn’t wait.
His field campaign was comprised of top notch people, and he provided them with the latest technology. He had spared no expense. He had even made up with the government official whose daughter he had threatened.
History changes one death at a time.
He firmly believed that old adage. People had to die in order for old ideologies and beliefs to be replaced. And perhaps sometimes those channels of change had to be nudged a bit.
Most scientist didn’t believe that there was anything under the Sphinx. But he believed it. Down in his bones.
And the more research and examination of the area, brought more proof that there was something there. During the summer of 2001, the entrances to hidden chambers in the Great Pyramid of Khufu was reported by an ABC Online News Service. Two French archaeologists had used macrophotography to analyses the walls within the pyramid. And the walls of those chambers seem to be headed right under the Sphinx. They, too, didn’t get any further than that.
Now, fifteen years later, even though he was the only one vying to run a field campaign on the site, his efforts had almost been thwarted. That is until Castor held onto his leverage.
He smiled as he thought about the sweat that had trickled down the Director General’s face as he handed over those permits. His hands were shaking and he kept his head down the entire time they met. No eye contact. No guts. What he must have been thinking – how he could have lost his beautiful daughter all so someone could dig under the Sphinx.
The insistence of the local government to preserve the status of the existing monuments was shattered. One day soon, the Director General would see what a big deal digging under the Sphinx really was.
Aaron leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs and took a sip of his drink.
Chapter Thirteen
Caracol, Belize
She was on the opposite side of the world from the places where anyone would have thought to look to find the cradle of life. Human DNA had been traced back to one man in Africa, which had fit hand in glove with what history books had taught as the truth for years. People were digging in Turkey, Israel and Egypt for human history. She was in Central America.
Go figure, she thought.
But those once tightly woven threads of the tapestry of history had become frayed and were slowly beginning to unravel.
I might just be the one to break all the old ways of thinking.
A purple haze streaked across the sky, and the glare of the shimmering liquid white sun blazed over the horizon. Logan Dickerson sat on a mass of rocks and dirt that had been upturned by her team earlier that day. She stared out at the roped off areas of the site she had been recruited to excavate. And with excitement and wonder she contemplated what she would discover.
The history of man was being turned upside down and shaken violently. And what might come out of it was surely going to surprise everyone who thought they knew the truth.
“An archaeologist is a re-creator of history . . .” Her mother’s words swept through her like a cold breeze and hit up against the walls of her heart, making it pound. The anticipation made her lightheaded. She was excited and weak all at the same time. She had to constantly wipe the sweat from the palms of her hands, and concentrate hard to keep them from trembling.
She picked up a fistful of dirt and let it filter through her fingers. The thought of digging there had made her giddy. She sucked in the warm, moist air mixed with the earthiness of the dirt and let it invade her senses.
She was young, new to her profession and this could make her career.
Or end it.
“Dr. Dickerson.” Logan looked up to find Jairo Zacapa walking toward her. “You’re still out? It’s getting late. No daylight left to work.”
Being called “Dr. Dickerson” made her think of her mother. “Call me Logan.” She smiled. “For the umpteenth time.”
“You’re pretty important around here. Can I sit?”
“Sure.”
“Seems like you’d revel in the title,” he finished his thought.
“Just here to do my job, Jairo.”
It was her mother’s discovery, she felt in her gut that had brought her there in the first place. She was sure of it. Even though her mother’s name or work hadn’t been mentioned in any of the correspondences that had summoned her. It was fraught with phrases like “the true origin of man,” and “answering age old questions.” She had received a letter, out of the blue, stating that she had been chosen to lead a field campaign. The letter ended by stating the funding would come from an anonymous benefactor.
She hadn’t cared who was paying for it or how they knew about her mother. She was just happy to be there.
“Did you find anything out here today?” Jairo asked.
“Nothing today. Just more dirt.”
“You’re not getting discouraged are you?”
“No. Why do I seem like I am?”
“No. Just wondering.”
“We haven’t been here long,” Logan said. “I think we’ll find something soon. There’s no problem is there?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong. But the person that hired you is expecting big things, you know. The answer to all the holes in the history of man.”
“Ha ha. Yeah. Right. I don’t think I will be finding anything like that.”
Funny he should say that to her, she thought. Her mother claimed to have filled in those holes already. Logan looked at Jairo. The crow’s feet and laugh lines in his face made her think he was about forty. He had dark hair, a flat face, eyes that were thin and set far apart.
And although she liked Jairo and felt like she could talk to him, she didn’t dare say anything about her mother out loud. Her mother’s answers were too farfetched to actually share with others. Heck her mother was even keeping them secret. And it was easy to understand why. Her mother’s “filling up those holes” theory? Ancient man, older than any of the remains ever found, was not only more technologically advanced than anything we knew today, but he hailed from outer space.
Outer space.
Yeah, she definitely
wasn’t going to say anything about that to him.
“So, how well do you know my mysterious benefactor?” she said instead.
“You know I can’t talk about that.” Jairo kept his eyes focused straight ahead.
She lowered her eyes. “Just thought I’d give it a try.”
He glanced at her and smiled.
“Well, one thing I’ve figure out,” Logan said. “Whomever it is, they seem to like Indiana Jones movies.”
A slight frown appeared across Jairo’s forehead and he gave a nod.
“You know. I mean . . . Well, in the letter when they hired me it was filled with . . .”
He continued nodding as she spoke. Same little frown drawn in the creases of his forehead.
Maybe he doesn’t have any idea of what I’m talking about. Not everyone had seen those movies.
“Never mind,” she said.
Maybe it was best she didn’t go there. Her mother - the female version of Indiana Jones – had made the character a part of her consciousness. But she wasn’t looking to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Her mother, Justin Dickerson, now in her mid-fifties, had retired from archaeological excavations and spent her time in classrooms teaching about it. But she had recently confessed to Logan that she’d discovered that man came from Mars. Not little green men with slanted eyes and spindly limbs like her mother said her father had originally thought – no – Humans. Homo sapiens. Same as us. Same DNA. Same wants and desires. And unfortunately the same mindset – wanting to be like gods. Logan wasn’t too sure if her mother’s confession was born out of insanity or . . .
Surely her theory of things couldn’t be true.
“There are a lot of hidden secrets, here,” Jairo said, jarring her from her thoughts.
“That’s why we’re here,” she took in a breath and patted him on his knee, “to find secrets. Right?”
Chapter Fourteen
“I know who your mother is,” he said, glancing over at me. “I read her book, In the Beginning.”
Oh no. That couldn’t be a good thing.
Incarnate: Mars Origin I Series Book III Page 6
