“There’s still a lot I want to talk with you about,” Chad began.
“I know.”
“I was thinking. It might take some time to talk it all out. Maybe I could hang around London for a month or two. I plan to write a book about Doc. I can do that here.”
“Well then. If you are going to hang around London to write, you could hang around at my place.”
“Umm. Not sure how much writing I will get done.”
“That’s okay with me, Archer boy.”
She reached out to his left hand resting on the gearshift.
Chad quipped, “Careful. You don’t want to distract me now. I am already confused by everyone driving on the wrong side of the road.”
Sandy shook her head side-to-side. “Americans.”
-----
“We can walk from here,” Sandy said as they left the chip shop. The last two hours was like it was the first time in York. They were funny. They were serious. They were comfortable with each other. They were happy. The hours until dusk went by quickly.
Chad figured out where they were going. They walked up the street known as the York Shambles. They turned at Stonegate, passed the Roman Column and stood in front of the York Minster. The history overwhelmed him. Not just the eight hundred year old Cathedral. Not just the seventeen hundred year old Roman Column. It was the twenty-five hundred year old locator stone and the twenty eight hundred year old tablets. It was the last four weeks quest and the last ten years with Doc.
Sandy led Chad through a side door in the cathedral and up to the massive doors that guarded the chapter house. There were two human guards as well - two serious looking men with ear mics. One guard stopped them. The other said something into his microphone. The guard nodded and opened the door for them.
Inside, the cavernous room was dim, lit only by the last of the suns rays through the stained glass. A large plasma screen at one end of the room showed a scene from Stonehenge. Thousands waited there as the sun began to set. The camera caught the sun as it dipped below a horizontal bluestone and between two tall sarsens.
The room erupted in applause. Chad was moved by it.
The screen was rolled away as the lights came on.
Chad saw thirty people in the room. One separated himself from the others and walked up to Chad.
“Dr. Archer, how do you do. Thanks for coming. You can call me Professor. We need to talk.”
Chapter 124
Archer walked beside the Professor, through the large doors and into the cathedral. It was eerily empty at this time of day.
“Let’s sit here,” the Professor said.
They sat facing the great west window. The last light of the day played with the colors of the stained glass.
Chad waited for the Professor to speak first.
“I like this view. It helps me to understand the non-importance of myself. Both in grandeur and in durability. Those windows are glass. A fragile material. Yet it has been here centuries longer than I have, and will be here for several more centuries. You probably have many questions, Dr. Archer. Some I will not answer. But go ahead. What presses on you at this moment.”
“You are the Guardians?”
“Yes, we are.”
“You guard what?”
“We guard secrets, traditions, knowledge. Things like that.”
“Whom do you guard for? Whom do you guard against?”
“That is a complicated question. Ultimately we guard for mankind.”
“That sounds like a high and mighty self-rationalization,” Chad said honestly.
“Perhaps it is. Perhaps it does help me to sleep at night knowing the consequences of the decisions we make are ultimately made for a world of people and their future generations. I didn’t fully answer your question. We guard what secrets and information that has been shared with man. It is knowledge that has been given to man by some higher authority. So, we guard against those who wish to obtain and use the knowledge or secrets for their own power or gain.”
“You said a lot there, Professor. Do you get to decide what the intentions are of others that seek the knowledge?”
“We do,” he said flatly.
“Who is this higher authority?” Chad asked.
“Depends on what you believe. The authority could be the God that created man and has intervened from time to time. That is one possibility. One that is believed by half the world in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religion. Or, if you believe man is on earth at the instigation of visitors from other places in our universe, then they are that higher authority. You might believe they also have intervened in the past and continue to do so.”
“Which do you believe?” Chad asked.
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I guess not. What was on the tablets?” Chad asked.
The Professor looked sideways at Archer.
“Oh,” he said. “You mean what was the meaning of what was on it. Because you know what was on it. You saw it. You took pictures of it. You even guessed ahead of time what was on it. Guessed well enough to make replicas that were very close to the real thing.”
“What pictures?” Chad asked.
“Come now, Archer. If you want the truth you have to give the truth.”
“Okay. How do you know I took pictures? I only turned my phone on for a few minutes in the cave. I still have the pictures and never shared them.”
“We know because we have guardians and guards in many places in the world.”
Chad thought. “Jonathan Ahote?”
“A good man. He is one of our Guards. Sacrificing to live in the world of white men instead of with his family. You spoke to a Guardian at the reservation. When you used your phone to take pictures there, we were close enough to Bluetooth hijack it. Remotely, we installed a program so that when you had your phone turned on, we could listen and access texts, pictures, emails, and apps. Jonathan received a transmission from your phone when you were in the cave. I probably had it before you even climbed out of the cavern.”
“Why did you let them have the tablets? And what was the meaning of the code? You didn’t answer that.”
“I’ll answer your last question first. I don’t know what the code is. We will study it. It is binary. However, we would be conceited to think some other world is using an ASCI II code that translates to English. Maybe today they would send messages in that code, but in 500 BCE? I don’t think so. They could not predict the universal language that English has become.”
“You said some other world, Professor? Like the third star in Orion?” Chad asked, needing to show off.
“Ah, you solved the source of Moffat’s Secret. Congratulations.”
“So you do ascribe to extraterrestrial visitors. Is that where the Guardians believe our visitors reside? Your meetings here have been about Orion 3?” Chad asked.
“Perhaps. Many cultures believe that Orion is the home of our visitors. There are many creation stories to support that. The Hopi have one. On the other hand, perhaps in 1360, the guardians just needed an astronomical subject as a pretense for a meeting. They chose to study Orion.”
“Similar to the Yorkshire Astronomical Research meeting here tonight?” Chad asked.
“Exactly.”
“You still didn’t answer why you gave up the tablets. Your assassin was there, Lupa. You could have stopped them.”
“We might have stopped them. For now. For a while. But they would keep looking. Others would eventually hear about it and come searching as well. At least for now, the searching stops.”
Chad absorbed the logic of the argument and countered it. “You don’t know that they will do good for mankind with the information on the tablets. They could do harm. Isn’t your mission to protect knowledge?”
“You are right about that. Maybe, I have faith in the God, or those visitors, that gave us the tablets.”
“What do you mean?”
“Again, you can believe what parts of the Torah, the Bible, the Qur�
��an, and any rituals or traditions that you want. Moses was shown a promised land. It took forty days. God told him that if his people followed the Ten Commandments then they would be allowed in Paradise. Could Moses have visited the worlds of Orion 3? Visited Paradise? He made an agreement. A covenant. Remember where they were stored - in the Ark of the Covenant. Once we fulfill our end of the covenant, then what? Logic says we need to contact them. Maybe the tablets are the communication code.”
“And Haskin has it,” Chad stated.
“I wouldn’t worry. Do you think we, mankind, have fulfilled that agreement? No, we have not. So, we have not earned the right to enter Paradise yet. We have not earned the right to contact them. Wouldn’t they have anticipated someone might try to communicate and claim that we had? I think we can trust that they are prepared for falsehoods. Don’t you agree?”
Chad changed the subject, “You lost the locator stone didn’t you? The Guardians lost track of it?”
“Yes we did. When Moffat and the two Guardians left York, one of Guardians turned against the other Guardian. He talked the Templars into searching for the tablets based on the last location that they had seen on the stone. As you read in Moffat’s letter, he was given the stone and told to go hide. They beat the other Guardian and left him for dead. We found the beaten Guardian two days later. He told us what happened. We sent a small force of Guards after the traitors. They left England and Scotland for Iceland. The Guardians, and several others in the world, knew of other lands, other continents. Our Nordic neighbors had sailed all the way to the North American continent.”
“They went to America?” Chad asked.
“Eventually. Our tracking party went to Iceland, Greenland and Nova Scotia. We tracked them across the Great Lakes and caught them in what is now northern Minnesota. The fugitives had added to their group with several Swedes and Norwegians. Their destination was a Colorado cliff dwelling - the last coordinates on the locator stone at that time. We had solved the longitude questions centuries earlier. Our Guards found a mooring party at the lake. The Guards disposed of them. They found the rest split into two groups. The Guards killed the first group and a couple days later they killed the second group. We did not know the second group left a record of this occurrence in 1362, before the second attack. The record was uncovered in 1898. We have done our best to debunk and discredit the find. You know it as the Kensington Runestone.”
“I see. Nice story. I suppose you also sent a team to create Oak Island and the stories of the mysterious treasure there?”
“We did. Now you are thinking like a Guardian. We feared that the traitors may have shared their true destination with others along with a promise of treasure, so we decided on a strategy of dis-information. It has worked to some degree.”
“Professor, this has puzzled me. How were new locations added to the stone? Are there more stories of angels?”
“You read what Colin wrote. Miracles.”
“I find that leap of faith too much.”
The Professor smiled. “Whatever helps you sleep more easily, Chad. Angels? Visitors? Maybe an elaborate self-contained etching device? Sometimes you scientists ask for too much logic. Too much proof. I think we can deduce that whatever force is moving the tablets also updates the stone.”
Chad was silent, trying to process all the information and decide what was the truth and what was just more dis-information.
Wearily he asked, “How many did you kill or have Lupa kill on this quest for the tablets that, in the end, you just gave away.” His disgust and frustration was showing.
“Only five. Two were the ones trying to kill you after you retrieved the locator stone. But, don’t be so quick to judge, Archer. You sent the Aman team to their death.”
“They had a choice to go or not go. They also had a chance to fight back. Who were the other two?”
“Lupa neutralized two of their assassins. One tried to simulate a heart attack for Radcliff Feigel in Lyons. She intercepted him and killed him with his own syringe. The other was an assassin who was going to kill Juan Ramirez in a cave-in at Palenque. We moved both Feigel and Ramirez to safety. We also moved Jason Michaels out of the way. In addition, we had people watching out for Gaige Mandl and Gabriela Acosta. We wish we had taken steps to save Lipman and Rabbi Feigel. We did not anticipate Haskin’s actions.”
Chad knew the fifth death. He said it aloud. “Sandy killed Vivian.”
“She saved your life. She met Lupa at that house and approached it. The woman you call Vivian had stepped outside to call Boyer. Sandy overheard it and snuck inside with the intention of using a dart on the woman. Instead the woman had a gun. Sandy did what she needed to do.”
Chad waited for more. The Professor knew what he wanted to ask. He saved Chad the trouble and pain.
“Saundra and you were not part of the plan. She is free to talk to you. She has been one of the Guards since she left high school. Many in her family were Guards over the last thousand years. Like her grandfather. I learned you two hit it off in York, so I arranged her transfer to London when I learned you would be there. After that you invited her along. It was helpful to us.”
“How did you know I picked up Doc’s quest?”
“We were watching you after you first came to York. We bugged your house. I decided to watch you closer than Clark because his death seemed suspicious to me. I put Lupa on you for protection.”
“Professor, one more question. Several times I thought I was completely off the grid. However, Boyer seemed to know where I went or where I was going. Do you know how he knew?”
“Yes. It was the same way we eventually identified Boyer and Haskin. Dr. Clark’s daughter.”
“Julie? I don’t believe it.”
“We think it was innocent enough on her part, although it was legally fuzzy under American law. Haskin was funding her election through a super-PAC, through individuals that he knew or worked for him. Nothing came directly from him, other than the direct contribution he was allowed, five thousand dollars. Donors to PACs or super-PACs and candidates cannot communicate with each other. It would negate the independency of the super-PAC. So, Mr. Haskin established a relationship as a personal and private advisor to her. We know this because when you continued contact with her, we tapped all of her communications. They met at her father’s funeral. Haskin was generous in closing out Dr. Clark’s contract. We saw the bank deposits. She probably confided in him because your quest had been her father’s quest. You kept her informed. She in turn shared with Haskin.”
“Thank you,” Chad said wearily. “I think we are done, Professor.”
Chad remained seated as the Professor rose.
The Professor paused.
“Dr. Archer. You seem tormented by all that has happened and your role in it. Perhaps you feel used. Perhaps you feel you were just a pawn in a game.”
Chad spoke slowly and deliberately, “Is that what it was, Professor? A game.”
“No. That was a poor choice of words. It was not a game. My point, poorly put, is that you may feel small and inconsequential in light of the enormity of what you did. And, what you found.”
“Maybe. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.”
“Don’t overthink it, Chad. I learned a little about you. You are not a believer in either divine intervention by a one-almighty-God nor do you ascribe to extraterrestrial intervention or guidance. If you were either, then you might be able to accept on faith what you learned and what you found. It might ease some of those feelings of unimportance.”
“I might not accept divine or alien intervention, but I can assemble information that points to human intervention. To intervention by the Guardians.”
Chad waited for a response. He didn’t get one. He continued. “You acknowledged that the Guardians lost the locator stone. Also, you said they had figured out the coordinate adjustments for longitude and latitude. So, the Guardians knew where the tablets went to begin with. And, the Guardians knew each subsequent locatio
n, up until the time you lost the stone. Undoubtedly, then, the Guardians searched for both the locator stone and the tablets. Particularly after the renegade group tried to go to Colorado.”
Chad paused. The Professor shrugged noncommittally. “We looked for Moffat for a long time then we did eventually send a party to the Colorado location, but we were too late.”
Archer went on, “I heard that the Guardians are well connected, well infused into society, with several members holding considerable power. If, over centuries, you could not find the stone or tablets, what would you do? Hire more qualified outsiders to look? I don’t think so. The risk of a leak was too high. The scrolls changed that. No doubt you had people in place that knew about the scrolls. Another group, the Aman began to search. A leak would be imminent. More would begin to search. I think the Guardians decided to initiate a controlled leak and direct the flow of information. It was not coincidence that Lipman was chosen to validate the scrolls. The one technician who could read Greek. You then pushed him to confide in his rabbi, who happened to have been involved in smuggling artifacts, and whose client happened to be a billionaire. A rich client, who collected artifacts. A client who was passionate and driven and not above the bending the law if needed. A client who happened to be intimately involved in space communications and would be excited if the tablets contained some communication code. I suspect that the discovery of pieces of the original tablets a year later was a fabrication to bait Haskin. You relied on the client to spare no expense and find the tablets. He found the world’s best combination of historian, tracker, and archeologist – Dr. Henry Clark. How am I doing, Professor?”
The Professor thought that Archer was every bit as good a forensic history expert as his investigators told him.
“You are wrong, Archer,” The Professor said. He didn’t add that the only thing Chad got wrong was that the best combination of skills was not Dr. Clark. The best combination was sitting in front of him now.
“Well, I guess it all worked, Professor. You found the locator stone. You found the tablets. But, after all of that, I still don’t know why you let Haskin have the tablets.”
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