“Good morning, Dr. Dickerson. It’s good to meet you.” Senator Cook put his hand out to shake mine as his assistant let me in his office.
I took his, but was worried that he’d be able to sense my nervousness. I wiped my hands on my skirt and tried to hold his hand firmly, to shake it with resolve.
As soon as I gripped his hand, something started screaming at me from within that he was one of the bad guys.
“Thank you for seeing me, Senator Cook,” I said.
“You’re quite the celebrity,” he said, pointing to a chair for me to sit and went around his desk, unbuttoning his jacket and holding his tie close to him as he sat.
“Am I?”
“Yes. Aren’t you the smart one? You found those manuscripts left with the Dead Sea Scrolls and translated them.” He smiled at me.
His smile was just as phony as the people’s in the hallway. And why would that make me a celebrity? That’s my job as an archaeologist - find manuscripts and translate them.
Yeah, I didn’t trust this guy.
“But then, Dr. Dickerson, you wrote a book of fiction about it. Why was that?”
“I thought, just like one of the first people who understood what it said, that maybe the world wasn’t ready for such a revelation.”
“So, it wasn’t fiction? I thought you said that it was.” He looked down at his desk, opened a manila folder, and seemed to be reading over something.
I wonder if that’s about me.
“Some parts were fiction,” I said. “Most of it wasn’t. I just don’t like people coming into my house, drilling me on what I know and what I don’t know.”
So Nikhil was right. Mr. Suit and Wrong Colored Beret guy were part of the Bilderberg Group.
“That’s understandable.” His eyes were cold as he glanced back up at me as if he could see right through me. He closed the folder without looking down at it. “And now you’re tackling something even bigger. The Voynich Manuscript. Do you plan on deciphering that and writing a fictionalized account of it as well?”
How did he know I had the Voynich Manuscript?
“Why?” I asked. “Do you know what’s really in it? What is says?”
“Do you think I know what’s in it?” he said, as if he were challenging me.
“You said I’d write a fictionalized account of it,” I said. “If I did, whatever I wrote no one could ever know if it were true or not unless they were able to read it as well.”
“Good point, Dr. Dickerson.”
“So do you know what’s in it?” I asked again. After being shot at and almost speared to death, he didn’t scare me.
“Like you, Dr. Dickerson, I don’t like people, how did you say it, ‘drilling me on what I know and what I don’t know.’”
He picked up his cell phone, glanced at it, and put it back down on the desk.
“No one has ever been able to decipher that manuscript,” he said. “Most think it’s gibberish. That it’s just a hoax.” He eyed me to get my reaction. “Perhaps you shouldn’t waste your time on it either.”
“I haven’t been able to decipher it,” I said, showing no expression. “I’m still working on it.”
“Are you, now?” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about what NASA’s found on the surface of Mars, Dr. Dickerson, unless of course you consider me asking that ‘drilling you?’”
“I don’t know anything about what NASA found on the surface of Mars. I just know what was written in my book. And I didn’t get that from anyone at NASA.”
“Did you know that Mars has no magnetic field?” he said, out of the blue. “Because of that, humans there wouldn’t be protected from cosmic radiation. It would bombard their bodies and kill them in a matter of months. There are ways, however, to create a magnetic field on the planet. Are you aware of that, Dr. Dickerson?”
Was somebody planning on living on Mars?
I just looked at him. What was he doing, throwing out this random information? Was he trying to impress me?
“Uhm, no. I wasn’t aware of that,” I said.
“Yes, your book,” he continued. “You have another book coming out, as well. Is that right?”
“No. That’s not right.”
“I’m mistaken?”
“Yes, you are. My second book was destroyed in a fire before it could go out for distribution,” I said.
“And you’re not planning on publishing it again? I’m sure the world is waiting with bated breath to hear what other revelations you’ve deduced. I know I am.”
“Why did you agree to see me?” I asked.
“You sent us a letter. Why is it that you wanted to see us?”
Now what was I supposed to say? Well, I sent the letter because at the time I thought you were Martians.
“What the Bilderberg Group does,” he started again without me answering his previous question. “Is watch megatrends and major issues facing the world.”
He quoted from the website. I remembered those exact same words from when I read them off the Bilderberg Group’s home page.
“It’s interesting how you described the government on Mars,” he continued. “How there was a one world government, and how they wanted to separate the people.” He cast his eyes at me. “To save them. They wanted to continue their species, or should I say, our species,” he said, smirking. “When we meet and discuss trends around the world, we always try to look at the bigger picture. How it will impact us, all of us, in the world at the macro level. Then we try to think of ways we might be able to make it better. You understand what I mean, Dr. Dickerson?”
“Yes,” I said, but what I thought was, No, I really don’t understand what you’re talking about. You’re switching topics, talking about stuff that doesn’t make any sense. What the heck!
“Like your story of fiction, I, speaking for myself here, feel that technology is getting the best of us, Dr. Dickerson. Don’t get me wrong, I so enjoy the amenities that they have brought us. But still, they need to be controlled. In the 1950s a group of people, probably not too dissimilar to the Watchers in your book, saw the explosion of technology and knew then what far reaching consequences it could have. Good and bad. That’s when, and why, the Bilderberg Group was formed.
“And we find this idea of yours, the loss knowledge theory, very fascinating. How your Martians knew that technology was not good for the world. That a simpler life, sort of like those of the Sentinelese people - you are familiar with that tribe in the Andaman Islands?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Yes, well they have lived thousands of years without any outside contact or technology, and they seem to be doing quite well . . .” His voice trailed off.
I shifted in my seat. How did he know all this stuff about me, what I was doing and where I had gone?
“So, Dr. Dickerson,” he said, glancing down at his watch and seemingly coming back to the realization that I was sitting there. “I have a lot of work to do, so this will have to be the end of this conversation. Perhaps we’ll have more.” He stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “Come, let me walk you out.”
Walking around to the front of the desk, he extended his arm signaling me it was time to go. When I passed by him, he put his hand in the small of my back and guided me toward the door.
“So, do you think that you’ll be able to decipher that Voynich Manuscript?” he asked, as he walked down the hallway toward the lobby.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“Many people have devoted years to deciphering it, only to fail.”
“That’s probably the category I’ll fall into,” I said. “Another one of those who tried but failed.”
“Yes. One of the ones that will never be able to figure it out.” He smiled at me, condescendingly, as he pushed the down button on the elevator.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I rode the elevator down and half expected Wrong Color Beret guy to be standing there when the elevator doors opened. He’d be
waiting for me so that he could throw a black sack over my head, whisk me off to some dark, dank basement facility, and kill me.
Why not? Everyone else was getting killed in this little mystery of mine.
That Cook guy had an agenda, and he didn’t need me for any of it. Although I hadn’t the faintest idea what ‘it’ was.
Was it to repopulate Mars with regressed people after he somehow fixed the magnetic field?
Oh my God. I was inside a sci-fi novel.
He probably thought I’d be of some use if I could decipher the Voynich Manuscript. Maybe that was it. And, it wouldn’t be because he knew of the history of the Voynich Manuscript, but because it would be good for his ego to have a relationship with the person who decoded it. But after our little conversation, he probably thought I’d never be able to do that.
Fooled you, Mr. Cook.
I sighed with relief when the elevators door opened, and it was my Kango-Apple-Cap wearing husband that met me.
“So, what happened?” Mase asked.
“You should have come in with me. You would have met someone crazier than me. Maybe then you would appreciate me more.”
He laughed. “I appreciate you. I never had you committed, did I?”
After we were in the car, I saw a woman with bleach blond hair, wearing a red mohair sweater come rushing out the door. Her pencil plaid skirt, which made it hard for her to move quickly, didn’t keep her from scurrying down the handicap ramp, holding on to the round metal rail to keep her balance in her red high heels. She stopped about halfway down and started waving at me to get my attention. Once I noticed her, she put her finger up to her lips, telling me to keep quiet or maybe not say anything. Then she put her hand up to her ear, making it appear it was a phone and then pointed at me. She did it twice. She was going to call me? Who was she? I nodded my head slowly, indicating I understood. But, what did she want? I started to tell Mase to stop the car. Let me get out and talk to her, but as soon as she finished her hand gestures she turned right around and went back in the building.
That was weird. But so had the day been.
We made it back to the airport, and turned in the rental car just in time to board our flight. We got buckled into our seats on the plane and my mind was ablaze with the thoughts of my short, but nonsensical conversation with that man.
The idea had seemed far-fetched, I knew that. To believe that there were people who knew about the manuscripts and were using their power in their respective professions either to get or keep that knowledge.
After that meeting, I didn’t think that the Bilderberg Group knew anything about our migration here. If they did know anything about it, it was only what they read in my first book. And I’m hoping that my book didn’t give them any ideas about anything, especially if that Senator Cook was giving one iota of a thought to breeding people with my loss knowledge theory.
But that Bruce Cook could have come from Mars. He was an arrogant, maniacal little man with a God complex, just like man was described in the AHM Manuscripts.
I remembered that day that the two “government men” came to my house and Nikhil showed up. He said that he had written the Bilderberg Group on the back of my card so that I could rule them out, but be aware and beware of them. I didn’t quite understand what he meant at the time. But I really think I do now after visiting with them. Nikhil wanted me to know about them. To watch out for them.
I knew we had to fix our planet or there wouldn’t be a place for us to live. I knew that technology was getting out of control. You couldn’t keep people off of cell phones and texting. Try sitting out in a public place, where there’s a big crowd, and watch people. You can count on probably just one hand how many are not on a phone. Gyms take the place of getting outside and walking, or gardening. Fast food restaurants taking the place of home-cooked meals.
But to think about regressing man, I’m almost sure that’s what Senator Cook meant. To cause some kind of holocaust that would send us back into the dark age. First, is that possible? No, first, am I just whipping up another conspiracy theory, because, as Greg says, I watch too much TV?
And then second, is it possible?
I had asked Mase on the way to the airport if it was. If it were possible not to kill off man to take away his knowledge, like some believed happened in Enoch and the Great Flood, but just take his knowledge. He said, ‘Sure it is.’ He didn’t hesitate. Everything, he said, nowadays is electronic. You take out all satellites, drop an EMP or two and people wouldn’t be able to function. And they would become hostile, he said, like after natural disasters, people looting and killing each other. If the EMP’s, or whatever was used to disable us functioning, had a sustained effect, soon enough all would be lost.
“Can you imagine just the problem at the local McDonald’s?” he asked. “Those people can’t even give you your change back without the amount tendered button. Kids already are graduating from school without the ability to read. Wouldn’t take much to wreak havoc on our knowledge base.”
Maybe that’s why a satellite intelligence person from the NRO and a red beret guy from a counterterrorism group came to my house.
Silence hung over me and Mase as we flew into Denver. I was lost in thought. He was asleep.
We got into Denver and rented a car. We had six hours after we got there to drive out to Littleton, see Dr. Winterman, and return to the airport to get our flight back home. It was only a fifteen minute drive from the Denver International Airport, and there wasn’t much I needed to say to Dr. Winterman. I just wanted to know what he found. And was he able to follow the instructions that had been encoded in that book.
The complex was a large brick and glass structure built in the mountains of Littleton. Me and Mase waited in the lobby for no more than a couple of minutes before Dr. Winterman came out to greet us. He took us in a conference room and closed the door.
My stomach was jumping with butterflies, and my hands were shaking. I couldn’t tell what Mase was thinking. He looked around the room, pulled out a chair for me to sit in, and then sat down.
Dr. Winterman had dark hair and black rectangular glasses. He looked more like a lawyer than a scientist. He was dressed in a nice suit, shiny shoes. I thought, is this the way scientists are dressing nowadays?
Grabbing a chair, Dr. Winterman sat down. “Do you know what you have here?” he asked, looking at me, and then Mase.
“I was hoping that you could tell us that,” I said.
“Where did you get this?”
“We found it in my grandfather’s attic.”
He looked at me like he didn’t believe.
Yeah, I probably shouldn’t lie to this guy. I’m going to need him again if the information I’d given him really worked. Plus, that was such a bad lie.
“He was an engineer,” I said, trying to make my lie a little more plausible.
“Really?” He didn’t seem to believe that either.
I nodded. Mase kept a straight face.
“Let me tell you what your grandfather had in that attic.”
“Okay. Tell me.” I sat up straight in anticipation.
“A design to build a spaceship.”
“Like I said, he was an engineer.”
“This is a spaceship design generations ahead of what we have today. This design could take man out into the universe. It can travel faster and longer than we can now and, more importantly, it can sustain life aboard this craft for months, no, for years. This is real life science fiction kind of information.”
“So, it’s a good thing, huh?” I smiled innocently.
Dr. Winterman narrowed his eyes, looking at me closely.
“What are you going to doing with this?” he asked.
“I’m writing a book,” I said.
Thank you for taking time to read Irrefutable Proof. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends or click on this link to post a short review.
http://amzn.to/1gufwud
Word of mouth is very imp
ortant to any author.
If you’d like to read In the Beginning, click on the link below. Warning: Justin is way more neurotic in that book!
http://amzn.to/1cwDnd2
Also find out more about the facts in this book on my website.
www.abbylvandiver.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Ohio, Ms. Vandiver is a former lawyer and college Professor of Economics. She holds bachelors in Economics, a master’s in Public Administration and a Juris Doctor. These days, Ms. Vandiver enjoys writing and endeavors to devote all her extra time to it.
Her debut novel, In the Beginning, an Amazon #1 bestseller, was written on a whim, put in a box for more than a decade, and finally pulled out, dusted off and published in 2013. It has inspired her to write a sequel as well as start a series of books loosely based on her family.
Ms. Vandiver resides in Cleveland, Ohio and has three wonderful grandchildren, Gavin, Sydne and Riley.
Visit and Follow Ms. Vandiver here:
Twitter: @AbbyVandiver
Facebook: AbbyVandiver
Acknowledgments
I always give a “Thank you,” to my mother, Leslie Vandiver. Without her I wouldn’t be who I am today.
To my beta readers, Kathryn Dionne, Lisa Hall, Scott Simser, and Ginger Gelsheimer. Thank you. And my proofreader, Bryan Williams, you’re the best.
And my children, Kevan and Aaron, I forgot to mention them last time!
~ Much Gratitude
To My Grandchildren
All your birthdays are in here.
Gavin, Sydne, and Riley
Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin I Series Book II Page 26
