[Thursday]
Amanda drove the rest of the way to Machias Bay. Cam had cried himself to sleep on her shoulder, his sobs fading to whimpers, his exhaustion finally overcoming his grief. He had allowed her to guide him, half-asleep, into the passenger seat, where she helped him test his blood sugar and held him until he nodded off again. She turned into a Dunkin Donuts parking lot on the outskirts of town at just after 4:00 A.M. and rang Beatrice on the satellite phone.
“Amanda, dear, I have been worried about you.”
“I’m fine. But there’s been another murder.” She recounted Eric Forsberg’s death.
“You and Mr. Thorne are in grave danger. You must end this silly quest of yours. Tell me where you are and I will arrange for someone to retrieve you.”
Did the Consortium really possess the power to protect her from a Vatican fringe paramilitary group? “Did Mr. Babinaux consult with the council?”
“He did.” She sighed. “I am sorry but they are not willing to violate the protocols. There is more at stake here than you know, my dear. Now please, tell me where you are.”
The Consortium’s position made no sense. Just like everything else. Cam’s TracFone rang. “Sorry, Beatrice, I have to run. I’ll ring you later.”
She laid a reassuring hand on Cam’s shoulder. “I’ll answer. Go back to sleep.” The embers of the eastern sky were just beginning to smolder. “Hello.”
A halting greeting. “Is this Amanda?”
She recognized Marcotte’s voice. “Yes, Monsignor. How are you?” It was well before dawn, he was calling on a phone designed for secrecy and Vatican cronies were trying to murder them. She might have skipped the pleasantries.
“Actually, I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept since you left on Tuesday. But more importantly, how are you and Cameron holding up?”
She studied Cam, his fists clenched even as he slept. “Not exactly Sunday at Wimbledon but we’re pushing on.”
“Where are you?”
“Really, I’d rather not say. Please don’t take offense.”
“Of course, I’m sorry for asking. Again, I haven’t slept.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading, a lot of research, speaking to a number of experts in the field—I just got off the phone with a colleague in Italy. I think I’m beginning to understand all this. It runs much deeper than I thought it did two days ago.” She rolled her eyes. You’re telling me. “I think you’ve stumbled into a real hornet’s nest here. We need to get together so I can share what I’ve learned.”
She nudged Cam awake, pointed to the phone and whispered, “Monsignor Marcotte.”
He blinked a few times and rubbed his cheeks vigorously with his hands. “Please hold on one minute, Monsignor,” she said before covering the mouthpiece. “He wants to meet with us, says he has important information to share.” She smiled. “And, by the way, good morning.” She leaned over, kissed him gently on the mouth. “I hope you feel better.”
His lips moved in a smile but the sadness in his eyes remained. “I do feel better, thanks. Had a dream I was comforted by an angel. First she had blond hair, then it turned burgundy.”
“Very funny. And it’s good to have you back. But what should I tell the Monsignor? And while you are weighing our options, you should know I spoke with Beatrice: The Consortium is refusing to share its secrets with us.”
“More good news.” He stared out the window. “Are we in Machias?” She nodded. “Well, I think we can trust the Monsignor. He had us in his grasp once and let us go. Maybe there’s a whole other layer to this we haven’t figured out but he seems to be on our side.”
“I agree.” She glanced at a map of Maine, performed some rough calculations in her head. “We can get an early start and be finished with the petroglyphs by mid-morning.”
“And I want to stop at Spirit Pond and look for a stone hole.” He lowered his eyes. “It’s on the way and it was the last thing Eric said to me, to look for a hole there. It could be an important clue.”
“Very well. We’ll make that detour early afternoon.” She uncovered the mouthpiece. “Monsignor, is it possible for you to drive to Maine?”
“Of course.”
She glanced again at the map, her eyes drawn to a Viking figurehead in a display advertisement. Appropriate. “Three o’clock then. The lobby of the Viking Motor Inn, just outside Bath, in Brunswick. And please be certain nobody follows you.”
* * *
After grabbing a couple of bagels and some coffee at the Dunkin Donuts, Cam and Amanda followed Route 1 to a local canoe and kayak rental shop, a flat-roofed, ramshackle structure that tilted toward the river behind it, as if straining at its foundation to join in the water activities it had witnessed for so many decades.
Amanda had driven—he felt numb, lethargic, as if waiting for the anesthesia to wear off post-surgery. At first he thought it was his blood sugar level but he checked it and it was fine. He had been going full tilt for almost a week, his adrenaline and anger and attraction to Amanda propelling him along. But Eric’s death had been a brick wall in the night; he never even had a chance to take his foot off the accelerator, much less hit the brakes. It would take him a while to get going again. The breakfast helped, as did Amanda’s energy.
Just before 6:00 a mud-covered, red pickup truck pulled into the dirt parking lot next to the Subaru.
“Howdy.” A burly man in a gray sweatshirt and a paint-splattered pair of jeans ambled toward them. They stepped out of the Subaru to meet him.
“I’m Jed. You folks looking to do some fishing?” Jed spoke with a Down East Maine accent, the words nasaly and elongated and slow to leave his mouth. Single syllable words like ‘here’ became ‘he-yah.’ Cam glanced at Amanda—she probably wouldn’t understand half of what Jed said.
“We’re interested in seeing the petroglyphs.” He explained they were only in town for the morning. “Especially any that depict ships or boats.”
The man nodded. “Aiyuh. I can show you those myself. Take us about three or four hours.” He glanced out toward the river. “You picked a good day. Calm. And not too hot.”
Cam paid cash. While they donned life vests and grabbed some supplies from the car Jed dragged three kayaks onto a pier from a rack by the water. Unlike the building the pier was solid and fresh-looking. Similarly, unlike Jed’s truck, the kayaks were spotless, gleaming in the morning sun. Apparently the man had his priorities straight.
They paddled along near the bank of the river, a handful of fishing boats staying in the deeper channel in the middle. Cam phoned Brandon as he paddled, the phone wedged between his chin and shoulder, and quickly detailed Eric Forsberg’s death. “Call Poulos. He already knows. Maybe he has more info.”
Jed turned and spoke over his shoulder. “The river goes out to the Machias Bay. The petroglyphs are on a rock ledge jutting into the harbor at Clark’s Point.”
After about 20 minutes the river dog-legged to the right. Jed pointed his paddle toward a spit of land in the distance. “About two miles away. That’s where you’ll see your petroglyphs.”
He explained that the petroglyphs were dinted, or pecked, into the soft stone by Indian shamans using hard stone tools. Amanda peered from under the brim of a baseball cap she wore to shield her face from the sun. “We have some petroglyphs down in Massachusetts that are carved into schist and granite. You’d need iron tools to do that.”
“Right,” Jed nodded. “But like I said this is soft rock. They say some of these petroglyphs are 3,000 years old.”
“How do you think they came to carve a European ship?” Cam asked.
“Well, the ship I’ve seen is too old to be a Colonial vessel. So that means somebody must have been here before the Colonial era, seems to me.” He bit a piece of skin off his thumb and spit it into the harbor. “I mean, they didn’t just make it up, you know what I mean?”
They had moved into the open harbor and the sea, though calm, tossed them around a bit. Cam’s shoulder throbbed from his encounter w
ith Eric Forsberg, the injury doubly bothersome because every bark of pain reminded him of his tragic death. After about an hour, Jed guided them alongside a terra cotta-colored rock ledge protruding into the ocean. “At high tide, this ledge is under water.” He pointed with his paddle. “There’s your boat.”
Paddling close, they inspected the weathered carving. It was smaller than Cam expected, about the size of his hand, the darkened subsurface of the rock ledge revealing the form of a single-masted ship. Amanda leaned out of her kayak, her face inches from the ledge; he held the edge of her boat so she didn’t flip.
“Oh,” she gasped. “It’s an amazing carving. I’ve seen pictures before but they don’t do it justice. Notice how careful they were with the curves on the stern and the sail.”
[Photo courtesy of Richard Lynch]
A PETROGLYPH OF A MEDIEVAL SHIP, MACHIAS BAY, MAINE, USA
“Brandon’s right. It looks like the boat on the Boat Stone.” He snapped some pictures.
“Yes, a knorr. I read a report that dates this type of ship between 1350 and 1450.”
He stated the obvious. “Too early for the Colonists, too late for the Vikings.”
She smiled. “The only thing missing is a Hooked X on its sail.”
* * *
They paddled back quickly, thanked their guide and were back on the road, heading south, by mid-morning. “Follow Route 1,” Amanda said, peering at the map. “It’s about three hours to Phippsburg. Then Spirit Pond and Popham Beach are down the road a bit from there.”
Route 1 hugged the coast of Maine, much as it did the entire eastern seaboard. “You know,” Cam said, “now that I’m here, I’m appreciating how long the Maine coastline is. For the Colonists to end up on Popham Beach as their first settlement, it couldn’t be a coincidence. No way.”
“I agree.” She held up the map. “It says here there are over 3500 miles of coastline in Maine, 5000 if you include the islands. The Popham group was likely following an old map to Spirit Pond.”
“Hey, do you think this is worth the detour?” He felt he owed it to Eric to look for stone holes at Spirit Pond. But that didn’t mean it was a good use of their time.
“Yes. It’s not far out of our way. Perhaps these stone holes are arranged in some kind of pattern, as they were at the Kensington site. If he thinks there’s a stone hole nearby, that’s quite good enough for me.”
“Good.” He squeezed her hand. “Thanks.”
They exited Route 1 in Bath and followed the local roads south toward the coast, tracking the path of the Kennebec River as it emptied to the sea. A number of ponds and tributaries dotted the landscape. She directed him to a wooded area, part of the Popham Beach State Park. “Turn here. Spirit Pond is up on the right.”
“How close are we to the Atlantic?” The area didn’t have that marshy, tideland feel of the Maine coast.
“Not far, perhaps a mile. The pond connects to Popham Beach via a river. Six hundred years ago the area probably wasn’t grown over so much and they could have sailed straight up. Or simply rowed up in smaller boats.”
They pulled off on a dirt shoulder. She pointed across the pond. “That’s the spot Walter Elliot found the rune stones.” They found a path along the water’s edge, their steps cushioned by a bed of pine needles. “I visited this site a year ago, when I first moved to the States. The woman who escorted me, an expert in local history who knew everyone and everything, recently passed on. She recounted a story about the archeological dig in the early seventies, during which they uncovered the planks from the sod house which they carbon dated to 1405. Apparently during the dig, one day, out of the blue, an official from the state shut down the dig. One of the archeologists leading the dig, a woman, screamed and hollered, arguing they had not completed their work. She was convinced the state was trying to cover something up.”
“You know, a week ago I would have just laughed at that. Just another conspiracy theory. But now, well, it seems entirely possible.”
They reached the far end of the pond and began to curve back to the left, still following the shore. “This is the spot they uncovered the two horseshoe-shaped sod houses.”
They continued along the tip of the pond, again curving to the left, the Subaru visible on the opposite shore. Amanda stopped at a small clearing set back a few yards from the rocky shoreline of the pond. “Elliot found the rune stones here. He was seated on that rock, smoking a cigarette. He looked down and there they were, partially buried.”
He hunched down and inspected the area. “Well, then, this is where the stone hole should be. According to Eric, it should be in a prominent location—on a large boulder, or maybe a uniquely-colored rock. Something that stands out.”
They split up, Amanda wandering along the shoreline and Cam exploring the woods behind the Elliot discovery site. There were no particularly large or unique rocks. Nor was there a tall hill or ledge. He began to move back toward the pond when he heard Amanda yell.
“Cam, come here. I found something!”
He raced through the brush; she was kneeling on a stone outcropping about 20 feet off shore. Of course. The outcropping was by far the most noticeable feature in the area, a natural rock bridge protruding C-like into the pond, originating only a few yards from where the rune stones were buried.
“Look,” she pointed. “It’s triangular, just like the one on the Tyngsboro Map Stone.”
He put his finger into the hole, felt the rough edges. Definitely not machine made. “I’ll be damned. You found it. Just like Eric said.” He looked toward the ocean. “So they sailed up the river to this pond, made an encampment, built the sod houses. Then they carved the rune stones, complete with a map of the area and a Hooked X.”
“And they also drilled the stone hole, probably marked it with a flag.”
“Right. Maybe they went up the Kennebec to explore, maybe they continued along the coastline.” He tried to picture the medieval explorers. “Then, 200 years later, Popham came back to the same place and established his Popham Colony. Pretty freakin’ neat.”
She pulled him to his feet and kissed him, her soft lips firm on his. When she finally released him, she angled her mouth to his ear. “I think you are pretty freakin’ neat.”
Dizzy, he moved to kiss her again but she pulled away, taking his hand as she smiled. “Unfortunately, we have a date with a priest.”
* * *
As planned, Cam and Amanda met the Monsignor in the lobby of the Viking Hotel. After watching the cleric pull into the parking lot in a rental car, Cam had hiked through the woods a quarter mile up the road to make sure nobody tailed him. Fairly confident the Monsignor was alone, Cam instructed him to follow them to a deserted spot along the Bath harbor shoreline. He took a roundabout route, doubling back a few times, reassuring himself they were not being followed.
They parked in the shadows of a massive, rusted steel crane once used to construct the destroyers and battleships of the nation’s navy—the Bath Iron Works still built ships but on a much smaller scale than it used to. They walked across a muddy parking area and to an old picnic table set on a concrete slab perched over the harbor. The Monsignor lowered his tall frame slowly onto the far bench, his back to the water. For decades iron workers had lunched at the table, complained about wages and wives, sweated out pink slips and Red Sox games. Today Cam had the feeling they were its first visitors in years.
The Monsignor rubbed his bloodshot eyes and breathed in the cool ocean air. He wore a pair of khakis and a green windbreaker and carried a blue duffel bag; he looked like a man on his way to the gym. “I’m glad to be outside. It’s refreshing after spending so many hours in my library.” Even without his robe and collar, and despite his fatigue and strands of gray hair falling haphazardly across his forehead, he possessed an air of serenity and peacefulness. But Cam sensed a turmoil in the man he had not noticed in their earlier meetings.
He liked the priest, trusted him despite the earlier abduction, appreciated his efforts t
o help them. “It’s the one thing we’ve had going for us over the past week. The weather’s been great.” He tilted his head. “If I were religious, I might say God was smiling on us.”
Marcotte grinned. “If you were religious, it’s safe to say you wouldn’t be on this quest.” He leveled his tired blue eyes on Cam, his smile fading. “Actually, I believe you are doing God’s work.”
Cam held the Monsignor’s eyes for a second. Here was a good man, trying to do the right thing, willing to question his devotion to an institution he had pledged his life to. “I appreciate you saying that. I know you’re being pulled in a couple of different directions here.”
Marcotte shrugged. “I have a simple rule: When in doubt, follow the truth. The path is often well-illuminated and it usually leads me in the right direction.” He reached into his duffel bag, extracted a shoe box-size cylinder wrapped in newspaper. “Emily Gendron thought this might be important.”
Cam pulled off the paper, revealing the ceramic lantern he had seen at the Gendrons’ home. He handed it to Amanda who examined it, rotating it slowly. “Yes, it is a replica of the Tower,” she said. “Eight arches, random windows, the correct proportions.”
Cam re-wrapped the lantern, placed it carefully in his bag. “Thank you, Monsignor. I have a feeling this will turn out to be important.”
Marcotte pulled a spiral notepad from his bag and flipped open the first page before closing it and sighing. “Amanda—I’m sorry, may I call you that?”
“Of course.”
“Amanda, I’m sure you have recounted the history of the Knights Templar being excommunicated, tortured and even murdered in the early 14th century.”
“Yes.”
He turned to Cam. “Did Amanda tell you why the Church did this?”
“Well, the Church claimed it was because the Templars were heretics. But Amanda said it was because of financial reasons, to free the Church from debt to the Templars.”
Marcotte pursed his lips tightly. “And historians generally agree with that conclusion. Accusing one’s enemies of heresy was a common ploy in medieval times, during the Inquisition and the Crusades. There is a tragic story of the slaughter of an entire town in the Cathar-dominated region of southern France, in 1209. The Cathars were a Christian sect that failed to follow the orthodox teachings of the Church and were thus targeted by the Pope. A Crusader soldier asked a superior officer how they should distinguish the heretics from the true Catholics.” The Monsignor shook his head sadly. “The officer replied: ‘Kill them all. Surely the Lord will save those that are his.’ As many as 20,000 Cathars were slaughtered that day. Clearly the Church was more interested in eliminating its enemies than in saving souls.”
Cabal of The Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book #1 in the Templars in America Series) Page 23
