Story of the Century

by Tom Norton

  John and Hendrick received satellite phone call from Rick indicating they were getting things ready to leave and comments about playing a lot of scrabble, meaning putting the pieces of the skull together with the duplicate pieces they were casting.

  There were no curios inquiries by anyone in respect to the site excavation that one might expect from someone on the outside who had placed the disk in the grave and this furthered suspicion that it must have been one of the students for some unknown reason. A joke, future notoriety, a grudge against the university or Rick; there was not a hint.”

  With only a week until the group was to leave the site, the plan was for John and Hendrick to be there and turn over the skeletal remains of the Neanderthal to the Poles as soon as all of the other equipment was back in Germany. They would do this when the Poles came to inspect the site.

  At three a.m., Professor Hendrick was wakened by his home phone ringing and he managed to answer it.

  “Hello, this is Rick. Get Professor Thomas and wait for a call to your lab in two hours. I have a lot of paperwork to do before then. We will talk. Goodbye,” and the phone went dead.”

  Hendrick thought, “What in the hell was that all about, maybe one of the students was killed or something.”

  He hurriedly dressed, poured some cold black coffee from a pot and made his way to his car. Speed dialing John, he told him he would pick him up in ten minutes; there was an emergency at the excavation site.

  John got into the car and said, “How bad is it?”

  “I don’t know, Rick just hung up.”

  “Must be bad. I hope there were no Poles involved. You don’t think they would do anything violent do you?”

  “Who knows if it got into a shouting match.”

  John said, “Maybe the students were arrested?”

  “We’ll know in under an hour.”

  In the lab with all the lights on, the two sat looking at the phone waiting for it to ring and it finally did.

  Hendrick said, “Yes Rick, go ahead.”

  Rick replied, “Do you have a pencil handy?”

  “Yes.”

  Rick continued, “That new piece of equipment we have is missing a piece. I don’t know what you call it, but it is perfectly round and is thirty-six millimeters in diameter. It has four screw holes, when one is at zero degrees the other three are at forty-two degrees, ninety-five degrees and the fourth at one hundred twenty-two degrees. Think it over and see if you can find a matching part somewhere. I don’t know what to do with the equipment without that part. Call me back, I will be waiting. Goodbye.”

  Hendrick hung up the phone and looked at John and said, “I know what I think he was saying, but I had better hear it from you.”

  “Well, he might have said, the skull is missing a piece and we may have it if the dimensions are correct.”

  Hendrick replied, “That’s stupid, is he on drugs?”

  “I sure as hell hope so, grab your notes.”

  The two retrieved the disk from the safe, took it the examination table and laid it flat.

  John said, “Find two holes forty-two millimeters apart.”

  “I’ve got them.”

  “Now ninety-five degrees.”

  “Got it.”

  “One hundred twenty-two degrees.”

  “Balls on.”

  John said, “You have to be shitting me. Someone performed brain surgery on our Neanderthal and put a gold plate on the surgery area.”

  Hendricks replied, “You know what that means?”

  “No, for God’s sake tell me.”

  “What it means is, that it is totally, absolutely impossible and there is no way in hell we can turn that skull over to the poles. The world and the scientific community would go bezerk and we will be the laughing stock of the world. The only way this could happen is if we fake everything and they know it.”

  John said, “Rick doesn’t know what to do about this and I don’t either. We have a dozen students that know about it and I can’t even imagine trying to keep them quiet the rest of their lives.”

  Hendrick said, “I’m going to call Rick back and tell him we found the matching part, but it’s on back order and we’ll just have to put the equipment in storage for a couple months. I think he will get the drift.”

  “Tell Rick we will be there in a couple days to help move all of the equipment out. Tell him to write down every conceivable way this part could have gotten lost, maybe we can find the original. The less said to him right now the better.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Hendrick and John flew to Suwalki the next morning, rented a four wheel drive carryall, filled it with food and propane bottles and drove to the site. It was late afternoon when they arrived and when they stopped at the trailers, all twelve of the people at the site met their vehicle. Among the food supplies the two brought was fresh cooked food that would have to be reheated right away, so the now fourteen people ate a crowded dinner in one of the trailers.

  John told everyone there was to be no discussion about the work at the site and that would be on the agenda for tomorrow.

  At dark, John, Hendrick and Rick moved to the trailer with the lab equipment in it and sat at a table. John started the conversation by saying to Rick, “Hendrick and I have to see the replica skull before we discuss anything.”

  Rick replied, “Over here in this box.”

  “Can we handle it?”

  “Oh yes, all of the replica fragments are epoxied together.”

  John and Hendricks opened the wood box and John lifted the skull with the lower jaw remaining in the box. John rotated the skull and there was a perfectly round hole just as Rick had described it and just beyond the hole, four dimples that had to be used to attach the gold disk to the skull.

  John carried the skull to the table and sat it in the middle and again the three took their seats.

  Like any good up and coming archeologist, Rick had a note pad and pencil.

  John said, “Where do I start?” He opened his brief case and retrieved papers and he handed one to Hendrick.

  Looking at the paper, Hendrick asked, “Why was the disk deeper than the skull?”

  Rick replied, “Have you ever looked for coins with a metal detector?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “The disk, like coins would migrate down in the dirt due to its weight I guess.”

  John interrupted, “We are beyond this being a hoax or something by anyone here, or an outside party aren’t we?”

  His companions agreed with him on that count.

  “I have been doing a lot of reading about brain surgery and early humans and as far back as two thousand years, people were performing brain surgery with holes in skulls just like this one. I had heard of such things, but never really looked into it until recently. Of course that was Incas, Aztecs and Egyptians and certainly not a small group of Neanderthals in a cave, but it does prove that it can be done without the sophisticated equipment we have these days. Hendrick, go ahead.”

  “Rick, what do you think was used to hold the disk on the skull?”

  “I don’t know, wood pegs I would imagine. They would have decomposed long ago.”

  “Do you think there are any more graves in the cave?”

  “I can’t say for sure. The first twenty-five centimeters or so is that soft stuff. You would have to lay tracks or something to use a ground penetrating radar setup.”

  John said, “Is there anything we can do here at the site that will shed light on this?”

  “Not that I know of sir and we have to get out of here ASAP. We are lucky we haven’t had an early heavy snow.”

  Hendrick said to Rick, “We have to do something with the Neanderthal bones. The Poles will go over these trailers and trucks with a fine tooth comb.”

  “I think I can help with that if you want to walk to the cave.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  chapter 2

  hide sam

  In the brightly
lit cave, Rick led the two the twenty meters to the far wall that appeared to be a solid wall down into the dirt.

  Rick said, “Down about fifteen centimeters is an opening to a small cave about the size of an automobile. It has a hard sandstone floor, not like the dirt out here. I don’t even think the Neanderthals knew it was there. We found it probing with rods looking for graves.”

  John said, “That’s perfect.”

  Hendrick replied, “Yes your honor we’re innocent, we didn’t take anything out of the cave.”

  “That’s what I said, perfect.”

  Rick asked, “Can we do it tomorrow?”

  “No, we have to do it tonight so the students don’t know where we took it.”

  “What about the cast replica skull and bones?”

  “Didn’t you bring them from the University to help identify Neanderthal bones if you found any?”

  “Yes sir, I certainly did.”

  The next morning everyone was again in a cramped trailer with John, Hendrick and Rick at one end of a table.

  John got the loud group’s attention and said, “Hendrick and I want to thank all of you for all your hard work this summer and particularly your involvement pertaining to your discovery. As a matter of clarity, I would like to address the discovery and our problem to date. We will discuss the matter further after I have finished.”

  “What started as all of us working on the fringe of our legal obligations to Poland has eventually brought us to the critical point where we will be in violation of the law and our agreement with the Polish government. Our intent was to turn over all of the recovered artifacts at this late date and take a slap on the wrist. The evidence for there having been surgery performed on our Neanderthal has turned all of our plans upside down.”

  “There is no way in hell we can let the Poles, or for that matter anyone else know what we have discovered. I can assure you that in the short term all of our lives and our careers would be devastated. I am one hundred percent certain that all of us would be accused of creating a hoax for our personal gain. It would have been different if we had contacted the Poles upon discovering the first Neanderthal bone and then were monitored. But we didn’t contact the Poles and that is reason enough for the scientific community to question our findings and motives. I myself wouldn’t believe the story or ever give it any creditability.”

  “So what do we do? The only thing we can do. Hendrick and I have removed the skeletal remains from the site to a safe location in Poland where we will eventually get them into Germany. The computer data and video data are also gone from the site and are with the skeletal remains. No matter what anyone says, there is no evidence that the event ever occurred and that any Neanderthal remains were found. I am asking for questions and then Professor Hendrick will speak.”

  One of the students named Scott asked, “What about all of our work this summer? What do we get out of all this? How do I explain working all summer and failing to accomplish anything?”

  Hendrick replied, “How can you say you didn’t accomplish anything when your university grades will reflect excellence with letters of recommendation from John and I. You were only here to further your knowledge and gain experience and I can say you have excelled at that, more so than any other university students. What I suspect is on all of your minds is, what are you going to get out of all of this as well as how this could destroy your professional goals?”

  “Here is where we are in a situation of stark reality. You students will further your education at the University of Berlin as this entire affair never happened. No one will ever know of it until John and I can find a means whereby all of us come out of this a winner and not losers. This will require a great deal of personal effort and probably expense to John and me, at great risk to our professional status.”

  “The end result will either be the discovery will never be heard of or we all come out of this winners. When all the smoke clears and we are winners, we will all share equally in the benefits of it whether professionally or financially. Any legal problems with the Poles down the road, John and I will accept that responsibility. Scott, what is it?”

  Scott replied, “Sir, is this going to work or is it going to crash down around our heads?”

  “Oh, it will definitely work. In order for it to work, the fourteen of us in this room have to commit to absolute silence. No one else on Earth will know of it, not wives, girlfriends, the University; no one on Earth. We have to adopt a one hundred percent denial that this matter ever existed and if that requires lying your asses off, that’s what you do.”

  Scott replied, “Well I know I’m never telling anyone, but I can’t speak for anyone else.”

  “Well, I can help you there. John and I have documents for all of us to sign in the form of a very sophisticated non-disclosure agreement. Bear in mind that there is absolutely no evidence at you student’s disposal that there was ever a Neanderthal at this sight. The agreement states that if a rumor is started by anyone of us that any Neanderthal bones or artifact were discovered here, the person originating the rumor is liable to the others for a sum of five hundred thousand dollars to be divided equally by the others. These signed documents will also be stored with our Neanderthal friend. John and I will keep you all informed by text, but it will be very vague.”

  “Do you all understand and agree with what we are doing here? If not, raise your hand.”

  The site was cleaned up, all of the cave excavations filled and the cave floor raked. Polish officials were contacted and four or five officials visited the camp to inspect everything. The trailers, trucks and personal belongings were all searched to their satisfaction and they led the small caravan out of the hills.

  That night was spent in the cold trailers and in the morning everyone but John, Hendrick and Rick were on the road to Germany. John, Hendrick and Rick took the flight to Berlin and were there within hours. Hendrick was picked up at the airport by his secret wife Lin Lou, Rick headed for his mother’s place and John went to Fannie’s pub to watch a football game on TV.

  It had been prearranged that the three and the other eleven students would meet at Hendrick’s lab garage to clean the trailers and store all of the scientific equipment.

  Several weeks passed and the cold Berlin winter had set in. Professor Hendrick and Professor Thomas were kept busy trying to catch up with the University classes they had to cancel due to being tied up with what they then referred to as the Polish problem.

  There had not been a peep around the University, so the students appeared to be good for their word.

  John and Hendrick communicated daily about the Polish problem when they were by themselves and both had read extensively about the rare cases of brain surgery in the distant past.

  The surgery had obviously been performed to alleviate pain at that location created by an injury or a brain tumor or maybe the gold disc was just to cover a spot on the skull that had not developed. If the brain had been injured in any way, the location of the surgery should determine what effects it would have had on the Neanderthal.

  Out of curiosity, they researched the Neanderthal brain and any scientific knowledge available pertaining to Neanderthal brain characteristics as compared to humans. The intent was to determine what part of the brain and its function was directly below the opening in the skull.

  The hole in the skull was directly over the Temporal Lobe which indicated that damage there would be very noticeable to other Neanderthals.

  This was very interesting, but the question of how a Neanderthal could perform surgery on another Neanderthal was not solved, because they couldn’t.

  John and Hendrick were becoming tired of trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle. They were forced to at least keep trying to solve the puzzle because they had a Neanderthal lying in a little cave in Poland and a bunch of students that they had to keep quiet.

  They had hit the brick wall with what little knowledge they had and the actual bones and all of the data was far away in a cave.
All they had was the gold disc and the Neanderthal replica that showed no signs of damage to the Neanderthal.

  John received a call from Hendrick to come to the lab; he wanted to ask John something about the gold disk.

  John entered the lab, took a seat and said, “What is it Hendrick?

  “The gold disk.”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  Hendrick said, “Come I’ll show you, see what you think.”

  At the examination table John said, “You cleaned out the holes.”

  “Yes I did. Now take it over to the 3D microscope.”

  John did this and moved one of the holes under the lens while examining it carefully.

  Hendrick asked, “What do you think?”

  “I think this is all bullshit. I think someone is playing us for fools.”

  “Why would they do that and then never say a word to anyone?”

  John replied, “I can’t even imagine. I would think blackmail or something, but we would have heard from them by now.”

  Hendrick said, “Well that hole was definitely drilled in that disk and there are faint marks where someone turned a screw in it and I assume into the skull. They sure as hell didn’t have drill bits and screws twenty five thousand years ago. This had to be done within the last two thousand years if you forget that drill bits were invented two hundred years ago.”

  “That’s just more evidence we are in the middle of a hoax. Get Rick over here, we need to talk.”

  Rick arrived and when they were all at the table, John explained to him what they had found on the disk and John said, “Go through the entire excavation starting with how you decided to dig there and every detail from then on and then tell me that is what the video will show.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “It has to be a hoax.”