Alone in the private room, Jennifer slid open the box cover. A startled gasp fell from her parted lips. She blinked several times, her unbelieving mind refusing to accept what her eyes displayed. There were three main items layered on top, but what caught her initial attention were tall stacks of banded $100 dollar bills that filled the box’s entire area beneath the items.
She donned latex gloves and removed her pad, pen and cell phone to snap pictures of each item she removed. On top were two stone sculptures approximately a foot tall each. One appeared to be oriental in origin. It looked to Jennifer like a dragon head attached to the body of a man holding a sword in a menacing manner. As she turned it over, Jennifer was taken aback to discover a carving on the back of the dragon’s head that looked just like the fish symbol that was impressed on the gold coins found in Dobson’s kitchen safe.
The other sculpture was less ornate and Jennifer couldn’t hazard a guess as to its lineage. It was the stone figure of a crouching man, but there were no facial features or detail on his body. It kind of looked like an unfinished clay creation. However, in the figure’s outstretched hands were two distinctly etched features. Both looked to her like rocks. One of the rocks was conical and its tip pointed forward towards Jennifer as she faced the sculpture. The other stone was tubular and the man seemed to be connecting them. It reminded Jennifer vaguely of how the Port Stone snapped into the back of the Master Stone.
Removing them carefully from the box, she photographed each one separately, making sure to snap pictures from multiple angles. When she was finished with the sculptures, she set them aside. Behind these two objects, pushed to the back of the safe deposit container, was a book-sized wooden box. As Jennifer removed the box from the larger container, she heard small objects roll inside. To her it called to mind the muffled sound of raw elbow macaroni colliding when poured out of the pasta box. The box itself was light and contained no lock.
Placing the closed box on the table, she took a couple quick pictures before toggling the center snap to open the box. When she peered inside, she uttered, “Holy crap!”
Blue velvet padding lined the box to protect at least 100 loose, cut diamonds glittering inside. Jennifer shook her head to and fro in astonishment. She blurted, “Wow!”
Her fingers shook as she snapped pictures of the diamonds inside. When complete, she lifted a few of the diamonds from the box and laid them in her palm. She used a finger to maneuver the gems. They were large solitaires, she estimated approximately two carats each. Replacing the diamonds in the case, she sat back in the booth’s chair and crossed her arms and legs and disappeared into deep concentration.
The diamonds must be how Dobson was paid for delivering the stolen artifacts, Jennifer surmised. She knew diamonds were often used as payment currency in organized crime smuggling transactions given the difficulty in tracing the origins of the gems.
When he desired to exchange the diamonds for cash, Dobson would take a portion of the diamonds to Atlas Gem Traders. He probably was unnerved by the idea of walking around with a large check in his possession for very long and scampered to the bank’s Park Avenue branch to make a quick deposit. This, she realized, also conveyed the benefit of avoiding local attention to his large deposits.
The two sculptures were most likely objects he intended to sell before he was unexpectedly murdered. But why then did he keep the gold coins in his house? Could Dobson have been staging the coins in his home safe for imminent hand-off to the buyer?
Leaning forward, she snapped shut the diamond box and moved it aside with the sculptures. Next, she removed and tallied the cash stacked four levels high in the box. There were a total of 36 banded stacks of $100 dollar bills. Assuming no hundreds were missing from the banded stacks, that meant the cash totaled $360,000 dollars.
There was nothing underneath the cash stacks. No will, no other documents and no other artifacts. She snapped pictures of the cash, returned all the contents to the box and closed the lid.
Jennifer stepped out of the room and asked the security officer standing outside to retrieve Mr. Cho while she made a quick call. When he arrived, she said, “I’m going to need to take the box and its contents as evidence. First though, I’ve called to get an evidence collection team and armed escort for the contents. Then I’d like you to come in the booth, verify the contents and take an inventory. I’m sure you need that for your own purposes anyway. I’m guessing you’ll need me to sign some forms and I’ll need you to do the same.”
“What did you find?” a shaken Mr. Cho inquired.
“You’ll see for yourself, I have some other questions though while we wait for my team to arrive,” Jennifer stated.
“I am at your disposal Detective,” he bowed.
“You have records showing when Mr. Dobson visited his safe deposit box, correct?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’d like to get a listing of all his visits over the past six months.”
“That should be no problem.”
“Also, we only discussed deposits into his money market account. I know the account statements you’re gathering for me will show all activity but I’m curious to know what kind of withdrawal activity you observed when you pulled up his account online?” Jennifer asked.
“That was curious also. There were no withdrawals, per se, but there were transfers. There were a total of six transfers to two parties who maintain accounts at our bank,” he answered.
Possible conspirators, Jennifer thought! God, she hoped one of them was Pacal; she just had a bad feeling about him overall. She asked, “Do you have the two parties’ names and their addresses?”
“Yes, I will get you their contact information, but I remember their names. Miss Zoe Moore and Mr. John Wood. This might interest you also. I did a little research on both while you were examining the safe deposit box.
“Their accounts were opened at the Park Avenue branch about a year ago on the same day. The only deposits in their accounts are transfers from Mr. Dobson. Both Miss Moore and Mr. Wood routinely withdrew most of the deposits in cash from Mr. Dobson within days, although they did not make the withdrawals at the Park Avenue branch. Miss Moore made her withdrawals at one of our Miami branches. Mr. Wood at a branch in Dallas,” Mr. Cho explained.
“Wow, that’s very kind of you Mr. Cho. I appreciate your cooperation and insight. You’re saving me a lot of leg work here,” Jennifer smiled with a slight bow.
“I’m pleased to assist you Detective Lieutenant. Plus, this saves me work later on when you would have invariably come back to ask more questions. I also should have mentioned earlier, but my brother is a police officer in Philadelphia. Helping you is to me like helping my brother,” answered the humble Mr. Cho.
“Thank you, your help is of tremendous assistance. Your brother is very fortunate to have such a considerate sibling. Are you ready to start on the inventory?”
“Yes,” Mr. Cho affirmed, “but I have one last piece of helpful news before we go. Miss Moore used a debit card linked to her account last night…at the Waldorf Astoria. The size of the debit card authorization leads me to believe she has more than a one night stay planned.”
Another internal double fist pump. Jennifer grinned broadly, and said, “Min-Jun, you da man!”
XX
REVELATIONS
Anlon and Pebbles cautiously watched as Cesar released the Master Stone. He viewed the stone nearly as long as Pebbles had earlier in the morning, but his outward emotional reaction when he spoke was more composed than either of them expected after their own experiences with the Stone. He said, “Absolutely extraordinary. I am happy that Devlin found his proof before he died. If nothing else, he went to his Maker knowing he was right. How incredible to watch, listen and even feel messages from people 10,000 years ago…”
Cesar’s voice trailed off as he retreated into thought. For a few minutes he sat in silence on the sofa in Devlin’s study, rubbing his hands together and staring at the floor. Anlon im
agined it must be a shock to find almost-living proof that a long-believed myth is actually true. The images on the stone, and the stone itself, challenged everything presumed about the history of man.
The more Anlon had reflected about the stones and the people who made them, his thoughts shifted from amazement to scientific curiosity. In particular, he marveled at this ancient race’s ability to tap into a human’s magnetic senses. That’s really what was at the heart of the Stones, he speculated. Magnetism. Somehow the Stone Benders had discovered how to manipulate magnetism.
In his own study of biomechanics, Anlon knew that many insects, birds and animals have the ability to detect the magnetic field of the Earth. They use their magnetic senses to navigate, hunt, mate and sense danger the way humans use their senses of smell and sight. It made Anlon realize that, at one time, man must have had a prominent ability to detect Earth’s magnetic field, but lost it over the ages.
Recalling his days as a student, Anlon knew the Earth’s magnetic field was weaker now than it once had been. And even today the planet’s magnetic field varied from place to place. He also remembered the magnetic poles of the Earth were not stationary. They had shifted numerous times in the planet’s history and would shift again many more times going forward. A professor of his once described the magnetic field like currents in an ocean. They are dynamic.
They must have lived during a time when the Earth’s magnetic field was very strong, or at least settled in an area where it was strong. It was strong enough that these people could sense it and, paraphrasing Pacal, bend the stone to their will.
At last, Cesar lifted his gaze and said, “Thank you Anlon and Eleanor. It was surreal but undeniable proof of a fully formed, technologically superior society pre-flood. I was most overwhelmed by the sense of touch and smell when viewing the stone. It will sound childish, but I also thought emotion was communicated. No, that’s the wrong way to say it. I felt Malinyah’s emotions. Sadness, regret, determination and hope.
“It was almost as if the person who made the video, Malinyah, emblazoned a snapshot of her memories onto the stone. Didn’t you think? In any event, the Stone brings into question a host of related myths.”
Pebbles quickly agreed, “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but yes! What do you mean, related myths?”
Cesar explained, “Yes, there are legends that some believe were aligned with the great flood. For instance, there are stories that suggest that when the cataclysmic event occurred — the passing asteroid/planet — it caused the Earth to literally turn upside down. What was south became north and vice versa. Most often the way the myths talk about this phenomenon is that the stars rose in the opposite sky after a period of darkness following the flood.”
As Anlon listened to Cesar, he thought to himself that the flipping of the planet definitely would have messed with Earth’s magnetic field. Was it possible though? An entire planet rotating 180 degrees overnight?
“Are there legends about maps?” Pebbles asked.
“What do you mean?” Cesar inquired.
“Devlin had a map,” Anlon explained. “He gave it to Anabel to pass onto me in case anything happened to him. She thought it was a sketch Devlin made of a map in an Egyptian pyramid. She said Devlin told her it was a map of their underworld.”
Cesar rose suddenly, a mystified expression frozen on his face. He pounded a fist against his open hand, “Of course! The Waterland Map.”
“Wait a minute,” Anlon clarified, “I said underworld, not Waterland.”
“No, no,” Cesar rebutted, “I am not correcting you Anlon. When you mentioned the map, it clicked a memory about another myth related to the great flood.”
Cesar seemed lost in thought for a minute as he paced the room. At one point, he said out loud to no one in particular, “Yes, yes. That’s what you were thinking old friend!”
A few minutes more of silent pacing and then he spoke again as if conversing with a ghost in the room, “Oh Devlin, I didn’t know you heard that legend. You brilliant man!”
Turning his attention to Anlon and Pebbles, he said, “I’m so sorry, my friends, please forgive my ravings. Let me explain.
“There is a legend told in multiple cultures that said when the great flood occurred, that which was underwater became land and vice versa. That when the great flood washed across the Earth, mountains thrust out of the ocean and land masses that previously existed were pulled to the ocean floor.
“You recall the story of the Lost City of Atlantis, for example. Legends say this advanced society sank in a single day. No trace of it has ever been found, though many have searched for it and some have laid claim to its whereabouts.
“There is one very obscure paper written by a controversial scholar that Devlin must have found on his own.”
“Was the paper about Atlantis?” Anlon queried.
“No, it was not. I have read the research paper. The author challenged Egyptologists’ interpretation of the Duat, the name ascribed by scholars to the Egyptian underworld. Extrapolating from hieroglyphs in various temples and tombs, anthropologists developed a view that dynastic Egyptians believed that when the sun sank below the horizon here on Earth, the sun rose in the underworld, or the Duat.
“One of the aspects of the Duat that has always puzzled Egyptologists is that the Duat is described in excruciating detail, meaning the glyphs contain robust discussion of its geographic features. It would be like the Bible describing and naming Heaven’s mountains, rivers and forests.
“The controversial paper proposed that the underworld was an actual place. It was the Earth’s land masses as they were known prior to the great flood. The reason, the scholar argued, that the Egyptians were so detailed in their depiction of the Duat is that they believed the sunken land masses of the world traded places with the new land masses, but they didn’t disappear. They believed that when their people died, they returned to the previous world. This scholar referred to this land as the Waterland. He argued that the map found in the Giza pyramid was a depiction of the land mass of the Earth prior to the flood.”
Cesar’s description of the Waterland Map made sense to Anlon. The land masses were unrecognizable, yet Devlin had inserted longitude and latitude markers to provide context in relation to the world’s topography today. Anlon said, “Cesar, on Devlin’s map, we’ll call it the Waterland Map, he inserted coded symbols at various locations on the sketched land masses. Through Anabel, Devlin said the codes indicate where other Life Stones can be found, but the codes are indecipherable without a key.”
“May I see the map?” Cesar politely asked.
“Of course,” replied Anlon as he rose to retrieve it.
When the map was laid out before them, Cesar leaned forward and touched the map as if handling a rare object. He shook his head in disbelief, “Extraordinary.”
“We plan on getting a scaled version of a current world map to underlay the drawing to see if we can make more sense of the locations,” interjected Pebbles.
Nodding, Cesar agreed, “Absolutely. I think I know what it will show.”
“You do?” Anlon said with mild astonishment.
“Yes. I think you will see portions of current land masses within the boundaries of the land depicted on the Waterland Map. In the legend I mentioned earlier about the Earth flipping and land exchanging places with water, the survivors of the catastrophe didn’t all take to water like Noah. Some scaled mountains, others hid in caves and there are even a few where intrepid souls climbed trees.
“Many of these supposed myths describe fire raining from the sky, terrible volcanic eruptions and debilitating darkness, the likes of which have never been described elsewhere in recorded histories. So, there were places on Earth that escaped the global tidal wave and other places where the wave washed over land, but then ebbed without changing the topography…or at least that’s how I interpret the stories.”
From a scientific viewpoint, Anlon thought, it was more plausible that portions of the
Earth submerged or rose as a result of the gravitational forces exerted by a massive object passing close by the planet. The idea that there was a complete reversal of land and water seemed too extravagant. And if a full reversal had happened, it was hard to imagine how anyone could have survived.
What interested Anlon as he considered his earlier viewing of the Master Stone alongside Cesar’s description was that the setting of Malinyah’s presentation seemed untouched. And the waterfall visions Pebbles described detailed the catastrophe, so the recording was obviously made post-disaster, but wherever Malinyah and her compatriots resided escaped annihilation. Good fortune? Dumb luck? Or had they been able to protect themselves with the technology they developed?
Picking up on Cesar’s commentary, Pebbles pointed to the map and asked, “What do you think the codes reference?”
“That I do not know,” Cesar replied.
“I’ve been thinking they mark where Story Stones were kept or taken instead of locations where other Life Stones can be found. Pacal told us there were five different Story Stone colors that he, Devlin and Dobson had seen in museums. The colors of the codes are the same as the Story Stone colors Pacal described,” she threw out for consideration.
Anlon said, “I was leaning in that direction too. But why do some groupings of codes on the map have more than others? Look here, at the tip of this land mass, all five are grouped together. But way over here, only two are shown. Each grouping is different.”
“I see what you mean. Maybe there’s more information on the Master Stone? Or the other Story Stone? We haven’t even looked at that one yet,” Pebbles suggested.
Cesar interjected, “Maybe Devlin didn’t get a chance to finish coding the map before he died? But I think you’re right Eleanor, the answers to your questions are on the Stones you have here.”
Cesar, Anlon and Pebbles talked for another hour about Devlin, myths and the Life Stones before the long overnight of travel finally caught up to Cesar. After the third extended yawn of the afternoon, Anlon suggested they wrap up. “Cesar, I think you might just rock over and fall asleep if we keep going! How about we drive you to the hotel I booked for you? You can get your things settled in the room, freshen up and we can grab a light dinner in the hotel pub when you’re ready to come down.”
Shadows of the Stone Benders (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 1) Page 25