“What is wrong?” the man asked.
Cam closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He leaned over and peered in again. This time he could not wrench his eyes away. He swallowed and fumbled for his camera, afraid the image would somehow disappear if he did not record it immediately. He snapped a shot and stared at the display screen, as if seeing it on the camera somehow made it more real than on the stone itself. There was no doubt.
“What is it?” Carrington asked.
“It’s too good to be true, is what it is,” he answered as he snapped another shot. “It’s a Hooked X.”
Hooked X Mark on Westford Knight Carving
“A what?” Zuberi asked.
Cam shivered, his body reacting either to the cold or, more likely, to the discovery. “An X, with an extra fork on the upper right stem. It’s a runic character that has been found on rune stones in North America, but never in Europe or Scandinavia. If this is real…”
He lifted his head to study his guests. Was there any way they could have somehow planted this? He bent over again and peered at the carving, using a jeweler’s loupe to examine the carving closer. The carved areas were smooth and uniform, the result of decades if not centuries of weathering. This was not a modern hoax. And it was clearly an intentional, deliberate mark—the carving, located just where an artist would sign a portrait, was oriented in the same direction as the sword and knight, and the mark itself was offset by a deep dot on either side of the X, a kind of punctuation often found in runic inscriptions.
After what must have been several minutes, Cam lifted his head again. Carrington and Zuberi were staring at him, waiting. He realized he was being rude. Rude to the people who may have just rewritten the history books. He took a deep breath. “Like I said, we’ve seen this character on other carvings. And we’ve always theorized these other carvings were related to Prince Henry Sinclair. But we never had any proof.” He smiled at Carrington. “It’s possible your husband just found conclusive proof your ancestors were here a hundred years before Columbus.”
Seven months had passed, but Cam still smiled at the memory. The discovery had occurred on Columbus Day, of all things.
He and Amanda had returned the next day, and for many days thereafter, using three dimensional imaging and other technologies and experts to evaluate the carving. In the end, it came down to the science: The weathering of the Hooked X matched the weathering of the sword, and the tool used to carve each was the same. Whoever had carved the Westford Knight had also carved the Hooked X.
The finding had been a tipping point, finally swaying many of the skeptics who had rejected evidence of European exploration of America before Columbus. The mark tied the Westford Knight carving to Minnesota’s Kensington Rune Stone, Maine’s Spirit Pond Rune Stones and Rhode Island’s Narragansett Rune Stone—carvings separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years. No longer could skeptics claim that each of these was its own, freestanding hoax. Instead, the skeptics were left to argue that the four carvings were part of some unknown, convoluted, centuries-old conspiracy. But the argument fell flat. In a classic application of Occam’s Razor—the principle that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected—the public sensed the truth: The carvings were authentic.
Cam had quickly incorporated the Hooked X discovery into what was scheduled to be a December release of Across the Pond. He then spent several months following the book’s release lecturing and doing radio and television interviews. Now, finally, the launch of the book behind him, he had settled into a routine that allowed him to continue his research.
He dialed Zuberi’s number.
“Cameron, hello!”
“Hello Zuberi. How are you?”
Zuberi spoke loudly and slowly, aware that his thick accent might be difficult to understand. “I wonder if you have chance more to think about our offer?”
After the discovery of the Hooked X, Zuberi and Carrington had insisted on taking Cam and Amanda out to a late dinner to celebrate. As the evening wore on, Carrington—dressed in a pantsuit from the 1990s and frequently looking to her husband for permission before venturing an opinion—became increasingly enthusiastic about the idea of teaching the Prince Henry Sinclair story in American schools. Why should it be so readily dismissed as legend, she argued, when the evidence was so compelling? Cam and Amanda had dismissed the proposal as one of those fleeting dinner-table ideas sparked by good food and a few glasses of wine. Cam had been shocked when an email arrived a week later outlining their idea of endowing a chair at a Boston-area university to focus on the study of pre-Columbian history—and proposing that Cam’s rear end sit in that chair.
But Cam thought this had been resolved. “As I wrote back to you, I was very flattered to be considered for this job but I am not a professor. I am not even technically a historian.” He majored in history in college but did not hold a master’s degree. “Plus I don’t really like the idea of being part of academia.” It was the academic types, in fact, who were the biggest naysayers when it came to the idea of explorers arriving before Columbus. He wanted to research, not spend his days debating and arguing. “I don’t really think I’m the right person for the job.”
“This is what makes you perfect man for job!” Zuberi bellowed. “If we want professor egghead we hire professor egghead. But we want someone who is outsider. Someone with passion and energy and mind open.” The egghead comment caused Cam to recall Zuberi rubbing his bald head during dinner with his one good hand. Amanda had commented that she thought he looked like Yul Brynner in The King and I with his piercing brown eyes and dark, angry eyebrows. The Egyptian lowered his voice and continued. “The job pays very well, Cameron.”
The money was tempting. Amanda worked part-time as a museum curator, but once they got married the plan was to have a baby or two. Cam’s law practice generated enough income to support a single guy, but not a growing family. Book royalties were climbing, but Cam had earmarked that money for Astarte’s college fund. “Honestly, I’m tempted. But I want to spend more time researching, not less.”
“This job is to allow you to do research!”
Cam laughed. “No, it will allow me to sit in faculty meetings and grade papers and defend myself from attacks from the mainstream historians. Maybe twenty years from now, but this is not the right time.” He glanced at his watch; speaking of time, the certified letter would have to wait as the post office had just closed.
“The world, it changes quickly,” Zuberi said. The Egyptian was probably only a few years older than Cam, but he had a worldly air about him that made him seem much older. And his wealth gave him a self-assuredness that bordered on arrogance. “So you think more and I phone you next week. Say hello to Amanda.”
Cam laughed again. He did not want to be rude. “Okay, Zuberi. Our best to Carrington. Bye.”
“Professor Thorne,” he whispered as he restarted the engine. He shook his head—it didn’t sound right. And it didn’t feel right, either.
Zuberi’s Friday afternoon meeting with the Brandeis officials was not going well. Which meant it was going precisely as Zuberi expected. Zuberi and two others sat around a conference room table that overlooked a pond on the edge of the campus; Zuberi scowled at the modern art adorning the room’s walls while a waiter served coffee, tea, and bottles of flavored water.
The History department chair—a bookish, older man wearing an oversized beige blazer and a pair of thick glasses that sat crooked on his nose—complained that the field of pre-Columbian history was a fringe area of study that would taint the reputation of the entire university. Zuberi tried not to roll his eyes: The Americans, like most cultures, spun their history to support their idealized view of themselves. For example, he had recently read that the Spaniards built a thriving community in Santa Fe, New Mexico a decade before the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower. But nobody ate gazpacho on Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, the associate dean—a toothy, sharp-featured, wavy-hair
ed woman in a navy blue suit—was trying to pay lip service to the concerns of the department head while at the same time working to ensure the fat fish on her line did not swim off to nibble at another university’s bait. It was the classic good cop, bad cop routine, but the fact they were meeting at all, and the inclusion of the course listing in the fall catalog, meant that Zuberi had already won. They would eventually agree to his proposal; it was just a matter of him making an offer too good to refuse. As the department head rambled on about the absence of any solid evidence proving exploration before Columbus, Zuberi contorted his face into a look of pensive concern and recalled the old Winston Churchill joke one of his new Scottish friends had told him:
“Madame,” Churchill said in a bar to a well-dressed, middle-aged woman. “Would you be willing to sleep with me tonight for a million pounds?”
“Well,” the woman stammered, fixing her hair and blushing, “I am very flattered, sir. Yes, yes I suppose I would.”
Churchill smiled and bowed. “Excellent. Now, would you be willing to do so instead for five pounds?”
The woman’s eyes widened. Exhaling, she slapped Churchill’s face. “I never! Five pounds? What kind of woman do you think I am?”
He bowed again. “I believe we have already established that, my dear. Now we are merely haggling over price.”
That’s what was happening here. The department head was simply haggling over price. Zuberi replied to the academic, smiling sideways at the dean as he did so. “My wife and I believe absence of evidence of early explorers is because American universities ignore this corner of history. If universities have resources,” here he paused and sipped his water, “and if universities have financial commitment, we believe evidence can be found.” He raised an eyebrow. “And as I say, my wife and I stand behind our belief with generous endowment.” He shrugged, continuing to focus on the department head. “Of course, we know nothing about how it works inside university history department. Our hope is to write check, help select professor—we think the author Cameron Thorne is good choice—and then go away.” He flicked his fingers to the sky. “We trust university such as Brandeis knows how best to use the money.” It wasn’t a bribe, but it was pretty damn close. No doubt the department head had some pet projects he would love to fund or perhaps a nephew or even a mistress he needed to put on the payroll.
Zuberi played his final card. “As I say, Brandeis is our first choice, as our son Amon is freshman here in September. But we understand if you are not interested. Then we will have meetings with other universities.”
He sipped his water. Normally he didn’t like flavorings in his water, but he had to admit this tasted pretty good.
Tamara Maxson watched the door close behind Zuberi Youssef, waited a few seconds to be sure he was out of earshot, and spoke into the American flag pin she wore on the lapel of her blazer. “He’s gone. Come on in.”
A back door opened and a paunchy, forty-something man marched in. Tamara turned to the elderly professor. “Thank you for your time, professor. You played your part expertly.”
He shrugged and smiled. “I treated a fool with impatient disdain. It was an easy part to play.”
“Shabbat Shalom,” she said, shaking his hand.
“And to you, Dean Maxson.” He checked his watch. “I am always happy to help the Mossad. But not even you can protect me from my wife if I don’t make it home with the Shabbat groceries before sunset. Goodbye.”
The paunchy man dropped into the professor’s vacated seat and exhaled, the smell of tuna fish wafting across the desk. Tamara waved the air away with a legal pad. Moshe was a brilliant and lethal field agent, but he had the social graces of a warthog. He spoke. “He’s up to something, no doubt.”
“But what?”
Moshe scratched at his skull with his fingernails, propelling small flakes of dry skin to settle on his brown sweater vest. “Could it be as simple as it appears on the surface? Is he trying to pump up the Sinclair name with this Prince Henry bullshit to elevate his social status?”
Tamara shook her head. “It’s never that simple with Youssef. He plays chess while the rest of us play checkers; there’s always a game behind the game.” One of the leading arms dealers in the world and by far the largest in the Middle-East, Youssef thrived during times of even-sided war, where both sides inflicted heavy damage but neither succeeded completely. He had, in fact, occasionally aided Israel when it appeared the Arabs might gain the upper hand. “And don’t forget, it’s not just the Sinclair name he is trying to glorify. He’s also pushing this Princess Scota stuff.”
“Which will enhance the standing of Egyptians in Scotland,” Moshe added. “But, again, why? You can’t convince me he cares two shits about what country club he belongs to or whether some Scottish tightwad invites him over for dinner.”
Tamara cocked her head. “I disagree. I think he does care about this stuff, if for no other reason that he has aspirations for his children. Why else would he marry the Sinclair woman? But you are right, there is more to this than just social standing.”
“Well, we’ll just have to play it out.”
“Brandeis is not going to be happy about having this Thorne character teach here.” Brandeis had agreed to give Tamara a fancy title and an office as a cover, but they got a bit prickly when the Mossad’s mission crossed over into academia.
Moshe waved the comment away. “Like it really matters if anyone came over before Columbus; the Native Americans were already here.” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Besides, Brandeis gets to keep Youssef’s money.”
“So what next?” she asked. Technically Moshe was senior to her, though he rarely pulled rank.
“I say we dig into this Thorne guy a little deeper. For some reason Youssef has a hard-on for him. Why? What makes Thorne so special?”
“New plan,” Cam announced as he opened the front door. Amanda stood in the kitchen, stir-frying chicken and vegetables, while Astarte set the table. “After dinner, let’s get our camping stuff and do a sleep-over in the stone chamber.”
“Yeah!” Astarte replied, running to meet him with a hug in the foyer. “Can we make s’mores?”
“Of course.” Cam kissed Amanda and grabbed a mushroom from the pan. “We can’t light a fire inside the chamber but we can definitely have one outside the entrance.” He turned to Amanda. “You up for it?”
“What about your trip to Washington?”
Cam had accepted an offer to visit the Masonic House of the Temple in Washington, D.C., the headquarters for Scottish Rite Freemasonry for most of the country. “My flight leaves at ten. We’ll just get up early.”
She paused and chewed her lower lip. “Fine with me; you don’t have to ask twice to get me to go camping.”
“What? I know that look.”
She stabbed at the vegetables. “I just don’t fancy you going to Washington. I don’t trust Randall Sid.” Randall Sid was a high-ranking Freemason from Boston whose twin brother, Morgan, had lured Cam and Amanda into a plot to assassinate a U.S. Senator, a scheme that was foiled only after a young CIA operative had been killed and Cam and Amanda’s lives endangered. Randall had not been part of the stratagem, but he did feel responsibility for his twin’s crimes. Whether out of a sense of guilt, or because Randall believed Cam’s research and glorification of Masonic history was helping spur membership, Randall had over the past many months offered Cam rare and increasingly revealing access to Masonic secrets and lore. “He’s using you, Cameron. His brother was a murdering scoundrel, and I fancy Randall even less.”
“I don’t trust him either. And I agree he’s a cold fish. But you can’t put a price on the information he has been sharing with me.”
“Yes,” she sighed. “And that’s what’s bothering me. To those whom much is given, much is expected.” She fixed her eyes on his. “What do they expect from you?”
Cam tried to keep things light. “At least with him I know my enemy. Unless you think he’s the one wh
o dropped me into Boston Harbor.”
“I just don’t trust them.”
“You’ve been reading too many conspiracy theories. The Masons are harmless. Heck, even Venus’ veterinarian is an active member. And you like him fine.”
She smiled. “That’s because he gives Venus treats.”
Astarte bounced into the room, ending the conversation. After dinner Cam loaded the SUV with their sleeping bags and air mattresses, filled a backpack with supplies and snacks and retrieved a book from his library on stone structures of New England. He was fairly certain the chamber was ancient, but there were certain construction techniques that would help date it and also help determine whether the structure was Native American or European.
An hour later, in the twilight, Cam pulled the SUV to a stop in front of the locked gate of the Groton property. Amanda unlocked the new lock Cam had installed and Cam drove to the old parking lot area.
“Should I lock it again?” she called as he and Astarte began to unload the SUV.
“Good question.” On the one hand he didn’t want a bunch of teenagers crashing into their chamber with a case of beer. But it seemed odd to lock themselves into their own property like some reclusive millionaire. “You know what, close it but don’t lock it. If anyone trespasses, Venus will hear them.”
“What’s that smell?” Astarte asked as a warm nighttime breeze washed over them.
Cam sniffed “What smell?”
“It smells like … Starbursts.”
“The candy?” Cam asked.
“I get a hint of it also,” Amanda said, approaching. “Sweet, like Astarte said.”
Cam shrugged. “Who knows? Let’s get away from the busy street.” He smiled. “Time to find some nature.”
By the time they approached the chamber on the back side of the rise in the rear of the parcel, almost a quarter mile from the road, the sounds and smells of civilization had faded away. Cam removed more debris from the chamber while Amanda made a fire and Astarte tried to catch fireflies in a paper cup.
The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Templars in America Series Book 5) Page 6