“Your uncle. I said I never met him. Not that I didn’t know where he was.”
67
Most older Catholic churches contain small crypts, often located beneath the altar, for bishops and other important clergy and occasionally notable laypeople. Basilica San Francisco was no exception. Something Morton was aware of but still utterly fascinated to see in person.
As was Angela.
The long, wide underground passage was lined with the same light-colored brick, faded over centuries, with deep, jagged cracks in the mortar. Their footsteps eerily echoed with every stride.
Dozens and dozens of bronze plaques lined the walls, where many of the church’s former priests and clergy lay permanently entombed. It was a long, surreal walk until they reached the end, where Velez approached a wall of smaller squares made from smooth black iron with small round holes in each.
The deacon withdrew something from his cassock--a long, black key Angela didn’t remember him picking up and inserted it into one of several unmarked doors. But instead of turning the key, he stepped back.
“Your uncle was cremated, something we are reluctant to do, but Father Mamani seemed to condone in this case. He never told me why.”
Angela wordlessly stared at the small door.
“I’ve never opened it,” said Velez. “And don’t know what’s inside. I think that’s something for you to do.” With that, he stepped further back. “I’ll be waiting upstairs.”
The two watched Velez calmly retreat the way they had come, disappearing back up the stone steps. The sound of his footsteps faded into silence.
Angela blinked at Morton and then looked back at the long, black key protruding from the hole.
“You want me to leave?” asked Morton.
“No. I don’t.”
With a deep breath, she inched forward until directly in front of the key. Still trembling, she raised her right hand and grasped the end of it…and turned.
The door swung open without a sound, revealing a dark rectangular cavity approximately three feet deep.
The first object she withdrew was a wallet of brown marred leather which held several items inside. Her great-uncle’s wallet. It contained small folded pieces of paper that appeared to be letters with faded scribbling, as well as several black-and-white photos. All the pictures were of people she did not recognize--except one. A woman sitting in a chair with her head turned toward the camera. She had long dark wavy hair, youthful eyes and only a hint of a smile.
Morton looked at it over her shoulder. “Who’s that?”
“My great-grandmother.”
She exhaled and reached up again, this time pulling out a long silver chain with two flat tabs with etchings on each. Her uncle’s dog tags. Next was his passport. Old and just as faded with a thin band wrapped around it.
Angela unwrapped it and carefully opened the booklet, catching just in time a small card that fell out. It was made of thick paper and was covered in strange writing.
Unable to read it, she handed it to Mike, who shook his head.
Next was a leather-bound book, also wrapped. And then the last item, waiting patiently in the dark cavity behind the rest, was a square wooden urn with the name Roger Reed carved neatly across the front.
Angela handed the book to Morton and reached up with both hands to carefully retrieve the urn, quietly staring at it for a very long time.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
She then carefully turned the box, examining it. She had found her uncle where no one would have ever expected. In South America. In the basement of an ancient church, cremated in a plain wooden box, where he would have been lost forever if not for his letter.
Angela remained still as she contemplated, before exhaling and lowering the box to the floor.
“I’m glad you found him,” Morton said.
She smiled. “Me too. For him and my grandfather.”
“A man who never gave up on his older brother.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Angela took the book and untied the leather band around it. It contained what appeared to be about a hundred thin sheets of paper. Some spotted, some with stains, but each covered in meticulous handwriting.
Page by page, she flipped through it, scanning. Occasionally stopping to read more, slowing more and more often toward the end of the book.
“It’s his journal,” she finally whispered.
“Does it say what happened?”
She flipped to the back and read without a sound, before finally shaking her head. “But it does say what he found.”
Morton’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
Slowly, Angela’s face changed to a subtle grin. “Like IT.”
68
Alerta, Peru
September 7th, 1956
It was getting harder to breathe. The symptoms were progressing faster than predicted and he was vomiting almost daily now.
It was malaria. The ancient virus birthed from the remains of mosquitos trapped for centuries in amber to become one of man’s deadliest infectious diseases, especially in warm tropical climates.
Roger Reed wiped the sweat from his forehead, unable to tell anymore how much of the perspiration was from the jungle heat and how much from the sickness. He had no idea where he’d gotten it. Sandia? Caican? There was no way to know, but he couldn’t stop wondering. Maybe it was true. Maybe the area was cursed. And his discovery was the ultimate punishment.
His head was pounding as it had been for days, made worse by lack of food. Reed hadn’t eaten in…
He wasn’t sure anymore. Three days?
It was a curse. It had to be. No amount of coincidence would allow him to search for all these years, only to kill him upon finally finding it. No thanks to the bastard Percy Fawcett. Or the Nazis.
Fawcett’s secret letter had been a ruse. Vague hints at what he had found laced with half-truths and misdirection carefully woven throughout to prevent anyone else from finding it until Fawcett was ready. A letter only his family possessed and that was later stolen by Nazi researchers during the war.
But Reed had slowly pieced it all together, meticulously studying Fawcett’s writings as if they were a bible. Over and over. Just like Heinrich Schliemann had sifted word by word through Homer’s Iliad. But the Iliad wasn’t intentionally filled with misleading details.
Over the years, Roger Reed had come to despise Fawcett. He would have given up entirely had he not finally located Fawcett’s first major landmark in Tangara de Serra, barely a year after Reed had disappeared from the Army.
How could he have known it would take so long? That his ambition would turn to obsession, and that he would have to live his lie far longer than he ever thought? Hiding. Unable to contact anyone, even his own family, if for nothing else but to let them know he was alive, for fear the Army would find out where he’d disappeared to.
He knew they were looking for him. They had to be. Even now. Because someone else must have known. Someone had to have also seen the documents Reed found in the caves. Soldiers were crawling all over the place. The notion that he was the only one was impossible.
It was a find of unimaginable proportions. Virtually every project the Nazis had worked on—all documented, filed, boxed and stowed away in an underground cave deep in the mountains of central Germany to ensure the rise again of the Nazi party.
Reed’s thoughts returned to his family. What had the Army told them about their son? Missing in action? AWOL? No, they would have to claim he was a traitor. Of course, they would. Brand him a traitor to get him to surface and clear his name. But they were wrong. It wouldn’t work. Reed wouldn’t bite. He wasn’t stupid or weak. He wouldn’t surface. He couldn’t. Not until he found what he was after. Only then would he have the power to clear his name.
But Fawcett had ruined it. Ruined it all. Fawcett and his goddamn antics had slowly destroyed Reed’s life, causing him to spend a decade just to prove he was right.
Ano
ther wave of nausea washed over him and Reed closed his eyes, waiting it out. He opened them again to see the faint outline of the jungle rising before him, foreboding and motionless in the darkness, waiting to take him one last time.
For good this time. He could feel it.
He reached in and withdrew the small envelope from his pocket. Wrinkled, but still securely sealed. Written several days before, before his symptoms had gotten so bad. A letter to his brother, who would be more than old enough now.
Roger Reed stared at the letter, squinting in the darkness, barely able to make out the lettering in those predawn hours. Why did it have to be sent from Alerta again? He couldn’t remember. Then it came back. That’s right. In case the Army intercepted it. Alerta was far enough away to keep them from discovering the secret. Father Mamani had a brother there, and Roger could stay with him while waiting for Gerald, unless he had to retreat back to La Paz for more medication.
Gerald would know how to decode the last letters. He would remember that Fawcett’s first trip was to La Paz. Then he could find the church, if need be.
Reed closed his eyes again, trying to relax. The malaria was making it hard to concentrate. But he would fight through it. He had to. He needed help. Someone he could truly trust, and someone who would understand just how important all of this was.
Someone who could tell his mother and father he was still alive. That the pain they had endured was not in vain. And that what he did, he did not for himself but for the world. Because something had to be done to keep it from the Nazis.
Thousands of them had left Germany and were now crawling all over South America. God forbid there was another copy of Percy Fawcett’s letter floating around somewhere.
He would give his brother Gerald three weeks before sending another letter. This one to his father.
Unfortunately, the disease had taken a stronger hold on Reed’s system than he knew. And just like the thousands of American lives already claimed by malaria throughout the South Pacific, Reed’s would be yet another. His symptoms were about to worsen dramatically.
There would be no second letter.
69
Angela waited patiently for Mike, who was sitting quietly in a pew before the basilica’s stunning and somewhat intimidating altar. Where a massive crucifix, Christ on the cross made of solid white marble, stared down at him with mournful eyes.
She quietly approached and sat next to him just as Morton slipped another pill into his mouth.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded. “It’s been getting worse.”
“Your heart?”
He nodded.
She slid closer and stared up at the statue. “How long ago did you lose her?”
“Who?”
“Your wife.”
Morton lowered his head. “A long time. Seven years. Seven long years.”
“You miss her.”
“Very much.”
“I bet she was a wonderful woman.”
“She was,” he said without looking up. “Truly wonderful. And perfect. At least for me.”
Angela gently placed a hand on his heavy shoulder.
Morton’s voice wavered slightly. “I…miss her…so much. Sometimes I don’t know why—” When he looked up, tears glistened in his eyes. “Every memory I have has her in it. I can’t even remember living without her. Until now.” He frowned. “I can still smell her. Hear the way she laughed. And sometimes, if I really try, I can still feel how soft her hands were. On my face.”
Angela slid closer. “I’m sorry, Mike.”
He blinked and both tears fell, hitting his dark cheeks. “It’s funny. When you lose someone you really love, you forget all the things you didn’t like. Things that irritated you.” He looked at Angela. “Now I can’t remember a single one. Nothing that I didn’t love.”
“I’m starting to feel some of that with my grandfather. Even the differences I do remember just feel stupid now.”
He looked up at the altar. “Nothing else matters, Angela. Nothing. Take it from me, an old man who’s seen a hell of a lot in his day. Too much. Of how the world really is. And I’m here to tell you none of it matters. None of it. Just love. It’s our only real protection against the world out there. Everything else is just some veiled disguise of meaninglessness. You just have to realize it in time.”
“I believe you.”
Morton reached over and patted her knee. “I’m glad you were strong enough to come here. And I’m sorry for everything that’s happened to you. Truly.”
She leaned closer and hugged his arm. “Thank you. I guess some of us just end up traveling a rougher road.”
“It’s true. But then again, not everyone can make it. Even on an easier path. You must come from a strong family. And strong parents.”
Angela grinned.
“Come to think of it, I don’t recall you mentioning anything about your parents.”
She stared straight ahead and shrugged. “I didn’t have any.”
“What do you mean?”
“I never knew my father. And my mother died. During childbirth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I never met my mother, but I knew a lot about her. She liked peanut butter and banana sandwiches,” Angela said, smiling. “She was strong though. Abandoned by my birth father, she never looked back. Held down a job and went to school at night while getting ready to raise a daughter. She was really something.”
“I’ll bet she was.”
“While I was being delivered, she began hemorrhaging. Badly. And they couldn’t stop it in time. It was a freak thing, especially these days, but they were able to save me. We only knew each other for a few minutes.”
Morton sighed. “Hence being raised by your grandparents.”
“Right.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sure she would have been proud of you. Really proud. You’re quite a young woman.”
Angela chuckled. “Believe me, I have a lot of flaws.”
“We all do. Doesn’t make you any less impressive,” he said. “I even looked you up.”
“Huh?”
“On the internet. I looked you up.”
Angela gave him a perplexed look. “How? When?”
“My trailer has a satellite dish with a data connection. You have a pretty impressive bio.”
“I don’t remember seeing a dish on your trailer.”
“It was dark,” he shrugged. “But you’re still a very impressive young woman. With or without the flaws. I think you’re going to do great things.”
“Thank you. I think I can speak for both me and Joe when I say we’re lucky to have met you down here.”
“Likewise.”
Angela thought of something and looked around. “Where is Anku?”
“I don’t know. He wanders off a lot, which is really annoying in the jungle,” he said, grinning.
She laughed and looked at Morton. “So, tell me, Mike, what is it that you think you’ll find out there?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Could be anything. And I mean that literally.”
“What do you mean?”
He tilted his head, thinking. “You remember what I said about that old satellite?”
Angela nodded. “You said it detected all the different types of energy converging on one spot.”
“That’s right. The truth is, I really don’t know what it is,” he said. “Energy is a very strange thing.”
“Energy is strange?”
“Very. At the most fundamental level, energy is a bunch of electrons and protons, just like everything else, including us. But the way it behaves in the real world is very different from anything else.
“When it comes to physics, energy and mass are so tightly related that in some situations they can become one another. Energy can become mass, and mass can become energy. In fact, another kind of energy, called kinetic energy, or what we call pressure, can actually change the very nature of other
molecules.”
“How so?”
“For example, if you put the metal mercury under enough intense pressure, that mercury will actually start to defy gravity and climb right out of the container.”
“What?!”
“Yep. Or if you apply enough energy to an oxygen molecule, it becomes a solid and turns blood red.”
“I had no idea.”
He nodded. “Even Einstein knew there was something very unique about energy, which is why he believed in reincarnation. Because energy, like what we have inside of us, cannot just disappear. Energy has to go somewhere. So the question is, where does it go? Or even better, what does it become?”
“That’s starting to sound a little spooky.”
“I agree. Energy is spooky. In fact, if you really want spooky, look at dark energy.”
“What’s dark energy?”
“That’s the big question. Astronomers don’t even know. But they do know, without a doubt, that everything we see in the universe—all the stars, all the planets, all the galaxies—everything that is visible even with our giant telescopes, only comprises ten percent of all the matter in the universe.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. But we can see it and we can measure it. This also means that ninety percent of all the matter, or mass, in the universe cannot be seen. In fact, it can barely be detected. But we know it’s there because we can measure the mass that we can see and its effects on things. And ninety percent is missing.”
“So what does that mean?”
“What it means,” said Morton, “is that most of our universe cannot currently be seen, let alone understood. But what we have figured out is that of the missing ninety percent, approximately thirty percent of that is what we call dark matter—matter we cannot see. Likely huge amounts of mass that does not reflect or produce light.
“But what’s really weird,” Morton said, “or rather spooky, is the rest of the universe. The remaining sixty percent, which is made up of energy itself. Energy we cannot see or measure, or even understand. But we already know from our own limited capabilities and experiments that energy, especially intense levels of energy, can and does do very strange things. Like I said, matter and energy turning into one another, theories of something after, and even the ability to change behaviors of certain fundamental elements. So, what happens if different forms of energy were to all converge in one place and even amplify each other?”
The Last Monument Page 21