Guardians of the Four Shields: A Lost Origins Novel

by A D Davies

  Professor Garcia held a fist to her mouth, blew into it, and mimicked her hand exploding.

  “Disappears.”

  She stared wide-eyed at the students, a few of them murmuring. It wasn’t clear if they were impressed or wondering if it was worth getting into so much debt over such fantastical theories. Charlie wondered how Garcia got this curriculum past the board. It certainly wasn’t the sort of mainstream learning taught at these places, so she guessed this was an extra credit class.

  “But then,” Garcia said, killing the projector and turning up the lights, “if there was firm archaeological evidence for such creatures, we could drop the word ‘legends’ from this class, couldn’t we?”

  Garcia ended the lesson on a static smile, and the students hustled out, some in silence, others already moving on to the next conversation. Once the auditorium emptied, Charlie led Toby and Harpal down the stairs, calling to the professor as she went.

  Sally Garcia looked up from gathering her items and books. She beamed their way and poked her round spectacles up her nose. “Oh, hi. You’re the visiting professors from Oxford? So brilliant to meet you.”

  Harpal had arranged for visas based on the three of them entering the United States for academic reasons. Colin Waterston, an alum of both Oxford and Eton, had rubber-stamped their credentials in exchange for Toby relaying all he had unearthed regarding the chamber beneath St Bernard’s.

  “That’s right,” Charlie said, arriving at ground level. “I’m Charlie Locke, this is Toby Smith and Harpal Singh.”

  As Professor Garcia shook their hands in turn, a new face showed itself. It was clean-shaven, borne atop a smart suit and tie, and was attached to a six-foot man with broad shoulders, thick black hair, and a facial tattoo that marked him as a native of the South Pacific—either born there or culturally immersed. As he wandered closer, Charlie pegged him as Maori rather than Polynesian or Hawaiian. The tattoo was etched in the lines of his face, representative of who he was, and of his life to date. He was older than the typical student here, too, but difficult to pin down, anything from early twenties to early thirties, although Charlie erred toward the middle.

  “My teaching assistant,” Professor Garcia said. “Tane Wiremu. Incredible asset.” Her eyebrows bobbed at Charlie and she stage-whispered, “Just need to get an excuse to teach my class on the beach and insist on Speedos as mandatory. Am I right?”

  She held up a hand for a high-five, which Charlie stared at for a moment, before Harpal slapped it.

  “I’m down for that,” Harpal said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Garcia aimed a finger-gun at Harpal, then winked at Tane, who had started working his phone as if a social media emergency had suddenly taken priority.

  Without looking up, Tane chuckled and said, “Come on, Professor. You know that sexism works both ways these days.”

  It was a strong Kiwi accent; Charlie had been correct.

  Garcia laughed at him and patted his arm. “Oh, really. You kids and your notions.” She snapped out of flirty-drunk-aunt mode and reverted so quickly to serious academic that it was like she’d woken from a dream. “Right, you’re interested in some of my research, yes?”

  “Indeed,” Toby said. “Specifically, the intriguing possibility that the Alabama Freedom Museum may be host to more evidence that points towards something that conventional wisdom posits is very unlikely.”

  Charlie had heard much of Toby’s verbal diarrhea over the years and was never surprised when he outdid himself. Nor was Phil.

  In her ear, Phil said, “Listen, as much as I would love to let Toby regale me with his intentions, I think my mom is pulling up outside with the kids.”

  Charlie didn’t want him to go yet. “Tane Wiremu. That’s an interesting name and even more interesting tats. Maori?”

  The well-built teaching assistant finished whatever he was typing and smiled bashfully. “Got me. Student visa. Internship. Extra credit.”

  He gazed at Sally Garcia, an affectionate look that with less of an age gap Charlie would have assumed romantic. Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t be so judgmental. Was it beyond the realm of possibility that they could be an item? Fiftyish mad hippie prof seducing a strapping mid-twenties buck? Unlikely but not impossible.

  “Already running the background check,” Phil told her. “Not sure why he didn’t come up when we vetted Professor Garcia last week, though.”

  Phil went silent then, as he tended to their three children returning from Nana’s house for the few days that Charlie and Phil took care of Toby’s project in South and Central America. They hadn’t expected it to extend to the United States right away, so they couldn’t impose upon Phil’s mother any longer.

  “Is this a new thing?” Charlie asked Tane, hoping to glean a little info before Phil returned. “You working here?”

  “He simply fell into my life,” Garcia gushed. She opened her arms to the sky like an overdramatic Hollywood starlet auditioning for an epic. “Very open-minded, if you get what I mean.”

  “What she means is,” Tane said, “I’ve done my own research, and found her theories intriguing. Of course, she won’t tell me what she’s holding back.”

  Garcia wagged the finger at her teaching assistant. “Well, well, well. Maybe today I should pull back the curtain a little more. These fine people have come all the way from England.”

  She picked up her bag, while Tane scooped up the heavy books in a practiced manner, keeping his phone out and turned on. Both turned for the door. The professor looked back over her shoulder, her glasses slipping down her nose half an inch. She looked over at them.

  “That is, of course, if you’re not spies from the university board.”

  Harpal held up two hands, the surrender signal again. “We are not spies.” He narrowed his eyes and gave a cheeky smile. “Although, that’s what spies would say, isn’t it?”

  Both Sally Garcia and Tane Wiremu stared, assessing them as they might a disturbed grave.

  The professor laughed. “Okay, right this way, spies.”

  She flounced out of the room, with Tane chuckling at her back. Toby indicated the rest of them should follow, and Charlie was looking forward to what the woman might say.

  It was a quick jaunt down three corridors in which Tane received a couple of alerts that he simply had to answer, resulting in eye rolls from both Toby and Garcia.

  Kids and their phones, eh?

  The walk ended at a neat and tidy office. End to end shelves lined the far wall, straining with the weight of books, while a modern computer setup gave the sturdy-looking desk a twist towards the 21st century. A second desk facing this one possessed only a laptop and a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. The rest of the office comprised higgledy-piggledy bookcases containing smaller volumes, various awards, and photographs of Sally Garcia in exotic locations, on digs, and meeting several liberal politicians who Charlie recognized, and other dignitaries she didn’t.

  “So,” Garcia said, slumping into her creaky leather chair. “Any reason you think you have more info about the Alabama site than I do?”

  Toby took a tablet computer from his satchel and woke up the screen, which was already geared up with one of Sally’s videos. They had scrutinized this footage, Sally Garcia presenting to the camera while the picture remained static.

  Tane ceased working his phone and circled around her side of the desk where he leaned closer to the tablet than she did, frowning. “These are the landowners who wouldn’t let you excavate, aren’t they?”

  Sally nodded and indicated Toby should lower the tablet. “There’s a rich cultural history on that land, a violent and sad crime that lasted way too long. I hated to push the matter, but I think there’s an even older injustice.”

  “Meaning?” Charlie asked. She heard her own voice coming across as accusatory, and added, “Professor Smith has his own ideas, so it would be interesting to see how they gel.”

  “Honey?” Phil said in Charlie’s ear.

  Charlie coughed
once, drawing Tane’s attention. She covered her mouth and coughed more forcefully, excusing herself and stepping aside.

  “What can you bring to this?” Sally Garcia asked Toby.

  “We may be able to negotiate access to this site,” Toby replied. “Others from our institute are out there now. But we would need to understand why you are certain there’s something to find. And what coordinates you have calculated.”

  “Hmm.” The professor steepled her fingers and slung her legs up on the desk, crossing one leg over the other. “You want me to show you what’s up my skirt, but you don’t want to drop your trousers first.”

  Phil asked, “What the hell is she talking about?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that,” Toby said. “But I’ll happily show you something.”

  He passed the tablet to Harpal and rummaged in his satchel again, producing the smaller codex loaned by Father Pandi in Mexico.

  Garcia put her feet on the floor and reached for the trade paperback-sized journal. Exaggerated wonder elongated her features. “I’ve seen that symbol before.”

  She meant the figure eight made up of the two bangles’ shape embossed on the front.

  “You have more?” Charlie asked. She pretended she was asking Garcia, but Phil would know she had directed it at him.

  He said, “It’s about the T.A.”

  Charlie couldn’t help flitting her eyes towards Tane, which drew his attention back to her. She returned to the object everyone else was watching, the leather-bound journal with an anonymous author.

  She said, “The dates in there suggest it was written in the early 1800s, although it may have been later if it was a retrospective. The paper is consistent with 19th-century work.”

  Tane did not take his eyes off Charlie. “Who is the author?”

  “As near as we can tell,” Toby said, “it looks like a man named Jacob Carr. He was an Irish chap, wealthy landowner, who—”

  “Freed his slaves, but kept a few as paid employees,” Sally Garcia finished for him. “I know the man. Sudden hit of conscience. Is it a coincidence that land records show his farm covered the area now occupied by the Alabama Freedom Museum?”

  “Do you want to hear this?” Phil asked.

  Again, so she could come across as speaking to both those in the room and the man in her ear, Charlie said, “Go ahead.”

  While Toby recounted their expedition, minus some elements like collapsing walls and ancient bangles, Charlie listened.

  “He seems clean,” Phil said. “Everything he has said makes sense. And his records back it up. New Zealand national, graduate of Christchurch University, BA honors in history, focusing on prehistoric human society. There’s a gap of a couple of years in terms of official documentation, but his social media gives us a lot of travel pictures and a bunch of motivational memes. Then he pops up here, student visa fast tracked, which is unusual for the United States, but I guess New Zealand is a friendly place. Immigration has him arriving four months ago, and social media shows he hooked up with Sally Garcia two weeks later.”

  Charlie had been nodding along as she listened, but Toby had stopped talking and all eyes were on her.

  “Yes,” she said, hoping to front it out, whatever she’d been asked.

  “Good, good,” Toby said. “So, Professor. You’ve seen what’s under my trousers. How about a glimpse up your skirt?”

  Garcia opened her mouth wide, her eyes bulging. “How dare you? What on earth do you think this is?”

  Tane put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Professor, you did it again. You… kind of started the analogy.”

  Professor Garcia leaned her head back in thought, then returned to Toby. “Of course. My skirt.”

  Phil said, “The thing is, this just feels a bit wrong.”

  Charlie made a discreet hmm noise, which again drew Tane’s attention.

  “It’s the timing.” Phil paused, but Charlie didn’t dare make a sound to encourage him, especially as the professor was recounting her path to finding the Alabama site. Finally, Phil continued. “You might think I’m paranoid. But the end of Tane’s official documentation gap, where he is mostly on social media, it’s about one week after Toby started talking to Alfonse about tapping up his contacts at the Vatican. I know it may be nothing, but security was my job before Dan’s.”

  Charlie sensed Tane’s gaze upon her again. She’d been staring at nothing, focused on the desk.

  Tane stood to his full height, unbuttoned his jacket, and marched towards Charlie. Harpal evidently read it as aggressive, gliding to cut him off. Charlie was briefly offended, since she could kick Harpal’s ass six ways from Sunday, but her annoyance dissipated as Tane diverted and landed an open hand solidly in Harpal’s chest. The blow sent him backwards, stumbling into Toby, who released the journal.

  Charlie had less than a second to decide: fight or flight.

  “Charlie?” Phil said. “Charlie, what’s going on?”

  She firmed up her stance and readied herself for a kick at the incoming man’s nuts. Or maybe his knee. She misread his approach, though, and he shot out his other hand, which grasped her by the scruff of the neck and dragged her forward.

  His strength was impressive, and she couldn’t resist. He bent her forward over the desk and pinned her down, but she was already thinking through how she needed to squirm only slightly to get an angle on that knee.

  Instead of beating her, he leaned over her and flicked the hair away from her ear.

  “Thought so,” Tane said. “There’s a bug in her ear.”

  Sally Garcia stood sharply, pressing herself back against the bookcase. “You are spies from the University board. You don’t want me to get my tenure. Who put you up to it? Was it that bitch Veronica Hardcastle? She’s always had it in for me.”

  As Toby and Harpal found their feet, Harpal readying a fighting stance, Tane drew a compact Glock from his jacket and pressed it against Charlie’s forehead. This froze everyone, and Charlie’s heart stepped up the pace, thundering adrenaline through her.

  “Don’t shoot,” Charlie said.

  “Shoot?” Phil repeated. “I’m calling 911 on your behalf.”

  “Who are you people?” Tane demanded. “That’s a micro transmitter, bone conducting technology, probably linked to a sat phone. Am I right?”

  “Play along,” Phil said. “Don’t deceive them. This guy knows what he’s talking about. That gap in his CV, it’s probably time with some intelligence service or another.”

  Charlie fought with the rising fear, the likelihood that they had walked into a trap ramping up. She attempted to engage the man. “New Zealand has intelligence services operating in the US?”

  “How do you know who I’m working for?” Tane asked.

  Still pinned to the desk, Charlie forced a smile. “You just told me.”

  Tane gave a single laugh and pulled her upright without wrenching her. He kept the gun out of reach, backed away and gestured for her to join Toby and Harpal. “Clever. Take out the bug.”

  “I’ll get someone there in minutes,” Phil said.

  Charlie shook her head. “The police are already on their way. Let us go and you’ll have a head start.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Professor Garcia said. “You’re the ones going to jail. Tane isn’t just my teaching assistant. He’s my bodyguard.”

  Chapter Eight

  Carson Estate, Alabama

  The lemonade tasted like actual lemons, which stimulated Jules’s saliva glands and enhanced both the sweetness and sourness inside his mouth. He assumed it was freshly squeezed, laced with lashings of sugar. This time, it was indeed a member of staff that brought it, and the young woman disappeared after leaving the tray on the glass-topped table where Bridget’s father, Roger Carson, hosted the gathering. They were outside, albeit under a shadowed patio umbrella. It was more bearable than in the sunlight, but Jules still wished he was wearing shorts and a vest, or else ensconced behind a wall with powerful air con
ditioning.

  Again, he wondered when he got soft in regards climate. He chose to accept it, a practice he’d lost since attempting a “normal” life, and immediately felt better, more focused.

  As Jules, Dan, and Bridget helped themselves to the drink, Roger Carson left his alone, condensation pouring down the sides. Bridget had already explained that Roger and his wife had taken time out of their busy schedule to supervise and facilitate her choice of academic options, their billion-dollar oil and securities empire able to cope without them for a couple of days. Still, Roger maintained a vigil over two cell phones, and his laptop remained open at all times. Bridget’s mom, Audrey, was in town shopping. Apparently, Bridget had no taste in formalwear.

  “My daughter tells me you’re here to ask a favor of us.” Roger Carson spoke with a deeper southern drawl than Bridget. He was in good shape, at least for a man his age, and filled out his open shirt well. He wore tan slacks and brown loafers, his only concession to an oil baron stereotype being his bushy mustache. He’d kept his hair thick and dark, although the copper pigmentation that he’d passed to his daughter was clear. “Something to do with the museum over the way.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Dan said. It was the politest Jules had ever heard him address someone. He sounded almost nervous. “We think there are items of significant cultural value to the United States lying undiscovered.”

  It was an approach they agreed upon earlier, appealing to the man’s patriotic duty, to his pride in his roots here in the South.

  “What sort of significance?” Roger Carson asked.

  “It’s about Jacob Carr,” Bridget said.

  Roger held a hand towards his daughter and smiled at Jules. “Thank you, dear, but I’d like the gentleman to explain it.” He angled towards Bridget. “You know what a soft touch I am when it comes to you.” Back to Jules. “Now, what can you possibly reveal that we don’t already know? The Alabama Freedom Museum has done some terrific work regarding our ancestors. And maybe yours, too.”