by Brandt Legg
Ninety minutes later, one of Booker’s presidential-type helicopters picked them up in Albuquerque to avoid suspicion. From there, against Booker’s wishes, they flew to Canyon de Chelly. The Navajo reservation was as far off the grid as one could get and still be within the continental United States. Booker knew the NSA would have a harder time locating them there, but he still wanted to stick to the original plan and get Gale, Rip, and the Eysen out of the country to one of his many offshore hideaways. Rip told him that they would need just a few hours there and could leave in the morning.
During the fifty-minute flight, Gale described the horrible scene at the church in Las Trampas where Larsen was killed. “Father Jak saved me because he knew what I was doing there. Somehow, Clastier was able to get his message across the decades through probably eight or nine priests. Even though they were Catholic, they preserved letters that went against their Church.” Gale’s eyes widened. “And do you know why? Because they believed Clastier was right.”
“Then what happened to the missing letters?” Rip asked, resisting the urge to kiss her. The impulse both surprised him and seemed natural.
“Maybe they were too controversial about the Church,” she said. “But that’s just it; they still believed it.”
“Then why continue in their ministries?”
“Maybe they tucked his message into their sermons; maybe they knew it wasn’t time.”
“So, where are the letters?”
“Still in that safe,” Gale said.
“No.” Rip looked at her sternly. “We are not going back. Anyway, you know they’ve been cleaned out by now.”
“I know,” Gale said. “I just wish we’d beaten Barbeau to San Cristobal.”
“We have enough.”
“Then let’s not risk going to Canyon de Chelly.”
“I need to talk to the shaman,” Rip said.
“Because of what Booker said about your destiny?”
“Yes,” he said. “There is something haunting me about all this.”
“The Conway part?”
“That, and the Divinations. That shaman knows something. I don’t know what, but I ended the conversation too soon.”
Gale just stared at him, smiling.
“What?” he asked, feeling self-conscious.
“You don’t sound like such a hardcore scientist anymore,” she said. “You’ve experienced synchronicity, meeting people you were meant to meet, and winding up in places where you were meant to be. You believe you lived a life as Conway, and that Clastier knew how to communicate through time.” She paused. “The Eysen gave you all that. It changed you.”
He nodded. “That’s why I have to see the shaman; I still don’t understand all of that. And if I’m going to decode the Cosega Sequence, I need to know what all of this means. What is the Eysen? Why did I find it?”
Chapter 68
Jaeger threw his jump rope at a subordinate. “What do you mean they aren’t there. You found Booker’s compound in Taos . . . empty!”
“We didn’t locate it in time,” the man said.
“Obviously,” Jaeger said, appalled. “There must be impressions. They didn’t escape in a tunnel, did they?” He yelled across the room. “Find something. Track back, give me everything.”
The technicians were programming computers to review all area satellite data. It would show them any flights in or out of the area by any type of craft. Road traffic was nearly impossible to trace, especially at night. There was just too much of it. But Jaeger drew a circle around Taos. “Follow everything that has moved inside of this for the past five hours.”
“That will take forever,” the man said.
“Then you better get started.” Jaeger began doing laps. “Where would they go?” He asked himself. “Find out where Barbeau is and check on the Vatican agents, and then get the cardinal on the phone.” He ran to the monitors. “Where the hell are you weasels?”
The Exsequor et Protector Ecclesiae was in the middle of his own crisis when the NSA called. It wasn’t a good time to talk, but there would never be a good time.
“Tell me Cardinal,” Jaeger began. “Where do you think they are?”
The cardinal was discouraged. If the NSA didn’t know where they were, his troubles had just increased infinitely. “Isn’t that your job?” he asked bitterly.
“Yes, it is my job to use data to find Gaines. It is yours to use knowledge to anticipate where he will go.”
“If I were Gaines, I would flee the country.”
“Would you? Aren’t there pieces to this cursed religious puzzle that he still needs? What happened in San Crisobal? Your man Nanski dead. Gale Asher. Would he go back there? The Pueblo? Chimayó? Some new sacred site that only you people know exists?”
“You listen to me, little man. God almighty may have forsaken his one true Church and you are playing a game of cat and mouse – a game! You think you have power? You think you even know what power is? You read a report that your own department created about what would happen to the world without the Church, and it scared you into making a deal with us.” The cardinal struggled to keep from smashing his phone. “Let me tell you what apparently you don’t realize. You won’t just have a mess to clean up if we crumble, you will fall with us. Catholicism is the pillar of Christianity, a faith your nation was founded on and is, like it or not, the force that still controls your government.”
“Are you done, Cardinal? With the lecture, I mean,” Jaeger said, “Because I don’t want the Church to fall anymore than you do. We don’t have to agree on the reasons or even the methods to prevent it. But I need to know where Gaines might have gone. The Vatican is a trove of secrets and intelligence, and it’s woven through this case. Don’t you get it? You are helping to bring about your own destruction. Open the damned vaults and let me help you.”
The cardinal could not tell him that the vaults had already been opened. That during the last few days, much of the Vatican’s treasures and priceless archives had been crated and moved to secret locations around the globe. The plan had been in place for decades, modified, and reviewed as recently as a few months earlier. The steps they never hoped to take, and even now the Pope clung to hope, as he stayed secluded, praying that they could still save their religion. But they had to be prepared, if they failed to secure the Ater Dies. The most important accoutrements of the Church needed to be saved for the day when it could rise again. “If I were Gaines, I would seek a member of the clergy,” the cardinal said.
“You aren’t serious?”
“The complex issues that Clastier raises, prophecies, reincarnation, healings, et cetera, and the god-like power of the Ater Dies, are too much for a scientist to comprehend and reconcile. He needs a person of faith to show him the way through. God is many things to many people. He wears different faces and is known by various names, but there is more in the universe that we cannot explain, than there is known.”
“Gaines is not going to a priest.”
“I agree that it’s doubtful,” the cardinal said impatiently. “For someone like him, it may be a Unity minister, a faith healer, a shaman, or even his father.”
Suddenly Jaeger knew exactly where Gaines had gone and so did the cardinal.
Chapter 69
Barbeau was parked on a seldom-used, narrow dirt road, leading to Taos Peublo. He’d been on his way to see the old shopkeeper who had accused Gaines of being Conway. His hope was that the crazy man could shed some light on Clastier. Barbeau had come to the conclusion that Clastier was the key to the entire case. Why else would Gaines and Asher repeatedly risk their lives and the Eysen to trace the life of the nineteenth century priest?
He’d pulled over to take the call. It was from someone he never expected to hear from even as crazy as things had become. And it turned out to be the most disturbing call of his life. Once the call was over, he pulled out his revolver and fired into the windshield. An explosion of shattered chunks of glass covered the hood of the car. Enough of it
had flown into the car that a pile fell from his lap as he got out and stood. He didn’t notice his face and arm were bleeding. All he wanted was a church to burn, or a priest to blame, but he was alone and there was no one to blame but himself.
After all these years his daughter had called, not to say she loved him or forgave him. She needed help. His only grandson, a seven year-old boy, was attending a Catholic school, not for religious reasons, but because it was the best private school they could afford in Los Angeles. A priest at the school had molested him.
“They aren’t going to do anything about it, Daddy,” she cried. “That monster is just getting transferred to another school. You’re the FBI; you have to arrest him or something!”
He couldn’t shake the sound of his daughter’s voice destroyed; the helplessness of her son’s stolen innocence. His daughter and his grandson had suffered something beyond crime. More proof that hell only exists on earth, growing like poison in paradise.
Finally, his badge, which had cost him his family, could be used to help. But even as he thought that, he had the realization that it was too late. Vengeance might be obtained, but the damage was indelible. If there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest and convict the priest, he would kill him. Even if they could get a conviction, Barbeau wanted to kill the priest, slowly, over several days.
Then it hit him; he had, in his possession, the means to destroy the entire Catholic Church, not just one priest, but all of them.
Barbeau had figured out where Gaines was going by good old-fashioned detective work. A pair of agents had been staking out Teresa’s house ever since the massacre in Las Trampas. When they reported that Gaines and Asher had shown up, Barbeau ordered them to follow at a safe distance. By the time Gale and Rip made it to Albuquerque and boarded Booker’s helicopter, Barbeau was in the air himself. The Bureau tracked their flight on radar. Barbeau and two agents landed not long after Gale and Rip. But Barbeau hadn’t wanted to risk detection. They set down in a remote section, where they had a couple of Jeeps waiting.
The plan was to drive in at first light. More agents were watching the rim with night vision. They had a pretty good idea of the section in which Gaines was hiding. The DIRT agents would cover the west side and Barbeau would take the east. He set it up that way because he wanted to talk to Gaines alone.
Barbeau didn’t sleep much. Under normal circumstances he didn’t like tents, but after the call from his daughter, he felt trapped and spent much of the night in front of the fire. It was only the thought of killing the priest who had hurt his grandson and seeing the Church fall; that kept him sane until morning.
The NSA and the cardinal didn’t tell each other, but they had both reached the same conclusion. Sean Stadler had reported the earlier meeting with the shaman; it was part of the file that had been shared with the Vatican. Jaeger liked it. Gaines needed a remote spot, with trusted friends, and a “great” spiritual adviser to sort out everything. He ran grids on the area and by late night, they had traced the flight. At dawn, the sky over Canyon de Chelly would be filled with parachuting Special Ops.
The cardinal had already sent Vatican agents to the Canyon. There were only two of them close enough, but they got there ahead of Barbeau and the NSA. The cardinal wanted Gaines alive, but if any other government or agency had a chance at getting him first, they were to kill him. “Bring me the Ater Dies,” the cardinal had said, “That is all that matters.”
Chapter 70
Rip’s old friends from the Navajo Nation, Tahoma and Mai, were waiting with horses and flashlights, having been notified by Booker to expect Gale, Rip, and Kruse. The helicopter had landed on the canyon floor, so the ride would not be long. As a precaution, the pilot moved it back to the nearby town of Shiprock. Several other AX agents loitered nearby; only Kruse would ride with them.
Tahoma greeted Gale, who introduced him to Kruse. They talked briefly about their last visit, when Tahoma had rescued her. She didn’t have great memories of the place; it reminded her of Sean’s betrayal and death, and the beginning of the split with Rip. Only the encounter with Sani-Niyol, the shaman, had been good.
Mai hugged Rip tightly and whispered into his ear. “Kiss me like one of us is about to go away forever and I’ll pretend to forget the past.”
“I am an archaeologist,” he replied. “I live in the past.”
“And we left our chance back there?” she said looking over at Gale.
“I’m learning that the past is more a part of the present than the moment we are actually in.”
“And what part does the past play in the future?” she asked, playfully.
“That’s what I’m here to discover,” Rip said as Gale came over. He helped her up onto her horse. Rip recalled his last nighttime ride. He’d known so little then.
Tahoma rode up next to Rip. “Old friend.”
“Forgive me for putting you at risk once again,” Rip said. “We’ll be gone with the sun.”
“Stay for a thousand suns, brother.”
They found Sani-Niyol meditating in front of a small campfire. Only after they had quietly sat around the fire did he look up, smiling. Tahoma asked the old shaman permission to add more wood. “Yes, please. So many to keep warm,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve returned.”
“Thank you,” Rip said sitting next to him. “I was hoping you could help me understand a few things . . . about the past.”
“The past is always singing. We just ignore the music.”
Rip nodded knowingly. “When we last spoke, you mentioned a man named Conway. As I understand it, he spent his lifetime trying to suppress the very thing I am trying to preserve. And yet, you claim he and I were the same.”
“Karma brought you here. She is not so difficult to understand once you realize that Karma never forgets, but it is not a grudge she is holding. It is your hand as she lovingly guides you back to the light.”
Rip thought about that for a moment. “So, if I had not lived a bad life, I wouldn’t be here trying to repair it now.”
“One cannot recognize the light, until he has lived in darkness,” Sani-Niyol said.
“May we ask a specific question?” Gale asked.
The shaman nodded, smiling.
“We have an extremely old object that we don’t completely understand; we need to know how to find its answers.”
“It’s not within the object, it’s within you,” he said, pointing to Rip. “The answers come from many places.”
Rip wanted to say that Gale had asked a specific question and the shaman had given what he considered to be a vague answer, but he held his tongue.
“When we look into the past,” Sani-Niyol began, “in our arrogance we believe we know more than the ancestors knew.” He nodded and pointed at Rip. “If you want to learn from the past, you must see with the eyes of the ancestors . . . not through the lens of a scientist.”
Gale, sensing Rip’s feeling of contempt at being told how to view the past, placed her hand on his wrist. The action stopped him from pointing out that he was considered one of the foremost experts in the world at learning from the past.
“It must be done differently,” Sani-Niyol said. “There is often more truth in dreams, than in the waking world.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Rip said.
San-Niyol smiled. “Of course you don’t understand, you have only just been told. As long as you have heard what I said, it will happen. There are three steps to learning: seeing or hearing, experience, and time. You have taken the first step and sometimes journeys are very long.”
“I don’t have that much time,” Rip said.
“That is all.” The shaman waved his hand. Mai tapped Rip, who wasn’t ready to leave. They thanked Sani-Niyol and rode back to their former campsite. Rip felt frustrated that he didn’t get the answers he had hoped.
There was already a tent set up and wood for a morning fire. Mai and Tahoma said goodnight.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Rip said to
Mai.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I prefer to remember the stars as they were on the first night we loved.”
Rip hugged her long and then said farewell with his eyes as they shared a last teary glance.
Although they were both exhausted, Gale and Rip stayed up watching the Eysen and talking until almost three a.m. The light filled the tent as Gale saw for the first time the three-hundred-sixty-degree projection capabilities of the ancient artifact. Rip could only kneel in the small tent, but he began moving the images to reveal more details.
They reached a place where he’d long wanted to go, inside a Cosegan city. Huge shiny domes and spheres dominated the skyline. Giant doughnut-shaped buildings, some laying flat, others standing on end, all set in a lush landscape. There were skyscrapers much larger than anything in our modern world. The circular towers, capped with giant spheres, were surrounded by expansive rings, giving them a Saturn-like appearance. Others structures stacked in the distance in clusters looked like massive bunches of silver grapes.
Rip zoomed in and they were able to enter one of the great buildings. The interior was the size of a football stadium and it was filled with holographic circles and dashes. “It’s the Cosega Sequence!” Rip exclaimed.
The Crying Man stepped out from a corridor and welcomed them with a bow. Gale could hardly breathe. As Crying Man moved through the building, the Cosega Sequences scattered like autumn leaves in the wind. When the symbols reassembled in his wake, the space around filled with the rest of the Sequence – spinning Earth, trees, oceans, stars, and the flashing pulses of light.
“What is the Sequence?” Rip asked.
Crying Man cupped his hands like he was holding an invisible ball, and then moved his arms above his head and opened them. A glowing orb floated out from them.
Gale gasped.
He stared at them for a long time as the orb floated between them. Rip tried to pick up on the telepathic communication, but it didn’t happen.