“You know, I’m beginning to wonder if the two things might be connected.”
“How so?” she asked.
“Well, Cam was telling me more about the Ark of the Covenant. Did you know it may have been a power source, some kind of capacitor? That got me thinking: Maybe the desert sand in the Middle East is similar to the sand here. And if so, maybe they somehow used the sand to energize the Ark?”
“Are you talking about that fuel cell stuff again?”
“Exactly. The Ark might have been an ancient fuel cell, energized by the desert sand.”
She shrugged. “Well, okay. I suppose it’s no more whacky than some of the other theories we’ve had around here.”
“Hey,” Cam said. “Can I see this desert sand before we go into town to shop? That way we can talk about it in the car.”
“Sure.” Willum brought him to the compound’s garden area and, using the magnifying glass, vaporized a clod of dirt. Then he brought him into the lab and demonstrated how the white powder seemed to transform itself and levitate. Finally, as they walked to the Land Cruiser he summarized the research he had done involving the feeding of this substance to the Pharaohs. “Some English archeologist found a bunch of this powder at a place called Serabit el Khadim in the Sinai desert. It was in a temple that looked more like a workshop. Almost like they were producing the stuff there.”
“A temple in the Sinai? I wonder…” Cam stopped walking, pulled out his smart phone and punched at the keys.
“What?”
Cam held up his hand. “Give me a second.” He continued punching at the key. “Okay. You said the name of the place was Serabit el Khadim?”
“Yes, why?”
He grinned. “Okay, so you know the story of Moses, how he killed a foreman who was beating a Jewish slave?”
“I think so. Wasn’t he exiled for it?”
“Exactly. For forty years. Later he came back and led the Jews out of Egypt—that’s the story of the Exodus we all know. While in exile he lived in a place called Midian, in present day Saudi Arabia. But he also lived near Mount Sinai for a while—that’s where he witnessed the burning bush miracle. Many scholars believe Moses was training to be a priest while in exile—his brother Aaron was a high priest. In fact, Freud believed Moses was actually a pharaoh, so he definitely would have had religious training.”
“Wait. Freud, as in Sigmund Freud?”
Cam nodded.
“But how could Moses be a pharaoh?” Willum tried to picture Charlton Heston in a braided beard and kilt.
“Look, pharaoh or not, what’s important is that Moses trained to be a priest. And when you mentioned a temple in the Sinai, I played a hunch.” Cam lifted his phone so Willum could see it. “According to this web site, Moses received his training at a place called Serabit el Khadim.”
Willum felt his eyebrows lift. This could not be a coincidence. “Are you sure?” All those names tended to sound the same.
Cam held the screen closer. Sure enough—same place.
“So Moses lived in the temple where they made the white powder of gold,” Willum breathed.
“Not just a temple—inside the temple was a workshop. Moses was an initiate, learning the ancient secrets of alchemy. That’s what priests did back then.” Cam paused and waited for Willum to look him in the eye. “If Moses lived at Serabit el Khadim, he would have learned how to make white powder of gold. The stuff you call mfkzt.”
Clarisse stood over the massive pot, stirring and adding spices to the mix of clams, cream, potatoes and onions—she was making clam chowder for sixty. The irony was that her ex-husband used to complain she didn’t cook enough.
Boonie pushed open the curtain separating the kitchen from the eating area. “Would you die to protect Willum?” he asked. He never really made eye contact with her from under the brim of his baseball cap, but this time his glance made it as high as her chin.
Interesting question. “Die, as in take a bullet for him?”
“Yes.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple dipping and rising. “Like a body guard.”
“I don’t know.”
“I definitely would. We all should.”
Boonie had a limited I.Q.—when Clarisse was a kid they would have called him a retard—plus Willum treated him like a son, so his feelings may not be representative of the group. But he was beginning to adopt just the selfless attitude she was hoping all the compound residents would adopt.
Humming to herself, she stirred the pot.
Willum remembered everyone gathering around the picnic tables for dinner, and he remembered getting a large bowl of clam chowder and a hunk of bread. He also remembered thinking he shouldn’t have more than one beer since he hadn’t eaten in two days. But apparently even the one beer was a lot because here he was, four hours later, and he still had the perfect buzz.
And buzz was the right word. A distant, constant, vibrating hum—as if someone turned on an electric razor and followed Willum around with it in his back pocket. But it didn’t bother him. It sounded more as if the universe was singing background harmony to whatever happy thoughts swam inside Willum’s head.
He stood on the bench of the picnic table. “Can I have everyone’s attention,” he said. He was pretty sure he wasn’t slurring; in fact, his voice resonated like a Shakespearean actor. “I want to publicly thank Clarisse not only for this dinner but for all the things she does to make this compound function.” He looked around, somehow able to make eye contact with scores of people at the same time.
Someone in the back began a refrain of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’ Willum had never realized how many strong singing voices resided in the compound; maybe they should form a chorus; maybe even he would join.
Clarisse stood on a bench of her own. “Thank you for that spirited rendition.” She smiled. “But we all know that we should be thanking Willum, not me. It is he who provides for us, he who has given us hope for the future.”
The night air echoed with applause and shouts of support; amid the cacophony, Willum heard each voice individually. But he didn’t want this, didn’t want the attention. These people were his brothers and sisters, not his minions. Clarisse continued nonetheless.
“We all know the sheriff has been making regular visits. And we expect this will continue, and continue in a peaceful manner. But we also know how these things can get out of hand.” She raised her voice. “We need to be prepared. We need to be ready to fight. We need to trust Willum to lead us through the difficult days ahead.” She paused and scanned the silent crowd; all eyes had shifted from her to Willum. He suddenly felt uncomfortably hot, as if he had stepped too close to the bonfire. “We need to trust Willum to lead us out of this desert and eventually to a Promised Land of our own.”
Cam slipped away after Clarisse’s speech and walked to the parking lot. He felt wired, as if he had had too much caffeine. And there was something about the nighttime desert air that sharpened his vision—it was like the first time he had watched a football game in high definition. He saw every individual star, noticed the freckles on every face. And not just his sight—he heard every insect, smelled every marshmallow toasting, felt every grain of sand beneath his foot.
He phoned Amanda.
“It’s weird here,” he said after exchanging pleasantries.
“How so?”
“It’s almost cult-like. They almost worship Willum. And this Clarisse woman just gave a speech about Willum leading them to the Promised Land.”
“I didn’t notice that earlier today.”
“I didn’t either. But it’s different tonight.”
“I wonder if the sheriff visits are getting to them. It must be tough knowing that at any point police might storm your home.”
“Georgia doesn’t think that’s going to happen.”
“That’s her opinion, but nobody knows for sure—least of all the residents. It’s their paranoia that brought them to the compound in the first place. It’s only natural in this
situation to rally together.”
Cam had never been in battle, but he had heard accounts of men blindly following their leaders to a certain death. Was that we he was witnessing tonight, a group of individuals being transformed by fervor and danger and shared purpose into a single cohesive entity? “Like I said, it’s almost like a cult.”
“Well, please resist the urge to shave your head, put on an orange robe and chant Hare Krishna.”
Normally Cam appreciated Amanda’s flippancy. But tonight he saw clearly into a future that was anything but laughable. If push came to shove, these people would follow Willum to their death.
Willum had put in a couple of long days without much nourishment; he should have been exhausted. But midnight had turned to one o’clock and then to two and nobody seemed to want to call it a night. Someone had broken out a harmonica and a couple of dozen adults and a few of the older kids sat by the bonfire singing and counting the stars.
Finally at two-thirty Willum told everyone to go to bed. But when his head hit the pillow ten minutes later the buzzing in his ear and the rapid-firing of the synapses in his brain made sleep impossible. He threw on a t-shirt, sweatpants and sneakers and went to his lab.
At some point over the past few days, without even thinking about it consciously, his mind had been working on how to build a fuel cell using the desert sand as a power source. Working almost mechanically, like a puppet being controlled by unseen strings, Willum opened a closet and pulled out a half-dozen prototypes of various fuel cells he had designed or modified over the years. Connecting wires, cables, tubes and magnets to metal plates and gaskets, he tinkered and experimented, the hidden hand of some Muse inspiring and guiding him. Hours passed, Willum barely aware of the passage of time, until a banging on the locked door of the underground lab startled him back to reality.
“What is it?”
“It’s Clarisse. Cam’s ready. You guys are supposed to climb today.”
He looked at his watch and shook his head. Seven o’clock already. But that wasn’t nearly as startling as the prototype of a next generation fuel cell staring back at him from his work bench.
CHAPTER 6
Amanda nestled against Cam in the back of the Land Cruiser while the Expos hat guy sat up front with Willum. She and Cam had spent only a few nights apart in their year-and-a-half together. She was glad to hear he slept poorly.
“I had strange dreams,” he whispered. “I was wandering through the desert surrounded by robed, chanting automatons.”
“What were they chanting?”
“It wasn’t even words. More like a melodic hum.”
“Well, I missed you.”
“You guys want some bread?” Willum asked. “Clarisse made it.”
“I ate already, thanks,” Cam said. Amanda had brought him a fruit salad and multi-grain bagel—as a diabetic he needed to be especially careful about what he ate for breakfast.
“Me, too,” said Amanda. She noticed the rash on Willum’s face had returned.
Willum tore at the crust and handed Boonie a chunk. “It’s really good,” Willum said, crumbs dropping into his lap.
Boonie took the offering with a dirty hand and picked at the crust, his cap pulled low on his forehead. He reminded Amanda of an abused dog, skittish and submissive and mangy. Hard to believe they had felt threatened by him.
They had at least twenty minutes, so Amanda took the opportunity to update Cam on some research. “You remember that one of the theories is the Ark ended up in Warwickshire?”
“Yeah. You Brits are pretty sticky-fingered.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re going to like this. The theory is that it was brought there by a Templar commander by the name of Ralph de Sudeley.”
“Our Ralph de Sudeley?”
“The same.” One of the documents Astarte’s uncle had obtained was an ancient Templar travel log recounting a journey made by the Templars to the Catskill Mountains in New York in the late 1100s. Cam and Amanda had confirmed this journey when, following clues left in the travel log, they found ancient artifacts hidden in those mountains. One of the five Templars on the expedition was named Ralph de Sudeley.
“So you think he found the Ark of the Covenant in the Catskills and brought it back to England?”
“Actually, no, though I suppose it is possible. I think he came here after he already found it. In the 1180s he captained a Templar fortress called Petra, in the hills of southern Jordan.”
“Let me guess. Near where the prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark before the Babylonian invasion.”
“Spot on. He purportedly returned to England with many religious treasures—the exact term in the tax rolls, written in French, was objets sacrés or sacred artifacts. And he returned a very rich man.”
Cam nodded slowly as he peered out the window. “Okay, I’m with you so far. But you think the fact our boy Ralph also came to the Catskills is just a coincidence?”
She looked at him. She didn’t need to say what they were both thinking. They would file away the information for now and hope it fit into the puzzle once more pieces had been put into place.
Amanda leaned forward in her seat. “So what’s the plan?” Amanda asked Willum.
He spoke with his mouth full. “We’ll climb up the same way we did the other day. Except this time we’ll cross the saddle and go up the other ridge. The only way to get to the opening is from above.”
“So I get to play Spiderwoman,” Amanda said. Cam looked at her, obviously wondering if she was nervous or scared. She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done a bit of rock-climbing.” And who could pass on the chance to be the person who found the Templar treasure?
After another bumpy ride they parked the Land Cruiser and began trudging up Mustang Mountain. “Same temperature, same sunshine, same topography, pretty much same day,” Cam said
“Welcome to the desert,” Willum responded. “It’s either this or a massive thunderstorm.” He stopped and scanned the rocky crags rising above them. “But it sure is beautiful.”
Boonie led the way, ears forced outward by his cap, often stopping to offer Willum a hand or knock a prickly plant aside for him. Amanda couldn’t get a feel for him, mostly because he rarely spoke. But it was obvious from his behavior that he doted on Willum. Again, like a loyal dog. About halfway up they angled to the left and Cam pointed to an opening in the cliff wall. “That’s our cave.”
“Yup,” Willum said. He stopped and took a series of photos. “We’ll need to find the opening from above. These pictures will give us some landmarks.”
Amanda studied the cave. “Even with a path, it’d be tough to drag a heavy object like a golden chest up there,” she said.
“Agreed,” Cam said. “And it must have been heavy, based on those thick poles. So I think it’s likely Hurech had more than one friend with him. For expeditions like this, there’d usually be five or six Knights.”
“And you think one of them made it back to Kinver and built the rock houses?” Willum asked.
“Seems possible. There’s a theory called independent invention which states that identical inventions can bubble up independently of one another in different parts of the world. Sort of like the pyramids in Egypt and also in Central America—the theory holds it’s just a coincidence that both cultures came up with the same idea to worship their gods. But I don’t buy it. I think it is more likely that the ideas traveled across the oceans.”
“Say, Cam, how do you feel about coincidence?” Amanda teased.
He mimicked her accent. “I think it’s bloody poppycock.”
She poked him with her walking stick. “Jerk.”
Cam continued. “I suppose it’s possible the idea of carving houses into the sandstone occurred independently. But it’s also possible one of Hurech’s mates went home to Staffordshire and brought the idea with him.” The cliff houses in America predated Hurech, so the reverse was not possible. “The earliest recorded date for the Kinver houses is the early 16
00s, but they could be much older.”
They reached the saddle. Willum pointed to his left. “We have to climb that ridge line. Then descend from the top.”
“And it’s due east of the other cave?” Amanda asked.
“Almost exactly.”
The morning sun glowed off to her left, in the southeast sky. In the summer, with the sun rising in the northeast, the angle would work. She poked Cam in the ass again with her stick. “Well, get moving then. History awaits.”
Ellis found Astarte in a hotel conference room with Georgia. He had a lot to do today, but this was as important as anything. “Hello, Astarte,” he said.
She looked up from the book she was reading. “Hello, Flying Fox,” she smiled.
He handed her a couple of sheets of paper stapled together. “I though you might be interested in this. I found it on the internet.” He didn’t mention he had modified it before printing it out. “It talks about the Tucson artifacts—some researchers think the people in the Book of Mormon made them.”
She reached out. “Really?”
Georgia turned away to focus on her phone call.
“Yeah,” he said. “Both the Hebrew and the Latin writing could be first century AD. And I think the Book of Mormon talks about Jesus and his disciples coming to America during that time period, right? So maybe they made them?” The explanation wasn’t perfect, but Ellis sensed the girl was looking for validation for her uncle’s theory. Plus, after all, she was nine.
Astarte nodded. “Yes.”
“And here’s another thing. The Ark of the Covenant disappeared around 600 BC. When did the prophet Lehi come to America?”
She put her finger on her chin. “586 BC.”
He tilted his head. “So maybe Lehi brought the Ark here. Maybe that’s what that chest is.”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t think Cameron and Amanda thought of that.”
He turned to go, then stopped. “You know, I’m not a Mormon. But it seems to me the Book of Mormon explains an awful lot of these unanswered questions.” He paused and held Astarte’s eyes. “I wonder if Cameron and Amanda aren’t making this more complicated than it needs to be.”
Powdered Gold: Templars and the American Ark of the Covenant (Templars in America Series Book 3) Page 15