Death in the Beginning (The God Tools Book 1)

by Gary Williams

  They continued across the drawbridge to the open sally port where the portcullis was drawn to the side during visiting hours. They passed through, arriving in the Plaza de Armas, the Castillo’s large courtyard. The four, squared inner walls rose to the height of a two-story building. The grounds were bathed in sunlight where tourists were milling around on the perimeter sidewalk, traipsing in and out of the many first-floor rooms. More were climbing the single stairway braced into the wall on their right to the expansive four-bastion gun deck on the roof.

  The two men turned left on the paved walkway. They proceeded, turning once at the west wall and again at the north wall, breezing past a series of storage rooms, arms rooms, and barracks, weaving through pockets of tourists.

  Curt led the way to the storage room in the northeast corner. The wooden door opened inward, and dim light lay beyond. Curt never slowed, moving through the doorway and past several patrons to the back left of the room, where a large square doorway was cut into the side wall. They passed through into another large, arched storage room that paralleled the first room and continued into the much smaller anteroom positioned at a 45-degree angle to the two storage rooms. There they paused before the low opening on the side wall of the anteroom.

  “We have no idea what we’re looking for, right?” Scott said in a low voice.

  “Anything that might link Pinot LeFlore to this gunpowder magazine.”

  “And you still think we might find something that’s been overlooked?”

  “I’ve never examined the room with the notion that the man had been sealed alive and actually inhabited the place for an untold number of years.”

  They squatted down. The opening, which had been nothing more than a raw jackhammer cut when Curt first entered the room over a month ago, was now smoothly finished with supporting braces on the sides and top. They pushed through the opening in single file. Once inside the gunpowder magazine, they were alone. The low opening hampered many tourists, especially the elderly and disabled, from attempting to enter the room.

  “We’re going to have to work around anyone who enters,” Curt cautioned. “Let’s be discreet.”

  Scott nodded.

  Muted light originated from a single-bulb sconce high on the wall at one end. Scott was sure it had been done intentionally to make visitors feel uneasy; a little Disneyesque lighting helped to create an eerie presence to the place. The gunpowder magazine had already been the subject of two paranormal television shows since its opening.

  Scott had not been inside the room since it was opened to the public two weeks ago. Dampness permeated the air. There was a general aura of solitude, of tightness, which brought a twinge of claustrophobia. For the first time, he could imagine the staggering fear Curt and Dr. Peklis must have experienced when, using minimal light, they were attacked by Subject X in the dark confines of this place.

  He watched as Curt went to work right away, examining the stone walls and tracing the patterns of the claw marks.

  Scott took a moment to survey the room in its entirety. The 22- by 10-foot space with its arched ceiling rose no higher than six feet at its apex. Those who labeled it as a mini-Quonset without windows were absolutely correct.

  To the side, Curt retrieved a magnifying glass from his pocket then quickly put it away as voices drifted from opposite the low opening. A boy popped through, followed by a second person, a young girl. They left once they realized the room was barren and two adult males seemed to be hanging out in it. After they were gone, Curt fished the magnifying glass from his pocket again, and went back to inspecting the walls and ceiling.

  Even though Scott did not have Curt’s archaeological background, it never stopped him from tagging along with his friend. Where Curt examined the minutia, Scott opted for a more holistic view. He looked at things in their entirety. He backed against the far wall and pulled a small flashlight from his pocket. Then he traced the beam back and forth, examining the extensive markings on the walls in amazement. Subject X had done considerable damage.

  Curt seemed unaware of the light tripping past him as he probed the wall.

  Nothing abnormal appeared to Scott. He repeated the process, moving to the other side and examining the wall across the way. Scott unfocused his eyes, attempting to ignore the claw marks. Again, he saw nothing of interest. He repeated the process with the two end walls with the same results. There was nothing abnormal beyond the multitude of scratches.

  As a final check, Scott lay on the stone floor and shined the flashlight upward. Just then, an older woman came through the low opening into the room.

  A look of mild terror crossed the woman’s face when she saw Scott lying there, and she hurriedly left.

  Scott shook his head and laughed, “So much for discretion.” He scanned the ceiling with the light. More scratch marks. But as he squinted to unfocus his eyes, lines began to connect within and over the blurry striations. Large, independent images formed. He opened his eyes wider, but the images evaporated. Again he unfocused, and they came back into view. This time, he recognized they were not images, but letters. “Curt, I think I’ve got something! Write this down.”

  Curt quickly pulled a pen and small pad of paper from his pocket. “Go ahead.”

  “P-O-I-G-G-O-N-D-E-G-G-O-U-G”

  The moment Scott read the last letter, a young couple came scurrying through the opening into the room laughing. They were followed by two kids. Scott pushed to his feet as they gave him a wary stare. He nodded to Curt, and the two left the room, making their way into the courtyard where masses of tourists buzzed past. They stopped by the iron-capped well, standing in the sun’s brutal heat.

  “You saw this on the ceiling?” Curt asked, pointing at the letters on the paper in his hand. “I’ve examined that ceiling. I never saw any writing.”

  “It was scripted in very large letters, and I believe scratched into the stone before the claw marks were made. The smaller claw marks overlay the letters and dominate the wall, which takes your eye away from the text behind it. Does it spell anything?”

  “P-O-I-G-G-O-N-D-E-G-G-O-U-G,” Curt read his notes. “It means nothing to me. Do you have your iPhone on you?”

  Scott pulled it from his back pocket. “Yeah.”

  “Access an Internet language translation web site. Let’s try French to English.”

  “Okay, I’m there,” Scott said after a moment. Curt read him the letters, but the text conversion from French to English was the same string of letters, which meant either the text was not French or the string was meaningless in that language.

  “Wait,” Curt said, “I still have the picture of Guillaume LeFlore’s tombstone at Father En’s place in Bolivia.” He plucked his phone from his pocket.

  Scott had no idea where Curt was going with this.

  Curt pulled up the image and studied it for a minute. He handed his phone to Curt, and took Scott’s iPhone. Then he punched some keys, accessing the Internet again.

  The noon sun continued to beat down, and Scott felt a line of perspiration roll down his forehead.

  “There’s a misspelled French word on the marker,” Curt finally said. “Remember what Father En said before he read the tombstone to us? He said that, ‘Even if you could read it, Guillaume had written in his journal that poor penmanship ran in the LeFlore family.’ Well, on Guillaume’s gravestone, which Father En said Guillaume engraved himself, the word ‘died’ is misspelled. He spelled it ‘egt mort’ but the French word is ‘est mort.’ Guillaume closed his ‘s’s’ and inadvertently made them look like ‘g’s’. And if poor penmanship ran in the family, and if Pinot was Subject X, then maybe he possessed the same faulty writing as his brother.”

  “Here,” Curt said handing Scott back his iPhone. “Let’s try this again. We’ll replace the ‘g’s’ with ‘s’s’ and see if the result will translate from French to English. I’ll read it to you: P-O-I-S-S-O-
N-D-E-S-S-O-U-S.”

  Scott keyed in the string of letters and hit enter. Again, the translation from French to English failed. “Nothing.”

  Curt exhaled and began to pace, staring at the notepad, sweat running down his cheeks. A loud family flowed by with kids in tow. “Why have letters if they don’t mean anything?”

  Curt stopped and looked at Scott. “Is it possible there was a gap between any of the letters to make them into separate words?”

  “I didn’t notice any.”

  The two men moved back into the storage room, past the anteroom, and ducked through the entryway into the gunpowder magazine. A man and his son were inside looking about when Curt flopped onto the floor, and shined his flashlight upward. The man and boy departed quickly.

  “Once again, so much for being discreet,” Scott mused. He watched Curt stare at the ceiling.

  “I don’t see it. Are you sure you see letters?” Curt said.

  “Squint your eyes, and don’t focus on the claw marks. It’s like looking at one of those optical illusions which contain embedded images.”

  Curt followed Scott’s directions. “Ah, I do see it. Yes, there is a slight gap between the seventh and eighth letters. That’s the only space I see. We’ve got two words, Scott.” He rose excitedly as Scott keyed a spaced between the letters to form two words: POISSON DESSOUS. He hit the enter key to perform the French to English translation but got an error message. “We’ve got to go back out. The walls are too thick to get reception.”

  Outside, Scott tried the translation again, making sure to separate the two groups of letters. With a startled look, he showed the results to Curt.

  FISH BELOW

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Monday, August 15, 12:06 p.m. – St. Augustine, Florida

  Sherri finished her lunch at Scarlett O’Hara’s. The waitress whisked her plate away with a smile. She decided to remain a few more minutes to finish the rest of her drink. Sweet iced tea was not something one could usually order in New Jersey, and she realized it was one of the little things about the south she missed.

  Prior to lunch, she had spent thirty minutes walking St. George Street, soaking in the atmosphere. Droves of tourists strolled along the street, meandering into the small stores, mom-and-pop restaurants, and ice cream shops. The humidity was stifling, but nonetheless she had felt invigorated out in the sunshine. She had envied a couple she saw sitting on a bench clothed in shorts and tee shirts and playfully poking each other until it led to a passionate embrace and kiss. It had been nearly a year since she had been on an actual date. Despite what she had told Uncle Sydney at dinner on Sunday night, she would welcome someone to spend time with. Something about the sun, outdoors, and mass of people caused a yearning for companionship she had not felt in some time.

  Sitting in the restaurant, she now thought about Dr. Curt Lohan. She had noticed he did not wear a ring, although that was not necessarily conclusive evidence he was single. She had run into that type before: guys out for the hunt whose marital status failed to slow them down. In this case, though, her intuition told her he was indeed single, possibly divorced. He seemed to get along with kids. For some reason, Tina had taken an immediate liking to him and had even defended him. Sherri now felt badly about how she had reacted at the airport and then behaved when he brought her suitcase by her hotel. She probably deserved his mocking comments in the meeting this morning, but she was also content knowing she had dispatched his antagonistic demeanor with a girlish smile. The look on his face after she told the kidnapping story was priceless. Even now, recalling his shocked expression when she exposed the subterfuge made her laugh. He had been such a good sport about it. The thought of his smile suddenly brought a warm feeling. For the first time, she stopped to consider their verbal exchange after the meeting.

  Was I flirting with Curt...Dr. Lohan this morning?

  She swallowed the last of the iced tea. In town only two days, and already she lamented the project’s end when she would have to return home. Hopefully, her work here would lead to more assignments in Florida. That thought made her smile. Maybe she would take Tina to Disney World in Orlando on Saturday. A day trip to Disney would be even better if she could find someone else to go with them.

  The ringing of her cell phone on the table drew her back to reality. The number displayed was unfamiliar.

  “Hello?”

  “Sherri,” a deep voice said, “it’s Lincoln Mosset. How are things going?”

  “Mr. Mosset, I didn’t recognize your number.”

  “It’s my personal cell phone. I’m out of the office at the moment.”

  “Things are well,” she said. “Frankly, I think the City is overreacting to their perceived competition, but I’ll provide a report once I get the numbers so we can agree on a recommendation.”

  “Charlene will have the financials to you within 48 hours,” Mosset said. “Have you met City Commission Manager, Harvey Shottier?”

  “We had a face-to-face meeting this morning.”

  “He’s an astute man. He expects us to deliver, and I’m counting on you to do so.”

  “He’ll get my best effort, sir.”

  “Oh, was the City able to recommend a babysitter for Tina while you’re there?”

  Sherri smiled. Usually, Mosset did not care to know personal details about his employees such as children’s names. Maybe she was finally making positive headway with the man. “Yes, a very pleasant older woman. Tina’s there now.”

  “Good, good. Well, keep in touch.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Mosset.”

  ****

  “Fish below? What do you think it means?” Scott asked, once they were back inside the empty gunpowder magazine.

  Curt wiped his sweaty forehead with his shirt sleeve, turned away, then spun back toward Scott. “Remember when Father En asked me if anything else was found, besides Pinot, when this room was opened? The question really had me puzzled. It was as if he expected there to be something else inside the gunpowder magazine. I believe FISH BELOW may be tied to whatever he was alluding to.” Curt looked down, and Scott followed his eyes. “What if Pinot had something he wanted to hide from the Spanish? And what if he hid it inside the gunpowder magazine? Or should I say, underneath?”

  “You’re suggesting he dislodged one of the stone floor tiles and hid something under them?”

  “Remember the layer of dirt found on the floor? What if it was here because a tile had been lifted and the dirt was removed from beneath in order to hollow an area out where an object could be stored?”

  Scott nodded his understanding. He looked down at the rock slabs on the floor, which were in imperfect squares. The stones appeared normal, cut into approximately one-foot squares, linked together by centuries-old grout. It reminded Scott of the tile job done in the kitchen of his previous house. He thought back to what the installer had said about shoddy tile work and how you could tap a piece with your foot and tell if there was any unwanted air trapped beneath.

  Staring at the floor, Scott shined the flashlight on each square looking for some difference in the design or height, but nothing stood out. Considering the tile installer’s words, he moved to the back left corner. Curt watched wordlessly.

  Scott began tapping stone squares in a straight line, walking the length of the room. He carefully stepped through one row of tiles, listening attentively to the tone of each for any change in pitch or odd reverberation. When he reached the end wall, he turned and walked the next line over.

  On the third pass, he froze in place as the tile underfoot made a unique noise; a hollow sound. For a long moment, he focused on the quietness that surrounded him. Curt stood motionless to the side, staring at Scott.

  In that instant, Father En’s words struck Scott. According to the monk, he and Curt were in the very room where a human had been sealed alive. They were walking across the same stone fl
oor that had borne the weight of a trapped and terrified man. As if channeling the emotions through time, Scott could feel the fear the man had experienced, closed in alive in this damp place and left to die in complete darkness, cut off, clawing relentlessly at the walls and ceiling, trying in vain to free himself while uttering grunts and groans.

  Scott shook his head to clear his thoughts. The last sound he recalled hearing was a distinct, tinny sound now echoing only in his memory. He met Curt’s gaze. Scott had never seen such an expression of anticipation and exhilaration from his friend, and it sent a chill down his spine. Scott shined the flashlight down. With a deliberate slowness, he lifted his shoe and brought his heel down hard.

  Tink.

  He extended his leg to the square to the side and performed the same action.

  Clunk.

  Then on the other side.

  Clunk.

  Testing several other tiles, he got the same clunk sound each time. Only the one stone before him made a distinctive tink that suggested individuality—and a pocket of air beneath.

  Scott could feel his pulse quicken. Curt moved toward Scott, squatting at his feet. Scott backed away from the slab, and Curt gently tapped the stone with his knuckles. It was indisputable. This one stone slab was atypical.

  “What do you think?” Scott asked.

  “I think you’ve found something.” Curt answered. He reached into his jeans and retrieved his pocketknife. He quickly snapped open the blade and locked it in place. Scott looked at him in bewilderment.

  “You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to do?” Scott asked.

  “Don’t you want to know?”

  Scott hesitated, but only for a moment. “Okay, but I’m not going to go to jail for destroying a national monument, so take it easy, will you? Kay might not bail either one of us out if we get caught.”

  “Keep an eye on the entryway to make sure no one comes inside.”