by Adam Hiatt
Reddic cut hard to his left, moving into the shadows behind the Olin. Jaxon tried to mimic the maneuver, stumbling slightly as his legs failed to respond to the rapid change of direction. He stopped by Reddic’s side and bent over, wheezing.
“Stand up and breathe deep,” Reddic urged. He counted down from thirty in his mind, expecting it to be enough time for his older brother to recover.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you. It’s been a while since I’ve sprinted,” Jaxon said between breaths.
“I can see that.” Reddic reached into his backpack and pulled out a piece of paper and a penlight. He snapped the light on and began looking at the diagram printed on the paper. Jaxon stepped closer to get a better view.
“We are here,” he said, pointing with a finger while he clenched the light between his teeth. He held in his hand a map of Cornell’s campus. “Here, hold this light. We’re going to split up for a few minutes. We need to talk in a safe place until things blow over.”
“Let’s just wait it out and get my car. We can leave town and—”
“Forget your car, it’s compromised,” Reddic interjected. “Just trust me on this one,” he said. “I want you to walk casually down this road until it intersects with CAMPUS ROAD. Go east until you come to this spot, okay?”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll be a few yards behind you making sure we’re not followed.”
“Why am I stopping there?” asked Jaxon, pointing to the spot Reddic designated.
Reaching for the penlight, Reddic flicked the button with his thumb, extinguishing it. “Remember what you said about being hidden in plain sight?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“It could be the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
Chapter Ten
A student unceremoniously strolled down the sidewalk on Campus Road with his hands tucked into his pockets. From a distance it looked like he had his head down, oblivious to any action around him. But in reality his eyes moved about, searching the periphery for any sign of a tail. The student was Reddic, and he maintained Jaxon’s pace from about a block behind. Jaxon looked relatively cool considering the circumstance. That shouldn’t be a surprise, Reddic thought. He may be naïve in Reddic’s world, but he still had a head on his shoulders; a pretty intelligent one at that.
Jaxon was nearing the rendezvous point up ahead just as Reddic passed under a tree. The canopy of leaves and branches blocked the light coming from the street lamp, forming a murky shade on the concrete below. So far there was no indication that anybody was following them.
Reddic abruptly jumped to his right into the lightless void and stood motionless next to the pitchy trunk. The brief respite of uneasiness concerning the possibility of a tail was swiftly spoiled by the realization that he had sent his defenseless brother into an area that had not yet been swept. He pulled out his phone, found Jaxon’s name and scrolled down the menu of options. He typed a quick text message and sent it. He decided to power off the phone, noticing that the battery was making its final push at life.
Removing the map from his backpack, Reddic cupped the penlight with his hand. He analyzed the terrain, finding that there was another way into the meeting ground. He snapped off the light and closed the bag. According to the map, a road, intersecting his current path only a few yards up ahead, ran south and then snaked behind the proposed location.
He left the shadows and proceeded down the sidewalk. When he arrived at the intersection he followed the road leading south. Reddic caught a glimpse of the buildings to his right. They looked like a factory or manufacturing plant. Smokestacks shot out of rooftops, releasing gaseous clouds into the air. Reddic knew that these buildings had to belong to the engineering department. No other complex on any campus maintained a utilitarian façade like that of an engineering quad. On his left was a collegiate baseball field. He was almost there.
After approximately one hundred yards Reddic waited on the outside of an iron fence. He peered through the bars at the surface in front of him. It was composed of mostly synthetic grass and hard rubber. Reddic gripped the top of the railing and pulled himself over, landing lightly on his feet. The night sky was relatively free of cloud cover, allowing the dull moon to cast some light on the vicinity. He took a few steps forward, finding himself standing on the outermost lane of the oval track circling the field known as Schoellkopf. It was the home of Cornell’s football and lacrosse programs.
Two grandstands rose up from the east and west sidelines of the track. Built on top of the bleacher to the west was a glass and concrete enclosed press box. Flanking the northernmost end of the field was a multilevel structure overlooking the playing surface, probably team rooms and coaches offices. He did a quick inventory of the area, searching for the best sightlines and exits should anything go wrong. Within seconds he decided on the meeting place.
***
Jaxon lingered near the ticket office outside of the football stadium. The walk from the Olin library wasn’t a stroll in the park for him. With each step he thought that somebody would jump out of the shadows and abduct him, ultimately putting him through a similar type of treatment that Langford had received. This he could not allow. Until now he had not even considered disclosing any information concerning his dissertation to anyone, not even his younger brother. Langford had sworn him to secrecy. Jaxon simply assumed that it was standard procedure, like an attorney protecting his client. The funny thing was at first he didn’t think that his dissertation was groundbreaking at all. His opinion drastically changed, however, when he discovered the answer to his mentor’s challenge.
That day Jaxon called the office and proudly announced that he had found the answer. At the time he thought nothing of Langford’s request to meet him at Beebe Lake to present the fruits of his labors. They were walking along the shores of the calm lake that sat so peacefully at the north end of campus when Jaxon divulged the answer. It was at that point that his professor revealed to him the secret. Jaxon could not believe it. It was too extraordinary, too unreservedly fantastic to believe. “Research it,” Langford told him, “and you will find that it exists.”
Where was Reddic? Almost ten minutes had passed since he received the text instructing him to sit tight while he looked around. Could something have happened to him? Absolutely not. Maybe yesterday he would’ve thought it a possibility, but not today. Reddic was proving to be much more than he remembered; the resourcefulness, the intuition, the physical prowess; where did it all come from? Suddenly, Jaxon’s phone vibrated. He reached into his pocket and extracted it flipping it open to read the message from Reddic: “All Clear. Northeast Corner Bleacher.”
***
From the dark recesses of a building across the street, a man silently watched Jaxon close his phone and head for the stadium entrance. He waited for thirty seconds and then followed Jaxon into the stadium, but through a different entrance.
***
Reddic watched Jaxon walk along the outer lane of the track. The night air was cool and moist. He saw him rub his bare arms, trying to stay warm. Reddic heard the flags and banners mounted to the highest point of the east grandstand ripple and snap through the air as a moderate breeze blew them westward. In spite of the visible evidence of its presence, Reddic didn’t feel the wind. The metallic bleacher standing at a fifty-degree angle protected his back.
He felt reasonably satisfied with his choice of a contact place. From his vantage point forty rows up, he could see the entire interior of the moonlight-bathed field, all four entrances, and the two major roadways leading to the complex. On the other hand, should anybody see them sitting in the bleachers it would not appear to be that atypical. After all, this was a college town; these types of odd-hour assignations were quite ordinary.
Hidden in plain sight.
“What was with all the secrecy leaving McGraw?” Jaxon asked, breathing heavily from the climb up.
“Let me ask you somethi
ng,” Reddic said. “When you made your ill-timed 9-1-1 call and referenced Langford, did you sense any recognition from the dispatcher?”
“It’s funny you should ask. When I said his name a woman repeated it, not to me, but to somebody else. A different voice, male this time, came on and asked if the intruders were still in the building. I reaffirmed that there was only one intruder, and that he seemed extremely lethal. He didn’t accept my word, though. He pressed me about the number of persons on the floor.”
“How many did you say?” Reddic cut in.
Jaxon looked down at his feet, feeling ashamed for what he was about to say. “I said there were three all together.” He glanced at his younger brother and was surprised to see that there was no sign of anger or annoyance. “Anyway,” he continued, “the guy all but commanded me to stay put and wait for his team to arrive.”
“You didn’t give the address, did you?” Reddic stated calmly.
Jaxon tilted back his head in an effort to remember. “Come to think of it, I don’t believe I even specified Cornell. I only mentioned Dr. Langford’s office. It could’ve been a medical doctor for all they knew.”
Reddic inhaled deeply. “I wish you hadn’t said that. I fear that our current state of affairs is graver than we previously realized. It appears as though somebody or some group of persons will stop at nothing to seize whatever it was that your professor was hiding.”
“The Ithaca cops? I find that hard to believe,” Jaxon said.
“I’m not referring to those inept paunchy patrolmen. They’re obviously only pawns, subservient to a greater authority. You want to know why we fled McGraw, because those cops were only securing the exits, waiting for somebody to come and give orders before they acted.
“How do you know that?”
“Do you remember the cops leaving their lights on outside the building? That was the first warning. Secondly, the power was cut. Who cuts the power responding to a 9-1-1 call? Third, there was a man hiding in the shadows outside the building waiting for anyone to be flushed out the front. That’s quite the advanced cat and mouse game for an emergency response, wouldn’t you say?”
“I get the point,” Jaxon said solemnly. “There has to be someone that can help us though. What about the chief of police?”
“Too risky. Don’t you think that they might’ve already thought of that? Think about it, a couple of mid-twenty year olds being shot at. Where’s the first place they would be expected to go? We have to believe that somebody is there waiting for us to show up.”
“Okay, what about the FBI? There’s absolutely no way they’re involved with this conspiracy of yours.”
“What are we going to say, people are after us? We don’t know what they’re after or why they want it. We would be laughed out of the building.”
Jaxon rose to his feet and descended two levels. He leisurely paced back and forth with his arms crossed in front of him, deliberating.
“What we need,” Reddic started, “is some type of leverage. It’s only a matter of time before whoever is chasing us closes the trap.”
“The only way to acquire the kind of leverage that you are talking about is to get to what they want before they do,” Jaxon blurted out. “We would have to find what my professor was looking for.”
“Exactly. Unfortunately we have no starting point. We might have to—”
“Uh, I may not have been entirely honest with you,” Jaxon interrupted. “I might know what he was looking for.” His eyes fell to the bleacher in front of him.
“And how’s that?” Reddic prompted.
“Because I was looking for it too.”
Chapter Eleven
Reddic carefully watched his older brother prepare for a verbal lashing. He knew that Jaxon was expecting a full onslaught of obscenities, and normally Reddic would be more than happy to oblige; but to express his disapproval would be counterproductive. Certainly Reddic didn’t appreciate him keeping this information to himself, but he needed to hear what his brother had to say.
“Are you going to tell me or are you just going to stand there and stare?” Reddic asked.
“Of course I am. I just expected a different reaction is all,” Jaxon said.
“You mean you thought I would knock you down those steps.”
“Something like that.” Jaxon tilted his head back and took in a deep breath. “The basic underlying idea of my dissertation concerns the religious and cultural symmetry that inherently connects the eastern and western hemispheres.”
“Sounds like a best-seller to me,” Reddic quipped.
“Right, well, you might think otherwise soon.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Let me tell you a quick bedtime story,” Jaxon started. “In the 13th century B.C. the most famous Levite descendent, who we know as Moses, led a group of over a million Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Sinai Peninsula. There they wandered about for many years while their God, YHWH, or Jehovah, tried and tested them. As it turned out, they failed most of these tests and were required to remain as vagabonds in the desert for forty years. By the way, the number forty in the bible is symbolic of an extended time of testing and trial, not just calendar years. I could give you fifteen different references to this if you were interested."
Reddic held up his hand and shook his head. “Let's save that for another time," he said. "What is it that you're getting at?”
“Have patience and I will get to the point,” Jaxon responded. “The rudimentary grievance of the camp was that the people desired immediate gratification, like you right now.”
“Very funny.”
“Anyway, each time the camp joined into one unified complaint against Moses, Jehovah prepared a pestilence of some sort to punish their ungratefulness. It’s always been difficult for me to show sympathy considering they had been freed from their enslavement in Egypt. For many years they were charged with the task of stomping on straw and mud all day. But despite all that, Moses continued to show compassion and intervened on the people’s behalf. One day the people rose up against Moses again, but this time he didn’t stay Jehovah’s hand. Instead, fiery serpents charged the camp and bit all that stood in their path.”
“Right, and then Moses put a fake serpent on his staff and all that looked were miraculously healed. I know the story. Please don’t tell me you’re looking for Moses’ fake snake,” Reddic said.
“Of course not. The Jewish king, Hezekiah, destroyed it some five-hundred years later. Just hear me out, all right. It is the scriptural verbiage that was initially intriguing. Moses was commanded to make a ‘fiery’ serpent and mount it on his staff. I couldn’t get passed that word, fiery. Was it because the serpents in that arid environment possessed a glowing fiery red color? The Hebrew word for fiery suggests either that or an extremely venomous bite. I tend to find significance with both interpretations. Anyway, this divine request had to have made sense in Moses’ brain right away. You see, the serpent was the symbol of divine power and wisdom in Egypt, the land where Moses was raised as a prince. In fact, the ancient Egyptian national emblem was a solar disc floating between two serpents, representing the eastern rise and western setting of the sun.”
“I thought serpents were satanic.”
“They may be today, but they weren’t then. The serpent appeared as one of the ornaments of most Egyptian divine personages. I’ve seen replicas of the crowns of Osiris, Isis, and Horus with the serpent engraved upon them. But let’s get back to Moses. He called the venomous creatures Hanechashim Haseraphim, which is Hebrew for seraphim serpents.”
“Seraphim serpents? What does that mean?” Reddic asked.
“Some scholars believe it was a reference to the deadly nature of the snake’s poison or a physical manifestation of God’s messengers of death.”
“Are you one of those scholars?”
“No, I’m not. I think there was much more to it. Take for instance the singular form of the word seraphim, which is seraph. We know a seraph to be an a
ngelic figure with wings. You may know it as a cherubim, which was the figure embroidered upon the veil in the Jewish Temple and the golden statues mounted onto the Ark of the Covenant. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
“I think you’re implying that the serpents were flying.”
“You’re very quick. Incidentally, ancient Egypt used to boast that they enjoyed special care and protection from their gods by drawing pictures of two flying serpents of the uroeus species, wearing the crown of both upper and lower Egypt. Anyway, Jehovah failed to specify to Moses concerning what material to use to construct his serpent. He could’ve easily chosen wood or cloth, but instead he chose brass.”
“Brass would probably make the object look like it was on fire in that desert landscape,” Reddic interjected.
“My thought exactly. I was also interested in the placement of the brass serpent on the pole. Most people imagine it coiled around the stick, resting its head on the upper stub.”
"Kind of like the caduceus?"
“Exactly. But I don’t envision it that way. I see it as a flag, outstretched perpendicular to the staff, giving the impression that the fiery serpent really was flying.”
“I don’t think that’s a stretch at all,” Reddic said.
“No pun intended, right?” Jaxon deadpanned. Reddic smiled widely. “Now the serpent on Moses’ pole acted as a banner to all of Israel, demonstrating that God was with them and that he was the source of their healing and protection, just like the Egyptians believed. It was a symbol, a cosmic symbol.” He paused for a few seconds, continuing to pace back and forth. “The same cosmic symbol of the flying serpent played a prominent role amongst the ancient Mexicans,” he declared.
“I’m sorry, are you saying that there was a Mexican Moses?”
Jaxon ignored the mocking tone. “Have you heard of the historical figure named Quetzalcoatl?” he asked.
“No,” Reddic responded wondering where this was going.