So caught up, he missed the scowl forming on Millar’s forehead.
“These don’t look anything like the characters in David Whitmer’s Anthon Transcript,” Franklin said.
“We now believe the Anthon Transcript to be a fake,” Millar said. “The original characters copied by Prophet Smith and reviewed by Professor Anthon we believe were later replaced with a forgery by someone to discredit Joseph Smith and the Church.”
“. . . I would have thought hieratic.”
“Very astute, Dr. Reveal. So would we. Hieratic was used mostly by the priests of that time. But what we’re wondering now is if the early Mormon Nephites may have had a role in the initial creation of the Demotic language script itself!”
There was pen and pad next to the Plate. Someone had begun trying to translate a few words. “No, I don’t think that’s right —” Franklin stated to no one in particular, opening his backpack and removing three worn hardcover books. “Looks something like Demotic — but not exactly.” He began thumbing through the pages, occasionally lining out a letter, writing its replacement above . . . lost in a world of ancients . . .
“I wasn’t aware you were familiar with ancient Egyptian,” Millar said with the slightest discomfort.
Franklin barely noticed but muttered, “Not really. I don’t speak any of the Egyptian languages. More a hobby . . .”
It was like deciphering a code. Franklin began translating the first line on the Plate.
With subtle differences in character shape, the symbols were much like those in one of the books he’d brought . . . Letter by letter, word by word he replaced what looked to him like Demotic — combined with elements of Egyptian Hieratic — into Hebrew . . . That one looks kind of like . . . he didn’t know what that one meant . . .
Periodically he translated the Hebrew groups, reversing word order left to right into English words.
It was slow going. Like all Semitic languages, there were no vowels. These symbols hadn’t even any of the dots later used as vowel markings. Without vowels, who knew for certain what the old words really said.
For twenty minutes Franklin flipped back and forth between his three books — ancient Hebrew, Egyptian Demotic, Egyptian Hieratic, translating. Words appeared on the page. He thought of Joseph Smith hiding his translation of these mysterious Plates behind a blanket where no one could see. In every religion there’s always a narrow conduit. One prophet. Only one man who gets the truth directly from God.
Not discovered until the 1700s, the Rosetta Stone with its ancient tax amnesty for priests, had been the first key to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic and ancient Greek. But the Rosetta Stone with its three sections hadn’t been translated or published ’til the mid 1800s. Joseph Smith hadn’t had access to the stone when his Plates were unearthed.
Franklin was halfway across the first line when he stopped.
I, Nephi, having_____born of goodly parents . . .
He studied the verse. One word missing that he couldn’t translate. Otherwise perfect, he thought. He’d read most of the Book of Mormon. Not the whole thing, but the first lines he recalled.
Too easy. Too perfect.
Without meaning to, his fingers moved of their own accord, feeling around beneath the Plate’s left corner. They froze. A tiny indentation. A symbol, smaller than a copyright notice. A mint mark? — as if stamped by a modern tool. A square stylized C. He couldn’t be certain by feel —
He tilted his head up a bit, allowing his peripheral vision to widen, to scan the room. No one was paying him much attention. The other witnesses were glowing with excitement at other Plates, congratulating the Mormons, asking Millar questions.
“So the Plates were found inside Hill Cumorah?” Bishop Parker asked pleasantly, several tables away.
In the back of Franklin’s mind, a question: How does a Baptist know about a landmark famous only to Mormons?
He shrugged it off. I know about it.
“That’s correct,” Millar replied. “By one of our museum workers.”
Franklin bent over the Plate before him. He hesitated to do what he was about to. If I’m wrong — I’ll be the all-time prize-winning jerk! The family’s words came back to him from Cyn’s burial. Reveal what lies beneath, and you will know what is above . . .
His own table covered by books, he leaned forward, nudging one gradually with his left elbow . . .
a little farther . . .
The Plate slid off the bench, flipping — CHINK! Face down on the gray granite floor.
Solid gold or even a gold-copper alloy, it might have bent. But a thin corner piece two inches along one side split away. Franklin quickly leaned over and scraped a thumbnail against the thin sandy-sponge-like texture of the broken edge. And there in the corner of the main piece, a tiny C.
He looked up. The entire lab had frozen at the brittle sound of the Plate hitting the floor — except for Millar, who was running right for him. Scooped up the broken pieces, wrapping them in their protective white cloth.
But Franklin had seen.
Millar glanced around. They were all watching, but no one but him was close enough to have seen the edge of the jagged break. Millar’s narrowed pale-blue eyes turned on him. “How very careless of you . . .” Millar was breathing fast, considering — “Quite brittle . . .” he muttered, “clearly the tumbaga’s crystalline structure has oxidized . . . broken down due to such extreme age . . . ”
Franklin recalled something his father had said coming back from the mine one day. Tumbaga was extremely tough and durable — as long as the amount of gold was greater than 30 percent. Any less and such an ancient piece of metal would show signs of oxidation.
Not if the surface looks like that!
Greater than 30 percent gold, it never should have snapped. Bent maybe. The inside was cast, plated electrically on the outside. The Plate’s a fake!
He looked around at the other benches, back to Millar. There, in Millar’s face! If there was one thing Franklin knew it was how to read people. The perspiration on Millar’s upper lip. The shaking hands, swelling nostrils, excessive skin tension.
The Plates are all fakes!
The eyes of the Mormon researchers seemed to fire bullets. The other witnesses, too. Father Bruce, even kindly old Moshe Specowitz.
What’s wrong with them?
The temple walls felt suddenly very thick. The airport a long way away. The Wasatch Mountains insurmountable. Erie, Pennsylvania, was on another planet. Was he going to be allowed to leave?
Millar’s lips pressed together, eyes flipping back and forth at the other witnesses, until finally releasing a long exhale: “I’m afraid your assistance here will no longer be necessary, Dr. Reveal.”
Franklin simply nodded. “I understand.”
Millar nodded back as if coming to a decision. “Deirdre will take you to the airport,” he said through clenched teeth.
Franklin removed his lab coat, pulled on his leather jacket. Closed up his books and stuffed them into the little backpack. He raised his eyes to Millar. “By the way, Doctor, do you happen to know anyone named Choriza or Swan?”
Millar froze. His lips swelled, jaw clenched — then just as quickly recovered, forcing from his lungs a long breath of air. “Goodbye, Dr. Reveal. Deirdre?”
No Complaint
“Oh, Reverend!” Mrs. Regal called after Ralph Maples.
The Senior Minister, lost in thought paid no attention, turned back for his office door.
“I just stopped by to tell you how much I love our Youth Minister, don’t you?”
“Hmm,” Maples nodded absently, head down, trying to worry out what to do about Franklin and his unfortunate information.
“Dr. Reveal. He’s just wonderful, isn’t he?” she called out. “When you say God works in mysterious ways — I don’t know what he did . . . how he worked so fast! Our Charlie is like a different person!”
Maples froze. Rotated slowly on the spot to face her, a growing bulge in
his beard beneath his right cheek. “Yes?”
“Uh, Charlie —” she frowned, suddenly uncertain whether to continue, though she couldn’t say why. “Uh, Charlie, he’s been, uh, doing nothing but studying! Ever since his talk yesterday with Reverend Reveal . . .”
And then Ralph Maples listened carefully to every single word she said.
Toronto
Toronto International was near martial law, with heavy racial and religious profiling.
But Pang Zhou’s Chinese passport and East Asian features allowed him to pass Canadian airport customs twice as fast as the many Arabs stuck in the long lines. He rotated his thick neck in contempt. His looks shouldn’t have bought him anything. Zhou was from East China. A million Muslims lived in the west Xinjiang region of China too. Pang Zhou resisted his anger — two hours landing delay, increasing frustration, slowing his progress to regain Ting.
Now free, Zhou forced himself to walk the outer concourse casually, to keep pace with the other travelers. His face was unknown. Despite his anonymity, the armed soldiers left him feeling anxious. Once Ting returned he would have nothing to fear. Perhaps he could leave this disgusting land also to the flame’s destruction.
He thought what he would like to do. His disloyal engineer. His three missing Muslim technician bastards. One must have stolen precious Ting! He would like to find them —
No! I must find Ting. The new man would soon arrive. His next task . . .
Exit signs turned him left. An intersecting hallway. Passing cameras. He kept his head down. Best not to return this way. Difficulty enough, a man as he, remaining unnoticed in a land of so many pale and scrawny.
He ignored the many shops. Their obnoxious signs. He did not drink alcohol. He had no desire to eat their American cooking.
He passed the newsstand. And froze.
The face he hated beyond all others peered at him from the cover of TIME magazine. The face he had seen on television.
And there! Ting!
Zhou’s hands shook with strain as he lifted a copy. Gently, he placed several bills on the counter. His grip tightened around the purchase as he walked away.
His will slipping, he pulled furiously at the glossy paper. He tried to read the hated language he barely understood. It was full of stories on New York, Virginia. The pictures were clear enough. They would have filled him with great satisfaction — death, destruction, the pure havoc wreaked upon the cities.
But for that moment, Pang Zhou’s eyes could not escape those of bright crystalline cobalt, the eyes of the dark-haired man, the man with Ting.
The man Zhou soon would kill.
Cornered
Franklin couldn’t understand it. The feeling he’d gotten. Like they wanted to make him disappear on the way to the airport. Maybe even before he’d gotten out of the Temple. Ridiculous. A major religious group attack him? Harm him on sacred ground? Not even Catholics did that.
But nothing had happened.
Still, he couldn’t ignore that pinch he’d been feeling in the back of his neck all the way home.
It was dark when the commuter plane landed in Erie. Franklin was the last one off. Last plane of the night, apparently. The terminal was shutting down. Walking through the wide, nearly empty halls, the feeling was even stronger.
He tried to shrug it off. He had to call the two women, Mattie and Barb. Tell them what he saw. The Mormon Plates were fakes. They had to be. That cross section of metal couldn’t have existed a thousand years ago. The tiny designer’s mark, that stylized C on the back. He wasn’t looking forward to it. What do I say? Your husbands are involved, but I have no idea where they are?
The plane’s few passengers dispersed through the main doors. What in hell was I thinking, dropping that Plate on the floor? Asking Millar about Choriza and Swan?
Outside, the heavy lake snow was coming down, the wind making sparkly pillow-size drifts of the first few inches. That pinch in his neck was back. He started across the dimly lit parking lot, a strange feeling of growing disquiet.
He glanced over his shoulder. There was a silhouette, someone in the terminal’s light behind him. One of the security workers or cleaning people.
Franklin picked up his pace across the open lot. The sharp sound of accelerating footsteps trailed him on the icy asphalt. He looked back. The shape of a second person off at a forty-five converging in his direction.
I’m just being paranoid. Why would they be after me?
But something told him it just wasn’t true.
I could run for the jeep. But the feeling he’d never make it to where he’d parked welled up inside. The old jeep was still beyond his line of sight, somewhere around the bend in the fence in the V-shaped lot.
Above the corner of the fence he saw the tops of a double-headed light pole from the lot’s other section. Both of its large bulbs were burned out.
He cut around the fence and ran for it.
Vanished
“Where did he go?”
Franklin could barely make out the figures. The snow was really coming down as two of the men trailing him converged with a third from the opposite direction.
“He didn’t come this way?”
“No!”
Who are they? Franklin thought, listening to the soft accent. East Coast?
The shorter man pointed toward the far side of the lot. “That’s his ride over there?” he demanded.
Definitely East Coast, Franklin thought.
“Yeah.”
“Hold on!” said the third man. The running icy click-clack of hard-sole shoes increased, then stopped. Franklin could make out a beam illuminating the inside of his jeep. He heard the jeep’s rubber stays released, its hood scrape upward. A moment later bang shut.
Fast steps rejoined the other two.
“Nothing! But he’s not going anywhere in that old thing. I popped his coil wire.”
They were so close now. Franklin could hear every breath. See their frost on the evening air. Who are they?
“How’d he get past you?” the short man demanded.
“He’s got to be here somewhere!”
“The guy can CLIMB!” shouted Short Man, suddenly shooting a pen beam straight overhead, scanning both sides of the dead light fixture. “Damn it. Nothing!” A mixture of anger and disappointment. “Well, goddammit! Where is he? Did he know we were looking for him?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“He must have circled back to the terminal somehow.”
“Or else . . .” the first man’s head turned back to the area where several small planes were parked, “he hopped the fence here and he’s back out on the tarmac!”
Two of the three turned. Ran over. Quickly climbed the runway fence. The third ran back for the terminal.
Uncurling stiff knees, like a ghost Franklin rose from the pavement. Brushed snow from his dark hair, his white shirt. The skin of his left hand and left cheek were numb down into the flesh. His chest was freezing. The only parts of his body still warm were his feet where his jacket with its white lining, inside out, had covered the shine of his dark shoes and most of his dark slacks. As he reversed the jacket, something white and snowy fluttered to the ground.
He took a quick look for his pursuers. He was less than five steps from the mound of snow that had been his hiding place when something made him skid to a stop. Those were Cyn’s papers! He went back, pawed through the white drift. There! He shook the snow off, shoved them back into his jacket and fast as he could run, hobbled unevenly for the jeep, his gait smoothing after the first few strides.
He popped the hood rubbers and searched out the coil wire. There! He plugged it back in. Quietly as possible, closed and latched the hood.
He slid into the driver’s seat. No way I could have climbed that pole — too icy — maybe with enough time, a couple short lengths of climbing rope wound around it. Even if I could have done it, who knows where I’d be now — maybe dead!
The old j
eep’s ignition caught on the first try.
He rammed the stick into gear and roared from the airport lot.
A Cut Above
For two hours Pang Zhou walked.
When he could no longer hear the airport, he entered one of Toronto’s snowy neighborhoods, exactly as he had foreseen. Under the dark barren branches of a huge leafless oak, street lights at least twenty yards away front and rear, he found the icy-gray sedan.
It was not the type of vehicle he would have chosen. Small for Zhou’s huge bulk. But Pali Kongju had given this vision: Anonymous. All-wheel drive. Tiny spikes extended from the tire treads.
Without hesitation he used his bare fist to punch out the rear quarter window, reached through, opened the door. His knife flashed. In less than a minute he had the steering column ripped apart.
Here things did not want to go as planned. The column lock was stubborn. Wires — this rat’s nest was not within his area of proficiency. Had the Kongju misled? Without Ting he was truly blind!
“Hey! That’s my car there, eh?” An angry voice from behind.
Zhou rose from the driver’s door. Turned. Smiled into the fear growing in the man’s white face. His knife slashed. Blood sprayed the snowy road. A set of car keys jangled as they fell. The engine started.
Zhou turned south, rising smoothly up onto the freeway.
His anger moderated as he felt Ting — and the dark-haired man — growing closer once again.
Update For Mattie And Barb
They were definitely looking for me, Franklin thought. He walked into his manse and locked the door. Who were they? He pulled out Cyn’s damp papers. Laid them out on the kitchen table to dry.
Search For Reason (State Of Reason Mystery, Book 2) Page 37