“I do not have the gene. My ex-husband did, however. He was only second-generation Greek. Many years ago his father came to Crete from America with his guardians. They had lived amongst the Indian tribes for many centuries and many had tried to find them, even Christopher Columbus. They were always protected by Knights of the Temple, the most revered ones. It is said that the first knight to protect our bloodline, when the Church split into two groups in the twelfth century, when two popes Innocent II and Anacletus collided with different agendas, was Hughes de Payan himself – the original Grandmaster of the Templars.”
Sophia looked at all their faces intently and continued.
“When the Templars were crucified by King Phillip the Fair and Pope Clementine V in 1307, they escaped with the current incumbent of the bloodline who was at that stage Baron Dion Chancery. They arrived in America and hid there. They headed west from Newport Rhode Island to the area around Lake Superior. They had studied Minoan architecture, sailing and navigation. That’s how they got away. Haven’t you noticed how much this Palace of Knossos reminds you of buildings built by the Templars? They knew about us. They revered the Minoans. They gained a lot of their wisdom from us, especially the ability to sail and to build, and their sacred geometry which the Minoans also shared with the Egyptians.”
David was taking every word in and savouring it. “Go on Sophia,” he said. Sophia took another small sip of ouzo.
“The Templars went to Lake Superior because they knew we had mined there thousands of years ago. They knew about the tribes that were there. So they set up in that region, but then it was time to leave about fifty years later. Can you imagine having the greatest asset in all of humanity with you and constantly looking over your back?” Sophia looked deep into David’s eyes.
“No I can’t,” replied David humbly.
“Well I can… but that comes later,” Sophia smiled, and visibly everyone moved forward on his or her seats.
“The knights left America and they came here. I can only imagine how fearful they must have been. Yet they felt exposed in America. The voyage from America to the Aegean was long and they diverted overland several times to remain silent and undiscovered. Yet by the early eighteenth century Napoleon had crushed so much of this part of the world. He had invaded Egypt and had troops here on our doorstep, French people. The Knights were scared of the French still, even though they knew Napoleon himself was a Templar. They knew that the New World was still developing and so they returned. At this stage the Chippewa and the Hopi had become great friends and thus a great secret was shared. The Hopi had said it was a prophecy that was carved into a rock in their tribal lands for years before. They became party to this great secret.”
“What stopped people coming out or going to the Scottish Church? They were allies and loved Jesus after all.” Rocko had stopped doing ouzo shots for an instant and become inquisitive.
“It was all about timing. Everyone knew about the carvings in Babylon, Sumeria of the time between Pisces and Aquarius. We have all learnt to follow the signs and not our heads or hearts. That is why I am talking to you today. I wouldn’t have done this twenty years ago. It simply wasn’t the time.” Sophia smiled at Rocko. He reached for the bottle and she continued.
“But in the early part of the twentieth century America was no longer safe. The big industrialists ruled and the families had come together, 13 of them. We had to hide again so Ghost Wolf’s father and Grand Oak again sent the children back here. He had Ghost Wolf tattooed with the hooked X, always the marker for those who protect the one, and Lone Bear’s father was tattooed as well. Those two were the watchers, until such time as Lone Bear’s father unfortunately died and Lone Bear took over, but he was too young and things went astray. It was a horrible time.”
It was at this point that Stacey couldn’t help herself. She even put up her hand to be respectful.
“Excuse me Sophia. I am sorry to interrupt, but what happened to the Templars. I thought they were the Watchers?” Stacey smiled her sweet smile and Sophia smiled back.
“They still are. Isn’t that right, Chief Lone Wolf?”
Lone Wolf looked at the others. He was weak but with an inner strength that had so far to go. If not then the Eagle would never have let him go to Sophia’s house.
“It is. I am a freemason, 33rd degree, as was my father before me and his before him. We always considered ourselves Templars and as much as Minoan DNA flows in my veins so does that of French knights of the fourteenth century. Ghost Wolf and I belonged to an elite lodge that a few indigenous leaders belong to globally. That is why we have been able to avoid the families. We too are very connected people. I love my tribe and will die for them, but my duty before God comes first.” Lone Wolf leaned back and focused again on taking long slow breaths, breathing through the pain.
“I missed that one, damn it,” Stacey said looking sheepishly at David.
“You are a very smart girl,” said Sophia, “and beautiful too. But we all miss something. I and my husband missed something hugely important that almost cost everything and I guess that’s what you really want to know about.”
“All in good time,” smiled David and then looked at Lone Bear. “Although we may need to move the story along a little.”
The morning was in full swing and they had been at Sophia’s now for around an hour. Whilst they were exhausted, battle weary, they were not moving an inch. The clean-up being supervised by the Eagle was well underway. Abbey had her comms back in and the Eagle had checked in and said things were returning to normal, although there were a lot of spectators at the hotel, but police had it cordoned off.
Sophia smiled at the group and looked at them all individually as if looking into their souls. She then went on:
“I met my husband in a normal way. He had this unique look to him, blond hair, blue eyes, slightly red skinned. Not at all Cretan in many respects. I too was very blonde in those days. We stood out. We met through the church. He wasn’t a big fan on going, yet the church used to have good socials. It was a time when the world was changing. The Vietnam War was over and we wanted to build a life together. He always had a strange friend with him. The man was silent and seemed to watch everything. He was by my husband’s side constantly. It was one of Ghost Wolf ’s people. I did not know that then. So we married and on our first night together I got such a surprise. You see my husband’s parents were gone and he was an only child. They were always only children, the chosen ones. It was a way of controlling the bloodline and keeping it pure and decent. I really didn’t know that much about him I guess. When he took off his shirt for the first time he had this strange tattoo. It was alike an upside down V, now I know it as a Chevron and a circle below it and it was on his heart. I was amazed. I didn’t know anyone with tattoos in those days.”
“He would be less conspicuous today for sure,” Rocko chimed in, but David’s look quietened him down. Sophia graciously didn’t get sidetracked.
“He told me this crazy story. Everything I have told you and more. It was fairy tale and at first I thought he was joking or in fact crazy. But over the weeks that it sunk in, with his different look, the bodyguard and simply his knowledge and way, I started to believe him. In the end in my heart I knew it was the truth and I have kept it to myself all these years. Even my brother in law here does not know.” She reflected to Minos who seemed as spellbound by the story as anyone in the room.
“He is not really my brother in law, just a friend of my husband’s, who had the same name. I always used to call them brothers.” Sophia stood and reached over and kissed Minos on the head. He glowed a little red from pride.
“One awful day something happened. We had become close to the priest at the local church. We were both Catholic, not Orthodox, although my husband practised many faiths and got along with them all. I never liked the priest, and he started to see something in us. I think it may have been when he saw us together with Ghost Wolf on one of his visits. They were always so secret, ye
t the priest just had a habit of dropping in. Then one day…” Sophia stopped as if remembering and David saw a burden come upon her but she raised her head and continued.
“I got pregnant. We were so happy. But when the baby came. There was not one, not two but three of them. I had triplets. It was crazy. My husband was beside himself. He said we were only meant to have one. There were two boys and a girl. Stevos was my first born, then Ana then Yanni, all of them blond haired and blue eyed. I never thought such children would come from me. My husband loved them all of course, but as they grew and were around three years old Ghost Wolf visited. That’s when the priest saw him. My husband said we may have to move after that, but we didn’t. You see I didn’t want to and then one night they came.”
“Who came, Sophia? It’s ok…in your own time.” David could see the old woman’s heart start to race.
“Three men, one in a suit, about fifty years old. The others called him Mr Black. The other two were Militia types as cold and nonhuman as I have seen. My husband argued with them for ages, but Black said it must happen. They castrated Yanni in our home and sterilised Ana. I could do nothing. They tied me up and I heard the screams of our children. It was too much for Ana, she collapsed and she died right here on this very floor. Then Black got angry. He said to my husband that they would take Yanni as insurance. They took him. He was gone. In one awful night two of my children were gone. My husband lost everything. He lost his soul that night. He said: what good was it if he was the blood of Jesus that he could do nothing even to save his own family?”
A tear rolled from Sophia’s cheek but she quickly checked herself. David decided to ask a question he knew the answer to just to help her breathe again.
“Why do you think they let any of you live?”
“Before they left and with us watching, they tattooed both my boys with the Chevron and Circle, then Black decided to take Yanni. He said that I must be quiet and raise Stevos or all of us would be killed. They said that they were watching always and knew who we were and would tell us, when we were to come with them. I pleaded and pleaded but nothing ever changed.”
She took a deep breath and was physically starting to shake. Stacey got up and comforted her.
“I have two sons Sophia. I can’t imagine how you coped.”
“I just did, my child. I had to. Stevos was the one. I wondered how he could ever change things and I had great hopes for him. We never told him about his brother and sister. My husband fell into hopelessness and disinterest in life, or who he was, and he hated the church. Of course we never saw the priest again. Then one day when Stevos was 19 another terrible thing happened.”
Minos had started to cry and the group looked at him. He apologised and wiped his eyes, yet he could not stop the tears. Sophia looked resolute, and simply said:
“Yanni returned.”
43
The bottle of ouzo was half empty. Most of it from Rocko, but even he had become so engrossed in this story that he had stopped drinking. Phillip and Lone Bear looked stable and David smiled and nodded at Sophia. Outside Abbey noticed the wind pick up. It was like this mid morning at this time of year in Crete. There was often a gentle breeze that let you know the Earth was alive.
Sophia drew breath:
“A young man arrived at our door. It was dinnertime and the three of us had sat down. I had made kleftiko, Stevos’ favourite dish. He had been out that day chopping wood with my husband and they were enjoying a few jokes. It was one of the few times I had seen my husband somewhat happy. The young man felt so familiar and when we invited him inside his whole demeanour changed.”
Sophia cleared her throat as a lump started to appear.
“He told us he was our son. His life had been hell because we had let him down. He spoke not in a Greek accent but another, harsher accent. He was tall and blond like my son Stevos – they looked similar. I believed him and went to him straight away and he struck me down. I fell heavily, but was still conscious. My husband was in shock, but Stevos launched on Yanni and a terrible fight occurred. Yanni grabbed the cast iron pot that was on the stove and he smashed it on Stevos’ head. Stevos fell and Yanni dropped and kept hitting him. I tried to get up, but I just couldn’t. I had snapped my femur bone but I didn’t feel the pain. My husband finally gained his sense and screamed and leapt on Yanni, but Yanni was younger, so much stronger, and incredibly strong and in the struggle he pulled a knife off the table and stuck it through my husbands heart. My husband died in a pool of blood looking into my eyes and saying he was sorry. I finally managed to get up but Yanni had run away, realising what he had done, and Stevos was just lying there also bleeding. I screamed and screamed and it seemed forever but finally help came.”
David reached over beside Stacey and comforted Sophia. She was a tough old warhorse he thought.
“So Stevos died and Yanni is still out there?” David enquired.
Looking up at David with wistful eyes Sophia said:
“I have never again seen Yanni, but Stevos survived.”
“He… he did… where is he, Sophia?”
“Why, he is out back of course, in his room,” she replied looking up at David.
David drew breath. He could feel every hair on his body stand up on end. He knew everyone in the room felt the same. The direct bloodline of the greatest individual in history was just metres from him. They had been through hell and back to find him and here he was. With the greatest respect for the lady who had just bared her soul he asked; “May we meet him?”
“Of course,” she said.
44
Sophia stood and led the group out the back of the small home. Once through the kitchen door there was a small paved way to an exterior building. It was only a couple of metres from the main house and David could hear music playing. It was a Dean Martin song. The steps up to the small out-building, obviously built later than the house were covered. At the door was a small flowerbed where some azaleas and tulips grew.
It wasn’t a big room, David thought, judging by the perimeter outside, and getting seven people in there might be a squeeze. He wondered how the man himself would react to all of them, and how the others were feeling, given they were about to meet the son of God, or at least his bloodline as it was. He looked at Rocko who simply smiled and said, “Just another day at the office.”
Sophia knocked quietly on the door. She turned and said; “I like to do that.” Then she opened the door and they stepped in.
It was relatively dark inside and David found himself blinking to adjust to the light. His heart was pounding and he could say nothing. As his eyes adjusted to the room he was trying to comprehend what he was seeing. Abbey held his arm and squeezed it so hard he nearly yelped. He felt the group give out a breath at once.
Lying in a cot was a disabled and mentally handicapped man in his mid-thirties. His body was contorted and he had no comprehension of them being in the room. Next to him a machine monitored his vital signs, its constant tick slightly out of time with the music. The man was blond, but quite dishevelled, with a few days’ growth on his face. His eyes were shut.
“I don’t understand,” said David.
“You see David, Stevos has been in a coma since that day. He came out for a few seconds once and fitted. His body seemed to contort from then on. He can’t speak, he never opens his eyes. He was blinded by Yanni in one of them anyway. In many respects he is already dead. But I care for and love him as my son. He is all I have left of my family. He has been like this for nearly twenty years.” Sophia smiled sweetly. She had expected this reaction.
Abbey moved to the side of the cot and put a hand on the body lying there: “Hello Stevos. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Lone Bear started shedding tears, as did Stacey. Rocko helped Lone Bear out of the room. He was devastated. “I could have stopped this,” he said to Rocko. Rocko simply replied, “It’s the way it’s meant to be.”
The others followed out and Sophia closed the door behind her.
“I’m sorry David. I’m sorry for your troubles. I know this was not what you were expecting. I’m sorry for all you went through.”
David grabbed the old woman by both arms and looked her squarely in the eyes.
“It is you that has been through the most. You are one of the bravest and most courageous women I know. Sophia, do you have a photo of your family at all, before all this happened?”
Sophia looked at him slightly confused. “I do. One photo. I can’t stand to look at it, but for some reason I have kept it all these years.”
“May we see it?”
Sophia went to a drawer on the sideboard, where she had got the ouzo. Out of the drawer she pulled out an old wrinkled photo. It was a typical family shot from that time: faded colour and a man and a woman, Sophia, standing with three very small children all facing the photographer.
“This is my Stevos, and Ana,” said Sophia pointing to one of the boys and the girl. “…and this is…”
“Yanni,” David spoke.
“Yes,” replied Sophia.
David looked at Rocko with one of those looks that old friends share between each other. Rocko nodded and then said the others.
“OK, we need to get Phillip and Lone Bear to hospital. Stacey, can you, Minos and the Professor do that. David what do you want us to do?”
David thought for a second and then said: “Abbey, let the Eagle know we are coming down again and we will be there in just a few minutes. Sophia you may wish to come with us.”
Abbey let the Eagle know they would be back down to the site. Minos went outside and got his vehicle to take the others to the hospital. Sophia had gone into her bedroom. She came out having changed into a large jacket and put on walking shoes. She closed the house, asking Minos to stay with Stevos and let the Professor drive the others to the hospital. He complied feeling that this day was indeed one of those that were unusual in life, even though he was keen to get back to the Palace himself and ensure its security.
Truthseekers Page 24