The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

  Inside, Cotten was surprised to see what resembled a hotel check-in desk staffed by two young Italian men.

  In a thick accent, one of the men said, “Your Eminence Cardinal Tyler, welcome. It is always a pleasure to have you visit us.” He turned to Cotten. “Ms. Stone, it is an honor to meet the person who recovered for all mankind, the Cup of Christ.” Then he stepped around the desk, shook both their hands, and said, “This way, please. They are waiting for you.”

  The young man led them through the ground-floor library and sala di studio where a handful of scholars worked.

  “They limit the number of researchers who are allowed in here to about two hundred a year,” John said to Cotten. “And the approval process to get in can take an eternity as well. If you’re permitted to do archives research, you must stay seated in this room and request what you need to the assistants. Everything is brought to you.”

  Cotten saw two rows of antique desks, each one about six feet long.

  “It wasn’t that long ago that they added electrical outlets at the desks for laptops,” John said. “Wireless will take a miracle.”

  Leaving the studio of the scholars, they headed for a tiny European-style elevator, the kind that barely held three people at a time. As they stepped inside, Cotten felt it bounce as the cables stretched.

  “Below us is what they refer to as the Bunker,” John said. “It’s the manuscript depository where the bulk of the archives are housed. But we’re heading up to the piani nobili, the rooms that contained the original secret archives. The Borghese Pope Paul the Fifth established the archives in 1610. He had a somewhat inflated ego and decided to have his name chiseled dead center over the main entrance to Saint Peter’s Basilica. Today, it would be the equivalent of Tony Blair painting ‘Tony’s Place’ over the entrance to Number Ten Downing Street.”

  Cotten shook her head in incredulity. Above all else, the popes were mere mortals after all, she thought.

  They got off the elevator and headed into a long, narrow room with lofty ceilings covered with colorful murals of celebrated papal events. An enormous portrait dominated one wall.

  “Speaking of the devil,” John said with a chuckle and pointed to the painting. “Paul the Fifth, ego and all.”

  A series of armadi—wooden closets—lined the room. Cotten saw two priests, both wearing black cassocks, standing beside one—the door agape. All the other closets were closed and padlocked. In front of the open closet stood a table covered with dark and yellowed parchments.

  As Cotten and John approached, one of the priests said, “Your Eminence, we have located the records of the First Council of Nicaea.”

  “And you’ve found a transcript of the Book of Emzara?” John asked.

  “We have, Eminence,” the second priest said.

  “Is there a list of items carried on the Ark?” Cotten said.

  “Yes,” the first priest said.

  Cotten felt her pulse quicken with excitement. Perhaps they were not chasing a lost cause after all.

  “And,” the priest added, “we have come across something extraordinarily puzzling, and much, much more.”

  ghost of galileo

  Cotten stood in the Meridian Room, the uppermost chamber of the Torre Dei Venti, the Tower of the Winds. Constructed high above the Vatican’s Secret Archives, the room had remained virtually unchanged since the sixteenth century. She stared at frescoes by Nicolo Circignani depicting events in the life of Christ and Saint Paul. Her heart beat quicker knowing she stood in the same spot where Galileo had argued with church curia that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. But more importantly, she pondered the riddle found in the Book of Emzara.

  She heard footsteps and turned to see John coming up the circular set of metal steps. He held a small stack of papers.

  “Standing in this place is such a rush,” she said as he approached.

  “It does tend to humble you.”

  “So what have you found?”

  “I ran the Greek and Latin translations by three of our best linguistic scholars. They all came to the same conclusions.”

  “Which are?”

  “There is one curious item in Emzara’s list of what was brought aboard Noah’s Ark, one amazing revelation on what the Ark was constructed from, and for you and me, the answer to a nagging question.”

  “Read it to me,” she said.

  John looked at the papers for a moment. “Emzara overhears God talking to her husband. She writes, ‘And God said to Noah, You are righteous and holy. And God said, preserve that which is righteous. Protect all that is created from the seed of Adam and the blood of the Tree of Life. For I will make a covenant with you and your sons. I will set my bow in the clouds as a sign of my covenant. I will never again destroy by water that which man has made. Not from the clouds but from the seed of Adam will come the thunderbolt. And it will be there on the day when my vengeance will once again destroy that which violates my land. And God said, Fear not, for they will know that I am the Lord Thy God, and I will show them the sign.’”

  “What is the thunderbolt?”

  “Not sure.” John shuffled through the pages. “The actual inventory—the manifest if you will—is very close to the list in Genesis. Seven pairs of all the clean animals and two pairs each of the unclean.”

  “Clean? Unclean?”

  “Probably indicated the different types of animals they were allowed to eat or not eat.” John glanced at the notes again. “Emzara also mentions that they gathered together clothing, food, seeds, grain, bedding, nails, a couple of oxen carts, farm tools, and finally the mysterious reference to the thunderbolt, something made by Tubal Cain from the blood of the tree of life—the item that has stumped everyone.”

  “Then whatever the thunderbolt is,” Cotten said, “it’s got to be the object we’re looking for, right?”

  “That’s the best guess. It’s the only item on her list that mentions who made it—Tubal Cain, the great, great, grandson of Adam. He was a blacksmith and his specialty was weapons. Thunderbolt must refer to a weapon forged by Tubal Cain from the hardened sap of the Tree of Life.”

  “So what’s the revelation?”

  “That the Ark was constructed from the actual Tree that grew east of the Garden. This confirms what Kai confessed was the source of the thodium being used in the Hades Project—crystallized resin from the Ark. Genesis says that God commanded Noah to construct the Ark from resin wood. So far, no one has ever positively identified what resin wood is. This nails it.”

  “And there’s the reference to the signs God would leave us,” Cotten said. “They’ve been there all along—the signature thunderbolt on all of Tera’s artwork. Even the CyberSys logo. How could we have missed those obvious connections?”

  “How many times have I told you the answer to everything is right in the Bible?”

  “Even the qubits and cubits conversion—the dimensions of the Ark and the exact dimensions of the storage qubits needed for the quantum computers. Maybe I should start listening to you more often,” she said smiling.

  John spread his hands in an “I told you so” gesture.

  “So if the thunderbolt is a weapon—” Cotten heard a commotion coming from the base of the spiraling metal steps. She and John turned as murmuring voices were followed by the muffled sound of footfalls on the metal.

  A man came up the steps. At first, Cotten saw his snowy hair, thick and wavy. Then the pale face with the wire-rimmed glasses, the white cassock—a gold chain and crucifix hanging from his neck. Finally, the famous red shoes.

  “I’m grateful there are few stairs in the Vatican like those,” he said in a slightly winded German accent. “Perhaps that’s why I don’t make the trip up here too often.”

  “Your Holiness,” John said. He dropped to one knee and kissed the ring on the outstretched hand of the pontiff.
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  The pope motioned for him to rise. “John, I have been told by reliable sources that you and Ms. Stone are hoping the ghost of Galileo will help you solve your five-thousand-year-old mystery.”

  Cotten stepped forward. “Galileo’s ghost hasn’t granted us an audience, Your Holiness, but it is an honor to finally meet you.” She took his hand in both of hers.

  “Ms. Stone, the honor is all mine. In this very building, perhaps no more than a few hundred paces from where we stand, rests the single most important religious relic of the past two thousand years—the Cup of Christ, the Holy Grail. And it is here solely because of you. Not only did you recover it—twice, I might add—and present it to the Church, but you did so after stopping what would have been a great and terrible tragedy.”

  Crossing his arms, the pope stood back and stared up with a look of wonder at the ceiling of the Meridian Room. “Do you see the mural of Christ calming the sea?”

  Cotten and John gazed in the direction he indicated.

  “Look in the top right-hand corner, in the middle of the portrait of the elderly gentleman puffing his cheeks. There is a small opening approximately the side of a coin.” The pontiff then pointed to the marble floor of the Meridian Room where the signs of the zodiac were etched and a meridian line cut down the middle. “Each March twenty-first, the sun shines through that tiny hole and strikes the vernal equinox line here on the floor. It was designed by the first official Vatican astronomer, a brilliant priest by the name of Ignazio Danti in the 1500s.” He gestured to the symbols at his feet. “I have stood on this spot and witnessed it. Quite moving.” The pope smiled at them both. “So now you want to know what is the meaning of the reference to thunderbolt in the Book of Emzara?”

  “Your Holiness,” Cotten said, “it is imperative that we find the object known as the thunderbolt.”

  “We are afraid that if we don’t find it first, it will fall into the hands of the Nephilim,” John said. “And from what we have learned, they plan to use it to bring about global chaos.”

  The pope silenced them with an upturned palm. “Like the others, I, too, was confounded by the thunderbolt, in the Book of Emzara. And so I did what I do whenever I seek understanding. I handed over my question to God and trusted He would answer. And so He has.” He fixed his eyes on Cotten. “Part of the answer came to me by remembering who you are and what you have done. Ms. Stone, the Cup of Christ once held the blood of Jesus Christ collected at the Crucifixion. Correct?”

  Cotten nodded.

  He looked to John. “What caused the blood to flow from Our Savior into the Cup?”

  “A Roman centurion pierced Christ’s side with a lance,” John said, appearing to think out each word as he spoke. “According to the Scriptures, out poured a mixture of blood and water.”

  The pope gripped the cross that hung at his chest and set his eyes on Cotten’s. “You have come full circle, Cotten Stone. What you seek is in the Hapsburg museum.”

  the legend

  Cotten watched out the window of the Gulfstream G150 as it streaked across the amethyst-colored evening sky on a course over the Adriatic Sea from Rome to Vienna. The Vatican City crest sparkled on the jet’s gleaming white skin. She was tired, but could not sleep. Though she had long accepted her destiny in this world, it still weighed heavily, especially when everything always seemed to spiral back to who she was—the daughter of a Fallen Angel, the product of a pact between her repentant father and God.

  She heard the pope’s words again in her head. “The revelation given to me about the thunderbolt began with my recollection of who you are.” He went on to tell her that the spear forged by Tubal Cain was carried on the Ark by Noah, and it is the same spear that was later used to pierce the side of Christ. Blood flowed from the wound, and His blood filled the Cup. The pope reminded Cotten that she had held the Cup in her hands, and now she searched for the object that caused it to fill with the blood of Jesus Christ—thereby coming full circle in her quest. His exact words still rang in her mind. “The thunderbolt you seek is the Holy Lance, known to the world as the Spear of Destiny.”

  Cotten turned away from the darkening sky. She and John sat in side-by-side leather seats, a narrow aisle separating them. In front of John was a curly maple-top desk on which rested a thick red folder, its cover inscribed with the words: For the Eyes of the Director. Beneath the inscription was the seal of the Venatori—a round emblem showing a raging lion and a longsword with the motto: Umbrae Manium, Arma Dei—Shadows of Ghosts, Armor of God. The folder contained John’s daily security briefing.

  At the other end of the short desk, in a seat facing them, was Carlo Zanini, a thirty-five-year-old Italian priest who had joined the Venatori to work in their research division as an expert on medieval mythology and Old Testament history.

  Under a tousled mop of thick black hair, Zanini stared at an open laptop screen through thick, horn-rimmed glasses. He scrolled down a series of data files and finally chose one with the click of the mouse. Once it opened, he said, “The Spear has an amazing history, just as His Holiness told you. The Book of Emzara refers to it as Thunderbolt and claims it was forged from the blood of the Tree of Life by Tubal Cain, a blacksmith and seventh generation grandson of Adam. No doubt the blood refers to the hardened sap from the Tree that grew in the Garden. As we’ve already learned from Emzara’s text, God instructed Noah to carry the Thunderbolt aboard the Ark to be preserved and protected for use at some future time. It is the only article other than the actual Ark itself to be made from the Tree—the vessel was constructed from timbers cut from the Tree.” Zanini opened another document as he pushed the heavy glasses up his noble Roman nose.

  “So the next time it shows up is at the Crucifixion?” Cotten asked as she made a note on a yellow legal pad.

  “Actually, no,” Zanini said. “We were able to find a reference in the Nag Hammadi Library scrolls in Cairo that mentioned Joshua holding up the Thunderbolt Spear as he signaled his soldiers to shout a ‘great shout’ which brought down the walls of Jericho. Also in the Cairo library, our researchers found a text stating that the Thunderbolt Spear was hurled at young David by King Saul in a fit of jealousy.

  “The Spear passed through the hands of Ehud, the second judge of the Israelites, and Ahab, the King of Israel. That was around 852 BC. Eventually it wound up in the possession of Pompey who later gave it to Julius Caesar. Caesar presented the Thunderbolt Spear to a Roman commander in recognition of years of devoted service. That commander was the grandfather of a soldier named Gaius Cassius. Many years later, in the hands of the grandson, the true legend of the Thunderbolt Spear began.”

  Zanini read off the laptop’s LCD for a moment, then said, “On April fifth in 33 AD, Annas, the advisor to the Sanhedrin, and Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest, conspired to have Jesus crucified and his body mutilated to prove to the masses that he was not the Messiah but only a mortal man, and a heretic. It was on a Friday, and the Sabbath began at sundown.

  “Jewish law decreed that no man should be executed on the Sabbath. As the day wore on, and Jesus hadn’t died, Annas and Caiaphas started to panic, since time was running out. They wanted to make sure Christ didn’t expire after sunset, so they petitioned Pontius Pilate to let them send their own temple guard out to Golgotha—the Place of the Skull—and make sure Jesus and the other two men crucified that day died before sundown. The Roman soldiers on duty turned their backs in disgust at the brutality of the temple guards as they clubbed and crushed the skulls and limbs of the two thieves, Gestas and Dismas.

  “Now, remember the grandson, Gaisus Cassius? This was years later, and he was the senior Roman officer on duty that day. He saw that Jesus had expired, and decided that rather than let the Jews disfigure the body, he would confirm Jesus was already dead, thus avoiding the mutilation.

  “The story goes that Gaisus was a veteran warrior, but he was getting old and his eyesight failing. It was a
lso said that he carried Caesar’s gift to his grandfather with him at all times. So with the lance in hand, he rode his horse up to the cross on which Jesus hung and thrust it into Christ’s right side between the fourth and fifth ribs. This was a Roman battlefield practice that when they wanted to prove that a wounded enemy was truly dead, they pierced him with a spear or sword. The logic was that blood would not flow from a dead body. To everyone’s surprise, out flowed blood and water from Christ’s wound. As the blood ran down the shaft of the Spear, Gaisus got some in his eyes. In that instant, his failing sight was completely restored. Thus we have the first evidence of the Spear’s power.”

  “I thought the Roman Centurion was called Longinus?” John said.

  Zanini nodded. “That’s correct, Eminence. After he had his sight restored, he became known throughout the region as Longinus The Spearman. Soon after that, he left the military and converted to Christianity, spending the rest of his life preaching the teachings of Christ until he was martyred in Cappadocia in the first century. We know him today as Saint Longinus.”

  “Immortalized by Lorenzo Bernini with his bronze statue in Saint Peter’s Basilica of Longinus holding the Spear,” John added.

  “Okay,” Cotten said. “But how did the Spear wind up in a display case in the Hapsburg Museum in Vienna?” She stood, took an aluminum carafe of coffee from its holder and refreshed John’s and Zanini’s cups before topping off her own.

  Zanini said, “From here on out, the Spear leaves a rather bloody trail. It starts with the Celtic warrior queen, Boadicea, who tried to form an alliance with the Romans, but she demanded too much control for their liking. Rather than come under their domination, she called up an army of twenty thousand Celts and declared war on Rome. Longinus, along with his prized possession, had recently traveled to Britain as a military consultant. She asked him for advice, but being a loyal former centurion, he refused. Boadicea threw him in her castle’s dungeon, and since she had heard all about the Spear’s legendary power, she claimed it for her own. With it, she and her army massacred more than seventy thousand Roman settlers, soldiers, and their families. She sacked and burned three cities, including London. It was called Londonium at the time. It’s said that on the battlefield, with the Spear in hand, Boadicea was invincible.