"You're machine?" She said and then spun away. "Don't you mean the Ministry's machine?"
"Cut the crap Rebecca. What do you have?"
Rebecca quickly closed the report and deleted it from TRNSLTR.
"Why on earth did you do that?" Erickson cried out.
"Because it is none of your business. Now if you don't mind," she tried to walk out the door but he placed a hand on her arm.
"Rebecca, I think we both know you should allow me to see this translation."
"No, I don't know that."
"How else am I supposed to know whether or not you are doing sincere Ministry work?"
"That is what Quality Control is for." Rebecca jerked her arm away. "Good day Director."
"Wait, Rebecca!"
She didn't wait. Rebecca marched out of the room and down the hall.
"I'm going to report this to the DEA!" he shouted out.
Rebecca didn't look back. She kept on walking.
*******
Outside the building, Rebecca looked around for Roland, but couldn't find the hovercar anywhere. Her hasty exit didn't go unnoticed. She felt the pressure to leave weighing on her nerves. Where is he? Rebecca walked down the block and looked around but Roland was nowhere to be found. Then a terrible fear washed over her: He left me!
It was then, as if the moment wasn't harsh enough, that an MSF agent came walking toward her from around the block. Rebecca felt her head grow light with anxiety. But before she had the chance to do anything, a familiar whining sound came from her right. Rebecca looked over and saw Roland's hovercar descending toward her. She practically leapt with joy as she changed direction and crossed toward him.
Roland landed and opened the passenger door. Rebecca slid inside as the MSF agent watched from afar. "Let's get out of here," she said.
"I couldn't agree more," Roland responded and pulled upward and into the sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"Did you get it?" Roland asked as they left Sector 28's capitol city. Rebecca showed him the d-reader and then pulled up the translation. Everything was there just like before. "And will Quality Control get the new translation?" he asked.
"Yes, but that doesn't matter. I'm sure by now they already know about the first."
Roland nodded his head and said: "Well I guess we should get back before Director Heckert calls for me."
"I'm not going back," Rebecca announced.
"What do you mean?"
She had anticipated this moment since they first arrived in Sector 28. "I can't go back . . . not yet, anyhow; I have to finish reading this. If I go back now I'll surely be arrested and terminated."
Roland looked concerned. "Well, what are you planning to do? I have to get back. I'm in it too deep already."
"I know, I know," Rebecca said. "I would like you to come with me but I can't force you. But I need to get to the Southern Point."
"The Southern Point? What in the Minister's name is at the Southern Point?"
Rebecca knew it was too dangerous to tell the truth. "I have family down there that can help me until I can get out on my own."
"I can't take you to the Southern Point," Roland insisted. "I just can't."
"I'm not asking you too. All that I ask is for a ride to the nearest StreamWay station. We can part ways from there."
"You're going to take the StreamWay?" he asked incredulously. "Don't you think the MSF will be watching that rail closely?"
Rebecca knew he was right but didn't see any other way to get that far south. The StreamWay was a cross continent underground railway that traveled at four hundred miles per hour. It was the main source for long distance traveling amongst lower tiered members of The Collective. Rebecca had only rode on it twice in her lifetime, the first time was when she was eight and the second was when she was seventeen. "It's the only way for me to get to the Southern Point."
Roland shook his head out of obvious frustration. "Why are you putting me into this situation? You know I can't let you get on the StreamWay. They'll arrest you for sure."
"You don't have a choice. You're not coming with me and I'm not going back."
Roland looked truly conflicted. "How are you planning on getting on the rail? You can't buy a ticket."
Rebecca knew that too. "I'm not sure yet. I'll figure out a way. Can you please locate the nearest station?"
After some hesitation, Roland reluctantly keyed in the StreamWay and the onboard map system drew up the closest location. "Looks like there's one about eighty-five miles away: between here and home."
"Perfect," Rebecca said and then paged through the open translation on the d-reader. "If you don't mind, I have some reading to do."
Roland looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. "Okay."
It took Rebecca a couple of minutes to find where she had left off from the previous night. William was still meeting with Benjamin Vermil and the group. He had just found out she was engaged to be married to Simon during their affair in the place called Iraq—Rebecca was still having a hard time with that aspect of the text. She had only kissed two boys her entire life, but according to the text she was engaged in a love triangle between two different men. Rebecca pulled her hair away from her eyes and began reading.
Simon handed William some document that was supposed to explain why Theoman was convinced that the Book of Thoth ended up in a Bosnian pyramid:
*******
It looked like a simple handwritten letter on recycled paper. I asked: "What's this?"
"That," Simon said, "is a letter written from Charles to Caroline asking if she could aid him in translating an old family heirloom of one of his students named Josip Matijic."
"A family heirloom?"
Dr. Thatcher, who was silent the entire time, spoke next. "It was a medieval document written in a dialect of Old-Shtokavain called Zeta-South Sanjak. I was sure of it because of my past endeavors with the language and my translating of the Vatican Croatian Prayer Book. The Matijic family declared that their great ancestor scribed it and that the document claimed their bloodline descended from Bosnian nobility. But of course, over the years they lost their ability to translate the text and its message became muddled through the generations of possessors. The student brought a photocopy of the document to Charles, and I agreed to help with the translation."
"What did it say?"
"It was rather exciting at the time," Dr. Thatcher admitted. "One rarely gets the opportunity to translate newly discovered history. The document was in fact a letter describing the marriage between a noble man named Stjepan Hrvatinic and a peasant woman named Bruna Rosier—which is French in origin. It went into great detail in explaining the ceremony, which was conducted by the Bosnian Church, and listed several other members of the conjoining families. But what I think you would be most interested in knowing is that the letter described the passing of a sacred ‘ring' from the French family to the Bosnian family. The text went something like this: ‘The sacred ring belonging to a king wiser than any before and any since, carries the power of wisdom gained from the lands of Gods conquered: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. It has been through flame and made home in its embers—Pod Hora. Into our sacred ground that has been our sacred heirloom for many centuries more—thus uniting our two families eternally under the protection of arms, church and God.' This ‘vow' was more like an oath, and it was more to the Bosnian Church than to the woman."
"So you thought this might have been the connection between the Cathars and the Bosnian Church?"
"I didn't," Dr. Thatcher clarified. "I didn't have a clue about any of that until Charles filled me in months later. I had never heard of the 'Cathar Treasure.' It was Charles that made the connection. This was his child. Charles decided to investigate the document further and was granted permission to have a sample taken to be carbon tested at a facility in Colorado. He employed me to use my connections at the Sarajevo Museum to see if there were any records on this Hrvatinic family—which I discovered there were. It turned out that the Hrvatin
ic family line was a powerful one between the 13th and 15th centuries. It also turned out that the Matijics were correct in their assumption. Probably more so than they realized."
"How's that?"
"Well the Hrvatinic family was always second to the throne and strong advisors to the King of Bosnia. They waged in heroic battles against the invading Ottoman Empire and were celebrated heroes."
"So did you learn what ground they considered sacred?"
"We did. My colleague at the Sarajevo Museum was able to retrieve a short but potent family tree for the House of Hrvatinic as well as documents on the marriages starting with Stjepan's marriage to Bruna Rosier, further solidifying the authenticity of the Matijics document. It also appeared that the Hrvatinic family did have a place they considered sacred. According to my colleague, they built a fortress town on top of a hill called Visočica. There was no official date for when it was built but there was indication that the Hrvatinic family had great influence over the founding of the fortification. He offered to give us a tour if we ever felt compelled to visit, which sparked our first trip to Bosnia together. We met with my colleague and he took us to the small town of Visoko where the Visočica Hill resides and we visited the remains of a fortification on the very peak called Visoki.
"It was his estimate that Visoki was built sometime during the span between 1353 and 1355. One of the offspring of Stjepan and Bruna, named Vukac Hrvatinic, was allied with Stjepan Tvrtko, the first king of Bosnia, and it is highly possible that the fortified town of Visoki was erected there upon Vukac's recommendation—a fortification on top of the very place where the ring was buried."
"So you began excavating the hill based on one man's speculation?" I wasn't finding the evidence to be compelling enough.
"It was more than speculation Mr. Coulee. Pod Hora—do you know what that means?"
Of course I didn't. "Buried in the ground?"
She shook her head. "You're not far off. It means ‘under the mountain.'"
"Okay, but you already stated that Visočica is not a mountain but a hill."
"Visočica, Mr. Coulee, is a seven hundred foot ‘hill.' Can you tell me how tall a hill must be in order to be a mountain?"
I couldn't.
"Seven hundred feet falls into that gray line dividing the two. So depending on who you ask; Visočica can be viewed as either."
"Okay, but why Visočica? Surely there are other hills—mountains in the region. What made you so sure that Visočica was the correct one?"
"There was a document that stated the land surrounding the mountain to be set aside as ‘sacred land' by the lords of Hrvatinic. And then there was the building of the fortified town of Visoki on the summit of the hill. I asked my colleague if there was anything else he could tell me about the hill—if there were any legends stating that something was buried beneath it. He told me as far as he knew there was nothing buried in the Visočica Hill but he did say that there were legends about the area that coincide with the belief that the area was sacred for religious purposes. I asked him to elaborate more on the subject but all he could provide was a childhood memory of a story his grandmother once told him about the Hill being haunted by the ghost of a lost great king—a king waiting in some cave for a worthy soul to summon him. This king would grant that person his power long lost to the kingdom. Charles and I found the story to be very relevant to our cause. If in fact the lost ring did belong to Solomon, it could very well be he who was supposedly waiting to be freed. Now, of course, I don't mean that literally, but this ring that the Hrvatinic letter mentioned could very well have spawned some sort of mythical legend that was embellished over the course of five centuries to become what my colleague's Grandmother once told him.
"So Charles and I decided to visit the site, and when we arrived, Charles began to notice something odd about its shape, something neither of us was expecting. The damn hill was shaped like a pyramid—a three-sided step pyramid to be precise.
"We traveled up the side of the hill to the stone ruins of Visoki. The view was amazing over the valley. I could totally see why the medieval Bosnians placed their outpost up there. It would have been virtually impossible to pass through the area without being noticed. Charles couldn't get over the odd shape of the hill. He kept saying: ‘What are the chances that this hill was formed as a perfect pyramid by natural means?' I suggested he should speak to a geologist."
"I imagine Dr. Theoman did," I said.
Dr. Thatcher nodded. "Charles spoke to a geologist and he said it is possible for the hill to be a natural formation. He said that a proper investigation would of course be needed to be conclusive but definitely thinks that the hill is probably nothing more than a hill."
"So why didn't it die right then and there?" I asked.
"Charles was still unconvinced that he was wrong. He kept telling me that his intuition was saying otherwise—that the hill was indeed a pyramid. I'm sorry to say this now, but I didn't share his enthusiasm. I told him that he needed to provide more concrete evidence if I were to stay onboard this investigation. And so he did."
"What did he do?"
"Charles paid for satellite tests to be conducted on the Visoko region. And to everyone's delight, the results showed heat leaving the Visočica Hill faster than the surrounding land, indicating that it is in fact a structure rather than a natural phenomenon. Charles concluded that the hill was both man-made and natural. He hypothesized that the hill was initially shaped like a pyramid but then carved down to look exactly like a pyramid. But we needed physical proof.
"We assembled eight team members to fly out to Bosnia with us. The objective of the mission was to uncover further evidence that there was in fact a man-made structure underneath the growth on the Visočica Hill. However, there was a new question emerging among us. If there is in fact a man-made structure under the hill, who built it? To date, there had not been any archeological evidence demonstrating that a civilization capable of building such a large structure existed in the region during the time frame we projected. It was a question that definitely needed answering."
I remembered Dohlman telling me that the chief argument against their claim was the time period Dr. Theoman had placed the pyramid inside. "That was the source of all the criticism you received."
"Yes it was. Unfortunately, we never made it far enough into the excavation to silence those bastards," Dr. Thatcher said with disdain. "If they would have just stopped and truly looked at what we were trying to do, as a whole—meaning not only the excavation but Project Renew Our History—then they would have seen there was something to our investigation." Dr. Thatcher was visibly agitated now. "I mean, inside the very first trench we dug, a student and I uncovered a large rectangular stone block perfectly placed along several others! It was the beginning of a causeway leading up the hill. It should have been exciting as hell, but instead, our peers became exceptionally combative."
"And why do you think that is?" I asked. I knew what Dohlman had said about careers being damaged but I wanted to hear it from Dr. Thatcher. I wanted to hear her take on it.
Dr. Thatcher released a long sigh. "Who knows for sure? There were plenty of people who wanted to see us fail. People who had a lot to lose if we were successful . . . some had entire careers on the line."
"You think your colleagues tried to sabotage your excavation?"
"I'm not saying that," she backtracked, "I'm just saying that they collectively decided not to accept our discovery. It wasn't much later that Charles disappeared."
We were finally getting back to the question I came there to answer: "What happened to Charles?"
Dr. Thatcher shook her head sadly. "I don't know. A couple of days before his disappearance we finished uncovering the causeway and began on what appeared to be a large stone archway that made up the beginning of the tunnel leading into the hill. It was our biggest break. Around the archway was an ornate entrance that definitely looked man made. It had a stone relief making up a molding around the arch and the
re looked to be some sort of writing on it, but the words and characters were indecipherable. I took photos and sent them around to see if anyone could identify the writing but no one had an answer."
I looked over to Professor Haggins and asked him if he had seen the photos.
"Of course I saw them."
"And you didn't recognize the writing either?"
"Dear boy, if I had then we wouldn't be having this conversation."
He was right, of course, but I felt compelled to ask anyway. It just didn't seem right. Between all of the brilliant minds making up Project Renew Our History and the countless amount of archived language samples, it was hard to believe that no one had seen whatever writing was on the archway. But then again, I was no expert.
"When my query came up empty," Dr. Thatcher continued, "Charles became very . . . troubled."
"What do you mean by that?"
She squirmed in her seat as she tried to give me a better explanation. "I mean: Charles was really not himself. He seemed very stressed—or like I said—troubled. His mind was elsewhere. He started taking long walks around the site, often disappearing for an hour or two at a time."
"He was stressed out about not finding a matching language for the writing sample?" I asked.
"No; I don't think that was it. You see, at the time we were beginning to feel heavy pressure not only from academia but also from the Bosnian government. Even they seemed to have lost faith in our work. They were sending inspectors to our site daily, slowing production to the pace of a snail. This deeply bothered Charles. He felt betrayed, accused, paranoid and lost. He actually used that word once. He told me he felt, ‘lost.' Then one day he headed out on one of his usual strolls and told me he was going over to the White Mosque. That was the last time I saw him."
"How much time passed from his disappearance to the arrival of the photo?"
Mr. Vermil cleared his throat. "About a week."
I considered everything they had said thus far and the only conclusion I could immediately draw was that the killers were probably people that had something to lose from Dr. Theoman's work.
The Sinner King: Book of Fire Page 18