“Because I didn’t know—until I was promoted to a lab assistant, just a few days ago. He apparently goes through assistants quickly!”—Sam then looked at two men approaching from a nearby hill. They came closer with every staggered step. “What the hell!” Sam blurted out.
It was Thomas Childers and a companion. Tom walked toward them as he held the man at knifepoint. He prodded the man with a knife but held a military rifle to his side.
This day keeps getting stranger, Mattie thought. It is definitely interesting.
“Hello, Mattie! Hello, David! Good to see you, Sam!”—Tom, as his friends called him, never seemed younger than today. “This is Robbie, an assistant of Peter’s!” He continued as if nothing was surprising about any of this. “Anyone hungry?”
“Can anyone that speaks ‘spy’ sort this out for me, please?” Mattie said as she followed everyone into the house and closed the sliding glass door behind her. It was Sam that then added his humorous touch.
“I think it will have to wait until we have Tom’s soufflé, Mattie!” Sam said while he assisted Tom with securing Robbie in a nearby room. Sam shook his head with astonishment while he walked behind Tom and Robbie. I have lost my edge, he supposed, because he abruptly realized that Robbie had followed him from the coffee shop.
In the living room, Mattie and David sat down on a couch, looked at each other, sighed, and, oddly enough, laughed while they released the tension that gradually faded between them.
After lunch, there was a brief discussion concerning the humor of Thomas Childers. They laughed as they talked about the spectacle of seeing Tom walk down a California hill, with a three-piece suit on, and loaded with weapons. Then, it was time for the meeting.
The meeting was in a conference room. The room was accessible only by elevator, and it was lined with lead. The room was equipped with audio and video feeds from the internet, large monitors on two sides of the room, padded chairs, and a large rectangular and glossy table. It was in sharp contrast to the squeaking steps above, with rooms of wooden floors, and stylish Victorian rugs.
At the head of the table, there was Tom, and to his right was Sam. Mattie and David sat on Tom’s left. A large monitor at the end of the table was on, and it displayed a picture of Robbie Lock. Tom began to talk like another person, someone that they had never seen or heard before.
“Robbie Lock, alias Robin Lock!”—Tom asked David to dim the lights. “...Accomplice of Peter Jenkins, owner of Jenkins and Hughes Pharmaceutical. Five years ago, Robbie and Peter were observed by government officials purchasing large shipping crates in Egypt.”
Mattie grabbed David’s hand under the table and squeezed it after she heard the phrase “five years ago.” It was another reminder of the deception she had been subjected to. David rubbed her arm in assurance, and Mattie interjected a question.
“What is so unusual about large shipping crates being purchased?” she asked.
Tom touched a button on a remote control that changed the picture on the monitor. It displayed a photo of empty crates, and then he answered Mattie.
“They purchased empty crates, and then they shipped empty crates. They were shipped to America from Egypt. Ultimately, they were shipped to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was the location of a new scientific laboratory being built there,” Tom said.
Mattie in a sea of confusion and bewilderment retorted, “So what? How is that criminal?”
Why all the questions, and why did I bring her into this, David thought. She doesn’t belong here at all.
It was then that David volunteered an answer for Mattie. It was obvious now that many things had happened on the trip to Egypt that she knew nothing about.
“Mattie, it wasn’t criminal, but it was highly suspicious, and we believed the exact weight of the containers was forged. The boxes were weighed before and after their shipping. According to the official shipping records, the crates weighed about 900 kilograms, or about 2000 pounds, before they were loaded on a ship. The contents were supposed to be textile clothing or fabric—but when Sam and I inspected the contents, using the excuse of a random inspection, we found nothing in it but straw. That photo is a picture of the crates after the straw was removed and the crates searched.”—David looked to Tom to take over the conversation but wondered what Tom’s role in any of this was.
Tom added, “The whole thing was a diversion, or, as I suspected and confirmed later, it was a plan that failed—shipping crates meant to ship something—but never did. Sam—that was about the same time that I approached you about our agency, wasn’t it?” Sam nodded in affirmation while Mattie turned her eyes toward David.
The lies continue it seems, she thought. What else has David not told me?
The monitor then displayed a photo of Peter Jenkins, and a photo of a shipyard in Egypt followed it. Afterward, Tom shut off the monitor.
“David, I must apologize before I begin. When I first met you, with the intention of gaining employment as your personal assistant—when was that? Ten years ago, right?—just after your grandmother died, I believe.”—David nodded and looked down at his lap as if some old melancholy stirred within him. David was confused about Tom saying, “our agency.” David was in the dark also.
“My initial goal was purely, and simply, and honestly to just live the rest of my days out as your personal assistant, and ...”—Tom paused awkwardly as he pulled out David’s old, but familiar, white stone from his pants pocket. “...and to guard and watch over this!”—David released the hold of Mattie’s hand, and he stood up. He gawked as he grabbed the stone, and his eyes watered in a sea of remembrance.
“How did you find it?” David demanded. “Where was it? I thought I misplaced this five years ago when I was in Egypt.” He sat down while he still clutched the stone within the view of a puzzled and curious Mattie.
“As a manner of speaking, you did lose the stone, David. Rather, I took it and hid it from you to keep it safe. I hid it from Peter, and now, from Robbie,” Tom replied to him.
“Why would you do that? It’s just a white rock. You were in Egypt? You were involved with Sam?”—David was full of questions.
Tom opened a briefcase that he had laid on the table in front of them just before the meeting. He then took out a globe-shaped crystal that had a golden hue to it and sat it on the table.
“Take a look at this!” Tom said to David.
David sat the white stone down, and then he picked up the globe. Mattie reached out and touched it also. The globe randomly pulsated with a radiant and bright yellow color.
“Hold it close to the stone,” Tom said. As David moved the globe closer to the stone, the brightness intensified. “It’s a stone catcher, and a seer stone, or rather—what would you call it?—a crystal ball!”
“Why is it yellow?”—David was fascinated with the color and wondered about its source of power.
“It’s pure gold in a rather unique and ancient form. The age of this is not calculable, my friends. But this is how I found you, David. I was seeking this white stone—not to steal it, but to guard it—I wanted to keep its power away from anyone that would misuse it,” Tom defended.
“I think you should start at a better beginning because I am totally lost here.”—after David had spoken, Mattie offered her agreement to that statement.
Tom began with the story that Willie had told Peter Jenkins five years before. He explained the first Guardians and their mission. Their goal, he said, was to protect the entrance to an ancient garden. He told them of the Anakites that had arrived later and their destruction. Tom disclosed the reason that later Guardians were organized and explained their divisions in history. He made them clearly understand that the Guardians were formed to protect the royal stones from misuse by either the seeking of their destruction or by the keeping of their locations secret. He stopped at the point of the arrival of Robin of Locksley, in the meadow where King Arthur was.
“Wait a minute!”—David, the historian, spoke.
Perhaps his education was going to be of some use after all, Mattie thought.
“Malkuth stones, you called them—kingdom stones—royal stones—stones of royalty. Why, because of King Arthur?—and, Gan Eden, Garden of God—the Garden of Eden…”—David’s mind spun in excitement while Sam yawned with boredom—and Mattie waited with much expectation for the answer from Tom.
“David, there is much more to this story,” Tom said. “Let’s take a break and check on Robbie, shall we? Sam, let’s get some coffee—upstairs!”—with a forward hand gesture from Tom, Sam lifted himself up with the help of his trusty cane. He left with Tom and got in the elevator while Mattie and David stayed in the conference room.
Mattie leaned over her chair to David and nudged his ear with her nose. “No wonder you didn’t flinch about my story about the stones,” she pointed out. “You said you were going to tell me something earlier this morning on the beach.”
David obliged her and shared with Mattie his story about the man in the cloud that he had seen as a child. She learned about the stone that came out of the cloud and toward a young David. He revealed the whole story to her. He even told her about being bullied by Ricky Harrington and the circumstances surrounding the death of his parents.
David was extremely curious about Mattie’s life and her story, but he determined to press her only slightly. It is true that he had hidden part of his life from her, but he was suspicious that her secrets were even more mystical and incredible than his own were.
“What else do you remember about your story?” he timidly asked.
“Every day I remember more and more. It is like a past life, but not really. It is more like a present life that I forgot about,” she added.
Upstairs, Sam made coffee while Tom inspected the room where Robbie was locked up. Robbie was tied up with frayed and bulky rope, and he sat on a chair in his makeshift jail. He blurted out, “Soon to be dung in my pants, you know?”
“Hold on!” Tom replied. He untied Robbie and led him to a bathroom. “You know, you really need to work on your profanity. You don’t have it down after all these years?” Tom reminded him again that he always had the edge on him, ever since they had met many lives and years ago.
Within a few minutes, they were back in the room, and Tom started to tie Robbie back up. He put Robbie’s hands behind his back.
“Give a bloke a break, John!” Robbie pleaded. “Don’t leave me so tied up I can’t lie down or anything!”
“I haven’t heard that name in a long time. I suppose my body isn’t as tall as you remember it, eh?” Tom, or rather, John observed. “We used to run amuck, didn’t we? John and Robbie, it was. Those were the old days—weren’t they? Where did you go wrong, mate? What happened to you?”
“You know bloody well what happened!” Robbie retorted. “He killed and banished Marian, the bastard! He had no right! I loved Marian with all of my heart!”—Robbie intentionally leaned toward him seemingly for some comfort as he sobbed quite heavily. Tom patted him on the back and sighed. He felt that some undeserved but inevitable justice had once unfolded.
After a few minutes, Robbie soon regained his composure. Tom tightened the ropes around Robbie as humanely as possible, under the circumstances, and he left to go into the kitchen. Sam was at the kitchen table, and he drank his Kahlua with his usual sugar and cream.
“Have some?” Sam asked. Tom gladly joined him, and they talked about the time that Sam first came to David five years ago, as a soon to retire CIA agent. Sam, at the prompting of Tom, had asked David for his help with a case he was supposedly working on concerning Peter Jenkins and Haj Habib. They both agreed that they would tell David and Mattie the whole story, eventually.
“I think you should go see Sylvia Reeves.”—Tom’s eyes connected to Sam’s golden brown eyes.
“You expect trouble?” Sam asked.
“Just a hunch...and don’t forget the stones!”—Tom’s words had a feeling of foreboding, and he asked Sam to prepare to leave immediately.
Concurrently, Mattie and David still talked below in the out of place but modern conference room.
“I can’t believe that he kidnapped Haj! Peter was our friend, David!” Mattie insisted.
“I know that. He helped you when you needed financial assistance for schooling, and he helped us both with the relocation to Utah. Of course, now I wonder about his motives. I wanted to believe in him. There were so many times that he was there for us. When you got sick, he took you to the hospital, remember? He funded several of my experiments, and he jump-started my security firm with money. Why wouldn’t we trust him? I believed in him. That is one reason why I waited to tell you so many things—because I believed in him.
“In spite of having to monitor him, I never thought he was doing anything wrong. I even sold him some of my gadgets I had invented. He always loved the watch that I modified for him. Remember the cool watch? And, I agree with you—he was our friend, Mattie!”
Tom returned and brought a pot of coffee with him. “Precisely!” Tom announced. “He was your friend! That, I’m afraid, is now ancient history. So let’s wrap up my story! Then you, David, have a real friend to rescue!” Tom explained that Sam had to leave on an assignment, a sudden urgent call.
David looked down at his stone on the table. He told Mattie and Tom about the real reason that he had gone to Egypt. It was the intention of David to have his stone analyzed by the world-renowned gemologist, Dr. Hajen Habib.
Mattie included one more addition. “There is another story of stones that I must share as well!”—Tom looked at her with a look of trust and admiration as if he already knew every single word or thought that was going to come forward. However, even he was surprised at her next action and thought.
Mattie reached into her shirt, down toward her breasts. She grabbed something that was around her neck. She pulled out a long gold chain. On the chain dangled the most dazzling ruby gemstone that they had ever seen. The globe on the table began to glow yellow again as if it agreed with that opinion.
“Where did you get that?” Tom inquired while he gazed at the stone with wonderment. All eyes darted toward Mattie as they awaited her answer.
“I remember,” Mattie replied as if she stared into an imaginary horizon. “My friend—my friend, Aysha, gave it to me!”
Chapter 12
Malkuth Stones of Gan Eden
Part Two
It was an unarguable and plainly evident fact that Marian loved Robin with all of her heart. Likewise, Robin of Locksley promised a love toward Marian to equal her own, love not daunted by the inconveniences of pestilence, famine, or war. Their love even survived a Crusade war, where Soldiers of Christ, so-called, and soldiers of Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, waged war in Palestine and beyond, in the late 12th century.
It was in Egypt, during one of those wars, that Marian and Robin first met. However, when Robin brought Marian home with him to Britain, they found that war, disease, and poverty did not have one particular address.
Marian’s mother was Egyptian, but her father was from Greece. He died at the hand of a murderer before she ever knew him, during a political uprising in Cairo. After his death, her family lived in severe poverty and was ostracized by the locals.
The enslavement of many women at the time encouraged Marian’s escape from persecution and destitution; it forced her abandonment of her homeland in Egypt. It was a time of severe drought in Egypt, and with the drought came other undesirable problems. The drought left many hungry, and numerous others susceptible to robbery or murder. Some parents even resorted to cannibalism and survived on the flesh of their children. Some children resorted to thievery or prostitution to provide for parents who could not work. It was a time of great social, political, and moral upheaval.
It was about this time, according to rumor, that Robin acquired the knowledge of Nubian archery when he visited the land of Southern Egypt. For when Robin returned from Egypt with Marian, he displayed his newly acquired skills with the
bow frequently and developed a reputation for having the greatest of accuracy and the steadiest of hands.
He deployed those same skills on a full moon night, crowded by thick clouds above, as he pointed the tip of his deadly arrow toward an intended and surprised victim. Robin drew his bow squarely on a figure of a man in the shadows, who wore a dark robe and stood in a thick and misty Nottingham Forest. He was hardly visible under the cloak of the midnight hour.
The figure came closer and removed his hood. It was King Richard along with his guard. With them, there was Merlin, a close and new colleague of the king. King Richard’s white complexion shimmered in the crisp moonlight, and his strands of red and blond hair softly wiped his tired cheeks.
“You will put away your weapon, sir!” declared the king.
Robin recognized his friend once the silvery light revealed his features.
“My lord!” he apologized.
Robin thought that he recognized the king’s companion. Merlin was one among several that Robin had surrounded, with the aid of his men, a few months earlier. He took the group of men to the castle in Nottingham, only to find out that an expected King Richard was not there. His brother, Prince John, was at the castle, at that time. Prince John had attempted to declare himself king, while King Richard was in another country, in prison, and another suspected casualty of a Holy War in a foreign land.
As King Richard and Merlin continued to step forward into a brighter moonlight, Robin immediately confirmed Merlin’s identity. Robin remembered that he was the man who had been the least confused, on the night that Robin and his men surrounded him and his other two friends, in the woods of Nottingham. King Richard simply introduced him as Merlin.
Merlin, on the night of the mysterious transport, or transference, had ingested a new and experimental drug. The drug had the effect of removing any memory loss that normally occurred with time or space displacement, but Merlin had not shared the drug with anyone else, not truly knowing its consequences. Merlin, saved from the confusion of memory loss, had held his tongue as to the group’s true mission or their place in time. Merlin had pretended to collapse in a panic of pretended sickness, and then he had fled into the woods of Nottingham when no one was looking. He had restricted his visibility by the magical powers of the royal stones.
The Royal Stones of Eden (Royal Secrecies Book 1) Page 12