“You mentioned gateways,” Ben began cautiously, “in the house, on the lawns. Do you remember where precisely?”
Millie nodded. “In the foyer and near the bridge,” she answered. “I think there was another in the storeroom near the great room. It all sounds so strange to me now, like it never happened at all.”
Manning saw something crawling up his jeans—a roach. Jenna also saw it. Much to his surprise, she brushed it away with the back of her hand. Both knew it was time to leave Millie Stewart’s house.
Back at Atwood House, Ben dialed the phone number to the Newburgh Presbyterian Church and spoke with an associate pastor. “I think Millie Stewart is a member of your congregation.”
“Yes, for many years,” returned Assistant Pastor, Gary Evans, “and she never misses Sunday morning service.”
“This is Ben Manning. I own the old Atwood House.”
“Yes, one of Newburgh’s great historical houses. How can I help you?”
“A friend and I visited with Mrs. Stewart earlier today, and I’m sorry to say that living conditions in the house are disgusting. She mentioned that a couple of ladies from the church visit her occasionally, so I’m wondering if any of this has been brought to your attention?”
“No, I’ve heard nothing at all about this.”
“Is there a chance that you could visit Mrs. Stewart, maybe get some volunteers to put the house right, if you know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, and you have my personal assurance that it will be taken care of with discretion.”
“I’d be happy to help out, if you need me.”
“Thanks, Mr. Manning for bringing this to my attention. We have a conscientious church congregation always willing to lend a hand.”
“A friend,” said Jenna abruptly, once Ben hung up the phone. “I thought I was a little more than that.”
Laughing slightly, Ben replied, “You know what I mean, Jenna.”
“That was a nice thing you did, Ben.”
“Yeah, I feel better about it.”
“We could clean it ourselves, you know.”
“Let the church do it. Maybe it will set a precedent of sorts.”
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Okay.”
Later, sitting on the front porch, they watched the afternoon transform into a stunning sunset. Under the orange glow across the southwestern horizon, the Ohio River looked smaller and less foreboding. Peaceful, serene in its journey, it seemed in no hurry to find the big Mississippi. On one of the sandbars near the Kentucky side, a couple boaters gathered their gear, and soon disappeared around the bend on their way toward Evansville.
“She’s a nice lady,” Jenna said, her eyes on the sunset.
“It’s a sad thing to see a person feel so used up. Maybe she really was glad for the chance to talk again about Atwood House.”
“I was surprised to hear her speak about things so casually,” Jenna admitted. “It was like she was seeing her experiences there, especially those at Christmas, happening all over again.”
“Maybe reminiscing is that way. I can’t imagine living alone like that. It can’t be easy for her.”
“Then why don’t we visit occasionally?” Jenna suggested.
He put his arm around her, “Nice thought.”
Chapter 21
Walking Einstein sat alone in a small room painted putrid yellow. The only furnishings were four wooden chairs, two on each side of a large table that had nothing on it. An observation window made it clear people were watching him even now. He was sure it was an interrogation room and decided he was only moments from being interrogated. About what, he didn’t know.
His canvas bag had been confiscated. While waiting patiently for someone to come into the room, he snapped a dirty handkerchief across the tops of his wingtips. He didn’t have to wait long before a short man wearing an impeccably-tailored suit walked in and sat down at the table across from him. Attempting to size each other up, the two men looked at one another for several seconds.
At length, the short man in the expensive suit began, “You can call me Smith.”
“That’s fine, and you can call me Jones,” replied Walking Einstein.
“We know who you are, Dr. Charlie Chase.”
“Well, Smith, why don’t you tell me why I’m here, why you zapped me off the street? And I’d like to have my bag returned.”
“In good time, Dr. Chase,” answered Smith courteously. “You can understand why we would be concerned about a man walking the streets with a bag of rocks.”
“Can we please cut to the chase?” he smiled.
Smith opened a folder and began reading. ‘“Dr. Charles Chase, 35, unemployed, and referred to most often as Walking Einstein.’ Very flattering name for an itinerant such as yourself, don’t you think?”
“I’m definitely humbled by it.”
“Let me continue please. Let’s see, ‘PhD in physics, University of Chicago,’ where you taught seven years before being released. Never tenured and frequently at odds with not only your administrative superiors, but also most of your department colleagues, and even students. To put it frankly, Charlie, most of them thought you were stark raving nuts.”
“Bunch of sheep really. It was a bad relationship right from the start. What else you got on me?”
“‘The Truth About Interdimensional Travel, published by The Free Press’ four years ago, but peer reviews were not altogether favorable.”
“Academics, most of them need specific instructions on how to blow their noses. The few that have courage enough to propose anything outside the constraints of mainstream thinking are looked down on, and often referred to as educated idiots, sensationalists whose research is ridiculously short of empirical data is usually how they put it.”
“That might well be true,” Smith offered generously. “We know all about glass towers and prima donnas of every description and temperament.”
“Oh, one point of contention in this fascinating biography you’ve got there. I resigned before they had the satisfaction of dismissing me.”
“We think your research is cutting edge,” said Smith abruptly.
“Listen, I’m not too thrilled about being picked up the way I was.” After pausing to glance at what he was sure was two-way glass, he added, “Who is this we you’re mentioning? NSA, OSI, CSI, FBI, NASA? Help me here. I’m running out of letters. Give me another vowel and a couple of new consonants.”
“We’re none of those, and yet all of those,” acknowledged Smith.
“So, you’re deep, and there aren’t enough letters to define your organization. And probably no congressional oversight either. How am I doing?”
“Let’s face it, Charlie. You need a job and we’re offering one.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’ve been to the Abbey every day for the last month, and most recently you’ve made frequent visits late at night. Your fascination with that hunk of rock out there has us curious.” He cleared his throat and leveled a look at Chase that was direct yet inquisitive. “We saw the beam of light.”
“I knew you guys were doing more than laying drainage tiles.” He bent over to wipe his wingtips with the fingers of his left hand. “I suppose you found the quartz veins?”
“Yes.”
“There’s your answer—quartz.”
“We already know about the conductive properties of quartz. But there are pieces missing, and we think you know what those pieces are and how they fit together.”
“I’ve spent years studying what mainstream science considers—let’s see what’s the term they use—fallacious lunacy . . . or words close to those. While they were anxious to publish the same old crap in various scientific journals, I was enduring endless rejections and criticisms for hypotheses that rattled the righteous foundations of academia.”
&n
bsp; “That’s a reputation people like you have to accept.”
“People like me are as devoted to facts as any of these smug bastards in ivory towers. Any theory away from their narrow-minded thinking borders on scientific blasphemy. There’s not one willing to take a shot in the dark, because they’re too damned wrapped up in protecting their tenures. Imaginative thinking just doesn’t cut it, too many risks, so they play it safe. The few forward-thinking, innovative, unpretentious researchers still out there endure constant ridicule by these complacent, egotistical, and suffocating academic elites.”
“You’ve been branded an overzealous radical among your contemporaries,” Smith said.
“You brought me here to tell me that? Come on, Smith, or whoever the hell you are. My boat’s still floating, and I got both oars in the water, if you follow the analogy.”
“Relax, Doctor. We didn’t bring you here to dress you down. I’m sure you’ve had enough of that already.”
There was a knock at the door. When Smith opened it, a tall man, probably pushing 50, dressed in Air Force blues, filled the space. Chase knew he was an officer but couldn’t tell the man’s rank. Whatever words exchanged between the two men in the doorway were inaudible to Chase, who was beginning to get increasingly uneasy with being detained.
“We’re working on a project, Dr. Chase,” Smith announced after the officer had gone and after Smith returned to the table, “one requiring your expertise.”
“There aren’t already enough overpaid academics in your think tanks, Mr. Smith?”
“We need a freethinker, an individual not confined to mainstream scientific research, an individual unaffected by prevailing theories.” He leveled a weighty look at Walking Einstein, who was sitting with his arms folded on the table. “Are you interested, Dr. Chase?”
“I’m interested, but not much more than that. What I know, you must also know.”
“You sell yourself short, Chase,” declared Smith sharply. “But if you want to continue with this persecution complex, that’s your cross to bear—not the government’s.”
“It’s more of an inconvenience than a cross,” returned Walking Einstein. “I’m so out of touch with these mainstreamers these days that whatever they say or write about me is like water off a goose’s ass. I just plain don’t give a damn. Besides, there isn’t one of these liberal academic loonies who’s seen what I’ve seen.”
“Exactly, Dr. Chase, and that is precisely the reason you’re here.”
“There’s nothing more I can tell you. I have a couple of hunches, but nothing definite.”
“Hunches?”
“Theories, if you prefer.”
“We’re more interested in facts, Dr. Chase.”
“Why would the government be so interested in a chunk of rock?”
“We’re willing to pay for the information you have.”
“I need time to analyze some recent data,” returned Chase.
“We’ll give you whatever time you need, and a place to work, with only a couple stipulations.”
“Let’s hear the stipulations.”
“We have first refusal on your current research, and all subsequent work when you contract with us.”
“I need more on the we part. In other words, I need to know precisely who you are.”
“Yes, that’s certainly legitimate, and it will all be made clear to you once you’re aboard.”
“That sounds Navy.”
“To a point it is,” Smith admitted.
“I thought clandestine organizations like yours just took what they wanted without the sweet talk,” Chase confided. “Or is all that nothing more than Hollywood?”
“I’m not a Hollywood kind of guy, Dr. Chase. You’ve been thoroughly vetted, and your work correlates with a classified government project.”
“What little I know about governments too often distresses me. It’s my opinion that benevolence is not an identifying characteristic. Like many other ordinary people, I just don’t trust governments—or politicians. Politicians are pompous snobs invested for the long haul. Their constituents are expected to endure incompetence and meaningless promises. I don’t think any differently about organizations like yours, whatever the hell it is.”
Seconds later, the door opened again. This time, the big man in uniform entered the room. Dr. Charlie Chase was sitting in front of Lt. General Moro Eugene Elkins. It was immensely evident that this was a man used to throwing his weight around. “So, you’re Dr. Charles Chase?”
“Yes, I am, General.”
“Some of your current work has gotten our attention.”
“I tend to talk a lot, get excited easily, especially when I think I’m onto something important.”
“It’s what you haven’t said that we are interested in.”
“Now that is interesting,” replied Charlie seriously, “but it’s not the first time someone has told me that.”
“We have plenty of overpaid people working projects that use language and theories I could not begin to comprehend. We need a practical thinker who will take a pragmatic approach to research we consider critical. Smith will brief you, give you the specifics, and we’ll proceed from there.” The big man, with three shiny stars on his epaulets, turned and walked out the door.
“Can I get my bag now?” Charlie inquired.
“Of course, Dr. Chase. We’re very accommodating here.”
“Accommodating is definitely not a word I’d use to describe you or your organization.”
Ignoring Chase’s chiding remarks, Smith told him there was routine paperwork Charlie needed to sign, and that would be followed by a briefing, during which the government’s expectations would be detailed.
“We’ll set you up with your own laboratory at the University of Vincennes in Indiana. You’ll have a secret clearance, and you’ll answer to me weekly, and have no connection to the University in any way at all.”
Charlie nodded, “I’m impressed.”
“You should be, Dr. Chase. We respect the integrity of your work and expect you to have the same regard for what we’re trying to accomplish.”
“And what exactly are you trying to accomplish?”
“That information will be revealed in detail during your briefing.”
That was the end of the discussion. Chase was taken to another room in another building. That room had the same appearance of sterility as the one he had just left. Listening carefully, he was quick to fill in at least some of the blanks. Smith and his people had clearly connected “gateways” with high magnetic fields. Quite possibly they thought Chase knew how to control these portals. An aspect of this initial meeting that had received insufficient discussion was how ley lines fit into the equation. Maybe that information was already known to them. One thing remained decidedly clear, that in the coming days and weeks Dr. Charlie Chase would be required to provide pertinent research, or he would soon have his walking papers in hand.
Chapter 22
Gathered around the kitchen table, Ben, Jenna, and Liz watched Adrian White move a plastic ruler over the placemarks, most of which fell on or near two heavy lines running the length of the map. “Together, we can possibly identify several of these places. In fact, I know some of them well, especially the ones around Evansville,” admitted White.
“I grew up in Spencer County,” Ben said, “and even then, some of these spots held a particular fascination. The cliffs in Rockport, not a real big deal unless you’re a kid with the opportunity to play there. And in Grandview, right on the Ohio River, is the Archaic Period Shell Mound, never professionally excavated, but familiar to local relic hunters. Located on a bluff at the edge of a cornfield, they dug out artifacts before the river got them. I remember how disturbing it was to see human bones washed across the cornfield and scattered on the sandy banks of the Ohio River.
“Creepy,
” Jenna suggested, “like digging in a graveyard.”
“Angel Mounds,” declared White, using the edge of the ruler to indicate a site near Evansville, “Middle Mississippian mound builders, and one of the best known archeological sites in Southern Indiana.”
“I know the Old Newburgh Presbyterian Church,” Jenna began, “has a reputation of being haunted. It’s even on the Ghost Walk tour every Halloween. And here, Preservation Hall, also on the Ghost Walk.”
“Fernwood Pioneer Cemetery, Ewing Young Burial Site, Hoover-Minton House. There are a lot of places here in Newburgh,” Ben declared, “and all near or inside one of these red circles.”
It was Liz who identified what the others had apparently overlooked. Pointing, she said, “The William Gilbert Atwood House.”
How about that?” smiled Ben. “I don’t know whether to be pleased or worried.”
Liz kept looking at the map and noticed other red circles without any identification of what was there. One larger circle held her attention, until she finally asked Ben if he knew of any other surrounding landmarks. “This location northwest of Newburgh is very interesting. It falls between the two heavy lines, but what is it?”
Looking at where she was pointing, Ben recalled something he had read not too long ago in the Booneville Standard, about excavations a few miles from Atwood House, the Ellerbusch-Martin Site, where several pieces of Middle Woodland pottery and artifacts had been discovered. “The entire area has multiple Native American sites. Most of the smaller ones are still intact and unexcavated. Artifacts are always turning up in plowed fields.”
There were other open circles all around Atwood House, and numerous smaller ones running north toward the Ohio state line. Some nearby Indiana sites identified were in Haubstadt, Yankeetown, Bedford, Shoals, Bethel, Jasper, and Ferdinand, as well as several other towns and cities all the way through the northwest corner of Ohio into Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. Primary focus was on the extensive number of locations near and around Atwood House. Only one other area was circled almost as heavily—Saint Meinrad, Indiana.
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