“You’ve figured out what kind of plane we’re looking for?” Kurt asked.
“Not exactly,” Joe said. “But I know what side of the Atlantic it was manufactured on.”
Wanting to show them what he’d discovered, Joe brought the papers over to the desk. Morgan joined them. “Look at this,” he began. “It’s an entry regarding the maintenance on the engine. It includes a note about adding nine quarts of oil. Quarts, not liters or milliliters.”
“It might have been a British plane,” Morgan suggested. “In those days we used the imperial system too. The UK only changed to metric in the sixties. And if you ask my dad, that was a big mistake.”
“Okay,” Joe said, “but the oil is described as MHE 150 Aero-Oil. MHE is an abbreviation for Mohawk Eastern. Back in the twenties, Mohawk Eastern made oils for boats, cars and planes. They began production around the turn of the century and went out of business during the Depression. I have a vintage sign of theirs in my garage.”
“You’re sure that’s the same company.”
Joe nodded. “Absolutely. The thing is, Mohawk was a regional company. They never operated beyond the northeastern United States. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any sales outside of New York, New England and Pennsylvania. They never went west of Ohio. And they certainly weren’t exporters. So if the mechanic is adding Mohawk Eastern Aero-Oil, then it had to be an American outfit flying the missing plane. That means the logbook would use American dates, not European. And that means the last flight took place on May 12th, not December 5th.”
Morgan asked the obvious question. “What would an American plane be doing in Europe in 1927? Transatlantic flights hadn’t even begun then.”
Joe shrugged. “Maybe they were operating with a traveling air show or a barnstorming team. They might have been part of a cross-country race. Who knows? Back in the early days of aviation, pilots made money where they could. Wealthy big shots often held competitions or even invited performers to their cities, sponsoring air shows and other events. I’ve read about performers taking their planes over to Europe by steamship to work the summers on the Continent before heading back to the States in the fall. That would fit perfectly with the May date.”
“You’ve convinced me,” Kurt said. “I’ll tell Hiram to run a new search using May as the focal point.”
“Tell him to look for aircraft and pilots that were known to have operated on both continents. There can’t be too many of those in the twenties.”
As Kurt nodded and began to type the message, Joe stacked the pages and handed them back to Morgan, looking proud of the day’s work.
“Thanks,” she said absently while walking back to her computer.
“Something wrong?” Joe asked.
She folded the screen flat before responding.
“Professor Cross has completed his study of the hieroglyphics. He found nothing to indicate where the treasure was taken, only that the fleet passed Memphis and entered the Mediterranean. His suggestion is, look into the family who owned the Writings of Qsn. The DeMarses. Their descendants live in southern France.”
“My calendar is open,” Joe said, “no matter what dating system you use.”
Kurt finished his message to Hiram and joined the conversation. “It’s worth a try. And at the moment, as you said, we have nothing better to do.”
CHAPTER 23
Southern France
After a quick flight down from London, Kurt, Joe and Morgan picked up a rented Peugeot in Toulouse and drove out to the DeMars estate. As they went west, the number of homes and businesses thinned out, giving way to sprawling farms and open country.
After they had been driving for an hour, Kurt’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Hiram.”
“You mean, the Mighty Casey,” Morgan said.
“Exactly,” Kurt said with a smile. “One and the same.”
He answered the call.
“I have something for you,” Hiram said. “But not what you might have been expecting.”
“Mind if I put you on speaker?” Kurt asked. “Only the three of us in the car.”
“Be my guest,” Hiram said. “Quite frankly, it wouldn’t matter if the bad guys were riding in the backseat.”
Kurt switched to speaker and put the phone down. “You’re on, Hiram. Give us the bad news.”
Hiram cut directly to the chase. “I ran a search based on the new information. But as you might guess from my tone, we’ve come up empty once more.”
“How empty?” Joe asked.
“Are there different degrees?” Morgan asked.
“Sometimes,” Kurt admitted. “What do you say, Hiram? Did you find anything we can use?”
“You be the judge,” Hiram said. “We found twenty-four documented plane crashes in Europe in the month of May 1927. I say ‘documented’ because many of the German and French records were destroyed during World War Two, while Iberian records suffered a similar fate during the Spanish Civil War.”
“Twenty-four is a significant number of crashes,” Morgan noted.
“Planes weren’t very reliable back then,” Joe noted.
“Correct,” Hiram said. “We found some pilots crashing twice in the same month and living to tell about it. Obviously, we ruled those incidents out. We also ruled out incidents where the wrecks occurred in or near a populated area. Finally, we narrowed it down by focusing on American pilots or American-made aircraft. That gave us three possibilities.”
“Sounds less empty than I was expecting,” Kurt said.
“One plane burned to cinders, another went into a lake and the third was a minor accident on a grass runway where the plane was repaired within a week and sent up again. How does that information make you feel?”
“Empty,” Kurt admitted. “What about American pilots in Europe who didn’t crash in 1927?”
“Well, there’s Lindbergh,” Hiram joked. “But not too many others.”
Kurt laughed. “Keep searching. There has to be some trace out there. Maybe you can dig up the records of Mohawk East and see who they sold oil to.”
“I wouldn’t even call that grasping at straws,” Hiram said. “But I’ll give it a shot.”
“Call us if you find anything.”
“Enjoy the wine country,” Hiram replied. “My jealousy meter is hitting level nine right about now. Yaeger out.”
“Does this Hiram friend of yours ever find anything in his searches?” Morgan asked politely.
“He literally never fails,” Joe said.
“Hence, the Mighty Casey reference.”
“But Casey did strike out,” she said, sounding perplexed.
Kurt shook his head in resignation. “I’m just going to let you read the poem.”
They were in the wine country now—vineyards had replaced the farms—and were closing in on their destination. After riding for several miles along winding roads, they came upon the Château DeMars perched atop a gently sloping hill.
“Now, that’s what I call a château,” Joe said.
The imposing Renaissance-style building rose four stories at its center and included turrets on its four corners. A garden maze of hedgerows could be seen from the road, while a vineyard covered the left flank of the hill and a pasture dotted with grazing horses occupied the right. A twelve-foot brick wall surrounded the property.
“Nice digs,” Kurt said. “I’d hate to pay the electric bill.”
“Something tells me they can afford it,” Morgan said.
Kurt didn’t doubt that. A half mile on he found the entry gate, complete with a guardhouse and security cameras. The gate itself was made of twin horizontal poles, welded together and filled with cement—a setup sturdier than it looked. The driveway was equipped with a line of raised metal spikes designed to blow out an intruder’s tires if the gate failed to do its job.
“Someone doesn’t like visitors,” Kurt said.
“Actually, the château is used to host visitors all the time,” Morgan said
. “It’s trespassers they’re worried about.”
“Which category do we fall into?”
“Let’s find out.”
They pulled up to the gate and Morgan spoke to the guard in fluent French. She offered their credentials, smiled and quickly persuaded him to call Monsieur DeMars and request an audience.
He stepped into the guard shack and picked up a white phone. After a brief conversation, punctuated by a few nods and a glance at each passport, the guard hung up, came outside and returned their papers. “You may park in the breezeway between the carriage house and the main residence. Someone will meet you there.”
“Merci,” Morgan said, taking their credentials back.
Kurt put the car back in gear as the gate’s poles went up. They passed beneath it and over the now retracted spikes. “Next time I get a speeding ticket I want you to handle it.”
She looked his way, smiling again. “Are you saying you don’t obey the traffic laws of your country?”
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t mind having a few autobahns in America.”
Despite Kurt’s penchant for speed, he found himself keeping the Peugeot in check. The driveway was a bumpy cobblestone road that looped around the property, past the vineyard and up to the house. They arrived at the crest of the hill and passed a stable large enough for twenty horses before nearing the majestic residence.
Pulling into the breezeway, Kurt parked directly across from a tall, slim man with wispy blond hair. The man wore a zip-up black sweater, riding pants and boots. He nodded politely as Kurt opened the door. “Bonjour. Welcome to the Maison D’être, our Home Away from Home.”
Kurt recognized Francisco DeMars from photos they’d downloaded. He was the grandson of the man who’d found the Writings of Qsn. “At a home as splendid as this, one often meets a butler or a footman first.”
“Most of my employees have gone back to their own homes,” DeMars said. “And I prefer to greet my guests. Especially when they are—how do you say?—unscheduled arrivals. Do any of you speak French?”
Kurt stepped out of the way and Morgan came forward. They spoke briefly in French before DeMars reverted to English.
“I’m honored that both of your governments are interested in the work my grandfather did. It has been a long time since his efforts were given the proper attention. I will help you anyway I can. Please, come inside. Perhaps you’d like something to eat as well. It must have been a long journey.”
He led them into the château and down a long hallway replete with tapestries, paintings and other works of art. They passed a formal dining room, one of its long walls covered by a mural depicting scenes from the French Revolution. Finally, they entered a smaller parlor.
After suggesting they sit, DeMars called a servant, who arrived with a tray of puff pastries flavored with Gruyère cheese, baguettes of freshly baked bread and a wheel of soft Brie. Another servant brought a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Évian.
Kurt spread some of the Brie on a slice of the warm bread and took a bite. The entire creation melted on his tongue. “Heaven.”
Joe was enjoying one of the pastries. “You’ll have to try one of these next.”
DeMars nodded. “Try one of each,” he insisted. “As the saying goes, a meal without cheese is like a day without sun. Now, how can I help you?”
Morgan deferred to Kurt for the moment. “We’re looking for information about a set of ancient Egyptian texts known as the Writings of Qsn. Your grandfather coined the term, I believe, after he found several stones with inscriptions on them.”
“Yes,” DeMars said. “That’s correct. But they were lost to us during the war. The Germans took them and they were never returned to us. They seemed to have vanished. Why do you ask?”
“They may have reappeared,” Morgan said.
DeMars’s eyes grew wide. “I should be most interested to see them.”
“Perhaps that’s possible at some future point, but for now they’re in safekeeping.”
“Why?”
Morgan explained the threat that the Bloodstone Group presented and the hope that cutting off the supply of antiquities flowing to them would reduce the spread of illicit arms to the rest of the world.
DeMars took the news very soberly. “A worthy effort. How can I assist?”
Kurt went straight for it. “By telling us where your grandfather found the stones. Those details don’t seem to be part of the historical record.”
DeMars took a deep breath and sighed. “Because they have been kept secret.”
“Why?”
“My grandfather’s work was controversial. He believed the Egyptians had colonized Europe, settling the coasts of France and Spain, a thousand years before the Romans. He spent half his life searching for the proof, especially for a mythical fleet he believed foundered in French waters and for a pyramid he claimed had been constructed in the coastal area of Spain.”
DeMars took a sip of wine, then continued. “To some extent, wild theories were common for the time period. I’m sure you know of the Nazi suggestion that Europeans, at least the Teutonic people, had all descended from that famous Aryan master race. A race that never existed. They spent years, and trunkloads of Reichsmarks, searching the Himalayas for their mythical origins. My grandfather spent years and half the family fortune looking for his mythical pyramid, never to find it. Today our family finds that parallel uncomfortable.”
“Your grandfather’s theory may have been outlandish, but that didn’t make him a Nazi,” Kurt noted.
“Far from it,” DeMars pointed out. “The Nazi Party hated my grandfather’s theory, particularly because it suggested North African origins for much of European culture and its population. When France fell to Germany in 1940, my grandfather was harassed and imprisoned. Much of what he’d found over the years was taken, including the Writings of Qsn. We assumed they’d destroyed the fragments. My mother, at least, hoped they had.”
Kurt listened to DeMars speak, hearing a sense of sadness in the man’s voice and a bit of shame. Unknown to DeMars, or even Morgan, NUMA had a surprising amount of inside knowledge regarding the Egyptians, some of which had only recently come to light. The truth is, Egyptian seafaring was more advanced than most mainstream scholars believe. They’d traveled farther and wider than anyone thought. One branch of Egyptian royalty had even wound up in Ireland. The possibility that others could have spread around Europe was not as far-fetched as DeMars imagined.
Kurt would share that data with DeMars at some point, but first he needed answers. “I appreciate the information,” he said, “and I promise you we’re not trying to interrogate you. But if you know where your grandfather found the stones, we’d appreciate knowing.”
“They were found in Spain,” DeMars replied. “But no one in my family ever believed that’s where they originated.”
Kurt said nothing. He could see where this was going.
“You see,” DeMars continued, “our grandfather was so desperate to prove his theory, there were rumors that he’d begun seeding the ground with the type of things he hoped to find. All I can say is, it was a different time.”
Kurt understood DeMars’s sense of embarrassment. “Any chance the fragments were delivered to him by aircraft?”
“It’s possible,” DeMars said. “I suppose you might find the answer in my grandfather’s journals. Though I warn you, he was a voluminous writer.”
“We’d be grateful for the chance to look,” Morgan said.
DeMars stood. “I’ll show you the journals, but there are conditions. The contents and his opinions cannot be made public. And none of the journals are to leave this house.”
“You have our word,” Morgan said.
“In that case, follow me.”
CHAPTER 24
DeMars led them out into the hallway and down toward the western rotunda. The circular space occupied the turret on one corner of the château. A statue depicting Joan of Arc astride her horse dominated the ground floor. It
was rendered in extremely lifelike detail and gilded in gold leaf. As was customary, the Maid of Orléan held the reins in one hand and a staff bearing the French standard in the other. The banner had been crafted so expertly, it seemed to be fluttering in an invisible breeze.
“Beautiful,” Morgan said, admiring the statue.
“She’s our hero,” DeMars said.
He led them up to the fourth floor and into the study. Shelves filled with material spanned the room. Reference books in one section, leather-bound journals in the next.
DeMars strode across the room to the wall of journals and climbed a small stepladder. “These are my grandfather’s expedition journals. If you’re seeking information on the discovery, it will be in here.”
Kurt eased up next to their host. He counted a dozen volumes covering 1927, ten for 1928, and eleven more for 1929. “You weren’t kidding about your grandfather’s notetaking.”
“He was meticulous,” DeMars said. “That will be helpful, no?”
“Helpful,” Kurt agreed, “and time-consuming.”
Kurt ran his finger across the spines, starting with those devoted to 1927, skipping January through April and stopping on the volume marked May. Opening it, Kurt saw the next problem. The writing was in flowing cursive longhand. It was also entirely in French. “We may need your assistance.”
“Of course,” DeMars said. He took the journal, sat at a desk and turned on a green-shaded reading light.
“I can read French too,” Morgan said.
Kurt pulled a second journal off the shelf and handed it to her. She sat across from DeMars.
“I feel as helpful as a bump on a log,” Joe said.
Kurt felt the same way. “We could search for terms,” he suggested, turning to DeMars.
“My grandfather originally called the hieroglyphics fragments the red stones,” DeMars said. “Les pierres rouges.”
“And we’re searching for a downed aircraft,” Kurt added.
Journey of the Pharaohs - NUMA Files Series 17 (2020) Page 13