by Bob Frank
“I tried like hell to get it, but it just isn’t going to happen. It would be at least three to four months before we could get it for just the one night. We’re going to have to use the main ballroom in Georgetown’s conference center.”
“Can we really pull this off by stretching the opening over three consecutive nights?” Clay asked. “Won’t it be anti-climactic for the second two nights?”
“We should be fine. It will be smaller crowds, which should be easier to manage; a little more personal Q&A. But the time slot is locked in. We cannot slip it.”
“Then we just have to keep on schedule — no slack time. Did the moving vans confirm today?”
Shali replied, “Sure did. They’re ready to bring the cases down from Copper Canyon, but it is only four days before the opening event. We’ll get the writings tagged and into the storage vault within two days. We’ve got fifteen archeology students lined up to work with us. Our grad students will oversee them with guidance from the three monks. The tags and labels are being made up from the inventory sheets. We know exactly where it all goes in the display cases. The three amigos have been really helpful with this. As of this morning, construction on the storage vault and work room is right on schedule.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
Over the next week, all the arrangements for the opening events in the Georgetown Conference Center were finalized. Five days before the grand opening, Clay made the trip north to Copper Canyon with three grad students and two of the monks to inventory, load and return with the hundreds of cases of ancient writings. At Copper Canyon early the next morning, six laborers from a moving company carefully loaded the one hundred seventy-eight gray coffins into two moving vans and tied them down. The grad students and monks carefully checked each seal and case number: red numbers went into the first van; yellow into the second. The two SUV’s with armed guards watched diligently from a close distance, ready for the trip back to Washington.
The entire exercise was uneventful, and by noon, the convoy was on its way to Washington. When they were only three hours out of Washington, Clay’s cell phone rang.
“Clay, this is Shali. We’ve got a problem down here.”
“What’s up?”
“There was an accident in the storage vault. Strangely, a main water pipe broke, and the entire vault is flooded with six inches of water. There is no way we can put the writings there.”
“Crap! How long is it going to take to fix the pipe and dry out the room?”
“Plumbers are working on the water main, but it will take at least a week to dry it out enough to store the writings in there.”
Clay put his jaw in his hand and bit his lower lip as the trucks rolled down the highway. “Opening night is in three days. We can’t wait. What about the warehouse where the fifty new display cases are staged? Can we use that temporarily?”
“Nope. I checked it out already. It’s not big enough and there is absolutely no security. There seems to be plenty of room at the university’s conference center though. There is enough space in the side meeting rooms to store the cases. If we hire a security detail we should be okay.”
“What if we moved the new glass cases over from the warehouse and put all the writings on display for the opening nights?”
Shali’s forehead wrinkled as she contemplated. “I’m concerned about the safety of the writings; they seem too exposed. But if we are going to have the security guards anyway, it might make more of an impact to show the whole lot at once.”
Clay nodded, as if Shali could see him over the cell phone. “Alright, let’s plan on it. It’s an extra step, but we’ve got a lot of help now.”
“Understood. I’ve already checked with several security companies. They can have half a dozen armed guards at the conference center before you get here.”
“Great. We are on the I-95 and will be there about seven p.m.”
“Bring the trucks to the conference center loading dock when you get here. We’ll be waiting.”
When the vans arrived, six armed guards were already waiting at the conference center loading dock. Rather than off-load the trucks that night, the guards positioned themselves around the two moving van trucks, in addition to the armed guards that escorted them down from New York.
* * * ~~~ * * *
Early the next morning, twenty students, the three monks and six laborers were standing by, ready to go. Half of them moved the large gray transport cases off of the trucks and into two large rooms in the conference center. The other half moved the fifty new display cases onto the auditorium stage that had been set up in the grand ballroom. By noon, the student teams were carefully opening the cases and loading writings into their assigned shelves in the display cases.
Alongside the monks, Clay herded the students like a sheep dog. He constantly barked out orders to the students. “Hey, hey — whoaaaa. Take it easy, Rough Rider. These things are thousands of years old. Be gentle, please.”
Shali smiled and let out a loud “baa,” as if sheep were being herded.
The students mimicked in unison with resounding, “baa — baa — baa — baa.” Spirits were high, despite the setback with the flooded storage vault.
The trucks and movers were gone shortly after a lunch of pizza and sub sandwiches. At the end of the first day, with half of the writings securely locked in their new glass display cases, the teams went home for the night while a crew of armed security guards remained posted around the ballroom and entrance ways to the conference center.
Clay and Shali drove over to a little Spanish cafe in downtown Georgetown for a quiet dinner. Clay placed his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands. He let out a long sigh of relief and said to his partner, “We’ll easily finish this up tomorrow. You are almost as good as Pema. Your orchestration has been so efficient and organized.”
Her eyes lit up and she smiled. “Why, thank you. But you don’t show me the hot eyes that you have for Pema.”
A huge grin grew across Clay’s face. He tilted his head to one side and said, “Is that jealousy, I hear? And for the record, I am not hot for Pema. Well, maybe for her body, but I have no interest in any relationship-thing with her.”
Shali responded, “Just checking. You won’t have time for any serious social relationships for the next several years anyway, Mr. New Custodian. Your relationship is sitting in those glass cases on that stage back there. If I can’t have time for a relationship, you can’t either.”
Clay smiled. “Alright. That’s a deal.”
“How are you coming with your speech?”
Clay breathed deeply. “Making progress. I’ll be ready, as long as I get in some rehearsal time tomorrow.”
Her face grew more serious. “I’m still uneasy about displaying all the writings at once.”
“Me too. But not as much as I was a few days ago. I guess the guards and guns make me feel better.”
They spent the evening reviewing their journey to this point and nursing an icy pitcher of Sangria.
Feeling no pain, Shali said, “How about a toast to Sogui.”
Clay added, “And here’s a German ‘prost’ to our Kuna Indian with the swastika flag who got us this far.”
Not to be out done Shali said, “Yeah, plus a Chinese ‘Gan Bei’ — bottoms up for our three custodian predecessors.”
Chapter 26
Georgetown University Conference Center
Clay felt exonerated as he was rushed through the parking-garage passageway beneath the Georgetown Conference Center. The narrow tunnel had the distinct musty smell of concrete, damp from years of being buried below the earth near the Potomac River. He was intent on keeping up with their escort, who was rapidly walking toward the far end of the long passageway where the audience anxiously awaited the start of his speech.
Clay glanced back at Shali, shook his head and smiled as he motioned with his hand for her to hurry along. “Come on, let’s go. We don’t want to be late to our own show.”
Shali
mumbled aggravations as she stumbled along behind. “I’m coming, I’m coming, and we won’t be late. Besides, if they can wait a couple of thousand years, they can wait a couple more minutes. I’m not used to high heels; they’re killing me.”
They emerged from the tunnel and walked down the hallway to the backstage area behind the podium. Their escort linked them up with the three custodians, who were decked out in their finest bright orange robes.
Shali took a quick peek through the side of the curtain and gasped at the packed house. She glanced toward the stage behind the curtains, where the rows of large glass display cases waited with their hidden secrets. The cases were surrounded by four armed guards who were gazing at the rows of sealed glass cases with obvious curiosity. Two other guards were stationed in the hallways leading back stage.
While waiting those last few moments, Shali said to Clay in nervous anticipation, “I looked through the attendance roster. This place is packed with dignitaries, senior clerics and intellectuals from all over the world. They obviously all want to hear your speech.”
“Nah, they don’t care about me,” he responded, fidgeting. “They just want to see the writings up close. And they know there was a lot of demand for these seats, even though the evenings were invitation only, so they must feel a little special.”
“It’s like a menagerie of every possible contemporary religion, philosophical cult and discipline. Perhaps they believe the secrets will substantiate their beliefs or cast out their adversaries’.”
“I suspect most will see this discovery as little more than another set of ancient writings, like the Dead Sea scrolls; nothing more, nothing less. They’ll probably just expect to get a clearer picture of the philosophers and alchemists who lived thousands of years ago. Little do they know what may be revealed over the coming months and years.”
Shali turned her head toward Clay. “That is, of course, if it all turns out to be true.”
He looked back, raised his eyebrows and nodded acknowledgment. They looked at the display cases behind the curtain. All of the writings were carefully organized in the cases. Each item was tagged, labeled and neatly shelved. The old scrolls, rolled around rather ornately carved wooden shafts, were tied shut with burgundy-colored woolen ribbon. The large, thick books bound in brown leather looked majestic.
Shali looked at Clay, who appeared half mesmerized. “Are you alright?”
“What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay; just reviewing the speech in my mind. I’ve been rehearsing it for several days, but I’ve been mentally preparing for tonight for five years. I just didn’t expect my search for these secrets to reach such a crescendo of attention or to call for an event of this magnitude. I would have been happy with a few interviews on the evening network magazines or the morning shows. I’m just amazed at how much interest has been generated in the short time since we announced the discovery. All these years of hard work and millions of dollars of my own money is about to pay off — not financially, of course — but I never expected financial compensation. I simply wanted to find the truth in the supposed secrets.” He chuckled. “Whatever that is.”
Shali comforted him,“Don’t fret too much, though. You’re not giving any details of what’s in the writings, just a high level concept of what we think they contain. You’ve got the storyline nailed down for how and where we found the writings. ”
Clay added as if he was rehearsing, “Yes, plus I will describe the process by which the translation, interpretation and publication will be performed. I have to make it clear that it could be many years before we can reveal any substantive details on what was recorded by the Ancients. I will talk in general terms about the major categories of the secrets and what we surmise they might reveal.”
Shali smiled at him, rubbed his cheek as if for good luck and said, “You’re ready.”
Looking at her watch and peeking out of the curtain, Shali looked at Clay, straightened the lapel on his jacket and said, “Alright, it’s time. You’re on.”
* * * ~~~ * * *
Clay stepped out from behind the curtain. He briskly walked to the podium at center-right stage to a large, courteous round of applause. As the applause subsided, Clay cleared his throat and took a sip of water.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I appreciate your kindness and patience in waiting for these last few thousand years.”
Thunderous laughter broke out in the audience.
“My name is Clay Barton, and I have been looking for these ancient secrets for many years. After a great deal of research and a few strokes of luck, we managed to locate these hidden writings. It took us quite a while, but fortunately we managed to convince those who have been protecting them for these thousands of years to work with us in bringing the secrets to humankind.”
Clay had loosened up and become more comfortable with the audience.
“We used some very special techniques to identify and verify the existence of these secret writings. I will not be talking about specific details of the content of these writings because we do not have a lot of those details, yet. That will all come out in future announcements and releases as our work progresses. And believe me, there is a lot of hard work ahead of us. Besides, long lectures can be boring and I do not want you to fall asleep on me.”
The audience laughed aloud and several people clapped.
“Tonight, I want you to know that we got very lucky. Very lucky. In fact, the day we found the writings, my colleague, Shali Faisal, told me I needed to buy a lottery ticket. And believe me, it was very difficult to find a Mega Millions Powerball lottery ticket in Kathmandu on a Saturday night.”
Laughter broke out in the audience again.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce my partner in arms, Shali Faisal, without whom these writings would still be locked up in a cave in Nepal.”
A resounding round of applause broke out as Shali stepped out from side stage. She nodded a thank you to Clay, bowed courteously to the crowd, and then took a seat in a chair next to the podium.
“Please allow me to give you a little background on our search,” Clay said. “I’m sure you want to know how and why we so persistently pursued the writings. We only found these writings after we had conducted a great number of interviews with prominent archivists and historians. We also leveraged a great deal of research already done by others. Finally, there were other, shall we say, private, organizations that believed as strongly as we did that it was time to find and bring out the content of these treasures. So we certainly cannot take all of the credit.”
As he spoke, Clay thought of how they had correlated their interviews of historians to their regressions and others’ research to the SRI secret government SRD soul database. But this crowd did not need to know that and would not believe if it they did. Yongten and Pema’s nameless organization was the private organization, but there was no need to tell the audience any details about that either. If he were to reveal that information it would only raise questions, stir doubt and detract from the gala nature of the event.
As if he were a campfire storyteller, Clay told elaborate ad-lib stories of the search, leaving out parts such as the scuffle in Jordan, the shoot-out at Shigatze, or the Chinese Mig jet chase through the Himalayas. He simply described how they believed the writings had been created, collected and stored for millennia by many different groups.
“My colleagues, we believe the original source of this collection may have been the great Library of Alexandria in Egypt. You’ve heard historians tell us that all of those ancient secrets were destroyed during religious crusades, or by the earthquakes, fires and floods. You’ve watched the History Channel, right?”
Loud laughter rolled across the auditorium.
“Well, it appears that it may not have all been destroyed. What you will see tonight has been hidden away for the past several thousand years. We all have to thank great historians such as Ptolemy and Hypatia for collecting and protecting t
hese works, but we must also give credit to the original authors of these writings who, before Alexandria, prepared these documents in all corners of the known world of that time. It is not as if wizards created stupendous fantasies from the ether or some hither world. These writings were created by men and women, scientists and philosophers, who connected with some source of knowledge beyond what most humans can comprehend. This knowledge is no different than what has been written or discovered by Einstein, Edison, or Ben Franklin; or for that matter by Michio Kaku on the Science Channel or Neil deGrasse Tyson from Nova.”
The audience laughed again. Clay exaggeratedly looked to the far left side of the front row, waved and flashed a thumbs-up sign to both Kaku and Tyson.
“As many of you know, the great library of Alexandria was plundered and methodically destroyed over a period of five hundred years by many different factions. When it became apparent what was happening, a group felt it was essential to preserve and protect the most prolific knowledge that had been collected in a special section of the library. That group included academicians, historians, philosophers and scientists; people no different than many of you here today.”
Clay played back the complete storyline he had been given by Pema and Yongten. He described the private, but wealthy Nepalese family who had hidden the treasures in a cave on their palatial mountain estate for dozens of generations. The silence and interest showed the audience was awed by the story. He went into detail about the three Nepalese custodians, just as Pema had coached him, and then briefly described the process of how the writings had been moved to Copper Canyon, and then down to the Georgetown stage just days earlier. Clay then moved on to describe the next steps.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us. We have assembled a team to take on the arduous tasks of digitization and transliteration to Roman alphabets, as well as translation and interpretation, followed by indexing, cataloging and correlation. Whew! No surprise here; there is a lot of work to do. Please expect to wait many years before substantive information can be fully released, although we will do our best to publish high-level preliminary information within the next few months. We know you are all anxious, but rest assured the real truth and knowledge will be made freely available to all mankind as soon as possible. You will all get your chance to make your own interpretations, but please be patient with the process.”