In the Beginning: Mars Origin "I" Series Book I (7 page)

Israel
1997

“I have something to show you,” I leaned
over Dr. Margulies’ shoulder and whispered in his ear. I spotted him right
after he finished dinner, seated with the present Editor-in-Chief of the Dead
Sea Scrolls and a few other visiting scholars. He looked up at me and nodded.
Excusing himself he followed me out of the banquet room. Ghazi waited for us
right outside the dining room area and the three of us went back up to Room
204.

“What is it, Lizzy?” he asked as Ghazi
unlocked the door and we entered the room. I went over to the desk and turned
on the lamp.

“I’m not sure. It appears to be a
cover-up.” I said. I went over and unlocked the file cabinet and motioning for
Dr. Margulies to sit, I handed him Dr. Yeoman’s journal.

“A cover-up for what?” he questioned,
sitting in the chair behind the desk.

“I don’t know. I think one of the original
interpreters of the Scrolls may have found some information damaging to our
belief in God and destroyed the manuscripts.” A look of incredulity came over
his face. I took the journal from him and turned to the October 22 entry.

Pointing to the page, I said, “Read this.”

Recognizing the urgency in my voice, he
didn’t stop to put on his glasses. He read over the entry quickly. When he
finished, he looked up at me and then looked back down at the notebook. His
face showed the same disbelief I had felt when I discovered it. He reached into
his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his glasses and reread the entry. Removing
them, he tapped his glasses on the journal, his impassive face masking the
concern that slipped out in his voice.

“Lizzy, I don’t suppose we should be in
here, and now that we are, I don’t suppose we should be reading these
journals.” Still opened to the page of Dr. Yeoman’s entry, he tossed the
journal onto the desk. “We’re here to see first hand the Dead Sea Scrolls.
These personal documents are none of our concern.”

There was no way I was going to ignore
this. I knew he understood the ramifications of this, someone destroying four
of the manuscripts that had been found. And, with how well he knew me, he knew
I wasn’t going to let go of this easily.

“Perhaps,” my words rushed out, “but I
think all aspects of the interpretation of the Scrolls are important. You know
how much controversy and secrecy there was surrounding the Scrolls. Maybe these
journals will help understand why. Just this one entry tells a bad tale.”

He stood up and walked over to the large
window adjacent to the desk. Raindrops began beating against the glass. Staring
out of the window, Dr. Margulies seemed to drift away.

Unable to be still, I paced the floor. My
shadow, created by the refracted light from the lamp, followed me around the
room.

I knew it was troubling to Dr. Margulies
knowing that some of the Scrolls had been destroyed, but it seemed his concern
didn’t match mine. Recalling the entry in my mind, I went through every word. I
got to the last sentence.

“What’s this?” I picked up the journal by
its edge, not wanting to lose the page, when a paper, folded and sealed with
wax, fell out of the leaves of the journal. I picked it up and stuck it between
some pages near the back and showed Dr. Margulies what I meant.

“This last sentence,
Deus adiuva nos
,
isn’t that Latin?”

Dr. Margulies took the book and looked at
the entry. “Yes. It is Latin.” He paused, “I cannot understand this. How could
he have . . . Why would he . . .” He seemed unable to finish his thought.
Closing the journal, he handed it back to me. He pushed his hands down into his
pants pockets and stared back out of the window.

“I met this man once,” he said without
turning toward me. “I thought very highly of him.” He sighed heavily, “This is
disturbing.  Very disturbing.”

“What does the Latin read?”

“God help us.”

“God help us,” I repeated quietly,
thoughtfully. “Why would he write that? Why would he write it in Latin?”

“Perhaps it is a plea for forgiveness of
what he has apparently done, if he did actually destroy any manuscripts.” His
voice trailed off. Turning to me, a thin smile emerged, “I don’t know why he
would write it in Latin. It is not significant of anything that I am aware of.”

Straining to stay calm, I held onto the
journal tightly. Inside I just wanted to explode.

“The only reason he gives for destroying
the four manuscripts,” I said, “is that he didn’t agree with what it said.
That’s ridiculous.” Anger tumbled out with my words. “How could he have
possibly taken this into his own hands and made such a decision?” I walked over
to the file cabinet where Ghazi had been standing quietly and placed the
journal on top of the cabinet.

“Maybe we could find the answer in some of
the other journals.” I said, speaking more to myself than anyone else. “No
wonder there was so much controversy over the release of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
this imbecile was destroying documents,” I took another journal from the
drawer.

“We can’t let anyone find us here.” Dr.
Margulies released his gaze that he had fixed to the drizzling rain barely
visible through the enveloping darkness. He walked over, took the book from the
top of the cabinet and attempted to take the one from my hand.

“No,” I pulled back, not wanting to let
go. How could I leave this knowledge locked up in a drawer? I needed to know
what other secrets lay in the pages of these journals. He gently patted my hand
and pulled the journal away. He placed both in the drawer, closed and locked it
and handed the keys to Ghazi.

“But we have to do something.”  I said,
sick at the thought of leaving this behind.

“What can we do, Justin?” He seemed just
as unhappy. “Do you suggest we tell someone about this? What evidence do you
have? Surely not this journal with a fifty-year old entry? There has never been
any mention of any missing manuscripts. We cannot open up this can of worms without
knowing all the facts.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know
what to do. I felt like I should do something. Dr. Margulies was right, no one
was going to believe this, but that shouldn’t stop us from doing something.
Anything.

“Come along, Justin, Ghazi will take you
back to the hotel.”

Dr. Margulies put his hand on my back and
guided me out of the room. Ghazi turned off the lamp and locked the door behind
us. We walked down the stairs and out of the building. It was pouring when we
got outside. I refused Ghazi’s offer of an umbrella and was soaking wet by the
time I got into the car. The night air brushed against me and gave me a chill.
Climbing into the back seat, shivering, my hair in clumps of wet curls, the
water from it dripping down my nose, onto my eyelashes, and into my mouth, I
was driven back to the hotel in silence. Neither Ghazi nor I spoke a word about
the journal or the destruction of the ancient artifacts. I felt as if I were
being punished for being naughty.

I spent the rest of that week and part of
the next trying to forget about what happened. But I couldn’t. I did a little
shopping in the Jewish Quarter for souvenirs and worried about those journals.
I attended lectures and went to meetings with the museum directors thinking of
nothing but those journals. An insidious worry had seeped in through my pores
and coiled itself inside of me like a snake. Holding me tight, those
manuscripts had become a part of me. Then, that worry gave birth to nervousness
and paranoia.

I nagged Ghazi to get me back in that
room. He promised he would, but suddenly, he was called to go to Jaffa. No
reason, no notice, he just left. Without him, there was no way to get back in
that room. It was locked and I didn’t have a key. Plus, I knew that I couldn’t
do it by myself. I’d be too nervous. Too scared of getting caught. But, I felt
for sure that Ghazi being pulled away was just not a coincidence. That meant
someone was on to us.

While my deep, dark conspiracy theory
formulated in my head, Dr. Margulies cheerily attended meetings and visited
every museum he could find. He seemed to have forgotten about my discovery. He
was so happy to show me the little items he procured for the tour back home. I
didn’t do much to help him and offered only a feigned excitement each time he
told me about a new piece.

All I cared about was getting back into
that room to see what else I could find. But since that was not to happen, I
waited, resigning myself to finding something in those remaining manuscripts,
the ones still needing to be translated. The ones we had come to see.

Dr. Yeoman had written that he would, “
ascertain
if they are any other documents of this nature so they can be dealt with . .
.”
But maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t found them all.

Maybe one was still there waiting for me
to discover.

Everything was being called off.

I had just got in from dinner and souvenir
shopping and picked up my messages from the front desk. The seminar was ending.
The Dead Sea Scrolls’ Translation Committee was “sorry to inform,” blah, blah,
blah. I wanted to cry. I was sure that at any moment I would be crying. I
couldn’t even make it up to my room. I just sat on a chair in the lobby.

What happened? We hadn’t even started any
translations. Now I was sure it was a cover-up. I knew Ghazi had been sent to
Jaffa for no reason. It was just to get rid of him so I couldn’t get back in
that room. Something definitely was going on. And I was going to get to the
bottom of it, by hook or by crook. I gathered up my packages and practically
ran up to my room. I had to talk to Dr. Margulies.

I called Dr. Margulies and he came over,
saying he needed to tell me about another piece he had gotten for the tour. But
my whining took over that conversation.

“I can’t leave. Not now. I have to work on
those translations.”

“Don’t be upset about that, Lizzy. Maybe
you’ll have another opportunity to do that.”

“They are keeping us from them on purpose.
They are hiding something.”

“It’s not what you think, Lizzy.” He said.
“There were some scholars that were invited to stay. More people showed up than
they expected. It’s really no big deal.”

“No big deal!” I clamored.

How could he say that? 
Maybe he was a
part of the cover-up.
I started to pace the floor. Was he going to keep up
this denial, or was he going to tell me the truth? How much did he know? I
started pacing faster. What was he keeping from me? I looked over at him, and I
could see the concern in his face.

I went and sat in a chair. It was idiotic
thinking Dr. Margulies was being deceptive. I had known him forever. He was
like a second father to me. I was just being foolish. I could feel the tears
welling up in my eyes. My heart started racing and I could hear its beat
thumping in my ears.

“Lizzy, what is wrong with you? Why is
this bothering you so much? You shouldn’t have had your hopes up that you would
make some big discovery. Honestly, I hope you weren’t thinking that the Q was
among the remaining manuscripts.”

“That’s not it.” He couldn’t really think
I cared about that stupid Q anymore.

“Then what is wrong with you? It couldn’t
be the missing manuscripts, Lizzy. The journal entry said the manuscripts were
destroyed. Although I told you that I would help you,” I looked at him
questioningly, “and I am still going to help you, but I am sure that it won’t
turn out to be anything significant.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Look at what the entry said
was in the manuscript. For instance, ‘one people - ’”

“The Jews,” I offered before he could
finish his sentence.

“Create the perfect world.”

“The Millennium,” I again answered
quickly.

“Lizzy, it said that ‘the god within us
would create the perfect world.’” He misquoted the entry. But he needn’t try to
tell me what it said. I could clearly see each and every world written in that
madman’s journal just as if the page was right in front of me.

“I don’t know,” he continued. “Perhaps
this is the ramblings of a man, tired, probably exhausted, and worn from being
in charge of such a large undertaking. It doesn’t even sound real. He’s describing
some sort of single-race utopia. His writings echo Nazi Germany, which is quite
odd with him being Jewish and his writings so close to the holocaust. It
doesn’t even make sense. He was under a lot of pressure from the public.” He
shook his head, “I don’t know.”

“The term ‘god within us’ is expressed in
the Bible, Dr. Margulies, you know that.
‘I and my Father are one
,’ . .
. ‘
The Holy Spirit dwells within us.
’” I quoted.

“He wrote god with a small ‘g’, not a
capital ‘G,’ Lizzy. As a Bible scholar I’m sure he knew the distinction. It
didn’t mean a uniting of the Supreme God’s spirit with ours, it meant us being
gods. And you know that, too.” He grunted, then paused, as if he was thinking
what to say next. “You and I can ponder over this until doomsday. It wouldn’t
change their minds because that’s not why they cancelled the seminar. They
don’t even know what you found. It’s just that they have enough interpreters
and they don’t need a million other eyes and hands. I’m disappointed as well.
But please, Lizzy, don’t be so upset. You worry me when you’re like this. Once
we get this tour going, I promise, we will look into this more thoroughly. In
fact, I just may be able to get my hands on those journals as part of the tour
and then you can read until your heart’s content.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” his eyes twinkled. “I have
the name of a person to speak with, but he is out of town. I had planned to
meet with him when he got back, but now, by that time, we’ll be home.” I
started to protest. “But not to worry, I will speak with him, I promise.” He
patted me on my cheek and smiled. “Now I have to go, please call me before you
head home. And stop worrying so much.”

After he left, I plopped down in a chair
and began to think. My eyes quickly darted around the room. I drummed my
fingers on the arm of the chair, my mind began to race. Oh, just to have
another look at those journals. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t wait to get a
hold of them.

Rumor once had it that the suspicions of
suppression and conspiracy made the Vatican order the withholding of access to
the Scrolls out of fear that they would seriously undermine established
Christian dogma. They thought that the Scrolls would hold dark ramifications
for Christianity. Did they? Well, it sure looked like it to me, at least after
reading that one entry. Dr. Yeoman was responsible for the inaccessibility of
the Scrolls to the world, for the destruction of the manuscripts he wrote about
in his journal, and maybe other ones, too. The public had good reason to be suspicious
of the goings on surrounding the translation of the Scrolls, and now
I
was suspicious, too. I knew I wasn’t just paranoid. And I knew I could solve
this mystery.

My heart began to race. I jumped up out of
the chair and started running around the room, jumping on the bed, turning in
circles and talking really fast to myself about how I would uncover this mess.
Reveal the truth of the scrolls. Then I started to cry. I don’t know why I was
crying, maybe happy to know I would find out the truth, or scared of what I
would find out (or maybe because that’s just what I do, cry all the time). I
ran into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror, squinted my eyes and pointed
at my reflection. “Cover-up,” I said out loud. “Well, not for long, Dr. Yeoman,
because I will find out your big secret. I will figure it out.” I got really
close to the mirror and shouted, “And I will tell the world.” With tears in my
eyes, and breathing heavily from running around, I gave out a dastardly laugh, ran
out of the bathroom and dived onto the bed.

Sometimes, I think that I am just too
emotional to be a scientist.