Indisputable Proof (7 page)

CHAPTER 11

September 11. Tuesday – 3:01 a.m. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tolen, Diaz, and Jade stepped from the Learjet stairs onto the gray tarmac under a crystalline sky. The temperature was warm but not stifling.

Tolen’s cell phone rang. He dug it from his coat pocket and answered as they walked toward a gate.

“Tolen, it’s Bar. I’m standing outside the National Geographic Museum on M Street with agent Lattimer. We just came from inside the Explorers’ Hall. Museum officials weren’t exactly thrilled about getting out of bed this early. I’ve thoroughly examined the Costa Rican stone on display. I didn’t find a thing.”

Tolen thought for a moment. “Is it on a stand?”

“A short pedestal, yes, and I know where you’re going. The part of the pedestal which cradles the base of the sphere is made of a clear material. I got on the ground and examined the underside from the bottom up. Zilch, nada, nothing. No pictures, designs, or writing. This isn’t the stone you’re looking for.”

“Okay, Bar. I’ll be in touch.”

“Call me at the office. I’m going back there to get a cat nap, but I’ll have the phone near my ear in case you need anything.”

****

Jade watched Tolen hang up. “Anything?”

“There was nothing on the stone sphere at the National Geographic Museum in Washington. My colleague examined it thoroughly.”

“Then we’re down to one,” Diaz said.

Jade felt a strange blend of exhilaration and fear. It would either be a home run or a strike out when they examined this last stone.

Ahead, at the open gate, a man stood by a two-door, black sedan wearing a dark polo shirt, dress shorts, and deck shoes. “Agent Tolen,” he called out, offering his hand as they approached. “I’m from the university, Jason Weedly.” Tolen had arranged for an escort to the campus to save time and clear any hurdles for them to examine the stone. The young man before them was clean cut with perfect teeth. He appeared to be a student, only older, probably pursuing post-graduate studies.

The American equivalent of an Oxford man, Jade thought.

Weedly herded them into the vehicle and took the wheel. He was silent for most of the thirty-minute ride through the dark and lifeless streets, until they approached the Harvard University campus. Once they reached Kirkland Street, Weedly turned north between a structure on the left—the Busch Building—and the William James Building on the right. “This is Divinity Avenue,” he said. “The Peabody Museum is just ahead.”

Divinity Avenue. The coincidence of the street name was not lost on the passengers. Jade half smiled to both Diaz beside her, and to Tolen riding in the front seat next to Weedly. Each returned her look as if to say,
“What else would the street that might lead to a cache of Jesus’ personal belongings be called?”

They passed by a large, sprawling structure on the left: Fairchild Biochemical Laboratory, and then Yenching Library on the right. Just beyond the library stood the Semitic Museum adjacent to a quiet side street.

“Here we are,” Weedly said.

They stopped before a multi-story red brick building on the left. A prominent sign announced they had arrived at the
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography
.

Weedly explained as a tour guide would: “This museum, founded in 1866, is one of the oldest anthropological museums in the world. It connects to a perpendicular structure at the back—a natural history and zoology museum—that, in turn, connects to a structure running parallel to The Peabody. The sphere is on display in the courtyard formed by the U-shape of these joined buildings.”

Weedly shut the engine off, removed the keys and unlocked his door. He was about to get out when Tolen stopped him. “Please wait here for us.”

The young man seemed a bit confused but complied. “You’ll have to circle around the Tozzer Library, which walls most of the courtyard from Divinity Avenue. The stone is nestled near the crux of the Peabody and the library.”

“Thank you, Mr. Weedly. We won’t be long.”

The three exited the car. Tolen surveyed the red-brick Victorian edifice before them, then turned in a full circle eyeing the street, adjacent buildings, and manicured landscape beyond. For the first time, Jade noticed Tolen was wary, as if he expected an ambush. Come to think of it, he had duped her marvelously with the story at the jail that her life was in imminent danger, but neither Tolen nor Diaz had shown the least bit of concern regarding an attack the entire night. Until now, that is.

A shiver ran up Jade’s spine.

Tolen proceeded slowly along the lamppost-lit brick sidewalk, shifting his head from side to side. Diaz and Jade followed close behind. Diaz, too, seemed to be moving cautiously. The smell of fresh-cut grass rose to meet them, stirred by a mild swirl of a breeze. An industrial air-conditioning unit hummed loudly somewhere out of sight. In every direction, the campus was void of life except for light shining from upper-story windows of buildings on either side of Divinity Avenue.

“You guys are making me nervous,” Jade whispered.

Neither man responded. Instead, the threesome continued past the Tozzer Library as Weedly had advised. At the end of the building, Tolen led them into the courtyard and down a wide swath of pavement lined with thick overhanging trees. Tolen slowed even further as they proceeded through the shadows of the courtyard. Jade felt her pulse notch up. If someone wanted to ambush them, this would be a prime place. She noticed Tolen was now moving more cat-like than human, practically slinking through the gray darkness with stealthy precision. She had been unaware until that moment Diaz had fallen into step behind her so that the three were in single file as they moved deeper into the closed courtyard.

Ahead, the thick tree cover cleared. A pallid glow of moonlight penetrated a stone-paved glade, through which they passed. Further on, the trees once again enveloped the walk, and they plunged back into shadows. As they approached the end of the library, a small creature scampered up a nearby tree, causing Jade to jump.

“Bugger,” she mumbled. She paused to catch her breath with a hand to her chest then quickly started forward again, knowing Diaz was likely to barrel into her if she remained stationary.

The trees once again fell away, and the sidewalk was dressed in muted moonlight. Tolen stopped at a circular section of brick pavement near the Peabody Museum building. A large, bulbous object loomed in the darkness. Chest high and perfectly round, the sphere was seated upon a hexagonal base of stone at least a foot thick, held in place by three solid stone braces atop the ornamental base.

“This…this thing is big,” Diaz exclaimed.

Jade nodded as she explained, “The Costa Rican spheres were first discovered in the 1940s by workers clearing land for banana plantations by the United Fruit Company. Primarily, the spheres are found in and around the small village of Palmar Sur. It is believed they were initially created in the 1
st
century, but no one knows for sure. This one was a gift from the United Fruit Company to the Harvard museum following the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.” Jade eyed the massive stone. “It weighs about 600 lbs.”

Tolen removed an object from inside his coat pocket. There was a click and a stab of light hit the ground. Tolen raised the flashlight beam to the pedestal.

“You’re on, Dr. Mollur,” he said, taking a step to the side to allow her room to pass. He offered his flashlight, but she turned it down, pulling a penlight from her pocket.

“This will go much faster if we all search,” Jade said.

Tolen nodded, and he and Diaz went behind the stone. Jade began her examination opposite them, moving the light extremely slowly over the hewn surface.

Diaz’s words floated to her from the other side of the stone sphere. “Surely an image on a rock displayed here for almost fifty years would have been noticed before now.”

“
The creature of anonymity
,” Jade reminded him, maintaining her focus. She was not going to get drawn into his pessimism. She eyed the stone intently, slowly passing the thin beam over the convex surface, occasionally pausing to investigate tool marks from the sphere’s original carving untold centuries before.

She started at the top and worked her way down. It was a laborious process, and several times her mind fooled her, incorrectly matrixing images of animals from the various marks. Upon closer examination, they proved each time to be nothing more than obscure scrapes across the stone’s surface.

Halfway down, Jade felt her spirits begin to wane. Then she had an even more disconcerting thought: what if
the creature of anonymity
was an image embedded inside the stone? At a minimum, the reexamination of the hundreds of spheres with stone-penetrating radar equipment would take months, possibly years, and would cost thousands of dollars she did not have. It might take a long time, if ever, to raise the money needed through donations or grants.

As they worked, she noticed that Tolen occasionally glanced sideways at her then took in the surrounding area, scanning the dark shadows under the copse of trees which filled the courtyard. He was obviously still on alert, and it made her skin tingle, causing a whirlwind of emotions to knot up inside her.

With only one-quarter of the stone left to search, her hope was rapidly slipping away. The excitement which had kept her exhaustion at bay was evaporating. The thought of having to begin the search in Costa Rica all over again without Phillip was almost unbearable.

Jade was now kneeling, leaning on the stone pedestal for support, as fatigue was settling in. The red-brick pavement bit into her bare knees as she craned her head sideways to examine the underside of the stone. The moonlight did not reach here, and she slowed her examination even more, hoping upon hope for some image which would stand out in this last section of stone surface as she contorted underneath it.

“I’ve seen that on the back of some of your American vehicles.”

She had been so entrenched in her thoughts that Diaz’s voice startled her. She had practically forgotten that Tolen and Diaz were searching the other side of the stone. They had barely made a sound.

“What?” she said, as a charge of exhilaration returned. She scurried to her feet and went around to the other side of the stone.

Tolen and Diaz both faced her as Tolen said, “Long before Christianity, the symbol of a certain creature was known as ‘the Great Mother.’ It was linked to fertility, birth, feminine sexuality, and the natural force of women, and was acknowledged by the Celts as well as many pagan cultures throughout northern Europe.”

Jade stared at him curiously, wondering where he was going with this.

“Around the 1
st
century, the creature was adopted by early Christians. There were probably several reasons for this. For one, Jesus’ ministry is strongly associated with it, and two, it was considered an innocuous symbol persecutors would not link to Christians. When a Christian met someone new, they would draw a single arc in the sand. If the other person completed the drawing with a second, inverse arc overlapping the first one, it was known they, too, were Christian.”

Tolen turned toward the stone and shined the flashlight on the surface at the midpoint. It was slightly darkened from the surrounding surface. He held up a bottle of water for Jade to see. “We wet it to get the etching to show up better.”

Excitedly, Jade squatted and moved closer to the stone. Tolen poured some more water on the surface and two pronounced lines approximately two inches long appeared: arcs joined at one end and overlapping at the other end.

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Ixthus! The Christian Fish! That’s what it meant by
‘The creature of anonymity.’
It helped protect the identity of Christians!” She held her gaze on the image. The lines were unmistakable, but it was no wonder the image had never been noticed. Not only was it faint, but it was so obscure that it was unrecognizable unless you were specifically looking for it. She briefly considered the depths of Samuel Tolen’s knowledge on the subject, but there was no time for that now. She pushed away from the stone and stood. It suddenly dawned on her she had no idea what to do next.

“So we have the correct stone. Now what?” Diaz spoke her thoughts for her.

Jade scratched her cheek in thought. The thrill of the discovery slowly gave way to reality. Two arcing lines did not make a treasure map, nor did they lead to any further clues.

“We take a look inside,” Tolen broke the silence. He knelt down and shined the flashlight on the image, running a finger in a circle on the surface around the fish, tracing a razor thin, almost invisible indention six inches in diameter.

Jade realized the significance. The stone had been plugged.

CHAPTER 12

September 11. Tuesday – 3:48 a.m. Cambridge, Massachusetts

Pascal Diaz looked at his watch. He was growing anxious with this fanciful treasure hunt. “We have less than 72 hours to find the Sudarium, and you want to open up this stone?”

Jade, who was propped on the pedestal, turned a shadowed face toward Diaz. “Sudarium?”

Mierda
, Diaz swore silently to himself.

“We’ll discuss it later,” Tolen reassured her. “For now, we must proceed expediently.”

Jade shot a suspicious gaze from Diaz to Tolen before turning back to the stone. “Do either of you have a pocket knife?”

Diaz removed one from his trouser pocket and handed it to Jade. “It is an heirloom from my grandfather in Tolédo. Please do not break it.”

Jade took the knife, opened it, and wedged the tip of the blade into the narrow crevice while Tolen held light to the area.

A sharp crack behind caused all three to turn. Diaz quickly pulled his HK USP Compact 9mm and had it leveled into the darkness of the tree cover beyond. He looked to Tolen, who brandished his pistol in the same manner. Tolen shined his flashlight over the grounds where the light was all but sucked up in the darkness. After several seconds of silence, both men holstered their weapons. Diaz realized the sound had probably been a tree branch breaking under the weight of some small creature.

“Please continue,” Tolen said, urging Jade on.

The Brit went back to work on the stone, slowly working the tip of the blade along the cutout. Within minutes, she had whittled a reasonably deep crevice following the circular outline. Then she used the tip of the blade to try to pry the stone plug out. Diaz winced as he watched the blade tip bend almost to the breaking point without any movement of the stone.

“It won’t come out,” she said, discouraged. “It may not be a plug, after all.”

“I doubt you can apply the leverage needed with that blade,” Tolen remarked.

Suddenly, the roar of an engine split the night. At the far end near the library building where they had entered the courtyard, a set of headlights lanced into the darkness. A vehicle raced through the web of tree trunks, the engine whining and tires squealing as they transitioned from hard ground to pavement. The vehicle turned, targeting them in its headlights.

It was barreling straight toward them.

Tolen grabbed Jade’s arm, and slung her away into a patch of nearby low ground ferns. Tolen and Diaz drew their weapons. Tolen dropped into a shooter’s position on one knee, but Diaz remained upright, uncertain if he should move out of the car’s path or hold his ground. He took a nervous step to the side, and then steadied himself. Tolen did not budge.

The car lunged forward, negotiating between the trees. The churn of the engine grew louder. The headlights were nearly blinding as Diaz tried to shield his eyes with one hand while continuing to aim with the other. Finally, he could wait no longer and fired several shots in succession. Instead of slowing, the car increased speed, the engine raging. The white lights blocked out everything. Diaz sent several more shots to a spot just above the right headlight hoping to get lucky and hit the unseen driver. The vehicle closed quickly. Diaz felt a wave of nausea.

Tolen had yet to fire a shot.

“Shoot, damn you!” Diaz barked at Tolen.

There was a single deafening pop. The headlights veered slightly, and Diaz dove to the side, landing hard on the brick pavement. A torturous groan of iron followed. The right front of the car slammed into the stone sphere, knocking it from its perch, sending it ambling slowly toward the side of the Peabody Museum Building…and Jade. She frantically rolled away, barely out of its path. After a dozen feet, the sphere struck the wall with a thud. The car came to a violent halt as the undercarriage caught on the now-empty stone pedestal. The air suddenly filled with the smell of gas and oil. The headlight beams knifed ahead, lighting the stone sphere where it had come to rest against the dented wall. The motor raced, sputtered, and died. Everything went quiet.

Diaz rose to his feet breathing heavily. He had no idea what had happened to Tolen until he saw the CIA agent quickly approach the vehicle, open the passenger door and lean in with his gun aimed inside. Tolen stood upright and looked over the car at Diaz. “He’s dead.”

Jade was still on the ground. The 600-pound stone sphere had missed crushing her by inches. She pushed herself up, too dazed to bother brushing off the grass and twigs which stuck to her hair and clothing. One knee was cut and bleeding. In the spotlight, she cast a long, lean shadow on the stone and the building wall behind her.

Diaz and Jade joined Tolen at the vehicle. Diaz went to the driver’s side and reached in, pushing the body off the steering wheel and removing the dead man’s wallet. He could now see the man was older, sixty or maybe even seventy years old. A bullet had entered his forehead. “Is this Boyd Ramsey?” he asked Tolen.

Tolen shook his head. “No.”

Jade walked away, holding a hand before her mouth as if she might be sick.

Diaz turned his attention back to the body. He read the man’s identity, “California driver’s license, Richard Mox, from Santa Barbara.” He looked up at Tolen. “Do you know this man?”

“No, but I’ll have Tiffany Bar check him out.”

Diaz looked over the vehicle with increasing familiarity. “Isn’t this our car?”

Tolen nodded. “Which begs the question: what happened to Jason Weedly?”

“Look at this!” Jade exclaimed.

Diaz looked up. Jade was standing next to the stone sphere, framed by the headlights soaking the wall. “The plug fell out!” She excitedly pointed to the dark circular hole near the top of the sphere.

Diaz and Tolen approached. Tolen shined his flashlight inside the cavity for everyone to see. It was cylindrical, approximately eight inches deep with smooth walls and a flat base. There was nothing inside.

“This has been a waste of time,” Diaz commented.

“Obviously not or that man wouldn’t have tried to kill us,” Tolen said with a thoughtful look.

Tolen dipped his head and scanned the ground. His eyes traced a path back toward the car. Jade trailed behind.

“You think something fell out of the stone sphere?” she asked.

He did not respond.

Diaz followed Tolen and Jade as they walked back toward the vehicle. They moved off the pavement into the low fern hedge, where Jade had been thrown by Tolen. The headlight beams created a mosaic of patchy visibility through the low foliage.

“There!” Jade pointed to a recessed area hidden from the light. At first, Diaz saw nothing. Tolen and Jade squatted, and Diaz followed. Sure enough, there was a small heap of light-colored objects in the vegetation. Jade carefully lifted one and examined it. Tolen shined his flashlight on the tiny pile.

“They’re rock fragments; what’s left of the plug,” Jade said, turning the piece over in her hand, eyeing it meticulously.

Tolen lifted a piece from the ground. He nodded his concurrence. He nudged aside another fragment.

Jade stared at the small rock in Tolen’s hand, then carefully picked through the jagged pieces on the ground.

Diaz noticed a line of blood stretched from her knee to her ankle. Even with the distraction, he found himself briefly admiring the form of her bare leg.

After a few moments, Jade drew in a sharp breath. Her hand was frozen in mid-air over the tiny pile. Then she slowly lowered it, and pushed aside one of the larger rocks. Underneath it was a long, thin, tan object. To Diaz, it resembled a dirty cigarette.

Jade lifted the object delicately. Diaz saw her fingers tremble. He had no idea what she had found, but it must be significant.

“Is that rolled parchment?” Tolen asked, focusing the flashlight on it.

Jade looked to both men, and nodded absently as if in utter disbelief. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

“What does it mean?” Diaz asked.

Jade looked to Tolen, who nodded his head reassuringly as if to say,
go ahead and unroll it
.

Jade twirled the tiny roll slowly in her fingers until a loose flap appeared. She tenderly tugged on the edge of paper and began to unwind it, stretching it the entire six inches in length. It had writing that was unfamiliar to Diaz.

“Oh brilliant!” Jade exclaimed. “It’s ancient Hebrew. This was most likely penned by Joseph of Arimathea!”

“Can you read it?” Tolen asked.

“Yes,” Jade responded breathlessly. She swallowed and read it aloud slowly:

Search for the three stone jars. They will be found when you look for what was offered on the first day. The first jar is at my tomb. Travel from the south. My tomb is through the three-sided rock doorway at the sea.