The Avatari (42 page)

The President merely nodded, but Madison knew that he now had his full attention.

‘Well, Mr President,’ he went on, ‘Javier Martinez was admitted to the facility without much ado and we arranged for a security detail to be posted there, along with one of our own doctors who would oversee our man’s treatment and report back to us. In time, Josh Wando became friendly with our doctor and began confiding in him. And this is where the real story began. We didn’t know at first what to make of it and asked Hal and his boys for advice.’ He turned to Dr Stevens. ‘I think from here on, Hal would be much better at telling the story.’

Hal Stevens had a doctorate in Physics from Berkeley and a Master’s in History from Harvard. He dabbled in archaeology in his spare time. His odd and rather unique academic qualifications made him indispensable in a laboratory which dealt with oddities – Roslyn sightings and the Bermuda Triangle, for instance – in addition to the normal scientific requirements of the Cold War. The findings of his lab were shared with none but the President and the director of the CIA. On paper, the lab did not exist.

‘Mr President, I have been with Langley for twenty years now and working as head of the lab for five,’ Stevens began in a voice so muted that the President had to lean forward to catch his words. ‘If Jim and his boys are known as the “spooks”, we are known as the “kooks”.’

The tone in which the words were uttered was so colourless that the President merely grunted in response.

‘We look into every seemingly inexplicable phenomenon that comes our way: UFO sightings, monsters in the deep, unexplained terrestrial occurrences, crosses that suddenly start bleeding – you name it. But we
investigate
only those that affect national security or interests. We wouldn’t, for example, check out the Loch Ness monster, unless it was sighted next to Annapolis Naval Base, so to say.’

Stevens waited for a chuckle, but seemed unfazed when the President failed to react to his second attempt at humour. He simply continued his account, giving the President all the details they had obtained so far on the case, starting with Josh Wando’s interest in his grandfather’s last expedition and ending with the
paiza
he had managed to acquire, followed by the auction that had thrown participation in the expedition open to the highest bidder. While speaking, he ran a small clip, which showed shots of Wando’s clinic, the
paiza
and the auction.

‘And was it you who suggested that the
paiza
should be acquired and the auction held?’ the President now asked, turning to Madison.

‘Yes,’ the deputy director admitted. ‘The doctor we posted at the facility in Texas would give us a daily update; Javier Martinez’s health status was a red-hot priority for us. When he passed on what Wando had confided in him, we followed it up as a matter of routine, sending the information to Hal’s boys for analysis. We were quite sure at the time that Wando was nothing but a crank and that at some stage the story would not hold water.’

‘And that was where we were in for a big surprise, Mr President,’ Stevens interjected. ‘Everything Wando had told us checked out – right from the details of his grandfather’s last expedition to the authenticity of the
paiza
. When Ralph Wando’s team was interned in Tibet, our Secretary of State had approached the British for help. They, in turn, gave instructions to their Resident at Lhasa. We have the original transcripts of the British Resident’s report.’ Dr Stevens took a sheet of paper out of a file that lay on the table and began reading from it. ‘It says here, I quote, “The trouble appears to be that members of Ralph Wando’s expedition had allegedly stolen a map leading to the mythical land of Shambhala, which the Tibetans wanted back at all costs. In all my dealings as a Resident, I had never seen the Potala Palace so agitated over an issue and it took all my persuasive powers to have the American party released,” unquote.’

‘That’s all very well, but somewhere in this affair there has to be a connection, however tenuous, between this
paiza
, which supposedly leads to the imaginary land of Shambhala, and national security,’ the President said, his voice brittle, ‘though quite frankly, I fail to see it.’

‘We’ll come to that in a minute, Mr President,’ was Madison’s prompt response. ‘After we established the
paiza
’s authenticity, we thought it was time to test the credibility of the story associated with it. Wando had already asked for our help, so we provided one of our covert agents, purportedly working in a freelance capacity, to help him with his quest. The agent and our man in Texas persuaded him to conduct his auction. We were frankly amazed at the response the notice elicited.’

The President looked away, then turned back to them.

‘I guess you had better get to it, and quickly, Jim,’ he said now, his voice louder than necessary and laden with the irritation he did not bother to hide. ‘Surely, you haven’t come all this way to tell me about a loony bunch of rich men investing in their future lives?’ He took another sip from his glass of bourbon. ‘Unless,’ he added wryly, ‘you’re here to make
me
an offer?’

Jim Madison and Hal Stevens looked at each other; it was the latter who chose to reply.

‘Mr President,’ he said patiently, ‘Shambhala, as a place – whether mystical, mythical or real – has tantalized the imagination of numerous people for a very long time. Some, like Josh Wando and others before him, are hung up on the prospect of attaining
moksha
or liberation or, at the very least, a promising future rebirth.
That
, as you pointed out, Mr President, has no bearing on American interests. But Shambhala is also supposed to be the repository of ancient knowledge – purportedly much ahead of its times. This knowledge is contained in what is known as the Kalchakra or time-cycle document. Knowledge of the Kalchakra means knowledge of the future, of one’s destiny. For these very reasons, many generations of rulers have searched for Shambhala over the centuries. We have reason to believe that Hitler himself may have been one of them; he allegedly funded many of Sven Hedin’s expeditions on the Silk Road.’

‘That’s neither here nor there, Hal,’ the President said dismissively.

‘Indeed so, Mr President,’ Stevens went on smoothly, ‘but on one of those expeditions, Hedin found an abandoned city buried in sand at the edge of the Lop Nur Lake in China. During his excavations, he uncovered an ancient library filled with scrolls that were written in a language he couldn’t decipher. Being short of water and supplies, however, Hedin could not afford to linger at the site and loaded up on as many of those scrolls as he could manage, hoping to return there some day to complete his dig. He never did; the communists came in and no foreign expeditions have been permitted since.’

Hal Stevens paused a moment before continuing, ‘Hedin presented the scrolls he had brought back to the university library in Heidelberg. When our boys got there during the Second World War, somebody with a background in archaeology became interested in them and the scrolls found their way to us. Our experts were able to decipher them. They turned out to be written in Jiaguwen, the earliest script ever known in China, dating back to the Shang Dynasty that had been in power about three and a half millennia ago. The scrolls gave a detailed description, a “review”, if you could call it that, of what the Kalchakra contained and were accordingly named the “Kalchakra scrolls”. They were remarkable, because they established that the Kalchakra had been written many centuries earlier than had been generally accepted until then. The scrolls also described the teachings of the Kalchakra, not just in the metaphysical terms we are familiar with, but in great physical detail as well, with diagrams and calculations that a scientist could verify.’ Hal Stevens took off his spectacles and began polishing them as he spoke. ‘The scrolls also said that the Kalchakra was not from this world.’

‘What!’ the President exclaimed.

‘That’s right, Mr President,’ Stevens affirmed, ‘it’s supposed to contain knowledge given to us by aliens.’

‘And you actually believe that?’ the President said sharply, ‘just because the scrolls say so?’

Dr Stevens’s voice was calm as he answered; given his deadpan tone, he might have been testifying in court.

‘We don’t believe anything until we have a fair degree of conclusive and verifiable proof, Mr President,’ he went on. ‘First, let’s consider the scrolls; carbon dating confirms their age and that of the ink used on them. That’s around 3000 bce, give or take half a century. The script in which they are written matches the only one known from that time in that area. As far as alien visitation goes, the Kalchakra mentions the exact period when this visitation is supposed to have taken place in Shambhala – another two thousand years earlier, according to the scrolls. It also gives the exact astral configuration in the sky over western China during that period.’

He paused in his explanation to pull out another sheet of paper from his file, which he placed in front of the President. It was a copy of the astral chart he had just referred to. The President looked at it briefly and turned back to him.

‘Mr President,’ Stevens went on, ‘we’re in a position to confirm that this chart is consistent with what the night sky in western China would have looked like 5,000 years ago. Only, there is no record of such maps ever being created at the time. In fact, the first one we know of postdates the era to which the scrolls belong by 1,500 years and was recovered from the Mugao caves, again in China, along the Silk Road.’

‘This is beginning to sound like
Chariot of the Gods
.’

‘Yes, it does, Mr President,’ Stevens conceded. ‘This place, Shambhala, is supposed to contain the complete Kalchakra, apparently of alien origin, which outlines the nature of a future war and the means by which it could be won. We have been studying the scrolls for years now and are, quite frankly, amazed at the way a document belonging to the ancient past refers to scientific discoveries that we are still in the process of making. A case in point is the apparent reference in the Kalchakra to ways of paralysing enemy computer networks in a future war, during which all weapons will be controlled by a single network that covers every weapon platform, guidance system, sensor and even individual soldiers.’

There was a palpable silence in the room. The President looked at both men and smiled humourlessly.

‘Are you serious, Hal?’ he asked. ‘Or are you hooked to
The
Terminator
? My daughter, Sam, made me watch that one, you know. Great stuff. But let’s be serious, gentlemen. You don’t expect me, do you, to buy this myth, this sci-fi-mumbo jumbo?’

‘If we don’t, we’re afraid our enemies will,’ Jim Madison said quietly.

‘Who? The Russians?’ the President scoffed. ‘Right now, they’re running all the way back to Moscow. Our economists tell me that in a few years’ time, they won’t even have the money to heat their asses, leave alone finance some cyborg army!’

‘It’s not them we need to watch out for, Mr President,’ Dr Stevens said flatly. ‘It’s the Chinese.’ Then, without waiting for the President’s response, he continued, ‘Since 1980, we have been running a geostrategic war game at Langley called Janus. Janus works on the Cray 2 supercomputer, using artificial intelligence algorithms designed to analyse multi-dimensional inputs, ranging from climate change to famine in Africa, with possible outcomes for the US. Mr President, according to Janus, our only competitor in the mid- to long-term is going to be China. They have recently introduced major reforms by privatizing and lifting price controls and are projected to grow at a steady nine to ten per cent per year. At that rate, their economy will beat ours in the next forty years – and there is nothing we can do to stop it.’

‘How has this got anything to do with what you just told me?’ the President asked with some asperity.

This time, the deputy director answered; he had asked Hal Stevens the same question, before the meeting with the President was arranged.

‘Whatever be their growth trajectory,’ Madison now said, ‘Janus predicts that we will retain our numero uno status in world affairs for one – and only one – reason: we will be able to box them into the South China Sea. Our Seventh Fleet will destroy the Chinese Navy in brown waters, even before it reaches Taiwan. China will never catch up with our military and technological capability, unless… ’ His voice trailed off as he glanced at Stevens, who nodded and took over from him.

‘Janus calls this a “wild card”,’ Stevens said, ‘something highly improbable, but with potentially catastrophic results – say, a super earthquake that destroys the Middle East oilfields or a more virulent form of AIDS than exists at present. Janus predicts that as long as the US and China progress in technological development and research at their present pace, China will never catch up.
If
, however, it achieves a revolutionary breakthrough in some area – something like superconductivity or controlled fusion, for instance – which gives it an edge, as it were, it will not only catch up with us, but beat us at the game.’

‘But you still haven’t joined the dots for me,’ the President observed. ‘How does this expedition you mentioned connect with China?’

‘Because Mr President,’ Stevens answered, ‘Michael Wang, a New York arts dealer who bid thirty million dollars for this expedition, is a Chinese sleeper we have had on our radar for almost twenty years – in fact, ever since he came to this country. In all these years, the Chinese Embassy never contacted him even once. Then two weeks ago, a Party official meets him and, in all probability, orders him to attend the auction. The thirty million he bid came from the fifty million dollars that were wired into his account from another bank in Shanghai via Hong Kong.’ Jim Madison leaned forward, his voice urgent. ‘Mr President, the People’s Republic, according to our estimates, will have a GNP of 350 million US dollars this year. They’ve sent one-seventh of that amount to Wang to buy control over this expedition.’

The President leaned back, a look of utter astonishment on his face. ‘Holy cow!’ he murmured. A few moments elapsed, before he admitted grimly, ‘You’re right. We can’t just sit back and watch.’