Old Earth (31 page)

Katrina joined the conversation. While Kritz caught her up, McCauley called Pete DeMeo.

“Where are you, buddy?” McCauley asked when his teaching assistant answered.

“Getting in touch with my Catholic roots. Exploring Rome. Are you still driving around in my car?”

“Well, not exactly. It’s parked.”

“Where?”

“Montreal Airport.”

“You’re in Canada?” DeMeo asked.

McCauley took a deep breath. “Ah, no. London, in fact. Things have changed even since the last time I called.”

“I guess.”

“And where are you?”

“In Firenze. It’s a beautiful day. I’m having a cappuccino outside watching life stroll by. Gorgeous life.” He smiled at a young brunette carrying bags from a shoe store in one hand and clothes in another. “Deciding who my future wife will be.”

“Up for any research?”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“For me,” McCauley said.

“Not really.” He caught another woman’s eye.

“But could you be?”

“Well, maybe if it doesn’t interfere. What’s up?”

McCauley told him about the Vatican scientist. “Dr. Alpert and I can make it to Rome, but it would be helpful if you could do some leg work.”

DeMeo laughed to himself. He thought he was doing just that now.

“Can you check out the project where he works?”

He gave DeMeo the only information he had on Father Eccleston. DeMeo had the same initial reaction McCauley and Alpert had had.

“A priest?”

“Yup. Works with a thing named STOQ.”

“What should I say if I find him?”

“Not much. Just that an acquaintance of his recommended we meet about a discovery we’ve made.”

“Urgent?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

McCauley finally told his teaching assistant what had happened.

“Christ!” DeMeo was no longer focused on the eye candy walking by. “You’re in way over your head. Don’t you think you should get some real help?”

“We’re hoping Eccleston will be that.”

“I mean people with badges who carry guns. That kind of help.”

“Not sure whom to trust right now, Pete. Please?”

“Okay, I reach this priest. Then what? You wave his cross in front of the next bad guys to come your way? For God’s sake, boss, go back home and lock all your doors.”

Pete DeMeo got Quinn McCauley to do something the paleontologist should have done earlier. Think about what he’d gotten himself into.

“I wish I could, but I can’t. I’m excited about things again. The way I haven’t felt in years. I don’t know where it’s going take me. But, maybe this is the discovery I’ve been looking to make all my life.”

He stopped. Another thought rushed forward. It wasn’t only what he’d gotten himself into. Others were deeply involved.

“Oh my God,” McCauley proclaimed.

“What?”

“I’m putting you at risk now along with Katrina, Marli Bellamy, Greene, the students…”

“Don’t worry about me,” DeMeo interrupted. “I’ll get you your Vatican priest. After that, have your talk and call it a day.”

Quinn McCauley knew his assistant was right, but he couldn’t stop now. He could, however, go it alone.

“Thanks, Pete. See what you can find out, but no entanglements yourself. And look over your shoulder. Be…” He was about to say
careful
when Renee Kritz called from the other room.

“I think I remember where I saw the sketch!”

Fifty-eight

OXFORD UNIVERSITY
THAT AFTERNOON

Historically, each of the Oxford Colleges had its own archives and libraries. They reached as far back as the twelfth century. In recent years, the shelves, stacks and volumes have been brought together into one home, the Bodleian Library. Now, the Bodley or even the more abbreviated Bod serves as the principal research library of the University of Oxford. It contains more than eleven million entries. The only library in Great Britain that eclipses the Bod is the British Library. Until the British Museum was founded in 1753, the Bodleian was, for all intents and purposes, the national library of England. It has been the repository of histories and mysteries, scientific journals and science fiction, biographies of the famous and the infamous, today’s newspapers and yesterday’s fairy tales. The Bod is where Renee Kritz took Quinn McCauley and Katrina Alpert.

For the better part of the first hour, Kritz went shelf-to-shelf in the Russian history and anthropology section, looking for anything that might jog her memory.

“Not here,” she said.

“What about this aisle?” Katrina asked not once, but five times as they walked through the Bod’s collection.

“Not here,” she kept reporting. “Or here…or here.” was the constant, discouraging response.

McCauley began his own search. After another hour, Renee and Katrina caught up to him. “This isn’t working,” Kritz admitted. “I could have sworn it was in a book in this section of the library. I thought maybe the size of the book or the color of the binding might jump out, but so far…”

“It’s okay,” Katrina said. “Take your time.”

“Now I’m not even sure if we’re in the right part of the Bod or the right library.”

“All right, let’s look in general anthropology.”

“Or archeology,” Renee added as an afterthought.

They renewed the search. At the two-and-a-half hour mark they took another break, this time for tea and sandwiches in the commissary. The Oxford scholar was clearly frustrated.

“I’m sorry. I thought it would be easier. You know how when you take notes you remember where something specific is on a page even weeks or months later?”

“Try years,” McCauley answered.

“The good thing is I can literally see
where
it was on the shelf. Third of the way up, right side. The row is another thing. Might have black binding, gray lettering. I can’t really recall.”

McCauley nodded.
Just like digging for dinosaur bones.
“Maybe you’re not taking into consideration how many new books have been added since you saw it last,” he noted. “It’s probably not in the same place. You sure you don’t remember the author?”

“Positive.”

“Then we simply keep looking.”

Two hours later, Renee threw up her hands. “I’m sorry. I give up.”

“You can’t,” Katrina implored.

“My knees ache from bending. I’ve got a headache as big as Big Ben. It’s useless.”

“I’ll give it another hour,” McCauley said. “The two of you take a break.”

McCauley decided to act on Kritz’s first impression again. He returned to the Russian anthropology section. Aisle after aisle opened up to him in the immense space. The lighting was never right for close up examination at different levels and his knees were also feeling the stress. Nonetheless, he kept looking for a book he didn’t know by appearance, name, or location.

After forty-five minutes, McCauley stood in front of a shelf he’d passed quickly earlier in the day. By now everything looked the same. He was tired and frustrated and about to give up himself when…

He focused on a thick tattered black book with Cyrillic block lettering in gray. He removed it from the shelf. On the leather cover, a worn etching of a haggard old man. McCauley carefully paged through what appeared to be a chronicle with sketches of the same man, as weathered as a Siberian winter, with a beard as long as time.

McCauley sat on the floor, catching the ambient light from the window. He gathered the book was the account of a recluse who lived above the Anuy River…in a cave.

He couldn’t read Russian, but impressions and thoughts jumped out that suggested the work was written and sketched by someone in the church.

McCauley stopped on page 273. His eyes widened. He felt like his heart skipped a beat. And then he did something he’d never done before. Dr. Quinn McCauley stole a library book.

• • •

McCauley found the two women outside, sitting on a bench.

“Have you ever been in a bookstore, not knowing what you wanted to read, and suddenly it seems like a book picks
you
out rather than the other way around.”

“Well, yes,” Katrina said.

“Then care to take a guess what happened inside?”

“You found it?”

“No, Dr. Kritz.”

Her smile faded.

“It found me,” McCauley said. “By accident, like books do.”

“Let’s go get it,” Kritz said. She stood ready to trudge into the Bod.

“No need,” McCauley said. He knocked on the left breast of his jacket. It made a thud.

“You didn’t?” Katrina exclaimed.

“I did. Trust me, we don’t want any of our names on the loan out.”

Understanding, Katrina said, “Okay, let’s see.”

“Not here.” McCauley motioned for them to walk back to the parking lot. “Someplace quiet where we can all look at it.”

Back at Kritz’s home, McCauley opened the book to page 273.

“That’s it!” Kritz declared.

He laid the photograph from the disposal camera right under the sketch.

“My God, it’s so close to what we—” Katrina began.

“Shot,” Quinn interrupted. “Yes.”

Two representations of virtually the same thing discovered a half a world and centuries apart. The photograph looked like it was taken of the sketch; the sketch a representation of the photo: A wall of rock framing utter blackness.

McCauley gathered his thoughts. “We can sure rule out NASA, the NSA, a black ops site, or anything contemporary.”

“Who then?” Katrina asked.

“Based solely on the author and what I remember about the work, it’s the memoir of an old Roman Catholic priest in Tsarist Russia,” Kritz offered. “He was like Alexis DeTocqueville, traveling and writing about his observations; relaying his experiences. We should get someone to do translations, though.”

“No,” McCauley said. “No one else.”

“What about Google translates?” she replied.

“It’ll be hard without a Cyrillic keyboard with all the different characters.”

“I think I can load that on your computer,” Alpert volunteered.

“Okay. Worth a try. But focus on the chapter with the sketch,” he responded. “What else?”

“Well, I’m more intrigued that there’s a church connection,” Kritz noted.

“But if it’s the same, how can this exist now and in Dionisij’s day?”

“One thing at a time,” McCauley proposed. “Start with who might keep secrets such as this?”

They struggled with the answer.

“Not who,” Katrina finally said. “It’s bigger than who. It takes influence and power and money. A lot of money. An institution that’s been around for a long time.”

“A monarchy?” Renee proposed based on her studies.

“Back to the church?” Kritz added. “Or a business.” She paused considering her own idea. “What businesses have been around for hundreds of years?”

Kritz proposed a few. “Railroads, oil, mining.”

“Publishing?” McCauley added. “Whatever it is, there’s a sophisticated operation behind it.”

“Rules out publishing,” Kritz grumbled.

Fifty-nine

THE VATICAN
THE NEXT DAY

DeMeo had driven his motorcycle to Rome. He spent the morning trying to track down Father Jareth Eccleston. The best he could get, which wasn’t much, was that the priest was out of town; returning in a few days. So in lieu of waiting, DeMeo booked himself a Vatican tour.

“Good thing we passed up the waiting line for the fast track tickets.”

DeMeo turned to see a slender blonde, beautiful beyond all belief.

“I’d say,” DeMeo responded. She wore a knee length black skirt, a dark blue blouse and a simple pearl necklace. He noticed her when she joined the tour late. It was impossible not to.

“The wait for the regular tour was going to be a couple of hours,” she said. “So I’m glad I found this one. Did I miss much?”

The woman had a soft Italian accent, sexy, yet with an easy, natural quality. DeMeo was partial to blondes, always had been. To add to the allure, she had deep blue eyes and inviting lips.

“Just prelims from the guide.”

DeMeo thought for a moment then asked
one
of the things on his mind.

“Do I really look so American you knew to speak English?”

“It’s an English language tour, silly man.”

DeMeo laughed a little too loudly.

“Excuse me?” said the tour guide, a very serious sixty-three-year-old former religious history teacher.

“I’m sorry,” DeMeo offered.

“It was me,” the young woman interrupted. “
Mea culpa
.”

“Are you with us?”

“Yes, a little late,” she responded.

The guide gave her an insincere smile and continued. “As I was saying, the Vatican has the most celebrated and priceless art collection in all Europe. Of course, when we come to the Sistine Chapel at the end of our tour, you’ll recognize Michelangelo’s expression of the grand design in his brilliant work. But as we walk through the Candelabra Gallery, the Gallery of the Tapestries, and throughout the Vatican, I’ll point out the great talents including Raphael, Botticelli, and Bernini; all beloved by the popes.

“We’ll stop at key locations for pictures and questions. But stay together. If you wander off, you might not be able to catch up and you’ll miss important explanations. We’ll pace ourselves with ample time for rest throughout the next three hours.”

“Three hours?” the blonde said under her breath. She saddled up to Pete. “You may have to carry me.”

DeMeo smiled at the thought and wondered if she was just being friendly or coming on to him. It felt like the latter.

They strolled from Vatican Square through the
Fontana della Pigna
Courtyard, named for the oversized pinecone in the middle found in the Roman Baths of Agrippa, then onto the Gallery of Maps. The gallery was actually a 120-meter tunnel with displays of the spiritual and geographical maps that defined Italy through the ages.

DeMeo asked a probing work question when they entered the Vatican Library.

“I understand the Vatican conducts a great many scientific studies in astronomy and earth sciences. Do they house all the research here?”

The tour guide wasn’t ready to take questions, but it was a good one.