The Cleric's Vault (18 page)

Emily
had slowly made her way over to where Sean was gazing at the stone.
 
“What does it say?”

“It’s
a story,” he said, staring in wonder at the ancient script.

“What
story?”

He
turned his eyes from the pillar and looked at both women with a semi-shocked
face.
 
“If I’m reading it
correctly, it looks a lot like the beginning of the Old Testament.”

Chapter 33

Grand Canyon, AZ

Emily
appeared to be confused.
 
“You
mean, like the Old Testament from the Bible?”

Sean
looked back up at the sculpted stone.
 
“That would be the one,” he answered nodding.
 
“It’s the early parts of Genesis, talking about the Garden
of Eden.
 
These four bluish-green
lines that lead to the center represent the four rivers that ran through the garden:
 
Tigris, Euphrates, Pison, and
Gihon.
 
Supposedly they all four
ran into one larger river that flowed under the tree of life.”

Adriana
glanced back at the small pedestal in the center of the room.
 
It was a simple, rectangular cube
carved from the same stone as the rest of the chamber.
 
As she moved closer to the object she
noticed that there was something distinct etched into the sides.
 
It was a tree but it was unlike any
she’d seen before.
 
The trunks were
separate at the bottom but joined about halfway up, then opened into
intricately detailed branches, fruit, and foliage.
 

Sean
had also abandoned the corner pillar and walked over to the middle where
Adriana was studying the pedestal.
 
“The tree of life,” he whispered reverently.
 

Adriana
nodded.
 

“But
why is all this Biblical stuff here in the United States?” Emily wondered out
loud.
 
“Those stories took place on
the other side of the world nearly 8,000 years ago.”

Sean
started drawing connections in his mind.
 
At first, they seemed impossible.
 
But the more he reflected on the events of the last few weeks and the
evidence in stone right before his eyes, the more he began to believe the
plausibility.

“What
are you thinking?” His old partner asked, interrupting his intense thought.

He
shook his head quickly as if snapping out of a dream.
 
“This is going to sound crazy.
 
But what if it is all connected?”

“What
do you mean?” Emily asked.
 

“The
Bible, the Native Americans, all of this stuff.
 
Could it be that all of it is connected somehow?”

“I
don’t follow,” Starks shook her head.

Villa
stood silently, just listening.

“The
Egyptian connection to the Native Americans that we found in Georgia, the
different forms of writing, all of the evidence that we have discovered from
the ancient world all points to one thing.
 
It’s essentially all telling the same story and leading back
to one place.”
 
He stared at the
leaf shaped piece of gold resting on top of the altar.

“To
the Garden of Eden?” Emily asked, finally starting to see the connection.
 
“Not quite,” Sean corrected her.
 
“If such a place still existed it would have been found by now.”

“The
tree,” Adriana broke her silence in a tone more to herself than the others.

“What?”
Emily looked confused.

“It
all makes sense now,” Villa continued.
 
“Francisco Coronado was not looking for a city of gold.
 
He was looking for something far more
valuable.
 
The golden chambers only
point the direction.
 
The chambers
themselves serve as either a beacon to the righteous or a distraction for the
wicked.”

“What
do you mean, distraction?”
 
Sean
chimed in, his voice resonating off the walls.

“For
those of pure heart, the golden chambers would not have mattered.
 
It was the journey that was of
importance.
 
The greedy and
misguided souls would see the glittering gold and forget all about the
path.
 
They would figure they had
found the ultimate treasure when, in fact, all they had found was worldly
riches.
 
“Coronado must have known
this.
 
And he surely must have
known that he was far to old to take on such a journey.”

“So
you are saying there is something even more valuable than four golden rooms
worth billions of dollars?” Emily seemed dubious.

“Money
isn’t everything,” Adriana replied.
 
“In Coronado’s book he quoted the Gospel of Mark from the Bible.
 
I wondered for a while, why that
particular verse was there.
 
It
comes from chapter eight.
 
For what doth it profit a man if he gains
the whole world and loses his own soul?”

“The
treasure is something else…” Sean trailed of.

“Something
far more powerful and potentially more dangerous,” Adriana added.
 
“Perhaps Coronado knew this as well,
confirming his thought that it should be left alone, hidden to history and
time.”

Adriana
stared at both of them with an intensity none either of them had ever seen
before.
 
Then she looked back at
the golden leaf, sitting silently on the pedestal. She drew in a breath as she
considered the implications.
 

“El
Arbol de Vida,” she said finally.
 
“The tree of life.”

Chapter 34

Washington DC

Cars
hustled by on the dimly lit streets.
 
The air was colder than usual, almost unseasonably so.
 
There was always a chill that time of
year, but, after the brutal summer, the weather seemed to have skipped autumn
and gone straight to winter.

Eric
Jennings checked back down the sidewalk he’d just come from and then looked in
the other direction before pushing open the heavy wooden door to Bellamy’s
Irish Pub.
 
Old habits were hard to
break.
 
He was of the mindset that
one could never be too careful.

Inside,
the warm air washed over him, a stark contrast to the bone-chilling cold of the
sidewalk outside.
 
He took off his
black trench coat and hung it on a hook in the foyer then loosened his blue and
white striped tie.
 

Despite
the establishment’s rousing reputation, the bar was quiet that evening.
 
Irish folk music played on the speakers
throughout the room, but absent were the large groups of drunken revelers that
one might expect based on previous experience.

There
were only a few people: a man and a woman, finishing off the last of their
beers at the other end of the bar.
 
They laughed and talked quietly, perhaps teasing about what the rest of
the night would hold.
 
The man’s
back was to Jennings so he couldn’t see his face.

Jennings
nodded to a short, fleshy bartender who returned the gesture. Eric had been a
patron of the joint for years and Bobby had been bartending there since before
then.
 
The man’s gray, thinning
hair looked like it was pasted to his round head.
 
He wore the typical white button up shirt and apron over
black pants.

The
dimly lit pub had a random collection of sports memorabilia from Boston and
Washington: Capitals and Bruins jerseys, autographed baseball bats, an old
Washington Senators jersey next to one from the Red Sox, and some Redskins
pictures all gave the impression the place was some kind of sports bar.
 
Of course, the Irish tri-colors were
everywhere mingled with Guinness posters and placards.
 

Many
famous people had stopped in to Bellamy’s over the years but not because it was
a trendy spot.
 
It probably had
more to do with the fact that one could remain anonymous in the dark, quietude
of the pub, at least on weeknights anyway.

“Usual,
Mr. Jennings?”
 
The bartender
yelled across the room as Eric slid into his favorite booth in a corner and
unbuttoned the top button on his white dress shirt.

He
nodded.
 
“Thanks Bobby.”

It
had been a trying week.
 
A beer and
some good food would hit the spot.
 
Bellamy’s was famous for having better than average bar food.
 
With a full compliment of soups and
hearty sandwiches, it was one of the only bars in town that had to be open for
lunch simply because of the popularity of the menu.

“No
problem, Mr. J,” Bobby replied.
 
The barkeeper smiled and hurriedly finished wiping down a spot on the
bar that he seemed to be perpetually cleaning then exited the room through a
doorway into the kitchen.

It
was hard to get service like that anymore.
 
Most bars and restaurants had such a revolving door of
turnover in staffing that a person hardly knew the faces they would see from
week to week.
 
It was nice that there were a few spots still left that had people
dedicated to good service.
 
Jennings
smiled at the thought.

Bobby
reappeared through the swinging, wooden door.
 
“It’ll be right up, Mr. J,” the chubby man stated.
 

He
passed by the other two customers who were obviously entranced with one another
and grabbed a pint glass from behind the bar.
 
Through a technique he’d probably done a hundred thousand
times, Bobby filled up the glass with the familiar black stout from
Ireland.
 
After topping off the
foamy head of the beer, the old barkeep rapidly stepped around the edge of the
bar counter and brought it over to Jennings.
 
“Here you go, Mr. J.”

“I
appreciate it.
 
Business good
today?” Jennings asked the question every week when he came in.
 
Part of him actually did care.
 
After all, a quiet pub with great
service and food was hard to find.

The
squat man crossed his arms and smiled.
 
“Business is always good when you work for yourself,” Bobby beamed as he
said it.
 
“But, yeah, it’s good.
 
Had a bunch of execs come in from a
convention this afternoon.
 
So that
was solid.”
 
The bartender’s accent
was thick, clearly from the Boston area.
 
He paused for a moment.
 
“Your…um, friend is running a little late tonight.”

Eric
pursed his lips slightly and nodded.
 
He didn’t need to say anything else.
 

Jennings
was a man of few vices.
 
Most
worldly activities didn’t interest him.
 
He’d never gotten in to drugs as a young man, didn’t over indulge with
alcohol.
 
Smoking had never been
his thing, save for an occasional cigar after a nice meal.
 
Women, however, were his one
weakness.
 
Fortunately for him,
Bobby was more than willing to accommodate him with a rotation of escorts that
met his strict standards, something that Jennings compensated the barkeeper for
handsomely.
 
“No problem,
Bobby.”
 
He smiled back at the man
who winked, gave one nod, and headed back to the kitchen to check on the
food.
 
Eric grabbed the cool glass
of Irish stout and took a long, slow sip from it, savoring the creamy, bitter
flavor after a long day at work.

“Who
you meeting here, Eric?”
 

Jennings
was looking down at his cell phone when the new voice startled him, nearly
causing him to spill some of his beverage.
 
Setting it down, Jennings looked to his left and instantly
recognized the young, narrow face.
 
“I thought I recognized that slimy laugh when I walked in?”
 
He cursed himself silently for not
realizing who was with the woman at the bar.

Sam
Townsend was the director of the CIA’s newest division.
 
They focused mostly on corruption
within government agencies.
 
It was
like internal affairs but for the whole party, not just one particular
agency.
 
Townsend had been in the
Justice Department for five or six years.
 
Eric couldn’t recall exactly.
 
But he knew the young punk had risen quickly, too quickly in many
veterans’ opinion.
 
Eric hadn’t
recognized him at the bar a few moments earlier.
 
He stood a few feet away, hands in both pockets of his
expensive Armani suit.
 
His short,
dark hair was slightly spiked off to the side and dark brown eyes were narrow,
accompanied by a smug grin.
 
He
wasn’t even thirty yet.

Jennings
had thought creating the corruption branch of the CIA was a political move by
the president--foolish and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
 
There was no way that one group within
a government agency could get much done in the way of shutting down internal
corruption.
 
The U.S. government
had thousands of people all over the world.
 
The manpower alone would cost tens of millions each year.

Townsend
was a scumbag.
 
Jennings found it
extremely ironic that the man they put in charge of the corruption division was
probably involved with more unethical behavior than nearly anyone else.
 
The other irony was that Eric had been
an honest agent for most of his career.
 
But decades of a flat salary and too many headaches had gotten the
better of him.
 
He wanted to retire
on an island somewhere and play golf or sip margaritas on the beach.
 
This
“tool” could change all that if he got in the way.

“What
do you want, Sam?” He went straight to the point, irritation clear in his
voice.

The
young agent helped himself to the seat in the booth across from Jennings just
as Bobby came back to the table.

“Your
food will be out in a second, Mr. J.”
 
He lowered his eyebrows at the new companion who had just taken a
seat.
 
The bartender was obviously
confused as to why the man had left the bar to come over.
 
“You need anything else, friend?”

“No,
Bobby.
 
He’ll just be a minute,”
Eric answered for him.

“I’m
fine.
 
Thanks,” Sam added, never
taking his eyes off of the man across from him.

Sensing
something personal was going on, the old bartender slinked back to the kitchen.

Again
Jennings asked, “What do you want, Sam?”

“Eric,”
his voice was condescending.
 
“Relax.
 
What makes you
think I want something?”

The
music changed on the speaker system from a slow, Irish ballad to something a
little more upbeat with a wild Celtic fiddle driving the melody.

“Because
you’re always up to something,” Eric responded coldly after taking another
draught of his beer.

“Me?
 
I don’t think so.
 
After all, that’s what my department
does.
 
We figure out who in the
government
is
up to something.”

“Convenient
for you. No one there to checks
your
tracks, huh?”

Townsend
laughed for a moment and looked over towards the woman at the bar.
 
She was spying on both of them through
the mirror behind the drink station.
 
He turned his attention back to Jennings.
 
“What are you up to, Eric?
 
We know you have agents out in Vegas right now and another
team that just headed to New Mexico.
 
What I want to know is,
why
?
 
There haven’t been any missions filed
for that region recently.
 
So,
you’re up to something.
 
You
haven’t gone rogue on us have you?”

Jennings
resented the implication, even though it was true.
 
Who was this little
prick to think he could just waltz in there to his favorite pub and start
throwing accusations around?
 

One
thing Sam said caught him off guard, though.
 
True, Jennings had
people in Vegas.
 
New Mexico on the
other hand, he knew nothing about, which made him wonder who else may have been
involved in the game.
 
Townsend was
thorough.
 
If he knew about the
agents out west he had been following their actions for a while.
 
What Jennings didn’t know was for how
long.
 
He’d tried to keep a more
administrative role in the whole operation, but with a hands-off approach.
 
The man who called himself The Prophet
had asked for his top operatives and had paid handsomely.
 
A professional mercenary, Will
Hastings, had handled everything, even communications directly with the
mysterious man himself.
 
The trail was
beginning to lead back to Washington, which meant Eric Jennings was going to
have to take more control of the situation.
 
At the moment, he decided to redirect.

“I’m
under strict orders not to reveal that information.”

“Oh,
come on,” Sam said loudly.
 
“You
know good and well I have access to everything you do.”
 
He had a pleading look on his face that
backed up what he was saying, as if it should be extremely obvious.

Although,
the fact that Sam was aware of their southwest presence meant he could get his
own team on the trail eventually.
 
Eric guessed Sam would rather not do that if he didn’t need to.

“Why
are we having this conversation, Sam?” he said with a smirk.
 

It
was a good point, one that obviously caught the younger agent off guard.
 

Since
Townsend didn’t respond, he continued, “Let me guess, Sam, you want less
corruption or more opportunity to participate in it.”
 
The statement was lathered in cynicism.
 

Townsend’s
eyes narrowed.
 
“Listen to me,
Eric.
 
I can pull the plug on every
single operation you’re running right now.
 
The only person with more authority in this government than
me right now is the president himself.
 
And last I checked, he’s signing off on my direct deposit.”