The Secret of the Ancient Alchemist (32 page)

“
They
were masters of the cosmos. They had the ability to foresee the
future. Their ancestors kept them informed. But, proof will come in
changing weather patterns and seismic data. That’s all I have to
say at this point. Good day, my people.”

As Bentley
headed to the exit, a reporter accosted him.

“
Dr.
Bentley, how serious can we take this new age, this Lord of the
Dawn? Give me a solid reason to believe you.”

“
The
heavens say so and that’s good enough. The age is a quenching of
spiritual thirst not just physical change. I assure you, a new dawn
awaits us.”

With a tip of
his hat, Bentley was gone. The crowds stumbled out as engineers
gathered cables and tools. In the dimmed lights of the conference
room, five world leaders, an Englishman and an Austrian were left
staring at a screen.

It was dark in
Paris when Bentley walked along Avenue de Suffren headed to his
hotel at Le Place D’Italie. From his room, he stared out at a city
that had grown quiet from the ravages of the day’s rains and
floods. He could see workers still clearing rubble.

The steeples of
the city’s ancient churches stuck out in the distance along with
the Pyramid of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Bentley’s thoughts
ran on Michele Laplotte. LaPlotte was once the Conservateur of the
Louvre and then, its Président Général. He recalled LaPlotte had
made numerous requests for his Inca artefacts. Now, he was dead. He
never imagined LaPlotte could have been so evil. The man seemed so
gracious.

He put his feet
on his bed hoping to relax but he couldn’t. He thought again of
Hart and Olsen. No one had ever found a way to read Quipus and no
one had ever attempted to verify the existence of a supernatural
realm in humans. He was proud of them but troubled by what was
happening. Would they survive, he wondered.

With LaPlotte
gone, the Brotherhood would seek revenge. Olsen and Hart had little
chance. His heart burned with pain, his mind a blur as he sought
answers.

Soon, he
drifted off to sleep. He had five hours to catch a flight to his
base in Colombia.

Chapter 72

The weather was
damp in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta when he walked through the
door of SARDS, the South American Research and Development Station,
on his way to the third floor.

Outside John
Steel’s laboratory, he typed in his pass and waited for the click
of the door. Entering, he caught sight of the Steel’s white hair
through a glass partition.

The time on the
lab’s Westclox read 11.50AM when he turned to TOBI, the Trans-Optic
Body Informer.

“
Good
morning, Dr. Bentley,” the robot said.

TOBI turned and
continued its job of maintaining the temperature and moisture
content of the air flowing into John Steel’s cloning chambers.
Bentley smiled. He knew TOBI well. He waited for the automated
robot to speak again.

“
Do not
enter the chambers now,” TOBI advised. “The chambers are off
limits, repeat, the chambers are off limits at this time. Thank you
for your co-operation, Dr. Bentley.”

“
Sorry I
took so long, Arthur.” John Steel opened his office two hours later
to find Bentley waiting on him.

“
That’s
okay. I spent the time sorting my collection. The Quipus are
fragile, some are disintegrating. Olsen’s returning the sacred
Quipus soon.”

“
You
should turn the humidifier up?”

“
I
did.”

Steel looked
slightly frazzled, not surprising for a man who had just spent many
hours incubating human tissue. Pouring a cup of tea, he sank in a
chair and stared at his business partner whom he hadn’t seen for a
while.

“
So, how
are you getting on with Olsen?”

“
He’s a
remarkable person, Tom as well.”

“
I expect
they’ll both succeed in their missions. I never imagined we’d get
this far, did you?”

Steel and
Bentley had been friends for long. Casualties of war, they had
grown up in orphanages and by hard work and determination, had made
it to the arena of academia. In 1970, while on campus in England
and moving with the cries for a better world, they had embarked on
a mission to do just that. Thirty years later, their mission
was
in
vivo
.

“
We’ve
gotten far, John, but, honestly I don’t know how much further we
will go. SARDS was hit by a US Blackhawk helicopter. It’s a clear
warning to us, isn’t it?”

“
They can
go to hell.”

“
Come on,
John. How long d’you think you can stay here? You have to start
thinking about moving on.”

“
I’m not
abandoning my work, Arthur!”

“
It’s
your choice.”

“
By the
way, Arthur, the plant extract you sent me has astounding
properties.”

“
The SP
209 you mean?”

“
Yes.
Anna Grayson is already showing a reversal of her viral load. Many
are still at pre-trial stage of treatment.”

“
Medical
archaeology pays off. I never ever believed this HIV virus is as
recent as people think. It’s been around a long time, since the
time of pharaohs.”

“
I met
with Mr. DaCosta earlier today.”

“
You did?
What did he have to say?”

“
He
believes SARDS can bring a halt to the drug trade.”

“
Of
course! All the research that’s going will attract investors. It’s
all part of the plan.”

“
He also
has control of the Militia.”

“
That
should make the transition easier. I’ve also spoken to Jack
Knight.”

“
What’s
he doing? Sunning his rear on his yacht on La Joya Island?” Steel’s
tone was bitter. He didn’t like the man.

“
He put
his money into SARDS and he expects a good return, John. By the
way, where’s your technician?”

“
Ernesto
you mean? He’s in the Delta Amacuro in the Venezuelan
hinterland.”

“
Why?”

Well,”
Steel pointed to make his point, “we’re looking for the most
virulent strain of the HIV. That way we can be sure that the
vaccine is effective, as effective as possible.”

“
And,
how’s your future race shaping up? By now, you must’ve done
sufficient in-vitro implants that, even if you’re stopped
completely, you can still succeed.”

Steel got up
and poured himself another cup of tea, giving some thought to his
answer. Outside his room, elevators were moving as researchers,
junior doctors, and workers went about their business. SARDS had
become entrenched in the wider world and had a voice at seminars
and scientific conferences. People were hammering to get in. It was
not quite what Steel wanted. He had chosen the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta because of its isolation. Steel had little tolerance
for prying eyes and sticky noses.

“
You’re
right, Arthur. I have accomplished a lot. Soon, there’ll be a new
race of men and women who will never succumb to cancer, aids or any
of the common conditions that plague us. More than that, the race
would find its way to influential international forums and be in
positions to make decisions. They’ll fight hard to resolve the
problems of poverty, famine, greed and war, show respect for women,
children. Murder, rape, crime and violence would be cast to the
dustbins of history. The new people of light would dispel the
darkness of the Antichrist.”

“
A pity
about Francis La Croix.”

Steel sighed.
“Why are you bringing him up?”

“
Because
we have a problem to face and you need to be aware of
it.”

“
Francis
was a master artist. He went to Holland and we never saw him again.
Someone said he died in a flood but, I don’t know how he died. His
work was divine, like Rembrandt’s. He had the same touch and
obsession as he.”

“
He
didn’t die in a flood, John. He was shot by the Brotherhood and I’m
scared for Olsen and Hart. We can’t let them harm them! We
can’t!”

“
But,
what can we do?”

“
I don’t
know, John. The Brotherhood strikes when you least expect it. I
can’t believe Laplotte had a hand in Hart’s attempted murder. I
trusted him. I gave him many treasured artefacts. I even spoke to
him about Hart and Olsen. How could he deceive us? We can’t stop
Foster, either. He’s an order unto himself.”

There was a
hush in the room. Defeat wasn’t easy for the two men who had
sacrificed it all for a better world and, even if all were taken
from them, it would never equal the loss of Olsen and Hart. It was
unbearable for them to even think of it.

“
Well, at
least Hart has completed some of his task, hasn’t he?” Steel said,
not quite knowing what else to say.

”
He has
done what no one has ever done before. Hart has transcended the old
dogmas of religious beliefs. He can propel us even further if he
survives, John. Right now, Olsen is being followed.”

Steel stared as
if the world rested on his sleeves. It was a while before he
spoke.

“
And,
what of Alejandro Ferelli?” he asked with more than a tinge of
sadness.

“
I haven’t heard anything of him. I just hope he’s doing
well.”

Chapter 73

Across the
Atlantic Sea, sitting in his cramped office among seismographs and
intricate networks, seismologist, Josh Marin, pondered. What if
Olsen was right, he thought. What if a new age was coming? With no
signs of seismic reversal in his data, the age was nothing but
fantasy to him. He couldn’t believe any of it. His cell phone
beeped. He grabbed it.

“
What’s
up?” The call from his friend, Timothy Pearce, who lived on La Joya
Island surprised him. Pearce, an ardent disciple of Arthur Bentley,
was trying hard to convince him of the age.

“
Look,
ancients couldn’t read or write like we do but they knew things
about the future and they recorded them in their own
way.”

Marin sighed.
“How come you’re so sure ‘bout this all this?”

“
Newton
was keen on prophecy. He saw logic in it. Do you know that by using
bible codes, he was able to determine that Jews would return to
Israel?”

“
He did
that?”

“
Hart’s
discovery of a realm shows how people can capture radio waves from
the beyond and foretell the future. There’s a date recorded in Inca
Quipus, a date for a new beginning. It would signal an end to
disasters and strife. I remember Bentley saying all that at a
lecture I had attended years ago. I’m sure he was right. By the
way, I hacked his email. He got two numbers for the date from
Olsen.”

“
You
hacked his e-mail?”

“
Sure
did.”

“
Whad’you
get?”

“
One’s
seven.”

“
Seven?”
Marin wondered what the number meant. “We’re getting into deeper
and deeper trouble every day. The possibility of a quake hitting a
sensitive zone is as real as day.”

“
That
could change time forever, like the one in Chile almost
did.”

“
What’s
the other number?”

“
Nineteen. The last number may take some time.”

“
There’re
three?”

“
Yes. The
total is added to the date of the last solar eclipse.”

“
That
occurred in 1991.” Marin did some counting. Numerology wasn’t his
thing. Greeks used symbols and Romans used Vs and Xs. What the
hell, the Inca used knots. “Seems to me the date is
near.”

“
We’ll know soon. I’m going to try to get that third number
today. So, sit still. I’ll call you when I do.”

Chapter 74

Placing
his phone away, Pearce continued walking through La Joya City. He
loved the island that was close to the South American continent. It
had much to offer. History, culture, and natural life sprang from
every corner of its existence. Quiet days that were hot and windy
passed to bright, moonlit nights that were magical and cool and
filled with romance. Dotted about the city were the colonial houses
of its historic past and quaint taverns where pirates frolicked by
lamp light. Looking ahead, he could see the iridescent green-blue
colours of birds that flew about and the flaming red blossoms of
the majestic
Flambouyant
trees that stood tall against a blue sky. He wasn’t
perturbed by Marin’s doubts about the new age. The wheel of change
was turning he said to himself as he passed through Woodford Square
with Bentley on his mind.

While
studying in Naples Pearce got to know him. He could remember the
mouldy smell of the Neapolitan lecture room and the old steps he
had skipped up three years ago on his way to Bentley’s lecture. It
was the same steps the Catholic philosopher and priest, Saint
Thomas Aquinas, passed on centuries before. He had decided to
ignore his classes on Bruno and Telosio opting instead for the
lecture titled: T
he celestial world beyond Galile
o.

Bentley
had been the lecturer at the
Museo Archaelogico Nazionale
of the University of Naples, built in
1224. What he heard had left him stunned. The archaeologist had
spoken of an age, a time when the teachings intended for Mankind
would be revealed, and of a world that wasn’t far at all. There was
a realm in humans, a path to a glorious afterlife. Of course,
Pearce had questioned his claim of a new age. Bentley had been calm
and composed in his response.