In the Beginning: Mars Origin I Series Book I Page 7

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” his eyes twinkled. “I have the name of a person to speak with, but he is out of town. I had planned to meet with him when he got back, but now, by that time, we’ll be home.” I started to protest. “But not to worry, I will speak with him, I promise.” He patted me on my cheek and smiled. “Now I have to go, please call me before you head home. And stop worrying so much.”

  After he left, I plopped down in a chair and began to think. My eyes quickly darted around the room. I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair, my mind began to race. Oh, just to have another look at those journals. It was unbelievable. I couldn’t wait to get a hold of them.

  Rumor once had it that the suspicions of suppression and conspiracy made the Vatican order the withholding of access to the Scrolls out of fear that they would seriously undermine established Christian dogma. They thought that the Scrolls would hold dark ramifications for Christianity. Did they? Well, it sure looked like it to me, at least after reading that one entry. Dr. Yeoman was responsible for the inaccessibility of the Scrolls to the world, for the destruction of the manuscripts he wrote about in his journal, and maybe other ones, too. The public had good reason to be suspicious of the goings on surrounding the translation of the Scrolls, and now I was suspicious, too. I knew I wasn’t just paranoid. And I knew I could solve this mystery.

  My heart began to race. I jumped up out of the chair and started running around the room, jumping on the bed, turning in circles and talking really fast to myself about how I would uncover this mess. Reveal the truth of the scrolls. Then I started to cry. I don’t know why I was crying, maybe happy to know I would find out the truth, or scared of what I would find out (or maybe because that’s just what I do, cry all the time). I ran into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror, squinted my eyes and pointed at my reflection. “Cover-up,” I said out loud. “Well, not for long, Dr. Yeoman, because I will find out your big secret. I will figure it out.” I got really close to the mirror and shouted, “And I will tell the world.” With tears in my eyes, and breathing heavily from running around, I gave out a dastardly laugh, ran out of the bathroom and dived onto the bed.

  Sometimes, I think that I am just too emotional to be a scientist.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cleveland Hts., Ohio

  So, I had decided to calm down and act rationally like Dr. Margulies said. He’d been right. There really wasn’t any need for me to stay in Jerusalem. There wasn’t anything I could do with all the other scholars leaving. And, I decided, despite Dr. Margulies’ belief that it wasn’t a cover-up, it would look too suspicious for me to stay.

  I got back home August 1. I had only been gone for two weeks. I was supposed to stay a month. Dr. Margulies had stayed behind to procure artifacts for the tour. Getting the Dead Sea Scrolls, I guess, was now out of the question.

  Me trying to get back into the swing of things proved very difficult. Those feelings of gloom had almost vanished with the excitement of the trip and now - - now, I didn’t know how I was going to make it. I just couldn’t get it together.

  I had a million things to do at work, with getting the tour together and everything, and I still had to finish getting the house back in order after my specious move. But I couldn’t do anything. I was too obsessed with the idea of getting those journals.

  Yes, obsessed, that was the right word.

  Over the next couple of weeks I tried to work on the museum tour, but the days just seemed to drag on. I spent a lot of time with Dr. Margulies after he got back, and we took a couple of overnight trips together to other museums in the consortium to prepare for the tour. But I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t have cared less about the tour. Dr. Margulies worried about me and I worried about the manuscripts. I didn’t tell him that I was obsessing over what happened in Jerusalem because he might not get me those journals. If he knew how daft they were making me, he would probably destroy them himself. He had always been so protective of me. So, I just let him think that it was my old craziness that was making me act so weird. But, that wasn’t true. This was a new mania.

  How could that man have destroyed the manuscripts? I couldn’t think of one thing that would’ve caused such great concern to the world, mankind, or to this man, that would prompt him to destroy historical evidence. It just couldn’t be possible. They still had to be around - somewhere. I just knew it because no one would consciously destroy an artifact, especially one that valuable.

  Okay, so there was a big cover-up in 1949. That I was sure of. But just as intriguing (and nerve wrecking) was that it seemed to still be going on today. It had to be with them sending people home early, seminars being canceled, manuscripts being destroyed, one of the interpreters dying - - who knows, maybe even murdered! And what else might have happened that I don’t know about? And what was it that this Dr. Yeoman didn’t want anyone to know? This was driving me nuts. Oh, but I was going to find out, as soon as Dr. Margulies got me those journals. I was going to find out and let the world know exactly what “Mr. Editor-in-Chief of Operation Watergate” had done.

  And then, the tiny thread that was holding it all together for me snapped.

  It was the sixteenth of August at exactly 1:15 in the afternoon. I’ll never forget.

  I was in the artifacts storage room sitting at a stainless steel examination table, on a four-legged metal stool, supposedly working when Dr. Margulies came by. His usual cheery disposition seemed stained with an edgy uneasiness. He pulled up a stool and sat down next to me, took my hand and looked me in my eyes. “Lizzy,” he said. Then nothing. He searched, it seemed, for the right words to say. And, in that stretched silence, I feared the worst. I didn’t know what the “worst” could be, but it scared me all the same.

  He told me we wouldn’t be getting the journals for the tour. And no matter how many times Dr. Margulies told me the “real” reason we couldn’t have them, (they were a gift to the University with instructions that the University kept them on campus in perpetuity), I knew that it was a “cover-up.” I snatched my hand out of his, and placed my elbows on the cold metal table and covered my face with my hands.

  I felt dizzy and my mouth was so dry.

  “Lizzy. I knew you’d be upset. I hated to tell you although I can’t understand why you are so captivated by this thing.”

  Still holding my head, I turned so that my face was facing his. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  He brushed his hands together. “It’s done,” he said, and stood up with a jolt. “Nothing else to do about it.” He leaned over, kissed me on my forehead, patted me on my back and then leaned down farther to look at me at eye level. He stared at me for a long moment and then turned and walked away.

  I bit my lip to try and keep from crying. No matter what he said I knew that we couldn’t get them because they were still trying to conceal the information in them. I also knew that whatever lay in those manuscripts was something important to man, mankind, the world and to my sanity. I had to see the rest of those journals.

  Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. I bolted upright. I would go back to Jerusalem. I would go to that journal since it wasn’t coming to me, to all the journals, and find out about this whole thing myself. And while I knew I had to go, I didn’t know how I would I do it. How would I get back into the University, into that locked room? I had been too scared before. I knew I couldn’t tell Dr. Margulies, he wouldn’t think it was such a good idea. And, I really couldn’t go by myself. I needed help.

  I decided not to ask Mase to go. He was traveling back and forth from to the training camps of pro-football teams on some kind of assignment. Besides, he has no sense of adventure.

  There was only one thing to do.

  I had to enlist the help of my siblings. I knew I could count on them. But after I told them about this, would they think I had really gone crazy. Had I gone crazy? Good question.

  I decided to ask Greg and Michael. Michael would help me without too much resistance b
ut Greg was a different story. With him, I would be met with opposition. He would bemoan, and chide me and tell me how I was going to go to jail or to the insane asylum (do they even have those anymore?) But he was always ready to get into a little devilment (my mother’s word), so hopefully this would be fuel for his intrusive nature. Plus, I really needed Greg to help me keep some sense about this whole thing. He would stop me from doing anything completely insane. He always looked at all sides of a situation. I was beginning to be so consumed in all this that I was starting to act wacky. Greg would be the calm in my stormy sea.

  And I would ask Claire. I knew she would do whatever I asked her without hesitation, cheerfully and enthusiastically. I decided I would talk to Michael and Claire first because they were easy to convince. I would ask Greg last.

  After I made up my mind to go back, time flew by. I was on a mission.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Joy oozed through me like warm pudding inside a molten chocolate cake. I couldn’t wait to get back to Jerusalem and those journals. As I plotted and planned, I remembered a medical convention at the University in October. Claire’s many degrees were going to serve me well. She was to be our decoy.

  The end of August arrived and I had yet mustered up the nerve to ask Greg to go. Claire and Michael had told me they were in. I decided Courtney’s going away party would have to be the time to ask Greg. I couldn’t wait any longer. October was fast approaching.

  I ran through words in my mind again and again trying to decide what to say to him. But I knew no amount of practicing would help me through my quest to get him on board. Talking to Greg would just upset me so much that I wouldn’t remember anything I had practiced.

  Callie wanted to have Courtney’s party at her house, amidst Claire’s petulant protests, because, Callie insisted, we had all just been to Claire’s house for a get together, so now it was her turn. I didn’t quite understand what this ‘turn’ thing was, but I hoped they don’t think my turn was next. I couldn’t handle all those people at my house at once. Just the immediate family was enough to start a small country.

  Callie was a moon child at heart, she and her house resided in the sixties. Outside there were wind chimes twinkling and clinking, a huge vegetable garden and wild flowers growing up everywhere. Inside pillows on the floor, bright, airy rooms and the artwork of her six children plastered on every wall made her house look like a commune. When we got there people and children were everywhere. I got through all the kisses and hugs, and the, “My, haven’t you grown” greetings, and chatted with my mother while keeping an eye out for Greg.

  I cornered him in the kitchen going through the covered dishes trying to find something he could eat. I grabbed him, chicken leg in hand, and steered him to the sofa in the sunroom. I sat down in the chair next to him and told him what happened in Jerusalem. Nervous at first, my momentum quickly picked up pace. Then just like opening a can of pop that had just been shaken, my words spurted out with force.

  “It’s some kind of cover-up, Greg. I just know it. One guy died, I think he was murdered. There’s missing manuscripts, the seminar was canceled so now no one can look at the Scrolls. I’ve been going over and over this in my mind. Think about it, something weird is going on.”

  I paused and stared straight into his eyes, “I want to go back to Jerusalem and look through the journals, or anything I can find that will help me understand this. I really need to find out why the seminar was cancelled, what happened to those manuscripts and, more important, what was in them. It’s important to mankind’s history and probably our future.

  He didn’t say a word.

  “Greg, this is so important to me and I can’t go by myself because I would be too nervous to do it alone.” Maybe a personal plea would get more consideration. “I want you to go with me and help me get a copy of the journals. The journal I read said the Editor-in-chief destroyed the original manuscripts. But I figure whoever interpreted the manuscript may have left a translated copy of his work or some part of it in one of his journals. And maybe that translated journal is there. I have to find it.”

  He never said a word the entire time I was talking. He just slowly chewed each bite that he took from that chicken leg, focusing only on it. Maybe he was just dumbfounded. Or maybe he didn’t talk because he had a mouth full of chicken. Whatever the reason, his silence caused a slight ache in my right temple. I wanted him to say something.

  He finished the chicken, and then slowly and methodically licked his fingers and wrapped the bone in the napkin he had picked up as I pulled him away from the food. He laid the neat little package on the coffee table and after a very long pause he said, “You want me to go to Jerusalem and break into a scientific institution -”

  “It’s a university,” I corrected.

  “Okay, a university.” He started again, speaking slowly and deliberately. “You want me to go to Jerusalem and break into a university and help you steal a journal that no one else thinks has any significance?”

  “We won’t be breaking in, well, not really. And I know they know it has significance, that’s why they’re hiding the journals. That’s why they canceled the seminar. That’s why no one’s talking.”

  “Talking?”

  “Well, actually no one has even mentioned the journals. They act as if they don’t even exist.”

  “Whoever this ‘they’ is that you keep referring to, maybe they haven’t mentioned it because the journals have no significance?”

  “I told you that they canceled -”

  “The seminar, yes I know, you said that a couple of times. But, that doesn’t really mean anything. And, even if that were true, that they cancelled the seminar because you found some journals, which I highly doubt, how could you even think to want to include me? This is crazy, Justin, and so are you.” He made the last comment as more of an afterthought than a revelation.

  I started pouting.

  “No way, Justin. Count me out. You can pout all you want.” He looked at me and smiled. “I really do think that you have gone insane.”

  “Greg, I need your help,” I whined. “Everyone’s being so secretive.”

  “Who is everyone, Justin? Who’s being secretive?”

  “The people at the University.”

  “What did they do?” He didn’t believe me.

  Why does everyone act as if I make things up all the time? He sounded just like Mase.

  “I told you, they canceled the seminar.”

  “Justin,” he almost yelled my name, “if you tell me one more time that they canceled that seminar, I am going to choke you. Is that all the evidence you have? Because if it is no jury would take more than ten minutes to deliberate before coming back in with a not guilty verdict.”

  I hate when he gets all lawyery.

  “There’s more. I told you that they’re hiding very important journals inside of a locked room.”

  “And how does that make it your concern?”

  “I don’t know.” Each question made me flinch as if he were pinching me. My stomach and my throat felt like a bee was buzzing around in it trying to get out. I just wanted him to say, ‘Yes,’ he would go.

  “I don’t know,” I repeated. “But something is telling me that it is my concern. That I need to see about this. And, we’re not stealing journals, either.” Figured I better clear that up. “We would take pictures of the journals. Maybe get a real small camera, like they have on those spy movies . . .” he gave me an odd look, I was losing him again. “Okay, a copier, we could just do a copier, a portable one. I have one in my office that’ll work.”

  “You want to carry a copier in on a burglary?” He was squinting his eyes, shaking his head and making some sort of grunting sound. This time I was sure he was dumbfounded.

  “It’s not a burglary. I told you that technically we’re not taking anything.”

  “Why can’t you use the copier there?”

  “Because, you have to have an account number and I don’t have one
. Unless you know how to rig a copy machine? Besides, I don’t want anyone to see me walking around.”

  “If you don’t want anyone to notice you walking around, then carrying a copier in on a burglary is not a very good idea. And now that I think about it, why don’t you just look at the journals and remember what’s in them. Why copy anything?”

  He was referring to my photographic memory. This just was not going the way I hoped.

  “I can’t remember all of that.”

  “All of what? You don’t even know what’s there, if anything. How can you say you can’t remember it?”

  “Something is there.”

  “So, you look at it. Remember it. And then when you get out of there you write it down. Presto, you’ve got a copy of it.”

  “I won’t be able to remember it,” I said flatly.

  “Yes you can. You just like to make things difficult.”

  “Well, I don’t want to have to remember it and write it down. I’m really not all that good at it anymore.”

  He gave me this look that told me he knew I was lying. I stuck with my story.

  “Really, Greg, it’s too much to do to see it in Hebrew, write it down in Hebrew and then translate it to English, it’s just too much. I got too many other things to worry about, like not getting caught.”

  “I thought we were looking for a translated copy.”

  Couldn’t get anything past him.

  “And aren’t you fluent in Hebrew? Why would you have to translate it?”

  Maybe I should just start crying, that might work better, because trying to persuade him was getting me nowhere.

  “Could we just take something to make a copy with? Please?” I resorted to begging instead.

  “Yeah, alright.” Finally he agreed to something. “So, what did this journal say was in the manuscript that’s got you so worked up?”

  “One race of people populating the world, believing themselves to be gods. That was sort of the gist of it.”