The Tenth Cycle: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 1) (21 page)

On Saturday at ten a.m., Daniel and Sarah knocked on Sinclair O’Reilly’s door and introduced themselves.

“I hope we aren’t disturbing you Dr. O’Reilly, but we’re here on a matter of some urgency. May I present a letter of introduction from my grandfather, Nicholas Rossler?” Daniel’s speech was so formal that Sarah wasn’t sure she was standing by her Daniel. She glanced at him admiringly.

O’Reilly’s eyes lit up at the mention of Nicholas. “Of course! I thought you looked familiar, young man. Should have put it together right away. Your grandfather and I go way back. Would you care to come in?”

Daniel ushered Sarah inside and followed, as they were admitted to a house redolent of scones and other delicious aromas.

“I was just about to have a mid-morning snack. Could I interest you in a scone?” O’Reilly was younger than they’d expected, assuming a contemporary of Nicholas. However, as he explained while passing cups of fragrant tea to the couple, he’d actually been Nicholas’s student as an undergraduate.

Daniel told himself he should stop trying to visualize how a person would look by their name. Instead of the Irish leprechaun he’d expected of Sinclair, the man was a tall, ascetic-looking academic with iron-gray hair and piercing brown eyes. He had a look of intense interest in the world, whatever was before him, which at this moment was Sarah. Clearly charmed by her looks and gentle manner, he was doing his best to impress her.

When their unexpected repast was finished, O’Reilly suggested they retire to his office where he would read the letter from Nicholas. He raised his eyebrows when he was finished and sent his acute gaze to each of the couple in turn.

“Fascinating,” he said. “Nicholas assures me you are quite serious and that you do not expect to find aliens at the bottom of this mystery.”

Daniel smiled faintly, “It would be really ironic if we did, after all the protesting we’ve done that we don’t believe it. But no, no aliens in our theory.”

“Suppose you tell me what your theory is,” O’Reilly said.

Daniel began patiently to tell his story again, beginning with the anomalies of construction and moving on to the remarkable coincidences, if that’s what they were, in the measurements, the positioning and the astronomical facts. As he cataloged the facts, O’Reilly nodded periodically as if he’d known of them before.

At last, Daniel was at an end of the recitation, and paused for comment.

“You’ve done a very thorough job of putting all these facts into logical order, Mr. Rossler. May I ask if you’ve drawn any conclusions?”

“You may. We’ve not only drawn a conclusion, we’ve corroborated it.”

This statement caused O’Reilly’s eyebrows to rise quizzically. “Indeed.”

“Yes, sir. If I may go on…” Daniel then summarized how they’d hit on the idea of a message, and, in a neutral tone that belied the bombshell he was about to drop, said, “We have a partial translation of what we believe is a greeting from the passageway leading into the pyramid.”

O’Reilly leaned forward in an almost violent motion. “The devil you say!”

“It’s true, sir. Before I go on, I must tell you that the price of deciphering that message was the death of a very good friend. We believe we’re into something quite dangerous, and for that reason we feel full disclosure is imperative if we ask you to work with us.”

O’Reilly betrayed surprise again, and then leaned back, his long fingers tented in front of his chin. “Very well. I trust you will reveal the message to me only if I agree to work with you.”

“Sir, we feel it’s best for your safety,” Sarah injected.

“Thank you for your concern, Dr. Clarke. Please, tell me what happened to your friend.”

Daniel took up the narrative again, telling of Mark’s murder shortly after he’d revealed the translation to them. He then explained that they didn’t know who the translator was, only that it was someone at the Joukowsky Institute who had not come forward, apparently in fear for his life.

“So you see, we are at a standstill without a linguist. We have the data, we have the technique, but we haven’t pinned down the language, other than that it appears to be an ancient form of Arabic,” Daniel concluded.

“I have to tell you, Rossler that you couldn’t have hit upon a more enticing subject. I’ve been very bored since my retirement and the passing of my wife. I’m inclined to agree to work with you. But before we discuss that further, do you have any idea of who would have killed your friend?”

“We’ve been contacted by the CIA, who have frankly told us of their interest. Our contact also mentioned that there are criminal organizations who would be desperate to get their hands on something as explosive as our theory of a more ancient civilization and their advanced knowledge. Other than that, nothing specific.”

“Hmmm. Nicholas may not know it, but as a hobby, I’ve picked up some knowledge in that area that may be helpful. Tell me, who is helping you with the data?”

Daniel was cautious, but if the project were to move forward, the two men would eventually have to work closely together. On the strength of his grandfather’s trust in Sinclair, he mentioned Raj by first name only.

“I wonder if it’s the same Raj…” Sinclair mused. “Bet it is. I know he’s a data analyst.”

Daniel was confused. “Wait, do you mean you knew of him before I brought him up? How?”

"I knew of a data analyst named Raj from my association with a group of Area 51 enthusiasts."

Daniel and Sarah could not have been much more shocked if Sinclair had stood on his head and declared his belief in men in the moon or Martians. They looked at each other significantly and then turned to Sinclair for an explanation.

"Don't worry, I have no illusions that there are a colony of extraterrestrials being held prisoner by our government. I sort of backed into the group, based on my belief that there is something going on at that location that the government isn't telling us. From my research about the time it started, I suspect it has something to do with fissionable material, but that's as far as I've thought about it."

Heaving a sigh of relief, Daniel said, "Yes, that sounds like our Raj. He does believe the alien story, wholeheartedly. But that's his only crazy notion, other than being paranoid that the government would somehow make him disappear if they knew he was researching the reason for the secrecy."

"I wouldn't call that a crazy notion, son. You'd be surprised what we think and what we know is going on behind the scenes, not only in our country but worldwide. Some of it is an open secret, like the NSA and CIA illegally spying on American citizens. Other stuff is deep, deep underground."

"Like what?" Daniel asked, intrigued. "Do you know who would be after this pyramid code, besides the CIA?"

"I've heard rumors of a small group of super powerful families who control world-wide wealth," Sinclair answered. "I'm thinking it's them."

"Everyone's heard of that," Daniel scoffed. "You mean the Illuminati."

"No, I don't have an opinion about that group, if in fact they still exist. I'm talking about a group that call themselves the Orion Society. There have been strange disappearances among my acquaintances, and from the pattern it appears to be one group behind most of them. There's always a plausible but unprovable story about it. Only a couple of times has someone let slip the name of the group, and then that someone has disappeared for good."

Chilled, Sarah scooted closer to Daniel on the sofa. "Do you think they're the ones?" she asked Sinclair.

"I wouldn't be surprised. And if they are, you're going to have to be even more careful than you already are. They are ruthless and very, very determined to have whatever they set their minds on. If you dig deeply enough, you hear that they've been around for centuries, and may have been behind some incidents that affected the entire world."

Daniel was looking skeptical, which Sinclair, intent on Sarah's face, didn't notice. "Like what?" Daniel asked. Now Sinclair looked at him and saw the doubt. "Well, how about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria?"

Shocked, Daniel blurted, "But that was some group called the Black Hand."

"True, but who was behind the group? What other actions did they take, and where are they today? Even though the history is fairly clear, you know the old saying that history is written by the victors? Who were the victors in this case?"

"The Allies, of course."

"Think again, son. The victors were those who profited from the war, arms dealers among them. Big military suppliers, financiers, and large corporations. As always."

Daniel had the peculiar impression that he was talking with an older Raj, but he had to concede that what he had learned in high school and college history classes wasn't always the whole truth. This was something that would bear investigation, and fortunately he had the time to do it when they got home. He would start with the information that Sinclair seemed willing and able to give them, and try to sort out fact from fancy.

“Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Our IT specialists has ties with virtually every conspiracy theorist on earth. I’ll see what he can dig up about them.”

“Excellent! Please pass the information on to me. I find it quite fascinating. All right,” said O’Reilly, rubbing his hands together. “Let’s say I’m in. Tell me what you know of my field, and what specific progress you’ve made.”

Daniel began to bring Sinclair up to date on their progress, letting him know also what they had learned about proto-language construction and reconstruction of unknown languages, as well as what their IT specialist hoped to do with heavy-duty computing power. Sinclair was impressed with Daniel's grasp of the basics, and with the understanding of the absent computer whiz. He made a few suggestions regarding the program that Raj was busy writing even now, and gave Daniel a list of languages to feed into it, including those using the Linear A and Linear B scripts, particularly Linear A. He explained that the language was still unknown, but was thought to be a pre-Hellenic version of Greek. He also gave Daniel a quick history of how more than a dozen languages developed in the area. Sarah was particularly fascinated by all this, and loved hearing the private lecture by a leading scholar.

When the linguistics discussion had been exhausted, Sinclair brought up the subject that Daniel and Sarah were already working on, the turmoil that their findings would undoubtedly cause. He mentioned that he'd been surrounded by such controversy all his professional life. After a quick glance at Sarah to confirm his desire to be completely honest with this man, Daniel began to explain what they were doing about the issue.

"We've started organizing our ideas around what schools of thought will be destroyed by this new information," he began. “We think the best defense is a good offense. We’re working on a white paper to release at the same time as we make the announcement about what we have found.” Detailing their process, he continued by listing the arguments against evolution, the first subject they had addressed.

Sinclair said, "It's interesting that you should bring that up first. I've questioned evolution from my professional perspective, as well. In a way, the scientific process mimics what neo-Darwinists tout as the evolutionary process, but there is a very different result. That alone should make anyone question evolution."

"How do you mean, sir?" Daniel asked.

"I know you've come across papers that promise to bring into question current thinking, as a journalist. In fact, that's what got you questioning the pyramid facts, am I right?"

"Yes, of course," Daniel answered.

"Then you know what happens to new ideas. First, the findings are published, but before they can be published in a respected journal, they must be submitted for peer review. Anything that's too far out of line is dismissed out of hand. If it has too much merit for that, the peers start massaging it and explaining it until it fits with established 'fact'." Sinclair described quotation marks with his hands in the air as he said the word fact. "If a scientist wants to have his work considered seriously, he'll do that part for himself before submitting it for peer review. Not to do so is to invite professional suicide."

Daniel understood the point very well, had made the same observations himself, in fact. But he didn't get the connection with evolution, and said so.

"Think about it. Let's say there is a favorable mutation. It's going to happen in one individual, and very likely be subsumed in the larger gene pool before it can make a difference to the genome in general. So one individual ape ancestor gets the ability to more efficiently manipulate a tool. Will that help him dominate, or will he be ostracized by the community? Very likely the latter, which would mean that his genes wouldn't be passed on.

“But, if not, if he dominates instead, what good is it if he can't convey that ability to the rest of the pack? He would have a few offspring, sure, but how many would inherit that particular trait? To make a difference in that way would require a much longer time span than the evolutionists have to work with. It's like peer review, do you see?"

Sarah had followed the conversation silently, but now broke in. "That's something we haven't put in the mindmap, Daniel. That, and environmental pressure, another argument that the evolutionists put forth. And it's a very good point, because their reasoning is circular."