Incarnate: Mars Origin "I" Series Book III (23 page)

That was it for
me.

I knew right
then and there I wasn’t giving Bruce Cook any of the information I had.

I felt like he
was trying to reincarnate the world that had been Mars, thousands – millions of
years ago.

The world that
the Maya had feared.

The world the
Saboteurs had rebelled against.

A society that
hadn’t worked for them. For us. Back then. And I knew it wasn’t going to work
now. And I knew I wasn’t going to have any part in trying to recreate it.

I felt tears
stinging my eyes as they brimmed forth and starting sliding down my cheek. I
brushed them away with the back of my hand. I am not going to cry. I am going
to do something about this.

But what?

And how? How
would I do it?

I couldn’t
fight the United States government. And if Senator Bruce Cook got what he
wanted, he’d be the next President of the United States. There would be no
denying him then.

How did I
get myself into this predicament?

I sat in one of
the stalls in the restroom where I had hid myself. I pulled out my cell phone
and stared at it. I needed to call someone – someone who could fix this.
Someone who could help me.

Instead of
pulling up the dialer I Googled Victoria Russell. My eyes scurried over the
phone’s screen as I read what was written about her.

Proposes
genocide . . . Espouses government intervention . . . Believes overpopulation
is a cancer on humanity . . . Endorses instant action to reduce . . .

This was who I
was on a
team
with? Cook’s duo secret weapons. Me and
Miss-Let’s-Kill-Off-The-World’s-Population-She-Demon?

Oh my God.

I slumped on
the seat and leaned over on the wall of the stall to support my weight - I
couldn’t do it myself - and I cried.

Man I hate
when I get so emotional.

I swiped at the
tears on my cheeks, stood up, fixed my clothes and took in a deep breath.

I’ve got to
get out of here.

I pulled the
restroom door open slowly and peeked my head through it. Turning my neck back
and forth to check both directions, I found the coast was clear. I ran out and
punched the button to the elevator. The red light on the down button lit up. I
looked up at the numbers over the elevator doors. I punched the button again.
The elevator car wasn’t moving toward me any faster. I punched the button
again. Then again, and again. And again.

Oh shoot
.

That wasn’t
working.

I eyed the exit
sign over the door to the stairs and I took off running. I swung open the door
and looked down.

Really,
Justin you’re going to run down fourteen flights of steps?

I started
running down the stairs, but soon was out of breath and dizzy from rounding the
corners to each set of steps. The floor number on the door read “12
^th
Floor.” I had come down two floors. Only two floors. Micah was right, I needed
to get in better shape. I peeked out the glass window of the stairwell door.

No one would
know me down here.

I swung the
door open, and with all the calmness and composure I could muster, I walked to
the elevator, pushed the button – once – and waited patiently.

But in my mind
I was running and screaming all the way down to the lobby where Mase had better
been waiting for me to take me home and hide me.

.

Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Every time I
came home anymore, my house was filled with people.

In my kitchen
when we got back from D.C. were Jack, Nikhil, and Greg.

What? Did
they just camp out here?

Me and Mase had
come in the back door. He had the luggage and I was carrying the satchel with
the
stuff
. I dropped the satchel on the table, and then I dropped in a
chair.

Everyone stood
around and looked at me. I covered my face in my hands and didn’t say a word.

“What’s going
on, Justin?” Greg was the first to speak.

“Nothing.” I
spoke through my hands.

“Tell us what
happened.”

I spread my
fingers and peeked through them at the three of them. “Well . . . I didn’t give
Senator Cook the information.” They all pulled out a chair and sat down at the
same time.

“Hey, what’s
going on? What happened in D.C.?” Micah came down the hallway into the kitchen.

Oh Lord.
I’ve got to get a smaller house. Maybe then so many people won’t come over.

“Your mother
didn’t give up the info,” Greg said.

“You didn’t
give him what he wanted? Why? What changed your mind?” Micah pulled out a chair
too. Everyone sat staring at me.

I closed my
eyes and buried my face in my hands.

I knew by
giving Bruce Cook everything he wanted – all of the Ancient’s knowledge, which
he didn’t know included the “cure” for overpopulation – Victoria Russell’s ideology
manifested in thousand year old writings – I would be helping to usher in a
whole new age of humanity.

Giving him that
information now felt to me like I would be giving it to Hitler. Only Senator
Cook wouldn’t need to create Death Camps to experiment and find out how it’s
done. All the experimentation had been done for him, thousands of years ago, he
would just have to put it into action.

And without
even knowing that that had been the Ancients’ end game, Senator Cook had come
up with the same idea all on his own.

Mase had said
it once – man no matter when he lived or where – is always the same. Same
wants. Same desires. Man of every time and land wanted to rule the world. To be
God. Incarnate.

“Justin, are
you listening to us?”

I moved my
hands and saw Greg in my face. “What?”

“Are you
listening to us?” Greg said again.

“No. I guess I
wasn’t.” I looked around the room. “What were you guys saying?”

“Why didn’t you
give him the stuff? We thought you’d made up your mind. What happened?”

“If I gave
Senator Cook that stuff I have, it would be the formation of the Third – well I
guess, Fourth Reich. A race of super human people, manufactured with the
knowledge from the information I found.” I pushed myself up out of the chair.
“The rest of humanity, those that wouldn’t quite measure up, would be done away
with – murder by genocide – again based on the information I found.” I walked
over to the fridge while I was talking and grabbed a Pepsi.

“And with me
being fat,” I grabbed cookies and a glass out of the cabinet and sat back down,
“out of shape and forgetful, I’d be in the first group to go.” I opened up the
Pepsi. “Oh I need ice.” I got back up and went over to the freezer.

“It would be
all because of what I found,” I continued. I looked over at everyone sitting
around my table. “I just couldn’t do it.” I sat back down and poured me a glass
of Pepsi.

At least my
emotional state was a little better than when I found out my last great
revelation - that man was from Mars. This time I didn’t start crying and drive
through the streets of Cleveland like a maniac. I was calm.

“I couldn’t
give Bruce Cook what I had. None of it.”

“What are you
going to do, then?” Mase had come back into the kitchen. All the years we’d
been married, he’d put up with my craziness and bouts of depression. And went
along with my insane decisions. I knew he was going to be on my side no matter
what I decided to do.

If I could
decide what to do
.

“I don’t know,”
I said. “I don’t know what to do or how not to give him what he wants. He’s a
senator. He’s running for president. He’s way too big – important for me to
just tell him ‘no.’” I looked at Mase and then Greg. “What am I supposed to do?
I’ve got to hide this.” I put my hand on top of my satchel. “All of it.”

“And then
you’ll have to hide yourself, too.” Greg said. “Because that man will be coming
after you once he finds out you reneged on your deal.”

“Jack and I
will take care of the Senator,” Nikhil spoke for the first time. I looked at
him and then over at Jack. Jack gave a simple nod and no more.

I didn’t
even want to think what that meant
.

“Why don’t you
just put them back where you got them? Like that old guy did,” Greg said.

“What old guy?”
I asked.

“You know. I
don’t know if he was
old
, but the guy in 1949 who put the original AHM Manuscript
back in the caves at Qumran. We could go there. Hide them in one of the clay
pots they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in. No one had looked there for 2,000
years.”

“Hide them,” I
said half to myself, half out loud. I looked around the table, with what I was
sure was a glint in my eye, because I had just come up with a masterful plan.

At least I
thought it was brilliant.

Paris, France

“I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is
the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash.”
 

A quote from Agatha
Christie’s
Murder on the Orient Express
. It was quite apropos, I
thought. And it was what we hoped would be our cover. The
psychology
of
it all.

The blue and
gold train glimmered like a five-carat diamond in the mid-afternoon sun. Mase
and I stood in the
Gare de l’Est
in Paris and waited to board.
Reminiscent of the antique carriages of the 1920s and 30s, the modern-day
bullet nose train was to be our mode of transportation for the clever
reincarnation of the classic trek from Paris to Istanbul – the famed Orient
Express.

I held my
satchel close to me. Strap over shoulder, it resting on my hip. I never let it
leave my sight or stray from my side while Mase and I drank in the glimpses of
the countryside as we journeyed
across Europe
and into Istanbul. I let the
blur of the landscape of the dramatic and
exotic, and the ambience of
the stirring realm
of style and luxurious comfort,
lull me into an easy calm.

Along the route
of our week-long excursion, we disembarked many times. Dinner in Budapest, wine
tasting in Romania. Overnight accommodations in 5-star hotels. We crossed the
Danube, and
fell in love with the extraordinary
view of the sparkling Sea of Marmara.

In Istanbul we left the comfort, but the not the
intrigue. We found our way to the Anatolia region of Turkey and checked into a
hotel, all with little trouble thanks to my fluent Turkish.

I signed onto the Internet our first night there and
found that Senator Bruce Cook was being investigated for public corruption and
campaign finance fraud. Looked like his bid for the presidency was over.

The next morning, Mase and I left to find Göbekli
Tepe. A temple believed to be more than ten thousand years old.  A place I
believed to be where the Garden of Eden had resided, and where the Ancients
from Mars had once lived. It was the perfect place to do what we needed to do.

Back to my archeological roots. That made me smile.
Mase understood how I felt about history. How I loved it. He’d gone with me on
many digs.

Perfect place. Perfect company.

And Nikhil, in our shadows, was never too far behind.

ϫ ϫ
ϫ ϫ ϫ ϫ ϫ ϫ ϫ ϫ

Giza Plateau, Egypt

“I’m kind of jealous of Mommy and Dad on that trip
across Europe. It must be so romantic.”

“Logan, don’t be such a wuss,” Micah said. “It’s not
romantic. They are an old married couple. Plus, they are on a mission.”

“I know. Still, it’s the Orient Express.”

“Logan,” Greg said. “You’re supposed to be the lead on
this. You want to act like an archaeologist?”

“I’m on it, Uncle Greg.”

“You checked out everything?”

“Yes. Mommy’s friend who’s working on the site with Aaron
Coulter will meet us by the Sphinx. She said she knew where he was digging. She
also said we were in luck, they were just getting ready to close up that hole
he’d dug looking for that supernatural library.”

“Your mother said we could trust this woman?”

“Mom said she didn’t know who to trust anymore, oh,
except . . .  Let me see . . .  She used some quote from the book
Murder
on the Orient Express
. I memorized it. Oh yeah, I remember,
“I believe,
Messieurs, in loyalty---to one’s friends and one’s family and one’s caste.”

“Meaning she
only trusts us,” Micah said.

“Okay, so let’s make sure we live up to the faith she
has in us. Now, just to be sure we’re on the same page. Here’s the plan,” Greg
said. “We meet this woman – your mother’s colleague – at the Sphinx, we put all
of Justin’s research, as she likes to call it, the AHM Manuscript, her
translations of the Voynich and the Maya Codex, underneath where that guy-”

“Aaron Coulter.”

“Whatever. Where he found the tunnel with nothing in
it. No one will ever look there again. We’ll make sure of that. I guess
Nikhil’s got a plan to ruin him. Meanwhile if this Aaron guy was on to Justin,
thinking she has something he wants, he’s on a wild goose chase following her
over Europe. And Nikhil’s watching her.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Micah said. “And what about
Jack?”

“We won’t ever see Jack. He watching our backs. He’s
got us covered. In the shadows. But no one should know we’re here. If anyone
wants what your mother has, they’d be watching your mother, not us.” Greg looked
at Logan and Micah. “Ready?”

“Yep,” they said almost in unison.

“Okay. Let’s bury some history.”