The Secret of the Ancient Alchemist (23 page)

Texting
On my way home
, he lay back and tried to sleep again.

Chapter 48

“
Do you
know anything at all of a French connection to the pages of the
Gospel of Mary Magdalene?” Back at home, he was on the phone to the
archaeologist, Arthur Bentley.

“
Unless
you find the Brotherhood, you won’t find that connection. Don’t
despair, Tom, we will.”

“
They’ll
kill us all before we do. The truth is, we don’t know where to
look, and, Father Ignacio of Rome has passed away.”

“
Listen
to me. Please be careful. I don’t want anything happening to you.
There are dangerous people in this world who may not like what
you’re doing.”

“
I’m not
afraid. I want those missing pages more than anything, Dr.
Bentley.” Hart decided to say nothing of his ordeal in
Laibela.

“
Give me
some time. I believe Mr. Hercule Thibault of Crime International in
Basle can give us a lead to the French connection.”

“
I’ve
already spoken to him. He said he doesn’t know anything. Hey, I
gotta run.”

“
Bye,
Tom.”

He hung up and
paced the floor of his home. He had spent days and nights thinking
about the French connection, making calls and wracking his brain
out. That his frustration was turning into despair was an
understatement.

The morning was
bright when he walked out his door headed to work at the National
Science Advisory next day. He felt tired from lack of sleep. As he
stood on the sidewalk, his usual frustration surfaced. Really, he
couldn’t undo it. The secrets were written in two ancient
manuscripts, none of which he could find.

Hart changed
his focus and stared ahead, taking note of a woman walking her dog.
She had gone past him when her Golden Retriever stopped and yanked
its way back to him.

“
Nice
doggy,” he said patting its head.

“
I’m
surprised he’s this friendly. He isn’t really. Come on Casey, let’s
go.” The dog didn’t move even as the woman tugged him. With a
frown, she shouted, “Casey!” The dog still didn’t move. He started
whining and before she could stop him, he charged toward a figure
standing behind Hart’s hedge.

“
Casey!
Casey!” the woman yelled as shots rang out. In an instant, the dog
lay dead. The woman looked confused as Hart rushed to it. A third
shot came, hitting her head. She tumbled to the ground, blood
spurting from her head. Hart spun into action, dialling
911.

“
Alpine,
Asher Avenue, please hurry!”

“
May I
have your name, please?”

“
Hart,
Tom Hart…”

He didn’t
finish the sentence. Hart fell as a fourth shot was fired.

An ambulance
soon pulled to a halt ten feet from him. He felt as if he was
floating in light. He caught a faint image of someone waving a
hand. The image vanished and now, he was falling into a bottomless
pit. Hart struggled hard to regain consciousness.

“
The
woman’s dead,” he heard through his haze.

“
Don’t
move,” a paramedic ordered as Hart flung his hands about. He could
sense the man’s fingers as he fitted a respirator on his face. Soon
he was put into the back of the ambulance, headed to New Jersey’s
EMSU, the Emergency Medical Services Unit.

“
He’s
going into shock. Get the IV into him. He’s losing blood,” a
paramedic said.”

“
Know
him?” another asked.

“
Sure,
he’s Dr. Hart, the man who talks about our inner realm of light.
Hey, big guy, can you hear me?”

“
He’s not
blinking.”

“
Can you
hear me?” The paramedic shouted now.

“
Check
his pressure.”

“
It’s
falling rapidly.”

“
Can you
hear me? Dr. Hart? Dr. Hart? Can you blink your eyes?”

Two hours
later, three doctors stared at monitors and gauges that were above
Hart’s bed.

“
His
blood pressure is low,” Dianne Rutherford said, in response to a
query from another doctor. “There’s nothing more we can do but
wait. The bullet struck his right leg and shoulder and he’s lost a
lot of blood. Let’s move him to the ICU unit.”

Outside, Julius
Olsen swallowed as Hart passed by on a gurney near lifeless. He was
unrecognisable, he thought. His long hair was cut and his clothes
removed. A thin sheet covered his body. An IV tube was attached to
his right arm and blood stained the linen he lay on. Olsen took a
breath to compose himself but he couldn’t.

“
Bastards, bastards!” he shouted out with a fist in the air,
feeling the urge to kill. And he would have if the shooter were
anywhere near. He sank into a chair and started to cry. Wiping his
tears with the back of his hand, he turned to a doctor holding out
a cup of hot coffee.

“
Drink
it.”

Olsen struggled
to speak.

“
Will he
be Ok, Doc?”

“
He’ll pull through. There’s no point staying here. In a
couple of days, we’ll know more. Go home. You can always call to
find out how he’s doing but, right now, he’s off limits where
visits are concerned.”

Hart was aware
he was somewhere. He kept slipping in and out of a bad dream. In
the dream, a man was standing over him, his mouth a slit of
profanity and mockery.

“
Is the
Ethiopian looking for the gospel pages? Is he, Hart?”

“
Leave
him alone,” his sub-consciousness replied.

“
Why
ar’you making calls to him? Are you searching for the Secret Book
of James and the Gospel According to the Hebrews?”

Hart felt the
man breathing on him now. He could even feel the suffocating stench
of his breath.

“
Why are
calling Tarafi? Answer me! You want to see him dead?”

“
No! No!
No!”

“
Dr.
Hart, Dr. Hart!”

He could hear
someone call. His eyes slid open and he felt restraining hands on
him.

“
Calm
down, calm down” the soothing voice of a nurse said. “You’re
hallucinating. It’s the effect of the aesthetic.”

Hart used the
sheet on his bed to wipe the sweat from his face and tried to focus
on the images around him.

“
You’re
an amazing man,” a male doctor said.

Hart blinked
his eyes. The excruciating pain in his head was gone and all he had
was a deep, weary feeling.

“
What
happened to the lady?” he asked.

“
Angela
Keller died. There was nothing we could have done to save her, I’m
afraid. The bullet damaged her brain.”

He looked out
the window at rain clouds forming in the distance.

“
It’s my
fault, she died. It’s all my fault,” he cried with guilt. His deep
sadness erased the feeling of relief that he had survived. He
didn’t know the woman but would often see her with her dog on
Ashner Avenue.

“
We’re
keeping you for a while,” the doctor spoke again. “Your leg has
started to heal with one antibiotic treatment and some stitches.
We’ve never observed such remarkable recovery before.”

“
I can’t
walk, can I?”

“
You’ll need to rest for a while.”

Chapter 50

A week later,
he was back home, free of pain but not of his on-going anxiety. He
took a call from Olsen.

“
Maybe
you should give up on these missing pages. What the hell’s going
on, Tom?”

“
I’m
being pursued by fanatics, nothing more. I’m not giving up. I won’t
forsake the truth. Those six pages on matter say a lot about our
life. We’ve been kept in the dark too long. How much do we know
about ourselves? Someone came on earth to tell us about it in
scientific terms. Imagine that! It’s unnerving for me not to have
them.”

“
So,
whad’re you going to do about them?”

“
I’m not
sure as yet. We’ll talk more. I’m coming over tomorrow. I’m tired
of being home already, and, don’t worry about me, I’m
fine.”

Hart wasn’t
thinking of his pursuer when he placed the phone down. It was of a
telephone conversation he had had with Malaki Thoplikos of the
Monastery of Simonopetra in Macedonia. Thoplikos had called to
enquire of his condition. What Thoplikos had told him simmered in
his mind. He’d expected the call. Thoplikos was an ardent seeker of
truth, not that he questioned his faith. He was an academic with an
inquisitive nature and a huge voracity for knowledge. His
theological scholarship traversed the old world, extending back to
the first century.

“
How much
do you know of
Mar Saba
,”
Thoplikos had said on the line.

“
Only
that it’s a Greek Orthodox Monastery built in 483 in the West bank.
It’s the oldest inhabited monastery. Like Simonopetra, no women are
allowed, right?”

“
You’re
right, Dr. Hart, but that’s not important.”

“
What is,
Father?”

“
Well,
you already know it was where Clement’s letter regarding the Secret
Gospel of Mark was found. Mar Saba was a special place. It was
founded by devout men, hermits who performed miracles.”

“
Miracles? Like what? ”

“
They
healed the sick, for example. These are facts, not imagination I
assure you. But, I also want to explain a few things about Greek
Orthodox mysticism.”

“
The
Hesychast system?”

“
I
realized there were a lot of things I should have mentioned to you
when you had visited Mount Athos but, of course, time didn’t permit
and honestly, Dr. Hart, I’ve had some time to think about all that
you that you said. Heychasts were mainly monks who believed that by
prayer and detachment from materialism, one could see a mystic
light which is the light of God’s essence.”

“
And,
what do you believe?”

“
It’s not
that I don’t believe but the question that has haunted me is, where
does the light come from?”

“
As I’ve
said, there’s a realm in us, a realm that comes from matter, a
realm of light.”

“
I’ve
been very uneasy since our meeting.”

“
I don’t
expect you to accept what I say, Father. I don’t expect anyone
to.”

“
Certainly, centuries ago, no one would’ve. Now, times are
different. I’m aware of your study of gravity and dimensions and I
commend you all for your hard work. Many people hated the
Hesychasts. They were considered blasphemers. Hesychasm,
contemplation in silence, actually has its roots in Egyptian
monasticism. Gregory Palamas was a strong supporter of Hesychasm
and the father of Palamism. He was a monk at Mount Athos. Did you
know that?”

“
No, I
didn’t.”

“
You must
have heard of Palamism?”

“
I have.
It asserts that humans can become god-like. Palamism was also
rejected by western Christianity.”

“
The
thing is, a lot of people believe God’s essence is far way and
absolutely unseen. It may not be that way at all. I must tell you
that I’m truly fascinated by your pursuits, Dr. Hart.”

“
You
are?”

“
I’ll
tell you why. Palamas cited many examples of a supernatural
presence on earth, like the burning bush that appeared to Moses,
and the Light of Mount Tabor which he called the energies of
God.”

“
He would
not have known about matter, would he?”

“
No, he
would not have known. He was concerned with the energies of God,
the essence of God, like the light seen in meditation. Palamas was
supported by all the monks at Mount Athos in his time. He was
highly regarded but he created quite a stir, as I’m sure you would
too. There was a man called Barlaam, an Italian scholar, who
attacked all he claimed, particularly the light seen in quiet
contemplation. Barlaam was very annoyed by Palamas’s claim that it
was the energy of God. Of course, to Barlaam, such a thing could
never be and he gave Palamas a hard time, but, Palamas stood his
ground as did the other monks at the monastery. The light is, of
course, the goal of Hesychasm. I’m still not absolutely sure, but,
maybe, we should be encouraged in the presence of all forms of
matter.”

“
You
should.”

“
Let’s go
back to Clement’s letter, the letter that was discovered at Mar
Saba. Clement was educated, influenced by Hellenistic philosophy, a
man with keen interest in the esoteric. He had written many books
being absorbed as he was in theology. He had one passion and it was
to reconcile a kingdom within. In his letter to Theodore, he
mentions that the mystery was discussed in the Secret Gospel of
Mark.”

“
I’m
aware of that.”

“
But, did
you know Clement was an avid supporter of Hesychasm?”

“
Really?”

“
And,
while Clement’s letter didn’t say much of the mystery, it seems he
knew of it. I’m beginning to believe that Clement knew of the inner
realm, but apart from the gospel, there’s no other document on it.
That’s strange, isn’t it?”