Betrayed (32 page)

Thomas Summers followed his grandson out the office door and into the bright summer sunlight. He removed a pair of sunglasses from his breast pocket, put them on, and scanned the air above his sprawling business.

Truck Heaven Gas and Lodging was a legendary stop for
all truckers plying the interstate highways along the eastern seaboard of the United States. Strategically located at the intersection of the I481 and the New York State Thruway, it offered truckers welcome discounts on diesel fuel, and a single monstrous platter of food could feed half a football team. As a result, its five acre parking lot was always full of rigs lined up like rows of giant dominoes. Thomas was proud of his business. It had been voted by the trucking industry as one of the best in North America.

Beyond a silver tanker hauling recycled cooking oil was a baseball diamond-sized patch of empty tarmac. Four black vans were parked at the corners of the giant square. The remaining perimeter was marked by men in suits who were scanning the outlying area for any trouble. As Thomas and his grandson walked towards them, he could hear a gentle thumping sound to the east. A forest green helicopter flew over them and began a lazy turn above the truck stop.

“That's Marine One!” the boy shouted. “That's the helicopter of the President of the United States!”

The helicopter tilted its nose upwards and descended to a perfect landing within the perimeter of men and vans. Thomas Summers and his grandson gave each other a knowing smile and approached the nearest van. A muscular man in a dark suit and sunglasses stepped between them and the helicopter.

“Thomas Summers?”

“That's me.”

The man in the suit held up a plastic wand. “For safety purposes.”

“By all means.”

Thomas held out his arms as the agent swept his entire
body with the wand. Then, a second agent with a large German shepherd approached the gathering. The man have a short whistle, and the dog obediently sniffed the strangers. After the dog backed away, the trainer nodded to the first agent.

“Thank you, Mr. Summers. Please follow me, but the boy must stay here.”

Thomas looked down into his grandson's disappointed face.

“I can't come?”

“Sorry, Eric. I told you this might happen. Stay here by the van. I'll be back soon.”

Thomas left the boy with the other agent and was escorted to the helicopter. The downward wash from the idling rotors forced Thomas to hold onto his cowboy hat as he climbed through the open side door. Upon entering, the door slid shut behind him. He removed his sunglasses and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark interior. A tall African-American man with a broad smile and immaculate charcoal suit approached from the far side of the richly decorated interior, hand extended.

“Mr. Summers? It's a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. President.”

“Please, have a seat. Can I get you anything? A drink? Beer, perhaps?”

“An iced tea would hit the spot, sir, if you have it.”

“Coming right up.”

Thomas was surprised to see the president get the drink himself. The leader of the United States of America walked across the leather-appointed interior, opened a small refrigerator and cracked open a can of Liptons. Pouring the
contents into two glasses, he passed one of the beverages to his guest and kept the other for himself. They sat down together on a plush leather couch that was centred against the stern bulkhead.

“That's a fascinating pendant you have around your neck, Mr. Summers. A Celtic cross, I believe?”

Thomas reached to his neck and held it up. “It's been in the family for a while.”

“You must be wondering about this visit,” the president said, taking a sip of his iced tea.

“I get lots of visitors at my truck stop, but not usually ones arriving by helicopter.”

The president chuckled. “Well, unfortunately, this will have to be a brief visit. I have to meet the Egyptian president later this afternoon at Camp David, so let me get right to the point. I was hoping that you might help me solve a mystery.”

“Me?” laughed Thomas, “help you? Don't you have the FBI and the CIA for that sort of stuff?”

The president grinned. “Yes, it does seem rather strange, doesn't it? But even the best field agents and super computers have a hard time investigating events that happened over seven hundred years ago.”

“I'm sorry,” confessed Thomas, “I still don't understand.”

“I'm interested in a certain historical figure named Prince Henry Sinclair.”

Thomas paused. “Prince Henry Sinclair? Who is he?”

“He was a fourteenth century Scottish prince. Tell me Thomas, hope you don't mind me calling you by your first name, do you know anything about Freemasonry?”

“Only what I learned from watching the movie
National Treasure
with Nicholas Cage.”

“Ah yes,” laughed the president. “Nicholas Cage and his friends certainly spun a good yarn. The movie was accurate when it stated that the founding fathers of the United States were freemasons. They came to this land with a dream to create a county in which human rights and freedoms were respected, regardless of personal faith or culture.”

“Are you a Mason?” asked Thomas.

“I'm really not supposed to answer that question, but I'll tell you this . . . every President since Independence has been welcomed into the Masonic fold. Many people do not realize that the United States of America really is a Masonic entity. You just have to look at the all-seeing eye on the back of the one dollar bill for proof.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. President, but I can't help you very much with historical questions, especially Masonic ones. I'm not a Mason myself. I've never been given the invite to join, to tell you the truth. I'm just a simple truckstop owner.”

“Don't be so modest, Mr. Summers. You own one of the largest construction companies in upper New York State. In fact, your father won the bid to build I-97 through this area back in the 1950s. You have also unselfishly donated millions of dollars to various first nations cultural events. You have Oneida blood, if I'm not mistaken.”

“Yes, I do,” replied Thomas.

“Well, I know that you are a well-respected member of your native community and deservedly so.”

“Thank you,” said Thomas, modestly. “It's important to support your own culture.”

“You're absolutely right. But I'm not here to congratulate you on your many cultural accomplishments. I'm here talk to you about another one of your well-known gifts.”

Thomas laughed. “Really? I didn't know I even had one gift.”

The president leaned closer. “You are a storyteller from a long line of storytellers in the Oneida nation.”

Thomas nodded. “Storytelling is an important part of our culture. It's our way of connecting past generations of Oneida to the people of today. Storytelling is also an important bridge between our people and the spiritual world.”

The president nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, I appreciate the importance of storytelling and the retaining of one's cultural roots. That is why I am here today, so please be patient as I explain my interest in your talent. You see, I have always found the history of Freemasonry fascinating. Prince Henry Sinclair, a famous Scottish clan leader, has been connected to a series of North American voyages that took place over a hundred years
before
Columbus first sailed the Atlantic! Very few historians took these legends seriously, but there is recent evidence to support the claims of pre-Columbian voyages to North America by the early Scots. Rosslyn Chapel, built by Henry's grandson, has carvings of corn in its ceiling. Rosslyn Chapel was built forty years before Columbus sailed, and he was the man who was thought to have brought corn from North America to Europe for the first time. How did his grandson know about corn unless someone from Scotland had seen it firsthand? There is also the famous Zeno map, a map created by a Venetian sailor named Antonio Zeno, who was known to have sailed with Prince Henry. The map, detailing the coastline of North America, was also created a hundred years before Columbus. It appears history has forgotten, perhaps purposefully, these astounding Scottish voyages.

“With further investigation, we were able to match up some interesting sites in North America to early Templar activity. The mysterious Oak Island in Nova Scotia, which has yet to be properly excavated, is an engineering marvel seemingly based on fourteenth century Masonic engineering technology. The Newport Tower in Rhode Island is similar to many medieval octagonal Templar chapels found in northern Europe. Also, the first European explorers were surprised to see fair-skinned and friendly local natives living in the Newport area, under the shadow of the Newport Tower. Could they have been the remnants of a lost Templar colony?”

“A fascinating story,” agreed Thomas.

“Now what really intrigues me is the legend of the Templar treasure. When the Pope and the King of France tried to destroy the Templar Order, some knights were able to escape France with their treasure-laden ships. Many believe the Templar knights took refuge in Scotland. The treasure, considered to be worth tens of billions of dollars by today's standards, has never been found. If Prince Henry and the Scottish Templar knights had indeed made the journey across the Atlantic, then perhaps they brought the treasure with them.”

“A Scottish prince with such wealth?” enquired Thomas. “There must be records that would confirm such a story.”

“Unfortunately, first-hand verification of the story is not possible. Prince Henry and his crew were captured and killed at sea by the English near Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands while returning from a voyage of unknown destination. Perhaps they were returning from North America. We will never know. Any record of his mysterious activities in
North America seem to have died with him.”

“That is a remarkable tale, Mr. President,” said Thomas, “but I still don't know how an old Oneida storyteller can help you with a Scottish mystery.”

The president leaned forward excitedly. “A DNA test of native peoples was just completed by a well-known Ivy League university. Scientists wanted to see if DNA could be used to determine the genetic relationships between the various North American First Nations people. The more similar the DNA, the closer they are related.”

“I remember hearing about some sort of genetic testing going on,” said Thomas.

“The scientists were in for a big shock when they examined the results,” continued the president. “A genetic marker found only in Europeans somehow appeared in many members of the Iroquois First Nation, including that of the Oneida.”

“Well, Mr. President, I'm sure I don't have to enlighten you on this, but we have been marrying others, including Europeans, for centuries now.”

The president smiled. “Yes, I do know, thank you. But the marker was so extensive in the population that it must have entered Iroquois DNA hundreds of years before modern intermarriages began. In other words, it appears that there were Europeans living among the Oneida hundreds of years before the first settlers.”

Thomas nodded. “Now that
is
interesting.”

“That is why I am here. I was hoping that you might have stories of strangers arriving among the Oneida long before the first settlers arrived.”

Thomas leaned back and ran his fingers through his thick,
greying hair. “Before I answer that question, Mr. President, I need you to answer one for me. Why do you think the Templar Order felt the need to hide the treasure?”

“From what I understand, the Templar knights felt that many of the religious treasures would not be used for their true purpose. They wanted the items to be used and displayed within a true Masonic state, where freedom, fairness and liberty ruled. The Templar knights had always dreamed of a country such as the United States. It is my dream to bring the Templar treasures back into the public domain so that the world can see how the history of Freemasonry is tied directly into the history of the United States of America.”

“Remind me, what are the three pillars of Freemasonry?” asked Thomas.

The President was surprised by the question. “Truth, Justice and Freedom.”

“Come to think of it, Mr. President, I do have a story for you that comes from a long time ago. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington asked the Iroquois confederacy to support his troops in their goal for independence. Five of the six nations rejected the offer and instead took up arms with the British. Out of the six, only one, the Oneida nation, agreed to help General Washington. My ancestors believed General Washington when he explained the concepts described within the Declaration of Independence, since they were similar to our own beliefs and values. In return for our support, he promised that our people would be given full control over the territory of our ancestors. We fought with the early Americans, side by side against the British, and against our own Iroquois brothers, because we wanted to make your
goal, a nation of free people, a reality.

“Years later, once the war was over and the weapons were laid down, President Jackson chose to ignore the promise that America's forefathers had made to my people. The United States government took almost all of our fertile land and gave it to the newly-arriving European settlers. Most of my ancestors were forced to relocate to reservations in Wisconsin or flee to Canada. Being forced from our traditional hunting and farming areas caused my people great pain and anguish, sir.

“I'm sure you would agree that for a long time, the United States government's idea of freedom was not freedom for all, but for those only of European descent. My question is this: are signed agreements between equal nations only worth the piece of paper on which the words are written? The Oneida people are still waiting for the pillars of Freemasonry, truth, justice and freedom, to finally touch our nation. Until your government accepts and implements the terms of our original land agreement that was signed in 1794, then I'm afraid that this story of betrayal is the only one that comes to mind.”