The Tenth Saint (37 page)

Sarah knew Daniel was as tightly wound as she was, and she admired his ability to lay it on thick regardless.

The receptionist took the bait. “Really? I’m sure he’d be delighted. Wait just a minute.”

He took a seat next to Sarah.

The receptionist returned to the desk and announced Stuart Ericsson would be glad to see them.

Daniel winked at Sarah. “When you’re good, you’re good.”

Stuart Ericsson was finishing a phone call and waved to them to sit down. He was fortysomething, Sarah calculated based on his career history, though his boyish Scandinavian features and fine blond hair combed to the side in the manner of a Ken doll made him look like he was in his twenties. Dressed in a navy suit and red tie, he didn’t fit the tree hugger profile Sarah had expected. His immaculate desk was a gleaming expanse of glossy cherry wood interrupted only by two neat stacks of papers.

He hung up and greeted Daniel like he’d known him for years, when in reality they were meeting for the first time. For once, Sarah was grateful for Daniel’s high profile and the doors it could open.

”Dr. Madigan,” Stuart said. “This is an unexpected honor. What brings you to New York?”

“Pleasure’s mine. This is my colleague Sarah Weston. She’s an archaeologist. We’ve been following your work. In particular, your efforts to sway the Alliance of Nations to End Global Warming against a project called Poseidon. We’d love to learn more about that.”

Stuart gave them the well-rehearsed company line. “Our goal at Oceanus is to maintain the marine environment in as natural a state as possible and to minimize the human footprint on our oceans. Our conservation practices include funding projects that support marine life and clean water and fighting initiatives that could threaten the delicate balance of our oceans. We believe Poseidon is such a threat.”

“I’ve been reading up on your organization,” Sarah interjected. “I hadn’t realized it was your program that saved the western North Pacific gray whale from extinction a couple of years ago. That was quite a triumph. How did you manage it?”

“We are well connected politically. Our board, and funding base, is an international who’s who of powerful and influential people. Let’s just say we use that to our advantage.”

“Influential enough to bring down a giant like Donovan Geodynamics?”

Stuart shook his head. “Donovan has been our biggest challenge to date. They have the support of special interest groups in every industry from energy to automotive. They are the darlings of Washington right now. Their technologies are the most promising alternatives to the prohibitive cost of changing our oil-based economy.”

“So they say.”

“Yes, but they’ve built a pretty solid case for themselves. They have scientists from the world’s top institutions on their board, on their staff, and in advisory capacities. The chairman, Sandor Hughes, has sunk hundreds of millions of his own considerable fortune into funding this thing. His big pitch is that water treated with Poseidon is as effective as the rainforest in its ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The governments of key nations have bought right into this rhetoric and are expected to give Donovan the green light to go to the next phase of their research, which involves testing the algae in an ocean environment. Which is precisely what we don’t want.”

“So it’s been an uphill battle.”

“To say the least. I spent the better part of last year trying to convince Alliance member nations to vote against Poseidon, with only marginal success. Our biggest ally is Lars Pedersen, minister of the environment for Denmark. He’s an outspoken opponent of any protocol involving the oceans and most notably Poseidon. He plans to vote against it. He has been meeting with ministers from other Scandinavian countries and tells us they are at least sympathetic, if not completely on board. All except Norway, which is bafflingly immovable. Then there are a couple of nations on the fence—namely, France and Australia. Australia actually had an outbreak of Caulerpa a few years ago in some lakes in New South Wales. They’re extremely squeamish about anything involving algae, and I think they can be convinced to vote no. If we get all of those delegates on our side, we have a chance. Otherwise, we’re looking at a runaway victory for Donovan.” He cocked his head. “Tell me, why are you so interested?”

“Our own findings indicate such a victory could have a fateful outcome.” Sarah placed on his desk a binder containing their research from the beginning of the Aksum expedition to the most recent revelations in France. “We believe there are clear parallels between these ancient writings and the Poseidon project.”

Stuart put on his reading glasses and took his time examining the pages. A wrinkle formed between his brows, and he looked at the two of them.

Sarah recognized it as her cue to explain. “When we first found these inscriptions, we weren’t sure what the author—the man Ethiopians call their tenth saint—was trying to tell us, because the language obviously has evolved over seventeen hundred years. We have been working around the clock to translate these cryptic phrases into something that is relevant today—very similar to how the Nostradamus prophecies were interpreted. Let me give you an example. The tenth saint wrote, ‘He will rape her and dig into her core, sucking out the black blood that runs through her veins and using it to sate the hunger of his machines.’ By ‘black blood,’ we believe he meant oil, which was dug from the core of the ‘Mother’—the earth. A little later, he referred to the air ‘fouled by gases.’ The logical explanation for this is greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere and the high levels of carbon dioxide.

“But what we find most interesting is the verse that tells us ‘Man will beget a child, a terrible creation he will unleash on the seas, and order it to return the life force to the feeble air.’ It is plausible that this is a reference to a man-made substance whose aim is to restore the oxygen—the life force—into a feeble, or polluted, atmosphere. Are you with me so far?”

Stuart leaned forward, his aquamarine eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Continue.”

“In my opinion, there are uncanny similarities between what I’ve just described and the Poseidon experiment. Now consider his next statement: ‘And the child will obey until the day will come when it must answer only to its own will.’ A man-made substance growing out of control, perhaps? We know that such a thing is possible given the right conditions: thermal hydrovents, possibly, or rising sea temperatures, which we are witnessing already.” She paused for emphasis. “Or a nuclear accident.”

“He refers to a foul enemy that joins with the child to become ‘the Beast.’ I’ll grant that this sounds apocalyptic, but think about it. Is it so far-fetched that Donovan’s phytoplankton and some other force of nature, or of man, could merge and create a mutant substance that will destroy the seas? The tenth saint’s words were, ‘The monster will cover the sea with a blanket of darkness and bury the fish in watery graves, and the air will not give life but take it away.’

“The air’s very chemistry would change. It could be something as simple as algal bloom, or it could be far more heinous than we could imagine. It is entirely plausible that an organism such as Poseidon can, under extreme conditions, grow so rapidly it will cover the sea.”

Daniel leaned forward. “Now, Stuart, you of all people know that without healthy oceans, the world will be subject to all kinds of ills, including extreme climate change, which could bring serious destruction. The last words in the inscriptions were: ‘Great tongues of fire will cover the land. The tainted air will feed the flames. Smoke will rise to the heavens with a terrible fury until all life is devoured and there is nothing but the eternal silence.’ What’s that sound like to you? ‘Cause to me it sounds like an end-times scenario. The end of the world by fire.”

“Sure, it is plausible,” Stuart said. “When marine life dies and falls to the ocean floor, it releases methane gas. Methane is combustible—”

Daniel finished his sentence. “And oxygen, released by these carbon-consuming algae, feeds the flames.”

“This is no fantasy,” Sarah added. “This man was there. He saw the end with his own eyes. He and two others.” She flipped through her papers and stopped at Calcedony’s letter. “This is a copy of a letter written by a woman in France. We have authenticated the original document to the fourteenth century, around the time of the Black Death. It describes the same events in plain English. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”

Stuart read the letter, then removed his glasses and frowned. “This is all very fascinating business. But it isn’t going to be enough to convince a group of politically motivated delegates, some of whom have very complicated special interests. I will need some harder evidence than a bunch of prophets and a nebulous time travel scenario.”

Sarah locked eyes with Stuart. “Then how about this? We have reason to believe Donovan are diverting the carbon they are capturing. There is a maze of piping beneath their facility in Texas.”

Stuart sat up. “Are you sure about this?”

“Oh, we’re sure,” Daniel said. “We were there; we saw it. And let’s just say it’s not part of the tour. Whatever this underground system is, it’s not meant to be found. We sort of stumbled upon it on our … way out.”

Stuart bit the tip of his reading glasses and looked away. “If what you are saying is true, it may just be the missing link in a chain of events that has baffled us for years. There is an Inuit tribe on the western coast of Greenland whose population has been diminishing mysteriously. The Kalaallit, they’re called. We’ve only recently found that the marine life in the region, which the Kalaallit depend on for food, has been severely depleted, and what’s left is compromised, tainted. When we had the waters tested, we found remnants of non-native algae. No one has been able to explain how the algae got there.”

“And you think this could be related?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe. The Donovan pipeline has to lead somewhere. If there is any relationship between the algae they are testing and the algae that has been killing the fish in the Arctic regions, we could be on to something. Problem is …”

Sarah nodded. “We’re running out of time.”

”The Alliance meeting is in less than two weeks,” Stuart said. “Even if we were able to gain access to Donovan’s facility, which they would certainly try to block, there is not enough time to do the proper testing.”

“Perhaps the mere raising of the issue can stall the Alliance vote,” Sarah said. “Perhaps you can convince the delegates something evil is afoot and they can demand this testing before authorizing phase two. We can help you.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“Mr. Ericsson, I am an archaeologist. I study the past, not the future. But for the first time in my career, I am faced with the prospect that the two are inextricably linked. We already know our past and our present have an impact on our future. Decisions we make now will either venerate us or haunt us through the ages. And while we don’t have the gift of foresight to know what the future holds, we have, for the first time in history, clear and undisputable evidence that persons who have witnessed the future have left an account for our benefit—our redemption, if you will. It is my professional duty and my human responsibility, as the person who has come to possess this evidence, to make it known to mankind.”

“It’s a rather noble view, and I don’t disagree with what you’re saying,” Stuart said. “But you have no idea what you’re getting into. This is a formidable enemy. They will not hesitate to crush you.”

“I know exactly what I’m up against,” she said, at last fully aware. “But I have an idea.”

Thirty-One

O
n the eve of the Alliance vote, Sarah could not sleep. Outside the window of her hotel room, the streets of Brussels were steeped in ghostly lamplight. In the distance, the gothic spire of city hall pierced the black velvet sky like a gilded needle, the sole beacon of light in the thick darkness. She looked at the clock—three in the morning—and then at Daniel, who tossed restlessly beside her. They had just completed their fourth day of nonstop meetings with Alliance delegates and were both exhausted. But Sarah couldn’t rest.

The confrontation with her father earlier that evening had left her rattled. As a member of the Alliance panel, he was in Brussels for the conference and had taken the opportunity to give her a piece of his mind. The conversation had been haunting Sarah’s thoughts since.

Sir Richard had said, “My sources inform me you have been … lobbying. They say that you have joined forces with those New Age loonies at Oceanus and gone before various and sundry environmental ministers to convince them to vote against Donovan’s Poseidon project. And worse yet, that you plan to speak before the assembly tomorrow. I’ve had to explain to them that this is preposterous, that my daughter is a respected scientist and she would never do any such thing.”

She still shuddered at the steeliness of his glare.

“It is preposterous, isn’t it, Sarah?”

Though trembling inside, she had delivered her answer without flinching. “It’s true, actually. Stuart Ericsson did ask for my help in delivering the message that Poseidon isn’t the savior you all think it is. So, yes. We met with ministers. He did the lobbying, and I merely told them what my research has yielded: two eyewitness accounts that a program just like this one was once responsible for destruction on a vast scale. Do these ministers have the capability to swing the vote? Yes, they do. Will they? I do hope so.”