The Theta Prophecy (11 page)

He never met or spoke with Candenborn again. When a biographer asked what the reclusive millionaire had wanted to speak with him about that one day at the White House, Jefferson only shook his head and said, “There are wealthy men who understand their money is but one aspect of their life and that, first and foremost, they are people, like any other people.”

The biographer looked up from his notepad. “And?”

“And,” Jefferson said, “The opposite type of man can also exist. We should never forget that.”

“Banking establishments are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”

Thomas Jefferson

Year: 1956

Under the water, schools of fish, metallic gray, nothing as spectacular as the bright yellow, green, and orange fish found in tropical islands, followed the ocean’s current.

Beyond them were the storm clouds, dark and swirling. They twisted and turned as they progressed across the horizon. And with them they brought thunder that sounded like the world falling apart and also lightning, bright and dazzling. As soon as one burst of lightning shot down from the sky, another, a second later, would burst forth from a different part of the malevolent clouds. Because of this, the thunder was continuous, booming and fading and booming again, all without ever stopping for a moment of actual silence.

From within this storm, a burst of energy, not yellow like the lightning, but bright white, ignited in the sky. Rather than shooting down toward the water, this explosion of light took the shape of an oval above the ocean. For a short moment, a bolt of lightning shot right through the middle of the white burst of brilliance, gone a fraction of a second later.

As the storm continued to roll on toward the coast, the light in the sky faded away. After four more bursts of lightning, each growing in distance from where the white disc of energy had appeared in the sky, the portal was gone. By then, the time traveler was already back up to the surface of the water after having dropped one hundred feet from the sky and plunging deep into the icy depths of the choppy water.

He yelled when his head burst forth from under the salty water, partly because he didn’t want to drown—almost anything would be better than that—and partly because of the exhilaration of disappearing from one time and place and reappearing in another. His senses were overwhelmed, much the same way they would be if he were transported from Earth to Mars without any time to adjust to the approaching red planet. Only a few moments before, he had been standing in a line with nine other men inside an old storm shelter that was two stories underground. The most brilliant white light had surrounded him. Pure energy. And the next moment he was falling out of the sky, in the middle of the night, with only enough time to realize he was falling toward water before splashing into what he assumed was the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. He hadn’t even had enough time to straighten his body and raise his head so the impact was minimized. Instead, he had hit the water with a near belly-flop, his face hitting hard enough that he was sure his nose was broken and maybe also his jaw.

The change was almost too much to process. He didn’t even realize rain was pouring down on him until he scanned for any signs of nearby boats or land and realized how limited his vision was because of the storm’s haze. The question hadn’t yet formed in his mind of where or when he might be. It wouldn’t be practical to waste time thinking about those things until he got out of the water—without being eaten by sharks or growing too tired and becoming just another nameless corpse that would one day wash ashore or else be found in nets by fishermen.

There was no sign of civilization in front of him. Only crashing black water and even blacker skies. As he twirled to face the other way, a wave crashed over him and salt water filled his nose, mixing with the blood that was streaming from both nostrils. Everything smelled and tasted like salt and blood.

Facing the opposite direction, he squinted and tried to make out if what he was seeing were actual lights or the glimmer of lighting in the distance. Each time his eyes were about to focus on the glowing objects, another splash of water broke over him and disoriented him again.

Without being sure what was there, but already knowing there were no lights and no chance of help in the opposite direction, he kicked his legs out behind him and let the current wash him forward. His only hope was that the lights would take shape and become the sign of civilization he so desperately needed.

Every part of his face hurt. He was tempted to bring one of his hands up to his nose to see if it was still pointing in the right direction, but there was nothing he could do about it if it wasn’t, not in the rough waters, and the knowledge that he was deformed and grotesque would only upset him further. He tried to think instead about how fast the current might be moving him and about keeping his eyes open, no matter how irritated they were by the salt, so he could focus on the lights in the distance.

It didn’t take long before he was sure the far-off glowing was in fact man-made and not the moon sneaking through the storm clouds or the sparkle of lightning hitting the water. People! Life! He was saved. Even though the current did most of the work for him, he kicked his arms and feet anyway, just to cut down on the time it would take to get out of the freezing water and get his face looked at.

After another minute, the glowing he had seen took the form of a lighthouse above a square building arrayed with lights. Even as seawater gurgled out of his mouth he couldn’t help but smile.

As the lights got closer, the time traveler began to laugh. He had left everyone he loved. He had risked being blasted away by the Tyranny’s men. There had been no guarantee he would survive his reappearance. It was much more likely that he would have fallen from the sky and splattered on the ground, appeared under the earth and immediately died, or drowned in the middle of the ocean. But here he was, alive after falling from the light. And in a time when mankind already had electricity! Everything was going to be okay.

The last hundred feet before reaching shore, he realized he was at a small island rather than the mainland, which could be seen off in the distance. No matter. He saw windows made of glass. He saw power lines running from building to building. Overhead, an airplane roared past him as it descended for its arrival at whatever airport it was approaching.

Sweet, sweet life!

Only then, thinking about where the plane might be landing, did the time traveler begin to wonder where he could be. He had departed from the 37N parallel, so he could be getting ready to step onto Californian, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Turkish, or Asian coasts. Any of them would be fine. He was just happy to be alive.

Rather than stepping onto a sandy beach, he dragged himself out of the water and onto slick rocks.
Maybe it’s the Greek islands
, he thought.

But that thought was interrupted by a man running toward him and yelling, “Stop where you are! Raise your hands.”

An American! The time traveler couldn’t believe his luck. Out of all the places he could have appeared, he was in a time when he was surely going to be able to change the course of history and prevent the Tyranny. And the icing on the cake: he was already at the country where he needed to be. He couldn’t have gotten luckier if he tried.

“Stop,” the man yelled again, running down from the main building with a flashlight in hand, pointing it at the time traveler the entire time.

“It’s okay,” the time traveler said. “My nose is broken, but I’ll be okay.”

The man continued running down toward the new arrival, and the time traveler saw from his uniform and from the gun he held that the man must be a police officer wanting to make sure no crime had taken place.

The time traveler looked down at himself and chuckled. The burlap pants he had been wearing when he departed from his own time were still on, but everything else was gone. His shoes and shirt must have been ripped off when he hit the water. His burlap bag, filled with the few supplies he would need to survive until he got his bearings and was able to start to make a new life for himself, was also gone. Probably all floating in the ocean, never to be found.

He was standing on the shore in nothing more than a pair of raggedy old pants. His nose was bleeding. He came in from the shore during a bad storm. Of course the cop would be alarmed.

The time traveler’s mind was put at ease by these thoughts. But as the man ran toward him, gun and flashlight still pointed at him, a second light came on. This one from overhead. A spotlight. And the time traveler saw that it wasn’t actually a police officer at all, but a security guard.

Against his better judgment and because he was so shocked by everything that had happened, but especially by the man running toward him, he blurted out the one question that above all he wasn’t supposed to ask: “What year is it?”

The security guard was right in front of him now, and the question made him momentarily stumble for what he should do next.

As if he thought he should answer the question prior to proceeding with whatever he was going to do, the security guard said, “1956.“

“Oh, thank god,” the time traveler said and put his hands out to show he was no threat, which perplexed the guard even more.

But then a patch on the guard’s uniform caught the time traveler’s eye.

ALCATRAZ FEDERAL PENITENTIARY.

“Oh shit,” the time traveler said, unaware of his own reaction, and tried to offer an explanation for what the guard must be thinking.

But before he could, the guard tackled him, had his hands behind his back, and was yelling up to the man at the spotlight that one of the prisoners must have tried to escape again.

“No, I—”

But that was all the time traveler had a chance to say before a blast of pain blurred his vision and he was unconscious, his blood smeared across the guard’s boot.

Fucking Alcatraz.

Year: 1961

“Hello, Mr. Dulles.”

John F. Kennedy, the recently elected president, leaned across the dark maple desk in front of him, arm outstretched, and shook Allen Dulles’s hand.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance as a president,” the Director of Central Intelligence said, returning to his chair. The two had met for briefings prior to the election but had not yet met after the swearing in.

Kennedy was making his way around Washington to speak with the people he would be relying on to make the administration a success. Instead of calling each man to the White House the way his predecessors had, he visited each person in their own building. To Kennedy, it was an act of humility, a tiny gesture to let his men know he wouldn’t be dictating over everyone just because he was President.

After saving each person the time of driving to the White House and instead having the president of the country sit in a chair reserved for guests, each director would be forced to think of their new boss as not only a regular guy, but a humble one at that. They might not like him after the conversation was over, might not view him as a friend or confidant, but never before or after would any of them have a boss, let alone the leader of the free world, knock on their door and sit across from them in their own office. It was refreshing.

The Director of Central Intelligence saw the middle-aged man standing across from him, waiting to be asked to have a seat, and said, “Mr. President, please, such formalities are unnecessary.”

Hell, the few times Eisenhower had been forced to make appearances at Langley, he had not only barged right in without knocking first, he had surveyed the director’s office, decided Dulles looked too imposing behind his desk, and moved their discussion to a conference room where the president immediately sat at the head of the table.

Not only was JFK indifferent to who might seem to have the more dominant seat, not only did he value his agency heads’ time enough to visit each of them at their own office, Dulles also noticed that the former senator from Massachusetts also entered the room by himself. Everyone in Washington traveled in packs. The only way someone could protect themselves from being the next fall guy in the next scandal was if a room full of other people could testify that so-and-so had never been told of specific facts. If someone were going to lose their job, it would be the poor guy at the bottom of the organization, the guy who didn’t have anything to do with the fiasco but also didn’t have anyone to defend him.

But here was Kennedy, happy to have a discussion between just the two of them. Nobody taking notes. No lawyers to make sure the president didn’t say something he might later want to recant.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Allen,” Kennedy said, smiling.

“And a pleasure to see you again, Mr. President.”

“Please, call me John.”

JFK started off by giving the same introduction he had offered to each agency and department head as he made his way around Washington—that things were going to change in the nation’s capital. There would be transparency. They would be focused on what was best for the people. To accomplish both of these things, he wanted to know everything that was going on. There should be no secrets from the leader of the country. It wasn’t going to be business as usual.

“When we meet like this,” Kennedy said, not having to explain that he expected to have frequent personnel meetings with the agency directors who had a reputation for doing just about anything they wanted, “I want to know we can be completely open and honest with each other. I don’t expect to come here and grill you. And if you have questions of me, please ask and I’ll be honest with you as well.”

“How did this speech go over with Hoover?” the director said, partly to keep the conversation light, but also to see if the man sitting in front of him would revert back into being a politician—not saying anything to ruffle feathers—or if he would keep his word and answer honestly. What better way to do that than by asking about the FBI’s infamous director?

“Normally, I would make a joke. But the truth is he was as stubborn and irrational as I would expect. He even offered veiled threats for no apparent reason. But at least he’ll make sure my job isn’t boring.”

Dulles laughed. He had heard the exact same account from someone in the FBI who had listened to the secretly recorded meeting.

“Personally, I have always felt as if our beloved Mr. Hoover is a few cards short of a full deck,” Dulles said.

“And the cards he does have aren’t even for the right game,” Kennedy added and they both laughed.

“If I had known you were coming, I could have had my staff put together a presentation on our major programs and what we planned to do in the next two years.”

The president waved this suggestion away. “Save that for next time. This visit is for us to get to know one another. And,” he added, with the smile that some people credited with him winning the televised debates, “for me to learn all the deep, dark secrets that no one is allowed to know except the president.”

Dulles raised his eyebrows and in his friendliest voice, said, “If there are things only the president is allowed to know, who can tell you except a former president?”

Kennedy smiled. “You’ve got me there. I suppose there are men out there who know the secrets that everyone wants to know about, but the president is the only one who can learn them all after he is voted into office.”

Dulles leaned back in his chair and let his fingers interlock with one another.

When the director didn’t say anything else, Kennedy scooted his chair a little closer and said, “So?”

Dulles looked at the clock on his wall. He should be home having dinner with his wife. Here was a president who looked half his age, almost no wrinkles, a head full of hair, energetic. The director had been all of those things once. Now, he was balding and the hair he did have was ghost white. He needed glasses to see anything, and he was grateful for the wrinkles on his arms and neck because they helped cover up the extent of his liver spots. Was he too old for his job or had the American people made a mistake by electing someone too young for the office of President?

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kennedy still staring intently at him, waiting for a reply.

He turned back toward his new boss and said, “What would you like to know?”

He expected the president to ask him just how many government leaders the CIA had considered assassinating. Perhaps he would want the number of democratically elected presidents they had secretly led campaigns to overthrow, tossing their countries into turmoil and civil war.

But instead, JFK leaned forward and, smiling, said, “Do aliens exist?”

Without being able to control himself, Dulles burst out laughing. He thought the newly elected leader was going to ask him why the CIA was meddling in the affairs of other countries if it always resulted in riots and hostage-taking, but instead the man was asking about Martians!

When he collected himself, Dulles saw Kennedy was also laughing. Just about anyone else the director had known in his long career as a banker and diplomat would have been furious if they were laughed at like that, but Kennedy seemed to take it as a compliment, even wanting to join in on the joke.

“I gather you have not been out to Wright–Patt yet?” Dulles said.

Area 51 got all of the notoriety amongst conspiracy theorists for supposedly having alien ships stored in its underground hangars, and every year Dulles read accounts of people who had to be arrested after trying to break into the installation. The urge to see little green men was that overpowering. But it was Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, on the other side of the country, where the secrets were actually kept.

“No, I haven’t,” Kennedy said. “It will be a while before I’m caught up enough in Washington to make my rounds to the rest of the country.”

“Well, when you get there, you can see the remains of a craft that is not from this world.”

The president considered this silently. Dulles watched for the variety of expressions he expected to witness and was surprised when none of them washed over Kennedy’s face. The man on the other side of the desk wasn’t scared at what this meant, wasn’t eager to hear what technology had been gathered from the ship and how it might be used as a weapon, wasn’t horrified at the thought of which parts of the alien’s mangled body had been pulled from the wreckage. None of it. He did look almost like a child, though, fascinated by what he had just heard.

“I knew it,” he said. “I always knew there was other life out there. This is great.”

Dulles let his hands rest on his desk so his fingers could tap on the dark maple as if a typewriter were there. He was waiting for what he knew would come next.

And this time Kennedy did not disappoint him: “We have to tell everyone.”

“Mr. President,” Dulles said, slipping back into formalities and, he noticed, not being stopped from doing so, “that is not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Kennedy said, a slight edge in his voice.

“There are things the people can know about and then there are things they are better off being protected from.”

“Did you not hear what I just said about transparency? What harm could possibly occur from telling people that we are not alone in the universe?”

Dulles noticed that what his associates in Washington had told him was true: Kennedy’s New England twang was charming when he was telling jokes, but it was like fingers on a chalkboard as soon as he irritated you.

“Sir, people like to think the world revolves around them. They take comfort in believing we, the government of the United States, know everything that is going on in the rest of the world and can protect them from anything that happens. Telling them that other life forms exist in the universe, far superior to our own, would make them think we are irrelevant. There would be lawlessness.”

“Lawlessness?” Kennedy chuckled. “Don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?”

“Don’t give people too much credit,” Dulles said. “As soon as they realize we are but a speck of meaningless sand in the cosmos, the laws we ask them to obey will seem trivial. The taxes we impose on them would go unpaid. And you know why? Because none of it will seem relevant in the grand scheme of things. We will no longer have leverage in governing them.”

JFK offered an exaggerated look of confusion. “We don’t need leverage; we provide a service to the people.”

“All of our experts agreed,” Dulles said. “Of course, deep down, most people know there is too much evidence that life must exist out there somewhere, but humans have the amazing ability to avoid truths as long as they are repeatedly told the same lie.”

This last comment made Kennedy begin humming, the same way one of Dulles’s perpetually disappointed teachers had when Allen was a child.

Finally, Kennedy leaned back against his chair and said, “Let’s come back to that some other time. Let’s try to keep this meeting on a positive note.”

“I wish for nothing else, Mr. President.” As much as he had tried, being informal, addressing the president by his first name, just wasn’t in his nature.

“What else can you tell me? What other fascinating secrets do you guys keep to yourselves?”

“Us guys?”

“You know what I mean. What other secrets do only a few people know about?”

“Sir?”

“Oh, come on. There has to be something. I once heard a story that Franklin Roosevelt was at Oak Island before he ever thought about running for president. Tell me about that.”

“It’s true. He was there in 1909 as part of a group of treasure seekers called the Old Gold Salvagers or something like that.”

“I even heard that part of the reason he wanted to become president was so he could find out what the boys in Washington could tell him about what might be down there in that money pit.”

Dulles nodded. “I heard the same rumor, Mr. President.”

Not only had Roosevelt been a part of one of the teams that looked for treasure at Oak Island in the decades following Candenborn’s flooding of the mysterious hole, he frequently asked friends for updates on whether or not other expeditions ever found more clues about what was down there. As far as Dulles knew, Roosevelt had gone to his grave knowing as little about what had been at Oak Island as the day he and his expedition gave up trying to clear the pit of ocean water. And luckily for Dulles, Eisenhower, the man who had appointed him Director of Central Intelligence, had never seemed interested in such whims.

“So, do you know anything about it?” Kennedy asked.

The president was smiling, thinking the entire thing was a game. He had no idea Dulles was in fact one of the very few people who not only knew about the book, but was also familiar with what it said.

“Sir,” Dulles said, pressing his fingers to his temples to relieve the pressure that was building up behind his eyes. It was a shame the meeting had taken this turn. Looking back, he actually would have preferred if Kennedy had come into his office screaming about how wrong it was to have various world leaders assassinated and governments overthrown just to further the nation’s interests. In the end, things would have been easier that way.