2040 Revelations (43 page)

Putting the coat rack back, she rifled through the papers searching for Fernandez. There were three files bearing the name, the last being Fernandez, Victor! Yanking it out, she walked to a desk and opened it up. Victor’s face and details, including his address, were on the first page. She folded the A4 sheet up and stuffed it into her pocket.

‘Wait!’ she said out loud. ‘What are you doing?’ Grumbling away to herself she took the paper back out, moved to a photocopier and turned it on. She tapped her foot in impatience while she waited for it to warm up, then copied the document, returned the original to its folder and returned that to the cabinet.
That should cover my tracks a little
, she thought happily. It was strange, she was really enjoying herself.
Perhaps I’m an adrenalin junky?
she reasoned. She really enjoyed rock climbing and had tried on occasion free climbing, in which ropes were only used to prevent falls, so perhaps this was an extension of that kind of thrill seeking.

Discarding such thoughts and fearing she might be stopped by security at any moment, she made her way back out to the park, where she finally relaxed. Blowing out her breath she found it hard to keep a grin from her face.
That was definitely exhilarating
, she concluded, as she took out her prize and checked it to ascertain Victor’s home address. The area she needed was called La Condesa. A quick check on her phone verified the exact position of his house. There didn’t appear to be a train station close by, so once outside the park she hailed one of the few cabs that were running and jumped in.

It took about twenty minutes to reach his home, an apartment in an average-looking tower block. Soon at his door, she rang the bell. After getting no response, she banged a few times and then gave it a kick out of sheer frustration. Opening the letterbox she peered in. ‘Victor Fernandez!’ she called through the flap. ‘I’m a friend of Yochi Cayut, are you in there?’

No answer.

‘Damn it!’ she said, turned and walked disconsolately back the way she’d come. As she plodded down the stairs, her head bowed, she passed a man coming up the other way. Looking up belatedly she caught a glimpse of his face and spun round. ‘Victor Fernandez?’ she asked the man, who was now a flight of steps above her. He stopped and looked down at her. It was him! His expression of surprise at hearing his own name turned to shock, then fear.

He bolted.

Cursing again Sarah chased after him, taking the stairs two at a time. He fled the stairwell, racing onto the nearest floor.

Kicking open the door which swung shut behind him, Sarah called out to the fleeing back of Fernandez as he pelted down the corridor. ‘Wait!’

He didn’t stop, merely disappeared down another stairwell. Sarah followed, rattling down the stairs behind him. She burst onto the street looking left, then right.
There he is! Damn, he’s fast
. She went in pursuit, picking up speed. Her hat slowly inched loose before falling off, her blonde hair now streaming behind her as she ran. Her fitness and height told and she gained on him as they crossed a road and ran into yet another street. As they rounded a corner, she was within touching distance and managed to catch the rear of his flailing jacket; with a heave she dragged him to a stop. He was breathing heavily, as was she.

He backed away, his hands in the air. ‘¡
Por favor, no me hagas daño
!’ he said, pleading with her.

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying,’ she told him as she gasped for breath, bent over with her hands on her knees.

‘Please do not hurt me!’ he said in English.

‘Hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you; I only want to ask you a few questions.’

‘I know nothing else. Please, I beg you, leave me alone!’

That was obviously the wrong thing to say
, she thought. ‘Look, Victor, I’m not here to hurt you, I just have something I want you to look at.’ She removed her back pack, extracted the heavy metallic map and showed it to him.

He backed up further against the wall, his eyes still wide with terror.

Who got to this man?
she wondered.
Whoever it was, they terrified the life out of him.

‘Look, I know Yochi Cayut, your friend. He told me to talk to you. He wants you to call him, he’s worried about you.’

‘I won’t speak to Yochi, you told me not to. I won’t speak to anyone, I promise. Please don’t hurt me.’

Bloody hell, this isn’t getting me anywhere
, she thought, realising she had to shock him out of his hysteria. She took a look around; there didn’t appear to be anyone in the vicinity. She took off her coat.
Here goes nothing
, she thought to herself, then pulled down her trousers and lifted up her top. Victor looked at her in astonishment, a near naked woman now standing before him. Sarah waited for a moment until she had his full attention and then dropped her top and pulled her trousers back up.

She moved closer. ‘Now,’ she told him firmly, ‘I am not here to hurt you. I am not going to interrogate you. I am merely an archaeologist looking for some information. Do you understand me?’

He looked at her for a moment and then nodded, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face. ‘You know Yochi?’ he said in a small voice.

‘Yes, I saw him a few days ago. He’s worried about you and with good reason, apparently. Look, all I need is for you to look at this map and to tell me where this last place is.’ She pointed at the last hieroglyphs on the line.

He looked down at the map in her hands and then at the glyphs. ‘That is the City of Tancama.’

‘And where is that?’

He looked around him realising they were outside. ‘Perhaps it will be better to discuss this in private.’

She nodded in agreement and they made their way back to his home. Once inside he became calmer. Making some green tea, he passed a cup to Sarah who accepted it gratefully.

‘So what can you tell me about this city?’ she said between sips of her drink.

‘Tancama? Well, it was a city built by the Huastecs circa 700 AD, it means
fire hill
in their language. It is theorised the Huastecs were a remnant of a northern Mayan tribe, left to their own devices as other Mayans relocated back to the south.’

‘Is it near here?’

He held up his hand and disappeared into another room, before reappearing moments later brandishing a paper map, which he laid out on the table. ‘It’s about here,’ he said, placing a finger on the map, ‘about fifteen minutes’ drive away from Jalpan de Serra, a small town in the state of Querétaro.’

‘Victor, can I ask why you were so scared? What happened to you?’

He looked at her, worry seeping into his features once more.

‘Was it to do with the tablets you found under the Pyramid of the Sun?’ she asked him.

He took a long drink of his tea then put down the cup and inhaled deeply, steadying his nerves. ‘You know about the tablets?’

‘Yes, Yochi told me about them.’

‘I see.’ He took another sip, staring off to one side. ‘At first the find was a revelation,’ he said, beginning his tale. ‘The cave had never been scanned with new technology due to the Mexican Antiquities Committee preventing its use in order to preserve it. When it was finally accepted that deep scanning didn’t affect the composition and integrity of monuments and stone, it was given the green light.’

‘This was a year ago?’

Victor nodded. ‘The scans revealed a large cavity behind one of the cave walls. When we excavated it, we found hundreds of clay tablets. The amazing thing was they didn’t contain hieroglyphics, but some kind of alphabetic system. Upon analysis they were found to be seven thousand years old, predating anything produced in the Middle East and Persia by a big margin. The find may turn the origins of writing, and indeed civilisation, on its head and undermine the current accepted historical timeline in so many ways it’s mind boggling.’

‘What happened then?’ Sarah said, as he paused in contemplation once more.

‘When my colleagues published some preliminary papers, we received interest from around the world. That is when things began to go wrong. Pressure was exerted on us from within our own government to stop our investigations. This was followed by claims from a couple of influential international organisations that our evidence had been falsified, thus discrediting our work. As the political intensity increased, the site was shut down and our funding cut, even the budget for the Museum itself was threatened. Just when we thought everyone was against us, we were contacted by a group calling themselves a collective of wealthy philanthropists. They wanted to get involved and provide financial support to our project. Of course, by this point, we were only too pleased to get any kind of backing, and with the help of their lawyers we had the site reopened. Their one request was that they got to send in their own teams to help with further exploration of the site and the process of deciphering the tablets. My superiors weren’t overly enamoured of this demand, but we had no alternative save to agree.

‘That was when things went from bad to worse. Soon after their arrival artefacts started to go missing and then even more disturbingly people did too. Many vanished without warning, leaving behind careers and families. Then the very people who said they were there to help us stormed our offices and confiscated all our work. Everything!’ he said, throwing his hands up in despair.

Regaining some composure, Victor continued. ‘My office was cleared; they gave me no reasons for it and it turned out security had been told not to stop them. All my work was taken. I saw this one man who looked like he was in charge and I started complaining to him. That was a mistake. They took me to an empty room and questioned me for hours, threatening me with violence; I’ve never been so terrified in my life.’

Sarah had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘This man, was he wearing a suit and did he have an Italian accent?’

Victor Fernandez looked at her in shock. ‘Yes! How did you know?’

‘I’ve met him, briefly. He took things from me as well. Look, Victor, these people are very dangerous; why don’t you move somewhere else if you’re that frightened?’

‘I would, but I grew up here, my whole life is here. I won’t let them take that from me. Besides, they haven’t been around for quite a while now. When I saw you, a foreigner in my building, I feared the worst and panicked, and when you chased me—’

‘I’m sorry, not just for scaring you, but for what you’ve been through,’ she said with heartfelt sympathy; his plight resembled her own.

They chatted some more and Victor revealed to her that other discoveries had been made at the site, besides the tablets.

‘What sort of discoveries?’ she said, intrigued. She wondered if there might have been bones or canisters like the ones they’d found.

‘I didn’t see them as they were confiscated along with everything else, but according to a highly respectable and credible colleague of mine who was at the site at the time the artefacts that were discovered were, and I quote,
“Not of this world”
.’

‘Not of this world; what … alien?’ Sarah said, trying to keep the scepticism out of her voice.

‘I suppose that’s what he meant. What else could it be?’

Sarah considered the question.
Perhaps it was an ancient device made by Homo gigantis
, she thought,
technology that advanced might appear alien when in fact it was terrestrial in origin
.
Whatever it was, it must have been some find and it was now in the hands of God knows who never to be seen again
. Finishing on that frustrating note, Sarah took her leave of Victor, thanking him for his help, and made her way back to the hostel to report back to Trish and Jason on her mission.

‘You did what?’ Trish said, flabbergasted, as Sarah told them how she had got Victor’s attention.

‘I can’t wait until I get hysterical,’ Jason said with a broad grin, ‘actually, I’m feeling a bit mad right now; perhaps you could—’

Sarah laughed and Trish punched him hard.

‘Ow! Calm down, I was only kidding,’ he said, rubbing his arm and scowling at her.

Sarah then went on to mention the other discoveries Victor’s colleague had said were
not of this world
.

‘Ha, I told you, aliens!’ Jason said, jubilant in his vindication.

When Sarah pointed out it was probably some piece of ancient technology which appeared alien to modern eyes but was, in fact, very terrestrial Jason seemed disappointed. ‘I still think it’s aliens,’ he said, sounding grumpy, ‘it’s always aliens.’

Sarah wasn’t listening, as now that they had the final location on the map, they knew where they had to go next in search of further gigantis artefacts and treasures. To find anything else on top of what they had already uncovered would be the proverbial cherry on the cake, and Sarah would be satisfied she had left no stone unturned and would happily publish a paper after their finds had been documented and analysed.

She knew the risks involved, however, if any such outcomes were to reach fruition. If a national museum found it impossible to declare such artefacts, then how could she hope to do so? That’s where her group came in. Circulation on the Internet, self-published books and independent media broadcasts would all help her to garner the support of a government segregated from the West – China. Desperate times called for desperate measures. They might have just started a war, but there was no one else. The Chinese cared nothing for the Vatican, and the Church’s influence – if indeed the Church was to blame for any cover up – would be less there than anywhere else. She had to tell the world the truth and she’d go to any lengths necessary to do so. Too long this truth had been hidden from humanity. These people thought they could manipulate and hide history itself, they thought they could kill and rob the innocent at will; they thought they could kill her mother and get away with it. She would make sure this history would never again be left in the hands of those who sought to alter it to fit their own agendas.

With her resolve and purpose cemented in her mind, she headed to the City of Tancama with a determination she had never felt before. She felt like an unstoppable force had possessed her, driving her forwards. Her mind was an arrow and her discoveries the bow with which to launch it.