Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin "I" Series Book II (23 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

Villa
Mondragone

Frascati
, Italy

May, 2012

Nikhil
Chandra had been more ‘legitimate’ than I thought. On April 1, I got an
invitation to the seminar in Italy to discuss the Voynich Manuscript and to
share ideas.

I
still didn’t trust the guy. But then, I was beginning not to trust anyone. I
saw everyone and everything as a threat. The guy at the bank, the lady at the
grocery store who ended up in every aisle I went in. My doctor, who as soon as
he came in the examination room asked me what I had been up to. I was ready to
hop off that table and run out of there screaming. It is a scary feeling
thinking someone is after you. How are you supposed to live like that? And,
let’s not talk about a dark blue Ford Taurus. The sightings of those had multiplied
exponentially. I even had a dream about one.

 Geesh!

So,
now on this beautiful May morning, without me ever telling Nikhil Chandra I
would come, I was more than happy to be out of Cleveland, and standing in front
of the Villa Mondragone in Frascati. It was the Voynich Manuscript Seminar and
I was among the seventy-five scholars invited to attend. And the first thing
the Chairpersons did after we arrived was pass out a true and exact, to scale,
colored facsimile of the book.

Maybe
the Voynich Manuscript wasn’t gibberish or a hoax after all.  

I
arrived the night before the seminar was to start. I woke up with the chickens
(as my mother used to say), so early that it was nearly two hours until the
Welcome Breakfast scheduled for 7 am.

But
everything was awesome. When I got down to the banquet room there were white
linen tablecloths and napkins on the tables, the smell of fresh baked pastries and
bread, and the aroma of coffee filled my head and made me nearly swoon. I
thought about Addie and her coffee addiction, and decided to pour me a cup of
the steamy, dark brew.

I
signed in, found my name tag, and got my seat assignment. The first person I
saw when I arrived at my table was Nikhil Chandra sitting at the table with his
arms crossed over his chest. Momentarily my eager smile waned. But before I
could say anything to him, he closed his eyes, shook his head, and when he
opened them again, he looked straight ahead and not at me. I took it that he
didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that we knew each other, or that he had
been stalking me for the last few months, which was fine with me. I still
wasn’t really sure who he was, and if I liked him or not.

During
that first day, we learned in detail about the book, its previous owners and
various attempts at its translation. And, while we did each get a copy of it,
the real manuscript was there for us to examine. It was amazing. I peered down at
the fine vellum of the open leaves, each a little less than a foot square. I was
truly amazed at the clarity of the beautiful uncial lettering. Each page was
covered in cellophane, but the sheer magnetism of it reached out even through
its clear cover.

After
that first day, the group was given free time for dinner and sightseeing. That
way, a member of the dais had said, our minds wouldn’t wonder about what’s
outside in beautiful Italia once we were locked down in a room to examine the
book.

I
went back to my room at the Hotel Flora on
Viale
Vittorio Veneto. The small 37-room stately-looking hotel was quaint and
beautiful. It had a white and gray plaster façade, and manicured lawns and
gardens. As I walked up to the doors of the hotel, I found, standing under the
arched entryway, Nikhil Chandra.

He
looked so different than the “Father” I had first met. He was dressed in a very
expensive-looking white and blue striped, French-cut shirt and tailored-fit
pants, all underneath his even more expensive Burberry trench coat. And he was
wearing a pair of brown Ferragamo oxfords.

So
much for a vow of poverty.

“I
should have known,” I said as I walked up to him. “You’d be somewhere in the
shadows stalking me.”

“I
really can’t understand why you always give me such a hard time. I got you into
this seminar.”

“You
really don’t know why I have such a hard time with having to see you? Or even
talk to you?”

“Honestly,
I don’t,” he said, and grinned. “But there may be others, not as likable or as
friendly as me, that may be watching you.”

There
he goes feeding my paranoia monster, again
.

“So,
here, how about I take you to dinner?” he said. “Away from here. Maybe if we
could talk, you might just learn to like me a little better.”

“If
I’m to listen to you talk,” I said, “then you’ll have to pay for my dinner. I
don’t want to have to my spend money, and not enjoy my dinner because you were
there chatting away.”

“Fair
enough. I know the perfect spot. My car is right over here.” He pointed in the
direction of the parking lot and held his hand out to me.

I
looked down at his hand, and then up into his eyes. “I’m not getting in a car
with you.”

“Justin.”
He titled his head and looked at me like a sad little puppy.

“Fine.
But if you try to kill me,” I said. “I promise that will
not
help me to
like you any better.”

“Again,
fair enough.”

We
walked over to his car.

 “So
why do you always say that someone’s watching me?” I asked as he opened the car
door for me.

“It’s
not so much that someone may be watching you, as it is someone is watching the
book. I’m sure they’ll find it very upsetting that so many copies are going out
into the world. Still, they are pretty confident that no one will figure it
out. Although it does seem that a certain dark blue Taurus has an interest in
you. ” He started the car and pulled off, hopefully not to a deserted field
where he could dump my body.

“Let’s
not talk about that Taurus,” I said. “It makes me nervous.” I was quiet for a
moment, and then I asked, “Should I be afraid? Should I be afraid of you?”

“You
should not be afraid of me.” He glanced over at me. “But, if they knew you had
translated the manuscripts that you found in Jerusalem, then you might need to
worry. And, I am not sure that they don’t know. I found you and your little
book. I’m sure they are just as clever as I am,” he said with a wink.

I
didn’t see anything amusing in the possibility of people following me. I turned
and looked out the rear window. Had someone followed me here?

“So,
who is this ‘they’?” I asked, turning back.

“Not
sure,” he said.

I
gave him a piercing look. “You’re telling me that people are following me, and
then you can’t tell me who they are?”

“No. Sorry, I
can’t. I don’t know who they are. They were assigned to watch the book once it
left the Villa. That’s all I know. Who knows, maybe none of them are left.
That’s a real possibility. There aren’t many left of us.

“Ah, here we
are,” he said pulling over and parking the main square of Frascati. He hopped
out, got my door for me, and led me by my arm to a little restaurant tucked
away right off the square.

He
opened the door to the brick front of
Ara Anua
and said with a smile,
“After you.”

We
were led to the back of the restaurant, across the red terracotta-stoned floor.
We were seated behind brown taffeta curtains that were roped back. The small
seating area had tables that were covered with orange tablecloths, and replicas
of wine barrels hung on the walls.

After
we were seated, Nikhil ordered wine for the table and dinner for us. He was
quite fluent in Italian, as least from what I gathered. Everyone seemed to know
what he meant, and jokes apparently abounded as he and the waiter laughed whenever
he came to the table.

“So,
I must tell you things that will help you think better of me, yes? Where should
I start?” He raised his eyebrows and rubbed the palms of his hands together.

“Are
you familiar with the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? I said.”

“Ah.
The Mad Hatter. Okay, I’ll start at the beginning.”

Chapter
Forty-Seven

Nikhil
Chandra eyes sparked as he began to tell me his story. And I found myself
leaning in close, attentive, excited to hear what he had to say.

First
I learned the story of a Father Alphonse Realini and his mission to keep, and pass
on, a secret thousands, if not millions, of years old. A story that would not
have been told to me that day by Nikhil if not for the Father’s keen insight.

During
the
antipasto
, a rich dish of chick pea and truffle oil, I found how
much the boy Nikhil had loved the Father and thought of him as his own father.
And how, because the Father knew that his secret was destined to be lost, he
had shared it with Nikhil, giving him the true information.

I
learned of how a rector of the Jesuit priests at the Villa Mondragone had tried
to stop Realini from passing on the information by directing Nikhil’s father to
destroy it. There had always been those, Nikhil said, that didn’t want anyone
to know the secrets the Father and others like him possessed. Rector Bershoni
was one of those people. And the history of that faction went back thousands of
years.

“Is
it a secret society? The people that don’t want the information out, are they
part of a secret society?” I asked.

“No.”
Nikhil laughed. “There are just people who know. And those people of course know
like-minded people. And even some that may not know the story you’ve learned,
have the same agenda - to quell the acquisition of knowledge.”

Acquisition
. That was the word used in the Book of
Enoch.

He
told me that Realini believed Bershoni would have destroyed what we now call
the Voynich Manuscript, and what Father Realini told him was the Book of
Knowledge, if he had not gotten it out of the Church.

An
emphatic “No!” came in response to my question of if the Church had anything to
do with all of this.

 “Why
didn’t they just kill Father Realini?” I asked.

Nikhil
nearly choked on his wine. “Kill him? He was a priest. An old man. He was an
old priest who never spoke of it to anyone, until he thought he was going to
die. And these people are not the murderous lot.”

“Aren’t
they trying to kill me?”

“I
hope not.”

“Well,
then why didn’t anyone . . . Why didn’t Rector Bershoni have someone get the
book from Wilfrid Voynich?”

“After
he got it, it became well known. It was out in the public’s eye. Plus, it’s filled
with gibberish.” Nikhil raised an eye. “No one could ead what’s inside. If
indeed it is the book that Father Realini spoke of.”

“You’re
not sure.”

“Dr.
Dickerson, how can I be sure? I don’t know what it says. But the Father seemed
sure, and that was enough for me.”

Nikhil
continued his story about the manuscripts’ history. He began telling me where,
and how, the manuscripts had been hidden over the years, while the waiter
brought in our
entrata
of steamy
pasta
con gorgonzola e radicchio
,
and poured Nikhil his second glass of cabernet
sauvignon.

“Would
you like a glass?” he asked me, as he lifted his to drink.

“No,
thank you. I don’t drink.”

He
nodded, and wiped the corners of his mouth with the cloth napkin. Then he told
me about Göbekli, the Library at Alexandria, and about Mithraism and their
secret underground caves. How these places housed the information for thousands
of years, in their attempt to keep it safe until someone discovered it.

“I
saw a Mithraeum at Yale’s Art Gallery. No one knows anything about the Mithra,”
I said.

“The
Mithra were keepers of the knowledge that had been passed down,” he said, fork
midway to his mouth. “They were not a group of religious zealots. The caves,
I’m told, were reminiscent of the underground tunnels of their homeland. That’s
why no one knew what went on inside of them, or what the Mithra did. It was not
yet time for the knowledge, held since the migration, to be revealed so they
kept it secret.”

“Were
they the descendants of the Ancients?” I asked.

“Ancients?
If I understand what you mean, then yes, they were.”

And
over
dolce
of tiramisu, I found how Nikhil had dedicated his life to
reading and researching to find all the clues to read the Book of Knowledge.
How he looked for information, or a person that knew of our ancient past. But
never, he said, did he find a story that came close to the truth, until he had
read my book.

“So,
then you know people who can read the Voynich Manuscript?” Then I thought about
what I had just heard. “Wait, you know people that know about the migration,
don’t you?”

“The
answer is no and yes. No, I don’t know anyone who can read the Voynich Manuscript.
If I did I wouldn’t have had to, as you say, ‘stalk you’. And yes, I know
people that know about the migration. I know about it, yes?”

“Then,
these people can help me.”

“No.
We cannot.”

“What!
Why?”

“Because
they won’t say what they know until proof has been provided. They will not
reveal themselves, because then their secret would be out and nothing can back
up their claims. They will be like the Erich von Dänikens of the world. So we are
counting on you.”

“Don’t
count on me.”

He
smiled and poured himself another glass of wine.