The Pharos Objective (18 page)

If Caleb had ever wanted to get back into the hunt, Phoebe had just given him the means to take the first step.

2

Alexandria—March

Nolan Gregory sat in a wicker chair on his son’s seventh-floor balcony. The apartment, while somewhat light on luxury, had a strategic view from its western side, at least for certain interested people. Nolan had observed this very scene every night for almost two decades, beginning with every move the bulldozers had made below, every truck carrying away the ruined pieces of old warehouses, apartments and abandoned shacks. Now, he gazed with pride at the glass domed rooftop of the massive library, marveling at the crowds, the tourists, the scholars.

“It’s been five hours,” his son said from inside the screen. “Can I at least get you another drink?”

Nolan shook his head as he continued to watch. “No, Robert. I’m fine. I should be going.” In his mind he visualized the layout below the dome, remembering the excavation of the sub-levels, the laying of the foundations, the steel girders. He thought of the precision needed to connect to their sub-level, already in place one hundred feet below. So much to think about, so much to supervise. All from behind the scenes of course. A dozen firms had been brought in, capital from so many organizations, interested benefactors, governments and private donors. Consultants, architects, linguists, sociologists.

Such a project. It had easily consumed the last twenty years of his life. Two decades that had seen his children grow from precocious teenagers to successful adults, each with their own lives—his son here, his daughter overseas.

But each of them Keepers. Valued colleagues.

The screen opened and Robert came out, leaned on the ledge and looked down. His blond hair rippled in the soft breezes. His piercing blue eyes followed his father’s gaze, looking down at the structure with something more like jealousy and impatience. “I’m uncomfortable with your plans for the Key’s retrieval,” he said.

“I know,” Nolan replied, “I know. But it’s the only way. We’ve been lucky so far. Lucky the son has turned his back on his talents, and lucky he’s distanced himself from his family. He’s given us time.”

“Must we move now?” Robert asked. “Waxman is getting nowhere. He’s given up.”

“Wishful thinking. He’s only biding his time, still hoping the other psychics can help him. Fortunately, Helen and Phoebe Crowe haven’t succeeded, but it’s only a matter of time at this point. One of them will find the Key if we don’t get it first.”

Robert lowered his head as the smell of curry and raisins filtered out from the kitchen, where his mother was busy making their evening meal. “So it has to be this way.”

“Yes.”

“And she has agreed?”

Nolan sighed, again gazing at the shimmering reflection of the sun’s setting light off the glass dome, and he told himself that whatever the personal risks, it was worth it. “She’s ready.”

3

New York City—October

The remainder of Caleb’s research, six months before a fury of writing and revisions, passed in a blur of old books, dank library archives, endless hours in museums and the rare book sections of various universities. He needed his own place, needed the isolation and quiet to see the project through. And so he holed up in a Manhattan 72
^nd
Street studio apartment, one where he just barely met the rent payments by clerking in the Classics section at the New York Library during the summer. But that was all about to change.

Six months ago he had secured an agent, a publisher, and a $50,000 advance on a work entitled
The Life and Times of the Alexandrian Library
. It was the culmination of reams of notes, anecdotes, theories and research. Advance praise was extraordinary; it was being hailed as “a classic with epic non-fictional characters that seem so lifelike it’s as if Caleb Crowe has actually stepped back in time and observed the places and events in person.”

There was, of course, some truth to the statement. Although he had sworn off using any form of psychic abilities since Nina’s death, sometimes his subconscious, overwhelmed with the intensity of the research and late-night writing, took over with its own agenda. It would yank him into a waking dream to stroll among philosophers in white robes, their voices echoing off the alcoves as they spoke to rapt pupils. He would wander the ten colossal chambers of learning, savoring the breath of ancient truth exuding from the scrolls held therein. He would peer out the windows, looking past the dark silhouette of the Pharos Lighthouse and up into the heavens where his fellow scholars had mapped out the trails of the gods.

He had rubbed shoulders with Euclid, drunk wine with Claudius Ptolemy, dissected corpses with Aristarchus, charted the cycles of Venus with Hipparchus, and tinkered alongside Heron. And all of those experiences—the sights and sounds, the flavor of those revered halls and the luxurious museum grounds—they all made their way into his book as revelations and wonders and theories that modern scholars and critics were fast to admonish; yet something about his forceful style and the strength in his words proved irresistibly satisfying to readers.

Today was his first book signing, at a trendy café in Soho on a late October afternoon. A steady, drizzling rain tapped against the windows, and the cabs squealed out front while shoppers scurried by. The thick aroma of coffee permeated the air. Caleb’s stomach was tangled up in binding knots, and his voice was on the verge of cracking. More than forty people had packed the small room, a host of multicolored umbrellas and rain slickers—and one bright orange shawl beneath a grinning face.

Phoebe was there, in the back of the room, hands folded, a copy of his book in her lap. The lustrous metal handles on the chair glistened with raindrops. Her surprising appearance—the first time Caleb had seen her since Christmas—was all he needed to gather his courage, to relax and let the words flow.

He spoke of the incalculably valuable storehouse of knowledge lost in the library’s destruction. Briefly, he highlighted the acquisition of books from around the world and how the library and the museum served as the world’s first university. He touched on the great names associated with the museum and the scrolls. He spoke of Kallimakhos and his innovative cataloging method that led to the current card catalog system; then he turned to speculation of what major works had been lost forever. According to surviving memoirs, biographies and other histories, among the lost works were plays of Homer, Plato and Virgil; mathematical treatises by Euclid; medical texts that described treatments for what remain today incurable diseases. Then there were metaphysical texts, spiritual guides to awaken the soul and expand one’s consciousness.

Next, so as not to bore them completely, Caleb turned to the major theories about the catastrophic destruction of all this knowledge, delving into the bloodshed and intolerance that had brought all these works to flames. He spoke of Caesar and the later Roman emperors who, in their zeal to crush Alexandrian rebellions, had inadvertently or consciously torched sections of the library. He spoke of Emperor Theodosius’s decrees that had incited the Christian mobs in 391 AD, and even touched on the questionable theory that Arab conquerors had depleted the library’s scrolls as a means to heat the city’s steam baths, citing the famous order of destruction from the caliph of Cairo: “The scrolls either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they agree with it, so they are superfluous.”

About halfway through his presentation, Caleb looked up and saw another bright face watching from the counter beside a gold-plated espresso machine. A blond-haired woman looked across the room through narrow-rimmed glasses. She wore a neat gray suit over a tight yellow blouse. For some reason, despite the enthralled stares of the others, young and old packing the tables and chairs, her attention made Caleb uncomfortable.

But he continued, drawing a welcome smile from Phoebe, who held up his book and made a signing motion. He hurried to wrap up his talk, reading from the last chapter, “. . . The mob burst into the Serapeum, shattered the meager defenses of the scholars and priestesses inside, then proceeded to tear down statue after statue, demolishing urns, altars and artwork. A trio of young men guarded an arched doorway on the east side.” His voice cracked here as he pictured the scene in his mind. After all, he had witnessed it first-hand . . .

. . . as one of the mob. He finds himself urged on with vitriolic hate and burning venom as the Patriarch Theophilus stands behind them, waving his blazing cross and shouting passages from Leviticus. He storms past marble columns, swinging a torch in one hand and a twisted tree branch in the other. He howls as he strikes down one youth, crushes his skull, and falls upon the defenders. The others surge at his back and push him through the door into a large chamber with a rounded ceiling. Across each wall are hollowed-out alcoves overflowing with neatly packed scrolls, trembling like bees in a hive.

With a shout for God and for their Patriarch, twenty of the zealots race across the floor, brandishing torches and crying with delight. The room cowers before their shadows, moving in a twisted parody of an ancient orgiastic dance. Gleefully the men hurl their torches into every corner, igniting anything that will burn.

He barely makes it out, coughing and choking on smoke, trampling on the bodies of men and women, “protectors” of the temple of learning. He takes one last look at a statue of Seshat holding a book to her chest, toppling as four monks run, cheering. Then a burst of flame roars out of the archway, the roof collapses, and a dozen rioters are crushed.

He trips, catches himself, then stumbles over debris and falls at the feet of Theophilus, who holds up a blazing silver cross with both hands and shouts to the heavens, offering up to God their glorious victory.

With stinging eyes, he looks out over Alexandria and witnesses other pyres burning into the huddled night, smoke clouds rising, rising, occluding the stars and blurring the lights of heaven.

Across the harbor, beyond the pall of death and smoke, the lighthouse beacon flickers as if blinking away its tears.

Caleb closed with a brief but chilling postscript on how the early Christians had solidified their hold on the city, vanquishing first by edict and then by violence all record of the early learning. They had forbidden the study of the classics, burning remaining copies of scrolls and assaulting those who still practiced the old beliefs. In many ways, this body of classical work—the robust philosophical ruminations of the past—had shaped and molded and even nurtured Christianity; but now, in the ultimate betrayal, the fledgling religion was stabbing its mentor in the back.

He focused on Hypatia, the familiar classic tragedy of the last great symbol of enlightenment. How this respected scholar-author and teacher had been pulled from her chariot by the incited mob and torn limb from limb, her flesh carved from her bones with stones and shells, then burned and fed to dogs. Only, Caleb added a minor detail he alone knew, having seen it in one of his visions: “. . . At the end, through a haze of blood and flayed skin, she looked toward the Pharos, and as they beat and clawed and ripped at her body, she seemed to reach for it as a last refuge, or perhaps something more. A necklace was torn from her neck—a chain with a gold charm of the caduceus.”

Maybe it meant nothing, Caleb told myself, or maybe . . . she had been down
there
.

He closed the book and took a deep breath. His mouth was dry. He eyed a full glass of water balanced on the edge of the podium. Phoebe stared at him, open-mouthed. Then, the woman at the counter began to clap, and the room erupted into applause.

Caleb spent the next forty minutes signing books and thanking people for braving the nasty weather. He listened to boring stories of the customers’ favorite authors and travels and anything else they wanted to talk about. Finally, the crowd thinned and people made room for Phoebe, who rolled up to his table. She held his book to her chest, hugging it fiercely.

“Oh, Mr. Famous Author,”—her pony tail wagged back and forth as she shook her head—“won’t you sign something clever in my book? Something sweet, and maybe give me your phone number?”

Caleb walked around the table and gave her a crushing hug. In the corner of his eye, the strange but beautiful woman at the counter sipped an espresso and watched him carefully. “I didn’t know you were coming,” Caleb said. “How—?”

“It’s in all the papers back home, big brother. You know how dull the
Sodus Gazette
can be. They ran out of shore-erosion stories and interviews with the apple farmers, so they had to look elsewhere for news.”

“Great. So Mom knows.”

“Of course. She’s been following your career, while respecting your need for privacy. She and Dad—”

“‘Dad’?”

“Sorry, Mr. Waxman—”

“They got married?”

“Yeah.” She lowered her eyes. “In March.”

Caleb groaned.

Phoebe looked down at her hands. “I know you hate him, but really, he has been good to Mom. He’s supported her, and kept the house going. They’ve published articles together, worked on some other special projects. It was like they were living together anyway, so—”