ago. He knew all the characters, understood the plot and accepted his role.
Caleb smiled. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”
The half-hour drive to the small airstrip outside of Oswego proceeded in silence. Seeing that Waxman, who sat across from him in the dark, was fit only to stare and to wait, Caleb closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. At the airport, they boarded a black helicopter, and mercifully the background noise was too great to allow for conversation. Caleb avoided eye contact with Waxman and used the time to meditate, to think on the past, to think about his father and what he might have been trying to tell him in all those childhood visions.
And he thought about the eighth sign. The final key.
He thought of Sostratus and Demetrius, of Alexander, Caesar and Marc Antony. Theodosius and Ptolemy, Hypatia, King Michael and Qaitbey. A hundred names and images drifted in and out of his mind’s eye and brought a smile to his face, as if familiar friends were dropping by. He felt the tug of the other world several times, felt the ripple in the veil, but left it alone. Now was not the time. He breathed deeply and calmly, preserving his focus, waiting and saving his strength.
They landed at Rochester International Airport, and then boarded a private jet to Langley. Again, at first they didn’t speak a single word to each other, sitting in chairs facing one another. Caleb merely smiled at him and stared at a point over his shoulder. Finally, Waxman broke. “How’s my wife?”
“My mother is resting comfortably.”
“That’s good.”
Caleb nodded.
Waxman tapped his fingers together. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Caleb nodded again.
“How long have you known?”
Caleb shrugged. “Not long enough. I never trusted you, but I never asked-”
“-the right questions. I know.” Waxman chuckled to himself smugly. “Don’t worry, for what it’s worth, you’re still the best psychic I’ve ever come across. And I’ve seen a lot of them.”
The plane tilted slightly and Caleb’s stomach compensated. The plane had just cleared a mass of churning clouds and emerged into the stark, cool blue of the heavens, with slanting rays of sunlight dazzling off the wing.
Caleb smiled. “Was Stargate yours?”
Waxman reached for a glass of scotch and ice, looked down, then back up and composed himself again. “It was. It is.”
“I see.” Caleb folded his arms. “Then rumors of its demise were exaggerated?”
“Stargate was far too important to close. And the fools in the Senate didn’t know what they had. They only wanted to cover their re-election chances. They couldn’t fund this kind of research openly, so we had to go underground. You understand.”
“Of course.” Caleb watched him carefully. He saw the way he stole furtive glances, trying to size Caleb up.
I’ve surprised him twice today.
Waxman was probably hoping Caleb didn’t know anything else, but he wasn’t sure. Maybe Caleb had probed deeper into his past. What else had he intruded upon?
“Stargate continues,” Waxman said, “with a smaller scope, a limited budget, and much less interference. They only ask for one summary report a year on my progress, which I purposely keep vague and conflicting so as not to attract any undue attention.” He drained his glass. “You and I both know the phenomenon is real, and we know what it’s capable of. I have bigger concerns than proving its validity to anyone.”
“Bigger even than national security?” Caleb gave a little chuckle. “You could have been using us to see into North Korea or Iran, to find bin Laden or predict the next terrorist bombings.”
“True, but I actually find such distractions useful. Again, political attention is directed elsewhere while I address the true security issues of our world. There is so much more at stake, and I am the one who will preserve us.”
“Really? You’re to be our savior?”
He glared at Caleb. “Imagine if the contents of that vault fell into the wrong hands. Men are basically evil, Caleb. You know this. Your precious alchemy books say as much. Why do you think the old high priests kept the sacred texts away from the masses? Why did they write in hieroglyphics that could only be read by the most educated and privileged? Knowledge must be guarded. Why, later on, was it punishable by death to even own a copy of the Bible?”
“Priests wanted to consolidate their power. Knowledge is power.”
“Yes, but knowledge is also dangerous. Didn’t Pope Gregory the Great say ‘ignorance is the mother of devotion’?” Waxman shook his glass around and the ice chinked as it melted. He had returned the favor and was now surprising Caleb. “Tell me something. If you found your way into that vault, and the treasure was everything you believe it to be-the power of life and death, the power of creation, the power for men to become gods-what would you do with it?”
His eyes locked on Caleb’s, and for the first time in his presence, Caleb felt like a little boy again, afraid to speak. The truth was, he didn’t know what he would do.
Waxman grinned. “I’ll tell you what the Keepers would do. What your lovely Lydia and her father would have done. They were going to keep the books for themselves. Create a new order of the elite. They were going to rule. Talk about the corruption of absolute power…”
So Waxman wasn’t one of them.
“And you?” Caleb asked. “What will you do with it?”
Waxman smiled and sat back, stretching out his feet. “The only thing that’s appropriate. The only way to protect the balance of life on this planet. The only way to ensure peace and security.” His eyes blazed. “The only way to protect the billions of souls from undergoing the hell you and I experience every day.”
And then Caleb understood.
Waxman made two fists, and his glass shattered. “Those books open the gates of hell, Caleb. Just a glimpse, thousands of years ago, partially restored the connection between spirit and material, between life and death-”
“-above and below.”
“Exactly.” He calmed down and gently picked a glass shard out of his left palm. “The door only opened a fraction, and for two millennia afterwards, the Church and the armies of man have valiantly done their best to slam that door shut again. But once opened, the stubborn influences are hard to put back.”
He kept talking, eyes glazing over and seeing beyond Caleb and the plane itself. “I believe a few intelligent men, kings and priests, understood the threat and tried their best to destroy these elements, or at least alter them so the rest of us wouldn’t be tempted. Witchcraft, demonism, occultism-these were the names given to any study of the esoteric, any attempt to link the two realms and travel from ours to theirs or vice versa. We punished these crimes by torture, death and enslavement, but still the sickness remained, refusing to be eradicated. Secret societies continued the forbidden practices, and kept the fragile link operating, only barely.” He gave a look of disgust. “In time the defenses were weakened, and now we have Ouija boards, seances, crystals, psychic hotlines and palm readings, New Age movements. And people are moving back towards such beliefs.”
Caleb shook his head. “And the sacred texts under the Pharos.. ”
“If released, they will only lead people to eternalmisery and damnation.”
“So what will you do?” Caleb asked, already fearing he knew the answer.
Waxman leaned forward, with unblinking eyes boring right into Caleb’s soul. “Destroy them all. Every tablet, every scroll. Every single letter of every word.”
Caleb couldn’t breathe.
“Do you see? Do you, Caleb? What’s a single terrorist hiding out in the hills? What’s another bombing compared to the widespread, wholesale change in consciousness that will come if these books are released? Our entire way of life will be torn apart. There will be no privacy, no place to hide. And good, honest people will be eternally plagued by the shades of the other world, every day, every hour… every minute. Their pasts will be their present, and their sins can never be left behind.”
Caleb found his voice, and decided now was the time to play his trump card. A glimpse he had seen, a flash
