Suddenly, Kavanaugh felt he was being treated more like a functionary, not the one in control. He didn’t like it.
“With all due respect,” Kavanaugh said in an equally flat tone, “this is a new day. And if you don’t want to follow my directives, then I’ll find someone who will.”
The immediate silence was satisfying. Kavanaugh rejoiced with the notion that he had stood his ground and apparently won. He left without looking back. The new age of Autem Semita had begun. He was forging his own path.
“I’ll try another way into all this,” Greene decided. “Let’s go back to when more than ninety percent of life was wiped out in a geological blink of an eye — sixty-five thousand years ago. Ninety percent! So fast that it destabilized the biosphere before animals and plants could adapt. The record is in the rocks — evidence that speaks to the quick increase in carbon levels.”
McCauley and Dr. Alpert could have recited the history as well, but they’d never heard it delivered with such electricity, like a Ted Talk on steroids.
“It was followed by wide-spread ocean acidification. The earth’s temperatures increased seventeen to eighteen degrees Fahrenheit.
“That was just one of at least five extinctions. Five. We’re well on our way to a sixth with mass extinction on a scale that rivals the death of your beloved dinosaurs. Facts, doctors. Species are dying at a bewildering rate. The oceans are rising. The air is getting thicker with crap. It all has an impact on the ecosystem.”
Greene let out a long breath. “Sorry. I’ll get off my high horse and back to some stuff you’ll really hate.”
“What?” McCauley asked.
“The stuff that keeps talk shows calling.”
Greene stood and searched for files. He pulled one from a cabinet, another from a pile on the floor, and two from his desk. He looked around, apparently for more. “One sec,” he said. Greene went to the kitchen, opened his refrigerator and removed more files.
“The refrigerator?” Alpert asked.
“Yup. Some that are too hot to keep out,” he joked. “Not really, I stuck them in there while I was getting dinner one night. Never took them out. Now’s a good time.”
Greene returned and handed over the first of many photographs. McCauley took the first.
“It’s a picture of a vase found in a Massachusetts quarry in 1851.”
“Intricate. More like a candle holder.”
“Well, maybe. Who knows? It was embedded in a rock.” Greene paused. “Would you like to know how old researchers claim it is?”
“The rock or the vase?” McCauley said.
“Well, considering the vase is inside the stone, both!”
“What?”
“Look again. Inside the stone. Try 534 million years old.”
McCauley laughed. “Impossible.”
“Here’s another.” Greene handed Alpert the second photograph. McCauley slid closer on the already crowded leather couch.
“This is from the Chernogorodskiy mines in Russia. See the rail-shaped piece of aluminum machinery? It was discovered in a piece of coal. Again, in a piece of coal. The metal was dated to the time of the coal’s formation — three hundred million years ago.”
McCauley laughed again. “By whom, the Moscow Ballet?”
Greene ignored the snarky comment. “Another.” It was a drawing, not a photograph, of a semi-ovoid device. “This came from a French coal mine in the 1880s. Workers broke open a block of rock and voilà—a metallic tube. Put a sixty-five million year sticker on it.”
“You said it. It’s just a drawing. A sketch,” McCauley argued.
“Yes, quite accurately a drawing. A photograph of a drawing, though in a sense, wouldn’t Native American petroglyphs be considered sketches?”
“I’ll give you that one,” McCauley admitted.
“Okay class. I have more. Check this out. A human handprint.”
They examined the photo of a stone with a human hand spread out next to it.
“It’s a fossil uncovered in limestone. One hundred ten million years old. And here, a fossilized human finger discovered in the Canadian arctic. Again, one hundred ten million years ago. Another fossilized hand from Bogota, Columbia. One hundred thirty million years old. And this footprint, found in a shale deposit near Delta, Utah.”
“Three hundred up to six hundred million years old,” McCauley proclaimed.
“Jesus, you’re familiar with this?” Alpert asked.
“No way, I just know my Utah shale.”
“I saved the best for last.”
Greene pulled one more photo from his refrigerator files.
“They call this a Klerksdorp sphere. It was excavated from a mine near Ottosdal, South Africa. It’s not one of a kind, either. Miners have been digging them up for decades.”
The object was oval with three parallel lines which ran across the entire circumference. “Two types have been found. One solid bluish with flecks of white, the other, hollow. Both were recovered with pyrophyllite.”
“That can’t be,” McCauley insisted.
“Why?”
“Why? Because pyrophyllite dates back to Precambrian.“
“So?”
Dr. Alpert now jumped in. “Precambrian is the oldest of the planet’s geological ages and covers the largest span of time in earth’s history. Roughly eighty-eight percent. It began with the planet’s formation 4.5 to 4.6 billion years ago and continued through the emergence of complex multi-celled life forms billions of years later.”
“Its record is evident through different layers of sedimentary rock, laid one on top of another over eons,” she continued by heart. “There was almost no oxygen until 2.4 billion years ago when oxygen was released from the oceans through photosynthesis of cyanobacteria. It wasn’t breathable until some eight hundred million years ago. That’s when complex organisms began to emerge. And yes, there are fossilized remains of early plants and animals within the sediments. But a man-made metal sphere?”
Greene let the question settle, then simply added, “Who said man-made?”
Parked diagonally across the street and three homes down from Greene’s ranch house sat a rented black Lincoln Navigator. The driver kept the motor idling and the air conditioning blasting to keep the interior cool. He had a straight in view of the subject’s house and all the comings and goings. The driver, a dedicated man, had already emailed out the first photographs from his Wi-Fi capable Canon digital/video camera. Now he just waited.
This was a relatively easy job, with no fingerprints to clean up or trails to cover for the retired SAS officer and ex-Halliburton security chief. His assignments came in encrypted messages. Deadly boring or adrenalin pounding, it was all the same. He didn’t ask what or why. Money took the question mark out of everything. He was a veteran and, unlike the firm he worked for, he didn’t have to be a believer.
Thirty-four
“Now your turn, doctors. I’m sure you didn’t come all this way to listen to me go on and on about something you could have seen on online.”
McCauley stood. “Mr. Greene, I want to thank you. You’ve been very generous with your time. It’s been entertaining to say the least. But ancient aliens are not going to cut it for us. They’re great for your audiences, but not for me.”
“Excuse me. My fault. I didn’t make myself clear,” Greene offered. “Give me a few more minutes to explain. Maybe I can get beyond your discomfort.”
“A few minutes,” Katrina said agreeing with McCauley that Greene was beginning to sound too far-fetched.