… and great heaving waves undulate where the cabinets used to be. The table has changed to a wooden railing. He hears the call of gulls following overhead, and when he looks, a great white sail bisected with a crimson stripe blocks out the churning clouds and darkening skies.
“Father,” comes a voice at his side, and he glances down to see a boy, no more than ten, huddled in a blanket as if he just woke up and stumbled out from the quarters below. “When will we land again?”
“Not soon. It is not yet safe.”
“Will it ever be safe?” The boy’s face falls, but his eyes shimmer. A lone gull screeches overhead, and a raindrop falls on his cheek as the boat rolls from side to side.
“We will take on supplies in a month. But then it is back to sea.”
The child frowns. “We must keep moving?”
“We must.”
“Why?”
“You will know. In time.”
“Will it be soon?”
“Perhaps.” He feels such pain in his heart when he looks at his son, and he’s only too aware of the wheezing in his lungs. He does not have much time. He curses the intervening years since he left Alexandria. He curses time and fate. But still, he accepts that this is the will of the One. It is true he waited too long to father an heir. But now it is done, and the boy is almost ready.
His son looks out to sea again. He stares at the formless gray horizon where a distant rainstorm connects the sea to the sky, the above to the below. It draws on his imagination.
It is a good sign.
He is almost ready.
Something jarred Caleb into the present, and the railing was replaced by the wooden edge of the kitchen table. The cold room took focus again. A hundred small, bright objects were swirling about the kitchen, dancing and fluttering, and at first Caleb thought someone had let in a horde of moths that were swarming about, searching for heat and light.
Then he saw that they were snowflakes. And he saw the open door. Two men in black coats were standing on either side of the table. Through the open door Caleb saw a black limousine waiting in the driveway.
“Mr. Crowe,” said one of the men, “Mr. Waxman is waiting for you to join him.”
Caleb stood up, as if rising from a dream and stepping toward the next chapter in a book he’d written long 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…”