Nabinger nodded. “Are you familiar with the Nazi cult of Thule?”
Slater slowly put down her glass. “Yes.” She was thoughtful for a moment. “Do you know that about ten years ago there was a great controversy in the medical community about using certain historical data to study hypothermia?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The best data ever documented on hypothermia was developed by Nazi doctors immersing concentration camp inmates in freezing vats of water and recording their decreasing bodily functions until they died. They also took some out of the water before they died and tried to resuscitate them by warming them up in various ways — which invariably failed to work. Not exactly something your typical medical researcher can do, but entirely realistic if you’re looking for accuracy.
“The decision the American medical community made was that data gathered in such a brutal and inhuman manner should not be used, even if it advanced current medical science and eventually saved lives. I do not know how you would feel about that issue. I don’t even know how I feel about it.”
Slater paused, then smiled. “Now I am the one circling the subject. But you must understand the situation. Of course, I have read the papers and documents available on the cult of Thule and on the Nazis’ fascination with Atlantis. It is part of my area of study. But there are those who would violently oppose any use of that information, so, as eccentric as some of my theories do seem, I have had to keep that particular piece of information out of my own papers and presentations.”
Nabinger leaned forward. “What have you found?”
“Why do you want to know?” Slater asked.
Nabinger reached into his backpack and pulled out his sketchbook. He handed her the drawing and rough translation. “That’s from the wall in the lower chamber of the Great Pyramid.” He checked his watch. He had to catch his return flight to Miami in an hour and a half. He proceeded to quickly relate Kaji’s story of Germans opening up the chamber in 1942, ending it by showing her Von Seeckt’s dagger. He then described his efforts at deciphering the high runes and the message he had taken off the wall of the chamber.
Slater heard him out. “This reference to a home place. Do you think that is reference to a place on the far side of the Atlantic?”
“Yes. And that’s why I’m here. Because the Germans — if they did go into that chamber in 1942, which I’m not absolutely convinced of yet despite the dagger— had to have gotten their information about the chamber from somewhere. Perhaps the Germans found writing somewhere that got them to that chamber, if you follow my logic.”
“I follow your logic.” Slater handed the drawing back. “In the early days of World War II, German U-boats operated extensively along the East Coast of the United States and here in the islands. They sank quite a bit of shipping. But they also conducted some other missions.
“As you have talked with this Kaji fellow in Egypt, I have talked to some of the old fishermen here in the islands, who know the waters and the history. They say that in 1941 there were numerous sightings of German submarines moving here among the islands. And that the submarines did not seem interested in hunting ships — since we are off the main shipping lanes here — but rather to be looking for something in the waters around the islands.”
Slater reached behind her and gathered some photos. “I think this is what they found.”
She handed them over. They appeared to be the same photos that she had presented at the conference. Large stone blocks, closely fitted together in about fifty feet of water.
Slater talked as Nabinger looked at the photos. “They might have been part of the outer wall of a city or part of a quay. There is no way of knowing, with large portions covered with coral and other underwater life and the sea bottom close by sloping off into unexplored depths. This section with the stones might be just a tiny part of a larger ancient site, or may be the only site, built there thousands of years ago when that area was above water. Built by a people we don’t know about, for a reason we can’t yet figure out.
“The major pattern of the stones is a long J or more accurately a horseshoe with the open end to the northeast. All told it’s about a third of a mile long in about fifty feet of water. Some of the stones are estimated to weigh almost fifteen tons, so they didn’t get there by accident and whoever did put them in place had a very advanced engineering capability. You can barely get a knife point in the joints between some of those stones.”
Slater stood up and leaned over Nabinger’s shoulder and pointed. “There.” There was a large, ragged gouge in one of the blocks.
“And this is?” Nabinger asked.
Slater shuffled through the photos. “Here,” she said, handing him a close-up of the scar on the block.
Nabinger peered at it. There were other, very faint, older marks — writing around the edges of the gouge! Very similar to what was in his notebook, but the gouge had destroyed any chance of deciphering it!
“What happened to this stone?” Nabinger asked.
“As near as I can tell,” Slater said, “it was hit by a torpedo.” She touched the picture, running her fingers over the high runes. “I’ve seen others like these. Ancient markings destroyed sometime in the last century by modern weapons.” Nabinger nodded. “They’re just like the ones I deciphered from the lower chamber. Not traditional hieroglyphics, but the older, high rune language.”
Slater walked over to a desk buried under stacks of folders and books. She rummaged through, then found what she was looking for. “Here,” she said, handing Nabinger a folder. “You are not the only one interested in the high rune language.”
He opened it. It was full of photos of high runes. Written on walls, on mud slabs, carved into rock — in just about every possible way by which ancient cultures had recorded their affairs. “Where did you take these photos?” Nabinger asked, his heart pounding with the thought of the potential information he held in his hands. He recognized several of the shots — the Central American site that had helped him begin his breaking of the rune code.
“There’s an index in the folder detailing where each photo was shot — they’re numbered. But, basically, several locations. Here, under the waves. In Mexico, near Veracruz. In Peru, at Tucume. On Easter Island. On some of the islands in Polynesia. Some from your neck of the woods in the Middle East — Egypt and Mesopotamia.”
“The same symbols?” Nabinger asked, thumbing through the photos. He had seen many of the same ones before, but there were a few new ones in there to add to his high rune database.
“Some differences. In fact, many differences,” Slater answered. “But, yes, I believe they all stem from the same root language and are connected. A written language that predates the oldest recorded language that is generally accepted by historians.”
Nabinger closed the binder. “I have been studying these runes for many years. I’ve seen a lot of what you have in here before — in fact I was able to decipher what I did of the wall of the chamber in the Great Pyramid using symbols from a South American site. But the question that bothers me — and why I have never made public my findings — is how can the same ancient writing have been found in such vastly separated places?”
Slater sat back down. “Are you familiar with the diffusionist theory of civilization?”
“Yes, I am,” Nabinger said. He knew what Slater was referring to despite the fact that the prevailing winds of thought this decade blew in favor of the isolationist theory of civilization. Isolationists believed that the ancient civilizations all developed independent of one another. Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Egypt — all crossed a threshold into civilization about the same time: around the third or fourth century before the birth of Christ.