Luckily Paulson had not bothered with password protection. He must have figured the computer was already safe enough. Which presumably also meant the database was not wired to the internet.
The desktop screen revealed a bronze globe icon identified as the Verus Foundation Historical Archive. There was no mouse. He touched the screen in the middle of the globe.
“You ever heard of the Verus Foundation?” Mel asked him.
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” he admitted.
The touch screen opened to an index listing chapters of human history in files marked by the century from the present day right back to ancient Sumer around 4000BC. Luckman noticed a search engine in the top corner and quickly turned up a chronology of the Verus Foundation itself.
“…formed in 1947 by President Harry Truman… William “Wild Bill” Donovan as a founding member…”
Wild Bill Donovan founded the OSS – the wartime predecessor of the CIA. He was also a devout Catholic.
Luckman kept reading:
“The Verus Foundation was formed to operate outside the auspices of the US administration as a single source of all top-secret information on the subject of non-human intelligence, or NOHUMINT.”
He flicked through several more pages that didn’t attract his attention, then found a section outlining the foundation’s key initiative.
“To research and compile the true history of humanity without partisan political or religious filter.”
Luckman sat back from the screen. How was that even possible? History had to be sourced, you couldn’t simply make it up. And those sources were, by definition, partisan.
So what was the Verus Foundation’s information source?
The foundation’s own history continued for dozens of pages. Scores of other documents branched off on a long list of subjects. Luckman suspected they all supported the same underlying thesis – everything you know is wrong.
A strong part of him wanted to believe the Verus files were a madman’s flight of fantasy but his guts told him otherwise. Finding the database buried deep inside a secure vault surrounded by squillions of dollars in gold bullion lent the material a certain air of authenticity. Yet he had no way of knowing whether the material was genuine.
Something else occurred to him. “This would seem to confirm that Clarence Paulson was a very old man when he died. According to this, Bill Donovan asked him to join the Verus Foundation in the late 1940s. But the body I saw on the river bed was of a man in his late 30s, maybe early 40s.”
“What are you thinking – time travel?” she asked.
“Maybe. Who knows?” He began to feel claustrophobic. In need of fresh air he started for the door.
Mel grabbed his arm. “You sure that’s a good idea?” Her concern heightened as she saw in his eyes an anxiety bordering on panic.
He looked away. “What do you make of all this?” he asked quietly.
“All I’ve got is intuition, which tells me it’s genuine. Look around – something big is going on here.”
He headed for the door and didn’t stop until he was at the top of the stairs. The security camera confirmed there was no-one in Paulson’s office. He pushed a green button below the screen. The hatch opened and he stepped into the room, feeling the cool breeze blowing through the open window. All was quiet. He paused a moment to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the dark.
Why would the police leave the window open? He moved closer to chance a look outside. Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance, filling him once more with a sense of unease. From the corner of his eye he thought he detected movement but the lightning had sent his dilated pupils ducking for cover and the room was pitch black. As he turned away from the window lightning flashed a second time.
“It’s intriguing, yes?”
As his eyes began to adjust he made out the figure of Paolo Favaloro standing in the corner of the room.
“I’ve never seen it myself,” Favaloro continued, “but all that gold must be a sight to behold.”
Luckman heard Mel as she entered the study behind him, but he maintained his focus on Favaloro.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I found my vanishing man,” said Luckman.
“I am the witness,” Favaloro offered cryptically.
Mel stared silently into the dark corner of the study without responding. Fear dug a knife between Luckman’s ribs.
“Jesus Christ, tell me you can see him.”
“Relax, I see him.” She started walking towards Paolo.
“Or rather I see through him.” She waved her hand through him like he was a ghost. As she did so she shuddered and for a moment her hand tremored.
“I am not of your physical world,” said Favaloro. “I am a construct.”
“But I shook your hand,” Luckman recalled.
“Because in that moment I came to you in the flesh. But on this occasion it is safer for me I stay where I am.”
“All very Star Wars, isn’t it?” said Mel enthusiastically.
“So you’re what – a hologram?” Luckman asked him.
“It is more accurate to say I am a mirror image.”
“I see,” Luckman replied, although really he didn’t see at all. Lightning flashed again, closer now. Somewhere in the back of his mind Luckman realised there was something odd about the lightning.
“They know you are here,” Favaloro told them.
“Why did they kill Paulson?” asked Luckman.
“No thunder,” said Mel. “There’s lightning, but no thunder.”
As if in response, the yard was suddenly plunged into vivid daylight. It was as if the midday sun had emerged from behind a dark cloud. But there were no clouds in the night sky and the light was way too bright for even a full moon. Meaning the source was artificial, although whatever it was made no sound above the delicate whisper of the night. Luckman recalled his dream of a tin shack and a dark malevolence. It seemed whatever had wormed its way inside his head was now stalking them for real.
“It is imperative you return to the vault,” insisted Favaloro. “They will not follow.”
“But Eddie’s out there!”
“The pilot is of no interest to them,” Favaloro assured him.
“I only have your word on that.”
“If you try to leave this house now they will be on you before you reach the riverbank.”
Mel stared at the open window like it was the mouth of a shark. “I really don’t want to go out there.”
“What did Paulson do to piss them off?” asked Luckman.
“He sought to speak the truth.”
“Sorry, but can you try not speaking in motherhood statements?”
“There is one true memory nestled in the collective unconscious,” said the Italian.
“You mean the Akashic Record,” said Mel.
Favaloro nodded then, for Luckman’s benefit, added: “The ultimate account of human history is inside you, woven through the strands of your DNA.”
“So Paulson found a way to tap into that,” Luckman realised.
“Through the viewing chair. You have seen this chair, yes?”
Again the light pulsed in the sky above the house. Luckman pointed outside. “Who are they?”
“They are the Others. They… are not to be trusted.”
“Interesting you should mention trust. I’m wondering if Clarence Paulson might have had issues with you on that score, seeing as how he never let you inside his vault.”
“The pact between Verus and the Others dictated that Paulson must not rely upon my words alone.”
“He had a pact with them?”
“But he needed another source for verification. He kept his sources separate from one another. I am the living Ha Qabala, the truth giver.”