Decipher by Stel Pavlou Read Free Book Online Page B

arrested him, but his followers, believing he’d gone to heaven, set up a church in his honor. Prayed to him for salvation. They did any damn idiotic thing except bother to take the twenty-minute walk down to the local jailhouse where Kimbangu was starving to death. And even more insane—the church still exists today! Think about it! Why did the Crusaders lay siege to a castle at Hosen Al Akre for three days before realizing it was populated by sheep?” Scott suddenly asked innocently. “Religion, that’s why.”
    Fergus glowered. “Religion,” he corrected, “is the closest we can get to the beginning. To knowing where we come from as a species. And why we’re here.”
    â€œWhy are you here?”
    It was as pointed as it was grim. And Fergus’s mood altered to accommodate. “I came to let you know that as of
this morning, the Vatican is the major benefactor for the Anthropology Department at Washington State. In order to conclude the deal certain prerequisites were required. One of which was to shake up the Epigraphy wing.”
    Scott’s face drained.
    Fergus gulped. “They let you go. There’s a letter already waiting for you in your hotel room. I’m sorry.” He took a final drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out with his foot.
    Â 
    They let him go. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but the manner in which they delivered the message was a jolt. Sending Fergus was a stroke of genius.
    â€œDr. Scott! Dr. Scott!”
    Scott spun on his heel to see November Dryden racing across the lawn toward them. The sun made her skin look like fine porcelain, and her body moved with a rhythm all of its own. He tried to focus on that and shift his mood into another gear but it wasn’t happening. “November,” Scott said in a daze. “What can I do for you?”
    Her chest heaved as she got her breath back. She glanced nervously at Fergus, who was busy enjoying the air, and tried to smile but she was a Southern girl through and through. This was a man of the cloth and deserved respect. Scott made a mental note to himself. November was a smart young woman. He had to make sure that when the tour was over, he would set aside some money and sponsor her to get a place in college, well out of state. She’d been mentioning she wanted a shot at a research assistantship. Maybe he could swing something.
    â€œYou forgot your package,” she said breathlessly. “You know—the one from your lecture?”
    November handed over a large brown paper package which Scott immediately ripped open. It contained a set of documents, photographs, articles—a whole geological report on global flooding by a women named Sarah Kelsey. But then he found the covering letter.
    â€œWhat is it?” Fergus asked warily when he saw the expression on Scott’s face.
    But Scott wasn’t about to tell him. His mind was racing as he took out the slip of paper from inside. It was an itinerary. Hotel and flight details. But the really important feature was
the handwritten note on the back. To the average Joe it didn’t mean a thing, but to Richard Scott it meant the world. And that the world itself was about to have a very rude awakening.
    He started across the lawn, lost in thought before he realized he’d left Fergus standing there. He turned and met the priest’s gaze. “Tell the Board they didn’t fire me,” he called out steadily. “I quit.”
    Then he picked up the pace. Re-reading the note.
    Civilization was said to have begun in the third millennium Before the Common Era, or Before Christ, with the advent of a writing system called cuneiform. Before that point, writing was thought to consist of crude scratchings and ill-thought-out pictographic symbols. Any evidence of a complex language and writing system pre-dating cuneiform would therefore mean a major re-think of the dawn of civilization. Every history book