James Steimle - The Kukulkan Manuscript

Alred frowned.

“-herself,” Porter smiled. “In order to do that, we have to write something that stands out. The best way anyone has found of doing that is to find something new in all the old material; stand on the shoulders of past scientists, and say they were wrong, and we are right, and here’s why!”

“What does this have to do with carbon 14 dating?”

“After my archaeology professor informed us that my recently severed ear would register to be older than my great grandfather, he gave us examples of numerous artifacts which have been dated far older than they could have been. A cola can found in Germany on the side of the autobahn weighed in at a hundred plus years. That particular can was obviously a recent invention.”

“So all the scientists are wrong?” Alred said, folding her arms tightly.

Porter caught a sudden whiff of Alred’s pleasant perfume and felt moisture run down the small of his back. “Not at all.”

“You’re saying all the dating archaeologists have been doing is completely useless. I understand your facts, but wouldn’t scientists recognize these peculiarities? Or is this knowledge yours alone?” Wise sarcasm colored every word.

Porter turned his chair to the left, stared for a moment at one pile of books, withdrew a red hard-bound copy, and flipped into the pages. “Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise write of the problem in carbon dating the Dead Sea Scrolls, stating clearly that ‘the process is still in its infancy, subject to multiple variables, and too uncertain to be applied with precision to the kind of materials we have before us.’ Of course scholars see the problems with dating procedures we use today.”

“So why do they continue to use carbon dating…if it’s faulty?” Her voice was sharp and almost demeaning. She squinted her eyes and looked down on him as if he was nothing more than an arrogant child arguing against the existence of the wind.

“Same reasons chemists, biologists, and physicists use faulty ideas in their experiments. Until someone proves the world is round, we are forced to accept that the world is flat! It may not be flat, but we can only use evidences available to us…in science. Someone always comes along and changes the system to one degree or another. As far as archaeologists know, there is at least a fifty to a couple-of-hundred years potential variation on anything we date. And that is what we know. But then that truth could change any day now! In the meantime, we can only work with what we have.”

“Then we’ll send KM-2 in and let them cut a piece from it,” Alred said.

“Soon as you’re finished with your analysis,” Porter grinned.

Alred left without saying good-bye.

Porter leaned into his leaning desk and stared at the cracked door. She hates me, he thought. She didn’t stay, as planned, and they were in a rush. She even forgot her bag. Would she return for it?

He put his fingers to his lips and rested on his elbows.

He knew he had a reputation for being overbearing. His eccentricities had gifted him with a lonely life. And here was someone willing to share some time with him…he hoped. He had to straighten out, be helpful.

Porter slapped himself in the forehead and returned to his translating.

They would know within a few days when the manuscript had been written.

Alred stomped away with one thing in mind. She only needed a few major pieces of the puzzle to give her counter dissertation power. Other scholars had already set the foundation for her argument. KM-2 would prove to be the final key to destroying the theory of ancient transoceanic contact as Porter described it.

Soon, those points would present themselves.

But on the way to her car, she couldn’t help but scan the darkness…for Dr. Ulman.

April 17

11:53 p.m. PST

Polaski’s breathing seemed to echo off of the office walls as his good fingers flipped quickly through the file. Wilkinson gurgled his last breath from the floor. Polaski dropped the papers with shaking hands. They spilled over the desk, the chair, the carpet.

“That’s it, I’m out’a here!” he said, running to the door.

He reached the street and looked around, driving thin fingers through his thick hair. “Great!” he said, remembering his car parked two blocks away. Sprinting, he crossed the quiet road, his heart thundering. Mutts barked somewhere in an alleyway. With a sigh, he swung around the corner and spotted his gold Mazda hatchback.

Figeroa leaned like a gargoyle against the door on the driver’s side. His dark skin frozen in the cold air, his black goatee shifted like porcupine spines as his eyes met Polaski’s.

“What are you doing here?” Polaski said to the brute, who glanced at his misshapen hand. Polaski hated it when people did that.

“Was the parking lot filled behind Wilkinson’s office?” Figeroa said. He shook his head. “You did it, didn’t you.” He came around the side of the car, his voice icy. “You murdered him!”

“You know what would have happened if I didn’t!” Polaski said as Figeroa shoved him. Polaski’s lanky body stumbled backward, his scarecrow arms waving in the air until he steadied himself.

“I can’t believe you killed him! Don’t you realize you’ve pinned us down? There’s no hope now! None!” said the gargoyle with dark eyes.

Polaski caught Figeroa by the shoulders. They pushed against each other as he commanded, “Quiet down!”

“What does it matter?” Figeroa said, his shadowy eyes wide, his hands locked on Polaski’s shoulders. “We’re dead men, now! They’re gonna fry us!”

“Get in the car,” Polaski said, keeping his voice down. His eyes cut up to the dark windows on the buildings around them. The street smelled of exhaust and oil.

“You have ruined my life!”

“I said sit!”

Forcefully, they pulled away from each other. Figeroa threw himself into the passenger seat as Polaski started the engine. Within minutes they were in Polaski’s apartment, packing a large Samsonite suitcase.

“We’ll go to your place next. Get your things,” Polaski said.

“No way, man. Can’t go back there!” Figeroa said, looking at each wall as if they hid police cameras.

“Fine!” Polaski said, flinging his closed bag at Figeroa’s chest.

Figeroa barely caught the bag. Its weight stabbed the snaps of his black suede jacket into his ribs. “What are you do’n?!”

“Get out of here!”

“What?!”

“Take the bag and run. There’s six-hundred dollars stashed in the bottom corner.”

“Huh?!”

“You heard me!” Polaski went into his closet, pulled at a shoe box on a high shelf, lost his grasp on it, and watched the. 38 spill out with the bullets when the container hit the floor. “I’m staying to make sure the carbon dating doesn’t happen.”

“Oh, man,” Figeroa said, watching Polaski load the gun, “You’re crazy. You killed Wilkinson and-”

“So?” Polaski shot him a hard glance. “I told you to leave! This is no longer your concern.” He slid bullets into the black revolver with shaky fingers.

“What did ya do to him?”

“Stabbed him with his letter opener,” Polaski said with a dry voice.

Figeroa shook his head, ran to the window, and peered out through the crack in the drapes. He almost laughed, but his voice trembled with nervousness. “Don’t suppose you wore gloves, did ya?”

“Shut up.”

He turned back to Polaski and shouted in his face, “Then your prints are all over the place! You probably left the murder weapon in Wilkinson’s back!”

“So what?!”

“Polaski,” Figeroa said, easing his shaking voice when his eyes stopped on the gun again. “You lost your wallet in the building earlier today, remember?”