James Steimle - The Kukulkan Manuscript

“I was pick-pocketed!” Polaski said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Some student’s got five dollars more than he had yesterday. He’ll toss the wallet in a dumpster, and no one will ever see it again.”

“You don’t know that! It might’a slipped out when you poked around Wilkinson’s office this morning! What if Wilkinson found it and put it somewhere safe, left the building for his meeting across town, returned this evening just in time to run into you and get killed?! Man, the cops will be storming your place before noon tomorrow!”

“Never committed a murder before,” Polaski said to himself, looking down at the gun. “Didn’t think I was capable.”

“You never will again!”

Polaski looked at Figeroa and slowly lifted the gun. “I told you to get out of here.”

Figeroa froze, silent for a minute. Then he said, “You fire that weapon and cops’ll be here instantly.”

“You’ll be dead,” Polaski said with wide eyes.

Without another word, Figeroa nodded slowly, bit his upper lip and went to the door. “You’re insane, man. Cops’ll get ya.”

Polaski didn’t lower the weapon until Figeroa had closed the door behind him. He sighed and looked at the window. In a low voice he said, “It’s not the police I’m worried about. If I don’t work fast, I’ll be dead by the time they find me.”

Porter’s covers were already on the floor. He turned hard enough to wrench off the mattress sheet.

No nightmares.

No sleep!

He stared at the bare wall for a while. The codex, its delicate pages covered in words that would stun the world, flashed again in his mind. He thought of the smell of the paper breaking into a fine mist of pepper, different from old books but so similar to Egyptian papyrus.

He closed his eyes in anger.

He knew he was going overboard with the subject, but he’d never run across something so exciting. The guys in Utah who worked for the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) would kill for this document…in a manner of speaking.

But its very existence in America wasn’t exactly legal. The thought burrowed like a tick into his brain.

He rolled again.

Alred was about the most uptight woman Porter had ever worked with. She was spending fewer hours with him as time went on. He’d caught her in the library two days before, volumes stacked neatly around her, pads of used paper open and piled under her busy hands. When he’d tried to find out what she was doing, she’d nearly bit the tips of his fingers off.

She was pretty.

Porter tossed on the bed.

Red letters of the clock glowed with a growl: 2:27.

April 18

“Hear the news today?” Porter said, catching Alred in the parking lot behind the Dover building. He’d waiting for almost an hour in the cold, hoping she’d show up. It was past noon, but the fog hadn’t subsided.

“I’m surprised you have time to watch television,” she said. She carried a black portfolio twice the size of a briefcase but only two and a half inches thick. She also wrestled with her bag, which she’d retrieved the day before.

“It was on the radio. Dr. Wilkinson was found stabbed to death in his office this morning. His own letter opener.”

“Professor Wilkinson-here?” Alred said, shooting him a glance, then staring off into memory-ville.

“Don’t suppose you want some help,” Porter said, looking at her full hands. The black overcoat she wore crowded her person and made her look like she carried more weight than she could have been. She was big-boned, so her outfit also seemed to give her an added fifty pounds around the waist.

“No thank you,” she said. “Any word on the dating?” Striding tall, Alred held her head up. Her relaxed eyes scanned the rear entrance to the building with Porter’s office. Porter tried to keep up.

“Not till tomorrow,” Porter said, still looking at her bags. “Dr. Atkins says she’s drowning in assignments. What’cha got there?”

“Are you always this persistent, Mr. Porter?”

His feet slowed, but he skipped forward, turned his eyes away, and said, “I’m not offended by my first name.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, John,” said Alred without emotion as they climbed the few steps to the glass door, “but I have a single streak of relentless conservatism.” She opened the door and looked at him. “Formality.”

“After you, Ms. Alred,” Porter said with a happy grin.

She slid by him, banging her packages into the sheet metal door frame.

“Tell me, Porter…do you think the world will convert to your religion if your dissertation’s proficient enough?”

Porter’s eyebrows rose. “To tell you the truth, I think you are right.”

“Really,” Alred said, coming to the elevator. She rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand.

He sighed and said, “I asked you not to discount the possibility of a possibility that my findings were true…and then I threw out any chance of believing I was wrong.”

DING.

The door slid open.

Alred didn’t move, but looked into Porter’s gray eyes.

“Not very scientific of me,” he said.

The portal started to close, but Porter threw a hand against it.

Looking at the elevator floor, Alred lifted her eyebrows. “Hmm.” She entered, and Porter followed, unable to read her thoughts, unsure whether he’d made ground or hit another heartless wall. He didn’t know what else to do. Liberal women loved men who admitted their mistakes, especially when it was true.

Before the door closed, a tall man walked by and looked in. His dark eyes shot fiery darts.

April 18

10:23 p.m. EST

Albright would die if he didn’t run. That’s what the doctor said, at least.

He panted in the dark, wishing he’d been exercising as much as his physician recommended. It would be easier then, wouldn’t it?

Only circling three blocks.

Halfway around, he knew he’d do the same as always: stop running and start walking!

His lungs were filled with smoking acid, as was his heart. He could smell the burning. He lifted his fists higher, hoping it would relieve some of the stress on his body. He didn’t know anything about proper running form.

Just to the next stop sign, he told himself, then walk.

He’d heard on television that whether one ran or walked, one would burn the same amount of calories. He supposed it would be the same with his cardiovascular system; he’d burn the energy, sweat a couple liters, and keep his pulse rate high. He couldn’t say his heart wasn’t going!

It was under thirty degrees, but warm for an Ohio night in April. Thunderheads hid in the dark overhead, but the pavement his feet beat upon looked dry as concrete in a desert under the yellow street lamps. All the snow had disappeared, but there would probably be more by midnight tomorrow.

So why was he sweating?

Didn’t exercise but once in a week.

He could see the stop sign…relief!

Wiping away the sticky moisture on his face with his gray sleeve, Albright slowed to a gentle stride. His arms fell to his sides. His lungs sagged, waiting for his heart to rest.

He had a good excuse for not running. He’d been out of the country. The doctor couldn’t expect Albright to run in the mountains of Guatemala!

But why tell his physician he ran every night? For more Fenfluramine and Phentermine! They were supposed to lower his appetite. It wasn’t easy shaking thirty years of carefully acquired excess weight! Besides, he wasn’t supposed to get more than two weeks of the prescription at one time (which he did take regularly, and couldn’t do without), and Albright was going into his second month.