28

Washington, D.C.

Fourteen hours later, President Barkum looked at Secretary of State Sandy Bianchi, who was standing next to an attractive Asian woman and a young African-American man dressed in a monk’s robe. It was six a.m., and Bianchi had awakened him citing an emergency.

“Sir, this is Kristyana Cixi. She just arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, and we drove her here immediately. She was on the ground in Tanzania.”

The president shook her hand.

“And this is Pastor Isaiah Jones. He teaches at Georgetown’s Theology Department and has a theology PhD from Harvard.”

Barkum gave her a look that meant, So where the hell is McCallan?

“Isaiah is the world’s leading expert on African scriptures,” Bianchi said.

“Be that what they are,” Jones muttered.

Great , Barkum thought, a man with attitude .

The president had the group sit along the sofas and chairs so they could have a conversation. He trusted Bianchi, but Pastor Jones looked like he was under thirty years old, and his face held the hateful scorn of so many of his own friends from his youth. Men he had come to believe were so trapped by their rightful disgust of the past treatment of African-Americans that they were never able to move forward. Did Jones have a security clearance? Was he trustworthy? Would he blab to the media? Barkum determined he would have a word with Bianchi afterward but would entertain them for a few minutes now.

“So, Sandy, to what do I owe this wake-up call?”

“Sir, Pastor Jones has signed a non-disclosure statement. Ever since 9-11, he has worked closely with the Georgetown National Security Studies program and has a top-secret clearance for special compartmented information. He understands what’s at stake here based upon a brief outline I discussed with him after I read him on.” He trusted Bianchi knew her friend well and had covered the bases he would be most concerned about.

Barkum visibly relaxed but asked, “So how many people do we have read onto the Catalyst Project?”

The secretary of state had labeled the project immediately after the meeting with the president yesterday.

“You, the vice-president, CIA director, SecDef, me, Kristyana here, Matt Garrett in Dar es Salaam, and a major who works in the embassy there.”

“A major?” Barkum asked.

Bianchi turned to Kristyana, who relayed the story about the Army intelligence officer’s find in Nineveh province and how an Army chaplain now had the original documents in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Apparently the chaplain had been reassigned from the Third Infantry Division to a small post called Fort Story that fronted both the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

“The plan, sir, is for me to meet with the chaplain and ask him to turn over the documents,” Kristyana said.

“Can’t we just declare them imminent domain?” Barkum asked.

“My God, Mr. President, we are talking about the original account of how God created life! This book predates Genesis,” Jones said. The young man leaned forward, hands on his knees as if he were going to propel himself upward. “Who are you, or any of us, to declare this document imminent domain?”

The room was silent for a moment.

Barkum smiled. “I like your style, Pastor Jones,” he said. It was true. Barkum had changed his mind about Jones. “But what do you suggest?”

“Well, I certainly think we should obtain these documents, safeguard them, and then have an international team of scientists and theologians come in and verify their authenticity. On one hand, what we are talking about is shaking the faith of over half the world’s people. On the other hand, once they get over that, God will be a verifiable reality for them. They will have reason to believe, and their faith, once shaken, will be restored anew,” Jones said. He stood and began pacing the Oval Office.

“What about the implications for my administration?”

“Excuse me, sir, but this is bigger than your administration,” Jones said. “No disrespect intended, but if you hear the story, then you’ll understand why.”

Barkum’s blood began to simmer, but he nodded at Jones to continue.

“The Book of Catalyst was first drawn on acacia tree bark, then was transferred onto vellum, allegedly verbatim. Vellum is nothing other than animal hide. All of your history books will tell you that Africans thousands of years ago couldn’t write, had no language, and so on. But if you study hieroglyphics, it’s all right there. History does not start in Luxor or Karnak in Egypt as everyone would have you believe. No, history started in the Olduvai Gorge and was amply recorded in the Sudanese pyramid near Meroe, Sudan, on the Nile. Egyptian King Psantek II destroyed the acacia writings, but he didn’t know about the vellum recordings or the story captured inside the pyramid.”

Jones looked at the president as if to say, “Do I have your attention now?”

The president sighed. “Okay, I’m impressed. Keep going.”

Jones turned to Secretary Bianchi and Kristyana Cixi, who were watching the one-sided duel with slack-jawed awe.

“What was my response to you when you asked me if I had heard of the Book of Catalyst?”

Bianchi coughed into her fist and said, “You squinted at me as if I was telling your secret, not mine.”

Jones pointed at her. “Exactly. I’ve heard of the Book for a long time. The Sudanese have been working on a project to piece it all back together. They have found several of the pieces of the interior wall of the tomb where the Book of Catalyst was recorded.”

“Where were the vellum documents?”

“In the Ark of the Covenant,” Jones said flatly.

“How can that be? The Ark wasn’t built until—”

“If you accept Genesis,” Jones interrupted. “If you accept Catalyst, then you can make the argument that Genesis is an extraction of Catalyst. Kings destroy the black man’s history not knowing they are destroying the evidence of God.”

Barkum gasped inaudibly. He had never heard anyone say it quite like that before.

“Where the Old Testament gets it right is in Book of II Kings where the Assyrians had Jerusalem surrounded around 701 B.C. and Nubian Pharaoh Shabaka drove the Assyrians away. The book doesn’t tell you that; rather, all it says is that Sennacherib up and left, went back to Syria. But Shabaka was on the move across the Sinai, and he wasn’t going to Jerusalem because he thought it was a cool place to go but because the scriptures had spoken to him. He knew the importance and he carried the Ark of the Covenant there.”

“You know this?” the president asked.

“It’s history,” Jones replied. “Listen, Stoneking, Wilson, and Cann did some groundbreaking work in the late ‘80s with mitochondrial DNA and confirmed that humans are a distinct species. There is no evolution. They traced the DNA of mothers, and they scientifically determined that Eve was created about one hundred fifty thousand years ago.”

“Scientifically determined?” the president asked.

“Check it out yourself. They prove that there are 133 variants of humans today. They reverse engineered the DNA back to a single variant. Think of it as a tree with 133 branches that all stem from the same trunk.”

“My God,” Kristyana whispered.

“That trunk is Eve. And she was created in the Olduvai Gorge. Which is the Garden of Eden.”

Jones gave them no time to consider the import of what he was saying as he continued. “The Old Testament is essentially true. Instead of the Garden of Eden being in Tanzania as in the Book of Catalyst, it is recorded as being somewhere in Iraq or Iran or Turkey or Jordan. Scholars to this day disagree. Why? Because the Book of Catalyst talks about the four rivers flowing atop one another. They are lava flows from Mount Kilimanjaro, not the Tigris and Euphrates. Unfortunately for brothers like us,” Jones said, pointing his finger at the president and then himself, “our stuff gets erased.”

Barkum tapped his chin, listening intently to the passionate pastor. Part of his mind was considering the country’s perception of him essentially hiring a young African-American theologian with attitude to advise him on an unheard of book that unhinges the Bible. He was also considering the domestic and national security implications.

Jones was staring in reverence at a painting of Martin Luther King, Jr. that Barkum had hung in the oval office. King was seated in a Victorian chair with his right hand pensively propped under his chin.

“You know where the good Dr. King got it wrong, Mr. President?”

Taken aback, Barkum said, “No, please tell me.”

Instead, Jones whirled around and strode toward Barkum.

“I know you think I have an attitude, but I also have a PhD in theology from Harvard University and another PhD in African studies from the University of Addis in Ethiopia. I’m thirty-one years old, and I spent the last ten years of my life walking the Great African Rift from Tanzania to Jordan.” He smiled and said, “And no, I didn’t part the Red Sea and walk across, though I thought about it.”

“Isaiah, I don’t doubt your—”

“Just listen, please. I voted for you, so if nothing else, entertain me as a constituent. Anyway, the way I know about the Book of Catalyst is that the idea and the stories are very alive in sub-Saharan Africa.” Jones continued pacing, becoming more demonstrative as he talked.

Barkum noticed that two secret service agents had stepped inside the office and were positioning themselves to gain the best advantage should Jones turn out to be a nut case. Barkum turned his head slowly when Jones wasn’t looking and moved his fingers in a brushing motion indicating for them to leave the room. He knew they would be just outside the door and would be able to react before Jones could do anything nefarious.

“The Book of Catalyst was held in Sudan, Ethiopia, and ultimately in Jerusalem. The story Kristyana tells makes sense. Over time, it was just another archive written in an unintelligible language, so it was buried in the back of some museum in Iraq. The one good thing to come out of that war may be the discovery of these documents, if indeed they bear out to be true and accurate.”

“But what about the national security implications? We need to keep this under wraps until we can sort it out,” Barkum said.

“How in the world do you keep God under wraps?” Jones boomed in his preacher’s voice, bringing the secret service agents back into the room. Barkum could tell they weren’t going anywhere even if he ordered them out. Jones didn’t seem to notice or care.

“I ask you, Mr. President, do you believe in God?” Jones leaned over the sofa, his hands pressing down on the fabric so hard that they were making indentations. “Do you ?”

“You have no right to come into my office and demand anything from me,” Barkum said, standing. He faced Jones from across the blue davenport. “What you are not considering is the national security second- and third-order effects. What will happen to America and our Judeo-Christian foundation when people learn that the Bible is missing a few pages?”

“The only relevant question here is whether or not the leader of the free world is more concerned about managing reaction to God’s word or ensuring that the inhabitants of Earth know that they are part of God’s plan. And the only way you can arrive at that answer is by looking inward, sir, and answering my question, do you believe in God ?”

The two secret service agents were on either side of Jones now, nearly touching him.

“Pastor Jones, I do believe in God. But I also believe in my responsibility to this country. There is a way to do what you suggest and to prepare the country for receiving this information if it turns out to be true.”

“Do you think for a minute that it is a coincidence that you are the leader of the free world as this information becomes available? God is trusting you to do the right thing!”

“As are my people, the American people.”

“Your people? I’m here to tell you, the world is your people!” Jones had thrown his hands into the air, generating a sharp reaction from the agents, who grabbed each arm and held him. Sandy Bianchi and Kristyana Cixi were standing off to the side watching the face-off between Barkum and Jones. Immediately, more agents entered the room and ushered the two women into the hallway. Barkum noticed their departure in his periphery.

“What do you mean by that?” Barkum asked. He waved his hands at the agents, and they released Jones’s arms but remained close.

“Did you not say at every campaign stop that ‘our footprints are timeless’?” Jones asked in a more moderate tone. The agents had done nothing to dissuade his passion.

“Of course. I was picking up on Dr. King’s marching theme. Our footprints are indeed timeless. We have traveled far and cannot rest,” Barkum responded, catching himself before he slipped into his well-practiced stump speech.

Jones sighed, the air audibly escaping from his lungs.

“The Book of Catalyst refers to the Laetoli Footprints, the ones Leakey found. If what I learned in Sudan is correct, the Book says that, in the Arabic year 1436, a man with timeless footprints will steer the world away from catastrophe.”

“So, that’s a long time ago, Pastor,” the president said.

“Sir, 1436 on the Arabic calendar is 2015 in the Judeo-Christian calendar, and you are that man.”