The Rose Conspiracy Read online

  Blackstone looked at the beautiful young brunette with the kinky hairdo standing in the doorway of her apartment, beckoning him.

  Then he glanced down again at his open cell phone.

  “Gotta go,” Blackstone said, closing his cell phone and putting it back in his pocket.

  He walked down the stairs without looking back at Vinnie, who was standing in the doorway, head tilted in stunned amazement and with her hands cocked on her hips, watching him.

  CHAPTER 26

  While Blackstone was driving home he dialed into his voice mail. The message from his uncle, Reverend Lamb, was short, and he sounded out of breath.

  We need to talk right away about your case. I’ve put something together. It might be somewhat astounding, actually. Can’t go into details now. I’m free tomorrow afternoon. I could come over to your office. That might be better, now that I think about it…I could drop off some things at the dry cleaners on the way…which reminds me, I wonder if they still have my good white shirt down there…well, let me know.

  Blackstone punched in his secretary Frieda at her home number.

  “Frieda,” he announced as if it were in the middle of a workday, rather than nine-fifteen at night, “do you have all the numbers for staff with you there at home?”

  There was a pregnant pause.

  “Yes. You told me some time ago to always keep the numbers with me wherever I go.”

  “Smart decision, huh?”

  Another long pause.

  “I guess so,” she said with hesitation.

  “I need you,” Blackstone said with a sense of rising energy, “right now, to call up Julia, and Jason our trusty paralegal, and Tully Tullinger too. Make sure they are all in my office at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow for a meeting. Then call my uncle at his home number and confirm that time with him. Also, make a point of reminding him that the meeting is at my office, will you? The guy gets a little spacey sometimes.”

  Frieda, who had over the years gotten used to J.D. Blackstone’s manic disregard for normal workday limits, said she would do it.

  By the time Blackstone got back to his condo, he knew it was too late to call his uncle directly. He knew that the elderly religion scholar was a notorious early-to-bed-early-to-rise kind of guy.

  Quite different from Blackstone. That evening, fueled by curiosity over his uncle’s message, his mind now whirling, it was another late-to-bed-early-to-rise night for him. The gray dawn was just about to break when he finally collapsed into bed.

  At two-thirty the next afternoon all of the group, less one, had dutifully arrived. Reverend Lamb was the last to show up, about ten minutes late.

  Blackstone circulated a memo that he wanted signed by Tully and Reverend Lamb.

  “In this memorandum you two agree,” Blackstone explained, “as outside consultants and investigators on this case, not to disclose anything we discuss here today with anyone else, absent my express authorization. These discussions today are protected by attorney’s work-product privilege and are to be considered confidential.”

  Those kinds of legal precautions were not new for Blackstone. In other cases he had his experts and consultants, and even co-counsel, sign similar memoranda of understanding. But this time it was a little different.

  The difference was the presence of Reverend John Lamb as his “expert” consultant on a murder case.

  The night before, Blackstone had experienced a little exuberance thinking that one of Reverend Lamb’s ideas might help to break the case open for him. But now he was in the harsh daylight of reality. As he surveyed the faces of his team and studied Reverend Lamb, with his pile of crumpled papers and notes and his tall stack of books on the conference table in front of him, the word desperation came to Blackstone’s mind.

  Now I know, Blackstone thought to himself silently while glancing over at the white-haired Reverend Lamb, how the cops feel when they have to use some psychic to try to locate a dead body.

  After Tully and Lamb had signed the memos and Blackstone collected them, he leaned back in his chair and gave the floor to his uncle.

  “J.D.,” Lamb began, “you wanted me do some thinking about the Freemasons, correct?”

  “That was part of it, yes. But not the main point.”

  “Correct,” Lamb countered with a grin on his face. “To be precise, the main point being the symbolic significance of the tree in religious and esoteric thinking. Including Masonic religious philosophy.”

  “Did you say ‘tree’?” Julia said with bemusement.

  “Yes, exactly,” Blackstone replied. “And don’t ask me why I am pursuing that particular symbol. Look, people, remember that I have a court order restraining me from sharing the verbiage of the Horace Langley note with any of you. At least for the time being.”

  “You goin’ to appeal that court order?” Tully asked.

  “Already have,” Julia snapped. “Our fearless leader, Professor Blackstone, will be arguing that appeal.” She threw a look over at Blackstone with that.

  “And for what it’s worth,” Jason chimed in, “I think Professor Blackstone is going to do a groin kick and a knee-drop to the government’s throat in that appeal.”

  “Now Jason,” Blackstone objected sarcastically, “no need to confuse the group with all that complicated legalese.”

  Then he brought them back to task.

  “So what do you have for us?”

  “A question.”

  “Oh?” Blackstone asked.

  “Do you believe,” Reverend Lamb asked him, “that Freemasonry is involved in the Smithsonian murder?”

  “As an evidentiary issue? Oh…possibly.”

  Reverend Lamb leaned back a little with a wide grin. He was enjoying his role as interrogator of his nephew.

  “And do you believe,” Reverend Lamb continued, this time his voice rising in intensity, “that Freemasonry had any part to play in the note written by Horace Langley—written while he was examining the John Wilkes Booth diary pages?”

  Blackstone had a smirk on his face, and he shot a glance over at the bemused Tully Tullinger.

  “Gee, I’m not sure,” Blackstone said acerbically, “how much more of this crucible of cross-examination I am going to be able to stand.”

  Tully burst out laughing.

  Jason was holding back a smile.

  But Julia was not amused.

  “Reverend Lamb,” Julia said, picking up the ball, “what if the answer was yes to your question. Then what?”

  “Then,” Blackstone’s uncle said, still smiling and undaunted, “I have some groundbreaking news for you.”

  Now Blackstone was no longer smiling.

  “Which is?”

  “The centuries-old secret of the Freemasons,” Reverend Lamb said. “I’ve been studying this for years from a theological standpoint. Couldn’t put the pieces together. Until your case, that is.”

  “I thought the whole point of Freemasonry was secrets,” Tully chimed in. “These people still take this very seriously. I know. I had to weasel some information out of some Masons in this case. I got to tell you—you’d have thought I was asking them for a kidney.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tullinger, you’re right,” Lamb continued. “They are built on secrecy. Until recently, their whole fabric of their complicated rituals and ceremonies was a closely held secret. But even the books that are written about them, many by former Masons, and even some by practicing Masons—they’re written elusively, like painting in shadows. They only give you partial glimpses. I am convinced that only a handful of some of the mystic members of the Masons have ever really known the core doctrinal mission of Freemasonry. The ‘ultimate’ secret, I believe, is what your client called it. What is at the core of Freemasonry is actually a radical religious philosophy.”

  “I thought a number of the Founders, like George Washington, were Masons,” Julia remarked.

  “Certainly true,” Lamb said. “He joined for the same reasons a number of other prominent men did too, because it
seemed to be a worthwhile fraternal organization. On the surface, the Masonic code talks about good citizenship and the brotherhood of man. Noble ideals. But when Washington started hearing about their subversive views, he became less and less involved.”

  “Subversive?” Blackstone called out. “That’s a strong accusation. Look, Uncle, I’m not interested in linking my legal defense to some cockeyed conspiracy theory.”

  “I’m not talking about UFOs at Roswell, for heaven’s sake,” Reverend Lamb countered with agitation in his voice. He was extending both of his hands cupped out in front of him, as if trying to grasp some invisible orb as he spoke.

  “I’m talking,” Lamb explained, “about their ages-old mission of creating a select ruling class of spiritual gurus who would lead the world. First, it begins with the realization that Masonry does not need the orthodoxy of Christianity—no, not at all. In fact I ran across a sermon, delivered in 1798 by Reverend Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale College. He pointed out the ‘malignant’ ideas of Masonry, including its hostility to the Christian religion, and its continuation of ‘mysticism’ under a blanket of secrecy.”

  There was a collective silence in the room. The faces of all of Reverend Lamb’s listeners were reflecting the same incredulity.

  “I see you folks are going to be a tough audience,” Lamb said with a smile. “That’s why I’ve brought my evidence with me.”

  With that, he pulled a small book off the top of his stack.

  “The Spirit of Masonry,” Lamb announced. “Written back in the 1950s by Foster Bailey, himself a thirty-second-degree Mason over in England—and together with his famous wife, Alice Bailey, co-leaders in the twentieth-century Theosophy and mystic spirituality movement. Now what would have attracted a spiritualist like Bailey to the Masons? We get a clue from him here, at page 140:

  Masonry is of divine origin and was created for the purpose of training a group of members of the human family who would be capable of hastening the triumph of ‘God’s Plan for man.

  “So what?” Blackstone interjected. “Isn’t that similar to every religion that ever existed? Just think about it—claiming a ‘divine origin,’ investing some bogus religious doctrine in a small group of followers, and figuring all of that will somehow result in a God-orchestrated revelation, bringing on some apocalypse, or hastening some grand heavenly ‘plan’…It’s all basic religious anthropology 101.”

  “So you’re ready to agree with my first major point, then?” Reverend Lamb said with a sly smile.

  Blackstone’s eyes widened.

  “What are you talking about?” he snapped, worried that his uncle was actually besting him.

  “Oh, just the very thing,” Lamb said with a far-off look in his eye, “that most Masonic initiates are trained to deny. And what the small core of high-ranking Freemason leaders know to be true but rarely admit—except in obscure, privately published writings meant to be read only by fellow members of ‘the Craft’ as they call themselves. But then they die and their widows put their old Freemasonry books up in the attic. And one day a widow dies too. And the kids auction it off in an estate sale. And it ends up, somehow, on a dusty shelf of a used bookstore in Windsor, England.”

  Then Reverend Lamb smiled and picked up a small, faded red book with a tattered cover and displayed it to the group.

  “And an Anglican college professor getting on in age, with a penchant for the old heresies and mystery religions, happens to be there in that bookstore one day. Looking for more evidence of the origins of today’s confused and forsaken worldviews. Trying to figure out what lies have been passing for the truth—what enticing religious systems have been substituted for the saving work of Christ, the Savior, on the cross. And so he buys the little book for twelve pounds. And adds it to his collection of out-of-print Masonic literature. This one is called Builders of Man—The Doctrine and History of Masonry, or the Story of the Craft. Published in 1923.”

  Lamb flipped the book open to a dog-eared page and read from it. “According to the author, himself a Mason and a rector in the Church of England, Freemasonry is ‘a theocracy.’ ”

  Lamb continued, “That, my friends, is my point. Masonry is, at bottom, a religious ideology. It is also a philosophy, of course. But more than that, it is a religious system. And while it has tried to masquerade as a complement to Christianity, nothing could be farther from the truth.”

  “But I thought you just said,” Julia said with a puzzled look on her face, “that this old book you just read from was written by a rector of the Church of England who also was a Mason? I mean, personally I think I’ve heard of members of the clergy belonging to the Freemasons.”

  “Of course,” Lamb countered. “But they either have not understood the deeper heresies of Masonry, or else they have actually embraced them.”

  “Heresies?” Jason spoke up with a question on his face. “There’s that word again.”

  “Heresy,” Blackstone announced sarcastically, as if reading his own definition. “Ah yes, a term often used by religious zealots whose obsession with their own dogma excludes the possibility that the ideas of others may actually be correct.”

  “Well,” Lamb replied, “what would any honest physician call the work of snake-oil salesmen? If Christ was who the Bible says He truly was, then all counterfeit pictures of Him, all misrepresentations, are nothing but tragically dangerous detours for the soul.”

  At the end of the conference table Tully was drumming his fingers impatiently.

  “Don’t mean to be rude,” he said. “But can we get to the point here? Professor Blackstone has given me a dumpster full of work to do on this Smithsonian case. Unless there is something I can use in all of this, J.D., maybe I ought to get going.”

  Reverend Lamb interrupted him.

  “Wouldn’t suggest that,” the old Anglican clergyman said. “I was just going to get to my second major point.”

  And he turned to Tully and pointed his finger first at him, and then swept his index finger in a circular movement around the table.

  “And what I am about to tell you,” said Reverend Lamb, “all of you, is a two-thousand-year-old secret. But a secret that actually grew out of an ancient mystery that is even older than that.”

  CHAPTER 27

  With his last comment, Reverend John Lamb had managed to rivet the attention of the small group seated around the conference table. Even J.D. Blackstone, who was trying to look uninterested, had both eyes fixed on the elderly religion professor.

  “I’ve told you first, that Freemasonry is, fundamentally, a secret religious order. But not just any religious order.”

  Then he looked Blackstone in the eye.

  “This goes to your comment, Nephew,” Reverend Lamb said, “about Masonry having the same structure as all religions. Maybe you’re right in a certain sense. But I would qualify that. Not just like any other religion. Certainly not. In fact, and here is my second point, Masonry adopted religious beliefs, but not those of Christianity. Just the opposite. Masonry adopted the doctrines of the chief opponent, the most vicious competitor, of early Christianity.”

  “Chief competitor of the early Christians,” Julia, the lapsed Catholic, said out loud. “That’s got to be the Roman government. It persecuted the church. Nero lit the Christians on fire.”

  “You would think so,” Reverend Lamb said, shaking his head, “but no—that’s not it at all. Of course, the Roman government used its political might, including the power to arrest and torture and murder, to try to subdue the Christians. Without success. Rome collapsed. Christianity flourished. But no, I’m talking about something a great deal more dangerous than the powerful Roman Empire—I’m referring to Gnosticism.”

  “Say again?” Tully said loudly.

  “It’s a sect of Christianity,” Blackstone interjected, and then directed his comments to Reverend Lamb. “Wouldn’t you agree? Gnosticism, from what I know about it, is related to Christianity because it originated from the early beliefs o
f the Christians.”

  “Not really,” Lamb said shaking his head. “Gnosticism, at its core, is no more related to Christianity than, say, weeds that grow up in a flower bed are related to the flowers. They both grow from the same soil at the same time of course, but one is a separate growth process altogether—a parasite, really, which threatens to strangle the life out of the other.”

  Then Lamb thought on it for a few seconds and found the point he wanted to make. “Gnosticism was a crude, pagan counterfeit of Christianity that adopted a few of the Christian ideas here and there, and a few features of Christian terminology—enough to cause confusion in the minds of some of the early Christians. It bandied the name of Christ around, but at its base it was a belief system built on a strange mixture of Greek philosophy and Egyptian mysticism, and other pagan ideas. By the third and fourth centuries, hundreds of years after Christ, some of its heretic leaders were writing phony ‘gospels’ on the life of Jesus, trying to modify history, portraying Jesus as some kind of pure spirit without humanity—denying the crucifixion of Christ—making it out as if Jesus were the leader of some secret cult full of magic words and mysterious revelations.”

  “I think I saw a TV documentary on that,” Jason said excitedly. “They dug these ancient gospels up out of the desert.”

  “Yes,” Lamb said nodding his head. “Near a village in Egypt called Nag Hammadi, several hundred miles south of Cairo. In 1945 a couple of Bedouins stumbled across it while they were digging. They found human skeletal remains, and also an ancient jar. Inside the jar were document fragments from what scholars are now calling ‘the Gnostic gospels.’ Experts figure the writings in the jar were buried there around AD 400.”

  Then Reverend Lamb opened his arms to the group as if the conclusion he was about to share was fully self-evident.

  “You see,” he said, “that is why the apostles in the New Testament, and then the Church Fathers in the hundreds of years immediately after the death of the apostles, spent so little of their writings focusing on the brutality of the Roman government—but instead, spent much of their time warning of the false doctrines of the false teachers. Those who were presenting nonhistorical versions of the life of Christ and passing them off as truth. Chief among those religious heretics were the Gnostics. You see, a clever half-truth about Christ the Messiah, the Promised One, the Savior, is at its core still a lie, but it is more deceptively dangerous to the souls of true spiritual seekers than all the fires that Nero ever lit.”