The Rose Conspiracy Page 13

  “So that’s it? Your shocking revelation?” Blackstone broke in abruptly. “That Freemasonry is, number one, a religion, and number two, specifically the religion of Gnosticism? That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”

  Tully cleared his throat. Jason was wiggling nervously in his chair.

  Blackstone said it again.

  “That’s it?”

  “No,” Reverend Lamb said calmly. “You’re impatient, Nephew. You need to practice the art of listening. An art that brilliant men like you sometimes neglect.”

  Julia was chuckling.

  Blackstone leaned back and spread out his arms to his uncle, beckoning him to bring the discussion to a conclusion.

  “Let me introduce my third and final point with a question. Just think about this,” Lamb said, wagging his finger as he spoke. “What is the principal problem with any movement that wants to become a permanent and enduring influence in the world, but which is built on human leadership?”

  No one answered at first. Then Blackstone, with a controlled smirk, raised his hand like a smart-aleck middle-school student.

  “Me, teacher, please call on me!” Blackstone shouted out.

  Reverend Lamb was working hard to tolerate his nephew’s disrespect and nodded with a smile toward Blackstone.

  “You’re obviously talking about the problem of successorship,” Blackstone said with a tone of boredom. “The Karl-Marx-to-Lenin-to-Stalin thing. The degradation of the original philosophy through successive titular leaders.”

  “Exactly,” Lamb replied with a smile. “So…how does one cure that problem?”

  “You make sure,” Julia chimed in, “that you exert strict controls over the training of the successive leaders.”

  “Naw, never works,” Tully chimed in. “Not really. Human nature being the way it is, you can attempt any set of controls you want. I saw that at the NSA when I worked there—perfect protocols on paper. But then you put it into the hands of human beings, and you have what they call the ‘human behavioral factors.’ As something gets passed from hand to hand, there’s always degradation of the original content. Control? That’s just a relative term.”

  “I don’t think that Reverend Lamb is talking about quality control over ideology or doctrine—are you, Uncle?”

  “No, I’m not,” he said quietly. “Something altogether different.”

  “Yes,” Blackstone said with a smile, and with a look in his eye that reflected an understanding no one else at the table shared with him except his uncle. Blackstone had already grasped Reverend Lamb’s point quickly. As usual, before anyone else. But the notion that his uncle was proposing was, to Blackstone, preposterous beyond description.

  “You’re talking about quantity control—control of days…and years…that’s what this is all about?” Blackstone said, leaning over the table, staring at Reverend Lamb.

  “I’ve been researching Freemasonry for two decades,” Lamb said in a strained, controlled voice. “I knew there was a primary, cultic center to it. If I could just find it—locate the missing center piece. What was the principal secret that the high echelon of Masonic thinkers and leaders were hiding, I would ask myself. What was their ultimate religious agenda? They say, in their writings, ‘the brotherhood of man.’ Yes, that is what the foot soldiers are told. But what did the architects and the generals really believe?”

  “Then,” Lamb continued, “you brought me into this case, J.D. And I considered your question—about the significance of the tree as a religious symbol—and there it was…beginning to unfold right in front of me. Remember my reading you from the book called Builders of Man? Well, listen to this concluding statement by the English Masonic author. He says that the Freemason will have to continue to wear the Masonic garb, the white apron, and so forth…

  …until the final Keystone of Universal Being is discovered ready, in the Stone by the Builders rejected, but now the Crown of life, the fulfillment of Hope.

  “I recognize some of that,” Julia said, “from my old catechism days. ‘The stone rejected’—that’s a reference in the New Testament to Christ, isn’t it?”

  “It’s intended that way in the New Testament, certainly,” Lamb shot back. “But in Masonry, which creates a whole substratum of secondary meanings hidden in their words, I would suggest it means something else. The key here is the use of the word stone. And its linkage to the concept of life—‘universal being’ as this Masonic author calls it.”

  There was a pause around the table. Then Lamb broke the silence.

  “Ever hear the term ‘philosopher’s stone’?” he asked.

  Blackstone’s face reacted, but he kept his peace. Only Jason spoke up.

  “Man, am I the only one around here who reads the Harry Potter books?” the young paralegal said with a tinge of embarrassment. “Okay, call me a dork. But I thought they were interesting.”

  “Yes, you’re onto something, Jason,” Lamb said. “Magic potions and so forth. The philosopher’s stone for more than a thousand years has been the term that refers to a special substance that supposedly could be used in alchemy with very astounding results.”

  “Turning base metals into gold, I thought that was the deal,” Blackstone shot out.

  “Partially,” Lamb said. “But the deeply esoteric alchemists were after something much more powerful than that. They thought it possible to isolate and then apply a substance that would increase human longevity—human life—indefinitely. Immortality. That was what the alchemists were really after. And that is exactly what lies at the heart of the greatest secret of the Freemasons. The desire to find a way to cheat death. And thereby to continue the Masonic reign of the selected ones indefinitely.”

  While the group around the table was trying to comprehend what Reverend Lamb had just said, the old Anglican professor put the period at the end of it all.

  “And that, ladies and gentlemen,” he said with a flourish, “is my third, final, and most important point.”

  Blackstone stood up.

  “Alright, folks, shows over,” he said. “Let’s all get back to work. Do something productive.”

  Julia stood up and smiled at Blackstone’s uncle.

  “Thanks for all of that, Reverend Lamb,” she said with a smile. “Very interesting.” Then she threw her senior partner a look and left the room. Jason scurried after her.

  Tully was chuckling and shaking his head as he walked out of the conference room.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” Blackstone said to his uncle, “I have to try to keep my client out of the death chamber.”

  “Don’t you have any response to what I just told you?” Lamb said with a sense of pleading in his voice.

  “Yes, but I’d rather not insult you with it,” Blackstone said. “Look, this was probably my fault, bringing you into this. Criminal law is a tough business. The government doesn’t play games. It gets ruthless. And all you’ve got to offer me are your stories about magic and buried religious documents that are fifteen hundred years old, and…alchemy for heaven’s sake. Alchemy!”

  With that, Blackstone turned and strode out of the conference room, leaving his uncle to gather up his books and papers and then find his own way out.

  CHAPTER 28

  Blackstone spent the rest of the day working on his oral arguments for his appeal in Vinnie’s case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Julia had done most of the work on the written brief to the Court and, as usual, had done an excellent job. Written arguments by both sides had been filed on an expedited schedule because, for better or worse, Blackstone had filed a demand for speedy trial in Vinnie’s case. Now, oral arguments were only two days away.

  The file on United States v. Vinnie Archmont was spread out on a side table next to Blackstone’s desk. On top was a manila envelope with a warning in large bold lettering, taped onto the outside of the envelope. It read,

  WARNING!

  CONTENTS ARE PROHIBITED FROM BEING VIEWED BY ANYONE OT
HER THAN J.D. BLACKSTONE PURSUANT TO AN ORDER OF THE U.S. DISTRICT COURT

  This was the central issue in Blackstone’s appeal. The defense was arguing that the trial judge had erred when he granted the government’s motion to seal off any viewing of the note of Horace Langley, likely the last thing the man ever wrote before his murder, from everyone on the defense side except Blackstone himself.

  There were only two chances Blackstone had to win. First, he could try to attack the government’s affidavit testimony that the note had to be kept secret because making it public might jeopardize their ongoing criminal investigation into “other conspirators.” But Blackstone knew he lacked the proof for that.

  Or second, he could show that Vinnie’s legal defense would be irreparably hampered by preventing Blackstone from having his assistants or his “expert” read the full contents of the note.

  Blackstone picked up the manila envelope, opened the little metal clasp, and pulled back the flap. Then he dug his hand inside and pulled out a piece of paper that contained the note of Horace Langley exactly as it had been deciphered by Dr. Coglin. There it was again. It had been a while since Blackstone had actually studied it in its entirety:

  A strange cipher appears in the Booth diary as follows:

  To AP and KGC

  Rose of 6 is Sir al ik’s golden tree

  In gospel’s Mary first revealed

  At Ashli plot reveals the key

  As he studied it, he wondered how he could argue that this cryptic note was a critical element of the case and in fact essential to the defense theory of Vinnie’s innocence. He couldn’t help but think about Reverend Lamb and his extraordinary speculations about Freemasonry, Gnosticism, and alchemy.

  Blackstone noted, once again, the reference in the third line to “gospel’s Mary,” seemingly a New Testament reference. Okay, he thought, there it is, the religious element again. But he had no idea what the “Rose of 6,” or “Sir al ik’s golden tree” were. Or, for that matter, what “Ashli plot” meant—was it a place name? A location? Or something else?

  And he wondered what “key” it was that was intended in the last line. Of course, it was very possible that what Horace Langley was reading in the John Wilkes Booth diary pages—and then copied down in his note—had absolutely nothing to do with his death. Maybe his murder and the theft of those diary pages of indisputable historical value, were both totally unrelated to that one particular part of the diary that happened to catch Langley’s attention just before the crime occurred. And if the three federal appeal judges believed that was the case, then Blackstone knew that his appeal on the Langley note issue would be doomed.

  But there was another thought, and it had nothing to do with the legal issues or the evidence. It had to do with what Tully aptly called the “human behavioral factors.” More specifically, J.D. Blackstone’s behavior.

  Must be nice for Vinnie to live a guilt-free existence, he thought to himself, feeling awash in regret over the way he had treated his uncle.

  He picked up the phone and called Reverend Lamb’s office but didn’t get an answer. Then he tried his home. He let it ring a number of times, but no one answered. His uncle didn’t believe in answering machines, so Blackstone couldn’t leave a message.

  How does this guy survive in the twenty-first century? he wondered as he returned to his file to work some more on the appeal issues.

  Thirty minutes later he called again. This time Reverend Lamb picked up.

  “Uncle,” Blackstone said, “J.D. here.”

  “Yes. Good of you to call,” Lamb said, a little out of breath. “I was just coming into the house with my dry-cleaning. I had quite a pile to pick up. The woman at the dry cleaners said it’s been down there for more than a month. I had forgotten about it until just recently.”

  “Just wanted…to thank you,” Blackstone said slightly ill at ease, “you know, for all the work you put in.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Lamb replied.

  “You should get paid for your time. Just itemize your hours and send it in to me,” Blackstone said. “You deserve to get compensated, just like any other expert on one of my cases.”

  “I didn’t do it for the money,” Reverend Lamb said plainly. “Not at all.”

  “I know,” Blackstone replied sheepishly. “But still, I want to pay you. As a gesture of appreciation.”

  After a pause, Reverend Lamb responded.

  “You never asked me any follow-up questions,” Lamb said sadly. “I figured that meant you really didn’t see much use in what I had to say.”

  Blackstone was rolling his eyes, feeling worse now than before he called.

  “This is not a personal thing,” he said. “It’s simply a matter of whether your opinions have relevance to the legal issues, that’s all. Sometimes an expert’s opinions can move the ball forward…and sometimes they can’t.”

  “And in this case?” Reverend Lamb asked.

  The question hung out there in the air. Almost tangibly. Blackstone could practically see it floating in front of him, like a dialogue balloon in a comic strip.

  “Tell me something,” Blackstone said, glancing down at the Horace Langley note on the table in front of him. “About those so-called ‘Gnostic gospels’ you talked about.”

  “Yes?”

  “How many were there?”

  “A number of them. Why?”

  Then Blackstone looked down at the note again, at the third line of the coded poem—In gospel’s Mary first revealed.

  “Wasn’t one of them,” Blackstone said, thinking back to what he had read in his uncle’s book, “actually called the Gospel of Mary?”

  “Why yes, that’s correct. What are you getting at?”

  Blackstone was tapping his finger now on the piece of paper that contained the Horace Langley note.

  “Nothing I can share with you now. Maybe later. We’ll see…depending on how my appeal goes.”

  But then Blackstone remembered one thing he wanted to ask his uncle.

  “One more thing,” he said. “About something you said during our conference today.”

  “Oh?”

  “You said you had been trying for many years to put together the pieces about the Freemasons. What the core of their ‘secret’ was.”

  “Yes, I said that.”

  “You said that it didn’t click in your head until you started working on this legal case for me.”

  “That’s exactly right.”

  “Well, what was it about this criminal case that triggered your theory about the Freemasons?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Reverend Lamb said brightly. “The business about trees. You asked me about the significance of trees as religious symbols. Remember?”

  Blackstone looked once again at the note on the table in front of him—Sir al ik’s golden tree, it said in the second line.

  “Yes,” Blackstone said distantly, “I remember.”

  “Well, that was it,” Lamb replied. “That started the whole thought process—putting everything together in a whole pattern, so to speak.”

  “But why…how?” Blackstone asked.

  “Simple,” Lamb answered. “I went to Genesis, chapter 2, verse 9. Do you recall that one?”

  “Gosh no,” Blackstone said wryly, “and I must have misplaced my Bible—so why don’t you boil it down for me?”

  “It says this about the Garden of Eden—‘Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ ”

  Then Reverend Lamb added, “That was it for me.”

  After a lengthy silence from Blackstone, Lamb spoke up.

  “Do you see what I mean?”

  Blackstone was staring at the Horace Langley note.

  “Possibly,” he answered.

  “By the way, you never asked me,” Lamb said, “about how the secret of the Freemasons might be connected to John Wil
kes Booth.”

  “Maybe some other time,” Blackstone said, still glancing down at the Langley note. “We’ll catch up on things soon, Uncle.”

  After they said their goodbyes, Blackstone hung up, took one more look at the cryptic poem, and then put it back into the manila envelope and sealed it shut.

  His mind was exploding. The gears were flying. He needed to get out of the office. He needed to get some fresh air and think about anything except what he had been thinking about, obsessing over, in Vinnie’s defense. He needed to get out of the city.

  And he knew the place where he would go. The place where a creature was waiting, with great eyes and muscular flanks, redolent of sweat and hay and the fields.

  CHAPTER 29

  He knew he was going to have a bad night. And he was right. Tense, high-strung, like he had just downed a gallon of Turkish espresso, Blackstone stalked around his condo into the late hours like an ill-tempered tiger in a cage that was way too small.

  Over and over in his mind he kept seeing the words and phrases in the Horace Langley note. There was no insight going on in that process. Just an obsessive, almost neurotic impulse to experience the words and phrases again and again. Like a ritual chant.

  The only thing that calmed him a little and helped him slip into sleep was the thought that the next morning he would leave early and drive into the country with the top down and have reunion of sorts with his jet-black Arabian horse.

  When the alarm went off, he was out of bed like a shot. He threw on some blue jeans, his boots, and a cutoff T-shirt and headed down to his car. He cruised out of Georgetown and soon was on his way around the Beltway and then heading west on I-66. It was hot, and the air blowing over his face and through his hair felt good.