Search: A Novel of Forbidden History Read Online Free PDF Page A

“They call the results a processing mistake, or a contamination error, and the greatest discovery of all time is flushed down the crapper! You’ve looked at the data and the clusters. Do
you
know what you’re seeing, Dave? Because I surely do.” He heaved himself off the sofa and stood up in all his immensity. “What you’ve found is absolute scientific proof—
proof
—of what the government has always known, and always hidden from us. But you—I believe you have stumbled on the smoking gun.”
    David didn’t understand.
    Ironwood gave his shoulders a painful squeeze. “Welcome aboard, Dave. You’re gonna help me put our lying government out of business, and we are gonna turn this world upside down.”
    With that, David realized Ironwood was giving him his funding and his lab, but he still had no idea why. Nor did he care.
    But others did, and their infrared laser measuring the vibrations of the suite’s windows recorded every word.

FOUR
    Nathaniel Merrit was still alive.
    An hour after his capture, his shaved scalp beaded with sweat in the tropical sun, he was tied up on the teak deck of his own chartered dive boat—a fourteen-meter Azimut hired out of Tahiti, a three-day trip from the atoll. Partly covered by a blue nylon tarp, a body lay under the bench on the port side of the deck. Renault.
    Then someone familiar slid open the teak door of the forward cabin and stepped onto the deck.
    Florian MacClary.
    Over the three years they had been in opposition, they had never met, though Merrit had read her dossier often enough. There was little doubt her people had an equal file on him.
    He revised the picture he’d built of his sixty-year-old adversary. In person, she was more imposing. Her hair had fewer dark streaks. Her steel gray wetsuit was zipped open to reveal a well-toned body in a black bathing suit. Against the dark fabric, a large, ornate silver cross hung from a thin silver chain—an unusual item to wear while diving.
    She gestured to a large cooler on the deck between them. Earlier the blue plastic container had held cans of Coca-Cola, water bottles, and a few Hinano beers. Now it protected the artifact from the underwater treasure chamber. Immersion in saltwater was the standard procedure for preserving anything retrieved from long submersion.
    “We finally beat you to one, Merrit.”
    He stayed silent, testing the tightness of the yellow nylon rope that secured his hands behind his back. At the same time, he checked for any sign of the two divers who had captured him.
    He spotted them, anchored astern on their own dive boat—a sleek, fifteen-meter catamaran, sails furled, twin hulls gleaming white against the jewel blue waves. A crew of three could easily handle her, so it was probable the two divers were MacClary’s only crew. He liked the odds.
    In the forward cabin of his own boat, Merrit caught sight of Krause at the wheel. Krause glared back at him with open hatred.
    Merrit looked up at his captor. “Krause gave you some inside help.”
    Florian MacClary, looking suddenly fatigued, sat on the Azimut’s side bench, steadying herself with one hand though the ocean swells were gentle.
    “Tell me about the help
you
had. Finding this place.”
    Merrit seized on his advantage. “You didn’t know this site was here. You followed me.”
    The slight flicker of her pale green eyes told him he was right.
    Whatever she had planned to say next, Merrit sensed that she changed her mind. Instead, she knelt on the deck and reached into the cooler, carefully removing the irregularly shaped, football-sized artifact.
    It was similar to the one he’d recovered in the Andes, smoothly pitted and cratered everywhere but on its one flat, polished side. The pattern engraved there, as far as he could tell, was the same. From the reverent way MacClary handled it, the object had special meaning to her.
    “I need to know,” she said. “Do you have any idea what this is?”
    Merrit had some idea what the object