The Manuscript Read Online Free PDF Page B

manuscript he’d been sent.
    Either the author was a wildly-inventive fiction writer blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, or he’d authored an incredible non-fiction account that could alter the course of modern history, as well as the standing of many of society’s most venerated figures and institutions. Abe had been immediately sucked in by the account, and even though he suspected the whole thing was a work of elaborate fiction, he was open to the idea that it was possible – just possible – it was actually what it purported to be.
    If that was the case, and if, when he finished the manuscript, the events described were verifiable as true and correct, he’d just received the most important book of his career.
    The e-mail message had indicated Abe was the only person it had been sent to because of the author’s knowledge of his literary tastes and track record. The latter wasn’t tough to figure out, because Abe had been fortunate enough to amass a roster of respectable non-fiction talents along with a few commercially-successful fiction scribes. But that hadn’t really helped Abe figure out which of the two camps this author fell into.
    He/she claimed the work was non-fiction, but then again so did all religions, along with thousands of dubious biographies and memoirs, so a non-fiction assurance meant less than nothing to Abe.
    As to his tastes, the author had nailed Abe, he’d grant him that. After forty-odd years in the business, it was almost impossible to write something Abe would find interesting, and even less likely he’d read more than a few pages before deciding it wasn’t marketable. This manuscript had stopped Abe cold, riveting him, had resonated with a part of him he’d considered, if not dead, at least in some kind of protracted coma.
    This morning when he’d gotten into the office, he’d spent the first few hours of his day making calls in an attempt to verify or refute some of the more incredible claims the manuscript had made in the couple of hundred pages he’d skimmed before hitting the sack late last night.
    Over his forty years in the business, Abe had accumulated a lot of favors, so his inquiries to his contact base received serious attention. Nobody he reached could immediately offer any definitives, but all promised to investigate and get back to him with whatever they learned. This included two professors at Columbia University, the vice-chairman of one of the largest investment banks on Wall Street, and the head of an elite think-tank in D.C..
    Abe had pondered the claims in the manuscript long and hard, and understood that if they could be corroborated, they represented an incredible exposé of a hidden reality not even the most jaded conspiracy theorists had dreamt of in their most paranoid moments. But in order to know whether he had a book, Abe needed to get some feeling of how much, if any of it, was true or could be verified. If he just got blank stares from his network, many of whom were as plugged-in as it was possible to be, he could safely assume it was all a waste of time and simply flush the document and get on with his life.
    So he’d made the calls, reeling in favors and cajoling – and then he’d glanced at his watch and realized that he needed to attend to more mundane matters. He’d set the wheels in motion on doing his due diligence, and now he needed to give it some time and see what the tom toms came back with.
    His brief stab at initial research concluded, he’d grabbed his coat and satchel and rushed out to meet one of his authors at a brunch launching the writer’s latest non-fiction tome on how to make millions from one’s home computer by working only three hours a day. That chore concluded, he’d next detoured and stopped downtown to chat with a publisher he’d been having a hard time getting on the phone. Many of the real deals were done on a face-to-face basis, and Abe understood you needed to pound the pavement sometimes if you