Lemuria by Burt Clinchandhill (most popular novels of all time .txt) 📗

once, briefly. About four months ago, I visited the Logynous Laboratory a few blocks away from here, at the corner of Prospect and Canal Street. You heard of it?”

“Sure. Who hasn’t? The one building on campus not in any way related to the university, owned by the eccentric billionaire Eldin Mulder. The man with the quantum computer.”

“Among a lot of other high-tech adventures,” De Cremonese added. “That’s the one. I had a meeting with him, and that’s where I briefly met Jennifer in the hallway on the way out. I even gave her my business card.”

“Wait,” Bishop interrupted. “That was four months ago?”

De Cremonese nodded. “It was.”

“But she wasn’t missing at that time. I thought you saw her when she was missing.”

“I didn’t say or meant to imply that. But please, let me explain. That day I had a meeting with Mr. Mulder on his request. He wanted to talk to me about some endeavors of his and how I would feel the people, and the church, for that matter, would respond to them, once they went public.”

“What kind of endeavors?” Bishop asked.

“Well, therein lies a problem, because I can’t tell you. Mr. Mulder urged me to listen to him in the form of a confession, so I couldn’t reveal anything I heard.”

“Is that normal business?”

“It’s not unheard of. It’s kind of like how companies with trade secrets do it through NDAs. Well, you can see confession as sort of a non-disclosure agreement.”

“You said you met her on the way out and gave her your business card. Why did you do that?”

“Well, and I’m pushing the boundaries of confession here. In my conversation with Mulder, he pointed out he had a meeting with Jennifer Porter afterward and was going to ask her to work with him. That was why I gave her my business card. She saw I was a priest, so I guess I tried to give her sort of a way out or someone to talk to, should she want to after the conversation with Mulder.”

“And did she?”

“Did she what?” De Cremonese asked.

“Contact you?

“No. In a way, you did, for her.”

Bishop zoned out for a long moment.

“Are you okay?” De Cremonese asked.

“Sorry. I’m fine. I just remembered Jennifer’s mother saying something about a work offer from Eldin Mulder. She said Jennifer had turned him down. Can I see one of your business cards?”

“Sure.” He took one from his pocket and gave it to Bishop.

Bishop smiled, nodding, as he examined the card.

“You had a picture of your finding?” De Cremonese asked.

“Oh, yes. I’m sorry.” Bishop took out his phone, worked the screen, and gave it to De Cremonese with the picture on it of the carved statue from the Arca Domas, and held the business card on top of it.

De Cremonese looked at it carefully, and with two fingers, he zoomed in and out of it a couple of times, changing his view from the phone to the business card. “So, she did contact me,” he concluded.

“In a way,” Bishop added.

“And what’s this?” De Cremonese pointed to the carvings next to the logo of the Specola Vaticana.

“That’s her message to me. It’s the logo of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It’s a silly thing between us. That’s how I knew it was a message for me, saying she was there.”

“I recognize it now that you say it.” De Cremonese smiled. “Where’s there?”

“Surprisingly, on the other side of the world. A place called Arca Domas on the Indonesian island of Java.”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” De Cremonese responded.

Bishop frowned and tilted his head.

“I’m sorry....” De Cremonese said.

“But you can’t tell me.” Bishop finished De Cremonese’s sentence. “Well, what can you tell me?”

“Nothing specific from the meeting, but I’m wondering, how did you get to those, um, Arca Domos, you called it?”

“Arca Domas. To make a long story short, a collaboration of two government agencies who were researching the disappearance of untouched and isolated ancient human tribes contacted me. They’d tried to get in contact with Jennifer as a linguistic anthropologist, and when they couldn’t reach her, they contacted me. One of the officials is an old friend of mine. Eventually, we went on a search for the lost tribes and Jennifer. At a certain point, the trail led to the Arca Domas. It seems Jennifer was all over the world at those tribes’ locations, leaving clues behind about being there.”

“You say she’s been taken against her will?” De Cremonese asked.

“It sure seems like that. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she make contact?”

“That’s true. I must say, the whole thing worried me even more after I met with Mulder.”

“What happened?” Bishop asked.

“I got a call from a woman who introduced herself as Amie Coleman. She claimed she was Mulder’s personal assistant and had overheard our conversation. She had concerns about Mulder’s well-being should he continue the way he did. And please don’t ask me what that way was.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Anyway, she said she wanted to meet me, and we arranged a meeting that same day at a nearby café. I waited for over an hour, but she never showed.”

“You never spoke to her again?” Bishop asked.

“No. And now she has also disappeared, kidnapped by the Young Earth Movement.” De Cremonese stroke his beard.

“I saw it on the news. Any thoughts about that? Do you know that organization?” Bishop asked.

“Not really. But I know enough about similar organizations to know they were never into any form of real violence. It doesn’t seem to add up. But anyway, about two weeks ago, when I was in my home in Rome, I received a message from a colleague of mine to come to the observatory at Castel Gandolfo. He showed me two objects in the night sky, detected by the nightshift in our observatory here in the U.S. They were coming from Earth and heading for an unknown destination.”

“Rockets with satellites?” Bishop suggested.

“Of course, that was my first suggestion, but that night there were no known launches, and the trajectory seemed off