The Atlantis Prophecy

12

DRESSED IN BOOTS, britches, and a blue Continental Army coat, Yeats circled the large 25-foot-tall obelisk. It was made of fieldstone, like the Washington Monument, and built more than a hundred years ago by the Masons of Newburgh, New York, to commemorate Washington's greatest yet least known military victory.

For it was here at Newburgh and not at Yorktown that the last battle of the American Revolution took place. On this very spot Washington was offered the chance to be America's first king by his officers. But Washington refused the crown, which he considered anathema to the cause of liberty to which he and his soldiers had dedicated themselves. His officers then attempted America's first and only military coup.

Washington quelled the coup at the eleventh hour by appealing to their better instincts with a speech that came to be known as the Newburgh Address. Moved to tears, his officers reaffirmed their support for their commander-in-chief.

It was the Revolution's darkest hour and Washington's greatest victory.

At least that's what the history books say.

Today, this last encampment of the Continental Army is known as the New Windsor Cantonment State Historic Site, a state park just off the New York Thruway. Here interpreters in period dress reenact military exercises and show what everyday life was like for the camp's 7,000 troops and 500 women and children. Nobody on the staff at the visitors center gave much thought to the lone "cast member" wandering about the 1,600-acre enclave and winding up in front of the obelisk memorial.

Except maybe one. A ruddy, middle-aged man dressed as a Redcoat had given Conrad a funny look inside the gracious Edmonston House when he asked for records of names of those who may have visited Washington at the encampment. There were none officially, but Conrad was allowed to peruse a few journals of the day kept by members of the military. It took hours, but he finally found an entry dated March 15, 1783, which mentioned Washington had a visitor, Robert Yates, in his base home shortly before addressing his mutinous troops.

But there was nothing about the nature of the visit that Conrad could find.

Now he stood outside, bending over to examine the inscription on the obelisk monument, trying to discern what business his nominal ancestor and George Washington had conducted under these extraordinary circumstances.

He found what he was looking for in an inscription on the granite tablet on the south face of the obelisk:

On this ground was erected the "Temple" or new public building by the army of the Revolution 1782-83. The birthplace of the Republic.

The birthplace of the republic, he thought when a voice from behind said, "My, don't you look fetching in breeches."

He turned to see Serena dressed in a white bonnet, puffy white skirt, and busty blue blouse that simply could not safely contain her natural endowments.

"Don't you dare say a word," she warned him. "Or I'll introduce you to the pleasures of spending the rest of your life as a eunuch. Now, why are we here?"

Conrad walked her over to a long, rectangular log cabin with a line of small square windows, like a church without a steeple. Serena recognized it from her visitor's guide as a full-scale replica of the camp's original "Temple of Virtue," erected at Washington's command to serve as a chapel for the army and a lodge-room for the fraternity of Freemasons which existed among the officer corps. On the parade grounds beyond, a musket and artillery demonstration was underway. Every now and then she heard the boom of a canon.

"Picture the scene," he said. "The British are defeated at Yorktown. End of war, happy ending. All the same, things aren't looking so good in early 1783. The peace negotiations in Paris are dragging on and on. Congress is balking about the army's back pay, pensions, and land bounties. High-ranking officers led by Major General Horatio Gates, Washington's second-in-command and commandant of this Cantonment, threaten to ruin the cause of independence by mutiny."

"Right, so he confronts them in the Temple of Virtue with his famous Newburgh Address," she said, wishing right now she had Conrad's and Cardinal Tucci's encyclopedic knowledge of American history.

"Except the speech doesn't work and his words fall on deaf ears," Conrad said. "So with a sigh he removes from his pocket a letter from a member of Congress that he wants to read to them. But he has trouble reading it and reaches into another pocket and brings out a pair of new reading glasses, which he has never worn publicly. Then he says, 'Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.'"

This much Serena knew from the visitors guide. "Yes, and moved to tears by the unaffected drama of their venerated commander's spectacles, the officers vote to affirm their loyalty to Washington and Congress. The Newburgh conspiracy collapses. A month later the Treaty of Paris is signed and the eight-year War of Independence comes to an end. Washington resigns his commission and retires to Mount Vernon. The army disbands. Everybody goes home. End of story. You have a point, mate? Because this blouse is itchy."

"What if old George's bit with the spectacles didn't work?" Conrad asked. "It's really hard to believe it did if you think about it. What if this wasn't the birthplace of the republic? What if this was the birth of the empire and this group called the Alignment?"

"You're reaching, Conrad," she said. "You haven't even told me how you came up with Newburgh in the first place."

"The number 763 on my father's tombstone. You know, the code you were going to give me if I helped you."

Serena felt the intended sting of Conrad's remark. "I thought the Tallmadge code you used on the Stargazer text translated 763 as 'Headquarters.' Washington had many headquarters throughout the Revolution."

"But Tallmadge invented the code for Washington in 1783, when Washington was encamped here at Newburgh," he said, looking about. Serena could tell he was oh, so close to putting his finger on it. "This is where the paths of my family and Washington intersected. That's why Robert Yates stormed out of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia six years later and then wrote a book called Secret Proceedings and Debates about the formation of the U.S. Constitution. Something happened here."

Obviously something happened, Serena thought. Otherwise this historical state park wouldn't exist and we wouldn't be standing here dressed like fools.

"Just think about it, Serena," he said. "Washington delivered everything the Newburgh conspirators demanded. The soldiers got their pay. The oldest military hereditary society in the United States was formed with the Society of Cincinnati. Then the U.S. Constitution was ratified, establishing a strong national government and military."

Which was all true, Serena realized.

According to her literature, Washington served as the first president general of the Society of Cincinnati from 1783 until his death in 1799. The Society was named after the Roman farmer-general Cincinnatus, who like Washington centuries later left his fields to lead his republic into battle. Its noble motto: "He gave up everything to serve the republic." These days Serena knew the Society of Cincinnati to be a decentralized and outstanding charitable organization, one that she had worked with on occasion. But she wondered if originally it had been something more. Perhaps the Alignment had forced Washington's hand into creating for them a new host so they would leave the Masons, much like the biblical account of the demon that Jesus cast out of a man and into a herd of pigs. By the time Washington died in 1799, the Alignment may well have abandoned the Society if they had succeeded, as Washington feared, in penetrating every level of the new federal government. Thus his warnings to future Americans.

Serena said, "You think Washington cut some kind of deal with the military, something that's coming home to roost now."

"In four days," he said, staring at her with his warm, intense hazel eyes. "But we won't know for sure until we find whatever Washington buried under the Mall in D.C."

Serena gasped. He knows. "What are you talking about?"

"We're looking for a celestial globe," he told her. "Just like the one in the Savage portrait. Washington buried it for his ultimate sleeper agent, Stargazer, to recover at the end of time. By some cosmic joke, it appears that I am Stargazer. And only when I find this celestial globe will I fulfill my mission."

Suddenly it hit her. Not only did Conrad figure out what they were looking for, he knew where it was! How did he know?

"You know where the globe is buried?" she asked, thunderstruck.

"You had the answer in your hands all along. Do you have my letter from Washington? I thought I saw something in there," he said playfully.

He was referring to the cleavage her blouse exposed. Embarrassed, she turned her back on him, retrieved the letter and handed it over.

"Father Neale told Bishop Carroll that he saw the slave Hercules leaving Washington's chamber just before Washington died on December 14, 1799." He unfolded the letter with the map on back, looking around to make sure nobody was watching. "But the letter itself is dated September 18, 1793. See? That's the date he buried the globe."

Serena nodded anxiously, berating herself for having missed the discrepancy in dates. "It's got some astrological significance, doesn't it?"

"Enough significance that Washington chose that date to lay the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol-on the hill that Bishop John Carroll's brother Daniel sold him."

With that everything came together, wholly and horribly.

"The globe is in the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol," she said.

Conrad nodded. "And I'm going to steal it."

An hour later they drove south out of the New York tristate area in separate cars, Conrad in McConnell's black Mercedes making a list of everything he'd need for his operation, Serena in her limo with Benito calling ahead to make sure the new safe house would be ready.

As Conrad and Serena headed toward their designated rendezvous in Washington, D.C., the man in the Redcoat costume was sitting in Horatio Gates's old headquarters at Edmonston House, calling a number in Virginia as he looked at a picture of Conrad Yeats he had torn from his fax machine the day before.

"This is Vailsgate," he said. "I need to get a message to Osiris."