Echoes of Atlantis: Crones Templars and the Lost Continent (Templars in America Book 6) Read online

  Echoes of Atlantis

  Crones, Templars and the Lost Continent

  Copyright © 2016 by David S. Brody

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author: [email protected]

  Eyes That See Publishing

  Westford, Massachusetts

  ISBN 978-0-9907413-2-9

  1st edition

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except as otherwise noted in the Author’s Note, any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Kimberly Scott and Renee Brody

  Printed in USA

  Praise for Books in this Series

  “Brody does a terrific job of wrapping his research in a fast-paced thrill ride.”

  ─PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

  “A comparison to The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure is inevitable….The story rips the reader into a fast-paced adventure.”

  ─FRESH FICTION

  “A treat to read….If you are a fan of Templar history you will find this book very pleasing.”

  ─KNIGHT TEMPLAR MAGAZINE

  “An excellent historical conspiracy thriller. It builds on its most famous predecessor, The Da Vinci Code, and takes it one step farther—and across the Atlantic.”

  ─MYSTERY BOOK NEWS

  “The year is early, but this book will be hard to beat; it’s already on my ‘Best of 2009’ list.”

  ─BARYON REVIEW

  “Fantastic book. I can’t wait until the next book is released.”

  ─GOODREADS

  “Complex, convoluted, and very entertaining.”

  ─AMAZON TOP 1,000 REVIEWER

  To my daughters, Allie and Renee

  May you find your own personal versions of Atlantis

  About the Author

  David S. Brody is a Boston Globe bestselling fiction writer named Boston’s “Best Local Author” by the Boston Phoenix newspaper. A graduate of Tufts University and Georgetown Law School, he is a former Director of the New England Antiquities Research Association (NEARA) and is a dedicated researcher in the field of pre-Columbian exploration of America. He has appeared as a guest expert on documentaries airing on History Channel, Travel Channel, PBS, and Discovery Channel.

  The first four books in his “Templars in America Series” are Amazon Kindle Top 10 Bestsellers.

  Echoes of Atlantis is his ninth novel.

  For more information, please visit

  DavidBrodyBooks.com

  Also by the Author

  Unlawful Deeds

  Blood of the Tribe

  The Wrong Abraham

  The “Templars in America” Series

  Cabal of the Westford Knight: Templars at the Newport Tower (Book 1)

  Thief on the Cross: Templar Secrets in America (Book 2)

  Powdered Gold: Templars and the American Ark of the Covenant (Book 3)

  The Oath of Nimrod: Giants, MK-Ultra and the Smithsonian Coverup (Book 4)

  The Isaac Question: Templars and the Secret of the Old Testament (Book 5)

  Preface

  Is the lost continent of Atlantis a mere legend? I had always assumed so. But, as often happens, once I started digging around in the dusty corners of history, I found some pretty compelling evidence that some kind of advanced civilization existed—and then was lost— approximately 12,000 years ago. This evidence includes, but is not limited to:

  • the writings of Plato

  • ancient European cave art and ceramics

  • the Gobekli Tepe site in Turkey

  • breeding and migratory patterns of certain eels and butterflies

  • fresh water fossils found underwater along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

  • the geology of the Azores Islands

  • similar “Red Paint” burial sites found on both sides of the Atlantic

  • ancient Sumerian, Indian and Egyptian writings

  • erosion patterns on the famous Sphinx

  Perhaps most noteworthy of all, however, was this simple drawing of a Native American “witch” found in eastern Mexico, dating back to before known European contact:

  Why, I wondered, did the Native Americans portray their witches, or crones, with pointed black hats riding on brooms just as did their European counterparts?

  It is the evidence bulleted above which comprises the bones of this story. Who were these ancient peoples? Where did they live? How did they perish? Did any survive?

  Of course, none of my stories in this series is complete without a tie-in to the medieval Knights Templar. Did the Templars know of the secret history of Atlantis? Were they in some way Atlantis’ caretakers or successors?

  Readers of the first five books in the series will recognize the protagonists, Cameron and Amanda, and also young Astarte. Readers of my 2006 novel, The Wrong Abraham, may also note the return of the Abraham Gottlieb character. This story called for a complex villain like Abraham, and it was fun to bring him and his cohorts back for some more vigilantism.

  As always, if an artifact, site or art object is pictured here, it exists in the real world. (See Author’s Note at the end of this book for discussion regarding artifact authenticity.) To me, it is the historical artifacts and sites that are the true stars of these novels.

  I remain fascinated by the hidden history of North America, including the possibility that an advanced civilization lived in the mid-Atlantic before recorded time. It is my hope that readers share this fascination.

  David S. Brody, August, 2016

  Westford, Massachusetts

  Note to New Readers

  The artifacts and sites pictured in this novel are real. While the story is fiction, the sites and artifacts used to tell it are authentic.

  Though this is the sixth book in the series, it is a stand-alone story. Readers who have not read the first five should feel free to jump right in. The summary below provides some basic background for new readers:

  Cameron Thorne is a forty-one-year-old attorney/historian whose passion is researching sites and artifacts that indicate the presence in America of European explorers prior to Columbus. His wife, Amanda Spencer-Gunn, is a former British museum curator who moved to the U.S. from London while in her mid-twenties and shares his research passion; she has a particular expertise in the history of the medieval Knights Templar. They reside in Westford, Massachusetts, a suburb northwest of Boston. Newly married, they are in the process of adopting an eleven-year-old orphan, Astarte. Cam and Amanda are part of a growing community of researchers investigating early exploration of North America.

  The Book of Enoch*

  Chapters 7-8 [excerpted]

  “It happened after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the Watchers, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, saying to each other, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children. Their whole number was two hundred, who descended from the top of Mount Hermon. Then they took wives, teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women conceiving brought forth giants. Moreover the Watchers taught men to make swords, knives, shields, breastplates, the fab
rication of mirrors, and the workmanship of bracelets and ornaments, the use of paint, the beautifying of the eyebrows, the use of stones of every valuable and select kind, and all sorts of dyes. And there arose much godlessness, and they became corrupt in all their ways. The Watchers taught astronomy, astrology, meteorology and the motion of the moon, so that the world became altered.”

  *The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious text, accepted as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Churches.

  “There occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune the island of Atlantis disappeared in the depths of the sea.”

  —Plato, writing in 360 BCE

  Chapter 1

  Westford, Massachusetts

  March, Present Day

  Amanda Spencer-Gunn stood at her front door, snow swirling in the night sky as a March storm howled. The echo of Venus’ angry bark rang in her ears yet there was nobody outside. She suppressed a shiver as the last vestiges of a New England winter bit at her exposed skin.

  “What did you hear, girl?” The dog rarely made a commotion.

  The tawny Labrador pushed past her, offered another sharp bark and nosed at a shoe-box-sized package tucked tight against the wall of the house. “That’s odd,” she said, bending to pick up the box. “Clearly that’s what you heard.” She scanned the street. Nothing. “And why no footprints?” The wind had turned the driveway and front yard into a desert landscape of undulating snow drifts. But no way could the storm have erased tracks that quickly.

  She brushed snowflakes off the simple white label, revealing her name and her Massachusetts address typed in capital letters. No return address, no stamp, no delivery service label, no extraneous markings of any kind. She glanced outside again. “And no bloody footprints,” she repeated.

  Cam and Astarte appeared at the top of the basement stairs, ping pong paddles in hand. “Who was at the door?” Cam asked.

  “Someone delivering this.”

  “It’s late for a delivery.”

  She sat at the kitchen table and peered at the box. Glancing at Cam, she swallowed. “Should I open it?”

  They had both heard stories of people sending crazy things like anthrax and bombs through the mail. And she and Cam were not without enemies. “You want me to?” he asked.

  She shook her head. Watching Cam’s lungs get eaten away by a pathogen hardly offered a tempting alternative. “No. But Astarte please take Venus and go to the living room.” Holding the box to the light, she examined it, shaking it gently. It felt too light to be an explosive of any kind. “Bloody hell,” she murmured.

  Amanda found a pair of rubber gloves under the sink and a surgical mask left over from a painting project. She grabbed some scissors and carried the box into the bathroom. This was the point in the movie where she usually looked away. Holding the box away from her body, she steadied her hand. With a swallow she gently sliced open the edge and folded back the flap. Not breathing, she counted to three. Nothing.

  Cam stood in the doorway. “Boom,” he joked.

  “Not funny.” She folded back the second flap, revealing a blank, cream-colored envelope resting atop a black suede jewelry box. Her gut told her this was not some late wedding gift. “Beware footless Greeks bearing gifts,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just inane babbling.” She lifted the envelope from the box and again examined it in the light.

  “See anything?” Cam asked.

  “No. The paper is too thick.” Her hand still shaking, she opened the envelope and peered inside. A single sheet of paper, also cream-colored. And no apparent powder. She shook the paper gently over the sink. Nothing.

  She remembered finally to breathe. Removing the paper, she returned to the kitchen table and began to read aloud the typewritten message. “I entrust you with this necklace. It has been in our family since time immemorial. It is both a blessing and a curse; with it you will soar, and under its weight you will stagger. Guard it carefully, as there are others who will try to take it from you. I had intended to deliver it personally, but circumstances changed quickly. Remember, the growth of understanding follows an ascending spiral rather than a straight line.” She looked up. What the hell did all that mean?

  “That’s it? No signature?”

  “Nothing. Just what I read. No return address, not even a salutation.”

  Cam exhaled, smiled and took her hand. “Looks like we have ourselves another mystery,” he said. He loved shit like this. She could do without the mysteries and family curses and ascending spirals. “What say we open the box?” he said.

  “That’s what Pandora said.” Returning to the bathroom just to be safe, Amanda slowly lifted the lid of the hinged container. A gray metal spiral hanging from a silver chain stared back at her.

  Cam leaned in. “I guess that explains the growth of understanding following an ascending spiral.”

  “Hardly,” she snapped back. As Amanda moved her hand closer, the spiral seemed to change color, from gray to steel blue, as if in resonance with her body like one of those 1970s mood rings. And not only did the spiral change colors, it seemed to pulsate in concert with her breathing. “How odd,” she said as they watched the necklace gently throb. She held her breath—the spiral stopped pulsating. “It’s almost like it is synced to me.”

  “Sort of like a baby using its mother’s breathing as a cue.”

  She nodded. But this was inanimate. She examined the spiral more closely. It wasn’t just a traditional spiral—its outermost ring angled off and split into a pair of lines that escaped the orbit of the coil like the twin tentacles on the head of a snail. An ascending spiral.

  They both knew the spiral was an ancient sign of the sacred feminine, or earth mother, of the old pagan religions. Someone was trying to tell her something. And according to the note people would be trying to take the necklace from her. Apparently the two were related. But that was pretty much all they knew. And that someone braved a nasty storm to make the delivery without leaving footprints.

  She lifted the necklace from the box, the spiral cold against her skin. It was heavier than she expected, almost like lead.

  “Any idea who could have sent this?” Cam asked. “The note referred to ‘our family,’ like you were part of it.”

  “No bloody clue.” She barely knew her dad—he ran off when she was four or five. She turned it over, looking for markings. “My Mum would have pawned this decades ago if she had the chance.”

  “Other relatives?”

  She shrugged. “An aunt who died back when I was young. Nobody else I really know.”

  “Well, it seems as if they know you.”

  “Apparently so.” The spiral had resumed pulsating in concert with her breathing and had now turned light blue. If Amanda recalled correctly, that was the mood ring color for relaxed and at ease. She held the necklace in the palm of her hand, wondering if and why it felt soothed in her presence. The phone rang, interrupting her musings and drawing them out of the bathroom. As Amanda lifted the receiver, she glanced at the necklace. It had suddenly turned dark gray again.

  Amanda took a deep breath. “Hello.” The caller ID read unknown.

  “Is this Amanda Spencer?” A woman’s voice, cold and flat, the hint of a British accent.

  “Yes.”

  The line went dead.

  Astarte was used to getting called down to the principal’s office. It usually happened on the last Wednesday of every month, but they didn’t have school yesterday due to the storm. So she wasn’t surprised when, after lunchtime recess on Thursday, Mrs. Wickard told her to put away her snow clothes and go to the office.

  Blowing her hands warm (it being easier to make, and throw, good snowballs with your bare hands), she skipped down the familiar hallways. A fifth-grader, this was her third year at the Abbot School. She had known no other—before Amanda and Cam adopted her she had lived with her Uncle Jefferson and Aunt Eliza in Connecticut. E
liza home-schooled her. When Jefferson died she didn’t want to live with Eliza anymore and asked to come live with Amanda and Cam. They let her go to a real school. The only sad thing was that she missed Uncle Jefferson sometimes. She kept a picture of him next to her bed, but it was becoming harder and harder to remember him. That was okay, she supposed. Amanda and Cam were her parents now. Not officially, yet. But soon. That was what these meetings every month with her social worker were for.

  She smiled at the secretary, Mrs. Boisvert. They were friends. Mrs. Boisvert was part Algonquin so she knew what it was like to be Native American. “Hi, beautiful,” the woman sang to her.

  Astarte smiled. “Hi.”

  “Oh, that smile could light the darkest night,” the woman laughed. “And those blue eyes! You’re going to have to fight the boys off next year in middle school.”

  Astarte wasn’t sure if she meant it literally. “That’s okay. I can run faster than most of them.”

  The woman laughed. “Yes, I’m sure you can.” She lowered her voice. “There’s a new man to see you. From the state. I’ve never seen him before.”

  Astarte exhaled. “Not Mrs. Bean-Brown?” Every time the state sent a new social worker it meant Astarte had to answer a thousand dumb questions.

  “Mrs. Bean-Brown is with him.” She smiled. “It must mean you are doubly important.”

  She went into a side office where an older man with a blue blazer and bow tie sat next to the bird-like Mrs. Bean-Brown on one side of a round table. Mrs. Bean-Brown always seemed nervous, but especially so today. She waved meekly at Astarte, her four fingers barely moving, as the man stood and smiled widely, his crooked teeth matching his bow tie. “Are you Astarte?”

  He pronounced it wrong, with the accent on the last syllable like escargot. She corrected him, placing the emphasis on the second syllable. “It’s As-TAR-te.” Her mother named her after the Phoenician goddess—family legend was that her line descended from an ancient Carthaginian travel party that had made its way up the Mississippi River from the Mediterranean and assimilated into the Mandan tribe almost two thousand years ago. Her uncle had collected artifacts from Illinois that proved the legend; Astarte kept many of them in her room.