He had just opened it when Marian Hunt came in, followed by the executive chef, Ray Weller, Glen, Bill Osterman, the chief engineer, and the other members of the on-site steering committee.

Appropriately enough just before lunch, the subject was to be food resources. Supplying the clinic with the luxuries the patients expected was getting more and more complicated. There had to be cutbacks, followed by the inevitable protests.

As the room filled, he began to experience an acute sense of claustrophobia. He was not used to feeling suspicious of coworkers, and having his office filled with them was surprisingly unpleasant. As large as it was, it felt just now like a coffin.

Katie said, "Doctor, are you okay? Because you don't look okay."

He put a hand on her shoulder and could feel her stiffening and recoiling from the contact.

"Do you think Dr. Ullman was murdered?"

"Excuse me?"

She was surprised by his question-as, for that matter, was he. But she recovered herself quickly.

"He died in a fire," she said, her voice sharp.

He looked around at the a.s.sembled group, the concealing, careful faces.

"Very well," he said, "let's get started. We don't have much time."

And then he thought: in truth, we don't have any time. No time at all. In fact, the Acton Clinic, all of us, the country, the world-we are all in the same situation: we no longer have time.

DAVID FORD'S JOURNAL: TWO I was looking through Bartholomew Light's book and a doc.u.ment fell out, and this doc.u.ment has, quite simply, turned me inside out. Reality is not what I thought. Not at all.

The note is old. It is signed by Herbert Acton. The heading is "Divinatory Calendar" and dated "6.1.1." This is either June 1, 1901, or January 6, 1901, I have no way to tell which.

Now, this next part is important, and I want to record it exactly: I found this note at 11:50 in the morning of May 22, 2020, while paging through the book.

I know it isn't forgery-not because the paper looks old, but for another reason that will become clear after I have recorded the list itself.

The list. In my humble opinion, probably the most astonishing words ever written by the human hand.

On the surface, it is the work of someone with deep insight into modern history. On the surface.

It is a list of the dates on which certain small but crucial events took place in the twentieth century. Each date is accompanied by a stamped glyph, and I found the deities they refer to in The G.o.ds of Mesoamerica. The G.o.ds of Mesoamerica.

In the absence of the Internet, I have used Every Day in History, Every Day in History, also in this library, to research the dates I did not know, which was all but one or two of them. also in this library, to research the dates I did not know, which was all but one or two of them.

I record them herewith together with the ident.i.ty of the Aztec glyph a.s.sociated with each one: 2 February 1910: Entry of Aleister Crowley into the Order of the Golden Dawn.

This was an occult organization. The glyph is the G.o.d of the underworld, Acolmiztli, as if this act somehow drew us all into a kind of h.e.l.l, or marked our pa.s.sage into it.

28 June 1914: a.s.sa.s.sination of Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

This a.s.sa.s.sination led to World War I. The a.s.sociated glyph is Ixtab, G.o.ddess of suicide. Eater of blood.

13 October 1917: The Fatima "dance of the sun."

This bizarre event was witnessed by thousands. Glyph of Citilalinique, "she who illuminates," G.o.ddess of the starry skirt. (And I do recall the remarkable star-covered robe the apparition at Fatima was described as wearing.) 5 January 1919: Foundation of Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

Adolf Hitler joined this party the following year and it became the n.a.z.is. Tezcatlipoca, G.o.d of rulers, death, and the night.

16 September 1922: The last reparations meeting in Weimar.

At this meeting, it was decided to strip all the gold from Germany. As a result, the German mark hyperinflated and the stage was set for the rise of Hitler and his party. Five-Vulture, G.o.d of ruinous excess.

30 March 1934: Leo Szilard conceives the nuclear chain reaction.

Szilard was walking the streets of London when suddenly he saw how the atomic bomb would work. Quilaztli: G.o.ddess of the Milky Way, whose roar signaled war.

25 January 1938: Fatima prediction fulfilled.

On that night, ma.s.sive auroras over Europe heralded the beginning of World War II, just as Our Lady of Fatima had warned would happen. The event was a.s.sociated with Chalchiuhtotli, G.o.d of mystery.

This is the last date save one, which is the most shocking of them all.

This is a list of events that took place beneath the surface of history, but which were critical markers in mankind's long journey through the underworld that we apparently entered in 1910.

I have a personal story about one of the events. Specifically, my father knew an elderly priest, Father Thomas Heim, who was among the thousands who actually witnessed the dance of the sun at Fatima. Father Heim had said that the object was not the sun, but something in the sky that was in front of the sun. He said that he could see a ladder on the object, with figures moving on it.

I have never known what that might have meant, but this last date has made it more clear.

It is June 22, 1947. This is the date of something called the Maury Island UFO encounter. It was the first UFO event of modern times, preceding the famous Roswell Incident by about three weeks. It involved the sighting of a number of unidentified flying objects over Maury Island, Washington, by some fishermen. Some strange material fell out of one of the objects and onto the boat of the fishermen.

It also involved the deaths, over subsequent weeks and months, of many of the people involved in the investigation.

One who survived was called Fred Crisman. He was later implicated by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination. What that may mean, if anything, I do not know, but he was certainly involved with Lee Harvey Oswald.

The point of this list, I think, is to reveal crucial moments in history that ill.u.s.trate the hidden battle among the higher powers that govern human affairs. We have not drifted into this desperate trap at all, but been led here. Just as the ancient Maya knew when we would reenter the debris field of the supernova, so did whoever is behind the way this world of ours works. And they have been designing designing history, not simply allowing it to happen. history, not simply allowing it to happen.

But, of course, my own a.s.sumption that this doc.u.ment is old isn't enough to convince me of its authenticity, but the second page is. On this page are just two paragraphs, the first ent.i.tled "Citilalinique." There follows an intimate description of Caroline Light: The Lady of the Starry Skirt, bringer of the light of understanding. She is to be born 25 October 1986 on schedule and sign. Will enter cla.s.s 1 June 1994 with the others. p.u.b.escence takes place 12 July 1997. Amnesia will then be induced. The Lady of the Starry Skirt, bringer of the light of understanding. She is to be born 25 October 1986 on schedule and sign. Will enter cla.s.s 1 June 1994 with the others. p.u.b.escence takes place 12 July 1997. Amnesia will then be induced.

The second paragraph is called "Quetzalcoatl," and it is about one David Ford. The Plumed Serpent, creator and builder, is to be born 25 October 1988 on schedule and sign. p.u.b.escence takes place 12 July 1992. Enters cla.s.s 1 June 1994 with the others. Partial induction, no artificial psychosis. Directed to medical career in antic.i.p.ation of later role. To become clinic director 14 May 2020. Will find this doc.u.ment at eleven-fifty in the morning of 22 May 2020. The Plumed Serpent, creator and builder, is to be born 25 October 1988 on schedule and sign. p.u.b.escence takes place 12 July 1992. Enters cla.s.s 1 June 1994 with the others. Partial induction, no artificial psychosis. Directed to medical career in antic.i.p.ation of later role. To become clinic director 14 May 2020. Will find this doc.u.ment at eleven-fifty in the morning of 22 May 2020.

Perhaps I could explain all this away as a clever forgery, except for that last sentence. As soon as I read it, I looked at the clock. It was 11:57 A.M. A.M., and it had taken a few minutes to read.

In other words, no matter the ink, no matter the age, the author had antic.i.p.ated the exact moment I would find it, and could not not have known this in any conventional way, not even if the doc.u.ment was written an hour ago. So, as I turned over the page, I also overturned everything I understand about our world-as, I am sure, I was meant to do. have known this in any conventional way, not even if the doc.u.ment was written an hour ago. So, as I turned over the page, I also overturned everything I understand about our world-as, I am sure, I was meant to do.

The list ends with two sentences: What I could not do, you must. The judgment has begun. What I could not do, you must. The judgment has begun.

Many religions and societies have intuited-or known-of the existence of the great cycles we are moving through, and seen their periodic end as times of divine judgment. All well and good, except I don't think that we should view the higher force that creates and harvests souls on earth as something supernatural.

I don't believe in the G.o.ds identified in the doc.u.ment, or any G.o.ds, for that matter, and certainly not in myself as some prancing Aztec deity. But I now have no choice except to believe that an extraordinary science, hidden from most eyes, is able to predict the unfolding of time, and that it is in some incomprehensible way connected to the images of these deities-and to me and Caroline, and to this place, and probably to whatever future the world has, if any.

What I have here is a doc.u.ment based on the lost science I am beginning to remember being taught in our cla.s.s. It operates entirely differently from modern disciplines, for this is a science of the soul, and as such makes use of more than the three dimensions we see around us.

Its engineering built the impossible structures we see from the past, such as the gigantic platform at Baalbek in Lebanon, made of stones so huge that we could not move them to this day, or the fortress high in the Andes at Sacsahuaman, constructed from more than thirty thousand perfectly matched boulders, each weighing at least a ton, and carried thousands of feet from gorges far below.

But it was its ability to see into time that was its most extraordinary achievement-to see into time and, just possibly, to actually move through time.

Of course, I'm going to look between the pages of every book in this room, because I understand very well what I am seeing here. I have beside me on this desk as I write these words a list that is a map of mankind's descent into an underworld where we are still trapped.

I have often reflected on the fact that a single bullet fired from a small pistol by the political simpleton who a.s.sa.s.sinated Franz Ferdinand led to the collapse of Western Civilization and the destruction of a billion lives.

This list, by including that event, acknowledges its hidden importance, and by a.s.sociating it with Ixtab, the symbol not of war but of suicide, reveals much insight into the actual psychology behind the events. The old world did not die, it committed suicide, quite literally. It was the mechanical nature of the interlocking treaties involved that amplified that single shot into the vast international immolation that followed, and, above all, the machinery machinery of the situation. Once one country had put its soldiers on the trains that would take them to the front, the others were forced to do the same or risk being unable to prevent the army that was already mobilizing from simply walking across their borders. of the situation. Once one country had put its soldiers on the trains that would take them to the front, the others were forced to do the same or risk being unable to prevent the army that was already mobilizing from simply walking across their borders.

At its deepest level this is a list of man's enslavement to mechanism.

It is also something else. It announces the coming of a higher power in the form of the UFO, a phenomenon that started with the Maury Island incident.

In 2012, NASA did say that some of them were apparently of intelligent origin, but who has investigated? Who's had time? Maybe somebody, but I never saw any news about their findings, and now it's too late for that sort of thing.

So this higher power has returned to oversee this enormous change.

I find myself in this marvelous, silent room with its tall bookshelves and exotic carved walls, with its mysteries all around me, going deep into myself and finding more and more questions. I am a man alone at the end of time, with a dependent flock to keep, a sort of shepherd.

Before G.o.d, I could not previously have imagined a sense of helplessness this profound.

5.

QUETZALCOATL.

Caroline Light followed Sam Taylor through the lovely front of the house. He'd been described to her as a "minder," and he looked considerably tougher than the nurse who had originally met her, a gentle lady called Nurse Cross.

Coming here had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Leaving her dad, and him so old and the situation so perilous-it had taken all the strength she possessed to turn her back on him. His old driver, Vincent, had gotten her here in just over fourteen hours, traveling back roads, bypa.s.sing cities, avoiding the interstates where a car like the Mercedes was a definite target.

And now here she was in the place where the legendary Aubrey Denman had just lost her life-and in certain danger herself.

Dad had wept quietly as she left. She had, too, but not quietly. The last she'd seen of him was that proud old figure, narrow but immensely dignified, standing before their beloved Mayfair, the house Dad's father had bought after being blessed with the friendship of Herbert Acton. Dad's last words to her had been a cavalier wave and a confident, "See you on the other side." The tears, though, had been silent testament to the truth: they were beyond the edge of the age now. Not even Herbert Acton had been able to see clearly into this period of chaos.

The future was on her shoulders now, hers and David's.

They reached the end of the long corridor that split the second story. Before them was a black door locked by a fingerprint reader. It looked like the entrance to a gas chamber or a prison, or the underworld. He touched the reader and the door clicked, then opened onto a white inst.i.tutional corridor lit by fluorescents.

She needed to seem like just another patient, and saw a chance to do a little acting. She stopped.

"Excuse me, Sir. Mr. Taylor?"

"Ma'am?"

"What is this? Where are we going?"

"Your things are being moved into your room now, and I'm taking you on a tour of the facility."

"Fair enough, as long as I don't have to fraternize with the other nuts." Lay it on, girl.

They entered a large room, and for the first time she saw some of her compatriots. She hadn't seen her cla.s.smates since they were children, but she could recognize almost all of them. In any case, she knew their names, so she would be able to identify even the ones who were most spectacularly different.

Being close to them again was every bit as eerie as her father had warned her that it would be. Most of them had not the slightest idea who she was, and those who did weren't going to show it.

David had been expected to remember her immediately. Her mention of Quetzalcoatl had been the trigger that was supposed to break his amnesia.

It hadn't worked, so now what? Mrs. Denman was dead, and she dared not talk about such a subject with Dad on the phone, even if she was able to get through. Obviously the enemy was right here in this place. Could even be this Mr. Toughguy with a heart of gold, for all she knew.

"This is the activity area," Sam said. "This is where we meet friends, make new friends, that kind of thing. There are games, there's a poker game, there's bridge, of course, we have two leagues and an annual championship, there's backgammon, a lot of stuff like that. Also, we have an art room where you can paint or sculpt or do pottery. Actually, we have practically everything."

She noticed a guy ogling her. He had not been in the cla.s.s, so he was one of the real patients, and his nostrils were actually dilating. What a creep.

"Who's he?"

"Graham Mining."

"If we go by our company names, that makes me Daddy's Little Girl. We have no company. We're post-work."

The patient followed her with his sick eyes. Then, annoyingly, he got up and came sliding over. Big, imposing man with a carefully tuned smile. "They call me Mack the Cat," he said.

She understood why, too. He moved like a jaguar. You wanted to step back.

"May I know your name, Miss?"

"No."

" 'No' is a good name. Easy to spell."

"And it gets the point across. Incidentally, you drool, but cats don't. From now on, you're Mack the Dog."

The smile froze. She wondered if he was marked yet. If not, her guess was that his truth would soon emerge. This was a bad man. Written all over him. So, enemy or not? Bad was certain, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had rape in his eyes. But the enemy-wouldn't he be charming, fit right in? So no, this one was probably just d.a.m.ned unpleasant. Good window dressing for the clinic, though.

Mack the Cat met Sam Taylor's eyes, and Caroline saw that they knew each other all too well. Sam's hand came to her elbow.

"Ma'am, we need-"

"Oh, be quiet." But she followed him. No excuse needed to get away from Mack and his drool.

They went down some steel stairs and suddenly they were in another lovely room, back in the old house. It was large, gla.s.sed in, and full of sunlight. There were three patients there, each with an attendant. Two of them were in straitjackets, struggling and growling. The third paced back and forth, back and forth.

She sucked hard breaths, forcing herself to appear calm, but she was seeing Monty Offut who had been so strong and Carl Winston who'd read Greek and Latin, and pacing in a state of paranoid frenzy, Jenny Offut, Monty's sister. They had swung together on the old swing that had been under one of the oaks out back, and dreamed the dreams of little girls.