CHAPTER 48

The one overriding thought in Bill’s mind, as he was flown down to Virginia, was exactly why he had to go there to get Mary’s report. He had been waiting on that particular item for some time. There were also all kind of other options available like, why didn’t Frank just turn it over at the White House? What was that all about? It was only after Mary led Bill into a briefing room, with the only other person there being this nervous lanky guy with big rimmed glasses, that Bill started to understand. Mary introduced him as, “this is Doctor Baum, he’s the official CIA historian.”

The guy might have acted nervous but, he shook hands with Bill in a very enthusiastic way. Bill tried to smile but looked to Mary and asked, “is there a reason he’s here?”

“We were lucky to have him Bill,” Mary said with a sigh of regret before she added, “he’s not completely read in to the situation but, he’s also the only guy here that knew what we needed.”

Bill shrugged, “you got thousands of employees here and you needed your historian? For what?”

Mary nodded to Baum who then became excited. He tapped his laptop and brought up an image on the rooms viewing screen. It looked like a standard organization pyramid. Some of the boxes were filled in while others still had question marks. Bill looked it over quickly and understood what he was looking at but, he realized that a lot of this he already knew. He asked Mary, “you were supposed to be mapping out their organizational structure. This looks more like a web page at genealogy dot com.”

Mary snorted a short laugh, “some of it is.” When she saw that would not do she explained, “I had to pull half the European desk to have enough people to run down the money trail, Bill. Even still, it wasn’t enough and we’re still doing it. The fact is, these guys are diversified and they’re smart. They know how to hide their assets and, to be honest with you, I’m sure if we’ve only just scratched the surface.”

Bill waived that off, “it takes time to do something like that. You can’t just move money from one place to another, not important amounts, like these guys obviously have, and not get noticed.”

It was the historian who enthusiastically responded, “oh time is one thing they have most definitely had Mister President.. Um, elect.” Baum got a funny look so he explained, “you have to understand that, yes, they would get noticed if they just suddenly started dumping money in some place where there wasn’t a lot to begin with, founding companies, buying up various commodities, what have you.”

Mary added, “like they did with the guns, how we first noticed them.”

Again, Bill only shrugged so Baum continued, “but nobody would notice if all that stuff was already there, been visible for ages, in some cases even taken for granted. A very slow and methodical kind of thing, very patient, very step by step.”

“Ok fine,” Bill pointed to the screen, “why I am looking at a family tree?”

Mary huffed, “that’s why I brought Doctor Baum in on this. Bill, these guys didn’t just start this after world war two, or one, or even the Napoleonic wars. Some of the money trails led us to corporations that are really organizations that predate corporations.”

Baum was getting really excited now, “that’s the cool part. While many of these companies are merged with, or at least doing close business with, modern corporations, who have CEO’s that are… well, for lack of a better term, normal? The real owners always seem to go back to this.” He pointed back to the board.

“Family’s Bill,” Mary replied. “A few specific families. We realized the best way to keep something like this going, for as long as it appears to be, is by family relations. When you get back past a certain date in European history, that’s really how business was done and, they go back that far. Do you realize I had to send people poking around family estates, the British Royal Museum, and some of their oldest record depositories in order to find this crap?”

Bill was glum, “did we expose ourselves in the process?”

“Probably,” Mary replied but, “it doesn’t really matter. If these guys are this old, it’s a good bet they got eyes on the inside of a lot of places. The kind of eyes that would be hard to detect. I wouldn’t doubt it one little bit if they have them on us too.”

Bill grimaced, “what makes you say that?”

Marry was short and to the point, “wouldn’t you?” She sighed and continued, “the fact is, we traced these connections back to one particular crew.”

Baum spoke up, “and this is the really interesting part. This group first shows up on the historical record in the late eleventh century.”

Bill’s eyes opened wide, “what? You mean they go all the way back to the eleven hundreds?”

“No,” Baum corrected him, “the ten hundreds. Specifically to right after the Norman invasion by William the First. They were an order of what we’d call today, Knights. I doubt very seriously that’s what they called themselves.”

Mary added, “noblemen maybe?”

“Perhaps,” Baum agreed. “We’ll never know. The point is, I’m pretty sure, for the Norman’s to have let the group continue like this, they were two things, already established and, they had enough power to disrupt the Norman’s plans for England. So, as you can guess, that’s how they showed up in the Domesday Book.”

Bill had no idea what the guy was talking about and equally found it irrelevant, “I’ll take your word for it Doctor. So what you’re telling me is that these guys are some English noblemen who go back a thousand years, at least.”

“No,” Baum said once more. Bill moaned and nodded for him to continue, “they aren’t English. You also have to remember that back then, the English didn’t even exist yet. At that time they were just two different tribes of Germans.”

“Ok,” Bill waived his hand, “I remember enough of my history classes to get that much. If they’re not English then who the hell are these guys?”

Mary blurted out, “I’m thinking Welsh.”

Baum immediately countered, “now that isn’t entirely for certain yet, we…”

Bill’s eyes opened wide and then he said, “these guys are Welsh? You mean little old Wales is pulling the strings of half the planet right now?”

“Not that simple,” Baum said.

Bill moanded, “is any of this that simple?”

The historian changed the screen and what appeared was a picture a very old crest. It was obviously brass and most obviously very old seeing as how most of it was green now. Baum explained, “we found this crest on an old marker that I believe dates back to the eighteenth century. It was in our records already.”

Bill noted, “the photograph looks new enough.”

Mary answered, “it is, taken just a little over a year ago by our people at Coven Hill.”

Baum added, “these kinds of things are pretty common in Europe. They’re really old marker stakes, you know, real estate stuff. In this case, what’s interesting is the brass fitting. That’s not as common and, in this case…”

Bill was confused, “I can’t even read it.” Again, the historian was ahead of him. They had obviously had the signals people do a number on the picture and what showed up next on the screen was a three dimensional recreation with the wear and tear gone. Now that the words on the brass were very clear Bill had to admit, “I still can’t read it Doctor. What language is that?”

“Maybe pre roman British?” Baum shrugged it off and said, “but it’s close enough to modern Welsh that we have an idea of what it says.”

Mary pronounced the words in their own language, “Marchogion y Bord y Cylchoedd.”

One name stuck out in particular, “the board? I’ve heard that mentioned in a couple of reports that came back from Bunker. Some of the RAF guys over there were throwing it around pretty indiscriminately, like they expected us to know what it meant.”

“Me too,” Mary replied, “and at first I kind of thought they were talking about some kind of corporate board.”

Baum was even more excited, “well the irony here is, that’s where our term probably evolved from, you see…”

“Doctor,” Bill injected, “just tell me what the hell it means already.”

“Oh,” Baum went back to being nervous and he looked to Mary for some cues. She simply nodded to him and he said in an almost questioning tone, “loose translation, Knights of the Round Table?”

Bill’s jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide. Had he just heard a joke? He finally got the words, “excuse me,” out of his mouth.

Mary tried explaining, “we think Geoffrey of Monmouth was probably one of their spin doctors. Hence all the legends of hero’s, magical cups, and all that crap. The fact is, the stories we know today were pieced together over a long period of time. Some even think they go all the way back as far as the fifth century.”

That was a time period that had also recently come up on a report, “your husband made an interesting observation at some party in Cheau-Gan. It didn’t get marked urgent and I only found out about it because some of my analysts were making jokes. He says that one of the war trophy’s the elves have up on their wall, decorating the palace, is a banner that belonged to a Roman Legion. They were in Britain back then, right?”

Baum got all excited and said, “well the actual time frame…”

Bill said in an even and business like tone, “I don’t have the time Doctor. Stick to the cliff notes for me, ok?”

“Some think the actual Arthur was a British war Chief,” Baum continued. “As the Roman’s evacuated the island, the locals had to defend it from the Angles and Saxons, you know the people that became the English, and….” Baum was getting that look from the President Elect so he shortened it, “they lost.”

Mary added, “they fell back into the mountains and became the modern Welsh. That would explain the language on that marker.”

“Fine,” Bill waived it off, “so what? I might mention that your hubby said the elves fought the Romans, not with them.”

Mary shrugged, “maybe that was in an earlier period. After all, the elves claim they couldn’t control the Dell, particularly way back then. Maybe they got cut off?”

“Ok fine,” Bill digested that and then asked, “it still doesn’t answer my question, who the hell are these clowns?”

Mary took a moment and then said, “their allies? All this would be a hell of a lot easier if we had somebody that could actually read Fey. We could actually read their history and put all this into context. They haven’t exactly been forthcoming with all that and, unfortunately, the only people that seem to know how are British. Guess what that means…”

Bill tossed a thumb up at the screen, “probably Knights of the Round table and hence, compromised.” Bill put his hands down on the table and said, “all this is really fascinating guys. It doesn’t help us now. The real question is, can we deal with these guys? Right now we need a back door and, as much as it pains me to say, this very thin bullshit is all we got.”

Mary looked to her historian and they both seemed to reach the same conclusion at once. They both looked to Bill and said, “Carol Somerset.”