THE PROFESSOR
We have traversed more than 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers) of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course [as rapidly] as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare…
(Tablet erected by Zheng He, Changle, Fujian, 1432)
Chapter 1
The last piece of the puzzle was finally about to fall into place. Professor Dumont had been researching the voyages of the great Chinese Admiral Zheng He, for the past three years and in that time he had devoted every extra minute of his life to the study of the Admirals seven voyages. He was now about to write the final chapter of his thesis. A map locating a long forgotten lost settlement in Baja has surfaced and Professor Dumont is about to obtain it.
“Did you bring it?” he asked the shadowy figure entering the court yard of the ancient Spanish influenced church.
“Yes professor, I would not make you come all the way to Ensenada for no reason at all,” replied the gruff but sincere Mexican.
“Do you have the money, senor?”
“Let me see it first,” responded the professor, probably more abrupt and demanding than he should be in these surroundings. “I want to be sure that it is genuine,” he responded much more civilly.
“But of course professor, are you telling me that you do not trust a priest?” the man responded trying to lighten the moment and calm the nervous gringo down.
The two men moved their discussion to one of the tables that lined the inner wall of the courtyard in the run down church. The man placed a leather tube on the tables top, pulled the ancient parchment from the tube that protected it and unrolled it before the professor.
The professor studied the ancient parchment with a controlled excitement. He studied the material the map was written on trying to identify its age, he studied the Chinese characters on the borders and read text written in French and Spanish on the lower right half. He examined the topography represented on the map. Everything appeared to be authentic and from the time period that he hoped it was from, he struggled to control his thrill actually seeing the artifact on the table before him.
“This appears to be authentic,” he said in a monotone voice meant to conceal his excitement.
“Appears to be,” the priest exclaimed, “it is the only one known to exist, it was stored in our church for over three hundred years. The leadership of my church did their best to protect this item from the public’s prying eye; you can only imagine the journey that this document has traveled and the story that it tells. But we are a poor parish and if the proceeds from this sale of this icon can rebuild our church we will be grateful.”
“Yes father and I can only imagine the debate that this map will initiate. We agreed on one hundred thousand dollars, here is a cashier check made out to your church for that amount; you can call it a gift and I can write it off as a donation.” He said jokingly.
“Thank you professor, the money will go a long way in rebuilding our little house of worship.”
“Great,” he thought, “just where I wanted half my life’s savings to go, to rebuild a back woods country church for a bunch of uneducated peasants who don’t know any better. Even if the money goes to pay for some tainted priest to go into a witness protection program, at least I got something of value for my contribution.”
The professor had just turned over a significant portion of his life’s savings to a shady local priest to purchase a document that he believed identified the spot on Mexican soil that Admiral Zheng He had landed and established the first colony in the New World those several decades before Columbus set foot in the New World. If his theory was correct history would be rewritten and the Professor would be the author.
The professor took his prized map from the priest, tucked it under his arm, said his goodbye, he didn’t feel comfortable being on the grounds of this church, he liked studying the architecture and history, but he did not regale in the thought of religious conversations with the buildings proprietor, he made his way to his well traveled car. He opened a duffle bag and inserted the tube containing the map into it. He laid the duffle bag on the passenger seat next to him. He was concerned about being stopped at the border and having his artifact confiscated by some overzealous border patrol deputy.
His plan was to leave everything in the open, no drug smuggler in his right mind would leave the product out in the open crossing the border at Tijuana, if discovered he would resort to claiming that it was an artifact legally purchased from a local church, he did have a receipt from the priest. Last but not least he was going to resort to the proven method of bribery to secure his treasured map.
He climbed into his little Toyota fired up the engine and headed north away from Ensenada, his car kicked up a large cloud of dust as he sped out of town.
“Padre, can I have a word with you?”
“Yes,” he responded as he turned to face the stranger who had just exited the silver sedan parked next to the churches entrance.
“What did you give that American who was just here?”
“Comfort my son, the man was troubled and searching for answers.”
“What form of comfort did you give him?”
“Answers that would help his soul, like most of us seek in life.”
“I’ve come a long way to see you and need to know what you two talked about? What was he looking for and did you provide anything to him was it the map that your church possessed for all these years?”
“A conversation between a man and his priest is confidential, my son, I cannot tell a stranger our conversation.”
The American grabbed the priest by his robe and pushed him up against the wall. “Listen to me old man, if you don’t give me a straight answer you’re going to visit your God sooner than you expected to, did you give that gringo the map?”
“I have been giving you answers, you are in a church my son and I hope that you calm down and act respectfully in this holy place.”
The priest knew that the man meant business; he had turned the money from the sale of the map over to the church elders just a few minutes before he was confronted by this pushy American and was confident that it was safely in the churches vault, his work was done and the church would be rebuilt.
“I will ask you one more time, what took place between you two? I don’t have all day to fool around with you priest, the professor is getting away with the map.” Phil Simone was getting angry and about to lose his patient with this stubborn priest.
“I do not know what you are ……,” the priest did not finish the rest of his denial as he slumped motionless to the ground struck in the temple by the right fist of his interrogator.
“You did sell him the map, you fool and you don’t know what you’ve done.” He ran to the silver sedan that he drove up to the church in and climbed into it, turned on the ignition, slammed the car in gear and depressed the accelerator in one frantic motion.
He was so preoccupied with thoughts of reaching the border crossing and how he would proceed to reenter the United States that he did not notice the late model silver sedan that had been following him for about four miles. The car was steadily gaining on the professor’s Toyota for the last few miles and was now within a car length of the back bumper of his vehicle.
Slam! The car collided into his with such an impact that the professor had all he could do to remain on the road as he struggled to regain control of his vehicle.
“What the hell just happened?” he asked himself, “did I hit a something in the road?”
Slam! The impact caused the professor’s neck to snap violently backwards, this time the collision was more violent causing the professor to lose control of his car and careen off the road and into a shallow ditch. The professor struggled to gain control of the skidding four thousand pound missile while watching the dust and scrub brush go flying by the windshield.
He was no race car driver but he knew enough not to spin the steering wheel or he would certainly flip the car, he soon recognized that he had no choice in the matter, a huge boulder was in his path, he was heading right towards it and he certainly did not want to hit it head on, he jerked the wheel sharply to the left. He tried to dive onto the front passenger seat as the roof of his car collapsed at a sharp angle, but his seat belt held him in place, broken glass filled the interior, dust surrounded the occupant and he found it difficult to catch his breath while bouncing against the front airbag. The car tumbled for what seemed like eternity but actually came to rest on its wheels facing the direction from where it had come in a matter of seconds enclosed in a thick wall of desert dust.
He sat still for moment trying to see through the dust and collect his thoughts; he was still in a daze from the collision. Dusts was settling all around him, he could see light and hear hissing sounds from the ruptured radiator, he realized was alive.
The Professor began to stir but parts of his body hurt so badly that he thought he may have broken bones, but as far as he could access he didn’t sustain any serious injuries, still he needed to be examined by a doctor. He began to move slowly then he began to realize what had happened and he looked into the back seat for his overnight bag, “that hurt,” he said to himself as he leaned over the seat to grab the bag from the floor.
He pushed against the door driver’s door, it would not open, he smelled the strong odor of gasoline and remembered he had filled the gas tank in Ensenada. He pushed harder against the door with a renewed sense of urgency and it sprang open but only enough to make his exit difficult. He limped some several yards to a large boulder clutching his travel bag and sat down with his back resting against the rock he just avoided looking at his mangled car.
The flash was bright causing the professor to cover his face and the noise was loud enough to cause the professor to cover his ears while turning away from the explosion.
He looked up and saw the silver sedan with the damaged front bumper, turn around in the middle of the road and head back towards Ensenada, its occupant certain that no one could have survived that crash.
Within minutes the local police as well as a few spectators had arrived to help the professor, he paid a local junk dealer to haul the charred remains of his car away, the police took his statement but apparently they did not believe him as he was issued a traffic ticket for failure to drive right, he paid a small fine at the police station.
He was taken to the local clinic by two police officers and examined, he had a couple bruised ribs which were wrapped by the attending physician and various small cuts and bruises but otherwise he had come out of the accident in one piece considering how bone jarring the accident was.
He left the police station that afternoon and walked a short distance to a rental agency and rented a car.
“Could you recommend a motel,” he asked the counter girl.
“There is a nice motel just down the street about two blocks from here senor,” she replied.
He directed to a two story local version of a Comfort Inn not far from the rental agency.
He did not sleep very well; visions of the silver sedan haunted him all that night and pain radiated from almost every part of his body.
He passed through the city of Tijuana heading north towards the border; he began to encounter heavier traffic as he approached the border crossing between Mexico and The United States, the traffic ground to a halt.
The sweat was beginning to form on his brow as the number of lanes on the highway began to increase and traffic began to slow down eventually stopping, he could see the lines of vehicles waiting to cross into American territory.
He glanced from side to side as his car became one of many stopped at the border. He noticed the various modes of transportation, the tourist busses directed to the right, to be processed separately. He saw day laborers clutching their work papers as if they were gold, lining up on the sidewalk. Several people ahead of him were being directed to a parking area and questioned further by the Mexican police, border guards walked between the rows of cars, some with drug sniffing dogs stopping to ask questions of the various occupants.
His heart was racing, should he reach in his pocket and take out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead, did he have enough time to perform this act without drawing attention to himself? One thing working in his favor was that he was taking contraband across the border not drugs. He could feel his heart pounding as one officer being led by a drug sniffing dog walked to his window signaling him to roll it down.
“Do you have any identification sir?” the officer inquired in broken English.
The professor handed him his passport and drivers license.
“Good afternoon Mr. Dumont, do you have anything to declare?”
“No officer, I just stopped in Ensenada to meet an old friend for a couple of days, I didn’t buy anything this trip except lunch,” responded the professor.
“Would you open the trunk please?”
The professor flipped the switch that opened the trunk, he could feel the car move under the weight of the dog as it jumped up into the cars’ trunk jostling the car ever so slightly, he watched in the mirror as it scurried around in the confined space sniffing for contraband.
He heard the trunk close and noticed the officer next to his window again.
“Please proceed.” Said the officer as he handed the professors identification back to him and turned his attention to the next vehicle.
Meanwhile back in Ensenada, Colonel Geraldo of the Mexican army was receiving an important guest at his headquarters just north of the city.
“Thank you for the use of one of your vehicles Colonel but unfortunately during my stay in Ensenada, I’m afraid that I was involved in an accident and the car has some front end damage. Please have any repair costs submitted to me at my office at the State Department I will reimburse you fully.”
“I’m not worried about a little damage to one of my vehicles Mr. Simone, I am glad that you were not injured and everything is alright, we must talk again regarding the terrorist threat that you touched on, you know that I am a friend of the United States and will do everything in my power to assist you fighting this threat to your countries security.”
“Thank you Colonel Geraldo, I will be in touch with you soon,” replied Philip Simone United States Department of State public relations officer as he turned to exit the building.
