Page 105 of False Flag

“Of course. I’ve visited Scotland. Traveled all over the highlands. Found photos of my ancestors.”

“But what if it’s not your cultural history? How do you know it wasn’t someone else who built Inveraray Castle?”

“That’s not possible. There are records.”

“Records that you claim are wrong. You think historians are hiding the truth to appease the current political power structure between England and Scotland. So if they’re lying about that, why not lie about everything? Maybe aliens built Inveraray, Eilean Donan, Urquhart, and all the rest?”

“We know who built the castles in Scotland.”

“We also know who built the pyramids. We know they were tombs. But how does it make you feel to be denied your cultural heritage?”

He hadn’t mentioned skin color, and she couldn’t play that card unless he did.

“My DNA links me to kings and queens of Scotland and England.”

“So? Egyptians’ DNA links back to their pharaohs. Pharaohs who were buried in the tombs they built. My DNA links me to a king of England, six people on the Mayflower, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But the US doesn’t belong to me. My people were colonizers. They committed genocide to take the land. Some were eugenicists. I’m no doubt related to people who brought enslaved humans to the US and decided they were only worth three-fifths of a person to appease a need for political power. There’s a lot to like about the Declaration my ancestor signed, but the author fathered six children of a woman he enslaved—and she was probably only fifteen or sixteen when he first impregnated her—and he enslaved his own children. ‘All men are created equal’ wasn’t really all men and definitely left out all women.”

She gave Gerard a tight smile. “It’s a detriment to our humanity to cherry-pick, ignore, or rewrite history so we don’t have to feel bad about what our ancestors did. We need to know history so we don’t repeat mistakes and atrocities.”

She paused only long enough to give the last statement a period.

“You speak regularly of theories but rarely of facts. So I’ll offer up one to get us started: you hired me because you want legitimacy for the work you intend to do. Contrary to what you said, I’m not here to prove or disprove your theories. I’m here to vet your work. To ensure you employ the scientific process. This is especially important because archaeological excavation is destructive. Once you’ve dug a site, you’ve destroyed the context. The information can never be retrieved again.

“This means you need to do it right the first time, or the data is meaningless. It’s worth noting that Heinrich Schliemann used dynamite to excavate in his eagerness to find Troy. But he blew through the Peloponnesian layers. What he found below that predated the period he’d been searching for.”

“Oops,” Gerard said.

“Yes. Oops. You won’t get a second shot at this. I’m here to make sure you don’t blow through Troy. Don’t burn bridges with locals who hold the power to grant you access to the areas you want to examine with lidar or ground-penetrating radar. Without me, your shot at getting access is nigh impossible. The first step—developing research questions—is vital to crafting a plan for how we can gather data to answer those questions.”

“You know my research questions.”

“How can I, when you haven’t shared them with me?”

“I talk about them in every show. Was there an ancient agricultural civilization in the Pacific?”

She would ignore the fact that he’d never once posed it as a question on his show. He had bigger issues, and she could circle back to that later if needed.

“That isn’t a research question.” She took a sip of water and leaned back in her seat. “Let me tell you a story… I know an underwater archaeologist who was being courted by a treasure hunter.”

“Sounds like my kind of guy.”

“I’m sure he is, but you need to understand, in archaeology, treasure hunters are the bad guys.”

“See now, you’re just proving my point about Big Archaeology.”

“Yes, we’re spoilsports in that we believe in information and history. We believe looting a shipwreck destroys the information that can be learned and is yet another theft of cultural heritage. Like pseudoarchaeologists⁠—”

“I take offense at that term.”

“Show me your archaeology degree, and I’ll call you something else.”

Gerard pitched his voice to direct it to an audience that wasn’t currently listening. “See what I’m dealing with, folks? But I brought her onto my team because I believe in playing fair.”

Yeah. Right.

“So, anyway. This treasure hunter wanted access to a shipwreck, but he couldn’t get a permit from the Canadian government to dive on it, and the wreck is wholly within Canadian waters. Not far from here, actually. So he reached out to my friend, the underwater archaeologist. This is back when the Sonics were still in Seattle. The treasure hunter tried to bribe him with courtside seats. He was tempted. I mean, he can watch the game and still say no. The guy had been pestering him for years; might as well get something out of it.”

“If he’s been pestering him for years, why does he take the calls?”