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In my first volume on Appleton Kohath, I was fascinated by his dedication to finding the Ark. His dogged, unrelenting obsession imbued his entire family with the desire, more madness, really, for this ongoing quest. And quest it is.
Legends and prophecies abound about when the Ark was last seen, but there is no actual documentation. That has only enhanced its historical fascination, primarily because of its promised power. What I have learned is that the Kohaths believe they alone are destined to find the Ark and control its power.
It is a mad obsession, though one can hardly blame them. Imagine, ultimate power over the world. And more? How far does the power of God reach?
My first biography was solely about Appleton Kohath. With the advent of the letters, notebooks, journals, and other paraphernalia now in my possession, I am able to build a fuller picture of the entire Kohath family, from Appleton to the current day. Five generations of Kohaths, all with a singular focus.
Finding the Ark of the Covenant.
And I now know the secret behind the Kohath family’s search.
It began in Egypt and has spanned the globe. As a hint of what’s to come, allow me to pique your interest here.
For a decade, young Appleton Kohath was fully convinced the Ark resided in the Valley of the Kings. His contemporary, Howard Carter, so focused on the ancient Egyptians, dismissed Kohath’s ideas that the Ark would be discovered inside King Tut’s tomb, and the idea that the curse of the pharaoh was actually the curse of the Ark itself. Kohath hung on to the belief despite his friend’s disbelief.
I have written before about Kohath’s sudden change of focus in the early 1900s. In the previous manuscript, I was not privy to the incident that altered his belief about the whereabouts of the Ark. I now know why Kohath suddenly broke from Carter and began seeking the company of another young genius, Nikola Tesla.
By the time Kohath and Tesla became good friends, Tesla was out of favor with New York society and the scientific community. Why? Because Thomas Edison’s people did everything they could to discredit the young genius. In the end, Tesla’s funding dried up and he was left with almost nothing—no money, no recognition, and no way to continue his scientific discoveries.
Then Appleton Kohath appeared. The two men became inseparable for several years before they suddenly went their own ways, never to communicate again, the reasons still a mystery.
The project they were working on during those years involved the drawings of a machine—found in a dusty Italian junk shop—which Appleton Kohath believed came from Leonardo da Vinci himself. The diagrams and formulas allowed Kohath and Tesla to develop a machine that could control the weather.
Simply imagine: two excited, innovative geniuses, influenced by Da Vinci, determined to create weather. Did they indeed strip God of this power?
I hope you enjoy this fresh look into the mind of a genius, and the ways his obsession shaped future generations.
Elizabeth St. Germaine
London, 2016
CHAPTER FIFTY
Castiglione del Lago, Italy
Nicholas told them he was Mike’s husband so he could keep close. It didn’t matter, the emergency room doctors quickly wheeled her away, directing Nicholas to an empty waiting room, where he sat alone, replaying the past hour.
He dropped his head into his hands. He was tired, scared, his brain mush. But over and over he asked himself, how had it come to this? His fault, all of it, his fault; it was always the answer.
He knew he wasn’t helping her, wasn’t helping himself or anybody else. He got some coffee from a vending machine and reached for his mobile, realized, of course, it was at the bottom of Lake Trasimeno. His laptop and his comms and another mobile were in his car, halfway up the mountain.
He needed to call in, needed to get in touch with Adam and Louisa, but he wasn’t about to move from the hospital until he saw Mike and knew she would be all right.
He paced the small room, playing back every move he and Mike had made in the tunnels. And Lilith’s body, killed by one of the Kohath twins. The sheer barbarity of it, the utter disregard, made his blood cold.
At least Kitsune and Grant Thornton were still alive. But why hadn’t Cassandra Kohath killed them?
His mind circled back, and none of it mattered. What if Mike died? What if she’d been in the water too long, what if—
A young doctor came into the room. She looked tired and grim. She held out a hand to shake, then gestured toward the chairs.
“Sit.”
He did, and she sat beside him. “I am Dr. Teresa Sienza. I am a neurologist. Your wife is in serious but stable condition. How long was she underwater before you started CPR?”
“Four minutes, maybe closer to five minutes. I was trying to count off, but it was hard to keep track. Maybe she wasn’t under quite that long. But she was definitely not breathing for several minutes.”
Dr. Sienza patted his arm. “You’ll be happy to know she was conscious when I spoke to her, so this is a very good sign. In these situations, we are always concerned about the impact on brain function. She has a cut on her head that is being sutured now. The cold water helped slow the progression of hypoxia, which was very lucky for us.”
