The Hanged Man by Fiano Astrid

Author:Fiano, Astrid [Fiano, Astrid]
Language: eng
Format: azw, epub, pdf
Publisher: Astrid Fiano
Published: 2012-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen-The Page of Pentacles

The Page of Pentacles represents one becoming a student, engaging in learning in order to take on more responsibility.

***

Although the next day is Saturday, Alex has to leave before lunch to follow up a story. When I start to work, I discover he’s left his database still logged in. With a bit of a forbidden fruit thrill, I do a search of my own. One of my research skills is brainstorming the most effective search terms and possible connections. I find a few more mentions of the Tertullian Society, and way too much on the ancient church father Tertullian. I print the Society ones, and then go on to look up conspiracies involving fake suicides, as my mystery man had mentioned last night. I might run across him too. He seems to think it was a possibility. Why? He said he had seen this stuff before. So, he could be in law enforcement, or he could be a journalist.

This becomes a fascinating hunt through the underworld of conspiracy theories. The service turns up cached websites long dead, and what I think of as ghost town sites still online but left alone and not updated since the late 1990s, as well as online versions of Zines and newsletters following rumors and making speculative connections. My intended work this morning falls to the wayside. I don’t bother to answer when Jim calls, not wanting to be distracted.

An old story from 1996 catches my eye; a journalist named Kent Varney is the author. The article is in a long-defunct magazine called InsideNews. The article described how a couple of grassroots civil rights organizations had an ongoing global search for Nazi war criminals. They were using newly developed software touted as being a potential investigative tool through monitoring Internet traffic. The article mentions that some deaths may have been connected with the story, including a murder set up to look like suicide. The software was suddenly taken off the market due to government litigation.

Varney had published several articles in various other trade magazines, and wrote fairly well. I was surprised he had not broken into a bigger forum, but don’t we know—success is tricky in every profession. The widest-read magazine in which Varney had been published was Fortean Times, a publication that has already served me well. Varney also self-published a couple of books on Amazon concerning government policy and fascist forces in Europe. Currently, he has a well-trafficked blog writing on ancient historical wonders and mysteries. A background check shows he currently works at a Colonial history museum in D.C. The museum’s website has a short video with him explaining the meaning of various early U.S. flags. His voice sounds very similar to my caller.

I send an email to the address in his blog, saying I found his article in InsideNews to be interesting, and could I call him.

Within a few minutes of sending the email, he calls me.

“My God, you’re even better than I thought.”

“Thank you, I think. Is this a game, Kent?”

“Not for me.

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