A Spirit of Fraud

By Barry H. Wiley

It is 1876. Under the apparent direction of the Archangel Uriel, a secret British occult brotherhood, the Ancient and Exemplary Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, moves to seize a virtually defenseless America in the fading months of the Grant administration. First blinded by GRC personnel placed in key government positions, then with his actions paralyzed by widespread corruption, President U.S. Grant is unaware of the growing lethal presence of the GRC.
Only Annie Eva Fay, who in just six years has gained renown as the premier American spirit medium, discovers the chilling presence of Uriel’s minions. Annie gains the support of the Pinkerton Agency after she saves the life of their rookie operative, Aaron Levin, from a GRC attack. Annie and Levin work to combine Annie’s unique contacts and insights with Pinkerton resources to finally confront the GRC and its enigmatic leader, Lord John Acre, in a New York warehouse owned by the GRC, and stocked with weapons and explosives.
But Annie Eva Fay is a con woman, her spirits a fake. She creates convincing psychic illusions that have allowed her to live well, her childhood experience living as almost a slave a far memory. Annie will do anything to keep that degrading memory from ever becoming real again.
And the GRC, the presence of Uriel, is it also a fake?
Several of the characters in the novel are historical, including Annie Eva Fay, President U. S. Grant, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Robert Allan Pinkerton ... and the Ancient and Exemplary Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry H. Wiley
• Release date: Oct 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310612770

Barry H. Wiley

I have lectured on the history of stage mentalism, mindreading, and Spiritualism at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, at the Magic Circle in London, at the annual meetings of the Psychic Entertainers Association, and at other venues. I have created routines that psychics have used to "prove" they are genuine -- which created some interesting issues.i have written prize-winning short stories and have had one book, The Indescribable Phenomenon, the biography of Anna Eva Fay, the woman Harry Houdini called "the greatest female mystifier", almost make it as a film for Walden Media, but in the end the book, along with another project I was involved in, didn't make the final production cut.A retired high executive, I have done business in 24 countries, and use that experience as background for my fiction. As I discussed at last year's Men of Mystery conference, in both my fiction and non-fiction the paranormal is fake. I enjoy reading of vampires (I have sat on the Bram Stoker Memorial Bench in Whitby, England, on a bluff overlooking Whitby Harbor with Whitby Abby off to the right). Dracula does run through your mind sitting there. I have also traveled in Romania, briefly into Transylvania; but even then, my paranormal remains fake.

Book preview

Prologue

Midnight

The Oval Office

Washington, D.C.

Tuesday, January 23, 1876

Two oil flames cast uncertain light across the Oval Office leaving much of the room in darkness. A carved sconce near a set of French doors flickered as it drew the last of its oil. A small shaded brass lamp on the cluttered desk shadowed the face of the man who carefully ran his forefinger down the notations on each page, sliding the sheet to one side to examine the next.

If the numbers written so bleakly in black ink on the four papers lying across his desk were accurate, Ulysses S. Grant realized that he could be the last President of the United States.

The realization caused no outward change in Grant's face. No one watching could have detected from Grant's demeanor anything of the enormity of the message of the papers spread before him. But Grant's emotions had always been concealed from everyone, an apparent imperturbability that had given stalwart confidence to his soldiers during the turbulent brutal years of the Civil War. No one ever knew what was in the general's mind until he issued his explicit bare orders, orders always written by him personally, never by a staff officer.

The scandals and corruption that had surrounded the Grant presidency through two terms had progressively sapped the strength and credibility of the federal government, finally reaching directly into his Cabinet.

Both his Secretaries of War and the Navy were now under threat of indictment for fraud; and his most senior active admiral, David Porter, was suspected of lining his own pockets with public monies. Grant had no other choice and had turned to retired Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee, third cousin to the Confederate Lee, and a highly accomplished flag officer of reliable, though politically naïve, integrity.

Grant had asked Lee to very privately assess the combat capability of the American Navy, specifically its ability to repulse an invading fleet.

Admiral Lee had, before his retirement in 1873, tried unsuccessfully to get the Federal government to expand the American Navy, as the chief and cheap defense. Grant had reasoned that the Navy was the key since any hostile invading army would have to be transported across an ocean to North American shores, and would also then require control of American coastal waters to ensure secure access in order to keep whatever invading army supplied.

The question was simple. Did he, as president, have the resources to forestall such an action?

S. P. Lee had already publicly derided the condition of the peacetime Navy as ... ancient Chinese forts on which dragons have been painted to frighten away the enemy, which, since most of the serving American Navy personnel were now non-citizens including Chinese, seemed more than ironic.

There was no unexpected shock in the numbers. Grant could see what had been happening, but the numbing details of procurement failures, sustained losses of key officers, obsolescence of war fighting materials and finally, just the numbers. There just wasn't enough ... of anything.

Admiral Lee had scratched his closing comment on the last page. We have a precious set of fools or knaves running the Navy machine right now with a river of venality that rushes thro' the Department.

When the Democrats, mostly unrepentant Southerners, seized control of the House in the 1874 election achieving a dominant 74 seat majority, they had refused to fund the expansion of the national military since the federal Army was being actively used to occupy the former Confederate States to protect freed blacks who, under the recently ratified Fifteenth Amendment, voted solidly Republican. Procurement frauds had stolen large portions of the minimal Congressional authorized military budgets which left little for maintaining even the status quo.

The Democratic Congress refused to fund any new ships, but had appropriated six million dollars for maintenance, most of which went to fill the pockets of political contributors, supportive contractors, and George W. Robeson, the Secretary of the Navy. Robeson spent more money on maintenance than the original purchase price of the ships while steadily expanding his personal wealth.

No one doubted Grant's personal honesty and none of the scandals had yet touched Grant personally; however, Democratic-controlled newspapers amplified Grant's troubles as they pounded relentlessly on the theme that his administration was rife with rascals and rogues, implying, or with biting explicit political cartoons, that Grant's greatest personal problem might be alcoholic spirits, not policy.

Admiral Lee's conclusion summarized in the black ink on Grant's desk was inescapable: America could not defend herself against any foreign invasion.

Since the Civil War ended eleven years earlier, the U. S. Navy had collapsed from a service of 700 ships, the largest Navy in the world, which had included steam-driven iron-clads, to a peacetime Navy of scarcely 48 floatable vessels.

The iron-clads were collecting rust as Admiral Porter's infamous general order of 1869, No. 131, had decreed that all American warships must be full-sail capable, i.e., they must be able to function on sails alone as America had no overseas coaling stations to support steam driven warships. Captains were punished for using coal and had to record every usage in detail in red ink in their log. If a captain used too much coal, then the cost came out of his own pocket.

The U. S. Navy had declined in force to rank twelfth worldwide behind even Chile, Denmark and China. The major European Navies of England, Germany, and France were all rapidly becoming steam driven, with Britain in 1875 launching the amazing HMS Devastator, a cruiser with heavy armor, twin turrets and the ability to steam across the Atlantic and back without refueling.

The U. S., instead, had demobilized, retreating to the past leaving the Navy to function at best in only a coast guard capacity unable to project power to protect American interests beyond its own shores.

Four iron-clad monitors, whose keels had been laid in 1874, had progressed no further. The hulks had been left unguarded, open to the weather, rusting on their ways.

And, most critically, with no career possibilities, the most experienced American Naval officers had been steadily leaving the service to assume lucrative positions in commercial shipping.

The reduced Army forces were primarily involved with occupying the former Confederate States, propping up corrupt state governments while protecting freed Negroes from Southern white retaliation. A protected Negro voted Republican. An unprotected Negro did not vote at all, giving the Democrats and former Confederates political control in the South as had been demonstrated in the previous election. It was becoming a second slavery, as some Negro leaders called it. Many of the same men who had first enslaved them were in charge again.

Most of the rest of the Federal Army was committed to subduing the Plains Indians in the West. He shook his head. Grant had had a stronger Army force under him at Vicksburg, than he now had as President.

Grant shifted in his chair to look out the French doors behind him, at the dark somnolent capital. The country thought it was at peace but he had learned that peace was always prelude. There were feeble politicians preaching that if a war is terrible enough, then there will be no more wars — as absurd and mindless an idea as any he had ever heard.

He realized that the papers before him could function as a detailed open invitation to any government with even modest imperialist ambitions.

Now, in January, 1876, a foreign army could march across the borders of the U.S. or land on its shores without resistance — without the knowledge of the American government, until it was too late. And — though his expression did not change, the possibility sent a cold chill down his backside. If the invasion came on the Southern borders and shores, the local populations might rise and actively support the invader — not resist him. That would mean a Second Civil War that could not be won by the United States.

Grant folded the papers and paused. If these papers with their inviting detail reached the opposition newspapers or the eyes of imperial Europe, the damage could ... no, would be catastrophic. His American political opponents might expediently exploit the national weakness for immediate advantage regardless of the possible mortal injury to the nation itself.

He looked around the Oval Office for a secure hiding place. His trust had been betrayed too many times by trusted friends to place the papers in the White House secure files in the basement.

A small smile appeared. President Grant stood up as he stubbed out his black cigar. He saw the perfect place where no one, and certainly not his enemies, would look. As he shuffled slowly across the Oval Office, a grim smile fled across his face, then disappeared.

With no viable Army or Navy, America needed a protective spirit, a guardian angel — soon, very soon.

The sconce flickered, its last oil drop consumed, and went dark — leaving only the single small flame on the desk still burning on the desk.

Chapter 1

The Library

Trireme Manor

England

Saturday, February 19, 1876

Lord John Acre placed his empty glass on the silver tray and turned toward the opening door. Behind him, the glass was refilled from a crystal decanter of sixty year old Otard cognac by Kai Pak, his Chinese manservant. Acre absently passed his hand through his thick mane of white hair, crossed his arms and waited.

Acre could not be surprised. He had personal sources deep inside 10 Downing Street, even inside the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli — sources dedicated to him and to the Archangel — to their objective.

His great library was said by many envious English scholars to rival even that of the British Museum coupled with his vast collections of Chinese jades, ceramics and calligraphy. The thousands of books spread up to the high vaulted ceiling and around all four walls, surrounded Acre with the wisdom of the ages and of the ancients. The books were shelved three deep on each shelf.

There was a second, smaller library on the floor above, adjacent to Acre's master bedroom, with an equally admired collection; but only by a very few invited adepts. It contained a definitive collection of volumes and scrolls on occult studies, centered about one of Dr. John Dee's polished crystal shew stones through which the celebrated Elizabethan occultist, mathematician and spy had, via a scryer, communicated with the archangels.

That select library also contained the only existing copy of the third volume of Dee's 1577 four-volume work General and rare memorials pertaining to the Perfect Arte of Navigation with the adept's personal notations in the margins.

The worn and scarred volume was accorded the position of honor.

In a similar manner, in this larger more public library, an imposing 1623 Shakespeare First Folio lay open to King Lear positioned on a raised polished ebony support centered on a massive oak table at the far end of the library.

Shakespeare's Lear, Acre had stated on many public and private occasions, was life itself, the very essence of living. A role beyond the capacity of even the greatest actors of the day, even, in Acre's opinion, Henry Irving. Shakespeare, in writing Lear, had entered, for a time, a realm of human revelation beyond any actor's powers of portrayal.

But only for a time.

But John Dee's works lay well beyond mere physical life. His occult explorations under the close guidance of the Archangel Uriel via the shew stone, pressed Dee up against understanding the limits of deity itself.

Not for John Acre were the trivial magic tricks of the Spiritualist beggars, or the hollow misguided mysticisms of India and the 'fabled' East. He traveled the path of John Dee — and with the same guide.

Dee had made only one copy of the third volume which he had secretly presented to Queen Elizabeth in 1579. In the work, the occultist had developed in explicit detail the steps that her government should take in politics, the military, diplomacy and industry, coupled with historic justifications, in order to establish a global Brytish Impire — the first time that expression had ever been used.

Also included in the work were the alchemikal and magickal steps which Dee explained had to be undertaken to provide the spiritual foundation to protect the Queen's direct actions taken in the profane world.

His sovereign had requested that Dee strip out and conceal the occult portion, then present her openly with the geopolitical portion, which Dee did as Brytanici Imperii Limites. The occult portion continued to exist only in the secret third volume.

Elizabethan scholars had been insisting for the past three centuries that volume three of the Memorials had perished in a fire, "by the hand of Vulcan", as John Dee had so helpfully described it.

Perfect Arte of Navigation

Title Page, Volume I

1577

But Acre had received the legendary volume from the hands of his grandfather, Lord Malcolm Acre, late one winter evening while he was still a second-term student at Cambridge; an acknowledgment that he had mastered the major Hermetic teachings to that brooding old gentleman's satisfaction. Not even his own father knew that Acre had been given John Dee's magickal third volume — nor would that gentleman ever know of his son's special recognition.

***

Dee had observed the skies turn blood red at nine o'clock on the evening of Thursday, March 8, 1582. The omen was unmistakable. The following morning of March 9, John Dee withdrew from Queen Elizabeth's court and shut his door to several potentially lucrative trading ventures to begin to put the occult foundations in place to support the establishment of a British Empire. Only the Queen herself had understood his disappearance, and later came to fully understand his importance to her expanding realm.

***

Jeffry Logan Fowler, Esq., Member of Parliament for Oxford for the ruling Conservative Party, was ushered into his Lordship's library by a liveried butler who, at Lord Acre's silent signal, discreetly withdrew, securing the large carved oaken door behind him. On seeing Acre, a wide boyish grin spread over Fowler's face.

Acre started to smile himself as he walked forward, his hand extended to the handsome, somewhat heavy young man, dark hair oiled and combed with a center part, as the current style required.

Fowler seized the proffered hand, wincing slightly at the power of his patron's grip.

Your Lordship, I have encouraging news.

Come, Jeffry, cognac to brush away that London chill, then tell me ... tell me everything.

Kai Pak appeared silently at Acre's elbow with two filled crystal glasses on a silver tray.

The two men touched their glasses, sipped quietly as they walked to the crackling fireplace beyond the oak table with its opened Folio to settle into the facing high-backed deep-riveted red leather chairs.

Kai Pak had silently vanished.

Acre waited patiently while his protégé sipped more of the opulent cognac.

Jeffry grinned. A superb spirit, Lord John, superb ... as always, sir.

He sipped once again before placing his glass on the oval inlaid mahogany table next to his chair to remove a sheaf of notes from inside his suit jacket. He quietly cleared his throat and began:

"Mr. Disraeli wants to aggressively expand the British Empire as does the Queen. She is pressing the PM to introduce a Royal Style Bill into Parliament that would grant her the title of Empress of India as part recognition of that imperial objective.

"According to my sources at the Palace, Your Lordship, Mr. Disraeli is inclined to accept Her Majesty's suggestion, though I understand, very privately, with some degree of personal reluctance. He faces some backbench resistance, as well as opposition from Mr. Hardy of the Foreign Office."

Lord John smiled and took a large celebratory swallow of the rich cognac which seemed to float down his throat. His private sources at Windsor had implied as much.

Excellent. Continue.

Acre stood, placed his glass on the mantle of the fireplace while motioning Fowler to remain seated.

The PM has implied, said Fowler, "suggested ... even encouraged ... imaginative thinking in his Cabinet and in their staffs that now ... with the PM's daring and single-handed purchase of the Suez Canal Company shares now completed ... they are to think more broadly regarding sustained British imperial expansion. To go as far as to contact and consult with, very confidentially, certain personages in certain embassies and consulates."

Fowler pulled a sheet of paper free from the batch in his hand and placed it on the table beside his chair. He only pointed to the paper without comment.

Acre smiled as he put his hands out to the fire momentarily. Disraeli ... Suez? Daring, maybe, but single-handed?

Not quite.

In spite of strong Parliamentary hostility even from some backbench members of his own party and his own Foreign Office, Disraeli had pushed to buy the Khedive Isma'il Pasha's 44% share of the Suez Canal Company when the Khedive's need for quick cash became known via British agents. Quick action was needed to block France from seizing the shares to solidify all of the Canal Company's shares in French hands.

Disraeli had to protect England's gateway to India, but it had been far more Baron Lionel de Rothschild's hand not Disraeli's which held the necessary cash — with an upfront £100,000 commission plus interest on the principal — a financial arrangement that surely would come back to haunt the PM in the years ahead.

Baron de Rothschild was always profitably patriotic — though there was, Acre had to admit, some serious financial risk to the banker in the deal.

Acre turned back to his own freshly purchased Member of Parliament. To think broadly, Jeffry ... how broadly?

Sir?

How broadly does Mr. Disraeli want his government to think?

Oh, very broadly, sir, was Jeffry's fervent response.

Acre took a step toward Fowler, his voice firm. As broad as the Atlantic Ocean ... do you think? he questioned. To the West, sir. The West. Not to the East?

Jeffry stopped in mid-sip, his eyes widening. He looked up at the tall broad-shouldered aristocrat standing above him. In his university days, John Acre had been renowned as a strong cricket player and even in his mature years his physical power was still evident.

The Atlantic ... sir? Fowler queried anxiously. "But what of India and ...?

Acre stepped toward Fowler who pressed back into his chair.

"There are more riches in the Americas than all of India and Afghanistan, and, Jeffry, England owns access to North America without challenge ... without challenge from any nation, sir.

As the First Lord of the Admiralty pointed out to Mr. Disraeli almost two years ago, the sinking of only one ship in the Suez Canal could block the waterway for months. That event would leave our Indian interests starving for resources.

Acre's features became grim.

Think. Such an event would force England to ship around the Cape which would add over 4,000 miles, unexpected trials and many weeks to the transit time. However, — he jabbed a finger at Fowler for emphasis — nothing and no one can block the Atlantic to British interests.

Lord John Acre smiled, passed his hand through his hair and turned back to retrieve his cognac. The prize was now there for the taking, but he must push circumstances past the balance point so that even the opposition Liberals under the sanctimonious William Gladstone would be swept along.

He and his friends could provide unique protection for the government's actions as Dr. John Dee had protected Elizabeth's ... even in the face of the Fiery Trigon ... actions that were already underway outside of government channels.

Iacta est alea, he mused. Iacta est alea. The die is truly cast. We cannot turn back now, he had insisted to other members of the Order, without incurring terrifying angelic wrath.

Acre emptied his glass with a single swallow.

Chapter 2

An hour after Jeffry Logan Fowler, Esq., had left to return to London, Lord John Acre had changed into a comfortable white cashmere robe fastened with a wide woven-gold belt. The robe reached to his bare ankles revealing his white leather sandals. On the left breast of the robe was an embroidered design with red roses entangled with a golden cross surrounded by a circle of white clouds. Thin golden rays extending beyond the clouds completed the extravagant design. The gold was thin gold wire.

The two men who would be joining him would wear a similar white robe but without the golden rays and the circle of clouds. Only the three Superiors of the Order wore the golden rays and clouds. The two men joining him were circle directors each responsible for three circles of 4-5 participants in each circle.

Removing its white silk covering, Acre reverently lifted John Dee's shew stone from its crystal support and carried it across the small library to place it in the three-pronged black basalt support in the center of the table of practice.

When the enclosed Lamp of Knowing under the table was lighted, it would send a narrow column of light first through a diffraction prism then straight up through Dee's limpid round-stone to be scattered into multiple spectral rays that would cover the hemispherical ceiling and fill the room with vivid vast rainbows of color.

Then — if the delicate scrying conditions were met — Acre would speak with the angels, with his guiding archangel, Uriel, who had already directed him to begin to make preparations — to reach out to seize the opportunity across the Atlantic that Uriel had insisted was there.

To reach out — to seize America — to seize Jonathan.

To bring the obstinate Jonathan back into the British Empire — the single act which would ensure the dominance of the Empire in the world for two hundred years, Uriel had prophesied, until 2076 when a form of Anti-Christ would rise up to fill the earth with seductive delusions that only a robust, militarily vigorous, vigilant British Empire might barely restrain. Not even Uriel could describe what would happen then. That time was concealed by higher deity from even the Archangel.

A quiet rhythmic triple knock at the door — Acre rose as the door opened.

Ave frater, he said, smiling.

Rosae et Aurae, the two men intoned in unison.

"Crucis," completed Acre as they warmly shook hands.

The two men followed Acre to their chairs at the table of practice.

Sir Clarence Upson Young, an aide to the Home Secretary and a Magnus of the ninth level, was lean with a haggard scarred face partially concealed behind a thick cavalry mustache. Possessed of a slashing wit socially, but over-cautious politically.

Colonel Edward Simpson Grace, in charge of an intelligence group within the Foreign Ministry, an Exemptus of the eighth level, was short stocky, clean-shaven with a sly impish grin. Acre knew well the lethal mind behind that grin.

Without ceremony the three gathered around the table as Acre struck fire and lighted the Lamp of Knowing.

Three centuries earlier, the angels had directed John Dee to build a table of practice three feet on a side from sweet woods covered with a large carved six-pointed star. Angelic symbols were carved at each of the corners. Each of the four legs rested on a clear wax seal, a Sigillum Dei, nine inches in diameter and one and one-eighth inches thick.

For Acre, his angelic sources had directed a circular table of three feet diameter of hard wood with the six-pointed star carved into it with a six inch hole in the center for the light of the Lamp of Knowing. The three legs rested on wax seals of the same design as Dee's.

The three inquirers placed their hands flat on the table, fingers touching, thumb-to-thumb, fifth finger-to-fifth finger, to form a living circle around the shew stone.

The two waited, watching, as their Superior plunged his mind into the great bowl of colors that filled the room. After a few moments, Acre's face became pale, almost matching the white of his hair, his eyes blinked several times as if