About Wes

Ashley Jordan (A.J.)

Ashley Jordan is 36, eight years junior to Wes Franklin, and is his one true love and partner in life. A.J., too, has an extraordinary IQ, with her area of expertise being computers and communications technology. She is a brunette (though sometimes blonde) with an athletic body, and is well-practiced in martial arts. She has been a partner in Wes’ adventures since their initial meeting eight years earlier.

Rouzbeh Aryana

Aryana has been Wes Franklin’s right-hand man for fifteen years. Aryana is a few years older than Wes, 6’2”, and 225 lbs of muscle. He is an arms expert but prefers to keep things simple, calling mainly on his throwing knives, which are dispensed by a high-tech arm sheath of Aryana’s own design. On more than one occasion Aryana has thrown himself into harm’s way to save Wes’ life, repayment for an earlier life-debt that Aryana will never forget. A dime-sized swirl of uneven flesh on his chest and back was caused by a 9mm bullet meant for Wes, and is a permanent reminder to all of Aryana’s complete and total dedication to Wes Franklin.

The Cloister of Akhenaten

The most concise description of The Cloister of Akhenaten, the clandestine intelligence network of which Wes Franklin is a member, is provided by Wes in the first book, Sacrament of Fear. The Cloister was founded by a group of five archaeologists in the 1920s upon the discovery of the Pharaoh Akhenaten’s tomb at the Amarna excavations. The discovery of this hitherto unknown pharaoh ushered in a period of great fascination for Egyptian history that lasted through the 1920s and ‘30s. Reflecting the reality that all disciplines expand their understandings over time, and that at any given point in time, what we believe to be completely true may suddenly change because of some new discovery, the group gave themselves the motto “Truth never happens in real time.” The more these archaeological scientists learned about this incredible pharaoh, the more they realized how far reaching was the influence of his short life. James Henry Breasted, the noted American scholar, described Akhenaten as ‘The most remarkable of all the Pharaohs….’ James Baikie, the famed British Egyptologist, characterized Akhenaten as ‘an idealist dreamer, who actually believed men were meant to live in truth and speak the truth’. Akhenaten was a revolutionary king and a man of visionary humanitarianism.

Over a period of about ten years, the ranks of the Cloister of Akhenaten grew to nearly twenty, with representatives from several countries: the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Russia, Austria, Greece, Morocco, Libya, the United States, and of course Egypt. The membership started with archaeologists but grew to include other disciplines as well. They gathered under a banner honoring the spirit of Akhenaten, united by a dedication to uncovering truth in all its forms, wherever it was to be found. Although the Cloister of Akhenaten was never intended as a clandestine or covert spy network as such, they maintained a very low profile, believing the uncovered truth was always more important than the person uncovering it.

In the years leading up to WWII, the group’s efforts were primarily focused on matters dealing with medicine, science, and mathematics. But the war changed all that. It was apparent to the membership that learning about things like microbes and atoms would be of little value if the world’s powerbrokers turned that knowledge into weapons that could destroy civilization itself. So, during and after WWII the efforts of the Cloister of Akhenaten – or Ankh network, as it came to be known – expanded to include social and political truths, as well. The members have always remained anonymous and their work largely unheralded, but this anonymity helped to make their work easier. And, considering some of the things they got into over the years since WWII, it made it a lot safer as well.

Membership in the Cloister of Akhenaten has always been strictly by invitation of an existing member. Wes Franklin was brought into the Ankh Network by Dr. Britomar Handlon Lathrop, a Psychotherapist from Berkeley, who passed away in the mid-1990s. Like new members before him, Wes traveled to Egypt for a special induction ceremony at Tell el-Amarna, the site of the original excavation. The ritual was simple and solemn and usually began with a reading of a poem written by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Following this reading, all members – both old and new – affirmed their commitment to Akhenaten’s fundamental concepts: truth, freedom, idealism, non-violence, and the resolution of disputes by means other than war. The ceremony was brought to a close by the reading of another poem embodying their universal brotherhood, this one written by the thirteenth century mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi. At his own induction, Wes Franklin had the distinct honor and privilege of reading the poem aloud to the assembled group and, it has continued to serve as a guiding light for him ever since. That poem is as follows…

Ihold to no religion or creed,

Am neither Eastern nor Western,

Muslim or Infidel,

Zoroastrian, Christian, Jew or Gentile.

I come from neither land nor sea,

Am not related to those above or below,

Was not born nearby or far away.

Do not live either in Paradise or on this Earth,

Claim descent not from Adam and Eve or the Angels above

I transcend body and soul.

My home is beyond place and name.

It is with the beloved, in a space beyond space.

I embrace all and am part of all.