Temple of the Gods

11 Rome

Returning to New York via Italy hadn’t been Nina’s plan, but she had been left with more than enough time while waiting to deal with the Japanese authorities to think about the full implications of the events in the Takashi building.

Foremost on her mind was her husband. Three months without even an attempt to communicate, then he appeared out of the blue? She didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or furious — though his accusing her of being in league with Stikes tipped her feelings a little towards the latter.

Stikes’s presence was itself a concern. She was sure Takashi had lied about the mercenary’s being a mere delivery boy; he was involved with whatever was going on. As for what that might be, though…

Could she believe Takashi’s claims about the goals of his mysterious organisation? That Stikes was connected to it at all made her doubt its true commitment to ending global conflict, for a start — as a gun for hire, his livelihood depended on that. But someone else was opposed enough to take action to stop him. Drastic action. The helicopter attack had been intended to kill her, Takashi and Stikes alike.

And Eddie. Somebody wanted him dead too. But why? What was the connection?

The statues were the key, she was sure.

Takashi had known what to expect when the figures were brought together. But nothing Nina knew of suggested even remotely that the statues could use the planet’s own energy fields to counter the force of gravity — to say nothing of her extraordinary mental experience.

Which meant that someone, somewhere, had information that outstripped even the IHA’s discoveries. She only knew one group that might fit the bill. And that was why she had come to Rome.

‘Dr Wilde,’ said Nicholas Popadopoulos, turning her name over in his mouth like a piece of slightly unpleasant food. She had dealt with the stooped old man before. The Brotherhood of Selasphoros possessed an enormous trove of ancient texts concerning Atlantis; the organisation’s purpose had been to suppress knowledge of the lost civilisation.

It had done so by trying to kill anyone who got too close to the truth, which was why Popadopoulos’s antipathy was more than matched by Nina’s. She had been targeted, as had her parents. She had survived. They had not. The thought still caused a knot of anger to tighten within her.

She tried to suppress it. Her life might now depend on something in the Brotherhood’s archives. ‘Mr Popadopoulos,’ she replied, voice studiedly neutral. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘And you,’ he said, less than convincingly. ‘This visit is unexpected, though. We have cooperated fully with the IHA in providing anything it requested, so why you felt the need to come here in person…’

‘Your definition of “full cooperation” isn’t quite the same as ours,’ Nina said with a thin smile.

‘We are doing everything asked of us!’ Popadopoulos’s resentment was clear in every word. ‘We are the only people who know everything in the archives. It would take outsiders years just to understand how it is catalogued. Perhaps you think you can do it without us?’

Her smile turned colder. ‘I dunno, maybe we should try. You could have a nice long vacation… paid for by the state. What do you think?’

He glowered at her through his little round spectacles. What was left of the Brotherhood after the battles leading to Atlantis’s discovery had been forced to open its records under threat of being held to account for the organisation’s past crimes. ‘I will see if things can be done more… expediently,’ he conceded.

‘Thank you. Although that isn’t actually why I decided to pop in.’

‘What? Then why are you here? Just to bully and harass us?’

‘No, I want some information. Expediently.’

The old man was annoyed at having his words turned back at him. ‘What information?’

‘I want to know if you have anything in the archives about Nantalas.’

‘The priestess?’

Nina arched an eyebrow. ‘Then I guess you do have something.’

‘She was an important figure prior to the sinking of Atlantis.’ He leaned thoughtfully back in his seat. ‘She claimed to have visions, I remember. Of war, usually, but that was the major occupation of the Atlanteans. She also claimed to have magic powers.’

‘These powers — they wouldn’t have been connected to three statues, by any chance?’

Popadopoulos sat back up, surprised. ‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘We excavated some of the texts from the Temple of Poseidon.’

‘Ah, I see.’ His face tipped into a frown. ‘It would be nice to receive updates on the IHA’s progress in Atlantis. Anyone would think you did not trust us.’

‘Really,’ said Nina scathingly. ‘So what else do you know about the statues?’

‘It is many years since I last read the text, but I think they were how she received her visions. They were the keys to her powers… No, the powers were not actually hers. The statues were how she channelled them, but they came from something else, a stone… Wait, the sky stone, that is it.’

‘And what were these powers?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t remember. It was all magic, nonsense. I paid it no mind.’

Nina fought to keep her frustration in check. ‘And you didn’t think it might be worth telling the IHA this? You must have known that we had two of the statues.’

‘We provide exactly what is asked for,’ Popadopoulos told her. ‘Nothing less — and nothing more.’

‘Well, you might want to feel a bit more of the volunteer spirit in future,’ she snapped. ‘But in the meantime, I want to know everything about the statues. Even the stuff you think is nonsense.’

‘I told you, I would have to read the text again.’

‘Well, I’m not busy right now, and if you’ve got time to see me you can’t be either. So let’s go.’

‘You want to see the original text? In the archive?’ He appeared horrified by the suggestion.

‘Yep, pretty much.’

‘That was never part of the deal! It was agreed that the Brotherhood could maintain the secrecy of its archives.’

‘I don’t give a damn about your secrets. What I do give a damn about is that somebody else knows about the power of these statues — at least two groups of somebodies, in fact, and they’re already fighting over them. Did you see the news about that skyscraper in Tokyo?’

‘Yes, of course. They said it was attacked by a helicopter.’

‘I was in the penthouse!’ He regarded her in astonishment. ‘I had the statues, all three of them, in my hands. And something happened, something I didn’t understand — but something incredible. I need to know what it means. I think the answer’s in your archive.’

Popadopoulos sat back again, deep in thought. At last, with a decidedly conflicted expression, he stood. ‘Very well, Dr Wilde. But these are exceptional circumstances, yes? I am not willing to have other members of the IHA “pop in”, as you say, whenever they want.’

‘Just show me what you’ve got on the statues and I’ll be out of here.’

For the first time, he liked something she had said. ‘Come with me.’

The Brotherhood’s activities in Rome were hidden behind the cover of a law firm, its offices within sight of the high walls of the Vatican. Popadopoulos led her through the narrow corridors to one particular door on the ground floor. ‘In here.’

Nina eyed the interior dubiously. ‘Seriously?’ It was a closet containing shelves of cleaning products, a tiny barred window high on one wall.

He sighed and entered, waving her inside. She squeezed into the cramped space as the Greek closed the door and reached for a light switch. Instead of flicking it, though, he took hold of the casing and gave it a half-turn. A click, a muted hum from somewhere below — and Nina gasped as the floor began a slow descent down a shaft of dark old bricks.

Popadopoulos chuckled at her uneasiness. ‘Do you like our elevator?’

‘It’s, uh… different.’

‘It was installed over a hundred years ago. The Brotherhood has owned the building since it was built in 1785 — but the archives have been here for far longer. I hope you appreciate that I am actually giving you a very rare privilege,’ he went on. ‘The number of outsiders who have seen them in, oh, the past five hundred years can be counted on both hands. Even members of the Brotherhood were rarely allowed to enter if they were not involved with record-keeping.’

The elevator stopped around thirty feet below street level. A passage led off to one side, dim bulbs strung along its length. Heavier-duty electrical cables ran along the walls. ‘Follow me,’ said Popadopoulos.

After twenty yards the brickwork gave way to older and rougher stone. The tunnel continued ahead for some distance. Nina tried to get her bearings. ‘It’s a catacomb,’ she realised. ‘We’re going under the Vatican?’

‘Yes. The catacombs beneath the Holy See stretch for tens, maybe even hundreds of kilometres — they have never been fully mapped. These sections were sealed and donated to the Brotherhood in the ninth century by a cardinal who was also a supporter of the cause.’

Nina was impressed. ‘Your own version of the Vatican Secret Archives.’

‘Yes — although our records contain material that even the Archivum Secretum does not.’

‘I’m guessing that the scope of your records is more limited, though.’

‘You would be surprised by the scope of our records,’ he said smugly. ‘But yes, Atlantis is its focus. The Atlantean empire, its rulers, its society… and the threat it poses.’

‘Posed, surely,’ Nina corrected. ‘Past tense. Unless you’re saying there are more genocidal nuts like the Frosts plotting to resurrect it?’

‘You were the one who was attacked over the statues,’ he pointed out. ‘But here we are.’ Ahead, the passage was blocked by a heavy steel door. Beside it was a keypad; Popadopulos, after making sure Nina couldn’t see over his shoulder, tapped in an entry code. The door rumbled open, bright lights shining behind it. The low hum of ventilation machinery became audible.

Popadopoulos went through and called out in Italian. ‘The librarians may be deep in the archives,’ he added for Nina, before shouting again. ‘Agostino!’

An echoing reply came from down one of the other tunnels leading from the large room. ‘He is on his way,’ said the Greek. Nina nodded, looking around while they waited. Two entire walls were taken up by the stacked wooden drawers of a card index system; while there was also a PC on a desk that apparently served the same function, she suspected from the contrast between the lovingly polished old hardwood and the rather dusty computer that the librarians preferred the traditional method of locating a specific document. The electrical cables branched out to power other pieces of equipment: air-conditioners, dehumidifiers, pumps, everything needed to keep conditions throughout the underground labyrinth as dry and stable as possible.

After a minute, shuffling footsteps heralded the librarians’ arrival. Two men emerged from a tunnel — one an old, white-bearded man with a bulbous nose, behind him a somewhat overweight, shaggy-haired youth. The elder didn’t appear pleased to have been interrupted, and his look became one of outright hostility when he saw Nina. He snapped in Italian at Popadopoulos, who gave him a resigned placatory response before making introductions. ‘Dr Wilde, this is Agostino Belardinelli, chief archivist of the Brotherhood, and his assistant, Paolo Agnelli. Agostino, this is—’

‘I know who she is!’ Belardinelli said angrily, jabbing a gnarled finger at Nina. ‘You brought her in here? It is a, a…’ Another burst of outraged Italian as he mimed stabbing himself in the heart.

‘Agostino’s son was also a member of the Brotherhood,’ Popadopoulos told Nina awkwardly. ‘He, ah… lost his life in Brazil.’

‘Did he now,’ she said coldly. That meant Belardinelli’s son had been one of those trying to kill her and the team searching for a lost Atlantean outpost deep in the jungle.

‘Yes, well,’ said Popadopoulos, ‘it would be best if we got this over with. Agostino, Dr Wilde needs to see everything concerning the Atlantean priestess Nantalas and the three statues that she said granted her powers.’

That provoked another highly emotional outburst from the archivist. Popadopoulos listened with growing impatience, before finally cutting in. ‘Agostino! Once she has seen what she needs, she will leave, and then we can discuss this. But for now, let us find it as soon as possible, hmm?’

Muttering to himself, Belardinelli crossed to one of the ranks of drawers. ‘Nantalas, Nantalas,’ he said, finger waving back and forth like a radar antenna. ‘She was mentioned in one of the Athenian annals. Now, was it Akakios, or…’

Agnelli spoke for the first time. ‘It was Kallikrates,’ he said hesitantly. ‘One of the parchments in the fourteenth arcosolium.’

‘Kallikrates, yes.’ Belardinelli had evidently memorised the intricacies of the index, as he went to a particular drawer and flicked through the hundreds of cards within. Taking one out, he donned a pair of reading glasses and peered at it. ‘Ah, his ninth text. I thought so. And it is in the fourteenth arcosolium.’

‘Well done, Paolo,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘It seems we really do not need a computer after all.’

‘I, uh — I have been memorising the catacombs,’ said Agnelli.

Nina wondered why he seemed so nervous about the admission, but Belardinelli’s irritable words gave her an explanation. ‘Yes, he is always wandering off when I need him!’ He returned the card to the drawer, giving the computer a contemptuous glare. ‘Still, at least he is learning for himself. Better than being told the answer by a machine. I never use it myself. If God had meant machines to think for us, why give us brains?’ He jabbed distastefully at the mouse on the left of the keyboard.

‘The text?’ prompted Popadopoulos.

The old man grunted in annoyance. ‘Down here.’

He led the others into one of the tunnels. Unlike the route from the elevator, these were more than mere access passages. Carved into the walls were long, low niches, stacked as many as four high. Loculi, Nina knew: burial nooks, in which the ancient Christians had placed the bodies of their dead.

There were no corpses present now, to her relief. Instead, the niches were home to shelves holding wood and metal boxes, carefully wrapped bundles of thick cloth, sealed glass tubes containing rolled papers and parchments. A great repository of ancient knowledge.

Stolen knowledge. Not even famous historical names had been safe from the Brotherhood’s attentions; one of the items in the archive had been Hermocrates, the lost dialogue of the Greek philosopher Plato. She wondered what secrets were contained in the documents she passed — and how many people had been killed for them.

But there were more important issues than her disgust at the Brotherhood. They went deeper into the catacombs, Belardinelli turning without hesitation at each junction to lead them to their destination. ‘Here,’ he said, stopping at a larger, arched niche, reliefs of figures and Latin text carved into the stonework. ‘The fourteenth arcosolium.’

Within the ornate burial nook was a tall grid of shelves, upon which were dozens of cloth-wrapped objects. Books, but very large ones; Nina had seen a similar example when Popadopoulos brought the original text of Hermocrates to her in New York. The ‘pages’ were actually sheets of glass, the fragile parchments carefully preserved between them and the whole thing bound together by metal.

Belardinelli squinted up at one of the higher shelves, then looked round and spotted a little stepladder not far away. He waved for Agnelli to bring it. ‘Shall I get the book for you?’ the youth asked as he set the ladder in place.

‘No, no,’ the bearded man insisted. He ascended the steps, stretching to reach the uppermost shelf. He had to hold on to the old wood with his left hand for support, leaving a print in the dust as he strained to pull the heavy book from its resting place. Nina cringed as it tipped over the edge, its weight almost too much for Belardinelli to support with one hand, but he managed to catch it before it fell.

He clambered back down. ‘This is what you wanted to see,’ he told Nina, unfolding the thick cloth. Compared to the other wrapped volumes, there was surprisingly little dust. The cover was of thick burgundy leather, framed in scuffed brass. ‘The texts of Kallikrates.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ she admitted.

‘You wouldn’t have,’ said Popadopoulos. ‘The Brotherhood made sure of that. But he was a student of Theophrastus—’

‘One of Plato’s students.’

That seemed to elevate her, very slightly, in Belardinelli’s eyes. ‘Yes. Kallikrates was intrigued by the history of the wars between Athens and Atlantis. These texts,’ he tapped the book, ‘contain his writings on the subject.’

‘Well, let’s see what he said about Nantalas, shall we?’ said Nina.

Belardinelli placed the book on the stone slab at the base of the arcosolium and opened it carefully, the binding creaking as he turned each glass ‘page’. At a particular one, he put his reading glasses back on. ‘This is it.’

A discoloured sheet of parchment was pressed between the glass plates, the bottom part raggedly torn away and the remainder showing clear signs of damage from water and time. Tightly packed Greek text was written in faded brown ink. ‘What happened to the rest of it?’ Nina asked.

‘Nobody knows,’ the old man replied. ‘When Kallikrates died, there was a dispute over his possessions. The Brotherhood took these texts from one of his brothers, but the rest were lost.’

She imagined that the taking had been by force, but was more eager to read the ancient document than criticise. Her parents had taught her Greek as a child, so the only problems were the occasionally poor legibility of the text and the low light. From what she could tell, the previous part of Kallikrates’ writings concerned the Atlantean royal court, before discussing the high priestess’s part in its affairs. ‘Seems she was quite the warmonger,’ she said. Most of her supposed prophecies were more like thinly veiled entreaties to lead Atlantis into yet another battle against its many enemies.

‘All Atlanteans are warmongers,’ said Belardinelli accusingly. ‘Violence is in their blood.’

‘And in the blood of their enemies too, apparently,’ she shot back. ‘Where’s the part about the statues?’

Belardinelli indicated a section lower down the page. Nina read it out loud. ‘“When Nantalas held the statues, a great light would fill the Temple of the Gods, giving the high priestess visions as the stone called out to her. She said that such visions let her see through the eyes of all the watching gods, and that she could feel all life in this world.” That’s what I…’

She tailed off, not wanting to let the members of the Brotherhood in on her secrets. ‘What I expected based on our new excavations,’ she continued, before quickly reading on until she found another relevant piece of text. ‘“The high priestess requested the presence of the king at the Temple of the Gods. She told him again that the power of the sky stone would make the empire invincible. When he demanded proof, she brought the statues together and touched them to the stone. The king was astounded when it…”’

That was the end of the text, nothing more than the occasional letter discernible at the torn bottom of the parchment. ‘That’s all there is?’ she asked Belardinelli.

‘Nantalas appears in a few other texts,’ he replied, ‘but only as a name — nothing more is said about her.’

She turned to Popadopoulos. ‘The Brotherhood is the only organisation that has this information, yes? There’s nobody else who might have copies of it, or another source?’

‘Not that I am aware of,’ he said.

‘And you haven’t shared anything from the archives with anybody but the IHA?’

‘We would not even have done that if we had not been forced,’ said Belardinelli, affronted.

‘Why are you asking?’ said the Greek.

‘Because,’ she said, ‘I think somebody has information about Atlantis that not even the Brotherhood of Selasphoros possesses.’

Belardinelli shook his head. ‘Impossible! The Brotherhood has been dedicated to its task for hundreds of generations. We have found everything there is to find about Atlantis.’

‘Except Atlantis itself,’ Nina reminded him. ‘You needed me to do that.’

The Italian seemed about to explode with anger, but Popadopoulos waved him down. ‘What are you suggesting, Dr Wilde?’

‘When I put the three statues together in Tokyo,’ she said, ‘I had… an experience.’

‘What kind of experience?’

‘Let’s just say that Nantalas might not have been a fraud. But the thing is, Takashi — the guy who had the statues — knew what to expect, as if he’d read this text.’ She indicated the parchment.

‘Impossible,’ Belardinelli said again.

‘I dunno — this could very easily be interpreted as what I experienced, certainly from the point of view of someone living eleven thousand years ago. But the thing is, that wasn’t the only thing he was expecting. There were… other effects, is all I can say right now, when the statues were put together. Physical effects, that… well, the only way I can describe them is extraordinary,’ she said, with a helpless shrug. ‘But Takashi wasn’t at all surprised — by any of it. Not only did he know about what’s written here, but he also knew something you don’t.’

Popadopoulos was stunned. ‘You think this man Takashi had read the missing parts of Kallikrates’ texts?’

‘Maybe. Maybe more than that. Is there anyone else who might have information about Atlantis that the Brotherhood doesn’t? Governments, other secret societies?’ She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Religions?’

‘There is nothing in the Archivum Secretum about Atlantis,’ said Belardinelli firmly.

Popadopoulos was more doubtful. ‘Several governments have vast secret archives of their own,’ he admitted. ‘But we have never shared our knowledge with anyone, except the IHA.’

‘So, if you’re so sure that this parchment is the only copy of Kallikrates’ work, how could Takashi know what it describes?’ Nina asked.

Belardinelli took off his glasses and paced across the narrow tunnel before whirling on his heel to face Nina. ‘The other part of the page repeats the same information, obviously,’ he said, punctuating his words with more jabs from his finger. ‘Someone else possesses it — and that is where Takashi read it.’

‘Parchment could be expensive,’ Nina countered. ‘I mean, look how many words Kallikrates crammed on to this. You don’t waste it by repeating yourself.’

‘But that — that is the only possible explanation,’ said Agnelli. Nina had almost forgotten he was there.

‘No, there’s another one. You won’t like it, though,’ she told the two older men. ‘Someone inside the Brotherhood passed on the information to Takashi’s organisation.’

The silence told her that her theory had not been well received. ‘No!’ barked Belardinelli at last. ‘It is not possible. Every single member of the Brotherhood is completely loyal to the cause!’

‘You don’t have a cause any more! Atlantis has been discovered, the Frosts and their followers are dead, the Brotherhood’s been exposed — and it’s now got the UN and several governments watching over it. Maybe someone decided it was time to get out, and thought that selling secrets would be the best way to set up a retirement fund.’

‘It is… hard to believe,’ said Popadopoulos slowly. ‘Agostino is right — loyalty to the Brotherhood is very important.’

‘And besides,’ said Belardinelli, ‘there are only three people who know the full contents of the archives: myself, Nicholas and Paolo.’ He crossed his arms as if that settled the argument.

‘Well, that narrows the list of suspects, doesn’t it?’ Nina said. As the three men exchanged glances, she looked up at the shelf from which the preserved parchment had been taken. ‘Huh.’

‘What is it?’ asked Popadopoulos.

She pointed to the left of the empty spot. ‘That’s Mr Belardinelli’s handprint there in the dust.’

‘Yes? So?’ Belardinelli snapped. ‘I made it when I took down the book. You saw me do it.’

‘So whose is that on the other side?’ She indicated another mark in the grey layer.

‘You never touched that part of the shelf, Agostino,’ said Popadopoulos, moving for a better look. ‘But someone has — and recently. There is hardly any new dust.’

Nina turned to Belardinelli. ‘Are you right-handed?’

‘Yes,’ he said, puzzled and angry. ‘What has that to do with anything?’

‘When you climbed up, you used your left hand for support while you pulled the book out with your right hand — your stronger hand. But that mark was made by someone’s right hand… meaning they moved the book with their left.’

‘I am right-handed,’ Popadopoulos told her.

‘Yeah, I thought you would be.’ Now she faced Agnelli. ‘The computer was set up for someone left-handed. And Mr Belardinelli here said he never uses it, so that only leaves you.’ Prickles of sweat blossomed across his broad face even in the climate-controlled cool of the catacomb. ‘You’re left-handed, Mr Agnelli. And you knew where the parchment was without having to check — and the ladder was even right here.’ She looked back at the other men. ‘How does that sound?’

Their faces betrayed shock — which, she quickly realised, was far greater than her deduction deserved. She turned to Agnelli once more.

And froze. ‘Oh, crap.’

The young Italian was pointing a gun at her.