The Hunt For Atlantis

TWENTY-ONE

I know who you are,” Nina said, trying not to let her fear show. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” The question provoked the tiniest flicker of amusement on Qobras’s stern face. “I want what everybody wants, Dr. Wilde. I want peace and security for the world. And thanks to you, I can now bring that about.” His intense gaze flicked over to Philby. “And thanks to you too, Jack. It’s been some time since we last met. Ten years, wasn’t it?”

“I was rather hoping I’d never have to meet you again,” said Philby, voice quavering.

Nina rounded on him. “You know him, Jonathan?”

“Jack-Jonathan, rather, I suppose it’s more dignified for a professor-has helped me keep anyone from finding Atlantis before,” said Qobras. He gestured to one of his men, who led Philby from the group of prisoners. “And now… Well.” He waved a hand at the empty ocean. “Atlantis will be lost forever, because it will be destroyed.”

“Why?” demanded Nina. “What secret could there possibly be that it’s worth destroying the most important archaeological find ever? And the lives of all the people you’ve killed?”

“If you knew, you wouldn’t need to ask that question,” Qobras replied. “You would be helping me. But I see your mind has been poisoned by the Frosts, like your parents. A shame. You could have accomplished so much if you hadn’t chosen the wrong path.”

“Wait, what about my parents?” But Qobras turned away as Starkman emerged from the superstructure.

“I’ve trashed the hard drive with the recordings from the dive, Giovanni,” Starkman announced. “All we have to do now is destroy the temple itself and there’ll be nothing left.”

“Excellent,” said Qobras. He was about to say something else when somebody urgently called his name. One of his men jumped between the two ships and ran to the helipad.

“Sir!” the man gasped, looking concerned. “Some thing’s gone wrong down below!”

“What happened?” Qobras asked.

“The Zeus destroyed the Frost submersible”-Trulli shoved forward, shouting and swearing at Qobras, until two of the guards pushed him back at gunpoint-“and detonated one of the demolition charges. But… our hydrophones heard an implosion.”

“Could it have been the Frost sub?”

“No, sir. That was already heading back to the surface, while this was on the seabed. One of the divers must have destroyed it.”

Qobras turned to Philby for an explanation. “Kari-I mean, Ms. Frost-and Chase were inside the temple,” the professor said, almost stuttering in his nervousness. “It must have been Castille.”

“Go, Hugo!” Nina said, with no joy. Starkman fixed her with a nasty look from his good eye.

The furrows on Qobras’s brow deepened. “We needed the Zeus to plant the explosives! How long will it take to get a replacement here?”

“At least five days, sir.”

“Too long. Frost can get more people and equipment here before then. And this time, they’ll be prepared for us.”

“What about their other sub?” Starkman asked, gesturing towards the Evenor’s bow, and the Sharkdozer.

“Only I know how to pilot it,” Trulli said defiantly. “And if you bastards think I’m going to help you after you killed my mate, you can fuck right off.”

Starkman looked annoyed and raised his gun, but Qobras shook his head. “Have the remaining demolition charges from our ship brought aboard this one,” he said after a few seconds of thought. “Set two thirds of them below the waterline forward, and the remainder aft.”

“What are you going to do?” Nina asked.

“Since I can no longer destroy the temple with explosives,” said Qobras, turning back to her, “I need some other method. Three thousand tons of steel dropped directly onto it should be an effective alternative.”

Ignoring the armed men around him, Captain Matthews stepped forward. “Qobras! What about my crew? What are you going to do with us?”

Qobras eyed him dismissively. “I believe there’s a maritime tradition that the captain should go down with his ship. In this case, that will apply to his crew as well.” He glanced back at Nina. “And his passengers.”

“You son of a bitch,” Matthews spat.

“You’re going to drown us?” Nina said, horrified.

Qobras shook his head. “No, no. I’m not a cruel man, or some crazed sadist, whatever your friends the Frosts may have said about me. When the ship sinks, you will already be dead.”

Chase checked his air supply. The deep suits were designed for long durations underwater, but they still had a limit. He had around another hour’s supply.

One hour. After that, he and Kari would become permanent residents in the ancient temple…

Kari had had the same thought. “There must be another way out,” she said, pointing down the stairs. “The water couldn’t have filled the main chamber through the secret passage, otherwise this room would be flooded as well.”

“Doesn’t mean we’ll be able to get through it,” Chase reminded her as he descended the steps.

“We still have to try.”

“I know, I was just preparing for the worst. It’s a British thing. How many of those big glow sticks do you have? We’ll need as much light as we can get.”

Kari checked the pouch on her belt. “Six.”

“Same here. Okay, let’s take a look.”

They waded into the frigid water.

Castille swam back to the site of the entrance. The cloud of silt kicked up by the explosion was still hanging there, and he knew from past experience that such murky water could take hours to clear.

Undaunted, he entered the cloud anyway. It was like an extremely thick brown fog, even the beam of his flashlight almost completely obscured by the drifting sediment.

He didn’t need to see to know that the passage had been sealed, however. Chunks of shattered stone lay on the seabed beneath his feet. Locating the line Chase had led into the tunnel, he tugged it experimentally. It didn’t give at all.

Using the suit’s thrusters to return to clearer water, he checked his air supply and considered his options. An hour left. He could easily return to the surface…

But the mere fact that they had been attacked suggested that the situation topside was dire. Qobras’s ship would have reached the Evenor by now. Apart from his knife he was unarmed, and on the surface, trapped inside the bulky deep suit, he would be almost useless in a fight.

Which meant that all he could do now was find some way to help Chase and Kari escape from the temple.

If they had survived.

The atmosphere on the helipad was tense. A few of the crew were close to tears, or panic. Others muttered fast prayers. Qobras’s men circled them, raising their MP-7s…

“Wait,” said Nina, masking her terror with as much determination as she could muster.

“For what?” Qobras asked.

“I’ll make you a deal. Let the crew use the lifeboats before you sink the ship, and…” She took a deep breath. “And I’ll give myself up to you.”

Starkman snorted dismissively as Qobras let out a brief, humorless laugh. “I already have you, Dr. Wilde! There’s nothing you can offer me-I have what I want. I know the location of Atlantis, and now I’m going to destroy it!”

“There’s something you don’t know, though,” Nina said with a thin smile. “The location of the third Temple of Poseidon.”

Qobras’s expression changed to one of wary surprise. “There is no third temple, Dr. Wilde. There is the one in Brazil, which has been destroyed, and the one below us, which will soon join it. The trail of the Atlanteans ends here.”

“Uh-uh.” Nina shook her head. “There’s a third one. And sooner or later, somebody’s going to find it. You think that just smashing the temple’s going to eliminate all the clues? People know where Atlantis is now. Word’s going to get out, and people will come looking. There’s a whole city down there, not just the temple. Sooner or later, someone’ll put the pieces together and be able to follow the trail. The secret you’ve been trying to hide’s going to be found, and there won’t be anything you can do about it. Unless…”

“Unless what?” There was menace in Qobras’s tone, but he was also intrigued.

“Unless I tell you where it is. So you can destroy it personally.”

“This is bullshit,” Starkman cut in. “She doesn’t know anything, she’s just trying to buy time and save herself.”

“Mr. Qobras, tell Patch here to shut the hell up,” Nina said, defiant despite her fear. Starkman bristled, but said nothing. “There is a third temple, a third citadel. Before the deluge, the Atlanteans were preparing to establish two new colonies. One expedition went west, to Brazil, the other… Well, I know where they went. And I’ll tell you. If you let the crew live.”

Starkman pressed his gun against Matthews’s head. “Or we could just execute them one by one until you tell us.”

“Seeing as you were going to kill us all anyway, that’s not really much of a deal,” Nina retorted.

Qobras rounded on Philby. “Is she telling the truth?”

“She, ah, could be,” Philby said, flustered. “The final inscriptions inside the temple did seem to indicate that the Atlanteans were planning to resettle in more than one location-but I didn’t have time to translate enough of it to be sure.” He regarded Nina suspiciously. “And I don’t see how she could have either.”

“I’m a quick study, Jack,” Nina sneered.

“Can you translate the rest?” Qobras asked.

Philby shook his head and sighed. “Not anymore.”

“Ha!” Nina made a face at Starkman. “Betcha wish you hadn’t smashed the hard drive now, huh?” She turned to Qobras. “So, what’s it going to be? I made you an offer, and it still stands. Let the crew live and I’ll take you to the last outpost of Atlantis.”

“You’ll take us?” said Starkman. “What, you want to turn this into a working vacation now?”

She folded her arms, fixing Qobras with a determined look. “I’ve been hunting for Atlantis my whole life. If I’m going to die because of that, then I want to know exactly why. I want to see the whole story. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“Dr. Wilde, it’s too dangerous,” said Matthews. “For all you know, he’ll just kill us anyway.”

“I’m offering him a deal in good faith. I’m hoping he’ll accept it in the same way. What about it, Mr. Qobras?” she asked. “You said you weren’t a cruel man. Are you an honorable one?”

Starkman continued to glower at her, but Qobras was unreadable. He moved closer, his flint-gray eyes looking right into hers. “You realize, of course, that even after we destroy the final temple we cannot allow you to live? Are you still willing to offer your deal to save their lives?”

She swallowed before answering, mouth dry. “Yes.”

For a moment, he seemed almost impressed. “You are a very brave woman, Dr. Wilde. And noble. I wouldn’t have expected it, considering your… heritage.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He stepped back. “We will have time to discuss it later. But I will spare the people on this ship, if you agree to show me how to reach the last temple. Do we have a deal?”

“We do,” said Nina.

Qobras nodded. “Very well. Jason! Prepare the lifeboats, put the crew aboard.”

“Are you sure that’s the right thing to do?” Starkman asked.

“We shall see. Search them first, though-make sure they have no radio transmitters or flares. I want to be certain we have enough time to leave the area before they are picked up.” He pointed to the north. “The Portuguese coast is a hundred and forty kilometers in that direction, Captain. I hope your crew can row that far.” Matthews shot Qobras a hateful look as Starkman and the other men led the crew away.

“What about the people in Atlantis?” Nina asked. “My friends are still down there.”

“And that is where they will stay,” Qobras replied.

“What? Wait, we agreed-”

Qobras grabbed her, pulling her close as he hissed into her face: “We agreed to spare the people on this ship, Dr. Wilde. They are not on this ship. If you object to that, then I will order the crew to be shot! Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Nina said, defeated.

“Dr. Wilde,” called Matthews, as one of Qobras’s men gestured with his gun for him to follow the rest of the crew, “do you have any family I should contact?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” she sighed. “Just… if you see Eddie, tell him I’ll send him a postcard.”

Matthews looked puzzled, but didn’t have time to say anything else before he was shoved away. Qobras waved a hand towards his own ship. “Now, Dr. Wilde, if you’ll step aboard my vessel… we can discuss the location of the last Atlantean temple.”

Even three-quarters filled with cold, dark water, the genuine Temple of Poseidon was even more impressive than its replica in South America.

“This is absolutely incredible,” said Kari, the danger of the situation overpowered by her awe at the sheer magnificence of the surroundings. Above her, ranks of slender ribs adorned with gold, silver and orichalcum rose to the peak of the curved ceiling. “Look at the roof! The whole thing is lined with ivory, just as Plato described it.”

“Incredible’s not the word I’d use,” said Chase, swimming to her. “It’s like being inside something’s ribcage. That bloke who did the Alien films’d love it in here.” He cracked another glow stick and tossed it across the chamber, where it bobbed on the water. Beyond the beams of their flashlights, the chamber was now illuminated with a soft orange glow. The head of Poseidon rose above the water, watching them balefully with blank golden eyes. “Did you find any way out?”

“No. What about you?”

Chase pointed down at the southern end of the chamber. “It’s just like the other temple, and I mean just like it. I bet if we went all the way down the passage, we’d find the same challenges.”

“There’s a passage? Can we get out that way?”

He shook his head. “It’s at ground level, remember? There’s thirty feet of sediment over the exit.”

“We might have to try it. Since the roof is intact, that must be how the water got in. We could still get out the same way.”

“There’s a quicker way out,” said Chase. He held up one of the explosive charges.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” she protested. “If you blow a hole through the ceiling, the whole thing might collapse!”

“I’m not planning on blowing the whole thing up. Look.” He swam to a section of wall where the decorative ivory had broken away, exposing bare stone. “We only need to make a hole big enough to fit through-even shifting one of those blocks would be enough.”

“Assuming your bomb doesn’t bring the whole roof down.”

Chase shrugged as best he could inside the suit. “Well, what’s life without a bit of risk?” He aimed the flashlight beam at the exposed stones, examining the joins between them. As in Brazil, they had been carved so precisely that there was no mortar holding them together, their own weight supporting the structure. Probing one of the joins with his knife, he found that the tip only penetrated a few millimeters. “We need to find the weakest spot to plant the charges.” He pushed away from the wall, turning around to look up at the statue of Poseidon. “So big that he touched the roof with his head…”

Kari looked impressed. “Have you been reading Plato?”

“Thought I ought to give it a shot. But, see? If we climb onto old bighead there, we can stick the charges right under the top of the roof. The blocks lower down the walls have the weight of all the other stones on top of them keeping them in place, but at the top there’s nothing holding them except gravity.”

“And twenty-five atmospheres of water pressure,” Kari pointed out. “If you make a hole at the very top, you’ll flood the entire temple. You’ll destroy it-and probably us too!”

“If we’re not out of here in an hour, it’s not going to matter either way. We don’t have time to clear the tunnel. Come on.” He leaned forward, using his thrusters to propel himself across the water to the statue. With deep reluctance, Kari did the same.

Castille continued his circuit of the temple, coming around the southern end. So far he had seen no sign of any holes, the great stepped curve of the roof as solid as a turtle’s shell.

On some impulse, he touched down on the building itself. The stones might be thick, but if he was close enough, radio waves should be able to penetrate.

“Edward?” he said. “Kari? Can anyone hear me?”

He stood in silence, not even breathing so that the hiss of his suit’s regulator wouldn’t drown out any faint reply. But nothing came.

“Merde.” Kicking off, he headed back up the temple’s western side.

The Evenor’s lifeboats bobbed in the water as their occupants rowed clear of the survey ship. Nina watched the sight with fearful resignation from the bridge of Qobras ’s vessel, flanked by a pair of armed guards. The last of his men jumped back aboard, others untying the ropes holding the two ships together.

Starkman entered the bridge. “Giovanni. The explosives are all in place.” He handed Qobras a pair of radio detonators. “This one’ll set off the charges at the bow, this one the engine room.”

“Are the hatches open?” Qobras asked.

“Yeah-everything up to the engineering bulkhead. Blow the bow, and the front two thirds of the ship’ll fill up with water. Then once the bow’s submerged, blow the other charges, and pow! Three thousand tons, going straight down.”

Qobras examined the detonators. “A sword of Damocles…”

“Very clever,” Nina said bitterly. “Pity you couldn’t put that kind of ingenuity into something constructive.”

“You have no idea how much time and effort I have put into being constructive, Dr. Wilde.”

“Well, why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Maybe I will. Who knows, you might even come around to my point of view.”

“I doubt that,” she snorted.

“Unfortunately,” Qobras sighed, “so do I.” He addressed the captain. “Move us to a safe distance, then turn the ship about to face the Evenor. I want to watch this.”

The builders of the statue had obviously never meant for anyone to stand on top of it, Chase thought. Plato hadn’t been entirely accurate; Poseidon didn’t literally touch the ceiling, although from ground level it would look that way. There was actually a small amount of clearance, into which he was now awkwardly wedged on his back. The gold-plated statue was sculpted with hair and a crown of what he guessed was supposed to be seaweed, none of which made a stable platform for the inflexible shell of his deep suit.

“How are you doing?” Kari asked.

“Nearly there.” He had connected both his charges so they would go off simultaneously. The detonator was a simple mechanical timer, designed to be foolproof even in hundreds of feet of water. Once activated, he would have one minute to reach a safe distance. In open ocean, with the help of the suit’s thrusters, that wouldn’t be a problem.

In the confines of the temple, on the other hand…

“I still think this is a bad idea.”

“If it doesn’t work, you can sack me. Okay, I’m done.” The explosives were somewhat precariously stuck to the ceiling, wedged above one of the ivory ribs. The rib would be reduced to splinters within a millisecond of the charge detonating-the question was, how much of the explosive force would be directed upwards at the ceiling?

He had years of demolitions experience, but on this occasion, Chase was trusting to luck. It was all he could do.

“Get clear,” he told Kari, waving a hand at the far end of the temple. “And get as deep underwater as you can.”

“Okay.” She rolled and disappeared beneath the rippling surface, the lights on her suit fading like a departing spirit as she descended.

Chase looked back up at the detonator. “All right,” he said, psyching himself up. Activating the timer was a two-stage process: a pin had to be turned and removed before the detonator switch could be pressed. After that, a basic but effective clockwork mechanism counted down the sixty seconds. “Here goes…”

He twisted the steel pin through a half-turn, then pulled it out. The bomb was now armed. As soon as he pressed the button, there was no going back.

“Okay, Kari,” he said, not even sure if the signal from his suit radio would reach her through the water, “get ready. Sixty seconds starts… now!”

He pushed the switch and rolled off the statue’s head-

And jerked to a halt.

His equipment belt had snagged on the crown! “Oh shit,” he gasped, trying to kick himself free. To no effect. “Oh shit!”

The timer ticked down relentlessly.

“Five hundred meters, sir,” announced the captain.

“Good,” said Qobras, looking through the bridge windows. Ahead, the gleaming white Evenor was almost directly side-on, the bright yellow bulk of the Sharkdozer swaying gently from its crane at the bow. The lifeboats had dispersed, trying to get as far from the doomed ship as they could.

“Please,” Nina begged, “you don’t have to do this…”

Qobras didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on the ship. “I’m afraid I do.”

He raised the first radio detonator and pushed the trigger.

Castille released the thruster control, drifting to a halt just above the temple roof. He had just heard something in his headphones, a brief crackle that sounded like a truncated obscenity.

“Edward?” he asked, swimming closer to the expanse of stone below. “Edward, is that you? Can you hear me?”

Then he heard something else.

Not in his headphones this time, but transmitted through the sea. A dull, echoing boom.

A sound he recognized all too well. An explosion in the water directly overhead.

There was only one thing it could mean.

Nina had expected a huge fireball to consume the bow of the Evenor, but the actual explosion was oddly anticlimactic. A vaporous blast coughed from the open hatches, small pieces of debris and fluttering papers flying out behind it. A white froth surged from beneath the waterline before rapidly dying away.

The full destructive effect, however, instantly became clear.

The ship’s bow almost immediately tipped downwards into the water, listing to starboard. Loose items slid across the decks and dropped into the sea, the Sharkdozer swinging violently out over the water. On the aft deck, the helicopter lurched, straining against the lines securing it to the pad.

The speed of the sinking amazed Nina. She watched in horrified fascination as the bow dropped into the ocean, gusts of compressed air blowing more debris out of the hatches. At this rate, it would take less than a minute before the foredeck was completely submerged.

Chase struggled to pull his belt from the crown, but, hampered by the shell of the deep suit, he couldn’t get a proper grip.

Forty seconds.

“Shit!”

A noise, a dull thud somewhere outside the temple. An explosion!

And then a muffled crackling in his headphones, someone’s voice fighting to pierce the static. Kari…

No! Castille!

“Edward! Can you hear me? Edward!”

If the radio was working without the relay, then he was close, very close. “Hugo!” Chase yelled. “Get out of here! I’ve set a bomb! Get out!”

“Edward! Say ag-”

Thirty seconds.

“Bomb!” screamed Chase. He fumbled for his knife. The equipment belt was pulled taut around his suit’s waist; he hacked desperately at it, trying to drive the point of the blade under the plastic-coated cord.

Castille’s eyes widened. Most of Chase’s transmission had been too distorted to make out, but the final word came through almost too clearly.

He kicked hard off the temple roof and propelled himself into open water at full power.

The Evenor’s list became a roll, the deck now tilted at almost forty-five degrees as the tip of the bow dropped beneath the waves. The helicopter broke free of its ties and skidded across the pad to smash against the water. Its tail sank first, air in the cockpit keeping the nose above the surface for a few seconds before the weight of the aircraft dragged it under.

On the foredeck, one of the cables supporting the Sharkdozer tore loose, the heavy craft swinging like a pendulum and hitting the water in an enormous burst of spray. Stressed past its limits, the crane sheared away at its base, plunging down the sloping deck to impale the stricken sub. Water surged through the gaping wound, and the Sharkdozer sank within seconds.

More debris plummeted from the ship as it capsized. Its stern rose out of the ocean, water streaming from the propellers.

Qobras held up the second detonator and, his face expressionless, pressed the trigger.

Twenty seconds-

“Come on, you bastard!”

Chase pushed the knife upwards like a lever, the point digging into the casing of his suit. Something cracked, and the belt snapped.

He dropped the eight feet to the water, landing flat on his back and banging his head against the inside of his helmet. But there was no time to think about the pain, because he had less than fifteen seconds to get clear.

With a final jet of steam and fumes from the fantail, the Evenor disappeared into the Atlantic, the last echoing sound from the dying ship like the cry of a wounded animal. A churning whirlpool of bubbles spewed up in its wake, hundreds of pieces of flotsam too light to sink swirling around in the maelstrom.

Its generators failed as water surged through the aft compartments, but its emergency lights were still aglow, battery-powered units all over the ship automatically activating as the main power went off. Trailing a jetstream of air bubbles behind it, the survey ship began its rapid, nose-first descent towards the seabed.

Towards Atlantis.

Qobras turned to his captain. “Take us back to port. Full speed.”

“Aye, sir.” The captain issued orders to his bridge crew. Ignored in a corner, Nina held a hand to her mouth as she tried to stop herself from sobbing.

She failed.

Chase jammed his thrusters to full power, not having time to do anything more than aim away from the statue and dive.

Five seconds, four, three…

He glimpsed a faint light below him-Kari!-and twisted towards it-

The explosives detonated.