Ancients

21

Sarah lay on her back as Will Mendenhall and two of the marines tended to her wound. Will halfheartedly smiled as he pressed a bandage down hard onto her shoulder. The wound was far worse than he had first thought and he was kicking himself for having left her unattended for so long.

"Owwww," Sarah cried when Mendenhall placed most of his weight on her small body.

"Sorry, I--"

"Listen," Sarah said, almost in a dreamlike state. "Ryan did it ... he did it, Will."

Mendenhall hadn't been paying attention because he had been dodging bullets and tending to her, but now he noticed that he did feel better physically. Gone were the nausea and headache. In their places was something he tried to ignore because he could swear it was coming from his dental fillings.

"Ah ... I love this song," Sarah said as her eyelids fluttered.

Suddenly, Ryan thumped over the broken pedestal and landed against one of the marines after dodging machine-gun fire as he ran back to cover.

"God damn! I guess those assholes don't appreciate good music," he said, smiling, and then he saw Sarah and her condition.

"Dammit, I didn't think it was that bad," he said as he took in the serious way Will was treating her.

"Listen, I know I'm not ... doing too ... good, and before Will caves in my chest ... something is wrong--"

"Yeah, well, tell us about it later. I need you to--"

"Shut up! Remember, I outrank you by fourteen months," Sarah said as she tried to sit up. "Now listen ... the ground is still shaking here.... The Wave must have destabilized the island's foundation.... or whatever Atlantis ... landed on when it ... sank...."

Sarah closed her eyes as if she had fallen asleep.

"Oh, shit!" Will cried as he felt for her pulse. He finally found one on her neck but it was slow and weak. "Damn, she's losing too much blood. We need that marine medic over here," he said, trying to look around. Then he saw tracers fly over their position and he ducked back.

"I'll go. Stay put and keep her alive, buddy. I'll be back as soon as I find the medic."

Before Mendenhall could say anything, Ryan was gone. He heard the shift of Coalition fire as it found a new target.

He looked down at Sarah and saw her shallow breathing and the soaked-through pressure bandage covering her wound.

"Dammit, hang in there, girl!"

The surprise charge, coupled with the fact that before the attackers reached the floor of the city they felt a 100 percent better, caught the remaining Coalition forces off guard. They attempted to hold off the crazy charge, but one by one, and then in a flood, they ran for the Empirium Chamber, where they had seen Tomlinson and the few remaining board members take shelter. Buildings toppled around them and other debris took its toll, and by the time they arrived at the great bronze doors, there were only about five of the five hundred Coalition defenders remaining.

Everett waved the SEALs forward, where they finally had a clear a path to the power lines. The three two-foot-thick cables were clamped side by side and looked like small tree trunks. He stood guard over three SEALs as they laid the charges. As he did so, he saw a familiar face emerge from the gas and steam, followed by four marines. He watched as Jack steadied himself against the increasing movement of the city.

"How in the hell did you survive that little ride, Colonel?"

Collins had to bend at the waist and catch his breath. "I was just in hurry to get down here and kill Ryan for steeling my Lynyard Skynyrd CD."

"I have a feeling that Sarah may have had something to do with that. Now let's hope that severing these power lines will get this place to stop shaking."

As the words were said, another loud crack was heard from high above as more of the Crystal Dome gave way, allowing more Niagara-size waterfalls to strike the western edge of the city.

"I don't think we have too much longer at this wonderful resort spot," Jack said as he straightened up. That was when he saw Ryan stumbling toward them.

"Colonel," he started to say.

"Good job over there. What made you--"

"Jack, it's Sarah; she took one in the shoulder. It's bad."

Collins kept his face neutral, but inside, his blood chilled.

Carl reacted first. "Medic!"

"Will's with her, but she's lost a lot of blood," Ryan said, out of breath.

"Go on, Jack, we've got this covered," Everett said as he placed his hand on Collins's shoulder and pushed a little.

"No. I saw some of the Coalition run into that Empirium Chamber--I want them."

"Jack--"

Collins turned and left the area at a run.

Everett knew that Jack didn't want to be there if Sarah died. After all the men under his command who had been lost through all the conflicts of his career, this was one casuality he knew would break him for good. Ryan grabbed the medic when he arrived and looked at Everett, who just closed his eyes and nodded for him to go. Then he turned and saw the figure of Jack Collins disappearing into the rising smoke and steam.

"Fire in the hole!"

Everett was grabbed by the SEAL lieutenant and pushed behind a large piece of broken roadway just as the detonator ignited twenty pounds of C-4. When the smoke and rubble cleared away, they saw that the three power cables were shredded and dead.

But, as Everett watched, more water started cascading from the high dome and the ground movement was increasing in its intensity.

"We've had it," he said to himself. "Major, Lieutenant, round up our men and meet at the edge of the dry lake bed--"

At that moment, a three-hundred-foot section of framework holding the triangular crystal panels in place gave way to the moving and crushing seabed above it, and the Mediterranean started pouring in as the floodgates were now truly opened.

Atlantis lurched and shook as the tectonic plate could not withstand any more, even though the Black Sea Wave had been halted. The domino theory of the plates was close to becoming a fact that was about to destroy a city that it had failed to crush fifteen thousand years before.

The final death throes of Atlantis had begun.

Tomlinson would not argue with Dame Lilith and Caretaker. He knew that the only way out was the way in which the American assault force had come in to strike them unseen.

"They came through here someplace, they had to," he said as he examined the flooring.

"Enough," Caretaker said.

Tomlinson heard the finality in the old man's tone and looked up. He smiled when he saw the small .32-caliber pistol pointed at him as part of the marble ceiling fell from high up. It joined the debris of the ancient quake, and Tomlinson saw that Caretaker couldn't have cared less about the danger of the shaking earth.

"You have cost the Coalition everything. We shall never recover from this, no matter how much of the world's assets we have arranged to hide. We will not attempt to survive this debacle. You will remain here with the rest of the Juliai Coalition."

Tomlinson stood stock-still and smiled more broadly than before. "Very noble; spoken like Caesar himself. But, old man, you and those cowards behind you may be defeated, but I am most assuredly not," he said as he looked beyond Caretaker's shoulder.

The old man's expression never changed as the knife caught him at the base of the skull and was twisted. His brain was immediately rendered useless and the pistol fell from his grip.

Dame Lilith finally saw the mercenary in the darkened chamber as he allowed Caretaker's body to slide from his hands to the broken marble floor.

"You may as well murder me, too," she shouted above the noise of the quake, and with all the dignity she could muster.

Tomlinson didn't even grace her with a response. He just nodded at the man who held the knife. The big merc, who had so elegantly slaughtered Special Agent William Monroe and his young wife in their home on Long Island, stepped forward and pushed the large knife into the center of Dame Lilith's chest until he felt the blade strike her backbone, and then he slowly withdrew it, watching as the life drained from her eyes. The three other Coalition members backed away from Lilith's assailant but were cut down with machine-gun fire by five remaining mercenaries standing behind the knife wielder.

"You and your men have just become some of the wealthiest soldiers in the history of the world, but for now we must find the passageway out of here, and quickly."

Will and the medic had to use a stretcher to get Sarah out of the dry lake bed. The bowl had filled to overflowing with seawater as the torrent continued. The pressure was starting to crack the dome and the seabed above them at an alarming rate.

Everett assisted with Sarah the last few feet while in the background a few of the remaining statues and monuments creaked and tumbled to the broken roads beneath them. A geyser of molten rock erupted were the Coalition excavation had weakened the strata of the ancient lava dome that had protected the sunken city for millennia.

Some of the klieg lights started to short out and sparks flew to join the flames in a strobelike effect that added a surrealistic air to the situation, one that Everett knew they would not get out of. With a look toward the Empirium Chamber, Carl knelt by Sarah's side.

"How are you doing, shorty?" he asked, trying his best to smile.

"I don't think it'll hurt ... much longer," she said as her lips turned down in pain.

Mendenhall looked away.

"No, I don't think it will," Everett answered with a wink as he watched the medic get an IV line started with a bag of blood plasma. Carl met his eyes and the medic shrugged.

"Where is ... Jack?"

"Where he always is--off playing hero."

"Ass ... hole," she commented weakly.

"That was a pretty good idea you had, about the CD interfering with the Wave tones."

Sarah looked like she had finally passed out, but she smiled. "Ryan ... managed to ... leave Jack's CD in ... the lake bed. He's going ... to be ... pissed."

"He'll get over it." Everett looked at Mendenhall and then at Ryan. Both stood protectively over Sarah, shielding her from falling debris and sparks from the open lava vents that were springing up all over Atlantis. "Sarah, what's your best guess as to the rest of the targets on the Coalition wish list?"

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at Carl. "The pressure ... of the plates have more ... than ... likely ... played themselves out. This ... this wasn't dictated by the natural ... forces of ... the planet." Sarah grimaced in pain for a moment as the medic leaned down and injected her with a styrette of morphine. "The earth knows when to let off steam, so ... there was nothing pushing it forward ... other than the Wave ... but here, the old scar is reacting ... trying to finish what was started thousands of ..." Sarah looked straight at Carl. "Where's Jack?" She tried to get up.

"He'll be along; you know him," Everett answered as he eased her back down.

"Jesus!" Ryan said as he looked skyward as a tremendous roar filled the dome.

Everett watched as the entire top third of the dome give way just as the earth lurched under them. A waterfall larger than anything on the face of the earth flowed through the breach, and before the men could react they were up to their knees in water. Twenty of the young marines and six of the SEALs were crushed by iron frames falling from above. Everett reached down and plucked Sarah from the water and, along with her dangling IV bag, started running for the high ground at the back.

Then suddenly a loud wrenching noise sounded and the city leaped from the subterranean caves that supported it. Everett fell as the city tilted thirty degrees and the last of the buildings around them started to tumble.

"Start looking for anything that floats!" he ordered the remaining fifty marines. The survival instinct kicked in as Everett ran for the wall of ancient lava and started to climb to higher ground.

"Here!" Tomlinson shouted.

As the six mercenaries stopped their search and started over to where Tomlinson stood, the broken chamber erupted in automatic gunfire. Four of the Coalition mercenaries went down with bullet holes stitching their backs.

Jack Collins crouched in the doorway but had to move when another marble slab and its supporting beams crashed down right next to him.

Tomlinson was on the ground, shaking, near the hole in the floor that Jack and the others had come through less than an hour before.

"William Tomlinson?"

He couldn't believe that someone was calling him by name. He looked at the man who had wielded his knife so well in his service and gestured with his hand for him to get out there and kill whoever it was.

"Leave me alone! It's over!" he called out.

"No ... not yet," Collins answered back in a monotone as he slowly crawled to a new position. He checked his MP-5 and decided that he didn't want it. He laid it down and pulled his Beretta from its holster. Then he pulled his body armor off and silently set it down.

"Who are ... you?" Thomlinson asked, to get a bearing on where the man was hiding in the shadowy chamber.

"I'm the guy sent here to kill you," Jack said. Then he saw what he wanted. A thin shadow was playing across the marbled wall about fifty feet away. He looked around and finally realized that it was one of the remaining mercs who was squatting behind the stub of a broken pillar, so he moved slowly around a crushed bust of a long-dead patron of Atlantis to get into a better position. Another chunk of stone fell and narrowly missed his lowered body, but still he crept forward.

"You are just one, we are--"

A gunshot sounded with a flash of light in the chamber and Tomlinson let out a yelp.

"Now just two," Jack said as he watched the second-to-last mercenary slide over onto his side with a bullet hole in the side of his head, which had come from Jack ricocheting a round off the pillar to hit his target.

"Who are you?" Tomlinson shouted, gesturing at the same time for his last man to find out where their assailant was.

"You ordered my people killed at our warehouse in New York, and now I'm here to kill you."

Tomlinson rolled over onto his back. Now he realized that this was the man of whom Dahlia had sent the video when he and three others had arrived at the warehouse and again at the law offices. That strange Group that calls the desert in Nevada home.... Jesus, who are these people? he thought.

Tomlinson saw his man crouch deep into shadow, but he wasn't going to wait for the outcome of their confrontation because he had the distinct feeling that the man from the Group in the desert would undoubtedly win. He crawled silently toward the hole in the floor, pushing aside the skeletal remains of the Atlantean he had been looking at earlier, and then slid inside and disappeared.

Jack was moving slowly, keeping his dark profile as low as he could. The noise problem was moot due to the crumbling of the city around them and the constant eruptions of the earth.

Before Jack knew what was happening, water flooded the broken chamber, inundating him and pushing him headlong into a smashed marble table. Then, before he could recover, a dark shape leaped from the shadows and fell upon him. Just before the man could plunge his knife into him, Collins threw up his knee and arrested the large man's momentum, giving himself time to slide from the tabletop. He came up but realized that he didn't have his gun any longer. The killer had gotten to his feet as water splashed high onto his legs as he advanced toward Jack. The man lunged, but Collins dipped and let his momentum carry him back until water completely covered him. He turned and tried to swim around the debris-strewn floor of the chamber.

The mercenary started forward. He could barely see his target as he came closer to the one remaining light stand in the chamber.

Collins knew that he was closing in on the subterranean entryway because he felt the rush of water increasing as it, too, fought to escape. As he pulled his way along, knowing that any second might be his last, his hand brushed up against a skeletal arm. Unknown to Jack, this was the body of the ancient Androlicus, the man who had let the once-powerful civilization of Atlantis slide away into myth and legend; he lay where he had fallen many thousands of years before. Clutched in his hand was the knife he had wished to use upon himself, but the cruel gods of his people had not allowed him that one last dignity. Jack snatched the up bronze weapon and rolled onto his back just as the shadow of the mercenary fell upon his submerged form.

As the man raised his hand to strike, Collins thrust his own hand out of the water and caught the large man in the crotch. He doubled over, and then Jack pulled the knife free and struck again, this time catching the man in the throat.

Collins surfaced, spiting salt water from his mouth, and found the man just staring at him. Then slowly he fell face-first into the water, dead. Collins kicked at the body and then stood. The sea had risen five feet in the two minutes he had been under the water. He looked around, knowing that his main target had gone through the tunnel entrance. The water was a swirling vortex where it filled the hole in the floor. As he watched, the suction it created tugged at his body, and that was when he let out a primal scream of rage, knowing that he could not pursue William Tomlinson.

As Jack turned and angrily made his way out of the chamber, the remainder of the Empirium started coming down around him. He ducked and ran as fast as the rough waters allowed, and then finally he dived through the broken bronze-covered doorway and into the nightmare of Atlantis.

Tomlinson was pushed down the stairs with the torrent of water. He had dislocated his left shoulder as he landed forty feet down on the winding stone staircase. The complete and utter darkness was terrifying to him; he had never before known the want of light or the touch of filth. He buried his hand in his shirt to support the shoulder and took two tentative steps down, where he saw a torrent of water exploding from its mix with lava. Tomlinson screamed and made his way back up the steps. He knew he would have to fight his way past the opening and that he would more than likely drown. He thought that anything was better than dying like this.

The water was fast rising to the crumbled tops of the marble and stone buildings. The earth cracked open and pushed up ancient material that had been buried underneath the domed section of the city when Atlantis had exploded long ago. A giant bronze statue of Venus rose from a gorge, spitting flame and lava. The magnificent moss- and mold-covered beauty rose until her original base was pushed through the surface by molten rock, and then like a tired old woman she slowly rolled onto her face and sank beneath the water, creating a tidal surge that rushed up to the lone lava wall.

As Jack swam toward the temporary safety of the rising lava bed, he felt the water becoming warmer by the stroke. The earthquake was a constant shaking that sent larger and larger pieces of the dome and the seabed that covered it tumbling down. He only hoped that they had stopped the same from happening to the entire world.

Out of the red-tinted darkness, hands reached out and dragged him onto the shaking but for the most part solid rock.

"Glad to see you, Jack," Everett said as he yanked Collins up by the collar.

Jack didn't respond as he tried to catch his breath.

"Come on, Sarah's over here."

Jack nodded and followed Everett up the incline to join the other survivors of Operation Backdoor, who were waiting for the inevitable end. The medic was sitting by Sarah as Mendenhall and Ryan knelt nearby. They stood as Collins approached.

Below them, the last of the light towers went under the water and Atlantis dimmed to an unearthly yellow-and-red glow. Lava bursts were erupting out of the fast-rising water and steam was clouding their view of the second destruction of the city.

Collins went to his knee and looked at Sarah, placing his hand on her cheek. Ryan, Mendenhall, and Everett made a semicircle as the medic moved off to the fifty-six others who awaited their fate.

"I ordered you to keep your ass down, Lieutenant."

Sarah's eyes remained closed as she was in the full embrace of the morphine injection. Her lips parted and she barely moved them, but Collins saw that she had said his name. Then she tried to smile but failed.

Collins leaned in close and for the first time wasn't self-conscious for doing so in front of others.

"I love you, little girl," he said into her ear.

She remained still, but he saw her lips moving again.

"I knew that ... ass."

Collins swallowed and was about to say something when the entire city jumped on the seabed. Men were tossed like rag dolls onto the hard lava rise that was quickly becoming a beach.

"This is it," Everett said as the seabed above the dome cracked and the crystal panes with it. The Mediterranean came in full force and they were all caught in the torrent.

Jack held on to Sarah as they were washed away into the tumult that was now like a glass bowl being filled with water. He was holding her up as he tried desperately to tread water, but he knew that her weight and his own would drag them down. He held her tight and kissed her cheek as an eruption of gas and water created a giant air bubble and they fell underneath the tumult, Jack holding Sarah for the last time.

Twenty of the marines and two of the remaining SEALs surfaced and were immediately crushed by the collapsing lava mount that had initially saved them. The rest tried to swim away from the now-exposed Crystal Dome, which the lava mount had been covering. Outside the crystal structure of the dome, the Mediterranean bubbled and boiled as the long-extinct volcano erupted with its original fury. The explosion was so massive that the seabed for three hundred miles broke free of the crust of the earth and trillions of tons of molten material started edging the ancient seabed toward the surface of the sea, two and a half miles up.

Everett pulled Ryan up, and he, Medenhall, and the SEAL lieutenant started to help marines stay afloat as the agitated waters swirled around them just as the final building sank below them.

Carl anxiously looked for Jack and Sarah, but they were nowhere to be seen. As he turned and looked through the dome's wall, he saw boiling lava rising up its side and then cooling to a solid mass before being overtaken by fresh material from the crust of the earth. He knew that the dome would totally collapse soon, and he hoped that their deaths would be as quick as Jack's and Sarah's.

Captain Burgess had ordered his watch team below. The way the boat was rolling, he knew that some of his crew would go over the side and they would never stand a chance of recovering them. The admiral had finally broken through the extreme radio interference caused by the static electricity in the air and had ordered him to secure his boat below the surface. But he knew that he couldn't do that now, after the admiral had let it slip that the carrier was standing by to go back to Crete for survivors. He would not run while a surface ship stayed.

Captain Burgess scanned the roiling sea around the Cheyenne and smiled when his glasses picked up the rolling Russian submarine Gephard. He could see that her captain was the only one on the ship's sail, just as he himself was. Burgess raised his hand and was surprised when his Russian counterpart waved back.

"Son of a bitch, I guess he's just as crazy as me."

As a large wave crashed over the Cheyenne's tall sail, Burgess ducked for cover. When he stood back up, he saw giant whirlpools around his boat. He saw steam vents rise like the towers of a great city, and the heated water was creating a fog system of its own. All he could think of was that the Mediterranean was getting ready to die and was giving out its last warning.

"Captain, conn."

Burgess held on to the tower with one hand and pressed the headphone into his ear and listened.

"Go ahead, conn," he said as another wave hit the Cheyenne and she shook and rolled hard to port, almost dislodging him and throwing him into the sea.

"Captain, sonar says they're picking up some very strange readings here."

"What in the hell are you talking about, Billy?"

"Sir, the operators say it's almost as if we are bottoming. The seafloor is rising, Captain."

Burgess had heard what his first officer said, but it took a moment to sink in.

"Goddammit, man, contact the Gephard and the Iwo, tell them to get the hell out of the area!"

"Captain?"

"Take her down to a hundred feet, order all ahead flank, make Cheyenne fly, Billy, fly! The damn seafloor is rising and we're right in the way!"

As Burgess made it to the hatch, the large Los Angeles-class attack boat started to sink beneath the large waves. At her stern, her single-scimitar-shaped propeller threw up a torrent of water as her hull came free of the sea. Then, in a matter of ten seconds, the Cheyenne was running for her life.