Ancients

22

Everett fought to stay afloat. The violence of the shaking had subsided and an unnatural rolling sensation hit them. They were only a hundred feet from the damaged top of the Crystal Dome and the whitewater foam was drawing near as the sea continued to flood the interior. The water was close to 150 degrees and Carl knew that if they didn't drown soon, they would be cooked, and he preferred drowning far and away over that.

"Stay together!" he shouted, but he knew they couldn't hear him any longer. Even if they floated through the giant hole in the dome, assuming that they could get past a trillion gallons of water flooding through, the pressure of the surrounding sea would crush them as if they were made of glass. But even that was preferable to being cooked to death.

"I really thought I would die flying," Ryan said as he and Mendenhall held on to each other as they kicked at the water to stay afloat.

"What, did you think we would get out of this mess?" Everett shouted back.

A curious look crossed Ryan's face as he spit out sulfur-tasting water.

"Well, yeah, I thought I would. Maybe not you and Will here, but I was thinking--"

"Thanks, buddy," Mendenhall said at his side.

Suddenly a dull light began filtering up from beneath the water. Everett looked around and then ducked his head below the surface. He saw nothing but darkness and was at a loss as to where the light was coming from. He brought his head back to the surface and looked around. The water was only eight feet below the damaged top of the dome and the rushing water was starting to rip men apart, sending them in every direction. That was when he saw Jack and Sarah. Jack wasn't struggling like the others, just floating in the tossed waters with Sarah held tightly in his arms. Carl reached out and pulled him toward him and the others.

"Jack ... Jack--"

Everett stopped when he saw that Collins's face was blank as he held Sarah close to his chest.

"Sarah?"

"She's dead," Jack said as he maintained his tight hold on her.

Instead of talking, Everett pulled both Jack and Sarah closer to him. Then he felt Mendenhall and Ryan helping to support the two. Carl looked into the serene face of Sarah McIntire and felt his own pain and loss return, and for a moment the specter of imminent death didn't seem so unjust. He looked from Sarah to Jack, and then he placed his arms around Will and Ryan as they were thrust under the floodgates of the broken dome.

An eruption the size of which the world had not seen for thousands of years blew out the recently formed lava mount that had taken the remains of Atlantis up with it. The volcano blowout made the eruption of Mount St. Helen's pale in comparison. Seismographs and Richter scales all around the world went crazy, casting a solid line across the numbers 18.9.

The explosion that was the final spasm of the Atlantean Wave, which had begun its devastating work over several millennia earlier. It shook the rising waters around the drowning men and they saw bubbling lava rising against the sides of the dome.

Everett knew that whatever the light was that was being cast in the dark waters around them, it wouldn't matter, because the end for them was only seconds away.

The boat was shallowing and Burgess knew that if he didn't come to a stop he would rip the bottom out of her.

"Emergency stop! Sound the collision alarm!"

Throughout the Cheyenne, a loud squawking was heard as every man and woman reached for something substantial to hold on to. Around them they head as Cheyenne throw her engine into reverse to halt their forward momentum. The crew struggled to hang on, but many were thrown forward off their feet and onto the deck. As they tried to stand, they felt a powerful crunch from below the keel, and then suddenly the submarine rolled violently over onto her starboard beam. The lights blinked and then went out, soon to be replaced by the red-tinted emergency lighting.

"Captain, we've bottomed, but we're rising to the surface at sixty feet a second!" the first officer called out from sonar. "We're surfacing, Captain!"

The admiral couldn't believe what he was seeing through his binoculars. As the carrier's bow sank into a giant trough, the upper section of the great dome breached the surface of the Mediterranean. The sun, though partially obscured by the massive storm clouds that had formed, allowed in enough light to reveal the most amazing sight in the history of the planet.

Atlantis was rising from the sea.

As all the leaders in the world watched the live feed provided by the American KH-11 satellites, they couldn't believe what they were seeing. The great Crystal Dome had breached the surface of the sea and was rising at a rate that was unfathomable. They saw great statues that had survived the original destruction fifteen thousand years before rise beside the protective dome. The entire broken city was coming up after its long absence from the sunlight to a world that had never believed in its myth and legend.

Several statues lost their fight with gravity and fell into the churning sea. Large buildings that had remained upright caved in after their long submergence in the Mediterranean, and a giant pyramid next to the dome crumbled as if knocked over by the foot of an angry god.

Still the rising lava bubble beneath them continued to spread and grow, now encompassing sixteen square miles. The parts of Atlantis that hadn't been protected by the great dome but had once sat close-by rose with the new island. The great pressure of the sea had caved in the sides of the structure and it was now leaking huge torrents of pressurized water two and three hundred feet out from the dome as it continued to rise.

In Washington, Niles and the president watched with fascination as the great city rose once again, this time into the light of the modern world. From its vantage point high in space, the orbiting KH-11 Blackbird picked out the great center island that had once sat in the middle of the great ringed continent just as a giant pressure wave parted the clouds and allowed bright sunshine to strike the crystal for the first time, making it seem as though a diamond were surfacing in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Both submarines were caught on the lower edges of the crust. Three hundred feet above the stranded boats the dome rose.

The Cheyenne and the Gephard were but a mile apart and both found themselves in the middle of a cracked and damaged thoroughfare that had once upon a time been used for chariots and vendors of every sort. Around them, damaged buildings fell.

Captain Burgess opened the sail hatch and stared skyward at the great city. Atlantis rose above the Cheyenne like a magical kingdom that had suddenly sprung to life and come forth to breathe air for the first time in thousands of years.

Inside the dome, Everett couldn't believe what was happening. Bright sunlight had filled the interior and the water was slowly going down.

"Jack! Jack! The damn thing was pushed out of the sea by the eruptions!"

Collins shook his head as he still held Sarah and then looked up. His instincts came back with a sudden flash.

"Get the men up through the opening, Captain. Hurry! The water is leaking out of this thing--get them out!" he said as he pulled Sarah's body toward the sunlight coming through the torn opening at the top of the dome.

Around them the water was calming but still increasing in heat. On the sides of the now-exposed dome, great chunks of ancient seabed and lava rock from the original eruption were peeling away like the scabs off an old wound, and with it they were taking large plates of the thick crystal, and the water was starting to cascade from the interior at a rate that was drawing the water farther and farther from the top.

Three SEALS reached the breach first and climbed out onto the support frame of the crystal lenses. They immediately and hurriedly started hauling marines out one and two at a time as the water was falling away from them. Luckily, one of the SEALS had managed to hang on to fifty feet of nylon rope and was using that to haul the men out. Eventually Jack tied a rope to Sarah's body and it was lifted free of the water. Then he looked around and nodded for Ryan and Mendenhall to go.

"Feel that, Jack?" Everett asked.

"Yeah. Atlantis isn't destined to stay up; she's going back down, the new seabed can't support her weight."

Below them, large voids in the cooling lava started to explode like miniature nuclear weapons. Each one disintegrated thousands of yards of new land, the very base upon which Atlantis had risen. With a jerking reaction the new seafloor started to give way, and the City of Legend started to slip back into the sea.

Everett went up the rope that was now dangling thirty-five feet below the dome top. He hurriedly threw the rope back down for Jack, but instead of tying it around himself he tied it to the body of Major Esterbrook. Jack just couldn't leave the marine's body behind.

Far above, Everett wanted to scream at Collins, but he understood what he was doing. He was just afraid that if any more bodies floated by, Jack would try to get them, too.

Finally, the rope was lowered and Jack tied himself off. As he rose he saw another figure struggling in the falling level of the water. He couldn't believe his own eyes. William Tomlinson was fighting against the death that surrounded him as he stared up at Collins as he was pulled up. Jack felt no emotion as he was pulled out of the dome.

"I hope you can hold your breath, you bastard," he said to no one but himself.

Burgess was just getting ready to abandon the sail when he got a call from the conn.

"Captain, we just received a flash message from National Command Authority, direct from the president."

"Jesus Christ, does he know we have a situation going on here?" he said into the squawk box.

"Yes, sir, they're watching it live. Sir, we have survivors being monitored from the satellite imagery; they're on the top of the dome."

"What?"

"National Command was wondering if we have room for some marines. Gephard is asking to stand by to assist after they get under way."

Suddenly the Cheyenne rocked as Atlantis started to sink at a faster rate. Giant waterspouts rose into the air as supporting air pockets beneath the newly formed lava bed exploded outward.

The crust beneath the ancient continent began to heal itself and was shrugging the weight of the city from it, taking it down as the crust collapsed into its new depth and position.

As the captain watched around him, the sea rushed back into the broken ruins of the city and rocked the submarine again in a violent rolling motion as water began to lift her keel from the rocky shoreline.

"Stand by to get under way. Headway only; we'll have to wait for the elevator to come to us."

Giant air bubbles, most the size of Manhattan, rose to the surface of the Mediterranean as the island began its descent to the bottom, almost four miles down. The survivors on the top of the dome were just happy to die outside instead of encased in a dead city at the bottom of the sea.

Everett knelt by Jack as he held Sarah in his arms. Her head rested on his chest as they slowly began their fall to the roiling ocean below.

"Hey, look at that!" Ryan yelled out.

As Everett and Jack turned their heads, four red flares rose into the sky, two from the southeast and two from the west. Then one of the SEALS who had ventured close to the extreme curvature of the dome called back to them.

"We have two subs down there, and boy do they look great!"

As huge explosions of sea and steam rose around them, every man, with the exception of Jack rose, to his feet and tried to balance himself on the rocking dome. The sea was getting closer and closer as Atlantis started to fall to the bottom as the lava and seabed beneath gave way hundreds of feet at time.

"Come on, Jack, time to get up. Let me have Sarah for a while," Everett said as he leaned over.

"No. I ... I'll take her." Everett looked into Jack's eyes and saw an emptiness there that would haunt him forever. He knew then that Jack had never really cared for anyone as he had for Sarah.

"You got it, buddy." Everett helped Jack to his feet as water was now rushing at them from the interior of the dome and as it came over the curvature.

"There she is, Jack. We have to jump and swim for it."

At that moment, as if the great ghosts of the once-proud civilization had pulled one more magic trick out of their ancient bag of wonders, Atlantis stopped moving. It was as if a giant hand had reached out and held it in place for just enough time for the men to slide off and swim for the submarine that slowly made its way closer until its sonar dome struck the last of the crystal panes above the sea.

The Cheyenne crewmen were tossing ropes to the swimming men and even the Gephard had taken three from the sea already.

Collins watched as Sarah's body was placed on a stretcher and taken in through the divers trunk in the sail. Then a horn sounded.

"All stations, prepare to dive."

"Come on, Jack, let's go get some coffee and get the hell out of here."

"Look at that son of a bitch!" Mendenhall shouted.

As they all turned, several sailors shouted out that there was one more man in the water.

Jack's eyes widened and the fire that burned in them took the others by surprise as he stared at the flailing arm of William Tomlinson.

"Is that who I think it is?" Ryan asked as he was being pushed toward the hatch.

Collins immediately reached down for the rope. Everett tried to stop him, but Jack elbowed him as hard as he could and sent him sprawling.

"Sorry, swabby, this fish is mine," he said as he tossed Everett one end of the rope.

Collins dived into the water, narrowly escaping Mendenhall's lastsecond leap to try to stop him.

Jack swam out toward the dome as it suddenly started sliding beneath the surface; it was as if the gods of Atlantis had just pulled their reprieve of a moment before.

Captain Burgess appeared on the sail and ordered everyone below.

"Move it, damit! You think a ship creates suction when it goes down? Just think what this fucking thing is going to do!"

Everett angrily shook off the hands of the seamen trying to pull him into the hatch, and Mendenhall and Ryan went to his side. They were all watching as Jack caught up to Tomlinson, punched him once in the face to stop his struggling, and then started tying the rope around his waist, just under his arms.

"Now tie it on to yourself, damn you!" Everett screamed, swearing beneath his breath that he was going to kick Collins's ass as soon as they pulled him up.

The dome was close to going under when Jack pushed Tomlinson toward the Cheyenne. Then suddenly a great underwater eruption exploded out of the sea, covering Jack, Tomlinson, and the Cheyenne in a waterspout. Everett felt the bow of the sub being pulled down by the incalculable suction of Atlantis as it was pulled under the sea. When Carl looked, he couldn't see Collins or Tomlinson on the roiling surface.

"Damn you, Jack!" he screamed as he started pulling on the rope. Both Mendenhall and Ryan started pulling, too. Three seamen ran forward and waited for the two men to surface.

Captain Burgess watched as his sub was beginning to be pulled under. The water was washing around the deck and covering the remaining men outside up to their knees.

"Captain, we have a strange contact at two hundred feet and rising, coming on slow," the squawk box reported.

Burgess looked around and saw that the Russian sub Gephard had already submerged. "It must be the Russians, the only smart bastards around here today," he said as he anxiously turned back to the rescue.

"But, Captain, this contact is over seven hundred feet in length; we believe it to be a submarine."

"We can't deal with that now!"

"Captain, the submerged contact has now departed the area at ... Jesus! At over seventy knots!"

Burgess ignored the obvious mistake from down in the conn and watched the effort below as they continued to be pulled under by the sinking island.

Everett and the others strained as they wrestled with the deadweight that was being pulled away from them by the sinking island. Finally, with one last tug, Tomlinson surfaced, screaming and spitting water. Blood coursed down from his fractured nose as he was pulled to the sub. As they pulled him up, Everett realized that Collins hadn't tied himself to the rope.

"Where's the colonel?" Ryan asked in near panic.

Mendenhall pushed past the sputtering Tomlinson and through the three seamen and had to be restrained by Everett.

"No," was all Will could utter as Everett pulled him away and then tuned him toward the hatch that was now flooding with water.

"Come on, Will," was all he could say as the younger man held on to him and went through the hatchway without a last look back.

Ryan did look back. "God, not both of them," he said as he slowly turned away and followed the last of his friends through the diving trunk and pulled the hatch closed and dogged it down tightly. Ryan leaned against the cold steel and placed his head in the crook of his arm until he thought he could control himself.

The Cheyenne slowly slipped under the rough seas and all that was left on the surface was emptiness.

The earth had stopped its convulsions and Thor's Hammer would never sound again.

The Ancients would forever lie quiet in their deep and dark abyss.

Everett was in the officers' wardroom, staring blankly at the cup of coffee the mess steward had brought in. Will was sitting across from him and Ryan was pacing. The SEAL lieutenant had excused himself, having detecting the closeness of these people, and gone to for check on his men. What was left of them.

"I ... I ..." Everett started to say something and then couldn't finish.

The door to the officers' mess opened and the Cheyenne's pharmacist's mate knocked on the frame.

"Colonel Collins?"

Everett looked up and saw the man, but he was really looking right through him.

"He's ... he's not here," Ryan said as he patted Will on the back and stepped up to the door.

"Well, uh, the lieutenant was asking for him," the young seaman said, looking at the three solemn men.

"Lieutenant? He just left here to check on his men," Everett said from his chair.

"Uh, no, sir, the woman officer--she was asking for a Colonel Collins."

"What in the hell are you talking about?" Everett said as he slowly stood up.

Will straightened at the long table and with moist eyes stared questioningly at the young sailor.

"The casualty that was brought aboard, sir--she's awake and asking for Colonel Collins."

Everett was through the door before the pharmacist's mate could move out of the way. He was unceremoniously shoved aside and watched in shock as Ryan and Mendenhall quickly followed.

Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan stood over the small figure on the bed. The lights had been lowered and they could see the IV that was pumping O-negative blood into her tiny arm. There was an oxygen line running into her nose, held in place by a piece of tape. Her shoulder wound wasn't covered; the bullet hole was held open by four stainless steel clips. Her bleeding had stopped. Her hair was still damp but had been brushed back. She looked as weak as any person Everett or the others could remember ever having seen before.

The men were quiet as they watched the rise and fall of her chest. Everett turned to the senior hospital corpsman.

"She was dead. I ... I felt no pulse at all," he whispered.

"Well, sir, that's what happens when you don't have any blood. No blood, no blood pressure. She was damn near bled out and that's why you felt no pulse." The corpsman wrote something down on her chart and then looked at Everett.

"She's a strong young lady. She'll make it. As soon as we can get her transferred to the Iwo, a doctor can take that bullet out of her shoulder."

"God," Mendenhall said as he stared down at Sarah, one of his only friends.

Everett waited until the corpsman had walked over and sat at his desk, then he leaned over and touched Sarah's cheek.

He pulled back when her eyes fluttered open. They stayed that way for a moment and then slowly closed.

"Where's ... Jack? Did he ... save the ... world?" she asked weakly, her words slow and full of cotton.

"Yeah, Sarah, he did." Everett leaned over and whispered into her ear as Sarah slowly went back out. "Go back to sleep, we'll be here for you."

Mendenhall and Ryan lowered their heads, dreading the time when Sarah would have to be told about Jack.

"Yeah," Everett said as he straightened. "He saved the world."

EPILOGUE

Niles Compton walked slowly beside the president of the United States. The commander in chief looked far older than his fifty-two years. He walked with his hands behind his back. His Secret Service detail was nowhere to be seen, having been left behind in Niles's outer office. The president had decided that if he couldn't be safe here, he wouldn't be anywhere.

"I'll always have doubts about the moves I made. How many lives did I cost in the end by not acting decisively?"

Niles didn't answer at first; he just looked straight ahead at the long and curving corridor of level seventeen. Alice Hamilton and Virginia Pollock were ten steps behind and didn't hear the president's concern.

"I think you have to judge yourself just how many people you saved. To look at these things any other way is nonconstructive."

"Not exactly a ringing endorsement."

Niles shrugged and then looked at his old friend. "The world has changed, but we get no wiser. We always expect our enemies to be easily identifiable and never, ever one of our own kind. The most dangerous enemy is the one who thinks like we do, has the same dreams of controlling those people who we think are below us, when in fact ..." Niles paused. "You did the best anyone could have done, and I now believe the world is a more trusting place today because you took the time to prove an innocence when others wouldn't listen. Now you have a leg up in the area of credibility, and in this world, Jim, that counts for a lot."

Niles came to a door with a marine corporal standing guard outside. The back letters on the door read CONTAINMENT.

"And now your opinion on these two," the president asked.

Niles nodded for the guard to unlock the door.

"My opinion is that we can learn a lot from them. But I also believe they are traitors to their country, traitors to the peace they claimed to embrace. They and their kind knew all there was to know about the Juliai Coalition for over two thousand years, and yet they remained silent through their arrogance. You and I lost a lot of good people because this group was allowed to flourish, and they were a part of that. No matter how noble their intentions."

The door opened and Niles stepped across the threshold and froze. The president saw the director's shoulders sag he looked into the simply furnished two-room containment apartment.

"What is the--"

The words froze in the president's mouth as he saw what Niles was staring at. Carmichael Rothman and Martha Laughlin sat peacefully on the small couch. Her head rested on his left shoulder and they looked as if they were sleeping. On the small table before them was Carmichael's medication for his cancer. The bottle was on its side and the morphine was gone.

Niles walked into the room and felt the wrists of both Ancients and found no pulse on either. He picked up the note that lay beside the empty bottle and read it and then handed it to the president.

"Guilty," it said.

Niles walked to a small chair and sat down and rubbed his hands over his face.

The president looked at the old couple with a curious look on his face. Then he put the note back down beside the bottle and shook his head.

"All their knowledge and wisdom ... they couldn't have found a better way to atone for their silence?"

Niles looked up. "People of their intelligence have a terminal disease. It's called lack of imagination. No," he said, standing and walking to the door. "In their minds, they had no other way to go, and that's why their kind is now extinct."

The president watched Niles turn at the door.

"The way it was always meant to be."

Major General Ton Shi Quang, former commander of the People's Army, was dressed appropriately in a white silk shirt and white muslin pants as he drank ice tea on the fantail of a two-hundred-foot yacht owned by one of William Tomlinson's corporations. The crew members had orders to take it slow and easy during their trip to Taiwan, where Shi Quang would receive his reward for loyal service to the Juliai Coalition.

His escape from Korea had been planned well in advance of his treasonous actions and he had left the coastal waters on a fishing boat for his rendezvous in the Sea of Japan. He knew that at this very moment he was one of the most hunted men in the world; but with what he earned, he would find no difficulty at all in vanishing into a broken world still reeling from the Coalition's strike. The reward offered by America for his capture was insulting for a man of his stature and very much a useless gesture on their part.

A waiter brought him a fresh glass of ice tea and then walked to the galley entrance of the luxurious yacht. After placing the tray just inside the doorway, he suddenly turned and walked briskly to the streamlined bow of the ship, where he met members of the crew.

The waiter placed a small, portable beacon on the bow of the ship and then gestured for the men to get over the side of the yacht.

The captain stepped from the well-appointed bridge and yelled down, asking what in the hell they thought they were doing. It was too late; the fifteen crew members had started the small outboard and were already fifty feet away. That was when the captain heard the roar of aircraft overhead.

The general squinted into the sun-filled sky. He never saw death as it struck seconds later. Two American-made AMMRAM missiles smashed into the $22 million yacht and blew it to pieces.

Pulling up and out of their attack run, two U.S. Navy Super Hornets from the carrier USS Roosevelt screamed back into the skies.

The judge and jury, consisting of five hundred dead U.S. sailors, had rendered their verdict against Major General Ton Shi Quang.

William Tomlinson and the woman code-named Dahlia sat in the small room. Tomlinson was wide-eyed and had not said a word since being placed in the room next to his former assassin.

Carl Everett walked into the room, followed by Mendenhall and Ryan. They stood with the door open but did not move, with the exception of Everett, who pulled something from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of the two handcuffed prisoners. Then he stood stock-still and waited.

Thirty seconds later, the president of the United States entered the room and sat across from the two Coalitionists. He stared at them for a full fifteen seconds.

"I believe you signed a document that pardoned me from any crime I may have committed in return for the cooperation I gave your people," Dahlia said when she realized that Tomlinson was content just to sit and stare.

The president did not say a word in response. He just pulled out a set of notes he had written. He adjusted the cell phone that Everett had placed on the table to make sure every word was heard.

"William Tomlinson and Loraine Matheson, AKA Dahlia, you are being charged with treason and crimes against humanity. As president of the United States, acting at a time of war, you are hereby sentenced to death. Said sentence will be carried out in two days at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary."

The president started to rise, but stopped when Dahlia shook her head.

"You can't do this. We ... I demand a trial under the laws of the Constitution!"

The president looked closely at the woman, then his eyes darted to Tomlinson, who was now aware of where he was and looking at Dahlia. Tomlinson shook his head.

"Power is the ability to be ruthless," he mumbled.

"Correct, Mr. Tomlinson. If the world finds out that I broke the law by hanging you, so be it, I can live with that."

The president stood and left the room.

"The man that saved your worthless life died. He would not have favored the actions of the president, because he was the most just man I ever knew. I know this because in a very short time he became my best friend," Everett said as he leaned on the table. "But one thing my friend never understood--that sometimes bad people need to end badly. You will, at the end of a rope."

Everett straightened, retrieved the cell phone, and started from the room, but then he stopped and faced the two Coalitionists one last time.

"I am not like my best friend, as much as I want to be. As much as I strive to be just like him. I know that I will sleep well with the knowledge you two will burn in hell for the millions you have killed."

Everett stopped outside in the hallway with Will and Ryan watching him. He raised the cell phone to his ear and spoke.

"You get some rest. It's all over. We'll be home soon."

Carl closed the cell phone and tossed it to Ryan, who caught it and then followed Everett and Mendenhall down the hallway.

Three thousand miles away, Niles Compton easily removed the phone from Sarah McIntire's weak grip, then he slowly closed it and placed it on her nightstand.

Then Sarah rolled over onto her right side and cried for the first time over the loss of Jack Collins.

Outside the closed door of Sarah's room, the Event Group went on.