Ancients

PROLOGUE

The council elder sat alone in the darkened chamber. His mind focused on the empire's dire situation and the harsh judgment that history would render upon his great civilization. The cruelty they had shown against the lesser peoples of the world was now coming back a thousandfold to haunt the ringed continent. This judgment, this disaster, had begun three years earlier, with the rebellion of the barbarian nations in the outer empire, north and south.

When the elder closed his eyes, he thought he could actually hear the far-off cries of citizens and soldiers alike as they prepared for the final defense of what the barbarians thought of as Olympus and the very gods they once worshiped. While he sat secure inside the Empirium Dome, safe behind the eight-foot-thick triangles of crystal that made up the geodesic bubble, the rest of his world stood unprotected against the onslaught of the allied barbarian nations assaulting the empire.

He opened his aged, half-blind eyes and looked at the order that the Empirium Council had written out only an hour before condemning not only the barbarians but themselves as well. Thinking this, his attention turned to one of the duplicate Keys for the weapon.

Androlicus reached out and with a shaking and age-spotted hand removed the silk wrap that covered the huge diamond before him. He stared deep into the immense blue gemstone for a moment and then allowed his fingers to touch the deep and swirling tone grooves etched into its surface by their finest scientists. There were two more Keys such as the one before him--precious stones that had taken fifty lifetimes to find and half as much to engineer, and were the secret at the heart of the Great Sound Wave.

One Key was being prepared even now, far below the earth. The second was hidden in the land of the hostile Nubians, many hundreds of kilometers to the south in the farthest reaches of the empire. The third sat before him, identical in shape and design and meant to control the uncontrollable.

The great doors of the Empirium Chamber swung open, bathing the room in bright sunlight, dispelling the long shadows that had so long held the elder prisoner. The old man closed his eyes against the brilliance of the day as he heard the general march quickly into the chamber and directly to the council table.

"By your leave, Great Androlicus."

The old man finally opened his eyes to give the general a sad, knowing look before throwing the silk over the three-foot-diameter blue diamond on the chamber table.

"General Talos, I have called you away from the empire's defenses for this." The old man tapped the document with his aged hand. "It is here with my mark upon it as the Empirium Council has demanded, thus completing my culpability in the extinction of our empire."

Talos's eyes darted to the marble tabletop. He slowly reached for the handwritten document, but Androlicus gently laid the full weight of his hand and arm down upon the scroll. He pulled it back as if to withhold it, stopping the general short.

"Our time is at its zenith, My Lord," Talos said. "Our forces on the western and northern peninsulas are close to being overwhelmed, our defenses breached by the combined might of the Macedonians, Athenians, and Spartans. We must act soon or all will be lost. Even now, the Thracians and Athenians are loading the allied states' full invasion force on the Greek mainland. They have drained citizens from as far away as Mesopotamia."

"With my sign upon this order our demise has already come to pass even as we stand here," Androlicus replied. His eyes went from the general to the silk-covered diamond.

"My Lord?" asked Talos, confused.

Androlicus smiled sadly and nodded his head, his long white hair and thinning beard shimmering as the sunlight played on his face.

"We are set upon a course that is far more deadly than those hordes of barbarians we fear so."

"The Science Elders and Earth Council have assured--"

"Yes, yes, yes," the old man said, cutting short the general's response. "We have all been assured the technology is foolproof." He pulled the document back to him and looked at it. "Foolproof. This word seems to have more meaning these days."

"My Lord, to delay--"

Androlicus suddenly stood, the action so fast that it belied his 107 years.

"To delay is to continue thinking! To delay is to devise another way of ending this! To delay is to stop fools who think more violence delivered from untested theory is the answer to our woes!"

General Talos straightened, standing at attention and staring straight ahead as if suddenly transported to the parade ground. His bronze helmet was crooked under his left arm and his right hand stayed at his ivory-handled sword.

"You have my apologies, old friend." The elder knew that with his words he had wounded the general, the very last of the great Titans.

The general blinked and then looked at Androlicus. He slowly placed his helmet with its long plume of blue feathers and trailing horsehair on the long, curved marble table before him, then allowed his bearded face to soften.

"You are tired. How long has it been since you slept?"

The old man turned and looked at the large tapestry on the council-chamber wall. The weaving of threads showed the great plain and deserts surrounding their tiny inland sea. Their small continent was at its exact center situated between the four great landmasses to the north, south, west, and east. It also depicted the almost endless western sea beyond the Pillars of Heracles, named after the barbarian Greek hero to the north who was even now leading his monkey-people to the very gates of Androlicus's home city.

"My lack of sleep is but the least of what ails me. Besides, I foresee my long-needed rest is very close at hand."

"Don't say this thing. We will prevail. We must!"

Androlicus uncovered the third Key. "This will fail. The tone grooves mean nothing. The pitch is all wrong and the weapon will be uncontrollable. The Key and its tones will only enhance the Wave to a level that is far beyond the science to keep it caged."

He saw the look of confusion upon the face of this simple but brave Titan.

"The illusion has been perpetrated by testing on plates that are weak and old. Ah, but the crust beneath our own feet?" He wagged his finger at Talos. "Well, they are new, deep, and strong. It will surely end our world. This diamond has the ability to store and increase power; and coupled with that fact, the plate diagram is wrong and will assuredly destroy everything and everyone."

"You are a great scholar, but the sciences, they--"

"They are wrong. I have studied the Tone Key and the plate diagram and have discovered it will only work on the smallest of scales. Once the realignment of active plates begins, nothing in our science can control the result. If I am right and the diagram lies--if the fault lines and plates are all interconnected--this Key and her sisters will not control the earth's rage, but put a sword point to an already wounded beast. There is a reason why the gods have made the blue diamond so hard to find--it may generate more power to the Wave from the stored energy of light, heat, and the very electricity generated by our very own bodies. As I said, it's uncontrollable."

"Then why do you sign the order for the weapons use, My Lord?"

The look on the old man's face told the general everything. He knew then that the fate of their civilization was sealed. This great man was going to allow the world to have its way. The barbarians' freedom from their grip was at hand and Androlicus was going to allow it to happen because it was their time. From many nights of talk by warm fires, he knew Androlicus to be an advocate of the barbarians. He philosophized that they just needed a start to become as themselves, an advanced, thinking people.

Talos saw the old man relax.

"Tell me, what of your defense, or should I say preemptive strike to the south?" Androlicus asked while turning once again to look at the tapestry map of the north of Africanus.

"The Gypos prepare their voyage across the inland sea, possibly on the morrow," he said and then lowered his head.

The old man caught his friend's awkward silence after the brief report and turned to look at him.

"Your armies were defeated in the Egyptian Delta?"

"They were slaughtered to a man. We were no match for the combined force sent against us. There were not only barbarians from the west; our former allies, the Nubians Africanus, allied with the Gypos."

"How many are dead?" Androlicus asked, closing his eyes before he heard the answer.

"Six thousand citizens we sent into Egypt will not be joining us for the final defense of the inner circle. That, coupled with the defeat of General Archimedes by the barbarian Heracles on the northern outer ring and that damnable Jason upon the sea ... five thousand more of our men will not be defending the second ring. The Gypos have also poisoned the Nile, so I have ordered the destruction of the great aqueduct; it has already fallen into the sea. There will be no more fresh water to our shores."

"We have lost eleven thousand soldiers in this one day alone?" The elder turned, as if by looking the general in his eyes the statement would not--just could not--be true.

"It seems our ancient enemies have learned the ways of war well from us."

Talos's face betrayed his sadness as he told the rest of the story. "Arrayed against us are Heracles, who is barely above the mentality of a cave dweller, and also Jason of Thessaly, who is but a thief of the ship and oar designs of our science. The allied armies still bear mostly stone axes, wooden swords, and sharpened sticks, but they have defeated the greatest nation the world has ever known."

"I would say the gods have turned on us, wouldn't you, my great Titan?" murmured the old man in reply.

"The past will always find a way to punish the present." Talos smiled sadly. "The sins of the fathers will always curse the young."

Androlicus nodded in agreement.

"Our greatest treasures, they have been hidden well?" he asked.

Talos had the slightest trace of a smirk etching his hard mouth. "It was difficult, as we lost thirty-two screening ships to Jason in the Poseidon Sea, but yes, old friend, the greatest of treasures is safe along with the histories, our heritage, science, and the libraries. Shipped to the farthest reaches of the western empire, not even our followers will know where they are buried."

"Good, good. Now I am as weary as I have never been before."

"You are sure the weapon will fail?" Talos asked, wanting just a glimmer of hope, not for himself but for the very people he was sworn to protect.

"It is as uncontrollable as we are arrogant. Who are we to believe we can manipulate the very planet we walk upon? We can only hope that the secret of its use will never be found. The bronze maps, the plates, the disks, they are all destroyed?"

"Except for the single plate map and dimensional disk sent with the treasure ships."

"The plate map should have been destroyed," said Androlicus angrily.

"Lord Pythos loaded the plate map himself as a safeguard in case we needed the second Key."

Androlicus placed his hand on the cool surface of the large blue diamond. "No, he won't need a second or third Key. It ends here. It ends today."

Androlicus slowly pushed the order forward without removing his eyes from the Titan.

"Give this to that madman below the earth and may the gods have mercy on us. I am sorry you will die by the side of that fool."

"I am also. What of you, My Lord?"

"I have my devices." He lowered his head, a move that made the general feel desperate for his old friend. "These old eyes have beheld too much. I have seen that which I was not meant to see. I choose not to witness our arrogance of science at work." His voice broke. "We could have been such a great people. We wanted to be, at one time ages ago."

The elder looked around the great chamber within the safety of the Crystal Dome; the wonder of the ages.

General Talos took the order and, with one last glance at the covered third diamond, turned away, feeling as if he were leaving a dying father behind. He slowly walked through the great bronze doors of the chamber, closing them behind him, leaving the chamber once again in darkness, as well as the great Empire of Atlantis.

The great tectonic-plate chart was carved directly into the stone walls of the giant and ancient volcanic cavern one mile beneath the city of Lygos, the centermost island in the rings of Atlantis, a mountainous plateau the barbarians thought of as Olympus. To the ordinary citizen the wavy lines and circles of the chart were but a meaningless jumble of scribbles. The only recognizable feature on this strangest of maps were the three great circles of Atlantis.

The diagram was five thousand years in the making and was the great achievement of their time. The Great Poseidon Sea was mapped in intricate detail, but the lines did not stop there. They also coursed through the entire known world, even unto Europa. Hinduss and the vast, barbaric Asiatic nations of the Far East world of the Dragon Men, the Chi, were also depicted. The lines on the diagram diminished as they crossed the vast western Sea of Atlantia and west toward the two giant and mostly unexplored continents of the Far West. Their vast explorations for the past five thousand years were designed toward mapping the faults and continental plates of as much of the world as possible, because only the gods knew from where their next enemies would arise.

The giant chart was engineered by the science of their time. The strange lines actually mapped the minute fault lines of most of the known world, active and extinct, discovered using divining apparatuses. The thicker lines were the actual plates that moved whole continents like slow-moving glaciers throughout the history of the planet.

"Are the warships fully aware of the extreme nature of their mission?"

General Talos glared at the old and slight man before him. The elder, Lord Pythos, had once been an Empirium Council member but had resigned over thirty years before to conclude his work on the science of the Wave. A maniacal passion had consumed the ancient earth scientist for the latter part of his eighty-five years of life.

"The admiral knows his duty and need not be reminded. His destruction is assured, so you may receive your signal, Pythos."

"Excellent," he said as he looked knowingly at the general. "Think not that I am fooled by your being here at this time. I am fully aware that the traitor Androlicus has sent you to dispatch me if the plan fails. I am only surprised he has not chosen to do this foul deed himself."

"To that great man you are not that important; the lesser the task, the lesser the messenger. Your station is far too low for him to be here. And if you once more refer to him as a traitor, that will be the last word you ever utter from your foul mouth."

Unfazed, the old man continued. "Shame; he would have seen the miracle our people so crave. One that will destroy our enemies and shake their homelands with their mud-and-stick huts to dust."

Talos scowled at the crazy old man and then angrily raised his sword for the chain of flags to be readied for the signal. Five hundred of his more severely wounded soldiers had been pulled from the defense of the second circle of Atlantis against the probing invaders. Their duty here would be to relay the signal to the last two warships of the Grand Fleet.

Pythos walked over to a large bronze-and-iron box. He ruthlessly shoved a Nubian slave out of his way and gestured for two guards to lift it. Then Pythos became agitated as the men did his bidding, almost crying out when one of the soldiers let his end slip his grasp. Once steadied, Pythos approached and lifted the wooden lid. His gaze locked on the object inside. He reverently reached in and brought out the Tone Key. He swallowed as he did so. He held the large, perfectly round diamond up to a flaming torch and laughed as he felt its heat rise as it absorbed the flames' light.

Talos could see deep etchings upon its surface. Strange lines like impressions or gouges that were not natural flaws spiraled around the entire round diamond. The general did not understand how the diamond produced the unheard sounds that activated the great bells on the seafloor, as its science was far beyond the mind of a soldier.

Pythos turned and walked over to a large cylinder. He ordered one of the guards to lift a large lid on what looked like a bronze barrel lying on its side. Once opened, Pythos laid the blue-tinted diamond inside with the care of a mother bedding a newborn child. Then he reached up and brought down a large spike tipped with a much smaller blue diamond, only ten centimeters in diameter. This strange spike had a thick copper wire running from its top. The other end disappeared into the large barrellike device. He placed the spike into one of the diamond's deep grooves specially chosen for the targeted stratum of seabed, then he gently closed the lid.

Talos allowed his eyes to follow the copper line to a large wheel. The teeth on that wheel disappeared into the teeth of a larger one and that into an even larger cog. There looked to be thirty such wheels aligned side by side, reduction gearing for a device the general would never be able to fathom.

"Start the paddlewheel!" the old man shouted.

Sixteen hundred naked barbarian slaves, captured Greek, Egyptian, and Nubians, began pulling the thick ropes. As they strained as one mass of humanity, the giant floor gate began to slide back on its iron tracks. Steam and heat shot out like a caged animal and assaulted those in the great cavern. The slaves closest to the gate immediately burst into flame. Their very flesh caught fire as they screamed and ran, and archers who lined the upper tiers of the cavern quickly and mercifully brought them down.

As the gate slowly continued to slide open, whips cracked and men screamed. Muscles bunched and feet dug harshly into the grooved stone floor. More flame sprang from the lava well as the flowing river of magma passed by the opening at over sixty kilometers per hour. Still the gate to the volcanic vent needed to be wider and the taskmasters' whips sang their agonizing song.

"Yes, yes!" the old man moaned under his breath. "That is wide enough!"

The slaves, many burned through to the bone, fell to the floor as women ran to them with water and cooling salve.

Pythos watched and grinned as his plan of action began to take shape. He signaled for the next phase. Five thousand slaves, these bigger and far stronger than the gate slaves, stood as one. Women threw water on their scarred backs in preparation for the great heat that would slam them like the very Wave they would soon produce. Far above them, the great paddle-wheel hung motionless in its cradle. The words and hieroglyphs extolling the assistance of the gods etched deeply into the engineered metal made up of the new, hardened steel. The one million copper spikes placed in bundles of a thousand prickled around the great machine. Above the wheel was a three-meter-thick copper plate, held in place by a spun steel cable that bore its massive weight.

"Lower the lightning wheel to the midpoint marker."

The slaves moved in unison not by ordered word but by the crack and scream of the whip. They started pulling the six-hundred-foot-long ropes connected to the wheel. With feet slipping and trying to find purchase on the stone floor, the wheel at first refused to move. Old women threw sand beneath the feet of the slaves to soak up the water from the steam and pouring sweat of the thousands. Now finding purchase with the help of the grooved stone beneath their feet as they strained against the ropes, the cavern echoed with the rumble and creak of the giant wheel as it started to move. With a loud roar, it became free of its iron cradle far above the straining mass of men.

A signal command echoed and the five thousand slaves dropped the ropes and ran to the far side of the open lava gate. Some overflow of the four-thousand-degree magma caught several hundred of the sweating and burned slaves as they ran by. It rendered their flesh and bone to ash so quickly that not one of their screams escaped their lips.

Taskmasters' whips cracked, and once again sand was thrown by the slave women for purchase as the slaves gained the opposite side of the running river of flame and melted stone. They picked up the identical ropes in a desperate hurry as far above their heads the great wheel had started to roll down its elongated track toward the open gate.

"Arrest the wheel before its momentum carries it too far. Hurry or all will be lost!" the old man screamed as he pulled a whip from one of the guards and pushed him aside. His eyes were aflame as he whipped the nearest slaves mercilessly.

The five thousand slaves worked as one as they pulled against the gathering momentum of the sliding wheel as gravity fought to push it down its track. The front ranks, seventy-five slaves in all, were pulled into the open magma gate by the momentum of the wheel. The giant paddlewheel finally started to slow as it reached the halfway point. It hit a twenty-foot-wide downward-angled notch and came to a grinding, ear-splitting halt as it finally arrested. The slaves fell to the floor as one just as a loud cheer went up from the armor-sheathed guards lining the walls.

Talos observed that the slaves still alive and nearest the old man were bloodied and burned. Many more were lying dead at the feet of Pythos. The old scientist slowly turned and looked at the general.

"Now, we wait for the signal from the sea."

Two massive warships waited at anchor four kilometers from the northern shores of Atlantis. Admiral Plius, cousin and trusted naval adviser to Talos, held hand to brow, shielding the blazing sun from his eyes as he scanned the green sea before him. He was beginning to think that the people of his nation had received a reprieve from the barbarians and the expected invasion and the bulk of the Greek alliance would not come. That brief thought and hope died in his mind as the first flash of metal against the rays of the sun twinkled in the distance, just above the horizon of the sea. The admiral removed his helmet, the long blue plume of dyed horsehair gathering at his feet as he stepped down from the prow of the ship.

"The Spartans, Thracians, and Macedonians have been sighted," he said as he took the shoulder of his sailing master.

As the rest of the gallant crew looked out over the gunwales, they saw ten thousand flashes of brightness, as many as the stars in the night sky starting to twinkle off the surface of the sea. The dreaded battle fleet of the alliance would soon to be upon them.

As the admiral watched, the lead ship started to take a wavering, almost dreamlike shape in front of one thousand allied Greek ships of all shapes and design.

The lookout from above called out, "The lead ship has a black hull, black as death, and scarlet sails!"

The admiral knew the legend of the man on the lead ship with the black hull and scarlet sail.

"My Lord, should we signal the mainland?" his ship's captain asked. "The Thracian king Jason and his fleet will soon be upon us!"

"Loose the signal," he ordered with no enthusiasm.

"Loose the signal!" the captain called out.

At the stern of the massive warship was a catapult, its rear stocks removed and the front reinforced to give it the proper angle of trajectory. A sword severed the restraining rope and sent the flaming signal missile high into the blue, cloudless sky. The admiral watched it and prayed that it would be seen through the screening smoke of his burning homeland--the home soil, on which neither he nor his men would ever trod again.

Green signal flags were lowered quickly after the signal was seen from the sea. They coursed down the five-mile-long tunnel as a green wave roaring against stone. In all, the signal took only one minute from the time of the catapult signal to reach its goal.

The slaves again strained and pulled. Whips cracked and captured men from the northern and southern regions grimaced as leather slapped backs already bloody. Slowly the giant paddlewheel started to ease up out of the notch that held it.

More slaves were added as the wheel started down the last hundred meters of iron track. The great machine picked up speed and the slaves started to panic as the wheel gained momentum. The whips cracked, but this time the slaves cowered not from the pain of the lash but from fear of the great paddlewheel as it rolled down the tracks toward the flowing lava. Finally, the taskmasters lost control as the men dropped their ropes and arrows started to cut them down for their cowardice.

Pythos watched intently because he knew that there would be no stopping the giant apparatus now as it carried the full weight of its bulk down the guiding track. One and a half million tons taxed the bending and wrenching thirty-meter-thick iron rail. The great wheel finally slammed home at the bottom, again notching itself in a loop of iron that would hold it in place.

Thousands of tons of molten rock shot into the air as the wheel's massive weight struck the open vent, incinerating slaves and their masters when lava splashed upon them.

"You fool, you'll kill us all," Talos said as he grabbed the arm of Pythos.

The old man looked at the general and laughed. "Yes, maybe, maybe, but look, my large friend!" he screamed, pointing upward.

Talos pushed the old earth scientist from him but froze as he saw the great paddlewheel start to turn from the force of flowing lava. Ever so slowly at first, it quickly started to gain momentum. As the wheel turned, its long steel spikes arrayed along the outer side of the paddles were dripping great drops of molten rock as it exited the lava flow. "Release the cooling water, now!"

Above the giant wheel, another gate opened and seawater came forth, striking the steel brushes and cooling them to prevent their melting. Steam shot into the air and soon the environment was nearing intolerable. The interior heat of the great cave had risen to 140 degrees. The paddlewheel moved faster and faster. The spikes were now connecting with the thick copper plate above and generating an electrical field.

No river or water flow in the world could equal the power of the flowing lava vent. As the great Titan watched, another gate opened and fresh water from the city cascaded onto the paddles and the water was trapped when a door sealed them shut. The live steam was shot through a pipe connected to the wheel's center and that pipe led to the tremendously spinning diamond in its case. Once the steam was released from the paddle, the door would spring free and start all over again as it was dipped into the fast-flowing lava.

The toned grooves whistled their result through the large conducting needle and out into the bronze wire, where not only the tone was carried but the electrical lightning that was needed to power the great bells on the seafloor.

"Red flags--strike!" Pythos ordered.

Talos swung his sword hand down and the long line of signalmen brought large red pendants down to strike the cavern floor.

At sea, the admiral saw three large catapult launches as the missiles streaked from the inner peninsula of the city of Lygos. He quickly nodded his bearded face, giving the signal to connect the line. As he turned away, he saw that Jason's lead ships were but three thousand yards from his lone vessel as the second ship in his line began connecting the thick line of copper.

Flaming catapults shot from the barbarian ships started striking the waters around the admiral's vessel as a mile to his rear the second Atlantean warship struggled with the giant grease-covered line of bending copper.

Onboard the second ship, the great cable had been pulled from drums of wood that had been brought to the shoreline and protected with the remaining soldiers of the army of Talos. Thousands were dying on shore so that this vessel could have the time to make the connection of the thick wire to the strange-looking stanchion protruding from the surface of the Poseidon Sea. The floating connection was held in place by a buoy through which another, even thicker copper wire ran to the bottom of the sea, where the great sound inducers had been placed against the sea bottom. They sat directly over the hidden fault line that the Ancients had mapped with their divining skills hundreds of years before.

Sailors struggled with the giant looped end of the line as the first of the Greek's catapult missiles started to strike the admiral's ship. Some were aware that the large warship had started to burn; others were fighting madly with the weight of the cable. As they fought, they started to feel the vibrations that signaled that the power of the giant machine was ramping up, that only seconds remained before the Wave that started belowground sent the killing force through the line.

"Hurry, loop the line over the buoy!" the captain called out.

Finally, as he watched, the giant copper ball on the tip of the floating marker accepted the wire, and just as a hundred men started to let go of the line the electrical charge coursed through, immediately killing sixty of his seamen as they started to shake and jump. The stench of burning hair and flesh drove the others back in fear and horror.

As the great paddlewheel moved faster far below the main city, the giant two-foot-thick brushes scraped against the copper plate at an ever-increasing rate of speed as the magma current hit its peak. The wire running from the city to the sea and up onto the deck of the second ship finally glowed red and softened as the wood railing and then the deck itself burst into flame. The flames lasted only seconds before the ship itself convulsed, and vanished in a great explosion.

On the sea bottom, arrayed along the mapped fault line above the very crust of the earth, were two hundred giant copper bells that had sound-inducing forks installed inside. Electrical current running through the mysterious blue diamond and the thick spike that was spinning around the grooved surface produced a high-pitched sound that could not be heard by the human ear, but could be felt by all through their teeth and bones. The diamond created the invisible wave sent through the copper line to the submerged bells, where its minute vibrations ran into the forks inside the submerged bells. There, the sound, the vibration, the wave grew and expanded outward into the seabed that covered the great fault line. As the sound wave from the great inductors slammed into the seafloor, some of it escaped--a minuscule fraction of the din--and every fish in the sea for three hundred miles died. The now-powerful sound wave was sent on its course through to the fault and through to the very tectonic plates that wedged against each other with over a trillion metric tons of force that held the great halves in place.

The sound wave struck and the edges started to crumble along a two-hundred-kilometer stretch of plating, the force of which would be felt on the surface of the sea as a directionless wave. The ships of Jason's fleet were tossed about like children's toys as the sound and the swells grew in size and violence. Finally, the two great halves could not withstand the attack and started to crumble in earnest. In addition, the cascading effect cracked the very surface of the great sea bottom. The two plate edges crumbled and collapsed and two miles of the restraining edges fell apart, and the two plates, having nothing to hold them back, whip-cracked and slammed into each other at over a hundred kilometers per hour, creating a ripple effect that was broadcast to the seabed the plates held above them.

The first devastating effect after the two halves collided created a great chasm in the seafloor, not the effect the Atlantean scientist had anticipated. Instead of the force being pushed up and out, it went down. The madman had been seeking a tidal wave of immense proportions that would swallow up the invading fleet of Greek warships, a wave that would eventually wash up on the northern coast of the barbarians' homeland. With Atlantis sitting high against the mainland to the north and south, they themselves would be protected against the tidal surge. But instead the seabed lurched upward and the supporting volcanic lava lake beneath cascaded into a void of a great, widening chasm, taking the sandy bottom of the Mediterranean with it, and that was followed quickly by the sea itself.

Lookouts perched on the tallest structures and Crystal Dome of the main city of Lygos watched as a giant eruption of water rose into the northern sky. At first it rose a quarter of a kilometer into the air, carrying Jason's armada toward the clouds as it went. The lookouts started cheering from every defensive wall of the land as they watched the complete and utter destruction of the barbarians. As the sea started its downward plunge, drowning and crushing twenty thousand Greeks as it did, they watched in awe as the waters started to spin in a whirlpool of enormous magnitude. It spread outward as the seafloor opened beneath, taking the remains of smashed ships and men down into a crazily spinning vortex of death.

The cheers stopped as the walls and parapets started to shake beneath their sandaled feet. An earthquake unlike anything they had ever felt before started to gain in intensity and the very air became a warbled wave of displacement.

The great invisible sound wave had ceased; its crushing effect had done its job as the great sound bells cascaded into the void where the seafloor had been. However, the sand and rock continued to slide into the immense fabricated cavern until it struck the lava that flowed beneath the two great plates two miles below the surface of the sea.

Talos knew that something had gone wrong as the look on the face of Pythos went from one of ecstasy to one of sheer terror when the floor beneath them began to tremble. In the giant chamber a mile beneath Atlantis, the general heard a great crack as if the earth's back had been shattered. It was the sound of the colliding plates sending their killing force back to the source.

The look on the old man's face was frightening as he turned and ran for the copper barrel. He hurriedly threw the top up and reached inside just as a tremendous shaking started in the subterranean cavern. He ripped out the copper line and spike even as flames erupted on his hands, melting the flesh upon them. He screamed in agony and then lifted the glowing-hot diamond from its cradle. His eyes were maniacal as he turned to Talos.

"We must get to the surface!" the old man screamed as the glowing diamond fell to the stone floor. He stared around him in shock at the failure of his life's dream, and then he slowly started to stumble forward toward the tunnel that led to the shelter far beneath the cavern.

Talos calmly reached out and grabbed the old man by the arm as he tried to run past the last of the great Titans.

"You will stay to see the end result of your witchery, old one!"

As he spoke, the floor beneath them opened and lava spewed forth to cover the running slaves and cowering guards. Then, a rush of seawater swallowed even the eruption as portions of the giant cavern disappeared into the void that had opened beneath them. The last to fall was the great paddlewheel.

A mile above the cavern, Androlicus watched as the great columns started to tumble inside the Empirium Chamber, but the immense crystals that made up the geodesic dome held firm against the natural forces arrayed against it.

As the old man watched the end of the world start to unfold around him, he quickly reached for the knife he had saved for the inevitable conclusion of his civilization. He raised the sharp blade high, but just as he started to strike his chest over his beating heart, the city started to slip and rise. His last thoughts as the ceiling of marble crushed the life from him: The treasure is our salvation, and we will live on.

As panicked citizens ran from the crumbling walls, they had no sense of the cataclysm that was literally sucking their great island from beneath their feet. At first it was just the outer edges that vanished in an eruption of lava and seawater, then more and more went as trees would in a strong wind; first a wave of earth rose thirty feet as it smashed toward the main city, then the very ground broke in and fell.

All at once, with nothing below the island to hold its weight, it simply folded up like a book closing, and the great three rings of Atlantis, a thousand kilometers in diameter, slammed together, burying the intact Crystal Dome in its center as the main island slid beneath the waves. Atlantis vanished into fire and water. And as the earth settled and a terrifying silence grew, the two tectonic plates beneath the island started to settle into their new homes, fifteen kilometers from their original position.

Ten thousand years of civilization disappeared in less than three minutes, the seafloor swallowing it whole. The earthquake--the largest in the history of the planet--had other effects as the great shaking coursed along the fault lines that had been so meticulously and wrongly mapped for hundreds of centuries. The twig-and-mud huts of Egypt and Greece were vaporized as the earth jumped and settled. The sea emptied around the isles of Sparta, creating a large barren spot that would five thousand years later become the Sparta plain. The sea rushed from the shores of Africa and drained into the gaping maw of the wounded earth. The sea retreated as the coastline of modern northern Egypt saw the light of day for the first time, and then the earthquake swallowed whole the barbarian slaves that had come so near to freedom. A population of nearly a million souls was cut down to twenty thousand.

The wave of power continued through the large mountains to the north, crumbling and crushing the barbarians beneath tons of rock, to set their own civilizations back four thousand years. The full length and breadth of Italy made its first appearance as its leading edges fell into the void, but would soon be covered by the retreating waters, until again it rose from the unsettled sea a month later.

The fault line continued to crumble all the way to the Pillars of Heracles. The wave of earth actually made the small mountain range of the pillars jump and then quickly collapse back, creating a difference in height of one-quarter mile in its features and separating the future land of Spain from its African neighbor. The great western ocean started its run into the Atlantean-Africanus Plain, washing away all the features of ten million years. The great sea filled the void left by the Atlantean science, coming together with tidal force that sent water and earth a kilometer into the air, creating, through rain and smoke, a new ice age.

The waters vented their murderous rage into the lands of barbaric Troy and Mesopotamia, creating a great new sea where only a freshwater lake had been before, and would become the great Black Sea. Still the waters roared forth, creating their own weather system, which, on their march east, created the rains and the great flood that would eventually lead to the legends of Gilgamesh and Noah.

The sea took forty days to recede into the basin where the continent of Atlantis once sat. The rush of seawater crushed the lives of almost everything living north and south of the Mediterranean. In the south, the flood still followed the jagged line of the Nile River into Ethiopia, where the remains of a once-great civilization would be buried for thousands of years in a bleak landscape of desert.

The earth would rumble and shift for five years as the world of the West and Middle East settled into the vast area the modern world would come to be known as the Mediterranean Basin.

The Age of Enlightenment was over and the battle of man was just beginning. The last act of a surviving boat crew and citizens of Atlantis, the last of the great Greek gods as they were once thought of, was to bury, on behalf of a forward-thinking Androlicus, the great secrets of science and technology, the very history of a vanished world, and a dire warning of consequence of mind and arrogance. But most of all, the great treasure of Atlantis was safe, and the very means to end the world were hidden a thousand miles from where the Ancients had invented it, where Androlicus hoped that the great chart could never be matched with the weapon again.

However, the arrogance and the desire of some men to hold sway over their brothers would arise repeatedly, as sure as the sun had risen on that last day of the Ancients.

The ancient temple lay in ruins. Built by the Greeks who had perished fighting the Atlanteans over thirteen thousand years before, it had seen the soldierly faces of Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus and heard the scholarly voices and teachings of Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, who had never known of the Greek civilization before theirs. Now the trampled and time-worn marble floor was crossed by the leather-clad feet of Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.

Pompey hugged his friend in a powerful embrace. The gold-embossed eagles on their chest armor came together with a soft sound, almost as comforting to the old soldiers as a mother's soothing voice had once been in their young ears.

"So, old friend, why have you asked to see me in this place where our ancient ancestors plotted and dreamed so much? I thought you would have been more comfortable meeting at one of the villas of your wife's family, and maybe a just a little closer to home."

Julius Caesar broke the embrace and smiled at his friend as he turned away and removed his scarlet cloak. He walked over to a fallen pillar and slowly sat, placing his cloak beside him. His hair was askew, and Pompey could see that he was perplexed about some matter.

"I have news, brother. News that will astound even you, the down-to-earth Pompey, sensible Pompey, wise and wonderful--"

"Okay, old friend, you have my attention. No need to spread the olive oil on the bread further," Pompey said as he removed his helmet and sat next to Caesar.

Gaius looked at the older man and smiled. It was an honest look that Pompey had seen many times before in child and man. It foretold an idea, of which his old friend always had an abundance.

"The old stories told to us about the Ancients, our forefathers--remember listening to them as children?" He looked at Pompey and grinned. "Not that you ever were a child."

"True, true. I remember listening to the stories with you upon my knee, but please, continue," he said, looking at the rising moon.

"One particular story from the Ancients intrigued us as boys more than most. You know of which story I speak?"

"Of course: we used to dream about the great power. You speak of the Wave?" He looked from the moon to his friend.

Caesar nodded and then slapped his friend on the leg.

"Your mind isn't as addled as rumor would have it. Yes, the wave." His gaze went from Pompey to the worn marble floor. "What would you say if I told you I have been searching for the forbidden hiding place of the library of our ancestors?"

Pompey stood so suddenly that his helmet fell from his grasp and hit the hard floor of the temple. The noise was so loud in that revered place that both sets of personal bodyguards turned their way. Pompey looked back at the soldiers until they looked away. Then he returned his fatherly stare to Gaius until the younger man looked up.

"You know searching for the scrolls is forbidden. Have you gone mad? If the rest of our brothers and sisters find out, they will have you banished and shunned. Brother, tell me you jest."

Caesar stood slowly and took Pompey by the shoulders and held him in place.

"For you and the others it is easy, your families are like stone, while mine was weak and always without the funds to make the family Juliai as powerful as the rest of you."

Pompey shook off the embrace and turned away.

"Because the family Juliai," he turned back to face his friend with a sad look about his features, "has always been dreamers, Gaius old friend. You and your fathers have always sought the easy way to power. The rest of the children of Atlantis have always been there for support, but we cannot continue to throw money at your dreams. We share the consulship, isn't that enough?"

"Mere money is no longer a problem."

"Yes, we know you married into wealth, and I hear you are doing wonderfully in Gaul and Britannia, and that alone should be enough--but not with you, Gaius, wealth isn't what you seek. Do not look so shocked. You may fool the rest of our brothers and sisters, but this is me, old friend, I know what it is you seek, and this quest will lead to your destruction."

"I have many soldiers seeking out the scrolls of our people, and now I have knowledge of where they were hidden." Caesar walked a few paces and then turned. "We are allied not only by marriage and blood but by power. With the tales that were told about the power of the wave we could rule all the earth, bring all mankind together for--"

"The first family of man will not abide this, Gaius," Pompey stated sternly. "Remember the last renegade of the Ancients, our brother and my joint consul Licinius Crassus? He too dreamed of the power of the old story. The families of the Ancients made him pay for his adultery to our new faith by never returning to the old way, and now you, Brother Gaius, now you. My friend, you are diving blindly into black waters I and the others cannot allow you to swim."

Caesar faced his friend, the man who had married his daughter, Julia, and frowned.

"You will not stand by me, brother?"

The light of knowledge suddenly filled the eyes of Pompey. "Spain! I had heard that you sent that little monster Antony there on some sort of mysterious mission. It was he who found the trail of our ancestors, is this not so?"

"My time spent in that horrible place had its merits. Spain is the hiding place and we will find the scrolls."

Pompey shook his head in shame. "If you continue this madness, I will have no choice but to inform the rest of the society of your actions to discover the old ways. That will end you, Gaius; it will end us."

Caesar looked at his friend and then reached down and removed his cloak from the fallen pillar and swung it so that it barely missed Pompey as he clipped it around his shoulders.

"I must return to Gaul, there is an uprising there."

"Gaius, please do not do this thing. The family of man will send troops to Spain to thwart any effort you may make to recover the old scrolls. You will be banished from the brotherhood of Ancients!"

"I have more than just a few of our brothers and sisters on my side; they are not afraid to rise again as many of you are. I ask you one more time, Pompey, join us in the quest," he placed the golden helmet on his head and then his right hand went to his sword, not hiding the threat the action well conveyed, "or there will be war among us, and that will destroy the family of the Ancients forever. Is that what you want?"

Pompey's eyes were on the ivory handle of Caesar's sword, and then they moved upward to his determined eyes.

"I see far more than you know, Gaius. I see ambition that would allow no interference from the family, even from me." Pompey slowly picked up his fallen helmet and placed it on his head. "I will thwart you, Gaius, even unto the destruction of our ancestral heritage. Even unto splitting us into two factions, one against the other. Leave the Key and the scrolls in their place, I beg you one last time!"

"Return to Rome, old man, and from here on out, stay out of our way. I came to this sacred place to convince you of our true calling, that our race must--must, I say--be the dominate force on this planet. But alas, you have become a timid old man, not deserving of being an Ancient."

Pompey watched Caesar turn away, his scarlet cape blotting out the rising moon as it fanned out in his haste. The old shoulders of the Roman coconsel slumped as he watched his friend leave. The younger Gaius was right about his age, he was tired, but he knew that he would have to invigorate not only himself but other brothers and sisters of the Ancients in an attempt to stop Gaius from finding the scrolls.

Gaius Julius Caesar turned back one last time and saw his friend among the ruins. The face he could not see, but the determined stance of Pompey in the moon's glow told Caesar that they would meet on the field of disharmony, and the Ancient family of man would divide forever.

Karl Von Heinemann cursed his colleague and best friend Peter Rothman. The argument had gone on for days and he was tired of it. He paced in the study of his large home and turned on him once again.

"Yes, the artifacts were found by you. But you are being shortsighted in thinking this is but an archaeological find. It is much more than that, can't you see? Give me two years, that is all I ask, then you may go public with what you found in Spain. After all, it was I who led you to the papers of Caesar, without which you never would have narrowed the search enough to find the treasures."

The younger man sat in the overstuffed chair and packed his pipe. He, too, was frustrated from days of arguing. Heinemann was not only his friend and mentor but his financial benefactor, without whose generous funding this very argument would have been moot.

"The site is still open and we are not sure if all the artifacts have been recovered. What if," he turned in his chair and looked at the older man, "and I say this knowing how tenacious my colleagues around the world can be, the site is found and one of them announces the news of this discovery? I, and I daresay you, will be the loser in that event, and all for the sake of charts and graphs and a device? One that, if constructed, could only be used as a weapon? I daresay the idea is sheer madness."

"Delaying the announcement and results of your dig a few years is not that much to ask. After all, the twenty thousand marks released to you financed this great discovery. Hard and real science must take the lead here, not the fanciful dreams of a dead civilization!"

Peter stood so suddenly that his tobacco pouch slipped from his lap and fell to the Persian rug.

"How dare you--how dare you even suggest your work is the only real science! We piece together history from what we dig up out of the earth, and this discovery we have made is a complete and utter alteration of everything we have come to learn about the past, and you daresay yours is the only real science! The art of war, sir, is no science; it is an evil that must be stopped before we discover a quick and sure method of self-destruction. We keep the secret of the Key and the Wave from the rest of the world, and bring them together with the magic that is our history."

The old professor's eyes widened and his lips were set in a grimace of outrage.

Peter let his shoulders sag. He regretted the words as they passed his lips and now he feared he had caused irrevocable damage to the most important man in his life. If not for Karl's work with the armaments industries, he would never have had the funds to find the treasure trove of artifacts in Spain in the first place. He knew himself to be a hypocrite in accepting the very money he was now ridiculing; after all, it was Von Heinemann who had reached out to the other side of the family of Ancients in an attempt to heal the old wounds between the Juliai and themselves.

"Perhaps you are right, even though your words are disrespectful."

Karl's words caught Peter off guard. Had the argument come down to showing this brilliant man what it was he was asking of him? Had he seen the light of this phenomenal find for what it was?

"My words were foolish and said in anger, my old friend. I respect you and your work more than any man in the world, and I say that not because you are my financier for my research but because you are truly honorable and a brother that few of the Ancients, on either side, understand. We need this disharmony between us to stop, but in order to do that, it's not knowledge of the weapon we need, just the words of our people that have long been silenced."

"When do you plan on announcing your discovery to the world?"

Peter smiled, thinking that he had finally won over the old man. He felt nothing but relief as he once again sat down and looked at his mentor.

"The question should be stated correctly as: When will we make the announcement? You must be by my side. It was your grant and your foresight that saw the potential and it was you who came across the trail of Julius Caesar's attempts in Spain to find the treasure trove that led me to the find. Your scholars have deciphered our ancient tongue, so I insist you be there for the accolades. This can only help bring your Juliai Coalition and my side of the family back together to live in harmony with the rest of the world. The old ones of your side, as you said, no longer desire control of the world the way some of our ancestors did. The purification of the races, I hope, is a thing that will continue, but at a more reasonable pace."

Karl nodded, gracefully accepting the invitation to join the young archaeologist in his press release about the results of his dig in Spain.

"If I may ask, all is secured at the site in Spain and at the warehouse where the items have been moved?"

"Yes; the men you sent to Spain have the site under complete guard twenty-four hours a day. It helped immensely, actually buying the barren property under a false corporate name, and what could be more secure than one of your munitions depots for the storage of the artifacts and scrolls? My side of the family will of course be notified of our joint operation, and they will undoubtedly be pleased the rift has been sealed between us. I daresay they will insist joyfully on joint control of the find."

Von Heinemann actually had trouble keeping a straight face. The naivete of this young fool and the rest of his once-upon-a-time family of Ancients were beyond his grasp.

"Now, as I think about security before your meeting with the press next week, we must have a complete accounting of all on the continent who have knowledge of the find."

"That's simple. I have a list here of everyone who had any knowledge of what we have been up to--it's a short list, but full of the very influential. Since some are from your side of the family of man and few from mine, I suspect they will stay quiet until the announcement; they are all good chaps, at least on our side of the fence." Peter smiled at his small joke and then reached into his coat pocket and brought out the list and passed it to the older man.

"Yes, this will be very helpful, and of course, as you know, the Juliai side has always been able to maintain their secrets well," he said as he pulled out his top desk drawer.

Peter nodded. "Again, my hope is that I didn't hurt you too much with my unthinking and very harsh words. You are a patriot for all the family, all Aryans, to emulate and I--"

His words froze in his mouth as he watched Karl raise a small pistol and point it at him.

"I have no animosity toward you for the things you said; I am only sorry you didn't listen to reason, Peter. Your side of the family has always been so weak when it comes to controlling the proliferation of the weaker and fouler races, and the sheer disrespect for world power--it really is quite boring."

"You are willing to murder me for those ancient designs and even more outdated dreams of the Juliai?"

"Yes, I believe I am. I find my arguments have outweighed your own; the need for science, race control, and the protection of the West is a far more noble cause than the propagation of fairy tales, don't you think?"

"You're absolutely mad! A fairy tale is a make-believe story, but I now have the proof that our kind really existed, that our severed factions can bring about change peacefully, slowly, and with forethought. If you kill me, I will take the secret of the Atlantean Wave with me to my grave, and furthermore I--"

The bullet struck him in the heart. His eyes widened at the suddenness of his death, and all he could do was mouth the word, Why?

Heinemann laid the still-smoking pistol upon his desktop and turned his swivel chair around to blot out the view of his dying friend. He saw that the gardeners had looked up at the gun's sharp report. Then he watched as they slowly went back to their work. He was content to look at the garden until he heard footsteps rushing down the hallway. The door opened but Heinemann did not turn around.

"God in heaven, what have you done?"

Karl closed his eyes in thought. He heard his assistant lean over the stricken Peter.

"You need not concern yourself with Professor Rothman; he has gone to a place he is most comfortable with. He has joined our ancestors."

The large assistant removed his bloody hands from the chest of Rothman and looked into his eyes. He blinked once and then his eyes slowly dilated in death.

"You have murdered a man who adored you. Have you gone insane? This can only cause more trouble between the Juliai and the other Ancients. You do realize that, don't you?"

Karl turned slowly in his chair and looked at his tall German assistant. "Humorous, he said the same exact thing to me only a moment ago. I have answered him; do I need to answer your concern also?"

The assistant got the clear meaning of what his employer was hinting at and immediately stood up straight and clicked his heels together. "My meaning is only that ... this ... was unexpected."

"Yes, I would have preferred to go another route myself, but things are much too important to leave to chance." He looked from Peter's body to the large German. "Do you agree?"

"Yes, Herr Von Heinemann, I--"

"Has the equipment I ordered been received?"

The question took the man by surprise. This monster had one of his best friends and a member of the Ancients sitting dead right before him and he had the gall to ask about scientific equipment? He truly was mad.

"We received a cable from our offices in Singapore; sixteen tons of material was received two days ago."

"Good. Of course you have contracted for shipment of the material to the island?"

"Yes. I thought you would want it delivered as soon as possible because I assumed you would sway--"

"As you can see, I swayed the argument to my side. Now get a hold of yourself, man. He was my friend and my student, and what had to be done was done. We cannot go back, so stop acting like a schoolchild. Get his body removed and don't get any more blood on my Persian rug than is already there."

"Yes, Herr Von Heinemann."

"The archaeological site?" he asked.

"Yes?"

"Destroy it. Leave no trace Peter was ever there."

"And the warehouse full of artifacts?"

The older man looked him in the eye. "They cannot remain in Austria. Contact Joseph Krueger in America. Tell him we are sending crated material for study at a highly secured location. I will have copies made of the material I need, so the originals can stay with the rest of the scrolls. Now, since the main component that the diagram scrolls call for will be missing, have you started a search for the crystals needed to replace them?"

"Yes, but we may also have diamond replacements from Rhodesia."

"Excellent. Now please remove Peter's body, he will be a deterrent to my lunch. And make arrangements for my passage to the island within the day, fastest possible route."

"Yes, I understand," the manservant answered. He started to turn away and then stopped, hesitating to give this cold-blooded man another reason for showing his infamous temper.

"Do you have something to add?"

"Before your meeting this morning, Professor Rothman imparted to me a parcel he wanted placed into the morning's outgoing post."

"Yes?" Von Heinemann asked, becoming agitated.

"It's just that he mentioned it was from the site in Spain, and very valuable."

The color drained from the industrialist's face. Then he sniffed. "Unless it was the size of the Key, it has no value to our design and is of no concern to us." He turned away from the servant to watch the activities of the gardeners. "But, out of curiosity, where was this package being sent?"

"Boston, Massachusetts."

Von Heinemann swiveled back to face his assistant. "America." It was not a question but a statement. His gaze was that of a man deep in thought. Then he waved the manservant away.

Karl Von Heinemann watched as the German struggled with the weight of the dead professor as he handled the body carefully through the ornate library doors. Von Heinemann wasn't in the least bit saddened by the fact that he had killed for what he believed would be the alteration of world power. The situation dictated harshness. He could never allow the fools outside the Juliai to know that at least one of the old tales was fact.

Karl stood and made his way to the large world map hanging in a magnificent gilded frame on the wall. He placed his hands behind his back, then rocked on his heels and back again. He couldn't help but wonder if the parcel Peter had sent to the United States happened to be the source of where the Atlantean Keys were buried. Then he shook his head to clear it of his paranoia as his eyes fell on the lone red-topped pin stuck in the map by a small group of Pacific islands where his and the Coalition's work would take place in the coming years. He smiled at the name indicated, a small island known only for its export of pepper seeds in the East Java Sea.

He spoke the name written in English on the world map, letting it roll off his tongue repeatedly until he thought he had the pronunciation correct: "Krakatau."

In just eight short years, in 1883, the island's name would be synonymous with complete and utter destruction to any person saying it: Krakatoa.

Lieutenant JG Charles Keeler knew that the men standing in front of him were not the real menace. The antagonist, or the real bad guy, as the movie serials would say, was in the chair in the far corner, bathed in shadow. The man had not moved since he had been brought into the small store in downtown Oahu. The tape holding his mouth closed was making him sweat even more than were the serious-looking men before him. It was as if he could not breathe adequately through his nose to maintain his hold on consciousness.

He heard the man in the shadows clear his throat. In the dimly lit room the young lieutenant couldn't see the nod of the man's head toward one of the brutes standing in front of him. Then one of the men reached out and pulled the tape from his mouth. The pain was sudden but was something the lieutenant could handle. He had expected it. He did his best to give the giant of a man the appropriate glare of rage. The brute only smiled and nodded, as if he understood.

"Your father, he sent you a package three weeks ago, yes?"

The naval officer tried his best to penetrate the shadow where the voice had escaped. He shook his head and tried to clear it. The chloroform used to subdue him earlier was still clouding his mind, but not as much as these men might have believed. He knew he had to fight for time to understand what this was all about.

"I will inquire only once more. Your father sent you a package three weeks ago, yes?"

The man in the shadows crossed his legs, the only part of him to emerge from the darkness since the lieutenant had regained consciousness. The young man wanted to smile. The mysterious man was actually wearing spats on his shoes. Who wore spats anymore? He cleared his throat instead of allowing the smile to cross his face.

"My father lives in Boston.... I ... I haven't received anything from him in five months."

Silence.

The man who had ripped the tape from his mouth took two steps behind the chair, and without warning a flare of excruciating pain shot from the ring finger of his right hand to his elbow.

The young lieutenant let out a scream. Then, as he managed to open his eyes, he saw that the large man was holding something up for him to see. It was his finger, and on the finger was his Annapolis ring, class of 1938. The ring was removed, the finger thrown unceremoniously into his lap. The man who had so deftly cut his finger off placed the ring on the little finger of his own left hand, then he held it up to the dim overhead light and admired it.

"Now, Lieutenant, I will go through the bother of asking again. Your father sent you a package three weeks ago. Yes?"

"My father and I don't speak."

"Yes, we know the family history, young man. He was not too pleased with your choice of careers. Nonetheless, he entrusted to you a package. Now, are going to confirm to us you received this package?"

Keeler lowered his face to stare at the bare concrete floor. He heard the honking of horns and curses of servicemen as they passed on the street above. How he wished he were among them right at this moment.

"Mr. Weiss, please remove his thumb. That should effectively end Mr. Keeler's naval career."

The white class-A navy uniform jacket seemed to close around him like an anaconda. It grew tighter as the large man moved toward him.

"Yes ... Yes! He sent the package to me!"

"There, that wasn't at all difficult, now was it, Lieutenant."

The boy lowered his chin to his chest. He had failed his father and the family once again.

He heard the man stand up and then finally step from the dark shadow in the corner.

The man was small. He wore a dark suit with very expensive lines. His dark, oiled hair was impeccably combed straight back with the part slightly left of center.

"If it will ease your mind, Lieutenant, your father will never learn of your failure here tonight. He is dead. Your younger brother would have joined him for his journey, but he was off at school. His death will wait."

He heard the words said in their German accent, but they failed to hit home for a moment. He looked up at the approaching man and narrowed his eyes to mere slits, forcing away his tears of frustration and physical pain.

"What?"

The small man stopped and looked down at him, his features very serious. "I said he is dead. Tortured until he admitted sending to you the item we have sought for sixty years."

"What ... what are you talking about--what item?" the boy hissed.

"Oh, that's right, you were a wayward boy and not privy to certain aspects of your father's more ... secretive activities. However, that is unimportant. What he has sent to you will be in our hands momentarily, and his death will be but a footnote in the history books."

The man walked over, poured a glass of water, then turned to his captive. The boy looked at the clear glass and tried to swallow. He was thirsty, had been since he had been snatched off the street hours before. The small well-dressed man nodded to the two thugs, and then he felt his hands being untied; but instead of relief at his sudden freedom another bolt of pain shot through his hand as blood rushed to the open wound. He pulled his arm forward and clutched his hand.

"Mr. Krueger, assist the lieutenant."

His right hand was roughly pulled away from his body and a white cloth was wrapped around the stub where his ring finger had been.

"There you go. Now drink this." The water glass was held out before him and he took it and swallowed the cool liquid in three large gulps.

"Now, one more question and Mr. Wagoner and Mr. Krueger will show you to the door, Lieutenant. Where is the package that contains the bronze plate map? It has hieroglyphs you most assuredly could not understand."

Keeler knew he was a dead man. However, he did know something that was going to give him one last defiant punch. His father had trusted him far more than people knew.

"It's in a safe aboard my ship." The boy smiled, this time wide and knowing. Then he grew serious and looked at the small man. "I don't know about fashion in Hitler-land, pal, but no one wears spats anymore--kraut!"

"One more time, you grinning fool: where is the plate map?"

"Somewhere you'll never get to it," the boy said, his smile growing.

The small man nodded and the lieutenant was pulled to his feet.

"You'll take us to the harbor and point out which vessel it is, and then we'll see if the map is out of our reach."

"Fuck off, Nazi. I'm not telling you a damn thing."

"Young man, this may surprise you, but I am not in the employ of the Nazi regime. I am German, as you know. However, nationality has nothing to do with us. Our goals, while similar to Herr Hitler's, are far grander."

"To me, you're just one step removed from my father; you both share the arrogance of class."

The man smiled and then looked as if he had decided something.

"My organization has many members, the likes of which may even be high up in your own government. Even your father's people share some of our ancient ideologies. To compare Hitler to us or even to your father's people? My dear boy, don't make me laugh." He leaned closer to the American. "Without us, that fool in Berlin would never have made it to power." He straightened. "I am through being gentle. What ship?"

This time the large man enthusiastically went to work on Keeler.

An hour later, a large car pulled into a secluded area across from Ford Island inside Pearl Harbor Naval Base.

There were two ships anchored at the end of the very long line of warships at battleship row. A smaller vessel was silhouetted in the starlight next to a second, much larger ship, whose graceful lines and majestic towers silhouetted against the setting moon made her glimmer in the darkness.

Krueger examined several photos of American warships. "Is that it?" he asked.

"No, that's the repair ship, Vestal. The vessel we seek is the larger one to her starboard beam," said the man known as Weiss.

"That foolish American attorney was far wiser than we anticipated, sending the plate map here to his wayward son, and then that smart bastard placing it in his captain's custody, very resourceful indeed."

The German closed his eyes for a second and then opened them and looked into the harbor. He was looking at one of the most famous ships in the world, many times serving as the flagship of the Pacific Fleet. He continued to watch as more laughing and joking American sailors rounded her stern in a whaleboat to board after a night of drinking. His jaw muscles clenched as the last words of the American naval officer echoed in his head:

"It was sent to me, but I was directed to give it to my captain, so good luck getting to it, asshole," the tough American lieutenant had said through his toothless and bloody mouth, and the words had mocked the German to no end, "because it's in the captain's safe."

The small man angrily looked at his watch. It was close to four thirty in the morning; the date was now December 7, 1941. As he looked up at the large ship with her graceful lines, he knew he had a difficult job ahead of him in order to recover the plate map, which described the hiding place of the control Key to the weapon.

He had to find a way to board that ship and get what was in the captain's safe. He watched the drunken sailors laughing and talking loudly that Sunday morning, their voices bouncing lazily along the quiet harbor over the one-mile distance.

As he watched the sailors, he hit on a plan to board the USS Arizona. The sun had been up for two hours, and it took the three men every bit of those frustrating hours to secure a uniform with the correct rank. The German-born ex-commando Krueger was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant and had successfully boarded a whaleboat that was making its rounds of battleship row. Krueger disembarked with the Arizona crew.

"Hey, Lieutenant!"

The German froze just three steps onto the teak deck of the Arizona.

"Forget something?"

The German felt the weight of the Luger tucked into his pants and under his tunic, and with a deep breath he turned to the man who had spoken.

The officer of the deck was eyeing him, hands on his hips. The German knew that he had somehow erred as he was looking at a lieutenant junior grade, a full rank below his own stolen status. He looked around as other sailors clambered up the gangway. He watched as they saluted toward the back of the great ship and then turned and saluted the officer of the deck. Krueger quickly deduced where he had gone wrong.

He swallowed and with a determined stagger, feigning drunkenness, turned to the stern of Arizona and sloppily saluted the flag, then turned to the officer of the deck and saluted him.

The salute was returned.

"Now I advise you to get below, sir, before someone that outranks us both sees your condition." The officer looked at his watch. "Ten minutes until reveille, Lieutenant. I'd move it if I were you."

Krueger looked at his watch as if he cared and saw that it was ten minutes until eight. Then he nodded and ducked into the nearest hatchway.

The officer of the deck didn't think it strange that he hadn't recognized the drunken lieutenant; after all, he had been onboard for only a week before he'd drawn OD duty. Still, he turned and looked after the figure as he disappeared.

Krueger had asked two passing sailors the way to officer's country. After looking at him strangely, they sent him in the right direction. When he found the right deck and the right cabin, he was not shocked to see a U.S. Marine guard standing at parade rest to the right of the door. He swallowed and made his way forward just as the bugle sounded for reveille up on deck. He walked toward the marine, who chanced a look down at his watch and didn't see the German reach for his Luger.

"Silence will see you through this morning, Corporal. Now, hands away from your weapon, please."

"Listen, mac, this ain't too goddamn funny. The captain's liable to--"

"Open the door, please."

"Isn't happening, lieutenant. Now quit being a wise guy and put that German peashooter away before you get us both in hot water."

Krueger had had enough. He reached out and slammed the Luger into the corporal's head, and before the stunned marine could fall he reached out, twisted the knob, and let the door fly open, using the weight of the slumping man.

As he stepped over the fallen marine, he was stunned to see the occupant of the cabin sitting at his small desk, fully dressed. What was worse was the fact that he had a Colt .45 pointed right at his chest.

The German slowly brought up his weapon, but the captain of the Arizona raised an eyebrow, indicating that it would be the last move he would ever make.

"You knew?"

The man sitting at the desk in his sparkling white uniform waved the German farther into the cabin, his eyes moving only when the young marine moaned on the floor. Then his eyes darted back to the intruder.

"Franklin Van Valkenburg, Captain, BB-39, USS Arizona. That package was addressed to me, and the boy's father used his son to deliver it."

"You're one of them?"

"Where is young Lieutenant Keeler?"

The German said nothing.

"I assume you killed him."

Still the German commando said nothing. Van Valkenburg cocked the .45.

"If I may explain, Captain?" the German stammered.

"No need. Your group tracked the plate map to Massachusetts and then through the torture of the boy's father you traced the package to this very ship."

"You must let me--"

"Explain? Let me take a stab at it to see if my brothers and sisters have informed me correctly. You are about to say you're here to make sure Herr Hitler and his cronies don't get the plate map and then the Atlantean Key. That your Coalition is pulling out of this mess started by the man you placed into power." Van Valkenburg smiled. "Am I warm?"

The large commando allowed his jaw to fall open.

"Who are you?"

Van Valkenburg smiled.

He tapped the chart and maps on the table with his free hand. "I have a passion for old maps and such. It took me a long while to figure out the plate map and its extraordinary features. It is far beyond any technology we have today." Again he smiled. "I have the very location of the Key your people are seeking and my former associates are trying to hide, right here on this map and chart. Navigation and maps are my hobby and I just couldn't resist. Too bad; you could have delivered this on a silver platter to your masters."

Suddenly loud sirens started to wail across the harbor and the ship came to life with battle stations called over the loudspeakers. The battleship was rocked violently just as the German commando brought up his weapon. Captain Van Valkenburg was faster and steadier. His shot caught the man squarely between the eyes and he fell across the marine guard. Just as he fired, the captain heard loud explosions out in the bay. Then, without warning, the Arizona was rocked by an explosion.

The captain quickly pulled the map and charts from his desk and made his way to the bulkhead. He folded them and placed them in a waterproof case, then quickly dialed the combination and opened his personal safe. He made sure the oilcloth wrapping the plate map was secure before he placed the map case in beside it. He was sorely tempted to remove it and keep it on his person and then tear to pieces his map and charts of Ethiopia, but decided against it. He quickly closed the thick steel door and then made his way up to the bridge.

Ten minutes later, a group of high-altitude Nakajima "Kate" bombers made their way over Pearl Harbor. The Japanese pilots had been practicing for months on silhouettes of ships just like the Arizona. By the time Van Valkenburg made it to the bridge and started to give orders for the defense of his ship, several torpedoes had already struck her, along with three bombs. However, the killing blow came from a redesigned naval artillery shell. A 1,760-pound bomb made its way from the third "Kate" in line and traveled three thousand feet down. The bomb penetrated the deck just to the right of the number-two gun turret. The armor-piercing bomb traveled through several decks, finally lodging in the companionway just outside the Arizona's forward powder magazine.

The resulting detonation lifted the great ship's bow into the air, completely separating her teak deck from her armor. The internal explosion ripped through her as if she were made of tin, taking nearly her entire compliment of crew with her in a death that would rock the world and incite American passions for years to come.

Captain Van Valkenburg never made it back to his cabin and the safe that contained the whereabouts of the Key. He died on the bridge of his ship, knowing that the secret of the Ancients would go down with the Arizona. Of the 1,177 men of the great warship, fewer than 200 survived, and not one of them knew of the great secret taken with her to the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

The Brit and the American, wearing the uniforms of Waffen-SS colonels, waited beside a bombed out building three hundred yards away from the German chancellery. The artillery barrage was relentless. The Russian army had just closed the circle of death that very morning. Berlin was now surrounded by the whole of the Red Army, and the order of the day was to smash the German capital until no stone stood upright.

"Maybe Moeller and Ivan got the hell blown out of them," said the American as he ducked back behind a wall of fallen masonry just as a shell burst in the road a hundred yards away.

"We'll know in about thirty seconds. The barrage should lift to our right. That's when they should show," the Londoner said as he looked at his wristwatch.

"This is a lot of risk just to deliver a message to a dead man, if you ask me."

The Englishman smirked as he looked from his watch to Harold Tomlinson, his American counterpart in this madness. "Ours is not to wonder why ..."

"Don't hand me that 'do or die' crap. Our part in this little war ended when we pulled out in 1941."

Suddenly the shelling lessened enough that they heard the sound of a motorcycle winding its way toward them.

"Right on time. Bloody amazing coordination if I do say so myself," Gregory Smythe said as he spied the motorcycle with a sidecar attached approaching them erratically.

As the driver and rider stopped and ran for cover, the artillery barrage started up again, shattering buildings and tearing into the last of the German home guard.

"Someday I hope someone explains to us how the Coalition Council pulled off this little stunt," the American said as he hurriedly waved the Russian and German to the protective side of the broken wall.

"Friends in high places, I imagine, even in the Soviet army," Paul Moeller said as he slumped against the wall. "But that didn't stop those German children and old men from shooting at us."

"Viktor Dolyevski, when we enter the bunker, may I suggest that you not utter a word. I think even the slightest Russian accent may set these fools off. Our masters may think we are expendable, but I do not."

The big Russian just nodded at Smythe as he placed his black helmet on his head and slapped at some of the dust he had gathered on the ride through the lines.

"Well, gentlemen, this way to the chancellery," Smythe said as he gestured to his left.

The four counterfeit officers were led into the alcove 130 feet below the chancellery building. A sour smell permeated the inducted air and a mildewed presence hung in front of the men like an angry ghost.

A colonel who had a decidedly skeletal look about him had taken the wax-sealed envelope from Smythe and arched his brow, and then had quickly ordered the Coalition visitors to be disarmed. As they were unceremoniously searched and prodded by the overly large SS guards, the four men could hear the sound of drunken laughter coming from somewhere in the back of the cavernous bunker.

"What could have been, reduced to this," Smythe said sadly, as he looked around the sparsely appointed waiting room.

Before anyone could answer the Englishman's comment, the SS colonel returned and smartly clicked his polished heels together and half bowed. Behind him stood a short man in a gray, very plain uniform. He was hatless and his hair had been oiled so heavily that it shone brightly under the harsh bulbs hanging from the cement ceiling. Behind him was a skinny soul who had the face of a ferret. This man was of course recognizable not only to the visitors in the room but to most people the world over. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, was sneering at the men before him.

"I must know what it is you are here to see the fuhrer about," he demanded, looking from one face to the other. His eyes lingered upon the countenance of Dolyevski a moment longer than on the American, the Brit, or the German.

The smell of cologne was thick in the air and radiated from Goebbels, but it was the underlying smell of sweat and fear that was sickening above all else.

"We are not here to talk with the likes of you, Heir Minister, but must speak with that fool you call--"

The Englishman held a hand up to the American's face to silence him.

"Our business is with your fuhrer, no one else," Smythe said, shooting Tomlinson a withering look.

Goebbels looked at the American with disdain.

"This man will take you to him," he said as he stepped aside, the movement hampered by his clubfoot. "But make no mistake: your business here will change nothing."

The four representatives of the Coalition exchanged amused looks.

"My name is Boorman. Will you gentlemen follow me, please." He gestured for the men to follow him.

The two secretaries outside the single door looked as if it were a normal workday. They did not flinch when a woman located somewhere in the labyrinthe depths of the bunker screamed. Both secretaries looked up, not with smiles but with nods at Boorman.

"You may go right in. He is very pleased the representatives of the Coalition have arrived," said Traudle Junge, the younger of the two secretaries.

The American looked at the not-too-bad-looking woman for a moment and smiled. She just stared at him until he became self-conscious and followed the others.

Before Boorman had a chance to open the thick door, another woman opened it, hurried out, and smiled as she passed the five men. Her blond hair was perfectly coiffed and her makeup was impeccable.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," she said as she fluttered her thick lashes and moved off to confer with Hitler's secretaries. Eva Braun did not give the visitors so much as a curious second look.

The four men entered the antechamber of Hitler's personal quarters. They smelled fresh flowers and the ghostly remains of Ms. Braun's perfume as they stood rigidly before a man who was ghostly white and as frail as a man twenty years beyond his age.

"You gentlemen have five minutes to state your business. The furher has a defense meeting with his generals at that time," Boorman stated flatly.

Smythe almost laughed at the statement. He felt as if he had stepped into the antechamber of the Mad Hatter instead of the leader of the Third Reich.

Hitler was using his right hand to write something; he kept his left hand out of sight. The glasses he wore looked bent and out of shape. Finally, he looked up with medicinally dilated eyes, dead eyes, the eyes of the insane.

"Why would traitors to my reich show themselves here?" he asked quietly as he removed his glasses, but refused to look at the four men.

"The Coalition Council is aware of your plans to escape this bunker; we have also come into intelligence that you and your people plan to make for the Argentine coast. We are here to tell you that this thing will not happen."

Hitler closed his eyes and allowed his right hand to disappear under his desk to still the left hand and arm, which shook uncontrollably.

The German guest spoke up. "The Coalition has ordered that you remain here." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a large box, and placed it on Hitler's desk. "The contents of this box are far more lethal and will end this fiasco with more assurance than anything that quack doctor of yours may prescribe. Since you will not be taking your U-boat cruise to the Americas, you are to take your life within twenty-four hours of this meeting, or the Soviet army will take you as prisoner, a sentence that many in the Coalition insist upon anyway. Some believe these pills are too easy."

"You failed me in not ... not--"

"What the furher is trying to say is, if you had delivered upon your promise of the Atlantean Key and the bulk of the tectonic sciences, the reich would still be intact," Boorman said as he stood angrily.

Smythe ignored the man behind him.

"Herr Hitler, you failed the Coalition five years ago when you disobeyed your orders and attacked Poland, bringing about war with the western powers, thus ending the subtleties of the Coalition plan. Did you think this deed would deserve the reward of the Atlantean sciences? We will just wait for another opportunity; maybe one will arise a little west of Germany next time." Smythe lightly slid the box toward Hitler. "After all, we have all the time in the world. Now, it's either this," he tapped the box, "or you will take the risk of being placed on display in Red Square like the animal you are. It's your choice."

With those final words, the four men turned and left.

As the door closed behind the representatives of the Juliai Coalition, little did Adolph Hitler know that planning was already under way for another attempt to consolidate Juliai power and race policies throughout the world. Only this time the Coalition would eliminate the need for a host country altogether to achieve their aims, and soon an all-out attempt would be made to secure the final piece of their plans by having the weapon of the Ancients at its disposal.

The darkness Germany experienced in 1945 was nothing compared to the utter blackness that was about to set in almost seventy years later.

The red banner with the golden eagle minus the swastika would be unfurled in a new world.