Atlantis

Chapter 50

When Bishop Hadel placed the last crystal into place, Dane closed his eyes and shielded them with his hands. The surprised cries from the Dominion’s agents told him he’d guessed correctly.

He spun about and struck at the Dominion agent, who had been rendered temporarily blind by the brilliant light from the Revelation Machine. His fist connected solidly with the man’s chin. His legs turned to rubber and Dane kicked him in the temple on the way down. Beside him, Bones had eliminated his guard with ruthless efficiency, and now closed in in the agent who guarded Jade. She, too had understood Dane’s plan, and now grappled with the man for control of his AK-47.

Dane turned and made a dash for Robinson, who squinted against the bright light and looked around for a target on which to bring his weapon to bear. He reached Robinson, drove his shoulder into Robinson’s chest, and knocked his rifle barrel upward just as the man squeezed the trigger, sending bullets ricocheting through the chamber.

Like a football player hitting the blocking sled, Dane drove the larger man backward. Surprised, Robinson lost his grip on his rifle, stumbled backward, and hit the rail. For a moment, he struggled to regain his balance, but Dane drove a sidekick into Robinson’s chest, sending him toppling backward.

Robinson’s head struck the nearest crystal and a blue aura engulfed him. His body jerked, his mouth twisted in a silent scream of anguish. His hair blackened and crumbled to dust in an instant. Even after the burst of energy ceased, Robinson continued to thrash about like a fish on dry land.

Slowly, the crystals dimmed, flickered, and died. It felt like an eternity, but Dane knew the phenomenon couldn’t have lasted much more than ten seconds. He looked around and saw Bones hauling a whimpering Bishop Hadel to his feet. Jade hurried to him and crushed him in a tight embrace.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He gently extracted himself from her arms. “You okay, Bones?”

“Hell yes. I almost fell asleep waiting for you to decide what to do.”

Dane recovered their weapons from the fallen Dominion operatives and assessed the situation. The men who had guarded Bones and Jade lay dead, while the man Dane had taken out wobbled on hands and knees as he slowly regained consciousness. Dane gave him another kick to the head and then bound him with his own belt.

Still holding on to Hadel, Bones glanced up at the ceiling, where the blast had carved a perfect circle where the apex of the temple had been moments earlier. “I saw you looking up there. What did you see?”

“Orion.” Dane pointed at the remaining crystals. “Most of it’s gone, but you can still see his bow. His belt lay centered at the top of the ceiling and the crystals were pointed right at it. It just didn’t seem like a weapon to me. With all we’ve seen, the connections to Orion, I just had a feeling.”

“You think Hadel just sent a signal to the aliens?” Bones asked. “I should have thought of that myself.”

“I don’t know. If we assume the Atlanteans came from a planet orbiting a star in Orion, he picked the wrong time of day. Orion won’t be overhead for several hours yet.”

“But signals sent into space will diffuse over great distances,” Jade said. “They might get the message someday.”

Hadel, who stood stock-still next to Bones, his nose still dripping blood, slumped to the ground. “No,” he whispered.

“Seriously, dude? You kill thousands of people and don’t bat an eye, but make one little call to E.T. and you lose it?”

“You don’t understand what will happen if the people find out…”

“Find out what? The truth?” Dane said. “People are resilient. How about putting a little faith in them instead of in your twisted version of God?”

“People are sheep. They must be shown the way, else they stray into peril.”

“After all the people you’ve killed, you’re going to talk about keeping them from peril?” Dane clenched his fists and, with a supreme effort of will, stopped himself from decking the man.

“Better a temporal death than an eternal one.” The madness now receded from Hadel’s eyes. Now a crafty grin spread across his face as he rose to his feet. “Besides, I have killed no one.”

“Neither did Hitler,” Dane retorted, “but you’re responsible for every killing done by your minions. For Sofia Perez, for the people of Norfolk and Key West, and all the others.”

“Key West?” Hadel forced a laugh. “A modern day Sodom. I was proud to give the order.”

“I’d watch what I say about Sodom,” Bones cautioned, “considering where you’re headed. We work for the government now, and I can guarantee you our boss will find you an affectionate cellmate to comfort you in your declining years.”

Hadel blanched. “You’ll never get a conviction. The government can’t hope to match the attorneys I have at my disposal.”

“Who says you’ll be going to trial?”

Dane turned to see Tam, in rappelling gear, lowering herself to the floor. A few seconds later, Willis and Greg followed.

“Where’s Matt?” Dane asked.

“Watching our backs with Professor. They weren’t happy about it but I couldn’t trust nerd boy to do it by himself.”

“What do you mean I won’t be going to trial?” Hadel demanded.

“Shush!” Tam held up a finger, silencing him. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the chamber. “Lord Jesus. So this is it.”

“This is just a tiny bit of it,” Jade said. “There’s a library, a crypt, and all sorts of chambers. Lots of Atlantean instruments and devices, too.”

“It would take years, maybe even decades, to glean all the knowledge from this place,” Dane said. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“We’ve had this conversation before, Maddock, and my opinion hasn’t changed any more than yours has. Technology can be dangerous, but I’d rather have it in our hands than in those of an enemy.” Tam paused. “Where’s Sofia?”

Dane tried to answer, but his mouth was sandpaper and emotion held his throat in a chokehold. He felt Jade’s hand on his shoulder.

“The Dominion got her.” Bones voice was as tight as his fists, which he clenched so hard that his arms trembled.

“Damn.” Tam put her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and composed herself.

And then she whirled and drove her fist into Hadel’s gut. His breath left him in a rush and he slumped over. Tam grabbed a handful of his unkempt hair, kicked his feet out from under him, leaned down, and whispered in his ear. “I’ll tell you why you won’t be getting a trial any time soon, if ever. First of all, I don’t plan on letting anyone know we’ve got you. We’ll let them thing you’re dead while you rot away in Guantanamo Bay. And then we’ll label you an enemy combatant.”

“It won’t stick.” Hadel grunted. “I’m a citizen. I have rights.”

“That’s okay, sweetie. By then, I’ll have taken my pound of flesh and squeezed every last secret out of you. The Dominion will be dead. Broken. Have fun using a public defender to fight charges of high treason, murder, and whatever else we can think of throwing at you.”

“You have to let me go. You have no choice.”

“I don’t think so.” Tam yanked Hadel to his feet. “Greg, bind this fool. And don’t be gentle.”

Greg pulled out a pair of cable ties and grabbed Hadel by the wrist.

“Do you think I would let my plan, my purpose, die without me? If, at any point, twenty four hours pass without my people hearing from me, or if they learn I have been captured, the failsafe is activated. One city every forty-eight hours. Can you let that happen?” Hadel winced as Greg yanked his arms behind his back and bound his wrists.

“We’ll stop you.” Only a slight twitch in her cheek belied Tam’s resolve.

“How? You don’t know where the next attack will be, and the Atlantean weapon can be hidden on any boat. You can’t guard every inch of the American coastline. Then again, perhaps your hubris is so great that you believe exactly that.”

Dane thought Tam might punch Hadel again, but she smiled instead. “You’re going to tell me where the next attack will take place.”

“You are an arrogant little girl.” Hadel had regained some of his bluster, if not his self-assurance.

“Or you will tell Bonebrake.” Tam turned to Bones. “You and Willis take our guest somewhere out of sight of us witnesses and teach him some of your traditional interrogation techniques.”

“What?” Hadel gasped.

“Can I just scalp him?” Bones drew his Recon knife and licked the blade.

“If that don’t work, I got some tricks I can show you.” Willis bared his teeth and mimicked biting Hadel’s face.

“I don’t care,” Tam said. “Just make it slow and make it hurt. For Sofia.”

Bones and Greg hauled Hadel, who struggled and hurled racial epithets at them, into one of the passageways leading out of the chamber.

Dane watched them go, wishing he could feel good about this turn of events, but unable to put Sofia’s death out of his mind. “You do realize Bones doesn’t know any kind of Indian torture methods, unless you want him to wear Hadel down with juvenile banter.”

“I know that and you know that, but Hadel doesn’t know that.” Tam gave him a wink and then turned to Greg.

“As long as we’re waiting, I’d like to check out the alcove back there.” Jade pointed to the small room on the far side of the chamber.

In the other Atlantean temples, the small room was the adyton, a place exclusive to priests. Here, it served a very different purpose.

A tall, impossibly thin man with an elongated head lay perfectly preserved in a coffin of blue-tinted crystal. Jade gasped and Greg took a step back, but not Dane and Tam, who had seen something like this only months before.

“There’s another connection,” Dane said.

“I wonder who he was.” Jade moved in for a closer look.

Dane took in the sight. The man had long greenish-brown hair and beard, wore sea green robes and a silver crown inset with mother of pearl and topped by the largest shark’s teeth Dane had ever seen. His long, slender hands gripped a crystal tipped…

…trident.

“Poseidon.”

The name hung in the air while the others struggled to reconcile this alien being with the god out of Greek mythology. Tam finally broke the silence.

“You’re saying the Greek gods were real? Or, at least, this one was?”

“I’m saying I think this guy was the source of the Poseidon myth. He was important enough that his was the only body they preserved. I’ll bet he was the Atlantean ruler, which is why he’s represented in their temples, though in a form to which humans could relate. Think about it. The Atlanteans’ alien appearance and their advanced technology would have made them seem godlike to primitive humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if other Atlantean leaders provided the inspiration for other ancient world myths, legends, and gods.”

Tam turned and hurried away. She stopped, dropped to one knee, and rested her hands on the rail that encircled the Revelation Machine. Her shoulders heaved and her head drooped.

“I’d better check on her.” Jade took a few steps toward her before Dane laid a hand on her shoulder.

“No, let me. I’ve spent more time than you coming to grips with this stuff.” He hurried to Tam’s side and knelt down beside her. When she didn’t tell him to leave, he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay.”

“How is it okay? Everything I’ve believed all my life isn’t true. Adam and Eve were aliens? All the miracle stories are just advanced technology from another world? What does that mean for the world if there’s no more power of God to believe in? If it’s all a lie?”

“Never underestimate the power of denial.” At Tam’s angry frown, he hurried on. “Seriously, though. Some might lose faith, and many didn’t believe in the first place, but others will hold on. Heck, in some cases, it might even make their faith stronger. These crystals, they’re miracles. The Atlanteans harnessed their power, but where did that power come from? And maybe the Atlanteans did intervene in human history, but that doesn’t explain where humans come from or where Atlanteans come from, for that matter.”

“It’s not enough. An awful lot of people need to believe in the power of God, and in spite of all that we’ve seen, I need to believe it.”

Dane hesitated. He’d lost his religion when his wife died, but honesty compelled him to go on. “You know Bones and I did some serious damage in Utah a few years back, but do you know what we found down there?”

Tam shook her head.

“It’s too long a story to tell you right now, but I promise you, it will restore your faith. Not only did we find treasures from out of the Old Testament, we experienced something that couldn’t be explained by crystals or advanced technology. It was miraculous.”

“I want to believe you,” Tam said.

“Ask Jade and Bones. We all saw it.”

“Ask me what?” Bones emerged from the hallway holding a pencil.

“Never you mind.” Tam composed herself in an instant and sprang to her feet. “What did you find out?”

“New York City. It’s hidden inside an Ellis Island tour boat.”

“How can you be sure he’s not lying?” Tam asked.

“Because, once he confessed, I cut the tips of his thumbs off just to make sure he kept his story straight.”

“You didn’t!” Jade gasped.

“Of course not, but he believed I would, so it amounted to the same thing. Besides, I don’t think he could have given so many specific details under duress. Willis hung back with him to do some fact checking, but I think we’ve got what we need to know.” He recounted the specifics of the Dominion’s plan, and Tam sent Greg back to the surface to report this new information.

“You think they’ll believe you this time?” Dane asked.

“Oh yes. Issuing that public ultimatum had to be the stupidest thing the Dominion has ever done. Hadel must have thought he had the Revelation Machine in the bag. When that announcement came out, a lot of people started taking me seriously. They’ll come down on those operatives in New York like a hard rain.”

They took a minute to fill Bones in on their final discovery and on Dane’s theory. Having long supported the theory that aliens intervened in the ancient world, Bones agreed with all of Dane’s conclusions and proclaimed himself vindicated.

“From now on, Maddock, no more calling my theories ‘crackpot,’ okay?”

“No promises, Bones.”

“What I want to know,” Jade piped up, “is how you got Hadel to confess in the first place.”

“Easy. I gave him time to get nervous and then I asked Willis for a pencil, a light, and some flammable liquid. I was just messing with Hadel’s head, figuring I’d let his imagination run wild before I tried something less exotic, but Willis actually had a pencil on him. He said he’s taken up Sudoku.”

“And?” Jade asked.

“I showed Hadel how a pencil can be used to stretch open any orifice.” He illustrated by placing the pencil between the corners of his mouth. “And then,” he said around the pencil before spitting it out onto the floor, “I pulled out my Zippo, bent Hadel over, and pulled down his…”

“Okay, I get the picture.” Jade covered her ears and turned away, but not fast enough to hide her smile.

“What happens now?” Dane asked Tam.

“We take the Bishop and any of the operatives you left alive into custody for enhanced interrogation.”

“They can have my pencil if they need it,” Bones offered.

Tam rolled her eyes. “Our embassy is already negotiating for us to have unfettered access to this area for research purposes. As soon as Greg reports in, we’ll have men on the way to secure the site, just to be safe. That blast will have drawn attention. Right now, I imagine scientists all over the world are trying to figure out what in the hell happened. We need to clean this place out before there’s an international incident.”

“So there’s no way we could keep it a secret even if we wanted to,” Dane said.

Tam shook her head.

“Like it or not, you’ve changed the world, boys. Let’s just hope it’s for the better.”