The Atlantis Cipher

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rio sat brooding, a sweatbox of mystery, immorality, integrity, and dreams. The city was never still, always vibrant, the monolithic granite giant that watched over it rising straight from the water’s edge.

The team was secure, ensconced for the past few hours in a Santo Cristo — area safe house, surrounded by restaurants and cafés and burger bars. Heidi could see the incredibly blue bay from just one small area of the room. She took Bodie’s call, tried to hide her relief, and then explained the situation to the rest of the team. Cross took it with no response, his deep, experienced gaze weighing all options. Jemma narrowed her eyes, assessing the likelihood of Pantera’s story. Gunn listened silently, then started tapping away on his tablet, no doubt investigating the words “Bratva” and “Russian brothers.”

Heidi paced the room. “I’ve arranged a safe house for Pantera and his family. They won’t be comfortable, but they won’t be dead either.”

“The Bratva will not stop coming,” Cross said.

“I know that.”

Cross winced, also knowing something of the Pantera family history and why the man’s wife had taken out a court order on him. The truth was — Heidi knew also. It had formed an important part of her research when the man and his protégé came into the picture. Steph, his wife, discovered the length and breadth of his nefarious dealings. Fearing her son might follow a similar path, she had sought to save him by cutting all ties with Pantera.

But Heidi couldn’t concern herself with that now. Their Rio contacts had put the feelers out among the local informers and identified the gang who had attacked them. As expected, they were small fry but deadly, able to react with significant force. Heidi thought it best to simply melt away and hope they did the same.

“Time to wrap this up,” she said. “Plane’s ready.”

They called a car and met it on the street, ready for anything. Heidi found her mood buoyant, practically bouncing as she jumped into the passenger seat. At first, she couldn’t figure out why, and then she pushed the obvious answer to the side.

Don’t be an idiot.

In more ways than one. The situation at home was perilous already without adding another man to the story. It had only been a few days, but Heidi found herself picturing her daughter. The mood became mixed, the situation pulling her in many ways.

If I don’t do this, who will? Why should anyone? Then… then where would we be?

The words that passed unendingly through her mind. The words that broke her relationship. She was a woman who wanted to protect far more than she was physically or mentally capable of doing.

I am a CIA agent, torn between my family and a career.

The reminder didn’t help. By the time they arrived at the airport, her mood had deteriorated beyond sour to dire. She focused her mind on the job, on the components of their hunt for Atlantis. And, to her mind at least, that included a refresher course on the members of her diverse team.

Of the three members of Bodie’s crew with her, she found Sam Gunn the most interesting. This man possessed all the potential, all the capabilities, and a fascinating mix of fire and innocence. She knew about his youth growing up in foster homes and how hard it might have been, but that wasn’t the thing that made Gunn hard to judge and even harder to get close to. It was the combination of introvert and wannabe showman; the brains that came with no brawn, but had a hidden cache of courage. She felt herself wanting to mentor the nerd, train him, but knew she’d never be able to find the time.

As she watched him, he glanced over at her, offering up a shy smile. Then he smoothed back his gelled hair. Heidi grinned in return. Right there, just that, was the epitome of what Gunn was all about.

Cross, on the other hand, was set in his ways. And make no mistake — they were polished to perfection. But therein lay the biggest flaw for her. A man, and especially an experienced career thief, should be prepared to roll with everything and anything that presented itself during an operation. She understood that her requirements went against the grain of the team’s desires and that they were always looking for a way out, but she could see Cross being a casualty of his own accomplishments; she just hoped he wouldn’t become a casualty of war.

Jemma Blunt was the hardest to read of the entire misfit bunch. Heidi hadn’t found the time to scrutinize her past, but knew her strengths. Before now, she’d shown relatively few weaknesses, but there was always something. Always a button well hidden. Heidi thought Jemma’s was a lack of human social experience, something Cassidy was constantly trying to change with offers of days and nights out, but she never quite seemed to connect with the quieter woman.

Heidi found herself becoming more and more interested in the story of how this varied group had come together. That had to be some tale.

For now, though, she settled back to relax as the jet blasted through the skies toward DC. Within minutes her rest was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone.

“Now what? I was trying to sleep.”

“Agent Moneymaker?”

She came more awake. “Who’s this?”

“Lucie Boom. History expert.”

The English tones were clipped, almost military style. Heidi could imagine the girl standing at attention.

“Oh, hi. I didn’t expect to hear from you for a few more hours.” She thought about the time difference to DC, but the strain and weariness of the last few days was taking its toll. “What time is it there?”

“Eleven hundred hours.”

Heidi raised an eyebrow in amusement. The CIA primarily used military timing terms, but she couldn’t get used to a civilian using it. Already she could imagine how uncomfortably Lucie Boom would fit in with the relic hunter crew. “You mean eleven a.m.?” It was a gentle dig.

“That’s what I said, Agent Moneymaker.”

“Ah, right. Must have missed that. I’m guessing we’re an hour away from touchdown, Miss Boom. Can this wait until we reach the office?”

“Of course. I was merely checking in. I’ll be here when you arrive.”

The line went dead. Heidi stared at her screen for a moment before tapping her fingers against the phone’s surface.

Cross was watching her. “Trouble?”

Heidi grunted. “Could be. Too early to tell.”

“Was that the new history buff?” Gunn asked.

“Yes, Gunn. Were you listening to my conversation?”

“Umm, no. Just a wild guess.”

“Wild guess, huh? Well, let’s not judge until we get a face-to-face. How you doing with that internet crap?”

“If you mean the research I’m conducting into the Baal statues,” Gunn said with a sniff, “then relatively well, considering I’m not a historian. As you know, the nine statues are from the same era, the same place, the same… stable. What you don’t know is that there are quite a lot of inscriptions on them; some on the base and others around the head and one even up the left arm. Let’s hope it fits in somewhere, because all we have at the moment is some old guy called Plato placing Atlantis beyond the Pillars of Hercules in his works Timaeus and Critias describing events that happened nine thousand years before his time. It has been said that Atlantis was a purposeful invention, a fictional embodiment of immense power that Athens then overcame, thus proving its all-encompassing superiority. Atlantis was actually inconsequential in Plato’s works, but many have picked up on Atlantis and personified it with legend and life. Others wonder where he might have gotten such a notion. His inspiration sometimes arose from old Egyptian records, accounts of the sea people and even the Trojan War, but there is no doubt he portrayed Atlantis as a grand land, full of kings and majesty and unfathomable power, rich not only in gold but in rolling green pastures and mighty mountains.” Gunn shrugged. “That’s how legends are born.”

“It’s what we want to believe,” Cross said.

“Definitely,” Gunn said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Or certain parts of it, at least.”

“You think they’ll look back on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as golden ages?” Jemma said wistfully. “Disco? The airplane? Game of Thrones?”

Heidi laughed and faced the front. “Whatever we do now,” she said, “we do for our own reasons. Often, we put advancement in front of family time, work before play. Who wins?” She whispered, “At the end of the day… with all that we do… do we really make a difference?”

“You have to believe that we do,” Bodie said. “Being the law enforcement officer.”

“Well, here’s a chance for all of us to help,” Heidi said. “Find Atlantis first. Discover all the good and bad it has to offer. Stop our enemies from using any of it against us. History might not thank a team of relic hunters and the CIA for finding it first, but it will make a difference to the public that we serve. The stakes are higher than any of us can imagine, because the riches we seek are unfathomable.”