The Atlantis Code

CHAPTER 15

Father Emil Sebastian roused when he heard his name called. When he looked up from the cot where he slept, he saw a hooded figure looming over him. Panic nearly throttled him because the figure reminded him of the nightmares he’d had for the past few weeks since his descent into the underground.

Then the figure adjusted the flame inside the lantern he carried.

Demons wouldn’t need a lantern, Sebastian thought. His fear subsided. How could he have thought such a thing?

If he hadn’t already been seeing disturbing images when he slept, though, he might have blamed the horror movie some of the dig workers had watched on DVD last night. He hadn’t intended to join them, but he loved a good scary story. He’d been fond of the genre since he was a kid — it was a childhood thrill he couldn’t put away in spite of his fifty-six years.

“Are you awake, Father?” the young man asked politely. The lantern revealed his features then. They were angelic, not demonic. His voice was almost too soft to be heard over the constant throb of the diesel generators that supplied the base camp with electricity.

“I’m awake, Matteo.” Sebastian fumbled on the tent floor beside his bed and found his glasses and watch. It was 3:42.

A.M.

“Has something happened?”

There had been three cave-ins so far, but—thank God! — none of them had yet proved fatal. Four men had gone to the hospital with broken bones, though.

“Nothing bad, Father,” Matteo said. “What’s happened is good. Come see.”

“Help me find my shoes.” In the darkness and with his night vision so impaired, Sebastian had trouble finding things. Worse yet, he couldn’t actually remember where he’d taken his shoes off.

Matteo played the lantern around and pointed to the father’s feet.

“You’re still wearing them, Father,” the young man said.

“Ah, so I am.”

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Matteo told him. “You’ll get fungus.”

Sebastian knew that from the countless warnings they’d been given before the advent into the cave system that had been revealed during the underwater quake that had dredged up the new shoreline from sixty feet of water. The cave system, after having been underwater for so long, remained a wet environment. Bacteria and fungus could grow rapidly.

During the first few months of the operation, they’d had to build retaining walls against the sea and pump the water from the caves. It remained that way for each new cave they opened. When Sebastian had gone to bed — or, to cot — the pump team had still been working on draining the cave they’d found two days ago.

Sebastian stood and stamped his feet to check the blood circulation. Sometimes when he slept in his shoes, his feet turned completely numb.

“You should at least change your socks,” Matteo said.

Grudgingly, Sebastian knew the boy was right. He sat back down, took a pair of fresh socks from the duffel near the bed, took off his shoes, and put them on. Then, grimacing with disgust, he put his shoes back on again.

“So why did you come for me, Matteo?” he asked as he stood once more.

“They’ve drained the cave. They think they’ve found another.”

“We expected there to be another cave.” In fact, they still expected a number of caves. whatever had sundered the original coastline had also wreaked havoc with the catacombs that had undermined the ancient city.

Surrounded by the sea as it had been nine or ten thousand years ago, the original builders had taken steps to compartmentalize the catacombs. If one area flooded, they could shut down the next.

“Yes, but not like this.”

Sebastian clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Then let’s go see what they’ve found.” He stepped through the tent flap, but paused long enough to pick up his rechargeable flashlight from the charging plate. He didn’t relish the idea of getting lost in the dark, twisting maze of the cave system.

Outside the cave, three of the Swiss Guard assigned to the excavation team stood at attention. They wore casual clothing suited for the chill of the caves and spelunking, and pistols.

Sebastian had protested the presence of the weapons, but he hadn’t been able to convince their captain to relinquish them. So far there hadn’t been any incidents where they’d proved necessary, but the guard didn’t accept the idea that that meant there wouldn’t be such incidents eventually. The men were well trained and polite, but they remained ever watchful.

The base camp area smelled of diesel and salt water. The tang of dead fish remained as well. When the sea had given up the coastline and revealed its secret, and when the caves had been pumped dry, sea creatures had been marooned. They’d died by the hundreds and their rotting corpses had to be evacuated.

He’d been told the offal apparently made good fertilizer. At any rate, it disappeared from the camp.

As they passed the food tent, Sebastian stepped inside momentarily to retrieve two bottles of water and a pastry. He admitted the pastry was a want, but he needed the water. No one was supposed to walk anywhere without water in case they became lost. That had happened a few times as men, drawn by their curiosity, had gone off exploring on their own.

They still hunted riches, Sebastian knew. All the stories of Atlantis had filled their heads with hopes of fabulous wealth.

For himself, Sebastian didn’t know what to think. He’d expected something. Instead, all they’d found so far were artifacts that carbon-dated back many thousands of years, proving them interesting in their own right, but nothing that really spoke of the civilization that had been there.

Much of the city had been lost. When the waves had drunk Atlantis down, the sea had purged the city. Torn asunder in the cataclysm — whether it was the fabulous towers shown in the illustrations Sebastian had seen, or if it were only huts — the city was shattered and spread across the sea bottom.

whatever remained of it was buried beneath thousands of years of accumulated silt. Unless the sea chose to give it up, it might not ever be found.

Sebastian slid the bottles of water into the pockets of the long coat he wore against the chill of the cave. He followed Matteo’s lead as they trailed along the yellow nylon rope that marked the path.

Strings of electric lights hung from the cave wall, but every time Sebastian left the base camp he was aware of entering the darkness waiting in the interior of the earth.

The strident ring of a cell phone woke Lourds amid a tangle of soft limbs and seductive curves. In the dim glow from the clock radio on the nightstand he saw the blond highlights of Leslie’s hair.

So it wasn’t a dream.

He smiled at that. He’d been so tired last night that he hadn’t been certain he didn’t just dream the encounter.

Gently, he disentangled one arm and reached for the phone.

“Is it mine?” Leslie asked in a soft voice.

Lourds looked. There were two cell phones on the nightstand.

“No,” he said. “It’s mine.”

“Good.” Leslie rolled off him and curled up in the blankets.

As he punched the TALK button and brought the phone to his ear, Lourds admired the smooth expanse of her back and the supple curve of her naked derriere.

“Lourds,” he answered.

“Thomas?” The woman on the other end of the connection sounded panicked.

Lourds focused immediately. He knew the voice, but he couldn’t remember who it—

“This is Donna Bergstrom. Professor Marcus Bergstrom’s wife.”

“Yes, Donna.” Professor Bergstrom also taught at Harvard. He was in the paleontology department. His wife was a professor of economics. Since he was a neighbor as well, Bergstrom watched over Lourds’s house whenever he was out of the city. They often had cookouts and invited Lourds over.

“Something terrible has happened. Marcus was shot.”

Lourds swung his legs over the bed and sat up. “How is he?”

“He just got out of surgery a few hours ago. The doctor says he’s going to be fine. He’s strong and he’s a fighter.”

“He is that,” Lourds agreed. Bergstrom played soccer as well. “What happened? Was he mugged?”

“The police say it was a home invasion,” Donna said.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Lourds felt Leslie shifting behind him. He glanced at her and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed with a sheet around her hips. “Did they do anything to your house?”

“It wasn’t our house,” Donna said. “It was yours. Marcus saw a gas van at your house. So he went to see what was going on.” The woman broke down in tears. “They shot him, Thomas. Shot him for no good reason at all.”

Lourds tried to placate the woman, but the whole time he felt certain that his friend hadn’t gotten hurt for no reason at all. Lourds had inadvertently left them in harm’s way. The guilt was almost overwhelming.

Seated in the passenger seat of the corporate helicopter, Patrizio Gallardo peered down at the Radisson SAS Hotel.

“Ready?” the pilot asked over the headset.

“Ready,” Gallardo responded. He glanced over his shoulder at the eight men in the passenger area. All of them were dressed in black suits that covered the silenced pistols they carried. Briefcases carried spare magazines.

DiBenedetto sat smoking despite the pilot’s desire for him not to. His blue eyes burned bright with the drug coursing through his system. Farok sat calm and resolute with his hands between his knees. Pietro and Cimino looked a little tense. Getting into and out of the hotel wasn’t going to be easy.

The helicopter swooped down to the hotel rooftop and hovered only inches above. Gallardo opened the passenger door while DiBenedetto and Farok opened both side cargo doors. The nine men, with Gallardo in the lead, dropped to the rooftop and streaked for the rooftop access.

Cimino used a shaped charge that didn’t sound any louder than a firecracker to blow the lock on the door. By the time the helicopter had cleared, they were inside the building and headed down to the seventh floor.

Lourds would never know what hit him.

Murani stared at the book he held. It represented both promise and condemnation. It was the only book outside the Bible that he knew truly did that.

Oversized and leather-bound, the book was an illustrated manuscript with obscure origins. It was written in Latin, and he believed it had been written in Rome at the height of the empire. After Rome fell, however, and the Germanic tribes rode through her walls and into her streets, libraries had burned in their wake. Some of the books had been taken out to the Netherlands, where they were copied by the Irish monks and kept alive.

Murani wanted to believe the copy he had was the original. He didn’t like the idea that other copies might exist in the world. Once a secret spread, it was hard to control.

He sat at one of the antique tables deep in the stacks and breathed in the aroma of dust, old paper, and leather. He could still remember the excitement he’d felt when he’d first been permitted entrance into the room after becoming a member of the Society of Quirinus.

The library shelves were piled high with books. The saddest realization he’d ever come to was knowing that he’d never be able to read them all.

At least, not in this life.

He still had hopes for the next.

The trick, then, had become to read the best ones. He’d started out reading some of those the other society members had recommended. There were so many secrets to choose from, so many things the Church struggled to keep secret from the rest of the world.

And the Society of Quirinus wanted to keep them secret from everyone.

In the end, though, Atlantis had called out to Murani. That, in his own estimation, was the biggest secret God and a few men had ever kept from the rest of the world.

When he’d first been told of the Secret Texts and the story that went with them — of the Garden of Eden and what had truly transpired there — he hadn’t accepted it. Then, when he had, he’d wanted to know for sure that everything happened exactly as he’d been told.

He stared at the page that showed the five instruments.

The bell.

The flute The cymbal.

The drum.

The pipe.

They were the five instruments that could unlock the secrets waiting within Atlantis. Exactly how they were supposed to do that he still wasn’t certain.

But he had two of the instruments. The Society of Quirinus didn’t know that.

Murani smiled there in the quiet darkness of the library. If they had known he possessed them, they would have been frightened.

All that power, the power to remake the world, and it was nearly at Murani’s fingertips. He traced the images on the page.

As part of the restricted collection the book was never allowed to leave the library. So he’d had to hide it in plain sight. The library caretakers were dogged about no books leaving the library, but weren’t fastidious in keeping everything in order.

There was simply too much to keep proper track of if those who borrowed the books weren’t exemplary in their upkeep of the system as well.

So the book had remained Murani’s secret for four long years while he had searched for the instruments. Then the bell had shown up in Alexandria.

When that had happened, Murani took it as a sign. Afterwards, when the cymbal had come to light in Russia, he began to feel more hopeful.

“Cardinal.”

Unaware that anyone else was nearby, Murani looked up.

The old librarian was stooped with age. His gray whiskers stuck out in all directions. He walked with a cane.

“Good evening, Beppe,” Murani said politely, then hoped that the old man would simply go away.

“Good morning is more like it,” Beppe replied.

“Then good morning.”

“What happened to your face?” Beppe touched his own.

Murani wasn’t surprised that Beppe hadn’t heard the story of the carjacking that had claimed Antonio Fenoglio’s life. The older librarians and caretakers rarely went anywhere outside the areas they supervised.

“I was in an automobile accident,” Murani answered. His face was still livid with purple and green bruises that were only now starting to yellow with age.

“That’s why I never ride in those things,” Beppe said. “I’ll leave you to your reading. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Books that need mending and tending.” He shuffled off.

Murani returned to the wonder and the promise of the book. Sure everything would be revealed soon. Then he could set out on the mission God had chosen him to undertake.

“Father Sebastian.” Ignazio D’Azeglio, the night foreman on the dig, stepped forward and greeted the priest. He was a well-built man in his forties who was going gray at the temples and in his goatee. He had dark, swarthy Mediterranean skin, laugh lines, a broad nose, and honest eyes. “I hope you can forgive me for sending for you.”

“Matteo tells me you think you’re about to break through into another chamber,” Sebastian said.

D’Azeglio nodded and handed Sebastian a yellow hard hat. “We are. I’ve sent for Dario as well.”

Dario Brancati was the construction head of the excavation team. He’d worked on archeological digs in the Middle East and in Europe.

D’Azeglio grinned. “He hasn’t yet arrived. I don’t think he’s as easy to wake as you are, Father.”

“Dario works much harder than I do.”

“No one works harder than you.” D’Azeglio shook his head. “I think you’ve spent more time in a hard hat than anyone here.”

“Only because I’m not governed by the work guidelines your people are.”

“Come over here and let me show you what awaits us.” D’Azeglio led the way toward the wall where the team worked with drills and small loaders to shovel rock and debris out of the way.

Several dump trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes stood ready. All the earth that had been removed from the caves had been trucked out and used to build the bulwarks that kept the sea out.

The cavern was almost two hundred yards across and sixty or seventy yards high. Most of it lay in darkness. The farther they went into the interior, the harder it became to power all the lights. Until they could maintain proper ventilation, no one wanted to risk any more carbon monoxide buildup than there already was.

The catacombs had demonstrated the same circular compartmentalization that Plato had written about when describing the lost city. Sebastian didn’t know if it was a design to give the catacombs a certain appearance or if it had been done to stabilize the underground.

He also wasn’t certain if the underground had been constructed first or if the city had. But the city had been smashed almost beyond all recognition. Perhaps they’d find records down here, where so much more was still preserved.

D’Azeglio walked over to an area lit by floodlights and pointed. “We think another large chamber is behind that wall.”

Sebastian nodded. He’d already been briefed, but D’Azeglio didn’t know that.

The construction foreman took Sebastian back to the van where all their computer equipment was stored. Sebastian knew from earlier talks that the excavation team was using seismic reflection. They’d originally tried using ground-penetrating radar but had rapidly discovered the rock was more dense than the machine could handle, and that the caverns they were searching through were too large.

The seismic reflection required the use of dynamite or an air gun to set off shock waves that could be mapped by the sensitive equipment. Once those shock waves were set off, they were tracked and a picture was built by the computer program.

D’Azeglio showed Sebastian the images they’d captured during earlier testing. Even though Sebastian knew the principle, he still struggled with seeing what was revealed.

“The cavern behind this one is huge,” D’Azeglio said.

“Maybe the biggest one we’ve found so far,” another man said.

Sebastian turned and found Dario Brancati standing behind the van. Brancati was a big man a couple years older than Sebastian. His beard had turned solid gray, and his bushy eyebrows almost surrounded his deep-set eyes. He was a friendly man, but he ran a tight ship.

“Sorry to wake you up, boss,” D’Azeglio apologized. “But I knew you’d want to be here for this.”

“I do. I knew you guys would be hitting this about now. I sacked out once I left.” Brancati surveyed the wall. “We all set up?”

“Yes. Charges are all in place. We’re just waiting to get a green light.”

“You’ve got it,” Brancati said. “Let’s get it done.”

Lourds, dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, knocked on Natasha’s door. He felt awkward, but the phone call from Donna Bergstrom had left him feeling upset beyond bearing. He didn’t believe for a moment that the home invasion had just been a random act. As he waited, he adjusted the backpack over his shoulder.

“What do you want?” Natasha demanded from inside.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Why aren’t you still talking to that bottle-blond airhead in your room?”

That surprised Lourds. Natasha had seen that?

“I didn’t think at your age you would still be alive after she got her claws in you,” Natasha declared.

An older man passing by in the hallway looked at Lourds with disdain.

Lourds felt the need to defend himself, but he knew that was insane. He didn’t know the man and he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Maybe we could not talk about this out here,” Lourds suggested.

“We’re not going to talk about it in my room.”

Lourds couldn’t for the life of him figure out why Natasha seemed so angry. He hadn’t gone after Leslie. True, he hadn’t turned her away either. But they were two consenting adults looking for a little downtime. There was nothing more to it. He was certain Leslie felt the same way.

Then again, they hadn’t talked about it, and Lourds wasn’t exactly a mind reader. He’d gotten involved with women before who hadn’t understood the ground rules. His passion would always be his work. He wasn’t going to be bereft of female companionship, but he wasn’t going to let it change his life either. He’d gotten the impression that Leslie was a kindred spirit in that regard.

“Leave that be for now. Something more important has come up. Someone broke into my house,” Lourds said. “A friend of mine got shot when he checked it out and is now in the hospital. He almost died.”

For a moment he didn’t think Natasha was going to answer the door even after he told her that. Then, just as he was about to walk away, the door opened.

“Come in.” Natasha stepped back from the door dressed only in a too-big T-shirt that clung to her high breasts and ended well above midthigh.

Lourds knew he shouldn’t have noticed. He tried not to, in fact. There were times he could go whole days at a time without noticing such things. At least, without letting them have an effect on him.

The problem was that once his libido was aroused it remained rampant till it had burned itself out. That could take a while. His blood was definitely still running hot now.

Lourds entered the room and closed the door behind him. Light from the television monitor created a bubble of gray-blue illumination in the center of the room. Evidently he hadn’t caught Natasha sleeping.

“Having trouble getting some shut-eye?” Lourds asked in Russian.

Natasha stood with her arms folded over her breasts. “You have a story. Let’s hear it.” She spoke in English.

“My house,” Lourds repeated. “Broken into.”

“So?”

Lourds ignored her, even as he wondered why she was in such a mood. He opened his backpack and took out his computer. After placing the computer on the desk, he opened it and booted it up.

“I’ve got a program on my computer that allows me to access the security camera system in my house no matter where I am,” Lourds said.

“So you’re going to show me your house?”

“I’m going to show you what bothers me about the break-in.” Lourds brought the program up. A series of windows spread across the screen as the cameras came online. “This feature also allows me to go back twenty-four hours. Anything more than that and I have to access the security provider.”

“You have a picture of who broke into your house?” Natasha seemed a bit more interested.

“Yes.” Lourds tapped keys. “Granted, it’s possible that my house could have been broken into at random. I’ve been gone for about three weeks or so. But it seemed awfully coincidental.”

“Maybe you’re only being paranoid.”

“With everything that’s happened, I’d think that’s the only way to be.” Lourds backed the digital film to the point where he was watching one figure in orange coveralls in his den while the other raided his entertainment equipment from the bedroom.

“She’s backing up your hard drive to the external one she brought,” Natasha said.

“Yes.” Lourds was uncomfortably aware of how the T-shirt material stretched across Natasha’s breasts when she bent closer. She also, he discovered, smelled nice. He had to clear his voice to speak. “Doesn’t seem like something your typical burglar would do.”

“Do you keep anything important on your computer?”

“Notes. Projects I’m working on.”

“Important projects?”

“I work on the same kind of thing Yuliya did. None of it’s going to make me wealthy or be worth much to anyone else.”

“No. What about credit cards and financial matters? Are those on your computer?”

“No. I’m too leery of that, I’m afraid.”

“Says the man who can look into his own bedroom from another country.”

“I thought it was pretty cool, actually. I’d never done it before today except when my friend installed it. I wouldn’t have done it today if Marcus Bergstrom hadn’t been shot.”

Natasha stood straight again and Lourds was sorry to miss the view.

“They were professional. The woman took data off your computer while the man upstairs attempted to make it look like a common burglary.” Natasha took a breath. “This just means Gallardo hasn’t forgotten about us.”

“I thought maybe Gallardo had given up after Odessa.”

“Apparently not.” Natasha looked at the computer screen. “They’re hunting us now.”

“Why?”

“You tracked the cymbal back to the Yoruba people. I’m willing to wager they haven’t done that.”

“ ‘They’?”

“A man like Gallardo operates by a simple profit-and-loss statement. He does a crime and he immediately benefits from it.”

Lourds nodded. “He stole the bell in Alexandria, so he must have had a buyer.”

“We have to find out. In the meantime, you need to leave.”

“I do?” Lourds was startled at how quickly she brushed him off.

“Yes. I don’t want—”

There was a knock at the door.

Quietly, Natasha slid her hand under a pillow on the bed and brought out a pistol. Lourds started to speak but quieted at once when she put a finger to her lips. Silently, Natasha crossed to the door and peered out the peephole.

Then she sighed in disgust. Russian women, Lourds was willing to acknowledge, were champions at sounding disgusted when they chose to.

“This,” Natasha said as she opened the door, “is what I didn’t want.”

The door swung open and revealed Leslie standing there fully dressed. The young woman had her arms crossed and looked just the slightest bit challenging.

“I thought I’d come see what was taking so long,” Leslie stated. “I was wondering if maybe you’d gotten distracted.”

For a moment Lourds thought Natasha might shoot Leslie. Though he wasn’t sure why.

“Trust me,” Natasha said as she walked back to the bed, “when I bed a man, I’m much more than a distraction.” Without another word, she slipped the pistol back under the pillow and lay on the bed. “You people need to leave. I need to get some sleep.”

Lourds started to do just that. He felt awkward enough as it was without getting into the middle of a catfight he didn’t quite understand. When he opened the door, though, he saw a man he recognized and quickly stepped back into the room.

“We can’t leave,” he said.

The women looked at him with scathing stares.

“Patrizio Gallardo and his men just passed by in the hallway.”

“Fire in the hole!”

Crouched down behind one of the big bulldozers, Father Sebastian barely heard the warning shout of the demolitions crew chief rip through the cavern on the PA. The ear protectors muffled nearly all sound.

A moment later, the explosives blew in a rapid series like popcorn popping.

Dust and debris filled the cave. The full-face filter mask protected Sebastian’s eyes and his lungs. Tremors ran through the ground and reminded him of being on a ship’s deck. Not for the first time did he think of the sea waiting outside the bulwarks they’d built to keep the cave dry.

He remained down until D’Azeglio slapped him on his hard hat.

“We’re okay, Father,” the construction man said as he lifted one of the ear covers. “Everybody’s okay.”

D’Azeglio looked like some kind of freakish insect in the filtration mask and hard hat. His voice was muffled and strained. He offered a hand up.

“Thank God,” Sebastian said as D’Azeglio helped him to his feet. He took off the ear protectors. “These explosions always make me nervous.”

“I’ve been around them for years, Father. When you’re under this much rock, it never gets any easier.”

“No water,” someone called out. “No water. The next cave is dry.”

A cheer went up. The water-filled caves they’d encountered so far had slowed them down considerably. Days were lost with all the necessary pumping.

Excitement flared anew within Sebastian. Since he’d been a boy following around his archeologist father, he always loved the idea of seeing things that hadn’t been seen in hundreds or thousands of years.

When he’d been pulled to the cloth, he feared those days were over. But he thanked God, in whose infinite wisdom he’d been allowed to take up not only the Bible and cross as a priest, but also the pick and shovel of an archeologist.

It was a good life.

High-intensity spotlights played over where the wall had been. Now it was only a jumble of rock in the opening to another cave. The opening at the top was perhaps four feet high.

Brancati ordered the scholars to stay back while some of the more able climbers surveyed the area. Sebastian watched the four men climb up the rock and reach the pinnacle. They wore miner’s hard hats with built-in lights. They carried other lights in their hands. Brancati remained in constant contact with them by radio.

After a few minutes, the men descended the other side. Shortly after that, Brancati came over to Sebastian.

“Father, do you think you can make it up that rock?”

Sebastian was surprised by the question. Brancati had taken pains to make certain he was kept out of harm’s way.

“I think I can manage,” the priest replied.

“We’ll help you. It’s important that you see what’s in that cave.”

“What is it?”

Brancati’s expression was solemn. His voice was low when he spoke. “They think it’s a graveyard.”

The announcement sent a chill through Sebastian. It wouldn’t be a graveyard in the traditional sense. While traveling with his father as a young man, Sebastian had been present when such discoveries were made. Simple men were always humbled.

And frightened.

“Let’s go,” Sebastian said. And he started forward. But his mind whirled with the implications. Were they about to see Atlanteans for the first time?