The Atlantis Code

CHAPTER 7

Lourds tried to keep calm as he sat in the detention room, even though the windowless, featureless walls felt like they were closing in on him. The gray paint was a dismal addition; it felt to Lourds like it sucked all the life and color from the room and anything in it, including him. A scarred wooden table and three chairs occupied the center of the space. Lourds’s chair sat on one side of the table by itself.

The walls seemed to exude memories of harsh interrogations held here. Perhaps the new Russia didn’t indulge in strong-arm tactics with the same abandon that the old Soviet Union had, and the Czar’s special police before that, but Lourds knew his captors wanted him to remember that ruthless past.

They’d taken his computer, his baggage, and his cell phone.

He knew they were watching him. Since the blank gray walls held no mirror or one-way glass, he assumed they spied on him through hidden cameras embedded in the walls or ceiling. Every time he’d stood up to stretch his legs, a guard stepped into the room to tell him to sit down again.

The woman who walked into the room was beautiful. Rich red hair rippled to her shoulders. Her warm brown eyes regarded him. She wore a gray business suit that complemented her hair and fair complexion.

Without thinking, Lourds got to his feet. His parents had taught him manners so well that, even now, the lessons held.

The woman stopped him immediately, though. “Sit,” she ordered in English. Her hand slid to her hip.

Lourds sat. The move she’d made, he figured, meant she had a weapon.

“I meant no offense,” Lourds said. “When a beautiful woman enters a room, I was trained to stand. Out of respect. I suppose I have my mother to thank for nearly getting shot.”

The woman remained standing. Her eyes were flat and hard.

“Look,” Lourds said, “Whatever you think I’ve done—”

“Quiet,” the woman ordered. “You are Professor Thomas Lourds?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m an American citizen with a visa to travel in this country.”

“One word from me,” the woman interrupted, “your visa is canceled and you’re on the next plane out of here. Do you understand?”

Lourds knew she wasn’t bluffing. “Yes.”

“You’re here, at this moment, at my sufferance. Why are you here?”

“To see a friend. Ivan Hapaev.”

“How do you know Ivan Hapaev?”

“Through his wife.”

“Yuliya Hapaev.”

Lourds nodded. “Yes. Yuliya and I often consulted each other. I teach—”

“Languages,” the woman said. “Yes. I’m aware of that; however, Yuliya Hapaev is dead.”

“I know. I came here to offer my condolences.”

“Are you and Ivan Hapaev close?”

Lourds decided to tell the truth. “No.”

“You came all this way to see a man you know only socially at a time when he’s grieving over the murder of his wife?”

“I had other business that brought me to Moscow. I wanted to stop long enough to see Ivan.”

“What other business?”

“Researching projects. That’s what I’m doing now.”

“Are you a good friend of Ivan’s?”

“Actually, I knew his wife better. As I said, Dr. Hapaev and I were—”

“Colleagues.”

“Yes.”

“If you were such close friends,” the woman said. “I should have known you.”

“You couldn’t know everyone who saw Dr. Hapaev—”

“I knew many of them.” The woman reached inside her jacket and flipped out an identification case. “My name is Natasha Safarov. Dr. Hapaev was my sister.”

Sister! Lourds looked carefully at the woman and could see the family resemblance then. It had been there the whole time.

“I’m investigating my sister’s murder, Professor Lourds.” Natasha closed her police identification case. She studied Lourds’s face. He was a handsome man, and he appeared to honestly care about Yuliya.

“Why was I detained?” Lourds asked.

“The night of my sister’s death, you called her on her cell phone. Why?”

“To warn her. That cymbal she was researching looked similar to a bell that was recently stolen from me and my television team in a studio shoot in Alexandria. We were nearly killed.”

“Tell me about that,” Natasha prompted.

He told her, leaving nothing out.

He added, after he finished the tale, “I’m sorry about your sister, Inspector Safarov,” Lourds said. “She was truly a magnificent woman. And she loved you very much. She talked about you a great deal. She said your mother died young and the two of you were very close,” Lourds said. “I know losing her has to be hard.”

Natasha remained silent.

“I don’t know who killed Yuliya,” Lourds continued. “If I did, I would tell you.”

“Do you know why she was killed?”

“My only guess would involve the cymbal.”

“Do you know what it was? Or who might want it?”

Lourds shook his head. “I’m afraid not. If I did, I’d tell you that, too. And I’d be after them for the bell they took.”

Reaching into her jacket, Natasha took Lourds’s visa and passport from her pocket. She deliberately didn’t offer them to him.

“I was there the night my sister was murdered,” Natasha said.

Sadness pulled at the professor’s handsome features. Natasha felt that the emotion was an honest one. “I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”

Natasha didn’t respond to that. “The men who killed her and stole the cymbal were professional killers.” She intended for her words to frighten him.

Lourds didn’t look surprised. “The men in Alexandria were very good, too.”

“Enjoy your stay in Moscow, Professor Lourds. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Natasha handed the man his passport and visa, and a card with her name and a number where she could be reached. “If you should discover anything that pertains to my sister’s murder, I want to know about it.”

Lourds put the papers into his jacket pocket. “Of course. It would be my pleasure to tell you.”

One thing Natasha decided in that moment was that the American professor lied guilelessly. She appreciated that skill in another.

Tired and frustrated, feeling certain Yuliya’s sister didn’t quite believe everything he’d told her, Lourds stepped into the small office outside the detention room. Leslie was waiting for him.

Nearly two hours had passed. She sat on one of the hard chairs beside all their carry-on bags. The protective case containing Lourds’s computer sat on top of the heap.

Getting to her feet, Leslie inspected Lourds. Worry showed in her eyes. “You’re all right?” she asked.

“I am,” Lourds answered. “You’ve been here all this time?”

“Yes. I called the American embassy. They sent a man over, but Inspector Safarov sent word that he wouldn’t be needed. She said she was going to release you once she questioned you, so he left.”

“She did release me.”

“Why did she detain you?”

“It’s complicated. Perhaps we could talk somewhere else,” Lourds suggested. He didn’t want to talk about anything inside the terminal. The FSB loved their little electronic surveillance toys. He picked up his carry-on, neatly adding Leslie’s to the stack. His carry-on case had wheels that made it easy to pull.

He was ready to be outside and moving. After all the hours in the plane, then in the detention room, he was feeling slightly claustrophobic.

Leslie led the way to the door and he followed.

Standing outside the security office, Natasha watched the professor and the young woman moving along the current of human bodies heading for the car rental agencies. Confusion roiled within her. Emotions twisted inside her. She hated letting Lourds go before she had the whole truth from him.

Lourds had a plan. He’d protected it during the interrogation, had spoken all around it. Perhaps someone less skilled wouldn’t have noticed it, but to Natasha the void had been immediately detectable.

“Are you just going to let him go, Inspector?” a calm male voice asked.

Glancing over her shoulder, Natasha saw that Anton Karaganov had stepped in beside her. The younger man was her partner. She was his field training officer.

Karaganov was quiet and intense, a good Russian. He was in his twenties, tall and lean. He drank, but not too much, and he was respectful of his girlfriend. Natasha liked him for both those things. Such traits weren’t always found in Russian policemen.

“I let him go,” Natasha said, “but I don’t want him to go far unwatched. Let’s keep an eye on him.”

“Airport security has released the professor.”

Outside the terminal, Gallardo sat in a ten-year-old Lada four-door sedan. Sun had bleached the vehicle’s black exterior, leaving it looking like most of the other similar cars. He held the sat-phone to his ear.

“Where is he?” Gallardo asked.

“He and the woman are picking up a rental car.” The man on the other end of the phone connection had been keeping watch over the detention center. He’d also been the one who reported that the security guards had taken Lourds into custody.

“Stay with him,” Gallardo instructed. “I don’t want to lose him.” He ended the phone call and laid the handset on his thigh.

Three other men sat in the Lada with Gallardo. DiBenedetto sat behind the wheel. Two of the men they’d picked up for the Russian operations sat in the back. All of them were armed. Heavily armed, in fact.

Gallardo wanted to be out of Moscow. Although the news didn’t seem to indicate the Moscow FSB had any leads to the persons that had killed Yuliya Hapaev, he felt like a sitting duck staying in-country. The Federal Security Service—Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti—had many intelligent police officers these days. Not all of them could be bought off.

A few minutes later, Gallardo watched as Lourds and the young woman emerged from the terminal and headed for the rental car lot. They got into a newer model Lada and pulled out into traffic.

“All right,” Gallardo said to DiBenedetto. “Let’s see where they go.”

Almost effortlessly, DiBenedetto slid into traffic, cutting off a Russian taxicab. The driver blared his horn in protest. In character, DiBenedetto returned the horn salute and kept driving.

Gallardo called the three other cars he was using to cover the professor’s arrival at the airport to relay his position and get them in motion. Keeping a close tail on a target was always easier with multiple vehicles. DiBenedetto was familiar with Moscow’s streets. So were the other drivers. Gallardo felt certain they wouldn’t lose Lourds.

They followed Lourds in stages, switching off the following car often so the professor wouldn’t become suspicious. Gallardo didn’t think there was much chance of that. Despite all his world-traveling, Lourds had to be new to this cloak-and-dagger kind of thing. The professor never gave any indication that he knew he was being followed.

It became apparent soon enough that Lourds had a definite destination in mind.

Gallardo placed another call, this one to Murani.

Murani sat at his desk with copies of the ancient maps and old books he’d been studying for years spread out before him. Father Emil Sebastian’s excavations in Cádiz, Spain, had supplied a new frame of reference for all the old stories and the few facts the Society of Quirinus had.

Frustration chafed at him as he surveyed the familiar tools again, trying to find new eyes to ferret out the secrets he felt certain were hidden there.

Not secrets, he told himself. Just the one.

He gazed at the pictures of the bell and resented the fact that the Society leaders had taken it away. They were afraid of it, terrified of the power it represented. The bell was the first physical proof they had of the truth of the legends they’d been handed down about Atlantis and all that had gone on before.

Despite the fact that all the archbishops involved in the Society of Quirinus had been handed down the stories by those who had preceded them, each man picking his successor from within the Church with approval of the other archbishops, none of them had ever seen any proof of the Secret’s existence.

When he had first been brought into the Society of Quirinus, Murani hadn’t been a believer in the Secret. There were many other secrets the Church harbored, and some of them were only legend.

But not this one, Murani thought. This one is the truth.

The existence of the bell had thrown the Society into a quandary. It was one thing to protect a secret out of habit, but quite another to accept that it was real and potentially had the power to destroy the world.

Or to remake it, Murani told himself. That was the idea he clung to so fiercely.

Looking up from the books and maps spread out around him, Murani stared at the television. CNN was recycling the footage they’d shot of the Destination: Atlantis? piece they’d aired the previous night.

Lifting the remote control, Murani turned up the volume.

The reporter was a young American man named David Silver.

Murani idly wondered if the name had been shortened from Silverman and if he was a Jew. In their own way, he thought, the Jews were almost as bad as the Muslims. Both detracted from the Church and the Truth. Over the years, they’d leeched power from the Church.

“—the excavation is well under way here in Cádiz, Spain,” Silver said. “They’re going slowly, though. From what I’m told, several cities have existed in this area over the last few thousand years. Each one has added to the stratification of the dig site. Normally, one city was built on top of another as they fell. Father Sebastian seems quite excited by everything they’re finding.”

“Can you tell us some of the things that have been unearthed?” the woman anchor manning the desk had asked.

“Most of it appears to be the usual artifacts that archeologists expect to find on digs like this. Tools. Dishware. Coins.”

“Have you had the chance to speak with Father Sebastian?”

“I have.”

“Has he confirmed that he’s there looking for Atlantis?”

Silver laughed and shook his head. “Father Sebastian, as I’ve learned, is a very serious man when it comes to his work. He doesn’t indulge in speculation about what he and his team are going to find. In fact, during the times I have heard him speak, he’s gone to great lengths to point out that the idle speculation surrounding this dig site was not triggered by anything he said or suggested.”

“Then where did the Atlantis angle come from?” the desk anchor asked.

“From one of the local historians,” Silver said. “The Greek historian-philosopher Plato first described the fabled city of Atlantis in his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. That description, according to Professor Francisco Bolívar, fits the features of the surrounding topography of the area.”

The television screen blanked for a moment, then resumed with an overlay showing concentric rings.

“According to Plato’s description,” Silver went on, “the island that became known as Atlantis was given to Poseidon, the god of the sea. A lot of the island was supposed to be underwater. As luck would have it, and to the great delight of storytellers if I’m to be any judge, Poseidon met a woman who lived inland. Nothing’s said about how she got there. But there she was.”

Murani didn’t care for the reporter’s cavalier tone.

“Poseidon met the woman and fell in love with her,” Silver continued. “Together, they had five pairs of twins. All boys. Poseidon built a palace on a low mountain on the island. The story goes on to describe three moats that he created that surrounded the city.”

The image on the television reflected Silver’s description of the mountain and the three rings that represented the moats.

“Poseidon named the eldest of the first twins Atlas and made him king of the island,” Silver said. “The Atlantic Ocean is actually named after him. The people who lived on the island became known at Atlanteans. They built bridges across the moats to get to the rest of the island. They also, supposedly at least, chopped holes through the moat walls so ships could pass, and even sail into the city.”

An artist’s rendering of the fabled city appeared on the screen. Ships with full canvas stretched tight sailed elegantly through the canals and tunnels near the beautiful city at the center of the moats.

“Walls were supposed to reinforce each of the city’s rings,” Silver said. “According to Plato, the walls were made of red, black, and white rock that was dug up from the moats. Then they were covered with orichalcum, brass, and tin.”

The computer-generated image gleamed with the glint of sunlight on metal.

“Sounds like a scenic getaway,” the desk anchor replied.

The camera picked up Silver again for just a moment. On the screen, Silver smiled and nodded. “In its day, it probably was. But then — one day — Atlantis disappeared.”

“How?”

“Plato doesn’t know for certain. His best guess was that the Atlanteans got into a fight with the Athenians. The Athenians were able to gather enough of the locals to put up staunch resistance against the Atlanteans because the Atlanteans were reputedly slavers of the worst sort.”

“I didn’t know about the slavery issue.”

“History is fascinating stuff,” Silver said, sounding as if history were a new invention. “At any rate, the island got racked by earthquakes and floods. The island is supposed to have submerged beneath the Atlantic Ocean in a single day.”

“But if Atlantis was an island, why is Father Sebastian working there?” the desk anchor asked. “The site isn’t an island.”

“You have to remember, Father Sebastian hasn’t claimed to be searching for Atlantis. He merely claims to be researching ancient ruins. Those Atlantis tales are rumors that have sprung up around the dig.”

“Deciding that the area might be Atlantis seems like a big jump. Why would anybody think that?”

“Because, when viewed from space, this part of Cádiz looks a lot like the description of Atlantis.”

A new image formed on the television screen. An overlay of the simple diagram of the proposed Atlantean moats in concentric circles around the city appeared. As Murani watched, the image overlaid the topography of the area where Father Sebastian labored. It was a close fit. However, as Murani knew from his work with the Society, a lot of other pieces had been close as well.

“The island could have become part of the mainland,” Silver said. “Plato made it plain that the island was connected — though underwater — to the mainland.”

“All these years, treasure hunters have sought out Atlantis,” the desk anchor said. “They thought they were looking for a sunken city.”

“For a time, this chunk of land was sunken,” Silver said. “So was most of Europe — paleontologists dug up a prehistoric whale buried in an Italian mountain not that long ago. But high sea levels, continental drift, tsunamis, anything could have exposed it from the seabed, raised it, or nudged it into the mainland so that it became part of the coastline.”

Murani stared at the way the template fit over Cádiz’s topographical features. Of course an artist had put those images together, the original drawing of Atlantis was based on Plato’s millennia-old secondhand description, and he knew that its ratios and proximities were matters open to discussion. But even to Murani, it seemed to be an amazingly close fit.

“If you look,” Silver was saying, “you can see where Atlantis once stood. Maybe. Father Sebastian’s excavation has uncovered what might be one of the three moats, and a series of tunnels that pass through it. Looking at this, you can see why the rumors started.”

Murani’s phone rang. He muted the television and answered.

“He was picked up by the FSB,” Gallardo said. There was no need to use names. Both of them knew whom Gallardo was talking about.

“Why?”

“The archeologist’s sister turned out to be a police inspector.”

Murani leaned back in his comfortable chair to examine the implications. “That’s unfortunate.”

“It might have helped to know that before I went after the cymbal,” Gallardo said. “We could have taken care of our current problem last night.”

Murani silently agreed. “He couldn’t have told her anything. He can’t know anything.”

“He knows more than I like. He’s tied the two artifacts together somehow. You already knew that because you sent me here.”

“Upon further reflection,” Murani said, “it seems that I might have been remiss in my decision to call you off him.”

“I think he knows something we don’t. We’re following him closely. From the way he’s moving, he’s got an agenda.”

Murani turned to his computer and pulled up the file on Professor Thomas Lourds. The man was acknowledged by many as the world’s foremost linguist.

“The film crew took pictures of the Egyptian artifact,” Murani said, putting it together in his mind. “The archeologist had pictures of the artifact in his hotel room. With the digital images in hand, the images on the bell could be legible.”

“Do you think he translated the inscription?”

Murani did not want to think that was true. All the scholars in the Society of Quirinus had studied the bell and the images of the cymbal. The cymbal hadn’t yet arrived at Vatican City. But none of them had been able to manage a translation.

But Lourds…

Unease spun through Murani like a spider’s web, anchoring to all the doubts in his mind. He didn’t like taking chances. Everything he did so far, all the subterfuge he’d masterminded behind the backs of the other members of the Society, had been carefully weighed for risk. As he planned this caper, Murani had discounted the possibility of trouble.

Now Lourds was a wild card.

“Find out if Lourds managed to translate either of the inscriptions,” Murani said. “If he has, I want to talk to him. Somewhere private. But if he doesn’t know, make certain he doesn’t involve himself in this any further.”