The Atlantis Prophecy

9

THE NEXT MORNING Serena stared out through the tinted glass of another limo at the towering ancient obelisk in St. Peter's Square as Benito drove through the gates of Vatican City. She thought of Conrad and wondered if it was wise to have left him back at the secret safe house outside New York City before flying here to press their case.

There were a few police outside on the plaza, but no tourists or paparazzi this early in the day. More pigeons than people, really.

"Not like the old days, signorina," said Benito, referring to the protestors and media circus that once surrounded her arrivals at the Vatican.

Back then she was only in her 20s but had already made a lifetime's worth of enemies as "Mother Earth" in the petroleum, timber, and biomedical industries-anyone who put profit ahead of people, animals, or the environment. Today she was an older and wiser 31, but the damage was done: Those inside the Vatican who had ties to these outside governments, corporate CEOs, and other "deep pockets" still didn't trust her and never would.

Which was why she had decided Conrad was better off back at the safe house.

"That was another era, Benito."

"Another pope, signorina."

They curved along a winding drive and arrived at the entrance of the Governorate. The Swiss Guards in their crimson uniforms snapped to attention as Serena walked in.

The old pope, by favoring her with his friendship, had protected her within these walls. In one significant way he still did. Before he died, he shared with her a vision he believed God had revealed to him about the end of the world. And he let others know as much. The halo effect ensured that at least some door would always be open to her here.

The new pope she hardly knew. He was a good man, although she had heard that he had voiced his displeasure at the special favor his predecessor had shown her. Which was reasonable, she concluded, given that the new pope knew her only by her nickname among his former peers in the College of Cardinals: "Sister Pain-in-the-Ass."

That included Cardinal Tucci, gatekeeper of the secret maps collections. She had called Tucci from somewhere over the Atlantic to demand access to the Vatican archives, an extraordinary privilege she had enjoyed under the old pope but which Tucci had revoked with the new pope.

"Sister Serghetti," Tucci said flatly when she entered his office, which was tucked away at the end of an obscure hallway, reached only by an old service elevator. "Welcome back."

Tucci rose from his high-back leather chair, a pair of seventeenth-century Bleau globes on either side, and extended his hand. Only in his late 40s, Tucci was a "secret cardinal." That is, he was appointed by the pope to the position and nobody else was informed of it, although Serena was aware of two others besides herself who also knew.

A secret cardinal to hide the secrets of the Church.

Every Christian, Serena knew all too well, must wrestle with the tension of living in this world without becoming a product of it. But she suspected that Cardinal Tucci had lost that battle a long time ago.

"Your Eminence," she said, and kissed his ring with the Dominus Dei insignia. Dominus Dei meant "Rule of God" and was an order within the Church that predated the Jesuits and traced itself back to the first Christians who served in the palace of Caesar in the first century. Secrecy was their highest value, as it meant survival in the early days of Christianity. Serena didn't like secrecy. It had become an excuse over the centuries for a host of crimes, crimes that made the fictionalized evils of Dominus Dei's upstart cousins in Opus Dei look like acts of charity.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked suspiciously as they sat down.

"I want to see the L'Enfant Confession," she said, just like that.

Tucci looked at her with undisguised disdain. He seemed tired of her already, and perturbed. Perturbed because she had pressed his aides to wake him up in the wee hours of the morning to take her call. Perturbed by her very existence.

If Tucci wondered how she got as far as she had within the Church, the feeling was mutual. He was boyish by Vatican standards and yet mature enough to sport the smile of a man who experienced enough of life to find it a bad joke. Even his name was ironic, implying he was some indigenous Italian bureaucrat when, in fact, his mother's side of the family came to America on the Mayflower and was Yankee through and through. He came to the Vatican by way of Boston, where he was known as a raucous but brilliant student at Harvard and an even more brilliant priest and professor of American history at Boston College. He had risen very far in Rome, very fast.

Even now, as she awaited a response, Serena couldn't help noticing, with some envy, the medallion that Tucci wore around his neck. In its center was an ancient Roman coin, a silver denarius with the image of the emperor Tiberius. Legend had it that this coin was the very "Tribute Penny" Jesus held up when he told his followers that they should "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's." It had been passed down through the ages, from one leader of the Dei to the next. Some argued it represented power greater than the papacy.

"The L'Enfant Confession?" Tucci repeated, as if he had never heard of it.

Serena said, "The deathbed confession of Pierre L'Enfant, the original architect of Washington, D.C., to John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop of North America."

Tucci looked mystified. "What exactly did Pierre L'Enfant confess?"

"Something to the effect that the major terrestrial monuments of America's capital city are aligned like a map to the stars, as are Egypt's pyramids and South America's Way of the Dead," she said.

"What do you mean the monuments are aligned like a map?"

She showed him a digital photo of General Yeats's tombstone at Arlington, of the side with the four astrological symbols. "These are the zodiac signs for the sun and the constellations Bootes, Virgo, and Leo. Each celestial coordinate has a terrestrial counterpart in the city of Washington, D.C."

"And you're telling me that George Washington had L'Enfant use these constellations to anchor America's capital city?" He inflected his voice in a tone to hint at just how ridiculous and a waste of time the idea was. He glanced at the antique clock on the wall to underscore his displeasure.

"Yes," she said without flinching. "And we can follow those monuments that correspond to the stars like a treasure map."

"And where does this heavenly treasure trail lead?"

"To a specific place beneath the National Mall, or perhaps even a specific date in America's future," she said. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"My forte is American history and cartography, Sister Serghetti, not eschatology," Tucci said, amused. "But, as a historian, I know that Pierre L'Enfant was a Freemason. And I don't have to refer to my Freemasons for Dummies book to tell you that his secret society-like all those who seek the light of God outside of the Holy Church-has had a long and tortured history with us. So you'll have to forgive my skepticism when I ask you why on earth would L'Enfant confess anything to a Catholic priest, let alone Archbishop John Carroll, about this alleged secret geography of the American capital?"

"You mean why under the earth," Serena said, confident that Tucci knew full well what she was about to say. That's why she had come to him in the first place. "It was Daniel Carroll, the Archbishop's brother, who owned Capitol Hill and sold it to Washington. All that land, by the way, once belonged to a Catholic named Francis Pope who called it Rome."

Tucci tapped two fingers to his lips as he looked at her thoughtfully. Finally, he cleared his throat and sat back in his chair.

"There is no L'Enfant Confession, Sister Serghetti," he said. "Never was."

"Like the Alignment?" she asked.

Tucci frowned, aware that she had him there. After all, the sole reason his own group Dominus Dei still existed was allegedly to fight the Alignment threat to the Church. Without the Alignment-fact or fiction-there could be no funding, no foot soldiers for Tucci's order coming from the pope.

"The Alignment is simply an umbrella term for all secret societies aligned against the Church and operating in the shadows of power around the world," Tucci said. "Don't tell me you sincerely believe it's an actual group of warriors who trace their ancient knowledge to the survivors of Atlantis and use the stars to control world events to their own ultimate agenda? Please."

"I didn't until now," she said. "But George Washington was a Mason. As was his chief architect, Pierre L'Enfant. As were fifty of the fifty-six signers of the American Declaration of Independence. Perhaps you could humor me and tell me what link the Masons have to the Alignment-if the Alignment were, in fact, an actual group."

"Why, the Knights Templar, of course," Tucci said, obliging her with a conspiratorial smile.

Tucci was referring to a tiny band of nine French Crusaders at the end of the first millennium who for nine years protected pilgrims visiting Jerusalem. Legend, Serena knew, suggested they were really searching for some priceless relic like the Holy Grail or a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. Whatever it was, they apparently found it, because the Knights Templar over the next two centuries exploded in membership and money among Europe's nobility. The Church, threatened by the power and influence of its holy defenders, suddenly and expediently decided that the Knights Templar were conspiring to destroy it, and in 1307 launched a seven-year war that ended with the Grand Master of the Knights Templar being burned at the stake.

It was only last year, seven hundred years too late, that the Vatican issued a formal apology for its persecution, and Serena knew that Tucci was that apology's key architect.

Serena said, "I thought the Church, through Dominus Dei, took care of the Knights Templar centuries ago."

"Not quite," said Tucci. "A few Knights escaped to Britain and formed a new network called Freemasonry, once again hijacking another society, this one formed of the builders and bricklayers of the great cathedrals and palaces of Europe. It was only a matter of time before the Masons came to America, penetrated its elites like George Washington, and used their influence to establish a new country and, they hoped, a new world order."

"So do you still consider the Masons to be a threat to the Church?"

"Hardly," Tucci said. "The Alignment long ago left the Masons, having moved on to controlling U.S. policy through the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and your friends at the United Nations."

There was a twinkle in Tucci's eyes, a glimmer of triumph that he had succeeded in utterly humiliating her for her gullibility and in drawing their little meeting to a resounding close.

"We could go on all day about this, Sister Serghetti," Tucci said. "But like I told you, there is no such thing as the L'Enfant Confession. It's a myth."

"So is this," she said and produced the map Conrad gave her.

Tucci bolted upright as she unfolded it on his desk. "Where did you get this?"

"From Stargazer," she said, and watched a flicker of recognition at the code name registered in Tucci's horrified eyes.

"Conrad Yeats," he muttered, putting his knowledge of her long-standing and controversial relationship with Conrad together with his knowledge of the Yeats family's long-standing history in American politics and the Masons. "Yeats is Stargazer. But, of course. I should have known."

"What matters is that it's the genuine article," Serena said, sensing she was on the verge of getting more out of this meeting with Tucci than she ever imagined.

Tucci grabbed a magnifier and leaned over the map. The upper left corner had the word WASHINGTONOPLE, the original name for George Washington's namesake city.

"Mother of God!" Tucci exclaimed, truly awed.

He then passed the magnifier over the city radiants. The ornate, crown-like seal with the initials TB must have jumped into view, because he snapped his head back in wonder.

"That's the seal used by the English papermaker Thomas Budgen for paper he manufactured from 1770 until 1785," Serena told him, letting him know she had done her own analysis on the map.

"I know what it is," he said sharply.

Serena said, "I always thought L'Enfant's original blueprint for Washington, D.C., was either on display or in preservation at the Library of Congress."

"That one is a later draft that Washington submitted to Congress in 1791," Tucci said automatically. "What you have brought me is the original terrestrial blueprint for America's capital city, which L'Enfant's own handwriting here says is based on an earlier star map drawn by Washington's chief astronomer, Benjamin Banneker."

Tucci sank back in his chair and stared at her, his eyes sizing her up for the first time. It was obvious that he had underestimated her, and she could actually see the wheels turning in his head as he contemplated just how much she knew that she wasn't telling him, and just how much she knew that he knew.

"What else did the pontiff tell you before he died, Sister Serghetti?" Tucci asked. "I've heard the rumors. A fifth Fatima? A revelation of the Apocalypse?"

"Many things, Your Eminence," she said. "But today I come to discuss only one."

She could see the white flag of surrender waving in his eyes. "And so he still protects you."

"God alone is my refuge and strength," she demurred.

Tucci removed a leather binder from the center drawer of his desk, and out of the binder withdrew a single sheet of parchment that looked very much of the same stock as the map she had shown him. He passed it across the desk to her.

"This is what you wanted to see, Sister Serghetti."

Serena Serghetti slowly read the handwritten testimony of Pierre L'Enfant that had been signed by John Carroll. Her heart began to race long before she reached the last paragraph.

"L'Enfant claims that the relic that the Alignment found in Jerusalem through its proxies, the Knights Templar, was a celestial globe," she said, translating from the French as she studied the confession.

"Yes," said Tucci. "The globe once stood upon one of two pillars in King Solomon's temple. Masonic lore says that this globe was hollow and contained ancient scrolls detailing the history of human civilization and its sciences before the Great Flood, and thus before the Book of Genesis."

Serena read on.

L'Enfant claimed that the Alignment brought the globe to America through the Masons in order to use the ancient knowledge it contained to establish a new world order. By no coincidence, the globe came into the direct possession of General George Washington, perhaps America's most visibly prominent Mason and a Grand Master in the order.

But then Washington discovered that his Masons, and perhaps even his armies, were in fact controlled by the Alignment, whose vision of a new world order had little in common with the cause of freedom. Rather, they saw the United States as a blunt weapon they could use to smash the world's dynasties and pave the way for resurrecting Atlantis and its ancient faith in the stars and fate.

Washington knew he couldn't expose and destroy the Alignment without criminalizing the Masons and jeopardizing the fledgling United States itself. So immediately upon becoming America's first president in 1789, Washington secretly instructed L'Enfant to use astronomical charts drawn by his chief astronomer, Benjamin Banneker, to align the proposed capital city of Washington, D.C., to the constellation Virgo-as a warning sign for future Americans. His hope was that in time the American people would be free enough and strong enough to reject the Alignment's agenda.

L'Enfant concluded his confession by saying that he did not know the significance of the specific date in the distant future that Washington chose for the conjunction of monuments and stars, only that Washington buried the celestial globe containing the horrible secret he had discovered somewhere under the Federal Triangle.

Serena looked up from the text at Cardinal Tucci, seated in his massive throne-like chair with a Bleau globe on either side, one terrestrial and the other celestial. She stared at the celestial globe.

"Impossible," Serena said in disbelief. "Washington's celestial globe has been on display in his study at Mount Vernon for more than 200 years."

But Tucci looked sure as ever. "That globe is an inferior replacement made in England during the 1790s. Its surface, which is only papier-mache, has been flaking so badly in recent years that it's been moved to the new museum at the estate for preservation. The original globe, according to L'Enfant, was made of bronze or copper and etched with the constellations. Washington buried it someplace under the American capitol sometime before he died."

Serena shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she glanced again at L'Enfant's confession.

"The handwriting holds up to analysis," Tucci said. "Whether it's true or the blatherings of a madman is another thing entirely."

Tucci was known for playing things very close to his vestments. He was not known for wild speculation or outright disinformation. If he was sharing this information with her, it was because he believed it to be accurate.

"So L'Enfant says he followed Washington's instructions to lay out the city of Washington, D.C., so that key monuments would lock with key stars at a specific date in the future," Serena said. "A doomsday warning, if you will. And what's going to happen on that date is revealed by the celestial globe Washington buried."

"Or by what's inside the globe," Tucci said. "Not since the War of 1812 has anyone in Rome believed L'Enfant's confession. But if this map you've shown me is real and Stargazer is real, there can be little doubt that L'Enfant's confession is true. Which means America is in grave peril. Look at the end date."

She stared down at the date: July 4, 2008.

"So you see, Sister Serghetti, Stargazer has six days to stop the alignment of the monuments with the stars or the United States of America will cease to exist."

Serena said, "You mean stop the organization we call the Alignment."

"They are one and the same, Sister Serghetti," Tucci said. "If anything is going to happen in heaven and on earth in six days, you can be sure the Alignment will make it happen. They have been gathering strength for centuries. This conjunction of landmarks and stars-this metamorphosis of America into something its founders never intended-is their raison d'etat. Their twisted sense of destiny is searching for any moral or legal justification to use the United States to unleash their will on this world and wipe out their enemies en masse."

Serena couldn't hide her shock or skepticism. "By what power, Your Eminence?"

"Perhaps by some new technology or weapon of mass destruction or some natural wonder that can be exploited," Tucci said. "I don't know. Like I told you, I'm a historian and not an eschatologist. But there is one thing that I do know about America in Bible prophecy."

"What's that?" Serena asked.

"It isn't there," he said. "It's as if America never existed."

Serena grew very still, the utter insanity of everything sinking in still deeper.

"So Washington set up the alignment of monuments as a warning to Americans in the future," she said slowly. "And Stargazer-Dr. Yeats-is a kind of ultimate 'sleeper' that Washington essentially sent into the future to stop the Alignment."

"Crazy, I know," Tucci said. "And all from the lips of Pierre L'Enfant, the pompous architect of the American capital who spent his last penniless days wandering the boulevards he laid out and bemoaning the changes from his grand designs."

"So you think L'Enfant was a delusional l'enfant."

"I did until you gave me the original L'Enfant map along with Washington's orders for Stargazer."

Serena looked Tucci in the eye, to avoid any doubt. "You want me and Dr. Yeats to go under the capitol of the New World Order to dig up this globe and save America from the Alignment."

"No," he said firmly. "I want you to bring the globe back to Rome."

Serena stared at him, feeling a tingle of fear creep up the back of her neck.

"The world is a better place because of the United States of America," Tucci said. "But world civilizations come and go. The Church is forever. If America should collapse as an imperial power or morph into something else, we must be prepared to confront a new New World Order."

"But Conrad…Dr. Yeats."

"Is never to see the inside of that globe should you come upon it," Tucci said. "Not if you want to save America, or him."