The Atlantis Prophecy

18

THAT AFTERNOON Max Seavers marched down corridor nine toward Secretary of Defense Packard's suite of offices on the third floor of the Pentagon. It had taken a half hour for his black Escalade to get there from the media circus at the U.S. Capitol on this overcast Monday afternoon, and he dreaded the inevitable confrontation in store.

This meeting had already been on the books. Seavers was supposed to debrief Packard after his testimony on the smart vaccine before Scarborough's committee. Only now, thanks to Conrad Yeats, Packard would be asking about what, if any, connection there was between the empty cornerstone beneath the Capitol and the bizarre codes on General Griffin Yeats's tombstone at Arlington, and how a dead American general and his elusive son could make them all look like jackasses.

Two MPs saluted as he approached the vault-like doors, and Seavers surrendered his BlackBerry to the receptionist before passing through. Packard's office was classified a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility. No mobile phones, BlackBerries, or other wireless devices were permitted inside. The idea was to ensure that the most classified conversations could be held in this office in confidence, without fear of being overheard.

This afternoon the only other person in the room besides Packard and Seavers was Packard's intelligence chief, Norman Carson, Assistant Secretary of Defense C3I, who sat in one of two chairs in front of Packard's desk. A wiry egghead with thinning hair and a thinner sense of humor, Carson was in charge of all command, control, communications, and intelligence for the DOD, which these days pretty much covered all of America. He was also the executive agent responsible for ensuring the continuity of government should some unthinkable attack or natural cataclysm hit the United States.

Carson didn't bother to get up and shake hands when Seavers walked in, and Packard was already behind his stand-up desk. Seavers took his seat. The vaultlike doors closed heavily behind him in the lobby, then another set in Packard's office closed likewise, sealing them and whatever they said inside.

Packard glared down at Seavers from his desk, which looked like a giant lectern, the ultimate bully pulpit. "What the hell is going on, Seavers?"

"Security cameras in the Capitol confirm it was Conrad Yeats, Mr. Secretary. We ran the tapes through the facial recognition software. He circumvented security and bypassed the detection gates by posing as a congressman from Missouri."

"And the biotoxin scare?"

"Haz-Mat teams found an open bottle of industrial cleaning solvent in a janitor's closet. The vapors set off the false alarm. It was a diversion."

"Dammit, Seavers!" Packard said. "How the hell did you let Yeats get away?"

Seavers didn't flinch. "The Capitol Police, who are in charge of security, failed to apprehend Dr. Yeats when he escaped through the steam pipes under the complex. He popped up in the Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress. By the time the Capitol Police reviewed the security feeds, he had left the building."

Packard nodded gravely for effect, and Seavers resented this flogging for something outside his operational control, especially in front of Packard's lapdog Carson, no less. "All this after he found the cornerstone beneath the Capitol, something we haven't been able to do in two hundred years."

Seavers calmly replied, "And this is important to my initiative with the vaccine because?"

Packard ignored him and turned to Carson. "Norm, what do the symbols on the obelisk mean?"

Carson passed two copies of a leather-bound brief to Packard and Seavers that included four photos, each showing one of the obelisk's four sides.

"We worked up another interpretation of the astrological symbols," Carson said. "Based on Yeats's actions today, we now feel the symbols represent celestial counterparts to the U.S. Capitol, White House, and Washington Monument. Teams have already been dispatched to the White House and Washington Monument to search for their cornerstones."

Packard nodded. "And the number 763?"

"We confirmed it's the Major's code."

"The Major's code?"

"Major Tallmadge," Carson said. "He was George Washington's spy chief during the Revolution, although by the time he created this alpha-numeric cipher system he was a colonel."

Packard said, "So Yeats is using a code more than 200 years old?"

"He's using, in effect, the DOD's very first code, Mr. Secretary."

"And what exactly does 763 stand for?" Packard demanded. "Should I be quaking in my boots like the president?"

The Pentagon's top intelligence chief said nothing, although the look in his eyes implied that, yes, they should all be quaking in their boots. "In general terms, sir, 763 is the numeric code for headquarters. Specifically, in this context, it clearly means this."

Carson wrote a name on a sheet of paper and slipped it to the SecDef. The SecDef picked it up and stared. "Oh, gawd," he groaned, and was about to crumple it up and toss it into his wastebasket until he thought better of it. "You mean the president's paranoia might have some basis in fact?"

"General Yeats seemed to think so, sir."

Seavers, unable to read the text on the paper Packard was holding, cleared his throat. "The president is paranoid about what, Mr. Secretary? I'm afraid I'm lost here."

"We all are if this prophecy is true." Packard pulled out a lighter and touched it to the corner of the paper.

Seavers sat forward on the edge of his seat and watched the paper burn. This stage of the briefing was news to him. "What prophecy?"

Packard said, "Let's just say we think George Washington buried something under the Mall, and every U.S. president since Jefferson has been trying to dig it up, all under the guise of building or restoring monuments over the past three centuries."

"Buried what?" Seavers pressed.

"Something very embarrassing," Packard told him. "Not just for this Administration, but for every president since Washington. Something that casts doubt on the American experiment itself, its origins and destiny. We have to stop it from coming to light."

Seavers could feel Packard studying him, clearly conflicted. Packard had brought him to DARPA to develop new vaccines and create the perfect soldier, impervious to chemical and biological weapons. That was his reputation as one of the world's greatest minds in genetic research. Coded tombstones and buried artifacts were not his forte.

Unless he knows about my great-grandfather, Seavers thought, and suddenly wondered if there had been more to his appointment at DARPA than he had given Packard credit for.

"Mr. Secretary," he said, breaking the silence, "it would help me a great deal to know what exactly you think Washington buried."

"A globe, Seavers."

"A globe?"

"A celestial globe," Packard said. "Probably about two feet in diameter. The kind of floor globe you find on a stand in the library of lavish estates."

"Like those Old World bar globes you open and inside you find liquor?"

Packard glared at him. "This has nothing to do with the Old World, Seavers."

Seavers could only shrug. "But how important can this globe truly be?"

Packard was adamant. "Nothing could be more important to the national security of the United States of America."

Seavers nodded to show he understood the gravity of the situation. "And you think Dr. Yeats has a shot at finding it?"

"He found the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol, didn't he?" Packard began to pace back and forth behind his desk, obviously wrestling with some decision. "Seavers, I want you to find this thing before Yeats does. Or let him lead you to it, I don't care. But if he does, he'll uncover a secret he's not authorized to know. Nobody is."

Seavers glanced at Carson, who looked shocked that Packard had assigned him the task, and said, "You'll give me what I need to do this job, Mr. Secretary?"

"The president has authorized me to have the entire resources of the federal government at your disposal," Packard said. "You've got the gizmos, I'll give you some muscle, your own black ops domestic response team." Packard looked at Carson. "Norm, your ass is covered. Just give Seavers whatever intel he needs to find Yeats. It's embarrassing that he's walking around D.C., which has more security cameras than galaxies in the heavens, and we still can't find him."

"I'll track down Yeats and whatever it is he's looking for." Seavers looked at Packard and Carson. "And Dr. Yeats can take whatever he knows to the grave and join his father."

"General Yeats may have been a four-star bastard, but I always tried to treat his son like my own. So I hope it doesn't come to that, gentlemen," Packard said. "But if it does, Conrad Yeats sure as hell isn't going to be buried at Arlington with full military honors."