The Atlantis Prophecy

30

THE BLAST HAD BLOWN Conrad back against the wall and the grating up the elevator shaft. The grating struck the bottom of the elevator car on the floor above, creating a series of sparks that set off a dozen different fire alarms and the sprinkler system. Then it came back down toward the well. Conrad crouched for cover as the grating landed with a deafening crash. He put his hands to his ringing ears and choked on particle-filled air.

When the dust settled, he could hear alarms blare overhead and his radio squawking like a duck. Every sector was rushing to the shaft. He stood up and, stepping through the debris, peered anxiously into the swirling dust through his goggles to see stone steps declining steeply into the earth.

He left behind another gas explosive with a sensor to slow his pursuers and started down the steps. The air coming up from the bottom of the passageway was cool and dank. Conrad felt a chill. The end of the stairs loomed abruptly from out of the shadows.

A wrought iron gate blocked the bottom of the stairs. Conrad kicked the gate open. It was the only damn thing that had opened as planned so far.

There before him was a long sloping tunnel with a dirt floor. He broke out his flashlight and started sprinting, catching his sprained foot on a tree root and falling face down into the dirt. He picked himself up and started running. Suddenly it dawned on him that the topography beneath his feet was that of George Washington's time.

Despite the nonsense of this hill's alleged supernatural origin, Conrad sensed the logic of everything as he neared the end of the tunnel. As the city grew bigger, monument by monument, the entire American republic had been built upon Washington's dream.

As he reached the bottom of the hill and the end of the tunnel, he was drenched in sweat, barely able to breathe. The path he had followed, illuminated a dozen feet at a time with the beam of his flashlight, came to an abrupt halt at a wall. There was a small marker with a symbol-the constellation of Virgo-and an iron gate, beyond which lay the vault.

Conrad stared at the star pattern for Virgo on the wall. He had seen one like this only once before in his life, at the bottom of the earth in Antarctica.

"The Beautiful Virgin," he said aloud, and then heard himself laugh as he remembered old Herc. For all their genius, America's founding fathers had peculiar fantasies. He slapped another Primasheet patch with a five-second timer on the gate and blew the vault open.

Dust filled the tunnel, forcing Conrad back. Suddenly he heard another explosion from behind and realized that security forces had set off his flash explosive. They were entering the tunnel. Conrad took a deep breath, choking on the dust, and ran headlong through the cloud and into the vault.

The vault was a large bunker similar to those beneath the Pentagon, dominated by a big stone table with an old model of the city on it. He recognized the White House and U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument. But to the south was an enormous, never-built pyramid.

It's a monument to America itself, Conrad realized. Roman numeral markings at the foundation of the pyramid struck him as odd at first glance.

But he had little time for closer inspection. At any moment security forces would be entering the tunnel outside.

A few feet beyond the table was what he was looking for: a golden celestial globe, like something out of Dutch master cartographer Wilhem Bleau's studio in the sixteenth century.

This was the original globe that Washington kept in his study at Mount Vernon for years before it disappeared, Conrad knew instantly. Not the inferior papiermache replacement from London that Washington later commissioned as America's first president and which now stood on display in the estate's museum.

Or at least Conrad prayed to God it was the real deal.

Conrad dropped to his knees and felt the smooth contours and constellations of the globe, marveling at its three-dimensional, holographic look. The artifact itself would fetch a small fortune at auction.

The corner of his eye caught a glint of metal on the table beside the globe. He looked over and saw a silver plate-the silver plate made and engraved by Caleb Bently, a Quaker silversmith, upon which the U.S. Capitol's cornerstone was set.

That's why the U.S. Geological Survey could never find the cornerstone with metal detectors. The Masons had taken the plate when they moved the globe.

He read the engraving on the silver plate:

This South East corner Stone of the Capitol of the United States of America in the City of Washington, was laid on the 18th day of September 1793, in the thirteenth year of American Independence, in the first year of the second term of the Presidency of George Washington, whose virtues in the civil administration of his country have been as conspicuous and beneficial, as his Military valor and prudence have been useful in establishing her liberties, and in the year of Masonry 5793, by the Grand Lodge of Maryland, several lodges under its jurisdiction, and Lodge No. 22, from Alexandria, Virginia.

Conrad's hands began to shake as he slipped the silver plate into his coat pocket and looked at the globe.

The fate of the world is in your hands, he marveled, recalling Washington's words. Let's see what the world has to offer me.

He ran his finger along the 40th longitude of the globe, feeling for a seam. When he found it, he traced it to a spring-loaded latch. He pulled the latch and stared in amazement as the globe split open.