The Atlantis Prophecy

43

THE WALLS of the ancient well were lined with stone, which made Serena wonder if it had been used for something sacred or ritualistic. It appeared to have been originally constructed with pure Algonquin muscle, probably two or more Indians working side by side. As such it was wide enough to accommodate both her and Conrad. He did the digging while she hauled up the dirt.

"Mother Superior always told me that if you ask God to move your mountain, don't be surprised if he gives you a shovel."

"Did she also teach you to lie and cheat, too?" Conrad asked with a grunt, digging his shovel deep into the dirt. "You knew Brooke was Alignment from the start, Serena, didn't you? But you didn't warn me. You didn't lift a goddamn finger until after I found my orders as Stargazer from Washington."

"What did Brooke tell you, Conrad?"

"That Seavers is going to release a bird flu virus at the Olympic Games in Beijing next month." He tossed a shovelful of dirt into a bucket. "Actually, he's going to release it tomorrow at the National Mall. But the contagion won't start until the Olympics so that everybody will assume it started in China. America gets to give the smart vaccine to its friends and deny it to its enemies at home and abroad. Seavers is just the Alignment's trigger man for the Apocalypse. The globe we're after is what they're going to use to somehow justify the 'cleansing' and their New World Order."

Like a dark shadow the revelation came upon her and she shivered.

"The bird flu," she repeated. "Oh, my God, Conrad. I should have known. As a linguist I should have known."

"Known what?"

"The word influenza comes from the Old Italian," she said. "It means a 'bad alignment of stars.' The ancients associated the outbreak of plagues with astronomical conjunctions."

"Yeah, well, this time the Alignment is going to make it happen."

"We have to stop him, Conrad. But how in the world are we going to get to him?"

"We're never going to find that needle in that haystack," he said, breathing hard. "There are going to be a half million people picnicking on the Mall for the concert and fireworks. And security has never been tighter."

As she watched him redouble his digging, Serena tried to make sense of this new revelation. Suddenly, she said, "I know where he's going to do it."

Conrad stopped digging for a moment, to catch his breath and listen.

"I heard Seavers talking to a Chinese official at the prayer breakfast. He's going to the top of the Washington Monument when all the visiting Olympic officials go up to see the fireworks. We have to call it in to the president and Secretary Packard."

Serena tried her cell phone, but of course there was no signal, not this deep under the earth.

"Like they're going to believe us, anyway," he said, and she heard a definitive clank of the shovel.

She got down on her knees and helped him clear the remaining dirt away to reveal the bottom of the well. She felt her stomach turn over.

"It's not here," she said, desperation in her voice. "The globe is gone. We have to leave and warn the White House about Seavers. We have no choice now."

"No, it's here." Conrad wiped his brow and looked up the walls of the well. "I know it. We haven't gotten below the water table yet. Step back."

Serena moved aside as he lifted his heavy shovel into the air like a man with a sledgehammer at a county fair about to ring the bell and impress his girlfriend. "What are you doing?"

"This is a false bottom." He brought the shovel down on the stone bottom of the well. Sparks flew from the thunder of the blow. Conrad lifted the shovel up again and brought it down even harder, and she heard a loud crack. "Help me lift these out."

It took a half hour to haul up the stones, and another hour of digging before Conrad's shovel produced a distinctive clink. He had struck something metal.

It was the globe.

Conrad set the shovel against the wall of the well, pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of the shirt he had lifted from a homeless man and lit it.

Serena stared at him. "What the bloody hell are you waiting for!" she said, worried that Max Seavers and his armed dupes could be on top of them any moment.

Conrad took a slow drag from his cigarette and blew out a perfect ring of smoke. She watched the "O" hang in the air, expand and break up as it floated away into nothingness. Finally, he spoke:

"Brooke said something else back at the Hilton."

She could feel her stomach tighten. He always did this-chose the worst moments to bring up something he had been turning over for hours, days, weeks, or even years. "Not now, Conrad. Please."

"She said you knew something about my blood. Something you've always known. Something I had to see to believe."

Serena took a deep breath, walked over, and removed the cigarette from Conrad's mouth. She took a slow, deep drag, returned the cigarette and blew smoke back in his face. "You really want to play this game now, of all times?"

"Yep."

She got down on her knees in the bottom of the well and started digging desperately with her hands while Conrad watched her. "It's not your blood so much as your DNA."

"You had my DNA analyzed?"

"After Antarctica," she said, her voice tightening.

"What did you take from me?"

"A lock of hair," she said. "We can do this later, Conrad. Please help me. Help yourself."

"Why did you have my DNA analyzed, Serena? You didn't really believe what my father said there, did you? There's nothing special about my DNA. You don't think I had myself tested? I've seen the numbers, read all the tables. No unusual strands or combinations, Serena."

"Conrad, you're impossible!" She could see the top of something metallic just beneath the dirt.

"You know something I don't, Serena? You usually do."

"It isn't explained in analysis, Conrad. You have to see it."

"What the hell are you talking about, Serena?"

She rose to her feet and looked at him. "You want to know, Conrad? Fine. Your DNA strand spirals to the left."

"Of course it spirals. That's what the double-helix is all about."

"Except that the DNA of every indigenous organism on planet Earth spirals to the right."

She watched his hard face, watched his penetrating eyes study her, until his mouth softened and he dropped his cigarette and stamped it out. "So what do you believe, Serena?"

"I don't know what to believe now, Conrad. Only that I love you and want to be with you if we get out of this mess. I realized that the moment I thought it was you who was dead in the room and not Brooke. But we have to pull out whatever is under our feet and get it before Seavers does, or we're history."

She wrapped her arms around Conrad's neck and leaned up and kissed him full on the mouth. She could feel her heart pounding out of her chest and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight. Then he slowly let go and she looked up at his face, grim with determination.

"Let's dig this thing up."