The Atlantis Prophecy

3

CONRAD BOUNDED UP the front steps to Brooke's brownstone in two strides and unlocked the front door. She had given him the key to her place months before he agreed to move in with her, a decision made only after he had finally accepted that he would never get another chance with Serena Serghetti.

Inside the foyer, he threw his coat on the bench and began to disarm the alarm. His mind was already on the book that awaited him in the study, and he absently punched the wrong numeric code on the keypad.

As he cleared the alarm and put in the correct code, he wondered what kind of other surveillance besides the SUV outside the SecDef had on him. Probably audio but no video, he concluded, and even that from directional microphones in the SUV and not from any bugs in the house. Packard wouldn't risk the ire of Brooke's father, Senator Joseph Scarborough, who oversaw half of Packard's black ops appropriations from his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Then again, Senator Scarborough had an even lower opinion of the man his daughter was living with than the Secretary of Defense. "Never did any woman see so much in a man with so little," the Senator once mused. He wouldn't overlook any opportunity to terminate their relationship.

Conrad walked into Brooke's study and placed the flag from the funeral on the fireplace mantle. He pulled out an old, brown cloth hardcover book from the third shelf.

The title was gilt stamped on the book's spine-The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. His father had given it to him when he was ten. It was the only thing his father had ever given him except pain and grief.

Conrad grabbed a pen and a pad of stationery that read Brooke Scarborough / The Fox on Fox Sports and dropped them with Tom Sawyer on the coffee table in the living room. He then went to the kitchen to heat up some leftover pasta from Café Milano before he sat down on the living room sofa with his bowl of carbs, bottle of Sam Adams, and Tom Sawyer.

He tore off three sheets from Brooke's notepad.

On the first sheet he wrote the number from the back of his father's tombstone: 763. He was clueless as to its meaning for now.

On the second sheet he wrote out the names of the constellations he had seen on the east face of the obelisk:

Next to each constellation, he wrote down the name of its anchor or "alpha star," which was usually the brightest to the naked eye as seen from Earth:

In theory, each alpha star had a terrestrial counterpart or landmark. In places like Giza or Teotihuacon, the ancients placed their pyramids or ziggurats to point to key stars in the heavens. The effect was an astronomically aligned city that mirrored the heavens on the ground. Symbolically, it was intended to achieve some kind of cosmic harmony between man and the gods. Practically, it created a secret "treasure map" to the city known only to its founders.

He quickly drew the alpha stars in relation to each other from memory and came up with a triangle:

That makes no sense at all.

The way it worked in places like the pyramids in Egypt and the Way of the Dead in South America, each landmark linked to a star would lead to another landmark and then another. In theory, you could follow the star map written across the heavens on the ground until you reached a fixed destination. Usually it was a monument or shrine of some kind whose true meaning and purpose would finally be revealed-along with whatever treasure or secret knowledge it contained.

Unfortunately, this triangle of stars was no map at all. It had no direction. In effect, it was an endless loop, going in circles. This, too, would take time to crack.

Finally, on the third sheet, he quickly scribbled out the numeric code-a sequence of five numerical strings-he had memorized:

Ah, finally something familiar.

From the looks of them, Conrad guessed the numbers were in "book code." Each string of three numbers represented a word. The first number was the page of the book. The second was the line on that page. The third was the actual word on that line. So the five sets of numbers meant there were five words, which together formed a phrase or message. That message would be key to unlocking the meaning of the star coordinates.

The problem with book codes was that they were impossible to break-unless you had the book on which they were based, usually a specific book and edition possessed by both the sender and the recipient.

This has to be the book, Conrad thought as he picked up The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It was the only book his father ever gave him, and his father had taught him the cipher when Conrad was into codes as a Boy Scout at age ten, the same age as Tom Sawyer in the book.

Conrad sat back in the sofa and cracked open the front cover of the novel. It was an unauthorized, non-illustrated edition published in Toronto by Belford Brothers Publishers in July 1876, months before the authorized American edition came out. Conrad remembered how, like Tom Sawyer, he wanted to be a pirate as a child. And this edition was the "pirate" version that a furious Mark Twain claimed was stolen from the typesetters.

He glanced at the string of numbers he had copied down and flipped through the pages of the book. The first of the five strings-155.1.6-directed Conrad to page 155, line 1, word 6.

Conrad flipped to page 155 and deciphered the first number:

He quickly deciphered the next two numbers and stared at the note:

The sun was probably a final, invisible celestial marker, and what it was shining over was the final terrestrial landmark-the location of something his father thought was so important.

He flipped to page 111. The next word was SAVAGE.

He was about to flip to page 54 and the last word when he heard the bathroom door creak upstairs and he froze.

"Conrad?" a voice called out. "Is that you?"

Brooke! She had been home the whole time. He didn't expect her so early, but a glance at his watch told him she finished her show two hours ago.

Conrad slapped Tom Sawyer shut, slipped it under the sofa, picked up a remote and turned on the plasma television. Brooke TiVo'd her weekend sports show on Fox. He found it on the program guide and tuned in.

On the screen the logo for her show came up with the Wagnerian music score before the commercials. It mixed sports and politics. All of the sponsors, it seemed, were powerful, industrial global giants involved in "communications" and "energy" and "financial services." The average viewer was a white, middle-aged man with a bulging stock portfolio and golf pants to match as he ogled Ms. Scarborough and sipped his Arnold Palmer in the clubhouse.

"Why don't we declare war on Muslim terrorists?" she chirped to baseball's A-Rod, shown on the field. The New York Yankee looked at her like he had woken up in an alternative universe. "They've declared war on us for years," she went on. "The Crusaders had it right: We need to sack them or put them in our jerseys."

Conrad had fought his own battles with Islamofascists and was all for winning the war on terror. But he couldn't believe they let her say this stuff on the air. Yet hers was one of their highest-rated political talk shows. It was better watching her with the TV muted, but instead he turned up the volume for the benefit of anybody listening.

The real show involved gratuitous, low-angle full shots of her legs and her flipping her long blonde hair while she blathered conservative social commentary-lower taxes, no more affirmative action, and guns for everybody. He knew she kept a loaded.357 Magnum in a Manolo Blahnik shoebox at the top of her bedroom closet upstairs. Of course, since she had about 200 shoeboxes, he could never be sure which one it was.

He craned his neck and looked up the stairs as a pair of long legs stepped into view. It was Brooke in a pair of strappy Jimmy Choos and a green Elie Saab evening gown that showed off her faultless figure to full effect.

"There you are," she said, eyeing the pasta bowl and Sam Adams on the coffee table. "Where were you?"

"The graveyard," Conrad said.

"I know, sweetie, I'm sorry I wasn't there." Brooke walked over and kissed him on the lips. "But that's why we planned to go out tonight, remember? To put the past behind you and to celebrate us and the future. The Olympics reception at the Chinese Embassy is tonight. Everybody from the network is going to be there."

Conrad stared. He had completely forgotten.

"I just buried my father, Brooke," Conrad said, his thoughts on the book under the sofa. "I'm not in a party mood."

She frowned and her crystal blue eyes, which at times could look vacant, seemed to come into sharp focus like the automatic lens of a camera.

He expected her to say, "You hated your father," but what came out was sugary sweet. She was great that way.

"I know it must be hard, Conrad," she cooed. "But at least yours went out with a bang. My grandfather was a veteran who died in a retirement condo in Florida while he nodded off watching Errol Flynn in Night of the Dawn Patrol."

"So you think I'm going to kick off watching Top Gun while you're out?"

"No, you're going to kick off being my Top Gun tonight," she said with shining eyes. "If you're lucky."

Conrad smiled as he looked at her. Although she had quite a killer body now, with a kick-ass personality, Conrad had met her and dated her when they were but gawky teenagers at Sidwell Friends School after his father had dragged him to live in D.C. for two years. Now she was poised, confident, sexy, having filled out her curves and buffed her body to perfection. She seemed to have all the answers.

"Wake me up when you get back," he told her.

Brooke sighed, picked up his raincoat from the bench and put it in the closet. She turned to the foyer mirror and started to apply more lipstick. "I might bring somebody home with me."

"More the merrier." Conrad turned the sound back on the TV. "Make sure she's a brunette."

"I hate you," she said.

"Everybody does in time."

She marched over and took the remote from him.

"Hey, I was looking for Top Gun."

"The only thing you're watching tonight is me."

"But I was watching you."

"In the flesh, Con. We're staying home together."

She leaned over, her cleavage practically enveloping his head, and kissed him full on the lips with passion. That she would stay home for him spoke volumes about her devotion, and her soft lips lifted his mood in spite of himself.

"What about the Chinese?" he asked.

She smiled. "We'll order take-out."

She took him by the hand and led him upstairs. Only once did he glance back at the book under the corner of the sofa.