The Atlantis Prophecy

51

IT WAS JUST before nine the following evening when Conrad, his arm in a sling, was admitted in the Oval Office. The president was sitting on a sofa, sipping some Scotch, staring into the empty fireplace as a gentle rain drummed the windows behind him. To the right of the fireplace stood the celestial globe.

"You have the Newburgh Treaty, Dr. Yeats?"

"Yes, Mr. President."

Conrad sat down on the opposite sofa, eyes fixed on the globe, thinking of Serena, and wondering where she had gone. Above the fireplace mantle was a portrait of George Washington. Conrad almost felt like Washington was studying him as closely as the current president was. He wondered if the president knew that the East Wing of the White House was designed by architect I.M. Pei as a triangle to mirror the federal triangle, based on the slope of Pennsylvania Avenue as it intersects with Constitution Avenue and 16th Street. But now was not the time to bring it up.

"I suppose the other globe is safe inside the Vatican by now," the president said. "Somewhere even we can't touch it. But these globes are meant to go together."

"I wanted to talk to you about that, Mr. President," Conrad said. "Sister Serghetti has already seen the signatures on the Treaty. The damage is done. I think we could make an exchange: the Treaty for the terrestrial globe."

The president looked him in the eye. "How about the Treaty for your freedom, Yeats, so I don't throw you in military lockup?"

Conrad handed it over.

The president calmly unfolded it and then pulled out a pair of reading glasses. For a crazy second Conrad wondered if the president would repeat Washington's famous line from Newburgh:

"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country."

But the president simply looked over the Newburgh Treaty once, and then again. Finally, he sat back and stared at Conrad over his reading glasses. "Some of the signatures on this Treaty…it's beyond shocking."

"Like your ancestor John Marshall, Mr. President?" Conrad said. "It's the sixth name down if you need help finding it."

"I see it, thank you," the president said tersely. "And no, Dr. Yeats, like you I had no idea of the extent of my family's dealings with the Alignment. But as you discovered, when your roots go that far back in American history, it's probably unavoidable. Some of these names will turn up modern-day Alignment figures. Some won't. It will be a tricky but necessary ordeal to ferret them out. But we will."

"Like Senator Scarborough?"

Conrad knew the FBI had raided Scarborough's home in Virginia that morning. News reports said a federal grand jury was looking into his ties to a defense contractor-biotech billionaire Max Seavers.

"It appears Seavers funneled money to the senator," the president said, sounding genuinely shocked. "Scarborough's position in Congress, where he sits on the Armed Services Committee that controls the Pentagon budget, could have allowed him to influence the flow of contracts to Seavers's company, or even Seavers's appointment to DARPA."

So that's how it's going down, Conrad thought. "So the only reason you wanted the Newburgh Treaty was to take names?"

"Hell no, Yeats," the president said. "This is America. Nobody gives a damn what your ancestors did. Or shouldn't. We're judged by our fruits, not our roots. The sins of the fathers should not be visited on their sons. I should think you would appreciate that more than anybody else."

Conrad sighed at this none-too-subtle reminder of Antarctica and his father General Yeats.

"It's what the Newburgh Treaty and the Alignment represent that threatens our security," the president went on. "Science and technology have advanced more rapidly than the ability of politicians and generals to grasp their implications. That's what Plato implied was the real problem with Atlantis. Not the cataclysm that supposedly destroyed it. If we don't do any better in America, which Sir Francis Bacon prophesized to be the New Atlantis, we'll suffer the same fate. Hell, just a few years back I used to sweat over mass extinction from some terrorist biotoxin. Max Seavers was on the brink of bottling it as a vaccine with the label 'Made in the USA.' Thank God you stopped him."

"God?" Conrad repeated, wondering if the president really believed in America as "one nation under God" or was simply posing for Middle America at his prayer breakfast the other day.

The president gazed up at Washington over the fireplace.

"Washington's greatness lay in his readiness to surrender power and embrace his faith," the president said, a faraway look in his eyes. "He understood that true political freedom cannot exist without religious freedom. Sure, he bent over backwards not to favor any particular religion. But he instinctively grasped that Americans of religious faith are the true protectors of American liberty."

"He also gave his spies bags of gold, Mr. President."

The president paused for a moment, then pursed his lips and smiled at Yeats in a way that almost resembled a smirk. "You've done your part, Dr. Yeats, and America is grateful," he said. "Big time."

The president put the Treaty down on the table beside him and picked up a box. "There's more, don't worry," he said, holding the box out to him. "This is the Presidential Medal of Honor with Military Distinction. The incredible truth is that you successfully carried out the orders of the commander-in-chief."

Conrad wasn't sure if the president was referring to himself or George Washington. But he felt an honest-to-goodness surge of pride as he opened the box and looked at the medal. It was a golden disc with a great white star on top of a red enamel pentagon. In the center of the star was a gold circle with blue enamel bearing thirteen gold stars. The medal hung from a blue ribbon with white edge stripes, white stars, and a golden American eagle with spread wings.

The president said, "Secretary Packard insisted you deserved no less and wanted me to tell you that he wants you back at DARPA."

"It's Danny Z and old Herc who deserve this," Conrad said and closed the box. "Along with that poor soul you buried in my father's tomb."

The president only said, "Take a lesson from Sister Serghetti, son, and stop mourning for those you're sure to follow shortly."

"None of this changes the fact that we have one globe and the Vatican has the other," Conrad pressed. "Or that you and Sister Serghetti and I saw the names on the Treaty with our own eyes."

"That girl is going to do what she's going to do," the president said. "I have to do what I have to do."

The president rose to his feet, picked up the Newburgh Treaty and stepped to the fireplace. He touched a lighter to the corner of the Treaty and placed the Treaty in the fireplace.

Conrad looked on as a corner curled into black and then burst into flame beneath the watchful eyes of George Washington. Within seconds more black holes like growing welts appeared all over the Treaty until it went up in smoke.