The Atlantis Prophecy

5

THAT MORNING Conrad found Brooke downstairs at the breakfast table scanning five newspapers while the morning news shows blared on the TV, which she had split into six screens to follow the major broadcast and cable networks simultaneously. She was having her usual half grapefruit and Wasa cracker along with her coffee-some diet that she religiously followed from a Beverly Hills doctor to the stars. It required her to take a tiny scale with her wherever she went to weigh her food-no more than three ounces of anything at a time, no less than four hours apart.

"You're up early," she said as she poured him some coffee. "The Post ran a nice obit on your dad."

She showed him the picture and headline: Body of Former Air Force General Found in Antarctica Laid to Rest.

Conrad glanced at the photo of his dad, circa 1968, back in his "Right Stuff" days with NASA, a genuine American icon.

"I figured I might as well get a jump on the documentary for the Discovery Channel," he told Brooke. "You know, put the past behind and look ahead. So I'm going in early this morning to the offices in Maryland. See if Mercedes goes for it."

"Just see that she doesn't go for you, Con," Brooke said without looking up from her newspapers. "That one, unfortunately, isn't a nun."

Conrad paused, wondering if he had talked about Serena in his sleep. But then he noticed Serena on four channels of the TV screen. She was talking about the state of human rights in China on the eve of the Olympics, as well as China's status as the world's biggest polluter because of its high carbon emissions. The two other channels had segments about the bird flu, which had landed in North America and caused some poultry deaths but had not yet jumped to human-to-human contagion. That, of course, the expert with the mask on TV droned, was only a matter of time.

"I'll be careful," he laughed and kissed her goodbye.

Outside on the front steps, he looked out and noticed no suspicious vehicles. No spy types lurking in the shadows. He hurried down the sidewalk toward 31st Street and hailed a cab. He climbed inside and said, "Union Station."

Brooke watched Conrad disappear around the corner, then went into her study and stopped. Something was off. She scanned the shelves and noted a gap on the third shelf that caused some books to slant. Conrad had removed and replaced a book. The book, she suddenly realized, the one everybody had been looking for.

So he cracked the book code.

She walked over to the bookcase, removed Tom Sawyer, and flipped through the pages. She was about to put the book back and call it in when she noticed a break in the binding. There was a slit, revealing some sort of hidden pocket. She swore.

Hands shaking, she went to the kitchen and returned with a razor blade. Carefully she traced the inside cover until she formed a kind of flap. Ever so gently she peeled it back to reveal the empty pocket and, inside the flap, a smudge trace of writing. An imprint of some kind.

In a fog of dread she marched into the foyer and held up the book to the mirror, barely able to force herself to look. There in the mirror the word shone clear: STARGAZER.

"Holy shit," she gasped.

The map had been in her house all along, inside the book, right under her nose, and she had missed it.

She speed-dialed a local number in Georgetown on her coded cell phone. She identified herself to the agent who answered.

"This is SCARLETT," she said. "I've got a Priority One message for OSIRIS."