The Atlantis revelation

24

Conrad frantically checked the box one more time, looking for any kind of hidden compartment or false bottom he may have missed. But there was none. There was only this damn watch.

He stared in dismay at Baron von Berg's sole piece of personal jewelry. The dial was stamped with rolex oyster and sported an unusual outer track of black-painted Roman numbers on top and Arabic numbers on the bottom. But that was all. In a vault filled with the wealth of dead Nazis, robber barons, deposed dictators, oil sheiks, and the like, why would SS General Ludwig von Berg have gone to such great lengths simply to preserve an old watch?

It felt like a bad joke.

Not only did Conrad have to get out of here in one piece, there was no way Abdil would believe that this watch was all he'd found, much less hand him millions in cash for it.

There had to be more to this watch than sentimental value to a crazy Nazi.

Just like the name of the Roman god of war carried some meaning for Baron von Berg, so, too, did the number 1740 for the box. The same had to be true of this watch, which had its hour and minute hands stopped at midnight-or noon. That was no accident. The watch didn't stop winding down at that exact minute. Von Berg had left it that way.

A crazy thought seized Conrad. Von Berg may have been insane, but he was a military man, too. Military men, as Conrad knew all too well from growing up with the Griffter, used military time. And 1740 hours meant 5:40 p.m.

Conrad carefully pulled out the watch's side-turning knob and slowly adjusted the hands until the hour hand reached the number five on the dial and the minute hand reached the number eight.

When he pushed the thumb knob down again, the watch's two-piece screw-back case fell open. A coin hit the table and rolled onto the floor.

Conrad quickly snatched it up. It was an ancient Roman coin with a Caesar's bust and an eagle on the back. It was oddly familiar; it reminded him of the Tribute Penny that Serena wore around her neck. But that medallion was one of a kind.

Or was it?

Conrad quickly inserted the coin snugly beneath the gears of the watch and replaced the back case, inside of which was stamped oyster watch co. Then he strapped the watch to his wrist, closed the box, and stepped out into the vault with his shoulder bag. Without bothering to call for Elise, he slid the box back into its slot and walked out.

The security guard by the desk was already calling upstairs by the time Conrad stepped into the old brass elevator and let the doors close. As soon as they did, he dropped to the floor and reached into his bag to remove a knife.

He cut along the hidden seams beneath the carpet and then pulled the tiny hook in the corner he had seen to reveal a lower compartment. That was where the VIPs had entered and exited in secret from the old tunnel Midas had sealed up.

Conrad had seen this type of elevator only once before-Hitler's old Eagle's Nest retreat atop Mount Kelstein in Bavaria. The Nazis had bored a four-hundred-foot elevator shaft in the center of the mountain. That 1938 brass elevator was also a double-decker. Hitler and his important guests rode the brass-lined upper cabin to the top while his guards and supplies for the house rode unseen in the bottom cabin.

Conrad placed an explosive puck on the floor of the upper cabin and dropped into the bottom cabin and pulled the trapdoor shut. He then pulled out his hazmat gas mask and waited in the dark with a small detonator in his hand.

When the elevator stopped and the door in the top cabin opened in the bank's lobby, he heard shouts from security guards at the sight of the empty compartment. He then pressed the button and exploded the puck containing the knockout gas sufentanil. There was more shouting, and a body dropped with a crash in the cabin above him.

It took him a minute longer than he expected to pop the trapdoor open, but then he crawled out into the lobby and stood up, hearing loud hacking coughs as he stepped over the bodies.

The porter at the front door had managed to press a silent alarm before going down, and when Conrad finally stepped outside and ripped off his mask, the sound of sirens blared.

He walked quickly down the street, turned a corner, and hailed a cab. He was opening the door when the sound of a helicopter forced him to look up. To his astonishment, he saw the screaming face of Abdil Zawas pressed against the window of his limousine before it disappeared with the chopper over the roof of the UBS building.

Conrad quickly climbed into the back of the cab and said, "American embassy."