The Atlantis revelation

36

Serena stepped off her seaplane in Mandraki Harbor at Rhodes and felt like she had stepped back in time to the Crusades. The Palace of the Grandmaster, the fifteenth-century Tower of St. Nicholas, and the Mosque of Sultan completely overwhelmed the contemporary seaside cafes, chic shops, and sleek yachts lining the harbor.

Brother Lorenzo of the Dei, his mouth agape in astonishment, was waiting for her by a silver Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG sport-utility vehicle as she walked toward him, holding the celestial globe from the Americans against her belly and looking like a pregnant woman about to give birth.

She felt naked without the full escort of Swiss Guards she normally had at her disposal. But this was not official Vatican business, and if any agents of the Alignment were watching from rooftops through scopes, it was probably for her protection until she delivered the globes. There was no reason for any sort of smash-and-grab attack.

"The genuine celestial globe," Lorenzo said reverently as he helped her load it into the back. He had no clue where she had gone between Paris and Rhodes and was clearly impressed with her acquisition. "But how?"

She certainly wasn't going to tell him. "Where's Benito?"

"At the convention center with the terrestrial globe and the fake celestial globe."

"Let's go, then."

The Rodos Palace hotel and convention center sat on a hill overlooking Ialyssos Bay and billed itself as Greece's finest and largest convention resort, specially built to host the European heads of state. Serena could see from all the armored vehicles and police outside that this was certainly the case today. Some twenty-seven ministers of the European nations and all their security had descended on the peace summit to discuss and possibly reach some sort of international resolution on the fate of Jerusalem, which they had deemed the key to establishing an independent Palestinian state and peace in the Middle East.

Lorenzo bypassed the main entrance to the complex on Trianton Avenue and rounded the corner to the vehicle inspection point in front of the drop-off lane at the VIP entrance. He popped the rear hatch, lowered his window, and handed to a police officer his license and registration, along with their summit ID badges. Serena watched the officer slide the badges through a card reader while four soldiers surrounded the SUV and passed mirrors under the chassis in search of explosives.

A couple of the soldiers had gathered around the globe and asked that she and Lorenzo step out and explain while the interior cabin of the SUV could be examined.

"It's part of the art for one of the exhibitions at the summit," she said. "We're not even taking it inside. We're picking up another globe at the loading dock outside the Jupiter Ballroom and then taking both of them to the Palace of the Grandmaster for viewing."

"Of course, Sister Serghetti," the officer said. "I am sorry for the inconvenience."

She climbed back inside the SUV, and Lorenzo got behind the wheel and started it up again. Then he drove them all of fifty yards down to the loading entrance outside the Jupiter Ballroom.

In the ballroom, Serena found the EU heads of state seated in front of their national flags around a pentagon of tables beneath Murano crystal chandeliers. Around the leaders was a much larger ring of tables packed with diplomatic staff, international press, and banks of equipment for audiovisual and simultaneous interpretation.

She made her way behind the press area, glancing up now and then to see the image of a talking head flash across the large screen over the stage. She could only guess how many of those faces belonged to the Thirty. Whoever her counterparts of the Alignment turned out to be, Serena was convinced that the message of the Templar globes and this EU summit were connected symbiotically. The origins of the globes had been traced to King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem, after all, and it was the future of that city under discussion in this ballroom.

She found Benito backstage with the globes, which were disregarded by all the technical people moving to and fro as mere set pieces and part of the show, somebody else's responsibility.

Midas was there, too, and he wasted no time. "You have something for me?"

Serena removed the Shekel of Tyre from her pocket and handed it to him.

He didn't take her word for it and took out some sort of pocket-sized device to shine an infrared light on it. "The ancients used some kind of polymer material on the coins. The effect is like an invisible UV stamp. See?" he said. He showed her the coin under the light, and to her amazement, she saw four arrowlike markers emblazoned at the cardinal points around the bust of Baal. They made a cross, and she recognized it as the adopted flag of the island's Knights of St. John.

Midas held up his infrared device and said accusingly, "I used this on your celestial globe here, too. It's a fake."

"I have the real one in my car outside. You were to give me further instructions?"

Midas seemed pleased. "You are to take the globes to the west entrance of the Palace of the Grandmaster at three o'clock, where you will be met by a nameless Greek attache and directed to a chamber where you will present the globes to Uriel," he told her. "You have ten minutes."

She left Lorenzo and the faux celestial globe at the convention center and climbed into the back of the SUV with the two genuine globes. Benito pulled onto the access drive, and the police waved them through the exit gate.

Uriel, she thought. Serena had never heard that name among the Thirty. But she knew that Uriel was the name of the angel in Genesis who guarded the gate to the Garden of Eden with a flaming sword after God kicked Adam and Eve out of paradise. Conrad's information about the Flammenschwert weapon was beginning to make sense, and she was eager to find out who this Uriel could be.

As they drove toward the Palace of the Grandmaster, she could tell Benito was impressed with her acquisition of the genuine celestial globe but concerned all the same.

"And Signor Yeats?" he asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

"With the Americans," she answered.

Benito bit his tongue, but Serena could read his eyes: That man will hate you for the rest of your life, you cold, heartless bitch. Well, he wouldn't say that. Benito didn't swear, and he knew more than anybody else what was necessary. He seemed sad all the same, though.

But she had come to Rhodes to unmask the Alignment. In a few minutes she would deliver the globes, as promised. In a few hours she would attend tonight's Council Meeting of the Thirty. Then everything she had worked for and sacrificed-including a life with Conrad-would pay off once and for all.