The Atlantis revelation

54

It was just after three o'clock, and General Gellar was praying at the Western Wall, his head covered with his yarmulke and his shoulders draped with his silk tallith, when the explosion rocked the Temple Mount.

There were screams and shouts, and he looked up at the Dome of the Rock to behold the pillar of fire he had dreamed of for so long. But it didn't come, and the shaking began to die down like a small earthquake. There were no aftershocks.

Confused and disturbed by what this could mean, he slowly made his way across the crowds in the plaza who were engaged in animated discussion over what had just happened.

As he approached the curb, a white van pulled up and a door slid open to reveal a bleeding Commander Sam Deker and several armed Yamam. Gellar tried to turn but felt something prick his neck as he blacked out.

Several hours later, Deker and his team stormed the labs of the Israeli subsidiary of Midas Minerals amp; Mining at the Tefen Industrial Park near the Lebanese border. After the raid, he met with his U.S. counterparts in one of the theaters on the corporate campus. Marshall Packard was sitting on a chair on the stage, reading over a report with a tall, thin woman who introduced herself as Wanda Randolph.

"Hell, Deker, this month alone they had engineers from Intel, Siemens, Exxon, and MIT visiting the R amp; D center to learn about this new water detection and extraction technology," Packard told him. "How could the Israelis not know Gellar had an ownership interest in the company?"

"Many members of the government and military have similar arrangements with the companies here."

Packard frowned. "You secured the rest of those metal pellets in the labs?"

"Destroyed." Deker held his ground. "I trusted neither my superiors nor you to properly dispose of them."

"That's unfortunate," Packard said. "Just one of those little fire beads could have unlocked Atlantean technology."

Deker said nothing.

"What are you going to say about Gellar in your report to the Israeli prime minister?"

"That he died a hero of Israel, preventing what could have been a debilitating strike on the Temple Mount. Had it succeeded, it would have triggered a war in which Israel would have prevailed, of course, but at the cost of many lives."

"What about the globes? I don't suppose they could have possibly survived."

"If they did, I wouldn't tell you," Deker said. "I'm more concerned about Yeats and Serghetti. Any word on their fate?"

Packard looked somber. "No," he said. "But wherever they are, I think it's time we finally leave them the hell alone."

That evening Deker returned to the Western Wall and looked for the slip of paper with the prayer on it that Gellar had inserted between the massive rocks. It was taboo, but Deker wasn't much of a devout Jew.

Using what he had seen from the surveillance footage, he found what he was reasonably certain was the prayer.

Come let us go up the mountain of

the Lord, that we may walk the

paths of the Most High.

And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares,

and our spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation-

Neither shall they learn war any more.

And none shall be afraid, for the mouth of the

Lord of Hosts has spoken.

It was a good prayer, Deker thought. He was sure he had heard it somewhere before in his childhood. Seeing the Jews and Christians around him praying, and hearing the distant call of the minaret for Muslims to pray as well, he decided to repeat that prayer as his way of saying kaddish for the souls of Conrad Yeats and Serena Serghetti.