The Atlantis revelation

5

There were lights and music coming from the Achillion Palace that evening, but no crowds of onlookers, no paparazzi to snap photos as the guests stepped out of their limousines and entered the palace. And the glamour quotient took a distant backseat to the power quotient. Everything was understated and discreet, save for the music: Coldplay live in concert. Actually, it struck Conrad as odd-a bit of contemporary fizz thrown on a very old-world gathering.

Conrad sat in the backseat of his limousine in an Armani tuxedo as Andros played the part of his driver, nudging the sedan forward in the line of black chariots at the main gate where U.S. Marines stood.

Andros, whom Conrad had never seen more nervous, pressed a button to unlock the trunk and then lowered his window for the Marines and spoke in Greek. "His Royal Highness Crown Prince Pavlos."

One of the guards flashed a light at the rear passenger window as Conrad lowered it for them to get a better look at his impression of the Greek royal. The guard matched the name and face to the computerized clipboard while three others with extended mirror plates examined the underside of the sedan and the trunk. Conrad's resemblance to Pavlos was close enough for the Marine, who got the all-clear from the bomb squad and waved the limousine through.

Andros let out a sigh of relief as they rolled down the drive to the entrance of the palace and looked up in the rearview mirror. "This was a bad idea."

"We got through the gate, didn't we?"

"Only because U.S. Marines don't know what Pavlos really looks like up close and in person. His family isn't even of Greek descent. The monarchy was originally imposed on Greece by the Bavarian ancestors of these Bilderbergers. Trust me, the cabinet-level Greeks and Evzoni at the entrance will know on sight that you're an impostor."

Conrad knew that Andros was referring to the Greek security detail dead ahead. They were members of Greece's elite ceremonial presidential guard who, besides guarding the Hellenic Parliament and Presidential Mansion in Athens, guarded the reception of foreign dignitaries. Dressed in traditional light infantry uniforms, they wore scarlet garrison caps with long black tassels and red leather clogs with black pompons.

"They're just for show, Andros. Men in kilts."

"And carrying M1 Garand semiautomatic battle rifles with bayonets."

As they pulled up to the columned facade of the palace, Conrad saw four members of the Bilderbergers on the front steps welcoming guests: Her Majesty Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands; His Royal Highness Prince Phillipe of Belgium; Microsoft founder and the world's richest man, William Gates III; and a man Andros said was Greece's minister of finance.

Andros said, "We're cooked."

"Just remember, buddy. You're richer than half of them and better than the other half."

Andros stopped the limousine, and an Evzoni opened Conrad's door as another ceremonial guard announced his arrival in English. "Dr. Conrad Yeats, USA."

They knew all along it was me, he thought with a start.

He glanced back at Andros, but the Evzoni had already waved off the limousine to make room for the next arrival, leaving Conrad alone to face a smiling Queen Beatrice, who coldly shook his hand.

"So good to meet you, Dr. Yeats. I'm so glad you could come at the last minute as a substitute for Dr. Hawass from Cairo. We're looking forward to hearing your perspectives on archaeology and the geopolitics of the Near East."

"My pleasure." Conrad smoothly shook hands with Prince Phillipe and then Bill Gates. He knew he was a fool to have believed he ever would have slipped anything past these people. They had let him know it and were about to make him an exhibit for public viewing at their little gathering.

"I heard your talk about astronomical alignments and Washington's monuments at the TED conference in Monterey a couple of years ago," Gates told him. "I remember thinking you were either completely nuts or archaeology's equivalent of the world's most dangerous hacker."

Conrad couldn't tell if that was a compliment or indictment as Queen Beatrice indicated he should take her arm and they walked up the three flat marble steps through the main entrance.

Inside the reception hall, arrivals had gathered at the base of an impressive staircase flanked by statues of Zeus and Hera. At the top of the stairs was a grand mural that showed Achilles dragging the dead Hector behind his chariot before the walls of Troy. Conrad hoped it wasn't a prophecy for the evening and that the courtesy of his hostess would be extended to him by the rest. "Why the special treatment, Your Majesty, if I may ask?"

"All of our guests tonight are special, Dr. Yeats."

Conrad watched the crowd move up the grand staircase to the second floor, which opened onto the terrace and gardens outside. The guest list he had seen numbered 150 names-about a hundred from Europe and the rest from North America. Mostly government, finance, and communications types.

One of them, the new publisher of The Washington Post, he instantly recognized in front of him. Unfortunately, the tall, thin blonde saw him, too.

"Conrad Yeats, what the hell are you doing here?" she said. "Stepping into your daddy's shoes?"

"Hello, Katharine," he told her. She was wearing her white watch with the rhinestone skull-and-bones face. He had never seen her without it. "You seem to have filled your grandmother's pumps nicely." He watched her move toward the bottom of the grand staircase, where her party was waiting.

"Ah, you know Ms. Weymouth," Queen Beatrice said.

"Just a dance or two in high school," Conrad said. "I thought media was banned from this event."

"Not at all," the queen said. "We have several American and European news organizations represented here. But our participants have agreed not to report on the meeting or to grant interviews to outside press about what transpires. It would defeat the purpose of this forum."

"Which is?" Conrad pressed.

The queen smiled and clasped his hand with both of her own. They were small but firm. "Simply and only to allow world leaders to speak their minds freely."

"I'll do my best," he said, and turned toward the staircase.

"Before you do, your friend and sponsor for tonight would like to speak to you in the kaiser's room," Queen Beatrice said.

"Sponsor?" Conrad repeated, stepping toward the room to the right of the reception hall before the queen tugged his arm.

"That's the chapel. You wouldn't want to go there. Maybe later. The iconography is unparalleled. But the kaiser's room is this way." She gestured to the short hall on the left of the grand staircase. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Yeats." There was an unnerving finality in her voice.

Conrad bid adieu to the queen, who moved back toward the front steps while he walked down the hall to the kaiser's room and entered the study. There stood a short, barrel-chested penguin of a man in a tuxedo: Marshall Packard, former U.S. secretary of defense and now acting head of its DARPA research and development agency.

"Hell, Yeats, is there any woman alive you don't have a past with?" Packard said.

Packard must have seen his little run-in with Katharine back in the foyer, Conrad realized. "You're violating the Logan Act, Packard, you know that," he said. "You and every American here who discusses anything pertinent to the national security of the United States with foreign powers."

Packard walked behind the kaiser's old desk and made himself comfortable in the leather chair. "Spare me the lecture, Prince Pavlos, and shut the door."