The Lost Kingdom

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Since the SPEAR team found and brought the tombs of the gods to the attention of the world, unearthing a language expert had never been a problem for them. Several were still employed on translating the writings found and photographed in the tombs, chief among them Torsten Dahl’s good friend, Olle Akerman. The Swedish language expert had proven to be fluent in old Akkadian, Sumerian, Babylonian and even the Nu Shu of ancient China, so Hayden wondered how he might fare with the lost language of the lost kingdom of Mu.

With the nightmare logistical problem of guarding two thousand six hundred tablets, organizing an approaching force of two hundred men, the SPEAR team’s widespread distribution, and Olle Akerman being in Sweden at that time, Hayden parked her butt in a tiny office and thought about what to do.

Tylenol was the first order of the day, followed by an entire bottle of water. Hayden sat in the dark, trying to steady her head. The facility’s employees had been found, three locked in a room with bruises to most parts of their bodies, two security guards murdered with shocking brute force, and six other workers in the far-flung reaches of the vault who had no idea what was going on. The most promising development was that Steel Mountain’s boss had been located and told them that the Niven Tablets had actually been photographed years ago, the prints archived. He was currently searching them out.

Hayden checked her watch. Forty five minutes had passed since Dudley escaped. That meant that the Pythians — she assumed — now owned the Peking Man and also a potential map to the lost kingdom of Mu. Their endgame and purpose, however, still remained a mystery. Was Mu a link to Atlantis? Was it, by itself, worth as much to China alone? Did it even exist? The Americans had been searching for Mu fifty years ago. Why did they stop — simply because a ship had been sunk? At the time, Hayden imagined, tensions must have been so very high between the countries involved that prudence would have come into immediate effect. Thousands of people died aboard the Awa Maru, and it wasn’t until twenty years later that even the Chinese decided to try salvaging the vessel.

Her first decision was made. Olle Akerman had come through before and would undoubtedly be delighted to hear about an undecipherable language. Hayden placed the call.

“Hello? Ja? Who is this?” Olle answered immediately, his voice loud as if he stood right next to her.

“Olle, it’s Hayden Jaye. I hope you remember me.”

“Ja, ja. Of course, how could I forget? I follow the world for your exploits. I wish I was following you right now. Ha ha.”

Same old Akerman. Hayden remembered how he used to tease Dahl about his wife. She launched into a full explanation for her call, missing nothing out. Akerman listened intently, not interrupting.

“What do you think, Olle?”

“Of course I have heard of the Niven Tablets. They are famous, considered a hoax. But a very good hoax. So many tablets, so elaborately constructed. Why go to so much trouble? Why not stop at a thousand tablets or even five hundred? Recent years and events have taught us that old artefacts once considered anomalies, inexplicable, or clever pranks, may actually be genuine. Indeed, as science advances so do the unexplainable mysteries it gives rise to. I thought everyone had forgotten the tablets.”

Hayden shrugged in the dark. “I believe they had.”

“But not these — what do you say — Pythians? They remembered, eh? Even knew where to find them. Ja? So where are the tablets now?”

Hayden didn’t answer for a moment, thinking that Akerman had uncovered a rather sore point there. How had the Pythians known where both the Peking Man and the Niven Tablets were stored?

“They’re with me. Here. At Steel Mountain. The warden is digging out a set of old prints.”

Akerman fell silent before coming to a decision. “Ja. Well, this is what I think you should do. This Mu, it is no different to Atlantis. A myth or an ancient, dead civilization. All gone. But clearly, if you are hunting Atlantis — or Mu — you need an expert’s view. I have a friend in Washington — one David Daccus — who will be able to help. I believe he wrote a paper on both Mu and the tablets and is also a language expert, though not in my class of course. In any discipline.”

Hayden caught his drift. “Olle, you’re sixty three.”

“Give me the chance, my dear, and I’ll show you how a lifetime’s experience improves one’s… virility.”

Hayden couldn’t help but laugh, whilst also feeling a little horrified. “Give me his number, Olle. And go take a cold shower.”

The Swede found Daccus’ contact details and signed off. Hayden placed her next call and put Daccus on alert as she awaited the arrival of the prints. Kinimaka reported that they’d located an industrial scanner in the vault’s main office along with several other modern accoutrements. Hayden paused a moment longer, savoring the peace and the dark and the quiet. But the world always moved on. It moved millisecond by millisecond, minute by minute, hour by hour. But it always moved on.

And danger befalls those who didn’t move with it.

Once the many prints had been fed through the scanner, compressed into a file, and sent to David Daccus; once the vault had been secured; Hayden thought about returning to Washington. It was late — or more accurately very early; and her team was worn out. Back at base Karin was manning the communications, giving Hayden’s team the entire flight home to relax. Once they arrived, Hayden had no trouble directing everyone straight to the Pentagon. There would be no returning to their apartments or houses just yet.

Hayden guessed about three hours had passed. She wondered how Daccus was faring with the tablets, how Drake was proceeding in Japan. She wondered why she viewed her little attached office differently, as if searching for small things amiss. Of course, they were inside the damn Pentagon. What could be amiss?

Just a niggling. A voice in my head. The first sign of madness?

How did the Pythians locate the fossil and the tablets so easily?

The absence of an answer worried her. She swallowed more pain killers and joined the team for an early morning round of black coffees. Karin sat nursing Komodo’s injured knee. Kinimaka sat alone, cradling his ribs as Smyth rolled the kinks from his own shoulders.

“Took a few whacks?” Hayden sat opposite the big Hawaiian.

“More than a few. Think I said aloha to my spleen.”

“Those Irish boys take no prisoners.”

“They’ll die the same way.”

Hayden pretended not to have heard that last remark. Instead, she swung her body around, keeping her head as still as possible, to regard Karin.

“Any news from Daccus?”

“No. But I also have the warden from Steel Mountain going through every inch of his records. We have to believe the Americans at one time translated these symbols. Otherwise why would they be in Taiwan?”

“Ya think the translation might be in the archives?”

“Why not? It sure makes sense.”

Kinimaka now turned around. “I never heard of the lost continent of Mu,” he said. “What exactly is it?”

Karin nodded. “Me too. So, I did a little extra research whilst you guys were away. Older than the ancient Greeks, the Babylonians, Persians and Egyptians, the civilization of Mu was far more advanced than any of them. It existed fifty thousand years ago and had inhabitants that migrated to the places I mentioned, taking their expertise and legends with them. The tablets themselves confirm the creation of the earth and then humans, who originated in Mu.”

“So it’s the birthplace of humanity,” Kinimaka said. “If it ever existed. A place quite important then.”

Karin laughed. “To say the least. It was also said to be the location of the Drug of Immortality. Don’t smile, Mano. As we already know most modern day academics don’t go seeking controversy such as lost continents and inexplicable relics for fear of losing credibility among their peers and ultimately their whole careers. But searching through the histories of both China and Taiwan I have read innumerable accounts of sea voyages to discover this lost kingdom. The Ling Wai Tai Ta text tells of a great bank of sand and rocks in the Great Eastern Ocean and states that ‘a great castle of red walls lies somewhere submerged beneath the sea’. Then, in 1981 a diver found the battlements of what appeared to be castle walls in the Straits. This is right below where the USS Queenfish found its notoriety. Coincidence?”

“A strong one,” Hayden admitted.

“Anyway, amazingly this story of castle walls received absolutely no attention in the west, despite a British Channel 4 TV series. The structure he found consists of two colossal walls, running hundreds of meters in length; these ruins lie in a place that would have been above sea level during the last glacial period about ten thousand years ago. Now, both Taiwan and China have ancient flood myths, so which country would claim Mu?”

Hayden swirled her coffee, staring into the black liquid. “They both would.”

At that moment her phone rang. She stared at the screen, still lost in thought, and saw the name of the warden at Steel Mountain flashing up. “Hayden Jaye here.”

“Hi, it’s Carl Preston, the warden. I haven’t discovered anything pertaining to the translation of the tablets yet but I wanted to apprise you of something nasty that we have found.”

Hayden put her cup down. “What is it?”

“If you remember rubbings were made of the tablets. Old rubbings made by William Niven himself and his colleagues. Though some were later found and released to the world at large, most ended up here, one way or another, inside these archives.”

“Out of sight out of mind,” Hayden said. “I get it.”

“Yes, well, all the rubbings are missing. And not taken by these Irishmen of yours. Camera footage shows a blackout about a week ago. We believe that is when they went missing.”

“Any suspects?”

“Yes, a prominent member of our security team who suddenly quit a few days ago. He’s missing too.”

Hayden hung her head. “All right. Send me his details. We’ll start an inquiry at this end.” She ended the call and looked around. “Any ideas?”

“Could still be the Pythians,” Karin said with a shrewd look. “First they went simple — tried the rubbings. When they didn’t pan out they took the tablets themselves. Didn’t someone say the rubbings weren’t accurate?”

“The guard was working for the Pythians?” Kinimaka repeated. “Possibly then he was paid off. Relocated.”

“Or buried,” Komodo growled.

“Don’t forget the Peking Man fossil,” Smyth added. “How is that involved in all this?”

Hayden shook her head. “Shit, my brain hurts. Getting blown up has done nothing for my cognitive process. I’m actually thinking Drake’s got it easy right now, over there in Japan. All he has to do is break Mai out of a compound, right?”

Kinimaka nodded gloomily. “Right.”

“So let’s find Mu,” Karin said. “Obviously it’s critical. Let’s find the Lost Kingdom.”