The Secret of Atlantis

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They landed at Marrakech airport and walked across the apron toward a Royal Moroccan Air Force Eurocopter whose rotors were already whirring and ready to go. Between Alex and her father, the US Secretary of Defense Jack Brooke, they had organized a small back-up force of a dozen members of the Royal Moroccan Army who were now climbing in right behind them.

“So who are these men?” Sergent-chef Chabat asked.

“An assortment of international mercenaries and treasure hunters,” Lea said.

“But what do they want with the Dadès Gorge?” Chabat asked.

“We don’t know exactly,” Ryan said, “but it could have something to do with the search for…”

“That’s classified, Sergeant,” Camacho said firmly, giving Ryan a sideways glance. “We can’t talk about it. All you need to know is we’re looking at a force of around twenty heavily armed men, mostly Serbians but also some Russians, and they have considerable fighting experience. As such, they represent a serious terrorist threat to the vital national security of the United States and your country too so it’s our job to take them out, got it?”

“Of course,” Chabat said. “I’m certain my government knows what it has to know.”

The Eurocopter made short work of the flight east to the Dadès Gorge, and as they approached their destination, Hawke was able to get a dazzling tourist’s eye view of the Dadès River as it cut through the enormous desert canyon below. It was an incredible sight, like a ribbon of steel in the middle of the desert, held in place by the towering walls of the rocky gorge and shining brightly in the bright Moroccan sun. The town of Kalaat Mgoun slipped beneath them as they crossed the Valley of the Roses, named after the famous flowers grown here, but they zoomed over the top of as they made their way further east.

Ahead he saw a large mesa in the center of the river as the chopper flew over the tourists’ lookout point. It spun around and flared its nose for landing on top of the western plateau of the mesa’s lower side. They didn’t need any help finding Kruger and his team — the western section of the meander was now home to three jet boats lashed to the trunks of some walnut trees with mooring rope.

The team climbed out of the chopper and were joined by Chabat and the rest of his soldiers. Without speaking they set off down the path which twisted its way down to the base of the mesa where Kruger’s team had left the boats. Summer was long gone, but the sun here was still fierce and burned hard in the vast Moroccan sky. The Dadès River was impressive, and flanked with countless wadis stretching off toward large ravines on both sides of the canyon. Reaper felt it on his neck as he picked his way down the rocky track.

“At least you won’t need to top up your tan this year, Reap,” Scarlet said.

“But maybe you should work on yours, no?” came the immediate reply. “You have the English pastiness.”

“Hey!”

As they descended toward the Dadès River and carved their way deeper into the canyon, the desert floor began to tower above them. Reaper had never been here before and was inwardly amazed by the place. The feeling of vastness was almost overwhelming and the silence of the landscape was eerie. Nowhere on earth had ever made him feel more insignificant.

“This place is nearly one hundred miles long,” Ryan said from the back of the team. “They call it the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs.”

“I used to know a place like that when I was at uni in Oxford,” Lexi said.

“Really?” Ryan said, stopping in his tracks with amazement.

“Oh no — wait,” she said, pausing a beat for effect. “That was Road of a Thousand Kebabs.”

“Oh yes, very good!” Maria said. “I knew a road like that in Moscow.”

“It wasn’t very good at all,” Ryan said. “It was a terrible joke.”

“That was a joke?” Scarlet said.

They pressed on, banter flying between the ECHO team but Chabat’s soldiers mostly silent. The limestone rim of the canyon was now high above them, and Lea was staring up at it when she tripped on a loose rock and tumbled forward, crashing into the back of Hawke.

“Steady as she goes, Lea,” he said with a wink.

“Anyone see where they went yet?” Scarlet called out. Deep in the gorge now there was no longer any need to shield her eyes from the sun as she peered down the track at the jet boats.

“I think so,” Maria said. “The track from the boat dies out over there but not far beyond it is a split in the mesa.”

They tracked away from their path now and hiked north to the track Maria had found. It was turning into a tough slog now and their weapons began to weigh heavier with each step. They pushed on and were encouraged when they found broken branches on the bushes either side of the fissure in the western edge of the mesa’s rock face.

“Something’s come through here for sure,” Hawke said. “And look down at the path — it’s obvious a number of people have been through here recently by the footprints.”

“And whoever it was, they were carrying something heavy,” Reaper said.

“How can you tell?” Ryan said.

“Forensic track analysis isn’t rocket science,” the former French Legionnaire said as he crouched down and pointed at the tracks. “Look here and you see they are deeper and further apart and also at a slightly odd angle. The fact that there are two tracks parallel to each other with these features suggests that two men were carrying something from the boat all the way into the cave.”

“There’s been an explosion here recently too,” Hawke said, running his hands over freshly blasted rock at the mouth of the tunnel. “Kruger widened this entrance.”

“So, what now?” Ryan said, peering inside the gloom.

“Now, we go pot-holing,” Hawke said.

As they were expecting, the temperature dropped rapidly when they ventured inside the mesa and suddenly the atmosphere changed from casual banter to one of imminent danger. There was so sign of Kruger or Korać and his army yet — not even a trace of a glow stick, which meant they were probably using some pretty chunky Maglites to light their way inside the mesa caverns.

Hawke did the same thing and switched on his flashlight. “Looks like we’re going up this time,” he said with surprise as he shone his flashlight up an incline.

“Great, more sodding climbing,” Ryan said.

Reaper joined Hawke at the front while Chabat and his men took up the rear and they began to climb the incline inside the mesa. After nearly thirty minutes of twists and turns they found their first evidence of Kruger — and more evidence as to why whatever was hidden here had remained untouched for so long. Ahead of them, another part of the tunnel had been blown out with explosives and what had been solid sandstone was now a few piles of shattered rocks and gravelly dust lying around at the newly-formed entrance to a second tunnel.

They shifted inside and noticed yet another drop in temperature as they went deeper into the mesa, only this time part of it that had been off limits to the rest of humanity for countless centuries.

They continued on their way, each of them thinking about the dangers ahead but never considering failure, and then they found a shaft which descended from a rock ledge. They gathered around it, and Hawke was the first to spot the gentle glow of artificial light as the silver Maglite beams of Kruger’s team bobbed about down at the bottom of the shaft.

He hushed the team and got down on his stomach to listen and instantly recognized the voices of Kruger and Korać. He felt a surge of hope as he realized he had another chance to redeem himself after his failure in Serbia.

He jumped back up to his feet and lowered his voice to a gentle murmur. “Looks like the whole Groovy Gang is down there.”

“So what now?” Chabat asked.

“We go down, of course,” Hawke said, and with that he jammed the Maglite in his belt and started to climb down into the shaft.