第 12 页

A few minutes later, Gallardo watched as Lourds and the young woman emerged from the terminal and headed for the rental car lot. They got into a newer model Lada and pulled out into traffic.

“All right,” Gallardo said to DiBenedetto. “Let’s see where they go.”

Almost effortlessly, DiBenedetto slid into traffic, cutting off a Russian taxicab. The driver blared his horn in protest. In character, DiBenedetto returned the horn salute and kept driving.

Gallardo called the three other cars he was using to cover the professor’s arrival at the airport to relay his position and get them in motion. Keeping a close tail on a target was always easier with multiple vehicles. DiBenedetto was familiar with Moscow’s streets. So were the other drivers. Gallardo felt certain they wouldn’t lose Lourds.

They followed Lourds in stages, switching off the following car often so the professor wouldn’t become suspicious. Gallardo didn’t think there was much chance of that. Despite all his world-traveling, Lourds had to be new to this cloak-and-dagger kind of thing. The professor never gave any indication that he knew he was being followed.

It became apparent soon enough that Lourds had a definite destination in mind.

Gallardo placed another call, this one to Murani.

CARDINAL STEFANO MURANI’S QUARTERS

STATUS CIVITATIS VATICANAE

AUGUST 17, 2009

Murani sat at his desk with copies of the ancient maps and old books he’d been studying for years spread out before him. Father Emil Sebastian’s excavations in Cádiz, Spain, had supplied a new frame of reference for all the old stories and the few facts the Society of Quirinus had.

Frustration chafed at him as he surveyed the familiar tools again, trying to find new eyes to ferret out the secrets he felt certain were hidden there.

Not secrets, he told himself. Just the one.

He gazed at the pictures of the bell and resented the fact that the Society leaders had taken it away. They were afraid of it, terrified of the power it represented. The bell was the first physical proof they had of the truth of the legends they’d been handed down about Atlantis and all that had gone on before.

Despite the fact that all the archbishops involved in the Society of Quirinus had been handed down the stories by those who had preceded them, each man picking his successor from within the Church with approval of the other archbishops, none of them had ever seen any proof of the Secret’s existence.

When he had first been brought into the Society of Quirinus, Murani hadn’t been a believer in the Secret. There were many other secrets the Church harbored, and some of them were only legend.

But not this one, Murani thought. This one is the truth.

The existence of the bell had thrown the Society into a quandary. It was one thing to protect a secret out of habit, but quite another to accept that it was real and potentially had the power to destroy the world.

Or to remake it, Murani told himself. That was the idea he clung to so fiercely.

Looking up from the books and maps spread out around him, Murani stared at the television. CNN was recycling the footage they’d shot of the Destination: Atlantis? piece they’d aired the previous night.

Lifting the remote control, Murani turned up the volume.

The reporter was a young American man named David Silver.

Murani idly wondered if the name had been shortened from Silverman and if he was a Jew. In their own way, he thought, the Jews were almost as bad as the Muslims. Both detracted from the Church and the Truth. Over the years, they’d leeched power from the Church.

“—the excavation is well under way here in Cádiz, Spain,” Silver said. “They’re going slowly, though. From what I’m told, several cities have existed in this area over the last few thousand years. Each one has added to the stratification of the dig site. Normally, one city was built on top of another as they fell. Father Sebastian seems quite excited by everything they’re finding.”

“Can you tell us some of the things that have been unearthed?” the woman anchor manning the desk had asked.

“Most of it appears to be the usual artifacts that archeologists expect to find on digs like this. Tools. Dishware. Coins.”

“Have you had the chance to speak with Father Sebastian?”

“I have.”

“Has he confirmed that he’s there looking for Atlantis?”

Silver laughed and shook his head. “Father Sebastian, as I’ve learned, is a very serious man when it comes to his work. He doesn’t indulge in speculation about what he and his team are going to find. In fact, during the times I have heard him speak, he’s gone to great lengths to point out that the idle speculation surrounding this dig site was not triggered by anything he said or suggested.”

“Then where did the Atlantis angle come from?” the desk anchor asked.

“From one of the local historians,” Silver said. “The Greek historian-philosopher Plato first described the fabled city of Atlantis in his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. That description, according to Professor Francisco Bolívar, fits the features of the surrounding topography of the area.”

The television screen blanked for a moment, then resumed with an overlay showing concentric rings.

“According to Plato’s description,” Silver went on, “the island that became known as Atlantis was given to Poseidon, the god of the sea. A lot of the island was supposed to be underwater. As luck would have it, and to the great delight of storytellers if I’m to be any judge, Poseidon met a woman who lived inland. Nothing’s said about how she got there. But there she was.”

Murani didn’t care for the reporter’s cavalier tone.

“Poseidon met the woman and fell in love with her,” Silver continued. “Together, they had five pairs of twins. All boys. Poseidon built a palace on a low mountain on the island. The story goes on to describe three moats that he created that surrounded the city.”

The image on the television reflected Silver’s description of the mountain and the three rings that represented the moats.

“Poseidon named the eldest of the first twins Atlas and made him king of the island,” Silver said. “The Atlantic Ocean is actually named after him. The people who lived on the island became known at Atlanteans. They built bridges across the moats to get to the rest of the island. They also, supposedly at least, chopped holes through the moat walls so ships could pass, and even sail into the city.”

An artist’s rendering of the fabled city appeared on the screen. Ships with full canvas stretched tight sailed elegantly through the canals and tunnels near the beautiful city at the center of the moats.

“Walls were supposed to reinforce each of the city’s rings,” Silver said. “According to Plato, the walls were made of red, black, and white rock that was dug up from the moats. Then they were covered with orichalcum, brass, and tin.”

The computer-generated image gleamed with the glint of sunlight on metal.

“Sounds like a scenic getaway,” the desk anchor replied.

The camera picked up Silver again for just a moment. On the screen, Silver smiled and nodded. “In its day, it probably was. But then—one day—Atlantis disappeared.”

“How?”

“Plato doesn’t know for certain. His best guess was that the Atlanteans got into a fight with the Athenians. The Athenians were able to gather enough of the locals to put up staunch resistance against the Atlanteans because the Atlanteans were reputedly slavers of the worst sort.”

“I didn’t know about the slavery issue.”

“History is fascinating stuff,” Silver said, sounding as if history were a new invention. “At any rate, the island got racked by earthquakes and floods. The island is supposed to have submerged beneath the Atlantic Ocean in a single day.”

“But if Atlantis was an island, why is Father Sebastian working there?” the desk anchor asked. “The site isn’t an island.”

“You have to remember, Father Sebastian hasn’t claimed to be searching for Atlantis. He merely claims to be researching ancient ruins. Those Atlantis tales are rumors that have sprung up around the dig.”

“Deciding that the area might be Atlantis seems like a big jump. Why would anybody think that?”

“Because, when viewed from space, this part of Cádiz looks a lot like the description of Atlantis.”

A new image formed on the television screen. An overlay of the simple diagram of the proposed Atlantean moats in concentric circles around the city appeared. As Murani watched, the image overlaid the topography of the area where Father Sebastian labored. It was a close fit. However, as Murani knew from his work with the Society, a lot of other pieces had been close as well.

“The island could have become part of the mainland,” Silver said. “Plato made it plain that the island was connected—though underwater—to the mainland.”

“All these years, treasure hunters have sought out Atlantis,” the desk anchor said. “They thought they were looking for a sunken city.”

“For a time, this chunk of land was sunken,” Silver said. “So was most of Europe—paleontologists dug up a prehistoric whale buried in an Italian mountain not that long ago. But high sea levels, continental drift, tsunamis, anything could have exposed it from the seabed, raised it, or nudged it into the mainland so that it became part of the coastline.”

Murani stared at the way the template fit over Cádiz’s topographical features. Of course an artist had put those images together, the original drawing of Atlantis was based on Plato’s millennia-old secondhand description, and he knew that its ratios and proximities were matters open to discussion. But even to Murani, it seemed to be an amazingly close fit.

“If you look,” Silver was saying, “you can see where Atlantis once stood. Maybe. Father Sebastian’s excavation has uncovered what might be one of the three moats, and a series of tunnels that pass through it. Looking at this, you can see why the rumors started.”

Murani’s phone rang. He muted the television and answered.

“He was picked up by the FSB,” Gallardo said. There was no need to use names. Both of them knew whom Gallardo was talking about.

“Why?”

“The archeologist’s sister turned out to be a police inspector.”

Murani leaned back in his comfortable chair to examine the implications. “That’s unfortunate.”

“It might have helped to know that before I went after the cymbal,” Gallardo said. “We could have taken care of our current problem last night.”

Murani silently agreed. “He couldn’t have told her anything. He can’t know anything.”

“He knows more than I like. He’s tied the two artifacts together somehow. You already knew that because you sent me here.”

“Upon further reflection,” Murani said, “it seems that I might have been remiss in my decision to call you off him.”

“I think he knows something we don’t. We’re following him closely. From the way he’s moving, he’s got an agenda.”

Murani turned to his computer and pulled up the file on Professor Thomas Lourds. The man was acknowledged by many as the world’s foremost linguist.

“The film crew took pictures of the Egyptian artifact,” Murani said, putting it together in his mind. “The archeologist had pictures of the artifact in his hotel room. With the digital images in hand, the images on the bell could be legible.”

“Do you think he translated the inscription?”

Murani did not want to think that was true. All the scholars in the Society of Quirinus had studied the bell and the images of the cymbal. The cymbal hadn’t yet arrived at Vatican City. But none of them had been able to manage a translation.

But Lourds . . .

Unease spun through Murani like a spider’s web, anchoring to all the doubts in his mind. He didn’t like taking chances. Everything he did so far, all the subterfuge he’d masterminded behind the backs of the other members of the Society, had been carefully weighed for risk. As he planned this caper, Murani had discounted the possibility of trouble.

Now Lourds was a wild card.

“Find out if Lourds managed to translate either of the inscriptions,” Murani said. “If he has, I want to talk to him. Somewhere private. But if he doesn’t know, make certain he doesn’t involve himself in this any further.”

CHAPTER

8

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

AUGUST 21, 2009

Y

ou haven’t said where we’re going.”

Lourds looked at the young woman and tried to comprehend what she’d said. “What?”

“I said, you haven’t said where we’re going,” Leslie repeated. “I’ve tried to remain quiet, be the good little soldier, but that’s not working for me.”

“Me, neither,” Gary said from the backseat. He was the camcorder operator Leslie had enlisted for the jaunt into Moscow. Gary Connolly was in his mid-twenties. Long, curly hair hung to his narrow shoulders. He wore round-lensed glasses and a black U2 SHAKE, RATTLE, AND HUM concert T-shirt that showed its age.

As a rule, Lourds didn’t like revealing everything about his agenda or his thinking until he was ready. He wanted to give Leslie something, though. He felt he owed her that. “We’re going to M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University.”

“What’s there?”

“As I said, Yuliya Hapaeve and I consulted on various work projects we introduced over the years.” Lourds’s voice tightened. “Yuliya sometimes worked on documents that contained state secrets. Some of her finds revealed things powerful people in Russia didn’t want known by other countries. In Russia, even modern Russia, that can be a death sentence.”

“I’m with you so far, but that doesn’t explain why we’re going to college.”

“Yuliya was a devoted craftsman in her chosen field,” Lourds said. “She hated to think that whatever great story she was working on would never see the light of day. She always wanted someone to be able to finish her projects in case something happened to her. So we—”

“—set up a drop at the Moscow State University,” Leslie finished. She grinned with both excitement at what lay before them and her own prowess at figuring out the reason for their trip.

“Exactly.”

“The trick is going to be getting out of the country with whatever she left you.”

Lourds didn’t say anything, but he felt certain escaping the country would be only one of the tricks involved.

M. V. LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

AUGUST 21, 2009

“I didn’t know it would be this big,” Leslie admitted.

Lourds craned his neck and stared up at the imposing structure. Moscow State University’s main building’s central tower stood thirty-six stories tall. The university had been founded in 1755, but Joseph Stalin had ordered the construction of the main building. It had been one of seven projects the former General Secretary of the Soviet Party had conscripted during his term. In the 1950s, the university’s main building was the tallest structure in Europe.

Giant clocks, barometers and thermometers, statues and reliefs all decorated the building’s exterior. Inside, the building contained its own police station and post office, administrative offices, bank offices, a library and swimming pool, and several shops.