第 26 页

During the first few months of the operation, they’d had to build retaining walls against the sea and pump the water from the caves. It remained that way for each new cave they opened. When Sebastian had gone to bed—or, to cot—the pump team had still been working on draining the cave they’d found two days ago.

Sebastian stood and stamped his feet to check the blood circulation. Sometimes when he slept in his shoes, his feet turned completely numb.

“You should at least change your socks,” Matteo said.

Grudgingly, Sebastian knew the boy was right. He sat back down, took a pair of fresh socks from the duffel near the bed, took off his shoes, and put them on. Then, grimacing with disgust, he put his shoes back on again.

“So why did you come for me, Matteo?” he asked as he stood once more.

“They’ve drained the cave. They think they’ve found another.”

“We expected there to be another cave.” In fact, they still expected a number of caves. whatever had sundered the original coastline had also wreaked havoc with the catacombs that had undermined the ancient city.

Surrounded by the sea as it had been nine or ten thousand years ago, the original builders had taken steps to compartmentalize the catacombs. If one area flooded, they could shut down the next.

“Yes, but not like this.”

Sebastian clapped the young man on the shoulder. “Then let’s go see what they’ve found.” He stepped through the tent flap, but paused long enough to pick up his rechargeable flashlight from the charging plate. He didn’t relish the idea of getting lost in the dark, twisting maze of the cave system.

Outside the cave, three of the Swiss Guard assigned to the excavation team stood at attention. They wore casual clothing suited for the chill of the caves and spelunking, and pistols.

Sebastian had protested the presence of the weapons, but he hadn’t been able to convince their captain to relinquish them. So far there hadn’t been any incidents where they’d proved necessary, but the guard didn’t accept the idea that that meant there wouldn’t be such incidents eventually. The men were well trained and polite, but they remained ever watchful.

The base camp area smelled of diesel and salt water. The tang of dead fish remained as well. When the sea had given up the coastline and revealed its secret, and when the caves had been pumped dry, sea creatures had been marooned. They’d died by the hundreds and their rotting corpses had to be evacuated.

He’d been told the offal apparently made good fertilizer. At any rate, it disappeared from the camp.

As they passed the food tent, Sebastian stepped inside momentarily to retrieve two bottles of water and a pastry. He admitted the pastry was a want, but he needed the water. No one was supposed to walk anywhere without water in case they became lost. That had happened a few times as men, drawn by their curiosity, had gone off exploring on their own.

They still hunted riches, Sebastian knew. All the stories of Atlantis had filled their heads with hopes of fabulous wealth.

For himself, Sebastian didn’t know what to think. He’d expected something. Instead, all they’d found so far were artifacts that carbon-dated back many thousands of years, proving them interesting in their own right, but nothing that really spoke of the civilization that had been there.

Much of the city had been lost. When the waves had drunk Atlantis down, the sea had purged the city. Torn asunder in the cataclysm—whether it was the fabulous towers shown in the illustrations Sebastian had seen, or if it were only huts—the city was shattered and spread across the sea bottom.

whatever remained of it was buried beneath thousands of years of accumulated silt. Unless the sea chose to give it up, it might not ever be found.

Sebastian slid the bottles of water into the pockets of the long coat he wore against the chill of the cave. He followed Matteo’s lead as they trailed along the yellow nylon rope that marked the path.

Strings of electric lights hung from the cave wall, but every time Sebastian left the base camp he was aware of entering the darkness waiting in the interior of the earth.

RADISSON SAS HOTEL LEIPZIG

LEIPZIG, GERMANY

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009

The strident ring of a cell phone woke Lourds amid a tangle of soft limbs and seductive curves. In the dim glow from the clock radio on the nightstand he saw the blond highlights of Leslie’s hair.

So it wasn’t a dream.

He smiled at that. He’d been so tired last night that he hadn’t been certain he didn’t just dream the encounter.

Gently, he disentangled one arm and reached for the phone.

“Is it mine?” Leslie asked in a soft voice.

Lourds looked. There were two cell phones on the nightstand.

“No,” he said. “It’s mine.”

“Good.” Leslie rolled off him and curled up in the blankets.

As he punched the TALK button and brought the phone to his ear, Lourds admired the smooth expanse of her back and the supple curve of her naked derriere.

“Lourds,” he answered.

“Thomas?” The woman on the other end of the connection sounded panicked.

Lourds focused immediately. He knew the voice, but he couldn’t remember who it—

“This is Donna Bergstrom. Professor Marcus Bergstrom’s wife.”

“Yes, Donna.” Professor Bergstrom also taught at Harvard. He was in the paleontology department. His wife was a professor of economics. Since he was a neighbor as well, Bergstrom watched over Lourds’s house whenever he was out of the city. They often had cookouts and invited Lourds over.

“Something terrible has happened. Marcus was shot.”

Lourds swung his legs over the bed and sat up. “How is he?”

“He just got out of surgery a few hours ago. The doctor says he’s going to be fine. He’s strong and he’s a fighter.”

“He is that,” Lourds agreed. Bergstrom played soccer as well. “What happened? Was he mugged?”

“The police say it was a home invasion,” Donna said.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Lourds felt Leslie shifting behind him. He glanced at her and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed with a sheet around her hips. “Did they do anything to your house?”

“It wasn’t our house,” Donna said. “It was yours. Marcus saw a gas van at your house. So he went to see what was going on.” The woman broke down in tears. “They shot him, Thomas. Shot him for no good reason at all.”

Lourds tried to placate the woman, but the whole time he felt certain that his friend hadn’t gotten hurt for no reason at all. Lourds had inadvertently left them in harm’s way. The guilt was almost overwhelming.

______

Seated in the passenger seat of the corporate helicopter, Patrizio Gallardo peered down at the Radisson SAS Hotel.

“Ready?” the pilot asked over the headset.

“Ready,” Gallardo responded. He glanced over his shoulder at the eight men in the passenger area. All of them were dressed in black suits that covered the silenced pistols they carried. Briefcases carried spare magazines.

DiBenedetto sat smoking despite the pilot’s desire for him not to. His blue eyes burned bright with the drug coursing through his system. Farok sat calm and resolute with his hands between his knees. Pietro and Cimino looked a little tense. Getting into and out of the hotel wasn’t going to be easy.

The helicopter swooped down to the hotel rooftop and hovered only inches above. Gallardo opened the passenger door while DiBenedetto and Farok opened both side cargo doors. The nine men, with Gallardo in the lead, dropped to the rooftop and streaked for the rooftop access.

Cimino used a shaped charge that didn’t sound any louder than a firecracker to blow the lock on the door. By the time the helicopter had cleared, they were inside the building and headed down to the seventh floor.

Lourds would never know what hit him.

RESTRICTED LIBRARY STACKS

STATUS CIVITATIS VATICANAE

SEPTEMBER 4, 2009

Murani stared at the book he held. It represented both promise and condemnation. It was the only book outside the Bible that he knew truly did that.

Oversized and leather-bound, the book was an illustrated manuscript with obscure origins. It was written in Latin, and he believed it had been written in Rome at the height of the empire. After Rome fell, however, and the Germanic tribes rode through her walls and into her streets, libraries had burned in their wake. Some of the books had been taken out to the Netherlands, where they were copied by the Irish monks and kept alive.

Murani wanted to believe the copy he had was the original. He didn’t like the idea that other copies might exist in the world. Once a secret spread, it was hard to control.

He sat at one of the antique tables deep in the stacks and breathed in the aroma of dust, old paper, and leather. He could still remember the excitement he’d felt when he’d first been permitted entrance into the room after becoming a member of the Society of Quirinus.

The library shelves were piled high with books. The saddest realization he’d ever come to was knowing that he’d never be able to read them all.

At least, not in this life.

He still had hopes for the next.

The trick, then, had become to read the best ones. He’d started out reading some of those the other society members had recommended. There were so many secrets to choose from, so many things the Church struggled to keep secret from the rest of the world.

And the Society of Quirinus wanted to keep them secret from everyone.

In the end, though, Atlantis had called out to Murani. That, in his own estimation, was the biggest secret God and a few men had ever kept from the rest of the world.

When he’d first been told of the Secret Texts and the story that went with them—of the Garden of Eden and what had truly transpired there—he hadn’t accepted it. Then, when he had, he’d wanted to know for sure that everything happened exactly as he’d been told.

He stared at the page that showed the five instruments.

The bell.

The flute The cymbal.

The drum.

The pipe.

They were the five instruments that could unlock the secrets waiting within Atlantis. Exactly how they were supposed to do that he still wasn’t certain.

But he had two of the instruments. The Society of Quirinus didn’t know that.

Murani smiled there in the quiet darkness of the library. If they had known he possessed them, they would have been frightened.

All that power, the power to remake the world, and it was nearly at Murani’s fingertips. He traced the images on the page.

As part of the restricted collection the book was never allowed to leave the library. So he’d had to hide it in plain sight. The library caretakers were dogged about no books leaving the library, but weren’t fastidious in keeping everything in order.

There was simply too much to keep proper track of if those who borrowed the books weren’t exemplary in their upkeep of the system as well.

So the book had remained Murani’s secret for four long years while he had searched for the instruments. Then the bell had shown up in Alexandria.

When that had happened, Murani took it as a sign. Afterwards, when the cymbal had come to light in Russia, he began to feel more hopeful.

“Cardinal.”

Unaware that anyone else was nearby, Murani looked up.

The old librarian was stooped with age. His gray whiskers stuck out in all directions. He walked with a cane.

“Good evening, Beppe,” Murani said politely, then hoped that the old man would simply go away.

“Good morning is more like it,” Beppe replied.

“Then good morning.”

“What happened to your face?” Beppe touched his own.

Murani wasn’t surprised that Beppe hadn’t heard the story of the carjacking that had claimed Antonio Fenoglio’s life. The older librarians and caretakers rarely went anywhere outside the areas they supervised.

“I was in an automobile accident,” Murani answered. His face was still livid with purple and green bruises that were only now starting to yellow with age.

“That’s why I never ride in those things,” Beppe said. “I’ll leave you to your reading. I’ve got a lot of things to do. Books that need mending and tending.” He shuffled off.

Murani returned to the wonder and the promise of the book. Sure everything would be revealed soon. Then he could set out on the mission God had chosen him to undertake.

CAVE #41

ATLANTIS DIG SITE

CÁDIZ,

SPAINSEPTEMBER 4, 2009

“Father Sebastian.” Ignazio D’Azeglio, the night foreman on the dig, stepped forward and greeted the priest. He was a well-built man in his forties who was going gray at the temples and in his goatee. He had dark, swarthy Mediterranean skin, laugh lines, a broad nose, and honest eyes. “I hope you can forgive me for sending for you.”

“Matteo tells me you think you’re about to break through into another chamber,” Sebastian said.

D’Azeglio nodded and handed Sebastian a yellow hard hat. “We are. I’ve sent for Dario as well.”

Dario Brancati was the construction head of the excavation team. He’d worked on archeological digs in the Middle East and in Europe.

D’Azeglio grinned. “He hasn’t yet arrived. I don’t think he’s as easy to wake as you are, Father.”

“Dario works much harder than I do.”

“No one works harder than you.” D’Azeglio shook his head. “I think you’ve spent more time in a hard hat than anyone here.”

“Only because I’m not governed by the work guidelines your people are.”

“Come over here and let me show you what awaits us.” D’Azeglio led the way toward the wall where the team worked with drills and small loaders to shovel rock and debris out of the way.

Several dump trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes stood ready. All the earth that had been removed from the caves had been trucked out and used to build the bulwarks that kept the sea out.

The cavern was almost two hundred yards across and sixty or seventy yards high. Most of it lay in darkness. The farther they went into the interior, the harder it became to power all the lights. Until they could maintain proper ventilation, no one wanted to risk any more carbon monoxide buildup than there already was.

The catacombs had demonstrated the same circular compartmentalization that Plato had written about when describing the lost city. Sebastian didn’t know if it was a design to give the catacombs a certain appearance or if it had been done to stabilize the underground.

He also wasn’t certain if the underground had been constructed first or if the city had. But the city had been smashed almost beyond all recognition. Perhaps they’d find records down here, where so much more was still preserved.

D’Azeglio walked over to an area lit by floodlights and pointed. “We think another large chamber is behind that wall.”

Sebastian nodded. He’d already been briefed, but D’Azeglio didn’t know that.

The construction foreman took Sebastian back to the van where all their computer equipment was stored. Sebastian knew from earlier talks that the excavation team was using seismic reflection. They’d originally tried using ground-penetrating radar but had rapidly discovered the rock was more dense than the machine could handle, and that the caverns they were searching through were too large.