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He rounded the bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

“Thomas.”

Lourds recognized Leslie’s voice immediately. Anger blazed through him in a white-hot flash. “Leslie, have you any idea—”

“Please. Listen.”

The near-hysteria in her choked voice held Lourds. His door opened as Natasha let herself into the room with the keycard he’d given her. She looked at him with mild irritation. She was obviously ready to go.

“They’ve got me, Thomas,” Leslie whispered hoarsely. “Gallardo and his people. They kidnapped me.”

Lourds felt as though the floor tilted out from under him. He sat on the edge of the bed because his knees suddenly felt like they would no longer support him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

That caught Natasha’s attention. She approached him and mouthed, Leslie?

Lourds nodded. He asked Leslie, “Are you all right?”

“They haven’t hurt me.”

Who has her? Natasha asked.

Gallardo, Lourds mouthed back.

“What do they want?” Lourds asked.

“I don’t know. Thomas, I just want you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with that CNN coverage. That wasn’t my idea. I got—”

A moment later, a man’s voice came on the line. “Professor Lourds, I’m in the position to make you an offer.”

“I’m listening.”

“My employer wants the three instruments you’ve located.”

“I don’t have—”

The sound of flesh striking flesh cut Lourds off. Leslie yelped in shock and pain; then she started crying.

“I know you know where those instruments are,” the man said. “Every time you lie to me, I’m going to cut off one of her fingers. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.” Lourds barely heard himself because his voice was so tight. He repeated his answer.

“Good. Act fast and you can save Miss Crane’s life. You have one hour to get the instruments and meet one of my associates in front of your hotel.”

“That’s not enough time,” Lourds protested.

The phone clicked dead in his ear.

“What?” Natasha asked.

Lourds cradled the handset. “Gallardo just gave me one hour to get the instruments to him or he’s going to kill Leslie.”

Anger darkened Natasha’s face. For a moment Lourds feared that she’d tell him to let them kill Leslie. He’d learned that Natasha could be very forceful in her opinions. He didn’t know what he was going to do if that happened.

“We’ll get the instruments,” Natasha said.

Lourds knocked on Adebayo’s hotel door. He had to repeat the knock. The whole time he stood in the hallway and thought he was going to throw up. It helped that Natasha stood beside him and was so calm and—

Adebayo answered the door. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to barge in on you,” Lourds started.

Beside him, Natasha sighed in disgust. “We don’t have time for this.”

“What has happened?” the old man asked.

“Gallardo. The man who’s been chasing us has kidnapped Leslie. He’s threatening to kill her if I don’t give him the instruments.”

“That is too bad,” Adebayo lamented. His big eyes looked sorrowful. “But you can’t give him the instruments.”

Lourds watched in disbelief as the old man started to shut the door. “What? You can’t just let them kill—”

Natasha stepped forward and jammed her foot into the door before it could close. She put the barrel of her pistol between the old man’s eyes.

“Open the door,” she ordered.

“You would shoot me?” the old man asked.

“If I have to, yes. I don’t have to kill you, but getting shot is very uncomfortable.”

Adebayo backed away from the door. He looked at Lourds. “You can’t let her do this.”

Natasha spoke to him without looking at him. “Do you want to try to save Leslie or not?”

Her harsh tone broke Lourds out of his frozen state. “Of course.”

“Then let’s do it.” Natasha tossed him a roll of tape. “Put him on the bed. The least we can do is make him comfortable.”

“Sorry about this,” Lourds apologized as he taped the old man’s hands after climbing onto the bed.

Adebayo said nothing. He just collapsed there and made Lourds feel guilty the whole time.

Forty-seven minutes later, Lourds left the hotel with all three musical instruments. He rolled them on a luggage cart because it had gotten too awkward trying to carry them all.

Personally he felt he needed an even bigger cart for the guilt he was feeling. Jesse Blackfox had fought to resist. He’d even gotten a punch into Lourds’s eye that had partially swelled it closed. After that, Natasha had dropped Blackfox with a chokehold. No one had come to investigate the sounds made during the struggle.

Vang had cried when they took the flute he’d protected for so long. The Keeper had received the instrument when he was hardly more than a boy. His father had gotten killed and his grandfather had died young. That had been the hardest for Lourds. He had broken Vang’s heart as well as taken his flute.

“Can I help you with that, sir?” a skycap asked as Lourds waited at the street.

“No, I’m good,” Lourds replied. “Thanks, anyway.”

The young man returned to the stand.

Only a few moments later, a van pulled to the curb. The driver reached across and pushed the passenger door open.

“Professor Lourds,” the man said. “You will come with me.”

“Where’s Leslie?” Lourds asked.

“Alive for the moment.”

“I want her released.”

The man lifted a pistol from between the seats and pointed it at Lourds. “Get in. Otherwise I shoot you and hope those cases you bring have what I’m looking for. You have been irritating. It would be good to shoot you.”

Another man leaned into view from the cargo area of the van. He also had a pistol. “I’ll take the instruments.”

Lourds almost glanced over his shoulder. He knew Natasha was there somewhere. But she couldn’t stop the man from shooting him.

Without a word, Lourds handed the instruments to the man in the van’s cargo area. When he was finished, he expected the van to simply pull away and leave him standing there like an idiot.

Only it didn’t.

The driver moved the pistol slightly. “Get in, Professor Lourds. I was told to bring you as well.”

“Why?”

“So I don’t have to kill you right here. Would you not rather come quietly than die in the street?”

Reluctantly, Lourds climbed into the vehicle. The man in back reached around with a length of rope and tied Lourds’s arms to his sides and his body to the seat as the driver pulled into traffic. In seconds, Lourds was unable to move.

“Is Leslie still alive?” Lourds asked.

“Sit back and try to enjoy the drive, Professor Lourds. You’ll have the answers to your questions soon enough.”

______

Lourds stared blearily through the bug-smeared window. He was so tired and adrenaline-charged by now that he saw words and symbols in the insect detritus. He’d glanced occasionally into the rearview mirror for any sign that Natasha might be following him. They didn’t have a rental car, but she’d always seemed resourceful.

The headlights gradually faded away as they left London behind. Lourds’s hope for rescue faded as well. He was also pretty sure that Gallardo had killed Leslie and dumped her in the first convenient alley. The thought made him almost physically ill.

But no matter what, his mind kept turning again and again to the final inscription on the five instruments that he hadn’t been able to fully translate. He had most of it. He was convinced of that.

A few moments later, the van turned off a highway and drove down a pothole-filled road under massive oak trees. Then they stopped and the sound of crickets filled the van.

“What are we doing?” Lourds asked.

“Shut up,” the man instructed. He shook out a cigarette and lit up.

A short time later, a helicopter descended from the black sky and landed in the nearby field. The two men who had taken him captive climbed from the van, cut Lourds free, and marched him through the tall grass to the waiting helicopter.

Lourds recognized Gallardo at once. The brutish crook sat in the rear compartment of the helicopter. Another man handcuffed Lourds and shoved him into a seat.

“Where’s Leslie?” Lourds demanded.

Gallardo laughed mirthlessly. “You and that little witch have been a problem since the beginning. The only good that’s come of it is that you found all the instruments for me.”

Pain lanced Lourds’s heart. He’d enjoyed Leslie’s company, and it hurt him to think something awful had happened to her.

“We had a deal,” Lourds croaked as the helicopter powered up and leaped into the sky.

Gallardo spoke more loudly. “I give you part of the deal. She’s still alive.” He shifted and revealed Leslie collapsed on the seat beside him. She was handcuffed as well, but fast asleep. He saw her pulse beating at her throat.

Thank God, Lourds thought. She really is alive.

“But how long she stays alive depends on your cooperation.”

Lourds shivered with fear all over again when he realized the implications of what Gallardo had said. “Why do you need my cooperation?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Gallardo nodded.

The man beside Lourds leaned in with a large hypodermic. The needle sank into his neck. He felt the prickling pain for only a moment; then warmth gushed through his head and he fell through himself.

Getting to Cádiz, Spain, proved harder than Natasha had at first believed it would. When she’d seen Lourds step into the van from her observation point on a second-story balcony, she hadn’t tried to follow. Gallardo’s men were professionals. She knew when to hold back and use her head instead of going on a mad dash into danger.

She knew where they were going to take Lourds. At least, she hoped she knew. He might not make it there alive. There was always the chance that Gallardo or his mysterious employer would simply get whatever they wanted from Lourds and kill him somewhere along the way.

But she trusted her instincts.

Instead of following the van, she’d awakened Gary and gone to Heathrow to hire a private pilot. She’d intended to use Gary to hire the pilot so there wouldn’t be any questions about her ID. As it turned out, Gary had a friend who was a pilot who was only too glad to take them.

That problem, at least, was easily solved.

Gary sat up front with the pilot and talked about some of the craziness he’d been through during the past month. Of course, he lied about the women he’d had and his role in the dangerous side of things. It was typical male bonding between two old friends.

Natasha merely rolled her eyes when the embellishments got too outlandish.

Natasha sat in the small passenger section as the plane jumped and danced through the treacherous dark night. She felt certain Gallardo wouldn’t try to get Lourds through a conventional flight to Spain. If that was true, she’d arrive in Cádiz before Gallardo.

It wasn’t much of an edge, but it was all she had.

She made herself comfortable in the seat and willed herself to sleep, but she was plagued by nightmares. She could see and hear Yuliya, but her sister couldn’t hear her anymore, no matter how loudly she yelled.

CAVE #42

ATLANTIS BURIAL CATACOMBS

CÁDIZ, SPAIN

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

“We’re through!”

Father Sebastian sat with a blanket snugged around his shoulders to stave off the unrelenting cold inside the cave. Most of the water had been pumped away, but the process of clearing the disturbed bodies continued. They’d taken to stacking them up on pallets like cargo and freighting them out of the caves.

The large metal door had proved to be a problem. Whatever it was made of, Brancati had never seen anything like it. In the end, they’d had to drill through the locking mechanism. They kept wearing out even the diamond-bitted drills. Getting through the lock had taken days.

Sebastian pushed himself to his feet. Dizziness swam through his head for a moment, then gradually dissipated. You haven’t been getting enough sleep, he chided himself. You’ve got to take better care of yourself.

“I think they’ve got the locking mechanism cleared away,” Brancati said. He looked worn as well. “If you’re ready, Father.”

Sebastian nodded, but fear filled him when he thought of what they were going to find.

A cable from a small earthmover was attached to the door. Gradually, as the winch revolved and filled the immediate vicinity with mechanical noise, the slack in the cable disappeared.

Then loud grinding filled the cavern.

All the men looked nervous. No one knew for certain about the integrity of the walls, and none of them could forget about the merciless sea waiting somewhere outside.

Stalactites fell from the cavern roof and caused a minor furor as they exploded against the stone floor and splashed in the remaining pools of water. One of the stalactites smashed against the protective cage of the earthmover.

Startled, the driver put his foot too hard on the accelerator. The machine roared backwards, struggled against the weight of the door, and finally found traction. Then the cable snapped and flicked across three of the workers. They fell like rag dolls and bled furiously.

But the massive door swung open.

CHAPTER

22

CAVE #42

ATLANTIS BURIAL CATACOMBS

CÁDIZ, SPAIN

SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

T

he screams of the wounded men filled the cavern and barely penetrated the sense of unreality that flooded Father Sebastian’s mind. Ignoring the huge door now several feet ajar and filled with the inky blackness of the dark cave, he went to help the nearest man lashed by the snapping cable.

Brancati yelled at his workers to tend to the men as well, then joined them as first-aid kits arrived. It was a brutal, bloody business for several minutes.

Thankfully, none of the men had been killed outright. Given the situation, it could have been so much worse.

That no one died . . . The Lord was at work here to save them all, Sebastian thought. May His mercy reign over us all as we proceed.

After he’d finished his work with the wounded, he cleaned his hands with a sterile cloth. He’d refused to wait until gloves were available to begin giving first aid. By the time the workers had passed out surgical gloves, he’d already attended to several of the most serious injuries.

“Do you believe in evil portents, Father?” Brancati asked.

“I believe in all that proceeds from the hand of the Lord,” Sebastian answered. “But I also believe in accidents. The men here are tired, stressed out from everything we have dealt with. We must proceed carefully.”

“I agree.” Brancati passed Sebastian one of the big flashlights the men carried in addition to their helmet lights. The construction boss led the way into the next chamber.

Sebastian stayed close behind. The two Swiss Guards assigned to his personal protection flanked him.

The next cave was even larger than the last. It was a gaping maw of stone. Stalactites and stalagmites looked like wicked teeth as the flashlight beams swept across them. The cavern was dry, indicating that the chamber had been airtight until they’d opened the door.