by S. A. Beck
“I’m trained in using one,” Mateo said.
Grunt looked at him. “It’s a Russian model. They don’t train for that in the U.S. army.”
“I wasn’t in the U.S. army,” the Atlantean said.
“Were you in any other army?” Vivian asked.
“Only my people’s army.”
“The Atlanteans trained you how to shoot a rocket propelled grenade?” Otto said, his eyebrows going up.
Mateo met his gaze. “They trained me in a lot of things.”
“What can you do besides that?” Otto asked.
Mateo got a hard gleam in his eye. “What do you mean by that?”
“Every Atlantean has a special power. Jaxon can make plants grow. Winston does that weird hypnotism thing. What can you do?”
“None of your business, kid.”
Otto grew angry. “You joking? We’re taking on a Third World army and you’re telling me it’s none of my business?”
“Calm down, pyro. Spill it, Mateo. We need to know.”
Mateo paused for a second, then shrugged. “I’m stronger and faster that most Atlanteans.”
“He makes regular Atlanteans look like regular people,” Winston said.
“Well, that could come in handy but we don’t even know what we’re going to face over there,” Otto said. “We need a plan.”
“How can we make a plan when we’ve never seen this place?” Jaxon asked.
Grunt sighed and stood up. “By going and taking a look.”
Chapter 6
AUGUST 21, NOUAKCHOTT AIRPORT, MAURITANIA
9:40 A.M.
* * *
General Corbin stepped off the plane in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. General Meade walked just in front of him, since officially he was in charge, being the commander overseeing North African relations. Orion came right behind, getting suspicious looks from the Mauritanian soldiers standing at attention on either side of the red carpet that had been laid out for them on the tarmac.
A pair of generals and a guy in a suit, no doubt a politician, stood waiting for them at the end of the carpet. General Corbin snorted. One of the generals was older and getting fat. The other was young with hard features. Both had crisp uniforms bedecked with so many glittering medals they looked like they were generating their own solar power. Third World generals loved getting medals; it was a status thing. But what were they getting them for? Dealing with a few hostile tribes and the occasional Islamic terrorist? He wondered if they had received medal for rounding up the Atlanteans and decided not to ask.
General Meade stopped in front of the VIPs and snapped off a salute. Corbin held his breath. His artificial Atlantean had been carefully prepared for this, but Corbin still wasn’t sure how well he’d do.
“Pleased to meet you again, General Meade,” the politician said.
After a pause, Meade said, “And good to see you too, Vice President Salek.”
That’s a relief. The memory is still good, Corbin thought.
“We are surprised and delighted by your visit,” the vice-president went on. “These are generals Haidallah and Teyib.”
Corbin had already looked up the key players in this out-of-the-way country. They gray-haired General Haidallah was head of internal security and a survivor of several coups and political purges, while the younger General Teyib was a rising star in the power structure. Both were as corrupt as sin.
Meade gave them a salute that they returned. Then the general turned to Corbin and Orion.
“This is General Arnold Corbin, who is working on a project I think you will find of interest, and this is an agent we call Orion.”
Salek did not quite manage to keep a poker face. “One of the People of the Sea.”
“That’s what we’ve cone to talk to you about,” Meade said.
Corbin cut in. This next part would require subtlety and quick wits, both of which Meade now sadly lacked.
“It has come to our attention that you have rounded up the People of the Sea because you saw them as a security risk.” Corbin knew that wasn’t the real reason, but he still needed to suss out their true motives. He saw Vice President Salek stiffen, so he hastened to add, “I’m glad you’re keeping this nation stable, sir. It’s vital to the stability of the whole region. But we’d like to speak more of this matter. We have a proposal that might be of interest to you.”
The politician grinned. “But of course. And I am sure you’d like to get out of the heat. Much more summery than your California, no?”
“As a military man I’m accustomed to all sorts of weather,” Corbin said.
As a military man, this uniform is suffocating me. It’s amazing their soldiers don’t go into battle naked, he added silently.
The vice president and the two generals led them to a meeting room at the airport. All three spoke English fairly well. Like many of the elite in this country, they had been educated in Europe. These men had plenty of money while most of their people lived in poverty.
They all sat down. An air conditioning unit purred in the background. A servant handed out bottled water. They all looked at each other uncertainly. It had been a long time since Mauritania had been visited by two American generals. In the grand scheme of things, it simply wasn’t that important. Until now. Corbin decided to make the opening move.
“First let me say that you should have no concerns about my assistant Orion here. He is a special operative and loyal to me. He doesn’t have any loyalty to the People of the Sea or any of their terrorist organizations.”
“Ah, my good friend,” Vice President Salek said. “I am glad you see the problem with these people. Our neighbors to the south think they are a harmless minority who keep to themselves, but they have caused us no end of trouble. And now I hear reports from Mali that they are causing trouble there too. Soon they will be as much trouble as the Tuaregs.”
“The United States is always happy to help allied nations in need,” Corbin said, going way beyond what he was authorized to promise. It didn’t matter. If this worked out, he wouldn’t have to answer to anyone. “I suspect we could solve your problem with both the People of the Sea and the Tuaregs.”
The generals’ eyes gleamed. Military aid meant money that could be skimmed off the top. It was amazing what sins you could hide in military budgets. Corbin had become an expert on that, although he suspected these two jokers could teach him a thing or two.
General Haidallah leaned forward, his paunch pressing against the table. General Corbin tried to hide his disgust. Military men should never let themselves get out of shape, although he suspected this character was just as sharp and as dangerous as he had always been.
“As I am sure you are aware,” General Haidallah said. “Our country is mostly trackless desert. Finding the rebels is not easy and we lack the funds to launch our own spy satellites.”
“We can help with satellite imagery,” General Corbin said. In fact, he had no authority to make such a promise, but that would all come in time.
They spent some time discussing technical details until General Teyib cut in impatiently.
“Finding the rebels is important but once we do we need to defeat them.”
General Corbin took the hint. “I’m sure we can get the Pentagon to approve some increased military funding. Perhaps thirty million dollars for this year? After that we can work on an increase, depending on results.”
Their eyes lit up. Even if they skimmed only a modest ten percent off that budget, they’d each get to build a new palace.
“You will get your results,” General Haidallah said.
Corbin did not doubt it. The Tuaregs were a threat to their supremacy. While siphoning off foreign aid was their main goal, getting rid of the rebels came a close second.
A brief technical conversation followed, during which Corbin noticed a slow smile spreading across the vice president’s face. Corbin decided to cut to the chase.
“Mr. Vice President, while the United States is hap
py to provide this help, we too are concerned about the People of the Sea. We are glad that you are getting them under control and would like to visit this camp you have built for them in Tidjikja.”
“And perhaps take a few away with you?” Vice President Salek’s smile had reached its widest point.
Corbin shifted in his seat. “Well, if that would be possible.”
“To poke and prod in a laboratory somewhere?”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
The politician put his hands on the table. “General Corbin, let me tell you a story. As you have no doubt read in your dossier on me, I studied business at the London School of Economics. I got to learn a great deal about how a First World country operates. It was quite a change from the way things work here. Here I am rich and powerful, but compared with the English upper class I am a beggar. And trust me when I say that no one is better at teaching you your place than the English upper class. Now, once on summer vacation when I was just twenty years old I traveled to India. Like most young people I wanted to see the world. Mauritanians are no different, but few ever have a chance to go further than a hundred kilometers from the village where they were born. I travelled all around the India and of course visited the famous Taj Mahal.”
“You are a lucky man. I’ve never had a chance to go there,” Corbin said, not sure where this was headed.
“Indeed, lucky. It was built by a great Muslim ruler as a monument to his beloved dead wife. One of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Even the Christians admit that. But what affected me most was not the building itself, but what is behind it. Do you know what is behind the Taj Mahal, General Corbin?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t. It never makes it into any of the pictures. Behind is a river, and on the other bank of the river is a peasant’s farm field. As I sat on the riverbank looking up at the beauty of the Taj Mahal, my eyes kept straying to the opposite bank. A woman was filling a bucket in the river, and then walking up the riverbank to water the rows of budding plants in her field. She had no pump, no hose, just this bucket which could water perhaps a couple of meters of one row of plants. The field was a large one, with many rows, and so she kept going back to the river, filling her bucket, and watering another tiny portion of her crop. Back and forth she went. I watched her for an hour, and she got barely a tenth of that field watered. She must have been at it all day. And then the next day she would have to do it again.”
“Quite a contrast to the beauty of the building,” General Corbin said.
Vice President Salek tapped his fingers on the table. “Indeed. That day taught me more about how the world works than all those years of study in London. A great symbol of beauty, wealth, and power, and next to it a miserable life of drudgery and toil. One wonders what that woman thinks of the Taj Mahal. Does she admire its beauty? Does she notice it at all? Perhaps she is too tired. Perhaps the world has killed her thoughts already.”
“Mr. Vice President, about the camp at—”
The politician raised a hand and Corbin fell silent. There was something powerful about this man. Corbin realized he had underestimated him.
“Ten years later on my honeymoon, I went back to the Taj Mahal, General Corbin. It is a popular place for Indians to go on their honeymoon, since it is so romantic, and so I decided to take my wife there. Of course I went to the back and looked across the river. The field was still there, and a woman was still watering the furrows, but I do not think it was the same woman. She looked younger than I remembered. I think that it must be her daughter, and the first woman I saw had died, worn out by the cruelty of the world. Perhaps working ten-hour days in the hot sun next to the world’s most beautiful building sapped her will to live. What do you think of that, my powerful American general?”
General Corbin paused, trying to think of a politic response. “I think that’s a bit of a tragedy.”
Vice President Salk slapped his hand on the table, the sound loud in the otherwise silent room. “A tragedy? Perhaps. But it is the way of the world. The peasants toil and suffer so that a select few can build great monuments and be remembered. It is how countries work. Even in your great democracies you have people working long hours in supermarkets and restaurants while a few live the lives of billionaires or go to the space station. It is the same between countries too. Some achieve great things, while others toil and suffer and die young. It is like America and Mauritania, General Corbin.”
“Now, Mr. Vice President, the United States respects—”
“The United States respects nothing!” Salek screamed.
A deadly silence fell around the conference table. Salek took a sip of water, collected himself, and went on.
“You Americans see yourself as the Taj Mahal, and countries like mine as that peasant woman. Well, we have grown something in our field, haven’t we? Something you want. Something the Russians want too.”
General Corbin tensed. “The Russians?”
General Haidallah, head of internal security, chuckled. “Do you think you are the only nation that gathers intelligence in this region? Do not forget that we live here, and we have methods of learning things far better than your satellite photos. The Russians have been interested in the People of the Sea for a long time, and now the Americans are too, but while the Russians are studying them with the help of their embassy, the Americans go about it more secretly. I suspect that only one faction in your government is studying the People of the Sea and hiding its actions from all the other factions. I also suspect that both you and the Russians are interested in the People of the Sea’s magical powers.”
“There is no such thing as magic,” General Corbin said.
“You say that because you do not live here, my good general. They do indeed have magical powers, and are stronger and faster than regular people. This must be because they are descended from the people of Atlantis. Do not look surprised. We know that too. What we don’t know is what you and the Russians plan to do with them. Use them as weapons against each other, or to fight against the alien invasion that is sure to come?”
General Corbin blinked. So this guy had picked up enough of the fake intelligence reports on UFOs to believe the lies he had been spreading all these years? Perhaps he could use that to his advantage.
“Indeed, Mr. Vice President, the United States is very concerned with the alien threat. We have no technology to fight such a power and we need the Atlanteans as soldiers to help us save the world.”
“So you say.” Salek did not sound convinced. “The Russians say many fine and noble things too. But you have to understand that the peasant woman does not trust the man in the Taj Mahal, and will never trust him. How could she when their lives are so different? You come here to our desert country that is cursed with no natural resources and claim you want to help us. Really you only want to help yourselves. Well, we have something you want, and that will go to the highest bidder.”
Vice President Salek pressed a buzzer in front of him, and a door to the right of him opened. In stepped several local soldiers. Then Corbin saw who came with them, and he nearly fell out of his chair with shock.
It was Nadya Antipova and Dimitri Rublev, the Russian agents who had caused so much trouble in Mali.
Nadya slunk up to the vice president. “So good of you to allow us to have this little chat.”
She put a hand on his cheek. Salek flushed but his eyes remained calculating. Nadya turned to General Corbin.
“Now then, general, let the bargaining begin.”
Chapter 7
AUGUST 26, THE DESERT DUE EAST OF TIDJIKJA, MAURITANIA
10:00 P.M.
* * *
So far, things had gone well. Jaxon had led them unerringly to the well of original water, where they had filled up several large jugs. Instead of the few precious canteens they had taken away before, now they carried several dozen gallons of the miraculous healing liquid.
Winston, Elaine, and Mateo had marveled at the cav
e paintings showing Atlantean history.
Taking up the cave wall behind the well of healing water, the paintings were even more beautiful, and moving, than Jaxon remembered.
The entire wall was covered in a long-lasting paint the scientists had told her was made from grinding up minerals to create a paint that had the consistency of nail polish. Sheltered from the elements in this cave, its colors had remained bright and its images clear despite the millennia that had passed.
Dark-skinned figures with dreadlocks and bright blue dots for eyes wore robes of brilliant yellow, shimmering blue and gold, or deep indigo like the Tuareg favored.
Winston, being the scholarly one among her three new friends, had gone over the scenes in detail.
“Here’s the main city of Atlantis,” he said, pointing to a cluster of magnificent buildings with pillars of white marble. The walls were also of marble, and both were decorated with flakes of gold. “It was the capital of the world for a time, the center of all the greatest science and art. See how they’ve put flakes of gold into the paint? It’s said that our ancestors had a method of actually mixing gold into stone to get this effect. Those pillars really would have had gold flakes in them, and not just set into them, but actually integral with the stone itself.”
“How could they do that?” Elaine said in her Southern drawl.
Winston grimaced. “No one knows. It’s yet another thing we have lost.”
Then his face brightened. “Ah! Look at this.”
He pointed to a bird’s-eye view of the city, consisting of three rings of buildings divided by canals. A semicircular port took up one side where tiny boats sailed on a blue sea. Jaxon hadn’t noticed during her first visit, but the buildings were highly detailed. They weren’t just a series of squares and rectangles as someone would draw to make a schematic of a city, but each had its own individual shape. The boats, too, were each drawn individually.
