Andros stopped the limousine, and an Evzoni opened Conrad’s door as another ceremonial guard announced his arrival in English. “Dr. Conrad Yeats, USA.”
They knew all along it was me, he thought with a start.
He glanced back at Andros, but the Evzoni had already waved off the limousine to make room for the next arrival, leaving Conrad alone to face a smiling Queen Beatrice, who coldly shook his hand.
“So good to meet you, Dr. Yeats. I’m so glad you could come at the last minute as a substitute for Dr. Hawass from Cairo. We’re looking forward to hearing your perspectives on archaeology and the geopolitics of the Near East.”
“My pleasure.” Conrad smoothly shook hands with Prince Phillipe and then Bill Gates. He knew he was a fool to have believed he ever would have slipped anything past these people. They had let him know it and were about to make him an exhibit for public viewing at their little gathering.
“I heard your talk about astronomical alignments and Washington’s monuments at the TED conference in Monterey a couple of years ago,” Gates told him. “I remember thinking you were either completely nuts or archaeology’s equivalent of the world’s most dangerous hacker.”
Conrad couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or indictment as Queen Beatrice indicated he should take her arm and they walked up the three flat marble steps through the main entrance.
Inside the reception hall, arrivals had gathered at the base of an impressive staircase flanked by statues of Zeus and Hera. At the top of the stairs was a grand mural that showed Achilles dragging the dead Hector behind his chariot before the walls of Troy. Conrad hoped it wasn’t a prophecy for the evening and that the courtesy of his hostess would be extended to him by the rest. “Why the special treatment, Your Majesty, if I may ask?”
“All of our guests tonight are special, Dr. Yeats.”
Conrad watched the crowd move up the grand staircase to the second floor, which opened onto the terrace and gardens outside. The guest list he had seen numbered 150 names—about a hundred from Europe and the rest from North America. Mostly government, finance, and communications types.
One of them, the new publisher of The Washington Post, he instantly recognized in front of him. Unfortunately, the tall, thin blonde saw him, too.
“Conrad Yeats, what the hell are you doing here?” she said. “Stepping into your daddy’s shoes?”
“Hello, Katharine,” he told her. She was wearing her white watch with the rhinestone skull-and-bones face. He had never seen her without it. “You seem to have filled your grandmother’s pumps nicely.” He watched her move toward the bottom of the grand staircase, where her party was waiting.
“Ah, you know Ms. Weymouth,” Queen Beatrice said.
“Just a dance or two in high school,” Conrad said. “I thought media was banned from this event.”
“Not at all,” the queen said. “We have several American and European news organizations represented here. But our participants have agreed not to report on the meeting or to grant interviews to outside press about what transpires. It would defeat the purpose of this forum.”
“Which is?” Conrad pressed.
The queen smiled and clasped his hand with both of her own. They were small but firm. “Simply and only to allow world leaders to speak their minds freely.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said, and turned toward the staircase.
“Before you do, your friend and sponsor for tonight would like to speak to you in the kaiser’s room,” Queen Beatrice said.
“Sponsor?” Conrad repeated, stepping toward the room to the right of the reception hall before the queen tugged his arm.
“That’s the chapel. You wouldn’t want to go there. Maybe later. The iconography is unparalleled. But the kaiser’s room is this way.” She gestured to the short hall on the left of the grand staircase. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Yeats.” There was an unnerving finality in her voice.
Conrad bid adieu to the queen, who moved back toward the front steps while he walked down the hall to the kaiser’s room and entered the study. There stood a short, barrel-chested penguin of a man in a tuxedo: Marshall Packard, former U.S. secretary of defense and now acting head of its DARPA research and development agency.
“Hell, Yeats, is there any woman alive you don’t have a past with?” Packard said.
Packard must have seen his little run-in with Katharine back in the foyer, Conrad realized. “You’re violating the Logan Act, Packard, you know that,” he said. “You and every American here who discusses anything pertinent to the national security of the United States with foreign powers.”
Packard walked behind the kaiser’s old desk and made himself comfortable in the leather chair. “Spare me the lecture, Prince Pavlos, and shut the door.”
6
Conrad sat down in the kaiser’s study and looked at Packard—“Uncle MP,” as Conrad had known him growing up, when he was his father’s old wingman in the air force.
Packard and his father, the onetime Bilderberger, had been best friends until his father’s first ill-fated trip to Antarctica as an Apollo astronaut on a Mars training mission. Four astronauts made the mission, but only Griffin Yeats returned alive. The Griffter was profoundly changed by the mysterious affair, confounding those who thought they knew him, including his own wife. When the Griffter introduced four-year-old Conrad to the family as an adopted son immediately thereafter, the suspicions only grew.
Conrad knew that his adoptive mother had enlisted Packard’s help to get to the bottom of the story. But Packard never did. Nobody did. Not even Conrad. Not until the Griffter recruited Conrad for a last-ditch, no-holds-barred military expedition to Antarctica, where he said he had found a young Conrad frozen in the ice. That Conrad, in fact, was an Atlantean, and the U.S. government had the DNA to prove it: Whereas the DNA strand of every indigenous species on earth spiraled to the right, Conrad’s spiraled to the left.
Ergo, he was not of this earth.
Conrad almost bought the story, except for the reality that in every other way, his DNA and life were extraordinarily ordinary. Outside of Conrad being of interest to the Alignment types, and the mystery of his alleged Atlantean roots, Uncle Sam really had little use for him beyond his expertise in megalithic monuments, astronomical alignments, and ancient mysteries.
Conrad took another look around the kaiser’s study and said, “The Bilderbergers let you do this—go off and have closed-door meetings away from everybody else?”
“Hell, Yeats, that’s all we do at these things. Wake up,” Packard said, and got down to business. “You need to find out where the hell that Flammenschwert went and what the Alignment wants to do with it.”
How on earth did Packard know about the Flammenschwert or that Midas had it? Conrad wondered. But it took only a second for him to come up with the answer. “So Andros gave me up?”
Packard nodded. “Your boy’s family goes way back with us in Greece. He knows who your true friends are, even if you don’t.”
Conrad said, “Did Andros also tell you he thinks Midas might want to use the Flammenschwert to set the Persian Gulf on fire?”
“Hell, I’m worried the Alignment is going to use it in the Caspian Sea and destroy Russia’s ability to ship oil,” Packard said. “That’s twelve trillion dollars’ worth of oil right there. Trillion! It’s the only thing keeping the collapsed Russian economy going. They lose that, and they won’t bother with their Arab proxies. Their tanks will sweep into the Middle East, and we’ll respond, and then we’ve got nuclear Armageddon.”
It was a hellish scenario, to be sure. “So you’re sure the Alignment is behind Midas?”
“They made him,” Packard said. “And since you helped us smash their network in the U.S., they’re using the EU as their cover and base of operation. What do you think this bullshit European summit about the fate of Jerusalem next week on Rhodes is all about? You really think European bureaucrats are ever going to agree on anything remotely resemblin
g a ‘coordinated, comprehensive peace plan’ for the Middle East? It’s all a cover. While the French and German presidents preen for peace, the Alignment will be conducting business as usual. They bankrupted the Russians in the nineties. Now they’ve bankrupted the United States. All that’s left for them is to get our armies to knock each other out so they can unite the rest of the world.”
Conrad had heard it all before from his father. “How is one man like me going to change any of that?”
“Maybe seeing you tonight will shake Midas up, knowing that you’re on to him. Maybe he’ll make another mistake.”
“Another?”
“You survived your first encounter with him, didn’t you? How did you do that?”
“Atlantean blood, remember?”
Packard gave him a funny look, as if he half believed it. These guys at DARPA, Conrad thought, always looking for any way to create the perfect soldier. “You do realize that I don’t work for you anymore, Packard, don’t you? I’m under no contract to the Pentagon or anybody else.”
“Only your pledge of allegiance to the United States of America, Yeats. And that’s worth more to me than all the promises of a U.S. senator. They can be bought, or at least rented. Not you. Now, tell me how you found the Nausicaa.”
Packard seemed genuinely interested, so Conrad obliged.
“Same way I helped the Greeks here fix April 15, 1178 B.C., as the date of King Odysseus’s return from the Trojan War and his slaughter of his wife’s many suitors,” Conrad said. “I aligned clues about star and sun positions from Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem The Odyssey and contemporary German and British captain’s logs to pinpoint the location of the Nausicaa when it sank.”
Packard frowned. “The same astrological mumbo-jumbo the Alignment swears by?”
“Not quite,” Conrad said. “According to Homer, the goddess Calypso had bidden Odysseus ‘to keep the Bear on his left-hand side’ until he reached this island of Corfu. I let Ursa Major be my guide.”
Packard, satisfied yet again that Conrad was the right man for this job, said, “So you knew the Flammenschwert was on board the sub?”
Conrad shook his head. “All I knew was that the sub was returning from Antarctica. I was hoping it was carrying some relic from Atlantis.”
“From the pit of hell, for all it matters,” Packard said. “This Flammenschwert is a game-changer. The world is seventy-five percent water. Whoever rules the waves rules the world. You’ve got to stop Midas from using this thing or, worse, figuring out how to make more of them.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just throw yourself in his face,” Packard said. “I told you. Midas thinks you’re dead. Maybe the sight of you will prompt him to double-check something with regard to the Flammenschwert. Now that we’re monitoring him with every conceivable electronic surveillance on sea, land, and sky, we might catch him before it’s too late.”
“And what do I get?” Conrad demanded. “Just because I can’t be bought doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy some spoils of war.”
“You didn’t get enough from Uncle Sam for those two Masonic globes you dug up under the monuments in D.C.?”
Packard was referring to Conrad’s last adventure with Serena Serghetti, which began at his father’s funeral in Arlington Cemetery. Conrad had discovered that his father’s tombstone was encoded with Masonic symbols and astrological data. It was yet another riddle wrapped in an enigma for Conrad to solve and Packard to go ballistic over. That tombstone turned out to be the key to a centuries-old warning built in to the very design of Washington, D.C. In the deadly race to decode that warning, Conrad and Serena had discovered two Templar globes of murky origins that America’s first president, George Washington, had buried beneath the capital city—one terrestrial and one celestial.
It was the document inside the terrestrial globe that exposed the Alignment’s plot to destroy the American republic and ultimately led Serena to steal that globe and take it with her to Rome, leaving the Americans with only one of the Templar globes. Meanwhile, the suspicion at the Pentagon that the globes worked together in some mysterious way probably explained the glare now coming from Packard and his cigar.
Conrad said, “The almighty American dollar isn’t what it used to be. I used up my reward from the globes to find the Nausicaa. So, again, what do I get?”
“How about answers to all your questions?” Packard said. “Atlantis. Your father. Your birth. Hell, maybe we’ll even get to the bottom of those globes.”
“I’ve been to the bottom and back,” Conrad said. “I know more about those two globes than anybody.”
“Enough to explain how you let one of them slip away to the Vatican with your old girlfriend?” Packard said, lifting his eyebrows and his glass of brandy.
“I’m beginning to hate you as much as I did the Griffter, Packard.”
“Then we’re all good.” Packard got up and ushered him to the door.
Conrad said, “That’s it?”
“Text me when you find something,” Packard said. “You’ve got my number. Just say the word and I’ll send in the Marines.”
“Last time the Marines tried to kill me.”
“For all our differences, Yeats, you and I are on the same side. We don’t buy any of this ‘post–American world’ bullshit the One-Worlders are here to propagate. Power and evil abhor a vacuum. We can’t let the Alignment fill it.”
Packard opened the door, and they walked into the reception hall, where a few late arrivals were making their way upstairs to the terrace.
“Just be yourself,” Packard said softly as they started up the grand staircase. “Midas, like you, is a fringe player here—you by virtue of specialized knowledge and him by virtue of his oil billions. He wants to make a good impression on his Alignment masters, whoever they may be. Just seeing you walking around will rob him of that confidence.”
They paused at the reception chamber at the top of the steps, in front of the Triumph of Achilles fresco. Conrad took a closer look at the gates of Troy in the background and saw a swastika. He knew it had been an ancient symbol of Troy long before the Nazis misappropriated it. But given the circumstances of the evening, it creeped him out just the same.
“What makes you think he’s scared of me?” Conrad asked.
“He’s not scared of you. He’s scared of anybody in the Alignment who sees you here tonight,” Packard said. “He’ll know that we know he’s got the Flammenschwert and that we can tie him to whatever happens with this thing. More important, he’ll know his friends in the Alignment know it and that you just made him their fall guy.”
They were on the second floor, which led outside to a sweeping veranda and the gardens overlooking the bay. This was where the lights and music were coming from, as the women in gowns and men in sleek tuxedos mixed among the life-size statues of Greek gods.
A floating tray with drinks came by. Packard grabbed two and handed one to Conrad. It was a Mount Olympus. Conrad tasted it. Not bad. He nodded and took another sip. They walked outside into the gardens, preparing to separate, and Conrad scanned the faces for Mercedes.
Packard seemed to read his mind. “Looking for her?”
“Gotta play my best hand if Midas is holding all the cards,” Conrad said.
“Her Highness is even more of a player than when you last saw her,” Packard said. “Never looked better, or more powerful and influential on the world stage.”
Conrad knew Mercedes was thin, rich, and French. But “Her Highness” and power and influence never quite fit his picture of her, even when she was his producer playing with her papa’s money.
“There’s Midas,” Packard said, gesturing outside. Conrad couldn’t see through the small crowd of Bilderbergers. “He’s talking to Her Highness right now.”
Conrad wondered which royal princess Packard was snidely referring to. Then two guests parted like the Red Sea to reveal Midas holding court with several admirers around a stunning brunette in a backles
s black dress.
It was Serena.
7
Serena stood by the bronze statue of the dying Achilles, having traded her parka in the Arctic for a backless Vera Wang. To her left was Roman Midas, the man she had come to meet, representing the Bilderbergers’ back channel to Russia. To her right was General Michael Gellar of Israel. Neither man was particularly pleased with the other, as Gellar had essentially accused Midas of providing the uranium for a Russian-built nuclear reactor that Israeli jets had bombed the month before. Now the mullahs in Tehran were threatening to attack Israel through their Palestinian proxies in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Any direct attack on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv will invite a devastating response on Tehran,” said Gellar, his hawklike, craggy face looking like it had been cut from the rocks of Masada. “Israel has a right to exist and to defend herself.”
Serena eyed Midas as he calmly sipped his vodka and nodded. She had been invited by the Bilderbergers as a Vatican back channel between both of them in hopes of averting the latest Middle East crisis. But she also wanted to get Midas alone to press him about his mining in the Arctic.
“As you know, General Gellar, I’m a Russian expatriate often at odds with my homeland.” Midas affected an odd British accent that Serena thought made him sound like a roadie with Coldplay. “I can vouch from personal experience that these are thugs running Russia now. The government itself is a mafia-like criminal organization. They are looking for any pretext to punish Israel through their Arab allies. If you attack Tehran, you will be handing them that pretext. And then what are you going to do? Nuke Moscow?”
“If our existence as a state is threatened, of course,” Gellar said.
“Then Russia attacks America, and we have Armageddon,” Midas said. “No more oil. And I’m out of business.” He was trying to make a joke out of it, and Gellar grudgingly cracked a half-smile.
Seeing an opening, Serena made her move. “I hear there’s always oil in the Arctic,” she said, looking at Midas.
The Atlantis Revelation: A Thriller Page 4
