The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller (The Origin Mystery, Book 1)

by A. G. Riddle

  “For what?”

  “His life. In exchange for yours. You will leave here tonight, in a few hours, when everyone has knocked off. They’ll go to bed early; the raid is at dawn.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? I don’t want to kill him. I’m genuinely fond of him. We’re just on different sides of the coin. Chance. But we want you, badly.”

  “Why?”

  “You survived the Bell. It’s the key to everything we’ve done. We have to understand it. I won’t lie; you’ll be questioned, then studied, but he will be spared. Look at your options. We can simply kill those agents inside right now. It’s messier, here in a residential neighborhood, but acceptable. We’ve held this operation open too long as it is, waiting, seeing who would come in, hoping he would call. There’s more. If you’re clever in your negotiations, you may be able to free the children, or perhaps trade yourself for them. They’re being held at the same facility.” Keegan looked Kate in the eyes. “Now what’s your answer?”

  She swallowed and nodded. “Ok.”

  “There’s one more thing. From the recordings on the plane. You and Vale mention a journal. We want it. We’ve been looking for it for a very long time.”

  CHAPTER 107

  Snow Camp Alpha

  Drill Site #7

  East Antarctica

  A surge of relief swept over Robert Hunt when he saw the snowmobile parked outside the small, white-walled barracks at Drill Site Seven. He parked his snowmobile and ran inside. The men were warming themselves beside the wall heater. Both rose when he entered.

  “We tried to wait, but we were freezing. We couldn’t stay.”

  “I know. It’s ok,” Robert said. He surveyed the room. Exactly like the last six. He glanced over at the radio. “Have they called—”

  “Three times, on the hour. Asking for you. They’re losing patience.”

  Robert thought about what to say. “What did you tell them?” The answer would tell him where they shook out in all this.

  “We didn’t answer the first call. The second said they were sending backup. We told them you were working on the drill, and we needed no assistance. What did you see?”

  The last question sent Robert’s mind racing. What if they’re testing me? What if they talked to the employer and they have orders to kill me? Can I trust them? “I didn’t…” Winters started.

  “Look, I ain’t no genius, hell, I didn’t even graduate high school, but I’ve worked an oil rig in the Gulf my whole life, and I know we ain’t drilling for oil, so why don’t you tell us what you saw?”

  Robert sat at the small table with the radio. He suddenly felt so tired. And hungry. He pulled his hood off, then his gloves. “I’m still not sure. There were monkeys. They killed them with something. Then I saw kids, in a glass cage.”

  CHAPTER 108

  Clocktower Safe House

  Gibraltar

  Kate tried to estimate the distance between the balconies. Four feet? Five feet? Could she make it? Below, she heard a guard walking by, and she crept back into her room. She listened. The “crunch, crunch, crunch” of fine gravel under the man’s feet slowly faded into the distance. She returned to the balcony.

  She stepped to the edge and put one leg over, straddling the rail, then cartwheeled the other leg over. She stood on the four inch lip outside the rails, which she held with both hands behind her back. Could she make it?

  She reached a leg out, holding the rail with one hand, like a ballet dancer in a lunge during a high note. She extended as far as she could, felt her grip slipping on the rail, and almost fell. She reeled back just in time and slammed back into the rail. She was going to break her neck. The other balcony was just out of reach — less than two feet.

  She leaned back against the rail and was about to jump for it when the door on the other balcony slid open and David walked out. He drew back at the first sight of her, but then, after recognizing her, he walked to the rail. He smiled at her. “How romantic.” He held out his good arm. “Jump. I’ll pull you up. I owe you one.”

  Kate glanced down. She could feel the sweat on her hands. David held his arm out over the rail. It was a few feet from her. She jumped, and he caught her and pulled her over the rail and into his arms. Then it all happened so fast, like a dream. He swept her into the room, not bothering to close the door. He tossed her on the bed and climbed on top of her. He pulled his shirt off and ran his hands through her hair. He kissed her on the mouth and pulled her shirt up, only lifting his face from hers long enough to pull the shirt past her face.

  She had to tell him. Had to stop it.

  Her bra was off, and his pants were coming off.

  It felt so good. The release. They could talk after.

  Kate watched David’s chest rise and fall. It was a deep sleep. She made her decision.

  She put her clothes back on and quietly exited his room, slowly closing the door.

  “I was clear.”

  The voice frightened her. She turned — Keegan, standing behind her, wearing an expression of… sadness, disappointment, regret?

  “I haven’t told him—”

  “I doubt that—”

  “It’s true.” Kate cracked the door, revealing David lying on his back, a sheet covering only the lower half of his body. Kate gently eased the door back. “We didn’t talk at all.” She looked down. “I was saying goodbye.”

  30 Minutes later, Kate watched the lights of Northern Africa out of the window as the plane flew south toward Antarctica.

  CHAPTER 109

  “David, wake up.”

  David opened his eyes. He was still naked, lying in the same place he’d fallen asleep. He felt the bed beside him. Empty. Cold. Kate had been gone for hours.

  “David.” Howard Keegan stood over him.

  David sat up. “What is it? What time is it?”

  His former mentor handed him a note. “It’s around 2am. We found this note in Kate’s room. She’s gone.”

  David opened the note.

  —————

  Dear David,

  Don’t hate me. I have to try to make a trade for the children. I know you’re attacking Immari Headquarters this morning. I hope you’re successful. I know what they’ve taken from you.

  Good luck,

  ~ Kate

  —————

  David’s mind raced. Would Kate do this? Something felt wrong.

  “We think she left several hours ago. Anyway, I thought you should know. I’m sorry, David.” Howard walked to the door.

  “Wait.” David eyed him, thinking. What option did he have? “I know where she’s gone.”

  Howard turned and looked at David skeptically.

  “We were given a journal in Tibet.” David dressed as he spoke. “It contained a map of the tunnels below the Rock; there’s something down there, something they need.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. But I think she’s gone after it — to use it to trade. What’s our status?”

  “Everyone’s suiting up. We’re almost ready for the assault.”

  “I need to speak with them.”

  Thirty minutes later, David was leading the final 23 Clocktower agents in the world through the tunnels under the Rock of Gibraltar. He had told the men that he had to go — that he had to find Kate — and that he might be delayed in joining the assault. His role was largely ceremonial anyway. His wounds, especially the leg wound, disqualified him from playing an active role in the assault. He would be at a desk watching the screens and readouts, coordinating the men during the operation.

  His fellow agents had agreed unanimously: they would stay together, investigate the tunnels first, recover Kate, then resume the original plan. The boon from the chamber in the tunnels could offer some tactical advantage in the main operation.

  They had anticipated little resistance at the warehouse, and they weren’t disappointed. The warehouses weren’t even guarded. Or locked, although they had been
. The Clocktower team found a common combination lock, the kind used on high school lockers, laying on the ground, snapped in half. Clearly Kate’s work. Apparently Immari had abandoned the site a long time ago and regarded it as low-value. The lack of security still made David suspicious.

  The entrance to the tunnels was just as the journal described it — and in almost the same condition. A black tarp had been thrown off the opening, and the lights leading into the mine were on. Inside the tunnels, there was one change: an electric car system, like a monorail tram with single cars, had been added to provide swift, safe transport through the tunnels. Each car held two passengers, and the team piled into about a dozen cars, with Howard and David riding in the first car. After the dizzying spiral down into the mine, the tunnel straightened and began forking. David hadn’t anticipated this — he had assumed the Immari would have closed any dead ends. The map in the journal was of the inside of the Atlantis structure; he had no idea which way to go at the forks. There was no choice; they began dividing their forces and unfortunately, the rail lines kept forking until David and Howard rode alone, hopefully on the right track.

  The plan was to rendezvous at the entrance in one hour. That would still leave time for the pre-dawn raid at Immari Gibraltar.

  David stared straight ahead as the tunnel’s lights flew by in an endless monotony. What was he missing? Howard worked the car’s controls, managing their speed. Somewhere, far off in the distance, three faint, rapid-fire pops rang out. David looked over at Howard, and they shared a knowing glance. Howard slowed the car and they waited for more sounds, hoping to discern the direction.

  “We can reverse,” Howard said quietly.

  They waited. The tunnels were quiet. What to do? The sound was clearly gunfire, but David wasn’t in fighting condition and Howard was in intelligence, but he was a manager, not a soldier. Neither could offer any real resistance. In fact, they would probably be in the way.

  “No, we go on,” David said.

  Five minutes later, they heard another bout of gunfire, but they didn’t stop. Five minutes after that, they reached the room that opened onto the Atlantis structure. The steps lay in the center of the room, fully uncovered. To the right was the jagged opening the journal had described. David could also see the rest of the structure, but it was mostly smooth dark metal. Massive iron I-beams reached high overhead, holding the rock and sea at bay.

  David looked up, studying the area above the stairs. There was a huge dome and a place where the structure’s overhang had been cut away from above.

  “What is it?” Howard said.

  “This is where they extracted the Bell,” David said, almost to himself.

  Howard walked to the stairs, put his foot on the first step and looked back at David.

  Without a word, David hobbled forward, moving up the stairs, leaning heavily on his cane. As he grimaced and climbed, an overwhelming sense of Déjà vu engulfed him. The tunnelmaker, Patrick Pierce, had also been lured down here under the guise of rescuing someone, only to be trapped himself. David crossed the threshold with Howard following closely. He stopped and studied his mentor’s eyes. Was he missing something? What could he do about it now?

  Inside, the structure was illuminated with LED lights that ran along the floor and ceiling. The corridors were about eight feet tall — not cramped, but not exactly spacious. They also weren’t square. The bottoms and tops of the corridors curved slightly, giving it an oval shape, except the curves formed in sharper angles. Overall, the halls felt like the corridors of a ship — a Star Trek ship.

  David led Howard down the corridors, following the mental image he had formed of the map. Memorizing maps and codes was one of the quintessential tools of trade craft, and David was good at it.

  The structure was incredible. Many of the doors to the rooms were open, and as they passed by, David saw a series of make-shift labs, like something you might see behind the glass of a museum, where curators carefully studied or restored historical artifacts. Apparently the Immari had dissected every inch of the structure in the past 100 years.

  It was surreal. David had only half-believed the tunnelmaker’s tale, had thought that perhaps it was just that — a tale. But here it was.

  The false wall to the chamber was coming up — just around the next turn. As it came into view, David felt himself holding his breath. The chamber was… Open.

  Kate. Was she inside?

  “Kate,” David called out. There was nothing to lose. Anyone inside could hear his cane clacking on the metal floor from a mile away, so they didn’t exactly have the element of surprise.

  No answer.

  Howard formed up behind him.

  David crept to the edge of the chamber’s opening and peered inside. The room looked like some sort of command center. A bridge, with chairs dotted along smooth surfaces — computers? Something more advanced?

  David moved into the room as carefully as he could. He pivoted around, leaning on his cane, scanning every inch of the room. “She’s not here,” he said. “But the journal, the story was true.”

  Howard stepped inside the room and hit a switch behind him. The door to the room hissed closed, sliding from right to left. “Oh yes, it’s quite true.”

  David studied him. “You’ve read it?” David again wrapped his fingers around the gun tucked in his belt.

  Howard’s face had changed. His usually mild expression was gone. He looked satisfied. Confident. “I’ve read it, yes. But just out of curiosity. I knew what it would say because I was there. I saw it first-hand. I hired Patrick Pierce to find this place. I’m Mallory Craig.”

  CHAPTER 110

  Kate sat on the small plastic bench and stared at the white walls. She was in some sort of lab or research facility, but she had no idea where. She rubbed her temples. God, she was so groggy. Somewhere over the South Atlantic sea, a man had walked back into the plane and offered her a bottle of water. She had declined, and he had proceeded to hold her down and cover her mouth with a white cloth, the type that promptly induced unconsciousness. What had she expected?

  She stood and paced the room. There was a small slit in the white door, but the window revealed only the hallway outside and a few more doors like the one to her room.

  One of the long walls of the room had a rectangular mirror, recessed a few inches into the wall. This was no doubt an observation room, similar to the ones in her lab in Jakarta, except infinitely more creepy. She stared at the mirror. Was someone in there, watching her right now?

  Kate squared her body to the mirror and looked into it as if she could see the mysterious man behind it — her captor. “I did my part. I’m here. I want to see my children.”

  A voice broke over a loud speaker. It was muffled and computer-altered. “Tell us what you treated them with.”

  Kate thought. She would have no leverage after she revealed what she knew. “I want to see them first, then you release them, and I’ll tell you.”

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate, Kate.”

  “I disagree. You need what I know. We both know your drugs won’t work on me. Now, you show me the children, or we’ve got nothing to talk about.”

  Nothing happened for almost a minute, then on one side of the mirror, a video flickered to life. That part of the mirror must have been some sort of computer screen. The video showed the children, walking in a dark hallway. Kate stepped closer to the mirror, holding a hand out. Ahead of the children, a massive portal opened, revealing only darkness inside. The children walked through. The video paused with an image of the portal closing.

  “You’ve read the tunnelmaker’s journal. You know about the structure in Gibraltar. There is a similar structure twenty times larger here. We think it’s eight times the size of Manhattan, almost five miles wide and 50 miles long, and it’s two miles below us. It’s been there, beneath two miles of ice, for countless thousands of years. The children are inside.”

  The screen in the mirror switched to a close-up image
of the children before they crossed the portal. It zoomed in on packs the children carried. There was a simple LED readout, the type you see on alarm clocks — a series of digital numbers. A countdown.

  “The children are carrying nuclear warheads in those packs, Kate. They have less than thirty minutes left. We can deactivate them remotely, but you have to tell us what you did.”

  Kate stepped back from the mirror. It was insanity. Who would do this to two children? She couldn’t trust them. She wouldn’t tell them. They would only hurt other children; she was sure of it. She had to think. “I need some time,” she mumbled.

  The image of the packs disappeared from the mirror.

  A few seconds passed, and the door swung open. A man wearing a long black trench coat stepped robotically into the room and… Kate knew him.

  How could it be? Flashes of expensive dinners, her laughing as he charmed her, a candle-filled apartment in San Francisco, him unbuttoning her shirt, his head moving down her, kissing her stomach — a stomach without a scar. And the day she told him she was pregnant — the last day she ever saw him… until now, here.

  “You—” was all Kate could manage. She stepped back as he marched into the room. Kate felt her back hit the wall.

  “Time to talk, Kate. And call me Dorian Sloane. Actually, let’s dispense with the aliases. It’s Dieter. Dieter Kane.”

  CHAPTER 111

  Immari Tunnels

  Gibraltar

  David watched the man pace across the room, the man he had known as Howard Keegan, Clocktower Director, the man who now claimed to be Mallory Craig.

  “You’re lying. Craig hired Pierce almost a 100 years ago.”

  “That’s true, I did. And we’ve been looking for his journal almost as long. Pierce was an extremely clever man. We knew he sent the journal to the Immaru in ‘38, but we weren’t sure it made it there. I was curious what he would say, how many secrets he would reveal. When you read it, weren’t you curious about the deal he made with us? Why he stayed, working for The Immari for almost 20 years after the Spanish Flu killed his wife and unborn child? What did he call it? His ‘deal with the devil.’” The man laughed.