The Three Secret Cities

by Matthew Reilly

  Nobody saw the look on her face. ‘We’ll find it. My depth sounders are good and in a place like this, if we can get vaguely close to it, a big hunk of metal will send a strong signal back. And, hey, I’m digging the punk-rocker look.’

  Iolanthe gave him a sideways frown, until she realised that with her shaved hair and wounded nose, she probably did look like a punk-rock fan.

  She touched her almost bald head self-consciously. ‘It’ll grow back . . . I mean . . .’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Nobody said kindly. ‘Mae told me what happened to you and it sucks. Your brother sounds like an asshole. But I mean it. The look works on you.’

  Iolanthe smiled.

  And then, suddenly, the ship’s depth sounder began pinging.

  Nobody checked it.

  ‘It’s half a kilometre that way,’ he said, grabbing the wheel and hitting the gas.

  A few minutes later, the Betty White pulled to a halt near some reeds at the edge of the delta.

  According to the depth sounder, it was a hundred feet below them, buried a few feet under the silty seabed . . .

  . . . a six-foot-long rectangular object made of lead.

  Nobody leapt into action, dropping anchor and prepping the Betty’s submersible: a spindly thing with many domes, lights and mechanical arms that he had christened the Spider.

  Using the boat’s crane, he lowered the Spider over the side.

  Then he, Mae and Iolanthe all got in and, using its interior controls, Nobody guided their descent under the surface.

  They entered a world of green gloom.

  Seaweed swayed in the current. The trunks of marshy trees stretched away into the haze like pillars in a temple. Schools of fish darted by, moving hurriedly when they spotted an incoming swarm of piranha.

  They came to the seabed: a flat silt plain.

  Nobody used the Spider’s extendable drill to burrow into it and a cloud of silt and dirt billowed up all around them as it did its work.

  An hour later, when it was six feet down, the drill struck metal.

  When the silt and dirt settled, they saw on their viewscreen a newly created hole in the seabed and in it . . .

  . . . an old lead coffin caked in five centuries of lead oxide.

  Nobody whistled. ‘Smile, Ms Compton-Jones. Historians and treasure hunters have been searching for this for five hundred years. You just found the resting place of Sir Francis Drake.’

  Iolanthe grinned, just as a muffled boom rang out from somewhere above them.

  Nobody whirled. ‘What was that?’

  He pressed some buttons, bringing up an image on a monitor: feed from a security camera up on the Betty.

  A naval vessel could be seen on the eastern horizon, powering toward their position.

  A destroyer.

  The flag on it showed it to be Brazilian in origin.

  ‘A Brazilian navy ship?’ Nobody said.

  ‘The Catholic Church must have called them in,’ Mae said. ‘Cardinal Mendoza—’

  The destroyer’s main gun boomed and a shell landed near the Betty, sending a geyser of water showering into the air. Then the destroyer’s gun fired again and the image on the screen crashed to hash.

  ‘Jesus . . .’ Mae said, pointing out through the Spider’s port-side dome.

  Iolanthe and Nobody followed her gaze . . .

  . . . to see the Betty White, Nobody’s brand-new support ship—complete with the crane on its stern and the floatplane still tied to its bow—drift down through the gloom, a great gash in its side, flying downward in eerie slow motion, before it landed on the seabed a short distance from them with a dull underwater thud.

  ‘Oh, damn, damn, damn . . . !’ Nobody said.

  Iolanthe just stared. ‘We’re stranded down here.’

  A second later, the three of them heard a low whining sound and suddenly—fzzzz!—something whizzed past them at incredible speed, leaving a long tail of bubbles behind it.

  ‘Was that a—?’ Iolanthe breathed.

  ‘Yes,’ Nobody spun. ‘That was a torpedo. Goddamn it, they’re firing torpedoes at us!’

  With their support vessel on the bottom of the delta and the Brazilian destroyer coming in fast and at least one torpedo having been fired at them, Nobody Black sprang into action.

  He started flicking switches on his console and their submersible lowered over the now-exposed lead coffin.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mae asked.

  ‘I’m doing what Jack wanted us to do,’ Nobody said. ‘Getting what we came for and then trying to get out of here with it.’

  The submersible’s belly came to a halt directly above the coffin.

  ‘I’m going to create a little air pocket around the coffin’s lid,’ Nobody said.

  Hitting some more switches, he extended a small inflatable skirt from the belly of the Spider until it covered the coffin and its hole completely.

  Next, he hit some switches marked ‘initiate air seal’ and Mae and Iolanthe heard the hiss of air passing through hoses.

  A moment later, a green light on Nobody’s console pinged to life: ‘positive pressure achieved – air seal initiated.’

  Then, without so much as a blink, Nobody yanked open the Spider’s lower hatch and instead of water rushing in, there it was, right below them . . . in its grave, in a little pocket of air . . . its smooth, dark, slightly domed surface dripping with water.

  The long-lost coffin of Sir Francis Drake.

  It was oddly beautiful in its sturdiness. Long, black and hard, it even looked heavy. This coffin had been designed to sink and stay sunk.

  Beads of water speckled its dark lid.

  ‘We don’t have much time,’ Nobody said as he jumped down into the hole beside the coffin. He was now actually standing on the muddy seabed.

  With a deep grinding sound, he slid the coffin’s heavy domed lid at an angle to the side, opening it partially.

  The pale dry corpse of a portly red-haired man in a 16th century British naval uniform stared up at them.

  ‘Sir Francis Drake,’ Mae breathed. ‘The greatest seafarer in British history.’

  Iolanthe was looking the other way, out the window: on the lookout for more incoming torpedoes. ‘I appreciate the awe, people, but let’s not dawdle.’

  Thanks to the airtight coffin, Drake was in remarkably good condition: his skin and hair, while dry and brittle, were still intact. His closed eyes had sunken into their sockets, creating a skeletal look. But apart from that, Sir Francis Drake looked just as he had the day he’d died.

  Gripped in his fingers across his chest was an envelope marked: E.R.

  ‘Elizabeth Regina,’ Mae said. ‘That’s it. That’s the location of the three secret cities.’

  Nobody snatched the envelope from Drake’s dead hands and opened it.

  Inside was a sheet of linen-based parchment.

  A quick glance at it showed three coordinates written in Drake’s flowing handwriting, each with an annotation:

  R: 8°6'N 60°30'W of London

  Follow the hidden river to the base of the tabletop mountain.

  T: 63°30'N 18°01'W of London

  Enter through the tunnel at the tideline below its watchtower.

  A: 35°48'N 5°36'W of London

  Enter through its watchtower.

  ‘This is incredible,’ Mae gasped. ‘The exact locations of all three—’

  ‘Look out!’ Iolanthe called suddenly.

  Fzzzzz!

  Another torpedo. It passed so close, this time the Spider rocked.

  Nobody began to climb back up into the submersible.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘We might still have a chance to get out of here—’

  He never finished the sentence, for right then a third torpedo arrived at full speed and hit
the Spider.

  The Spider lurched wildly as the torpedo detonated.

  Everyone was thrown sideways.

  Two of the Spider’s glass domes shattered and blew inward. Green water began spraying into the submersible.

  It would fill in seconds.

  Mae stared about herself with panicked eyes. There was nowhere to go.

  They were stuck on the bottom of the seabed with their support ship sunk and their submersible taking on water.

  They were dead. There was no way out of this.

  ‘Quick! Protect the parchment!’ Iolanthe took the parchment from Mae and sealed it inside a waterproof Ziploc bag.

  ‘This way!’ Nobody yelled, hauling the two women down into the air-skirt ringing the coffin and its hole, at the same time as he grabbed two scuba tanks from the wall nearby.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Mae yelled above the roar of inrushing water.

  ‘No time to explain! Just hang on to me and hold your breath! I’ll guide you.’

  And so Mae took a deep breath, closed her eyes and dropped through the wide hatch as the Spider filled completely with water.

  A moment later, with her eyes shut and guided by Nobody, Mae’s feet touched solid ground and suddenly—to her surprise—she felt dry air on her face.

  ‘You can open your eyes,’ Nobody’s voice said, echoing slightly.

  Mae opened her eyes . . .

  . . . to find herself crouched inside Sir Francis Drake’s lead coffin, standing rather unkindly on top of Drake’s long-dead body, her head poking up inside the domed lid of his coffin.

  The lid was still turned slightly askew . . . but its concave inner dome was now filled with a pocket of air, air from one of the scuba tanks Nobody had snatched on the way out of the Spider and which he had blown up into the lid.

  Nobody and Iolanthe were in the tight space with Mae, the water up to their necks, the only light the pale glow from Nobody’s dive watch.

  ‘Nice air pocket,’ Iolanthe said, impressed. ‘Tell me, how are you single? You’re a genuine unicorn.’

  ‘We’re standing on Sir Francis Drake,’ Mae said.

  ‘I think he’d be okay with it,’ Nobody said. ‘He was a cool cat.’

  ‘What do we do now, smart guy?’ Iolanthe said. ‘Our boat is sunk and so is our submersible.’

  Nobody looked at her.

  ‘I have a last-ditch plan.’

  Ten minutes later, the Brazilian Navy destroyer arrived at the spot where the Betty White had gone down.

  Sailors peered over its sides, searching for the sunken boat, its submersible and any survivors.

  But then, off the stern of the destroyer, amid a sudden flurry of roiling white bubbles, like a cork popping out of a champagne bottle, a floatplane burst up out of the waves.

  It practically sprang out of the water, lifted by the buoyancy of its two pontoons.

  It had taken Nobody, Iolanthe and Mae five minutes to swim across the seabed to the sunken Betty White, taking turns with the two scuba breathers. Then they’d boarded the floatplane tied down to the sunken boat’s bow.

  Nobody had then leaned out and, with his knife, slashed the ropes tying down the plane.

  The floatplane—with its buoyant pontoons and watertight engine bay—whooshed up toward the surface.

  No sooner was the plane out of the water than Nobody hit the starter and the plane’s nose propeller burst to life and in moments the aircraft was moving, powering away from the rear of the destroyer, accelerating quickly to take-off speed and lifting off into the sky before the bulky naval ship could turn even halfway around.

  ‘Iolanthe! Send Jack the coordinates of the three cities!’ Nobody yelled above the din of the engine when they were safely in the air. ‘Mae! Figure out which of the three sets of coordinates gives the location of the City of Ra. That’s our mission!’

  Iolanthe quickly snapped off a photo of Drake’s note and sent it as a text message on her satellite phone.

  ‘Message is away!’ she called.

  ‘Mae?’ Nobody asked.

  Mae was punching some coordinates into the plane’s dashboard GPS.

  ‘It’s this one,’ she called, pointing at Drake’s note.

  R: 8°6'N 60°30'W of London

  Follow the hidden river to the base of the tabletop mountain.

  ‘The “R” must stand for Ra,’ she said. ‘It’s not far, about eighty miles south of here. By the look of it, it’s at the extreme southern end of the Orinoco Delta, at the base of one of the tepui mountains there.’

  Nobody banked the little floatplane around and headed for the cluster of giant tepuis on the southern horizon.

  Somewhere in there was the secret city of Ra.

  Airspace above the Greek Isles

  Eastern Mediterranean

  30 November, 1100 hours local time

  As he sat in the rear bomb bay of Aloysius Knight’s plane, the Black Raven, Jack West tapped out a text message:

  Hey Scarecrow,

  Thanks for sending your friend. He got me out of a real jam.

  Colourful guy, but very effective.

  Jack looked forward at Aloysius Knight as he hit send on the text.

  A few moments later, his phone pinged with a reply:

  Jack,

  Mark Twain said, ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.’

  Not always. Sometimes you just need the biggest, baddest dog you can get.

  I asked him to help you for as long as you need.

  Good hunting.

  Jack snuffed a laugh and went forward into the cockpit.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Aloysius Knight asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Knight’s tall and big-bearded pilot, Rufus said, ‘Coming up on Santorini.’

  Jack peered through the cockpit window.

  Below them was the immense water-filled caldera that the world knew as the island of Santorini. A few cruise liners were parked in the lagoon in the middle of the caldera, looking positively tiny against its gargantuan curving cliffs.

  Just then Jack’s other phone, his chunky satellite phone, pinged.

  ‘It’s a message from Iolanthe. With a photo attached.’ Jack opened it. ‘Oh, nice work.’

  ‘Who’s Iolanthe and what’s she got to say?’ Aloysius asked.

  ‘Royal princess. Smart but ruthless, and not entirely trustworthy. I think you’d like her. She just sent us the coordinates of the three cities as found by Sir Francis Drake.’ He held the photo up for Aloysius to see.

  ‘Amazing,’ Aloysius said, deadpan. ‘I’m overwhelmed with fucking joy.’

  Jack immediately called the others. They were still at Aragon Castle.

  ‘Pooh, Stretch, Sky Monster,’ he said. ‘I need you guys to get to Thule ASAP. Orlando’s people are already there, but if Orlando didn’t know that opening the first city would open the others, we can’t be sure his people will be able to empower the Sword. We have less than thirty-six hours left. I need you to make sure that if they don’t do it, someone does. Sending you the coordinates now.’

  ‘You got it,’ Stretch said.

  ‘Zoe? You almost done there?’

  Zoe’s voice came on the line. ‘We’ve gone through the Knights’ private quarters and offices, and grabbed all the documents and computers we could find. Alby and I are about to leave for Hades’s little safehouse in Rome. We’ll go through them there.’

  ‘How is Alby doing?’ Jack asked.

  ‘We patched him up good and tight. Also gave him some pretty potent painkillers,’ Zoe reported.

  Alby’s voice came on the line. ‘Those assholes cut off my hand, but I’m alive. Pooh said I should ask if I can borrow one of your old bionic hands.’

  ‘Alby, when this is all don
e, we’ll build you one of your own. Before Pooh and Stretch go to Thule, be sure to show them that scroll you found written by Plato about the cities. The one that talks about the entry avenues and the cities’ guardians.’

  ‘I can make it to Thule, Jack,’ Alby said.

  Jack grimaced. He didn’t want to do this but he had to.

  ‘Kid. No. You’ve got guts, I know that, but right now your body needs to rest and mend. Go with Hades and Zoe to Hades’s hideaway in Rome. You can help me by finding the location of the Altar of the Cosmos and figuring out the ritual that has to be performed there.’

  ‘Okay,’ Alby said resignedly.

  Jack hung up and turned to Aloysius.

  ‘As for us, you and I need to find Poseidon’s Mace.’

  After attacking Aragon Castle and annihilating the Knights of the Golden Eight, Jack had sat down at the head of the Round Table and assessed the situation.

  He was running out of time.

  They had less than two days till Sagittarius A-star—the supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy—appeared over the sun and gave them a twelve-minute window to save the world.

  Jack’s problems lined up in his mind like aeroplanes waiting to land at an airport:

  He hadn’t laid eyes on the Three Secret Cities yet.

  And by the look of it, Orlando may have jumped the gun and, by entering the first city, Thule, set in motion the defences of all three of the secret cities.

  He didn’t know what kind of miserable wasteland the world would become.

  Nor did he know the location of the Altar of the Cosmos or the nature of the ritual that had to be performed there—a ritual that Iolanthe suggested may involve human sacrifice. Hopefully Alby could find that out.

  And Sphinx had Lily. Hopefully, her gift was keeping her safe. Hopefully.

  He thought about the three weapons.

  Orlando had two of them: the Sword, Excalibur, and the Helmet of Hades. The third weapon, the Trident/Mace of Poseidon, had to be found and found fast.