Emerald

by Brian January

  Flinders made a strangled noise in her throat. “How can you do that? Just murder all those people?”

  Koyasan ignored her as if she weren’t present in the room. “Follow me,” he said, and strode away, heading for the far end of the hall.

  Passing the marching lines of the columns, Flinders could see that doorways interrupted the walls in the middle of the chamber on both sides, with staircases leading down into the depths of the mountain.

  “This fortress has been modeled on traditional stories of what Atalatarte—what you call Atlantis—looked like. This is the Great Hall, which leads to the throne room of Dhw, our priest-king who first inscribed the words on the Emerald Tablet. He is the one you call Thoth.”

  Footsteps echoed behind them. Flinders turned to see four armed soldiers in pale red jumpsuits trailing along in their wake.

  Jaz looked back as well and grinned. “You don’t trust us, Koyasan?”

  The commander stopped dead in his tracks and swung around. His face was a mask of stone. “This is holy ground. And as far as I’m concerned, you are trespassers on what is sacred to us.”

  Then he turned and marched forward.

  At the end of the hall another massive copper door blocked their way, centered between two columns. Koyasan pushed it open, revealing a rectangular-shaped chamber, carved out of the natural limestone and lit by the dancing light of flickering torches. Stepping inside, Flinders immediately coughed as the harsh scent of burning oil seared her nostrils.

  But then she froze in wonder. Sitting on a throne fashioned from green crystal was the mummy of Thoth—the same mummy they had discovered inside the mountain at Cape Fiolente. On either side of the throne stood the inscribed pillars the Atlanteans had removed from the Oracle of Siwa.

  “Give me the Tablet,” Koyasan ordered.

  Belisarius didn’t hesitate. His face impassive, he handed the metal case to the commander. The Atlantean grasped the handle, then laid the case on the throne’s limestone pedestal and opened it. A tremor shook him as he saw the Tablet inside. Emotions stormed across his face, but he visibly wrestled them down. Picking up the Tablet with both hands, he climbed a set of stairs to the throne and set the artifact inside the crossed forearms of the mummy.

  For a least a minute Koyasan stood in place, staring at the Tablet held in the withered arms of Thoth. Then he turned back to the group and walked down the stairs.

  His eyes snapped to the soldiers. “Take them to their quarters.” He turned back to the group. “You will be allowed complete access to the living quarters, entertainment areas, and dining area, but you are forbidden to set foot on this floor from now on or to go outside the walls of this compound.” He pointed at Flinders. “This woman is to be taken to a confinement room.”

  “We’re roomies,” Jaz spoke up. “Put me in the same room. Only I get the key.”

  Flinders struggled as Jaz grabbed hard on her bicep. “No!”

  Irritation darkened Koyasan’s face. He turned to Belisarius, handing him the empty case. “These are your people. I’ll leave their disposition up to you. I just don’t want this one killed—she can translate the original writings. Other than that, I don’t care what you do with her.”

  With that, he turned his back to them and strode off to the great hall.

  Flinders stared after him in horror.

  The soldiers lifted their rifles, motioning them out. Moving back into the hall, they saw Tomilin approaching them. He barked out a sharp command in Russian to the soldiers, who backed off, forming a circle around the newcomers.

  “Welcome to Atlantis,” he said, addressing Belisarius as if the others weren’t there. “Did Koyasan show you around?”

  “Just barely,” the older man answered.

  “Don’t mind him,” Turner said. “He’s got a stick up his butt about this place. Have you seen the gold?”

  Greed glinted in Belisarius’ eyes. “No. Where is it?”

  Tomilin started for the throne room, but Belisarius stopped him, indicating his daughter. “First,” he said, “I want her secured and out of my sight.”

  Nodding, Tomilin motioned to the nearest soldier and gave him a command. The soldier grabbed Flinders’ arm and dragged her away.

  They entered the throne room. Crossing through it, Tomilin led them to another chamber that branched off the northern wall of the room. “Each end of the great hall forms a T,” he explained. “At this end there are storerooms for Atlantean artifacts. The other end is the command center for the flood operation. Moving into a darkened doorway, he flicked on overhead lights. “Take a look.”

  Belisarius gaped at the sight before him. The glint of gold was everywhere, from floor to ceiling: stacks and stacks of crude ingots, statues of kings and gods, shields, cups, plates, bracelets, huge disks engraved with the Atlantean script, and even tables made of solid gold.

  Tomilin showed him a knowing smile. “This is just part of it. There are more rooms just like this. Some with piles of jewels as well. And more on Roman-Kosh. It’s the treasure trove of ancient Atalatarte. And it’s just what the survivors managed to save before the flood inundated the city.”

  A tremor of heady avarice shook Belisarius. He spun around to Jaz, who was cooly contemplating the vast treasure.

  Without changing expression, she saw the look in his eye.

  She knew what he wanted her to do.

  ___

  When Pteor shut the door and the electronic lock clicked into place, the first thing Rachel did was to recon the room. Maybe twenty by thirty feet, no windows, small bathroom connecting to the west end of the room. A single bed was the only furniture. No television, radio, or books. Light came from an unseen source around the perimeter of the ceiling. A narrow closet next to the door with open shelves stacked with underwear, slipper boots, and folded red jumpsuits. Electronic lock with keypad.

  When Tomilin’s plane had landed at the fortress, Pteor had brought her to this room, into the bowels of the mountain. The man terrified her. With a single touch he had reduced her to a blob of quivering jelly.

  Her response repulsed her.

  But she’d never been so scared in her life.

  She crossed to the bathroom. Here she found soap, shampoo, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. No make-up. Toilet paper and a box of tissues. Could she fashion the toothbrush into a weapon? Maybe. She picked it up. It was made of hard rubber—impossible to snap off or to whittle down into a sharp point. She set it back down.

  Moving back into the main room, she lowered herself to the bed. The situation looked bleak. Even if she were to escape from this prison, she had seen on the flight in that she was on a snowbound, remote mountaintop high above a plateau. Mount Tavrida on the Crimean Peninsula, Tomilin had told her. The middle of nowhere. Even if she could escape the fortress, she had no winter clothing, no food, no weapons, and no way down.

  But it wasn’t like her to give up. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life in the bed of a traitor to the American flag.

  She’d rather be dead.

  Her eyes flicked over to the lock and the keypad. That was the way out.

  Somehow she had to find a way to open that lock.

  ____

  Sitting at a computer station in the control room, Tomilin watched the data stream on the X-video displays. He turned, looking up into Koyasan’s stern face. “NOAA, Met, and Roshydromet are all reporting the storm breaking up as predicted. We should be ready to fire on schedule.”

  “Enter the codes now.”

  The Senator shook his head. The knowledge of the DRO satellites’ codes was the only leverage he had. “Not until it’s time.”

  Koyasan’s lips moved in a wintry smile. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Don’t take it personally, Koyasan. I don’t trust anyone.”

  ___

  In the bathroom, Rachel pulled out a sheet of facial tissue and flattened it on the countertop. Then she opened a fresh toothbrush, scraping the stiff bristles
against the length of the tissue with careful strokes, just enough to abrade the top surface. Repeating the process with several more tissues, she soon had accumulated a small pile of white powder. This she swept into a fresh tissue and headed for the outer room.

  Crossing to the door, she bent to inspect the lock key pad. Ten numbers, from zero to nine. Assuming a four-digit unlock code, there would be ten thousand possible permutations, from 0000 to 9999. The guard who had locked her in the room had blocked the key pad with his body, entering the unlock code to open the door before he left.

  Which meant that he’d left his fingerprints on the numbers he had touched. Balancing the tissue in her palm, she leaned close to the door and blew a puff of the powder over the key pad.

  The fine dust settled on minute oily ridges on four of the number pads. Fingerprints! Numbers one, six, seven, and zero.

  That lessened her total number of possible permutations to twenty-four. Now all she had to do was to methodically try every combination of these numbers until the lock opened

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Babugan Plateau, Crimea

  THE Eurocopter Hummingbird soared over a forest of oaks and beeches as the foothills of the Babugan Plateau thrust up to a thick belt of pines and then the bare limestone slopes of Mount Tavrida. Studying the lone mountain growing closer in the windscreen, Skarda thought the Atlanteans had chosen their refuge wisely: high and wind-battered and free of vegetation, you could see an enemy coming for miles around.

  But today they weren’t here as enemies. They’d chosen the single-engine, light helicopter purposely, to appear as tourists on a sight-seeing excursion, not as attacking troops. Skarda fully expected a welcoming committee.

  April pointed. “Here we go.”

  Skarda had already seen it: an Mi-25 zooming toward them. Suddenly the back of his shirt was damp. Against the Gatling gun and rockets, they were utterly defenseless.

  A harsh voice spoke into his headset, overlaid with a thick Russian accent. “You are intruding on restricted airspace. Leave immediately or you will be shot down.”

  April spoke into her microphone, feigning astonishment. “Oh, wow!…sorry! We had no clue, dude! We’re just looking at the scenery!”

  The gunship had flown closer now, hovering in the air. The Russian voice spoke again. “You have one minute to leave the area or you will be shot down.”

  “Okay…sorry! Geez, chill! We’re outta here!”

  She banked the Hummingbird to the southwest. Sweat still glued Skarda’s shirt to the small of his back.

  But they had seen what they came to see. The mountain would take far too long too scale and there was no cover at the summit to disguise their entry.

  And no way to fly in without being seen and intercepted.

  He turned to her and studied her profile. “So what do we do?” he asked.

  Pushing the cyclic forward, she shot him a sly grin. “Remember those flying suits?”

  FIFTY-NINE

  Airspace above the Crimean Peninsula

  THE PAC 750XL streaked through the dark sky at twenty thousand feet, its powerful Pratt and Whitney engine pushing the plane along at 170 KTAS. The interior had been outfitted strictly as a skydiving jumpship, with metal benches running along both sides of the fuselage interior and a big parachute jump door on the starboard side.

  The pilot was an Englishman living in Kiev, who was more than willing to fly Skarda and April along the southern Crimean peninsula for a briefcase full of cash.

  In the cabin, Skarda helped April strap into her wingpack. This model was different from those he’d seen the commandos wearing on the Nile cruise ship. This was a six-foot carbon-fiber monowing that made her look like an mini delta-wing airplane. Stowed inside the black wing were their weapons, tactical vests, plus water and MRE food packs.

  When she was strapped in, she helped Skarda get into his wingpack. “Let me give you the run-down,” she explained. “This is a thermal suit, so the cold won’t be any problem. You’ve got oxygen tanks hooked up to the helmet, plus GPS and a guidance and stabilization system displayed on the helmet HUD. You steer with these hand grippers.”

  She caught the look of uncertainty on his face. “I can go myself,” she said quietly.

  He shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I’m in. It’s just that this thing will take some getting used to.”

  She showed him a confident smile. “I tried the squirrel suits a couple of times in the Army and they’re no sweat. You’ve free-fallen before. You won’t have any problem.” She adjusted his chest straps. “In these things we’ll be invisible to any kind of radar. The only bad news is we’re going to have to deploy parachutes at one thousand feet and that can put us on a screen. We do have micro turbojet engines near the feet here. We could use them to slow our speed, but they’re difficult to maneuver if you’re not used to them. So let’s just hope they won’t be expecting anybody.”

  The pilot’s voice sounded on the intercom: “Approaching drop in one minute…”

  ___

  Heavy fists of air pummeled Skarda as he dived toward earth, following the descending black triangle that was April. He twisted his helmet, catching a glimpse of the rapidly-disappearing running lights of the PAC 750XL. For the first thirty seconds after he’d jumped, a sickening jolt of terror had caused him to pitch and veer away from her path, but he quickly stabilized his fall, orienting himself with the data flickering across his heads-up display.

  “You okay?” April’s voice came to him over the helmet communicator.

  “Everything’s cool,” he replied. “I think I’ve got the hang of it.”

  He checked his airspeed: ninety knots. Over a hundred miles per hour. He was dropping vertically, but flattened out into a glide at the same time, which slowed his free fall descent. The GPS readout showed they were right on target.

  Far below he could see the faint double row of lights that marked the fortress’ landing strip, glowing like a distant neon sign in the darkness. They soared lower. Now Skarda could make out the block-like outlines of the fortress: lighter-colored rectangles and squares nestled in a notch between upthrust rock formations. A gust of wind-driven snow obscured his vision, but inside the wingpack he was warm, the temperature at a constant seventy-two degrees. As he soared closer he could see twin Mi-25’s squatting on their circular helipads, looking menacingly lethal even at this distance, and to the east, two private jets parked on the runways.

  “Looks like Tomilin and Belisarius are here,” he said. “Which means Flinders. And Jaz.”

  Now, following April as she banked to the east, he saw a spill of yellow light lower down on the side of the mountain, where an opening had been cut out of the solid rock. In front of it, the bulky silhouette of a twin-rotored helicopter cast a long shadow over a snow-covered landing platform.

  “CH-47 Chinook,” April said. “That must be the loading dock for their supplies. It’s our way in.”

  Angling her body, she dropped lower. Skarda followed. He could see she was heading for a corner of the building surrounded by huge ramparts of rock. It would be a good place to land and stash the wingpacks.

  The altimeter on his HUD was nearing one thousand feet. Below him, April jettisoned the flying wing and pulled the ripcord on her parachute. The T-11’s black canopy blossomed from her pack and caught the wind, jerking her up and away from his position. The wingpack, still attached to her by a long cord, would land first.

  Soaring closer to the mountain, Skarda separated his own wing and yanked the ripcord. The parachute unfurled from its pack, snapping out above him. Swinging into an upright position, he grabbed the control lines, manipulating them to land next to April in a bank of snow.

  An abrupt blast of turbulence swatted him. Spinning around, his feet jerked up in the air and he hit the ground wrong, staggering, the wind again catching him and threatening to drag him against the unyielding wall of stone rearing up above the snow line. Frantically yanking his control lines, he leaned into th
e direction of the wind, reaching up to unbuckle his chute just as his boots neared the ground. With a sharp crack the canopy went streaming off behind a crag of limestone and was whipped away into the night. He hit the snowbank with his shoulder blades, the breath exploding from his lungs.

  Her helmet off, April trudged up and stood over him. “See? I told you could do it.”