As she hovered in the gusty skies over the hardening ice, she prayed for the soul of Conrad Yeats. Then she turned the chopper in the direction of McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf and flew away.
38
DAWN: THE DAY AFTER
AT 0600 HOURS ZULU, Major General Lawrence Baylander, a hard-nosed New Zealander, led his UNACOM weapons inspection convoy of Hagglunds around a fissure and crossed into the target zone.
The area had been wind-whipped, and any evidence of American nuclear testing would not be visual. Dosimeter readings, thermal scans, and seismic surveys would be necessary to detect any radiation, buried facilities, and the like. Even then they would have to drill for subglacial core samples, he thought. If only they had more time.
But Baylander had already pushed the search and rescue team too far, he realized, and supplies and thus time were running low. He had already concluded they’d have to abandon the tractors and fly back once air support arrived. Worst of all, international politics and funding being what they were, he knew there would be no returning to this wasteland. About the only thing he would get out of this frozen hell was the grim satisfaction that the U.N. would stick the Americans with the tab.
He could feel his opportunity to nail the Americans slipping away. Exhausted and irritated, he was about to radio back to base to tell them that his team was ready to turn around when the convoy found the way blocked.
A red Hagglunds tractor, half protruding from the ice, had apparently sunk into a fissure, its wafer treads locked. It was still upright, slightly skewed. The forward cab was smashed.
Baylander swore and radioed the convoy to brake to a halt. Pausing just long enough to square up his custom-made polyplastic snowshoes, he decided to keep his engine running. He yanked his cab door open, jumped down, and started across the waist-deep snow in long, slow strides.
He surveyed the wreck grimly and circled it once. Something behind the cracked, fogged-up windshield caught his attention and he leaned over for a closer look. There was a figure inside, curled up in a fetal position. A frozen corpse. If it was an American, he had his proof. Baylander straightened and ran over to the cabin door.
He knew the handle would be useless, but he tried anyway. It was frozen solid. He then took his metal staff and smashed the side window and carefully crawled in.
The man was lying across the leather seats. Baylander turned him over. The pasty white face had once belonged to a relatively young, handsome man. For a long minute Baylander stared down at the ghostly apparition, then bent down to listen for shallow breathing. There was none.
Baylander proceeded to unbutton the corpse’s coat to discover a UNACOM uniform underneath. Bloody hell, he thought. He must be one of ours, from the first team. He could find no identification.
He studied the body to determine a time of death. It must not have been too long, he decided, maybe twenty-four hours, because the corpse was only now turning a dull shade of blue. Remarkable, considering how long it had been there. The cabin must have provided enough of a shield from the elements to enable the inspector to have survived far longer than he expected. Baylander suspected the man’s last hours were an unforgiving mix of semiconsciousness, delirium, and the slow shutdown of vital organs. It must have been an altogether unpleasant way to go.
Baylander removed his thick gloves and put two fingers on the carotid artery. To his astonishment he could detect the faintest rhythm of a pulse.
39
DAWN: DAY TWO
CONRAD YEATS AWOKE the next afternoon in a private room inside the main infirmary at McMurdo Station. He lay still for a long time, becoming slowly aware that his hands were swathed in bandages and one shoulder was in a sling. His head, meanwhile, pounded like a drum. He found a buzzer and pushed it with a bandaged hand, but the navy nurse who came told him to lie quietly.
So he lay and, piece by piece, recollected the events of the previous day until the middle of the morning. Along the way he drew a picture by gripping a pen between his bandaged hands. After that he dozed off again. When he woke, a woman was sitting by his bed. She smiled.
He stared at her. “Just like the hospital rooms in the old days—a bed and a sister,” he said. He tried to smile, but it hurt. His voice was not much stronger than a whisper. “How long have you been here?”
“Only a few minutes,” she said, her smile warming him.
But Conrad knew she was lying. He had awakened in the middle of the night and seen her sleeping in that chair. At the time he thought he was dreaming. “You’re alive.”
He reached for her hand, and she touched his bandage. “So are you, Conrad.”
“And the rest of the world?”
“Everything’s fine.” A tear sparkled on her cheek. “Thanks to you.”
“What about Yeats?”
She seemed to stiffen. “Past Pluto by now, I should imagine.”
“You think what he said about me was crazy?” Conrad searched her eyes.
“No more than a lost city under the ice cap.”
Conrad paused. “Does that mean yes it’s crazy or no it’s true?”
“There is no city, Conrad,” she said. “The whole affair’s over. Complete. Finished. Do you understand?”
“Not quite,” he told her. “I’ve made one hell of a discovery, Serena. Look at this.”
He showed her the rough sketch he had made of the Solar Bark.
Serena frowned. She looked so beautiful.
“Don’t tell me I made that up, Serena,” he said.
“No, you didn’t, Conrad,” she said. “I’ve seen it before. The original blueprints for the Washington Monument looked exactly like this about two hundred years ago, including the now-missing rotunda at the base.”
Conrad stared at his drawing and realized that Serena was right. Suddenly he decided he would have to get back to Washington. There was his father’s estate, naturally, and tying up loose ends. Maybe some of those loose ends included files from his father’s office at DARPA.
A new journey was beginning to form inside Conrad’s head, but apparently Serena didn’t like what she was seeing.
“Listen, Conrad,” she told him gently, almost seductively. “You’re a great archaeologist, but a lousy amateur in every other way. You’re going to publish nothing. You’re going to produce nothing. For one thing, you’ve got nothing to produce. No Scepter of Osiris. Nothing. The only memento of our great escapade is the Sonchis map, and it’s going back to Rome with me, where it belongs.”
Conrad glanced over at his nightstand. “Where’s my camera?”
“What camera?”
He grew still. “What about us?”
“There is no us. There can’t be. Don’t you see?” There was pain in her eyes. “You have no story to tell. You have no evidence. The city is gone. All that remains is your personal word. If you insist on talking, nobody will believe you except some of Zawas’s friends in the Middle East, and they’ll come after you. You were the victim of your own lunatic ambitions. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“And you?”
“I’m director of the Australian Antarctic Preservation Society and an adviser to the United Nations Antarctica Commission investigating breaches to the environmental protocols of the international Antarctic Treaty,” she said.
“You’re all that?”
“It was my team that found you in the ice,” she went on. “Since you’re the only eyewitness to alleged events, any information you can recall would be deeply appreciated. I’ll include it in my report to the General Assembly.”
“They picked you to write the report?” Conrad managed a weak laugh. Of course, he realized. Who else had the international standing or passion concerning the preservation of this great white virgin continent?
Serena stood up to leave. She looked down at him, eyes tender but her body stiff with resolve. “Oh, lucky man.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “God’s angels were watching over you.”
“Please, don
’t leave.” He really meant it. He was afraid he’d never see her again.
She turned, hand on the doorknob. “Take a word of advice from Mother Earth, Conrad.” She spoke bravely, but he could tell she was fighting back tears. “Go back to the States, bang some more coeds, and stick to university lectures and cheap tourist haunts. Forget about everything you think you saw here. Forget about me.”
“Like hell I will,” he said as she closed the door.
He stared into space for what felt like an eternity, thinking about Serena. Then a nurse entered and the spell was broken. “There’s a phone call for you,” she said. “Oh, and the doctor said it’s OK for you to drink coffee if you’d like. It took me forever to find that thermos you wanted.”
“Sentimental value,” he said as the nurse placed the green thermos on the nightstand. “It was kind of Doctor Serghetti to keep it for me. I hope you replaced it as I requested.”
“I packed her one just like it with your little gift inside,” she said. “I’ll come back and pour your coffee for you in a couple of minutes.”
“Thanks,” he said as she left.
He looked thoughtfully at the coffee thermos, then awkwardly picked up the phone with his mitts for hands.
It was Mercedes, his Ancient Riddles of the Universe producer in Los Angeles, laughing on the line. Everything about their last encounter in Nazca was forgiven and forgotten. “I just saw the wires on the Internet,” she said. “What happened down there? Are you all right?”
Conrad cradled the phone on his good shoulder. Somehow he felt strangely content. “I’m fine, Mercedes.”
“Awesome. When are you going to be mobile?”
The door was cracked open and Conrad could see a couple of U.S. Navy MPs posted outside. “Give me a couple of days. Why?”
“The sweeps are over and the networks are looking for filler. We’ve cooked up a special that’s right up your alley. How does Luxor sound?”
Conrad sighed. “Been there, done that.”
“Picture yourself standing among the ruins of a slave city,” Mercedes said. “You’re revealing to the world how the Exodus is true. We’ve even got a Nineteenth Dynasty Egyptian statuette of Ramses II to prove it. You’ll get twice the usual fee. Just make sure you patch things up with the Egyptians. When can you start?”
Conrad thought. “Next month,” he told her. “I have to stop over in Washington first.”
“Awesome. By the way, this Antarctica thing. Is there a find?”
“No, Mercedes,” said Conrad slowly. “No find.”
40
DAWN: THE THIRD DAY
ROME
SERENA’S PLANE FROM SYDNEY came into Rome as dusk was setting in. She was met by Benito in a black sedan and taken to the Vatican for a debriefing with the pope. They talked in private until almost three in the morning. At the end, His Holiness placed his trembling hands on her forehead and uttered a brief prayer.
“Well done,” he said simply. “The city is buried, the Americans know only half the story and will keep it to themselves, and now the U.N. can focus its energies on more productive causes. And since Colonel Zawas is gone, all evidence has been swept away.”
For the most part, Serena thought, this was true. But the memories were there all the same. And she doubted she could ever sweep those away.
The pope looked her in the eye. “What about Doctor Yeats?”
“He won’t talk,” Serena said. “If he does, nobody will believe him. I have his digital camera and the original Sonchis map.”
Serena reached into her pack and produced a green thermos. The pope leaned forward expectantly as she felt for the outer shell and frowned. There was no outer shell. It was a different thermos. When she turned it upside down, a frozen cylinder of ice slipped out. Encased inside was a rose in full bloom.
“Problems?” His Holiness asked.
Serena thought back to her visit at Conrad’s bedside and the teary good-bye. “He stole it!”
The pope’s craggy face broke into a wide grin, and he laughed harder than she had ever heard him laugh. So hard, in fact, that he began to cough and required a gentle pat on the back.
Serena didn’t find anything funny about it. “I promise I’ll find a way to get the map back.”
The pope, breathing easier now, waved her off with his gnarled hand. “I believe that’s his plan, Sister Serghetti.”
“Sister?” she repeated. “Your Holiness, I have—”
“Been reinstated, if you so desire.”
Serena paused. This was an incredible offer, a second chance that would not be repeated in her lifetime.
“But why, Your Holiness?” she asked him. “Why now?”
“I don’t have long to live, Sister Serghetti,” he told her. “And I do not know who will follow me. But for as many days as the Lord sees fit to keep me here on Earth, I will extend to you all the privileges of such reinstatement, including unfettered access to the Vatican Archives.”
“The Archives?” she repeated in wonder. Only two or three men—and they were all men—enjoyed such access. His Holiness would be sharing with her the Church’s most cherished—and cursed—secrets. “You tempt me, Your Holiness. You tempt me with knowledge, much like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.”
“This is no temptation, Sister Serghetti, I assure you,” the pope said. “This is a trust. This is a gift. And if I were you, I would accept it. For the one who follows me may not be as accommodating to you as I have been.”
Serena understood, but hesitated. To officially declare herself a bride of Christ again would permanently keep her from Conrad and cut off any possibility of them ever consummating their relationship.
The pope seemed to sense her inner conflict. “You love Doctor Yeats,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” she replied, shocked to hear the words come out of her mouth.
“Then surely you must know he is in greater danger now than ever.”
Serena nodded. Somehow she had sensed this ever since leaving Antarctica.
The pope said, “You will need all the resources of Heaven and Earth to protect him.”
“Protect Conrad?” she said. “From what?”
“All in good time, Sister Serghetti, all in good time. Right now, we have more pressing duties.”
What could be so much more pressing? she wondered when the pope showed her the front page of the International Herald-Tribune.
“Four nuns were raped and murdered in Sri Lanka by Hindu nationalists with ties to the government,” he told her. “The crimes against Muslims have now turned against Christians once again. You must go there first thing in the morning and do what you do best, plead our case with the world watching.”
“But it is the morning, Your Holiness.”
“Yes, you must be tired. Rest a few hours.”
Serena nodded. The concerns of the real world were too overwhelming, so overwhelming that they crowded out even thoughts of a lost civilization buried under the ice. There were larger battles to consider, she realized, battles against hate, poverty, and disease.
“I will go as you request,” she told him, pausing for a moment. “First I will go to Sri Lanka to document the crimes. Then I will go to Washington, D.C., and press this issue with the American Congress before I take it up with the United Nations.”
“Very well.”
She let Benito drive her to her apartment overlooking the Piazza del Popolo. It was a plain room, nothing more than a bed and nightstand. But she felt better back in her own world, the one in which she first took her vows.
Next to the French doors that framed a pale moon was a crucifix on the wall. She knelt before the crucifix in the early morning light. As she looked up at the figure of Christ, she confessed to God her arrogance in thinking that she knew more about suffering and loss than he did, and she thanked him for his provision for humanity’s sin in Jesus.
Then she stepped out onto the balcony and looked across the piazza at the Egyptian obelisk brought t
o Rome by Augustus two thousand years ago.
The monument reminded her of another obelisk, one buried in a pyramid under two miles of ice in Antarctica. And she wondered: was it really Christ’s redeeming work on the cross that broke the curse of the ancient “sons of God” and saved the world? Or was it the selfless act of a godless man like Conrad, who sacrificed his life’s obsession and returned the obelisk to the star chamber? In the end, she concluded that the latter could not have happened without the former.
As she listened to the cheerful sounds of traffic in a city that never slept, she reached into her pocket and removed the lock of hair she had cut from his head. In time, if she could ever let it leave her grasp, it would be analyzed.
For now she simply prayed for the immortal soul of Conrad Yeats, whoever he was, and for the forgiveness of her own, knowing in her heart of hearts that, one way or another, they would meet again.
THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY
“The only new thing in the world is the history you don’t know.”
—Harry S. Truman
33rd American President
33rd Degree Freemason
PROLOGUE
DECEMBER 14 1799
THE FEDERAL DISTRICT
FIVE SOLDIERS of the U.S. Provisional Army came to an abrupt halt at the Georgetown wharf and dismounted their horses. The sleet had stopped, but it was bitter cold outside. The commanding officer looked out across the water at Suter’s Tavern. It was the middle of the night, but he could hear music from inside. A lone lantern flickered in the middle window of the second floor.
That was the sign.
The man they were after was inside.
The officer signaled his men. They moved quickly toward the front door in single file. Their boots splashed lightly in the moonlit puddles, the bayonets at the end of their muskets glinting. Two soldiers went around the back to take positions behind the kitchen. The other two pounded the front door with the butts of their muskets.
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