There was no time for a warning. Those on the shore noticed that the water seemed to draw away, as if the tide had suddenly gone out. If it had been Hawaii, where people knew about tsunamis, this would have given those who saw it warning, but Puerto Rico had not been hit by a killer wave in over a generation. Some people even walked out onto the suddenly dry ocean bottom, picking up fish that had been left behind by the sudden disappearance of water.
The water returned with all the vengeance of a thousand runaway freight trains lined shoulder to shoulder, moving over two hundred miles an hour. Water is very heavy, a gallon weighing eight and a half pounds. A bathtub full of water weighs almost three quarters of a ton. There were millions and millions of bathtubs full of water lifted by the force of the wave that approached the northwest tip of Puerto Rico. Added to the weight, the force of moving water increases as the square of the velocity. Even though the wave slowed considerably as it grew in height, it still hit the shore at over sixty miles an hour.
The first tsunami hit the coast with a crest of sixty feet. The first to die were those who had walked out onto the beach. Thousands more died with the first wave, not so much from drowning, but by being smashed by debris picked up and carried with the wave as it thundered inland. Coastal villages that had survived the numerous hurricanes and tidal surges associated with that weather event in the region were obliterated as the wave thundered ashore.
Fishing boats were carried a quarter mile inland. Houses, the majority built of wood, were shattered and smashed, the debris becoming part of the wave still moving inland. Cars and trucks were picked up and tossed about like toy models.
The survivors of the first wave barely had time to pick themselves up before the second, slightly smaller wave crashed ashore. Eight waves in all hit the island in the space of five minutes battering the coast as if the very hand of God had come down and wreaked punishment upon the people.
The beach to a distance of a quarter mile inland was scoured clean of all building except those made of the stoutest reinforced concrete which were few and far between. Trees were knocked over, power lines ripped out of the ground, sewage systems flooded, the water table contaminated-- all the space of those five minutes.
In that short period of time over eight thousand people died and the wounded numbered in the tens of thousands, overwhelming the island’s surviving medical capabilities. Local hospitals were destroyed and because most of the roads had been washed away, help was slow to get to the region.
The sea water that had been dumped on the island slowly made its way back to the ocean, carrying with it a tide of corpses. Most of those who died were never found.
THE PAST
Chapter 16
999 AD
Ragnarok put his ear to the ground and listened, but there was no sound of horses’ hooves striking the Salisbury Plain. Then he stood and scanned the night sky. The stars glittered back at him from a perfectly clear heaven. No cloaked Valkyries riding the wind. Of course, at the speed they had arrived the previous evening he knew they could appear in a few seconds and be on top of them. Then he would find out how Lailoken’s staff would work against the demon women.
He felt the power of this place. The stones were very, very old, aged beyond any Viking grave markers he had ever seen. He could sense the generations of worshippers before Penarddun and her kind, stretching back to an unknown people gathered here, worshipping Gods he had never heard of.
The bodies of the King’s men lay fifty meters away where the Valkyries had slaughtered them. The fact that the bodies had not been stripped of their armor or weapons told Ragnarok that no one had dared come near the strange stone structure during the day.
The condition of the bodies reinforced the legend of the Valkyries as the men had been maimed badly. Ragnarok had noted where armor had been sliced open as easily as a thin cloth shirt. There was no sign any damage had been inflicted on the Valkyries. Ragnarok knew it would not be long before the patrol was missed and other soldiers of the King came searching.
“I need the help of your Norse warrior,” Lailoken said to Tam Nok. They were standing around the memory stone, the towering formation of Stonehenge surrounding them.
Ragnarok stepped between Tam Nok and Penarddun and next to the old man. “What do you want me to do?”
“I will open the stone,” Lailoken said, “but I am too weak to lift it.”
Ragnarok simply wanted to be back on his ship. To feel the deck moving under his feet and the snap of the wind in the sail. The smell of salt water in his nostrils. Not to be standing in the middle of an English plain, the smell of cow dung in his nostrils, a chill wind blowing over hard stone the only sound. “Let us get this over with.”
“Put your arms around the stone,” Lailoken ordered.
Ragnarok grasped the cold stone to his chest, his knees bent. Penarddun had her hands raised to the sky, chanting in her native tongue. Ragnarok hoped she was appeasing whatever Gods ruled the stones now.
Lailoken lifted his staff up and slid the spear end into the small slit on the top. It fit perfectly, sliding down two feet into the stone. The old man wrapped his gnarled hands around the Naga on the other end and twisted. The staff turned smoothly. Ragnarok heard a noise, metal on metal and he could feel something move inside the stone. Penarddun’s chanting grew more earnest.
“Lift!” Lailoken ordered.
Ragnarok strained and the stone moved ever so slightly. He let the stone back down.
“Do you need help?” Tam Nok asked.
Ragnarok growled at her, got his feet under him better and lifted once more. He grunted as the stone smoothly slid up out of the hole. Ragnarok staggered back, then bent his knees, dropping the stone on the ground, upright, next to the hole. He kept a hand on it to prevent it from falling over as he straightened up. The stone was five feet high, the bottom flat. The part that had been buried was darker and smoother, protected from the elements. Looking at it, Ragnarok realized the stone must have been in the ground for a very long time. He could see two dark holes on the side where the lock must have been.
The old man and two women were on their knees around the hole, looking down into it. Ragnarok could see little as they blocked his view into the dark pit. However, he could tell that the pit was lined with something.
Ragnarok jumped back and yelled in alarm as a blue, unearthly glow suffused the memory stone. A beam of blue touched him in the chest, slid up across his head, then flashed to Penarddun. It quickly raked across her in the same manner, then went to Tam Nok. There it paused, locked on to the amulet on her chest, then bounced from there up to her head. She stood, transfixed for ten seconds, then the blue light snapped out and they were left in darkness once more.
Lailoken was the first to move, reaching out to Tam Nok and placing his gnarled hands on her shoulders. He peered into her eyes. Ragnarok had his ax ready, and he was staring at the stone like he would a snake, ready to strike it if something else happened. Penarddun was on her knees, hands over her eyes, muttering a prayer over and over.
Tam Nok’s blinked and shook her head. She placed her hands on top of Lailoken’s and nodded. “I see where I am to go.”
Lailoken released the Khmer woman and she turned back to the hole and got on her knees. Tam Nok reached down and pulled out a flat piece of metal from the very bottom. It was a foot wide by a foot long and so thin it bent slightly in her hand. Ragnarok had never seen such a metal. It looked almost like silver. Tam Nok tilted it so that the starlight reflected off the surface. Ragnarok could see lines etched on it.
Ragnarok shivered and he looked about. His view was limited by the large stones surrounding them, but there was nothing moving on the plain that he could see. Still, that didn’t mean there was nothing out there.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ragnarok recommended, his voice harsh and echoing slightly off the stones.
“Put the memory stone back,” Lailoken said.
The last thing Ragnarok wanted to do was tou
ch the stone. Lailoken saw that and laughed. He placed his hands on top of the stone. “There is nothing to be afraid of. It is done.”
Ragnarok reluctantly put his ax down and wrapped his arms around the cold rock. He replaced it by the simpler method of scooting it over to the hole and dropping it down inside. It slid into the hole with a thud. Lailoken turned the staff, the lock clicked, and pulled the spear head out of the hole.
“I am done here,” the old man said. “It has been a very long time.”
Tam Nok had taken out her map and was comparing it to the metal plate. The etchings on the plate were a continuation of her scroll. Ragnarok knelt down and stared-- there was a gigantic country to the west of Greenland. The coast stretched down and down to the south. Further than around the tip of France to the coast of Hispanola which he had talked to sailors about. Into the middle sea, the Mediterranean, where the Romans and Greeks had sailed. There was land below, stretching almost to the very bottom of the world. Ragnarok felt like a child, his expeditions to Iceland and Greenland of which he had been so proud, now appearing to be a child’s wandering from the village, rather than a warrior’s epic journey.
“What happened to you?” Ragnarok asked.
Tam Nok was focused on the map. “I was given directions. Where to find the shield. And what to do when I get there.”
Ragnarok looked up and noticed that Lailoken was walking out of the circle of stones. He tapped Tam Nok on the shoulder and pointed. She hurriedly put the map back in the bamboo, the metal sheet into her pack and ran after him.
“Won’t you come with us?” Tam Nok asked the old man.
Lailoken paused. “Another journey?” He shook his head. “I have been on many but I am too old now. My mission is done. This is your responsibility. The stone chose you just as it chose me a long time ago. I am done.”
“The staff?” Ragnarok prompted.
“Ah yes. The staff.” Lailoken smiled. “I am forgetful in my old age.” He held the staff out and Ragnarok took it. The old man stretched both arms over his head slowly, then back to his side. “It is nice to be free.” He laughed, then turned to Tam Nok. “Remember the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. In fact,” he laughed once more, a manic edge to it, “the shortest distance is sometimes not a distance at all. There are shortcuts if you know what to look for. Trust the voice. I wish you well on your trip.” He strode off into the darkness.
“I must go also,” Penarddun said. “I have done what you asked. My people can’t know what has happened here. They would not understand. I don’t understand. In all my years praying here I have never seen such a thing.”
“Thank you,” Tam Nok said.
“I don’t know if I’ve done a good thing,” Penarddun said. “The king’s men will be back here. And those demon witches. You should leave too.” Without another word the Druid pulled her hood up over her head and slipped off into the night.
Tam Nok pulled the straps on her pack tight. “Back to the ship. I will show you where to go once we get there.” She held out her hand and Ragnarok reluctantly gave her the staff.
THE PRESENT
Chapter 17
1999 AD
The sub pens in Groton are capable of holding the largest underwater craft the US Navy deployed, the Ohio class ballistic missile submarine which is almost two football fields long. There were four main pens, not only long enough to hold the biggest sub, but wide enough to put five side-by-side. Just north of Groton, technically called the New London sub base, the pens were on the Thames River in eastern Connecticut.
In pen number 2, nestled between an Ohio Class and a Los Angeles Class attack submarine, the Scorpion was easily dwarfed. Security around the pen was heavy. The crew was quartered in barracks hewn out of the rock right next to the pen holding their ship as the powers-that-be in Washington tried to figure out how to explain their sudden reappearance after being proclaimed dead 31 years ago and the even more perplexing fact that not a man in the crew had aged more than a day in all those years.
While the crewmembers underwent intensive debriefings-- which so far failed to yield any more information about what had happened to the ship in the Bermuda Triangle-- teams of technicians were going through the ship, searching for any physical clues to solving the mystery.
They had already gone through the entire ship, excluding the nuclear reactor, and now they were preparing to go into that last off-limits area. Donning protective garb, a team of four nuclear specialists opened the thick door blocking the plant control compartment from the reactor itself.
Clad in their bright yellow suits, they walked through the tunnel separating the livable part of the ship from the deadly rear. And they finally found something out of the ordinary. Sitting on the floor of the main reactor chamber was a silver cylinder, three feet high, by two in diameter. Three beams of golden light came out of the cylinder and penetrated into the containment wall where the core resided.
The investigators were still staring at this in puzzlement when a beam of gold from the cylinder raked across their bodies, then continued to the rear of the ship and locked into the reactor’s core.
A split second later, the Scorpion’s reactor went critical.
The Scorpion, the subs tied up inside the pen, and the entire crew of the Scorpion along with the other navy personnel inside, were vaporized in the nuclear explosion.
Designed to withstand a close hit by a nuclear weapon, the top of the sub pen buckled, broke and collapsed, but managed to contain most of the explosion. The walls between pen 2 and 1 and 3 shattered, causing massive damage to the submarines in those other two pens.
*****
Foreman was the calm in the center of a storm. Alarms were screeching, phones were ringing and orders shouted-- the noise only partially absorbed by the sound panels on the sides and roof of the War Room.
The generals and admirals were reacting to the twin disasters in Puerto Rico and Groton, moving ships and planes and men to help minimize the after-effects and help the survivors.
To Foreman both those events were already in the past. And both were threats of things to come in the future. The tsunami just a taste of what might be coming out of the gates shortly. The nuclear explosion in Groton was more of a mystery to him.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Tilson strode up to Foreman and slammed a fist down on the top of the conference table. “We just lost as many sailors as we did at Pearl Harbor! I’m recommending to the President that we nuke the Bermuda gate.”
Foreman could see a vein bulging in Tilson’s forehead. “Sir that may be exactly what the Shadow wants us to do. We don’t have enough data yet--”
“Yet?” Tilson leaned forward. “You’ve been studying these goddamn things for fifty years and you don’t have enough data yet? Do you have more now? Do you?”
“I don’t think a nuke would do any good,” Foreman said. “The gates have strong electro-magnetic and radioactive properties. We believe the laws of physics inside the gates are different than ours.”
“Then get me something I can use to fight this,” Tilson said. “Because if you can’t, I’m going to go to the president and recommend we shut these goddamn things with the strongest weapon we have available and that’s a goddamn nuke-tipped cruise missile right smack into the center of these things.”
Tilson stalked off to rejoin the branch chiefs in the forward part of the War Room. Foreman leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a second, running recent events through his mind.
In all the excitement, the information he had been given by Conners about SOSUS had been shuffled to the bottom of his crisis reaction. Most of what was going on in the War Room was out of his hands now. He knew the most important thing was to be able to figure out not the what, but the why of recent events. He punched the direct line to the NSA.
The other end was answered immediately. “Conners.”
“Any changes?” he asked.
“Oth
er than the tsunami and the nuke blast in Groton? We’re tracking fallout from the sub pen from our eyes in the sky. So far it doesn’t look too bad and the current winds are seaward which is lucky. The eastern tip of Long Island will get a little hot but we think the dosage won’t be fatal.
“We’ve down-linked to the relief agencies in Puerto Rico, giving them the latest sit-rep. It looks pretty bad there.
“As you can see from the data we’ve forwarded you, the Bermuda Triangle gate is now further south. Closer to the Milwaukee Depth. The other gates are beginning to show some activity, particularly those in the water.”
“What about the SOSUS infiltration?” Foreman asked.
“No change.”
“Can we shut SOSUS down?”
“Maybe that’s what the Shadow wants,” Conners said. “Maybe there’s a plan and they want you to react. We shut SOSUS down, we’re effectively going to be blind underwater.”
“We’ll still have the Can,” Foreman said.
“True, but what if they send the Wyoming back at us?”
“Christ,” Foreman muttered. Conners had been right before. “The Seawolf can cover the Bermuda Triangle gate if we shut SOSUS down.”
“Then I’d check to make sure everything’s OK with the Seawolf,” Conners said.
Foreman punched in a number on his SATPhone, accessing FLTSATCOM, the Navy’s communication system. After a brief burst of static, Captain McCallum’s voice answered the other end.
Foreman wasted no time on pleasantries. “Where is Bateman?”
Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle Page 17
