The Atlantis Covenant

by Rob Jones

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The following morning, the jet screamed away from José Martí International Airport and banked hard to the north en route to its first airway. Hunter had barely been in Cuba more than a few hours and already he was on another plane, but it was a life he knew well. He had travelled all over the world in the army, commanding men on exercise and in combat, and his archaeological career had proved to be even more adventurous.

  He relaxed in his seat and stared out at the sugarcane plantations and verdant cassava fields of Pinar del Rio. A perfect golden line of beach divided the rich greens of the crops from the vibrant, sparkling blue of the sea, but there was something else on his mind. When Kirsten unbuckled her belt and gave him a smile, he decided to call her out on what she had said the night before.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

  “It’s time to ’fess up, Dr Anderson.”

  She hesitated for a second. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “C’mon – back on the tender last night you told me you’d let me in on your little secret. I thought about that a lot when I was asleep last night, and what with you being so quiet today, I was wondering if you maybe changed your mind?”

  Silence. Hunter unbuckled his belt and smiled at Gomez. “What about you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, you have anything you’d like to get off your chest? I don’t know Oskar Rorschach well, but I'm sure he doesn’t allow Cuban thieves on his private jets, Nazi maps in their pockets or not.”

  Gomez looked at Kirsten, bushy eyebrows rising. “I think maybe we’re busted, Amy.”

  The corner of Hunter’s mouth twisted up into a curious smirk. “Amy?”

  She glared at Gomez. “Well, we’re busted now, thanks to you. I thought we agreed no real names?”

  The big man showed his palms. “Hey, I’m just saying. This guy is onto us.”

  Hunter rested his forearm on the arm of the chair and leaned over toward the young woman sitting on the opposite side of the aisle. “Yeah, Amy. I’m onto you, so why not give me the whole story?”

  She turned to the other man and sighed. “Sal, some coffee, please.”

  The man pushed up out of his seat and patted her on the shoulder. “Good call.”

  “Sal?” Hunter asked.

  The man turned as he walked. “I’ll let the boss explain. How do you like your coffee?”

  “Dash of milk, no sugar.”

  “Consider it done, but you should know you’re a big girl for not taking it black.”

  The man wandered up to the galley. Nestled in between the main exit and the cockpit, the Citation offered a compact galley capable of producing tea, coffee or small meals and snacks. He headed up there and fussed around with the coffee machine while Amy thought about what to say.

  “No need to hem and haw,” Hunter said. “Just let it all out. I’m listening.”

  She pursed her lips. “You know, you can be really annoying sometimes.”

  “That’s what my therapist used to say.”

  “Used to say?”

  “Yeah. Sadly, he topped himself right after one of our sessions.”

  “Funny.”

  “I thought so, thanks.” He let the moment pass. “Look, I didn’t need Gomez the Map Thief over there to work out there was something going on here.”

  “Was I that obvious?”

  “First, I’ve worked with a lot of academics, including some map historians and cartographers. These are very clever people, but we’re talking about the sort of people who can’t be trusted to plug in a toaster or tie their own shoelaces, never mind handle a weapon. Not only did you know how to use the gun I gave you, but you handled it too well for a beginner.”

  “I tried not to.”

  “Second, you also knew precisely how many rounds a Makarov semi-automatic pistol carries. I never told you that. You also knew guards training was so tough. I asked myself, how would an American cartographer specializing in ancient maps know that?”

  “I might have read about it in the Rorschach briefing notes.”

  Hunter let it hang. “Third, I know you said you read about Cuba on the flight from Switzerland, but I still thought the comment about Regla was odd. I presume you’ve been there?”

  “Twice, on business.”

  He nodded. “Fourth, you were able to anticipate what Gomez over there was going to do in a fire fight. This told me you’d met before. People behave very different under that sort of pressure and it’s impossible to know what they’re going to do next – unless you know them.”

  “Yeah…” her voice trailed away into the hum of the jet’s cabin. “Is that it?”

  “Fifth, back on the deck you told me the Bell was getting ready to take off. I knew it was a Bell from its silhouette which I saw on the tender on the way over to the ship. My excuse is I’m a helicopter pilot. It’s possible you are a cartographer with an enduring interest in rotary aircraft, but I doubt it. I’m guessing you know your aircraft from some sort of formal training?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought so. I think it’s time you told me the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me,” the man said, returning and handing out the coffees. “What do you think, Amy?”

  She sighed and took a second out to sip the coffee. As the western coast of Cuba faded behind them, so did their old, fake identities. “My name is Special Agent Amy Fox and I work for a branch of the FBI that handles matters of antiquity. I’ve been working undercover at the Rorschach Foundation for several months keeping him under surveillance, and I just recently returned there after a few days in DC reporting to my boss.”

  Hunter smiled. “All starting to make sense.”

  “And this is Sal Blanco. He works on my team.”

  Sal wiped his paw on his jeans and thrust it across the aisle. “Good to meet you, Max.”

  “Good to meet you, too, Sal. I’m guessing you’re no thief.”

  “Your gut instinct serves you well. I’ve been a soldier, a mercenary and a semi-professional wrestler but I have never been a thief.”

  “Sal catches thieves,” Amy said. “We all do. That’s the mission of our team. We intercept and sometimes infiltrate large organized criminal networks working in the antiquities market and secure the artifacts and jewels they steal and trade.”

  Hunter sipped his coffee and pushed back on the soft leather. “How big is the team?”

  “Not big,” Amy said. “There’s the director, James Gates, and then me, Sal, Quinn, Jodie and Ben.”

  “Six. How cosy.”

  Amy rounded on him. “We’re not a joke, Max. We’ve hunted down some of the biggest looters and artifact thieves in the world.”

  “And we work hard,” Sal grumbled. “Damn hard, and usually without any public recognition or thanks. You might be surprised by some of the stuff we’ve come across.”

  “And vice versa,” Hunter said, rising to the challenge. “I’m no slouch when it comes to archaeology.”

  “Which is why I advised Rorschach to hire you – not because he needed you, but because we did.”

  “So this was all a set-up right from the very start. The interview in Switzerland, the viewing of the map in Vazquez’s Old Havana mansion, the rescue from the yacht. All of it, stage-managed.”

  Sal laughed. “You could say that – except for the rescue from the yacht.”

  Amy sighed. “Things changed when Rorschach briefed you about Vazquez. It was the first time I’d even heard he was dealing with him. We had to think fast, so we cooked up a new plan.”

  Sal sipped some coffee. “The original plan was to stage a robbery at your hotel in Havana and take the statue and map from there. That way Amy could supply Rorschach the paperwork from the Cuban police and the whole thing could be written off as a regular hotel room robbery. When Gabby and I saw Vazquez’s thugs taking you down to the marina at gunpoint, we knew we had to cha
nge plan fast.”

  A long silence. Hunter said, “Tell me about the dead woman. Did you know her well?”

  “I knew her,” Blanco said. “She was a private investigator who I worked with before in Cuba and some other neighboring countries. We were good friends, but she only ever knew me under my fake identity as Gomez.”

  Hunter dipped his head for a second and stared at the carpet before fixing his eyes up on Blanco’s angry face. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Feel sorry for Mario Davila, because he’s going to pay for her death.”

  “So what now?” Hunter changed the subject. “I guess it’s not Dr Kirsten Anderson or Ricardo Gomez anymore?”

  “No,” she said. “You can call me Amy.”

  “And I go by Sal.”

  “And I’m Max,” he said with a cautious smile. “But then you already knew that.”

  “We didn’t deceive you for kicks, Max,” Amy said. “It was serious government business.”

  He set his coffee cup down on the table and raised his palms. “You misled me, yes, but you did what you had to do. What I want to know now is, what’s next?”

  “We’re meeting with Director Gates and the rest of the team in San Salvador,” Amy said flatly. “The decision to use the Nazi map to try and find the third Winged Guardian has already been made. You can join us if you want or you can go your own way when we land. The US Government will pay for your flight back to Paris.”

  Hunter tapped his chin with his forefinger and furrowed his brow. “Let me see, go back to my office in UNESCO and write out reports for my boss, or help you find a statue that might lead us to the discovery of Atlantis, my lifelong dream. That’s tough.”

  “Atta boy,” said Blanco, punching the air in excitement.

  Amy pulled out her phone. “I’ll tell Jim to expect you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Apostle observed the High Circle as they entered the chamber. The procession was silent and sombre, each of their faces hidden in the folds and shadows of their sumptuous velvet cloaks. Outside the castle walls, a tepid wind picked at the canopies of the fir trees and whisked the first fallen leaves of autumn into chaotic ochre spirals.

  Within the stone walls, a less pastoral scene was unfolding. Two of the Creed’s disciples were dragging a terrified, shaking man into the chamber. They had gagged him and bound his hands behind his back. He was perspiring profusely and beads of sweat ran down over his eyebrows and trickled down his cheeks like tears.

  “Remus,” the Apostle said quietly. “Kneel before the High Circle.”

  Before the man had a chance to obey, the two disciples pushed down on his shoulders and forced him to his knees.

  The Apostle ran his fingers along the plump quilting of his throne’s cushion, then stared down at Remus from the rostrum until the captive thought his eyes might burn two smoldering holes in his tortured soul.

  “You have breached the Creed’s code, Remus.”

  Remus looked up at him promptly, and began mumbling through the cloth gag. When the Apostle snapped his fingers, one of the disciples removed it and the begging began.

  “Please, I meant no harm, I…”

  One raised finger from the Apostle was enough to induce a cold, terrifying silence into the castle chamber. Even the broken sobs receded into the dark respect now dominating the men clustered around the Creed’s second in command.

  “You have breached the Creed’s sacred code, and the Magus is very disappointed in you. You have incurred his displeasure, and he has ordered me to relay that to you.”

  “Please, Teacher! Spare my life!”

  “Cato and Cassius,” the Apostle said, addressing the disciples. “Take a step away from Remus.”

  They obeyed, stepping back with a graceful bow of their heads. The flourish was noted by the Apostle who now returned his attention to the man trembling and crying on the floor. “I am also very disappointed in you, Remus.”

  A peal of distant thunder rumbled outside.

  “I will repent!” he screamed.

  “It is too late for any of that. You betrayed our sacred trust. You must now reckon with the Chimera.”

  “No!” His wretched screams clawed at the walls and tore at the ears of the solemn-faces hidden in the shadows. “Please, Teacher! Anything but that!”

  Here, they all knew his pain. Each man and woman knew about the fire-breathing monster from Lycia, described by Homer in the Iliad. Could it be true? A hideous, monstrous beast with a lion’s body and a goat’s head and a tail that grew into a snake with a snapping, fanged mouth at its end. Only the Magus and a few selected disciples really knew what was below the trap door, deep in the castle’s dungeon.

  Driven almost to madness by the thought of it, Remus’s pleas grew more desperate. “I beg the High Circle’s forg—.”

  The Apostle threw a lever beside his chair and opened the trap door. Remus screamed all the way to the bottom of the pit, stopped only by the force of the fall breaking his legs. Sobs of pain grew louder, then cries of rage. When the deep, rasping roar of the Chimera was heard, the Apostle retracted the lever and the trap door swung shut.

  He turned to the man on his right. “See the bones are never found, Draco.”

  “As you wish, Teacher.”

  Beyond the rostrum, Cato and Cassius were sliding a Persian rug back over the trap door. The Apostle smiled thinly and looked over their heads through the window. It looked like a heavy storm was about to blow in.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  In the west of El Salvador’s capital city, the Crowne Plaza Hotel nestles in the old town on the slopes of the San Salvador volcano. Known as Quezaltepeque to the indigenous peoples of the land, the volcano’s last eruption was over one hundred years ago in 1917. The lake inside it evaporated to leave the desiccated bowl still visible today.

  Hunter took one last look at the ridge running around the top of its crater and stepped back inside the air-conditioned conference room. As Amy had promised back on the plane, her FBI team were here, sitting around the long table beneath the whirring ceiling fans and waiting to hear his briefing on the statues and map. In the center of the table was a box identical to the one he had seen back in Rorschach’s grand dining salon.

  James Gates was last to arrive. He was a lean man with a narrow face and cool grey eyes and dazzling white hair parted precisely on the left. He wore a plain black suit and white shirt, and now he took the suit jacket off and gave Hunter a long handshake.

  “I understand you fought alongside two of my team.”

  “It was nothing,” Hunter said. “Besides, they helped me more than I helped them.”

  Gates fell silent, impressed by the modesty. “Nevertheless, you might not have made it without each other, so good job. Take a seat.”

  Hunter hesitated, but then sat down. After so long in the army, he was accustomed to senior officers giving him orders. The only problem was, Gates wasn’t his superior.

  “You wear your irritation well,” Gates said with a smile.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “My telling you to take a seat looks like it annoyed you.”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “And also very busy, Dr Hunter. We have no time for formalities and even less for a dick-measuring contest. You’ve come in on this mission as part of an FBI team and that makes me your boss.”

  “Actually, it makes me your boss,” Amy said. “At least in the field.”

  “True,” Gates said. “And that’s where you’re spending most of your time, so Amy’s the boss. Think of me more as a sort of god.”

  Hunter couldn’t help but grin. “Got it.”

  “Good,” Gates said. “Now, before you start your briefing, let me introduce you to the rest of the team. As you know, my name is—”

  “God, I know, You just told me.”

  A wry smile. “I’m glad you were listening. You can also call me James Gates. I’m the Director. You’ve already met Amy Fox, my lead
agent and Sal Blanco. He’s the man who can get things done. Let’s leave it at that.

  Hunter nodded and smiled.

  “Sitting beside him is Jodie Priest, another field operative. Broken home, car thief and juvie led to a career breaking into cars and apartments until she got caught. Did I miss anything Jodie?”

  “That’s my life.”

  “Great. The goth with the impressive frown beside her is Quinn Mosley, our IT expert.”

  Hunter took in the young woman with the black eye shadow and black lipstick.

  “She has a SAT score of 1600 and at least three degrees but we only know that because she brags about it. She’s also known as Ghost, the world-famous hacker. At the end is Ben Lewis, our resident historian. I like him better than all the others because he’s an ex-Marine, which is only one down from US Navy where I spent the best years of my life. They all report to Amy.”

  “Great to meet you all.”

  The team offered polite smiles and Gates cleared his throat. “Team, this is Dr Max Hunter. He’s a former officer in the British Army and a trained helicopter pilot with plenty of field experience. By formal academic training at Oxford he’s also a Palaeolithic Archaeologist, but more recently he has specialized in ancient weapons and symbols, is that right, Dr Hunter?”

  “Sounds about right,” he said. “Anything from the Stone Age to the Dark Ages has my attention.”

  “You know why they were called the Dark Ages?” Lewis said, suppressing a smile.

  Hunter’s reply was instant. “Because there were so many knights. There’s not an

  archaeology joke I haven’t heard ten times before and you should never take up poker. Director Gates, shall we begin?”

  “Please, Dr Hunter,” Gates said with a sympathetic glance at Ben. “The floor is yours.”

  “Then we start at the beginning.” He gestured at the wooden box containing the mysterious blades. “May I?”

  Gates looked at Lewis. “Please.”

  The historian pushed the box to the end of the table, but didn’t realize its base was a smooth green velvet. It sped along the smooth laminate surface of the conference desk, raising every eyebrow in the room. Hunter stepped in and swept it up into his arms just before it crashed to the floor.