by Rob Jones
Blanco fired on the lock and blasted the door open. At the other end of the corridor, the disciples turned the corner and raised their guns into the aim.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Hunter was ready for them, and fired on the disciples in a brutal display of ruthless and bloody precision. Quinn screamed and covered her ears as the former Guards officer drilled the men full of holes, blowing their insides all over the white plaster wall behind them.
Even with the gun jerking and rattling in his hands, Hunter felt sick at the devastation he was causing, but he had no choice. The disciples were here to kill him and the rest of the team. It was kill or be killed in the most raw way imaginable. He chose to kill.
Quinn screamed behind him, the black mascara around her young eyes streaking with tears of terror and uncertainty.
“It’s over,” Jodie said. “At least for now.”
“I never saw anything like that in my entire life,” the goth said, pointing.
Jodie grabbed the fabric of her hoodie and shook her. “Take it easy, hun.”
The young goth raised a trembling, white hand at the dead men sprayed all over the walls. “I…I…”
Hunter saw from her face she had never known war. A good thing, but this was a savage introduction. “It’s over,” he said quietly. “For now.”
Blanco moved through the doorway and stepped out onto the roof. “Let’s go! The rotors are almost at take-off velocity.”
“I see that bastard McCabe,” Hunter said. “And more sodding disciples, including Gaius. I’ve had enough of this!’ He burst through the door and opened fire on the chopper. Disciples instantly took up defensive positions and returned fire, driving them back into the blood-soaked corridor.
After a short exchange of fire, Hunter changed magazines and aimed the MP7’s barrel at McCabe, opening fire on his old nemesis just as he hurled himself to the ground and rolled under the chopper. Hunter broke cover and charged, sweeping the muzzle after him and blowing chunks out of the roofing felt.
Chasing him all the way into his cover position, he turned and ran toward the silver metallic Raven sitting on the roof behind him. The light, single-engine aircraft was smaller than the Gazelles and Wildcats and Apaches he was used to flying in the army, but easily big enough to take four people. He guessed those four people were Adler, Klara Steiner, Brodie McCabe and Amy, but they could forget about taking Amy anywhere.
He fired again, clipping the shoulder of the disciple holding Amy. He released her and hit the deck, writhing in agony as blood plumped from his wound. Realizing Amy was free, Adler and Steiner shared a look of terror.
“Gaius!” McCabe yelled. “Get the girl!”
McCabe and the other disciples pinned them down while Gaius ran to Amy. Hunter raised his weapon and fired, killing him with a single shot to the head and dropping him to the roof. Chaos erupted as Blanco broke his cover and charged the helicopter. Adler saw the danger of the moment and ordered their evacuation.
Klara Steiner was in the pilot seat now and lifted the chopper off the roof. Hunter tried to fire on them but it was too late. They dropped below the level of the roof and raced low over the oxbow lake until the aircraft was no more than a tiny black dot on the horizon.
The team rushed to their shocked and confused leader. “Are you all right?” Quinn asked.
“I’m okay!” Amy said. “And I know what Julian told Steiner!”
Hunter searched her face. Had he heard her right? “You know where Atlantis is?”
She nodded. “Greenland.”
“Greenland?” Lewis was shocked. “I thought it was going to be an island.”
“Greenland is an island, moron,” Quinn said.
Lewis sighed. “I know that. I meant I thought it was going to be some sort of undiscovered island.”
Hunter had been silent, but now he smiled. “It all makes sense now,” he said. “Damn it, I just knew it had to be something like this. Remember what we talked about with the comet strike and the flooding?”
Jodie gasped. “Holy shit – but how is it even possible to have a civilization on Greenland?”
“It was arboreal forest eight hundred-thousand years ago,” Lewis said. “So it was habitable once. Depends how far you want to go back.”
“I thought it was always icy,” Jodie said.
“Yeah, don’t strain your head too much,” said Quinn, slowly getting over the terror of the fire fight. “But why do you think they called it Greenland and not Snowland?”
“Hey!”
Amy held up her hands to silence everyone. “We can talk about that later. Right now we have to stop Adler from getting there. The statues aren’t just statues, but part of some kind of ancient weapon the Creed have known about for centuries – something Adler called a fire lance.”
Blanco shared his look of astonishment with the others. “A fire lance? What the hell is that? Max?”
Hunter shouldered the MP7 and wiped sweat from his forehead. “I think I know, but we need to get going in a real hurry. If there’s a doomsday weapon lurking in Atlantis, we have to get to it before these psychos.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Hunter studied the topographical glacier maps on Quinn’s laptop, turning the three-dimensional image and using the zoom function to close in on the coast. A ferocious Arctic storm was lashing the window of their Reykjavik hotel room and everyone knew Greenland would be even worse.
“How long is this storm in for?” Jodie asked.
Hunter looked through the window and fought off a shudder. When Amy had told them the location of Atlantis, he had felt an electrifying mix of excitement and dread. As an archaeologist, he also had a keen interest in geology, and he knew all about the treacherous coves and fjords of Greenland’s eastern coast. More satisfying had been the confirmation that the notorious lost civilization was in Greenland, his leading personal theory for years.
“The latest weather report says three more days,” said Amy, staring over Hunter’s shoulder at the surging grey ocean out beyond the harbor. “Looks like we’re in for a rough ride.”
“Maybe we can sit it out?” Quinn asked.
“No way,” Amy said. “Adler and Steiner got away from us in Germany and we know they’re at least half a day ahead.”
Jodie shrugged. “For all we know, they could be waiting for the storm to end, just like we should be doing.”
Amy shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like the people I talked to at the castle. The Atlantis myth has consumed them for centuries and now we know why – the fire lance.”
“I guess,” Jodie said reluctantly.
Hunter looked up from the laptop and cast his eyes across to her. “You don’t need to guess – you can count on it.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the storm closing in on the harbor. “They’re out there right now in the middle of that storm on their way to Greenland and we’re the only people who can stop them.”
“And how the hell are we going to do that?” Quinn asked. “Swim?”
Amy grinned. “No, I have a good friend who wants to help.”
“What can Gates do?” Hunter asked. “Get the US Coast Guard or Navy up here?”
Blanco shook his head. “It would take way too long to get the clearance, plus we don’t know which members of the US Government are in the Creed or not.”
“Sal’s right,” Lewis said. “Just too risky, and as a man with a baby on the way, I’m not big on risk right now.”
“So, what then?” Jodie asked.
Amy looked at Quinn. “I need your laptop.”
“Go ahead.”
Amy’s face disappeared behind the laptop screen for a few seconds and then she turned the computer around so the team could see a Skype screen and the face of Oskar Rorschach.
“Ahh,” Hunter said. “Now it becomes clear.”
“It’s good to see you again, Dr Anderson,” the old Swiss billionaire said with an honest chuckle. “I believe you go by the name Special Agent Amy
Fox these days?”
“I’m sorry for deceiving you, Oskar.”
He dismissed her apology with a wrinkled hand. “You thought I was in the Creed and you did what you had to do. You have explained everything to my satisfaction. We can move on now, and believe me, no one is keener than I am to bring these people down. I trusted Klara Steiner and she betrayed that trust. Now she must be punished.”
“Thank you.”
“I must say, I was shocked when you told me in your message about Atlantis being located in Greenland.”
Hunter stepped in. “I think it’s more a case of Greenland being Atlantis, rather than Atlantis being located there.”
“But surely Greenland is far too big.”
Hunter shook his head. “On the contrary, it fits perfectly. Plato described Atlantis as being greater in size than Libya and Asia, by which he meant Turkey. We know the sizes of all these places now and Libya and Turkey are coming in at around the same size as Greenland today, but they were very different places back when Plato was describing them.”
“Like how?” Quinn asked.
“For one thing, much of Asia Minor was under Persian rule, so it’s hard to know precisely what Plato meant. Either way, even if we take the area measurements of the countries today, he was about right on the scale. He also described mountains surrounding the main city there, and the presence of lakes and rivers, all of which were abundant on Greenland before the ice sheets.”
Silence as the team considered what he had said, then Blanco spoke. “What exactly was it like before the ice sheets?”
Hunter smiled. “Amazing. If there were no ice sheets on Greenland it would be a very different place. Imagine a giant island, roughly the size of Mexico, surrounded by mountains and with a giant lake in the center of it.”
“Sounds cool,” Jodie said.
Rorschach laughed. “It’s cold, if not cool! Now, tell me more about this Adler person.”
Amy took over. “Karl Adler is what the Creed calls the Apostle. It’s the second highest position in the structure beneath the Magus. We do not know who the Magus is. Klara Steiner is his junior and McCabe and the disciples worked for a man named Gaius, who was killed in Germany.”
“Talk about a motley crew.”
“You can say that again,” she said. “According to my Director, all of them are flying out to Kulusuk Airport on the east coast of Greenland right now. There is a helipad across the bay to the west in Tasiilaq, but we don’t think this is their next play. The location on Atlantis they’re searching for is a specific city – the capital, we think. It’s too far away along the coast to the north for a chopper. The only thing they can do is board a ship in Kulusuk and sail along the coast. This is our chance to overtake them and beat them to the prize.”
“But how do we get there?”
Rorschach smiled. “I have a vessel you can use.”
Amy looked out of the window at the raging pulse of the sea. “I’m not sure I want to sail on the sea right now.”
“But you’re not sailing on it,” Rorschach said. “You’re sailing under it.”
Amy was confused. “I don’t understand.”
“I believe I can offer something that will help you to beat Adler and the rest of the Creed to Atlantis. Some years ago, I commissioned a submersible vessel named the Seawolf. When I say a submersible vessel, I mean a five-hundred foot submersible yacht. She is capable of speeds over eighty-five kilometres per hour, making her the fastest submerged vessel on earth.”
Stunned silence.
“I thought you would be impressed,” Rorschach continued. “And I hope this gesture allows you to see just how much I want to see Steiner fail. She deceived me for years and now I will do anything to bring her down.”
Hunter took in the excited faces of his new friends. “Where’s the Seawolf right now?”
“Where it usually is, in Bergen on the Norwegian coast. It can be in Reykjavik in eighteen hours and go onto the Atlantis coordinates in another six.”
“That means we’ll be there in twenty-four hours,” Jodie said.
“It’s amazing how some people can do such complex math in their heads,” Quinn said.
“When does the Creed get there?” Amy asked.
“It’s a four hour flight to Kulusuk,” Hunter said. “The location is another two-hundred and fifty kilometres farther up the coast. In the current weather conditions, I would be surprised if they’re making anything better than twelve knots per hour. So maybe another twenty hours.”
“In other words we’re arriving at the same time,” Amy said. “How cosy.”
“I’m still convinced you can beat them to it,” Rorschach said. “The Seawolf can be pushed much harder than we did in her later trials. I’m sure of it, but we must be careful. This is a very dangerous stretch of coast.”
“Many of the fjords in Greenland are UNESCO World Heritage Sites,” Hunter said. “So I’m more than aware of the local geography. The fjords of eastern Greenland are particularly magnificent in their beauty and isolation, but don’t be fooled.”
“There is one more thing,” Rorschach said. “In your email, Amy, you mentioned something about Adler and the Creed wanting to find Atlantis because of some sort of weapon. What did you mean? Should I be fearful for my crew on board the Seawolf?”
All eyes turned to Hunter. “Amy heard Adler and Steiner talking about the Winged Guardians, which they claimed were not just statues but also part of an ancient weapon they called the fire lance. I don’t know exactly what they mean by this, but there was a weapon called a fire lance in China around a thousand years ago.”
“Go on.”
“It made very rudimentary use of gunpowder to propel a weapon a bit like a spear at the enemy, but by today’s standards it would be very weak and ineffectual. I’m not certain what the Creed think they’re going to find up there, and we all know the knowledge passed to them by the Illuminati is a closely-guarded secret so from here it’s just speculation.”
“So, speculate,” Quinn said.
“In that case, I would argue that if they’re expending this much effort in the search, the weapon they believe they’re going to find there is significantly more powerful than the Chinese fire lance. Maybe something more like Archimedes’s heat ray.”
“The what?”
“It was a fabled weapon that some say had the ability to destroy Roman ships. No one knows even if it was real, but it sounds like it might be in the same ball park as the fire lance.”
Rorschach stroked his chin. “And what about my men?”
“They’ll be in no more danger than we will,” Amy said.
After a long pause to consider, Rorschach nodded once. “Very well. I will approve the Seawolf and send her to sea at once.”
A bank of cloud broke and let sunshine spill into the room, momentarily lighting their faces, but it was quickly swallowed back up again, dimming the room and changing the mood from excitement to fear.
Hunter blew out a deep breath and looked at his new friends. “Looks like we’re going to find Atlantis at last.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
A day later, Amy was standing in the Seawolf’s conning tower looking at the northern lights dancing in greens and purples across the twilight sky. Beneath this spectacular light show on the horizon, a rich crimson sunset ribbon divided the earth from the sky. She took a second to marvel at the majesty of the ice cliffs of eastern Greenland rising above the sea in the distance.
They had surfaced in the Denmark Strait a few miles from their destination on Greenland’s rugged east coast and she felt excited, frightened and exhausted all at the same time. Flying in and out of so many countries and dodging death at every turn had taken its heavy toll.
She took a deep breath, enjoying the cold, fresh Arctic air after so much heat and dust and humidity. It reminded her of when her dad used to take her and her brother ice-fishing out in the Connecticut woods every winter. Those innocent days were a long way back no
w, yet at the time they seemed to last forever. If she closed her eyes, she could smell the woodsmoke drifting from the chimney of their little cabin by the lake.
The Seawolf rolled on a wave and listed to starboard for a few moments before righting itself. The sound of the icy water splashing on the gunmetal grey hull brought her back to the moment and the hell she was enduring to find the greatest discovery on earth. A discovery, it seemed, some very powerful people were determined to keep from her. But she was still alive, even after so many attempts to take her life over the last few hours.
She believed Gates’s decision not to inform his superiors in the FBI was risky, but the right thing to do. The original Illuminati had grown so large and infiltrated so many governments and organizations in eighteenth century Bavaria that it had to be banned. There was no way to tell how deep the Creed went, but as Hunter liked to say, discretion was the better part of valor.
And with Gates’s old Strike Team on board alongside Rorschach’s crew, they had a fighting chance. If her director said he trusted those men, then that was enough for her. They were all former SEALS who had sworn to protect the United States. Maybe they were past their prime and a few pounds over their fighting weight, but better that than mix with traitors and get killed by them at the final hurdle.
With the Strike Team on their side, and Rorschach’s generous decision to loan them the Seawolf, maybe they had what it took to find the Atlantean capital and defend it from Adler’s insane new world order. Or maybe not. She worried about what the hell they were going to find over there in those ice-encrusted, snow-whipped granite cliffs just coming into view on the western horizon.
Hunter climbed up out of the hatch and joined her at the front of the conning tower. “I’d stay up here if I were you. Gates’s Strike Team just ordered the bean stew and Captain Evans says it’s not serious enough to break out the gas masks.”
“Eww, thanks for telling me that.”
He looked up at the sky and smiled. “The lights are amazing.”
