The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller

by A. G. Riddle

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw them — three guards, in the room, closing fast. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one.

  CHAPTER 55

  The six guards surrounded Kate.

  One man said into a radio, “We have her. She was wandering around in corridor two.”

  “What are you doing?” Kate protested.

  “Come with us,” the man with the radio said.

  Two of the guards took her by the arms and began leading her away from the voices at the nurses station.

  “Stop!”

  Kate turned to see a woman jogging up behind them. She was young, maybe in her twenties. She was dressed so… wrong, so provocatively, like some sort of playboy bunny. She looked very out of place.

  “I’ll take her,” she said to the men.

  “Who are you?”

  “Naomi. I work for Mr. Sloane.”

  “Never heard of him.” The guard who was clearly in charge motioned to another man. “We’ll take her in too.”

  “You’ll be sorry if you do,” Naomi said. “Call it in. I’ll wait. Ask your boss to call Mr. Sloane.”

  The guards looked at each other.

  Naomi grabbed one of their radios. “I’ll do it myself.” She clicked the button. “This is Naomi, I need to speak with Mr. Sloane.”

  “Standby.”

  “Sloane.”

  “It’s Naomi, I’m bringing a girl to you, but there’s a pack of guards harassing us.”

  “Hold on.” Then, Sloane’s voice said to someone in the background, “Tell your buffoons to quit harassing my people.”

  Another voice came on the line. “This is Captain Zhào. Who is this?”

  Naomi handed the radio back to the man, but he stepped back, dodging it like a plague blanket. Naomi tossed it to the man who had spoken. “Good luck.” She grabbed Kate by the arm and said under her breath, “Be quiet and follow me.”

  Naomi led Kate away from the guards who were desperately trying to apologize to the man on the radio.

  They took a right, then a left, down another deserted corridor. She asked Kate for her badge at a set of double doors.

  “Who are you?” Kate said.

  “It’s not important. I’m here to help you get the children out.”

  “Who sent you?”

  “The same person who sent you the IDs.”

  “Thank you,” was all Kate could think to say.

  The woman nodded. She opened a door, and Kate heard Adi and Surya talking inside. Her heart stopped. The door swung open and they were there, sitting at a table in a white-walled room. Kate ran in, knelt down to hug them, and without a word they ran to her and jumped into her arms, bowling her over. They were alive. She could do it. She could save them. Kate felt a firm hand pull her up.

  “I’m sorry. We don’t have time. We have to hurry,” Naomi said.

  CHAPTER 56

  The security chief handed the radio back to Dorian. “They won’t give your girl any more trouble. I apologize for that Mr. Sloane. It’s all the new faces, we don’t do well—”

  “Spare me.” Dorian turned to the nuclear scientist, Dr. Chase. “Continue.”

  “The shipments we received from the North — I’m not sure we can use them.”

  “Why not?”

  “The nukes from Belarus have been tampered with. If we had the time, we could probably disassemble them and sort them.”

  “What does that leave?” Dorian said.

  “The Ukrainian and Russian devices look ok, they’re just old. And the shipment from China was pristine, very recent builds. How did you—”

  “Never mind that. Numbers?”

  “Let’s see.” He scanned a print out. “126 total warheads. And most are extremely high-yield. It would be helpful to know the target, outside of that I can’t say—”

  “What about the portable nukes?”

  “Ah, yes, we have them ready.” Dr. Chase motioned to an assistant across the room. The young man left the room and returned carrying an over-sized silver egg slightly smaller than a shopping cart. The man could barely get his arms around the slippery egg, so he carried it like a load of firewood, leaning back to make sure it didn’t roll out of his cupped arms. When he reached the table, he set the egg down and stepped away, but the egg wobbled awkwardly, then drifted toward the edge. The assistant lurched forward and steadied it with a hand.

  Dr. Chang put his hands in his pockets, nodded once to Dorian, and smiled expectantly.

  Dorian glared at the egg, then again at Dr. Chase. “What the fuck is that?”

  The man slid his hands from his pockets and took a step toward the egg, pointing at it. “It’s the… portable device you requested. It’s 7.4 kilos or about 16 pounds.” He shook his head. “We simply couldn’t reduce it any more, well, we could with time.”

  Dorian leaned back in the chair, looking from the egg to the scientist.

  The scientist walked closer to the egg, scrutinizing it. “Is there something wrong with it? We have the other one—”

  “Portable. I need two portable nukes.”

  “Oh and indeed it is. You saw Harvey carrying it. Granted it’s a bit bulky, but—”

  “Over distance and in a backpack, not some magic egg an ogre could skip across a loch. How long to make it smaller — like something that could actually fit in, keyword here Doctor, a suitcase?”

  “Uhmm, well… you never said…” The man glanced at the egg.

  “How long?” Dorian pressed.

  “A couple of days, if—”

  “Mr. Sloane, we have an issue in the power plant, you need to see this.”

  Dorian wheeled over to the tablet the security chief held. Behind him, he heard the scientist pacing and complaining to Harvey. “It’s not like in the movies where you just ‘clip the green wire’ and shove it in a rucksack and take off for a hike up Everest, I mean we have to…” Dorian blocked the scientist out and focused on the video on the tablet: a man moving through some mechanical room.

  “Where is this?”

  “The main circuit room outside the reactors. There’s more.” The security chief rewound the video.

  Dorian watched the man plant a series of charges. There was something. Dorian tapped the tablet, paused the video then zoomed in on the face. It couldn’t be.

  “Do you recognize him, sir?”

  Dorian studied the face and thought back to a mountainside village in Northern Pakistan, the flames rising from every hut, the women and children running, the men lying in front of the burning homes… and a man shooting back at him. He remembered shooting him, he didn’t know how many times. And finishing the job. “Yes, I know him. His name is Andrew Reed. He’s a former CIA Field Operative… You will need a lot more men to contain him.”

  “Shoot to kill?”

  Dorian glanced away absently. In the background, he heard the radio crackle and the security man barking orders. Reed was here, trying to kill the power. He wouldn’t be alone. Where had he been for the last four years — if he wasn’t dead? Why the power?

  The security chief leaned over. “We have the charges and timer. We’re taking them out of the building. We’ve reviewed the security footage since he entered, they are the only threat. We’re surrounding him. Do you want us to—”

  “Don’t shoot him. Where is he now?” Dorian said.

  The chief held up the tablet, pointing to a place on the map.

  Dorian tapped another location on the map. “What is this room?”

  “One of the reactor halls, just a passage way between reactors one and two.”

  Dorian pointed at two large doors on opposite sides. “These are the only two entrances and exits?”

  “Yes. And the room has 10-foot concrete walls on all sides.”

  “Perfect. Drive him in there and close the door,” Dorian said. What was he missing? He waited while the security chief worked the radio. The children. “What’s the status of the children?”

  The chief looked
confused at the question. “In their holding cell.”

  “Show me.”

  The chief jabbed the tablet. Then looked up in surprise.

  “Find them,” Dorian said.

  The chief yelled into his radio. They waited a few moments, the radio squawked a few times and the chief typed into the tablet, handing it to Dorian just as another video came to life: Naomi, and with her, Kate Warner and the children. Was it the worst news ever or the best news ever?

  The chief was screaming into his radio with the other hand.

  Dorian thought. Could it be just the two of them?

  “We’ll have them momentarily, sir. I don’t know how—”

  Dorian held a hand up, not looking at the man. “Stop talking.”

  What to do? Clearly there was still a security breach, a serious one. And there were only a few suspects. Dorian motioned to one of the staffers he’d brought with him. “Logan, send a memo to the Immari Council: China facility under attack. We are attempting to secure, but anticipate all research capabilities will be destroyed. As such, proceeding with Toba Protocol with all haste. Will post further updates as events develop. Include the videos of the man in the power plant and the two girls trying to extract the children. I want to know the minute anyone responds.”

  The chief rocked back on his heels. “We have them, sir.”

  “Great work, truly,” Dorian said derisively.

  The chief swallowed and said with less confidence, “Should we…”

  “Take the two girls to the Bell, put them in with all the other subjects that are ready, but make sure they get in. I want them at the front of the line. Then throw the switch as soon as possible — tell Chang no excuses.” Dorian paused. Kate Warner, in the Bell room, it was such sweet, sweet justice. And there was nothing Martin could do. There would be nothing anyone could do soon. It was actually working out better than he could have planned. Dorian motioned to Dr. Chase. “Are all the nukes on train cars?”

  “Yes, except for the Belarus devices and… the portable—”

  “Good.” Dorian turned back to the chief. “Put the kids on the train car with the nukes and move it out of here right now.” He swiveled on Dr. Chase. “And I expect you to be on that train as well, and by the time it reaches the coast, either those eggs will fit in a backpack or you will. You understand?”

  Dr. Chase nodded and looked away.

  The chief listened, then dropped the radio to his side. “The saboteur is locked in reactor hall two.”

  “Alright. Make sure none of the remaining train cars leave. We need them to move something else.” Dorian walked over to Dmitry Kozlov, second-in-command of Dorian’s personal Immari Security unit.

  “When the Bell is finished, load the bodies on those train cars and move them out,” Dorian said. “We need to set up a loading zone, probably Northern India, somewhere with access to airports.”

  “What about the rest of the staff here?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Dorian said as he led Dmitry farther away from any of the other staff. “They’re a liability. We certainly can’t let anyone leave, at least not until Toba is in full swing. We have another problem. There are only 119 human subjects on-site.”

  The man saw the implication immediately. “Not enough bodies.”

  “Not even close. I think we can solve both issues, but it won’t be easy.”

  Dmitry nodded and glanced over at the scientists milling around in the lab. “Process the staff through the Bell? I agree. It would require Chang’s team to operate the machinery… on their own people. Doable, but it could get ugly. There are at least 100 security personnel on site. They won’t go quietly, even if we segregate them and orchestrate it as a drill.”

  “What do you need?” Dorian said.

  “50, maybe 60 men. Immari Security or Clocktower field agents would be ideal. Immari Security is purging the New Delhi Clocktower station now. We might be able to task the remaining field operatives.”

  “Make it happen,” Dorian said as he stepped away.

  “Where will you be?”

  “Someone inside Immari has to be working with Reed. I’m going to find out who it is.”

  CHAPTER 57

  Kate screamed as the security guards ripped the children from her hands and wrestled her to the ground. She scratched their faces and kicked. She couldn’t lose them again. She had to fight.

  “No, to the train,” one of the guards said. The boys tried to wiggle free.

  Kate reached out for them, but a man pinned her arms. Another man rushed to her and she saw the butt of a rifle coming at her face.

  The room was dark and crowded. Kate was being crushed by people from every side. She elbowed people left and right but no one responded — they were dead on their feet. They would have fallen over if they weren’t squeezed in so tight.

  Above her, Kate heard a loud boom. A huge metal device was descending from the ceiling. There were lights, flashing from the top now, with synchronized booms. She could feel the booms in her chest and in the bodies of the zombies crowded around her.

  Were the children here? She scanned the room. She couldn’t see anyone, just blank faces, half-awake. Then — Naomi. The confident woman who had rescued her looked terrified.

  The boom-boom-boom above grew deafening, the light blinding. Kate felt the flesh around her heat up. She raised a hand to brush the sweat from her face, but the hand was already so wet, covered in something thick, almost sticky, gritty — blood.

  CHAPTER 58

  The concrete doors to the reactor hall slammed shut with a loud boom. The sound was barely audible over the rumble of the massive reactors. David walked deeper into the room, surveying the site of his last stand. Maybe Kate got out.

  He slid the clip out of his gun. Two rounds. Should he save the last round? The drugs they used on Kate were serious. Who knew what they could do. He knew valuable intel. That was the selfless reason, but there were others. He pushed the thought from his mind. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

  He walked around the room — the hall between two reactors. It resembled a high school gym with a high ceiling dominated by metal scaffolding. It was, ironically, shaped like an hourglass — the room was almost rectangular save for two round indentions near the center — the thick concrete walls of two reactors. There were two entrances — concrete slide up-and-down doors — at the front and the rear of the room. The tall smooth walls surrounding the doors were dotted with metal conduits and tubes that were mostly silver, but some were blue and red, giving the impression of varicose veins peeking out of a gray forehead over the mouth of the door.

  “Hello, Andrew,” a voice boomed over the loud speaker, no doubt used for evacuation warnings. The voice. Obviously someone pre-Clocktower. David couldn’t place it.

  David needed to buy time. It was the only thing that could help Kate. “That’s not my name anymore.” He heard the reactors on each side roar to life. He wondered if the “voice” could hear him over the din.

  How long had it been — the bombs should go off soon. Cutting the power would seal his fate but could help Kate.

  “We have the girl. And we found your bombs. Not terribly creative. I would have expected more from you.”

  David looked around. Was the voice lying? Why tell him? What could he do? Shoot the reactors? Bonehead idea… Massive concrete walls. Shoot one of the conduits, hope to get lucky? Unlikely. The ceiling? Useless.

  The man wanted something from him, why else would he question him? Maybe the man was lying. Kate could be waiting on him at the train. Maybe he didn’t have her. “What do you want?” David yelled.

  “Who sent you here?” the voice boomed.

  “Let her go, and I’ll tell you.”

  The voice laughed. “Sure, it’s a deal.”

  “Sounds good, come on down here, and I’ll make a formal statement. Even draw you a picture. I’ve got his email address too.”

  “If I have to come in there, I’m g
oing to beat it out of you. I’m on a tight schedule. No time for drugs.”

  The reactors roared louder. Should it sound like that?

  The voiced continued, “You don’t have any options here, Andrew. We both know it. But you still hang on. That’s your problem — your weakness. You’re the ultimate sucker for a lost cause. It appeals to your rescue fantasy. Pakistani villagers, Jakartan children, you always go for it — because you sympathize, you feel like a victim — that’s your mentality. You think if you get even with the people who wronged you, you’ll be whole. But you won’t. It’s over. You know it’s true. Listen to my voice. You know who I am. I keep my promises. I’ll give the girl a quick death, I promise. That’s the best you can do here. Tell me who it was. It’s your last play.”

  Standard interrogation — break down your subject, assert superiority and convince them that talking is the only option. Actually pretty convincing at this point. David knew they could simply gas him, toss a grenade in, or storm him with a few guards. He had no options. But he had figured out who the man behind the microphone was: Dorian Sloane, the Immari field commander in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He should have assumed Sloane would run the entire region for Immari Security at this point. He was ruthless, capable… And vain. Could David use that? His best option was to play for time, on the off-chance something would happen. Or that Sloane was lying and Kate was getting away.

  “I gotta tell ya, Sloane, I think you missed your calling. The psychoanalysis, just amazing. You’ve really got me questioning my whole life here. Can I have a little time to contemplate the deeper issues you touched on? I mean—”

  “Stop wasting time, Andrew. It won’t matter for you or her. You hear those reactors coming to life? That’s the sound of power flowing to a machine that’s killing Kate right now. It’s just you now. And Clocktower fell a few hours ago. Now tell me—”

  “In that case, you’re the one wasting time. I’ve got nothing to say.” David gritted his teeth and tossed his gun on the floor. It slid all the way to the far door. “You want to try to beat it out of me, come on down here and take your best shot. I’m unarmed. You might have half a chance.” He stood in the middle of the hourglass shaped room, looking from door-to-door, wondering which one would open first… and if he could make it when it did.

  The reactor screamed even louder, and David felt heat coming off of it. Was it malfunctioning? Behind him, a concrete door rumbled to life, lifting up from the two-foot indention in the floor. The gun lay at the opposite door.

  David ran for the opening door. 40 feet away. 30 feet away. It was his only option: to slide under and fight hand-to-hand, then try to break out of the perimeter they set up. 20 feet.

  Sloane ducked under the door and popped up, a gun in his right hand leading the way. He fired three quick shots — the first two caught David in his shoulder and upper chest, cutting him down instantly and sprawling him on the concrete