Raising Atlantis (10 page)

She stepped aside and Conrad saw behind her four well-built young men with dark, deep-set eyes. Video and sound equipment rested heavily on their broad shoulders.

Conrad said, “Who are they?”

“My camera crew. As long as we’re making an inspection, I assume we can take pictures?”

“Sure,” said Yeats, who motioned to the MPs to relieve the men of their equipment. “You can inspect everything from the brig.”

Conrad watched Serena and her crew in their respective cells on two monitors in the command center. The men were sitting quietly on the floor like caged foxes. Serena, meanwhile, was stretched across her bunk like Sleeping Beauty.

“You can’t just lock up Mother Earth,” he told Yeats.

“The world’s going to find out.”

But Yeats was focused on the other monitors that showed various grainy images of the P4 Habitat and a drill rig atop the flat summit of P4, where a work crew was tunneling down the north face of the pyramid as Conrad had instructed.

“You better pray your hunch about a shaft pays off, son.

Or I just might lock you up too. And, frankly, in your case, the world won’t give a shit.”

Conrad opened his mouth to say something when Colonel O’Dell walked up with a file. Conrad caught his disapproving glance and realized he was the only civilian running loose on the base. O’Dell looked itchy to toss him into the brig with the rest of them.

“Here’s that NSA report on Sister Serghetti, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel.”

Conrad watched as Yeats scanned the file. “The NSA keeps files on nuns?”

“Nuns who develop a universal translator based on the Aymara language,” Yeats said. “The NSA has been trying to get its hands on Sister Serghetti’s system ever since. The Aymara language is so pure that the NSA suspects it didn’t just evolve like other languages but was constructed from scratch.”

“Explain that to us, Doctor Yeats,” O’Dell blurted out.

Yeats shot O’Dell a nasty glare, but Conrad didn’t flinch.

“The earliest Aymara myth says that after the Great Flood, strangers attempted to build a city on Lake Titicaca,”

Conrad said. “We know what’s left of it as Tiahuanaco, with its great Temple of the Sun. But the builders abandoned it and disappeared.”

“And just where on earth did these builders come from?”

Yeats asked him in earnest.

“According to legend, they came from the lost island paradise of Aztlan. The Aztec version of Atlantis,” Conrad said, staring at his father. “So what are you saying?”

Yeats closed the file. “The Good Sister might know the language of the people who built P4.”

Serena had always pictured Antarctica as a symbol of peace and harmony, a model for how humans could live with one another and all species with which they shared the planet.

She had also held similar such illusions about her relationship with Conrad. But now as she looked around her cell inside Ice Base Orion, her dream had melted away to reveal four cold walls, a tiny sink, and a urinal.

There was a hidden camera somewhere, she was sure, and General Yeats and that tosser Conrad no doubt were watching her every move. But they couldn’t read her mind. So she sat on her bunk and pretended to be alone with her thoughts.

As an Australian she felt more kinship with Antarctica than the Americans. So often as a little girl she would look across the sea and know that the great white continent was on the other side. Australia was the closest of the world’s nations to Antarctica and claimed 42 percent of it, including most of East Antarctica and the very ground—or ice over the ground—on which the Americans had constructed this secret facility.

But for all her work in Antarctica—mostly saving leopard seals or minke whales—her experience had been confined to the spectacular landscapes on the fringes of the continent. There the wildlife was wonderful and the auroras glorious. But this mission into the interior snow deserts had proven Antarctica to be an empty continent indeed. Even now within the warmth of this American base, she could sense the barrenness.

Serena also thought she could hear crackling noises from the shell’s expansion joints. Stations built on ice tend to sink under their own weight as the heat they generate melts the surrounding ice. This station, probably days old, was just settling in.

She remembered her capture at the secret airstrip carved out of the ice and her subsequent escort to Ice Base Orion.

The Hagglunds tractor in which the Americans transported her had passed a power plant along the way. It was buried a hundred yards away from the living quarters behind a protective snow dune. Too far way to service diesel engines in this cold, she thought. That’s when she realized it was probably a compact nuclear plant. Probably a 100-kilowatt system.

At first she was outraged. How dare the Americans bring nuclear materials onto the continent! she thought. Ninety percent of all the ice in the world was here. Any meltdown could cause global catastrophe. This alone was more than enough to bust the Americans with the U.N.

But now her fury at the Americans for breaking every international law on the books had turned to fascination.

However cool she played it with Conrad and General Yeats back at the air lock, she was in fact burning with excitement.

There was Conrad, of course. But clearly her mission here involved much more than protecting the unspoiled Antarctic environment from the Americans.

Something momentous had been found down here, she realized, just like the pope said. Something that could turn history—and the Judeo-Christian tradition—on its head. In spite of all this, however, she felt exhilarated. Of all the candidates His Holiness could have chosen to be his eyes for this historic event, he had chosen her.

She heard the door unlock with a buzz and turned.

When the MP opened the door of the brig and ushered Conrad in, Serena was sitting on the edge of her bunk, sipping diesel tea from a Styrofoam cup. Conrad noted the silver bride of Christ band on her left ring finger that signified her spiritual union to the one and only Son of God.

That would be Jesus to her, unfortunately, and not some disreputable scoundrel like Conrad Yeats. He wondered why she was still wearing it. Probably to keep his likes at bay.

“Conrad.” Serena managed a smile. “I figured they’d send you. You always did have odd ideas for a secret rendezvous.”

Conrad saw she was down to her wool sweater now, her black hair falling softly over her shoulders. Underneath she was probably wearing polypropylene inner liners to move sweat away from her skin, or acrylic thermal underwear. As for what was wrapped under that, Conrad didn’t have to imagine, and he realized he was the one sweating.

“What’s so odd?” He reached over and touched her face.

“You’re still cold.”

“I’m fine. What happened to you?”

He looked at his bandaged hand. “Occupational hazard.”

“Like Yeats? I would have put you and me together before I ever thought I’d see you with your father.”

“Like you and yourGQ boys in the next—”

“Cell?” She smiled. “Worried about some competition, Conrad?” she asked. “Don’t be. If I were the last woman on earth and you were the last man, I’d become a nun again.”

Conrad stared into her soft brown eyes. It was the first time they had been alone, face-to-face, in five years, and Conrad secretly felt she looked more beautiful than ever. He, on the other hand, felt old and worn down. “What are you doing here, Serena?”

“I thought I might ask you the same question, Conrad.”

He was itching to tell her about the ruins beneath the ice, that his theories were true. But he couldn’t. After all, they had never dealt with the ruins of their own lives on the surface.

“You’re not just here to save the environment,” Conrad stated. “When you came through that air lock, you weren’t surprised to see me.”

“You’re right, Conrad,” she said softly and put a warm hand to his face. “I missed you and had to see you.”

Conrad pulled back. “You are so full of it, and you know it.”

“Oh, and you’re not?” The floor began to rumble. Serena sat back in her bunk and glanced at her watch. She’s timing the shakers, he thought to himself. Suddenly she said, “When were you going to inform the rest of the world about your discovery?”

Conrad swallowed hard. “What discovery?”

“The pyramid under the ice.”

Conrad blinked in disbelief but said nothing. Still, there was no use fighting the fact that somehow she knew as much or more than he did about this expedition.

“So what else did God tell you?”

“I’d say the team has been drilling exploratory tunnels in the ice around the pyramid,” she said. “And I’d bet that by now your cowboy father has probably found a door.”

There was a minute of silence. They were no longer locked in their typical give-and-take banter but were fellow truth-seekers. Conrad was glad she was there and angry at the same time. He was worried about her safety and yet felt threatened by her presence, as if somehow she was standing in his way.

“Serena,” he said softly. “This isn’t some oil platform that you can chain yourself to in order to protest the production of fossil fuels. A few dozen soldiers have already died on this expedition, and it’s practically a miracle you and I are even talking.”

A cloud of sober reflection passed over Serena’s face.

She was processing her own thoughts. “I can take care of myself, Conrad,” she said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

“Me?”

“Your father hasn’t told you everything.”

“What else is new?” Conrad shrugged. “Passing along a piece of information for him is like passing a kidney stone.

So he’s hiding something. So are you, Serena. A lot more.

Look, neither the United States nor the Vatican is going to be able to keep a lid on something this big.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Conrad, I know you’re not this naive, so it must be denial,” she said. “Tell me, how did Yeats lure you down here? Did he promise you credit for the find of the ages? Maybe more help in finding your true parents?”

“Maybe.”

“Trust me, Conrad,” she said, the pain of personal experience in her eyes, “there are some answers you don’t want to know.”

“Speak for yourself, Serena.”

“Conrad, this isn’t about you and this isn’t about me.

It’s about the world at large and the greater good. You have to consider other people.”

“I am considering them. This is an unprecedented development in human history. And I want to share it with the world.”

“No, you want to magnify the great name of Doctor Conrad Yeats,” she said. “To hell with the rest of the world. But why should you care? It’s the information about Earth that’s more important than the planet or its people. Isn’t that how it goes with you? You haven’t changed a bit.”

“If you’re referring to our relationship, you knew exactly what you were doing then, Miss High and Mighty. You just didn’t want to take responsibility for your actions.”

“I was pure as the driven snow, Conrad. But you pissed on me. Just like you’re going to piss on this planet.”

“Hey, it’s not like we actually did anything.”

“My point exactly,” she said. “But you didn’t do much to contradict the rumors, did you?”

“I am not the bad guy here.”

“Aren’t you?” she asked. “You’re nothing but a pawn of the United States, willing to betray everything you believe in about international cooperation and the brotherhood and sisterhood of humanity to satisfy your selfish curiosity.”

“I don’t want to change the world,” he told her. “I just want to understand it. And this is our best shot yet to make sense of who we are and where we came from. You make it sound like the fruit of forbidden knowledge. One bite and we’ll all be cursed.”

“Maybe we already are, Conrad. Isn’t that what attracted you to me in the first place? I was your forbidden fruit.

Just like these ruins you’ve found under the ice.”

“Try the other way around, Serena,” he said. “And my mind is made up.”

Serena nodded. “Then you might as well take me down with you.”

Conrad stared at her incredulously. The only reason he was here was because he was the world’s leading authority on megalithic architecture and the son of the general leading the expedition. Serena didn’t have a prayer. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“What happens when you come across some inscription down there?” she asked simply. “Who’s going to figure it out?

You?”

Not only had he failed to extract any meaningful information from her, Conrad thought with a sinking feeling, but she also had directed their conversation to precisely this point. The point that Yeats had just predicted this would all come to. And somehow, Serena knew as much.

“Granted, I’m no linguist, but here and there I’ve picked up a thing or two.”

“Like a venereal disease?” she shot back. “For all you know, Conrad, the only reason you’re here is because they thought they couldn’t get me.”

The thing that bothered Conrad the most was that she said it with absolute humility. It wasn’t a boast, but a plausible probability. Then Conrad realized she was playing to the security camera near the ceiling. She had been talking to Yeats all along.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” he told her.

“Absolutely unbelievable.”

She flashed him a warm smile that could melt the ice caps. “Would you have me any other way?”

9

Discovery

Plus Twenty-Four Days,

Sixteen Hours

U.S.S.Constellation,

Southern Ocean

“DAMNYEATS,”cursed Admiral Hank Warren.

The short, powerfully built Warren scanned the blacked-out silhouettes of his carrier group’s battle formation with his binoculars from the bridge of the aircraft carrier U.S.S.Constellation. They were twenty miles off the coast of East Antarctica, and Warren’s mission was to keep his battle group undetected until further orders.

To that end, all radars and satellite sets were turned off. Only line-of-sight radios capable of millisecond-burst transmissions were allowed. Extra lookouts with binoculars were posted on deck to sweep the dawn’s horizon for enemy surface ship silhouettes and submarine periscope feathers.