Dateline: Atlantis (33 page)

But one player in this dangerous game remains; Gabriel sits on a bench waiting for his grilling by the FBI. They can only charge him with trespassing, Amaryllis thinks.
He can't even swim.
He was not after the tower. The Mexican was just drifting around the Bahamas in a rented cabin cruiser trying to get as close as he could to Amaryllis and her gem.

Seeing her in the gray-green waiting area, Gabriel motions her over to his bench. With slow, reluctant steps, she edges closer to him.

“Amaryllis,” he says, his face beading with the sweat of panic. “All I wanted…”

“Is the damn crystal.”

“Yes, yes,” he bends his head and almost shrinks into the wooden seat. For all his muscular build and proud Maya bearing, he now looks like a craven child.

“You can't have it, Gabriel. You never could have had it. It's mine. I found it, and it speaks to me.”

“It's the Mexican government's,” he barks, turning a few heads. He changes positions, getting twitchy under the stare of men in dark suits.

“Oh, it is? Would that make you happy if I turned it in to them?”

Horror crosses his face. He shrinks back into the wall. “No, of course not,” he says in a near whisper. “But…it's my culture… part of our history.”

“Last time you had it in your hands, you tried to throw it in the sea. What good would it do anyone? What help is that to your culture?”

“I wanted to return it to the pyramid. But then the flood of water came…” he rocks his head side to side in misery. “It belongs to the Maya.”

All she can do is shake her head. For all his adventurousness, Gabriel is as anti-progress as the Committee. They want to laugh off the artifacts; he wants to bury them. To her, they are priceless, and the orb, above all, needs study. She risked her life getting it, and she's saving it for the world.

An agent calls Gabriel's name, and he stands to go to the interrogation room. As he walks by Amaryllis, he tries to touch her hand, imploring her. She pulls it back as if stung.
He had his chance.

“You'll be all right,” she says in a low voice. “All they'll do is deport you. I'll put in a good word so they treat you well.”

He nods, mouth set in that glum way she first saw when he described the Spanish destruction of Mayan books. Then, he seemed so heroic, so willing to fight the lies. Now, he is just another trespasser and part of a greater lie. She lets her breath out slowly and averts her eyes. He walks away.

She looks up and sees Donny standing next to her. She has no idea how long he's been there, but he's been watching them. She doesn't know if she's guilty or merely hollow, but something is wrong inside her. She looks into Donny's eyes.
Guilty, I definitely feel guilty.

A man at the processing desk calls out, “Adonis Gregorios?” Donny holds up his hand and walks over to sign a form, then takes back a small card, presumably his driver's license. He returns to Amaryllis looking like a kid who's just had a bad report card read aloud to the whole class.

“Adonis?” She stares into those perplexing brown eyes that have regained their former sparkle.

“That's my name.”

“Adonis?”

“I told you, it's my name. I never use it, not even for business. I'd never have told anyone when I was growing up. Can you imagine the ribbing I'd have dealt with? It only goes on official forms.” He laughs at her bewilderment. “Mom had great aspirations for me, I guess.”

She stares at this god of male splendor and realizes how apt the moniker is. His blond hair gleams in the light that slivers through the Venetian blinds. His face, with its patrician nose and gently curving lips, tops a body that resembles any of the classic Greek statues. The name is so apt she begins to giggle.

“Don't tease me. I'm Donny. Okay? At work, at home, everywhere I go—Donny. Except when called by the FBI.”

“Or the IRS,” she says, trying to stifle the laughter. “Your secret is safe with me, as long as you remember that I'm no longer Amy Quigley. I'm Amaryllis Lang.”

“Yes, Amaryllis,” he says and bends to give her a deep kiss. A bit of devotion delivered by the god next door.

Lights are dancing out on the streets. Brilliant royal blues, blood reds, diamond-like stabs of white. The car stops. The Rev. Caine leans forward in his seat and asks the limousine driver what's happening outside the car. But the man doesn't answer, engaged in a conversation with someone standing at the window.

In Caine's myopia, the lights are soft and sway with angelic movement. Each light has a halo. He takes a deep breath when he considers his reward may have arrived for him on Earth. Heavenly companions he can finally see, not just sense with his keen spiritual sensitivity. He knows he is right about his eyesight. Other men wear glasses in front of their eyes, blocking that dim veil that stretches between this world and the next. Caine knows that if the Lord wants to fix his vision, He'll do it on the spot. But He has not, so it's must be His will that Caine sees haloes where others perceive only pinpricks of light.

Cold brushes his face as the passenger car door opens and the driver begs Caine to step out.

“Please, sir. It's the authorities. They wish to speak with you.”

“Authorities? Whose authority is greater than that of God Almighty?”

“Please, sir.”

A head pokes in front of the chauffeur. It's a man in a dark rain slicker with the letters FBI emblazoned on the front.

“Reverend Caine, we're going to have to ask you to come with us.”

Caine grumbles and steps out into the drizzle, cussing under his breath at the weather of Chicago's dreary spring. Then he
looks out for the comfort of the beautiful lights and realizes they are ordinary police beacons, twirling strobe-like on top of several cars. One car has a dashboard light and the words ATF stenciled on the side. Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Something inside Caine's gut sags.

He moves through the crowd and lets the drone in the raingear slip him into a passenger seat of a dark blue Ford sedan.

“What's this all about?” he manages to croak out. He realizes his mouth is so dry he can't swallow.

“You're under arrest, sir,“ an agent in the front seat says, turning to face him. “For conspiracy to kidnap and commit homicide, and ATF wants to bring you in on suspicion of gun-running.”

Before he can make a sound, the man turns in his seat and shows him dim pictures of two men, mug shots of the poor sinners he sent down to Miami to assist in the Lang case.

“Do you know these men?”

“Can't say that I do.” He could die for a glass of water right now. His tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth and his lips feel gummy.

“They were driving a van that was registered to Logos International. I believe the corporation is headed by you?”

“We're a church—“ he blurts out before he realizes he has just answered in the affirmative to the government man.

“These two are going to walk the Miami lineup on suspicion of murder one, aggravated kidnapping and intent to inflict bodily harm.”

Caine remains silent.

“I think your van, sir, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Caine closes his eyes and tries to bring back the vision of the dancing angel lights, but all he can see in his head are those boxes of munitions, brought in from South Africa and hidden in the Idaho camp.
If they've penetrated Idaho, they've found it all.
Caine sinks like a sack of counterfeit dough into his seat, wondering who leaked the balance sheets.

God is not arranging events according to plan.

#

In an impossibly smelly and repugnant jail cell, Pitch paces the six-by-nine foot perimeter wondering when Davis will come through with the bail money. He straightens his neck. The charges will never stand. Amaryllis Lang will never be able to prove he was the one who tried to shut her away in the Navy's tower. He was just pleasure diving that day. No harm in that.

Nor will the police be able to prove he had anything to do with the murder of her parents so many years ago. Circumstantial evidence—and flimsy at that—was all they had. And the knife, probably the most incriminating object of all, went to the ocean floor with that brute, Cruz.

He makes the circuit of his cell again, stomping this time, his head held at a jaunty angle. He'll have that worm-like solicitor they assigned to him call the United Kingdom's embassy immediately. This isn't just anyone the Yanks are taking to task, but an O.B.E., a Professor of Egyptology at the British Museum… His steps begin to falter. An O.B.E. Not yet.

The decision is to be made next week, so this mess better be cleaned up by then. He watches a disgusting insect scurry into a corner and Pitch stomps on it with a bit of delight.

Isaac…but he'll never tell.
Isaac knows the Lang situation better than anyone. Pitch was within his God-given rights to finish off that pesky couple of American professors. They'd been warned numerous times. Their office even was set on fire by an over-imaginative Cruz. Yet, on every occasion, they escaped and continued to dredge up irritating evidence. So, it was up to him to wipe his hands clean of the entire matter. And he did so with
impeccable precision. No jury could prove complicity. Superior intellect. Proper planning.

And what sort of criminal justice system do they have in this barbaric country? Taking away his mobile phone? Assigning him this absurd jumpsuit. Where is the British ambassador's staff?

As he glares at a blank wall, a voice calls out behind him. Pitch turns to see that insufferable solicitor again.
Oh, bother, they call them lawyers here.
He casts a disdainful look down his nose at the intruder. The man does not seem sufficiently humbled.

“Bad news, Professor Pitch.”

“What could be worse, my boy?”

“A body washed up near Miami. The wallet identification was that of an Ignacio Cruz. He also held a fake passport.”

“What's that to me?”

“He had something else. It was your pass to the Nav-Tech grounds. The plastic straps were tangled with the buttons on his shirt, otherwise, it would have floated away from the body.”

“Well, he must have stolen my pass.”

“I'm afraid it gets worse. He was stabbed with a diving knife. One of the plaintiffs insists it was yours and that you threatened her with it. She said something about the initials on the handle.” The attorney starts paging through his notes.

Pitch lowers himself to sitting position on the bed. The bad dream is getting uglier.

“What about the embassy?”

“You're on your own. The U.K. formally turned you over to U.S. authorities. As long as our government does not try you for capital punishment, you are ours for trial. Bail will be set Thursday.”

Pitch returns the solicitor's—lawyer's—earnest look with a black stare.

“Is there anything you'd like to tell me about this case, so I can properly represent you?”

“I believe I'll find a proper solicitor on my own, thank you so much,” Pitch says, barely hiding the snarl in his voice. The young man is unfazed.

“As you please,” he says and hurries off.

Pitch can only think in letters now. Words have left him.
K.L. means no O.B.E.

#

It's been a huge job, but Hewitt has packed away the last of the computer monitors and Web cams once used by the Committee. With the troubles he's heard from the United States, the Committee won't be meeting anymore. He's doing his best to erase all evidence of that lot. As far as the casual observer is concerned, no skeptic's group ever met at the large hall near the British Museum. He looks about for any papers or journals that have been left about and discovers a proof of Thorgeld's book under one of the chairs.

Thorgeld. Hewitt thinks back to all the abuse and scorn the Committee heaped upon him after Pitch waved the proof in front of the cameras. Hewitt himself was outraged that one of their own would turn around and embrace the enemy. But now, in light of what Pitch is suspected of doing—murdering a couple of archaeologists who swam inside an ancient pyramid—it looks as if Thorgeld is right and the Committee has been wrong all along. A giant pyramid in that area, submerged under that much seawater, had to be old beyond all reckoning. Its very existence is proof that some people, and probably a whole civilization of them, were around to build it. The fact that Pitch knew about this structure twenty-five years ago and said nothing is unconscionable.

He looks about to make sure no one sees him and slips out the door to the room. He locks it one last time.

Hewitt always was terrified of the foul-tempered Pitch, but he believed in him. He thought that putting down the pseudo-scientists and the wild-eyed crazies was noble work. He had no idea his leader could not deal with tangible refutation of his life's work. The psychological pressure, which Pitch demonstrated with his intensity, must have been too much for the man when he came face to face with conflicting evidence. It must have been devastating. Pitch most likely broke down and never regained peace of mind.