Return to Atlantis: A Novel (35 page)

“Jindal was working for us,” said Warden, addressing Eddie and Nina again. “His position in Interpol meant he was perfectly placed to watch for any information on statues like Takashi’s. After you found the first statue in Egypt, we were planning to have Takashi send the second one to you in the hope that you would use them to locate the third. Unfortunately, Pramesh and Vanita Khoil found out about it. Our computer security wasn’t as good as we’d thought, apparently. They arranged to have Takashi’s statue stolen in order to stop us.”

“I take it they weren’t on the Group’s wavelength,” said Nina.

“Hardly. We want to end global conflict; they were actively encouraging it to bring about their insane new world. But we were using Jindal to guide you down a particular path, so that you would find all the statues
and bring them together. We had no idea what lengths he would go to in order to do that. It was … it was a mistake.” The amount of effort it took for Warden to force the words out suggested it was not an admission he made frequently, if at all.

Eddie was far from impressed. “You should have chosen your people better.” He stared pointedly at Stikes. “You still should.”

“Again, the only thing I can do is apologize. The last thing we wanted to do was alienate you. We need you, Dr. Wilde—and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make things right.”

“What do you mean?” Nina asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like. What do you want? The opportunity to conduct your archaeological research without being hindered by the political considerations and budget limits of the IHA, perhaps? You could have your own foundation—funded by the Group, with absolutely no restrictions. Would that be an appealing proposition?”

“Nah, we’re not interested,” said Eddie. No response from his wife. He nudged her. “Are we, love?”

“I don’t know …,” she said. “You’d be willing to do that?”

Warden nodded. “We’d be willing to do whatever you like. You’re in a position occupied by very few people through the entire course of history, Dr. Wilde. You can choose the direction taken by the whole of humanity: into a bold new future, or carrying on toward ruin as things are now. The decision is yours.”

“Nina, you’re not seriously thinking about saying yes, are you?” Eddie demanded.

“I’m thinking that … I need to think about it,” she replied before turning back to Warden. “If I said yes, what would you need me to do?”

“Bring us the statues, so we can locate the meteorite,” said Warden. “After that, at some point we’ll need a blood sample from you, as I said, but that won’t be necessary
until the earth energy collection stations are nearing completion. As for whatever you might want in return, we would see to it right away. After the meteorite is found, of course.”

“Of course,” Nina echoed quietly. Another short silence, then: “I need time to decide. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

Warden nodded. “I understand.”

“There’s one thing you can do for me right away, though.”

“Which is?”

She pointed at Stikes. “Get rid of him. You should never have hired him in the first place.”

“I’ll see to it.”

“What?”
snapped Stikes, standing sharply.

Warden waved him to silence. “Give me your number,” said Nina. “I’ll be in touch. And if we could get back to New York as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it.”

“I’ll have you flown there,” the Group’s chairman told her. “My driver will take you to the airport. But please, Dr. Wilde … don’t take too long to reach a decision.”

“You’ll know as soon as I’ve made it. Come on, Eddie. Let’s go.”

Eddie said nothing, silently fuming as they left the room. Once they were gone, Stikes rounded on Warden. “You’re not going to do what she wants, are you?”

“Why not?” he replied. “She’s vital to us, and if indulging her obsession with archaeology is the price of her cooperation, it’ll be well worth it.”

“I meant about firing me!”

“Relax, Stikes.” Warden took a seat. “You’re useful. For now.”

“Thank you,” Stikes replied caustically. “In that case, I have some
useful
advice: Don’t believe her. She won’t go along with it—and Chase definitely won’t, however much money you wave in front of them. I know them.”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m sure we will. So we should have a contingency plan in place.”

“Do you have something in mind?”

Stikes’s cold gaze turned toward the door through which Nina and Eddie had exited. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

It wasn’t until they were back at their apartment in New York, away from anyone who might report what was said to Warden or his people, that Eddie finally felt free to unleash what had been bottled up inside him for the past hours. “Have you gone fucking
mad
?” he erupted at Nina the moment the door was closed. “What the hell are you doing, going along with them?”

“Eddie—”

“You know you can’t trust ’em, especially not Stikes!”

“Eddie—”

“And it’s because of them that Mac’s dead! They hired Kit, he was working for them—and now Stikes is too!”

“Eddie—”

“This is what you call us sticking together, no matter what? I can’t fucking believe that you’d even—”

“Eddie!”
She grabbed his arms, getting right in his face. “Of course I don’t trust him! I said all that because I needed to buy some extra time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “I feel like a bit of an arse now.”

She smiled and briefly kissed him. “I’ll let you feel the whole of one when we go to bed. But no, I don’t trust Warden or this Group of his any more than you do.”

“So you wanted to buy more time, okay. But for what? Warden’s going to want an answer pretty soon—and there’s still Glas to worry about.”

Nina paced across the room. “We need to find out the truth about the statues—and, more important, the meteorite. What it can really do, how it does it—and how dangerous it might be. Not secondhand, like the Kallikrates
text, or whatever Warden says about it. I’m sure Glas would have his own opinion too. No, we need to go to the source.”

“Where’s that?” Eddie asked.

She stopped and faced him. “Atlantis.”

T
he North Atlantic in November is an inhospitable place. Even though the weather on this day was not particularly bad, there was still enough of a swell to cause the research vessel
Gant
to pitch unsettlingly beneath the wet-slate sky. The helicopter’s landing on the pad at the ship’s stern was bumpy, to say the least.

“Welcome aboard!” called Matt Trulli, waving as Nina and Eddie hurried through the drizzle to meet him. “Great to see you both. Been up to anything exciting?”

“You could say that,” Nina replied with a pained smile. “You know, the usual.”

“Ah, right,” Matt said knowingly. “So what got destroyed this time?”

Eddie started to count items on his fingers. “A skyscraper, a helicopter, a secret US base …”

“Jesus, mate, I was kidding!” He shook Eddie’s hand firmly. “Seriously, though, I’m glad to see you again. I knew you were innocent.”

“Thanks,” said Eddie, smiling. “Would be nice if that were the end of it, but nope, we’ve still got problems.”

“Which is why we’re here,” said Nina. “Can we go inside?”

“Sure.” Matt brought them through a hatch into the ship’s interior, then headed down a passage. “Should warn you, Hayter’s about as happy as you’d expect that you were coming.”

“How’s progress been on the excavations?”

“Pretty good, I’d say. He can give you the details, but the biggest problem’s been that there’s a fairly huge piece of wreckage from the
Evenor
right on top of where you want to look. Too big to lift, even for
Sharkdozer;
we’ve had to cut it up. Most of it’s been moved now, though.”

“Good. I saw when we came in to land that the subs are on the ship—why aren’t they working?”

The Australian grinned. “ ’Cause I knew you were coming! Figured you’d want to work the arses off them, so I brought them back up top to recharge.”

“You know me so well,” Nina replied with a grin of her own.

They went into a large compartment overlooking the foredeck, where the archaeological expedition’s two submersibles were suspended from their cranes. Waiting for them was Lewis Hayter. As Matt had implied, his thin face was not exactly brimming with joy at his boss’s arrival. “Oh, Nina,” he said sullenly. “You’re here.”

She decided to try to make the best of the situation. “Hello, Lewis. I caught up with the daily reports on the flight over—it looks like you’ve made excellent progress. Thank you.”

He nodded, a little off balance from the praise. “We’re doing the best we can. It’s cutting things fine, though—even if the weather holds, the
Gant
will still have to return to port in five days at the most. I don’t think we’ll be able to do any further work until the spring.”

“Think of it as a positive,” she said. “It means you definitely
will
be back in the spring! The entire excavation can be extended, and you’ll still be in charge. If that’s what you want, of course …”

It was a transparent attempt at manipulation, and they both knew it, but Hayter had little choice except to
go along with it. “I think that would tie in with my plans,” he said eventually.

“Great. So, what’s the situation with the Temple of Poseidon?”

Hayter, with occasional interjections from Matt, gave a report on the state of the dig that Nina had ordered. With both submersibles, the heavy-duty underwater excavation machine
Sharkdozer II
and the more exploratory-purposed but still capable
Gypsy
, working to clear the rubble from the altar room, progress had been relatively swift—by archaeological standards. “If you just wanted the stones moved, we could have done it in half the time, but you lot get so shirty about breaking the stuff underneath them,” said Matt jokingly, making Eddie laugh and temporarily uniting both archaeologists in humorless disapproval.

“What about any finds?” Nina asked Hayter.

“We uncovered more of the texts on the walls,” he told her, bringing up a collection of images on a laptop. “Still nothing from the very end of the chronology, but we must be close now. The new translation software has given us a fairly good idea of what it all says; the team back at the IHA are working out the subtleties.”

“Nothing new about the statues?”

“Not so far. Nantalas was mentioned once, but only in reference to what we’d already found—her so-called visions. She was trying to persuade the king to let her use the sky stone’s powers for war again.”

“She’s a nice lass, this Nantalas,” said Eddie.

“How close are we to the last section of text?” Nina asked. “Eddie, you saw it in person when we first discovered the place. Can you remember exactly where it was?”

“Show me that computer graphic thing,” he told Hayter, who brought up a program on the laptop. The numerous photographs taken in the ruins had been mapped onto the walls of a 3-D model of the altar room, producing a patchwork wallpaper effect that could be viewed from any angle. “That’s the shaft that we first came
through?” He indicated a particular feature, and Hayter nodded. “Okay, I remember that there was a pillar about there”—he pointed at another part of the virtual chamber—“so the writing ended … somewhere ’round
here
.”

The closest photograph was just a few feet from the spot. Matt compared the graphic with a wider shot taken inside the actual room. “We’re pretty near. Once we shift that last piece of wreckage, we should be able to clear these stones in … I dunno, not long. A few hours.”

“And how long to move the wreckage?” Nina asked.

“It’ll be a bit of a long stint, but I reckon we could do it all in a single dive.”

“How quickly can you have the sub ready?”

“It’s already prepped—we still have to go through the safety checks and lower it into the water, but about an hour.”

“Great! Let’s get going, then.”

“Might have known you’d be in a rush! No worries—we’ll have pictures for you before the day’s out.”

“I don’t just want pictures,” she replied. “I want to see it for myself. I’m going with you.”

Hayter looked startled at the suggestion, Matt less so. “You want to come along?” the archaeologist asked. “In the subs?”

“No, I thought I’d put on goggles and flippers and use a very long snorkel.
Yes
, in the subs.”

“Sarcasm isn’t really necessary,” he said sourly. “It’s just that
Gypsy
only has room for two people in addition to the pilot. As expedition leader I’ll be one of them, and I’ll need Lydia in support, as she knows the site firsthand.”

“Not a problem,” said Nina. “Eddie and I can go in Matt’s sub.”

“We can, can we?” Eddie grumbled.

“Oh, you knew it was going to happen. You got to go down to the Temple of Poseidon last time—there’s no way I’m going to miss the chance now. Anyway,
Sharkdozer
has room for three people, doesn’t it, Matt?”

“Four if you don’t mind being up in each other’s armpits,” the Australian told her jovially.