The Atlantis Gene: A Thriller (50 page)

David looked up, studying the area above the stairs. There was a huge dome and a place where the structure’s overhang had been cut away from above.

“What is it?” Howard said.

“This is where they extracted the Bell,” David said, almost to himself.

Howard walked to the stairs, put his foot on the first step and looked back at David.

Without a word, David hobbled forward, moving up the stairs, leaning heavily on his cane. As he grimaced and climbed, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu engulfed him. The tunnelmaker, Patrick Pierce, had also been lured down here under the guise of rescuing someone, only to be trapped himself. David crossed the threshold with Howard following closely. He stopped and studied his mentor’s eyes. Was he missing something? What could he do about it now?

Inside, the structure was illuminated with LED lights that ran along the floor and ceiling. The corridors were about eight feet tall — not cramped, but not exactly spacious. They also weren’t square. The bottoms and tops of the corridors curved slightly, giving it an oval shape, except the curves formed in sharper angles. Overall, the halls felt like the corridors of a ship — a Star Trek ship.

David led Howard down the corridors, following the mental image he had formed of the map. Memorizing maps and codes was one of the quintessential tools of trade craft, and David was good at it.

The structure was incredible. Many of the doors to the rooms were open, and as they passed by, David saw a series of make-shift labs, like something you might see behind the glass of a museum, where curators carefully studied or restored historical artifacts. Apparently the Immari had dissected every inch of the structure in the past 100 years.

It was surreal. David had only half-believed the tunnelmaker’s tale, had thought that perhaps it was just that — a tale. But here it was.

The false wall to the chamber was coming up — just around the next turn. As it came into view, David felt himself holding his breath. The chamber was… Open.

Kate. Was she inside?

“Kate,” David called out. There was nothing to lose. Anyone inside could hear his cane clacking on the metal floor from a mile away, so they didn’t exactly have the element of surprise.

No answer.

Howard formed up behind him.

David crept to the edge of the chamber’s opening and peered inside. The room looked like some sort of command center. A bridge, with chairs dotted along smooth surfaces — computers? Something more advanced?

David moved into the room as carefully as he could. He pivoted around, leaning on his cane, scanning every inch of the room. “She’s not here,” he said. “But the journal, the story was true.”

Howard stepped inside the room and hit a switch behind him. The door to the room hissed closed, sliding from right to left. “Oh yes, it’s quite true.”

David studied him. “You’ve read it?” David again wrapped his fingers around the gun tucked in his belt.

Howard’s face had changed. His usually mild expression was gone. He looked satisfied. Confident. “I’ve read it, yes. But just out of curiosity. I knew what it would say because I was there. I saw it first-hand. I hired Patrick Pierce to find this place. I’m Mallory Craig.”

CHAPTER 110

Kate sat on the small plastic bench and stared at the white walls. She was in some sort of lab or research facility, but she had no idea where. She rubbed her temples. God, she was so groggy. Somewhere over the South Atlantic sea, a man had walked back into the plane and offered her a bottle of water. She had declined, and he had proceeded to hold her down and cover her mouth with a white cloth, the type that promptly induced unconsciousness. What had she expected?

She stood and paced the room. There was a small slit in the white door, but the window revealed only the hallway outside and a few more doors like the one to her room.

One of the long walls of the room had a rectangular mirror, recessed a few inches into the wall. This was no doubt an observation room, similar to the ones in her lab in Jakarta, except infinitely more creepy. She stared at the mirror. Was someone in there, watching her right now?

Kate squared her body to the mirror and looked into it as if she could see the mysterious man behind it — her captor. “I did my part. I’m here. I want to see my children.”

A voice broke over a loud speaker. It was muffled and computer-altered. “Tell us what you treated them with.”

Kate thought. She would have no leverage after she revealed what she knew. “I want to see them first, then you release them, and I’ll tell you.”

“You’re not in a position to negotiate, Kate.”

“I disagree. You need what I know. We both know your drugs won’t work on me. Now, you show me the children, or we’ve got nothing to talk about.”

Nothing happened for almost a minute, then on one side of the mirror, a video flickered to life. That part of the mirror must have been some sort of computer screen. The video showed the children, walking in a dark hallway. Kate stepped closer to the mirror, holding a hand out. Ahead of the children, a massive portal opened, revealing only darkness inside. The children walked through. The video paused with an image of the portal closing.

“You’ve read the tunnelmaker’s journal. You know about the structure in Gibraltar. There is a similar structure twenty times larger here. We think it’s eight times the size of Manhattan, almost five miles wide and 50 miles long, and it’s two miles below us. It’s been there, beneath two miles of ice, for countless thousands of years. The children are inside.”

The screen in the mirror switched to a close-up image of the children before they crossed the portal. It zoomed in on packs the children carried. There was a simple LED readout, the type you see on alarm clocks — a series of digital numbers. A countdown.

“The children are carrying nuclear warheads in those packs, Kate. They have less than thirty minutes left. We can deactivate them remotely, but you have to tell us what you did.”

Kate stepped back from the mirror. It was insanity. Who would do this to two children? She couldn’t trust them. She wouldn’t tell them. They would only hurt other children; she was sure of it. She had to think. “I need some time,” she mumbled.

The image of the packs disappeared from the mirror.

A few seconds passed, and the door swung open. A man wearing a long black trench coat stepped robotically into the room and… Kate knew him.

How could it be? Flashes of expensive dinners, her laughing as he charmed her, a candle-filled apartment in San Francisco, him unbuttoning her shirt, his head moving down her, kissing her stomach — a stomach without a scar. And the day she told him she was pregnant — the last day she ever saw him… until now, here.

“You—” was all Kate could manage. She stepped back as he marched into the room. Kate felt her back hit the wall.

“Time to talk, Kate. And call me Dorian Sloane. Actually, let’s dispense with the aliases. It’s Dieter. Dieter Kane.”

CHAPTER 111

Immari Tunnels
Gibraltar

David watched the man pace across the room, the man he had known as Howard Keegan, Clocktower Director, the man who now claimed to be Mallory Craig.

“You’re lying. Craig hired Pierce almost a 100 years ago.”

“That’s true, I did. And we’ve been looking for his journal almost as long. Pierce was an extremely clever man. We knew he sent the journal to the Immaru in ‘38, but we weren’t sure it made it there. I was curious what he would say, how many secrets he would reveal. When you read it, weren’t you curious about the deal he made with us? Why he stayed, working for The Immari for almost 20 years after the Spanish Flu killed his wife and unborn child? What did he call it? His ‘deal with the devil.’” The man laughed.

David slipped the gun out of his belt. He had to keep him talking, at least a bit longer. “I don’t see what it has to do with you.”

“Don’t you? Why do you think Pierce would have worked with us?”

“You would have killed him.”

“Yes, but he didn’t fear death. You read the journal’s end. He would have welcomed it, would have killed us all in a blaze of glory. We had taken everything from him, everything he loved. But his love for his child was more powerful than his hatred. As I said, Patrick Pierce was very clever. The second he emerged from the tube, he knew what they were. Hibernation tubes, suspension chambers. In that makeshift hospital in the warehouse above us, he made a deal. He would put Helena’s dead body in one tube, and Kane would put Dieter, his dying son, in another tube. Both men became obsessed with medical research. They dreamed of the day they could open the tubes and save their loved ones. Of course, Kane’s ideas were more radical, more racially charged. He became obsessed with finding a way to survive the Bell. He took it to Germany, and… you already know about the experiments. We knew Pierce was working against us, planning something. In 1938, right before Kane’s expedition, he demanded Pierce go into a tube while he was gone.”

“Why not just kill him?”

“We would have liked to, but as a I said, we knew he had written a journal, and that he was making other plans against us. We assumed their execution was contingent on his death, so we were in a tough position. Kane didn’t trust him, and Pierce didn’t have a choice — we had something he valued much more than his own life. But he made a smart deal. He demanded I be put into the last tube — he knew I would unravel his plans and kill him in his sleep. While Kane was gone, we would both be put on ice. We would be brought back when Kane returned or in 40 years, whichever was sooner. Kane had laughed when Pierce demanded the 40-year clause. He never dreamed he wouldn’t return, but of course he didn’t. We only found his sub a few weeks ago in Antarctica. And Pierce and I woke up in 1978, in a different world. Our organization, the Immari, was practically gone; only the shells of our corporations and certain overseas assets remained. The Second World War had decimated us. The Nazis had appropriated many of our assets, including the Bell. I set about rebuilding Immari, and Patrick resumed his role of thwarting me. I began by reviving the organization I founded, my division of Immari, the world’s first global intelligence organization. You’re familiar with it. Clocktower. The Immari intelligence branch.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not. You know it. You saw the messages we sent in ‘47, the ones embedded in those New York Times obituaries. Why would Immari messages be marked with the words clock and tower? You had to have realized then, when you saw the decoded messages — or perhaps even before. Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, you’ve known what Clocktower was from the second you heard how many agents were under Immari control. You knew it when the cells fell so quickly. Think about it. Clocktower wasn’t compromised by Immari, it was an Immari division, a unit with one purpose: to gain the trust of the world’s intelligence bureaus, to infiltrate them fully, to ensure that when the day came, when we unleashed the Atlantis Plague, that they would be powerless, utterly blind. Clocktower had one other purpose: to collect and contain anyone who was on to the Immari master plan — people like you. The entire time you’ve been at Clocktower, we’ve been watching you, trying to find out how much you know and who you’ve told. It’s the only solution. People like you don’t break under interrogation. And there’s another advantage. We’ve found that, over the years, most agents join us when they learn the full truth. You will too. That’s why you’re here.”

“To get indoctrinated? You think I’ll join up if I hear your rationale.”

“Things aren’t as they seem—”

“I’ve heard enough.” David raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 112

Immari Research Base Prism
East Antarctica

Kate shook her head. How could he be here? She wouldn’t cry. All she could manage was, “Why?” Her voice cracked, betraying her.

Dorian’s expression changed, as if remembering something frivolous, a needless item he’d forgotten at the grocery store. “Oh, that. Just repaying an old debt. But that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do to you if you don’t tell me what you treated those children with.” He moved closer to her, forcing her into the corner of the room.

Kate wanted to tell him now, to see the look on his face. “Cord blood.”

“What?” Dorian took a step away from her.

“I lost the baby. But a month before I did, I had embryonic stem cells extracted from the umbilical cord, just in case the child ever developed a condition that required stem cells.”

“You’re lying.”

“It’s true. I used an experimental stem cell treatment on the children, using stem cells from the embryo of our dead child. I used them all. There aren’t any more.”

CHAPTER 113

Immari Tunnels
Gibraltar

David pulled the trigger again. Another click.

“I removed the firing pin,” Craig said. “I knew you would be able to tell the difference between a loaded and unloaded gun, so it was the best choice. And I needed to get you down here.”

“Why?”

“I’ve already told you. I’m here to recruit you. By the time we’re done talking, you’ll know the truth and you’ll finally—”

“I won’t. You can kill me now—”

“I’d rather not, David. Good men are hard to come by. There’s another reason: you know more than anyone else. You’re in a unique position to—”

“You know why I joined Clocktower, what the Immari took from me. What you took from me.”

“Not me. Dorian. Dieter. Granted, I used Clocktower to make sure no intelligence agencies got wind of the plot, but he planned 9/11. It was his brainchild. He was obsessed with searching those mountains for his father. He desperately needed some kind of closure. It wasn’t the only reason. As I said before, our organization was in shambles when I awoke in 1978, and we were still recovering in 2001. We needed money and a global cover to resume our work.”

“Impossible. Dorian Sloane is Dieter Kane?”

“It’s true. When I awoke in 1978, I ordered his tube opened, and he walked right out, as healthy as he could be. The tube must also be some sort of healing device, a medical treatment pod of some sort. But its powers are limited to treating the living. I watched as Patrick Pierce, who had been as stoic as a judge for the past 20 years, crumbled into unimaginable grief as they pulled Helena’s still-dead body from the tube. He relived her death all over again. But medical technology had come a long way, and we were able to save the child inside her.”