by S. A. Beck
“That would be a disaster,” Corbin conceded.
More for me than you, he thought.
“So tell me more about this mission,” the CIA official said. It came out like an order.
Corbin made a mental note to get rid of this guy once he took over.
“As I told you, that’s classified. You’ll get a full report when the mission is complete.”
“I’m afraid that’s not good enough, not after what happened last night.”
Corbin thought for a moment, and decided part of the truth would be better than none. “We have reason to believe these People of the Sea have established a network not only in the region, but with fellow members of their ethnic group in Europe, North America, and other countries. They think of themselves as special, the original race. They do have an ancient history in this region and may really predate all the other civilizations here. Even some of the Arabs and Tuaregs and black Africans believe their stories. Some even believe they have magical powers. The People of the Sea have created a terrorist group that plans nothing less than world domination.”
Owen scoffed. “The last time a terror group thought that, they got wiped off the map. It acted so arrogantly that every faction that could have become their allies ended up fighting against them.”
“These groups are bound to fail, but they cause a hell of a lot of trouble in the meantime.”
Owen nodded, and by the serious expression on his face Corbin knew he had him. This man, like everyone in the CIA, had been trained for years to see the world as nothing but a series of threats. It was easy to play upon that preconception and turn it to his own purposes. Owen and Corbin spent an hour making preliminary plans about how to deal with the “terror” group. Corbin resisted the urge to fidget. Every minute that slipped by increased the chance of his being caught. But he had to placate this officer. With the ambassador away, Owen was essentially in charge. He was by far the most dangerous person here as far as Corbin was concerned.
At last he earned enough of Owen’s confidence to get where he needed to be—in a soundproof room with a secure satellite telephone. That Owen guy was a real hard case. Not only did he ask all the right questions, but Corbin couldn’t tell how much of his phony story the CIA agent believed. That planning session had just been a contingency in case Corbin had told the truth. It wouldn’t be long before Owen did some checking up on him. Corbin had covered his tracks well, but it was difficult to hide something as big as the Poseidon Project. He needed to make this call and get out of here somehow.
Then inspiration struck.
He called Isadore. Thankfully, she actually picked up. Until that moment Corbin hadn’t been entirely sure she was still alive. He filled her in on the situation.
“This is bad. What do you want me to do?” his best assassin asked.
“Where are you now?”
“Crossing the border. We stole a vehicle from Doctors Without Borders. We can get to you within 24 hours.”
“Good,” he pulled out his cell phone, thanking himself for having the foresight to get a Mauritanian SIM card, and gave her his local number. “Call me on that line as soon as you get into town.”
“What do you have planned?”
General Corbin smiled. “You’re going to kidnap me.”
Chapter 13
AUGUST 29, SOMEWHERE IN THE SAHARA DESERT
6:00 AM
* * *
Jaxon had given up trying to struggle. She had fought back in the tent and had been quickly knocked out. When she had come to and discovered she was being carried through the desert by an Atlantean man running at least fifty miles per hour, she had put up a fight, only to get knocked out again.
Now, as the sun rose on another punishing day in the Sahara, she was being carried like a football over sand dunes, still at that same impossibly fast and steady pace. Her arms were pinned to her sides and she hung limp, the bouncing of Orion’s running making her sore and dizzy.
He hadn’t said a word. After a while she had given up trying to talk. Every now and then Orion would look at a compass, scan the horizon, and keep on running.
The sun rose higher. Jaxon began to sweat. How long could this guy keep it up? She had strength and endurance well beyond regular human levels, but Orion made her look like a wimp. She bet even Mateo couldn’t match him.
She worried about Vivian. Orion had knocked her out before kidnapping Jaxon. Had he hit her hard enough to kill her? If not, had Elaine been able to heal her in time?
Jaxon kept craning her neck to look at the brilliant blue sky, hoping to see Elaine’s drone following them, but she saw nothing.
At last Orion stopped, unceremoniously dumping Jaxon on the ground. She lay there, afraid to rise.
“I’ve been instructed to capture you,” Orion told her, “but if you resist or it looks like I can’t keep you until I get where we’re going, I’ve been instructed to kill you.”
Jaxon suppressed a shudder. “And where are we going?”
Instead of answering, he took a canteen hanging by a strap from his shoulder and handed it to her. He carried two canteens. She hoped they were both full.
“Drink.”
She took several big gulps. The sun beat down on them now. Neither of them had a hat, although Jaxon did have a scarf she had wrapped around her head. She usually slept with it on to keep the sand out of her hair. It would be some measure of protection against the sun.
Orion took the canteen back and replaced the cap.
“Aren’t you drinking?” Jaxon asked.
“I don’t need it.”
“Look, just let me go. General Meade is gone. He’s probably dead or captured by the Tuareg rebels or something. You’re free.”
“I don’t follow General Meade anymore. I follow General Corbin.”
“That other guy? He got captured by the vice president. He’s a prisoner. You’re free!”
Orion picked her up.
“You don’t have to do this!” Jaxon shouted. “We can take you to my friends. I know scientists and Atlantean healers. They can help you.”
“Remember what I said. Don’t struggle.”
Orion set off across the desert once more. Jaxon tried to relax, saving her energy and biding her time.
After a few miles, Jaxon felt a strange force pulling her attention ahead of them and a little to the east. She looked in that direction but saw nothing but the same searing desert. Orion kept going, but after a minute he glanced in that direction too. His pace slowed. Jaxon felt that whatever was there, they had gotten closer to it.
Orion stopped, staring in the exact direction from which she felt the pull.
Oh no. he feels it too.
Orion got a puzzled look on his face. He set her down and stared. “There’s something over there. How do I know that?”
He motioned for her to follow. “Come. If you run, I’ll chase you down and kill you.”
She followed.
At first they didn’t see anything, but as the sensation grew stronger, Jaxon began to notice low mounds in the sand. Vaguely she could make out square and rectangular shapes, and a clear area in the center. It looked like the village at the well, but far more eroded. Sitting out here exposed to the desert winds for all those millennia, she was surprised there was anything left of the old settlement at all.
Orion looked around, his eyes not focusing on the ruins.
“It’s the remains of one of our villages,” Jaxon explained. “One of the villages for our people back when the desert was green. Look.”
She kicked away sand on one of the mounds until she revealed two stone blocks, one standing on the other. Orion stared at them.
“We used to be traders and teachers. We helped found civilizations all over the world.”
“Who’s we?” Orion asked.
“Our people, the descendants of the survivors of the fall of Atlantis.”
Orion stared at her, his face a blank. Jaxon had thought that this revelation would get so
me sort of reaction from him.
“Didn’t you know any of this before?” Jaxon asked.
“No.”
“Did you know your parents?”
“I was raised in CPS.”
“Don’t you want to know where you’re from? What our people have been doing all this time?”
“I want to do my mission,” Orion said, his voice still flat. He looked around, a spark of curiosity finally appearing in his eyes. For some reason that gave Jaxon hope. It made him look more human. “I also want to know why I sensed this place. I sensed you too. I couldn’t see a thing in that camp last night and yet I was drawn right to you. I can feel you standing there even when my back is turned. So don’t try to run. I can track you down.”
Jaxon looked out over the landscape, her eyes in a constant squint because of the sun’s harsh glare on the sand. Where could she go? The desert made her a prisoner just as much as Orion did.
Orion headed to the other side of the ruins.
“There’s something over here. Why can I feel that?” he sounded confused.
Jaxon felt it too. Something lay buried in that mound over there, the one surrounded by several smaller mounds.
They walked through the once thriving town, some way station in a vast trade network perhaps, but now reduced to nothing but a series of little sand dunes in the middle of nowhere. No wonder generations of archaeologists had missed places like these. Without her extra senses, she would have never have found it.
Orion would have never found it either.
He’s a Keeper of the Texts, just like me, she realized. That makes him ten times as dangerous.
They came to the mound. It looked like a large rectangular building and reminded her of the place where they had found the pendant. It hung around her neck right now. Luckily it remained hidden beneath her blouse and the headscarf she wore around her head and neck.
Good thing I wore the headscarf to bed, otherwise this sun would have knocked me out by now.
Her throat had become dry again and she felt the beginnings of a headache. She eyed the two canteens dangling on straps around Orion’s shoulder. She had drunk probably a third of one. Was the other full? It was probably only nine in the morning. How were they going to survive all day out here?
The terrible memory of her and Vivian dying out in the desert came back to her. They had only survived by a miracle. She couldn’t rely on a second one to save her.
Orion started digging with his bare hands at one end of the building. Despite her fear and the heat pressing down on her throbbing head, she knelt down by him and helped. As they cleared the sand, they began to uncover an altar similar to the one she and her friends had found in the last place, although a little smaller. The stone platform measured about six feet wide and four deep deep, set against the wall. Jaxon studied the remains of the wall behind for a carved picture, but like in the last one the desert winds had scoured away whatever message might have been there.
She spotted a seam around one of the altar stones.
“Here!” she said, not able to contain her excitement.
Orion tried to get a grip on the edge but the space was too narrow. He searched around for a stone and bashed at the edge, breaking off hunks of the altar stone. Jaxon backed off as fragments flew all around.
“Watch it!” Jaxon shouted. “You’ll break whatever’s inside.”
Orion ignored her. The stone shattered in his hands and he got a bigger one, some fragment of an old building. It must have weighed fifty pounds but he lifted it like it was made of Styrofoam.
He brought it down on the altar stone with a loud crack. Both it and the altar stone broke into half a dozen pieces.
“You’re smashing your own history!” Jaxon objected.
Orion still ignored her. He tossed the fragments over his shoulder one by one. Curiosity overruled Jaxon’s anger and she peered inside.
Like in the last place, a small cyst lay beneath the altar stone, and in it she saw the gleam of gold.
Orion lifted out a tablet about the size of a cutting board. It caught the sun and Jaxon had to turn away from the glare. When he set it in his own shadow, Jaxon looked again.
The tablet was covered with writing—a strange, angular script that looked unlike anything Jaxon had ever seen in her travels. One corner was dented, the writing distorted.
“Good job, idiot,” Jaxon said. “This thing has survived for who knows how many thousands of years and you crush it.”
“It’s still legible,” Orion said.
“Can you read it?”
“No. I suppose it’s some ancient language. I took some archaeology classes in college. I don’t recognize this. Probably some previously unknown language.”
“Yeah, our language. Our heritage. Doesn’t this move you at all?”
Orion shrugged. “Why should it?”
Jaxon rolled her eyes. What a loser. How couldn’t you care about your past?
On the other hand, Jaxon realized, until all this craziness began, she didn’t care about her own past either. She didn’t care about anything at all. And she didn’t have being hypnotized by a secret government project to use as an excuse.
Orion dropped it back in the cyst.
“What are you doing?” Jaxon asked.
“We don’t need it.”
“It’s important!” Jaxon couldn’t bear letting it be lost again, even if it did end up in the wrong hands. Every link to their vanished civilization was precious.
“My mission is to take you to General Corbin, not dig around old ruins. I shouldn’t have gotten distracted.”
Jaxon had an idea. “But you did. You felt its pull. That’s because you’re Atlantean. You have a connection to it, and to me, and to all those people you’ve been fighting. That’s more important than being a slave to Corbin.”
Orion’s face clouded with confusion for a moment, then he shook his head.
“Let’s go. It will be easier if I carry you piggyback.”
“At least let me take the tablet,” Jaxon said, reaching for it.
As she bent over it, the world spun. She fell hard on her knees, her vision momentarily going dark. The fear and fatigue of the last few days, the discomfort of her sleepless night, and the heat beating down on her had become too much to bear.
Orion knelt beside her and gave her one of the canteens.
“Drink.”
She drained it.
“I don’t know how you can have run all this way without getting thirsty,” she said.
“I am thirsty, but I can take it better than you can, than anyone can. There’s a limit, though. We need to get going. We need to find a settlement before noon.”
Jaxon grabbed the tablet.
“We don’t need that,” Orion said.
“I’m not leaving without it.”
Orion put his hands around her throat. Jaxon tensed. He could crush her windpipe like she could bend a soda straw.
“Toss it,” he ordered. “We don’t need it.”
“Yes we do need it. Look, General Corbin prefers me alive, right? Well, I’m not leaving without this. Kill me if you want. And besides, he’ll want any artifact from Atlantis. You can feel its power.”
Orion thought for a moment as Jaxon’s heart pounded in her chest. She hadn’t meant it when she said she’d rather die than leave it behind. Maybe that reflected badly on her, but she preferred to live. She hadn’t really cared about her life one way or the other until she had discovered her heritage. Now what had once seemed like a burden felt more precious than anything in the world.
Orion removed his hands. “Very well. Get on my back and carry the tablet. If you try anything, you die. Even if you smash that tablet on my head as hard as you can you’ll only stun me for a moment or two. After that I’ll chase you down and kill you.”
Jaxon nodded. She knew she could only push him so far.
She got on his broad back, feeling strangely childlike, and Orion checked his compass and starte
d to run across the desert as fast as a Land Rover.
Chapter 14
AUGUST 29, SOMEWHERE IN THE SAHARA DESERT, MAURITANIA
11:00 AM
* * *
The hours and miles seemed to stretch out forever. The rhythmic bouncing of Orion’s steady gait lulled Jaxon into a hazy half-sleep. The sun had risen high, turning the desert into an oven. The metal tablet grew too hot to touch and Jaxon had to wrap it in her headscarf, exposing her even more to the sun’s punishing rays.
Through bleary eyes she saw nothing, nothing but an endless plain of sand and stone, blinding in the sun’s glare. Her throat and tongue had swollen, making speech difficult. Orion had only given her a little water. As the day grew hotter, he started drinking some himself. Sweat glistened off the dark skin of his shoulders and neck. Jaxon thought he had begun to slow down, but she couldn’t be sure.
She couldn’t be sure of anything except that she was helpless now. Her thoughts had become muddled and she couldn’t think of a plan to escape or even resist. Nor should she. If she managed to get away from Orion she would die in this desert.
At times she faded away, her vision darkening and her body slumping over Orion’s shoulders. At some point, she couldn’t remember when, he had started carrying the golden tablet.
It was during one of these periods of semi-unconsciousness that she got startled awake by a hoarse cry from her captor. She opened her eyes and immediately saw why he had cried out. A cluster of palm trees stood in the distance. They had found an oasis!
Orion sped up. As they approached, she spotted several tents pitched in the shade. Distant figures pointed and called to each other at their approach.
Despite being half dead with thirst, she couldn’t help but smile to think of what a sight she and Orion made—one of the People of the Sea giving another a piggyback ride while running thirty miles an hour and carrying a golden tablet.
They entered the shade of the palm grove, the change in temperature barely registering in her bleary mind. Orion set her down with her back against the trunk of a palm tree, dropped the tablet in her lap, and pushed through the curious crowd.