Harvey Bennett Mysteries: Books 4-6

by Nick Thacker

  And this time, he’d make sure he had more than a watch.

  52

  Graham

  WE ARE TRYING TO FIND THE solution to an ancient problem.

  Her abstract, vague response was still somehow smug, as if she had the answer all along.

  “What problem?” Graham asked. “You people think that I’m going to be of help to you because you’ve threatened me, threatened my daughter. In truth, I may have obliged from the beginning if you’d have just told me what it is you’re after.” Graham felt his confidence growing, his desire to reach a conclusion stronger than his longing for safety. “You think that by threatening me you’ll get me to comply with something, but the truth — and you know this — is that I’m clueless. I have no idea what you want from me. It’s almost as if you think that by tempting violence I am going to suddenly remember…”

  His voice drifted off.

  “Yes?” Rachel asked. Her voice was small, inconsequential. Almost pleading. She was playing a role, and that role had suddenly changed. Her demeanor shifted completely, going from evil captor to something akin to a parent, patiently waiting for their child to figure something out for themselves. “What is it, Professor?”

  Graham knew then that he’d been played. He had been trying to figure her out, as well as her two henchman, to determine what it was they were after. He was the captive, the prisoner, but they were the ones holding a ticking time bomb that threatened to detonate. They were the ones with the real deadline, and he’d assumed they would eventually grow desperate.

  Risking his daughter was not something he had been prepared to do, but since it had happened, he had reasoned with himself that it was the only obvious escalation: they had few cards to play against him, and by bringing in his daughter they could simultaneously benefit from his duty as a father to want to protect his child as well as use her for her own vast amount of knowledge.

  But he hadn’t suspected that he had been playing into her whims the entire time. He hadn’t suspected that all of this was a ruse, a decoy set up to make him believe the answer was something deeper, something far more vast than anything he could imagine.

  The truth was that he knew exactly, in that moment, what it was she wanted. The answer she sought was right there — it was the reason he had run up against so much trouble with his last paper, the one that had mysteriously been ‘unpublished’ from the university’s circulation. The paper that had been a point of contention between him and a few of the Ancient Histories scholars he was friends with.

  “This is about the paper, isn’t it?” he asked. “The one referencing Timaeus and Critias.” He paused, trying to judge her reaction. “The one about Atlantis.”

  At this, she leaned forward. “What about Atlantis, Professor?”

  “That Atlantis is not just some ‘lost continent,’” he said. “That Atlantis is a history of a civilization, one that describes a people bent on domination, so much so that they chose to go up against the most powerful nation known to the world at the time.”

  “Greece,” she said.

  “Athens, specifically,” he answered, feeling the lecturer within him begin to take over. “The Atlanteans thought they were powerful enough to defeat them. And they would have, if not for a cataclysmic event that stymied their ability to continue reinforcing their barrage against the Athenian strongholds.”

  He was now in his element, the pacing continuing but his demeanor changing to that of a professor ready to lecture on something he had spent his life studying, a professor so excited about his curriculum he couldn’t help but portray that excitement through his monologue.

  “They thought they could defeat the Grecian troops, and they could have — easily. But they planned a wave of attacks, over the course of many years, betting on the training programs and war academies they had established in their homeland to provide them with the young, fresh troops who would continue the onward progress.”

  Rachel was smiling now, but Graham could not have cared less. He was in full ‘professor’ mode, oblivious to his students.

  “They would have beaten the Athenians, soundly, if not for an event that shook the foundations of their society.”

  “What event, Professor?” Rachel asked, softly.

  He had practiced this delivery. He knew it top to bottom, had rehearsed it as if it was a speech he was going to give in front of the president. He knew the arguments forward and backward, knowing that the academic establishment would never accept his theory at face value. He would need to prove his point.

  “The flood.”

  “What flood?” Rachel asked, her whisper growing more intense.

  “The flood. The same one that shows up in nearly every origin story we have. Ancient civilizations gave us their histories, almost all of which have a common thread that involves a ‘flood of epic proportions.’

  “Noah’s Ark?” Rachel prodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “The same flood. The Christian histories are merely retellings of the same worldwide catastrophe, but the epicenter of the event was the Mediterranean. The Aegean and Black Sea, to be exact. The Atlanteans lived on an island in the present-day Aegean Sea, and thanks to many millennia of dominance and isolation, were allowed to advance beyond the capabilities of their continental neighbors. Shipping and sailing, farming and agriculture. Their closest peers were the Athenians, and they would have prevailed against them. The Athenians even ‘stayed the course of their mighty host,’ to use Plato’s own words. But then the flood…”

  He stopped. Why am I explaining all of this to her?

  “You know this already,” he said.

  She nodded. “I read the paper.”

  He frowned. “But it was taken down. The university must have —”

  “We removed it, Professor. I had my IT department hack into your university’s server and delete the article, then scour the web for any references of your paper, then reach out to the linking source and file a DMCA claim against it.”

  Graham knew exactly what she was referring to. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 as well as the related regulations and rules regarding online privacy that had been passed in the following years had provided a security blanket for content creators, in that they had an easy way to protect their intellectual property assets. The problem was that many organizations, afraid of the litigious society they were a part of, tended to act first and ask questions later. A simple DMCA claim, even if falsified, would be met with a swift removal of offending content by the host without so much as a question.

  For Rachel, it was probably quite simple for their computer whizzes to get into the university’s servers and delete the original files, a follow-up DMCA claim sent to the leading search engines requesting removal of links and references to the article, would have made it nearly impossible for anyone to find it.

  “Why?” Graham asked. “The information I compiled is freely available elsewhere, and —”

  “But you packaged it all up for us, nicely presented in a way that would make it impossible to ignore. Truth be told, if your research ever reached the public, our plans would be set back, if not completely destroyed. We don’t have the ability to prevent or control the academic scrutiny, nor the throngs of archeologists and anthropologists who would descend on this area.”

  “This area,” Graham said. “Where exactly is ‘this area?’”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Professor. I can’t disclose that information to you. Not at this time.” She swiveled and began to leave the room. Before she reached the threshold she turned back to face him. “But, I want to prove to you that we are, ultimately, on the same side. We have no interest in harming you or your daughter — we want your help. While I’m not just going to give you the answer, I won’t deny you the attempt at an educated guess.”

  She made an expression somewhere between eagerness and intrigue.

  He looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “Atlantis?”

  Surely no
t, he thought. In truth, he had no idea what a civilization like Atlantis would have ‘looked’ like. What architectural features they would use, or what characteristics would have defined their buildings, roads, temples, and homes. He was an archeologist, but the exact composition and stylistic elements of their culture were as foreign to him as they would be to anyone.

  Still, looking around, he somehow sensed that this place wasn’t Atlantis. It wasn’t the island of Santorini, or anywhere close to the nearby sunken island of the Cyclades Plateau.

  It felt wrong, somehow, like the stones this place had been formed from had been used not for their building properties, chosen specifically for the task, but because they were the only stones available. As if it had been constructed in haste. Even though it was a perfectly sound room, structurally coherent and satisfactorily reinforced, it didn’t scream sacred or important to him. Instead, it seemed to have the feel of a staging area, an anteroom that belied the importance and the very presence of a larger, more grandiose chamber.

  He stopped, suddenly realizing.

  He knew of one civilization that had used this style of architecture, one civilization that had built their buildings and monuments from the stones found far away, but their homes and crypts and lesser structures from the stones found right beneath their feet.

  Rachel watched him, studied him. She was questioning him, silently. Waiting for him to come to the conclusion he had been putting off since he’d gotten here.

  It can’t be true, he thought. It’s not possible.

  “I was right all along?” Professor Lindgren asked. “I was right in my paper, wasn’t I? That’s why you took it down.”

  She smiled, then nodded. “More right than you know.”

  “We’re… in Egypt? Just like I predicted?”

  She nodded once again.

  “The Giza complex. Cairo.”

  “Yes, Professor.”

  53

  Ben

  THEY REACHED THE DOCK TEN minutes later, and Ben helped Reggie up and out of the boat. Reggie was in his ‘lock and load’ mode, a state Julie had named after she’d seen Reggie shift into a close-minded, narrow-focused mindset with one goal and one target in view. He wasn’t able to think about anything else, and he was hardly capable of communicating while in that mode.

  As intense as it was, it usually only lasted a minute — Reggie used the shift as a way to lock his target into view, analyze the options and possible routes to success, and prepare his mind and body for a serious and deadly attack. Ben and Julie had seen it firsthand, and they knew to stay out of his way and let the man smolder.

  Ben focused on his own preparation. What’s the plan? he asked himself. What now?

  Julie was already on the dock, running up toward the beginning of the trail where the rocks met the wood planks of the short boardwalk. There was no one else around, but Ben moved cautiously anyway, careful not to alert anyone who may have been spying on the open bay behind him.

  He walked next to Reggie, waiting for the man to speak, knowing that a word or two would mean he was finished with his moment and ready to engage. Ben looked at the hill in front of them, charting Julie’s position at the base of the trail in his mind, and then seeing the distance from the bottom — where they were — to the top of the hill. The hill seemed to flatten off at the top, just before continuing up a steep incline to the base of the volcano, where it rose to the clouds far above his head.

  At that time, Ben heard two things — from in front of him, and at the base of the volcano where the hill ended and the steep rise began, he heard a man shouting down toward them. He was frantic, running toward them while waving something in his hands.

  An RPG.

  Ben knew the weapon from video games, but he wasn’t sure exactly what sort of ‘rocket-propelled grenade’ launcher the man was holding. All he knew — and all he needed to know — was that the weapon was coming closer to them, and that the man aiming it toward him had the high ground.

  The second thing he heard was the rhythmic beating of a helicopter’s rotor wash. It was flying in from behind them, just over the horizon and making a beeline for the top of the hill.

  “Get down!” Reggie yelled.

  It was too late, however. Ben was already moving toward Julie, who hadn’t seen the man and his sickening weapon from her perch directly below him. The man lifted the RPG and fired, the screech of the ignited propellant causing immediate terror for Ben.

  Shit.

  He reached Julie just before the detonation. He had lost track of Reggie, but Julie was wide-eyed and scared, apparently unaware of what was about to transpire. The explosion knocked him off his feet, but since they were close to a tall stand of boulders, the majority of the pressure wave dispersed without causing damage.

  He wrapped himself around Julie, his large body easily covering the majority of her exposed frame. The heat washed over him with a fury, the open areas of his body screaming in pain, but just as he thought the searing fire would consume him and his fiancée, it subsided. He fell back, breathing heavily, sweat covering his body.

  “Wh — what was that?” Julie asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” he answered, already looking for Reggie.

  Reggie had run the opposite direction, opting instead for the boat, where Mrs. E was still idling near the dock.

  The dock, however, could no longer be described as a dock. It was a mass of tangled wood and metal, charred posts cracked and sizzling, smaller pieces burning brightly against the dark water. Bits of smoldering ash fell from the sky, drifting down into the bay and landing on the surface of the water with a bright sizzle.

  Worst of all, the dock was no longer a single stretch of artificial land. The structure had been completely sheared in half, a gaping hole now burnt into the center of the length of wood planks.

  The hole was about fifteen feet in diameter, completely cutting Ben and Julie off from Reggie and Mrs. E in the idling boat, and Ben knew the boat wouldn’t be able to push in toward them much farther without going aground on the sharp rocks at the base of the hill.

  “What now?” Julie whispered.

  Her fear bled into Ben. He looked down at her, suddenly realizing that their fun and games had come at a massive price. They were stranded, stuck on a pile of rocks in the middle of a larger pile of rocks in the middle of a sea, unarmed and without a means to defend themselves.

  Reggie was shouting at him, and only then did Ben snap out of his funk. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind and focus on the next step rather than the devastation laying in front of him, and watched Reggie’s mouth.

  He couldn’t hear anything, but he couldn’t quite read Reggie’s lips, either. Something about ‘boat.’

  Boat. Get — boat, as far as he could tell. What the hell is he trying to —

  Julie was pulling his arm, nearly yanking him out of their hiding spot. His eyes widened, suddenly realizing what it was Reggie was trying to communicate.

  Get to the boat!

  He lunged forward, knowing Julie was going to be able to move faster than him and deciding she was better off alone for the moment. He forced his heavy legs into action, pumping and stretching them to their maximum force, aiming for the spot just beyond the gaping hole.

  Just get to the water, he thought. There was no way they’d be able to jump from their side of the dock to the boat, but there was a chance they could make it to the water, and then swim the rest of the way to the boat.

  At the very least, the water would protect them from the next RPG detonation.

  Or so he thought.

  Ben picked up speed, aiming toward the hole cut through the middle of the wooden dock, not bothering to worry about Julie or Reggie or Mrs. E or anything else in his life. He wanted to survive, and he wanted to get to that boat.

  He heard a whistling sound. His mind fell into a slow-motion subconscious, his feet pounding slower and slower on the top of the planks. He could hear his breaths, feel his heart puls
ing, heavier and heavier each step, knowing that he wasn’t going to make it.

  He heard the whistling grow in volume, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as they anticipated the impact.

  He knew it was close. Too close.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  Julie was suddenly in his vision, taking the leap just before him.

  Good, he thought. So good. She’s going to make it. She’s going to be —

  A brilliant blast of light shook him and threw his legs out from under him. The world turned on its axis, his vision blurring and simultaneously shifting sideways.

  54

  Ben

  EVERY SENSE AND NERVE IN Ben’s body flared up at once. Heat, smell, fire, danger, run, hide, pain.

  He screamed, but still couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the explosion. It felt as though he’d been placed inside a snow globe full of lava and fire, then shaken up and tossed down a staircase. His vision was screwy, his mind a blur.

  Julie, he thought. Get to Julie.

  But he couldn’t see Julie. He couldn’t see anything but orange and white and the smear of tears covering his eyes, trying to protect his vision from the flash. Then he felt her — bumped her, to be exact. She fell, and he fell with her, off the edge of the dock, or whatever hard surface he’d been running on, and then into the chilly water.

  The water surged up around him as he was pushed under by his own weight. It felt refreshing, cool, and seemed the perfect antidote to the fiery hell that had just been rained down on him. Julie was still in front of him, and he could see her petite frame kicking and fighting against the heavy waves. He saw her resurface, but he kept his head down, focusing on getting as far away from the remnants of the RPG detonation as possible.

  And, if possible, to stay hidden.

  He didn’t want their pursuer sending down any more of his death missiles. He knew sending an RPG down into the water hoping to hit a couple bobbing heads wasn’t a great choice, considering their low accuracy and necessity for a hard surface for proper detonation. That said, he also didn’t want to leave his fiancee’s and his fate in the hands of a crazed grenade-launching madman. And if the madman happened to get lucky, he knew the top of a man’s skull was a hard enough surface for an impact detonation.