by Nick Thacker
The two men and woman in the row of chairs in front of him started moving, too — the two men barreled toward Graham, narrowly missing him as they hit the soldier standing guard behind him. The woman jumped over the table and tackled Rachel.
Graham couldn’t believe how fast they moved, and he wondered how injured the man had been, or if he had been faking it to conserve his strength.
The two men caught the guard by surprise and lifted him completely off his feet and smacked him — hard — into the closed metal door behind him. He groaned, but his head fell and they dropped him to the floor, knocked unconscious.
Two other soldiers and the man who had been standing at attention started toward the door as well, but Graham got in their way.
If my daughter’s going to die today, then so am I, he thought.
He lifted his arms up and tried his best to emulate an NFL-quality stiffarm.
The man didn’t so much as slow down, bringing his arms up and over his head in a stiff uppercut, blocking Graham’s arm. The third man — the one wearing a suit instead of the soldiers’ uniform — simply pushed Graham to the side as they passed.
He fell, but glanced over his head as he hit the ground. He hadn’t stopped them, but he had slowed them down. He saw the two men who had been sitting at the table — one thinner, almost scrawny, one large and bear-like — turn and face the oncoming attackers.
One of the soldiers raised his gun and pointed it at the larger man, but the thin one lifted the subcompact assault rifle he’d taken from the soldier at his feet and fired twice, rapidly.
Graham covered his ears, but it was too late. Even though it was a tiny machine gun, it sounded as though a bomb had gone off in the enclosed space, and the hard walls didn’t help.
The soldier slumped, then fell to the ground, dead. The second man was stunned, but recovered quickly. He fired a shot from his hip, but it hit the rock frame around the door. Graham was relieved to see that the two men had ducked outside just after they’d fired.
“Get them! Now!” Rachel yelled.
Two other soldiers that had been standing guard in the room ran out, while the odd man in the nicer dress and the last soldier in the room tried to peel the woman off of Rachel, who was now on the floor, wrestling.
Who are these people? Graham thought. They had snapped into action as if their entire attack had been planned.
Then he grew angry. Why didn’t they attack sooner? It’s too late now. Sarah’s going to be —
He looked up at the television and frowned.
Where the wall had been a few moments ago, nothing but a black shadow loomed. Sarah was nearly lost in the dark, but he could see her slightly darker silhouette, kneeling in front of the black sheet.
She’s alive.
“Sarah,” he said. He still couldn’t hear his own voice, or anything else, but he popped his ears and sat up. His knee had taken a good hit, but it was nothing. He stood, his eyes still glued to the TV.
“What’s happening?” he asked, to no one in particular. “What is — what is that?”
Slowly, around the room, heads began to turn toward the television. Rachel sat up, the woman who had been attacking her apparently interested as well, as she was now standing and watching, too.
“It — it opened,” Rachel said, her voice not hiding her awe. “She did it.”
Graham wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but slowly the room on the screen came back into view. The black sheet was, in fact, another chamber — now opened. The silhouette was of course his daughter, and the bell, on its tiny tower, was still standing in the middle of the room.
“She’s alive,” he said.
“She’s alive,” Rachel echoed. “She passed the test.”
Graham’s anger returned at the mention of the test. She put Sarah through this. On purpose. I will kill this woman, he thought. I won’t stop until she’s gone.
He clenched his fists and walked around the table toward Rachel.
“Hold it,” one of the soldiers said, digging the end of his rifle into Graham’s chest. “Not another step.”
“Yes,” Rachel said, “let’s go see, shall we?”
She looked around the room, as if shocked to see what had transpired.
On the screen behind her, two more silhouettes — the two men who had taken down two of the soldiers — walked into Room 23. They stopped on either side of the bell, watching Sarah as she looked out into the black nothingness.
Graham took a deep breath. My daughter’s alive, he thought. She’s fine. She opened the door. She’s fine.
He tried to repeat the mantra over and over again, but his heart was racing, beating out of his chest.
He led the way out of the room and started down the hall toward the room at the end. The door was open, and he could see the outline of the bell inside.
Beyond that, he could see his daughter standing at the edge of a deep sheet of darkness. The Great Hall, he thought. It’s real.
As he neared the room, he saw the two men come into view as well, both staring awestruck at whatever it was they could see. He walked closer and saw Sarah holding her right hand up, clutching something on her chest.
She turned around and met his eyes as he stepped into the room. He saw her then, scared, the same little girl who had nearly died on a waterfall so many years ago. The same fear, the same questions.
But there was something else.
There was a look in her eyes told him that she was still putting pieces together. It wasn’t just fear — it was intelligence. She’d figured something out. He looked at her hand, the hand that was clutching the —
The necklace.
He’d put the necklace in the tiny artifact before sending it to his daughter. The chain was his ex-wife’s — Sarah’s mother’s — but the opal stone on it, the stone onto which he’d glued the tiny silver ring that linked to the necklace itself, was the thing he’d found inside the artifact.
When he’d finally opened the artifact, the stone had been in there, unpolished and rough. Opal, he’d thought. A common gemstone, and his daughter’s birthstone.
She was clutching that necklace now, holding it tightly in her hand.
And there was a look in her eyes that told Graham that the necklace had something to do with how this monstrous rock wall had been opened.
It had everything to do with it.
76
Sarah
IT WORKED.
SARAH WATCHED the door — really nothing more than a massive slab of solid rock — open. She felt the cool, stale air come rushing into the room, mixing with the poisoned air of Room 23.
She took a deep breath, feeling the life come back to her. The air was old, but it was safe. She smiled, a tear falling over her cheek. She wiped it away, then stood watch at the edge of the enormous chasm that had opened in front of her very eyes.
She was holding the stone in her hand, the one her father had put inside the artifact.
Not opal, she thought. This isn’t opal at all.
It looked like opal, with its whitish complexion, flakes of shining mineral sparkling out to the surface. She was familiar with her birthstone, and while this rock could have easily passed as opal, she knew now that it wasn’t.
Reggie was there, behind her. She could sense him. She heard his breathing, knew it was him. Someone else was there, too, and farther away a third person was walking, entering the room. She didn’t move.
“Sarah,” a voice said, softly. “Sarah, are you okay?”
She turned around finally, facing her father. She wiped another tear from her eye and nodded, smiling, still holding the stone. “The — the necklace…”
“I know,” he said. “It wasn’t opal.”
She laughed. “No, I guess it wasn’t.”
She noticed Reggie then for the first time, seeing his leg dripping blood onto the rock floor, and she rushed to him. He grabbed her, trying to hold her up but she felt his torso shaking from the pain.
“It�
��s okay,” he said. “We can — we’ll have time later.”
She nodded.
She turned back to the third man in the room, Ben. “Thanks, Ben,” she said. “Thanks for helping me.”
He seemed to be more surprised than anyone, with a look of genuine confusion on his face. “You got it, but… you know, we’re not out of the woods yet.”
Sarah looked over his shoulder and saw Rachel Rascher standing in the hallway just outside the door, three men holding dangerous-looking weapons standing around her.
“Hello, Sarah,” Rachel said. “You passed the —”
Sarah ran toward Rachel, her fists clenched, but Ben caught her and held her. “Not now,” he whispered. “They still have the upper hand.”
Sarah saw the men up close, recognizing one of the brutes who had taken her from the hotel, and nodded. Not now, she agreed, but their time will come.
“I must say I am impressed,” Rachel said, stepping into the room. “We thoroughly examined this room for weeks, as did my father and great-grandfather before me. We saw no cracks, no mechanism that would suggest —”
“Did you apply current to it?” Sarah asked.
Rachel frowned. “Electrical current? Of course not. Why would we?”
“The door is electrically charged,” Sarah explained. “That’s how it opened.”
“I don't — I don’t understand.”
“I have to say, I’m as confused as she is,” Ben said. “You’re saying these people who built this place had power? Like real, electrical power?”
Sarah looked at Ben, but focused on the soldiers and some other people stepping through the door and into the room. Julie, followed by Mrs. E, followed by —
“Alex?”
Alexander walked toward her, then embraced her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know your father was…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “How did you find me?”
He held up his phone. “Your phone pinged an update with your location every ten minutes. Just like you have us do on a site.”
She smiled. “I forgot to turn it off.”
“Good thing, too.” He paused. “And I’m glad you’re okay. But yeah — how’d you open the door?”
She showed them her necklace. My father gave this to me. It was in the artifact he sent me.”
Rachel shot a glance at her father, who sulked in the corner. “It’s just a rock,” he said. “You were looking for some sort of powder, or liquid. I figured this rock was added later, making it like a jewelry box or something.”
“It’s not just a rock, though,” Sarah said. “It’s not opal. It’s tourmaline.”
“Tourma-what?” Ben asked.
“Tourmaline. A relatively common stone, found all over the place. But this strain — this coloring — it’s pretty regional. Found in the Mediterranean, especially the islands.”
Professor Lindgren smiled. “Not, I might add, in Greenland.”
“And it opens secret doors?” Reggie asked.
“Yes,” she said. “This one does. Tourmaline is actually electrically polarized, and works like a piezoelectric conductor. Apply a quick bit of pressure and you get a small amount of voltage.”
“When you hit the wall…” her father said.
“Exactly,” she said. “When I hit the wall, the stone was smacked against the wall, causing enough pressure to send a charge — albeit a small one — into it. Whatever system is in place is set to open whenever there’s an electrical current active.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ben said. “The Egyptians built an electronic sliding door?”
“No,” Rachel said. “The Atlanteans did. Furthermore, they never told anyone how to open it. That’s why the Egyptians left it here, unopened. My ancestors came here, too, and were unable to gain access. This door to the Great Hall was left here as the final resting place of the collected wisdom of Atlantis and their civilization. Only to be opened by the pure.”
Next to her, Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “‘By the pure,’” he said. “That means… all of the killings the Nazis were a part of — the massacre — it was to find these people they thought were ‘pure?’”
Rachel nodded. “Yes. Furthermore, it was to cleanse the races that were decidedly not pure.”
“But they were looking in the wrong place,” Ben said. “‘Purity’ had nothing at all to do with race, did it?”
Rachel stared at him.
“It was about having the key. That’s it. Just a tiny rock.”
“How did you find out about all of this? Your great-grandfather was a Nazi, but how did he know? How did he find this place?”
Rachel didn’t answer. Sarah watched the interrogation, interested. She was curious, but the feeling didn’t supersede the anger she was feeling.
Agent Sharpe stepped closer to Ben. “Because of the Book of Bones,” he said softly.
“What?” Sarah and Ben said in unison. What is the Book of Bones? she thought. Then, Sharpe knew about it?
“The Book of Bones,” he said. “The lost book of Plato. A full account of the Atlantis civilization, including where they traveled and where they left their final fortune — the Great Hall of Records.”
“And your great-grandfather had this book?”
“A version of it, yes,” Rachel said. “The only full original we have was found by the Egyptian government and was wasting away in a museum until my team rediscovered it. But there are fragments of the scrolls still out there. One of these fragmented copies was in a chest that had been passed down through my family. My great-grandfather was only able to read a portion of the text, as it was decaying and written in an early Greek syntax.”
“Greek?” Alex said. “Interesting.”
“Why?” Ben asked. “Plato was Greek, right?”
He nodded, but didn’t explain, apparently lost in thought.
“And this ‘book’ told your great-grandfather to test the different races of people for their purity, and then kill anyone not pure enough?”
Rachel glared at him.
“Sounds to me like your entire family was a bunch of murderous, racist nutjobs.”
Rachel nodded, then turned to face the gaping wide opening of the Hall of Records. The interior was still pitch-black, and Sarah couldn’t see farther than twenty feet into the massive space.
Sarah frowned, wondering what Rachel was doing, when she heard a sickening smack. She turned and noticed Ben falling to the floor, the butt of a rifle retreating back into the hands of one of the soldiers who’d snuck up behind him.
She heard the unmistakable sound of magazines clipping into the bottoms of rifles, and turned to see not just the three Mukhabarat soldiers who’d followed them in, but three more soldiers behind them, waiting outside the door, all of them pointing their weapons inside the room.
Sarah herself had two men aiming directly at her.
Status quo, she thought. Rachel still has the upper hand.
“It’s time to go,” Rachel said, still facing into the Hall. “Dr. Lindgren, would you and your father step this way, please? I want to keep you around in case there are any more doors that need opening or puzzles to solve.”
Ben groaned from the floor, and Reggie’s face was pale, contorted with pain. Alex, Mrs. E, and Julie were staring at her, but none were moving. Their arms were up, palms out, above their heads.
“And the rest of them?” Sarah asked.
“They are not necessary to the rest of our mission,” Rachel said. “Kill them.”
77
Ben
BEN’S NECK WAS THROBBING where they’d smacked him with the rifle, but he hadn’t been knocked out. He had, however, been sent to the floor, where he groaned and ‘played dead’ for a few seconds.
That’s when he’d heard the woman give the order to kill them.
Ben had been in some sticky situations — figuratively, like the time in Antarctica when they’d been pressed into a corner by a contingent of Chinese force
s, as well as literally, like when he’d been sticky, wet, muddy, and exhausted in the Amazon rainforest. He’d fought against ruthless criminals, been tied to a chair and beaten senseless, and hung from a rope off an Antarctic cliff.
But he wasn’t going to die here today. He refused to watch these idiots kill Julie, his best friend, and innocent civilians. He refused to go down without a fight.
The problem was that his best friend, the man he’d trust to face down a grizzly, was nursing his own injury. He wouldn’t be much help. Mrs. E and Julie, as well as the newcomer, Alex, were all too far away from the action to do any good.
And Sarah and her father were shellshocked, probably still too shaken up to offer support.
He sighed. Sounds like it’s up to me, then, he thought.
He shifted around so that he was laying on his side. He noticed that the three soldiers that had been in Room 23 with them had been joined by three more equally large soldiers, each holding equally menacing weapons.
Six on one, he thought. Not bad.
Ben kicked his leg out as hard as he could at the soldier standing over him, aiming for the soft spot just under the man’s knee. It buckled with a crunch, the knee blowing out backwards and sending the guy down. Ben kept moving, knowing that the outburst would cause the attention to move toward him.
Which is great for Julie, Mrs. E, and Alex, and really bad for me.
He yanked the rifle out of the man’s hands as he flailed around, then rolled into the side of the room to dodge a kick from the second soldier.
Get to the door.
The door was the key to winning this fight, Ben knew. If he allowed the three new soldiers into the room, his advantage would quickly come to an end. He needed to get the door closed — and blocked.
“I got you,” Reggie said. Ben turned to face his friend, unsure of what he meant. “The door, I mean,” Reggie said.
Ben grinned, then nodded. He fired a burst of shots out the door, sending the soldiers there darting out of the way, then he slammed the door closed.
Reggie was already there, having limped over as Ben was fighting. He fell down in front of the closed door, pressing his back up against the metal panel. Two rounds pinged against the opposite side of the door, but they didn’t push through.