The next image showed a huge wave crashing against the island’s coastline. People stood in horror as they watched the approach of their impending doom.
“ ‘Only those who took shelter in the caves—’ ”
“ ‘Catacombs,’ ” Sebastian said.
“ ‘—catacombs,’ ” Lourds made the adjustment automatically. The words drew him as he chased them with his flashlight, “ ‘survived the flood. Afterwards, when the sea rolled back, the survivors locked the Book of Knowledge away in the—home of—’ ” He stopped, unable to go on.
“ ‘In the Chamber of Chords,’ ” Sebastian said. “That’s where we are now.”
Lourds shone his flashlight over the stone wall. Robed men stood in the cave in front of pictographs that he recognized as the carvings he faced now.
“The Book of Knowledge is here?” Murani asked.
“I don’t know,” Lourds said.
Leslie yelped in surprise and pain.
When Lourds turned to face her, he saw that Murani had grabbed her by the hair and forced her down to her knees. He took a pistol from one of the Swiss Guards.
“What are you doing?” Lourds demanded. He stepped toward her.
Murani slammed the pistol into Lourds’s temple.
Pain exploded in Lourds’s head. Dizziness swept over him, and he dropped to all fours. He barely kept his face off the stone.
“Where is the Book?” Murani yelled.
Lourds barely kept from throwing up. Bile bit into the back of his throat. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say. That was written thousands of years ago. For all we know, someone already got the Book. The stories you heard could have been lying.”
Murani turned to Sebastian. “Tell me where the Book is.”
“No,” Sebastian said. “I’m not going to help you, Murani. You have disgraced yourself, your Church, and your God. I’ll be no part of this.”
Murani pointed the pistol at him. “Then you’ll be dead.”
For a moment Lourds thought Murani was going to shoot the old priest.
Sebastian held his rosary and prayed in a voice that cracked only a little.
Murani pointed the pistol at Leslie. “I’ll kill her. I swear to you, I’ll kill her.”
Sebastian opened his eyes and looked at Leslie. “I’m sorry.”
Furious, Murani turned his attention back to Lourds. “Keep reading. Find that Book. If you don’t, I’m going to kill this woman. You have ten minutes.”
Weakly, Lourds pushed himself to his feet and stood swaying. Then he picked up his dropped flashlight and staggered back to the wall of images. He moved down to an image of the five musical instruments.
Lourds blinked his eyes and tried to clear his double vision. “ ‘The survivors lived in fear of God. They locked the Book of Knowledge away in the . . . Chamber of Chords. The key was divided among five . . . instruments.’ I’m guessing, but it fits.”
“Keep going,” Murani ordered.
Lourds wiped sweat from his eyes. He moved to the next pictograph. “ ‘The secret was hidden within. The five instruments were given to five men who were called . . . Keepers.’ ” He plucked that term from what Adebayo, Blackfox, and Vang had used to refer to themselves. “ ‘The Keepers were chosen from among those who now spoke different languages. They were given the parts of the key and sent out into the world. They were never to be together again until God called them together.’ ”
When he moved on to the next wall section, Lourds found that it was blank. He played the flashlight around, then turned back to Murani.
“There’s nothing more,” Lourds said in a thin, quiet voice. He fully expected Murani to shoot him out of frustration.
“The secret’s in the musical instruments,” Murani said. “Find it.”
At Murani’s gesture, Gallardo and his men brought the music cases forward and deposited them on the ground.
Lourds hesitated. The challenge was difficult, and the conditions were impossible. But he wanted to save Leslie. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted to rise to the occasion.
“Don’t do this.”
Lourds swiveled his head in Father Sebastian’s direction. The old man stood there with his rosary in hand.
“The Book of Knowledge was hidden away,” Sebastian said. “God had it hidden for a reason. It destroyed this world.”
Lourds thought about the images of destruction captured on the stone walls. They only scratched the surface of the true horror that had overtaken the island kingdom.
“You’re not supposed to do this,” Sebastian said.
“Shut him up,” Murani snarled.
Gallardo punched Sebastian in the throat. The priest collapsed to one knee as he coughed and gagged. Without mercy, Gallardo kicked the old man in the side and knocked him over.
One of the Swiss Guards, the one with the scar, made a small sound of protest. Gallardo turned and stared him down. But he backed away from the old priest.
Murani pulled the gun from Leslie’s head and crossed to stand in Lourds’s face.
Lourds wanted to step back. The threat emanating from the cardinal was a palpable force. Sickness twisted in Lourds’s stomach.
“You are supposed to do this,” Murani said in a low, fierce voice. “You didn’t even know about any of this. Yet here you are. Do you believe in God’s will, Professor Lourds?”
Lourds tried to answer but couldn’t force his voice through his fear-constricted throat.
“I think,” Murani said, “that you’re here by God’s will. I believe that he wanted you here. To serve in this fashion.”
“Don’t do it, Thomas,” Leslie entreated.
“Think about the knowledge.” Murani said. “Could you go to the grave without knowing this?” His dark eyes searched Lourds’s. “You are so close. Think about it. There’s every chance that I won’t be able to read what’s written in the Book of Knowledge. I’ll need you for that as well. You find the Book, you get to live.”
Lourds wanted to say no. Everything good and decent within him did not want to cooperate with the crazed zealot before him. But an insistent voice in the back of his mind wouldn’t shut up. He wanted to read that Book. He wanted to know what had been written there.
“How can you walk away now?” Murani asked.
“Don’t let him sway you,” Sebastian croaked. “Don’t let him tempt you.”
But the temptation was too great. This was the best and finest thing Lourds had ever been part of finding.
And it wasn’t found yet.
Without a word, he turned his attention to the musical instruments.
During the time after she’d arrived early at Cádiz, Natasha had familiarized herself with the dig site as much as possible. She’d read newspapers and magazines that had been scattered around the media camp. Gary had helped her gather them. They’d also watched some of the news video that journalists had broadcast. The dig had been heavily in the rotation on the news channels.
According to everything she’d learned, the cave where the mysterious door featured in all the video was located was two miles in from the entrance.
She walked to the motor pool inside the first cave where the heavy equipment was kept. She spotted a small pickup sitting by itself in the darkness beyond the reach of the security lights.
The truck was locked up tight. Natasha supposed it was more habit on the part of the driver rather than to prevent theft. Who would make it over the fence to cause trouble with the equipment?
“Locked, huh?” Gary said. “Maybe there’s another—”
Natasha opened the toolbox in the truck bed, took out a small crowbar, and smashed the driver’s side window. Cubes of safety glass cascaded to the stone floor.
“Bloody hell.” Gary glanced around nervously. “Do you think maybe a more subtle approach would be better?”
“Subtlety takes time.” Natasha unlocked and opened the door. “We don’t have time. It could be too late even now.”
“I think someon
e’s on to us.” Gary nodded.
When she glanced over her shoulder, Natasha spotted three construction workers approaching them. She slid in behind the steering wheel and unlocked the passenger door.
One of the men called out, but Natasha didn’t understand the language. She slipped her lock-back knife from her pocket and scraped the ignition wires. Then she used the small crowbar to tear away the steering wheel casing and the locking mechanism to free the wheel.
“Do you understand what he’s saying?” Gary asked.
“Probably wants to know what we’re doing.” Natasha touched two wires together, and the truck’s engine rumbled to life.
“What if he’s saying something more along the lines of, ‘Get away from the truck or I’ll open fire’?” Gary asked.
“We’ll know in a minute.” Natasha shifted the transmission and put her foot on the accelerator.
The three men broke into a run as they yelled and waved their arms.
Gary ducked down in the seat, obviously anticipating the worst. “You know, a problem occurs to me.”
Natasha swerved through the maze of heavy equipment and roared toward the lighted arch that led more deeply into the cave system. “Only one problem?”
Evidently tension robbed Gary of his appreciation for sarcasm. “Some of these security guys are good guys. They’re just here to do a job. They’re not hooked up with the bad guys. How are you going to tell the good guys and bad guys apart?”
“They’re going to have to choose sides.” The truck bounced over the harsh terrain. “If they get in my way, they are bad guys. And the only good guys down here might just be us.”
“Great.”
When she checked the rearview mirror, Natasha saw that at least two other vehicles had taken up pursuit.
“So much for the stealth factor,” Gary said dismally.
Then a bullet speared through the back window and smashed out the front.
“Bloody hell!” Gary ducked down and cradled his head in his hands.
Natasha concentrated on driving. She had a loose map of the cave system in her head, but the darkness was complete except for the security lights that barely marked the way. Her headlights pierced the darkness only a short distance at a time. The cave walls seemed to come up faster and faster as she drove. Once her bumper grazed the wall and spewed out a torrent of sparks.
She hoped that Chernovsky had placed the call to the Spanish authorities. She hoped that half the Spanish police force was on its way here. And maybe half the army, too. And she hoped she didn’t smash this truck into a cave wall. Somewhere in there, she also hoped that they arrived in time to save Lourds and Leslie.
Lourds studied the instruments spread out before him. He gave serious thought to smashing them. It would be easy enough to do. But he didn’t know if that would prevent Murani from finding the Book of Knowledge.
And it felt like sacrilege.
“If you try to destroy the instruments, I promise you that you’ll be begging to die before I kill you.” Murani knelt opposite Lourds. The cardinal held a pistol in one hand.
“I can read better if you don’t point that gun at me,” Lourds said. “And you’re blocking my light.”
The crazed priest backed away, but he didn’t put down the gun.
Again and again, Lourds read the inscriptions. They told of the destruction of Atlantis and of the decision to send the key to the Drowned Land out into the world in five pieces.
And the final line was: Make a glad noise.
“Make a glad noise,” Lourds said aloud. “Does that mean anything?” He’d thought it had something to do with the instruments, but he’d played them, and nothing had happened.
Murani hesitated only a moment. “ ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.’ Psalms 100:1.”
“What does that mean?”
“Men should praise and rejoice God.”
“You just knew where to find that?”
“All bishops used to be required to memorize the Book of Psalms.” Murani shook his head. “So many crucial Church practices have passed by the wayside. I am something of a traditionalist.”
Lourds wanted to ask, Do those practices include murder? But he decided it would be too inflammatory.
“Does that passage have any special significance to the Book of Knowledge?” Lourds asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Carefully, Lourds touched the instruments again. The answer had to be there, but it eluded him. He racked his brain. The solution had to be hidden, but it would also need to be attainable. After all, if a Keeper was lost too early, those that followed would have to know how to figure everything out.
Taking up his flashlight, Lourds returned to the image of the Keepers being given the five instruments. Murani accompanied him.
In the image, the five men held the instruments high. They stood in a row, each with the instrument held in a certain way.
Lourds memorized the sequence of the instruments. He returned to the instruments and put them in that order. Drum, cymbal, pipe, flute, and bell. Was there significance to the order? Or was he fooling himself?
He used the flashlight and studied the surfaces closely. Symbols he hadn’t noticed before, carved into the drum’s side so they looked like scratches, suddenly caught his eye. They were faint and loose, nothing like what was on the inscription. After thousands of years, it was a wonder they remained.
Quickly, excited now, Lourds rolled the instruments around until he found symbols on each of them in turn. Together they formed a sentence.
“ ‘Break make a joyful noise.’ ” Lourds translated it again. It didn’t make sense. Surely he had it wrong.
“What do you see?” Murani asked.
Lourds told him.
“What are these symbols?” Murani asked. He picked up only a few of the symbols with his flashlight.
“ ‘Make a joyful noise.’ ”
Murani aimed his flashlight toward a nearby wall. “These symbols are there as well.”
Looking up, Lourds saw that the symbols were repeated. Excitement screamed through him. He stood and crossed to the wall. Bending down, he picked up a rock and smashed it against the wall.
A hollow noise came back.
Lourds pounded again. “There’s an empty space back there.” He slammed the rock against the wall again. This time the rock broke through.
Murani, Gallardo, and some of the others pushed forward and attacked the false wall with their rifle butts. The wall shattered and fell to the floor.
On the other side of the wall, an elegant and pristine cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites lay before them. The sounds of the impacts echoed almost melodically inside the cavern.
Before anyone could stop him, Lourds crossed the broken wall and stepped into the cavern. The air inside the cavern seemed fresher here. The noise quietly died down, but Lourds couldn’t help noticing how this space held the sound like a stage.
The wall to Lourds’s right held a carved image of the First Son standing with the Book of Knowledge.
The inscription below the First Son read:
MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE UNTO THE LORD.
CHAPTER
24
CHAMBER OF CHORDS
ATLANTIS DIG SITE
CÁDIZ, SPAIN
SEPTEMBER 14, 2009
W
hat does it mean?” Murani asked as he played his flashlight beam over the stone that captivated the linguistics professor’s attention.
“I don’t know,” Lourds replied.
Their words floated into the emptiness of the cave and echoed back.
“It’s the same as the one that was on the wall, right?” Murani’s impatience grew. He was on dangerous ground now. The Swiss Guardsmen recognized the authority of the Society of Quirinus for the moment, but their paths were divergent, and Murani knew it. They would balk at killing Lourds, Sebastian, and the others. The guards who had watched Sebastian were already ripe for rebe
llion. Murani would not suffer them to live.
But that was why he’d brought Gallardo and his people to the dig site. Perhaps Lieutenant Sbordoni and his men would follow orders, including murder, but many of the Swiss Guard that had been on-site at the dig wouldn’t.
Murani would deal with that complication when the time came. For now, he needed Lourds to spill his knowledge. It would be his last opportunity to do so, Murani swore.
“It’s the same,” Lourds confirmed.
“The last wall was fake.”
“I don’t think this one is,” Lourds said.
Murani gestured to Gallardo. The man slammed his rifle butt against the stone wall. The metal struck fire and broke loose a few stone chips.
The loud clank echoed within the chamber.
“Solid,” Gallardo grunted.
Lourds cocked his head and listened.
Murani supposed he was listening to the echoes but didn’t know why. The professor surprised the cardinal. He’d truly expected the man to be begging for his life by now. Instead, Lourds seemed to be more fascinated than ever by what was going on.
For himself, it was all Murani could do to keep his anticipation in check. He’d been thinking about the Book of Knowledge for years since he’d first discovered the existence of the five instruments in the book that the other members of the Society of Quirinus hadn’t found in their own archives.
He took a fresh grip on the pistol he carried. The weapon felt awkward in his hand, but he knew enough about it to use it. And he knew enough about himself to know that he would use it if he felt he had to.
For a moment, he wondered if Lourds were stalling. If he was—
“Hit the wall again,” Lourds said. His eyes never left the wall.
“Hit it yourself,” Gallardo replied.
Impatient, probably wondering if he’d thrown in with the wrong person, Lieutenant Sbordoni struck the wall with his rifle. Again, the sound echoed through the cavern.
“This place is like a soundstage,” Leslie said.
The moment she said that, Murani remembered that it had reminded him of that as well. Or an antechamber in a church.
The Atlantis Code Page 41