Finally April chimed in, scowling. “So what does all this have to do with the Tablet and people getting killed?”
Flinders bobbed her head enthusiastically, acknowledging the point. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said. “Remember the power source connected to Atlantis I was telling you about? In the Critias, Plato describes a strange metal that flashed with red light he called oreichalkos—‘orichalcum’ in English—that the Atlanteans mined. For years now scholars have been arguing about its identification. Plato himself didn’t know what it was. Some scholars think it was a gold-copper alloy, or a copper-tin alloy, or obsidian, or even an element no longer known in the modern world. Again, maybe Plato invented it himself, or maybe he was handing down an embellished account of an actual element. There are also persistent stories of this strange element as a power source of some kind—the power of many suns. And there’s the story of the mysterious Umim and Thummim stones mentioned in the Old Testament, associated with Moses, and the occultus lapis, the ‘hidden stone’ of the Rosicrucians, which had the power to transmute elements. As I told you already, during the second world war the Nazis were obsessed with Atlantis as the original home of the Aryan master race and went to great lengths looking for an Atlantean power source they called ‘Vril’. The problem is, over the centuries, stories evolve and get corrupted, so the original source material gets buried or lost. But at any rate, the papyrus is about Thoth, and Thoth supposedly wrote the Emerald Tablet, which is supposed to give the location of the mysterious power source.”
“So that’s why the Bad Guys want the Tablet?” Skarda asked.
“I think so.”
“If something like that exists,” April said, “it would be worth killing for.”
Flinders pushed her glasses farther up her nose, looking baffled. “I can’t be absolutely sure. I’m just speculating. All I can say is, the power source and the Tablet are pretty closely entwined. As I already told you, this papyrus is a hymn to Djehuty/Thoth. The ancient Egyptians associated him with the moon and he was envisioned as a god of wisdom, magic, and measurement. He was also the first scribe and so was the inventor of language and writing, as well as all aspects of science, religion, philosophy, mathematics, and alchemy.”
April gave out a little groan. She thought the lesson was over and now here it was going in a completely new direction.
Skarda grinned at her discomfort.
Ignoring her, Flinders continued. “And get this—he was also called ‘Lord of the West’ and ‘Controller of the Flood’, and was supposed to have led the gods to an ‘eastern country’ after a great flood. But before the disaster he was able to preserve his secret writings on—or in, some authors say—two pillars before the flood inundated the world. The Greek historian Herodotus said he personally saw the pillars in Phoenicia. One was made of solid gold and the other carved out of emerald. The Egyptian priest Manetho claimed that Thoth himself inscribed the pillars with his wisdom, and there are other much earlier accounts that the pillars were made of brick and stone and inscribed on the outside. At any rate, one was situated in Heliopolis and one in Thebes. They were later moved to a secret temple dedicated to the original gods.”
Skarda leaned back in his chair, watching her closely. He had the gut feeling they were on the right track.
“So here’s my question,” Flinders said. “What if Atlantis was a real place, and what if Thoth was a real historical figure, an Atlantean, so-to-speak, who possessed superior knowledge for his time, including knowledge of this mysterious power source? And what if this knowledge was preserved on the two pillars?”
Skarda felt his pulse quicken. Even April sat up straighter.
Flinders’ smile was a bit triumphant and her eyes flashed with excitement. “What’s written on Dr. Cowell’s papyrus is the location of the temple where the ancient Egyptians hid the pillars: the Temple of the Oracle at Siwa, where one story says that Alexander the Great found the Emerald Tablet.”
TEN
Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.
SINKING into his hand-stitched leather chair, Texas Senator Austin Tomilin stared for a moment through the thick glass of his office window at the snarl of traffic on Maryland Avenue. From his desk he could see the ass end of the Supreme Court Building, its marble Corinthian columns looking like a relic from a forgotten age. The Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building was a bit too sterile for his taste—the more than one million square feet of white Vermont marble just sat there, glaring at you in the sun, a monument to government excess. And every time it rained, the damn thing leaked. No wonder critics called it the “marble barn”.
Tall and sinewy, Tomilin was in his early forties, with carrot-colored hair, a broad wedge of a nose, and steel-gray eyes with just a hint of frigid blue. He had a full head of hair, but its flaming color embarrassed him so much that he kept it shaved to the roots on his skull.
A light rap sounded at his door and his secretary entered from an adjoining suite. “David Charbonnet is here.”
Tomilin acknowledged her. “Send him in.”
A man in his mid-thirties entered the office. An ex-Green Beret, Louisiana Senator David Charbonnet had a rock-hard physique coupled with the kind of boyish good looks that made women want to mother him and thick, curling, dark brown hair that made them want to drag him into bed. For that, Tomilin hated him, but for his politics, he couldn’t have found a better soulmate.
Lowering himself into a chair, Charbonnet looked into the steely eyes of the older man and waited for him to speak.
“One of the DRO satellites picked up a transmission from a Danish-American research ship in the Arctic Ocean before it disappeared,” Tomilin said. “It reported seeing a hulk icebreaker in the area of the Gakkel Ridge.”
The DRO was the Defense Reconnaissance Office, established by Tomilin after the 9/11 attack. The office operated an ultra-secret grid of modified NROL-41 spy satellites, disguised as orbiting space junk from an old Atlas rocket, that circled the Earth in high-altitude, elliptical Molniya orbits that allowed the satellites to hover over designated areas of the planet for long periods of time.
Charbonnet leaned forward, his face growing serious. “The oil fields?”
Tomilin nodded gravely. “And the Russians intercepted the transmission. Tried to block it. But ECHELON managed to pick up a fragment.”
A knock sounded and the secretary cracked open the door. “Rachel DiMarco is here,” she announced.
“Send her in,” Tomilin said.
Seconds later the door opened to reveal a slightly broad-shouldered woman in her early thirties with a narrow waist, a long patrician nose, blue eyes, and dirty blonde hair that looked permanently windswept. Her surname had been gained by a very short marriage—it was one of the few things she had walked away with in her divorce.
Rachel crossed to the desk and sat down next to Charbonnet, nodding a curt greeting to the men. She was the human link between the DRO office at Fort Meade and Tomilin. Officially, the office was in the wing that houses the Central Security Service, an agency established to partner the NSA with the Service Cryptologic Elements of the United States Armed Services.
And officially, the DRO didn’t exist.
Opening her laptop, she tapped the keyboard, prompting the wall-mounted LED monitor to blink into life. Displayed on it was a seismic map of the Arctic Ocean floor in varying tones of blue. She pointed to a mountainous area in the center of the pole.
“This is the Lomonosov Ridge,” she began without preamble, pointing to a long rocky undersea formation running from southwest to northeast at a forty-five degree angle off the northeastern coast of Greenland. Tomilin’s steel-gray eyes were locked like laser beams on the monitor. “And this is the Gakkel Ridge.” She indicated a lozenge-shaped area running north and parallel to the Lomonosov. “It’s an underwater volcanic mountain chain. ECHELON intercepted some COMINT signals from a Russian sub in the Arctic Ocean. The message was in Ruthenian, a rare Russian dialect sp
oken in southwestern Ukraine. Lucky for us, one of the crypto boys speaks Ruthenian. The official story is that they sent an ROV down to the Gakkel Ridge looking for active volcanoes. But what the cameras picked up were what looks like the hulks of six decommissioned icebreakers sitting upright on the bottom, spread out around the ridge about two miles down. The problem is, it’s hard to see down there because there’s absolutely no light and lots of geothermal venting and particulate matter in the water.”
Tomilin closed his eyes in irritation. “Volcanoes, hell. They’re looking for oil. They already planted two titanium flags on the Lomonosov Ridge, even though they can’t legally stake a claim. Now Denmark is pissed off. So is Canada and Norway. Not to mention us. And why not? Hell, there’s at least ninety billion barrels down there.”
Charbonnet thought about it. “They’re up to something. But why the icebreakers?” He looked at Rachel. “That’s no accident.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t think so.”
“Are we sure it’s the Russians?”
“Has to be.”
Tomilin scowled. “The problem is, our hands are tied. We can’t send our subs in there, or even fly over. The situation is too touchy. They’d blow it out of proportion, claiming it’s an act of war. The 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty automatically entitles the countries whose coastlines surround the Arctic Ocean—the United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark, and Russia—to sovereign rights to oil, gas, and minerals for two hundred miles off their continental shelves. Russia claims that its shelf, the Lomonosov Ridge, actually extends another twelve hundred or so miles from Siberia to the North Pole, almost to Ellesmere Island, which belongs to Canada. And, as I said, they’re sending ROV’s down there to plant territorial flags, like it’s some kind of land rush. And they’ve stepped up their military presence with Typhoon-class subs. Naturally, the Canadians are up in arms and the rest of the powers are nervous as hell—and the U.S. hasn’t even signed the Treaty. Russia supplies most of the EU with oil, and the Chinese buy from them, so if they get control of the Arctic oil, they could easily become the world’s biggest energy supplier. We could be looking at another cold war shaping up here.” He permitted himself a thin smile. “A really cold war.”
Rachel nodded, not reacting to his joke. There was something about the man that gave her the creeps, and she didn’t want to encourage any warmth between them. “I flagged it as VRK, azure level.” VRK was “Very Restricted Knowledge”. “It’s already been wiped from Intelink.”
“Okay, good. Keep it buttoned up, at all costs.” For a moment he sat in silence, staring at the opposite wall. Then he shook his head angrily. “If the Russians get their hands on that oil, they’ll be the ones controlling oil prices, instead of us. They could just sit on it and create another artificial shortage.”
Charbonnet showed him a huge grin. “That’s our job.”
Tomilin glared at him with eyes that were chips of iron. “You’re goddam right it is.” He flicked his gaze to Rachel. “Keep on it. And keep me informed. All intel comes to this office and nowhere else. I mean nowhere. And nothing leaves this room. Do I make myself clear?”
Getting to her feet, Rachel gave him a solemn nod and headed for the door.
ELEVEN
Alexandria
WHEN Flinders had finished packing they returned to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina so she could finish photographing the papyrus in the Digital Manuscripts Library. Then she deposited the scroll in a temperature-and-humidity-controlled vault. Their plan was to drive to Cairo, where they could check into a hotel to give Flinders time to work on the translation, away from prying eyes in Alexandria. Skarda had considered changing cars, but the three kidnappers hadn’t seen April or himself and so had no reason to associate Flinders with the BMW.
But now in the thick snarl of traffic on the Corniche, April kept flicking her eyes to the rear-view mirror. She’d glimpsed a battered Peugeot behind them a few too many times, weaving between close-packed cars and buses.
Then there it was again, ducking into an opening behind an olive green vegetable truck.
“We’ve got company,” she announced.
In the rear seat, Flinders twisted her neck to look behind them, her face going pale.
Stomping on on the accelerator, April shot past a packed red-and-white commuter bus, then slotted the X5 behind an empty Army personnel carrier, igniting an explosion of honking horns and flashing headlights. She mashed the brakes, grinning at the immediate blare of more irate horns as the tires squealed in protest. Then, seesawing across the road, she plunged into a side street narrowed to a barely-navigable aisle by a clot of Peugeots, Fiats, and Lanas double-parked on both sides of the roadway.
Twisting around, Flinders glanced out the rear window. She let out as little scream. The black Peugeot was fishtailing onto the street behind them, boomeranging off a parked Fiat with a loud crunch of metal against metal.
“Any idea where this street goes?” April yelled out.
Flinders whipped around, sizing up the territory ahead. She jabbed a finger past April’s shoulder. “Turn there! Left, left, left!”
With screeching tires, April swerved, the wheel vibrating in her hand as the BMW jumped the curb and carved a furrow in the grass of the parkway. On the sidewalk, a startled group of women in hajibs and abayas turned their faces in shock, then broke and ran. Groceries scattered. When the Peugeot screamed around the corner, one of the women lobbed an orange at its rear window. It splattered in an explosion of pulp.
Grinning, April watched the Peugeot carom off another parked car. She glanced over at Skarda. “These guys are idiots. I think we should stop and have some fun with them.”
He shook his head. “What if they’ve got guns?”
That earned him an indifferent shrug. “Maybe it would even the odds.” Spinning the wheel into a hard right, she ducked into a one-way street, heading north toward Safia Zaghloul Street. In the mirror she could see the driver shouting into his cell phone.
Still looking behind her, Flinders was squirming left and right. “Guns…? Did you say ‘guns’?”
Then suddenly the car was gone.
Glancing from the mirror to Skarda, April scowled. “I think these Bozos have something up their sleeve.”
Punching the gas, she rocketed onto Safia Zaghloul. They were speeding past the Kom el-Dikka, the archaeological park where the ruins of a second-century Roman amphitheater had been excavated. From here they could head north to hook up with the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road.
On the left an alley connected to the main street.
From the corner of her eye she glimpsed a blur of motion—
A heartbeat later she was punching the accelerator to the floor. The X5 surged ahead.
But it was too late—
From the mouth of the alley a dented panel truck cannonballed toward them, smashing the BMW broadside with a sickening crunch of sheet metal, pile-driving it past a stand of sycamore and cypress trees toward a low stone wall, trapping the passenger-side wheels while the panel truck maintained its inexorable push forward. Metal screeched, buckling like tin foil as the X5 toppled over the wall, rolling top over bottom down the steep embankment toward the marble terraces of the amphitheater.
At the top of the hill the panel truck teetered on the wall, its rear wheels locking it in place. The driver, an Arabic teenager, kicked open his door and took off running as the Peugeot roared up, slamming to a stop.
Jumping out, the muscular Egyptian popped the trunk, hauling out two unwieldy plastic bags, bulging with some kind of liquid. He hopped over the wall, then half-slid down the embankment, dragging the bags. At the foot of the terrace the BMW lay toppled on its side, leaking gas, its tires spinning uselessly. April lay sprawled half on the marble, half on the grass, unconscious, her right foot hooked inside the open driver’s-side door. Yanking open the rear door, the man stooped and pulled Flinders out by her armpits. She was unconscious, too, a bruise already purpling the ski
n above her right eye. The Egyptian dragged her a few feet away and dumped her on the grass, then walked back to the X5 to grab her laptop, sparing a brief glance at Skarda, who sat slumped against the door. Blood trickled down the side of his face.
Flinders groaned. Paying no attention to her, the man heaved the bags on top of the X5, then slashed them open with a knife. Gas gushed out in torrents. Then he returned to Flinders, bending over her and slapping her cheeks with his open palm.
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