The Atlantis Legacy - A01-A02
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“Thomas Greanias is a superb writer who knows how to tell a tale with style and substance.”
—Nelson DeMille
HANG ON FOR THE PULSE-POUNDING SUSPENSE OF THOMAS GREANIAS’S NATIONAL BESTSELLING ATLANTIS THRILLERS!
The truth is down there…
RAISING ATLANTIS
A New York Times and USA Today bestseller and #1 bestselling eBook
“A roller coaster that will captivate readers of Dan Brown and Michael Crichton, penetrating one of the biggest mysteries of our time.”
—The Washington Post
“It’s a lot like The Da Vinci Code, but I like the ending on this one better…. A gripping page-turner.”
—Sandra Hughes, CBS News
RAISING ATLANTIS and THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY
are available from Simon & Schuster Audio
“An enchanting story with an incredible pace.”
—The Boston Globe
“A wonderfully honed cliff-hanger—an outrageous adventure with a wild dose of the supernatural.”
—Clive Cussler
“A gripping plot…colorful characters…and some clean, no-nonsense writing…adds to the reading speed and suspense.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The DaVinci Code started the new genre of historical mysteries, but Raising Atlantis shines in its own light.”
—Publishers Weekly
A centuries-old warning holds explosive implications for America’s destiny….
THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY
A New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller
“Relentlessly action-packed, with tantalizing twists and twirls on every page.”
—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Charlemagne Pursuit
“Greanias keeps the pace breakneck and the coincidences amazing, sweeping readers right into Conrad’s struggle.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A top-flight thriller.”
—Blogcritics.org Books
“Finally, a hero worthy of our admiration! Conrad Yeats is patterned after the suave, debonair agents of the past—with enough emotion to make him lovable. An excellent, intelligent read.”
—FreshFiction.com
“This addictively exciting book provides a satisfyingly good read.”
—I Love a Mystery
Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Raising Atlantis copyright © 2005 by Thomas Greanias
The Atlantis Prophecy copyright © 2008 by Thomas Greanias
These titles were originally published individually by Pocket Books.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6404-4
ISBN-10: 1-4391-6404-5
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For Alex & Jake
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my editor, Emily Bestler, and to Judith Curr, Louise Burke, Sarah Branham, Laura Stern, and the rest of the family at Atria and Pocket. Truly you are publishing’s best and brightest. Thank you, Simon Lipskar, for believing in me from the beginning, and thanks to all my friends and fans at @lantisTV and on the Web who first made Raising Atlantis a No. 1 bestselling eBook and audiobook.
To those world-class authorities on archaeology and affairs of state who lent me their ears during the research of Raising Atlantis—including Kent Weeks, Zahi Hawass, Thomas R. Pickering, and Bill Schniedewind—you all have my deepest respect and gratitude.
Many thanks to certain daughters of Freemasons and Air Force officers, certain syndicated Washington columnists, and certain Congressional and White House officials who made the making of The Atlantis Prophecy so much fun. Special thanks to the docents and staff at Mount Vernon, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Capitol, and the National Archives for their generous assistance and outstanding public service; you are a national treasure.
An extra-special thanks to my son, Alex, for his research on Benjamin Banneker and for the example he set during his year as student body president at his elementary school, looking out for the interests not just of his friends and little brother, Jake, but of everyone on the schoolyard. America needs more leaders like you.
Finally, I’d like to thank my wife, Laura. Though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the sea, I will always love you.
THE ATLANTIS LEGACY
CONTENTS
RAISING ATLANTIS
PART ONE DISCOVERY
1 DISCOVERY MINUS SIX MINUTES
2 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-ONE DAYS
3 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-TWO DAYS
4 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-THREE DAYS, SIX HOURS
5 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-THREE DAYS
6 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-THREE DAYS, SEVEN HOURS
7 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-FOUR DAYS, FIFTEEN HOURS
8 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-FOUR DAYS, SIXTEEN HOURS
9 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-FOUR DAYS, SIXTEEN HOURS
10 DISCOVERY PLUS TWENTY-FOUR DAYS, SIXTEEN HOURS
PART TWO DESCENT
11 DESCENT HOUR ONE
12 DESCENT HOUR THREE
13 DESCENT HOUR FOUR
14 DESCENT HOUR FIVE
15 DESCENT HOUR FIVE
16 DESCENT HOUR SIX
17 DESCENT HOUR SEVEN
18 DESCENT HOUR EIGHT
19 DESCENT HOUR NINE
20 DESCENT HOUR NINE
21 DESCENT HOUR NINE
PART THREE DAWN
22 DAWN MINUS FIFTEEN HOURS
23 DAWN MINUS FIFTEEN HOURS
24 DAWN MINUS FOURTEEN HOURS
25 DAWN MINUS THIRTEEN HOURS
26 DAWN MINUS TWELVE HOURS
27 DAWN MINUS ELEVEN HOURS
28 DAWN MINUS SIX HOURS
29 DAWN MINUS TWO HOURS
30 DAWN MINUS ONE HOUR
PART FOUR DOOMSDAY
31 DAWN MINUS FORTY-FIVE MINUTES
32 DAWN MINUS TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES
33 DAWN MINUS TWENTY MINUTES
34 DAWN MINUS FIFTEEN MINUTES
35 DAWN MINUS TWO MINUTES
36 DAWN
37 DAWN PLUS ONE HOUR
38 DAWN: THE DAY AFTER
39 DAWN: DAY TWO
40 DAWN: THE THIRD DAY
THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY
PROLOGUE DECEMBER 14 1799
THE FEDERAL DISTRICT
PART ONE PRESENT DAY
1 ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
2
3
4
5
6
7 UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS
8
9 ROME
10 ABBEY OF OUR LADY OF LETTERS
11
12 HEADQUARTERS
13 PENN QUARTER
PART TWO July 1
14 U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING
15
16
17
18 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
19 MONTROSE PARK
20
21
22 DARPA HEADQUARTERS
23 MISSION SPRINGS NURSING HOME
24
; 25 GEORGETOWN BALLROOM
26 JEFFERSON BUILDING
27 JONES POINT PARK
28
29
30
PART THREE July 3
31
32
33 HILTON HOTEL
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42 SARAH RITTENHOUSE ARMILLARY
43
44
PART FOUR July 4
45 AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
46 THE NATIONAL MALL
47
48
49
50
51 THE WHITE HOUSE
52 VATICAN CITY
EPILOGUE THE DAY AFTER
ARLINGTON CEMETERY
RAISING ATLANTIS
Nothing lasts long under the same form. I have seen what once was solid earth now changed into sea, and lands created out of what was ocean. Ancient anchors have been found on mountaintops.
—-Pythagoras of Samos, Greek mathematician (c. 582–c. 507 B.C.)
In a polar region there is continual disposition of ice, which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth’s rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced this way will, when it reaches a certain point, produce a movement of the earth’s crust over the rest of the earth’s body, and this will displace the polar regions toward the equator.
—-Albert Einstein, U.S. physicist (A.D. 1879–1955)
PART ONE
DISCOVERY
1
DISCOVERY MINUS SIX MINUTES
EAST ANTARCTICA
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER TERRANCE DRAKE of the U.S. Naval Support Force, Antarctica, paced behind a snow dune as he waited for the icy gale to pass. He badly needed to take a leak. But that would mean breaking international law.
Drake shivered as a blast of polar air swept swirling sheets of snow across the stark, forsaken wasteland that seemed to stretch forever. Fantastic snow dunes called sastrugi rose into the darkness, casting shadows that looked like craters on an alien moonscape. Earth’s “last wilderness” was a cold and forbidding netherworld, he thought, a world man was never meant to inhabit.
Drake moved briskly to keep himself warm. He felt the pressure building in his bladder. The Antarctic Treaty had stringent environmental protection protocols, summed up in the rule: “Nothing is put into the environment.” That included pissing on the ice. He had been warned by the nature geeks at the National Science Foundation that the nitrogen shock to the environment could last for thousands of years. Instead he was expected to tear open his food rations and use a bag as a urinal. Unfortunately, he didn’t pack rations for reconn patrols.
Drake glanced over his shoulder at several white-domed fiberglass huts in the distance. Officially, the mission of the American “research team” was to investigate unusual seismic activity deep beneath the ice pack. Three weeks earlier the vibes from one of those subglacial temblors had sliced an iceberg the size of Rhode Island off the coast of East Antarctica. Floating off on ocean currents at about three miles a day, it would take ten years to drift into warmer waters and melt.
Ten years, thought Drake. That’s how far away he was from nowhere. Which meant anything could happen out here and nobody would hear him scream. He pushed the thought out of his mind.
When Drake first signed up for duty in Antarctica back at Port Hueneme, California, an old one-armed civilian cook who slopped on the mystery meat in the officers’ mess hall had suggested he read biographies of men like Ernest Shackleton, James Cook, John Franklin, and Robert Falcon Scott—Victorian and Edwardian explorers who had trekked to the South Pole for British glory. The cook told him to view this job as a test of endurance, a rite of passage into true manhood. He said a tour in Antarctica would be a love affair—exotic and intoxicating—and that Drake would be changed in some fundamental, almost spiritual way. And just when this hostile paradise had seduced him, he was going to have to leave and hate doing so.
Like hell he would.
From day one he couldn’t wait to get off this ice cube. Especially after learning upon his arrival from his subordinates that it was in Antarctica that the old man back in Port Hueneme had lost his arm to frostbite. Everyone in his unit had been duped by the stupid cook.
Now it was too late for Drake to turn back. He couldn’t even return to Port Hueneme if he wanted to. The navy had closed its Antarctica training center there shortly after he arrived in this frozen hell. As for the one-armed cook, he was probably spending his government-funded retirement on the beach, whistling at girls in bikinis. Drake, on the other hand, often woke up with blinding headaches and a dry mouth. Night after night the desertlike air sucked the moisture from his body. Each morning he awoke with all the baggage of a heavy night of binge drinking without the benefits of actually having been drunk.
Drake shoved a bulky glove into his pocket and felt the frozen rabbit’s foot his fiancée, Loretta, had given him. Soon it would dangle from the rearview mirror of the red Ford Mustang convertible he was going to buy them for their honeymoon, courtesy of his furloughed pay. He was piling it up down here. There simply was no place to blow it. McMurdo Station, the main U.S. outpost in Antarctica, was 1,500 miles away and offered its two hundred winter denizens an ATM, a coffeehouse, two bars, and a male-female ratio of ten-to-one. Real civilization was 2,500 miles away at “Cheech”—Christchurch, New Zealand. It might as well be Mars.
So who on earth was going to see him paint the snow?
Drake paused. The gale had blown over. At the moment, the katabatic winds were dead calm, the silence awesome. But without warning the winds could come up again and gust to a deafening 200 mph. Such was the unpredictable nature of Antarctica’s interior snow deserts.
Now was his chance.
Drake unzipped his freezer suit and relieved himself. The nip of the cold stung like an electric socket. Temperatures threatened to plunge to 130° below tonight, at which point exposed flesh would freeze in less than thirty seconds.
Drake counted down from thirty under his foggy breath. At T minus seven seconds he zipped up his pants, said a brief prayer of thanks, and looked up at the heavens. The three belt stars of the Orion constellation twinkled brightly over the barren, icy surface. The “kings of the East,” as he called them, were the only witnesses to his dirty deed. Wise men indeed, he thought with a smile, when suddenly he felt the ice rumble faintly beneath his boots before fading away. Another shaker, he realized. Better get the readings.
Drake turned back toward the white domes of the base, his boots crunching in the snow. The domes should have been a regulation yellow or red or green to attract attention. But attention was not what Uncle Sam wanted. Not when the Antarctic Treaty barred military personnel or equipment on the Peace Continent, except for “research purposes.”
Drake’s unofficial orders were to take a team of NASA scientists deep into the interior of East Antarctica, charted by air but never on foot. They were to follow a course tracking, of all things, the meridian of Orion’s Belt. Upon reaching the epicenter of recent quakes and building the base, the NASA team immediately began taking seismic and echo surveys. Then came the drilling. So the “research” had something to do with the subglacial topography of the ancient landmass two miles beneath the ice.
What NASA hoped to find buried down here Drake couldn’t imagine, and General Yeats hadn’t told him. Nor could he imagine why the team required weapons and regular reconn patrols. The only conceivable threat to the mission was the United Nations Antarctica Commission (UNACOM) team at Vostok Station, a previously abandoned Russian base that had been reactivated a few weeks earlier. But Vostok Station was almost four hundred miles away, ten hours by ground transport. Why NASA should be so concerned about UNACOM was as much a mystery to D
rake as what was under the ice.
Whatever was down there had to be at least twelve thousand years old, Drake figured, because he’d read someplace that’s how long ice had covered this frozen hell. And it had to be vital to the national security of the United States of America, or Washington wouldn’t risk the cloak-and-dagger routine and the resulting international brouhaha if this illegal expedition were exposed.
The command center was a prefab fiberglass dome with various satellite dishes and antennae pointed to the stars. As he approached the dome, Drake set off loud cracking pops when he passed between several of dozens of metal poles placed around the base. The bone-dry Antarctic air turned a human being into a highly charged ball of static electricity.