The Atlantis Legacy - A01-A02

by Greanias, Thomas

  This much Serena knew from the visitors guide. “Yes, and moved to tears by the unaffected drama of their venerated commander’s spectacles, the officers vote to affirm their loyalty to Washington and Congress. The Newburgh conspiracy collapses. A month later the Treaty of Paris is signed and the eight-year War of Independence comes to an end. Washington resigns his commission and retires to Mount Vernon. The army disbands. Everybody goes home. End of story. You have a point, mate? Because this blouse is itchy.”

  “What if old George’s bit with the spectacles didn’t work?” Conrad asked. “It’s really hard to believe it did if you think about it. What if this wasn’t the birthplace of the republic? What if this was the birth of the empire and this group called the Alignment?”

  “You’re reaching, Conrad,” she said. “You haven’t even told me how you came up with Newburgh in the first place.”

  “The number 763 on my father’s tombstone. You know, the code you were going to give me if I helped you.”

  Serena felt the intended sting of Conrad’s remark. “I thought the Tallmadge code you used on the Stargazer text translated 763 as ‘Headquarters.’ Washington had many headquarters throughout the Revolution.”

  “But Tallmadge invented the code for Washington in 1783, when Washington was encamped here at Newburgh,” he said, looking about. Serena could tell he was oh, so close to putting his finger on it. “This is where the paths of my family and Washington intersected. That’s why Robert Yates stormed out of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia six years later and then wrote a book called Secret Proceedings and Debates about the formation of the U.S. Constitution. Something happened here.”

  Obviously something happened, Serena thought. Otherwise this historical state park wouldn’t exist and we wouldn’t be standing here dressed like fools.

  “Just think about it, Serena,” he said. “Washington delivered everything the Newburgh conspirators demanded. The soldiers got their pay. The oldest military hereditary society in the United States was formed with the Society of Cincinnati. Then the U.S. Constitution was ratified, establishing a strong national government and military.”

  Which was all true, Serena realized.

  According to her literature, Washington served as the first president general of the Society of Cincinnati from 1783 until his death in 1799. The Society was named after the Roman farmer-general Cincinnatus, who like Washington centuries later left his fields to lead his republic into battle. Its noble motto: “He gave up everything to serve the republic.” These days Serena knew the Society of Cincinnati to be a decentralized and outstanding charitable organization, one that she had worked with on occasion. But she wondered if originally it had been something more. Perhaps the Alignment had forced Washington’s hand into creating for them a new host so they would leave the Masons, much like the biblical account of the demon that Jesus cast out of a man and into a herd of pigs. By the time Washington died in 1799, the Alignment may well have abandoned the Society if they had succeeded, as Washington feared, in penetrating every level of the new federal government. Thus his warnings to future Americans.

  Serena said, “You think Washington cut some kind of deal with the military, something that’s coming home to roost now.”

  “In four days,” he said, staring at her with his warm, intense hazel eyes. “But we won’t know for sure until we find whatever Washington buried under the Mall in D.C.”

  Serena gasped. He knows. “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re looking for a celestial globe,” he told her. “Just like the one in the Savage portrait. Washington buried it for his ultimate sleeper agent, Stargazer, to recover at the end of time. By some cosmic joke, it appears that I am Stargazer. And only when I find this celestial globe will I fulfill my mission.”

  Suddenly it hit her. Not only did Conrad figure out what they were looking for, he knew where it was! How did he know?

  “You know where the globe is buried?” she asked, thunderstruck.

  “You had the answer in your hands all along. Do you have my letter from Washington? I thought I saw something in there,” he said playfully.

  He was referring to the cleavage her blouse exposed. Embarrassed, she turned her back on him, retrieved the letter and handed it over.

  “Father Neale told Bishop Carroll that he saw the slave Hercules leaving Washington’s chamber just before Washington died on December 14, 1799.” He unfolded the letter with the map on back, looking around to make sure nobody was watching. “But the letter itself is dated September 18, 1793. See? That’s the date he buried the globe.”

  Serena nodded anxiously, berating herself for having missed the discrepancy in dates. “It’s got some astrological significance, doesn’t it?”

  “Enough significance that Washington chose that date to lay the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol—on the hill that Bishop John Carroll’s brother Daniel sold him.”

  With that, everything came together, wholly and horribly.

  “The globe is in the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol,” she said. Conrad nodded. “And I’m going to steal it.”

  An hour later they drove south out of the New York tri-state area in separate cars, Conrad in McConnell’s black Mercedes making a list of everything he’d need for his operation, Serena in her limo with Benito calling ahead to make sure the new safe house would be ready.

  As Conrad and Serena headed toward their designated rendezvous in Washington, D.C., the man in the Redcoat costume was sitting in Horatio Gates’s old headquarters at Edmonston House, calling a number in Virginia as he looked at a picture of Conrad Yeats he had torn from his fax machine the day before.

  “This is Vailsgate,” he said. “I need to get a message to Osiris.”

  13

  PENN QUARTER

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  DRESSED IN A FRESH ARMANI SUIT that Serena had provided with his new cover, Conrad stood at the rail of the penthouse balcony and listened to the sounds of a summer jazz concert drifting up from the glowing fountains of the Navy Memorial plaza. He looked out at the lit-up dome of the U.S. Capitol, rising above the National Archives like a glowing moon.

  It would have been a perfect evening, Conrad thought as he swirled his wine. If only Serena wasn’t a nun and true romance between them hopeless. If only big Benito wasn’t standing guard by the door.

  “We should have more dates like this,” he told Serena as he walked back inside. “Definitely a step up from the abbey.”

  The penthouse atop the Market Square West Tower overlooked Pennsylvania Avenue, halfway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol. It once belonged to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Now it belonged to yet another one of Serena’s mysterious patrons. This one was an architect whose firm had a hand in the construction of the new underground Capitol Visitors Center and who had provided them with blueprints of the Capitol Building dating back to William Thornton’s original 1792 design for the building.

  “This is crazy, Conrad.” Serena looked up from the pile of schematics spread across the large dining table. “The U.S. Capitol has to be one of the most heavily guarded structures on the planet. You’re never going to pull this off. You may not even come out alive.”

  “I’ll get the globe and whatever’s inside it,” he told her calmly. “All you have to do is get me inside the Capitol, and I think your friends at Abraxos have already done that.”

  He tapped the special identification pin on his lapel, made for him courtesy of an executive at a company of ex-CIA types who handled covers for the agency and were now handling Conrad’s cover pro bono for Serena.

  “As one of 435 relatively anonymous members of Congress, I get to bypass security. So for tonight, let’s pretend I’m a powerful lawmaker and you’re my sweet little intern who is going to get me into a lot of trouble.”

  She gave him her “not-a-chance” death stare. “I can get you in, Conrad. But how the bloody hell are you going to get out?”

 
; He could tell where her intensity was coming from. She really didn’t think he was coming back.

  “I’m going to trigger a false positive result for chemical agents. Doesn’t take much more than household Lysol to set off the alarms in the Capitol if you know where the sensors are. I’ll clear out the whole building and escape in the process.”

  Serena raised an eyebrow. “With the globe under your arm?”

  “I told you, I’ve taken care of my exit strategy.”

  “No, Conrad, you haven’t told me bloody much of anything. You forgot to mention, for example, that the U.S. Capitol doesn’t even have a cornerstone. Not one that anybody has been able to find after two hundred years of excavations.”

  “True.” Conrad leaned over her shoulder and saw that she was studying the 1793 map of the U.S. Capitol foundations by Stephen Hallet. “You’d think that the most technically advanced nation in history would know where it laid its first cornerstone.”

  “So what makes you think you’re going to find this cornerstone where everybody else has failed?”

  “Because I’m not everyone else,” he said. “But then you knew that since you measured this suit perfectly. Let’s say I get rid of this and we go up to the roof. There’s a pool if you want to take a dip.”

  He smiled and offered her some wine. But she wasn’t biting, and his mock bravado did little to erase the furrow in her brow.

  Serena returned to the Hallet map, all business. “History records that Washington laid the cornerstone at the southeast corner of the building in a Masonic ceremony. But nobody knows if that was the southeast corner of the original north wing that went up in the 1790s or the southeast corner of what would eventually become the entire Capitol Building.”

  “Neither,” he told her. “The Masons typically lay the cornerstone in the northeast corner of their buildings.”

  “I’ve crossed all the records, Conrad. Washington definitely laid the cornerstone in the southeast corner.”

  “Look.” Conrad guided her hand across the Hallet map. “Here’s the original north wing of the Capitol, which was built first. And here right next to it is the proposed central section, which would ultimately support the dome and connect the north and south wings.”

  “I can see that, mate.”

  “Really?” He guided her finger to the southeast corner of the north wing, where Conrad was betting Washington laid the cornerstone. “What do you see now?”

  “Holy Mother of God,” she said, staring at her finger. “The southeast corner of the north wing is also the northeast corner of the central dome section.”

  “And the dome represents not only the heart of the U.S. Capitol, but of the entire city of Washington, D.C., as well,” he said. “So my location for the cornerstone is both historically accurate and Masonically correct.”

  Still she refused to let go of her doubts. “Very clever,” she said. “But a lot’s changed since the cornerstone was laid. For starters, everything built on top of your cornerstone was razed to the ground by the British in the War of 1812. And the original turned out to be so heavy the entire East Front of the building had to be rebuilt—directly over your bloody cornerstone—just to hold the thing up. So how are you going to find it under all that modified rubble?”

  “Come with me.”

  He took her hand and they walked out onto the balcony thirteen stories above Pennsylvania Avenue. The concert was still going on down in the plaza, and Serena looked positively radiant, the view marred only by the FBI building looming behind her.

  “This is supposed to be the city’s grand avenue, linking the White House to the U.S. Capitol,” he said. “By design the buildings were supposed to be within each other’s line of sight. And for years they were, until the Treasury Building went up and obstructed the view.”

  “Money usually does,” Serena said, still letting him hold her hand. “But the symbolism was that the executive and legislative branches of the American government could keep a watchful eye on each other. I get it. So what?”

  “So this terrestrial arrangement is mirrored in the heavens,” he said. “Look up at the stars. There’s the star Boötes over the White House. And over there is Regulus over the U.S. Capitol. See?”

  “Actually, Conrad, I can’t.”

  “The city lights make them harder to see. But they’re there, and there’s an invisible radiant connecting them right over our heads.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Stars I can’t see? Connected by an invisible radiant? Does this work on other women?”

  She was joking, but he could hear the tension in her voice. For all her spirituality, Serena Serghetti was the most practical, down-to-earth woman he had ever known. She was scared for him, and all his mumbo-jumbo wasn’t going to change that.

  “All I’m saying is that Pennsylvania Avenue by design extends to the center of the U.S. Capitol, somewhere under the basement crypt, which is directly below the rotunda, which is directly below the Capitol dome, which itself is a representation of the celestial dome.”

  Serena looked frustrated and upset. “I told you, Conrad, the shape of the hill beneath the Capitol has been altered over the centuries with all the terracing, let alone the structure above.”

  “But the stars haven’t, Serena. Which is why you and the feds can’t find the cornerstone. You’re looking at blueprints. I’m looking for the intended center of the dome. And my cosmic radiant in the sky, with the assistance of the Pentagon’s Global Positioning System, is going to lead me to the cornerstone and the celestial globe.”

  Serena took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Now how can I argue with a man who has the logic of Don Quixote. Or is it Don Juan? It’s so hard to tell with you.”

  She wiped an eye, and Conrad couldn’t tell if it was a tear or the wind.

  “Maybe a nightcap would clear things up for you,” he said. “After all, this could be my last night alive.”

  “I hate you,” she said and punched him hard in the chest.

  Laughing, he rubbed an aching rib. “So why save America?”

  She looked conflicted. “Because the cliché is true: America is the world’s last best hope.”

  “I thought you believed Jesus was.”

  “I meant right now, politically, America is the best we’ve got for the unencumbered work of the Church and freedom of religion, which isn’t going over too well in other parts of the world like the Middle East and China.”

  “Is that you or Rome talking?” he asked, hoping to raise her ire and get her worries off him. “Because there are some people, mostly in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, who feel that the Church is the problem and that the world would be better off without it.”

  His ploy seemed to be working.

  “The Church, however corrupt an institution, is a symbol of the kingdom of heaven in a world that is passing away,” she said. “As such it stewards the eternal, life-changing message of redemption.”

  “Oh, so the Church is the last best hope?”

  She looked him in the eye, lost in some dark thought, and then glanced away.

  “No, Conrad. Unfortunately, as things now stand, you are.”

  Scary thing was, Conrad felt she really believed it, because she started to cry softly. He held her tight in the dark and looked out at the dome of the Capitol glowing in the night, wondering if she was in his arms for the last time.

  PART TWO

  July 1

  14

  U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  INSIDE A SECRET ROOM in the Capitol, Max Seavers sat before congressional leaders with officials from the intelligence community and Health and Human Services. Three years ago, as the Chairman and CEO of SeaGen Labs, he had told this same group that a bird flu pandemic could one day kill millions of Americans. This morning, as the head of DARPA, he was there to announce that that day had come.

  “This was taken yesterday from a village in the northeastern province of Liaoning in China,” he
said, wrapping up his confidential briefing with a slide stamped “top secret” across the bottom.

  The slide showed Chinese health officials in protective gear burning the bodies of men, women, and children outside a poultry farm.

  “As you can see, our intel raises serious questions about Chinese disclosure of the spread of bird flu among their population. They want nothing to cloud the upcoming Olympic Games next month. And they have already warned us that any attempt to publicize our concerns will be taken as a political act to undermine the Games and international relations. Unfortunately, by then it will be too late. Worse, the Games themselves, with people attending from all over the world, may prove to be the ultimate launching platform for a global pandemic when they go back home.”

  Seavers moved on to his next slide. It was a grainy black and white.

  “The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which was a form of bird flu, killed fifty million people. The new H5N1 mutation is far more dangerous today, targeting adults in the prime of life, and killing more than half of those it infects. No one in the world is immune, putting all six billion of the planet’s human population at risk.”

  Senator Joseph Scarborough, the chairman of the committee, turned red with anger. He peered over his glasses at the man seated next to Seavers, an official from the Centers for Disease Control, and demanded, “And what the hell is the CDC going to do about this?”

  “The messy medical reality is that people can spread flu a full day before they show symptoms,” the official said, meekly tap-dancing around the fact that “nothing” was his real answer. “So even shutting U.S. borders against an outbreak at the Beijing Games offers no reassurance that a super-strain isn’t already incubating here. Should an outbreak hit American shores, the best we can do is limit international flights, quarantine exposed travelers, and restrict movement around the country. That could slow the virus’s spread and give us time to dispense our stockpiles of the SeaGen super-vaccine to limit the inevitable economic and social chaos.”