Allison stared at the vial and then at Lillian and suddenly she realized that this was no deception, that this was something real that she could have tested, find confirmation of the story that she was being told.
‘Of course, you can’t go public with any of this yet,’ Lillian cautioned her. ‘The public need to know not just about this but about all of the things that Majestic Twelve either bought, killed for or suppressed over the past few decades. There are countless inventions that would have changed our world for the better that have been buried because their emergence would have affected the profits of major corporations or upset the balance of world power.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to expose!’ Allison almost wailed. ‘Our country is not governed by people who want the best for us, the whole system keeps the wealthy safe, riding on the shoulders of the countless workers beneath them who are the ones who have to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart!’
Lillian inclined her head in agreement.
‘That’s the way that it’s always been, but over the many decades since the Second World War the quality of life for the average American has greatly improved. Most of us see that as due progress, the result of democracy working for us, but in truth mankind’s advancement has been held back by world government. We should have long ago been able to eradicate poverty and diseases, found natural ways to power our world, found ways to overcome our differences with other nations and so on. Now, on the verge of being able to shake off the shackles of corporate interference in politics, we have an administration determined to imprison us beneath the cosh of billionaires once again. Our plan is to prevent that, Allison, and the only way to do it is to hit the news with so many stories at once of how the government has screwed the people over for so many years that no administration would be able to take the heat. The people have a right to know, Allison, and what we have to share with them will make Watergate look like a brief irritation. If you want to, you will be the voice of that broadcast, but you must make your decision quickly, for the governments of America and Russia are searching for us all, and if we’re found before we can complete this mission, everything we have done, everything we have lost and sacrificed will have been for nothing.’
Allison stared again into Lillian’s clear green eyes and she sensed the fire of righteous vengeance burning within. She took the vial and photograph and put them in her pocket.
***
XXVIII
Ratu Bay, Indonesia
Nicola Lopez walked along the beach, strolling casually near the glistening white rollers nearby as though she were merely a carefree tourist taking in the spectacular view of the tropical paradise island. Her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, allowing her to surreptitiously scan the movement of everybody within a hundred yards of her.
Lopez knew that she was being watched, and although she also knew that Ethan was somewhere nearby and watching over her she had the sense that their enemy was close. Lopez had insisted that she meet with them alone, the memory of Hellerman’s battered corpse burned into her mind and provoking a primal fury that seethed inside her like cauldron of molten rock as she searched for the Russians.
As she was walking she spotted a bulky, squat looking man sitting at a table beneath an umbrella. He had closely shaved, dark hair and a small beard and was watching her with an intense gaze. Even if she had not seen an image of the Russian she would have known by instinct that the man was Konstantin Petrov. Lopez changed direction, walking away from the shoreline and up to the tables. She could see no evidence of Petrov’s entourage of security personnel, but she knew that they would be close by. The fact that Lopez was carrying a concealed Berretta 9mm pistol and could put a round through Petrov’s head long before they could reach her suggested a bold, brazen confidence in the man before her, and likely the presence of a sniper within a hundred yards of the table.
‘Miss Lopez’.
Petrov stood and bowed slightly in a gentlemanly manner that was not reflected in the black eyes that watched her like those of a great white shark with a smile to match, flat and without emotion.
Lopez kicked a chair clear of the table and sat down opposite the Russian, waiting expectantly as Petrov sat down and regarded her for a moment.
‘You and your friend, Warner, have a remarkable ability to avoid dying.’
‘Not something you share, believe me.’
Petrov uttered a brief chuckle, as though surprised by her aggression.
‘I think that we’ve got off on the wrong foot, don’t you?’
Lopez stared back at him for a long moment before she replied. ‘Bit late to start over, Petrov.’
The Russian offered her a hurt look and tutted as he shook his head. ‘Come now, that’s water under the bridge. Your colleague had something that I wanted and he refused to part with it. I knew then that his courage meant that I would not be able to rely on anything that he said, even though I do recall him begging for the chance to recant as he was dragged behind our vehicle.’ He smiled again. ‘Such a pity, but he had lost a lot of blood by then so how could I trust anything he might have wanted to say?’
Petrov leaned forward, folded his hands together as he spoke again.
‘You’re hurt and angry that the young man died at our hands, but you completely ignore that fact that just days ago you killed several of my men in India. We found their corpses floating in the sea of Dwarka, what was left of them anyway. You do know that some of those you left behind were still alive when the sharks attacked them, no?’
‘They shouldn’t have tried to kill us,’ Lopez shot back. ‘Don’t blame us for the brutality your grim little team of killers mete out to anyone who gets in their way, Petrov. If we were left to our own devices nobody would die and we would have found Atlantis by now.’
Petrov leaned back, drumming his fingers idly on the table.
‘I doubt that very much,’ he replied. ‘Either way, the existence or otherwise of your lost city does not interest me in the slightest.’
‘And yet you killed Joseph,’ Lopez observed, suppressing the urge to pull her pistol and blow Petrov’s kneecaps off, ‘over something you now claim to have no interest in, and dismiss the murder as water under the bridge.’
Petrov shrugged. ‘We cannot change what is done, only what we do next.’
‘Damn right,’ Lopez hissed, ‘so why not pull your team off the site and we won’t have to kill each and every one of you.’
Petrov chuckled again.
‘I’m afraid that will not be possible, Nicola,’ he replied. ‘You see, you have something that we want and it’s not the crumbling remnants of some Neolithic slum you and your little band want to dig out of the seabed.’
Lopez raised an expectant eyebrow.
‘Thirty–two billion dollars,’ Petrov said to her, his black eyes glistening now with delight. ‘That is how much we estimate the people we know you’re working for stole from the United States government. Such a lot of money, far too much for five or six people to hoard all to themselves, don’t you think?’
Lopez watched Petrov with a silent, emotionless glare. Five or six people. Petrov probably knew about Jarvis, herself and Ethan, maybe Mitchell and Garrett too. It wouldn’t have been that hard to connect Garrett to them as they could have traced the yacht’s movements, and both Jarvis and Mitchell would be well known to the Russians as a result of their exploits over the years. That told Lopez that Amber Ryan and Lillian Cruz might yet be unknown to Petrov and the Russians.
‘You’re in it for the money,’ she said finally. ‘And there was me thinking that you didn’t have a good reason for killing Joseph.’
Petrov shrugged again.
‘Quid pro quo,’ he replied, ‘you killed eight of my men, I killed but one of yours, but who’s counting? We can call it even and start acting like grown ups. It’s not like you don’t have reasons of your own to walk away from this considerably wealthier than you probably are right now. Look at you; you’re on
the run from your own government, who also want the money back and will stop at nothing to track you down. You don’t think that as soon as they find you they won’t take it all back and throw you, Warner and the others into some CIA black prison in Yemen and toss the key?’
Lopez did not react to the Russian, who sat back in his chair as though in exasperation.
‘You amaze me, you Americans,’ he said. ‘Your own country repeatedly treats you worse than mangy dogs and yet you maintain such loyalty to your flag, to leaders who don’t even know your names and yet will see you dead for the money that you hold, money that belongs neither to you or to them.’
‘Stones and glass houses springs to mind.’
Petrov sighed and shook his head.
‘My government wants the money that your government wants, but right now I don’t care about any of that. You, and your friend Ethan Warner, you’ re much like me in that…’
‘We’re nothing like you.’
‘… in that you’d like for all of this to be over, no?’
Lopez said nothing, and then to her amazement Petrov produced a photograph that he laid before her on the table. The image was of a manuscript, written in what looked like Greek, and it appeared to be very old.
‘You have heard of the Greek mariner, Pytheas?’ Petrov asked her.
‘What of him?’
‘He was following another mariner who had preceded him, and that man was called Heliosa. Heliosa was a Greek seaman who travelled widely and was reputed to have obtained a cargo of immense value that was lost in a freak storm somewhere off the coast of what is now Portugal. The crew managed to salvage some of their lost cargo, but most of it remains below the waves.’
Lopez frowned. ‘You’re after the cargo?’
Petrov shrugged.
‘It would be nice if it were to fall into my hands,’ he replied. ‘The thing is, Heliosa had a slave girl called Jaela, and she recorded his voyages and kept his records for him. Jaela writes that when the ship was lost, they witnessed a city beneath the waves.’
Lopez peered at Petrov uncertainly. ‘Go on.’
‘The descriptions are vague, but I am reliably informed that the girl’s decriptions involved a city of great temples and docks arranged in three concentric circles, the same layout that Plato and others ascribe to your lost Atlantis. Lucy isn’t searching just for the lost city, she’s following in the path of Pytheas, who was himself searching for Atlantis by seeking Heliosa’s lost ship. The difference is that we have the document that Lucy excavated, whereas Pytheas did not.’
Suddenly, Lopez realized why Petrov was here.
‘You’re going to get lost once you have your hands on that cargo.’
‘You and your friends could end this too, right here and right now,’ Petrov growled. ‘You could relieve yourself of the burden of hiding all that money and we would let you continue on your way with no further interference from us. Think about it. I would let you and Warner leave with half of any of the cargo of Heliosa that we find, a more than generous offer. And before you think that I would betray you, I am a man of my word, Nicola. If you agreed to my terms I would honor them and I would never pursue you or your people again.’
Lopez smiled faintly.
‘And I’m sure that Moscow is fully on board with all of that, and that you’ll return all of the money to the Kremlin and then just walk away like a good little boy.’
Petrov’s eyes hardened.
‘Let’s not play games, Nicola. We both know that neither of our governments knows precisely how much money went missing after your DIA team dismantled the cabal known as Majestic Twelve, and certainly none of them know anything about any missing Greek gold. There is enough money at stake here for all of us to end our careers with more wealth than we could ever need and for both of our countries to believe that they too have achieved their aims. Everybody wins.’
Lopez glared at Petrov.
‘You want to work with us?’
‘A business partnership,’ Petrov urged. ‘We both want the same thing. We all labor beneath the corruption and greed of the elite, Nicola, and this is the best way to ensure that we deny them a prize that they ill deserve.’
‘By becoming as greedy and corrupt as they are?’
Petrov exhaled noisily, his fists clenched now on the table before him.
‘I am not an unreasonable man,’ he growled at her, ‘but I am an impatient one. Your friend Hellerman could have walked away had he told me what I needed to know, and yet he died because he thought that obstruction was the smarter move. He died because he was stupid. Don’t make the same mistake.’
Lopez lifted one boot and kicked hard at the edge of the table. The thin metal table between them flipped up and over and crashed down onto Petrov. The Russian threw his arms up to hurl the table aside, and as he did so Lopez smashed her boot down to pin the table in place over him, the Russian peering at her over the rim and his face flushed with impotent rage as she aimed her pistol down at his face.
A small number of nearby tourists and locals scrambled away from their tables and fled as Lopez glared down at Petrov over the barrel of the pistol.
‘I’m neither reasonable or patient,’ Lopez snarled as she saw two armed men leap into view and run toward her.
Petrov turned to shout to his men to shoot, when Lopez gestured to the Russian’s shirt.
‘They shoot, you die.’
Petrov looked down and saw a tiny, bright red dot hovering on his shirt. He turned again to his men and waved them down. The guards skittered to a halt twenty yards away, both of them glaring at Lopez but coming no closer.
Lopez down at Petrov over the pistol.
‘I wouldn’t deal with you for all the money in the world. Before my time is done, Petrov, I’m gonna look down at you like this again just before I pull the trigger and blow your brains out.’
Lopez lifted her boot off the table and tucked her pistol beneath her shirt, the bright red speck still hovering over Petrov’s chest.
‘Any of you move before I’m out of sight, you all die,’ she said.
She turned and walked away from the Russian, her heart pounding in her chest as she made her way out across the beach. She forced herself to walk casually, showing none of the fear she felt as she awaited the pain and shock of a bullet in her back.
She did not dignify the Russians by looking back as she walked out of range, but as soon as she was clear she pulled out her cell phone and dialled Ethan’s number. He picked up instantly.
‘Jeez Nicola, I thought you were going to put him down right there and then!’
‘I already wish I had,’ she replied. ‘They’re onto us, Ethan. I’m pretty sure Petrov knows about Garret and Jarvis, and he might even have some awareness of Mitchell. Whatever we do next, we have to consider the possibility that he could sell us out to the CIA in return for kickbacks. He tried to strike a deal with me, to work with us, can you believe that?’
She heard Jarvis reply.
‘They’re getting desperate, but it’s only a matter of time now before they strike, so we have to stay ahead of them. I’ll take care of everything, you guys get the hell out of here and on to wherever Lucy’s research takes you next.’
‘What are you going to do?’ Lopez asked Jarvis. ‘If Petrov decides to ally himself to the CIA then we’re all for the chop.’
‘That’s why you need to disappear so that you can finish the job,’ Jarvis insisted. ‘I can handle Petrov and the CIA. Get back here as quickly as you can and I’ll explain everything.’
***
XXIX
Ronald Reagan International Airport,
Virginia
Allison Pierce made her way through the departures lounge and checked the time of her flight before she headed for the bustling waiting area and chose a seat. The chorus of anonymous voices all around her and the sea of unknown faces for once was a welcome veil of cover that she could hide behind as she awaited her flight.
The fa
ct that her cell phone was still probably cruising around the streets of DC was an additional comfort to her. Detective Cleaves would not yet have any idea that she was intending to leave the country and there would not be an APB out for her arrest at this time. Still, she knew that she would only feel comfortable when she had left the plane at her destination and vanished into the anonymous crowds of another country far from the district and its corruption and lies.
Allison buried her face in the pages of a magazine and crossed her fingers that she would make it out of the country without being intercepted or recognized.
It was only three minutes later when she knew that she wouldn’t even make it out of the airport.
The security guards gave themselves away first, nonchalantly appearing at the exits to the waiting area and hovering conspicuously to anybody who might be looking out for them. Allison watched them over the pages of her magazine and hoped against hope that they were waiting for somebody else: maybe a drug mule from Colombia, or a suspected terrorist from the Middle East.
Before she could see whom they had come to arrest, a tall man with dark skin eased himself into the seat next to her.
‘They’re looking for you,’ he said simply.
Allison looked at the man, his back straight and his hair neatly cropped. The suit he wore was tight on a muscular frame but he was not a body builder, just somebody in excellent physical condition as any military man might expect to be. Allison recognized the face as that of the man she had filmed entering the offices of Bright & Warner only two days ago to leave with Natalie Warner in the government vehicles.
‘It’s a free country,’ she replied. ‘I can leave it if I want to.’
‘You’re a suspect in a shooting incident in Bellveue,’ the man replied. ‘One call is all it will take to have the officers arrayed throughout this terminal arrest you and drag you to a jail cell.’
The Atlantis Codex (Warner & Lopez Book 7) Page 19