Jarvis nodded, not the slightest trace of deception in his voice.
‘The entire catalogue of artefacts recovered by the DIA as part of my ARIES program points to the conclusion that our planet has a longer history of civilization than we know about and that someone, somewhere wants that knowledge to remain secret.’
Foxx nodded as though he understood. ‘And these artefacts, where are they now?’
‘I managed to hide some of them before the new administration took over,’ Jarvis explained. ‘But most were taken away and hidden. I believe that the new administration is determined to recover them, regardless of the risks to life and limb and national security.’
‘You’re telling me that the Russians are colluding with our own leadership in this, that they’re working together?’
‘Only on the face of it,’ Jarvis replied. ‘They may have colluded to ensure that they both gained the election result that they wanted, but beyond that I don’t believe that they intend to trust each other and in fact my best guess is that when it comes to crunch time they’ll deploy their forces against each other anywhere in the world they choose.’
That got Foxx’s attention.
‘They’ll go to war over this?’
‘When was the last time you ever heard of the Russians being true to their word or our current administration being lauded for honesty and integrity? As soon as either side thinks they have the winning hand they’re going to drop rocks on the other and get out of dodge as fast as they can. That might be fine if either side had a reputation for anything approaching competency but my biggest fear right now is that the whole thing will go south, and before you know it we’ll have a military flashpoint between east and west right here in Europe and there’ll be nothing we can do to stop it getting out of hand.’
Foxx stared at his notes. Even if Jarvis was off his head and the entire tale was some kind of veil fabricated to cover some deeper truth, he knew well enough that the ship on which they sailed had just passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and that just a hundred miles to the south the Russian Udaloy–class destroyer Severomosk was sailing on international waters at maximum speed toward the Spanish coast. As far as he could recall the Russians had nothing more to do with Spain than booking it as a holiday destination.
He thought for a moment.
‘The Russians that you say are behind all of this. Had you identified them yet?’
‘Only their leader,’ Jarvis replied. ‘He showed up in Indonesia and is the man responisible for the murder of one of our team. His name is Konstantin Petrov and he operates under Diplomatic Immunity.’
Foxx felt a tingle of shock at the mention off that name. Petrov was a man who had been mentioned many times in communications chatter picked up by Foxx’s team. Deployed after his predecessor had been killed in an anomalous incident in Egypt that had also involved DIA operatives assigned to Jarvis before his disappearance, Petrov was believed to have been operating as part of some kind of exotic unit called…
‘Mat’ Zemlya,’ Jarvis said for Foxx, ‘Russian for “Mother Earth”. The unit is modelled on the DIA’s ARIES program and generally hunts for the same things that we do. It’s why we so often found ourselves up against Russian operatives around the world. Listen, the people out there working for me are patriots and they’re trying to prevent a war from being sparked. Get your people onto this instead of arresting our family members and you’ll see that I’m telling the truth. We’re tired of this now and want it brought to an end as much as you do, but if you don’t deploy forces to support Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez, this is going to end with the Americans and the Russians betraying each other and starting a conflict that could lead to World War Three. Is that something you want on your conscience?’
Foxx did not reply for a moment, but then he spoke softly.
‘We haven’t arrested your family members,’ he said. ‘We took them into protective custody.’
Jarvis raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as Foxx went on.
‘We knew they were being targeted by the Russians and that if captured they might be harmed in return for information. You’re right, Mr Jarvis, this will end here and now because we can’t risk the exposure of the kind of information you’re in possession of to Russian thugs like Petrov. Your families are all safe and will be returned home as soon as this matter is resolved.’
Jarvis nodded.
‘And Ethan and Nicola? They’re in the company of my granddaughter, a civilian. They’ll be in the firing line if your people don’t get to them first.’
Foxx looked at Jarvis for a long moment.
‘I will inform our people of friendlies on site,’ he promised. ‘If this process results in the complete recovery of materials stolen from the DIA and the prevention of a major international incident then it will go a long way in clearing your name. However, the government has no interest in your crusade and every reason to oppose it. I will do what I can to protect them, but sooner or later we’re going to be back in the United States and things will be out of my hands.’
Jarvis nodded, looking as though he was in deep thought.
Foxx stood from his seat, turned and marched out. He closed the door behind him and knew that most of what he had just heard was so incredible that he could not hope to present it to his superiors and expect them to do anything except lock Jarvis up and throw away the key. He would have to tread lightly or this whole thing would explode in his face, not to mention across the whole of southern Europe. Any confrontation between Russian and American forces here would demand the intervention of the United Nations and the NATO alliance, which would mobilize forces within moments of any clash to lock the Russians down on the borders of Poland and Germany. Poised for open conflict, the rest of the world would be forced to take sides. China would ally with Russia, allowing Communist North Korea the support its deranged leader craved, while Iran and Syria would oppose America and Israel. Even if the European situation were diffused quickly, neither Israel nor Iran would deny themselves the righteous opportunity to strike their neighbor. From there, all bets were off.
Foxx hurried to a communications suite deep inside the ship. From here, he could use secure satellite links with Washington DC to determine from his superiors the best course of action and ensure that this flashpoint was extinguished before it could even begin. Within moments of accessing his high–security account, Foxx was linked to the Pentagon and was explaining to a four–star general only the parts of Jarvis’s story that wouldn’t get him sent to a private hospital ward in Vermont with padded walls and soft music.
‘And you can verify this information?’ the general asked.
‘It matches everything we know so far, and with the Russian destroyer Severomosk within hours of our position and Konstantin Petrov already in Spain, I’d say the likelihood that this is a false alarm just went out the window. If we don’t act to intervene and prevent the Russians from linking up with Petrov, this whole thing could go south real fast sir.’
The general nodded thoughtfully.
‘I’ll have to clear it with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that means that the administration will be in the loop. If what this guy Jarvis is saying turns out to be true, they may attempt to prevent any US military action that might endanger their goal or expose further evidence of their collusion with Russian activists inside the DC area.’
‘Their goals are not in line with United States national security sir,’ Foxx said. ‘Right now, I’ll take a tongue lashing from any elected official rather than a potential global military clash on the soil of an allied nation of the NATO alliance.’
‘Agreed,’ the general replied. ‘What allied assets do we have on the ground there right now?’
‘Several Americans, former DIA operatives who have worked to uncover this conspiracy.’
‘Civilians?’
Foxx nodded, and he could see the general working through his options.
‘These former DIA, are they the same operative
s assigned to Jarvis, who colluded to escape with classified artefacts and documents, not to mention finances, in the wake of the Panama Paper and the Majestic Twelve scandal?’
‘The same.’
Again, a long pause, and then the general appeared to make a decision.
‘Deploy what forces you have available to covertly infiltrate the site and take control of it with extreme prejudice. There are to be no mistakes, Foxx. I want this whole thing cleared up before that destroyer reaches the area.’
Foxx lifted his chin. ‘Yes sir. What about the joint chiefs?’
The general shook his head.
‘We can’t risk any of them attempting to derail this before Russian support is forthcoming to Petrov on the ground. Get your men in, hit the area hard and remove any trace of evidence that any American serviceman ever set foot in the Donana National Park, is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir!’
Foxx shut off the communications line and let out a long sigh that was something between relief and regret. He knew he had no choice and that to some extent neither did the general, but he also knew that he could not bring himself to think about the people on the ground who had no idea of what was about to happen.
Foxx left the communication suite and walked down into the Wasp–Class carrier’s loading bay. He saw there a small knot of men who were camped out amid the gigantic CH–53E Super Stallion helicopters stowed below decks, their rotors folded back on themselves to save space.
The eight soldiers were all members of a United States Navy Seal Team, and most of the other crewmen moving around the hangar gave the Special Forces soldiers a respectable berth as they busied themselves preparing their kit. Each man was equipped with diving gear and an impressive array of weapons designed for combat both above and below the waves.
The team leader saw Foxx approach and snapped to attention. The rest of the team followed suit but Foxx waved them to ease as he spoke softly enough to avoid any of the ship’s crew from overhearing.
‘The mission is a go,’ he reported. ‘You’ll be inserted into the location off a routine flight from a CH–53 to Rota Naval Base north of Cadiz. The same helo will pick you up on the way back. We have ground penetrating radar data of the site and have identified several subterranean cavities near the coast that you can use to exit the area. The timing has to be tight – you’re operating on the soil of a sovereign allied nation without their knowledge or that of the United Nations.’
‘Understood,’ came the reply, brisk and business like. ‘What’s our window?’
‘Two hours,’ Foxx replied. ‘That’s all we have to give. The helo will report engine trouble and land at Rota. Our people have buried a minor problem deep enough for it to take that long to identify, but once its fixed the pilots will have to leave. Be sure that you and all of your men are on that flight.’
‘We will be. Collateral?’
Foxx sucked in a deep breath and shook his head.
‘All entities in the vicinity are to be treated as hostile,’ he replied. ‘There are no allied entities in the area that we’re aware of.’
‘Understood.’
With that the SEALS returned to their work and Foxx mentally placed an image of Ethan Warner and his team in a box and filed it away into some deep neural tract where it would no longer bother him.
***
XLII
The interior of the mound was dark and the air laden with the stench of rotting vegetation and brackish water. Ethan’s flashlight barely penetrated the deep gloom as he edged along behind Lucy Morgan, feeling his way mostly by touch along what felt like a narrow path of smooth stone slick with moss and slime.
‘This isn’t the glorious capital of ancient technology I was hoping for,’ Lopez said as she followed them.
Lucy’s voice reached out in reply from the darkness.
‘This city has been buried for perhaps ten thousand years, it’s not going to be in tip–top shape for your grand arrival. I’m sure the people who built it would be deeply sorry for your inconvenience.’
Lopez said nothing in reply as Ethan ran his hand along the wall beside him and felt the smoothly interlocking stones, the surface of each shaped until it was perfectly smooth to the touch.
Their flashlights illuminated what appeared to be the upper gantry of some kind of temple, and Ethan could see the vague outline of pillars and steps across the gloom to his left. The sound of their voices hinted at a large open space and a drop somewhere to their left to lower levels. The entire temple was filled with the sound of dripping water coming not from above but from somewhere below, where the levels of the city remained below the water table.
Across the temple floor he could see thick streams of shaped silt and sand, dry now but revealing the flow of water as it slowly drained away perhaps thousands of years ago and left in its path rivulets through the silt. The walls were dry but he could feel countless tiny grains of silt encrusted into the stones.
‘The city must have been underwater for some time, perhaps thousands of years,’ Lucy said as they moved, sensing the same things as Ethan. ‘Now the water is draining away due to climate change and the human use of water from the aquifer, which is why we were able to get in here at all. If Spain had been of a less temperate climate and hadn’t formed a nature reserve in this area, erosion would probably have exposed this city centuries ago.’
Lucy suddenly began descending and Ethan found himself on the edge of stone steps that descended down from the upper gantry and onto the temple floor. Behind him Lopez cracked two glow sticks and tossed them out into the void, the glowing tubes bursting into life as they spiralled down thirty feet and landed with soft thuds in thick silt.
As they fell so they cast light on the temple, its perimeter filled with fluted columns reminiscent of ancient Greece and a huge statue of what to Ethan appeared to be the Roman God, Neptune. The muscular, bearded figure stood some twenty feet high and loomed at the head of the temple, one thick arm pointing out toward the temple entrance while the other held a towering trident that almost reached the ceiling above them.
‘Neptune?’ Lopez asked as they descended the steps. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘I very much doubt that the founders of this city knew that figure as Neptune,’ Lucy replied as she hesitated at the foot of the steps. ‘The Romans would have adopted the figure to fit their own legends and myths, the Greeks likewise and later the Christians.’
‘Christians?’ Ethan asked.
Lucy gestured to the gigantic trident in Neptune’s hand. ‘Where do you think Satan got his trident from? Every legendary or mythical figure of our time has its origins concealed by much older civilizations. The Christian anti–Christ, Satan or Lucifer, has its origins in Neptune and the Roman’s worship of the goat. The Romans revered the goat as a sign of spring, a happy and energetic creature that provided milk and meat. When the Christians took over Rome, they re–cast all the popular Roman gods as evil and pagan creatures. In Lucifer’s case, they gave him Neptune’s body, his Trident and the head of a goat and made him the ruler of the underworld, the embodiment of evil, which was the opposite of what the name Lucifer actually meant.’
Lucy stepped gingerly onto the thick silt on the temple floor and her boot sank some six inches into it before it reached the stone below.
‘What does Lucifer actually mean then?’ Ethan asked.
‘It means “bringer of light”,’ Lucy replied. ‘The term was Caananite in origin although the word Lucifer comes from the Latin. It was the name the ancient world gave to the morning star, that which heralded the end of darkness, and what we know today as the planets Venus, Mercury or the star Sirius, all of which rise just before the sun at certain times of the year and are extremely bright. Christian mythology just twisted that on its head to bury the memory of older gods and bring new generations into their cult. Children today are taught in schools to fear Satan as a great evil but in fact the figure is as ancient and fictional as any other deity,
a mythical creature invented by early Christians and nothing more.’
Ethan stepped into the silt as Lopez tossed more glowsticks toward the corners of the temple and for the first time in thousands of years it once again glowed with light. Ethan could see thick sloping mounds of silt piled up where ancient flowing waters had deposited them, and high up on the gantry edge were rows of symbols and what looked like letters that made Lucy gasp in awe.
‘That looks like Linear A script,’ she said as she stepped closer to the nearest line of text, some fifteen feet above them and carved into the rock in letters six inches high.
‘They look like hieroglyphics,’ Lopez said.
‘And they’re identical to the symbols we saw on Die Gocke in Antarctica,’ Ethan said, ‘the Black Knight satellite.’
‘The what?’ Lucy asked after a moment, confusion on her face.
Ethan figured that since they were no longer working for the DIA and that the government they had once served was now actively hunting them, there was no longer any real reason for he and Lopez to abide by the non–disclosure agreements that they had signed.
‘On one of our previous investigations we were sent south to Antarctica to pick up the remains of an artificial object that had been orbiting earth for at least thirteen thousand years,’ he replied. ‘That led us to find another object that matched precisely an alien craft rumored to have been captured in Germany a few years before World War Two. Both carried the same markings around the rim, just like those up there, and they also match well–regarded and witnessed UFO encounters with similar objects in Kecksburg, Pennsylvania in 1965 and Rendlesham Forest, England in 1980.’
Lucy still appeared confused until Lopez spoke.
‘The people of Kecksburg built a giant model of the UFO complete with the markings,’ she said, ‘that still stands outside the town to this day, and the Rendlesham Forest incident was witnessed by dozens of US military serviceman and even audio recorded by the base commander who led the team that encountered the object. These cases aren’t your run of the mill, lonely forest road encounters – these things happened and were witnessed by dozens and even hundreds of people, and they saw those symbols on the UFOs they encountered.’
The Atlantis Codex Page 28