That could have been contained, for the Committee and its army of gun-toting evangelicals is adept at hushing up such misadventures, but the linguist, an American named Shoshanna Knox, leaked it to the press—the Times, for heaven’s sake. She received enough notice and funding to organize her own trip to the Canary Islands, where she is now gleaning piles of information in the forgotten language of the Guanche—the original, decimated Canary Islanders. There, an odd written language of lines and dots, squiggles and swirls remains, but no one alive knows how to speak it. Knox is at work tracing the relationship between the Guanche language to Berber and its precursor tongue. These are bad times for the Committee and Hewitt is no longer on active duty.
Cruz knows it is time for a more efficient means of operation. In the Americas, Cruz has already managed to persuade Mexican insurgents to bomb a water project to hide a newly discovered series of ancient caves. A dogged photographer was deprived of the photos, and the female reporter lured to Chicago, where Professor Ricketts and his boys lay in wait. The writer’s story must be on a compact disc in a safe deposit box or uploaded to some impregnable storage site and it’s up to Ricketts and his crew to persuade her to tell them where it is. Still, Cruz knows, as he fondles the serrated blade of his diving knife, that she has nothing to prove her story. Nothing at all. But, still, he’d like to see all traces of her findings disappear. He hates dealing with these soft professors and their sloppy methods. He much prefers the American churchmen who provide him with weapons and, occasionally, with soldiers of God. To Cruz, a few missing persons would solve the Committee’s problem better than bombs, drugs, or kidnapping. The Committee’s methods often stink, but they pay well, so he suffers their half measures.
He wipes a hand across his sun-darkened brow, squinting into the glaring expanse of ocean. Now, comes the difficult part, slipping into a guarded facility of a nation that’s already on high alert. He is supposed to find the sites the satellite images indicate. Yanqui scum, he thinks as he stands in the water for hours, watching the guards change, noting when the ships pull into port and which ship has liberty tonight. He’ll stay here to until the next day if he has to. Breaking U.S. security is one of his favorite assignments.
#
Conrad Pitch, Ph.D., fellow of Oxford University, Keeper of the Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, shoulders the hefty legend built by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge—a god in the pantheon of Egyptologists. Pitch is born to impressive duties, and the tasks leave no respite. Therefore, he is never in the mood for the daily wails of tabloid hawkers that assault his ears when he trods the sodden streets of London. A typical day has begun with soul-piercing rain that drums on until noon. The brollies are put away as the sun shines about Russell Square for a few precious afternoon hours. As Pitch leaves his office, the umbrellas bloom again like black poppies in a tragic jungle, each one funereal, shading a dour face. The lemmings march forward at a soldier-like pace to the Tube. Pitch joins the throng, although he has no intention of taking the grimy Underground. He is pacing along with the rabble on his way to a nearby meeting room.
The Evening Standard hawker, intent on getting his fifty pence for each rag he sells, barks, “Atlantis found under the sand in Egypt. Staaaaandard here!” For the first time in the decade he has worked at the museum, Pitch stops at the man’s sorry mess of a newsstand—just a folding chair and wooden racks covered with a makeshift tent of plastic sheeting.
“What did you say?” Pitch commands of the yellow-toothed serf. The man sucks in his already-sunken cheeks and studies the interrogator.
“Eh? Standard here.” The gnome-like creature holds up the glaring headline to the academic’s rigid face. The headline reads just as the old peddler proclaimed: “Atlantis in the Sand.” A photograph bears the caption, “Radar imagery shows the Sahara was once a fertile plain before the Nile took a turn and climate changed. Can Atlantis be under the sands?” Breathless prose aside, the caption has the glimmer of truth to it. Pitch had seen the NASA images himself years ago. There was no doubt that more than 10,000 years ago, before the retreat of the glaciers, much of the southern Mediterranean was fertile, crop-bearing land. A great deal of that area extends into today’s Sahara.
He peers closer at the paper. The actual information is buried beneath the pages of reports of the royals’ latest public embarrassment, an MP’s latest dalliances, and snaps of swimsuit beauties. But the story does bear a Reuters source credit. It must be on the up and up.
“Let’s have it, gov, you buying or not?” the insect croaks. Pitch pops the old vagabond a heavy fifty pence coin and gathers up the tabloid. He scurries off like a priest who’s been spied buying pornography.
Behind him the refrain begins again, “Standard. Evening Standard here.” Pitch has never bought one of these tabloids in his life. He curls it into a tight baton and continues to ply through the rain, sharp chin set at a haughty angle.
#
The Committee meeting always gets underway on the first Monday of the month at seven in the evening, sharp. Discreetly hidden in the back chambers of an office building, the Committee meetings appear attended by few, at least if one is counting the numbers of bodies present. However, in strategic places around the damp, velvet-curtained room are computer screens mounted with Web cameras. The Internet also provides vocal communication.
Present technologically at this evening’s gathering is Fayheed Saheem, the prim, poised director of Egypt’s office of antiquities. Crackling into pixilated forms that sometimes resolve themselves into a face is the flamboyant Antonio Dolores del Cristo from Guatemala. Today he wears red, which makes the monitor’s color resolution dance the samba. Smiling on a screen is Todd Ricketts, who may be the world’s most important authority on Mideast civilizations. He is logging in from Chicago. Another monitor shows an unkempt, bearded figure who will only admit to reporting from rural Idaho in the States. Pitch recognizes the man, half in shadows, as the Rev. Robert Caine. The money man. He runs an odd, survivalist cult in the wilds of the American Northwest, a thriving national church, and sits on top of a fortune thanks to the tithing of his loyal flock. He’s made an uneasy pact with the Committee, and Pitch finds him a repulsive but necessary part of the group.
In person sits a line of somber-faced Britons and one Australian. Pitch starts the meeting by holding up his soggy issue of the Standard. Susan Treadwell, who is sitting close by, reads the story aloud to the people on the monitors. When she finishes, silence descends.
Finally, Treadwell, a Babylonian expert from the British Museum, pulls at her wool skirt and breaks the agonizing quiet. “We’ve known about the climate,” she says with a sudden wave of the hand. “The rest is simply postulation. They can’t base anything on that.”
“Did you listen to the ending?” Colin Judge, a Greek and Latin professor from Oxford, asks. When the computer heads indicate confusion, he pages through the newspaper to find a small, ending paragraph. “That’s where all the good news is, you know. It says here that some American psychic plans to lead a team with ground-penetrating radar to the desert near the Libyan/Egyptian border to find traces of ancient buildings.”
“Can they do that?” Pitch demands.
“We’ve made nice with Libya ever since all that trouble with the revolution,” says the metallic-tinged voice of Ricketts, smiling into the Web cam like a TV interviewee. “Well, of course, you Brits are with us, too.”
Pitch blanches. You Brits. The last thing he needs is a political discussion led by the glib American. He signals for silence like a bobby ordering a full stop. “The point is, we have some more barmy folks with too much money, stomping about the desert and trying to rewrite history,” Pitch barks. “Can you revoke their permit, Fayheed?”
Saheem just shakes his head like the feeble old bureaucrat he has become. Once, he imagined himself a media star and led camera crews all over the sands of Egypt encouraging documentaries about the ancients. But when he was accused of faking artifacts and staging sidesh
ows with previously discovered treasures, the Egyptian government began stripping him of powers. After the Egyptian revolution, he’s become a beaten dog. These days, Saheem spends most of his time in a dank office, handing out permissions to dig to the select few who dare ask. Essentially, the entire area of Giza is off-limits to foreigners—except members of the Committee, of course.
“They asked Libya,” Saheem says, with an apologetic lift of the hands. “If they wander over the border, I don’t know how we’d catch them.” He stops to fan his brow and then begins to snicker. “Besides, there’s nothing out there. Sand and heat. I don’t envy them.”
Pitch nods curtly at the camera. “It probably doesn’t amount to anything.” He then wheels on the monitor with Ricketts’ handsome face. “But you idiots have really gotten us into a pinch.”
It is Ricketts’ turn to pale—or his computer image, anyway. Pitch refers to the drugged photographer Ricketts’ team snatched from Los Angeles. “Look, it’s under control,” the Chicago professor says, his smile fading. “The cops think it’s a mob job and…”
“But what were you thinking, man?” Pitch demands. There are murmurs of assent around the room.
“We had to get those photos to Chicago so we could analyze them.”
“They’d know more in Mexico. Why drag the man your way?”
“For another reason you’ve probably forgotten. We wanted to lure the reporter. She’s the daughter of the Langs.”
A strange sound of strangled breath issues from Del Cristo’s speakers. The younger members of the Committee stare at Pitch in consternation. He is silent, waiting for Ricketts to finish his mad speech.
“It appears that nature still beats nurture,” Ricketts continues, that smarmy smile beginning to spread across his face. “You see, she was adopted by her aunt and uncle and given the family name of Quigley. But she’s a Lang, through and through. And she’s just as keen on destroying our work as her late parents were.”
The Rev. Caine perks up. He’s the only church member of the Committee, but he also is the man with the cash. All attention turns to him.
“Want us to give you a hand with that, Professor Ricketts? I have some big guys out in Chicago. That’s my hometown,” he says in a nasal twang.
Pitch strokes his chin. He once wore a Van Dyke beard, which only accentuated the point of this jaw line. But now it’s smoothly shaven and he sports a clean mustache. Less devilish, he told his co-workers. He already had flunked one of his students for making a joke about Dante’s circles of Hell and the amounts of research Pitch assigned.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Pitch says. “Let’s be glad that Ignacio Cruz is on call.”
Ricketts swallows so hard, his Adam’s apple bounces in his throat. Del Cristo attempts to speak, but lapses into a weak cough. The rest of the meeting they spend on damage control, figuring how to counter the claims of the persistent and irritating translator, Shoshanna Knox.
#
The meeting over, the Rev. Caine takes off his headset and removes the Web cam. He’s not averse to technology, like so many in his field. He’s discovered that it has helped enrich his flock. Instead of remaining an evangelical preacher in the suburbs of Chicago, he’s been able to create a countrywide movement named Logos, with hundreds of thousands of members in the United States. It, of course, is what the Lord meant for him, and Web technology came along just at the time he was thinking of branching out, spreading the word of God to the world.
He stretches out his hands on his desk and handles the various file folders that represent the holdings of Logos Enterprises: the churches, the schools, the hospices, the nursing homes, the survivalist camp in Idaho where he lives. There’s even an off-color file that he doesn’t bring out into the open often. It merely says Guns, but it represents the army of God that he is creating for the time when the End Times near and chaos ensues. Lastly, he fingers the Committee folder. Here’s an enterprise that most preachers would never dream of joining, a group of scientists who sit around talking about archeological digs and dust-dry papers on ancient languages. He chuckles at their stupidity.
However, he learned long ago that the Committee was of invaluable help to him in the volatile and politically charged subject of Creationism. The professors hate the idea of an ancient civilization in the Neolithic Age (which he doesn’t even believe in) and he despises it, too. They laugh at the idea of Atlantis and he growls at the very idea. Darwinism is bad enough, but if you get people thinking God didn’t create the Earth when the Bible says He did, then you’ve got trouble.
No, Atlantis and all theories like it need to be wiped out. And he has the means to ensure eradication. The Committee stands able to make his sometimes extreme measures look reasonable to the secular public. He winces a bit at the thought of the academics. So bereft of belief. So far from the Kingdom of Heaven. What is he doing working with them? Then he smiles at the thought of the Godless people out there, just waiting for him to say the word and save them. That’s why he toils with these stodgy pagans, to help them see the light.
If he has to make some strange bedfellows, so be it. This is war. Those who hate the Lord must be dealt with. And hate is something the Rev. Caine deals out with judicious care.
CHAPTER EIGHT: FROST WARNING
Amaryllis arrives at Freya’s house, her childhood home, with a man on each arm. Wright insists on going despite the fact that Amaryllis explains about her “date” with Donny. Outside the door, Wright tucks her right hand next to his elbow. Donny takes her by the left hand and leads the group to the front door. A fine entrance they make: Wright dressed in his most dapper London tweed coat, Amaryllis breathless in her anticipation, and Donny, looking alarmingly handsome with his beach-blond hair and brown eyes fringed with dark lashes.
Freya fusses with their coats and Uncle Sean shakes the men’s hands. Then he grabs his adopted daughter in a squeeze that impresses twenty years of love into her body. Amaryllis emerges from the bear hug to see the old colonial-style dining table set with the fine Victorian china and crystal goblets. A large splash of red and pink roses puts a shock of color into the otherwise muted winter décor.
She’s intrigued at how Donny has grown in bearing and demeanor over the years. No longer the same joking jock, not the kid who sneaked stalks of celery into her milk at mealtimes. He’s at once amiable and sympathetic, yet imposing and virile in a way that makes Amaryllis feel a tinge of weakness in her abdomen. She realizes he has changed from a mere fine-featured boy to a blond, square-jawed man with ideal proportions, from his wide, muscular shoulders to his trim and taut abdomen. And the rear view is pretty entertaining, too. That just can’t be right. He’s Donny.
Freya kisses Donny on both cheeks, rambling on about how much he’d been missed, while Donny tries to remind Freya he’d been over on Christmas Day. Amaryllis draws Wright to the side and fills him in on a few family details: her adoptive parents, her old pal from childhood, the death of her parents when she was small. No matter how she explains it, Wright can’t seem to make any sense of the relationships. Family gatherings seem to send him into shock—the loss of Priscilla still too deep, the grief etched on his wide face, creating caverns where only smooth skin had stretched before. Amaryllis takes his arm and gives him a squeeze and begins to lead him into the living room, where she assumes Freya will lay out cheese and flatbread for an appetizer.
“Whereya going?” Freya yells over the small gathering. “We’re heading straight to dinner. No time for cocktails.”
Cocktails? When have they ever had cocktails in this home? Sean was as sober as a rock and Freya only dabbled with Irish coffee now and then. Amaryllis and Wright follow beckoning hands and move from the dusky living room by the force of Freya’s gestures. They shuffle into the dining area, and Amaryllis is familiar with its wall full of family pictures and Sean’s fish plaques. Everyone stands around the table, reluctant to be the first to sit down. Amaryllis is aware that her nerves are standing on edge as she
waits to learn the secrets that have been hidden for twenty-five years.
“No place tags. Sit where you like, but Amy, gal, you sit next to me.” Freya drags her away from the moor-less Wright, who still drifts Amaryllis’ way, determined to find the nearest seat to her. When the bodies arrange themselves like atomic particles buzzing about a nucleus, searching for structure, they finally slip into the ladder-back pine chairs, and each diner gazes at the china, as if entranced by their own reflections. Amaryllis shudders from a chill as she sees her own visage in the only-for-company plate. She’s ghastly white with eyes the size of walnuts. Everything about the room is the way it used to be, but she has a sense of loss, as if pain lives in this room, too. She looks about the ivory walls and studies the artwork, but can’t find anything amiss.
Sean, perched at the other end of the long table, offers a clue.
“That was your parent’s wedding china, you know,” he says, head bobbing as he speaks, as if giving himself permission to let out that little fact. “When they were…lost, we took it in.”
Before Amaryllis can comment, Freya begins to bring in the meal, followed closely by Aunt Nora, bearing side dishes, and some skinny kid Amaryllis has never seen before. Or has she? It’s been six years. Can that be Nora’s boy? They plop down dishes of good old American food: mashed potatoes, gravy, a gleaming roast, a flurry of salads and green beans. Wright looks at the repast as if shocked. A man who practically lives on goat-cheese pizza and turkey glazed with kiwi compote must not know what it’s like to really eat a homey meal.
“You must think you fell into a Norman Rockwell painting,” Amaryllis says. He continues to stare at the roast, which is releasing the most tempting of fragrances.
Dateline: Atlantis Page 9