Paul’s voice crackled over the intercom. ‘Apologies for the reception. We’ve got some kind of radio interference, maybe a localized electromagnetic phenomenon. There’s activity on site. The radar’s just showing a boat speeding away in the direction of San Salvador Island.’
‘Anything from the drone?’
‘It’s had to turn back because of the weather. But Lanowski’s just sent a message. It’s what you want to hear, Jack. The drone showed a boat bang over the blue hole, with two divers getting in the water before it sped off.’
Jack tensed. ‘Good. If there’s any sign of it returning, Macalister has a hotline to the head of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force to order an intercept.
I don’t want it done yet in case the boat captain has some way of contacting Saumerre and he realizes what we’re doing. But if needs be, you can say we suspect it’s a drug-runner.’
That much had gone according to plan. The MQ-1
Predator drone had been an inspirational idea of Lanowski’s, and a masterpiece of string-pul ing involving Macalister, their MI6 contact, Ben and final y Mikhail, who had gone straight to his CIA handlers at Langley and explained enough of the situation with Saumerre and the potential terrorist threat to have a drone launched from a secret US instal ation in Florida, with the imagery streamed via the airbase to Lanowski’s computer in the operations room on board Seaquest II.
‘Okay,’ Paul said. ‘Target in sight now. T minus two minutes.’
‘Roger that,’ Jack said. He made a diver’s okay sign at Costas, who was sitting beside him with his helmet visor already down, his e-suit covered by the tattered remains of the trusty old boilersuit he had somehow found time to patch and sew together after parts of it had melted during their volcano dive in the Black Sea four days previously. Costas patted his pockets, checking them, and Jack saw the grapple gun they had used in the volcano poking out of one side and attached by a metal carabiner to a hook under his arm. Jack snapped down his own helmet, made sure the rebreather system was operating and quickly scanned the digital computer readout inside his helmet. He listened to his breathing, keeping it cool, measured. He remembered what Paul had said.
With their helmets now on and no intercom link to the pilot, the signal would be three sharp bangs on the metal bulkhead behind the pilot’s seat. Crude, but effective. He glanced at Costas again, visual y checking his gear, and saw Costas doing the same for him. He reached up and grasped the sliding door handle, and then whispered the words he always said before a dive: Lucky Jack.
The helicopter pitched slightly to the rear and he felt it descend, seeing only a shroud of spray from the rotorwash out of the window. Then he heard three bangs. He looked at Costas, pointing his thumb down, and Costas did the same. They opened the sliding doors simultaneously, into a maelstrom of noise and water. Jack swung his legs out, contacted the skid with his fins, crouched down and rol ed forward, holding his helmet with one hand and his backpack with the other as he somersaulted into the sea. He dropped a few feet underwater and then rose to the surface again, patting his head with one hand to show Paul that he was safe. He saw Costas do the same, his yel ow helmet just visible in the sheets of spray against the looming blackness of the storm coming in from the east. Jack pressed his buoyancy compensator exhaust to expel air and then he was underwater, the tumult of the surface gone, feeling the instant sense of calm he always did at the beginning of a dive. Costas came alongside him, and they exchanged okay signals again and a thumbs-down.
This was it.
Below them lay a massive jumble of rock and coral, fragments as large as houses that Jack knew must have been blown off the side wal s of the blue hole by the explosions of the three depth charges dropped by the Liberator in 1945. In the centre was an opening, a gap between the rocks about ten metres in circumference, ten metres or so below the surface.
They dropped through it, and were immediately confronted by an astonishing sight.
Wedged into the hole beneath the rocks was the rusted hulk of a submarine, clearly identifiable from its conning tower as a German Type XXI U-boat. It was angled down at about forty-five degrees, and they could see in the gloom below that the bow had been sheared off. As they swam slowly down the hul , they became aware of extensive evidence of damage from gunfire, with holes peppering the outer casing and the gun turrets; the forward deck gun was stil loaded with a round in the breech and the barrel was angled high off to starboard. Costas stopped just before the bow section and put his hand on the casing, raising a puff of rust. ‘This confirms the airman’s story,’ he said into his intercom. ‘This U-boat was sprayed with machine-gun rounds, fifty-calibre, and then the bow was blown off by one of those depth charges that also col apsed the blue hole al around it.’
‘Remember Heidi tel ing us that Ernst had mentioned the torpedo tubes?’ Jack said. ‘If we’re going to find any evidence of whether or not he carried out his plan, it’s going to be there.’
They swam down into the twisted wreckage, immediately recognizing the forward tubes. Costas swam closer, and then backed out. ‘Bingo,’ he said.
‘The forward left tube’s been fired, and hasn’t been sealed shut. It must have happened just before the Liberator attack, even during it. Hoffman cut it fine.’
‘God only knows what was going on in those final moments in this boat. I only hope he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded before the end came. My guess is he would have been holed up in here, with no chance.’
‘Jack, take a look below you. You’re not going to believe it.’
Jack swam back about a metre and stared into the silt. He looked again, astonished. An object lay there, half inside a rotting leather satchel, something that seemed to have preoccupied them for as long as he could remember now, the object that had caused Rebecca’s kidnapping. It was a golden swastika, the reverse side up, the other side a slightly rusty iron colour. The palladion. He quickly reached down, pushed it into the satchel and picked it up, then strapped it to the front of his e-suit. It was incredibly heavy for its size. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Hoffman must have been given this by Himmler as the key to get into a chamber to store the virus phial. We can use it as a bargaining chip with Saumerre.’
‘Where are they?’ Costas said. ‘The two divers the drone spotted?’
‘In the habitat. Up above us, to the left of the U-boat’s bow.’ Costas fol owed his gaze. Perched against the only intact side of the blue-hole wal was a construction that looked like an early space-lab satel ite, like two bathyspheres joined together, the whole structure secured on metal stilts on a rocky ledge.
‘This is what that German ship in 1938 must have been doing, placing this instal ation on the spot where the Ahnenerbe divers had made their discovery two years previously,’ Jack said. ‘The symbols Heidi said they found must have added to the mystique, al owing Himmler to sel this place as the new Atlantis, though what real y mattered to him and his scheme was that they happened to have discovered a place perfectly suited to his needs: far outside territorial waters, on the edge of the reef drop-off accessible to U-boats, and suitable for putting in a secure storage facility like this.’
‘Hardly a centre of operations for Himmler after the war, though,’ Costas said. ‘Each of those spheres has barely enough room for a couple of people inside.’
‘It had one purpose only,’ Jack said. ‘It was to store the biological weapon. Himmler himself must have had other plans for his own base, in South America perhaps. What’s clear is that the story he told Hoffman and Heidi about their future was a lie, as it doubtless was to others of his fol owers he used to get his plan in motion. Nobody was ever going to live here, safe from the pandemic raging on land. This was no Wewelsburg reborn.’
‘Just as it was no Atlantis reborn, by the look of it,’
Costas said. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘We play the game I’ve set up for as long as it takes Saumerre to relax and believe me. As soon as I have the bacterium phial from him,
we make a move. If we can crack the valves on his diving tanks, we can empty them to prevent him from getting out, but fil the habitat with enough air for him to survive until the US
Navy team we have on hold arrive to pick him up.’
‘I thought this was personal business for you, Jack.’
‘With the level of his terrorist connections, the US is the best bet for keeping him under lock and key permanently.’
‘I can think of a better place for him.’ Costas was staring at the silted floor of the bows, where space below the deck level of the U-boat was visible. ‘Jack, there’s something else here you should see. The pal adion wasn’t the only gold on this boat. You were right.’
Jack fol owed Costas’ gaze. He dropped down and wafted some silt away. ‘Wel I’l be damned,’ he murmured. The sea floor was carpeted with gold bars, hundreds of them, spil ing out of the U-boat where it had been blown open. Saumerre clearly had not seen the pal adion when he dived down here just before them, but he must have seen this. Jack looked at Costas. ‘Okay. Let’s move.’
Five minutes later, they stood dripping inside the first sphere of the habitat. The tanks that Saumerre and the other diver had been wearing were on the floor beside the entry hatch, and had clearly been partly emptied into the spheres to create a breathable atmosphere. The interior was spartan, like the inside of a recompression chamber, with only a table in the centre of the room and a metal bed on either side of it, but nothing to suggest that people had ever spent time inside. Jack and Costas took off their fins but kept the rest of their gear on, only raising their visors.
A voice spoke from the second sphere. ‘Dr Howard.
We meet at last.’
Jack ducked through the hatch into the second sphere, fol owed by Costas. Saumerre was sitting at the bench in the centre, wearing a wetsuit, his black hair slicked back; the other man was standing beside him. Jack had seen images of Saumerre many times in the media, his face familiar from his public front as a European Union politician, but this was the first time he had seen him in the flesh. Beyond them he saw something that made his heart pound. It was a smal metal container against the wal , like a safe, with the reverse swastika depression in the front. It was closed. So far, so good. He stared at Saumerre, saying nothing.
‘To business,’ Saumerre said. ‘Do you have the pal adion?’
‘Give me the bacterium, and I wil give you the pal adion.’
‘I don’t believe you have it.’
Jack pointed at the leather satchel strapped to his waist.
Saumerre hesitated. ‘You don’t know any better than I do whether the virus phial is in there or not, do you?’
Jack looked at him impassively, and said nothing.
Saumerre narrowed his eyes. ‘Why would you be al owing me to have this virus?’
‘Because I believe there’s no chance you’l use it.
You’re an educated and civilized man. You’l be like Himmler, keeping it as a bargaining chip for the future. Spreading the word in the underworld that you have a Nazi wonder-weapon wil make you a hugely powerful man. As for me, every archaeologist who sees enough of it eventual y succumbs to gold. With that amount, I can ditch the whole tiresome scientific business and set myself up as a treasure-hunter.
Others of my team wil come along with me.’ He jerked his head towards Costas, who smirked. ‘And be very rich men.’
Saumerre looked cautiously at Jack for a moment, and then a smile crept over his face. ‘So. The famous Dr Howard has seen the dark side, and he likes it.’
‘Leave us the gold, and you take the virus. But I want the bacterium. I can play your game, too. You know it’s far less deadly. It’s never been tried. And there’s an antidote.’
‘Not possible. Nobody has worked on this since the war.’
‘Professor Dr Heidi Hoffman has.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course. Your confidante.’ Saumerre hesitated again, then held out his hand. ‘The pal adion?’
Jack reached down and unwrapped the leather satchel he had retrieved from the U-boat. The leather was strong enough to hold together, tough cowhide, but had perished on the surface and came away in his hands. He wiped them on his e-suit and took out the golden swastika inside. Saumerre gasped, and the other man’s eyes were riveted on it. Jack held it with one hand, his arm muscles straining with the weight, and held out his other hand, waiting. Saumerre unzipped the pocket of his buoyancy compensator, took out a waterproof box and opened it, revealing a cylinder inside the size of a large pen. Jack quickly checked it, seeing the marks Heidi had told him to look for and the sealing cover, stil intact. Saumerre closed the box and handed it to Jack, who let him take the pal adion and immediately slipped it into his leg pocket. Saumerre turned and slotted the pal adion into the depression on the metal safe, where it fitted perfectly. A lock clicked, the door opened slightly and it was partly ejected from the hol ow. Saumerre took it and placed it on the table, then turned back to the safe.
Jack glanced at Costas, looking at the grapple-gun handle just visible in his boilersuit. Costas nodded almost imperceptibly.
Jack held his breath. If the virus was in there, they were set for a deadly standoff in which there could be no winners. If it was empty, then he and Costas could seize the moment and gain the upper hand. He thought of Hoffman, of the U-boat outside with the fired torpedo tube, of Heidi’s absolute faith that Ernst would have done the right thing.
Saumerre opened the door to the safe.
It was empty.
Costas whipped out the grapple gun and held it to Saumerre’s neck. Jack picked up the pal adion and thrust it at the other man, who buckled under the weight, fal ing on his knees and al owing Jack to slam his fist into his temple and knock him out. He picked up the pal adion, grabbed the satchel and retreated through the hatch to the first sphere. Costas fol owed, keeping his gun trained on Saumerre, who seemed too stunned to move. ‘Visor down,’ Jack yel ed, closing his own visor and waiting until Costas had done the same before unscrewing the regulators from the two tanks and cracking the valves open, thankful that their closed helmets dul ed the noise of two-thousand-odd p.s.i. of compressed air escaping in such a confined space. After about twenty seconds the noise abated and the tanks emptied. Jack unhooked the hose from his own backpack and vented it for good measure, so that there was enough air in the chamber to ensure that Saumerre survived for at least a couple of hours. He hooked the hose back into his helmet, strapped the package with the pal adion to his chest, and looked at Costas. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They donned their fins and dropped one after the other through the entry hatch at the base of the sphere, then swam off over the U-boat. Jack checked his air pressure. He had vented half of his supply, but there was little risk with the surface only fifteen metres above them and Costas beside him with virtual y ful tanks in case of emergency. They stopped together beneath the crack between the rocks that led to the surface. ‘Good to go?’ Costas asked.
Jack looked around. There was one thing he had not seen. There had been no ancient symbols, no artefacts. He knew they would come back here after Saumerre was removed, would scour the place, but he stil wanted to know now. He had spotted only one opening leading off the main chamber, about ten metres deeper beyond the bow section of the U-boat, a tunnel in the wal . He pointed. ‘I’d like to have a quick look down there.’
‘It’s too deep for the Ahnenerbe divers, probably almost thirty metres,’ Costas said. ‘We have to remember that the Nazi divers only had pure oxygen and that becomes toxic below ten metres depth. If you’re looking for the place where they might have found those symbols, that can’t be it.’
‘It could lead into a shal ower cavern. And if you look at the wal directly ahead of us above that tunnel, there’s a place where I think there was a fissure connecting with this chamber, at about fifteen metres.
It looks as if it was blocked by the explosions. That depth would have just about been possible with primitive oxygen rebreathers.�
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‘How’s your air supply?’
‘Not a lot of margin, but if you stay close by, we’l be fine.’
‘It’l be an overhead environment in there, Jack. We haven’t got a safety line or spare tanks.’
‘No more than twenty metres in, I promise.’
Costas paused for a moment, floating stil . ‘Okay.
Your cal .’ They dropped down and were soon at the tunnel entrance, a jagged hole about three metres wide and five metres long. They swam through into another chamber, the size of a smal church, the wal s rising high above them on every side. Jack ascended until his depth gauge read fifteen metres. Costas swam off to one side, looking hard at the cave wal s, searching for anything man-made. ‘I’m remembering Lanowski’s CGI model of this place about 5500 BC.
Where we are now would have been inside one of the hil s he thought lay on either side of the cavern that became the blue hole. We’d have been maybe ten metres above sea level at this point. I’m just thinking of a guy in a boat arriving here after a trip across the Atlantic, exhausted, famished, thinking he’d seen the promised twin-peaked volcano but then realizing it was an il usion, yet stil needing shelter. The cavern below us would have been a subterranean cave beside the sea, perfect for pul ing a boat into during a storm. Where we are, higher up, could have been a separate cavern, almost like a mezzanine. You can imagine him finding a way up the rock and holing up here.’
‘And slowly going mad,’ Jack said.
‘Maybe not so slowly,’ Costas replied. ‘If it was hurricane season, he could have col ected rainwater from the rock pools on the surface, and anyone who’d survived an Atlantic crossing on an open boat like that must have been a reasonably adept fisherman. But once the rains stopped, that would have been it. He would have had to move on. I don’t see him building a new Atlantis here.’
Gods of Atlantis Page 44