Conrad looked around. This geothermal chamber had to be the same kind of thing. The only question was whether the Atlanteans built P4 over an existing vent to harness its heat or possessed such advanced technology that they could tap Earth’s core-or any planet’s, for that matter-for unlimited power.
“According to Plato, Atlantis was destroyed by a great volcanic explosion,” Yeats said. “Maybe this was the cause of it.”
“Or maybe this is the legendary power source of Atlantis,” said Conrad. “The Atlanteans allegedly had harnessed the power of the sun. Most scientists naturally assumed this meant solar power. But this geothermal vent taps into Earth’s core-which is as hot as the surface of the sun. So this could be the so-called power of the sun that Atlantis possessed.”
“Could be,” said Yeats.
But Conrad could tell Yeats had another purpose in mind for P4, and it probably had little to do with its archaeological or even technological value. “You have another theory?”
Yeats nodded. “What you’re really saying is that P4 is essentially a giant geothermal machine that can channel heat from Earth’s core to melt the ice over Antarctica.”
Conrad grew very still. He hadn’t thought about it in terms quite so catastrophic. In his mind that kind of thinking was the domain of environmental alarmists like Serena. But a slow-growing angst crept over him as he remembered the bodies in the ice chasm above P4 and Hapgood’s earth-crust displacement theory. He hadn’t entertained the possibility that a natural disaster on the scale of a global shift of the earth’s crust-the culmination of a forty-one-thousand-year-old geological cycle-could be triggered by design. Yeats, on the other hand, seemed to have given this scenario some serious thought. At the very least, Conrad had to agree that there was enough heat bottled up beneath P4 to melt so much ice that rising sea levels would certainly wipe out coastal cities on every continent.
“Yes, I suppose this machinery could warm Antarctica,” Conrad said slowly. “But to what end?”
“Maybe to make the continent or planet more habitable for their species,” Yeats went on. “Who the hell cares? The point is that there must be a control room somewhere, and we’ve got to find it. Before anybody else does.”
“Right,” Conrad said, wondering why he should be so surprised that Yeats was as practical a man as he was. “That would be the central chamber we’ve been looking for, the one with the two hidden celestial shafts.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here and go for it,” Yeats said. “Before this thing goes off again-for real.”
As they made their way back up to the gallery, Conrad was haunted by fear that he had just done what he denied ever doing-destroyed the integrity of a find. Worse, he may have destroyed himself and others with it. He could almost hear the whispers that had haunted him his entire career now chasing him up the tunnel: “Tomb Raider”…“Raper of Virgin Digs”…“Conrad the Destroyer.” Now, more than ever, they had to get back to Serena, find P4’s secret chamber, and make sure this cosmic heat valve was shut off.
Upon reaching the fork at the bottom of the Great Gallery, Conrad wasn’t surprised to find three tunnels now instead of two.
“Now don’t tell me you saw that one before too,” Yeats said.
“No, it definitely wasn’t there before,” Conrad said. “Maybe something we did in the lower chamber opened a door.”
Conrad looked up the gallery toward the upper chamber and saw several figures rappeling down.
Yeats saw them too and gripped his arm. “Fall back,” he whispered. “That’s an order.”
They cut their head torches and retreated to the new access tunnel, where they took cover on either side of the entry. Pressing his back against the wall, Conrad looked across at Yeats. His father’s silhouette was blackened by the dim glow radiating out from the bottom of the gallery.
“Team Phoenix, copy,” Yeats spoke into his radio microphone. But there was no response. “Copy me, Team Phoenix.” Again, nothing. “Goddamn it.”
Conrad pulled out his nightscope and peered around the corner. Two figures dropped down onto the landing at the bottom of the gallery. Their green eyes-night-vision goggles-bobbed up and down in the dark. Conrad pulled back and looked at his father.
“Who are they?” Conrad whispered.
“Can’t say,” Yeats said. “But they sure as hell aren’t mine. Move.”
They started down the long, dark access tunnel. This corridor was thirty-five feet tall, but it felt much smaller after the grandeur of the Great Gallery they had descended. After about 1,200 feet due south, the floor sloped sharply into a larger tunnel with a ceiling twice as high.
“Over there.” Yeats pointed his flashlight beam to the floor.
About a hundred yards ahead was either a doorway or the end of the tunnel. It was hard to tell. But then Conrad felt a blast of air. He looked up and found a shaft in the ceiling of the tunnel. There was another one in the floor, angled at the same slope.
“That could be one of those two extra star shafts that lead into the secret chamber,” he said. “I think it cuts through this corridor. I’ll have to drop a line down to be sure.”
Yeats said, “I’m going to follow this corridor for another hundred yards or so to see what’s at the end. Then I’ll come back and you can tell me what you found.”
Conrad watched Yeats disappear while he uncoiled a line down the shaft. He was peering over the edge cautiously when he heard the scrape of a boot behind him and he swung around to see a pair of green eyes glowing in the passageway.
“And who the hell are you?” Conrad asked.
The figure in the night-vision goggles raised an AK-47 machine gun. “Your worst nightmare,” he said with a thick Russian accent and fingered his radio. “This is Leonid calling Colonel Kovich. I’ve captured an American.”
“The hell you have.” Conrad kicked the AK-47 out of Leonid’s hands and picked up the broken laser sight from the floor. Leonid whipped out a Yarygin PY 9 mm Grach pistol just as Conrad painted his forehead with a red dot from the laser sight. Conrad hoped Leonid couldn’t see there was no gun attached to it. “Drop it. Now.”
The Russian dropped his gun and Conrad exhaled.
“Very good.”
A bone-handled hunter’s knife slid out of the Russian’s right sleeve and dropped into the palm of his hand. There was a click as his thumb found the button, and his arm swept up, the blade streaking for the soft flesh beneath Conrad’s chin.
Conrad, anticipating such a move the second he heard the click of the knife, blocked the arm and grabbed for the wrist with both hands, twisting it so that the Russian dropped the knife and cried out in pain. Conrad wrenched the arm around and up, still keeping that excruciating hold in place. This time the Russian screamed as muscles tore, and Conrad ran him headfirst into the wall and then plunged him into the floor shaft.
Conrad was peering into the darkness below when he heard footsteps. He grabbed the Russian’s AK-47 from the floor and looked up to see Yeats running toward him.
“Dead end,” Yeats said. “What the hell happened here?”
Conrad was about to tell him when he felt a yank at his ankle. He looked down and saw his nylon line tightening like a noose around his boot, realizing a second too late that the Russian had somehow snagged it on his way down and was taking Conrad with him.
“Hold this!” Conrad tossed Yeats the other end of the line as he plunged down the shaft in the tunnel floor. “Don’t let go!”
Tumbling through the darkness, Conrad struggled to clip his line to his harness. He could sense himself falling through one level after another, with no end in sight. He tensed up as he braced himself for something to break his fall.
Soon the line around his boot slacked off while the line around his harness stiffened. Finally, he burst into some large space. His line snapped tight and caught him in midair. He dangled helplessly.
“Dad!” he called. “Can you hear me?”
There was nothin
g at first, then the faintest, “Barely!”
Conrad fingered his belt for a flashlight and switched it on. The shock of what he saw took a few seconds to sink in.
He was swinging like a pendulum inside a magnificent chamber in the shape of a geodesic dome. His fingers tingled with adrenaline as he scanned the ceiling with his beam. The apex of the dome was about two hundred feet above him. Scattered across the four merging walls were numerous constellations. It looked like some kind of cosmic observatory.
He lowered his beam. Some kind of altar with a two-foot-tall obelisk in the center rose from the stone floor. And impaled on it was the Russian.
“Dad!” Conrad shouted. “I found it!”
18
Descent Hour Eight
Conrad cut his line and dropped twenty feet to the floor of the geodesic chamber. He looked up at the star carvings scattered across the domed ceiling almost two hundred feet above him. There was no other entrance into this chamber that he could see. Only the overhead shaft. This was a virgin find. His find. He was the first human to set foot in this chamber in more than twelve thousand years. For all he knew, he was the first human ever.
Except, that is, for the Russian impaled on the obelisk in the center of the chamber. Conrad had to push hard to lift the corpse off the obelisk and onto the floor, so that he could drag it off to the side.
Conrad wiped the Russian’s blood off his hands and slowly circled the altar with the obelisk while he waited for Yeats to find his own way into the chamber. Tingling with anticipation, he pointed his torch beam at the four rings radiating out from the altar. Then he lifted the beam until it splashed the obelisk with light.
It looked like a classical obelisk. Its height was ten times its width. Except for its rotund alike base, it resembled a two-foot-tall scale model of the Washington Monument. On every side were technical inscriptions, the only inscriptions so far inside the entire pyramid.
He’d eventually need Serena’s help to crack their meaning, he realized as he pulled out his digital camera and took pictures. For now he took special note of a series of six rings on one of the obelisk’s four sides and a sequence of four constellations-Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and Aquarius-on another.
Most important, the obelisk looked exactly like the scepter held by Osiris in that royal seal he had seen on the floor of the geothermal chamber. Historically the king’s scepter connoted awesome power, the very power his father the general was looking for and afraid somebody else would capture.
This is the Scepter of Osiris,he thought.This is the key to P4, the geothermal vent and everything else.
Conrad leaned forward to take the obelisk when a hidden door began to rumble open-a series of doors, really. Four great granite slabs began to part from the bottom up.
Conrad stepped back as the last door opened to reveal a lone figure standing in a corridor that seemed to lead to the Great Gallery.
“Conrad.”
He knew it was Serena before she stepped into the chamber. Behind her emerged a big Russian, holding an AK-47, its laser sight glowing.
“Doctor Yeats, I presume?” The voice carried a thick Russian accent. “My name is Colonel Kovich. Where is Leonid?”
Kovich shoved Serena toward him, and Conrad caught her in his arms.
“Thank God you’re OK,” he breathed as he pulled her close.
But her business-only stare froze him. Then she glanced at the obelisk. She also took in the corpse on the floor and, much to his horror, connected it with the blood on his hands.
“Eureka, Conrad,” she told him. “You’ve found it. I hope it was worth the price.”
He said, “I can explain.”
“You killed Leonid,” Kovich said.
“Actually, he tried to kill me,” Conrad said. “That was just before he fell down a shaft without a line. In case you hadn’t noticed, your officers aren’t the best-equipped in the world.”
At that moment a gruff voice from behind the Russian said, “You can say that again.”
Conrad turned to see Yeats march into the chamber pointing an AK-47 at Kovich. “Damn piece of shit jammed on me twice. Now drop your rod, Kovich.”
Kovich frowned and placed his AK-47 on the floor next to Leonid’s corpse. “Please, General Yeats,” Kovich chided. “We are soldiers.”
Yeats walked over to Kovich and gave him a good swift knee to the groin. The Russian doubled over in agony. “Put your ass on the floor,” Yeats ordered. “Then cross your legs. Don’t screw up unless you want to look like your comrade here.”
Kovich stared at the massive hole in Leonid’s chest, then slid down the wall like Humpty-Dumpty. Yeats whipped the butt of his gun against the Russian’s skull. Conrad heard a crack and Kovich crumpled to the floor, moaning in pain.
“He’ll live,” Yeats said. “But we’ve got dozens of armed Ivans crawling all over this place, so we don’t have much time. What have you found?”
“This obelisk,” Conrad said. “It’s the key to the pyramid.”
Yeats looked at the inscriptions on the sides of the obelisk. “You know what these mean, Doctor Serghetti?”
“They say that Osiris built this thing,” Serena said, surprising Conrad by how easily she could translate the writings. “The obelisk is his scepter. It belongs in the Shrine of the First Sun.”
“What’s that?” Yeats demanded.
“The ‘Place of First Time’ I was telling you about back at Ice Base Orion,” Conrad said excitedly. All of which made sense to Conrad, because the figure of Osiris he had seen in the geothermal chamber was sitting on some kind of seat or throne. The Seat of Osiris was obviously located in this Shrine of the First Sun-along with the Secret of First Time itself.
“So then we’ll grab this Scepter of Osiris and put it where it belongs, in this so-called Shrine of the First Sun,” Yeats said.
“Not a good idea, General.” Serena pointed to the markings on the south face of the obelisk, which included a series of six rings. “The inscriptions under the six rings say the machinery controlled by the pyramid was set in motion by Osiris in order to keep a check on humanity-a sort of cosmic ‘reset’ mechanism designed to wipe the slate clean six times before the end of time.”
“A check on humanity?” Yeats said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means the Atlanteans built this thing to prevent us from getting too advanced,” Serena said. “Kind of like the Tower of Babel in Genesis. The idea is that technological advancement is meaningless without moral advancement. So humanity is constantly tested to prove its goodness or nobility.”
“Six times,” Conrad said. “You said humanity gets six chances before the end of history. Where did you get that?”
“The six Suns, Conrad.” She read the inscriptions within each ring on the south face of the obelisk. “The First Sun was destroyed by water. The Second Sun ended when the terrestrial globe toppled from its axis and everything was covered with ice. The Third Sun was destroyed as a punishment for human misdemeanors by an all-consuming fire that came from above and below. This pyramid was built at the dawn of the Fourth Sun, which ended in a universal flood.”
“So we’re the children of the Fifth Sun, just like the Mayan and Aztec myths?” Conrad asked. “Is that what you’re saying? That we’re condemned to repeat the sins of the ancients?”
“No, that’s what your precious obelisk says,” Serena said. “And as for repeating the sins of the ancients, if the past century of human history is any guide, then we already have-in spades.”
Conrad was quiet for a moment. She had a point. Finally, he said, “And just when exactly does the Fifth Sun end and the Sixth Sun begin?”
“Just as soon as you remove the Scepter of Osiris from its stand.”
“Seriously?” Conrad said.
“Seriously.”
“She’s lying,” Yeats said.
“No, I’m not.” She glared at Yeats. “It says here that only ‘he who stands before the Shining Ones
in the time and place of the most worthy can remove the Scepter of Osiris without tearing Heaven and Earth apart.’ Anybody other than the most worthy will trigger unimaginable consequences.”
“Shining Ones?” Yeats said. “Who the hell are they?”
“Stars,” Conrad said. “The Shining Ones are stars. The builders could read the stars, which foretell a specific moment in the space-time continuum, a ‘most noble’ moment. This is humanity’s ‘escape clause,’ so to speak, the secret that breaks the curse of the ancients once and for all.”
“How convenient for you, Conrad,” Serena said. “The answer is written in the stars, and you can interpret those however you want.”
“You mean like the wise men and the birth of Christ?”
Serena wasn’t biting. “That’s completely different.”
Conrad pressed her. “Or the fish symbol of the early Christians, which just happened to coincide with the dawn of the Age of Pisces and which, coincidentally, is about to end with the dawn of a new Age of Aquarius.”
“Meaning what, Conrad?” Serena demanded.
“Meaning the age of the Church is over, and that’s what’s got you and your friends at the Vatican in a tizzy.”
“You’re wrong, Conrad.”
“The stars say I’m right.”
Yeats pointed to one side of the obelisk. “You mean stars like those four constellations on the scepter?”
“No, the ones up there.” Conrad pointed up at the engravings on the domed ceiling. “This chamber is a kind of celestial clock. Watch.”
He put his hand to the obelisk and heard Serena gasp as he twisted it like a joystick, moving it one way and then another. As he did, a dull rumble began and the geodesic dome overhead began to move in sync.
“If we want to set the skies for a certain time, we begin with the cosmic ‘hour hand’ or age, which corresponds to the zodiac,” he said. “We’re at the dawn of Aquarius, so that constellation is locked over there to the east.”
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