by Bob Mayer
New Delhi, 31 October 1984 A.D.
After Indira Gandhi’s assassination, over 3,000 Sikhs were killed in riots, much of it state-sponsored and sanctioned. Her son. Rajiv, stated in an interview: “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.”
Her legacy is mixed, with some viewing her as a messiah who helped the poor while others view her as a power-hungry manipulator. She instigated the “Emergency” when many rights were pulled. She did bring Bangladesh into existence after leading India to victory in a war with Pakistan. She also made India a nuclear power.
Over 10,000 people a day visit the garden where she was assassinated.
North Atlantic, 31 October 1941 A.D.
The sinking of the Reuben James exacerbated already tense relations with Germany; however, not to the extent that war was declared. That would happen a little over five weeks later after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
Germany refused to apologize for the sinking, insisting the ship was operating in a war zone. The sinking did lead to the Coast Guard being moved from a peace-time role as part of the Treasury Department to becoming part of the US Navy. Congress also amended the Neutrality Act, allowing merchant ships to be armed and allowing them to enter European waters.
The Navy named a Fletcher-class destroyer the USS Heywood L. Edwards . The ship served in the Pacific theater throughout World War II. In the odd twists of the way of the world, the USS Heywood L. Edwards ended up being given to the Japanese Defense Forces to serve in their navy after the war. It was scrapped in 1976.
Wittenberg, Germany, 31 October 1517 A.D.
While it is commonly accepted as truth, the story of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg is perhaps more legend than true. We do know he did send the theses to his Bishop, Albert of Mainz. The theses were translated from Latin to German in January 1518 and were then printed and widely disseminated throughout Europe.
For more on Neeley’s relationship with Gant, read Bodyguard of Lies .
If you’d like a different storyline involving a battle by a timeline against the Shadow, involving versions of Dane, Sin Fen, Amelia Earhart and others, an excerpt from the first book in the Atlantis series follow bio and book info.
About the Author
Thanks for the read!
If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review. Cool Gus likes them as much as he likes squirrels!
Any questions or comments, feel free to email me at [email protected]
Subscribe to my newsletter for the latest news, free eBooks, audio, etc.
Look! Squirrel!
Bob is a NY Times Bestselling author , graduate of West Point, former Green Beret and the feeder of two Yellow Labs, most famously Cool Gus. He's had over 70 books published including the #1 series Area 51, Atlantis, Time Patrol and The Green Berets. Born in the Bronx, having traveled the world (usually not tourist spots), he now lives peacefully with his wife, and labs. He’s training his two grandsons to be leaders of the Resistance Against The Machines.
For information on all my books, please get a free copy of my Reader’s Guide . You can download it in mobi (Amazon) ePub (iBooks, Nook, Kobo) or PDF, from my home page at www.bobmayer.com
For free eBooks, short stories and audio short stories, please go to http://bobmayer.com/freebies/
Free books include:
Eyes of the Hammer (Green Beret series book #1)
West Point to Mexico (Duty, Honor, Country series book #1)
Ides of March (Time Patrol)
Prepare Now-Survive Now
There are also free shorts stories and free audiobook stories.
Never miss a new release by following my Amazon Author Page .
I have over 220 free, downloadable Powerpoint presentations via Slideshare on a wide range of topics from history, to survival, to writing, to book trailers.
https://www.slideshare.net/coolgus
If you’re interested in audiobooks, you can download one for free and test it out here: Audible
Connect with me and Cool Gus on social media.
Blog: http://bobmayer.com/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bob_Mayer
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SERIES VIA PLOT AND CHARACTERS :
Technically the first Time Patrol book is the fourth Nightstalker book. You can start the Time Patrol series with Time Patrol, but if you want to know about what they did before, as Nightstalkers, then those three books show that.
The Fifth Floor is part of Time Patrol, but different in that it’s the backstory of one of the characters: Lara.
The universe of Atlantis is the same as that in Time Patrol with the Shadow trying to change a timeline. They are just different timelines. Thus we have characters from Atlantis such as Dane and Foreman showing up in the Time Patrol.
The Cellar becomes involved in the Nightstalkers and Time Patrol , with Hannah and Neeley playing roles.
NIGHSTALKERS SERIES :
1. NIGHTSTALKERS
2. BOOK OF TRUTHS
3. THE RIFT
The fourth book in the Nightstalker book is the team becoming the Time Patrol, thus it’s labeled book 4 in that series but it’s actually book 1 in the Time Patrol series.
TIME PATROL SERIES :
1. TIME PATROL
2. BLACK TUESDAY
3. IDES OF MARCH (free)
4. D-DAY
5. INDEPENDENCE DAY
6. THE FIFTH FLOOR
7. NINE-ELEVEN
8. VALENTINES DAY
9. HALLOWS EVE
AREA 51 SERIES :
1. AREA 51
2. AREA 51 THE REPLY
3. AREA 51 THE MISSION
4. AREA 51 THE SPHINX
5. AREA 51 THE GRAIL
6. AREA 51 EXCALIBUR
7. AREA 51 THE TRUTH
(Legend and Nosferatu are prequels to the main series)
8. AREA 51 LEGEND
9. AREA 51 NOSFERATU
10. AREA 51 REDEMPTION (coming Winter 2018)
ATLANTIS SERIES :
1. ATLANTIS
2. ATLANTIS BERMUDA TRIANGLE
3. ATLANTIS DEVILS SEA
4. ATLANTIS GATE
5. ASSAULT ON ATLANTIS
6. BATTLE FOR ATLANTIS
THE GREEN BERETS SERIES :
1. EYES OF THE HAMMER (free)
2. DRAGON SIM-13
3. SYNBAT
4. CUT OUT
5. ETERNITY BASE
6. Z: FINAL COUNTDOWN
(at this point we introduce Horace Chase as the main character and he eventually teams up with Dave Riley, the main character from the previous books)
7. CHASING THE GHOST
8. CHASING THE LOST
9. CHASING THE SON
10. OLD SOLDIERS (coming spring 2018)
THE DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY SERIES
THE SHADOW WARRIORS SERIES
THE PRESIDENTIAL SERIES
THE CELLAR SERIES
THE BURNERS SERIES
THE PSYCHIC WARRIOR SERIES
COLLABORATIONS WITH JENNIFER CRUSIE
All my novels and series are listed in order, with links here:
www.bobmayer.com/fiction/
My nonfiction, including my two companion books for preparation and survival is listed at
www.bobmayer.com/nonfiction/
Thank you!
ATLANTIS
Book one
The Drought AD 800
ANGKOR KOL KER
It was well into the first month of the wet season but not a drop of rain had fallen. Concern in the first week had turned to fear by the fourth week. As the water level of the deep moat fell, so did the will of the occupants of the capitol city. Anxiety was spreading like a sickness from person to person and mother to babe.
The city had taken the people over five hundred years to build. Within its watery protection lay all their wealth, memories and the graves of ten generations of their ancestors. It was the most advanced and beautiful city on the face of the
planet.
Thousands of miles to the west, Charlemagne was being crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the Eternal City, but this place deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia dwarfed even Rome in comparison. It was the center of a kingdom extending south to about the Srivijayan Empire of Sumatra and the Shailandra Empire of Java. To the northeast, the Tang Dynasty of China ruled, while to the west, in the Middle East, the tide of Islam was rising. The capitol city of Angkor Kol Ker, the heart of the Khmer empire, held architecture the likes of which Europe would not see for half a century. But within the empire lay a Shadow--a dark place, which closed off all travel toward India and the world beyond.
The ancestors of the Khmer people had traveled halfway around the globe to avoid the shadow and for many generations they had seemingly foiled the force that had destroyed their original homeland. That place had birthed the Ones Before; the ones who knew the secrets of the Shadow. Secrets that their descendants had forgotten or remembered only as myth. But two generations ago, myth and legend reappeared in the lives of the Khmer. The Shadow had appeared in the mountainous jungle to the northwest, sometimes coming close, sometimes almost disappearing, but always stopping at the water. Now the water was disappearing.
The Emperor and his advisers gazed toward the mist-covered jungle beyond the evaporating moat knowing the Shadow had removed their choices as quickly as the sun took away the water. They spotted a fire from the guard tower on top of a northern mountain that poked above the mist. The fire burned for two nights, then went out and never came back.
The Emperor knew it was time. The Ones Before had written thousands of years ago of abandoning their home. He knew the cost of quitting the city. The Ones Before had chosen a hard thing to save the people. The next morning, the Emperor issued the order to evacuate the city.
Wagons were piled high, packs were placed on backs, and en masse, almost the entire population of the city crossed the lone causeway and trekked away to the south.
Fifty strong men remained. Warriors, standing tall, spears, swords and bows in hand, they had chosen to represent all the people of the Khmer. They would face the Shadow, so the city would not die alone. They destroyed the causeway and waited on the northern edge of the city, staring across at the dark mist that approached. It grew ever closer despite their prayers that the clouds would come overhead and rain would fall, filling the moats.
The men had been tested in battle numerous times. Against the Tang people to the northeast, and the people of the sea along the coast to the south, they had fought many battles and won most, expanding the kingdom of the Khmer. But the warriors of the Khmer had never invaded the jungle-covered mountains to the northwest. They had never within living memory gone in that direction, nor had any intrepid traveler from the lands on the other side come through.
The warriors were brave men but even the bravest's heart quavered each morning as the mist grew closer, and the water still lower. One morning they could see the stone bottom of the moat and only puddles were left, drying under the fierce sun. The moat was over four hundred meters wide and surrounded the entire rectangle of buildings and temples, stretching four miles north and south and eight miles east and west.
Inside the moat, a high stonewall enclosed the city. Over 200,000 people had called Angkor Kol Ker home, and their absence reverberated through the city, a heavy weight on the souls of the last men. The tread of the warriors’ sandals on the stone walkways echoed against the walls of the temples. Gone were the happy cries of children playing, the chants of priests, the yells of merchants in their stalls. And now even the jungle sounds were disappearing as every animal that could flee did so.
In the center of the city was the central temple, Angkor Ker. The center Prang of the temple was over five hundred feet of vertical, massive stone, a hundred feet taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza. It had taken two generations to construct and its shadow lay long over the city as the sun rose in the east, merging with the Shadow that crept closer from the west.
As the last puddle dried, tendrils of the thick mist crossed the moat. The warriors said their prayers loudly, so their voices would prove to the gathering Shadow that this was a city well loved. Angkor Kol Ker and the fifty men waited. They did not wait long.
FLIGHT 19 AD 1945
FORT LAUDERDALE AIR STATION
“Sir, I request stand-down from this afternoon's training flight.”
Captain Henderson looked up from the papers on his desk. The young man standing in front of him wore starched khakis, the insignia of a corporal in the Marine Corps sewn onto the short sleeves. On his chest were campaign ribbons dating back to Guadalcanal.
“You have a reason, Corporal Foreman?” Henderson asked. He didn't add that Lieutenant Presson, the leader of Training Flight 19 had just been in his office making the same request. Henderson had denied the officer's immediately, but Foreman was a different matter.
“Sir, I've got enough service points to be mustered out in the next week or so.” Foreman was a large man, broad shouldered. His dark hair was swept back in thick waves, flirting with regulations, but with the war just a few months over, some rules had waned in the euphoria of victory.
“What does that have to do with the flight?” Henderson asked.
Foreman paused and his stance broke slightly from the parade rest he had assumed after saluting. “Sir, I--”
“Yes?”
“Sir, I just don't feel good. I think I might be sick.”
Henderson frowned. Foreman didn't look sick. In fact his tan skin radiated health. Henderson had heard this sort of thing before, but only before combat missions, not a training flight. He looked at the ribbons on Foreman's chest, noted the Navy Cross and bit back the hasty reply that had formed on his lips.
“I need more than that,” Henderson said, softening his tone.
“Sir, I have a bad feeling about this flight.”
“A bad feeling?”
“Yes, sir.”
Henderson let the silence stretch out.
Foreman finally went on. “I had a feeling like this before. In combat.” He stopped, as if no further words were required.
Henderson leaned back in his seat, his fingers rolling his pencil end over end.
“What happened then, corporal?”
“I was on the Enterprise , sir. Back in February. We were scheduled to do an attack run off the coast of Japan. Destroy everything that was floating. I went on that mission.”
“And?”
“My entire squadron was lost.”
“Lost?”
“Yes, sir. They all disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No survivors?”
“Just my plane's crew, sir.”
“How did you get back?”
“My plane had engine trouble. The pilot and I had to bail out early. We were picked up by a destroyer. The rest of the squadron never came back. Not a plane. Not a man.”
Henderson felt a chill tickle the bare skin below his own regulation haircut. Foreman’s flat voice, and the lack of detail, bothered the captain.
“My brother was in my squadron,” Foreman continued. “He never came back. I felt bad before that flight, Captain. As bad as I feel right now.”
Henderson looked at the pencil in his hand. First, Lieutenant Presson with his feelings of unease and now this. Henderson's instinct was to give Foreman the same order he'd given the young aviator. But he looked at the ribbons one more time. Foreman had done his duty many times. Presson had never been under fire. Foreman was a gunner, so his presence would make no difference one way or the other. “All right, corporal, you can sit the flight out. But I want you to be in the tower and work the monitoring shift. Are you healthy enough to do that?”
Foreman snapped to attention. There was no look of relief on his face, just the same stoic Marine Corps stare. “Yes, sir.”
“You're dismissed.”
* * *
Lieutenant Presso
n tapped his compass, then pressed the intercom switch. “Give me a bearing,” he asked his radio operator, seated behind him.
“This thing's going nuts, sir. Spinning in circles.”
“Damn,” Presson muttered. He keyed his radio. “Any of you guys have a bearing?”
The pilots of the four other TBM Avengers reported a similar problem with their compasses. Presson could sense the irritation and underlying fear in some of the voices. Flight 19 had been experiencing difficulties from take off and the other crews were in training with little flight experience.
Presson looked out of his cockpit and saw only ocean. It was a clear day with unlimited visibility.
They should have been back at the airfield by now. Two hours ago they’d passed a small string of islands which he assumed were the Florida Keys. He wasn't as sure of that assumption now. This was his first training mission out of Fort Lauderdale Air Station. He had been recently transferred from Texas, and, as he stared at his wildly spinning compass, he wished he had paid more attention to their flight route.
He hadn't wanted this flight. He'd asked the Squadron Commander to replace him, but the request had been denied because Presson could give no good reason for his request. He hadn't voiced the real reason: to fly today would be a bad idea.
Well, it had been a bad idea, Presson thought to himself. And now he was beginning to question his judgment. Believing they had flown over the Keys, he'd ordered the flight to turn northeast toward the Florida Peninsula. But for the last 90 minutes, they had seen nothing but empty ocean below them. Could he have been mistaken? Could they have flown over some other islands and were they now well over the Atlantic, rather than the Gulf of Mexico like he had assumed? Where was Florida?
They had barely two hours of fuel left. He had to make an immediate decision whether to turn back, but now he couldn’t depend on his compass for a westerly heading. He glanced at the setting sun over his shoulder and knew that west was roughly behind them, but a few degrees off either way, and if Florida was behind them, they could pass south of the Keys and really end up in the Gulf. But if his original assumption had been right, then Florida should be just over the horizon ahead.