The Gods of Atlantis

by David Gibbons

  4

  The Taklamakan Desert, western China

  The man felt himself being pushed out of the vehicle, and then being held roughly by one pair of hands while another untied his wrists from behind his back. He flexed his fingers, trying to bring back the circulation. His blindfold was yanked off, but he had the sense to reach into his overcoat pocket to find his sunglasses, putting them on before opening his eyes. Even so the glare off the desert was blinding, and he blinked hard a few times before beginning to discern anything of his surroundings. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had been in the Toyota for a little over two hours, from the time when the helicopter from Kashgar had left him at the appointed place, a remote location where a branch of the southern highway that skirted the desert had come to an abrupt end. The desert track beyond had been spine-jarring, little more than the natural rocky substrate cleared of sand, and the four-wheel drive had been engaged for most of the way. Yet the secrecy had been a charade. The one he had come here to find was already aware that he knew the location of this place. The discomfort of the past two hours had been to make a point. He was in someone else’s territory now.

  An arm appeared from behind him, pointing ahead, and his driver spoke in a heavy Chinese accent. ‘Follow this track until you reach the fort. Wait there.’ The car door slammed, and the Toyota roared off in a cloud of dust. The man put his hand over his nose and mouth against the dust and walked forward as instructed, keeping slow in the searing heat. After a few minutes, he had descended from the dunes to a hard surface of compacted dirt that looked as if it had been deliberately cleared of sand. A few long-dead tree stumps surrounded a crumbled well-head, and beyond that he saw a water-tanker truck in front of the settlement, a motley collection of prefabricated single-storey structures. It had clearly once been a small desert oasis, one of numerous pockets of humanity that thrived in the Taklamakan at the time of the Silk Road, but had since been extinguished by the howling winds that pushed the dunes over everything in their path. The houses were typical of forced modern settlements in the desert, attempts by the Chinese authorities to stake their claim in a region that was one of the least hospitable on earth yet contained huge untapped mineral and oil reserves. He reached the first house and continued walking, passing men and women who seemed intent on some unknown business. It was odd that they ignored him completely, a European in a fine suit and overcoat striding out of the dunes and walking through their midst, but then he remembered that this place was not what it seemed.

  Ahead, beyond the houses, he saw what looked like eroded rocky outcrops sticking out of the sand, but as he got closer he realized that they were the crumbling towers of an ancient desert stronghold, probably abandoned a millennium or more ago when the trade routes dried up. The road changed to a rough track covered with fragments of old pottery as it took him under a precarious-looking stone gatehouse. Inside was an ancient timber door, wind-worn and rent with cracks. He peered through, seeing a desolation of ruins surrounding a domed structure half buried in the sand, once perhaps a mosque or a Nestorian church. He pushed the heavy iron latch, to no avail, and then stood back, protected by the tower roof from the sun and the blowing sand. Suddenly there was an electric hum, and the entire surface around him began to lower, an elevator platform large enough to take a small truck. He had expected something like this, but even so it took him by surprise. As it dropped below head height, another platform slid over to close the opening, and he was plunged into darkness. Then all movement ceased and a fluorescent light illuminated the elevator chamber, showing three tunnels leading off in different directions. Doors slid down over two of the entrances, and the elevator platform turned so that he was facing the remaining one. He paused for a moment, touching his tie and brushing the sand off his legs, and then walked forward.

  After about a hundred metres, another door slid down behind him and he was in darkness again. He stopped walking, and felt the ground beneath him moving, some form of escalator. It came to a halt, and he was left in utter stillness. There was a curious scent in the air, jasmine perhaps, and he sensed that he was in a larger space. Then a shaft of light came down from high above and lit up a leather chair a few metres in front of him, facing away. Another shaft lit up a large table in front. A man with Chinese features was sitting behind the table, his face looming out of the shadows, the outline of a computer monitor to his right. The man in the suit walked up to the chair, then carefully smoothed his overcoat beneath him and sat down.

  The man behind the desk stared at him for a moment and then spoke in English, his accent a mixture of refined British and American. ‘So. You found out how to contact me, and now you have discovered my fortress. Normally anyone who comes within fifty kilometres of this place without my invitation is liquidated by my men, but for you I have made a temporary exception.’

  The other man said nothing, but crossed his legs and looked casually at the ceiling, then to his left and right. It was as if his gaze had activated a lighting system, and the dark recesses of the chamber filled with subtle shades of colour. He saw that he was within a domed structure, seemingly extending off into infinity. Above him was a dazzling representation of the night sky, projected on to the inside of the dome as if they were in a planetarium. To his left was a long rectangular pool, its water dark and utterly still, surrounded by long-legged ibexes, some with their necks up and others bent down with their bills close to the water. But the most striking apparition was the rows of warriors on either side, hundreds of them, identically armoured and holding long poles terminating in elaborate bronze dagger-axes. They seemed alive, staring at him, their eyelids occasionally flickering, a slight rustle and rasp of movement in the background. Beyond them the sky appeared to be swirling, like a desert dust storm, the illusion of movement enveloping the chamber as if they were in a tunnel about to be sucked with the warriors down a vortex into the eye of the storm.

  He let his gaze fall back to the man behind the desk, and then spoke. ‘A representation of the interior of the third-century BC tomb of the first Chinese emperor Shihuangdi, based on the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian.’ He spoke quietly and precisely, his English impeccable but with a hint of a French accent. ‘The tomb chamber, of course, remains undiscovered beneath the great mound at Xian, though the terracotta warriors and the bronze birds from the pits surrounding the mound are real enough. I hosted a reception at the British Museum at the opening of the travelling exhibition last year. The weapons are more varied than the classic Qin dagger-axe you present here, but then you surely know that. It is a small point.’ He gestured up at the stars. ‘Outside this chamber, I imagine, you can see this very view at night, in the desert sky unpolluted by the modern world. But you would be deathly cold, and the sand would sting your eyes. In here, you have the illusion of control over the cosmos. That was the conceit of the First Emperor too. It was a conceit that began when Stone Age men first turned their backs on the world of nature, the world they could not control. To some, it made them think they were gods. But such fantasies are just that. The First Emperor remains dead in his hole in the ground, surrounded by crumbling illusions. Adolf Hitler came to a squalid end in a ditch outside the Führerbunker.’ He waved his hand dismissively at the room. ‘In my world, power does not come from computer-generated fantasies.’ He took off his gloves, laid them on his knee and folded his hands over them. ‘I have come to discuss a business arrangement.’

  The other man stared at him, then tapped a keyboard set into the table. The entire phantasm disappeared, the warriors and the ibexes and the night sky, and the two shafts of light returned. He swivelled his chair and looked at the computer monitor. ‘Jean-Pierre Saumerre. Born in Marseille of Algerian Muslim background, but one grandfather French. Educated at the Sorbonne and Cambridge University. After completing a doctorate in econometrics, worked for his family company Arancho, a conglomerate with numerous interests across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Eight years ago relinquished his role as CEO
to enter European Union politics. Meteoric rise through the corridors of power in Brussels, becoming Director-General for Business Affairs eighteen months ago. Board member of the European Central Bank, and presently up for election to vice-presidency of the European Commission.’

  He peered at Saumerre over the screen, and then sat back on his chair with a cold smile on his face. He picked up a vicious little knife and pressed the end of the blade gingerly with the tip of one index finger. ‘A man very close to holding the purse strings in Brussels, the biggest black hole for tax money in the world. Perhaps, Dr Saumerre, you did not relinquish your family business interests after all.’ The man licked the tip of his finger where he had drawn blood, raised the knife with his other hand and suddenly flicked it past Saumerre’s face to the wall opposite, where it buried itself to the hilt. He put his hands palm-down on the table and stared at Saumerre, the smile gone. ‘You talk of a business arrangement?’

  Saumerre waved his hand in the air where the knife had passed as if whisking away a fly, then reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat and extracted a brown envelope, pulling a sheet half out. ‘Shang Yong. Born into one of the oldest clans in China, tracing their descent back to the warriors of the First Emperor. A computer-simulation expert, educated in Hong Kong and at boarding school in England, then at UCLA and MIT. After graduating, he disappeared back into China, where he re-emerged as head of the Brotherhood of the Tiger, an ancient secret society that has developed lucrative business interests on the back of the Chinese economic boom. Front companies in Hong Kong and Shanghai, but suspected of operating from a secret base somewhere in the Taklamakan Desert, aiming at virtually feudal control over the frontier region of western China. A megalomaniac who is ruthless to those who stand in his way and responsible for numerous murders in China and around the world. After the usual terrorist suspects, about the top name on Interpol’s most-wanted list.’

  Shang Yong smiled, and held his arms wide. ‘Perhaps Dr Saumerre feels that as he is a god in Brussels, he has some kind of divine power in the Taklamakan too. Are you here to arrest me?’

  ‘I have come alone. At the moment, nobody else knows I am here.’

  ‘Yet I think you are trying to threaten me, Dr Saumerre.’

  ‘We are all being held to ransom. That is the balance of power in our world, is it not? That is why I am here. If you help me to remove one who is threatening me, then the file on you is shut. It will never be reopened, because from then on we will be business partners, to huge mutual advantage.’

  ‘You say our world. What do you mean? I think you and I live in different worlds.’

  ‘Not so different. Did you not wonder how I discovered this place? Satellite surveillance shows only a bustling little town, one of many being built by the Chinese in an attempt to colonize the desert and quash local Uighar resistance. Nothing out of the ordinary here, not even the ancient Silk Road fortress, one of many ruins half swallowed and forgotten in the desert. You have to go underground to see what’s really here, and to get there you have to pass through a security perimeter that the First Emperor himself would have admired.’ Saumerre leaned forward. ‘When I say underground, I don’t mean this hideaway. I mean deep underground, the oil-bearing shales beneath us. I have known about the Brotherhood of the Tiger for years, and admired your handiwork. The best assassins for hire anywhere, if one can afford them. But then two years ago you took an enormous hit when your key underworld links in the US and Hong Kong were exposed, after you became involved in an operation that stepped over your usual careful boundaries. I know this because you have been putting out feelers. Your plan had been to develop the Taklamakan as your own private fiefdom, to channel all of your income into boring and pumping the oil reserves in secret, then to present the Chinese government with an offer of partnership they could not refuse. After all, the Peking politburo contains two members of the Brotherhood, does it not? Names you would not wish exposed, as that partnership is central to your plan. But you have no capital reserves any more. You have no money to make the oil flow. So your dwindling band of agents in Europe and America and the Far East have been desperately seeking investors.’

  Shang Yong stared at him. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I will let you in on a little secret. In the 1930s, my grandfather was a small-time gangster in Marseille. He was arrested and did time in a French penal colony in the Caribbean, which hardened him. By 1940 he was back in Marseille, but he was arrested again, this time by the Vichy police and the Gestapo for attempting to steal a vault-load of gold and precious stones confiscated from wealthy French Jews. It was an audacious scheme that demonstrated his potential, and his gaolers at a succession of concentration camps in France and Germany showed him grudging respect. He escaped from his final camp near Belsen just before the Allies arrived, returning to his old Marseille haunts penniless but with plenty of secrets, including the location of works of art stolen by the Nazis. He decided he needed a legitimate front for his business. He called it Arancho, after a tattoo of a spider he had acquired at the penal colony in Antigua.’ Saumerre lifted his left forearm and un-buttoned the cuff, pulling it up to reveal a smudged dark spider on his arm. ‘I bear it too.’

  Shang Yong pulled up the sleeve of his loose-fitting robe and revealed his own tattoo, the grimacing face of a tiger. He let the sleeve drop, and beamed at Saumerre. ‘So. We really do inhabit the same world. And your political career in Brussels is, shall I say, part of the family business?’

  A flicker of a smile passed Saumerre’s lips. ‘I leave that to your imagination.’

  ‘You wish to invest in our prospecting scheme? That is why you are here?’

  Saumerre shook his head. ‘I have no interest in your oil. I wish to employ your organization to follow a man, to get from him what I want and then to kill him. The fee I will pay you will be greater than any investment money you will find in the underworld.’

  ‘And who is this man?’

  ‘An archaeologist by trade, but he meddles in a world far bigger than he realizes. His name is Jack Howard.’

  Shang Yong went pale. He bunched his fists, then tapped the keyboard and swung the monitor round so that Saumerre could see. It showed the home page of the International Maritime University website, with an anchor logo in the top left corner and a photograph of two men in diving suits holding an ancient amphora, one of them tall with a tousle of dark hair and the other smaller and swarthier, both of them smiling at the camera. Shang Yong pointed at the taller man, then bunched his fists again, his voice contorted with rage. ‘Two years ago, in Afghanistan, this man shot and killed one of my best operatives, my own nephew. We were on the trail of a treasure he too was seeking, a jewel from the tomb of the First Emperor that would have given me what I crave, the jewel that made the First Emperor a god. It was Howard who was responsible for shutting down my operations in Hong Kong. Because of Howard I am trapped in this place. Ever since then I have been plotting revenge.’ He held his breath, his fists still clenched, then exhaled slowly, relaxing his hands and flexing them. He was still for a moment, then looked at Saumerre shrewdly. ‘You knew this name would enrage me. You have tried to find my weakness. I do not need you to exact my vengeance on Howard.’

  Saumerre stared stonily at him. ‘You have been plotting revenge, but with each passing day your empire shrivels, my friend. You have fewer than a dozen skilled operatives left, men and women who can operate internationally, who can kill and get away with it. Ever since Howard exposed the Brotherhood, they have been hunted down, and when one is killed or arrested there is no longer anyone trained as a replacement. Your face is known to every security service in the world. Even here you are safe only as long as the Brotherhood retains influence in Peking, but that is only two men, two elderly uncles of yours, two names I could give to Interpol right now. Everything hangs in the balance. Turn away from me, and the Brotherhood will fall. Come with me, and the Brotherhood will rise again, and you will truly have the wealth and po
wer of the First Emperor.’

  Shang Yong tapped a finger on the table, and continued to look at Saumerre through narrowed eyes. ‘Give me more. Prove yourself.’

  Saumerre paused. ‘For years I have been on the trail of something my grandfather knew about, a lost ancient treasure excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in Greece in the nineteenth century, hidden by him and then rediscovered and hidden away again by the Nazis. It is called the palladion, and my grandfather knew it would unlock untold Nazi secrets. Six months ago, Jack Howard and his team began excavations at the site of Troy, scene of another of Schliemann’s triumphs, and got wind of my quest. I found it expedient to have Howard’s daughter detained to try to force him to give me the palladion when I thought he had found it. I used a Russian organization my family has employed before, but they let me down. They did not have the quality of the Brotherhood of the Tiger.’

  Shang Yong slammed his fist on the table. ‘We are the best.’

  ‘That is why I am here.’

  ‘The Russians failed, where my men would have succeeded.’

  ‘Howard’s security people uncovered what I have told you about my family past. If he had exposed me, I would not be here now. But he suspected that I knew more, that through my grandfather I could have knowledge of secret Nazi weapons that might fall into the wrong hands, that to expose me might persuade me to trigger a course of events that could lead to a terrorist attack or start a war. Howard and I have a stand-off. Any hint of my taking retribution against him or his people would lead to instant exposure of my criminal activities. So you see, this is personal for me too.’

  ‘Why do you choose to act now?’

  ‘His security people, and I am sure their contacts in the British secret service, have been waiting for a chink to appear in my armour, for something to prove that Howard’s suspicions were correct. I have been waiting for what I knew was only a matter of time. They have begun to excavate a site that was uncovered last year, a Nazi bunker near the latest concentration camp where my grandfather was imprisoned. I no longer have need of the palladion to open what my grandfather knew was there. Howard and his team will do the job for me. I have people in my pay who will see that I get what I want.’