The Atlantis Secret

by S. A. Beck

  “Then they’re not real passports,” Jaxon objected.

  “They’re real enough in the sense that they work, honey, and the government will be none the wiser.”

  Jaxon rubbed her temples. She was getting a headache.

  “We have to go,” Otto said. “It’s the only way. Please say yes.”

  The old, bitter anger welled up in Jaxon. They wanted her to go off to a country she could barely point at on a map and probably end up in worse danger than she already faced. Those guys seemed to attract danger as she attracted bullies. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t go back to Isadore and Stephen, not after she had learned the truth about them, and she couldn’t live on her own. She wouldn’t last a week before the cops picked her up and threw her back in the system, and then General Meade and his goons would get her for good. So no, she had to leave everything she knew and fly halfway across the world, and she didn’t have any real say about it. Once again, she was being shuffled around like a suitcase.

  Then, something made her pause. So what if she left everything behind? She had nothing in her life in California. Her only real friend besides Otto was dead, and she had no future the way things were going. The chance at going to college and having a somewhat normal life and career had disappeared when she ran away from the Grants, and if she struck out on her own, she would be hunted down and end up as a lab rat. Even if she did manage to avoid capture, she would have to constantly move, working menial jobs in hick towns, never being able to stay long enough to put down roots. She would be a broke fugitive all her life. At least if she went with this pack of weirdos, she would be accepted for what she was and might even find out more about the truth of her past.

  For once, she was being forced into a decision that was actually good for her. She still didn’t like that she had no real freedom to choose.

  “I guess I’ll go.” She sighed.

  Getting the fake passports proved surprisingly easy. Edward had contacted someone he knew via the Darknet, the hidden part of the Internet invisible to search engines. Parts of the Darknet acted as a sort of criminal supermarket, where you could buy anything from guns to drugs to new identities.

  After a long drive to a dusty town in west Texas—little more than a few houses, a trailer park, and a gas station—they stopped at a pleasant ranch house owned by Edward’s contact.

  The passport forger did not look like a criminal. Instead, he looked like some boring, middle-aged businessman who spoke with a trace of a foreign accent Jaxon couldn’t place. Each member of the Atlantis Allegiance had a photo taken, and within a few hours, the mysterious man presented them their new passports. Everyone got a fake name and a fake date of birth close enough to their real one that it looked plausible. There were even stamps from foreign countries on them.

  Edward handed the forger a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills. Jaxon’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Where did you get all that money?” she blurted out.

  And come to think of it, where does all the money for this whole operation come from?

  Edward blushed and stuttered. Immediately, Jaxon felt sorry. He was socially awkward, and she had just caught him off guard with a probing question. Otto answered for him.

  “He’s got an online job that pays very well.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do I even want to know?”

  “Y-you do,” Edward stuttered before glancing at the man he had just paid. “But… later.”

  Jaxon looked at her passport, flipping through the pages. She’d become Alison Ward, born May 15, 2000. She’d been to Mexico twice and England once.

  “The fake me has had a more interesting life than the real me.” She snorted and looked at the forger. “So are you sure these will work?”

  “I’m sure. I’ve used them plenty of times.” Grunt held up his own and grinned. “Looks like I have a new name. That makes seventeen so far!”

  “I thought you weren’t coming with us,” Jaxon said.

  “He is,” Otto said.

  Grunt glared at him. “I’m not. But I need to get out of the country for a while. Getting too hot around here.”

  The forger turned to Jaxon. “You don’t need to worry about this passport being detected. It’s genuine as far as the government knows. You’ve been given the identity of someone who died in infancy. I’ve altered the government databases to add all the information you see on this document. As far as the government’s concerned, you are Alison Ward.”

  He handed her a manila envelope. “This is your other documentation: social-security number, list of previous addresses. I decided to make you and Otto minors. Travel would be easier if your passports said you were over eighteen, but neither of you look it, so this will reduce the chance of any sticky questions. I made you homeschooled because that cuts out any trouble from assigning you to a school you never went to. Too many times in this business, I’ve seen incautious people trying to start a new life talk and talk about their fake past and get tripped up by someone who’s actually been to those places. Vivian is your mother, by the way. Your father was a black man who died fifteen years ago. It’s easier if you don’t have to make up memories about a real person you never met.”

  The forger’s words unsettled her. How could he speak so casually about robbing the dead of their identities and fooling the government? Jaxon walked out of the room to the front hall, staring at her new passport, her new self. So much had happened in the past few days that she had trouble making sense of it all.

  Vivian walked up to her and put an arm around her. Jaxon tensed. She’d never gotten used to people showing her affection. Well, except for Otto, and she wasn’t even fully comfortable with him yet.

  “Looks like we’re family now, huh?” the mercenary said.

  Jaxon seethed. Yeah, fake family. The only kind I’ve ever had.

  She tried to block her anger. Vivian was only trying to be nice. The mercenary couldn’t have understood how many times Jaxon had heard those very same words from people who never ended up giving a damn about her.

  Vivian must have felt her tension because she let go but kept close. “Women have to stick together, honey. I’m on your side.”

  “You’re a mercenary. You fight for money.”

  Vivian’s eyes hooded. “You got an attitude on you, that’s for sure. But yeah, I’m getting paid. I got bills you don’t know about. I can’t afford to fight for free. But at least this time, I’m fighting for the right side.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Grunt and I used to work for General Meade. That was years ago, when you were a little kid and we were young and stupid and obeyed orders without questioning them.”

  “What did he order you to do?”

  Vivian’s face darkened. “We got tangled up in the politics in that region we’re going to and ended up attacking the wrong side. We thought we were the good guys, but the man giving the orders sure wasn’t.”

  “So is that why Grunt won’t be coming with us?”

  “He’s coming. He’s gotten quite attached to Otto, although good luck ever getting him to admit it. In our business, you move around a lot and lose a lot of people along the way. I think Grunt and I are both looking for a bit of stability, and Otto provides that in a strange way. Otto needs someone to look up to like Grunt, and Grunt… Well, he needs someone to look up to him. It grounds him.”

  “So are we going to be in danger in Morocco?”

  “Not from the situation in the country itself. The country is stable, unlike a lot of North Africa. The king has really clamped down on Islamic terrorist groups. And the streets are safe enough, especially if you have us along.”

  “That’s good, but what I’m really asking is if you guys have any enemies over there who might come after us.”

  Vivian’s face darkened. “None who are alive.” She paused, looking as though she was going to say something more, but then shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about this.”

  You don
’t want to talk about it, but we’re heading back to where it all happened? I think you and Grunt are going to have to face whatever it is sooner or later.

  Chapter 8

  July 13, 2016, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

  8:45 AM

  * * *

  General Meade glared across his desk at two of his best agents. He’d trusted Stephen and Isadore not to screw this up, but they had. Royally.

  The first part of their plan had worked perfectly. Faced with danger and death, Jaxon had grown ever more violent. With a bit of guidance and training, the natural anger that had developed throughout her loveless childhood could have been honed razor sharp. With a few months more training, they could have turned her into a killing machine.

  But then the Atlantis Allegiance had shown up and ruined everything. Meade guessed he shouldn’t blame Stephen and Isadore too much. Stephen wasn’t a fighter, and Isadore had faced someone who was almost her match, an old henchman of Meade’s, in fact. Isadore’s makeup wasn’t quite hiding all the bruises.

  His blood still boiled, though. He wanted nothing more than to send those two to some warzone in an awful, disease-ridden jungle somewhere. Sometimes, Meade wished he was serving in the Russian army instead. Being able to threaten people with Siberian exile must have been nice.

  Meade rang a buzzer on his desk to summon Orion. Stephen and Isadore stared as the Atlantean strode in, his muscles rippling under his bodysuit as he moved with catlike grace.

  “This is Orion, our prototype,” Meade told them. “I’ve mentioned him before. We’ve used drugs to kill his old personality, and now he’s little more than a slave.”

  That last word turned Meade’s stomach. He hated to do that to a man—it went against everything he stood for—but larger issues were at stake. He’d rather have one man be a slave than the entire human race.

  “Isadore, you and Orion are a team now. Get training and learn to work together. You’ll see just how advanced the Atlanteans can be, and he’s still at the beginning of his training. Orion is your superior in strength and speed, but he doesn’t have your experience. He’s like a child. You’ll have to direct him as you were directing Jaxon. Unlike her, he’ll obey you completely. I’ve given him that order, and he’ll obey even as far as dying for it. Don’t expect much initiative from him, though, at least not yet. You’ll be training that into him. Once we locate where they’ve taken Jaxon, we’re going to send you in.”

  “How do you want me to handle this?” she asked.

  “In your usual way. Kill them all. They know too much.”

  “And Jaxon?”

  “If you can capture her easily, we’ll bring her back and work on her with the drugs we’ve developed. It would have been better to go the slow way, raise her up and indoctrinate her, but it looks like that’s not an option anymore.”

  “What if I can’t capture her easily?”

  “Then kill her,” Meade snapped, “but bring back her body. It would be interesting to do an autopsy and see if there are any internal difference from regular humans.” He turned to Isadore’s husband. “Stephen, brew up some of your poisons. Your wife is going on a trip.”

  “Have you located them already?” Stephen asked.

  Meade shook his head. “They’ve gone into hiding. We’ll find them soon enough. I have eyes and ears everywhere, and so far, they’ve stuck to the desert areas of the Southwest. That’s where we’re focusing our search. Don’t worry, we’ve found them before, and we’ll find them again, no matter where they try to run. Now, go get to work.”

  A minute after he dismissed them, Meade felt a buzzing in his pocket, from his personal phone, the one he always kept on silent so people wouldn’t know he carried it. He locked the door to his office and checked the number.

  The call was coming from Oscar Preston, a surveillance-photo analyst working for a private security firm contracting with the Pentagon. Oscar worked on a top-secret project studying photos of the UFOs that had been in a search pattern in the stratosphere for the past few years. He acted as one of Meade’s back channels for intelligence. The government couldn’t be trusted to give him all the information he craved.

  “General Meade? We need to talk.” Oscar sounded worried, panicked even.

  “What’s the matter?” Meade asked.

  “Not on the phone. Meet me at the parking garage for the Capitol Mall, third floor, in an hour. This is really big. We’ve been getting it all wrong.” Oscar hung up.

  An hour later, Meade was waiting at the rendezvous point. He had changed into civilian clothes and was wearing sunglasses to obscure his identity. A light summer sports coat hid the 9mm automatic pistol in a shoulder holster on his left side. He had learned in several theaters of war that it always paid to be careful.

  Meade scanned the parking lot for anyone who might be eavesdropping but saw no one. Oscar was as careful as he was, and he needed to be. Whenever Oscar wanted to speak with him in private, he always had some information to pass on that the higher levels of government thought Meade shouldn’t know.

  Oscar was a reliable source of information and knew when to reveal secrets and when not to. He was no Edward Snowden, fleeing the country and broadcasting government secrets to the whole world. Oscar knew just whom to give information to in order to keep in place the complex system of checks and balances that ensured a stable government that could defend the nation. Snowden had fired his shot and had no more ammo. He’d lost his security job and couldn’t even come back to the United States without being arrested for treason. Oscar Preston was a quieter form of rebel and would remain useful for years.

  Meade stood nonchalantly next to a car he pretended to be his, fiddling with his phone so any casual observer would think he was texting. He kept his eyes and ears open.

  Oscar’s car came up the ramp and slowly passed him. Meade didn’t even look up as he drove by. Oscar parked on the opposite end of the level. Meade put away his phone and walked to a point well away from the car but in sight of it. After a minute, Oscar joined him.

  “So what do you have for me?” Meade asked, eyeing the intelligence analyst.

  Oscar was a civilian contractor and out of shape. His face was sweaty and pale, and he breathed heavily. The poor guy looked as though he had just run a mile. Meade guessed that was from panic, not exertion.

  “It’s amazing. I don’t know who did it, but they’ve pulled one over on us.”

  “Who? What did they do?”

  Oscar was about to speak but fell silent, giving a passing pickup truck a nervous glance.

  Then he said, “This is too public. We should have picked a more private place.”

  “We’ve used this spot a dozen times before, and there’s never been a problem. Now, tell me what’s the matter.”

  Oscar put his fingers on his temples and shook his head. “I can’t believe they did it. I’ve suspected for a while, but it took some time to get some proof. Here, look at this.” Oscar pulled a manila envelope out of his case. A moment later, he stuffed it back in the case as another car passed.

  “Relax, Oscar. If you act nervous, you’ll attract attention. The average civilian won’t even look at you if you act normally.”

  Oscar let out a breath and pulled the envelope out of his case again.

  Just then, another car passed by slowly. Meade ignored it until, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the passenger-side window come down. The muzzle of an Uzi poked out.

  “Down!” Meade shouted, grabbing the analyst.

  Too late. The machine gun roared. Oscar’s body flailed, his arms jerking above his head. Meade ducked behind a concrete pillar as he felt the heat of a bullet graze his side.

  Once safe behind the pillar, he whipped out his pistol and glanced around the corner. The car was still there. He ducked back out of sight an instant later as the submachine gun fired a burst in his direction, chewing up the edge of the pillar and breaking off fragments of concrete that shot out across the parking lot, chipping windows a
nd dinging the sides of cars.

  Meade ducked, rolled to the other side of the pillar, and fired from a prone position. He didn’t have a good angle of fire, but four bullets punching through the doors and windows of the gunmen’s car changed their attitude pretty quickly. The driver slammed on the gas, and the vehicle peeled out.

  After rising to one knee, Meade put the remaining rounds of his clip into the back of the vehicle. He couldn’t see whether he’d hit anyone. The driver was still alive, in any case, because the car swerved around the corner, sideswiped another pillar with a loud crunch of metal on concrete, and roared away.

  Hurrying over to Oscar, Meade immediately saw he was dead. Oscar’s eyes were bugged out and his mouth open, as if he was still in panic, forever. The manila envelope Oscar had tried to give him lay in a widening pool of blood. Meade picked it up and hurried away. Oscar was beyond all help, and to hang around would only lead to uncomfortable questions. Plus, he had to get out of there in case those guys came around for another pass.

  He glanced at the manila envelope, soaked and dripping with Oscar’s blood. Whatever it contained, someone was willing to kill a Pentagon analyst to keep it hidden.

  They were willing to kill a general too.

  Chapter 9

  July 25, 2016, MARRAKESH, MOROCCO

  12:30 PM

  * * *

  Otto couldn’t decide if jetlag was making him hallucinate or if he really was walking through a traditional Arab medina, or market, in Marrakesh.

  He and Grunt had passed under a soaring Arabian-style arched gateway that pierced the medieval city wall and found themselves in maze of winding streets and alleys. Some lay open to the punishing North African sun, but most were mercifully sheltered by a roof of reeds, which let little slats of light through the gaps between them to illuminate their way.