The Atlantis Code (53 page)

Getting to Cádiz, Spain, proved harder than Natasha had at first believed it would. When she’d seen Lourds step into the van from her observation point on a second-story balcony, she hadn’t tried to follow. Gallardo’s men were professionals. She knew when to hold back and use her head instead of going on a mad dash into danger.

She knew where they were going to take Lourds. At least, she hoped she knew. He might not make it there alive. There was always the chance that Gallardo or his mysterious employer would simply get whatever they wanted from Lourds and kill him somewhere along the way.

But she trusted her instincts.

Instead of following the van, she’d awakened Gary and gone to Heathrow to hire a private pilot. She’d intended to use Gary to hire the pilot so there wouldn’t be any questions about her ID. As it turned out, Gary had a friend who was a pilot who was only too glad to take them.

That problem, at least, was easily solved.

Gary sat up front with the pilot and talked about some of the craziness he’d been through during the past month. Of course, he lied about the women he’d had and his role in the dangerous side of things. It was typical male bonding between two old friends.

Natasha merely rolled her eyes when the embellishments got too outlandish.

Natasha sat in the small passenger section as the plane jumped and danced through the treacherous dark night. She felt certain Gallardo wouldn’t try to get Lourds through a conventional flight to Spain. If that was true, she’d arrive in Cádiz before Gallardo.

It wasn’t much of an edge, but it was all she had.

She made herself comfortable in the seat and willed herself to sleep, but she was plagued by nightmares. She could see and hear Yuliya, but her sister couldn’t hear her anymore, no matter how loudly she yelled.

CAVE #42
ATLANTIS BURIAL CATACOMBS
CÁDIZ, SPAIN
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

“We’re through!”

Father Sebastian sat with a blanket snugged around his shoulders to stave off the unrelenting cold inside the cave. Most of the water had been pumped away, but the process of clearing the disturbed bodies continued. They’d taken to stacking them up on pallets like cargo and freighting them out of the caves.

The large metal door had proved to be a problem. Whatever it was made of, Brancati had never seen anything like it. In the end, they’d had to drill through the locking mechanism. They kept wearing out even the diamond-bitted drills. Getting through the lock had taken days.

Sebastian pushed himself to his feet. Dizziness swam through his head for a moment, then gradually dissipated.
You haven’t been getting enough sleep
, he chided himself. You’ve got to take better care of yourself.

“I think they’ve got the locking mechanism cleared away,” Brancati said. He looked worn as well. “If you’re ready, Father.”

Sebastian nodded, but fear filled him when he thought of what they were going to find.

A cable from a small earthmover was attached to the door. Gradually, as the winch revolved and filled the immediate vicinity with mechanical noise, the slack in the cable disappeared.

Then loud grinding filled the cavern.

All the men looked nervous. No one knew for certain about the integrity of the walls, and none of them could forget about the merciless sea waiting somewhere outside.

Stalactites fell from the cavern roof and caused a minor furor as they exploded against the stone floor and splashed in the remaining pools of water. One of the stalactites smashed against the protective cage of the earthmover.

Startled, the driver put his foot too hard on the accelerator. The machine roared backwards, struggled against the weight of the door, and finally found traction. Then the cable snapped and flicked across three of the workers. They fell like rag dolls and bled furiously.

But the massive door swung open.

CAVE #42
ATLANTIS BURIAL CATACOMBS
CÁDIZ, SPAIN
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

T
he screams of the wounded men filled the cavern and barely penetrated the sense of unreality that flooded Father Sebastian’s mind. Ignoring the huge door now several feet ajar and filled with the inky blackness of the dark cave, he went to help the nearest man lashed by the snapping cable.

Brancati yelled at his workers to tend to the men as well, then joined them as first-aid kits arrived. It was a brutal, bloody business for several minutes.

Thankfully, none of the men had been killed outright. Given the situation, it could have been so much worse.

That no one died . . . The Lord was at work here to save them all
, Sebastian thought.
May His mercy reign over us all as we proceed.

After he’d finished his work with the wounded, he cleaned his hands with a sterile cloth. He’d refused to wait until gloves were available to begin giving first aid. By the time the workers had passed out surgical gloves, he’d already attended to several of the most serious injuries.

“Do you believe in evil portents, Father?” Brancati asked.

“I believe in all that proceeds from the hand of the Lord,” Sebastian answered. “But I also believe in accidents. The men here are tired, stressed out from everything we have dealt with. We must proceed carefully.”

“I agree.” Brancati passed Sebastian one of the big flashlights the men carried in addition to their helmet lights. The construction boss led the way into the next chamber.

Sebastian stayed close behind. The two Swiss Guards assigned to his personal protection flanked him.

The next cave was even larger than the last. It was a gaping maw of stone. Stalactites and stalagmites looked like wicked teeth as the flashlight beams swept across them. The cavern was dry, indicating that the chamber had been airtight until they’d opened the door.

“Maybe we’d better let the cave breathe a little while, Father,” Brancati suggested. “In case the change in air pressure creates a problem like it did in the last cave.”

Sebastian made himself nod. He didn’t want to leave the room, but he knew that was safest.

“Father Sebastian,” a man called.

Sebastian turned toward the voice. He spotted two men playing their flashlights over an inscription carved into the wall. Drawn by the words, he made his way over to them.

Again, for a moment, the words were almost impossible to make out. Sebastian squinted and tried again. This time he saw the message.

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE UNTO THE LORD

Sebastian couldn’t understand the message, but he could read it. He stared at it for a long time, then turned and surveyed the huge cavern again.

“Over here!” someone else yelled. “Father Sebastian, over here!”

Hurrying to the voice, aided by his flanking Swiss Guards, Sebastian found a long line of walls that had been chipped smooth then engraved with pictures. The engravings were spaced like the leaves of a giant stone book. The intricate work represented several lifetimes of effort by the people who had carved it.

The first picture was of a huge forest. A man and a woman stood naked in a clearing. Numerous animals lay at their feet or watched from nearby. Birds filled the branches of the trees around them.

“Blessed Mother,” Sebastian whispered. Hypnotized by what he saw before him, he stepped forward and ran his trembling fingers over the beautifully carved surface.

“What is this?” Brancati asked quietly.

“It’s the Garden of Eden,” Sebastian croaked. “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”

Several of the men crossed themselves and took off their protective helmets till Brancati growled at them to put them back on.

“Are you trying to tell me that this place was the Garden of Eden?” Brancati asked.

“No,” Sebastian said. “This place wasn’t the Garden of Eden. This place was a part of Atlantis. Or whatever the people who we know as Atlanteans called themselves.”

“Why carve these pictures into the walls?”

“So they wouldn’t forget. So they wouldn’t follow Adam and Eve into folly.” Sebastian shone his light farther back and found another picture. This one showed God’s hand fashioning Adam from clay.

“The whole story is here,” Peter said. “These images tell the biblical story of creation.”

“Is this God?” Martin asked reverently.

Sebastian strode through the twists and turns of the cavern and found another man standing in front of a picture of Adam and Eve in the jungle. In the drawing, a second man stood nearby the couple. He held a thick book in one hand. A glowing halo hung over his head.

“No,” Sebastian said. “It’s not God.”

“Then who is it?” Martin asked.

“I’m not sure. But I think that’s His son.”

OUTSIDE CÁDIZ, SPAIN
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Hunched over the notebook computer, Cardinal Stefano Murani studied the streaming video coming out of the dig site only a few miles away. He’d arranged the safe house in case he needed a bolt-hole. It was one of the small houses in the area that were sometimes rented out to tourists. It didn’t afford him the kind of luxury that he was accustomed to, but it was within a few miles of the Cádiz dig site and the Atlantic Ocean.

When he saw the pictures deep within the center of the new cave beyond the massive metal door, Murani watched with growing excitement. Sebastian had gotten close to the goal the pope had hoped he would reach.

Are these wall carvings illustrations from the Book?
Murani asked himself. He flicked through the captured images. The work that had gone into the finished pieces was astounding.

The answer, for the moment, was that he didn’t know. He needed to be inside the caves.

His cell phone chirped for attention. He flipped it open and answered. “Yes.”

“We’ll be there in five minutes or less,” Gallardo said.

“I’ll see you then.” Murani closed the phone, disconnected the computer from the Internet, and shut it down. He walked to the front door and passed the security setups the Swiss Guard who had chosen to follow him had put into place. Cameras watched over the surrounding terrain.

Lieutenant Milo Sbordoni sat in a chair on the covered porch. In his thirties, Sbordoni was a handsome man with chiseled features and a fierce black goatee that flipped up on the end. Like the other guardsmen under his command, Sbordoni wore tactical armor festooned with weapons. There had been no doubt they would take over the Cádiz dig site after Gallardo had Lourds.

“Cardinal.” Sbordoni got to his feet. Oil glistened on the pistol and rifle he carried.

“It’s time,” Murani said.

“Good,” Sbordoni said. He smiled, then passed orders to his men to assemble.

The Swiss Guard rose to readiness. They passed out even more weapons. A large cargo truck out on the street rumbled to life.

“I’ll need a word with your men,” Murani said.

Sbordoni quickly gave the command. The men assembled around Murani. Due to their size and the armor they wore, Murani stood dwarfed among them. Still, they acknowledged his office and stood quietly while he addressed them.

“You are my brothers in arms,” Murani said. “You are the best that the Swiss Guard at the Vatican has to offer. More than that, you have also recognized the holiness of God’s Word in ways that many of those in that place have forgotten.

“The Church has grown weak. We must strengthen her.” Murani paused. “Some of you for years have known about the Society of Quirinus and how the cardinals in that group have chosen to work with the past popes to recover things that have been lost over the last thousands of years. A few of you who have been blessed by God have gotten a chance to assist in locating and taking custody of some of those things.”

Those men nodded. Sbordoni was among them. All of them carried scars from those battles. The Church wasn’t the only entity that searched for powerful artifacts. And the Society of Quirinus hadn’t always succeeded in obtaining what it sought. At times the treasures had been lost again, or had fallen into enemy hands.