The Atlantis Legacy - A01-A02 (35 page)

WASHINGTON, D.C.

D
RESSED IN A FRESH
A
RMANI SUIT
that Serena had provided with his new cover, Conrad stood at the rail of the penthouse balcony and listened to the sounds of a summer jazz concert drifting up from the glowing fountains of the Navy Memorial plaza. He looked out at the lit-up dome of the U.S. Capitol, rising above the National Archives like a glowing moon.

It would have been a perfect evening, Conrad thought as he swirled his wine. If only Serena wasn’t a nun and true romance between them hopeless. If only big Benito wasn’t standing guard by the door.

“We should have more dates like this,” he told Serena as he walked back inside. “Definitely a step up from the abbey.”

The penthouse atop the Market Square West Tower overlooked Pennsylvania Avenue, halfway between the White House and the U.S. Capitol. It once belonged to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Now it belonged to yet another one of Serena’s mysterious patrons. This one was an architect whose firm had a hand in the construction of the new underground Capitol Visitors Center and who had provided them with blueprints of the Capitol Building dating back to William Thornton’s original 1792 design for the building.

“This is crazy, Conrad.” Serena looked up from the pile of schematics spread across the large dining table. “The U.S. Capitol has to be one of the most heavily guarded structures on the planet. You’re never going to pull this off. You may not even come out alive.”

“I’ll get the globe and whatever’s inside it,” he told her calmly. “All you have to do is get me inside the Capitol, and I think your friends at Abraxos have already done that.”

He tapped the special identification pin on his lapel, made for him courtesy of an executive at a company of ex-CIA types who handled covers for the agency and were now handling Conrad’s cover pro bono for Serena.

“As one of 435 relatively anonymous members of Congress, I get to bypass security. So for tonight, let’s pretend I’m a powerful lawmaker and you’re my sweet little intern who is going to get me into a lot of trouble.”

She gave him her “not-a-chance” death stare. “I can get you in, Conrad. But how the bloody hell are you going to get out?”

He could tell where her intensity was coming from. She really didn’t think he was coming back.

“I’m going to trigger a false positive result for chemical agents. Doesn’t take much more than household Lysol to set off the alarms in the Capitol if you know where the sensors are. I’ll clear out the whole building and escape in the process.”

Serena raised an eyebrow. “With the globe under your arm?”

“I told you, I’ve taken care of my exit strategy.”

“No, Conrad, you haven’t told me bloody much of anything. You forgot to mention, for example, that the U.S. Capitol doesn’t even have a cornerstone. Not one that anybody has been able to find after two hundred years of excavations.”

“True.” Conrad leaned over her shoulder and saw that she was studying the 1793 map of the U.S. Capitol foundations by Stephen Hallet. “You’d think that the most technically advanced nation in history would know where it laid its first cornerstone.”

“So what makes you think you’re going to find this cornerstone where everybody else has failed?”

“Because I’m not everyone else,” he said. “But then you knew that since you measured this suit perfectly. Let’s say I get rid of this and we go up to the roof. There’s a pool if you want to take a dip.”

He smiled and offered her some wine. But she wasn’t biting, and his mock bravado did little to erase the furrow in her brow.

Serena returned to the Hallet map, all business. “History records
that Washington laid the cornerstone at the southeast corner of the building in a Masonic ceremony. But nobody knows if that was the southeast corner of the original north wing that went up in the 1790s or the southeast corner of what would eventually become the entire Capitol Building.”

“Neither,” he told her. “The Masons typically lay the cornerstone in the northeast corner of their buildings.”

“I’ve crossed all the records, Conrad. Washington definitely laid the cornerstone in the southeast corner.”

“Look.” Conrad guided her hand across the Hallet map. “Here’s the original north wing of the Capitol, which was built first. And here right next to it is the proposed central section, which would ultimately support the dome and connect the north and south wings.”

“I can see that, mate.”

“Really?” He guided her finger to the southeast corner of the north wing, where Conrad was betting Washington laid the cornerstone. “What do you see now?”

“Holy Mother of God,” she said, staring at her finger. “The southeast corner of the north wing is also the northeast corner of the central dome section.”

“And the dome represents not only the heart of the U.S. Capitol, but of the entire city of Washington, D.C., as well,” he said. “So my location for the cornerstone is both historically accurate and Masonically correct.”

Still she refused to let go of her doubts. “Very clever,” she said. “But a lot’s changed since the cornerstone was laid. For starters, everything built on top of your cornerstone was razed to the ground by the British in the War of 1812. And the original turned out to be so heavy the entire East Front of the building had to be rebuilt—directly over your bloody cornerstone—just to hold the thing up. So how are you going to find it under all that modified rubble?”

“Come with me.”

He took her hand and they walked out onto the balcony thirteen stories above Pennsylvania Avenue. The concert was still going on down in the plaza, and Serena looked positively radiant, the view marred only by the FBI building looming behind her.

“This is supposed to be the city’s grand avenue, linking the White
House to the U.S. Capitol,” he said. “By design the buildings were supposed to be within each other’s line of sight. And for years they were, until the Treasury Building went up and obstructed the view.”

“Money usually does,” Serena said, still letting him hold her hand. “But the symbolism was that the executive and legislative branches of the American government could keep a watchful eye on each other. I get it. So what?”

“So this terrestrial arrangement is mirrored in the heavens,” he said. “Look up at the stars. There’s the star Boötes over the White House. And over there is Regulus over the U.S. Capitol. See?”

“Actually, Conrad, I can’t.”

“The city lights make them harder to see. But they’re there, and there’s an invisible radiant connecting them right over our heads.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Stars I can’t see? Connected by an invisible radiant? Does this work on other women?”

She was joking, but he could hear the tension in her voice. For all her spirituality, Serena Serghetti was the most practical, down-to-earth woman he had ever known. She was scared for him, and all his mumbo-jumbo wasn’t going to change that.

“All I’m saying is that Pennsylvania Avenue by design extends to the center of the U.S. Capitol, somewhere under the basement crypt, which is directly below the rotunda, which is directly below the Capitol dome, which itself is a representation of the celestial dome.”

Serena looked frustrated and upset. “I told you, Conrad, the shape of the hill beneath the Capitol has been altered over the centuries with all the terracing, let alone the structure above.”

“But the stars haven’t, Serena. Which is why you and the feds can’t find the cornerstone. You’re looking at blueprints. I’m looking for the
intended
center of the dome. And my cosmic radiant in the sky, with the assistance of the Pentagon’s Global Positioning System, is going to lead me to the cornerstone and the celestial globe.”

Serena took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “Now how can I argue with a man who has the logic of Don Quixote. Or is it Don Juan? It’s so hard to tell with you.”

She wiped an eye, and Conrad couldn’t tell if it was a tear or the wind.

“Maybe a nightcap would clear things up for you,” he said. “After all, this could be my last night alive.”

“I hate you,” she said and punched him hard in the chest.

Laughing, he rubbed an aching rib. “So why save America?”

She looked conflicted. “Because the cliché is true: America is the world’s last best hope.”

“I thought you believed Jesus was.”

“I meant right now, politically, America is the best we’ve got for the unencumbered work of the Church and freedom of religion, which isn’t going over too well in other parts of the world like the Middle East and China.”

“Is that you or Rome talking?” he asked, hoping to raise her ire and get her worries off him. “Because there are some people, mostly in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, who feel that the Church
is
the problem and that the world would be better off without it.”

His ploy seemed to be working.

“The Church, however corrupt an institution, is a symbol of the kingdom of heaven in a world that is passing away,” she said. “As such it stewards the eternal, life-changing message of redemption.”

“Oh, so the Church is the last best hope?”

She looked him in the eye, lost in some dark thought, and then glanced away.

“No, Conrad. Unfortunately, as things now stand, you are.”

Scary thing was, Conrad felt she really believed it, because she started to cry softly. He held her tight in the dark and looked out at the dome of the Capitol glowing in the night, wondering if she was in his arms for the last time.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

I
NSIDE A SECRET ROOM
in the Capitol, Max Seavers sat before congressional leaders with officials from the intelligence community and Health and Human Services. Three years ago, as the Chairman and CEO of SeaGen Labs, he had told this same group that a bird flu pandemic could one day kill millions of Americans. This morning, as the head of DARPA, he was there to announce that that day had come.

“This was taken yesterday from a village in the northeastern province of Liaoning in China,” he said, wrapping up his confidential briefing with a slide stamped “top secret” across the bottom.

The slide showed Chinese health officials in protective gear burning the bodies of men, women, and children outside a poultry farm.

“As you can see, our intel raises serious questions about Chinese disclosure of the spread of bird flu among their population. They want nothing to cloud the upcoming Olympic Games next month. And they have already warned us that any attempt to publicize our concerns will be taken as a political act to undermine the Games and international relations. Unfortunately, by then it will be too late. Worse, the Games themselves, with people attending from all over the world, may prove to be the ultimate launching platform for a global pandemic when they go back home.”

Seavers moved on to his next slide. It was a grainy black and white.

“The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which was a form of bird flu,
killed fifty million people. The new H5N1 mutation is far more dangerous today, targeting adults in the prime of life, and killing more than half of those it infects. No one in the world is immune, putting all six billion of the planet’s human population at risk.”

Senator Joseph Scarborough, the chairman of the committee, turned red with anger. He peered over his glasses at the man seated next to Seavers, an official from the Centers for Disease Control, and demanded, “And what the hell is the CDC going to do about this?”

“The messy medical reality is that people can spread flu a full day before they show symptoms,” the official said, meekly tap-dancing around the fact that “nothing” was his real answer. “So even shutting U.S. borders against an outbreak at the Beijing Games offers no reassurance that a super-strain isn’t already incubating here. Should an outbreak hit American shores, the best we can do is limit international flights, quarantine exposed travelers, and restrict movement around the country. That could slow the virus’s spread and give us time to dispense our stockpiles of the SeaGen super-vaccine to limit the inevitable economic and social chaos.”

The senator now fixed his gaze on Seavers. “I thought the SeaGen vaccine wasn’t designed to fight this new strain.”

“On the contrary, we’ve always known that human-to-human contact of the virus would one day be widespread. But advance preparation is always iffy because a vaccine developed to combat today’s bird flu may be ineffective against tomorrow’s mutation. SeaGen’s smart vaccine solves that problem with its ability to ‘dial up’ or ‘dial down’ certain genes, modulating the immune system to combat whatever mutation the virus assumes.”

“And how exactly does your vaccine ‘dial down’ a person’s immune system?”

“Through a microbiobot inside the vaccine that can receive instructions via wi-fi signals.”

“You mean from outside the body?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What if somebody doesn’t have the flu, Dr. Seavers? Could signals from the outside instruct this ‘biobot’ to dial down targeted genes?”

“Theoretically, I suppose, yes, but the chance—”

“Goddamn it, Seavers. You people did it again. You took federal dollars to develop a vaccine to save lives and instead you weaponized it. Now you want to give it to every American.”

“Not yet,” Seavers said. “The first step is to inoculate first responders. To keep a country’s basic infrastructure working in the event of a pandemic, an estimated 10 percent of the population must be inoculated—including all doctors, nurses, police, and other emergency personnel—as soon as the virus strain is identified and the first batch of vaccine becomes available.”

“Is that all?”

“And I’d want mandatory vaccinations of armed personnel and elected officials as well, since a pandemic could disrupt government and render the Twenty-fifth Amendment useless. If need be, we can scale up to the general population once the bird flu lands in the U.S.”

Max Seavers and Joseph Scarborough stared at each other, the silence in the chamber thick. Behind the tension was the complexity of a symbiotic relationship in which Scarborough held the purse strings for the Pentagon while the Pentagon’s contractors underwrote Scarborough’s reelection campaign and lifestyle. Seavers often found it hard to tell when Scarborough was posturing for effect or genuinely incensed.

“As a former Boy Scout, ‘be prepared’ was my motto growing up,” the senator said, and Seavers felt he was on the verge of getting what he had come for today. “As a senator, that sentiment rings true even…”

Seavers’s BlackBerry, on silence mode, vibrated.

He glanced down at the text message. It was an official alert from the Capitol Police. The subject line read:

Seavers could see vibrating phones throughout the chamber jumping on tables. Almost simultaneously, the doors to the chamber opened and Capitol Police officers rushed in from the corridor to direct people toward the exits.

He looked at Scarborough. The Senator, who hated being cut off by anyone or anything, stood up with a scowl and left the chamber.

As Seavers and the rest were hustled down the corridor after the senators, he saw the incoming Haz-Mat teams in protective gear and clicked the message header on his BlackBerry for details:

Seavers heard a loud whine and a thud and looked up. They were shutting down the ventilation system to prevent the spread of any biotoxins.

He tugged at the multisensor badge on his lapel. Developed by the counter-bioterrorism group at DARPA, the badge could detect the presence of biotoxins in the atmosphere in real time. That’s because DARPA was able to package dozens of photothermal micro-spectroscopy procedures onto a single microchip, including the electrokinetic focusing of bioparticles. Durable, lightweight, and with no external power requirement, this “lab in a badge” provided an immediate visual indication of the presence of any contaminants.

Except there were no contaminants, according to his sensor.

Outside on the east lawn of the Capitol, Senator Scarborough was waiting for him, his face red and puffy.

Scarborough said, “This sure as hell better not be some stunt you’re pulling to convince us to go ahead with your program, Seavers.”

“Absolutely not, Mr. Senator,” Seavers replied hotly. As a billionaire he hated begging for federal funding or agency approval, especially from politicians. They were worse than his private equity investors. “And I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

“Why the hell not?”

“My sensor says so.” He handed the senator his biodetector.

Scarborough turned it over in his hands and glanced at Seavers with the faintest hint of respect. “Maybe I should have one.”

“I think you should. I think all senators should, along with a shot of the SeaGen vaccine.”

Scarborough grumbled something about waving the white flag and walked off toward a cluster of his staffers who were waiting for him by a police barricade.

Seavers looked at his badge detector again. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in the air that was deadly, not even in trace amounts.

He looked back at the building. False alarms happened all the time in Washington, D.C. But something felt wrong as he paced outside the Capitol’s east entrance. Beyond the police barricades, rows of news vans crammed the street, and he could hear the reporters breathlessly blathering on about nothing. There was little to report so far. Everybody was standing around talking or watching the Haz-Mat teams enter the building and people coming out: senators, staffers, and Serena Serghetti.

An alarm went off in his head, the one that never gave false readings. What was
she
doing here?

Then it hit him:
Conrad Yeats.