Atlantis Stolen (Sam Reilly Book 3) (21 page)

Andrew opened the
second meeting of the Phoenix Resistance via video conference. Without wasting
time with any of the formalities, or arcane rituals, Andrew began his rundown
of their situation.

“So far we have
followed Mr. Reilly and his companion to an Atlantean Temple, in the high
altitude mountain of Kanchenjunga, which rests partly between Tibet, Nepal, and
Sikkim. The place appears to be an 11,000-year-old cavern that stores the
archives of the entire history of the people of Atlantis. I have been told that
despite it being built after the destruction of Atlantis, it spans nearly a
hundred thousand years’ worth of their documented history.”

It was news to
some of the men within the society – but to others, he had said nothing they
didn’t already know.

Andrew continued.
“We have reason to believe the temple has recently been examined by Dr. Swan,
and in doing so, she has found the location of the second temple. Our team are
currently on Mount Kanchenjunga attempting to solve its numerous markings and
notations. And work out where her team has gone.”

He intentionally
lied, knowing that one man amongst them was a traitor.

Armel brazenly
interrupted. “And what of Mr. Reilly and his companion?”

“Both men have
been eliminated,” Andrew replied confidently. “Gentlemen, soon we must prepare
for what is to come. In less than two weeks, the world will be a very different
place!”

There was a
strong cheer amongst the members of the Phoenix Resistance.

Kazimir, the
Russian, hushed them all. “I am afraid to inform you, Master. Sam Reilly and
Tom Bower were not killed as you were led to believe.”

“That’s
impossible, I saw them killed with my own eyes. Multiple hand grenades exploded
right next to them!” Andrew did not believe what the Russian was telling him.

“Then your own
eyes deceived you.”

“What do you
know?”

“Two days ago, I
received word from an agency of mine – Sam Reilly’s Gulfstream arrived in
Tunguska.”

Andrew swore.
“But who got out?”

“Master, I have
photographs of Sam Reilly and Tom Bower. They had borrowed a Kharkovchanka from
a local, and loaded it with Atmospheric Diving Suits – which means…”

“I know what it
bloody well means!” Andrew swore again. “I thought you said your grandfather
took care of the problem in 1908 when he and Teddy Roosevelt came to the
agreement that all information concerning Atlantis must be destroyed, or at
least locked away in a time capsule until it could no longer cause harm!”

Kazimir put his
hands up in a pacifying gesture. “I assure you, we have taken steps to stop
would-be explorers from stumbling upon the truth. Sam Reilly will find nothing
of use to him. And as for the American time capsule, it can’t be opened until
the end of the month – when it no longer has the ability to do any harm to our
operation.”

“Yeah – then why
the hell did two people in Nepal feel the need, after nearly being killed by my
men, to go directly to Siberia with fucking Atmospheric Diving Suits?”

“I have no idea,
sir. But I can assure you, I have already arranged for the systems in place to
ensure they don’t reach it.”

“You better hope
they work better than your grandfather’s pact to keep it secret. Otherwise
we’re all going to have a lot more to deal with then we bargained for!”

Andrew then
canceled their connection.

It was time for
him to take Dr. Swan and visit Atlantis with the code.

Sam and Tom made
two reconnaissance circuits of the area from above. Sam imagined that this
place eleven thousand years ago might have been above ground. The rings would
have served as massive moats, designed to keep enemies out, each one more
protected than the preceding one. Then, in the southern end of the inner-most
indentation, Tom spotted an opening in the rock wall, inside the moat. Next to
it was a large rectangular stone, broken in two, and roughly matching the
dimensions of the opening.

“Shall we?” Sam
asked, looking at the opening and hoping his ADS machine would fit inside.

“After you. I’ll
fix a bolt into the wall here so we have something else to use to pull
ourselves out with if we become stuck.”

Sam waited while Tom
inserted the bolt into the wall and then connected his safety tether to it. He
then shined his flashlight into the tunnel. The light dimmed in the distance,
and he couldn’t quite tell if the tunnel changed direction, or the light simply
couldn’t penetrate its depth. The tunnel was quite large. Nearly ten feet in
height and another five wide. Plenty of room for his ADS machine, but not as
much as he’d like. In his left hand, inside the suit, Sam adjusted the angle so
that he entered the room horizontally, instead of vertically. This provided him
with more maneuverability, if more obstacles stood in their way.

“You with me,
Tom?” he asked as he reached fifty feet inside the tunnel.

“I’m right behind
you.”

At a hundred and
twenty feet the tunnel opened into a large room.
 
A
quick scan revealed it to be a large square approximately forty feet wide. At
the far end the tunnel continued deeper into the temple. Only the tunnel didn’t
continue forever. Instead, its ceiling, presumably hinged on large hidden
bolts, dipped in height in a gradual downward direction until it touched the
floor. The roof space was covered in wooden spikes that gave Sam a clear
indication of what the roof would do to a person who failed the challenge. At
the center of the room a steel bar hung from the ceiling above a stone chair
and table in which a person could lock their legs. The mechanism had most
likely failed, but there was no doubt in his mind what it was once used for.
The only question was, could they progress through the temple, if the
mechanisms had failed?

Above the chair
some text could be seen on the stone roof in large, bold, lettering, the same
used by the Master Builders. Sam moved closer to the inscription and examined
it. The individual lettering had been damaged but enough were intact that he
could make out the words.

Sam read each one
slowly and out loud, “Strength, intelligence, sacrifice, and wealth”

“That doesn’t
sound good,” Tom said.

“No, I can’t say
it does. By the looks of things, the ancient people of Atlantis went to some
extreme lengths to ensure that only the worthy reached their temple. I couldn’t
imagine any of the mechanisms are still working after all these years.”

“Even so, I’d
like to understand how each of these rooms operated before we get ourselves
killed by an eleven thousand year-old booby-trap.”

“Only in Indiana
Jones stories are these things still active,” Sam said, with a confidence he
didn’t entirely feel.

Moving toward the
end of the downward sloping tunnel with the remains of spikes on the room, Sam
found something to reassure himself. At the end of the tunnel the roof had been
pried open with a pair of hydraulic struts.  “There, this room must have once
been the test of strength. Somehow, you needed to lift the roof or something.
Of course, whoever did reach this place in 1908 weren’t playing by the
Atlantean’s rules.”

Entering the
second room, Sam was greeted by a massive room with a chasm in the middle
nearly twenty feet wide. The remains of a bridge could be seen at the bottom –
not that it would be required now that the entire room had been flooded. Next
to it, a golden pair of scales stood, as though they were forever waiting for
someone to balance them. On the wall, where they approached was the word, INTELLECT.
Across the chasm, a steel ladder had been strung. At its base, the small emblem
of an American Flag shined bright.

“Okay, so I guess
we did make it here in 1908. The question is, where was here?” Tom said. Then,
to clarify he said, “If it wasn’t at the bottom of a five-hundred-foot lake,
where was it?”

Sam studied the
ladder. Clearly whoever had used it weren’t swimming at the time. “I have no
idea.”

The two men
carefully powered their ADS machine toward the end of the room, along another
tunnel and finally into the third room. This one had the word SACRIFICE at its
entrance. It was relatively small compared to the other rooms. Five pillars
stood approximately forty feet above another chasm’s floor. To the side of the
middle pillar, about three feet away, stood a single totem pole. Above it, an
enormous axe remained attached to the ceiling more than ten feet above, forming
a perfect pendulum of death.

“Now I’m really
feeling like I’m in one of Indy’s nightmares,” Tom said.

Sam laughed. “No
Tom, I think Indy would have felt safer inside an ADS machine. Come on, let’s
go find the reward.”

The electric
propulsion units whirled into life as they crossed the seemingly easy test of
SACRIFICE.

“What do you
think was meant to happen here?” Tom asked.

“Nothing good,
whatever it was. I suppose being a sacrifice, someone had to stand on that
additional pillar, in order to trigger a weighted mechanism to open the final
door so the other person could exit. The only problem being, he or she would
die in the process.”

At the end of the
room the door had been held open once more by a hydraulic strut. Sam continued
through the tunnel, which gradually moved in an upwards direction, and toward
the fourth room.

When he reached
the end of the tunnel the head of Sam’s ADS machine left the buoyancy of water.
Startled, Sam said, “Tom, you’re not going to believe this – it appears the
fourth room is still dry.”

Sam stepped out
of the water and into a massive room. The hum of his ADS machine’s electric
propulsion system was replaced by the hydraulic movements of his mechanical
limbs. He scanned cavern they’d entered. There was no question about it -- they
were standing inside Poseidon’s temple.

In Plato’s
Critias Dialogue, Poseidon’s Temple was described as a stadia’s length by half
a stadia’s width. No one had ever worked out what an Atlantean Stadia
represented as a measurement. Looking around, Sam was surprised to discover
that although it was large, it wasn’t anywhere near as large as historians had
guessed over the years.

The ancient
cavern was nearly barren.

Inside the temple
of Poseidon, the place was completely dry. It looked like one of those fake
sets after Hollywood got to it in another movie about destruction of the world.
Sam looked around and could imagine it to be Atlantis, as described by Plato,
with the one exception – all the wealth had been stolen. The gold statue of
Poseidon himself was missing, the walls were no longer covered in orichalcum – the
precious alloy mined only in Atlantis. The roof, stripped of its ancient ivory
and precious gemstones, was barren blocks of stone.

“This looks like
Atlantis all right,” Sam said.

“Yeah, the only
problem is we got here about a hundred years too late!” Tom replied. “Man, look
at this place. Whoever got here first, either the Russians or our guys,
certainly did a job on the place. Archeologists would have a seizure if they
saw the destruction here.”

At the center a
round ball glowed with a slightly bluish tinge. It was as tall as each of them,
were they not wearing an ADS machine. Despite its obvious glow, Sam had nearly
missed it during his first reconnaissance of the room, the shock at the wanton
destruction of Atlantis – most likely for its precious metals and ivory – distorting
his vision. But now, the spherical structure seemed obvious.

“I’ve seen that
blue glow somewhere before,” Sam said.

Tom squinted. “So
have I.”

“Where?”

“At the center of
the Mayan Pyramid. The same place Billie found the map to Atlantis.”

“Of course! I
remember the bluish glow now. And I remember her showing me the sphere, too.
Only hers was only the size of a clenched fist. Billie said she’d taken it to a
number of geologists who could only tell her that it appeared natural and
similar to a diamond, only stronger, brighter, and it had the unique properties
of transmitting sound and light better than any other material ever known.”

Sam walked up to
the sphere and examined it. More than fifty strange markings could be seen on
the outside of it. Only, they weren’t completely strange markings. He’d seen
them before, too. But where, he couldn’t even imagine.

“Help me roll
this ball will you?” Sam asked.

“Sure, anywhere
you’re planning on taking it?” Tom replied.

“No, just off
this light so I can see what’s under it.”

Together they
attempted to move the sphere. Despite the massive lifting power of the ADS’s
hydraulic arms, the sphere didn’t move.

“This stuff’s
heavy,” Tom said.

“Let’s see if we
can rotate it on its axis,” Sam said.

Carefully
gripping the sphere with his metal hands, Sam prepared to rotate their strange
discovery. This time, it moved easily, as though it had been floating on water
or resting in a pile of tiny ball bearings.

“Any idea what
the hell any of this means?” Sam asked.

“Not a clue. The
sphere that Billie and I found in the Mayan pyramid, buried in the seabed,
showed a number of unique locations. Maybe it will show us something. Billie knew
about it, so there must be something she wants us to see.”

Sam moved it
again. This time he noticed that the marking on the sphere, when it reached the
blue glow at the base, turned to a glowing red. He turned the sphere again, and
the same small marking remained bright red, as though it was glowing with fire.

Continuing the
process, another four marks became engulfed in a flame red glow, while more
than forty others which he’d tried remained unchanged.

“Okay Sam, I’m
here to find Billie, but you’re the expert in ancient mythology – what the hell
is this?”

“If I had a
guess, I’d say that it’s some sort of ancient counting device, like a
computer.”

“The Atlanteans
had computers eleven thousand years ago?”

“Not quite, but
I’d say this is a pretty complex abacus. The more I look at it, the more I
can’t help but feel like I’m triggering a code to something, but what I don’t
know.”

“You mean, the
code to Atlantis?” Tom said.

“Yeah, something
like that.  Where did you get that idea from?”

“Because, when
Billie called me a few weeks ago, she told me that she’d reached it, but now
had to find the code to Atlantis, before it was too late!”

A cold shiver ran
down Sam’s spine. A sixth sense that he was close to achieving something or
destroying something. “Too late for what?”

Tom stopped him
turning the sphere again. “I think I know what happened to the scientists who
came here in 1908.”

“Well don’t leave
me in suspense. What happened to them?”

“They activated
that sphere.”