Atlantis Stolen (Sam Reilly Book 3) (22 page)

Sam moved back
from the sphere.

A total of eight
markings glowed red. He looked at the device as he would a modern day computer,
searching for a delete button or backspace. Surely whatever purpose the device
had, the ancient people of Atlantis must have had a means of activating it or
deactivating it.

“We need to find
something else. There must be another device around here that will help me
clear it. Come on, I cringe to think I’ve inadvertently triggered the next
cycle of human life or lack thereof, on this planet.”

“Already on it,”
Tom said while turning over bits of debris within the temple.

Thirty minutes
later, Sam found something on the sphere itself. He was so focused on the
sphere that it took a while to notice it was now projecting a small red light
on the ceiling. “I’ve got something, Tom.”

Tom came back and
stared at the glow above the sphere. “I’m sure that wasn’t there before.”

“No, so am I.”

“I’ve seen those
markings inside the Mayan pyramid, too.” Tom paused for a moment and then said,
“I think Billie said they were ancient Egyptian measurements of time.”

Sam looked at the
projection again. “You’re right! They are images of time, but I’ll need my
tablet to compute the exact time.”

Sam placed locked
his machine in gear, as he would when parking a car, and then climbed down, inside
his massive ADS machine. There was enough room there to eat, drink, and store
basic necessities. In Sam’s case, that meant his high powered computer tablet
and its several terabytes worth of information.

He quickly
scrolled through his ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics page until he reached the
section regarding the recording of time.

“Oh, that’s not
good!” Sam said, when his initial worst fear came to an even more apocalyptic
fruition.

“What now?”

“What other
devices do you know display the time when they’re activated?”

“A bomb!”

“And didn’t the Secretary
of Defense say something about the scientists at the time calculating the force
to level 10 million pine trees at around 50 megatons, or the equivalent of
about a thousand nuclear bombs? It might be a kinda good idea to find out just
how much time we have.”

“All right, I’m
working on it.” Inside the ADS machine, Sam quickly opened his advanced
linguistics program on his tablet, designed for cracking these types of
problems.

“The first line
is years, months, days, hours…”

“The image just
changed.”

“Christ, it’s
counting down!”

“Okay I have it!”

“How much time
have we got?” Tom asked hurriedly.

“Two years,
twenty weeks, five hours and ten minutes.”

Tom stared at the
projection on the wall again. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because the last
image changes every second.”

“Which means…”
Sam looked up and counted the lines of images. There were four. That meant, if
the first line represented seconds, the second must represent minutes, the
third hours, and the fourth, weeks. “Holy shit, we have just over two weeks!”

“Sam, we didn’t just
activate this – it was already running, we just brought up the display
counter!”

“How can you be
so certain?”

“Because the
Secretary of Defense told you that everything from the Tunguska event was
sealed, only to be reopened in just over two weeks from now, when none of it
would matter! Damn it Sam, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“We’re not
leaving until we find whatever the hell it was that Billie sent us here to
find,” Sam said. “She told me that she’d only just come back from Atlantis, and
that it was important that she find something in Amsterdam to help her with her
discovery. Now, there’s no way she dived to this sort of depth on her own, so
that means to me, that there’s another Atlantis.”

“You mean this
isn’t Atlantis?”

Sam started to
realize the truth. “No, this isn’t Atlantis. It was created by the ancient
Atlantean people, but it doesn’t match up in any way with Plato’s description
of its size or grandeur. Okay, if the Atlantean Archive we found in Tibet was
created as a library of the events in Atlantis, like an almanac, then could it
be possible that the other survivors attempted to rebuild Atlantis, here?”

“It’s possible.
But why go to all the trouble of building a place like this if it served no
purpose?”

“No, it wasn’t
just a shrine to Atlantis. This was replacing it completely. Atlantis wasn’t
just a place in ancient times. Atlantis was a machine that connected mortals
with the stars. How or why, I have no idea. But it has the ability to yield
immense power, as the American expedition discovered in 1908, when they too
accidentally activated it.”

“But what good is
that to us, if we can’t stop this bomb?” Tom asked.

“Nothing, unless
we can find out what Billie knew about this place. There must be something that
we can use to help her.”

Sam continued to
search the room.

At its center,
where Poseidon’s golden statue had most likely been removed, a series of
strange shapes covered an area several feet wide. Placed precisely equidistant
to the towering dome, it was impossible to believe that they were simply
shapes.

“It looks like
something important was here… or at least it was important once upon a time?” 
Sam said.

“Yeah, whatever
it was – it’s easy to believe that it was long ago destroyed – most likely by
whatever caused the Tunguska event.” 

“Meaning we’ve
lost whatever it was that Billie wanted us to find?”

“That was
Billie’s writing in Nepal. She must have wanted us to come here for something,”
Sam said.

“Or she
specifically wanted us off their tail?” Tom pointed out.

“She intentionally
sent us on a wild goose chase, and made us dive in frigid waters?”

“Possibly.”

Sam looked up at
the ceiling again. The place had been stripped of all its orichalcum by the
Russians years ago. Any writings on the wall were long destroyed. “What if it
wasn’t such a case of wanting to send us here, but instead, a case of wanting
to send someone else away from her?”

“You mean, her
captives told her to write this GPS location?”

“No, she could
have easily made up whatever she wanted. Only a handful of people in the world
can interpret the ancient language of the Master Builders. Whatever reason she
had to send us here, it was her decision to write it.”

“Which can mean
only one thing.”

Tom looked at him
expectantly.

“That she’s even
more afraid that someone else will beat her to Atlantis.”

“And that someone
must be on to us? Of course! No wonder she was trying to send us away. Someone
else wants the coordinates of Atlantis.”

“Of course,
Andrew Brandt! The man the mob leader from Nice warned us about. Originally I
assumed that he was one and the same as Billie’s captor, but after the events
in Nepal, I’m not so sure. Her captor could have sent a separate army in to
kill us on Kangchenjunga, but if that was the case, she wouldn’t have sent us
to the wrong place.”

“Which means…”
Tom said.

“We’d better get
out of here, while we still can.”

Sam was about to
step into the water which covered the third challenge and leave the dry dome of
Poseidon, when he felt the slightest of tremors under his feet.

Followed by the
sound of a loud jet screaming through the water above.

“That can’t be
good,” Tom said.

“No, if my ears
don’t deceive me, I’d say someone’s just launched a torpedo.”

The tone of the
seemingly innocent whirl of the torpedo’s electric motor increased sharply. Sam
scanned the room for something structurally strong enough to resist whatever
was about to rain down upon them. A single archway at the entrance to the room
was the best he could come up with in the short time they had.

“Over there Tom,
at the entrance. It’s our best chance of survival.”

“I see it!”

The two men began
moving toward it as fast as they could – their ADS machines at a pace no faster
than a walk.

The dome of
Poseidon held true to its strength and resisted the destruction by the torpedo.
But the ground below them shook violently.

At a depth of
nearly five hundred feet of water, little had touched the ancient site since
the Russians had rendered it worthless in 1908 during the Tunguska event.

Tom was the first
to step into the water again. He returned before Sam had set foot into the
second level of the temple.

“There’s no way
out. The roof has collapsed and about a million tons of rubble is now blocking
our way.”

Sam casually
looked at the counter on his mechanical wrist. “So, we have around 36 hours to
find another way out, before our life support runs out of juice.”

“I don’t know
what your plan is Sam, but we already walked around the dome of Poseidon.
There’s only one way in and one way out. And that way out is now blocked.”

A smile came over
Sam’s face. “I have an idea there’s another way out – assuming it too hasn’t
been blocked.”

“How can you be
so sure?”

“Because this was
built as a sister temple to whatever Atlantis Billie went to.”

“So what?”

“So there’s
always a second way out when it comes to Atlantis.”

“Of course, but I
don’t see any.”

“Remember how we
found the remains of three challenges. Test of strength, wisdom, and sacrifice?
With a fourth name being wealth?”

“Yes, and the
fourth being the wealth of Poseidon, which our predecessors appear to have
stolen.”

“What if the
wealth of Poseidon was just a ruse -- a final step to dissuade any intruders
from looking further inside the temple?”

“To what?”

“The true wealth
of Atlantis – the code. If our processors got it wrong, and the device sunk
Atlantis nearly five hundred feet below the surface of the earth and wiped out
hundreds of miles of tree lines, what power do you think the actual code itself
might possess?”

“I have no idea,
what?”

“Neither do I,
but I intend to find out. And in doing so, we’re going to get out of here, and
more importantly, we’re going to find the code to Atlantis before the timer
reaches zero.”

Sam looked around
the large temple of Poseidon. The place somehow appeared smaller since the cave-in
to the entrance. It was psychological, of course -- the temple was still
enormous. Somehow the sheer knowledge that their exit had been removed
introduced a sensation of claustrophobia Sam hadn’t experienced since he was a
boy.

His older
brother, Danny, had taken him cave diving for the first time. He was only ten
years old, but his entire family had been mad keen divers, and he’d been diving
all around the world since he was six. Sam laughed when he thought about it –
child protection services would have had a field day if they knew what risks
his father’s adventurous spirit had brought him.

Being the
youngest in the family, he was always the most motivated to keep up and prove
his ability. It was that inspiration that made him beat his brother, who was
nearly three years older than him, at a freediving competition in the Blue
Hole, Belize. His brother was so mad that later that day Danny asked him to go for
a dive to the most amazing cave – that was, if he wasn’t too scared to swim
through a few tunnels first? Eager to please, and knowing a challenge when it
was being set, Sam had been quick to accept.

They had gone on
the dive, and his brother had led in through a series of underwater caverns and
tunnels. Presumably Danny had made the dive a number of times with his father,
and confidently knew that there was only one way in and one out. But despite
the appearance of multiple directions, it was fundamentally a very simple cave
dive. To Sam, however, it was the scariest thing on earth.

By the second
tunnel, the place became quite dark, and by the third, only their hand held
flashlights provided them with any light. And even that was extremely
inadequate for the conditions. Then, feeling only just on top of his nerves,
Sam watched in horror when Danny turned off his own light and began swimming at
full speed. Sam tried to follow, but couldn’t keep up and soon lost him. To
this day, he could still remember the sensation of panic as it built up in him
– he was forty feet below the surface of the water, lost in a labyrinth of
caverns and tunnels, his light barely showed what was three feet in front of
him, and now, his brother had disappeared.

He began to
hyperventilate – the gravest of diving mistake, because it’s the surest way to
waste all of your valuable air. And then he stopped.
What am I afraid of?
If Danny can navigate through here, so can I.
Almost as suddenly as the
fear overtook him, Sam forced himself to slow his breathing. Work the problem,
not make it worse. Soon, the terror of claustrophobia turned to euphoria as he
empowered himself to take control of the situation.

Soon, he turned
around and slowly navigated his way back to where he started. He looked at his
dive watch – only five minutes had passed since his brother had intentionally
lost him in the tunnel. An act tantamount to killing him if he hadn’t
maintained control.  

Sam was about to
swim to the surface, when he had an idea. He swam to the side of the cave’s
entrance, and found a sinkhole – the entrance to a tunnel that disappeared deep
below the rock wall. He dived deeper until he was resting a several feet inside
and then switched off his flashlight.

After ten minutes
Danny came swimming out the original tunnel’s entrance, swimming faster than
Sam had ever seen him go. He watched as his brother swam to the surface, and
then returned to the tunnel in a panic.

Sam recalled that
feeling so well. He had bested his big brother, who thought he’d got the best
of him by trying to scare him.

He waited at the
entrance to the cave system, laughing, like the ten-year-old child that he was.
And then he looked at the air supply. There was less than 50 BAR remaining. His
brother was now risking his life to save him from the being trapped. Sam’s
laughter turned to fear as he realized that he might now have killed his
brother.

Looking at the
remaining 50 BAR Sam quickly swam into the tunnel again.

He shined his
flashlight on his brother who immediately turned to swim toward him. The two
turned and swam back to the entrance fast. Danny, who’d been exerting the most
effort attempting to find him, reached Sam holding his dive gauge – and gave it
to him.

The gauge was
empty.

Danny made the
signal indicating he was out of air. Sam handed Danny his own 2
^nd
emergency regulator, and the two began buddy breathing, as they slowly ascended
to five feet.

Sam looked at his
own gauge – 20 BAR. It wasn’t much. Especially when two people were breathing
it. Maybe three to four minutes. No more.

The surface was
just above them, but both had already overstayed their No Decompress Time,
which meant that they would have to spend time decompressing. Sam might get
away with it, but Danny had already swum to the surface and back again looking
for him – an event akin to shaking up a coke bottle. He needed to remain underwater
for at least another ten minutes.

Sam wrote on his
dive slate – Dad’s emergency air tank!

Danny nodded, and
began swimming toward the boat. Their dad, although a risk taker, had always
insisted on leaving a full tank of air, on a line, at the five-foot mark below
his boat when they were diving. They had been here for nearly a week, but his
father never brought it in.

Sam followed his
brother in awe as Danny managed to expertly navigate to their father’s boat
four hundred feet away. To an expert diver who’d been paying attention it was
simple, but to 10-year-old Sam Reilly, Danny’s ability paralleled mythical
wonder.

Their air tank
gave out thirty-odd feet away.

And the two
continued to paddle their fins with slow, strong movements until they reached
the tank. Each of them immediately grabbed the tank’s regulator, and began taking
giant breaths of fresh air in turn.

Danny smiled at
him.

And Sam watched
him mouth the words, “Thank you.”

In front of him,
Danny held up his diving slate with the words, “I’m sorry.” Sam took it, and
wrote something else, “It was an accident.”

Both boys knew it
was a lie. Sam had proven himself to his older brother, and more importantly,
he’d proven his ability to himself. The two boys became men, and neither ever
spoke about that incident while Danny was alive. But his older brother always
knew the truth, and until the day he died, he respected Sam and did everything
he could to look after him.

Back in
Poseidon’s temple, Sam smiled as he slowed his breathing, gaining control, as
he had always been able to, of his friend, his constant companion,
claustrophobia. It was always there, but instead of his enemy, he had made it
his ally. Something to make him focus.

Tom grabbed him.
“You okay Sam? You looked like you were a thousand miles away.”

Sam laughed.
“Yeah, I suppose I was. Just thinking of the past.”

“Well, I hope it
gave you some sort of insight about our future. Because I’ve made three
circuits of this temple, and I can’t see anything that leads to the fourth
room.”

“As a matter of
fact, I think it may have.”

“Really?”

“What do you do
when you see exactly what you want?”

“You focus on it.
You get tunnel vision, and that’s all you see.”

“That’s right.”

Sam then showed
Tom the passage that described Poseidon’s temple.

In the
interior of the temple the roof was of ivory, curiously wrought everywhere with
gold and silver and orichalcum; and all the other parts, the walls and pillars
and floor, they coated with orichalcum. In the temple, they placed statutes of
gold: there was the god himself standing in a chariot – a charioteer of six
winged horses – and at such as size that he touched the roof of the building
with his head…

It carried on for
a while, but Sam stopped reading.

“Do you see it?”

“See what?”

“Poseidon wasn’t
just a giant, with his head almost touching the room. Poseidon was looking at
the true wealth of the room. It was stored above his head.”

“But there was
nothing above his head.” Tom looked up at the ceiling. The rest of the entire
room was covered in precious metals, ivory and gemstones, but directly above
him was simply wrought iron.

“That’s it! It’s
tunnel vision. Whether it was the Russians or our scientists who actually
reached here first, they stripped the entire room of everything of value, but
never once did they consider what was above that piece of iron!”

“Okay, so then
what’s above that piece of iron?”

“I think there’s
another room – with answers!”

“That’s great
Sam.” Tom looked around. “In case you haven’t noticed, that ceiling’s about
thirty feet high. And unless you’re seeing something that I don’t, I have no
idea how you’re planning on reaching it.”

Sam stared at the
water fountain and replied, “I might just have a solution.”