Raising Atlantis (14 page)

Serena watched as Conrad walked to the center of the room. His footsteps seemed to reverberate more loudly the closer to the center he went.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“If there’s nothing inside the room, then we have to look at the room itself.” Conrad walked over to the western wall and turned to face east. He took out what looked like a pen and bounced a thin laser beam off the walls. Then he checked his readings. “This chamber forms a perfect one-by-two rectangle,” he announced. “And the height of this room is exactly half the length of its floor diagonal.”

“So?”

“Since the chamber forms a perfect one-by-two rectangle, the builders have expressed a golden section, phi.”

“Phi?” asked Yeats.

“Phi is an irrational number like pi that can’t be worked out arithmetically,” Conrad explained. “Its value is the square root of five plus one divided by two, equal to 1.61803. Or, the limiting value of the ratio between successive numbers in the Fibonacci series—the series of numbers beginning 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13—”

“In which each term is the sum of the two previous terms,” said Serena, completing his lecture. “What’s your point?”

“The builders left nothing to chance here. Every stone, every angle, every chamber has been systematically and mathematically designed for some grand purpose. This isn’t only the oldest and largest structure on the planet. It’s the most perfect too.”

She swallowed hard. “Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s humanly impossible.”

Serena studied him carefully and concluded that he believed what he was saying. She didn’t yet, but she was impressed with his brilliance. It was rare she met a man smarter than she was. Only Conrad was perhaps too brilliant for his own good, like the geniuses used by the Americans to build the atomic bomb during World War II. And too sure of himself. He obviously somehow fancied he was going to take something out of P4 and stake his claim in history.

But Yeats would never allow it, she knew, glancing at the American general. His cold, stone-faced expression told her that once Conrad had served his usefulness he would be disposable. Not as his son, but certainly as an archaeologist. Conrad, however, was too smart to be disposable. Which is why she wasn’t worried so much by what Conrad was saying as by what he wasn’t saying.

“So now you’re concluding that P4 is alien?” She shook her head. “The bodies we found in the ice are human. Yeats said the lab autopsies proved as much.”

“That doesn’t mean those people built P4,” Conrad said.

“This thing might have been here long before they arrived.”

The way he referred to “this thing” bothered her. P4

wasn’t a thing. It was a pyramid. Or was it? Without any inscriptions, she was powerless to find any meaning for this monument or argue with Conrad, except to say, “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Have some faith.” Conrad crossed the room and walked over to the opposite shaft. He then pulled out a handheld device from his belt.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“Launching my astronomical simulator.” Conrad pushed a button to call up a graphic on the display. “The northern shaft we came through is angled at thirty-eight degrees twenty-two minutes. This southern shaft is angled at fifteen degrees thirty minutes.”

Serena walked over. “You lost me.”

“You’re forgetting this pyramid may be a meridian instrument to track the stars,” Conrad said as he glanced at the palm display. “The shafts in the king’s chamber of the Great Pyramid, for example, target Orion and Sirius. My hunch is that they were modeled after this. All we have to do is match the shafts with various celestial coordinates throughout history and we can date P4 to the precise—” Conrad stopped short. He was staring at his display.

“Go on,” Serena said.

“Wait.” Conrad frowned. “This can’t be right.”

“What is it?”

“Something wrong, Conrad?” asked Yeats, who was still looking up the southern shaft with his flashlight.

“The angle of the shafts targets certain stars in a certain epoch,” Conrad said. “This shaft targets Alpha Canis Major in the constellation of the Great Dog. It was known as Sirius to the ancients, who associated it with the goddess Isis, the cosmic mother of the kings of Egypt.”

“As opposed to the cosmic king Osiris,” Serena said.

Conrad’s eyes lit up. “Whose constellation Orion is rising in the east right now.”

“You told me all this back at Ice Base Orion.” Yeats was now impatiently looking over Conrad’s shoulder.

“You don’t understand,” Conrad explained, and Serena herself was trying to catch up. “This shaft targets Alpha Canis Major right now, on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius, as seen from the South Pole at sunrise on the spring equinox.”

Yeats said, “It’s September, Conrad.”

“For you northerners,” Serena reminded Yeats. “It’s spring here and in the rest of the Southern Hemisphere.” She turned to Conrad. “So what’s the meaning?”

“Well, from a fixed point on the ground, the skies are like the odometer on a car. The heavens change over one complete cycle every twenty-six thousand years,” he explained. “Meaning either this pyramid was built twenty-six thousand years ago, during the last Age of Aquarius. Or—”

“Or what?” she demanded.

“Or it was built to align with the stars at a date in the future.” He looked her in the eye, and she felt her spine tingle. “For this present moment, right now.”

14

Descent Hour Five

Ice Base Orion

INSIDEICEBASEORION ON THE SURFACE,O’Dell was lying on his bunk, listening to Chopin, waiting for some word from Yeats and the team below, when suddenly the walls began to shake and the Klaxon sounded.

Every so often the daily monotony of the base was broken by a “sim,” or simulation. A Klaxon would sound, and the crew would rush to their posts in the command center, where warning light panels and the diagnostic computers were located. A flashing SIM light on the panel was the crew’s notification that the emergency was not real.

But since O’Dell was the man who ordered sims, and he didn’t order this event, he knew no SIM light would be flashing. He could feel his pulse quicken and his adrenaline spike as he darted out of his wardroom and headed for the command center module, where the crew was already gathered around the main monitor screen.

“We’ve got a breach at the outer perimeter, sir,” said the lieutenant on duty. “Sector Four.”

O’Dell looked at the grainy picture of swirling snow. And then a large gray object emerged through the mist. “It’s the Russians,” he cursed as he recognized the Kharkovchanka tractor.

“Breach in Sector Three,” shouted another officer, followed by several others.

“Sector Two breach, sir!” another said.

“Sector One!”

“Sector Three!”

O’Dell looked around the room at the monitors: Kharkovchanka tractors everywhere. The Russians had surrounded the base. He stood very still, the gravity of the situation slowly sinking in. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Sir?”

O’Dell turned to see his communications officer. He blinked. The officer’s lips were moving, but O’Dell couldn’t hear anything. “What?”

“I said the Russians are hailing us, sir. Do you want to respond?”

O’Dell took a breath. “Can we reach General Yeats?”

“We lost contact with his party as soon as they penetrated P4.”

Before O’Dell could reply, a call came over the intercom from the east air lock. “Ivans at the gate!” O’Dell heard the Russians banging against the door with what sounded like the butts of their AK-47s. He exhaled and turned to his communications officer. “Inform the Russians that a reception committee will greet them at the east air lock.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meanwhile, let’s hide everything we can.”

O’Dell marched out of the command center and into a maze of polystyrene corridors lined with bright, reinforced glass windows. A glance outside at the village of cylindrical modules and geodesic domes told him it would be impossible for him to hide what his team was doing here.

He passed through an air lock into a module where the strains of a Mozart symphony grew louder. He passed a cleanup crew outside the lab containing the benben stone. The double doors with the PERSONNELONLYsign had disappeared behind a fake glass window that was conveniently fogged up. He just hoped the Russians wouldn’t look too closely. But it was probably too much to ask for, much like his prayer that they would miraculously be blinded to the dosimeters located in various panels to measure radiation from the base’s nuclear reactor. That alone qualified as a smoking gun that would effectively end his career, O’Dell realized. Yeats would then end his life.

Two unarmed MPs were waiting for him by the air lock.

O’Dell nodded, and slowly the heavy inside door opened. The icy air took his breath away as two figures—one large and squat, the other tall and slim—came in and stomped their boots. The squat man lifted his hood and O’Dell saw the ugliest red swollen face of his life.

“I am Colonel Ivan Kovich,” he said triumphantly in English but with a thick Russian accent. “And you are in very big trouble. Very big.”

Before O’Dell could reply that Ice Base Orion was simply a humble research station, Kovich began to cough uncontrollably. His tall, lanky aide pounded his commanding officer on the back until Kovich waved him off.

“Read it to him, Vlad,” Kovich said, and by way of introduction added, “This is Vladimir Lenin, great-great-grandson of Lenin himself.”

O’Dell watched with interest as the young officer produced a crumpled piece of paper from his parka and smoothed it out. Apparently this Lenin hadn’t risen quite so high in the ranks as his ancestor. In halting English he said, “You are in violation of Article One of international Antarctic Treaty. No military allowed. Treaty gives us right to inspect base.”

The young Lenin glanced at Kovich, who nodded, and then put the piece of paper away.

“Any questions?” Kovich asked O’Dell.

O’Dell said, “How many of you will be joining us?”

“As many Russians as there are Americans here on this base and at the bottom of that gorge outside,” Kovich said.

“What about Colonel Zawas and his team?”

“We hope you tell us,” Kovich said. “We have not heard from his patrol. They have vanished into thin air.”

15

Descent Hour Five

THERE WAS SILENCE INSIDEthe chamber. Yeats looked at Conrad and could tell from his expression that something had gone horribly wrong with his calculations. The nun could tell too, he thought.

Yeats said, “Any chance you—”

“No mistake,” Conrad said. “The southern shaft, which we know was built at least twelve thousand years ago, is designed to align with the star Sirius as it appears in our skies present day. The northern shaft likewise targets Al Nitak, the middle star in Orion’s belt.”

There was more, Yeats could tell, but Conrad wasn’t talking, and Yeats knew why. Serena was also studying Conrad closely.

“Even if you’re right about the astronomical alignments, why now?” she asked Conrad. “Do you think P4 has anything to do with the recent earthquakes?”

To Yeats’s relief, Conrad said nothing.

“I think we ought to call Ice Base Orion before we proceed any farther.” Yeats pulled out his radio and adjusted the frequency. “Ice Base Orion, this is Team Phoenix.”

There was no response, just hissing and popping.

“Ice Base Orion,” Yeats tried again. “Do you copy?”

Again, no answer.

“Damn,” Yeats said. “These walls must be interfering.”

“They didn’t interfere with the video that the probe sent,” Serena said. “Maybe your base isn’t there anymore.

Maybe it’s been buried by the snowstorm.”

“Look, Sister Serghetti—” Yeats snapped.

“Doctor Serghetti,” she corrected.

“Look, Doctor Serghetti, we’ve got a case of radio blackout probably caused by this polar storm. That’s all.

Considering the weather on the surface, I say we wait it out down here. And as long as we’re here, we do what we’re supposed to do. Lopez, Marcus, Kreigel!”

The three officers snapped to attention. “Sir!”

“Set up a new command and logistics post inside this chamber. The habitat is probably unstable. Bring whatever you need down here.” Yeats put a hand on Conrad’s shoulder. “You said something back on the surface about four shafts in the pyramid.”

“Yes,” said Conrad. “I suspect the other two shafts, if they exist, are in a lower chamber. We’ll need to find it to be sure.”

“To be sure of what?” Serena pressed.

Conrad said, “I’ll know when we get there.”

“And just how are you going to get there?” she asked.

“Through that door.”

“What door?” Yeats asked.

“That door.”

Yeats watched Conrad turn toward the shaft they had emerged from and scan the wall to the right with his flashlight. There in the corner, to Yeats’s amazement, was an open passageway. It had been behind them.

“That wasn’t there before,” Serena said hoarsely.

“Yes, it was,” Conrad said. “It’s always been there.”

Once again Conrad’s sense of space and dimension awed Yeats. He wouldn’t be surprised if Conrad already had mapped out the entire interior of P4 in his head.

“I’m telling you it wasn’t,” Serena insisted.

“And I’m telling you that you missed it,” Conrad said.

“Chill out, OK?”

“Fine.” She took a step toward the open door. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Yeats blocked her with his arm. “You stay here while Conrad and I search for those two other shafts.”

Yeats could see a flash of fury in Serena’s eyes. She clearly had trouble taking orders. No wonder she was such a pain in the ass for the Vatican. She pressed against his arm toward the doorway, but Conrad gripped her shoulder and pulled her back.

“It’s all right, Serena,” Conrad said. “When we find the other shafts, we’ll come back for you.”

That’ll be the day, Yeats thought. “Of course we’ll come back for you,” he told her. “As soon as we find something.”

“Promise,” added Conrad earnestly, which bothered Yeats.

Conrad didn’t have the right to promise anybody anything.