“It’s not the material itself, it’s where it came from,” Ogleby replied, still tapping away at the computer. “In this case, the Nazis.”
“Nazis?” said Eddie, in his surprise using his normal accent before hurriedly correcting himself. “Uh, I mean, Nat-zees.”
Fortunately, Ogleby didn’t pick up on it. “It was part of a scientific archive seized by US forces at the end of the war, some of which had been stolen from Greece during the German occupation there. A lot of the other material concerned what you might call ‘ethically questionable’ Nazi experiments”—he gave them a decidedly ghoulish smile—“so the whole collection was classified, including the material you want to see.”
“Why?” Nina asked. “It couldn’t possibly be connected to anything the Nazis did.”
“It was connected just by association,” said Ogleby in a patronizing tone. “The Nazis were very good at filing. You release one file, people want to know where the others are, and what’s in them. It’s simpler just to classify everything so only people with a need to know can see it. That way, we still have the information without bleeding hearts bleating about our benefiting from ‘immoral knowledge.’ There’s no such thing.” He finished typing. “We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but at least we can stop people from whining that someone removed the cork.”
Nina agreed with him in principle that knowledge itself could not be immoral—as far as she was concerned, the cliché that “there are some things man was not meant to know” was an anti-intellectual crock—but that hadn’t stopped her from quickly developing a dislike for the librarian. “Well, we’re in the need-to-know club now, so if we could see it?” she said spikily.
Ogleby’s nod was distinctly disapproving, but he signaled impatiently toward one of the cubicles. “Go on, in there. You can get a good view of the system at work.”
As well as a well-lit reading desk, the cubicle contained something that reminded Nina of a smaller-scale version of an airport’s baggage carousel. A large flap set into the cabin’s outer wall opened onto a set of steel rollers that would channel anything coming down it into a flat collection area; another set of rollers at the opposite end led back through a second flap. A window looked out into the hangar and its miles of shelves. “Your material is on its way,” said Ogleby. “The shuttle should be here in a minute.”
Eddie and Nina moved closer to the window. The tracks crisscrossed the vast space between the stacks, points at alternate intersections allowing the shuttles to follow the most efficient course through the grid. As they watched, one of the towering machines trundled past, carrying a large container resembling a bank’s safety deposit box. Sparks crackled from its bumper-car-like overhead power grid. It clattered through a set of points and turned down an aisle, disappearing from view. Other shuttles were at work farther away.
“The place looks busy,” said Nina.
“It always is,” Ogleby replied. “We send out at least three hundred retrieval requests per day—and new material arrives all the time, of course. The Pentagon, CIA, NSA, even the White House—everybody has files down here. And we keep track of every single one.” Pride briefly overcame grumpiness. “Nothing’s ever been leaked or stolen from Silent Peak. Not so much as a Post-it.” His abrasive attitude returned. “How long will you need?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug.
The gesture irritated their host even more. “Well, this isn’t a social club, so don’t waste time chatting about it. As soon as you’ve got what you need, put everything back in the box and push it down the belt, then you can leave. In the meantime, I have work to do, so if you need anything, ask the zombie over there.” He cast a disdainful look toward the mind-numbed man by the entrance, then stalked out of the cubicle.
“Thank fuck he’s gone,” said Eddie.
“I know. What a jerk!”
“No, I meant I can finally talk again.”
“With you, silence is golden,” Nina told him. “Especially with that god-awful accent you were using. Seriously, what the hell was it? You’re married to an American—how can you not know what we sound like?”
“Oh, I know what you sound like. Sort of shrill, and annoying—ay up.” Their discussion was interrupted as another shuttle stopped outside the window. A hydraulic whine as it raised its cargo to the drop-off point, then the flap opened with a bang and a metal container skittered down the rollers to stop in the collection area before them.
Nina examined the delivery. It was somewhat larger than a standard box file, a barcode laser-etched on the brushed steel. Beneath it was a large label bearing an identification number, along with the cryptic line SCI(G3)/NOFORN. The more readily understandable EYES ONLY was printed beneath it in red. “What does that mean?” she asked, tapping the jumble of letters.
“NOFORN means ‘no foreign nationals,’ ” said Eddie. “I’d better look away, then. Don’t want to break any rules.”
“I think we’re past the stage of worrying about that,” Nina said with a halfhearted smile.
“Just a bit. And SCI stands for ‘sensitive compartmentalized information.’ Super-top-secret, basically. The G3 part’s probably some particular need-to-know clearance. Which Dalton arranged for you, so you’d better start using it. The quicker we’re out of here, the better.”
She took the box to the reading desk. “Yeah. I didn’t like what Ogleby said, that we could have had this brought to the IHA. You think Dalton’s trying to set us up to be caught red-handed?”
“I’m surprised we haven’t been arrested already, to be honest. Or shot.”
“There’s a pleasant thought.” Nina sat and opened the box, Eddie leaning over her shoulder to see what was inside.
It didn’t contain a great deal: a manila folder with thirty or so typewritten pages within, and a large padded envelope housing a flat and heavy object. She flicked through the folder first. The opening pages were a summary of where and when US forces had acquired the material from the Nazi archive at the end of the Second World War, and the bureaucratic decision-making process that had kept it hidden to this day. Following them were translations—from German to English, of the Nazis’ own records, and then from ancient Greek to English—of the material itself.
Nina put them aside and picked up the envelope. Inside was another folder, but this was metal bound in thick black leather, not a simple card sleeve. A brass zipper ran around three sides. She carefully unfastened it and opened the cover.
She immediately recognized the contents.
It was the rest of the torn parchment she had seen in the Brotherhood of Selasphoros’s archives in Rome.
NINETEEN
“What is it?” Eddie asked.
“Something that’s been missing for a very long time,” Nina replied in a reverential whisper. The US government had taken the same approach to preserving the fragile sheet of browned animal skin as the Brotherhood, pressing it between two pieces of glass. Despite this, the ancient document’s condition was considerably worse than its matching half; it had passed through more hands over the centuries.
But it was still readable, the closely spaced Greek text clear. She gazed at the long-lost words of Kallikrates, starting to translate …
“So?” said Eddie impatiently. “What is it?”
“The Brotherhood had the other half,” she explained, indicating the torn top of the page. “Their part described the mental effects of what happens when the three statues are brought together—the ‘visions.’ But this …” She rapidly skimmed through the rest of the writing. “This is about the physical effects. And it matches what happened in Tokyo—the statues becoming charged with earth energy, the levitation …”
“Levitation? What, you started floating around the room?”
“Not me, the statues. And they just kind of … hung there. But never mind that.” She kept reading, hungry to learn more. “In the Brotherhood’s text, Nantalas, the priestess, believed that the statues were the keys to god-l
ike powers, which came from something she called the sky stone.”
“A meteor?”
“Seems likely. The statues are meteoric rock, after all—they must have been cut from it. But this text actually says what that power is.” She pointed at the top of the parchment. “It follows on directly from the part I read in Rome. When she put all three statues together and touched them to the sky stone, it ‘rose from the floor, lifted by the power of the gods. Even though the chamber was not open to the sky, lightning flashed through the Temple of the Gods and the ground shook with thunder. After Nantalas lowered the stone, the king agreed that such power should be used against the enemies of Atlantis, but knew there would be those in the royal court who would be fearful of angering the gods by doing so. He said that he would bring the court to the Temple of the Gods so they could witness with their own eyes the power of the sky stone.’ The royal court,” she added thoughtfully. “If they were involved, it would have been recorded in the altar room …”
“How big was the stone?” Eddie asked.
“It doesn’t say. But the inference seems to be that it was fairly large—bigger than the statues, certainly.”
“So the whole thing’s basically an earth energy weapon, then? Only a natural one?”
“It looks like it. And the Atlanteans had it, eleven thousand years ago.”
“Then where is it now?”
“I think that’s what a lot of people are trying to find out.” She gave him a worried look. “And Eddie … I’m the key to finding it. When I had all three statues in Japan, I felt … drawn to something. I didn’t know what at the time, but it has to be this sky stone.”
“Drawn to it?” he said doubtfully. “How?”
“It’s hard to explain, but it was like—like a bird’s homing instinct, perhaps. I just knew what direction it was in, and that it was a long way away. And Takashi was expecting it—one of the first things he asked me was if I had felt it. The mole in the Brotherhood gave this Group the first half of Kallikrates’s texts, and they obviously had enough influence over the US government to get access to this.” She tapped the glass protecting the parchment. “They must think that the meteorite is some Atlantean superweapon, and want to get their hands on it. And they need me to find it.”
“That can’t be good,” said Eddie. “Maybe I should’ve smashed those fucking statues after all.”
“I’m starting to think you’re right. The question is, what are we going to do?”
He looked at the parchment. “Is there anything else on there that’s useful?”
Nina quickly checked the remainder of the text. “Nothing that seems relevant.”
“Great. In that case, stick it back in the box and let’s get out of here.”
Nina closed the leather case, placed it back in the envelope, then returned it and the folder to their container. She picked up the box and was about to send it down the chute back to the automated library when her phone rang, startling them both. “We’ve got reception all the way down here?” she said, puzzled, as she fumbled it from her pocket with one hand. The number was unfamiliar.
“They must have a booster,” said Eddie, suddenly wary. “You expecting any calls?”
“Nope.” She answered it. “Hello?”
“Hello, Dr. Wilde.” Dalton.
Nina lowered her voice so Ogleby and the guard wouldn’t overhear. “Hello, Mr. President,” she said, making the title sound almost derogatory. Eddie instantly became more alert than ever, checking what was happening outside the cubicle. As yet, nothing—but he was certain that wouldn’t last. “To what do I owe the extremely dubious honor?”
“What do you think of Silent Peak?”
“It’s impressive, if you like colossal wastes of taxpayer dollars. But you didn’t call me to get my opinion on that, did you?” Eddie leaned closer to listen to the other side of the conversation.
“No, I didn’t.” The ex-president was relishing every word. “I called to say … good-bye. The base commander is just being told about a major security breach. I’d imagine you’ve got less than a minute before they come for you. In force.”
A sickening chill ran through Nina’s body. “A breach that’ll be traced back to you,” she said with straw-grabbing defiance.
Dalton almost laughed. “No. It won’t. For one thing, my people covered their tracks, and for another … you won’t get the chance to tell anyone. So once again—good-bye, Dr. Wilde.”
“Son of a bitch!” Nina hissed—but Eddie had taken the phone from her.
“President Victor Dalton, before you hang up,” he said, receiving an odd look from Nina at his use of Dalton’s full name, “I’ve got something to say.”
“You’re going to threaten me, I suppose, Chase?” came the reply. Eddie could almost see his smirk. “Use your little video of our discussion as leverage? It’ll never get out, I assure you. My contacts will see to that. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.”
“No, what I actually wanted to say is al-Qaeda bomb kill the president jihad terror!”
Silence, then: “You limey bastard!” The line went dead.
“What the hell was that?” Nina demanded.
He gave her a grim smile. “The NSA records every phone call made in the States. All those red-flag keywords’ll make sure it’s a priority for investigation. Deal with spooks like Alderley for long enough, and you pick up tips. Maybe someone’ll recognize Dalton’s voice and realize he just admitted to getting us in here.”
Another phone rang—one on the wall by the airman. “That’s great,” said Nina as he answered it, “but it’s not going to help us much right now, is it?”
The guard’s expression jumped from boredom to sudden concern as he listened. “Dr. Ogleby!” he yelled, dropping the receiver and drawing his sidearm. “We have a security breach!” He ran to Nina and Eddie’s cubicle. “You two, freeze!”
Ogleby scurried up behind him. “What’s going on?”
“Sir, these two are intruders! They’re not authorized to be here!”
“What? But—but they were on the system!”
“I’m just going by what Colonel Kern told me, sir.”
Eddie cautiously raised his hands. “Hey, ah don’ know wart the prahblem hee-ah is, but there’s ahhbviously been some mistarke.”
Ogleby boggled. “Where exactly are you supposed to be from, Captain? Australia?”
The airman stepped into the cubicle. “I’ve got orders to take you both into custody. Miss, drop that box.”
“No, don’t drop it!” Ogleby snapped. He glared at the guard. “The contents are fragile, you idiot! Dr. Wilde, put it down very carefully.”
“Like this?” Nina said, tossing it straight at the airman.
He reacted instinctively, pulling the trigger—
There was a loud clanging impact and a crack of glass. The flying box jolted, but carried on along its arc to hit the man’s gun hand. Before he could bring his weapon back up, Eddie lunged at him and drove a crunching punch into his face. The airman fell, a heel to his groin making sure he wouldn’t be getting up for a while.
Eddie shot a look of mixed anger and relief at his wife as he took the gun. “That was a fucking stupid thing to do.”
“Jesus!” Nina gasped. The back of the box had a prominent convex dent where the bullet’s force had been just barely absorbed by the metal and glass of the folder. “He tried to shoot me!”
“What did you expect? That sign said deadly force is authorized.”
“Yeah, but it didn’t say it’s mandatory!”
Ogleby stumbled backward, hands up in fear. “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!”
Eddie followed him, the gun raised. “Just tell us how we get out of here.”
Before he could reply, honking klaxons sounded in the hangar outside. Red lights started flashing. “You don’t,” said Ogleby, a spark of defiance returning. “That’s a lockdown alarm.”
The Englishman shoved him hard against a cubicl
e wall. “How many men in the base?”
“About forty,” he gulped. “They’ll be on their way down here already—if you want to stay alive, you should surrender while you have the chance.”
“I don’t think we’ll be given the option,” Nina said grimly. She went to the door and looked out toward the great vertical shaft. The elevator on which they had descended was no longer there, Kern having ridden it back to the surface—but as she watched, another platform in the opposite corner came into view, bearing a group of uniformed men carrying rifles. “Shit! Eddie, they’re here already!”
Eddie’s glance into the hangar warned him that shooting their way out was not an option—nine M4 assault rifles against a single Beretta M9 pistol was a fight that would only end one way. Instead, he pulled Nina back into the cubicle. “Come on!”
“Where?” she demanded, confused. “There’s no way out!”
“Yes, there is.” He dived onto the exit chute of the automated delivery system, the metal rollers squealing as he juddered down the incline. “Let’s roll!”
He hit the flap with a bang and disappeared through it. She looked back through the door. The elevator was almost at the bottom of the shaft, the men preparing to leap out.
Nina threw herself onto the rollers.
She crashed through the flap—and immediately found herself in peril as a mechanical arm swung at her head. She yelped and twisted aside, a metal claw sweeping through her hair. The chute led to an oversized hopper where boxes being returned to the stacks were sorted … and the system apparently didn’t like unexpected objects.
The flickering laser beam of a barcode scanner flashed in her face, momentarily dazzling her. A section of the hopper’s side popped out like a pinball flipper and thumped painfully against her, forcing her toward what was presumably the destination for rejected items.
The rollers gave way to smooth metal. Nina slid helplessly down it—seeing machinery like a giant mangle descending to squash her at the bottom—
Hands grabbed her just before she reached it, dragging her to a stop. “Got you!” Eddie grunted as he pulled her over the chute’s side. The giant rollers thumped together, then retracted, denied their meal.