Thomas Greanias - The Atlantis revelation

Conrad sighed. There was no way she was going to bed with him tonight. "So you want to put names to faces."

"No, I want to put faces to the names I've got."

She explained that the Alignment had organized itself along the ranks of angels. There was the grandmaster at the top, surrounded by a council of thirty "knights." In addition to possessing one of the original Judas coins, each knight had a divine name that described his or her nature and role within the organization.

"Sorath is the name of the grandmaster," she told him. "Sorath is a fallen angel whose number, Rome believes, is 666. I have no idea who he is, but I assume he will be in Rhodes, where the Council of Thirty will be gathered for the first time in three hundred years."

"Why now?" Conrad asked, although he knew that the recovery of the legendary technology of Atlantis in the Flammenschwert was certainly one factor. But he suspected it wasn't the deciding factor.

Serena shrugged. "I guess I'll find out when I get there."

There was something she wasn't telling him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. "What about you, Serena? What's your name?"

"Naamah," she said, looking down. "The fallen angel of prostitution who is more pleasing to men than to God."

Conrad decided he didn't want to go there in this discussion. She was already scaring the hell out of him. "And Midas?"

"Well, he's clearly inherited Baron von Berg's rank," she said. "His name is Xaphan-the fallen angel who keeps the fires of hell burning at full blast."

"You got that right," he said, and decided to tell her all about Baron von Berg's lost submarine and the Flammenschwert.

She looked stunned, as if everything made sense to her now. "I know the legend of Greek fire and its use during the Crusades, but I never imagined that the Nazis had found a way to tap Atlantean technology."

"Apparently, they did. I've seen the technology up close and personal."

He could see she was lost in thought when something like a flash of lightning flickered across her soft brown eyes. "And what about Baron von Berg's safe deposit box in Bern?" she asked. "What did you find inside?"

"This," he said, and slapped down the Shekel of Tyre on the table. "See, I've got one, too."

Serena stared at the coin on the table and fully grasped Midas's predicament and her own. Midas had been claiming some sort of provisional status within the Thirty based on his control over Baron von Berg's box, with the assumption that somehow, someday, he would possess its contents. Now Conrad had the coin and, technically, membership in the Alignment.

Until somebody like Midas or herself killed him for it.

"How did you get this?" she asked. "And why couldn't Midas?"

Conrad explained the code in the metal plate from Baron von Berg's skull, the self-destruct box in Bern, and how he'd circumvented all the security and escaped. He smiled and said, "So I guess we're going to Rhodes."

Serena was shaking inside. "I don't think so, Conrad."

"Names and faces, Serena. Names and faces. And, I'll bet you, the designated target for the Flammenschwert."

She couldn't let it happen, she realized. But she didn't want to fight him now. "We'll need a plan," she said. "A good one."

"How about this one?" he said, and produced a long tube he had been keeping under the table. It was a roll file, and inside were architectural drawings of a massive fortress. He spread them across the table. "Look familiar?"

"The Palace of the Grandmaster," she said. "Where did you get these?"

"Beneath the floorboards in the Magnolia Suite of the main villa."

"Seriously, Conrad."

"Seriously," he told her. "This was the last residence of Mussolini before he was executed. Rhodes belonged to the Italians back then, and Il Duce had grand plans for his Palace of the Grandmaster."

"It wasn't his," Serena said. "It was built by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in the seventh century."

"True, but that palace was pretty much demolished by the explosion of Turkish gunpowder centuries later. Mussolini restored and modified it between 1937 and 1940. These are the plans of the architect Vittorio Mesturino."

Serena didn't like the direction of this conversation and had to change it, put Conrad back on his heels. "How could you possibly know there were blueprints beneath the floorboards in the Magnolia Suite?"

"I didn't," he said. "But the hotel staff told me that was the suite Mussolini slept in, and I knew from his other residences where he liked to hide documents."

"Everybody missed it during the hotel's renovation?"

"The beauty of preservation," he explained. "The charm of this place is that most everything is as it was. Now look at the blueprint. There's a secret council chamber under the palace that's not shown in any contemporary floor plans. It's directly beneath the large courtyard in the center of the palace. That's where the Knights of the Alignment are going to meet."

Serena stared at the blueprint and then looked up at Conrad, who was studying the schematics and clearly making plans in his head. Yet again his genius genuinely frightened her. She was a careful strategist, but Conrad was opportunistic to a fault, able to find an opening when all doors seemed closed and bullets were raining down. That wasn't going to save him on Rhodes, though. Nothing would, if he actually stepped foot on the island.

"I think we should look it over after dessert," she said. "I'm going to shower and change first. It's been a very long day, and the week ahead is looking longer still."

She excused herself and walked into the boathouse. It was lavishly appointed, and she half believed she was capable of going to bed with Conrad that night. It could be their last chance ever. She picked up her backpack from the bed and went into the marble bathroom with flower petals everywhere. She splashed water on her face, feeling the queasiness of betrayal.

She pulled out her Vertu phone from her backpack and placed a call. The voice on the other end said, "Well?"

"I've got him," she said. "He's yours."

Conrad sat on the bed, anxiously waiting for Serena to emerge from the bathroom and wondering exactly what he'd see. There wasn't a lot of room in her little backpack for a change of clothes or a nightgown. But in every previous do-or-die moment of physical intimacy between them, she'd always managed to surprise him and leave him wanting.

"Conrad?" she called from the bathroom. "How did you find out which box was von Berg's?"

"It was etched beneath the metal plate in his skull."

"What was the code?"

"ARES, the god of war."

"Makes sense," she called out. "And the box number?"

"1740."

There was no response.

Conrad paused, wondering if he should say anything. Then he looked up to see Serena step out of the bathroom wearing only his white dress shirt, which managed to both hide and highlight her irresistible figure. He swallowed hard and stood up as she approached him.

She stood barely an inch away from his face, looking up at him. Their bodies did not touch, but he felt an unmistakable exchange of sexual energy between them.

"Do you really think it's a weapon forged from the technology of Atlantis?" she asked.

"I think it really turns water to fire on some molecular level, and that von Berg had a connection to Antarctica, which might have a connection with Atlantis."

"You're the one with the DNA of angels, Conrad. The Alignment and Americans both think you've got traces of Nephilim blood."

The Nephilim, according to the sixth chapter of Genesis, were the offspring of the mysterious "sons of God"-fallen angels, according to some theologians-who bred with women. Their civilization was wiped off the face of the earth by the Great Flood, which the Bible said was God's wrath upon a corrupted humanity.