Thomas Greanias - Raising Atlantis

“I thought you quit smoking.”

“I never quit anything in my life, son.” Yeats flicked off the lighter and gave it to Conrad.

Surprised, Conrad felt the old, familiar weight of the Zippo in his hand for a moment and then flicked it on and off.

“What about Serena?” Conrad asked. “What about the obelisk?”

“If Zawas finds either one missing before you find the location of the Shrine of the First Sun, he’ll be on to us and our mission is over,” Yeats said. “And after we take off without the obelisk or the sister, he’ll figure we failed. By the time he figures out we got what we really wanted, we’ll already be inside the Shrine of the First Sun, have taken what we needed, and set a trap for him. Zawas will then bring us both the obelisk and Serena.”

“If he doesn’t kill her first.”

“Will you listen to me for once,” Yeats said angrily. “She’s the one who’s going to lead him to us. Trust me, Zawas is counting on her. He’s not going to kill her until she’s lost her usefulness.”

“That’s reassuring.” Conrad offered the lighter back to Yeats, but to his amazement Yeats refused. “Let’s go.”

There were lights up above, the roar of churning water drifting from the falls all around. As he turned the final corner, Conrad could see the black cutout of a sentry at the base of the steps, and beyond him the Zodiac attack boat bobbing in the water. The Egyptian was smoking a cigarette. Conrad was about to step forward when his boot scraped the stone.

The sentry spun around. “Yasser?”

Conrad nodded and tapped his watch.

The sentry spat out a rebuke in Arabic and turned and left.

Conrad watched him march up the steps and took a quick look around. It would only be a few minutes before the sentry went back and found the real Yasser. Satisfied nobody was near, Conrad ascended the stone steps to the promontory.

The steps were narrow and water-slicked from the falls, but he reached the top quickly. Stepping onto the promontory, Conrad looked across to see another figure walk toward him.

“Yeats, is that you?” he whispered into his radio.

“I’m making a circle with my hand,” Yeats said.

Conrad could barely hear him over the roar of the falls. But he could see the figure on the other side making a circle. “OK,” Conrad said.

“Get to work,” Yeats said. “And no matter what happens, stick to the plan and rendezvous in six minutes.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

Conrad walked up to the edge of the promontory between the falls and positioned himself. The tremendous vibrations of the falls rumbled beneath his feet, and he had to steady himself.

He gazed out and found what he was looking for. There, in the predawn of the spring equinox, the constellation of Aquarius was rising in the east. It was a perfect lock with the monument he was standing on. The Water Bearer on earth was staring at the Water Bearer in heaven. And the predawn sun-the Shining One-marked the spot.

He quickly pulled out the digital surveyor Yeats had packed for him and made his calculations. From what he could make out, the Shrine of the First Sun was buried ninety degrees to the south. That placed the X directly under the river, at a depth he guessed to be about a thousand feet. He scanned the horizon with his digital camera to mark it.

Conrad looked again at the skies. The first stain of dawn was glimmering. Soon Aquarius would be fully risen, a water bearer in the sky with its jar resting on the horizon. At the same moment, the sun-marking the vernal point-would lie somewhere beneath the last star pouring out from the jar.

Conrad glanced at his watch. It was almost 5A.M. He had to move quickly, he thought, when he turned to see an Egyptian emerge from the temple and walk toward him.

“Why aren’t you at your post, Yasser?” he barked.

“Why aren’t you at yours?” Conrad grumbled back in passable Arabic. His Arabic was a jumble of odds and ends he had picked up over the years.

The man calmed down. “Taking a break,” he said, or at least that’s what Conrad thought he said. “These nuns, they do not break easily. They are trained to be martyrs. I have to be careful where I hurt this one. She can still be of use to me after she’s dead.”

Conrad noticed something in his hand. It was a fistful of hair. Serena’s hair. Conrad wanted to kill him then and there and rescue Serena. But he knew he couldn’t let the soldier see his face. So he simply laughed at his sick joke and turned around and looked ahead over the falls. Then he felt the barrel of an AK-47 digging into his back.

“So you’ve found the shrine, Doctor Yeats?”

He turned to him and looked into his smoldering eyes.

He smiled in triumph. “No need for the nun now,” he said. “Where is it?”

“Over there,” Conrad said, playing along. “See the constellation of Aquarius?”

He pointed with his left hand and the soldier couldn’t help but follow. In that instant Conrad’s right hand swept across his neck with the bone-handled knife he had lifted from the Russian back at P4 and had held in his sleeve. The blade left a thin red line.

He tried to call out but could only gurgle in shock as he staggered back over the promontory edge and disappeared into darkness. Conrad watched the body take two bounces off the monument and splash into the river.

Conrad turned to find the steps leading to the upper promontory and the flight deck, where he was supposed to rendezvous with Yeats. But then another Egyptian emerged from inside the temple and started walking toward him, and Conrad froze. The way the man carried himself told Conrad it was Colonel Zawas. And this time, he knew, there would be no escape.

It was a few minutes past five in the morning when Zawas stepped out of his chambers to have a smoke on the promontory and take another look at the blueprints of the Shrine of the First Sun he had obtained from Serena. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he only needed to know where to look.

Sucking on his unlit Havana under the stars, he noticed the skies were lightening. Soon the sun would be up and his window of opportunity to find the Shrine of the First Sun gone. He then saw one of his guards-it looked like Yasser - by one of the falls and walked over. Yasser stiffened to attention in the dim light as he approached.

“At ease, lieutenant,” Zawas said, and Yasser relaxed. “We don’t see a sunrise like that often, do we?”

Yasser grumbled something that Zawas took to be a no. He realized most of his men were showing the effects of exhaustion and stress.

Zawas sighed and patted his pockets in search of some matches when Yasser’s hand came up with an old-fashioned Zippo lighter. Zawas touched the tip of his Cuban cigar to the flame and inhaled. It felt wonderful.

“Carry on,” Zawas said and walked back to his command quarters.

Halfway back, however, he realized there was something familiar about his hand-rolled cigar. No, it wasn’t the cigar. It was the old silver Zippo lighter Yasser flashed. It was just like the one his grandfather had. Only Zawas wasn’t aware of Yasser or any of his other men possessing such an artifact. He would have to ask Yasser where he found it.

But when Zawas turned to find Yasser, the guard was missing from his post. Zawas swore softly to himself and walked back to the promontory. Peering over the ledge down the falls, he could see nothing. It was as if Yasser had disappeared into thin air. Could he have actually fallen? Yasser was no such fool.

Zawas grabbed his radio from his belt. “Jamil!” he barked. “Round up your men. Conrad is here!”

But Jamil wasn’t answering.