David Gibbins - The Gods of Atlantis

‘I’ve just remembered something,’ Costas said. ‘Wasn’t San Salvador where Christopher Columbus first made landfall in the Americas?’

Jack paused. He had barely allowed himself to think about the archaeology. Since leaving Atlantis three days before, the extraordinary seven-thousand-year-old trail they were on had been overshadowed by the present-day danger. For a moment he focused his mind back on that sunken chamber they had found inside the volcano at Atlantis, on the fantastic vision it had given him of events at the very dawn of civilization. They were following perhaps the greatest ancient voyage of discovery ever made, not some hazy exodus lost in time but the voyage of one man who had become enshrined in the foundation myths of the Western world. Yet what they had found in that chamber in Atlantis, what they might find ahead of them now, would reveal a truth about the past that could rock those foundations to the core. Jack felt the familiar surge of excitement coursing through him. He looked intently at Costas. ‘Not just Christopher Columbus. We might find that he was pipped to the post seven thousand years before. If we’re lucky.’

‘A wing and a prayer, Jack,’ Costas said, grinning.

‘If that hurricane allows us. Over and out.’ Jack reached over and switched off the Skype. For a few moments he sat in silence, trying to clear his mind and relax. As soon as Mikhail returned, he would get Rebecca and Jeremy to collect their things and drive them to Syracuse airport. He suddenly needed to see Rebecca. The dark cloud that had hung over him since her kidnapping last year suddenly seemed finite, and for the first time he felt there was a chance they might see it disappear completely. He took a deep breath, and steeled himself. If the next twenty-four hours panned out as he had gambled. One horror would be taken out of the equation if they could recover the bacterium sample from Saumerre. As for the other, the Spanish influenza virus, they would only know whether that too survived, whether Hoffman had carried out the mission Himmler had given him, once they had dived into that hole. And with Saumerre’s people watching their every move, there was no time to waste. They could not risk Saumerre discovering their destination and getting there first.

He was no longer hearing the reversing sound of the propane truck; it had been replaced by the low roar of an auxiliary engine powering the pump. He leaned back and stretched, realizing how dog-tired he was, then reached down and drained the tepid coffee from his mug. He got up and climbed the steps towards Rebecca’s door, then glanced through the window towards the barn and saw the yellow top of the propane tanker parked beside his SUV. He walked towards one of Mikhail’s spotting scopes and peered out. Two men in dark overalls were talking to Jeremy at the rear of the truck, pulling the hose from its reel. He heard the screen door to the house slam and saw Rebecca walk up the path towards the truck wearing a fleece, her hair glistening from the shower. One of the men rolled up his sleeves and knelt down to reach under the truck. Jack took the caps off the spotting scope and trained it on the edge of the woods beyond the barn, remembering Mikhail’s concern about the proximity of the treeline. There was another problem in the morning mist: the likelihood that anyone in camouflage moving stealthily would be nearly invisible. He spotted a pair of deer, following their bobbing white tails until they disappeared beyond the trees. He moved the scope back towards the propane truck, and focused on the man who had stood back up and was rolling down his sleeves. Jack zoomed in, amazed at the quality of the optics. Suddenly he froze.

The man had a tattoo.

Jack took his hands off the scope to stop it wobbling, and stared. The man turned his wrist away to do up his sleeve. Then he turned it back, and Jack caught another glimpse. There was no doubt about it. He had seen that before, two years ago in the mountains of Afghanistan, through the scope of a Lee-Enfield rifle.

It was the tattoo of a tiger.

Jack turned and began to run.

‘F reeze. Down on the ground. Now! ’

Jack snarled the words as he aimed the Webley at the head of the nearer man, shifting his aim quickly to the other one and then back again, the hammer cocked and both hands tightly on the grip. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rebecca and Jeremy, still standing where they had been talking to the men while Jack had crept up from behind the truck. He kept the pistol trained but glanced at Jeremy. ‘Get back to the house, now,’ he said. Jeremy and Rebecca stumbled and then ran. A figure in black appeared with a Glock pistol, the MI6 man John who was helping to provide protection for Rebecca. The two men from the truck remained immobile where they had been reeling out the propane hose. A voice called out from behind. ‘I’m here, Jack.’ He glanced over and saw Mikhail, his Lee-Enfield cocked and levelled.

Jack snarled again at the two men. ‘ Down. Hands on your heads.’ They both slowly dropped to their knees on the gravel, their hands raised. John came up behind them and expertly kicked both in the small of the back so they fell forward on the ground, gasping. He holstered his Glock, took out two plastic wrist ties and in seconds had the two men handcuffed. Jack saw it again, the smudged tattoo of the tiger on one man’s wrist, identical to the tattoo he had seen on Shang Yong’s man two years previously in Afghanistan. John body-searched both men and removed a small arsenal of handguns and knives from their overalls, and several cell phones. He unholstered his Glock and trained it again, glancing at Jack. ‘Ben and I only had one plan of action should this happen. He scouted out a ravine a few miles away where body disposal won’t be a problem. Do you want to question them first?’

Jack knelt down beside the nearer man, seeing his Chinese features for the first time. He thrust the Webley into the nape of the man’s neck, and leaned down so close he could smell the man’s breath. ‘If you make the slightest move,’ he said quietly, ‘this. 455 slug is going to empty your head of everything inside it.’

John approached from behind. ‘Let me do this, Jack.’

Jack put up his free hand to halt John, his other keeping the Webley pressed against the man’s neck. He had just seen these men inches from Rebecca. It had been his worst nightmare, and it had nearly happened again. He felt a rage well up inside him, the same rage he had felt six months ago after Rebecca’s kidnapping, when he had hacked one of her assailants to death in the mineshaft in Poland. With the hammer cocked, it would take the slightest nudge of the trigger to fire the pistol. He would be protecting Rebecca again. But then the rational side of him took over, the side that had planned what to do from the moment he had spotted that tattoo from the house. He was in control of this situation, and he must continue to be in control if they were to reach the endgame he had planned.

He spoke up so the other man could hear too. ‘Listen to me, and listen well. Two of our security men are going to put you in your truck and drive you out of here. They are going to release you, return your cell phones and give you back your truck. You will tell your master that I know the location he wants in the Caribbean. I will give you a piece of paper with the precise co-ordinates. My team are on their way there now. Listen very closely. You will tell him that we know the prize he wants is in that place. We are willing to let him have it if we have the Nazi gold we know is there too. We both go away happy. But we also want the phial he already has, from the bunker. I will meet Saumerre at the site at 1500 hours tomorrow afternoon. Do you understand me?’