“Yeah, but how many Americans, living the dream, necessarily know how to create it? If you knock off too many, the civilization has to take a step back and look after the priorities. Agriculture, simply supplying enough food and water to live. All the perks of the smartphone generation are pretty much useless if you can’t eat.”
“And so you’re saying that the Kusunda people are the last survivors of Atlantis?”
“I’m just saying it’s possible. When you look at the history that their earliest background is approximately 11,000 years ago, it seems like a remarkable coincidence, doesn’t it?”
“But why here, then? It’s such a hard place to live. Why not further down the mountains?”
“Why not indeed?” Sam looked up at the mountains above. “What if they knew something we don’t know about our future?”
“Do you think as far back as 11,000 years ago they were planning on avoiding a second disaster?”
“I don’t know. But why else would they go to such lengths, as a small group of survivors, to build a new Atlantis in such an inhospitable place?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Landing at the edge of the village, Andrew thought he could imagine these people living this way for thousands of years. He’d gone back in time to when life was simple. Andrew Brandt scrambled out of the passenger seat of the B3 Eurocopter. With him were two helicopters and fourteen mercenaries armed with AK47s. Given the stakes, he wasn’t taking any chances.
The monks of the Tsoka Monastery looked at them with worried faces. They were simple people who had lived on the mountain for thousands of years, but that didn’t mean they didn’t recognize evil when it arrived.
“Dmitri, you’re sure it was them?”
“Certain. There were two of them, and they had no idea which mountain they wanted to summit, only that they needed to reach Tiger Hill before sunrise. Then, once they had viewed the sunrise they returned to the helicopter and asked me to drop them as high up the mountain as possible.”
“Are you certain this is where they went?”
“Of course I am. I’m telling you, this was where I left them.”
“Where did they go from here?”
“No idea. They said they were going climbing for the season. They had my number and said they would call when they were ready. They paid well, and knew I’d come the second they asked.”
“All right gentlemen. Everyone out. Let’s see what these monks remember about our friends, shall we?”
“What do you want me to do, boss? Shall I shut her down?” the pilot asked.
“No, keep your rotors spinning. I want to take off again as soon as we know where they’ve gone.”
Andrew stepped out of the helicopter.
He carried an AK 47. It was an old, but effective, weapon. And more importantly, it was one of the most well-known weapons on the planet, which meant it would serve the purpose of creating terror. And frightened people told the truth.
His men, also armed with AK47s, walked towards the huts. The villagers scattered. An old man was the only one who couldn’t run.
“Did you see other white people like us?”
“No, not like you. They weren’t carrying guns.”
“But did you see where they went?”
The old man looked concerned. “I’m not sure where they went. Some of our local men helped them. I think they were going on a climbing expedition. I do not know where.”
Andrew looked at one of his men. “Go find me one of the children.”
Andrew smiled at the old man while he waited a couple minutes for his men to return with a crying child of around four.
He smiled at the small boy. “Did you see where the other white people went?”
The boy shook his head.
“How about you, old man? Has your memory improved?”
The man’s toothless smile was the only response.
Andrew pulled out the pistol from his holster and pointed it at the child’s head. “Okay, everyone. I’m going to kill this boy in ten seconds if I don’t get some answers that I’m looking for. Then I’m going to find another child. Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six…”
At six second he pulled the trigger, and the rock next to the child’s head exploded.
The child screamed, and the man holding him, fought to keep him still.
The boy then bit the soldier’s hand and ran.
“Holy shit, Andrew!” Dmitri said. “You nearly killed an innocent kid. Do you really want to go through with this?”
Andrew leveled the gun with the running child and took aim. “I would kill every single one of their kids, if I thought it might provide a lead to the location of Atlantis.”
His finger began to squeeze the trigger.
“Wait!” It was a woman who came running.
“Yes?”
“I know where they’ve gone.”
“Good. Take us there.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Edward Worthington looked around the ancient Atlantean vault, where their history had been recorded over the millennia. Several tunnels lined the passageways. The biggest room of them all had walls and walls of ancient writings, followed by circles of information on the ceiling, which he recognized as being the same pictographic text he’d seen in Atlantis.
At the end of the room were three fully decomposed bodies, the remnants of Himmler’s last expedition. The man who’d started the Nazi SShad pursued his crazy idea to find the Atlantis people who shared the perfect Aryan bloodline.
The spear through their heads made him wonder if he was not wrong to come with only Dr. Swan and Mark, as his bodyguard.
Dr. Swan audibly gasped when she saw it. Not the remains, but the glowing pile next to them. It must have contained more than a thousand pieces of orichalcum — the ancient gold and copper alloy the Atlanteans once mined.
“They had to prepare themselves for the return of their city,” Edward said, noticing Billie’s astonishment. “When it came, the Atlantean survivors knew they would need gold to be in a position to make it great again, so they stockpiled what remained here.”
“Yes. It must be worth a fortune.”
“Forget about the gold. It’s worthless if we can’t find the solution to the code of Atlantis, in the midst of these thousands of ancient notes. Without that code, the sphere will be locked until it is too late. If we fail in our task, the gold will have no meaning to any of us!”
“It could take months to make sense of all of this.”
Edward raised his voice. “We don’t have months. We have a little less than three weeks.”
He watched as Billie’s shrewd mind explored the cavern.
“I’ve found it.”
“What is it?”
“The code, to Atlantis, of course.”
“That’s wonderful news!”
“Only it’s missing half of it.”
“What do you mean, its missing half of it?”
“I was worried about this. In my earlier research, I found reference to two groups of Atlantean survivors. One went east and set up camp high in these Tibetan mountains, while the other went somewhere completely different, presumably west.”
“But to where?” Edward asked.
“The two groups must not have trusted each other not to steal the most valuable remnants of Atlantis. So consequently, they broke the code into two parts and split them between the two groups.”
“Fine. So what now, we need to know where the other group are?”
“Yes.”
“Here it is. A map to their other settlement.”
Edward studied the rudimentary map. The depiction of the African continent wasn’t exact, but nonetheless it was impossible to deny what he was seeing. He listened to her read the description. Only a few people on the planet knew how to read the ancient text. Dr. Swan, he noticed knew more about it than she’d revealed to him in their previous discussion. It was obvious, that she was nearly fluent in the ancient language.