“Are you certain?” the President asked.
“Yes. Andrew Brandt is the one who we believe kidnapped Dr. Swan. There must be a connection somewhere. He needs something that Billie has — my guess, she managed to find the code to Atlantis.” Sam thought about it for a few seconds. “Okay, let them know it must be hiding in relatively plain sight. Dr. Billie Swan was there just five weeks ago. If she reached it on her own, then it means she hasn’t been doing any serious excavation, or your people would already know about it. We’re looking for somewhere that descends below that building.”
“There’s only one problem…” the President looked seriously at him.
“What?”
“That building was torn down in 1930.”
“It has to be that building! Why was it torn down?”
“To make way for the construction of the Bank of America Financial Center on the corner of Wall Street and Water.”
Sam looked at the Costello map, comparing it to where the modern day Bank of America Building rested. “Okay, I have it. Get me to that building. I know where those tunnels are. And I think I just worked out how Billie managed to find it so easily in the first place.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Sitting in wet cargo pants for the duration of the remaining flight would have been a small price to pay for the knowledge that she’d upset her captor, but his words, “Good, she is almost ready,” seemed far more ominous.
The jet was still taxiing when someone grabbed her from behind and forced her to stand. Soon she’d discover exactly what Andrew needed from her before she died. The plane stopped moving, and she found herself walking down a series of steps, to where another chopper was waiting.
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopter landed. She was pulled out of it by a man who’d been waiting for her. The wind nearly knocked her off her feet. Below, a long way down, she could only just barely hear the cars honking their horns.
Well, that answered whether or not Andrew knows where Atlantis is — he’d taken her to the top of the Bank of America’s Financial Center.
They walked her into a waiting elevator.
It dropped five stories before coming to a halt on the 18th floor. There, she felt a man’s rough hands pull at her bound wrists, forcing her to step out. A man reeking of rich cologne swiped a key card to open up the bank’s most secure elevator.
It was a security measure to make it more difficult to rob the bank’s elite private vaults. Owners who utilized the bank’s private security boxes, were forced to enter the lobby, take an elevator up to the 18th floor, where they would pass more security checks, before entering a completely different elevator — its elevator shaft completely separate to the rest of the elevators in the building. The elevator lowered nearly 45 stories below, taking them deep below the building, where a secret vault housed some of the world’s most precious secrets and valuable items.
The secret vault was not made known to the general public. The bank offered a security deposit box system for its regular customers on an entirely different level. This secret vault had reached the same status as an ancient legend. A place where some of the most unique items from around the world, were stored for its absolute security.
Billie had only reached her conclusion to the location of Atlantis because she too held a safety deposit box in the secret vault. A place where she stored many of the artifacts and notes she’d obtained on her quest to complete what her grandfather started. Based on her calculations from the looking glass within the Mayan pyramid, she’d determined the location of Atlantis as the corner of Wall Street and Water Street, New York. The second she saw it, she imagined the only place that such a secret could be maintained over the centuries.
The elevator came to an abrupt halt, and she was forced to step out. The temperature dropped several degrees. She recalled that the secret vault was maintained at an artificially lowered temperature to protect some of the older, more fragile, artifacts.
Still blindfolded, she was pushed toward the end of the room. Her hands were unbound, her head was pushed downwards, and she was forced inside a metallic tunnel. The smell of burnt waste still festered. She knew precisely where she was now.
Crawling slowly, she felt the sharp prick of a knife on her legs every time she stopped.
Climbing out the other side, she heard the tiny door behind her close with a metallic clank, followed by several turns of its security lock, like that of a submarine hatch.
Once in the ancient tunnel of Atlantis a man removed her blindfold for the first time since she’d been kidnapped from the deck of the Andre Sephora. A blond-haired man greeted her with a well-practiced, and disarming smile. He then carefully removed her gag. A curious grin on his face, it appeared as though he was fascinated by what she might say or do now.
When she said nothing, he displayed the resignation of a bully who’d been told that the child’s mother was here now, and that he could no longer torment it.
“Now, Dr. Swan, I would like you to show me how to beat the challenges of Atlantis.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Edward examined his little pygmy friend, Zanzibe.
He’d dressed the king in a Vivienne Westwood suit. Somehow, it transformed him from what looked like an albino child, to a rich, albeit very short businessman. The bank’s security staff wouldn’t dare take a second look at him, dressed as such. Zanzibe smiled his perfectly white teeth, sharpened to razor points.
Edward sighed. “Perhaps no smiling at anybody, my friend.”
“Very good. No smiling.”
“Okay, are you ready?”
“Yes, of course. I was born to protect Atlantis.”
Fanaticism never ceased to amaze Edward. His friend had spent his entire life preparing for tonight’s event. One look at the little pygmy, and he knew that the man would gladly give his life to protect the legacy of his Gods.
“All right. Let’s do this.”
It was early in the evening. The main bank was closed, but its secret vault never slept. The staff saw themselves as the divine custodians of some of the world’s most precious items, and their owners could visit their secrets twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Edward drove up to the main gates in his own car. A security camera confirmed his details, and then opened the gates. He drove into the bank’s underground security drive.
A valet immediately approached. “Welcome back Mr. Worthington. Will you be staying long?”
Edward handed him the keys and replied, “Perhaps an hour, thank you.”
The vault offered an enforced valet service to reduce the risk of bank robbery, because the getaway car would be parked in a separate building’s carpark. The night manager approached, and cordially greeted them. “Welcome back Mr. Worthington.”
Edward shook the manager’s hand and said, “This is Mr. Zanzibe. My friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who I told you about. As you can imagine, he needs to store some of his better discoveries.”
The bank manager nodded his head. And he did know, too. The DROC was synonymous with the best quality diamonds in the world as well as corruption. One look at Zanzibe, and he instantly would have imagined a tribal man who’d found the ultimate blood diamond. “Of course, right this way, gentlemen.”
The valet disappeared with Edward’s Audi, and then the three men entered the elevator. It went up to the 18th floor. There, the pygmy had the retinas of his eyes and his fingertips scanned, followed by a DNA sample. He chose a password involving a combination of 42 letters, numbers and accented characters.