As Jack rocketed up through the silt he focused all his attention on the navigation system. The radar terrain-mapper showed he was ascending perilously close to the eastern wall of the canyon; its rim was now less than fifty metres above. The depth read-out was rising at more than two metres per second, a rate that would increase dramatically as the external pressure reduced but which Jack could ill afford to slow until he was clear of the rift.
Suddenly a red light flashed as the radar sweep alerted him to a hazard overhead. In the split second that he saw the lip of the canyon he spun east and gunned the stern thrusters. He braced himself for an impact that miraculously never came, the ADSA just missing the overhang which would have eviscerated the propulsion and buoyancy pack and sent him plummeting to his death.
As soon as he had cleared the canyon, he bled the reservoir until he was neutrally buoyant, and then tilted forward using the vectored thrusters. He seemed to be flying above a giant slow-moving storm, a surging mass that lapped the rim of the canyon and obscured the yawning crevasse below. Jack had colleagues who would itch to return to this place, using sub-bottom probes to rediscover the hydrothermal vents, but he sincerely hoped he had made his only foray into a wasteland that seemed to encapsulate all the worst nightmares about the ocean abyss.
And now in the gloom ahead was the discovery that had brought them here, a prospect that made Jack’s heart race as he gunned the submersible towards the co-ordinates of the island. The depth gauge read 148 metres, almost the level of the submerged ancient shoreline. He was still in the reducing environment below the oxycline and the blue-grey mud was devoid of visible life. After several minutes he began to make out a ridge, a continuous low berm which he realized must be the ancient beach escarpment.
He would be entering the lost city over its eastern quarter, at the opposite end from the sector he and Costas had explored in the Aquapods two days previously. The first sight of silt-clad structures brought back the intense thrill he had felt then, the wonder of their discovery suddenly eclipsing the trials of the past twenty-four hours. With mounting excitement he rose over the berm and surveyed the scene in front of him.
His mind turned immediately to his friends. By now Sea Venture would have heard nothing from her sister ship for hours and would have alerted the Turkish and Georgian authorities. But they had agreed to inform the Russians of the submarine discovery first and a concerted response might take days.
Help could still come too late.
He prayed that Ben and Andy still held fast. Aslan’s men would try to make their way through the labyrinth, to take them by surprise. The only way they could do that would be to have Costas or Katya as a guide, to force them to tap the code on the submarine’s casing that would make the crewmen open the hatch. Jack knew they would have little chance of survival after that. He must do all he could to contact Ben and Andy, then somehow make his way back to the audience chamber and defend the passageway as best he could.
The battery was running dangerously low and he knew he must conserve it for the final effort. He dropped to the seabed and began to walk the ADSA along a wide roadway, each step detonating a small cloud of silt. To the right was a line of curiously familiar shapes blanketed in sediment. Jack realized with astonishment that he was looking at the world’s first carts, more than 2,000 years older than the first wheeled transport recorded in Mesopotamia.
To his left was a deep gully, once an inlet from the sea, which widened into a rectilinear basin about thirty metres across. He passed neatly stacked piles of logs, probably fir, aspen and juniper ancestral to the forests that still shrouded north-eastern Turkey, all perfectly preserved in the anoxic environment. The view beyond surpassed his wildest expectations. On the foreshore were two semi-complete hulls, each about twenty metres long and raised up on wooden formers. It could have been an image from any modern boatyard on the Black Sea. The vessels were open-hulled and narrow-beamed, designed to be paddled rather than rowed, but otherwise as sleek and refined as Viking longships. As he approached the first hull a gentle tap with the manipulator arm to dislodge the silt revealed sewn-plank joinery, precisely the technique he and Mustafa had guessed for the Neolithic mariners.
Further on the foreshore was littered with stacks of adzed planks and coils of thick cordage. In between lay five sets of formers aligned side-by-side towards the basin, each large enough for a hull forty metres in length. The supports were empty and the shipwrights long gone, but for a few desperate weeks in the middle of the sixth millennium BC they must have been a hive of construction activity unmatched until the Egyptian age of the pyramid builders. As the waters drowned the lower reaches of the city the people must have moved their tools and timber up the slopes, unable to comprehend that their home would soon be lost forever. Jack had found one of the key staging posts of history, the place where all the energy and wisdom of Atlantis had been poised to ignite civilization from western Europe to the Indus Valley.
The terrain-mapper began to reveal the contours of the slope ahead. He switched to submersible mode and jetted beyond the ancient coastal plain over a plateau the size of a racetrack, a wide opening in its centre. He remembered the water conduit in the volcano and guessed this was the second stage in the system, a huge rock-cut reservoir that served as a dispersal point for aqueducts fanning down into the industrial and domestic quarters of the city.
He continued in a southerly direction up the slope. According to the sketch map he had fed into the computer he should now be approaching the upper reaches of the processional way. Seconds later the terrain-mapper provided vindication, the 3-D display showing the stepped face of the eastern pyramid. Just beyond it the irregular outline of the volcano was beginning to materialize, and in between was a telltale cylindrical shape that blocked the gap between the pyramid and the jagged rock face.
Out of the eerie gloom a mass of twisted metal came into view. The ADSA seemed insignificant beside the submarine’s immense bulk; the hull casing towered higher than a four-storey building and extended the length of a football pitch. Cautiously he made his way over the sheared-off propeller, thankful that the electric motor in the ADSA was barely audible and the water jets produced minimal turbulence. He deactivated the floodlights and dimmed the LCD displays.
As he passed over the rear escape hatch behind the reactor chamber, he thought briefly of Captain Antonov and his crew, their irradiated corpses another addition to the harvest of death reaped by this grim sea. He tried to dispel the gruesome image as he approached the soaring form of the conning tower. In the gloom beyond he could just make out the halo from a searchlight array above the starboard foredeck. The lights were mounted on a submersible that had settled like a predatory insect on the DSRV where it was docked to the submarine’s forward escape hatch. Aslan’s men had gained access to the Kazbek by docking to the DSRV’s rear hatch, using a single-lock mating ring.
Jack set the ADSA down gingerly on the anechoic coating of the submarine. He pushed his hands into the manipulator arms and extended them outwards until he could see the joints at the elbows and wrists. The metal was yellow and pitted from the hydrogen sulphide but the sealings had held. He flexed both arms inwards until they touched the outer of the two metal boxes he had strapped to the front of the suit above the battery pack. He used the three metal digits at the end of each arm to prise open the box and extract the contents. He then cut the binding with the pincer and unravelled a mesh of Ping-Pong sized balls, all joined together by a web of fine filaments.
Normally the mines were divided into strands and deployed as a floating umbrella over an archaeological site. Each of the two hundred charges was primed to explode on contact and was potentially lethal to a diver. Kept together they formed a single high-explosive charge, enough to put a submersible out of action permanently.
After activating the detonator he withdrew his hands and grasped the control stick, using the buoyancy trigger to rise cautiously off the submarine. Although he was beyond the main arc of illumination, he was wary of being spotted and flew in a wide sweep off the port side of Kazbek and back again dead astern of the enemy submersible. He closed in behind the metre-wide drum that protected the submersible’s propeller, putting the buoyancy system on automatic to ensure he would remain neutral while his hands were off the controls. He feathered the stern thruster until he was as far forward as he could go and then quickly reinserted his hands in the manipulator arms.
Just as he was about to secure the mines under the shaft with a carabiner, he was thrown back from the propeller housing. He began to spiral like an astronaut out of control, the orb of light from the submersible receding alarmingly as he struggled to right himself using the lateral thrusters. After finally coming to a halt he looked back and saw the turbulence coming from the propeller shaft. He had already felt uneasy that the submersible’s floodlights were on, an unnecessary drain of battery reserves, and now he saw a radio buoy being winched inside.
He gunned the stern thrusters and jetted back towards Kazbek’s conning tower. The bubble mines were precariously balanced where he had left them on the submersible’s propeller housing. If they slipped off, his enterprise was doomed. He would need to blow the charge as soon as he was behind Kazbek’s fin and out of range of the explosive shock wave.
He reached into his chest pocket to ready the remote detonator, a small unit almost identical in appearance to a hand-held radio. He had preset the downlink to channel 8.
Jack allowed himself a quick glance to starboard as he approached Kazbek’s upper casing. To his dismay the submersible had decoupled and was now less than ten metres away, its cylindrical form rising towards him like a predatory shark. Through the viewport a face stared directly at him, its expression showing shocked surprise and fury.
Jack had to think fast. He could never hope to outrun the submersible. He was closely familiar with the type, a derivative of the British LR5 rescue sub with hydraulic thrusters tiltable through 180 degrees that gave it the agility of a helicopter. It was too close to risk detonating the charges, not only because of the danger to himself but also because the shock wave might damage Kazbek’s emergency life support system and destabilize the warheads. His only chance was to stand and fight, to lure the submersible into a duel that would seem suicidally one-sided. His gamble rested on the dead weight of the submersible. With a full passenger complement it would be sluggish, and each lunge would require a wide turning circle which might take it beyond the danger zone.
Like some space-age matador, Jack landed upright on the casing of Kazbek and turned to face his assailant. He barely had time to flex his legs before the submersible was on him, its pontoons missing him by a hair’s breadth as it sped over the hull. He prepared for another onslaught with his arms outstretched, a toreador taunting a bull. He saw the submersible vent its ballast tanks and slow down as it climbed the cliff face and pivoted round for another dive. It swooped down with terrifying velocity, the floodlights blinding him as he fell facedown on the casing. As it rocketed overhead, the ferment rolled him onto his back and the dangling end of the bubble mines swept perilously close. There was no way the mesh could survive another roller-coaster ride without slipping off or becoming entangled in the propeller, a potentially deadly outcome if it triggered an explosion too close to the submarine.
Jack watched as the submersible hurtled off to a new starting point, its diminishing form framed against the vast southern face of the pyramid. This time Jack remained prostrate on the casing as he estimated the distance. Twenty metres. Twenty-five metres. Thirty metres. It was now or never. Just as the submersible began to turn he pressed channel 8.
There was a searing flash followed by a succession of jolts that pummelled his body like sonic booms. The explosion had torn off the submersible’s rudders and left the wreckage spiralling crazily towards the seabed. The shock wave would have killed the occupants instantly.
LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL? OVER.”
Jack was using the manipulator arm to tap his question through the submarine’s casing at the point where the rock-cut stairway disappeared under it. Despite the dampening effects of the anechoic coating, his first taps had provoked an immediate and gratifying response. In a few sentences of Morse code he learned from Andy and Ben that Katya’s threat to destroy the submarine had held their assailants at bay. They had backed off in an uneasy truce while the two IMU men stood their ground in alternate watches at the top of the weapons loading chute.
“We could use a brew. Over.”
Jack hammered out his final sequence.
“Full English breakfast on its way. Await return. Out.”
Twenty minutes later the ADSA had rounded the eastern promontory of the island and risen to thirty metres below sea level. Jack knew he had to find a route over the volcano to the audience chamber, but first he had a visit to pay. In Aslan’s headquarters Jack had memorized the GPS co-ordinates from the SATSURV image of Vultura, and he had programmed them into the ADSA’s navigation tracking system. The radar terrain-mapper had amply proved its worth, the 3-D virtual-reality display providing detailed bathymetry for hundreds of metres on either side as well as surface contacts which were impossible to see in the Stygian gloom.
The unmistakable image of a large surface vessel appeared bang on target two hundred metres ahead. Jack felt like the driver of a midget submarine infiltrating an enemy harbour, one whose occupants had no reason to suspect an intrusion. As far as they were concerned, he was long gone, a nuisance disposed of forever when the ravaged hulk of Seaquest entombed him in the abyss.
The terrain-mapper showed he was approaching the stern of the vessel, the twin screws and rudder assembly clearly visible on the screen. Twenty metres below, Jack began his final ascent, slowly injecting air into the buoyancy chamber and corkscrewing upwards using the lateral thrusters. At fifteen metres the dark outline of the hull became visible to the naked eye and he could see the sun shining off the waves on either side. As he came closer he could make out scars where the valiant efforts of York and Howe had left their mark, and he could hear the muffled clanging of repair work on the turbojet tubes directly above.
He nestled the ADSA against the rudder assembly and repeated the procedure he had carried out on the submersible less than an hour before. He extracted the second bubble-mine mesh and wrapped it round the rudder pintle, this time securing the ends with an additional strand beneath the screw. As he clicked on the detonator he glanced up and saw the wavering forms of two figures leaning against the starboard gunwale. Fortunately the oxygen rebreather produced none of the telltale exhaust of scuba gear, and he would not be seen against the inky depths.
He knew there was a chance that Katya and Costas were in the vessel above him. The explosive would cause massive damage to the screw and rudder but should be deflected by the armour plating of the hull. It was a risk he had to take. Yet again he mouthed a silent prayer.
He had gambled that the crew would be preoccupied with topside damage from the gun battle the day before and would already have carried out an inspection below the waterline. To minimize the risk of detection he opted to descend using the lateral thrusters rather than the buoyancy chamber, even though it meant draining the battery reserve.
A mere ten minutes after first sighting the hull, the ADSA disappeared as silently as it had come, dropping into the murky depths and stealing off without being seen or heard by any of the crew on Vultura.
Using the terrain-mapper to navigate, Jack jetted half a kilometre towards the western shore of the island and found a cove out of sight of Vultura. As the rocky seabed rose up to meet him, all power suddenly ceased. The battery was dead. He reduced his buoyancy and dropped down to complete the final leg on foot, striding upwards over the billowing folds of lava towards the surf line.
He found a flat rock in two metres of water and cautiously broke surface. He locked the limbs of the ADSA and decoupled the neck ring. As he pushed open the helmet, he blinked furiously in the sunlight and gasped repeatedly, his lungs filling with fresh air for the first time since he had tumbled into the command module on Seaquest more than three hours previously.
He hauled himself out and squatted on the rocky ledge. It was a brilliant summer afternoon, the sun glinting off the waves that lapped at his feet. Over the barren shore the precipitous slopes of the island rose ahead of him. Above the uppermost ridge he could see a plume of white framed against the sky.
He had no time to savour the relief of survival. The pain from his wound was searing his side and he knew he had no time to lose.
After quickly looking around to make sure he was alone, he removed the items he had brought from the weapons locker. He was still wearing the helicopter flight suit and shoved the detonator transceiver into one thigh pocket and the two Semtex charges into the other. He took out the Beretta, pulled the slide back to cock it and replaced it in his chest holster. He then extracted the SA80 and the three magazines, pushing one in place and sliding the other two into his waist pockets. After checking the sound suppressor, he pulled the bolt and slung it over his back.
He closed the helmet and gently toppled the ADSA back beneath the waves. It had been his lifesaver, his reminder that Costas had been with him in spirit. But now no amount of technology would guarantee his safe passage. It was up to him alone, to his physical stamina and strength of will.
He swivelled round to contemplate the rocky slope ahead.
“Payback time,” he muttered under his breath.
The jagged wall of rock loomed above Jack as he made his way inland. Between him and a plateau some eighty metres above were three terraces, each culminating in a razor-edged row of pinnacles and punctuated by fracture lines and gullies. The basalt was hard and coarse and gave an excellent grip. He had no alternative but to climb it.
He slung the SA80 more tightly and began to ascend a vertical chimney that rose the entire height of the first pitch. About halfway up, it narrowed and he inched higher with his legs braced on either side, eventually heaving himself onto a narrow platform some thirty metres above his start point. The second pitch was precipitous but straightforward, Jack’s ample reach proving advantageous as he worked his way up a series of finger-holds and ledges. He continued past the second row of pinnacles onto the third pitch until he reached a point just below the summit where an overhang jutted out almost a metre along the entire length of the cliff.
As he balanced spread-eagled against the rock face, he knew that any hesitation would only weaken his resolve. With his mind blank to the consequences of failure, he threw his right arm outwards and curled his fingers round the edge. Once he was certain of his hold he released his other hand and snapped it beside the first. He was hanging over eighty metres of vertiginous rock that would tear him to shreds if he fell. He began to swing his legs, slowly at first and then with increased momentum. On the second attempt he hooked his right leg over the top and scrambled to safety.
The scene that confronted him was breathtaking. He crouched down to recover his strength and looked out over a wilderness of solidified lava. Some two hundred metres to his right lay the cone of the volcano, its chimney spewing out a voluminous cloud of vapour that rose in a swirling column high into the sky. Partway down the cone he could see an unassuming low entrance above a rock-cut stairway that meandered down the saddle towards him and disappeared out of sight to the left. It was evidently an ancient route up the volcano on the outside, the one taken by Aslan and his men when they first reached the island.
The lesser peak some thirty metres ahead was a massive upwelling of jet-black lava. The top was level like a landing pad, an impression reinforced by the Kamov Ka-28 Helix parked in the middle. Round the perimeter Jack counted four black-clad figures, all armed with AK or Heckler & Koch submachine guns.
The most astonishing sight was the structure surrounding the helicopter. Encircling the platform was a ring of giant megaliths, upright stones at least three times the height of a man and two metres in girth. The stones were weathered from millennia of exposure but had once been finely finished. They were capped by massive flat slabs that formed a continuous circular lintel. Inside were five free-standing trilithons, each pair of stones with its lintel arranged in a horseshoe pattern that opened west towards the volcanic cone.
Jack realized with awe that he was looking at the precursor of Stonehenge. It was where the Atlanteans had observed the difference between the solar and lunar year they had seen tabulated in the passageway far below. The cone of the volcano was a sighting device, the position of the sun on either side indicating the season of the year. At the vernal and autumnal equinoxes the sun would appear to sink into the volcano, an event which would have affirmed the life-protecting powers of Atlantis.
Jack concentrated on using the stones to his tactical advantage. After flipping off the safety on the SA80 he slipped into a fissure that ran like a trench towards the platform. By sprinting in short bursts he quickly reached the nearest megalith and flattened against it. He cautiously peered round and saw the helicopter was unoccupied with no guard in sight. After pulling out the Semtex he darted forward through the inner horseshoe and placed one block in the exhaust and the other under the cockpit, clicking on the detonators as he did so.
He turned to leave and was suddenly face-to-face with a black-clad figure emerging from behind one of the trilithons. For a split second both men were immobilized by surprise. Jack was the first to react. Two thuds from the SA80 and the man dropped like a stone, killed instantly by the high-velocity 5.56 millimetre slugs that tore through his neck.
The clatter of the man’s weapon alerted the other men. Jack ran directly into their path as they converged on the helicopter. Before any of them could raise their weapons he emptied his entire remaining magazine in a tight arc from the hip. The bullets spattered and ricocheted off the rock and all three men fell sprawled over the ground.
He slammed in another magazine and plunged headlong down the ramp towards the stairway. He had gambled that the rest of Aslan’s men were either on Vultura or in the volcano.
He reached the entrance at the top of the steps without any indication that he had been detected. The portal was more imposing close up, the opening wide enough for the processions that must have passed between the stone circle and the audience chamber. He could see the passageway veering off to the left in a dog-leg towards a distant source of light. After catching his breath, he levelled his weapon and cautiously advanced over the worn steps into the gloom beyond.
Ten metres on he rounded the corner and saw a hazy rectangle of light. Then the column of vapour came into view and he realized he was approaching the same raised platform they had stood on the day before, only from a different doorway. He concealed himself in the shadows and sidled up for a look inside.
Far above he could see the skylight in the dome. In front of him the ramp led directly down and he had an unimpeded view of the central space. On the dais were five figures, two of them black-clad guards flanking a woman on the throne. Her head was covered by a veil but her face was visible.
It was Katya. She looked dishevelled and exhausted but mercifully free from injury. Jack closed his eyes for an instant, his relief overwhelming.
To her right was a man facing away towards the vent. With his flowing red robe and the nimbus formed by the vapour behind his head he seemed a grotesque parody of the priests of old, some denizen of Hades sent to perform a macabre ritual and taint the sanctity of Atlantis forever.
Aslan shifted slightly and Jack caught sight of another figure, a familiar form kneeling in the gap between the thrones with his head bowed dangerously close to the vapour chimney. He was bound hand and foot and was wearing the tattered remnants of an IMU E-suit. To his horror Jack saw that Aslan was levelling a pistol at the back of Costas’ head in classic executioner’s pose.
Instinct took over and Jack sprang onto the ramp brandishing his weapon. Even as he ran he knew he had no chance. There was a vicious blow to his lower back and the SA80 was snatched from his hands.