The Atlantis Codex (Warner & Lopez Book 7)

  Table of Contents

  THE ATLANTIS CODEX

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  Unnamed

  THE ATLANTIS CODEX

  © 2017 Dean Crawford

  Published: 24th May 2017

  ASIN: B07173X86C

  Publisher: Fictum Ltd

  The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Dean Crawford Books

  I

  Tingis, Iberian Peninsular,

  2,460 BCE

  ‘Row faster!’

  Heliosa’s voice rang out across the deck of the huge trireme, blue waves crashing against her hull in sparkling blooms of white foam as his crew of a hundred seventy slaves hauled glistening oars through the churning ocean. The wind whistled its song through the vast canvas sails above their heads and heaved the rigging lines as taut as the cat–gut whips that sliced across the muscular shoulders of the slaves.

  Heliosa turned and looked behind him to a distant horizon already receding beneath the endless waves. Pale cliffs rose up in the distance through the haze either side of a wide channel of water, two distinct towers of rock soaring against a savage sky. He shielded his eyes against the sunlight and peered at them, knowing that no man had ever sailed this far west and lived to tell the tale.

  ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ his first mate, Acklion, growled. ‘We don’t know what’s out here, Heliosa.’

  Heliosa nodded as he lowered his hand, the mysterious nature of the waters beyond the straits common knowledge among all sea farers of the Greek Islands: No man dare sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules.

  ‘I know,’ he replied, ‘but the gods cannot tear the earth apart and expect us to sit down and die.’

  Behind them the sky was stained with a vast maelstrom of roiling black clouds that soared high into the vault of the heavens as though a wave that at some point must come crashing down upon them bearing the wrath of the gods themselves. Crouched low against the horizon was a line of further dense cloud so dark that it seemed as though the night were crawling toward them across the waves.

  ‘We cannot out run it,’ Acklion snapped. ‘The men can row no faster.’

  Heliosa’s experienced eye judged at a glance the turbulent waves, the conflicted winds and the advancing wall of hell sweeping ever further over their heads and he knew that the first mate was right. No vessel of man could escape the wrath of Poseidon, and to cheat one death was only to invite the anger of the gods and another, more gruesome fate in its place.

  ‘Heave to!’ Heliosa yelled to his crew. ‘Take us in to the shore and find us shelter!’

  The trireme turned as Acklion barked orders to the exhausted crew. Heliosa turned back to the hellish firmament behind them and stared in superstitious horror at the soaring pillar of ash and smoke that was even now blasting upward in the far distance, its darkened depths flickering with forks of angry lightning. The apocalyptic pillar had appeared only minutes before and yet even now the sun itself was being swallowed by the rapidly growing maw of the darkness.

  ‘It is the end of times!’ one of the crew wailed in horror. ‘The sky will fall and our souls will be swallowed by Hades and…!’

  Heliosa crossed the deck in three strides and hauled the sailor bodily from the bench. The odors of sweat and fear shamed his nostrils, thin and rank as he growled into the man’s face.

  ‘That will be preferable to what I will do if you don’t start rowing for your life!’

  Heliosa hurled the man back down onto his bench and glared at his crew as he drew a bronze sword from its sheath on his belt and waved it at them, the metal flashing like gold in the growing darkness as he yelled above the growing winds.

  ‘Does any man wish to die here today?!’ he demanded of them, and in response he heard and saw nothing save the fearful gazes of his crew. ‘Then row! Row for all of our lives!’

  Even as he said his last the sky above the trireme split asunder as a deafening blast of noise crashed past them with hammer blows that shook the very ocean. Heliosa felt the terrible din reverberate inside his chest as though his organs were being shaken loose from their moorings and he ducked down instinctively as pain seared his ears and his vision blurred.

  The infernal noise passed by and Heliosa’s ears rang where he crouched as he looked up and saw the crew rowing like madmen, the trireme heading toward the nearby shore at a tremendous speed and grown men weeping in terror as they rowed for their lives.

  Heliosa stood and saw Acklion stagger upright, blood trickling from his ears as he turned and saw an immense pillar of fresh flame and smoke expanding outward from far behind them. Heliosa’s courage failed him as he saw countless flaming projectiles soaring into the heavens above, trailing plumes of thick black smoke as they arced across the sky and began plummeting down toward the ocean.

  Heliosa whirled and surveyed the shore, and at once his gaze settled upon a narrow inlet nestled between two low cliffs of rugged rock. He could see scant beaches nearby and at once he yelled to Acklion.

  ‘There!’

  The first mate spotted the inlet and nodded as he guided the trireme in, the big ship heading directly for the shore at close to maximum speed, for Heliosa and his crew knew what was coming next and how little time they had left to save themselves.

  Heliosa turned and looked down into the ship’s hatches where endless crates of fine silks and spices, gold and silver, jewellery and all manner of exotic goods awaited the markets of Athens. His fortune, the result of half a year’s work, and now he knew that he would never be able to bring it home to his family unless he could get away from the fearsome storm that had risen so cruelly when they were so close to home.

  ‘Beach her!’ he bellowed.

  The brilliant sunlight bathing the shore vanished and the air turned bitterly cold. Heliosa looked up and saw the sun vanish behind the wall of ashen cloud and he knew that their time was almost over. A deep fear poisoned his belly and weakened his legs as the ship rushed in toward the beach and then he felt the hull shudder beneath his feet and the great vessel slowed. Heliosa staggered as the ship lurched, sliding up onto the beach as the wind spilled from the great sail above his head.

  ‘Run!’ somebody yelled. ‘Run for your lives!’

  ‘Stay with the ship!’ Heliosa roared, but panic had taken the crew and they fled from their posts and vaulted over the trireme’s bow onto the sand and churning waves below and waded onto shore.

  Acklion staggered to his captain’s side and grabbed his shoulder.

  ‘There is nothing we can do, Heliosa! We must leave t
he ship!’

  Heliosa looked longingly at the holds of his beloved trireme and he knew that Acklion was right, but his pain at such a loss was too much to bear and tears that he would never have shed before the rest of the crew spilled down his cheeks and soaked his beard.

  ‘This is all I have!’ he gasped. ‘All my family has!’

  ‘There will be other ships and other voyages, but not if we stay here!’

  Heliosa hesitated a moment longer and then the pull of his loyal first mate drew him away from the holds and together they rushed to the side of the ship and hurled themselves down onto the beach as waves crashed into the trireme’s hull.

  Heliosa sprinted up the beach and scrambled up onto the rocks as he followed Acklion up and away from the churning waves below. Acklion mounted the top of the bluff first and Heliosa saw a vast sea of marshy reeds and swamps spreading before them toward low hills crouched in the distance. To their left he saw the specks of fleeing figures, his crew running frantically inland and away from the shore.

  Then, to their horror they they saw the river in the nearby inlet begin to flow faster.

  ‘The gods,’ Acklion whispered in fear and awe, ‘they are consuming the whole world!’

  Heliosa watched in disbelief as he saw the river flowing back out to sea, gathering pace as it did so. As he watched so he noticed the ocean waves receding away from the shore. The trireme’s hull sagged as it settled on the surface of a rapidly growing beach as the entire ocean began to drain away from them and exposed endless miles of coast sodden with debris and foliage.

  ‘Zeus, save us!’ Acklion implored the heavens as he sank to his knees with his arms outstretched toward the turbulent heavens.

  Heliosa could speak no words as he watched the waves of a once–indomitable ocean recede away as forks of savage lightning raked across the sky and flaming chunks of rock spilled from the clouds and slammed into the ground around them.

  Acklion hurled himself flat against the earth and threw his hands over his head, Heliosa ducking down and flinching as fine ash poured like filthy snow from the thick clouds above and pumice slammed down around them. He was about to suggest running back to the trireme for cover when he heard screams coming from the river.

  Several of the crew had been caught up in the tumultuous flow and were being dragged out to sea. Heliosa heard their terrified cries of despair fade away as Poseidon claimed his own once again. And then he saw something else that made his heart freeze in his chest.

  The immense river’s churning surface was swirling around a huge circular form in the center of the estuary, the flow of the water eddying and coiling around strangely symmetrical shapes standing just beneath the surface. Despite the debris raining down around him Heliosa managed to stagger to his feet and found himself staring down into a vast natural harbor concealed beneath the river. Even as he watched he saw towers and buildings emerge from the green water, immense docks and jetties, what looked like palaces and parks and roads all built into a vast system of symmetrical rings hundreds of leagues across.

  ‘Son of Zeus,’ he gasped. ‘Acklion!’

  Heliosa turned and saw his first mate cowering face down in the mud. He grabbed him and hauled him forcefully to his feet. ‘Quick, we must get to the ship!’

  Acklion saw the spectacle before them, but then his eyes filled with horror as he looked out to sea.

  ‘There is no time, look!’

  Heliosa turned and saw the immense expanses of beach strewn with debris and showered with flaming rocks, but beyond that he saw something that squeezed his heart in his chest. The ocean was returning with a vengeance, a wall of black water as high as the masts of the trireme thundering toward them with foaming white rollers rising up to tower above the beach.

  ‘The deluge,’ Acklion gasped. ‘Poseidon has come for us!’

  ‘The ship!’ Heliosa yelled and sprinted toward the terrible wave bearing down upon them.

  He heard Acklion’s horrified cry but none the less the first mate pursued Heliosa back toward the trireme. They leaped down off the rocks and onto the beach as Heliosa heard the terrible roar of the surging wall of water thundering inward, saw debris tumbling among the waves as they rose up. He reached the bow of the ship and hauled himself aboard with Acklion to see a terrified slave girl still crouched on the deck before them, too struck with terror to leave the ship.

  ‘Jaela!’

  ‘Grab the helm!’ Heliosa ordered Acklion as he dashed toward the girl.

  He reached Jaela’s side and hauled her to her feet, then dragged her to the bow of the ship and crouched down as the girl screamed and the immense wave smashed into the shore like a wall of unstoppable warriors howling the vengeance of the gods. The trireme heaved to one side as the waves blasted past either side of her hull and then she was lifted off the beach and propelled into the estuary at the head of the immense wave.

  Heliosa gripped the bow of the ship and gritted his teeth as he saw the water rush into the vast natural bay that opened out before them, and for a brief moment of time he saw the vast city resplendent in all of its glory. He saw collonades and amphitheatres rush by as the ocean plunged once more into the ancient bay and swallowed the entire city whole, but as they plunged through so he saw one towering building in the heart of the city, its perfect walls staring defiantly back at the unstoppable might of the ocean, and upon its surface a series of forms carved into the walls, geometric shapes that he knew were writing of some kind that he could not understand.

  The waves swallowed the city before them as they clashed with one another in a violent maelstrom that rose up before the trireme and crashed down upon it as the rest of the wave behind them smashed into the ship’s stern. Heliosa heard a crack that was loud enough to drown out even the tremendous storm all around them and he knew that the ship’s back was broken through.

  As water plunged down all around him Heliosa turned and saw that the ship’s helm was gone, torn off by the force of the impact, and then the wall of water rushed overhead and plunged down on top of them with the weight of the ages. Heliosa’s consciousness was torn from him into a deep blackness that swallowed him whole.

  ***

  II

  Glavnoye razvedyvatel’noye upravleniye

  Grizodubovoy str. 3, Moscow

  ( Present Day )

  Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Petrov strode into the headquarters of the Main Intelligence Directorate in Moscow, his uniform immaculately pressed, his belt polished to a shine that he imagined reflected some of the old glory of the Soviet Union lost so long ago. The GRU building was an ugly, angular construction that departed from the old Soviet style of architecture yet somehow retained its bleak nature. Gray steel panels were surrounded by concrete walls topped with barbed wire that glinted in the weak morning sunlight glowing behind blankets of cloud. Ordinary Russians rarely entered, or wanted to enter, this building. Even the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union required a security screening to enter GRU headquarters.

  The floor of the foyer was emblazoned with a large image of a bat, the emblem of the Spetsnaz Special Forces, the agency’s logo mounted on the opposite wall over an image of the earth as though Russia had already laid claim to it. The GRU’s official full name was the Main Intelligence Agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and it was Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency, deploying six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR, the successor of the KGB’s foreign operations directorate. Tens of thousands of Spetsnaz troops were also under its command, the agency given the role of handling all military intelligence from sources outside the Soviet Union.

  Petrov was more than aware of why he had been summoned to the building. He knew that the GRU operated residencies all over the world, along with a dedicated Signals Intelligence station in Lourdes, Cuba and throughout the former Soviet–bloc countries, and that it served an important role in his country’s defensive structure. He knew also from
the reports he had been required to read before travelling to Moscow that his predecessor, Colonel Anatoly Mishkin, had been killed in action and that he had been selected to take his place. What he had not been able to understand was what mission could conjure the extreme vetting and security that enveloped this assignment like a forcefield. He had no family, but Konstantin had been required to sign endless Non–Disclosure Agreements before reading the reports and finally understanding why; Russian covert forces had been aggressively deployed into foreign sovereign territories, potentially an act of war if their presence had been exposed at the political level.

  Petrov took an elevator up to the fourth floor and followed the signs until he reached the office of the agency’s director, General Sergei Olatov. Petrov checked his watch: ten in the morning in three, two, one… He took a breath before he knocked on the door and after a muffled “enter” he walked in.

  He closed the door behind him and walked to where General Sergei Olatov sat behind a large desk which was undecorated but for a laptop computer and a framed photograph of the general’s wife and two children. Craggy, white–haired and with his uniform hanging off his wiry frame, the general looked as though he should have retired a decade previously. Petrov realized he probably would have if not for the president’s reliance on an “old guard” to prop up his dreams of a return to former Soviet glory.

  ‘Sit down.’

  Petrov obeyed in silence and waited for the general to speak.

  ‘You have read the reports?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Do you understand what is being asked of you?’

  Petrov raised his chin a little.

  ‘I do,’ he replied, ‘but I do not know the nature of my mission. There is nothing in the reports to detail the purpose of our cause.’

  Petrov deliberately described the mission in terms of “our cause”, a means of fostering the General’s trust in him and also a way of showing the older man that Konstantin could be trusted to undertake the task at hand on the strength of his belief and patriotism alone.