The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery 1)

“Steve! Hang on! I’m going to pull you up—”

“Don’t,” Steve yelled.

“What? Are you crazy—”

“There’s something down here. Lower me, slowly.”

Karl thought for a moment. “What is it?”

“Looks like a tunnel or a cave. It’s got gray metal in it. It’s blurry.”

“Ok, hold on, I’m going to let some slack out.” Karl let about 10 feet of rope out, and when he heard nothing from Steve, another ten feet.

“Stop,” Steve called.

Karl felt the rope tugging. Was Steve swinging? The rope went slack.

“I’m in,” Steve said.

“What is it?”

“Not sure.” Steve’s voice was muffled now.

Karl crawled to the edge of the ice and looked over.

Steve stuck his head out of the mouth of the cave. “I think it’s some kind of cathedral. It’s massive. There’s writing on the walls. Symbols — like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’m going to check it out.”

“Steve, don’t—”

Steve disappeared again.

A few minutes passed. Was there another slight vibration? Karl listened closely. He couldn’t hear it, but he could feel it. The ice was pulsing faster now. He stood up and took a step away from the edge. The ice behind him cracked, and then there were cracks everywhere — spreading out quickly. He ran full speed toward the widening fissure. He jumped — and almost made it to the other side, but he came up short. His hands caught on the ice ledge, and he dangled there for a long second. The vibrations in the ice grew more violent with each passing second. Karl watched the ice around him crumble and fall, and then the shard that held him broke free, and he was plummeting down into the abyss.

On the boat, Naomi watched the sun set over the iceberg. She picked up the satellite phone and dialed the number the man had given her.

“You said to call if we found anything interesting.”

“Don’t say anything. Hold the line. We’ll have your location within two minutes. We’ll come to you.”

She set the phone on the counter, walked back to the stove, and continued stirring the pot of beans.

The man on the other end of the satellite phone looked up when the GPS coordinates flashed on his screen. He copied the location and searched the satellite surveillance database for live feeds. One result.

He opened the stream and panned the view to the center of the iceberg, where the dark spots were. He zoomed in several times and when the image came into focus, he dropped his coffee to the floor, bolted out of his office, and ran down the hall to the director’s office. He barged in, interrupting a gray-haired man who was standing and speaking with both hands held up.

“We’ve found it.”

PART I:

JAKARTA BURNING

CHAPTER 1

Autism Research Center (ARC)

Jakarta, Indonesia

Present Day

Dr. Kate Warner awoke to a terrifying feeling: there was someone in the room. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. She felt groggy, almost as though she had been drugged. The air was musty… subterranean. She twisted slightly and pain coursed through her. The bed below her was hard, a couch maybe; definitely not the bed in her 19th floor condo in downtown Jakarta. Where was she?

She heard another quiet footfall, like tennis shoes on carpet. “Kate,” a man whispered, testing to see if she was awake.

Kate managed to open her eyes a little more. Above her, faint rays of sunlight filtered in through metal blinds that covered short, wide windows. In the corner, a strobe light pierced the room every few seconds, like the flash of a camera snapping a photo incessantly.

She took a deep breath and sat up quickly, seeing the man for the first time. He reeled back, dropping something that clanged as brown liquid splashed on the floor.

It was Ben Adelson, her lab assistant. “Jesus, Kate. I’m sorry. I thought… if you were up, you might want coffee.” He bent to pick up the remnants of a shattered coffee cup, and when he got a closer look at her, he said, “God, you look like hell, Kate.” He stared at her for a moment. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

Kate rubbed her eyes, and her head seemed to clear a bit as she realized where she was. She had been working at the lab day and night for the last five days, virtually nonstop since she had gotten the call from her research sponsor: produce results now, any results, or the funding goes away. No excuses this time. She hadn’t told any of the staff on her autism study. There was no reason to worry them. Either she got some results, and they went on or she didn’t, and they went home. “Coffee sounds nice, Ben. Thanks.”

The man exited the van and pulled his black face mask down. “Use your knife inside. Gunfire will draw attention.”

His assistant, a woman, nodded and pulled her face mask down as well.

The man extended his gloved hand to the door, then hesitated. “You’re sure the alarm is off?”

“Yeah. Well, I cut the outside line, but it’s probably going off inside.”

“What?” He shook his head. “Jesus — they could be calling it in right now. Let’s move.” He threw the door open and charged inside.

Above the door, a sign read:

Autism Research Center

Staff Entrance

Ben returned with a fresh cup of coffee, and Kate thanked him. He plopped down in a chair opposite her desk. “You’re going to work yourself to death. You’ve slept here for the past four nights. And the secrecy, banning everyone from the lab, hoarding your notes, not talking about ARC-247. I’m not the only one who’s worried.”

Kate sipped the coffee. Jakarta had been a difficult place to run a clinical trial, but working on the island of Java had some bright spots. The coffee was one of them.

She couldn’t tell Ben what she was doing in the lab, at least not yet. It might amount to nothing, and more than likely, they were all out of a job anyway. Involving him would only make him an accomplice to a possible crime.

Kate nodded to the flashing fixture in the corner of the room. “What’s that strobe light?”

Ben glanced over his shoulder at it. “Not sure. An alarm, I think—”

“Fire?”

“No. I made rounds when I got here, it’s not a fire. I was about to do a thorough inspection when I noticed that your door was cracked.” Ben reached into one of the dozen cardboard boxes that crowded Kate’s office. He flipped through a few framed diplomas. “Why don’t you put these up?”