The Atlantis Gene (The Origin Mystery 1)

Kate released his hand. “Then I’ll be gone tomorrow.” She stood and walked out.

Kate returned with two bowls of thick porridge. “I thought you might be hungry.”

David simply nodded and began eating, quickly at first, only slowing after he’d eaten a few bites.

“I’ve been reading to you.” She held up the journal. “Do you mind?”

“Reading what?”

“A journal. The old guy… downstairs… he gave it to me.”

“Oh, him. Qian.” David took two more bites rapid-fire. “What’s it about?”

Kate sat down on the bed and spread her legs next to his as she had when he was unconscious. “Mining.”

David looked up from the bowl. “Mining?”

“Or, war maybe, no, actually, I’m not really sure. It’s set in Gibraltar—”

“Gibraltar?”

“Yes. Is that important?”

“Maybe. The code,” David searched his pockets like he was looking for his keys or wallet. “Actually, Josh had it…”

“Who’s Josh? Had what?”

“He’s, I used to work with him. We got a code from the source — the same person who told us about the China facility — I want to talk about that, by the way. Anyway, it was a picture of an iceberg with a sub buried in the middle of it. On the back, it had a code. The code pointed to obituaries in The New York Times in 1947. There were three of them.” David looked down, trying to remember. “The first was a reference to Gibraltar and the British finding bones near a site.”

“The site could be the mine. The Immari are trying to hire an American miner, a former soldier, to excavate a structure several miles under the Bay of Gibraltar. They think it’s the Lost City of Atlantis.”

“Interesting,” David said, deep in thought.

Before he could say anything else, Kate cracked the journal open and began reading.

August 9th, 1917

It’s late when I arrive home, and Helena is at the small kitchen table. Her elbows are on the table and she holds her face with both hands, like it will plummet to the ground if she releases her grip. There are no tears but her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying and can’t any more. She looks like the women I used to see leaving the hospital, followed by two men carrying a stretcher covered by a white sheet.

Helena has three brothers, two in the service, one too young to join, or maybe he’s just signed up. That’s my first thought: I wonder how many brothers she has now?

She jumps up at the sound of the door and stares at me, wild-eyed.

“What’s happened?” I say.

She embraces me. “I thought you’d done it, taken that job or gone off and left. Or, I don’t know.”

I hug her back, and she buries her face in my chest. When the crying subsides, she peers up at me, her big brown eyes asking a question I can’t begin to decipher. I kiss her on the mouth. It’s a hungry, reckless kiss, like an animal biting into something he’s hunted all day, something he needs to sustain himself, something he can’t live without. She feels so delicate in my arms, so small. I reach for her blouse, fingering one of the buttons, but she clasps my hand and takes a step back.

“Patrick, I can’t. I’m still… traditional, in many ways.”

“I can wait.”

“It’s not that. It’s, well, I’d like you to meet my father. My whole family.”

“I’d like that very much, to meet him, all of them.”

“Good. I’m off at the hospital for the next week. I’ll ring him in the morning. If it suits them, we can leave on the afternoon train.”

“Let’s… make it the day after. I need, I need to get something.”

“Very well.”

“And there’s something else,” I say, searching for the words. I need the job, at least a few weeks of the pay, then I’ll be set. “The job, I did, actually, have a look and it, um, might not be so dangerous—”

Her face changes quickly, as if I’d smacked her. The grimace is somewhere between worry and anger. “I can’t do it. I won’t. Every day, waiting, wondering if you’ll come home. I won’t live like that.”

“This is all I have, Helena. I’m not any good at anything else. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“I don’t believe that for a second. Men start over all the time.”

“And I will, I promise you that. Six weeks, that’s all I need, and I’ll throw in the towel. The war might be done by that time, and they’ll have another team in there, and you’ll be shipping out of here, and I’ll need to… I’ll need money for… making arrangements.”

“Arrangements can be made without money. I’ve got—”

“Out of the question.”

“If you get killed in that mine, I’ll never get over it. Can you live with that?”

“Mining’s a lot less dangerous when people aren’t dropping bombs on you.”

“How about when you’ve got the whole ocean on top of you? The whole Bay of Gibraltar over your head. All that water, constantly pressing on those tunnels. How would they ever pull you from that cave-in? It’s suicide.”

“You can see the sea coming.”

“How?”

“The rock sweats,” I say.

“I’m sorry Patrick, I can’t.” The look in her eyes tells me she means it.

Some decisions are easy. “Then it’s settled. I’ll tell them no.”

We kiss again, and I hug her tight.

David put a hand on Kate’s. “This is what you’ve been reading? World War One-era Gone With the Wind?”

She pushed his hand back. “No! I mean, it hasn’t been like this so far, but… Well, you could probably do with a little romance in your literary diet. Soften that hard soldier heart of yours.”

“We’ll see. Maybe we can just skip the mushy parts, get right to the point where they say the bombs or secret labs are located here.”

“We’re not skipping anything. It could be important.”

“Well, since you’re enjoying it so much, I’ll endure it.” He clasped his hands on his stomach and stared at the ceiling stoically.

Kate smiled. “Always the martyr.”

CHAPTER 84

Clocktower HQ

New Delhi, India

“Sir?”

Dorian looked up at the Immari Security officer lingering nervously in the doorway to his office.