Robert Doherty
Atlantis Gate
PROLOGUE
“Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.” The voice was deep, resonant with power, echoing off the walls of the Oval Office. “From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to know that for destruction, ice is also great and would suffice.”
The act of speaking wore out the old man and his head slumped back on the chair’s high back. President Kennedy was behind his desk across from the old man. The hallway outside the closed door was full of advisers and Secret Service agents, everyone on edge given the current crisis with Cuba, but there was only the two of them in the room.
The old man’s voice lost some of its power as he continued. “The words. The words are the key.”
Kennedy leaned forward. “Did Kruschchev really say we were too liberal to fight, Mister Frost?”
Robert Frost’s deep blue eyes turned toward the President. “You’re not listening. No one listens.”
Kennedy frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Kruschchev isn’t important,” Frost said.
“One of our U-2 spy planes was shot down over Cuba yesterday,” Kennedy said. “He’s very important. You met the Premier two months ago. I need a feel for him. He sent a letter yesterday agreeing to pull out the missiles if we agreed not to invade Cuba. Then his people in Cuba shoot down a U-2. Can I trust him? That’s the key.”
“Kruschchev isn’t important,” Frost repeated. “I hear voices. I always have. Since I was a child. Some of the words I’ve written aren’t exactly mine. They come through me.” He blinked, his gaze regaining some focus. “No, Kruschchev didn’t say that.”
Kennedy leaned back in his chair, relaxing slightly. “Why did you say it then?”
“It got your attention. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“And why did you want to see me?”
“The voices of the gods,” Frost murmured. His voice firmed. “I’ve been told things. Some that have happened, some yet to happen.”
“You predicted my election in ’59,” Kennedy acknowledged. “No one else gave me a chance that early.” He checked his watch. “Why did you want to see me?”
“There is a man. In the CIA.”
Kennedy half-turned in the seat away from Frost. Ever since the Bay of Pigs, those three letters had brought such a reaction.
“His name is Foreman. He works alone. Studying gates.”
“’Gates’?”
“We’re not alone,” Frost said. “In the universe. There are gates on our planet. To other places. He studies them.”
Kennedy half-stood, ready to end the meeting, but Frost’s next words froze him.
“I die soon. So do you. Within a year. Maybe sooner if you don’t listen.”
Kennedy sank back into the seat. “How do you know?”
“The voices tell me.”
“Whose voices?”
“The voices of the gods that I hear inside.” Before Kennedy could respond, Frost waved a frail hand. “Not God, as in the traditional version. But something, some beings, some presence, beyond our world. Just like the Shadow. The force that seeks to destroy our world.”
“Wait.” Kennedy turned slightly toward the right side of the office. “Bobbie, come in here.”
A hidden door in the middle of the wood paneling swung open and the President’s brother entered.
“What do you have on this Foreman?” the President asked.
“He’s being held at Langley. He tried to transmit a message to the Russians over the CIA emergency landline to Moscow six hours ago.”
“About?”
Robert Kennedy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“He listens in on your conversations?” Frost asked, indicating the hidden door.
The President nodded. “Of course.”
“Foreman needs to send that message,” Frost said. “It is probably already too late.”
“Why?”
“To save the world.”
The President frowned. “Mr. Frost. You’ve had five minutes of my time. You’re not making any sense and I’m afraid there are pressing matters I must attend to.”
Frost looked confused, as if he were trying to remember something, but it was eluding him. Bobbie Kennedy went over to the old man and put his hand on the frail shoulder.
“Please come with me, Mister Frost.”
“But… there’s something; something I should say.”
“Please come with me.”
Before Frost was even out of the office, the President was on the phone to the Pentagon, getting the latest update on the situation in Cuba. Frost was still protesting there was something he needed to remember, to say, as the door shut behind him.
The Russian freighter cut through the Atlantic, north of the Bahamas, bow pointed toward the south and Cuba. The American blockade was somewhere ahead and the ship’s crew was uncertain what reception they would receive, even though their new orders from Moscow were to help in the removal of the missiles.
The unusual fog appeared off the starboard bow, a small patch at first, but it grew at an alarming rate, spreading over the ocean. The freighter’s captain ordered a course adjustment to the southeast to avoid the rapidly approaching swirl of gray and yellow, but the ship was too slow. The first tendrils of the mist swept over the decks, followed shortly by the screams of the terrified and dying.
Five minutes later, when the fog pulled back and faded, there was no sign of the freighter.
The disappearance was noted both in Washington and Moscow. The first missile lifted out of a silo outside of Moscow heading toward NATO forces in Europe five minutes later. The order to launch against the United States was transmitted to the sites in Cuba two minutes and twelve seconds later.
The car carrying Robert Frost was pulling out the gates of the White House when the sirens began their wail. The old man leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye, he ‘saw’ Miami, the mushroom cloud rising over what had once been a city.
“Stop here,” he told the confused driver. He pushed open the door and got out. He stood on the sidewalk outside the White House feeling the fear of the people around him running for the shelters. Beyond that, though, he felt another connection, one that had touched on him all his life. He realized what he had failed to say. He looked south, across the Mall at the Jefferson Memorial. That was it, he realized, just as the first intercontinental ballistic missile from Cuba screamed down over the city.
The first bomb detonated over the Lincoln Memorial, less than a mile from where Frost stood. The blast came toward the poet, a racing wall of blazing death.
“Fire this time,” Frost said a split second before the wave hit him.