The remains of the lighthouse still littered the harbour floor. Just below the surface lay a great jumble of blocks and columns, their massive forms interspersed with shattered statues of kings and queens, gods and sphinxes. Jack himself had discovered one of the most impressive, a colossal form broken on the seabed like Ozymandias, King of Kings, the toppled image of Ramses II so famously evoked by Shelley. Jack had argued that the statues should be recorded and left undisturbed like their poetic counterpart in the desert.
He was pleased to see a queue forming at the submarine port, testimony to the success of the underwater park. Across the harbour the skyline was dominated by the futuristic Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the reconstituted library of the ancients that was a further link to the glories of the past.
“Jack!” The door of the conference chamber swung open and a stout figure stepped onto the balcony. Jack turned to greet the newcomer.
“Herr Professor Dr. Hiebermeyer!” Jack grinned and held out his hand. “I can’t believe you brought me all the way here to look at a piece of mummy wrapping.”
“I knew I’d get you hooked on ancient Egypt in the end.”
The two men had been exact contemporaries at Cambridge, and their rivalry had fuelled their shared passion for antiquity. Jack knew Hiebermeyer’s occasional formality masked a highly receptive mind, and Hiebermeyer in turn knew how to break through Jack’s reserve. After so many projects in other parts of the world, Jack looked forward eagerly to sparring again with his old tutorial partner. Hiebermeyer had changed little since their student days, and their disagreements about the influence of Egypt on Greek civilization were an integral part of their friendship.
Behind Hiebermeyer stood an older man dressed immaculately in a crisp light suit and bow tie, his eyes startlingly sharp beneath a shock of white hair. Jack strode over and warmly shook the hand of their mentor, Professor James Dillen.
Dillen stood aside and ushered two more figures through the doorway.
“Jack, I don’t think you’ve met Dr. Svetlanova.”
Her penetrating green eyes were almost level with his own and she smiled as she shook his hand. “Please call me Katya.” Her English was accented but flawless, a result of ten years’ study in America and England after she had been allowed to travel from the Soviet Union. Jack knew of Katya by reputation, but he had not expected to feel such an immediate attraction. Normally Jack was able to focus completely on the excitement of a new discovery, but this was something else. He could not keep his eyes off her.
“Jack Howard,” he replied, annoyed that he had let his guard down as her cool and amused stare seemed to bore into him.
Her long black hair swung as she turned to introduce her colleague. “And this is my assistant Olga Ivanovna Bortsev from the Moscow Institute of Palaeography.”
In contrast to Katya Svetlanova’s well-dressed elegance, Olga was distinctly in the Russian peasant mould. She looked like one of the propaganda heroines of the Great Patriotic War, thought Jack, plain and fearless, with the strength of any man. She was struggling beneath a pile of books but looked him full in the eyes as he offered his hand.
With the formalities over, Dillen ushered them through the door into the conference room. He was to chair the proceedings, Hiebermeyer having relinquished his usual role as director of the institute in deference to the older man’s status.
They seated themselves round the table. Olga arranged her load of books neatly beside Katya and then retired to one of the chairs ranged along the back wall of the room.
Hiebermeyer began to speak, pacing to and fro at the far end of the room and illustrating his account with slides. He quickly ran through the circumstances of the discovery and described how the coffin had been moved to Alexandria only two days previously. Since then the conservators had worked round the clock to unravel the mummy and free the papyrus. He confirmed that there were no other fragments of writing, that the papyrus was only a few centimetres larger than had been visible during the excavation.
The result was laid out in front of them under a glass panel on the table, a ragged sheet about thirty centimetres long and half as wide, its surface densely covered by writing except for a gap in the middle.
“Extraordinary coincidence that the camel should have put its foot right in it,” Katya said.
“Extraordinary how often that happens in archaeology.” Jack winked at her after he had spoken and they both smiled.
“Most of the great finds are made by chance,” Hiebermeyer continued, oblivious to the other two. “And remember, we have hundreds more mummies to open. This was precisely the type of discovery I was hoping for and there could be many more.”
“A fabulous prospect,” agreed Katya.
Dillen leaned across to take the projector remote control. He straightened a pile of papers which he had removed from his briefcase while Hiebermeyer was speaking.
“Friends and colleagues,” he said, slowly scanning the expectant faces. “We all know why we are here.”
Their attention shifted to the screen at the far end of the room. The image of the desert necropolis was replaced by a close-up of the papyrus. The word which had so transfixed Hiebermeyer in the desert now filled the screen.
“Atlantis,” Jack breathed.
“I must ask you to be patient.” Dillen scanned the faces, aware how desperate they were to hear his and Katya’s translation of the text. “Before I speak I propose that Dr. Svetlanova give us an account of the Atlantis story as we know it. Katya, if you will.”
“With pleasure, Professor.”
Katya and Dillen had become friends when she was a sabbatical fellow under his guidance at Cambridge. Recently they had been together in Athens when the city had been devastated by a massive earthquake, cracking open the Acropolis to reveal a cluster of rock-cut chambers which contained the long-lost archive of the ancient city. Katya and Dillen had assumed responsibility for publishing the texts relating to Greek exploration beyond the Mediterranean. Only a few weeks earlier their faces had been splashed over front pages all round the world following a press conference in which they revealed how an expedition of Greek and Egyptian adventurers had sailed across the Indian Ocean as far as the South China Sea.
Katya was also one of the world’s leading experts on the legend of Atlantis, and had brought with her copies of the relevant ancient texts. She picked up two small books and opened them at the marked pages.
“Gentlemen, may I first say what a pleasure it is for me to be invited to this symposium. It is a great honour for the Moscow Institute of Palaeography. Long may the spirit of international co-operation continue.”
There was an appreciative murmur from around the table.
“I will be brief. First, you can forget virtually everything you have ever heard about Atlantis.”
She had assumed a serious scholarly demeanour, the twinkle in her eye gone, and Jack found himself concentrating entirely on what she had to say.
“You may think Atlantis was a global legend, some distant episode in history half remembered by many different cultures, preserved in myth and legend around the world.”
“Like the stories of the Great Flood,” Jack interjected.
“Exactly.” She fixed his eyes with wry amusement. “But you would be wrong. There is one source only.” She picked up the two books as she spoke. “The ancient Greek philosopher Plato.”
The others settled back to listen.
“Plato lived in Athens from 427 to 347 BC, a generation after Herodotus,” she said. “As a young man Plato would have known of the orator Pericles, would have attended the plays of Euripides and Aeschylus and Aristophanes, would have seen the great temples being erected on the Acropolis. These were the glory days of classical Greece, the greatest period of civilization ever known.”