“What do you mean I won’t be going to trial?” Hadel demanded.
“Shush!” Tam held up a finger, silencing him. She turned in a slow circle, taking in the chamber. “Lord Jesus. So this is it.”
“This is just a tiny bit of it,” Jade said. “There’s a library, a crypt, and all sorts of chambers. Lots of Atlantean instruments and devices, too.”
“It would take years, maybe even decades, to glean all the knowledge from this place,” Dane said. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“We’ve had this conversation before, Maddock, and my opinion hasn’t changed any more than yours has. Technology can be dangerous, but I’d rather have it in our hands than in those of an enemy.” Tam paused. “Where’s Sofia?”
Dane tried to answer, but his mouth was sandpaper and emotion held his throat in a chokehold. He felt Jade’s hand on his shoulder.
“The Dominion got her.” Bones voice was as tight as his fists, which he clenched so hard that his arms trembled.
“Damn.” Tam put her hands on her hips, took a deep breath, and composed herself.
And then she whirled and drove her fist into Hadel’s gut. His breath left him in a rush and he slumped over. Tam grabbed a handful of his unkempt hair, kicked his feet out from under him, leaned down, and whispered in his ear. “I’ll tell you why you won’t be getting a trial any time soon, if ever. First of all, I don’t plan on letting anyone know we’ve got you. We’ll let them thing you’re dead while you rot away in Guantanamo Bay. And then we’ll label you an enemy combatant.”
“It won’t stick.” Hadel grunted. “I’m a citizen. I have rights.”
“That’s okay, sweetie. By then, I’ll have taken my pound of flesh and squeezed every last secret out of you. The Dominion will be dead. Broken. Have fun using a public defender to fight charges of high treason, murder, and whatever else we can think of throwing at you.”
“You have to let me go. You have no choice.”
“I don’t think so.” Tam yanked Hadel to his feet. “Greg, bind this fool. And don’t be gentle.”
Greg pulled out a pair of cable ties and grabbed Hadel by the wrist.
“Do you think I would let my plan, my purpose, die without me? If, at any point, twenty four hours pass without my people hearing from me, or if they learn I have been captured, the failsafe is activated. One city every forty-eight hours. Can you let that happen?” Hadel winced as Greg yanked his arms behind his back and bound his wrists.
“We’ll stop you.” Only a slight twitch in her cheek belied Tam’s resolve.
“How? You don’t know where the next attack will be, and the Atlantean weapon can be hidden on any boat. You can’t guard every inch of the American coastline. Then again, perhaps your hubris is so great that you believe exactly that.”
Dane thought Tam might punch Hadel again, but she smiled instead. “You’re going to tell me where the next attack will take place.”
“You are an arrogant little girl.” Hadel had regained some of his bluster, if not his self-assurance.
“Or you will tell Bonebrake.” Tam turned to Bones. “You and Willis take our guest somewhere out of sight of us witnesses and teach him some of your traditional interrogation techniques.”
“What?” Hadel gasped.
“Can I just scalp him?” Bones drew his Recon knife and licked the blade.
“If that don’t work, I got some tricks I can show you.” Willis bared his teeth and mimicked biting Hadel’s face.
“I don’t care,” Tam said. “Just make it slow and make it hurt. For Sofia.”
Bones and Greg hauled Hadel, who struggled and hurled racial epithets at them, into one of the passageways leading out of the chamber.
Dane watched them go, wishing he could feel good about this turn of events, but unable to put Sofia’s death out of his mind. “You do realize Bones doesn’t know any kind of Indian torture methods, unless you want him to wear Hadel down with juvenile banter.”
“I know that and you know that, but Hadel doesn’t know that.” Tam gave him a wink and then turned to Greg.
“As long as we’re waiting, I’d like to check out the alcove back there.” Jade pointed to the small room on the far side of the chamber.
In the other Atlantean temples, the small room was the adyton, a place exclusive to priests. Here, it served a very different purpose.
A tall, impossibly thin man with an elongated head lay perfectly preserved in a coffin of blue-tinted crystal. Jade gasped and Greg took a step back, but not Dane and Tam, who had seen something like this only months before.
“There’s another connection,” Dane said.
“I wonder who he was.” Jade moved in for a closer look.
Dane took in the sight. The man had long greenish-brown hair and beard, wore sea green robes and a silver crown inset with mother of pearl and topped by the largest shark’s teeth Dane had ever seen. His long, slender hands gripped a crystal tipped…
…trident.
“Poseidon.”
The name hung in the air while the others struggled to reconcile this alien being with the god out of Greek mythology. Tam finally broke the silence.
“You’re saying the Greek gods were real? Or, at least, this one was?”
“I’m saying I think this guy was the source of the Poseidon myth. He was important enough that his was the only body they preserved. I’ll bet he was the Atlantean ruler, which is why he’s represented in their temples, though in a form to which humans could relate. Think about it. The Atlanteans’ alien appearance and their advanced technology would have made them seem godlike to primitive humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if other Atlantean leaders provided the inspiration for other ancient world myths, legends, and gods.”
Tam turned and hurried away. She stopped, dropped to one knee, and rested her hands on the rail that encircled the Revelation Machine. Her shoulders heaved and her head drooped.
“I’d better check on her.” Jade took a few steps toward her before Dane laid a hand on her shoulder.
“No, let me. I’ve spent more time than you coming to grips with this stuff.” He hurried to Tam’s side and knelt down beside her. When she didn’t tell him to leave, he took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay.”
“How is it okay? Everything I’ve believed all my life isn’t true. Adam and Eve were aliens? All the miracle stories are just advanced technology from another world? What does that mean for the world if there’s no more power of God to believe in? If it’s all a lie?”
“Never underestimate the power of denial.” At Tam’s angry frown, he hurried on. “Seriously, though. Some might lose faith, and many didn’t believe in the first place, but others will hold on. Heck, in some cases, it might even make their faith stronger. These crystals, they’re miracles. The Atlanteans harnessed their power, but where did that power come from? And maybe the Atlanteans did intervene in human history, but that doesn’t explain where humans come from or where Atlanteans come from, for that matter.”
“It’s not enough. An awful lot of people need to believe in the power of God, and in spite of all that we’ve seen, I need to believe it.”
Dane hesitated. He’d lost his religion when his wife died, but honesty compelled him to go on. “You know Bones and I did some serious damage in Utah a few years back, but do you know what we found down there?”
Tam shook her head.
“It’s too long a story to tell you right now, but I promise you, it will restore your faith. Not only did we find treasures from out of the Old Testament, we experienced something that couldn’t be explained by crystals or advanced technology. It was miraculous.”
“I want to believe you,” Tam said.