“Ask Jade and Bones. We all saw it.”
“Ask me what?” Bones emerged from the hallway holding a pencil.
“Never you mind.” Tam composed herself in an instant and sprang to her feet. “What did you find out?”
“New York City. It’s hidden inside an Ellis Island tour boat.”
“How can you be sure he’s not lying?” Tam asked.
“Because, once he confessed, I cut the tips of his thumbs off just to make sure he kept his story straight.”
“You didn’t!” Jade gasped.
“Of course not, but he believed I would, so it amounted to the same thing. Besides, I don’t think he could have given so many specific details under duress. Willis hung back with him to do some fact checking, but I think we’ve got what we need to know.” He recounted the specifics of the Dominion’s plan, and Tam sent Greg back to the surface to report this new information.
“You think they’ll believe you this time?” Dane asked.
“Oh yes. Issuing that public ultimatum had to be the stupidest thing the Dominion has ever done. Hadel must have thought he had the Revelation Machine in the bag. When that announcement came out, a lot of people started taking me seriously. They’ll come down on those operatives in New York like a hard rain.”
They took a minute to fill Bones in on their final discovery and on Dane’s theory. Having long supported the theory that aliens intervened in the ancient world, Bones agreed with all of Dane’s conclusions and proclaimed himself vindicated.
“From now on, Maddock, no more calling my theories ‘crackpot,’ okay?”
“No promises, Bones.”
“What I want to know,” Jade piped up, “is how you got Hadel to confess in the first place.”
“Easy. I gave him time to get nervous and then I asked Willis for a pencil, a light, and some flammable liquid. I was just messing with Hadel’s head, figuring I’d let his imagination run wild before I tried something less exotic, but Willis actually had a pencil on him. He said he’s taken up Sudoku.”
“And?” Jade asked.
“I showed Hadel how a pencil can be used to stretch open any orifice.” He illustrated by placing the pencil between the corners of his mouth. “And then,” he said around the pencil before spitting it out onto the floor, “I pulled out my Zippo, bent Hadel over, and pulled down his…”
“Okay, I get the picture.” Jade covered her ears and turned away, but not fast enough to hide her smile.
“What happens now?” Dane asked Tam.
“We take the Bishop and any of the operatives you left alive into custody for enhanced interrogation.”
“They can have my pencil if they need it,” Bones offered.
Tam rolled her eyes. “Our embassy is already negotiating for us to have unfettered access to this area for research purposes. As soon as Greg reports in, we’ll have men on the way to secure the site, just to be safe. That blast will have drawn attention. Right now, I imagine scientists all over the world are trying to figure out what in the hell happened. We need to clean this place out before there’s an international incident.”
“So there’s no way we could keep it a secret even if we wanted to,” Dane said.
Tam shook her head.
“Like it or not, you’ve changed the world, boys. Let’s just hope it’s for the better.”
Chapter 51
“We’re going to need another keg!” Bones proclaimed as he handed Corey a cup of beer. “That’s the last of this one.”
Corey frowned at the mound of foam in his blue cup. “That’s all I get?”
“I’ll check the kitchen. Maddock hasn’t re-stocked his frig, but I think Professor brought a cooler. It’s probably Bud Light or something else crappy.” Bones wobbled back inside and reappeared with a cheap Styrofoam cooler. “Perfect. A cheap cooler for cheap beer.”
“I happen to like Bud Light.” Professor sat with his feet propped up on the rail, gazing out at the Gulf. “Besides, I’m not a highly-paid government employee like you.”
“You will be if you take Tam’s offer.” Dane turned a questioning look at Jade, who shrugged.
“I’m thinking about it, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had bullets flying in my direction. I’m not sure I want to go back.”
“Hey, if I can handle it, so can you.” Kasey had been out of the hospital for one day, and had foregone the beer due to the painkillers she was taking while she recovered from her wounds, but she’d managed to put away more ribs than Dane would have thought possible for a woman of her size.
Dane leaned against the rail and bathed in the warmth of the sun and the sounds of revelry. They’d spent the early part of the afternoon filling in Kasey and Avery on all that had transpired since they’d left for Mauritania. Kasey had bemoaned the injuries that put her out of action, while Avery took some consolation in finally having an adventure of her own to share with the others. Tam had already told them about the discovery of the Templar library, but Dane and the others listened in rapt attention as if the story were brand new to them. By the time Tam arrived with a box of polo-style shirts embroidered with a Spartan helmet and the words “Myrmidon Squad” over the breast, they’d finished swapping stories. They shared a drink in Sofia’s memory, and then let the Dos Equis do its work.
Inside, Greg pounded out an Irish drinking song on his portable keyboard, while Willis, Tam, and Avery sang along. Where a kid from inner-city Detroit had learned an Irish song, Dane had no idea, but the sound washed over him in a pleasant way and he allowed his mind to drift.
It had been a week since they’d uncovered the Atlantean mother city. Tam had shut down the Dominion’s plot to attack New York City before it got off the ground, and even managed to get Krueger back in one piece, if a bit worse for the wear. Meanwhile, the U.S. Government had pulled enough strings, or greased enough palms, to buy time for its researchers to go over the complex with a fine-tooth comb. Working around the clock, they’d removed everything they could — even the remains of the Atlanteans. Soon, they’d reveal their discovery to the rest of the world.
For what felt like the thousandth time, Dane wondered how people would respond. Although most of the trappings of alien technology, and all of the alien remains were gone, the star charts and engravings on the walls remained, as did the Revelation Machine. As expected, the world had taken notice of the massive blast of energy shooting up into the heavens, and the absurd claim by the American and Mauritanian governments that it was part of a joint experiment in solar energy, would soon be put to lie.
He supposed it didn’t matter. It was out of his hands now.
“I swear, you think longer and harder than any man I’ve ever known.”
Dane was surprised to discover that he and Tam were now alone on the deck.
“Long and hard. That’s me.”
“That’s unworthy of you, Maddock.”
“You spend enough time around Bones, he starts rubbing off on you.” Dane offered her a seat and then sat down next to her.
“I like your place. If we keep our headquarters here, I guess I’ll need to invest in some real-estate myself.” She smiled as a pair of seagulls drifted past them, floating on an updraft.
“I’m surprised the squad’s staying together now that we’ve shut down the Dominion.”
“We’ve shut down the Kingdom church, but there’s plenty still to do. And that’s only here in the States. Or have you forgotten your Heilig Herrschaft friends?”
Dane frowned. He, in fact, hadn’t spared a thought for the German branch of the Dominion.
“On top of that,” Tam continued, “there are definitely elements in Italy, and we’ve got hints of them in a dozen other places. I’ll be chasing them down until I’m old and gray. Plus, there’s the Trident to investigate. Lord only knows what they’re about.”