Von Menck stepped behind his desk and turned back to face the journalist. "Are you a religious man, Mr. Harriman?"
The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Harriman did not know what to say.
"I don't necessarily mean in any organized sense: Catholic, Protestant, whatever. But do you believe there is a unifying force underlying our universe?"
"I'd never really thought about it," Harriman said. "I guess so." He had been raised Episcopalian, though he hadn't set foot inside a church-except for weddings and funerals-for almost twenty years.
"Then might you believe, as I do, that there is a purpose to our lives?"
Harriman shut off the tape recorder. Time to end this and get the hell out. If he wanted a lecture on religion, he could always call the Jehovah's Witnesses. "With all due respect, Doctor, I don't see what this has to do with the two recent deaths."
"Patience, Mr. Harriman. My proof is complex, but the conclusion will, to use a popular expression, blow your mind."
Harriman waited.
"Let me explain. All my life, I have been a student of the mysterious, the unexplained. Many of these mysteries I have solved to my own satisfaction. Others-oftentimes the greatest-remain dark to me." Von Menck took a piece of paper from his desk, wrote on it briefly, then placed it before Harriman:
3243
1239
"Those two numbers"-and he tapped the page-"have always represented the biggest mysteries of all to me. Do you recognize them?"
Harriman shook his head.
"They mark the single two greatest cataclysmic events ever to befall human civilization. In 3243B.C. , the island of Santorini explodes, generating tidal waves that wipe out the great Minoan civilization of Crete and devastate the entire Mediterranean world. This is the source of both the legend of Atlantis and the Great Flood. And 1239B.C. is when the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ash by a rain of ruin from the sky."
"Atlantis? Sodom and Gomorrah?" This was getting worse.
Von Menck tapped the sheet again. "Plato described Atlantis in two of his dialogues, Timaeus and Critias . Some details he got wrong: for example, the date, which he put at around 9000B.C. Recent extensive archaeological digs on Crete and Sardinia provide a more exact date. The story of the lost city of Atlantis has been sensationalized to the point where most people wrongly assume it's a myth. But legitimate archaeologists are convinced there is a foundation of truth: the volcanic explosion of the island of Santorini. Plato described Atlantis-that is, the Minoan civilization on Crete-as a powerful city-state, obsessed with commerce, money, self-improvement, and knowledge, but bereft of spiritual values. Archaeological excavations of the Minoan palaces at Knossos confirm this. The people of Atlantis, Plato said, had turned their backs on their god. They flaunted their vices, they openly questioned the existence of a divine, and they worshiped technology instead. Plato tells us they had canals and a so-called firestone that produced artificial power."
He paused. "Sounds like another city we know, doesn't it, Mr. Harriman?"
"New York."
Von Menck nodded. "Exactly. At the very height of Atlantis's power, there were harbingers of some dread event. The weather was unnaturally cold, and skies were dark for days. There were strange rumblings in the ground. People died suddenly, unexpectedly, outrageously. One was said to have been hit 'by a bolt of lightning that came from the sky and from the bowels of the earth both together.' Another was abruptly torn apart, as if by an explosive device, 'his flesh and blood hanging in the air like a fine mist, while all around lay the most appalling stench.' Within a week came the explosion and flood that destroyed the city forever."
As Von Menck spoke, Harriman snapped on his recorder again. There might be something here, after all.
"Exactly two thousand and four years later, the area of the Dead Sea between what is now Israel and Jordan-the deepest naturally occurring spot on the surface of the earth-was breathtakingly lush and fertile. It was the home of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Precisely how big these cities were remains unknown, although recent archaeological digs in the valley have uncovered massive cemeteries containing thousands of human remains. Clearly, they were the two most powerful cities in the Western world at that time. As with Atlantis, these cities had fallen into the last degree of sin, turning away from the natural order of things. Pride, sloth, the worship of earthly goods, decadence and debauchery, rejection of God and destruction of nature. As it says in Genesis, there were not fifty, not twenty, not even ten righteous men to be found in Sodom. And so the cities were destroyed from above, by 'brimstone and fire . the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.' Again, archaeological excavations in the Dead Sea area confirm the biblical story to an amazing degree. In the days before this took place, there again were harbingers of the fate that was to come. One man burst into a pillar of yellow flame. Others were found calcified, not unlike Lot's wife, who was turned to a pillar of salt."
Von Menck came around the desk and sat on its edge, looking intently at the reporter. "Have you been to the Dead Sea, Mr. Harriman?"
"I can't say that I have."
"I've been there. Several times. The first time I went was right after I discovered a certain natural link in the timing of the disasters that befell Atlantis and Gomorrah. The Dead Sea is now a parched wasteland. Fish cannot live in it: the water is many times saltier than the ocean. Almost nothing grows on its edges, and what does is glazed and caked with salt. But if you walk across the dead plains near Tell es-Saidiyeh, where many scholars now place Sodom, you'll find a vast number of balls of pure, elemental sulfur riddling the salt surface. This sulfur is not rhombic, as found in naturally occurring geothermic areas. Rather, it is monoclinic: white, exceptionally pure, exposed to very high temperatures for long periods of time. Geologists have found no other pockets of such naturally occurring sulfur anywhere else on earth. Yet they are found in riotous abundance on the ruins of these two cities. What destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah was not some normal geological process. It remains a mystery to this day."
Von Menck reached for the scrap of paper, wrote another number beneath the first two:
3243
1239
2004
"2004A.D ., Mr. Harriman. It forms the end of the golden ratio. Do the math. The date 3243B.C. is exactly 5,247 years ago: golden ratio. The date 1239B.C. is exactly 3,243 years ago: golden ratio again. The next date in the series is 2004A.D. , which also happens to be the exact number of years separating the earlier disasters. Coincidence?"
Harriman stared at the paper. Is he saying what I think he's saying? It seemed unbelievable, crazy. And yet the quiet eyes that looked back at him with something like resignation did not look in the least bit crazy.
"I searched for years, Mr. Harriman, for proof that I was wrong. I thought perhaps the dates were incorrect, or that the evidence was flawed. But every discovery I made simply gave more credence to the theory." He walked to another cabinet and pulled out a sheet of white cardboard. On it, a large spiral-like that of the shell of a chambered nautilus-had been drawn. At its outermost point, it was labeled in red penciclass="underline" 3243B.C.-Santorini/Atlantis . One-third of the way along its curve was another red marking:1239B.C.-Sodom/Gomorrah. At other spots along the spiral, smaller tick marks in black listed dozens of other dates and places: