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“Who at the CIA knows what you know?”

Heidi grimaced. So, Bodie thought, they know exactly who the team is, not just faces. He watched as Heidi bit her lip before he looked over at the rest of the crew.

“Just my boss, I guess,” she said. “But I haven’t spoken to him since the Swiss Alps. Not properly.”

“The compass came from the Swiss Alps,” Zeus confirmed. “He knows about the compass?”

Without warning, he pushed the paddles against Heidi and watched her suffer. Three times more he did it, and then dragged her away. They picked Cross next, and the older thief hung his head, dejected, preferring to remain in a world that was all his own.

Bodie silently implored Cross to get it together. He could be such a huge asset, and had been Bodie’s rock for so long. The loss of Cross’s input since Yasmine appeared on the scene had become a physical pain for Bodie.

The torches flickered in response to a slight breeze. Long shadows were thrown over the scene, and Bodie saw denizens of hell standing over his team, death in their hands. The ropes weren’t too tight and he loosened his wrists as best he could. Through simple deduction he’d narrowed his attack to one man — the member of the Evzones he could reach most easily, the one standing three meters in front of him. That long-barreled pistol surely weighed a little more by now, that tensed arm surely ready to drop. Cassidy, beside him in the line, had already whispered she would cover his attack and distract the man watching their backs.

Distract?

She meant get shot, for that was what they both knew would happen. If there was any other way out of this, Bodie couldn’t see it.

Cross ignored Zeus, looking instead to the exit of the cave and toward Jemma and Heidi, huddled together. The defibrillator buzzed and the charge went through his body. Cross writhed as much as the women had, pain etched into every contour of his face, but he spoke not once, didn’t even favor Zeus with a single glance. He couldn’t stop himself from hyperventilating, though, and then clutching his chest as he went rigid with agony. Bodie clenched his fists and teeth, terrified his friend was having a heart attack, brow suddenly wet with anxious sweat, a stark desperation filling his brain.

Cross relaxed a moment later, falling back onto the slab and breathing easily. His limbs moved weakly and he managed to open his eyes. “Just a twinge,” he said in a defiant voice.

“Good.” Zeus nodded, indicating that Artemis should throw him away. “The little bag of tricks will open him up a bit more later.”

Gunn was next, and the young nerd looked so scared that even Cassidy spoke up for him.

“There’s nothing else,” she said. “Take a goddamn break, asshole.”

The defib whirred to life but died, battery depleted. Zeus looked disappointed and then smiled with a deep malevolence.

“It appears we’re on to the manual tools.”

CHAPTER FORTY

“The history of Atlantis,” Zeus said. “What do you know?”

Gunn stammered a reply, but nothing intelligible came out. Bodie guessed Zeus was asking the question of the team nerd because he might have carried out internet research, which would have as much fantasy wound through it as fact. That left Lucie next, of course, who would know the investigated background to everything. Bodie determined that he could not let them get to Lucie. It would be worse for her.

Zeus started with a box cutter, waving the tiny blade before Gunn’s terrified eyes. “What do you know?”

“Destroyed by… by an earthquake or tsunami. Maybe by… by the Great Flood. Huge, a continent that joined Europe to the Americas. An active volcanic area still runs between the Canaries and Ireland, which would intersect Atlantis perfectly. Deep soundings were made by the US, the UK, and Germany separately, which mapped the bottom of the Atlantic and showed a large elevation reaching from Britain to South America and then to Africa. It rises nine thousand feet above the immense sea depths around it and reaches the surface around the Azores. And, taking the recent proof found in the Nebraska badlands that the horse originated in America, how… how did this wild animal cross to Europe and Asia in this predomesticated state? Answer: he walked.” Gunn gulped. “Or trotted, or something.”

The computer expert had gotten carried away, rambling because he was nervous. But then he saw Zeus’s blade and clammed up in fear.

“Go on.” Zeus nodded with approval. “Everything you say is a matter of record, free on the web, but I need to hear the conclusions a man like you would draw.”

Bodie had hoped Gunn would drag it out, and, purposely or not, he did. “The animal thing is not reserved just for horses. Camel fossils were found as far apart as Kansas and Africa. Norway elks are identical to the American moose. And so forth. The same species of plants exist in America and Asia. And, of course, there is the banana. A seedless plant. It can’t survive a voyage through a temperate zone, and yet traveled from tropical Asia and Africa to America…” He paused as Heidi shifted in the corner, turning and resting on her knees. For now, Bodie saw her head did not come up, but he guessed she was ready.

Zeus was pleased with Gunn. “Go on, lad.”

“There’s the question of the Aryan race, which we haven’t come to yet. I examined the information in advance. According to Genesis, all the races that escaped the flood with Noah, the Thracians, the Cyprians, the Ionians, and more, are all now recognized as Aryans. The center of the Aryan migrations is Armenia, in which lies Mount Ararat where the Ark rested. The Mediterranean Aryans are known to have been a sea people some four thousand years ago. Their faces are painted on Egyptian monuments. The Greeks trace their descendants back to the Aryans, and everyone — Persians, Celts, Germans, and Romans — shares the same traditions. Of course, all this is relevant because the Aryans are long thought to have been a superior race — more intelligent, stronger, better. The Atlanteans who survived would be identified as better. It was Hitler and Himmler who searched for a decade for any remnants of the Aryan race, using an SS unit by the name of Ahnenerbe, which only came to light in 1945 when soldiers discovered many thousands of documents in a cave in Germany.”

“But no real trace of the Aryans?” Zeus asked.

“They found nothing, but Hitler was beyond crazy. He thought measuring the circumference of a man’s skull would determine his race.”

“Fascinating. Now… how high can you scream?”

Zeus buried the tiny blade into Gunn’s thigh. Screaming, Gunn threw his head back. Zeus withdrew and buried it again. Two small but vicious cuts welled with blood.

Gunn squealed, kicking furiously. Zeus avoided the reflexive strikes and gave an evil leer. Blood leaked through Gunn’s jeans in small beads. Bodie could wait no more. He eyed the man in front, then nodded at Cassidy.

“See you on the other side.”

“Yeah, wherever that is.”

Together, they both knew that they had no choice but to risk their lives for their friends.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Bodie had been stretching his legs in anticipation, feigning a cramp a few minutes earlier, so when he lunged, his limbs responded instantly. The guard in front of him — Hermes — was watching Gunn striking out at their revered leader; his gun was dipping, and Bodie covered half the distance without being noticed. When Hermes saw the resolute blur streaking toward him and started to react, Bodie flung the grit and gravel and dust he’d scooped up right into the other man’s eyes. It wasn’t much but it did the trick.

Hermes flinched away from the cloud, stumbling backward. Bodie tackled him at the waist, bearing him to the ground. Both men struck with a crunch of flesh and bone, winded.