Ancients

'Listen, mac, this ain't too goddamn funny. The captain's liable to--'

'Open the door, please.'

'Isn't happening, lieutenant. Now quit being a wise guy and put that German peashooter away before you get us both in hot water.'

Krueger had had enough. He reached out and slammed the Luger into the corporal's head, and before the stunned marine could fall he reached out, twisted the knob, and let the door fly open, using the weight of the slumping man.

As he stepped over the fallen marine, he was stunned to see the occupant of the cabin sitting at his small desk, fully dressed. What was worse was the fact that he had a Colt .45 pointed right at his chest.

The German slowly brought up his weapon, but the captain of the Arizona raised an eyebrow, indicating that it would be the last move he would ever make.

'You knew?'

The man sitting at the desk in his sparkling white uniform waved the German farther into the cabin, his eyes moving only when the young marine moaned on the floor. Then his eyes darted back to the intruder.

'Franklin Van Valkenburg, Captain, BB-39, USS Arizona. That package was addressed to me, and the boy's father used his son to deliver it.'

'You're one of them?'

'Where is young Lieutenant Keeler?'

The German said nothing.

'I assume you killed him.'

Still the German commando said nothing. Van Valkenburg cocked the .45.

'If I may explain, Captain?' the German stammered.

'No need. Your group tracked the plate map to Massachusetts and then through the torture of the boy's father you traced the package to this very ship.'

'You must let me--'

'Explain? Let me take a stab at it to see if my brothers and sisters have informed me correctly. You are about to say you're here to make sure Herr Hitler and his cronies don't get the plate map and then the Atlantean Key. That your Coalition is pulling out of this mess started by the man you placed into power.' Van Valkenburg smiled. 'Am I warm?'

The large commando allowed his jaw to fall open.

'Who are you?'

Van Valkenburg smiled.

He tapped the chart and maps on the table with his free hand. 'I have a passion for old maps and such. It took me a long while to figure out the plate map and its extraordinary features. It is far beyond any technology we have today.' Again he smiled. 'I have the very location of the Key your people are seeking and my former associates are trying to hide, right here on this map and chart. Navigation and maps are my hobby and I just couldn't resist. Too bad; you could have delivered this on a silver platter to your masters.'

Suddenly loud sirens started to wail across the harbor and the ship came to life with battle stations called over the loudspeakers. The battleship was rocked violently just as the German commando brought up his weapon. Captain Van Valkenburg was faster and steadier. His shot caught the man squarely between the eyes and he fell across the marine guard. Just as he fired, the captain heard loud explosions out in the bay. Then, without warning, the Arizona was rocked by an explosion.

The captain quickly pulled the map and charts from his desk and made his way to the bulkhead. He folded them and placed them in a waterproof case, then quickly dialed the combination and opened his personal safe. He made sure the oilcloth wrapping the plate map was secure before he placed the map case in beside it. He was sorely tempted to remove it and keep it on his person and then tear to pieces his map and charts of Ethiopia, but decided against it. He quickly closed the thick steel door and then made his way up to the bridge.

Ten minutes later, a group of high-altitude Nakajima 'Kate' bombers made their way over Pearl Harbor. The Japanese pilots had been practicing for months on silhouettes of ships just like the Arizona. By the time Van Valkenburg made it to the bridge and started to give orders for the defense of his ship, several torpedoes had already struck her, along with three bombs. However, the killing blow came from a redesigned naval artillery shell. A 1,760-pound bomb made its way from the third 'Kate' in line and traveled three thousand feet down. The bomb penetrated the deck just to the right of the number-two gun turret. The armor-piercing bomb traveled through several decks, finally lodging in the companionway just outside the Arizona's forward powder magazine.

The resulting detonation lifted the great ship's bow into the air, completely separating her teak deck from her armor. The internal explosion ripped through her as if she were made of tin, taking nearly her entire compliment of crew with her in a death that would rock the world and incite American passions for years to come.

Captain Van Valkenburg never made it back to his cabin and the safe that contained the whereabouts of the Key. He died on the bridge of his ship, knowing that the secret of the Ancients would go down with the Arizona. Of the 1,177 men of the great warship, fewer than 200 survived, and not one of them knew of the great secret taken with her to the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

BERLIN, GERMANY

APRIL 28, 1945

The Brit and the American, wearing the uniforms of Waffen-SS colonels, waited beside a bombed out building three hundred yards away from the German chancellery. The artillery barrage was relentless. The Russian army had just closed the circle of death that very morning. Berlin was now surrounded by the whole of the Red Army, and the order of the day was to smash the German capital until no stone stood upright.

'Maybe Moeller and Ivan got the hell blown out of them,' said the American as he ducked back behind a wall of fallen masonry just as a shell burst in the road a hundred yards away.

'We'll know in about thirty seconds. The barrage should lift to our right. That's when they should show,' the Londoner said as he looked at his wristwatch.

'This is a lot of risk just to deliver a message to a dead man, if you ask me.'

The Englishman smirked as he looked from his watch to Harold Tomlinson, his American counterpart in this madness. 'Ours is not to wonder why ...'

'Don't hand me that 'do or die' crap. Our part in this little war ended when we pulled out in 1941.'

Suddenly the shelling lessened enough that they heard the sound of a motorcycle winding its way toward them.

'Right on time. Bloody amazing coordination if I do say so myself,' Gregory Smythe said as he spied the motorcycle with a sidecar attached approaching them erratically.

As the driver and rider stopped and ran for cover, the artillery barrage started up again, shattering buildings and tearing into the last of the German home guard.

'Someday I hope someone explains to us how the Coalition Council pulled off this little stunt,' the American said as he hurriedly waved the Russian and German to the protective side of the broken wall.

'Friends in high places, I imagine, even in the Soviet army,' Paul Moeller said as he slumped against the wall. 'But that didn't stop those German children and old men from shooting at us.'

'Viktor Dolyevski, when we enter the bunker, may I suggest that you not utter a word. I think even the slightest Russian accent may set these fools off. Our masters may think we are expendable, but I do not.'

The big Russian just nodded at Smythe as he placed his black helmet on his head and slapped at some of the dust he had gathered on the ride through the lines.

'Well, gentlemen, this way to the chancellery,' Smythe said as he gestured to his left.

The four counterfeit officers were led into the alcove 130 feet below the chancellery building. A sour smell permeated the inducted air and a mildewed presence hung in front of the men like an angry ghost.

A colonel who had a decidedly skeletal look about him had taken the wax-sealed envelope from Smythe and arched his brow, and then had quickly ordered the Coalition visitors to be disarmed. As they were unceremoniously searched and prodded by the overly large SS guards, the four men could hear the sound of drunken laughter coming from somewhere in the back of the cavernous bunker.

'What could have been, reduced to this,' Smythe said sadly, as he looked around the sparsely appointed waiting room.