Ancients

societies around them. Until, that is, the start of the Juliai, who remembered the power of rule.

They had made minor attempts to sway power to their side of the game board many times, but had never chosen a proxy wise enough to handle the money and power they offered. From the Holy Roman Church, to Spain, England, Napoleon and Hitler, they had failed at every attempt. While race purification is a goal of the Coalition in all its forms, it never was the intention of the ruling body to eliminate races as a whole. In their eyes, that would have been foolish. Why eliminate those who can best serve the ruling class? Keep them fed and allow them their liberties and they will fall in line. Theirs was a class system of master and surf. If you know you are the master race, does it take a brilliant mind not to say it to those who are not? Alternatively, is it not far wiser to allow the illusion that all people are of equal value?

Jack and Carl exchanged looks of incredulity when Martha stopped her version of a world-history lesson.

'We need to bring the people that murdered your friend, his employees, and our people to justice. Not the ravings of a subsociety that could never pull off what you are suggesting. The murder of innocents is what concerns me,' Jack said.

'No, Colonel, there is quite a bit more that should concern you,' Martha said as she offered Carmichael another morphine tablet. 'We suspect the Coalition is bypassing a proxy nation this time around and making a play for their form of domination directly. One that makes mankind rely on them instead of governments.'

'Time is now growing short, young man. They are already replacing world leaders with their own people, two already and more to come. It is right there in the newspapers.'

'What are you talking about?' Collins asked.

'The assassinations in Germany and Japan--link those with the earthquakes and then the murder of Jackson Keeler. The pieces fit.'

'In your warped Picasso-painted puzzle, maybe,' Everett said.

'The explanation is not a simple one, Captain. All of our lives, from childhood to adult, stories have been passed to us. Tales from our ancestors handed down word of mouth, generation by generation, that told how our ancient civilization was lost beneath the sea. One was the tale of a great weapon that used the very power of the earth to destroy its enemies. A machine that was capable of making the earth tremble and move under the feet of whole armies and destroy them.'

'We're getting a little off the beaten path here. I mean, fairy tales? Now, come on,' Everett said, but Jack placed his hand on Carl's arm as he started to rise and leave.

'Continue, Martha.'

'The scrolls were originally found by a man, an archaeologist who was part of our society. He sought out the financing of the Coalition in a vain attempt to bring the two sides together in a mutually beneficial endeavor--his archaeological dig to find the hidden scrolls. Well, he did exactly that: he found them. They were unearthed in Spain, right where the old tales said they would be. Only in the scrolls, the Coalition discovered the design for the Wave of the Ancients, the very same device of legend and the very weapon that destroyed Atlantis thousands of years before.'

'Are you buying this, Jack?' Carl asked, but he saw that Collins was listening intently.

'The device was going to be built and tested. At least that was what this simple man of science suspected from his financial backers, the Coalition. The design was incomplete because of three lost items that control the device used in creating earthquakes. They were known as the Atlantean Keys. Industrial blue diamonds that were so large that none has ever been unearthed to match them. Two of these diamonds were lost with our civilization, while one other was buried in secret ...' Martha looked at the two men closely in hopes of a reaction, 'in Ethiopia.'

Everett suddenly became still in his chair. The story had just taken a more realistic turn toward the area of believability.

'The discoverer of the scrolls knew that he could not allow this device to be constructed. Therefore, he absconded with the map found with the scrolls. A bronze plate imbued with strange properties that held the exact coordinates of where to find the buried Atlantean Key. The plate map was sent to America.'

'The family Keeler,' Jack said.

'Correct, Colonel; the father of Jackson Keeler, to be more precise. Well, after the disappearance of the only means to discover the hiding place of the last Key, the poor professor was murdered and the scrolls disappeared until you uncovered them in your daring raid. However, that did not stop the unscrupulous men of the Coalition. It is told that a German industrialist built the audio-wave weapon anyway. Only instead of using the giant blue diamond, he used a crystal and based the Atlantis design in that. Without looking at the scrolls We know nothing of the details of the engineering. His experiment occurred on a small island in the Java Sea. A place called Krakatoa.'

Jack glanced at Carl and allowed him to state the obvious.

'I take it you really need that blue diamond in order for it to work?'

'Yes. However, Carmichael and I believe they are not waiting for the Key to be unearthed. We were told that the weapon would work on a small scale and still be able to target areas indirectly. We have learned this from Coalition members that have left their society from time to time. The earthquakes in the Middle East, the strikes in North Korea and Russia--coupled with the murder of Jackson, it adds up to Coalition involvement.'

'Wait. You're basing all of this speculation from a story handed down to you? You're just guessing at this weapon's strength and the entire story on just hearsay. That's a stretch,' Everett said.

'Normally I wouldn't expect you to believe it, Captain Everett, but in this case it's just a bit more than mere hearsay. The professor that discovered the maps and the scrolls and studied the designs in detail was named Peter Rothman--Carr's grandfather. The man the Coalition murdered in their pursuit of the weapon.'

Everett remained stock-still and Jack nodded in understanding.

'Okay, so it's a little more than hearsay. Sorry to hear about your grandfather,' Everett said, feeling like an ass.

'What would be the gain if North and South Korea went to war?' Jack asked, to get the conversation moving again.

'The gain is a weaker United States, Colonel, one that would no longer have the moral high ground on any world matter. With the harvest failures in Russia and China and their capitals and major cities leveled by earthquakes by the Atlantean Wave, the governments would not survive unless they were propped up by someone, or some entity.'

'The Coalition,' Jack said.

'Correct.'

'Why the murder raid on Mr. Keeler's office?'

'That is the point we need to get to,' Martha said. 'As you know, the plate map was sent to Jackson Keeler's father. Just before the Coalition traced it to him with the help of the Nazis, he sent it away to a secure location. His son was the first recipient and then it was given to another Ancient for safekeeping.'

'Who was it given to and where is it?' Carl asked.

'Where it's been for the past seventy years, young man: in a safe.'

'Where's the safe?' Jack asked.

'Aboard a warship of the U.S. Navy--the very ship Jackson Keeler's brother was assigned to. Lieutenant Keeler did as instructed by his father and passed it to a secret member of the last family of Atlantis--the captain of his ship. The plate map remains onboard to this day.'

'What warship is still active where the plate could be after all of these years?' Jack asked, perplexed.

'The USS Arizona,' Martha answered.

Jack and Carl looked away from the two old people and stared at each other for a moment. Collins wanted to say something but was speechless. Everett, on the other hand, was not.

'Jesus, Jack.'

Collins and Everett were almost running down the hallway to get the information to Niles in Washington, when they heard a female voice call out from behind them. Jack saw Sarah McIntire running toward them, but the two military men did not slow down. Collins just waved her forward.

'Don't have time, McIntire,' was all he said when she breathlessly caught up to them. 'You'll be given a new assignment as soon as we clear it with Virginia and Niles. You're going to start reading some ancient scrolls.'

'But, Jack, we have a sound theory about the earthquakes. We now know that they were possibly manmade