'He'll get over it.' Everett looked at Mendenhall and then at Ryan. Both stood protectively over Sarah, shielding her from falling debris and sparks from the open lava vents that were springing up all over Atlantis. 'Sarah, what's your best guess as to the rest of the targets on the Coalition wish list?'
Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at Carl. 'The pressure ... of the plates have more ... than ... likely ... played themselves out. This ... this wasn't dictated by the natural ... forces of ... the planet.' Sarah grimaced in pain for a moment as the medic leaned down and injected her with a styrette of morphine. 'The earth knows when to let off steam, so ... there was nothing pushing it forward ... other than the Wave ... but here, the old scar is reacting ... trying to finish what was started thousands of ...' Sarah looked straight at Carl. 'Where's Jack?' She tried to get up.
'He'll be along; you know him,' Everett answered as he eased her back down.
'Jesus!' Ryan said as he looked skyward as a tremendous roar filled the dome.
Everett watched as the entire top third of the dome give way just as the earth lurched under them. A waterfall larger than anything on the face of the earth flowed through the breach, and before the men could react they were up to their knees in water. Twenty of the young marines and six of the SEALs were crushed by iron frames falling from above. Everett reached down and plucked Sarah from the water and, along with her dangling IV bag, started running for the high ground at the back.
Then suddenly a loud wrenching noise sounded and the city leaped from the subterranean caves that supported it. Everett fell as the city tilted thirty degrees and the last of the buildings around them started to tumble.
'Start looking for anything that floats!' he ordered the remaining fifty marines. The survival instinct kicked in as Everett ran for the wall of ancient lava and started to climb to higher ground.
'Here!' Tomlinson shouted.
As the six mercenaries stopped their search and started over to where Tomlinson stood, the broken chamber erupted in automatic gunfire. Four of the Coalition mercenaries went down with bullet holes stitching their backs.
Jack Collins crouched in the doorway but had to move when another marble slab and its supporting beams crashed down right next to him.
Tomlinson was on the ground, shaking, near the hole in the floor that Jack and the others had come through less than an hour before.
'William Tomlinson?'
He couldn't believe that someone was calling him by name. He looked at the man who had wielded his knife so well in his service and gestured with his hand for him to get out there and kill whoever it was.
'Leave me alone! It's over!' he called out.
'No ... not yet,' Collins answered back in a monotone as he slowly crawled to a new position. He checked his MP-5 and decided that he didn't want it. He laid it down and pulled his Beretta from its holster. Then he pulled his body armor off and silently set it down.
'Who are ... you?' Thomlinson asked, to get a bearing on where the man was hiding in the shadowy chamber.
'I'm the guy sent here to kill you,' Jack said. Then he saw what he wanted. A thin shadow was playing across the marbled wall about fifty feet away. He looked around and finally realized that it was one of the remaining mercs who was squatting behind the stub of a broken pillar, so he moved slowly around a crushed bust of a long- dead patron of Atlantis to get into a better position. Another chunk of stone fell and narrowly missed his lowered body, but still he crept forward.
'You are just one, we are--'
A gunshot sounded with a flash of light in the chamber and Tomlinson let out a yelp.
'Now just two,' Jack said as he watched the second-to-last mercenary slide over onto his side with a bullet hole in the side of his head, which had come from Jack ricocheting a round off the pillar to hit his target.
'Who are you?' Tomlinson shouted, gesturing at the same time for his last man to find out where their assailant was.
'You ordered my people killed at our warehouse in New York, and now I'm here to kill you.'
Tomlinson rolled over onto his back. Now he realized that this was the man of whom Dahlia had sent the video when he and three others had arrived at the warehouse and again at the law offices.
Tomlinson saw his man crouch deep into shadow, but he wasn't going to wait for the outcome of their confrontation because he had the distinct feeling that the man from the Group in the desert would undoubtedly win. He crawled silently toward the hole in the floor, pushing aside the skeletal remains of the Atlantean he had been looking at earlier, and then slid inside and disappeared.
Jack was moving slowly, keeping his dark profile as low as he could. The noise problem was moot due to the crumbling of the city around them and the constant eruptions of the earth.
Before Jack knew what was happening, water flooded the broken chamber, inundating him and pushing him headlong into a smashed marble table. Then, before he could recover, a dark shape leaped from the shadows and fell upon him. Just before the man could plunge his knife into him, Collins threw up his knee and arrested the large man's momentum, giving himself time to slide from the tabletop. He came up but realized that he didn't have his gun any longer. The killer had gotten to his feet as water splashed high onto his legs as he advanced toward Jack. The man lunged, but Collins dipped and let his momentum carry him back until water completely covered him. He turned and tried to swim around the debris-strewn floor of the chamber.
The mercenary started forward. He could barely see his target as he came closer to the one remaining light stand in the chamber.
Collins knew that he was closing in on the subterranean entryway because he felt the rush of water increasing as it, too, fought to escape. As he pulled his way along, knowing that any second might be his last, his hand brushed up against a skeletal arm. Unknown to Jack, this was the body of the ancient Androlicus, the man who had let the once-powerful civilization of Atlantis slide away into myth and legend; he lay where he had fallen many thousands of years before. Clutched in his hand was the knife he had wished to use upon himself, but the cruel gods of his people had not allowed him that one last dignity. Jack snatched the up bronze weapon and rolled onto his back just as the shadow of the mercenary fell upon his submerged form.
As the man raised his hand to strike, Collins thrust his own hand out of the water and caught the large man in the crotch. He doubled over, and then Jack pulled the knife free and struck again, this time catching the man in the throat.
Collins surfaced, spiting salt water from his mouth, and found the man just staring at him. Then slowly he fell face-first into the water, dead. Collins kicked at the body and then stood. The sea had risen five feet in the two minutes he had been under the water. He looked around, knowing that his main target had gone through the tunnel entrance. The water was a swirling vortex where it filled the hole in the floor. As he watched, the suction it created tugged at his body, and that was when he let out a primal scream of rage, knowing that he could not pursue William Tomlinson.
As Jack turned and angrily made his way out of the chamber, the remainder of the Empirium started coming down around him. He ducked and ran as fast as the rough waters allowed, and then finally he dived through the broken bronze-covered doorway and into the nightmare of Atlantis.
Tomlinson was pushed down the stairs with the torrent of water. He had dislocated his left shoulder as he landed forty feet down on the winding stone staircase. The complete and utter darkness was terrifying to him; he had never before known the want of light or the touch of filth. He buried his hand in his shirt to support the shoulder and took two tentative steps down, where he saw a torrent of water exploding from its mix with lava. Tomlinson screamed and made his way back up the steps. He knew he would have to fight his way past the opening and that he would more than likely drown. He thought that anything was better than dying like this.
The water was fast rising to the crumbled tops of the marble and stone buildings. The earth cracked open and pushed up ancient material that had been buried underneath the domed section of the city when Atlantis had exploded long ago. A giant bronze statue of Venus rose from a gorge, spitting flame and lava. The magnificent moss- and mold-covered beauty rose until her original base was pushed through the surface by molten rock, and then like a tired old woman she slowly rolled onto her face and sank beneath the water, creating a tidal surge that rushed up to the lone lava wall.
