The Atlantis Plague(117)
Now speed was the key, putting some distance between them and the sound, getting to a safe, defensible position.
Up ahead, the tunnel ended in a large burial room with a stone table that had been carved out of the rock.
David slowed his pace, his mind wondering what to do. Turn back?
He came to a stop, and an eerie feeling ran up his back. He moved to turn, but a voice called out, “Don’t move.”
CHAPTER 86
St. Paul’s Catacombs
Rabat, Malta
David held his hands up. He could feel Kate’s eyes on him, watching his lead, wondering if he would turn and fire on the man behind him. David wanted to, but he didn’t know who or how many were back there.
Another voice broke the silence, a voice David knew.
“Lower your weapons. They’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
David and Kate turned slowly, focusing on the young man who stepped from the shadows of the tunnel.
“Milo,” Kate whispered.
“Hello, Dr. Kate.” Milo nodded at David. “Mr. David.”
David thought there was something distinctly different about this young man he had first met at the monastery in Tibet. A maturity, a poise.
“Come with me,” Milo said. He turned and led the way through the tunnel, two heavily armed soldiers—Knights of Malta, David assumed—flanking him.
The tunnel opened onto a large square stone room that was much larger than the other burial chambers. A half dozen guards stood around the room, guns at the ready.
At the end of the chamber, a stone box lay on a slightly raised altar.
Kate rushed to it and unslung the backpack. She turned back to the soldiers. “Can you lift the top off?”
Milo nodded to them, and four guards released their guns and moved to the box.
“Milo, how did you get down here?” David asked.
“It is a long story, Mr. David, but let’s just say… that I wouldn’t want to do it again.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
At the altar, Kate was leaning over into the stone ark, working on something. David walked up beside her and peered into the box. Through the faint light, he could just make out the bones of a single person.
Beside him, Kate manipulated a device David didn’t recognize, something from the pack. He knew she was collecting a genetic sample, but he had no idea how. Focus on what you know.
He turned to the men spread out around the altar in the room. Milo stood silently in the center of them. There was something very different about him.
David glanced back at Kate. “You have what you need?”
She nodded.
“Milo,” David said, “we need to get back to the surface, to our computer, where we can process the sample.” He paused. “We think there could be a killer down here.”
“We will be fine here, Mr. David.” Milo nodded toward the soldiers. “They have been guarding this place for a very long time. And they can see you safely out of the catacombs.”
Several soldiers broke from the pack and stood at the opening to the tunnel that led to the surface. David and Kate fell in behind them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dorian caught a glimpse of a helicopter on the ground. An Immari helicopter.
He pointed at it. “There! They have to be close by.”
As the first rays of sunlight broke across the tunnel, David realized that he no longer heard the guards’ footsteps behind them. He glanced back, but the guards were gone. He shook his head. Add it to the list of mysteries, he thought.
At the surface, Kate raced to the computer, set down her backpack on the table and began working quickly.
David checked the magazine in the rifle, a nervous habit, and paced the room, never taking his eyes off the entrance.
“What happens now?” he called over his shoulder to Kate
“I need to upload the new dataset to Continuity and hope they find a therapy from it.”
“How long?”.
She rubbed her forehead and stared at the screen. “I don’t know—”
“Why not?”
She glared up at him. “Well my brain is pretty much fried at this point, and Janus did the last round—he’s much better at this than I am.”
He took a second to tear his eyes away from the tunnel. “Okay, okay. I just think… that expediency is the order of the day.”
A chirping sound broke the tension.
“What’s that?”
Kate took the sat phone from her pocket. “There’s a voicemail.”
Kate set the phone on the table and resumed typing and scanning the computer screen. “You listen to it if you want. I hear expediency is the order of the day, and I have work to do.”
David glanced at the phone, then swiveled back around to the tunnel and raised his weapon. He made a mental note not to pressure Kate when she was working, and not to use ridiculous phrases that might come back to haunt him.