Текст книги "Atlantis Found"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 37 страниц)

34

A small enclosed truck, painted white with no logo or advertising on its sides, rumbled past the terminal of the Jorge Newbery city airport, located within the federal district of Buenos Aires, and came to a stop under the shade of a maintenance hangar. The airport normally served Argentina's domestic airlines, including those that operated out of Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. None of the flight line workers seemed to take notice of a turquoise executive jet with "NUMA" boldly outlined on its fuselage, as it landed and taxied to the hangar where the truck was waiting.

Three men and a woman came through the passenger door and stepped down to the concrete, which was heated by the noonday sun. Just as they were about to reach the maintenance office door of the hangar, they veered around the corner and approached the truck. When they were thirty feet away, the rear door opened and four United States Marines in battle gear jumped to the ground and formed a perimeter around the vehicle. The sergeant in command then helped Congresswoman Smith, Admiral Sandecker, Hiram Yaeger, and a third man enter the truck before reclosing the door.

The interior of the truck was a comfortably furnished office and command post. One of fifty constructed specifically for American embassies around the world, it was designed to protect and aid embassy personnel to escape their compound in the event of attack, such as the abduction and hostage situation in Iran during November of 1979.

Pitt stepped forward and embraced Loren Smith, who was shown aboard first. "You gorgeous creature. I wasn't expecting you."

Pat O'Connell felt a stab of jealousy at seeing Pitt with his arms around Loren. The congresswoman from Colorado was far more attractive than she had imagined.

"The admiral asked me to come, and there were no pressing votes on the floor, so here I am, even if it is for only a few hours."

"A pity," he said sincerely. "We could have done Buenos Aires."

"I would have liked that," she replied in a husky tone. Then she saw Giordino. "Al, it's good to see you."

He gave her a peck on the cheek. "Always a pleasure to see my government at work."

Sandecker climbed in, followed by Yaeger and the stranger. He merely nodded at Pitt and Giordino. He walked directly to Pat O'Connell. "You don't know how happy I am to shake your hand again, Doctor."

"You don't know how happy I am to be here," she said, kissing him on the forehead, to his obvious embarrassment. "My daughter and I are in your debt for sending Dirk and Al to rescue us."

"I didn't have to send them," he said wryly. "They would have gone on their own."

Yaeger greeted his old friends and Pat, who was introduced to Loren for the first time. Then Sandecker introduced Dr. Timothy Friend. "Tim is an old school pal. He helped me pass algebra in high school. When I went to the Naval Academy, he went to the Colorado School of Mines for a degree in geophysics. Not content with that, he obtained his Ph.D. in astronomy at Stanford, and became one of the country's most respected astronomers and director of the government's Strategic Computing and Simulation Laboratory. Tim is a wizard of innovative visualization techniques."

Friend's bald head was encircled by wisps of gray hair, like a school of silverfish swimming around a coral dome. A short man, he had to tilt his head back slightly to gaze up at the two women, who were considerably taller. Giordino, who stood five feet four, was the only one he could look straight in the eye. A quiet man among friends, he became outgoing and lively when lecturing before students, directors of corporations, or high government officials. It was easy to tell that he was in his element.

"Would you all care to sit down?" said Pitt, motioning to comfortable leather chairs and sofas spaced in a square in the center of the truck's cargo area. Once they were seated, an embassy staff member served coffee and sandwiches from a small galley behind the cab.

"Loren asked to come along," said Sandecker, without preamble. "She and her congressional aides investigated Destiny Enterprises and came up with some intriguing information."

"What I found in the past two days is quite worrisome," Loren began. "Very quietly, under astounding secrecy, the Wolf family and Destiny Enterprises have sold every business, every one of their shares in national and international corporations, every financial holding, all bonds, all stocks, all real estate, including every stick of furniture in their homes. All bank accounts have been cleaned out. Every asset large and small has been liquidated. Billions of dollars were converted into gold bullion that was transported to a secret location-"

"Where it is now stored in the cargo compartments of their fleet of ships," Pitt finished.

"It's as though the entire family of two hundred members has never existed."

"These are not stupid people," Pitt said convincingly. "I find it inconceivable that they are capable of irrational judgment. So is there a comet coming, or isn't there?"

"The very reason I've asked Tim to come along," explained Sandecker.

Friend laid out several small piles of papers on a table between the chairs and sofas. He picked up the first one and leafed through it before consulting his notes. "Before I answer that, let me go back a bit, so you can understand what the Wolfs have been preparing for. I think it best to begin with the comet's impact on earth sometime around seven thousand B.C. Fortunately, this is not an event that occurs on a regular basis. Although Earth is struck daily, it's by small asteroid fragments no larger than a fist that burn up upon entry into the atmosphere. About every century, one approximately a hundred and fifty feet in diameter strikes Earth, such as the one that produced the crater in Window, Arizona, and the other that exploded before impact in Siberia in 1908 that plastered eight hundred square miles. Once every million years, an asteroid half a mile wide strikes with a force equal to detonating every nuclear device on Earth simultaneously. Over two thousand of these big celestial missiles cross our orbit on a regular schedule."

"Not a pretty picture," said Pat.

"Don't lose any sleep over it," Friend said, smiling. "Your odds of dying from an asteroid are twenty thousand to one during your lifetime. We can't, however, discount the logical possibility that it's only a question of time before our luck runs out."

Pitt poured a cup of coffee. "I assume you're talking about a really stupendous bang."

"Indeed," said Friend, nodding vigorously. "Once every one hundred million years, a mammoth asteroid or comet strikes Earth, like the one that smacked into the sea off Yucatan sixty-five million years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This impact came from an object six miles in diameter that left a crater one hundred and twenty miles wide."

Friend paused to scan his paperwork before continuing. "That was smaller than the one that struck nine thousand years ago. Our computer model indicates that it measured nearly ten miles in diameter and plunged into Hudson Bay, Canada. The resulting chain reaction annihilated nearly ninety-nine percent of all plant and animal life on the planet, which is twenty percent more than the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years earlier."

Loren stared at Friend with rapt interest. "A chain reaction comprising what type of disasters?"

"You take an object ten miles in diameter, weighing several billion tons, and then hurl it through a vacuum into a big soft ball at a speed of one hundred and thirty thousand miles an hour, and you're going to have a blast that is gargantuan beyond comprehension. The earth probably rang like a bell, as the shock of impact was transmitted into every corner. Using computer simulation and visualization techniques, which were very complicated and would take me two hours to explain, we determined that the comet came on an angle, punching into the southeastern section of Hudson Bay and blasting out a crater two hundred and thirty miles in diameter, or more than twice the size of the island of Hawaii. The entire mass of water in the bay was vaporized, as the bulk of the now-disintegrating comet plowed into the Earth to a depth of two miles. Astronauts have taken photos that show a perfect sphere where the shoreline circles the remains of the crater."

"How do you know it was a comet and not an asteroid or meteor?" asked Yaeger.

"An asteroid is a small body or minor planet that wanders the inner solar system and revolves around the sun. Some are rich in carbon. Others contain minerals rich in iron, silicon, and other minerals. Meteorites for the most part, are smaller fragments from asteroids that have collided with one another and broken up. The largest ever found weighed seventy tons. A comet is quite different. It's often called a dirty snowball made up of ice, gas, and rocky dust particles. They usually travel in very long oval orbits on the outer edge of the solar system, and often beyond. Because of gravitational interaction from the sun and planets, a few are diverted and orbit around the sun. When they come close to the sun, the comet's surface ice vaporizes and forms a spectacular elongated cone or tail. It's generally thought that they are leftovers from the formation of the planets. By drilling and then analyzing the composition of the microscopic debris found in and around the Hudson Bay crater, geophysicists discovered tiny particles that they identified as part of the comet that slammed into the earth in seven thousand B.C. Tests revealed no traces of the usual minerals and metals associated with asteroids."

"So we have impact," said Sandecker. "Then what happened?"

"A measureless inverted cone of red-hot rock, steam, dust, and debris was hurled up and above the atmosphere, only to plunge in a fiery rain back down on Earth, igniting uncontrollable forest fires around the world. Huge amounts of sulfur, shock-heated nitrogen, and great doses of fluorides were injected into the atmosphere. The ozone layer would have been destroyed, skies blotted out, as winds of hurricane strength whipped across the land and seas. Our simulation suggests this cloud of debris and smoke lasted no less than fourteen months. This alone would have killed off most of Earth's life and collapsed the food chain."

"It sounds too horrible for me to imagine," said Loren quietly.

Friend made a taut smile. "Lamentably, that's only the opening act. Because Hudson Bay opened into the Atlantic Ocean, waves as high as seven or eight miles were formed that burst across the lowlands. Florida would have been totally inundated, along with most of the islands of the world. Much of Europe and Africa saw waves surging hundreds of miles inland from their shorelines. Because most of Australia's ancient inhabitants lived on or near the coasts, the continent would have suffered a ninety-nine-percent death rate within minutes. Southeast Asia would have been buried under water. Vast multitudes of sea life would have been carried far inland and left to die when the giant waves finally receded. The chemical balance of the oceans was altered. What the upheaval didn't kill in the oceans, the silt, mud, and debris would.

"Shuddering from the comet's impact, massive earthquakes far beyond the top end of the Richter scale forever changed the dimensions of the mountains, plains, and deserts. Then volcanoes around the globe, dormant or active, erupted– molten lava in great sheets as high as a mile stormed over whatever land wasn't submerged. If an astronaut had flown to Mars before the cataclysm and returned two years later, he would not have been able to recognize the world, nor would anyone he knew or loved still be alive. He could very well find himself the only man on Earth."

Pitt looked at the astronomer. "You don't paint a very pretty picture."

"The aftermath was ghastly to behold. Once the deluge waters retreated, boulders of every size and shape were dispersed throughout the landscape, where they still rest today and are a great puzzle to geologists, who otherwise can't explain how they came to be there. Vast deposits of mangled trees, along with the bodies of animals and sea life carried far inland, were heaped in huge deposits. These deposits can still be found in the frozen regions of the world, proving that they were hurled there by a giant cataclysm. Huge bodies of water were trapped, and formed lakes. In one known instance, the land strait that separated the Atlantic Ocean from the valley and rivers of the Mediterranean was swept away and the sea was formed. Old glaciers melted, new ones were formed. Tropical forests began to grow in mild climates that were once lashed by frigid winds and freezing temperatures. The Gobi, Sahara, and Mojave regions, then tropical forests, became dry and arid. The continental shelves that once stood above the water were now drowned. The magnetic poles reversed their polarity. Civilizations that existed were buried as deep as five hundred feet beneath the surface. It might have taken as long as twenty years before the world became completely stable again. The few humans who somehow survived were faced with a very grim existence, and it was a miracle any of them endured to become our ancestors."

Pat set down her cup. "The primitive people of the Earth were so badly decimated and fragmented, they kept no record of their activities for thousands of years. Except for the inscriptions by the Amenes, most of which were lost or buried, the only memories of the cataclysm that were passed down came by word of mouth. Only after the early Egyptians, the Sumerians, and the Indus civilization of India reinvented the written language did records and stories of the deluge begin to spread."

"Who knows what cities," said Pitt, "what palaces with their archaeological treasures lie scattered on the deep seafloor or buried under hundreds of feet of silt and rock? Except for the inscriptions left by the Amenes, we have no way of assessing the splendor of the distant past before civilizations began rebuilding themselves."

Friend had remained silent while each member of the group envisioned the nightmare. He let his eyes rove around the sitting area inside the command truck, curiously observing the expressions of abhorrence in their eyes. Only Pitt's eyes seemed to be composed. It was as if he was contemplating something much different, something far off in the distance.

"And thus ends the cataclysm," said Sandecker morosely.

Friend slowly shook his head. "I haven't yet come to the worst part," he said, his earlier smile gone. "Only in the past few years have scientists come to realize the major upheavals Earth has experienced in the past, with and without influence by objects from outer space. We know now that a significant impact by a large comet or asteroid has the capability to cause the earth's crust to shift. Charles Hapgood put forth the theory that because it literally floats on an inner molten core, the crust or shell, which is only twenty to forty miles thick, can and has rotated around the core's axis, causing great extremes in climate and the movement of the continents. It's called earth crust displacement, and its consequences can be catastrophic. At first, Hapgood's theory was laughed at by other Earth scientists. Then Albert Einstein focused his intellect on it and ended up agreeing with Hapgood."

"Sort of like the coating of Teflon around a soccer ball," suggested Yaeger.

"The same principle," Friend acknowledged. "Our computer simulation suggested that the impact exerted enough pressure to move the crust. The result was that some continents, islands, and other landmasses shifted closer to the equator, while others shifted farther away. The movement also caused the North and South Poles to shift from their former positions into warmer climates, unleashing trillions of tons of water that raised the surface of the oceans over almost four hundred feet. To give you an example, before the deluge, a man or woman could have walked from London across the English Channel to France without getting their feet wet.

"In the end, the whole world was rearranged. The North Pole that was in the center of Canada was now far to the north in what is now known as the Arctic Sea. Siberia also shifted north in an incredibly short time span, as evidenced by fruit trees with leaves and woolly mammoths that were found quick-frozen, with vegetation undigested in their stomachs that no longer grew within a thousand miles of that location. Because North America and most of Europe revolved south, the great ice age abruptly ended. Antarctica also shifted south, nearly two thousand miles from the region it had once occupied in the southern sea between the lower portions of South America and Africa."

"Was Earth's orbit affected?" Yaeger asked.

"No, the orbit remained on its present track around the sun. Nor was the Earth's axis altered. The equator remained where it had been since the beginning. The four seasons came and went as always. Only the face of the globe had changed."

"That explains a great deal," said Pitt, "such as how the Amenes could draw a map of Antarctica without its ice mass."

"And their city under the ice that the Germans discovered," said Pat. "Its climate was habitable before the shift."

"What about the Earth's axis of rotation?" queried Giordino. "Would that change?"

Friend shook his head. "Earth's tilt of twenty-three point four degrees would remain constant. The equator would also remain constant. Only the crust above the fluid core would move."

Sandecker said, "If we could get back to the comet for a moment, it's time for you to answer Dirk's question. Were the Amenes and the Wolf family right in predicting a cataclysmic collision with the twin of the comet that struck earth in seven thousand B.C.?"

"May I have another cup of coffee?" Friend asked.

"Certainly," said Loren, pouring from the pot on the center table.

Friend took a few sips and set the cup down. "Now, then, before I answer your question, Admiral, I'd like to describe briefly the new Asteroid and Comet Attack Alert System, which came online just last year. A number of telescope facilities and specially designed instruments have been set up in different areas of the world for the express purpose of discovering asteroids and comets whose orbits approach Earth. Already, astronomers manning the facilities have discovered over forty asteroids that will come unpleasantly close to Earth at some point within its orbit. But detailed calculations reveal that they will all miss by a comfortable margin in the years ahead."

"Have they known about the approach of the second comet," said Loren in dismay, "and suppressed any warning of the threat?"

"No," said Friend. "Though the astronomers agreed to keep news of such possible encounters secret for forty-eight hours, until computer projections could definitely say a collision was imminent. Only when they are certain a collision is imminent would news of the discovery be made public."

"So what you are saying-" said Yaeger.

"Is that there is no emergency."

Pitt looked at Friend. "Come again."

"The event in seven thousand B.C.," explained Friend, "was a million-to-one chance occurrence. The comet that struck Earth, and the comet that arrived a few days later and missed, were not twins. They were separate objects in different orbits that happened to cross paths with Earth at almost the same time. An incredible coincidence, nothing more."

"How soon is the second comet due to return?" Pitt inquired warily.

Friend thought a moment, then said, "Our best guess is that it will fly by no closer than eight hundred thousand miles from us– in another ten thousand years."

35

There came several moments of stunned silence, as perplexity flooded the minds of the people seated around Dr. Friend. Pitt swore softly under his breath. He stared steadily at Friend, as if attempting to read something in the astronomer's eyes, an uncertainty maybe, but there was none.

"The comet-" he began.

"Its name is Baldwin, after the amateur astronomer who rediscovered it," Friend interrupted.

"You say the Murphy comet and the second comet that the Amenes recorded are one and the same?"

Friend nodded vigorously. "No doubt about it. Calculations confirm that its orbit coincided with the comet that caused the cataclysm of seven thousand B.C."

Pitt glanced at Sandecker and Pat, then back to Friend. "There can be no mistake?"

Friend shrugged. "A margin of error of perhaps two hundred years, but certainly no more. The only other large object to enter Earth's atmosphere in recorded history was the one that flattened those eight hundred square miles in Siberia. Only now are astronomers beginning to believe that, instead of a colossal impact, it was actually a near miss."

"Surely the Wolfs must have had access to the same data," said Loren, looking bewildered. "It doesn't make sense for them to liquidate every asset of the family after having spent billions of dollars building a fleet of ships to survive a cataclysm they know is not about to happen."

"We all agree with you," said Sandecker. "It may simply be that the Wolf family is nothing more than a bunch of fruitcakes."

"Not only the family," said Giordino, "but two hundred and seventy-five thousand other people who work for them and look forward to the voyage to nowhere."

"That doesn't sound like an insignificant cult of crazies to me," said Loren.

"Very true," Pitt agreed. "When Al and I infiltrated the supership, we found a dedicated fanaticism with surviving the deluge."

"I reached the same conclusion," added Pat. "The conversations I overheard regarding the coming cataclysm were resolute. There was not the slightest doubt in their minds that disaster would overtake the world and that they had been given the gift of rebuilding a new civilization without the handicaps of the old."

Giordino looked at Pat. "An echo of Noah and his ark."

"But on a far grander scale," Pitt reminded him.

Sandecker shook his head slowly. "I have to admit that this whole dilemma is a mystery to me."

"The Wolf family must have a solid motive." Pitt paused, as everyone stared at him in silence. "There can be no other answer. If they are convinced the civilized world is going to be swept away and buried for all time, they must know something no one else on Earth knows."

"I can assure you, Admiral," said Friend, "that disaster is not soaring in from the solar system. Certainly not in the next few days. Our tracking network sees no large asteroids or comets coming anywhere close to Earth's orbit in the foreseeable future, certainly not before the end of the next century."

"So what else could produce such a disaster? Is there any way of predicting a crust displacement or a polar shift?" Yaeger asked Friend.

"Not without the opportunity to study such a phenomenon at first hand. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunami waves have been witnessed and recorded. But no crust movements or polar shifts have occurred since earth science emerged from the Greeks. So we have no solid data upon which to draw enough conclusions to even attempt predictions."

"Are there conditions on Earth that could cause the crust and poles to shift?" asked Pitt.

"Yes," Friend answered slowly. "There are natural forces that could upset Earth's balance."

"Such as?"

"The most likely scenario would be an ice shift at one of the poles."

"Is that possible?"

"Earth is like a giant child's top or gyroscope rotating on its axis, as it spins every year around the sun. And, like a top, it is not in perfect balance, because the landmasses and poles are not ideally placed for perfect stabilization. So Earth wobbles as it rotates. Now, if one of Earth's poles grows until it becomes oversize, it affects the wobble, like an unbalanced wheel on your car. Then it could cause a crust displacement or polar shift. I know respected scientists who believe this happens on a regular basis."

"How often?"

"Approximately every six to eight thousand years."

"When was the last shift?"

"By analyzing cores pulled from deep beneath the seas, oceanographers have dated the last shift at nine thousand years ago, the approximate age your comet struck Earth."

"So you might say we're due," said Pitt.

"Actually, overdue." Friend made a helpless gesture with his hands. "We can't say with any confidence. All we know is that when the day comes, the shift will be very sudden. There will be no warning."

Loren stared at Friend uneasily. "What will be the cause?"

"The ice formation that accumulates on top of Antarctica is not distributed equally. One side of the continent receives much more than the other. Every year, over fifty billion tons of ice are added to the Ross Ice Shelf alone, a growing mass which increases Earth's wobble. In time, as the weight shifts, so will the poles, causing, as Einstein himself predicted, trillions of tons of water and ice thousands of feet high to race from both poles toward the equator. The North Pole will sweep south and the South Pole will sweep north. All the forces that were unleashed by a comet strike will be repeated. The major difference is that instead of a world population of about a million people nine thousand years ago, now we're looking at a world populated by seven billion people who will be swept to their deaths. New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Los Angeles will be completely inundated, while cities far inland will be leveled to the ground and disappear. Hardly a slab of concrete would be left where millions walked only a few days earlier."

"And if the Ross Ice Shelf were suddenly to detach itself from the rest of the continent and drift out to sea?" Pitt put to Friend, leaving the question hang.

Friend's face turned grim. "It's an event we've already considered. A simulation shows that a drastic movement by the Shelf would cause an imbalance broad enough to trigger a sudden shift of Earth's crust."

"What do you mean by drastic movement?"

"Our simulation demonstrated that should the entire ice shelf break away and drift sixty miles to sea, its relocated mass would increase Earth's wobble enough to trigger a pole shift."

"How long do you estimate it would take to drift sixty miles?"

Friend thought a moment, then said, "Taking into account the sweep of the currents in that part of the Antarctic, I should say no more than thirty-six hours."

"Is there no way to stop the drift?" asked Loren.

"I don't see how" Friend shook his head. "No, I doubt if a thousand nuclear bombs could melt enough of the ice shelf to make a difference. But, look, this is all theoretical. What else could possibly cause the Shelf to go drifting out to sea?"

Pitt looked at Sandecker, who returned the stare. Both men were envisioning the same nightmare, and both read each other's mind. Pitt's stare moved to Loren.

"The Wolfs' nanotech facility that processes minerals from seawater, how far is it from the Ross Ice Shelf?" he asked her.

Loren's eyes widened. "Surely, you don't think-"

"How far?" Pitt gently pressured.

Finally, she drew a deep breath. "The plant sits right on the edge."

Pitt turned his attention to Friend. "Do you have an estimate of the Ross Ice Shelf's size, Doctor?"

"It's immense," said Friend, stretching out his hands for effect. "I can't give you exact dimensions. All I know is that it's the world's largest body of floating ice."

"Give me a few minutes," said Yaeger, as he opened his laptop computer and began typing on the keyboard. They all sat quietly and watched while Yaeger linked up with his computer network at NUMA headquarters. Within a few minutes, he was reading off the data on his monitor. "Estimates of its mass range as high as two hundred and ten thousand square miles, making it approximately the size of Texas. The circumference, not counting the perimeter facing the sea, is nearly fourteen hundred miles. Thickness runs from eleven hundred to twenty-three hundred feet. Ice scientists liken it to a gigantic floating raft" Yaeger looked up at the faces absorbed in his report. "There is, of course, a mountain of additional information on the ice shelf, but those are the essentials."

"How is it possible," asked Pat, "for man to force two hundred and ten thousand square miles of ice to crack and move apart?"

"I haven't the foggiest clue," said Pitt. "But I'll bet the farm the Wolf family has planned and worked for three generations to do just that."

"Good Lord!" muttered Friend. "It's unthinkable."

"The pieces," said Giordino darkly, "are coming together."

"By whatever means, they intend to break the ice shelf away from land and move it out to sea, upsetting Earth's rotation and causing an increase in its wobble. Once the imbalance is in the critical stage, a polar shift and a crust displacement will occur. Then the Wolfs' megaships, after surviving the resulting tidal waves, will be swept out to sea, where they'll drift before cruising around the altered Earth for several rears until the upheaval abates. When they are satisfied that Earth is livable again, they'll come ashore and establish a new order, the Fourth Empire, on the bodies of seven billion people, along with the mass destruction of animal and sea life."

Everyone seated in the truck looked stricken, faces locked in abhorrence and despair. No one could conceive of such a horror. No mind could grasp the total inhumanity of such an act.

"God help us all," Loren murmured softly.

Pitt looked at Sandecker. "You must inform the President."

"I've kept his science board and chief of staff, Joe Flynn, up to date on our investigation, but until now no one has taken the threat seriously."

"They'd better reconsider damned quick," said Giordino.

"We'd better rethink our options," said Pitt, "and come up with a plan of action. With only three days to go, we haven't got much time. Not if we want to stop the Wolfs from launching an apocalypse."