The Cain Conspiracy (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 8), page 30
Ben smiled. Julie hugged him.
“What happened?” Ben asked. “Where are we?”
“Well, we all got out and waited. We never saw you come up completely, but Reggie ducked back in and found your arms.”
“You might… have a bit of a bruise,” Reggie said. “You were a bit slippery.”
Julie saw Ben rubbing the area of his wrist where Reggie had clamped his prosthetic arm around it.
“And to answer your second question,” Julie continued. “I think we found out where those ventilation shafts end up.”
Julie looked around once again at the space they’d ended up in. The shafts that hadn’t been filled in over the course of centuries sent pinpricks of light down to the center of the chamber. The space was shaped like the upper half of a diamond, a six-sided pyramid. The room had been carved into the interior of the mountain’s peak, and each of the shafts that were visible seemed to end on a different face of the mountain.
It was miraculous — they’d found a hidden room inside the mountain, one that had been filled completely with water, thanks to a natural spring that trickled water down one wall.
“Whoa,” Ben said. “This is… something else.”
“It’s the hidden chamber,” Julie said. “The Hall of Records.”
“It was totally filled in with water,” Reggie said. “When Sturdivant bombed the exits, it caused instability up here and something broke. The water fell to the lower levels.”
Ben slowly sat up. “Why was it filled with water?” Ben asked.
“Come here,” Julie said. She helped him stand, then guided him a few feet to his right. “Look around.”
She followed his gaze, watching his expression as he realized where they were. While the overall shape of the room was that of a diamond, the floor they were standing on was circular. About fifteen feet in diameter, they were standing on a circular crop of stone. Outside of that circular rock, a ring of six inch-deep water encircled them, followed by two more rings of stone and water.
Scattered amongst the concentric circles, on the stone rings, were etchings and carved writings. They looked familiar, and Julie knew Ben recognized the writing as the same that they had discovered in the temples in the valley just outside this mountain.
“It’s… Atlantis,” Ben said softly. “Their city was built in concentric circles, allowing them protection from invaders.”
“Exactly,” Julie said. “It’s a replica of their original world. Their entire history is probably here, written in stone.”
“Something that water wouldn’t destroy.”
“Something no one would find, unless they knew exactly where to look.”
“Their goal was to reseed the world with their knowledge. After the flood, they spread out to every corner of the globe and taught civilization. They gave us farming, art, and laws.”
“And they recorded it all here. In their Hall of Records.”
“Julie — guys — this is incredible. This is one of the biggest finds of the century… of all time.”
Julie smiled. “Well, it was your idea.”
Ben shrugged. “I just really didn’t want to die.”
“And neither did they. It’s why they built this place. They were fugitives from their homeland, but they refused to go quietly. They helped kickstart the world once again, knowing that if they were ever needed again it would be because of a major catastrophe.”
Ben looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought.
“What’s up?” Julie asked.
“It’s just… why put your secret Hall of Records above your city, then fill it with water? Doesn’t it seem a bit… masochistic?”
Reggie walked over. “Or symbolic.”
“How so?”
“Think about it — these guys were chased from their homeland by a cataclysmic wall of water, which completely drowned their original city. We saw that in Santorini. They moved to Egypt, but there was always unrest and uneasiness there, and they were eventually chased from there, too.
“Then they finally found a home here, in the Chachapoyas Valley of Peru. The ‘light-skinned natives,’ the Spanish called them. The Spanish were always on the search for gold and silver, and treasures, and essentially destroyed the Inca for it.”
“But this was the treasure the whole time,” Ben said. “The record of their life. What they used as their library, to spread their culture again. They reached the Egyptians, the Vikings, the Native Americans, and the Inca, Aztecs, and Maya here.”
“So it’s symbolic that the only time they’d need to access this vault of information is if and when something cataclysmic happened. Or, in other words, they set this up as the cataclysm.”
“They would flood their home to access the Hall of Records once again,” Ben finished.
“And then move somewhere else, and start over.”
“Exactly. They were always oppressed. The misunderstood ‘daughters of Cain’ from scripture, the race that led to giants, the first murders, and eventually the flood itself. They were said to be descended from Cain, bred with fallen angels. Certainly not a favored people in God’s eyes.”
“Right,” Julie said. “I remember that. They strayed from God’s commands and sought other knowledge, much like Eve in the Garden of Eden. That eventually led to their understanding of mathematics and engineering, which gave them a leg up on the rest of civilization.”
It all made sense to her. The Daughters of Cain, as they were sometimes referred to, were seen as the original group of rebels that included the nephilim, the race of giants from which the storied Goliath descended. Their cousins were thought to be the titans that wrestled with the Greek gods of antiquity, the race of half-god, half-human giants that ruled the antediluvian world.
The Atlanteans.
“But… how does it all work?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Reggie said. “And the mechanism would be relatively simple for them. They were engineering geniuses, remember? They could have a door that would open only if there was enough pressure on the other side of it.”
“Like water pressure,” Julie said.
“Exactly. Have just enough pressure up here from the thousands of tons of water, and all they’d need to do is redirect that drainage tunnel — the water from it, anyway — up here for a minute or two, and it would push the whole thing over. The scales would tip, and the door would open, releasing the rest of the water.
“It would flood their homes, but it would reveal their Hall of Records.”
“And if they didn’t survive for whatever reason, their Hall of Records would still be here, literally written in stone.”
Reggie nodded.
“That’s all great and stuff,” Ben said. “But how the hell do we get out of here?”
“That’s the best part,” Reggie said, pointing. Julie followed his finger and saw that one of the rectangular ventilation shafts had what looked like a ladder etched into the wall beneath it. “I think all that water would have no trouble opening a second door — one that allows people into the Hall of Records.”
“Or, in our case,” Mrs. E said, joining them. “Letting us out.”
Epilogue
Ben
“Ben, how you feeling?”
Ben opened his eyes. The bright lights from the airplane’s window seared into his brain. He put a hand up, squinting. “I was fine, before you woke me up.”
Reggie laughed. “Just making sure you were comfortable, buddy. We’re about halfway home.”
He nodded. The last few hours had been a blur. First a conference call with Archibald Quinones, who had asked about a fellow priest named Edmund Canisius. They hadn’t seen him, but Victoria knew who he was. She had filled them in on her harrowing experience, as well as how the man’s life had ended.
She appeared strong, but Ben knew how she was feeling — he had been close to Julie throughout her own experience with Garza’s drug.
That drug had been the second topic of conversation during their call with Quinones. They had brought in Mr. E, who was relieved to hear from them all again, but they had spent the next hour discussing how they might be able to get their hands on a sample of the drug. Quinones told them that a man who claimed to be a private in Ravenshadow’s army had escaped after the first explosion had taken out the entrance tunnel.
The private, a man with the unfortunate name of Jerrick Derrick, had escaped with a few other Ravenshadow men, all of whom had disappeared into the Peruvian cities and locales, likely opting to hide rather than work to reform the organization they had been a part of.
Derrick had turned himself in to the local police, where he had been quickly snatched up by higher level authorities, and then shifted around an endless network of bureaucracies in the span of twenty-four hours before Mr. E and Quinones had been able to work a deal that allowed them access.
Quinones thought it might be possible to recreate the drug based on Derrick’s testimony and experience with Garza’s technology, but it was still uncertain.
If they succeeded, Mr. E would work with the US government to provide funding on its further research, with the firm understanding that any progress made would lead to more support and help of the CSO and their work.
Ben rubbed his eyes and looked over at his team. They had left the Peruvian woman and men behind, to try to restart their lives in a world where their entire village and families had been taken from them. Mrs. E, Julie, and Reggie were in the plane now, all stretched out in various stages of relaxation. Victoria seemed tense, but she too was enjoying Beale’s generosity, in the form of a glass of white wine she was carefully slinging between her fingers.
They were on the same plane that Reggie and Ben had flown here — the one Beale had ‘acquired’ from Sturdivant when they’d left the ranks of the Green Berets to become Sturdivant’s private workforce. Ben knew there would be no trouble ‘re-acquiring’ the plane, as he had a feeling Sturdivant wouldn’t want much to do with it at this point.
Orland Group, the company Quinones had said was dealing with Garza, had quickly disappeared as well, sinking back into the realm of private contracts and mysterious shell corporations. Whoever Garza had been working with there was an enigma, someone he assumed had more interest in making money than in ensuring everyone was okay. He didn’t care to look into it, either — the CSO group had more important things to think about now.
“We need to start writing up a press plan,” Reggie said, pulling Ben’s attention back to him.
“A what?”
“A press plan. It’s something Joshua did after each of our little engagements. Mr. E and I took over after he died, but I think you should take point on this one.”
They hadn’t fully briefed Quinones or Mr. E on the conference call, as Ben wanted to rest and recover from their trip, and he wanted to make sure Victoria and Julie were back to their normal selves. Each of them had experienced something no one else had, not to the same extent. Whether it was therapy, time, or both, he wanted to be sure they had the help they needed.
Victoria would want to process her father’s death alone, most likely, and Ben wanted to give her that opportunity. But he also saw her as a member of their team now. She’d been with them on two back-to-back CSO missions, and she’d proven essential to the team each time. Her vast knowledge of history, symbology, and religion fit right in with what the team needed.
And it also fit in with where the team was headed.
Ben looked back at Julie and Mrs. E, then forward at Victoria. Finally, he turned back to Reggie.
“You’re my best friend,” he began.
“You just saying that because I’m a hell of a kisser?”
“You kiss me again and I punch that kisser,” Ben shot back.
Reggie laughed. “Fine. No more saving your life. I save your life like, what — three times now? And how do you repay me? By not wanting to kiss me back and getting my arm chopped off.”
“You know I’m still sensitive about that.”
“It’s okay, you can kiss me any time, bud.”
“About the arm, Reggie.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, you’re my best friend. So I know you understand me more than most people.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, you know I’m not one to stick my neck out in public, long for attention, that sort of thing.”
“Go on…”
“Well, this discovery — the real Hall of Records. The one that we’ve been searching for since Santorini. It’s big, Reggie. Possibly the biggest thing anyone’s ever found.”
“Up there with the Rosetta Stone, King Tut’s Tomb, all that. Yeah, I agree.”
“Well, I’m not just saying this because I don’t like attention. But…”
“Ben, no.”
“Hear me out.”
“Ben, no.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“I know exactly what you’re going to say. You’re going to say you don’t want to come forward with this. You want to keep it a secret.”
Ben sniffed. “Yeah, that’s basically it. This thing we found, man. It’s going to completely change the world. Everything anyone’s been taught, everything anyone believes. It’s wrong. Dead-wrong. It proves that humans had reached advanced civilizations thousands of years before we even thought we could read and write.”
“But Ben, we have to.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” he said. “We’re not professional archeologists. We’re not obligated to any nation or authority to turn over what we find during an expedition that we accidentally found something on. And hell, we didn’t take anything.”
“But we could leverage this. We could turn it into funding for the CSO, we could use it to advance our cause, we could —”
“That’s precisely why I don’t want to reveal it. It’s best kept a secret, Reggie. Think about it. We turn it into funding, we suddenly become liable for it, and we also end up working for someone else. Our whole mission was to do the things no one else could, should, or would do. This falls into that category — we need to keep it under wraps.
“We can write about it, maybe reveal pieces of it over time. But I’m going to ask you guys to vote when we get back. To vote on whether or not we reveal it to the world, right now, all of it — or to sit on it a bit, make sure we’re doing the right thing, maybe even use it to launch the next phase of the CSO.”
“The next phase?”
Ben took a deep breath. “Yeah. We’ve been reacting to our world so far. Everything, up to the point we all met, was in reaction to something happening. I want to be proactive. I want to go out and find stuff — not let it find us.”
Reggie leaned back, then nodded. “That sounds… nice. Not worrying about being kidnapped in the middle of Alaska, or getting chased by anacondas in the Amazon.”
“Well, I can’t promise none of that will happen, but at least we’ll be the ones getting ourselves into it, not the other way around.”
Reggie paused for a long moment, looked out the window, then back at Ben. “Okay, man. I’m your best friend, like you said. You already know I’ll do anything for you, and you know it’s true. You think holding off on releasing details of this to the world is the right call, I’m in.”
Ben nodded. “Thanks.”
“But if we don’t get ourselves into a situation that lets me use this again —” he held up his prosthetic arm — “I quit.”
Ben laughed. “You know, I have just the idea.”
Need something else to read? Download more Ben and Julie by visiting https://www.nickthacker.com/free-books
Afterword
If you liked this book (or even if you hated it…) write a review or rate it. You might not think it makes a difference, but it does.
Besides actual currency (money), the currency of today’s writing world is reviews. Reviews, good or bad, tell other people that an author is worth reading.
As an “indie” author, I need all the help I can get. I’m hoping that since you made it this far into my book, you have some sort of opinion on it.
Would you mind sharing that opinion? It only takes a second.
Nick Thacker
Also by Nick Thacker
Mason Dixon Thrillers
Mark for Blood (Book 1)
Death Mark (Book 2)
Mark My Words (Book 3)
Harvey Bennett Mysteries
The Enigma Strain (Book 1)
The Amazon Code (Book 2)
The Ice Chasm (Book 3)
The Jefferson Legacy (Book 4)
The Paradise Key (Book 5)
The Aryan Agenda (Book 6)
The Book of Bones (Book 7)
The Cain Conspiracy (Book 8)
Harvey Bennett Mysteries - Books 1-3
Harvey Bennett Mysteries - Books 4-6
Jo Bennett Mysteries
Temple of the Snake (written with David Berens)
Tomb of the Queen (written with Kristi Belcamino)
Harvey Bennett Prequels
The Icarus Effect (written with MP MacDougall)
The Severed Pines (written with Jim Heskett)
The Lethal Bones (written with Jim Heskett)
Gareth Red Thrillers
Seeing Red
Chasing Red (written with Kevin Ikenberry)
The Lucid
The Lucid: Episode One (written with Kevin Tumlinson)
The Lucid: Episode Two (written with Kevin Tumlinson)
The Lucid: Episode Three (written with Kevin Tumlinson
Standalone Thrillers
The Atlantis Stone
The Depths
Relics: A Post-Apocalyptic Technothriller
Killer Thrillers (3-Book Box Set)
Short Stories
I, Sergeant
Instinct
The Gray Picture of Dorian
