The Hunt for Atlantis Read Free Page A

them from down the passageway. “Professor Wilde! There’s something here!”
    Leaving the bodies, Henry and Laura went deeper into the cavern. As Laura had thought, the passage was clearly artificial, carved out of the rock. Some thirty feet ahead, the lights of the other expedition members illuminated what lay at the end.
    It was a temple—or a tomb.
    Jack was already examining what appeared to be an altar at the center of the rectangular chamber. “This isn’t Tibetan,” he announced as the Wildes entered. “These inscriptions … they’re Glozel, or a variation.”
    “Glozel?” said Henry, surprise and delight mingling in his voice. “I always said that was a strong contender to be the Atlantean language!”
    “It’s a long way from home,” Laura noted.
    She shone her flashlight over the walls. Carved columns ran from floor to ceiling, the style angular, almost aggressive in its clean functionality. The Nazis would be right at home, she thought. Albert Speer could have devised the architecture.
    Between the columns were bas-reliefs, representations of human figures. Henry moved closer to the largest one. While the design of the relief was unfamiliar, as forcefully stylized as the rest of the chamber, he knew instantly whom it was meant to be.
    “Poseidon …” he whispered.
    Laura joined him. “My God, it is Poseidon.” The image of the god differed from the traditional Greek interpretation, but there was no mistaking the trident held in his right hand.
    “Well,” said Jack, “Mr. Frost will certainly be pleased that the expedition was a success …”
    “The hell with Frost,” Laura snorted, “this is our discovery. All he did was help with the funding.”
    “Now, now,” said Henry, jokingly patting her shoulder. “At least thanks to him we didn’t have to choose between breaking into our daughter’s college fund or selling our car!” He looked around. “Sonam, is there anything else here? Any other rooms or passages?”
    “No,” replied Sonam. “It’s a dead end.”
    “Oh,” said Laura, disappointed. “This is all there is? I mean, it’s a hell of a find, but I was sure there’d be more …”
    “There might still be more,” Henry assured her. “There could be other tombs along the ledge. We’ll keep looking.”
    He went back down the passage and returned to the bodies, Laura and Jack following. The corpses were huddled inside antiquated cold-weather gear, empty eye sockets staring back at him from darkened, parchmentlike skin. “I wonder if Krauss is one of them?”
    “He is.” Laura pointed at one of the figures. “There’s our expedition leader.”
    “How do you know?”
    She moved her gloved finger towards the body, almost touching its chest. Henry brought the lantern closer to see a small metal badge attached to the material, an insignia …
    A momentary chill, unconnected to the cold, ran through him. It was the death’s-head of the Schutzstaffel—the SS. It was over half a century since the organization had been destroyed, yet it still had the power to evoke fear.
    “Jürgen Krauss,” he said at last, peering more closely at the dead man. There was a certain poetic irony to the fact that the leader of the Nazi expedition now resembled the skull on his SS insignia. “Never thought I’d meet you. But what brought you here?”
    “Why not find out?” asked Laura. “His pack’s right there; it’s probably got all his notebooks inside. Take a look.”
    “Wait, you want me to do that?”
    “Well, obviously! I’m not touching a dead Nazi!”
    “Jack?”
    Jack shook his head. “These bodies are rather more recent than I’m used to dealing with.”
    “Wuss,” Henry chided with a grin. He reached around the corpse, trying to disturb it as little as possible as he opened its backpack.
    The contents were prosaic at first: a flashlight with bubbles of corrosion from the long-decayed batteries, crumpled pieces of greaseproof paper containing the expedition’s