"For the same reasons they tried to kill you in Telluride, and Al and Rudi on St. Paul Island in the Indian Ocean."

"I'm remiss for not asking about them earlier," said Pitt regretfully. "How did they make out? Did they find a chamber with the artifacts?"

"They did," Sandecker replied. "But then they narrowly missed death when their plane was destroyed before they could take off and return to Cape Town. As near as we can figure, a cargo ship sent off a helicopter with six armed men to kill any island intruders and lay their hands on whatever artifacts the pa.s.sengers from the Madras left after their visit in 1779. Al and Rudi killed them all, as well as shooting down the helicopter. Rudi took a bullet that badly fractured his tibia. He's stable and will mend, but he'll be wearing a cast for a long while."

"Are they still on the island?"

"Just Al. Rudi was picked up about an hour ago by helicopter from a pa.s.sing British missile frigate returning to Southampton from Australia. He'll soon be on his way to Cape Town for an operation in a South African hospital."

"Six killers and a helicopter," Pitt said with admiration. "I can't wait to hear their story."

"Quite astounding, when you consider they were unarmed during the initial stage of the battle."

"The Fourth Empire's intelligence network is nothing short of amazing," said Pitt. "Before the U-boat begin blasting at the Polar Storm, I had a brief chat with the captain. When I gave him my name, he asked how I came to be in the Antarctic after Colorado. Beware, Admiral, it pains me to say it, but I think we may have an informer in or near your NUMA office."

"I'll look into it," said Sandecker, the thought stirring him to anger. "In the meantime, I'm sending Dr. O'Connell to St. Paul Island for an on-site study of the chamber and artifacts found by Al and Rudi. I'm arranging transportation for you to meet her and oversee the removal and transportation of the artifacts back to the States."

"What about the French? Don't they own the island?"

"What they don't know won't hurt them."

"When do I get back to civilization again?"

"You'll be in your own bed by the end of the week. Is there anything else on your mind?"

"Have Pat and Hiram had any luck in deciphering the inscriptions?"

"They made a breakthrough with the numbering system. According to the computer's a.n.a.lysis of the star positions on the chamber's ceiling, the inscriptions are nine thousand years old."

Pitt wasn't sure he had heard correctly. "Did you say nine thousand?"

"Hiram dated the construction of the chamber on or about 7100 B.C."

Pitt was stunned. "Are you saying that an advanced civilization was established four thousand years before the Sumerians or Egyptians?"

"I haven't sat through a course in ancient history since Annapolis," said Sandecker, "but as I recall, I was taught the same lesson."

"Archaeologists won't be overjoyed to rewrite the book on prehistoric civilizations."

"Yaeger and Dr. O'Connell have also made headway in deciphering the alphabetic inscriptions. It's beginning to develop as some kind of record describing an early worldwide catastrophe."

"An unknown ancient civilization wiped out by a great catastrophe. If I didn't know better, Admiral, I'd say you were talking about Atlantis."

Sandecker didn't immediately reply. Pitt swore that he could almost hear the wheels turning inside the admiral's head eight thousand miles away. Finally, Sandecker spoke slowly: "Atlantis." He repeated the name as if it were holy. "Strange as it sounds, you may be closer to the mark than you think."

PART THREE

TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY ARK

22

APRIL 4, 2001

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

PREMIER OPERA HOUSES THROUGHOUT the world are judged by singers and musicians for their acoustics, the quality of sound that carries from the stage to the box seats and then to the gallery far up in the stratosphere. To the opera lovers who buy the tickets, they are ranked and admired more for their elegance and flamboyance. Some are noted for their baroque-ness, others for pompousness, a few for trappings and festoons. But none can hold a candle to the unmatched grandiloquence of the Teatro Colon on the Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires.

Construction began in 1890, and no expense was spared. Completed when Puccini reigned supreme in 1908, the Teatro Colon opera house stands sidewalk to sidewalk on one entire block of the city. A spellbinding blend of French art deco, Italian Renaissance, and Greek cla.s.sic, its stage has felt the feet of Pavlova and Nijinsky. Toscanini conducted from its podium, and every major singer from Caruso to Callas has performed there.

The horseshoe interior is decorated on a grand scale that boggles the eye. Incredibly intricate bra.s.s molding on the upper railings, sweeping tiers with velveted chairs and gold brocaded curtains, spanned by ceilings filled with masterworks of art. On dazzling opening nights, the society elite of Argentina sweep through the foyer with its Italian marble and beautiful stained-gla.s.s dome up the magnificent stairways through the glitter to their luxuriously appointed seats.

Every seat in the house was occupied sixty seconds before the overture to the opera The Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, except for the preeminent box on the right side of the stage. That was still empty. Poppea had been the Roman emperor Nero's mistress during the glory of Rome, yet the singers wore costumes from the seventeenth century, and to rub salt in the wounds, all the male parts were sung by women. To some opera lovers, it is a genuine masterpiece; to others it is a four-hour drone.

A few seconds before the houselights dimmed, a party of one man and four women flowed un.o.btrusively into the remaining empty box and sat in the maroon velvet chairs. Unseen outside the curtains, two bodyguards stood alert and fashionably dressed in tuxedos. Every eye in the opera house, every pair of binoculars, every pair of opera gla.s.ses automatically turned and focused on the people entering the box.

The women were dazzlingly beautiful, not simply pretty or exotic, but shimmering beauties in the cla.s.sical sense. Their matching flaxen blond hair was coiffed in long ringlets below their bare shoulders, with tightly woven braids running across a center part on top. They sat regally, delicate hands demurely laid on their laps, staring down at the orchestra pit through uniform blue-gray eyes that gleamed with the intensity of moonlight on a raven's wing. The facial features were enhanced with high cheekbones and a tanned complexion that might have come from skiing in the Andes or sunbathing on a yacht anch.o.r.ed off Bahia Blanca. Any one of them could have easily pa.s.sed for twenty-five, although they were all thirty-five. It took no imagination to believe they were sisters; in fact, they were four of a brood of s.e.xtuplets. Enough of their body proportions could be discerned through their dresses to show that they were trim and fit from arduous exercise.

Their long, shimmering silk gowns with dyed fox trim were identical except for color. Sitting in a semicircle in the box, they radiated like yellow, blue, green, and red sapphires. They were bejeweled in a glittering display of comparable diamond chokers, earrings, and bracelets. Strikingly sensuous and sultry, they had an ethereal, untouchable G.o.ddess quality about them. It seemed unthinkable, but they were all married and each had given birth to five children. The women were attending the opening night of the opera season as a family affair, graciously nodding and smiling to the man who sat in their midst. Ramrod-straight, the male centerpiece possessed the same hair and eye color as his sisters, but there any further resemblance ended. He was as handsome as his sisters were stunning, but ruggedly so, with thin waist and hips accented by lumberjack shoulders and a weight lifter's arm and leg muscles. His face was square-cut, sporting a chin indented with a dimplelike cleft, an arrow-straight nose, and a head jungled with thick blond hair through which women dreamed of running their fingers. He was tall-at six feet six inches, he towered over his five-foot-ten-inch sisters.

When he turned and spoke to his siblings, he smiled, flashing brilliantly white teeth framed by a friendly mouth that found it impossible to turn down in a grimace. The eyes, though, showed no warmth. They stared as if they belonged to a panther gazing over the gra.s.slands in search of prey.

Karl Wolf was a very wealthy and powerful man. The chief executive officer of a vast family-owned financial empire that stretched from China through India and across Europe over the Atlantic, and from Canada and the United States into Mexico and South America, he was stupendously rich. His personal wealth was estimated at well over a hundred billion dollars. His vast conglomerate, engaged in a mult.i.tude of scientific and high-technology programs, was known throughout the business world as Destiny Enterprises Limited. Unlike his siblings, Karl was unmarried.

Wolf and others of his family easily could have slipped into the new Argentine celebrity society. He was sophisticated, confident, and prosperous, and yet he and the other members of his family lived frugally, considering their vast fortune. But the Wolf family dynasty, consisting of, incredibly, over two hundred members, was seldom seen at fashionable restaurants or high-society functions. The Wolf women almost never made their presence known in the exclusive stores and boutiques around Buenos Aires. Except for Karl, who made a show of openness, the family remained low-profile and reclusive, and was a great mystery to Argentineans. There were no friendships with outsiders. No one, not even celebrities and high government officials, had ever cracked the Wolf family sh.e.l.l. The men who married the women in the family seemed to have come from nowhere and had no history. Strangely, they all took up the family name. Everyone, from the newest born to the most recently wed, carried the name of Wolf, whether male or female. They were a fraternal elite.

When Karl and his four sisters showed up on opening nights at the opera, it was a major gossip event. The overture ended and the curtains pulled open and the audience reluctantly turned their attention from the stunning and resplendent brother and sisters sitting in the premier box and gazed at the singers on the stage.

Maria Wolf, the sister sitting immediately to Karl's left, leaned over and whispered, "Why must you subject us to this terrible ordeal?"

Wolf turned to Maria and smiled. "Because, dear sister, if we didn't display the family on different occasions, the government and the public might begin to think of us as a gigantic conspiracy wrapped in an enigma. It's best to make an appearance occasionally to let them know we're not extraterrestrial aliens bent on secretly controlling the country."

"We should have waited until Heidi returned from Antarctica."

"I agree," whispered Geli, the sister on Wolf's right. "She's the only one who would have enjoyed this awful bore."

Wolf patted Geli's hand. "I'll make it up to her when La Traviata opens next week."

They ignored the stares of the audience, who were torn between observing the elusive Wolf family and the singing and acting on stage. The curtain for Act III had just risen when one of the bodyguards entered from the rear hall and whispered in Wolf's ear. He stiffened in his chair, the smile vanished, and his facial expression turned grave. He leaned over and spoke softly. "My dear sisters, an emergency has come up. I must go. You stay. I've reserved a private room at the Plaza Grill for a little after-show dinner. You go ahead, and I'll catch up later."

All four women turned from the opera and looked at him with controlled trepidation. "Can you tell us what it is?" asked Geli.

"We'd like to know," said Maria.