A Novel by
Andy McDermott
Copyright © 2007 by Andy McDermott
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Book Details
Price
|
2.00 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 456 p |
File Size
|
1,658 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
ISBN
| - |
Copyright©
| - |
Following in the tradition of Clive Cussler and Matthew Reilly, Andy
McDermott takes us a roller-coaster ride in search of the legendary
Atlantis. Archaeologist Nina Wilde believes she has found the location of
the lost city of Atlantis and now she wants the opportunity to prove her
theory. But someone else wants her dead…
With the help of ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase and beautiful heiress
Kari Frost, Nina faces a breakneck race against time around the world,
pursued at every step by agents of the mysterious—and murderous—
Brotherhood of Selasphoros. From the jungles of Brazil to the mountains
of Tibet, from the streets of Manhattan to the depths of the Atlantic
Ocean, the hunt for Atlantis leads to a secret hidden for 11,000 years—
which in the wrong hands could destroy civilization as we know it…
....
PROLOGUE
The sun had not yet risen above the Himalayan peaks, but Henry Wilde
was already awake. He had been awake, waiting for the moment when
the dawn light cleared the mountains, for over two hours.
More than two hours, he mused. More like years, most of his life. What
began as a boyhood curiosity had grown into an … he hesitated to use
the word obsession, but there it was. An obsession that had brought him
mockery and derision from the academic world; an obsession that had
eaten up most of the money he had earned in his lifetime.
But, he reminded himself, it was also an obsession that had brought him
together with one of the two most remarkable women he had ever known.
“How long to sunrise?” asked Laura Wilde, Henry’s wife of almost twenty
years, huddled next to him in her thick parka. The two had first met as
undergraduates at New York’s Columbia University. While they had
already noticed each other—Henry was a six-foot-four ice blond and
Laura had hair of such a deep shade of red it seemed almost unnatural—
it wasn’t until after Henry had an essay on the subject of his obsession
mockingly excoriated by their professor that they spoke. Laura’s first
three words caused Henry to fall in love on the spot.
They were: “I believe you.”
“Any minute now,” Henry said, checking his watch before putting a loving
arm around her. “I just wish Nina were here to see it with us.” Nina, their
daughter, was the second of the two most remarkable women he had ever known.
“That’s what you get when you schedule an expedition during her
exams,” Laura chided.
“Don’t blame me, blame the Chinese government! I wanted to come next
month, but they wouldn’t budge, said it was this or nothing—”
“Honey?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m kidding. I didn’t want to miss this opportunity either. But yes, I wish
Nina were here too.”
“Getting a postcard from Xulaodang doesn’t really seem fair
compensation, does it?” sighed Henry. “We drag her all over the world to
dead end after dead end, and when we finally find a real lead, she can’t come!”
“We think we’ve found a real lead,” Laura corrected him.
“We’ll know in a minute, won’t we?” He indicated the vista before them.
Three snowcapped peaks of roughly equal size rose beyond the rugged
plateau on which they had made camp. At the moment they were held in
shadow by the larger range to the east, but when the sun climbed above
the obstruction, that would change. And if the stories they had gathered
were true, it would change in spectacular style …
Henry stood, offering a hand to pull Laura to her feet. She blew out a
cloud of steaming breath as she rose; the plateau was over ten thousand
feet above sea level, and the air was both thin and cold in a way that
neither of them had ever before experienced. But it also had a purity, a clarity.
Somehow, Henry knew they would find what they were searching for.
The first light of dawn reached the three peaks.
Rather, it reached one of them, a brilliant golden light exploding from the
perfect white snow atop the central peak. Almost like a liquid, the sunlight
slowly flowed down from the summit. The two mountains on either side
remained in shadow, the dawn still blocked by the larger range.
“It’s true …” Henry said quietly, awe in his voice.
Laura was somewhat less reverent. “That pretty much looks like a golden
peak to me.”
He gave her a smile before looking back at the spectacle before them.
The mountain was almost aglow in the dawn light. “They were right.
Goddamn it, they were right.”
“That’s almost depressing, in a way,” said Laura. “That a bunch of Nazis
over fifty years ago knew about it first, and were so close to finding it.”
“But they didn’t find it.” Henry set his jaw. “We will.”
The Golden Peak—until today nothing more than a legend, a piece of
ancient folklore—was the final piece in the puzzle Henry had been
assembling his whole life. Exactly what he would find there, he wasn’t
sure. But what he was sure of was that it would provide him with
everything he needed to reach his final goal.
The ultimate legend.
Atlantis.
Screenbook
....
A QUEST TO UNCOVER THE ECRET CIVILIATION
LOST FOR 11,000 YEARS