She heard Starkman’s voice over the din. “Cease fire! Cease fire!” Gradually the noise of guns died down.

They were surrendering!

Nina heard other men charging towards the temple. “Hey!” she cried, jumping down the steps two at a time. “Hey! I’m in here! Can you hear me? Get me out of here!”

More voices-then with a loud clank, a grapnel hooked over the top of the wall, shaking as somebody climbed up the cable.

A light shone over the top of the wall, a familiar face behind it. Balding, gap-toothed-and right now the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen in her life.

“Ay up, Doc,” said Chase, grinning down at her with unconcealed delight. “Did you miss me?”

TWENTY-FIVE

Are you okay?” Chase asked as he lowered Nina from the golden wall.

“I’m fine. Thanks. And I’m glad you are too-I thought you were dead!”

“Takes more than a sinking ship to kill me.” His look of triumph quickly faded.

“What is it?” Nina asked, fearing the worst.

His jaw muscles clenched before he answered. “Hugo didn’t make it.”

“Oh…” She touched his hand. “Oh God, I’m sorry…”

“Yeah.” He was silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Kari’s okay, though. She’s on her way down.”

“Kari’s here?” Nina asked, excited.

“Yeah, I told her to keep back until the shooting stopped.”

She surveyed the scene, lit by flashlights and glow sticks. The eight survivors of Qobras’s team-including Qobras himself, Starkman and Philby-were kneeling with their hands behind their heads, surrounded by a dozen men in black combat gear and body armor. At least another ten men were patrolling the surrounding area. She didn’t recognize any of them. “Who are these guys with you?”

“Frost’s security; they work for Schenk at Ravnsfjord. Military backgrounds, most of ’em-not SAS level, but good enough. Everyone I could round up in a hurry. I didn’t know how much time we’d have, so I figured the sooner the better.”

“You’re not kidding.” She gestured at the bomb, a malevolent dull green cylinder the size and shape of a water heater. “They’d set that thing to blow up.”

“I know. We stopped the timer with about five minutes to go.”

“Five minutes?” Nina shuddered at the thought of how close to death she’d been. “I hope you’ve switched it off.”

“It’s just on pause. Don’t worry,” Chase added, seeing Nina’s worried look, “nobody’s going to muck around with it and accidentally set the bloody thing off.”

“How did you find me?”

Chase grinned. “I got your postcard, so to speak. Good job I remembered the name of that village. If I hadn’t, we’d have been screwed. Tibet’s a big place.”

“You found me just from that so quickly?” Nina had thought her clue to Matthews was a longshot, but anything more specific would probably have earned the captain-and maybe herself-an instant death sentence. “I never had a chance to tell anyone the information in the last inscription from Atlantis-how they traveled up the Ganges to the Himalayas, how to find the Golden Peak, any of that.”

“You didn’t need to. Kari’s old man used his pull with the Chinese government to get us into the country, and we came straight to Xulaodang in choppers. Turns out the people there remembered the last time some Westerners came looking for one of their local legends. Kari got them to give us the directions and we flew right here. Knew we’d found the right place when we saw Qobras’s helicopters. Which are now in about a million smoking bits, by the way.” Chase glanced over at the prisoners, frowning. “Pity that bastard wasn’t inside one of them. Would have been good payback for Hugo.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“No idea. Leave that up to Frost, I guess…”

“Nina!”

Nina looked around to see Kari practically sprinting towards her, dressed entirely in white with her blond hair streaming over the top of her fur collar. She skirted the captives and ran to Nina, embracing her. “Oh my God, you’re alive, you’re okay!”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine!” Nina replied. “And I’m glad you’re okay too! When Qobras sank the Evenor, I thought I’d never see you again.”

“You almost didn’t.” Kari gave her a final squeeze, then released her. “I wouldn’t have made it without Eddie.”

“Not ‘Mr. Chase’ anymore?” Nina asked, a little mischievously.

Kari smiled, almost coy. “I think the employer-employee relationship changes somewhat after about the sixth time he saves your life.”

“Yeah, you can thank me with a threesome later.” Chase grinned. Kari jokingly rolled her eyes.

“I see some things haven’t changed,” Nina observed wryly. “But Kari, can you believe this? Can you believe what we’ve found?”

“What you’ve found,” Kari corrected. She gave an order in Norwegian to one of the black-clad commandos; he fired a flare, illuminating the buildings in the unearthly red light. “A re-creation of the citadel of Atlantis, almost intact…”

Chase glanced over at the collapsed remains of one of the nearby structures. “Er, yeah. Sorry about that.”

Nina patted his arm. “Considering the circumstances, I forgive you.”

“And another replica of the Temple of Poseidon as well,” said Kari. “It’s incredible.”

“Not as incredible as what’s in there,” Nina told her, indicating the much smaller temple inside the wall of gold.

“Is that the Temple of Cleito?” asked Kari.

Nina nodded. “Only it’s being used as a mausoleum. And guess who’s in it? The last king and queen of Atlantis!”

Sheer delight momentarily overcame Kari’s ability to speak. “Are you sure?” she finally gasped. “The actual bodies?”

“Well, I didn’t look, but that’s what it said on the sarcophagi-”

“Show me,” said a new voice, deep and full of authority. Nina looked around and was taken aback to see Kristian Frost, dressed in white cold-weather gear, striding towards her. He glanced at Qobras and the other prisoners before marching past, flanked by a muscular man whom Nina belatedly recognized as Josef Schenk, and a tall, square-jawed young guy with a blond military-style buzz cut.

“Father,” said Kari, her attitude immediately changing to one of respectful deference. Nina raised an eyebrow. Apparently here, Kristian Frost was 100 percent in charge.

Frost pointed at the Temple of Cleito. “Is it in there?”

“Yes,” said Nina, “but there’s no way in, you’ll need to climb over-”

Frost snapped his fingers. The blond man put down his backpack, quickly unzipping it and taking out an electric circular saw. He walked to the wall, sliding his fingertips over it as if feeling for flaws, then donned a pair of safety goggles and started the saw. It made a piercing squeal as the blade sliced through the gold.

“Well, that’ll work too,” Nina said, shocked, “but what about preserving the site? We should be trying to keep the place as intact as possible.”

“For now, my main concern is getting what I came here for,” said Frost. “How long will it take to cut through?”

“Just a minute or two,” the blond man told him.

“Enough time to take care of other business, then.” Frost pulled off his gloves, slowly slapping them against his palm as he turned around. “Giovanni. We finally meet.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake your hand,” Qobras snarled.

Frost walked to him, the circle of guards around the kneeling prisoners opening up to let him through. “What are we going to do with you? This would have been so much simpler if you’d been shot during the battle, but now…”

“Do what you will. You can’t hope to defeat the Brotherhood. Whatever you do, they will be there to fight against you.”

Frost laughed. “No. They won’t. Not after I take what’s in that temple.” He looked at the mausoleum for a moment. “You know, I’m almost tempted to let you go. Just so that you can fully realize how completely you and your organization have failed. Everything you’ve fought for, killed for… All for nothing.”