New flu strain reported in villages in Northern India

A new strain of flu called NII.4 Burang has been reported by India’s Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. It is not yet known if the strain is a mutation of an existing flu strain or a completely new virus. The CDC has dispatched a field team to assist Indian health officials in analyzing the new strain.

The CDC has advised the State Department that no travel advisories are called for at this time.

A follow-up press release will be issued when the CDC has more details about NII.4 Burang.

Milo wasn’t waiting for Kate the next morning, but the bowl of breakfast porridge was there on the table, just as before. It was a little cold, but otherwise delicious.

“Dr. Kate!” Milo said as he jogged up to meet her. He stopped just short of her, put his hands on his knees and panted until he caught his breath. “I’m sorry, Dr. Kate. I was… I had to work on my special project.”

“Special project? Milo, you don’t have to meet me every morning.” “I know. I want to,” the teenager said as he regained his breath.

They walked together down the open-air wooden passageways toward David’s room.

Kate wondered if it was another prank. When they reached David’s room, Milo bowed and departed, sprinting in the direction he’d come from.

David’s condition had barely changed, although Kate thought maybe his color was returning.

She gave him his morning antibiotics and pain pill and opened the journal again.

I stand to greet the two men as Helena ushers them into the small solarium. Not even the slightest hint of pain crosses my face. I’ve taken three of the big white pain pills today, preparing, ensuring I seem up to any task.

It’s just before noon, and the sun hangs high in the sky, bathing the white wicker furniture and the plants placed around the solarium with light.

The taller man steps forward, out-pacing Helena and speaking without waiting for her to make the introduction. “So, you’ve finally decided to see us.” German, a soldier sure as shit. His eyes are cold, intent.

Before I can speak, the other man pops out from behind the towering man, extending a hand. “Mallory Craig, Mr. Pierce. Pleasure.” An Irishman, and a mousey one at that.

The German unbuttons his jacket and sits without asking. “And I’m Konrad Kane.”

Craig scurries around the couch and settles in beside Kane, who wrinkles his nose as he looks over, then moves down.

“You’re German,” I say as if accusing him of murder, which I consider to be fair. I probably could have masked the tone, if not for the drugs, but I’m glad it came out the way it did.

“Mmm. Born in Bonn, but I must say I’ve lost any interest in politics at this point.” Kane responds leisurely, as if I’d asked him if he kept up with the horses, as if his people weren’t gassing and murdering mine by the millions. He cocks his head. “I mean, who could when there are so many more fascinating things in the world?”

Helena places a tray of coffee and tea between us, and Kane speaks before I can, as if it’s his home and he’s entertaining me. “Ah, thank you, Lady Barton.”

I motion to the chair and say to her, “Stay,” I think just to prove to Kane who’s in charge. He looks annoyed, and I feel a little better.

“We have a special kind of job to be done. We need a certain type of man for it. Someone who knows how to keep his mouth shut and think on his feet.”

At that moment, I think: intelligence work — for the Germans. I hope it is. I still have my US Army sidearm in the table by my bed. I have a mental image of myself getting it out and returning to the solarium. “What type of work?” Helena says, breaking the silence.

“Archeology. A dig.” Kane stays focused on me, waiting for my reaction. Craig mostly watches Kane. He hasn’t made a peep since his “indeed,” and I doubt he will.

“Then you won’t be disappointed. The site’s under the Bay of Gibraltar. Quite deep under. We’ve been excavating it for some time. 45 years in fact.” Kane watches me for a reaction, but none comes. He takes a slow sip of coffee, never breaking eye contact. “We’ve just started to find… make real progress, but the war’s put us in a real spot. We keep thinking it will end soon, but we’re forced to make other arrangements until then. Ergo, we are here, making this offer to you.” Kane finally looks away.

“No. No more dangerous than say, the Western Front.” Kane waits for her eyebrows to knit up, then reaches over to pat her on the leg. “Oh no, I merely jest, my dear girl.” He smiles back at me. “We wouldn’t put our little war hero in any danger.”

“We had a German mining team, an extremely capable team, but obviously the war and the British control of Gibraltar have complicated matters for us.”

I ask the question I should have to begin with. “How many people have you lost?”

Kane shrugs dismissively. “None.” The look on Craig’s face tells me it’s a lie, and I wonder if Helena knows.

“What are you digging for?” He’ll lie, but I’m curious what angle he’ll use.

“I’m sure.” My guess: a treasure hunt, probably a sunken pirate ship or merchant ship at the bottom of the bay. It would have to be something substantial to spend 45 years digging for it, especially underwater. A dangerous assignment. “Compensation?” I ask.

50 anything would have been a joke, but Papiermarks is a slap in the face. They may as well pay me in fools’ gold. Given how the war is going for Germany, Papiermarks won’t be worth burning in a year or two. German families will be carrying them to the baker’s shop in wheelbarrows to buy a loaf of bread.

“And a lot more of them. I want 5,000 upfront — just to look at your tunnels.” I look over at Helena. “If they’re poorly dug, or the support work is shoddy, I walk away, with the 5,000 dollar advance.”

“Nonsense, I hear Kings, Kaisers, and Czars aren’t as valuable as they used to be. But a clear chain of command does have its place. It can keep a man alive, especially in dangerous places like underwater mines. If I take this job, when I’m in the mines, I’m in charge, no exceptions. I won’t put my life in the hands of a fool. Those are my terms; take ‘em or leave ‘em.” Kane snorts and puts his coffee cup down.

I lean back and say, “Of course, you could always wait for the war to end. I agree it won’t be long. Then you could get a German team in, assuming there any Germans left, but… I certainly wouldn’t take that bet.”

“And I won’t take your terms.” Kane rises, nods at Helena, and walks out, leaving Craig looking confused. The cagey man stands, hesitates for a moment, whipping his head back and forth between me and his fleeing master, then chases after Kane.

When the door closes, Helena leans back in her chair and runs a hand through her hair. “God, I was scared to death you were going to take that job.” She stares at the ceiling for a moment. “They told me they wanted you for some sort of research project. I told them you were quite clever and that it could be a good fit. I never would have let those scoundrels in here if I’d known what they were after.”

The next day, when Helena is at work, Mallory Craig calls. He stands on the stoop holding his flat cap in his hand at his chest. “Apologies for that nastiness yesterday, Mr. Pierce. Mr. Kane’s under a great deal of pressure, what with… Well, I’ve, uh, come to say we are quite sorry and to give you this.”

“We’d be honored to have you lead the dig, Mr. Pierce. On your terms of course.”

I told him I was uninspired by the conversation yesterday and that I would be in touch, one way or the other.

I spent the rest of the day sitting and thinking, two things I was never good at before I left for war, two things I’ve had a lot of practice with since. I imagine myself walking back down into that mineshaft, the light of day giving way to candlelight as the air grows cold and damp. I’ve seen men, just back from a cave-in or other injury, strong men, crack like an egg on the side of the skillet at breakfast as the light disappears. Will I? I try to imagine it, but I won’t know until I walk down that tunnel.

I consider what else I could do for work — my options. I can get mining work, at least until the war ends. After that, there will likely be more miners than ever, some newly trained in the war, many more former miners returning from it. But I’ll have to leave Gibraltar to find mines that need a man like me — there’s no way around it. The other issue, which I don’t linger on long, is that it would be a hell of a thing to sail to America or South Africa just to piss myself in a mineshaft and scurry out.

I eye the check. $5,000 would give me a lot of options, and touring their dig could be… revealing personally.

I’ll “just have a look,” I decide. I can always walk away, or, depending on my bowel control, run away.

I tell myself that I’ll probably rule out the job and there’s no reason to tell Helena. No reason to worry her. Being a nurse at a field hospital is stressful enough.

The squirrelly man leaned in, studying the computer screen. “Several targets.”

The monasteries were like needles in a giant Tibetan haystack, but they finally had eyes on them. It wouldn’t be long now.

Kate scrutinized the wound and changed David’s bandages. It was healing. He would come out of it soon. She hoped. She picked up the journal again.

When Craig called yesterday he told me Immari Gibraltar was “just a small local concern.” He quickly added, “although we’re part of a larger organization with other interests here on the continent and overseas.” Small local concerns don’t own half the wharf and they don’t do it through a half a dozen fronts.

The tour of the dig site is the first indication that Immari isn’t what it seems. I arrive at the address on Mallory’s card and find a rundown threestory building in the heart of the shipping district. The signs on the buildings all end in some variation of “Import/Export Company” or “Shipping and Sea Freight” or “Shipbuilders and Retrofitters.” The long names and liveliness of the buildings contrast sharply with the dimly lit, seemingly abandoned concrete structure with “Immari Gibraltar” scrawled in black block letters just above the door.

The walk through the office reminds me of a battalion HQ, hastily set up in a city that had just fallen in a siege, a place that will be abandoned quickly as soon as more ground is taken or in the event of a sudden retreat. A place that doesn’t warrant settling in.

Craig is gracious, telling me how happy he is that I decided to take them up. As I suspected, Kane is nowhere to be seen, but there is another man there, younger, late 20s, about my age, and strikingly similar to Kane, especially the condescending smirk on his face. Craig confirms my suspicions.

“Patrick Pierce, this is Rutger Kane. You’ve met his father. I asked him to join us on the tour, as you’ll be working together.”

We shake. His hand is strong, and he squeezes like hell, almost grunting. The months in bed have weakened me, and I draw my hand away.

Kane Jr. seems satisfied. “Glad you’ve finally come, Pierce. I’ve been after Papa to find me a new miner for months; this damn war’s held me up long enough.” He sits and crosses his legs. “Gertrude!” He looks over his shoulder as the secretary reaches the door. “Bring coffee. Do you take coffee, Pierce?”

I ignore him, directing my flat statement at Craig. “My conditions were clear. I’m in charge in the mines — if, I take the job.”

Craig holds both his hands up, cutting Rutger off, and speaks quickly, hoping to placate both of us. “Nothing’s changed, Mr. Pierce. Rutger here has worked on the project going on a decade, practically grew up in those mines! You all probably have a lot in common, I imagine, ah, from what I hear. No, you all will work together. He’ll offer invaluable advice, and with his knowledge and your skill in mining, we’ll be through, or making smart progress, in no time.” He stops the secretary as she creeps in carefully with the tray. “Ah Gertrude, could you put the coffee in a Thermos? We’ll take it with us. Uh, and some tea for Mr. Pierce.”

The entrance to the mines is almost a mile from the Immari office — inside a warehouse along the harbor next to the Rock. Two warehouses to be exact, joined on the interior with two separate facades to make them look like two warehouses from the street. A warehouse this large would stick out and inspire curiosity. Two common-sized warehouse fronts, however, could easily go unnoticed.

Inside the oversized warehouse, four lighter skinned black men are waiting for us. Moroccans would be my guess. Upon seeing us, the four men silently set about removing a tarp from a structure in the middle of the warehouse. When it’s revealed, I realize it’s not a structure at all — it’s the opening to the mine. A giant mouth spreading out at each side. I had expected a vertical shaft, but that’s the least of the surprises to come.

There’s a car, an electric one. And two large rails leading down into the mine. Clearly they’re moving a lot of dirt out.

Craig points to an empty rail car and then toward the harbor and the sea beyond the warehouse door. “We dig by day and load out by night, Mr.

“In the bay if we can. If the moon is full, we sail farther out.” Craig says.

I walk closer and inspect the mine shaft. It’s supported by large timbers, just like our mines in West Virginia, but there’s a thick black cord running from timber to timber, stretching as far as I can see. There are two cords actually, one on each side of the mine shaft. At the far side of the opening to the mine, the left cord attaches to… A telephone. The right-side cord simply runs into a box attached to a post. It has a metal lever, like a switch box. Power? Surely not.

When the Moroccans throw the last of the tarps aside, Rutger strides over and chastises the men in German. I understand a bit, one word in particular: “feuer.” Fire. My skin crawls at the sound of it. He points at the car, then the rails. The men look confused. This is no doubt for my benefit, and I turn away, refusing to watch the show and their humiliation. I hear Rutger retrieving something, and there’s clanging on the rails. I turn to see him lighting a wick inside a round paper bag atop a mini railcar, no bigger than a plate. Rutger attaches it to a single rail, and several of the Moroccans help him with a slingshot device that sends the plate and flame whizzing into the dark mine. The paper protects the flame from instantly blowing out.

A minute later we hear the distant poof of an explosion. Firedamp. Probably a methane pocket. Rutger motions for the Moroccans to send another volley, and they rush to the rail with another plate-car carrying a paper bag full of flame. I’m impressed. In West Virginia, I’m sorry to say, we use donkeys. On a good day, you strap the flame to the donkey’s back, slap him on the ass, and find him at the end of the mine — alive and wandering in the dark. On bad days you smell the barbecued flesh as you enter the mine, a sick smell of hair and organs fried with muscle and fat. I could never bring myself to eat the animal once we reached it, but I was almost alone in that. The mines are deep and the wages are paltry. Good meat is hard to come by. Every now and then a donkey would charge out alive and on fire, like some bad omen from a Biblical tale. But that was rare; hitting a methane pocket is like finding a live grenade — the explosion is instant and total. If the flame doesn’t kill you, the cave-in will.

We wait a bit, and when no sound comes, Rutger throws the switch on the box and gets behind the wheel of the car. Craig slaps me on the back. “We’re ready, Mr. Pierce.” Craig takes the passenger seat, and I sit on the bench in the back. Rutger cranks the car and drives recklessly into the mine, almost crashing into the rails at the entrance but swerving at the last minute to straddle them and then straighten the car as we plow deeper into the earth like characters out of some Jules Verne novel, maybe Journey to the Center of the Earth.

The tunnel is completely dark except for the car’s dim headlamps, which barely illuminate the area ten feet ahead of us. We drive at high speed for what seems like an hour, and I’m speechless, not that I could say a word over the racket of the truck in the tunnel. The scale is staggering, unimaginable. The tunnels are wide and tall, and much to my chagrin, very, very well made — not treasure-hunting tunnels; these are subterranean roads made to last.

The first few minutes into the mine is a constant turn. We must be following a spiral tunnel, like a corkscrew boring deep into the earth, deep enough to get under the bay.

The spiral deposits us into a larger staging area, no doubt used to sort and store supplies. I barely get a glimpse of crates and boxes before Rutger floors the car again, roaring down the straight tunnel with even more speed.

We’re on a constant decline, and I can almost feel the air growing more damp with each passing second. There are several forks in the tunnel, but nothing slows Rutger down. He drives madly, swerving left and right, barely making the turns. I grip the seat. Craig leans over and touches the youth’s arm, but I can’t hear his voice over the deafening racket of the car’s engine. Whatever is said, Rutger doesn’t care for it. He brushes Craig’s arm off and bears down harder than ever. The engine screams and the tunnel zooms by in flashes.

Rutger’s putting on this little thrill ride to prove he knows the tunnels in the dark, that this is his territory, that he has my life in his hands. He wants to intimidate me. It’s working.

This mine is the biggest I’ve ever been in. And there are some giant mines in the mountains of West Virginia.

Finally, the tunnel opens onto a large, roughly shaped area — like a place where the miners had searched for direction and made several false starts. Electric lights hang from the ceiling, illuminating the space, revealing pockmarks and drill holes along the walls where blasts had started new tunnels, but were abandoned. I see a stack of the other black cord, laying in a bundle next to a table that holds another phone, no doubt connected to the surface.

The rail lines end here as well. The three mini rail cars sit in a row at the line’s termination point near the end of the room. The top part of two of them have been blown away, no doubt as they hit methane pockets along the way. The third sits quietly at the front of the other two; its flame jumps wildly as it claws for drifting pockets of oxygen in the dank space.

Craig follows him out of the car and says to me, “Well, what do you think, Pierce?”

Rutger joins us. “Don’t play coy, Pierce. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I never said I had.” I direct my next words at Craig. “You’ve a methane problem.”

“Yes, a rather recent development. We only began hitting pockets in the last year. Obviously we were a bit unprepared. We had assumed that water would be the biggest danger on this dig.”

“A safe assumption.” Methane is an ever-present danger in many coal mines. I never would have expected it down here, a place with seemingly no coal, oil, or other fuel deposits.

Craig motions above us. “You’ve no doubt noticed that the mine is on a constant grade — about 9 degrees. What you should know is that the sea floor above us slopes at roughly 11 degrees. It’s only about 80 yards above us here — we believe.”

I realize the implication instantly, and I can’t hide my surprise. “You think the methane pockets are from the sea floor?”

I inspect the roof of the room. Craig hands me a helmet and a small backpack. Then he clicks a switch on the side, and the helmet lights up. I stare at it a moment in wonder, then put it on, deciding to deal with the larger mystery at hand.

The rock on the ceiling is dry — a good sign. The unspoken danger is that if a methane pocket exploded, and that pocket was large enough to stretch to the seafloor, you’d get an extremely large explosion, followed by a flood of water that would collapse the entire mine almost instantly. You would either burn, drown, or be crushed to death. Maybe a combination. One spark — from a pick ax, from a falling rock, from the friction of the car wheels on the rails, could send the whole place up.

“If the gas is above, between this shaft and the sea, I don’t see another way. You’ll have to close her off and find another way,” I say.

Rutger scoffs. “I told you Mallory, he’s not up to it. We’re wasting our time with this gimp American coward.”

Craig holds a hand up. “Just a minute, Rutger. We’ve paid Mr. Pierce to be here; now let’s hear what he has to say.”

“Nothing. I’d abandon the project. The yield can’t possibly justify the cost — human or capital.”

Rutger rolls his eyes and begins wandering around the room, ignoring Craig and me.

Craig clasps his hands behind his back and walks deeper into the room. “You’ve seen the size of this dig. You know we’re not treasure hunters. In 1861, we sank a ship in the Bay of Gibraltar — The Utopia. A little inside joke. We spent the next five years diving at the wreckage site, which was a cover for what we’d found below it — a structure, nearly a mile off the coast of Gibraltar. But we determined that we couldn’t access the structure from the seafloor, it was buried too deep, and our diving technology simply wasn’t advanced far enough, couldn’t be advanced far enough, quickly enough. And we were frightened of drawing attention. We had already lingered far too long at the site of a sunken merchant ship.”

Rutger walks back to us and turns his back to me, facing Craig. “He doesn’t need to know this. He’ll want more pay if he thinks we’re digging for something valuable. Americans are almost as greedy as Jews.”

It’s easy to ignore the brat. I’m intrigued. “How did you know where to sink the ship, where to dig?” I ask.

“We used a compass and calculated the distance, accounting for the pitch of the tunnel. We’re right under the site. And we have proof.” Craig walked to the wall and grabbed the rock — no, a dingy black cloth, which I thought had been rock. He pulls the blanket to the floor, revealing… a passageway, like a bulkhead in a massive ship.

I move closer, shining my headlamp into the strange space. The walls are black, clearly metal, but they shimmer in a different, indescribable way, almost as if they are alive and reacting to my light, like a mirror made of water. And there are lights, twinkling at the top and bottom of the passageway. I peer around the turn and see that the tunnel leads to some sort of door or portal.

Craig leans over my shoulder. “We believe it’s Atlantis. The city Plato described. The location is right. Plato said that Atlantis came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean and that it was an island situated in front of the straits of the Pillars of Heracles—”

“What we call the Pillars of Hercules. The Rock of Gibraltar is one of the Pillars of Hercules. Plato said that Atlantis ruled over all of Europe, Africa, and Asia and that it was the way to other continents. But it fell. In Plato’s words: ‘there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all the warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea.’”

You see now why we can’t stop here, Mr. Pierce. We’re very, very close. Will you join us? We need you.”

Rutger laughs. “You’re wasting your time, Mallory. He’s scared to death; I can see it in his eyes.”

Craig focuses on me. “Ignore him. I know it’s dangerous. We can pay you more than $1,000 per week. You tell me what it’s worth.”

“No. Keep going. I’ll report in. Come get me at 6,500 feet.” They had hit nothing but ice for over a mile — the same as the last four drilling sites.

Robert pulled his parka tight and walked from the massive drilling platform toward his field tent. He passed a second man on his way. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t remember his name. The two men they had given him were quiet; no one said much about themselves, but they were hard-working and they didn’t drink — the best you could hope for in drill operators in extreme conditions. They were both dumb as a sack of hammers, but it likely wouldn’t matter.

His employer would probably give up soon. Hole number five looked like the four before it: nothing but ice. The whole continent was a giant ice cube. He remembered reading that Antarctica had 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of its freshwater. If you took all the water in the world, in every lake, pond, stream and even water in the clouds, it wouldn’t come out to even half of the frozen water in Antarctica. When all that ice melted, the world would be a very different place. The sea would rise 200 feet, nations would fall, or more accurately, drown. Low-lying countries like Indonesia would disappear from the map. New York City, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and most of Florida — also gone.

Ice seemed to be the only thing Antarctica had in abundance. What could they be looking for down here? Oil was the logical answer. Robert was, after all, an oil rig operator. But the equipment was all wrong for oil. The bore diameter was wrong. For oil, you wanted a pipe line. These bits were making holes big enough to drive a truck through. Or lower a truck. What could be down there? Minerals? Something scientific, maybe fossils? Maybe some ploy to stake a claim on the land? Antarctica was massive — 17.5 million square kilometers. If it was a country, it would be the second largest in the world — Antarctica was just 20,000 square kilometers smaller than Russia, another hell-hole he had drilled — with much more success. Antarctica had once been a lush paradise around two million years ago. It stood to reason that there would be an unimaginable oil reserve under the surface and who knows what else— Behind him, Robert heard a loud boom.

The pylon sticking out of the ground was spinning wildly — the bit was hitting no resistance. They must have hit a pocket. He had expected this — research teams had recently found large caverns and gaps in the ice, possibly underwater fjords where the ice ran over the mountains below.

“Shut it down!” Robert yelled. The man on the platform couldn’t hear him. He ran a hand across his throat, but the man just looked dumbfounded. He grabbed his radio, and shouted, “Full stop!”

On the platform, the long pipe sticking out of the ground was starting to wobble, like a top starting to lose its balance.

Robert threw the radio down and ran toward the platform. He pushed the man out of the way and entered commands to stop the bit.

He grabbed the man, and they ran from the platform. They had made it almost to the housing pods when they heard the platform shudder, buckle, and capsize. The drilling column had broken off and spun wildly in the air. Even 200 feet away, the noise was deafening, like a jet engine roaring at full speed. The platform sank into the snow and the bit came forward, digging into the ice like a twister on the Kansas plains in Tornado Alley.

Robert and the other man lay face-down, enduring the shards of ice and snow raining down until the bit finally came to a stop.

Robert looked up at the scene. His employer wouldn’t be pleased. “Don’t touch anything,” he said to the man.

Inside the living pod, Robert picked up the radio. “Bounty, this is Snow King. I have a status update.” Robert wondered what to report. They hadn’t hit a pocket. It was something else. The bit would have chewed through any kind of rock or ground, even frozen. Whatever they had hit had taken the bit clean off. It was the only possibility.

Less is more. He wouldn’t speculate. “We’ve hit something,” Robert said.

When Kate arrived the next morning, David was awake. And angry. “You have to go. The boy told me we’ve been here for three days.” “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Kate said in a cheerful tone.

She retrieved his antibiotics, pain pills, and a cup of water. He looked even more gaunt than the day before; she would have to get him something to eat as well. She wanted to touch his face, his protruding cheek bones, but he was much more intimidating now — awake.

“We’ll talk once you take your pills.” She held out her hand with the two pills.

“I’ve slept enough.” David leaned back in the bed. “You’ve got to get out of here, Kate.”

“Don’t. Don’t do that. Remember what you promised me? In the cottage by the sea. You said you would follow my orders. That was my only condition. Now I’m telling you to get out of here.”

“Well… Well… This is a medical decision, not a… whatever you call it, ‘command decision.’”

“Don’t play with words. Look at me. You know I can’t walk out of here, and I know how long that walk is. I’ve made it before—”

“Killed in the mountains of Pakistan, not far from here, fighting the Immari. They’re good at killing people in these mountains. This is not a game, Kate.” He took her arm, dragging her down onto the bed. “Listen. You hear that, the low buzzing, like a bee in the distance?” Kate nodded.

“Those are drones — predator drones. They’re looking for us, and when they find us, there’s nowhere we can run. You have to go.”

Kate released his hand. “Then I’ll be gone tomorrow.” She stood and walked out.

Kate returned with two bowls of thick porridge. “I thought you might be hungry.”

David simply nodded and began eating, quickly at first, only slowing after he’d eaten a few bites.

“Oh, him. Qian.” David took two more bites rapid-fire. “What’s it about?”

Kate sat down on the bed and spread her legs next to his as she had when he was unconscious. “Mining.”

“Or, war maybe, no, actually, I’m not really sure. It’s set in Gibraltar—”

“Maybe. The code,” David searched his pockets like he was looking for his keys or wallet. “Actually, Josh had it…”

“He’s, I used to work with him. We got a code from the source — the same person who told us about the China facility — I want to talk about that, by the way. Anyway, it was a picture of an iceberg with a sub buried in the middle of it. On the back, it had a code. The code pointed to obituaries in The New York Times in 1947. There were three of them.” David looked down, trying to remember. “The first was a reference to Gibraltar and the British finding bones near a site.”

“The site could be the mine. The Immari are trying to hire an American miner, a former soldier, to excavate a structure several miles under the Bay of Gibraltar. They think it’s the Lost City of Atlantis.” “Interesting,” David said, deep in thought.

Before he could say anything else, Kate cracked the journal open and began reading.

It’s late when I arrive home, and Helena is at the small kitchen table. Her elbows are on the table and she holds her face with both hands, like it will plummet to the ground if she releases her grip. There are no tears but her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying and can’t any more. She looks like the women I used to see leaving the hospital, followed by two men carrying a stretcher covered by a white sheet.

Helena has three brothers, two in the service, one too young to join, or maybe he’s just signed up. That’s my first thought: I wonder how many brothers she has now?

She embraces me. “I thought you’d done it, taken that job or gone off and left. Or, I don’t know.”

I hug her back, and she buries her face in my chest. When the crying subsides, she peers up at me, her big brown eyes asking a question I can’t begin to decipher. I kiss her on the mouth. It’s a hungry, reckless kiss, like an animal biting into something he’s hunted all day, something he needs to sustain himself, something he can’t live without. She feels so delicate in my arms, so small. I reach for her blouse, fingering one of the buttons, but she clasps my hand and takes a step back.

“It’s not that. It’s, well, I’d like you to meet my father. My whole family.”

“Good. I’m off at the hospital for the next week. I’ll ring him in the morning. If it suits them, we can leave on the afternoon train.”

“And there’s something else,” I say, searching for the words. I need the job, at least a few weeks of the pay, then I’ll be set. “The job, I did, actually, have a look and it, um, might not be so dangerous—”

Her face changes quickly, as if I’d smacked her. The grimace is somewhere between worry and anger. “I can’t do it. I won’t. Every day, waiting, wondering if you’ll come home. I won’t live like that.”

“This is all I have, Helena. I’m not any good at anything else. I don’t know how to do anything else.”

“And I will, I promise you that. Six weeks, that’s all I need, and I’ll throw in the towel. The war might be done by that time, and they’ll have another team in there, and you’ll be shipping out of here, and I’ll need to…

“If you get killed in that mine, I’ll never get over it. Can you live with that?”

“Mining’s a lot less dangerous when people aren’t dropping bombs on you.”

“How about when you’ve got the whole ocean on top of you? The whole Bay of Gibraltar over your head. All that water, constantly pressing on those tunnels. How would they ever pull you from that cave-in? It’s suicide.”

“I’m sorry Patrick, I can’t.” The look in her eyes tells me she means it.

Some decisions are easy. “Then it’s settled. I’ll tell them no.” We kiss again, and I hug her tight.

David put a hand on Kate’s. “This is what you’ve been reading? World War One-era Gone With the Wind?”

She pushed his hand back. “No! I mean, it hasn’t been like this so far, but… Well, you could probably do with a little romance in your literary diet. Soften that hard soldier heart of yours.”

“We’ll see. Maybe we can just skip the mushy parts, get right to the point where they say the bombs or secret labs are located here.”

“Well, since you’re enjoying it so much, I’ll endure it.” He clasped his hands on his stomach and stared at the ceiling stoically.

Dorian looked up at the Immari Security officer lingering nervously in the doorway to his office.

Kate thought the buzzing in the distance, the bee searching for them, was getting louder, but she ignored it. David didn’t say anything either.

They sat together in the small alcove overlooking the valley, and Kate continued reading, stopping only for an early lunch and to give David his antibiotics.

The pawnbroker watches me like a bird of prey perched in a tree as I browse the glass cases at the front of the store. They’re full of rings, all sparkling, all beautiful. I assumed there would be three or four to choose from, that it would be rather simple. What to do…

“A young man seeks an engagement ring, nothing more warms my heart, especially in these dark times.” The man stands over the case, smiling a proud, sentimental, smile. I didn’t even hear him move across the room. The man must move like a thief in the night.

“Yes, I… didn’t think there would be this many.” I continue skimming the case, waiting for something to jump out at me.

The Kingdom has been at war for almost four years, and the poor women, the war leaves them with no husband and no source of income. They sell their rings so they can buy bread. Bread in your belly is worth more than a stone on your finger or a memory in your heart. We pay them pennies on the dollar.” He reaches inside the glass case and pulls out a velvet display rack that holds the largest rings. He places the rack on top of the glass case, just a few inches from me, and spreads his hands over them as if he were about to perform a magic trick. “But their misfortune can be your gain, my friend. Just peek at the prices. You will be surprised.”

I take a step back without realizing what I’m doing. I look from the rings to the man, who motions toward them with a greedy grin. “It’s alright, you can touch them—”

As if in a dream, I’m out the door and back on the streets of Gibraltar before I realize what’s happened. I walk fast, as fast as I can with one and a half working legs. I don’t know why, but I walk out of the main business district toward the Rock. Just before I reach it, I cut across Gibraltar, out of the western side, the modern side of the city, which faces the Bay of Gibraltar. I walk into the old village, which lies on the eastern side of the Rock, on Catalin Bay, facing the Mediterranean.

I walk for a while, thinking. My leg hurts like hell. I didn’t bring any pills. I hadn’t expected to walk this much. I did bring $500 of the nearly $11,000 I’ve saved.

I debated at length on how much to spend. I thought of spending more, maybe even a $1,000, but two things convinced me not to. The first is that I need capital to start a new life. $11,000 probably won’t do, but I can find a way. I certainly won’t be taking the Immari job, so the capital on hand is all I’m going to have. The second, a more important reason, is that I don’t think it’s what Helena would want. She would smile and gladly accept the gaudy ring, but she wouldn’t want it. She grew up in a world where fine jewelry, silk clothes, and towering homes were as common as a drink of water. I think those things have lost their luster for her. She craves genuine things, real people. We so often seek what we’re deprived of in childhood. Sheltered children become reckless. Starving children become ambitious. And some children, like Helena, who grow up in privilege, never wanting for anything, surrounded by people who don’t live in the real world, people who drink their brandy every night and gossip about the sons and daughters of this house and that house… sometimes they only want to see the real world, to live in it and make a difference. To have genuine human contact, to see their life mean something.

Ahead of me, the street ends as it meets the rock. I need somewhere to sit down, to get off the leg. I stop and look around. In the shadow of the white rock rising to the right there’s a simple Catholic church. The rounded wooden doors of the plaster Spanish-style mission open and a middle-aged priest steps out into the sweltering Gibraltar sun. Without a word, he extends a hand into the dark opening, and I walk up the stairs and into the small Cathedral.

Light filters in through the stained glass windows. It’s a beautiful church, with dark wood beams and incredible frescoes across the walls.

“Welcome to Our Lady of Sorrow, my son,” the priest says as he closes the heavy wood door. “Have you come to make a confession?”

I think about turning back, but the beauty of the church draws me in, and I wander deeper inside. “Uh, no Father,” I say absently.

“What is it you seek?” He walks behind me, his hands clasped in front of him in a stirrup-like figure.

“You were wise to come here. We live in strange times. Our parish has been very fortunate over the years. We’ve received many bequests from parishioners passing from the world of the living. Farms, art, jewels, and in recent years, many rings.” He ushers me out of the worship hall and into a cramped room with a desk and leather bound volumes crammed into floorto-ceiling bookcases. “The church holds these items, selling them when we can, using the funds to care for those still among the living.”

I nod, not quite sure what to say. “I’m looking… for something special…”

The man frowns and sits down at the desk. “I’m afraid our selection is not what you might find elsewhere.”

The man leans back in the chair. “Happy endings are hard to come by in these dark ages. But… I may know of such a ring. Tell me about the lucky young lady who will receive it.”

“She saved my life.” I feel awkward answering the question, and it’s all I can manage to start.

“Yes.” My limp is hard to miss. “But, not only that, she changed me.” It seems like a disgraceful summary of what she’s done for me, for the woman who made me want to live again, but the priest simply nods.

“A lovely couple retired here several years ago. She had been an aide worker in South Africa. Have you been to South Africa?”

“A savage place. And only recently of any interest to anyone. Since around 1650 it had only been a watering hole on the trade routes to the East. The Dutch East India Company built Cape Town as a stopover on the Cape Sea Route. Built it with slaves from Indonesia, Madagascar, and India. And that’s what is was, a train stop on the sea, at least until the 1800s, when they found gold and diamonds and the place became a true hell on earth. The Dutch had massacred the local African population for centuries in a series of frontier wars, but now the British came and brought modern war, the kind that only European countries can fight, but I think you know about that. War with massive casualties, famine, disease, and concentration camps. There was a soldier who had fought for the British in the South African War, and as the spoils of war go to the victors, the end of the conflict several years ago left him with quite a bit of money. He used it to invest in the mines. A strike made him rich, but he fell ill. An aide worker, a Spanish woman who had worked in the hospital during the war nursed him back to health. And softened his heart. She told him she would marry him on one condition: that he leave the mines for good and donate half of his wealth to the hospital. He agreed, and they sailed out of South Africa for good. They settled here in Gibraltar, in the old city on the coast of the Mediterranean. But retirement didn’t suit the man. He had been a soldier and a miner all his life. Some would say that all he knew was the darkness, pain, struggle; that the light of Gibraltar shone too bright for his heart of darkness, that the easy life left him to reflect on his sins, which haunted him, tormented him day and night. But whatever the cause, he died a year later. The woman followed him several months after.”

I wait, wondering if the story is over. Finally, I say, “Father, we have very different ideas about what constitutes a happy ending.”

A smile spreads across the man’s face as if he’d just heard a child say something funny. “This story is happier than you think — if you believe what the church teaches. To us, death is only a passage, and a joyous one for the righteous. A beginning, not an end. You see, the man had repented, had chosen to forsake his life of oppression and greed. He had paid for his sins — in all the ways that matter. He was saved, as so many men are, by a good woman. But some lives are harder than others, and some sins haunt us, no matter how much we pay for them or how far we sail from them. Maybe this happened to the man, and maybe not. Maybe retirement doesn’t suit the industrious. Perhaps there is no solace in rest for a hard-working man. And there is another possibility. The man had sought war and riches in South Africa. He craved power, security, a sense of knowing he was safe in a dangerous world. But he forsook it all when he met the woman. It’s possible that all he wanted was to be loved and not to be hurt. And when he was, when he finally found love after a life without, he died, happy. And the woman, all she ever wanted was to know that she could change the world, and if she could change the heart of the darkest man, then there was hope for the entire human race.” The priest pauses, takes a breath, studies me. “Or perhaps their only folly was retirement, of living a sedentary life where the past could catch up to them, if only in their dreams at night. Regardless of the cause of their deaths, their destiny was certain: the Kingdom of Heaven is the domain of those who repent, and I believe the man and woman live there to this day.”

“I don’t need to see it.” I count out five $100 silver certificates and place them on the table.

The priest’s eyes grow wide. “We are happy to accept any donation our patrons see fit, but I should warn you, lest you seek a refund, that that amount is much more than this ring is worth… in the current… market.”

On the walk back to the cottage, I barely notice the pain in my leg. I have a vision of Helena and I sailing the world, never stopping anywhere for more than a few years. In the vision, she works in the hospitals. I invest in the mines, using what I know to find savvy operators and promising sites, mines that pay the workers a fair wage and provide good conditions. It won’t be as profitable at first, but we’ll attract the best people, and in mining as in every other business, better people make all the difference. We’ll put our competitors out of business, and we’ll use the money to make a difference. And we’ll never retire, never let the world behind us catch up to us.

Kate closed the journal and leaned forward to inspect the bandages on David’s chest. She pulled at the edges of them and then smoothed them out.

Helena’s childhood home is more grand than I could have imagined, mostly because I’ve never seen anything like it. It sits just off a massive lake, nestled among thick English forests and rolling hills. It’s a masterpiece of stone and wood, like some medieval castle that has been decorated for modern times. The fog is thick in the lane as the loud gas car carries us from the train station down the tree-lined gravel road to the home.

Her father, mother, and brother are there waiting on us, standing at attention like we are visiting dignitaries. They greet us graciously. Behind us, the house staff unpacks the car and disappears with our bags.

Her father is a tall, burly man, not portly, but by no means thin. He shakes my hand and looks in my eyes, squinting like he’s inspecting something, my soul maybe.

The next few hours pass in a haze. The dinner, the small talk in the drawing room, the tour of the home. All I can think about is the moment I ask him for his daughter’s hand in marriage. I glance at him every now and then, trying to glean some little bit of information, something that might tell me what he’s like and what he might say.

After dinner, Helena lures her mother out of the room with a question about a piece of furniture, and to my relief, her younger brother Edward asks his father’s leave.

We are alone at last in the wood-paneled drawing room, and the nerves start to get to me. I’ve been careful with the pills today, taking only one. The pain has gotten better of late, or maybe I’m just “learning the leg” as Dr. Carlisle said I would. But it’s still there, nipping at me through the nervousness. Even so, I stand, waiting for him to sit.

He pours a glass almost to the top, doesn’t bother with ice, and hands it to me. “I know what you’re here to ask, and the answer is no, so let’s just get that little bit of unpleasantness out of the way so we can enjoy the evening. Now Kane tells me you’ve come around on the Gibraltar dig, says Craig gave you the nickel tour of our little project.” He fixes me with a coy smile. “Now I’d like to hear your impression of it — as a professional miner. Will she hold until we can get through?”

I start to speak several times. Wicked thoughts run through my head. He brushed you aside like a door-to-door salesman. He’s Immari, a snake as bad as Kane. I take a long pull of the drink and speak as evenly as I can. “I’d like to know why.”

“I’m sure she is. War is an emotional time. But the war will end, and feelings will fade. The real world will set in, she’ll come back to England, and she’ll marry someone who can give her the life she truly wants, a life of civility and grace. A life you can’t appreciate until you seen the savagery of the rest of the world. That’s her what’s in store for her. I’ve already made the arrangements.” He crosses his legs and sips at his brandy. “You know, when Helena was a girl, she used to take in every flea-ridden, diseased, wounded, and otherwise half-dead animal that ever wandered onto the estate. She wouldn’t relent until they either died or recovered. She has a good heart. But she grew up and lost all interest in rescuing animals. Everyone goes through phases like that, especially girls. Now I’ll hear your opinion on our tunnels in Gibraltar.”

“I don’t give a damn about those tunnels or what’s down there. It’s a dangerous mine, and I won’t work it. What I will do is marry your daughter, with or without your permission. I’m not a wounded animal, and she’s not a little girl anymore.” I set the drink down on the glass table, almost breaking it and sloshing brown liquid all over it. “Thanks for the drink.” I rise to leave, but he sets his own drink down and heads me off at the door.

“Just a minute. You can’t be serious. You’ve seen what’s down there. You’d turn away from that?”

“I’ve found something that interests me a great deal more than lost cities.”

“I’ve told you — I’ve already made a match for Helena. It’s settled. Let’s put that aside. As for the dig, we can pay you. That’s my role in this, incidentally. I manage the purse — the Immari Treasury. Kane runs the expeditions, and a great deal more, as I’m sure you’ve gathered by now. Mallory’s our master of spies. Don’t underestimate Craig, he’s quite good at it. So what will it take? We can double it. $2,000 per week. In a few months you could set yourself up any way you like.”

“Why not? The safety? You can fix it; I’m sure of it. The Army men told us you were quite clever. The best, they said.”

“I told her I wouldn’t work in a mine. I made her a promise. And I won’t make her a widow.”

“You assume you’ll marry her. She won’t marry without my permission.” Lord Barton inhales and watches for my reaction, satisfied that he’s cornered me.

“You overestimate her. But if that’s your price, you can have it, and the $2,000 per week. But you agree, right here and now, that you’ll work that dig to the finish. Once you do, I’ll give my blessing without delay.”

“Easily. I’m a practical man. And a responsible man. Maybe you will be too one day. What’s my daughter’s future for the fate of the human race?”

I almost laugh, but he fixes me with a stare that’s dead serious. I rub my face and try to think. I hadn’t expected the man to haggle, least of all over this business under Gibraltar. I know I’m making a mistake, but I don’t see what option I have. “I’ll have your permission now, not after the dig.”

“Fine, fine. You have it. We’ll announce it tonight, and if you don’t keep up your end in Gibraltar, I’ll make her a widow.”

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