The Atlantis Gene

Cohen watches the video screens nervously, anticipating an attack while simultaneously trying to decode Vale’s message. Using a decryption technique, he produces the following sentence: “Gibraltar, British found bones near site. Please advise” (79). The message is a possible reference to Neanderthal bones found in a cave in Gibraltar in the 1940s, a discovery that radically altered science’s understanding of Neanderthal development, which was more advanced than previously thought.

His efforts yield another sentence: “Antarctica, U-boat not found, advise if further search authorized” (80). During World War II, the United States sent a large fleet of ships to Antarctica searching  for Nazi bases and technology. While they hadn’t found anything then, the accompanying photo of the submarine in the iceberg suggests a recent confirmation of the theory.

He decodes a final decoded message: “Roswell, weather balloon matches Gibraltar technology, we must meet” (80). Trying to piece together the three clues, Cohen speculates that a mole inside a terrorist organization is calling for help. He tries to call Vale but cannot reach him. Alarmed, he checks the video feed of the entrance. He realizes it has not changed—he is not looking at a live feed but a static picture. Someone is trying to break in.

Tarea orders his operatives to move against Jakarta headquarters, but the moment they try to exit the safe houses, the buildings explode. Vale has booby trapped them. While Tarea’s men try to access the safe room in which Cohen is barricaded, Tarea calls his Immari counterpart to report the death of the Clocktower operatives. He suggests killing Vale at the earliest opportunity.

Inside the van, Warner’s rescuer, Vale, questions her about why those particular two boys were kidnapped. She does not know, but when Vale mentions the Toba Protocol, she references the “Toba Catastrophe,” a theory that attempts to explain why, of the several subspecies of human ancestors, the modern species survived and developed vastly superior intelligence while the others died out. The theory posits that, 70,000 years ago, a supervolcano erupted at Mount Toba in Indonesia, the ash blotting out the sun and creating a long winter that wiped out most of the human population. The humans that survived mutated into the cognitively evolved species that exists today. Vale then surmises that the Toba Protocol is an attempt to replicate the Toba Catastrophe, forcing another “Great Leap Forward” in human evolution by drastically reducing the population.

Vale asks her again about the kidnapped children when suddenly the escort vehicle next to them explodes. They are under attack. The van veers wildly off the road, nearly rolling over.

Inside the safe room, Cohen scrambles to reply to the Craigslist message. Outside, operatives try to cut through the safety door with a blowtorch. With no time to decode the sender’s email address, Cohen responds directly to the ad, asking for more information. After sending the reply, he notices the video monitor of the safe houses, where bodies amass at the doors. All the signals are then abruptly cut, going dead. Meanwhile, the operatives outside are cutting through the door even faster.

Inside the armored van, Vale checks the video monitors. Their escort vehicle is a burnt cinder, its personnel dead. Vale arms himself and jumps out of the van, leaving Warner behind. He takes cover behind a building, and a firefight ensues. He recognizes some of the assailants as Immari security forces. He tosses grenades in the direction of his pursuers and runs headlong toward a nearby river, but a sudden blast throws him off his feet.

Inside the van, Warner considers arming herself when she hears a knock on the door. Three men enter and claim that Martin Grey sent them there to rescue her. She recognizes one of them as one of the kidnappers. When she refuses to go along without speaking directly to Grey, they zip tie her wrists and cover her head with a black bag.

With mere minutes left before the safe room is breached, Cohen opens Vale’s letter. It instructs him to forward all information to Clocktower’s director. He then asks Cohen to access his personal bank account and disburse funds he has accrued over the years, “mostly from bad guys we’ve put out of business” (99). While the assailants beat on the door trying to knock it free, Cohen burns the paperwork and begins erasing the computer files. Accessing a secure server, he sends the decrypted messages to Vale’s bank account. No sooner has he sent the information than the assailants break through the door. He grabs the gun and fires at the computer, trying to destroy the hard drive. The soldiers fire, scattering shards of glass everywhere and hitting Cohen. As he sees the blood pool around his chest, the computer goes dark.

A fisherman and his son, their boat loaded with fish and heavy nets, find Vale floating in the river, unconscious but alive. They pull him aboard the boat, jettisoning the nets to keep the boat afloat. They row ashore. Harto, the father, believes Vale might be in trouble, so he takes him back to his house.

The Associated Press reports a series of explosions and gunfire in “rundown” neighborhoods of Jakarta. No terrorist organizations have claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Warner sits in a chair, hands bound and a bag covering her head, when she hears the voice of Martin Grey, her stepfather. He orders her hands freed and the bag removed. When Grey and one of the captors—Vincent Tarea—disagree on Warner’s treatment, Grey orders the other two men to bind Tarea’s wrists, place the bag over his head, and take him to a holding cell. Warner pleads with Grey to help her find the kidnapped children, but first he wants to know what kind of treatment she’s used on them. Before she can answer, two men enter the room and inform Grey that the director of Immari security, Dorian Sloane, is in the building and wants to see him immediately.

Inside Harto’s fishing boat, Vale regains consciousness, throwing his helmet and body armor overboard. Vale realizes that Jakarta Station has probably fallen, and Cohen is likely dead. He must find Warner before Immari can use her research to implement the Toba Protocol. He glances outside and sees two Immari security officers searching the housing complex.

Inside Grey’s office, Sloane confronts him about his actions—namely, “your little ice-fishing expedition in Antarctica. Your meddling in Tibet. The kids. The kidnapping” (111). Believing Grey’s efforts have been futile, Sloane wants to initiate the Toba Protocol, but Grey advises an alternative: Warner’s autism therapy. Sloane is skeptical, but the strategy buys Grey more time to question Warner. The conversation turns to the Nazi submarine. Sloane wants to be there when it is opened, and he demands Grey be there as well.