"What do you mean?" Kate asked.

"In the wake of the plague, we see the end of the supercities of the ancient world. Ancient Persia, once a super-nation, crumbles. The Eastern Roman Empire had been close to retaking its western half-the 'Rome' everyone talks about. But in the wake of this pandemic, it's besieged and almost falls. It eventually becomes the Byzantine Empire. We see these falls across the world-mighty empires recede and barbarian tribes actually gain ground. The major lesson from the Plague of Justinian is that the most connected civilizations, the most advanced, those with established international trade routes and supercities: they suffered the most. It was the isolated, simple societies that fared the best. Take sixth-century Britain-it's a great example. Britain at the time of the plague was dominated by the Romano-British. Based on artifacts, we know they traded with nations as far away as Egypt-that's where the plague first appeared, by the way, or that was the first account."

"I don't understand," Dr. Chang said.

"The trade routes brought the plague. The British had been at war with several Germanic tribes that had settled their western coast. At the time of the outbreak in the mid-sixth century, these tribes were mostly contained and regarded as barbarians. No one traded with them, and the British mainly refused to intermarry with them. In the wake of the outbreak, these tribes seized the initiative, spreading throughout Britain and eventually taking control. The primary tribes were the Angles and the Saxons. In fact, some believe the legend of King Arthur is a composite of British knights who fought these Angle and Saxon invaders. The fact that people in Britain and around the world speak English-a Germanic language-is because of the plague... and the Angle and Saxon triumph after. It wasn't just Britain, this happened around the world: advanced civilizations, with cities and population density and established trade routes, fell. The barbarians beyond their gates rose, invaded, and most of the time, just moved on. In cases where the barbarian invaders set up their own government, they were usually sacked a century later by the next roving band of raiders. This was the real end of an era, a time of great cities and civilizations. The Dark Ages came after and they lasted for a very long time-almost a thousand years. It was the greatest reversal of progress in history. In fact, the Dark Ages only really ended after the next major outbreak-"

"Hold on," Kate said. "I have to confess my ignorance here. I'm a geneticist. I just don't see how a volcano and a volcanic winter are connected to the Plague of Justinian."

David smiled. "I can't believe I'm about to explain a scientific concept to you."

"Let's just see how good your explanation is," Kate shot back.

"Part of history is tracing artifacts and looking at patterns. One pattern that emerged from the outbreak is that it began in northern Africa, moved into Egypt, and from there, exploded into the eastern Mediterranean. Once it hit Constantinople, the rest of the modern world fell like dominos as trade ships carried the plague around the world. There's still some debate, but many historians believe that the plague came to Europe on grain barges from northern Africa, and that it was the rats on the barges that initially carried the disease."

"What David says is true," Dr. Ja.n.u.s said. "It is a great irony: the real danger from rapid climate change has nothing to do with the weather. The danger is destabilizing ecosystems, causing organisms that normally have no interaction with each other to come into contact. We know that most outbreaks are caused when wild-animal reservoir hosts, that benignly harbor a deadly pathogen, are forced out of their natural habitats. In the wake of this second 'Toba volcano,' ecosystems around the world were destabilized. If Dr. Grey's theory is correct, it is incredibly intriguing. The ancient world would have been a very difficult place to manage a global genetic change. A plague is the perfect vehicle, but there remains one very big problem."

"Distribution," Kate said.

"Precisely," Ja.n.u.s said. "The world was very disconnected. Visiting all the cultures and spreading a disease would have been impossible. A volcano that blanketed the world with ash would be perfect. On the surface, the plague might look the same. The volcano brings a winter, in some places drought then excessive rainfall. Vegetation growth plummets then rebounds. In places like northern Africa, rodent populations would fare quite well. A breeding explosion occurs. The larger population seeks new territory as their existing ecosystem can't support their larger numbers. Some of these rats carry plague and they push into areas of human population. While the rats are immune to plague-they are reservoir hosts-the fleas on their backs are not. So fleas die of plague, and the mechanism of their demise causes them to spread the disease. Fleas infected with plague literally starve. The plague bacteria multiply in their gut, blocking the ability to ingest nutrients. They go mad, jumping off the rodents onto any host they can find, spreading the disease to humans. Of course rodents, and the fleas. .h.i.tching a ride on their backs, have spread plague for thousands of years. The genius, if you will permit the term here, of this outbreak was a genetic modification to the plague bacteria-which I believe was carried by your volcano. The ash that rained down changed the bacteria residing in the rats-it didn't unleash a pandemic on humans. A human pandemic would have simply burned out and been over with. Dr. Grey's notation-'Second Toba? New Delivery System?'-I believe refers to his own uncertainty on the subject. Based on our research, the work Dr. Chang and I have done, we can confirm that it was a new delivery system, an extremely ingenious one. By modifying an existing bacterial line in rats-plague-whoever did this ensured there would be multiple waves of outbreak, a sustained genetic transformation."

David nodded. "Because the plague didn't burn out."

"Correct," Ja.n.u.s said. "It lay dormant, in the reservoir hosts-rats in this case-waiting for the correct moment in time."

"That matches the historical record," David said. "The first wave of outbreak was around 535, but others followed, some even more violent. We can't imagine the toll. The bouts of plague lasted for two hundred years. Up to half of all Europeans died. Then after about 750, the outbreaks stop until around 1257-which is the next part of Martin's note. In 1257 another volcano erupted-again from Indonesia. These are recent discoveries, but we are pretty sure that the Samalas volcano, on Lombok Island in Indonesia, erupted with an incredible force. The impact was greater than that of the Tambora event in 1815, which caused what's known as the Year Without a Summer. From the tree-ring samples, we see the same thing in 1257: a volcanic winter that lasted for over a year. The plague rats return and plague again returns to Europe. By this time, nearly 700 years later, the historical records are more clear. This outbreak is almost exactly like the last but it gets more press-and mention in the historical record. They call it 'the Black Death' in Europe. But it was the same plague-"

"Bubonic plague," Kate said.

"Exactly," David confirmed. "The same plague, separated by almost a millennium, returning to wreak the same havoc-"

"Stop," Kate held up her hand. "The Black Death began in Europe around 1348-almost a hundred years after this volcano-"

"True," David said, holding up his hands. "Look, here's the history: in 1257 a ma.s.sive volcano, strangely similar in location and effect to the one in the sixth century, caused a volcanic winter and widespread famine in Europe. I can only a.s.sume the plague returned, but there was a difference this time-some sort of immunity-"

"CCR5 Delta 32," Kate said, lost in thought.

"What?"

"Martin mentioned it to me. It's present in up to sixteen percent of Europeans. It's a mutation that makes them immune to HIV, smallpox, and other viruses. Possibly the bacteria that causes plague."

"Interesting," David said. "One of the great mysteries of history has been the origins of the Black Death. We're pretty sure the outbreak in the sixth century, the Plague of Justinian, moved up through Africa into the eastern Mediterranean. But the Black Death was different. Same scenario-volcano, same plague-but this time, we believe the Black Death originated in central Asia. The peace provided by the Pax Mongolica enabled the Mongol armies based in central Asia to carry the disease east along the Silk Road. During the Mongol siege of Caffa in the Crimea, the invading Mongols actually catapulted infected bodies over the city walls."

"Seriously?" Kate asked.

"Hey, it was pretty ingenious for the times. Call it medieval biological warfare. After Caffa, the plague quickly spread across Europe. Historians have a.s.sumed that migration from Asia is the reason for the one-hundred-year time difference, but it could have been-"

"The mutation," Kate said.

"Possibly." David wanted to get back to what he knew, away from speculation. "In the following years, thirty to sixty percent of the entire population of Europe died from the Black Death. One third of everyone in China died. In fact, it took a hundred and fifty years for the global population to recover to the level it was before the Black Death. But I'm afraid that's where my knowledge ends. In general, I don't know what the chronology is leading up to. I just knew what the references were, and I knew the dates."

"I can shed light there," Dr. Chang said. "As Dr. Ja.n.u.s mentioned before, our working theory has been that the current plague is simply activating past outbreaks, trying to complete some genetic transformation that was half-finished. We've been trying to isolate those past outbreaks to better understand how the human genome changed." He motioned toward David. "Mr. Vale, you had it right about the link between the plagues. A few years ago, a group of researchers discovered that the Plague of Justinian was caused by Yersinia pestis, or Y. pestis-the bacteria that causes bubonic plague. The discovery was very intriguing: the two worst pandemics in recorded history-the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death-were both instances of bubonic plague. We believe in both cases there was a genetic mutation of the Y. pestis bacteria. We've been using the Immari to gather evidence. They procured samples from plague victims from both outbreaks. We sequenced those genomes, as well as samples of Y. pestis, from both eras. We also have samples from the Spanish flu of 1918. We found some common genetic sequences. We think they are connected to the Atlantis Plague. Based on Dr. Grey's notes and our discussion here, I believe our data is a key piece of the puzzle, the key to finding a cure. Unfortunately, it was lost when the plague barge went down."

Ja.n.u.s sat up on the couch. "Dr. Chang, I owe you an apology."

Chang's face glanced over, confused.

"I never fully trusted you," Ja.n.u.s said. "I was a.s.signed to you. You went along with our research, but until now I thought that you might have been an Immari loyalist, someone working to obtain my research. I withheld much of what I learned from you." He took out a memory stick. "But I saved it on this device. Along with the research we did together. It's all here, and I believe it will reveal the genome changes Dr. Grey was searching for-this Delta-2-the root genetic structure of the Atlantis Plague."

Chang glanced at the memory stick. "What matters is that you have the data. In your place, I think... perhaps I would have done the same thing. However, there seems to be one final piece-the Omega. To me, that signifies the endpoint-the eventuality of this genetic change. The notation '1918...1979' seems to indicate that Dr. Grey believed it could have happened in one of those years. The 'KBW' in the first line is unfamiliar. Mr. Vale, is this another historical reference?"

David had been turning "KBW" over in his mind since he had first seen the code. He didn't even have a guess. "No. I'm not sure what it means."

"I know what it means," Kate said. "'KBW' are my initials. Katherine Barton Warner. I think I'm the Omega."

CHAPTER 68.

Somewhere off the coast of Ceuta

Mediterranean Sea

Through the window of the helicopter, Dorian watched the water fly by below. The sun glistened on the black expanse like a beacon leading him to his destiny.

He thought about the white door of light in Germany. Where would it lead? To another world? Another time?

He activated the microphone in his helmet. "What's our ETA?"

"Three, maybe three and a half hours."

Would they beat Kate and her entourage there? It would be close.

"Get the outpost on the line."

A minute later Dorian was speaking with Isla de Alborn's commanding officer.

The Immari lieutenant at Isla de Alborn ended the call and looked back at the four other soldiers playing cards and smoking. "Put some coffee on. We need to sober up. We're going to have company."

David tried to process what Kate had said: "I'm the Omega."

Shaw glided into the room. "I'm putting coffee on-" He looked around. "What's all this? You lot look like you've seen a ghost."

"We're working," David snapped.

Kate broke the tension. "I'd love some coffee. Thank you, Adam."

"Sure," Shaw said. "Dr. Chang? Dr. Ja.n.u.s?"

David noticed that he hadn't made the coffee roll call. He was fine with that.

"Oh yes, much appreciated," Dr. Chang murmured, still deep in thought.

Dr. Ja.n.u.s stared out the window, an unreadable expression on his face. When he realized everyone was waiting on him, he quickly said, "No. Thank you though."

Shaw returned with the two cups of coffee, then lingered by the window, diagonally behind David. David couldn't see him, but he knew he was there. He was less than fine with that.

Ja.n.u.s was the first to speak. "I do not doubt what you've said, Kate. I want that clear at the outset. I would, however, like to review our key a.s.sumptions and explore several... possibilities."

David thought Kate tensed a little, but she simply sipped her coffee and nodded.

Ja.n.u.s continued. "The first a.s.sumption: that this Tibetan tapestry was a doc.u.ment depicting Atlantean interaction with humans, specifically their intervention to save humans seventy thousand years ago-the introduction of the Atlantis Gene which changed human brain wiring and the fate of humanity-and then, their warning to humans before the Great Flood. The balance of the tapestry we a.s.sume to be events yet to come. I have a question about that, but I will hold it for now.

"Our second a.s.sumption is that Martin's note is a chronology-an attempt to decode the past, to identify the genetic turning points of humanity-to lead us to a cure for the plague."

"Our third and final a.s.sumption is that this chronology identifies a missing delta: a point at which Atlantean intervention in human evolution failed-sometime around the Great Flood and the fall of Atlantis. Mr. Vale's theory is that a battle between the Atlantean factions led to that event. Having said all that, I would have postulated that the Omega-the eventuality of all the Atlantean intervention in human evolution-would have been the survivors of the Atlantis Plague. Specifically, the rapidly evolving. Are they not the outcome the Atlanteans have been pursuing? They are the most obvious choice. As a scientist, I always evaluate the simplest explanation first before exploring more... exotic possibilities."

To David, Ja.n.u.s's argument was convincing. He started to speak, but Kate beat him to it. "Then why did Martin put my name in the chronology, above Omega?"

"To me, that is the question," Ja.n.u.s said. "I believe examining Martin's motives reveals that. We know that everything he did, all his research, his deals, his compromises, were for one purpose: to protect you. I believe that is his motive here. If his notes were found, he wanted the reader to find you, to ensure your safety so that you could be on hand to decode them, to be close to anyone pursuing a cure."

David nodded involuntarily. It was convincing.

"The pattern makes sense," Chang said. "As I see it, there's a problem with the timeline though. 70K YA: Adam, the introduction of the Atlantis Gene. 12.5K YA: the fall of Atlantis, the missing delta. 535 and 1257: Second Toba, the two volcanoes and subsequent outbreaks of bubonic plague, the beginning of the Dark Ages, then its end, followed by the Renaissance. Then 1918: the Bell, an Atlantean artifact that unleashed the Spanish flu. And this year, the second outbreak from the Bell. The Atlantis Plague. Martin has the dates wrong: 1918...1979. 1979 should be this year-the current outbreak creates the Omega."

"That would be logical," Ja.n.u.s said.

"When were you born?" David asked. "Uh, I'm inquiring for purely scientific purposes here."

"Cute," Kate said. "I was born in 1979. However... I was conceived in 1918."

"What?" Ja.n.u.s and Chang said, almost in unison.

David heard Shaw move from behind him and stand before the group, his first sign of interest in the conversation.

"It's true," Kate said. "Martin was my adoptive father. My biological father was a miner and an officer in the US Army during World War I. He was hired by the Immari to excavate the Atlantis structure under Gibraltar. He did it in return for my mother's hand in marriage. What he unearthed, the Bell, unleashed the Spanish flu epidemic. In a twist of fate, the outbreak claimed my mother's life. But the structure he uncovered contained a room with four tubes. He discovered that they were healing and hibernation pods. He put my mother-and me inside of her-in one, where we stayed until 1979: the year I was born."

Dr. Arthur Ja.n.u.s sat back on the couch. This could change everything.

Kate's words shocked Dr. Shen Chang, even though he had already known about the Bell and the hibernation-that part was no surprise.

In 1979, Shen had been a researcher on a project funded by Immari International. He had gotten a call one morning from Howard Keegan, a man he had never met before. Keegan told him that he was the new head of the Immari organization and that he needed Shen's help, that Shen would be handsomely rewarded, would never have to worry about research funding again, and would do incredible work-work that could save the world but that he would never be able to tell anyone about.

Shen had agreed. Keegan led him into a room with four tubes. One held a young boy, the man he came to know as Dorian Sloane. The other held Patrick Pierce, the man who Keegan said had found the tubes. The last tube held a pregnant woman.

"We will release her last, and you will do everything you can to save her, but your first priority is the child."

Shen had never been so afraid in his entire life. What happened next was permanently burned into his memory. He remembered holding the child, her eyes... the same eyes Kate Warner now stared at him with. Incredible.

Adam Shaw marveled at Kate's story. There's more to this than I thought; more to her than I thought. But I will deliver her safely, no matter what.

Kate was tired of waiting. "Will someone please say something?"

"Yes," Ja.n.u.s began. "I would like to revise my earlier a.s.sertions. I now believe you are the Omega. And... it changes some things. My understanding of Martin's work, for one. I no longer think his note is just a chronology. That is only the half of it. Martin's code is much more than that. It is a roadmap to fix the human genome-to correct the problems with the Atlantis Gene, to create a viable Human-Atlantean hybrid, a new species, of which you are the first. Martin's sequence starts with the introduction of the Atlantis Gene-with Adam-then tracks the interferences, the missed correction at the time of the Flood, the Dark Ages that followed... and ends with you, Kate, someone with a stable, functioning Atlantis Gene, thanks to the tube that saved your life and your extraordinary birth. But... the real question, the practical matter becomes: what do we do now? We have our research, we understand Martin's notes. We need to find a lab-"

Kate interrupted. "There's one last thing I haven't told you all. Martin was one of the founders of a consortium called Continuity. It's a group of researchers from around the world. They've been running experiments for years, looking for a cure. In Marbella, Martin had a research site." A thought occurred to her. "I worked in a lead-encased building. I did a series of experiments, and Martin periodically took DNA samples from me."

"Do you think he was experimenting on you, or on the subjects?" Dr. Chang asked.

Kate was sure of it now. "Both. Martin told me that he believed I was the key to everything. Seeing the code, Omega... yes, I know it. Continuity has all his results. I've been in contact with them."

Shock spread across David's face.

"What?" Kate asked him.

"Nothing." He shook his head.

She focused on Chang and Ja.n.u.s. "I think we should send Continuity our research and discuss our theories with them."

Dr. Ja.n.u.s took the memory stick out of his pocket. "I agree."

Chang nodded.

CHAPTER 69.

Somewhere near Isla de Alborn