the touch of the priestess lights one to point the way to the others.” There was probably more, but the sheet was damaged.’
Nina ignored him. She had already heard enough to confirm her suspicions.
The artefacts Alexander Stikes had taken were three small purple statues. The first had been found inside the buried Pyramid of Osiris in Egypt; the second hidden with other stolen historical treasures in a secret bunker owned by the insane billionaires Pramesh and Vanita Khoil. The third, split into two halves, she had discovered in the lost cities of Paititi and El Dorado in South America, where the Incas hid the riches of their toppling empire from the rapacious Spanish. A trio of crudely carved, seemingly innocuous figures.
Yet they had been found in places separated by continents, by millennia. There was no known connection between the empires of the Incas and the pre-dynastic Egyptians. But both had hidden their statues in their most secure locations.
And now it seemed that the link was . . . Atlantis. A great empire that eleven thousand years ago had spread from a now submerged island as far east as Tibet, as far west as Brazil. They had apparently created the statues, then dispersed them to the farthest reaches of their dominion, to be passed down from one successive civilisation to the next.
The question was: why?
She fixed Hayter with an intense, all-business look. ‘Have you dated this section? How long before the fall of Atlantis was it written?’
Hayter was caught off-guard by her abrupt change of attitude. ‘It, ah, let me see . . .’ He flicked through his documents. ‘Based on your original report from five years ago, this section is, ah, around six feet along the wall from where the texts stopped. So it would have been written less than a year before Atlantis sank.’
‘And that section hasn’t been excavated?’ Her tone was almost accusing.
‘You can see for yourself how big the slab blocking it is,’ said Hayter defensively. ‘It must weigh tons. And there’s more debris on top of it.’
‘Sharkdozer could have cleared it if you’d let me try,’ said Matt.
‘It would have taken too long, and the effort would be far out of proportion to the value of the find. I had to prioritise. The more time we spend bulldozing, the less there is for actual archaeology, and we could do more digging for less effort in other parts of the temple—’
‘I want it cleared,’ said Nina firmly.
Hayter gawped at her. ‘W-what?’ he finally spluttered. ‘But if we do that, we won’t be able to explore the burial chamber. The support ship can only stay on station for another two weeks before it has to return to port, and if we waste time—’
‘This is my decision as director of the IHA,’ Nina said, standing. ‘I want all resources dedicated to clearing the rest of that area so I can see the final texts.’ She turned to Matt. ‘How long?’
‘I dunno,’ said the Australian, as surprised as Hayter by the turn of events. ‘A week, maybe more? There’s a fair old pile of stones that needs to be shifted.’
‘Then shift them. This is top priority.’ She turned to leave.
Hayter jumped up. ‘This – this is absolutely insane! You can’t reprioritise an ongoing dig on some personal whim. I know the description of these statues matches the two that Donald Bellfriar examined for the IHA, but that doesn’t mean they’re really the key to godlike powers!’
‘If you won’t do it, Lewis, I’ll replace you with somebody who will. The IHA is about more than just archaeology, remember? It’s also got a global security mandate, and like it or not, the second of those trumps the first. I need to see those last texts. Are you with me?’ Hayter could only respond with silent shock. ‘Good.’ She opened the door.
‘I’m – I’ll take this higher.’
‘You do that. But in the meantime, you’d better get back to the site. There’s a lot of work to do, and I want it done fast.’ She left the room, the team staring after her in stunned bewilderment.
An hour later, Nina’s phone rang. She jabbed at the speaker button. ‘I told you not to disturb me.’
‘Sorry, Nina,’ said Lola, ‘but Mr Penrose is here. He says he needs to see you urgently.’
Nina frowned. While Sebastian Penrose worked for the United Nations, not the IHA, his position as liaison between the UN and its cultural protection agency gave him a certain degree of authority. ‘Okay,’ she said