The primary ventilation shaft for the aft section.

The SBX’s superstructure was essentially a sealed metal box. There were only three windows on the entire vessel, in the bridge at the bow, and even those didn’t open. The only way to get air inside the rig was to pump it through the vents beneath the giant intakes on the upper deck.

The assault team forced open the hatch, exposing an access panel into the shaft. A huge fan whirled behind it. The three men donned insectile respirator masks before taking a cylinder that one carried on his back and manhandling it through the access panel. A twist of a valve and the cylinder began to pump cyanogen chloride gas into the vent. Colorless, odorless-and deadly within seconds.

They jogged back to the stairs and slid down the steep banisters to B Deck, heading forward. They ignored the strangled, agonized gasps from dying men and women in the rooms they passed.

One of the two-man teams stealthily made its way to the platform’s accommodation section. The SBX’s small crew worked on a two-shift system: twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Right now, those on the second shift would probably be asleep.

Including half of the Marines.

The long room serving as the Marines’ barracks had two doors, one at each end. One of the men waited by the first door until his comrade reached the other entrance. Then he took a small cylinder of cyanogen chloride from his harness and opened the door.

Most of the twelve Marines inside were asleep, though one man looked up at him. A moment of hesitation, replaced by trained response as he saw the black breath mask-

“Marines!” he yelled, before a dart fired from the open door at the far end of the room thudded into his back. Other men jumped upright in their bunks, startled into life by the shout of alarm.

Then they slumped back down as the two gas cylinders rolled through the room, spewing invisible death.

The second team of two headed for the front of the rig and the command section on A Deck. This area was always guarded, four Marines stationed at the entrance.

Poison gas was not an option in this part of the rig; there was one man who needed to be kept alive at all costs, and gas was too indiscriminate and unpredictable a killer. The dart guns were also unusable, too slow to reload and carrying the risk that a dart might embed itself uselessly in a target’s equipment. At this critical stage of the operation, instant kills had to be guaranteed.

So the two men simply walked around the corner and shot each of the Marines in the head with silenced pistols before any of them had a chance to respond.

The corpses would have to be removed when the attackers left the rig-a body with a bullet wound would give everything away. But that had been planned for.

One of the men clicked his radio. In position.

A single click came from the huge man’s radio. He nodded to himself, then cautiously looked around the edge of the rain-streaked window.

There was only one person on watch in the bridge, a young female lieutenant. Since the SBX was stationary and the Command Information Center behind the bridge acted as the vessel’s nerve center, there was no need for anyone else. He could see more people through the glass doors to CIC, including the platform’s commander.

It was time.

Lieutenant Phoebe Bremmerman looked up from her console at the bridge windows. There had been a noise, something other than rain pounding against the glass.

And there was something on the glass itself, a dark gray object the size of a large coin.

She stood, about to call out to her commander in CIC-

The window exploded.

Fragments of glass sprayed into the bridge, the muffled rumble of the storm outside instantly rising to a howl. The lieutenant screamed as a chunk of the broken window slashed her cheek.

A huge black man in a wet suit leaped through the window, a pistol aimed at her. Simultaneously, more wet-suited men burst into CIC, weapons raised. One of the radar operators jumped up, only to fall back over his chair, a dart protruding from his neck.

The giant grabbed Bremmerman and dragged her into CIC, the noise of the storm dropping as the bridge door thumped shut.

“Commander Hamilton,” he said to the SBX’s commander, shoving the woman to join the other occupants of the room in a group surrounded by four armed men. “Sorry for the intrusion.” He smiled, the diamond glinting in his flawless teeth. His Nigerian accent was smooth and sonorous. “My name is Joe Komosa, and I’m here for one thing only.” The smile reappeared, but with menace behind it. “Where is Dr. Bill Raynes?”

The remaining crew of the platform were taken to the large lab on B Deck assigned to the IHA team and forced to kneel in the center of the room.

None of the Marines had survived the assault. The navy crew had also suffered severe losses; aside from Hamilton himself, there were now only ten alive, including the five others from the CIC. Of the ten members of the IHA contingent, three were missing.

The attackers had been joined by another three men, who had brought in the other survivors at gunpoint. Whoever they were, Hamilton realized, they were utterly ruthless; another sailor had protested when he’d been shoved into the lab-not even fighting back, just shouting-and been shot in the chest at point-blank range, dying on the deck right before Hamilton’s eyes.

And there had been nothing he could do.

Komosa pulled off the headpiece of his wet suit, revealing a gleaming shaven head with a row of piercings, silver studs, running back from each temple. Then he pulled down the zip to expose his bare chest, which was marked by lines of more glittering piercings. Pausing for a moment to admire his reflection in a glass partition, he slowly strode back and forth before the prisoners without a word, arousing nervous glances, then rounded on Raynes with his dazzling smile.

“Dr. Raynes,” he said, “as I told Commander Hamilton, I have come here for one thing only. Do you know what this is?” He held up a small white object he had taken from a waterproof pouch.

Raynes peered uncertainly at it as if being asked a trick question. “It’s… a USB flash drive?”

“It is indeed a flash drive.” Komosa went to one particular computer in the corner of the lab-Raynes’s own workstation. “And I would like you to fill it for me.”

Raynes swallowed, voice dry. “With-with what?”

“With certain files held on the IHA’s secure server in New York. Specifically, those concerning the lost works of Plato held in the archives of the Brotherhood of Selasphoros.”

For a moment, confusion almost overcame fear on Raynes’s face. “Wait, you did all this to access our server? Why?”

“That’s my concern. Your only concern right now is to do what I tell you.”

“And if I refuse?”

Komosa’s arm snapped up. Without taking his eyes off Raynes, he fired a dart into the heart of one of the other IHA scientists. The man clutched weakly at his chest before collapsing.

Raynes flinched, eyes wide with fear. “Okay, the server, okay! I’ll-I’ll-whatever you want.”

“Thank you.” Komosa nodded, and one of his men led Raynes to the computer.

“Don’t do it, Doctor,” Hamilton warned. “You know we can’t let anyone else reach Atlantis.”

“Atlantis!” said Komosa with a dismissive laugh. “I don’t care about Atlantis!”

“I don’t believe you. Dr. Raynes, under no circumstances whatsoever are you to give this man access to that computer.”

Komosa sighed. “You will give me access, Doctor.” He crossed to the prisoners, taking Bremmerman by the arm and pulling her to her feet. She gave Hamilton a fearful look, unsure what to do.

“Leave her alone,” Hamilton barked.

Komosa moved behind the lieutenant, towering over her as he slipped one thick arm around her waist and the hand of the other to her neck. “Dr. Raynes.” He turned away from Hamilton, moving Bremmerman with him as he faced the scientist. “I’m sure you noticed this young lady around the rig before. She is very pretty.” He lowered his head, stroking her hair with one side of his chin. Despite her fear, she slammed an elbow into his stomach.