Atlantis: Devil's Sea by Robert Doherty Page B

Ocean. The golden retriever would dash out with the surf, then retreat as each wave approached, then repeat it each time as if it were a new experience and she was surprised at the water coming in.
    “You’re not very bright,” Dane said.
    Chelsea turned and gave him a disapproving look, only to get soaked as the next wave hit her in the side. Dane was also startled as a voice suddenly caught his attention to his left.
    “My brother disappeared out there in 1945.” Foreman nodded toward the ocean off the coast of Japan. They were waiting for a helicopter to meet them and fly them north to meet with Nagoya. The runway was adjacent to the beach, and Dane had taken the opportunity to walk Chelsea. He had been surprised when Foreman accompanied him.
    “You believe he went into the Devil’s Sea gate?” Dane asked.
    “The entire flight, minus my plane, simply disappeared,” Foreman said. “I was spared because I had engine trouble and had to ditch. The weather was fine, visibility to the horizon. They were all experienced pilots on their way back to the carrier. We had the Japanese licked to the point where there was practically no opposition in the air. What else could have caused all those planes to vanish?”
    Dane saw no reason to argue with Foreman’s reasoning. The old man had his own crosses to bear with regard to the gates. “You recruited Sin Fen, didn’t you?” Dane asked instead.
    Foreman nodded. “She was living on the streets of Phnom Penh. Barely surviving. I sensed something about her, that she had some connection with the gates. Just as I sensed it about you.”
    “Are you sure you recruited her,” Dane said, “and it wasn’t the other way around?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What she did to stop the Bermuda Triangle gate,” Dane said, “was not normal, to say the least. She was special. It seems strange that you would be so lucky to simply find her on the streets of Phnom Penh. It seems more logical that she sought you out.”
    “What difference does it make?” Foreman asked.
    “The difference,” Dane said, “is that if she sought you out, then you’re not running things like you want to believe.” He let the silence after that statement last for several seconds before he spoke again. “You had no idea she was part of the pyramid system or the role she was to play. The problem, as I see it, is that Sin Fen is gone now, and we’re on our own.”
    “And?” Foreman finally asked.
    “And,” Dane said, “I suggest you start being honest with me. Stop making plans behind my back and informing me of them after the fact. We might have been able to get that information about the gate without losing the Reveille or the Deepflight and all those people.”
    “I do what I have to do,” Foreman said.
    “One of these days you’re going to be the point man,” Dane said.
    “And if I am, I’ll do my duty,” Foreman said.
    Dane realized that Foreman meant what he said. He was willing to give up his life if it meant defeating the Shadow.
    “There’s another problem,” Dane said.
    “Which is?”
    “We don’t have another Sin Fen handy,” Dane said.
    “And?”
    “And that means we don’t’ have and important piece that’s needed to shut a gate,” Dane said. “She came from a long line of priestesses. Do you have any information on that?”
    “No.”
    “Don’t lie to me,” Dane said.
    “There’ve been many cults that promoted priestesses,” Foreman said. “And, yes, I’ve looked into them. I’ll have a copy of the file forwarded for you. But I don’t have a line on a current group.
    “Sin Fen was current,” Dane noted.
    “I’m not an idiot,” Foreman said. “I checked Sin Fen out as much as I could. She was an orphan on the streets of Phnom Penh. I think she was descended from the priestesses of Angkor, but the line has been scattered, and it was the power of the gate and my investigating it that drew her to me, not a deliberate plan on her part.”
    “How did