Free Atlantis by Robert Doherty

color. For rubies the trace element is chromium. For sapphires, it is titanium. Rubies are perhaps the rarest of gems, commanding four times the price of diamonds weighing the same amount.”
    Beasley frowned. “I know that some Thai businessmen have been running a black market mining operation in southwestern Cambodia, extracting some precious gems under the protection of the Khmer Rouge whom they pay off, but I didn't think it was that lucrative.”
    “It isn't if you consider forty millions dollars a year gross on the black market not lucrative,” Michelet said, reevaluating Beasley. Obviously the man hadn’t stuck his head in the textbooks all his life. “We think they are working a weak field area.” He tapped the map of Cambodia on the conference table. “The area the Lady Gayle is overflying is one that we believe, based on imaging from satellites and the space shuttle, holds very strong gem and crystal fields, estimated to be ten times as dense as the best field in Thailand. The Cambodian highlands, north of Tonle Sap. No one has ever gone into that area and looked.
    “The problem has always been two-fold. One is penetrating the harsh mountainous jungle region to survey for those gems. The other is surviving the various fighting factions and the over ten million land mines laid in Cambodia. Both those factors have effectively stopped any ground surveys. The lack of a stable government in Cambodia for decades has also been a problem.”
    Beasley nodded. “The closest I've been to the area is the ancient city of Angkor Thom which contains the temple Angkor Wat, just north of Tonle Sap Lake. I never attempted to go further north nor do I know anyone who has. It would have been most unhealthy. If the Khmer Rouge or bandits didn't get you, as you said, the mines would or the triple canopy jungle in very rough terrain, or the wild beasts of the region. There are no roads, no villages, nothing. A most dangerous area.”
    Michelet pulled out a binder and flipped it open. There were various photos inside, all taken from high altitude. “Last year, the Space Shuttle did some imaging on Cambodia as it flew over. I had contacts at the Jet Propulsion Lab forward me some of the basic data.”
    Beasley was looking at the photos with interest. “Amazing!” he said. His fingers traced over one of them. “Look at the Angkor Thom complex in this one. You can see the moats most clearly. I know archeologists who would give quite a bit for these.”
    Not enough, Michelet thought. It had cost him six hundred thousand dollars to get the imagery. Michelet more than most knew that everything had a price, and loyalty was usually the lowest.
    “The data from these photos told my interpreters that the area deserves a more detailed look. The initial readouts indicate a high likelihood of the type of geological formations that hold precious stones present in quantities worthy of exploitation.”
    Beasley nodded. “Cambodia has vast resources that have gone untapped in the midst of all the turmoil. There are parts of that country that no white man has ever seen. There were rumors of a great city in Cambodia for many years but the first explorer to reach Angkor Thom didn't get there until 1860. And it's my personal opinion that Angkor Thom wasn't the city of the legend, but a later, smaller city.”
    Michelet had done some checking with other sources and knew the specific area he wanted the Lady Gayle to survey was even more remote. He narrowed down the area he had indicated, tracing it on the map. “This area, the highland region of the Banteay Meanchey region, is practically unmapped and uninhabited.”
    Beasley looked at it. “There's a reason for that besides the roughness of the terrain, the mines and the Khmer Rouge.”
    “Excuse me?” Michelet was surprised. This was news to him. “And what is that reason?”
    “Angkor Kol Ker,” Beasley said.
    “And that is?” Freed took a step closer.
    “As I was saying. There was a