Free Atlantis by Robert Doherty Page A

legend of a great city in Cambodia for many years. When the French naturalist Henri Mouhot discovered Angkor Thom in 1860 everyone thought he had solved the mystery of the legend. But there have always been, and still are, rumors of ruins, to the north and east of this area. Of a city even more ancient and more magnificent than Angkor Thom and its temple Angkor Wat. It's called Angkor Kol Ker. Many legends surround those ruins, but very little fact is known. A French expedition tried to get there in the 1950's but it disappeared. It was assumed that they ran into unfriendly guerrillas, the forerunners of the Khmer Rouge. Since then, no one else has tried. It’s not even certain that the city ever existed. It might just be a myth. Sort of a jungle Shangri-la. Some of the legends that are associated with it are rather fantastic.”
    Beasley’s hand twirled an edge of his mustache. “The legends, if they are to be believed, promise dire consequences to anyone entering Angkor Kol Ker or the area surrounding it. So in mythical terms, this area is cursed.”
    Michelet turned his back to Beasley at the last sentence. Freed had quietly moved over and he was also looking at the map. “Let's hope Lady Gayle gives us some pinpoint data. That region is over forty-thousand square kilometers. That's a lot of jungle to survey.”
    Michelet smiled. “With the imagery from the Lady Gayle , the interpreters will pinpoint possible sites down to within a half a kilometer.”
    “That good?” Beasley was impressed.
    “That good.”
    Beasley was excited. “I wonder if we might be able to find Angkor Kol Ker using the data.” He squinted at the space shuttle imagery. “Hell, I bet no one's even looked at these pictures for ruins, have they?”
    “Ruins don't make money,” Michelet said.
    “Schliemann made out pretty well after he found the ruins of Troy,” Beasley commented. “And remember, people thought Troy was as much a legend as Angkor Kol Ker.”
    “What about the curse?” Freed asked. “Doesn’t that concern you?”
    “I didn’t say I believed in the legends,” Beasley said. “I just believe it’s worth looking into. Some of them are legends based on legends, including one that the people who settled this area over ten thousand years ago were refugees from Atlantis. In the same manner there are those who believe the early Egyptians, the ones who built the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids were also refugees from a greater kingdom.”
    Michelet was focused on the large electronic map in front of the IIC where the small dot represented the Lady Gayle had crossed the Cambodian Border and was approaching the target area, which was outlined in blue light.
    Freed glanced over at Beasley. “Do you think Angkor Kol Ker was real?”
    Beasley spread his fat hands. “It’s a personal belief of mine that there is always much more truth to legend that most scientists espouse. But, to convince those others, I must hold a stone from a ruin of the city in my hand and smash it over their forehead. Then they might believe it is real. Until then, it is only a myth to them and thus for me.”
    “The stones we are looking for are more valuable than any that could come out of an old city,” Michelet said.
    Beasley picked up the imagery and looked at it more closely. “I would not be so sure of that.”
     
    *****
     
    At fifteen thousand feet, the Lady Gayle was cruising at three hundred knots and beginning to loop north toward the target area. Ariana had their location pinpointed to within ten meters, updated every one-thousandth of a second by use of the global positioning receiver mounted in the rotodome. The GPR worked off the band of global positioning satellites, GPS, the United States had blanketing the world, picking up a signal emitted by the three closest and then a computer in the GPR immediately determined location through triangulation. They were getting close to the target area and the interior of the 707 was a bustle of