Atlantis Gold

Chapter 16

Hunt watched the aquarium diver speak rapidly inside of his full face mask. From the reaction on the faces of the crowd outside the glass, Hunt could see that his message was being conveyed. Then the diver turned to Hunt, gripped him by the shoulder, and pointed up. Hunt reflexively looked that way, hoping it wasn’t Daedalus’ divers coming after them, but the employee was only pointing out the exit.

Hunt nodded and together, the four of them began their ascent, with the aquarium diver offering his second mouthpiece to Jayden, which freed Hunt considerably. About halfway up, Hunt could hear some kind of alarm braying somewhere outside in the aquarium building. Good, he thought, clear the place out. He didn’t want to go through all of this in the tank only to come back up to be met with Daedalus’ men again. They made the ascent smoothly and then approached the same platform from which Hunt had entered. He tensed, half expecting to see a bullet streaking through the water as a white bubble stream before impacting his flesh, but it didn’t happen.

Breaking the surface, Hunt’s gaze went up to the top of the waterfall from where they’d jumped. But that area was now free of shooters, of any people at all. Likewise, the dive platform from where they’d jumped into the tank. The aquarium diver pulled his mask up onto his head and spoke directly to Hunt, Jayden and Maddy, who spat their regulators out and took deep breaths of the outside air.

“You guys okay? Let’s get you to this dive platform here and get you out.”

He received no arguments, and together the four of them swam to the platform, where a multitude of aquarium staff were now gathering in order to render assistance. All four of the divers were quickly hauled out from the water onto the mesh grating. Hunt knew an explanation for their actions was about to be demanded in the next few seconds, as soon as it was clear none of them were injured.

But what to say?

He didn’t want to tie their involvement to a search for Atlantis…in the Atlantis resort, no less. That was as likely to peg him for a lunatic as it was to explain their actions. He also didn’t want to let on that he knew what organization the shooters were from, that he knew who the lead gunman was. That would tie them up in an interrogation room for hours, and they might even be prevented from leaving the country. Meanwhile, Daedalus would still be on the loose, stopping at nothing to reach the treasures of Atlantis.

At least they had Maddy back, though. Hunt embraced her and looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“Thanks for saving me,” was all she said.

Then the questions started. A man wearing a suit walked up to Hunt and introduced himself as the Director of the aquarium. Hunt gave him a short explanation that he and his friends were standing in the grotto pool when gunfire erupted, so they jumped the fence and jumped down into the aquarium. Jayden and Maddy backed up his story with occasional interjections or well-placed nods.

“We just did what we had to stay alive,” Hunt finished up. “We’re all certified divers, we saw the scuba rig and just went for it!”

The aquarium director frowned at this but then shrugged. “We’re certainly glad all of you are unharmed. We’ll be happy to comp your entire stay as a small token of our empathy at having to go through such a traumatic experience. I hope it won’t reflect poorly on us.”

“Oh no,” Hunt assured him. “We love this place, right guys? Now that it’s free of active shooters, I mean. Speaking of which, were they apprehended — the shooters?”

“Unfortunately, no. But they were seen fleeing the resort premises. Police are looking for them now. You’ll be safe here, we’ve got police presence 24/7 until further notice. Is it just the three of you?” the director asked, a quizzical expression growing on his face.

Hunt saw him looking at Maddy standing between he and Jayden and realized the social implications. Almost blushing, he said, “Oh no, my wife’s down on the beach somewhere. She didn’t want to see the aquarium so I came up with these two. They’re the lovebirds.”

“I see. Well, I’ll see to it that all four of you are comped, all the same.” His gaze lingered on Maddy before he bid them good day and left the platform to exit back into the main building.

Hunt and Jayden talked to the divers a little more, making sure to thank profusely the one who had helped them underwater, and then they were free to go. After being given towels and dry outfits courtesy of the aquarium gift shop, the three of them left the aquarium and walked to the hotel room Hunt and Jayden had booked. They walked through a grand lobby, ornately furnished with a nautical theme, including a wall mural depicting the fabled city of Atlantis in its heyday. Maddy paused in front of it, pointing to the center.

“This is historically accurate. You see the concentric ring structure? That’s how Plato described Atlantis, as being a city designed around a system of canals that led to the inner island, where the seat of government was.”

“What were the walls that make up the rings supposed to be made of?” Hunt asked.

Maddy smiled as she gave her answer. “Precious metals. Gold, silver, orichalcum. No one can say for sure, of course.”

“Could be cubic zirconium,” Jayden said with a shrug.

“Not likely,” Maddy said. “Those are lab-made. 11,000 years ago that technology didn’t exist.”

Hunt held up a finger. “Ah, but the Atlanteans were supposedly quite advanced for their time, were they not? Reason I bring it up is because this orichalcum — it’s an alloy, right? Doesn’t exist in nature, so they were creating their own precious or at least semi-precious metals, so why not gemstones?”

Maddy threw her hands up with a smile. “Hey, it’s Atlantis. Who knows, right? How did the head of a statue that was in the Azores, the rumored birthplace of Atlantis, end up in an Egyptian pyramid?”

“And how did a statuette of Anubis, an Egyptian figure, end up in the Azores?” Jayden posited while considering the mural, the busy harbor with wooden vessels plying its waters, actively engaged in thriving trade, loading and unloading goods at the port of Atlantis.

“Speaking of Anubis,” Hunt said, pointing up through the ceiling, “we should get to our room.”

They walked to the elevator and enjoyed the ride up, made spectacular by the fact that the elevator was made of glass and faced out toward the beach and the sparkling blue Atlantic beyond.

“You really think Atlantis was out there somewhere?” Jayden wondered.

Maddy shrugged. “Could be. We are in the Bermuda Triangle, after all. This is one of the possible places rumored to be a resting place for it.” She turned to Hunt. “Is that why you chose this place as a meeting location with Daedalus?”

Hunt gave her a smile that came with a twinkle in his eye, but before he could answer, a chime sounded and the doors opened. A family of three waited to get in while they exited onto their floor. They walked down a nicely appointed hallway, with custom maritime art on the walls and clean, blue carpet with golden, stylized tridents. Hunt stopped at a door and inserted a key card.

“Whoa, nice place!” Maddy said upon entering. The lavish suite faced the ocean, and below them sprawled a labyrinthine series of swimming pools connected by rope bridges and dotted with palm trees. But Hunt’s eyes were not on the view. His gaze roved around the room carefully, checking for any signs of forced entry. He knew an organization like Treasure, Inc. would have the resources to find out their room number, once they knew he was here. It wouldn’t have surprised him to find the room ransacked, but everything appeared as they had left it, with the exception of the beds being made and the bathroom being stocked with fresh towels, twisted into the shape of an octopus, no less.

“Looks like Daedalus and his goons had to skip town fast — they didn’t get to our room,” Hunt said.

“Maybe we should change rooms, just to be safe,” Jayden said. “And speaking of safe, maybe we should—”

There was no need to complete the sentence. Hunt strode to the hotel safe and unlocked it, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw the Anubis artifact — the original they’d dug up in the Azores — still there.

“That’s good,” Maddy said. “But, uh…guys? I can think of another reason to change rooms.”

“What’s that?” Hunt asked.

“Well, unless you two plan to share a bed…” She eyed the two beds. “We could get adjoining rooms.”

“Preferably on a different floor, to throw them off, if they do plan to come back,” Jayden added.

“All right, let’s get our stuff and check out.” They cleared out their minimal belongings, including two small bags and the Anubis artifact, which Hunt placed in his bag. Then they made the trip down to the front desk, where the concierge was able to assist them with the desired room change, still compliments of the hotel. When that was taken care of, the three of them checked into their new rooms, Maddy in her own next to Hunt and Jayden’s.

While Jayden raided the mini-bar, Hunt set the Anubis artifact up on a table and turned on the hanging light above it. Freshly showered, Maddy entered their room wearing a new sun dress and sandals, closing and locking the door behind her.

“Thanks, I feel a tiny bit safer now,” she said, looking out the window, which, while not quite as impressive as the last suite, still offered a fantastic view of the ocean beyond the sprawling, manicured grounds of the resort. “I tried to see if I could get a local news channel on my TV to see if they’d caught Daedalus yet, but they didn’t have anything about the story at all.”

“I’m sure they know it’s not in their best interest, for the island’s tourism economy, to have that kind of thing in the news. I’m sure it’ll break eventually, but they’ll keep it under wraps as long as they can. Daedalus himself may even be playing some part in that. I chose this location partly because he has no connections here that I know about, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t.”

“Great.” Maddy’s eyes were downcast until she looked up at the statuette and snapped out of it. “Hey, so let me check this guy out!” She moved to the table and took a seat in front of the artifact. From the small backpack she had with her, she removed a pair of latex gloves and put them on. “Should really have been wearing these all along, you know,” she said with a frown.

“Sorry,” Hunt offered. “We really weren’t expecting to find much.”

“Yeah, when he handed me the metal detector, I was really looking for old coins, I mean, seriously, that’s all I thought I would find. Maybe some cool souvenir type stuff, like those flattened pennies you buy in the machines, if I’m lucky.”

Maddy turned back to Anubis. “Don’t worry about it. Fortunately, this material, whatever it is — some kind of metal alloy inlaid with onyx — doesn’t seem prone to oxidation or other chemical reactions when exposed to the air.”

“Is there a way we can date the material to see how old it is?” Hunt asked. “That would give us a lot of clues as to its origins.”

Maddy held up her smartphone. “I can set it up, but we’d have to send in the whole thing or a sizable sample.”

“We already took a chunk out of his foot,” Jayden reminded.

Maddy picked up the artifact and took a look at the sole of the foot, where a small piece was missing. “That really is a weird-looking metal. At first, when Daedalus showed me the picture, I thought you were trying to pull the wool over his eyes, with Photoshop or whatever digital trickery.”

Jayden held his hands up. “We don’t have the skills for anything like that.”

“Maybe it really is orichalcum,” Hunt joked.

“Or some unknown alloy, at any rate,” Maddy added, picking up the artifact. “I’d really like to get a look inside.”

Jayden’s eyes bugged out. “Inside? Isn’t it solid?”

She nodded. “Probably. I just mean, so we could see the composition throughout the entire artifact. Judging the entire piece by that tiny chip you gouged out of the foot is hardly conclusive. It fooled Daedalus for just long enough, though.”

“Is there a way to get a look inside without breaking it open?” Hunt asked.

Maddy shrugged noncommittally. “X-ray machine might offer some information, but even that might miss some things. Besides, I don’t have access to one here. I miss my field lab already.”

“Maybe we should just break it open,” Hunt said.

The archaeologist looked horrified at the thought. “You don’t want to wait until we can x-ray it and see if it’s worth breaking open?”

Hunt and Jayden shook their heads in unison. “It could hold a clue to the whereabouts of Atlantis. Why was Daedalus so interested in it?”

Maddy exhaled sharply at the mention of his name. “He’s an artifact hound, sniffing around anything that might be of value. He might have had no idea of any significance it might hold.”

“Still,” Hunt went on, gesturing animatedly now, “it can’t be a coincidence that we dug it up in the Azores, of all places, near where the horse and rider statue was reportedly found by the Portuguese explorers.”

“Right, right,” Maddy said in an exasperated tone. “Go west. Well, here we are. In another supposed Atlantis hot-spot, the Bahamas. So I don’t see how you can be so sure that—”

A jarring cracking noise caused Hunt and Maddy to break off their conversation and look sharply to their left, in time to see Jayden holding half of the Anubis figurine in his right hand, while the other half — from the waist up to the dog’s head — lay on the table next to a few fragments that had separated from it. Jayden looked over at them with a sheepish grin.

“I took care of it.”

Maddy looked mortified. “Took care of it? You took care of it all right, it’s in pieces now!”

Hunt stood and moved to the table, holding up a hand. “Maddy, it’s okay. What’s done is done. You said yourself this piece may well have no archaeological value whatsoever, and meanwhile it could hold a clue to one of the greatest treasure troves mankind has ever known, so we may as well have a look inside and be done with the speculating. Because—”

“Whoa!” Jayden sounded excited. “Look at this!” He reached out onto the table and picked up the other half of the statuette.

“Something’s in there,” Hunt said.

“Wait, don’t touch it yet, let me document it.” Maddy activated the camera on her smartphone and snapped off a picture of the cracked-open find. Inside the statuette, a small, oblong object, golden in color, lay nestled inside the otherwise solid construction of the figurine. “A nested object!”

“Can I pull it out?” Hunt asked.

“That’s what she—”

“Jayden!” Hunt cut him off.

“Let me do it,” Maddy said, eliciting a smirk from Jayden. Maddy ignored the snickering men while she held the broken, top half of the Anubis figurine upside down a few inches over the table with her palm outstretched beneath it. Nothing happened, the golden object remained ensconced inside the figurine.

Maddy looked to Hunt. “Do me a favor and tap it—gently—from the top.”

Hunt shot Jayden a withering stare as he positioned his hand above the artifact. Balling his hand into a fist, he rapped on Anubis’ head three times. After the third knock, the piece of golden metal slid from the figurine into Maddy’s hand.

“Got it!” She stood and gently placed the piece of metal on a folded towel on the table’s surface. The specimen was roughly rectangular, but with rounded edges and a notch out of it in place, maybe a couple of millimeters thick.

“Looks like solid gold to me,” Hunt said.

Maddy picked it up, hefting its weight. She nodded while putting on a pair of reading glasses and leaning forward. “I’m looking for an inscription…” With her latex gloved hands, she turned the gold piece over. “Got something here!” She reached into her bag and pulled out a magnifying glass.

“Wait a minute,” Jayden asked, “How’d you get that field kit stuff?”

“I was wearing my backpack when Daedalus kidnapped me. He had his goons rifle through my stuff to check for weapons or communications devices, but other than that he didn’t care and gave it back to me. Plus, he wanted me to work for him, leading his illicit dig sites.”

“His recruitment policies leave something to be desired,” Hunt said.

Maddy nearly snorted. “You could say that, yeah. I told him where to stick it.”

“So what’s it say?” Jayden asked, leaning in, his impatience getting the better of him

Maddy leaned over the gold piece with her magnifying glass. “It’s just three characters…letters…they look like known Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols that I happen to know translate to letters, hold on…” She picked up her smartphone and used it to access the Internet. “My university pages have the standard hieroglyphics key, here it is…let’s look for a match…”

Maddy enlarged the pictorial key on her phone, then handed it to Jayden while she picked up the magnifying glass again. “This symbol here…” She aimed the point of a pen at the first symbol…”Corresponds to our letter ‘M’. And this one…”Letter ‘i’. And the last…letter ‘N.’”

“Min?” Hunt spelled out for all of them.

Jayden had a blank look on his face, but Maddy appeared thoughtful. “Interesting…” She faded off, lost in thought.

“What’s interesting?” Hunt prodded.

“The Egyptians had a God named Min.”

“Figures,” Jayden said. “They were really into gods.”

“What was he — or she — the god of?” Hunt asked.

“He was the guardian of explorers. And Bimini was a far-off territory for them, so it makes sense that he would be worshipped.”

“Wait a minute,” Hunt said. “Who said anything about Bimini? We’re on Nassau. Bimini’s in the Bahamas, but it’s a whole ‘nother island.”

Maddy gave a knowing nod. “Notice how the word ‘Min’ is contained within ‘Bimini’?”

“You’re hurting my brain,” Jayden said, staring at the gold metal.

“Stay with me. It’s not that complicated. Then we have, ‘ba’ which means soul and ‘ini’ which means reverence. So, all together now…”

Hunt and Jayden looked confused. “Ba?” Hunt faltered.

“The original word was ‘Baminini’,” Maddy explained.

“Another Egyptian connection,” Jayden said.

Hunt pointed to the gold piece. “So this little piece of gold, hidden in the statue of Anubis, was put there to remind…whoever found it…that Bimini is important somehow?”

It was Maddy’s turn to shrug. “That’s the way I see it. As for who or what…I have no idea. But there’s one more thing. The very shape of the gold piece — it’s a well known shape, do you recognize it?”

Jayden furrowed his eyebrows. “I just thought it was because that was the shape that let it fit all snug-like into the figurine.”

Maddy shook her head. “No. Have you heard of the Bimini Road?”

Jayden shook his head but Hunt nodded. “A trail of stones in shallow water off of the island of Bimini. It’s long been associated with both the Atlantis myth as well as the Bermuda Triangle.”

“Right,” Maddy said. “And the stones — although many times larger — are shaped just like this golden representation here.” She picked up the oblong gold piece and held it up to the light, turning it over in her fingers.

“Well then that settles it,” Hunt said, reaching for his smartphone.

“Settles what?” Jayden asked.

“It’s time for a trip to Bimini.”