Atlantis Gold

Chapter 29

Daedalus shot his brother a hard stare. “You mean to tell me that you’ve found no trace of them whatsoever — they’ve vanished?”

Phillipo shifted his weight from leg to leg while he answered. “Unfortunately, that is correct.” His eyes were downcast as he said the part he looked forward least to delivering. “We found a tunnel that leads from inside the underwater pyramid.”

“Did you follow it?”

“Yes, it came out on that island there…” He handed his brother a pair of binoculars and waited while he put them to his eyes and focused on the distant spot of land among the Bimini Road area of ocean.

“It came out on that island?” Daedalus lowered the binoculars to look at his brother.

“Yes, and on the island, three of our divers engaged the targets in combat, but they escaped by boarding a passing fishing boat.”

Daedalus clenched his jaw tightly in barely-controlled anger. “Which men were responsible for this failure?”

Phillipo pointed to two employees down on the dive platform taking apart their scuba gear, and then to one more man on the opposite side of the platform who was smoking a cigarette.

Daedalus glanced at them for a split second before saying, “They will be punished. But we must stay on site for now in order to work on the golden pyramid. That alone is worth astounding benefits. I will alert my specialty team as to Carter Hunt’s activities.”

Phillipo’s expression grew fearful for a moment before he resumed the hard façade. Treasure, Inc.’s “specialty team” was a euphemism for Daedalus’ hit-man, an Israeli ex-special forces sniper who defected some years ago, and who was reportedly wanted by the Mossad. The fact that he was still alive, Daedalus claimed, was testament to the fact that he was a very talented agent, indeed.

And now this individual would be set loose on Carter Hunt and his unsuspecting friends.

On the dive platform, a technician gave a countdown. Phillipo pointed to the Bimini Road over the missing capstone that led to the pyramid. “Watch this…”

And then a low rumble was heard as the underwater explosives were detonated.

“We’re blowing away more of the road stones to hopefully make an opening big enough to get a mini-sub down to the pyramid. Then we can remove the gold tiles with the grapple arm, get more heavy equipment down there.”

Daedalus watched the slow wave that formed from the blast as it reached the ship, rocking it gently.

“At least something’s going right. You are to inform me immediately with any word on Carter Hunt or his associates.”

Daedalus’ brother nodded. “In the meantime, I put out the word to our operatives in the Bahamas to be alert at all ports of call.”

“The seaplane — I thought I told you to scuttle it?” Anger rose again in Daedalus’ face, his skin reddening.

“There was a shootout, Daedalus. We tried but failed to stop them from taking off.”

He glared at his brother. “Did you note how much fuel was in the gas tank of the plane?”

Slowly, Phillipo shook his head.

Daedalus let loose a sigh of exasperation. “We will need to address these systemic failures once this situation is resolved. For now, find out the range of the plane assuming it had a nearly full tank of gas, and draw a circle on a map around the Bimini Road with the plane’s range as its radius. Can you do that much?”

Phillipo squinted ever so narrowly at his brother. “Of course.”