Land of the Gods

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lea was leaning on the Duncan’s taffrail and looking out to sea and taking in a magnificent ocean dawn. After a long night, they were charting a course south to the Mediterranean and just off the starboard side she could see the faint outline of Skyros. Two Hellenic Air Force Mirage jets roared over the ship and headed to the island’s air base. It seemed like everything was moving except them, and she sighed. They’d been on the ship several hours waiting while Ryan and Eden tried to work out the location of the divine rings and she felt like taking a walk to relieve the boredom.

Scarlet stepped out onto the aft deck and yawned. Giving one of the Wildcat’s Sea Venom missiles a loving pat as she walked past the chopper, she joined Lea at the stern and pulled a packet of cigarettes from her pocket.

“If you do jump, can I have your ring?”

Lea gave her a look. “Funny.”

“Let’s have another look at it, then.”

Lea reluctantly held her hand up on the rail, but couldn’t resist staring at it her herself when it sparkled in the sunshine.

Scarlet lit her cigarette and slipped the lighter back into her pocket. Exhaling the smoke into the sea air, she looked at the ring. “Woah, and I thought Hawke was a tight bastard.”

“He thought about giving me Liz’s.”

“Oh.”

“He didn’t.”

“Good or bad?”

“Good. That ring was hers, and another part of his life. It was good he wanted to start over, don’t you think?”

“I never think, darling, especially when men are involved. Better to go with your gut.”

Lea was quiet for a long time. “You think we’ll find the Citadel?”

“We found everything else we ever looked for.”

“I know, but if we do, then what next?”

Scarlet stretched her arms and yawned. “Early retirement for me, babe. You?”

She shrugged. “Dunno, maybe go back to Ireland with Joe. He never talks about his family in London so I don’t think he’d mind making a new home. Maybe even start a family.”

“Christ, a miniature Joe Hawke.”

Lea turned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, darling, nothing at all.”

Lea gave her a look. “Retirement, huh?”

“You’ll find me on my little island in the Caribbean, fast asleep with a daiquiri in each hand and a straw hat over my face.” She turned to her. “And if any of you bastards phones me up about any pissing treasure I’ll go nuts. Now, shall we go inside and see if the boy has worked out where these rings are?”

Freshly showered, Hawke was second back onto the wardroom. First back had been Ryan, and now he saw the young man slumped forward, fast asleep on a table. In front of him was an empty plate covered in grease and ketchup streaks and the Codex opened somewhere in the middle and tipped upside down beside a pad of paper covered in Ryan’s illegible scrawl.

Seeing his old friend out for the count reminded him how hard they had all worked to get this far and if maybe the end of this mission would be a good time to call it quits. He and Lea were engaged, for one thing, and she had been dropping some pretty unmissable hints about maybe trying for a baby, but she was right about him — being a father scared him more than an outright assault on a machine gun nest.

He walked over and nudged him. “Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey, Ryan.”

The young man’s head jerked up to reveal two sleepy red slits where his eyes could usually be found. “What the fuck?”

“You fell asleep, mate.”

The others walked into the wardroom. “Aww,” Lexi said. “He looks like a teddy bear.”

“Piss off, Zhang.”

“Woah,” her face crumpled up in mock horror. “A really aggressive teddy bear.”

Eden walked in and closed the door. “Right, to business everyone. Ryan and I made good progress so listen up.”

Ryan took over. “As we all know, there are eight golden rings, and that these eight rings will somehow reveal the location of the Hidden Citadel. We already have one — the one we found on Alexander’s finger, but we have to locate the other seven and we all know who else wants to find them.”

“The Oracle,” Hawke said.

“Exactly,” Eden said, resuming his presentation. “When he was a young man, Alexander was a tutored by the famous ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It’s during this time he learned not only about the ancient civilization at Sumer but also about the far older civilization that was there before, including the Citadel.”

Sipping his coffee, Ryan started to come back to life. “The Codex tells us so much. The Citadel was the capital city of an ancient civilization that far predates even Sumer. As far as I can make out from what is at times some pretty cryptic writing, this ancient civilization was the first to harness the power of immortality, and its leaders were sent to seed the world and spread their civilization around the world.”

“Holy shit in the Pope’s mitre,” Lea said. “This is getting real.”

“It’s going to get a lot more real too,” Ryan said. “As with Sumer, the cradle of this civilization started out on the banks of the Euphrates, and we think the purpose of the idols was to enable their priests and holy class to take an image of their gods to the new lands they were seeding. That’s why the idols are always of the creator gods or goddesses of the various cultures around the world, and why they all share the same symbols and features, including the intricate ziggurat in the base which we believe is some kind of key.”

“I like keys,” Scarlet said. “They open doors to treasure.”

“Always about the money,” Ryan said, sighing. “Anyway, the statues that archaeologists have been finding in these places were reproductions of these idols, and that was how they spread their culture. Whether or not they really were gods or just their kings or queens, the Codex isn’t clear.”

A groan of frustration went around the wardroom.

Ryan raised his palms. “This just means that Alexander the Great never knew, that’s all. It’s his Codex remember, and his research. I suspect we’ll find the answer to this question and a whole lot more when we finally locate the Citadel.”

Reaper smacked his hands together. “And it all starts with the rings, mes amis!”

“So where are they?” Lexi asked.

“That’s the interesting bit,” Ryan said. “As we now know, Alexander only found one of the rings, but he moved heaven and earth to locate the other seven.”

“So why did we only find one on him?” Lea asked.

“Because he died before he could secure them for himself, and then he had their location buried with him in this Codex.”

“I ask again,” Lexi said with a sigh. “Where are they?”

“According to Alexander, the seven rings had traveled down through the ages and found their way into the possession of various great rulers — Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, and Akhenaten in Egypt, Cyrus the Great of Persia, Romulus and Remus in Rome and King Sudas in India. Alexander the Great’s ring makes eight.”

“But if I’m not very much mistaken,” Lea said, “all of those people’s tombs have been opened and catalogued.”

Eden shook his head. “Not when Alexander was alive, no. He spent his life searching for them and never found them.”

“But today, yes, they’ve been found and excavated.” Ryan said.

Lexi looked confused. “So the rings could be anywhere?”

Ryan smiled. “These tombs have been discovered and opened and their contents catalogued, but there are problems. First, there’s never been any way to tell if they’d been raided before their official discoveries, and second, many of the relics from these hoards were stolen after their discovery. What we can say is that the rings Alexander described never made it to the official inventories of these hoards.”

Eden tried to control his excitement. “But thanks to the Codex, we’ve been able to ascertain that the rings are all very different in appearance.”

“And Alexander was very specific in describing them,” Ryan said. “So we took the descriptions of the various rings Alexander wrote in the Codex and got busy while you were all sleeping.”

Eden tossed his pen on the wardroom desk and lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “After a somewhat tedious process involving online searches and several telephone calls to various auction houses and security service contacts, I can tell you that the first ring is accounted for, so no groping around in dark tunnels.”

“I’m sorry for you, boy,” Scarlet said. “I know how much you enjoy groping around in dark tunnels.”

“Pack it in, Cairo,” Lea said.

“And pack your bags, too,” Eden said. “Because you’re going to Malaysia.”

“Eh?” said Hawke.

“Malaysia,” Eden repeated. “One of that country’s richest criminals is an avid collector of ancient world relics and we’ve already worked out that he has Tutankhamun’s ring. He’s especially obsessed not only with ancient Egypt but also with anything from Sumer or the Indus Valley, and he’s rumored to have some sort of a god-complex. Thinks he’s descended from a long line of Sumerian gods.”

“That makes even your ego look normal, Cairo,” Ryan said.

“Not even bothering to look at you, boy.”

“Where in Malaysia?” Hawke asked.

“We’re not one hundred percent sure because he has several properties in the country, but he, and more to the point his guards, divide most of their time between his luxury apartment in the Petronas Towers and a large rubber plantation in the Temenggor jungle.” The corner of Eden’s mouth twisted up as paused a beat, and then he said, “So guess what?”

“We’re paying him a visit?” Reaper said.

“You are,” Eden added. “There is no way for us to know in which of the properties he is keeping the ring. However, we think it’s more likely he’s securing it in the diamond safe in his apartment in the towers, so you’re going there first. I’ll stay here on the Duncan and work on the location of the second ring.”

Eden saw the concern on their faces as they learned the Codex would be out of their hands. “We’ve made a copy of the Codex so Mr Bale here can work on it while you’re on the road, so to speak, but it’s worth all of us remembering that this Codex was in the Oracle’s hands for more than long enough for him to make his own copy and work out the location of the rings just as we are doing.”

“In other words,” Lexi said, “this is going to be a race to the finish to secure the rings and find the gateway?”

“And one hell of a battle,” Hawke said.

“And if that weren’t bad enough, there’s more,” Eden said. “In the last hour I received a call from Alex Reeve in the United States. You’re all aware that she’d heard rumors about some kind of plot?”

Lea nodded. “That’s why we sent Kim and Camacho over.”

“Right,” he said firmly. “It appears we’re no longer dealing with simple rumors. Alex had been briefed by US Secret Service Agent Brandon McGee concerning quality intel regarding the plot. It appears it’s real and that the Vice President is behind it, but we’re very short on details.”

“Oh my God!” Lea said.

“Exactly my sentiments,” Eden said. “Kim and Jack Camacho are on their way, but this has the potential to turn into something very nasty indeed. Of course, I’ll be monitoring it and will keep you updated, but for now I want you to focus on the rings.”

Lea could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Thanks, Rich.”

Hawke looked his team in the eye. “It’s time to start that battle.”