The Atlantis Cipher

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Another plane journey, but more time to rest up. The team tried everything to dull the aches and pains. As relic hunters, they’d only needed their individual skills, but ever since Heidi and the CIA took control, they had found themselves being pushed more and more into mortal danger. So far, their injuries hadn’t been serious, but it was only a matter of time before one of them received a harsh wound… or worse. Injury would lead to later complications, problems, or impediments that could hinder their effectiveness as relic hunters. A vicious circle. In the end, Bodie found the best plan to alleviate his pains was to stretch out along the leather seats, close his eyes, and listen to Lucie. He decided to table their issues with the CIA.

“The mountains of Atlantis,” she said from her seat facing them at the front of the plane. “I should have guessed it. The most accepted theory is that the Azores — peaks that rise just above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Portugal and Morocco, and of course the Strait of Gibraltar — are the highest mountains of Atlantis and all that remains of the sunken continent. These coordinates”—she raised the printed photo of the compass—“point us to the correct Azores island and, hopefully, the very mountain where the temple will be.”

“The Azores?” Heidi said. “Aren’t they a semipopular tourist destination? I mean, if there was a temple out there, wouldn’t a curious explorer have stumbled across it by now?”

Lucie nodded. “That is a worrying factor,” she admitted.

The plane droned on. Heidi mentioned that they would be landing in Morocco first, before boarding a plane to the Azores islands. Bodie yawned and fell asleep. When he woke hours later, they were descending toward the Moroccan airfield. He stretched, disorientated, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Cassidy wafted fresh, hot coffee under his nose and he rose gratefully, still wincing.

“We here?”

“Yeah. Thought you needed your beauty sleep.”

“Amen to that.” He grinned at her and it was in moments like this where he felt content that, after all this time, he’d finally found a new family. Oddly enough, he’d been thinking more and more about the old one recently. Not his parents, that was still too painful, but the Forever Gang, and how good it used to be.

If he stared into the middle distance he could still see their faces. They were long gone, but somehow still here too. He’d already realized he saw Brian in Cassidy’s gregarious extrovert qualities. In Cross’s slow, easygoing attitude he saw Scott. Was there a correlation between the past and the present? Between his past and present? Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d gravitated toward similar personalities. He’d tried to hold on to them his entire life. Thinking even harder, was Jim similar to Gunn — the studious intelligence? And little Darcey — such a trier. Such a spirit. Did she remind him of Jemma? It couldn’t possibly be so clear-cut — surely he was making it work to his own ends — but the reflections were there.

As if seen in a dream, misty memories continued to come back to him.

Maybe it was the rise and fall of the plane, the sudden turbulence, but something had resurfaced in his sleep and he contemplated it now. Out of the five of them, only Brian and Scott had been scared of theme-park rides. Jim, Darcey, and he had loved them, thrill seekers since birth, always up and ready for the next daring thing. They had come to accept that Brian and Scott wouldn’t ever come with them, and that was the one experience their tight-knit little gang would never enjoy together.

But one day they came upon a new water ride called the Grand Rapids. Three tried it first and pronounced it good. Bodie fancied maybe it was the joy on their faces when they left the rides. Maybe it was the excitement and laughter displayed by others, or perhaps just the bonds of friendship. But Brian and Scott, out of nowhere, articulated an interest and they shared the experience together, their incredible connection cemented forevermore — the laughs and shouts of glee, the soakings they braved; the sudden drops that made them squeal; the pure exhilaration and moments of utter happiness; every second a delightful capture of youthful glory, of immortality, of unforgettable bliss.

Except he had forgotten it. Bodie made himself forget once it all changed, and the worst part was that forgetting was the only way he made it through the rest of his life.

Until now.

Grand Rapids was long gone, a distant memory. He lamented forgetting it all, but maybe only because he could.

Go back there one day.

Remember the best times you ever had.

It was a promise to himself.

The plane jolted hard, bouncing up off its tires and then slamming back down. Bodie spilled coffee and Cassidy banged an elbow. Gunn dropped his tablet. They changed planes quickly and were then once more in the air, speeding toward the Azores. The second flight was a short one and soon they were landing again.

Heidi regarded them all.

“You poor ragtag bunch of beat-up, broken-down oddballs. C’mon, I dragged you all this far, I can get you a step farther.”

“Excuse me,” Cassidy piped up. “You dragged us here? I think you got that backward, girl.”

Bodie braced as the door opened and they got their first look at the Azores. Oddly, it wasn’t at all what he was expecting.

An exquisite deep blue sky oversaw a stunning green land primarily made up of lush, verdant mountains. Bodie viewed it from a wide stretch of tarmac where the plane had landed, but Heidi soon steered them away from the tiny terminal building.

Vehicles awaited, and also the promised special ops team, a poker-faced unit of Navy SEALs. Bodie saw them wedged into the lead car and immediately walked toward the second. Through the years of his clandestine travels he’d happened upon several elite American and British soldiers and didn’t want anyone to recognize him. A glance at his friends told him they felt the same.

Heidi climbed in alongside Bodie and the rest of the team. “Don’t worry. They won’t bother you. Unlike some people, they follow orders.”

Guiltily, because of the Pantera episode, Bodie and Cassidy looked at the SEAL team before realizing Heidi shouldn’t have any cause for complaint. They were right here in the thick of it now, weren’t they? Only Cross seemed remote, lost in his recollections of Yasmine.

The scenery grew more spectacular as they climbed out of the flatland and up among the peaks. They passed an impressive mountain with a circular crater, the center hollowed out and now full of sparkling blue water. Dusty trails meandered by the side of the road and off into the wilderness, hiked by tourists. At every turn there stood another splendid vista designed to take their breath away.

Heidi followed a GPS device preprogrammed with the coordinates Lucie had provided. Sometime after leaving the airfield, they stopped and exited the cars, leaving them parked in a fenced area. The SEALs ignored them and ranged out to the surrounding fields, leaving just two to walk with the team of relic hunters, who stuck together. After their skirmishes in the Alps and Milan, Bodie felt relieved to have a group of soldiers whose main mission was to protect them. A beaten trail marked by a fence led them along the side of a mountain, wind whipping their hair and the scent of the sea all around. Bodie took in the great span of the Mediterranean Sea ahead and to the left and reveled in the trek, feeling the aches and pains already washing out. To make matters better, Heidi took a call that confirmed Alessandro’s recovery.

Lucie beamed for the first time. Bodie considered it a huge improvement.

The trail ascended for a while and then dipped, taking them around the edge of another mountain and allowing them to marvel at a lake below. Thick trees bordered every shore so that there was no beach and no easy way to enter the water. The entire area looked untouched, glittering, but then Bodie spied a couple of pale bodies frolicking in the water and smiled with a hint of sadness.

“I guess there’s no place left where man’s not been.”

Cassidy raised a pair of field glasses to spy on the couple. “Skinny-dippers going at it. But you’re wrong, Bodie. I know of at least one place where man’s not been.”

She looked sidelong at Jemma. The other woman colored and then squawked out a retort. “How the hell would you know? I’ve known you what, five years?”

“Four,” Gunn said. “I know, it feels longer.”

“Still getting to know each other,” Bodie said and then saw Cross looking back at him. Some more than others, I guess.

The SEALs had been assessing what lay ahead and declared the all clear. They moved on. An hour passed with nobody in sight. The trail wound around another mountain and headed toward the east coast. At last they came to a place where Heidi’s GPS let out a little beep.

She slowed. “We’re close.”

Bodie scanned the landscape hopefully. He didn’t really expect to see anything and wasn’t disappointed.

“A few trees over there,” Gunn said dubiously.

“You think those trees mark a ten-thousand-year-old temple to the god of the seas?” Jemma asked sharply, still smarting from Cassidy’s comment.

“Who knows? Maybe they used trees back then. Maybe it’s rudimentary. Maybe—”

“Stop.” Heidi walked across five meters of flat, green grass to the edge of what was the second crater they’d seen that day. Bodie saw straggly bushes and vegetation stretching down to a narrow sandy beach and a large expanse of water — yet another blue lake. Fingers of scrub dotted by a few unkempt trees extended toward each other on both sides of the lake. The SEAL commander signaled them to the ground immediately, radioing that his team needed to do a full reconnaissance before allowing them down.

Bodie understood. They might not be the first team to find this place.

Cassidy stared at the dirt. “So, we’re on the ground again. Didn’t take long.”

Lucie crawled over to Heidi. “Does the GPS pin the location down?”

“Oh, yeah,” the curly-haired American said. “It’s in the middle of that friggin’ lake.”

“How deep is it?” Lucie asked.

“They’re all volcanic lakes,” Heidi said. “Not surprisingly, this was a largely volcanic area many thousands of years ago. So they now shape this tropical paradise, which is, thank God, still spared from mass tourism. We’re lucky it isn’t covered in clouds. The lakes around here range between three hundred to almost a thousand feet deep. I guess, judging by the color of the water, this is one of the deeper ones.”

“You should send back for gear.” Lucie’s thought processes were spinning into overdrive. “Contact the main town and keep it quiet. They will surely have some top-notch diving gear here.”

Bodie understood what she was saying. That those who could were about to take a trip underwater. Before he could inform the others, the SEAL commander crawled in beside them.

“Bad news,” he said. “Your Chinese are already here. Good news? They’re right across the lake and unaware of our presence.”

“Can you take them out?” Gunn asked. “The last thing I want is another fight.”

“That would be unwise. We can’t be sure of the outcome, or how we would fare at this stage. Also, their resources could be as deep as ours. They could have more men here very soon. Best to let them think they’re alone.”

“That’s the plan?” Jemma asked. “Wait and watch? That’s not why we’re here, why we put ourselves in harm’s way. I’d say your plan’s inadequate.”

Bodie stepped in to stop another argument. “Don’t worry,” he said, waving them down. “I have a plan. It needs some work, and it’s risky. It also means the soldiers will have to watch our backs.”

The commander gave no indication of his thoughts. “I hear you. What did you have in mind?”

“First, Heidi rustles up the gear from a trusted local. Then we have to send somebody to collect it. Next… well, I’m sure you know our backgrounds. What do you think we would do?”

The commander pondered it, then nodded with a look of respect. “That just might work. Risky, though.”

Bodie nodded and gestured at his team. “Just the way we like it.”