The Nemesis Origin

XIII

‘We’ve been out here many times before, there won’t be any problems.’

Michael Spader was an American archaeologist who had travelled to Japan after marrying his wife, Ishira, when she decided to return to her homeland to continue her own research into ancient feudal Japan. A native of Ohio, as far as Ethan could make out Michael seemed to be the kind of free spirit who just went along with everybody else, and had an easy-going nature that provided Ethan with some kind of reassurance that he and his wife knew what they were doing.

Michael was at the wheelhouse of the small boat Jest as it crashed through the waves along the island’s south shore. Ishira was busily unpacking and preparing the diving equipment alongside Lucy, who had suddenly developed a very business-like attitude towards the expedition. Ethan shrugged off the jetlag weighing down upon him with an effort as he stepped towards the bow of the boat where Michael was guiding it through the brisk seas.

‘How deep are the remains?’ Ethan asked, shouting to be heard above the engine and the crashing water.

‘In places it’s not much more than ten feet,’ Michael explained. ‘In others, more like fifty but it’s all accessible. I’d imagine a maximum dive time of thirty minutes plus decompression.’

Ethan looked up at the bright blue sky, filled with light, cumulus clouds flaring bright white in the sunlight. The ocean was brisk, but in shallow waters Jest would easily be able to anchor. He looked up at the steep cliffs lining the nearby shore, seeking weak spots or points of ambush from which the boat would be easily visible on the ocean.

‘You look like you’re staking the joint out,’ Michael observed.

‘Habit of a lifetime.’

Ethan glanced across to the rucksack he had bought with him, somewhat reassured by the knowledge that a 9 mm pistol was safely tucked inside. There had been no way he could have dared to attempt to slip a weapon through customs either when leaving the USA or arriving in Japan: even though he technically had the knowledge and ability to do so, the chance of him being flagged up and thus exposed was too great to take. Instead, he had elected to contact a former buddy from the Marines who was still on active service and based in Okinawa, and through him he had been able to obtain the weapon despite Lucy’s concern.

‘I didn’t expect you to be carrying,’ Michael said to him.

‘I didn’t expect you to know.’

Michael grinned. ‘I didn’t, but I do now.’

Ethan dropped his voice an octave so that Ishira would not overhear him. ‘Lucy is being followed, and the people following her are not afraid of guns. I thought it best to be cautious.’

‘And you were going to tell us about this when?’ Michael demanded, the smile gone from his face.

‘Now,’ Ethan replied without rancour. ‘You’re not in any danger, and we’re far enough out here that we’ll see any trouble coming long before it reaches us.’

‘That’s not particularly reassuring. We heard about what happened to Lucy in Israel, that she was abducted and held by terrorists or similar. Are they the same ones following her now?’

‘No,’ Ethan replied. ‘These guys are a different bunch and we don’t know exactly who they are.’

‘Smashing,’ Michael uttered. ‘First sign of trouble and we’re out of here, no questions asked.’

‘Agreed,’ Ethan replied. ‘Just wanted to let you know.’

‘Obliged, I’m sure.’

Ethan walked over to the diving gear and began busying himself preparing his own kit. Due to the relatively shallow nature of the dive they would be using a standard nitrogen and oxygen mix, with only a slight excess of oxygen to minimise the chances of nitrogen bubbles forming in the blood if they were forced to ascend too quickly. Ethan wanted the ability to get out of the water fast if anything went wrong, and despite the fact that they had departed the United Kingdom in great secrecy and left a complex trail behind them he had long ago learned to always err on the side of caution.

‘The kit’s ready,’ Lucy reported as she made a final check on the oxygen gauges.

‘Five minutes!’ Michael called from the wheelhouse, and Ethan heard the engine note whine down slightly as the boat approached the dive site and pulled in towards the coastline.

‘The currents are strong here,’ Ishira informed them, ‘and the water contains a high volume of plankton and algae that can bring visibility down to less than five metres at times. Maintain close visual contact with each other and make sure you start your ascent with at least five minutes extra time available, because you’ll be fighting the currents to stay in position and will burn through your supply far quicker than during your descent.’

Both Ethan and Lucy nodded in agreement as they began pulling on their wetsuits, and Ishira hefted their oxygen tanks onto their backs and helped clip them into place.

The boat’s engine died down as Michael manoeuvred Jest into place directly overhead the flooded city, and moments later the clatter of a stainless steel chain rattled out across the rolling waves as he threw the anchor overboard. The anchor chain clattered through its stays and then slowed and pulled taut as the boat swung around into the current. Michael visually gauged the water passing the bow and then called out to them.

‘About four knots from the south-west,’ he reported. ‘It will be a little less down there but even so, I’d recommend using tethers just in case.’

Ethan shook his head. ‘If either one of us is pulled clear by the currents we’ll surface and let off a flare. It’s better for the boat to come after us then to be hindered by tethers when we need to move freely across the site.’

Michael shrugged but did not argue, although it was clear he felt that the waters were too choppy and the currents too strong to free dive the site.

‘Are you sure about that?’ Lucy asked him as they pulled on their flippers, Jest rocking and plunging on the swells.

‘We’ll start on the north-east corner of the site and then let the current move us down across it,’ Ethan informed her. ‘It’s sensible to let the current do the swimming for us. Once we’re done, we’ll ascend and have plenty of energy to maintain position.’

Lucy nodded her agreement. ‘Okay, but it’s a fairly big site so depending on the visibility we may have to split in order to see everything.’

‘And what exactly is it that we’re looking for? That icon in the photograph?’

‘Yes,’ Lucy replied. ‘Just keep an open mind and think about what you’ve learned so far. If there’s anything down there that could give us some pointers as to where we need to go, then pick it up or photograph it.’

Ethan pulled his oxygen mask on as he turned to sit on the edge of the boat with his back facing the water, Lucy moving alongside him. They checked each other’s oxygen supply and with a thumbs-up to each other Ethan held his mask in place as he went backwards over the edge of the boat. He only just heard Michael’s last comment before he plunged into the cold water.

‘Did I forget to mention the hammerhead sharks?’

The water flooded around Ethan’s body, and despite the highly effective thermal wetsuit he could feel the cold water on his hands and face. Ethan quickly orientated himself as he saw Lucy plunge into the water beside him amid a shimmering galaxy of bubbles, one hand over her mask as she reached back and tightened it in place and then gave him another thumbs-up.

Ethan looked around and saw that the water was presenting fairly good visibility, tinged with blue rather than the dull green that signalled a high organic content and reduced visibility. He looked down and was surprised to see that some ten feet beneath him was a perfectly flat surface of rock that extended away into the distance, marred only by clumps of mosses. It appeared to be made of sandstone, and almost instantly he spotted a perfect right angled corner to it just a few yards away.

For some reason he had expected to have to descend further to find the remarkable temple of which Lucy had spoken, but he could see already that it was nearby. He allowed his own natural weight to draw him down toward the surface of the monument as Lucy descended and moved to one side to hover over the edge.

Ethan swam to join her and looked down to see the side of the monument drop away onto a series of terraces, each of them cut at perfect right angles. Ethan had heard of numerous examples of natural phenomena creating such sharp right angles and angular features, most famously the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. But here there was a difference: the monument itself stood alone and rose above the vast plain of the seabed. There was no evidence of erosion or loose rock that would have been evident had the effect of currents or similar been responsible for shaping the monument over geological timescales.

Ethan surveyed the overall shape of the monument. Despite the obvious geometric nature of the various structures that jutted from its surface, when Ethan swam away from the monument and looked at it as a whole it seemed clear to him that it was a natural formation that had later been modified by human hands. There seemed to be no plausible reason for human beings to have built such a large blocky construction, with no immediate obvious point of entry to any kind of interior. However, if they had instead been presented with a large feature such as the monument on a shoreline with an existing geometric shape that could be altered and upon which could be erected buildings, then it seemed likely that it would be used for as long as it was available to them.

Ethan looked across the surface of the monument and then considered the closeness of the shore of the island. His eye was drawn to the underside of the boat’s hull nearby, the water shimmering through the surface in bright beams. He looked again at the terraces on the right of the monument and suddenly he realized what he was looking at.

Ethan tapped Lucy shoulder and gestured to the boat before pointing at the terraces below them on the right of the monument. The terraces had always confused scientists who advocated the man-made nature of the site because the steps were too large for natural human movement and so had no apparent reason for being constructed or carved. But the monument had also been covered up by rapidly rising sea levels, and the terraces rose up in the direction of the nearby shore.

With a series of hand signals, Ethan indicated the lowest of the terraces near the front of the monument and pointed at the boat. Then he indicated the water around them, and raised his level hands in front of him up towards his head and over it and then pointed at the next level of terraces and the boat once more.

Lucy frowned for a moment and then her eyes widened as she realized what he was suggesting. The monument was not something built by human hands but modified as sea levels rose around it. The monument had been used as a dock, fresh terraces cut further and further away from the front of the monument as sea levels gradually rose in the wake of the Ice Age.

Suddenly, the so-called temples and altars made sense. They were not constructions in themselves, but features that had been carved smooth in order to build upon them: loading bays, steps, perhaps even a market where the so-called temple now stood. The altar may even have been a primitive sundial calendar, charting the passing of seasons for fishermen who might have lived and worked at this place. Only when the water became too deep and the level of the terraces reached the top of the monument was it finally overcome by the waves.

Lucy nodded, a look of delight in her eyes as she patted Ethan shoulder, clearly agreeing with his hypothesis of what the monument had actually been. Typically, in ancient civilizations, the presence of a natural harbour or a well-constructed dock had led to the establishment of major ports, from which major cities had then grown. The monument could easily represent all that remained of one of the oldest Japanese societies ever to have existed.

Ethan turned and saw that the monument extended some sixty yards long by perhaps forty wide and was at least eighteen yards deep. The terraces descended down on one side, while the temple beneath him extended down onto the surface of the main monument itself. Lucy produced in her hand a laminated map that she orientated to show the shape of the monument beneath him. Ethan could quickly identify the temple and the terraces, and also the shape of the angular altar to which Lucy pointed emphatically. Ethan nodded and turned to follow her as she began descending to where the altar should be.

The altar, a diamond-shaped feature extending up from the flat surface of the rest of the monument and located in front of the main temple, was covered in clumps of sea moss and clams. Sometimes referred to as the “turtle”, its perfectly ordered shape struck Ethan as far too geometric to possibly have been carved by anything but human hands. He swam behind Lucy as she came to a stop at the front of the altar and began pulling chunks of moss away from the surface.

Ethan noted a movement in the distance to his right and turned to see the ghostly form of a hammerhead shark drift like a marine phantom through the endless abyss. It seemed to watch him for a long moment with one cruel black eye on the tip of its massive head, and then its tail flicked and it accelerated out into the gloom once more.

Ethan turned back to Lucy and watched her clean the surface of the rocks and then begin to examine them closely. Ethan peered in from over her shoulder and quickly saw what she was looking at.

The rock had been engraved deeply with a single disc from which extended a series of lines radiating out from the bottom of the disc as though depicting a sun shining down toward the ground. There were no lines pointing upward. Ethan nodded, recognising the image as one that Lucy had shown him as being present in Israel. She had said that was no known link between the Egyptians and ancient Japanese Jomon who had lived on Yonaguni Island.

Ethan prepared the camera and then began photographing the engraving, both with the altar itself in view and also close-up on the detail of the icon. Lucy noted the position and orientation of the engraving on the altar and then pushed away and ascended above the monument as she sought more locations to investigate.

Ethan turned and saw another hammerhead shark emerge from the gloom behind them, circling slowly and swinging its great head from side to side. Its massive flanks were criss-crossed with scars from countless fights with other predators, and it easily outsized every shark he had seen up to that point.

Ethan ascended, tapped Lucy shoulder and indicated the shark, and as he did so he saw the three shapes approaching them swiftly from the south, metallic black blocks with the unmistakable shape of men behind them. The underwater jet-skis rushed in and Ethan could see each of the men holding a projectile, metallic harpoons with wicked glistening tips.