At the same time, the chopper lifted off in earnest, with Jayden yelling at the pilot to go, go, go. By the time Carter began to lift himself into the chopper, he was out of realistic range of the guns. Still, the boat pursued them for a short distance, and more shots were fired as evidenced by the tiny orange muzzle blasts visible against the dark sea in the distance, but they had eluded their pursuers.
For now, Carter thought, kneeling at the edge of the open door while Jayden steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He knew Daedalus wouldn’t be satisfied until all threats to his illicit enterprises were neutralized. He watched the heavy rain fall while the angry sea surface faded into obscurity until Jayden pulled the door closed.
For now.
Chapter 13
Carter and Jayden clinked frosty mugs of cold Canadian lager over their table inside a waterfront pub. “Here’s to being alive,” Jayden toasted. They soaked up the brew in silence for a while, savoring this simple but extravagant fact. The remainder of the helicopter ride back to the coast had been non-eventful, save being nearly out of fuel when they made the heliport in St. John’s.
The easternmost city in North America, St. John’s was originally a fishing village established by European colonists. The small city reminded Carter of San Francisco with its steep hills, but also of Caribbean architecture with its bright wooden houses. The climate, however, was definitely not Caribbean, and was even cooler on average than San Francisco, with the current temperature being in the mid-forties, Fahrenheit.
Carter looked around at the pub, sparsely populated at this early hour of the day. Later, when the fisherman arrived back to the docks, it would fill up with boisterous men unwinding after a hard day’s work. But for now, Carter and Jayden had time to reflect on how this port was the closest to where the Titanic had sunk. And they were lucky to be drinking here. Jayden set down his empty mug and requested another round from a passing server.
“I can understand trying to kill us when we still had the map, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why they wanted to kill us so bad after Daedalus already had the map.” He shook his head slowly as he finished his sentence. Carter swilled the last of his brew and set the empty mug on the worn, wooden table with a soft clack.
“We’re a threat to his livelihood, to his illicit antiquities business.”
“I guess we kind of proved that in Atlantis, didn’t we?” He grinned at the memory of their epic sojourn into the legendary city, culminating in a standoff against Daedalus and Treasure, Inc.
“I’d say we did,” Carter agreed. The server returned with their second round and he paused until after she had left before continuing. “But as usual, it’s Daedalus for himself first, leaving his people to handle the dirty work for him. He left early in their helo for a reason, not because he didn’t want to take us out.”
Jayden nodded. “Right, they could have strafed us from their chopper when we were in the Zodiac and this fledgling bar tab here never would have happened.” He took another long pull from his mug. “He just wanted out of there with the map.”
“No question about that,” Carter agreed. “The question is, where did he take it?”
Jayden looked outside at the waterfront, at the gulls wheeling in the sky, the row of fishing boats at the dock, at the smattering of pedestrians passing by. “He left in a helo, and since most helo’s don’t have much range, I’m guessing he would have landed in the nearest port, which is right here.” He waved an arm at the view outside and then stared intently in that direction, as though Daedalus could walk by at any second.
“I’m sure he landed here, too. But I mean, what’s his next move with the map? Where does he go based on the info it provides?”
“I don’t know. Too bad we didn’t get a picture of it so that we know what it is that he’s going by,” Jayden lamented.
“I only got the barest glimpse of it for all of two seconds, and while it appeared old and possibly authentic, and it did look like a map of some kind, I can’t say for sure it was a map that depicts the final resting place of Noah’s Ark.”
“So you didn’t see a picture somewhere on there of a big boat with a bunch of animals on it?”
Carter laughed in the negative until a new group of patrons, all of them male and middle-aged, entered the pub. Carter scrutinized them carefully. It wouldn’t take a great leap of logic for Daedalus’ team to figure out that they must have landed in St. John’s from the ‘copter, as they had, and that a local watering hole would be their preferred hangout while they recovered from their at-sea ordeal. But after observing them, he concluded that all of them were locals and therefore highly unlikely to be affiliated with Treasure, Inc.’s European-based operations.
“But you can’t say for sure that it’s not a map to the ark, either,” Jayden said after sufficient time to observe the newcomers had elapsed.
“Right. So let’s assume for a moment that it’s the real deal.” Carter swilled some more Canadian flavor as he considered this. “Where would Daedalus take the map after landing here? What would his next move be?”
Jayden shrugged. “Guy like that, lots of resources… could be almost anywhere, I suppose. But he really wants to find Noah’s Ark, so if he’s going to go right after it without letting things cool off…”
“I think that’s the Daedalus we all know and hate.”
Jayden continued. “Then I’d say his first move might be to have images of the map sent to his history and authentication experts, in Europe, I guess, and see what they say as far as where it points to.”
Carter gave Jayden a long stare. “That’s what I was thinking. But let’s say that process takes about a day given his resources and… motivational acumen… a timeframe which has already transpired, since he landed here yesterday a few hours before us. Where would he be going based on that?”
Jayden made a gesture of futility, tossing his hands wildly. “Look, Carter, if I knew where Noah’s Ark was—”
“We don’t have to know where the ark is. That’s the beauty of it. We just have to know where Daedalus thinks it is. The general vicinity. Because if we can find Daedalus, then we can take the map back from him.”
“I can think of a way that is simpler, in theory.” Jayden appeared pleased with himself. Again, a server appeared, this time with a tray of scallops with pork hock, and they halted the conversation until she had left.
“I’d love to hear it,” Carter said, before taking a bite of the fresh seafood.
“If we could hack into whatever systems Daedalus used to send those scans of the map to his people — I mean really, how many Wi-Fi routers and cable Internet providers could there be in this Podunk little town- then we could just steal the images from there and be looking at the map ourselves.”
Carter nearly choked on his shrimp. “I’m a historian, Jayden, and you’re a SEAL. We’re not computer experts. Especially you.”
Jayden let the jab slide. “Yeah, but you’ve got the money to hire one.” That point was true enough. The fortune Carter had inherited from his grandfather that had enabled him to start Omega Team would enable him to do that.
“In theory,” Carter said, “that could work. I give you that. But it’s got issues. One: it would take time to vet someone and hire them, then wait for their results. Time during which we could be doing some real boots-on-the-ground treasure hunting. Two: it creates an additional security risk. The more people we have over here poking around, the more noticeable we are, and the more likely it is that someone will hear about our activities sooner or later. Our computer expert would always know what we did; they would probably always have a copy of the map. I don’t like it.”