Hunt dug his right foot into the bottom-most rung and began to climb. Ten, twenty, thirty feet vertical he went, holding his mini-flashlight clenched between his teeth. He still saw no light emanating from above, yet forced the negative implications from his mind and kept climbing. He climbed on until he almost hit his head as the angle of the chute changed, slanting up at about forty-five degrees rather than vertical.
What’s this all about? At first he thought it was due to his flashlight aiming up into his eyes, but then, as he saw that it was dangling down, illuminating the front of his chest, he felt a surge of elation.
Light! Natural sunlight filtering down from above! But how is that possible? If this tunnel leads up onto the reef why doesn’t the water fill this passageway? But right now the answers to those questions would have to wait. Jayden was calling up to him.
“Can’t see your fat ass anymore, Carter, what’s going on?”
Hunt swiveled his neck and shouted down: “Come on up. The tunnel angles here, and I see light!”
“Say no more!” came Maddy’s exuberant voice. She and Jayden started climbing the vertical chute while Hunt assessed the new section of tunnel. Aiming his light up into it against the walls, he saw more of the same limestone rock, only this section didn’t have the rungs cut into the sides. Due to the shallower angle, they weren’t needed. Hunt cautiously loped up the incline, on all fours, wary of hitting a loose or soggy section that could fall through, but the passageway floor remained solid beneath him as he progressed.
By the time he was near to the opening, he could hear Jayden and Maddy entering the inclined section below.
“Nice ladder!” Jayden called up. “What’s this next part like, Carter?”
Hunt turned around and bellowed down to them. “No more ladder, but you don’t really need it. Just walk like a dog on all fours, I’m sure you’re used to it, you knuckle-dragger.”
He could hear Maddy’s laughter bubbling up from below, followed by Jayden’s voice.
“Normally I’d say something to that, but right now I’m still in shock that I’m alive at all.”
“Hopefully it’ll stay that way,” Maddy said.
“I’d say our prospects have improved dramatically,” Hunt said, looking up to the natural light filtering into the chute from above. “I see trees!”
“Are you sure the oxygen deprivation didn’t have an affect on your already questionable brain, Carter?” Jayden asked.
“No, I can see it, too!” Maddy called out. “Light!”
Meanwhile, Hunt crawled the rest of the way to the end of the passageway, the hexagonal stone chafing uncomfortably against his skin beneath the wetsuit. The exit flared out in a stone lip that was overgrown with green vegetation. Hunt listened, wondering if perhaps Treasure, Inc. might be waiting right outside the exit, somehow knowing where the passage would lead, but he didn’t hear anything except the twittering of birds and the rustle of leaves in a light breeze.
Hunt took the final steps and emerged from the dark tunnel into the world of light.
Chapter 24
Daedalus stood on the bow deck of his yacht overlooking the stern dive platform, which was currently a hub of purposeful activity. Below, crew members set up scuba tanks and prepared dive equipment, including double-tank rigs with exotic gas mixtures that would allow increased bottom times. He glanced at his jeweled watch and then spoke into a handheld radio to his brother, Phillipo, who supervised the dive operations down on the platform.
“Carter and his team have certainly expired by now. Split your divers into two groups: one to see what lies in the blue hole that might be connected to Atlantis, and another to locate the bodies of Hunt and his team. I want confirmation that they are dead.”
Phillipo did not bother replying over the radio but merely looked up to his brother from the dive deck and held his fingers in the “okay” sign before turning to address one of his men concerning specifics of the dive operation. While the operation was prepped, Daedalus stared out over the water above the Bimini Road, occasionally raising a pair of marine binoculars to his eyes, looking for heads bobbing in the water that might indicate Hunt and his friends somehow made it to the surface, alive or dead. But he saw only the sparkling blue sea surface. One question burned into his mind while he stared into the uncaring sea.
What did you find down there, Carter Hunt?
As he heard a splash near the boat and looked over in time to see the first diver entering the water, his lips spread into a thin smile.
He would have his answer soon enough.
Hunt shook his head in wonder as he, Jayden and Maddy stared at their new surroundings. Sunlight, blue sky, trees, sand, dry coral, birds…
An island.
They stood immediately outside the passageway entrance, in a copse of scrubby trees rooted in sandy soil, on a small hillock shrouded in foliage at the highest elevation point of what was little more than a sandspit of an islet. Hunt summed up what they were all thinking.
“So the passageway we were washed down into from the pyramid — it travelled beneath the seafloor a mile or so until it angled up beneath this island, right through its base. Coming out in the middle of it.”
Maddy nodded. “I’m pretty sure this is that same island we saw on the way in from the plane.”
“Let’s check it out.” Jayden pushed through the foliage until he was outside the heavily shrouded tunnel exit. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve got this place all to ourselves.”
Hunt and Maddy also fought their way through the brush until they, too, could see the rest of the island. Scrubby green plants dominated the center while brown coral rubble defined the perimeter, with a ring of white sand encircling that. The blue Atlantic sprawled in every direction beyond the island, with no other land masses within sight.
“Which way do you think our plane is?” Jayden asked. All of them turned slowly in circles, visually inspecting the horizon in every direction, but none of them had an answer. Hunt offered the closest thing to a solution.
“Wherever it was, I think ‘was’ is the key word, since Daedalus obviously found our secret underwater blue hole and tried to make us a permanent part of it. I doubt he’d leave our plane floating around so people can find it and say, ‘Hey I wonder what happened to whoever was on it?”
“You can bet that the rental company will start looking for it when we don’t bring it back later today. You’re right, he’ll probably sink it rather than risk a lot of questions that he thinks could lead to not only some dead bodies being found, but the entire underwater area beneath the Bimini Road.”
“And he doesn’t even know about the pyramid yet,” Maddy added.
“I can think of one advantage this has given us,” Hunt said, staring out across the ocean.
“What’s that?” Maddy asked. “Because from where I’m standing, all we did was show Daedalus where a monumental treasure is and meanwhile, after almost drowning, we’re stranded on a deserted island with no food or water and no way to call for help.”
Hunt turned to look at Maddy, her disheveled, waterlogged form in a posture of defeat, even through the elation of still being alive. He felt bad for what she had been through, and so was glad to think of something positive to buoy her spirits. “Daedalus and Treasure, Inc. think we’re dead.”