Billie nodded. “Exactly.”
“Or it’s just a coincidence, and five stones were randomly lost from the ancient artifact.”
“That’s always a possibility,” she acknowledged. “You want to hear a more likely theory?”
“Shoot.”
“This is a map of the world. Each of these gems represents a temple constructed by the Master Builders and interconnected by the strange power of the looking-glass. There were originally a total of twenty-seven indents filled with blue gems. Now there are twenty-two. Someone’s been removing a corresponding gem every time a temple has been destroyed.”
Sam took a deep breath and beamed with satisfaction. “You know what this means?”
Billie smiled. “We now have a map of the remaining temples of the Master Builders!”
Chapter Twelve
Sam’s heart pounded, and his muscles went tense with anticipation. He counted each of the meridian lines out loud. There were twelve lines in total. On a normal map of the Earth there were a total of a hundred and eighty meridian lines, but a normal map only displayed one line for every fifteen meridian lines.
A wry smile formed on his open mouth. “You’re right, it is a map of the world!”
Billie matched his smile. “And it shows where each of the remaining twenty-two temples are.”
“But it doesn’t tell us which of the four temples we need to take the Four Horsemen stones we found in the Aleutian Portal to, does it?”
“No.”
Sam met her inquisitive eye. “Is there anything else you’ve found?”
“Just this.”
“Is there any way we can narrow this down more specifically, or are we going to have to find and search twenty-two temples around the world?”
“You know as much as me. Once we’re back on board the Maria Helena, I’ll run some more tests, and see what I can find.” Billie sighed. “Once we know the map coordinates each of these gems corresponds to, we might be able to recognize a pattern or rule out some of them.”
“You’re still confident of your theory?” Sam asked.
“Yes, now even more so.” She spoke emphatically. “Those four stones found buried within the Death Stone will need to be placed at four separate temples — most likely running along contiguous meridians — in order to protect Earth…”
“How?” Sam asked, incredulous. “The four stones are small enough to fit individually in one’s hand. So, what the hell are they going to do to protect us from an approaching asteroid?”
“I have no idea. But previously, we’ve seen the Master Builder utilize ancient technologies in ways that our scientists can’t understand or explain. If they’ve known about this thing approaching for nearly thirteen thousand years, I’m willing to bet my life they’ve worked out a way of beating it.”
“That’s good, because we’re all betting our lives that you’re right.”
The sound of the engine changed its pitch, and the helicopter banked gently to the left. Sam glanced up ahead, out through the windshield. They were flying over water. Most likely they had reached the Caribbean Sea. He glanced at the sea below. It was calm, the rays of light glistening off the ripples beneath the helicopter blades.
Roughly half a mile ahead, a vessel came into view.
It was painted sky blue. And along the ship’s steel hull, in large emerald writing, were the words MARIA HELENA and below in smaller writing — Deep Sea Expeditions. From the distance, it looked like nothing more than an oversized tugboat or possibly an old icebreaker converted into a science vessel. On the aft deck a helipad could be seen — the only indication that it was anything more than a tugboat.
The sight of his ship always made him smile.
The nose dipped again, and the Sikorsky dropped its altitude before Genevieve leveled out and brought it into a gentle hover above the Maria Helena’s aft deck. A moment later, she placed it firmly on the deck and shut down the engine.
The main rotors continued to whir almost silently above their heads. Billie glanced out the side of the helicopter. The sea was still moving swiftly.
Her eyes turned to Sam, and she asked, “We’re moving?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, as though it was obvious.
“Where to?”
“We’re heading to Belize.”
“Belize? What’s in Belize?”
“Nothing, but in two days the USS Gerald R. Ford will travel through the Caribbean Sea on a routine set of sea trials. We’ve been instructed to wait at Belize and rendezvous with her to return their experimental Black Hawk — otherwise I’m going to owe Uncle Sam somewhere in the vicinity of forty-five million dollars.”
“What are we going to do waiting around here for two days?” she asked, as though the thought of enjoying some much-needed rest and relaxation in paradise was abhorrent and repugnant to her.
“I don’t know what you want to do, but I’m going free-diving. There’s an annual event. I booked tickets for Tom and I a week ago”
Billie met his eye. “A week ago?”
Sam shrugged. “On the off chance we had to wait for the USS Gerald R. Ford.”
She smiled and shook her head at his lie. “Tom’s going to be pissed he can’t go diving with that leg wound.”
Sam glanced over at him. “Yeah, he’ll be pissed. No reason I shouldn’t have some fun though. Besides, he can come watch.”
“I’ll have a go deciphering the rest of the tablet and working out where each of the temples are that each of those sapphires correlates to,” Billie said. Then, after a long pause, “once I’ve slept.”
Her tone brooked no argument, and Sam didn’t even try. His eyes were too heavy, and his body already shutting down for some much-needed rest.
“Yeah, for sure — get some rest. We’re no good to anyone in our current state. I’m going to spend the day sleeping, and will probably take a few hours to enjoy the free diving competition tomorrow. After that, let’s see what you’ve found and where we’re going to go from here.”
“Sounds good.”
Sam paused. “Once we know which temples require the stones, and where they belong inside the temple, what then?” he asked.
Billie looked up, a faraway look in her eyes. She shook her head. “Then we wait.”
“Wait for what?” Sam wasn’t much of a waiter. He preferred action any day. A tendril of fear made the hairs on his arms stand up when he noticed Billie’s expression.
She swallowed, hard. “For the signs that the ending of the world has begun.”
Chapter Thirteen
It was a typical, balmy day off the coast of Belize.
The midday sun glistened in the clear blue and turquoise water, causing it to sparkle with the light of an infinite bed of crystals. Sam edged the Maria Helena’s inflatable Zodiac through the maze of corals that formed the Lighthouse Reef, and then through the gap into the Great Blue Hole. On the opposite side of the small runabout, Tom stretched out his injured leg with a bemused look on his face. They had both dived here extensively when they were in their early twenties. It felt like coming home to a childhood vacation spot.
On an ordinary day, the giant sinkhole would have only had an occasional recreational dive boat and they would have been able to bring the Maria Helena right inside.
But today, the entire place was a great flurry of activity.
Boats full of spectators crowded the area where usually only dive boats bearing recreational divers were present. In the very center of the 300-foot, perfectly circular, submerged sinkhole floated a huge temporary diving barge. All the boats had been tied together to make one giant diving platform. At the very end of the flotilla was a single de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter Seaplane. Its owner had casually left it tied to the last boat in the flotilla, where it rested peacefully on the perfectly still water at the end of a single fifteen-foot line of rope.