“Crap,” Heidi said.
“Not a problem,” Lucie said. “Jemma’s original photo should still be on her phone. We can zoom in on that.”
Every pair of eyes turned toward their chief organizer. Jemma laughed nervously. “Of course I still have it.”
A few moments later they were studying the clearer symbols.
“Alessandro called them ancient coordinates,” Lucie said. “But, essentially, they’re simple compass coordinates.” She shrugged. “Seafaring people, like the Atlanteans, used celestial bodies to navigate and combined that with dead reckoning. The ancient Greeks invented a coordinate system in a book called Geography that was lost at the Library of Alexandria in the third century BC. And, as we now know, the Greek gods were actually the kings of Atlantis, all our forefathers. The fact to bear in mind is that the Greeks never pretended to invent their gods or their mythology, rather saying that it passed from ancient peoples into the flutes of the Greeks. But, I digress. The greatest seafarers used a geocentric ecliptic system centered on the earth for their astronomy, and thus we can follow the paths they took.”
She sat beside Heidi and asked for a laptop. “This will take a while,” she said.
Dismissed, Bodie didn’t complain but took the opportunity to pour coffee and wash down painkillers. Cassidy was already supplementing those with copious amounts of alcohol. He saw Cross with that faraway look on his face, and Jemma, battered and bruised. Gunn huddled alone with his comfort tablet clutched in one hand, a bandage wrapped around his head. Cassidy appeared shell-shocked, but still managed a smile.
“Been a while since I was taken down,” she said.
“I have a special ops team preparing to join us,” Heidi told them then, hoping to assuage their concerns. “Loaned to the CIA. All they need is a destination.”
“Well, tell them to mount up,” Lucie said with satisfaction, “because I know exactly where the Temple of Poseidon is.”
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.