“We didn’t—”
“There’s always CCTV, Guy, you should know that.” Heidi shrugged.
The SEALs were around them now, two holding guns at a nonthreatening level. Bodie backed away and signaled for the whole team to do the same. Yasmine stared at Cross, but the thief couldn’t look at her, hanging his head as he trudged along. Having already noted their lack of firearms, Bodie didn’t expect any protests from the Bratva and didn’t get one.
“Stalemate,” he said. “Everyone could die right now or we could all live to fight another day.”
The bald man stepped in front of Yasmine. “You can count on it,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bone tired, the group trudged back to their SUV and drove into town. Reflecting on why they had been let go was deeply troubling. First, it had been a stalemate. Nobody had won, and no one had lost. Except the Chinese.
Second, Yasmine had offered mixed signals to both Cross and Bodie. But even the bald man had seemed reluctant to finish what he had started.
There was something else, something deeper going on here. But there was no time to stop. A large boat was waiting for them at a remote dock. Nothing fancy, just a rectangular vessel, pitted with rust, but bearing a powerful engine. Before they realized, it had motored them away from the Azores and out into the North Atlantic Ocean toward the Moroccan coastline from where they could view the jutting peaks.
From this distance, the Azores did indeed look like the tops of ancient mountains, all that remained of a deluged world. The boat dropped anchor a few miles from the coastline as the team gathered together in the small living quarters before separating to find their bunks and get some rest.
Bodie apprised them of the underwater find. They checked Cross for additional trackers, picking at his hair as if searching for lice. Cross looked dejected, lost, and was finding it difficult to cope. Everyone else nursed their wounds.
Bodie tried to lighten the mood. “I lost my camera,” he said, shrugging. “I have no idea where, but there’s still photographic evidence on Jem’s phone. Everything we saw down there.”
Expressions around the room cleared, especially Lucie’s. “Really?” the historian asked. “Let’s see them.”
“Well, it’s secreted carefully about her person.”
Everyone stared at the tight wetsuit. Lucie frowned. Jemma grumbled, removed herself from the room, and then returned a few minutes later. She held the phone out to a suspicious Lucie.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine.”
Heidi proposed a five-hour rest. The Chinese were dealt with for now and the Bratva had run out of clues to follow. The team could afford a small respite to replenish their reserves. Nobody questioned that the Chinese might send more men.
Whatever, Bodie thought. I sure as hell can’t function any longer without rest.
He fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, and was still groggy when his alarm went off. Gunn, on the bunk below, complained loudly. Similar groans could be heard in the rooms next door through metal walls as thin as paper. He guessed it was now early afternoon.
Bodie was starving. He made his way to the galley, where steaming coffee and sausage sandwiches were available. Almost drooling, he polished off the first and started on a second. One by one, the others filtered in. Last in was Lucie, and Bodie saw immediately that she hadn’t rested.
“You didn’t sleep?”
“Later. We need information first.” The historian’s tone was entirely professional again and belied the bruises on her face and the bandages around both arms. Bodie remembered how she’d opened up when they drank from the bottle and wondered if she’d expected to die back there. After all, pitched battle wasn’t exactly natural causes.
Heidi rested her chin on one hand. “So what does five hours get us, apart from zombie eyes and camel hair?” She flicked her eyes to Cassidy as she finished speaking.
“Oh, we can’t all have perfectly tight, perfectly adorable curls, darlin’,” the redhead protested, shaking her locks out.
Lucie poured coffee. “There were sixteen photographs in all. I sifted through them carefully. What we ended up with was an interesting frieze, which is the panel that runs along the top of the apex, yes?” She paused to drink, take a sandwich, and sit down at the table, affecting her school-mistress air. “We have no way of determining the building’s date, but we do have eight bas-reliefs. The first three, and the largest, depict the god Poseidon, so we can safely say what you found was indeed a temple devoted to him. These reliefs also contain other gods, whom the Greeks would refer to as Apollo and Artemis, but who the Atlanteans may have called kings. I saw traces that confirm the temple may once have been inlaid with ivory, silver, and orichalcum. Now, the white, black, and red stones you saw at the base of the frieze are typical of the volcanic rocks in the region, and would be the very stones the Atlanteans would have used, if Atlantis is indeed beneath the Atlantic. It appears that this particular temple was a personal project, rather than a public one. It is small, basically unadorned, and, in places, not even completed.”
Jemma rubbed tired eyes. “You’re essentially saying that it was probably situated in Danel’s backyard? Like we might build a shed, or a barbecue?”
“Yes, why not? Danel was a lifestyle architect. A sculptor, a builder. He wanted to keep Atlantis alive for future generations. Is it not merely the equivalent of a man today burying a time capsule?”
“Putting your theory in context,” Jemma said, frowning, “would mean Danel lived high up in the mountains. Near the very peaks, it seems.”
Lucie shrugged. “Perhaps he knew the deluge was coming.”
“All this is fascinating,” Heidi said. “It really is. But can we get back to the temple?”
“Yes, of course. We’re left with five bas-reliefs. One depicts a king, whom I assume was ruler at the time. Another depicts an area of land, which I believe Danel wanted to immortalize because it was his home, and, yes, it is among the peaks. Now, the three that remain are the interesting ones. The first is the Pillars of Hercules, the second an old mountain, whilst the third is composed of text, a translation of which I have messaged Alessandro for.”
Bodie knew Lucie was enjoying stringing out her explanation, but then he was enjoying his second sandwich, and was prepared to let her waffle to her heart’s content.
“And…” Heidi looked grumpy. “What does it all mean?”
“The Pillars of Hercules are the first marker, the old mountain the second, and the text the third. Simple. Each successive relief narrows the location down. The text, by the way, translates closely to ‘In the mouth of the dead woman sleeping.’”
Bodie studied the others as Lucie explained. Despite all that had happened they were still engrossed.
“Since antiquity, the Pillars of Hercules was the name given to the promontories on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar. According to legend, Hercules performed twelve great labors. The tenth was to round up the cattle of Geryon. To get access to the far west, the furthest point reached by Hercules, he would have to cross the great mountain known as Atlas, a formidable task even for him. So Hercules smashed straight through it, connecting the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea and forming the Strait of Gibraltar. Never mind what Plato said about them, the Pillars have always held a startling significance in our world. They appear on Spain’s coat of arms along with the Latin, plus ultra, meaning ‘farther beyond’ and implying a gateway. Dante’s Inferno tells of a terrible voyage past the pillars and into the unknown. They appear in an unfinished novel by Sir Francis Bacon and bear the legend ‘Pass through and knowledge will be the greater.’ All of this implies that beyond the Pillars of Hercules a great, advanced land and civilization once lay.”