The interior was cramped. Bodie, Jemma, and Cassidy sat on the floor. Alec picked his way between them to the front of the small craft. Even Cassidy looked a little nervous as the round hatch was closed and the interior wheel turned to seal them inside. Luckily, the pilot soon diverted any anxieties they might have.
“Leave the weights for now, we’re not overloaded,” he said through an intercom. “Minimal prep time.” He tapped at a laptop that rested on his knees. Bodie was pleased to hear and see the professional tone and manner.
“Send me the coordinates now. Checking outside lights and temperature…” A few more presses and then an adjustment of a small wheel that, to Bodie, looked like a radiator control. “Yes, we’re good. Master arm is functional and we have… eight hours of power on the main cells.” Alec looked around at Bodie.
“No more than a six-hour dive. You understand?”
Bodie nodded. Six hours sounded like a lifetime. Cassidy mentioned the restroom and received a scathing glare. Jemma asked about the science of the submersible and received a grudging reply. There was no placating their pilot.
“We ready?” he said into the handheld comms.
A crackle came back that, to Bodie, sounded rather ominous. If the connection was crackling up here, right next to the antennae, what would it be like a thousand meters below the surface?
“Video feed live,” Alec said.
“Live,” the black box sizzled.
“Then we’re a go. Sit back, relax, and let’s get this journey over as soon as possible.”
Bodie nodded in agreement. “Pal, do I ever agree!”
Bodie reined in his imagination as they sank through murky depths. Who knew what they would find, or what they might encounter on the way? The ocean depths were the most unexplored regions on the earth, and home to incalculable secrets. The actual descent wouldn’t take as long as they’d thought — probably forty-five minutes — but the sense of water pressing all around was something he was increasingly forced to ignore.
He concentrated on what might be happening aboard ship as the submersible sank toward unfathomable depths.
Heidi, he was certain, had kept herself and Cross up top to make sure Yasmine and Hakim were handled. Together, they would be able to keep watch on the other Moroccans. Bodie knew Heidi’s initial communications to Interpol had made them aware of the situation.
The ship’s captain would be privy to this knowledge too. Hopefully, his men were prepped.
So… smooth sailing? Bodie laughed at the image, and the chances of anything on this mission going smoothly. The only thing he knew for certain was that Alec was prepping the outside lights and master arm. Visibility remained good, the main screen showing a blur of greenish water illuminated by a single bright light, shapes of small fish darting away. The pilot guided them lower and lower, saying nothing, just following the readings and calculations on his monitors that showed a colorful map of the approaching seabed and the distances from rocks and trenches to channels, sea mounts, and valleys.
“How close to the exact coordinates will we get?” Jemma asked.
Alec grunted. “Close. We can’t risk striking a rock or coming too near a ledge, but the seabed looks flat enough at that point. We’re ten minutes away.”
Bodie took a breath, now feeling anxious about what they may find down there. Each small TV monitor showed a different view of the sea around them.
On the one hand, he knew there had been prior expeditions to locate Atlantis that had come up empty-handed; but on the other, not a single one of them had known the exact coordinates of where to look.
Knowledge was everything. He’d discussed something similar with members of his own team: why, every time a plane went down, wreckage from the lost aircraft was sometimes never found, even though a portion of it might still float. The sea was far vaster than most could imagine, and looking for a seat or a life raft in the wide waters would be like searching for the tip of a spire or a dilapidated wall across the bulk of the murky ocean floor.
Impossible.
With the seabed coming closer, the team edged nearer the screens. Alec waved them back impatiently, but didn’t ask again what they searched for. As they descended, he took a sonar reading that more clearly showed the upcoming floor.
“Slow, slow,” Jemma said. “We’re looking for a mass. A large mass. A building, almost.”
Bodie understood. “You’re thinking the temple?”
“Why not? So far, Danel’s used it as the focal point for every clue, even building a representation of the original.”
He waited and watched, reminded that Jemma had recently suffered electrocution and proud of how calm she acted now. The entire team had taken their new CIA status in a remarkably unruffled manner, at least outwardly.
Bodie guessed some part of it was down to legitimacy — it was good to be hunting and not hunted for a short while. But the lack of freedom, of free will, that needed addressing.
Alec drifted lower still. The coordinates clicked closer and closer until a low-key siren sounded among the submersible’s instruments. Jemma leaned in to the small screen that focused on the sea floor.
“Can you enlarge?”
“On the laptop, yes.” Alec clicked some buttons.
Bodie peered harder at the expanded picture that appeared, crowding close to Alec’s shoulder. “What is that?”
Alec fired off another sonar reading, which told them the looming object was not silt, though silt covered almost all of it. The sediment mounds rose and fell, swirled by the current and built up through countless years.
“Could be a ship,” Alec said. “Although the bulge there”—he tapped the screen—“is actually all silt, so the shape is distorted.”
“Can we get rid of the silt?” Jemma asked.
“Yes, we have a vacuum, but wait…”
Alec reported their findings to the ship and slowed their descent. He spent a moment firing off a series of sonar scans and then cleaned up the image. “If we remove the silt like so, then we are left with a shape.” He shrugged. “Is this what you are searching for?”
Bodie watched, electrified, as the picture suddenly became clear.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
A roof shaped like a pediment. A frieze potentially across the length of its front plinth. A series of columns, some collapsed. The building was an exact match to the one in the Azores but on a far larger scale. It lay at an angle, much of the structure broken but so well made by the Atlanteans that it hadn’t crumbled and scattered across the seabed on impact. The team took screen shots and Alec spent a little time vacuuming the silt away, but soon realized the task was far beyond the capacity of their vessel.
“Whatever that is,” he said, “you will need special surveying, safety, and lifting equipment to continue this journey.”
Bodie understood and wholeheartedly agreed, but secrecy was still paramount. Enough people already knew about their search — including several at Interpol now — and they didn’t want it broadcast further without a cautious plan in place. Jemma asked Alec to inform Heidi that their operation had been successful and to take the next step.
Bodie sat back, eyes closed, feeling a deep sense of achievement, but most of all, relief. Mission accomplished. Perhaps this was one time that they could actually rest on their laurels. Nobody was crazy enough to assume Atlantis would be properly discovered in the next few days or months, perhaps even years, depending on budget, but their own job was done, and they had done it well.