“Be my guest.”
She put it on speaker and pressed the FASTDIAL key to connect with EES headquarters. A moment later Glinn himself answered. He wasted few words.
“Where are you and what’s happening?”
“Had a run-in with some treasure hunters. They shot up the boat.”
“Life raft?”
“Destroyed.”
“Launch?”
“Gone. Look, it’s a long story. We were able to sink the treasure hunters in a storm but the Turquesa went to the bottom as well.”
“Position?”
“My best guess is eleven degrees forty-four minutes North, eighty-one degrees one minute West. We’re on the Mosquito Coast maybe twenty miles north of Monkey Point, Nicaragua.”
“Do you have food and water? We’ll get a rescue vessel out to you just as soon as we can.”
“We don’t need picking up.”
Gideon looked at Amy, startled. She held up her hand, asking for his silence.
“I don’t understand,” came Glinn’s voice over the sat phone.
“We’re right where we want to be. I know where we have to go next. We can get there on foot.”
Gideon listened. This was nuts. He grabbed for the radio, but Amy held it out of his reach.
“On foot?” Glinn’s voice crackled over the radio. “I’m extremely concerned about the situation you’re in. You’ve been shipwrecked on an unknown coast. How are you going to finish the mission? We’re going to outfit a second boat for you, bring you some crew. I’m looking at the map as we speak. If you can head toward Monkey Point, there’s a lagoon just north where we can rendezvous, refit the expedition, and get you back on your feet.”
“Your concern is appreciated — but misguided,” Amy said firmly. “We’re on track. The next landmark on the map is ten miles from where we are, maybe less — I know it.”
“How do you know it?”
A silence.
“Gideon,” said Glinn, “are you there? Do you agree with this plan?”
Gideon glanced at Amy. She was staring at him. He hesitated and then said, “Yes.”
A long silence. “All right. I’m going to trust you. But I want regular updates. Twice a day, morning and night. Do you both understand?”
“We may have to make them less frequent than that,” said Amy. “I’m getting a low battery signal.”
They disconnected. Amy looked at Gideon, a smile breaking over her pale face, producing dimples he’d never seen before. “Thank you for backing me up.”
“I only did so because I expect an explanation from you.”
“You’ll just have to trust me for a little while longer—”
“No. I want an explanation now.”
This was greeted by silence.
“Christ, Amy. Here we are, castaways on a deserted coastline with nothing but a few granola bars and half a dozen liters of water. How do you know we’re still on track?”
Amy picked up the sodden briefing book and opened it to the Phorkys Map. The picture showed a flat line rising into a sharp line pointing toward a rounded line. The clue simply said, aquilonius.
“You showed me that before. What does it mean?”
“Stand up and look inland.”
Gideon did as he was told, and was immediately staggered by the two hills in the near distance: one with a sharp peak, the second rounded. “Oh, my God.”
“Yes. Oh, my God. Aquilonius is one way of saying north. So we go north, looking for the next clue.”
“Damn it, Amy, it would’ve been nice if you’d shared this with me earlier. And why hide it from Glinn?”
“Because I’ve discovered something even more incredible. It has to do with that printout I’ve been dragging around.”
“What is that damn printout, anyway?”
“The Odyssey, by Homer. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
34
Is that the one where this guy who’s really lost ends up in a cave with a hot enchantress?” said Gideon.
“Very funny. I’ll tell you what I’ve found, but first, let’s build a fire, dry out our clothes, and try to bring a little comfort and civilization to this god-awful place. Then we can talk.”
Half an hour later, they were both sitting in the sand by a small fire. The sun had set in a glory of vermilion, and the stars were coming up in the sky. A breeze rustled the leaves of the palm trees above them.
There was something rather glorious, Gideon decided, in simply feeling dry. “All right,” he said. “Let’s hear it. And it had better be good.”
Amy began by declaiming something in a language unknown to Gideon.
“What is that?” he said. “Are you still gargling salt water?”
“It’s ancient Greek.”
“Sorry, but my ancient Greek is a little rusty.”
“I just wanted you to hear the sound of it. It’s the most beautiful language in the world — and I don’t just say that because I was a classics major. You can’t truly appreciate Homer in English. ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ Πλάγχθη. ‘Sing to me of the man, O muse, that wily hero who traveled far and wide’—Sorry, the English just doesn’t cut it.”
Gideon shook his head. “Here we are, lost on an unknown coast, and you’re quoting Homer.”
“There’s a point to all this.” She tapped the damp pages of the printout.
“Which is?”
“Let me start at the beginning, so you can understand my reasoning. We already know the Phorkys Map was based on an earlier Greek map. Glinn said as much. That map was discovered by the monks of Iona, among their stores of old vellum.”
Gideon nodded.
“Which means that the Greeks got here first. The Greeks ‘discovered’ the New World.”
“Glinn told us that, too.”
“But that begs an obvious question: Who was the Greek Columbus? And how did he get here?”
Gideon waited.
“In 1200 BC, the Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy — the famous Trojan War. Which they won, of course, by tricking the Trojans with the hollow horse filled with Greek warriors.”
“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts and all that.”
“Exactly. Now let’s turn to the Phorkys Map.” She flipped the pages of their briefing book, with each clue enlarged. “Here it is, the first clue. Ibi est initium, it reads. And look at the little drawing of a horse. Remember? That was the clue old Brock back at EES couldn’t figure out. And it says: ‘There is the beginning.’ The beginning of what?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Gideon said.
“Of the voyage of Odysseus.”
“The voyage of…” Gideon stopped. “Are you saying that the Odyssey should be taken literally? I don’t know what’s crazier — that, or the idea that he traveled all the way to the New World.”
“It isn’t crazy. And I’m not the first to propose it. A group of dissident Homer scholars have argued precisely this point for years. They’ve been ridiculed and marginalized.”
“With good reason,” said Gideon.
“Because they didn’t have the proof we now possess — thanks to your theft of that page from the Book of Kells.” Amy’s voice was low, quiet, but full of conviction. “I’ve been comparing the Phorkys Map with the Odyssey. It all fits. After the defeat of Troy — using a wooden horse, recall — Odysseus and his men left in six ships. They were caught in two incredibly violent storms: one that drove them westward for three days, and another for nine days. It’s obvious to me now that he was driven, first across the Mediterranean, and then across the Atlantic — all the way into the Caribbean. That’s how the Greeks discovered the New World. And that, in turn, is how the Phorkys Map was created. It was based on the earlier Greek map of Odysseus’s voyage. That’s the map the monks found among their old stores of vellum. And that is how the monks of Iona were able to reach the New World. Odysseus was the Greek Columbus.”