“All right. You’ve made up your mind. Tom and I have a meeting with someone in Malta. We’re leaving now, if you want to join us. I know you don’t have anything to pack.”
“Okay, great.” Zara nodded. “Sam.”
“Yes?”
“In case I didn’t get around to it before… Thank you.” She smiled at him. “For saving my life, getting me through the ancient irrigation fogarras, everything. I really appreciate it.”
Sam paused in the doorway, and grinned back. “You’re welcome.”
He turned and left, walking up towards the Sikorsky. Tom had already powered up the Sikorsky and run through its series of safety checks. Sam slid open the side door and Zara climbed in, placing her bag with her computer and the book of Nostradamus on the chair next to her. Sam closed the door and climbed into the navigator’s side of the cockpit.
Sam fitted his headset and turned to Tom. “How are we looking?”
Tom said, “Fueled up. Engine’s warm. Oil pressure’s good. We’re good to go.”
“Good. Let’s head off then.”
Tom said, “Hang on a second.”
Genevieve opened the door next to Tom. He looked at her, and said, “Everything all right?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she kissed Tom passionately on the lips. It lasted for about thirty seconds and then she pulled away. “Stay safe, and don’t let Sam lead you into trouble.”
Sam smirked and turned away.
Genevieve saw his expression and said, “Don’t say it.”
“What?” Sam asked, grinning.
“I said, don’t.”
Sam nodded his head. Genevieve was an intensely private woman. He’d never even heard of her showing her affections in public, let alone in front of the rest of the crew before. He caught Tom’s gaze. One glance and he knew to keep his mouth shut. It was one thing for Genevieve to kiss Tom when he arrived on board the Maria Helena after she thought he was dead, but another thing entirely to do so under normal conditions. It made her appear normal, instead of her usual hardened self.
Genevieve closed the cockpit door and walked away.
Tom smiled. “I guess, now we’re good to go.”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Zara was the first to see the tiny speck of an island appear. It was wedged somewhere between the horizon and the infinite turquoise waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The first of the three Maltese islands which made up the tiny Mediterranean outcrop. Once there she would board a commercial flight to Paris and Sam Reilly would disappear from her life.
The Sikorsky’s rotor blades made a droning whoop, whoop sound which echoed in her head as they flew toward it. She took in a deep breath, slowly. Her hazel-green eyes stared vacantly at the island, while her mind drifted pensively into her past. A prophecy that had extended into her great ancestry. A life spent searching for a book she only now believed in. The discovery of the book of Nostradamus. The missing 58 quatrains. It had been a wild ride. The culmination of it all, leading to someone she’d never heard of wanting her dead.
General Nige was the weapon of that person’s desire. But she still had no idea who wanted the book bad enough to kill her for it. She would need to donate the book to the Louvre of course. It would be the only way to protect herself. They would make copies, and a digital database that could be studied at universities around the world. It was the only way to remove its intense value.
She’d met a lot of interesting people along the way. None more so than Sam Reilly. He was a hero of a different sort. All the normal characteristics were there. He was tough, handsome, and righteous. His piercing blue eyes betrayed his intelligence but also his kindness, simultaneously. His confident grin made him appear youthful and mischievous. He was focused, but settled, in any circumstance. Knowledgeable, but quick to listen and learn from those who knew more than he did. From what she saw, he served his country, but that patriotism extended beyond the borders of American soil. He served his fellow man, and acted for the goodness of the human race, which he often expressed his most fervent belief in — despite the many signs of discord throughout the world.
Despite growing up inside a privileged world of wealth, politicians, and diplomats, he didn’t have a conceited bone in his body. He was rich enough to never work again, yet he chose to serve. He worked for fun, because he enjoyed it, and because a certain job needed doing, and he was uniquely capable of doing it. He believed in duty and what is right, above self-gratification and one’s own desires. Even though he looked contented to wander the desert as a nomad, subsisting on local cuisine, she imagined he would look just as much at home, rubbing shoulders at a cocktail party with world leaders and billionaires.
She could have definitely loved a man like that. She breathed out slowly again.
In another life.
And in another time.
Because right now, she had a job to do. She’d followed Nostradamus as far as she could. Now she had to explore the future for herself. See what it had planned for her. By deciding to continue searching for the Nostradamus Equation, she was willingly risking the lives of future generations. She would risk sending the entire human race into extinction at the turn of the twenty second century, for the very remote possibility that she could change the future. A future where the human race becomes extinct in three hundred years.
She still didn’t know why she had done it. What had made her take such a tremendous gamble? It wasn’t even hers to make — it was not her risk. Zara thought about that for a moment. She knew the answer, deep down, although she struggled to admit it to herself.
Because Nostradamus had told her she would succeed…
And because she couldn’t live in a world where her unborn daughter was the last generation of the human race!
The helicopter banked hard to the right and straightened out on a direct northerly course. She felt her stomach lurch at the sudden change in pressure and at the same time, bile rose uncomfortably in her throat. Her eyes glanced at Tom, who appeared confident at the helicopter’s controls. Next to him, Sam was plotting a new course into the GPS.
Zara leaned forward. “Malta’s back that way. Where are you heading?”
Sam shook his head, apologetically. “There’s been a change of plans.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We just took a mayday call. There’s been a large submarine earthquake in the waters south of Sicily. A seismograph located at Portopalo Di Capo Passero on the southern tip of Sicily recorded a reading of 8.2 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter is estimated at approximately thirty miles due south of the coast of Sicily. The water there is shallow. There’s going to be a massive tsunami. The Sikorsky has a large carrying capacity, and long range fuel tanks. We’ve been requested to help look for any survivors along the coast.”
She nodded. “How close are we?”
“We’ll be there within the hour. We can’t rescue anyone from its initial battery of waves, but we might help some people who get swept out to sea afterwards. The Maria Helena has already turned to make its way there, too.”
Zara asked, “Will those living on the Sicilian coast survive?”
Sam said, “It depends. If their early tsunami warning system is good, people will have time to evacuate. The greatest enemy is complacency. Tsunamis rarely look dangerous as they approach. It’s only once they strike the coast that their potentially devastating force is realized.”
She nodded, but said nothing.
Had the future just challenged her decision to abandon Nostradamus’s warning, and continue to search for the Nostradamus Equation?