Quatrain 43 — 5/31/2020 — written in red.
Quatrain 44 — 3/5/2030 — written in red.
John looked up at the rest of them. “Tell me one of you is making notes of each of these.”
Sam said, “I’m way ahead of you.”
“Good.” He continued working his way through each of the 58 quatrains.
Quatrain 56 — 2/14/2021 — written in blue.
Quatrain 57 — 8/2/2045 — written in red.
John continued until he reached quatrain 84. It was written in blue — meaning the future was still up for grabs and the date was tomorrow.
John looked at Sam. “What did you have planned for tomorrow?”
“Before the earthquake, we’d planned to help a man named Adebowale overthrow the rebel government of the DRC.”
John asked, “How?”
Sam said, “Nearly five thousand men are being held prisoner in a mine in the north of the DRC. Next to the mine is Lake Tumba. The United Sovereign of Kongo, of which Adebowale is the leader, have been waiting to mount a mission to release them, because General Ngige would drown the slaves if they attack. We need to free them before the counter rebellion can take place.”
John went quiet, as though none of it made any sense. His confidence was shattering.
Sam turned to John. “The Nostradamus Equation is telling us quatrain 84 is about the overthrow. The future’s still in limbo. You said before that I might have been responsible for this catastrophe. What did Nostradamus see? What did he want me to do?”
“I have no idea,” John said.
“Then what good was the equation?”
“You now know the time, and you know the quatrain that refers to the future event. I suggest Zara opens up quatrain 84 and works out what should be done.”
Zara opened the book of Nostradamus to Centuries VII — Quatrain 84.
An ocean above and a maze below
Where the two meet over a baled woe,
The twin of a king shall die and the sun will set,
With a new ruler, and a kingdom shall grow without threat
Sam stared at the quatrain. “An ocean above and a maze below is obviously referring to the Lake Tumba mine. But what the hell does the rest of it mean?”
Tom leaned in toward the book, and asked, “What’s a baled woe, anyway?”
“It’s old English,” Zara said. “Meaning a rescued person of great sorrow. Like you’ve saved someone from a terrible fate.”
Sam shrugged. “The twin of a king. Does General Ngige have a twin?”
Zara said, “I don’t know. I never even heard of the man until a few days ago, when he tried to kill me.”
“John, does General Ngige have a twin?”
“Yes, I think he might. I know he was funded by someone else who first gave him the idea of rebelling. Might have possibly even financed it in the beginning. That person might have royal blood.”
They bickered back and forward about the possible meaning of quatrain 84 and then stopped. A single clump of hardened sand fell directly on the pedestal, breaking apart where the orb rested. John then pressed a single pictograph on the side of the wall, which released the medallion. He looked at Zara. His blue eyes told her everything she needed to know. He’d seen the truth and it was important that no one else worked it out either.
John said, “It’s time to go.”
“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
“The island’s collapsing. The Nostradamus Equation was never built to last!”
Sam asked, “But what about the quatrain! What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure yet. I think you need to free those slaves. If you do that, I believe things will be placed back in the order that they were meant to be. We don’t need the equation anymore. We have the quatrain it led us to. Now we just need to make sense of it.”
Sam nodded, and felt the second clump of sand fall on his shoulder. It was small and barely noticeable, but the ramifications were deadly. Infiniti Island was breaking apart.
“Quick!” he said.
Zara placed the book of Nostradamus into its water-tight bag and pulled the zipper tight.
Sam said, “Tom, you go ahead first, and get the helicopter running!”
John had his regulator and dive mask on before he reached the water, and followed directly behind Tom. Sam made sure that Zara was right behind him, before donning his own dive mask and regulator.
They swam down the dark tunnel. As they turned to join the main tunnel’s entrance, a large section of sand broke off behind Sam. He slipped through, but the tunnel to the king’s chamber collapsed. It drove everyone with a sense of urgency to evacuate the pyramid, or be forever guests buried deep inside.
Sam was the last one to reach the surface. He pulled on Zara’s dive belt to release it, and then ripped open the Velcro which held her dive tank. He did the same for his own weight belt, but didn’t wait to remove his own dive tank.
The island around him was almost completely gone.
Thirty feet ahead, the main rotor blades of the big Sikorsky helicopter had started to rotate. The island was almost completely swallowed by the sea. The mountain behind was starting to collapse, in massive sections, like an avalanche. The obsidian spheres were starting to fall apart, and the twin islands were no longer connected. Water was already lapping at the skids of the helicopter.
Sam reached the side step of the Sikorsky as a wave rolled through under the helicopter. Tom glanced at him for a moment, and lifted the helicopter into the air. Zara and Tom helped pull him inside.
Sam slid the side door closed, and looked out the side windshield. Both sides of the island, no longer held together by the connective tissue of the obsidian spheres, now seemed to be drifting away from each other, each one collapsing in an opposite direction.
The strange obsidian spheres began rolling toward the entrance of the pyramid. A crack formed at the base of the sand mountain, and the obsidian stones rolled in through it. Every last one of them. As though they were driven by some divine power. Thirty seconds after the last stone disappeared, the mountain collapsed.
Sam watched out the windshield, as Tom turned the helicopter toward the Maria Helena. Infiniti Island was entirely gone, and what remained was nothing more than the calm turquoise waters of the Mediterranean Sea.
Chapter One Hundred and Three
The Sikorsky landed on the Maria Helena at 8 p.m. and by 10:05 p.m. a plan had been decided upon and Sam was discussing it with his entire crew, Zara, John and Adebowale. John had already given his view that it was the only possible outcome now. More risky than had the book of Nostradamus never been discovered, but the best chance of success, now that it has. Adebowale assured Sam that he could have his men ready to start the coup by tomorrow evening.
Sam said, “Let me make it clear, our job isn’t to participate in this rebellion. Our job is to free the slaves. It’s then going to be up to Adebowale to bring the change of power to the DRC.”
Everyone nodded. They couldn’t be seen to be picking sides with two rebel leaders inside the Democratic Republic of Congo after it’s democratically elected President had been killed through a ruthless coup.
“The entrance to the mine is poorly guarded. Fewer than twenty people. They have an old colonial-era Gatling gun fixed at the entrance to the mine, meaning no one can escape from the inside.”
Genevieve asked, “If Adebowale has the support of so many people, why doesn’t he simply raid it and release the prisoners?”
Sam said, “One of the main tunnels runs directly below Lake Tumba. The prisoners are trapped below. The lake’s shallow. Only about thirty feet deep. But the mine is more than a mile deep. General Ngige has spread word that if anyone attacks the guards at the entrance to the mine, they’ll blow the charge and the entire mine will be flooded, killing everyone below.”