“Australia!” Alexander shouted. “All the way there?”
“Hang on,” Montross said. “We don’t know we can trust this psychic or her green recruits yet.”
“Yeah,” said Jacob, “you lot have been crazy wrong before. Led by your noses to the wrong smells time and again.”
Alexander snapped back, “Shut it.”
“Both of you,” Aria said, leaning in, “shut it and let the man speak.”
“Thank you my dear. At least someone still respects their elders around here.” He continued, finding his place and trying to decipher the inelegant handwriting. “As to her other mission from Phoebe, she was asked find what our enemies are truly looking for. Good, Phoebe pieced that together too. Whoever we are up against need us psychics to find something. They want to use us, or create more like us.”
“Create more like us?” Alexander frowned. “What the heck does that mean?”
Montross took a moment. “While I was in captivity, I was shown a device down there…something that utilized special electro-magnetic waves and was used to amplify subjects’ brain and mental capacity. I believe it worked to stimulate these talents we have and let them loose in these ‘normal’ subjects.”
“Holy shit,” Aria said, and everyone looked at her in slight surprise. “Well, I mean, that’s interesting and might work, but I feel terrible for those people.”
“Why?” Jacob asked, slowing for a light at a busy intersection. It was close to rush hour, traffic intensifying.
“Well, you all were born with the sight, just like I always had this ability. Anyone forced to get it now, all at once, will have a frightful time.”
Jacob coughed as he stomped on the brakes. “Kind of like getting a drivers’ license and jumping behind the wheel of a Ferrari going two hundred miles per hour without ever driving before?”
“Yeah, too much power and responsibility.” Nina jabbed him in the arm as the light stayed red.
“Sh, I’m trying to read.” Montross continued, scanning the last part. “Victoria thinks they know where it is.”
“Where what is?”
Montross shrugged. “Must have missed something. Whatever they’re looking for. It’s…powerful. An ancient artifact.”
“Oh great, here we go again,” Alexander groaned.
“They think it’s in Micronesia, on some island. They’ve narrowed it to the lost city of…”
“Nan Madol?” Alexander’s voice crackled with excitement. “Oh my god!” It looked like he was about to pass out in shock. “Namodal. I should have known!”
“What?”
He was shaking his head, unable to respond, so Aria said it for him. “Wow, that’s all he’s been saying for two days. Had a vision of his Mom — Lydia — who told him that one word. To go there.”
Alexander nodded. “I’ve always wanted to explore that place! Megalithic structures under the water, not entirely submerged. An amazingly laid out city, with pyramids and roads and everything. It’s relatively unexplored, but bears the same megalithic workmanship as in other sites, and there are all these awesome legends about its creation…”
“Okay, can it, Caleb junior. History lesson some other time.” Montross set down the paper. Folded it and slid it back in the envelope. “Alexander? You’re going to have to RV Victoria, and Phoebe while you’re at it. Find out where they are so you four can meet up and…find your way to this Nan Madol.” He closed his eyes.
“Xavier?”
“No. Scratch that. Nina, give me that secure sat-phone, I have a call to make.”
She handed him the phone. Apparently, she knew enough not to question him when he took charge. The others did not.
“What’s going on?” Alexander asked.
Aria fidgeted, took Alexander’s hand. “What else did it say?”
Montross started. “It said — without saying it — that we were wrong about stopping the threat last time. It also said that I can’t go with you. I need to be back there, where I was, with her.”
“What? Who?”
Nina spun around, now her mask of calm melting away. “I just risked my life and broke all kinds of laws and committed treason to get you out of there.”
“I know, but I have to get back. Jacob, stop at the corner there and I’ll jump out.”
“No way.”
“And then you’re all going to a private airstrip I’ve used on occasion. Southeast Virginia. Halico Drive. You’ll find it. After this call to a pilot I trust, he’ll be waiting for you and will get you out of the country.”
“What about Phoebe?” Aria asked.
“On her own,” Montross said, “and I suspect she has her own larger plans to accomplish.”
Alexander was turning red. “What about my dad? We can’t leave him…”
“If he’s in Pine Gap, there’s no way we’re getting him out. No offense, but not even you, dear Nina, could pull that off.” Montross set a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “You’ll have to trust him, he’s been in worse scrapes.”
“But…”
“Orlando,” Nina said.
“What about him?” Montross snapped.
“He’s…going to be useful I think. But I don’t know how…”
“He’s a big boy too,” Montross said. “And if I play this right, get on their confidence, just maybe I’ll be able to secure freedom for the rest of them. But you four, you need to get to Micronesia. If there’s any chance it could get in their hands first…”
The car slowed as they neared the Pentagon area and the security and traffic increased.
Montross reached for the door handle. “Find it.”
“Find what?” Aria asked, exasperated.
“Keep it safe.” With that, Montross was out the door and running toward the nearest cop car back toward the perimeter.
Alexander looked at everyone else in turn, all wide-eyed and confused.
“I don’t understand,” Aria said, which prompted Alexander to snatch up the envelope, pull out the paper and rush to read the last part.
Slowly he lowered the page.
“Oh my god. There’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“I should have known. There were legends of two, used in the ancient wars. One side against the other.”
“What are you talking about?” Jacob asked, pissed now.
Alexander lowered his eyes. “Let’s get to the airport. We’ve got another Emerald Tablet to find.”
16
Victoria flicked the switch on and off to get their attention. The group was getting too riled up. Half wanted to leave, the other half wanted to stay or burrow down even farther into hiding, preferably in some bunker. A few feared that just by using their RV they would be drawing attention to themselves as if the government had some kind of psychic alarm. A couple of the men were paranoid of every sound, the wind and the creaking of the pipes upstairs.
“Come on, people, we still have work to do.”
The table was littered with pizza boxes, crust, markers and drawings. Sketches all over the place, and taped to the walls. Most of the right sight of the table was now covered with the sketches of the underwater city of Nan Madol, and page after page of a square green thing with etching marks on it like a language.
The man who had seen the gateway spoke up. “What? What else can we do? We’re not getting any further.”
“Can’t seem to give you anything more on its location.”
Victoria held herself in check. “They need us. Lives are depending on what we do here, please. Just keep it together a little longer.”
The comments kept coming.
“We should be home. With our families. Watching all this from afar.”