by Steven Moore
R.B. cracked up too, and any tension he’d felt about how this would end up soon dissipated beneath the warm glow of genuine laughter. It was several minutes before they’d regained their composure, but both Megan and R.B. had needed that release after a stressful few days.
R.B. fell silent for a minute as he glanced around the small cabin. The boat had served them as well as could have been expected for what they paid for it, which wasn’t much at all. Enough for the bank to claim it from them, obviously, but in reality it wasn’t worth anything to anyone.
The last things to pack where Barnaby Quinn’s map and artifact. R.B. had hidden them in a drawer when he went down to Bill’s office, and he was a little nervous about showing them to Megan now, especially after her reaction when she’d heard about them on the phone. But, if he was ever going to do it, now was the time.
“So, about that map and the artifact. Wanna see ‘em?”
“Well, R.B., I can think of no good reason why not. So sure, you just come on over here and show me the map to our fame and fortunes.” She smiled, but it was more a hangover from the laughing fit than any great expectations of what she was about to see.
R.B. simply nodded, and retrieved the package from the galley drawer. He slowly opened the package up, all the while keeping his eye on Megan’s reaction. As he carefully unfurled the map, he could have sworn Megan’s attention turned a little more serious. She didn’t show any real emotion, but he was certain he spotted her eyes narrow a little in concentration. Next he placed down the carved human digit, and this time there was a definite hint of recognition. Megan stared at the object for a long moment, as if mentally trying to place it. And then, as if a light bulb had flashed on in her mind, her hand shot to her mouth, concealing a vociferous gasp.
“I ... I think I know what that is.”
12
No More B S
The change in Megan’s attitude was astonishing to R.B. When they’d spoken on the phone the other day, she’d bitten his head for mentioning Barnaby’s map. Even when she’d first turned up this morning he thought she was still a little aloof, though she was trying hard not to be. But now, having seen the map and the artifact in person, it was as if Megan had experienced a new lease of life. It was the old Megan there with him now, the Megan who got excited about adventure and exploration, and who had dreamed of finding exciting things with B and S Salvage Incorporated. The Megan he loved? Ryan Bodean didn’t want to get aboard that particular train of thought, and banished it to the back of his mind. For now.
“So, what is it?” R.B. was suddenly brimming with his own excitement. He had believed in Barnaby Quinn’s outlandish words, despite the state he was in when he’d said them.
Barnaby Quinn. R.B. suddenly remembered how Barnaby had disappeared without a word this morning, and he felt momentary concern that something sinister had happened. But he was a tough old boy, no doubt about it, and R.B. turned his attention back to Megan, the map, and the artifact.
Megan as yet hadn’t answered. “Well Megan, you gonna keep me waiting here all day, or you gonna tell me what’n the hell this all means?”
“I’m not sure about the map. But this, this finger ... well, have you ever heard of The Christ of the Abyss statues?”
“Sure I have,” replied R.B. “Who hasn’t? Especially round these parts. But what the heck ... are you saying that finger is from that statue? Are you kidding me?”
“Look, I’m not one hundred percent, okay, but it’s worth checking out.”
“But if it is, why the hell does old man Quinn have it? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What did he say to you? I mean, when he gave it to you?”
R.B. thought back to last night, and the frantic way he’d turned up in the early hours of the morning, in the middle of a raging storm, and seemingly on his last legs. He’d said a few things, though nothing quite made sense. “It was all a little garbled really, and hard to underst—”
“Well try harder, R.B. This could be huge.” She paused. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. But this ... well, I think this means something.”
R.B. certainly didn’t mind that Megan had snapped at him, didn’t mind at all. A, it meant she was back by his side, and B, it meant she was once more excited about finding something cool beneath the world’s oceans.
“It’s okay, darlin’,” he said. “So, Barnaby said several things, but no full sentences. Among the words I could make out though, were ... wait, let me grab a pen and paper.”
R.B. returned to the drawer, and came back a moment later with a pen and a notepad. He said the words as he wrote them down. “Lost. City. Marker. Yeah, I’m sure he said marker. Treasure? Did he say treasure? I think so. He definitely said map. But the one word I couldn’t quite make out clearly, ‘cause it seemed he didn’t finish it, was Atlant.”
“Atlant? Did he mean Atlantic? That would make sense, since the Atlantic Ocean is right over there out that window.”
“Right. That’s what I thought, but when I asked him if he meant the Atlantic Ocean he shook his head ‘No’. So what could it be?”
Megan shook her head a little too. She lifted the map from the table for a closer look, her brow furrowing in concentration. It was hard to make out, but if she wasn’t mistaken there were two main coastlines either side of a vast expanse of water. That certainly fitted with their idea that Barnaby had said Atlantic. But that ocean was massive, and Megan knew from her work at the Ocean Institute that it measured almost forty-million square miles and at its deepest point was more than five miles down to the ocean bed. At its widest point, between Brazil and west Africa, it spanned four-thousand miles, and all in all it covered approximately twenty-percent of the world’s surface. But perhaps more telling, the Atlantic Ocean is the natural divide between the old world and the new world. Thus it spanned not only enormous distances, but differences in history, culture and traditions, not to mention races. Quite simply, its size was mind-blowing.
“Listen, R.B. I’m not sure who this Barnaby Quinn is or why he has this map and this artifact, but I think we need to talk to him. As soon as possible. I also know a couple of people working at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, where the Christ of the Abyss statue is. Maybe they’ll confirm the statue has a finger missing. I’ll make a few calls.”
Megan was speaking breathlessly, and R.B. placed his hands on her shoulders.
“Hey, calm down a little, okay? I know where Barnaby lives, so we’ll head over there in a bit and try and talk to him. But I have to say, he seemed a little ... uh, well, he seemed scared, as if maybe someone was following him. I’m just saying, maybe we should be a little careful, eh? Especially after last time?”
Megan nodded and relaxed a little, catching her breath. “You’re right. I can’t even be certain this is what I think it is. But if it is, and is somehow related to this map? It could be something big, R.B., something huge. Let’s get the last of your stuff together and get out of here. I’ll drive you to Barnaby’s, and after we’ve spoken to the old man I’ll call my contacts at the state park.”
“Sounds like a plan, Meg. And Meg?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s good to have you back, putting the S into B and S Salvage Incorporated like no one else could.”
13
Digging
They left the small boat for the final time, and if R.B. was being honest, he was glad to see the back of it. It had become like a bad omen to him. Ever since the moment he’d bought it, the business had declined to such an extent they now found themselves in a terrible financial hole.
“Good riddance,” he said as they drove away in Megan’s car, heading towards Barnaby Quinn’s own boat not too far up the road. As they approached the dock though, R.B. found himself worrying if Barnaby was safe. He didn’t just seem over-exerted last night, but seriously stressed. And if R.B. had learned anything after the incidents with the Cubans last year, it was that there were some dangerous and cold-hearted bastards out
there who ruthlessly stopped at nothing to get what they wanted.
They pulled up at the dock and walked towards Barnaby’s boat. Approaching cautiously—experience had shown them that was a necessity—it seemed as if all was well. R.B. knocked on the cabin door, and after there came no answer he peered through all the cabin windows. There appeared no evidence of foul play, and it seemed Barnaby Quinn simply wasn’t home.
With no home of their own to go to now, Megan suggested they get a room at the nearby Motel 6, literally all they could afford. Megan’s mom had loaned her a couple hundred bucks, which Megan had needed to swallow her pride to accept. Once they arrived and got checked in, Megan made a call to her contact at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.
“No,” said park ranger Harold Winks, known to his friends as ‘Forty’. “I’m pretty sure our Christ of the Abyss statue isn’t missing any digits.” He was looking at the image of the stone-carved digit Barnaby had given R.B., and which Megan had sent via text message. “But I have to say, it does appear to be an exact replica.” Forty fell silent for a moment.
“Are you there, Forty?” Megan asked.
“Sorry, yeah, I’m here. You know, ours isn’t the only Christ of the Abyss statue. In fact, ours isn’t even the original. So, uh, you might want to do a little digging, eh?”
Megan thanked Forty and ended the call, a curious look in her eyes. R.B. noticed right away.
“Well, what did he say?”
Megan looked at R.B., then at the map that lay open on the bed. Then she promptly stood up, grabbed up the map from the bed, and said, “We have to go to the library. Now.”
“The library? But I’m hungry, can’t we—”
“No, we can’t. We’re going to the Monroe County Public Library right now, and we’ll get something on the way. Come on Bodean, let’s go.”
Ten minutes later, R.B. and Megan were sharing a cheese sandwich they’d snagged from a store en route to the library. It was all they could afford, and R.B. was spilling most of his share down his shirt because of the speed Megan was driving. “Whoa,” he said between nibbles, “why don’t you slow down a little?”
Megan glared at him, and noticing the stern look in her eyes, he remained silent the rest of the way. Another five minutes later and they were at the library. They stationed themselves at a public access PC, and Megan typed Christ of the Abyss into a Google search engine, then clicked on images. Immediately, several photos of the enigmatic underwater statue of Christ appeared. The images were beautiful, and after zooming in on the one in the nearby state park, they saw clearly that the carved digit Barnaby gave R.B. was an exact replica, as they’d learned from park ranger Forty Winks. A little more research revealed that there were indeed a total of four such statues, the original being the one created by Italian sculptor Guido Galletti. His bronze Christ of the Abyss statue was placed in the Mediterranean Sea off Portofino in 1954. With his head and hands raised skyward, the statue depicted Christ offering a benediction of peace.
They also read that, bizarrely, the two statues in Italy and the United States were actually facing each other. Perhaps even more strange, the other two statues, one off Grenada in the Caribbean, the other in a lake near the Italian/Swiss border, also faced each other.
On a hunch, Megan laid out Barnaby Quinn’s map, then snagged a pencil and a sheet of paper from a nearby printer. She began sketching out a new crude map. On the left side of the paper she drew a line marking the eastern seaboard of the United States. Across the other side of the page, she sketched a crude line marking the coastline of western Europe, with the wide space in the middle representing the Atlantic Ocean. She marked the location of each Christ of the Abyss statue with a bold cross.
Megan put down the pencil and fell silent for long moments, and R.B. knew she was deep in thought about something. He looked at the map too, unsure what Megan thought the significance of the locations were. Just random dots on a map was all he could see. Then Megan snatched up the pencil again and drew a line between the two facing pairs of statues, and at the exact spot they intersected she drew another larger cross. It was an inland region of southern Spain.
Megan sat back in her chair, apparently dismayed. It was not the result she was hoping for, and R.B. sensed her disappointment.
“What’s up, Meg? You look, uh, sad?”
Megan glanced up at R.B. and offered a smile. “Oh, it’s not ... well, it’s not what I was hoping for.”
“What do you mean? What were you hoping for?”
“Well, I’m a little embarrassed actually. I thought, well ... " She slid her new map next to Barnaby’s. “Look, we can see that my map almost matches Barnaby’s, right?”
“Right. So?” asked R.B.
“Well, you said he mentioned the word Atlant a couple of times, which we both thought meant he was probably trying to say Atlantic.”
“Yeah. And?”
“Well, what if he was trying to say Atlantis?”
14
Myth
R.B. stared at Megan Simons as if she’d gone mad. “Remember what I told you about Atlantis being a myth? Anyway, old man Quinn is just a crazy retired fisherman. I’m sure he was trying to say Atlantic, and although I agree it’s all a little strange, you can’t seriously think he’s given us a map to find Atlantis? Can you? Megan?” But the look on her face proved to R.B. that’s exactly what she was thinking.
“Are you serious? I mean, Atlantis?” R.B. was incredulous.
“Don’t look at me like I’m stupid, R.B. I mean, why the hell not? Not all myths can be only myths. Some of them must turn out to be more than just fairy tales.”
“But don’t the myths suggest Atlantis was lost underwater? Consumed, by a great ocean, or something like that?”
Megan sighed deeply. “Yes, that’s what the myths say. Which is why I’m disappointed. Just humor me for a minute, okay. Let’s assume the Atlantis myth isn’t a myth at all, and that a city named Atlantis really did exist, but was buried underwater because of rising sea levels, brought on by, let’s say, global warming, which as we know, is definitely happening. I had a hunch that the four Christ of the Abyss statues somehow led the way to the lost city. But, these lines suggested the location of that city is on the Spanish mainland, meaning the map didn’t lead to Atlantis. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Well, I’m sorry darlin’,” offered R.B. “It was a good call. Listen, even if Atlantis isn’t real, there has to be some other great mysteries we can solve, right? We just haven’t had enough luck yet.”
Megan smiled. “You’re right. And of course, you were right about Atlantis being a myth. I just so badly want to find something like that, explain previously unexplained mysteries, and they don’t get any more mysterious than that one. Sorry I got carried away. Let’s get out of here.”
They drove the fifteen minutes back to the motel and dragged a couple of chairs out onto the shared external corridor that served as a balcony. They didn’t say much. Instead, they just sat enjoying the sunshine and reflecting on how they’d ended up staying in such a dismal motel which they’d even had to borrow the money for.
“You know, I only have enough cash for one more night here, R.B., and a few meals for us both. Our entire worldly belongings are packed up into just a couple of boxes. The car is almost out of gas, and I refuse to borrow any more money from Mom. We’re desperate, R.B. What the hell are we going to do?”
R.B. glanced across at Megan. “I’m so sorry things have come to this, I really am. Look, I have a friend I can call. George. He mostly lives on the oil rig he owns out in the Gulf of Mexico, but he also has an apartment here in Key West. I’m sure he’ll let us use it for a bit. Let me make a call, okay? He’s a friend, so it’ll be a favour, not charity.”
Megan looked at R.B., and he thought he saw the hint of a tear in her eye. She smiled. “Okay. Thanks, R.B.”
R.B. walked along the balcony away from Megan and made a call to George Wyatt. They chatted for
a moment, then R.B. returned to his seat. “George said it’s fine. In fact, he said he was flying in to town today anyway and he’d love to take us to dinner tonight. He’s a good guy and it’ll be nice to catch up. Sound good?”
Megan nodded, and in her smile R.B. sensed relief. Megan was a tough cookie, but unlike R.B., who had spent half his adult life since leaving the ARMY on the verge of poverty, one failed business venture following another, Megan simply wasn’t used to living on handouts. It was hitting her pretty hard, that much was obvious, and R.B. wanted nothing more than to make a success of the business and start repaying the faith Megan had shown in him since she’d first mentioned setting up B and S Salvage Incorporated together.
Megan went to the room to take a nap for a few hours before dinner with George Wyatt. Wired and not feeling like a nap himself, R.B. grabbed the two maps, Megan’s and Barnaby’s, and took a stroll to nearby Higgs Beach. He found a spot in the shade and got himself comfy. He wasn’t sure why he’d brought the maps with him, but something had been niggling him since their conversation at the library earlier. What the hell was it? R.B. thought about the Atlantis myths and about some of the TV shows he’d seen on the subject. Most people believed it was all a myth, but even so, almost all theories about the lost city suggested it was underwater, lost to both time and tide. Almost all theories. But not all.
That was it. R.B. remembered one such documentary he’d seen that suggested Atlantis wasn’t lost to the sea at all, but was on the mainland somewhere. Sure, it was still lost, but not beneath the waves, as was the common conception.
Hmm, R.B. mused, perhaps there’s something to this ‘myth’ after all?