by Nick Thacker
“Trying to get on my good side, Rascher?” Graham asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m trying to get an answer.”
“I already told you —”
“Graham, I know what you told me. You said the object was empty. Just a hollowed-out piece of ceramic. But I don’t believe you.”
It wasn’t empty, he thought, but there was certainly no powder in it.
He shrugged. “That’s on you, lady. What’s the point, anyway? Why do you want this ‘object?’ Or whatever you think should have been inside of it?”
She ignored him. “Tell me again where you found it.”
He took a deep breath. Yeah, definitely a bruise. He could feel the early warning signs of a deep bruise forming around his eye. He hits me like that again and I’ll be ready, he thought.
There wasn’t much he could do, but Graham had never been one to sit around and let the world happen to him. He was a dreamer, an imaginative romantic, always wanting to explore and learn. His ex-wife even accused him of being a ‘novelty chaser.’
So he wasn’t one to sit in a chair and take a beating. Especially when they hadn’t even bothered to bind his arms or legs. Am I really little of a threat? he wondered.
He told her again.
“I was just taking a brief break. Walking down by the water, trying to get a look at the boats coming in to port. I saw the museum there, right next to the caves, and I just asked if I could take a look inside.”
“You just asked.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And they just let you in?”
He shook his head. “She, not they. An older woman, working the front desk. And she didn’t just ‘let me in’ like I’m some sort of vagabond, Rascher. I told her my name — that gets me into places like that, you know.”
Rascher smiled. “Skip ahead. You got inside, you were alone, you walked down to the end of the cavern?”
“Yes — well, a different cavern that was closed to the public. Very unsafe, really, but it was hardly my first time wriggling through a tiny cave. And right at the end of the narrow shaft, half-buried in the clay and mud, I found it. A stream had probably run through there for thousands of years, on and off when the rains came in or the glaciers had a little melt to shed. Anyway, it was right there where the stream should have been. Just the edge of it, sticking out.”
“And you decided it was something worth investigating because you’re… you.”
“You know, I am trained in this sort of thing. Is that so hard to believe?”
She chuckled. “But it was empty?”
“When I finally got it out — again, I’m trained, so I wasn’t about to just rip it up out of the ground — I could tell it was hollow. The weight was wrong. But there didn’t seem to be anything inside, even when I gave it a bit of a shake.”
A lie. But again, he knew Rachel wasn’t looking for a souvenir.
“But?”
“But nothing. There wasn’t anything inside. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to open the damned thing, but it was empty. Bone-dry. Impressive, considering where it had been buried for all these years.”
Rachel rubbed her nose, making a face at the brute. He stepped forward, tightening his fists.
“No, come on,” Graham said. “There’s no need to —”
Wham! The blow came from the right this time — a left hook. Right to the opposite side of his jaw.
This time he felt like he was going to faint. His vision blurred, he felt his upper body rotating around loosely, as if barely affixed to his hips. He tried to breathe, but found the involuntary motion impossibly difficult.
“Wh — why?” Graham stuttered. He was angry now, but the pain was more intense than he imagined it could be. He wanted to get up and fight, to at least assert himself, but his throbbing jaw seemed to have him riveted to the chair.
“Professor Lindgren,” Rachel said, stepping forward. “I’m going to leave Igor here with you for half an hour. He may need more time, but I’m hoping he doesn’t.”
“I — I don’t… I can’t —”
“I know it’s difficult to talk, Professor,” she said. “But it is absolutely imperative that you tell me what was inside that object.”
“There — there was nothing —”
“Please,” she said. “For your own good.”
She took a few long, steady strides to the small door at the edge of his room and stopped at the threshold.
“Professor Lindgren,” she said, her voice dropping. “If you are not able to give me what I want, I am still going to move forward with my plan. I hope you don’t think I’m above making sacrifices, Professor. My own father died for this cause, so you’d better know that I’m willing to go to any length to complete this project, no matter the cost.”
He frowned. Or at least he tried to frown. What is she talking about?
“But in the meantime, I am going to move on to another source of information. I do hope you will find it within yourself to comply. For your sake, and for your daughter’s.”
35
Reggie
MY GOD, SHE’S BEAUTIFUL, Reggie thought. She hasn’t changed a bit.
He tried not to notice her long, skinny legs. She’d worn a skirt, even though he’d come to assume that her de facto uniform was a safari-style shirt and shorts, rolled up over her thighs. The skirt fell around her legs playfully, implying and inviting and —
Knock it off, man. You’re an adult. He felt like a teenager all over again, fighting against feelings of inadequacy while simultaneously feeling the swells of confidence whenever a female would look his direction.
He and Sarah had been an item only briefly, but Reggie had been more than a little distraught when it ended. Though it ended amicably enough, he felt that their connection was of the sort that wouldn’t ever really end. They had so much in common — a love for history, for learning in general, and for all things in-between. They even shared a similar taste in food: they both loved to eat anything. Their dates had been either taking turns whipping up something in the kitchen using nothing but ingredients one of them had on hand or finding the most out-of-the-way local restaurant neither of them had ever visited.
Their relationship had been born out of attraction, forged by trial, and proven through character. They had both needed each other, and they had both agreed on that fact. And it had ended for pragmatic reasons — neither was interested in watching the relationship struggle through the growing pains and inevitable failure of long-distance stresses. They’d decided to give it up, to avoid the awkward phone calls and texts apologizing for not reaching out sooner, the guilt of feeling loneliness and responsibility at the same time, and to avoid the obvious question: what happens after dating turns into something more?
“Hey Reggie. Great to see you again.”
She sounds so confident. So nonchalant. It’s like she’s not even excited to see me.
He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, or his face — or his feet or anything else for that matter — so he just stood there, one hand holding the strap of his rucksack and the other holding his cellphone, and he let the smile on his face sit there unmoving.
After a few more awkward seconds, Ben spoke. “All right lovebirds. Let’s get on with it. We’ve got a lot of planning to do, and I don’t plan anything on an empty stomach.”
Reggie shot him a dirty look, but Julie stepped in. “You just ate an hour ago, Ben.”
“Yeah, but I fell asleep after that. My body thinks it’s morning, and technically it is. I get hungry in the sky.”
Even though their journey had lasted almost two days, they’d landed around 11am local time while their minds told them it was late evening. Reggie turned back to Sarah. “Know any good places to eat around here?”
She shrugged. “I landed yesterday, and all I grabbed was a doughnut and a cup of coffee.”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday?” Ben asked. “What’s wrong with —
”
Julie shoved him out of the way, and they all started toward the parking lot. Sarah had rented an SUV, large enough to fit the five of them and their luggage, and they would be staying in a hotel she’d booked the day before.
“There were about three-hundred Greek places on the way to the airport,” she said as they reached the sliding glass doors that led to the lot. “You guys like Greek?”
Reggie felt his mouth water. He liked to tell people that he loved Greek food, but in fairness the only Greek meal he’d ever had was a lamb gyro, wrapped in a thick pita roll with some sort of delicious sauce drizzled over it. It was a chain he’d discovered way back in boot camp, and there was usually one in all of the major cities he’d been stationed at over the years.
He wasn’t sure if real Greek food tasted like that, but his saying was that ‘if there was meat involved, he was interested.’
“Sounds awesome,” Julie said. Reggie fell in next to Ben and Mrs. E, allowing Julie and Sarah to walk up ahead, both women immediately falling into routine banter, as if they had been friends for life and were now simply catching up on lost time while they’d been apart.
The SUV was huge — clean and still smelling new, and Reggie took up a station at the rear end piling everyone’s bags and suitcases inside. Besides Reggie’s rucksack, all of it had been couriered over from the jet directly to the waiting vehicle by an airport staffer, apparently a perk of flying on private jets. Reggie had opted to carry his for a simple reason: he had been trained to pack nothing more than what he could carry over his shoulder, and the Army had set a lifelong habit that was difficult to shed.
He closed the hatch and stepped around to the front of the vehicle. Sarah had rented the vehicle in her name, so she was the listed driver on the account, though they were all legally able to drive if need be. The rest of the group had left the front passenger seat for him, probably assuming that he and Sarah would want to catch up a bit.
He wasn’t sure if they were right about that or not — he certainly wanted to talk to her, to just be around her once again, but he wasn’t sure if he could pull off the ‘small talk’ that would be required without jumping headfirst into the deeper conversation he sensed they both wanted to have.
And I’m not sure I want to have that conversation in front of everyone else, he thought.
“So,” Sarah said as she fired up the engine and began backing out of the parking spot. “Greek food, then hotel? I checked out the hotel while I was waiting for you all to land. There’s a small bar and restaurant in the lobby, where I figured we could chat for a bit about the plan.”
Reggie saw her eyebrows raise. She was interested in hearing more about this ‘plan’ from Mrs. E. He was, too, now that he thought about it. While he trusted the husband-wife pair that served as the governing leadership of the CSO, he was still intrigued by Mrs. E’s earlier statements. He wanted to know more.
Sarah maneuvered the large SUV out of the airport parking lot and onto the highway. Reggie noticed that they were the biggest vehicle around, by far. There weren’t even any vans, and the vast majority of the cars speeding by were electric vehicles and compact sedans.
“That is wonderful. Thank you for arranging it all, Sarah,” Mrs. E said from the third-row seat.
Sarah smiled as she looked in the rearview mirror. “You’re the one to thank, E,” she said. “You guys footed the bill for everything. In the email you sent, you told me we even have a per diem for the bar, if I recall correctly.”
Reggie’s eyes widened as Sarah spoke.
“Man, I love this job,” Ben said.
“Calm down, bud,” Reggie said. “You still owe me a round of drinks, remember? Your per diem’s spent already.”
“For what?” Ben asked.
Reggie turned in his chair and winked back as his friend. “I recruited you. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”
36
Ben
IF REGGIE HAD BEEN SERIOUS ABOUT using Ben’s per diem on drinks for himself, he didn’t make mention of it. Ben sat in the hotel bar across the rounded booth from his best friend. Julie was at his side, Mrs. E and Sarah between her and Reggie. Nine glasses sat empty on the large table in front of them.
They had shared a few rounds of appetizers as well, all Greek. Feta psiti, spanakopita, and some sort of small, pie-shaped garlic bread Ben had never heard of before.
All of it was delicious, and all of it was enough to feed twice the amount of people than were sitting around the table. And if they hadn’t already stopped for drive-through Greek food on the way to the hotel, all of it would have been gone. For the CSO group, who had been traveling for nearly two days, it felt like the middle of the night.
Ben watched the newest member of the group. If Sarah Lindgren was feeling strange eating and drinking in the late-afternoon as if it were midnight, she didn’t let on. In fact, she had kept up with Reggie and Ben so far, already having downed two of the magical local Santorini cocktails that tasted a bit like Long Island iced tea and had nearly as much booze inside.
Reggie and Ben had now moved on to straight whiskey, Reggie opting for a Russian import and Ben choosing a tried-and-true label of bourbon he’d often kept stocked at the cabin. So far, Santorini felt like everything he thought it would be: a destination vacation spot for tourists with enough local flair to give the impression that one was in a faraway land but with enough of the comforts of home to not feel isolated.
He put his hand down on Julie’s leg under the table, giving it a light squeeze. She found his fingers and held them while the conversation continued, each of them sharing stories of their harrowing experiences, how they’d all met, and then, finally, listening to Sarah as she explained a bit more about her father’s work.
“He’s a bit eccentric, admittedly,” she said. “I’m sure that’s part of the reason why his colleagues were a bit hesitant on the phone with you, Mrs. E. I believe they’re both intimidated by him as well as not quite sure where to put him.”
“He doesn’t fit into the ‘academic box,’ I take it,” Reggie said.
She shook her head. “Not even a little bit. Everything he’s ever done he’s done his own way. It’s only through sheer brilliance that he’s been successful in university life. He’s hardheaded about it, too, not wanting to change.”
Ben took a sip of the bourbon. “But he publishes papers, works on research, does talks and field work. How is he that different from all the rest of you guys?”
Julie released his hand and shot him a glance.
“Sorry,” he said. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Sarah said. “You’re right — most of us academic types are pretty standardized. Pretty boring, even. It’s not our fault, though. It’s part of the system that we’ve been trained into. You work on research, publishing when you can, and you try to get tenured as fast as possible. From there, it’s talks, bigger publications, more attention. More attention, more money. More money, the more opportunity you have to research what you want.”
“Right.”
“But my father succeeded in spite of his intelligence, not because of it. He’s a master of just about everything he does, and so spending his life dedicated to digging up old relics has led to a spectacular career.”
“Academic circles could not ignore him forever, you mean,” Mrs. E said.
“Yes. He’s a modern-day Indiana Jones, at least in that world. He was always willing to go the extra mile, literally, to find something that would prove his point. Most of the time he succeeded. He has a scary knack for figuring that stuff out.” Sarah smiled, looking up at at the ceiling. “I’m not even sure he’s human.”
Julie nodded along. “Any idea what this Atlantis stuff is all about?”
“No,” Sarah said. “Other than just that — Mrs. E thinks he’s found Atlantis.”
“The actual city,” Julie said. “Atlantis. Come on, Sarah, we all know it sounds ridiculous. Do you think we’re on to something with this?�
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“Of course it sounds ridiculous,” she said. “He probably thinks that’s why most ‘credible’ archeologists and historians discount its viability altogether. They don’t bother with new theories because the original theory itself lacks a reasonable amount of trustworthy data.”
“It does?” Ben asked.
“In a way, yes. Most professionals agree that Plato’s works are at least trustworthy for contextual purposes, if not altogether allegorical. But most historians are going to want much more than just Plato’s reference to Atlantis. And the vast majority of stuff that came after Plato doesn’t count, since an argument can be made that they were probably just referencing Plato’s own reference in the first place.
“So they want substantiated evidence of Atlantis’ existence, from more than a singular source. But Plato doesn’t tell us much, and what he does tell us is that he heard the legend from Critias, who heard it from a man named Solon, who visited Egypt sometime before that, and heard it from someone there.”
“Wow,” Ben said. “So a lot of ‘telephone game’ going on.”
“Exactly. Not really the sort of thing that can encourage a large pool of grant money or academic papers. And the fact that we haven’t found an entire lost continent and legendary city since Plato wrote about it only makes it that much more unbelievable. The more time that goes on, the more ridiculous the entire thing seems.”
Across from Ben, Reggie shifted in his seat. He was obviously uncomfortable, sitting next to the woman he had recently had a pretty serious relationship with. Reggie would want some time alone with her to talk about that, but Ben knew he was also excited to get started on this new mission. The man’s conflicted interests were apparent on his face, and while Ben felt for him, the humor of the awkward moment didn’t escape him.
“So, uh, why does your father think it’s real?” Reggie asked.
At this, Sarah looked over at Mrs. E. Ben knew Sarah had been just as much in the dark about this trip as the rest of them. Mrs. E took a quick sip of her drink. “We are not entirely certain he does think it’s real,” she answered. “But whatever he wrote in that paper seemed to convince someone that he believed it, or at least that he had a good idea about it.”