by Cherry Adair
After leaving a message for Ry, and another for Peri, her best friend and sister-in-law, she’d hurriedly rinsed the salt off her skin and hair, and donned khaki shorts and a short-sleeved, apple-green T-shirt. Since the men were practically naked, and Leslie wore a racer-style black one-piece suit and a tan, Callie felt slightly overdressed for the occasion.
Inclined to be a loner, she’d learned to interact with groups. But her serious demeanor and lack of conversational skills—not that she couldn’t chat up a storm, she just chose not to—made her appear antisocial.
She wasn’t antisocial … exactly. She just preferred her own company, and she wasn’t gregarious, which made her frequently feel invisible. Not great in social settings, but frequently a very good thing. She’d learned how to be the peacemaker, the rational one, projecting calm and rationality while her parents did the crazy shit. She’d been the island of calm in their turbulent ocean.
She felt the weight of Jonah’s gaze on her face. He murmured, “You’re looking more serious than usual, Doctor.”
“Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” Callie snapped before she thought it through. Like Vaughn, she was being overly dramatic because her heart thumped uncomfortably, and she felt as though Jonah’s X-ray eyes could see her inner workings. She modulated her tone. “You take inscrutable to a whole new level.”
Leslie laughed. “You just described yourself. When’s your birthday, Callie?”
Callie frowned at the non sequitur, but was only too happy to swivel her attention to the other end of the table. “August twenty-ninth, why?”
The other woman grinned, flashing very white teeth. “A Virgo, interesting. Jonah’s a Scorpio.”
Callie had no idea how to respond to that. Great? Wow? Who knew? Who cared? “Quakes on the ocean floor can cause tsunamis.” Leslie clearly didn’t require a response to her observation. Callie took a sip of her drink, mulled over the taste. Not lemonade, but something fruity and not too sweet. She didn’t feel as though she was being too cautious warning them not to go back into the water, despite what she’d just learned.
“That might well be, but there wasn’t even a ripple on the surface,” Jonah pointed out as he got up, restoring her ability to drag oxygen into her starving lungs.
Stretching out, he snagged a creased, faded-blue T-shirt from the other end of the credenza and yanked it over his head, tugging it down over black board shorts. His damp hair clung to his throat and cheek, and he absently combed the dark strands back off his face with his fingers as he talked. Tanned and fit, he was so damn, annoyingly sexy, Callie wanted to push him overboard.
He rested his butt on the glossy white cabinet, stretching out long runner’s legs. The filtered sunlight tipped the hair on his legs with gold. He looked like some pagan sun god surveying his kingdom as he leaned back on his arms. Entitled, arrogant jerk. Her thighs, fortunately hidden under the table, clenched.
Oblivious to her idiocy, Jonah said, “Sennett’s looking into it now.”
The captain? Callie bit back a sigh of exasperation, dragging her gaze away from his physique, and only too freaking grateful that he’d released her from whatever it was his pheromones were doing to her pheromones.
She was the marine archaeologist onboard, and had the contacts necessary to find out exactly what had occurred earlier. Why couldn’t he at least pay her the courtesy of asking her professional opinion? The man was as bullheaded as … Rydell Case. The fact that she mentally compared the two surprised her.
“I spoke to a colleague at the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center,” Callie told them, not attempting to make her tone anything less formal and stick-up-her-butt sounding. It was too hard to be personable while her hormones were all over the freaking place. As a group, not speaking directly to Jonah. Just looking at the man annoyed her. Damn it. She annoyed herself.
“Dr. Fotopoulos is a seismologist of some repute. He assured me there was no seismic activity—not even a small reading—in this area. The closest activity was forty-three minutes earlier, a one point three in the Kermadec Islands near New Zealand.”
God, she sounded as stiff and unanimated as so many of her colleagues. “Clearly the time and strength of what we felt was not a direct correlation. Whatever we felt had no reading.” Almost as bad.
“Oh, yeah?” Brody muttered, ignoring the fruity drink as he reached over to grab a beer out of a nearby cooler. “Maybe we should invite your friend down there to experience the non-event with us the next time.” He popped the tab and drank.
“He’s looking into it and will contact m—us as soon as he knows anything.” Dr. Apollo Fotopoulos was a man in his mid-seventies, an expert in his field and someone Callie trusted. If he told her there’d been no activity, there’d been no activity. And yet, unlike Brody, she’d experienced all the signs of a seismic shift first hand.
“Clearly it sure as shit was something,” Jonah said. “We all felt it. Unless you think we all suffered from mass hysteria? No? Well then, it was a quake. A small one to be sure, but a quake. Your friend will call you back to confirm. Since we were on hand to experience this non-event.” His voice was dry as he pushed off his perch to stand.
“I have something to share with all of you. I wanted to wait until Dr. West was with us to give you the news. We spoke briefly yesterday because I wanted her expertise on the findings to ensure I wasn’t just imagining what I saw in the prelim photos.”
Leslie leaned forward, her arms crossed on the table. More, Callie suspected, to get Brody’s hand off her shoulder than because she was fascinated by Jonah’s words. “Photos of what?”
Jonah held up a hand. His grin was open and so appealing Callie started to lean in like the other woman. She pressed her spine into the seatback. “I’m getting there,” Jonah teased.
“Get there already!” Vaughn shot back with a laugh.
“We’re floating over Atocha Two?” Leslie offered with a wide grin.
The Nuestra Señora de Atocha wreck, found thirty-five miles off the Florida Keys in 1985, was the Holy Grail of sunken treasure. The salvage continued to this day. An estimated $450 million cache had been recovered, and there was still more beneath the sea. If they were salvaging such a wreck, the team’s cut would be in the multimillions of dollars.
“From your mouth to God’s ear!” Saul told his fellow diver fervently. “I’d be more than happy to stick around here for thirty-plus years if that’s the case.” He turned to Jonah and raised an inquiring brow.
“Good,” Jonah said cheerfully. “Because I think we’ll have Mel Fisher beat.” He pulled open a drawer beside his hip. Taking out the maps and photographs he’d shown her the day before, he spread everything out in the middle of the long table “Ladies and gentleman, I give you Atlantis.”
“You aren’t serious—” Leslie looked from Jonah to Callie and back again. “Atlantis isn’t real, is it?”
“That’s a matter for some debate.” He looked so damn pleased with himself, so brimming with barely suppressed excitement, that Callie was starting to feel like Scrooge at a Christmas party. “But yeah. I’ve been down several times. Took these—” He fanned out a sheaf of glossy prints. “Whatever is down there, it’s real. Look—this is part of a wall, here, a dozen pillars, mosaic floors, and that’s not even scratching the surface. I’ve already started mapping the area. It’s huge. I haven’t found an outside perimeter yet. But I’m confident that we’ll uncover the whole city.”
Callie’s lips compressed. So far they weren’t asking her. And while she was the expert, this wasn’t her salvage. Jonah could tell his people anything he liked. All she had to do was sit back and wait to make her point.
She tamped down the little—the teeny-tiny spark of hope. She was too practical to dream. And finding the Lost City was a dream way too big, and so far out of the realm of possibility they may as well be discussing Area 51 and the discovery of an alien spacecraft.
Saul leaned his hands on the table. “What about
Ji Li? If we work on Atlantis, what happens to our wreck? And frankly, not to be a dick about it, Jonah, but on the ship there’s a pretty much guaranteed treasure on board. An ancient city—whether it’s Atlantis or not—isn’t going to make us any money. Or if it does, not for a hellishly long time.”
“True,” Jonah admitted. “But we have funding for several years. And the possibility of being kept afloat for many more after that. We’re still going to salvage Ji Li. It’ll be slower going, time-wise, but we’ll work in alternating teams. One on the Atlantis project, the other on Ji Li, then switch off, so everyone gets a shot. Spoils, and names in scientific journals—” His grin was wide, white, and boyish. “Shared and divided equally. It’s a win–win, and an incredible opportunity to make history.”
“How much do you think Atlantis is worth?” Brody asked, eyes glinting.
Everyone worked on a percentage of the salvage. Finding a city without a cache of gold, silver, or gems might net them zero dollars. “Financially, nothing unless we discover gems or precious metals,” Jonah admitted. “Perhaps nothing in monetary value, but the historical impact will be off the charts.”
“They spent millions before finding the Titanic,” Saul pointed out. “Do we have that kind of long-term backing?”
The Cutters had investors, of course, as did Rydell. They also had incredibly deep pockets of their own, although Ry had assured her that the Cutters didn’t appear to use their own money on iffy salvages.
Jonah nodded. “Anyone who doesn’t want to be in on the exploration of the city is welcome to stick to Ji Li. But know that, as I said, everything will be divided as per your contracts. Every find split.”
Leslie resumed her seat, giving Jonah a wide smile. “Then I’m in for the duration. Whatever’s down there is worth our best effort.”
Vaughn shrugged his massive shoulders after a few moments of internal debate. “Guess I’m in for the long haul, too.”
The group as a whole fell for Jonah’s story, and his “proof,” like starving dogs at a picnic. Chatter and raised voices ran wild as the divers handed off photos to one another and speculated as to what each image showed. Was this really a wall? Part of a palace? Was that a street, or just a rock formation?
Callie picked up her glass, leaning back in her chair, out of the way of everyone who’d now risen from their seats to lean over the table.
She’d spent her life in the middle of whirlwinds and knew how to make herself the calm in the storm. From somewhere outside her body she observed each team member’s reaction to the news. Avarice was the number one response when they heard “Atlantis.” She could see it in the gleam in their eyes.
Not the incredible historical discovery. Not the idea that if this were true, what else in the oral archives of Greek history might also be plausible. What did it matter? She’d only be here long enough to do what Ry wanted her to do. Ascertain if Jonah’s finds were correct.
Once Rydell was done with the Cutters, Atlantis—or whatever it was down there—would be tied up in the courts unable to be touched for years and years and freaking years! A fitting revenge for what they’d done to him.
But damn it, Callie thought, shoulders and neck stiff with tension. What Rydell planned for the Cutters was one thing, but she bet Ry hadn’t thought through what he was doing to keep the world at bay from a discovery of this magnitude. Nor, a small voice pointed out in her head, had he considered depriving his sister-in-law of the benefits of something she’d spent a lifetime researching and debunking.
For just a moment she considered what the ramifications would be if this whole pie in the sky were true. Either she’d be a laughingstock because she’d staked her professional career on debunking the legend. Or she’d become world-renowned for being instrumental in discovering the Lost City. On the one hand, being ostracized from the community she loved. On the other, being feted, with her name in history books. Both with the same unpleasant end result of putting her too far in the spotlight.
As much as she wanted—no, fiercely yearned—to be part of the excitement, she was a pragmatist. It hurt to want unattainable things. It was better not to want anything that badly. It never ended well. Not to mention, she just had to be here long enough to tell Rydell what he needed to know. Then she’d be gone.
Chest heavy, Callie’s eyes stung. She shook it off. “I hate to burst bubbles here, but Plato wrote about Atlantis three thousand years ago.” Her words dropped into the heated voices like a cool, smooth stone. Someone had to be rational and practical. Usually her. All eyes turned her way, and the giddy chatter ceased.
“And according to him, Atlantis thrived nine thousand years before that, so we’re talking a city that would be twelve thousand years old. His is the only historical source of information. There’s absolutely no collaborating writings—”
“That they’ve found. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, right?” Saul pointed out.
Here we go. “There have been dozens of locations proposed for Atlantis. I worked with my colleagues on documenting a sunken city off the coast of Italy two years ago.” One she’d secretly believed would refute her research and prove to actually be Atlantis. Of course her hopes had been dashed when they’d found Roman writing.
“Finding Scylletium was a major archaeological discovery, but it’s turned out to be a Roman colony from around 124 BCE, not Atlantis. In fact it would be hard not to trip over ancient sunken cities and towns up and down the Mediterranean. Greek, Roman, plus any number of other diverse cultures that thrived throughout history in this area.
“So is there an ancient city down there? Probably. Is it Atlantis? I strongly doubt it. According to Plato it’s supposed to be in the Atlantic Ocean. And dare I point out—even if it were somewhere off the coast of Spain or Greece, or the Bimini Islands, none of the possible sites are in this area, not even close. Plato said it’s at the Pillars of Hercules. That’s the Strait of Gibraltar—that’s seventeen hundred miles away. There’s not a single shred of evidence. No collaborated site photographs, no aerial images, not even a Google Earth shot. Nothing.”
Too much? She looked at the blank expressions of her colleagues. Her pronouncement silenced the jubilant energy like the proverbial wet blanket.
Determined to make them see reason, she continued in crisp tones. “Don’t you think with satellite technology being what it is and able to find hidden cities in the jungles by their outline alone, they’d have noticed an entire city sitting this close to the surface of the ocean? It’s not like we’re down thousands of feet.”
She could feel the disappointed heat of Jonah’s stare as he studied her, and the effects of her speech on his crew. Then he flattened his hand on top of the prints and gave them a tap. “If this isn’t a convincing enough start, you’ll have collaboration with your own eyes soon enough.” Expression inscrutable, he stuck his fingertips in his back pockets.
“But what if it is Atlantis?” Leslie asked, bitten by the curiosity bug. The woman diver looked from Callie to Jonah.
A teasing breeze combed Jonah’s drying hair. Too long, too silky looking for a man who had the rugged face of a warrior and the body of a Roman god. “Dr. West doesn’t believe Atlantis exists,” he said, accepting her opinion while dismissing it with a shrug. “Fortunately, I know what I’ve seen. I’ve touched the pillars, seen the mosaic floors … I saw several white-colored plinths about a meter high last month when I was here, and plenty more stone blocks of various sizes scattered about. I haven’t measured yet, but the ruins are—enormous. Huge.” He leaned back.
“Atlantis is right below us, just waiting to be discovered.”
“The story of the Lost City was a cautionary tale,” Callie tried again. These people were doomed to disappointment, but they were looking at her like little kids whose candy she’d just ripped out of their sticky little hands. “Atlantis is a myth. But I don’t doubt for an instant that Jonah has found the remains from another ancient city. Exciting. Thrilling, really. Even if it isn’t
Atlantis, right? It’s certainly worth investigating.”
Her chest ached with suppressed emotion. God. She wanted this to be true. But if it was Atlantis, Rydell was going to make sure the Cutters weren’t the ones to find it. Whoever uncovered and explored what lay beneath the ocean, it wasn’t going to be part of her future.
If her time, with whatever was down there, was finite, she wasn’t going to waste a second worrying about an earthquake that wasn’t an earthquake, or a debate over which city it was.
Her chair scraped across the wood deck as she launched herself to her feet. “Let’s go down. See what you found.”
“Now?” Jonah asked, bewildered by her switch of mood.
“Yes!” Brody yelled, racing for the stairs down to the dive platform like a kid let out of school on summer break. He sounded like a herd of elephants as he ran across the deck and thumped down the ladder.
Chomping at the bit, and barely able to keep herself from racing after the Matthew McConaughey look-alike, Leslie shot a look at Jonah, her tone tentative. “We can’t all go in at the same time, right?”
“Sennett has her PADI, I’ll have her spell us. And, sorry Brody,” Jonah raised his voice. “You had a beer, you’ll have to sit this dive out.” He glanced over at Callie and cut off Brody’s half-assed protests from the deck below. “If the doctor says it’s safe enough for us to go back in?”
Their excitement was contagious, and Callie went with the flow of almost believing herself. “I’m willing to risk it.”
Jonah grinned as he shoved his chair back and stood. “Go ahead and suit up then. I’ll go get the captain, and we can introduce ourselves to the past and our future.”
Five
On this dive, Jonah was far more interested in Callie’s reaction and response to what she was seeing than looking at the structures and floors himself.
With Ji Li a dark indistinct shadow in the distance, he took her directly to the mosaic floor. Vaughn, Leslie, and Saul were hot on their heels. It wasn’t as crystal-clear now as it’d been earlier that day. Possible the quake had churned up some sediment, but still, visibility was good for a dozen or so feet, and pretty damn good when one was standing right on top of the thing he wanted her to look at.