Dateline: Atlantis

by LYNN VOEDISCH

  “It’s about more than the story, Fiona. It’s about the people who murdered my parents.”

  “Well, that’s a bit different then. Just stay out of trouble.”

  “I’m already in trouble,” She stops to steady her voice. “I miss you, Fiona.” She ends the call.

  Without waiting a beat, she dials Gabriel’s number and gets him on the first ring. It is important that they meet, the Mexican guide says, but he won’t say why over the cell phone. He is sure he’s being watched, and eavesdroppers are everywhere. Amaryllis jots down the name and phone number of a hotel in the Bahamas. He mentions the Berry Islands. Hadn’t the crystal shown me that?

  She senses Donny standing behind her as she rings off. She turns to him and sees he’s standing slightly wet and glistening in the morning sunlight, a towel wrapped around his waist. Right then, she knows why she couldn’t reach for him, pull the towel off and let him carry her back to bed. It’s Gabriel, that’s why.

  “Did you get a lead?” Donny asks, unaware of her sudden change of plans. She draws her sweatshirt tightly about her and nods, eyes cast down. As he drowns her with questions, she walks to the nightstand and pulls an object bound in blue silk from her purse. She places it on the bed as if handling an infant.

  She paces the area between the bed and the door and finally comes to rest on the other bed. She looks in the nightstand for her return plane ticket. She tucks it into the back pocket of her jeans. Then she returns to stand in front of Donny. She grabs his hands and lowers her head.

  “Donny, I have to leave. There’s somewhere else I must search. Trust me, this is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time.” She watches his face fall and guilt rises in her throat like foul phlegm. “Go back to Chicago, Donny. Tell them the case in Florida didn’t work out.” She’s coughing now, to keep emotion from destroying her speech. “You’ve done so much for me: the plane, the lodging, the searching through files. But there’s one more thing I have to ask you to do.” She takes the silk-wrapped crystal off the bed and offers it to him. Donny’s eyes still are focused on her face, and he doesn’t speak a word.

  “Take this,” she says, placing the shrouded object in his hands. “It’s worth more than my life. It nearly cost me my life to obtain it.”

  Danny turns the object over, uncomprehending. Amaryllis continues her speech, hurrying her words.

  “Believe me, these people, these killers, they will do anything to get their hands on it.”

  Donny’s hands cradle the orb as if he’s afraid it will drop and dash into a million pieces. He nods.

  “If you hold it—by touching the actual quartz—it will explain things to you. It takes a little while to get used to, but you’ll soon know why I can’t take it with me on my journey.”

  “A piece of rock will tell me…”

  “I can’t make sense of it, either, Donny. Blame it on Atlantis. Or enchanted mermaids. Just trust me and experience it yourself.”

  The scar on his smooth face tremors. “Will I see you again?”

  Amaryllis turns away before she is pressed to cry. She’s never felt so villainous, so selfish, so hard-hearted as right now, and she doesn’t like the way it makes her arteries surge with blood. She opens her suitcase and begins shoving clothing inside. After folding a few blouses, she looks up. Donny has not moved, but his eyes have lost the luster they had when he emerged from the shower.

  “I’ll meet up with you again, that I can promise, but I have no idea where that’ll be. I don’t want to do this, Donny, but…”

  “Something out there is waiting for you,” he interrupts. “And it’s for your career. I can understand that. Just tell me it’s not for another man.”

  “It’s not just for my career. I have to find the truth, about my parents, the story, our enemies, everything. The crystal will make it all clear.”

  He turns the orb over and over in his hands and lets out a breath that could break her heart a million times over. But once is more than enough.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: LONDON RAIN

  Pitch nearly spits out a good mouthful of Harrods finest Darjeeling blend tea when he holds up an issue of the Times. There on page thirteen are some peculiar radar images of triangular shapes. “Cuban Ship Sets Sights on Sunken City,” the headline reads.

  “My God,” he sputters as the tea splatters on his crisp linen serviette. Then he raises his voice. “Mr. Franklin, please get me my laptop.”

  A red-faced man with a gray wreath of hair fringing his ears and back of his head appears and begins to swipe at the soiled fabric in front of Pitch.

  “Not the tea, you numb wit. Get me my laptop. Now.”

  Franklin hurries off, and Pitch sighs. He’s tried so hard with this new butler, but the hapless soul just doesn’t see that Pitch is not much interested in that culinary travesty known as the English breakfast. Every morning, Franklin attempts to bring Pitch the old English fry-up: fried eggs, sausage, blood pudding—the works. And every morning, Pitch takes nothing but a fine cup of tea and a French croissant. Now, this request for something as simple as a portable computer has the butler at sixes and sevens.

  After much bustling and swearing sotto voce, Franklin appears with Pitch’s sleek notebook computer, hooked up for wireless transmission and able to join the Internet anywhere in his home.

  “Thank you,” Pitch says with frost forming on his words. “You may replace this teapot with a warm one. And get this fried abomination out of my way.” He gestures at the food and immediately opens the laptop to navigate to his bookmarks of newspapers. A quick search shows that seventeen international journals have reported on a Cuban team of submariners who are making sonographs of the waters between Cuba, the Bahamas, and Florida. This time, they think they have hit pay dirt on a search for something valuable; they have released images that look startlingly like Mexican pyramidal structures.

  He grabs the telephone and makes a quick connection.

  “Davis, have you seen the Times ?” he enquires, looking in horror at some of the more spectacular images from the Mexican newspapers.

  Davis explains he hasn’t done his morning reading and promises to call back in a flash.

  “I’ll await your call, but it’s obvious that our man Cruz has failed.” Pitch rings off and stands to look out the window. From his row house dining room, he can see Kensington Gardens, and, for once, it’s a splendid morning. Not a cloud in the brilliant sky and there is the promise of mild temperatures in the air. He is used to comforts like these fine apartments. He has filled the space with elegant, heavy furniture and family antiques. The walls bear art that should hang in museums. All of his possessions are inherited. Old money. He would never have to work a day in his life if he didn’t choose it. But he still loves his job, and he’s not about lose it and the prestige it brings because of some dogged treasure seekers in the Caribbean.

  And then there’s the O.B.E. An honor from the queen herself might just be coming his way, if events work to his advantage. Thanks to his admirers, he’s been suggested as a possible recipient of the Order of the British Empire. It’s not a Lordship or even knighthood, but it certainly is the sort of prize he’s been waiting all his life to garner. The O.B.E. only honors those who are the most erudite, polished, prolific, and loyal subjects of the Queen. Receiving reverent treatment from his peers is the finest thing in life to Pitch. The more distance he puts between himself and the little people, the better. He smiles inwardly at the idea of that O.B.E. placing him on a pedestal at the Museum. And why should I not have it? My scholarship has been impeccable. He can’t let the house of cards tumble down now, not when he has built such a palace with them.

  Franklin scurries back with a fresh pot of Darjeeling and cleans invisible breadcrumbs from the tablecloth. The phone rings, and Pitch waves his butler away from the call.

  It’s Davis on a pay phone. His clever number two doesn’t want to call from the office, and he fears a mobile phone might be picked up by electronic snoopers. Pit
ch knows that digital networks are nearly impossible to hack into, but he allows Davis this bit of paranoia. God knows he has groundless fears of his own.

  “We have trouble with Cruz, sir,” Davis says, sounding out of breath. He must have walked a brisk several blocks to find a call box. “The Yanks got him. Apparently, he slipped too far into U.S. waters as he was tracking some underwater site. He’s being held in their custody.”

  “He won’t talk, will he?”

  “Unlikely. Even if he did, they’d probably laugh. He’s a trifle compared to what the Americans are looking for. He possesses no bomb, and he hardly looks like a terrorist. Likely he’ll make up some story about political asylum. It usually works. They’ll toss him back.”

  “Bother. He’s useless to us now. He failed, and we’re on damage control again. We’re running out of operatives. And I hate to use the Reverend’s bully boys.”

  “May I suggest Hewitt again, sir?”

  “Hewitt? He botched the Azores.” A sneer edges into his voice.

  “This is different. We don’t need any snappy language expert for this assignment. We’ll send him with a few oceanographers. They will determine the triangles to be natural formations. They announce their findings to the press. Cut and dried.”

  “If you say so, Davis. But get it done the right way this time.”

  “Sir,” the underling says by way of farewell.

  Pitch scratches his long, thin chin and walks over to his chest of antiques to mull over these developments. He’s culled a collection of oddities from all over the world: maces from Europe, red crosses of the Knights Templar, daggers from Pakistan and Tibet, even a musket or two from the American Revolution. However, his favorite items are the knives. Knives from India, from the Crusades, glassy obsidian scalpels from Guatemala. His eye fastens onto the modern diving knives that glisten as if new, even though they are decades old. Extremely sharp and durable.

  They remind him of other irksome news that reached him yesterday. That American reporter isn’t going to give up on the Mexican caves story. Ricketts says she’s set off for Florida and the place where her parents washed up dead. Just like her parents, this reporter is stubborn and getting into Pitch’s way. He makes a mental note to call Chicago when morning arrives in America.

  #

  Hewitt can’t believe his good luck when Pitch’s man, Davis, arrives at his office in the British Museum, not to chew him out for some new failing, but to present a jet ticket to the Bahamas.

  “What’s this?” Hewitt asks, wondering if Pitch wants him so far away from London that there will be a whole ocean separating them.

  “It’s your next assignment. The Committee wishes you to head for the Berry Islands and intercept any thrill seekers looking for pyramids below the Caribbean Sea. You must pay special attention to the presence of submarines.”

  Davis hands Hewitt a check for two thousand pounds. That ought to cover expenses.

  “And no language experts this time,” Davis says, his face reddening to match his thinning hair. Hewitt rubs his eyes in response.

  “I’ll engage only oceanographers and geologists.” However, Hewitt knows the damage of Shoshanna Knox has been done. Now unleashed, she is continuing to do her dirty work. She’s boated to the Canary Islands and studied the mysterious language of the Guanche peoples. An article, with her byline, linking the Guanche to the Berbers and Basques, appears in this month’s linguistics journal. The Guanche, she notes, were much like the Berbers in complexion, tended to be fair and had a sturdy, tall build—essentially pure Cro-Magnon. She traces a pattern of language development that made its way from the east into the Mediterranean coast of Africa. It is easy to see where she is going with this; languages sprouted from a mother tongue in the Atlantic region. This is the exact opposite of current academic thought.

  Right now, a group of spiritualist New Agers is sponsoring a mission to Africa, where, as a guest, the fiery Ms. Knox is going to tackle the development of the Berber language and see if it ties to other Mediterranean languages—even ancient Egyptian. Hewitt could laugh, but he has a dizzying sense of uncertainly when he reads her work. This woman is determined. She has a vision, and Hewitt is afraid she just might be correct. It’s an insane notion, but it does pop into his brain. He also remembers the jolt that struck him when he read the same German submarine expert from the doomed Azores trip was on her team. What could she be up to?

  Davis has been tapping away at Hewitt’s computer and brings him back to reality by showing him a website with satellite images of the Berry Island “structures.”

  “They do look as if something triangular in shape is down there,” Hewitt admits, feeling peevish. These images are not as silly as the purported “face” on Mars or other New Age rubbish. “Still, with all that water swirling about after tropical storms, the triangles could easily be sand banks.”

  Davis nods with a curt bob of the head.

  “What about this the Russian submarine near Cuba? What am I supposed to do about that?” Hewitt asks. Davis throws up his hands.

  “We lost Cruz, who was on that assignment, because he couldn’t keep away from an American naval base. That particular spot on the globe is so delicate that we best not go there. The last thing we need is trouble with the Americans. Try to find out about the sub without touching U.S. waters.”

  Hewitt exhales, trying to free himself from the exasperation that always shakes his insides when he thinks about the American military. They’ve become most bellicose in recent years, and Cuba has become a place to avoid, even for mild-mannered British citizens, such as himself.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CONNECTING THE DOTS

  The blue is like a stab through the heart when Amaryllis sees the Caribbean again. Her little propeller plane bounces along the chopping air, just like a cutter muscling its way against a current. While her stomach complains, her heart lightens, and all thoughts of the Florida emotional disaster with Donny disappear. The plane takes a swooping circle, points its nose at the runway and lands in Nassau. She alights to fight her way to one of the only reputable cabs at the chaotic cabstand. Then she’s on her way to a ferry, and then off to another cab to a hotel on the coast—the one on Andros Island that Gabriel selected.

  She turns her cell phone on, but finds it won’t work here. Funny, it worked in Mexico. She frets in silence, wondering about Gabriel and what discovery he has made. She won’t allow herself to think back to Florida and the companion she pushed away, but her mind does fixate on the crystal. She senses it is safe; she also knows it’s been trying to tell her a story, and she’s relieved it’s no longer in her bag. On the bumpy ride, she stares out at the dimming light and the palatial time-share homes. They give way to homes of more modest means, then to shacks and moldering mango stands on the road. She breathes in the air of the intoxicating fruit and thinks of desserts Fiona makes in her spotless kitchen.

  The ferry ride is long, but she stands on the outer deck, staring out to sea, trying to understand the layout of this landscape. Airplane travel always gives her a sense that she’s been dropped like a toy into a sandbox. And this particular sandbox sidles up to a vast, pulsing sea that hides many mysteries. Another cab ride awaits and she jumps into the first one in line. They hurl through the empty streets of Andros. When she wins freedom from the dark cab and pays her fare, she sees Gabriel’s hawk-like face peering from the lobby of the storm-beaten hotel. His eyes are laser beams and fasten onto her in a flash. He strides to the door and stares without saying a word. Her chest tightens, for she realizes Gabriel is not overjoyed to see her. Anger is enveloping him in a toxic aura.

  She puts down her pack and starts to speak. He holds up a hand and stops her words.

  “Much time has been lost.”

  “I got here as soon as I could.”

  “I refer to the kidnapping and events in Chicago.” Her skin begins to tingle with shame. She never filled him in on any of the events, and he has a right to know what happened.

&n
bsp; “I had to find out the entire story from others, Amaryllis,” he continues, once again pronouncing her name as if caressing the syllables with his tongue. It sounds so exotic this way. She cannot help but feel a slight thrill.

  “Let’s go to our room and I’ll explain every detail,” she says, avoiding his eyes. But she can’t will herself way from his dark visage, and she turns to see him glaring in disapproval. What did I do now?

  “Your room is down the hall, but you need to register first.” Gabriel regards her as if trying to size up an opponent.

  I said “our” room. Am I that transparent? She passes a hand over the back of her neck and finds her dense, normally wavy hair is clinging to her skin like a damp hank of seaweed.

  “Yes, yes, of course. I’ll go sign in,” she says, trying to flip away her faux pas with an air of nonchalance. “There is much to discuss.”

  “And there is even more for me to tell you.”

  She pays cash and signs in as Amaryllis Lang.

  #

  The boat Gabriel charters is standard for Scuba divers. Small and agile, but strong enough to stand anchored against the current for hours. Fortunately, Amaryllis renewed her scuba certification just before her trip to Mexico. After learning about her parents’ mode of death, she’s not too keen on jumping off the boat into the mystic blue. Nonetheless, it’s necessary. Gabriel assured her last night that there were pyramids down there, much like those they found in the Yucatan. The “strange events” he referred to in his phone message were the comings and goings of a film crew that spent some time in this area near the Berry Islands. Gabriel is sure they were filming ancient ruins. Find these structures and they will confirm my story.

  Gabriel doesn’t dive. He almost died the last time he ventured into the ocean. So, he hired local diver Tim Wellington to accompany Amaryllis on her exploration. No diver should go down alone, especially when something slithery and nasty might be lurking amid the coral. She’s grateful for Tim’s presence.