Bermuda

by Karim Soliman

  "But he will reveal the whole iceberg to me. Is that what you want to say?"

  "Burke could be eccentric, but he's no fool. You'll earn his trust because you're a scientist like him. And if he trusts you, he'll feel more comfortable to talk."

  The idea made Heather a bit sick. Her sitting in a windowless room with a criminal wearing that orange prison uniform, guys from the CIA or wherever they were from listening and watching through the one-way mirror of the adjacent room. She wasn't sure if she could really handle that pressure, but she couldn't handle her curiosity, either. That guy has gone to the Triangle and returned.

  "I've never been to a prison before," she harrumphed. "I suppose he is. . . jailed or something?"

  "His jail?" He chuckled. "You would never have your honeymoon in a better destination."

  Here he hit on her again. I know it. "I have to be prepared for that meeting, then. I must return to—"

  "This helicopter is leaving in one minute," he put in. "The pilot knows the way."

  So, everything was already set up. That was more worrying than astonishing. "But. . ." she stammered. "Shouldn't I inform my boss at least?"

  "Let me worry about your boss." His confident grin settled it.

  Still, she was a bit confused. What are you doing, Heath? After listening to a nameless guy she had just met, she was about to take a helicopter to a destination she didn't know, to meet another guy of bizarre behavior.

  "About the official reason of firing him," she said. "He is not a pervert for real, is he?"

  He stared at her for a moment. "You'd better hurry."

  3. Tiger Woods and the Chick

  Playing golf with a tennis ball came out not to be that bad at all. Yet it could be much better if that garden had holes like a real golf court. And if he had a golf club, not a broomstick.

  "No, please, don't go." Panic overwhelmed Burke as he looked for his only golf ball in the bushes. No ball meant going back to his indoor activities that had been driving him insane for eight years. What were they thinking when those guys with black suits brought him a laptop with a web browser that couldn't upload a single byte?

  "Ouch!" He should be more careful. Those thorns were nasty, like the two guards of this prison. Which brought to mind this question: what if he asked for their help?

  "Hey." Burke waved to the two guards standing at the entrance of the villa. "Yes, you." Who else could it be, you idiots? There was nothing alive or dead around this remote house. "Would you give me a hand?"

  The two brawny men exchanged a look, a mocking smile on their faces. Usually they ignored him when he tried to start a conversation with any of them, but today one guard seemed to be in a good mood to respond to his call for help. Those two rhinos must be as bored as he was.

  "Drop the weapon, Burke," the guard demanded as he approached Burke. A weapon? He must be kidding, right? Because the poor wooden thing wouldn't harm that mountain of muscles. Burke could only wish though. . .

  "I said: drop it," the guard insisted, his voice a bit menacing this time.

  "This is my golf club."

  "I'm not sure about that, Tiger Woods." The guard snatched the broomstick from Burke's hand.

  "What are you doing?" Burke protested. "I need that."

  "You'd better stay inside." The rhino walked away with his golf club. "Or enjoy the view here."

  Burke balled his hand into a fist. For a second, he thought of taking his chances in punching that rhino in the face. But thank God, he was back to his senses before making a foolish move. He would crush his knuckles if his fist hit that granite chin.

  Maybe he should try talking nicely to him. Quietly, he walked toward the gate, where the two rhinos usually stood. As it was theoretically impossible to climb the electrified wire surrounding the whole perimeter of the villa, the steel gate was the only way out of this lake-view prison.

  “Where you think you are going?” The other brawny guy looked like a real rhino when he peered at Burke. "Step back."

  “I come in peace.” Burke raised his empty hands. “Just give me my club, please.”

  “Play time is over, Mr. Burke. You should do the right thing and go inside now before we report your lack of cooperation.” The rhino pointed the stick at the house. Not the first time they used that card against Burke. Lack of cooperation could lead to depriving him of a few of his perks, like the laptop they gave him to kill his boredom with.

  “No need for that.” Burke forced a smile and returned to the house. I must find a way to kill those assholes and run away. Seriously, this time. Because the same idea had crossed his mind one hundred times before. He was sick of them. Sick of that garden. Sick of that house. Sick of that quiet world that was driving him insane. That was the reason why they had brought him here; being insane and spreading false news that concerned the national security of the United States of America. Now he was becoming insane for real. The good news was he was still aware that he was becoming insane. Because if he became insane, he wouldn’t know he became insane. Got the trick?

  Not knowing what he was going to do, Burke turned the laptop on. For years, he had resisted the temptation to write his dairy because he knew it was a trap. At some other end, there were those tech guys who would analyze every word written on that device. And every word might be used against him. Shame the National Security guys hadn’t installed any games on that laptop.

  A new game; that was what he needed to break the routine. What about identifying his location as a start?

  The guys in black suits who had brought him here eight years ago never told him where he was. All he remembered was that the plane took three hours from Miami to reach this place. Well, an interesting clue to start solving the riddle.

  As a hacker, he wouldn't consider himself the best, but he wasn’t bad at all. Hacking was just a hobby, and he used it only to borrow some useful information, especially the hidden pieces. They were always the most interesting, or else, why would they be hidden in the first place?

  First, he had to fool the firewall and override all security settings. In fact, that was what the whole game was about. If he succeeded in that part, the game was over. All he could bet on was his old tricks.

  The mission seemed tough, but it wasn’t an impossible one. His old tricks still worked with the operating system of that laptop. A feeling he had thought it was dead, but now it was back; it was excitement.

  A car door was slammed shut outside. Burke had been totally immersed in his new game that the time for the next watch shift had come so quickly. But wait, that wasn’t true. That wasn’t the arrival of the guards of the next shift—more than three hours still remained. That could be the arrival of some unexpected guests. And usually, those guests came from the National Security Agency for some friendly, warm chatting. And he had thought they had forgotten him here. The last time they paid him a visit had been three years back. It had been a while indeed.

  Or maybe they had detected his attempt to hack the system.

  The second probability forced him to halt the ongoing process before someone might notice what he was up to—if they hadn’t already. His fingers ran over the keyboard quickly, all windows and tabs closed. In three seconds, he was laying his back on the nearest sofa as if he had been napping for a while.

  “Dr. Burke?” a soft voice called out his name. Surely, this one wasn’t here to arrest him.

  Stretching and yawning, Burke rose from the sofa and faced his guests with a sleepy face. Actually, it was one guest, a cute black-haired chick. The man standing behind her was just one of his two friendly rhinos, his firm eyes fixed on his, as if he was telling him 'I’m watching you.'

  But screw that dumbass. Back to the chick. She was nervous; Burke could tell from the cautious look in her brown eyes and the way she balled her hand into a fist. “In the flesh.”

  “I’m Dr. Heather. May I have a few minutes of your time?”

  “I have a plenty of minutes, Dr.” He ushered her to the sofa opposite to hi
s. “Please.”

  She looked uneasy as she slowly approached, the rhino following her. “I’m afraid I have no minutes for you today, big fella.” Burke waved at him dismissively.

  The rhino glowered at Burke.

  “I’ll be fine,” Heather told the brawny guy, not looking so sure, though. The rhino, in return, didn’t totally leave them as he stood near the doorstep of the house.

  “You won’t regret it,” said Burke when he seated himself opposite to her. He liked her face, her nose delicate and straight, her chin short and narrow. “Unlike what they told you, I don’t bite.” Well, he would do his best to keep his word.

  Her nervous smile made him doubt if his pathetic attempt to reassure her was working. She doesn't think I bite for real, does she? He could never know what sort of crap the NSA guys had filled her head with about him. The chick looked like a little girl whose parents were urging her to feed a caged beast in some zoo.

  "Ah! Where are my manners?" Burke broke that moment of awkward silence. "Want to drink something? The coffee they bring me here is not that bad. But you may have some ice water if you don't like to take risks."

  "Please, no need for this, Dr. Burke."

  "You may call me Burke. Do you mind if I call you Heather?"

  She shrugged. "Of course not."

  "Good. Now tell me, Heather: you work with them, right?"

  "Who are them?"

  "The US government."

  "I work for the Pentagon."

  "So, you are here for the Triangle."

  Heather let out a deep breath. "Listen, Burke. I'm not here for another interrogation. I'm here because I need your help," now more encouraged, she leaned forward, "as a colleague."

  Burke allowed a self-mocking smile. "When I told my colleagues what I know about Bermuda, they called me a lunatic." He lowered his voice. "Those men in black made me disappear for good because I tried to tell the world the truth."

  "What truth, Burke?" Despite her attempt to sound impassive, Burke could sense her curiosity.

  "For decades, they have been promoting the notion that the Bermuda accidents that occurred—especially in the middle of the twentieth century—were due to the Triangle high gravity forces which affected the poorly designed planes and ships at that time. And they didn't stop at that level. They hid from the world the fact that the accidents of disappearing ships and planes never stopped."

  "How do you know that those accidents never stopped?"

  "Heather, I'm not short of charges. I guess you're not here to extract confessions of more crimes." He leaned forward. "If you were here for the Triangle as you said, then you wouldn't be interested in the how."

  Heather nodded. Now she was taking him more seriously.

  "I knew that you made a journey to the Triangle," she said.

  "I was looking for Paul, my grandfather's brother, who was lost in the Proteus journey."

  "You were looking for the ship wreckage, you mean. . ."

  "I know what I mean, Heather, and it's Paul. He is still there."

  "I'm really sorry for your loss, Burke." The smile on Heather's face was a fake one, he could tell. "Sometimes our grief about those who we are attached to makes us—"

  "Attached?" Burke put in, a mocking smile on his face. "The ship vanished in 1941, before you and I were born. How would I be attached to him?"

  Heather paused for a moment, as if she was weighing what she heard. "Very well. You're not attached to him, but somehow you believe he is still alive. Can you tell me why you believe so?"

  "Because he was a boy when the ship was gone. The poor man must have become so old—"

  "Burke, Burke." Heather snapped her fingers. "Age is not the issue now. It's the place. Where is he right now if he's not drowned with the ship?"

  "He's not drowned. He's on that island."

  She furrowed her brow. "What island?"

  Her query seemed genuine to him, though. She wasn't like the agents he had met before. "I can't believe your bosses didn't tell you about it. What are you doing here, then?"

  "I told you I needed your help, remember? Now tell me what island you're talking about."

  Maybe she could help him, he reflected. What might he lose if he told her anyway?

  "That island is the main reason for keeping me here." He sighed. "It's in the heart of the Triangle, but it doesn't exist on any known map. I told your bosses about that island, but they never managed to validate its existence."

  "That shouldn't be an issue in the age of satellites." She looked Burke in the eye. "If that island really exists."

  Her reaction wasn't much different from the agents who took him for a lunatic. "Would you believe a satellite more than your eyes?"

  Heather was silent for a moment. "What do you think you saw, Burke?"

  Think? The underestimation in her question irked him. "I did see the damn mountains, Heather. It wasn't there on the map, and the satellites couldn't spot it, but I know what I saw."

  She leaned back in her seat, a puzzled look on her face. Believing him wouldn't be easy, he should have known.

  "Did you go ashore?" Her question made him feel flattered, he had to admit.

  "I was one mile away when, suddenly, the ocean went crazy, as if the island was preventing any uninvited guests from getting any closer. My boat and I survived the colossal waves by a miracle until I returned to the stable part of the ocean."

  "If that island had no existence on maps; how did you find it in the first place?"

  "Patience and persistence." He grinned. "And some luck in the end."

  Heather shot him an inquisitive look. She needed more elaboration.

  "When something becomes your obsession for a lifetime, you never bother going the extra mile," he said, recalling his grandfather's tale about the brother and the father he had lost in the Proteus Accident. Paul could still be saved, had always been his grandfather's words. "A long time ago, I knew I would have to inspect the whole Triangle with my own eyes to find our lost Paul. Away from my academic study and research, I dedicated a whole year for field inspection, in the ocean, in the heart of the Devil's Triangle."

  "You're not the only one who scanned the whole Triangle."

  "I doubt, even if you don't believe so. I didn't miss a square mile of the ocean."

  "You don't have to inspect every square foot even. That's why they invented those satellites you hate."

  He liked her spirit. "Satellites, radars, and compasses can be fooled. But you can't fool your naked eye."

  Heather didn't seem satisfied.

  "Burke, I told you when we started our conversation that I needed your help." She rose from her seat. "I thought you would tell me something my bosses didn't know, but obviously I was wrong. I'm wasting my time here."

  She was walking away. Heather could be his golden ticket out of this place, and here she was, leaving him, probably for good. He couldn't wait eight more years for another rare chance like this one.

  "I can take you there," he voiced the thought that suddenly crossed his mind.

  She shook her head as she stopped at the doorstep. "This is not going to work, Burke." She seemed to be mulling over the idea, though. "I'm really sorry for your painful situation, but this is out of my hands."

  "You said you're a scientist, right? What if I tell you that the island harbors more secrets than you can imagine?" He pushed to his feet, hurrying to the photo frame placed on the table in the middle of the hall. Time to use the card he had saved for a desperate move like this one.

  "While I was headed to the island, I saw this with my binoculars, well drawn on a wide sandy area of the coast." He approached her, handing her the paper photo. "Having my super-zoom camera, I was able to capture this in one shot."

  "What's this?" She must have expected something else other than the gorgeous chick on the photo.

  "That's why they ignored it." He grinned. "They took from me everything that looked relevant to Bermuda." He scratched the picture with his fingernail
to reveal the hidden one. Heather arched an eyebrow, impressed by the simple trick that had fooled the National Security rascals. After he was done revealing the picture of the symbols drawn on the sand, she looked confused. Before she posed her next question, he said, "I'm not an expert in ancient languages, but I thought I might find something if I researched them. With the help of a competent friend, we found out that these symbols formed one short sentence, written in three different languages; two of them were ancient Egyptian and Latin, but we never figured out what the third one was." He paused for a moment, enjoying that look on her cute face. "Impressive, huh? I bet you're dying to know what this short sentence says."

  "You win." Heather was on her toes, her eyes betraying her anticipation. "What the hell does it say?"

  Maybe he had teased her more than necessary.

  "Only two words," he said. "Help us."

  4. New Rider

  All the way back to the Pentagon Headquarters, Heather couldn't help thinking of that island in the heart of the Triangle. It could be the key to solve the long-standing mystery, and it could be nothing. But the island itself was a mystery on its own. Could it be possible that the government was unaware of it as Burke thought? What if they knew more than he knew?

  The questions kept bugging her until the helicopter landed on the helipad. She headed to her boss's office, still unsure how she should start her conversation with him. Should she tell him about the mysterious guy with the charming smile? Or should she cut it short and ask him directly about the professor he had ended his career?

  Holly rose from her desk when Heather entered the office. "Where have you been? He has been looking for you after the meeting to have a word with you."

  Hadn't they talked enough in that damned meeting? And where was that mysterious guy who hadn't handled her boss as he promised her? "Here I am. Is he available?"

  "He's all yours," Holly scoffed.

  Heather knocked before she pushed the door open, her boss beckoning her to come in. "Your phone was unavailable. I was afraid you might have decided to quit the mission after the meeting."