Dateline: Atlantis (20 page)

“Yes, I saw that, too. But I don't necessarily count visions as factual.”

“Well, what was that pyramid you saw in the sea, if not proof? An ancient civilization built it. At the depth it sits now, it would have stood at sea level thousands of years ago.”

“What could flood ancient buildings so? A meteor strike? The end of the Ice Age? Noah's Flood.” She shades her eyes from the hot sun. “Don't tell me you think it was Noah's Flood.”

Gabriel finishes his last bit of papaya and smiles for the first time that day. In that second, his face is transformed. His eyes glitter as he begins to point to sites on the maps of the Caribbean Islands. He's talking about where the glaciers flooded low-lying land at the end of the Ice Age.

According to recent maps recreating the inundation, the Yucatan was miles wider on the eastern side. Florida had a much more imposing profile. A land bridge existed between Cuba and America. And much of the Bahamas were large islands, many linked together into immense landmasses.

She inhales his scent as he speaks. It's spicy with a not unpleasant hint of sweat. She licks the salt off her margarita glass as Gabriel gives her a mini-lesson in island geography.

“The tale Plato told was of an Atlantis beyond the Pillars of Hercules,” he says. “The civilized world of his time considered the pillars to be the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea—the Rock of Gibraltar on one side and Africa on the other. Some even say actual pillars were built there. So that dismisses any silly notions of Atlantis being a tiny island in the Mediterranean, like Santorini.”

While she isn't exactly well read in Atlantology, she had come upon the Santorini theory in her hurried research. She also considered the concept to be wrong-headed. Wishful thinking by historians who couldn't accept Plato at face value. The adherents of the Santorini answer suggest a volcanic cataclysm on the island of Thera (also known as Santorini) was really what Plato was talking about, even though the location is on the wrong side of the straits of Gibraltar and the time scale is off by thousands of years. Some theorists still cling to Santorini, but many other researchers consider the argument seriously flawed. Amaryllis nods, and Gabriel continues.

“Plato said the land was the size of Africa and Asia put together. At that time, Asia was considered to be Asia Minor—they didn't know of much else—and they defined Africa as a region about the size of today's Libya. So, once again, a tiny island doesn't fit.

“And there are tales from all over the world of survivors of a catastrophe that peopled the world in various directions. The Basques consider themselves to be descendants of an ancient race from the Atlantic Sea. And the Basques,” he says, drawing a line on the map from the Pyrenees to the Canary Islands, “have genetic similarities to the Guanche—a strange race of Canary Islanders who were killed off by the Spanish.”

He spits on the ground after mentioning the Spanish, the
conquistadors
who destroyed his own peoples' culture. She looks at the map and traces imaginary lines from the Atlantic Ocean to various spots on the coastlines of the Americas and the leeward sides of Ireland, Cornwall, and Africa. She thinks of the Pyrenees as the only land near the Atlantic Ocean, besides the Azores, to poke above the water after a torrential flood.

“The language is the most peculiar part,” he continues. “Linguists have traced several mother words to nearly all parts of the globe. “ He shows her a chart in which the simplest, most common words have similar sounds. Scattered throughout Europe, the Mideast, Africa and the Americas, the sounds of
aht
or
tata
are prominent in the word for “father.” She thinks a bit about the words she knows,
pater, Vater, papa, padre,
and admits that he has a point. According to the late linguist and explorer Charles Berlitz, the
tata
sound is fairly consistent throughout many languages, Gabriel says, leading Berlitz to wonder if this is the “echo” of the human species' first word for “father.” From the Zuni Indians (
tatchu)
to the Eskimos
(atatak)
to the Fiji Islanders
(tata)
, the sound reverberates.

There are other oddities, too, according to Gabriel. The Nahuatl (or Aztec) word for “butterfly” is
papalo-tl.
In French, it is
papillion.
In Latin,
papilio
. The Aztec word for temple was
teocalli
; in Greek, it's
theou kalia.

“I remember reading about a language expert who found something in the Azores, beneath the water,” Amaryllis says, suddenly feeling excited. “It was considered to be part of an alphabet that connected with other ancient tongues.” She looks at the map of the North Atlantic Ridge, running like a spine through the middle of the Atlantic, separating the various tectonic plates of the earth.
Could that ridge have stood above land at one time?
A sudden flash of memory brings back the image of a woman on a ship.
She speaks our language,
the crystal had said.

Gabriel is peering at her with curiosity. She realizes he's also sneaking a look down the gap between buttons of her gauzy shirt. She brings a hand up to pull the parting closed then drops it, deciding to let him look. She isn't large-chested, just average, and she sometimes, against her logical mind, is thrilled and confused to find a man looking at her that way. A familiar sensation of need ripples through her abdomen. She looks up at Gabriel and smiles, but he looks away with a sudden snap of the head.

“Gabriel, I think this woman, the language expert, can help us piece the puzzle together.”

“That would be easy enough,” he says, signaling to the waiter for the check. “I know of her. Shoshanna Knox. Everyone connected with finding the lost world knows her work.”

A waiter ambles over and Gabriel pulls several bills from his pocket. He waves the waiter away, saying
“queda te con en cambio.”

Keep the change. How did he know the waiter spoke Spanish?
She is now burning to know what he is keeping from her, but he is a master of concealment.
He must have been here before, scoping out the area before I arrived.
They stand, ready to leave, and he says gesturing off into the distance, “They are after Shoshanna, too.”

Hewitt, of course. And they're after me.

He puts one arm around her shoulders and draws her close, in a mysteriously intimate embrace. He whispers in her ear, the movement of air tickling her skin. “They hate us because we
would rewrite history if we are correct. And they are willing to kill to keep their timeline intact.”

“But, Gabriel,” she says, delighting in his closeness, in his delicious scent. “People don't kill over theories.”

Gabriel laughs and holds her out at arm's length, his eyes boring into hers. “Those who follow the cause of the True Believers do. Think of the things religious people have done in the name of a loving God.”

“But these aren't religious people—they're Ph.D.s with an attitude.” Suddenly, she's not feeling so light-hearted. She remembers her dinner with Donny and the conclusions they reached. Religion came up in that discussion, too. “Unless…”

“Unless they are getting help, Amaryllis, from people so blinded by their beliefs that they would kill to cover up an Atlantis.”

A light breeze makes her quake as she remembers that rough Americans, not English academics, were the first people to lay hands on Garret.

The new hotel in Freeport City is a necessary irritation, because the appearance of Hewitt made remaining in Andros impossible. There are so few people there that an odd pairing of a white woman and a Hispanic man, such as Amaryllis and Gabriel, is sure to be recognized. Nassau is too far away from the Bimini/Berry Islands, so they head north to the island of Grand Bahama and its main town, Freeport City.

They must find a new boat and Scuba rental shop, which is an added annoyance, because everything had been so easy in Andros. Here, the best boat crews are lazy, and the rental shop keeps bizarre hours, often closing at mid-day, making afternoon dives impossible.

Everyone in the Bahamas works at a slow pace, and Amaryllis is waiting for the pot to boil every time she makes a request or asks a question. It's paradise, yes, but not for someone trying to get an important project done. The drip, drip, drip of movement can drive a caffeinated city person insane.

By hook or crook they find a boat, but time is working against them. The sands can shift and literally create a new seabed—a phenomenon that can happen at any time in the Bahamas—and they return with worried minds to the spot where they found the pyramid.

On the way out to the site, Amaryllis is in high spirits, believing that her Pulitzer Prize-worthy story is within grasp again. After their third dive, however, she realizes the seascape has become unrecognizable. Huge swells have heaped sand upon the
pyramid structures, so they resemble nothing more than haunting hulks of rock with no more secrets to reveal. It would take heavy machinery to remove that much sand. The monumental structures are hopelessly camouflaged, the pillars are missing, the seabed and its block pavement are completely covered by silt and debris.

She's disappointed and depressed, for there are so few opportunities to snap the right pictures, especially with Hewitt on her trail. She wonders if the story ever will run. Will she simply run out of time, crowded out by these strange academics who can't seem to get the concept of alternative archeological theories?

She emerges from the sea, disengages her gear and plucks off her hood, and shakes her head at Gabriel. Her fellow diver, a teenager named Raymond, says nothing and merely dumps his air tanks on the deck and collapses into a squat, holding his head in his hands.

“We're through here,” she says. “That storm yesterday stirred up the seabed.”

Gabriel gazes west, lost in deep thought.

“There's Bimini,” he says, referring to the site where some adventurers reported seeing the so-called Atlantean road. Amaryllis remembers how Sean spoke of it at dinner in Chicago.

“As much as I'd love to see the Bimini Road, it would be nothing more than a trap,” she says, shaking out her globs of long, wet hair. “Hewitt would think of it as the first place to look for us.”

She thinks a bit more and then addresses the captain, a pot-bellied man wearing nothing more than frayed denim shorts, flip flops, and a dingy captain's cap. He doesn't look like much of an information source, but at least he lives in the area. She figures he must know something.

“Johnny, sir,” she says, embarrassed that she never bothered to find out the captain's last name. “Where else are there strange ruins in the sea?”

He laughs, big teeth showing a gap in the side, a place where he often lodges cigarettes. The teeth on either side of the gap are yellowed.

“The tourists from the big resorts don't really look for those things. Not even in Bimini. But there's something up your way that is peculiar,” he gestures to Amaryllis. “Near Florida is a tower.”

She and Gabriel press closer to him, waiting for more. Silence. Gabriel figures out the game and hands the man a few bills.

“Yes, mmm-hmmmm,” the captain says, counting the U.S. bills, which are far preferable to the local currency. “It's up out of Bahamian waters. Sometimes, you can find it, other times, the instruments go crazy. Bermuda Triangle effect, maybe.” He laughs a deep baritone as he pockets the money. Raymond, who is now standing in nothing but swim trunks, also laughs as if he's heard a knee-slapper.

“Oh, that place is a danger for sure,” the diver says. “Planes go down there, mon. Lotsa bad shit,” He drags the last word out as he pops a joint in his mouth and lights it. Amaryllis brushes away the sweet, pungent fumes. She's got to stay levelheaded.

“Is it in international waters?” she asks, hoping the boat can take them there.

“No, my lady,” Johnny says, looking to the north with beady eyes. “It's your area—U.S. But not even open to average folks. It's a military base. “

“Down here? I never heard of that,” she says, feeling suspicion prickling at the back of her mind. “How close can you get us?”

“Depends,” Johnny says, shrugs his shoulders and makes preparations for Freeport.

“Sounds expensive,” Gabriel growls.

The diver nods his head, but it's hard to tell whether he is simply appreciating the reggae music from his boom box or
answering Gabriel's question. They return to port without another word.

#

Freeport City's only bar—at least the only bar where tourists are welcome—is heaving with people this Friday night. Dancers have filled the hall and now spill into the street. Amaryllis, normally not a drinker, is in need of some sort of release, and she finds herself gliding in toward the heavy reggae/ska beat. Gabriel follows. He wedges himself between her and the bar and orders two beers. They salute each other with a clink of glass and take swigs of their cold bottles. Gabriel motions her into a corner.