by Nick Cook
‘Go for it,’ I said.
Leon brought Neptune into a hover right in front of the object, the light from it illuminating our cockpit through the windows.
Our captain took hold of the grips and the arms outside swivelled towards the buried rune. With the precision of a surgeon at work, he began to gently scrape away the dirt with the hydraulic claw, not hurrying, just taking his time.
My expectations grew by the minute as Leon cleared the surface. Jack would have got such a huge kick out of this. It was, in every sense, underwater archaeology in action.
I let out a loud breath as a petal geometric symbol began to appear. Yes – absolutely no question – it was an Angelus rune.
‘It looks incredible, but what is it?’ Carlos asked.
I resisted the urge to whoop and then give him a gushing explanation.
‘That certainly doesn’t look like military to me,’ Leon said.
Carlos nodded. ‘If it’s some sort of Aztec artefact that the Spanish plundered and lost, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’
I had to bite my tongue again, as Leon turned his head towards me.
‘Any thoughts, Lauren?’ he said, giving me a very probing look.
I held his gaze for a moment. I knew then there was no way I could continue to get away with my charade. But rather than tell him and Carlos everything, I needed to share just enough of the truth that I dared to.
‘Okay, there are some things I should have told you before now. My friend Jack, back onboard the Neptune? Well, he’s actually an archaeologist, and this symbol matches others that we’ve found at other ancient sites around the world.’
Leon stared at me. ‘And you’re only telling us this now, Lauren?’
’Sorry, but we do have our reasons for keeping this secret,’ I said.
Carlos was narrowing his eyes at me now too and shaking his head. ‘I asked you not to make an old man look foolish by lying to him. Look at what you’ve done!’
I felt my heart break a fraction. Carlos was right. I had lied to his face, even if my reason for doing so had been noble and had been all about protecting others.
The old man clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Just promise me that you and your associates had nothing to do with the murder of my children?’
So there it was. The next logical step for his mistrust to leap to.
I stared at him, feeling the colour drain from my face. ‘Oh God, one hundred percent, Carlos.’
He stared harder at me. ‘This is the absolute truth?’
‘I swear to you with all my heart.’
Carlos looked at me for the longest time. ‘Then don’t make me regret giving you a second chance, Lauren.’
‘Thank you and you won’t…’ I turned my gaze towards Leon. ‘And how about you?’
A smile filled his face. ‘If Carlos is prepared to trust you, then who am I to argue? Plus when a beautiful woman tells me something, I tend to believe them. One of my many weaknesses.’
I let out a long breath. ‘Good to know. But I have to ask you both to keep what you’re about to see to yourselves; absolutely to yourselves. I can’t stress how important it is that you don’t tell anyone you know – your family, your friends… and that includes your crew, Leon.’
‘Okay, but what exactly have you dragged us into here, Lauren?’ he asked.
So here I went, crossing that line. ‘Something where we’re about to make a real difference.’
‘Then show us,’ Carlos said.
‘In that case, get ready to have your minds well and truly blown. But first, I’m going to try something that will hopefully enable me to communicate with that glowing device out there.’
I took the Empyrean Key and tuning fork out of my bag, then sat up on the couch with the orb between my elbows. The two men gave me questioning looks as I struck the tuning fork against the stone.
The single clear note was very loud inside that tiny cockpit and for a moment nothing happened. Then relief rushed through me as a single shimmering icon materialised, hovering over the stone orb. The icon itself appeared as two adjacent green triangles, pointing in towards each other like geometric butterfly wings.
‘Thank God…it’s worked,’ I said.
‘What’s worked?’ Leon asked, staring at the empty air over the Empyrean Key. Of course only I could see what was going on, thanks to my synaesthesia.
‘Hopefully you’re about to see,’ I replied. With the shimmering icon selected, I flicked my wrist forward.
If I’d had any idea of what was about to happen next I would have thought twice about that particular action.
Both men gasped as a pulse of light came from the geometric petals carved into the quartz crystal, which now shone with the intensity of white hot metal.
‘What in the name of dear God is that thing?’ Leon asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Carlos make the sign of the cross on his chest.
But before I could even attempt any sort of watered-down explanation, something even more extraordinary happened, something that I’d never seen before.
It was like little blue flickering signal fires were being lit one by one on the sea bed, stretching away into the distance across the ocean.
Carlos gasped. ‘Are more of those things lighting up?’
I slowly nodded. ‘I think so.’
My heart was soaring because I could already see that they curved away to the left in the distance. And if this was a spiral in a similar pattern to the one found around Skara Brae, then at the end of this metaphorical yellow brick road would be a micro mind, just waiting for us to make contact with it.
But then a rumbling sound began to grow, becoming louder. We all exchanged questioning looks.
Through my blister window I saw bubbles tracing glowing points of light together, racing towards us like a dot to dot puzzle. My mouth went dry as the seabed began to undulate beneath the submersible. Then almost too late, my brain caught up with what was actually happening.
‘Leon, get us out of here! I think that’s an underwater quake!’ I shouted.
’Shit! Hang on to whatever you can!’ he called back.
As Carlos and I locked our hands onto the side of our couches, Leon grabbed hold of the control yoke and pulled it back hard, pushing the throttle to maximum.
We began to turn away from the rune, which was now burning with blinding brilliance as Neptune started to gain height.
But then with a roar, the ocean seemed to erupt with frothing water, shoving Neptune sideways as the shockwave slammed into us. The submersible began to roll, the floor becoming the ceiling and flinging the three of us around the cockpit. Multiple alarms screamed out as Neptune’s hull let out groans and the world gyrated around us.
Leon fought an impossible battle as the sub tumbled sideways towards the seabed. With a bone-jarring crash, we slammed into it, scouring a great groove through the silt and throwing up a cloud of debris.
Every bone in my body shook as Neptune skidded to a stop with a long, groaning shudder, the cabin floor at a forty-five degree angle beneath us. Every light in the sub went dark. The roaring bellow of shifting earth and rock continued outside, the seabed bucking beneath us and rattling us like pebbles in a can.
My brain was numb as I watched the shockwave of bubbles speeding away. Then at last the quake began to subside, and my eyes were already scanning for any sign of cracks in the thick Perspex windows. If it breached at this depth, I knew it would implode, killing us all in a split second. I was already kicking myself. My own impetuous stupidity, charging in and activating that rune, might not only cost me my own life, but also the lives of the two men I’d dragged along on this mission.
Darkness lapped around us, the only illumination coming from the rune, which was beginning to fade again. Then I noticed the flashes of light from the surface. I glanced up to see lightning flicker in the stormy black sky above the waves.
My stomach knotted as creaks and groans came from Neptune’s hull
around us.
‘Is everyone okay?’ Leon asked, his tone ridiculously calm.
‘Yes, although I do have a few bruises that I didn’t start this dive with,’ Carlos said, rubbing the back of his neck.
I sucked in a breath, but after a quick physical inventory I realised that apart from some serious knocks, I’d made it through without any broken bones.
‘I’m shaken but otherwise okay. More importantly, how badly damaged is Neptune?’ I asked.
‘Well, the power failing isn’t exactly a good sign,’ Leon replied. ‘Unless I can get it back online we are going to die down here.’ He flicked on a small battery lantern that pushed back the gloom.
‘Bloody hell, you don’t pull any punches do you?’ I said,
Carlos shrugged. ‘It’s the best way to be in a situation like this, Lauren. Sweet stories are for children at bedtime; they don’t help in a life or death situation.’
‘Wow, you two are cut from the same cloth,’ I replied. But I took a mental note to learn something from both of these men about what real heroism in the face of adversity looked like.
Leon smiled at Carlos. ‘Let’s see what we can do about not dying down here. Meanwhile, I suggest that everyone remains quiet to try and save what little oxygen we have left.’
I nodded, clamping down my next question about what our odds of survival were. Instead I watched as Leon began to unscrew the butterfly nuts on a panel. As he pulled it off, the smell of burnt wiring filled the cockpit. Despite the dim light, I saw the scowl fill his face as he pulled out a charred circuit board. That did little to help the nausea that was already having a party in my stomach.
I turned back to my window and stared out. I could almost feel the ocean pressing in on the hull, trying to get to us. Without doubt it was beautiful and serene down here, but undeniably, if anything went wrong we’d very likely all end up very dead, very quickly.
As I waited, trying to stop myself imagining how it all might play out, I began to mentally pick over what had just happened. Waking up the rune had obviously created some sort of cascade effect through the other runes connected to it. It must somehow have been that which was responsible for the underwater quake. The one comforting thought, if you could call it that, was that if we did end up dying down here, at least the quake would definitely be picked up by Mike’s seismic sensor network across Cuba. Armed with that data he should be able to locate the epicentre of the earthquake, and hopefully through that the exact location of the micro mind.
The minutes stretched on as Leon worked frantically away, swapping out circuit boards and quietly cursing to himself in French. Carlos, despite everything that he’d just gone through, looked relaxed and lost in his element down here. An old diver coming home maybe? Whatever the reason, it was obvious he had made some sort of peace with himself, despite finding out what had happened to his son and daughter. Maybe he was ready to die down here too and join them wherever he believed they were now. As for me, well, the only reason I wasn’t kicking and screaming to stay alive was because that would have used up more oxygen.
Another ten minutes passed, and what I could see of the sky through the surface was looking distinctly choppy. It couldn’t be long until the storm hit with full force.
The air in the cockpit was starting to taste noticeably stale and was also tinged with the hint of sweat. I was just wondering if I should start searching for a piece of paper to leave Jack a note declaring my undying love for him, when without ceremony, Leon pushed a circuit board back and flicked a switch.
With a whir of pumps starting up somewhere in the submersible, deliciously fresh oxygen started to pump back into the cockpit.
‘Oh you absolute miracle worker, you,’ I said.
‘We’re not out of the woods yet,’ Leon replied. ‘At least two of the thrusters on the port side, which we need to right us, are still buried in the silt.’
‘Shit, so you’re saying we’re stuck down here?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t give up hope just yet.’ Leon said. ‘I’m going to purge the ballast tanks and hopefully that will be enough to lift us out of this mess we’ve got ourselves into.’
‘Have faith, Lauren,’ Carlos said.
‘I’m certainly trying to,’ I replied.
Leon flicked several more switches on a console over his head. ‘Okay, hang on everyone, purging tanks now,’ he said.
I grabbed onto the side of my couch, throwing out a silent prayer in case any deity who happened to be in the vicinity might give a damn about any of us.
Leon pressed a button and a loud gurgling, hissing sound came from outside. A flurry of bubbles erupted beneath Neptune, kicking up silt and blocking out the view. Then, with a long groan, the floor began to tilt back to the horizontal position.
Immediately, Leon was on the case, spinning the thrusters up to full power. With a whine of electric motors, we began to rise.
I whooped and clapped, then reached across and slapped Leon on the back. ‘Well done that man.’
He grinned at me, but Carlos’s gaze was focused on something on the seabed.
‘What is that white thing down there?’ he asked.
I glanced at where he was indicating to see a white cylinder mounted on a pole, sunk into a large concrete block.
‘That, if I’m not mistaken, is an underwater listening post,’ Leon said. ‘I’ve come across similar devices around the Baltic coast during a dive and they almost certainly belonged to the Russian navy. It’s the sort of the thing they use to detect enemy subs trying to sneak into their waters. You can guarantee that whoever dropped this one now knows that we’re here.’
My blood instantly turned to ice. ‘Leon, we need to get back to the surface and get Venus away from here as fast as we bloody can.’
‘Why?’ Leon said, staring at me.
‘Because I think we may have just stirred up a hornets’ nest. The same nest that Raúl and Maricela ran into.’
Leon scowled at me and without another word, gunned the motors and spun us round hard. Then we were heading rapidly back towards the surface, the growing storm churning the surface of the sea far above us.
Chapter Thirteen
We glided through the water in Neptune, heading for where we’d left the marker for Venus.
‘Okay, now we’re no longer in imminent danger of death, we need to talk about that quake, and what caused it, Lauren,’ Leon said.
I knew the question was coming. Leon and Carlos were bound to quiz me about what had just happened. ‘I really had no idea that was going to happen when I activated that rune.’
‘Activated the rune? That in itself begs a hundred other questions about how you woke it up with what looked like a fork and a stone ball.’
‘I’m more than a little curious about that myself,’ Carlos said.
I sighed. ‘Look, guys, I really can’t get into it for your sakes. There are people out there who are determined to keep this sort of thing a secret. So as much as I would love to tell you, I really can’t, so let’s please just leave it there.’
Carlos drew in a long breath. ‘I see…’ Then he nodded. ‘But I also understand that the authorities can sometimes bury the truth and will do anything to keep it hidden.’
‘Exactly,’ I replied.
‘Okay, then just tell me one thing, Lauren. Are you fighting against these people?’
‘Oh God yes, with every fibre of my being.’
‘In that case, I wish you every luck,’ Carlos said.
Leon blew the air between his teeth. ‘You do realise you nearly killed us by not being straight with us? If you had at least told us about the risks involved, I may have thought twice about assisting you on this mission of yours.’
My guilt trip did a few honorary laps around my head as I nodded back.
‘Look, you have every reason to be pissed off with me, but I honestly had no idea about what would happen down there. I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened. I had no right to drag you into this.�
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Leon shook his head. ‘I doubt anyone could have anticipated triggering an underwater quake.’ Then he chuckled. ‘In so many ways this whole trip has appealed to my explorer’s soul. I’ve seen a lot down of amazing sights at the bottom of the ocean, but none as incredible as that spectacle. So just between us, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
Carlos was smiling now too. ‘Yes, I agree completely, my friend. It was a vision of wonder. It will leave me with even more awe at what is beneath the sea around Cuba.’
I felt some of the tension that I’d been carrying drain away. ‘Thank you, guys, for understanding. Just know that I would tell you more if I could. But talking of what’s at the bottom of the sea…what about that incredible wreck your children found, Carlos?’
‘Yes, the discovery of a lifetime! But I’ve no interest in it now, not after…’ He paused, swallowing hard. ‘No. Leave it for others to discover. After all, what good is money to an old man?’
‘Then maybe you should be thinking of your legacy,’ Leon said. ‘I run a number of charitable trusts for disadvantaged children around the world and you could look to set something similar up. If you want to honour the memory of Maricela and Raúl, I can think of no better way to put in place something that can make a real difference to so many lives.’
So Leon was a philanthropist too. I was going to seriously have to rethink my first impression of this man.
Carlos’s face lit up briefly before his expression fell again.
‘That’s a wonderful idea, but sadly we lost our dive boat. And I am too old to dive anyway,’ he replied.
Before I could suggest anything, Leon absolutely excelled himself with his next offer.
‘I’ve already thought of that,’ our captain replied. ‘I’d be delighted to offer you the services of Venus and my crew to help you recover the treasure.’
I beamed at him. ‘You really are one of the good guys, aren’t you?’
‘Oh, I try to be,’ he said.
Carlos stared at Leon with wide eyes. ‘That would be incredible. Obviously I would share any treasure with you that we recover.’
