The Hunt for Power

Chapter 7

Once onboard the ferry, Rex knew that it was time to let everyone else in on what he had surmised from the parchment. It had been a long night and everyone was tired, but they deserved to know where they were going and why.

"Steward!" Rex called out to a passing figure in a white coat. "Where's the galley?"

"One deck up, sir," he replied. "Head aft and follow your nose."

"Come on," Rex motioned to his group. "Let's get some food and I'll tell you why we're headed to Spain."

"Sounds good," Zidan remarked, patting his considerable belly. "I could eat."

"You can always eat," Ramses muttered and then ducked as Zidan took a playful swing at his head.

On their way to the galley, Calliope trailed behind lost in her thoughts. She had started out the day a simple archaeologist looking for a friend, her foremost concerns being publishing her next paper and securing funding for her next dig. Now she had been shot at, survived a high speed chase, and was rushing off to Spain with three men she barely knew. But something about them had sparked a fire and intensity within her. She felt safe with them and had to know what the parchment was alluding to.  She had to see it for herself.

"Are you sure the mask will be safe with Dimitri?" Zidan asked as he took a coffee and a large plate of eggs.

"Sure," Rex replied. "Dimitri and I go way back. He's a good sport and would face a firing squad before letting something happen to a historical piece of that importance.  He'll look after the mask until we can pick it back up once our little adventure with the good Dr. Alexandrou here is finished."

Satisfied that the mask was taken care of and that adventure was done, they moved on to other things. Zidan and Ramses introduced themselves to Calliope and explained how they knew Rex. "And you Dr . . . Alexandrou is it?  Not Papadopoulos? How do you fit into all of this?" Ramses asked while buttering his toast.

Calliope explained her real name and why she had lied to him earlier. After getting a discreet nod from Rex, she also told them about the parchment and why she had come to seek Rex's help. Ramses and Zidan listened intently and both eyed Rex when she got to the part about her missing colleague, Dr. Kostas.

"I gather," Zidan said, turning to Rex, "this is the same Niko that you went to school with?"

"It is," he said reluctantly. "But if he's the same Niko I knew back then, he's probably just holed up somewhere with a woman. A woman that's not his wife. Niko always had loose morals and a wandering eye."

"Maybe," Calliope said, looking doubtful "but I don't think so. He seemed remarkably rattled by the discovery of the parchment. He started mumbling to himself and became very paranoid. Several times he would be whispering on the phone in his office and abruptly hang up when I entered. Do you think someone kidnapped him?" Calliope was genuinely concerned about Niko's disappearance, but talking it out with Rex, Zidan, and Ramses comforted her.

"Perhaps," Rex replied, "I think the best way to find him is to find what is referenced in that parchment. I've got an idea and I think you do too, Dr. Alexandrou." He smiled at her and passed her the coffee.

"Please, call me Calliope. Yes, as soon as you mentioned a student of Xenocrates' it all clicked into place. Crantor and Cadiz."

"Yes, yes, why are we going to Cadiz?" Zidan asked. "I enjoy the Spanish coast just fine, and we needed to get away from Andromache's reach, but that seems like an odd destination."

"Cadiz is one of the oldest cities in all of Western Europe," Rex explained. Without thinking he had lapsed into speaking like a professor to a group of students. "It was founded as a port over 3000 years ago by the Phoenicians, who roamed all over the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians established trade with everyone: Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, you name it. They were renowned for their seamanship and boats. Hell, the Greeks based Poseidon on the sea deity of the Phoenicians." Calliope smiled at his descriptions of this ancient culture. She could see that under his gruff bravado he still had a kid's enthusiasm when it came to history.

"All very interesting Rex," Ramses said, trying to stifle a yawn, "but get to the point already. Why are we rushing off to a port city in southwest Spain in the wee hours of the morning when Dimitri had several very inviting beds in his house?"

Calliope cleared her throat and picked up where Rex had left off. "Because of this," she picked up the metal case and laid it on the table. "This is the parchment that alarmed Niko. We believe it to be a work of Crantor, a Greek philosopher whose majority of works have been lost for centuries. Crantor has always been known as a moral philosopher, but he supposedly visited Egypt and while there he found evidence of another civilization out beyond the Pillars of Hercules."

Rex picked up the thread. "Strabo, yet another Greek philosopher, hypothesized that the Pillars of Hercules referenced the westernmost temple of Hercules in what is modern-day Cadiz." Rex paused a bit for dramatic effect. "We believe that Niko's interpretation of this parchment led him to believe that the Phoenicians in Cadiz and Crantor knew of this civilization. A civilization from which other civilizations learned writing, democracy, astronomy, and many other advancements. A civilization that has been rumored about for millennia, but which no concrete evidence has ever been found. Until, perhaps, now."  It took a moment, but then both Ramses and Zidan caught on to what Rex was referring to.

"You don't mean-", Ramses scoffed.

"Surely not-", Zidan said.

Rex held up his coffee mug and smiled, "That's right boys, Atlantis."