The Lost Island Read online

  “It’s gone!”

  “It was never there.”

  “Come back!” Gideon screamed in the extremity of desperation.

  “Gideon!” He felt fingers tightening around his own. “There was no ship. But if you’ll just shut up for a moment, there is something out there. Something real.”

  Gideon stopped shouting and listened. All he could hear was the sound of wind and sea.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Surf.”

  Gideon strained to listen, to ignore the odd shapes shifting in front of his eyes. And then he did hear it: a faint susurrus of thunder below the howl of the sea. The wind and waves were pushing them steadily toward the sound.

  “An island?”

  “Don’t know. Could be brutal.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Nothing to do but hold on and ride it in.” A pause. “We’d better untie ourselves, or we could get all tangled up.”

  Gideon fumbled with the knot, but his hands were not working.

  “Knife,” Amy gasped. “In the bag.”

  Now the roar was getting louder. They were being driven toward it at a tremendous rate. The seas were growing steeper, the breaking tops more violent. Gideon fumbled with the latches on one of the drysacks, finally got them open, reached in, pulled out a knife. He could barely hold on to it, but somehow managed to slice himself free of the rope. He passed the knife to Amy.

  A wave buried them. The drysack was open, full of water. And now, on a rise of wave, Gideon could see a vast band of white surf, with blackness before and beyond.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “Just hold on, don’t fight, ride the waves in.”

  The waves were looming bigger, terrifyingly steep, smooth and glassy. The roar ahead sounded like a hundred freight trains. Up, up they rose, and a great curl of water loomed above them, over them.

  “Hold on!”

  Gideon felt himself flipped over, then engulfed in a tremendous, violent, boiling blackness, which instantly ripped the preserver raft out of his hands. He tumbled and thrashed in the darkness, disoriented, with no way of knowing which was up, down, or sideways, the water tugging at his limbs and almost tearing them out of their sockets. His powerlessness in the grip of the sea both terrified and stunned him.

  Suddenly—just when he felt his lungs would burst—he broke the surface, gasped, sucked in salt water, and was thrown back into the maelstrom, whirled about, utterly at the mercy of the sea. The faces appeared, now grinning, vomiting over him, and he struggled to thrash free, to no avail…And then a strange peace stole in, slowly, slowly, and the sea and the waves and the faces all vanished into a warm, lovely dark.

  33

  AS CONSCIOUSNESS SLOWLY returned, the lovely dark gave way to a sickening, nauseating feeling of pain and exhaustion. Gideon coughed, his chest and lungs feeling like they were on fire. He opened his eyes. There was still the close roar of surf, but he realized he was lying on wet sand. It was still night.

  With great effort he managed to get his arms underneath himself and sit up. His skin felt raw and cracked. He was surrounded by a dim, featureless beach, vanishing into darkness in all directions.

  “Amy.” His voice came out as the merest croak.

  The beach was empty. He struggled to get to his feet, head pounding, and was immediately overwhelmed with dizziness. Falling to his knees, he vomited salt water, again and again and again, until nothing remained but dry heaves. A few deep breaths and he collapsed, falling to the sand, curling into a ball, and losing consciousness once again.

  After what seemed like an eternity, he slowly swam back to consciousness. He opened his eyes. Day. Again. A dull, zinc light suffused everything. He looked about through bleary eyes, at the empty beach, the dark gray ocean, the thundering parade of surf, a dark line of limp jungle. How he possibly could have ridden through and survived boggled his mind.

  The wind had died away, and the clouds above had taken shape. The storm was clearing. His head was still pounding, but he felt a little better. He rose to his knees, and then lurched to his feet, fighting a wave of nausea and vertigo. In the light of a filthy dawn, he could now see where he was: on a deserted coast, the gray beach stretching in either direction as far as the eye could see, a few tattered palm trees, the land receding into jungle-clad hills. No sign of life; no sign of Amy; no sign of the raft or their drybags of supplies.

  A raging thirst had taken hold. His lips were cracked and bleeding. His tongue was swollen. He felt so weak he could barely stand.

  He had to find Amy. Or, at least, her body. And he had to find the bundle of life preservers and the drysacks with their water.

  It took all his willpower to take a step, and then he fell once again to his knees. Despite every effort, he was unable to get back onto his feet. He continued slowly on, crawling down the hard sand until he could go no farther. He lay down. He wanted badly to sleep—or, perhaps, to die. He closed his eyes.

  “Gideon.”

  He opened his eyes to find Amy bending over him. She looked awful—pale, thin, wet.

  “Amy…thank God…”

  “Let me help you up.” She grasped him under the arms, and he rose to his feet even as she staggered with the effort.

  “Water…”

  A bottle appeared and he fumbled for it, unscrewing the top with trembling hands, jamming it into his mouth and sucking down the liquid so desperately it spilled over his shirt.

  “Easy, easy.” She laid a hand on the bottle. “Wait a minute.”

  He waited, trembling. He could feel an immediate surge of energy from the water. “More.”

  “Pace yourself.”

  He drank more, swallowing just a little bit at a time, until the liter bottle was gone.

  “More.”

  “Sorry, we need to ration.”

  It was amazing how quickly the water helped him regain strength and alertness. He looked about, breathing slowly and deeply. There, a few hundred yards down the beach, was the sodden bundle of life preservers. He could see Amy’s footprints in the sand.

  His tongue and mouth were becoming rehydrated, and he found he could speak without croaking. “How did you survive?”

  “Just as you did, I got washed up on the beach. I don’t quite know how. Karma.”

  “Where are we?”

  “The Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua. I’d guess we’re about twenty miles north of Monkey Point.”

  “How far to the nearest settlement?”

  “We don’t have a local map. This is one of the loneliest coastlines in the world. Can you walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m a little weak myself. Give me your arm.”

  They walked down the beach, supporting each other. She led him into a grove of palm trees along the verge of sand. There were the drysacks, with various items laid out and drying on banana leaves—their two weapons, knives, the satellite-phone case, the briefing book with its wet pages laid out, a dozen granola bars, bottled water—and, to Gideon’s surprise, the mysterious computer printout of a Greek manuscript Amy had been looking at on the boat, sealed in a ziplock bag that had nevertheless suffered some leakage. She sat down on the sand, and Gideon collapsed next to her.

  Even in his weakened state, he couldn’t help feeling annoyed at the sight of the printout. She must have taken it with her when they abandoned the Turquesa and put it in a drysack at some point while they were on the raft. “Of all the things you could have saved—maps, GPS—you rescued that computer printout? What’s the big deal with it?”

  “It’s just something I’ve been working on.”

  “What?”

  A shake of her head. “Later. We both need to rest. And eat.”

  Gideon felt utterly spent, but now a hunger was taking hold. Amy picked up two granola bars and passed one to him.

  He lay back, peeling off the wrapper and stuffing the bar into his mouth. The clouds were breaking up, and a single ray of sun came streaming through them, illumi
nating a spot on the sea. The granola only seemed to make him hungrier, but he could feel his strength returning.

  They lay on the beach, barely moving, barely talking, slowly recovering their strength, as the day passed. As the afternoon merged into evening, the last of the clouds cleared away. Gideon now felt nearly himself again, strong and alert, unhurt save for a kind of dull and universal ache—but the passage of time had him confused. How much time had elapsed since their vessel was scuttled? Forty-eight hours? Seventy-two?

  “Does the sat phone work?” he asked.

  “I think so. Container’s waterproof.”

  “Then we’d better call Glinn,” he said.

  Amy nodded. She finished her granola bar, then took up the sat-phone container, unlatched the seals, and opened it up. The phone appeared intact. She took it out, turned it on. The LED screen popped to life.

  “A miracle,” said Gideon.

  “Yeah, but the battery’s run down. We’ve only got five percent juice.”

  “Christ.” Gideon shook his head.

  She glanced at him. “I’ll do the talking, if you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest.”

  She put it on speaker and pressed the FASTDIAL key to connect with EES headquarters. A moment later Glinn himself answered. He wasted few words.

  “Where are you and what’s happening?”

  “Had a run-in with some treasure hunters. They shot up the boat.”

  “Life raft?”

  “Destroyed.”

  “Launch?”

  “Gone. Look, it’s a long story. We were able to sink the treasure hunters in a storm but the Turquesa went to the bottom as well.”

  “Position?”

  “My best guess is eleven degrees forty-four minutes North, eighty-one degrees one minute West. We’re on the Mosquito Coast maybe twenty miles north of Monkey Point, Nicaragua.”

  “Do you have food and water? We’ll get a rescue vessel out to you just as soon as we can.”

  “We don’t need picking up.”

  Gideon looked at Amy, startled. She held up her hand, asking for his silence.

  “I don’t understand,” came Glinn’s voice over the sat phone.

  “We’re right where we want to be. I know where we have to go next. We can get there on foot.”

  Gideon listened. This was nuts. He grabbed for the radio, but Amy held it out of his reach.

  “On foot?” Glinn’s voice crackled over the radio. “I’m extremely concerned about the situation you’re in. You’ve been shipwrecked on an unknown coast. How are you going to finish the mission? We’re going to outfit a second boat for you, bring you some crew. I’m looking at the map as we speak. If you can head toward Monkey Point, there’s a lagoon just north where we can rendezvous, refit the expedition, and get you back on your feet.”

  “Your concern is appreciated—but misguided,” Amy said firmly. “We’re on track. The next landmark on the map is ten miles from where we are, maybe less—I know it.”

  “How do you know it?”

  A silence.

  “Gideon,” said Glinn, “are you there? Do you agree with this plan?”

  Gideon glanced at Amy. She was staring at him. He hesitated and then said, “Yes.”

  A long silence. “All right. I’m going to trust you. But I want regular updates. Twice a day, morning and night. Do you both understand?”

  “We may have to make them less frequent than that,” said Amy. “I’m getting a low battery signal.”

  They disconnected. Amy looked at Gideon, a smile breaking over her pale face, producing dimples he’d never seen before. “Thank you for backing me up.”

  “I only did so because I expect an explanation from you.”

  “You’ll just have to trust me for a little while longer—”

  “No. I want an explanation now.”

  This was greeted by silence.

  “Christ, Amy. Here we are, castaways on a deserted coastline with nothing but a few granola bars and half a dozen liters of water. How do you know we’re still on track?”

  Amy picked up the sodden briefing book and opened it to the Phorkys Map. The picture showed a flat line rising into a sharp line pointing toward a rounded line. The clue simply said, aquilonius.

  “You showed me that before. What does it mean?”

  “Stand up and look inland.”

  Gideon did as he was told, and was immediately staggered by the two hills in the near distance: one with a sharp peak, the second rounded. “Oh, my God.”

  “Yes. Oh, my God. Aquilonius is one way of saying north. So we go north, looking for the next clue.”

  “Damn it, Amy, it would’ve been nice if you’d shared this with me earlier. And why hide it from Glinn?”

  “Because I’ve discovered something even more incredible. It has to do with that printout I’ve been dragging around.”

  “What is that damn printout, anyway?”

  “The Odyssey, by Homer. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

  34

  IS THAT THE one where this guy who’s really lost ends up in a cave with a hot enchantress?” said Gideon.

  “Very funny. I’ll tell you what I’ve found, but first, let’s build a fire, dry out our clothes, and try to bring a little comfort and civilization to this god-awful place. Then we can talk.”

  Half an hour later, they were both sitting in the sand by a small fire. The sun had set in a glory of vermilion, and the stars were coming up in the sky. A breeze rustled the leaves of the palm trees above them.

  There was something rather glorious, Gideon decided, in simply feeling dry. “All right,” he said. “Let’s hear it. And it had better be good.”

  Amy began by declaiming something in a language unknown to Gideon.

  “What is that?” he said. “Are you still gargling salt water?”

  “It’s ancient Greek.”

  “Sorry, but my ancient Greek is a little rusty.”

  “I just wanted you to hear the sound of it. It’s the most beautiful language in the world—and I don’t just say that because I was a classics major. You can’t truly appreciate Homer in English. ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ Πλάγχθη. ‘Sing to me of the man, O muse, that wily hero who traveled far and wide’—Sorry, the English just doesn’t cut it.”

  Gideon shook his head. “Here we are, lost on an unknown coast, and you’re quoting Homer.”

  “There’s a point to all this.” She tapped the damp pages of the printout.

  “Which is?”

  “Let me start at the beginning, so you can understand my reasoning. We already know the Phorkys Map was based on an earlier Greek map. Glinn said as much. That map was discovered by the monks of Iona, among their stores of old vellum.”

  Gideon nodded.

  “Which means that the Greeks got here first. The Greeks ‘discovered’ the New World.”

  “Glinn told us that, too.”

  “But that begs an obvious question: Who was the Greek Columbus? And how did he get here?”

  Gideon waited.

  “In 1200 BC, the Greeks laid siege to the city of Troy—the famous Trojan War. Which they won, of course, by tricking the Trojans with the hollow horse filled with Greek warriors.”

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts and all that.”

  “Exactly. Now let’s turn to the Phorkys Map.” She flipped the pages of their briefing book, with each clue enlarged. “Here it is, the first clue. Ibi est initium, it reads. And look at the little drawing of a horse. Remember? That was the clue old Brock back at EES couldn’t figure out. And it says: ‘There is the beginning.’ The beginning of what?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Gideon said.

  “Of the voyage of Odysseus.”

  “The voyage of…” Gideon stopped. “Are you saying that the Odyssey should be taken literally? I don’t know what’s crazier—that, or the idea that he traveled all the way to the New Wo
rld.”

  “It isn’t crazy. And I’m not the first to propose it. A group of dissident Homer scholars have argued precisely this point for years. They’ve been ridiculed and marginalized.”

  “With good reason,” said Gideon.

  “Because they didn’t have the proof we now possess—thanks to your theft of that page from the Book of Kells.” Amy’s voice was low, quiet, but full of conviction. “I’ve been comparing the Phorkys Map with the Odyssey. It all fits. After the defeat of Troy—using a wooden horse, recall—Odysseus and his men left in six ships. They were caught in two incredibly violent storms: one that drove them westward for three days, and another for nine days. It’s obvious to me now that he was driven, first across the Mediterranean, and then across the Atlantic—all the way into the Caribbean. That’s how the Greeks discovered the New World. And that, in turn, is how the Phorkys Map was created. It was based on the earlier Greek map of Odysseus’s voyage. That’s the map the monks found among their old stores of vellum. And that is how the monks of Iona were able to reach the New World. Odysseus was the Greek Columbus.”

  “If you hadn’t been a classics major yourself, you’d never have dreamed this up. It’s totally far-fetched.”

  “No, it isn’t. It took Odysseus ten years to get home. All those islands he visited, all those adventures he had—they all took place here, in the Caribbean. The key text is right there.” She flipped through the printout. “This is from Book Nine of the Odyssey. I’ll translate as I go along.”

  A deadly current and howling winds forced us westward, past Cythera. For nine days we were helplessly driven over the deepest ocean. On the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus Eaters, people who eat a delicious fruit, which is said to give health and heal all manner of infirmities, but at the expense of mind and memory. On that desolate coastline we found water and ate a hasty meal. Once we’d eaten and drank I sent some of my men ahead, two soldiers and a runner, to see who might live there. They left immediately for the north and found the Lotus Eaters, who accepted them in peace and gave them the lotus to eat. Those who ate of it were healed of their wounds of war, but forgot all about home and their companions, and did not care to return to the ships or even send back a message. All they wanted was to stay with the Lotus Eaters and eat the sweet fruit, lost in their dreams, forgetting everything. They wept bitterly when I forced them to come back with me. I had to lash them to the rowing benches.