Sean stared at the floor for a moment, dazed by the information. “That’s too much power for any one man to have,” he said after a minute of thought. “That’s why Julius Caesar hid the thing.”
“Precisely. And that is why we cannot let it fall into the wrong hands. The antikythera has to be found and destroyed.”
Sean wasn’t so quick to agree with the last statement, but Yarbrough was right, at least if what they believed about the device was correct. “You’re certain that this thing can tell the future?” Sean still needed convincing.
Yarbrough took a deep breath, wincing as he did. Apparently, the bullet wound in his arm was still tender. “Because of the damage done to the original, all we have is speculation, well-researched theories. But from all we have learned about the device, it does seem like that’s what it was used for.”
Sean let out a long sigh. “Well, I guess that changes things a bit.”
A knock at the door interrupted the conversation.
“It’s probably Tommy. I assume you have a guy at the door,” Sean said with fake derision. He got up, stalked over to the entry, and peeked through the eyehole. Tommy was outside, glancing nervously down both sides of the hallway.
Sean opened the door and his friend stepped in, surprised to see Yarbrough sitting in the corner. Tommy’s face curled, confused as to what was going on. “What’s he doing here?”
“It’s good to see you too, Tommy,” the agent said sarcastically.
Tommy felt guilty for two seconds. “Sorry. You know what I mean. How long have you been in here? Did he come in here last night?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Very funny,” Sean said, closing the door after giving a quick look around outside. “Agent Yarbrough was just giving me the lowdown on what they think Gikas has planned.”
“Basically,” Yarbrough cut in, “we believe he is going to try to starve the people of Greece into submission by cutting off supply lines for food.”
Tommy shook his head. “The people would kill him for that.”
“The people,” Sean corrected, “won’t know it’s him. They are already suspicious of their inept government. If something like this happens, there’s only one place the blame will get directed.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“I’ll fill you in on all the other stuff later. It goes way bigger than just Greece.” Sean moved back over to the map on the desk. “We can’t let him get to the antikythera. It’s a key piece to his plan.”
Tommy joined him at the workstation. “Yeah, but how do we know where it is? There’s nothing on this map that suggests the location.”
“That is the map to the Eye of Zeus?” Yarbrough asked, cutting into the conversation again.
Both men turned back to him and nodded. “Yeah,” Sean said. “We found it last night in the mountains at the source of the Tiber. Ran into a few crooked cops. Although they probably had a worse night than us.” He passed Tommy a knowing, just-us-guys glance and smirked.
Yarbrough ignored the last part. “Guys, if this is the only map leading to the Eye of Zeus, why not just destroy it? Then Gikas will have no way of finding it.”
Tommy and Sean were appalled at the idea. “First of all, with all due respect,” Sean began, “that thing deserves to be researched and analyzed. It could change the future of technology if what we have learned is true. Second, just because we destroy the map right now doesn’t mean the thing won’t be found someday. And we will have no idea who that person is or what they might do with it. Better to have it in the right hands than no hands at all.”
Yarbrough considered Sean’s rationale. “You really believe that’s what’s best?”
Sean’s face remained stern. “You know as well as I know the other reason I can’t trash this,” he tapped on the plastic protecting the map. “It’s the only bargaining chip I have to get Adriana back.”
“You might as well forget about that idea,” Tommy added. “There’s no way he’s going to let anything happen to the device.”
An uncomfortable silence fell on the room for a moment. Yarbrough stared at the two friends with a hint of disbelief. Finally, he said, “I understand. If I were in your shoes I would do the same thing.”
“Right,” Sean said and turned his attention back to the map. “The problem is we don’t know where to look for it.”
His eyes pored over the old piece of animal skin, desperate to find the solution to the riddle. They’d stayed up late the night before, hoping to find a clue, but none was had. They decided fresh eyes would help their plight, but as they peered at the document nothing stood out.
Yarbrough stood up and walked over to the other side of the desk. He was out of his league when it came to that sort of thing, but he was still curious. “What are we looking at?” he asked, trying to help despite doubting he could.
Sean gave a quick explanation, walking Yarbrough through the ancient map of Greece and the names of all the cities and islands. The agent paid close attention to what Sean was saying, and when he was done speaking asked, “So, I don’t mean to ask a dumb question, but these names are all in Latin?”
Sean smiled. “Yes. They’re all in Latin, the language of ancient Rome.”
“I see. So what do these names mean?”
Tommy cut in, explaining the meaning of a few names on the map. When he reached one of the islands to the west of Greece, he paused for a second with his finger resting on top of the outline.
“What is it?” Yarbrough asked. “Don’t know what that one means?”
Tommy didn’t respond to his question. Instead, he directed his attention to Sean. “Do you see the name of this island?”
Sean leaned over for a closer look. There was one word written below it. Inferus.
His eyes grew wide. “Wow. How did we miss that last night?”
“Miss what?” Yarbrough became more confused than he had been previously.
Sean pointed at the word that had caught their attention. “Inferus. It means under in Latin.”
The blank stare on Yarbrough’s face told the other two that he had no idea why that meant anything. “So?”
“Inferus,” Tommy explained, “is not the name of an island. It’s not a name for anything. It’s a description. Caesar is saying that the Eye of Zeus is under the island.”
The agent thought for a moment before speaking up again. “I still don’t understand. How could something be under an island?”
Sean and Tommy both had to admit that was a good question. What had Caesar meant when he put the Latin word for under on the scroll? How could something be under a land mass?
They’d hit another wall, or so it seemed. For the next few minutes, no one said anything, each man trying to explain the strange message left on the animal skin two thousand years ago. It was Sean who spoke up first. “An underwater cave,” he said. “That has to be it.”
Tommy perked up. “Of course. There must be some sort of entrance under the water. We will need to find this island on a current map.”
“Way ahead of you,” Sean said, pulling his laptop out of a black book bag on the floor next to the desk.
He opened the silver MacBook Pro, bringing the screen to life instantly. A few keystrokes later, he was on his favorite search engine, typing in the words that would bring up a map of Greece. The Internet in Rome had been surprisingly fast, much quicker than Sean had expected upon arriving. Where he was from in the United States, fast Internet was something many people took for granted until they traveled to a country that either had no Internet, or where service was terribly slow. The hotel where he and Tommy were staying didn’t have that problem. Thankfully.
Sean clicked on the top link from the search results, and a second later the requested map appeared. He zoomed out at first, trying to get a better overall view of the country’s layout. He scrolled around until he found a group of islands that appeared to be similar to those on Caesar’s map. A few clicks of the mouse zoomed the overhead view in a little closer. Sean’s eyes went back and forth between the animal skin on the desk and his computer screen, comparing the outline of the islands from both until he finally found what he was looking for.