At first glance, Aliana thought it looked more like the entrance to a bomb shelter, left over from the Cold War.
“And, this is what it looks like now.”
The image clearly displayed a small mountain with cleared soil, and no evidence of what was once the entrance to the mineshaft.
“So, you’re saying they’ve most likely bulldozed the entrance to one of the largest underground water cave systems in Australia, while he was deep inside it?”
“Yes.”
Aliana’s usually carefree smile was crestfallen.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” James said, comforting her with his arms. “I think you will find that my Sam is much harder to kill than that, and an expert cave diver, he will find another way out, or at least manage to keep himself alive until we can make one.”
James, she noticed, never seemed too worried about his son. But the sheer fact that he was here demonstrated that he loved him very much, and was willing to do anything required to protect him.
“I still don’t even understand why Rodriguez would want to hurt Sam. I mean, it was Sam who proved that he’d discovered the final resting place of The Mahogany Ship?”
“Only he didn’t, did he?”
“What do you mean, he didn’t?” She fidgeted with a cup of coffee. “He found the Spanish gold, and everything carbon dated to the 15thcentury.”
“I don’t know where the Spanish gold came from — it was probably a cleverly executed and expensive exercise in deception, and for what purpose, I don’t yet know. I do, however, know that the Mahogany Ship settled nowhere near this location.”
“How could you possibly be so sure?”
“Because Sam and I once looked for her together, and that’s not even close to where she was.”
“So you found her?”
“No, but I have an accurate account of the journey of one Mr. Jack Robertson, who survived the sinking of the Emily Rose in 1812. They were the first settlers to discover the Mahogany Ship, and their journey from Warrnambool to Sydney Cove never came close to Bendigo.”
Aliana interrupted. “Yes, but that’s all common knowledge. What isn’t known is where, exactly, they spotted the Mahogany Ship.”
“As I was saying, young Aliana…” James patiently began, as though he were speaking to a small child. “I have an accurate account of the journey of Mr. Jack Robertson. In it, there is a very specific, and detailed description of the route they took, and even the longitude and latitude where they were when they spotted that damn ship.”
“So you do know where it is?”
“My dear Dr. Wolfgang, this may take some time to explain if you keep interrupting.”
“I’m sorry, James. Do go on.”
“No, we only have the location where the party of survivors were when they first saw the Mahogany Ship. Sam and I reached the location, but all remnants of the Mahogany Ship nearby had either been destroyed, burned, or removed entirely. The ship herself, although interesting, was of minimal concern to me. It was what she was carrying that had particularly inflicted me with a keen interest.”
“What was she carrying?” Aliana asked, more confused now than she’d been when she first started talking to Sam about the Mahogany Ship possibly being a giant, expensive, hoax.
“A powerful scepter, called the ‘The Ark of Light,’ which, legend has it, held the ability to focus natural sunlight with extreme precision, or ‘Entrap Ra, the Sun God’ so that he might destroy one’s enemies. The crux of the matter being that the Ark was a very powerful weapon.”
“And that was what you were after?”
“Yes, and I believe that it, too, is the most likely reason for which our friend Michael Rodriguez has gone to such lengths to orchestrate bringing us all here.”
Aliana wanted to scream in frustration.
Each answer seemed to lead to another two questions.
“Why would Michael, a billionaire, want an ancient weapon?”
James smiled idiotically, at the simple question, and offered the possible explanation, “It’s a very good weapon?”
“That’s bullshit. A man like Rodriguez could afford his own Army, Navy, and Air Force. So why would he care about a weapon that had the ability to destroy things with bolts of fire and lightning?”
“Because, legend has it, that as well as being a tremendous weapon, the Ark of Light — when held at the top of the Pyramid of Giza at midday of the winter solstice — pointed directly to The Tomb of Knowledge. A place buried by the passing of a number of Ice Ages, it has been said that the place was created by God himself, as a means of storing all knowledge of man.”
She studied his face. It was passionate to the point of obsession. “And why do you want to find such a place?”
“Because knowledge, my dear, is power. And power, like any drug, never seems to be quite sufficient for one’s needs.”
Aliana shook her head in wonder.
She could see so much of Sam in this old man, despite his affliction with a number of vices, including, and not limited to greed, lust, and grandiose misalignment. Yet, he had the same attractive looks in a rogue kind of style as his son, and a charm that was hard not to enjoy.
“Okay, so if Rodriguez is after this Ark, why drag you and Sam into it?”
“That’s simple. He needs what we have, to find it.”
“And what do you have?”
“A map of where the scepter was taken after it left the Mahogany Ship.”
“Are you fucking serious? You have such a map? Why didn’t you just use it in the first place, find the stupid scepter and go and get your unlimited power?”
“Because there’s a catch…”
“Of course there is.” Aliana decided she hadn’t met a more infuriating person.
“The map depicts the scepter buried in a cave twenty-two miles, precisely, north of where the Mahogany Ship was left. There are a number of other markers used to identify the treasure, but the most important of all markers, is the exact location of the Mahogany Ship. Mr. Robertson made certain that it would never be found by accident, and when he returned to retrieve the Ark, he attempted to destroy the ship by burning it. Years later, when others came across the ship, it was found blackened — thus the mistaken presumption that the ship was built of the dark mahogany.”
“So, if Mr. Robertson returned for the Ark, wouldn’t it now be somewhere else?”
“No. You see, as luck would have it for you and me, Jack Robertson had a rather criminal past. And he was about to pay for a crime he’d committed more than twenty years earlier, while still living in England,” James said. “The story goes, Jack, once a highwayman and murderer, had been paid by Lord Dickson Mills, one of the richest men in England at the turn of the 19th century, to murder his wife, Mary, who he’d suspected had been having an affair. Only when Jack shot the woman, in cold blood, he realized that he had entered the wrong room, very nearly killing the man’s daughter, Lady Rose, instead. Like a fool, he’d stayed to try and save the young girl’s life, until someone came and he was forced to flee for his life.”
“That’s some history. Is that why he left for Australia, to escape?”
“Yes, before he was hanged. Now, when he left aboard the Emily Rose, a man by the name of John Langham followed. This was the man who was having an affair with Lady Mary Mills. Feeling responsible, the man had made a vow to hunt down the man and bring him to justice — and justice meant death. Through unknown and unlikely events, Jack Robertson, John Langham and Dawson Mills, Lord Mill’s only son, were the only three survivors of the wreckage of the Emily Rose who would ever reach Sydney Cove. Of the three, only John realized their strange past connection. On his death bed, he wrote to Rose asking her for forgiveness for failing in his promise to avenge her, and describing how he’d come to forgive the man who had injured her.”