Blood and Sand (3 page)

4

While Dad goes back to his research, I pull out my iPad to do a little of my own. Connecting to the inflight Wi-Fi is immediate, as it should be flying first class. 

There are loads of websites pertaining to the Atlantis legend.
I just need to find which ones involve Atlantis and its connection to the ancient languages engraved into the relief,
I think to myself. Thankfully, there are a lot of Atlantean whack-jobs out there so finding information isn’t the issue. The problem is that most of the people are either guessing or completely bat-shit crazy. All I’m looking for is similarities.

It takes me an hour or so, but I think I have what I need—at least, enough information to make sense of what’s going on. I run a Google search on all the historical accounts from all the major ancient empires as they relate to Atlantis. They
all
have the same round-about description of Atlantis and its destruction. This fact seems odd to me considering that most of these records are from people who lived thousands of miles away from each other. It’s not like they had planes and the internet to tell their tales and more than half of them didn’t sail either. A big thing called the
ocean
would have been in the way. Either way, the commonality is very interesting.

The only problematic thing I see is that none of them are accounts of the actual city and its construction. The only thing I have found is a symbol and a general blueprint of its layout—of which, I have no idea if it’s accurate. This doesn’t surprise me since it is said that most of the historical records would have been destroyed when the city itself was.

Just like the libraries at Alexandria to the Roman rulers in Egypt,
I think. But even some of those were saved due to copies that were made and later found in other nations.

I laugh a little on the inside remembering where I learned that. Mom, Dad and I were on Spaceship Earth at Epcot in Disney World when I was a teenager. The ride was always one of their favorites since it takes you through some of the major events in world history, which was and still is, Dad’s forte.

I look back to my iPad and try to get Dame Judi Dench’s voice out of my head, her being the narrator of the story in the ride, and continue with my research.

Atlantis was supposedly built in 3 ringed sections with mote-like channels separating each section, almost looking like a giant dart board. The reports—or in this case blueprints—indicate there was one long canal that allowed access to each divided segment.

It seems that none of the descriptions are from within the city though. It’s like no one was ever allowed inside it or that they weren’t permitted to write about it. I think the latter to be the case since we are talking about an ancient, super-secret civilization after all.

The rest of the flight goes as scheduled. With about five hours of air travel remaining, I finish up with my web-surfing and recline my chair. I lean my head back and shut my eyes, and try to picture the mysteries that await us.

As I attempt to sleep, I flip through dozens of scenarios and situations in my head, but how do you put together a game plan for something that isn’t supposed to exist? Everything I have learned and been trained for has completely been thrown out the metaphorical window. This is truly an adventure in its purest sense.

The Mystery.

The Excitement.

The Danger.

And just like a lot of books and movies I’ve consumed over the years, I can only think of the many ways this can blow up in our faces.

5

I dream of baseball.

I dream of clay infields, the smell of the freshly cut outfield grass, cheap hotdogs and stale popcorn. This is the life I should have had. The life I did have, but for a shorter time than I would have liked.

I was once regarded as one of the top prospects in the game, a five tool player. To be viewed as a five tool athlete you must have above average speed, hitting, hitting with power, fielding and arm strength. I had a crap ton of all five at the ripe age of 18. At six-foot-two, 190 pounds, I was easily the pick of the baseball litter.

My Grandfather once told me I reminded him of Mickey Mantle, the legendary New York Yankee. He was gritty, tough, and played with the same tenacity that I did. Plus, the guy was one of the best hitters to ever play the game, as well as a tremendous outfielder. Mick was a Hall of Famer for a reason. My ultimate goal.

But, then it happened. Ten years ago this past spring I was playing in the fifth game of my second season in minor league ball. I was barely twenty years old at the time and already playing at Triple-A Toledo for the Detroit Tigers minor league affiliate, the Mud Hens. I was starting in centerfield, the position I mastered in high school while playing for the Wellington Wolverines in southern Florida. A bomb was hit over my head and I did the only thing I could do…I turned and hauled ass.

“He got a hold of that one!” The announcer yelled. “Bradford crushed that ball to straight away center over the centerfielders head. Boyd is in a dead sprint tracking the ball. Man o’ man can he fly out there. He’s like a gazelle in center, people! Ten feet from the warning track and closing in…”

Now, they call it the
‘warning track’
for a reason. Basically, when you hit the fifteen foot wide expanse of dirt in front of the wall you are supposed to slow down. It warns you of an imminent impact.

Well, I didn’t slow down. I never slow down. I’m always aggressive and as my coaches always used to say, “A little reckless at times.” But, I never cared. I, like most people my age, believed themselves to be indestructible—especially when there were big league scouts in the stands. If I tracked down this ball and hauled it in with them watching, I would have been a shoe-in to be called up to the majors for the weekend series against Chicago.

“He’s not slowing down—oh my, that was a vicious collision! He caught the ball with two out at full speed, but hit the wall just left of the 412 sign. Boyd is down and not moving. Grillo, the left fielder, is checking on him. Now Grillo is waving for help from the Toledo bench! This can’t be good folks! Boyd is still down and not responding…”

I don’t remember hitting the ground…or the wall for that matter.

I’m told the play got a standing ovation from the near sellout crowd, but I didn’t hear them…I didn’t hear anything. The concussion I sustained was brutal. I woke up puking my guts out over the next couple of days.

I’d trade back all the vomit in the world for a healthy shoulder. The concussion faded, but the pain from the torn ligaments and shredded muscles in my right shoulder never went away.

Two surgeries and a year of useless therapy later, I’m out of baseball for good. The joint never healed properly and I can’t throw or swing without pain. I even had three second opinions. All three doctors said the scarring was too great and another round of surgeries wouldn’t have fixed it. Hell, one of them said a hundred surgeries wouldn’t have made a difference.

The arthritis I developed from the trauma of hitting the wall will never go away, I was told. To this day I have to take anti-inflammatory medication just to sleep. If I roll over on it the wrong way I’ll wake up with a start.

I was beyond distraught over losing my career, my passion and my love. I did what most people would do in that case. I drank. I drank and did something a little brainless. I got in an arguing match with an overweight cop and asked him, “Did you marry a piece of bacon, or the whole pig?”

Needless-to-say he didn’t take it well.

The next morning my father came and bailed me out of the local drunk tank and three months later I started working for him and the other archeology geeks in D.C.

6

DING.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be arriving at our destination in about thirty minutes. Please prepare yourselves for landing.”

I wake with a groan.

“What the hell hit me?” I mutter to myself, visibly wincing in pain. My head feels like it got hit with a bat, or better yet, a plane. I laugh at the ridiculousness of what happened earlier in the flight and shake it off to crap luck.

“You okay?” asks a voice.

I look over at my dad. He’s buckled in—which I replicate immediately. I don’t need a repeat of this morning’s events. Feeling like a ping-pong ball in a tennis ball tube and shaken by a paint mixer isn’t my definition of fun.

He watches me strap in and gives me a look that says,
‘Good idea.’
I give him a wink and then look out my window. What I see makes me groan with disapproval.

Desert, nothing but desert stretches into the distance from my vantage point. There are a few aberrations on the ground though. What looks like trees and other desert residing flora dot the otherwise unremarkable expanse of nothingness.

I’m still thousands of feet in the air and my arm pits are already moistening up.

This,
I think.
Is going to suck.

I look back over at Dad and see him rummaging through his pack.

“You lose something?” I ask.

He shakes his head and says, a little wound up, “On the contrary son, I believe I have just discovered something!”

He pulls out another folder with more notes.

Great, more homework.
But I humor him.

“Have you ever heard of the mythstory of the Three?”

‘Mythstory’
is a fun little made up word he and his geek squad came up with. It catalogs and combines the documented
history
of a
myth
. Sounds like a load of fun, right?

I sort of recall him telling me about these guys back in high school.

Supposedly, the Three were the last overlords of Atlantis. They were thought to have magical abilities that in some way helped them create Atlantis and some of the other large megaliths around the world. They were also hypothesized to have the ability to conquer or protect any civilization with these
powers.
I’m not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds like they could weaponize them or something.

He adds, “Some Mythologists believe that the Atlanteans helped build most of the ancient world’s large scaled architectural wonders…or at least helped plan them at the very least.”

I give him a blank stare and sit up as if to say,
‘Really?’

I’m about to argue when he interjects, “Come on Harrison, some people believe it was aliens! Give me a break will you.”

“Fine, go ahead.” I give him what he wants and sit back again.

He continues, “There is an obvious problem with all of the world’s ancient architecture. None of it was possible with the technologies of the time.”

He’s right about that. To this day not a single learned individual can come up with how any of the Egyptian pyramids were built. At least, nothing solid has been proven. There are other cultures as well. In Central America, the Maya were simple farmers, yet they allegedly built massive temples and monuments in the middle of a rain forest. What about Stonehenge in England, Easter Island or The Nazca lines in Peru? Our modern day scientists and historians say even with our current technological advancements that most of the structures would be close-to-impossible to recreate.   

“Remember, there is a good amount of fact within a myth or legend. It really just depends on how far you are willing to take it.”

Huh, I never thought about it like that.

Then it hits me, “Let me see that photo again—the one of the new find” Dad takes it out and I grab it out of his hand. This is why I’m here. I’m no scientist or historian, shoot, I’m barely an archaeologist to some. But, what I do have is a very overactive imagination and I tend to see things in a different light than most and in this case I’m firing on all cylinders.

I scan the photo again putting together the pieces, “You said your contact took this photo in southern Algeria, in the middle of the Sahara Desert?” Dad nods. “On the siding is text from some of the oldest most-ancient civilizations recorded.” He nods again. The mythological connections between Atlantis, the Maya, ancient Egypt, Greece and Sumer along with the geographic history of northern Africa flash through my head.  

Mind-bomb.

Dad sees my eyes light up and sits up straight.

“What is it?” Dad asks.

“Remember earlier when I asked you about the location of Atlantis and we talked about it being underwater?” He says nothing, waiting for me to finish.

“You also said that there are other legends about it being located in or around southern Algeria, but the desert kind of throws a wrench into that equation.”

This time he gives me a couple fast nods.

“The Sahara,” I say with a smile. “It used to be underwater.”

7

“The Sahara was underwater?” Dad asks, shock resonating in his voice.

“Yes, yes it was,” I elaborate. “Sand is actually just very fine rock that has been eroded and broken down. These particular rocks were once part of a vast mountain range, some of which still exists today in the central part of the Sahara. The granite from the volcanic mountains was eventually broken down into quartz sand grains and carried away by rivers into a shallow sea, where most of the desert sits today. These same sand deposits would eventually form into sandstone and then get re-broken down into sand. As the water receded over thousands of years it was left behind.”

Dad actually looks impressed.

“Also, recent work using ground penetrating radar has showed us that there are ancient river beds running under the desert.”

“Okay, but what about the current state of the region?” He asks.

“To the north of Africa is a very cold Mediterranean Sea. It condenses rain clouds and moisture in the area before they can reach Africa, basically blocking any storms from reaching past the coast. Hence, very little rain falls annually.”

Dad gives me a bewildered look and asks, “No offense, but how do you know all this?”

I give him an offended look, “I do know how to read Dad, cut me some slack! I studied some geology when I first started working with you, just in case.”

He shrugs.

“I guess it finally came in handy,” I say with a jovial smile.

He cuts off my laughter, back to business, “What of the Atlantean connection to the other ancient civilizations? You said there was a correlation between them and Egypt, Greece, Sumer, China and the Maya.”

“There is, Dad, hang on a second.”

I pull out my iPad again and tap on a file I had saved earlier. It’s a bunch of notes I cut and paste from various websites on the subject.

“For instance,” I say. “The Maya actually have a legend written into their history about the exodus they undertook from Atlantis when it was destroyed. They refer to Atlantis as, Aztlan, in their native language. The ancient Mayan’s actually believed themselves to be Atlantean descendants. Plus, there have been recent developments using carbon dating that have some believing that the Mayan people may be as old as Sumer and Egypt too making them one of the oldest civilizations to date. It would fit the theoretical Atlantean timeline. Also, it says that the Mayan pyramids may actually be older than the Egyptian ones. ”

“And what of Egypt?” he asks.

I swipe to a new page.

“Apparently,” I say scanning the screen. “Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing, mathematics and astronomy, was said to have come from a western island, from across the sea.”

“I guess the sea could be the water the Sahara was once under?” Dad surmises.

“I agree, and the first land Thoth and company found would eventually become ancient Egypt.”

It all sounds plausible but, still a little far-fetched,
I think.

I continue reading, “A catastrophe occurred that forced them from their homeland that would also decimate the region and its land. This could be the reason for the water to recede and for the rivers to dry up. It also says that Thoth was a king before he became a god. He became a god because of the knowledge he gave the natives of the region.”

“So,” Dad deduces. “A colossal natural disaster or something destroys an island kingdom to the west. Thoth, the king, leads his people across a sea to the land that would become Egypt. He gives his wisdom to the original inhabitants of the land and they make him a god.”

I shrug my shoulders, “I guess it’s possible.”

DING.

“We will now be making our decent.”

Ω Ω Ω

We land in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, without a hitch. There is barely a bump on the scorched runway and thank God for that, my receding headache could use the rest. I kind of figured landing this thing would be a cake walk compared to the bobbing and weaving we did earlier. I think back to this morning’s events, not believing what happened.

The plane taxis to a stop and we are thanked for flying with them which I think is absurd, I should be bowing at and kissing the pilots feet right now for their efforts keeping me alive this morning. Things could have turned out much, much worse. Like, death-worse.

Between the half a day flying and the ass kicking I endured I’m pretty well limping through the jet way. My head is pounding and my body is aching. At least when I would normally feel like this it would be after a late night out with the guys going bar hopping. Now…not so much. It feels like I went toe-to-toe with a rabid kangaroo on steroids. Thankfully for me there was less biting.

We make it through the first half of the airport without incident and arrive at baggage claim.

“So,” I ask. “Who is your contact at the site?”

Dad answers without looking up from the conveyer belt, “A local that was recommended to me from a colleague at the office. He came with very high praise.”

The ‘
office’
is a nickname of sorts that he has given to his workplace, the Smithsonian Institute, in Washington D.C.

The Smithsonian isn’t just a museum--it’s a collection of nineteen museums, nine research centers and of course you guessed it, a zoo. The main building, the Castle, was built in 1847 and is still its headquarters. It features the Smithsonian’s information center and administrative offices, the latter of which is where Dad is employed. He’s been a head researcher there for the last ten years after being one of their more respected historians and archaeologists.

Of the nineteen museums, eleven sit within the National Mall, which runs from the Lincoln Memorial to the United States Capital. Some of the Mall’s more popular attractions are the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum along with a variety of other museums, parks and memorials.

“What’s his name?” I ask, not wanting to sound untrusting.

He looks up at me with an indifferent look on his face, “Omar, his name is Omar.”