p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"emspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing into the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory./span/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"em-Sir Francis Drake, 1587/em/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""I'm here off the coast of Panama, where we've just recovered what we believe to be the coffin of legendary explorer Sir Francis Drake, who was hurried at sea over 400 years ago." Elena said and turned her camera towards the man, who contacted her about Sir Francis Drake and said that he was his ancestor and needed help to find the coffin of the said man, in exchange she could be the one who broadcasted it to world if her program funded the expedition./span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Are you sure you wanna be defiling your ancestor's remains like that?" She asked with a small concern in her tone as the man started to open the granite coffin with a crowbar. The man looked up towards her with a sarcastic smile and went towards the other end of the coffin to lift it with the crowbar once more. "You make it sound so dirty." He said with a small laugh. "Besides, I thought you didn't believe me."/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Well, I did do my research." Elena started as she continued to watch the man open the coffin while she continued to record it with her camera. "And apparently, Francis Drake didn't have any children." She said, stating a fact. "Well…" The man said as he looked up to her. "History can be wrong, you know." He said once more as he pushed the crowbar between the crack of the coffin and it's cover with a grunt. He throw the crowbar to the side and looked back at the camera with a sarcastic smile. "For example - you can't defile an empty coffin." Then with a little difficulty he opened the granite cover of the coffin to the side, revealing the inside of the coffin. It was empty./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""What the hell-?" Elena said with surprise and came closer to record it in more detail, while the man pulled out a rusty looking greenish metal box and opened it's lid to find a little red notebook, marked with Sir Francis Drake's family logo. The man grabbed the surprisingly dry notebook carefully only to open it's pages to reveal the notes of Drake's. "You devil." He said with a laugh as he turned pages with fondness./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""What is it?" Elena said with curiosity before stepping closer to the man to record the notebook they found. "C'mon, hold it up-" But the others reaction was immediately close the notebook and get up defensively before he closed the cameras lense with his hand. "No, no, no - no way." He said as he tried to hide the notebook like his life depended on it. "The deal was for a coffin, that's it." He said his tone getting serious. "Wait a minute, if my show hadn't have funded this expedition, you wouldn't have-" She started to talk but the man cut her sentence with a sarcastic eye roll and with a more sarcastic excuse Elena ever heard. "Hey, hey…" He said before showing the coffin with his hand. "You got your story, lady."/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"Elena needed to take deep breaths with that excuse. She saw a lot of jerks and assholes in her work of line but this man was pushing the first place in her list. "Look, Mr. Drake, you signed a contract." She said with a professional tone but the only thing the man did was let out a laugh like he didn't give any shit about the contract but for the sake of being the big one, Elena tried to ignore it. "I have a right to see every single thing that-" But the man cut her line with kind of a worry on his face, his eyes looking directly on something behind her back. "Whoa, whoa… Could you hold that thought?" He asked distractedly as he made his way towards one of the boxes where one of the walkie talkies laid as he continued to look towards the thing he saw. "Sully? Uh, we got some trouble. Hurry it up." He said and put the walkie talkie back on the box. "Okay, okay - what's going on?" Elena asked as worry started to crawl inside her, she put her camera near the walkie talkies and followed Drake as she waited an explanation./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Uh… Pirates." Drake said with a worrying tone that started to alarm Elena that he wasn't joking at all. "Pirates?!" Elena asked with worry as she watched him grab a white metal box which was was labeled as *N. Drake*. "Yeah, the modern kind. They don't take prisoners." He said and opened the box, only to reveal four guns and some extra ammo inside of it. "At least not male prisoners." He said with shrug as he grabbed a gun out from the box. "Wait, what are you talking about?" Elena asked with a frown on her face, just before she saw the some boats coming towards them with full speed. "Uh, sh-shouldn't we call the authorities or something?" She said and gulped down with panic starting to bloom inside her chest./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""That'd be a great idea, but we don't exactly have a permit to be here." Drake said with a nervous laugh as he turned to look at her with an expression that was saying that they were in deep trouble. "What?" Elena deadpanned at his answer to her question. Just… what kind of a man was he? "Yeah, so unless you wanna end up in a Panamanian jail, we should probably handle this ourselves." He said as he grabbed a cartridge and pushed it inside the gun while Elena gulped down and turned away from the man placing her hands on her face with panic. "Wh- What's worse?" She asked with panic, she didn't really know how that would be worse. It was better than those pirates right? "You obviously haven't been in a Panamanian jail." Drake said with kind of a pity in his tone before showing her the gun that he was holding. "Do you know how to use one of these?" He asked as he hold it up for her to grab./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Yeah, it's like a camera…" Elena said with a small smile and sarcastic tone to hide her growing panic. "You just, you point and shoot, right?" She asked as she grabbed the gun from his hand to look over it and place her finger on the trigger. "Good girl." Drake said, seemingly satisfied with her answer as he turned over to take another gun from the box. "Here we go." He said and went towards the boxes to take cover. "How the hell did they find us out here?" She asked and followed him to take cover as well. "Uh… This guys were tailing me for weeks. Though I lost them." He said and licked his lips with worry without looking at Elena, who was starting worry as she looked at the boats. "So what did you do to piss them off?" She asked just before Drake get up from his cover to shoot the first boats gas tanks, blowing the men on it to air. "It is kind of a long story." He answered and run to take cover behind another box. "This guy's don't like you much, do they?" Elena asked before she get up from her cover to shoot another boats gas tank to blow it up like Drake did./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Less talking, more shooting!" Drake said as he left his cover to shoot some of the man inside another boat while Elena tried to shoot another gas tank of one of the boats. "Hurry up, Sully." Drake muttered as he run towards the other side of the ship to see other boats. They were circling them, like a hunter did it to his prey. "They are climbing aboard!" Elena shouted as she shot a man who was trying to climb aboard./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"She watched Drake shot one of the man on the head and break another ones neck easily before leaning down to grab their cartridges quickly to push it in his own gun. This continued while more and more boats started to circle them. Elena was started to get scared as if she wasn't before. Drake was killing every one of the man that came on board like it was nothing to him, but she could see that he was started to get overwhelmed with this much of attack. "C'mon, Sully, where are you?" She heard him mumble a few times as he continued to shoot the men over and over again. "Oh shit!" She heard him muttered once right before she heard series of bullets hitting their ship. Machine gun. They had freaking machine gun! And that was before something exploded into flames after a bullet hit it. "Oh my God! Drake - that one's got some kind of rocket launcher!" Elena said with a full blown panic. "Okay… That's not good." He said and tried to shoot the guy behind the machine gun and rocket launcher. That was the minute she heard another sound. "What's that?" She asked as the wheelhouse of the ship blown over./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Whoo! All right, Sully!" Drake cheered/spanspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;", not aware that Elena was looking back at the exploded wheelhouse. "Oh - I don't think I'm getting my security deposit back…" She muttered when a plane get into her sight, shooting the boat with the machine gun into the air. "Cavalry is here." Drake said with a cheerful tone. "Oh, thank God!" Elena said. "Whole ship is going to blow! We gotta jump!" Drake said right after something blower up on the ship. Elena was to agree more fast than she ever thought. "Yeah… Oh wait!" She said with panic and run back to grab her camera from the place she left it. "What are you doing?!" Drake asked incredulously as if he couldn't believe that she was risking her life for her camera. "Okay… okay…" She said and run back towards Drake who was impatiently and worryingly looking at the ship which was about the blow up. "Come on! Go!" He said and Elena jumped over the railing into water, Drake following right behind her then was the ship blown up. Thankfully there was the plane saved them waiting them./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"The door of the plane opened by an old man, who was smoking a cigar. "I can't leave you alone for a minute, can I?" He asked with an amused laugh as both Elena and Drake swam towards the open doors. "Ah, I had everything under control until they blew up the boat." Drake said with a hint of nervousness in his tone, then he turned his face towards Elena, who was trying to hold her camera above the water while swimming towards the plane. "You alright?" He asked her. "Nothing that years of therapy won't fix." Elena answered him. Was he really asking this? Who get over this in a minute or hour or freaking weeks for God's sake? "Well, if it isn't the beautiful and talented Elena Fisher." Sully said and put a small ladder for them to climb after taking Elena's camera safely inside just before helping her climb inside the plane. "Flattery will get you screen time." Elena said with a small smile on her face before she sat down on one of the seats. "Yeah, I'm more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy." Sully said. "Victor Sullivan." Than he grabbed her hand gently to place a kiss on her knuckles. Than he was off to the wheel of the plane. Elena could hear Drake muttering something before he too get inside and closed the door of the plane./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Whaddya say we get out of here before we attract any more attention?" He asked and the plane took off no longer after that./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Well?" Sully asked as he watched Nathan who was giving him an amused look. "A little present from Sir Francis." Nathan hold something towards him. Well would you look at that, the kid did it. "So you found the coffin?" Sully asked right before he saw properly what was the kid holding. "Wait a minute - is this what I think it is?" He asked with a surprised tone. Nathan let out a small amused laugh before speaking. "Drake's lost diary." He said. "He faked his death, just like I said, Sully. He must've been onto something big." He said as he started to turn page over page of the diary. "Yeah, well, let's just keep that between us." Sully said with a look that told Nathan that it wasn't even an option to tell the girl sitting behind them. And in that exact same time Elena gave the gun in her hand to Nathan. "Thanks for the loan, Mr. Drake." She said. "I think I've earned a look at that diary, when we land." Which made Sully gave Nathan a what the hell look. The only thing Nathan did was give a shrug and placed the gun he just grabbed in somewhere safe./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"•••/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""So look, when Drake sailed into the Pacific, he took the Spanish fleet completely by surprise. He captured their ships, he took all their maps, their letters, their journals and he recorded everything in this diary." Nathan said excitedly as he looked through the diary. "Uh-huh, so this-" Sully started but Nathan cut his sentence. "But when he got back to England, Queen Elizabeth confiscated all of his charts and logbooks including this one - and then swore his entire crew to silence." He said, getting more and more enthusiastic as he explained this to Sully. "Yeah, so this-" Sully started once more, his voice heavy with the cigar between his lips. But the kid cut his sentence once more and started to talk again. "You see, Drake discovered something on that voyage, Sully. Something so secret, and so valuable, they couldn't risk it getting out." He said in a breath. Just when he opened his mouth to speak, Sully took his cigar from his lips to stop him from speaking again./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""All right, Nate - just pretend for a minute that I don't really care ab/spanspan style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"out any of that stuff, and cut to the chase, would you?" Which made Nathan let out a sigh and roll his eyes. "A man only interested in the climax." He said and rolled his eyes once again before turning his attention back to the diary's pages. "You must be a real hit with the ladies." Sully gave him a deadpanned look before speaking. "Never had any complaints." He said which made Nathan shake his head with a sigh. "Okay then, I'll jump to the good part, just for you." He said and put the diary in front of him, which showed a map to El Dorado. Sully gave him an satisfied laugh which placed another smile on Nathan's face. "El goddamn Dorado..." Sully said without looking away from the page. "He was onto something big, all right." Nathan said with foundness in his tone./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Does it say anything else?" Sully asked as he grabbed the diary to give a more close look. "Oh, so now you're interested, huh?" Nathan said amusedly as he reached out to grab the diary from Sully's hand. "Yeah." Sully admitted unashamed but Nathan gave a small sigh. "Well, unfortunately no- last page was torn out." He said as he showed the last page towards the other. He let out a sigh and closed the diary only to hold it between his hands before starting to talk again. "I'm telling you, Sully… This is it - this is finally it." He said with a relaxed expression on his face. "Yeah…" Sully said as he looked out of the window of the little boat towards the blonde, who was pacing around while speaking to the phone. "Only, we got one little problem."/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""Sully, the girl can hold her own. You should have seen her." Nathan said. He didn't really wanted to let her come with them due to some complicated reasons. This shit could get dangerous. Just look what happened on that ship. He didn't wanted her to get hurt because of him or worse die in some place that nobody even knew how to pronounce its name. "Fine, you go on out and tell her 'We just found the lost City of Gold'. Maybe her producer can get it on the air tonight." Sully said with a no nonsense tone that Nathan used to hear while growing up, which made him sigh with a slight anger. "Oh, come on!" Sully let out a sigh at that. "Nate - do you trust me?" He asked. "More or less." Nathan answered him sarcastically. "Good, 'cause we're gonna have every two-bit scumbag in the world racing us to this treasure, unless we cut her loose right now." He said as he pointed Elena with his head./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"Nathan let out a sigh. He was right, if he thought about it. If this got aired every little scumbag would race towards the place with them. "You're a real gentleman, Sully." He said and turned his head towards the pacing blonde. "I know. It stinks. She'll get over it." Then he put his cigar between his lips and went to start the boat as Nathan looked at Elena regretfully but there was nothing to, so he opened the diary again, focusing on reading the things. Old English was a big headache. He saw Sully give a small wave towards her with smile on his face with the edge of his eyes before starting the motor of the boat./span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;""HEY!" This was the last thing Nathan heard as they started to sail towards their new destination. He hoped she get over it./span/p