Chapter 37: "Thank you... for looking after my boys."
The jet touched down, jolting Cal awake. It had been a while since the team had flown so many flights or worked so many hours in such a short space of time. Even his jet lag had jet lag! It would be nice to say he had slept the whole journey, but he hadn't. Those golden moments of slumber had been shattered by fanfares of remembered screams. Screams that had been echoing inside his skull every spare moment since Juliet had been kidnapped. Mostly they had been hers, dragged all the way across an ocean and half a year by the irrefutable logic of whatever had happened once could happen again. On rare occasions, oh those wonderful, elusive occasions, they would be Tony's. Vincent would not approve, he was sure. Well, who knew: maybe he would. He never was sure where Vincent stood on vengeance, but he was absolutely certain what he thought about justice.
He sat up, nudging Juliet upright. "Hey, we're here. Wake up."
"Say what?" Juliet muttered, rubbing her eyes. "Already?"
"Yep," replied Cal, grabbing his bag. "Hey, I'm gonna go help unload. You okay clearing up here?"
Juliet squinted at the messy table before her. Only half the mess was hers, technically, but it was all the same set of papers. "You figure out anything else?"
Cal shook his head. "Nothing that made any sense. Not at whatever hour my brain seems to think it is right now, anyway!"
"We'll have more space to lay things out at the foundation," Juliet shrugged, gathering the papers into a pile.
Cal nodded and ducked out of the now open doorway, following Vincent.
"Looks like you're the new me," said a soft voice from above.
Juliet looked up to see Haley looking down at her. "Oh! Doctor Zond! I mean Mrs Cayce! I mean…"
"Hayley is fine, Juliet," laughed the older woman holding up a hand. "Or do you prefer Doctor Droil at work?"
"If I did, in this job, I'd never be Juliet!" Juliet laughed. "I'm sorry: you said I'm the new you? How so: did you get left with clearing up too or did you also study ancient languages?"
"Actually, yes to both of those, now I think of it," smiled Haley. "And if it wasn't Solomon dashing off in a hurry, it was Nikko, although he seems better trained now."
"Everyone has their jobs when we land," smiled Juliet, slotting the papers into a plastic folder. "I'm the team medic, so my responsibility is checking everyone is okay when we land and everyone bar the pilot is off the plane."
"Ah, that was definitely not my job: we couldn't afford a private jet back then, for starters! Apparently, my son's job is driving us home?"
"Not if Vincent has anything to do with it," replied Juliet, pulling a face. "Or, well, anyone really!"
"Is he really that bad?" Haley asked, brows drawing together in the merest twitch of a frown.
"Oh, no, not by ordinary person standards, or even ordinary driving standards, it's just that everyone has to have an advanced permit before Professor Zond will let any of us drive on anything vaguely work related and Vincent only gives up the wheel to Dad or, if she calls it, Maggie." Juliet stood up, folder under one arm, bag over her shoulder. "Sorry: you never said how I was the new you?"
"Oh that," Haley laughed. "Oh, I was just thinking how, not too long ago – for me at least – that would have been me asleep on Solomon's shoulder, with Maggie somewhere around, especially in the early years. It's strange to come back and see how far the world has moved on, and that the Veritas foundation has a new trio of young faces waiting in the wings to make sure its work goes on. Strange, but good."
Haley smiled again and patted Juliet's arm, then followed the others out of the plane to where her son and Cal were carefully loading unused gear into the vehicle waiting with Vincent behind the wheel. She pulled herself up beside him.
"Do they still call shotgun these days, or do I have to fight my son for this seat too?"
Vincent grinned. "I suggested he try moving me with his mind, but apparently he either thought I was joking or his abilities have not progressed quite as much as he might like."
"You seem very comfortable with his 'abilities'," said Haley, studying Vincent's imperturbable features. "And you are apparently one of very few people I know who could ever tell my husband off for anything! Thank you, by the way, for looking after my boys."
"It is what I am paid to do," shrugged Vincent, "but I will admit they do not always make it easy."
"You seem familiar to me," frowned Haley, "but I know you didn't work for the foundation before the accident."
"I worked for our enemies before I worked for our benefactor," admitted Vincent. "The team and our benefactor know this, though only our benefactor knows the reasons for my change of sides. I believe I had the job of tailing you once or twice."
Haley looked thoughtful, but before she could say more the rest of the team piled into the car and they were on the move again.
XXXX
They had headed for the hospital first. It hadn't exactly been a demand of Haley's to be taken directly to her husband and friend, but when she had stated it as their destination no one, not even Vincent, would have dared argue even if they wanted to. Nikko had led the way, almost dragging his mother through the snow-white corridors to his father's floor. It was only when they reached the door of the ward that he hesitated.
"Perhaps I should go first," offered Vincent, pushing the door open as he spoke.
Juliet and Calvin followed Vincent through, leaving Nikko and his mother to last, Haley wrapped her arm round her son and looked at him quizzically.
"It's just…" Nikko faltered. For all his years he felt like that little lost boy once more, wondering if life would ever feel normal again. "I can't remember what it feels like to have you both here. What if, now that I've got you back…"
Haley smiled softly at her son. "It's not some magic seesaw, Nicholas. I went away for a while. Now I'm back. The fact that your father is ill at the same time has nothing to do with it."
"I know… I mean: logically, I know that," stammered Nikko. "It's just… This thing that we're wrapped up in? This quest? Search for truth? Whatever? I've seen so many weird things happen that I don't know what's linked and what isn't! I'm some kind of what? Demi-god? Chosen one? Alien? What if I'm not supposed to have two parents around to help me? What if I can only have one of you at a time?"
Haley sighed. "I know I don't know anywhere near to everything you've been through in the last twelve years, Nikko, but I do know this: you can either stay stuck here with me forever, wondering, or you can walk through those doors with me and find out."
Nikko nodded, tentatively at first, but then with growing determination. Everything else this life had thrown at him, in the past two years anyway, he had faced. He could face this too. He just didn't want to.
With a final nod, he took Haley's hand and led her through the hospital ward doors. At the end of the corridor lay his father's private room. He could see Juliet and Cal waiting outside, their expressions giving nothing away. They reached the door. It was never clear how much Vincent had told Maggie, but the expression on her face clearly said if he had told her about Haley, she hadn't believed him. Nikko left the two women hugging and crying and walked to his father's side. He still lay there, unconscious, just as he had left him. Perhaps there was a little less colour in his cheeks, perhaps it was just Nikko's own worry making him see the flaws. He had never seen Solomon look so gaunt. Not even when his father had gone days without food or sleep searching for his mother in the weeks after she had disappeared. He reached a hand out to the bandage around his head. He had power, didn't he? He had used it to find his mother, couldn't he use it to heal his father? But what if he made things worse? He didn't know what he was doing. He couldn't control it. Not yet. Nikko felt a pair of warm arms encircle him.
"He's no worse," his mother whispered in his ear. "You see. Maggie says the doctors are thinking of reducing his sedation: wake him up and see what the damage is. That's good news, Nicholas. Good news."
A shuffling told him the others were filing into the room. Sniffing, Nikko wiped away the unheeded tears that were cooling on his cheeks. Behind him, he heard the door close.
"Now that we're all here," said Vincent, "we need to talk about our next move."
"Have you got any further with the Eratosthenes manuscript?" Maggie asked, offering her chair to Haley.
Haley shook her head with a smile and stayed by her son and husband. "This is the manuscript you were studying on the plane?" She looked from Maggie to Calvin and Juliet, waiting for the nod of confirmation. "I've studied Eratosthenes' works before: I've never seen anything like that. Where did you find it?"
Calvin gave a short, dry laugh. "Actually, we didn't." He nodded at the silent figure on the bed. "Professor Zond was the one who finally figured it out."
XXXX
10 days after the fall
The flight back to Jerusalem had been heavy with an uneasy silence. Tony insisted on seeing to Juliet's injuries himself, which left Cal and Vincent patching up each other's minor injuries – at least the ones they couldn't reach themselves. Cal spent the rest of the journey with Ibrahim's notebooks, rescued from the purloined contents of his apartment, searching each one for clues, while Vincent was engrossed with something on his computer. Cal didn't ask, but from the studiously neutral way Vincent interacted with their unexpected guest, he suspected it was a background check. Vincent's expressions were guarded enough with people he liked.
By the time they reached the Jerusalem dig site, Juliet was sufficiently rested that Blake could no longer monopolise her, though he never strayed far from her side. Understandable, perhaps, for someone who only knew her and had gone to such trouble to find her. Maggie did her best to engage Tony in conversation while Cal and Juliet talked Professor Zond through their extended absence. He wasn't happy about the stretch they had decided to take on foot, but he conceded that they never would have found the Templar tunnels had they stuck to the roads as he had expected. He didn't question the gaps they left in their accounts, or their decision to spend some time in the tunnels. His jaw did tense once or twice over their discovery of Ibrahim's death and their search of his apartment. Too many had already lost their lives to this search for the truth. The Professor ran his hands over the notebooks and the photograph of Calvin and Ibrahim. Then Solomon chuckled.
Cal looked up with a frown. "What?"
Solomon tapped the photo frame and looked up at Calvin. "He had it made to resemble the codex case."
Calvin looked from Juliet to his mentor. "So?"
"So he had it made to resemble a case," repeated Solomon, tapping the frame again. "What does a case do?"
"It… It opens," murmured Cal. He looked up, eyes wide. "It opens! I assumed it only opened to fit the photograph in!"
"Did you check?" Solomon pushed, certain he had not.
Calvin shook his head, lifting the frame in shaking hands. A warm hand touched his wrist, steadying him. He looked round to Juliet. She just smiled.
There had been a trick to opening the codex case: a catch built in so the case didn't open accidentally. It had been Ibrahim who had finally discovered it. Turning the frame over in his hands, Cal's fingers sought the catch. There was the faintest of clicks and a line formed down the back of the frame. He drew the two halves apart as gently as if it had been the real thing. There was another click and the boxy ends of the frame popped up, hinging upwards at a touch. Cal tipped the frame upside down, letting the contents drop gently the few millimetres to the desk then removing the frame from them. They landed with the photograph face downwards on the hard surface. On top of it lay a scroll, partly unrolled so that the ends had curled neatly into the hollow box ends of the frame. The central part of the scroll, held flat for so long, stared up at them.
"Is that what I think it is?" Juliet murmured.
"It looks like the map Eratosthenes drew of the known world, but with more details," replied Cal.
Solomon reached out a gloved hand and gently rolled one side of the scroll open. "If Eratosthenes' map only showed the known world," he mused. "Why does this one have the Americas on it?"
