CHAPTER 1
WIND OF CHANGE
"You may come in," a dark low voice reached from behind the door in response to the gingerly knock, which sounded too loud and offending in the gloomy solitude of the corridor.
The man gulped heavily on what seemed like the last breath of air, before he turned the knob and his lungs halted their work. Heavy oak door turned effortlessly on the hinges and he stepped over the threshold to face his fear. He wouldn't if he could. But he didn't have a choice.
The study was dimly lit; moonlight streamed in through tall narrow windows - two on each corner of the opposite wall - with heavy velvet curtains stroking the crusty spines of books nestled in neat rows along the shelves deep-rooted within ornate wooden panels.
"It has been a while," the low voice opined.
The man threaded across a thick Persian rug, its piles devouring any and all evocation of sound before it even reached the drapery. It made the air in the room feel thick and fluid and threateningly consuming. As he reached two tall chairs positioned at an angle like targets in front of a massive mahogany executive desk, he dared to raise his eyes. Green banker's lamp on the table shone downward, glaring, and his opponent's face drowned in shadows behind it.
"We did all we could."
"Which is clearly below adequate," the voice held a glowering pause before it sounded again with a tone of sharp pleasantry, "Tis as cheap sitting as standing, old friend. Although you have cost me a fortune by both - have a seat."
The man cautiously sat down on the edge of one of the two chairs. His eyes ran from piles of papers scattered on the desk to a tumbler with amber contents on the bottom, sparkling through a prism of glass ridges. Then up to the figure in front of him, which was slowly growing more and more visible as his eyes got used to the contrasts of light and dark.
"There are more leads to follow" the man hurriedly said, his voice quivering with emotion, "This site was just one of many, if we find more, I know they will lead us to the Hourglass" his fist met the palm of his hand and his fingers encompassed around it, "Just imagine how far we've come!" he exclaimed pleadingly, "Where were we a year ago? We didn't even know about the sites. We're so close now, I just… I just need more time!"
"The time that I don't have," his opponent leaned forward on his arms, hovering over the desk and dense, immaculately lined black stubble emerged into the light. Intense onyx eyes burned on his face like two smoldering coals on the bronze sands of sunset-stricken desert. Thick arcs of his eyebrows furrowed, "My faith in you has been waning for years, I'm sure that doesn't come as a surprise to you," his growl betrayed well hidden Middle Eastern accent.
"I-I'm sure I could still prove my worth," the man struggled to build his case, "Another expedition, Abbas, one more expedition with ground crew and excavation equipment. We have been working on this together for so long, surely you can give it another month, I-"
"Enough excuses, old man!" onyx eyes flared as he bellowed and heavy fist made the whiskey tumbler on the table clink shortly, "I need results, I need the Hourglass!" he snarled. His head lowered momentarily and eyelids closed regaining self-control before he spoke again and this time his voice was quiet and raspy, "Out of respect to you I have stalled myself, I have managed to convince myself to trust your judgment, hoping that years of expertise are worth something- something more than this," he raised his eyes at the man who shuffled uncomfortably on the chair, "This…waste of years, waste of money- all hopes crumbling into ashes in my grasp," he held a pause and uttered, burning a hole through the older man's cowering figure, "No-more. It is time for cavalry to arrive and if you don't cooperate in obtaining it, you are out of the game, my friend."
The older man looked down and away – escaping those eyes, their expectation, avoiding having to answer and helplessly hoping for a miraculous eureka to come over him. Yet it didn't. And why would it, when it hadn't for days upon weeks, upon months?
"Abbas," he said, picking his tone and words carefully, "You don't have to do this. Please. It is all I ever asked of you."
Abbas measured him with a look, his expression now calm - expression of a person who said all he had to say. The decision was already made.
"Sometimes there comes a point when ethics and honor must be put aside. I am afraid we have reached that point long time ago. There is no more time to spare. And now we have competition. I wish it was different, but it is out of my hands now," onyx eyes looked squarely at the man in front of him and the words that followed hovered heavily in the thick velvety air of the dimmed room.
"Bring me Nathan Drake."
"Houston, Houston, do you read?"
His own voice resounded raspily in his ears, briefly interrupting the ragged breathing pattern – the soundtrack that had been playing alongside the rich lulling sounds of the sub-aquatic world up until then.
Hundreds of specks of sand rose from the ocean floor, wrapping him in a ghostly shroud, as Nathan Drake held his prize snatched tightly in the palm of his hand.
Sandy cloud obscured the view, but he waited patiently for it to settle back down before he took a better look at the round object in his hand.
"Eye, eye, Captain Nemo, got anything good for us today? Boys are antsy for some luck- aaand girls, I mean," male voice responded, its initially energized tone turned awkwardly apologetic.
Nate's eyes regained clarity and he slowly opened his palm before he spoke. The flashlight illuminated deep ridges of a large coin. He held it closer to his visor and noted with triumph an unmistakable crest on its surface. At this depth everything wore shades of murky blue, yet he was sure the coin was of solid gold.
"Looks like the trail is getting warmer," he answered, his voice betraying a satisfied smirk, "Is Boss there?"
The man on the other end laughed and there was a shuffling noise before he heard his wife's softer snickering.
"It better be hot after almost two weeks of pointless searching."
"Well, I understand your standards of hot are pretty damn high, but I think the sight of a one certain Spanish escudo should measure up."
Nate could almost hear her shooting embarrassed glances at the crew around. He also knew that the sudden find would feel as exhilarating to her as it was to him. And he was right, because the pause did not last long.
"Look at you sassy pants, great find!" Elena said with a poorly hidden anticipation, "are you coming up?"
"Not yet, let me look around some, maybe I'll spot something other than a couple of rotten-ass crates and boards."
"Watch your tank, you're about running out. And let me know when you start heading up, I'll get the cameras ready."
"Yes ma'am!"
Flippers confidently sliced their way through the dark, sending invisible waves of vibration away into the depths. Nate looked around checking for the presence of sharks or other predators in the distance. The onboard sonar would detect them way before he could, but the habit was hard to beat.
Nate scanned the sandy bottom around him, slowing down every now and then, when he thought he'd seen something worthwhile hidden within the columns of swaying seaweed or undercover of mounds and stony crags. His imagination drew visions of sunken galleons with hulls broken and exposed to view, and whispery flags waving sullenly in the water. Yet there were none to be found. At least not where he was looking.
A school of fish passed in front, Nate swam through and they dispersed indifferently around him, swerving from the crash course. He stretched his arm into the sand. There was sudden movement and Nate gasped when his hand touched something soft and slick and, with another puff of sandy smoke, a stingray indignantly darted forth and away from him, it's rigid antenna-like tail disappearing beyond the grainy reach of his visor light.
Bubbles escaped and streamed to the faraway surface and, checking his oxygen level, Nate noted it was at dangerously low three percent. Enough playing with faith for one time.
"Coming up!" he announced and worked his legs and arms with double effort, pointing himself upward.
"About time cowboy."
Haze of light above grew closer, color spectrum expanding and saturating the surroundings first with greens, then adding palettes of yellow, orange and finally red. A family of dolphins bolted through the water, each foaming, swirling around its axis like a firework rocket on a clear night. A couple of them detached from the main group and curiously frolicked closer to the lone human, and his ears filled with their high pitched chatter. Slowing down his ascent, Nate reached his hand to gently stroke the smooth back of one of the most adventurous of them and the dolphin spun around churning tiny bubbles and playfully rammed its head against Nate's palm.
Array of small brightly colored fish cascaded several feet away, and the dolphins rushed to chase their fast food meal, leaving Nate behind. He picked up his pace again and a faraway whale song reached his ears. His soul filled with awe and harmony. Not bad for another day at the office. Would he ever grow tired of this? That was something Nate was still yet to find out. He only wished his wife was there too to share this experience with him. But that was not possible at the time.
BEEP! BEEP!
Rude noise disturbed the moment, signaling oxygen reserves running out and Nate took the sight in one last time, before taking a deep lungful. He held his breath and sunlight pierced the rippling surface above. He aimed for the dark bulky silhouette of the ship.
Whoosh.
He broke the surface with a mighty splash, squinting at the contrastingly bright light and fumbled to lift the diving mask off his face. It came off with a sharp raspy shush as the miserly remains of oxygen escaped into the open air. Nate gulped hungrily on that sweet refreshing air, struggling to clear his system of nitrogen narcosis.
He followed the bow of the ship to starboard and to the ladder in the middle, producing the coin out of his pocket for the cameras waiting above. Bright gold glared under the clear blue skies and Nate grinned. What a good day to be alive.
Hand over hand, Nate climbed the ladder and prepared to face a different kind of exposure.
His head popped above the ship's edge and camera lenses aimed expectantly at him, while Elena's voice declaimed with a professionally polished tone.
"…with another attempt to locate the ship that remains missing, we are yet to pick up the trail of Santa Maria de Yciar, which sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in the 16th century as part of the infamous Wreck of the Three Hundred. The wreckage was initially discovered by the Spanish in 1554, as they attempted to recover treasures lost to sea. However, the coordinates of the last ship were lost and…"
Elena stepped into the camera spotlight and walked to the edge of the ship where freshly emerged Nate already propped himself against the railing, watching her with a smug impression on his face. Gold cold was clutched in his hand, ready to be presented to the world after hundreds of years of waiting.
"…so, what'you got for us today, Nate? Are we getting any closer to the lost ship?" Elena prompted him for answer and he extended his arm her way and slowly opened his palm.
"My darling, I give you a 16th century Spanish escudo. And if you look closer-," one of the cameras zoomed in on the object, "-you'll see that it is in impeccable condition despite spending the last four hundred years underwater. You wanna know why?"
"I'm sure you're about to enlighten us."
"Why, I certainly will. You see, unlike copper and silver coins, that darken and lose their appearance when put to the test of time- and especially water- kind of reminds me of a couple of my ex-girlfriends- not you Chloe!" Nate added with a smirk, causing suppressed giggles behind cameras and an eyeroll from his wife, "- no pure gold, on the other hand, stays as crisp and vibrant as the day it was minted- as long as it stays away from fire that is."
"Very interesting!" Elena played along to his little diversion from script.
"What's even more interesting is that the presence of this particular gold coin of Spanish origin indicates that-," Nate's blue eyes looked squarely at the lens in front of him, "-we are closer than ever to uncovering our dear old wrecked Santa Maria."
"AAAAAAND CUT!" Tom, the cameraman shouted and everyone instantly relaxed. Nate dropped the coin into the pocket of his diving suit, uncomfortably stretched his shoulders and slipped out of the oxygen tank vest. Shaking the flippers off his feet, he glanced at his wife. Turning to him with a coy smile and placing her hand on his side, she rested the other on the bump of her belly.
"Nicely done, partner," Elena said and sunlight drew a halo around her silhouette, "Took a bit too long down there again though, didn't you?"
Nate smiled as he felt warmth spread inside his chest.
"Well, you know me, always living on the edge."
"That's an understatement," she teased and he laughed easily, bringing her even closer with a gentle pressure of his fingertips on her rounded waist.
"So how are my girls doing today?" he asked and jokingly lowered his eyes to her chest, "Wait, no, not those two, that's not who I meant."
Elena pursed her lips and her brows shot up sarcastically.
"Yeah, I had my doubts too when you asked, so thanks for clarifying."
"Well?"
"Well. It would be better if little Cass here didn't use my bladder for a punching bag all morning. I can already tell she's pure Drake that one."
"I don't know, her Mom carries a pretty heavy punch herself. Looks can be deceiving, you know."
"Oh does she now?" it was Elena's turn to laugh.
"True story."
They shared a quiet moment, gazing at one another and chuckling, but then Elena suddenly grabbed his hand.
"Here, check this out," she placed it on the side of her belly and Nate's heart froze, skipped a beat and feverishly pounded as he felt strong kicks under his palm. He swallowed heavily and his eyes dropped uncertainly back and forth before returning to Elena's face.
Her hazel eyes glimmered in the Sun, unwavering and true, conveying boundless love and understanding and he felt ashamed of his momentarily show of doubt.
"She is…strong," he finally said.
Elena hummed in agreement as if she didn't notice anything and he hoped that she really didn't.
How incredibly lucky was he? He had a wife he couldn't stop kissing despite years of marriage, he had a perfectly legal job that he loved; his brother was alive and he had true loyal friends he saw every once in a while. Life just couldn't get any better.
And…
His baby moved under his hand again as if trying to kick it off.
…in several months he was going to officially become a father.
The thought felt strange. Realization surreal and prickly. It made his heart sink every time he thought about it, which was a lot, to say the least. The role of a father still could not find the right niche in his head - it felt ridiculously oversized and simply did not fit, seeming to grow bigger and bigger as the ominous Due Date approached, looming over him like the Sword of Damocles.
Not at all phased, Elena tiptoed and left a light kiss on his numb lips.
"Seriously – good job with the coin find, cowboy," she murmured and Nate tried his best to shoo the unwanted train of thought out of his mind, adopting his best look of caring husband and father-to-be. However that looks like.
"Too bad the Texas Antiquities Committee is gonna be the one keeping it and whatever else we happen to find."
"Such is the nature of legal treasure hunting," Elena shrugged apologetically, "They are paying us nicely at least, or we wouldn't be here."
"Yeah, he who pays the piper calls the tune I guess."
"Well, my dear fellow-piper," Elena smiled, "let me see what we got on those cameras before you change out of your fish skins," she slipped through Nate's fingers and he watched her walk away in the direction of the filming crew.
She and Hugh passed each other – the latter walking over to Nate with two bottles of beer sweating brightly in his hands. Fellow diver and Nate's technical right hand on the vessel, the guy grinned and offered one of the bottles to Nate, who took it gratefully – the amber bottle pleasantly cold and wet under his fingers.
"Thanks."
Hugh leaned on the railing next to him, sipping beer and followed Nate's gaze.
"Boss here was up and about the entire time you were down," Hugh said with his fluid Australian accent and ruffled light brown hair that framed his face Kurt Cobain style, "Like she could feel you were about to unearth something big. Was almost sure she'd try to squeeze into the diving suit too and follow you," he met Nate's quizzical look and added, "Rest assured, I was at the ready to stop her."
"I know she misses action, but I hope she's not gonna go that far," he said light-heartedly and took a swig of the malty beverage.
Hugh looked at him well-meaningly, but with a visible degree of caution as if he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to stir the topic he was about to approach.
"You know mate…I'm not trying to be nosy or anything, but…you think it might be time for her to loosen the reigns a bit? Take a step back and slow down? It's just- my wife started to really take it easy when she got to around this time in her pregnancy, it might be…hard in such heat and being on her feet so much all the time," Hugh finished awkwardly. He looked as if he wanted to add something else, clearly uncomfortable that he was meddling in their business, but Nate knew the advice was reasonable and came from the heart.
"You know," Nate said, freeing his friend of the need to continue, "Sometimes I think if it was just up to her, she'd work her ass off up until the due date and we'd have to deliver this baby ourselves in the middle of the ocean."
Hugh chuckled, "Not exactly part of my job description."
"Heh, yeah, tell me about it," Nate's smile quickly withered and he added, "I-ya…just don't know exactly how to approach this topic with her just yet," he left it at that, knowing damn well this was only part of the problem. Deep down he had to admit he just hated the idea of not having Elena around, even if it was downright unreasonable.
"Just do it, you two will be fine," Hugh roughly patted him on the shoulder and said knowingly, "Nothing lasts forever under the Moon. It's just a phase until the baby is older."
"Yeah…," Nate dropped vaguely, not exactly sharing the optimism.
He sipped on the beer, watching his wife thoughtfully, half-participating in the flowing conversation. Elena stared at the laptop screen with concentration; she chatted quietly with her small filming crew; she ran her hand tiredly over her forehead. Hugh was right and Nate had to bite the bullet and seriously sit her down for a talk. The one they've been so good at avoiding. Elena's hand slipped along the side of her face. It looked unusually pale as if it suddenly drained of color and when she raised her eyes they looked strangely glazed. Nate frowned.
"…and so I was like – you know what, maybe we need to schedule less vacations and just concentrate on making principal payments on the house, but you know Jane, she was just like…"
Nate stood up from the railing the two of them have been leaning against and nudged his bottle into Hugh's hand, the latter growing silent mid-word and looking quizzically back at him.
"Sorry man, hold on a sec," Nate muttered and keeping his eyes on Elena, walked toward the filming station with rushed steps, "'Lena? You okay?"
Her gaze slowly travelled to his approaching figure, looking dazed and almost as if she didn't quite hear what he just said.
"'Lena?"
Silent and motionless, she kept staring at him. Her colleagues were busily checking on one of the cameras behind her, clueless to what was about to go down.
Nate rushed forward and when he was several feet away, Elena suddenly swayed, her eyes clouded and she started falling uncontrollably toward the hard metal surface of the ship.
"Oh no- no, no, no!"
Feeling stuck in slow motion, Nate lunged forward, just in time to wrap his arms around her and slow down her fall. Elena settled weakly in his arms, her eyes closed, heart beating rapidly, breathing fast and shallow. Nate felt panic gripping around his throat.
Alerted by commotion, the crew gathered around them in a tight buzzing circle.
"Someone get the boat!" Nate shouted and everyone seemed to freeze in place – panic and uncertainty reading in each set of eyes, "Get the goddamn boat, I need to get her to the hospital! NOW!
His eyes darted from Elena to the faces above them, stopping on Hugh, who startled from stupor and hurriedly walked away, jostling men and yelling orders as he went.
"C'mon mates, let's get that boat ready! Quick!"