Read Online Deep Fathom by James Rollins - Free Book Online

we come back before sun go down.”
    Karen nodded. “Perfect.”
    He held out his hand, awaiting payment.
    Karen stood and pulled a wad of bills from her jacket’s inside pocket. She noticed the fisherman eye her holstered gun. Good. Just so things were clear. She counted out the appropriate number of bills, half the prearranged fee, then returned the rest to her pocket. “The other half when we return to Naha.”
    The man’s face remained hard for a heartbeat, then flashed a quick scowl. He mumbled something in Japanese and shoved the bills into his jeans.
    Karen sat back down as he left. “What did he say?”
    Miyuki wore a grin. “He says you Americans are all alike. Never stick to your own agreements, so you don’t trust anyone else.”
    â€œI’m not American,” she said in an exasperated voice.
    Miyuki patted her knee. “If you speak English, have blond hair, and carelessly throw that much cash around, you’re American to him.”
    Karen tried her best to sulk, but she was too excited. “C’mon. If this American is paying for this excursion, I want better seats.”
    She stood and led Miyuki toward the bow. They crossed to the forward rail as the boat rounded the southern tip of Okinawa and passed the tiny island of Tokashiki Shima. The Ryukyu chain of islands spread south in an arc almost stretching to Taiwan. The Dragons were located near the island of Yonaguni, an hour’s journey but still within Okinawa’s prefecture.
    One of the sailors bowed his way into their presence. He placed two small porcelain glasses of green tea and a small plate of cakes on a nearby bench.
    â€œDomo arigato,” Karen said. She took the tea and let the hot cup warm her hands. Miyuki joined her, nibbling on the edge of a cake. They stared in silence as green islands drifted slowly past. The coral reefs colored the nearby shoals in shades of aquamarine, rose, and emerald.
    After a time Miyuki spoke, “What do you really hope to find out there?”
    â€œAnswers.” Karen leaned on the rail. “You read Professor Masaaki’s thesis.”
    Miyuki nodded. “That once these islands were part of some lost continent, now sunk under the waves. Pretty wild conjecture.”
    â€œNot necessarily. During the Holocene era, some ten thousand years ago, the ocean levels were three hundred feetshallower.” Karen waved an arm. “If so, many of these separate islands would have been joined.”
    â€œStill, you know from your own research that the islands of the South Pacific were populated only a couple thousand years ago. Not ten thousand.”
    â€œI know. I’m not saying you’re wrong, Miyuki. I just want to see these pyramids for myself.” Karen gripped the ship’s rail tighter. “But what if I can find proof to support Professor Masaaki’s claim? Could you imagine what this revelation would mean? It would change the entire historical paradigm for this region. It would unite so many disparate theories—” She hesitated, then continued. “—even explain the mystery of the lost continent of Mu.”
    Miyuki crinkled her nose. “Mu?”
    Karen nodded. “Back in the early 1900s Colonel James Churchward claimed he had stumbled upon a set of Mayan tablets that spoke of a lost continent, similar to Atlantis, but in the central Pacific. He named this sunken continent Mu. He wrote a whole series of books and essays about the place…until he was discredited.”
    â€œDiscredited?”
    Karen shrugged. “No one believed my great-grandfather.”
    Miyuki’s brows rose, her voice shocked. “Your great-grandfather!”
    Karen felt a blush blooming. She had never explained this to anyone. She spoke softly, embarrassed. “Colonel Churchward was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. When I was a child, my mother used to tell me stories of our infamous