The first light of dawn filtered through the single window of the wooden house, tracing golden patterns on the dust motes dancing in the air. It fell upon the table, illuminating Captain Conroy's diary as if trying to shed light on its ancient secrets. But the atmosphere inside the room was anything but bright. The revelation about Pierre Joseph de Beauchamp had given them an answer, but that answer had led them to the edge of a dark, deep abyss, from where the path forward seemed even more dangerous and uncertain.
Jerome was slumped in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The excitement of the previous night's discovery had now curdled into a cold, logical despair.
"One hundred and sixty years," he finally broke the heavy silence, his voice hollow. "We were trying to solve a one hundred and sixty year old mystery, and we thought we were being so clever. And now we find out that we have only reached the first page of another puzzle. The real story is sixty years older than that. We were not holding the end of a thread; we were holding the end of a different thread altogether."
He suddenly sat up straight and swiveled his chair to face Mayra and Sara, who were staring at the maps and books spread across the table. "Do you realize what this means? It means this labyrinth just got twice as deep. We have not taken one step forward; we have taken ten steps back."
He slammed his hand on the table, making the empty coffee cups rattle. "Forget the five ships! Forget the 'Index Tablet'! Until we know what Pierre Joseph saw, all of this is meaningless. And now we have to go after a Frenchman whose notes are probably being eaten by termites in some dark, damp cellar in London, or maybe they were burned to ash a century and a half ago!"
His voice was a mixture of frustration and anger. "I mean, what is our plan? We just walk into the British Library and say, 'Excuse me, could you please give us the top secret, stolen notes you took from a French astronomer in seventeen ninety two, so we can find a treasure you yourselves have been looking for for one hundred and fifty years?' This is madness! It is suicidal!"
He took a deep breath. "We need to refocus on Iraq, on the sunken ships. At least we know they are there. That is a physical target. This… this is like chasing a ghost."
Jerome's words were like cold, sharp knives, because they were entirely logical. Mayra stood by the window, watching the calm water of the river outside. She agreed with every word Jerome had said. Their mission had suddenly become almost impossible. But her intuition, the stubborn and restless soul of an explorer, was telling her that the straight path is not always the right one. Sometimes, the deepest secret is connected to the oldest link.
"And you think we are the first ones to have thought of that, Jerome?" she said without turning around. Her voice was quiet, but it had a firmness that silenced him. "Think about it. The British Empire, with all its naval power. The Ottoman Sultan, with his network of spies. The German engineers. The Japanese tech experts. And now… secret societies like the Syndicate. They have all been searching for those five ships for the last century and a half."
A strange glint appeared in her eyes. "And what did they find, Jerome? Nothing. Not a single nail. Not a single rotten plank. It is as if the Tigris river swallowed them whole. As if the sky devoured them or the earth ate them up. Why? Were they all fools? Or were they all making the same mistake?"
She turned and looked them both in the eye. "Because they are all making the same mistake that you are suggesting right now. They are all chasing the treasure. They are all fixated on the final prize, on the 'X' that marks the spot on the map. They are not trying to understand how that map was made, or why it needed to be made in the first place."
Sara, who had been sitting quietly amidst her books, deep in thought, spoke up. "Mayra is right. History is not a straight line. It is like a river, with many tributaries. If we want to find the source of the main river, we have to follow every tributary, no matter how dry or rocky it may be. Pierre Joseph is an important tributary. Perhaps the most important one. He is the first spark that ignited this entire fire."
"That all sounds very nice, Sara," Jerome said with irritation. "Philosophical talk. 'Source of the river,' 'first spark.' But in the real world, we are trapped on an island! We have no money, no real passports, no plan! And the most dangerous organization in the world is hunting us. We will drown long before we reach your 'source of the river'!"
It was a direct, personal attack, and for a moment, the tension in the room was so thick it could be cut with a knife. Sara's face fell, as if she had been slapped.
Mayra took a deep breath. This was a decisive moment. It was not just a debate; it was a test of their team's future. A test of leadership.
"You are right, Jerome," she said, and her unexpected agreement surprised him. "You are right in every way. We are trapped. We are vulnerable. And our enemy is very powerful. That is all true."
She came to the table and stood in front of him. "But we have one thing that they do not have."
"And what is that? A magic carpet?" Jerome retorted sarcastically.
"No," Mayra said, gesturing towards Captain Conroy's diary and the snake seal. "We have the beginning. We have the first link. The Syndicate does not know where the story began. They are still stuck in eighteen fifty five, in the wreckage of those sunken ships. Whereas we… we have reached seventeen ninety two. We have a historical advantage of sixty years over them. This is our weapon. A clue that only we possess."
Her voice now held a new confidence and passion. "I am not saying it will be easy. It will probably be the hardest thing we have ever done. But if we follow the story, connecting one link to the next, if we chase the ghost of Pierre Joseph, we will arrive at a place where the treasure itself will be waiting for us. We do not have to chase the treasure, Jerome. We have to chase the story."
A fire burned in her words, a conviction that changed the atmosphere in the room. Jerome said nothing. He broke eye contact with Mayra and stared at the map on the table, his own fingers tracing the path of the Tigris river. He was still not entirely convinced, but he was no longer fighting. He was… thinking. He was considering a new, impossible path.
"Alright," he finally said, letting out a deep sigh. "Fine. We will go with your crazy idea. We will chase a ghost. But that brings me back to my first question—how are we going to get out of here?"
It was a question to which no one had an answer. Mayra, Sara, and Jerome looked at each other. They had decided on a new direction, a path that no one else had chosen. But they were trapped in an invisible cage, and they did not have the key.
A soft knock sounded on the room's door. Captain Saad entered, carrying a tray with three steaming cups of tea and some bread. He placed the tray on the table and looked into their eyes, as if he had heard their entire conversation and their silent struggle.
"When one door closes," he said in his deep, calm voice, "another one often opens. But it is not always the door you were expecting."
He left, leaving behind another cryptic, almost taunting, riddle.
Late that night, with a tired mind, Mayra picked up the diary and began to flip through its pages again, almost without hope. Maybe there was another clue, another whisper they had missed. Her fingers reached the last page of the diary, which was almost blank. It only had a few random words and lines on it, as if Conroy had used it to test the ink in his pen.
And then, she saw something. In the very bottom corner of the page, in very small, almost faded handwriting, was a note. A note that had nothing to do with the military and astronomical details of the rest of the diary.
It read:
"If all is lost, remember the Sultan who came from the west, and asked for the way home not from the stars, but from the iron serpents."
What was this? Another mad riddle? Another folktale?
"The Sultan who came from the west," Sara repeated, who had come to stand behind her. "This is not about the Ottoman Sultans. They all came from the east. Who came from the west?"
Jerome, who had overheard their conversation, began typing on his laptop. "Nineteenth century… from the west… who built a railway…" His eyes widened in disbelief. "Wilhelm the Second. The Kaiser of Germany. He dreamed of building the Berlin-Baghdad railway line at the beginning of the twentieth century. An 'iron serpent' that would connect Europe directly to the heart of Mesopotamia."
Another link. Another empire. Another conspiracy.
Instead of getting smaller, the puzzle was getting bigger, and even more complex. They were no longer just entangled in the story of the British and the French, but now also in the unfinished dreams and ambitions of the German Empire.
But with this new information came a glimmer of hope. A path. An 'iron serpent.'
Could this be their way out?
Could a hundred year old, defunct, and war-torn railway line take them out of the deserts of Iraq and to the doorstep of Europe?
It was a crazy idea. A dangerous gamble. But right now, it was all they had.