The Portal (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

At her chateau in 1865 France, Kelly Jacobs spends a day with the young and yet unknown Claude Monet, who is finishing her portrait. The following morning, Kelly leaves through a time portal to the present day. Freddy Sanchez crashes his car while trying to avoid hitting the vehicle of Mark Jacobs on a back road in Florida. Mark rescues the unconscious Freddy and takes him to his house. Once awake, Freddy recognizes that some of the paintings in Mark’s living room are unknown pieces signed by famous nineteenth-century artists. Freddy accidently learns that Mark built a time machine and is planning to travel through history to save artifacts lost over time for posterity. First, though, they plan to raise some needed funds by salvaging part of the treasure never found from the Nuestra Señora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon sunk in 1622, Mark and Freddy strike a loose gentleman’s agreement, and a partnership is formed. An experienced Navy salvage diver, Freddy leads the dive at the wreck site with Mark’s sister Kelly and discovers the sterncastle of the Atocha. Within the sunken vessel, a hidden locker in the captain’s quarters is found. Before the treasure can be recovered, though, Freddy finds himself being sized up by a giant hammerhead shark. Low on air and faced with decompression sickness, Freddy fends off the shark, and then attempts to salvage the treasure chest. Upon their return to Key West they discover that the Spaniards have set up camp close to the retrieval site, forcing them to pick another place to come ashore. The next morning, Freddy and Kelly find themselves in custody of a small Spanish patrol. Since both are fluent in Spanish, they pretend to be a married shipwrecked couple. Freddy and Kelly then meet Captain Santiago. Their story is taken at face value, but even though Santiago is suspicious he extends them every courtesy, including giving them his cabin aboard his ship, the San Miguel. Meanwhile in modern times Mark confides in long-time friend Dr. Susan and asks her to contact an old friend who works for a government agency, and when Luke Allen arrives the next day, Mark is whisked away to a secret lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Mark soon meets his new boss, only to discover that the government is more interested in building a teleportation device than having a working time machine. Back in 1622, aboard the San Miguel, Freddy shows Santiago where the Atocha’s sterncastle went down and pitches the idea of a diving bell to salvage the wreck. They sail for Cuba to put Freddy’s salvage plans to work.