About a half mile out on the Black Sea, aboard the Nazarene Coast Security boat the Chief Petty Officer was watching the children through binoculars. Because of the rolling waves and at this distance, it was hard to keep a steady surveillance on the children. However, it was clear that they were preparing to enter the cave. Another crewmember approached and asked,
“What are they doing?”
“They disconnected from the ropes and are preparing to enter the cave.”
“Should we report this?”
Dropping the binoculars, he replied,
“No, Waldorf said they belong to the House. They are just curious kids exploring a cave that probably doesn’t even go anywhere.”
At being the first to explore something hidden for so long, Belle’s thirst for adventure greatly heightened. She turned to Robert and excitedly asked,
“Are you ready?”
His back was to her, looking at the distant security boat. He said,
“The patrol boat has lost interest in us. They are going away.”
He then turned and followed the intrepid Belle into the cave.
Only a few feet into the cave they bumped into evidence that it had not been explored for a very long time, if ever. Hundreds of spider webs were barring their way. A branch at Belle’s feet was used to swipe them away. The floor of the cave was wet and slippery from slime and algae accumulated through the years but after a few slips and almost falls they grew adept at securing their feet and trudging ever deeper into the unknown. They were not far enough into the cave for it to be dark but it was getting close. When an occasional bug flew past, Robert hoped it was only a bug.
Soon the morning light radiating from the mouth of the cave was no more than a distant glow. She stopped and pulled two flashlights from her backpack and handed one to Robert. When turning them on, suddenly the whole tunnel lit up and hit them like a harsh beam from a lighthouse. It was so bright that while shielding her painful eyes, she snapped,
“Turn yours off.”
There was no need to yell at him. He already did. Chief Petty Officer Norman Rider saw the sudden flash of light shoot out of the mouth of the cave but only thought it was a strong flashlight aimed that way.
To shield most of the beam from her flashlight, she held her fingers over the lens. When it was adjusted to acceptable limited light, the mystery of the sudden glare was solved. The walls were vitrified stone, solid stone molecularly changed into solid glass. While gliding her hand over the smooth anomaly, she said,
“Mom told me about tunnels and caves just like this they found in Turkey. She thought it was formed by some form of laser technology.”
There was no need to tell Robert that they were not in a cave created by nature. This was a man-made cave or as he understood, made by aliens. As they stood looking into the depth of the cave, Belle said,
“This is exciting isn’t it?”
Robert was not as sure about that.
The deeper into the cave they went the slippery slime and algae thinned out. They were now inching forward on a dry floor. Another indication that they were not in an ordinary cave was when realizing that the floor was not flat. They were in a large circular tube. There was a gentle upward slope to the floor allowing for a trickle of water draining back into the sea. It was clear to Belle that the cave had now become a tunnel.
Both had waited months for this opportunity but when it was finally here, because it was not a normal tunnel, Robert was having second thoughts about this so-called treasure hunt. Before he could voice his concern, Belle was already well ahead and disappearing fast. He heard,
“Come on, this is getting exciting.”
It was a longer tunnel than both anticipated. By this time Robert was tiring, stopped and said,
“Let’s rest just for a minute.”
She wanted to keep going but understood who the weak link in the adventure was and agreed to let him rest. It was a good time to pull out her GPS and figure out exactly where they were in relationship to what was far above them.
After a reading she announced,
“We are three kilometers deep and heading in the direction of King Rhymen’s palace.”
Although she thought it odd that a tunnel would lead to the palace, Robert had a different thought. He was hoping to discover pirate treasure and mounds of it. If they were going in the direction of the palace then what could they possibly discover that might be rewarding?
It was now two hours since the beginning of the adventure and hope of a treasure was slowly fading. When they stopped once again and rested, another anomaly of the tunnel presented itself. Both understood that they were very far into it and yet they could still hear the crashing of the waves as if standing at the opening. Her only reasoning was that the glass wall acted like an amplifier, sending distant acoustics deep into the tunnel. He was not sure about that either.
At least to Robert, clearly there was no pirate treasure or anything else of interest here. He turned in the direction of the exit and said,
“It’s almost noon. Let’s just head back.”
But she had committed to this distance and didn’t want to give up, at least not yet. She brought out her echo laser gauge, aimed it deep into the depth and took a reading. She announced,
“According to this, the tunnel ends in a kilometer or slightly less. Let’s at least check that out and then we will call it a day.”
He reluctantly agreed and followed.
As implied by the echo reading, one kilometer later the tunnel ended. However, what they saw there was unexpected. In front of them was a large and imposing wooden door looking very much like a draw bridge belonging to an ancient castle, certainly not at the end of a tunnel. Pushing hard and looking for a latch got them nowhere. Disappointed that the great adventure they had been looking forward to for so long had abruptly ended with no reward, there was nothing else to do but accept defeat and go back.
Just as Robert turned around, Belle noticed something strange at the bottom of the great door. There was a little gap under it and a draft from the other side had piled up a small mound of dust. That was expected but not what was half buried in the dust. She bent down and picked it up. Upon inspection, the mystery of the tunnel greatly deepened. How did it get here? She was holding Robert’s pencil that she had lost the day they were under the library floor. Suddenly Belle knew what was on the other side of the door. However, because Robert was well on his way back and almost out of sight, she put the pencil in her pocket and hurried after him.
Back at the mouth of the cave and holding tight to the rope that they had rappelled down on, the cost of their adventure now demanded payment. Cartwright had taught them much about safely rappelling down a cliff. It was easy going down but what Cartwright didn’t mention was the difficulty of scaling back up. Although it was only twenty feet, when tired, the way back up seemed like a thousand feet. Both struggled and much shale was torn free by scampering feet looking for a secure foothold. Finally at the top, two exhausted bodies lay flat on their back huffing and puffing and looking up at gently rolling clouds.
***
With the morning reports finally done, Waldorf prepared to push away from his desk when a call came in. Answering it, he heard Chief Petty Officer Norman Rider report,
“They climbed back up and are preparing to return sir.”
Satisfied that they are safe, he left his office and walked through the garden. He smiled at Romero the gardener who smiled back. True to his conniving mind, Waldorf ran various scenarios through his mind. What could he tell the spy that would be advantageous to the House? Something will come up, it always does. For now, there was a more important matter at hand. It was time to meet Helga for lunch.
***
By the time the kids came back from a long and as they thought, secret adventure, it was almost supper time. After Belle had changed and washed up for dinner, she walked into the kitchen to be met by what she considered very suspicious looking parents staring at
her. Not aware of the efficiency of the House of the Nazarene security system and what Waldorf had reported to Santo and Maria, she tried very hard to act normally and pretend that it had only been a boring day.
However, parental stern glances persisted. And, as per most children’s instincts, she knew she had been caught exploring something that mother had forbidden. Her resolve to maintain composer and innocence fell apart when Maria all too innocently asked,
“So, what have you been up to day? Anything exciting?”
What was there to do but suck in a deep breath of defeat and admit to the crime?
While Santo and Maria dutifully listened to the confession, Belle noticed that dad was trying very hard not to nod and smile at his daughter’s adventurous story. She wondered if he was not reminiscing about a lost youth filled with similar adventures. Maria on the other hand was having no trouble holding back frowns of disapproval and a shaking head. If punishment for her sin was coming, at least now she knew where it would be coming from and who her ally would be.
However, as her story unfolded and she related how they came to a great wooden door at the end of the tunnel and what she found there, both parents suddenly snapped alert. Belle was not aware of King Rhymen’s refusal to let Maria into the library and gain access to the secret altar at the end of the tunnel. When she told the story of how she had scooped dust from under the door but lost the pencil, both parents suddenly understood what was on the other side of the door. Suddenly mom’s frowns disappeared and a smile formed. Right away Belle understood that she had discovered something important and would not be punished. She was not that lucky.
Chapter 74
Later that evening, Santo and Maria are sitting in a D-wing hovering just above the waves of the Black Sea and facing a cliff. They are looking at the newly discovered tunnel they now know leads to an underground chamber beneath King Rhymen’s royal library. Before entering the tunnel Santo said,
“If it leads to where we think it does, it pretty well confirms what I suspected all along. There was a connection between his ancient kingdom and the Anunnaki.”
Maria agreed and added,
“Well, I guess the dimensional gate was proof of that.”
She then added a chilling statement.
“Let’s hope it was only an ancient connection and still not happening today.”
Inching closer to the tunnel entrance it became clear that the Avoidance program would easily allow entry. As they slowly disappeared into the tunnel, Maria confirmed what Belle had said about the glass wall.
“Does this look familiar or what?”
He understood that it was the same drilling technique used by the Anunnaki in the cave discovered in Turkey. His only hope was that there was not a deadly energy field in here as well. The deeper they went, the darker it got until Santo prepared to turn on the exterior D-wing lights. However, after hearing Belle’s story about bright reflective light, he turned the lights to dim and it was still bright enough to see far ahead.
Once at the end of the tunnel and facing the wooden door, they hopped out of the D-wing and closely inspected it. Knowing that the children could not budge it, Santo accepted that force was not the solution. After pulling a few small packages out of the D-wing, he approached the door. She watched as he attached several cigarette package sized tablets to it.
She understood what he was doing. After all she had sanctioned her London Laboratories to develop it. He was attaching Regional Impact Explosives to the door. In fact, they were not explosives at all but rather limited fission disrupters designed to loosen and destroy atomic cohesion. On ignition, the atoms would simply fall apart as would the door.
With the exception of the door, there was no danger to them. Regardless, both took a few steps back and watched as the door silently turned to dust and smoke. What was left of it was a hole large enough to easily walk through without touching the edges. With the exterior light from the D-wing shinning into the newly discovered chamber, both stepped through the gap.
According to Robert’s earlier report, there was a similar door a little deeper into the tunnel. They easily located it and approached. When pushed, the door creaked open. From the dim light of the D-wing back in the other tunnel, both managed to see the three stone steps leading down into the otherwise dark room. At the doorway, Santo reached into his pocket and brought out a flashlight. However, remembering what Belle had said about taking the first step and the light coming on, Maria did the same and the chamber lit up.
Now with a lit room in front of him, Santo replaced the flashlight and followed her down the steps. Both stood on the floor looking at twelve wooden chairs facing what both children claimed looked just like an altar. Robert’s glass water bottle was still shattered on the floor. While standing looking at the altar in the middle of the room, both were startled by a sudden high pitched scream echoing off the walls. Santo instinctively snapped his AK pistol out of the holster and scanned the room with it. Maria wisely took a defensive step behind him.
Running from behind the altar was the same strange bird that Belle had unintentionally dragged through the dimensional portal to this world. As if blind, it ran wildly in all directions smashing into chairs and walls. When crazed eyes spotted two strange figures standing at the bottom of the steps, it stopped and started viciously clacking its razor sharp beak at them.
Seeing that he was going to shoot the bird, Marie yelled,
“No Santo, it is just a harmless and scared little bird.”
That assessment quickly changed when it opened its mouth unbelievably wide and Maria suddenly realized she might have underestimated the danger. Santo recognized an attack posture and aimed his pistol at it. Then, with bulging eyes and another deafening scream, it jumped for Santo’s throat.
In mid-air two quick shots sent a strange bird not belonging to this world crashing to the floor. Ever cautious, Maria inched from behind Santo and took a hard look at it. After a quick study, she turned to him and said,
“I’ve never seen anything like that before, have you?”
When he only shook his head, she added,
“Where could it possibly have come from?”
He made a mental note to remind Belle the importance of a complete and detailed incident report.
Both knew what to do and moved quickly and silently to complete the mission. As best as possible, Maria ignored the poor dead bird and started to press regional impact explosives onto all the walls. While pressing packets all around the altar, Santo was careful not to touch the top. When it was all done, not wanting to take a chance on opening a portal and being accidently sent to a world goodness knows where, before ignition, both left the room and closed the door. Once safely outside, he pressed the remote firing button. Nothing was heard from the other side and there was no indication of the destruction there. Precaution dictated waiting a few minutes before opening the door and inspecting the damage.
When the door was finally pushed open, the altar that triggered the other world was gone as were the twelve seats facing it. The wall that the mysterious cloud oozed out of was also returned to wherever dead atoms of the universe go. There was no dead bird on the floor. The chamber was now void of all that the Anunnaki had built. The gate to the other world was now closed and forever gone.
Leaving the room and closing the door behind them, she followed Santo back to the D-wing. However, they were not yet finished with the explosives. As the D-wing slowly glided out of the tunnel, with the canopy open, Maria dropped more explosives onto the glass floor, one approximately every fifty feet. Now out of the tunnel and hovering over the water, Sano turned the D-wing around to face the entrance. He casually said to her,
“Do it.”
The only indication of a collapsing tunnel were bellows of dust blowing out of the hole as if a great chimney stack from a polluting factory. Pleased that she had fulfilled a part of her mandate to restrict alien access to this planet, with a deep breath of accomplishment, she accepted t
he victory.
Just as Santo aimed the D-wing for home, Headquarters reported,
“Mario Amato just called and reported an important discovery in the alien city he is excavating in the Sahara Desert. He sounded excited and said that you have to come and see it right away.”
As if asking if she wanted to go now, Santo looked at her. After looking at her watch, she smiled and said,
“We have a few minutes. Let’s go.”
End
Look for more exciting House of the Nazarene adventures with Santo and Maria coming soon.
Be sure to read other thrilling books by Allan E Petersen
And the Humans wrote
The Factory
Quagmire’s Gate
The Ratsenburg Curse
Graves of the Past
Hercules Down
High Tide Treasure
The Noah Satellite Page 35
