Finding them was a long shot, but it was the only one that remained for Billie.
As the Andre Sephora passed through the mosaic of rivers, forests, savannas, swamps and flooded forests, Dr. Swan was amazed to discover just how vast the Congo Basin was. She’d read it described as the equivalent of navigating the Sahara Desert prior to GPS. As she passed the hundreds of islands, tributaries, and water based villages, she imagined it was easy to become disoriented and lost forever inside its labyrinth.
The river, along with the deep, thick vegetation of the jungle that lined the bank of the river, was teeming with life. The heavyset and somber eyes of gorillas often stared back at her when she stared at the jungle. Buffalo ran wild, and elephants carefully nestled on the banks of the river.
They were approaching the most remote section of the Congo Basin – the entrance to the Luvua River, and outlet of Lake Mweru. As they came around the latest bend in the river, Billie almost gasped when she saw the evidence of the river’s greatest predator – man.
Peppered with waterfalls and rapids, the entrance to the upper river was guarded by abandoned T-62 tanks, littering the hillside by Pweto.
The Andre Sephora slowed to a near stop.
The Luvua landscape was unique. Golden colored grass covered the surrounding hills, dotted with occasional abandoned huts built from volcanic-like rock. Large trees seemed to be covered by giant sheets of white silk blowing in the wind – in fact they were gargantuan house-sized spider webs.
Dr. Swan noticed the three dismembered heads on spikes that littered the bank of the river. They were approaching the most remote traversable section of the river and would soon have to leave the safety of the river and go on foot.
The skipper of the Andre Sephora, Jason Faulkner – a South African who’d made his fortune guiding the ultra-rich through unique African jungle hunting experiences – cautiously slowed the vessel, and moved it toward the southern river bank. There, he examined his most recent map. It was an aerial photograph taken that morning, depicting a section of the river where a route further upriver might just be possible. The river, he knew, was alive, and as such was constantly changing its shape. What was navigable today might not be tomorrow and vice versa.
Dr. Swan watched as the skipper approached a set of rapids. The difference in height of the river was no more than five feet, but it was enough to make it appear impassable to a vessel their size. With the bow of the Andre Sephora pointing directly upriver, she could see two sets of rapids. White and angry water flowed to the left and to the right. At the center, between the two, appeared one constant large rapid. The water was relatively clear, and she could see the bottom was no more than a few feet deep. Much less than the seven-foot draft of the Andre Sephora.
“Is this as far as we can go, Mr. Faulkner?” Edward asked.
Jason picked up the vessel’s radio and spoke quickly in Swahili, the fast monotone language of the Bantu people, and then looked toward Edward. “I wouldn’t worry sir. I have taken care of it.”
Edward stared at the violent opening in the river’s entrance. Wedged between two islands, the water appeared angry as it competed to squeeze through the narrow entrance. “Really! You’re planning on lightening the load, and reducing our draft?”
“No. I’m certain your entire inventory of cargo is important to you. I wouldn’t dare consider forcing you, as a paying customer, to offload anything.”
“How the hell do you expect to pass that then?” Edward asked.
Jason grinned -- a smile that reeked of a lifetime of corruption. “I’m planning on raising the height of the river by another ten feet.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sam Reilly tried to lie back as best he could with his head just off the rock slide as he would if he were on a giant waterslide. At any moment he expected to collide with some type of obstruction in the tunnel. At the speeds he was traveling, it would be a fast death. He lost count of the number of turns the tunnel had sent him on, and then up ahead he saw the faintest glint of light. He slid around the next corner and at the end of it he saw the reflection of filtered light glistening through water.
Striking the water at such a speed, each drop of falling water felt like a needle striking his body, and then he felt the ground below him disappear.
Oh shit – I’ve just gone off a waterfall!
Sam forced his eyes to open and take in his position. He was free falling to the river, nearly forty feet below. Sam struck the water with his feet pointed down, in an attempt to break the surface tension.
Even so, it felt like striking concrete.
He disappeared deep under water.
Sam kicked hard with his legs to reach the surface in the white, frothy water. He’d done enough white water kayaking over the years to know that he’d landed on grade four or five rapids. His legs fought to keep his head above water, intermittently losing the battle as he dropped over another set of sharp river cataracts.
After the third one, the river settled in eddy. With the last strength in his reserves, Sam swam to the bank of the river and looked back toward the latest set of drop offs he’d just survived.
Just in time to catch Tom Bower scream, “Woohoo!” as he fell, too.
Sam watched as his friend casually swam toward him.
“You alive, Tom?”
“Yeah, I think so. Okay, so that’s gotta be included in the next ride at Disneyland!” Tom said.
“Sure – shall we include all the angry people with guns and grenades too?”
Tom looked around.
“I think we’ve lost them. If they do try and follow, I’m pretty certain they won’t be ready with their weapons.”
“Let’s not wait to find out.”
The river ran through a valley. Large trees lined the bank. Without any clue where they were, Sam knew instinctually they were at the start of a great river. But that didn’t help him locate themselves, because rivers ran in all directions around Kangchenjunga.
“Do you have any idea where we are?”
“It looks like we’ve reached the bottom of the mountain. Only, I wouldn’t have a clue which side we’re now on. Kangchenjunga is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River.”
“The only question is, which one?”
“Yeah, we’d better find out so we can get ourselves extracted from here.”
“And probably not be too vocal about it. Given our past number of friends in the area, I doubt there are too many people we can trust.”
“That’s great, but where shall we go from here?” Tom said. “We still have less than three weeks to rescue Billie and save the world.”
A well-worn path ran above the river’s waterline. “Shall we follow it?”
“It beats the hell out of taking our chances in those rapids without anything to help.”
Three hours later, the two had descended to another clearing, where the water settled into a sandy bank. A white-water raft was tied up to a tree on the sandy bank. The name on the raft was Tamur River Adventures.
Several tourists were gearing up, ready to take the challenge of the river.
“I guess that answers the question of where we are.”
“How about we take that?”
Sam looked at the tourists getting ready for their adventure.
“They’re going to be pissed, but I’d say our need is greater.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dr. Swan stood on the bridge of the sports yacht.
Ahead of her, she could clearly see that the river’s cataracts looked navigable on an inflatable boat, such as a Zodiac, but would be impossible in such a large vessel as the Andre Sephora.
What kind of pirates am I involved with?
Edward Worthington and Billie shared a common goal out of necessity, but the man at the helm only served to remind her that she’d been kidnapped.
She said nothing.
Billie had c
hosen her course of action when she sent Sam Reilly to Siberia. She was on her own. Now she just had to trust that she had chosen the right villain.
In the distance, despite the clear blue sky, she heard the rumble of thunder. Jason noticed it, too. She studied his face. The man’s face, which ordinarily displayed his overconfidence in all things, especially women, now looked suddenly serious and focused. His eyes were watching the river as though something dramatic was about to change. He started to speak a prayer in another language, most likely his native Afrikaans.
Jason tapped at his throttle. The strain of concentration became obvious on his face, as he was judging the right time to perform a task.
The volume of the sound increased abruptly.
Jason turned the boat to the left and pushed the throttle to full. Billie gripped the side of the railing to stop herself being thrown off under the pressure. Edward took another deep puff from his cigar, and stood confidently using only his sturdy feet to balance him with the agility of a much younger man.
“What the hell is that?” Billie asked.
Jason smiled at her. “That, my dear lady, is the river flooding.”
“You blew up a dam?”
Jason laughed. “Nothing of the sort. I merely had a friend of mine open the emergency floodgates. It will close automatically in thirty minutes. By that time, the river will have risen enough to allow the Andre Sephora to reach the next level of the Congo.”
“Holy shit! Won’t that water hit us with the force of a tsunami?”
He brought the sports craft around in a giant arc until it faced the rapids head on once more. His grin more demonic and tyrannical than before, Jason pushed the throttle to full speed. The bow of the yacht quickly raised above the water as it began to skim across the top of the water. “It certainly will. At full speed, barely anything other than our water jets touch the water. If I’m right, we should be able to skim over the top of it.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then, we’re all dead.”
Billie held on tighter, and reminded herself what was at stake. In front of them, a wall of rumbling water raced toward them. The rapids could no longer be distinguished from the rest of the turbid river.
“Hold on everyone.” Jason held his breath. “Here we go!”
Billie forced herself to meet the collision with her eyes open. If she was on a one-way ticket to meet her maker, she didn’t want to be the last to know.
And then the Andre Sephora struck the wall of water.
The collision sent them high into the air, the way a boat jump would have. Jason touched the helm just lightly enough to maintain a perfectly straight direction. The water jets propelled them just above the frothy water, as though they were flying.
Less than a minute later, the water settled and the sports craft became more controllable in the water. Jason exhaled and then took a long, slow, deep breath in.
“Well everyone, I think we made it.”
“You could have given us a little more of a heads up that you were about to try and kill us!” Billie shouted.
Jason smiled. “Yes, I could have. But would it have made a difference? We still need to get further up the river.”
Billie ignored him and walked to the deck of the bow.
Soon, she noticed that the river was no longer traveling fast, and then it slowed completely. The emergency floodgates must have been closed again. Their intrepid skipper slowed the boat down to a crawl. Without the gate open, the height of the river quickly diminished, and their risk of striking a sandbar increased.
Traveling slowly into the much narrower river, Billie noticed the dense forest now threatened to swallow the banks with them inside. The sunlight all but disappeared as the surrounding canopies of the massive trees dwarfed their vessel.
Approximately thirty miles up the ancient river, the Andre Sephora struck a sandbar and came to a slow, grating, halt.
“That’s the end of the line, folks.”
“Can you get us off again?” Billie heard the authority back in Edward’s voice.
“Don’t worry. I can get us off, but there’s no way we’re going any further up river.”
“Why’s that?”
Jason pointed up ahead. “Because someone up there sure doesn’t want any visitors.”
A hundred feet upriver Billie suddenly saw what Jason had seen. Three T 72 battle tanks were lined through the river, forming an artificial barrier to any ship. In the shallow water, only their turrets and canons were above water, like the malicious eyes of a crocodile, watching its prey. Each cannon aimed alarmingly downriver, toward them.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The battle tanks looked like they’d seen better days, but their intention was no less significant. Someone had gone to great lengths to place them as a deterrent for unwanted visitors. More concerning yet were the three severed heads, which rested on spikes like flags at the back of each battle tank.
Their still fleshy faces, aghast in abject horror, portrayed a very recent incursion of the otherwise clear message.
Stay the fuck out!
“You look pensive, Dr. Swan?” It was Edward who spoke, as he lit an expensive cigar next to her. For a man in his eighties, he seemed keen to be constantly inclined to speed up the inevitable.
“Look at this place!” Billie said without removing her gaze from the wretches in front of her. “It looks exactly like something out of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness!”
Edward looked blank.
“You haven’t read The Heart of Darkness?”
“No, but I watched the film Apocalypse Now.”
“Look at those poor wretches.” Billie pointed toward more heads on spikes outlining the water’s edge. They appeared white. None of the local people would be stupid enough to enter the area. “Who do you think those people were?”
“I have no idea, but if we’re lucky, we might just find the people who did it.”
“The Makan pygmies were cannibals?”
“Some of my previous research has suggested so.”
“You’ve been here before? I thought you only knew about the Atlantean Archives in Tibet?”
“Before I discovered the other temple, I asked myself the simple question, ‘where could you hide the remnants of an ancient civilization for eleven thousand years?’” Edward took a satisfyingly deep puff of his cigar and then continued. “I came up with a list of several places, but the heart of the Congo River was certainly at the top of my list, due to its remoteness. Even if people could reach it, few would get through the plethora of terrorists, unstable governments, dictatorships, and children armed with AK47s to tell the tale.”
“Did you know about the Makan people?”
“No, but I hypothesized that the pygmies, who were the native inhabitants of the land for at least fifty thousand years, must have seen the Atlanteans if they built a second temple here eleven thousand years ago.”
“Why not examine what lies below the rainforest canopy using helicopters equipped with LIDAR?”
“I’ve already tried that. Here and in South America to be exact. We spent a fortune on aerial reconnaissance last time using LIDAR via low level flying aircraft. The remote sensing technology created a high resolution digital elevation model of the topography below the thick rainforest vegetation. Tens of thousands of hours of the reconnaissance. Found some interesting old ruins, wrecked planes decades old, and some ancient tribes who really didn’t want to be seen by white people from the outside world. But none of it ever revealed another temple of Atlantis.”
“So then, what are we doing here, Edward?”
“I’m counting on you changing my luck, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.”
“Why’s that?”
“Look around Dr. Swan. Do you realy think that any of these people derive from the ancient Atlantean people?”
“I don’t know what I think. But whatever we’re after, it will have to be underground to remain hidden for so lon
g. And that means we’re going to have to enter the dark forest.”
“You’re certain it’s here?”
“You were in Tibet. You saw the image I found. This was definitely the same point along the river. There were no other images. We now have to head north of the river. If there’s something there, we’ll find it. I just hope we find it before the pygmies find us,” Billie said.
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Edward replied, cheerfully.
“And if they do?”
Edward drew in the last of the cigar before throwing its remains in the water. “Then we see if my elite soldiers are worth anywhere near the million dollar a year retainer I’m paying them.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sam’s father’s Gulfstream stood waiting for them at Sikkim’s Pakyong Airport, its pilots preparing a route to Siberia. Opening his laptop, which he’d left aboard when they first arrived in Nepal only a week earlier, he looked up the GPS coordinates Billie had left for them. It instantly came up with another reference. He opened up the document and stared at the name of the location.
Tunguska.
“That’s not possible…”
“What?” Tom asked.
“The Tunguska event occurred in Siberia on the morning of 30 June 1908 at approximately 7:30 a.m. The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 800 miles of forest and caused no known casualties. The cause of the explosion is generally thought to have been a meteor. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the meteor is thought to have burst in mid-air at an altitude of 3-5 miles rather than hit the surface of the Earth. Different studies have yielded varying estimates of the super bolide’s size, on the order of 600 feet, on whether the meteor was a comet or a denser asteroid. It is considered the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history.”
“And that’s where Billie sent us?”
“Right.”
“That’s one hell of a coincidence isn’t it?”
The Sam Reilly Collection Page 60
