The Sam Reilly Collection
Volume 3
By
Christopher Cartwright
Copyright 2018 by Christopher Cartwright
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
The Third Temple
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen – Mount Ararat, Turkey
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty – Namibia
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four – Dragon’s Breath Cave
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Derinkuyu
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Dardanelles Strait, Turkey
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One – Paris, France
Chapter Thirty-Two – Mount Ararat
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six – Maici River, Amazon Jungle, Brazil
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty- Nine
Chapter Forty – Vatican City
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two – Istanbul
Chapter Forty-Three – Skeleton Coast, Namibia
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight – The Buried Pyramid of the Kalahari
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four – The Temple of Illumination
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine – Black Sea
Chapter Sixty – Macai River, Brazil
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
The Aleutian Portal
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Code to Extinction
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
The
Third Temple
Prologue
Namibian Desert, 1655.
It was just before midnight when Harper Smith climbed to the final rise of the highest sand dune. The air smelled richly of salt, giving him hope the coast was near. By his calculations they should have reached it before nightfall. If he’d made a mistake with his navigation there was no way they would survive long enough to see it corrected. He was badly winded. The muscles of his calves and thighs were hot with pain. He breathed heavily and peered out into the distance to where the Atlantic Ocean should have been. Instead, beneath the silent moonlight he saw nothing but the majestic rolling sand dunes of the Namibian desert.
He swore loudly, cursing his greed. It had already claimed the lives of twelve members of his original party. He felt no guilt at being responsible for their deaths. They knew the risks before they became involved in his treacherous and evil business. The rewards would never have been so high if their task had been less dangerous. Besides, his punishment would come in the morning, when the scorching new sun would send him to his grave – that was, if his pursuers didn’t reach him first.
Smith remained at the crest until midnight so that he could take a reading of the South Celestial Pole using his kamal. The device consisted of a small parallelogram made of intricately carved ivory, roughly one inch by two inches wide. It had a single string inserted through its center, with a series of knots evenly spaced along its length. It was a simple device, but it measured latitude accurately. He’d traded for it three years ago with a small Arab man in Istanbul, who said that his people had used the device for celestial navigation since the ninth century.
The air was bitterly cold, but he didn’t feel it as he searched the sky above for the Crux – the cross-shaped constellation that would later become known as the Southern Cross. He didn’t feel much at all above the pain. Smith and his remaining party had been traveling west for seven days. Now, fatigue, piled upon the end stages of dehydration, had pushed him long past any sense of pain and left him physically as well as mentally numb. It was time to know the truth, even though it would do little good for him now.
Smith bit the end of the string with his crooked teeth and held the other end of the kamal up toward the horizon. He slowly moved the ivory card along the string until it was positioned so the lower edge became even with the horizon, and the upper edge occluded the Crux. He then calculated the angle by counting the number of knots from his teeth to the card. Each knot was precisely the same distance along the string, and each one represented approximately 1.5 degrees of latitude. He wasn’t interested in any of the regular knots. Instead, there was one mark noted with a single old bronze coin. Smith adjusted the card until his hand reached the metal and then stopped.
His brother shared an identical kamal. Many weeks earlier, before he’d entered the wretched desert in search of the damned temple and its God-forsaken relic, he and his brother both added an additional knot on the string of each of their kamals by tying it around an old bronze coin so that it would be impossible to mistake. That way, when Smith and his party set out into the desert, all he needed to do was head west and maintain the same point along the kamal. The point identified the precise latitude along the African west coast, where his brother would be waiting for him aboard the Emerald Star.
He stared at the result and swore a violent oath. He took the sighting again and achieved the same result. It had been three days since he’d been able to take a reading. On the first, he thought he could hear the echo of his pursuer’s war cry. Sound, he later realized, traveled miles across the open sand dunes of the Namibian desert. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that he’d imagined it, either. Not that it mattered, the fact was it had sent a shiver of fear through his soul, which made him unwilling to delay their movement, even for a minute. On the second night, cloud cover had prohibited a sighting of the Crux, which meant that tonight was the first night he could get an accurate reading. He just hoped it wasn’t twenty-four hours too late.
The coin had moved downward, which meant he and his party had somehow drifted north of their intended latitude. He mentally recalled the shape of the African coastline. It steered westward as they traveled north. If he’d maintained the correct latitude he would be staring at the Atlantic Ocean by now and the Emerald Star. Instead, he was staring at more sand dunes. It confirmed what he already knew – they were a long way off course. Despite the cold, sweat dripped and stung his eyes. He took out the compass from his right breast pocket and carefully took a bearing to the south-east. There was no way to know how much longer it would take.
It didn’t matter. Without more water, they would all be dead long before they reached it. He’d gotten it wrong, but how he didn’t know. Not that it mattered anymore. Fact was that he wasn’t anywhere near where he was supposed to be. He glanced at the remaining men from his party. He should have told them, but he couldn’t face it. Only two of the original fifteen men were left, and they had chosen to follow him because their greed had given them the image of a future where they were extremely rich.
The remaining two members of his party approached slowly. As though each step caused an immense pain, and they had to make the conscious decision to either overcome it and keep going or lie down and die. Jack Baker, who, at the age of twenty was by far the youngest of the group, and Thomas Hammersmith, who was nearly forty, and as greedy and selfish a man as he’d ever met.
Jack Baker stopped next to him. His wide dark brown eyes stared imploringly up at him for any good news. “How much longer do you make it, Smith?”
“Not long now, boys,” Smith lied. His eyes fixed on theirs. His face, hardened by a lifetime of exploration, softened as he spoke. “Another twelve hours, at most and we’ll be on board the Emerald Star – and very rich men.”
Hammersmith swore. “Twelve hours! I may as well lie down here and die.”
Smith shrugged, and said nothing. It didn’t make any difference to him. They could follow him if they wanted, or they could give up and die. It was their choice. There was only one way to survive and that was to grit their teeth and keep walking. If they didn’t have it in them to do so, they didn’t deserve to make it.
Smith had no intention of letting Death win so easily. He clenched his teeth, glanced at his compass, and started to walk again. This time, he turned from a predominantly western direction and headed due south. He had to be quick. If the other members of his party lost momentum and stopped for more than a few minutes, they could never be cajoled into moving again. It’s a rare thing to see a man so fatigued that he should rather lie down and rest, than keep walking and live. Smith took the first painful step. He felt his legs burn.
They walked on through the night without stopping again. Smith knew their movement was slow, but they had to keep going. If they didn’t their pursuers would almost certainly catch up with them. He shuddered at the thought of what they would do to him and his men.
No, it was far better to push them hard and die of thirst than to get captured.
In the morning the sun crept steadily higher until it reached directly overhead. Once there, it appeared to linger and remain for eternity. The temperature soared a few degrees above a hundred Fahrenheit. He stopped, unable to continue without a rest, just before three o’clock.
Smith cursed another vicious oath and dropped his carry pack in the sand. He opened it and looked at his pitiful remaining inventory. He removed each item and placed it next to the bag in the sand, carefully making a mental note of the weight and value of each one. There was a single leather flask, almost entirely bereft of water, one sharp knife, his precious journal, and his Lazarino Cominazzo wheel-lock rifle. He glanced up at the sun. It burned with such heat that it would undoubtedly kill them all before it set.
Jack Baker asked, “Which way?”
Smith turned to meet the young man. His face remained impassive. “Same direction. Go on, straight ahead. I’ll catch up.”
Jack nodded and kept walking. Smith glan
ced behind. Hammersmith was still following, but slowly. If he had to guess, he figured the man wasn’t going to make it. Smith didn’t let the thought linger on his conscience. He no longer felt responsible for the safety of every member of his team. They’d all resigned that right when they joined this evil task. It was now up to each of them to dig deep and retrieve whatever strength they had left to survive.
Smith returned his gaze to the carry pack. The animal hide appeared worn. He’d never had to carry it before. It, along with his camel had traveled many miles over the past decade. After he and his party left the pyramid with the stolen relic, they had ridden their camels as hard as they dared. In the end, they had pushed their noble beasts to their deaths.
The creatures had proven their worth and given his party a significant gap ahead of their pursuers who were on foot. When the last camel went lame, they had to make the agonizing decision of what to keep. Their sleeping bags were the first to go, followed by additional bags of shot and powder and cooking equipment. Each of them had carried a large leather flask containing water, but only Smith was strong enough to labor through the grueling sand while carrying the camel’s pack. The contents of which were now negligible.
He quickly consumed the last of the water and then threw away the flask. The Lazarino Cominazzo wheel-lock rifle had cost him a fortune and he hated to part with it, but he could quickly see the weapon was no good to him if he died. Besides, it would do little to dissuade the army of savages if they caught up with him. He dropped it into the sand and next to it he discarded the final bag of rifle shot, but not his remaining bag of powder – that he would still need, if he ever reached the Atlantic.
He looked at the journal. A lifetime worth of work and exploration was documented inside. The thought of discarding it was impossible to accept. Besides, without it, the artifact would be useless. He would never locate the buyer again, and even if he could, the man would refuse to pay the exorbitant price he’d agreed on. And why should he? Its gold value alone would be all it was worth, without the journal.
No. The journal must stay. He would rather die than lose it after all these years. In fact, he’d rather bury it. Better no man should find the truth, if he couldn’t reach the place in time. Smith placed the journal inside the bag. It made him feel better to see it inside. A final reminder there was still hope. Albeit a very slim chance, but still, he hadn’t failed entirely. His eyes darted toward his knife. It was a gift from his father who’d been an explorer before him. An old weapon with an even older Damascus steel blade kept rigorously sharpened to maintain a perfect edge. It had been with him a long time and seen most of the known world. But there was nothing it could do to save him now.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 1
