The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  His eyes focused on the porthole, as he watched the last remnants of the outside world being taken from him. Suddenly a man’s face peered through it, staring back in at him. It was one of the warriors. The man was silent. His eyes wide, longing for one last glimpse of it. Smith was no longer frightened of the creature. To him, the poor devil outside, looked just as pained and tormented as himself.

  The man pressed his eyes hard against the porthole, as though he was trying to squeeze his head through the much smaller, brass hole, in an attempt to get a better look at the golden skull. Smith grabbed the ancient relic and picked it up and brought it to the porthole window.

  The warrior smiled as though its sight had somehow relieved his pain, and given him some sort of peace in his death. The two men were locked, their eyes staring into each other’s souls as the sand continued to rise around them. Time came and went, but still the sand rose, until long after the warrior outside was buried alive, and his now lifeless eyes stared at him with accusation.

  The storm lasted two whole days. When it finally stopped, Smith fought to open the hatch, but there was nothing he could do. The hatches opened outward, and now unimaginable amounts of sand weighed heavily above. He tried the other hatches, but each of them opened outward. He felt his way around the bowels of the ship, searching for an axe or anything to help free himself from his curse.

  He struck a match and lit the lantern again. He studied the artifact under the poor light of the oil lamp. The skull stared back at him. Its white teeth grinned hideously at him as though it had known all along what the outcome of its theft would be. Smith spun the skull upside down and stared at it from below. Solid gold had been flattened to make space for a unique image, delicately etched inside. It depicted two mountain peaks, leading together with a small lake or possibly snow in the middle. He’d never seen the place, but there was no doubt in his mind of the image’s purpose – it was a map.

  As fear took over, he could no longer resist the urge to scream. He cried out to anyone who could help him. To his brother, to the other members of his party – all of whom were now dead – and finally, when fear and hysteria had taken over his rational mind, he cried out to God, and asked for forgiveness.

  He then held the ancient relic close to his chest and laughed hysterically. Because his final act of redemption was to ensure the man with the purple eyes would never achieve his goal. That he would never get a hold of the artifact – because it had been entombed forever.

  Khor Virap, Armenia – 2005

  It was still dark outside the defensive walls of the monastery. Billie Swan stared over the stone parapet to the north, past the closed Turkey-Armenian border, where the snow-capped twin peaks of Mount Ararat glowed orange under the light of the crescent moon. The mountain stood at a near-quadripoint between Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran.

  Her eyes were almond shaped, and hazel colored, with tiny speckles of gold that glittered in the light. They were luminous and intense, befitting her intelligence, as she stared at the holy mountain. She had regular features that betrayed her Eurasian ancestry, and a sensual, full-lipped mouth. She breathed deeply, and watched her breath crystalize in the night. In two hours the first light of winter’s solstice would shine through the twin peaks, turning them a golden red. And, if her grandfather’s notes were to be believed, that first light would show her the precise location of the opening to the ancient temple.

  Billie had been following her grandfather’s notes since he died, years ago. Every lead she’d taken led to a tangent, and she had nearly given up hope of finding her grandfather. This time felt different. This was the closest she’d ever come to finding the temple. This lead had taken her to Mount Ararat, which was enshrined in mystery and biblical myths. The most predominant of course, being that the top of the mountain was where Noah had first stepped off his Ark.

  In the seventh month the Ark rests on the mountains of Ararat, and in the tenth month the tops of the mountains are seen – Genesis 8:4

  She smiled. The place was mysterious all right. And the Armenians were right to worship the sacred mountain, but it had nothing to do with Noah and his Ark – and everything to do with an ancient civilization who were genetically and mentally predisposed to greatness.

  In the silence, she allowed her mind to drift, and she imagined what she might find inside. An ancient database of information by one of the greatest civilizations who ever lived? Or nothing more than a Neolithic cavern, and further evidence the Master Builders never existed? She thought about the last person to enter the ancient temple, before it was permanently sealed because the information stored inside was deemed too dangerous to humanity. The forbidden fruit. Gregory the Illuminator had seen that knowledge – he then spent the next fourteen years of his life imprisoned inside Khor Virap.

  She lowered her gaze from Mount Ararat to the walled monastery. Her expressive eyes were pensive as they examined the grounds. The old stone fortifications provided a meek wall surrounding a modest stone church. Nothing about its appearance suggested such a rich and fanciful history. That the birth of modern Christianity once originated on the very same ground, seemed preposterous – but that didn’t make it any less true.

  The Armenian name for the monastery, Khor Virap, translated to Deep Dungeon. Until the start of the fourth century, that was all it was. A two hundred foot pit, dug into the hillock at the base of the Ararat plain.

  It was said that when King Tiridates III ruled over Armenia, his assistant was Grigory Lusavorich, who preached the Christian religion. Tiridates, a follower of the pagan religion, became displeased with his assistant for having another religion, and ordered that Gregory's hands and legs be tied and that he be thrown into the Khor Virap to die in the dark dungeon located in Artashat.

  The King waged wars and persecution against the Christian minorities. However, Gregory did not die during his fourteen years of imprisonment. His survival was attributed to a Christian widow from the local town who, under the influence of a strange dream vision, regularly fed Gregory by dropping a loaf of freshly baked bread into the pit.

  While Gregory was imprisoned in Khor Virap, King Tiridates III was said to have gone mad. Tiridates's sister, Khosrovidhukt, had a vision in the night, where an angel told her about the prisoner Gregory in the city of Artashat who could end the torments. Few people believed her visions, as most thought that Gregory had died within days of his being cast into the pit. But Khosrovidhukt had the same dream repeatedly, eventually threatened that if the dream's instructions were not followed, there would be dire consequences.

  Gregory was brought out of Khor Virap in a miserable state. He was taken to the king, who had gone mad, tearing at his own skin. Gregory cured the king and brought him back to his senses. Gregory knew of all the atrocities committed, and saw the bodies of the martyrs who were later cremated. The king, accompanied by his court, approached Gregory, seeking forgiveness for all the sins they committed. King Tiridates III embraced Christianity as his religion following the miraculous cure effected by Gregory's divine intervention and proclaimed Christianity as the state religion of Armenia in 301 A.D.

  Billie had spent hundreds of hours reading through the stories of Gregory the Illuminator. For the most part, she believed they were based on fact. All, except for the reason why he’d been imprisoned in the pit in the first place. That was the part she was most interested in. It was the early section of the myth that brought her here today.

  In the year 286 A.D. Gregory made a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat in search of his God, where high up in the larger of the two volcanic peaks, he had seen a vision of God at work. When he reached the place, where he’d often seen a halo of light in the night, he was met by a cavern filled with information, so far advanced from his own, that he believed the owners to be Gods.

  What those Gods had told him was so remarkable that he quickly returned to King Tiradates III to tell him the truth. When King Tiradates III heard Gregory’s story, he found it so impossible to bel
ieve, and yet so damaging, that he ordered a second team to seal the ancient temple, so that no one else would ever find it. When Gregory confirmed to the King that his wishes had been carried out, King Tiradates ordered him taken to the Deep Dungeon and left to die in solitude. Tiradates III knew he needed to send him to a place where no one would ever hear him speak the truth. But just as importantly, he knew that he couldn’t kill the man, either.

  According to Billie’s grandfather, the entrance shined golden red just once a year on the morning of the winter solstice. Billie’s eyes returned to the monastery’s stone fortification. Jeremy Follet carefully climbed the wooden ladder, carrying a lit monk’s candle.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Morning,” she replied. “You couldn’t sleep, either?”

  “No. I didn’t trust my alarm with something like this.” He smiled at her, as though he understood what she was thinking. “We’re getting close to reaching it, aren’t we?”

  She smiled, and nodded. “Closer than I’ve ever been.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re confident you have the right temple, this time?”

  “Yes.” She watched him smile. Deep creases formed in his face, giving him an older, but rugged handsomeness. He had intelligent dark brown eyes. They were kindly, and full of love and admiration. He was her father’s best friend and her Godfather. He had a shallow cleft chin that some women found attractive. She imagined he would have been considered quite a handsome man in his youth. She looked up at him. “What is it?”

  Jeremy said, “It’s an amazing achievement to get this close. Your father would have been so proud.”

  “No. My father would have been furious with me for taking the risk.”

  “Your grandfather lost his life following that dream.”

  She turned her head so that he couldn’t meet her eyes, “You know as well as I do that it’s real, don’t you?”

  He nodded in silence.

  “Grandpa found it, didn’t he?”

  Jeremy looked at her face, but she could tell he was envisioning a time long past. He nodded. “And it’s what got him killed, too. Some secrets weren’t ever supposed to be discovered.”

  “Maybe. But soon I intend to find out exactly what those secrets were.”

  Jeremy sat down on a small stone alcove. “I was afraid that’s what you were going to say.”

  They both sat there in silence, until the sun penetrated the horizon. She measured the precise distance from the sun, to the horizon. The bright light reflected on a location, two thirds of the way up the ancient volcano dome of Ararat Greater.

  She took out a small gadget that appeared to be nothing more than a hand held GPS with a telescopic lens. She focused it on the exact spot where the mountain turned red. It was fixed to a tripod, and she quickly ran her finger along the touch screen surface. She clicked the capture button once. Miles above Mount Ararat, eleven separate satellites triangulated the exact location where the light was set.

  The expedition had been backed by big money. Professor Jeremy Follett had refused to disclose to her who his backer had been, but the money flowed well, and that was all she cared about. She’d never even thought why someone would spend so much money to provide the means to discover the location of the ancient civilization in the clouds.

  Jeremy asked, “Do you know yet?”

  She grinned. “I’ve got it, but it’s going to be one hell of a climb to reach.”

  *

  The Armenia-Turkey border was less than a mile away from Khor Virap. Billie Swan could clearly see the border’s fence and lookout towers from the monastery. She was close to where she needed to go, but the border was closed to everyone. The only way to reach Mount Ararat was to go through Georgia and then fly back to Turkey.

  She left Khor Virap immediately. From Armenia they drove to Georgia and then flew into Istanbul, where the rest of the climbing team were preparing the heavier archeological equipment for transport. An old Bell Jet Ranger helicopter was hired to take them to the base of Mount Ararat with a small team of local guides. Once there, they spent three days acclimatizing on the lower outskirts of Mount Ararat and one day climbing the small nearby peak of Mount Hasan to an altitude of 10,672 feet before making the final ascent.

  They hiked north on the Anatolia trail toward the sacred mountain. Leaving behind the juniper trees and fields of grass, often used for breeding sheep, she began her ascent. The remains of a monastery and village constructed on the mountain could be seen high above, where an avalanche in 1840 had destroyed all but a handful of small buildings, which had since been rebuilt.

  The party stopped for a short rest at a Kurdish stone hamlet positioned at a little over six thousand feet. Nearby, a small boy tended to four goats without making eye-contact with any of the party. Billie stared up at the mountain peaks ahead. A deep, thick fog was setting in, burying their peaks in obscurity. She’d been warned not to climb during the height of winter, but what she needed to find couldn’t wait until summer and the safer climbing months. As the twin peaks of Mount Ararat disappeared, she turned her gaze to where they’d come from. She took in the sweeping views of the plains of Anatolia, which stretched all the way to the Black Sea. Her mind followed the landscape, drifting with it, all the way back to Istanbul and her recent discovery there.

  When her late father died, she had received a digital key and number to a locked box for a Bank of Turkey located in Istanbul. It had been left there by her grandfather with a single note – If I don’t come back, it is imperative that you take this key and finish my research. The note had been for her father, and not for her. It was only when she was going over some of her father’s things with her mother that she found the key. Her mother had warned her that it was likely to be something her grandfather had been involved in and it was best to leave some things alone. Billie had nodded with graceful understanding. She swiftly took the key and flew to Istanbul – to find answers.

  Instead, she found more questions. The locked box contained hundreds of handwritten notes on an ancient race, who had been genetically and physically superior to other people of their time. She had spent nearly three months sifting through them before she found what she was after.

  This was the first positive lead she’d found in nearly two years of searching for her grandfather. It was the first time she’d discovered confirmation of where he’d been looking for the temple before he died – if he was even dead? She recalled his note, which had made her heart race.

  The golden gates of the Temple of Illumination, high up on Mount Ararat, will only be revealed to those who are present at Khor Virap during the sunrise of the winter’s solstice.

  From there, everything had moved quickly. Her window of opportunity was about to close. It hadn’t left her with a lot of time to prepare, and if she missed it she would have to wait another year to pick up the lost trail – a thought entirely abhorrent to her.

  The next day, Jeremy Follett, one of her closest allies in the world of archeology and lifelong friend of her late father, arrived with funding for the expedition. Guides needed to be hired, equipment sourced, bribes made, and passes obtained to climb the mountain. She hired Ahmet. He had a surly disposition, and sense of superiority to women that made her instantly disdain the man, but he’d been guiding in the region for the better part of twenty-five years, and had an excellent reputation. More importantly, he could leave immediately. Five local men were taken on to help carry the heavy equipment. She had left Ahmet in Istanbul while she and Jeremy had traveled to Khor Virap to witness the sunrise of winter’s solstice.

  They left the Kurdish hamlet. The slope toward Mount Ararat steepened and Billie returned her attention to the task at hand. She maintained a constant speed, at first matching the rate of the local guides, and then surpassing it to set her own pace. She was tall and lithesome. She moved with the assertive gait of an athlete. Even in shapeless mountaineering clothes, she had a willowy elegance about her as she climbed.

&nbs
p; For the most part, the climb was nothing more than a steep incline of thick snow. The team was tethered together with a single rope for safety. Although it was not a technically difficult climb, any mistake or lack of attention, would cause her to commence a slide down the icy precipice which might not be stopped until it reached the ground thousands of feet below. She wore crampons, and carried an icepick. Her thighs burned as they slowly increased altitude.

  At twelve thousand feet, she stopped. They’d reached the rough altitude of the temple, but would now need to traverse across the southern face until they reached it. The guides set up camp and the party rested there for the night.

  Billie stared out as the scattered lights of Cappadocia glittered like starlight. The Black Sea appeared dark and foreboding with the occasional flickering light from a ship able to be visible. Her eyes stared out, trying to picture the underlying landscapes and cities, all the way back to the vague glow illuminating from beyond the darkened horizon, where the city of Istanbul rested.

  She thought about the Temple of Illumination. She was getting close to it. Her heart raced in anticipation. It was an incredible achievement. Her grandfather had previously told her that he’d narrowed the location of the secret temple down to Turkey – most likely buried underground – otherwise it would have undoubtedly been discovered well before now. But that was akin to finding a needle in a haystack, inside a country known for its farming. Turkey was renowned for having upward of four thousand underground dwellings, cities, and temples. The soft volcanic rock of the Cappadocia led the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries B.C. to build an extensive network of tunnels and cities. If it had been buried, she might never have found the hidden temple – that is, assuming tomorrow she’d find it.

  Jeremy came and sat down next to her, and interrupted her thoughts. “Are you excited?”

  “Nervous, more like.”

  “Nervous. Really? I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything since you were a three year old girl who’d discovered a talent for climbing that frightened your parents to death. So, what are you most afraid of, now?”