The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  “How long have those two been following you?” Sam asked.

  Sadik thought about it for a moment. “I saw them yesterday afternoon, when I finished work, but didn’t think anything of it at the time. Then again, they were there when I left my house. They’ve been with me since then. Do you have any ideas how we can lose them?”

  “We could just go ask them directly to leave us alone?” Tom suggested. “I mean, their cover’s no good to them if we know they’re following us. We may as well confront them head on.”

  “I was hoping to avoid a direct confrontation,” Sadik said. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to lose them?”

  Sam turned to face Tom and Sadik. “No. Tom’s right. Let’s go have a chat with them.”

  Tom smiled, as though confrontation was exactly what he needed right now. Sadik swore and started to walk away. Whatever Sam and Tom were going to say or do to the two men, Sadik wanted no part of it. Sam shrugged. He didn’t care what Sadik wanted. He walked directly up to the table next to the two men and pulled out a chair for himself. He moved the chair so that he faced them directly. “My name’s Sam Reilly. What’s yours?”

  Both men shuffled in their seats and pretended to focus more on their newspapers.

  “Is there something you guys want to know?” Sam asked.

  One of the men – the one closest to him – lowered his newspaper and asked, “I’m sorry, were you asking me a question?”

  “Yeah. I want to know who you are and why you’re following me?”

  “I’m sorry… Mr. Reilly, was it?” Sam nodded and the man continued – speaking in a heavily Eastern European accented voice. “We weren’t following you. We were following your friend, Mr. Sadik.”

  Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m really not very comfortable with being followed by a couple of badly dressed strangers.”

  “Didn’t you hear me?” The man’s tone was suddenly hard like ice. “I said we’re not following you, we’re following your friend. Now I suggest you leave if you know what’s good for you.”

  Tom sat down at the chair next to Sam. He was a good seven inches taller than either of them, and eighty pounds heavier. He wore a thick grin as he spoke. “Gentlemen. If you will permit, I think I might be able to clear up this misunderstanding.”

  “Please be sure you do,” the first guy said.

  “You see, gentlemen…” Tom began. “My friend here is currently traveling with Mr. Sadik and therefore, if you’re following Mr. Sadik, you’re also following my friend. May I suggest you stop following my friend?”

  The second guy stood up first. “All right wise guy. I think it’s time we all have a talk, but not here.”

  “Sure,” Tom said. He stood up, so that he had to look down on the man who was trying to intimidate him. “Let’s start with why you’re following Mr. Sadik.”

  “That’s between him and my boss. Let’s just say, he owes my boss something, and we’re here to make sure he doesn’t leave town.” The first guy withdrew a handgun from his right cargo pocket, just enough to make it obvious he was carrying a weapon, before lowering it so it remained concealed. “So, given I’m the guy with the gun right now, I suggest you do as I say and come inside the hotel to answer some questions.”

  Sam watched as Tom’s eyes swept the two men in a glance, trying to decide who he was going to have to take down first. He fixed his penetrating gaze on the second guy, who was slightly taller than the first, and hadn’t yet revealed where he was carrying a weapon. The second guy stared hard back at him and Sam noticed with pleasure, the guy was holding his breath – it’s hard, even for a man carrying a gun, not to be at least a little intimidated by someone of Tom’s size.

  Sam had no doubt he and Tom would come out on top in a fight. His first prediction that the two men had a military background appeared unfounded. No ex-soldier or professional would try and intimidate a person while their handgun was still in their pocket. If they were ever more than amateurs, it was long ago, and years of success had left them lazy and unskilled.

  Sam stood up. “Tom. This isn’t our country and we’re the outsiders here. Let’s not make a mess for anyone. We'll come and have a talk, but then we’re out of here and neither of you will see us again, okay?”

  The first guy met Sam’s eye, and motioned to his partner to keep the situation hospitable. The second guy slowly breathed out and then spoke. “Of course. All we want to do is chat. No one needs to get hurt today.”

  “Where?” Sam asked.

  “Inside the hotel,” the first guy said.

  Sam said, “All right, lead the way.”

  The tension seemed to disappear from the first guy as he walked toward the revolving door. He no longer walked with a rigid gait. The man clearly assumed he’d already won the dispute, and was feeling the relief at not having to fight Tom. He was so confident with his victory that he walked in front of Sam, leading the way – and why shouldn’t he be? After all, he was the one with the gun. It was their first mistake – never turn your back to an enemy. Sam and then Tom followed next, with the second guy walking directly behind.

  Sam figured he got the easy one out of the two men to take care of, while Tom got the only one with any sense of how to do his job. There were five separate partitions that made up the revolving door, which was designed to automatically start to move clockwise as you enter it. Sam entered the same partition as the first guy, while Tom took the next one with the second guy. This was their second mistake – never separate when there’s going to be a fight.

  Sam followed the revolving door around until they reached the hotel lobby. Just before the door reached the point where it opened up, Sam pressed the emergency stop button.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” the first guy asked.

  The guy reached for his handgun. It was still in his cargo pocket. Sam launched himself at the man, pressing him hard against the hard glass partition, so that he couldn’t remove the weapon from his pocket. The confined space was the only thing that saved Sam’s life. The guy’s right-hand gripped his handgun inside his pocket, and Sam shoved all his weight against that arm so he couldn’t withdraw the weapon.

  The first guy glanced at him – as though he was trying to say, what are you going to do? I still have the gun, you’re going to have to let go sooner or later – an instant later, Sam drove his right hand into the man’s pocket. The man fumbled, trying to maintain control of the weapon. Sam squeezed his hand from the outside, forcing him to pull the trigger.

  The semi-automatic weapon fired twice into the man’s upper thigh. He wailed in pain, and Sam removed the weapon. The guy dropped to the floor, using both hands to stem the heavy bleeding to his leg. A moment later the revolving door started to move again.

  Sam pointed the handgun at the guy. “Get out!”

  The wounded man shuffled out of the revolving door into the lobby. Sam stepped into the lobby. Keeping the weapon pointed at the stranger, he glanced back at Tom. The next partition of the door came round. Inside an unconscious man laid on the floor, while a much larger man searched him and removed a small backpack.

  Sam glanced at the bloodied heap on the ground. Reassured that the man was still breathing, he looked up at Tom. “Jesus. What the hell happened?”

  Tom shrugged. “He made his first mistake.”

  “Yeah, what was that?”

  “He picked a fight with me.”

  Tom dragged the second guy’s unconscious body into the lobby. A concierge and security guard approached. Their eyes darted between Sam and Tom and the two badly injured people on the floor. No one spoke for a moment, as the hotel staff decided their next course of action.

  Sam got in first. “I suggest you call an ambulance. This guy looks like he’s going to need some serious help.”

  The concierge nodded, as though he was happy to be given a task. “We’ll do that, right away, sir.”

  Sam pointed the handgun at the first guy, who was still struggling to stem the blood
. He removed his leather belt and handed it to the man. “I suggest you wrap that around your leg if you don’t want to bleed to death.”

  The man quickly took the belt and began trying to fit it to his upper thigh without saying a word. His eyes focused on his task, and he noticeably attempted to avoid making eye contact with Sam.

  Sam said, “If you ever try to follow me again, I promise I won’t stop with your legs.”

  “I won’t! I swear!” the man promised.

  Sam and Tom stepped back into the revolving door and outside. They walked casually back toward the main path they’d been using before Sadik had pointed out the two men following them. Poorly hidden behind three boulders, he spotted their guide.

  “Come on Sadik, they’ve lost interest in following you, but they might have some friends who haven’t – maybe we should check this place out before they do.”

  Ten minutes later they reached the hidden ventilation shaft. Sadik bent down and quickly unlocked the iron grate that blocked the entrance. It was a vertical airshaft, but large hand-holds had been carved into the volcanic rock, making it easy to climb. Sam and Tom followed him down into the ancient subterranean system. When they were all beneath the iron grate, Sadik locked it once more and said, “Welcome to Derinkuyu.”

  Chapter Four

  The shaft continued about five stories down and then stopped. There was a total of six horizontal tunnels, leading in various directions. Sadik entered the fourth tunnel and headed toward the south. Sam switched on his flashlight. The beam illuminated the chalky walls of the tunnel. The tunnel itself felt like an overgrown rabbit warren. Made with rudimentary tools, the edges were rounded more than sharp. Sam and Tom followed Sadik a few hundred feet until the tunnel broke into three, with two horizontal tunnels and one narrow vertical shaft.

  “Which way?” Sam asked.

  “We’ll take the long tunnel to the right. It’s a little under a mile long. We’ve entered from a fair way out of the main city.”

  “Okay,” Sam said, as he and Tom followed him.

  “The name Derinkuyu translates to Deep Well,” Sadik said, returning to his confident role as an informative tour guide. “It was carved out of the pliable volcanic ash rock the surrounds the entire region, called tuff. Inside, there is an extensive network of chambers for various daily activities, including temples, tombs, shops, living quarters, and even livestock pens. It has approximately 15,000 air shafts, and enough room to comfortably hold 20,000 people. Using geophysical resistivity and seismic tomography, it has been determined there are eleven levels, with some descending to a depth of 300 feet, with a total subterranean area of over four miles squared.”

  “It was a true underground city, wasn’t it?” Sam said.

  “Yes. With additional passages that connect it to other local underground networks, like the one we’re in now.” Sadik spoke reverently. “What’s most unique however, is its ancient security system.”

  “A security system?” Sam asked.

  “Yes. It’s postulated the place was originally built as a hidden bunker to protect its people from any number of raids throughout the region. The city has many one thousand pound stone doors that could seal the city from the inside. They were on rollers that allowed them to be moved by a single person, but only from the inside. Additionally, each level could be sealed off from the next using the same system.”

  “Impressive technology for its age,” Sam acknowledged. “How old is Derinkuyu?”

  Sadik sighed, as though this was a common question with no real answer. “Aging the structure has proved very difficult because it was carved out of stone. Thus, there are no quarries to examine and carbon dating is irrelevant. Furthermore, there are no records documenting the construction, and the peoples who once lived here have long since vanished.”

  “But there must be theories?” Sam said.

  “Of course, but without definitive proof, that’s all they are – theories and guesses.”

  “So what are the theories and what do we know for sure?”

  “Some of the caves were built by the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, in the 8th–7th centuries BC. When the Phrygian language died out in Roman times, replaced with its close relative, the Greek language, the inhabitants, now Christian, expanded their underground caverns adding the chapels and Greek inscriptions. Of course, there is no evidence that the Phrygians actually built the caves – only that they occupied the tunnels during the 8th and 7th centuries BC.”

  Sam asked, “What else is known for certain?”

  “The earliest written mentions of Derinkuyu were found in the writings of Xenophon, dated somewhere between 431 – 355 BC. From Byzantine times of the 4th century through to 1923 Derinkuyu was known by its Cappadocian Greek inhabitants as Malakopea. It was greatly expanded in the middle Byzantine period to serve as a refuge from the constant raids of the Umayyad Arab and Abbasid armies, during the Arab–Byzantine wars that continued between 780-1180.”

  “Interesting.” Sam flashed his light down an extremely deep ventilation shaft as they walked past. The hole swallowed the light well before it reached the shaft’s bottom. “You said before there were some who suggested that Derinkuyu is even older than that?”

  “Yes. Most of it is entirely speculation and deserves a place in the heart of conspiracy theorists rather than the works of archeologists and scholars.”

  “Go on,” Sam said. “What are some of the theories?”

  “Some suggest that the caves were constructed by the Persian King Yima around 400 BC.” Sadik smiled, as though it was impossible. “Of course, Yima may have been a mythological figure rather than an actual king. It was said that he enjoyed a lifespan of more than 900 years – you may recall that this figure is common in many Biblical figures as well. The Zoroastrian text of Vendidad states that Yima built an underground city on the orders of the god Ahura Mazda, to protect his people from a catastrophic winter. Much like the account of Noah in the Bible, Yima was instructed to collect pairs of the best animals and people as well as the best seeds in order to reseed the Earth after the winter cataclysm.”

  Sam paused as the tunnel forked into two directions where a single ventilation shaft ran through the middle. “Which way?”

  Sadik flicked his flashlight across the first rung of a more recent makeshift wooden ladder. “We’re just going down.”

  Sam started to climb, followed by Tom. “What was the disaster Ahura Mazda said would come?”

  “What?” Sadik asked.

  “The winter cataclysm Ahura Mazda said would come – what was it?”

  “Oh, he said it would come from the sky and cover the world in a dark cloud for a lifetime, before revealing a new world.”

  “It could have been in reference to a comet,” Sam suggested. “Some of the ancient astronomers had extensive knowledge of the movement of the stars and comets above. A recent study just released has deciphered the Vulture Stone, which was found in the Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. It appears the ancient stone carvings show a comet swarm hitting Earth around 10,950 BC. This correlates with the mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, which lasted for around 1,000 years.”

  Sadik said, “Of course, Derinkuyu is nowhere near that old. So if they built it to protect themselves from a coming cataclysm from the sky, it never came.”

  Sam paused at the bottom of the ventilation shaft, thinking about it. “What if we’re looking at this the wrong way?”

  “How so?”

  “What if we shouldn’t be looking for the disaster that happened in the past?”

  “If not a previous disaster, then what?”

  “How about considering if the underground city was built to protect us from something that’s still to come – something in the future?”

  Chapter Five

  Sam followed the next horizontal tunnel for about five minutes until they descended another two levels. The vertical shaft dropped maybe twenty-five feet and stopped. Two new horizontal tunnels broke off. Sadik to
ok the northern tunnel without hesitation. Sam motioned to Tom to keep following, while he waited for a moment.

  Sam waited until Tom’s light dimmed and then switched his own flashlight off. He was instantly surrounded by darkness. A slight glow glittered to the north, ahead of him. Sam turned and faced the south, where a light radiated fiercely. He stopped, waiting for the light to come closer, but it remained where he’d first spotted it.

  Had their pursuers found a way inside Derinkuyu?

  He switched on his flashlight and quickly caught up with Tom and Sadik. “I think we have company.”

  “Really?” Sadik asked.

  “There’s a light behind us,” Sam said.

  Sadik exhaled deeply. “It’s okay. That’s coming from the tourist section of the Derinkuyu. They can’t get in here without a key. I assure you, we’re quite safe.”

  “How much of the underground city is accessible?” Tom asked.

  “Only about ten percent of it,” Sadik said as he kneeled down over an iron grate that protected another ventilation shaft. He rummaged through a large keychain until he found what he was after, and unlocked the padlock. “The rest is locked up for the safety of the tourists, or to avoid damage to some of the rooms of more archeological value. As you can appreciate, there are a number of wells and airshafts, which would swallow an adult whole.”

  Sam said, “Fortunately for us, you have a key.”

  “No. Fortunately for us, my discovery wasn’t found in the tourist section of the ancient city.”

  Sam and Tom followed him through another series of tunnels, leading toward the south. They climbed down another two vertical shafts. It was a true rabbit warren, with no discernible purpose. After about fifteen minutes they reached a small opening, leading to a larger storeroom. It was oval-shaped and large stone seats were built into the ground.