The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  Bidding was on an invitation-only basis. He glanced around the room. With the exception of the auctioneer, he recognized a man called John Wallis who worked for the Swiss Guard at the Vatican, but two other men he didn’t recognize at all. They both wore dark suits and looked like professional antiquity buyers – people who purchased items on other people’s behalf – and they were talking to each other animatedly. The auction was held in the strictest privacy and none of the bidder’s names would be revealed. Not that it mattered to Sam. He didn’t care less who was involved, so long as his bid won.

  The auction was set as a first-price sealed-bid auction, known as a blind auction. In this type of auction, all bidders simultaneously submit their sealed bids, so that no bidder knows the bid of any other participant. The highest bidder pays the price they submitted. In theory it was the most powerful way to drive up the price, particularly with something this valuable and important, where the bidders were willing to invest heavily to secure the item. In an open auction the winning bidder would theoretically still be willing to pay more than what he or she paid, whereas in this case, everyone will have placed their utmost highest price on the bid.

  The auctioneer waited until he received radio confirmation that no one else was on the Eiffel Tower. Privacy was of the utmost concern in this matter for two reasons. First the bidders all intended to remain anonymous, so that no-one else would attempt to follow them to the location when it was time to collect the item. And secondly, the item on sale tonight was entirely illegal – so the auction house needed to distance itself from the transaction.

  Having received the confirmation, the auctioneer began to describe the item including scientific data to support the claim’s validity.

  The man coughed. “My name is Raymond Howser. I’m here on behalf of the current owner of the item. As you are all aware the item on sale tonight is the location of what appears to be an ancient temple. Inside which are some very detailed drawings of people, most notably a very good depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.”

  Raymond coughed. “What makes this discovery even more valuable is that inside the mostly frozen cavern lies the remains of a wooly mammoth, an animal known to become extinct in the region more than ten thousand years ago. Radiocarbon dating shows that it’s between 9130–8800 BCE.”

  There was a slight stir from the four bidders. They had all heard of the discovery, of course, or they wouldn’t even be there, but hearing someone from the highly esteemed and reputable auction house of Christies confirm its authenticity was nevertheless a thrilling confirmation of the auction’s value.

  Raymond continued. “As you are all aware the location of the cavern is not private land and as such we don’t have the ability to sell the actual ancient temple ourselves. Instead, what is on offer today is the location of the cavern, which we can guarantee that currently no one other than the offeror and the employees of Christies know.” He paused slightly to allow the bidders to consider what was actually being sold. “As a representative of Christies, I would be remiss if I did not remind each of you that an archeological treasure trove such as this would need to be reported to the local government, and after doing so, it would be almost certain that you would lose possession of any item or image discovered inside. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a quiet sound of acknowledgement throughout the small group of men in the apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower, as each tacitly agreed to ignore this advice.

  “Good, then on your chairs you will find an envelope. Inside I would like you to write your final offer for the said item.” Raymond looked around at the four men. “You may or may not know the other buyers in this room, but I assure you this is an extremely exclusive group of purchasers. Each of you has been granted the opportunity to bid on this item because Christies believes you have a particular interest in what is on hand, and the substantial financial resources at your disposal to purchase it. The winner tonight, I assure you, will have paid a very high price.”

  Raymond glanced around the room. Once confident everyone had written their price and resealed the envelope, he retrieved the four offers. “As you can appreciate because of the unique and legally intangible status of the item, I will not be revealing the concluding winner. Instead I will contact him within the next twenty-four hours to complete the final transaction. Then, the man who discovered the ancient temple will take you to it.”

  Sam stood up and glanced out the window. The Parisian city was lit up with a golden glow with the black ribbon of the Seine River splitting it in two. To the east, he spotted the Cathedral of Notre Dame standing proudly. His eyes drifted to the north where the Basilica of Sacre-Coeur rose magnificently above Montmartre. It was no wonder Gustave Eiffel had no end of offers to rent the apartment, the views were amazing.

  Raymond interrupted his thoughts. “I’m afraid it’s important that you all leave now so that a decision can be made and the Eiffel Tower can return to the people of France. Once again, I thank you all for making the trip after such short notice.”

  Sam walked down the narrow spiral staircase onto the third level of the Eiffel Tower and what was considered the top by tourists. An elevator, along with its security guard, was waiting for the four bidders. Sam stepped in without saying a word to the other bidders and the elevator descended in silence. The elevator dropped quickly, a far cry from the original Edoux elevator that ran off steam until being replaced by electricity in 1912. The elevator stopped at level two and the bidders were ushered to the waiting elevator on the north pillar to descend finally to the ground.

  Sam stepped out of the elevator. The two men he didn’t know immediately walked in separate directions. He looked at John Wallis, trying to judge if the man would be willing to talk to him now, or if he’d been frightened by the auction. He held out his hand, “It’s good to see you, John.”

  “Ah, Mr. Reilly.” John Wallis took his hand and shook it firmly with a warm smile as though he were welcoming an old friend. “It’s good to see you. I am, however, surprised to see you involved here.”

  “It’s an interesting story,” Sam said. “Do you think there’s any truth to it?”

  “I’m not sure. I know my boss certainly hopes not.”

  Sam laughed. “No. I can’t imagine His Holiness would be very happy to hear that Jesus Christ was a rip off of a guy who lived around ten thousand years earlier. What’s the Catholic Church going to do if your bid wins, bury the discovery?”

  “Far from it!” Wallis said. “His Holiness would like it examined. We’ve offered a large sum for its location and we intend to get something out of it.”

  Sam smiled. “Probably too much.”

  “Nothing is too much if this is what it takes to disprove a dangerous lie. And if the cavern is real and the paintings are true, then it will be much too important for the Church to leave to treasure hunters.” Wallis looked at Sam. “No disrespect to the work you do.”

  “None taken.”

  “His Holiness appreciates the work that you do.”

  “I find that doubtful. The only times I’ve been to church is weddings and funerals.”

  “That’s why he wants you to come along.”

  Sam said, “My goodness. You were the winning bid?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I thought it wasn’t going to be announced for twenty-four hours?”

  Wallis smirked. “You didn’t think we’d wait twenty-four hours to get started on something as important as this, did you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “So, are you ready to go to the Charles de Gaulle airport?”

  “You’re serious. Why does he want me to dispute the very basis of his entire religion?”

  “What better person to examine the data than an atheist?”

  “Are you asking for my help?”

  “We’re offering you a chance to join an expedition. And I hope you’ll accept.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two – Mount Ararat

  It
took five days for Sam, Wallis and Mioli to reach the summit of Mount Ararat. During that time, John Wallis spent much of his time in silent contemplation, while Sam got to know Gianpietro Mioli quite well. Despite the constant time they spent together on the journey to the top of the sacred mountain, Sam hadn’t yet decided what to make of the man.

  At twenty-five, Mioli was definitely intelligent and driven. That much was fact. Having completed a major in archeology, he was currently pursuing a doctorial study at Italy’s University of Bologna into prehistoric human origins. The University of Bologna is a European equivalent to an Ivy League school.

  What Sam didn’t understand was Mioli’s appearance of altruism. The kid appeared to genuinely want to help the world, through his research. He often spoke about how much we can learn from our ancestors if the world was going to survive. He spoke of the corruption of greed and the tyranny of a generation who bought into the ideal of the worship of money – and yet, when he made one of the greatest archeological discoveries he straight away auctioned it off to a private bidder.

  Mioli withdrew his GPS and began studying his location. He waited until there were nine satellites overhead, giving his GPS an accurate reading down to a single foot. For what he was after, Sam knew Mioli would need every inch of that accuracy. Sam waited as Mioli studied his GPS. He stopped trying to work out the man and instead looked down from the snow-capped peak of the mountain to a very old monastery on the plains of Armenia, named Khor Virap.

  In an instant, his mind was taken back to 2005 and the day he first met Billie Swan. She was investigating a place called the Temple of Illumination. A place Grigory Lusavorich visited in 286 A.D. What he had found there, led Tiradates III, his king, to have him locked in Khor Virap. Billie had never told him what Grigory the Illuminator found in that temple, but she did tell him that, whatever it was, brought Christianity to the region and gave him hope of a new world.

  Sam’s mind returned to the present, as he heard Mioli shout, “It’s over here.”

  “I’m coming over,” Sam scanned the plateau. It was covered with thick snow.

  Mioli started hammering deep climbing anchors into the ice.

  Wallis dropped his backpack on the ground. “This is where we need to dig?”

  “No.” Mioli fed a piece of climbing rope through the eye of the anchor. “This is where we’ll all tether ourselves while we dig. Last time I was here I made the mistake of disconnecting from the tether and I fell through the crevasse. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Sam and Wallis clipped into the anchor and then followed Mioli to a place twenty feet further along the plateau. The sun was above them, but there was enough wind to make it icy cold. Mioli started to dig in the hardened snow. It didn’t take long. Within a few minutes he’d broken the hard surface and was able to dig through the soft snow below. It was obvious the snow had only recently been turned – most likely when Mioli first discovered the cavern below.

  Fifteen minutes later, a wire climbing ladder was fixed to the entrance and Sam abseiled down into the large cavern thirty feet below. The walls were jet black and glassy. Like Mioli had told them, the place was positioned inside a large lava tube.

  Sam disconnected his descender from the rope. “All right, I’m off the rope, come on down.”

  He watched as Mioli abseiled next, followed by Wallis a couple minutes later. Sam stared at the walls. The pictures were larger than he’d expected, and definitely much more detailed than any other cave-paintings he’d seen in Neolithic caves. The images depicted a man riding a wooly mammoth and another one with a man fighting off a sabertooth tiger. The depictions of their common life events certainly matched the suspected timeframe of ten to twelve thousand years ago, but paintings of an era alone did nothing to prove the validity of Mioli’s claims.

  Next to him, Wallis made a silent prayer to the image above of Jesus Christ on the Crucifix. Sam turned to Mioli. “What about the other thing?”

  “There’s a lot of strange images in here, which one are you referring to?”

  “The frozen beast.”

  Mioli smiled. “You want to see it?”

  Sam nodded. “Without it we have little but your speculation to go on.”

  “Right this way.”

  Sam was about to ask Wallis if he wanted to come have a look at it too, but decided not to interrupt the pious man’s silent prayers. He followed Mioli along the lava tube until it reached a solid wall of ice. It appeared an ancient glacier had forced its way into the tunnel many years ago. Inside the ice, about five feet deep, a large wooly mammoth stared back at him.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sam set up his drill and took two separate core samples from the wooly mammoth. He placed them in vacuumed sealed containers and then placed a liquid sealant into the holes created by the drill. If it turned out not to be a hoax, someone would one day want to come back and study the find. It wouldn’t be him, and it wouldn’t be for a long time, but that didn’t mean Sam wanted to damage the discovery by exposing it to the hostile effects of air.

  He secured the two samples and turned to Mioli. “You said there were other drawings?”

  “There are more drawings, but I want to show you something else first.” Mioli smiled, like a magician about to perform his greatest act, saved until last. “Mr. Wallis, you’re going to want to see this, too.”

  Wallis sauntered over to meet them, shining his flashlight along the walls as he went. “I’ll follow you.”

  Sam followed Mioli deeper into the tunnel. The tunnel changed direction where the ice glacier had once penetrated the lava tube, as though it had been pushed further to the left, before turning on itself and descending much deeper into the mountain.

  Mioli walked with the brisk stride of a young man, full of impatience. There were more paintings along some of the walls that Sam would have liked to look at, but Mioli was determined they should go where he suggested first.

  After a few minutes Sam felt his ears equalize under the change of pressure. He started to wonder how deep they’d come. He glanced behind, where he saw Wallis’s flashlight keeping up from behind. He began to become concerned after following the ancient tunnel for thirty or more minutes.

  He increased his pace and caught up with Mioli. “How much further?”

  “Not far. Trust me. You’re going to want to see this.”

  “Why?”

  Mioli smiled. “Because I think the rest of the cave drawings at the entrance were merely a sign. A hint of the future or the past. Maybe even a message from the past to the future. But the whole purpose of this place is located at the end of this tunnel.”

  Sam nodded in silence. He was happy to go along with it for the time being.

  The tunnel rounded another bend and dipped steeply so that Sam had to grip the edge of the tube to stop him from sliding down into the darkened abyss. About forty feet down the tunnel leveled out and the lava tube came to an ending of solid obsidian. At the middle of the jet-black wall a small alcove glared at him.

  “Well,” Mioli asked, “What do you think?”

  Sam stared at the alcove. It took a split second to recognize the image, because the glossy appearance of the obsidian made it difficult to determine the shape. Now that he’d recognized it, the image was obvious – it was shaped like a human skull. The resting place for a human skull.

  “A little macabre, if you ask me.”

  “But it’s piqued your interest, hasn’t it?”

  “You mean, why someone all those years ago would have gone to the trouble of creating such a spectacle all the way down here?”

  “Yes. I mean, it’s obvious isn’t it – the strange alcove must serve a purpose.”

  Sam nodded, knowing Mioli was right. Such effort must have meant there was indeed a significant purpose to it all, but what that was, he had no idea. He flashed his light over it again. There was space for four small pendants to fit, a small recess, carved meticulously into the ancient lava rock. Sam ran his
hand over the alcove and the four individual recesses in front. They were arranged at the ends of a shallow carving in the shape of a crucifix, but there was something else where the two crossed. It was hard to make out exactly what the shape was. It could have been an animal or a person. Whatever it was, it would have taken a master craftsman a lifetime to achieve the degree of precision for such masonry. He ran his fingers along the tiny grooves. Not masonry, this quality of work was in the field of lapidary –jewelry worked into the natural glass.

  Behind him, Sam heard Wallis in a cross between a controlled fall and a slide down the steep section of the tunnel. He was breathing heavily as though the climb had finally shaken his usual resolve, but he reached Sam without stopping. His eyes were fixed in a steely gaze, as though he’d seen or recognized something that had affected him to his very spiritual core.

  Sam glanced at Wallis. “What do you make of this?”

  “I have no idea.” Wallis shook his head as though the question was entirely irrelevant. “But I’d sure like to know what that man’s doing here.”

  Fear is unique. It’s like wildfire. Dormant while it’s confined, but spreads quickly as soon as it breaks free and catches. Right now, Sam felt that fear spread through him in an instant. His muscles tightened, and his chest pounded as his eyes followed the beam of Wallis’s flashlight.

  There at the end of the obsidian vault, in a yellow jacket was the body of a man lying on his back. His chest was covered in dried blood, evidence of multiple gun shots taken long ago. His eyes stared vacantly upward, as though permanently fixed with hatred and regret.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sam’s eyes darted to the deceased man and back to Mioli. Gianpietro breathed out gently. He looked guilty as hell, but not surprised. To Sam, it looked more like he’d been waiting for this, and now it was just another part of the parcel he’d sold to the Catholic Church. Wallis looked no less concerned now that he realized the man was dead.