The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  Peter was holding his breath.

  “You look like you disagree?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Peter said, “It’s just – the map won’t do you any good.”

  “Why not?” Dmitri asked.

  “Because the map makes reference to a type of measurement never seen anywhere else before.”

  “So the stone’s useless. It provides a grid reference based on measurements that don’t exist. Even GPS doesn’t serve a purpose if you don’t know what those numbers mean, right?”

  “Right.”

  Dmitri smiled. It was creepy and inhuman. Almost serpentine. “But I remember how to read it.”

  Chapter Forty-Three – Skeleton Coast, Namibia

  The Sea King’s massive rotary blades lifted the huge helicopter and her passengers skyward, as Sam Reilly took off from the Maria Helena, which had taken anchorage roughly three miles out from Terrace Bay, along the fatal coastline. Next to him, Tom studied the copy of the survey map from 1655, which Sam had been given by the Vatican. The map identified a large section between Terrace Bay and Cape Cross, where the sandy coastline had shifted nearly ten miles further out to sea. If the Emerald Star had indeed been sunk while anchored during the sandstorm, it would most likely be somewhere along the long forgotten coastline.

  He flew in an easterly direction out to Terrace Bay and then banked south to follow an invisible line from the past, as depicted by the map in John Wallis’s office.

  Tom said, “All right, we’re right above the line.”

  “Good.” Sam maneuvered the helicopter into a straight and level flight path approximately twenty feet above the first sand dune. “All right, switching it on.”

  Tom flicked a few switches and the ground penetrating radar started to work its magic. Ground penetrating radar was designed to use radar pulses to create images of the sandy subsurface. The non-destructive method used electromagnetic radiation in the microwave band, known as UHF and VHF frequencies of the radio spectrum, in order to detect reflected signals from subsurface structures. The plan was to run a grid search along the invisible line of the forgotten coast, as depicted by the map in John Wallis’s office from the same year the Emerald Star was sunk at anchor.

  To Sam, the device felt close to cheating in the world of treasure hunting. Using technology people could have only dreamt about twenty years ago, the state of the art equipment was relatively simple to use. It ran a continuous swath. It was then decoded by an on board computer, which then spat out the image of any solid shapes within the subsurface. Tom studied the monitor, but in reality he didn’t have to. The computer would identify any objects, and provide a list at the end of their search, meaning there was little active input during the process.

  Tom turned to Sam. “Still no word from Peter Smyth?”

  “No.”

  “It seems unlikely that the man would disappear right when we were about to discover the truth?”

  “I know. I don’t like it. Anything could have happened since we left him in Istanbul. He might have got cold feet and decided to go to ground again – or THEY caught up with him?”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “There’s not much we can do about it. I’ve left Elise running a continuous online search for his image anywhere near Istanbul. If he’s gone to ground, we might still get lucky.”

  The computer pinged loudly – they had received their first positive response from the ground penetrating radar. Sam glanced at the monitor. It looked like a ship, but a very small one. If it was along the current coastline, he would have suspected it to be a small motorboat, but given its location, it was more likely to be a skiff. He made a circular search around the object, so that the radar could plot a more precise size and shape of the object.

  A few minutes later Sam returned the flight to straight and level, following the imaginary line from the past. He studied the hostile but fascinating coast with a mix of awe and respect. It was no surprise that such a land could be unforgiving. The coast was predominantly soft sand, with the occasional rocky outcrop. To the south were large gravel plains, while this far north, around Terrace Bay, the landscape was dominated by some of the largest sand dunes in the world.

  His mind returned to a recent account of the region he’d read, in which the Bushmen of the Namibian interior called the region, The Land God Made in Anger, while Portuguese sailors once referred to it as, The Gates of Hell.

  On the coast, the upwelling of the cold Benguela current gave rise to a dense ocean fog for nearly two thirds of the year. There was a constant, heavy surf on the beaches. Here the cold and unpredictable Benguela Current of the Atlantic Ocean clashed with the dune and desert landscape of north-western Namibia. Numerous ships have stranded at the Skeleton Coast thanks to the thick fog, the rough sea, unpredictable currents and stormy winds. The sailors who were able to make it to the land did not stand a chance of survival at this inhospitable coast and died of thirst.

  Strangely, it was the same Benguela effect that allowed the region to teem with life. Although less than ten inches of rain fell annually throughout Namibia, the dense ocean fog extended nearly a hundred miles inland. Large wild animals adapted to the arid climate and survived surprisingly well, including desert-adapted elephants, rhinos, desert lions, brown hyenas, jackals, giraffes, seals, oryx, kudus and zebras. The riverbeds further inland were home to baboons, giraffes, lions, black rhinoceros and springbok. The animals got most of their water from wells dug by the baboons or elephants.

  By the time they reached Cape Cross, they’d found a total of five ships in the sand’s subsurface. Two were much too small to be the Emerald Star, but the other three were in the vague vicinity of the size and shape expected of the seventeenth century Barquentine.

  Sam banked to the right and made a beeline for the Maria Helena.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The Orson Scott Card was an eighty-foot dredging vessel. Her futuristic design looked to Sam like a cross between a tank with its massive twin rubber tracks and a conventional battleship. It had a large hydraulic snout, and a massive claw attached to an arm off the rotating bridge, the entire ship looked like it was straight out of science fiction. He guessed her owner was inspired by the ship’s strange impression to pay tribute to the classic science fiction writer of the same name.

  Its shallow draft and tank tracks gave her an amphibious capability. Under power from the tank tracks, the vessel drove due east, slowly climbing the monstrous sand dunes of the Skeleton Coast before dipping down their backside. It had cost a small fortune to hire the vessel and her operator for an entire month. The first day was spent just moving the damned ship to the first location.

  Sam and Tom rode up high in the main bridge with Max Heinemann, the owner and operator of the dredger – a solid man of roughly sixty, sporting a thick, white beard that to Sam looked very becoming a sea captain. The reddening of his cheeks, and rotund belly suggested he liked his drink perhaps a little too much. He seemed knowledgeable and competent at his job. More importantly still, he was available for hire.

  As the heavy tracks dug deep into the upcoming sand dune, Sam asked, “Have you had such an unusual request before?”

  “Unusual?” Max changed into a deep low gear, and the vessel slowed to a crawl up the dune. “It’s not even the first time I’ve been asked to dig up an old ship long since buried in the sand.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. There’s been many a book written about lost treasure being inside shipwrecks buried in these sands. Did you know the desert is slowly moving west, reclaiming the land?”

  Sam nodded, he knew exactly how far the dunes moved. “Has anyone ever found any real treasure?”

  “Course they have. Not that it makes any sense to me.”

  “Why not?”

  Max gave him that sort of smile that said he was going to let him in on a secret. “Think about it. You spent a small fortune hiring th
e dredger. You might not find anything of real value to show after a week out here. Even if you do, it won’t cover much of my fees, unless you really do strike it rich. So the entire thing seems to me like a giant waste of time and money – not that I mind of course – it’s your money and I’m glad to receive your business.”

  Sam and Tom laughed.

  Sam said, “Thanks for your honesty. We’re not really looking for treasure, so it’s okay.”

  Max met his eye, with the hardened stare. “Really? What do you hope to find inside an old shipwreck?”

  “Just history. I have a friend whose great ancestor lost his life on this ship. We’re hoping to find it for him.”

  “A noble cause. I wish you luck.”

  Sam asked, “Just out of interest, if someone was to search for something beneath the sands of the Kalahari Desert, could you move the Orson Scott Card there?”

  Max shook his head. “If you were to give me months, I might be able to get a permit to travel with her along the highways at night time, but it would be expensive. Probably cheaper to have a mining dredge or digger built on sight. Or even bring in a bulldozer or two. What are you really looking for out here, Mr. Reilly?”

  Sam smiled. “Ancient history.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The first dig took a total of two days to reach and then a further day to excavate enough sand to determine the ship was the Alicia May, a French merchant ship. It took the fourth day to reach the next structure. On the fifth day they discovered the ship was actually the remains of a small whaling cabin, discarded at the end of the whaling era which the coast was named after.

  Sam studied the map. Tom had circled three main structures in the sand’s subsurface with the ground penetrating radar. He’d made the decision earlier to search the larger structures and skip the smaller vessels altogether. There was only one vessel left to search. If that came up with nothing, he would have to rethink how he was going to progress with the search. There was a lot of sand and just as many shipwrecks.

  In truth, he’d been quite lucky to discover the first two weren’t the Emerald Star early. If he hadn’t found the nameplate of the Alicia May, he might have been digging for a week and still not know if it was the correct ship or not.

  On the tenth day they reached the final shipwreck. Sam marked out the location, which would hopefully correlate with a section amidships, where he hoped the main opening might still be accessible. Max started up the large dredging machine.

  The Orson Scott Card used a fourteen inch pipe connected to a large centrifugal pump to suction the sand. Its 550 horsepower engine spun two impellers at a rate of 600 RPM. In water, it moved approximately 8,000 gallons of water and sand per minute. In the dry sand, Max was forced to reduce the RPM to 300, which shifted approximately three tons of sand an hour. It ran at a pressure of seven BAR, two below its maximum output, for six hours – before the sand gave way to untarnished wood.

  “Stop!” Sam shouted. “We’ve reached something.”

  The loud grind of the pump came to a halt, leaving a slight residual ringing in Sam’s ear. Behind him, Max pulled back on the automated suction arm so that it was out of the way. “Okay, Sam, she’s all yours. Go have a look at what you found.”

  Sam nodded. He climbed down into the large opening in the sand. “Hey Tom, can you please bring a shovel down here – we might need to manually shift some of this sand.”

  “Here,” Tom passed one to him.

  Sam ran the back of the shovel along the thick wood of what appeared to be the remains of an old mast. He felt the blade chip away at wood and sand. A moment later, the sound changed. It was something different, something distinctly metallic.

  He used his hands to quickly dig away the rest of the sand. Breathing hard, he pulled at the sand and with each movement he began to see a new piece of the puzzle. The item was brass. It made him work harder. In two minutes he removed enough sand that he was able to dig his fingers in underneath. Sam pulled hard. Whatever it was he’d found held under the suction of sand compressed by hundreds of years. But then it started to move. Sam pulled harder and in a moment the entire thing broke free and Sam fell backward.

  He scraped the remaining sand free of the brass item. It was the ship’s bell. There was a small engraving at the top of the bell. Sam felt his heart lurch into a gallop. He held his breath as he blew the remaining sand that filled the tiny gap of the engraving and then stared at the Bell.

  His lips then curled into a winning smile, because the name on the centuries-old engraving was still clearly visible – Emerald Star.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Sam switched his flashlight on and climbed down. The wooden ladder creaked under his weight, but the wood was otherwise very well preserved. At ten feet down, he reached the main entrance cabin. It was shaped like a small semi-circle with an empty weapons rack at the end. The skeletal remains of a man lay on the ground in front of him. Through the hollowed ribcage, a steel-tipped spear still pointed to the stars.

  He turned his flashlight away. It was obvious how the man had died and he had no morbid desire to study him further. To a certain extent, he figured the guy who had landed on the spear received a far kinder death than those who had survived long enough to become entombed by the sand.

  Tom carefully tested his weight on the ladder above. “Do you think it will hold my weight?”

  “Yeah, should do. Just watch the spear at the bottom.”

  Sam felt the structural beams that supported the deck above. They’d held the weight of many tons of sand for a little over three and a half centuries. He ran his hand over the first four he found. They were made out of some sort of red hardwood. A dendrologist might have told him the wood had come from Lebanon Cedar – the most prolific hardwood used in ship building throughout the Mediterranean until the eighteenth century, when overcutting reduced it to extinction – and that the arid environment had allowed it to maintain its strength after all these years. Without the specialist knowledge, Sam felt a healthy fear for the stability of the old vessel.

  He took another step. The floor creaked and he turned to Tom. “On second thoughts, you might want to wait here. There’s no way of telling how safe the wood is after all these years. No reason to put both our lives in danger.”

  Tom nodded. “I’m here if you need me.”

  Sam continued deeper into the main cargo hold. He was surprised to see the ship, which had been so well preserved inside, didn’t seem to have any other skeletons. He dropped down to the lower level that housed the now dry bilge. He flashed his light around the deck, but it was empty of what he was after.

  Sam retraced his steps to the main deck and then headed aft. At the very back he found a step up into the aft castle and Captain’s quarters. He climbed the stairs and entered the room. Sam flicked his light across the room. His eyes fixed on what he saw in front of him and he inhaled sharply.

  A large navigation, come dining table, took up the vast majority of the captain’s private quarters. It was an aft cabin from the glory days of shipbuilding, when the privileged class ruled the world. It was big enough to have entertained eight or more persons at one time. The table had been intricately carved out of mahogany, and in the middle of it, still sitting at the table were the skeletal remains of one man. Facing directly at the human skull was a very different one – a golden skull.

  The two skulls were facing each other, their eyes locked for eternity.

  Sam fixed the light on the empty skull. The void where the eyes once stared out, somehow betrayed the man’s profound loss. Next to him was an empty bottle. Nothing remained to suggest what was inside, but Sam figured if it was him, he’d want some pretty hard liquor. In a moment, Sam realized the significance of the find. It meant that this man was the only one alive when the ship had become buried beneath the sand.

  By the looks of things, the poor wretch had the time to wander the ship in isolation before starvation or dehydration eventually took his life. Sam almo
st forgot what he was searching for as he wondered who the skeleton once belonged to. His eyes swept the room. There was something else he hadn’t noticed immediately.

  A leather bound book graced the table next to the golden skull. He hoped he would find the answers he needed inside that journal, but now was not the time to read it. Instead he studied the golden skull. He’d heard Peter Smyth refer to it as the Death Mask or the Key to the Third Temple.

  Sam picked up the heavy skull.

  It was hollow inside, but even so, he felt the weight in his arms and was thankful he hadn’t needed to carry it across a desert. He turned the skull to face him. Its ivory teeth grinned hideously, as though it was begging to tell one hell of a story about its past.

  What do you know?

  As Sam turned the skull he felt something move inside. It wasn’t quite as fluid as liquid, but more likely fine like a powder. He stared into the hollowed eyes. Or was something inside? Sam shined his light into the dark space. The entire area behind the eyes and nose appeared hollow. It was only on the second look, that he spotted it. Not that he knew it was anything at all. He inserted his finger deep inside the left eye socket and felt it move.

  But what was it?

  He pressed upward with his index finger and felt it move all the way upward. He grinned as he withdrew his finger and shined the flashlight back inside. It had been a clever latch and it had caused an intricately carved piece of obsidian to swivel outward, allowing access to whatever was stored inside.

  His eyes narrowed as he tried to interpret what had been stored inside. There was a sweet scent to it like a mixture of hard liquor and chloroform. Sam instinctively took a step back and held his breath as he examined the black powder. It was so fine and delicate he worried that one whiff and the entire contents would be inhaled. The powder shifted in an almost liquid-like state as he tilted the skull.