Sam made a mental note to have the powder tested in a lab. He then used his index finger to reach inside and pull the latch downward. The piece of obsidian returned to its resting space, and the black powder was once again secured.
He turned the skull over and stared at it from below, where 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 recognized the snow-capped mountain of Mount Ararat and in an instant realized the skull was a map.
But not the map he wanted.
He already knew where the key to the Third Temple was supposed to be taken. What he needed was to locate the pyramid in the Kalahari Desert and find Billie Swan. Sam considered his next move, wondering whether the man’s journal might shed some light on things, when he saw it.
His heart raced and he felt the goosebumps prickle over his skin as his eyes fixed directly in front of the skeleton, where the mahogany table had been scarred by the deep etchings of a knife. Sam stared at them for a moment, carefully reading the words that struck him like lightning – Don’t let the man with purple eyes have the Death Mask.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sam spent the next three days reading and then rereading the journal of Harper Smith on board the Maria Helena, while the preparations were made. The Death Mask was secured inside the ship’s armory, where a state of the art security system would scare off the most seasoned bank robber. He sent a sample of the black powder off to a biochemist to study and left Elise in charge of making sense of whatever the scientist discovered.
On the fourth day, the final resources arrived and Sam and Tom set off east into the Namib Desert on camel back. Sam had located Smith’s Kamal and having read the old explorer’s journal, now knew that the early navigation device allowed him to accurately follow a specific latitude defined by the marking of an additional knot into its line. Per his journal the men had traveled for three days by camel to the east, starting out at the Emerald Star, before they located the ancient pyramid.
The camels were loaded with a similar weight as those used by the crew of the Emerald Star. The plan was they would travel east using the Kamal, and keeping pace with the original expedition as recorded in Smith’s journal. This would get them within a basic vicinity of the pyramid. It wouldn’t get them to the exact place, because the sand dunes would have changed during that time, but it was a start.
Once they reached that area, then they would contact the Maria Helena and Genevieve would bring in the Sea King and the ground penetrating radar. It would then be a time consuming process of expanding the search in ever evolving larger circles. Sam realized it might take months to locate, or he might get lucky. Either way, the camel trip was only the start.
At the end of the second day, Sam received a call on his satellite phone.
It was Elise, and as per usual, she got straight to the point. “Sam I got a hit on Peter Smyth.”
Sam asked, “Where?”
“The Daily Sabah, an Istanbul based newspaper, ran a report on a body that washed up on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait.”
“They killed him, didn’t they?”
“I’m sorry, Sam. It would appear so.”
Sam thought about the consequences. There was nothing he could do to save the man now, but there were still consequences to consider. What had his murderers found out? How much could Peter have told them? Were they on their way to the Skeleton Coast already?
He paused as he considered this possibility. If Peter talked before he was murdered, it would mean that THEY would come to the Skeleton Coast. The entrance to the Emerald Star had been intentionally buried again, but there was a possibility if they got to Peter they were smart. If so, they would start asking the right questions to locals in the area, who would be quick to talk about two strangers who spent a fortune hiring a dredging ship to remove sand covering an old ship nearly ten miles inland. It was an amazing story, and one they’d quickly find.
So what if they dug up the Emerald Star?
The Death Mask was no longer there, and Smith’s journal was in his hand, so there was no evidence of where the pyramid might be. Sam thought about that for a moment. Were they safe? He knew the answer was no. It wouldn’t take long for their pursuers to make the connection that the pyramid would have to be east of the Emerald Star. It then wouldn’t take much for aerial surveillance to locate two men on camels.
Sam instinctively touched the pouch on the right hand side of his camel, thankful that he and Tom brought Heckler and Koch MP5 Assault Rifles. If they had visitors, they were prepared to meet them this time.
Over the course of three and a half days, Sam and Tom followed the same route that Harper Smith had taken three and a half centuries earlier. When they stopped after spending the exact same amount of time on camel as their predecessors, it turned out to be a little under two hundred miles from the Emerald Star – making the pyramid just inside the Kalahari Desert.
Both men stared down at the rows of sand dunes that continued all the way to the horizon.
“Well, we made it – as much as I hate travelling by camel!” Sam stared into the distance. “The pyramid must be somewhere in this vicinity. Of course, it might take us months to locate it from the air.”
Tom looked over the crest of the dune, squinted and then shook his head. “I don’t think we need to worry about that.”
“Why?”
Tom swallowed. “Because it appears someone beat us to it.”
Chapter Forty-Eight – The Buried Pyramid of the Kalahari
The opening looked more like the entrance to a mine shaft than a pyramid buried in sand. Three old railway sleepers formed the framework for the adit. It ran at a gradual decline right into the base of the next sand dune. Inside the makeshift timber set, used to support the roof inside, mingled with a series of posts, jacks and roof bolts used to prop up the sandy ceiling. They had been placed haphazardly, giving Sam the impression of an old gold mine built during the American gold rush era.
Sam glanced around at a series of recent vehicle tracks leading toward the entrance. There were two distinctly different tracks. One looked wide as though it belonged to a large vehicle, like a truck or four wheel drive, while the other was narrow but deep, and ran all the way inside the mine shaft. The smaller of the two looked like it possibly had been caused by a small digging machine, possibly a backhoe or frontend loader.
Tom dismounted his camel and removed his Heckler and Koch assault rifle from its pouch. He set it to full auto and approached the entrance to the shaft. He glanced back and said, “You might want to call Genevieve and tell her to bring in some reinforcements.”
Sam grinned and followed suit, removing his own weapon and setting it to full auto. It felt like a final shoot out scene from an old western movie, where the final standoff occurs inside an old ghost mine. Only in this case, the mine wasn’t a mine at all, it was a tunnel to an ancient pyramid and the good guys were carrying assault rifles.
He made the call to Genevieve, who said that she and Veyron would come with the Sea King armed to the teeth to secure the area.
Sam stopped at the entrance and listened. There were no sounds coming out from the mine and nothing outside it, either. He scanned the horizons in each direction. There was nothing but sand. No sand clouds or wisps of upturned sand spewing toward the sky, indicating a truck might be approaching.
“Genevieve says she can be here within an hour.” He turned to Tom as he filled a small bucket with water for the two beasts to drink. “What do you reckon?”
Tom attached a light to his weapon’s scope. “I think it’s time we find some answers.”
Sam nodded. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
The tunnel extended a quarter of a mile before it reached the horizontal entrance to a pyramid. Sam found himself unintentionally holding his breath, listening for any signs of other p
ersons inside. He heard none. He and Tom switched their flashlights off and waited another few minutes. The faint glow of the outside world was barely visible looking backward, and no light surfaced from inside.
Sam exhaled. “All right, let’s go.”
Tom stepped inside first. Thirty feet inside the angle of the tunnel changed from horizontal to a steep decline. Another four hundred feet inside and the tunnel separated into directions. The original tunnel continued to descend at the same angle, while the second tunnel ran at the exact same angle, only at an incline instead.
Sam said, “It’s the same anatomy as the Pyramid of Giza.”
“So which way do you want to go?” Tom asked.
“Up. Down probably leads to a storage chamber. We need to reach the king’s Chamber if we’re to find the location we saw from the looking glass.”
They continued climbing for another four hundred feet. Again the tunnel split into two. With the main tunnel following the same incline, while the second one ran horizontally deeper toward the pyramid’s core.
Sam shined his flashlight into the horizontal tunnel. “The queen’s chamber. Let’s keep heading upward.”
They continued to climb the stairs. The ceiling above opened to about thirty feet. If the anatomy of the architecture matched the Pyramid of Giza as the sunken pyramid on Infinity Island had, it indicated they were now traveling through the grand gallery. At the top of the incline, the tunnel leveled out horizontally and they stepped into the king’s chamber.
The room was rectangular with a ceiling just short of twenty feet. At the center of the room where Sam would have expected the sarcophagus to go, a single limestone pedestal stood. Sam recognized the recess built into the top of it as being the perfect match for the base of the Death Mask.
He shined his flashlight around the rest of the room. Two pictograms lined the east and west walls. The first was a series of numbers, most likely indicating an intersecting point on a map. The problem was, the distance was referred to as the carrib – that same ancient word they’d found on the stone tablet on board the shipwreck of the Mary Rose on the seabed of the Black Sea. There was an image next to it, which left no doubt in his mind of the location the map was referring to. The drawing depicted the two volcanic peaks of Mount Ararat.
The second consisted of three sets of Roman Numerals, which appeared highly at odds with their Egyptian environment. The size of each numeral changed dramatically from number to number so that the three sets formed the shape of a small pyramid. Sam took a photo and read the numbers out loud. They appeared vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t recall where he’d seen them before.
They certainly didn’t sound like any location he’d been to, and they were too long to refer to any sort of period of time. It irked him that he couldn’t recall where he’d seen the numbers.
Tom swore and then looked at him. “It’s the wrong place, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Any of this mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing, but my guess is it will.”
Sam finished taking photos of the chamber. When he was done, he said, “All right. We’re not going to learn anything more from here, let’s hitch a ride back to the Maria Helena and see what Elise can find out about either of these images.”
“And if she can’t?” Tom asked. “Then what?”
“Then we’ll have to take the Death Mask to its resting place on top of Mount Ararat.”
Sam gripped his Heckler and Koch assault rifle and started to walk down the descending passage. He made it two hundred feet and stopped. Because up ahead, he spotted the flicker of someone else’s flashlight.
Chapter Fifty
Dmitri switched off his flashlight.
In the narrow ascending passage sound traveled quickly. He heard the distinct click of a weapon being switched into a firing position and the labored breaths of two men approaching in the dark, having just extinguished their flashlights in an instant. He turned and started to slowly feel his way down the passageway.
After thirty or forty feet, his hand dipped into the horizontal passage that led to the queen’s chamber. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps, as though someone large was now running toward him. Only an insane person would try to run in the dark to greet a hidden enemy. The thought almost made him laugh out loud.
Dmitri was quick and time had hardened him against fear. But somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice said he had to get out of there. He had no gripe with the two men who were approaching, but he was less confident they would share the sentiment. He wondered if he could outrun the strangers in the dark to the surface of the mine.
The steps grew louder and he knew there was no way to reach the surface before them, and even if he could, there was no telling that once on the surface he could escape before being shot by the two men. No, he was better off hiding.
He stepped into the horizontal passage and started to move quickly and silently toward the queen’s chamber. When he reached it, he found there was nowhere for him to hide. No sarcophagus. No limestone pedestal. It was a rectangular chamber, only just smaller than the king’s above, and it offered him nothing in the form of concealment.
He listened hard. For several minutes there were no sounds at all. Had the ruse worked? Had they continued running to the surface? Even if they did, how long did he have before they worked out he was still inside and decided to backtrack?
Dmitri was about to take the chance and make his way to the king’s chamber, to find what he’d come here to get. He needed to reach the temple on Mount Ararat before the others did and the king’s chamber was the last place he knew which had an ancient map.
He stepped into the horizontal passage and quickly shifted back inside the queen’s chamber – because he heard the sound of footsteps approaching once more. Dmitri shot his back against the stone wall of the queen’s chamber. He stayed about a foot away from where the horizontal passage entered, and there he waited.
A bright light flashed toward the tunnel.
He heard a confident voice shout, “Come on out. There’s two of us and we’re both carrying assault rifles, so you’re trapped.”
Dmitri waited. He breathed silently with the practiced equanimity developed over a very long lifetime and he listened to every step of his attackers.
“We’re going to shoot you if you don’t come out…” the same voice boomed.
Dmitri slowly inhaled and then held his breath.
The queen’s chamber was completely silent. He heard the gentle cadence of his unsettled heart increase its pace slightly. It pounded in the back of his ears.
About three feet away, he heard someone take another step. It was so quiet, the sound was almost imperceptible.
He started counting.
Dmitri had only reached two, when the shadow of a man as big as a small house, stepped into the chamber. It was a fifty-fifty chance the man would look to his left or right. They were bad odds, but they were the ones he was dealt.
His attacker glanced to the left first.
It was a small win, but it was all Dmitri was going to get. He moved with inhuman speed toward his assailant. His hands gripping the monster from his shoulder and pulling him backwards, while simultaneously driving his left foot hard into the soft spot behind the giant’s knee.
He heard the man grunt. It would normally bring the toughest of men to the ground in a wail of agony, but this man remained standing. Dmitri wrapped his left arm around the man’s neck, locking his elbow, so that he could apply pressure on his windpipe. He felt the monster thrash, as though he still believed he could win from that position. Dmitri brought up a small blade to the man’s throat with his right hand so the point gently pierced his skin and then applied more pressure behind his knee so that he was leaning back into him.
“Okay, that will do…” Dmitri whispered, as though he were trying to hush a child. “I think this will end much better for the three of us if you tell your friend to put his weapon
down.”
“My name’s Sam Reilly.” A light shined directly at him. “I have a Heckler and Koch assault rifle pointed straight at your head, so I suggest you let my friend go.”
“Sam Reilly?” Dmitri couldn’t believe what he heard. “How the hell did you find this place?”
“I found the remains of the Emerald Star and then from there followed the journal to this place. But of course, you would already know that, wouldn’t you?”
“What do you mean, wouldn’t I?” Dmitri asked. “I wouldn’t have asked if I already knew.”
“I mean you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t already know.” Sam’s voice was calm, but there was a coldness to it that bordered on vehement animosity.
The big guy he’d taken prisoner spoke. “I don’t mean to interrupt your bickering, but you mentioned before that if my friend puts his weapon down, this would go better for all of us. Did you have a plan in mind?”
“It’s quite simple really.”
“Go on,” the giant said. “I’m listening.”
“You remove the magazine from your weapon and eject each of the bullets. Then your friend here does the same. As you already know I only have a knife, so that leaves us all without an instrument that goes bang.”
“How do we know you’re not carrying a gun?” Sam asked.
Dmitri made a big show of sighing, as though he was trying to explain something to a simpleton. “Because if I had, I would have used it by now, wouldn’t I?”
“You’ll still have a knife and we won’t have anything…” Sam pointed out. “The move’s stacked a little heavily in your favor.”
“True. But someone’s going to have to give something here. Alternatively I slit your friend’s throat now, and then we see who gets the first shot off. It’s probably going to be you, but either way, your friend here dies. So, what do you want to do?”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 24
