The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

“You think it’s a brain tumor?”

  “At first I did. I ran all the tests. There’s nothing malignant or concerning about this. It appears to be her normal cerebral structure. Most likely the result of some sort of strange hereditary process.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “You want to know if it could have had anything to do with why everyone was affected by the Black Smoke, except Elise?”

  Sam nodded. “Was it?”

  Dr. Creswell said, “The posterior cerebrum is concerned with a number of cerebral functions, but communication is up there with its highest priority. The Black Smoke appeared to heighten the natural excitation of the neural responses in that region – in ordinary people – elevating it to a level where high frequency radio waves can be interpreted.”

  “But you’re saying that aspect of Elise’s brain isn’t normal.”

  “No. In Elise’s case, that region of the brain is already enlarged.”

  Sam asked, “What does that mean?”

  Dr. Creswell shook her head. “I’m not certain, but it appears she has the ability to interpret high frequency sound waves without the chemical enhancement from the Black Smoke, and…”

  Sam waited, but the Dr. appeared uncertain about giving him the next bit of information. “What?”

  “And I think she was capable of transmitting high frequency radio waves, too.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Creswell, for your work.” Sam thought about the revelation for a moment. It was a reasonable explanation. The only possible reason why Elise was unaffected by the Black Smoke – not just unaffected – she was able to convince the rest of them to return to the helicopter.

  She said, “We’ll need further tests, to know for sure.”

  A strong woman’s voice interrupted the conversation. It both took charge and simultaneously dismissed Dr. Creswell. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  Sam smiled and turned to face her. “Madam Secretary, I was wondering when you would show up.”

  The Secretary of Defense closed the door behind Dr. Creswell. She looked at Sam with concern heavy in her face. “Well?”

  Sam said, “We’ll need to run some more tests, but I think she might be genetically descended from the Master Builders.”

  “You can forget about running tests.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I already know what they’re going to say,” she said.

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” She shook her head. “I wish you’d let me know you were close to finding their hive.”

  “Hive?” Sam asked.

  “That’s what we’ve decided to call a group of Master Builders.” She bit her lower lip. “Defense has been keen to learn all there is to know about this Black Smoke for years.”

  “You knew about the smoke?”

  “Of course. We found drawings and signs of the strange chemical in the first temple. I don’t need to tell you what such a drug could be used for during war, or worse still, if replicated by our enemies.”

  Sam smiled. “That’s why I’ve always been given a long leash and an extraordinary budget. You’re worried about the Black Smoke?”

  She smiled. Her hardened face was stunning, yet patronizing at the same time. “We’re enthusiastic about the opportunity, and terrified of the consequence of losing the race.”

  “What race?”

  She smiled again at his naiveté. “Why the race to synthetically reproduce the chemical compound.”

  “Didn’t the CIA already try that in the fifties with LSD? Sam asked. “How did that work out?”

  She turned from his vehement gaze. “There will always be a war. For the good guys to win, we need the superior weapons. In a world where technology is changing daily, an ability to control entire groups through high frequency sound waves is a breakthrough that might just give us the edge to survive. Think of the possibilities. Our soldiers could harmonize their movement as though they were one single entity. The enemies could be manipulated to attack each other or better still, relinquish secrets.”

  “What about Elise?” Sam asked.

  She shrugged. “What about her?”

  “What do you know?”

  “I think it’s time to tell you something about Elise’s history – before she was taken in by the orphanage.”

  “What?”

  “I was leading a team of CIA operatives on a raid on a temple in Afghanistan, which we now call the first temple of the Master Builder. When we broke in to the temple it appeared long deserted, but it wasn’t completely empty. There was a baby girl sitting underneath the middle of a large obsidian dome. She was looking up, as though she was studying it. That girl was less than one year old, and we named her Elise.”

  Sam swallowed hard at the revelation. “Does she know?”

  “No. And I’m not certain it would be wise to tell her yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we don’t know how she’ll take it.” The Secretary of Defense shrugged. “More importantly, we don’t know whose side she’d be on.”

  “What are you talking about? There are no sides!”

  “Maybe not yet, but there might be – when the remaining Master Builders gather?” The Secretary of Defense studied him, trying to determine his own value to her. “What else did you learn?”

  “I’m not sure, yet. There might be something. Then again, it might be nothing.”

  “What is it?”

  Sam swallowed. “Have you ever heard of the Death Stone of Göbekli Tepe?”

  “No, should I have?” She answered without hesitation.

  Her face remained hard, and expressionless. Sam thought he saw something else there, too – was it the unique combination of recognition, fear and guilt?

  He smiled, obediently. “No. I was just following a lead, but I doubt it will amount to anything.”

  The End

  The Aleutian Portal

  Chapter One

  Bering Strait – Present Day

  The passenger studied the face in the old American passport.

  He bit his lower lip as his eyes locked onto the photo. It looked distant, almost forgotten, yet familiar too. Like a relative he’d once known well, who had passed away when he was just a child. He’d been living a lie so long he’d almost forgotten how to distinguish it from the truth. He read the name along the bottom line out loud, Ryan Balmain. That too, seemed familiar to him, yet somehow aberrant and grotesque – because for nearly twenty years he’d lived in Russia under the name of Sergei Orlov.

  Hearing the sound of his real name brought back a flood of memories. Some good, some not so much, and one in particular he’d spent that entire time trying to forget. He sat on the portside observation deck looking out as though he was a passenger on a cruise ship without a care in the world. But like everything else about him, that too was a deception. He was neither a paying passenger, nor was he on a cruise ship, and despite his outwardly calm appearance, he was terrified. He was on board the Russian owned, Gordoye Dostizheniye – a five-hundred-and-sixty-foot cargo ship.

  The captain of the vessel had been heavily bribed so his name was not entered into the ship’s registry. Nor was there any financial or other way to make a connection between him and the customized shipping container, numbered 404. The owner of the large container was registered to a Rare Arts and Antiquities House in Seattle. The captain made it abundantly clear to him that the onus would be on Balmain to enter the USA on his own, and that if he was caught, the captain would cast him off as a stowaway.

  Balmain felt his chest tighten as he imagined the ramifications of getting caught. No, he needed to illegally enter his own country of birth. Balmain had once been an undercover operative for the CIA, but that was a long time ago. His parents died when he was still in basic training. He had no siblings and few friends – certainly none who would notice if he disappeared – and as a consequence a recruiter from the CIA contacted him for an undercover mission.

  He th
ought about the recruiter, too. Had they sent anyone else, he might have rejected the idea at the outset. But they had sent Margaret – a young, attractive woman, with dark red hair and olive-green eyes, which he recalled were as inviting and tempting as the Devil. She was to be his mentor, and despite a nagging uncertainty, he was never able to reject her offer. Like a beguiled teenager, he’d accepted what she proposed – and as a consequence had spent the last two decades living a lie in isolation in a foreign country.

  Reminiscences!

  Balmain snapped the passport shut, as though by doing so he could erase the image of her face from his memory. Margaret had unwittingly been the greatest source of his happiness, regret, and profound remorse over the course of his life.

  He thought about the fateful night when everything changed. To save her life, he had to maintain a secret so dangerous, that it might just destroy the current structure of modern civilization.

  Balmain forced himself to smile with the practiced expertise of a spy. It had been long enough that he doubted he still had anything to fear. He’d done some terrible things in those days. But that part of his life had been over for a long time – nearly twenty years to be exact. He’d stayed away from that past, living and working as a fisherman in the coastal port of Pavek, Russia, on the edge of the Siberian Sea.

  Not many days went by without thinking about that night all those years ago. His crime had remained buried for nearly two decades. He had doubted that anyone would ever ask about it in his lifetime. And then all that had changed two weeks ago – when he received a call from a girlfriend from long ago, and his crime came crashing down upon him. After all this time Margaret needed the truth to be brought to the surface. No, he would pay for that crime. It would be a sacrifice he was only too willing to make. But the question remained, would he still be able to protect her? Could he protect any of them?

  He glanced upward. The sky was a crisp, empty cerulean blue. Even though the time was only 2:45 a.m. the permanent sun of the arctic summer shined with an obtuse glare on the north-eastern horizon. The air this close to the Arctic Circle was just shy of freezing. He wore a heavy woolen jacket, which he’d pulled upward until it covered the lower half of his face. On his balding head, he wore a thick beanie pulled down until the only visible aspect of his face was his eyes – dark brown, nearly black with specks of gold that had once made him highly attractive as a young man.

  Even that much betrayed the physical harshness of the life he’d led. The skin around his eyes bore tiny creases and damaged blood vessels, the give-away marks of an alcoholic. His eyes were intense and the pupils heavily dilated. The U.S. Navy, Coast Guard, and Russian Warships were all out there – anything, even a small aircraft could mean trouble. The approach of a US Navy vessel, Coast Guard, Russian Warship, or even any fixed or rotary wing aircraft. He found nothing. The sea was a glassy millpond devoid of any other vessels.

  It was a relief. Not that he expected any trouble. His crimes were committed long ago. His eyes darted across the coast, taking note of the tiny island of Little Diomede, with its big brother behind it. Balmain waited a few minutes and then stood up, ready to take refuge in the dark confines of container 404 once more.

  He reached for the door, but stopped short of opening it. Balmain’s eyes were fixed on the little island to the portside. It looked impossibly familiar. No, it couldn’t be! He remained transfixed, as the Gordoye Dostizheniye passed what appeared to be the same bit of land for the second time in the past few minutes. He’d been lost in thought, watching the sea from the portside observation area below the amidships deckhouse. But the tiny island of Little Diomede, with Big Diomede on the horizon was distinctive. He could swear they’d passed by them only a couple of minutes ago.

  The tower of containers on the deck behind him prevented a visual from the opposite side of the cargo ship. From the deckhouse itself, situated high above him between the stacks of containers and straddling the ship from port to starboard, he’d be able to command a 360-degree view. With no sense of movement aboard the heavy vessel, he couldn’t be sure the ship was circling, which was the only explanation he could come up with. It was immediately followed by the conclusion that there was only one reason for the Gordoye Dostizheniye to circle back around in the middle of the Bering Strait – someone wanted to board the ship.

  It meant someone knew he was on board. And that person almost certainly knew the contents of the specialized shipping container numbered 404.

  How could THEY possibly know that it had survived all these years?

  Balmain opened the door and started to climb the steps. He could hear the pounding of blood in the back of his ears as he climbed the series of steel steps to the bridge that stood nearly a hundred feet above the waterline. Balmain had expected to face the consequences of his past actions. But not here and not now, where it served no purpose whatsoever. When he reached the top, he burst open the door and entered the bridge.

  Inside he found a very different chaos than the one he feared. Officers barked observations and commands at each other, while the captain stood at the port side of the deckhouse, focusing on something in the distance.

  Balmain approached quietly. He felt the pace of his heart slow and his breathing settle. If there had been a boarding party, the captain and his crew would have simply slowed down and allowed the routine boarding of either the Russian or the US Navy to occur. The pandemonium he saw in front of him spelled a far more significant disaster. Perhaps there had been a collision with a smaller vessel, and they were going back to help? Or maybe there was damage to the hull and the ship was taking on water.

  Either way, it meant there wasn’t a boarding party and that he was safe. Hell, if the ship was mortally wounded he didn’t even care. Port Clarence was less than fifteen miles away to the southeast. He was sure the Gordoye Dostizheniye could limp that far.

  Balmain crossed his arms and set his jaw firm in an overt display of concern to override any chance of the crew noticing his starkly contrasting appearance of relief over the unfolding disaster, whatever it might be.

  His eyes swept the sea, following the direction of the captain’s fixed gaze. He cast his own farther and farther out until he spotted it – a maelstrom created an unnatural shape in the water like a giant eye, with a deep, abyssal black that left no doubt that its steep, churning sides led to a deadly fate in deep water.

  “What in holy hell is that?” he whispered, more to himself than to the captain.

  “Our death!” Shaking himself, the captain turned to his only passenger. “We must abandon ship. Go find yourself a lifejacket and go to your assigned lifeboat.”

  “Lifeboat?” Balmain was certain he’d misheard the captain. “Surely we’re more likely to survive in a ship this size than a tiny lifeboat.”

  The captain ignored his question and instead strode away from the observation windows, calling out the order to his senior officers to be relayed to the crew. He ordered the radio operator to broadcast a mayday and then get to safety, before heading below himself to make sure his crew was all accounted for.

  Balmain watched the crew increase their already wild pace. Incredulous, he listened to the communications officer give out a distress signal. He took a moment to digest the news, his gaze rapt upon the unbelievable sight.

  In that moment, the ship inched perceptibly closer to the turmoiled water. It was clear she was circling closer and closer, and would be swallowed with ease sooner than he could fathom. The turbulence looked to be half a mile in diameter, far larger than the ship’s five hundred and sixty feet could possibly overcome. She was circling faster now, and Balmain finally understood the implications. The circle was getting tighter. The ship was in the grip of an irrevocable tug toward the void in the center of the vortex.

  His thoughts flew to the item stored in the shipping container. He’d sworn to protect it with his life – a statement he was only just now realizing he would have to commit to. In one giant gulp, the sea was going to swallo
w the ship whole, along with the specialized container. It would drown the hopes of the only woman he’d ever truly loved and those of the human race.

  The profound knowledge triggered something primal in his brain to become active. Adrenaline surged throughout his body. Hopes and fears were sidelined while all of this attention and focus concentrated on what must be done. The only thing that could be done. He saw it with perfect clarity.

  He needed to reach container 404!

  Balmain opened the door and began his descent to the lower cargo hold. Six flights to the main deck and then five more to the lowest level of the internal cargo hold. His feet made a metallic clunking sound as he made a steady descent. He planted each step confidently as though reaching the container was far more important than the time it took. He knew there wasn’t a lot of time before the Gordoye Dostizheniye went under, but there was enough time for what he needed to do.

  Three levels off the bottom deck he was stopped by the captain, who appeared to be making a final search for any other crew who were still down below. The man was coming up from below and stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop. “You must abandon ship! There is no time! Where is your life jacket? Go, go! Save yourself!”

  Balmain stared at the captain. His lips fixed in a sardonic grin. “Don’t you see? No one can save us.”

  The captain moved forward to block his passage, and gripped him by his shoulders. “Good God man! Get control of yourself. You have to put a lifejacket on and find a lifeboat!”

  Balmain struggled to push past. “Let go. I need to get to the container!”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no time to retrieve personal effects! Surely you can see that!”

  He didn’t have time to argue with the captain. Instead he relaxed his shoulders. Took a step backward and then jabbed his right arm upward in one sharp movement. Despite his moderate stature, the punch had an immense and surprising amount of force behind it. His fist connected with the captain’s nose. He heard the crunch of cartilage and bone being crushed.