Billie smiled. “No, you’re right. You aren’t that handsome.”
Chapter Three
Sam watched as Elise landed gracefully in the entrance to the tunnel and unclipped. Genevieve’s entrance was more dramatic as she immediately crouched and scanned the tunnel with the night-vision scope of her weapon. Tom unfolded his large body just inside the entrance and reflexively looked up. He needn’t have bothered to watch his head. The cave was at least ten feet in height, and as Sam played his tactical flashlight around, the ceiling appeared to angle upward farther into the tunnel.
He turned to Billie. “Will these doors stay open?”
She nodded. “Until someone closes them from the outside again.”
“All right. Now where do we go?”
“Follow the tunnel. It’s not long.”
Sam asked, “What am I looking for?”
Billie smiled. “You’ll see.”
Sam followed the carved tunnel nearly a hundred feet into the mountain. There it opened to a much wider cavern system. His eyes raked the area, and a moment later he ripped off his night-vision goggles.
The active infrared night-vision worked by emitting infrared. But in the cave he’d just entered, that light had simply reflected back at him, magnified greatly.
He switched on his hand held flashlight, and waited for his eyes to adjust. Tiny specks of quartz glittered off the walls of the new cave like diamonds.
Genevieve switched on her own light. “Our night-vision’s going to be useless in here. And with these on, our presence here is going to be pretty obvious to whoever’s guarding the temple.”
“Agreed.” Sam looked at Billie. “How confident are you that they specifically wanted you to return for the stone tablet?”
“Reasonably,” Billie confirmed.
“How confident?” Sam persisted.
Billie held her breath. “I guess I’m willing to bet all our lives on it.”
Sam shined his flashlight at a series of openings up ahead. “All right. We continue. Billie, do you have any idea which of these tunnels we should follow?”
“Not really. But we’ll know when we see it.”
“See what?” he asked.
She pointed her flashlight down, revealing a floor scattered with sand, and in the sand, thousands of bare footprints. Billie’s eyes followed the light. “These. We need to follow them.”
Sam wasn’t at all certain they should, but in this location, five people with semi-automatics ought to be able to hold their own against a small army of barefoot temple guards. “Sure.”
He switched on his headlamp, and turned off the flashlight. With his hands now free, he unshouldered his Heckler and Koch submachine gun, and entered the tunnel. Billie might have been confident that the Master Builders wanted her to return, but he wasn’t convinced.
Sam continued along the tunnel and through a narrow opening into a wonderland of speleothems – stalactites and stalagmites – unlike any he had ever seen. It looked like they had melted out of the ceiling of the cave and flowed into fantastic, smooth-sided shapes.
The height of the tunnel slowly decreased until the ceiling was just under four feet, and he was forced to climb through on his hands and knees. Between the thousands of pillars of stalactites and stalagmites, was a grand maze of crystals. The light from Sam’s headlamp reflected throughout the labyrinth, highlighting its extreme size.
Sam said, “Lucky we’ve got this trail to follow. Without it, we’d need days and days to follow each of these small tunnels before we found what we were after.”
Billie smiled. “Pity each one of these imprints in the sand represents another pyramid warrior, whose entire purpose it is to protect the temple.”
Sam returned her smile. “You said you didn’t think they would attack us? That they wanted you to return for the stone tablet?”
“That’s what I do think,” she said. “But I have been wrong before.”
“Great. Let’s just hope that was the last time.”
It took close to thirty minutes to scramble through the crystal labyrinth. When he emerged between two pillars into a large space, the powerful light from his headlamp was swallowed by the giant, seemingly endless, grotto. He turned on his more powerful hand-held flashlight and shined it toward the ceiling. The faint shimmer of light was the only confirmation they were still underground. Although, for a moment, Sam questioned whether it was merely cloud cover.
He turned to Billie. “Where are we?”
“Follow the footsteps, and you’ll see,” she replied.
Their voices didn’t echo, but instead, simply vanished mysteriously into the distance. Sam paused and listened. If there were still others inside whatever type of subterranean chamber they’d entered, Sam suspected he would have heard their breathing, shuffling of feet, or something at least.
But he heard nothing.
He stepped forward, slowly following the path of footprints in the sand, where Billie had told him hundreds of temple guards had once traveled to take their place.
Behind him, Tom swore loudly. “Sam, you’d better see this.”
“What is it, Tom?” Sam asked. “Do we have company?”
Tom unclipped the Armasight digital night-vision scope from the top of his weapon and handed it to him. “Not yet, but you’re gonna want to have a look through this.”
Sam nodded and took the scope.
He slowly placed it up against his right eye, and looked through its telescopic digital lens. Sam held his breath as he studied what he saw, his eye and his mind competing to rationalize what he was viewing.
A wry and incredulous grin formed on his lips. “Billie, where have you taken us?”
“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me until you saw it for yourself,” Billie said.
Sam increased the digital magnification and brought the lens back up to his eyes. He shook his head, as he stared through it.
“I don’t believe it…” he said.
There in front of him were thousands of six foot high, solid quartz sandstone, square blocks stacked upon one another to form an exact pyramid, every bit as large as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Chapter Four
Billie climbed the first sandstone block at the base of the pyramid.
It felt more like the world’s biggest bouldering room than the grand staircase to the entrance to a temple. To scale each tier, she needed to reach above and perform a partial pull-up, before being able to dig her toes into the rock and shuffle herself forward and over the edge. It wasn’t too difficult, but she didn’t revel in the idea of completing the process another fifty or more times to reach the entrance to the main descending passage.
She was tall, with an athletic and lithe frame. Despite the heavy backpack she carried, Billie was still the fastest in the group. By the time she reached the triangular entrance to the main descending passageway, she’d gained an advantage of nearly five entire sandstone blocks ahead of Sam, who was the next fastest in their group. Elise moved quickly, too, but she was shorter and consequently had to climb farther to overcome each stone. No one could have ever called Genevieve or Tom’s progress slow, but instead of racing ahead, they concentrated on the defense of the team and maintaining a possible exit strategy if needed.
Billie fixed the beam of her flashlight into the entrance of the descending passageway. No light or sound returned. She didn’t expect any. It stood to reason that everything of value inside the temple was within the king’s chamber. If there were still hundreds of Pirahã temple guards inside, they would be waiting for them at the Grand Gallery.
Confident no one was approaching from within the pyramid, Billie turned to face Sam. In a stage whisper, she called down, “Well, Sam, are you coming?”
“I’m right behind you,” he replied.
Spurred on by her taunt, Sam completed the remaining four blocks in under two minutes. He stopped before entering and took a deep breath. They waited until the rest of the team was at the entrance
step and ready to go again.
Sam stepped up beside her. “Are you ready for this?”
“You mean after being enslaved here for nearly two years?” Billie replied.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Billie unshouldered her submachine gun, and descended into the entrance passageway. She was certain the Master Builders had brought her, specifically, back to this place for a reason. But there was no rational reason she should feel so confident about it. Instead, it simply felt like a hidden purpose, or some sort of missing information was stored in the darkest depths of her cerebellum, and that once she returned, it might all be revealed to her.
She swallowed hard, and took another step closer. That didn’t mean she would necessarily like what she discovered. Besides, she might have got this entire thing wrong. Instead of coming back because she was a special part of the Master Builder’s grand plan, maybe she was simply the fly that got away and was now stupidly returning to the web?
A hundred and fifty feet in and she spotted the ascending passage above her head. She clambered up onto the first step of the ascending tunnel and waited until Sam and the rest of the group reached the same location.
She continued, passing the Queen’s Chamber as they went by.
Sam said, “You, Genevieve, and Elise wait here. Tom and I are going to quickly check out the Queen’s Chamber.”
“Don’t bother,” Billie said. “The stone tablet isn’t in there. It’s stored in the King’s Chamber.”
“So you said.” Sam’s piercing blue eyes met hers. Then, emphatically, he said, “We’re still going to check out the Queen’s Chamber first.”
“Why?”
“Because I made this mistake when we searched the temple we found in the Kalahari Desert. We got to the King’s Chamber, only to get attacked by someone hiding in the Queen’s.”
Billie shrugged with indifference. “Okay. Don’t take too long.”
She watched Sam and Tom’s lights disappear as they traveled farther down the horizontal tunnel and then returned her gaze upward, where she knew the temple guards would be waiting for them.
The firing switch on Genevieve’s Heckler and Koch submachine gun was set to F, for fully automatic. She shined her flashlight behind them and then up ahead.
Elise said, “I’ll keep an eye on the tunnel behind us.”
“Okay, good idea,” Billie said.
Genevieve asked, “Do you still believe this place is guarded by an army of Pirahã warriors?”
“Yes,” Billie replied without hesitation.
“Will they try to attack us?”
Billie thought about it for a moment. “I have no idea.”
Genevieve spoke with the candor of someone having coffee with a friend. “I think it’s safe to say they will. If the Pirahã simply let you take this ancient stone tablet they would be pretty much useless as guards, wouldn’t they?”
“Not if the Master Builders want me to take it.”
“So, the question is, do they want you to take it?”
Billie nodded. “And the answer to that is, I have no fucking idea.”
Genevieve squeezed her hand in a gesture almost resembling sympathy. “They really did a number on your mind, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. But what, specifically makes you say that?”
“I’ve never seen you doubt any decision before. Even when you left Tom to continue your search for the Master Builders, you did so with unwavering certainty that it was the right thing to do.”
Billie said, “It was. I had to leave.”
“I know. But it cost you the best man in the world.”
She leveled her gaze at Genevieve and smiled. “And you found him.”
Genevieve grinned. “Yes. How very lucky for me.”
“I would have done the entire thing over if I had it to do again.” Billie breathed in and sighed heavily. “Besides, you love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Chapter Five
Billie spotted the first movement of light flickering from the horizontal passageway.
She waited until Sam and Tom were close enough to recognize and then said, “Find anything?”
“No,” Sam conceded.
She smiled. “I told you it was empty.”
Sam glanced up, toward the Grand Gallery. “All right. Now the hard part. Do you still think the Pirahã are going to let us steal this thing?”
Billie said, “Question of the day. There’s only one way to find out.”
She took the lead, stepping slowly and quietly. It was only sixty-odd feet before they reached the guards. The Pirahã warriors stood on either side of the Grand Gallery. They were so still that at first she mistook them for sculptures.
Her eyes glanced across the tunnel, taking everything in. The Grand Gallery was filled with temple guards. She and Sam were fooling themselves if they thought their team of five could defend against nearly four hundred warriors.
She lowered her weapon.
It was pointless anyway.
Billie tilted her head, studying the situation. Sam stepped up beside her. Billie saw their presence didn’t seem to have been detected. Everyone in the gallery was facing in the opposite direction. She couldn’t determine whether they were mostly men or mostly women, but as she stared she began to differentiate.
More than half grasped spears that looked to be almost six feet in length and carried blades of obsidian that were a foot or more long. Those with spears had what looked like rawhide strings around their waists, but were otherwise naked. They had intricate paint or tattoos covering their arms, legs, and backs. Some had headdresses of rawhide, decorated with feathers, braids, shells and other items she couldn’t identify. Those without spears wore the same strings around their waists, but had longer hair and more elaborate headgear. There didn’t seem to be any children present.
A cool breeze began to waft toward their party. In the distance, the Black Smoke curled down from the King’s Chamber toward them in serpentine movements. Billie stopped, and quickly donned her military-grade gas mask. Sam and the rest of their team followed. For nearly two years the strange, sweet smelling cloud of smoke, had enslaved her within the Amazon jungle. At the time it had provided her with the strength and endurance to work on the construction of this very temple, with the fervor of religious fanaticism.
And for two years, she had felt like she had been chosen to personally help out the Gods – the ancient Master Builders who were so far advanced from the rest of the world’s civilizations, that it was impossible to perceive them as anything else.
Since then, she had learned that the Black Smoke was nothing more than a very clever ruse to dominate the Pirahã, in order to provide intense labor in total secrecy for the construction of their latest temple. It relied on the smoke of a strange fungi that shared similar hallucinogenic effects with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide – more commonly known as LSD.
Using the drug and persuasive techniques, communicated through high frequency sound waves, the Master Builders were able to maintain absolute control of hundreds and potentially thousands of people against their will, simultaneously.
It was this ability that most frightened the U.S. Secretary of Defense, who had ordered Sam Reilly to investigate the Master Builder’s ability to utilize the weapon. If such a weapon could be mastered, then no one was safe. Military strength became irrelevant. And no one could be completely trusted.
Her eyes turned to the rest of their team. It was hard to imagine how to begin to fight an enemy that consisted of nothing more than a thick, sweet smelling, fog of smoke.
They’d discussed whether the masks would protect them, and the fact was, they didn’t know. But it was better to try and fail than not have a plan at all. The only person who didn’t don a gas mask was Elise, whose genetic anomalies and hyper-developed brainstem seemed to render her immune to the Black Smoke.
As the smoke touched each temple guard i
n the tableau in front of them, they turned one hundred and eighty degrees to face them. The warrior’s eyes remained fixed straight ahead, with no recognition or deviation toward her or any of her party.
When the last Pirahã turned to face them, the whistling started.
It was high-pitched and eerie. None of the warriors reacted to the presence of Billie’s party. It was impossible to imagine they simply hadn’t been spotted. But every one of the temple guard’s eyes were fixed and glassy, every mouth pursed and whistling the eerie tune.
Billie could now see the men’s bodies were painted red, and they carried small shields. The women had small rawhide ‘aprons’ suspended from their waist strings, along with intricate tattoos on their faces.
The whistling went on until Billie thought she might go insane, and then suddenly stopped. Like an old movie effect of Moses parting the Red Sea, the tribespeople moved back to each side of the passage, and stayed there, looking straight ahead. Billie’s eyes danced back and forth, intently studying what she was seeing.
“What the hell do we do now?” Sam asked. He didn’t bother lowering his voice, since the Pirahã clearly didn’t seem to care about their presence.
“I think they’re going to let us pass,” Billie answered.
Sam spoke to Elise. “You have any idea what the Black Smoke wants?”
“No.”
“But you understand it?”
Elise smiled. “It’s not like what you think. It isn’t the sort of telepathy you’re thinking of. I have a sense about how the Black Smoke feels, that’s all.”
Sam persisted. “Okay so what does it feel like?”
“It feels content.”
“That’s it?” Billie asked.
“That’s it,” Elise confirmed.
Billie continued through the Grand Gallery. She ignored the temple guards. If they wanted to pretend to be sculptures, who was she to interrupt them? Two minutes later, she reached the King’s Chamber.
Sam was right behind her.
In the center of the King’s Chamber lay a sarcophagus. Billie felt her arms and legs moving, but it was almost like being in her recurring dream again, knowing what she should do next. She drew a long breath and then let it out on a sigh as she gazed at the sarcophagus.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 54
