The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  Inside, the pilot glanced over his shoulder and smiled at him with all the confidence of a man who knew he’d already won.

  Sam returned the smile. He didn’t lose very often, and when he did, his opponent’s victories never came easy. He had nothing more than the shirt on his back, but there were still a few cards left to play. On the other hand, so did the bad guy. The pilot’s eyes returned to face forward and a moment later, he banked hard to the right.

  This time, Sam was prepared for it.

  His hands gripped the rungs of the ladder, and his legs kept their footing at the base of the ladder. The plane leveled out again, and the pilot started to seriously put the little seaplane through its paces – banking sharply, diving, and then climbing to shake Sam off. As the plane dipped again, Sam considered his best option may still be to jump next time the aircraft dipped low enough that he might survive the fall.

  He glanced back at the Lighthouse Reef to see how far they’d traveled. It was already more than a couple miles away. An impossible distance to swim in the open ocean, where the currents would constantly pull him off course.

  The seaplane banked hard enough that it nearly rolled. The airframe gave a distinct creak with the greatly increased wing loadings and g-forces. Sam gritted his teeth and locked his hands together through the ladder’s rung. It was obvious the pilot was willing to risk crashing the aircraft to win. Sam shook his head. His forearms burned.

  Could his grip outlast the strength of the airframe?

  The pilot could keep playing all day until the seaplane ran out of fuel, or its structure finally gave out. Either way, Sam couldn’t hold on that long. He needed to do something, and whatever action he was going to take, he needed to take it soon while he still had some strength in his reserves.

  He glanced across the horizon, trying to get an idea where the pilot was heading. The afternoon sun was somewhere to the right of the aircraft’s nose, which meant they were heading west, toward the Belize mainland. Up ahead, Sam could make out the sandy outline of a beach and surrounding shallow green waters of Turneffe Atoll.

  His eyes darted backward toward the Great Blue Hole, confirming his predictions about their location. The sky looked clear and the water inviting. Sam squinted. There was something else on the horizon. Between him and the rapidly dwindling sight of the reef was the most welcome sight he’d had in at least a week.

  Was it a small helicopter?

  Sam remembered the tiny Robinson 22 on the back of Ridley’s pleasure cruiser. He didn’t know how, but he was willing to bet his life that Tom had either appropriated the helicopter or convinced its owner to follow them.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have to swim after all.

  Now all he had to do was force the seaplane down, so the fall wouldn’t kill him. Sam’s daredevil nature had put him in many crazy predicaments, but the sight of his old friend once again coming to the rescue somehow made him braver than he probably should have been. They were approaching the mainland rapidly now, and Sam could see Belize City on its little pimple of land sticking out from the mainland.

  Sam mentally checked his resources. There wasn’t much. He’d simply thrown on a casual shirt over his board shorts after peeling out of the wetsuit. He climbed the top step of the ladder and gripped the large strut fixed to the wing. It gave him a clear view of the pilot. The man looked at him, and then dipped the wing to the left, trying to throw him off.

  The pilot was close to succeeding at it, too. With his elbow wrapped around the strut, Sam ruefully considered his $4000 titanium dive watch. It wasn’t the price tag that upset him. The watch was a gift from his dad, and he hated the thought of losing it. Deciding his life was worth more than the watch or the sentiment, he unclipped the lock clasp and waited.

  When the pilot banked again, Sam was ready for it.

  The aileron – that small hinged flap at the trailing edge of the left wing – jolted upward. The immediate reduction to the overall camber of the wing reduced lift and caused the left wing to dip. The seaplane rolled to the left.

  Sam gripped the strut fixed to the wing, and then using his left hand, he shoved the titanium wristwatch into the small gap between the aileron and the leading edge of the wing, so the aileron was now permanently locked in an upward position.

  Under normal circumstances, ailerons worked to turn the plane by creating more lift on one wing while decreasing the lift generated by the other. The upward aileron reduced the overall camber of the wing exposed to the relative airflow, which reduced its ability to create lift. As the wing dips, the aircraft rolls and then turns to that side.

  Sam watched as the pilot tried to bring the steering column back to straight and level. It didn’t budge. Instead, the seaplane continued to dip farther to the left. The loss in the overall lift of the wing caused the nose to drop, and the entire aircraft to stall – entering what is known as a death spiral, losing altitude as it spun in a tight circle.

  The contents of Sam’s gut raced upward as the seaplane plummeted to the ground. He held on and cursed himself for having so much success with his plan, as he raced toward the sea with deadly speed. He wanted to force the aircraft to crash, but hadn’t planned to kill himself in the process.

  He glanced toward the pilot, who was madly working the other controls to compensate. The engine whined, as the pilot tried to extract every pound of lift, and the tail rudder was hard all the way over to the right, in an attempt to counteract the roll.

  The pilot’s damned good, Sam noted – but not good enough. They were going to crash, and they were going to crash hard.

  He had no intention of dying today. It wasn’t just his life at stake. The code to extinction needed to be broken and right now he was the most likely person on the planet to do so. If he died, billions of others might soon follow.

  Sam swallowed and pulled the watch free from the hinge.

  Instantly, both ailerons started to move wildly. They settled into a neutral position and the calm sea below raced to greet them. Sam’s eyes turned from the sea to the pilot. The man had dipped the nose to gain airspeed. It was probably the only option, but risky too. If he didn’t have enough time, all the pilot would have achieved by doing so, was to ensure that he struck the water faster and harder.

  With his heart in his mouth, he yelled, “For God’s sake, pull up, man!”

  The pilot glanced at him. His blue-gray eyes were malevolent, and he grinned like a man possessed – a man who’d risked everything and lost. For such a person, all options were available.

  Sam felt his gut churn with fear, as comprehension greeted him like an unwanted stranger – he’s going to kill himself just to be certain I don’t survive.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sam knew he was out of options.

  If he or the seaplane struck the water at this speed he would be dead. There was no point trying to jump. His downward momentum was already deadly.

  There’s an odd feeling of peace that comes across a person who realizes that death is imminent and that there is nothing they can do to change it. If there had been more time, he might have reflected that his life had been extraordinary. That he’d lived more days in his short life than most could have in ten lifetimes. But instead, his final thoughts turned to the future of mankind.

  Best hope to hell you can break the code to extinction, Billie!

  In the cockpit, the pilot firmly pulled the control wheel toward his chest. At first, the de Havilland’s nose refused to move. But a split second later, it was coaxed to rise.

  The dark blue of the deeper water appeared to race faster to meet them, as though it was eager to reach them, before the seaplane could be manipulated into leveling out.

  The sea lost and the little de Havilland won.

  It leveled out precisely as it reached the water. The slender pontoons skimmed across the top of the water, as the pilot pushed the throttle all the way in, and the floatplane started to climb again.

  Sam grinned as he struggled to maintain
his grip on the wing’s strut. He gazed at the pilot, who’d now recovered full control over the aircraft.

  The pilot glanced backward and met his eye, grinning wildly and laughing at the same time. “Sam Reilly – you sure are one crazy son of a bitch!”

  Sam stared at him, trying to read some sort of purpose in his attacker’s face. “I did ask earlier to get off the ride…”

  The pilot laughed. When the laughing eventually stopped, he smiled. It was a surprisingly engaging smile. “I’m glad I got the chance to meet you. This has been one hell of a fun day, hasn’t it?”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Sam returned the smile. “Now what happens?”

  “I’m afraid you’re really going to have to die. It’s nothing personal. Bigger things at stake than you or me. But you already knew that, didn’t you?” The pilot grinned like the devil. “If it’s any consolation, you weren’t going to live much longer anyway. No one is. Now at least your death will serve a purpose. The colony thanks you.”

  Sam wanted to ask, what colony?

  But he didn’t get the chance.

  The pilot shoved the control wheel hard to the right and the aircraft started to roll. Sam had braced, expecting to be thrown downward, but instead, his attacker had rolled to the right – sending Sam’s side of the wing upward.

  This time, the pilot didn’t attempt to level out again.

  Instead, the de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter, continued to roll. Against its structural recommendations, and as a tribute to her strong airframe, she continued to roll a hundred and eighty degrees.

  The pilot brought her to straight and level in an upside-down position.

  Sam’s heart raced as the bulk of his body came to rest on top of the wing. Staring downward at the fuselage, he spotted a small cylindrical opening.

  It was the air intake manifold.

  Sam pulled off his shirt and stuffed it into the opening. The engine quickly drew it further inside, until it became wedged hard and all airflow ceased.

  The engine coughed.

  Sam clenched the side of the wing strut with all his might. The pilot, as expected, assumed that the roll had caused the engine to flood the carburetor, and consequently completed the maneuver until they were once again flying straight and level in an upright position.

  The propeller continued to spin, but already it was losing strength.

  With the carburetor starved of air, the engine sputtered and choked.

  And then cut out completely.

  Inside the cockpit, the pilot dipped the nose to maintain airspeed. Unaware of the cause of the engine’s problem and suspecting it to be flooded, he went about setting the fuel mixture to idle cut off and the throttle to wide open while cranking the engine. The idea was to attempt to allow excess fuel to exit the engine through the exhaust. Then, once enough fuel cleared the cylinders and a proper ratio of fuel to air was achieved, the engine would begin firing.

  It probably would have worked, too – if the engine had been flooded.

  If the air intake manifold hadn’t been blocked by me…

  Sam stared at his attacker and smiled.

  The pilot was working hard to resolve the problem. They were losing altitude. The aircraft had a decent glide ratio and already the pilot set a new course directly toward the closest piece of land – the city of Belize.

  Sam grinned and then shouted, “You broke your toy airplane… I guess we’re both going to meet our maker together.”

  “Speak for yourself,” the pilot replied. “See that land up ahead?”

  Sam glanced at the sandy peninsula jutting out into a sea of shallow green and turquoise water. “Yeah, it’s the city of Belize.”

  “I think I can reach it.”

  “You think?” Sam teased.

  “Yeah, I fucking think. Then I’m going to get out and kill you.”

  Sam started to laugh uncontrollably.

  The pilot snapped his head around. “What the fuck are you laughing about?”

  Sam stopped laughing. His jaw was set firm and his piercing blue eyes were fixed on his attacker. “I don’t die that easy. Oh, and by the way, if you glance over your shoulder you’ll notice my friends are right behind us.”

  The pilot glanced over his shoulder and swore. A moment later, he lowered the nose and set up for a landing. At the edge of the city a rocky cliff, thirty feet high, jutted out into the sea. On the other side of the cliff a single road led to the popular southern end of the city, filled with tourists and locals wanting to have a good time.

  Sam studied their glidepath. It was going to be close. Too close for him to be certain they would clear the cliff at all. He glanced at the water. It was still fifty feet below, but as they got closer he might just make it if he jumped.

  He dismissed the idea. The priority was catching his attacker. He needed answers, and right now, the man piloting the aircraft was just about the only person who could provide them.

  Sam held on, and the seaplane gradually approached the land.

  The aircraft crossed the rocky cliff, clearing it by a full three feet. Sam waited. A split second later, its twin pontoons struck land.

  Sam jumped.

  He hit the grass and rolled.

  When he finally stopped, Sam stood up.

  Disoriented, he scanned the area for signs of his attacker. A long line of white scratch marks from the pontoons ran along the blacktop, leading to where the wreckage of the de Havilland Otter rested on the edge of the road some eighty feet farther away.

  From the edge of the crooked fuselage, the pilot was already scrambling out. Sam met his attacker’s eye. The man cursed and then started to run.

  Ahead of him, Tom was already bringing the little helicopter around at a punishing pace, settling into a hover, ready to land.

  Another two hundred feet away, he spotted his attacker entering a bar as if nothing had happened, and his seaplane wasn’t parked in the middle of a resort city street. Sam shook his head to clear it and scrambled to follow the pilot, not waiting for Tom.

  Inside, the bar was rollicking. Despite the hour, party-goers were drinking and dancing as if they were celebrating the ending of the world. Sam pushed his way through the crowd, looking for his target. He was halfway through when he spotted the man opening the back door. Some woman grabbed him and pulled his head down to hers for a drunken kiss. He smiled and set her gently aside. Someone else thrust a beer in his face.

  He kept going, racing to reach the door.

  Sam opened it, and spotted his attacker getting into a cab, which peeled away with a screech of tires. Sam looked around wildly for another cab, but there were none to be seen. The adrenaline surge was over.

  Dejected, he slid down the doorframe to land on his butt.

  He felt something digging into his left hand. What could this be? He opened his hand. He glanced at the contents and smiled. He was still holding his wristwatch. Well, what do you know? It still works.

  Seconds later, Tom opened the door.

  “Where did he go?”

  “He got away.” Sam swallowed hard. “Which means we’re back to square one.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Batagaika Crater, Russia – Gateway to the Underworld

  The old man had once worked deep in the Mir open-cut diamond mine in Yakutsk. In 2004, its seemingly endless supply of gem-quality diamonds ran dry, and the production was forced to close. In 2009, the mine was reopened, but this time with deep underground shafts.

  He told the very few people who asked, that a cave-in at one such mine shaft had caused his left leg to become grotesquely crushed. A local medicine man was able to set his leg so that he could one day walk on it again, but the foot was left a permanently disfigured mess of mangled bone and skin tissue. With a gregarious smile and a once handsome face, he would then hint at the more somber reflections of his past. Telling them that suffering is a good way to pay penance for the mistakes of his youth, and then he would refuse their kindness and contin
ue on his way.

  Because he alone knew the truth.

  It was all lies.

  His leg had indeed been crushed in a mine collapse. But it wasn’t at the underground Mir mine in Yakutsk. The accident had taken place at the end of a very different mine altogether. And there was nothing accidental about the cave-in.

  It was the last week of their extensive mining project, which had taken years to complete. They were all meant to go home to see their families. But they couldn’t, could they? Not anymore. They knew too much. It would be impossible to stop them from revealing secrets the world wasn’t ready to hear.

  When he heard the distinctive sound of dynamite charges being triggered and the shifting of earth beneath his feet, he didn’t try to flee like the rest of the men. Instead, he ran deeper into the tunnel. The entire shaft led nowhere, and it soon became apparent the entire place was set to collapse.

  But deeper still, a ventilation shaft had been bored.

  It led eighty feet to the surface. He was close. If he had left a couple seconds earlier, he would have reached it without harm. As it was, he’d left it too late. The cave-in continued, like a chain-reaction, until it was over the top of him.

  A single boulder caught his leg as he was climbing into the entrance of the ventilation shaft. It took him nearly an hour to break the stone apart using a chisel and hammer normally used to set dynamite. When he was free, his foot and lower leg were badly damaged.

  He looked up, where the slim light of the night’s sky shined down from the opening of the ventilation shaft. It would have been a struggle to climb had he been uninjured. In his current state, he knew it was closer to impossible.

  But then he had thought about the secret, and he knew he had to escape. He had to live long enough to tell someone, so that his family could be spared. He alone survived through tenacity and sheer will. He had a purpose. He needed to tell a secret.

  It took him three weeks to reach his old home, and when he got there, he discovered that everyone he’d ever loved had been taken from him.