The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  Sam thought about it for a moment. “Why do you think this person is targeting Botkin specifically? He or she could just as easily be out to get the entire diamond industry. Maybe their relative or family were killed over blood diamonds in Africa, who knows?”

  “No. Whoever it was has the means and know-how to target Leo Botkin specifically. More importantly, he or she is willing to overcome mountains and move oceans just to destroy the man.”

  “What do you know?” Sam asked, suddenly intensely curious about what he was missing.

  “Hurricane Hilda came straight toward Manhattan last week. It was reported to nearly hit the city, and then at the last minute, turned ninety degrees and headed north toward the Hamptons where it was responsible for the destruction of just one house – Leo Botkin’s 23,000 square-foot mansion.”

  Sam grinned, and his eyes filled with incredulity. “Next you’re going to tell me this mysterious person was using old HAARP technology to manipulate the weather.”

  The Secretary of Defense set her jaw firm, and fixed her steely green eyes at him. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sam breathed in deeply. He could taste the tension in the air. It wasn’t like the Secretary of Defense to ever reveal state secrets. He glanced at her face. A gentle crack seemed to form in her once impenetrable resolve.

  “Are we safe to speak here?” he asked.

  “Yes. This place is more secure than any office at the Pentagon.”

  “Okay.” He exhaled slowly and waited.

  She met his eye, and said, “The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, known as HAARP, was initiated as an ionospheric research program jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. It has not, and never will be used for anything related to weather control.”

  “HAARP controlling the weather was a whole bunch of conspiracy theorist propaganda, nothing more.” Sam shook his head. “So, what was controlling the weather?”

  “When the conspiracy theorists argued that HAARP was artificially producing differential heating areas of the atmosphere, which could induce local weather conditions such as floods or droughts to militarize the weather, the onus of proof landed directly on the Defense Department.” The Secretary of Defense grimaced. “By the time the U.N. received more than a thousand complaints regarding weather manipulation, the U.N. issued a resolution forcing DARPA to prove that such a thing by HAARP was scientifically unfounded.”

  “Which they did!” Sam said, “I recall hearing about the outcome of the investigation years ago. It was all over the news. Are you telling me the evidence was wrong?”

  “No. That much was true.”

  “So, what did we lie about?” Sam asked.

  She made a coy smile, entirely out of character for her. “While DARPA was putting together experiments to disprove the theory that HAARP could manipulate the weather, they discovered the potential for high powered microwaves not to create weather, but to modify the direction of existing weather systems.”

  Sam said, “You worked out how to direct a hurricane away from any given city?”

  She nodded. “Only, we didn’t implement the theory.”

  “Why not?”

  “For starters the U.N. had only just issued a moratorium on any projects that might affect any weather system anywhere on the planet, reminding the world that only minor changes here can affect the delicate balance of the global system.”

  “And secondly?”

  “We couldn’t work out how to produce a microwave powerful enough.”

  “How much energy would it take?”

  She smiled like the Devil. “About the same amount of energy required to emit a microwave with enough energy to produce a hundred-carat diamond.”

  “You think it’s the same person. They’re using his device to shift weather?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you want to find this diamond-smith?”

  She picked up the diamond and squeezed it in the palm of her hand. “No. I need to find Leo Botkin.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Who is Botkin to you?”

  “Probably the world’s most dangerous man.”

  “I thought he hasn’t made a public appearance in decades. Some think he’s dead.”

  The Secretary studied him, with a wry smile on her face. “What do you know about Botkin?”

  “Not much. Just that he went to ground twenty years ago, but stocks in his long list of companies have flourished without him.” Sam smiled. “And that he owns the train that we used to escape the Aleutian Portal.”

  “Sam. Answer me this. Did you find the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone?’

  “No ma’am.”

  The Secretary of Defense fixed her green eyes on him. “Sam Reilly, are you lying to me?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Why?”

  Sam bit his upper lip. “For the same reason you’re lying to me about what your involvement with the stone was twenty years ago – the truth is too dangerous to reveal.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sam watched as the Secretary of Defense’s hardened façade fell, revealing in its place a pained expression of regret.

  “It was a long time ago, and I made some significant mistakes I regret to this day,” she said. “I was still a junior CIA Intelligence Officer investigating large amounts of funding being siphoned through a relatively unheard-of group of archeologists working at a dig called Göbekli Tepe, in Turkey.”

  “What was the CIA’s interest in archeology?” Sam asked. “No one had even heard of the Master Builders back then.”

  “At the time, we thought the archeological dig was entirely a business ruse, allowing key players from around the world to siphon money into a small and dangerous organization in the country. You have to understand that hundreds of millions of dollars had been transferred to the accounts of a small archeology firm. There was nothing extraordinary about the dig to reveal the need for such an investment. The CIA doubted that any of that money was being spent on the archeology.”

  “It looked like a terrorist’s hotspot?” Sam asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “My role, like all CIA operatives, was to collect, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence. I would then take it to my superiors, who would assist the president and senior U.S. government policymakers in making decisions relating to the national security. My then partner and I were assigned to infiltrate the lives of key workers at the site. By the time we’d determined it wasn’t a terrorist cell, the team were already extracting extraordinary results from some of the giant T-shaped astronomy pillars.”

  “The Göbekli Tepe Death Stone had been discovered and was being deciphered?”

  “Yes. Among other things. My superiors determined it was important for my partner and me to stay and continue our assignment.”

  “What did you find?” Sam asked.

  “An archeologist named Emad Vernon, who uncovered the results of the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone, critically revealing the prospect of an asteroid that passes across Earth every thirteen thousand years, bringing with it species-ending changes to the weather.” Her lips thinned. “The sort of prediction you found by resolving the Nostradamus Equation.”

  “So, what did Congress decide to do about it?”

  “Nothing. It never reached Congress. The president decided, along with the advice of my boss, to keep the entire problem a secret to prevent total pandemonium and chaos, while at the same time gathering a group of international scientists and experts capable of determining the validity of the information depicted on the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone. The group was only able to narrow the return of the doomsday asteroid to a window of eigh
ty years, and despite enormous resources being applied to the problem, the results were unanimous – efforts should focus on developing a bunker for a small colony to survive, in order to protect the human race from extinction.”

  “Where’s the colony?”

  “We don’t know. A cohort of five thousand people were sent there to prepare. They’ve been living there ever since.”

  “You don’t know where?”

  “No. It was determined that the only way to ensure that it wasn’t overrun by an entire world of refugees was to keep its location secret to all but those chosen.”

  “You weren’t chosen?” Sam asked, without hiding his surprise.

  She sighed. “I declined the offer. At worst, I might have been forty years old by the time the asteroid reached us, and potentially I might be over a hundred years old. Either way, I wouldn’t have been an ideal candidate – and I had no intention of spending my life in a bunker, just in case.”

  “What happened to the stone?”

  “It was loaded onto the Theresa May, one of our cargo ships at the time, and was to be transferred to Harvard, where a team of experts would verify Vernon’s claims regarding an approaching cataclysmic event. As you’re already aware, the Theresa May sank en route to Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

  “Vernon was then sanctioned and killed in what appeared to be a car accident, removing any verifiable claims to the cataclysmic message hidden within the stone.”

  She nodded. “How did you know?”

  “I met his brother, a man named Dmitri Vernon, in Mount Ararat. The man was one of the remaining Four Horsemen, and a Master Builder. He told me about the stone and about the U.S. government stealing its secrets and destroying any evidence of its existence – including his brother, who appeared to have fallen asleep at the wheel and died in a car accident.”

  The Secretary nodded. “He was the first of many casualties.”

  Sam wanted to argue the morality of any of it. Who decided to play God and pick who lived and who died? But none of that would have helped and he needed more information from her, so he ignored the brutality and continued. “And I take it the Theresa May never sank?”

  “No. It sank all right – it was too risky not to – but the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone was removed first and taken to a remote location in Siberia to be studied. When everything was decoded, it was determined that the stone needed to be destroyed.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it?” Sam asked.

  “No. I worried that we needed to keep the knowledge in case one-day new information would come to light, and a solution might prevail.” She took a deep breath. “I tasked the only person I could trust with keeping it safe, a man named Ryan Balmain.”

  The name seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. “You ordered the stone recalled to the U.S. after I discovered the information regarding the Nostradamus Equation and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

  She nodded.

  “And the Gordoye Dostizheniye sunk in the Bering Strait!”

  “And I lost one of the best men I’d ever known.” Her eyes welled with tears, and Sam guessed that Ryan Balmain had been more to her than a colleague, but her face remained set firm with determination. “You found my shipping container, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you keep it a secret from me?”

  “Ryan Balmain left a note. It said that THEY were watching you, and that if we cared about your life or those of the human race we were to remove the stone and take it to an astronomer – not associated with any government – to determine the truth.”

  “I dismissed the spy from my office.”

  “There may be more?”

  “I’ll deal with them, too.” She turned to face him. “Have you made much progress with the stone?”

  “Yes. It’s still being analyzed, but it looks like we’re rapidly approaching our time of reckoning. Billie has some ideas, and we’re meeting up with the astronomer this afternoon to determine the next step.”

  “Good. Now what about the second stone?”

  Sam caught his breath, and his eyes narrowed. “I only know about the Göbekli Tepe Pillar Number 44 – named the Death Stone.”

  “There were two – Pillars numbers 44 and 45. The Master Builders did two things when their astronomers first spotted the asteroid in the sky. The purpose of the first stone was to depict the asteroid’s progress so we could work out when it was going to strike and how to manage the impact…”

  “And the second stone?” Sam asked.

  “Was one of last resort. It was a blueprint of an ancient bunker. A place where some of the human race may ride out the destruction and the subsequent ice age.”

  Sam shook his head at the enormity of the concept. They’d known for some twenty years, but had kept it a secret from the entire population of planet Earth. “Whose idea was it to keep all this a secret?”

  “A long-term friend of the president and an advisor, whose council Congress had always respected. The man had a Harvard degree in geology, and specialized in deep mining. An expert in protecting subterranean structures from the constant movement of tectonic plates. A man who could put together a team who would ensure the permanent survival of the last five thousand human beings for as long as it took for the planet to become habitable again. A man who was old enough to know that he would never take up a place inside the ancient bunker. He was tough and capable, and he quickly proved that he could make the hard decisions that would enable the chosen few to stay alive.”

  “How?”

  “By systematically cutting off every single person who knew anything about the future and might damage the safety of the colony. His ruthless tenacity has already cost the lives of three Senators, more than a dozen good men and women, including Ryan Balmain.” She sighed. “At the time I thought he was doing it all for the vital, yet brutal, protection of the human race – but then you told me about the ancient covenant of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which the Master Builders had put in place. I contacted him and gave him the information – that’s when more people started to die.”

  “He was systematically removing anyone who knew about the possible solution being stored on the Göbekli Tepe Pillar Number 44!”

  “Exactly. That’s when I realized, for him, it wasn’t just about saving the human race – he wanted to start a new existence, a eugenics experiment filled with a colony based on superior DNA.”

  “But if he knew the truth about Pillar Number 44 from the beginning…”

  “It means he wanted this from the start. He always knew there was a solution, but instead he kept quiet, so he could achieve his dream of producing an all new colony – a perfect race.”

  Sam swore. “Who?”

  “His name was Leo Botkin.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sam left the diamond merchant’s tawdry office and hailed a taxi cab. He’d finished bringing the Secretary of Defense up to date with what they’d discovered about the stone tablet, and what their plan was to locate the four hidden temples that related to the Covenant of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  He sat quietly, vacantly watching the stream of cars drive by, as his mind crunched the enormity of their betrayal, as well as the task that was set before him. The taxi pulled into LaGuardia Airport and he got out, leaving a decent tip. It might just be the end of days, might as well make the hardworking driver happy.

  His cell phone rang. The caller ID said Elise. “What have you got for me?” he said without a preamble.

  She was used to it, and immediately said, “I’ve got some answers about the guy who attacked you, but not all, unfortunately.”

  “Who is he?”

  “That’s the part I don’t know yet.”

  “What do you know?”

  Elise answered. “The seaplane was rented by a proxy corporation. I’ve hacked the company’s background, and it has led to three other proxies, which eventually lead to a defunct company, which was bo
ught with fifty million in cash.”

  “So, your trail ran dry?”

  “No. So, I dug some more, and found a withdrawal for fifty million registered from an account with the Bank of America in Manhattan. You want to know what company withdrew the money?”

  “Go on.”

  “Prometheus Diamonds! It’s a large diamond cartel that’s expanded into rare commodities all around the world.”

  “Let me guess, the CEO is one Leo Botkin?”

  “Hey, how did you know?” Elise asked.

  “It’s a long story. What about the employee who rented the seaplane?”

  “I tracked the employee down, but it’s unlikely he was using his real name.”

  “What was it?”

  “Fred Flintstone.”

  “Yeah, all right, we can scratch that name off the list.” Sam stepped into the airport and looked up at the flight numbers. He still had another five minutes until he’d need to go through security. “What about the photo of my attacker? You got the security footage from the bar, didn’t you? Was there a usable image of him?”

  “Oh, yes, a crystal-clear image of his face.”

  Sam grinned. It was finally something tangible. “That’s great! So?”

  “So, my facial recognition software can’t find him on any database anywhere. He doesn’t exist.”

  Sam deflated as quickly as he’d been encouraged. “What the hell? He must have a passport. A driver’s license? Something, surely.”

  “Afraid not. It genuinely looks like he’s a ghost.”

  “Yeah, well if that’s so, he’s the first ghost to nearly get me killed.”

  “There’s something else about the Prometheus Diamond Corporation you’re gonna want to hear about…” Elise’s voice sounded excited.

  “What?”

  “Two days ago, the company started to sell off all its assets – at prices no sane person would even consider. Not unless they already knew that the company would be worthless in a few months…”

  “Oh shit, they’re getting ready for something big. Are there any other major companies following suit?”