As the crowd shifted, she moved to the next step and waited again. At this rate, it would take hours to reach the summit. Careful to avoid knocking over the tourist behind her, she removed her backpack and dug in it for a bottle of water. Although the day was overcast, the temperature was already approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and with high humidity it would have been suffocatingly hot but for the wind.
A monk wearing the traditional orange Kashaya robe, about fifteen feet back from her, met her eye and smiled. It was a perfectly harmless and natural thing to do. A basic form of kind communication. But something about it stirred her most primitive self-defense mechanisms. What was it? He seemed to recognize her. The thought was absurd. Few people outside of Sam’s crew knew her. Even if the monk was connected to the people who’d attacked Sam at the Great Blue Grotto or Tom and Genevieve at Orvieto, it was impossible to think they would recognize her – let alone guess that she would be traveling to Sigiriya.
She smiled back, politely and continued up the steps. Elise was slim and athletic. She was lithe and moved with speed when there was a gap in the tourists ahead. Slowly, she outpaced the monk. The stranger seemed indifferent and made no attempt to catch up with her.
Perhaps she just was being paranoid?
Elise could hardly believe her watch when she reached the top. Granted, she’d bypassed areas where others stopped to take in the magnificent view or detoured to see the frescoes. But she’d made it to the top in only forty-five minutes, according to her watch. It had felt like two hours. Elise made her way to one end of the ruins and moved from side to side, looking for any way to enter the dig where she might access the passages she knew must be inside.
The top of Sigiriya were the remains of a unique masterpiece of architecture. A city based on a precise square module. The tiered layers reminded her of Machu Picchu, as she purposely climbed the series of graded levels toward the palace complex at the summit. From there, she could see that the layout extended outward from the coordinates at the center and the palace complex at the summit, with the eastern and western axis directly aligned to it. A combination of symmetry and asymmetry worked to interlock the man-made geometrical and natural formations.
To the west of Sigiriya rock was a park for the royals, laid out on a symmetrical plan. The park contained water-retaining structures, including sophisticated surface and subsurface hydraulic systems, some of which still worked today. To the south was a large rectangular reservoir. She turned toward the east, looking for any other spot where an opening to an underground area or tomb could have been hidden. There were none.
Instead, she spotted the same monk again. Out of a crowd of more than two hundred tourists, she immediately spied him. Her defensive nerves stirred again. The monk was staring right at her. His dark brown eyes, fixed in a mysterious and indeterminable gaze. He smiled at her again. This time she turned her head without smiling back.
She moved quickly, searching the rest of Sigiriya’s architectural remains. At the end of two hours, she’d exhausted every potential hiding place, with the exception of the large water reservoir to the south. There was always the possibility a hidden tunnel formed beneath the bottom of the murky water, but that would have to be Sam’s problem when he got there, not hers. Without dive equipment any attempt to reach the bottom would be futile.
Elise moved to the stairs. There were two sets running parallel. One for those going up and another for those going down. There was less traffic going down. About half the way down three older tourists slowed her pace to a very slow crawl. It didn’t bother her. There was no rush, she’d exhausted all locations she could think of to find the receptacle for the sacred stone and there was nothing she could do but wait until Sam and the rest of the team arrived.
She took the time to enjoy the view of the Sri Lankan landscape. She turned around, studying the upper reaches of the rock and then stopped. Her hart leapt into a gallop. Moving down the stairs above, was the monk she saw spying on her earlier. He wasn’t going fast and if it wasn’t for the older tourists who were slowing her down, she would have easily reached the bottom before him. She glanced at him and he smiled. She had never known that a smile could evoke such terror.
Elise jumped the railing between the up and the downward stairs and quickly passed the three tourists who were slowing her down. She moved quickly down a dozen or so steps, before stealing another glance at the monk, just to satiate her fears that he was going to catch up to her.
She swore. The monk was now moving quickly, darting across the railing where required to pass any tourists between them. It was the first proof that she wasn’t crazy or paranoid, he really was stalking her.
Elise raced down to the base of the Lion’s Stairs. At the bottom, she looked up to see how much of a lead she’d made. The steep stairs were still crammed full of tourists. Elise frantically scoured the rows of people meandering along the face of the giant stone, trying to find the monk.
She swore.
Because she’d lost sight of the monk.
Chapter Fifty-Six
It’s one thing to see your enemy, but another, much worse beast, when you can’t see him anymore. Elise looked toward the base of the stairs, half expecting to see him there, but instead she simply saw the throng of tourists.
She turned and started to run. She passed the Mirror Wall and kept running, as she descended each of the terraces that made up the terraced garden. On the last tier, just before she descended through the boulder garden, her eyes swept up toward the highest terrace – there, she spotted a monk, but he appeared much younger and more athletic than the one who was following her.
Even so, the sight spurred her into greater action. She turned and ran. This time increasing her pace to a sprint. There were few tourists to hinder her progress within the boulder garden. She breathed deeply and her lungs burned. Determined to reach her waiting driver before the monk caught her, she just hoped her driver was still waiting.
Taking three steps at a time, she ran through the first set of natural caves formed by giant boulders that leaned in on each other and then across a gentle slope, into a small tunnel. Where something caught her left leg.
She stumbled forward, without seeing what she’d tripped on and braced for the hard impact with the stone ground below – but it didn’t come. Instead, she fell into another tourist, who helped brace her, and stopped her falling.
Elise caught her breath and stood up again. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
“That’s quite all right,” he said, his low voice accented but his English perfect. “Next time, you must walk slowly and be careful.”
“I’m sorry…” She was about to protest that someone was after her, when she felt the hard steel – of what she could only assume was the barrel of a handgun – digging into her spine just below her backpack.
“Walk this way, will you please?” he told her in a whisper.
Elise’s eyes darted across the tunnel, taking in the innocent group of people from a new tourist bus approaching. Her ears picked out the polyglot sounds of the crowd, and homed in on the higher voices of children. She might have been able to take escape if she was on her own. But here, it was too dangerous. He might shoot, and with others so close, someone else might be injured by the bullet that would rip through her. A struggle could start a chain reaction. Besides, she needed to survive if the fourth sacred stone was to be placed. Better to wait for another chance. She made her decision in a split second.
“All right. Take it easy,” she answered, her head turned down and her voice as soft as his had been. She began moving forward, careful to keep her pace steady, watching her feet. If she stumbled, he could take it as a deliberate move to escape. It might be her head that the bullet ripped through, rather than her spine. She felt his hard body crowding close, no doubt to conceal the weapon at her back. He was probably of average height, fit.
She kept walking.
Once outside the cave, he said to her, “Turn left here.”
/> She glanced to her left. There was no path in that direction. Only the gradually undulating slope with a thick forest of ancient Sri Lankan jungle.
She felt the pressure of the gun barrel increase, as her attacker tried to dissuade her from attempting to flee.
“Okay, okay… I’m going.”
“Good. Don’t be stupid. I can make this a lot more painful if you force me to.”
She kept walking. At the same time, she was searching for an escape, somewhere. The gradient increased and she wondered if she twisted, could she bring him rolling down with her? Not if she didn’t want to get shot first. She would need to keep going and hope something would come up. She could hear the thump of her pounding heart in the back of her head and she knew her options were getting slim.
She would need to take a chance. The first one she got.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“The same thing you want.”
“Really?” she smiled at that. “You want to save the human race from extinction, too?”
“Yes. Only, unlike you, I’m interested in saving those worthy of life.” He laughed. “All right. This is far enough. You can turn around now.”
She turned to face him. He had a strong face, big boned and fierce, with deep-set and somber blue-gray eyes. In the cover of tempestuous clouds that were slowly shrouding Sigiriya in darkness, his eyes appeared silver.
It was the same ghost who’d tried to kill Sam in the Great Blue Grotto.
“So, what do you want from me?” she asked.
“The sacred stone, of course.”
She paused. A sardonic grin formed on her lips. “Then you’re going to be disappointed. You’re a little early. Sam Reilly has it. My job was to scout out the fourth receptacle for the stone. He’ll be here by tonight if you’d like to wait around.”
“I’m afraid I don’t take disappointment very well. Never have. Even as a kid I had a nasty habit of erupting into violence when the other kids took a toy off me.” He matched her grin. “How about this instead. I shoot you now. Then I have a look in that backpack to see if you’re lying. Or, you could just hand it over.”
Elise slowly unshouldered the strap of her backpack. “It was worth a try.”
“No, it wasn’t. Now hand it over.” Her attacker pointed his handgun straight at her. He was close enough that it was impossible for him to miss.
Elise stepped closer. Her last chance was to use the metallic casing that stored the vacuum sealed sacred stone to somehow knock the gun out of his hand. It was a massive longshot, but it was all she had and she knew that the instant he received the backpack he would kill her.
She spotted something behind her attacker, up on the hill above them. It was the monk who’d been following her from before. He was moving at a sprint, silently. He placed a finger to his lips to say, shush.
Elise stopped. She needed to buy time. “There’s just one last thing before you kill me.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” he asked, with little curiosity.
“I thought you might like to know the electronic code for the sacred stone’s casing. It might take you some time to solve it, otherwise.”
“Okay. What’s the code?”
“Why would I tell you?” Elise asked. “You’re going to kill me anyway?”
He aimed the gun at her head. “Because I can kill you quickly. Or I could kill you slowly and trust me, no one willingly chooses the slow option.”
“All right.” Elise said, handing him the backpack. “The code is… go to hell!”
His lips curled upward into a cruel grin. “So you want to die slow?”
He lowered the gun toward her knee.
She held her breath.
The gun fired.
And the monk swung the small tree branch like a club.
The club connected the back of her attacker’s head with the crippling sound of a crunch. She had flinched and the shot went wide, scraping the side of her knee. She dropped to the ground.
Her attacker fell, rolling more than fifty feet to the bottom of the steep hill. Elise stood up, ready to run after him, but the monk gripped her shoulder to stop her.
She swung her arm forcefully, freeing herself.
The attacker stood up. He looked dazed and Elise thought she might still have a chance of reaching him. But then he took a couple steps back up the hill, retrieved his handgun and started shooting at her.
The monk threw himself onto her for protection.
Several shots went over their heads. When they stopped, Elise shuffled forward and spotted her attacker running away, wearing her backpack – taking with him the fourth sacred stone and the last hope for humanity.
She tried to chase after him, but the monk stopped her. “It is not worth it. He has the gun. All you will do is get yourself killed, and I can’t allow that.”
She shrugged, realizing he was right. “You have no idea how important the contents of that backpack were.”
The monk smiled. It was an ascetic face, old and withered, but full of kindness. “You think all is lost without the sacred stone?”
“All is lost without… hey, what do you know about the sacred stone?”
“I know that it is meaningless if you die.”
“What do you know about me?” she asked.
“We know lots about you. We’ve been expecting you for nearly a thousand years.” He smiled. “And we are so glad you’ve finally arrived, Elise.”
The monk started to walk toward the north. He moved with the speed and determined purpose of a much younger man. She had to work to keep up with him.
“Hey, where are you going?”
The monk didn’t slow down or give her an answer. If anything, he seemed to increase his pace.
“Hey, where are we going?” she persisted.
The monk stopped to face her. “To the Pidurangala Rock, of course – to complete the prophecy.”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Lorde Howe Island
The Gulfstream G650 used every single one of its combined 33,800 pounds of thrust, produced by its two Rolls-Royce BR725 A1-12 engines in order to get off the island’s meager 2,907 feet of runway. Once free of the blacktop, it climbed steadily, before banking to the northeast for a direct route to Sri Lanka. Sam took one last glance at the green and azure waters of its tranquil lagoon and then picked up his satellite phone.
He pressed the call button.
It rang twice, before Elise picked up. “Sam?”
He breathed a long sigh of relief. “Elise! You’re all right. I’ve been trying to reach you for two hours!”
“Yeah, I’ve had some problems.”
“What happened?”
“I was attacked by the same man who tried to kill you at the Great Blue Hole in Belize.”
Sam expelled his breath silently. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah, but I lost the fourth sacred stone. The man who took it said something about using it to save the human race – only he specified only the worthy few would be saved. Any idea what he meant or where he’s taking the stone?”
“Yes. The Secretary of Defense said there was a second stolen Göbekli Tepe stone. It was a map to a natural subterranean cavern, or ancient bunker, where a small colony of survivors may keep the human race alive. Apparently, a man named Leo Botkin, who was chosen to lead the colony, decided to turn it into a eugenics experiment, by filling the colony with people who have superior DNA.”
“So what do they care if we have one of the sacred stones?” Elise asked.
“The Secretary of Defense said that the material used in the construction of the stones appears to be identical to the asteroid that’s approaching. Her advisers believe that part of the asteroid broke off thirteen thousand years ago, landing as a meteorite somewhere on earth.”
“Go on?” Elise didn’t try to hide her confusion.
“There weren’t enough fragments of blackbody to construct the four sacred stones and protect the colony. The ide
a was if the four stones couldn’t be used to avoid the disaster completely, then one of them would be used to add an additional barrier of protection to the colony.”
“So we find the colony, we find the fourth stone?”
“Yeah.”
“Does anyone have any ideas?” she asked.
“No. But the Secretary of Defense must have some ideas.” He sighed, heavily. “Did you find the receptacle in Sigiriya?”
“Not yet. But a monk is leading me to where he believes the stone belongs.”
“Really? How would he know?”
“How, indeed?” Elise’s tone softened with curiosity. “He says that the local Buddhist monks have been expecting me for the past thousand years.”
Sam thought about what she said. They both knew she descended from one of the Master Builders, but other than that, her genetic past was a mystery. “Okay. You go see if you can locate the receptacle. I’m going to contact the Secretary of Defense and do my best to retrieve the remaining stone.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Sam contacted the Secretary of Defense and explained where they were at.
When he was finished, she asked, “What’s your next plan?”
“I need to get the stone back. Everything depends on it, which means you’re going to have to help me find the colony.”
“It will be difficult. The entire system was designed so those who remained couldn’t ever find it.”
“But?”
“I have my ways. I’ve been trying to narrow its location down and I’m getting close.”
“How?”
“In the past twenty-four hours a number of members of Congress and Defense Staff have taken a sudden leave of absence. Most had innocuous enough excuses. They had a cold, their children were sick. It wouldn’t have even been brought to my attention, except that so many had done so on the same day.”
“They were escaping to the colony?” Sam asked, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“We brought them in of course. They were all catching flights, along with their families, to Moscow. Nearly a hundred people in total. All experts in their fields. Perfect citizens for the new world.”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 73
