The Mahogany Ship (Sam Reilly Book 2)

by Christopher Cartwright

  “Thanks, Matthew,” she said. “So, why aren’t you there?”

  “What do you mean? I’m looking after his real work.”

  “I thought you two were like best buds or something.”

  “So what?”

  “So, Sam Reilly’s been after the Mahogany Ship since he was a boy, searching for it with his dad! No wonder he left this project in an instant. He’s been obsessed with it ever since I met him. What I don’t understand is why he wanted to go after it alone?”

  “Yeah, well that makes two of us.” His recent feeling of betrayal echoing in his voice, Tom said, “It sounds like the Mahogany Ship’s already been discovered and he just had to go there to make certain it was over, and didn’t want to lose what we’ve discovered here.”

  “All right, so what have we discovered here?”

  Tom looked around, determining which of the newcomers were within earshot of their conversation. He trusted the crew of the Maria Helena, but who could say where the loyalties of the specialists who just arrived might lay?

  He walked to the back of the boat, where their conversation was less likely to be heard by anyone else aboard. “How much did Sam tell you about it?”

  “Not much.”

  “Really?” He didn’t believe her. “You left your project of two years, and flew half way across the planet, to join a man I’m not even convinced you like, at a new project, which you know nothing about?”

  “Like I said, a couple of his goons literally dragged me off my research station in the Antarctic. All Sam told me on the phone was that he found what appears to be a very old Mayan Tomb in the shape of a pyramid, at the bottom of the ocean. Don’t get me wrong, that sounds pretty interesting, but nothing that couldn’t wait until next winter, after the hurricane season. He certainly didn’t suggest that he’d discovered Atlantis or something like that!”

  “Did he tell you how big it was?”

  “No.”

  “Well its big… you just need to look at it for yourself. Anything I say about it won’t do it justice. It appears a local mine damaged part of it while blasting deep below the pyramid, releasing a thousand-year-old cyanide store, which set into motion the destruction of most the sea life within the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “How did you get around that?”

  “We’ve filled the section with concrete. A team of mining engineers are now installing a more substantial plug on the other side of their mine’s tunnel. We’re now excavating our side of the pyramid again. There’s more to go, but there will be enough for you and me to enter the pyramid.”

  “Anything else that might shed some sort of explanation for why Sam was so insistent on bringing me in on this case? Anything that can help before we dive tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, do the words Master Builders mean anything to you?”

  Billie’s face didn’t change at all, as she replied, “No, never heard the words before. Certainly not in the Mayan culture.” It was so casual, that Tom’s experience working as a SEAL kicked in – did she already have an answer to that question prepared?

  “Not at another site or project you and Sam worked on previously, perhaps?”

  “Not any that I can recall, but I know that Sam’s worked with a number of archeologists over the years for a variety of projects. I’m sorry, Tom. It was nice to meet you. I’ll see you first thing in the morning, say 5 a.m.? I have to check on something.”

  “Yeah, 5 a.m. I’ll see you at the moon pool. Welcome aboard, Billie. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”

  She nodded her head and left quickly.

  *

  At 0500 sharp, the diving bell began its slow journey to the bottom of the ocean. Neither spoke as it descended, and Tom noticed that the slightest appearance of concern had not left her face since he’d first mentioned the words Master Builders.

  “You said that you studied with Sam?” Tom asked.

  “That’s right. Why do you ask?”

  “You studied archeology… what else did you major in?”

  “Ancient maritime archeology.”

  “You were looking for Atlantis?”

  She laughed, “No, I’m searching for something very different, and much more elusive.” Billie said, mysteriously. “Not that I don’t believe Atlantis existed. That’s for certain, but the shape of the world would have been very different all those years ago. It was probably some other land-based civilization that became buried with the turn of an ice age.”

  “Then what drew you towards the ocean?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Was that how you met Sam?” he pestered.

  “No, that’s a different story.” Her smile told him that there was a lot more to it than that, but that she wasn’t going to reveal her and Sam’s history. “Let’s just say, I’m a third generation archeologist, and I’m still trying to find the answer to a question which plagued my grandfather his entire life.”

  “What was he looking for?”

  “Materiana – A mythical lost city in the clouds.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Tom acknowledged.

  “The search for its answers drove my grandfather insane – or so we thought, until it got him killed. Obviously, someone took interest in his research.”

  “Did your father continue with his research?”

  “No, my father knew better. There are people out there who would kill to find it, and those who would kill to keep it a secret.”

  “And that’s what you were searching for in Antarctica?”

  She looked out the porthole and replied, “No, that’s just what drove me to the field of maritime archeology. Like my father, I know when something is too dangerous.”

  Her evasive answer only served to intrigue him more, but he could see that he was making her uncomfortable.

  “Was it Sam who introduced the Master Builders into your world?”

  She ignored the question and continued reading the known schematics for the mine below the pyramid from her tablet.

  There was no way Billie was going to be pushed into speaking about the Master Builders – even though they were now deep under water, where prying ears would struggle to listen.

  As the dive bell reached the bottom, the two geared up and prepared to commence their dive.

  “Are you ready for this?”

  “Let’s see it…”

  The tower looked grand up ahead.

  “It’s not as large as Sam made out. It looks similar to the great pyramid of Giza, but nowhere near large enough.”

  “Just wait until you see what lies beneath the sand. Veyron has left a dive hub on the seafloor, in front of the pyramid’s entrance. A place where we can base ourselves over the next few days while we work.”

  Slowly, they kicked their fins toward the entrance, and then descended the tunnel. At the very end of the tunnel, his flashlight shined on the remains of the wrecked Sea Witch.

  “Yours?” she asked.

  “That one was Sam’s idea. He used it to stop the flooding of the mine below us. A desperate attempt, and one that nearly got us killed – but it saved a lot of lives.”

  “That sounds like my Sam.”

  To the very left of it, a small hole had been drilled, just big enough for the two to swim through. On the other side, the tunnel narrowed and descended vertically. At the very bottom, Tom turned down the tunnel to the left.

  “What’s that way?” she asked.

  “About a million tons of concrete. That’s the side that had the leak. It’s been filled with concrete, and the owner of the mine is paying for it to be repaired and then excavated from the other side.”

  “Gotcha…”

  They dived the next hundred feet down the diagonal tunnel, which ran along the inside of the pyramid.

  The pressures were tremendous and the tunnel narrow, playing havoc on the most seasoned diver’s emotions. Many, without any previous knowledge of claustrophobia, would discover a fate worse than death in such a place.
<
br />   “How you doing?” Tom asked.

  “I’m fine… I’ve been in much worse places than this,” she teased. “How about you?”

  An image of the incident that nearly killed him last time he was inside the pyramid’s tunnel flashed across his mind. It was no more than a second, but enough to give him pause before he spoke.

  “I’m fine… just so long as the walls don’t cave in on me this time.”

  He shined his bright flashlight down the tunnel. Its powerful LED light shined like a laser, reaching the bottom of the pyramid.

  “There it is… the bottom.”

  “I can see it.”

  Making the sharp turn, and with self-regulating neutral buoyancy built into their dive suits, it was disorientating whether or not they were now moving laterally, diagonally or vertically. Tom, a confident cave diver, felt the reassurance of bubbles floating on the top of the granite blocks above their heads, allowing him to orient himself.

  They were now level.

  A little over a hundred slow kicks with his fins and the opening to the first of the three chambers came into view.

  It still glowed.

  “It’s glowing?” Billie voiced her surprise.

  “Yeah, it sure is.”

  “Do we know what’s causing that incandescent light?”

  “Some sort of large crystal at the center of the King’s Chamber that radiates straight through each level of the tomb.”

  “Somehow drawing light from above?” she suggested.

  He kicked his flippers gently, propelling himself closer to the entrance ladder, and replied, “No, that’s what we assumed at first, too. Then, when we stayed overnight, the light seemed to just keep glowing.”

  “Any ideas what would make that happen?”

  “None. We were hoping you might just find out for us, because we sure don’t have any idea.”

  “Must be some sort of marine creature… or element that radiates light…”

  “No, it’s not that simple…

  “What do you mean?” Billie’s voice betrayed her surprise, “Why not?”

  Sam gripped the first rung of the ladder before replying, “You’ll just have to see it. Can you make it up that ladder?”

  “Sure can,” she replied, climbing with the additional 80 pounds of dive equipment as though it were nothing. She was fit, that was for sure.

  Tom followed her and, climbing into the first of the three chambers, removed his dive helmet.

  Billie paused, “Are we certain it’s safe?”

  “The cyanide?”

  “I’m an archeologist, but even I know how lethal it can be.”

  “It’s safe, but just in case, our life support watches will let us know if there are any changes.”

  “And the air in this room?”

  “It’s good. We should have several days’ worth of oxygen to look after us.”

  Tom left all of the equipment they would need for the next few days at the first chamber, and they climbed the ladders to the second and then up and into the last one. The King’s Chamber.

  Watching her enter the room, Tom saw her reaction immediately…

  “Motherfucker! He’s found the Master Builders…”

  Chapter Nine

  Sam gripped the throttle of his dive scooter, propelling himself towards the dark tunnel ahead. Two had already been searched thoroughly, but this was the first opportunity that he’d had to travel through any of them.

  The tunnel was wide, providing ample room to maneuver the specialized underwater craft. With its narrow lines, it resembled a miniature torpedo more than the life sustaining dive machine that it was. Its propellers broke hydrogen bonds that formed to create water, releasing oxygen for the rider. In addition to its carbon fiber dive tank, it had the ability to provide enough breathable gas for its rider, up to 5 hours.

  He wasn’t going to need anywhere near that length of time today. Instead, Sam planned a simple half an hour trip to see how far he could get. He’d already seen the sonar images of the tunnels – now he wanted to see it with his own eyes. Searching for the Mahogany Ship, which had managed to remain hidden for so many years, required something more along the lines of as well as science.

  Once the timer on his scooter read 30 minutes, he dutifully brought it to a stop and examined his surroundings. The landscape of the tunnel had change little throughout the time. It was a combination of more than a hundred limestone caves, joined together and eaten away from eons of erosion by the water through the soft rock.

  This one was no different.

  Around him, he noted that the tunnel, although reasonably wide, would never have permitted a ship as enormous as the Mahogany Ship to travel down its path. He thought about it for a minute or two, and then took a sample from the limestone silt, placing it in a tube marked ‘Tunnel Three.’ If a ship had ever passed through this place, he was going to find some evidence of it through a detailed analysis of the microscopic particles found inside that tube.

  Finding a shipwreck is an art, but that’s no reason to ignore science…

  Over the next few hours Sam proceeded to make the same investigations of each of the five tunnels. The water was cold, but it wasn’t freezing. His dry suit had an inbuilt heating device, which had maintained his core body temperature at a comfortable 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

  When he returned to the dive platform, Michael and Frank were already waiting for him.

  “You all right Sam?” Frank asked, helping take some of the heavy weight of his dive equipment off him as he climbed the ladder.

  “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

  “You were down there longer than I was expecting.”

  “I was just getting a feel for these caverns. You’d be surprised by how much you can learn by watching the flow of water through tunnels such as these. The old gold miners who panned for gold used to understand the river systems better than we do today. A good gold prospector would watch the river for days and days before digging his spade into a single chip of soil. By doing so, he could ascertain where the heavier, gold filled, sumps might be.”

  “And what did these rivers tell you?” Frank sounded interested.

  “I don’t know yet. I’ve taken core samples where any man-made products might become lodged. Still, it’s been hundreds of years since the Mahogany Ship disappeared, so who knows what could possibly remain? As for the river system herself?” Sam’s intense, steel blue eyes, stared at the man, before he said, “Despite two of the five tunnels being large enough for her to come down, there’s only one in which she could actually have made it down without tearing herself apart on the rapids.”

  “So then we only have to explore the largest of the tunnels?”

  “No, the reality is, it could be somewhere upstream of all five of the tunnels. Just because the coin made it down doesn’t mean that the Mahogany Ship ever made it this far. Your boss isn’t going to be impressed, but there’s a very high probability that, if the ship ever entered this river system, she’s resting hundreds of miles further upstream.”

  “Which means…”

  “It might take months, if not years, to explore all of the tunnels.”

  *

  “Okay, let’s get the gear,” Billie said. A wry smile over her beautiful face told him that she wasn’t going to talk about them.

  Tom decided that he’d had enough of the cloak and dagger story. He was running this show. Whatever involvement the Master Builders may have in this, he had a right to know. He said, gently touching her shoulder to stop her, “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No more lies, Billie. Sam brought you here for a very specific reason, didn’t he? And I have an idea it had something to do with the Master Builders.”

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Tell me. Or you can go back to whatever it was you were doing in Antarctica before Sam dragged you out here.”

  Billie looked like she was seriously
considering abandoning the site. Then she turned to face him. Her almond-shaped brown eyes stared at his and then conceded. “These markings here,” she whispered. “They were made by them. Only, there’s never been any evidence that they ever made it across the Atlantic, until now…”

  “But who were they?”

  “They were builders – engineers to be exact, and very good ones. Think of the ancient wonders of the world.”

  “I’m not an archeologist, but I thought the Egyptians built the Pyramids?”

  “That’s what we thought until recently, but since then new evidence has shown that a superior race, known as the Master Builders, built them all…”

  “So why wasn’t the information published?”

  “That, my friend, is an interesting question. I’m sure your friend Sam Reilly is probably one of the few people on this planet who know the real answer.”

  “Afghanistan, 2003?” Tom knew exactly what she was referring too, but didn’t know why.

  “Come on… you never believed for an instant that your friend was honorably discharged after three weeks in the Sandpit?”

  “No, and he never told me what happened, so I didn’t ask.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, well he broke a code, and opened the doors to an otherwise unreachable research path. And the existence of the Master Builders came to the attention of the National Security Agency.”

  “The NSA?” Tom looked confused. “What would they care about some ancient civilization?”

  “Okay Tom, have you been to Egypt and stood at the base of the Pyramid of Giza?”

  “Yeah, many years ago. Sam and I went there on our summer break.”

  “Do you honestly think a four-thousand-year old civilization could have built something like that using technologies that predated the invention of the wheel?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all the stories before. It’s an amazing feat, but somehow they managed it. I read a theory once about using really big whips or something.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Have you ever wondered if we could build the same structure using modern technologies?” Billie asked.

  “The thought’s never entered my mind. Why?”