The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  Okay, it was probably just what Sam needed. Alexis, she wasn’t so sure about. Alexis was lying on the couch in the living room opposite the kitchen and continued to read and then re-read several well-handled pages of a dead man’s journal. Over the course of the past hour Alexis had been insistent that she hear the thoughts of a troubled dead man who’d been in love. As far as Genevieve was concerned, Alexis looked as though her world had been crushed. It wasn’t just the news that her colleagues had been murdered. Everything about her life had been reduced to a wreckage of lies and deceit culminating into a field of missed opportunities.

  Genevieve finished with the food prep. She quickly cleaned and dried the nine inch carbon fiber cutting knife before placing it in the top drawer. The bacon and finely chopped onions fried in a pan while the pasta boiled in the broth. Genevieve added the vegetables and adjusted the gas flame until the saucepan stopped boiling. Ten minutes later she tasted the soup with a wooden spoon. It lacked salt, she decided, but was otherwise perfect.

  She heard the door to the outside deck open. “Is that you, Matthew? Dinner’s nearly ready, but I thought we’d wait until Sam, Veyron and Elise were back.”

  Genevieve listened, but there was no reply.

  Alexis sat up and frowned. “I’m sorry, did you ask me something? I’ve been such a wreck lately, it’s not like me.”

  “No. I thought I heard Matthew.” Genevieve held out her hands in front of her to hush Alexis. Her instincts told her to listen hard – there were footsteps. They were quiet, but definitely inside the main cabin and they were coming towards them. She looked at Alexis and mouthed the words: “Hide. Now!”

  Genevieve switched the gas burner underneath the pot of minestrone soup on to full. The flame hissed and began heating the liquid. She then turned to grab a knife or anything she could possibly use as a weapon – and was confronted by five frogmen.

  They wore black dry-suits and military grade Viper S10 rebreathers. The sort of hard-surfaced, recirculating and fully enclosed breathing apparatus preferred by most navies. Their faces were concealed by reflective full faced dive masks. Each carried Heckler & Koch MP5s. She looked at the man closest to her. He had a single red band on his left shoulder and she wondered if he was in command. At a glance she noted the ambidextrous, four setting trigger position on his weapon was set towards the red number 30 – meaning it was positioned to fire in fully automatic mode.

  She turned and smiled. Her striking blue eyes and short cropped hair made her appear elfish and gentle. She feigned a coy and polite smile. “May I help you gentlemen?” Her words were soft and clear, and showed no sign of concern, as though she’d expected their company for dinner. Perhaps she’d assumed they were part of the U.S. Navy SEAL’s teams.

  The first frogman grabbed her without pausing to answer. She would have screamed if she were allowed, but a gloved hand smothered her mouth. Genevieve pretended to struggle for a moment and then let her muscles relax completely. She gave the appearance of being weak, vulnerable and docile. Like a woman brought to Antarctica only to cook and serve in a man’s world.

  “I’m afraid we’re not here for dinner, darling,” the man said. His left arm held her; wrapped forcefully around her neck. “We won’t be long. We’ve come for Alexis and then we’ll be on our way. If I take my hand off your mouth, are you going to scream or do anything stupid to alert the rest of the crew?”

  Genevieve tasted the saltwater on the gloved hand still stifling her mouth and making it difficult to breathe. Unable to speak, she shook her head.

  “Good.” He pressed the barrel of the MP5 into her back hard, for good measure. “No need for anyone as pretty as you to get hurt.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, subserviently.

  “Now I need you to call for Alexis. We know she’s down here.” He relaxed the pressure of his left arm on her throat.

  “She’s no longer on board,” Genevieve said. “She went over to the Antarctic Solace with one of the other members of our crew.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.” The man tightened his grip on her neck. “Because that means we’re going to have to go over there to get her and I’m afraid we can’t have you tipping anyone off about us coming – so I’m going to have to kill you.”

  Genevieve felt the barrel move up to her chest and said nothing.

  “It sure is a waste to destroy something so beautiful!”

  “Stop it!” Alexis screamed and crawled out from behind the couch. “Leave her alone. I’m the one you need.”

  “Right you are, Alexis.”

  Two of the five men quickly grabbed her. The other two guarded the exit. The fifth person, the one who still held Genevieve, barked the order, “Bind her wrists, and attach the weight – then we’re out of here.”

  The two men holding Alexis bound her wrists with cable ties. The shorter of the two then removed three lead dive weights from his dive belt and bound them to her ankles. He then released a large amount of air from his buoyancy control device so he would remain neutrally buoyant.

  Alexis wriggled. “No. Please, I don’t want to drown!”

  “Quiet!” The Frogman next to Alexis demanded. “You’re not gonna drown. Not just yet, anyway. You’re too important to HIM!”

  Genevieve looked at Alexis as two Frogmen dragged her towards the exit. Her mouth set hard; bile rising in her throat. “Sit tight, Alexis. We’re going to get you back to us – that’s a promise.”

  The man holding her throat laughed. “That’s cute. Real cute. I doubt it’s true though – not once you see where we’re taking her. No one’s coming for her.”

  “No?” Genevieve said. “Are you sure about that?”

  The now-boiling saucepan of minestrone soup bubbled over, sending hot splutters of scalding water on to both her and her attacker’s legs and arms. Genevieve threw herself backwards as they were both burnt. In the process, her right hand gripped his dive knife, which was attached to his chest by a short nylon lanyard.

  “Shit!” The Frogman held her tight. “Stupid bitch tried to burn me. Pretty stupid. What did you think you were going to do, use the boiling water to disarm the five of us?”

  The other men laughed at her.

  “No. Of course not.” Genevieve shook her head meekly. “That would be impossible with a pot of boiling water.”

  “Then what did you expect to achieve?” he asked.

  Genevieve didn’t say a word. Instead she drove the short dive knife along the inside of her attacker’s thigh. It sliced his femoral artery. Blood spurted wildly. The man dropped to the floor, releasing her in the process, as his automatic response was to apply direct pressure. By the time his hand reached the inside of his thigh, Genevieve drove the sharp end of the knife along the underside of his throat.

  She grabbed the commander’s Heckler & Koch MP5 and fired five shots without waiting for him to bleed to death. The first went into the head of the frogman guarding the door. The second killed the man next to him. The third and fourth went wide. And the fifth killed the person holding Alexis.

  “Holy shit!” The remaining frogman swore and grabbed Alexis; using her as a human shield. “Who the fuck are you?”

  Genevieve firmly lodged the butt of the MP5 into the crook of her shoulder and took aim. The frogman ducked behind Alexis and began dragging her out the door and on to the deck. She watched him struggle with the weight, but continue to remain protected by Alexis. She could just make out part of his arm. Genevieve squeezed the trigger.

  Blood and bone fragments scattered from the end of his elbow. The man screamed furiously, but somehow maintained the fortitude to keep Alexis in front of him. “Who are you?”

  “Someone you shouldn’t have fucked with,” Genevieve said. She then aimed at his left boot which was now visible and squeezed the trigger. A single shot fired. The man whimpered as blood quickly drained from the hole where his toes had previously been.

  The frogman grunted and heaved Alexis backwards. Genevieve was too late t
o notice the boarding gate on board the Maria Helena had been left open, giving him the unhindered ability to reach the water.

  “No!” Genevieve ran forwards to catch her.

  There was nothing she could do. The frogman fell backwards into the ice-cold waters of the Weddell Sea – taking Alexis with him.

  Genevieve reached the edge of the deck. With lead weights attached to her ankles, Alexis quickly sank into the crystal clear waters. The frogman, who appeared to be even more negatively buoyant, dragged at her ankles like a tormenting demon to the depths below.

  Through nearly a hundred and sixty feet of perfectly clear water she watched as Alexis was dragged down towards the mouth of a large black monster. Unable to make out the full shape, she watched in abject horror, as the two blurry figures were swallowed whole.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Sam heard the shots and ran. By the time he reached the deck of the Maria Helena with two teams of Navy SEALs and the Secretary of Defense by his side, Genevieve was lying face down on the deck of the Maria Helena staring at the water. She didn’t even flinch when he arrived.

  “Gen – where’s Alexis!” he yelled.

  She stood up. Her mouth set hard. “They got her, Sam. I tried to stop them, but I wasn’t quick enough.”

  Sam looked over the edge of the ship. The visibility was so clear he could make out the vague outline of the seabed nearly two hundred feet below. He looked up at her. “What happened, Gen?”

  “They came for Alexis, tied her wrists and ankles together. Then weighted her down with lead and dragged her off the side of the ship.”

  “They killed her?” Sam shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. They needed her!”

  “No,” Genevieve said. “I saw one of them shove a regulator in her mouth once she was in the water.”

  “Well, there goes that hope.” The Secretary of Defense stepped back from the ship’s balustrade and crossed her arms. Her mouth set hard with a cruel display of pragmatism. “I thought we might have gotten lucky, and she drowned in the attempt.”

  Genevieve stood up and looked at the Secretary of Defense. “Would you like to explain to me why five frogmen just abducted Alexis?”

  “No,” Margaret said, defiantly. “But I’d like to know where they took her.”

  “You mean, where the submarine took her?” Genevieve said.

  “Christ!” The Secretary of Defense turned to look at her. “Of course they needed some way to move her.”

  Sam nodded in understanding. “Genevieve. Run up to the bridge and tell Matthew to put the sonar buoys in the water. Tell him we’re hunting the submarine which took Alexis.”

  “I’m on it,” she replied.

  There was a frenzy of action on board the Maria Helena as the Navy SEALS untied the mooring lines and Matthew took them away from the Antarctic Solace. Sam and the Secretary of Defense entered the living area where Alexis was abducted. Four dead frogmen were scattered throughout the room. There was a lot of blood. Three had been shot in the head. A fourth looked as though he’d had the main arteries of his right leg and throat severed. It was hard to believe so much blood could have come from just one person.

  The Secretary of Defense looked at the scene of the massacre and then back at him. “Is there something you want to tell me about that young woman who was standing outside?”

  “Genevieve?” Sam stopped climbing the stairs to the bridge. He shook his head. “No ma’am. I don’t think you want to know – it will only mean you’d have to knowingly look the other way about another one of my crew.”

  “Good. I’d rather not have to put your entire ship and crew in the off-limits basket for surveillance or any investigations by the NSA, CIA, and FBI. Should I be worried about her?”

  “Genevieve?” Sam shook his head. “No. We share similar enemies, and for the most part, she’s here to cook and bring a feminine touch to the Maria Helena.”

  The Secretary of Defense looked at the swath of dead bodies and grinned. “I can see that.”

  “I’ve found she has some other useful skills that come in handy.”

  “Just make sure this doesn’t come back to bite me. Pretending Elise doesn’t exist is one thing. I do it out of necessity and because we need the services she provides for you.” The Secretary of Defense looked around the stairwell, checking that no one was within hearing distance, and then lowered her voice. “And because of where she’s come from, she must be protected.”

  Sam whispered. “I thought we agreed it was best to never mention her past? You know as well as I do her origins are going to come back to haunt her one day.”

  “I’m more worried they’ll come back to haunt the lot of us.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Sam entered the bridge. Matthew stood at the helm and slowly increased power to the twin engines until she moved away from the Antarctic Solace. The computer monitor showed the results in real time of the sonar swathes, providing a clear image of the seabed below. Matthew pointed the Maria Helena in the direction that Genevieve told them she’s seen the submarine move.

  The active sonar began emitting pulses of sounds while a computer searched for the acoustic location of any target with a similar shape to a nuclear submarine – the Secretary of Defense had already provided the technical details of the nuclear submarine stolen ten years earlier and suspected of being used by Robert Cassidy.

  Sam stepped next to Matthew. “Anything?”

  “Look for yourself. The Weddell Sea is riddled with icebergs.”

  The Secretary of Defense stared at Sam. “We don’t like icebergs?”

  “Not if we want to find something,” Sam said. “Think of them like a giant maze of mirrors found in an amusement park. The active sonar ‘pings’ hit the ice and bounce back. There’s no way the submarine is out of range of sonar yet. My bet is it’s waiting, hiding, somewhere below.”

  “But can you find it?” she asked.

  “Sure we can. We’ve found things much harder than a moving submarine before. It’s just going to take time. And our nuclear submarines are well designed to be hard to find.”

  The Secretary of Defense looked at him hard. “I’m afraid time’s something we don’t have.”

  Sam nodded. “We might get lucky. Would you like to tell me why they just abducted Alexis, ma’am?”

  “Because Robert needs her to complete his Project.”

  “Why?” Sam stared at the sonar monitor.

  “Because he’s a religious man. Did you know he became a scientist to discredit the origins of Christianity?”

  “No. What happened?”

  “He found a closer relationship between God and Science,” she said. “We think he’s working on the belief that the book is telling him to return us to the times of Eden. He believes that if man can’t learn to play nicely with each other, then we may as well just go back to fighting with sticks.”

  “I thought no one had anything powerful enough to produce the type of EMP required to destroy all electricity on the planet?”

  The Secretary of Defense shrugged. “Sure we do. We have more nuclear armaments than a kind fool like you could imagine. But we’re safe in that we know he won’t be using a standard nuclear weapon.”

  “Why not?”

  “To produce that sort of EMP you would need a rocket several times larger than anything ever built. In short, he doesn’t have the resources.”

  “So why is Alexis dangerous?”

  “Because she’s the world leading expert on subatomic particles.”

  “And you think she knows how to produce something more powerful than a nuclear bomb using a particle accelerator?”

  “Robert Cassidy thinks so,” she replied. “And Cassidy’s many things, but he’s not stupid. If he thinks she has the ability, then I’m willing to be terrified. Christ, if we thought we could get him by nuking Antarctica now, we would, just to be certain.”

  “Holy shit!” Sam said. “I think I know where they’re going.”
>
  “Where?” she asked.

  “To a massive hadron collider that the scientists from Pegasus found beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet.”

  “They’ve already built one?” The Secretary of Defense stared hard at him with her piercing eyes.

  “It would appear so,” Sam said.

  “Then time’s already run out.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Sam looked at the topographic map. The opening to the ice tunnels leading to the Massive Hadron Collider was marked with a red asterisk. He measured the corresponding distance between the Dumont d'Urville Sea and their destination – it was just under a hundred miles. There was plenty of room to reach it by helicopter and make the return trip on a single tank of aviation fuel.

  He looked up at the Secretary of Defense. “We’ll take the Sikorsky.”

  She stared at him; her face unreadable. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

  “It’s always dangerous. What makes this any worse?”

  “Robert Cassidy.”

  Sam smiled. “I’ve never seen you so openly concerned, ma’am.”

  “I’ve never had so much reason to be afraid.” She straightened her military dress uniform. “Robert Cassidy may be insane, but he’s one of the brightest minds to ever come out of the American education system. You’ve already seen how he can block radio channels by superimposing alternative radio waves over all frequencies, and you know what he’s planning on doing – but you have to understand he has technologies that can confuse your electrical systems.”

  “Is that why they were using an old de-Havilland Tiger Moth – because it started with a hand starter and then required no electrical input to fly?”

  “How did you know they used an old Tiger-Moth?” She snapped. Her voice was quick and sharp.

  “Yesterday, when Alexis and I were inside the Taylor Valley, and returning from the Pegasus, we were attacked by a yellow Tiger-Moth. I shot the pilot and the aircraft incinerated shortly after crashing.”