The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2

by Christopher Cartwright

  “That confirms Robert Cassidy is behind this.”

  “You’ve seen them before?” Sam asked.

  “Yes. When he first started on The Island we gave him four de-Havilland Tiger Moths. As you pointed out before, they were uniquely fitting for his research because they required no electronics to fly. Of course, they carried instruments to take a number of readings for his research, but there was no risk his research was going to cause them to crash.” Through her glasses her dark green eyes confronted him. “Your Sikorsky helicopter, I’m afraid, has no such protection.”

  Sam sighed as realization dawned. “The hovercraft’s lying dead in the Taylor Valley, so unless you have a better idea we’re going to have to take the risk.”

  The Secretary of Defense remained silent.

  “In that case,” Sam said. “We’ll take the Sikorsky.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Unable to locate the submarine, and with time running out, the Maria Helena gave up the hunt and returned to the Antarctic Solace. Tom met them at the makeshift dock and lithely stepped onto the deck of the Maria Helena.

  Sam shook his hand. “Good to see you, Tom. Where’s Elise?”

  “She moved to the Texas.”

  Sam turned to the Secretary of Defense. “What have you got Elise doing on board your anachronistic battleship?”

  “She’s searching for the island using satellite imaging,” she replied, stepping off the Maria Helena.

  “I thought you said it was impossible because Robert Cassidy has a system which confuses the satellites by sending signals to make cloud cover larger or smaller in order to block the view of the island?”

  “So did I,” she said. “Robert Cassidy’s a very smart man. Few people get to beat him.”

  “Then what’s Elise trying to do?” Sam persisted.

  “It turns out Elise might be smarter. She’s programmed the satellites to compare meteorological data, such as synoptic charts, wave height buoys, and sea water temperatures with the images of clouds seen by the satellites.”

  “Okay. So what does that achieve?” Sam asked.

  “Cassidy can create make believe clouds over his island as much as he likes, but when Elise compares the two types of data, his island is going to stand out like a neon light.”

  “Where are you going?” Sam asked.

  “Back to the Texas – to hunt for The Island.”

  “What about the massive hadron collider? I thought you were going to join me with a team of SEALs to secure it.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Why would I do that?”

  “Isn’t that where they’re taking Alexis?”

  “No,” the Secretary of Defense said. “My guess is they already have whatever subatomic particle they need. Right now, what they need is for Alexis to help make sense of it.”

  “But you said I should go to the location we found in the journal?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “You and Tom should. Be quick. Get in undetected and get out. Perhaps they’ve left something that might show us where The Island is.”

  “What about your men?”

  “The SEALs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re going to prepare for the worst and secure the bays. The island was here. You confirmed that for me. Cassidy’s hiding it somewhere nearby, and my men are going to find out where. I’ll stay on board the Texas and continue hunting.”

  “That’s why you brought out the last relic from the steam powered battleship era of Dreadnoughts.”

  “Yes. Cassidy has worked on a number of low powered EMP devices that can stop a ship, or a helicopter dead in its tracks. We’re going to get him this time. There’s nothing essential to the running of the USS Texas that requires electricity to function.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Alexis woke up feeling disoriented. She opened her eyes and found herself in a single room carved into the volcanic rock known as pumice. She ran her hand along the rough, porous stone and tried to remember how she’d gotten there. There had been a problem on the Antarctic Solace – she was all alone, and then a man had come and saved her. His name was Sam Reilly! She felt pleased with herself to have recalled that much. Alexis stood up and instantly felt dizziness attack at her mind. Her hands were shaking and it was hard to balance – there was no doubt that they had drugged her. But who were they, and why had they done this to her?

  She remembered the Pegasus ice station and discovering the truth about the Massive Hadron Collider that had illegally been built below the East Antarctic ice sheet. Then she remembered being on board the Maria Helena when a group of frogmen attacked. Someone on board had fought them off well. Her name was Genevieve and she was more deadly than she looked. She grasped at what she knew. Feeling pleased to even have that much information. Her memory was coming back in dribs and drabs, in an ad hoc and illogical fashion, but it was coming back to her – which meant whatever damage they’d done to her could be repaired.

  But what happened after the frogmen attacked?

  Suddenly she recalled being dragged overboard. The ice cold water pierced her skin with the resounding shock of a thousand fire ants attacking her. Somehow she tried to swim but couldn’t. Why couldn’t I swim? I used to swim laps – why couldn’t I make it to the surface? Then it hit her – someone had tied her legs together and attached a lead weight. They were dragging me to the bottom!

  Did I pass out? Alexis couldn’t remember so she guessed she must have. She remembered someone shoving something into her mouth. She fought it, but wasn’t strong enough. She tried, but eventually took a deep breath and then entered a blissful sleep. Am I dead? Alexis looked around the room again. Some afterlife, hey? This’s what I get for being an atheist is it?

  She tried to stand, but the ground beneath her trembled. She could feel the vibrations and hum of heavy machinery. She tried to stand again. She was definitely on a boat, or a submarine. No. I’m not dead – they took me on a submarine and then they drugged me. Why did they drug me? What do they want from me? Alexis struggled to reach the door at the end of the room. She tried the handle and it turned easily, which meant she could leave if she wanted. But did she want to leave? Were there worse things waiting outside?

  Alexis didn’t have to deliberate on her choice very long. Instead the door handle turned and a man walked in. He was slim with a trimmed gray beard. Deep lines creased his old face as he smiled warmly.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “You’re on The Island.”

  “The Island? Which one? Why have you brought me here?”

  “Just – The Island, I’m afraid. And I’ve brought you here because I’m afraid I need your help.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  With his hands at the controls of the Sikorsky MH 60 Nighthawk, Tom glanced at the sea below, where the Maria Helena rested completely still in the ice-filled Dumont d'Urville Sea. He pushed his left foot pedal to the floor and swung the helicopter around so that the ice sheet of East Antarctica came into view like a frozen pond that stretched infinitely toward the horizon. A moment later he moved the cyclic stick forward and dipped the nose of the helicopter, allowing the Sikorsky to fly at its most aerodynamic and fastest speed. He slowly increased his height to an altitude of one thousand feet and headed south.

  Next to him, Sam stared at the topographical map trying to achieve the impossible task of finding a visible landmark or reference point to navigate from. After about five minutes Sam shook his head and folded the map away.

  Tom chuckled. “Couldn’t work out where we’re going in all this ice?”

  “Sure I could. Just keep the Trans Antarctic Ridge on your left and when you start to see some big caverns open up below it means we’re close.”

  “How many are there?”

  Sam sighed. “According to Pier’s notes from the Pegasus, there should be about a thousand of them.”

  “Any one of them in particular?”

  “There should be five smal
l ones lined up together, followed by a massive one. It’s the massive one we’re after.”

  Tom lined the Trans Antarctic Ridge up to a reference point on the left corner of the windshield and kept it there. “Okay, so we’re looking for five needles in a frozen haystack?”

  “That’s sounds about right,” Sam conceded.

  “So how do we pick which one we’re looking for?”

  Sam grinned. “If they built the world’s largest Hadron Collider inside, I would guess it will be one of the largest caverns. And even if I’m wrong, one thing’s for certain – there will be large roads from the snow cats required to move all the materials to build it.”

  “Are you sure?” Tom asked. His face hard and focused.

  “No, I’m just guessing, why?”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “You told me Alexis said something this size would have taken an army of engineers nearly two decades to build. That means ships coming and going, and large convoys of heavy snow vehicles moving complex equipment.”

  Sam nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Then why were the scientists of Pegasus the first to discover it?”

  “I’ll be damned. You’re right. They must have had a better way to cover it up. That sort of operation couldn’t have gone unnoticed for twenty years.”

  Thirty minutes later they reached the spot they were looking for. From the air, Tom could clearly make out the five ice crevices lined up in a row, each one pointing towards the largest of them all. There were no snow tractors, or obvious signs of manmade construction, but the image fit the description Sam had given him.

  He moved the cyclic to the right and then dipped the nose of the helicopter downwards to make a large circle of the area and allow a clear vision of the ice world from the cockpit.

  Sam removed the map and double checked the markings. “This is it,” he confirmed. “See, I told you we’d work it out once we got here.”

  “That’s great, Sam. Now, where do you want me to put us down?”

  Sam studied the landscape in a glance and pointed to a large flat area. “How about there?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  Tom gently lowered the collective and dipped the cyclic stick forward to start their descent – a moment later, everything went dead. There was no flash, no sound of gunfire or explosions. Simply every instrument on board and the engine failed simultaneously.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  The Sikorsky held its position in the sky for a split second before losing its battle with gravity. Tom felt the cyclic stick lose all resistance as the main rotor blades lost RPMs and no longer created lift, meaning his controls were useless. The altimeter, which was based on air pressure, showed they were falling at a rate of two thousand feet per minute.

  “Power’s gone!” Tom said, as he lowered the collective all the way down, which allowed the main rotor blades to spin freely and pick up RPM speed and at the same time maintain a normal angle of attack similar to a glide position in a fixed wing aircraft. He then shoved the cyclic stick as far forward as it could go. With his right foot he pressed hard on the pedal in an attempt to counteract the sudden loss of torque normally provided by the engine, preventing the helicopter from entering a death spiral. The immediate result was that instead of an uncontrolled fall, Tom maintained control of the helicopter, as it fell rapidly from the sky in a process known as autorotation.

  Sam flicked switches next to him in an attempt to restart the engine. “Power’s not coming back.”

  Tom glanced at the altimeter. It read: 700 feet. “Copy. I’ve commenced autorotation.”

  Sam pointed at a suitable landing position. There were holes in the ice, giant caverns large enough to swallow the Sikorksy whole. A long cavern divided two main sheets of ice. A long flat section was visible on the western side of it. There wasn’t a lot of room, but it would have to do. “Aim for there.”

  “I see it!” His eyes glanced at the RPM counter for the main rotor blades. The speed increased as the air started to flow up through the rotor system. He was still a long way off the speed required to land the helicopter. He turned gently to the left in order to set up for a landing into the wind and on to his final approach.

  Sam read out his altitude and airspeed: “Sixty knots. Forty feet.”

  Tom nodded and pulled back on the cyclic stick to commence flaring. The nose of the Sikorsky lifted and their descent rate slowed from two thousand feet per minute to one thousand in an instant. At the same time forward movement reduced to zero. The helicopter stabilized to a level attitude approximately seven feet off the ground. Tom gently raised the collective pitch, causing the main rotor blades to decrease RPM speed but increase lift. A moment later the landing skids sunk into the snow.

  “Nice landing, Tom.” Sam patted him on the shoulder. He climbed out of the helicopter, slid a backpack over his shoulders and picked up his Uzi. Sam pointed to the opening in the distance. “The entrance should be a few hundred feet in that direction.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Sam followed the edge of the chasm towards the entrance of the massive cavern. The hardened ice was easier than snow to walk on because his feet didn’t sink into it, but the downside was the hiking boots he wore were slippery and made him feel like he was going to fall off the edge at any moment.

  Just before they reached the opening to a large tunnel Sam spotted something yellow. It had been pushed into a hollowed alcove in the ice. He recognized it instantly.

  “That’s the same type of yellow de-Havilland Tiger Moth which attacked Alexis and me!”

  Tom grinned. “That’s good news. It means we’re at the right place. The downside of course is that now we know we have company.”

  Sam aimed the Uzi towards the airplane and searched for the pilot. “Yeah, let’s just hope they weren’t expecting visitors.”

  Confident the pilot wasn’t still there, Sam quickly approached the small airplane. Recent snowfall had already built over the cockpit. Sam ran his hands over the engine manifold. It was still warm to touch. The pilot had only recently landed. Sam glanced past it, where a parallel set of footprints formed tracks entering the massive ice cavern.

  “Shall we play follow the leader?” Sam asked.

  “Sure. You're it.”

  Sam entered the cavern. A narrow parallel row of indentations in the ice showed the place had been well driven on with a small snow machine such as a snow scooter to form a road about four feet wide. There was nothing large enough to indicate anything like a snow caterpillar or tractor had ever entered. The footpath sized road crept along the ice-wall deep inside the cavern. The road could have gone for miles. On one side a wall of ice stretched to the surface. And four feet to the other side an abys like crevice reached deeper than their eyes could see.

  They were running out of time. Sam picked up speed and began jogging. A mile in and the entire path came to an opening that descended deep into the earth, forming a dead end. A steel structure reached out of the ice like a jagged claw. He followed the structure to the end of the platform where an elevator cable dropped into the darkness below.

  “So much for the theory it would have taken thousands of trips with convoys of snow trucks to build this place,” Tom said, staring out into the vacuous ice cavern. “It looks like they carried everything in by hand and then used this elevator to where they need it.”

  Sam shook his head. “Something like this needed hundreds of tons worth of materials. There must have been another entrance.”

  “Or, someone else built it – before them?”

  “You think they weren’t the first to find the Massive Hadron Collider?” Sam asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem possible they built it all without anyone finding out about it. One thing’s for certain, they didn’t use this elevator to bring everything inside.”

  Sam opened his backpack and removed a LIDAR range detector, small han
d held device resembling the type of gun law enforcement used to measure speed vehicles using a laser. On one side were three round openings like a three-barreled gun, while the other side had a six inch digital display screen. Handheld light detection and ranging known as LIDAR provided an in-depth 3D image of areas up to ten miles away.

  Sam switched it on and pointed it directly into the open cavern. “Let’s see exactly what we’re dealing with.”

  The cavern was massive. He slowly moved it around until he developed a clear picture of both its manmade and naturally forming structures. It showed the road continued only a few feet ahead, but looked as though it had been destroyed by a landslide years earlier. Had they been able to continue along the road, it zigzagged for a total of fifteen miles and would have taken them hours to reach the bottom.

  Finally, Sam pointed the LIDAR gun below the elevator. The cable descended until it intersected with the road three miles below.

  “I guess we’re taking the elevator,” Sam said.

  “Oh great, we’re taking a lift into the abyss. Talk about your journey to the center of the earth.”

  “You got a better plan?”

  “No.”

  Sam stepped on to the elevator. “Then I suggest we get going. Three miles is a long way down.”

  Chapter Seventy

  Alexis watched as Robert Cassidy entered the room again. He brought breakfast with him – Bacon and Eggs Benedict with a large glass of orange juice. He seemed cheerful and sure of himself. He never tried to hurt her, or threaten her. The old man seemed to have the confidence of someone who knew that they had the winning card, despite it being obvious to everyone else in the room that he’d already lost – that was what made him so frightening.

  “Good morning, Alexis,” he said in his gentle and deep voice.

  “Morning Robert,” she replied, surprised how easily common civilities could be spoken between captor and captive.