Code to Extinction

by Christopher Cartwright

  Twenty feet ahead, a man stood quietly in the path. He looked young and heavily overweight. The stranger stepped forward to greet him. The old man instantly thought uneasily of the treasure in his pockets.

  The stranger greeted him through dark, hooded eyes. Examining him with the wry curiosity of a scientist assessing a primitive creature. The man had striking features—very pale skin, even for this region, and intensely dark eyes. There was intelligence in those eyes, and pain behind them, too. Something else was there as well. The old man couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Was it triumph?

  The stranger gritted his teeth and stared at him with eyes so dark they appeared almost black, with tiny specks of gold, like the devil.

  The old man felt his chest constrict at the sight. He closed his eyes as though it might protect him from his past. There was only one person he’d ever met with such eyes, and that person had died a long time ago.

  The man fixed his penetrating gaze at him and said, “Pressure! Everything of value in this world requires pressure to achieve its potential!”

  When the old man opened them again, the stranger was gone.

  A few minutes later, he heard the deep, guttural sound of a large diesel engine starting up. He stepped through the thick vegetation, and caught the glimpse of an oversized, Russian quarry truck. On the back of it, was a large dish – the sort found on a microwave tower.

  He sat down and watched the truck disappear to the north.

  There was something about the stranger. He looked familiar, yet distant too… he stared at the overweight man and shook his head. It was impossible. There were similarities, but more differences, too.

  He shook his head. It was impossible. Besides, he didn’t believe in ghosts.

  Yet he was still unable to shake the feeling they’d met before…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Philip S. W. Goldson International Airport, Belize

  The Gulfstream G550 taxied along the blacktop, gently easing to a stop at the end of the runway. Ilya glanced out the window and watched as a commercial jet passed overhead. A moment later, he heard the roar of the Gulfstream’s twin Rolls-Royce engines and the luxury jet bounded down the runway, before defying the effects of gravity at a steep incline.

  He rested back into the Italian leather and closed his eyes.

  A computer search for Sam Reilly had identified that he was going to be diving at the Belize Great Hole free diving competition. It should have been a breeze, but there were complications. The man simply wasn’t that easy to kill. Everyone could be killed, but he’d gone about it the wrong way. He wanted to make it look like an accident. Sam wasn’t the sort of guy who had accidents. Ilya knew that now. Next time he would simply walk straight up to the guy and shoot him.

  His mind returned to the way Sam had tried to disable the seaplane, so it would crash. It had been an invigorating experience. It wasn’t the first time the man had nearly killed him, either. A week ago, Sam had trapped him inside the Aleutian Portal.

  The thought of death made him recall how close he’d come to drowning as a kid. He and his brother fell through a sheet of ice on a lake in Siberia. His brother had died, but he was rescued and resuscitated by someone working below the ice. That’s how he came to meet Leo Botkin. One of the most powerful and dangerous men on earth.

  The experience had changed his life. Not only did he lose his brother, but it had made him stronger and tougher, mentally and physically. There was a certain comfort in knowing that death was not so bad. It was only in life that you experienced pain – it had made him far more callous and capable as an assassin.

  The Gulfstream banked gently, and his cellphone rang.

  He answered it immediately. “Yes?”

  It was Leo Botkin. “Do you want to tell me why I had to send you my private jet?”

  Ilya sighed. “There were complications.”

  “Is it done?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Ilya looked out the window, at the turquoise water intermingled with a series of shallow reefs below. “There were complications.”

  “That doesn’t normally stop you from doing what I ask.” Botkin’s voice was cold and hard.

  “You don’t normally ask me to kill Sam Reilly.”

  “When will you finish the job?”

  “I’ll start tomorrow. I can’t find anything about where he is right now, but I will.” The Gulfstream straightened up, and Ilya rested his feet on the soft leather chaise. “Any idea what he was doing at the Great Blue Hole?”

  “You said he was entering some sort of free-diving competition.”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “He likes diving. Why not?” Botkin asked.

  Ilya sighed at the obvious discrepancy. “Sam Reilly’s got the Death Stone. He’s a smart guy. By now he must know what the future holds. Time’s running out. He’s got one chance to survive.”

  “So?”

  “What the hell was he doing here looking like he’s on vacation?”

  “Beats me?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine. When you work it out, let me know.”

  Ilya knew he was lying, but had learned long ago that Leo Botkin let you know precisely what he wanted you to know and nothing more.

  “Okay.”

  Botkin’s voice took a dangerous tone. “Do you have any idea what’s at stake here if he works out what to do with the stones?”

  “I know,” Ilya confirmed. “Don’t worry, he won’t be around long enough to work it out.”

  “You’d better hope not”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Onboard the Maria Helena – Coast of Belize

  The darkroom was positioned on the lowest deck of the Maria Helena, toward the bow and below the waterline. The steel hull and purpose-built door barred any light from entering. In the days before Global Shipping had purchased the vessel and reconditioned her from an Ice-breaker to a Salvage and Rescue ship, the room had been used by its previous occupants to develop film – in the times before digital cameras, when photos needed to be developed and every shot counted. Now, the room was set up with a range of lights across the UV spectrum that could be used to examine artifacts or antiques.

  Under the soft red light, Billie stared at the ancient stone tablet.

  Stolen from the temple hidden within the sandstone quartz caves beneath the Tepui Mountains, it had already revealed a number of secrets. She’d already discovered that it was an ancient map leading to all twenty-two of the remaining temples, but so far, there was nothing she could do to interpret it.

  The colors visible by unaided human eyes are controlled by the wavelength of light vitality. Unlike some insects, people can just view the spectrum from red to violet. Other invisible colors exist above and below this spectrum. The color above red is called infrared, the same as they used in their night-vision goggles to access the Tepui Mountains at night. The color below violet is called ultraviolet. Ultraviolet light will make fluorescent or luminous pigments fluoresce, emanating visible light.

  It was inside the ultraviolet color range that she hoped to find some hidden clue left by the ancient Master Builders.

  There were four main types of ultraviolet light, each one separated into categories based on their wavelength. Unaided, human eyes can view violet light between four hundred and fifty and four hundred nanometers. To see light in the wavelength spectrum of four hundred to three hundred and twenty, also known as ultraviolet A, long wave, light, one needed the assistance of a black light. Moving further down into a range of three hundred and twenty to two hundred and eighty, ultraviolet B is highly harmful to one’s skin, yet small exposures are vital for the production of vitamin D3 that allows the human body to absorb calcium in the bowel. At the lowest end of the spectrum, medium wave length light and two hundred and eighty to one hundred nanometers, the short wavelength light was considered germicidal, and used in medical practices or
food-processing to eliminate any bacteria.

  Billie switched on the handheld black light wand.

  Electricity passed through the small tube loaded with inert gas and a small amount of mercury. Now energized, the mercury molecules radiated energy as light photons. Some of these were visible, but most of the photons produced were inside the ultraviolet B wavelength range. Since UV light waves are invisible to the human eye, the black light wand needed to change this energy into visible light, by covering the outside of the tube with phosphor.

  Black lights have been used for many years for a variety of purposes, ranging from antique inspection through forgeries, crime scenes, and mineral identification. Various chemical properties end up noticeably evident when exposed to black light. Current paint will incandesce or sparkle when exposed to black light while older paints won’t. This can be used to determine if a painted material is an antique, or a newer reproduction, or a modification of the original. Many banknotes from around the world incorporate fluorescent colors, which sparkle under exposure to black light. To enable fluorescence, dye is infused with luminous solids that emit a specific colored gleam when exposed to UV light. In geology, a few minerals show photoluminescence, meaning they glow when introduced to a black light. Minerals such as opal, fluorite, willemite, calcite, dolomite, apatite and quartz all glow under black light.

  Billie took the wand, shined it over the stone tablet, and gasped.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Small markings and lines of purple luminescence lit up across the ancient stone.

  Someone had used ink made of fluorite to make notes and markings throughout the stone. Billie glanced at the sapphires. Most of the blue precious gems had been visibly crossed out with the strange purple ink. Her eyes stopped at the four unmarked sapphires. Next to each one, was a symbol for one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, followed by their respective Greek letters – identical to the ones she’d seen on the MRI scans of the stones hidden inside the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone.

  It made her think about the Sacred Stones – the name Sam had started using for the four stones still locked inside the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone. It begged the question, what was so special about these stones? And were they supposed to be taken to each of these four temples? Billie thought about it for a moment. She still didn’t have a clue where any of those temples belonged. When she’d first studied the stone tablet, she was certain it was an obvious map of the world. But since then, she’d discovered that none of the sapphires led to any temples. There was no benefit knowing that the sacred stones needed to be taken to specific ancient temples, if she had no way of finding the temples.

  She put the thought out of her mind and continued studying the stone tablet. A line had been formed between ten sapphires, which looked like stars imbedded in the jet-black lignite. Without the lines, the gems appeared to be placed at random, but now stood out as a constellation of a bird. Although which constellation, she had no idea. Inside that set of ten stars were the four unmarked sapphires.

  Billie smiled. She was making progress.

  It was slow, but it was movement. The new revelation said to her, find the constellation and you’ll find the four temples where the sacred stones need to be laid to rest. She continued searching. In her right hand she held the black light wand, and in her left hand, a magnifying glass.

  There were fifteen new meridian lines that ran vertically and horizontally throughout the stone. Each line was only slightly off the previous line that had been etched into the stone. She sighed. What the hell did that mean? Had someone decided to move the shape of the earth?

  She took several photographs of the stone, and made full-size prints on A4 paper. She then walked upstairs to Elise’s office.

  Inside, Elise was working at tracking down the man who had attacked Sam.

  Without preamble, Billie said, “You have a photographic memory. Tell me you were paying attention in school when you were introduced to geography!”

  “Technically, it’s considered eidetic, but yeah, my memory’s good, and I studied geography at school. What do you want to know?”

  “How many meridian and parallel lines are there in total?”

  Elise answered without hesitation. “Three hundred and sixty, but most standard maps have fifteen.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “We just agreed I have an eidetic memory, didn’t we?” Elise looked up at her, with those intense purple eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. Why? What are you trying to work out?”

  Billie placed a full-size print of the stone tablet on the table next to Elise. Its background was colored black as the night’s sky. The image of twenty-two blue stones speckled the paper, and there were five empty spots roughly the same size. Fifteen fine lines, marked in red to emphasize their visibility, ran lengthways and vertically. The Greek symbols for Theta, Sigma, Phi, and Omega were etched in gold, with one at each corner. Below each of those were four horses, intricately carved out of stone or ivory to represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  “When Sam and I looked at this, we were certain it matched a standard world map. All we had to do was work out the locations these stones correlate with, and we find the temples.”

  Elise ran her eyes across the paper. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”

  “No matter which way I looked at it, none of these stones seemed to match any corresponding locations with temples.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Billie nodded. “Most of them are in the ocean somewhere.”

  “They might be submerged temples, like the one Sam and Tom found in the Gulf of Mexico?”

  “No. I could have believed that for one or two of them, but not all of them.” She looked at Elise. “I need to understand more about how latitude and longitude work. I’ve placed this next to a world-globe map and tried to estimate where each of these blue stars correlate to.”

  “And?”

  “None of them seemed to correlate to anything. But then I ran the stone tablet under a black light. It revealed that someone had made notes using purple ink of fluorite. All of the sapphires were crossed out, except these four.” Billie pointed to the four sapphires at the center of the constellation of a bird. “These are the only unmarked sapphires left. My guess is this constellation might lead us to the four temples.”

  Elise smiled. “Astronomy’s not really my strong point.”

  “It’s all right. We’re seeing the astronomer who’s examining the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone tomorrow afternoon. I’ll talk to him about how we can locate the constellation, and more importantly, where it could be viewed from.”

  “So, what do you want to know?”

  Billie placed a second A4 piece of paper on the table in front of Elise. This one had been shot under natural light. “What do you see?”

  Elise studied the two images. “With the exception of the missing purple phosphorescent marks, they’re identical.”

  “Is that all that’s different?”

  Elise ran her eyes across the two images again. Her lips formed a curious smile, revealing a set of evenly spaced, white teeth. “The meridian lines have shifted.”

  “Exactly!” Billie held her breath. “I was hoping you could tell me why?”

  “There’s a number of reasons the person who marked this might have changed the placement of the meridian lines.”

  Billie raised her left eyebrow, slightly. “Really?”

  “Yes. But the most likely reason is simply that the meridians have moved over time.”

  “The shape of earth moves?” Billie was incredulous.

  “Sure it does. Not much, but over thousands of years, there’s definitely likely to be some sort of change.”

  “Based on the new position of the meridian lines, can you recalculate the location of each of these four sapphires?”

  “That, I can do.” Elise took the piece of paper and placed it in the scanner. “What I can do is superimpose this on an identical scaled world map on my computer,
using my Global Information System software. Then I can tell you precisely where each of those dots correlate to.”

  “That would be perfect, thanks.”

  Elise waited as the image uploaded, pointing to a saved document that displayed a visual map of the earth over a rectangular image. Although it looked like any other map you’d find in a geometry classroom, it was an advanced Global Information System, based on software developed for the US military, with the ability to change the scale constantly and zoom into any given location, like Google Earth.

  Elise pointed to the outline of the image on her laptop, and said, “Graticules are lines showing parallels of latitude and meridians of longitude for the earth, like a grid map. Latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the Earth's surface. Latitude is an angle which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° at the poles. Lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator.”

  The scanned document opened on her laptop. She copied the image and then attached it to her map program by superimposing the image of the stone tablet over the world map. The red grid lines, representing fifteen lines of longitude and latitude of the stone, lined up identically between the two maps.

  “What do you think?” Billie asked.

  “Well, if it’s not a map of the earth, I don’t know what it is.” Elise pointed at the prime meridian. “Did you know that the term meridian comes from the Latin word meridies, meaning, midday?”

  Billie sighed. She didn’t know and didn’t care.

  Elise continued. “The sun crosses a given meridian midway between the times of sunrise and sunset at that meridian. The same Latin stem gives rise to the terms a.m. meaning ante meridiem and p.m. meaning post meridiem, used to disambiguate hours of the day when utilizing the 12-hour clock.”

  “That’s really fascinating, Elise… but I’m kind of pressured for time.”

  “What do you want to know?”