The Sam Reilly Collection

by Christopher Cartwright

  He broke the still of the morning’s water with a giant splash, the icy water sending lightning signals up his spine.

  I don’t care how beautiful it is, I hate altitude diving.

  A moment later, Sam was floating on the surface of the lake. He placed his hand on his head, forming a simple symbol for the letter “O” which meant that all was okay.

  Above him, in the Zodiac, he watched Tom respond, using the same symbol, before following him into the water.

  Once the bubbles settled, he heard Tom’s voice through the PTT device in his facemask.

  “You didn’t mention how fucking cold the water is!”

  “I didn’t think you’d follow me in if I did.”

  “Come on, let’s start the descent.” Tom said. “Hypothermia’s going to be a bitch the longer we wait.”

  The two of them started to descend.

  The clear water made it all but impossible to determine distances. Sam was always baffled when people would talk to him about how scary it was diving in murky water. When the water was crystal clear like this, your depth perception became so warped that it was easy to make the kind of mistakes that get you killed, either during a descent or ascent. For that reason, both men kept their depth gauges out in front as they made their descent.

  Sam’s eyes feasted on the surreal environment they had entered.

  The limestone gave a distinct green glow through the water, as the sun’s rays penetrated the surface above. Near the rock where their helicopter rested, Sam could see a series of tunnels, all of which were much too small for the Magdalena to have entered, but which caused a myriad of reflective displays as the light traveled through. He made a mental note to come back and explore them later, if given the chance to do so before they left.

  At a depth of ten feet, he opened his jaw, subconsciously equalizing for the change in pressure, as he continued his descent.

  The rocks to his side appeared to be perhaps twenty feet away, in the exceptionally clear water. As an experienced diver though, Sam knew from the position of the zodiac, that they were more like 500 feet away.

  At a depth of fifty feet they passed the two large air tanks which were tied to the dive line at the 50 foot marker. These were emergency air supplies, just in case something went wrong on their ascent.

  One hundred and eighty feet was well beyond the realm of a no-decompression dive. It meant that what would be a quick drop to the bottom, would require a much longer and slower ascent.

  “We’re just under a third of the way down,” Sam said. “How are you feeling, Tom?”

  “Cold. How about you?”

  “I’m all right. If I’d known what you were dragging me into, I would have brought along my ice diving gear.”

  “If I’d realized what we were in for, I would have done the same thing too,” Tom remarked.

  “Did you see the caves near our rock?” Sam asked, as he pointed toward them.

  “Yeah, they were probably formed by the avalanche all those years ago.”

  “Seems a likely explanation. If we get a chance, let’s make a shallow dive there later today.”

  “Sounds good,” Tom agreed.

  Descending into the deepest section at the center of the lake, Sam noticed that the shape of the lake, as seen from the air, varied greatly in the central section, which dropped to 180 feet, whereas the depth of the rest of the lake was somewhere in the vicinity of 30 to 40 feet, and had a silty bottom. The central section appeared to be more like the tunnel of a giant earthworm, burrowing its way down to the center of the earth.

  Sam turned on his powerful hand torch for a few minutes as he continued his descent, and shined it along the rock walls.

  My God, we’re in an ancient lava tunnel!

  The walls were shaped as a sinkhole formed in the soft limestone over a period of millions of years. It was almost entirely cylindrical, as though something had intentionally created it. At its widest point, it was no more than 150 feet across.

  “Hey buddy,” Sam could hear Tom’s voice, “I don’t know about you, but something about this hole makes me feel like we’re caught somewhere between reruns of 'The Abyss' and 'Journey to the Center of the Earth.’”

  “Or, 'The Silence of the Lambs'?”

  “Yeah, that’s seems more like it. It’s giving me the creeps,” Tom murmured.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s no different than the thousands of other naturally occurring limestone tunnels found throughout the Dolomites,” Sam said, looking down at his depth gauge and at the darkness below. “Besides, what sort of monster could be bothered living in such an inhospitable environment?”

  They were approaching a depth of 100 feet.

  Below them there was only complete darkness.

  “In a tunnel this narrow, at least we’ll find our answer at the bottom,” he heard Tom say. “If her remains are at the bottom of this tunnel, there’s no way we could possibly miss seeing her.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Sam concurred.

  The water temperature was becoming noticeably colder, too.

  He was startled when a large fish swept past his leg.

  It was the first sign of underwater life he’d seen, just as he was beginning to believe that the lake was utterly devoid of life.

  At first, there was a total scarcity of underwater life, but as they descended deeper, the presence of large eels, crustaceans, and other fish became apparent.

  “What do you think that thing is?” It was Tom who first spotted it approach.

  It was a large fish, with a strange, bioluminescent organ hanging from a rod which protruded from its forehead and dangled in front of its face. The creature looked made up, or more like the type of creature you might have expected to have evolved at the bottom of the ocean, certainly not in a lake approaching ten thousand feet above sea level.

  “A night-light fish?” Sam guessed, flippantly.

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have thought that a fish would need a light in this lake. Even at 180 feet, some light should be able to penetrate to its bottom. I wonder if things change in the winter when the lake freezes over.”

  “Maybe… or perhaps there is a more substantial system of caves and tunnels elsewhere around here, which has created a unique environment for such a species of fish,” Sam said.

  “Okay, we’re at 150 feet. If the Magdalena’s here, we should be able to see her on the lake bottom soon.”

  Sam flicked on his powerful LED and pointed it towards the floor of the lake.

  What looked back at him scared him more than any creature of the sea ever could.

  Below him lay the wrecked remains of a B26 bomber, in almost pristine condition. A single crack in its fuselage, just large enough for a man to swim through, could be seen at its rear, but otherwise, the cold environment had preserved her in the same condition as the day she crashed.

  Sam angled his torch toward the front of the aircraft until its light reached the cockpit window. He paused just long enough to see the eyes of its long dead pilot staring back at him.

  Only, it wasn’t a corpse.

  It was alive.

  And a second later, a light in the cockpit came on, followed by a second one.

  Whatever they’d found, Sam knew that someone else had just beaten them to it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  John Wolfgang didn’t believe it when he received the report Sam Reilly was still alive, and now he and Tom Bower, of all people, were preparing to dive Lake Solitude. He was bewildered that the man had survived, not that he knew much about him. On the other hand, he had known almost immediately when he’d first met Tom Bower that he would be a hard man to deceive.

  What were they trying to achieve?

  John understood, simply enough, that Sam had made the connection between the threat on his life, and his friend, Kevin Reed’s discovery of the gold, followed by the subsequent unexplained death of Kevin and his wife, Sally. He had then come searching for the Magdalena
. What puzzled John was what could have possibly made Sam start searching on the southern side of the Alps? Surely, he knew as well as anyone else that an airship could never have cleared such high mountains.

  Whatever their purpose, he was certain they were on the wrong track. But even so, what could he do about it?

  The solution presented itself to him.

  But, was he overplaying his new friendship?

  John decided the risk was worth it, and made the phone call.

  “What do you have for us?” It was the same cold voice of the woman who had spoken to him previously.

  “I know exactly where they will be by tomorrow morning,” he said.

  “Good.” The woman’s voice maintained its air of superiority and hostility.

  “But you will need to hurry to get a team in place,” he continued.

  Serendipity, so it would seem, had provided him with the perfect trap.

  Of course he’d checked out Lake Solitude years ago. It was one of perhaps a dozen early choices years ago, back when he’d first started looking for the Magdalena in earnest.

  That was where he’d discovered the downed B26 bomber.

  And, at that depth, Sam Reilly would be an easy target.

  *

  At first, Sam thought he was simply seeing the remains of the pilot.

  Then, he saw the light turn on behind the remains…

  Followed by a number of others.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” he wondered, aloud. Something told him to switch off his LED.

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Tom said, following suit.

  One after the other, he saw the divers emerge from the crack in the bomber’s fuselage, and swim towards them.

  There was nothing obviously menacing about them, but he knew for certain something wasn’t right.

  “I don’t think they’re recreational divers on a holiday,” Sam noted.

  “Neither do I – let’s get the hell out of here!”

  The dark figures started swimming rapidly towards them.

  Sam didn’t wait to count them, but at a glance, he could tell there were at least eight of them. And there was something familiar about them, too.

  Sam couldn’t quite put his hand on it to begin with. But there was something about the way they moved in such perfect unison.

  Had he seen their dry suits before?

  Then he realized that he had indeed.

  They’re Navy SEALs.

  “They’re Navy SEALs, Tom. We’re in worse trouble than I thought. These guys mean business,” Sam said.

  “I think you’re right, Sam, and I’m not sure if these guys are still on our side.”

  Sam and Tom both started to kick their fins, and ascend.

  Below them, their assailants were gaining on them.

  The first one fired his harpoon – much larger and more deadly than a spear gun, capable of traveling the thirty or more feet that separated them.

  Sam watched as it shot past him. The clear water making it difficult for the shooter to accurately judge the distance, he missed by several feet.

  Next time, the man wouldn’t be quite so careless taking aim.

  A second SEAL then took aim, and his harpoon sliced rapidly through the clear water. This time, it just barely clipped the neoprene of Sam’s dry suit near his elbow, narrowly missing the flesh of his arm.

  The freezing cold water poured into the small opening, and it stung him almost as painfully as if he had been shot.

  “Shit,” Sam swore.

  “You okay, Sam?”

  “Yeah, it’s just a scratch, but we won’t be so lucky a third time. We’re going to have to make a rapid no-decompression ascent. What do you think?”

  “I think at 150 feet, we’re very likely to get ourselves killed. But, if we stay here, we’re going to end up dead anyway, so why not?”

  “Good luck, Tom,” Sam said as he pulled the emergency release on his weight belt.

  Instantly, they started to rise toward the surface.

  Sam just hoped that the minimal amount of time they had spent making their descent would allow them to resurface without too much of a nitrogen build-up in their blood.

  They were about to lose 5 atmospheres worth of pressure in under a minute.

  Sam exhaled one gigantic breath during the entire ascent, as the air in his lungs expanded when the atmospheric pressure lessened.

  The Navy Seals below were unable to follow, having been down much longer than Sam and Tom. The nitrogen in their bloodstreams would have built up to a greater degree the longer they remained submerged. Consequently, they would be unable to follow Sam and Tom to the surface, without almost certainly, dying.

  Soon, the SEALs were little more than dark shapes moving at the dark bottom of the lake.

  Sam and Tom stopped their ascent at about six feet from the surface, just below their Zodiac.

  “How you doing, Tom?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, I think okay. How about you?”

  “I’m all right. I think we’ve escaped.”

  “We’ve certainly beaten those at the bottom, but an advanced mercenary team like them, must surely have a surface team,” Sam said, and then went on to say, “That is, assuming we’re not dealing with one of our own teams.”

  The consequence of his last words echoed in his ears.

  What if they are ours?

  That thought and the possibility it might be the truth scared the hell out of him.

  “You’re right, Sam. Maybe the surface team won’t yet know what’s happened below. Let’s stay underwater until we reach the rock, and then let’s hope we can take off before they know what’s happened.”

  “Good idea, Tom.”

  “Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “What did you mean by ‘one of our own Navy SEAL teams’?” Tom asked.

  “Well, we already know that there was something more valuable than gold aboard the Magdalena when she disappeared,” Sam said. “Whatever it was, it’s attracted a large assembly of treasure hunters, and they’re willing to stop at nothing to obtain their prize.”

  “And you think that assembly might include members of our own government?”

  “Yep, and I just wish I knew what that treasure actually is.”

  *

  Two minutes later, Tom surfaced at the edge of the granite rock where his helicopter was still resting. He turned slowly, his eyes scanning a full 360 degrees, trying to get a complete view of their environment.

  There was nothing to alert him of their danger.

  No shouts or shots fired.

  “We’re good so far, Sam.”

  “Okay then, let’s go.”

  They both quickly scrambled up the edge of the rock and climbed into the helicopter. Before Tom even began to remove his dive equipment, he flicked the switches to begin the slow process of warming up the engine.

  On the other side of the lake, something moved.

  Before Tom could make out what it was, he had lifted the helicopter into the air, and disappeared into the narrow Tyrol Valley below.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Disappointment still shrouded Sam when he arrived back at the cabin.

  Instead of finding the Magdalena, and the answer to a mystery that had already remained hidden for three quarters of a century, he had nearly lost his life, and found a whole set of new, unanswered questions.

  How did they know he was still alive?

  Who were they exactly?

  Why would U.S. Navy SEALs be involved in this mess?

  And, finally and most significantly: What is it about the Magdalena that I don’t know that makes her so damn important?

  Once he entered the cabin, Sam checked his cell.

  There was a message from her. It was the only good news he’d heard today.

  The text message read, I’m free tomorrow. Want to see the Alps from a different perspective?

  The sudden increase in his heart rate told him he did.
/>   Sam immediately hit the call-back number.

  “Hi, Aliana.”

  “Sam, is that you?” Aliana asked, in her distinctive voice.

  “Yes. So, you decided to stick around a little longer?”

  “I thought I might stay for the weekend.”

  “I’m glad,” Sam said, and he meant it too.

  “Are you going to be free?”

  “Yeah, my work here seems to have reached a dead end.”

  “Then, do you want to see the Alps my way?” Aliana repeated.

  “Okay, that could be just what I need. What did you have in mind?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here. Can you meet me at the hotel where I’ve been staying? Say, at about eight o-clock tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure. What should I bring with me?” Sam asked.

  “Just wear some comfortable clothes. I’ve got everything else you’ll need.”

  “Okay then, I’ll see you at eight,” Sam said, and ended the call.

  The grin came over his face, like a child at Disneyland – relentless and uncontrollable.

  He’d had a number of women interested in him over the years. He was young, healthy, and had the physique of a man who spent his life outdoors – and, of course, he was rich, although he took great pains to ensure few people realized the immensity of his fortune.

  Tom was probably the only person who knew him well enough to understand he’d only dated a few of those women and none of them had held his interest or lived up to his expectations.

  Aliana was different.

  She was both stunningly beautiful, and in possession of a mind sharper than that of any other woman he had known – and the people he often worked with were genuinely very bright. They were specialists in their own fields, but she was smarter than any one of them. She had a love of the outdoors that matched his own, and the tenacity to see it all, in its glorious wonder.

  Aliana was a mischievous, playful, and captivating creature – and she had decided she wanted to spend the weekend with him.

  As far as Sam was concerned, the Magdalena could just as well stay lost forever. He had discovered something far more exquisite than a seventy-five year old mystery. He had found Aliana and she wanted to spend a few days with him.