The Sam Reilly Collection

by Christopher Cartwright

  It took less than five minutes to lock their dive helmets and complete their checks on each other before they were ready to dive.

  “Maria Helena, Maria Helena, this is Reilly, how do you read?” Sam said through his push to talk (PTT) system.

  “Loud and clear.” It was Matthew’s voice that answered him.

  “Very good. Now that we’ve established the Rock’s relay communications are working, are we clear to dive?”

  “Weather up here is still good. You and Tom have a safe dive.”

  Sam looked at Tom, who nodded to show he was ready. And then, one after the other, they started to climb backwards down the steps into the moon pool below, and into another world.

  The water was dark, but the visibility with their flashlights excellent – at least fifty feet. Sam checked that the navigation beacon on board the Rock was working, and that his range finder could clearly see it. Reassured by the flashing bulb, he then held the electronic dive tablet in front of him, and hit Search.

  It flashed several times, sending ultrahigh frequency sound waves out in a 270-degree arc ahead of them. Immediately, the screen showed the flat surface of the seabed and the only obstacle for a hundred feet – the entrance to the tunnel.

  Sam pointed at his marking, and Tom responded, “That’s our cave.”

  “Copy that.” He marked the entrance to the tunnel with an asterisk, and like a GPS his tablet directed him precisely to the point.

  “Just wait till you see this thing, Sam…” Tom said.

  It was a short swim to the entrance of the tunnel. The surrounding area was noticeably devoid of any sea life.

  Sam looked up at the entrance in front of him.

  “Holy shit, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

  *

  Above him, the entrance to the tunnel stood at nearly forty feet. The outside was carved in ornate jade, intricately connected. Despite the buildup of sand and erosion of nearly six centuries, Sam had no doubt what he was looking at. His mind quickly referenced the little he knew about Mayan culture.

  This was no tunnel.

  It was something entirely different – the very top of a pyramid.

  At the opening stood a golden sculpture. The size of a large man, it held a spear pointing out towards a distant enemy. No light reached this spot, but as Sam focused his flashlight towards it, the spear glowed. Only it wasn’t a spear, at all.

  “Do you realize what that is?” Sam said, already kicking his fins towards the ancient artefact.

  “Like I said, The Ark of Light was real.”

  Sam was certain the second he saw it.

  A man who was quick to assess a situation, but slow and confident with a decision, he was used to being correct. It was because of this that the disappointment was so strong when he reached the structure and discovered it was nothing more than a sculpture, with a piece of glass at its center. Still doubting himself, Sam wondered if it was made of diamond, instead.

  “Sorry, Sam,” Tom said, “I thought I told you I’d already searched the entrance? Even I would have noticed if it were the real Ark of Light.”

  “It’s okay. I just got my hopes up.”

  “Do you think we’ll find what old Ajtzak did with the Ark of Light somewhere inside this tunnel?” Tom asked.

  “I’ve no idea, but I think this is the closest that mankind has come to discovering the weapon since it was lost in the fifteenth century.” Sam examined the structure of the entrance with admiration. “And something tells me this was never meant as a tunnel…”

  “What then?”

  “A tomb – Maybe Ajtzak’s final resting place? There was nothing in the history books about where they buried him, or even if he was given a King’s burial, as his bloodline suggested he should.”

  “You might just be on to something there.”

  “I’m certain of it,” Sam said. “What I can’t work out though, is how a fifteenth century civilization managed to build anything at a depth of 300 feet of water, especially something this intricate.”

  “Maybe they built it on land and then lowered it off a massive ship?”

  “No, even if they had the means of carrying something this large on a ship, there’s no way they could have sunk it and had it land so perfectly.”

  “How then?”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  “Agreed.”

  They swam inside the entrance of the pyramid, which was much less elaborate than its outside. The tunnel could just have easily been a flooded subway in New York for all the similarities of appearance. They swam downwards nearly thirty feet and then found one long tunnel heading both west and east.

  “Diver Reilly, radio check Maria Helena?”

  “Hearing you a little weak, say again.”

  Sam stuck a relay transmitter and booster to the tunnel wall.

  “How do you read me now, Matthew?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Good. What we have here appears to be the top of an ancient pyramid, probably Mayan given its location. All we could see from the entrance was the very top, surrounded by sand. There’s no way to guess how much further down this may go. The water here has the highest concentrations of hydrogen cyanide, so at least we’re onto something with our first mission – to seal the leak and contain the contamination. We’re going to explore this tunnel and see what we find.”

  “Very good, keep us in communication range.”

  “Will do.”

  Sam looked at Tom, and said, “Let’s separate. You want to go east or west first?”

  “East.”

  “Okay, make certain you stay within radio range.”

  “Will do, boss – you just call when you need me to rescue your ass.”

  “You can count on it.”

  The tunnel went for approximately 80 feet from one end to the other. At each end, the tunnel submerged further in a steep downward direction, as though the top of the outside pyramid was just the tip of the iceberg, which extended deep into the seabed.

  Of course, that would be impossible…

  “What do you want to do, Sam?”

  “Plant another transmitter, and if you’re happy, let’s continue further down. I have a crazy feeling that we might just meet at the bottom. If you lose radio reception, double back, and meet at the Rock. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Sam continued down the steep tunnel. There were boulders on either side, suggesting that whoever once built it, used stone to prop up the walls. Or that someone had actually built a real pyramid here first and then it was filled with water? Sam brushed the idea from his mind. It didn’t even warrant contemplation.

  Sam checked his dive watch.

  He was already 480 feet underwater. Their decompress time was going to be pretty long, not that Sam worried about that. He had the Rock, after all. It was his remaining Hydrox that worried him.

  “How’s your Hydrox levels, Tom?”

  “I’ve got another 40 minutes at this depth, how about you?”

  “Same. Let’s just make sure we’ve got plenty of time to make the return. I have no intention of joining any king in his burial tomb.”

  “I’m with you there.”

  At 240 feet, the angle of the tunnel turned abruptly inwards, and the tunnel was once again horizontal.

  “Your tunnel horizontal again, Tom?”

  “Yeah, you too?”

  “Yeah, it may have been just a tunnel, but it’s one hell of a deep tunnel, all the same. How any civilization worked out how to dig this beats me!”

  “I’ve heard you use that voice before. You’re going to have to find out aren’t you? It will be Zanzibar all over again, won’t it?”

  Sam smiled to himself as he shook his head, recalling the events of their discovery in Zanzibar last year. There’s no way I could be so wrong – twice.

  “They’ll find how it was done one day, let me assure you. I just hope I live long enough to have my an
swer. Hey, I think I can see your light up ahead.”

  “That’s not possible,” Tom’s voice was calm, but deadly serious.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I turned mine off more than a minute ago, when I saw your light.”

  Chapter Two

  Tom was so distracted by the brightness of the light, that he nearly missed the crack in the outer wall entirely. When the current grabbed him, he thought it was a monster of the deep drawing him into its jaws.

  He would have been amazed to learn that the crack was no larger than his hand, but the extreme pressure gradient expelled the fluid like a jet. If he’d had time to prepare, he would have been able to brace himself, or at least avoid the direct point of flow.

  Spinning from the pressure, his buoyancy disorientated by the flow, Tom’s helmet collided with the masonry of the tunnel wall, directly opposite to the crack.

  Gas instantly began erupting from the fissure.

  “Shit, my helmet’s been compromised…” he yelled, but no one heard his words. His radio, along with his faceplate, were destroyed.

  Hydrox, the oxygen rich hydrogen gas designed for deep sea diving, flowed freely from his faceplate. The bubbles it created blinded him completely. With the high concentrations of hydrogen cyanide in his surrounding water, it was the positive pressure of the Hydrox that was still keeping him alive, but it would expire within minutes at this rate.

  Tom flicked his flashlight on and off continuously. He had no idea which direction in relation to himself Sam was, but he knew that a message had to be passed, if he was ever going to see the surface. If he’d thought it through at all, he would have realized that, even with the ability to see, he would never have had enough gas to reach the Rock.

  He was going to die.

  Like all creatures, he refused to accept his fate, despite the circumstances. With no way of knowing that his radio had been damaged he kept trying to contact the only person on earth who had the chance to save him.

  “Sam, my faceplate has been compromised, I need help – now!”

  Without knowing whether or not his flashlight had been successful in attracting Sam’s attention, he switched it off. Through the millions of bubbles streaming from the crack in his faceplate, Tom saw the glowing light in the distance.

  There. I have to reach it, before the darkness takes me…

  Tom kicked his strong legs, and the fins propelled him in the direction towards the light, but without much visibility, he had little way of determining how close he was to it. Then he saw a second light, which was moving up and down, more like dolphin, towards him. And then the leaking Hydrox stopped.

  He had run out of breathable gas.

  Like a dying fool, Tom closed his eyes, held his breath, and swam towards his death – and death swam towards him. Within a minute, he no longer had to hold his eyes closed, and was surrounded by the darkness.

  Unconsciousness wrapped itself around his mind comfortingly, like an adult spreading a warm blanket over a child.

  *

  Sam struggled to remove the deformed helmet. Using an emergency wrench connected to the back of Tom’s twin dive tanks, he gripped the helmet’s outer lock and pulled with all his might. The device still did not move. On his third attempt, he got the casing to turn, then quickly pulled it off his limp friend’s head.

  “Tom! Can you hear me?”

  Tom’s eyes were open, and the man was still gasping for air, but something was wrong. The muscles around his face started to twitch.

  He’s been exposed to the hydrogen cyanide…

  Opening the cyanide antidote kit, Sam said, “Matthew, put the toxicologist on the line – and I mean, right now.”

  Seconds later, he had a reply, “Doctor Johnston speaking.”

  “Tom’s faceplate has been damaged and he’s been exposed to high concentrations of hydrogen cyanide… I have the antidote kit open, but there’s about ten fucking mini-jets inside – I need you to give me the sequence of administration.”

  “Work from left to right, for the first three. Start with the aerosol amyl nitrite – give it immediately into his mouth and be sure to hold his nose closed.”

  Sam followed the order and sprayed the aerosol solutions into Tom’s mouth in rapid succession. His hands were stable. He didn’t have time to be frightened. Sam now had the equipment and the instructions available. All he had to do was follow them, and Tom would survive – or he wouldn’t, but he would have been given the best chance.

  Without waiting for Sam to acknowledge that he’d done so, the doctor continued, “Now, on with the first injection. It’s called sodium nitrite, and you’re going to need to administer it intravenously. That’s going to mean inserting it into Tom’s large jugular vein. Make sure it’s inside the vein, otherwise it won’t work, and now just shove the entire contents in.”

  Sam had learned the basic concepts of venipuncture at college, while working on autopsies of certain mammals, but that was a far cry from inserting a massive needle into his best friend’s large neck vein.

  He drew on his memories, and inserted it first go.

  Sam attached the mini-jet and injected the full contents. Forcing himself to take purposely slow, deep breaths, he waited for a response.

  “Okay, the sodium nitrite is in.”

  “Good, now I want you to leave that needle inside Tom’s neck and attach the second mini-jet. That one is filled with sodium thiosulfate. You will notice, it doesn’t have a needle on the end. The reason for this is that you can insert it over the previous needle and just inject it straight in.”

  Sam followed the instructions, and then asked, “Now what?”

  “If you were quick enough, and your friend is strong, he has about a 25 percent chance that he will survive. If he regains consciousness, I need you to start working through the rest of the kit – as the packet says, from left to right, each one injected through the same port that you made when you inserted the second medication into his neck vein.”

  “Thanks Doc,” Sam said, and for an instant he thought he saw his friend’s eyes starting to focus. “Now, Matthew, we only have one helmet between the two of us, and very little Hydrox in our tanks. We’re going to need you to send a rescue mission.”

  “Rescue mission?” The incredulity in Matthew’s voice could be heard despite the radio friction. “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’ll explain shortly, but first, you better bring up the Rock and start preparing for a rescue mission!”

  In front of him, Tom’s open eyes, staring blankly into that space somewhere between life and death, appeared to recognize something. His pupils dilated, and his head turned to orient with Sam’s. Without speaking, he slowly looked up, towards the glow above.

  “Where the fuck are we, Sam?” Tom’s voice was cold, but not frightened.

  “Hey, you’re alive!” Sam patted Tom’s back. His friend coughed a little, but he looked like he was going to be okay. “Well Tom, I’m not certain, but if I was to hazard a guess, I’d say, we just entered the inner tomb of an ancient king.”

  Chapter Three

  The air was stale, and utterly devoid of humidity.

  It was the first time since entering the glowing chamber that Sam even noticed. For that matter, he was only just now able to examine his surroundings. He hadn’t been aware of the unique dryness until now.

  When he first dragged Tom’s unresponsive body through the opening and up into the dry stone surface, Sam’s only interest had been whether or not the gas was breathable. His watch monitored air quality and had quickly confirmed his suspicion that the hydrogen cyanide was confined to the water. Then he’d commenced Tom’s resuscitation.

  His eyes glanced over the room which now served as their rescue chamber.

  It was small, no larger than someone’s bedroom. The walls were built out of solid, cubed stone blocks, four feet wide. The stone walls and ceiling were entirely smooth. Above them, at the perfect center, was a square opening – just big
enough for a man to climb through. It was from this opening that the strange blue glowing light radiated. Fifteen feet above, it would be nearly impossible to access without specialized equipment. Most likely, Sam guessed, this chamber served only as a deterrent for would be thieves.

  His eyes returned to the walls.

  Although smooth, there were a number of painted markings covering the entire chamber; pictographs which depicted warriors, with their weapons drawn as though they were placed there, ready to defend the upper levels of a vault.

  Something about the pictures disturbed him.

  He’d seen them somewhere before. Maybe in an archeological book or documentary on the Discovery Channel, but he doubted it. Somehow, he felt that he’d seen similar work with his own eyes. That in itself wasn’t particularly surprising. After all, Sam’s work with Deep Sea Expeditions, and as a ghost agent for the Secretary of Defense, often brought him to ancient archeological sites. He remembered a number of past missions that took him to Mayan sites, but failed to recall similar markings.

  Without giving it any more consideration, he noticed Tom had sat up by himself, his hand instinctively reaching for the needle in his neck.

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” Sam said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a giant needle I just used to save your life.”

  “Do I still need it?” Tom asked.

  “Probably not, but the doctors back Stateside recommended that I leave it in place, with its medical lock, until you’re on the surface… something about an air embolism or something. How do you feel?”

  “Not bad, given my recent exposure with hydrogen cyanide and concoction of otherwise lethal chemicals that you provided me with.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Tom’s eyes skittered across the smashed remnants of his dive helmet, “That’s mine?”

  Sam nodded his head.

  Tom’s hand reached for his forehead. A slight smile overcame his otherwise pensive face. “My helmet appears to have taken most of the damage.”