The Sam Reilly Collection

by Christopher Cartwright

  “I’ll drink to that,” Tom replied. “Preferably something warm and alcoholic.”

  Sam laughed. “I’m sure we can find you just such a drink in Siberia.”

  They slowly descended to 45 feet where the ground came up to meet them. Sam stopped five feet above the sediment. “Do you see anything?”

  “Nothing more than the bottom of an ice cold lake,” Tom said stopping next to him. “It doesn’t make sense. How can they hide anything in 45 feet of water?”

  “Maybe that fence did a really good job to keep people out?”

  “Not for over a hundred years it didn’t. If Atlantis is here, then someone would have noticed by now. Heck, even our guys wouldn’t have been able to keep that one secret.”

  Sam lowered his ADS machine to the ground. It seemed unsteady, almost wobbly. Tom followed. Both men tried to take sediment samples. It would have been strong enough to support a SCUBA diver, but the heavy ADS had more momentum. Something felt wrong. Sam decreased his buoyancy and the unstable ground began to feel more like a giant trampoline.

  Beneath his helmet, Sam grinned. “It’s not possible.”

  “What’s not possible?”

  “I can’t believe they got away with it for so long!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Sam put his ADS machine to maximum negative buoyancy and then jumped. The ground shook beneath him. Because of the years of sediment built up, it was hard to tell if it was in his mind or not, but then he realized with surprise that it moved. Not much, but it was enough to confirm his theory.

  “What is it?” Tom asked.

  “See for yourself. Reduce your buoyancy, and then try jumping, and you’ll see it!”

  A few moments later, Tom jumped. Then he jumped again. By the third time, he stopped and looked at Sam. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. They covered the lake to create a false bottom?”

  “It would appear so,” Sam replied. “The question is, to hide what?”

  “Well, we’re not going to get any answers jumping on it. Let’s get rid of this sediment and work out how we’re going to cut whatever it is.”

  “Good idea.”

  Together they used a powerful suction device to clear a way through the sediment the way a dredging ship removes a sandbar or maintains the depth of a shipping lane. It took more than an hour, and seven feet of soil, before they reached it.

  Sam examined the material at the bottom of the hole they’d just created. It was made of some sort of thick synthetic polyurethane material. The thing even looked like a giant tarpaulin or trampoline. Whatever it was, it definitely hadn’t formed naturally at the bottom of the lake.

  “Any idea what that is, Tom?”

  “No idea, but I have an idea that this rotary saw will fix it.”

  Tom moved the extension arm forward into the hole until its rotating saw began to cut through the material. It was tougher than he expected, but once the saw picked up speed, it sliced it open. A moment later, a gap was created that was large enough for both of them to swim through. Large amounts of surrounding sediment fell through the new opening.

  “Tom, I think we’re about to find some answers.”

  “I just hope they were meant to be found.”

  “I can’t answer that, but this is where Billie sent us.”

  They sunk through the opening and found a dark world – untouched by humans for nearly a hundred years.

  Sam’s depth reading showed the true bottom of the lake as nearly 500 feet deep. “That’s more like the sort of place Atlantis could have remained hidden for many, many years.”

  “500 feet is a little more serious. Even though the ADS machine is made for it, we’re leaving very little room for error if something goes wrong.”

  The two men, feeling more like astronauts in their ADS machines, sunk into the hole of their creation, and into a new world. It was dark. A place that hadn’t seen the light of day for many years. There was no marine life to be seen. Sam shined his powerful shoulder-mounted flashlight around the new ceiling. Although the material was certainly much stronger than a tarpaulin, from beneath there was little to differentiate the two.

  Tom looked at the predicted maximum duration of his life support system. A simple number on the side of his mechanical left forearm.

  It read: 47 hours and 5 minutes.

  “So, now we’re below a manmade fake lake bottom constructed of sediment and some sort of polyurethane, which in itself is below more than a foot of frozen ice… and we want to go down there?”

  “It’s either that, or you can explain to Billie why we didn’t follow her direction to Atlantis and save her?”

  Tom didn’t reply.

  “I think your girlfriend would be pissed off.”

  “Billie’s not my girlfriend. But you’re right, she’d be pissed – let’s go find whatever the hell she sent us here to get and then get as far away as possible from this place.”

  Sam shifted his ADS into a controlled dive, and then asked, “Billie’s not your girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  Sam was going to say something and then thought better of it.

  They descended another hundred feet, and the place had the dark appearance of another world. Yet, unlike many other places in which Sam had dived, this one seemed to be entirely lacking in any marine life.

  At three hundred feet Tom said, “Billie’s amazing. I’d marry her tomorrow if she’d let me. The trouble is, she has no interest in it. She’s focused on something else, which she has no desire to tell me about. But like the Master Builders and yourself, she can’t truly commit to anything or anyone, until she finds the answer to whatever question seems to have eluded her since she was a child.”

  “I understand…” Sam began to respond, but stopped.

  “Because you know how you get when you’re studying a lead to the Master Builders?”

  “No, because despite all those muscles, you’re really quite an unattractive guy.”

  Despite their distance, Sam could hear the sound of Tom’s deep laugh inside his ADS machine. Tom ignored Sam’s joke, and then continued. “You know Billie a lot better than I do. Do you have any idea what she’s looking for?”

  “No idea,” Sam lied. He would have told Tom the truth, but it wasn’t his to tell. Besides, it was because of what Billie was searching for that their lives had become entangled. It had killed her grandfather. Her own father had the good sense to leave it alone, while she had become obsessed, and that obsession had very nearly got him killed alongside her. No, it had disappeared since they had last gotten close to finding it – retreating like a wounded snake, into an unobtainable region from whence it had come. Wherever it was, he hoped that it remained hidden, at least for the rest of their lifetimes.

  “How about you and Aliana?” Tom asked, changing the subject.

  “What about us?” Sam replied. His mind instantly returned to the girl’s exquisite face. With her blond hair, and striking grey eyes, Aliana’s beauty was surpassed only by her intense intelligence. He’d met her while searching for the Magdalena, an airship filled with rich Jewish families escaping during World War II that never reached its destination. Aliana’s father had tried to kill him, but in the end had given his blessing.

  “Are you going to marry her?”

  Sam thought seriously about it for a moment. Did he love her? Yes, with all his heart. Would he marry her? Of course he would marry her, if their lives were different. If they had been normal people, who worked nine to five, enjoyed weekends off, and generally spent time together. But Aliana and he were both driven by something far more important than love.

  He needed to find answers – who were the Master Builders really, and where had they gone? She needed to win a battle against some virus that hadn’t yet evolved. They were different questions, but both of them needed the answers more than anything else in life. Yes, for the time being, they loved each other, and for every free moment that he had, Sam wanted to spend it with Aliana. B
ut he very much doubted they would be happy married.

  “No, I don’t think we will.”

  Yes, I know why Billie would never marry Tom, despite the obvious affection that she has for him – because I’m driven toward something that I can’t explain too.

  Sam wanted to tell Tom that he should enjoy his time for what it was, but couldn’t come up with the right way to approach it. In the end, he did what he always did, and focused on the task at hand.

  “We’re approaching 500 feet.”

  “Copy that,” Tom replied. “So, I guess the tourist brochure forgot to move the decimal one place?”

  “Guess so.”

  Each man adjusted his ADS so they were now horizontally sinking, allowing for a clear view of the ground below them. It, too, was covered in sediment. But not enough to cover the markings of early man.

  And then they saw it.

  A series of rings, surrounding more rings, cut ever deeper into the earth’s crust, like a series of moats, culminating in a giant dome at the center. There was a slight ooze of sediment, most likely from a hundred years of settlement, which covered it. But even so, the glow was unmistakably dark orange. At this depth, it almost looked red.

  “Tom, I think we just found Atlantis.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Billie watched as the mercenaries responded immediately, with every bit of efficiency that one would expect from professional killers. They formed a defensive circle to the right hand side of the glowing temple, which had drawn the searchers toward their trap like flies.

  Each person in their party used the Kevlar pack off his shoulder to build a mediocre defensive barrier. Billie had no doubt that each man was worth the price Edward had paid, in skill and efficiency. She looked at their M60 machine guns pointed up at their attackers. Even with superior weaponry and a lifetime worth of training, they would only be able to take out a few dozen pygmies each. But, even the most optimistic of equations showed they simply did not have enough bullets to win.

  “Remain steady gentlemen,” Mark said. “Choose your targets, and keep your bursts of fire short.”

  The men grunted in acknowledgement.

  Their eyes were large with adrenaline, their weapons drawn and focused. Without exception, each one of them appeared to be grinning like a demon. Billie wondered how it could be that trained soldiers had failed to see what she knew to be fact – they did not have the ability to win this fight, despite superior weaponry.

  A single pygmy – most likely the tribe’s warrior chief, screamed something in an unrecognizable language. Without ever having heard the sound before, Billie instantly knew what it meant. The continuous sound of thumping weapons ceased.

  And then the onslaught of spears rained down upon them.

  Billie, surrounded by the team, was the most protected, as she heard the continuous thump of spears striking their barrier of backpacks. Hope rose as each one snapped upon striking the Kevlar.

  Before the next set was thrown, Mark yelled, “Fire!”

  The sound of M60 machine guns being eagerly released by the mercenaries from their restraints echoed through the giant circles of dams, like an amphitheater, in short bursts. The first set of pygmies died instantly, their pale white flesh ripped apart as the large 7.62 caliber bullets traveled through unhindered.

  Billie looked up and Mark winked at her. “I told you we’d be all right.”

  “That’s not all of them,” Billie replied, as another hundred or more men took the place of their injured or killed tribal brothers.

  Whoosh!

  A second set of spears were thrown at them. Again, each person grabbed a backpack to form a shield. This time one of the British SAS soldiers had the small head of a spear slide clear through his right hand.

  “Fuck! Are you okay?” Billie asked.

  The man smiled. “It’s all right. I’ve had worse nicks shaving. Doesn’t even hurt, actually.” He then gripped the trigger of his machine gun, and fired another burst toward the enemy. The first one was short, but the second one seemed to continue until he emptied the magazine.

  “Stop firing!” Mark complained. “You’re wasting ammunition!”

  “I’m sorry sir, I don’t know what’s happened. I can’t feel my hand. I can’t feel anything… in fact… I can’t…”

  Billie looked at the soldier. “He’s stopped breathing!”

  “Damn it! The arrows must be poison tipped!” Mark said.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Edward asked.

  “I’ve no fucking idea Mr. Worthington! Until today, no one even knew that the Makan tribe really existed, let alone what poison they use to arm their spearheads.”

  Billie squatted down and felt for a pulse. “He’s got a pulse, but it looks like his muscles have all stopped working. That’s why his diaphragm has stopped. If we ventilate him, he should live.”

  “That’s great, but in case you didn’t notice, we’re all a little busy right now,” Mark said, before letting off another burst of bullets.

  Another hundred or more pygmies stood proudly above them in a sign of strength, despite the certainty they were going to be gunned down. But for every one that died, another took his place with the equanimity of a man who honestly believes he is going to a greater place.

  Every time Billie snuck a peek above her it became ever clearer that their superior weaponry was no match for the pygmies’ sheer numbers and brutal dedication to the cause.

  “Okay, don’t waste any more shots. We’re going to run out. Only target any who descend into the amphitheater,” Mark said.

  “And if they all descend?” Edward asked, his right eyebrow turned upwards.

  Mark gritted his teeth. “Then we’re all royally fucked.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The pygmies watched in muted silence, and then they came – armed with machetes. Mark’s face was aghast with the abhorrent realization that he’d greatly underestimated the force of his enemies, and was about to pay with his life.

  At little over four feet tall, the machete-wielding pygmies wreaked terror as they approached like a stampede of wild animals. They jumped across each moat as they reached it. Those who didn’t make it succumbed to the hungry instincts of the crocodiles, until enough men had fallen that even the beasts no longer felt interested in eating.

  A gate opened at the other side of the moat and dozens of the angry tribesmen in dugout canoes paddled toward Billie.

  There was nothing that any of them could do to stop the onslaught.

  Mark, along with the other mercenaries, carefully targeted the heads of each pygmy, as they approached the final moat. Soon the ancient tribal warriors broke through, one at a time, killing the soldiers.

  One after another, Edward’s mercenaries were picked off.

  The last surviving four people huddled together in the remaining corner. Hugo, the ex-Navy SEAL was grabbed by several pygmies, who eagerly ripped his arms off and threw him into the water. A moment later, a crocodile, sensing an easy prey, snapped its massive jaw over the poor man’s head.

  Billie accepted her fate to die.

  In a strange act of fatalism, she stood up, realizing that her death here was meaningless compared to that which was coming to mankind if she failed. Around her, everyone had been killed, with the exception of Mark, and Edward.

  And then the sound stopped.

  In its absence, the entire amphitheater became ghostly quiet. Every single pygmy warrior had stopped, and each one stared at her.

  A moment later, in unison, they all bowed their heads in reverence.

  It was her necklace!

  The orichalcum looked marvelous on its own, but outright dull compared to the massive dome of Poseidon. But maybe they had never seen anyone else with the rich metal before. Either way, it was enough to stop them, for the moment at least.

  Out of ammo, the remaining survivors were surrounded by twenty or more pygmies with arrows pointed directly at them. It was over -- they had lost, a
nd Atlantis would continue until its prophecy ended in deadly consequence.

  She forced her eyes to remain open. If she was going to die, the least she could ask for was to see it coming.

  But the spear never fell on her.

  No machetes lashed at her, severing her limbs and neck, as they had with the rest of her party.

  Instead, each pygmy bowed in adoration. The sound of crashing thunder, which had only seconds earlier deafened the party as the entire tribe of warriors raced toward them, changed to a daunting silence.

  It appeared they revered her as a God – their God.

  Chapter Fifty

  Billie tested her theory and attempted to walk through the pygmy warriors. Instantly, her hopes were dashed by several spear heads pointing at her throat, close enough that if she made another step forward they would pierce her.

  She stopped and looked directly at her attackers. They were short. The tallest was less than four feet. Their skin was pale, but where some darker skin remained, the warriors had covered themselves with what appeared to be white clay. Otherwise, they were entirely naked. Their eyes were dark and their teeth glowed wickedly in the darkness.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  One man, his skin covered with thick white clay, approached. He was naked like the others, but this one wore a single ornament of orichalcum on his head. “Ah, so you are one of the great ones.” He looked at the other pygmies and speaking in his own language, caused them to return to their previous position of adoration and bowing.

  Billie was unsure how she was supposed to answer the little man, whom she perceived to be the tribal leader. And then she noticed him staring in awe at her necklace – the glow of the orichalcum catching his attention.

  “Yes,” she answered him, surprised. “You speak English?”

  “Yes, I have learned your language. You are not the first one to have come here – trying to take it!” he accused her.

  She smiled warmly at him. “We have come only to find answers. There is nothing that we seek to take. This is an expedition of knowledge, not destruction. That I can promise.”