The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – Dardanelles Strait, Turkey

  At 9:30 a.m. the day was already shaping up to be pristine. There were no clouds and no wind at all. The tide was slack and the normally fast flowing entrance to the Dardanelles appeared calm with the dark blue of aquamarine. The Maria Helena motored up the Aegean Sea, through the Dardanelles – the narrow and natural strait that separates Europe and Asia Minor in what was once known in Classical Antiquity as Hellespont, or the Sea of Helle – and into the Sea of Marmara. Once there, the ship motored slowly to the other end where the city of Istanbul lay nestled on the edge of the Bosphorus Strait and entrance to the Black Sea. It was dark before the Maria Helena finally came to rest at her anchor, off the coast of Istanbul.

  Tom Bower stared at the seemingly millions of lights which illuminated the shores of Istanbul. His eyes followed the ancient castles which spread out along the foreshore of the Bosphorus Strait, up to the ancient walls of Constantinople, erected in the 5th Century by the Emperor Theodosius II to protect the city from invasion, and standing strong even today. Massive domed buildings glowed golden in the lights. He was taken in by the city’s rich architecture which came from a melting pot of Byzantine, Genoese, Ottoman, Roman, Greek and modern Turkish sources.

  There was no doubt why the city was known worldwide as one of the greatest cultural and ethnic melting pots. Haggia Sophia, once the largest masonry dome in the world, and the Topkapı Palace – once the main headquarters of the Ottoman Sultans – stood proudly near the Bosphorus Strait, while the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, rose grandly over the skyline.

  Matthew, the skipper of the Maria Helena approached and interrupted his momentary thoughts. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Tom said.

  “Good. We’ve been given approval to cross the Bosphorus Strait at first light tomorrow morning. Make certain you’re back here by then, will you?”

  “Of course,” Tom said.

  Genevieve took Tom to the shore on a small Zodiac inflatable tender. Neither spoke during the short trip. She motored the Zodiac gently up to the shore. Tom shuffled his position so that he could climb out.

  Genevieve stopped him with a firm and affectionate grip on his left hand. “Tom. Whatever happens, you know I want to get Billie back as much as you do?”

  Tom nodded and smiled. There was more than a little relief in his heart, too. He’d been surreptitiously dating Genevieve for nearly six months now, but Billie had once been the woman he was going to marry. He’d been uncertain how Genevieve would take the news that Billie might be back in their lives soon.

  He squeezed her hand affectionately and kissed her lips. “Thank you.”

  A moment later he climbed up onto the foreshore and began walking toward the Blue Mosque. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque had five main domes, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. From what he’d read before arriving, Tom knew the design was the culmination of over two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It incorporated some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and was considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. Its architect aimed for overwhelming size, majesty, and splendor.

  At its lower levels and at every pier, the interior of the mosque was lined with more than 20,000 handmade Iznik style ceramic tiles in more than fifty different tulip designs. The tiles at lower levels are traditional in design, while at gallery level their design becomes flamboyant with representations of flowers, fruit and cypresses. The tiles were made under the supervision of the Iznik master. The price to be paid for each tile was fixed by the sultan's decree, while tile prices in general increased over time. As a result, the quality of the tiles used in the building decreased gradually.

  The upper levels of the interior were dominated by blue paint. More than 200 stained glass windows with intricate designs admit natural light, today assisted by chandeliers. On the chandeliers, ostrich eggs are found that were meant to avoid cobwebs inside the mosque by repelling spiders. The decorations included verses from the Qur'an, many of them made by Seyyid Kasim Gubari, regarded as the greatest calligrapher of his time. The floors are covered with carpets, which are donated by the faithful and are regularly replaced as they wear out. The many vast translucent windows confer a spacious impression. The casements at floor level are decorated with opus sectile – stone mosaic scenes. Each exedra – curved seating nooks for the faithful – had five windows, some of which are blind. Each semi-dome has fourteen windows and the central dome twenty-eight. The colored glass for the windows was a gift of the Signoria of Venice to the sultan.

  Tom removed his shoes and entered the building from the hippodrome in the west side. The Blue Mosque was open to the public twenty-four hours a day and constantly filled with tourists and people in worship, making it an easy place to meet Peter Smyth who had spent the last two years trying to blend in and disappear from those who hunted him. Tom stopped and waited at the southern end of the mosque, where three of the blue traditional tiles had been recently repaired, showing a slightly lighter color. He studied the motifs on the tiles which included cypress trees, tulips, roses, and fruits designed to evoke visions of a bountiful paradise. Of the three recently repaired, the tulips were of a different shade of red.

  A man next to him spoke quietly. “They were unable to match the tulip’s color with repair.”

  “They should have used purple,” Tom said, repeating the phrase Elise had told him to say.

  The man glanced furtively around the room, before quietly completing the secret words. “No. I think they should have used yellow.”

  Tom smiled. “Peter Smyth?”

  “Not here.”

  “Where?”

  “Just follow me.”

  Tom followed the man out of the mosque, leaving a small donation. The man in front of him was sweating profusely. Despite the warmth of the summer’s night, he wore a thick jacket with its hood pulled partially over his face and his head turned downward. Peter’s gait was awkward and furtive, looking over his shoulder as though someone was watching him, ready to take him at any minute.

  It was more than twenty minutes before Peter turned a final corner, and entered a small stone building. It looked like not much more than a dilapidated hovel. Tom followed him inside. The place looked barely livable. It was dark, the only window covered with a black sheet.

  Tom asked, “You’ve been hiding here?”

  Peter Smyth placed his finger to his lips to shush him and mouthed the words – They’re listening to us.

  Tom stared at him silently. Had he just followed an insane man into his depraved irrational world? A moment later – the time it takes a person to take a single breath – Peter removed a stone tile from the floor below him. It was so narrow that Tom was surprised to watch the man slip down into it.

  Peter then motioned for Tom to follow. Tom shuffled his way through the tiny opening into a room large enough that he could no longer feel the walls in the darkness. Peter replaced the stone tile above and the place became devoid of any light.

  Tom felt like he’d just descended into an old tunnel used by the Viet Cong. He switched on a small key light, and stared at his new environment. The place opened to a large, almost modern looking living room. There were multiple computer monitors set up. On the other side of the room were a number of large oil paintings and charcoal drawings. His eyes rested on the last of them, where a large barquentine with three masts was sinking in violent seas, only it wasn’t surrounded by water, it was surrounded by sand and at the very bottom of the painting was the date 22nd of December 1655. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead took a deep breath and smiled.

  Peter grinned at his reaction. “Yes. That’s the Emerald Star.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Tom glanced around the room. It was something between a high tech computer lab one would expect to find in the CIA and an ancient history museum. There were high speed internet cables attached to hard d
rives stacked on glass cabinets, with the constant flicker of green lights showing the constant movement of data. In direct contrast were the old oil paintings and charcoal drawings, which had obviously been studied intensely by their owner.

  Tom looked at Peter. “What is this place?”

  Peter said solemnly, “This is my sanctuary.”

  “From what?”

  “The people who have been searching for the key to the Third Temple – and they will gladly kill me to further their aims.”

  Tom considered what he’d said. “What makes you so certain others are searching for the temple? Maybe no one knows about it?”

  Peter shot back, “You are, aren’t you?”

  “Sure, but I’m not willing to kill for it. You look terrified. What do you know that I don’t?”

  “My great ancestor, a man by the name of Hammersmith, referred to a man with intensely purple eyes that had paid him and the rest of the crew from the Emerald Star to retrieve an artifact that was hidden in plain sight within a pyramid along the African west coast.”

  Tom nodded. Elise had briefed him on Peter’s claim. “Go on.”

  “In the journal, Hammersmith noted there would be four men, competing for access to the key to the Third Temple. Their names were Conquest, War, Famine and Death.”

  Tom felt the slightest pang of fear rise in his throat like bile as he recalled what the man who attacked them inside the tunnel of Derinkuyu had said – My name is Famine and my time is now. “So they’re four nutcases competing to find the key to the Third Temple?”

  Peter nodded. “And right now, I think Death’s winning.”

  “Winning what?” Tom would have laughed at how ridiculously implausible the entire story was, if it wasn’t for his recent memories of Famine and his heavily armed group of devout followers. “This is some sort of Biblical competition?”

  “No. It’s not about religion.”

  “Really?” Tom was surprised. “Then why all the references to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been studying the New Testament of the Bible where the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the Book of Revelation by St. John of Patmos, one of the original Apostles. The chapter tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. The Christian apocalyptic vision is that the Four Horsemen are to set a Divine Apocalypse upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment, so that only the good shall rise… or the chosen few.”

  Tom said, “You think the Four Horsemen are trying to bring forth the Apocalypse so the Third Temple can rise?”

  “Maybe.” Peter paused as though he was having difficulty trying to decide how to explain his theory. “What if they’re not trying to bring about the new order, what if we’re looking at this all wrong?”

  “Sure,” Tom said. “But what way should we be looking at it?”

  “Consider this… what if the Four Horsemen weren’t sent to set a Divine Apocalypse – instead, they were merely messengers, sent here to protect those who could be saved, from an imminent disaster. Some sort of disaster first discovered during the first few centuries A.D. when Christianity was taking off in the western world, but wouldn’t occur for nearly two thousand years.”

  “They would need a way of continuing the message throughout many generations, without revealing the secret to the masses.”

  “A covenant of some kind?”

  “You think the Four Horsemen are part of an ancient covenant?”

  “Yes and when the time comes they will reveal the Third Temple and the chosen few will take shelter.”

  “There’s an imminent disaster awaiting that will affect the entire world?”

  Peter nodded. “And that’s why they need to find the Third Temple – to seek shelter.”

  Tom asked, “But what disaster affects the entire planet?”

  “I can think of any number of catastrophic events. A massive meteorite, an enormous volcanic eruption, and giant tsunami, or a deadly virus that’s evolving faster than we can create treatments. Our existence has always been globally precarious.”

  Tom looked at Peter’s rapid breathing and the fine tremors of his hands. “You’ve given this some serious thought, haven’t you?”

  “It’s occupied most of my mind over the past two years,” Peter admitted.

  Tom changed the direction of the topic. “All right. I know at least one of the Four Horsemen is still around – or maybe just a guy who fancies himself as one of them.

  “I was attacked by him in the subterranean city of Derinkuyu in Turkey. He said his name was Famine and that his time was now. Do you know of any others?”

  “I was contacted by two of the Four Horsemen separately. One named Famine and the other Death. They both told me I would die if I didn’t tell them where the Emerald Star sank.”

  “Did you ever meet either of them?”

  “No. I learned what I could about both of them. I had no idea how much danger I was in at the time – but I know now.”

  “What changed?”

  “I was out of town for two weeks and a friend of mine was squatting at my apartment. I told him I wasn’t allowed to sublet the place out to anyone and that if the landlord came by for any reason, to simply tell him his name was Peter Smyth.”

  “Okay. So what happened?” Tom asked, not quite sure how this related to the Four Horsemen.

  “Someone with deep purple eyes came by while I was gone. He asked my friend what his name was. Of course he gave my name, thinking the man was my landlord. The man then forced his entry into my apartment and repeatedly questioned my friend about the Emerald Star.”

  “Which your friend knew nothing about?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What happened in the end?”

  “When it became obvious that my friend didn’t know anything about the Emerald Star or an artifact called the Death Mask, the stranger with the purple eyes killed him with his bare hands.”

  “How did you find all this out?” Tom asked.

  “I have a digital security system. It records the inside of my apartment constantly. I’m able to remotely access its logs from my smartphone. When I started to receive messages from my neighbors asking if I was okay, I logged onto my security account and watched the footage.”

  “What did you do?”

  “The only thing I could. I withdrew my entire savings in cash, keeping the bulk of my life-savings stored in untraceable Bit Coins. Then I got on a train in London and traveled through to Paris, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and finally Istanbul – where I’ve been hiding ever since.”

  “Why Istanbul?”

  “My great ancestor made a note about Emerald Star being the second expedition to steal the Death Mask. The first attempt failed in 1653 when the Mary Rose, carrying a stone map of the desert was sunk in a storm in the Black Sea. I have a map he drew of the two expeditions.”

  Peter handed it to him and Tom scanned the map, drawn on well-aged vellum. It formed a primitive outline of the African continent, Mediterranean Sea through to the Black Sea. An asterisk was observed in the middle of the Black Sea approximately forty miles out from Istanbul, if the drawings were to a correct scale. Next to this, was the name, Mary Rose, 1653 – First failed expedition. Tom studied it for a few minutes, making sure he read each word correctly.

  Tom smiled. “You came here to find it, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “It took nearly a year but I found the wreck. It’s located about thirty miles north of Istanbul and was supposed to be carrying a stone map that charted the position of the ancient pyramid of the Namibian Desert.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “No,” Peter said. “I found the shipwreck, but it may as well have remained lost for all the good that it does me. The ship that was
moving the stone across the Black Sea struggled with the weight of the stone in a storm, and floundered.”

  “Why didn’t you recover the stone?”

  “I headed over there. Hired a boat and some dive equipment. You see I couldn’t go in with a big professional group of divers, because the treasure hunters would then all get involved.”

  Tom nodded. “Go on.”

  “In the end, the Mary Rose was too deep to reach.”

  “How deep does she rest?”

  “Nearly three thousand feet. Impossible to reach using anything but commercial dive equipment.”

  “If I could reach it, would you be willing to give me the precise location?”

  “Sure. Why, do you have some experience deep sea diving?”

  “A little.” Tom grinned. “There’s a chance I might just have a way to reach it.”

  Chapter Thirty-One – Paris, France

  It was a warm night in Paris and the Eiffel Tower glowed golden as local Parisians and tourists walked the airy and restaurant lined streets of one of the most romantic cities on earth. Few of those out tonight realized that, at the time of construction, Gustave Eiffel had built a secret apartment for himself at the very highest level of the tower at a height of 1,063 feet. Fewer still knew that tonight a very private arm of the Christies Auction House had managed to secure the apartment for just three hours in order to receive bids for one of the most startling auctions in their history.

  Sam Reilly sat in the very narrow apartment, which was barely large enough to fit the four bidders and a single auctioneer. The item in question was being handled by a very private section of Christies Auction House, which specialized in extremely rare and esoteric artifacts. He doubted the validity of the claim, and had it not been for the reputation of Christies he wouldn’t have been interested, but as it was, the item being sold tonight might just buy him the answers he’d been looking for in his search for Dr. Billie Swan.