The big guy spoke again. “If we empty our magazines. Then what?”
“Then I run like hell, gambling that I might just be able to run faster than you can reload your bullets.” He sighed again. “Or you could just let me leave here.”
“All right.” The big guy started to eject bullets from his magazine.
Dmitri counted twenty-five bullets hit the ground – a full magazine. After the last bullet fell he heard the assault rifle follow. Dmitri glanced at Sam Reilly. The man’s piercing blue eyes were fixed on him with unreadable glare. “Your turn.”
“Okay,” Sam said.
Dmitri counted twenty-four bullets hit the floor – one short of a full magazine.
Sam never blinked. “Your turn.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need you to eject the last bullet from your magazine.”
Sam opened his mouth to lie. Then, appearing to think better of it, he said, “You have really good hearing.”
He waited until the last bullet was ejected and dropped on the floor. “Okay, now I want you over there, at the end of the queen’s chamber.”
“Sure.” Sam moved over to the back of the chamber. “Now what are you going to do?”
Dmitri smiled. “I’m going to walk out of here, and you’re both going to let me.”
He pulled the big guy backwards and then stepped out of the way, kicking his leg in the process. The big guy turned with surprising speed, narrowly avoiding hitting the floor and then picking up his assault rifle the man launched at him, gripping the weapon like a baseball bat.
The stranger moved quickly, but he responded faster. Dmitri stepped back and withdrew his handgun from a concealed holster behind his back. He had it pointed straight at the man in an instant.
Dmitri said, “I told you to let me walk out of here!”
Both men backed away. “Okay, okay… go!”
“I suggest you count to a hundred before you come after me. If I catch you following me, I won’t talk to you, I’ll kill you both.”
He bent down and picked up the two MP5 magazines to take with him and started running. He didn’t look back. He just kept running. He was thankful for his decision to carry his handgun. He rarely did anymore. Didn’t have a need. Today was different. He expected to see one of the OTHERS, but instead he found two strangers. His lungs pounded by the time he reached the surface ten minutes later.
Dmitri grinned. He was free and for the first time in decades he knew who had the Death Mask. He burst past the opening of the mine shaft and then stopped and raised his hands above his head – because a large helicopter stood on its skids facing him and out the door stood a man pointing a Browning heavy machine gun at him.
Chapter Fifty-One
Billie woke up lying next to the cool stream.
Her lips curved upward in a warm smile. It was the same as last time. The same as all of the previous times. Like waking up the day after a long night of drinking, where the events after the first drink were a mystery. Only it was completely different, too. She felt a sense of accomplishment, although of what, she couldn’t quite remember, yet. Her muscles felt sore, but invigorated, as though they had been working hard and now she was somehow stronger.
The euphoria was there, too.
She’d never taken illicit drugs. Not out of righteousness or anything like that, simply because she’d never felt the need. Some people have an addictive personality, and she wasn’t one of those. Billie thought about that while she lay there on the side of the river, basking in a sensation of true bliss. She could leave this anytime she wanted, couldn’t she?
Maybe she did have an addictive personality, after all?
Billie stood up to find some food. She always felt incredibly hungry after the Black Smoke had taken her. She glanced at her wristwatch. Could it really have been three days this time? She ignored the nagging question, knowing full well she didn’t want to know the answer. The durations were getting longer, as though someone knew the preparations were approaching their deadline soon.
She took a deep breath in and smiled. She would stay here until the Black Smoke had completed its task, and no longer had a use for her.
Life was good.
Billie felt into her shirt where her ivory pendant hung for comfort. She gasped and swallowed the fear that rose in her throat like bile – because her grandfather’s ancient pendant was missing.
Chapter Fifty-Two
As the helicopter flew due west toward the Maria Helena, Sam slowly reassembled his Heckler and Koch MP5. Opposite him, now with his hands and feet bound by cable ties was the man he’d met inside the Kalahari pyramid. The man’s violet eyes were fixed in a vacant stare, as though inside the mind was set in a constant disillusionment about how he lost.
Sam recalled the warning on the mahogany table inside the Emerald Star. The last thing a dead man ever wrote – Don’t let the man with the purple eyes have the Death Skull.
He kept his eyes on the man throughout the entire flight, but both men remained silent. Not that they could have spoken if they’d wanted to with the engine and rotary wing drowning out any words.
When the helicopter finally landed on board the Maria Helena, Tom dragged the man out on to the ship’s aft deck. It was open without anywhere to run or hide.
Sam made a show of loading the final bullet into the magazine and then clipped the magazine into the chamber. “Okay, let’s start with your name.”
The man had a curious look on his face as he studied those aboard. “Dmitri.”
“Dmitri who?”
“Just Dmitri.” The man glanced around the ship. “Where are you taking me?”
“To place the Death Mask into its slot on top of Mount Ararat and turn the key.”
Dmitri shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sam said, “The key to the Third Temple.”
Dmitri started to laugh. “Oh, this is rich. You have no idea what’s going on here, do you?”
Tom hit him in the gut. “A good friend of mine is being held prisoner in the Third Temple, so we’re not in the mood for your jokes. Tell us what you know.”
Dmitri breathed gently, as though the punch had barely winded him. “I can tell you one thing for certain.”
“Go on,” Tom said.
“Your friend isn’t being held prisoner in the Third Temple.” He then smiled. It was one of those looks like I know something you don’t know and you’re not going to like it. “No one is, yet.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sam asked.
“It means I can’t help you find your friend.”
Sam thought about pushing him, but guessed Dmitri wasn’t the sort of person who caved under pressure. “All right. Next question, why did you kill Peter?”
“Peter who?”
“Smyth. The man who you killed to find the pyramid in the Kalahari Desert.”
“Peter’s dead?” There was surprise in his eyes, but no remorse or loss.
“You killed him.”
“No. It must have been one of the OTHERS.”
“What others?”
“One of the Four Horsemen.”
Sam considered the possibility. He’d already met Famine. That meant there were three more out there. He turned to Dmitri and asked, “What other name do you go by?”
“Ah… a good question.” Dmitri smiled. “Some call me Death.”
“If you didn’t kill Peter, how did you find the pyramid?”
“I paid a guy earlier this year to search for the pyramid. A guy called Leo Dietrich, an expert hunter in the region, to search the Kalahari for signs of the pyramid. Once he’d finished building the tunnel in, he contacted me and I came to get what I needed.”
“What did you need?”
“An address. I didn’t get around to finding it, because you and your friend got in my way. But not to bother, by the sounds of things I don’t need it anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re taki
ng me to the temple on the top of Mount Ararat.”
“What is this all about?”
“I’m sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but I’ve made a promise not to tell anyone. Not now, not even in the end.”
Sam looked up, and noticed Elise walk onto the deck.
As per normal, she omitted any pleasantries and jumped straight into business. “I’ve had a sample of the black soot analyzed by a leading neurologist in Boston.”
“And?”
“You’re not going to like what she had to say.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sam read the report and then looked at Elise for clarity. He handed it to Tom to read, and then turned to Elise. “You want to explain this to me as though I’m not a chemical engineer or a neurologist?”
Elise smiled as though she’d been expecting just such a response. “All right. I sent the powder to a toxicologist for a report, who said it was something extraordinary he’d never seen before and consequently he sent it on to a leading neurologist to determine what sort of effect such a chemical make-up might have on the human brain.”
Sam asked, “He’d never seen it at all, or hadn’t seen it in combination with whatever was there?”
“Never seen it before, but you’ll never guess what it’s most similar to.”
“Okay, I probably won’t. What?”
“Lysergic acid diethylamide.”
“What?” Sam asked again.
“Didn’t you go to university?” Elise teased. “LSD.”
“The Death Mask is filled with LSD?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean, then?”
“LSD was first made by Albert Hofmann in Switzerland in 1938 from ergotamine, a chemical from the fungus ergot.”
“Go on.”
“Ergotamine is a molecule that shares a structural similarity with neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and epinephrine and can thus bind to several receptors acting as an agonist.”
Sam said, “In English!”
Elise smiled, patiently. “It means the powder has the ability to affect everything the human brain perceives.”
“So is the black powder LSD or not?”
“No. But it does come from a similar fungus new to science – something that no biochemist in the world appears to have ever seen. Aren’t you happy, you discovered a new drug?”
Tom looked up from the report. “All right. So the ancient ones used to sit around tripping on this black smoke, is that it?”
“Not exactly,” Elise said.
Sam asked, “What then, does the neurologist think its purpose was?”
“Okay, I’m going to have to refer back to LSD, because it’s the closest chemical compound we have to the black smoke and the two share remarkable similarities.” Elise waited for Sam and Tom to look like they were ready to follow her again. Having received it, in the form of a slight nod, she continued. “The effects of LSD are most noticeable in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for, among other things, thought development, sensory perception, and communication. LSD appears to blur the lines between each form of incoming sensory information.”
“Meaning?” Sam and Tom asked in unison.
Elise said, “You might see the sound, hear the color, feel the sight with your fingertips, or taste the music. LSD affects all parts of your sensory perception by turning up the intensity, like if you took an old television set, and turned up the intensity to make the colors brighter.”
“Okay, it still sounds like the black powder was there to give people a trip. Are you telling me it served some other purpose?” Sam asked.
Elise swallowed. “I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I’m merely passing on what a leading neurologist believes.”
“And what does she believe?” Sam asked.
“It was once hypothesized that the cerebral cortex was once able to receive a different sort of information. Something close to high frequency sound waves.”
Sam asked, “For what purpose?”
Elise said, “If the cerebrum was intensified, this part of the brain might be able to transmit and receive information at a frequency that human ears can no longer perceive.”
“Are you talking about a form of telepathy?”
She nodded.
“How?”
Elise said, “Through high frequency wavelengths no longer able to be recognized by the human brain.”
“But evolution made it shrink?” Sam asked, without hiding his skepticism.
“It appears so.”
“But why would evolution remove something that would have obviously been useful?”
“It’s not telepathy in the same form as what fantasy books or science fiction would have us believe. Instead, it was more of a rudimentary means of communicating feelings or senses, such as, danger, run, hide, and feed. Simple feelings. The receiving person would then intrinsically feel the same. It would be like a sixth sense. They weren’t sending and receiving information in the form of words.”
Tom looked at Sam. “Does that sound like something familiar?”
Sam said, “Christ! Billie’s being controlled by this drug!”
Chapter Fifty-Four – The Temple of Illumination
It was approaching the end of summer and a thick layer of snow, the first major snowfall, covered the entrance to the crevasse on the plateau of Mount Ararat. Sam cleared the space and abseiled down into the lava tube. With him, were Tom and Dmitri. Dmitri of course had grudgingly agreed to join the expedition… he had no other means to find the remaining Four Horsemen.
Sam had agreed – it was worth the risk – he knew the information that Dmitri had would be critical to discovering the nature of the relic and finding Billie. He maintained a strong sense of mistrust for the man, but also accepted the fact Dmitri didn’t kill him or Tom when he had the chance inside the buried pyramid of the Kalahari Desert.
Twenty minutes later they reached the deepest part of the lava tube, where the recess in the wall perfectly matched the Death Mask. Below which, were four additional smaller recesses carved into the obsidian wall – one for each of the Four Horsemen.
Tom glanced at the dead body still lying at the very end of the lava tube. “Who’s the stiff?”
“That’s War.” Sam flicked the light of his flashlight across the room, where the thick yellow jacket was about all he could make out from the distance. “He fell to his death a number of years ago.”
“And you left him here?”
“You got a better idea?” Sam asked. “We’re trying to find Billie and this is the last link we have, so I wasn’t all too keen on letting the authorities come and investigate a murder here.”
“Suits me fine.” Tom had a strong moral compass and that included putting the need of his friends who were in trouble first.
Sam removed the Death Mask and stared at Dmitri. “Well Death, are you going to tell me what’s going to happen when I place the mask in the alcove?”
Dmitri said, “No.” His face was impassive and unreadable. His mind trapped in an event from long ago.
“All right.”
Sam placed the golden skull in the alcove. He waited as nothing happened. The skull remained there, its hollowed eyes staring out vacantly at him. Sam studied the skull. Nothing had changed. He felt it, expecting the gold to have turned hot like when War’s pendant was placed inside the recess. Yet this time, nothing happened.
Tom shined his flashlight across the skull. “Did you see anything?”
“Not a thing.” He turned to Dmitri. “Should we be expecting something to happen?”
Dmitri remained silent and shrugged. It was obvious he either didn’t know, or if he did, wasn’t going to share his information.
Tom fixed his flashlight onto the ceiling above the Death Mask. “Hey, did you see those numbers before?”
“Numbers?” Sam shook his head. “No.”
He glanced above. There were a series of Roman Numerals. L
ike the ones seen inside the king’s chamber of the pyramid within the Kalahari Desert, the sizes of each number changed to ensure a visual appearance of a pyramid. There were three lines of numbers, with the top being the shortest and the bottom being the longest.
Tom said, “It looks like it’s almost the same set of numbers.”
Sam looked at the photo he’d taken on his phone. “Not just similar, these are the exact same numbers.”
Dmitri said, “What a coincidence, hey?”
“What does it mean?” Tom asked. His voice firm as he spoke.
Dmitri shrugged again and Sam started to grin.
Tom said, “Do you know what it means?”
Sam shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“Then why are you smiling?” Tom asked, without hiding his frustration.
“Because I just remembered where I saw those numbers before.” Sam withdrew his handgun and pointed it at Dmitri. The Glock 31 doesn’t have a safety. His finger hovered just above the trigger. “No more games. You need to tell us where these numbers lead to.”
“Why do you suddenly think I know anything about the damned number?” Dmitri asked. “Besides, if I did I’ve already said I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Because when I clicked on the photo on my phone the digital recognition software noted three previous images were a close link. Do you know where I’d previously taken a photo of this number?”
Dmitri shrugged, treating the question as rhetorical.
“The most recent time was inside Harper Smith’s journal, where he referred to the number that, without it, the Black Smoke would be irrelevant. In the journal, there was a second note that Death sought this number as much as the Death Mask.” Sam looked at Tom, who was already in the process of tying Dmitri’s wrists together with cable ties. “But it was the first photo I ever took of that image that makes it so valuable to us now.”
He looked at Dmitri, but the man’s eyes were fixed somewhere else.
Sam said, “The first time was in the lost city of Atlantis, where Dr. Billie Swan was rapt with a set of numbers she found on a wall of obsidian that served no apparent purpose. I questioned her about it afterward, but she shrugged it off, as simply being an interesting set of numbers. I took a photo. Three days later, Billie said she wanted to follow a new lead and disappeared for good. So now, I’ll ask you again, where did those numbers take her?”
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3 Page 25