The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 3

by Christopher Cartwright

  “But Prometheus was a god!” Billie pointed out.

  “Exactly, and since he was immortal, his dreadful wounds healed themselves every evening, only to be opened up again the next day by Aquila. After many years Prometheus was saved by Hercules, who agreed with his kind deed to mankind. Using his bow and arrow, he killed Aquila, who was then placed by Zeus to soar in the heavens.”

  “Nice story.” Billie smiled. “Any idea what any of it has to do with the Sacred Stones or finding the four remaining temples?”

  “No. Prometheus was trying to save the human race from suffering. The ancient Master Builders were trying to save the human race from extinction. I don’t know. We’ll ask the astronomer when we see him tomorrow.”

  Billie said, “All right. We’ll go from there.”

  “Was there something else?” Sam asked.

  Distracted, Billie looked at the Aquila constellation. “What?”

  “Before. When I walked in, you said you had something extraordinary to show me and that you’d tell me all about it afterward.”

  Billie smiled. “This stone weighs precisely eight pounds.”

  “Exactly?”

  “Well, technically, it would have if the five missing sapphires were still in there.”

  Sam sighed. “And that’s interesting, because?”

  “Everything the ancient Master Builders did was precise. There are no accidents.”

  A wry smile of incredulity crossed Sam’s face. “You think they pre-planned the exact weight of the stone tablet?”

  Billie nodded. “I don’t think it – I’m certain they did. Don’t you want to know what eight pounds relates to?”

  “All right. What does eight pounds correlate with?”

  “It’s the precise distance between each of these sapphires when depicted on a world map!”

  Sam glanced at the map in front of him. “All of them are identical?”

  “Yes.”

  Sam smiled, still unsure if she was playing some sort of joke on him and unaccustomed to Billie overlooking clear errors of mathematics. “You think there’s only eight miles between each of these temples, spread out evenly around the world?”

  “Not eight miles, eight hundred.”

  Sam met her hardened gaze. “Okay. If the distance was eight hundred miles and not eight, why make the stone eight pounds?”

  “Because it’s too hard to carry an eight-hundred-pound stone.”

  “I can buy that argument, but I still don’t understand where you came up with the number eight hundred? Especially given, as you said, the Master Builders knew a thing or two about precision.”

  Billie handed him a magnifying glass and pointed to the upper right-hand corner. “Have a look for yourself.”

  He knew better than to judge Billie’s ability on face value. He stared at the horse made from pure obsidian. Its rider was carrying a set of scales carved from solid gold, which represented the changing value of barley during the reign of Famine. Written on the side of the scale in numbers barely visible with the magnifying glass, was the number one hundred. It indicated that during the reign of Famine, the value of barley would be inflated by a factor of one hundred.

  Sam grinned. “Eight pounds inflated by a factor of a hundred equals eight hundred.”

  “The same number of miles between each of the temples,” Billie said, matching his smile. “That means once we work out where some of the temples are, we can use this number to calculate the rough location of the subsequent temples around the world.”

  “That’s great!” Sam ran his eyes across the equations Billie had scribbled on the side of the map. “But we don’t even know for certain what method of measuring weight the Master Builders used, so the eight pounds couldn’t possibly be correct.”

  Billie raised her eyebrow. “You think the Master Builders accidentally made this stone tablet precisely eight pounds?”

  “It’s unlikely, but less likely than the theory they used the same measurement of weight as we do today.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Really?” He turned to Elise, “Is she right?”

  Elise nodded. “The grain was the earliest unit of mass and is the smallest unit in the apothecary, avoirdupois, Tower, and troy systems. The early unit was a grain of wheat or barleycorn used to weigh the precious metals silver and gold. Larger units preserved in stone standards were developed that were used as both units of mass and of monetary currency. The pound was derived from the mina used by ancient civilizations dating back to four thousand years B.C.”

  Billie said, “So it’s possible the Master Builders were working on the same units of measurement as we are today.”

  “Only in the U.S. The rest of the world is on the metric system, and would have used kilograms, not pounds.”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I know I’m right.”

  “How?” Sam shook his head. “We don’t even know what the Master Builders used to measure distance. I’m guessing it wasn’t the mile.”

  “Because 800 miles equals 281600 cubits.”

  “Go on…”

  “As you know, the Egyptian cubit was the earliest known unit of measurement used by ancient people to measure length, dating back to the third century B.C. The cubit was the length of the forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The Royal Cubit, which was a standard cubit enhanced by an extra palm—thus 7 palms or 28 digits long—was used in constructing buildings and monuments and in surveying in ancient Egypt. The inch, foot, and yard evolved from these units through a complicated transformation not yet fully understood. Some believe they evolved from cubic measures; others believe they were simple proportions or multiples of the cubit. In whichever case, the Greeks and Romans inherited the foot from the Egyptians.”

  “Go on!”

  “There are 3520 cubits to the mile, which means we’re dealing with a distance of 800 miles between each temple.”

  “That can’t be right,” Sam protested.

  “It’s right,” Billie said, emphatically.

  “No, it isn’t. Let’s take the temple at the distance between the Pyramid of Giza and the one that sunk in the Mediterranean Sea as a reference point. You would agree that if all the distance between each of the temples is equal, then all we need to do is work out the distance between any two temples closest to each other to determine the distance?”

  “Sure.”

  “The distance between the Great Pyramid of Giza and the submerged temple in the Mediterranean Sea is 1152 miles. I know, because I looked it up when we first examined the stone tablet and noted that there was an even spacing between each of the sapphires.”

  “That’s right,” Billie agreed, undeterred.

  “But if 3520 cubits make a mile, then 281600 cubits is nowhere near 1152 miles.”

  “No. It’s 800 miles”

  Sam ran his palms through his thick hair. “But you said you were certain you were right?”

  “I am.”

  “How?”

  “Because ancient Master Builders didn’t work on a base ten system.”

  “Of course, they worked on a duodecimal base of twelve.”

  “Yes. And would you like to guess what 800 in base twelve converts to?”

  Sam grinned. “Let me guess, 1152.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Sam considered the revelation that Billie had discovered.

  “If this is right, you know what this means?”

  Billie said, “We map out the known temples to work out the rest of the map?”

  Sam nodded. “It also means that the stone wasn’t the original map.”

  “It’s not,” Billie agreed. “I’ve already checked.”

  “How old is it?”

  “I carbon dated the ivory horse representing the Conqueror. It’s roughly four hundred years old.”

  “About the time the previous stone was damaged and one of the remaining Master Builders made a replica, working the weight out in base ten, bu
t continuing to calculate the distance using base twelve.” He was genuinely impressed. “Remarkable that you worked it out.”

  “I got lucky, and Elise helped. You’re the one with a lifetime of maritime experience and searching for hidden treasure under your belt, so now what do we do?” Billie asked.

  “Map out every known temple and see if Elise can run a computer program to fill in the gaps, by inserting the distance of 1152 miles between each one. Also, see if you can find out anything else on the constellation of Aquila. In the meantime, my attendance has been formally requested by the Secretary of Defense.”

  “What does she want?” Billie asked.

  “She didn’t say. She’s probably just found out we borrowed the Sikorsky Black Hawk experimental stealth helicopter without her permission, and now she wants to know why.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “The truth.”

  “But the note you and Tom found attached to the Göbekli Tepe Death Stone specifically warned you that she was being watched, and that it was imperative we don’t tell her the ancient astronomer stone still exists?”

  Sam smiled, sardonically. “Not the whole truth, simply that we needed the helicopter to locate something regarding your abduction. The Secretary of Defense still wants us to find out as much as we can about the Master Builders. It’s a matter of national security that we stay ahead of them.”

  “You think she’ll buy it?”

  “Not for a minute.”

  Chapter Thirty

  47th Street, Manhattan – Diamond District.

  Sam approached the address the Secretary had given him on foot, after traveling from the airport to the Diamond District by taxi. She’d told him the building where they’d meet was just one block north of the famous 47th Street stretch of diamond commerce. He’d walked along 47th Street from 5th Avenue to 6th, and then gratefully turned north after dodging dozens of hawkers claiming to have the best deals on diamonds if he’d only follow them.

  Sam wasn’t in the market for a diamond, nor much in the mood for hawkers. The Secretary’s summons had, as usual, come at a time when he had important business elsewhere. Furthermore, she knew he did, and she knew just how important and urgent it was. He could only assume this was just as important and urgent. Why the meeting had to take place at a gemstone appraisal lab was beyond his understanding.

  When he arrived and stated his name, the receptionist rose and had him follow her to a room where he found the Secretary waiting. The room was clearly a laboratory, with microscopes, spectroscopes, a jeweler’s loupe, and various other tools and electronic equipment that he couldn’t identify. With the Secretary was a small, elderly man who resembled Albert Einstein, with a shock of wild, wiry, white hair, a bulbous nose, and a pair of thick, black-framed glasses that looked two sizes too large for him.

  “Mr. Reilly, thanks for finally joining us,” the Secretary greeted him.

  He turned his palms upward. “I came as soon as I could…”

  She didn’t let him finish. “This is Simon Greenfeld, an eminent gemologist. He has confirmed what I’m about to tell you.” She turned to the older man. “Mr. Greenfeld, please give us the room.”

  Greenfeld had not spoken, nor acknowledged Sam in any way. He gave an odd little bow to the Secretary and left the room without any apparent reaction to how strange it was that someone could dismiss him from his own laboratory. The Secretary waited until the door had closed, and then brought her hand forward, palm up. In it lay an uncut diamond half the size of a chicken’s egg.

  “Wow, nice stone,” Sam said. “What is it?”

  “That’s potentially one of the world’s most valuable diamonds,” the Secretary answered.

  Sam looked at her face. She hadn’t cracked a smile since he walked in. “That’s great news. So, who’s the lucky guy?”

  The Secretary ignored his comment. “Two weeks ago, it turned up on the New York diamond exchange, with an estimated value of one hundred million dollars.”

  “Wow,” he repeated, this time genuinely. “And they let you walk out of the shop with it?”

  “Well, it would have been, if it was real.” The Secretary laid the stone on the lab counter and folded her arms.

  “It’s a fake?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Really?” Sam smiled. “I figured it either is or it isn’t, right?”

  “Technically, it’s real. It has the same properties as a diamond that was formed by heat and pressure deep in the Earth. However, that isn’t the way this one was formed. You might have heard of synthetic, or lab-grown, diamonds?”

  “Sure. They use them for industrial purposes.”

  “Right,” she confirmed. “They’ve also been growing them for the jewelry industry for more than twenty years, and it takes real expertise to distinguish them from mined diamonds.”

  “I thought fake diamonds could be easily distinguished.”

  “You’re talking about diamond simulants, like cubic zirconia or moissanite. They are different chemical compounds from diamond. This stone, other than the way it was formed, is indistinguishable chemically from a natural diamond.”

  “Okay, I’ll take your word for that. So, what’s your interest in all this?”

  “Well, first, even though it’s technically real, as a synthetic diamond, its true value is only about sixty percent of a natural diamond.”

  “Why?”

  “Mainly because of the natural diamond industry. They have created a mystique and romance around natural diamonds that has inflated their value even more than centuries of people coveting them for their beauty. And that’s despite the troubling human rights issues that have come to light about diamonds.”

  “Blood diamonds, you mean,” Sam observed.

  “Yes. And the fact that they’re still being used to fund terrorism in some parts of the world, despite the industry’s efforts to clean up their sources.”

  “So, back to this diamond,” Sam prompted. “Someone attempted to pass it off as a real, or natural diamond. That’s fraud. Why is that of interest to the Defense Department?”

  “Not just this one. There have been more than two hundred sold throughout the world – all perfect diamonds. Together they’re worth billions of dollars, and all of them fake.”

  “Madam Secretary, what’s your interest?” he persisted.

  She continued as though she hadn’t heard or wasn’t interested in his question. “Unlike synthetic diamonds that are grown in a laboratory, these are nearly impossible to distinguish from the genuine version.”

  “Okay.”

  “The process works by placing a tiny fragment of diamond, called a carbon seed, into a microwave along with varying amounts of a carbon-heavy gas, most commonly methane. The gas mixture is heated to very high temperatures in the microwave to produce a plasma ball, and inside this, the gas breaks down and the carbon atoms crystallize and accumulate on the diamond seed, causing it to grow.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “The process can take up to ten weeks to produce a marketable diamond, but it works so well, experts reportedly need a machine to tell the lab-grown gems apart from natural ones sourced from mines or riverbeds.”

  “But they can still tell the difference?” Sam asked.

  “Until recently they could. But now there’s a third type. We suspect they’re being made through a carbon seeding process, but are being planted within the thousands of recent growing craters in Siberia.”

  A wry smile of understanding formed on Sam’s lips. “The melting permafrost releases enormous amounts of carbon in the form of methane and someone with a high-powered microwave is turning them into high quality diamonds?”

  “Exactly.” The Secretary of Defense sighed. “And in the process, the diamonds formed become indistinguishable with flawless diamonds mined from the Earth.”

  He still didn’t understand how any of this was related to him, but the mystery had aroused his curiosity. “Then how
do you know this is happening?”

  “Because more than a hundred of these have hit the market in the past two weeks.”

  “I thought the diamond trade was massive?” Sam said. “How does a hundred or so of these stones have the power to collapse the market?”

  “These aren’t every day diamonds being released into the world for a tiny fraction of their usual value. Think of the Kohinoor – the most precious gem in the British Crown Jewels, stored in the London Tower. It’s one of a kind. No one has ever come close to finding such a perfect diamond of its size. Now imagine a hundred of them flooding the market. The diamond trade is about to crash irrevocably.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?” Sam asked.

  “I need you to find out who’s making the diamonds. We know that whoever he or she is, has been working in Siberia, where the craters are popping up daily.”

  “You’re telling me that the Secretary of Defense of the United States has an interest in the overly inflated price of diamonds in the New York diamond district remaining inflated. And I’m to do the job of the police, or Customs, or the CIA — whoever is responsible for stopping international criminal activity.” Sam stated it in a flat tone that expressed his disapproval.

  “I don’t care. The country cares.”

  “Why?”

  She looked at him, as though unsure how much to tell. “There’s a man named Leo Botkin. He owns a number of diamond mines throughout the world. He has the most to lose here.”

  “So? I mean, it’s not very nice, but since when has the government concerned itself with how companies like this do their business? If the market’s changed and the general public are happy for it, why not let it happen?”

  “You misunderstand me, Reilly.” She smiled. “I don’t care if Leo Botkin and the entire diamond cartel goes bankrupt.”

  “Then why look for this diamond-smith?”

  She sighed. “Because the enemy of my enemy might just be the ally I need right now.”