Atlantis Stolen (Sam Reilly Book 3) (13 page)

Sam Reilly tried
to lie back as best he could with his head just off the rock slide as he would
if he were on a giant waterslide. At any moment he expected to collide with
some type of obstruction in the tunnel. At the speeds he was traveling, it
would be a fast death. He lost count of the number of turns the tunnel had sent
him on, and then up ahead he saw the faintest glint of light. He slid around
the next corner and at the end of it he saw the reflection of filtered light
glistening through water.

Striking the
water at such a speed, each drop of falling water felt like a needle striking
his body, and then he felt the ground below him disappear.

Oh shit – I’ve
just gone off a waterfall!

Sam forced his
eyes to open and take in his position. He was free falling to the river, nearly
forty feet below. Sam struck the water with his feet pointed down, in an attempt
to break the surface tension.

Even so, it felt
like striking concrete.

His disappeared
deep under water.

Sam kicked hard
with his legs to reach the surface in the white, frothy water. He’d done enough
white water kayaking over the years to know that he’d landed on grade four or
five rapids. His legs fought to keep his head above water, intermittently
losing the battle as he dropped over another set of sharp river cataracts.

After the third
one, the river settled in eddy. With the last strength in his reserves, Sam
swam to the bank of the river and looked back toward the latest set of drop
offs he’d just survived.

Just in time to
catch Tom Bower scream, “Woohoo!” as he fell, too.

Sam watched as
his friend casually swam toward him.

“You alive, Tom?”

“Yeah, I think
so. Okay, so that’s gotta be included in the next ride at Disneyland!” Tom
said.

“Sure – shall we
include all the angry people with guns and grenades too?”

Tom looked
around.

“I think we’ve
lost them. If they do try and follow, I’m pretty certain they won’t be ready
with their weapons.”

“Let’s not wait
to find out.”

The river ran
through a valley. Large trees lined the bank. Without any clue where they were,
Sam knew instinctually they were at the start of a great river. But that didn’t
help him locate themselves, because rivers ran in all directions around
Kanchenjunga.

“Do you have any
idea where we are?”

“It looks like
we’ve reached the bottom of the mountain. Only, I wouldn’t have a clue which
side we’re now on. Kangchenjunga is limited in the west by the Tamur River, in
the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta
River.”

“The only
question is, which one?”

“Yeah, we’d
better find out so we can get ourselves extracted from here.”

“And probably not
be too vocal about it. Given our past number of friends in the area, I doubt
there are too many people we can trust.”

“That’s great,
but where shall we go from here?” Tom said. “We still have less than three
weeks to rescue Billie and save the world.”

A well-worn path
ran above the river’s waterline. “Shall we follow it?”

“It beats the
hell out of taking our chances in those rapids without anything to help.”

Three hours
later, the two had descended to another clearing, where the water settled into
a sandy bank. A white-water raft was tied up to a tree on the sandy bank. The
name on the raft was Tamur River Adventures.

Several tourists
were gearing up, ready to take the challenge of the river.

“I guess that
answers the question of where we are.”

“How about we
take that?”

Sam looked at the
tourists getting ready for their adventure.

“They’re going to
be pissed, but I’d say our need is greater.”

Dr. Swan stood on
the bridge of the sports yacht.

Ahead of her, she
could clearly see that the river’s cataracts looked navigable on an inflatable
boat, such as a Zodiac, but would be impossible in such a large vessel as the
Andre Sephora.

What kind of
pirates am I involved with?

Edward
Worthington and Billie shared a common goal out of necessity, but the man at
the helm only served to remind her that she’d been kidnapped.

She said nothing.

Billie had chosen
her course of action when she sent Sam Reilly to Siberia. She was on her own.
Now she just had to trust that she had chosen the right villain.

In the distance,
despite the clear blue sky, she heard the rumble of thunder. Jason noticed it,
too. She studied his face. The man’s face, which ordinarily displayed his
overconfidence in all things, especially women, now looked suddenly serious and
focused. His eyes were watching the river as though something dramatic was
about to change. He started to speak a prayer in another language, most likely
his native Afrikaans.

Jason tapped at
his throttle. The strain of concentration became obvious on his face, as he was
judging the right time to perform a task.

The volume of the
sound increased abruptly.

Jason turned the
boat to the left and pushed the throttle to full. Billie gripped the side of
the railing to stop herself being thrown off under the pressure. Edward took
another deep puff from his cigar, and stood confidently using only his sturdy
feet to balance him with the agility of a much younger man.

“What the hell is
that?” Billie asked.

Jason smiled at
her. “That, my dear lady, is the river flooding.”

“You blew up a
dam?”

Jason laughed. 
“Nothing of the sort. I merely had a friend of mine open the emergency
floodgates. It will close automatically in thirty minutes. By that time, the
river will have risen enough to allow the Andre Sephora to reach the next level
of the Congo.”

“Holy shit! Won’t
that water hit us with the force of a tsunami?”

He brought the
sports craft around in a giant arc until it faced the rapids head on once more.
His grin more demonic and tyrannical than before, Jason pushed the throttle to
full speed. The bow of the yacht quickly raised above the water as it began to
skim across the top of the water. “It certainly will. At full speed, barely
anything other than our water jets touch the water. If I’m right, we should be
able to skim over the top of it.”

“And if you’re
wrong?”

“Then, we’re all
dead.”

Billie held on
tighter, and reminded herself what was at stake. In front of them, a wall of
rumbling water raced toward them. The rapids could no longer be distinguished
from the rest of the turbid river.

“Hold on
everyone.” Jason held his breath. “Here we go!”

Billie forced
herself to meet the collision with her eyes open. If she was on a one-way
ticket to meet her maker, she didn’t want to be the last to know.

And then the
Andre Sephora struck the wall of water.

The collision
sent them high into the air, the way a boat jump would have. Jason touched the
helm just lightly enough to maintain a perfectly straight direction. The water
jets propelled them just above the frothy water, as though they were flying.

Less than a
minute later, the water settled and the sports craft became more controllable
in the water. Jason exhaled and then took a long, slow, deep breath in.

“Well everyone, I
think we made it.”

“You could have
given us a little more of a heads up that you were about to try and kill us!”
Billie shouted.

Jason smiled.
“Yes, I could have. But would it have made a difference? We still need to get
further up the river.”

Billie ignored
him and walked to the deck of the bow.

Soon, she noticed
that the river was no longer traveling fast, and then it slowed completely.
The
emergency floodgates must have been closed again.
Their intrepid skipper
slowed the boat down to a crawl. Without the gate open, the height of the river
quickly diminished, and their risk of striking a sandbar increased.

Traveling slowly
into the much narrower river, Billie noticed the dense forest now threatened to
swallow the banks with them inside. The sunlight all but disappeared as the
surrounding canopies of the massive trees dwarfed their vessel.

Approximately
thirty miles up the ancient river, the Andre Sephora struck a sandbar and came
to a slow, grating, halt.

“That’s the end
of the line, folks.”

“Can you get us
off again?” Billie heard the authority back in Edward’s voice.

“Don’t worry. I
can get us off, but there’s no way we’re going any further up river.”

“Why’s that?”

Jason pointed up
ahead. “Because someone up there sure doesn’t want any visitors.”

A hundred feet
upriver Billie suddenly saw what Jason had seen. Three T 72 battle tanks were
lined through the river, forming an artificial barrier to any ship. In the
shallow water, only their turrets and canons were above water, like the
malicious eyes of a crocodile, watching its prey. Each cannon aimed alarmingly
downriver, toward them.

The battle tanks
looked like they’d seen better days, but their intention was no less
significant. Someone had gone to great lengths to place them as a deterrent for
unwanted visitors. More concerning yet were the three severed heads, which
rested on spikes like flags at the back of each battle tank.

Their still fleshy
faces, aghast in abject horror, portrayed a very recent incursion of the
otherwise clear message.

Stay the fuck
out!

“You look
pensive, Dr. Swan?” It was Edward who spoke, as he lit an expensive cigar next
to her. For a man in his eighties, he seemed keen to be constantly inclined to
speed up the inevitable.

“Look at this
place!” Billie said without removing her gaze from the wretches in front of
her. “It looks exactly like something out of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness!”

Edward looked
blank.

“You haven’t read
The Heart of Darkness?”

“No, but I
watched the film Apocalypse Now.”

“Look at those
poor wretches.” Billie pointed toward more heads on spikes outlining the
water’s edge. They appeared white. None of the local people would be stupid
enough to enter the area. “Who do you think those people were?”

“I have no idea,
but if we’re lucky, we might just find the people who did it.”

“The Makan pygmies
were cannibals?”

“Some of my
previous research has suggested so.”

“You’ve been here
before? I thought you only knew about the Atlantean Archives in Tibet?”

“Before I
discovered the other temple, I asked myself the simple question, ‘where could
you hide the remnants of an ancient civilization for eleven thousand years?’”
Edward took a satisfyingly deep puff of his cigar and then continued. “I came
up with a list of several places, but the heart of the Congo River was
certainly at the top of my list, due to its remoteness. Even if people could
reach it, few would get through the plethora of terrorists, unstable
governments, dictatorships, and children armed with AK47s to tell the tale.”

“Did you know
about the Makan people?”

“No, but I
hypothesized that the pygmies, who were the native inhabitants of the land for
at least fifty thousand years, must have seen the Atlanteans if they built a
second temple here eleven thousand years ago.”

“Why not examine
what lies below the rainforest canopy using helicopters equipped with LIDAR?”

“I’ve already
tried that. Here and in South America to be exact. We spent a fortune on aerial
reconnaissance last time using LIDAR via low level flying aircraft. The remote
sensing technology created a high resolution digital elevation model of the
topography below the thick rainforest vegetation. Tens of thousands of hours of
the reconnaissance. Found some interesting old ruins, wrecked planes decades
old, and some ancient tribes who really didn’t want to be seen by white people
from the outside world. But none of it ever revealed another temple of
Atlantis.”

“So then, what
are we doing here, Edward?”

“I’m counting on
you changing my luck, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.”

“Why’s that?”

“Look around Dr.
Swan. Do you real think that any of these people derive from the ancient Atlantean
people?”

“I don’t know
what I think. But whatever we’re after, it will have to be underground to
remain hidden for so long. And that means we’re going to have to enter the dark
forest.”

“You’re certain
it’s here?”

“You were in
Tibet. You saw the image I found. This was definitely the same point along the
river. There were no other images. We now have to head north of the river. If
there’s something there, we’ll find it. I just hope we find it before the
pygmies find us,” Billie said.

“That would be
nice, wouldn’t it?” Edward replied, cheerfully.

“And if they do?”

Edward drew in
the last of the cigar before throwing its remains in the water. “Then we see if
my elite soldiers are worth anywhere near the million dollar a year retainer I’m
paying them.”