Atlantis Stolen (Sam Reilly Book 3) (15 page)

Billie was
surprised by her own strength. She had seen death before, but somehow the
crocodile attack appeared more brutal. Like Edward, she knew there was a lot
more at stake than one man’s life. It forced her to increase her awareness of
her surroundings and carry on.

Twenty minutes
later, the arrow on her necklace began to move.  At first she thought her
movement was causing the arrow to spin. Then, when she stopped and took it off
her neck so that she could look at it level, it pointed constantly in a
westerly direction.

“We’re getting
close,” she said.

Edward leaned in
over her shoulder, so that she could feel his breath as he translated the
direction to magnet west. “It didn’t do that last time?”

“No, last time it
was lot more sluggish. Maybe we’re getting close?”

“But even when we
were in the Tibetan temple, it didn’t move like that?”

Billie thought
about it for a minute.

“I wonder if it
responds differently to the amount of orichalcum. You know, like a weak metal
will barely interfere with a magnetic compass, whereas a large steel object
like a boat will wreak havoc on it.”

“So what you’re
saying is that we’re either very close or that the Temple of Poseidon is
covered with several million dollars’ worth of orichalcum?”

“That’s my
guess.”

At the front of
their group, Mark called for both of them. “Mr. Worthington! Dr. Swan! You’re
gonna want to see this.”

Billie was the
fastest to respond, and Edward followed quickly behind her. The area had become
dense with papyrus reeds as much as ten feet high. Their team were literally
hacking a tunnel through the stuff.

The place was
thick with spider webs the size of which could engulf a house. Billie shook her
head. “Great. So we’ve left the Heart of Darkness in exchange for one of
Tolkien’s man-eating spider worlds.”

Ben, the American
SEAL, gently touched the massive web with his hand. It was thick, sticky and
elastic. He failed to rip it with his hand. Then, yanking his hand back he
picked up his machete, undeterred and hacked at it. He stepped through the
opening and became covered by literally hundreds of small spiders.

He swayed with
his machete and hacked away, before pulling his machine gun out and firing a
burst of rounds toward the bulk of them, sending them scattering.

Billie laughed.
“Wow, Ben. I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders. You know they’re not
dangerous, don’t you?”

In the
background, there was a constant hum, like the sound of a thousand beetles
flapping their wings, or chewing on something clicking. “What the fuck is
that?” Mark asked, irritated.

“I have no idea.
But it’s starting to grate on my nerves,” Edward replied.

They reached
another wall of ten-foot high papyrus reeds.

Mark pulled a large
section of the papyrus to the side, revealing the most amazing sight he’d ever
seen. He swore.

“What is it?”
Billie was the first to ask.

“Unless I’m
mistaken, I think we just found the second temple.”

Through the
papyrus reeds, Billie stared into the opening. A series of circular dams
withheld the ever-present water from the swamp. Each one cut deeper into the
land, until the final one was more than fifty feet below the height of the
crocodile filled water.

At the very
center was a giant dome – which glowed orange and red.

Billie smiled. “That’s
it! Poseidon’s temple!”

Edward patted her
back. “I never doubted you for a minute.” With a warm smile, he said, “Come on,
let’s go get the first half of the code to Atlantis.”

There was a
strong sense of achievement and success that carried through their team. From
Edward, as the financier, through to the mercenaries, all of them felt the joy
of discovery. The soldiers quickly made their way down the circular dams until
they reached the large dome at its bottom.

The thing glowed
orange. “It’s called orichalcum,” Billie advised the men. “And it’s said to be
more valuable than gold. If we survive this, you can imagine what sort of
monetary share will be yours.”

It was surrounded
by a moat.

In between each
dam, a thin layer of water, nearly black, formed a natural moat. It was no more
than seven feet wide, and the party easily crossed it using a carbon-fiber
extendable ladder. Billie slowly walked around the dam until she circled it,
without finding any entrance. Any inclination to wade into the murky water was
immediately extinguished by the piercing golden eyes of the temple’s protectors
– crocodiles, in the hundreds.

“More alligators!”
Edward said, frustrated.

“Technically,
those are crocodiles, not alligators. You see, the crocodiles have more of a
V-shaped jaw, and tend to be more predatory…” Billie began to explain.

Mark interrupted
her. “I don’t give a fuck. Just work out a way to get around them!”

She quickly
circled the dome, only to be disappointed that there was no entrance.

No matter. It was
only a question of time. There were answers inside that dome, and she intended
to find them.

The annoying
background hum of beetles increased in volume until it sounded more like an
earthquake.  

Billie looked up.
“That can’t be good!”

Surrounding them
from above were more than four hundred men no more than four feet tall and
wearing nothing whatsoever. The white pygmies stared down at them, the butts of
their spears thumping the ground in a continuous and haunting staccato. 

Billie cursed.

They had walked
straight into a trap.

Siberia – One
Week Remaining

Sam Reilly’s
Gulfstream landed on the Podkamennaya Tunguska Airport – Siberia. His pilot
taxied to the outer edge of the southern arm of the airport. He looked out the
side windscreen. All he could see was white.

“Welcome to
Siberia,” Tom said.

Sam sighed.
“Yeah, not my first choice for a diving holiday.  But let’s see if we can make
it a rewarding one.”

A series of
Russian police cars approached the plane from the runway.

“Look – they’ve
come to welcome us,” Tom said.

“Apparently so.”
Sam pressed an intercom direct to his pilots. “Have they told you what they
want?”

“No, sir,” the
pilot replied. “They’ve just advised me to stop so they can board us. It might
be a routine inspection of a private jet.”   

“I doubt it.”

Two minutes
later, a small complement of men in thick black coats climbed the steps to
Sam’s Gulfstream. He pressed the intercom to the pilot again. “Bring them into
my office. If we’re going to have a meeting like this, I want it to be on my
terms.”

“Understood,
sir.”

Sam sat down in
his office and closed the door. His private Jet, a loan from his father that he
really never intended to give up, was armed more like a Lockheed Martin/Boeing
F22 Raptor. Although nowhere near as agile, it had a weapons system that would
send shivers into the commanders of most Air Forces around the globe. On the
inside, Sam had spent a fortune having the small office built to repel
boarders. In fact, behind his office, a secret room held the ability to
remotely pilot the jet in the event that his pilots were killed. Also, his office
had its own air supply, so that he could vent toxic gas into the main cabin if
he really wanted to protect himself from unwanted boarders.

He sat down
comfortably in his office. His father worked closely with a number of oil and
gas suppliers throughout Russia, and for the most part, he was treated nearly
reverently when he arrived in the country. Still, Russia was well known for the
pettiness of some of its officials, particularly in the outer areas.

And Tunguska was
an outer area.

There was a knock
at the door. Sam stared at the video screen where the feed from a secret camera
displayed his unwanted guests. There were five in total. Underneath his desk,
he kept his hand on a Glock with a silencer. He wasn’t taking chances.

Then he saw her
face.

If she was here,
and had taken the risk of entering Russian through unofficial means, it meant
that they were all in much worse danger than he’d realized.

He opened the
door and stood at attention.

She walked in and
closed the door, leaving Tom to look after her bodyguards. Pulling the dark
hood off her face, she revealed the most exquisite deep red hair. Her hazel
eyes had a rich opaline ring to them. And years of hard work in a dangerous
world had left her with a smile that bordered on a permanent scowl.

“Madam Secretary,
are you on holiday too?”

The Defense
secretary’s scowl tightened, if that was even possible. “You know damn well
what this about.”

“The Tunguska
event,” Sam replied.

“Officially, we
were never there, and I have no idea what happened in Tunguska. From what I’ve
read, it was a dirty meteor, made up of predominantly gas and small fragments
of stone, which allowed it to penetrate the world’s atmosphere, whereby it then
broke up about five miles above the Tunguska River. The powerful downward projection
of air blew more than an estimated ten million pine trees to the ground.”

Sam listened
impatiently and then said, “And unofficially?”

“We sent a team
of researchers to investigate something in that region. They never came back.
So, we sent a team of soldiers in to find out what happened.”

“And what had
happened?”

“Nearly ten
million pine trees were knocked to the ground.”

“With all due
respect Ma’am, a friend of mine is missing, and I’m pretty certain it’s tied in
with the Tunguska event.”

“Really? So that’s
why I was sent halfway around the globe for you this time? You’ve lost that
girlfriend of yours, Dr. Swan?”

“She’s been
kidnapped. And the only clue about where she’s gone is her own note, leading
with the GPS coordinates of Tunguska.”

“Kidnapped, Mr.
Reilly?” Her voice was patronizing in its sympathy. “You let her get kidnapped?
How very careless of you.”

“Yes, well it was
a mistake letting her out of my sight. Especially after she told me what she
knew.”

“And what does
she know?”

“The location of
Atlantis.”

She paused for a
few seconds. Her normally abrupt nature softened.

“Did you hear
what I just said?”

“Yes. If she
knows the coordinates of Atlantis, then someone’s about to have a really bad
day. Sam, you need to find her before she tells anyone else. It’s a matter of national
security.”

“Oh no, you don’t
get to send me on an assignment just because I’ve now found something to keep
you interested. First, you have to give me something. Tell me, what do you
really know about Tunguska, and what does it have to do with Atlantis?”

“I have no idea
what it has to do with Atlantis, but I can tell you what I do know about
Tunguska.”

“So tell me.” She
didn’t have to ask for his secrecy. He’d pledged that with his life when he’d
been recruited and joined her secret taskforce years ago.

“In 1906 a team
of explorers attempted to cross the Canadian and Siberian Seas, and travel
through to Moscow. On their way, they uncovered something.”

Sam would have
liked to know what they’d uncovered, but if she didn’t tell him, he wasn’t
going to ask.

“So, we sent a
second team. This one was full of researchers. The Russians got wind of our
operation and they wanted to be involved. When we no longer heard from the
teams, Washington became concerned and sent a third team. This one was a
mixture of scientists and soldiers. When they got there, they did something…
and the effect of what they did resulted in what appeared to be the destruction
of millions of pine trees, uprooted and lying on their sides. Local accounts
talked of a strange blue light for about ten minutes emanating from the sky.”

“Okay, and what
about the original discovery?”

“It was gone. All
evidence of the structure had disappeared.”

The word
‘structure’ wasn’t lost on Sam. She was letting him know what was really there
in 1906, before the Tunguska event.

“So, the Russian
delegate and our own at the time, signed a contract. Agreeing to never speak of
it again, until it no longer mattered. So, all the documents about what
happened were buried in a top secret archive, not to be opened for more than a
hundred years.”

“It must be close
to opening? It’s been more than a hundred years. You should have access to it?”

“Well Sam, that’s
just it. The Tunguska File is set to be released in exactly two weeks from now.
I don’t know what it was really about, but given the date, I would strongly
advise you find Dr. Swan and Atlantis before that file becomes public knowledge.”