He sat down and watched the truck disappear to the north.
There was something about the stranger. He looked familiar, yet distant too… he stared at the overweight man and shook his head. It was impossible. There were similarities, but more differences, too.
He shook his head. It was impossible. Besides, he didn’t believe in ghosts.
Yet he was still unable to shake the feeling they’d met before…
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Gulfstream G550 taxied along the blacktop, gently easing to a stop at the end of the runway. Ilya glanced out the window and watched as a commercial jet passed overhead. A moment later, he heard the roar of the Gulfstream’s twin Rolls-Royce engines and the luxury jet bounded down the runway, before defying the effects of gravity at a steep incline.
He rested back into the Italian leather and closed his eyes.
A computer search for Sam Reilly had identified that he was going to be diving at the Belize Great Hole free diving competition. It should have been a breeze, but there were complications. The man simply wasn’t that easy to kill. Everyone could be killed, but he’d gone about it the wrong way. He wanted to make it look like an accident. Sam wasn’t the sort of guy who had accidents. Ilya knew that now. Next time he would simply walk straight up to the guy and shoot him.
His mind returned to the way Sam had tried to disable the seaplane, so it would crash. It had been an invigorating experience. It wasn’t the first time the man had nearly killed him, either. A week ago, Sam had trapped him inside the Aleutian Portal.
The thought of death made him recall how close he’d come to drowning as a kid. He and his brother fell through a sheet of ice on a lake in Siberia. His brother had died, but he was rescued and resuscitated by someone working below the ice. That’s how he came to meet Leo Botkin. One of the most powerful and dangerous men on earth.
The experience had changed his life. Not only did he lose his brother, but it had made him stronger and tougher, mentally and physically. There was a certain comfort in knowing that death was not so bad. It was only in life that you experienced pain — it had made him far more callous and capable as an assassin.
The Gulfstream banked gently, and his cellphone rang.
He answered it immediately. “Yes?”
It was Leo Botkin. “Do you want to tell me why I had to send you my private jet?”
Ilya sighed. “There were complications.”
“Is it done?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Ilya looked out the window, at the turquoise water intermingled with a series of shallow reefs below. “There were complications.”
“That doesn’t normally stop you from doing what I ask.” Botkin’s voice was cold and hard.
“You don’t normally ask me to kill Sam Reilly.”
“When will you finish the job?”
“I’ll start tomorrow. I can’t find anything about where he is right now, but I will.” The Gulfstream straightened up, and Ilya rested his feet on the soft leather chaise. “Any idea what he was doing at the Great Blue Hole?”
“You said he was entering some sort of free-diving competition.”
“Sure, but why?”
“He likes diving. Why not?” Botkin asked.
Ilya sighed at the obvious discrepancy. “Sam Reilly’s got the Death Stone. He’s a smart guy. By now he must know what the future holds. Time’s running out. He’s got one chance to survive.”
“So?”
“What the hell was he doing here looking like he’s on vacation?”
“Beats me?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine. When you work it out, let me know.”
Ilya knew he was lying, but had learned long ago that Leo Botkin let you know precisely what he wanted you to know and nothing more.
“Okay.”
Botkin’s voice took a dangerous tone. “Do you have any idea what’s at stake here if he works out what to do with the stones?”
“I know,” Ilya confirmed. “Don’t worry, he won’t be around long enough to work it out.”
“You’d better hope not”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The darkroom was positioned on the lowest deck of the Maria Helena, toward the bow and below the waterline. The steel hull and purpose-built door barred any light from entering. In the days before Global Shipping had purchased the vessel and reconditioned her from an Ice-breaker to a Salvage and Rescue ship, the room had been used by its previous occupants to develop film — in the times before digital cameras, when photos needed to be developed and every shot counted. Now, the room was set up with a range of lights across the UV spectrum that could be used to examine artifacts or antiques.
Under the soft red light, Billie stared at the ancient stone tablet.
Stolen from the temple hidden within the sandstone quartz caves beneath the Tepui Mountains, it had already revealed a number of secrets. She’d already discovered that it was an ancient map leading to all twenty-two of the remaining temples, but so far, there was nothing she could do to interpret it.
The colors visible by unaided human eyes are controlled by the wavelength of light vitality. Unlike some insects, people can just view the spectrum from red to violet. Other invisible colors exist above and below this spectrum. The color above red is called infrared, the same as they used in their night-vision goggles to access the Tepui Mountains at night. The color below violet is called ultraviolet. Ultraviolet light will make fluorescent or luminous pigments fluoresce, emanating visible light.
It was inside the ultraviolet color range that she hoped to find some hidden clue left by the ancient Master Builders.
There were four main types of ultraviolet light, each one separated into categories based on their wavelength. Unaided, human eyes can view violet light between four hundred and fifty and four hundred nanometers. To see light in the wavelength spectrum of four hundred to three hundred and twenty, also known as ultraviolet A, long wave, light, one needed the assistance of a black light. Moving further down into a range of three hundred and twenty to two hundred and eighty, ultraviolet B is highly harmful to one’s skin, yet small exposures are vital for the production of vitamin D3 that allows the human body to absorb calcium in the bowel. At the lowest end of the spectrum, medium wave length light and two hundred and eighty to one hundred nanometers, the short wavelength light was considered germicidal, and used in medical practices or food-processing to eliminate any bacteria.
Billie switched on the handheld black light wand.
Electricity passed through the small tube loaded with inert gas and a small amount of mercury. Now energized, the mercury molecules radiated energy as light photons. Some of these were visible, but most of the photons produced were inside the ultraviolet B wavelength range. Since UV light waves are invisible to the human eye, the black light wand needed to change this energy into visible light, by covering the outside of the tube with phosphor.
Black lights have been used for many years for a variety of purposes, ranging from antique inspection through forgeries, crime scenes, and mineral identification. Various chemical properties end up noticeably evident when exposed to black light. Current paint will incandesce or sparkle when exposed to black light while older paints won’t. This can be used to determine if a painted material is an antique, or a newer reproduction, or a modification of the original. Many banknotes from around the world incorporate fluorescent colors, which sparkle under exposure to black light. To enable fluorescence, dye is infused with luminous solids that emit a specific colored gleam when exposed to UV light. In geology, a few minerals show photoluminescence, meaning they glow when introduced to a black light. Minerals such as opal, fluorite, willemite, calcite, dolomite, apatite and quartz all glow under black light.