“Goodbye, Pauline.”
Goddard finished zipping up his wetsuit and pulled his buoyancy control device across his shoulders, attaching the Velcro onto his waist. “Are you sure this is necessary?”
Sam shrugged. “Hey, I had a perfectly good private jet waiting for me at Marco Polo International. You’re the one who suggested we had better enter Malta unannounced, and off custom’s radar, in case our enemies followed.”
“What do we do when we get to the other side?”
“I have a friend who lives nearby. He’s agreed to lend us a vehicle and a place to stay where he lives with his family in Marsa.”
“All right, let’s get this over and done with.”
Sam checked Goddard’s SCUBA set up, testing the regulator, dive gauge, and BCD. “You’ve dived before, right?”
“Sure. About thirty years ago, in the Bahamas, mind you. But I’m told it’s very much like riding a bicycle.”
Sam grinned. “That it is. Just keep breathing.”
“Good advice. I’ll follow you.”
Sam placed the regulator into his mouth, and stepped off the back of the yacht, disappearing into the deep waters below.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sam surfaced at the site of the former Malta Tram Station in Marsa.
It was an industrial shipping area, with dozens of shipyards nearby, where people worked on, in, and under many large shipping vessels. If anyone was watching, they would have assumed he and Goddard were just working under one of the hulls, most likely freeing it from barnacles to save the ships being slipped.
Sam removed his fins and dive mask, climbed up the ladder at the side of the harbor, and moved with the confident and purposeful gait of someone who belonged, across the road and into a small park. Goddard followed behind quickly.
They both stripped from their wetsuits, changing into a comfortable pair of cargo shorts, Italian name brand polo shirts, and a pair of Birkenstock leather sandals, giving them the appearance of wealthy tourists. They left their SCUBA equipment next to a nearby bin, in the zipped-up bag.
Goddard’s eyes drifted toward the unlikely rubbish. “You’re just going to dump them?”
“No, it’s okay, my friend said he’ll come pick them up this afternoon.”
“Great. Where now?”
“My friend’s house. He lives up the road.”
They walked along the narrow streets for a few blocks, traveling the old paved roads that had lasted more than a thousand years, until they reached a three-story terrace, in a row of twelve.
Sam knocked on the door.
A man opened it and smiled at him warmly. He looked like he belonged in an oil painting during the Renaissance. His pale blue eyes were set as though he was dreaming. He had a handsome face that looked like it was almost chiselled, with a jaw line that betrayed no hint of fat, a firm chin and a straight patriarchal nose. His dark beard was perfectly manicured, and he wore a pair of diamond studded earrings.
“Sam Reilly!” The man leaned in to embrace him with a firm handshake and a big hug.
“It’s great to see you. It’s been too long.” Afterward, Sam turned to Goddard. “Andrew, I’d you to meet my cousin, Emmanuel Azzopardi.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Goddard said, offering his hand.
Emmanuel opened the door and stepped to the side. Using his hand to gesture them in, he said, “Come in, come in. Can I offer you a drink? Have you eaten?”
“We’re good, my cousin,” Sam said, closing the door behind him. “Look. We’ve got to get around Malta pretty quickly. There is something really important we have to do. You said that you had a vehicle I could borrow?”
“Of course. It’s around the back, in the garage. Do you have time to wait until Christine gets home? I’m sure she and the kids would love to see you.”
Sam made a half-frown. “Afraid not. We’ve got to get going and the less people who know we’re here the better. Like I said before, we’re in trouble. Some dangerous people are after us.”
“Okay. I understand. Take whatever you need and know that you have a place here to sleep if you want it.” Emmanuel made a wry smile. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d start to think you’d gotten yourself in with the wrong crowd.”
Sam gripped his hand with a firm shake. “Thanks. I’ll make it up to you once this is all over.”
“I know you will,” Emmanuel said, sagely. “Good luck.”
Sam followed him round the back of the old masonry house, and through a door into the single car garage.
Parked there in the middle, was a blue BMW R1200 sports motorcycle.
Sam grinned. “This is what you’re lending me?”
Emmanuel nodded. “Yes. I assume you can still ride a motorcycle?”
Chapter Forty-Five
The ferry dropped them off on the island of Gozo in the north.
As the disembarking ramp lowered, Sam placed the open face helmet on his head, tightened the strap and got onto the front of the motorcycle. He pressed the starter button and Goddard climbed on the back, still carrying his precious Homo sapiens mask in a backpack.
The traffic light ahead turned green and Sam rode off the boat, following the rest of the vehicles until he reached the main road. Then he gunned the throttle, taking off ahead of everyone.
Goddard had explained to him that he’d narrowed the location down to somewhere in Malta, but as yet hadn’t been able to narrow it down further. Instead, he had created a list of ancient temples, which he believed may have been constructed in honor of the ancient Chamber of Knowledge. That list, he again shortened to just two ancient temples — Xagħra Hypogeum on Gozo and Ħal-Saflieni Hypogeum on mainland Malta.
His theory was that over the course of history, the ancient chamber had become buried with antiquity, including all reference to the lost knowledge. Their hope today was that Sam Reilly, with his unique knowledge of the Master Builders might find something on one of the ancient temples that Goddard had missed. Sandi Larson would meet them tomorrow with the Homo neanderthalensis mask and together, the three of them would hopefully reveal the Master Builder’s most sacred secret.
The Xagħra Hypogeum on Gozo was the first place on the list.
Sam pulled the BMW motorcycle around the front of the ancient complex. The Neolithic funerary complex consisted of a series of underground caves which were used to bury the dead inside a walled hypogeum. It mainly dated back to around 3000 to 2400 BC, although the earliest tombs at the site date back to 4100 to 3800 BC. The caves collapsed sometime before 2000 BC, and the site was later used for domestic and agricultural purposes.
They walked around the remains of the Xagħra Stone Circle, which originally consisted of a walled enclosure surrounding underground caves which were used as a necropolis. It had some similarities to the Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, a prehistoric funerary complex on the main island of Malta. Uniquely, excavations at the site showed that the bodies of the deceased were dismembered, and the different body parts were buried at separate places.
Sam examined the stone walls. They were made out of soft limestone. No sign of the dark, glassy obsidian with which he knew the Master Builders were capable of manipulating and building. Nearby there were the fractured remnants of a number of ancient temples ranging between 4100 and 3800 BC, during the Żebbuġ phase of Maltese prehistory — but none of those appeared to show any Master Builder influence.
An hour later, Sam noticed that Goddard had gone for a little walk to the end of the collapsed cave system. He followed him. The older man was leaning deep into a small opening that had formed between two large stone pillars, leaving only his legs visible from the outside.