Sam looked over his shoulder. “Genevieve, are you alright to fly us back to the Maria Helena, while Elise stiches up Tom’s leg?”
“Yeah, I’m on it,” she replied.
Sam waited until Veyron climbed into the navigator’s seat and then closed the side door.
In the back of the Sikorsky helicopter, Elise was already in the process of opening the suturing kit. She looked at Tom, “This might hurt a bit…”
Billie studied the stone tablet without looking up, either unaware that Tom had been injured, or indifferent. She smiled broadly, as she studied the ancient map, waiting for its secrets to be revealed.
Genevieve climbed into the cockpit and switched on the main power. The rotors started to turn. She waited until they built up take-off rotation, and then pulled up on the cyclic collective and took off over the tabletop.
Chapter Eleven
The helicopter flew low and silently north.
Its dark shadow whipped across the tops of the ancient jungle canopies, which made up much of Venezuela. In the cockpit, Genevieve and Veyron were focused, but now settled into their flightpath. In the back, Tom slept well. Elise had cleaned the thigh wound and then sutured it shut. A small drip containing antibiotics and some colloidal fluids slowly ran down a small priming line into his vein. He would be sore for a few days, but he’d recover well. Elise and Sam both attempted to rest sitting up, but their constant subtle movements, and intermittent opening and darting of their eyes, suggested neither was capable of achieving it.
Despite being awake for nearly twenty-four hours now, Billie didn’t even attempt to rest. Instead, she spent the flight back to the Maria Helena poring over the ancient stone tablet under the beam of a small flashlight, unable to look away from the mysterious inscriptions.
The tablet was made from a single piece of pitch-black jet lignite. The soft rock only scored a three out of ten on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, making it easy for the ancient Master Builders who worked on it to carve into its soft mineral. It had been polished and cut precisely into the shape of a rectangle.
There was no written description on the surface. A series of fine lines were precisely engraved into the ebony-colored piece of stone, so fine that they were more easily felt than seen against the darkness. They ran both horizontally and vertically, giving it the appearance of a map showing the parallels of latitude and the meridians of longitude.
The Greek symbols for Theta, Sigma, Phi, and Omega were etched in gold, with one at each corner. Below each of those were the four horses, intricately carved out of stone or ivory to represent the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
She studied the first one. It was made of ivory, and its rider carried a sword and wore a crown of thorns. Billie noted the reference to the White Horseman — AKA the Conqueror. The second one was made of 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. The third was made of a solid piece of red garnet, which was expertly crafted into the shape of a horse and rider. In the rider’s right hand was a broadsword, identifying him as the biblical reference to War. The last horse was made of jade. Its rider carried a scythe. And although some people believed that he rode a pale horse, ashen, or black horse, of all the horsemen his purpose was undisputed — he was the harbinger of Death.
Despite the terrifying meaning behind the biblical references to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the sight brought reassurance to Billie. Eight weeks ago, when Sam and Tom were trying to track her down and rescue her, Sam uncovered a series of temples, and an ancient covenant based on the Four Horsemen. The covenant dated back to 286 A.D. when Grigori the Illuminator made a pilgrimage to Mount Ararat. What he discovered high up in the twin volcanic peaks, was enough for Armenia’s then King Tiradates III to have him thrown into the deep dungeon of Khor Virap, and left to die in solitude where his story could never be told.
Billie thought about that story…
A great harbinger of Death was slowly approaching Earth. Left unhindered, the evil fire from the sky would burn its way through all life on Earth. But the Gods had left the Four Horsemen to protect mankind.
The constant whine of the helicopter’s engine softened, and she felt the Black Hawk descend at the northern end of the Tepui Mountains. The nose of the helicopter dipped, and they descended into the valley below, where the dense vegetation of the Amazon jungle ran by at eighty knots, in a mirage of deep green.
Her mind returned to the stone tablet.
Within the inky black canvas were a scattering of identical blue sapphires. Despite the morning’s light, which now filtered through the helicopter’s windows, she used her flashlight to examine the precious gemstones. They sparkled wickedly under the beam of her flashlight, like a series of stars in the night’s sky.
She switched off the flashlight and stared at the stone tablet in the natural light. A curious grin filtered across her open mouth. The entire image looked like a giant constellation of stars. There was a total of twenty-two sapphires.
But what constellation is it?
Her eyes flicked across the rest of the tablet. In addition to the twenty-two precious blue gemstones, there were five empty indentations, where she suspected previous sapphires were once fixed. She brought the stone tablet up to her face so that she could examine one of the empty indents. It looked as though something had once been there. She could even make out the remnant of some sort of cement most likely used to glue the radiant gems in place.
The discovery hit her like a bomb.
There had once been a total of twenty-seven sapphires.
Five were now missing.
Billie looked up. Sam’s breathing was deep and irregular. The previously taut expression in his face was now relaxed, as though he’d finally slipped off into a peaceful dream.
She nudged him with her leg. “Sam. Wake up!”
Sam’s eyes shot open, and he sat upright. “Did you find something?”
“Maybe.” Her voice wasn’t certain. More prying, instead. “How many of the ancient Master Builder temples do you know for certain have been destroyed?”
Sam blinked his eyes, still trying to wake from his sleep inertia. “What?”
“The Builder’s temples. How many do we know for certain have been destroyed in recent years?”
Sam’s blurry eyes darted across to the other crew, all resting in the back of the helicopter. “Three. Atlantis sunk. The one in the Mediterranean Sea was swallowed by the incoming tide. And the one beneath the Gulf of Mexico imploded.”
“That’s all of them?” she asked.
With her eyes still firmly closed, Elise said, “No. There have been five destroyed, although there may have been others that we don’t know about. Including the three that Sam listed, there were also the one in Tunguska in the Siberian Taiga, which was bombed from above. And the one in the Khyber Pass, in Afghanistan, which was destroyed by militants shortly after Sam first investigated it all those years ago.”
An engaging smile formed on Sam’s lips. His piercing blue eyes were now wide awake with interest. “All right. So, there’s five. Why do you ask?”
Billie handed him the tablet. “There are twenty-two stones implanted in small indents within the jet lignite.”
“And?” Sam asked.
“There are an additional five indents without stones. When you examine them closely, you will see a small bit of silvery powder, the remnants of a very old form of glue.”
“It looks like someone has gone to the effort of removing the gems?” Sam asked.