“He took it better than you’d think. All right, so I didn’t quite put it to him that way. I explained it was imperative we reach Ball’s Pyramid and that our ability to solve the problem could have a long-lasting outcome to all life on earth.” Sam took a breath. “He said he knew.”
Billie looked at him quizzically. “He knew?”
“Yeah. He said for the past two days, there have been a series of strange currents and the last three dives he made, the entire reef was devoid of any marine life. He said it was the strangest and scariest thing he’s ever seen — making him think of an old Stephen King book.”
“Great.” Billie shook her head. “So, time’s running out, quickly.”
“It seems so,” Sam agreed.
“Back to the logistics,” Tom said. “Where are you planning on entering the temple?”
“According to our dive operator, there’s a large square opening at the base of Ball’s Pyramid at a depth of forty feet. It’s made of obsidian and goes so deep, no one has ever tried to reach the end.”
The Gulfstream came to a complete stop next to the small airport. A minivan covered in the words Dive Lord Howe Island pulled up out the front of it.
Sam said, “Here’s our ride now.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
It took two hours by boat to reach Ball’s Pyramid, which jutted dramatically out of the Pacific Ocean — a giant spire rising 1844 feet into the dark, foreboding sky. It was a monument to the once active volcano that existed seven million years ago.
On board the dive boat was their skipper, Randy and dive operator, Henry. It was Henry, a blond-haired twenty-something dive instructor, with an easy-going attitude and carefree smile, who Sam was most interested in. The man had drawn a detailed map, including depth and surrounding rock formations as navigation guides, to the entrance of the tunnel into the submerged grotto.
Sam studied the drawing. It depicted a rectangular entrance, that looked remarkably similar to the descending passage inside the Great Pyramid of Giza with the one exception being that this one was totally submerged.
He made a couple notes on his dive slate and put the map down. Turning to Henry, he asked, “Will you be joining us on our reconnaissance dive?”
Henry shook his head. His response, visceral. “No way. You couldn’t pay me enough to go inside. I’m happy to guide you to the main entrance, but once there, you’re on your own.”
“Thanks, we appreciate your help.” Sam smiled, sympathetically. It was a common enough response. Even very good divers don’t like the idea of being confined in a small tunnel, under water, where there’s no chance of surfacing if there’s a problem with their dive equipment. “I take it you don’t like cave diving?”
“No. I love cave diving and shipwrecks. I instruct in both diving specialties. But there’s no way I’m going inside that thing.”
“Do you know of anyone who has?” Sam asked.
“No way. No one. There’s been a few who have looked at it, even the occasional diver who’s penetrated the first thirty or so feet, before turning around and never going back inside. But, to my knowledge, no one’s dived it to the end, mapping out the length and depth of the grotto.”
Sam’s lips curled with curiosity at the mystery. “Why?”
“Why doesn’t anyone go inside?”
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed.
Henry swallowed hard. “The place is evil.”
“Evil, really?” Sam grinned, and raised a curious eyebrow. “How so?”
“The fish — when we had fish — avoided the place like it was poison. Even the coral that grows throughout the region spurns the entrance, for a distance of twenty-feet. Really, you can see a defined line in the shape of a rectangle, precisely twenty-feet out from the entrance.”
“That’s interesting.” Sam was intrigued, but without any explanation, he still needed to dive the foreboding grotto. “All right. We still need to go inside it.”
“I thought you’d say that. I’m just telling you what I know.”
Sam, Tom, Billie and Genevieve finished setting up for a prolonged cave dive — using Diving Rebreathers. Traditional SCUBA diving required the use of a tank, or multiple tanks of breathable gas, in an open-circuit system where exhaled gas was discharged directly into the environment. But a Rebreather used a closed-circuit system with a scrubber to absorb exhaled carbon dioxide, reusing any of the original oxygen content. Oxygen is then added to replenish the amount metabolized by the diver. The benefit being that only a small amount of oxygen is required, allowing prolonged dives, regularly up to four hours, greater bottom times, and reduced decompression times — because the dive computer can automatically adjust the gas ratios to meet your metabolic needs at varying depths.
Tom finished checking Sam’s set up. “We’re all checked. Good to go.”
Sam glanced at the dark clouds approaching. He wasn’t sure what to believe about the grotto, but the sky certainly appeared evil. Looking at the rest of his team, he said, “Remember, we’re on the clock with this one.”
He then pulled his full-face dive mask over his head, checked that it formed a perfect seal, and stepped into the water.
The warm water rushed over his body. According to his dive-computer, it was 78 degrees Fahrenheit. There was minimum chop on the surface, as he signaled, all okay.
Sam confirmed that the rest of the team was good, and then followed Henry to the entrance of the rectangular grotto. The visibility was excellent — more than a hundred feet and his line of sight reached the rocky seafloor.
It was a short dive to reach the entrance. They descended quickly and Sam made the almost imperceptible adjustment of his jaw and slight swallowing movements to equalize the pressure in his ears.
They leveled out at a depth of forty feet.
He followed Henry around two large, submerged boulders and under a ten-foot high swim through — or covered opening between two rocks deemed not-quite a cave dive — and into another calm pool of crystal clear water.
Henry pointed to the opening up ahead.
Sam’s eyes followed where Henry had pointed. There, carved into the side of the submerged section of Balls Pyramid was a rectangular, descending tunnel. At a glance, there was no doubt in his mind that the opening wasn’t the natural result of erosion — it had been manmade.
Henry, who was the only one in their group who wasn’t wearing a full-face dive mask and therefore couldn’t speak, handed Sam his dive slate.
Sam glanced at the slate.
On it, Henry had written, THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. GOOD LUCK.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Tom led the remaining group of four divers into the descending passage. The idea was that, being the biggest and the most experienced cave-diver, he would be in the best position to determine if they reached an unpassable tunnel.
The descending passage was the same size and shape as those found in the Great Pyramid of Giza and the pyramid buried in the Kalahari Desert, which were designed to have adult men and women walk inside. So, they offered plenty of room for diving. Even so, he wasn’t taking chances. Every thirty feet he stopped and drew an arrow with chalk and wrote, THIS WAY OUT.
In the descending tunnel with identical walls it was impossible to tell how far they’d traveled by the time they reached the bottom, but his depth gauge now showed a depth of 104 feet. Unlike other pyramids that they’d searched, this one didn’t have any secondary passages, like the ascending tunnel found in the Egyptian pyramids. At the bottom, the tunnel opened up to a large hypogeum, very similar to the one found in the Orvieto Underground. Tom shined his flashlight across the walls. Large and small rectangular-shaped stones lined the floor, walls and ceilings.