Everyone was still waiting for there to be conflict between her and Genevieve now that she was back, and they were working closely together. It never happened. Never would. Billie never understood jealousy. She’d made the decision to leave Tom to find the Master Builders. By the time she came back, he was with someone else. No harm, no foul. Besides, she liked Genevieve. She had that sort of assertive, hard ass personality that didn’t take shit from anyone. Her personality was backed up by the fact that she’d spent many of her younger years as an enforcer in the Russian Mafia. Genevieve kind of reminded her of Geena Davis in that nineties movie, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Tom swore and banked hard.
Billie’s head snapped around toward the cockpit windshield. The Black Hawk banked at a ninety-degree angle and narrowly slipped past another giant pillar of stone. Tom audibly thanked divine providence and the Northrop Grumman Corporation for the cockpit upgrade that simplified his instrument panel into a few multi-functional flat-panel displays that alerted him to the close encounter.
Sam just grinned, as though he’d come along for the ride.
It was another day in the office. The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk was ideal for their current mission deep into the Amazon jungle. Equipped with stealth technology, the bird’s illegal route across two borders and into Venezuela was untraceable by radar or any other tracking method.
They were flying low and dangerously. Though that phrase was relative when the surface was already an alpine valley some 7000 feet in elevation above sea level. Billie decided it was best not to know how close they were to death, and turned her head to face the other members of the team in the back of the Black Hawk.
Veyron Blanc, Sam’s chief engineer, sat opposite her. He made a practiced smile, full of teeth, and a knowing look in reference to their near-death experience. “It’s good to be back working with Sam again, isn’t it?”
“I’ll let you know if we survive.” Billie cursed, and then said, “If I could have done this without him, I would have.”
Veyron nodded, as though he was enjoying her discomfort.
She’d had a love-hate relationship with Sam for many years now, in their combined search for the Master Builders. There was plenty of respect for him professionally and no interest romantically. Where they clashed often stemmed from their expertise. They were both used to being in charge of any situation. Like the age-old saying goes, you can’t have two chefs in one kitchen. She didn’t like being anyone’s subordinate, even when the pay was good. She was good at what she did, and expected everyone around her to keep up. Sometimes, that need manifested in the form of being a bitch, which had made her highly unpopular at times.
Next to Veyron sat Elise. She was the youngest in their crew. Somewhere around her mid-twenties at a guess, and probably the smartest of the lot of them. She was a computer expert, who provided Sam with access to anything he required — legal or otherwise. Rumor had it, she once worked for the CIA as a hacker. When she lost interest in the job, and the government was less than keen to release someone with her knowledge and skills back into civilian society, Elise hacked into the U.S. Vital Records office and created a new identity for herself.
At the back of the cabin, Genevieve rested in her seat, sleeping. Practicing one of those old battle mottos, rest when you can.
The only person missing from Sam’s eclectic team of experts was Matthew Sutherland, the master of his salvage vessel, the Maria Helena, who stayed behind to ensure they had a ship to return to in the Caribbean Sea, to the north of Venezuela.
Everyone aboard the chopper would have preferred to see what they knew was spectacular scenery below, but the mission required utmost secrecy. Hence the perilous 3 a.m. flight to the top of one of northern Brazil’s Tepui Mountains, that left them dodging the vast towers.
Three months ago, Billie had been rescued by Sam and his team from the Amazon jungle. She, along with the entire Pirahã tribe, had spent nearly two years enslaved by the Master Builders. She still didn’t quite accept the term enslaved. Instead, she considered it more of an empowerment. A thick, black smoke would come for them along the banks of the Maici River. It would fill them with joy, and wonder, and strength, and then they would be taken somewhere to construct a new temple, in perfect harmony with one another for months at a time.
When a section of the temple was complete, they would all be returned. Although she couldn’t recollect what she had done or where it had taken place, she was always filled with a tremendous sense of achievement. As though she’d taken part in something far greater and more important than her mere life. Of course, she had since learned that the black smoke was a strong hallucinogen that shared similar properties to the drug LSD. The drug tapped into an undeveloped and primitive part of her brain to allow a form of communication similar to telepathy. Only, instead of being told what to do, the entire group of workers would simultaneously act as one entity.
Ever since she’d been rescued, Billie had frequent thoughts, images, and sensations occur in her sleep. Too real to be the dreams of a restless mind, they seemed more like flashbacks. She recalled long hours of physical labor, indigenous people, thick smoke, and the smell of the mysterious hallucinogen used to obtain her cooperation to help build a new temple. Awake, she had no recollection of that temple or the location, but she’d known it was buried deep in her subconscious. In secret, and hardly daring to believe the parlor game could provide a clue, she’d used automatic writing to draw a map.
But all she could come up with was a series of mountains that didn’t match any known locations anywhere near the Maici River. As the days went on the dreams became more vivid, she knew she had to get back. There was something vitally important she had to do, but couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was.
That’s when Sam Reilly contacted her and showed her the image of the four stones found inside the megalithic Death Stone discovered in Göbekli Tepe. The instant she saw the strange Greek letters of Theta, Sigma, Phi, and Omega branded below each of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and she knew where she’d seen the image before. Inside the King’s Chamber of the newly constructed temple.
With the cataclysmic event prophesied by the Death Stone fast approaching, she contacted Elise, who scanned the strange images she’d drawn and uploaded them into a huge database of satellite images. A few minutes later, Elise had shown her the Tepui Mountains, and it had all flooded back to her, as though she were reliving a waking dream.
She breathed heavily at the image in front of them. Even in the dark, she recognized the steep cliff line as the one from her dream — but dreams can be mistaken.
“We’re here. Wherever the hell here is,” Tom said, as he brought the Black Hawk into a hover directly over the coordinates.
They’d all find out soon enough. Night-vision goggles made out tree-tops and tangled vines below. There was no place to land.
Sam said, “I saw a clearing a couple clicks back. See if you can find anything closer. A clearing or even the beach along a stream.”
Tom nodded and flew concentric circles over the edge of the mesa. That side wouldn’t do. About two miles from the edge, an outcrop presented them with a landing spot clear of trees. They’d have to hike.
Leaving Veyron to hold down the fort with a U.S. military grade M134D Gatling gun and no expectation of using it, the others set out on their two-mile hike to the edge of the mesa. Billie’s coordinates were for somewhere 100 feet below.
In addition to their night-vision goggles, each of the five carried military grade respirator masks, personal climbing equipment, and Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns. Each also carried a Ka-Bar knife and various non-lethal weapons according to their expertise.