Chapter Six
Sam Reilly dropped Aliana Wolfgang off at the airport.
He’d just bought a black 1989 Lamborghini LM002 in Los Angeles and was in the process of taking it to the east coast. He considered putting it on the back of a truck and having it shipped to his warehouse in Florida, which was attached to his private shipyard where his salvage vessel, the Maria Helena was ordinarily housed. But with the Maria Helena sunk and her replacement still being fitted out in the US Navy’s Shipyards at Quonset, Rhode Island, he figured it was time for a road trip.
Despite being considered an antique, the Lamborghini LM002 was a solid workhorse. Kind of a cross between Sherman Tank and Formula One racecar. The four-door pickup, with a tubular steel frame and riveted aluminum body panels, was the Italian supercar company’s first major departure from its better known, high-performance, hand-built, supercars.
He and Aliana had spent the weekend taking it through its paces in the four-wheel drive renowned Moab National Park. She was originally going to come with him through to Colorado Springs to do some diving with Tom Bower and Genevieve Callaghan, but as things were, she’d been called back to the office to work.
Sam turned right onto I-70 and headed east.
He planted his foot on the accelerator and his entire body was thrown back into the seat as the V12 engine roared — the very same one used on Lamborghini’s Countach.
Sam took genuine pleasure out of simply driving the antique vehicle, the same way an art collector might enjoy examining the brushstrokes of a bygone master. Of all of Lamborghini’s forays into the increasingly popular SUV market, this was the only one he truly enjoyed.
It was the Italian car maker’s third attempt at producing a military style vehicle, and the first to make it to an, albeit, short lived production. The Lamborghini Cheetah and the LM001, paved the way for LM002. But with both earlier models using rear-mounted American power plants and intended for military use, they were not well received due to their poor maneuverability. It wasn’t until 1986 when Lamborghini decided to use a forward mounted Countach V12 engine that the vehicle took off for commercial production. Only recently, Lamborghini had made a fourth contender in the highly popular SUV market, with the Urus.
There was nothing wrong with the Urus, but of all of them, the LM002 was the only one that he could even imagine taking off road. It was rugged, sturdy, and built to drive like a tank — albeit a very fast one.
Next to him, his cell phone started to ring.
The LM002 was a couple decades short of having Bluetooth connectivity and handsfree. He squinted and looked up ahead. There were no cops, and no one else on the road.
He pressed the answer button and said, “Hello.”
It was Elise, a good friend and one of his employees, a renowned computer hacker. “How’s your trip going? How’s the new car?”
“It’s been good,” Sam replied, a slight grin forming on his lips. She was often so fixated on any task that she was doing that it was rare for her to start with a preamble. “The truck’s good.”
“That’s nice. You needed a vacation. Where are you headed now?”
“Colorado Springs. I’m exploring some caves with Tom and Genevieve.”
“Don’t you do that enough for work?”
Sam shrugged. “It’s what I do to relax.”
Elise didn’t get sucked into it. Instead, she said, “You’re not going there now.”
“I’m not?”
“No.”
“All right.” Sam asked, “Where am I going?”
There was an impish and excited tone to her voice. “The Monarch Mountains.”
“Right.”
“In Colorado.”
Sam nodded. “Right. What am I doing there?”
“There’s a miner out there who just posted a picture of a stone mask frozen in obsidian. The mask is identical to one of the pictographs of that make up the Seven Faces.”
Six months ago, Sam and his team found an 8th continent. It had sunken into the Pacific Ocean centuries ago, but its highest points were on an atoll that nearly broke the surface of the ocean. The mouth of the atoll formed a natural grotto which protected an ancient beach. Inside, Sam found a perfectly intact Lockheed Model 10 Electra — the same type of aircraft that disappeared with Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan on board during her attempted round the world flight. In the cockpit they found no sign of the renowned aviator or her navigator, but a Kodak Duo camera. Sam had the film developed, and it revealed an image of a strange purple cave with a pictograph of Seven Faces of ancient humans.
“The same face exactly?” Sam crunched his face up, the muscles all going tight. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How can you be sure?”
“Facial recognition technology uses…”
“Okay, okay,” Sam stopped her before she got into the technical aspects. If she was certain, that was good enough for him. “Where did he say he found the mask?”
“He won’t say the exact location, but told me that he found it in an obsidian vault after blasting through a vein of quartz above. He said it was the only thing inside that hinted that the place had ever been seen by human eyes.”
“How did he suggest the mask found its way in there?”
“He said he doesn’t have a clue. That’s what he’s really interested in. Right now he thinks it’s an impossibility.”
“Where’s the mask, now?”
“Still in the mineshaft.”
“What?” Sam lips turned into a wry smile. “He just left it there?”
“He wasn’t sure if it was an ancient Mayan Tomb or something… said he felt as though the mask was watching him. Said it scared the shit out of him to be honest. Like the fiend was guarding something, or about to curse him for eternity.”
“All right, all right. I’m interested. Text me the address.”
“Okay, will do.”
“And Elise…”
“Yeah?”
“Can you please give him a call back and make sure he doesn’t show it to anyone else or try to sell it before I get there.”
“Will do, Sam.”
Sam pulled over, put the location into the GPS on his phone, and pressed go.
He then planted his foot again, edging as far past the speed limit as he thought he could get away with.
It was a good drive.
And the car handled surprisingly well given its age and the fact that it had a curb weight in the vicinity of three tons.
At Grand Junction he took the exit turning onto Highway 50. It was a little before three p.m. when Sam drove into Sapinero, crossed the Gunnison River, and continued on west. The river ran through a mountainous valley. The highway meandered along the side of the river, sometimes changing its elevation by hundreds or more feet as the mountain range rose high above.
The road dropped as it came around a bend that led across a small bridge. Sam changed down the heavy gears and then put his foot on the gas as the Lamborghini started its climb up the steep slope of the mountain.
In his rearview mirror he spotted a number of motorcycles. They all looked the same. Yamaha YZ250 motorcycles, with their distinctive blue and white motocross coloring. The bikes were road legal, but far better suited to off road. Sam and Tom had ridden similar bikes on trails in their early twenties.
The riders, stuck behind him, seemed to quickly become impatient. Each of them took it in turns to try and overtake him, crossing narrowly between him and the oncoming cars. The highway meandered along the natural contours and undulations of the mountain range.