He turned around and returned to the ventilation shaft. From what he’d learned about Derinkuyu, some of the escape tunnels went for miles upon miles. As much as he wanted to know where it went, Sam decided to return to the water. This was the wrong place. No matter how much the river had flooded, it never would have reached eighty feet high, where it could wash anything away from the storerooms. Tom would be starting to worry about his dive time if he didn’t return soon. It was most likely Sadik would know about it, anyway.
Sam quickly reattached his harness to the rope and carabiner. He descended the ventilation shaft, placed the regulator in his mouth and returned to the dark world below. He checked his watch. He’d been gone for nearly an hour and thirty minutes. Tom would be starting to get edgy. He should have returned, but instead he decided to swim north, just a little further. It was a bad decision, or an extremely good one, depending on the way you wanted to look at it.
He continued swimming for another two hundred feet and stopped. A set of stairs, chiseled into the soft volcanic tuft, rose straight out of the water about thirty feet away. Sadik had already told him that he didn’t know where Derinkuyu drew its water supply, but if any of the known tunnels led to the water through a set of stairs, he would have known for certain. That meant, Sam had found a hidden grotto.
He began swimming toward the steps. He could see where the water broke the surface, but there was something else in that direction, too. He focused the powerful beam of his flashlight at it and stopped — because looking right back at him were the vacant eyes of another SCUBA diver.
Chapter Seven
It took a moment for Sam to recognize what he was looking at. He felt his pulse pound in the back of his head. He took several quick, shallow breaths. Anxiety and panic crept up upon him in an instant. His first instinct was to back away, and escape as quick as possible. But there was no reason to, because the wraith that was staring at him couldn’t harm a soul — it was already dead.
Sam caught his breath and purposefully slowed his breathing. He quickly scanned the surrounding area with his flashlight in a three hundred and sixty degree arc. There was no one else, living, nearby. Sam studied the diver. He was wearing neoprene and twin dive tanks, leaving no air bubbles visible. The diver’s eyes were still visible behind his mask, and stared vacantly at Sam — as though he was trying to warn him of some unknown horror.
Sam glanced at the man’s dive tanks. It was impossible to think that even a moderately experienced diver would drown with twin tanks in such shallow water. He should have had hours to find an opening, and there had been a number of them, so what went wrong? Sam’s eyes stopped at the edge of the multiple dive lines running off the twin tanks. Every one of the regulator lines had been sliced through. The poor wretch had his air source taken from him and left to drown.
The body didn’t even look bloated. If he had to guess, the man had been killed in the past few days, at most. Sam briefly forgot about the stairs and quickly swam back to the well from which he’d been lowered.
He removed his dive tanks and surfaced. “Tom, you up there?”
“I’m here, you okay?” Tom replied, in his cheerful voice.
“I’m fine, bring me up.”
Sam reached the top of the well and detached his carabiner from the end of the rope. He removed the top half of his wetsuit and started to dry himself. He felt colder than he was. He glanced at Sadik, who appeared uncomfortable, but he said nothing.
Sadik asked, “Is everything okay?”
Sam turned his gaze to focus on the short man with icy steel eyes. “No. Nothing’s all right. You lied to us, and now I want to know why.”
Sadik said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
Sam looked directly into Sadik’s eyes. There was fear, but also a world of confusion. “You tell me, or I swear to you, I’ll throw you down the well.”
Sadik turned his gaze furtively at the well’s entrance. He spoke in barely a whisper. “What did you see down there?”
“I found the remains of another person, searching for the rest of the writings you found.”
Chapter Eight
Sam watched for Sadik’s response.
“You found someone’s remains?” Sadik asked.
“Yes and given you told me no one had ever been down the well, you can imagine my surprise.”
“But… but… the body could have been there for centuries?” Sadik tried to spit the words out as though they were vile and unfair. “You can’t judge me for this!”
Sam glanced at Tom who now appeared wide awake. He wasn’t quite grinning, but something about his face gave the impression he was happy to watch someone else suffer for what had been done to Billie. Sam returned his focus to Sadik. “I’m afraid the person who died did so no later than the past day or two.”
“The last day or two?” Sadik asked.
“Not an hour longer than that,” Sam confirmed.
Sadik gritted his teeth. “He said no one was going to get hurt, so long as I cooperated with him.”
“Who did?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know his real name,” Sadik said. “He was tall. He had a thick cleft chin and the most intimidating purple eyes I’ve ever seen. He said no one was to find the chamber, whatever the heck that is. Said it was supposed to remain hidden until the rise of the Third Temple.”
“The Third Temple?” Sam asked. “What’s the Third Temple?”
“I have no idea. You were supposed to come here and tell me all the answers about this strange piece of writing. Instead, all I’m getting is threats and more questions. You tell me what the Third Temple is?”
“All right, all right,” Sam said. “What were you supposed to do?”
Sadik swallowed hard. “I was supposed to bring you here. Wait until you deciphered the ancient text inside the hidden chamber. Once I was convinced I had learned everything there was to know about the writings, he said he would return.”
“When?”
“I told him it would take at least three days until you’d have your equipment to dive.”
“Then what?” Sam persisted.
“He didn’t say. All he said was that he’d be here to take care of it then, and I could go free. I’m sorry.”
Sam wasn’t sure that he believed him. He looked at Tom. “Go check out the surrounding tunnels. Make sure we’re still on our own.”
Tom nodded and left the room. His face more lively than Sam had seen it since their search for Billie had become dry.
“Don’t you see?” Sadik said. “You need to get out of here now, while you still can.”
“We came here to find answers, and I don’t plan to be pushed around by a bully.”
“You haven’t met this bully. Your friend looked almost eager to meet the man, but he should be frightened.”
“Tom?” Sam’s upper lip curled into the faintest of smiles. “Have you seen the size of him? He’s two hundred and sixty pounds of solid muscle. He really doesn’t frighten very easily.”
“He hasn’t met this man.”
Sam studied Sadik’s face. There was a genuine fear, but there was also relief as though a giant weight had been lifted off of him. A burden to betray someone he had no intention of harming. With the truth out, he was able to speak freely again.
“What name did this man give you?”
“He said his name was Famine.”
Sam thought about it. “Any clue what the name might be in reference to?”
“Like I said, I have no idea and didn’t ask. He didn’t strike me as the sort of person who liked answering a lot of questions about his past.”