Tom stared at him silently. Had he just followed an insane man into his depraved irrational world? A moment later — the time it takes a person to take a single breath — Peter removed a stone tile from the floor below him. It was so narrow that Tom was surprised to watch the man slip down into it.
Peter then motioned for Tom to follow. Tom shuffled his way through the tiny opening into a room large enough that he could no longer feel the walls in the darkness. Peter replaced the stone tile above and the place became devoid of any light.
Tom felt like he’d just descended into an old tunnel used by the Viet Cong. He switched on a small key light, and stared at his new environment. The place opened to a large, almost modern looking living room. There were multiple computer monitors set up. On the other side of the room were a number of large oil paintings and charcoal drawings. His eyes rested on the last of them, where a large barquentine with three masts was sinking in violent seas, only it wasn’t surrounded by water, it was surrounded by sand and at the very bottom of the painting was the date 22nd of December 1655. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead took a deep breath and smiled.
Peter grinned at his reaction. “Yes. That’s the Emerald Star.”
Chapter Thirty
Tom glanced around the room. It was something between a high tech computer lab one would expect to find in the CIA and an ancient history museum. There were high speed internet cables attached to hard drives stacked on glass cabinets, with the constant flicker of green lights showing the constant movement of data. In direct contrast were the old oil paintings and charcoal drawings, which had obviously been studied intensely by their owner.
Tom looked at Peter. “What is this place?”
Peter said solemnly, “This is my sanctuary.”
“From what?”
“The people who have been searching for the key to the Third Temple — and they will gladly kill me to further their aims.”
Tom considered what he’d said. “What makes you so certain others are searching for the temple? Maybe no one knows about it?”
Peter shot back, “You are, aren’t you?”
“Sure, but I’m not willing to kill for it. You look terrified. What do you know that I don’t?”
“My great ancestor, a man by the name of Hammersmith, referred to a man with intensely purple eyes that had paid him and the rest of the crew from the Emerald Star to retrieve an artifact that was hidden in plain sight within a pyramid along the African west coast.”
Tom nodded. Elise had briefed him on Peter’s claim. “Go on.”
“In the journal, Hammersmith noted there would be four men, competing for access to the key to the Third Temple. Their names were Conquest, War, Famine and Death.”
Tom felt the slightest pang of fear rise in his throat like bile as he recalled what the man who attacked them inside the tunnel of Derinkuyu had said — My name is Famine and my time is now. “So they’re four nutcases competing to find the key to the Third Temple?”
Peter nodded. “And right now, I think Death’s winning.”
“Winning what?” Tom would have laughed at how ridiculously implausible the entire story was, if it wasn’t for his recent memories of Famine and his heavily armed group of devout followers. “This is some sort of Biblical competition?”
“No. It’s not about religion.”
“Really?” Tom was surprised. “Then why all the references to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been studying the New Testament of the Bible where the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described in the Book of Revelation by St. John of Patmos, one of the original Apostles. The chapter tells of a book or scroll in God's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lamb of God opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale horses. The Christian apocalyptic vision is that the Four Horsemen are to set a Divine Apocalypse upon the world as harbingers of the Last Judgment, so that only the good shall rise… or the chosen few.”
Tom said, “You think the Four Horsemen are trying to bring forth the Apocalypse so the Third Temple can rise?”
“Maybe.” Peter paused as though he was having difficulty trying to decide how to explain his theory. “What if they’re not trying to bring about the new order, what if we’re looking at this all wrong?”
“Sure,” Tom said. “But what way should we be looking at it?”
“Consider this… what if the Four Horsemen weren’t sent to set a Divine Apocalypse — instead, they were merely messengers, sent here to protect those who could be saved, from an imminent disaster. Some sort of disaster first discovered during the first few centuries A.D. when Christianity was taking off in the western world, but wouldn’t occur for nearly two thousand years.”
“They would need a way of continuing the message throughout many generations, without revealing the secret to the masses.”
“A covenant of some kind?”
“You think the Four Horsemen are part of an ancient covenant?”
“Yes and when the time comes they will reveal the Third Temple and the chosen few will take shelter.”
“There’s an imminent disaster awaiting that will affect the entire world?”
Peter nodded. “And that’s why they need to find the Third Temple — to seek shelter.”
Tom asked, “But what disaster affects the entire planet?”
“I can think of any number of catastrophic events. A massive meteorite, an enormous volcanic eruption, and giant tsunami, or a deadly virus that’s evolving faster than we can create treatments. Our existence has always been globally precarious.”
Tom looked at Peter’s rapid breathing and the fine tremors of his hands. “You’ve given this some serious thought, haven’t you?”
“It’s occupied most of my mind over the past two years,” Peter admitted.
Tom changed the direction of the topic. “All right. I know at least one of the Four Horsemen is still around — or maybe just a guy who fancies himself as one of them.
“I was attacked by him in the subterranean city of Derinkuyu in Turkey. He said his name was Famine and that his time was now. Do you know of any others?”
“I was contacted by two of the Four Horsemen separately. One named Famine and the other Death. They both told me I would die if I didn’t tell them where the Emerald Star sank.”
“Did you ever meet either of them?”
“No. I learned what I could about both of them. I had no idea how much danger I was in at the time — but I know now.”
“What changed?”
“I was out of town for two weeks and a friend of mine was squatting at my apartment. I told him I wasn’t allowed to sublet the place out to anyone and that if the landlord came by for any reason, to simply tell him his name was Peter Smyth.”
“Okay. So what happened?” Tom asked, not quite sure how this related to the Four Horsemen.
“Someone with deep purple eyes came by while I was gone. He asked my friend what his name was. Of course he gave my name, thinking the man was my landlord. The man then forced his entry into my apartment and repeatedly questioned my friend about the Emerald Star.”
“Which your friend knew nothing about?”
“Exactly.”
“What happened in the end?”
“When it became obvious that my friend didn’t know anything about the Emerald Star or an artifact called the Death Mask, the stranger with the purple eyes killed him with his bare hands.”
“How did you find all this out?” Tom asked.