The Shield of Hercules: (Sam Reilly Book 36), page 17
Tom raised a fist in acknowledgment and began paddling in the sluggish suit.
Sam churned through the waves, each movement of the cumbersome SEIE suit like swimming inside a balloon. The Catalina loomed closer, until finally he reached her side, grabbed hold of the slick hull, and hauled himself up into the aft hatch with aching arms.
“Hey Matt...” Sam panted, grinning. “Am I glad to see –”
The words died in his throat.
A man stood before him, a pistol leveled at his chest.
From behind him, a familiar voice said, “I’m afraid, Matt Dearden isn’t flying today.”
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Sam stared at the man with the gun.
He felt the world shrink to the hard little barrel pointed at his chest. The face was all too familiar now – the polite, carefully cultivated features of the dead detective he’d once trusted.
“Adrianus,” he said flatly.
The man’s smile was slow and casual, like a stage actor taking a bow. “I wondered if you’d have worked out my name by now. At your service.” He closed the hatch with a soft, final click. The Catalina shuddered as the pilot spooled the twin engines; the old flying boat strained and then, with a long, protesting cough, tugged itself out of the slick water and climbed.
From below came Tom’s voice, high with confusion and fear. “What’s going on up there?”
Sam turned and looked down through the flying boat’s wide side window.
Tom’s orange SEIE bobbed like a buoy, a small, stunned figure fifty yards away, waving blindly. Relief flared hard and hot in Sam’s chest when a massive column of spray erupted not far from Tom – the USS Cyclops making an emergency blow, broaching the sea like some gray whale. Men clustered on the sail, alive and moving. Sam felt the pressure on his throat ease for the briefest instant; the crew below were safe.
He turned back. “Who are you really?”
Adrianus shrugged, the motion adept and easy. “Oh, come now, Sam. Surely you must have guessed. I work for the Kryptos Erebos.”
“So why fake your own death?” Sam asked. “Why go through all that?”
Adrianus’s grin widened, as if Sam had just handed him the last, perfect piece of a joke. “Isn’t it obvious?” he said. “You’re stubborn. You don’t hand things over willingly. So I made you desperate. I staged my own demise, fed you what you needed to hear to motivate you to find the Shield of Hercules, and then sent you on your merry little way.”
“You were shot,” Sam said. “I saw it.”
“Movie props, my friend,” Adrianus answered lightly. “It’s amazing what can be done with a syringe and a little theatricality.” He watched Sam like a man admiring a well-made tool. “The police never found blood, did they?”
Sam’s stomach turned. “Now I know why.”
The Catalina banked, the horizon tilting away under the prop wash. Sam could see the Cyclops’s sail sink down again, the crew already working, the emergency over. He felt small and furious at the thought Adrianus had been free and walking while so many had died in the flood and while people he cared about were still in danger.
Sam tightened his grip on the edge of a canvas seat until his knuckles ached. “So now what?”
“And now,” Adrianus said, voice soft and final, “you will access that hard drive. You will find the place where the Shield of Hercules has been hidden… and we can all go about our business. Fail to find it, and well, I guess you know how that ends for you, don’t you?”
He let the threat hang there like an unspent round.
“All right,” Sam said. “I’ll do it. I’ll find the Shield of Hercules for you.”
Chapter Eighty
Paris – November 22, 1963
Paris shimmered beneath him, a sea of lights sprawled out in every direction. From the window of their hotel room, Hercules could see the Seine winding like a black ribbon through the city, its bridges strung with golden lamps that cast halos on the water. Beyond, the Eiffel Tower glittered against the indigo sky, its latticework glowing like some enormous beacon. The streets below were alive with horns, laughter, and the constant flow of Parisian nightlife.
Dmitri had been right. When Hercules had agreed to work for the family, the world had opened itself to him. No more sleeping rough under bridges, no more worrying about where the next meal would come from. Now it was hotels with polished marble floors, velvet curtains, crystal glasses filled with too much wine. He and Dmitri were untouchable – feared in back rooms, respected in salons, and greeted with indulgent smiles by men who owed them money and women who wanted to be near power.
Hercules knew what they were. Criminals. Smugglers, extortionists, worse. But as far as he could see, it was the best life a man could ask for. Money in his pockets, pleasures at his fingertips, and Dmitri at his side – his best friend, brother in everything but blood. He’d learned to enjoy the vices, even lean into them. Gambling, drink, women, the thrill of walking into a room and knowing no one dared cross him.
The telephone on the nightstand rang, a sharp intrusion. Dmitri plucked the receiver up with his usual easy confidence, rattling off a few quick words in Russian, then French, his voice low and fast. Hercules watched him pace, curiosity gnawing at him.
When Dmitri finally hung up, his face was tight with something Hercules had never seen before – awe.
“Two things,” Dmitri said, turning toward him slowly. “Two things have happened, both of incredible magnitude. One of them is going to change your life forever.”
Hercules straightened, an uneasy flutter in his chest. “What?”
Dmitri’s eyes gleamed. “President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed.” He let the weight of the news hang in the air, the words so heavy they seemed to tilt the room.
Hercules exhaled hard, stunned. The American president. Dead. Even here, in Paris, Kennedy’s name carried something sacred – hope, strength, vision.
“And the second?” Hercules asked quietly.
Dmitri smiled, sharp and triumphant. “Alexandros Reed – the head of the Kryptos Erebos himself – has asked you to become his personal bodyguard.”
Hercules drew in a breath. The city lights flickered on the window glass, reflections of a life he’d only just begun to understand. Whatever he thought he’d known about power and privilege, Dmitri had just shown him the door to something far greater.
And for the first time since waking without a past, Hercules felt the weight of destiny pressing down upon him.
“Okay, now what?” Hercules asked.
“Now we go meet him.”
“Where?”
“He’s the U.S. Defense Attaché to the U.S. Embassy. He divides his time between the embassy and NATO HQ, but given the news about the President, he will be at the embassy right now taking calls.”
“And he wants to see me tonight?”
“Yes. He was going to ask you later this week, but this news has simply made it more urgent.”
“All right. Let’s go.”
Paris at night still hummed with its usual rhythm – the perfume of roasted chestnuts from street vendors, the soft chatter spilling from cafés, the glint of rain on cobblestones under the lamps. Hercules and Dmitri walked side by side, their footsteps echoing down the wide boulevard. The weight of what Dmitri had told him earlier still pressed at the back of Hercules’ mind. Alexandros Reed. The name carried a gravity he could feel in his bones, though he had no memory of why.
The U.S. Embassy loomed ahead, its stone façade lit by floodlights, the Stars and Stripes shifting in the night breeze. Two Marines stood watch at the gates, rifles at their shoulders, their faces impassive. One stepped forward, barring the path with a single gloved hand.
“Names,” the guard said.
“Dmitri Sokolov,” Dmitri replied smoothly, then gestured to his companion. “And this is Hercules. We are expected.”
The Marine checked a ledger, gave a curt nod, and lifted his hand. “Military Attaché Reed will see you now.”
Inside, the embassy was all polished floors and the faint smell of paper and tobacco smoke. Hercules felt the weight of the place – the presence of power, the invisible machinery of nations grinding just behind every closed door. Dmitri walked with the confidence of someone who belonged, and Hercules followed in his shadow, silent and watchful.
They were ushered into a high-ceilinged office where Alexandros Reed waited. The man stood tall, his dark suit cut with military accuracy, his presence commanding even without the decorations Hercules suspected he’d once worn. Reed’s gaze fell on him immediately, sharp and unblinking, the way a rancher might size up a prize bull or a matador before the fight.
“Can you use a gun as well as your hands?” Reed asked without preamble.
“Yes, sir,” Hercules answered. His voice was steady, though he could feel the tension rising in his chest.
“Good,” Reed said. “My people will see that you have everything you need from now on.” His tone made it plain that this was not an offer, but an order. And Hercules knew – when Alexandros Reed said you would work for him, there was no choice in the matter.
Before he could respond, a small figure darted into the room. A boy, no more than five, with wide eyes that took in everything and a confidence unusual for his age. He clutched a toy soldier in one hand, the paint chipped from its rifle.
Reed rested a hand lightly on the child’s shoulder. “Hercules, I would like you to meet my son, Sebastian.”
The boy looked up at him curiously, a mix of shyness and pride.
Reed’s expression softened, but his words carried the weight of iron. “It is for him that I am most concerned. The United States is going to be the center of global power, and one day, my son will be its president.”
Hercules felt the boy’s eyes on him, studying him with the same intensity as his father. For the first time, he understood the shape of the role he’d been given. He wasn’t just being hired as muscle. He was being bound to something larger, something that stretched far beyond Paris, beyond himself.
And though he still didn’t know who he truly was, he knew one thing with absolute certainty – Alexandros Reed had just claimed him.
Chapter Eighty-One
Onboard the Tahila – Dunkirk, France – Present Day
Tom paced the Mission Room of the Tahila like a caged animal.
His boots echoed off the composite floor, rhythmic and sharp, in sync with the tension building inside him. Outside, the gray swell of the Channel rolled sluggishly against the hull, but Tom barely registered the motion. The longer they waited, the more agitated he became.
They were close, but the final pieces weren’t slotting into place fast enough.
Elise sat at the workstation, flanked by three laptops and a stolen quantum-access interface that blinked like a city skyline. She barely looked up, her fingers flying across the keys as if the machines needed coaxing or threats. Tom had no idea how many global data centers she’d hacked into – some of them probably still didn’t know they’d been breached – but he knew it had taken every teraflop of borrowed processing power to recompile the Icarus AI’s ancient linguistic models.
Elise had explained it all once – something about probabilistic extrapolation and lost Hellenistic dialects – but Tom hadn’t listened past “we can’t do it with Tahila’s onboard systems.”
So he paced. He hated being idle. Every wasted second felt like a step behind the Relic Hunter, a second closer to Sam running out of time.
Behind him, Veyron emerged from the lower deck. The Frenchman’s usually pristine hands were streaked with oil and tarnish, but he was smiling.
“It works,” Veyron said simply, holding up the Antikythera mechanism like a magician revealing the final card. He placed it on the table and gave it a quarter turn. The ancient gears meshed, celestial indicators spinning across tiny etched stars. “I recalibrated the astronomical markers using stellar drift data. Whoever used this last was focused on constellations best viewed from this zone – ” he tapped a rough triangle he’d sketched on the chart beside it. “Here. Between Stuttgart, Zurich, and Munich.”
Tom leaned over it, scanning the zone. “That narrows it to maybe a hundred square miles.”
“Exactly. Your AI wizard can work with that,” Veyron said, already disappearing back into the shadows of the engineering bay.
Tom turned toward Elise just in time to see her bolt upright. She stared at the screen, her eyes racing left to right.
“You found something?” he asked, stopping his pacing mid-stride.
“Yeah,” Elise breathed, almost to herself. “I’ve got it.”
Tom was at her side in two steps. “What is it?”
“They reference a lake – deep blue. Locals say if you swim beneath a specific ledge, it opens into a submerged passage. And from there... dry chambers.”
Tom’s pulse quickened. “Where?”
Elise looked up and grinned. “Blautopf, Germany.”
The edge of Tom’s lips curved upward. He looked at Genevieve. “Let’s load up the dive gear and some weapons… you’ve spent the most time in the cockpit of the Hind… what sort of time do you think we can make?”
Genevieve glanced toward the Tahila’s storage trunk, where the massive Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter was secured. It known for three things – its characteristic tandem cockpit with a "double bubble" canopy, flying like a battle tank, and its incredible speed of 208 miles per hour.
She grinned. “I think we can reach Blautopf in just under four hours…”
Chapter Eighty-Two
Blautopf – Germany
From his seat near the open door of the helicopter, Sam Reilly stared down at the surreal blue eye of Blautopf.
Even as a prisoner – surrounded by men who would just as easily kill him as take orders – he couldn’t help but admire the lake’s haunting beauty. It shimmered like liquid sapphire nestled at the foot of the Swabian Alps, a near-perfect oval ringed by pale limestone and dense forest. The village of Blaubeuren looked like a painting, all red rooftops and timber-framed charm, hugging the edge of the great cathedral that watched silently over the ancient spring. Mist curled above the water’s surface in lazy, spectral swirls, as if the lake itself was exhaling secrets.
Sam leaned forward slightly, trying to soak in the sight before the mission pulled him underground.
The helicopter banked, its rotor wash rippling the lake far below. Beside him, Adrianus Visser sat relaxed, a smug half-smile pulling at his lips. He wore a matte black jumpsuit and a sidearm he probably didn’t need, flanked by four other men who looked like they’d stepped out of a paramilitary catalog – faces hard, gear tighter than regulation, movements precise.
They weren’t amateurs. Sam had seen enough to know: these weren’t just thugs with guns. They moved like men who’d worked in the shadows – ex-SEALs, or maybe the French Marine Commandos. One had a Union Jack patch faded into the shoulder of his drysuit, suggesting Special Boat Service.
Whoever they were, they didn’t operate alone now.
They worked for Kryptos Erebos.
The pilot set the helicopter down in a small clearing beside the lake, the skids brushing the tall grass. The rotors began to slow as Adrianus jumped out, gesturing for the others to follow.
They spread fast, moving with authority and purpose. One of them pulled out a laminated ID and waved it at a pair of startled hikers nearby.
“Military drill,” he barked in clipped German. “Evacuate the area immediately.”
More people gathered at the edge of the path that led to the lake, curious, maybe even suspicious – but the men were well-versed in their cover story. Another man began stringing up bright yellow tape across the trail. A woman in a kayak was ushered out of the water. A police car drove by slowly but didn’t stop. Whatever paperwork Kryptos Erebos had forged must have looked legitimate enough.
Sam climbed out last, his boots hitting the soft earth with a dull thud. The scent of damp leaves, wet stone, and mountain air filled his lungs.
He walked toward the edge of the lake, flanked by two of the guards. The water looked even more unreal up close – so pure and vividly blue it could have been dyed. But this was no tourist stop for him. Somewhere beneath that tranquil surface, in the submerged caverns that spiderwebbed into the mountain, lay the Shield of Hercules.
He’d been able to locate it using the backup data from Icarus, a fragment of a forgotten star chart paired with an obscure Greek riddle embedded in the database. The AI had done the heavy lifting. The hard part – the dangerous part – was getting to it before these men did something irreversible.
He glanced at Adrianus.
The man was barking orders now, directing the divers as they sorted through equipment – rebreathers, underwater scooters, line reels, waterproof containers. Everything they needed to drop down deep and come back alive.
Sam felt the weight of his situation settle around his shoulders like a lead cloak. He was outnumbered. Unarmed. Surrounded by professionals. But inside those flooded limestone tunnels, where visibility dropped to nothing and danger waited around every corner, things could shift.
In the helicopter, he was helpless.
But once he got inside those caves?
That would be a different story.
In the narrow confines of cave diving, Sam hoped he might just be able to pick them off one by one.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Sam knelt beside the crates of gear, clipping together the familiar components of his rebreather system with mechanical exactness. The setup was nearly identical to what he used aboard the Tahila – carbon scrubbers, oxygen cylinders, and bailout tanks, all arranged with military efficiency. Say what you will about the Kryptos Erebos, Sam thought, but they didn’t cut corners when it came to logistics.
Around him, the rest of the team worked in silence, each man assembling his dive gear with the calm confidence of someone who had done it a hundred times before. Even Adrianus was suiting up, slipping into a drysuit with the ease of an experienced operator.
