The Hunt For Atlantis

SIXTEEN

Down!” screamed Chase, throwing himself on top of Nina as shattered stone rained around them. Much larger blocks tumbled to the temple floor below the gaping hole, smashing deafeningly apart on impact.

A fierce wind blew through the gap, whipping the clouds of dust into a swirling vortex. Chase rolled clear of Nina and squinted up at the sunset sky, which was almost immediately obscured by something.

Something big.

The roar of the helicopter’s engines and the machine-gun thudding of its rotor blades were so intense that he could feel them. A Russian-built Mi-26 Halo, the biggest helicopter in the world, designed to carry large loads over long distances.

Large loads-or large numbers of troops.

The chopper moved into a hover directly above the hole. The fuselage doors were open, and at any moment ropes would drop from them so men could rappel into the temple…

“Come on!” he yelled, his voice barely audible over the Halo’s thunder. He helped the women up. “Get to the tunnel! Now!”

“What the hell’s going on?” shrieked Nina.

“It’s the Brotherhood! Get into the tunnel! Run!” He grabbed the still-bewildered Nina’s arm and pulled her after him, Kari sprinting alongside.

Six black lines snaked from the Halo. They fluttered in the downdraft before tightening as men dressed in black combat gear and body armor expertly descended each one, brilliant beams of light lancing out from their chests. Chase saw enough in his brief backwards glance to know they were professionals, ex-military.

And each man was armed with a Heckler and Koch UMP-40 submachine gun, and probably other weapons as well.

They reached the passage, Chase leading the way with the flashlight in his outstretched hand. The noise of the chopper was still audible even as they negotiated the twists and turns and ran through the door into the chamber housing the Challenge of Mind.

“How could they have found us?” Kari demanded.

“I don’t know,” said Chase as they entered the next tunnel. “Maybe they put a tracker on the boat.”

Nina was breathless, unused to the pace. “What do they want?”

“The same thing as us,” Kari told her. “Only they want to destroy it, to make sure nobody can use the information to find Atlantis.”

“And destroy us, too,” added Chase.

“Oh my God!” Nina gasped. “What about Jonathan, and Hugo?”

“Just got to hope they went straight for the temple and bypassed the village,” Chase said grimly.

They reached the last stretch of passage before the drawbridge over the pool. Running footsteps echoed up the tunnel behind them.

“Get to the exit,” said Chase, handing Kari the light as they ran over the bridge, which flexed under their weight. “Wait for me.”

“What are you going to do?” Nina asked.

“Try to stop them from catching up. Go on!” He stopped at the end of the bridge, letting Nina and Kari past. Then he grabbed the endmost plank and strained to lift it from the ledge before pushing it sideways with all his strength. The bridge warped along its length, creaking and groaning.

With a pained grunt, Chase shoved it down into the pool. The wood tried to bend back to its original shape when he let go, jamming the bridge against the vertical side. He kicked at it, driving the end into the water with a splash. The remaining caiman surfaced nearby, taking a sudden interest.

“Okay, go!” he shouted, running for the exit. Kari led the way, Nina hesitating as she waited for Chase to catch up.

“Their weight’ll put the end into the water,” Chase said as they hurried down the passage. “Then we’ll see if that croc’s still hungry.”

“Thought it was a caiman,” Nina panted.

“Whatever! Okay, here’s the poles. Kari, you go first, then Nina.”

Even without the incentive of the descending ceiling, they still picked their way between the spiked poles faster than Nina would have liked, the barbs plucking at their clothes. Finally they cleared them, emerging in the confined chamber housing the Challenge of Strength. Chase retook the lead.

“Okay,” he said as they ran, “the second we get out, I want the two of you to run like hell into the jungle. Get away from the temple, then find cover and stay in it.”

“What about you?” Nina asked. “And the others?”

“I’ll get ’em. I’m just hoping that the Indians are pissed off about Qobras blowing up their temple and went after the helicopter. If we’re lucky, there’ll hardly be any guards left.”

“And if we’re not?” said Kari.

“Then I guess we’re fucked!” They came around the last corner, a square of fading daylight ahead. “You ready?”

“No,” Nina moaned.

“You can do it, Nina. Kari, look after her. I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”

“I will,” Kari promised. They were almost at the entrance.

“Okay, get ready… go!”

They raced into the open-

And stopped. There was nowhere to go.

Waiting for them were ten more men in black combat gear, weapons at the ready, standing in a semicircle around the temple’s entrance. The bodies of four Indians lay among the huts; of the rest of the tribe, there was no sign. Castille, di Salvo and Philby were still prisoners, on their knees in a line in front of…

“Hello, Eddie,” said Jason Starkman.

He didn’t look the same as when Nina had met him in New York. The suit was gone, replaced by a military outfit-body armor, equipment webbing holding ammo and a sheathed knife, what looked like a grappling hook slung over his back. A black patch covered his right eye. The sickening memory of her finger digging into something wet made her shiver.

“Arr, matey!” said Chase with a nasty smile as he raised his hands. “Going for the pirate look, are you?”

Starkman regarded him coldly. “I see your sense of humor’s as lousy as ever.”

“Don’t you mean you half see?”

Starkman’s face tightened for a moment before he turned his attention to Nina. “Dr. Wilde! I’m so glad to meet you again.”

Chase and Kari both moved protectively in front of her. “Leave her alone,” Kari snapped.

Starkman raised an eyebrow. “Kari Frost. Never thought I’d meet you in person. Hajjar should have taken Giovanni up on his offer, it would have saved us all a lot of trouble.” He gestured with his gun, his men advancing. Overhead, the helicopter circled-followed by a second Halo, the downdraft from the two enormous aircraft setting the trees thrashing as if caught in a hurricane.

“What happened to the Indians?” Nina demanded.

“Most of them ran off,” said Starkman. He looked over at the corpses. “The smart ones, anyway. Some of them actually thought they could take us on.”

The other men started to search Chase, Kari and Nina. “What do you intend to do with us, Starkman?” asked Kari, her eyes narrowed. “Kill us?”

“Yup.” The casual way in which he said it turned Nina’s blood to ice. “But first, I want to find out what’s in that temple.” He turned away as he took a radio from his belt, giving Nina a better look at the piece of hardware on his back. It was a grappling hook, as she’d thought, but it was protruding from what looked like a fat-barreled shotgun. Most of his other team members were similarly equipped. “Eagle Leader to entry team, come in.”

“What is it with you Yanks and eagles?” Chase taunted. “I had you pegged as more of a budgie.”

Starkman clicked his fingers. One of his men, a mountain of muscle almost a foot taller than Chase, balled his fists together and clubbed the Englishman at the base of his neck. Chase dropped to his knees.

“Eddie!” Nina gasped.

Starkman looked surprised. “On a first-name basis with the clients, Eddie? Or… is she something more? You should be careful about that, you know what happens.”

“You shut your fucking mouth,” Chase growled. Starkman smirked, and seemed about to say something else when his radio crackled.

“Entry team to Eagle Leader,” said the man on the other end. “We’re in the temple, and we’ve located the stolen artifact. It’s in a smaller chamber behind a statue. Jason, this place is incredible!”

“I’m sure it is,” Starkman said dismissively. “What else have you found, Günter?”

“You won’t believe this, but there’s a map here, an actual map! It’s scribed onto a huge orichalcum sheet on one wall. It shows the location of Atlantis!”

Starkman became a lot less dismissive. “How accurate is it?”

“The continents are quite distorted, but recognizable. And there’s something else, Jason. The map… it shows the positions of landmarks relative to Atlantis. We can use them to work out Atlantis’s exact position!” The man’s voice became more excited. “The northern mouth of the Amazon is marked as being at latitude seven south, just as it said on the artifact Yuri stole, and the Cape of Good Hope is at… there are six dots and an inverted V. We know from our archives that this symbol first appears after eight single units, so it must represent nine. Nine plus six equals latitude fifteen.”

“The Cape ’s at thirty-four degrees south,” Starkman informed him. “The top of the Amazon delta’s at about one degree north.”

“A difference of thirty-five degrees, then, with fifteen minus seven, eight Atlantean units of longitude between them. So one unit is thirty-five divided by eight…” The radio fell silent for a few seconds as he made the calculation. “It’s 4.375 degrees!”

“So what latitude is Atlantis at?” Starkman asked.

“Let me check on the laptop… 4.375 multiplied by seven is 30.625 degrees, and add one degree to account for the position of the delta… Atlantis is located somewhere between thirty-one and thirty-two degrees north!”

Starkman gave Nina a mocking look. “That’s quite a way south of the Gulf of Cádiz. Guess we didn’t need to worry about your theory after all.”

Nina said nothing. The map in the temple had clearly placed Atlantis within the Gulf of Cádiz. The shapes of the continents had been inaccurate, but surely the Atlanteans couldn’t have been that far out?

Günter spoke again. “Even allowing for errors-the Atlantean system is not as precise as ours-a sonar sweep of the area should only take a few days.”

“And then we can make sure nobody ever finds Atlantis,” said Starkman with rising excitement. “Good work, Günter. Plant the thermite charges and prep for evac. Melt the place down.”

“You’re going to destroy it?” Kari cried, appalled.

Starkman fixed her with a cold stare. “We’ll do whatever we have to do to stop people like you and your father from finding Atlantis.”

“The greatest archaeological find in history, and all you care about is destroying it so your insane boss can keep the knowledge for himself?” said Nina, her fear overcome by her utter disgust. “You make me sick.”

Starkman snorted in disbelief. “Jesus. You really don’t have a clue what’s going on, do you?”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?” she sneered.

“You think your friend Kari here and her dad are looking for Atlantis as a hobby?” said Starkman. “You know how much money they’ve spent? Tens of millions of dollars, maybe hundreds! Even for a billionaire, that’s one hell of a hobby!”

“We’re doing it for a good reason,” said Kari. “Unlike Qobras.”

“I know what your reasons are. That’s why I joined up with Giovanni.” He looked questioningly at Nina, then back to Kari. “But does she know? Did you even bother to tell her why you’re so desperate to find Atlantis?”

“As long as they don’t want to destroy it, that’s good enough for me,” Nina told him. Kari gave her an admiring look.

“You might have changed your mind,” Starkman said as his radio squawked again. “Not that you’ll get the chance now.”

“Eagle Leader, we’ve got everything we need. Setting the charges,” said Günter.

“Roger that.” Starkman looked up. The two Halos were still following their slow circle, about two hundred feet above the ground. He switched radio channels. “Chopper two, this is Eagle Leader. Move into pickup position.”

“Roger,” replied the pilot. One of the helicopters wheeled lazily about to head for the temple. More ropes dropped from its side.

“Well, I guess this is the end,” said Starkman, looking back at his prisoners. “Sorry about this, Eddie, but I’ve got my orders.”

“You can take your fake sympathy and shove it up your arse, you two-faced twat,” Chase snarled. “I should’ve let those al-Qaeda wankers kill you in Afghanistan.”

“The world’ll be glad you didn’t. Good-bye, Eddie.” Starkman gestured to his men, who forced Nina and Kari down onto their knees next to Chase.

Nina felt the cold, hard barrel of a gun touch the back of her head. She closed her eyes…

And heard a hissing noise.

Thok!

The man behind her let out a wet, bubbling gasp before crashing to the ground. Nina opened her eyes to see spears and arrows flying overhead. One of the men behind Philby took an arrow to his leg. He grimaced, then reached to pull it out… only for his eyes to bulge wide. Fingers spasming, struggling to breathe, he collapsed.

Poisoned!

Starkman whirled-and was hit in the chest by another arrow. But it struck only his Kevlar body armor, not flesh. “Open fire!” he shouted, taking cover by the nearest hut as he raised his UMP-40 and unleashed it into the surrounding trees.

The men covering Nina and Kari jumped back, following Starkman’s lead and firing into the jungle. Kari grabbed Nina’s arm. “Go!”

She hauled Nina with her as she ran. A commando behind her turned to shoot them, but a bola whirred from the jungle, two of its weighted strands yanking his gun away from its targets. The fist-sized stone on the third strand smashed into his face, knocking out teeth.

Chase saw his chance as the huge man behind him moved, and thrust his elbow savagely backwards to catch him in the groin.

He missed. The man grunted in pain, but had taken the impact on the bulging muscles of his upper thigh. Chase looked up to see him staring back, anger twisting his face. The mercenary’s gun came around-

Chase flung himself backwards at the man’s knees, trying to knock him off his feet. The man staggered, then fell-landing on top of him, his knees slamming onto Chase’s chest. Wheezing, Chase grabbed at his adversary’s UMP-40-

A fist smashed into his face. Chase heard a sharp crack as his nose broke. He was almost surprised at the lack of pain, but he knew from experience that it would come soon enough.

The fist drew back for another strike. Chase released the gun and snapped his hands up to block it as it descended. He squeezed, trying to crush the man’s fingers…

Kari and Nina ran towards Castille and the other prisoners. “Get into the hut!” Kari shouted as a spear sliced through the air just behind them.

“No, we’ve got to help them!” Nina answered. One of the dead Indians lay on the ground in her path. She snatched up his knife. “Come on!”

Starkman fired off more rounds into the trees as he shrieked into his walkie-talkie. “Chopper one! I need suppressing fire on the treeline! Now!”

One of the men near the captives was hit from behind by a spear, the razor-sharp obsidian blade penetrating deep into his skull. Still firing wildly, he fell against the wall of a hut, breaking the wood.

The big man pulled his hand free of Chase’s grip with a roar, then drove his knees down with piledriver force onto his ribcage. Chase tried to yell, but there was no air left in his lungs.

Their guards distracted, Castille and di Salvo were already on their feet as Nina and Kari reached them. Nina grabbed Philby and hacked at the twine binding his hands as Kari tugged at Castille’s knots.

“Our guns!” said Castille, indicating their piled-up belongings nearby.

Another of Starkman’s men fell, a poisoned arrow in his neck.

A raging wind tore through the village as the Halo hovered overhead. Spent shell casings clattered down like hail as a six-barreled rotary cannon mounted inside the cabin door opened up, spraying fire into the wildly waving trees.

Philby was free. “Kari!” Nina shouted, throwing her the knife. Kari snapped it out of the air and hacked at di Salvo’s bonds as Castille dived for the rifles. “Get into the hut, get down!” She all but threw Philby into the flimsy structure as an arrow pierced the wood.

One of the Brotherhood’s team threw himself back against another hut to avoid an arrow, and in doing so realized that his prisoners were now free.

The Halo turned in place, raking the trees with Minigun fire. The downdraft from its main rotor was so strong that the huts were blown apart, debris scattering in all directions.

The huge soldier bent down and clamped his hands around Chase’s neck, thumbs pressing hard against his carotid artery.

The pulsing roar of blood in Chase’s ears drowned out even the noise of the helicopter. He could see it almost directly overhead, the rotors a blur behind the sadistic grin of the man strangling him. He raised his arms to strike at the man’s face, but he was too big, his arms longer, and Chase’s clawing fingers fell short.

Blackness swirled at the edges of his sight, his head pounding.

He couldn’t reach the face of the man crushing his chest-but he could reach his body…

The barrage of primitive but effective weapons from the jungle stopped abruptly as the firestorm from the helicopter carved through the attacking Indians. Horrific screams echoed from the trees.

Castille grabbed one of the team’s Colt rifles and brought it around, only to see one of Starkman’s men already aiming at him with a UMP.

The man pulled the trigger-just as di Salvo hurled himself bodily in front of Castille. The three-round burst hit di Salvo in his hip and thigh, blood spurting from the wounds as he crashed screaming to the ground.

Castille fired back. With his target wearing body armor, he aimed for the head. All three of his shots landed on target. The man’s skull blew apart in a gruesome shower.

Another of Starkman’s men heard the shots and turned to confront his new adversary-

A boot heel smashed into his face.

Even as the man reeled, Kari spun around and delivered another crushing kick into his groin. He crashed through a hut wall.

Kari picked up his gun, paused for a fraction of a second to make a decision-then shot him in the head.

Chase felt consciousness, life, slipping away. The commando loomed over him like a demon, the whirling blades of the helicopter a dark halo behind his head.

With the last of his strength, his right hand finally reached the object for which he’d been grasping: the grappling gun on the man’s back.

He pulled the trigger.

The grapple flew out with a loud thump of compressed gas, rocketing almost vertically upwards with a nylon-coated steel cable trailing behind it… into the Halo’s rotors.

The carbon-fiber grapple itself was smashed to pieces by the blades-but the cable was almost instantly drawn into the spinning rotor head, tangling around it.

And winding up.

The commando’s eyes widened in shock as he realized what was about to happen-then he was yanked off the ground so hard that several of his ribs snapped. Flying skywards as if launched by a catapult, the cable dragging him inexorably into the rotors, he burst on impact, gory shredded scraps raining back down onto the village.

The helicopter lurched, out of control. The cable around the rotor shaft was jamming the pitch controls, and now the blades themselves were damaged…

“Cover!” shouted Chase.

Kari looked around. Starkman was sprinting for the side of the temple. Overhead, the huge helicopter began to spin, the roar of its engines joined by the shriek of wounded machinery. There was only one of Starkman’s men now still standing, close to Chase.

She and Castille fired simultaneously, taking the man down.

The Halo continued spinning. A man fell from the cabin door, screaming all the way to earth, where he landed headfirst on the elders’ hut, breaking his neck. Control completely gone, the helicopter rolled towards the temple, losing height.

The pilot of the other Halo saw it coming and frantically jammed his throttle to full power, pulling up on his collective control to increase altitude. The men being winched out through the hole in the temple roof were smashed against the jagged edges and plummeted back to the stone floor beneath.

Smoke pouring from its engines, the spinning Halo hit the temple roof. The curved stone structure, already weakened by the hole blasted in it, collapsed under the impact. The aircraft fell through the ceiling and into the temple itself. Its rotors were dashed to pieces as they hit the unbending stone, huge shards thrown hundreds of feet into the air before arcing back down.

All power lost, the massive aircraft plunged almost vertically to crash at the base of the statue of Poseidon, where it exploded.

A fireball swept through the temple, flames consuming the remaining men. The enormous statue of the god rocked, then fell forward to crush the blazing wreckage, its golden skin already melting in the intense heat.

A heat that reached the thermite charges in the altar room.

They detonated, the temperature inside the chamber flashing in an instant to over two thousand degrees. The gold and orichalcum artifacts within didn’t merely melt-they vaporized, obliterated completely by the searing wave of fire.

Castille turned at the sound of the explosion-and reflexively threw himself backwards as a jagged piece of rotor blade over a meter long stabbed into the ground between his legs like a javelin. “Merde!” he screeched.

“Helicopters!”

The rest of the temple roof gave way, thousands of tons of stone cascading down to bury everything within. A shockwave tore through the other tunnels and chambers, a huge cloud of dust and debris exploding from the temple entrance like an express train. Chase barely threw himself clear as it swept past.

The ancient replica of the Atlantean Temple of Poseidon, hidden in the jungle for thousands of years, was destroyed forever, along with all the secrets it contained.

Nina peered from the hut, shielding her eyes as the dust cloud swept past. “Jesus!”

Chase used the temple wall to pull himself up. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand. His broken nose was starting to hurt. Through the dust, he saw Kari and Castille running towards him. “Where’s Starkman?” he gasped.

“That way!” Castille pointed. Starkman was now out of sight around the corner of the ruined structure.

“Nina?”

“In one of the huts,” Kari told him.

“Give me your gun.”

Kari handed him the Colt. “What are you doing?” Castille asked.

“I’m not letting that bastard get away! Kari, look after Nina. Where’s Agnaldo?”

“He’s been shot.”

“Then help him! Go, both of you!” Chase broke into a pained run after Starkman.

Starkman jumped onto the stepped base of the temple and ran along it, shouting into his walkie-talkie. “Chopper two! This is Eagle Leader, I need pickup now!” The surviving Halo was hovering cautiously over the jungle a few hundred yards away.

Chase rounded the corner of the temple, hunting for Starkman.

There!

“No you bloody don’t,” he growled, climbing up onto the first tier after him.

Kari ran back to the remains of the hut where she’d seen Nina take cover with Philby. She flung back the animal skin covering the door. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine!” Nina said.

“Speak for yourself,” Philby muttered.

Nina ignored him. “What about the others? Where’s Eddie?”

“Di Salvo’s been shot,” Kari replied. “Hugo’s giving him first aid. Chase has gone after Starkman.”

“What? Come on, we’ve got to help him!” Running out, Nina saw Chase ascending the side of the temple and headed after him.

“It’s too dangerous!” Kari protested, but to no avail. “Nina! Damn it!” She hurried back to the team’s equipment, picking up another rifle and Chase’s Wildey, then ran after Nina.

The remaining Halo moved in, warily skirting the plume of thick black smoke rising from the collapsed end of the temple. As it descended, the trailing ropes dragged through the surrounding foliage.

Starkman slowed to a jog, yelling into his radio: “Come on, faster! Get me out of here!” He waved his arms furiously to summon the chopper closer-

The dark stones around him splintered and cracked under bullet hits.

“Jason!” roared Chase, still shooting.

Starkman flung himself on the next tier up and fired back, UMP blazing. Chase ducked as bullets smacked into the stone above his head, showering him with dust and fragments. He crawled several feet before popping up again to let fly with another burst.

Nina heard gunfire and ducked into cover on the lowest tier of the temple’s side, peering cautiously ahead. Chase was exchanging fire with Starkman, several feet higher and close to the devastated far end of the temple. The helicopter was closing on him, ropes trailing beneath it.

Chase fired another burst-and his gun clicked on the last shot.

Empty!

Starkman could count shots as well as he could. He would know he was dry. Scrabbling forward another few feet, Chase popped his head up, then immediately ducked back. As he’d expected, his brief appearance attracted gunfire, more stone chips spitting onto him. Starkman wasn’t worried about running out of bullets.

The wind from the descending helicopter whipped at his clothes. At low altitude, a Halo could easily blow a man off his feet.

Which would make aiming very difficult.

Chase threw himself onto the next tier, immediately rolling against the wall as more bullets raked the ancient stones. He could just barely hear Starkman shouting into his radio: “Lean out and shoot him!”

Shit!

He looked at the helicopter. A man poked his head through the open cabin door, staring down at him. Then he ducked back-only to reappear a moment later with a gun in his hands.

Not another submachine gun, but an M82 sniper rifle, which could put a hole through a man’s skull from eight hundred yards away-and Chase was barely fifteen yards beneath the chopper!

“Nina!” Kari caught up with her, the rifle in her hands.

“In the helicopter, they’re going to shoot him!” Nina cried, pointing.

Kari instantly took in the scene. The massive helicopter had drifted into position above Starkman so that he could grab one of the hanging ropes and be winched aboard-and a man was leaning out of the cabin, the sniper rifle in his hands aimed directly at Chase-

She lifted the gun and emptied the entire magazine into the helicopter’s fuselage.

The sniper staggered, then fell out, his rifle dropping just ahead of him. Starkman jumped out of the way as they plunged towards him. The gun’s barrel hit the unyielding stone of the temple-and its erstwhile owner landed headfirst on top of it, the stock punching right through his collarbone and burying the weapon deep inside his chest. The body flopped grotesquely down the side of the temple, still impaled on the weapon.

Starkman recovered and seized one of the ropes with his right hand as he shouldered his gun, yelling into his radio for the pilot to ascend.

“Eddie!” yelled Kari over the rising din of the engines. Somehow he heard her, and looked around. “Here!” She threw his Wildey.

Chase caught the gun neatly in one hand as he jumped to his feet, then spun and pointed it at the helicopter as Starkman swung overhead. The Halo was already rising fast, its nose dipping as it prepared to power away over the rain forest.

Chase aimed for the pilot and fired twice. Both shots punched through the Halo’s underbelly near the nose, but the downdraft threw off his aim. The aircraft was unaffected.

Starkman climbed hand over hand, quickly rising as his rope was reeled in.

Another rope flicked past, a black nylon snake gyrating in the blasting wind. Chase jumped after it and grabbed hold.

“Oh my God! No, you idiot, no!” Nina shrieked helplessly after him as he was whisked off the side of the temple.

Holding on to the rope with his left hand, Chase raised the Wildey in his right and pointed it up at Starkman’s ascending figure. He still had several feet to go before reaching the relative safety of the cabin. “Get you right up your arse, you bastard-”

The Wildey barked twice. Spinning and twisting on the end of the rope, Chase had no idea where the first shot landed-but the second one cratered the fuselage above Starkman, showering him with flecks of paint.

Starkman looked down and saw Chase dangling below. For a moment Chase thought he was trying to unshoulder his UMP to shoot back down at him…

Until he realized he was unsheathing his combat knife.

Chase suddenly became very aware of his position. He was hanging by one hand from a rope beneath a helicopter, already at least seventy feet in the air and rising as the Halo moved out over the jungle.

His gaze met Starkman’s one good eye. Starkman grinned-and sliced through Chase’s rope, severing it with a single brutal slash.

“Oh, fuck!” Chase just had time to gasp before he plummeted towards the endless jungle canopy below.