Temple

VILCAFOR AND SURROUNDS

VILCAFOR

Race covered his head as another volley of automatic gun fire slammed into the stone wall next to him.

And then suddenly—shockingly—another source of gunfire exploded out from somewhere right above his head.

Somewhere very, very close.

Race opened his eyes and looked up and found himself staring directly into the spotlight of one of the choppers. He squeezed his eyes shut, saw spots, reeled from the blinding light.

As he shielded his eyes with his forearm, slowly his vision returned and it was then that he realised that the source of this new gunfire was someone standing over his own prone body, firing up at the light.

It was Van Lewen. His bodyguard.

Defending him with his M-16.

Just then, one of the attack helicopters roared by overhead—its rotor blades thumping loudly, its white spotlight playing over the tower’s peak—and pummelled the muddy ground in front of Van Lewen with a burst from its sidemounted cannons, the incredible noise of the cannons drowning out the clatter of automatic gunfire on the tower top.

Frantic voices shouted over Race’s earpiece: “—Can’t see where they—”

“—too many of them!’

And then suddenly he heard Nash’s voice: “Van Lewen!

Cease fire! Cease fire!”

A second later, Van Lewen’s fire stopped and with it the gun battle, and in the eerie stillness that followed—bathed as it was in the harsh white light of the two attack choppers circling the tower top—Race saw that he and his companions were completely surrounded by at least twenty men, all of them dressed in black and armed with submachineguns.

The two attack helicopters began to hover above the clearing in front of the temple, illuminating it with their powerful spotlights. They were American-made AH-64 ‘Apache’ assault choppers—skinny, evil-looking attack birds.

Slowly, the group of shadowy figures began to emerge from the foliage at the edge of the clearing.

All of them were heavily armed. Some held compact German-made MP-5s, others carried extremely hightech Steyr-AUG assault rifles.

Race was surprised at himself, surprised at his knowledge of the range of weapons before him.

It was all Marty’s fault, really.

Apart from being a design engineer at DARPA and the world’s most annoying Elvis Presley fan (all of his PIN numbers and computer passwords were the same number—53310761—the King’s Army serial number), Race’s “brother Marty was also a walking encyclopaedia on guns.

Ever since they were kids, right up to the last time Race had seen him nine years ago, whenever they visited a sporting goods store, Marty would be able to identify for his younger brother every make, model and manufacturer of the guns in the firearms section. The strange thing was that now, thanks to Marty’s incessant observations, Race suddenly found that he, too, could identify them all.

He blinked, came back to the present, resumed his view of the phalanx of armed commandos gathered in front of him.

They were all dressed in black—jet-black combat fatigues, jet-black webbing, jet-black gloves and boots.

But by far the most striking feature of their uniforms was on their faces. Each soldier wore a charcoal-coloured porcelain hockey mask over his face a solid black featureless mask that covered everything but its wearer’s eyes. The masks made the soldiers in front of Race look cold, inhuman, almost robotic.

Just then one of the masked commandos hurried over to where Van Lewen was standing and snatched his M-16 away from him, hastily relieved him of his other weapons.

Then the black-clad man leaned down toward Race and smiled through his menacing black mask.

‘Guten abend,” he said wryly before yanking Race roughly to his feet.

The rain continued to fall.

Nash, Copeland and Lauren stood by the portal, their hands clasped tightly behind their heads. The Green Berets stood next to them, disarmed.

Walter Chambers stared wide-eyed and stunned at the squad of masked commandos surrounding them. Gaby Lopez just eyed them all coolly.

Van Lewen and Race were shoved alongside the others.

Race gazed fearfully at the black-clad soldiers, stared at their cold black hockey masks. He had seen masks like that before. South American riot police wore them during extremely violent protests, to protect their faces against rocks and other hurled objects.

He counted about twenty soldiers in total.

Standing in the darkness behind the circle of commandos, however, was another group of people—men and women. This new group of people were not dressed in uniforms or masks. They wore civilian clothes, hiking clothes not unlike Lauren’s.

Scientists, Race thought. German scientists who had come here in search of the thyrium idol.

He glanced over at the portal, at the huge boulder wedged inside its doorway. Wires protruded from every side of it—the soft-detonating C-2 explosives.

Just then, one of the commandos stepped forward and reached up to remove his black hockey mask.

Race tensed with anticipation—waited to see the cold hard features of Heinrich Anistaze, the former Stasi agent who had led the squad of German assassins in the bloody slaughter at that monastery.

The commando removed his mask.

Race frowned. He didn’t recognise him.

It wasn’t Anistaze.

Rather, he was a stout, older man, with a round, creased face and a bushy grey moustache.

Race wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified.

The German leader didn’t say a word as he brushed roughly past Race and crouched down in front of the portal.

He examined the assorted wires leading out from the boulder and snorted. Then he dropped the cables and walked over to Frank Nash.

He stared imperiously down his nose at the retired Army colonel, evaluating him, appraising him.

And then suddenly he spun around and barked an order to his troops.

“Feldwebel Dietrich, bringen She she in das Dorf und sperren She she ein! Hauptmann von Dirksen, bereiten She alles vor um den Tempel zu offnen.’

Race translated the words in his head: ‘Sergeant Dietrich, take them to the village and lock them up. Captain Von Dirksen, prepare to open the temple.’

Led by a German sergeant named Dietrich and surrounded by six of the masked German commandos, the ten Americans were marched unceremoniously back across the rope bridge and down the spiralling pathway.

When they came to the bottom of the path, they were directed through the narrow fissure in the plateau that led back to the riverside path.

After about twenty minutes of walking, they arrived back at the village.

But the village had changed.

Two enormous halogen floodlights illuminated the main street, bathing it in artificial light. The two Apache helicopters that Race had seen up on the tower top now sat at rest in the middle of the street. About a dozen German troops stood at the river’s edge, staring out at the river.

Race followed their gaze and saw his team’s battered Hueys resting up against the edge of the riverbank. When seen alongside the two sleek Apaches, Frank Nash’s Hueys seemed old and clunky.

It was then that Race saw what the German commandos were really looking at.

It lay beyond the two Hueys, resting on the river’s surface, cloaked in the steadily falling night rain.

A seaplane.

But this was no ordinary seaplane. It must have had a wingspan of at least two hundred feet. And its underbelly—that part of it that rested majestically in the water—was absolutely enormous, easily larger than the main body of the Hercules that had flown Race and the others into Peru. Four turbojet engines were slung underneath its massive wings, while two bulbous pontoons stretched down from each wing, touching the water’s surface, stabilising the aircraft.

It was an Antonov An-111 Albatross, the largest air-capable seaplane in the world.

The big plane was rotating slowly on the river’s surface as Race and the others emerged from the riverside path led by the German sergeant, Dietrich. It was reversing in toward the riverbank.

No sooner had it run aground in the soft mud than a loading ramp began to lower from its hindquarters.

As soon as the ramp touched dry land, two vehicles rumbled out from within the giant plane—-one eight-wheeled all-terrain vehicle that looked like a tank on wheels, and one hard-topped Humvee.

The two armoured vehicles skidded to a stop in the middle of the main street. Race and the others were led toward them. As they arrived at the two cars, Race saw two more German commandos shoving Tex Reichart and Doogie Kennedy down the street toward them.

‘Gentlemen,’ Dietrich said to the other commandos in German. ‘Put the soldiers and the government men in the ATV under restraints. Throw the others in the Humvee.

Lock them inside, and then disable both vehicles.’

Nash, Copeland and the six Green Berets were all put inside the big tank-like all-terrain vehicle. Race, Lauren, Lopez and Chambers were shoved inside the Humvee.

The Humvee was kind of like an oversized jeep, only a lot wider and with a solid reinforced metal roof. It also had Lexan glass windows which, at the moment, were rolled up.

After they were put inside the Humvee, one of the German commandos lifted up the bonnet and leaned over the big vehicle’s engine. He flicked a switch underneath the radiator and immediately— thwack!—all the doors and windows of the Humvee were instantly locked into place.

A portable prison, Race thought.

Wonderful.

Meanwhile, the tower top was a hive of activity.

The German soldiers up there were all from the Fallschirmjiger—the crack rapid-response unit of the German Army—and they moved as such, quickly and efficiently.

The leader of their squad, General Gunther C. Kolb— the grey-mustachioed man who had coldly appraised Frank Nash earlier—was barking orders at them in German: “Move! Move! Move! Come on! We do not have much time!’

As his men dashed about in every direction, Kolb surveyed the scene around him.

The C-2 explosives around the boulder in the temple’s doorway had been removed and were now being replaced by ropes, the entry team was ready to go, and a digital video camera had been set up in front of the portal to document the opening of the temple.

Kolb nodded to himself, satisfied.

They were ready.

It was time to go in.

Rain drummed loudly on the roof of the Humvee.

Race sat slumped in the driver’s seat. Walter Chambers sat beside him in the passenger seat. Lauren and Gaby Lopez were in the back.

Through the car’s rainspattered windshield, Race saw that the German soldiers in the village were crowded around a single monitor, watching it intently.

Race frowned.

Then he saw that there was a small television screen on the central console of his Humvee’s dashboard—in the place where the radio would be in a regular car. He wondered if the shutdown of the Humvee’s engine affected its electrical systems. He pressed the power on the little television to find out.

Slowly, a picture came to life on the screen.

On it, he saw the Germans up at the temple, gathered around the portal. He heard their voices come in over the television’s speakers:

‘Ich kann Night glauben, class she Sprengstoff verwenden woll-ten. Es konnte das gesammte Gebaude zum Einsturz gebracht haben. Machen She die Seile fest—’

‘What are they saying?’ Lauren asked.

‘They’re removing the explosives you set around the boulder,’ Race said. ‘They think the C-2’ll bring down the whole structure. They’re going to use ropes instead.’

A woman’s voice came over the speakers, speaking rapidly in German.

Race translated for the others: ‘See if you can get in touch with headquarters. Tell them we’ve arrived at the temple, and that we have encountered and subdued members of the United States Army.

‘Awaiting instructions.’

Then the woman on the speakers said something else.

‘—Was ist mit dem anderen amerikanischen Team? We sind die jetzt ?”

What the hell? Race thought.

Das anderen amerikanischen Team?

At first he thought he mustn’t have heard her right.

But he had. He was sure of it.

But that just didn’t make—

Race frowned inwardly and didn’t translate the sentence for the others.

On the screen, ropes were being looped around the boulder in the portal.

‘Alles klar, macht Euch fertig—’

‘All right. Get ready.’

The men on the screen lifted the ropes.

‘Zieht an!’

‘And… heave!’

Up on the tower top, the ropes went taut and the boulder lodged in the portal slowly began to move, grinding loudly against the stone floor of the doorway.

Eight German commandos were pulling on the ropes, hauling the giant boulder from its four-hundred year-old resting place.

Slowly—very slowly—the boulder came away from the portal, revealing an inky black interior.

Once it was clear, Gunther Kolb stepped forward, peered down into the darkened interior of the temple.

He saw a set of wide stone stairs descending into the darkness beneath him, into the belly of the great subterranean structure.

‘All right,’ he said in German. ‘Entry team. Your turn.’

In the Humvee, Race turned to Lauren.

‘They’re going in.’

Up on the tower top, five fully-loaded German commandos stepped forward. The entry team.

Led by a wiry young captain named Kurt von Dirksen, they met Kolb at the entrance to the temple, guns in hand.

‘Keep it simple,’ Kolb said to the young captain. ‘Find that idol and then get the hell—’

At that moment, without warning, a series of sharp whistling noises cut through the air all around them.

Thwatthwatthwatthwatthwatthwat!

And then—srnack!—something long and sharp lodged itself in a clump of moss on the wall of the temple right next to Kolb’s head!

Kolb stared at the object in amazement.

It was an arrow.

Voices began to shout out from the Humvee’s little television screen as a hailstorm of arrows rained down on the

German troops gathered around the temple.

‘Was zum Teufel!”

‘Duckt Euch! Duckt Euch!“

‘What’s going on?’ Lauren said, leaning forward from the back seat.

Race turned to her, amazed. ‘It looks like they’re being attacked.’

The deafening roar of submachinegun fire engulfed the tower top once again as the German commandos raised their MP-5s and Steyr-AUGs and fired hard.

They all stood around the temple’s open portal, facing outwards, aiming up at the source of the lethal arrows—the rim of the massive crater.

From the cover of the portal’s walls, Gunther Kolb peered up into the darkness, searching for his enemy.

And he saw them.

Saw a collection of shadowy figures gathered up on the rim of the canyon.

There were maybe fifty of them in total—thin human shapes loosing a barrage of primitive wooden arrows at the German commandos on the tower top.

What the hell—? Kolb thought.

Race listened in stunned amazement to the German voices coming in over the little television’s speakers.

‘Temple team! What’s going on up there?’

‘We’re under attack! I repeat, we are under attack!”

“Who is attacking you?”

‘They look like Indians! Repeat. Indians. Natives. They’re firing down on us from the upper rim of the crater! But we seem to be pushing them back—wait. No, wait a minute. They’re pulling back. They’re pulling back.”

A moment later, the roar of automatic gunfire ceased and there was a long silence.

Nothing.

More silence.

The Germans on the screen looked cautiously around themselves, their guns smoking.

In the Humvee, Race exchanged a look with Chambers.

‘A tribe of natives in the area,’ Race said.

Gunther Kolb was shouting orders.

‘Horgen! Take a squad up there and form a perimeter around the rim of the crater!’ He turned to face yon Dirksen and his entry team.

‘All right, Captain. You may enter the temple.’

The five members of the entry team gathered in front of the open portal.

It yawned before them, dark and menacing.

Captain yon Dirksen stepped cautiously forward—gun in hand—and stood at the threshold of the portal, at the top of the set of wide stone steps that led down into the bowels of the temple.

‘All right,’ he said formally into his throat mike as he took his first step downward. ‘I can see some stone stairs in front of me. Descending—”

‘—the stairs nozom’ von Dirksen’s voice said over the Humvee’s speakers.

Race stared intently at the image of the five commandos as they walked slowly into the portal until finally the last soldier’s head disappeared below the floorline and he saw nothing but the empty stone doorway.

“Captain, report,’ Kolb’s voice said inside Kurt von Dirksen’s headset as the young German captain reached the bottom of the damp stone steps, the beam of his flashlight slicing through the darkness.

He was now standing in a narrow stonewalled tunnel. It stretched away from him, bending around and down to the right in a smooth curve. It sloped steeply downwards, spiralling down into the gloom of the temple’s core. Small indented alcoves lined its walls.

‘We’ve reached the base of the stairs,’ he said. “I see a curved tunnel ahead of me. Moving toward it.’

The entry team spaced themselves out as they began to move cautiously down the steeply graded tunnel. The beams of their flashlights played over its glistening wet walls. An echoing, dripping sound could be heard from somewhere deep within the temple.

Von Dirksen said, ‘Team, this is One. Call in.’

The rest of the entry team responded quickly: ‘This is Two.’

‘Four.’

‘Five.’

They ventured further down the tunnel.

Race and the others watched the Humvee’s television screen in tense silence, listened to the hushed voices of the German entry team. Race translated.

‘so wet in here, water everywhere—’

‘—stay sharp. Watch your step—’

Just then, a loud burst of static screeched out from the television’s speakers.

“What was that?” yon Dirksen said quickly. “Team, call in.”

‘This is Two.’

‘Three.’

‘Four.’

And then nothing.

Race waited expectantly for the final soldier to call in. But his call never came.

No ‘Five’.

Inside the temple, von Dirksen spun around.

‘Friedrich,’ he hissed as he walked back up the passageway, past the others.

They had come a short way down the steep spiralling tunnel and now they stood in pitch darkness, the only light - the beams of their flashlights.

Behind them, up the slope, they could see a wash of blue moonlight bending around the tunnel’s gentle curve, indicating the way back to the surface.

Von Dirksen peered back up the tunnel.

‘Friedrich!’ he whispered into the darkness. ‘Friedrich! Where are you?’

At that moment, von Dirksen heard a loud whump from somewhere behind him.

He spun.

And now saw only two of his men standing behind him.

The third was nowhere to be seen.

Von Dirksen turned back to face the entrance and was about to say something into his microphone when suddenly he saw an unusually large shadow slink around the bend in the tunnel above him and, in that instant, he completely lost the ability to speak.

It was silhouetted by the moonlight behind it.

And it looked absolutely terrifying.

The soft blue light of the moon glistened off its muscularly black flanks.

The beam of von Dirksen’s flashlight glinted off its long razor-sharp teeth.

The German captain just stared at the creature before him in stunned silence.

It was huge.

And then suddenly it was joined by a second, identical creature, stepping out from behind it.

They must have been hiding inside the alcoves, von Dirksen thought.

Lying in wait. Waiting for him and his men to walk past them, so that they could now cut off their retreat.

And then in a flash the first creature pounced. Von Dirksen never had a chance. It moved incredibly fast for an animal of its size and in a second its slashing jaws filled his field of vision and in that moment all Kurt von Dirksen could do was scream.

Shouts and screams burst out from the television’s speakers.

Race and the others stared at the screen in horror.

The screams of the last three members of the entry team being attacked echoed across the airwaves. Briefly, Race heard gunfire, but it only lasted for a second before abruptly both it and the screaming cut off together and there was silence.

Long silence.

Race stared at the television screen, at the picture of the open mouth of the temple.

“Von Dirksen, Friedrich, Nielson. Report.’

There was no reply from the men inside the temple.

Race swapped a glance with Lauren.

And then suddenly a new voice came in over the speakers.

It was a breathless voice, panting and afraid.

‘Sir! This is Nielson! Repeat, this is Nielson! Oh God… God help us. Get out of here, sir! Get out of here while you still—” Smack!

It sounded like a collision of some sort.

Like the sound of something big slamming into the man named Nielson.

Sounds of a scuffle ensued and then, abruptly, Race heard a blood-curdling scream and then—over the scream— he heard another, infinitely more terrifying, sound.

It was a roar—an ungodly roar—loud and deep like that of a lion.

Only fuller, more resonant, fiercer.

Race’s eyes flashed back to the television screen and suddenly he froze.

He saw it.

Saw it emerge from the shadowy darkness of the portal.

And as he watched the giant black creature step out from the mouth of the temple, Race felt a deep sickness in the pit of his stomach.

Because he knew then, in that moment, that despite all their technology, all their guns, and all of their selfish desires to find a new and fantastic power source, the men on that rock tower had just violated a far, far simpler rule of human evolution.

Some doors are meant to remain unopened.

Gunther Kolb and the other dozen or so Germans on the tower top just stared at the animal standing in the portal in awe.

It was magnificent.

It was fully five feet tall, even while standing on all four legs, and it was completely black in colour, jet-black from head to toe.

It looked like a jaguar of some sort.

A giant black jaguar.

The massive cat’s eyes glinted yellow in the moonlight, and with its furrowed angry brows, hunched muscular shoulders and dagger-like teeth, it truly looked like the Devil incarnate.

And then, abruptly, the soft blue moonlight that illuminated the temple’s portal was replaced by a harsh strobelike flash of lightning and in the deafening crash of thunder that followed, the great animal roared.

It might as well have been a signal.

Because at that moment—at that precise moment—over a dozen other giant black cats burst forth from the darkness of the temple and attacked the Germans on the tower top.

Despite the fact that they were armed with assault rifles and submachineguns, the members of the German expedition never stood a Chance.

The cats were too fast. Too agile. Too powerful. They slammed into the stunned crowd of soldiers and scientists with shocking ferocity—bowling them over, leaping onto them, mauling them alive.

A few of the soldiers managed to get some shots off and one of the cats went crashing to the ground, spasming violently.

But it didn’t matter, the other cats barely seemed to notice the bullets whizzing around them and within seconds they were all over those soldiers, too—tearing into their flesh, biting into their throats, suffocating them with their powerful clamp-like jaws.

Hideous screams filled the night air.

General Gunther Kolb ran.

Wet fern fronds slapped hard against his face as he hurried down the stone stairway that led back to the suspension bridge.

If he could just make it to the bridge, he thought, and untie it from the buttresses on the far side, then the cats would be trapped on the rock tower.

Kolb bolted down the wet stone slabs, the sound of his own breathing loud in his ears, the sound of something large crashing through the foliage behind him even louder.

More fern fronds smacked against his face, but he didn’t care. He was almost—

There!

He saw it.

The rope bridge!

He even saw a few of his men bouncing across its length, fleeing from the carnage on the tower top.

Kolb flew down the last few steps and ran out onto the ledge.

He’d made it!

It was then that a tremendous weight thudded into him from behind and the German general went sprawling forward.

He landed hard—face-first—on the cold wet surface of the ledge. He scratched about desperately with his hands, trying to get to his feet again when suddenly a giant black paw slammed down hard on his wrist, pinning it to the ground.

Kolb looked up in horror.

It was one of the cats.

It was standing on top of him!

The demonic black cat peered down at him intently, curiously examining this strange little creature that had foolishly attempted to outrun it.

Kolb stared fearfully up into its evil yellow eyes. And then with a loud blood-curdling roar, the big animal’s head came rushing down at him and Kolb shut his eyes and waited for the end.

Down in the village, there was silence.

The twelve German commandos gathered around the monitor just stared at each other in astonishment.

On their screen, they saw their comrades up on the tower top running about in every direction. Occasionally, they would see one of them dash across the screen and open fire with an MP-5 only to be violently smacked out of the frame a second later by a large feline shape.

‘Hasseldorf, Krieger,’ the sergeant named Dietrich said sharply.

‘Dismantle the western logbridge.’ Two of the Ger man soldiers immediately broke out of the circle.

Dietrich turned to face his young radio operator. ‘Have you been able to get through to anyone up there?’

‘I’m getting through, sir, but no-one’s answering,’ the radio man said.

“Keep trying.’

Through the rainspattered windows of the Humvee, Race was watching Dietrich and the German commandos assembled around their monitor when suddenly he heard a shout.

He snapped around instantly.

And saw one of the German commandos from the tower top come charging out from the riverside path.

The commando was waving his arms wildly, yelling, ‘Schnell, zum Flugzeug! Schnell, zum Flugzeug! She kommen!”

He was shouting: “Get to the plane! Get to the plane! They’re coming!” Just then a flare of lightning illuminated the path behind the running man and Race caught a glimpse of something bounding along the path behind him.

‘Oh, my God…“

It was one of the giant catlike creatures—just like the one he had seen stepping out of the temple only minutes earlier.

But the image he had seen on the Humvee’s tiny television screen hadn’t done the creature justice at all.

It was absolutely terrifying.

It ran with its head held low and its pointed ears pinned back, its powerful muscular shoulders driving it forward after its fleeing human prey.

It moved beautifully, with fluid feline grace—that striking combination of balance, power and speed common to cats the world oven The German commando was running hard but there was no way he was going to outrun the massive animal behind him. He tried to swerve as he ran, to dodge in behind some trees next to the path. But the cat was too agile. It looked like a cheetah in full flight—its powerful legs adjusting perfectly as it ran, copying the movements of its prey, ducking to the left, veering to the right, keeping its centre of gravity low, never once losing its footing.

It loomed above the hapless German, got closer and closer, and then, when it was near enough, the great cat leapt forward and—

Abruptly, the lightning flash vanished and the path was plunged into complete darkness.

Darkness.

Silence.

And Race heard a scream.

Then suddenly another flash of lightning lit up the riverbank, and as he registered the image before him, Race felt his blood run completely cold.

The immense black cat was standing astride the body of the commando, its massive head bent over the fallen man’s neck area.

Abruptly, the cat jerked its jaws upward and with a sickening ripping sound, wrenched the dead commando’s throat clear from his body.

And in another glaring flash of lightning, the giant black cat roared in triumph.

For a whole minute, no-one in the Humvee said anything.

Walter Chambers broke the silence. ‘We are in so much trouble.’

And he was right. For at that moment, at that terrible moment, all of the other black cats burst out from the foliage near the riverbank and attacked every living thing in sight.

The cats stormed the village from every side, catching Diet rich and his men—gathered foolishly around the monitor in the centre of the town-completely by surprise.

The cats bounded into the main street like bats out of hell—crash-tackling the German commandos where they stood, bowling them off their feet before they could grab their guns, slamming them to the ground, biting into their throats.

Race wasn’t sure how many of the cats there were. At first he counted ten, then twelve, then fifteen.

Jesus.

Then suddenly he heard gunfire and he snapped around to see the two German soldiers Dietrich had sent to raise the western logbridge Hasseldorf and Krieger—firing desperately at the onslaught of charging cats.

The two commandos managed to hit a couple of the fearsome animals they pitched wildly forward, crashed down into the mud—before the other cats simply leapt over their bodies and overwhelmed the two humans with their numbers.

One cat leapt onto Hasseldorf’s back and immediately ripped out his spine. Another just clamped its massive jaws around Krieger’s throat, breaking his neck with a nauseating crrrrunch!

The rest of the village looked like a riot zone, with Ger man soldiers running in every direction—toward the two Apache helicopters, toward the huts, toward the river—in a desperate bid to escape the rampaging cats.

‘Get to the choppers!’ someone yelled. ‘Get to the—’

Just then, Race heard an engine turn over and he spun in his seat to see the rotor blades of both of the Apache attack helicopters slowly begin to rotate.

German soldiers ran desperately for the two choppers, but they were small and skinny each only had room for a single pilot and a gunner.

The first Apache began to lift off just as a terrified trooper leapt up onto its landing strut and yanked open the cockpit door. But before he could even try to climb inside, one of the cats bounded up onto the strut after him, shoving him roughly out of the way before it slithered in through the cockpit door, its long slashing tail whipping over the side as it did so.

A second later, the interior of the cockpit windows was splattered with blood and the chopper—hovering ten feet off the ground—went wild.

It yawed sharply to the right, its rotor blades a speeding blur of movement, toward the other Apache, just as the six-barrelled rotary cannon under its nose blasted wildly to life, assaulting the entire village with supermachine-gun fire.

Tracer bullets sprayed everywhere.

The windshield of Race’s Humvee exploded into a spiderweb of cracks as the storm of bullets slammed into it.

Race ducked away from the impacts instinctively. As he did so, however, he saw a series of orange impact sparks flare out all over the tail section of one of the Hueys moored on the riverbank nearby.

Then suddenly, like fireworks shooting into the sky on the fourth of July, two Hellfire missiles shot out from the flailing Apache’s missile pods.

One of the missiles slammed into a nearby stone hut, blasted it to rubble, while the other just shot straight down the main street of Vilcafor, heading directly for the massive Antonov seaplane parked at the riverbank, before— shoom!—it whizzed in through the open loading ramp of the plane and disappeared inside its cargo bay.

There was about a second’s delay.

And then the giant seaplane exploded. It was a monstrous explosion, momentous in its force. The Antonov’s walls just blew out in an instant and the whole plane immediately listed dramatically to the left and began to sink into the river and drift slowly downstream.

In the meantime, the Apache that was causing all this damage was still lurching wildly toward its twin. The second helicopter tried desperately to get out of its way, but it was too late. The rotor blades of the first Apache struck the rapidlyspinning blades of the second helicopter and a shrill metal-on-metal shriek filled the air.

Then suddenly, shockingly, the blades of the first chopper ruptured the fuel tanks of the second and the two Apaches exploded in a massive orange fireball that fanned out along the main street of Vilcafor.

Race turned away from the fiery scene, glanced at Walter Chambers in the front seat beside him.

‘Jesus Christ, Walter,’ he said/Did you see that?’

Chambers didn’t answer him.

Race frowned. ‘Walter? What’s the—?’

Purrrrrrr.

Race froze at the sound.

Then he looked at Chambers” face more closely. The bookish anthropologist’s eyes were as wide as saucers and he seemed to be holding his breath.

He was also looking directly over Race’s shoulder.

Slowly—very, very slowly—William Race turned around.

One of the cats was standing at the window.

Right at the window!

Its black head was absolutely massive. It took up the entire window.

The gigantic creature just stared in at Race with narrow yellowed eyes.

It purred again. A deep, resonating growl.

Purrrrrrr.

Race saw its chest rising and falling, saw its long white fangs protruding over its lower lip. Then abruptly the animal snorted and he almost jumped out of his skin and then— whump! all of a sudden, the whole Humvee jolted beneath him.

He spun to look forward.

Another cat had just leapt onto the bonnet of the Humvee.

It stood with its muscular forelimbs splayed wide on the bonnet of the car, its angry yellow eyes staring down at Race and Chambers, boring into their very souls.

Race touched his throat mike. ‘Ah, Van Lewen. You out there?’

No response.

Screeeeeeeeeech

The black cat on the bonnet took a slow, ominous step forward, its claws scraping against the steel hood as it did so. At the same time, the cat to Race’s left nudged the Humvee’s door roughly with its nose, testing it.

Race began tapping his throat mike repeatedly. ‘Van Lewen!’

Van Lewen’s voice came in over his earpiece. ‘I see you, Professor. I see you.“

Race looked over and saw the all-terrain vehicle sitting motionless on the muddy street not far from the Humvee.

‘Now would be a good time to do some of that bodyguard stuff,’ Race said.

‘Take it easy, Professor. You’re safe while you’re inside the Humvee.” It was at that precise moment that the black cat on the bonnet of the Humvee slammed its left forepaw right through the cracked forward windshield of the vehicle!

Glass showered everywhere as the cat’s huge fist-like claw exploded through the windscreen and came to a jolting halt two inches away from the brim of Race’s Yankees cap.

‘Van Lewen!’

‘All right! All right! Quickly. Look under the dashboard!’ Van Lewen said. “Down near the gas pedal. Look for a black rubber button on the underside of the steering column!” Race looked there.

Found it.

‘What’s it do?’

“Just press it!’

Race pressed the rubber button and the Humvee’s engine immediately roared to life.

It wasn’t disabled anymore! Race didn’t know why, didn’t care. So long as it was working.

He quickly came back up from under the steering wheel—and found himself staring into the wide-open jaws of the black cat on the bonnet!

The cat snarled at him—a wild, angry hiss. It was so close, Race could feel it’s hot rancid breath washing all over his face. The big cat writhed and squirmed as it tried desperately to squeeze in through the hole it had punched in the windshield and get to the human flesh inside.

Race leaned back in his seat, away from the frenzied animal’s teeth, pushing himself up against the driver’s side window—where he turned and saw the other cat’s enormous jaws come rushing toward him at frightening speed!

The second cat slammed into the window. The Humvee rocked on its suspension, bounced under the weight of the cat’s stunning impact. A series of lightning-shaped cracks spontaneously appeared all over the driver’s side window.

But the car’s engine was still running, and that was all that mattered.

Jolted into action by the ramming, Race grabbed hold of the gearstick, crunched the gears, found one-didn’t care which one—and slammed the gas pedal to the floor.

The Humvee shot backwards through the muddy main street of Vilcafor.

Jesus! He’d found reverse!

The cat on the bonnet seemed oblivious to the Humvee’s momentum as the oversized jeep-like vehicle bounced wildly over the uneven ground of the village. The demonic animal just yanked its head out of the windshield and began reaching in through the shattered glass with its foreclaw, trying to get at Race.

For his part, Race just leaned back as far as he could, keeping his body clear of the slashing claw, pressing his foot down harder on the gas pedal.

The Humvee hit a pothole, shot into the air for a moment, thumped back down to earth. The cat was still on the bonnet, still clutching maniacally at Race as the armoured vehicle careered down the rainsoaked street in reverse, totally out of control.

‘Will! Look out!’ Lauren yelled.

‘What?’ Race called.

‘Behind us!’

But Race wasn’t looking behind them.

He was looking at the vision from Hell that was reaching in through the forward windshield of the car trying to rip open his chest.

‘Will! Stop! We’re heading for the river!’

Race’s head snapped up.

Did she just say “river’?

He shot a look at the rear-view mirror and caught a glimpse of the black river behind them—approaching quickly—caught a glimpse of one of the American Hueys resting in the shallows, directly in their path!

Race grappled with the steering wheel, but it was no use.

In his panic to get away from the cat on the bonnet, he’d long since lost control of the backward-speeding Humvee.

He yanked hard on the wheel, slammed his foot down on the brakes, but the wheels just locked and in an instant the big Humvee lost all its traction. It just skidded in the mud, aquaplaning wildly out of control. And then suddenly, sickeningly, before Race even knew what was happening, the big vehicle launched itself off the edge of the bank, out into the air, out over the river.

The Humvee flew through the air, soaring out over the riverbank, flying in a high graceful arc. And then it smashed—hard, tail-first—into the glass bubble of the Huey sitting in the shallows.

The inertia of the crash was so great that it sent both car and helicopter floating out into the river proper. It also sent the cat on the Humvee’s bonnet shooting off the hood of the car and completely over the Huey too! The big cat landed way out in the middle of the river, hitting the water with a great ungainly splash.

Within seconds, the crocodile-like caimans were all over it.

Shrieking wildly, the cat put up a hell of a fight, until finally it succumbed to their numbers and went under.

What remained near the shore was a bizarre-looking Humvee-Huey hybrid that sat half-submerged in the water about twenty feet out from the riverbank.

The whole forward bubble of the Huey had been crushed inwards by the Humvee, and now the wide jeep-like vehicle stuck out awkwardly from the chopper’s crushed front section. The Huey’s rotor housing and tail section, however, had not been damaged by the impact. Its two rotor blades just sat high above the whole ghastly contraption, immobile but intact.

Inside the Humvee, Race tried desperately to stay calm.

Slimy green water lapped against the window to his left while powerful mini-jets of spray shot in through the network of cracks in it. Looking out through the window itself was like looking into one of those aquariums where you can see both above and below the waterline.

Only this was the aquarium from Hell.

Through the window, Race saw the underbellies of no less than five gigantic caimans, all of them making a beeline right for him, their tails slinking back and forth behind them, driving their bodies toward the Humvee.

To make matters worse, a torrent of water was gushing in through the large hole in the windshield in front of him, splashing all over his jeans, creating a deep sloshing puddle at his feet.

Walter Chambers began to hyperventilate. ‘Oh my God!

Oh my God! Oh my God!” Behind Chambers, Race saw that Gaby Lopez now had a deep bloody gash above her left eye.

She must have hit her head when the Humvee had impacted against the chopper.

‘We have to get out of here!’ Lauren yelled.

‘You think!’ Race shouted, as a large silver fish with big teeth was carried in through the windshield in front of him and landed in his lap.

Just then there came a loud whump! from somewhere to his left and Race was almost jolted out of his seat as the whole Humvee rocked wildly sideways.

He turned and saw the enormous shape of a black caiman hovering at the window beside him, staring in the through the cracked glass, gazing hungrily at him!

‘Oh, man,’ he said.

Then he saw the massive reptile draw back from the glass.

“Oh, man…”

‘What? What?“ Walter Chambers said from beside him.

‘It’s going to ram us!’ Race yelled as he hastily began climbing over into the back seat. ‘Move, Walter! Move now!’

Chambers immediately started to scramble over into the back seat, too, just as the caiman outside surged forward. A split second later, the driver’s side window of the Humvee exploded inwards in a spectacular shower of glass.

The sudden rain of glass was quickly followed by the massive scaly body of the caiman as it slithered in through the window into the front section of the Humvee, riding a wave of water as it cascaded into the car.

The caiman rushed across the front seat of the Humvee, its giant body taking up all of the tiny space. Race yanked his feet into the back seat a nanosecond before its slashing jaws shot past them.

Walter Chambers wasn’t so lucky. He didn’t get his legs out of the way in time and the caiman smashed into them hard, driving them into the passenger side door, pinning them there.

Chambers screamed. The caiman bucked and snorted as it tried to get a better grip on him.

From the back seat, all Race could see was the creature’s enormous armoured back and its long plated tail, slashing viciously back and forth.

Then, abruptly, violently—and so quickly that it made Race gasp in horror—the giant caiman wrenched Chambers out through the window through which it had come.

“Nooooo!’ Chambers screamed as he disappeared out the window and was taken under the surface outside.

Race exchanged a horrified look with Lauren.

‘What are we going to do now!’ she yelled.

How the hell should I know? he thought as he looked at the situation around him.

The front seat of the vehicle was filling up with water fast, causing the Humvee to tilt sharply to the left and drop lower in the water.

‘We’ve got to get out of here before this car sinks!’ he yelled. ‘Quickly!

Open your window! We should be able to open them now!’

Water began to flow over the front seat and into the back as Lauren began to unwind her window. The car was higher over on her side, and when at last she opened the window fully, she revealed only the cold night air.

Then suddenly another giant caiman came surging in through the driver’s side window of the Humvee and splashed down into the pool of water in the front half of the vehicle.

“Go!” Race yelled. ‘Get onto the roof!’

Lauren moved fast. In a second she was out of the Humvee, climbing up onto its roof. The dazed Gaby went next—she shuffled quickly across the back seat and reached out through the window. Lauren immediately began to pull her out from up on the roof, while Race pushed her from below.

The caiman in the driver’s seat bucked and snorted, searching for its prey.

Water was now rushing over the front seat in a thick steady stream. It was almost waist-deep in the back.

Just then another caiman rammed into the rear-left window of the Humvee, causing the entire vehicle to jolt. Race spun at the impact and saw that the whole left-hand side of the Humvee was now completely underwater!

Gaby Lopez was halfway out the right-side window.

Race was the last one left.

It was then, however, as he pushed on Gaby’s feet, that he heard a sickening metallic groan from somewhere within the Humvee.

Abruptly the whole car lurched dramatically to the right.

At first he thought it was another ramming from one of the caimans.

But it wasn’t. No, this time the whole car had shifted laterally. It was moving. Moving…Downstream.

Oh, God, Race thought.

They were being carried downstream by the current of the river!

‘This is not happening,’ he said.

At that moment there came another, more familiar jolt as one of the caimans rammed the left-hand window again.

“Come on, Gaby!’ he yelled at Lopez’s feet as they dangled inside the right-hand window in front of him.

By this time, the caiman in the front seat seemed to have realised where Race and the others were and it began to shuffle clumsily backwards so that it could leap over into the back seat.

Race saw it move.

‘Gaby.’

‘Almost there…’ Lopez called back.

“Hurry up!”

Then suddenly, Gaby’s feet disappeared out the window and Lauren yelled, ‘She’s clear, Will!’ and Race leapt for the window, poked his head out through it and saw Lauren and Gaby standing on the roof above him.

The two women quickly reached down and grabbed his hands and hauled him out of the car not a second before the caiman in the front seat clambered over into the back and snapped angrily at his outward-moving feet, missing them by millimetres.

Back in the village, Nash, Copeland and the six American soldiers were all sitting—handcuffed—in the safety of the all-terrain vehicle, watching the nightmare outside unfold, when suddenly the sliding side door of their armoured vehicle was wrenched open from the outside and a blast of rain and wind swirled into the interior of the ATV.

Two soaking Germans hurried in through the door, their mudsoaked feet clanging on the floor of the vehicle. They shut the great steel door behind them and abruptly there was silence inside the ATV once again.

Nash and the others just stared at their new companions.

A man and a woman.

Both were sopping wet, and both were completely covered in mud.

They wore civilian clothes—blue jeans and white Tshirts—but with a twist: both wore black Gore-Tex holsters and compact Glock-18 pistols on their hips. They both also wore navy blue bulletproof vests.

Their appearance screamed: undercover cops.

The man was burly, strong-looking and barrel-chested. The woman small but athletic, with short peroxide-blonde hair.

The man didn’t waste any time. He walked straight over to the Americans and began unlocking their handcuffs.

‘You’re not prisoners anymore,’ he said in English. ‘We are all in this together now. Come, we must save as many of the others as we can.’

Race, Lauren and Lopez were standing—stranded-on the roof of the Humvee, as the whole Humvee-Huey combination drifted awkwardly downriver, caught in the current.

Just then Race saw the rickety wooden jetty about ten yards away from them, downstream. It looked like they would float right by it.

That was their chance.

The Humvee-Huey lurched again, sank lower in the water. At the moment, the Humvee’s roof was about a foot above the river’s surface, while the Huey’s was a little higher. But for every yard that the two vehicles moved downriver, they both seemed to drop a couple of inches.

It was going to be close.

Very close.

They edged another yard downstream.

The caimans began to circle.

Eight yards to the jetty and water began to seep onto the roof of the Humvee and under their feet. The three of them stepped up onto the rotor housing of the Huey.

Five yards away.

Sinking fast.

From atop the Huey’s rotor housing, Race looked out over the floodlit village.

It was deserted now, the only movement the occasional feline shadow that darted across the main street. There was no sign of human life. None at all.

It was then that Race noticed it.

The all-terrain vehicle was gone.

The eight-wheeled tank-like ATV that had been holding Nash, Copeland and the Green Berets was nowhere to be seen.

Race spoke into his throat mike. ‘Van Lewen! Where are you?’

“I’m here, Professor.’

‘Where?’

‘Couple of the Germans opened up the ATV and unlocked our cuffs.

We’re doing a circuit of the village now, picking up anybody we can find.”

“While you’re at it, why don’t you swing by the jetty in about thirty seconds.”

“Ten-four, Professor. We’ll be there.’

Three yards from the jetty, and the Humvee’s roof went completely under.

Race bit his lip.

Although they were now standing on the exposed rotor housing of the Huey, they were still going to have to step across the submerged Humvee’s roof to get to the jetty.

‘Come on, baby, stay afloat,’ he said.

Two yards.

The Humvee’s roof went six inches under.

One yard.

A whole foot under.

Lauren looped an arm underneath the dazed Gaby’s shoulders.

‘Okay, kids,’ she said. ‘Listen up. I’ll take Gaby first. Will, you bring up the rear. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

The Humvee-Huey came alongside the jetty.

As it did so, Lauren and Gaby leapt off the rotor housing of the Huey and splashed down onto the submerged roof of the Humvee—their legs dropping knee-deep into the water.

They took two sloshing strides forward before Lauren threw Gaby up onto the jetty. Then she leapt up onto it herself pulling her feet up just as two massive crocodilian shapes lunged through the water behind her, snapping their jaws ferociously.

‘Will! Come on!’ she called from the jetty.

Race readied himself to jump down onto the submerged roof of the Humvee. He couldn’t imagine how it must have looked—him, in his jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap standing atop a submerged Army helicopter in the middle of a caiman-infested Amazonian river.

How the hell did I get into this? he thought.

Then, without warning, the whole Humvee-Huey con traption lurched dramatically, dropped another foot in the water.

Race lost his balance, almost fell off, but recovered quickly. Then he looked up to see that things had just gotten seriously worse.

The Humvee’s roof was now at least three feet underwater.

Even if he could jump onto it, his mobility would be shot.

The caimans would get him for sure.

The Huey’s situation wasn’t much better.

Even though he was standing on the chopper’s rotor hous ing, it, too, was now submerged underneath an inch of water.

Race looked frantically about himself—saw that the only part of the Huey still above the water were its two rotor blades.

He glanced quickly over at the jetty and saw the ATV skid to a stop at its base—saw the sliding door on the big eight-wheeler’s side whip open to reveal Van Lewen and Scott inside it—saw Lauren drag Gaby over toward it.

Lauren yelled over her shoulder. ‘Will! Come on! Jump!’

The Huey lurched again and Race’s sneakers went fully under the surface.

He looked at the sinking chopper around him, looked at its rotor blades hovering above the surface.

The rotor blades.., he thought.

Maybe he could…

No.

He’d be too heavy, they’d sag underneath his weight.

He spun back round to look at the jetty. Three large caimans now hovered, half-submerged, in the water between him and the old wooden wharf.

Maybe…

Race quickly reached out and grabbed hold of one of the rotor blades.

Then he heaved on it as hard as he could, turning the thirty-foot blade around on its pivot

The sunken Huey was still drifting slowly downstream with the current.

The rotor blade came round, its forward tip almost touching the jetty, The rotor blade came round, its forward tip almost touching the jetty, so that it now looked like a narrow bridge stretched out low over the river, connecting the Huey to the wharf.

The Huey rocked again, sank another two inches, just as an enormous black shape exploded out of the water next to Race and on a reflex he spread his legs as far apart as he could and the caiman shot right through them—brushing against the insides of his calves—and off the other side of the Huey.

That was too close his mind screamed. Move!

Race took a final look up at his passage to freedom—the rotor blade, a plank of steel ten inches wide, hanging a foot above the surface of the river.

Do it!

And so he did.

Race jumped up onto the rotor blade and ran out across its length.

Three steps forward and he saw the jetty twenty feet in front of him.

The jetty, safety, salvation—

—halfway across and he felt the rotor blade sag beneath him, and lower itself toward the waterline and—

—come to rest on the backs of the three caimans in the water between the helicopter and the jetty!

Race danced across the narrow bridge, now supported by the bodies of the three caimans!

He reached the end of the rotor blade at a full stride and • launched himself off it, diving through the air, slamming chest-first into the edge of the jetty.

Get your feet out of the water! his mind screamed as he felt his feet splash down into the inky black liquid beneath him.

He quickly yanked his feet up out of the water and rolled up onto the safety of the jetty.

He swallowed, breathless. He couldn’t believe it.

He was—

“Professor! Come on!’ Van Lewen’s tinny voice yelled suddenly in his ear.

Race looked up immediately and saw the ATV parked at the end of the jetty, its sliding side door open.

Just then, however, some movement above the ATV caught his eye and he glanced up just in time to see one of the massive black cats leap clear over the all-terrain vehicle with its claws extended and its jaws bared wide.

The giant animal landed on the jetty barely five feet in front of him. It just stood there before him, crouching low, its ears pinned back, its lips curling, its muscles tensing for the final pounce…

And then suddenly the rickety jetty fell away beneath it.

There was no creak. No warning sound.

The old wooden jetty just gave way beneath the cat and with a bewildered screech the big black creature dropped into the water beneath it.

‘It’s about time I had some luck,’ Race said.

The caimans moved in quickly.

Two big bulls charged in toward the fallen cat and soon the water around the big animal became a seething, frothing mess.

Race seized the opportunity and leapt across the newly created gap in the jetty and bolted for the ATV.

As he stepped inside the ATV and Van Lewen slid the heavy steel door shut behind him, he looked back out at the river through a narrow rectangular slit in the door.

What he saw was completely unexpected.

He saw the cat—the same black cat that had accosted him only moments before—-climb slowly up out of the water and back up onto the jetty. Blood dripped from its claws, ragged chunks of flesh hung from its jaws, water dripped from its glistening flanks.

The animal’s chest heaved. It seemed absolutely exhausted from the battle it had just fought.

But it was alive.

It had won.

It had just survived an encounter with two bull caimans!

Race slumped down on the floor of the ATV, totally exhausted. He let his head fall against the cold metal wall behind him and allowed his eyes to close.

As he did so, however, he heard noises.

He heard the grunts and snorts of the cats outside—close, loud, large.

He heard their paws splashing in puddles. Heard the crunch of breaking bones as they feasted on the bodies of the dead German commandos. He even heard the sound of someone crying out in agony in the near distance.

Soon Race would fall asleep, but before he did he would have one final, terrifying thought.

How the hell am I going to get out of here alive?