Temple

FOURTH READING

Renco stared at Lena for the longest of moments. ‘Daybreak,’ said he, repeating her words. It was still dark outside, but it would be morning in a matter of hours.

‘That is right,’ said Lena. In the dim firelight of the citadel, I could see the thoughts as they crossed Renco’s face— his mission to save the idol conflicting with his desire to help the people of Vilcafor in their time of dire need. Renco looked across the interior of the citadel.

‘Bassario,’ said he and sharply.

I turned to see Bassario sitting crosslegged on the floor in a darkened corner of the citadel, his back to the room as usual.

‘Yes, oh, wise prince,’ the criminal said, not looking up from what he was doing. ‘What progress have you made?’

‘I am almost finished.’ Renco strode over to where the devious criminal was sitting. I followed. Bassario turned as Renco arrived at his side, and I saw on the floor beside him the idol that it was our sworn mission to protect. Bassario then offered Renco something to appraise. When I saw what it was, I stopped dead in my tracks. Then I blinked my eyes twice and looked again for I was sure that they were playing a trick on me. But they were not. They most certainly were not. For there in Bassario’s hands, right before my eyes, was an exact replica of Renco’s idol. Of course, Renco had planned it all, conceived it from the very beginning. I remembered our brief stop in the quarry town of Colco very early in our journey, remembered seeing Renco obtain a sackfull of sharpedged objects. And I distinctly remembered wondering at the time why we were wasting our precious time collecting rocks! But now I understood. Renco had obtained a collection of rocks from the quarry which had most imitated the strange black-and-purple stone from which the idol had been carved. Then he had given those stones to the criminal Bassario and commissioned him to carve an identical copy of the idol with which, presumably, he would bamboozle Hernando. It was brilliant. I also realised then what Bassario had been doing throughout our journey, at those times when he would skulk off to a corner of our camp and huddle over a small fire with his back to us. He had been carving his copy of the idol. And truly, it must be said, what a remarkable copy it was. The snarling jaws of the cat, the knifelike teeth. All of it carved out of a most lustrous kind of black and purple stone. And for a moment, all I could do was stare at the false idol and wonder what kind of master criminal Bassario had been.

‘How long until you are finished?’ Renco inquired of Bassario. As Renco spoke, I noticed that the replica still required some finishing touches around the cat’s jawline.

‘Not long,’ the criminal answered. ‘It will be done by dawn.’

‘You have half that time,’ said Renco, turning away from Bassario and looking at the assembled group of survivors gathered behind him in the citadel. It did not give him much hope. Before him stood Vilcafor—old and vain and frail—and seven Inca warriors, those who had been lucky enough to be inside the citadel when the rapas had first attacked. In addition to the seven warriors, however, Renco saw only an assortment of frightened looking older men, women and children.

‘Renco,’ I whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’

My brave companion pursed his lips in thought. Then he spoke thusly: ‘We are going to put an end to all this suffering. Once and for all.’

And with that, while Bassario worked feverishly to finish his replica of the idol, Renco began to organise the surviving members of Vilcafor. ‘Now listen,’ said he as they gathered around him in a tight circle, ‘the goldeaters will be here by sunrise. By my reckoning, that gives us less than two hours to prepare for their arrival. ‘Women, children and older kin—you will enter the quenko under the direction of my sister and get as far away from the village as possible. ‘Warriors,’ he said, turning to face the seven surviving warriors of the village. ‘You will come with me, to this temple that Vilcafor speaks of. If these rapas come from within that building, then we will just have to put them back inside it. We shall lure them into the temple with the song of the wet idol and then we shall shut them back inside it. Now go, gather together whatever weapons you can muster.’ The warriors hurried off.

‘Lena,’ said Renco. ‘Yes, brother?’

His beautiful sister appeared at his side. She smiled at me as she arrived, her eyes gleaming.

‘I’ll need the largest bladder you can find,’ said Renco. ‘Filled with rainwater.’

‘It will be done,’ said Lena, hastening away.

‘What about Hernando?’ I inquired of Renco.

‘What if he arrives while we are engaged in returning the rapas to their lair?’ Said Renco, ‘If, as my sister reports, he is following us with Chanca trackers, then as soon as he arrives here, he will know in which direction we have gone. Trust me, good Alberto, I am counting on such action. For when he finds me, he shall find an idol with me… and by my word, I shall give him that idol.’

‘Hernando is a cold, callous man, Renco,’ said I, ‘vicious and remorseless. You cannot expect honour from him. Once you give him the idol, he will kill you for sure.’

‘I know.’

‘But then why—’

‘My friend, what is the greater good?’ said Renco softly. His face was kind, his voice calm. ‘That I live and Hernando gets my people’s idol? Or that I die and he gets a worthless replica of it?’ He smiled at me. ‘Personally, I would rather live, but I am afraid that there is more at stake here than just my life.’ The citadel became a hive of activity as the people of Vilcafor went about preparing themselves for what was to come. Renco himself went off to brief the town’s warriors more fully. As he did so, I took the opportunity to join Bassario for a short while and watch him fashion his replica of the idol. Truth be told—and God forgive me for this—I had an ulterior motive for speaking to him. ‘Bassario,’ I whispered hesitantly, ‘does… does Lena have a husband?’

Bassario shot me an impish grin. ‘Why, monk, you old rascal,’ said he in a full voice. I begged him in hushed tones not to speak so loudly. Bassario, as one would expect of such a rogue, was highly amused.

‘She once had a husband,’ said he eventually. ‘But their marriage ended many moons ago, before the arrival of goldeaters. Lena’s husband’s name was Huarca and he was a promising young warrior, and their marriage insofar as an arranged marriage can be was viewed as one of great promise. Little did anyone know, however, that Huarca was prone to fits of rage. After the birth of their son, Huarca began to beat Lena savagely. It was said that Lena would endure these beatings in order to protect Mani from his father’s fury. Apparently she succeeded in this aim. Huarca never beat the boy once.’

‘Why did she not leave him?’ I inquired. ‘After all, she is a princess of your people.’

‘Huarca threatened to kill the boy if Lena told anyone about the beatings.’

Good Lord, I thought. ‘So what happened then?’ I inquired.

‘It was all uncovered by accident, really,’ said Bassario. ‘One day Renco called on Lena unexpectedly—only to find her cowering in a corner of her home, cradling her son in her arms. She had tears in her eyes and her face was bloody and bruised. ‘Huarca was captured immediately and sentenced to death. I believe he was ultimately dropped into a pit with a pair of hungry jungle cats. They tore him limb from limb.’

Bassario shook his head. ‘Monk, the man who beats his wife is the lowest form of coward—the lowest form. I should think Huarca met a fitting end.’

I left Bassario to his work and repaired to a corner of the citadel to ready myself for the coming mission. After a short time, Renco joined me to do the same. He was still wearing the Spanish attire that he had stolen from the prison hulk many weeks ago—the brown leather vest, the white pantaloons, the knee-high leather boots. The extra clothing, he once told me, had been of immense value to him during our arduous trek through the rainforest. He slipped a quiver over his shoulder, began putting his sword belt on around his waist.

‘Renco?’ said I.

‘Yes?’

‘Why was Bassario in prison?’

‘Ah, Bassario…’ he sighed sadly. I waited for him to elaborate. ‘Believe it or not, but Bassario was once a prince,’ Renco said. ‘A most esteemed young prince. Indeed, his father was no less than the Royal Stonemason, a brilliant builder and fashioner of stone, the most venerated engineer in the empire. Bassario was his son and protégé, and soon he too became a brilliant stonemason. Why, by the age of sixteen, he had surpassed his father in knowledge and skill, despite the fact that his father was the Royal Stonemason, the man who built citadels for the Sapa Inca! ‘But Bassario was reckless. He was a brilliant sports man—indeed as an archer he had no peer—but like many of his ilk, he was prone to drinking and gambling and disporting with the pretty young maidens of Cuzco’s more raucous quarters. Unfortunately for him, however, his success with women was not mirrored at the gambling houses. He accumulated a monstrous debt with some less than reputable fellows. Then, when the debt became too great for him to repay, those rogues decided that Bassario would repay it another way—with his considerable talents.’

‘How?’

‘Bassario repaid them by using his brilliant stonemasonry skills to carve forgeries of famous statues and priceless treasures. Emerald or gold, silver or jade, whatever the substance, Bassario could replicate even the most complex object. ‘Once he had copied a famous statue, his nefarious colleagues would break into the home of the real idol’s owner and substitute Bassario’s fake for the real one. ‘Their scheme worked for almost a year and the criminals profited immensely from it until one day, Bassario’s “friends” were discovered in the home of the Sapa Inca’s cousin, caught in the act of switching a fake idol for the real one. ‘Bassario’s role in the scheme was soon uncovered. He was sent to prison and his entire family disgraced. His father was removed as Royal Stonemason and stripped of his titles. My brother, the Sapa Inca, decreed that Bassario’s family were to be relocated from their home in the royal quarter to one of Cuzco’s roughest slums.’

I took this all in silently. Renco went on, ‘I thought that the penalty was too harsh and told my brother so, but he wanted to make an example of Bassario and he ignored my pleas.’ Renco gazed over at Bassario, working away in the corner of the citadel. ‘Bassario was once a very noble young man. Flawed certainly, but essentially noble. That was why when it became my duty to rescue the idol from the Coricancha, I decided that I would use his talents to aid my quest. I reasoned that if the criminal elements of Cuzco could employ his skills to suit their own ends, then I most certainly could too, in my mission to rescue my people’s Spirit.’ At length Bassario finished his replica of the idol. When he was done, he brought the fake idol—together with the real one—over to Renco. Renco held both idols out in front of him. I looked at them over his shoulder and truly such was Bassario’s skill that I could not tell which was the real one and which was the fraud. Bassario retired to his corner of the citadel and began gathering his things together—his sword, his quiver, his longbow.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ inquired Renco, seeing him stand.

‘I’m leaving,’ said Bassario simply.

‘But I need your help,’ said Renco.

‘Vilcafor says that his men had to remove a great boulder from the temple’s entrance and that it took ten men to do so. I am going to need as many again if I am to roll it back into place. I need your help.’

‘I feel that I have done more than my share in your quest, noble prince,’ said Bassario. ‘Escaping Cuzco, traversing the mountains, charging blindly through the perilous forests. And all the while making a fake idol for you. No, I have done my share, and now I am leaving.’

‘Have you no loyalty to your people?’

‘My people put me in jail, Renco,’ Bassario retorted harshly. ‘Then they punished my family for my crime—banished them to live in the filthiest, roughest quarter of Cuzco. My sister was molested in that slum, my father and mother beaten and robbed. The robbers even broke my father’s fingers, so that he could no longer fashion stone. He was left to beg—to beg for scraps to feed his family. I have no grudge against my own punishment, no grudge at all, but then I also have no loyalty whatsoever to the society that punished my family for a crime that was mine and mine alone.’

‘I am sorry’ said Renco softly. “I did not know of these incidents. But please, Bassario, the idol, the Spirit of the People.’

‘It is your quest, Renco. Not mine. I have done enough for you, more than enough. I think I have earned my freedom. Follow your own destiny and allow me to follow mine.’ And with those sharp words, Bassario shouldered his longbow and climbed down into the quenko and disappeared into the darkness. Renco did not attempt to stop him. He just looked after him, his face awash with sadness. Now it was that the rest of us were all prepared for our confrontation with the rapas. All that remained was one final touch. I picked up the small bladder of monkey urine that the toothless old man had given to me earlier that night and opened its cap. At once, an utterly vile odour assaulted my olfactory pas sages. I winced at the odour and despaired at the prospect of pouring the foulsmelling liquid over my body. But Idid so nonetheless. And oh, how putrid it was! It was no wonder the rapas detested it. Renco chuckled at my discomfiture. Then he took the small bladder from me and began dousing himself in the stinking yellow liquid. The bladder was passed to the other warriors who would be venturing up into the mountains and the too, began bathing themselves in the foul, reeking liquid. As all was approaching readiness, Lena returned with a much larger animal bladder—a llama’s bladder, I guessed— also filled with liquid.

‘The rainwater you requested,’ said she to Renco.

‘Good,’ Renco said, taking the llama’s bladder from her. ‘Then we are ready to go.”

Renco poured a trickle of rainwater from the llama’s bladder over the real idol. It hummed to life instantly, singing its melodious song. The interior of the citadel was empty. Lena had already sent the women, children and old folk of the village down into the quenko to commence their journey into its labyrinthine tunnels, a journey that would ultimately take them to the waterfall at the edge of the tableland. Lena herself had stayed behind in the citadel, ready to shut the door stone after us.

‘All right,’ said Renco, nodding to the pair of Incan warriors manning the door stone. ‘Now.’

At that moment, the two Incan warriors rolled the big stone aside, revealing the dark night outside. The rapas were right there! Waiting for us. Gathered in a wide circle immediately outside the citadel’s stone doorframe. I counted twelve of them—twelve enormous blackcats, each possessed of demonic yellow eyes, high pointed ears and powerful muscular shoulders.

Renco held the singing idol out in front of him and the rapas stared at it, transfixed. Then, abruptly, the idol stopped its singing and equally suddenly, the rapas broke out of their trances and started a low growling. Renco quickly doused the idol with more water from the llama’s bladder and the idol’s song resumed and the rapas lapsed into their hypnosis once again. My heart also started beating again. Then, with the idol in his hands and the seven Incan warriors and myself in tow behind him, Renco stepped through the citadel’s doorway and out into the cold night air. The rain had stopped—at long last—and the clouds had parted somewhat, revealing the starry night sky and a brilliant full moon. With flaming torches held high above our heads, we made our way through the village and onto a narrow path that ran alongside the river. The rapas were all around us, moving with slow, deliberate steps, keeping their bodies low to the ground while at the same time keeping their eyes fixed on the singing idol in Renco’s hands. My fear was extreme. Nay, it must be said that I have never been more terrified in my life. To be surrounded by a pack of such enormous, dangerous creatures, creatures totally devoid of pity or mercy, creatures that killed without the slightest hesitation. They were so big! In the flickering firelight of our torches the muscles on their shoulders and flanks rippled orange. Their breathing was loud too—a kind of deep chested braying sound not unlike that of a horse. As we walked along the riverside path, I looked behind me and saw Lena standing at the edge of the village holding a torch, watching after us. After a few moments, however, she vanished from my view—having decided, I imagined, to go back to the citadel and carry out her duties there. We continued on our journey up to the mysterious temple. Along the path we went. Nine men—Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors— surrounded by the pack of rapas. We came to the mountainside, to a narrow passageway set into the rock face. One of the Incan warriors told Renco that the temple was to be found at the other end of this passageway. Renco doused the idol once again. It sang loudly, its high pitched tone cutting through the early morning air. Then he entered the passageway, the cats trailing close behind him like children following a schoolteacher. As we walked down the narrow passageway by the light of our flaming torches, one of the Incan warriors foolishly attempted to stab one of the entranced rapas with the point of his spear—but just as he was about to drive his weapon into the beast’s flank, the rapa turned on him and snarled ferociously, stopping him in mid-lunge. The big cat then just turned forward and resumed its enraptured pursuit of the singing idol. The warrior exchanged a glance with one of his companions. The rapas might have been entranced, but they were not totally defenceless. Now it was that we emerged from the narrow passageway into a wide circular canyon of some kind. As the chieftain Vilcafor had said, a most incredible finger of stone shot up out of the middle of it, soaring high into the night sky. A path was cut into the canyon wall to our left—the .escape path Vilcafor had ordered his people to build. It curled around the circumference of the cylindrical canyon, spiralling up and around the finger of stone in its centre. Renco mounted the path, stepping slowly upward, holding the wet idol in his hands. The cats followed him. The Incan warriors and myself walked slowly up the path behind them. Up and up we went. Round and round, following the steady curve of the path. At length we came to a rope bridge that stretched out over the canyon, connecting the outer path to the finger of stone in the middle of the great canyon.

I looked out across the ravine at the stone tower opposite me. On top of the tower, surrounded by some lowcut foliage, I saw a magnificent stepped pyramid not unlike those found in the lands of the Aztecas. A boxshaped tabernacle was mounted atop the imposing triangular pyramid. Renco crossed the bridge first. The cats followed him, one by one, bouncing with supreme surefootedness across the long swooping bridge. The warriors went next. I crossed last of all. Once I had navigated my way across the bridge, I mounted a series of wide stone steps which opened onto a clearing of some sort. At the head of this clearing lay the portal to the temple, the entrance. Wide and dark, square and menacing, it yawned open as if daring all the world to enter. With the wet idol in his hands, Renco approached the portal.

‘Warriors,’ said he and firmly, ‘man the boulder.’ The seven warriors and my humble self hurried over to the boulder that stood to the side of the temple’s yawning entryway. Renco stood in the mouth of the portal, dousing the idol with rainwater, causing it to continue its melodious song. The cats stood before him, staring at the singing idol, hypnotised. Renco took a step inside the temple. The cats followed him. Renco took another step down and the first cat went inside after him. Another step. A second cat, then a third, then a fourth. At which stage Renco tipped as much water as was left inside the llama’s bladder over the idol, and then—after taking a final solemn glance at his people’s most prized possession—he hurled it down into the dark depths of the temple. The cats leapt inside the temple after it. All twelve of them.

‘Quickly, the boulder!’ Renco cried, hurrying out of the temple’s entrance. ‘Push it back into the portal!’

We pushed as one. The boulder rumbled against the threshold. I leaned on it with all my might, straining against the weight of the great stone. Renco appeared beside me, also heaving against it. The boulder moved slowly back into the portal. A few more paces to go. Almost there… Just a couple.., more…

‘Renco,’ a voice said suddenly from somewhere nearby. It was a woman’s voice. Renco and I turned together. And we saw Lena standing at the edge of the clearing.

‘Lena?’ Renco said. ‘What are you doing up here? I thought I asked you to—’

At that moment, Lena was shoved roughly aside, thrown to the ground, and suddenly I saw a man standing on the stone steps behind her, and in that single, solitary instant, every ounce of blood in my veins turned to ice. I was looking at Hernando Pizarro. A stream of about twenty conquistadors poured out from the foliage behind Lena and spread out around the clearing, their muskets raised and pointed at our faces. The firelight of their torches illuminated the entire clearing. They were accompanied by three olive skinned natives who each had long, sharp spikes of bone protruding from their cheeks. Chancas. The Chanca trackers Hernando had employed to follow our trail to Vilcafor. Last of all—nay, most ominously of all—came another olive skinned man. He was taller than the others, bigger, with a long shock of matted black hair that came down to his shoulders. He also had a spike of bone thrust through his left cheek.

It was Castino. The brutish Chanca who had been in the same prison hulk as Renco at the beginning of our adventure, the one who had overheard Renco say that the idol was in the Coricancha in Cuzco. The conquistadors and the Chancas formed a wide circle around Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors. It was then that I noticed how filthy they all looked. To a man, the conquistadors were covered in mud and grime. And they looked worn and exhausted, weary beyond measure. Whence I realised—this was all that remained of Hernando’s hundredstrong legion. On their march through the mountains and the forests, Hernando’s men had died all around him. From disease, from starvation, or just from sheer exhaustion. This was all that remained of his legion. Twenty men. Hernando stepped forward, yanking Lena to her feet as he did so. Dragging her behind him, he approached the temple and stood before Renco, staring imperiously down at him. Hernando was a full head taller than Renco and twice as broad. He shoved Lena roughly into Renco’s arms. For my part, I cast a fearful glance at the temple’s portal. It was still partially open, the gap between the boulder and the great stone doorway easily wide enough for a rapa to fit through. This was not good. If the water drained off the idol and it stopped its song, the rapas would break out of their spells and ‘At last we meet,’ said Hernando to Renco in Spanish.

‘You have evaded me for far too long, young prince. You will die slowly.’ Renco said nothing.

‘And you, monk,’ said Hernando, rounding on me. ‘You are a traitor to your country and to your God. You will die even more slowly.’

I swallowed back my fear. Hernando turned back to Renco. ‘The idol. Give it to me.’

Renco didn’t flinch. He just slowly reached into the pouch on his belt and extracted the false idol. Hernando’s eyes lit up as he saw it. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he began to salivate. ‘Give it to me,’ said he. Renco stepped forward. ‘On your knees.’ Slowly, despite the sheer humiliation that attended it, Renco knelt down and offered the idol to the standing Hernando. Hernando took it from him, his eyes gleaming with greed as he stared at his long sought after prize. After a few moments, he glanced up from the idol and turned to one of his men.

‘Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir?” the sergeant standing nearest to him replied.

‘Execute them.’

My hands were bound together with a long length of rope. Renco’s were too. Lena was snatched away from Renco by two of the Spanish soldiers, and the two brutes goaded her with foul uttering’s of what they would do to her once Renco and I were dead, uttering’s which I dare not repeat here. Renco and I were made to kneel before a large rectangular stone in the middle of the clearing, a stone that looked like a low altar. The Spanish sergeant stood over me, his sabre drawn.

‘You, Chanca,’ said Hernando, tossing a sword to Castino. Ever since he had arrived in the clearing, the vile Chanca had been eyeing Renco with pure unadulterated hatred.

‘You may dispose of the prince.’

‘Gladly,’ said Castino in Spanish, catching the sword and marching quickly over to the altar stone.

‘Cut their hands off first,’ said Hernando judiciously. ‘I would like to hear them scream before they die.’

Our two executioners nodded as two more conquistadors pulled Renco and myself into position—yanking on our bonds so that our arms were stretched out across the wide altar. Our wrists were now totally exposed, our hands ready to be excised from our bodies.

“Alberto,’ said Renco softly.

‘Yes.’

‘My friend, before we die, I would like you to know that it has been an honour and a joy to have known you. What you have done for my people will be remembered for generations. For that I thank you.’

‘My brave friend,’ I replied, ‘if the circumstances were to repeat themselves, I would do it all again. May God look after you in heaven.’

‘And you too,’ said Renco.

‘And you too.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Hernando to our executioners. ‘Remove their hands.’

The sergeant and the Chanca raised their glistening swords at the same time, raised them high above their heads.

‘Wait!’ someone called suddenly. At that moment, one of the other conquistadors hurried over to the altar. He appeared older than his fellow soldiers more grizzled—a wily old fox of a man. He ran directly over to Renco. He had spied the emerald pendant looped around my companion’s neck. The old conquistador quickly lifted the leather necklace over Renco’s head, smiling greedily at him as he did so.

‘Thank you, savage,’ he sneered as he placed the emerald pendant around his own neck and scurried back to his position over by the temple’s portal. Our two executioners looked over to Hernando for the signal. But strangely, Hernando wasn’t watching them anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at Renco or myself either. He was just staring off to our right—at the temple—his mouth agape. I spun to see what it was he was looking at.

‘Oh, my Lord…’ I breathed. One of the rapas was standing in the half opened mouth of the portal, peering curiously at the assembled mass of humanity before it. It loomed large in the doorway—its powerful forelimbs splayed wide, its shoulders bunched with muscle—but its appearance at that moment was oddly comical, chiefly because it was holding something in its mouth. It was the idol. The real idol. The great black cat—previously so terrifying and vicious—now looked like a humble retriever bringing a stick back to its owner. Indeed, the rapa just held the idol dumbly in its mouth, as if it were looking for someone who might wet it again and thus make it sing. Hernando just gazed at the cat—or rather, at the idol that it held between its mighty jaws. And then, all of a sudden, his eyes swept from the rapa and the idol in its mouth to the idol that he held in his own hands, and from it to Renco and myself, a wash of understanding spreading across his face. He knew. He knew that he had been deceived. The big Spaniard’s face went red with fury as he glared at Renco and me.

‘Kill them!” he roared to our executioners. ‘Kill them now!’

It was at that exact moment that a myriad of things happened at once. Our executioners raised their swords again—reaimed at our necks now—and had just begun to bring their blades down in two great swinging arcs when abruptly a sharp whistling sound cut through the air above my head. Not a moment later, with a powerful thud, an arrow lodged itself in the nose of my executioner, sending a garish fountain of blood exploding from his face and hurling him clear off his feet. For its part, the rapa in the portal—after seeing the crowd of people standing in the clearing before it and sensing another tasty human meal—immediately dropped the idol from its mouth and leapt ferociously at the nearest Spaniard, not a moment before the eleven other rapas rushed out from within the temple one after the other after the other— and commenced their own attack on the crowd of conquistadors.

Castino had seen the other executioner drop to the ground beside him, struck by the arrow, and had momentarily halted his lunge at Renco’s neck, a look of stunned incomprehension on his face. I knew what he was thinking. Who had fired the arrow? And from where? Castino obviously decided he would answer these questions later, after he had killed Renco. He quickly raised his blade again and brought it down with tremendous force— whence another arrow slammed into his sword’s hilt and sent it flying from his grasp. Not a moment later, a third arrow whistled down from somewhere above us and struck the rope binding Renco’s hands together, cutting it cleanly in two, releasing him. Renco immediately leapt to his feet, just as Castino—now swordless—swung at him with one of his gigantic fists. Renco quickly yanked the conquistador who had been holding him to the altar in between himself and the oncoming blow, and Castino’s mighty knuckles hit the conquistador square in the face, shattering his nose in an instant, pummelling it into the back of his skull, killing him with a single blow! Just then another conquistador levelled his musket at Renco and fired at exactly the same time as Renco pivoted on the spot—bringing the dead conquistador around in front of him, using him as a shield—and the musket’s shot opened up a ragged red hole in the centre of the dead soldier’s chest. As Renco went off to join the fight, the conquistador holding my wrists across the altar drew his sword and glared at me with evil intent. But then faster than a man can blink—an arrowhead exploded out from the centre of his face and the conquistador flopped down onto the altar stone in front of me, facedown, an arrow sticking out from the back of his head. I looked up into the darkness beyond him, searching for the source of the arrows. And I saw him. Saw the figure of a man positioned up on the rim of the canyon. He was silhouetted against the moon, crouched on one knee with a longbow extended in the firing position and an arrow drawn back to his ear. It was Bassario! I gave a cheer, and then I immediately set about unravelling my bonds. It cannot be understated the carnage that was going on around me at this time. It was mayhem. Pure and utter mayhem. The clearing in front of the temple had become a battlefield—a ferocious, bloody battlefield. Fighting went on everywhere, in about a dozen separate battles. Over by the temple, the rapas had already killed five of the conquistadors, and now they were attacking four more Spaniards and their three Chanca trackers. Elsewhere in the clearing, the seven Incan warriors— avoided by the rapas due to the monkey urine that covered their bodies—fought with the remaining Spaniards. Some of them fell as the conquistadors fired their muskets into them, others hacked into their Spanish foes with rocks or stones or whatever weapons they could lay their hands on.

Despite all the murder and bloodshed that I had seen on my travels throughout New Spain, this was indeed the most brutal and primal example of combat that I had ever witnessed. Beside me, Renco and Castino had both picked up swords and were now engaged in the most ferocious of swordfights. Castino, taller than my brave companion by at least two heads, held his sword two handed and unleashed upon Renco a rain of powerful blows. But Renco parried well done handed, just as I had taught him—dancing backwards in the mud like a classical Spanish fencer, maintaining his balance as he retreated toward the foliage. As I finally released the rope from my left wrist and stood, I realised just what a keen student Renco had been. It was clear to me now that the pupil by far outclassed the teacher. His swordsmanship was dazzling. For every mighty blow that Castino threw at him, Renco would quickly bring up his sword—just in time to stop it. The two men’s swords clashed with ferocious intensity. Castino swung, Renco parried. Castino lunged, Renco danced. And then Castino unleashed a devilish blow, a blow so hard and swift that it would have taken the head off any ordinary man. But not Renco. His reflexes were too quick. He ducked under the blow and in the fleeting instant that followed, he leapt forward, up onto a low rock and launched himself into the air, negating the height difference between himself and Castino, his blade cutting through the air so swiftly it whistled, and before I even knew what was happening, I saw his sword embedded horizontally in the tree trunk behind Castino’s neck. Castino just stood there, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. A moment later, his sword dropped out of his hand. And then abruptly his entire body just dropped away from beneath his ugly head. Renco had cut his head clean off his shoulders!

I almost cheered. Which is to say I would have cheered, had I not had other things with which to deal. I spun to survey the battlefield around me. Small battles were still being waged all over the clearing—but the only obvious victors seemed to be the rapas. It was then that I saw the idol. The real idol. It lay on the threshold of the portal, tilted over onto its side, at the exact spot where it had fallen from the rapa’s mouth earlier. With the length of rope still tied to my right wrist—it was about two paces long—I grabbed a sword and a torch from the ground beside me and ran for the temple, through the clashing of blades and the screams of the ravaged conquistadors. I reached the portal and fell to the ground next to the idol, grabbed it just as one of the Spanish soldiers rammed into me from behind, bowling both of us in through the portal and into the temple! The two of us tumbled down a set of wide stone steps, down into the darkness of the temple, a tangled mix of arms, legs, idol and torch. We hit the bottom of the stairs and fell apart. We were inside a dark stonewalled tunnel of some sort. My foe clambered to his feet first so that he now stood against the wall, in front of a small alcove set into it. I was still sprawled out on the floor, flat on my behind, with the idol sitting in my lap. As the Spanish soldier stood over me, I saw the emerald necklace looped around his neck and I recognised him instantly. He was the wily older soldier who had relieved Renco of his priceless pendant earlier. The old fox drew his sword, raised it high. I was defenceless, completely exposed. At that moment, with an obscenely loud roar, something very large leapt over my head from behind and rammed into the conquistador at frightening speed. A rapa.

The cat hit the Spaniard with such colossal force that he was thrown back into the alcove behind him. His head struck the wall with the most sickening of sounds and just exploded, cracking like an egg, a foul spray of blood and brains shooting out from the hole that was instantaneously created in the back of his skull. The wily old soldier collapsed into the alcove, but he was well and truly dead by the time he reached the floor. The cat began to ravage him on the spot, its tail licking back and forth behind its body as it did so. I seized the moment, grabbed hold of the idol and charged back up the stairs, out of the temple. I burst out into the night, thankful to have escaped death once again. But my revelry was shortlived. No sooner was I out of the portal than I heard a sharp click click from somewhere behind me, followed quickly by a coarse shout of ‘Monk!’

I spun. And saw Hernando Pizarro standing before me with a pistol in his hand, levelled right at my chest. Then, before I could so much as move, I saw a flash of fire flare out from the end of the pistol, heard its loud report echo out all around me, and almost immediately I felt a tremendous weight slam into my chest and I was thrown backwards. I collapsed to the ground instantly, after which I saw nothing but clouds—dark storm clouds rolling across the starry night sky above me and it was at that moment that I realised to my extreme horror that I had just been shot. I lay on my back, my teeth clenched in agony, looking up at the cloudstrewn sky, a searing, burning pain shooting through my chest. Hernando bent over me and took the idol from my loose grasp. As he did so, he slapped me lustily across the face and said, ‘Die slowly, monk.” Then he was gone. I lay on the stone steps in front of the temple, waiting for the life to drain out of me, waiting for the pain to become unbearable. But then for some reason that was beyond my ken, my strength, rather than fading, began to return. The searing pain in my chest subsided and I sat up instantly and patted my chest at the point where the bullet had created a hole in my cloak. I felt something there. Something soft and thick and square. I extracted it from my cloak. It was my Bible. My three hundred page, handwritten, leather bound Bible. In the centre of it was a tattered round hole that looked like the burrow of a worm. At the farthest extremity of the burrow I saw a warped sphere of dull grey lead. Hernando’s bullet. My Bible had stopped his bullet! Praised be the Word of the Lord. I leapt to my feet, exhilarated in the moment. I looked for my sword, couldn’t find it anywhere, gazed out over the clearing. I saw Renco on the far side of the clearing, fighting with two swords against two sabre wielding conquistadors. Two Incan warriors grappled with a pair of Spaniards not far from where I stood—they seemed to be the only other men left alive on the rock tower. And then I saw Hernando—with the idol in his hands— hurrying away into the foliage to my right, dashing down the stone stairway there.

My eyes went wide. He was going for the rope bridge. If he got there, he would almost certainly cut the bridge and leave us stranded on the tower, stranded with the rapas. I hurried after him, bounding across the clearing, hurdling a rapa as it lay on the ground tearing into the body of a dead conquistador. I flew down the stone steps two at a time, my heart racing, my legs pounding, chasing after Hernando. As I rounded a bend in the stairs, I saw him about ten paces in front of me, stepping out onto the rope bridge. Hernando was large and muscular, and he moved as such. I was smaller, more nimble, faster. I gained on him quickly and dashed out onto the bridge after him, at which moment, with absolutely nothing else to call on, I hurled myself—swordless—at his back. I collided with him most heavily and we fell together onto the thin floorboards of the rope bridge, high above the canyon floor. But such was the weight of our landing that the floor boards beneath us shattered like twigs and to my utter horror we fell straight through them, down into the abyss… But our fall was brief. With a sudden, jarring jolt the two of us came to an abrupt halt. In the terror of our fall, Hernando had reached out for a handhold, had grasped for anything that would stop his fall. What he had found was the free end of the rope that was still tied to my right wrist. Now the rope lay stretched over a lone floorboard on the rope bridge, with Hernando and myself dangling from both of its extremities! And so we hung there like counterweights hanging from a pulley, at different ends of the same rope, with dangling cords of the partially broken rope bridge hanging down all around us. Through force of luck—bad luck in my case I hung below Hernando, my head down near his dangling knees. Hernando hung up higher, just below the remaining floor boards of the bridge. I saw that he had the idol in his left hand, while he held onto my rope with his right. He reached up with his left hand, trying desperately to loop the idol over the rope bridge’s surviving floorboards and garner a handhold. Once he succeeded in doing that, I realised, he would be safe to let me fall. At present, my weight—small though it was compared to his—was the only thing holding him up. I had to do something. And quickly.

‘Why are you doing this, monk!’ Hernando roared as he reached for his salvation, so close now. ‘What do you care about this idol! I would kill for it!’

As he raged, I saw one of the thin cords dangling down from the rope bridge above us one of the cords that had previously held up the bridge’s handrail. If I could just…

‘You would kill for it, would you, Hernando?’ said I, trying to distract him as I endeavoured to untie the length of rope that was tied around my right wrist—the rope that connected me to Hernando. ‘That means nothing to me!’

‘No?’ he shouted. It was a race now, a race to see who would get to his objective first— Hernando to the floorboard above us, me to untie the rope that joined us together.

‘No!’ I called back—just as I succeeded in releasing myself from the length of rope.

‘Why, monk?’

‘Because, Hernando, I would die for it.’

And with that, having now freed myself from the rope tied to my wrist, I reached out for the thin cord dangling down from the bridge above me and grabbed hold of while at exactly the same moment I released my grip on the length of rope connecting me to Hernando. The response was instantaneous. With the counterweight at the other end of his rope now gone, Hernando fell. Straight down. He fell past me, his body a streaking blur of screaming humanity, and as a fitting final insult, as he whistled by in front of me, I reached out and plucked the idol from his grasp.

‘Noooooo!’ Hernando screamed as he fell. And as I hung there above the abyss—dangling one handed from the rope bridge’s cord, holding the sacred idol in my free hand—I watched the look of absolute terror on his face get smaller and smaller until, finally, it disappeared into the dark abyss beneath me and soon all I could hear was his screaming. It would stop a moment later at the same time as I heard a distant, sickening splat. I arrived back in the clearing some time later, the idol in my hand. The sight which greeted me was like a glimpse of the underworld itself. In the flickering light of the torches that littered the clearing, I saw the rapas kneeling over the ranks of dead conquistadors, gorging themselves on fresh human flesh. Pointed silver helmets lay strewn everywhere, glinting in the firelight. It was then that I saw Renco and Lena and three of the Incan warriors standing over by the portal, holding swords and muskets in their hands—the only survivors of the cats rage, thanks largely to their fighting skills and the layer of monkey urine that covered them. They appeared to be searching for something. The idol no doubt.

‘Renco!’ I called.

‘Lena!’

I regretted it as soon as I did it. One of the rapas lying on the ground in front of me immediately looked up from his feasting, disturbed by my shout. The massive beast rose to its feet, glared at me. Another cat beyond it did the same. Then another, and another. The pack of giant cats formed a wide circle around me. They held their heads low, their ears pinned back. I saw Renco turn and see my predicament. But he was too far away to be of any help. I wondered why my own layer of monkey urine was no longer keeping the cats at bay. Perhaps it had been scraped away during my scuffle with the wily old conquistador inside the temple or maybe it had rubbed off when I had fallen to the ground after being shot by Hernando. Whatever the case, I thought, this was it, this was the end. The lead rapa tensed its whole body, prepared itself to pounce. And then— the first drop of water hit the top of my head with a loud smack. It was closely followed by a second drop and then a third, then a fourth. And then, like a gift from God himself, the skies parted and the rain came tumbling down. Oh, how it rained! It came down in sheets—thick drenching sheets—big fat drops of water hammering down on the rock tower with tremendous force, smacking down against my head, smacking down against the idol. And at that moment, thank the Lord, the idol began to sing. Its song becalmed the cats instantly. They all just peered at the dripping idol in my hands, their heads cocked to one side in response to its melodious highpitched hum. Renco, Lena and the three warriors came over to where I stood, shielding their torches against the rain, skirting around the pack of entranced rapas. I noticed that Renco held Bassario’s fake idol in his hand.

‘Thank you, Alberto,’ said he, taking the singing idol from me. ‘I think I shall take that now.’

Beside him, Lena smiled at me, her beautiful olive skin sparkling in the rainstorm.

‘So, you defeated the big gold eater to save our idol,’ she said. ‘Is there anything you cannot do, my brave little hero?’ As she said these words, she suddenly leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips. My heart almost skipped a beat as her lips pressed themselves firmly against mine. My knees felt weak. I almost fell over, so delightful was the touch of her lips.

As Lena was kissing me so beautifully, however, a voice from somewhere behind me said: ‘Come now, monk. I thought that wasn’t allowed for men of your ilk.’

I turned to see Bassario standing on the stone steps behind me, his longbow slung over his shoulder, his face creased into a broad smile. ‘We reserve the right to make exceptions,’ said I. Bassario laughed.

Renco turned to face him. ‘Thank you for returning to help us, Bassario. Your arrows saved our lives. What made you return?’

Bassario shrugged. ‘As I reached the waterfall at the end of the quenko, I saw the gold eaters approaching from the other side of the river. Then I supposed that if by some miracle you survived all of this, people would sing songs about you. I decided that I wanted to be a part of those songs. To be remembered for something other than disgracing my family name, and at the same time, to restore that name to honour.’

‘You succeeded on both counts,’ said Renco. ‘You truly did. Now, however, may I beg your indulgence one more time and ask of you one final favour.’ As he spoke, Renco—holding a torch in one arm and both idols in the other—began to back away from the rest of us and headed through the rain toward the portal. On his way, he picked up the llama’s bladder from where it had been dropped during the battle and allowed it to fill with the pouring rain. The cats immediately began to follow him—or rather, follow the singing idol in his hands.

‘Once I am inside the temple,” said Renco as he walked, ‘I want you all to shut the boulder behind me.’

I looked from Renco to the three remaining Incan warriors beside me. ‘What are you going to do?’ said I.

‘I am going to ensure that no one ever gets this idol,’ said Renco. ‘I will use it to lure the cats into the temple. Then, when they are all inside, I want you to push the boulder back into the portal.’

‘But—’

‘Trust me, Alberto,’ he said, his voice calm as he moved slowly toward the portal with the pack of rapas slinking along behind him. ‘We shall see each other again, I promise.’

And with that, Renco stepped up into the open mouth of the temple. The cats crowded in all around him, oblivious to the pouring rain. Lena, Bassario, the three warriors and myself hastened over to the boulder. Renco stood in the entrance to the temple and gave me one final look. He smiled sadly. ‘Take care, my friend,’ said he. And then he was gone, disappearing into the darkness between the boulder and the great stone portal. The cats followed him into the temple one by one.

When the last cat disappeared inside the portal, Bassario called, ‘All right, heave!’

The six of us leaned on the massive boulder, pushed against it with all our might. The big boulder rumbled loudly against the stone floor. It was fortunate that we did not have to push it very far—only a couple of paces—otherwise we might not have been able to do it with only six people. But Bassario and the Incan warriors were strong. And Lena and I pushed with all the strength we had, and slowly, very slowly, the boulder began to fill the squareshaped portal. As we proceeded to seal the temple with the great stone, I heard the song of the idol inside it growing softer and softer. Then abruptly the boulder sealed the portal fully, and as it did so, it stifled the song of the idol completely, and with the ceasing of that song, a great sadness came over me, for I knew then, in that moment, that I would never see my good friend Renco again. Before I left that dreadful rock tower, I would perform one final act. I grabbed a dagger from one of the fallen conquistadors and I scratched a message into the surface of the great boulder now lodged in the portal. I inscribed a warning for all of those who might contemplate opening the temple again.

I wrote:

No entrare absoluto. Muerte asomarse dentro.

Do not enter at any cost. Death looms within.

A.S.

It has now been many years since those events transpired. Now I am an old man, withered and frail, seated at a desk in a monastery, writing by the light of a candle. Snow covered mountains stretch away from me in every direction. The mountains of the Pyrenees. After Renco entered the temple with the two idols and the rapas, Bassario, Lena and I returned to Vilcafor. It was not long before word spread throughout the empire of our deeds—word of Hernando’s death, and of the idol being laid to rest inside a mysterious temple in the presence of a pack of deadly rapas. Typically, the Spanish colonial government created some sham tale about the death of the Governor’s brother, Hernando. They said that he died honourably at the hands of an unknown tribe of natives while he had been bravely navigating some uncharted jungle river. If only my countrymen knew the truth. I also understand that the Incas did indeed sing songs about our adventure and, yes, those songs mentioned Bassario’s name and the singing of those ballads continued even after the Spanish conquest of their lands. The goldeaters, they said, could seize their land, burn their houses, torture and murder their people. But they could not take their spirit. To this day, I do not know what Renco did inside that temple with the two idols. I can only assume that in his wisdom, he anticipated the rumours that would spread after our victory over Hernando. Like Solon, he knew that people, hearing of the idol inside the temple, would seek it out. I imagine that he placed the fake idol at some location nearer to the entrance of the temple, so that if someone did open it up in search of the idol they would come upon the wrong idol first. But I speculate. I do not know for sure. I never saw him again. For my own part, I could no longer endure living in the horror that was New Spain. I decided to return to Europe. And so after bidding farewell to the beautiful Lena and the noble Bassario, with the help of several Incan guides I embarked upon a trek through the mountains of New Spain, heading north. I walked and walked, through jungles, mountains and deserts until finally I came to the land of the Aztecas, the land that Cortez had conquered in the name of Spain but a few years previously. There I managed to bribe my way aboard a merchant ship, laden with stolen gold, bound for Europe. I arrived in Barcelona some months later and from there I travelled to this monastery high in the Pyrenees, a place far away from the world of the King and his bloodthirsty conquistadors, and it was here that I grew old, dreaming every night of my adventures in New Spain and wishing every moment that I could have spent just one more day with my good friend Renco.

Race turned the page. That was it. That was the end of the manuscript. He looked forward through the cabin of the Goose. Beyond the windshield of the little seaplane he saw the sharp peaks of the Andes towering in front of him. They would arrive back at Vilcafor soon. Race sighed sadly as he thought about the tale he had just read. He thought of Alberto Santiago’s bravery, and of Renco’s sacrifice, and of the friendship that had developed between the two of them. He also thought about two idols resting inside the temple. Race pondered thatfor a moment. Something about it wasn’t right. Something about the way the manuscript had ended—so suddenly, so abruptly—and also, now that he thought about it, something he had seen yesterday, back when Lauren had done the original nucleotide resonance test to determine the location of the real thyrium idol. Something about the result of that test that wasn’t quite right. The thought of Lauren and Frank Nash’s expedition gave rise to a whole other set of thoughts in Race’s mind. How Nash wasn’t with DARPA. How he was actually in charge of an Army unit trying to beat the real Supernova team—a Navy team—to the thyrium idol. And how he had deceived Race into coming along on the mission. Race shook the thoughts away. He was going to have to figure out how he would deal with Nash when he arrived back at Vilcafor—should he confront him, or would he be better served remaining silent and not letting Nash know just how much he knew? Whatever the case, he would have to decide soon, for no sooner had he finished reading the manuscript than the seaplane tilted gently beneath him, dropping its nose. They were beginning their descent. They were returning to Vilcafor.

Special Agent John Paul Demonaco walked carefully through the vault room examining the scene of the crime. After the Navy captain, Aaronson, had gone off to give the green light to an assault on the suspected Freedom Fighter locations, the other Naval investigator — Commander Tom Mitchell—had asked Demonaco if he would take a look at the crime scene. Maybe he would notice something they hadn’t.

‘Aaronson’s wrong, isn’t he?’ Mitchell said as they wandered through the vault room.

‘What do you mean?’ Demonaco said as he scanned the heavily sealed lab facility. It was a very impressive laboratory. In fact, it was one of the most hightech labs he had ever seen.

‘The Freedom Fighters didn’t do this,’ Mitchell said.

‘No… no, they didn’t.’

‘Then who did?’

Demonaco was silent for a moment. When at last he spoke, however, he didn’t answer the question. ‘Tell me more about the device that the Navy was building here. This Supernova.’ Mitchell took a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. The Supernova is a fourth generation thermonuclear weapon. Instead of splitting the atoms of terrestrial radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium, it creates a mega explosion by splitting a subcritical mass of the non terrestrial element thyrium. ‘The blast caused by the splitting of a thyrium atom is so powerful that it would rip out nearly a third of the Earth’s mass. Put simply, the Supernova is the first manmade device capable of destroying the planet we live on.’

‘This element, thyrium, you say it’s nonterrestrial,’ Demonaco said.

‘If it doesn’t come from Earth, then where does it come from?’

‘Asteroid impacts, meteorite landings. Segments of rocks that survive the journey through the Earth’s atmosphere. But so far as we know, no one’s ever found a live specimen of thyrium.’

‘I think you’ll find,’ Demonaco said, ‘that someone has now. And I might just know who.’ Demonaco explained. “Commander, for the last six months, my unit at the Bureau has been hearing rumours of an intermilitia war between the Oklahoma Freedom Fighters and another terrorist group calling themselves the Republican Army of Texas.’

‘The Republican Army of Texas—aren’t they the ones who skinned those park rangers up in Montana?’

‘They’re the prime suspects,’ Demonaco said. ‘We told the media that those two rangers stumbled on some hillbillies shooting illegal game, but we actually think it was worse than that. We think they stumbled on a secret Texan training camp.’

‘A training camp?’

‘Uhhuh. The Texans are a much larger group than the Freedom Fighters, and much better fighters—in fact, you can’t even join the Texans unless you’ve been a member of one of the armed forces.

‘They’re also exceptionally organised for a terrorist group, more like an elite military unit than a weekend hunting club. ‘They have a rigidly defined chain of command, with severe penalties for any member who breaks that hierarchy, a system that has been attributed to the influence of their leader, Earl Bittiker, a former Navy SEAL who was dishonourably discharged in 1986 for sexually assaulting a female lieutenant who gave him an order he didn’t like. He raped her both vaginally and orally.’

Mitchell winced. ‘Apparently, Bittiker was one of the SEALs’ best men—a totally remorseless killing machine. But like a lot of those types, he lacked certain civilising virtues. Apparently in 1983, three years before the rape incident, he was diagnosed as being clinically psychotic, but the Navy allowed him to remain on active duty anyway. So long as his aggression was directed at our enemies, they figured it didn’t matter. Great logic. ‘After the rape, Bittiker was discharged from the Navy and sentenced to eight years in Leavenworth. When he got out in 1994, he founded the Republican Army of Texas with a couple of other disgraced ex servicemen he’d met in jail.

‘The Texans train constantly,’ Demonaco said. ‘In the desert, in the badlands of Texas and Montana, and sometimes, up in the mountains in Oregon. They figure that when the time comes to launch a fullscale war against the United States government or the U.S. government in conjunction with the United Nations—they want to be ready to fight in all kinds of terrain. ‘What makes it worse is that they have money too. After the government screwed him on an oil deal, the Texan oil tycoon Stanford Cole left Bittiker and the Texans something in the vicinity of forty two million dollars and a note that said, “Give ‘em hell”. It’s no surprise then that Bittiker and his cronies are often seen at black market arms bazaars in the Middle East and Africa. Hell, last year, they bought eight surplus Black Hawk helicopters from the Australian government.’

‘Christ,’ Mitchell said.

‘Still,’ Demonaco went on, ‘that doesn’t stop them stealing some heavy duty hardware every now and then. For example, although we can’t prove it, we believe that the Texans are responsible for the theft of an Abrams M1A1 main battle tank while it was—’

‘They stole a tank?’ Mitchell said, incredulous. ‘Off the back of a semitrailer while it was being transported from the Chrysler plant in Detroit to Tank and Automotive Command in Warren, Michigan.’

‘Why do you suspect them?’ Mitchell asked.

“Because two years ago, the Texans bought an old Antonov An22 heavylift cargo plane from an arms market in Iran. The An22 is a damn big plane, the Russian equivalent of our biggest lifters, the C5 Galaxy and the C17 Globemaster. Now if you wanted a regular cargo plane, you’d go and buy yourself a smaller An12 or a C130 Hercules, not an An22. You’d only need a ‘22 if you were intending to move something big. Something really, really big. Something like a 67ton tank.’

Demonaco paused, shook his head. ‘But that’s the least of our worries now.’

‘Why?’

‘Because lately we’ve been hearing some disturbing rumours about the Texans. It seems that they’ve found something of a soul mate in the Aura Shinrikyo cult in Japan, the group who released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995. After the Tokyo attack, some members of the cult came to America and infiltrated a few of our militia groups. We have reason to believe that several members of Aura Shinrikyo joined the Texans.’

‘What does that mean for us?’ Mitchell asked.

‘It means that we now have a very big problem.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the Aura Shinrikyo cult is a doomsday cult. Its only goal—indeed, its only reason for being—is to bring about the end of the world. We only know about the Tokyo subway incident because the networks got film footage of it. Did you know that in early 1994 Aura Shinrikyo managed to seize control of a remote Chinese missile silo? They almost launched thirty tactical nuclear missiles at the United States in an attempt to initiate a full-scale thermonuclear war.’

‘No, I didn’t know that,’ Mitchell said.

‘Commander, we’ve never really had a genuine doomsday cult in America. We have violent antigovernment groups, antiUN groups, antiabortion, antiSemitic and antiNegro groups. But we have never had a group whose sole ambition is to bring about the mass destruction of life on this planet. ‘Now, if Earl Bittiker and the Texans have decided to adopt a doomsday philosophy, then that leaves us with a big problem. Because then we’ll have one of the most dangerous paramilitary groups in America running around with a death wish.’

‘Okay, then,’ Mitchell said, ‘so how does all this relate to this robbery?’

‘Easy’ Demonaco said. ‘The group which carried out this robbery was a highly trained, highly skilled assault squad. The tactics that they employed were pure Special Forces— large-scale SEAL stuff—which would point to an organisation more like the Texan Republican Army and not the Freedom Fighters.’

‘Right.’

‘But whoever did this left us a single tungsten cored bullet to point us toward the Freedom Fighters. If the Texans really did do this, don’t you think it would make sense for them to throw us off the scent by framing their enemies— the Oklahoma Freedom Fighters?’

‘Yeah…’

‘What really scares me, though,’ Demonaco said, ‘is what they were after. Because if the Texans really have acquired doomsday tendencies, then this Supernova of yours is exactly the kind of thing they’d go for.’

‘The other thing we have to think about,’ Demonaco went on, ‘is how they got in. They had someone on the inside, someone who knew the codes to, and who could get card keys for, all the security locks. Do you have a record of the names of everyone working on the project?’

Mitchell pulled a sheet of computer paper from his breast pocket and handed it to Demonaco. ‘That’s a list of all the people working on the Supernova project, Navy and DARPA.’ Demonaco looked at the list.

PROJECT NAME: N23657K2 (SUPERNOVA) CLASSIFICATION: RED (ABSOLUTE SECRET) RELEVANT AGENCIES: NAVY ‘ DARPA PERSONNEL INVOLVED: NAME POSITION HELD AGENCY SECURITY NO. ROMANO, Julius M. Nuclear physicist, NAVY N’1005A2 PROJECT LEADER FISK, Howard K. Theoretical physicist, DARPA D’154677A DARPA PROJECT LEADER BOYLE, Jessica D. Nuclear physicist DARPA D’1788o82B LABOWSKI, John A. Delivery system NAVY N’7659C7 engineer MAHER, Karen B. Secondary systems DARPA D’620122C NORTON, Henry J. Technical support NAVY N’7632Cl RACE, Martin E. Ignition system DARPA DI327997A design engineer SMITH, Martin W. Weapons electronics DARPA D’590035B ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL: KAYSON, Simon F. Project security NAVY N’1009A2 DEVEREUX, Edward G. Language specialist HARVARD N’A

Mitchell said, ‘We’ve checked them all out. They’re all clean, even Henry Norton, the guy whose security card and PIN codes were used to get in.’

‘Where was he on the night of the breakin?’ Demonaco asked.

‘In the Arlington morgue,’ Mitchell said simply. ‘Paramedic records confirm that at 5:36 am on the night of the breakin exactly fifteen minutes before the thieves stormed this building—Henry Norton and his wife, Sarah, were found shot to death at their home in Arlington.’

‘5:36 Demonaco said. ‘They got here quickly after they killed him. They knew his name would be flagged at the hospital.’

As both Demonaco and Mitchell knew, it was common for high-level government employees to have electronic flags attached to their names in the event that they unexpectedly arrived at a hospital. As soon as the important person’s name was entered into the hospital’s records, a flag screen would come up telling the doctor involved to call the relevant government agency.

‘Did Norton have any links to militia groups?” Demonaco asked.

‘Not a one. Been in the Navy all his life. Technical support systems expert—computers, communications systems, navigation computers. He has an exemplary record. Hell, the man’s a goddamn boy scout. The man least likely to betray his country.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Nothing. None of them has any links to any paramilitary organisations. Every member of the team had to go through a comprehensive security check before they were cleared to work on the project. They’re clean. Not a single one of them is believed to even know a member of a militia group.’

‘Well, someone does,’ Demonaco said. ‘Find out who worked with Norton the most, anyone who could have watched him enter his PIN codes every day. I’ll make some calls to my people and see what Earl Bittiker and the Texans have been up to lately.’

The Goose kicked up a shower of spray as it touched down on the surface of the Alto Purus River, not far from the base of the waterfall that cascaded out over the table land. Night had fallen and, mindful of the presence of the rapas in the village, Race and the others had decided that they would moor the seaplane down by the waterfall and reenter Vilcafor via the quenko.

After Doogie had parked the Goose on the riverbank underneath a dense canopy of trees, the four of them disembarked. They left Uli in the plane, unconscious and dosed up on some methadone they’d found in a first-aid kit in the back of the plane. Before they made for the path behind the waterfall, however, Race made them do something quite unusual. Using a couple of wooden boxes they had found inside the Goose and a few energy bars that Van Lewen and Doogie had had on their persons, they set some primitive traps— traps that were designed to catch the monkeys rustling about in the trees above them.

Ten minutes later, they had a pair of furious primates trapped inside the two wooden boxes. The two monkeys screamed and shrieked as Van Lewen and Doogie carried them along the path behind the rushing waterfall and into the yawning stone doorway of the quenko.

Ten minutes later, Race climbed up into the citadel of Vilcafor. Nash, Lauren, Copeland, Gaby Lopez and Johann Krauss were all gathered in a corner of the citadel watching Lauren as she tried to make radio contact with either Van Lewen or Doogie. They all turned as one when they saw Race emerge from the quenko with the fake idol in his hands. Renée, Van Lewen and Doogie came up into the citadel after him. They were all completely covered in mud and grime. Race still had dried droplets of Heinrich Anistaze’s blood on his face. Nash saw the idol in his hands immediately.

‘You got it!’ he exclaimed, rushing over to Race, snatching the idol from him. He gazed at it adoringly. Race just watched Nash coldly, and in that instant he decided that he wouldn’t tell Nash what he knew about him. Rather he would just wait and see what Nash did from here. They might still get the idol—indeed, maybe even with Race’s help—but Race was determined to ensure that Nash wouldn’t end up with it.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Nash said wondrously.

‘It’s a fake,’ Race said flatly.

‘What?’

‘It’s a fake. It’s not made of thyrium. If you turn on your nucleotide resonance imager again, you’ll find that there is still a source of thyrium is this area. But this idol isn’t it.’

‘But… how?’

‘During his escape from Cuzco, Renco Capac got the criminal Bassario to craft an exact replica of the Spirit of the People. Renco planned to surrender to Hernando and hand over the fake idol to him. He knew Hernando would kill him, but he also knew that so long as Hernando got an idol, he would never suspect that it might be the wrong idol.

‘As it happened, however, Renco and Alberto Santiago killed Hernando and his men, and Renco—so the manuscript says—proceeded to hide both idols inside the temple.’

Nash turned the idol over in his hands and sawfor the first time the hollowed out cylindrical section in its base.

He looked up at Race. ‘So the real idol is still somewhere inside the temple?’

‘That’s what Santiago says in the manuscript,’ Race said.

‘But… ?”

‘But I don’t believe him.’

‘You don’t believe him? Why not?’

‘Does your NRI machine still work?’ Race asked Lauren.

‘Yes.’

‘Set it up and I’ll show you what I mean.’

They all moved to the open topped roof of the citadel, where Lauren began setting up the nucleotide resonance imager. While she went about setting up the machine, Race looked out over the village. It was dark, still raining lightly. He caught a glimpse of a large feline shadow peering up at him from behind one of the smaller buildings of the town. After a few moments, Lauren had the NRI machine ready. She flicked a switch and the silver rod mounted on top of the console began to rotate slowly. Thirty seconds later, there came a shrill beep! and the rod stopped abruptly. It was not, however, pointing at the idol in Nash’s hands. Rather, it was pointing away from Nash, up at the mountains.

‘I’m getting a reading,’ Lauren said. ‘Strong signal, very high frequency resonance.’

‘What’re the coordinates?’ Race said. ‘Bearing 270 degrees. Vertical angle 29 degrees, 58 minutes. Range 793 metres. Same as it was last time, if I remember it right,’ she said, giving Race a look.

‘You are remembering it right,’ he said.

‘You’ll also remember that we thought it was inside the temple.’

‘Yes…’ Lauren said. Race looked at her hard—harder than usual. He wondered if she had been party to Nash’s deception, decided that she probably was.

‘Do you remember why we thought it was in the temple?’ Lauren frowned.

“Well, I remember we climbed up the crater and saw the temple. Then we figured that the temple’s location matched the trajectory of the NRI. Ergo, the idol was in the temple.’

‘That’s right,’ Race said. ‘That’s exactly what we did. And that’s exactly where we went wrong.’ They all came back inside the citadel. Race grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from inside the ATV that was still parked flush against the doorway to the citadel.

‘Copeland,’ he said to the tall humourless scientist. ‘Do you think that with all this technological gadgetry you’ve got here, you could find me a regular calculator?’ Copeland found one inside one of the American containers, handed it to him.

‘All right,’ Race said, allowing the others to crowd around him and watch. He drew a picture on the sheet of paper.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This is a picture of Vilcafor and the plateau to the west of it as seen from the side. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Lauren said. Race drew some lines across the drawing: ‘And this is what we deduced yesterday from the reading that we got from the nucleotide resonance imager: 793 metres to the idol. Angle of inclination 29 degrees, 58 minutes but I’ll just use 30 degrees to keep it simple. The point is, when we climbed up the crater and saw the temple, we immediately thought that the temple must have matched the reading. Right?’

‘Right…’ Nash said.

‘Well we were wrong to do that,’ Race said. ‘Do you remember when we were climbing up that spiralling path around the rock tower and Lauren took a reading from her digital compass?’

“Vaguely,’ Nash said.

‘Well, I remember it. When we were level with the rock tower, standing on the outer ledge of the rope bridge, Lauren said that we had come exactly 632 metres horizontally from the village.’ He added another line to the drawing and changed the words ‘793 m” along the hypotenuse—the longest side of the triangle—to ‘x m’. 632m

‘Anybody remember doing trigonometry at school?’ he asked.

All the theoretical physicists in the citadel around him shrugged bashfully.

‘Granted, it isn’t nuclear physics,’ Race said, ‘but it does still have some uses.’

‘Oh, I see it…’ Doogie said suddenly from the back of the small crowd gathered around Race. Clearly the others didn’t.

Race said, ‘Using simple trigonometry, if you know one angle of a right angled triangle and the length of one of its sides, you will be able to determine the lengths of the other two sides by using the concepts of sines, cosines and tangents. ‘Don’t you guys remember ‘SOHCAHTOA’?

The sine of an angle equals the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse. The cosine equals the length of the side adjacent to the angle divided by the hypotenuse. ‘In our example here, to find x—the distance between us and the temple—we would use the cosine of 30o.’ Race then wrote: cos30o = 632 ‘Therefore,’ he said, 632 X . cos30° He punched some numbers into the calculator Copeland had given him. ‘Now, according to this calculator, the cosine of 30° is 0.866. Therefore, x equals 632 divided by 0.866. And that is… 729.’ Race amended his drawing accordingly, writing feverishly. Lauren watched him in astonishment. Renée just watched him, beaming. 632m ‘Anybody see a problem here?’ Race said. Everyone was silent. Race amended his drawing one last time, finishing with a flourishing ‘X’. 632m ‘We made a mistake,” he said. ‘We assumed that because of its height the temple was 793 metres from the village and hence, that the idol was inside it. It was a good guess but it was a wrong guess. The real idol isn’t inside the temple at all. It’s beyond it, up on the plateau somewhere.’

‘But where?’ Nash said.

‘I would imagine,’ Race replied, ‘that the idol is to be found in the village of the tribe of natives who built the rope bridge up on the rock tower, the same tribe of natives that attacked our German friends here when they we about to open the temple.’

‘But what about the manuscript?’ Nash said. ‘I thought that it said both idols were inside the temple.’

‘The manuscript doesn’t tell the full story,’ Race said. ‘I can only guess that Alberto Santiago doctored the ending so that no one reading it later would know the true resting place of the idol.’ Race held up the sheet of paper with his drawing on it. ‘That’s where the idol is. Your NRI says so, so does the math.’ Nash pursed his lips, thinking. Then at last he said, ‘All right. Let’s go get it.’

The two monkeys that Race and the others had caught down by the river had gladly—or perhaps angrily—obliged them with an ample supply of urine, urine which the two screaming primates had sprayed throughout the plastic bags that Race had lined their boxes with. Put simply, the monkey urine reeked. Its sharp foul odour—the smell of ammonia— pervaded the interior of the citadel. It was no wonder the rapas despised it, Race thought as he and the others applied the warm stinking urine to their bodies. When they were all done, Van Lewen handed out weapons. Since he and Doogie were the only Green Berets left—so far as anyone knew, Buzz Cochrane was still up on the tower top—they took the two G11s. Nash, Race and Renée were given M16s, complete with grappling hooks. Race, still dressed in his black Nazi breastplate and his blue baseball cap, hung his grappling hook from his belt. Copeland and Lauren were each given SIGSauer P228 semiautomatic pistols. Krauss and Lauren, the ordinary scientists, went gunless. Once everyone was ready, Van Lewen stepped through the doorway of the citadel and into the ATV. Then he made his way to the rear of the all terrain vehicle and opened the popup hatch. His G11 emerged first. Then slowly, Van Lewen peered out from the open hatch and scanned the area. Immediately, his eyes went wide. The big eight wheeled vehicle was surrounded by rapas. Their tails coiled and uncoiled behind their massive bodies. Their yellow eyes bored into him, hard and cold. Van Lewen counted twelve of them, just standing there in the street, watching him. Then all of a sudden, the nearest cat snorted—smelled the urine—and immediately reeled away from the ATV. One after the other, the other cats did the same, turning away from the armoured vehicle and forming a wide circle around it. Van Lewen stepped out onto the street, his gun up. One by one, the others came out behind him, Race among them. Like everyone else, he moved slowly, cautiously, staring at the cats while he kept his finger poised on the trigger of his M16. It was a truly bizarre sensation, a kind of standoff. Men armed with guns, the cats armed with sheer natural aggression. Despite their rifles and their pistols, Race was certain that the rapas could take them all down easily if they dared to fire a shot. But the cats did not attack. It was as if the humans were protected from them by some kind of invisible wall—a wall which the rapas simply refused to cross. Rather, they just followed Race and the others at a safe distance, paralleling them as they made their way toward the riverside path. Christ, they’re huge! Race thought, as he made his way through the ranks of massive black cats. The last time he had seen them up close he had been on the other side of the Humvee’s glass windows, but now— now that they were all around him, with no windows or doors separating them from him—they looked twice as big. He could hear their breathing. It was just as Alberto Santiago had described it—a deep chested braying sound like that of a horse. The sound of a powerful beast.

‘Why don’t we just shoot them?’ Copeland whispered.

‘I wouldn’t go doing that too quickly,’ Van Lewen replied. ‘At the moment, I think their dislike of monkey urine overrides their desire to kill us. If we open fire on them, I think it’s likely that their desire to survive will override their dislike of monkey urine.’

The eight of them made their way up the riverside path and into the narrow fissure in the plateau, the rapas following them at a distance. They emerged from the passageway at the bottom of the crater and saw the shallow lake stretching away from them, with the rock tower soaring into the sky from its centre and the thin but incredibly tall waterfall pouring down from the southwest corner of the canyon. For once it wasn’t raining, and the full moon shone down on the crater with all its strength, bathing it in a kind of mystical blue light. Led by Van Lewen, they climbed the spiralling path, up into the night. The rapas slunk their way up the spiralling path behind them. With their dark black heads and high pointed ears, they looked like demons climbing up out of Hell itself, ready to yank Race and his companions down into the depths of the earth should any of them make one false step. But ultimately they just kept their distance, put off by the smell of the monkey urine. At last the group came to the two buttresses that had once held up the rope bridge. The rope bridge itself now lay flat against the wall of the tower on the other side of the ravine, exactly where the Nazis had left it. Race looked across at the tower top. There was no sign of Buzz Cochrane anywhere. Then, however, instead of crossing over onto the rock tower which, at present, they couldn’t do anyway—Van Lewen led them further up the spiralling path, toward the rim of the crater. The path slid around and behind the thin waterfall at the southwestern corner before it rose dramatically, arriving at the rim of the crater. Race stepped up onto the rim and looked westward— and saw the majestic peaks of the Andes towering above him, dark triangular shadows superimposed on the night sky. Off to his left, he saw the small river that fed the thin waterfall and alongside it, a section of dense rainforest. A narrow muddy path—created by constant use rather than any deliberate design—ran away from him into the thick green foliage. But it was what sat on either side of the slender path that seized his immediate attention—a pair of wooden stakes, driver into the mud. Impaled on each stake was a fearsome looking skull. Race felt a chill as he shone his barrel mounted flashlight onto one of the skulls. It looked utterly horrific—an effect magnified by the copious amounts of fresh blood and rotting flesh that dangled from its sides. It was oddly shaped too—definitely not human. Rather, both skulls were strangely elongated, with sharp canine teeth, inverted triangular nostrils and wide eye sockets. Race swallowed hard. They were feline skulls. They were rapa skulls.

“A primitive “Keep Out” sign,’ Krauss said, looking at the two filthy skulls impaled on the stakes.

‘I don’t think they’re meant to keep people out,’ Gaby Lopez said, sniffing one of the skulls. ‘They’ve been drenched in monkey urine. They’re designed to keep the cats away.’

Van Lewen stepped past the skulls and pressed on into the dense foliage. Race and the others followed him, guided by the beams of their flashlights. About thirty yards beyond the two skulls, Van Lewen and Race came to a wide moat not unlike the one that surrounded Vilcafor. The only differences between the two moats were, firstly, that this moat wasn’t dried up— rather, it was filled with .water, the surface of which lay about fifteen feet below the rim of the moat. And secondly, it was inhabited by a family of very large caimans.

‘Great,’ Race said as he watched the giant crocodilians prowling around the bottom of the moat.

‘Caimans again.’

‘Another defensive mechanism?’ Renée asked.

‘Caimans are the only animals in this area with even a remote chance of defeating a rapa in a fight,’ Krauss said. ‘Primitive tribes do not have rifles or trip wires, so they look for other methods of keeping their feline enemies at bay.’

Beyond the moat—completely surrounded by it—Race saw another section of low foliage, beyond which lay a small collection of thatch huts nestled underneath a stand of tall trees. It was a village of some sort. The short stretch of foliage lay between the village and the moat, gave the cluster of primitive huts a quaint, almost mystical look. Some torches burned on high sticks, bathing the little town in a haunting orange glow. Apart from the burning torches, however, the village appeared to be completely deserted. A twig snapped. Race spun, and immediately saw the pack of rapas standing on the muddy pathway about ten yards behind his group. Somehow, they had managed to get past the urine soaked skulls and now they were standing a short distance behind Race and the others—watching, waiting. A narrow log bridge lay flat on the ground on the village side of the moat. A length of rope was attached to one end of it in a manner not unlike that which had applied to the rope bridge down at the rock tower. It stretched out over the moat to Race’s side, where it was tied to a stake in the ground. Van Lewen and Doogie pulled on the rope, manoeuvred the log bridge into position so that it now spanned the moat. The eight of them then crossed the bridge and entered the section of low foliage surrounding the village. Once they were all over the bridge, Van Lewen and Doogie quickly pulled it back onto the village side of the moat, so that the rapas could not follow them oven They all came out from the foliage together, emerging onto a wide, town squarelike clearing. They cast the beams of their flashlights over the thatch huts and tall trees that surrounded the bare dirt clearing. At the northern end of the square stood a bamboo cage, its four corners comprised of four thick tree trunks. Beyond the cage—carved out of the muddy wall of the moat—was a large pit about thirty feet square and fifteen feet deep. A crisscrossing bamboo gate separated the pit from the moat itself. In the very centre of the town square, however, stood the most arresting sight of all. It was a shrine of some sort, a large wooden altar-like structure that had been carved out of the trunk of the widest tree in the village. It was filled with nooks and small alcoves. Inside the alcoves Race saw a collection of relics that was nothing short of spectacular—a golden crown embedded with sapphires, silver and gold statues of Incan warriors and maidens, various stone idols, and one gigantic ruby that was easily the size of a man’s fist. Even in the semidarkness, the shrine shone, its treasures glistening in the moonlight. Dense clusters of leaves hung down from the trees around it, framing it on either side like curtains in a theatre. In the very centre of the wooden shrine—right where its heart would have been—sat the most elaborate nook of all. It was covered by a small curtain and was quite obviously the centrepiece of the whole altar. But whatever occupied it lay hidden from view. Nash strode directly over to it. Race knew what he was thinking. With a sharp yank, Nash pulled the curtain covering the nook aside. And he saw it. Race saw it too, and gasped. It was the idol. The real idol. The Spirit of the People. The sight of it took Race’s breath away. Strangely, the first thing that struck him about the idol was what an excellent job Bassario had done in replicating it—his fake idol had been a perfect reproduction. But no matter how hard he had tried, Bassario had been unable to reproduce the aura that surrounded the real idol. It was majesty personified. The ferocity of the rapa’s head inspired terror. The glint of the purple and black thyrium stone inspired wonder. The whole shining idol just inspired awe. Entranced, Nash reached out to pick it up—at exactly the same moment as a sharpened stone arrowhead appeared next to his head.

The arrow was held by a very angry looking native who had stepped out from the curtain like foliage to the right of the shrine. He held the arrow poised in his longbow, its drawstring stretched taut back to his ear. Van Lewen made to raise his G11, just as the forest all around him came alive and out of it stepped no fewer than fifty natives. Nearly all of them brandished bows and arrows, all of them aimed squarely at Race and the others. Van Lewen still had his gun up. Doogie didn’t. He just stood rooted to the spot a few yards away, frozen. An uneasy standoff materialised. Van Lewen—armed with a gun that could kill twenty men in an instant—facing off against the fiftyplus natives armed with bows and arrows that were all ready to be fired. There are too many of them, Race thought. Even if Van Lewen did manage to get a few shots off, it wouldn’t be enough. The natives would still kill them all, so over whelming were their numbers.

‘Van Lewen,’ Race said. “Don’t…’

‘Sergeant Van Lewen,’ Nash said from over by the altar, where he stood with an arrow poised next to his head.

‘Lower your weapon.”

Van Lewen did so. As soon as he did, the natives immediately moved forward, seized the Americans’ highpowered weapons. An older looking man with a long grey beard and wrinkled olive skin stepped forward. He didn’t bother carrying a long bow. He appeared to be the chieftain of this tribe. Another man walked at the chieftain’s side and as soon as he saw him, Race blinked in disbelief. This second man wasn’t a native at all, but rather was a stout looking Latin American man. He was deeply tanned and dressed in the manner of the Indians, but even the liberal doses of ceremonial paint that he wore on his face and chest couldn’t hide his decidedly urban features. As the chieftain glared at Nash—standing in front of the shrine like a thief caught with his hands in the till—he growled something in his native tongue. The Latin American man at his side listened attentively and then offered some advice in reply.

‘Hmph,’ the chieftain grunted.

Race stood next to Renée, the two of them surrounded by five arrow bearing Indians. Just then one of the Indians stepped forward—curious— and touched Race on the cheek, as if testing to see if his white skin was real. Race pulled his face away, jerking it clear. As he did so, however, the Indian shrieked in astonishment, causing everyone to turn. He hurried over to the chieftain, shouting, ‘Rumaya! Rumaya!’

The chieftain immediately came over to where Race stood, with his white adviser behind him. The old chieftain stood before Race, appraising him coldly while at the same time the Indian who had touched Race’s face pointed at his left eye and said, ‘Rumaya. Rumaya.’

Abruptly, the chieftain grabbed Race’s chin and turned it hard to the right. Race didn’t resist. The chieftain evaluated his face in silence, inspecting the triangular brown birthmark situated underneath his left eye. Then the chieftain licked his finger and began rubbing the birthmark, as if testing to see if it would come off. It didn’t.

‘Rumaya…’ he breathed. He turned to his Latin American adviser and said something in Quechuan. The adviser whispered something in return, keeping his voice low and respectful, to which the old chieftain shook his head and pointed emphatically at the square shaped pit that had been carved into the wall of the moat. Then the chieftain turned on his heel and barked an order to his people. The Indians quickly herded everyone except Race into the bamboo cage between the trees. For his part, Race was shoved toward the muddy pit adjacent to the moat. The Latin American adviser fell into step beside him.

‘Hello,’ the man said in heavily accented English, taking Race completely by surprise.

‘Hey there,’ Race said. ‘You, ah, want to tell me what’s going on here?’

‘These people are the direct descendants of a remote Incan tribe. They observed that you are possessed of the Mark of the Sun—that birthmark under your left eye. They think you might be the second coming of their saviour, a man they know as the Chosen One. But they want to test you first to be sure.’

‘And how exactly are they going to test me?’

‘They will put you in the pit and then they will open the gate that separates it from the moat, allowing one of the caimans to enter the pit with you. Then they will see who survives the subsequent confrontation, you or the caiman. You see, according to their prophecy—’

‘I know,’ Race said. ‘I’ve read it. According to the prophecy the Chosen One will bear the Mark of the Sun, and be able to fight with great lizards and save their spirit.’

The man looked at Race askance. ‘You’re an anthropologist?’

‘A linguist. I’ve read the Santiago Manuscript.’

The man frowned. ‘You’ve come here looking for the Spirit of the People?’

‘Not me. Them,’ Race said, nodding over at Nash and the others as they were placed inside the bamboo cage.

‘But why? It’s worthless in monetary terms—’

‘It was carved out of a meteorite,’ Race said. ‘And now it’s been discovered that that meteorite was made of a very special kind of stone.’

‘Oh,’ the man said.

‘So who are you?’ Race asked.

‘Oh, yes, I’m very sorry, I completely forgot to introduce myself,’ the man said, straightening. ‘My name is Doctor Miguel Moros Marquez. I am an anthropologist from the University of Peru and I’ve been living with this tribe for the last nine years.’

A minute later, Race was shoved down a thin sloping path that descended into the mud. The path was bounded on either side by high earthen walls and it ended at a small wooden gate that opened onto the pit. As soon as Race arrived in front of the gate, it slid open—pulled upward by a pair of Indians standing on the ground above—and he stepped tentatively out into the pit that adjoined the caiman infested moat. The pit was roughly square in shape and it was big— about thirty feet by thirty feet. It was lined on three sides by sheer muddy walls. The entire fourth wall, however, was comprised of an enormous gate constructed of a latticework of bamboo ‘bars’. Through it, Race could see the dark waves of the moat outside. To make matters worse, the floor of the pit was covered in a layer of black water—water that sloshed freely in through the crisscrossing bars of the bamboo gate from the moat outside. Its depth where Race was standing was about knee deep. Its depth in other parts of the pit was indeterminate. Well, this is new, Will. What the hell did you do to get yourself into this situation ? Just then, a rectangular section of the enormous bamboo gate—a gate within the gate was raised by some Indians standing at the rim of the pit and immediately a wide opening was created in the middle of the larger gate between the pit and the caiman infested moat.

Race watched in horror as the gate was lifted higher and higher, making the opening wider and wider. After a few moments it reached its zenith and stopped and there followed a long silence. The inhabitants of the village now lined the rims of the pit and peered down into it, waiting for the arrival of one of the caimans. Race patted his pockets for any weapons he could use. He was still wearing his jeans and Tshirt and the kevlar breastplate that Uli had given to him at the mine, and of course, his glasses and Yankees baseball cap. No weapons, except for the grappling hook that hung from his belt. Race grabbed it, It had a length of rope attached to it, and at the moment its four silver claws were retracted, lying flush against the hook’s handle like an umbrella in the closed position. He looked at it for a moment, thinking. Maybe he could use it to climb out of here—

It was then that something very large slid in through the open gate from the moat. Race froze Even though fully three quarters of its body must have been under the surface, it was still absolutely enormous. Race saw the nostrils and the eyes and the rounded armoured back protruding above the surface—all moving at the same speed as the big animal cruised ominously through the water. He saw its long plated tail swishing lazily back and forth behind it, propelling it slowly forward. It was a caiman and it was huge. At least an eighteen footer. Once the massive reptile was fully inside the pit, the bamboo gate behind it was lowered back into its slot and locked into place. Now it was just Race and the caiman. Facing off.

Good God… Race sidestepped away from the big beast, backing into a corner of the square shaped pit, his feet sloshing through the knee deep water. The caiman didn’t move a muscle. In fact, the enormous crocodile like creature didn’t even seem to be aware of his presence at all. Race could hear his heart pounding loudly inside his head.

Kathumpkathumpkathump.

The caiman still didn’t move. Race stood frozen in the corner of the pit. And then suddenly, without warning, the caiman moved. But it wasn’t a quick movement of any kind. It didn’t rush forward. Nor did it lunge or leap at Race. Rather, it just lowered itself, slowly and ominously, beneath the surface of the muddy water. Race’s eyes went instantly wide. Holy shit. The caiman had just submerged itself completely! He couldn’t see it. In fact, in the soft blue moonlight and the flickering orange light of the Indians’ torches, he couldn’t see anything but the small waves on the surface of the water. More silence. Wavelets slapped against the earthen walls of the pit. Race’s entire body was tensed, waiting for the caiman to appear. He gripped the steel grappling hook in his hand like a club. The water’s surface was completely still. Total silence. Race could feel the fear building up inside him.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

He wondered how long the reptile could stay under— The attack came from the left, just as Race was looking to the right. With a loud roar, the caiman exploded up out of the water next to him, its jaws bared wide, its enormous two ton body rolling through the air.

Race saw the reptile instantly and on a reflex dived sideways, splashing into the water as the caiman shot past him and slammed down into the slime again. Race clambered to his feet, spun around, then dived again as the caiman made another lightning quick pass at him, snapping its jaws in front of his face with a loud fleshy smack! Race was covered in mud now, but he didn’t care. He rose out of the water again—right next to the earthen wall of the pit—and turned just in time to see the caiman come rushing at his face. He ducked—let his body drop straight down, under the surface and the caiman went thundering over the top of him, slamming nose first into the muddy wall of the pit. Race surfaced to the cheers of the Indians standing up on the rim of the pit. He waded right and found himself standing in deeper water. He began to unloop the rope attached to the grappling hook. He looked up at the rim of the pit. Fifteen feet, not far. He was standing waist deep in the water now, unlooping the rope. As he did so, he quickly glanced about himself, to see where the caiman was. And he didn’t see it. The caiman was nowhere to be seen. The pit was completely bare. It must have gone under again… Race looked fearfully at the water all around himself. Oh, shit … he thought. And then abruptly he felt something slam into his leg at tremendous speed, felt a searing pain shoot through his ankle. Then he was yanked beneath the surface. Race went under, opened his eyes, and through the inky water all around him, saw that the caiman had his left foot inside its mouth! But it didn’t have a good grip on him and it opened its mouth for a split second to get a better one. That was all Race needed. No sooner had the big reptile released his foot than Race yanked it clear and the caiman’s jaws came chomping down on nothing. Race surfaced, with the grappling hook’s rope trailing through the water behind him, desperately gasping for air. The caiman came up too, surging out of the water after him, snapping wildly, catching the grappling hook’s rope in its jaws, slicing through itin an instant. As the rope was cut, Race lost his balance and fell clumsily away from the reptile into shallower water. He turned quickly, at exactly the same moment as he saw the caiman come rushing in at him from the side, its jaws wide, its toothfilled mouth filling his field of vision, and with nothing else left to call on, Race just jammed the grappling hook—together with his entire right arm—into the caiman’s wideopen mouth! The big reptile’s jaws came crashing down on his arm— just as Race hit the release button on the grappling hook’s handle. At that moment, a nanosecond before the caiman’s razor sharp teeth clamped down on his right bicep, the grappling hook’s pointed steel claws sprang outwards with monumental force. The caiman’s head just exploded. Two of the pointed steel claws burst out from its eye sockets, and in that Single disgusting instant, both of the caiman’s eyes were blasted out of its head—from the inside— replaced by the razor sharp tips of the two steel claws. The grappling hook’s other two claws exploded out from the underside of the caiman’s head, ripping through the softer skin there, puncturing it with ease. The two claws that had shot through the big reptile’s eye sockets must have penetrated its brain on their journey through the caiman’s skull. As such, they’d killed the massive animal in an instant—freezing its jaws in mid chomp—and now Race sat on the floor of the pit, with an enormous eighteen foot caiman attached to his right arm, its long triangular mouth poised over his exposed arm—its teeth millimetres away from his skin its immense black body stretching out into the pit, motionless. The crowd of natives standing on the rim of the pit just stood there aghast, stunned. And then, slowly, they started clapping. Race emerged from the pit to the adulation of the Indians. They slapped him on the back, smiled at him through crooked yellow teeth. The cage holding Nash and the others was opened immediately and a few moments later they joined Race in the centre of the village.

Van Lewen shook his head as he came up to Race. ‘What the hell did you just do? We couldn’t see a thing from that cage.’

‘I just killed a great lizard,’ Race said simply.

The anthropologist, Marquez, came over and smiled at Race. ‘Well done, sir! Well done!

What did you say your name was?’

‘William Race.’

‘Rejoice, Mister Race. You just made yourself a god.’

John Paul Demonaco’s cellular rang. Demonaco and the Navy investigator, Mitchell, were still at DARPA headquarters in Virginia. Mitchell was taking another call himself. ‘You say it came from Bittiker…’ Demonaco said into the phone. Suddenly his face went ashen white. ‘Call the Baltimore PD and get them to send the bomb squad over there right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Mitchell came over as Demonaco hung up. ‘That was Aaronson,’ the Navy man said. ‘They just raided the Freedom Fighter locations. Nothing in any of them. Empty.’

‘Never mind,’ Demonaco said, heading for the door.

‘What is it?’ Mitchell said as he hurried after him.

‘I just got a call from one of my guys in Baltimore. He’s at the apartment of one of our Texan informants. Says he’s got something big.’ Ninety minutes later, Demonaco and Mitchell arrived at a decrepit old warehouse in the industrial sector of Baltimore. Three police cruisers, a couple of nondescript beige Buicks—FBI cars—and a large navy blue van with ‘BOMB SQUAD“ painted on its side were already parked out in front of the building. Demonaco and Mitchell entered the warehouse, ascended some stairs.

“This place belongs to a guy named Wilbur Francis James, better known as “Bluey’.’ Demonaco said. “He used to be a radio operator in the Army, but he got discharged for stealing equipment from the office frequency scanners, M16s. Now he’s a smalltime crook who acts as a liaison between the Texans and certain criminal elements who supply them with guns and intelligence. A couple of months ago, we caught him with three stolen canisters of VX nerve gas, but we decided to withhold pressing charges if he helped us with our own intelligence gathering. He’s been very reliable so far.’ They arrived at a cramped little apartment on the top floor of the warehouse, guarded by a pair of Baltimore beat cops. They went inside. It was a crappy; disgusting apartment, with damp floorboards and peeling wallpaper. Demonaco was met by a young black agent named Han son and the leader of the Baltimore Police Department’s Bomb Squad, a small squat man named Barker. Bluey James himself sat in the corner of the room with his arms crossed. He chugged on a cigarette defiantly. He was a small unshaven runt of a man, with dreadlocked brown hair and a filthy Hawaiian shirt. On his feet he wore sandals— with socks.

‘What have you got?” Demonaco asked Hanson.

‘When we arrived, we found nothing,’ the young agent said, eyeing Bluey James scornfully. ‘But upon further examination we found this.’

Hanson handed Demonaco a package about the size of a small book. It was wrapped in brown paper and was unopened. With it was an ordinary looking white envelope which had been opened. ‘It was hidden behind a false panel in the wall,’ Hanson said.

Demonaco turned to Bluey. ‘Inventive,” he said. ‘You’re getting smarter in your old age, Bluey.’

‘Blow me.’

‘Xray?’ Demonaco said to the man named Barker

‘It’s clean,’ the bomb squad man said. ‘Judging by the scan, it looks like a CD or something.’

Bluey James snorted. ‘I didn’t know it was a fucking crime in this country for a man to buy himself a CD. Although it probably should be for the shit you’d listen to, Demonaco.’

‘What, you don’t like “Achy Breaky Heart”?’ Demonaco said. He looked at the white envelope, pulled a slip of paper from it. It read: WHEN WE HAVE THE THYRIUM, I WILL CONTACT YOU DIRECTLY. AFTER YOU RECEIVE MY CALL, EMAIL THE CONTENTS OF THIS DISC TO EACH OF THE FOLLOWING ORGANISATIONS. After that there was a list of about a dozen names and addresses, all of them relating to television networks or channels—CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX. Demonaco turned the brown paper package over in his hands. What could Earl Bittiker want to email to every major television network in the country? He ripped open the package. And saw a gleaming silver compact disc. The first thing he noticed about it, however, was that it wasn’t an ordinary CD. It was a VCD—a video compact disc. He turned.

“Bluey, what the hell is this?’

“The Best of Billy Ray Cyrus. Just for you, asshole.’

“Hey, Demonaco,’ Mitchell said, nodding at a VCD player over by Bluey’s trinitron television. Next to the TV stood a black IBM computer. All three objects looked completely out of place in the otherwise dilapidated apartment. Demonaco slid the compact disc into the VCD player and hit ‘PLAY’. The face of Earl Bittiker appeared on the television screen instantly. It was an ugly face—an evil face—pitted with scars and hate. Bittiker had sanguine, hollow features, with stringy blond hair and cold grey eyes that showed nothing but the world of rage that existed behind them. In the background behind the terrorist, Demonaco and Mitchell saw the Supernova. Bittiker spoke directly into the lens.

“People of the world. My name is Earl Bittiker and I am the AntiChrist. ‘If you are watching this message, then you are about to die. At exactly 12 noon today, Eastern Standard Time, you will all be killed at the hands of a weapon that was created by your own taxes. A weapon that in a few hours’ time is going to send this whole vile world to the place where it belongs. ‘To the people of the world—I have no quarrel with you. It is the world you inhabit that I hate, a world that no longer deserves to exist. It is a diseased dog and it must be put down. ‘To the governments of the world—you are to blame for this state of affairs. Communists, capitalists and fascists alike, you all grew fat while the people you governed starved. You all grew rich while they grew poor, you lived in mansions while they lived in ghettos. ‘Human nature is the desire of one man to rule over another. It comes in many guises, many forms—from office politics to ethnic cleansing—and it is performed by all of us, from the lowest foreman to the Chief Executive of the United States. But its character remains the same. It is about power and ruling. But it is a cancer on this world and that cancer must now be terminated.

‘To the television networks who receive this message, contact the Navy or the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency and ask them what has happened to their Supernova. Ask them about its existence and its purpose. Ask them about the seventeen security staff who died two days ago when my men raided DARPA headquarters in Virginia. I’m sure that noone has informed you of this incident, because that’s the way governments work today. After you’ve done all that, ask your government if this’—he pointed at the device behind him—‘is what they’re looking for.’ Bittiker stared hard into the lens. ‘People of the world, I make no demands of you. I do not ask for a ransom. I do not want political prisoners released from their cells. There is no way you can stop me detonating this device. Not now. Not even There is nothing you can do to stop this from happening. At twelve noon today, we’ll all be going to Hell together.’

The screen cut to hash. A long silence followed as everyone digested what Bittiker had just said. Even Bluey James was aghast.

‘Fuck me…’ he breathed.

‘Very clever,’ Demonaco said. ‘He only stated the time it’ll go off. Twelve noon. Now all he has to do is find the thyrium and get in touch with Bluey and his plan is all set.’

He turned to face Mitchell. ‘I think we just found your Supernova, Commander.’

Then to Bluey: “Am I to assume that you haven’t got that call yet?’

‘What do you think, fucknut?’

‘What do you know about all this, Bluey?’ Demonaco said, changing his tone.

‘What I always know, man. Jack shit.’

‘If you don’t tell me something right now, I’ve going to have you charged with aiding and abetting in the murder of seventeen security staff at a federal—’

‘Hey, man, weren’t you fucking listening? The world is about to end. What does aiding and abetting matter now?’

‘I guess that all depends on who you think is gonna win this little contest, us or Bittiker.’

‘Bittiker,’ Bluey said flatly.

‘Then it looks like you’ll be spending your last few hours on this Earth in jail,’ Demonaco said, nodding to the two cops at the door.

‘Take this little weasel away.’

The two cops grabbed Bluey by the arms.

‘Oh, now wait just a fucking minute…’ Bluey said.

‘Sorry, Bluey.’

‘All right listen, man, listen! I had nothing to do with no murders, okay. I’m just the go between, all right. I deal on Bittiker’s behalf. Like a lawyer. Which I might say hasn’t been so easy lately since he’s been going off the fucking deep end.’

‘He’s been going off the deep end?’ Demonaco waved the two policemen away.

‘Like yeah. Where you been, man? First he lets a whole group of fucking chinks join the Texans. Japs, man. Fuckin’ Japs. You should see these little fuckers. Fucking kamikazes, man. They’re from some messed up cult in Japan. Wanna destroy the world and all that shit. But Earl, he decides he likes what they got to say and he lets ‘em in the movement. But then—fuck—then he goes and does the strangest thing of all. He goes and merges with the fucking Freedom Fighters.’

‘What?’

‘To get their technical knowhow, like. You ask me, man, those Freedom Fighters are a bunch of cocksuckers, but they do know their technology. I mean, shit, messages to the world on VCD. You think I went out and bought this player?’

‘The Texans merged with the Freedom Fighters…’ Demonaco said.

‘Holy shit.’ Bluey was still yapping. ‘It’s all the Japs, you see. Ever since they got here, those slopeheads’ve been telling Earl that if he wants to fuck up the world, he’s gonna need some serious hardware. Not guns and shit, but bombs and shit. Nukes. And then when they found out about that Super nova thing, well…’

But Demonaco wasn’t listening anymore. He turned to Mitchell. ‘The Texans absorbed the Freedom Fighters. That’s why your boss Aaronson didn’t find any body at the Freedom Fighter locations. They don’t exist anymore. God, no wonder they used tungsten bullets. They bought themselves time by framing a terrorist group that no longer exists. The Texans and the Freedom Fighters weren’t fighting a turf war. They were merging…”

‘What are you saying?’ Mitchell asked.

‘I’m saying that we have just witnessed the union of three of the most dangerous terrorist organisations in the world. One is a brilliantly organised fighting unit, the second is perhaps the most technologically advanced paramilitary group in America, and the third is a doomsday cult from Japan. ‘You add all that up,’ Demonaco said, ‘and you got yourself one hell of a problem, because those are the guys who stole your Supernova, and judging from that video we just saw, they’re out there now trying to get themselves some thyrium.’

In the soft predawn light of the foothills, a banquet was being prepared. After he had defeated the caiman, Race had politely begged off the adulation of the Indians and asked to rest. A sound sleep had followed—God, he needed it, it had been nearly thirty-six hours since he’d last slept—and he awoke just before the dawn. The platter that was laid down before him was fit for a king. It was an assortment of raw jungle food set out on wide green leaves. Grubs, berries, corn. Even some raw caiman meat. It was raining lightly but no one seemed to care. Race and the Army people sat in a wide circle on the section of open ground that lay in front of the upper village’s shrine, eating underneath the watchful gaze of the real idol as it sat proudly in its ornate wooden alcove. Although the natives had returned their weapons to them, there was still a slight aura of suspicion in the air. A dozen or so Indian warriors stood ominously outside the circle of people, armed with bows and arrows, watching Nash and his people carefully—as they had been doing all night.

Race sat with the tribe’s chieftain and the anthropologist, Miguel Moros Marquez.

‘Chieftain Roa would like to express his utmost gratitude to you for coming to us,’ Marquez said, translating the words of the old chieftain.

Race smiled. ‘We’ve gone from thieves in the night to honoured guests.’

‘More than you know,’ Marquez said.

‘More than you know. If you hadn’t survived your encounter with the caiman, your friends would have been sacrificed to the rapas. Now your friends bask in your glory.’

‘They’re not really my friends,’ Race said. Gaby Lopez sat on the other side of the little anthropologist, her excitement at being in the presence of a legend obvious. After all, as she had said to Race on their first day in Peru, nine years ago Marquez had entered the jungles to study primitive Amazonian tribes—and had never returned.

‘Doctor Marquez,’ she said, ‘please, tell us about this tribe. Your experiences here must have been fascinating.’

Marquez smiled. ‘They have been. These Indians are a truly remarkable people, one of the last remaining untouched tribes in the whole of South America. Although they tell me that they have lived in this village for centuries, like most of the other tribes in this region they are nomadic. Often the whole village will just up and move to another location—in search of food or a warmer clime—for six months or even a year at a time. But they always return to this village. They say that they have a connection with this area—a connection with the temple in the crater and the cat gods that dwell inside it.’

‘How did they come to possess the Spirit of the People?’

Race asked interjecting. ‘I’m sorry, I do not understand?’

‘According to the Santiago Manuscript,” Race said, ‘Renco Capac used the idol to seal the rapas inside the temple. Then he shut himself inside the building with them. Did these Indians at some stage enter the temple and get the idol out?’ Marquez translated what Race had said for the Indian chieftain, Roa. The chieftain shook his head and said something quickly in Quechuan. ‘Chieftain Roa says that Prince Renco was a very clever and brave man, as one would expect of the Chosen One. The chieftain also says that the members of this tribe take a special pride in being his direct descendants.’

‘His direct descendants,’ Race said. ‘But that would mean Renco got out of the temple…’

‘Yes, it would,’ Marquez replied cryptically, translating the chieftain’s words.

‘But how?’ Race said. ‘How did he manage to get out?’

At that, the chieftain barked an order to one of his Indian warriors and the warrior scurried off into a nearby hut. He returned moments later carrying something small in his hands. When the warrior arrived back at his chieftain’s side, Race saw that the object in his hands was a thin leatherbound notebook. Its binding looked positively ancient, but its pages appeared uncreased, untouched. The chieftain spoke. Marquez translated. ‘Mister Race, Roa says that the answer to your question lies in the construction of the temple itself. After Renco and Alberto’s

famous battle with Hernando Pizarro, yes, Renco did enter the temple—with the idol. But he also managed to get out of it—with the idol. The full story of what happened after Renco entered the temple is contained in this note book.’ Race looked at the notebook in the chieftain’s hands. He craved to know what was inside it. The chieftain handed the little notebook to Race.

‘Roa offers it to you as a gift,’ Marquez said. ‘After all, you are the first person in four hundred years to pass through this village who would actually be able to read it.’

Race opened the notebook immediately, saw about a halfdozen cream coloured pages filled with Alberto Santiago’s handwriting. He stared at it in awe. It was the real ending to Santiago’s story.

‘I have a question,’ Johann Krauss said suddenly, pompously, leaning forward from his place in the circle. ‘How have the rapas managed to survive for so long inside the temple?’

After consulting with the chieftain, Marquez replied, ‘Roa says you will find the answer to that question in the notebook.’

‘But—’ Krauss began. Roa cut him off with a sharp bark.

‘Roa says that you will find the answer to your question in the notebook,’ Marquez said firmly. Clearly, while Roa’s hospitality to Race was limitless, his grace toward his companions extended only so far. The rain began to fall more heavily. After a few minutes, Race heard the rumble of distant thunder over the horizon. Doogie and Van Lewen also turned at the sound.

‘Storm’s coming,’ Race said.

Doogie shook his head as he looked up into the sky. The rumbling of thunder grew louder. ‘No it isn’t,’ he said, grabbing his G11 out of the dirt.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘That ain’t thunder, Professor.’

‘Then what is it?’

At that moment, before Doogie could answer him, a massive Super Stallion helicopter roared by overhead. It was closely followed by another, identical helicopter, swooping in low over the village, its rotors thumping loudly, shaking the trees with its powerful downdraft. Race, Doogie and Van Lewen leapt to their feet, while at the same time all of the Indians reached for their bows. The roar of the two Super Stallions hovering above the little village was deafening, all consuming. And then suddenly eight ziplines were hurled out from within each helicopter. In a second, sixteen men dressed in full combat attire began to slide quickly down the ropes, guns in their hands, ominous shadows against the predawn sky. Bullets spewed out from the guns of the men abseiling down from the helicopters. People ran every which way. The Indians dashed for cover in the foliage surrounding the village, snatching up their bows and arrows as they did so. Van Lewen and Doogie fired their G11s as gunfire from above raked the mud all around them. Race snapped about where he stood—saw Doogie take two brutal hits to his left leg— then he spun again just in time to see the German zoologist, Krauss, convulse violently as the whole front of his body—his face, his arms, his chest—became an indistinguishable mass of ragged bloody flesh, torn open by about a million rounds of devastating super machinegun fire. The two Super Stallions hovered about twenty feet above the village, razing it with their cannons. As he leapt to his feet, Race saw a single word emblazoned across their sides: NAVY. It was Romano’s team. They had arrived at last. And then—just then—as he ran for cover from the two enormous choppers hovering menacingly over the village, Race had an unusual thought. Wasn’t Romano supposed to be flying three Super Stallions… Abruptly, a spattering of gunfire strafed the ground all around him and Race scampered for the tree line, turning as he ran just in time to see Frank Nash hurry away from the shrine and dash off into the foliage beyond it with Lauren and Copeland right behind him. Race’s eyes zeroed in on the shrine. The idol was still there, sitting proudly in its alcove. Or was it? As the ground all around him exploded with bullet holes, Race hustled over to the shrine and grabbed the idol from its alcove, flipped it over in his hand. A cylindrical section had been cut out of the base of this idol. It was the fake.

‘No…’ Race breathed. Gunfire rang out from the choppers above him. The gale force wind created by their downdrafts whipped around him like a tornado. Race ran through the powerful wind, charging into the foliage after Nash and the other two.

‘Where are you going?’ Renée called to him from her position behind a nearby tree.

‘Nash has got the idol!’ Race yelled back. ‘The real one—’

At that moment—completely without warning—one of the big Super Stallion helicopters above them just exploded in midair. It was a staggering explosion, monstrous in its force. All the more so because it had been so unexpected. Race looked up instantly and saw the mighty helicopter fall to the earth in a kind of horrific slow motion, right on top of the men hanging underneath it. The men—they were Navy SEALs—hit the ground first, followed a split second later by the massive helicopter as it came crashing down on top of them, crushing them in an instant, it’s awesome bulk slamming down against the ground with a resounding whump! Race looked above the fallen, flaming wreck of the Super Stallion and saw a horizontal smoke trail dissipating in the air above it. It was the smoke trail of an air to air missile. Race traced it back to its source.

And saw another helicopter! Only this one wasn’t a troop transport like the two Super Stallions. It was a two man chopper—an attack bird—thin but not skinny, with a prism shaped cockpit and an enclosed tail rotor. It looked like a mechanical preying mantis. Although Race didn’t know it, he was looking at an AH66 ‘Comanche’—the U.S. Army’s next generation attack helicopter. Nash’s air support. It, too, had finally arrived. Race saw a second Comanche attack chopper materialise in the morning sky behind the first one, saw it open fire on the surviving Super Stallion with its twin barrelled Gatling gun. The second Super Stallion responded with its own burst of machinegun fire, covering the eight SEALs still dangling from its zip lines. The first SEAL touched the ground—just as an arrow smacked squarely in his forehead, dropping him instantly. The seven remaining SEALs continued down their zip lines. Two more were taken out by arrows on their way down. The others hit the ground running. In the air above them, their Super Stallion was in all sorts of trouble. It swivelled laterally in the air, turning to face the two Army Comanches firing on it. Then suddenly—shoom!—a single Sidewinder missile shot out from the Super Stallion’s side mounted missile pod. The missile traced a perfectly horizontal smoketrail through the air behind it before it slammed at tremendous speed into the canopy of one of the Comanches, blasting the attack chopper out of the sky with a momentous explosion. But it was a consolation goal. In fact, if it did anything at all, it only succeeded in sealing the Super Stallion’s fate. Because there was still one Comanche left. No sooner had the first Army chopper been hit, than the second one quickly pivoted in midair and released a Hellfire missile of its own. The Hellfire rocketed through the air at phenomenal speed, zeroing in on the Super Stallion. It found its mark in seconds, ploughing at full speed into the side of the big Navy helicopter. The Super Stallion’s walls shattered in an instant, blasting out in every direction, showering the ground beneath it with fire trails of flaming debris. Then the massive Navy helicopter crashed down into the trees above the village, a billowing, flaming wreck. Wet fern branches slapped hard against Race’s face as he and Renée ran eastward through the dense section of low foliage to the south of the village square, chasing after Frank Nash. They passed Van Lewen on their way. He was standing behind one of the huts, firing with his G11 at three of the five Navy SEALs who had survived their dispersal from the second Super Stallion. He fired low—trying to wound, not to kill. After all, they were his own countrymen, and after what he had heard from Renée on the plane earlier about Frank Nash and the Army’s mission to undercut the Navy, he had started to question his allegiances. He didn’t want to kill men just like himself—line animals who were just following orders— unless he really, really had to. The three SEALs had hunkered down behind some trees near the shrine and their MP 5s, when used in coordination, were proving a good match against his lone G11. Then abruptly the SEALs’ fire stopped as they were overwhelmed from behind by a horde of Indians bearing axes, arrows, sticks and clubs.

Van Lewen winced. ‘Where are you going?’ he yelled when he saw Race and Renée run past him.

‘We’re going after Nash! He stole the real idol!’

‘He what—?’

But Race and Renée were already hurrying off into the trees. Van Lewen took off after them. Gaby Lopez was running too. Only she was running for her life. As soon as the Navy Super Stallions had appeared, she had hurried off behind the nearest set of trees. But she had gone the wrong way. Everyone else had gone south while she had gone north and now she was racing through the chest high foliage to the northeast of the upper village— alone—ducking as she ran, trying desperately to avoid the bullets that smacked against the branches around her head. The two remaining Navy SEALs were somewhere behind her, firing hard with their MP5s as they crashed through the undergrowth. Gaby looked behind herself as she ran, searching fear fully for her pursuers. Then, as she turned to look behind her one more time, she abruptly felt the ground beneath her feet just fall away. She dropped like a stone. A second later, she hit water. Muddy liquid flew everywhere. When it settled, Gaby opened her eyes and found that she was sitting on her butt in the moat that encircled the upper village! She leapt quickly to her feet and found that she was standing in a section of ankle deep water. The thought suddenly occurred to her: caimans. She looked about herself desperately. She saw that the moat was roughly circular in shape, saw that it bent away from her in both directions like a road disappearing around a curve. Its sheer muddy walls towered above her, their rims a good ten feet above her head. Suddenly submachine gun fire raked the water all around her and on an instinct Gaby dived forward and the bullets shot over her head, smacking into the earthen walls of the moat. Then abruptly she heard more gunfire—different gunfire this time, G11 gunfire—and in an instant the first set of bullets stopped firing and there was silence. Gaby was still lying on her chest in the shallow water of the moat. A long silence followed. After a few seconds, she cautiously raised her head. And found herself staring into the smiling face of a caiman. Gaby froze. It was just sitting there in the mud in front of her, watching her, its tail slinking slowly back and forth behind it. It had her. Had her dead to rights. Then with a loud grunting roar, the giant reptile charged, baring its jaws savagely, lunging at her— Splat !—something landed right on top of the caiman from above. Gaby didn’t know what it was. It had looked like an animal of some sort and now it and the caiman were rolling around together in front of her in a splashing heap of mud and water. Her jaw dropped when she realised what the animal was. It was a man. A man in combat uniform. He had jumped down from the rim of the moat, tackling the caiman at the exact moment that it had lunged at her. The caiman and the man rolled as they wrestled, the reptile bucking and snapping, the man gasping for air whenever he could. And then Gaby saw who it was. It was Doogie. Doogie and the caiman fought, rolling and wrestling, grunting and thrashing. The caiman snapped wildly at Doogie while the injured Green Beret grappled desperately with its snout, trying to keep it closed as he had seen alligator wrestlers do when he was a child. He still had his G11, but it was useless now, empty. He’d reluctantly used his last few rounds to drop the two Navy SEALs who had been firing on Gaby. Then when he had seen the caiman appear in front of her and lunge, he had done the only thing he could think to do—he had leapt down on top of it. Just then the caiman jerked its snout free from Doogie’s grasp, bared its jaws and launched itself at his head. Out of sheer desperation, Doogie swung his G11 around and without even thinking, wedged it inside the big crocodilian’s mouth, propping it open, right in front of his own face! The caiman grunted in surprise. Its jaws were now propped wide open, like the bonnet of a car. The big creature couldn’t close its mouth! Doogie seized the opportunity and quickly unsheathed his Bowie knife. The caiman stood stupidly in front of him, its long snout held open by the vertical G11. Doogie tried to get around the big reptile—behind it—so that he could drive his knife into its skull and kill it, but the caiman saw him move and it swung quickly sideways, bowling into him, knocking him off his feet, sending him splashing into the muddy water. The caiman then stomped quickly forward, stepping on top of Doogie’s legs with its stubby forelimbs, causing them to sink down into the mud.

“Arggghhh!’ Doogie yelled as the weight of the caiman came down on his shins. The big reptile took another slow step forward, stepping onto his wounded left thigh. Doogie roared with pain as his legs sank further into the mud. The caiman’s propped open mouth yawned before his face, two feet in front of his nose, held open by his G11. Fuck it, Doogie thought as, with a quick lunge, he reached deep inside the caiman’s enormous jaws and wedged his Bowie knife in behind the G11, positioning it vertically so that the knife’s butt sat on the caiman’s tongue while its blade rested up against the roof of the big beast’s mouth.

‘Eat this,’ Doogie said as he swung his arm sideways, swiping the G11 out of the giant reptile’s mouth. The response was instantaneous. With the G11 gone, the caiman’s mighty jaws came rushing back together, the upper jaw chomping downwards, right on top of the Bowie knife in the back of its mouth, forcing it up into its brain. The bloodstained blade of the knife burst up out of the reptile’s massive head and the caiman’s body went instantly limp, the life rushing out of it. Doogie stared at it for a moment, stunned at what he had just done. The massive animal was still standing half on top of him, groaning involuntarily, expelling large amounts of air that it no longer needed.

‘Whoa…’ Doogie breathed. Then he shook his head and pulled himself out from under the enormous creature and clambered over to where Gaby was still lying in the mud, completely dumbstruck at his act of chivalry.

‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Frank Nash raced through the dense foliage between the upper village and the crater, holding the idol under his arm like a football. Lauren and Copeland ran behind him, SIGSauer pistols in their hands. Amid all the confusion of the aerial attack on the upper village, he and Lauren and Copeland had quickly laid one of the log bridges over the moat and bolted across it into the dense underbrush. ‘This is Nash! This is Nash!’ he yelled into his throat microphone as he ran. “Aerial team, come in!’

He looked up at the sky behind him, saw the surviving Army Comanche helicopter hovering over the smoking remains of the village. Behind it, he saw another chop pr—a third helicopter that was fatter and stockier than the Comanche. It was a Black Hawk II, the third Army chopper.

‘Colonel Nash—is Captain Hank Thompson—read you,’ a static ridden voice said over his earpiece. ‘Sorry—took so long—lost your signal in—overnight electrical storm—’

‘Thompson, we have the prize. I repeat, we have the prize. I am currently about fifty metres due east of the village, heading eastward toward the crater. I need immediate extraction.’

“Negative on that, Colonel—nowhere to land up here—too many—trees.’

‘Then meet us down in the other village,’ Nash yelled. ‘the one with the citadel. Just head due east, straight over the crater, and look down. You can’t miss it. It’s got plenty of room to land.’

‘Ten four, Colonel—see you there.”

The two surviving Army choppers immediately banked in the air above the upper village and thundered over Nash’s head, heading toward Vilcafor. Not a minute later, Nash, Lauren and Copeland came to the crater and took off down its spiralling pathway. Race, Renée and Van Lewen dashed through the dense section of foliage between the upper village and the crater, chasing after Nash and the idol. The rapas were nowhere to be seen. They must have retired to the depths of the crater with the onset of dawn, Race thought. He hoped to hell that the monkey urine on his body still worked. The three of them hit the crater’s path running. As Race, Renée and Van Lewen were starting down the path, Nash, Lauren and Copeland were arriving at its base. They came to the fissure, ran down its length, their feet kicking up water with every step. They never noticed the dark feline heads pop up lazily from the shallow lake as they ran by. The three of them burst out onto the riverside path to be met by a thin morning mist, but they didn’t stop to admire it. They just kept moving forward, heading toward Vilcafor and the thumping sound of the choppers. Another couple of minutes and they reached the moat on the western side of the village. And they stopped. Stopped dead in their tracks. Before them—standing in the middle of Vilcafor, with their hands clasped behind their heads and the soft mist curling around their feet—stood a group of about a dozen men and women. They all stood motionless, oblivious to the whumpwhumpwhump of rotors that filled the morning air. A couple of them were Navy SEALs. They were dressed in full combat attire. But they weren’t holding any guns. Others wore blue Navy uniforms. Others still wore ordinary civilian clothing—the DARPA scientists. And then Nash saw their helicopter. It was standing behind the small crowd of people. A lone Super Stallion. The third Navy chopper. It sat in the centre of the village, silent, motionless, its seven rotor blades still. Nash saw the word ‘NAVY’ plastered across its side in bold white lettering. And then he looked upwards, searching for the source of the loud whumping sound that filled the air above the village. And he saw them. Saw the two Army helicopters—the Comanche and the Black Hawk II—that he had sent down from the upper village. They were hovering over Vilcafor, with their twin barrelled Gaffing guns and their fearsome looking missile pods aimed squarely at the hapless Navy DARPA team on the ground. Race and the others emerged from the riverside path a couple of minutes later. By the time they arrived at the main street of Vilcafor, the two Army choppers had landed and Nash was strutting around like a peacock in front of the Navy men, holding the gleaming idol in one hand and a silver SIGSauer pistol in the other. The crews of the Army choppers, six men in all, two from the Comanche, four from the Black Hawk—held M16s levelled at the Navy DARPA crowd.

‘Ah, Professor Race, nice of you to join us,’ Nash said as Race and the others stepped out onto the main street of the village, staring at the odd mix of Navy men and civilians standing with their hands clasped behind their heads. Race didn’t answer Nash. His eyes just swept over the dozen or so Navy people, searching for someone. He figured if they were Romano’s team, the real Supernova team, then maybe… He froze. He saw him. Saw a man, a civilian, standing among the group of Navy men, dressed in ordinary hiking clothes and boots. Despite the fact that he hadn’t seen him in almost ten years, Race recognised the dark eyebrows and the stooped shoulders instantly. He was looking at his brother.

‘Marty…’ Race breathed.

‘Professor Race—’ Nash said.

Race ignored him as he strode over to his brother. They stood before each other—no embrace—two brothers but two vastly different men. For one thing Race was a mess. While he was covered in mud and stank of monkey urine, Marty was perfectly groomed, his clothes pristine clean. He stared wide-eyed at Race—at his filthy clothes, at his battered, mudstained cap—as if he was the creature from the Black Lagoon. Marty was shorter than Race, stockier. And while Race always wore a very open, easy expression, Marty’s face was perpetually set in a deathly serious frown.

‘Will…’ Marty said.

“‘Marty, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. They tricked me into coming along. They said that they were with DARPA and that they knew you and that—’

And then, abruptly, Race cut himself off as he saw another member of the Navy team whom he recognised. He frowned. It was Ed Devereux. Devereux was a short, bespectacled black man, and at forty-one was one of the most highly regarded ancient languages professors at Harvard. Some said he was the best Latin scholar in the world. At the moment, he stood silently in the line of Navy and DARPA people, holding a large leatherbound book under his arm. Race guessed it was the Navy’s copy of the manuscript. It was then that Race remembered meeting Frank Nash in his own office two days ago, at the very beginning of all this—remembered recommending to Nash that he take Devereux on the mission instead of himself since the Harvard professor was much better at medieval Latin than he was. But now.., now Race knew why Nash had insisted on taking him and not Devereux. It was because Devereux had already been taken. By the real DARPA team.

‘You’ll never get out of this alive, Nash,’ one of the older Navy DARPA men said. He had a completely bald head and the bearing of a man in charge—Doctor Julius Romano.

‘Why do you say that?” Nash said.

‘The Armed Services Committee will hear about this,’ Romano said. ‘The Supernova is a Navy project. You have no business being here.’

‘The Supernova ceased to be a Navy project the moment it was stolen from DARPA headquarters two days ago,’ Nash said.

‘Which means that now the Army is the only armed force in the United States with a Supernova in its possession.’ Romano said,

‘You son of a—’ It was at that moment that Romano’s head exploded— bursting like a tomato—sending a fountain of blood spraying out in every direction. A split second later, his body dropped to the ground—limp, lifeless, dead. Race whirled around at the sound of the gunshot, just in time to see Nash standing there with his SIGSauer pistol extended in the firing position. Nash took a step along the line of Navy and DARPA people and levelled his pistol at the next man’s head. Blam! The gun went off and the man fell.

‘What are you doing!’ Race yelled.

‘Colonel!’ Van Lewen shouted, incredulous, making to raise his G11. But no sooner had he moved than another silver SIG Sauer appeared next to his head. At the other end of the pistol stood Troy Copeland.

‘Drop the gun, Sergeant,’ Copeland said.

Van Lewen clenched his teeth, dropped the G11 and glared at Copeland. Lauren had Renée similarly covered. Completely confused, Race spun to look at Marty, but his brother just stood at the end of the line of Navy and DARPA people, staring stoically forward, his only movement a blink with every gunshot.

‘Colonel, this is outright murder,’ Van Lewen said.

Nash stepped up in front of another Navy man, levelled his pistol.

Blam!

‘No,’ he said. ‘It is merely a process of natural selection. Survival of the fittest.’

Nash came to Ed Devereux. The small Harvard professor stood before him, trembling. His eyes were wide behind his wireframed glasses, his whole body shaking with fear. Nash levelled his SIG at the little man’s head.

Devereux screamed, “No—!”

Blam!

The scream cut off abruptly and Devereux crumpled to the ground.

“Race couldn’t believe this was happening. American killing American. It was a nightmare. He winced as he saw Devereux fall to the ground, dead. It was then that he saw the leatherbound book that Devereux had been holding when he had been shot. It lay in the mud, face up, open, revealing a set of crusty old pages filled with ornate medieval artwork and calligraphy. It was the Santiago Manuscript. Or rather, Race corrected himself, the partially completed copy of the manuscript that had been made by another monk in 1599, thirty years after Alberto Santiago’s death.

‘Colonel, what the hell are you doing?’ Race said.

‘I am merely eliminating the competition, Professor Race.’

Nash slowly made his way down the line of men and women, calmly shooting each of them at pointblank range, one after the other. His eyes were hard, cold, devoid of any emotion as he clinically executed his enemies—his fellow Americans—one by one. Some of the Navy DARPA people started to pray as Nash levelled his pistol at their faces. Some of the civilians started to sob. Race, helpless to stop the slaughter, saw tears well in Renée’s eyes as she watched the shocking series of executions. Soon there was only one man left, the last man in the line. Marty. Race just watched as Nash stood in front of his brother. He felt completely helpless, powerless to assist Marty.

And then, strangely, Nash lowered his pistol. He turned to face Race, didn’t take his eyes off him as he spoke: ‘Lauren, would you get me my laptop from the ATV, please?’

Race frowned, confused. What the hell—? Lauren hurried off to the ATV, still parked in front of the citadel. She returned a minute later with Nash’s laptop computer, the one he had been using during the early stages of the mission. She handed it to Nash who—strangely— passed it on to Race.

‘Turn it on,’ Nash said.

Race did so.

‘Click on “U.S. ARMY INTERNAL NET”,’ Nash said.

Race did so. A title screen appeared.

U.S. ARMY INTERNAL MESSAGE NETWORK The screen then changed to reveal a list of secureline email messages. ‘Now there should be a message there with your name on it. Do a search for the name “Race”,’ Nash instructed.

Race punched in his own name and hit the ‘Search’ button. He wondered where Nash was going with this. Suddenly, the computer beeped: ‘2 MESSAGES FOUND’. The long list of emails shortened to two.