The Nemesis Origin

XX

Ethan turned slowly and raised his hands as he looked at the nearest man aiming an AK-47 at him. He was clearly a native, his English broken and heavily accented. The teeth in his mouth were stained and gapped as he gestured to Lucy with the barrel of the rifle.

‘Get her down from there,’ he ordered.

Lucy jumped down from the pyramid. ‘You have no right to prevent us from climbing it,’ she protested.

‘I’ve got all the right I need,’ the man replied as he tapped his rifle’s barrel. ‘Leave this place now, or you’ll become a permanent part of it.’

The men had closed in around them and Ethan counted twelve, eight of them armed with the ubiquitous rifles, the other four apparently onlookers but carrying various weapons such as clubs or machetes. One of them carried a shuttered lantern that he opened to illuminate the gloomy forest in a dull yellow glow, the man setting the lantern down beside the foot of the temple. Ethan knew they were far too distant from any local habitation to have merely stumbled across the temple or indeed Ethan and Lucy. He could only assume that they been hired to protect the temple.

‘Who are you working for?’ Ethan asked.

‘We are working for nobody. We are simply protecting the heritage of our country from grave robbers.’

‘We are not grave robbers!’ Lucy snapped.

Ethan looked at the clothes the man was wearing, cheap slacks and a loose shirt that had seen better days. His hair was unkempt, his feet shoved into tattered sandals. He was holding the rifle in the grip of one hand without the shoulder strap in place and it wavered here and there, undirected and sloppy. A villager elder, Ethan surmised, probably quite poor and certainly not a soldier of any kind. And yet the weapon was perfectly clean, professionally maintained or perhaps even brand new.

‘Whoever paid you put those words in your mouth,’ Ethan replied to him. ‘They provided you with the weapons. Whatever they promised you, they won’t deliver.’

‘We are working for nobody. We are simply protecting the heritage of our country from grave robbers,’ the man repeated in a monotone voice.

Ethan glanced briefly at the other men in the crowd. They were all dressed in a similar manner to the elder and also holding their weapons at odd angles and with an insufficient grip to prevent the kickback that would drive the barrels upward into the air should they choose to fire. Ethan took a pace towards their leader and lowered his hands slightly as he puts a reasonable expression on his face.

‘Whatever they paid you, I’ll double,’ Ethan promised.

The village elder’s expression altered as he began to consider his options. Ethan moved a little closer. ‘We’re not grave robbers, we merely came here to study the engravings on the walls of the temple. You can even join us if you wish to ensure that we do not take anything from the temple with us.’

The old man regarded Ethan for a long moment, his eyes drifting up and down as he assessed the man before him, and then as Ethan had hoped he looked over his shoulder for support from his colleagues. As soon as his head was turned Ethan lunged forwards and grabbed the rifle stock with his left hand as he slammed his right forearm across the elder’s chest.

The older man’s weak grip was snatched away from the rifle easily as Ethan turned the AK-47 and pressed it against his chest. The entire movement had taken no more than two seconds and none of the men around them had either had time to fire or indeed showed any intent of doing so.

Ethan looked to the elder, whose face had crumbled in panic as he raised his hands either side of his head and began gabbling in his native tongue as he begged for his life. Ethan grabbed his collar to silence him and then looked at the watching villagers, none of whom could shoot without risking hitting the old man.

‘Who hired you?’ Ethan demanded.

‘Foreigner,’ the old man replied hurriedly. ‘Lots of money. They said to come out here and stop you both.’

‘Us?’ Lucy demanded. ‘Specifically us?’

‘Yes, you, the American man and woman.’

Ethan and Lucy exchanged a surprise glance. ‘How the hell would they know we were coming here?’

‘Did you get a name?’ Ethan demanded of the elder.

The man shook his head. ‘No, no name, but she was American woman, very friendly.’

‘A woman?’ Ethan asked in surprise.

He turned to look at Lucy, who in response appeared nonplussed until suddenly a realization dawned on her features. ‘When I was in Chicago I couldn’t find you so I went to…’

Before Ethan could apply a familiar voice spoke from somewhere behind him in the tree line.

‘Me.’

Ethan and Lucy turned as from out of the jungle strode a woman with a black ponytail, khaki shorts and hiking boots. Her dark eyes flashed exotically, a pistol held lightly in one hand down by her thigh. She looked like a cross between Michelle Rodriguez and Lara Croft.

‘Nicola,’ Ethan uttered in surprise.

Lopez gestured to the old man with a nod of her head. ‘Let him go and give him back his rifle before he has a heart attack.’

There was a determined tone in her voice that Ethan had often heard, one that had not really ever been directed at him but at the bail-jumpers they had often arrested on the streets of Chicago. Ethan turned the rifle over in his hands as he released the elder, and shoved the weapon into his chest.

‘My apologies, Tak,’ Lopez said to the old man. ‘I hope your payment was sufficient?’

‘Yes, yes,’ Tak replied enthusiastically as he backed away from Ethan.

‘I should have known,’ Ethan said as he turned to face his former partner. ‘Either you followed us or you suddenly decided on a weekend break in Cambodia.’

‘Who’d have thought it?’ Lopez replied with a slight shrug.

‘You followed me,’ Lucy said as though betrayed. ‘You’ve been following us the whole time?’

Lopez shot Lucy a pitying look. ‘And you’re surprised? You’ve been wandering around with one of the world’s most controversial fossils in your pocket for years. Do you have any idea how much money it’s worth?’

‘You always did have a mercenary streak in you,’ Ethan observed. ‘What’s your plan? Take the remains and sell them to the highest bidder?’

‘Best bet,’ Lopez replied. ‘None of the governments involved in this want Lucy’s discovery to be public knowledge because of the panic they fear it will spread. That means no country can lay claim to the remains without exposing them, which also means that they can be put up for sale on the black market without fear of arrest for smuggling.’

‘And there was I thinking you were the honorable one of the pair,’ Lucy uttered in disgust.

‘Thanks very much,’ Ethan replied, somewhat dismayed.

‘Business is down,’ Lopez said by way of an explanation. ‘A girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, especially after this asshole decided to leave me carrying the can while he went off wandering around the world to find himself.’

‘I took a sabbatical,’ Ethan replied.

‘You took off!’ Lopez shot back as she jabbed her pistol in Ethan’s direction. ‘You left me to get by on my own! Do you have any idea how many hours I have to work just to make ends meet?!’

‘Can we do this another time, please?’ Lucy intervened as she moved between them.

Lopez nodded. ‘That’s fine. I’ll just take the measurements you made and be on my way, thanks.’

‘Over my dead body,’ Lucy snarled.

‘Don’t tempt me.’

Ethan shook his head. ‘You’re no cold-blooded killer, Lopez. What’s this really all about?’

‘You don’t get to ask,’ Lopez shot back at him. ‘By your own choice it’s none of your business now.’

Lopez took a single place and jabbed the pistol into Lucy’s ribs. ‘Your measurements, or I’ll ventilate you right here and right now.’

Not used to having a pistol stuck in her side, Lucy hesitated no longer as her anger vanished and she reached into her satchel and produced a rubbing of the carving she had made and the measurements she had made alongside it. Lopez snatched it from her and tucked it into the pocket of her shorts.

‘Nice doing business with you all,’ Lopez flashed a bright smile as she backed away.

Ethan watched her go, certain that he would be able to track her and find out where she went. Lucy had said that they would not be going to Peru, and now he desperately wanted to know what she meant and whether Lopez would be heading in the wrong direction. He made no effort to stop her, and she was almost at the tree line when a hand reached out and grabbed Lopez from behind and rammed a pistol up under her ribs.

‘I’ll take that.’

Ethan’s eyes widened in amazement as from the darkening tree line half a dozen camouflaged troops emerged, their weapons trained on Ethan and the villagers behind them. They spread out quickly, taking up firing positions, M-16 rifles held firmly in professional grips. Ethan heard the villagers behind him exchange a flurry of nervous whispers.

‘This is supposed to be one of the remotest sites on the planet,’ Lucy gasped in dismay. ‘Where the hell are all these people coming from?’

Ethan said nothing as the armed soldier reached down to Lopez’s shorts and slid his hand inside the pocket to retrieve the notes that Lopez had stolen. The soldier’s hand lingered for a few seconds longer than it needed to in her shorts as he spoke softly in her ear.

‘Nice doing business with you,’ he smiled.

Lopez scowled at him but said nothing as the soldier pocketed the paperwork and backed away from her. Ethan watched in silence, his hands still in the air as the troops surveyed the natives before them.

‘My apologies,’ the leader of the small platoon said in an American accent. ‘But my orders are to ensure that nobody leaves this place alive.’

Ethan glanced sideways at Tak, the old man understanding every word the American soldiers said. He saw a look of fresh resolve appear on the old man’s face and his wiry old finger curl across the trigger of the AK-47 he still held in his hands.

‘And where’d you take orders from?’ Ethan asked the soldier.

‘You’ll never need to know.’

Ethan jerked sideways and lifted a boot to bring it crashing down on the lantern glowing beside the temple. His boot smashed through the glass and instantly the jungle plunged into near darkness.

In the dim illumination from the darkening sky above Ethan saw the American soldier lift his rifle to aim at Ethan and in an instant Tak let out an enraged cry and opened fire. The bright muzzle flash of the AK-47 illuminated the jungle clearing with jagged flashes of light as its clattering fire rattled out.

Ethan hurled himself at Lucy and threw them both down onto the jungle floor as the rest of the villagers likewise opened fire on the American soldiers, who themselves leaped for cover and returned fire. Ethan saw Lopez break away from her captor and sprint into the darkened jungle

Tak got off half a dozen rounds before he was struck by two American bullets high in the chest and hurled onto his back. The villagers kept firing, their disorganized and chaotic attack sending bullets flying both toward the American soldiers and high into the jungle canopy. Ethan grabbed Lucy’s hand as he got to his feet and dashed into cover behind the temple.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ he hissed.

Lucy followed Ethan as fast as she dared through the dense jungle as they turned south around the back of the temple and plunged down the hillside. The crackling gunfire ceased and Ethan heard American voices yelling in the darkness behind him. The villagers would have been completely outclassed by the American troops and had either been annihilated or were fleeing into the jungle, but Ethan felt certain the Americans would not pursue them and instead return their attention to Ethan and Lucy.

‘The shooting stopped,’ Lucy whispered as they ran.

‘Only temporarily,’ Ethan insisted. ‘Keep moving!’