The Nemesis Origin

XXXIII

Ethan dragged himself up through a narrow fissure in the rocks, carved footholds in the stones beneath his feet that he somehow managed to get his boots into as he squeezed through the gap and out onto the flank of the mountain.

The sky above was brightening, and as he emerged onto a dizzyingly narrow stepped path that led further up the mountainside, he realized that he could no longer hear the sound of gunfire coming from behind him down on Macchu Picchu. He grabbed the rocky ledge and turned to look back down toward the city, and in the growing light he could see tourist vehicles far below winding their way up the Hiram Bingham trail.

Ethan’s stomach lurched as he saw the gorge wide open right alongside him, the Urabamba River’s winding green course just visible through the wreaths of morning cloud crowning the immense heights. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to breath slowly before he opened his eyes once more and looked at the citadel’s visitor’s centre far below.

The Russian vehicles were gone, several of them making their way down the mountainside. Ethan knew that there was little that he could do to help: either Lopez and Jarvis had secreted themselves somewhere and would now mingle with the tourists when they arrived and make good their escape, or they had been captured by the STS team or the Russians.

He squinted and saw several black-clad figures making their way to the city’s eastern side and the sheer face of the mountain there, and realized that the STS troops were making to escape via rappel lines and climbing gear, avoiding the oncoming tourists and guards. As he watched, he saw them dragging the bodies of dead Russians and tossing them over the edge into the plunging gorge.

Ethan turned away and clambered up the endless steps toward the peak of the mountain, his breath labouring in his chest and his heart racing. The sky was becoming brighter with every moment and against it the broken clouds were glowing orange as they were hit by the first rays of the rising sun.

Ethan pulled himself up onto the plateau of Huayna Picchu and squinted as a bright flare of sunlight blazed into his eyes. He barely saw the figure moving on top of the plateau toward him, but in an instant he recognised the shape of a man carrying a rifle and he threw himself to one side as the rifle clattered noisily as it opened fire.

The gunfire smashed into the ground at Ethan’s feet as he rolled behind a crumbling stone wall. The gunfire ceased and Ethan remained in cover as a voice called out to him, the Russian accent filled with delight.

‘Come out, Mr Warner. I have something that you’ll want to see.’

Ethan remained where he was. ‘The American military is here. There’s no way off this mountain, Vladimir. You’re finished, no matter what happens.’

‘On the contrary, it is you and your friends who are finished,’ Vladimir replied. ‘Why don’t you ask your friend Lucy here?’

Ethan cursed and peeked around the edge of the stone wall to see Vladimir holding an AK-47 in one hand while with the other he gripped Lucy firmly around the neck, his forearm around her throat and lifting her chin so that her feet were barely touching the ground.

Under Lucy’s arm was a tightly wrapped bundle of fabric, and Ethan realized that she had been able to find what they were searching for. Vladimir jabbed the rifle up under Lucy’s throat and his delighted smile dissolved into a look of pure hatred.

‘Come out now, or I swear I’ll blow her head clean off her shoulders.’

Ethan searched desperately for something to use as a weapon but there was nothing but dust and soil at his feet. He grabbed a handful of dust in one hand and then he raised them either side of his head as he got to his feet and stepped out from behind the wall.

Vladimir sneered at him as he switched the rifle to point at Ethan while still keeping a firm grip on Lucy’s throat.

‘Excellent,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve waited quite some time for this moment, Mr Warner. You’ve proven yourself to be an extremely annoying distraction from my work and one I’ll be glad to erase from history.’

‘Your men are defeated,’ Ethan repeated. ‘You won’t be able to leave this place without being arrested or shot on sight. Let her go.’

‘Foolish American,’ Vladimir snapped. ‘The Americans are now as impotent as my own men on this mountain, do you think that I don’t know that? You think that you have all the answers, but so often you are so wrapped up in your own ingenuity that you miss the obvious.’

Ethan squinted, the bright sunlight flaring in his eyes between Vladimir’s and Lucy’s head. He thought he saw Lucy vaguely shake her head, her eyes wide as she tried to dissuade Ethan from whatever he was about to attempt. Ethan knew that she would do anything she could to defend the remains bundled beneath Vladimir’s arm, that she was more concerned about finding the cure for Bethany than anything else, no matter how startling the archaeological revelations might be.

Vladimir gestured with the rifle to one side of the plateau. ‘Move over there, stand on the edge.’

Ethan glanced in the gestured direction and saw a raised platform of stone, perhaps once used to worship the rising sun or maybe even perform sacrifices to the ancient Inca gods. He kept his hands in the air beside his head as he moved across to the platform and clambered up onto it. Vladimir turned with his grip still firmly around Lucy’s neck, a fresh smile plastered across his face as he watched Ethan mount the platform and turn to face him.

Ethan glanced down off the edge of the platform and felt his guts turn over and his legs weaken and as he saw the tremendous sheer face of the mountain falling away behind him and plunging thousands of feet into the gorge. The river below was a silvery thread beneath thick banks of mist and early morning cloud that rolled between the mountain peaks. He turned back to face Vladimir, who raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘What do you think the odds are of anybody finding you down there?’

Ethan did not reply as he looked again at Lucy, this time the sun not blinding him but instead shining toward Vladimir and Lucy, Ethan’s own shadow blocking the sunlight from their faces. Lucy again vaguely shook her head as she tried to discourage him from whatever he might intend to do.

‘This doesn’t change anything,’ Ethan said to Vladimir. ‘You’ll never get those remains out of Peru now. Every single law enforcement officer will be watching every single airport, seaport and road searching for you and your accomplices. You’ll be arrested at the first checkpoint you reach.’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Vladimir replied. ‘Either way, you’ll be nothing but a damp spot in the centre of that gorge.’

Vladimir raised the rifle to point at Ethan’s chest, and Ethan sidestepped one pace and let the full force of the sunrise blaze into Vladimir’s face. The Russian squinted and jerked his head to one side as he tried to maintain his aim, and at that moment Lucy reached up to grab Vladimir’s forearm. With a single jerk of her head she opened her mouth wide and bit deeply into his flesh.

Vladimir screamed as he yanked his arm free from Lucy, and Ethan rushed down off the platform and crashed past the AK-47 as he opened his right hand and pressed the mud and dust directly into Vladimir’s eyes. The Russian toppled backwards and groaned in pain as the sharp dust and sand scraped across his eyeballs. Ethan purposely let himself fall on top of Vladimir as he shoved the Russian’s head back and it impacted with the ground.

Vladimir growled and his eyes rolled up in their sockets, the white smeared with mud and grime, but he kept a firm grip on the AK-47 and to Ethan’s surprise maintained his consciousness. It was only then that Ethan saw that the Russian was also wearing what looked like a parachute on his back, and Ethan realized that the Russian intended to abandon his own men and leap from the enormous mountain in an attempt to escape into one of the deep gorges surrounding the site.

Vladimir drove his boots up towards Ethan’s groin as with his head he sought to bite Ethan’s face. Ethan jerked back just in time for Vladimir to ram the AK-47’s stock across his jaw. Ethan rolled off the Russian, who delivered a frenzied cloud of blows to Ethan’s face as he struggled to get to his feet, but holding the bundled remains under one arm slowed Vladimir and made him vulnerable.

Ethan grabbed the stock of the AK-47 and pressed it to one side to prevent the Russian from taking a shot and then drove upward with his right boot as he swung his right fist hard across Vladimir’s jaw. The impact cracked out loudly in the cold morning air and seemed to echo of the surrounding cliffs as Vladimir staggered to one side against the stone altar.

Ethan swung a boot at his right wrist and it connected with a dull crack that sent the AK-47 spinning from Vladimir’s grasp. The Russian cried out as the tendons and bones in his wrist cracked and he tried to reach out for the weapon, but the rifle had already gone over the edge. Ethan heard it clatter away down the sheer cliffs into oblivion as he stepped in to finish the Russian off, fists clenched and held before him.

Vladimir reach behind him into his waistband and in the bright sunlight a wicked-looking blade flashed into his hand and whipped towards Ethan’s face. Ethan ducked in surprise and backed off.

‘Time to leave,’ Vladimir sneered at Ethan.

Lucy Morgan reached out from where she lay on the ground. ‘No, don’t do it!’

Vladimir ignored her and leaped up onto the platform. Ethan knew that he was going to jump and in a last-ditch attempt to snatch the remains from his grasp Ethan propelled himself forward and leaped up onto the platform.

Vladimir crouched down slightly and then whirled and launched himself off the edge of the platform and out into open air. Ethan’s hit the edge of the platform and he felt it beneath the sole of his boot, the perfectly cut right-angled stone his last connection with solid ground and he knew that he would not be able to stop himself from going further. With a cry of desperation he pushed off as hard as he could and flew out into midair directly above Vladimir and barely a yard away.

Time seemed to stand still as he saw the Russian beneath him still clutching the bundle of fabric under one arm and the knife in his other hand. Ethan felt his stomach plunge as he began to accelerate into the abyss after Vladimir. The cold wind rushed past his face and through his clothes and his shirt rippled as moisture sprinkled his hair and skin as he plummeted towards the clouds below.

Vladimir rolled over in midair as with the knife in one hand and the bundle in the other he spread his arms and legs. Thick webbing spread out like bat’s wings between his upper thighs and between his elbows and waist, and the Russian soared away from Ethan.

Ethan hurled his jacket off and mimicked Vladimir’s movements as the flying suit he had stolen from the Russian gunman in the temple on Macchu Picchu opened out and he felt his plunge arrested as the webbed suit generated lift and he soared in pursuit of Vladimir.

He saw panic on Vladimir’s face as the Russian realized that he was being pursued. For the first time in the fight Ethan’s experience as a Marine parachutist came to his help and he tucked his arms and legs in and accelerated even as Vladimir reached for a parachute release cord on his chest.

Ethan slammed down onto the Russian’s back and his body pinned the chute in its pack as they plummeted together down the gorge, rocketing along at what felt like a hundred miles per hour as their suits let them glide like birds. Wreaths of cloud hurtled by as Vladimir turned the blade in his hand and attempted to stab Ethan in the face.

The blade flashed in the air and Ethan grabbed it, catching not the handle but the blade. He held onto it even though he felt the wickedly sharp edge bite into the flesh of his fingers, and then he reached around Vladimir’s chest and grabbed the handle with his good hand as the Russian turned over in midair. The lift vanished from their webbed suits and they rocketed down through the gorge in a lethal dive as the dense clouds swallowed them whole, nothing visible around them but grey mist that streamed moisture across Ethan’s face. He heard the Russian cry out in panic as he tried to pull his parachute cord again but nothing happened. Ethan grabbed him under the jaw with one hand and with the other he forced the knife up and under the Russians arm and plunged the blade point first toward his chest.

Vladimir cried out and tried to push the blade away. Ethan looked over his shoulder and he knew that they had only seconds before they would plunge from the cloud and down into the rocky depths of the Urabamba River. Vladimir pushed hard against the knife and this time Ethan pulled with him. Vladimir’s arms were yanked away from him and the bundle beneath them tumbled away into mid air.

Vladimir reached for it and his grip on the blade failed him. Ethan tore the knife from him with one brutal yank and then he pushed away from the Russian and slashed the parachute on his back.

Ethan plunged out of the cloud alongside Vladimir, who was grasping for the bundle falling beside him. He grabbed it with one hand and directed a savage grin of victory at Ethan before he pulled his chute cord again. The drogue chute billowed open above them with an audible boom as Ethan saw the Russian shoot away under the immense deceleration, but almost immediately the chute tore apart with a thunderous crack.

Vladimir screamed as he fell alongside the burial shroud and plummeted towards the rocks of the river below. Ethan rolled over and extended his arms and legs as his suit once again generated lift and he soared away. He found his gaze fixed upon the Russian as he plunged the last few hundred feet toward the floor of the gorge and then his body smashed into the rocks with an audible crunch and disintegrated upon impact in a dark flare of crimson blood.

Alongside Vladimir, the burial shroud plummeted into the deep water with a crash and vanished beneath the waves. Ethan looked ahead and saw the sparkling surface of the river’s torrent flowing beneath him, could hear now its roar as it thundered through the narrow gorge barely two hundred feet beneath him.

Ethan reached to his chest and yanked his own parachute cord, heard the chute billow out behind him as he raced down the valley. The chute yanked him to a near-halt and his legs swung up beneath him as he fought for control.

Ethan looked up desperately for the control handles of the chute above him, grabbing them and searching for a place to land. In the turbulent airflow within the valley he had little control over the chute as it swirled this way and that, caught on the gusts blustering through the gorge as the water rushed up toward him.

Ethan took a chance and yanked down hard on one handle and the chute turned and swept in a hard right turn above the waves toward a steep bank densely clogged with a thicket of trees and bushes. The branches rushed by beneath his boots and Ethan took his chance as he released both of the control handles, pinched the release buckle on the suit and pointed his hands straight up in the air above him.

Ethan dropped from the chute harness and plunged into the freezing water. He shielded his face with one arm as he tumbled end over end in the torrent until he finally broke the surface. With a scrambling, desperate frenzy of strokes he reached the shore of a narrow spit of beach hugging one side of the gorge and dragged himself up onto it.

Ethan lay there for a moment and then turned his head to see Vladimir’s shattered corpse float down the nearby river, and further downstream the bobbing form of the burial shroud vanishing into the distance, never to be seen again.