She and Osterhagen led the way to the darkened opening. While the limited space in the cave had forced the Incas to compress most of their architecture, the Temple of the Sun was, if anything, larger than its counterpart at Paititi. A short passage followed the curve of the outer wall before opening into a chamber.
Even before she reached it, Nina saw there was something unusual about the interior. Through the roof’s skeletal remains, the light in the passage had the same diffuse twilight cast as the rest of the cave. But the room ahead was different. Not brighter, but somehow
warmer
, almost like a dawn.
Osterhagen had seen it too. He quickened his pace. They entered the chamber . . .
And were bathed in golden light reflected off the object on its western wall.
‘
Mein Gott!
’ gasped Osterhagen, gasping. Nina was equally staggered.
They had found the Punchaco.
It dwarfed its copy from Paititi. That had been four feet in diameter; the golden disc before them now was nearer nine, and at least twice as thick as its counterpart. It stood almost floor to ceiling, mounted on the wall to face the trapezoidal eastern window. Unlike the smaller sun disc, which while ornate had been fashioned only from gold, this was decorated with hundreds of precious stones around its rim and outlining the great face of Inti, the sun god, that stared from its centre. The greatest treasure of the Incas, weighing tons, had been transported across hundreds of miles to protect it from the Spaniards’ gold-lust; a monumental, almost unbelievable journey.
But here it was. And an entire city had been built to house it.
The others filed into the room. ‘Jesus!’ said Eddie. ‘De Quesada would have had a job fitting
that
into his loo.’
Zender’s mouth dropped open at the sight. He gabbled in Spanish to Juanita. ‘What’s he saying?’ Mac whispered to Macy.
‘He’s telling her to start arranging a press conference,’ she replied. The Scot made a sound of quiet amusement.
Nina regarded the relief of Inti, then turned to see where the Inca god was gazing. Through the window, she could see the waterfall – and, she remembered, there was a gap between two peaks on the opposite side of the valley. Even though the view would be obscured by the falls, the Incas had still made sure the temple faced the rising sun. ‘So what do you think, Mr Zender?’ she asked. The Peruvian official had a hand raised to the Punchaco’s rim, fingertips hovering just above its surface as if afraid to touch it. ‘Worth the trip?’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ he said, so transfixed that he didn’t even turn his head to address her. He finally summoned the willpower to put his hand against the sun disc. Satisfied that it was indeed real, he looked round. ‘Dr Wilde, Dr Osterhagen, this is . . . ’ He struggled for the right words. ‘Amazing!’ was all he could manage. ‘You have found the greatest treasure in Peru’s history. You are both national heroes!’
‘Thank you,’ said Osterhagen, ‘but we are not heroes – simply scholars. The real heroes were here over four hundred years ago, preserving this place for the ages. They made an incredible journey and took great risks to protect their culture and its heritage.’
Zender nodded, rather calculatingly. ‘Yes, yes. If you say that at the press conference, that would be very good!’
‘Let’s save the media planning until we’ve found everything, shall we?’ Nina suggested. ‘There’s still a whole city to explore. And there was something else on the Paititi map.’ She put down her pack and took out the case containing the statuettes. ‘We’ve got two and a half out of three; let’s see if we can complete the set.’
She opened the case, revealing the figurines. The Peruvian contingent looked on in bemusement; Nina had only told a few senior politicians about the IHA’s other ongoing mission when requesting permission to mount the expedition. ‘What are these?’ asked Olmedo.
‘Pointers, I think,’ Nina said. She picked up the first statue; as she had hoped, it glowed with an earth energy reaction, though not an especially strong one. Even so, in the low light it was perfectly clear, the Peruvians reacting with surprise. ‘If I put them all together, I’m hoping they’ll show me the missing piece.’
She carefully brought the three carved purple stones together, cradling them in her hands. The glow changed, a brighter band shimmering – pointing at the sun disc.
‘It’s behind that?’ Kit asked.
Nina grimaced. ‘I hope not – I wouldn’t want to have to damage the Punchaco to get it out!’ She stepped across to the side wall. The line of light moved, the parallax shift indicating that the final piece was close by – but it no longer pointed at the representation of the sun god. ‘No, I think it’s in the palace. Just as the map said.’
‘It shouldn’t take long to find,’ said Macy. ‘Not when you’ve got your own personal weird statue detector.’
Nina addressed the Peruvians. ‘This is the main reason the IHA became involved. There’s no need for you to come with me to find the last statue piece if you don’t want to.’
She had hoped they would take the hint and let her search in peace, but from their expressions – even the two soldiers were intrigued – it was clear they all wanted to satisfy their curiosity. ‘Probably shouldn’t have shown ’em the glowing statues, love,’ said Eddie.
Still carefully holding the circle of figurines, she moved back towards the passage. ‘Well, let’s see where they lead us, then.’
The others following, she left the temple, heading for the palace at the summit of the hidden city.
In the jungle outside the cave, one of the two soldiers left to watch the team’s vehicles looked down the hill. Several minutes earlier, he had thought he heard distant engines, but the waterfall’s never-ending rumble made it difficult to be sure. He had dismissed the sound as nothing more than local traffic picking its way along the winding road – but now he was certain he had heard it again, and closer. He stared down the weaving trail of flattened vegetation made by the off-roaders, but saw nothing except greenery.
His companion, leaning against the Jeep, stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Why would anyone come up here? Nobody’s even supposed to know about this place except those archaeologists.’
‘Someone might have seen our tracks going off the road.’ The reassuring weight of his Kalashnikov AKM rifle hung from one shoulder; he considered unslinging it and heading downhill to investigate. But there was nothing moving amongst the trees except birds, and the noise had stopped. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure I heard a truck.’
He expected a sarcastic retort, but no answer came. Assuming the other soldier was busy lighting yet another cigarette, he continued, ‘And I know you’re going to say that we almost ran into plenty of trucks on the way here, but I meant it was nearer than the road.’ He turned to await a response—
A man in dirty, ragged jungle camouflage was behind his comrade, one hand clamped over his mouth – and the other driving a knife deep into his throat, spraying blood over the Jeep’s windscreen.
The soldier grabbed his AKM—
A loud, flat thump came from the undergrowth, and he fell, hit in the back by a bullet. He writhed in pain, trying to scream, but only managed a choked gurgle, blood from a shredded lung frothing in his throat and mouth.
The shooter stepped from the bushes. He was short, barrel-chested . . . and wearing a blood-red beret.
Arcani Pachac.
‘Any sign of the rest?’ the Maoist leader asked as his scout pulled the knife from the second soldier’s neck and let the twitching corpse drop to the ground.
‘No, Inkarrí,’ the camouflaged man replied. ‘Their tracks go to the waterfall, but there’s nobody there. They must be behind it.’
Pachac nodded, then almost as an afterthought raised his weapon again. The automatic had been modified with a makeshift silencer, a two-litre plastic soda bottle stuffed with shredded newspaper and polythene bags taped to his pistol’s barrel. Smoke coiled from the hole in the end of the bottle where the bullet had seared through; the torn-up scraps inside had caught fire. He pulled the trigger, a second round smashing into the back of the wounded soldier’s skull. The shot was still loud, the improvised suppressor too crude to do more than muffle it – but, crucially, it didn’t sound like the sharp crack of gunfire. To anyone outside the immediate vicinity, it could be mistaken for a falling branch or other similar natural event. And the waterfall’s thunder masked it still further.
He pulled the smouldering bottle from the gun, then unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt. ‘The way is clear. Move up.’
The luckless soldier
had
heard engines. Before long, three off-road vehicles came into sight, following the archaeological team’s path. Two were old, battered and unassuming 4×4s - a rusting Ford F-150 pickup with a cargo bed full of rebels, and a long-past-its-prime Toyota Land Cruiser with sagging suspension. Leading the parade, however, was something much newer and more expensive: a bright yellow Hummer H3. Pachac was perversely proud of the vehicle, which his group had obtained by the simple expedient of murdering its owner; the oversized, cartoonish 4×4 was a perfect symbol of the kind of capitalist excess he was aiming to destroy, and it gave him a certain satisfaction to use it against them.
He also got a kick out of driving the huge, opulent vehicle, but kept that to himself.
The crowded trucks stopped behind the expedition’s vehicles, and Pachac’s men emerged. Like him, all were dirty, their clothes grubby and crumpled from a life spent in the rough and on the run. And like him, all were killers. Though they called themselves revolutionaries, to the Peruvian government the True Red Way were terrorists, and hunted as such.
But this time they were not working alone. Pachac ordered his men to head for the falls, then went to the Hummer. Inside was a high-tech field radio. He took the handset and spoke into it. ‘This is Pachac. We’re at the waterfall.’ He wasn’t concerned about the Peruvian authorities overhearing; the radio’s messages were encrypted.
‘Have you seen Wilde and the others?’ the reply came. The voice was clipped. British.
‘No, but they are definitely here. My contact in the village described the woman he saw. Red hair, in a ponytail – it must be her. We think they have found a way behind the waterfall.’ Pachac looked up at the thrum of an approaching helicopter. ‘Is that you I can hear?’
‘Of course it is. How many of them are there?’
‘My contact counted fourteen people. Four of them were soldiers. We have executed two of them already.’
‘We’ll take care of the waterfall – then you take care of the rest of them. But I need Dr Wilde and the Interpol agent, Jindal, alive. You understand?’
‘I have told my men,’ said Pachac impatiently.
‘Good.’ A bleep told the Peruvian that the call was terminated. He followed his men through the trees as the helicopter moved away.
None of Nina’s prior knowledge of Inca civilisation had prepared her for – she realised with amusement that she had started using the name without irony – El Dorado. The other known sites were long-looted and derelict; here, relics of the city’s inhabitants still remained. The palace’s rooms contained belongings left by its occupants, and she had to force herself to walk on by as she followed the statues’ glowing light deeper into the building.
But she knew she could explore the rest of the palace later. For now, finding the final piece was her top priority.
‘It can’t be much further,’ said Kit as the group entered a large room. ‘We’re almost at the back of the palace.’ The hiss of the water jet echoed off the walls.
This deep in the cave, there was much less light than in the Temple of the Sun. Eddie switched on his Maglite. ‘Is that something there?’
The beam found an alcove set into the rear wall – familiar markings within. ‘I think it is,’ said Nina, her pace and heartbeat getting faster.
Osterhagen was right with her. ‘Just like the map from Paititi!’
‘Only part of it,’ said Macy as the others crowded round to look. More flashlights illuminated the painted walls.
Nina knelt to enter the alcove. ‘Yeah. The people who made this map, this is where their journey ended. They didn’t go on into the jungle.’ The golden city marked the end of the trek from Cuzco.
But she was more interested in the nook set into the wall. In it stood a small figure, carved from an unusual purple stone.
Half
a figure. The other piece of the last statuette. It had patiently stood here for centuries, waiting to be reunited with its mirror image – and its near-twins. The set was about to be completed.
She put down the other figures, their light vanishing, and cautiously touched the statuette in the niche. It lit up with a rippling glow – strongest in one direction. Towards the sculptures at her feet. ‘This is it!’ Nina said. ‘The last piece.’
‘Maybe now we’ll find out what all the bloody fuss is about,’ said Eddie.
‘Let’s hope.’ She reached for it—
A distant boom, a drawn-out rumble of something enormous tearing apart . . .
The floor shook, little cascades of dust and grit dropping from the walls. The statuettes on the floor clinked against each other.
‘Terremoto!’
cried Zender, frantically looking round for shelter.