Temple (31 page)

'So where is it?' Nash said. 'Where is their base of
operations?'
But Race wasn't listening. Something had just clicked in the back
of his mind.
Base of operations…
Where had he heard those words before?
'Professor Race?' Nash said.
No, wait. He hadn't heard them at all.
He had seen them.
And then suddenly it hit him.
'Lauren, do we still have that telephone transcript here?
The one with the Nazis' ransom demand on it. The telephone
conversation that the BKA intercepted between a cellular phone
somewhere in Peru and Colonia Alemania.”
Lauren spun and .immediately began rummaging
through the equipment in the darkened citadel.
'Got it.' She handed a sheet of paper to him.
Race looked at the transcript that he'd seen earlier.
VOICE 1: —-ase of operations has been established—-rest
of the—-will be—-mine—-
VOICE 2: —-about the device?—-ready?
VOICE 1: —-have adopted hourglass formation based on the American
model—-two thermonuclear detonators mounted above and below a
titanium-alloy inner cla.mber. Field tests indicate
that—-device—-operational.
All we need now—-the thyrium. VOICE 2: —-don't worry, Anistaze's
taking care of that—- VOICE 1: What about the message?
VOICE 2: —-will go out as soon as we get the idol—-to every Prime
Minister and President in the EU—-plus the President of the United
States via internal
303
emergency hotline-oransom will be one hundred billion dollars
U.S.—-or else we detonate the device…
Race's eyes zeroed in on the first two lines of the
transcript.
VOICE 1: —-ase of operations has been established—-rest of
the—-will be—-mine—-
'Will be mine…' Race said aloud. 'Mine… the mine.'
He turned to Lauren. 'What was the name of that aban doned goldmine
we saw from the Huey on our way here?
The one that was all lit up? The one that didn't look all that
abandoned anymore.'
'The Madre de Dios goldmine,' Lauren said.
'Is it situated on a river?'
'Yes, on the Alto Purus. Nearly all the open-cut mines in the
Amazon are situated on rivers, because seaplanes and
boats are the only way to get the gold out of here.'
'How far away is it from here?'
'I don't know. Sixty, seventy miles.'
Race turned to Nash. 'That's where they're going, Colonel. The
Madre de Dios goldmine. By boat.'
I-/einrich Anistaze crashed through the undergrowth, forging his
way eastward until at last he pushed aside the final branch and was
confronted by a truly spectacular sight.
The Amazon rainforest spread out before him like a lush green
carpet running all the way to the horizon.
Anistaze was standing at the edge of the tableland—at the top of a
sheer, foliage-covered cliff that overlooked the rainforest. To his
immediate right was a magnificent two- hundred-foot waterfall that
flowed out over the tableland, the end product of the
caiman-infested river that ran along side Vilcafor.
Anistaze ignored the waterfall.
Of more importance to him was what lay at its base, in
the wide section of river down there.
He smiled at the sight.
Yes…
Then, with the idol under his arm, he quickly began to
climb down the set of ropes that snaked their way up the
cliff-face, heading down to the riven
'All right, then,' Copeland said, 'so how are we going to catch
these bastards? They've got a fifteen-minute head- start on us and
just in case anyone has forgotten, there are rapas out
there—'
'If their boats are where I think they are, then there's another
way to get to them,' Race said. 'A route that avoids having to go
past the cats.'
'What route?' Nash asked.
Race immediately dropped to his knees and began
sweeping his hands across the earthen floor of the citadel.
'What are you doing?'
'I'm looking for something.
'What?“
Race searched the floor for it. According to the manuscript, it
should be here somewhere. The only question was whether or not the
Incas had used the same symbol to mark
“This,” he said suddenly, as he swept his hand across the earthen
floor and revealed a stone slab beneath the thin layer of mud and
dirt.
Inscribed in the corner of the slab was a symbol—a circle with a
double 'V' in it.
'Here, help me,' he said.
Van Lewen and Doogie came over, got a hold of the slab and heaved
on it.
The slab rumbled against its neighbours as it slowly slid out of
its resting place—revealing an inky black hole beneath it.
'It's the quenko,' Race said.
'The what?' Nash said.
'I read about it in the manuscript. It was a maze dug into the rock
beneath the village, an escape route, a tunnel system that leads to
the waterfall at the edge of the tableland—if you know the key to
the maze.'
'And you know that key?'
'Yes, I do.'
'How?' Troy Copeland asked mockingly.
'Because I've read the manuscript,' Race said.
'So who goes?' Lauren said.
“Van Lewen and Kennedy,' Nash said. 'And anyone else who can carry
a gun,' he added, looking at the two BKA agents and the German
paratrooper, Molke. Ren6e, Schroeder and Molke all nodded.
Nash turned to Copeland. 'What about you, Troy?'
'I've never held a gun in my life,' Copeland said.
'All right, then. Looks like it's just you five—'
'I can handle a gun,” Race said.
'What?' Lauren said.
“You ?” Copeland said.
'Well,' Race shrugged, 'some guns. My brother used to bring them
home all the time. I'm not all that good at it, but—'
'Professor Race can run with me any time,' Van Lewen said, stepping
forward exchanging a look with Race—and handing him a spare
SIG-Sauer pistol. 'Judging from what he did up on the rock
tower.'
He turned to Nash. 'Is that it then, sir?'
Nash nodded. “Do whatever you have to do, just get that idol. Our
air support should be here any minute now. As soon as they get
here, I'll send them after you. If you can somehow get your hands
on that idol and keep those Nazi bastards at bay for a while, the
air support team should be able to get you out of there. You got
that?'
'Got it,' Van Lewen said, grabbing his M-16. 'Then let's go.'
Van Lewen led the way, charging through one of the narrow stone
passageways of the quenko beneath Vilcafor.
He held his M-16 pressed against his shoulder, illuminat ing the
cramped tunnel in front of them with the tiny flash light that was
attached to its barrel.
Race, Doogie, Molke and the two BKA agents hurried along the dark
stone passageway behind him. Doogie and the three Germans held
M-16s in their hands. Race just car ried the silver
SIG-Sauer.
Although he didn't want to say it, Race was scared out of his mind.
But he was where he wanted to bewith Van Lewen and Doogie and the
Germans, going after the idol, going after the Nazis. Doing
something.
The quenko, however, didn't help ease his mind.
It was like some hOrrific kind of dungeon—a nightmar ish
subterranean maze with close stone walls and slippery muddy
floors.
Enormous hairy spiders scuttled away into dark crevices as the six
of them hustled past, while obscenely fat snakes slithered through
the stagnant mud on the tunnel floor, almost tripping them over.
And it was claustrophobic— claustrophobic as hell each slimy
passageway that he saw was barely three feet wide.
Van Lewen ran quickly in the lead.
'Take the third tunnel on the right,' Race said from behind him.
'And then zigzag, starting with the left.'
At exactly the same time as Race and the others were dash ing
through the underground maze, Heinrich Anistaze was reaching the
bottom of the tableland's cliff-face.
He strode over to the riverbank where he stepped straight into a
rubber Zodiac speedboat.
He keyed his radio mike. 'Demolition team. Report.'
He received no reply.
Through the quenko they ran.
Running hard, running fast, ducking left, cutting right, bursting
through spiderwebs, tripping over forty-foot snakes, stumbling
through the slick moss-covered tunnels of the ghastly subterranean
maze.
'Hey, Van Lewen,' Race said in between breaths as they
jogged down a long section of tunnel.
'Yeah?' Van Lewen replied.
'What's the 80s Club?'
'The 80s Club?'
'Cochrane mentioned it last night while you guys were unpacking the
choppers, but he wouldn't say what it was.
I'd like to know what it is before I die.'
Van Lewen snorted as he ran. 'I can tell you, but it's
pretty, uh, unrefined.'
'Try me.'
'Okay…' Van Lewen said. 'It goes like this. To become a member of
the 80s Club, you must have had sex with a girl who was born in the
1980s.'
'Oh, man!” Race said, cringing.
'I told you it was unrefined,' Van Lewen said.
They ran on.
The six of them had been running for about seven min utes through
the quenko when—abruptly—Van Lewen
turned a corner and slammed into a solid stone wall.
Only it wasn't a wall at all.
It was a doorstone.
In fact, it was a doorstone not unlike the one in the door way of
the citadel itself—a square-shaped boulder with a
rounded base that could be easily rolled open from the inside, but
which was impregnable from without.
Race and Van Lewen rolled the boulder aside—
—and they were instantly assailed by the roar of a mighty
waterfall.
A light spray of water hit their faces as they were con fronted by
the sight of a curtain of falling water not ten feet in front of
them.
Race scanned the area around them.
They were standing on a path—an Incan path—-carved into the
rockwall behind the waterfall.
They were at the edge of the tableland already.
The roar of the surging waterfall above them was incredi ble. It
drowned out all other sound. Van Lewen had to shout over it to be
heard.
'This way!' he yelled, hurrying left.
The rocky path was wet and slippery, but Race and the others
managed to keep their footing as they hustled along its length
behind the falling curtain of water.
Even though they moved quickly, it still took them a full minute to
reach the edge of the curtain—the waterfall above them was wide,
and they had emerged from the quenko at its very centre.
Van Lewen came out onto solid ground first, skidded to a halt on
the muddy riverbank. 'Holy shit,' he said.
'What is it?' Race asked as he came alongside him and looked out at
the river.
The first thing he saw was Heinrich Anistaze's little Zodiac
speedboat, cutting a ribbon of wash as it sped away
from them into the wider waters of the river proper.
'What are you talking about?' he asked.
And then he saw the other boats.
'Holy shit.'
310 'i
It looked like a veritable armada.
There must have been at least twenty boats out there on the wide
brown river at the base of the waterfall. Boats of all shapes and
sizes.
Five long-bodied shallow-draught assault boats sped around the
perimeter of the fleet. They were Rigid Raiders— sleek, open-topped
aluminium-hulled attack craft commonly used by the SAS for
high-speed raiding.
Four Vietnam-era military patrol boats known as 'Pibbers'
cruised casually alongside some of the larger boats near the centre
of the armada. Pibbers were superfast 35-foot gunboats fitted with
armour plating, turret-mounted 20mm machine-guns and side-mounted
torpedo pods. Their name was a serviceman's abbreviation of their
official designation PBR (Patrol Boat River), and although the
Pibber was already well known for its exploits in Vietnam, it had
been immortalised in the Hollywood movie Apocalypse Now.
Three massive helicopter landing barges surged along the river
inside the circle of attack boats. On the helipads of two of the
barges sat Mosquito light-attack helicopters. The chopper that had
been up on the tower top earlier was in the process of landing on
the third barge's helipad right now.
Trailing behind the middle helipad barge, however—and looking
remarkably out of place alongside the three ultra° high-tech
Mosquitos—was a rather battered-looking little seaplane.
It was a Grumman JRF-5 'Goose', a compact twin
propellered riverplane that dated back to the Second World
War.
The Grumman Goose was a very distinctive little plane,
classic in its design. From the side, its bow was roughly the same
shape as a labrador's snout—short and fiat-topped but rounded at
the waterline. It sat in the water on its belly with two
stabilising pontoons hanging down from its outstretched wings.
Notably, the Goose had two methods of entry, a side door and a
pop-up hatch in the nose.
This Goose, however, also packed a punch—a lightweight
twin-barrelled 20mm Gaffing gun had been affixed
to its left-hand flank.
In the centre of the Nazi fleet sat the armada's focal point—and
the destination of Anistaze's Zodiac—an enormous white
catamaran.
The command boat.
It looked magnificent, sleek in the extreme, at least 150
feet long. Its two massive hulls were painted pristine white while
its sharply slanting windows were tinted jet black.
Sonar arrays rotated atop its roof. A dazzling white Bell Jet
Ranger helicopter sat on the helipad that made up the stern of the
giant craft.
In addition to the helicopter, rocking in the water alongside
the big catamaran, tied to it, was the meanest-looking speedboat
Race had ever seen. It, too, was painted white, the same colour as
the command boat and the helicopter—a matching set. It sat low in
the water and it had an ultra-long hull that tapered sharply to a
point at the bow. A backward-slanting spoiler arched over the
driver's seat—an aerodynamic precaution designed to prevent the
high-powered speedboat from being lifted off the river's surface
while it flew across the water at top speed. Race saw the word
'SCARAB' painted across its side.
Scooting around the whole motley fleet-cutting thin ribbons of
white wash behind them—were about six Jet Raiders: small one-man
assault vehicles not unlike regular jet-skis.
But they were longer than normal jet-skis—maybe nine
feet from tip to tail. And they were sleeker, meaner, faster.
They had saddle-like seats and bullet-shaped noses, and they all
sat high in the water as they moved, with only the back half of
their hulls touching the water's surface as they skimmed lightly
across it, whipping around the larger boats.
Race and the others watched as Anistaze's Zodiac reached the
command boat and the notorious Nazi field commander climbed aboard.
Immediately, the big white catamaran began to power up. As it did
so, the rest of the fleet began to move out.