Authors: Matthew Reilly
'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 your self 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 sec tion 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 cir cle 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 leather- bound 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 half-dozen
cream-coloured pages filled with Alberto Santi ago'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 com panions 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 G-11 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 mas sive 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
zip-lines 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 G-11s 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 supermachine-gun 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 bcflying three Super Stallions…
Abruptly, a spattering of gunfire strafed the ground all around him
and Race scampered for the treeline, 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?' Ren6e 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 mid-air. 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, its 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 AH-66
'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
machine-gun fire, covering the eight SEALs still dangling from its
zipqines.
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 smoke-trail 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 mid-air 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 firetrails 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 Ren6e
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 G-11 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 Ren6e 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.