Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  Doogie waited on tenterhooks.

  A moment later, the caiman belched disgustingly and then—whump!—a muffled explosion issued from within its belly. The caiman didn’t explode, no blood or guts or ribs went flying everywhere. It just jolted suddenly, and then slumped, limp, on top of Doogie, the life rushing out of it

  Doogie stared at the giant reptile for a moment stunned at what he had just done. The massive animal was still lying half on top of him, groaning involuntarily, expelling large amounts of air that it no longer needed.

  “Whoa . . .” Doogie breathed.

  Then he shook his head and pulled himself out from under the enormous creature and clambered over to where Gaby was still lying in the mud, completely dumbstruck at his act of chivalry.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Frank Nash raced through the dense foliage between the upper village and the crater, holding the idol under his arm like a football.

  Lauren and Copeland ran behind him, SIG-Sauer pistols in their hands.

  Amid all the confusion of the aerial attack on the upper village, he and Lauren and Copeland had quickly laid one of the log-bridges over the moat and bolted across it into the dense underbrush.

  “This is Nash! This is Nash!” he yelled into his throat microphone as he ran. “Aerial team, come in!”

  He looked up at the sky behind him, saw the surviving Army Comanche helicopter hovering over the smoking re-mains of the village. Behind it he saw another chopper—a third helicopter that was fatter and stockier than the Comanche. It was a Black Hawk n, the third Army chopper.

  “Colonel Nash—is Captain Hank Thompson—read you,” a static-ridden voice said over his earpiece. “Sorry—took so long—lost your signal in—overnight electrical storm—”

  “Thompson, we have the prize. I repeat we have the prize. I am currently about fifty meters due east of the village, heading eastward toward the crater. I need immediate extraction.”

  “Negative on that, Colonel—nowhere to land up here—too many—trees.”

  “Then meet us down in the other village,” Nash yelled. “The one with the citadel. Just head due east straight over the crater, and look down. You can’t miss it. It’s got plenty of room to land.”

  “Ten-four, Colonel—see you there.”

  The two surviving Army choppers immediately banked in the air above the upper village and thundered over Nash’s head, heading toward Vilcafor.

  Not a minute later, Nash, Lauren and Copeland came to the crater and took off down its spiraling pathway.

  Race, Renée and Van Lewen dashed through the dense section of foliage between the upper village and the crater, chasing after Nash and the idol.

  The rapas were nowhere to be seen.

  They must have retired to the depths of the crater with the onset of dawn, Race thought. He hoped to hell that the monkey urine on his body still worked.

  The three of them hit the crater’s path running.

  As Race, Renée and Van Lewen were starting down the path, Nash, Lauren and Copeland were arriving at its base.

  They came to the fissure, ran down its length, their feet kicking up water with every step. They never noticed the dark feline heads pop up lazily from the shadow lake as they ran by.

  The three of them burst out onto the riverside path to be met by a thin morning mist but they didn’t stop to admire it. They just kept moving forward, heading toward Vilcafor and the thumping sound of the choppers.

  Another couple of minutes and they reached the moat on the western side of the village.

  And they stopped.

  Stopped dead in their tracks.

  Before them—standing in the middle of Vilcafor, with their hands clasped behind their heads and the soft mist curling around their feet—stood a group of about a dozen men and women. They all stood motionless, oblivious to the whump-whump-whump of helicopter rotors that filled the morning air.

  A couple of them were Navy SEALs. They were dressed in full combat attire. But they weren’t holding any guns. Others wore blue Navy uniforms. Others still wore ordinary civilian clothing—the DARPA scientists.

  And then Nash saw their helicopter. It was standing be-hind the small crowd of people.

  A lone Super Stallion.

  The third Navy chopper.

  It sat in the center of the village, silent, motionless, its seven rotor blades still. Nash saw the word “NAVY” plastered across its side in bold white lettering.

  And then he looked upward, searching for the source of the loud whumping sound that filled the air above the village.

  And he saw them.

  Saw the two Army helicopters—the Comanche and the Black Hawk II—that he had sent {town from the upper village. They were hovering over Vilcafor, with their twin-barreled Gatling guns and their fearsome-looking missile pods aimed squarely at the hapless Navy-DARPA team on the ground.

  Race and the others emerged from the riverside path a couple of minutes later.

  By the time they arrived at the main street of Vilcafor, the two Army choppers had landed and Nash was strutting around like a peacock in front of the Navy men, holding the gleaming idol in one hand and a silver SIG-Sauer pistol in the other.

  The crews of the Army choppers—six men in all, two from the Comanche, four from the Black Hawk—held M-16s leveled at the Navy-DARPA crowd.

  “Ah, Professor Race, nice of you to join us,” Nash said as Race and the others stepped out onto the main street of the village, staring at the odd mix of Navy men and civilians standing with their hands clasped behind their heads.

  Race didn’t answer Nash. His eyes just swept over the dozen or so Navy people, searching for someone.

  He figured if they were Romano’s team, the real Supernova team, then maybe . . .

  He froze.

  He saw him.

  Saw a man, a civilian, standing among the group of Navy men, dressed in ordinary hiking clothes and boots. Despite the fact that he hadn’t seen him in almost ten years, Race recognized the dark eyebrows and the stooped shoulders instantly.

  He was looking at his brother.

  “Marty . . .” Race breathed.

  “Professor Race—” Nash said.

  Race ignored him as he strode over to his brother. They stood before each other—no embrace—two brothers but two vastly different men.

  For one thing Race was a mess. While he was covered in mud and stank of monkey urine, Marty was perfectly groomed, his clothes pristine clean. He stared wide-eyed at Race—at his filthy clothes, at his battered, mud-stained cap—as if he were the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

  Marty was shorter than Race, stockier. And while Race always wore a very open, easy expression, Marty’s face was perpetually set in a deathly serious frown.

  “Will . . .” Marty said.

  “Marty, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. They tricked me into coming along. They said that they were with DARPA and that they knew you and that—”

  And then, abruptly, Race cut himself off as he saw another member of the Navy team whom he recognized.

  He frowned.

  It was Ed Devereux.

  Devereux was a short bespectacled black man, and at forty-one was one of the most highly regarded ancient languages professors at Harvard. Some said he was the best Latin scholar in the world. At the moment, he stood silently in the line of Navy and DARPA people, holding a large leather-bound book under his arm. Race guessed it was the Navy’s copy of the manuscript.

  It was then that Race remembered meeting Frank Nash in his own office two days ago, at the very beginning of all this—remembered recommending to Nash that he take Devereux on the mission instead of himself since the Harvard professor was much better at medieval Latin than he was.

  But now . . . now Race knew why Nash had insisted on taking him and not Devereux.

  It was because Devereux had already been taken. By the real DARPA team.

  “You’ll never get out of this al
ive, Nash,” one of the older Navy-DARPA men said. He had a completely bald head and the bearing of a man in charge—Doctor Julius Romano.

  “Why do you say that?” Nash said.

  “The Armed Services Committee will hear about this,” Romano said. “The Supernova is a Navy project. You have no business being here.”

  “The Supernova ceased to be a Navy project the moment it was stolen from DARPA headquarters two days ago,” Nash said. “Which means that now the Army is the only armed force in the United States with a Supernova in its possession.”

  Romano said, “You son of a—”

  It was at that moment that Romano’s head exploded—bursting like a tomato—sending a fountain of blood spraying out in every direction. A split second later, his body dropped to the ground—limp, lifeless, dead.

  Race whirled around at the sound of the gunshot, just in time to see Nash standing there with his SIG-Sauer pistol extended in the firing position. Nash took a step along the line of Navy and DARPA people and leveled his pistol at the next man’s head.

  Blam!

  The gun went off and the man fell.

  “What are you doing?’ Race yelled.

  “Colonel!” Van Lewen shouted, incredulous, making to raise his G-11.

  But no sooner had he moved than another silver SIG-Sauer appeared next to his head. At the other end of the pistol stood Troy Copeland.

  “Drop the gun, Sergeant” Copeland said.

  Van Lewen clenched his teeth, dropped the G-11 and glared at Copeland.

  Lauren had Renée similarly covered.

  Completely confused, Race spun to look at Marty, but his brother just stood at the end of the line of Navy and DARPA people, staring stoically forward, his only movement a blink with every gunshot.

  “Colonel, this is outright murder,” Van Lewen said. Nash stepped up in front of another Navy man, leveled his pistol.

  Blam!

  “No,” he said. “It is merely a process of natural selection. Survival of the fittest.”

  Nash came to Ed Devereux.

  The small Harvard professor stood before him, trembling. His eyes were wide behind his wire-framed glasses, his whole body shaking with fear. Nash leveled his SIG at the little man’s head.

  Devereux screamed, “No—/”

  Blam!

  The scream cut off abruptly and Devereux crumpled to the ground.

  Race couldn’t believe this was happening. American killing American. It was a nightmare. He winced as he saw Devereux fall to the ground, dead.

  It was then that he saw the leather-bound book that Devereux had been holding when he had been shot. It lay in the mud, face-up, open, revealing a set of crusty old pages filled with ornate medieval artwork and calligraphy.

  It was the Santiago Manuscript.

  Or rather, Race corrected himself, the partially completed copy of the manuscript that had been made by another monk in 1599, thirty years after Alberto Santiago’s death.

  “Colonel, what the hell are you doing?” Race said.

  “I am merely eliminating the competition, Professor Race.”

  Nash slowly made his way down the line of men and women, calmly shooting each of them at point-blank range, one after the other. His eyes were hard, cold, devoid of any emotion as he clinically executed his enemies—his fellow Americans—one by one.

  Some of the Navy-DARPA people started to pray as Nash leveled his pistol at their faces. Some of the civilians started to sob. Race, helpless to stop the slaughter, saw tears well in René’s eyes as she watched the shocking series of executions.

  Soon there was only one man left, the last man in the line.

  Marty.

  Race just watched as Nash stood in front of his brother. He felt completely helpless, powerless to assist Marty.

  And then, strangely, Nash lowered his pistol. He turned to face Race, didn’t take his eyes off him as he spoke: “Lauren, would you get me my laptop from the ATV, please?”

  Race frowned, confused.

  What the hell—?

  Lauren hurried off to the ATV, still parked in front of the citadel. She returned a minute later with Nash’s laptop computer, the one he had been using during the early stages of the mission. She handed it to Nash who—strangely—passed it onto Race.

  ‘Turn it on,” Nash said.

  Race did so.

  “Click on ‘U.S. Army Internal Net,’ ” Nash said.

  Race did so.

  A tide screen appeared.

  U.S. ARMY INTERNAL MESSAGE NETWORK

  The screen then changed to reveal a list of secure-line e-mail messages.

  “Now there should be a message there with your name on it. Do a search for the name ‘Race,’ ” Nash instructed.

  Race punched in his own name and hit the SEARCH button. He wondered where Nash was going with this.

  Suddenly, the computer beeped: “2 MESSAGES FOUND.”

  The long list of e-mails shortened to two.

  DATE

  TIME

  SUBJECT

  3.1.99

  1801

  SUPERNOVA MISSION

  4.1.99

  1635

  WILLIAM RACE ISSUE

  “See the one with your name on it?” Nash said.

  Race eyed the second message, double-clicked on it. A message screen appeared:

  4 JAN 199916:35 US ARMY INTERNAL NET 617 5544 89516-07 N0.187

  From:

  Special Projects Division Leader

  To:

  Nash, Frank

  Subject:

  WILLIAM RACE ISSUE

  Do not leave Race in Cuzco. Repeat Do not leave Race in Cuzco. Take him with you to the jungle. Once the idol has been obtained, liquidate him and dispose of the body accordingly.

  GENERAL ARTHUR H. LANCASTER

  U.S. Army Special Projects Division Leader

  “I just wanted you to know that you should have been dead a long time ago, Professor Race,” Nash said.

  Race felt his blood run cold as he stared at the e-mail.

  This was a death warrant—his death warrant. A missive from the general in charge of the Army Special Projects Division ordering that he be killed.

  Jesus Christ.

  He tried to remain calm.

  He looked at the time of the message.

  16:35, January 4.

  Late in the afternoon on the day he’d left New York.

  Hence this message must have arrived while he had been flying to Peru on board the cargo plane.

  The flight to Peru.

  Jesus, it seemed like years ago now.

  And then suddenly Race recalled when, at one point during the flight, the little sing-song bell on Nash’s laptop computer had tinkled. He remembered it clearly—it had been just after he’d finished translating Nash’s partial copy of the manuscript.

  And then it dawned on him.

  This was why Nash had brought him to Vilcafor—despite the fact that at the very start of the mission Nash had said that if he finished translating the manuscript before they landed, Race wouldn’t even have to get off the plane. But Nash had brought him along anyway. And why?

  Because Nash couldn’t have any witnesses.

  Since his was a secret mission—an Army mission trying to undercut a Navy mission—Nash couldn’t risk leaving any witnesses alive.

  “I was going to kill you two days ago,” Nash said, “after we opened the temple. But then that German BKA team arrived and interrupted my plans. They opened the temple and, well, who could have guessed what they’d find inside it? But then, then we got those extra sections of the manuscript, and I was glad I hadn’t killed you.”

  “I’m so pleased you were happy,” Race said flatly.

  Just then, out of curiosity more than anything else, while he had the computer in front of him, Race double-clicked on the other message that mentioned his name, the one tided “SUPERNOVA MISSION.”

  The full message appeared on the screen.

  Oddly, howeve
r, it was a message that Race had seen before, right at the start of the mission, back when he had been traveling through New York in the motorcade.

  3 JAN 1999 22:01 US ARMY INTERNAL NET 617 5544 88211-05 N0.139

  FROM:

  NASH, FRANK

  TO:

  ALL CUZCO TEAM MEMBERS

  SUBJECT:

  SUPERNOVA MISSION

  CONTACT TO BE MADE WITH RACE ASAP.

  PARTICIPATION CRUCIAL TO SUCCESS OF MISSION.

  EXPECT PACKAGE TO ARRIVE TOMORROW 4 JANUARY AT NEWARK AT 0945.

  ALL MEMBERS TO HAVE EQUIPMENT STOWED ON THE

  TRANSPORT BY 0900.

  Race frowned at the words.

  Contact Race ASAP.

  Participation crucial to success of mission.

  When he had first seen the message, Race hadn’t really paid much attention to it. He had just assumed it was a reference to himself-—William Race—and that it was he who should be contacted immediately.

  But what if it actually meant someone else the Army had to get in touch with. Some other Race.

  In which case it meant that contact should be made with . . .

  Marty.

  Race looked up from the computer in horror, just as his brother stepped out of the line of dead Navy and DARPA people and shook hands with Frank Nash.

  “How are you, Marty?” Nash said familiarly.

  “I’m well, Frank. It’s good to finally catch up with you.”

  Race’s mind was in a spin.

  His eyes flashed from Nash and Marty to the dead bodies on the muddy street, and from them to—

  —the copy of the manuscript lying in the mud next to Ed Devereux’s body.

  And then suddenly it all made sense.

  Race saw the ornate calligraphy on the text, the stunning medieval artwork. It was identical to the Xeroxed copy of the Santiago Manuscript that he had translated for Nash on the way to Peru.

  Oh, no . . .