Temple

by Matthew Reilly

  He turned to Race. And then suddenly his eyes opened wide. “You can’t be serious.”

  “We have to get that idol before they put it in their Supernova,” Race said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “But how?”

  “Just bring us up behind that plane. Stay right underneath it so they don’t see you. Then bring us in nice and close.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Race turned, looked back at the sorry group of people in the plane around him: Doogie—gunshot wounds to the leg and shoulder; Renée—wounded shoulder; Gaby—still slightly in shock from all their recent skirmishes; Uli—out for the count.

  Race snuffed a laugh. “What am I going to do? I’m going to save the world.”

  And with that, he stood up and grabbed the only submachine-gun they had, the Navy MP-5.

  “All right, now. Take us up.”

  The two planes soared through the bright morning sky.

  The Antonov was cruising at about 11,000 feet—three kilometers above the Earth—coasting along at an easy cruising speed of 200 knots as it rose steadily into the sky.

  Although the Antonov didn’t know it, rising through the air behind it, closing in quickly on its tail section, was a much smaller plane—the Goose.

  The little seaplane’s panels shuddered violently as it hit its maximum speed of 220 knots. Doogie gripped his steering vane as hard as he could, trying to keep her steady.

  This was bad. The Goose’s operational ceiling was 21,300 feet. If the Antonov kept rising, it would soon be physically out of the Goose’s reach.

  The little seaplane gradually closed in on the massive cargo-lifter, the two aircraft acting out a bizarre kind of aerial ballet—the sparrow chasing the albatross. Slowly—very slowly—the Goose moved up behind the Antonov and edged its nose right in behind the bigger plane’s hindquarters.

  Then suddenly, without any warning, the hatch on the nose of the Goose popped open and the tiny figure of a man appeared out of it from the waist up.

  The blast of wind that assaulted Race’s face as he stuck his head out through the Goose’s forward hatch was absolutely colossal.

  It slammed into his body, pounded against him. If he hadn’t been wearing his Kevlar breastplate it almost certainly would have knocked the wind out of him.

  He saw the Antonov’s sloping hindquarters looming large in front of him, about fifteen feet away.

  Christ, it was enormous . . .

  It was like looking at the rear-end of the biggest bird in the world.

  And then Race caught sight of the earth below him.

  Ooooh . . . fuck!

  The world was a long way down—a long way down. Immediately beneath him, he saw a rolling patchwork quilt of hills and fields and, away to the east—ahead of the two planes—the never-ending sea of rainforest.

  Don’t think about the fall! a voice inside him screamed. Keep your mind on the job!

  Right.

  Okay. He had to do this quickly, before he ran out of air, and before the two planes rose to a height where the combination of thin air and wind-chill would freeze him to death.

  He waved at Doogie through the Goose’s windshield, instructing him to bring the little seaplane closer to the Antonov.

  The Goose edged further forward.

  Eight feet away.

  Earl Bittiker and Troy Copeland sat in the cockpit of the Antonov, oblivious to what was going on in the air behind their plane.

  Abruptly, the wall-mounted phone next to Bittiker buzzed.

  “Yes,” Bittiker said.

  “Sir,” it was the tech in charge of arming the Supernova. “We’ve placed the thyrium in the device. It’s ready.”

  “All right, I’m coming down,” Bittiker said.

  The Goose was three feet away from the Antonov—and 15,000 feet above the world and still rising.

  Race was standing with his entire upper body protruding from the Goose’s nose hatch. He saw the Antonov’s loading ramp in front of him. The ramp was still firmly shut, its existence betrayed only by a set of thin grooved lines that ran in a square around the rear of the massive plane.

  Then Race saw a small panel to the left of the ramp lying flush against the exterior wall of the plane.

  He waved for Doogie to bring the Goose closer still.

  Bittiker emerged from the upper deck of the Antonov and looked down upon the cargo bay from a thin metal catwalk. He saw the gargantuan tank beneath him, saw the barrel of its mighty cannon pointing directly up at him.

  He looked at his watch.

  It was 11:48. The V-CD would have gone out a good half hour ago. The world would be in a panic. Judgment Day had arrived.

  Bittiker slid down a rung-ladder and then stepped up onto the turret of the tank, climbed down into it.

  He arrived in the belly of the Abrams and saw the Supernova—saw the two thermonuclear warheads suspended in their hourglass formation, saw the cylindrical section of thyrium lying horizontally in the vacuum-sealed chamber in between them.

  He nodded, satisfied.

  “Start the detonation sequence,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” one of the techs said, leaping for the laptop computer on the front of the device.

  “Set it for twelve minutes,” Bittiker said. “Twelve noon.”

  The tech typed quickly and within seconds a countdown screen appeared:

  YOU NOW HAVE

  00:12:00

  MINUTES TO ENTER DISARM CODE

  ENTER DISARM CODE HERE

  -------

  The tech hit ENTER and the timer began to race downward. As it did so, Bittiker pulled out his cellular phone and dialed Bluey James’s number again.

  The digital tracing equipment in Bluey’s apartment lit up like a Christmas tree again.

  Bluey picked up the phone. “Yo.”

  “Has the message gone out?”

  “It’s out there, Earl,” Bluey lied as he stared into the eyes of John-Paul Demonaco.

  “Is there panic in the streets?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe,” Bluey said.

  The Goose edged closer to the Antonov’s hindquarters, two feet separating the two speeding, rising planes.

  In the face of the battering, pounding wind, Race held on to the Goose’s hatch with one hand while he reached out with the other for the panel on the cargo plane, stretching out as far as he could.

  It was still too far away. Doogie brought the Goose in closer still, as close as he dared . . .

  . . . and Race grabbed the panel, flipped it open.

  He saw two buttons inside it—one red, one green—and without so much as a second thought, he slammed his fist down on the green button.

  With an ominous rumbling whir, the rear loading ramp of the Antonov began to lower, right on top of the Goose’s nose!

  With the reflexes of a cat, Doogie quickly maneuverd the little seaplane out of the path of the lowering ramp—in doing so, almost flinging Race out of the nose hatch! But Race’s grip and balance held firm and he remained standing half-in-half-out of the Goose’s hatch while Doogie deftly swung the little seaplane in behind the Antonov as the giant cargo plane’s ramp yawned open before them.

  The two planes continued to fly in tandem through the Peruvian sky—the massive Antonov and the tiny Goose flying barely two feet apart, hitting 18,000 feet—only now the Antonov’s rear loading ramp was open, right in front of the little seaplane’s nose!

  Then, at the precise moment that the ramp came fully open and despite the fact that he was 18,000 feet above the earth, the tiny figure of William Race climbed up out of the hatch—into the roaring wind—and leapt across from the nose of the Goose onto the open loading ramp of the Antonov!

  Race landed flat on his face on the loading ramp of the giant cargo plane.

  He clawed for a handhold to stop himself getting sucked out the back of the plane, grappled his way along the length of the ramp—flat on his belly, hand over hand, the wind roaring all
around him—crawling on his stomach with nothing but the Goose and 18,000 feet of clear open sky behind him.

  It’s funny where life takes you . . .

  The enormous cargo bay opened up before him.

  He saw the massive Abrams tank sitting proudly in the middle of it—saw the whipping wind scooping up anything that wasn’t nailed down—saw the flashing red warning lights and heard the hysterical wail of the alarm klaxons that were no doubt alerting whoever was on board the plane that its loading ramp was now illegally open.

  Earl Bittiker already knew.

  No sooner had the loading ramp opened a foot than he had heard the whoosh of the wind rushing into the cargo bay. It was followed a split second later by the high-pitched wailing of the klaxons.

  Bittiker spun where he stood in the belly of the Abrams tank, his cellular phone still pressed against his ear.

  “What the fuck is this?” he said as he stormed up the ladder of the tank, heading outside.

  On his feet now, Race unshouldered his MP-5 and side-stepped his way down the narrow passageway between the enormous tank and the wall of the cargo hold.

  Abruptly, a man’s head popped out from the hatch on top of the tank to his left.

  Race whirled around, leveled his gun at the man.

  “Freezer he yelled.

  The man froze.

  Race’s eyes went wide as he realized who it was.

  It was the man who had taken the idol from Frank Nash back at Vilcafor, it was the leader of the terrorists.

  Holy shit.

  Strangely, the man was holding a telephone in his hand, a cellular phone.

  “Get down from there!” Race yelled.

  At first, Bittiker didn’t move, he just stared at Race in a kind of slack-jawed wonder—stared at this bespectacled man dressed in blue jeans and a filthy T-shirt, a battered New York Yankees cap and a black Kevlar breastplate, ordering him around with an MP-5.

  Bittiker glanced at the open loading ramp behind Race, saw the little Goose seaplane hovering in the air about twenty yards behind the Antonov, trying vainly—but unsuccessfully—to keep up with the giant cargo plane as it rose higher into the sky.

  Slowly, Bittiker stepped down from the turret of the tank, until he stood in front of Race.

  “Give me that damn phone,” Race said, snatching the cellular phone from the terrorist. “Who the hell are you talking to anyway?”

  Race held the phone to his ear as he kept his eyes and gun trained on Bittiker. “Who is this?” he said into the phone.

  “Who am I?” a nasty little voice snapped back at him. “Who the fuck are you? is the more appropriate question.”

  “My name is William Race. I’m an American citizen who was brought to Peru to help an Army team get a sample of thyrium to put inside a Supernova.”

  There came a loud shuffling from the other end of the line.

  “Mister Race,” a new voice said suddenly. “My name is Special Agent Demonaco of the FBI. I am investigating the theft of a Supernova from the offices of the Defense—”

  “You can’t stop it,” Bittiker said to Race, his voice laced with a slow Texan drawl—“you cain’t stop it.”

  “Why not?” Race said.

  “Because not even I know how to disarm it,” Bittiker said. “I made sure that my people only knew how to arm it. That way, once it was set to go off, no one could stop it.”

  “No one knows the disarm code?”

  “No one,” Bittiker said. “Except, I imagine, some Princeton-fuck scientist up at DARPA, but that ain’t gonna help us now, is it?”

  Race bit his lip in frustration.

  The alarm klaxons were still ringing. Any second now, more Texans would come out to see what was going on—

  Gunfire.

  Loud and sudden.

  It slammed into the deck all around him, kicking up sparks. Race dived out of the way, rolled across the deck, jammed the cellular phone into his back pocket and looked up—and saw Troy Copeland standing on the catwalk over-looking the cargo bay with two other Texans beside him, all three of them firing their Calico pistols down at Race.

  Bittiker saw the chance and ducked behind the forward corner of the tank, out of Race’s sight.

  Race pressed his back against the massive tracked wheels of the tank, out of the line of fire, at least for the moment.

  He was breathing hard, his heart pounding loudly inside his head.

  What the hell are you going to do now, Will?

  And then suddenly, he heard someone shouting his name.

  “Is that you, Professor Race?” It was Copeland. “God, you’re a persistent little son of a bitch.”

  “It’s better than being a complete asshole,” Race muttered under his breath as he popped up from behind the tank and fired a short burst at Copeland and the other two terrorists, missing them by miles.

  Damn it, he thought. What did he do now? He hadn’t really thought that far ahead.

  The Supernova, a voice said inside his head.

  Disarm it! That’s what you have to do.

  After all, he thought, he’d already managed to disarm one Supernova on this trip.

  And with that, Race leapt to his feet, and jammed down on the trigger of his MP-5, firing wildly up at the catwalk as he clambered onto the skirt of the Abrams tank. Then he climbed up onto the tank’s turret and jumped down through the hatch and into the belly of the massive steel beast

  He was met by the stunned faces of the two Freedom Fighter technicians in charge of the Supernova.

  “Out! Now!” he yelled, pointing his MP-5 at their noses.

  The two techs hurried up the ladder and out through the hatch in the turret, banging it shut behind them. Race bolted it behind them, locking it, and suddenly he found himself alone in the command center of the tank.

  Alone with the Supernova.

  He was beginning to get a terrible sense of déjà, vu.

  He felt the bulge of the cellular phone in his back pocket, grabbed it.

  “FBI-man, are you still out there?” he said.

  John-Paul Demonaco leapt for his microphone.

  “I’m here, Mister Race,” he said quickly.

  “What did you say your name was?” Race’s voice said.

  One of the other agents said, ‘Trace is coming through. What the hell—? It says they’re somewhere in Peru . . . and that they’re 20,000 feet off the ground.”

  “My name is Demonaco,” Demonaco said. “Special Agent John-Paul Demonaco. Now, listen to me very carefully, Mister Race. Wherever you are, you have to get out of there. The people with you are very dangerous individuals.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “Uh—” Race’s voice said.

  “—I’m afraid that getting out of here isn’t an option,” Race said into the phone.

  As he spoke, however, he saw the Supernova’s timer counting down.

  00:02:01

  00:02:00

  00:01:59

  “Oh, you gotta be kidding me,” he said. “This just isn’t fair.”

  “PROFESSOR RACE, GET OUT OF THE TANKP’ a hideously loud voice boomed from a loudspeaker outside the Abrams. It was Copeland’s voice.

  Race looked out through the gunner’s sights of the massive vehicle and saw Copeland standing up on the catwalk at the forward end of the cargo bay holding onto a micro-phone.

  Wind whipped wildly around the hold. The loading ramp behind the tank was still open.

  Race looked about the interior of the enormous tank.

  The Supernova took up the entire central section of the command center. Above him, he saw the entry hatch in the turret. Forward were the firing controls for the tank’s 105mm cannon and beyond those—beneath them, half-buried in the floor in the very center of the forward section of the tank—he saw a padded seat and a steering vane, the tank’s drive controls.

  There was something very odd about the drive controls, though. The top of the driver’s seat practically touched the tow section o
f roof above it.

  And then it hit Race.

  In a tank like this, the driver drove with his head sticking out from a small hatch above his seat.

  Race felt a silver of ice shoot up his spine.

  There was another hatch up front!

  He dived forward—sliding into the driver’s seat—and looked up instantly to see that it was true. There was another hatch up here. And at the moment it was open.

  And standing astride it at that very instant, pointing his Calico pistol directly down at Race’s head, was Earl Bittiker.

  “Who the hell are you?” Bittiker asked slowly.

  “My name is William Race,” Race said, looking up through the hatch at Bittiker. His mind was racing now, searching for an escape route.

  Wait a second, there was one possibility . . .

  “I’m a professor of languages at New York University,” he added quickly, trying to keep Bittiker talking.

  “A professor?” Bittiker spat. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Race figured that from where he was standing, Bittiker couldn’t see his hands—concealed as they were beneath the hatch—couldn’t see that right now Race was feeling around underneath the steering controls of the tank.

  ‘Tell me, poindexter, what did you think you could achieve by coming here?”

  “I thought I could disarm the Supernova. You know, save the world.”

  Still feeling.

  Damn it, it had to be down here somewhere . . .

  “You seriously thought you could disarm that bomb?”

  Found it.

  Race looked up at Bittiker with hard eyes. “While I’ve still got one second left, I’m going to try to disarm that bomb.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Race said. “Because I’ve done it be-fore.”

  At that moment, unseen by Bittiker, Race jammed his thumb down hard on the rubber-sealed button that he’d found on the underside of the steering controls of the Abrams. The same rubber-sealed button that was fitted on every American-made field vehicle.

  VROOOOM!