Dead Wrong

by Richard Phillips

Jack didn’t like the sound of that. “Cancel the download. We can’t afford to wait that long. Have them reduce the resolution and crop the image so that it only covers the Kalasasaya Temple and the firing positions that surround it. In the meantime, they can send us the coordinates of each firing position, the roadblocks, and the police headquarters. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  As Janet sent the request, Jack pulled his kitbag out of the back of the van, extracted a waterproof map case containing a one-to-fifty-thousand scale map of the area, and spread it on the floor of the van next to Janet. The glow of the laptop gave enough illumination that he didn’t have to turn on a flashlight.

  A minute passed before Janet responded.

  “Got ’em.”

  Taking a grease pencil from a pocket on the map case, Jack marked each position on the map as she read off the coordinates.

  A new message popped up on Janet’s screen.

  “The NSA has hacked into the military police communications network. They are ready to cut the communications between the Bolivian MPs and their headquarters.”

  “Can the NSA team spoof the MPs and substitute their own commands on those channels?”

  Janet entered the message, receiving an immediate response.

  “Yes. And they’re sending the cropped image now. We’ll have it in just over a minute.”

  Jack reoriented the map to north and pointed at a spot along Highway 1, ten kilometers southwest of the ruins.

  “Have the NSA command all the nearby MP units to intercept a rebel force that has been seen near this intersection.”

  Janet nodded and sent the message.

  “Also tell them to block all of Altmann’s communications.”

  “The NSA won’t be able to interdict short-range radio communications. No local jamming assets.”

  “I’m betting Altmann’s team is talking to each other on cell phones. Regardless, if Altmann goes underground, he’ll cut himself off from outside signals without anybody else’s help.”

  “And you think he’s going underground?”

  Jack felt the memory of his waking Pizarro dream take him and nodded. “Count on it.”

  He watched as Janet sent this additional request and got back an affirmative response. A minute later she turned to look at him and grinned.

  “We’ve got the image.”

  Jack leaned in closer as she displayed it on the laptop, zooming out and then in on each of the firing locations. Although the resolution wasn’t great, they could still make out the pixelated forms of the pairs of men that occupied each of the dozen positions. The image confirmed what Jack had marked on the map. Each firing position was separated from its neighbor by at least a hundred meters.

  Hearing the distant sound of diesel truck engines starting, Jack folded the map case and stepped out of the van.

  “What about a distraction?”

  “I told Admiral Riles to give us five minutes before he works his magic. Help me disconnect everything we have from its battery.”

  “What are they going to do, hit us with an EMP burst?”

  “The next best thing.”

  “Even the night-vision goggles?”

  Janet removed the battery from her laptop and moved on to her cell phone. “Better safe than sorry. We’ll have to carry batteries for anything electrical we take with us.”

  Jack mirrored her actions and then opened the van’s hood and disconnected its battery cables. Stepping back around the side, he saw Janet stacking equipment by the sliding door.

  “Time to gear up.”

  CHAPTER 88

  Bones McCoy slid through the small opening with an ease none of the others who accompanied Conrad Altmann managed, thrusting the walking stick into the tunnel ahead of her. When she extricated herself, she found herself in a descending natural tunnel that men had long ago widened so that two could walk abreast. Ahead of her, Conrad Altmann directed his flashlight beam back toward her. Beyond Altmann, Dolf Gruenberg stooped beneath the two-meter-high ceiling, aiming his flashlight forward toward the spot where the ceiling rose to allow Tupac Inti to stand erect.

  When the first of the men behind Bones worked his way in and rose to his feet, Altmann spoke to him in a commanding voice.

  “Leave two men here to guard the entrance, and take up positions with the other two farther down the tunnel. Kill anyone who tries to get past you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Without waiting for the other men, Altmann continued on down the tunnel, motioning for Dolf and Tupac to do the same. The man-made entrance gave way to a taller and wider natural passageway that wound its way forward in a series of turns and switchbacks before branching right and then left. Tupac crossed these two intersections, continuing to lead them forward down the main passage.

  Although she’d managed to control her excitement up until now, Bones felt her hands begin to shake. Maybe she was absorbing some of Altmann’s emotion. It didn’t really matter.

  Five paces in front of her, Tupac Inti came to a stop at the entrance to a large cavern. Altmann and Dolf stepped up beside him. The sight that confronted Bones as she joined them filled her with awe. A glance to her left told her that Altmann shared her feelings as emotions twitched the muscles at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  Against the rightmost wall of the cavern, a three-tiered, golden altar rose from the floor to a height of two meters. Its intricately carved and inlaid surface channeled and amplified light, reflecting the harsh flashlight beams back into her eyes as if the altar were angered by their ungentle touch. Bones started to have a fingernails-down-the-chalkboard feeling that made her want to smash the flashlights.

  Altmann turned and grabbed one of the torches from its sconce on the near wall, applying the flame from his lighter to it. As the torch sputtered to life, he gestured at Dolf.

  “Light the torches, all of them. And turn off that damned flashlight.”

  Grabbing another torch, Dolf held it up to let the flame spread from Altmann’s to his, then began making his way methodically around the irregularly shaped, twenty-meter-diameter cavern until smoky flames from all but one of the six torches licked the darkness. The metal sconce that held the torch nearest the altar crumbled at Dolf’s touch, its frame shattering as it struck the stone floor, sounding as loud in the still cavern as a bell in an enclosed church steeple.

  Bones couldn’t shake the feeling that a sacrilege had just occurred in this ancient tomb. A crazy thought occurred to her. She doubted that another such occurrence would be tolerated.

  CHAPTER 89

  “Five minutes from now, Janet wants a distraction. The best we can do.”

  Admiral Riles nodded at Levi and then pressed a button and looked into the camera. Outside the glass op-center, the heads of the Dirty Dozen rose in unison as Admiral Riles’s visage filled the giant wall displays, his voice of a volume and timbre that commanded their full attention.

  “Listen up. At the top of all displays, a five-minute countdown timer has started. When that mark hits zero—and not one second before—I want to hit every connected device within a five-mile radius of Tiahuanaco. If it has an alarm, I want it blaring. If it has lights, I want them flashing. If it has a ringer, I want it ringing. Music blasting, TVs blaring, horns honking, engines racing. Speakers at max volume. Displays at max brightness. You now have four minutes and thirty seconds to hack as many devices as possible.”

  Riles paused for two seconds.

  “I want them all!”

  Riles’s face disappeared from the wall displays, replaced by the cyber-warrior scoreboard for this new game. Above them in the op-center, Riles turned his attention to Levi Elias.

  “Game on.”

  CHAPTER 90

  Conrad Altmann stepped forward, pausing at the base of the altar to motion Bones forward. Carefully setting his backpack on the stone floor, he opened the waterproof compartment that held the golden crown piece and lifted it out. The torchlight licked its surface and then
crawled through the cracks between rings into the intricate interior, where dark shadows reared and plunged, struggling to avoid the torchlight’s fiery touch.

  For a moment, Altmann found himself transfixed, unable to take his eyes away from the beautiful orb. His daughter stepped up beside him, looked at the orb cupped in his hands, and gasped.

  “So beautiful.”

  Altmann barely heard her whisper, so intently was his attention focused on the artifact. His touch lingered as if he were afraid to break the spell it cast. Then inexorably, he turned his gaze upon the two-meter walking stick held tight in his daughter’s right hand.

  “Remove the staff.”

  Bones started. For the first time, Altmann noted how closely the color of her blue eyes matched his own. Whether it was the gravity of the moment or the awe that filled his soul to be this close to his lifelong goal, his senses were so attuned that he noted the muffled rustle of her clothes against her skin as Bones lowered the walking stick and unfastened the cap. Her delicate fingers grabbed the end of the silver staff and pulled it carefully from the padded compartment that had cradled it.

  Holding it in both hands, Bones stepped up onto the altar’s first tier, Altmann at her side. Although he’d read nothing about such ceremonial choreography, their matching movements as they climbed onto the altar felt right. They took another step, and Altmann tried to calm his pounding heart. Together they mounted the topmost tier, the high priest and priestess performing a ritual that none had ever before performed, not in its entirety.

  Missing the torch on the wall in front of them, the light from the other five torches cast moving doppelgangers of their shadows across the altar and onto the far wall. The top of the altar upon which they stood was a highly polished gold rectangle, approximately two meters wide and one deep. In the exact center, a not-quite-circular hole the size of the silver staff’s base appeared to have been machined into its surface.

  Bones knelt, tilted the staff erect, and attempted to slide it into that hole. It took Altmann a moment to realize that it fit, but not precisely, so that the staff wobbled slightly within the hole. Bones rose to her feet, and together they inspected the opposite end. It was clearly designed to mate with the orb.

  Altmann puzzled over this. Every aspect of these objects had been crafted with impossible precision. For the staff to have such a sloppy fit into its altar slot made no kind of sense. Could Tupac have deceived him, brought them to the wrong altar? He glanced across the cavern toward Tupac, who had shuffled back away from the altar into a shallow alcove, his face a dark mask of dread. That look could mean only one thing. This was the right place.

  Cradling the orb in his palms, Altmann returned his gaze to the staff, wobbling slightly in the hole as Bones slowly twisted it back and forth, seeking that perfect fit.

  If this was truly the Altar of the Gods, then what the hell was wrong?

  CHAPTER 91

  Janet tracked the countdown in her head as she and Jack ducked low, moving silently through the knee-high desert grass and scrub brush toward the stone remnants of outer ruins where they had chosen to launch their assault. They had just over a minute remaining of the five she’d asked Levi to give her. She could tell that Jack sensed it by the way he increased the pace.

  They both carried the short M89SR Israeli sniper rifles with suppressors that reduced the sound of their shots to no louder than what Janet’s sandal made when she slapped it against the ground to dislodge some beach sand. Besides the rifle, Janet had her Glock, night-vision goggles with battery, two knives, and a mix of flash-bang and fragmentation grenades in pockets or clipped to her utility vest. Jack was similarly outfitted.

  She’d thought about bringing the sat-phone, but it was too damn bulky. Besides, it wouldn’t work underground, and though he didn’t say how he knew, Jack was certain Tupac was taking Altmann into an underground cavern system. If they didn’t make it that far, the phone wouldn’t pull their asses out of this fire.

  The pile of cut stones was little more than rubble, one of the portions of this site that had been looted for paving stones prior to coming under the protection of the Bolivian government. But as Janet took up a firing position on the left side of the pile, with Jack on her right, she had to acknowledge that she was glad these stones were still here.

  And then the night was rent asunder. From all around the ruins, dozens of cell phones lit up, warbling out ring tones, playing music, or sounding wake-up alarms as the waiting men struggled to silence them. Vehicles rumbled to life and headlights stabbed the night while horns and radios blared. Farther to the west, in the adjacent town, a competing cacophony arose. Pure bedlam.

  Janet heard Jack’s rifle spit, centered her reticle on one of Altmann’s men and squeezed the trigger. Twice more she fired, and each time a man sprawled to the ground. She had no doubt that each of Jack’s shots was finding its mark as well.

  Then they were up and moving, short, crouching rushes that took them from ruin to ruin, with brief pauses between to scan for more targets. Along the front wall of the Kalasasaya temple, a man poked his head out of a hole, and Janet put a 7.62mm slug through it, leaving his body slumped in the opening.

  Then Jack was up and running toward that spot as Janet lay still, providing the cover he was counting on her to give him. A man aimed a weapon around the north corner of the wall, but Janet’s bullet sprawled him backward, his machine gun chattering as the death grip on its trigger sprayed tracer rounds into the night sky.

  Janet moved, her running feet bringing her to Jack’s side at the wall. With a quick motion, he pulled a pin on a flash-bang grenade and tossed it over the corpse and into the hole. Janet leaned back against the wall, covering her ears and eyes, and waited for the detonation. When it came, she felt the vibration in the cold stone.

  When Janet opened her eyes, she found herself crouching alone in the darkness, with only a corpse to keep her company.

  CHAPTER 92

  Bones McCoy closed her eyes against the flickering torchlight, shutting out her father, Dolf, and Tupac. She brought her great mind to bear on the problem, visualized the staff and the altar slot, felt again the imperfection of the fit. Bones had turned it full circle inside the altar hole, had tilted the staff this way and that, but the female receptacle had refused to allow the male piece to slide smoothly inside.

  Unbidden, her mind pulled forth the image of a medieval knight desperately struggling to unlock a maiden’s chastity belt. But he lacked the key.

  Suddenly the answer blossomed in her mind.

  Not the key. The combination.

  Bones opened her eyes, feeling the grin part her lips. Altmann saw it too.

  “What?” he asked.

  “The altar won’t accept the partial staff. We must first attach the crown piece.”

  Removing it from the slot, she planted the bottom of the five-foot silver staff on the altar, holding it erect as Altmann carefully slid the glittering golden orb on the top. It didn’t surprise Bones when the orb failed to lock into place.

  “Carefully now,” she continued, “as if you were looking up from the bottom, turn the bottom ring slowly counterclockwise until I say to stop.”

  With infinite care, she guided Altmann’s movements, and despite his obvious excitement, his hands remained rock steady, a tribute to her father’s iron-willed self-discipline. Completing the first step, Bones moved him up three rings, then down two, sometimes moving the same ring forward a partial turn before reversing its direction.

  Suddenly, within the orb, gears continued moving after Altmann stopped, as if father and daughter had finished winding up a toy that could now perform its function. Something clicked and the orb locked itself solidly atop the silver staff.

  Bones heard Altmann exhale. When he turned his gaze on her, his voice was filled with elation.

  “We’ve done it.”

  Bones shook her head. “Only the first of four steps. By far the simplest.”

  A broad smile spread across
Altmann’s face. As her father looked at her, Bones saw just how beautiful this man could be, his sky-blue eyes sparkling in the torchlight.

  “You and I are about to do something Hitler couldn’t even imagine.”

  Altmann lifted the Sun Staff and set the tip of its base gently into its altar slot, allowing it to settle into place. With the crown piece at face level, Altmann shifted his hands carefully up to frame the golden orb, almost caressing, but not quite touching it.

  His voice was little more than a husky whisper, but it sent chills crawling up Bones’s spine.

  “Shall we continue?”

  At that moment, a noisy chorus from the cell phones of the guards they’d left back at the entrance echoed through the tunnels and into the cavern. The noise migrated to Dolf’s and then to Altmann’s cell phone, a pattern Bones immediately recognized. Even though they couldn’t reach directly below ground, the NSA was walking a Bluetooth chain through the tunnels as they hacked their way from device to device.

  Altmann’s beatific smile froze on his face, transforming into a death mask of fury.

  “Kill that damn noise!”

  Stepping back from the staff, Altmann pulled his phone from his pocket and hurled it into the cavern wall, ricocheting plastic and metal pieces across the cavern floor and bringing to an end the shrill notes of his ring tone. Twenty feet away, Dolf crushed his phone in a massive hand. Turning, he shoved the cuffed and shackled Tupac Inti in the chest, sending the native man tumbling against the cavern wall and onto the floor. Delivering a hard kick to the downed man’s unprotected ribs, Dolf spun and ran back down the tunnel toward the entrance, his strident yells preceding him.

  As he disappeared around the nearest bend, a distant explosion vibrated the walls, the sound echoing through the cave tunnels. Despite the ringing in her ears, Bones heard Altmann’s deep-throated growl rumble through the chamber.

  “The Ripper.”

  CHAPTER 93

  With his hands cuffed to the belly chain and feet shackled, Tupac was unable to catch himself as he tumbled backward under the force of Dolf’s shove, barely managing to turn so that his shoulder, instead of his head, struck the wall. He was not quite so lucky when his face hit the cavern floor. The stone opened a one-inch cut on his forehead, sending a warm stream of blood over his eyebrows and into his eyes. He never saw the steel-toed boot that broke at least one of the ribs in his right side.