Dropping low, Jack ran to the last archway before the tower. The rapid gunfire flying across the courtyard was not abating. Staring out at the piazza, Jack knew the shooting wasn’t going to stop until there was no one left standing. But Jack didn’t have that kind of time. He could already feel his mind slipping, his concentration fragmenting, his stomach doing double flips. Glancing at the tower, he could see the soldier beginning to climb up the wall to reach the girl.
Five hours exactly before all seven chimneys were sealed.
Jack needed to stop this gunfight at the Inca corral. So he pulled the pins on the grenades. Keeping his fingers on the triggers, he raised his hands in the air and walked out into the middle of the courtyard. With shots chipping at his feet, Jack tossed the grenades up into the air above his head.
66
AS THE GUNFIRE worsened beneath Isela, the clanging amplified in her head. She was comfortable with her heightened perceptions so she thought nothing of their intensity.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when the cóndor leapt from behind the cover of the arched veranda and tossed two grenades high above his head, scuttling Antonio’s guards who were nearest to him. The American soldiers threw themselves to the ground behind their barricades. The explosion kicked up a thick cloud of smoke and dust, the cóndor’s body collapsing in the middle of it.
‘Holy shit!’ said Isela, her rifle clattering to the stone as the man, the cóndor, jolted upright and gasped for breath. A little unsteadily, he stood up, brushed off his trousers, rolled and stretched his neck muscles, then picked up his rifle and walked out of the swirls of dust.
Instantly, the shooting stopped. Her father’s guards dropped their weapons and ran towards the airstrip. Antonio’s men followed them, firing wildly.
The cóndor stopped for a minute under the heavy canopy of the huarango tree, its wide trunk full of divots from centuries worth of armed attacks even before today’s stand-off.
When she could stand the noises in her head again after the explosion, Isela lifted her binoculars and stared out at the airstrip. Four heavily armed men were escorting Antonio to a black Hummer. Isela recognised their insignia as that of Donoso’s private army.
Hundreds of black and yellow dots floated across Isela’s eyes, her anger piling on top of her shame. Why had she listened to Antonio? He’d set her up and he’d betrayed her father. What a dick she’d been.
67
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS who’d been covering the airstrip fanned in and took control of the piazza. Most of the dead and wounded were draped across the bricks, their blood seeping into the clay, staining the pink in a mockery of its playfulness. The music blared for a few more beats, until one of the soldiers shot out the speakers.
Jack sprinted to Dana who was in full SWAT gear and standing at the bottom of the belfry. ‘Have I told you recently how amazing you are?’ said Jack.
Dana smiled. ‘Never gets old. What’s the plan?’
‘I need the girl. She has my notebook, which I believe has the code I need to trick Mother Earth.’
A voice yelled in Dana’s earpiece; she held her finger up, silencing Jack. ‘I need the girl at the extraction point. I want to know everything she does about Donoso. Someone’s going to pay for this fiasco.’
‘Our friends at the CIA want the girl, Jack.’
‘Can’t let that happen, Dana.’
Jack figured he could make a run at the tower and, if he was lucky, get inside to the girl before the soldiers.
Suddenly Jack’s earpiece let out a high-pitched static squeal. Jack tore it from his ear. His mouth filled with the taste of cucumbers and lemons and ash. His knees buckled, his joints ached so badly that he didn’t think they could take his weight.
‘Go to the others,’ Jack yelled to Dana over the chaos. ‘Tell them it’s started and be prepared.’
The ground beneath Jack trembled. At first it was just a slight rolling beneath his feet, but then the planks of the veranda began to pop up one at a time all around the piazza. Jack stared in horror as the ground opened underneath the bus, dropping it twenty feet into the ground. Two soldiers were pinned beneath a massive rock crashing off the canyon wall when a long fissure shot out from the meseta along the dirt, across the middle of the piazza, opening a gaping hole in the ground sucking down anything in its path, including the huarango tree.
The fissure shot between the roots of the massive tree, swallowed up the ground beneath it, spitting up its long roots and tossing the tree over the far wall of the hacienda where its tendrils gripped the mountainside like claws as the tree tumbled into the sea below.
The soldiers standing at the bottom of the tower sprinted from the fissure as it snaked directly at them. They never stood a chance, swallowed into the earth as the tear opened wider and wider, taking walls and buildings with it as it snaked across the village towards the tower and Jack.
Jack sprinted parallel with the fissure leaping over crashing adobe walls, ducking to avoid torrents of debris. When he reached the tower, he yanked at one of the lines.
‘Get down!’
The soldier bounced against the wall as she pointed her gun down at Jack. ‘Sir, this is no time to be a hero, get back to safety with the other tourists. This will be over soon.’
A clap of thunder rolled across the ground. Jack ducked against the wall for cover, thinking someone else had tossed a grenade. Roaring, the fissure snaked up the wall of the tower, crumbling the stones to chalk on either side of her.
‘Soldier,’ Jack called up to her. ‘You need to come down.’
Letting out her line, she rappelled to the ground seconds before the entire side of the wall collapsed, bricks crashing down on her, leaving the bell swinging precariously on the edge of the tower wall.
Jack helped her free herself from the rubble, seconds before the bell crashed down into the rubble where she’d just been buried.
Her radio crackled in her ear. ‘What the hell is going on? Do you have the girl or not?’
‘Not yet, sir,’ answered the soldier. ‘We’ve just had a minor earthquake here. The piazza is destroyed. It’s still happening. This needs to be a search and rescue, sir. Our unit’s getting the civilians out to the airfield. We’ll need a couple of copters, sir.’
‘They’re on route with units trained in S&R,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘Your mission has not changed. Get the girl and make the rendezvous. That’s an order.’
‘Yes, sir.’ She cut off her comms unit, and returned her attention to Jack. ‘Who are you?’
‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’
He brushed grit from his face and stared up at the tower, which looked as if someone had taken a bite out of it. The fissure had stopped when it had collapsed the side of the tower.
It had nowhere else to go, thought Jack.
Thunder rumbled off the distant mountains, the ground beneath them trembling every few seconds, sounding like a series of tiny explosions under their feet. Jack’s vision was clouding with dots once again and he had a powerful desire to jump from the wall and follow the tree into the ocean.
‘Hey!’ The soldier grabbed his arm. ‘Where are you going? That’s not safe.’
Jack ignored her, climbing up onto the rubble as high as he could, but it wasn’t enough to see into the belfry and expose Isela’s hiding place.
The soldier regained her composure and her weapon, which she shoved into the small of Jack’s back. ‘Down. Now.’
‘Do we have the girl in custody, yet?’ hissed her earpiece.
Jack turned and hooked his hands above his head, looking into the soldier’s eyes. They were smouldering with anger, but it was the only emotion he could read clearly from her expression. ‘I’d be more than happy to cooperate with you, soldier—’
‘Captain Anderson.’
‘Ah, Captain Anderson.’ Jack cocked his head. ‘A pleasure to meet you, but right now my priority – yours too – is to get that young girl out of that tower before the next
tremor comes. If I’m right about what’s happening here, the next one will be worse than the one we just experienced. It makes no difference to me,’ he grinned at Captain Anderson, ‘but you and the girl may not survive being buried alive.’
Captain Anderson stared at Jack, noting the cocky, self-assured grin, the piercing blue eyes that seemed to suggest that no matter what he decided somehow he was going to get his way.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to put your gun away and let me bring her down.’
She looked over at the other soldiers from her unit who were helping free the injured from the rubble, setting up a triage out in the airstrip. ‘OK. You get her down.’
Captain Anderson holstered her weapon, stepped aside, and waved Jack towards the tower.
‘Thank you, Captain.’
It would take too long to disengage the pulley and the anchor from the rubble so Jack hung a rope over his shoulder, cuffed his trousers, dug a toehold with his boots, then another with his fingers and began to climb up into the tower. At the halfway mark, he stopped, aware of Isela watching him from above. He didn’t think she’d try to stop him until he got closer, but she was trapped and she had to know that she was in serious trouble.
‘Isela,’ he yelled. ‘You need to get out of this tower, and your best chance to get out of this mess is to come with me.’
He continued his ascent, hearing Isela load her gun and scramble to the other corner of the belfry.
After two more steps, he was about to pull himself up and over the crumbling edge and into the belfry when he heard Isela cocking her rifle. He looked up. She was pointing it at his head.
Jack sighed, but kept climbing.
‘I’ll shoot you!’
‘I’ve no doubt that you could and that you would, Isela, but killing me will only make your situation worse,’ Jack said, digging his feet deeper into the crumbling rock, creating a ledge from which to balance for a few seconds. ‘That soldier below is from the American government. They have orders to arrest you and hold you while they figure out your role in this mess here this morning.’
On the ground below, Captain Anderson responded to a radio request that two transport units were on their way in from Lima and when she returned her attention to Jack he was shoving the nuzzle of Isela’s gun out of his face and hoisting himself up into the belfry.
‘This tower survived the last two quakes,’ Isela said, backing away from Jack, her rifle still aimed at his head. ‘I’ll be safer up here.’
‘No, Isela. You won’t,’ Jack anchored the rope to the bell, tossing the excess over the side of the tower. Isela’s voice tasted like vanilla and cinnamon.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘Because that fissure wasn’t the result of an earthquake. And I think you know that. I need something you have of mine and I need you to take me to your mother.’
Isela looked at him, deciding whether or not to trust him, keeping her rifle at his head. Captain Anderson climbed up into the belfry next to them both.
‘Well isn’t this cosy,’ said Jack, moving to the other side, away from the still crumbling wall to more solid footing.
‘Is. She. In. Your. Custody. Yet!’ squawked the voice in the Anderson’s earpiece.
‘Isela, I’m Captain Anderson,’ she yanked the comms unit from her ear. ‘I work for the US government—’
‘So you have no jurisdiction here,’ snapped Isela, backing away from her and a little closer to where Jack was standing.
‘I’m part of a joint task force with the Peruvian government—’ she continued.
‘Even the Peruvian government has no jurisdiction here,’ Isela laughed, dropping her rifle and sliding it into its case. She looked up at Captain Anderson. ‘Besides I haven’t done anything wrong. I was up here shooting at targets on the airstrip. You can’t prove I wasn’t.’
‘Until we can locate your father and your stepbrother, I’ve orders to take you into my custody.’
‘And how exactly are you going to do that?’ asked Isela. ‘You can’t cuff me or neither one of us will get down from here in one piece.’
They both turned to Jack. He shrugged. ‘She has a point, Captain.’
‘I thought you were on my side?’
‘I said I wanted to get the girl down from the tower,’ said Jack, stepping closer to Isela, ‘but I never said I was on your side.’
Isela looked at the soldier and grinned. She stepped closer to Jack.
‘On the other hand, Captain,’ said Jack, pulling his belt from his trousers. ‘I didn’t say I was on her side either.’
In one swift movement, Jack had the belt tight around Isela’s shoulders and arms, pinning her like a straightjacket. Responding quickly, Captain Anderson bound plastic cuffs round Isela’s ankles. She lost her balance and fell at Jack’s feet.
Jack flipped a squirming screaming Isela up and over his shoulder. ‘Isela, if you want to survive this climb, I’d suggest being as still as possible. I wouldn’t want to drop you.’
Isela mumbled an obscenity into Jack’s shoulder. While he tied the rope around his waist, he feigned dropping her.
She screamed.
He said, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.’
‘Nothing,’ she said aloud and under her breath again, ‘What a dick.’
68
WHEN THE THREE of them were safely on the ground, Jack set a relatively subdued Isela against the rubble. In the sky behind the hacienda, Jack spotted two Blackhawk helicopters cresting the plateau.
‘The girl is secure,’ said Anderson into her comms.
‘Copy that,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘Someone will meet you at Cuzco to transport her back to DC.’
‘Let’s get her to the airstrip.’ Anderson crouched, cutting the plastic ties from Isela’s ankles. When she did, Isela kicked out at Anderson who saw it coming and grabbed Isela’s foot instead. ‘Listen, I don’t care how you get on that helicopter, but you’re going to get on that helicopter.’
Jack’s head was pounding, and twice since he’d set the girl down he thought he had stopped breathing. They had to get to Isela’s mother soon.
Four hours and ten minutes soon.
Isela glanced at Jack who held her stare for a beat. He saw dots, outlining the girl’s face, dancing across her high cheekbones. Picking up Isela’s rifle and slinging it over his shoulder, Jack hiked over the debris toward the airstrip.
The piazza looked as if a monster has stepped into the middle, crushing everything in its wake and leaving its footprint. The fissure had split the courtyard in two, cracking through the arched verandas and toppling two of the buildings as well as the tower.
Anderson pulled Isela to her feet. They followed Jack.
Seconds later, Anderson yelled for Jack and Isela to stop, bringing her rifle in front of her. Isela crouched, playing in the rubble.
‘What is it?’ Jack came over to Anderson, who was staring across at part of the hacienda’s wall where the fissure had torn it asunder.
‘I saw something,’ she replied. ‘Over near the wall. Might be someone injured.’
She freed the rope from her shoulder, lassoed it around Isela’s waist and handed the end to Jack. ‘Get her to the airstrip. Those copters will be on the ground soon. I’m going to check it out.’
‘Yes, Captain,’ Jack said, smiling.
Jack towed an angry Isela towards the airstrip where Anderson’s unit was busy with the triaged wounded, many of whom were propped against the concrete hanger, sharing canteens of water. The dead were covered and lined up on the other side of the airstrip.
The two helicopters were coming in low, like the advanced guard of an alien invasion.
Jack tapped his comms. ‘I’m bringing in the girl. May have company on my tail when I do.’
When Jack dragged Isla out to the airstrip, he reached down, threw her over his shoulder again, and ran towards the rear of the hotel.
Anderson ro
unded the corner. ‘Hey! What the—’ She lifted her rifle. ‘Stop!’ She fired a warning shot above Jack’s head.
Directly behind Anderson the helicopters began their descent, whipping up a tornado of dust, rocks and brush.
Anderson sprinted towards the hotel.
Jack could hardly see five metres in front any more. His vision was clouded with black and yellow dots, his head clanging with strident chords of tinny music.
Dana pushed open the hotel gates. Jack charged through. Dana fired a series of shots at Anderson, who hurled herself behind a copse of brush.
Jack dropped Isela onto a lounge chair and helped Dana close and bar the gates.
‘Now what?’ asked Dana, freeing Isela.
‘I need you to give me the notebook, Isela. I know you have it,’ said Jack, his knees buckling. ‘Give me a minute.’
‘You can have five,’ said Cash, leading the others through the tropical gardens to the cabana where Jack was down, his eyes closed, his heart racing one minute then slowing, almost stopping, the next.
Gwen looked as bad as Jack felt. She was being carried between Eva and Vlad, taking two steps on her own then being dragged and carried for two.
‘What happened?’ When Jack sat up a wave of nausea pulled his head back against the pillows.
‘She punched Hollis,’ said Vlad. ‘Thought he was her husband, I think.’
Hollis was bringing up the rear of the line with Sam, each had assault rifles criss-crossed over their shoulders. ‘On my honour, I did not touch the lady.’
‘I upped her dosage,’ said Eva.
‘Hey everyone! It’s Jack,’ grinned Gwen. ‘I missed you, Jack!’
‘Why do you need to see my grandfather’s notebook?’ asked Isela, sitting on the edge of the lounger next to Jack.
‘It’s my notebook, Isela. A long time ago, on this mountain, your grandfather saved my life. He held on to the notebook for me.’
‘So you are el cóndor? From the stories my mother tells?’ Isela sucked her upper lip, a movement so childish that Jack received a vivid flash of her sitting cross-legged on a dusty tiled floor, listening wide-eyed to her mother. Isela searched Jack’s face suspiciously – trying to reconcile this wild, infuriating stranger with the heroes of her childhood chronicles. Sensing his moment, Jack licked a finger, and traced in the air the pattern of overlapping circles. Recognising the symbol, Isela grinned, and dug around in her garments, pulling the notebook out of a pocket along with a handful of spare ammunition. She handed Jack the notebook.
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