"Aw, come on, don't tell me you care about that stupid shit! He was in the way of our deal, man, and he gave the old man up! The old man was our map! He was the key to this fucking killer temple! Now, look at what it cost me! Seven good men with kids and wives, damn! Alvarez had to go, sooner or later. I chose sooner."
"You are gonna let these men go, Kowalski."
"That's not gonna happen, ever." He pranced around. He looked like a leprechaun.
Pietro gestured at the CIA mercenaries. "They can't stop me. You are outnumbered. I will kill you and take the men with me. They have a job to complete here."
"Let me see you try."
Kowalski cocked his gun and pointed at Pietro. "We'll both go down."
Pietro raised his guns.
"So be it."
—
The sounds of gunshots came through the wall like puffs of fireworks from a long distance.
They stopped in their tracks, and Olivia worried about Miller, Anabia, and Liam again. The shots continued for about twenty seconds. She shone her torch on the left of the hallway. The wall here wasn’t red bricks but a different material that appeared like black plaster. Some of the plaster had peeled off in some places. The concrete beneath that looked like steel meshes embedded in mortar.
Old Rodriguez had commented on how no one knows how his forefathers achieved the feat.
Olivia put her ear to the wall and listened. The men watched her. Her shoulders sagged when she came away from the wall. Tami Capaldi put her hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry…"
"It's all my fault. I shouldn't have brought them here."
Andrew came to her. "They came with you because they wanted to. Each of us made our choices."
Detective Jose Hannah walked over too.
"I could go back, go see if they are alright—"
"No," Olivia said. "We won't. Maybe they'll be alright."
She glanced at the old man. The man nodded, and they continued. They came to an intersection. The roof was lower here, and some of the plaster had fallen from the roof. The mesh structure was here as well. The dust on the floor was almost an inch thick; the algae on the wall were even more concentrated on the walls. And that awful smell had been getting pervasive.
Old Roddy crossed the intersection to the wall opposite them. Two torches she'd light on the wall. Little writings, arranged compactly in groups of four in a row across, and eight down, decorated the wall there. The background of the wall itself as burnished brown, the color of gold.
Rodriguez squeezed his brows together.
"What does it say?" Andrew asked.
"It is instructions, for the—" He looked harder. "These are ancient words. I am not sure if it means girls, wives, or whores. It could mean all of that or none at all."
He looked at Andrew. "You understand?"
"Is it addressed at anyone in particular?"
Rodriguez went back to check. "It says here, to the client, you can't have the female. Female here could be a whore or a wife—and have left with your money—the word for money here could also mean gold, wealth, or treasure. Then it says further, Take your money with you to the spa, keep it on your person at all times, or leave it with the Gerente."
Rodriguez glanced left, down the hall. He sighed. "There is a spa down there. We are close."
"Close to what?" Tami asked.
José added, "The spa or the treasure?"
Rodriguez clambered off.
"Both," he said.
They followed him. The corpse's smell assaulted their noses, and Detective José covered his nose and coughed. The hallway dipped, the walls became smoother, and the air fouler. They were all finding it difficult to breathe.
"Something died here recently," said Rodriguez.
José exhaled from behind where he was holding half his breath. "Patrick Coleman."
"You think he's dead?" asked Olivia.
"Yes, he's dead, of course. He's been down here somewhere for more than a week now."
The corridor leveled after a bit. Rodriguez said, "Watch your heads," and arched his back as he went through a low doorway. Olivia pointed her torch both left and right as her turn approached to go through. There was a wall on the left. But on the right, the floor fell away in a row of steps.
She lurched, and Diggs, who had made it a point to always come behind Olivia, followed by Andrew, bumped into her.
"Look," she called. "There is a step here. Rodriguez?"
Roddy came back out of the darkness where he had entered. Olivia gave the man her torch so she could see more clearly. There were inscriptions on the wall. Images and symbols.
Rodriguez followed the progression of the writings with the torch, eyes squinched in his face, lips mumbling in the ancient language. The old man took the steps one after the other as he went. The team followed, patiently waiting for him to make either a head or tail of the clues.
When he had finished, Olivia asked him, "Did it say anything about treasures?"
Rodriguez turned to look at her slowly. A grave expression had taken over his face.
"It says, this way goes those who take, no man may take the snake and leave but swallow death."
The team turned to the wall. There was a drawing of a humongous snake curled around skulls.
—
Reno has been almost invisible all along. Kowalski, for some reason, hadn't even noticed the boy in the shadows where cowered.
Yet he was quite prepared to do something if things got heavy. And when the bullets started flying, he was brave enough to see who was sticking out, like a nail. It was Frank Miller.
Kowalski was a cunning man. Immediately, the shooting began. He turned around and pointed his gun at Miller. Meanwhile, he was protected by the body of one of his own men who quickly took two slugs in his forehead.
Before Kowalski could pull the trigger, Reno was on top of the man. His face registered his surprise at the wiry figure of the big that pounced on him. The CIA man was small, easy for Reno to pick up, and flung against the wall where a hail of bullets was boring holes.
Reno brought Miller down, and together, they rolled away from the middle of the hallway. Anabia and Liam were the first to drop on the floor and lay flat, and there they were until the shooting stopped.
Before it did, before Kowalski's men bravely pushed Pietro's thugs back, through sheer will and efficiency. There was a moment when the walls began trembling. The clicking that preceded the death spring of traps from the roof and floor. Reno heard it; he saw it happen too, although not so clearly on account of how the torches were all misaligned in the commotion, pointing every which way.
Reno pulled Miller's head from the floor where the man was hiding his face in his elbows. He pointed at the spot where the stiff bodies of Pietro's other boys were, and where more thugs had just been slain by the bullets of Kowalski's tactical team.
Miller watched. Bullets flew overhead. Men fell. Two more tactical team guys fell on the ground, twitched, and died.
The utter speed of the spears was mesmerizing and shocking. Pietro was lost in the gun battle. His thugs struggled to overwhelm Kowalski's mercenaries, but trained soldiers almost always have the upper hand.
The situation before Olivia's team, however, wasn't one of those almost always ones. So crude strategy overcame practiced weaponry.
As men fell, so did their sources of lights; torches rolled on the floor, casting their bright light on the walls, leaving targets shrouded in darkness.
Reading Miller's mind correctly, Anabia and Liam crawled over. They followed Miller's and Reno's lead along the side of the wall. There was a moment when the weasel face of Kowalski appeared in the dark, gun in hand, and aiming at Miller. But a bullet quickly came and grazed the imp’s forehead, and he turned away sharply.
The mercenaries were on the paved incline now, three of them remaining. How they still stood beat Miller as they crawled by. Miller shot one in the thigh as they passed in the dark, the man grunted and fell
on one knee, but continued to shoot, with fair accuracy.
Pietro was nowhere to be seen, but his thugs had significantly diminished, Miller saw. They were past the thick of the war when the knowing sound of sharp edges of steel cutting through flesh, and cracking bones drifted to Miller under all the shooting.
How's that possible? There were just three men on that spot…
But when he looked behind him again, he saw that there was a pile of bodies around their feet. Yet, three men were standing.
Miller crawled on. Soon the noise fell behind them, and the three men picked themselves up. He sensed they were not alone in the dark, and he backed against the wall. He had dropped his own weapon in the furor. He wasn't sure the others had theirs as well.
A warm hand grabbed hold of his neck and pushed him against the wall. He felt the cold, sharp edge of a knife on the tender flesh between his Adam's apple and his chin.
"Shush!" the harsh voice hissed.
An escaping glare of light passed the face in front of him. It was Pietro Oscar. His hold slackened. "I had to make sure it was you people."
The man pelted down the hallway without a torchlight.
"Follow me!"
Miller and the others ran after him. Reno stumbled once and uttered a small yell of surprise. Anabia waited in the dark. "Boy, keep the hell up!"
Soon they saw the outline of Pietro more clearly. He had just put on a torch.
And the hole up there was coming into view. Slivers of white light marked a ragged circle on the dusty concrete.
Daylight had come.
10
Upon careful deliberation, old man Rodriguez affirmed his fears to Olivia and her confederates. It was probable to expect that a live snake was guarding the treasure in the temple.
The old man's position followed the question of weapons and manpower. Could they survive the expedition with the available provisions?
"And we haven't seen traps, not one," Olivia said to Rodriguez.
The old man frowned. The man appeared unaware of the death-dealing traps. Olivia and Diggs described the metal spears, the apertures in the roof, and the floor where the projectiles were hidden.
She told them how it killed Pietro's thugs the first time. She watched Rodriguez as she explained. The man's expression indicated that he knew more than he was letting on. Olivia said to him, "You know about the traps, Roddy? Are they here too?"
Rodriguez suddenly looked older. He hunched forward wearily. He took a moment to speak.
"I have not come here before. It is a big place. If what you saw is true in the counterfeit place, then it will be worse soon. We must be prepared."
"Counterfeit place?"
"Yes, the maze. In that place, once you get lost, there is almost no way out of there. And there's nothing there, just the maze. And death."
"Why would they build such a place?"
He shrugged. It was the ancient times. People did things, built places such as this, maybe just because they could.
There was a passage leading off into the darkness, where the snake or whatever else would be. Rodriguez walked back the way they came. Surprised, Olivia asked why they weren't going that way.
"You said the snake guards the treasure here, this way?"
"Yes, I did."
"Then why aren't we going this way?"
"Because that's where the temple wants you to go. We will only find death there."
Andrew took Olivia's hand. "He's right. Maybe he knows a better way."
But as they were about to disappear down that dark, low arched doorway, they heard people talking, far away. Olivia pulled at Andrew's sleeve. "Wait, that must be the others. We have to find them."
Old Rodriguez, breathing hard, led the way back. The team arrived at the point of entry where the earth had let them in. But Pietro Oscar was standing there with Miller and the others.
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen."
Diggs pointed his gun at the man. Pietro raised his hand. "Oh no, I come in peace."
Pietro looked around at the faces. Then he bent to take a look inside the temple. Once again, Rodriguez led them all back until they stopped at the intersection of the snake.
Then Detective José Hanna cleared his throat.
"I have to leave you folks to your job now. I have mine to do."
"Why? Where are you going?" asked Tami.
The detective smiled and glanced at the wall with the snake and skulls. That putrid smell was even much more potent in that hallway. It meant that Coleman was dead, alright. But it also means he's there. José wanted to close his case.
Tami's eyes were huge and even more beautiful than he thought. Maybe if they all made it out of the temple alive, he'd ask her to eat rachi with him at Dolo's stand in Cusco, so he told her so.
"I have to find this American professor. That's my case. That's why I came along." Then it occurred to him that he wasn't entirely truthful, but it was okay.
"I will like to eat rachi with you at Dolo's place."
Tami smiled, and she giggled. "I know that place, in Cusco."
José bowed slightly at the woman and then nodded at the men. Liam Murphy grinned at the detective. "For a moment there, I thought you were gonna kiss her."
Olivia glared at him.
Anabia said, "Dude."
Detective José Hanna ran off into the intersection of the snake. Rodriguez shook his head.
The team continued down the low-roofed corridor. The corridor kept on sloping the farther the team went. The team saw little rooms, rows of them on both sides. Rodriguez pointed out that whoring was big business for the Gerentes. The religion of the Inca people who settled in these parts at the time incorporated sex fertility rites in their worship. Women kept for that purpose never really leave the temple; they lived in these rooms and entertained the men here too.
Suddenly the floor leveled up again. The corridor branched off to the left; Rodriguez slowed down. He was panting. Miller touched the old man's shoulder and shoved a bottle of water in his hand.
He said to Olivia, "He needs to rest."
"Yes, I need to. This place, it will be short, but difficult."
He drank from the bottle with his back against the green stained wall. The smell of decay had long been forgotten.
When the man had control of his breath again, he looked at Olivia and said, "There is a shortcut to the vault here. They call it the chamber of the gods. Only the Gerente may pass without a test."
"Do you know what this test is?"
"No. No one but a Gerente. No one knows the nature of the test."
Olivia walked past the old man and into the dark. Behind her followed the others. Torches illuminated the way into a spacious room shaped like a Greek court. Olivia stopped. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the middle of the court.
It was a bottomless, dark chasm with a structure shaped like a ball at the beginning of it. The ball had a rough, pitted surface. Olivia's heart was beating very fast.
"There has to be another way," she said.
Rodriguez trembled behind her. "I'm afraid I know of none."
Olivia turned to the team.
"Patrick Coleman found the treasure," she said. "He saw it. Reno here is proof. He brought back something from there."
She looked at Reno. "Do you remember this place?"
He shook his head. "And not the other place too."
Olivia whispered, "The detective…"
"What about him?" asked Miller.
"If he finds Coleman, he will find the treasure. That is it. Coleman must have gotten lost in the vault."
"That's not likely," Liam said.
Andrew emerged from the shadows where she was standing. "But it is likely."
He nodded at Reno.
"He is proof that Coleman found something."
Everyone looked at the young man. Innocent eyes stared back at the men. His face was dust-laden; the scar on it was a long dark ridge. His eyes stopped on Olivia's face and stayed t
here. It was almost lustful how he looked at her, and it amused her very much.
"We are running out of time," said Olivia. "If Kowalski is alive, he will come blasting in here soon, maybe with new reinforcements. Roddy, we have to go back after José."
The old man's eyes widened. "I'm trying to save you—"
"Look at that." She waved at the abyss before them, the hovering ball, which was about five meters in diameter. "We can't possibly walk on that. Hell, we don't even know how it works."
"Its suicide, Pops," someone said.
Andrew picked up a piece of stone and threw it in the dark pits around the ball. The gloom swallowed it. Then he took a torch and went near the enclosure. He leaned over but not too far out.
"I can't see much."
Diggs grabbed hold of his hand, and he tried once more. This time he leaned out about seventy degrees. Olivia held her breath. Miller grabbed hold of Diggs' hand.
"You see anything?"
"Jesus," Andrew breathed. "It's too dark. I can't see anything."
Andrew searched the old man's eyes with his torch. "You are sure about this place?"
"Only tradition that I have been told."
Andrew put his torch in his pocket and his gun in the other. He took off his khaki shirt. Now he wore only a shirt with its short sleeves rolled almost to the shoulders and his khaki trousers.
"Andrew, what are you doing?" Olivia grabbed his hand. "No! You can't!"
He pointed left, along the third pillar by the edge of the wall. Andrew flashed his torch there.
"You should try to go around that way if you can. We'll meet—"
"Stop it! You don't know where that stone rolls. What if it plunges down the rabbit hole?"
Rodriguez cut in. "Look, up there."
Heads and torches turned in the direction of the man's finger. There was a depiction of the court up there, a replica of it. There was a man seated on the ball, crossed legged, his long hair flowed behind him. There was another, like a smaller version of this portraiture. But in this one, the ball was outside the circle of darkness; the man was not riding it anymore. He cradled a pile of glittering bars.
"Fuck me," Liam said.
They watched as Andrew walked over to the center of the court. Dust puffed around his feet. Anabia looked at Diggs, who happened to be beside him. "Have you noticed there aren't any animals down here, not even insects?"
The Inca Temple Page 18