‘If they wanted it, they’d have swiped it already,’ Eddie pointed out.
‘But they don’t know what we know about the statues.’ She swept the dirt from the niche, exposing the rest of the khipu. It was longer than she had first thought, folded over itself several times. ‘There should be some Ziploc bags in my backpack. Can you get one for me?’
He did so, and she gently slipped the khipu into the plastic bag, squeezing out the air before sealing it shut. ‘Okay,’ she said, placing the bag in the case and closing it, then putting the case in her pack, ‘I’m ready.’
‘About time. Come on.’
They hurried back into the open, passing the temple and descending the steps into the plaza. The soldiers were still tied to the tree, the other expedition members heading for the main gate.
Not as quickly as Eddie wanted. ‘What is this, a fucking afternoon stroll?’ he growled. ‘Oi! You lot! Shift your arses!’
His shout spurred them on, but not by much; Nina and Eddie caught up while they were still short of the gate. ‘Some of us are injured, you know,’ Cuff whined.
‘You don’t run on your lips, do you?’ said Eddie, devoid of sympathy. ‘Oscar, how’re you managing?’
The Venezuelan’s face was tight with ill-concealed pain; unlike the American, he had suffered blows that were affecting his movement, his torso badly bruised by the soldiers’ kicks. ‘I’m okay,’ he grunted. ‘When we—’ He broke off, looking round at a noise.
Eddie heard it too – or more accurately felt it, a subsonic thumping inside his chest cavity.
He instantly knew what it was. ‘Shit! It’s a chopper!’
The pounding grew louder, rising to a clattering whump of rotors as a helicopter swept overhead. Eddie glimpsed it through the jungle canopy: a Russian-built Mil Mi-17.
With the yellow, blue and red stripes of the Venezuelan flag standing out from the muted green camouflage paint on its tail boom. A military aircraft.
The soldiers’ backup had arrived.
12
‘Get through the gate!’ Eddie yelled. The group was still short of Paititi’s thick outer walls. As everyone ran, he glared at Nina. ‘This is why we had to go five minutes ago!’
‘Don’t you try to put this on me!’ she shouted back. ‘You said they were coming by road, not helicopter!’
‘Well, I’m not a fucking oracle, am I?’ They reached the gate, the narrow opening forcing them into single file to pass through.
The helicopter slowed, preparing to hover. The tree cover was far too dense for it to land, even inside the settlement. ‘It’s going to drop troops,’ Eddie warned as everyone scrambled across the remains of a defensive trench. ‘They’ll be able to shoot you from about two hundred metres away through this much jungle, so keep as many trees behind you as you can. Oscar, get everyone to the Jeeps. Kit, you and me are going to cover the rear.’
‘I don’t think I like the sound of that,’ the Indian said unhappily.
Nina wasn’t keen either. ‘What are you doing?’
Eddie pointed back towards the lost town. ‘In about thirty seconds, they’ll have boots on the ground – and another thirty seconds after that, the guys we tied up’ll have told them we just did a runner out of the gate. We need to slow ’em down long enough for you to get to the trucks.’
‘We’re not going to leave you!’ she protested.
‘It’s a tactical withdrawal, not a last stand. We’ll be there, you can bloody believe it!’ She was still hesitant, so he gave her a reassuring smile. ‘We’ll be fine. Go on, see you soon.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she said with a faint smile of her own, before going after the others.
Eddie watched her retreat, then turned to Kit. ‘You ready?’
‘No, but that never seems to matter, does it?’ A grim grin from the Interpol officer. ‘What do we do?’
‘Keep your gun on the gate. Soon as anyone comes out of it, fire a couple of rounds. We’re trying to buy time, so we need to keep ’em bottled up for as long as we can.’
‘Are we shooting to kill?’
‘They will be.’ The Mil tipped out of its hover, swinging round to circle the area. ‘Okay, they’re down,’ said Eddie. ‘Soon as the shooting starts, we’ll do a running retreat. You back up by twenty, thirty metres, get behind a tree and cover me while I move, then I do the same for you.’
‘Okay.’ They hunched behind an earth mound, about sixty metres from the gate. The team had been extremely unlucky, Eddie thought; the chopper must have been visiting the radar base for it to have responded to the soldier’s SOS so quickly. It also still posed a threat – it was a transport, not a gunship, but it could follow the fleeing 4×4s and report their position.
There were more pressing worries, though. He sighted the AK on the gate. How long before the soldiers reached it?
He got an answer a few seconds later. A man cautiously looked out—
Eddie fired two rapid shots. The first went slightly wide, cracking off the stonework. The Englishman immediately adjusted his aim, but the soldier had already pulled back.
‘Move,’ he told Kit, who started his retreat. Eddie kept his gun fixed on the gate. The man reappeared, unleashing a three-round burst from his AK. Bullets smacked into the mound in front of Eddie. He ducked, then returned fire – but that had been all the time another two soldiers needed to rush past their comrade and dive headlong into the trench.
The soldier at the gate fired again, the rounds whipping over Eddie’s head. He crawled back and waved for Kit to shoot. It was going to be a tough escape.
But not impossible.
Kit fired a couple of rounds, and Eddie quickly scuttled backwards. He passed the Indian, and kept moving until he reached shelter behind the vine-throttled trunk of a large hardwood tree. Nobody was in clear sight, but the jolting of a small bush told him that one man was crawling along the trench. The other was probably doing the same in the other direction. They were spreading out, making it harder for himself and Kit to cover them all.
They weren’t advancing, though. For now, that was what mattered: it would buy Nina and the others the time they needed to reach the trucks.
‘Kit!’ he called. The Interpol officer dropped low and backed up to pass him. He readied his weapon—
Two more soldiers rushed out of the gate. Eddie fired again. Somebody yelled, but more in surprise than pain – a very narrow miss, perhaps even a grazing impact. A good scare would make him more reluctant to put his head up.
But there were still at least four other men to deal with. He released another round to encourage them to stay down – then jerked into cover himself as a soldier in the trench opened fire on full auto. Chunks of shredded wood exploded from the trunk.
Kit was in position behind another tree. Eddie fired a single shot, then ducked and hurried to overtake him. The Indian unleashed more bullets, hitting nothing but soil and wood, then moved back as Eddie took up the cover fire.
The man at the gate reappeared. Eddie aimed at him – then snapped his gun round as he saw a soldier rise and rush out of the trench. Two pulls of the trigger, and the man tumbled into the dirt, shrieking in Spanish.
If the soldiers were professionals, some would break off to help the wounded man . . .
Money was their motivation. The screams continued as the gunfire intensified, the angry Venezuelans advancing. Eddie fired again as another man ran for a tree, but a spray of bullets from two others chewed into his cover and forced him back behind it.
But he and Kit had done their job. The others would be almost at the Jeeps by now. He registered that the helicopter was still circling somewhere behind him, but ignored it. Time to go.
‘Give me cover, then run!’ he called to Kit, who fired again. Eddie bent low and scurried from the tree – then, when he was level with his friend, broke into a sprint. Kit fired a last burst before following. AKs chattered behind them as they ran.
Valero’s injuries were slowing him,
the Venezuelan clutching his ribs as his run became a faltering plod. Nina moved alongside him. ‘Leonard, help me carry him!’
‘No, keep going,’ Valero wheezed as Osterhagen hurried over. ‘We’re almost there – go on!’
Nina took his weight on one side, the German supporting him on the other. ‘No, we stick together,’ she insisted.
Another expedition member didn’t share that view. Cuff broke from the group and raced up the earthen bank ahead. ‘Day, wait!’ cried Loretta.
‘If he takes one of the trucks on his own,’ Nina growled, ‘he’ll need more than a dentist when I’m done with him.’
‘I’ll help,’ Macy added.
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Osterhagen assured her. ‘I think . . . ’
Macy ran to catch Cuff as they brought Valero up the slope. At the top, Nina spotted a flash of red through the greenery – one of the Land Cruisers. Osterhagen saw it too, and they guided the winded man towards it.
Cuff reached the nearest 4×4, yanking open the driver’s door. Nina expected him to jump in, but instead he stood unmoving. ‘Start it up!’ Macy yelled to him as she reached the vehicle. ‘Come on, get—’
She too froze, suddenly silent.
Nina realised that something was horribly wrong, but it was too late to do anything about it – they were only a couple of dozen yards from the trucks with nowhere to run, nowhere to take cover.
Macy looked back, frightened. Nina now knew why.
Someone was in the Land Cruiser. But how—
The helicopter. She hadn’t paid it any attention, distracted by the gunfire. Now, though, she knew what it had been doing. The only way to leave Paititi was along the logging track, and it had dropped more troops ahead to catch them in a pincer.
Figures emerged from behind trees and bushes, weapons aimed at the archaeologists and their guide. Loretta screamed. One soldier pointed at Valero, then gestured towards the ground. With a faint moan of defeat, Valero dropped his gun.
The man in the Land Cruiser emerged, Cuff stepping back in fear. Tall, late forties, tending towards the spread of middle age but still intimidatingly powerful. An officer, his crisp and clean uniform contrasting with the sweaty fatigues of his men. He regarded Nina and her companions coldly from behind a pair of aviator sunglasses. ‘Who are you,’ he said in thickly accented English, ‘and what are you doing in my ruins?’
Eddie and Kit weaved through the jungle, plants whipping at their faces. ‘Over there!’ Eddie said, seeing footprints heading up the bank. He followed them. ‘Just up this, and we’re—’
Figures standing around the 4×4s.
Too many figures.
Instinct kicked in and he dropped flat, dragging Kit with him as more rifles fired. Bullets ripped into the ground just above them.
The gunfire stopped. Gesturing for Kit to stay still, Eddie crawled sidelong until he was below a plant’s dangling fronds. Very cautiously, he raised his head and peered through the leaves.
The other team members were lined up on their knees before the Land Cruisers, hands behind their heads. Nina was at the centre, between Macy and Cuff. None appeared to have been harmed.
Yet.
A man wearing a tan beret was partially visible behind the nearer 4×4, but Eddie fixed his attention on the person in charge: a Venezuelan officer in sunglasses standing behind the prisoners, one hand on his holstered automatic. ‘Throw your guns over the top and raise your hands above your heads!’ he shouted.
‘What do we do?’ Kit whispered.
They were outnumbered, only limited ammo remaining, and, with the prisoners held at gunpoint and more soldiers closing from behind, the chances of taking down the Venezuelans without suffering multiple losses were almost zero. ‘We’ll have to give up,’ Eddie reluctantly told him. Kit looked shocked. ‘Yeah, it’s a pisser, I know. But if we don’t—’
The officer shouted again. ‘If you do not surrender by the time I count to three, I will kill one of your friends!’ Eddie looked through the leaves again, his blood chilling when he saw that the man had drawn his gun and moved behind Nina. He started to count, with almost no pause between the numbers. ‘One, two—’
‘No!’ Eddie yelled, flinging his AK over the rise and jumping up with his hands held high. Kit did the same.
The cold gaze behind the sunglasses regarded them for a moment. Nobody moved. Then—
‘Three.’
He pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the back of Cuff’s skull from point-blank range. It shattered into fragments as it punched through bone, red-hot metal chunks liquefying brain tissue. One of the pieces exploded from his right eye socket at the head of a terrible gout of grey and red. Cuff slumped lifelessly in his own blood.
Nina had been almost deafened by the gunshot barely two feet from her head. The ringing in her ears gradually faded, only to be replaced by another sound. Screaming. Loretta was wailing hysterically at the sight of Cuff’s body. The other prisoners were also in shock.
The officer gestured to two of his men. Weapons locked on Eddie and Kit, they recovered the discarded AK-103s, then brought the explorers to their commander. The three golden stars of his insignia told the former SAS man that he was a major general – one of the highest Venezuelan military ranks. He removed his sunglasses, revealing dark, narrow eyes, blinking as infrequently as a lizard’s. ‘Are there any more of you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Eddie replied.
‘If you are lying, I will kill you all. Starting with her.’ He pointed his pistol at Nina. She looked fearfully at her husband.
‘This is all of us. I’m not lying,’ said Eddie.
The officer stared at him for several seconds before finally turning away, appearing satisfied. His gaze moved on to Loretta, who was still crying. ‘Rojas,’ he said to a man nearby, a sergeant. ‘That noise. Silence it.’
Rojas stepped up to Loretta and with a swift, savage move smashed a fist across her face, knocking her to the ground. ‘You fucker!’ Eddie cried, lunging at him, only to have two Kalashnikov muzzles stabbed hard into his chest, then the stock of a third rifle slammed against the back of his head. He dropped to his knees in pain.
The man standing behind the Land Cruiser spoke. ‘Always did try to play the white knight for the ladies, didn’t you . . . Chase?’
Eddie looked up in shock. He knew that voice. The speaker strode out and stood before him, a smug smile on his chiselled face.
It was Alexander Stikes.
13
‘You know this guy?’ Nina asked, shocked. ‘Unfortunately, yeah,’ said Eddie. ‘He’s a complete fucking bell-end called Stikes.’
‘Alexander Stikes,’ said the man in question, introducing himself to Nina with mock civility. ‘Formerly of the SAS. I had the dubious privilege of commanding Corporal Chase here.’
Eddie gave him a cutting half-smile. ‘Until I got him kicked out.’
Stikes sneered. ‘Don’t award yourself credit where it’s not due. My transfer back to my old regiment had nothing to do with that pathetic inquiry McCrimmon organised.’
‘Still stopped you getting promoted, didn’t it? Nothing like murdering civilians to fuck up your career prospects.’
‘I don’t know, striking a superior officer did for yours. Admittedly, a simple demotion wasn’t nearly punishment enough, but again, your being McCrimmon’s trained poodle helped you.’ He slowly circled Eddie. ‘You’ve put on weight, Chase. Two marriages have made you lazy. So how is your ex?’
‘Dead as you’ll be when I’m done with you. Been stalking me on Facebook, have you?’
‘Just keeping tabs on an adversary. But I must admit, it was quite a surprise to hear that coarse northern drawl again when they replayed the SOS at the base. Still, you never could keep your mouth shut.’
The Venezuelan general waved an impatient hand. ‘Enough. You know this man, yes, but we need to know who the others are, how much they know about the lost city – and who they have told.’
> Stikes ran his hand down the side of Nina’s face. She flinched away, Eddie giving him a deadly look. ‘Well, since I know Chase, I also know who she is. We have a celebrity in our midst, Salbatore – this is Nina Wilde.’
The general’s eyebrows twitched as he recognised the name. ‘The one who found Atlantis?’