Zender nodded, rather calculatingly. ‘Yes, yes. If you say that at the press conference, that would be very good!’
‘Let’s save the media planning until we’ve found everything, shall we?’ Nina suggested. ‘There’s still a whole city to explore. And there was something else on the Paititi map.’ She put down her pack and took out the case containing the statuettes. ‘We’ve got two and a half out of three; let’s see if we can complete the set.’
She opened the case, revealing the figurines. The Peruvian contingent looked on in bemusement; Nina had only told a few senior politicians about the IHA’s other ongoing mission when requesting permission to mount the expedition. ‘What are these?’ asked Olmedo.
‘Pointers, I think,’ Nina said. She picked up the first statue; as she had hoped, it glowed with an earth energy reaction, though not an especially strong one. Even so, in the low light it was perfectly clear, the Peruvians reacting with surprise. ‘If I put them all together, I’m hoping they’ll show me the missing piece.’
She carefully brought the three carved purple stones together, cradling them in her hands. The glow changed, a brighter band shimmering – pointing at the sun disc.
‘It’s behind that?’ Kit asked.
Nina grimaced. ‘I hope not – I wouldn’t want to have to damage the Punchaco to get it out!’ She stepped across to the side wall. The line of light moved, the parallax shift indicating that the final piece was close by – but it no longer pointed at the representation of the sun god. ‘No, I think it’s in the palace. Just as the map said.’
‘It shouldn’t take long to find,’ said Macy. ‘Not when you’ve got your own personal weird statue detector.’
Nina addressed the Peruvians. ‘This is the main reason the IHA became involved. There’s no need for you to come with me to find the last statue piece if you don’t want to.’
She had hoped they would take the hint and let her search in peace, but from their expressions – even the two soldiers were intrigued – it was clear they all wanted to satisfy their curiosity. ‘Probably shouldn’t have shown ’em the glowing statues, love,’ said Eddie.
Still carefully holding the circle of figurines, she moved back towards the passage. ‘Well, let’s see where they lead us, then.’
The others following, she left the temple, heading for the palace at the summit of the hidden city.
In the jungle outside the cave, one of the two soldiers left to watch the team’s vehicles looked down the hill. Several minutes earlier, he had thought he heard distant engines, but the waterfall’s never-ending rumble made it difficult to be sure. He had dismissed the sound as nothing more than local traffic picking its way along the winding road – but now he was certain he had heard it again, and closer. He stared down the weaving trail of flattened vegetation made by the off-roaders, but saw nothing except greenery.
His companion, leaning against the Jeep, stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Why would anyone come up here? Nobody’s even supposed to know about this place except those archaeologists.’
‘Someone might have seen our tracks going off the road.’ The reassuring weight of his Kalashnikov AKM rifle hung from one shoulder; he considered unslinging it and heading downhill to investigate. But there was nothing moving amongst the trees except birds, and the noise had stopped. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure I heard a truck.’
He expected a sarcastic retort, but no answer came. Assuming the other soldier was busy lighting yet another cigarette, he continued, ‘And I know you’re going to say that we almost ran into plenty of trucks on the way here, but I meant it was nearer than the road.’ He turned to await a response—
A man in dirty, ragged jungle camouflage was behind his comrade, one hand clamped over his mouth – and the other driving a knife deep into his throat, spraying blood over the Jeep’s windscreen.
The soldier grabbed his AKM—
A loud, flat thump came from the undergrowth, and he fell, hit in the back by a bullet. He writhed in pain, trying to scream, but only managed a choked gurgle, blood from a shredded lung frothing in his throat and mouth.
The shooter stepped from the bushes. He was short, barrel-chested . . . and wearing a blood-red beret.
Arcani Pachac.
‘Any sign of the rest?’ the Maoist leader asked as his scout pulled the knife from the second soldier’s neck and let the twitching corpse drop to the ground.
‘No, Inkarrí,’ the camouflaged man replied. ‘Their tracks go to the waterfall, but there’s nobody there. They must be behind it.’
Pachac nodded, then almost as an afterthought raised his weapon again. The automatic had been modified with a makeshift silencer, a two-litre plastic soda bottle stuffed with shredded newspaper and polythene bags taped to his pistol’s barrel. Smoke coiled from the hole in the end of the bottle where the bullet had seared through; the torn-up scraps inside had caught fire. He pulled the trigger, a second round smashing into the back of the wounded soldier’s skull. The shot was still loud, the improvised suppressor too crude to do more than muffle it – but, crucially, it didn’t sound like the sharp crack of gunfire. To anyone outside the immediate vicinity, it could be mistaken for a falling branch or other similar natural event. And the waterfall’s thunder masked it still further.
He pulled the smouldering bottle from the gun, then unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt. ‘The way is clear. Move up.’
The luckless soldier had heard engines. Before long, three off-road vehicles came into sight, following the archaeological team’s path. Two were old, battered and unassuming 4×4s - a rusting Ford F-150 pickup with a cargo bed full of rebels, and a long-past-its-prime Toyota Land Cruiser with sagging suspension. Leading the parade, however, was something much newer and more expensive: a bright yellow Hummer H3. Pachac was perversely proud of the vehicle, which his group had obtained by the simple expedient of murdering its owner; the oversized, cartoonish 4×4 was a perfect symbol of the kind of capitalist excess he was aiming to destroy, and it gave him a certain satisfaction to use it against them.
He also got a kick out of driving the huge, opulent vehicle, but kept that to himself.
The crowded trucks stopped behind the expedition’s vehicles, and Pachac’s men emerged. Like him, all were dirty, their clothes grubby and crumpled from a life spent in the rough and on the run. And like him, all were killers. Though they called themselves revolutionaries, to the Peruvian government the True Red Way were terrorists, and hunted as such.
But this time they were not working alone. Pachac ordered his men to head for the falls, then went to the Hummer. Inside was a high-tech field radio. He took the handset and spoke into it. ‘This is Pachac. We’re at the waterfall.’ He wasn’t concerned about the Peruvian authorities overhearing; the radio’s messages were encrypted.
‘Have you seen Wilde and the others?’ the reply came. The voice was clipped. British.
‘No, but they are definitely here. My contact in the village described the woman he saw. Red hair, in a ponytail – it must be her. We think they have found a way behind the waterfall.’ Pachac looked up at the thrum of an approaching helicopter. ‘Is that you I can hear?’
‘Of course it is. How many of them are there?’
‘My contact counted fourteen people. Four of them were soldiers. We have executed two of them already.’
‘We’ll take care of the waterfall – then you take care of the rest of them. But I need Dr Wilde and the Interpol agent, Jindal, alive. You understand?’
‘I have told my men,’ said Pachac impatiently.
‘Good.’ A bleep told the Peruvian that the call was terminated. He followed his men through the trees as the helicopter moved away.
None of Nina’s prior knowledge of Inca civilisation had prepared her for – she realised with amusement that she had started using the name without irony – El Dorado. The other known sites were long-looted and derelict; here, relics of the city’s inhabitants still remained. The palace’s rooms contained
belongings left by its occupants, and she had to force herself to walk on by as she followed the statues’ glowing light deeper into the building.
But she knew she could explore the rest of the palace later. For now, finding the final piece was her top priority.
‘It can’t be much further,’ said Kit as the group entered a large room. ‘We’re almost at the back of the palace.’ The hiss of the water jet echoed off the walls.
This deep in the cave, there was much less light than in the Temple of the Sun. Eddie switched on his Maglite. ‘Is that something there?’
The beam found an alcove set into the rear wall – familiar markings within. ‘I think it is,’ said Nina, her pace and heartbeat getting faster.
Osterhagen was right with her. ‘Just like the map from Paititi!’
‘Only part of it,’ said Macy as the others crowded round to look. More flashlights illuminated the painted walls.
Nina knelt to enter the alcove. ‘Yeah. The people who made this map, this is where their journey ended. They didn’t go on into the jungle.’ The golden city marked the end of the trek from Cuzco.
But she was more interested in the nook set into the wall. In it stood a small figure, carved from an unusual purple stone.
Half a figure. The other piece of the last statuette. It had patiently stood here for centuries, waiting to be reunited with its mirror image – and its near-twins. The set was about to be completed.
She put down the other figures, their light vanishing, and cautiously touched the statuette in the niche. It lit up with a rippling glow – strongest in one direction. Towards the sculptures at her feet. ‘This is it!’ Nina said. ‘The last piece.’
‘Maybe now we’ll find out what all the bloody fuss is about,’ said Eddie.
‘Let’s hope.’ She reached for it—
A distant boom, a drawn-out rumble of something enormous tearing apart . . .
The floor shook, little cascades of dust and grit dropping from the walls. The statuettes on the floor clinked against each other. ‘Terremoto!’ cried Zender, frantically looking round for shelter.
‘It’s not an earthquake,’ said Eddie, straining to listen over the sound of water. ‘More like . . .’
‘Artillery,’ Mac finished for him.
Another tremor rolled through the ground. A new sound, closer, more frightening. Overhead. Rock straining against rock. ‘Shit!’ said Eddie. ‘The whole fucking place is going to come down! We’ve got to get out of here.’
‘The statues!’ Kit almost shouted.
‘I’ve got them,’ said Nina. No time to see what happened when they were brought together; she jammed them all into the foam-lined case and closed it. ‘Okay, let’s go!’
Everyone ran for the exit, Mac and Eddie side by side at the rear. Over the thumps and rumbles of rock, Nina realised that another sound was changing. ‘The waterfall – listen!’ The thunder of the falls was dying down. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get outside!’
They rushed on to the terrace overlooking the square behind the Temple of the Sun. The fountains were still gushing, fed by the subterranean reserve backed up behind the dam at the cave’s rear.
But ahead, the flow concealing the cavern’s mouth was weakening, glimpses of the valley’s far side visible through the thinning curtain.
The river had been blocked.
Alexander Stikes looked out of the hovering Hind’s cabin with a smile. Krikorian had just unleashed a barrage of S-8 rockets into the steep cliffs channelling the river – which had collapsed in a most satisfying manner, thousands of tons of rubble dropping into the narrow waterway. The waters behind the makeshift dam were already rising even as those ahead of it drained away, but the flood would find an alternative route down into the valley long before it could overflow the new obstacle. ‘Nicely done, Krikorian,’ he said into his headset. ‘Gurov, take us back to the falls. Let’s see what’s behind them.’
The Russian pilot complied, the Hind swinging about and flying along the dwindling river before crossing the falls and hovering over the pocket jungle. Stikes’s smile widened as he saw the result of his attack. The strength of the cataract had already diminished enormously, exposing a broad cave mouth behind it – was that a wall blocking the lower half? If so, it was an impressive piece of ancient construction work – and the pool at its base was rapidly draining. It would soon be possible to reach the cave without even getting one’s feet wet.
Pachac, he saw, wasn’t going to wait that long. The terrorist leader, easy to spot in his red beret, was pointing at the wall, directing men bearing assault rifles and rocket launchers across the pool.
Ready to take the cavern and its contents by force.
33
Eddie saw the Hind through the cave mouth. Even with the water still partially obscuring it, he picked out the colours of the Venezuelan flag. ‘It’s Stikes!’
‘What?’ said Nina in utter disbelief. ‘How the hell could he know we’re here?’
The aircraft moved out of sight. ‘What is going on?’ Zender demanded, caught between confusion and fear. ‘That helicopter - it was Venezuelan!’
‘It used to be one of yours, but it’s gone into the private sector,’ Eddie said grimly. He turned to the two soldiers. ‘You and you – with me, quick!’ The three men hurried away down the steps.
Zender still wanted answers. ‘Tell me what is happening!’
‘Stikes used the helicopter’s weapons to block the river and cut off the waterfall,’ Mac told him. ‘It’ll make it easier for his people to get into the cave.’
‘Who is Stikes?’
‘A mercenary,’ said Nina. ‘He was part of the attempted coup in Venezuela – and it looks like he’s trying to make up for not getting paid by raiding this place.’
Juanita was scared. ‘What – what about the soldiers we left outside?’
‘They’re dead,’ Mac replied bluntly. ‘And we will be too unless Eddie and your other men can hold them off.’
‘You don’t sound confident,’ said Kit.
The Hind came back into view outside. ‘We are slightly outgunned,’ said Mac. He looked towards the plaza. ‘We need to see what’s going on.’ He started down the steps, the others going with him. Nina left the case amongst the team’s gear before following.
Eddie and the two soldiers raced downhill through the narrow streets. They passed the tombs, seeing the reservoir ahead. ‘Where are we going?’ asked Lieutenant Echazu.
‘There’s only one way into this cave,’ Eddie answered. ‘We need to make sure nobody comes up that tunnel.’
‘We? But you do not have a gun!’
‘I’ve got a water pistol, sort of.’ They reached the edge of the hidden city, the ground sloping more steeply down to the shaft. ‘Okay, cover that hole.’
The soldiers split up to take positions overlooking the entrance. ‘What are you doing?’ shouted the corporal, Chambi, seeing Eddie running to the shaft itself.
‘Making sure they get the point!’ he said as he jumped down to the booby trap’s trigger slab. There was a rasp of stone, but it stayed in place.
More sounds echoed up the passage. He looked down, seeing torchlight glinting off the silver spikes. The intruders were already at the bottom of the shaft – and he had left them an easy way up. The hanging rope suddenly pulled tight as someone started to climb it.
He jumped down to the next step. Below was the ledge with the three jaguar heads. Another look over the edge – and he saw a man on the first ledge.
Eddie dropped flat on the cramped step, reaching down with one hand. The two jaguar heads that he had left untouched were just within his grasp, but the third, lowered to deactivate the trap, was a couple of inches beyond his fingertips. Swearing under his breath, he leaned further out. The man on the rope was already climbing to the second step—
A torch beam flashed across his face. Someone shouted in Spanish. The climber looked up, saw him – and dropped back down to the first step, reaching for the
AK-47 across his back.
Eddie lunged, grabbing the stone jaguar and yanking it upwards – then rolled back as the Kalashnikov roared. Bullets smacked against the wall, sending ricochets screaming up the shaft. The noise was horrific in the confined space.
The thunder faded to echoes, then to nothing. The AK’s magazine was empty. He heard metallic clicks from below as the gunman kept pulling the trigger.
Not one of Stikes’s men, then – a professional would already be changing the mag. No time to wonder who he might be, though. Instead Eddie leapt and grabbed the rope, swinging round to plant his soles against the shaft’s side as he scrambled up. He couldn’t touch the trigger slab on the step above.