Don Pendleton - Twisted Path

He had no way to estimate the length of time he had been traveling underground. His watch had disappeared long ago into the slippery hands of one of the policemen in Carrillo's office. He only knew that the monotonous motion had made his legs feel like lead bars and his arms like jelly.

At last a faint light shimmered an indeterminate distance in front, growing more distinct with every passing minute.

After another hundred yards of laborious creeping, the dirt passage ended. The warrior found, when he emerged from the shaft, that he was in an underground passageway six feet wide and eight feet high, edged with stone. Bolan noticed that the stones were so exactly cut that they fit together without mortar. The passage ran ruler-straight as far as he could see in both directions.

He began to stretch, working out the kinks that had numbed every muscle that hadn't been overworked to the point of collapse.

Bolan knew without a moment's hesitation that this superbly constructed passage hadn't been built by the Shining Path. An aura of age emanated from the walls, as nearly perfect as when the stones were carefully fitted together. He couldn't guess how long ago that had been.

"You see, American, that we Indians have not always been ignorant savages." Libertad was anxious to boast to him of the accomplishments of his forefathers. "Hundreds of years ago, maybe thousands, my ancestors built this. If it had not been for the coming of the European monsters, those savages who destroyed our homes and our civilization, who knows what heights we would have achieved! And one day, there will be a new Inca empire to amaze an admiring world. Yes, the Republic of New Democracy will provide a shining example of justice to the masses, a model of a new and better life."

"Yeah, a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here. All I know, amigo, is that you're going to need lots of guns to bring the other side around to your way of thinking. So how about getting us out of here so I can do some dealing? I don't like running around underground like some kind of South American gopher." That shut up Libertad, and the Peruvian stalked off, muttering to himself. A ferocious glare in the man's eye told Bolan how much Libertad was looking forward to executing him.

The labyrinth explained a lot to Bolan. It told him how the Path was able to operate with relative impunity in an area overrun with combat troops. Somehow, they had discovered a network of tunnels that might honeycomb the whole region, allowing them to come and go unseen. And as had just been demonstrated to Bolan, the shafts provided a ready escape route, allowing the revolutionaries to vanish when the pursuit got too hot. The terrorists had evidently dug a few crude exits from the ancient and more elaborate Inca passageways to give them some alternate escape routes.

When Libertad gave the light to an underling and set the small group on their way after a short rest, Bolan sought out Stone. They conversed in low voices as they walked down the straight corridor, their boot heels echoing on the granite floor.

"I'm surprised to find this here," Bolan began. "I would have thought that something this extensive would be well-known."

"It's not so astonishing as you might think," Stone explained. "The locals aren't very responsive to outsiders, as you may have guessed. And this area isn't really that well explored. The army is lazy and won't venture far from the highway or its base camps. So, if no one suspects these tunnels are here, then no one is going to look for them."

"What about archaeologists or treasure hunters?"

"In the first place, this is a big country, almost the size of Alaska, with about a quarter of it covered by the Andes. There are a lot of sights that are very well-known and easy to get to that have yet to be explored because of lack of funds. Most of the current work is going on near Cuzco, the Inca capital. And second, this has become a very dangerous place to work which you already know. Neither the army nor the Shining Path care much for gringos. And finally, if a treasure hunter had found this place, he wouldn't be too likely to tell anyone else. So, the terrorists are pretty safe."

One of the guards overheard them talking and came over to force them apart, leaving Bolan alone with his thoughts once again.

Bolan knew that Stone was probably right. The ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu had sat undiscovered on the top of a mountain until 1911. It was quite possible that other fortresses and refuges were yet to be found, particularly since it was rumored that the Incas had hidden huge amounts of gold and silver from the Spanish invaders. A large room had been filled from floor to ceiling with gold to ransom the last emperor's life before the Spaniards strangled him.

And yet that gold was said to represent only a fraction of the Inca hoard. What had happened to the bulk of the incalculable wealth, including a golden fish bigger than a man's arm and a gold-hung chain so heavy that two hundred men were needed to carry it, remained a mystery after more than four hundred years of patient searching.

The Incas were master builders and were certainly capable of undertaking a project as large as the tunnel system. The great citadel of Sacsahuaman in the imperial capital of Cuzco had required twenty thousand men toiling for ninety years to finish. Building these miles of rock-lined corridors would have seemed like an afternoon nap by comparison.

At various points in the long walk, they passed apertures in the walls, leading off to unknown destinations. Some might lead to storerooms, guardhouses or other exits. One might even lead to the fabled treasure of the Incas. It would take years of continuous searching to explore every side tunnel and blind alley in the complex. Bolan had been walking for more than two hours and had bypassed dozens of alternate routes, the rock walls marked in fading paint with some colorful identifying symbols.

The warrior wasn't much of a mole. He preferred his enemies aboveground, not burrowing in the middle of some anthill.

Right now, he was certainly glad to have a guide in the maze. Occasionally Libertad directed the lead man carrying the lamp left or right into a crossing corridor, seemingly identical to the one they had just traversed.

Even if the army found their way to the underground complex, the Path could hide undetected for months before an exploring soldier stumbled on them.

From time to time they circumvented ancient booby traps, pits dug in the floor to catch a careless enemy. They edged past on narrow ledges at the side. A defending force on the other side could hold up an attacker indefinitely, since only one person at a time could possibly slide past the pit.

Once, the terrorists stopped and clustered around something along the path, talking animatedly. When Bolan caught up, he found the Peruvians assembled around a shrunken and wrinkled body facedown on the stones. A dusty felt hat had rolled away from the corpse. Apparently a comrade who had lost his way.

The march resumed, after Libertad had stripped the desiccated body of anything of value.

After a very long period, which Bolan guessed was at least four hours of solid movement, he was fading into a haze. A powerful combination of days of monotony, exhaustion, poor food in minuscule quantities and lack of sleep were making the warrior almost dead on his feet. He placed one foot mechanically in front of the other, stumbling along followed by two of the terrorists, hardly conscious of himself or his surroundings.

Suddenly he came very much awake.

The Executioner's heart was pounding, blood flowing into adrenaline-energized muscles. His senses reached to a combat high as his body kicked almost instantaneously into a fighting mode.

His ears had detected a metallic noise that had sounded very familiar to his trained ear.