Clive Cussler - Lost Empire

“Rivera . . . Where is-”

“I’m here, Mr. Fargo.”

Sam tilted his head backward. An upside-down Rivera was sitting ten feet up the black-sand beach. “Damn,” Sam muttered. “I’ll give you this much, Rivera, you’re one tough bastard.”

Sam forced himself up onto his elbows, then sat upright with Remi’s help. He turned around. Rivera was in tough shape; his nose was broken, one of his eyes swollen shut, and his lower lip was split. The gun in his right hand was held in a rock-steady grip, however.Rivera said, “And you’re too clever for your own good. As soon as you’re feeling better I’m going to kill you and your wife.”

“I may have tried to kill you, but I didn’t lie about this place. I could still be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“Fine. I’ll kill you both, then find the entrance myself. The island isn’t that big.”

“It doesn’t look big now, but once you get into that jungle it’ll suddenly get a lot bigger. It would take you months to find it.”

“And how long for you?”

Sam checked his watch. “Eight hours from the time we get into the caldera.”

“Why that number?”

“Just a guess.”

“Are you stalling for time?”

“That’s part of it. Also, we want to find Chicomoztoc as much as you do. Maybe more. We’ve just got a different motive than you do.”

“I’ll give you four hours.” Rivera stood up.

Remi helped Sam to his feet. He leaned on her as though dizzy. “Headache,” he said loudly, then whispered in Remi’s ear: “I had a gun.”

She smiled. “You did. I have it now.”

“Waistband?”

“Yes.”

“If you get a chance, shoot him.”

“Gladly.”

“I’ll try to distract him.”

HAVING TOUGHENED THEMSELVES over the past few weeks, first on Madagascar, then on Pulau Legundi, Sam and Remi found the hike up the island’s forested slope relatively easy. Rivera, however, was struggling. His broken nose forced him to breathe through his mouth, and he was now limping. Still, his years as a soldier were shining through. He kept pace with them, keeping ten feet between them and his gun.

At last they reached the top. Below them, the caldera’s slopes dropped a hundred feet to the valley floor. The bowl shape, having acted as a rain funnel for centuries, had caused the trees and vegetation to grow faster than their cousins on the exterior.“What now?” asked Rivera.

Sam turned around in a circle, orienting himself. “My compass was in the plane, so I have to estimate this . . .” Sam walked to the right, picking his way through the trees for another fifty feet, then stopped. “It should be right about here.”“Here?”

“Below us.”

“Explain.”

“Right after which you shoot us. No thank you.”

Rivera’s mouth tightened in a thin line. His eyes never leaving Sam’s, Rivera shifted his gun slightly right and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through Remi’s left leg. She screamed and collapsed. Rivera shifted the gun back onto Sam, stopping him in midstep.“Let me help her,” Sam said.

Rivera glanced at Remi. His eyes narrowed. He limped over to where she was lying, crouched down, and picked up the pistol that had fallen from Remi’s waistband. Rivera stepped back. “You can help her now.”

Sam rushed to her side. She gripped his hand hard, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Sam patted his pockets, came up with a bandanna, and pressed it against the wound.Rivera said, “Do I have your full attention now?”

“Yes, damn it.”

“The bullet hit her in the quadriceps muscle. She won’t bleed to death, and, providing she doesn’t stay out here more than a couple days, there’s not much chance of infection. Between these two guns I’ve got thirty more rounds. Start cooperating or I’ll keep shooting.”

THEY MADE THEIR WAY DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOOR, SAM IN THE lead with Remi cradled in his arms and Rivera trailing behind. They found a small clearing in the approximate center of the bowl, and Sam laid Remi down. Rivera sat down on a fallen log at the edge of the clearing. His gun never wavering from Sam’s chest, Rivera lifted his shirt up; on the left side of his abdomen was a black softball-sized bruise.“That looks painful,” Sam said.

“It’s just a bruise.”

Sam knelt beside Remi. He lifted the bandanna on her thigh. The bleeding had slowing to a trickle. He whispered, “Rivera’s bleeding internally.”

Through clenched teeth Remi asked, “How bad?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Stall until he keels over dead.” “I’ll try.”

“Stop your whispering!” Rivera barked. “Move away from her.” Sam complied. “Tell me your theory about the entrance.”

Sam hesitated.

Rivera pointed the gun at Remi.

“It’s based on the illustrations,” Sam said. “Chicomoztoc is always a cavern with seven smaller caves around it . . . like a flower. The cavern is beneath a mountain. The drawings vary, but the big details are the same-including the location of the entrance.”“At the bottom,” Rivera said.

“Right. But if I’m right and this is the place, it means the exterior shape of the island was as important to them as the interior.”

“How could they have gotten an overhead view of it?”

“They didn’t. They sailed around it and mapped it. As small as this island is, it would have been easy to do it accurately.”

“Go on.”

“If you’re looking at the illustration face on as a two-dimensional image, the entrance to Chicomoztoc is down. If you look at it from overhead-and they oriented themselves on the four cardinal directions like most cultures do-then the entrance lies to the south.”Rivera considered this, then nodded slowly. “Good. Now go find it. You’ve got four hours. If you don’t find it by then, I’ll kill you both.”

RIVERA MADE THE GROUND RULES clear: Sam would search for the entrance while he, Rivera, guarded Remi. Rivera would call Sam’s name at random intervals. If Sam didn’t answer within ten seconds, Rivera would shoot Remi again.

AS HE AND REMI HAD DONE on Pulau Legundi, Sam made do with what was at hand: a sturdy six-foot-long stick and patience. Facing what he thought was due south, he started up the caldera’s slope, prodding ahead of him with the stick.

The first pass to the top took him twenty minutes. On the rim he sidestepped to the right and started back down the slope. He felt ridiculous. Though his method was sound and still used in certain cases, the gravity of where he was, what he searching for, and the clock that was ticking on Remi’s life blended together, giving him a nagging sense of helplessness.The afternoon wore on. In twenty-minute intervals he hiked up the slope, then down the slope. Up, down, repeating until he’d made six passes, then eight, then ten.

Shortly before five o’clock, with the sun dropping toward the western horizon, he was picking his way through a particularly dense cluster of trees when he stopped to catch his breath.Initially, the sound was just a faint hiss. Sam held his breath and strained to pin down the location. It seemed to be all around him.

“Fargo!” Rivera hollered.

“Here!” Sam called back.

“You have thirty more minutes.”

Sam picked his way ten feet farther down the slope. He paused. The hissing had faded slightly. He stepped ten feet to the left, listened again. Louder now. He repeated his test, box-stepping up and down the hillside, until he found himself standing before a bulge in the slope. He poked the bulge with his stick; the tip disappeared.His heart thumped in his chest.

He dropped to his knees and shoved his head into the opening.

The hissing doubled in volume.