Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘Set it for twelve minutes,’ Bittiker said. ‘Twelve noon.’

The tech typed quickly and within seconds a countdown screen appeared: YOU NOW HAVE 00:12:00 MINUTES TO ENTER DISARM CODE. ENTER DISARM CODE HERE The tech hit ‘ENTER’ and the timer began to race downwards. As it did so, Bittiker pulled out his cellular phone and dialled Bluey James’ number again. The digital tracing equipment in Bluey’s apartment lit up like a Christmas tree again. Bluey picked up the phone.

‘Yo.’

‘Has the message gone out?’

‘It’s out there, Earl,’ Bluey lied as he stared into the eyes of John Paul Demonaco. “Is there panic in the streets?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ Bluey said.

The Goose edged closer to the Antonov’s hindquarters, two feet separating the two speeding, rising planes. In the face of the battering, pounding wind, Race held onto the Goose’s hatch with one hand while he reached out with the other for the panel on the cargo plane, stretching out as far as he could. It was still too far away. Doogie brought the Goose in closer still, as close as he dared… and Race grabbed the panel, flipped it open. He saw two buttons inside it—one red, one green—and without so much as a second thought, he slammed his fist down on the green button. With an ominous rambling whir, the rear loading ramp of the Antonov began to lower, right on top of the Goose’s nose! With the reflexes of a cat, Doogie quickly manoeuvred the little seaplane out of the path of the lowering ramp—in doing so, almost flinging Race out of the nose hatch! But Race’s grip and balance held firm and he remained standing half-in half-out of the Goose’s hatch while Doogie deftly swung the little seaplane in behind the Antonov as the giant cargo plane’s ramp yawned open before them. The two planes continued to fly in tandem through the Peruvian sky—the massive Antonov and the tiny Goose flying barely two feet apart, hitting 18,000 feet only now the Antonov’s rear loading ramp was open, right in front of the little seaplane’s nose! Then, at the precise moment that the ramp came fully open and despite the fact that he was 18,000 feet above the earth, the tiny figure of William Race climbed up out of the hatch— into the roaring wind—and leapt across from the nose of the Goose onto the open loading ramp of the Antonov! Race landed flat on his face on the loading ramp of the giant cargo plane. He clawed for a handhold to stop himself getting sucked out the back of the plane, grappled his way along the length of the ramp—flat on his belly, hand over hand, the wind roaring all around him—crawling on his stomach with nothing but the Goose and 18,000 feet of clear open sky behind him. It’s funny where life takes you .. The enormous cargo bay opened up before him. He saw the massive Abrams tank sitting proudly in the middle of it—saw the whipping wind scooping up anything that wasn’t nailed down—saw the flashing red warning lights and heard the hysterical wail of the alarm klaxons that were no doubt alerting whoever was on board the plane that its loading ramp was now illegally open. Earl Bittiker already knew. No sooner had the loading ramp opened a foot than he had heard the whoosh of the wind rushing into the cargo bay. It was followed a split second later by the highpitched wailing of the klaxons. Bittiker spun where he stood in the belly of the Abrams tank, his cellular phone still pressed against his ear

‘What the luck is this?’ he said as he stormed up the ladder of the tank, heading outside. On his feet now, Race unshouldered his MP5 and side stepped his way down the narrow passageway between the enormous tank and the wall of the cargo hold. Abruptly, a man’s head popped out from the hatch on top of the tank to his left.

Race whirled around, levelled his gun at the man. “Freeze!’ he yelled. The man froze. Race’s eyes went wide as he realised who it was. It was the man who had taken the idol from Frank Nash back at Vilcafor, it was the leader of the terrorists. Holy shit. Strangely, the man was holding a telephone in his hand, a cellular phone.

‘Get down from there!’ Race yelled. At first, Bittiker didn’t move, he just stared at Race in a kind of slackjawed wonder— stared at this bespectacled man dressed in blue jeans and a filthy Tshirt, a battered New York Yankees cap and a black kevlar breastplate, ordering him around with an MP5. Bittiker glanced at the open loading ramp behind Race, saw the little Goose seaplane hovering in the air about twenty yards behind the Antonov, trying vainly—but unsuccessfully—to keep up with the giant cargo plane as it rose higher into the sky. Slowly, Bittiker stepped down from the turret of the tank, until he stood in front of Race.

‘Give me that damn phone,’ Race said, snatching the cellular phone from the terrorist. ‘Who the hell are you talking to anyway?’

Race held the phone to his ear as he kept his eyes and gun trained on Bittiker.

‘Who is this?’ he said into the phone.

‘Who am I?’ a nasty little voice snapped back at him.

‘Who the fuck are you is the more appropriate question.’

‘My name is William Race. I’m an American citizen who was brought to Peru to help an Army team get a sample of thyrium to put inside a Supernova.’

There came a loud shuffling from the other end of the line.

‘Mister Race,’ a new voice said suddenly. “My name is Special Agent Demonaco of the FBI. I am investigating the theft of a Supernova from the offices of the Defence—’

‘You can’t stop it,’ Bittiker said to Race, his voice laced with a slow Texan drawl—‘you cain’t stop it.’

‘Why not?’ Race said.

‘Because not even I know how to disarm it,” Bittiker said. ‘I made sure that my people only knew how to arm it. That once it was set to go off, no one could stop it.’

“No one knows the disarm code?’

‘No one,’ Bittiker said. ‘Except, I imagine, some Princeton luck scientist up at DARPA, but that ain’t gonna help us now, is it?’

Race bit his lip in frustration. The alarm klaxons were still ringing. Any second now, more Texans would come out to see what was going on— Gunfire. Loud and sudden. It slammed into the deck all around him, kicking up sparks. Race dived out of the way, rolled across the deck, jammed the cellular phone into his back pocket and looked up— and saw Troy Copeland standing on the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay with two other Texans beside him, all three of them firing their Calico pistols down at Race. Bittiker saw the chance and ducked behind the forward corner of the tank, out of Race’s sight. Race pressed his back against the massive tracked wheels of the tank, out of the line of fire, at least for the moment. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding loudly inside his head. What the hell are you going to do now, Will?

And then suddenly, he heard someone shouting his name. ‘Is that you, Professor Race?’

It was Copeland. ‘God, you’re a persistent little son of a bitch.’

‘It’s better than being a complete asshole,’

Race muttered under his breath as he popped up from behind the tank and fired a short burst at Copeland and the other two terrorists, missing them by miles. Damn it, he thought. What did he do now? He hadn’t really thought that far ahead. The Supernova, a voice said inside his head. Disarm it! That’s what you have to do. After all, he thought, he’d already managed to disarm one Supernova on this trip. And with that, Race leapt to his feet, and jammed down on the trigger of his MP5, firing wildly up at the catwalk as he clambered onto the skirt of the Abrams tank. Then he climbed up onto the tank’s turret and jumped down through the hatch and into the belly of the massive steel beast. He was met by the stunned faces of the two Freedom Fighter technicians in charge of the Supernova.