Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘All right, then,’ Copeland said, ‘so how are we going to catch these bastards? They’ve got a fifteen-minute head-start on us and just in case anyone has forgotten, there are rapas out there—’

‘If their boats are where I think they are, then there’s another way to get to them,’ Race said. ‘A route that avoids having to go past the cats.’

‘What route?’ Nash asked.

Race immediately dropped to his knees and began sweeping his hands across the earthen floor of the citadel.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m looking for something.

‘What?’

Race searched the floor for it. According to the manuscript, it should be here somewhere. The only question was whether or not the Incas had used the same symbol to mark

“This,” he said suddenly, as he swept his hand across the earthen floor and revealed a stone slab beneath the thin layer of mud and dirt.

Inscribed in the corner of the slab was a symbol—a circle with a double ‘V’ in it.

‘Here, help me,’ he said.

Van Lewen and Doogie came over, got a hold of the slab and heaved on it.

The slab rumbled against its neighbours as it slowly slid out of its resting place—revealing an inky black hole beneath it.

‘It’s the quenko,’ Race said.

‘The what?’ Nash said.

‘I read about it in the manuscript. It was a maze dug into the rock beneath the village, an escape route, a tunnel system that leads to the waterfall at the edge of the tableland—if you know the key to the maze.’

‘And you know that key?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘How?’ Troy Copeland asked mockingly.

‘Because I’ve read the manuscript,’ Race said.

‘So who goes?’ Lauren said.

“Van Lewen and Kennedy,’ Nash said. ‘And anyone else who can carry a gun,’ he added, looking at the two BKA agents and the German paratrooper, Molke. Renee, Schroeder and Molke all nodded.

Nash turned to Copeland. ‘What about you, Troy?’

‘I’ve never held a gun in my life,’ Copeland said.

‘All right, then. Looks like it’s just you five—’

‘I can handle a gun,” Race said.

‘What?’ Lauren said.

“You?” Copeland said.

‘Well,’ Race shrugged, ‘some guns. My brother used to bring them home all the time. I’m not all that good at it, but—’

‘Professor Race can run with me any time,’ Van Lewen said, stepping forward exchanging a look with Race—and handing him a spare SIGSauer pistol. ‘Judging from what he did up on the rock tower.’

He turned to Nash. ‘Is that it then, sir?’

Nash nodded. “Do whatever you have to do, just get that idol. Our air support should be here any minute now. As soon as they get here, I’ll send them after you. If you can somehow get your hands on that idol and keep those Nazi bastards at bay for a while, the air support team should be able to get you out of there. You got that?’

‘Got it,’ Van Lewen said, grabbing his M-16. ‘Then let’s go.’

Van Lewen led the way, charging through one of the narrow stone passageways of the quenko beneath Vilcafor.

He held his M-16 pressed against his shoulder, illuminating the cramped tunnel in front of them with the tiny flash light that was attached to its barrel.

Race, Doogie, Molke and the two BKA agents hurried along the dark stone passageway behind him. Doogie and the three Germans held M16s in their hands. Race just carried the silver SIGSauer.

Although he didn’t want to say it, Race was scared out of his mind.

But he was where he wanted to be with Van Lewen and Doogie and the Germans, going after the idol, going after the Nazis. Doing something.

The quenko, however, didn’t help ease his mind.

It was like some horrific kind of dungeon—a nightmarish subterranean maze with close stone walls and slippery muddy floors.

Enormous hairy spiders scuttled away into dark crevices as the six of them hustled past, while obscenely fat snakes slithered through the stagnant mud on the tunnel floor, almost tripping them over. And it was claustrophobic— claustrophobic as hell each slimy passageway that he saw was barely three feet wide.

Van Lewen ran quickly in the lead.

‘Take the third tunnel on the right,’ Race said from behind him. ‘And then zigzag, starting with the left.’

At exactly the same time as Race and the others were dashing through the underground maze, Heinrich Anistaze was reaching the bottom of the tableland’s cliff-face.

He strode over to the riverbank where he stepped straight into a rubber Zodiac speedboat.

He keyed his radio mike. ‘Demolition team. Report.’

He received no reply.

Through the quenko they ran.

Running hard, running fast, ducking left, cutting right, bursting through spiderwebs, tripping over forty-foot snakes, stumbling through the slick moss-covered tunnels of the ghastly subterranean maze.

‘Hey, Van Lewen,’ Race said in between breaths as they jogged down a long section of tunnel.

‘Yeah?’ Van Lewen replied.

‘What’s the 80s Club?’

‘The 80s Club?’

‘Cochrane mentioned it last night while you guys were unpacking the choppers, but he wouldn’t say what it was.

I’d like to know what it is before I die.’

Van Lewen snorted as he ran. ‘I can tell you, but it’s pretty, uh, unrefined.’

‘Try me.’

‘Okay…’ Van Lewen said. ‘It goes like this. To become a member of the 80s Club, you must have had sex with a girl who was born in the 1980s.’

‘Oh, man!” Race said, cringing.

‘I told you it was unrefined,’ Van Lewen said.

They ran on.

The six of them had been running for about seven minutes through the quenko when—abruptly—Van Lewen turned a corner and slammed into a solid stone wall.

Only it wasn’t a wall at all.

It was a doorstone.

In fact, it was a doorstone not unlike the one in the door way of the citadel itself—a squareshaped boulder with a rounded base that could be easily rolled open from the inside, but which was impregnable from without.

Race and Van Lewen rolled the boulder aside—

—and they were instantly assailed by the roar of a mighty waterfall.

A light spray of water hit their faces as they were con fronted by the sight of a curtain of falling water not ten feet in front of them.

Race scanned the area around them.

They were standing on a path—an Incan path—-carved into the rockwall behind the waterfall.

They were at the edge of the tableland already.

The roar of the surging waterfall above them was incredible. It drowned out all other sound. Van Lewen had to shout over it to be heard.

‘This way!’ he yelled, hurrying left.

The rocky path was wet and slippery, but Race and the others managed to keep their footing as they hustled along its length behind the falling curtain of water.

Even though they moved quickly, it still took them a full minute to reach the edge of the curtain—the waterfall above them was wide, and they had emerged from the quenko at its very centre.

Van Lewen came out onto solid ground first, skidded to a halt on the muddy riverbank. ‘Holy shit,’ he said.

‘What is it?’ Race asked as he came alongside him and looked out at the river.

The first thing he saw was Heinrich Anistaze’s little Zodiac speedboat, cutting a ribbon of wash as it sped away from them into the wider waters of the river proper.

‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

And then he saw the other boats.

‘Holy shit.’

It looked like a veritable armada.

There must have been at least twenty boats out there on the wide brown river at the base of the waterfall. Boats of all shapes and sizes.

Five longbodied shallow-draught assault boats sped around the perimeter of the fleet. They were Rigid Raiders— sleek, open-topped aluminium-hulled attack craft commonly used by the SAS for high-speed raiding.