Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘But none has any thyrium yet,’ Race said.

‘Which is why everybody’s down here looking for that idol.’

‘Okay, so let me get this straight,’ Race said. ‘Even though the Supernova is officially a Navy project, the Army has been secretly constructing its own device. Then, when it discovers that there might be a source of thyrium out there, it gives Frank Nash and the Special Projects Unit the task of finding that thyrium before the Navy does.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Goddamn,’ Race breathed. ‘How far up does a thing like this go?’

He was thinking about yesterday’s motorcade out of New York. For someone to make that happen required some serious rank.

‘All the way up,’ Renée said in a low voice. ‘All the way to the highest ranking officers in the U.S. Army hierarchy. And that’s what really scares me. I’ve never seen the Army so desperate. I mean, God, look at this mission. This is it. This is the home run. If the Army gets that stone’—she nodded at the idol on the empty seat next to Race ‘they guarantee their future existence. And that means that Frank Nash will do anything to get it. Anything at all.’

Race picked up the idol. It glistened in his hands, the rapa’s head snarling with menace. He just stared at it sadly, looked at the newly hollowed out section in its base. ‘Then I guess there’s really only one problem, then, isn’t there?’ he said.

‘What’s that?” Renée said.

“This idol.’

“What about it?’

‘You see, that’s the thing,’ Race said. ‘This idol isn’t made of thyrium. This idol is a fake.’

‘It’s a what?’ Renée gasped.

‘It’s a fake?’ Van Lewen echoed.

‘It’s a fake,’ Race confirmed. “Here, take a look.’ He tossed the gleaming black idol to Van Lewen. ‘What do you see?’

The big sergeant shrugged. ‘I see the Incan idol that we came here to get.’

‘Do you?’ Race leaned forward, grabbing a water canteen that hung off Van Lewen’s belt. ‘Can I borrow this?’ He quickly unscrewed the lid and tipped the contents of the canteen onto the idol. Water splashed all over the rapa’s head, ran down its face, dribbled down onto the floor of the plane.

‘Okay, so… ?’ Van Lewen said.

‘According to the manuscript,’ Race said, ‘when the idol gets wet, it’s supposed to emit a low humming noise. This one isn’t making a sound.’

“So?”

‘So it’s not made of thyrium. If it were made of thyrium, the oxygen in the water would make it resonate. This isn’t the real idol. It’s a fake.’

‘But when did you know?’ Renée asked. Race said, “When I took this idol off the workbench a couple of seconds before the cabin blew, the sprinkler system inside the control booth was dousing the whole room with water. It splashed all over the idol, but ever since that time it hasn’t hummed at all.’

‘So the Nazis’ Supernova wouldn’t have destroyed the world?’ Van Lewen said.

‘Nope,’ Race said. ‘Just us, and maybe a few hundred hectares of rainforest with the thermonuclear blast. But not the world.’

‘If it isn’t made of thyrium,’ Van Lewen said, ‘what is it made of?’

‘I don’t know,’ Race said. ‘Some kind of volcanic rock, I guess.’

‘If it’s a fake,’ Renée said, taking the idol from Van Lewen, ‘then who made it? Who could have made it? It was found inside a temple that no one’s been inside for over four hundred years.’

‘I think I know who made it,’ Race said.

‘You do?’

He nodded.

‘Who?’ Renée and Van Lewen asked at the same time.

Race held up the leather bound manuscript in his hand— the original Santiago Manuscript—the same manuscript that Alberto Santiago himself had once laboured over a long, long time ago. ‘The answer to that question,’ he said, ‘lies in the pages of this book.” Race retired to the rear section of the little seaplane. They would arrive back at Vilcafor soon. But before they did, he wanted to read the manuscript—to read it right to the end. There were so many questions he wanted answered. Like when Renco had substituted a fake idol for the real one, or how he had got the rapas back into the temple. But most of all more importantly than anything else— he wanted to know one thing. Where the real idol lay. Race settled into his seat at the back of the plane. Just as he was about to open the manuscript, however, he saw the emerald pendant hanging from his neck—Renco’s pendant—and took it in his hand. He ran his fingers over the stone’s glistening green edges. As he did so, he thought about the skeleton from which he had taken the leather neckpiece earlier that day the filthy battered skeleton that he had found just inside the temple. Renco … Race blinked out of it, tried not to think about it. He released the emerald and collected his thoughts. Then he found the spot in the manuscript where he had last left the story: Alberto Santiago had just saved Renco’s sister, Lena, from the rapas, after which Lena had told Renco that the Spaniards would be arriving at Vilcafor by daybreak…

FOURTH READING

Renco stared at Lena for the longest of moments. ‘Daybreak,’ said he, repeating her words. It was still dark outside, but it would be morning in a matter of hours.

‘That is right,’ said Lena. In the dim firelight of the citadel, I could see the thoughts as they crossed Renco’s face— his mission to save the idol conflicting with his desire to help the people of Vilcafor in their time of dire need. Renco looked across the interior of the citadel.

‘Bassario,’ said he and sharply.

I turned to see Bassario sitting crosslegged on the floor in a darkened corner of the citadel, his back to the room as usual.

‘Yes, oh, wise prince,’ the criminal said, not looking up from what he was doing. ‘What progress have you made?’

‘I am almost finished.’ Renco strode over to where the devious criminal was sitting. I followed. Bassario turned as Renco arrived at his side, and I saw on the floor beside him the idol that it was our sworn mission to protect. Bassario then offered Renco something to appraise. When I saw what it was, I stopped dead in my tracks. Then I blinked my eyes twice and looked again for I was sure that they were playing a trick on me. But they were not. They most certainly were not. For there in Bassario’s hands, right before my eyes, was an exact replica of Renco’s idol. Of course, Renco had planned it all, conceived it from the very beginning. I remembered our brief stop in the quarry town of Colco very early in our journey, remembered seeing Renco obtain a sackfull of sharpedged objects. And I distinctly remembered wondering at the time why we were wasting our precious time collecting rocks! But now I understood. Renco had obtained a collection of rocks from the quarry which had most imitated the strange black-and-purple stone from which the idol had been carved. Then he had given those stones to the criminal Bassario and commissioned him to carve an identical copy of the idol with which, presumably, he would bamboozle Hernando. It was brilliant. I also realised then what Bassario had been doing throughout our journey, at those times when he would skulk off to a corner of our camp and huddle over a small fire with his back to us. He had been carving his copy of the idol. And truly, it must be said, what a remarkable copy it was. The snarling jaws of the cat, the knifelike teeth. All of it carved out of a most lustrous kind of black and purple stone. And for a moment, all I could do was stare at the false idol and wonder what kind of master criminal Bassario had been.

‘How long until you are finished?’ Renco inquired of Bassario. As Renco spoke, I noticed that the replica still required some finishing touches around the cat’s jawline.