Matthew Reilly - Temple

It was then that something very large slid in through the open gate from the moat. Race froze Even though fully three quarters of its body must have been under the surface, it was still absolutely enormous. Race saw the nostrils and the eyes and the rounded armoured back protruding above the surface—all moving at the same speed as the big animal cruised ominously through the water. He saw its long plated tail swishing lazily back and forth behind it, propelling it slowly forward. It was a caiman and it was huge. At least an eighteen footer. Once the massive reptile was fully inside the pit, the bamboo gate behind it was lowered back into its slot and locked into place. Now it was just Race and the caiman. Facing off.

Good God… Race sidestepped away from the big beast, backing into a corner of the square shaped pit, his feet sloshing through the knee deep water. The caiman didn’t move a muscle. In fact, the enormous crocodile like creature didn’t even seem to be aware of his presence at all. Race could hear his heart pounding loudly inside his head.

Kathumpkathumpkathump.

The caiman still didn’t move. Race stood frozen in the corner of the pit. And then suddenly, without warning, the caiman moved. But it wasn’t a quick movement of any kind. It didn’t rush forward. Nor did it lunge or leap at Race. Rather, it just lowered itself, slowly and ominously, beneath the surface of the muddy water. Race’s eyes went instantly wide. Holy shit. The caiman had just submerged itself completely! He couldn’t see it. In fact, in the soft blue moonlight and the flickering orange light of the Indians’ torches, he couldn’t see anything but the small waves on the surface of the water. More silence. Wavelets slapped against the earthen walls of the pit. Race’s entire body was tensed, waiting for the caiman to appear. He gripped the steel grappling hook in his hand like a club. The water’s surface was completely still. Total silence. Race could feel the fear building up inside him.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

He wondered how long the reptile could stay under— The attack came from the left, just as Race was looking to the right. With a loud roar, the caiman exploded up out of the water next to him, its jaws bared wide, its enormous two ton body rolling through the air.

Race saw the reptile instantly and on a reflex dived sideways, splashing into the water as the caiman shot past him and slammed down into the slime again. Race clambered to his feet, spun around, then dived again as the caiman made another lightning quick pass at him, snapping its jaws in front of his face with a loud fleshy smack! Race was covered in mud now, but he didn’t care. He rose out of the water again—right next to the earthen wall of the pit—and turned just in time to see the caiman come rushing at his face. He ducked—let his body drop straight down, under the surface and the caiman went thundering over the top of him, slamming nose first into the muddy wall of the pit. Race surfaced to the cheers of the Indians standing up on the rim of the pit. He waded right and found himself standing in deeper water. He began to unloop the rope attached to the grappling hook. He looked up at the rim of the pit. Fifteen feet, not far. He was standing waist deep in the water now, unlooping the rope. As he did so, he quickly glanced about himself, to see where the caiman was. And he didn’t see it. The caiman was nowhere to be seen. The pit was completely bare. It must have gone under again… Race looked fearfully at the water all around himself. Oh, shit … he thought. And then abruptly he felt something slam into his leg at tremendous speed, felt a searing pain shoot through his ankle. Then he was yanked beneath the surface. Race went under, opened his eyes, and through the inky water all around him, saw that the caiman had his left foot inside its mouth! But it didn’t have a good grip on him and it opened its mouth for a split second to get a better one. That was all Race needed. No sooner had the big reptile released his foot than Race yanked it clear and the caiman’s jaws came chomping down on nothing. Race surfaced, with the grappling hook’s rope trailing through the water behind him, desperately gasping for air. The caiman came up too, surging out of the water after him, snapping wildly, catching the grappling hook’s rope in its jaws, slicing through itin an instant. As the rope was cut, Race lost his balance and fell clumsily away from the reptile into shallower water. He turned quickly, at exactly the same moment as he saw the caiman come rushing in at him from the side, its jaws wide, its toothfilled mouth filling his field of vision, and with nothing else left to call on, Race just jammed the grappling hook—together with his entire right arm—into the caiman’s wideopen mouth! The big reptile’s jaws came crashing down on his arm— just as Race hit the release button on the grappling hook’s handle. At that moment, a nanosecond before the caiman’s razor sharp teeth clamped down on his right bicep, the grappling hook’s pointed steel claws sprang outwards with monumental force. The caiman’s head just exploded. Two of the pointed steel claws burst out from its eye sockets, and in that Single disgusting instant, both of the caiman’s eyes were blasted out of its head—from the inside— replaced by the razor sharp tips of the two steel claws. The grappling hook’s other two claws exploded out from the underside of the caiman’s head, ripping through the softer skin there, puncturing it with ease. The two claws that had shot through the big reptile’s eye sockets must have penetrated its brain on their journey through the caiman’s skull. As such, they’d killed the massive animal in an instant—freezing its jaws in mid chomp—and now Race sat on the floor of the pit, with an enormous eighteen foot caiman attached to his right arm, its long triangular mouth poised over his exposed arm—its teeth millimetres away from his skin its immense black body stretching out into the pit, motionless. The crowd of natives standing on the rim of the pit just stood there aghast, stunned. And then, slowly, they started clapping. Race emerged from the pit to the adulation of the Indians. They slapped him on the back, smiled at him through crooked yellow teeth. The cage holding Nash and the others was opened immediately and a few moments later they joined Race in the centre of the village.

Van Lewen shook his head as he came up to Race. ‘What the hell did you just do? We couldn’t see a thing from that cage.’

‘I just killed a great lizard,’ Race said simply.

The anthropologist, Marquez, came over and smiled at Race. ‘Well done, sir! Well done!

What did you say your name was?’

‘William Race.’

‘Rejoice, Mister Race. You just made yourself a god.’

John Paul Demonaco’s cellular rang. Demonaco and the Navy investigator, Mitchell, were still at DARPA headquarters in Virginia. Mitchell was taking another call himself. ‘You say it came from Bittiker…’ Demonaco said into the phone. Suddenly his face went ashen white. ‘Call the Baltimore PD and get them to send the bomb squad over there right now. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

Mitchell came over as Demonaco hung up. ‘That was Aaronson,’ the Navy man said. ‘They just raided the Freedom Fighter locations. Nothing in any of them. Empty.’

‘Never mind,’ Demonaco said, heading for the door.

‘What is it?’ Mitchell said as he hurried after him.

‘I just got a call from one of my guys in Baltimore. He’s at the apartment of one of our Texan informants. Says he’s got something big.’ Ninety minutes later, Demonaco and Mitchell arrived at a decrepit old warehouse in the industrial sector of Baltimore. Three police cruisers, a couple of nondescript beige Buicks—FBI cars—and a large navy blue van with ‘BOMB SQUAD“ painted on its side were already parked out in front of the building. Demonaco and Mitchell entered the warehouse, ascended some stairs.