Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘No…’ Race breathed. Gunfire rang out from the choppers above him. The gale force wind created by their downdrafts whipped around him like a tornado. Race ran through the powerful wind, charging into the foliage after Nash and the other two.

‘Where are you going?’ Renée called to him from her position behind a nearby tree.

‘Nash has got the idol!’ Race yelled back. ‘The real one—’

At that moment—completely without warning—one of the big Super Stallion helicopters above them just exploded in midair. It was a staggering explosion, monstrous in its force. All the more so because it had been so unexpected. Race looked up instantly and saw the mighty helicopter fall to the earth in a kind of horrific slow motion, right on top of the men hanging underneath it. The men—they were Navy SEALs—hit the ground first, followed a split second later by the massive helicopter as it came crashing down on top of them, crushing them in an instant, it’s awesome bulk slamming down against the ground with a resounding whump! Race looked above the fallen, flaming wreck of the Super Stallion and saw a horizontal smoke trail dissipating in the air above it. It was the smoke trail of an air to air missile. Race traced it back to its source.

And saw another helicopter! Only this one wasn’t a troop transport like the two Super Stallions. It was a two man chopper—an attack bird—thin but not skinny, with a prism shaped cockpit and an enclosed tail rotor. It looked like a mechanical preying mantis. Although Race didn’t know it, he was looking at an AH66 ‘Comanche’—the U.S. Army’s next generation attack helicopter. Nash’s air support. It, too, had finally arrived. Race saw a second Comanche attack chopper materialise in the morning sky behind the first one, saw it open fire on the surviving Super Stallion with its twin barrelled Gatling gun. The second Super Stallion responded with its own burst of machinegun fire, covering the eight SEALs still dangling from its zip lines. The first SEAL touched the ground—just as an arrow smacked squarely in his forehead, dropping him instantly. The seven remaining SEALs continued down their zip lines. Two more were taken out by arrows on their way down. The others hit the ground running. In the air above them, their Super Stallion was in all sorts of trouble. It swivelled laterally in the air, turning to face the two Army Comanches firing on it. Then suddenly—shoom!—a single Sidewinder missile shot out from the Super Stallion’s side mounted missile pod. The missile traced a perfectly horizontal smoketrail through the air behind it before it slammed at tremendous speed into the canopy of one of the Comanches, blasting the attack chopper out of the sky with a momentous explosion. But it was a consolation goal. In fact, if it did anything at all, it only succeeded in sealing the Super Stallion’s fate. Because there was still one Comanche left. No sooner had the first Army chopper been hit, than the second one quickly pivoted in midair and released a Hellfire missile of its own. The Hellfire rocketed through the air at phenomenal speed, zeroing in on the Super Stallion. It found its mark in seconds, ploughing at full speed into the side of the big Navy helicopter. The Super Stallion’s walls shattered in an instant, blasting out in every direction, showering the ground beneath it with fire trails of flaming debris. Then the massive Navy helicopter crashed down into the trees above the village, a billowing, flaming wreck. Wet fern branches slapped hard against Race’s face as he and Renée ran eastward through the dense section of low foliage to the south of the village square, chasing after Frank Nash. They passed Van Lewen on their way. He was standing behind one of the huts, firing with his G11 at three of the five Navy SEALs who had survived their dispersal from the second Super Stallion. He fired low—trying to wound, not to kill. After all, they were his own countrymen, and after what he had heard from Renée on the plane earlier about Frank Nash and the Army’s mission to undercut the Navy, he had started to question his allegiances. He didn’t want to kill men just like himself—line animals who were just following orders— unless he really, really had to. The three SEALs had hunkered down behind some trees near the shrine and their MP 5s, when used in coordination, were proving a good match against his lone G11. Then abruptly the SEALs’ fire stopped as they were overwhelmed from behind by a horde of Indians bearing axes, arrows, sticks and clubs.

Van Lewen winced. ‘Where are you going?’ he yelled when he saw Race and Renée run past him.

‘We’re going after Nash! He stole the real idol!’

‘He what—?’

But Race and Renée were already hurrying off into the trees. Van Lewen took off after them. Gaby Lopez was running too. Only she was running for her life. As soon as the Navy Super Stallions had appeared, she had hurried off behind the nearest set of trees. But she had gone the wrong way. Everyone else had gone south while she had gone north and now she was racing through the chest high foliage to the northeast of the upper village— alone—ducking as she ran, trying desperately to avoid the bullets that smacked against the branches around her head. The two remaining Navy SEALs were somewhere behind her, firing hard with their MP5s as they crashed through the undergrowth. Gaby looked behind herself as she ran, searching fear fully for her pursuers. Then, as she turned to look behind her one more time, she abruptly felt the ground beneath her feet just fall away. She dropped like a stone. A second later, she hit water. Muddy liquid flew everywhere. When it settled, Gaby opened her eyes and found that she was sitting on her butt in the moat that encircled the upper village! She leapt quickly to her feet and found that she was standing in a section of ankle deep water. The thought suddenly occurred to her: caimans. She looked about herself desperately. She saw that the moat was roughly circular in shape, saw that it bent away from her in both directions like a road disappearing around a curve. Its sheer muddy walls towered above her, their rims a good ten feet above her head. Suddenly submachine gun fire raked the water all around her and on an instinct Gaby dived forward and the bullets shot over her head, smacking into the earthen walls of the moat. Then abruptly she heard more gunfire—different gunfire this time, G11 gunfire—and in an instant the first set of bullets stopped firing and there was silence. Gaby was still lying on her chest in the shallow water of the moat. A long silence followed. After a few seconds, she cautiously raised her head. And found herself staring into the smiling face of a caiman. Gaby froze. It was just sitting there in the mud in front of her, watching her, its tail slinking slowly back and forth behind it. It had her. Had her dead to rights. Then with a loud grunting roar, the giant reptile charged, baring its jaws savagely, lunging at her— Splat !—something landed right on top of the caiman from above. Gaby didn’t know what it was. It had looked like an animal of some sort and now it and the caiman were rolling around together in front of her in a splashing heap of mud and water. Her jaw dropped when she realised what the animal was. It was a man. A man in combat uniform. He had jumped down from the rim of the moat, tackling the caiman at the exact moment that it had lunged at her. The caiman and the man rolled as they wrestled, the reptile bucking and snapping, the man gasping for air whenever he could. And then Gaby saw who it was. It was Doogie. Doogie and the caiman fought, rolling and wrestling, grunting and thrashing. The caiman snapped wildly at Doogie while the injured Green Beret grappled desperately with its snout, trying to keep it closed as he had seen alligator wrestlers do when he was a child. He still had his G11, but it was useless now, empty. He’d reluctantly used his last few rounds to drop the two Navy SEALs who had been firing on Gaby. Then when he had seen the caiman appear in front of her and lunge, he had done the only thing he could think to do—he had leapt down on top of it. Just then the caiman jerked its snout free from Doogie’s grasp, bared its jaws and launched itself at his head. Out of sheer desperation, Doogie swung his G11 around and without even thinking, wedged it inside the big crocodilian’s mouth, propping it open, right in front of his own face! The caiman grunted in surprise. Its jaws were now propped wide open, like the bonnet of a car. The big creature couldn’t close its mouth! Doogie seized the opportunity and quickly unsheathed his Bowie knife. The caiman stood stupidly in front of him, its long snout held open by the vertical G11. Doogie tried to get around the big reptile—behind it—so that he could drive his knife into its skull and kill it, but the caiman saw him move and it swung quickly sideways, bowling into him, knocking him off his feet, sending him splashing into the muddy water. The caiman then stomped quickly forward, stepping on top of Doogie’s legs with its stubby forelimbs, causing them to sink down into the mud.