Matthew Reilly - Temple

The Army people reached their choppers. Nash, Lauren, Marty and Copeland leapt up into the rear compartment of the Black Hawk II at the same time as the chopper’s two crewmen threw themselves into the pilot’s and gunner’s seats. The Black Hawk II’s rotors began to turn instantly. Nash looked out from the rear compartment, saw Race and Renée running for the Super Stallion. He yelled to the crewman manning the chopper’s rear mounted Vulcan minigun.

‘Take out that chopper!’ As the Black Hawk II’s rotors whipped into overdrive and the big helicopter slowly began to lift off, the copilot jammed down on his trigger and a blazing barrage of gunfire blasted out from the Vulcan. The hail of gunfire that assailed the Super Stallion was shocking in its intensity. It pummelled the reinforced walls of the helicopter with thousands of bullet holes, each the size of a man’s fist. And then—just as Race and Renée were coming toward it—the Super Stallion exploded into a billowing ball of flames. The two of them dived to the ground a split second before a storm of burning hot metal whizzed over their heads, shooting out in every direction. Two stray shards of red hot metal, however, slammed into Renée’s shoulder, sizzling on contact. She roared with pain. ‘Now take them out!’ Nash yelled, pointing down at Race and the injured Renée. The Black Hawk II was about fifteen feet off the ground now, rising quickly into the sky. The gunner immediately whirled the massive Vulcan around and drew a bead on Race’s skull.

Blam!

The crewman’s head snapped violently backwards, shot right between the eyes. Nash spun around in surprise, searching the ground below for the source of the shot that had killed his gunner. And he saw him. It was Doogie. Crouched on one knee over by the moat with a stolen Navy MP5 pressed against his shoulder, aimed directly up at the Black Hawk II! Behind him stood Gaby Lopez. Just then Doogie loosed another shot and it pinged off the steel roof above Nash’s head. Nash yelled at his pilot, ‘Get us the fuck out of here!” With his arm looped underneath Renée’s good shoulder, Race scrambled for the ATV. The crowd of natives was now standing underneath the two Army helicopters, shouting angrily at them, waving their sticks, firing their arrows in vain at the armoured underbellies of the flying steel beasts. Race leapt up onto the back of the ATV, yanked open the small circular hatch set inside it and helped Renée in through it. Just as he was about to follow her, however, he saw Doogie and Gaby hurrying across the main street toward him, waving their arms wildly. Gaby was helping Doogie as he limped along as fast as he could. They arrived at the ATV, clambered up onto it.

‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Doogie said in between breaths.

Race saw his bloodied left leg. It had a makeshift tourniquet tied around it. ‘We got here just in time to see the colonel shoot Leo in the fucking head!’

Doogie’s face was contorted with a mixture of rage and helpless confusion. ‘The colonel had other priorities,“ Race said bitterly. ‘Priorities that didn’t include us.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Doogie said.

Race bit his lip in thought. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Get inside. We’re not out of this yet.’

The two Army helicopters—the Comanche and the Black Hawk II—rose into the sky above the main street of Vilcafor. Nash looked out the side door of his chopper at the crowd of angry natives beneath him, yelling and screaming and waving their fists at the helicopters. He snorted a laugh as he turned away from them and looked out through the forward windshield of the chopper. The two Army helicopters cleared the treetops. And Nash’s smile went flat. There were eight of them—Black Hawk I helicopters— similar to his own but older; superseded models that the Army had discarded years ago. They were all painted black, with no markings on them whatsoever, and they hovered menacingly in a wide, 500yard circle around Vilcafor like a pack of hungry jackals waiting on the periphery of the battle, waiting to pick up the scraps. There came a sudden puff of smoke from one of the unmarked Black Hawks as, without warning, a missile shot out from one of its stublike wings. A long fingerlike trail of smoke extended through the air in front of the helicopter as the speeding missile cut a beeline for the Army Comanche. The Comanche exploded in an instant and dropped clumsily out of the sky. It smashed down onto one of the stone huts on the main street of Vilcafor, flames spilling out from its charred, twisted shell. Race and the others were inside the citadel and about to climb down into the quenko when they heard the sudden explosion outside. They hurried back into the ATV and peered out through its narrow slitlike windows to see what had happened. They saw the blazing wreck of the Comanche lying awkwardly on its side on top of one of the small huts of Vilcafor. They also saw Nash’s Black Hawk II hovering above the village, not daring to move. The rotors of the Army Black Hawk thumped rhythmically as the big helicopter hovered over Vilcafor, in the centre of the circle of ominous black helicopters. Suddenly, two of the unmarked choppers banked out of their formation and flew in toward the village. Blackclad soldiers sitting in their doorways opened fire on the natives on the ground and the Indians scattered immediately, hurrying over the logbridges, darting into the dense foliage around the town.

A voice came over a loudspeaker from one of the choppers. A man’s voice, speaking in English. “Army Black Hawk. Be advised, missile lock has been established on your aircraft. You are to land immediately. I repeat, you are to land immediately and prepare to hand over the idol. If you do not land immediately, we will blast you out of the sky and pick it out of the wreckage later.”

Nash and Marty exchanged a look. Lauren and Copeland did the same. ‘They’re not lying about the missile lock, sir,’ the pilot said, turning to Nash.

‘Take us down,’ Nash said. Flanked by the two unmarked Black Hawks, Nash’s Black Hawk II slowly descended back to earth. The three choppers hit the ground together. The moment the Army chopper’s wheels touched the mud the voice on the loudspeaker came again.

“Now exit the helicopter with your hands up.’ Nash, Lauren, Copeland and Marty did so, accompanied by the chopper’s pilot. From the safety of the ATV, Race and the others stared out at the scene before them in awe. Race couldn’t believe what was happening. It was like one of those fables where a big fish eats a smaller fish, only to be eaten itself by an even bigger fish moments later. Frank Nash, it seemed, had just come across a bigger fish.

‘Who the hell are these guys?’ Doogie asked.

‘I would guess,’ Renée said, a strip of gauze pressed firmly against her bloody shoulder, they are the people who were responsible for the breakin at DARPA headquarters two days ago. The breakin that involved the theft of the Navy’s Supernova.’

Half a world away, Special Agent John Paul Demonaco and Commander Tom Mitchell were sitting inside Bluey James’ filthy Baltimore apartment, waiting for the phone to ring. They were waiting for the call that would instruct Bluey to send out the VCD of Bittiker’s message to all the TV net works. Naturally, Bluey’s phone had been hooked up to a bank of FBI tracing equipment. There was a knock at the door.

Mitchell opened it to reveal two agents from Demonaco’s Domestic Terrorist Unit—a man and a woman, both young, clean cut thirtysomethings.

‘What have you got?” Demonaco said.

‘We checked out Henry Norton,’ the female agent said. ‘The guy whose cardkeys and codes were used in the break in. Our own investigations have confirmed that he had no known paramilitary contacts.’