Matthew Reilly: Temple

Earl Bittiker pulled another Calico pistol from his spare holster and tossed it to Troy Copeland.

‘Heya, Troy,’ he said. ‘Nice of you to join us,’

Copeland replied, cocking the massive pistol. Lauren’s face went ashen white.

“Troy?’ she said in disbelief. Copeland smiled at hen It was a cruel, nasty smile.

‘You should be careful about who you fuck, Lauren, cause they might just be fucking you over. Although I imagine it’s not often that you’re the one who gets fucked over’ Lauren’s face darkened.

Beside her, Marty blanched. ‘Lauren?’

Copeland started to chuckle. ‘Marty, Marty, Marty. Little fucking Marty who sold out DARPA so he could get himself some goddamn respect—you oughta be more careful about who you give your information to, my friend. But then, you didn’t even know that your own wife was screwing another man.’

Race watched the scene outside, his entire body tense, still. He could hear what Copeland was saying to Marty, humiliating him.

‘She liked it, too,’ Copeland said. ‘In fact, I can’t think of many things I liked better on this earth than hearing your wife scream as she orgasmed.’

Marty’s face reddened, both in anger and humiliation. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he growled.

‘Not likely,’ Copeland said, pulling the trigger on his Calico, sending a rapidfire burst of bullets into Marty’s abdomen.

Race almost jumped out of his skin when he heard the gun go off. Marty’s shirt was ripped open by the sudden three round burst, his stomach raked into a ragged mass of red. Race saw him fall to the ground hard.

‘Marty…’ he breathed. Out on the main street, Copeland turned his gun on Lauren, while Bittiker turned his on Frank Nash. ‘What did you call it, Frank?’ Copeland said to Nash. ‘The law of unintended consequences—terrorist groups getting their hands on a Supernova. Face it, you only saw this weapon as a bluffing tool—a weapon that you possess, but which you will never have the courage to use. Maybe you should have thought about it another way: don’t build it if you don’t intend to use it.’

Copeland and Bittiker fired at the same time. Nash and Lauren fell together, splashing into the mud. Lauren was killed instantly, shot clean through the heart. Nash, on the other hand, was hit in the stomach and he fell to the ground screaming with pain. Then, with the idol in their possession, Bittiker and Copeland hurried back to one of the unmarked Black Hawks and leapt aboard. No sooner were they on board than the two big black choppers rose quickly into the sky. Once they had cleared the treetops, they both tilted sharply forward and powered off, heading south, away from Vilcafor.

As soon as the Texan choppers were gone, Race threw open the rear hatch of the ATV and charged out onto the main street. He slid to his knees beside the fallen figure of Marty. When he arrived at his brother’s side, Marty was feebly trying to put his intestines back in his stomach. Blood gurgled from his mouth, and as Race looked down into his brother’s eyes, he saw only fear and shock.

‘Oh, Will… Will,’ Marty said, his lip quivering. He grabbed Race’s arm with one blood smeared hand.

‘Marty, why? Why did you do this?”

‘Will…’ he said. ‘Ignition…’

Race held him in his arms. ‘What? What are you trying to say?’

‘I’m… so sorry.., ignition.., system.., please, stop… them.’ And then slowly Marty’s eyes glazed over, settling into a frozen vacant stare. His bloodied body went limp in Race’s arms. It was then that Race heard the soft gurgling sound from somewhere behind him. He turned and saw Frank Nash lying on his back a few yards away. Nash’s midsection was also torn to pieces. He was coughing up blood, gagging on it. And then suddenly, beyond Nash, Race saw movement. Saw the first curious native emerge slowly from the trees.

‘Professor,’ Doogie called softly from the ATV, ‘I, ah, think it might be a good idea to step away from there.’ The other natives emerged from the forest. They still carried their primitive weapons— their clubs and sticks and axes—and they looked angry as hell. Slowly, Race lowered Marty’s body gently to the ground. Then he stood and slowly—very slowly—walked back to the ATV. The natives hardly even noticed him. They only had eyes for one person—Nash—lying in the middle of the street, gurgling blood. And then with a savage, high pitched shriek, the Indians rushed forward as one and converged on Nash like a swarming school of piranha. In a moment Race lost sight of the murderous Army colonel and soon all he could see was a roiling mass of olive skinned natives crowding around Nash, hacking violently with their clubs and their sticks and their axes, and then suddenly, horrifically, above it all he heard a single ear piercing scream— a scream of such pure terror that it could only have come from one man. Frank Nash.

Race slammed the rear hatch of the ATV behind him and looked at the three faces before him. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Looks like we’re gonna have to do this all over again. We have to stop these assholes before they get that idol to a Supernova.’

‘But how?’ Doogie asked.

‘The first thing we have to do,’ Race said, ‘is find out where they’re taking it.’ Race and the others flew through the narrow tunnels of the quenko, running as fast as their injured bodies would carry them. They had practically no firepower—just a couple of SIG Sauers and the single MP5 that Doogie had found in the upper village. As far as armour was concerned, Doogie still wore his combat fatigues and Race still wore his unusual kevlar breastplate. That was it. But they knew where they were going and that was all that mattered. They were heading for the waterfall. And the Goose that lay hidden on the riverbank there. After about ten minutes of running, they came to the waterfall at the end of the quenko. Another four and they arrived at the Goose—parked exactly where Race, Doogie and Van Lewen had left it—underneath the overhanging branches of the riverside trees. Uli, Race was pleased to see, was still sleeping safely inside it. Four more minutes and the little seaplane was back in the water, skipping across the waves, shooting across the wide brown surface of the river It accelerated to takeoff speed quickly before suddenly, gloriously, it lifted off the surface and soared into the sky. Once it was airborne, Doogie banked the plane sharply around so that it was pointing directly south, in the direction that the Texan Black Hawks had gone. After about ten minutes of flying, Doogie caught sight of them eight black specks on the horizon. They were veering right, heading southwest over the mountains.

‘They’re going for Cuzco,’ Doogie said.

‘Stay on them,’ Race said.

An hour later, the eight Black Hawk helicopters landed at a private airfield just outside Cuzco. Sitting majestically on the dusty dirt runway waiting for them was a massive Antonov An 22 heavylift cargo plane. With its powerful quadruple propeller system and a wide rear loading ramp, the An22 had long been one of the Soviet Union’s most dependable tanklifters. It was also a valuable export commodity, having been sold regularly to countries who couldn’t afford— or who weren’t allowed to buy American cargo lifters. With the end of the Cold War and the crumbling of the Russian economy, however, many An22s had found their way onto the black market. While movie stars and professional golfers bought Lear Jets for $30 million, paramilitary organisations could buy a second hand An22 for little more than $12 million. Earl Bittiker and Troy Copeland leapt out of their chopper and strode over to the rear loading ramp of the massive cargo plane. When he arrived at the back of the plane, Bittiker looked up into its cavernous cargo bay and beheld his pride and joy. An M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. It looked awesome. The picture of brutal, untameable strength. Its blackpainted composite armour didn’t shine, its monstrously wide tracks stood planted on the cargo deck, splayed wide. Bittiker gazed at its imposing trapezoidal gun turret. It faced resolutely forward, toward the front of the plane, its longbodied 105mm cannon pointing upward at a 30degree angle. Bittiker stared at the Abrams with cool satisfaction. It was the perfect place to keep the stolen Supernova. It was impregnable.