Temple (55 page)

'No, there isn't,' Race said. 'But I think I know how they got
here.'
He began to look around the ATV, searching for some thing. A few
seconds later, he found it. The BKA team's laptop. He turned it on.
After a few seconds, he brought up a familiar screen, written in
German.
COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE TRANSMISSION LOG 44-76/BKA32
NO.
DATE TIME SOURCE SUMMARY.
1 4.1.99 1930 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
2 4.1.99 1950 EXT SOURCE SIGNATURE UHF SIGNAL
3 4.1.99 2230 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
4 5.1.99 0130 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
5 5.1.99 0430 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
6 5.1.99 0716 FIELD (CHILE) ARRIVED SANTIAGO, HEADING
FOR COLONIA ALEMANIA
7 5.1.99 0730 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
8 5.1.99 0958 FIELD (CHILE) HAVE ARRIVED COLONIA ALEMA-
NIA; BEGINNING SURVEILLANCE
9 5.1.99 1030 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT STATUS
10 5.1.99 1037 FIELD (CHILE) CHILE TEAM URGENT SIGNAL;
CHILE TEAM URGENT SIGNAL
11 5.1.99 1051 BKAHQ PERU TEAM REPORT
IMMEDIATELY
It was the screen they had seen yesterday, before the Nazis had
arrived, the one showing every communication signal that had been
received by the BKA's Peruvian team.
Race saw the line he was looking for immediately. The second
line:
2 4.1.99 1950 EXT SOURCE SIGNATURE UHF SIGNAL
'Doogie,' he said, 'you said something about a UHF signal
yesterday. What exactly is it?'
'It's a standard homing signal. I sent one to our air support team
yesterday, so they'd know where to pick us up.'
Ren6e pointed at the screen. 'But this UHF signal was sent
out two days agoat 7:50 pm on January 4. That was well
before my team arrived here.'
'That's right,' Race said. 'And that time has significance.'
'How?' Doogie asked.
'Because at exactly 7:45 pm on the first night, Lauren did
her nucleotide resonance scan of the area and determined that there
was thyrium in the immediate vicinity of this vilo lag'e. This UHF
signal was sent out exactly five minutes after that successful
scan. And what were we doing at that time?'
'We were unloading the choppers,' Doogie said, shrugging.
'Getting our gear ready.'
'Precisely,' Race said. 'The perfect opportunity for someone to
send up a UHF signal while nobody was looking, a signal that would
tell his friends that the presence of thyrium had been
confirmed.'
'But who did it?' Gaby asked.
Race nodded out the window. 'I think we're about to find
out.'
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 oven'
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 Marry, 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 rapid-fire 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 turnedhis 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 get ting 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 gur gled 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 mid-section 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 car ried
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 Indi ans 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 MP-5 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 riven It accelerated to take-off 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
south-west 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 heavy-lift cargo plane.
With its powerful quadruple propeller system and a wide rear
loading ramp, the An-22 had long been one of the Soviet Union's
most dependable tank-lifters. It was also a
valuable export commodity, having been sold regularly to countries
who couldn't afford—or who weren't allowed to buymAmerican
cargo-lifters.
With the end of the Cold War and the crumbling of the Russian
economy, however, many An-22s 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
An-22 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 M-1A1 Abrams main battle tank.
It looked awesome. The picture of brutal, untameable strength. Its
black-painted 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 long-bodied
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.
He handed the idol to one of the Freedom Fighter techs and the
little man went scurrying back up into the plane, heading for the
tank.
'Gentlemen,' Bittiker said into his radio, addressing the men in
the other helicopters. 'Thank you very much for your loyal service.
We'll take it from here. See you in the next life.'
Then he discarded his radio and pulled out his cell phone, and
dialled Bluey James' number.
The phone rang in Bluey's apartment. The FBI's digital tracing
equipment lit up like a Christmas tree.
Demonaco slipped on a pair of headphones, then nodded to
Bluey.
Bluey picked up the telephone. 'Yo.'
“Bluey, it's Bittiker. We have the thyrium. Send the mes sage out
now.'
'You got it, Earl.'
Bittiker hung up his phone and, with Copeland in tow behind him,
headed up the loading ramp and into the back of the Antonov.
It was 11:13 am.
'Jesus! They took off already!' Doogie exclaimed, pointing down at
the old Antonov as it thundered along the dirt runway and lifted
off into the sky.
'Look at the size of that thing,' Ren6e said.
'I think we just found out where they're keeping their Supernova,”
Race said.
The Antonov soared into the sky, its outstretched wings glinting in
the morning sun.
In the womb-like silence of the Abrams main battle tank that sat
inside its cavernous cargo bay, two Freedom Fighter technicians
were working carefully at a vacuum-sealed work chamber, slowly
excising a small cylindrical section from the base of the thyrium
idol with a laser cutter.
Behind the two technicians, taking up nearly all the room inside
the big tank, sat the Supernova—the Supernova that until two days
previously had resided in the vault room at DARPA
headquarters.
After they had extracted the cylindrical section of thyrium, with
the aid of two IBM supercomputers that lined the walls of the cargo
bay outside, they subjected it to alpha- wave augmentation, inert
gas purification and proton enrichment, transforming the section of
thyrium into a subcritical mass.
'How long till it's ready?' a voice said suddenly from above
them.
The two men looked up and saw Earl Bittiker staring
down at them through the tank's circular upper hatch.
'Fifteen more minutes,' one of them replied.
Bittiker looked at his watch.
It was 11:28 am.
'Call me as soon as you're done,' he said.
'Doogie,' Race said as he stared up at the enormous cargo plane
above them. 'How do you open up the loading ramps on those big
cargo planes?'
Doogie frowned. 'Well, there are two ways. Either you press a
button on a console inside the cargo ba or you use the exterior
console.“
'What's the exterior console?”
'It's just a pair of buttons, hidden inside a compartment on the
outside of the plane. Usually, they're located on the left-hand
side of the loading ramp and covered by a panel to protect them
against the wind.'
'Do you need a code or anything to open the panel?'
“No, not at all,' Doogie said. “I mean, it's not like anyone's
going to open the loading ramp from the outside in midair, now is
it?'
He turned to Race. And then suddenly his eyes opened wide. 'You
can't be serious.'
'We have to get that idol before they put it in their
Supernova,'
Race said. 'It's as simple as that.'
“But how?'
'Just bring us up behind that plane. Stay right underneath