by Rob Jones
“Sounds like you might need a night out with Cairo,” Hawke said casually.
“Half an hour would do it, surely,” Lea added.
From behind them in the tunnel they heard the sound of Scarlet doing her best sarcastic laugh.
At the end of the passage was what they were looking for – a small pyramid temple with some kind of shrine at the top. Hawke moved ahead and climbed up the side of the pyramid on all fours until he reached the top. He turned and smiled at them. “Seems like the Mask’s not just decorative.”
“What do you mean?” Lea said. Her voice echoed in the cold chamber.
“Looks like it could be a key. Bring it up.”
*
Kruger’s Sikorsky S76 swept though the valley at speed before slowing for its final approach over Machu Picchu. Saqqal rubbed his nose in an attempt to look casual as the South African flared the nose and brought the machine to a sudden, jolting hover, but the truth was he hated flying and was feeling nervous. “Are we landing now?” he asked.
Kruger ignored the question, but instead spoke into his headset. “When we hit the ground I want all men out of this chopper and fanning out, no fucking about.” He turned and gave Balta a sneer. “Any funny business from you, professor, and you’re going into that ravine, got it?”
Balta was unable to speak because of the gag, but he nodded his head to show he got it as Kruger continued to lower the chopper. In the citadel were the usual groups of tourists milling around taking selfies and appreciating the mountain air, but what had changed Kruger’s mood was the small group gathering around a Bell which was parked on some kind of plaza in the far north. “Bastards got here first.”
He lowered the collective and reduced the power, bringing the chopper down through the humid air and into the ruins of the citadel’s urban sector. Seconds later, the chopper’s rubber tires were gently pushing into the grass. Moments later a Huey Venom filled with the CGF rebels landed beside it.
“Go, go, go!” Kruger yelled, and unbuckled himself before pulling a submachine gun from beside his seat and climbing out. The gun was shouldered before his boots had hit the earth, and he watched critically as the men fanned out and took cover behind various broken-down walls.
“All right, General,” Kruger said. “You and the Professor here are to follow me.”
Not used to being spoken to in this way, Saqqal bristled but said nothing. The truth was he had come to Kruger because he needed him, and for now that meant keeping his mouth shut. He jumped out the chopper and followed the South African. Rajavi, Corzo and Jawad were a few paces behind them.
Settled in behind the Temple of the Sun, Kruger pulled a pair of binoculars to his eyes and surveyed the area for a few seconds. “Don’t want any nasty surprises.”
“Like what?” Jawad said.
“Like the way a cat leaves a shit behind the sofa, Professor.”
“I don’t understand.”
Saqqal sighed. “He means they might have left people up top to keep watch.”
A man in a blue t-shirt and wearing some kind of ID badge around his neck approached and began asking what they were doing. Kruger lowered his binoculars and flashed his submachine gun at the man. “Fuck off.”
The man saw the weapon and after looking up and seeing the other men he staggered backwards, almost tripping over one of the low walls running along the cultivation terraces.
“He’ll call the police,” Jawad said.
“Or army,” Saqqal added.
Kruger was unmoved. “And even by chopper it will take them forever and a day to get here. We’ll be in and out by then. By the time they turn up the only trace of us they’ll find is the corpses of the bastard ECHO team.”
Saqqal smiled with satisfaction, while Jawad shifted awkwardly on his feet. Behind them, Rajavi grabbed Balta by the collar and dragged him away from the helicopter.
Kruger stared at the ECHO team’s chopper parked on the plaza and scowled. “Let’s get this on.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lea threw the mask up and watched with bated breath as Hawke fitted the Mask of Inti into the recess at the top of the pyramid. They all watched in the damp silence for a few seconds but nothing happened.
“Outstanding,” Scarlet said. “I’ve had more excitement opening a packet of peanuts.”
Then Hawke’s eyes lit up “Wait!”
“What is it?” Lea asked.
“Look!”
The top section of the pyramid began to shake slightly, and then they heard a low, grinding noise before the capstone suddenly dropped an inch lower into the upper section. “It’s opening the entrance to the pyramid,” Reaper said.
Hawke nodded. “If we can get our hands under the gap this thing has just created we can lift it off.”
Lea watched as Hawke and Reaper struggled with the stone lid of the pyramid. They were both red-faced with the effort of lifting the heavy block and grunting as they heaved it up and pushed it away to reveal a small gap.
“Can you see anything?” Lea said.
“Torch,” Hawke said, holding his hand out.
Luis stepped up and gave him his flashlight.
Hawke switched it on and stepped up to the top of the pyramid once again, shining the light inside the small gap and then whistling with surprise.
“What do you see?” Reaper said.
“Yes, come on,” said Scarlet. “Do tell.”
Lea climbed up beside Hawke and peered down inside the gap. She gripped the stone lip of the pyramid as she followed Hawke’s flashlight beam around the inside of the tomb. “Oh my!”
“Exactly what I thought,” Hawke said.
They were looking at the inside of a tomb featuring the strange, seated remains of three dead bodies, mummified and each pointed so they were all facing the center. They were wrapped up in hand-woven textiles and placed neatly around them were various piles of ceramic ornaments, jewellery, weapons and tools for weaving.
“Why are they all sitting like that?” Lea asked, feeling a shiver go down her spine.
“Maybe they were waiting for a bus,” Hawke said.
“No,” Luis said, climbing up between them. “This is not the Inca way, but something much earlier.”
But it was the sun that their dead, covered eyes were staring at that captivated all their attention. It was a large golden sun sculpture inlaid into the floor of the pyramid, and it was looking back at them with timeless eyes carved into the gold. It was two-dimensional, and rose only an inch or two above the floor, and all the way around it were sunbeams made from yet more gold. From what they could see, it looked like the center of the sun might be made from a separate piece of gold.
“I think we need a closer look,” Hawke said. He rubbed his hands together and called out over his shoulder. “Grab me one of those ropes, will you Lexi?”
She handed him the rope and after securing it to the side of the pyramid he lowered it down inside the tomb. “Now then,” he said, clambering over the edge. “No funny jokes involving putting the lid back on and locking me in, all right Cairo?”
“Me?” she said, pretended to be hurt. “Why would I do something like that?”
Hawke gave her a look and then slowly descended inside the pyramid tomb. Due to the angle of the wall as it moved out toward the base the rope dangled straight down without a wall beside it, and he knew that meant a tougher climb back up, but he continued to descend.
His boots crunched down on the tomb floor and kicked up a small cloud of dust. From above, the whole thing had looked eerie enough, but down here, face to face with the mummies on their own turf was downright creepy – especially the way they were all positioned to look down at the sun sculpture for eternity.
He shone the flashlight around the tomb and saw for the first time the murals on the upper walls of the pyramid. “Luis, I think you’d better take a look at this.”
“Me? Go down there? Are you crazy?”
“Yes, yes, and no. Get a wriggle on.”<
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“What is it, Joe?” Lea said.
“I don’t know, but it looks like the same sort of stuff on the mask.”
Luis climbed down the rope, but with a good deal more grunting and huffing than Hawke. Two-thirds of the way down he gave up and slid down, howling as the friction burned the palms of his hands. He hit the floor of the tomb a second later and began to run around in circles, cursing and blowing on his hands to try and cool them.
Hawke rolled his eyes and shone the flashlight in his face. “Are we ready now?”
“Si… I’m sorry. I haven’t climbed a rope since gym class in school.”
“What was that?” Scarlet called down. “Last week?”
“For your information, I am twenty-five years old!”
“Last week then…”
“Can we move on?” Lea said. “This place is creepy.”
“You’re telling me!” Hawke said. “I’m the one down here with the three amigos.”
“Shit!” Scarlet said, shining her flashlight on the mummy in the north corner. “Did that one just move?”
“What?” Hawke said, taking a step back and raising his fists ready for a fight.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was just making up a load of bullshit for a laugh.”
“Christ, Cairo!” Hawke said. “I’ll get you back for that.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, darling.”
Hawke shook his head and sighed, and then made his way inside the triangle formed by the three mummies to get closer to the golden sun in the center. He rubbed his hands together and began to turn the dial on the sun’s face. When it had moved ninety degrees he heard a distinct, deep clunking sound and felt something give beneath the dial. “Looks like we’re in business,” he said under his breath.
He pulled on the grooves either side of the dial. Countless centuries had cemented it in place and the resistance was strong, but a few more tugs and it made another metallic clunk sound before coming away in his hands. He placed it down on the dusty floor and looked inside.
There was more pottery and jewellery, all of it bearing various depictions of the sun in the same style as the one they had just opened – but these were all just the support acts. In the center, wrapped in cloth and tied with string, had to be what they had been searching for.
He reached inside and pulled it out, laying it gently on the sun’s face, and slowly unwrapped it. It was a thin, circular stone plaque covered in Incan carvings. For a moment the two men stared in wordless, breathless silence.
“Is this what I think it is, Luis?” Hawke said, but he already knew the answer thanks to the clear picture in the center of the plaque – mountains, suns, rivers… this was a map.
He nodded. “I am certain it must be,” he said, his eyes widening with anticipation. “Just look at the image in the middle – this is without a doubt a map.”
“Yes, but is it the map?”
Luis ran his fingers over the top of the three-dimensional relief map and nodded once again. “It must be – look where we found it!”
Hawke agreed. “All right – let’s get it out of here before there’s any trouble and then we can set about translating it when we’re back in the light.”
“What the hell is going on down there?” Scarlet called down. “Are the five of you playing strip poker or something?”
“Droll,” Hawke shouted up. “Very droll. We’re on our way back up.”
“About time.”
Hawke tried to help Luis but climbing ropes was a one-man venture, and after much huffing, puffing and whining and two false starts the young Colombian finally reached the top and was pulled over the edge by Reaper and Lexi. Hawke tied the plaque to the bottom of the rope and then climbed up a moment later. When he reached the top he pulled the rope up and brought the ancient plaque out of the pyramid tomb for the first time in centuries.
He laid it down on the side of the pyramid and they looked at it for a few moments, the light from their flashlights illuminating the small stone carvings on its surface and making it look like a picture of the moon with its mountains and craters.
“Is that it?” Scarlet said. “Looks like a dinner plate.”
“This is no dinner plate,” Luis said. “This is the Map of Paititi.”
Lexi looked at him suspiciously. “How can you be so sure?”
“I can’t be one hundred percent sure, I admit… but what else could it be? Besides, here – these are clearly the Andes, and this must surely by the jungle to the north. This here is Inti! He is marking the exact location of the Lost City! I admit it… I am converted. Now I believe!”
“If you say so,” Scarlet said. “Looks like a pig’s breakfast to me.”
But Luis wasn't listening. He was just staring at the map with incredulity. “If we hadn’t opened the tomb ourselves I would feel like someone is playing a joke on us. This map is almost identical to all the other maps that have ever existed but with one important difference – the depiction of Inti is on the other side of the mountains on this map… on the eastern slopes, not the western side. This proves once and for all the Lost City is not Vilcabamba!”
“Hang on,” Scarlet said, chewing on some more coca leaves she’d found. “Do you mean that it’s just a straight-forward sodding map and we don’t have to decode, translate or otherwise bugger about with it?”
“Looks that way,” Hawke said, taking the map from Luis. “I see what you mean about old Inti being on the other side of the mountains – and it looks like it’s very specific as well. He’s standing right on top of a mountain beside a tributary of the Amazon. I think we can definitely use this map to find Paititi!”
He shone his flashlight over the outer chamber once again. “Time to get out of here I think.”
“Wait – what was that noise?” Lexi said.
Reaper shrugged his shoulders. “The wind.”
“No – I heard it too,” Lea said.
And then the battle started.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
In the darkness of Inti’s tomb, the muzzle flashes of Kruger’s small army illuminated the walls as they marched on the much smaller ECHO team. “Get those bastards!” Kruger yelled. “I want that damned map and the man who brings it to me gets a bigger cut.”
The deafening sound of the skirmish rang out in the enclosed space as bullets traced and criss-crossed in every direction. Chunks of plaster tumbled out of the support beams and Hawke watched with increasing unease as the granite blocks in the ceiling came under fire.
“If those clowns detonate a grenade in here we’re all getting flushed out in a hurry.”
Corzo screamed with depraved joy as he unloaded an entire magazine in five seconds, the bullets spitting out of the muzzle and ripping into the masonry over Hawke’s head.
“Kill them all!” Saqqal yelled. “And get that damned map!”
Rajavi stormed forward and unsheathed a savage pesh-kabz knife. From Iran, the pesh-kabz blade was designed by ancient Persians and Afghans to tear into chainmail armour. Traditionally a thrusting blade, its length and width meant it could be used almost as a short sword in the right hands. Judging by how Rajavi was manipulating it, his were the right hands.
The massive Iranian strongman waved the pesh-kabz in Hawke’s face and beckoned him to come forward. In response, Hawke unsheathed his kukri and took a step toward him. The blade of the savage kukri flashed in the low light. It was a one-handed killing machine carried by Gurkhas for centuries and had gotten Hawke out of many tight situations.
The other man’s response was instant, lunging forward with the pesh-kabz. He slashed it in Hawke’s face, but the SBS man was ready and took a step back, swinging his head to the left at the same time.
Hawke’s opponent wasn't easily deterred and upon Saqqal’s orders he moved in closer to the Englishman and struck out again with the blade. Hawke dodged the second attack and this time brought up the kukri blade in a sweeping arc which slashed through Rajavi’s arm from
the cho or notch at the bolster all the way to the tip of the blade.
The Iranian screamed in pain at the wound which the weight and width of the blade had ensured went all the way to the bone. He dropped his knife and staggered back. Blood poured down his arm in spirals and ran off his elbow.
Hawke struck like a cobra, lunging forward and seizing the advantage. When he reached the man he raised the heavy blade and brought the handle down on his head hard, striking his skull with the buttcap of the knife. Anyone else would have been knocked out in a flash, but Rajavi was like a man of steel. With his arm bleeding wildly, he shook off the head strike and lashed out at Hawke, knocking him several yards across the chamber floor.
Chaos reigned in the chamber now and they were all engaged in hand to hand fights for their own survival. Lexi was on a high ridge above the entrance to the chamber fighting a CGF rebel while Lea, Scarlet and Ryan were taking their frustrations out on rebels closer to the pyramid. Luis was keeping back, but now the young Colombian academic called out as Saqqal approached him and raised a blade to his face. “Help!”
From out of nowhere, a grenade blasted Luis and Saqqal off their feet and slammed them against the side of the pyramid where Luis narrowly avoided cracking his skull on the granite side. As he flew through the air like a Frisbee, he released the map and it crashed into the dusty floor with a smack.
Saqqal’s eyes lit up like they were on fire. “There it is!”
Luis scrambled forward to retrieve the ancient map and snatched it up in his hands, but now Saqqal grabbed his knife and approached him once again while all around them the fight raged on.
“Give me the stone, or I will kill you.”
“Help!”
“No one can hear you… they are all fighting for their lives. How will you defend your own life?” He flicked his fingers to indicate that Luis should hand over the stone. “One more chance.”
