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9780312981266

Temple

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780312981266

  • ISBN10:

    0312981260

  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2002-02-18
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks

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Summary

Four centuries ago, a precious idol was hidden in the jungles of Peru. To the Incan people, it was still the ultimate symbol of their spirit. To William Race, an American linguist enlisted by the U.S. Army to decipher the clues to its location, it's the ultimate symbol of the apocalypse....Carved from a rare stone not found on Earth, the idol possesses elements more destructive than any nuclear bomb-a virtual planet killer. In the wrong hands it could mean the end of mankind. And whoever possesses the idol, possesses the unfathomable-and cataclysmic-power of the gods....Now, in the foothills of the Andes, Race's team has arrived-but they're not alone. And soon they'll discover that to penetrate the temple of the idol is to break the first rule of survival. Because some treasures are meant to stay buried....and forces are ready to kill to keep it that way....AUTHORBIO: MATTHEW REILLY was born in 1974 and studied law at the University of New South Wales. At twenty-four, he has written three novels, several screenplays, and has had a few magazine articles published. In 1999, he sold the film rights to his first novel, the action-packed, sci-fi extravaganza, Conquest. His other novels include Ice Station and Temple. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Author Biography

MATTHEW REILLY was born in 1974 and studied law at the University of New South Wales. He has written four novels and several screenplays, and has had several magazine articles published. In 2002, he sold the film rights his worldwide bestseller, Ice Station, to Paramount Pictures. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents

"The action just keeps on coming...Michael Crichton meets Indiana Jones."--Kirkus Reviews

"Reilly has a gift for sustaining momentum that never lets up."--Publishers Weekly

"As good as it gets when it comes to action thrillers...brilliant."--The Charleston Post & Courier

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The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Excerpts


Chapter One

William Race was late for work. Again.

    He'd overslept and then the subway had been delayed and now it was ten after nine and he was late for his morning lecture. Race's office was on the third floor of the old Delaware Building at New York University. The building had an ancient wrought-iron elevator that traveled at a snail's pace. It was quicker to take the stairs.

    At thirty-one, Race was one of the youngest members of staff in the Ancient Languages Department at NYU. He was of average height--about five-foot-nine--and handsome in a very unassuming kind of way. He had sandy-brown hair and a lean physique. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses framed his blue eyes and an unusual facial mark--a triangular brown birthmark situated directly below his left eye.

    Race hurried up the stairs, a thousand thoughts running through his mind-his morning lecture on the works of the Roman historian Livy, the parking fine from last month that he still had to pay, and the article that he'd read in the New York Times that morning saying that because 85 percent of people based their ATM numbers on important dates like birthdays and the like, thieves who stole their wallets--thus obtaining not only ATM cards, but also driver's licenses containing the owners' dates of birth--were finding it easier to break into their bank accounts. Damn it, Race thought, he was going to have to change his PIN number.

    He came to the top of the stairwell and hurried out into the corridor.

    And then he stopped.

    Two men stood in the hallway in front of him.

    Soldiers.

    They were decked out in full battle dress, too--helmets, body armor, M-16s, the lot. One stood halfway down the corridor, nearer to Race. The other was stationed further down the hall. He stood rigidly to attention outside the door to Race's office. They couldn't have looked more out of place--soldiers in a university.

    Both men snapped around immediately when they saw him burst out from the stairwell. For some reason, in their presence, Race suddenly felt inferior--somehow unworthy, undisciplined . He felt stupid in his Macy's sports coat, jeans and tie, carrying his clothes for a lunchtime baseball game in a battered old Nike sports bag.

    As he approached the first soldier, Race looked him up and down--saw the black assault rifle in his hands, saw the velveteen green beret slouched on his head, saw the crescent-shaped patch on his shoulder that read "SPECIAL FORCES."

    "Uh, hi. I'm William Race. I--"

    "It's okay, Professor Race. Please go in. They're expecting you."

    Race continued down the corridor, came to the second soldier. He was taller than the first one, bigger. In fact, he was huge, a mountain of a man--at least six-feet-four--with a soft handsome face, dark hair and narrow brown eyes that didn't miss a trick. The name patch on his breast pocket' read "VAN LEWEN." The three stripes on his shoulder indicated that he was a sergeant.

    Race's eyes drifted to the man's M-16, It had a state-of-the-art PAC-4C laser sighting device mounted on its barrel and an M-203 grenade launcher attached to its underside. Serious stuff.

    The soldier stepped aside promptly, allowed Race to enter his own office.

    Dr. John Bernstein was sitting in the high-backed leather chair behind Race's desk, looking very uncomfortable. Bernstein was a white-haired man of fifty-nine and the head of the Ancient Languages Department at NYU, Race's boss.

    There were three other men in the room.

    Two soldiers, one civilian.

    The two soldiers were dressed and armed in much the same manner as the guards outside--fatigues, helmets, laser-sighted M-16s--and they both looked extremely fit. One appeared to be a little older than the other. He held his helmet formally, wedged firmly between his elbow and his ribs, and he had close-cropped black hair that barely reached his forehead. Race's sandy-brown hair fell constantly down into his eyes.

    The third stranger in the room, the civilian, was seated in the guest's chair in front of Bernstein. He was a big man, barrel-chested, and dressed in shirtsleeves and trousers. He had a pug nose and dark heavy-set features that were weathered with age and responsibility. And he sat in his chair with the calm assurance of someone who was used to being obeyed.

    Race got the distinct impression that everyone had been waiting in his office for some time.

    Waiting for him .

    "Will," John Bernstein said, coming around the desk and shaking his hand. "Good morning. Come on in. I'd like you to meet someone. Professor William Race, Colonel Frank mash."

    The barrel-chested civilian extended his hand. Strong grip.

    "Retired. Good to meet you," he said, looking Race over. He then indicated the two soldiers. "This is Captain Scott and Corporal Cochrane of the U.S. Army Special Forces Group."

    "Green Berets," Bernstein whispered respectfully in Race's ear.

    Then Bernstein cleared his throat. "Colonel--er, I mean, Doctor --mash is from the Tactical Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He's come here seeking our help."

    Frank Nash handed Race his photo-ID card. Race saw a mug shot of mash with the red DARPA logo on top of it and a whole lot of numbers and codes beneath it. A magnetic strip ran down one side of the card. Beneath the photo were the words "FRANCIS K. NASH, U.S. ARMY, COL. (RET)." It was a pretty impressive card. It screamed: important person .

    Uh, huh , Race thought.

    He had heard of DARPA before. It was the primary research and development arm of the Department of Defense, the agency that had invented the Arpanet, the military-only precursor to the Internet. DARPA was also famous for its participation in the Have Blue project in the 1970s, the top-secret Air Force project that had resulted in the construction of the F-117 stealth fighter.

    In fact, truth be told, Race knew a little more about DARPA than most, for the simple reason that his brother, Martin, worked there as a design engineer.

    Basically, DARPA worked in partnership with each of the three branches of the U.S. armed forces--the Army, the Navy and the Air Force--developing high-technology military applications appropriate to the needs of each force: stealth technology for the Air Force, ultra-high-tensile body armor for the Army. Such was DARPA's status, however, that its accomplishments often became the stuff of urban legend. It was said, for example, that DARPA had recently perfected the J-7--the mythical A-frame rocket pack that would ultimately replace the parachute--but this had never been proved.

    The Tactical Technology Office, however, was the spearhead of DARPA's arsenal, the jewel in its crown. It was the division in charge of developing the big stuff--high-risk/high-return strategic weaponry.

    Race wondered what DARPA's Tactical Technology Office could possibly want with the Ancient Languages Department at NYU.

    "You want our help?" he asked, looking up from Nash's photo-ID card.

    "Well, actually, we came here specifically seeking your help."

    My help , Race thought. He lectured in ancient languages--mainly classical and medieval Latin--with a little bit of French, Spanish and German on the side. He couldn't think of a single thing that he could help DARPA with.

    "What sort of help?" he asked.

    "Translating. Translating a manuscript. A four-hundred-year-old Latin manuscript."

    "A manuscript ..." Race said. Such a request wasn't unusual. He was often asked to translate medieval manuscripts. It was unusual, however, when it was asked in the presence of armed commandos.

    "Professor Race," Nash said, "the translation of the document in question is a matter of extreme urgency. In fact, the document itself is not even in the United States yet. It is en route as we speak. What we would require of you is to meet the document at Newark and translate it in transit to our destination."

    "In transit?" Race said. "To where?"

    "I'm afraid that is something I am unable to tell you at this stage."

    Race was about to argue when suddenly the door to the office opened and another Green Beret entered. He carried a radio pack on his back and he walked quickly over to Nash, whispered softly in his ear. Race caught the words: "--been ordered to mobilize."

    "When?" Nash said.

    "Ten minutes ago, sir," the soldier whispered back,

    Nash looked down quickly at his watch. "Damn it."

    He swung back to face Race.

    "Professor Race, we don't have much time, so I'm going to give this to you straight. This is a very important mission, a mission that seriously affects the national security of the United States. But it is a mission that has a very short window of opportunity. We must act now. But in order to do that, I need a translator. A medieval Latin translator. You."

    "How soon?"

    "I have a car waiting out front."

    Race swallowed. "I don't know ..."

    He could feel everyone's eyes on him. He felt suddenly nervous at the prospect of traveling to destination unknown with Frank Nash and a team of fully armed Green Berets. He felt like he was being railroaded.

    "What about Ed Devereux at Harvard?" he said. "He's a lot better at med-Latin than I am. He'd be faster."

    Nash said, "I don't need the best and I don't have the time to travel up to Boston. Your brother mentioned your name to us. He said you were good and that you were in New York and quite frankly, that's all I need. I need someone close who can do the job now ."

    Race bit his lip.

    Nash said, "You'll have a bodyguard assigned to you for the entire mission. We'll pick up the manuscript at Newark in about thirty minutes and get on the plane a few minutes after that. If all goes well, you'll have the document translated by the time we land. You won't even have to get off the plane. And if you do, you'll have a team of Green Berets looking after you."

    Race frowned at that.

    "Professor Race, you won't be the only academic on this mission. Walter Chambers from Stanford will be there; Gabriela Lopez from Princeton; and also Lauren O'Connor from--"

    Lauren O'Connor , Race thought.

    He hadn't heard that name in years.

    Race had known Lauren back in his college days at USC. While he had studied languages, she had majored in science--theoretical physics. They'd dated, but it had ended badly. Last he heard, she'd been working at the Livermore Labs in their nuclear physics department.

    Race looked at Nash. He wondered just how much Frank Nash knew about Lauren and himself--wondered if he had dropped her name deliberately.

    The thing was, if he had, then it worked.

    If Lauren was anything, she was street-smart. She wouldn't go on a mission like this without a good reason. The fact that she had agreed to be a part of Nash's adventure gave it instant credibility.

    "Professor, you will be amply compensated for your time."

    "It's not that--"

    "Your brother is also part of the mission team," Nash said, taking Race by surprise. "He won't be coming with us, but he'll be working with the technical team at our offices in Virginia."

    Marty , Race thought. He hadn't seen him in a long time--not since their parents had got divorced nine years ago. But if Marty was also involved, then maybe ...

    "Professor Race, I'm sorry, but we have to go. We have to go now. I need an answer from you."

    "Will," John Bernstein said, "this could be a tremendous opportunity for the university--"

    Race frowned at Bernstein, cutting him off. Then to Nash: "You say it's a matter of national security?"

    "That's right."

    "And you can't tell me where we'll be going."

    "Not until we get on the plane. Then I can tell you everything."

    And I'm going to have a bodyguard , Race thought. You usually only need a bodyguard when somebody wants to kill you .

    The office was silent.

    Race could feel everyone waiting for his response. Nash. Bernstein. The three Green Berets.

    He sighed. He couldn't believe what he was about to say.

    "All right," he said. "I'll do it."

Race walked quickly down the corridor behind Nash, still dressed in his jacket and tie.

    It was a cold and wet winter's day in New York and as they made their way through the maze of corridors toward the westernmost gate of the university, Race caught the occasional glimpse of the heavy rain falling outside.

    The two Green Berets who had been in the office walked ahead of him and Nash; the other two--the two who had been out in the corridor--walked behind. Everyone was moving quickly. It felt to Race like he was being pulled along by a strong current.

    "Will I get a chance to change into something a little less formal?" he asked Nash. He had brought his sports bag along with him. It had his change of clothes inside it.

    "Maybe on the plane," Nash said as they walked. "All right, now listen carefully. See the young man behind you. That's Sergeant Leo Van Lewen. He'll be your bodyguard from here on in."

    Race looked behind himself as he walked, saw the mountain-sized Green Beret he had seen earlier. Van Lewen. The Green Beret just gave him a curt acknowledging nod as his eyes swept the corridor all around them.

    Nash said, "From now on, you're a real important person and that makes you a target. Wherever you go, he goes. Here. Take this."

    Nash handed Race an earpiece and a wraparound throat microphone. Race had only ever seen them on TV before, on footage of SWAT units. You strapped the throat mike around your neck and the microphone picked up the vibrations of your voice box.

    "Put it on as soon as you get in the car," Nash said. "It's voice-activated, so all you have to do is talk and we'll hear you. If you get in any trouble, just say the word and Van Lewen here will be at your side in seconds. You got that?"

    "Got it."

    They came to the western entrance of the university, where two more Green Berets stood guard at the door. Nash and Race stepped past them, out into the pouring rain.

    It was then that Race saw "the car" that Nash had said was waiting out front.

    On the gravel turnaround in front of him stood a motorcade.

    Four police motorcycle outriders--two at the head of the line of cars, two at the rear. Six plain-looking olive-colored sedans. And wedged in the middle, cocooned by the outriders and the sedans, were two heavy-duty armored vehicles--Humvees. Both were painted black and they each had deeply tinted windows.

    At least fifteen heavily armed Green Berets stood with M-16s at the ready all around the motorcade. The pouring rain hammered down against their helmets. They didn't seem to notice.

    Nash hurried over to the second Humvee and held the door open for Race. Then he handed Race a thick manila folder as he stepped inside the big vehicle.

    "Take a look," Nash said. "I'll tell you more when we get on the plane."

The motorcade sped through the streets of New York.

    It was mid-morning, but the eight-car procession just raced through the soaking city streets, whipping through intersection after intersection, getting green lights all the way out of the city.

    They must have set the traffic lights like they did for the President when he visited New York, Race thought.

    But this was no presidential procession. The looks on the faces of the people on the sidewalk said it all.

    This was a different kind of motorcade.

    No limousines. No flapping flags. Just two black heavily armored Humvees hovering in the middle of a line of drab olive cars, slicing their way through the pouring rain.

    With his bodyguard seated beside him and his earpiece and throat mike now in place, Race stared out the window of the speeding Humvee.

    Not many people could claim to have experienced a clear passage out of New York City in the middle of the mid-morning rush, he thought. It was a strange experience; otherworldly. He began to wonder just how important this mission was.

    He opened the folder that Nash had given him. The first thing he saw was a list of names.

CUZCO INVESTIGATION TEAM

    CIVILIAN MEMBERS

1 NASH, Francis K--DARPA, project leader, nuclear physicist

2 COPELAND, Troy B--DARPA, nuclear physicist

3 O'CONNOR, Lauren M--DARPA, theoretical physicist

4 CHAMBERS, Walter J--Stanford, anthropologist

5 LOPEZ, Gabriela S--Princeton, archaeologist

6 RACE, William H--NYU, linguist

    ARMED FORCES MEMBERS

1 SCOTT, Dwayne T--United States Army (GB), Captain

2 VAN LEWEN, Leonardo M--United States Army (GB), Sergeant

3 COCHRANE, Jacob R--United States Army (GB), Corporal

4 REICHART, George P--United States Army (GB), Corporal

5 WILSON, Charles T--United States Army (GB), Corporal

6 KENNEDY, Douglas K--United States Army (GB), Corporal

    Race turned the page and saw a photocopy of a newspaper clipping. The headline was in French: MASSACRÉS DES MOINES AU MONASTÈRE DU HAUT DELA MONTAGNE.

    Race translated. "Monks massacred in mountaintop monastery."

    He read the article. It was dated 3 January 1999--yesterday--and it was about a group of Jesuit monks who had been slaughtered inside their monastery high up in the French Pyrenees.

    French authorities believed it to be the work of Islamic fundamentalists protesting against French interference in Algeria. Eighteen monks in all had been killed, all of them shot at close quarters in the same manner as in previous fundamentalist slayings.

    Race turned to the next item in the folder.

    It was another newspaper clipping, this one from the Los Angeles Times . It was dated late last year and the headline screamed: FEDERAL OFFICIALS FOUND MURDERED IN ROCKIES.

    It said that two members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been found murdered in the mountains north of Helena, Montana. Both officials had been skinned. The FBI had been called in. They suspected that it was the work of one of the local militia groups who seemed to have a natural enmity toward any sort of Federal agency. It was thought that the two Wildlife officials had stumbled upon some militiamen hunting illegal game for their pelts. Instead of skinning the animals, the militiamen had skinned the rangers.

    Race winced, turned the page.

    The next sheet in the folder was a photocopy of an article from a university journal of some kind. The article was in German and it was written by a scientist named Albert L, Mueller. It was dated November 1998.

    Race scanned the article, rapidly translating the German in his head. It was something about a meteor crater that had been found in the jungles of Peru.

    Underneath the article on the meteor crater was a police pathologist's report, also written in German. In the box marked "NAME OF DECEASED" were the words "ALBERT LUDWIG MUELLER."

    Beneath the pathologist's report were some more sheets of paper, all' covered with various red stamps--TOP SECRET; EYES ONLY; U.S. ARMY PERSONNEL EYES ONLY. Race flicked through them. Mostly, the sheets were filled with complex mathematical equations which meant nothing to him.

    Next, he saw a handful of memos, nearly all of them addressed to people he'd never heard off On one of the memos, however, he saw his own name, It read:

    3 JAN 1999 22:01 US ARMY INTERNAL NET 617 5544 88211-05 NO. 139

From: Nash, Frank

To: All Cuzco Team Members

Subject: SUPERNOVA MISSION

Contact to be made with Race ASAP. Participation crucial to success of mission.

Expect package to arrive tomorrow 4 January at Newark at 0945.

All members to have equipment stowed on the transport by 0900.

The motorcade arrived at Newark airport. The long line of cars raced through a gate in the cyclone fence and quickly made its way to a private airstrip.

    An enormous camouflaged cargo plane stood on the tarmac waiting for them. At the rear of the plane, a cargo ramp was lowered so that it touched the ground. As the motorcade pulled to a stop alongside the massive aircraft, Race saw a large Army truck being driven up the ramp into the rear of the plane.

    Led by Sergeant Van Lewen, he stepped out of the Humvee, into the rain, No sooner had he emerged from the big black vehicle, however, than he heard a monstrous roar from somewhere high above him.

    An old F-15C Eagle--painted in green and brown camouflage colors and with the word "ARMY" emblazoned on its tail--came roaring in overhead and screeched to a landing on the wet tarmac in front of them.

    As Race watched the fighter plane wheel around on the runway and taxi back in his direction, he felt Frank Nash grab him gently by the arm.

    "Come on," Nash said, leading him toward the big cargo plane. "Everyone else is already on board."

    As they approached the cargo plane, Race saw a woman appear in a doorway on its side. He recognized her instantly.

    "Hey, Will," Lauren O'Connor said.

    "Hello, Lauren."

    She was in her early thirties, but she didn't look a day older than twenty-five. She'd cut her hair, Race saw. Back at USC, it had been long, wavy and brown, Now it was short, straight and auburn. Very late nineties.

    Her big brown eyes were still the same, though, as was her fresh clear skin. And standing there in the doorway to the big cargo plane--leaning casually against the frame with her arms folded and her hips cocked, dressed in heavy-duty khaki hiking gear--she looked the way she had always looked. Tall and sexy, lithe and athletic.

    "It's been a long time," she said, smiling.

    "Yes, it has," Race said.

    "So. William Race. Expert linguist. Consultant to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. You still play ball, Will?"

    "Just socially," Race said. Back in college, he'd lettered in football. He'd been the smallest guy on the team, but also the fastest. He'd lettered in track too.

    "How about you?" he said, noticing for the first time the ring on her left hand. He wondered who she'd married.

    "Well, for one thing," she said, her eyes lighting up, "I'm very excited about this mission. It's not every day you get to go on a treasure hunt."

    "Is that what this is?"

    Before Lauren could answer, a loud whining sound made both of them turn.

    The F-15 had pulled to a halt about fifty yards from the cargo plane and no sooner was its canopy open than the pilot was leaping down onto the wet tarmac beneath it and running toward them, hunched over in the drenching rain. He carried a briefcase in his hand.

    The pilot came up to Nash, handed him the briefcase. "Doctor Nash," he said. "The manuscript."

    Nash took the briefcase and strode over to where Lauren and Race were standing.

    "All right," he said, ushering them inside the cargo plane. "Time to get this show on the road."

The giant cargo plane thundered down the runway and lifted off into the rain-soaked sky.

    It was a Lockheed C-130E Hercules and the interior was divided into two sections--the downstairs cargo hold and the upstairs passenger compartment. Race sat in the upstairs section with the five other scientists going along on the expedition. The six Green Berets accompanying them were down in the cargo hold, stowing and checking their weapons.

    Of the five civilians, Race knew two: Frank Nash and Lauren O'Connor.

    "We'll have time for introductions later," Nash said, sitting down next to Race and hauling the briefcase onto his lap. "What's important right now is that we set you to work."

    He began unclasping the buckles on the briefcase.

    "Can you tell me where we're going now?" Race asked.

    "Oh yes, of course," Nash said. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before, but your office just wasn't secure. The windows could have been lased."

    "Lased?"

    "With a laser-guided listening device, When we speak inside an office like yours, our voices actually make the windows vibrate. Most modern office towers are equipped to deal with directional listening devices--they have electronic jamming signals running through the glass in their windows. Older buildings like yours don't. It would have been way too easy for someone to listen in."

    "So where are we going?"

    "Cuzco, Peru-capital of the Incan empire before the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532," Nash said. "Now it's just a large country town, a few Incan ruins, big tourist attraction, so they tell me. We'll be traveling non-stop, with a couple of mid-air refuelings on the way."

    He opened the briefcase and extracted something from it.

    It was a stack of paper--a loose pile of A3 sheets, maybe forty pages in total. Race saw the top sheet. It was a Xerox of an illustrated cover sheet.

    It was the manuscript Nash had spoken about earlier, or at least a photocopy of it.

    Nash handed the stack of paper over to Race and smiled. " This is why you are here."

    Race took the pile from him, flipped over the cover sheet.

    Now, Race had seen medieval manuscripts before-manuscripts painstakingly reproduced by hand by devoted monks in the Middle Ages, back in the days before the printing press. Such manuscripts were characterized by an almost impossible intricacy of design and penmanship: perfect calligraphy-including wonderfully elaborate leading marks (the single letter that starts a new chapter)--and detailed pictographs in the margins that were designed to convey the mood of the work. Sunny and gay for pleasing books; dark and frightening for more somber tales. Such was the detail, it was said that a monk could spend his entire life reproducing a single manuscript.

    But the manuscript that Race saw now-even in black-and-white photocopied form--was like nothing he had ever seen.

    It was magnificent.

    He flicked through the pages.

    The handwriting was superb, precise, intricate, and the side margins were filled with drawings of gnarled snaking vines. Strange stone structures, covered in moss and shadow, occupied the bottom corners of each page. The overall effect was one of darkness and foreboding, of brooding malevolence.

    Race flicked back to the cover page. It read:

NARRATIO VERUS PRIESTO IN RURIS INCARUS:

OPERIS ALBERTO LUIS SANTIAGO ANNO

DOMINI MDLXV

    Race translated. The true relation of a monk in the land of the Incas: A manuscript by Alberto Luis Santiago . It was dated 1565.

    Race turned to face Nash. "All right. I think it's about time you told me what this mission of yours is all about."

Nash explained.

    Brother Alberto Santiago had been a young Franciscan missionary sent to Peru in 1532 to work alongside the conquistadors. While the conquistadors raped and pillaged the countryside, monks like Santiago were expected to convert the Incan natives to the wisdom of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

    "Although it was written in 1565, well after Santiago's eventual return to Europe," Nash said, "it is said that the Santiago Manuscript recounts an incident that occurred around 1535, during the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors. According to medieval monks who claimed to have read it, the manuscript recounts a rather amazing tale: that of Hernando Pizarro's dogged pursuit of an Incan prince who, during the height of the siege of Cuzco, spirited the Incas' most venerated idol out of the walled city and fled with it into the jungles of eastern Peru."

    Nash swiveled in his seat. "Walter," he said, nodding to the bespectacled, balding man sitting on the other side of the center aisle, "help me out here. I'm telling Professor Race about the idol."

    Walter Chambers got up from his seat and sat down opposite Race. Chambers was a mousy little man, three-quarters bald and bookish, the kind of guy who'd wear a bow tie to work.

    "William Race. Walter Chambers," Nash said. "Walter's an anthropologist from Stanford. Expert on Central and South American cultures--Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs and, especially, the Incas."

    Chambers smiled. "So you want to know about the idol?"

    "It would seem so," Race said.

    "The Incas called it `the Spirit of the People,'" Chambers said. "It was a stone idol, but one that was carved out of a strange kind of stone, a shiny black stone that had very fine veins of purple running through it.

    "It was the Incan people's most prized possession. Indeed, they saw it as their very heart and soul. And when I say that, I mean it literally. They saw the Spirit of the People as more than a mere symbol of their power. They saw it as the actual, literal , source of that power. And indeed, there were stories about its magical powers--how it could calm the most vicious of animals, or how, when dipped in water, the idol would sing."

    "Sing?" Race said.

    "That's right," Chambers said, "sing."

    "O- kay . So what does this idol look like?"

    "The idol's actual appearance has been described in many places, including the two most comprehensive works on the conquest of Peru, Jérez's Relación and de la Vega's Royal Commentaries . But descriptions vary. Some say it was a foot high, others only six inches; some say it was beautifully carved and smooth to the touch, others say it had rough, sharp edges. One feature, however, is common to all descriptions of the idol--the Spirit of the People was carved in the shape of a snarling jaguar's head."

    Chambers leaned forward in his seat. "From the moment he heard about that idol, Hernando Pizarro wanted it. And all the more so after the attendants at the idol's shrine at Pachacámac whisked it away from under his nose. See, Hernando Pizarro was probably the most ruthless of all the Pizarro brothers to come to Peru. I imagine today we would call him a psychopath. According to some reports, he would torture whole villages on a whim--just for the sport of it. And his hunt for the idol became an obsession. Village after village, town after town, wherever he went he demanded to know the location of the idol. But no matter how many natives he tortured, no matter how many villages he burned, the Incas wouldn't tell him where their precious idol was.

    "But then--somehow--in 1535 Hernando discovered where the idol was being kept. It was being kept in a massive stone vault inside the Coricancha, the famous Temple of the Sun, situated in the center of the besieged city of Cuzco.

    "Unfortunately for Hernando, he got to Cuzco just in time to see a young Incan prince named Renco Capac make off with the idol in a daring ride through the Spanish and Incan lines. According to those medieval monks who read it, the Santiago Manuscript details Hernando's pursuit of Renco following the young prince's escape from Cuzco--a dazzling chase that wound its way through the Andes and out into the Amazon rainforest."

    "What the manuscript also allegedly does," Nash said, "is reveal the final resting place of the Spirit of the People."

    So they were after the idol, Race thought.

    He didn't say anything, though. Mainly, because it just didn't make sense.

    Why was the U.S. Army sending a team of nuclear physicists down to South America to find a lost Incan idol? And on the basis of a four-hundred-year-old Latin manuscript. They might as well have been following a pirate's treasure map.

    "I know what you're thinking," Nash said. "If someone had told me this same story a week ago, I'd have thought about it the same way you do. But then, up until a couple of weeks ago, nobody even knew where the Santiago Manuscript was."

    "But now you have it," Race said.

    "No," Nash said sharply. "We have a copy of it. Somebody else has the original."

    "Who?"

    Nash nodded at the folder in Race's lap. "Did you see the newspaper article in the folder I gave you before? The one about the Jesuit monks who were killed in their monastery in the Pyrenees?"

    "Yeah ..."

    "Eighteen monks killed. All of them shot at close range with high-powered weapons. At first glance, it looks like the work of your garden variety Algerian terrorists. They've been known to attack isolated monasteries and their favored m.o. is to shoot their victims at very close range. Sure enough, the French press reported it that way.

    " But "--Nash held up a finger--"what the press don't know is that during the carnage, one monk managed to escape. An American Jesuit on sabbatical in France. He managed to hide upstairs in an attic during the whole thing. After the French police debriefed him, he was passed onto our embassy in Paris. At the embassy, he was debriefed again, only this time by our CIA Chief of Station."

    "And?"

    Nash looked Race squarely in the eye.

    "The men who stormed that monastery weren't Algerian terrorists, Professor Race. They were commandos. Soldiers. White soldiers. They all wore black ski masks and they were all armed to the teeth with some pretty awesome weaponry. And they spoke to each other in German.

    "What's more interesting," Nash continued, "is what they were after. Apparently, the commandos gathered all the monks together in the abbey's dining room and made them get down on their knees. Then they grabbed one of the monks and demanded to know the location of the Santiago Manuscript. When the monk said he didn't know where it was, they shot two monks--one on either side of him. Then they asked him again. When he again said he didn't know, they killed the next two monks. This would have gone on until they were all killed but then someone stepped forward and said he knew where the manuscript was."

    "Jesus ..." Race said.

    Nash pulled a photograph from his briefcase. "We have reason to believe that the man responsible for this atrocity was this man, Heinrich Anistaze, formerly a major in the East German secret police, the Stasi."

    Race looked at the photo. It was an eight-by-ten glossy of a man getting out of a car. The man was tall and broad-shouldered, with short black hair that was brushed forward and two narrow slits for eyes. They were hard eyes, cold eyes, eyes that seemed to be set in a perpetual squint. He appeared to be in his mid-forties.

    "Notice the left hand," Nash said.

    Race looked at the photograph more closely. The man's left hand rested atop the car door. Race saw it.

    Heinrich Anistaze had no left ring finger.

    "At one time during the Cold War, Anistaze was captured by members of an East German crime syndicate that the Stasi was trying to shut down. They made him cut off his own finger before they sent it off in the mail to his superiors. But then Anistaze escaped, and returned--with the full force of the Stasi behind him. Needless to say, organized crime was never a problem in communist East Germany after that.

    "Of more importance to us, however, are his methods in other circumstances. You see, it seems Anistaze had a peculiar way of making people talk: he was known for executing the people on either side of the person who failed to give him the information he wanted."

    There was a short silence.

    "According to our most recent intelligence," Nash said, "since the end of the Cold War, Anistaze has been working in a non-official capacity as an assassin for the unified German government."

    "So the Germans have the original manuscript," Race said. "How did you get your copy then?"

    Nash nodded sagely.

    "The monks gave the Germans the original manuscript. The actual, undecorated, handwritten manuscript written by Alberto Santiago himself.

    "What the monks didn't tell the Germans, though, was that in 1599--thirty years after Santiago's death-- another Franciscan monk began transcribing Santiago's handwritten manuscript into a more elaborate, decorated text that would be fit for the eyes of kings. Unfortunately, this second monk died before he could complete his transcription, but what remains is a second copy of the Santiago Manuscript, a partially completed copy that was also kept at the San Sebastian Abbey. It is this copy of the manuscript that we have a Xerox of."

    Race held up his hand.

    "Okay, okay," he said. "Wait a minute. Why all this murder and intrigue for a lost Incan idol? What could the U.S. and German governments possibly want with a four-hundred-year-old piece of stone?"

    Nash gave Race a grim smile.

    "You see, Professor, it's not the idol that we're after," he said. "It's the substance that it's made of."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Professor, what I mean is this: we believe that the Spirit of the People was carved out of a meteorite."

* * *

"The journal article," Race said.

    "That's right," Nash said. "By Albert Mueller of Bonn University. Before his rather untimely death, Mueller was studying a one-mile-wide meteor crater in the jungles of southeastern Peru, at a site about fifty miles south of Cuzco. By measuring the size of the crater and the speed of jungle growth over it, Mueller estimated that a high-density meteorite about two feet in diameter impacted with the earth at that site some time between the years 1460 and 1470."

    "Which," Walter Chambers added, "coincides perfectly with the rise of the Incas in South America."

    "What is more important for us," Nash said, "is what Mueller found in the walls of this crater. Deposited in the walls of the crater were trace samples of a substance known as thyrium-261."

    "Thyrium-261?" Race said.

    "It's a rare isotope of the common element thyrium," Nash said, "and it is not found on Earth. In fact, thyrium has only been found here in petrified form, presumably as a result of previous asteroid impacts in the distant past. It is indigenous to the Pleiades system, a binary star system not far from our own. But since it comes from a binary star system, thyrium is of a far greater density than even the heaviest of terrestrial elements."

    Things were beginning to make a little more sense to Race now. Especially the part about the Army sending a team of physicists down to the jungle.

    "And what exactly can you do with thyrium?" Race asked.

    " Colonel! " a voice called suddenly.

    Nash and Race turned in their seats to see Troy Copeland, one of the other scientists, come striding quickly down the center aisle from the cockpit. Copeland was a tall man, lean, with a thin, hawklike face and intense, narrow eyes. He was one of the DARPA people--a nuclear physicist, Race recalled--and he appeared to Race to be a completely humorless individual.

    "Colonel, we have a problem," he said.

    "What is it?" Nash said.

    "We just caught a priority alert from Fairfax Drive," Copeland said.

    Race had heard of "Fairfax Drive" before. It was shorthand for 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, Virginia. DARPA headquarters.

    "About?" Nash said.

    Copeland took a deep breath. "There was a break-in there early this morning. Seventeen security staff dead. The entire night crew killed."

    Nash's face went ashen white. "They didn't--"

    Copeland nodded seriously. "They stole the Supernova."

    Nash stared off into space for a second.

    "It was the only thing they took," Copeland said. "They knew exactly where it was. They knew the codes to the vault room and had cardkeys for the clamp-down locks. We must assume that they also know the codes to the titanium airlock on the device itself, and maybe how to detonate it."

    "Any idea who it was?"

    "NCIS are there now. Early indications are that it might be the work of a paramilitary group like the Freedom Fighters."

    "Shit," Nash said. " Shit! They must know about the idol."

    "It's likely."

    "Then we have to get there first."

    "Agreed," Copeland said.

    Race was just watching this conversation like a spectator at a tennis match. So, there had been a break-in at DARPA headquarters, but what exactly had been stolen was a mystery to him. Something called a Supernova. And who were these Freedom Fighters?

    Nash stood up. "What's our lead?" he asked.

    "Maybe three hours, if that," Copeland said.

    "Then we have to move fast." Nash turned to Race. "Professor Race, I'm sorry, but the stakes in this game have just been raised. We don't have any more time to waste. It is now imperative that we have that manuscript translated by the time we fly into Cuzco, because when we hit the ground, believe me, we are gonna hit it running."

With that, Nash, Copeland and Chambers moved off to other areas of the plane, leaving Race alone with the manuscript.

    Race looked at the cover page again, scanned the rough texture of the photocopier's ink. Then he took a deep breath and turned the page.

    He saw the first line, written in fine medieval calligraphy:

    MEUS NOMINUS EST ALBERTO LUIS SANTIAGO ET ILLE EST MEUM REM ...

    He translated.

    My name is Alberto Luis Santiago and this is my story ...

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