She carefully brought the three carved purple stones together, cradling them in her hands. The glow changed, a brighter band shimmering – pointing at the sun disc.
‘It’s behind that?’ Kit asked.
Nina grimaced. ‘I hope not – I wouldn’t want to have to damage the Punchaco to get it out!’ She stepped across to the side wall. The line of light moved, the parallax shift indicating that the final piece was close by – but it no longer pointed at the representation of the sun god. ‘No, I think it’s in the palace. Just as the map said.’
‘It shouldn’t take long to find,’ said Macy. ‘Not when you’ve got your own personal weird statue detector.’
Nina addressed the Peruvians. ‘This is the main reason the IHA became involved. There’s no need for you to come with me to find the last statue piece if you don’t want to.’
She had hoped they would take the hint and let her search in peace, but from their expressions – even the two soldiers were intrigued – it was clear they all wanted to satisfy their curiosity. ‘Probably shouldn’t have shown ’em the glowing statues, love,’ said Eddie.
Still carefully holding the circle of figurines, she moved back towards the passage. ‘Well, let’s see where they lead us, then.’
The others following, she left the temple, heading for the palace at the summit of the hidden city.
In the jungle outside the cave, one of the two soldiers left to watch the team’s vehicles looked down the hill. Several minutes earlier, he had thought he heard distant engines, but the waterfall’s never-ending rumble made it difficult to be sure. He had dismissed the sound as nothing more than local traffic picking its way along the winding road – but now he was certain he had heard it again, and closer. He stared down the weaving trail of flattened vegetation made by the off-roaders, but saw nothing except greenery.
His companion, leaning against the Jeep, stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Why would anyone come up here? Nobody’s even supposed to know about this place except those archaeologists.’
‘Someone might have seen our tracks going off the road.’ The reassuring weight of his Kalashnikov AKM rifle hung from one shoulder; he considered unslinging it and heading downhill to investigate. But there was nothing moving amongst the trees except birds, and the noise had stopped. ‘I don’t know. But I’m sure I heard a truck.’
He expected a sarcastic retort, but no answer came. Assuming the other soldier was busy lighting yet another cigarette, he continued, ‘And I know you’re going to say that we almost ran into plenty of trucks on the way here, but I meant it was nearer than the road.’ He turned to await a response—
A man in dirty, ragged jungle camouflage was behind his comrade, one hand clamped over his mouth – and the other driving a knife deep into his throat, spraying blood over the Jeep’s windscreen.
The soldier grabbed his AKM—
A loud, flat thump came from the undergrowth, and he fell, hit in the back by a bullet. He writhed in pain, trying to scream, but only managed a choked gurgle, blood from a shredded lung frothing in his throat and mouth.
The shooter stepped from the bushes. He was short, barrel-chested . . . and wearing a blood-red beret.
Arcani Pachac.
‘Any sign of the rest?’ the Maoist leader asked as his scout pulled the knife from the second soldier’s neck and let the twitching corpse drop to the ground.
‘No, Inkarri,’ the camouflaged man replied. ‘Their tracks go to the waterfall, but there’s nobody there. They must be behind it.’
Pachac nodded, then almost as an afterthought raised his weapon again. The automatic had been modified with a makeshift silencer, a two-litre plastic soda bottle stuffed with shredded newspaper and polythene bags taped to his pistol’s barrel. Smoke coiled from the hole in the end of the bottle where the bullet had seared through; the torn-up scraps inside had caught fire. He pulled the trigger, a second round smashing into the back of the wounded soldier’s skull. The shot was still loud, the improvised suppressor too crude to do more than muffle it – but, crucially, it didn’t sound like the sharp crack of gunfire. To anyone outside the immediate vicinity, it could be mistaken for a falling branch or other similar natural event. And the waterfall’s thunder masked it still further.
He pulled the smouldering bottle from the gun, then unclipped a walkie-talkie from his belt. ‘The way is clear. Move up.’
The luckless soldier
He also got a kick out of driving the huge, opulent vehicle, but kept that to himself.
The crowded trucks stopped behind the expedition’s vehicles, and Pachac’s men emerged. Like him, all were dirty, their clothes grubby and crumpled from a life spent in the rough and on the run. And like him, all were killers. Though they called themselves revolutionaries, to the Peruvian government the True Red Way were terrorists, and hunted as such.
But this time they were not working alone. Pachac ordered his men to head for the falls, then went to the Hummer. Inside was a high-tech field radio. He took the handset and spoke into it. ‘This is Pachac. We’re at the waterfall.’ He wasn’t concerned about the Peruvian authorities overhearing; the radio’s messages were encrypted.
‘Have you seen Wilde and the others?’ the reply came. The voice was clipped. British.
‘No, but they are definitely here. My contact in the village described the woman he saw. Red hair, in a ponytail – it must be her. We think they have found a way behind the waterfall.’ Pachac looked up at the thrum of an approaching helicopter. ‘Is that you I can hear?’
