Above, the two soldiers reached the broken wall and looked into the jungle. Birds whirled madly through the branches, leaves dropping like green snowflakes from the still shaking tree. No sign of the escaped prisoner.
Stikes pushed them aside. ‘Give me that!’ he barked, snatching the AK from one of the men. He aimed it into the tree, seeing no sign of his former subordinate, then down at the ground.
Movement in the bushes—
Stikes opened fire as Eddie scrambled for cover. Bullets thunked into the tree, bark and splinters spitting from each impact. But his target was now hunched against the other side of the trunk, shielded by over two feet of wood. Stikes fired the last rounds in the magazine, then irritably thrust the AK into its owner’s hands. ‘Get back to Callas.’
The other soldier still had his weapon fixed on the tree. ‘We can climb down and get him.’
‘No,’ Stikes said. ‘We need to get the sun disc out of here. Come on.’ He headed back down the alley, retrieving his Jericho. The soldiers followed.
Eddie sat breathlessly behind the tree, wondering if his pursuers had their weapons trained on his hiding place, waiting for him to emerge. After a minute, he risked a peek. Nobody above. They had gone.
Aching, he stood, trying to work out the quickest way to get back into the ruins. Scaling the cliff was out; from here, he would have to go almost halfway round the entire perimeter. He limped away, hearing the rumble of the helicopter drawing closer to the lost city.
‘Did you kill him?’ Callas called as Stikes and the soldiers returned to the plaza.
‘No. He got away,’ the Englishman replied.
‘You let him escape?’
‘He won’t go far, not as long as we have them.’ Stikes gestured at the prisoners, who apart from the wounded Becker had been forced back to work. ‘He’ll try to rescue them. I’d advise that we leave before then.’
A faintly dismissive sneer crossed Callas’s lips. ‘You’re afraid of him?’
‘Not in the slightest,’ Stikes snapped, wiping the blood from his mouth. ‘But if we leave him behind, there are only two towns he can reach from here – and you can have men waiting for him at both.’ He regarded the blood- spattered sun disc, which had been lifted back upright on the cart. ‘How long before the chopper can pick it up?’
‘A few minutes.’
‘Good. Send two men to guard the trucks – he might try to hijack or sabotage them. The rest, tell them to help load the sun disc as quickly as they can. The moment it leaves the ground, we’ll evacuate.’
The Venezuelan stiffened slightly at being given orders by his employee, but nevertheless called out instructions. Two of his men ran for the main gate, the others doing what they could to speed the golden disc’s laborious progress. Before long, it reached the waiting crate; a few more minutes of straining, and it was safely in the container. By now, the Mil was hovering directly over the clearing, lowering cables. Soldiers attached the steel lines to the crate as the others forced the prisoners back at gunpoint. Another minute, and a man signalled to Callas that it was ready.
‘Take it up!’ the general shouted impatiently, waving to the helicopter.
The Mi-17 increased power to full, engines screaming as they took the extra load. The crate lurched from the ground. For a moment it seemed as though it would get no higher, swaying pendulously a few inches above the flagstones; then it slowly began to rise.
Callas watched in satisfaction as the helicopter lifted its precious cargo higher. The crate cleared the trees, then the Mil turned lethargically northwest, heading for the military base. Aircraft and cargo disappeared from view behind the jungle canopy.
It was now Stikes’s turn to be impatient. ‘Time to go,’ he said. His gaze fell on the prisoners. ‘What about them?’
‘We take them with us,’ said Callas. ‘I don’t want anyone to know we were here.’
‘All the bullet holes you’ve left in the place might give it away,’ Nina said scathingly. ‘And all the gear you’ve left behind - as well as Flat Stanley there.’ She nodded towards the gory spot where the luckless soldier had been squashed beneath the sun disc.
‘I will send more men to collect them later,’ the general replied as he started for the gate, signalling his men to bring the explorers. Becker was half carried, half dragged by two soldiers. ‘And a bullet hole is a bullet hole. Anyone could have made them at any time. But the bodies of archaeologists known to be in the country on a particular date . . . that would be harder to explain if they were found here.’ A sadistic hardness entered his voice. ‘But where you are going, you will never be found.’
Despite her outward defiance, a chill of fear ran through Nina’s soul.
Eddie climbed back up the outer wall where he had first entered the city, warily surveying the buildings below before scrambling down the ruined stairway and heading for the plaza. He was on full alert, certain that Callas’s men would be searching for him - which made the absence of any guards all the more disconcerting as he crept through the alleys.
He peered over a wall at the plaza. Nobody was there. The soldiers, Callas and Stikes were gone. So were Nina and the other expedition members.
And the sun disc.
Callas had what he came for – the golden god-image had been taken away by the helicopter. He vaulted the wall and hurried across the plaza. Tracks in the dirt led to the main gate - and the smaller prints of women’s boots amongst them showed that Nina, Macy and Loretta were still alive. Callas presumably had some reason for not wanting their bodies to be found at Paititi, but Eddie was certain that he still intended to kill them. He would be taking them somewhere he could be sure they wouldn’t be found. Where?
The military base. A restricted area in the depths of the jungle, what few visitors it might get deterred by barbed wire and bullets. Once Nina and the others entered, they would never leave.
