“Wait!”
Riley grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “It’s a boobytrap. Check out the last dude who tried to get in here.”
Now she saw it. A sun-bleached skeleton with vines twisting out of its eye sockets stared back at her from beside the wall. She gasped and staggered back into the Australian’s arms.
“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re okay.”
“Whoa,” Charlie said. “Looks like we’re not the first to try and get in this place. Check that guy out!”
“So we’re not the first to find this place,” Selena said coolly. “But judging by the state of these bones it looks we might be the first in a very long time.”
Diana looked nervously at the skeleton and chewed her lip. “What killed him?”
Acosta said, “There’s no sign of any bone damage. No broken skull or evidence of any hacking or stab wounds. I’d say poison, maybe from a dart.”
“Then we have to be careful.” Decker scanned the surrounding area for anywhere likely to contain hidden blowpipes. “The good news is we haven’t set anything off yet.”
“Yet,” Charlie said. “Which isn’t that reassuring when you stop to think about it.”
Riley was also looking into the trees. “Not necessarily a fixed weapon though. Might have been fired from a mobile pipe by a warrior or someone charged with protecting this place.”
“You think that person might still be alive?” Diana asked.
“Not unless he’s five hundred years old,” Selena said, staring at the skeleton. “So let’s just pull ourselves together and get on with it. It’ll be night soon and we need to get going. Now, get those bones out the way and let me get into the burial chamber!”
“That’s my girl,” Atticus said proudly. “Never lets anything get in her way. Not even a skeleton.”
As she elbowed past him, Decker gave her a doubtful glance. “I like a woman with ambition, but this is ridiculous. Have you no respect for the dead?”
“I’m an archaeologist, Mitch! I spend most of my life around very dead people!”
He shrugged. “When you put it like that…”
Selena turned the handle, pushed open the door and led the way inside the passageway. She went carefully, raising her flashlight and illuminating the damp, stony interior. Angling the beam upwards, she saw the tunnel’s ceiling had been reinforced with broad slabs of rocks. “Doesn’t look too safe, but if it’s been holding the place together for the last five hundred years, I guess nothing’s going to change today.”
“I hope you’re right,” Decker said, joining her inside the tunnel and sweeping his own flashlight across the rock ceiling. “Looks like sandstone. Each of those rocks must weigh at least a thousand pounds. If one of them comes down on any of us, it’s Goodnight Vienna.”
“We can talk about this later,” Charlie said. “I think the armed thugs just turned up!”
Decker’s shoulders sloped and he sighed. “Are you kidding me?”
Charlie was at the back of the line, still outside with Diana and Acosta. He turned and looked off to his right, ducking down a little to keep his head down. “No jokes. Several men, all heavily armed.”
“They must have parked out of sight,” Selena said.
Decker said, “They were waiting for us to show them the way inside, damn it!”
“But how could they know?” Atticus asked.
“Don’t ask me difficult questions at this time of the day,” Decker growled. “Never do that.”
“Oh, bugger!” Charlie said. “I think they saw me!”
Then the firing started – tracer bullets zipped through the gathering tropical dusk and pinged off the stonework around the entrance.
“Everyone get in here!” Decker yelled. “Now!”
“We don’t even know where it leads!” Diana said.
“It’s our only chance,” Decker said. “And I know where those bullets lead!”
Atticus nodded. “I agree. We must have faith in Montesino, Diana. If he says there is a hidden site here, then there must be. He also said there were two entrances to the burial chamber, remember? When we get inside we can find what we need and use the other one to get away.”
“That’s a plan, then!” Decker said, rolling his eyes. “Maybe we could stop talking now?”
Riley drew a Browning automatic from his holster. Charlie’s weapon was a Glock, which he now drew and gripped confidently in his hand. “You guys go on ahead and find the chamber,” the Australian said. “Me and Charlie will keep these pricks out of your hair for a bit.”
Decker and Selena looked at one another, each already knowing what the other was thinking.
“Fine,” she said at last. “But don’t do anything stupid like getting yourselves killed!”
“I’m not planning on it!” Riley said. “What about you, Charlie?”
“Not today, no.”
Riley caught sight of some movement outside the passageway and turned to see a man crouch-walking down the path they had cleared, slowly closing on their position. He was carrying what looked like an M249 light machine gun. Riley levelled his gun and took a shot at him, ripping a bullet into his thigh and sending him crashing to the jungle floor, shrieking and screaming and clutching at his wrecked leg.
He turned back to the others. “What are you waiting for, losers? Get on with it! Get to the chamber!”
The crew looked to Decker, and he gave a casual shrug. “I guess the guy can shoot straight enough to keep us safe. Let’s go!”
10
Decker was in the lead now, pounding down the tunnel with his flashlight gripped in his hand and desperately praying there really was a way through at the other end of the chamber. Riley and Charlie were still at the entrance, returning fire on the attackers as Selena, Diana, Atticus and Acosta followed the American into the gloom.
“You find anything down there, Mitch?” Riley shouted. He
