When Zeb and Chantal reached Ross, they slumped down, panting, behind the next boulder. 'Give me the gun,' Ross said. Zeb was only too happy to hand it over. She looked scared but Sister Chantal's face was white with fury. Just as she had been about to fulfil her vow and surrender her responsibility for the garden, everything she had striven for, every sacrifice she had made, had come to nothing.
Hackett rushed in, cradling his rifle. He crouched beside Ross. 'Is our visitor your dodgy priest?'
'Father General Leonardo Torino.'
'What's he doing here?' Sister Chantal hissed. 'How did he find this place?'
'We must have led him,' Ross said.
'But how?' demanded Hackett. 'I thought we'd lost him when Osvaldo killed his pirates on the river.'
'I don't know,' said Ross. 'What happened out there? They just appeared?'
'Out of nowhere and began firing.'
'If they'd wanted to shoot you, you'd have been hit by now,' said Mendoza, from deeper within the cave. 'They wanted to contain us here.'
Hackett turned and glanced round the cave. 'Is there another way out?' He pointed to the tunnel. 'Where does that lead?'
'You don't want to go up there,' said Ross. He thought of the exit across the magma pool behind the antechamber. 'There's a possible way out at the back of the cave but it's not a route I'd recommend.'
'What do we do?' said Zeb. 'Fight them?'
Hackett grimaced. 'Those soldiers are well armed. And judging by their backpacks they've brought a mini arsenal with them.'
'We can't just let them take over this place,' said Sister Chantal.
Torino's voice boomed out across the lake. 'Dr Kelly, you and your party are trespassing.' He held up a leather attache case. 'I have the required legal documentation to claim this land. We mean you no harm but these soldiers are here to enforce my rightful claim.' The priest approached the forbidden caves, flanked by the soldiers. 'Show yourself. You have nothing to fear from us.'
Yeah, right, thought Ross. As he looked at the men's hard faces and weapons, the exit across the magma pool seemed more appealing. As Torino neared them, Hackett raised his rifle and Ross fingered his Glock. It seemed so puny. This was madness. They couldn't win. They'd only be killed. They had to accept defeat. Behind him, he heard the metallic click of Mendoza's rifle bolt engaging and Ross remembered how he had dispatched the three bandits on the river.
'Put your guns down or I'll shoot,' Mendoza ordered.
'You're a bit hopeful,' said Hackett, peering out of the cave. 'And you'll have to speak a lot louder than that if you want them to hear you.'
'Not them. You.'
Ross turned. Mendoza's rifle was trained on his chest. 'What?'
'You can't be serious,' said Hackett.
'Drop your guns. Now.'
Hackett and Ross did as they were told. Mendoza stepped closer and kicked the guns behind him. 'I don't understand,' said Ross.
'You will.' Mendoza raised his voice. 'Father General, can you hear me?'
A pause. 'Is that you, Marco?'
'Yes. They're here, all accounted for. I'm sending them out.'
'Marco?' said a stunned Zeb. 'I thought your name was Osvaldo.'
He ignored her. 'Raise your hands and step out of the cave.'
'You made a vow,' said Sister Chantal, stunned.
After the initial shock, nausea swirled in Ross's gut. He couldn't believe what was happening. He had allowed this man, who had pretended to be his friend, to undermine his already impossible quest to save Lauren. Now, when against all the odds he had found what he sought, he was to be denied. All the anger, frustration and grief he had suppressed since the night of her injury erupted within him. He had never known rage like it. He leapt at Mendoza, lunging for the rifle, taking him by surprise.
'What have you done?' he roared, as he flung the man to the ground and wrestled him for the rifle. 'What the fuck have you done?' In his rage, he had no idea how long they fought, but when he had finally wrested the gun off Mendoza and pointed it at the man who had betrayed them, his whole body was trembling.
Then he glanced at Mendoza's right leg and froze.
Mendoza's jeans had ridden up over his boots, revealing a transmitter strapped to his shin. But it was the thick scar above his right ankle that stunned Ross and revealed the full extent of Mendoza and Torino's duplicity. He had seen that scar once before, through a haze of blood on the night Lauren had been injured, moments before she had been thrown from the landing and broken her neck.
Ross had never wanted to kill anyone before but in that instant, as he looked down at the man who had destroyed Lauren's life, he wanted to kill Mendoza – or whatever the bastard's name was. As his finger tightened on the trigger, a soldier rushed in behind him, rifle butt raised, and bludgeoned him across the head. Ross collapsed, the pain so intense he clamped his eyes shut to dull its white glare. A second blow turned the white to black.
59
As Feldwebel Fleischer and his soldiers dragged Kelly away and led his companions out of the caves at gunpoint, Torino smiled at the man who, for the last few weeks, had used the name Osvaldo Mendoza. At that moment, in the euphoria of triumph, he felt genuine affection for his half-brother. 'You did well, Marco.'
'Who are the soldiers, Father General?'
Torino waved a hand dismissively. 'Swiss Guard. The Holy Father sent them to protect me in the jungle. Now, tell me everything, Marco. What happened on the river before Iquitos? I was worried until I got your satellite text warning about La Boca del Inferno.'
'Things didn't go as planned. The three men I hired to frighten Kelly's party were supposed to flee when I fired a warning shot. Make me look a hero. But they were amateurs and got greedy.'
'Greedy?'
'Their leader, Raul, heard Kelly talking about the priest's book and assumed it led to treasure. He and the other two tried to get it for themselves.'
Torino frowned at his half-brother. 'You killed them?'
'I had no choice. Raul was going to shoot the nun and you said she might be valuable.' Bazin shrugged. 'In the end it made me more credible with Kelly and the others. And I had contingencies in place.'
Torino nodded. 'They worked well, Marco. Both the GPS transmitter on the boat and the one on your ankle worked like a charm. I was a little concerned, though, when the satellite signal began to break up. One of the soldiers had to track you over the last few days. But he says you left a good trail, especially through the sulphur caves.'
'Did you find the lost city?'
'What? No.' Torino had no interest in lost cities.
'There's gold there.'
Torino shook his head. 'This is more valuable than gold.' He turned back to Kelly and the others, who were being corralled by the soldiers into an area enclosed by rocks and trees. 'What can you tell me about this place? What have you learnt?'
'It's incredible. Just drinking the lake water and eating the plants can cure you.' Bazin paused for a moment, as if overcome. 'When we got to Iquitos I was getting excruciating headaches, one of the symptoms the clinic told me to watch for if the cancer spread to the brain. They were the worst I've known, even with powerful painkillers. I had them all day every day. Then I drank the water here and the next morning the pain had gone. I've never felt better. I'm cured. I know it.' He lowered his voice. 'Even the testicle the surgeons removed is growing back. The scar has virtually disappeared. It's like God laid his hand on me, washed away my sins and gave me a second
