Its windows shattered as one, blasting out into the sky in a million fragments, closely followed by a roaring, billowing, blasting ball of flames.
Debris shot out in every direction—doors, pieces of the Supernova, torn segments of wooden benches, sections of floor—all dispatched with such monumental force that some of them even managed to clear the rim of the crater, landing in the thick foliage that surrounded the giant earthen mine. The cracked pieces of the two thermonuclear warheads that had comprised the Supernova landed harm lessly on the floor of the crater—the hypergolic blast far too crude to split the atoms inside them.
In a moment, all that was left of the control booth was a blackened skeletal frame-charred beyond recognition, hanging loosely above the mineits walls gone, its win dows gone, its floor and ceiling also gone.
William Race was gone too.
SIXTH MACHINATION
Tuesday, January 5, 1910 hours
The two rivercraft motored slowly across the river's surface toward the abandoned mine.
One of the vessels was a long sleek speedboat, the other, a battered-looking little seaplane, with only one pontoon hanging down from its right wing.
The world was silent, the river calm.
Leonardo Van Lewen and Doogie Kennedy peered out from their respective cockpits, stared at the deserted mine in front of them. Slowly, they both brought their vessels in toward the riverbank, ran them gently aground.
They had heard the hypergolic explosion and now they saw the mine—the immense brown earthen crater— and the plume of black smoke rising from the charred box-shaped shell hanging in its centre.
There was no-one in sight.
Nothing stirred.
Whatever had happened here was well and truly oven The two Green Berets jumped out of their vessels and walked cautiously over to the collection of old warehouse- like buildings at the edge of the canyon, guns in hand.
Then, abruptly, Renee appeared from a door in one of the buildings. She saw them instantly, came over, and the three of them stood together at the edge of the canyon, staring out at the blackened remains of the control booth.
'What happened here?' Van Lewen asked.
'Ehrhardt used the idol to arm the Supernova. Then he set it to detonate,' Renee said, her voice sad and soft. 'Professor Race managed to stop the detonation sequence, but no sooner had he neutralised the Supernova than the whole cabin just exploded.'
Van Lewen turned to look out at the destroyed control booth, at the last place William Race had been seen alive.
'The device was in there?' he asked.
'Uh-huh,' Renee said. 'You wouldn't have believed it. He stopped the countdown. He was amazing.'
'What about the idol?'
'Destroyed in the blast, I presume, along with the Supernova and Professor Race.'
There came a rustling sound from their right.
Van Lewen and Doogie spun, guns up.
But when they turned, they saw nothing but trees and foliage.
And then suddenly a drum-like cylindrical object—a capsule of some sort, about the size of a regular garbage bindropped out of the upper branches of a tree and bounced softly onto the thick foliage about twenty yards away from them.
Van Lewen, Renee and Doogie all frowned, went over to it.
The capsule must have been inside the control booth when it blew, and been blasted all the way here by the concussion wave.
The warhead capsule rolled to a halt in the foliage, and ten, oddly, it began to wobble back and forth, as if there were someone inside it wriggling around, trying to get out—
Suddenly the lid of the capsule popped open and Race tumbled out of it and went sprawling butt-first onto the wet, muddy ground.
Renee's face broke out into a thousand-watt grin and she and the two Green Berets rushed over to where Race was lying in the foliage.
The professor lay on his back in the mud—soaking wet and exhausted beyond belief. He was still wearing his cap and his black kevlar breastplate.
He looked up at his three comrades as they came over, offered them a tired half-smile.
Then he pulled his right hand out from behind his back and placed an object on the ground in front of him.
Droplets of water glistened all over it, but there was no mistaking the shiny black-and-purple stone and the fierce features of the rapa's head that had been carved into it.
It was the idol.
The Goose flew through the air, soaring gracefully over the Amazon rainforest.
