Amid all the sharply cornered, square-shaped blocks he saw a very odd-looking stone.
It was a round stone.
Nash saw it, too, and the two of them bent to examine it more closely.
It was about two-and-a-half feet in diameter—about the width of a broadshouldered man—and it lay flush against the surface of the path. Indeed, it looked to Race as if it had been slotted perfectly into a cylindrical hole within the path itself, a hole that had been carved into the square-shaped blocks around it.
'I wonder what it was used for,' Nash said.
“Who is Romano?' Race asked, catching Nash completely off guard.
Race remembered Nash telling him earlier about the team of German assassins who had slaughtered those monks in their monastery in the Pyrenees—remembered the picture Nash had shown him of the leader of that group of assassins, a man named Heinrich Anistaze.
But Nash had never mentioned anyone named Romano.
Who was he and what was he doing down in the village?
More importantly, why was Nash running from him?
Nash looked up sharply at Race, his expression darkening.
'Professor, please…'
'Who is Romano?'
'Excuse me,' Nash said, brushing roughly past him, heading back toward the front of the temple.
Race just shook his head and followed at a distance. He came back around to the front of the temple and sat down on its wide stone steps.
He was so tired, his mind was feeling like mush. It was just after nine now, and after travelling for nearly twelve hours, he was feeling absolutely exhausted.
He leaned back against the steps of the temple and pulled his Army parka close around himself. A sudden, over whelming fatigue had come over him. He rested his head on the cold stone steps and shut his eyes.
As he did so, however, he heard a noise.
It was a strange noise. A sharp scratching sound.
It was quick, insistent—almost impatient—but oddly muffled. It seemed to be coming from within the stone steps beneath his head.
Race frowned.
It sounded like claws scraping against stone.
He sat up instantly and looked over at Nash and the others.
He thought about saying something to them about the scratching noise but he didn't get the chance to, because at that moment—at that precise moment—two hawk-like attack helicopters exploded through the veil of rain above the rock tower with their rotors roaring and their guns blazing, illuminating the tower top with powerful beams from their spotlights.
At exactly the same instant, deafening automatic gunfire rang out all around Race and a series of bullet holes smacked into the stone wall inches above his head.
Race dived for cover behind the corner of the temple and looked back just in time to see a small army of shadowy figures burst out from the treeline at the edge of the clearing, long tongues of fire spewing forth from the muzzles of their guns, dark wraiths in the night.
THIRD MACHINATION
Monday, January 4, 2110 hours
VILCAFOR AND SURROUNDS
VILCAFOR t
Race covered his head as another volley of automatic gun fire slammed into the stone wall next to him.
And then suddenly—shockingly—another source of gunfire exploded out from somewhere right above his head.
Somewhere very, very close.
Race opened his eyes and looked up and found himself staring directly into the spotlight of one of the choppers. He squeezed his eyes shut, saw spots, reeled from the blinding light.
As he shielded his eyes with his forearm, slowly his vision returned and it was then that he realized that the source of this new gunfire was someone standing over his own prone body, firing up at the light.
It was Van Lewen. His bodyguard.
Defending him with his M-16.
Just then, one of the attack helicopters roared by over- head—its rotor blades thumping loudly, its white spotlight playing over the tower's peak—and pummelled the muddy ground in front of Van Lewen with a burst from its side- mounted cannons, the incredible noise of the cannons drowning out the clatter of automatic gunfire on the tower top.
Frantic voices shouted over Race's earpiece: “—Can't see where they—”
