curse.’
Alex nodded slowly. ‘A gift.’ He kept his eyes on the floor.
Hammerson watched him for a second longer. ‘Hunter: focus.’ Alex nodded his acknowledgment and Hammerson went on. ‘You and the team need to be terrain ready. We’ve got some new kit for you. Go and check on the team, then report back at …’ He looked at his watch; it was just after midday. ‘Fifteen hundred.’ He handed Alex the folder and the computer disc. ‘See if there’s anything else you can learn. Dismissed.’
‘Fifteen hundred, confirmed.’
Alex saluted and went out the door. He still hadn’t looked his commanding officer in the eye. Hammerson wondered what Alex was thinking. After a few seconds, he lifted the phone and pressed one of the speed-dial numbers. He was immediately connected to USSTRATCOM’s Research and Development division.
‘I’ll be sending four down for some light suits, and I’ll also want an ice gun prepped.’ Hammerson listened for a few seconds, his teeth grinding as he looked at the damage to his desk. ‘Son, I’m not in a negotiating mood right now. Just have a portable unit ready for demonstration. Out.’
He hung up without a goodbye, and sat with his hand on the phone for another second. He lifted the receiver again and spoke softly. ‘Have First Lieutenant Samuel Reid come to my office.’
He sat staring ahead for a few moments before leaning back in his chair and groaning. ‘Hunter’s not going to thank me for this.’
FIVE
Ramon Reyes brought his blade down again. He and his cousin, Hector, had been struggling through the Paraguayan jungle’s mad tangle of vegetation, slashing with heavy machetes to clear the wrist-thick vines that blocked their path. Their soiled T-shirts and mud-streaked pants were already wet with perspiration, and both had plant debris and insects stuck in the streaks of sweat that ran down their faces.
Ramon stopped to lean against a tree and wondered whether his large cousin was as fatigued as he was. The drilling shutdown had left the men bored, and while most of them were content to play cards, listen to football on radios, or argue, Hector had seen it as an opportunity to explore — he always liked to explore.
He hadn’t told Ramon what he was looking for, but each afternoon, Hector had dragged him along a new quadrant of his compass, and together they had hacked for hours out, and just as many back; each time returning with little more than strained shoulders, and new and more painful insect bites.
Ramon muttered under his breath. Ever since they were small boys, he had done what his bigger and older cousin had told him. One day it would get him into trouble, for sure.
‘How much further?’ Ramon called now, blowing sweat from his upper lip. ‘I’m tired.’
Hector stopped chopping vines and turned to shrug. He pulled a canteen from his rear pocket, unscrewed it, swirled some of the brackish water around his mouth and spat it out. ‘Hour, maybe more.’ He looked at his cousin from under lowered brows. ‘You have somewhere you need to be, Ramon?’
Ramon shrugged in return. ‘Just mindful of the evening coming.’
Hector replaced his canteen and withdrew a small brass compass, flipped its lid up, swivelled on his heel for a few seconds until he must have felt he had his bearings, then snapped the lid closed. He looked above his head, obviously seeing what Ramon had — the setting sun was turning the jungle a burnt orange as it fell towards the horizon. Twilight’s purple wave would catch them soon, along with the mosquitoes.
He looked back at Ramon, and then dipped his hands into his front pockets, replacing the compass in one, and pulling a small plastic bottle from another. He uncapped it and tapped a small mound of white powder onto the back of his hand. He pushed his hand under his cousin’s nose. ‘Sniff. C’mon — for energy.’
Many of the men in the camp used cocaine. Some for fun, others to relieve boredom, and some, like his cousin, to be able to keep working long after others had given up. Ramon shrugged and inhaled hard through his nose — a punch of light almost kicked his head backwards. Immediately he felt warm, hot, horny … and less fatigued. He smiled, and then laughed.
Hector licked the remains from the back of his hand, and smiled back. ‘Okay, just a few more miles.
More hacking, more bites, and then Hector vanished from Ramon’s sight. When Ramon caught up, he found his cousin standing in a clearing, hands on his hips, sucking in long breaths and staring in awe at the sight before him.
‘
A giant banyan tree held in its titanic embrace an old stone building that looked like a church. The tree’s muscular roots had grown over most of the building, and flowed down from its peripheral limbs to create a hanging curtain effect over the back and sides of the stone structure. The wooden doors must have rotted away long ago, but a black opening was just visible at the top of a few stone steps behind the hanging root screen. Along the ground a long crack zigzagged across the dry clearing towards the building, split the steps, and continued on up in through the dark aperture.
‘The lost church of the Jesuits — it must be,’ said Hector. Trancelike, he walked slowly forward in the twilight. ‘At last, we have some luck.’
‘It cannot be possible; it’s just a myth,’ Ramon whispered.
All Latin Americans knew the legend of the lost Church of the Jesuits. It was believed that after the fall of Vilcabamba, the last hidden city of the Incan empire, the ruler, Tupac Amaru, had ordered his people to carry the last treasures of his empire off into the jungle so that the Gold-Eaters — the Incan name for the Spanish invaders — could never feast on his wealth.
Ramon raked his mind for more of the ancient story. According to the legend, the Incan gold and jewels had been moved around for decades, before being either buried or taken in and finally being hidden, in the 1600s, by some priests in the basement of their church. Like most of the Jesuits that marched into the jungle between 1600 and 1750, they disappeared, along with their church, or any record of where it might have been. The missing church was rumoured to contain an underground vault that held something so fantastic; it would surely outshine even the boy king’s tomb in Egypt.
Hector marched forward quickly, and Ramon had to scamper to keep up with his larger cousin’s longer strides. Getting behind the structure was impossible, as the enormous trunk of the tree engulfed the back of the church and extended deep into the thick jungle. It seemed it was the only thing that dared put its roots down into the unusually dry soil around the ruined structure.
Both men threaded their way through the hanging tree roots, ducking below spiderwebs that, judging by the size of the dried corpses hanging within them, had been built by creatures strong enough to capture birds and small animals. Eventually they stood before the black doorway. Hector reached out with his long-bladed machete to drag aside a particularly thick web. As he did so, something scuttled away from his blade into the tangle of roots above the door. Ramon hoped it was a rat; the thought of a fist-sized spider dropping onto his neck made his stomach quiver.
‘Look at this.’ Hector was pointing at some carved writing beside the door. ‘It says something about gold, I think …
Ramon shook his head and dusted the carving with his fingers. ‘I think it is
His smile evaporated when Hector motioned with one hand for him to go first into the dark hole. He looked left and right, trying to think of an excuse, but none came to him. His heartbeat, already speeded up from the powder Hector had given him, leapt again. Ramon reached inside his shirt and pulled free a small gold crucifix on a slim chain. He held the sweat-slicked cross to his lips for a second, then looked quickly at Hector, who nodded and tilted his head towards the opening. Ramon hesitated a moment before ducking under the web-matted vines.
‘Give me the flashlight,’ he said. ‘It is too dark; I can’t see.’
Hector grunted impatiently, sheathed his machete and pulled free the medium-sized axe hanging from his
