Temple

The three of them burst out onto the riverside path to be met by a thin morning mist, but they didn't stop to admire it. They just kept moving forward, heading toward Vilcafor and the thumping sound of the choppers.

Another couple of minutes and they reached the moat on the western side of the village.

And they stopped.

Stopped dead in their tracks.

Before them—standing in the middle of Vilcafor, with their hands clasped behind their heads and the soft mist curling around their feet—stood a group of about a dozen men and women. They all stood motionless, oblivious to the whump-whump-whump of rotors that filled the helicopter morning air.

A couple of them were Navy SEALs. They were dressed in full combat attire. But they weren't holding any guns.

Others wore blue Navy uniforms. Others still wore ordinary civilian clothing—the DARPA scientists.

And then Nash saw their helicopter. It was standing behind the small crowd of people.

A lone Super Stallion.

The third Navy chopper.

It sat in the centre of the village, silent, motionless, its seven rotor blades still. Nash saw the word 'NAVY' plastered across its side in bold white lettering.

And then he looked upwards, searching for the source of the loud whurnping sound that filled the air above the village.

And he saw them.

Saw the two Army helicopters—the Comanche and the Black Hawk I]—that he had sent down from the upper village.

They were hovering over Vilcafor, with their twin-barrelled Gatling guns and their fearsome-looking missile pods aimed squarely at the hapless Navy-DARPA team on the ground.

Race and the others emerged from the riverside path a couple of minutes later.

By the time they arrived at the main street of Vilcafor, the two Army choppers had landed and Nash was strutting around like a peacock in front of the Navy men, holding the gleaming idol in one hand and a silver SIG-Sauer pistol in the other.

The crews of the Army choppersMsix men in all, two from the Comanche, four from the Black Hawk—held M16s levelled at the Navy-DARPA crowd.

'Ah, Professor Race, nice of you to join us,' Nash said as Race and the others stepped out onto the main street of the village, staring at the odd mix of Navy men and civilians standing with their hands clasped behind their heads.

Race didn't answer Nash. His eyes just swept over the dozen or so Navy people, searching for someone.

He figured if they were Romano's team, the real Supernova team, then maybe…

He froze.

He saw him.

Saw a man, a civilian, standing among the group of Navy men, dressed in ordinary hiking clothes and boots. Despite the fact that he hadn't seen him in almost ten years, Race recognised the dark eyebrows and the stooped shoulders instantly.

He was looking at his brother.

'Marty…' Race breathed.

'Professor Race—' Nash said.

Race ignored him as he strode over to his brother. They stood before each other—no embrace—two brothers but two vastly different men.

For one thing Race was a mess. While he was covered in mud and stank of monkey urine, Marty was perfectly groomed, his clothes pristine clean. He stared wide-eyed at Race—at his filthy clothes, at his battered, mud-stained cap—as if he was the creature from the Black Lagoon.

Marty was shorter than Race, stockier. And while Race always wore a very open, easy expression, Marty's face was perpetually set in a deathly serious frown.

'Will…' Marty said.

“ 'Marty, I'm sorry. I didn't know. They tricked me into coming along. They said that they were with DARPA and that they knew you and that—'

And then, abruptly, Race cut himself off as he saw another member of the Navy team whom he recognised.

He frowned.

It was Ed Devereux.

Devereux was a short, bespectacled black man, and at forty-one was one of the most highly-regarded ancient lan guages professors at Harvard. Some said he was the best Latin scholar in the world. At the moment, he stood silently in the line of Navy and DARPA people, holding a large leather-bound book under his arm. Race guessed it was the Navy's copy of the manuscript.

It was then that Race remembered meeting Frank Nash in his own office two days ago, at the very beginning of all this—remembered recommending to Nash that he take Devereux on the mission instead of himself since the Harvard professor was much better at medieval Latin than he was.

But now.., now Race knew why Nash had insisted on taking him and not Devereux.

It was because Devereux had already been taken. By the real DARPA team.

'You'll never get out of this alive, Nash,' one of the older Navy-DARPA men said. He had a completely bald head and the bearing of a man in charge—Doctor Julius Romano.

'Why do you say that?” Nash said.

'The Armed Services Committee will hear about this,'

Romano said. 'The Supernova is a Navy project. You have no business being here.'

'The Supernova ceased to be a Navy project the moment it was stolen from DARPA headquarters two days ago,' Nash said. 'Which means that now the Army is the only armed force in the United States with a Supernova in its possession.'