Temple

Walter Chambers stared wide-eyed and stunned at the squad of masked commandos surrounding them. Gaby Lopez just eyed them all coolly.

Van Lewen and Race were shoved alongside the others.

Race gazed fearfully at the black-clad soldiers, stared at their cold black hockey masks. He had seen masks like that before. South American riot police wore them during extremely violent protests, to protect their faces against rocks and other hurled objects.

He counted about twenty soldiers in total.

Standing in the darkness behind the circle of commandos, however, was another group of people—men and women. This new group of people were not dressed in uniforms or masks. They wore civilian clothes, hiking clothes not unlike Lauren's.

Scientists, Race thought. German scientists who had come here in search of the thyrium idol.

He glanced over at the portal, at the huge boulder wedged inside its doorway. Wires protruded from every side of it—the soft-detonating C-2 explosives.

Just then, one of the commandos stepped forward and reached up to remove his black hockey mask.

Race tensed with anticipation—waited to see the cold hard features of Heinrich Anistaze, the former Stasi agent who had led the squad of German assassins in the bloody slaughter at that monastery.

The commando removed his mask.

Race frowned. He didn't recognise him.

It wasn't Anistaze.

Rather, he was a stout, older man, with a round, creased face and a bushy grey moustache.

Race wasn't sure whether to be relieved or terrified.

The German leader didn't say a word as he brushed roughly past Race and crouched down in front of the portal.

He examined the assorted wires leading out from the boulder and snorted. Then he dropped the cables and walked over to Frank Nash.

He stared imperiously down his nose at the retired Army colonel, evaluating him, appraising him.

And then suddenly he spun around and barked an order to his troops. “Feldwebel Dietrich, bringen She she in das Dorf und sperren She she ein! Hauptmann von Dirksen, bereiten She alles vor um den Tempel zu offnen.'

Race translated the words in his head: 'Sergeant Dietrich, take them to the village and lock them up. Captain Von Dirksen, prepare to open the temple.'

Led by a German sergeant named Dietrich and surrounded by six of the masked German commandos, the ten Americans were marched unceremoniously back across the rope bridge and down the spiralling pathway.

When they came to the bottom of the path, they were directed through the narrow fissure in the plateau that led back to the riverside path. After about twenty minutes of walking, they arrived back at the village.

But the village had changed.

Two enormous halogen floodlights illuminated the main street, bathing it in artificial light. The two Apache helicopters that Race had seen up on the tower top now sat at rest in the middle of the street. About a dozen German troops stood at the river's edge, staring out at the river.

Race followed their gaze and saw his team's battered Hueys resting up against the edge of the riverbank. When seen alongside the two sleek Apaches, Frank Nash's Hueys seemed old and clunky.

It was then that Race saw what the German commandos were really looking at.

It lay beyond the two Hueys, resting on the river's surface, cloaked in the steadily falling night rain.

A seaplane.

But this was no ordinary seaplane. It must have had a wingspan of at least two hundred feet. And its under° belly—that part of it that rested majestically in the water—was absolutely enormous, easily larger than the main body of the Hercules that had flown Race and the others into Peru. Four turbojet engines were slung underneath its massive wings, while two bulbous pontoons stretched down from each wing, touching the water's surface, stabilising the aircraft.

It was an Antonov An-111 Albatross, the largest air-capable seaplane in the world.

The big plane was rotating slowly on the river's surface as Race and the others emerged from the riverside path led by the German sergeant, Dietrich. It was reversing in toward the riverbank.

No sooner had it run aground in the soft mud than a loading ramp began to lower from its hindquarters.

As soon as the ramp touched dry land, two vehicles rumbled out from within the giant plane—-one eight-wheeled all-terrain vehicle that looked like a tank on wheels, and one hard-topped Humvee.

The two armoured vehicles skidded to a stop in the middle of the main street. Race and the others were led toward them. As they arrived at the two cars, Race saw two more German commandos shoving Tex Reichart and Doogie Kennedy down the street toward them.

'Gentlemen,' Dietrich said to the other commandos in German. 'Put the soldiers and the government men in the ATV under restraints. Throw the others in the Humvee.

Lock them inside, and then disable both vehicles.'

Nash, Copeland and the six Green Berets were all put inside the big tank-like all-terrain vehicle. Race, Lauren, Lopez and Chambers were shoved inside the Humvee.