Temple (37 page)

363
in an instant, the gigantic wall of white consumed the helipad
barge and the Pibbers, detonating them on contact before swallowing
them whole and continuing on its voracious charge forward
Its next target was the command boat Like a lumbering rhino trying
to outrun a runaway Mack truck, the massive catamaran powered
forward in a desperate attempt to get
clear of the oncoming wall of searing-hot energy.
But the blast was just too fast, too powerful
As it had done with the barge and the Pibbers before it, the
expanding wall of light just reached out and snatched the command
boat in its clutches, yanking it into its mass, obliterating the
enormous craft in a single fiery instant.
And then as quickly as it had risen, the massive wall of light
began to subside and dissipate. Soon it lost all of its forward
momentum and sank back into the distance,
“van Lewen took a final look back at the singed and smok ing jungle
river behind him. He saw a wispy black smoke cloud rising into the
sky above the treetops—but it was bro ken up quickly by the sheets
of subtropical rain that had just begun to fall.
It was then, however, that he looked about himself and realised
that his Scarab and Doogie's Goose were the only vessels left on
the river.
• In fact, the only other remnant of the chase just concluded was a
small white speck disappearing over the trees ahead of them.
The white Bell Jet Ranger helicopter.
FIFTH MACHINATION
Tuesday, January 5, 1815 hours
THE MADRE DE DiOS GOLDMiNE
TOP VIEW
Path
Refuse Pit
Foliage Foliage
CROSSECTiON
Bat-house O Control Booth Suspenston
'Who are you!' Odilo Ehrhardt demanded in Gefman slapping Ren6e
hard across her face.
“I told you!' she yelled back at him. 'My name is Ren6e Becker and
I am a special agent with the Bundes Kiminal Amt;'
The white helicopter was now flying low over the river, heading
east. Race and Ren6e sat in the rear compartment, handcuffed.
Before them sat Ehrhardt, Anistaze and Crater- face. A lone pilot
was up front flying the chopper.
Ehrhardt turned to face Race. 'So who, then, are you?'
JHe's American—' Ren6e said.
Ehrhardt hit her again. Hard.
'I wasn't addressing you.' He turned back to RaCe. 'Now, who are
you? FBI? Or are you Navy? A SEAL team, perhap—-
hell, you must be SEALs to take out our boats like thatd 'We're
DARPA,' Race said.
Ehrhardt frowned. Then he began to chuckle softly.
'No, you're not,' he said, leaning fofward sticking his
found fleshy face right in front of Races.
Race thought he was going to be sick.
Ehrhardt was disgusting, vile—obese to the point of being
grotesque, reeking of body odour and possessed of an evil moonlike
face. A thin string of saliva smacked between his lips when he
spoke and his breath smelled like hotseshit.
'I'm working with Doctor Frank Nash,' Race aid, trying desperately
to remain calm. 'He's a retired Army colonel working with the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in conjunction with
members of the United States y.'
qrank Nash @h?' Ehrhardt said, breathing his foul, ran cid breath
all over Race's face.
i -
'That's r ght,
'And who, then, might you be Little Man Trying To Be So Bray0?' he
said, as he lifted Race's Yankees Cap off his head.
'My name is William Race/Race said; grabbing his cap with his
cuffed hands. 'I'm a ptofesso of ancient languages at NOW York
University.'
'An/ Ehrhardt said, nodding, 'SO you are the one they bt0ught along
to translate the manuseipt. Very good, very good; Before I have you
killed, Miste William Race, profes sor Of ancient languages at New
Yok University, I would like to correct a eel-rain misimpession
that you appear to posseSs.
And what is that?'
'Fank Nash is hot with DARPA.'
'What?; Race saiG frowning.
;And he most e0vtainiy is not a retired Army colonel, 0ither. On
the contrary, he is most active indeed; For your information,
Coloriei Francis K. Nash is the head of the
Uriited States Atinj¢'s Special Projects Onit,'
'What?'
Race didn't got it Why would Nash say he was DARPA when in fact ho
want?
Ah-ha!' Ehrhadt Cackled, clapping his hands, 'I love to see the
look of betrayal on a man's face just bofOre he is about to
die,'
IV.ace was thoroughly confused now,
He didn't know what to think
Even if Nash Wasn;t with DARPA what did it matter?
The Supernova was an Army project and Nash was with
Army Speeiai Projects,
Unless,..
Ehfhafdt turned to Anistaze, 'So, The AmeriCan Army is here too,
What do you say about that?'
'Th@fe must be another mole/Anista.e said, ignoring Race and Ren6e
entirely.
'i DA -IA?' Ehrhardt said.
Anistaze nodded. 'We knOw of the link to the Ameri4ml terrorist
group, but we didn't know about this—-'
'Bah!' Ehrhardt waved his hand dismissiveiy. 'It i of importance
now, because it is we who have the idol;'
'What do you hope to achieve by all this?' Ren6e asked defianfl3a
'Do you want to destroy the world?'
Ehrhardt smiled at her indulgently. 'i do not Warit to destroy the
world, Fraulein Becket. Far from it. i want to rebuild Re-order it,
the way it should be.'
'With what? One hundred billion dollars, i that what this is all
about? Money?'
'My dear Fraulein Becker is that the limit of you vision?
Money. This is not about moneY. It is about what money cam do. One
hundred billion dollars—bah—it is nothing, it is but a means to an
end.'
'And what is the end?'
Ehrhardt's eyes narrowed, 'One hundred billion dillas
will buy me a new world;'
'A new world?'
'Brave Fraulein Becket, what do you think i want? A nw country,
perhaps? To pursue the tired old Nazi goal Of etab= lishing an
Aryan nation With the Herrenvoik at the head and the untermenschen
beneath them? Bah[”
'What is it that you want, then? How can you buy you self a new
world?'
'By dumping one hundred billion U.S. doiiars on world
financial markets at the bargain price of one cent apiece.'
'What?' Ren6e said.
'The American economy is in a most precarious situation, the most
precarious situation it has found itself in in fifty years.
Accumulated foreign debt stands at approximately eight-hundred and
thirty billion dollars, gross badget deficits occur annually. But
what the United States depen .6s on through all of this is a robust
currency With which it will repay its debts in the future.
'But if the value of that currency were to fall dramatical!y, say,
to levels one-quarter of its current strength, theia the United
States would be unable to repay those debts
370
'It would be bankrupt, its dollar worthless. What i intend to do
with my hundred billion dollars is cripple the American
economy.'
Ehrhardt's eyes gleamed as he raved 'Since the SeCond World War
this world has been an American world—has been force-fed American
culture, made to endure American trade dominance and the ruthless
policy of economic slavery conducted and condoned by the American
government.
i have determined that the dumping of One hundred billion U.S.
dollars on world markets would be enough to cripple the American
dollar beyond recoverable limits. American Corporations will be
worth nothing. The American people Will not have the purchasing
power to buy anything, because their currency will not be worth the
paper it's written on. The United States will become the worids
beggar and the world will start anew. That is What i am doing
Fraulein Becker. I am buying myself a new world.'
Race couldn't believe what he was learing.
'You can't possibly be serious—' he said.
'No?' Ehrhardt said. 'Look at George Soros. in 1997 the Prime
Minister of Malaysia publicly blamed Soros fo caus ing the Asian
economic crisis by dumping vast sums of Asian currencies. And this
was one man—-one man—and he didn't even have a tenth of the wealth
that I am willing to utilise. But then, of course, i am going after
a much bigger fish/
'What if they won't give you the money?' Ren6e said;
'They will. Because I am the only man on earth who pos=
sesses an operational Supernova.'
'But what if they don't?'
'Then I will detonate the device,' Ehthardt said simply.
The Nazi general turned in his seat and peered out through the
forward windshield of the chopper. Race and Ren6e followed his
gaze.
A truly spectacular sight met them
They saw the Amazon rainforest stretching away to the horizon, a
vast blanket of limitless unending green.
In the near distance, however, there Was a break in the
blanket of green—an ehOrnOuS brown cone-shaped crater buried in the
earth.
It was situated right On the river, and it was fib(3iuteiy
massive—at least half mile in diameter. Long gentisiop ing
truck-trails Wound their way down to the lottom of hhe gigantic
earthen crater, Huge floodiight tood on its fim illuminating it
like a football stadium in the dLrn early; evening light.
In the centre of the crater, suspended high above it by a web of
tightly-stretched cables, was a iirg white shaped cabin—a contsol
booth of some soft—poessed of wide oblong windows on all four of
its side.
The only route of access to the control booth wab via long drooping
suspension b'idges that spanned th from opposite ends—ffo the north
and the South; Ea4h bridge was at least fous hundred yards long
and
structed of thick steel cabies;
It was the goidmine;
The Madre de Dios goidtnirie;
The Bell Jet Ranger helicopter landed on a pontoon- mounted helipad
that floated on the river's surface not far from the edge of the
massive open-cut mine.
The mine itself lay directly to the south of the Alto Pufus River,
and it was connected to it by a collection of decrepit old
buildings—three hulking warehouse-like structures that were
dreadfully worn with age.
The largest of the three buildings jutted out owe the river,
resting on stiits A series of wide gatagesyle doos lined its
length, enabling boats and seaplanes to be stored inside it. In
years gone by, Race guesseG this must have been -where the mg
company's boats and planes had come to be loaded up with
gol&
Today, however, it performed a different task
It allowed the Nazis to hide their atrnada of boaCg; heii: copters
and seaplanes from the prying eyes of ArneiCa's spy
satellites.
No sooner had the chopper landed on the floating heii- pad than the
pilot hit a switch;
Immediately, the rusty garage doo to the heiicopters left opened
and the square pontoon on which the Chopper sat began to be pulled
aCross the wate toward it by some underwater cable mechanism.
Race looked up as the Chopper was pulled slowly inside the big
WarehoUse.
A second later the sky above him abruptly disappeared, replaced by
the interior of the warehouses roof—a complex
latticework of ruSting steel ders and dark wooden Cro; beams.
Race stared at the warehouse all around him.
It was positively huge an enormOUs enclosed space, about the size
of an aeroplane hangar—the whole cavernous space illuminated by
cone-shaped halogen lights that were attached to the ceiling's
girders;
The 'floor' of the warehouse, however, was quite unusual. It was
the river's surface. A long finger-like deck- way stretched out
over the water, branching out at about a dozen intervals into
smaller decks that an at right angles to it—mooring slots for the
boats and planes that came to the mine to load up with gold.
A long, wide conveyor belt ran at ground level for the length of
the central deckway. It rose out of a iatge square hole in the wall
at the landward end of the hangar and looped back at the far end of
the deckway.
Race guessed that the landward end of the conveyo belt was to be
found somewhere deep within the coneshaped mine itself, probably on
a loading ledge somewhere; of maybe even at the very bottom of the
crater.
The way he figUred it gold was loaded onto the con= veyor belt down
in the mine then the conveyor belt lifted it up through the long el
cut into the earth, until it appeared here in the warehouse and was
loaded onto a boat or plane.
The chopper's slow-moving pontoon came to a halt inside one of the
mooring slots, its slowing rotor blades hanging marginally out over
the conveyor belt, glinting in the glare of the halogen
lights.
From his seat in the back of the chopper, Race saw four men step
out from a giassenclosed office at the landward end of the
warehouse.
Three of them wore white lab coats—scientists. The fourth wore
combat fatigues and carried a G-11 assault riflea soldier.
One of the three scientists, Race saw, was much smaller than the
other Pwo, and infinitely older he Was a tiny little
man, bent with age, with long silve hair and huge round eyes Chat
were magnified by a pair of thiek spectacles, Race guessed that
this was Dr Fritz Weber th btillia Na.i gcientist Schroeder and
Nash had talked abouf earlier
Aparf front the four men standing in front of tie glass; Walled
office, the rest of the warehouse was ¢ognpletely
deserted
heres no-one else heine, Race thought.
The Nazis must have taken everyone they had to Vilcafo to get the
idol. The four men herey-plus Anistaze, Ehrhardt, Cratefaee and the
pilot—were all they had lefL
Untefs4harer,' hrhardt said to Gtatefface as the chopper beneath
them jolted to a halt, 'If you worfld be so kind, please take Agent
Becker and Professor Race oit to the refuse pit; Then shoot them
and bury their tentains/
Race and Ren4e were shoved down a dirt path that west,,ard through
the rainfoest away ftorn the riverside warehouses.
Behind them, CraterfaCe ahd [h4 o[hef Nazi s0idiee only other
soldier at the minmafshalled the foatd with thei G11s,
:
'y idea how=we,re gong to get of of this.)' Ree Ren4e as they
walked,
'None at all,' she ep]ied coolly.
'I thought you might have a pia o ofhig, YOu
ow, something hidden up your sleeve,'
'No pla;'
'So we're going to die?
'it looks tha way.'
ey foded bend the path and Rade weed a ovetwheimifigly puffid smell
assaulted hifi gfigeg: ::A momefit later; the fot of them came to
the end Of th arid Race gaw a pile of garbage scattered among th
fofit of the; it stretched away for about fifty yaidid 4g; ofi
piles of discarded food and waste,