The Hunt for Atlantis (22 page)

The fist drew back for another strike. Chase released the gun and snapped his hands up to block it as it descended. He squeezed, trying to crush the man’s fingers …

Kari and Nina ran towards Castille and the other prisoners. “Get into the hut!” Kari shouted as a spear sliced through the air just behind them.

“No, we’ve got to help them!” Nina answered. One of the dead Indians lay on the ground in her path. She snatched up his knife. “Come on!”

Starkman fired off more rounds into the trees as he shrieked into his walkie-talkie. “Chopper one! I need suppressing fire on the treeline! Now!”

One of the men near the captives was hit from behind by a spear, the razor-sharp obsidian blade penetrating deep into his skull. Still firing wildly, he fell against the wall of a hut, breaking the wood.

The big man pulled his hand free of Chase’s grip with a roar, then drove his knees down with piledriver force onto his ribcage. Chase tried to yell, but there was no air left in his lungs.

Their guards distracted, Castille and di Salvo were already on their feet as Nina and Kari reached them. Nina grabbed Philby and hacked at the twine binding his hands as Kari tugged at Castille’s knots.

“Our guns!” said Castille, indicating their piled-up belongings nearby.

Another of Starkman’s men fell, a poisoned arrow in his neck.

A raging wind tore through the village as the Halo hovered overhead. Spent shell casings clattered down like hail as a six-barreled rotary cannon mounted inside the cabin door opened up, spraying fire into the wildly waving trees.

Philby was free. “Kari!” Nina shouted, throwing her the knife. Kari snapped it out of the air and hacked at di Salvo’s bonds as Castille dived for the rifles. “Get into the hut, get down!” She all but threw Philby into the flimsy structure as an arrow pierced the wood.

One of the Brotherhood’s team threw himself back against another hut to avoid an arrow, and in doing so realized that his prisoners were now free.

The Halo turned in place, raking the trees with Minigun fire. The downdraft from its main rotor was so strong that the huts were blown apart, debris scattering in all directions.

The huge soldier bent down and clamped his hands around Chase’s neck, thumbs pressing hard against his carotid artery.

The pulsing roar of blood in Chase’s ears drowned out even the noise of the helicopter. He could see it almost directly overhead, the rotors a blur behind the sadistic grin of the man strangling him. He raised his arms to strike at the man’s face, but he was too big, his arms longer, and Chase’s clawing fingers fell short.

Blackness swirled at the edges of his sight, his head pounding.

He couldn’t reach the face of the man crushing his chest—but he could reach his body …

The barrage of primitive but effective weapons from the jungle stopped abruptly as the firestorm from the helicopter carved through the attacking Indians. Horrific screams echoed from the trees.

Castille grabbed one of the team’s Colt rifles and brought it around, only to see one of Starkman’s men already aiming at him with a UMP.

The man pulled the trigger—just as di Salvo hurled himself bodily in front of Castille. The three-round burst hit di Salvo in his hip and thigh, blood spurting from the wounds as he crashed screaming to the ground.

Castille fired back. With his target wearing body armor, he aimed for the head. All three of his shots landed on target. The man’s skull blew apart in a gruesome shower.

Another of Starkman’s men heard the shots and turned to confront his new adversary—

A boot heel smashed into his face.

Even as the man reeled, Kari spun around and delivered another crushing kick into his groin. He crashed through a hut wall.

Kari picked up his gun, paused for a fraction of a second to make a decision—then shot him in the head.

Chase felt consciousness, life, slipping away. The commando loomed over him like a demon, the whirling blades of the helicopter a dark halo behind his head.

With the last of his strength, his right hand finally reached the object for which he’d been grasping: the grappling gun on the man’s back.

He pulled the trigger.

The grapple flew out with a loud thump of compressed gas, rocketing almost vertically upwards with a nylon-coated steel cable trailing behind it… into the Halo’s rotors.

The carbon-fiber grapple itself was smashed to pieces by the blades—but the cable was almost instantly drawn into the spinning rotor head, tangling around it.

And winding up.

The commando’s eyes widened in shock as he realized what was about to happen—then he was yanked off the ground so hard that several of his ribs snapped. Flying skywards as if launched by a catapult, the cable dragging him inexorably into the rotors, he burst on impact, gory shredded scraps raining back down onto the village.

The helicopter lurched, out of control. The cable around the rotor shaft was jamming the pitch controls, and now the blades themselves were damaged …

“Cover!” shouted Chase.

Kari looked around. Starkman was sprinting for the side of the temple. Overhead, the huge helicopter began to spin, the roar of its engines joined by the shriek of wounded machinery. There was only one of Starkman’s men now still standing, close to Chase.

She and Castille fired simultaneously, taking the man down.

The Halo continued spinning. A man fell from the cabin door, screaming all the way to earth, where he landed headfirst on the elders’ hut, breaking his neck. Control completely gone, the helicopter rolled towards the temple, losing height.

The pilot of the other Halo saw it coming and frantically jammed his throttle to full power, pulling up on his collective control to increase altitude. The men being winched out through the hole in the temple roof were smashed against the jagged edges and plummeted back to the stone floor beneath.

Smoke pouring from its engines, the spinning Halo hit the temple roof. The curved stone structure, already weakened by the hole blasted in it, collapsed under the impact. The aircraft fell through the ceiling and into the temple itself. Its rotors were dashed to pieces as they hit the unbending stone, huge shards thrown hundreds of feet into the air before arcing back down.

All power lost, the massive aircraft plunged almost vertically to crash at the base of the statue of Poseidon, where it exploded.

A fireball swept through the temple, flames consuming the remaining men. The enormous statue of the god rocked, then fell forward to crush the blazing wreckage, its golden skin already melting in the intense heat.

A heat that reached the thermite charges in the altar room.

They detonated, the temperature inside the chamber flashing in an instant to over two thousand degrees. The gold and orichalcum artifacts within didn’t merely melt—they vaporized, obliterated completely by the searing wave of fire.

Castille turned at the sound of the explosion—and reflexively threw himself backwards as a jagged piece of rotor blade over a meter long stabbed into the ground between his legs like a javelin. “Merde!” he screeched.

“Helicopters!”

The rest of the temple roof gave way, thousands of tons of stone cascading down to bury everything within. A shockwave tore through the other tunnels and chambers, a huge cloud of dust and debris exploding from the temple entrance like an express train. Chase barely threw himself clear as it swept past.

The ancient replica of the Atlantean Temple of Poseidon, hidden in the jungle for thousands of years, was destroyed forever, along with all the secrets it contained.

Nina peered from the hut, shielding her eyes as the dust cloud swept past. “Jesus!”

Chase used the temple wall to pull himself up. He wiped blood from his face with the back of his hand. His broken nose was starting to hurt. Through the dust, he saw Kari and Castille running towards him. “Where’s Starkman?” he gasped.

“That way!” Castille pointed. Starkman was now out of sight around the corner of the ruined structure.

“Nina?”

“In one of the huts,” Kari told him.

“Give me your gun.”

Kari handed him the Colt. “What are you doing?” Castille asked.

“I’m not letting that bastard get away! Kari, look after Nina. Where’s Agnaldo?”

“He’s been shot.”

“Then help him! Go, both of you!” Chase broke into a pained run after Starkman.

Starkman jumped onto the stepped base of the temple and ran along it, shouting into his walkie-talkie. “Chopper two! This is Eagle Leader, I need pickup now!” The surviving Halo was hovering cautiously over the jungle a few hundred yards away.

Chase rounded the corner of the temple, hunting for Starkman.

There!

“No you bloody don’t,” he growled, climbing up onto the first tier after him.

Kari ran back to the remains of the hut where she’d seen Nina take cover with Philby. She flung back the animal skin covering the door. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine!” Nina said.

“Speak for yourself,” Philby muttered.

Nina ignored him. “What about the others? Where’s Eddie?”

“Di Salvo’s been shot,” Kari replied. “Hugo’s giving him first aid. Chase has gone after Starkman.”

“What? Come on, we’ve got to help him!” Running out, Nina saw Chase ascending the side of the temple and headed after him.

“It’s too dangerous!” Kari protested, but to no avail. “Nina! Damn it!” She hurried back to the team’s equipment, picking up another rifle and Chase’s Wildey, then ran after Nina.

The remaining Halo moved in, warily skirting the plume of thick black smoke rising from the collapsed end of the temple. As it descended, the trailing ropes dragged through the surrounding foliage.

Starkman slowed to a jog, yelling into his radio: “Come on, faster! Get me out of here!” He waved his arms furiously to summon the chopper closer—

The dark stones around him splintered and cracked under bullet hits.

“Jason!” roared Chase, still shooting.

Starkman flung himself on the next tier up and fired back, UMP blazing. Chase ducked as bullets smacked into the stone above his head, showering him with dust and fragments. He crawled several feet before popping up again to let fly with another burst.

Nina heard gunfire and ducked into cover on the lowest tier of the temple’s side, peering cautiously ahead. Chase was exchanging fire with Starkman, several feet higher and close to the devastated far end of the temple. The helicopter was closing on him, ropes trailing beneath it.

Chase fired another burst—and his gun clicked on the last shot.

Empty!

Starkman could count shots as well as he could. He would know he was dry. Scrabbling forward another few feet, Chase popped his head up, then immediately ducked back. As he’d expected, his brief appearance attracted gunfire, more stone chips spitting onto him. Starkman wasn’t worried about running out of bullets.

The wind from the descending helicopter whipped at his clothes. At low altitude, a Halo could easily blow a man off his feet.

Which would make aiming very difficult.

Chase threw himself onto the next tier, immediately rolling against the wall as more bullets raked the ancient stones. He could just barely hear Starkman shouting into his radio: “Lean out and shoot him!”

Shit!

He looked at the helicopter. A man poked his head through the open cabin door, staring down at him. Then he ducked back—only to reappear a moment later with a gun in his hands.

Not another submachine gun, but an M82 sniper rifle, which could put a hole through a man’s skull from eight hundred yards away—and Chase was barely fifteen yards beneath the chopper!

“Nina!” Kari caught up with her, the rifle in her hands.

“In the helicopter, they’re going to shoot him!” Nina cried, pointing.

Kari instantly took in the scene. The massive helicopter had drifted into position above Starkman so that he could grab one of the hanging ropes and be winched aboard—and a man was leaning out of the cabin, the sniper rifle in his hands aimed directly at Chase—

She lifted the gun and emptied the entire magazine into the helicopter’s fuselage.

The sniper staggered, then fell out, his rifle dropping just ahead of him. Starkman jumped out of the way as they plunged towards him. The gun’s barrel hit the unyielding stone of the temple—and its erstwhile owner landed headfirst on top of it, the stock punching right through his collarbone and burying the weapon deep inside his chest. The body flopped grotesquely down the side of the temple, still impaled on the weapon.

Starkman recovered and seized one of the ropes with his right hand as he shouldered his gun, yelling into his radio for the pilot to ascend.

“Eddie!” yelled Kari over the rising din of the engines. Somehow he heard her, and looked around. “Here!” She threw his Wildey.

Chase caught the gun neatly in one hand as he jumped to his feet, then spun and pointed it at the helicopter as Starkman swung overhead. The Halo was already rising fast, its nose dipping as it prepared to power away over the rain forest.

Chase aimed for the pilot and fired twice. Both shots punched through the Halo’s underbelly near the nose, but the downdraft threw off his aim. The aircraft was unaffected.

Starkman climbed hand over hand, quickly rising as his rope was reeled in.

Another rope flicked past, a black nylon snake gyrating in the blasting wind. Chase jumped after it and grabbed hold.

“Oh my God! No, you idiot, no!” Nina shrieked helplessly after him as he was whisked off the side of the temple.

Holding on to the rope with his left hand, Chase raised the Wildey in his right and pointed it up at Starkman’s ascending figure. He still had several feet to go before reaching the relative safety of the cabin. “Get you right up your arse, you bastard—”

The Wildey barked twice. Spinning and twisting on the end of the rope, Chase had no idea where the first shot landed—but the second one cratered the fuselage above Starkman, showering him with flecks of paint.

Starkman looked down and saw Chase dangling below. For a moment Chase thought he was trying to unshoulder his UMP to shoot back down at him …