The Inca Prophecy (2 page)

Early the next morning, a giant condor circled slowly over the Sacred Valley. Huayta watched from the Inca trail below as the magnificent bird, referred to by the Inca as ‘son of the sun’, soared effortlessly on the thermals. The condor’s massive wings spanned over three metres and its black feathers, flared at the wing tips, glinted in the early morning mists. A ring of white feathers formed a distinctive collar around its neck. Huayta wondered if the appearance of the sacred messenger was another omen. Centuries before, a condor had been attacked by a swarming flock of falcons over the ancient Inca capital of Cusco. The condor had been forced out of the sky and had fallen into the city square where the priests had worked desperately to save it, but to no avail. The priests duly reported to
the eleventh Inca king, Huayna Capac, that the loss of the condor was an omen of disastrous times to come. Not long after, the king received reports of light-skinned bearded foreigners landing to the north, carrying strange metal sticks that erupted with fire. The magnificent Inca civilisation would soon be annihilated by the Spaniards.

To Huayta, the modern omens were equally clear. Unprecedented wild weather had battered thousands of cities and towns around the world. In the last decade, hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis had wreaked deadly havoc. And Huayta knew that even worse death and destruction were coming. In December 2012, the fifth sun of the Inca would come to a close. Each of the previous four ages on the Inca calendar had ended in catastrophe. If the modern world was to avert another cataclysm, Huayta knew there was very little time to change course.

The shaman resumed his climb towards the Puerta del Sol, the Gate of the Sun, pondering a long-hidden artefact of immense power: the Golden Sun Disc of the Inca. Whoever was to discover and interpret the Inca prophecy would, he knew, first have to find the ancient disc. But the disc was well hidden, and fiercely guarded.

In a few days Huayta would turn sixty-seven, but he handled the steep path with ease. The mists had descended into the tropical forest, drifting through the leaves of chalanque, pisonay and tasta trees and enveloping the rocky Inca trail. Huge fern trees, colourful bromeliads, wiñay wayna orchids and pink passionflowers lined the path up to the mountains overlooking the Machu Picchu ruins. A raccoon-like brown coatimundi with a long ringed tail scuttled across the stones. In the queña tree above, a bright red-crested cotinga bird hopped from one branch to another.

Huayta reached the saddle where the ancients had built Intipunku, the defensive gateway to Machu Picchu, and he climbed further up the ridgeline to a quiet rock known only to a few. Above him to the south, the crest of Machu Picchu – the mountain from which the Inca city had taken its name – soared through the clouds. To the Inca, Machu Picchu was the old mountain, or the mountain of experience. Further south, the snow-capped summit of Salcantay towered over the surrounding Andes ranges. To the north, the mists clung to the granite pinnacle of Huayna Picchu, the young mountain, the mountain of learning and apprenticeship. In the ravine below, the sacred Urubamba River tumbled past the base of the cliffs.

Huayta’s gaze came back to the ruins. Below him, the terraced agricultural areas gave way to the grassy main square. To the left, Huayta could clearly see the fortifications surrounding the Sacred Plaza, the Principal Temple and the Temple of the Three Windows. A group of university students had gathered in an area beyond the temples and Huayta delved into his shoulder bag, woven in the same diamond pattern as his poncho. He adjusted his binoculars and focused on the leader of the group.

Dr Aleta Weizman was in animated discussion with her students. Her long black hair tumbled over the tanned olive skin of her shoulders, partly covering the fine features of her oval face.

‘It’s generally accepted by archaeologists that Machu Picchu was built as a royal retreat and sacred centre for Pachacuti, the ninth
Sapa Inca, or king,’ Aleta explained, sweeping her arm to the west, where far below, the Urubamba River wound through the rainforest on its way to join the mighty Amazon. ‘Just imagine!’ Aleta’s dark eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. ‘For centuries there’d been rumours of a mysterious city, built high amongst the clouds in the Andes, never found by the invading Spanish. It was hidden here all that time until a young American adventurer, Hiram Bingham, discovered it in 1911. Now,’ she said, her dark eyes still dancing, ‘we’ll take those granite steps beyond the north wall of the Principal Temple to the highest point of the ruins, the Pyramid of the Sun!’

The brilliant young archaeologist led the way past a polished stone in the shape of the Southern Cross and on towards the entrance to a small, exquisitely constructed sacristy where Inca priests and priestesses had sat to meditate, facing towards the stunning snow-capped peak of the sacred Pumasillo Mountain to the west. She climbed a series of staircases, each step carved from a separate but matching block of granite, the students following.

As she climbed, Aleta briefly reflected on where her life might be headed. Her marriage to Ryan Crosier, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Guatemala City, was in deep trouble, and this trip with her students had come as a welcome relief. But tomorrow, she would have to return and face reality. Soon she was to accompany Ryan on a trip to Washington for a biblical conference in support of Israel. Aleta shuddered. It seemed to her that religion, or at least Ryan’s take on it, had all but destroyed their relationship. At least she had managed to keep Weizman as her professional name. Perhaps that was a portent of things to come, but she’d resolved to give her marriage one last try. She put the trip to Washington and
the Israel conference out of her mind, and refocused on her charges.

‘These beautifully constructed steps are an indication that this peak, the Pyramid of the Sun, was of great importance to the Inca,’ Aleta explained as they reached the top. ‘This is the space of the Apu, the spirit of the mountains.’ She felt a surge of energy pulse through her body. Machu Picchu, she knew, was one of the earth’s great energy vortexes: locations where the earth’s electromagnetic energy was strongest. It was something Machu Picchu had in common with other sacred places like the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Mount of Olives and Uluru.

‘The Inca constructed their buildings and sacred stones to align with the movements of the planets and the sun, and the stone you see in front of you is the famous Intiwatana Stone, or the place to which the sun is tied.’ Aleta pointed to a massive granite block carved in the shape of the pinnacle of the Huayna Picchu mountain across the Urubamba Gorge. ‘At the equinoxes, the sunrise and the Intiwatana Stone are aligned with the highest peak of the Veronica mountain range in the east. At the winter solstice, the stone and the sunset are aligned with the highest peak in the Pumasillo range, the snow-covered mountains you can see to the west.’

Below the snow line, mists swirled around the towering forests. Aleta shivered. The ruins had not yet yielded all their secrets. Somewhere quite close to Machu Picchu, a dark prophecy lay hidden.

Chapter 2

From the shadows of his garret above the Rue des Abbesses, CIA agent Curtis O’Connor focused the laser beam past the black wrought-iron balcony and on to the window of the apartment on the other side of the narrow, busy thoroughfare. It was eight in the morning and Montmartre’s sidewalk cafés were already filled with locals grabbing a quick coffee on their way to work, and tourists taking a more leisurely breakfast.

O’Connor, tall, fit and solidly built, trained the tiny green dot on the top right-hand corner of the window opposite where, unless someone was specifically looking for it, the laser beam would go unnoticed. Any conversation in the targeted room would, O’Connor knew, generate minute vibrations against the glass. The state-of-the-art suitcase-laser system assembled by the back-room boys in Langley was designed to bounce an infrared beam off the window and back to a laser optical receiver which converted vibrations into
electrical pulses. In turn, the pulses were converted into an audio signal.

If the latest intelligence the US had on Iran was correct, two Pakistani nuclear scientists would shortly arrive to meet with the occupant of the apartment – Brigadier General Hossein Shakiba. Shakiba headed the nuclear division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and was one of the most powerful military officers in Iran. As a member of the Supreme National Security Council, he reported directly to the President. O’Connor reached for his binoculars and focused them on Shakiba, who was studying some papers in the sitting room. Pale and thin, with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache, Shakiba did not fit the profile of some of the Revolutionary Guards Corps thugs O’Connor had encountered in the past, but he knew this man was far more dangerous. A brilliant nuclear scientist, Shakiba had trained at Harvard in the days when Iran had been a trusted ally of the US in the Middle East, when the Shah, along with his wife, had been honoured guests in the White Houses of Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Nixon and Carter.

‘One moment … come on up.’ Shakiba’s response to the door buzzer came through clearly in O’Connor’s headphones. O’Connor focused his binoculars on the street-level entrance. The two Pakistanis were unmistakable. O’Connor had one of the sharpest minds in the Firm, as the CIA was known to insiders, and he’d committed the files on both men to memory.

Major General Vijay ul-Haq, a swarthy-faced man in his fifties, had long been one of the driving forces behind Pakistan’s nuclear arms program; the second man, Dr Wasim Yousef, was a nuclear scientist from the AQ Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta in
the Punjab, and an expert on heavy-water reactors, centrifuges and the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium. It had taken Mohamed ElBaradei and his team at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency years of painstaking research, but eventually the UN investigators had unearthed the sinister tentacles of AQ Khan’s network, tracing the criminal activities of the Pakistanis to over thirty different countries. The revelations to date had been frightening enough, but O’Connor was convinced that now the nuclear technology was out of the test tube, there was worse to come. But the US needed proof. He watched as Shakiba greeted his Pakistani counterparts, offering them coffee.

‘We’re having trouble getting enough components for our P1 centrifuges,’ Shakiba began, unrolling a set of technical diagrams on the coffee table. ‘Especially the bearings, and we’re also having some problems at our heavy-water reactor site at Arak.’

O’Connor took a deep breath as Shakiba unfurled a further set of designs on the coffee table. A heavy-water reactor could only mean one thing – plutonium.

‘For the P1 centrifuge components, we may be able to put you in contact with a reliable supplier in China,’ General ul-Haq offered, ‘but we can do better than that. The P2 design is far superior, although it will be expensive.’ There was more than a hint of avarice in the general’s smile.

‘Money won’t be a problem, General. This program has the highest priority, and that comes from the very top,’ Shakiba assured his guest. ‘Would you be prepared to come to Iran?’

‘That would not be without risk,’ General ul-Haq observed.

‘We would make it worth your while,’ Shakiba replied easily.

The general raised a thin dark eyebrow.

‘Would a million dollars US … each … together with remuneration for your scientists be enough to cover the risk?’

Ul-Haq and Yousef exchanged glances.

An hour later, O’Connor whistled softly. The Iranians might be having problems with their nuclear program, but they were a lot further ahead with it than Washington, the International Atomic Energy Agency or even the Israelis had allowed.

O’Connor sent a short, encrypted burst transmission to Tom McNamara, the Deputy Director of Operations back in Langley, switched on the cable television and tuned in to Al Jazeera. The Arab network was beaming live, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was addressing the World Without Zionism conference in Tehran. The diminutive, dark-haired Iranian president was standing in front of a huge hourglass, the top of which contained a globe of the world. Two countries, the United States and Israel, had ominously fallen through the neck and shattered in the bottom section.