Enzi shouted and swore at the hired guns for opening fire, then was dumbstruck by the effect on their targets.
‘Enzi, still taking the difficult road?’
‘General, these men are undisciplined, but why did they not hit their targets?’
The General smiled, Laurent took advantage of the distraction and broke free tumbling down the wall, landing badly, injuring his arm. Jones raised his weapon, but Mastasson pushed it away, ‘Leave him, he is of no use.’
‘But he is getting away.’
‘To where? He is following Jacob, who is no friend of his I’m sure.’
Laurent ran across the complex, surprised at the lack of gunfire from Mastasson, perhaps he did not care, or perhaps he underestimated him. He held his arm, suspecting he may have broken it, the adrenaline numbing the sensation for now. Either way Christophe was glad when he reached the open hatch, the sunlight did not penetrate far inside. He dropped down the first few steps, his eyes adjusting to the dark stone and dim blue light. He stepped further inside, lingering to look back at Enzi’s position, and seeing no movement. With renewed confidence he stepped down towards the bottom of the first flight of stairs, and then something hit him.
Katherine looked over as Laurent disappeared inside the hatch, envious of his temporary freedom. Mastasson looked at her chest, ‘You have something under there.’ He gestured with the knife, briefly moving it away from her neck.
‘Don’t even think about it, you would not live to tell.’
‘I have something like it.’
He pulled out a necklace identical to hers, but with some blood dried on it, ‘Laurent collected it from a young man. Unfortunately he dropped it in the cockpit en-route, I do not think he noticed.’
The burning sensation in Laurent’s arm was like he had been slammed with a hot fist, pain resonant on his skin. He looked around for his assailant but saw none, before he could step down, another hit to his leg, this he saw. The blue light was a blink, like a flashbulb on a camera, but the result was less pleasant. There was a two-inch hole through his leg, starting just above his knee and exiting behind his thigh. There was no blood, just smoke coming out of his leg, he was shocked checked his arm, another hole identical size.
He grabbed at his chest, expecting to feel the crystal necklace, but it was absent. He panicked, turned to run back up to the hatch, he made three steps and was hit again, the other leg. The impact removed his kneecap, blowing it off into the wall, his canvas trousers spattered with burnt flesh and blood. With both legs injured and one arm, he scrambled back up the last four steps sheer will and survival instinct overriding the blinding pain. Another jolt hit his lower back, coming out of his groin, he screamed out, his voice echoing up into the walls. Now in agony he got his hand up onto the top step, using every last effort to escape the invisible attacker.
Mastasson could see Laurent coming back up, smoke rose off his body, his screams echoed in the space of the complex. He borrowed Enzi’s binoculars for a better view, and commentated to the audience, ‘It would appear that Laurent has discovered this place has a defence system. You neglected to mention that Katherine, how naughty of you.’
Laurent had reached the surface, he saw daylight, just. The final bolt came from below and behind, and hit him in the back of the neck, just below his seventh cervical vertebrae, exiting out through his forehead, the hole clean, cauterised and smoking.
Mastasson saw the death shot, a beam of blue light hitting the back of Laurent’s neck, and killing him as it left the front of his skull. The archaeologist slumped forward, his lifeless body smoking in the dimming daylight.
‘Katherine I think I know why you need a necklace?’
Jacob was unaware of Laurent’s demise at the surface; he was more concerned with returning the amulets to their rightful guardians. The inner chamber was majestic and mysterious but now the activity inside was frantic. He gave his bag to Augusta Fabiola, and she in turn issued the amulets to the other two people Lucio Andres and Dalia Maria. She left the fifth amulet in the bag, passing it to Osvaldo Roderigo, who nodded in appreciation. No instructions were spoken; everyone knew their job and carried it out.
Jacob walked over to Osvaldo Roderigo, ‘How’s Kevin doing?’
‘He’s inquisitive, intuitive, like his mother.’
‘Yes he reminds me of her, is he coping with the responsibility?’
‘Yes Jacob, very well, you helped bring him up right.’
‘Thanks, I do wonder. Do you have children Osvaldo?’
‘Yes, grown up and moved to the cities years ago. I see them on birthdays and holidays.’
‘Do you miss them?’
‘Of course, I will miss them?’
Jacob noticed the mistake, ‘You said will, not do?’
Osvaldo Roderigo did not justify his apparent error, but continued, ‘The fifth amulet Jacob, there is something I did not tell you about the price of its use.’
THIRTY NINE
The thunderstorm was beginning to develop an attitude above the jungle. Clouds were charging from the movement of water vapour, and the convection of warm and cold air mixing. Several miles below Mastasson was about to move towards the complex, when the first offensive shots arrived.
Archer had taken aim at Enzi’s men as planned. Debra moved her team over to the second section of the complex wall. Past a large gash in the side, probably caused by a fallen tree; long since rotted. Michael had placed one of his modified robots in this section of collapsed wall, and disguised it. As Archer fired on the hired guns, two of them went down; his shots hit them in the chest. The rest dived for cover and fired back randomly, unaware of their targets. Archer was already moving position, his inexperienced enemies wasting bullets on an empty space.
Jones ordered two groups to move around and flank the assailants, using the wall for cover. Two groups of five men moved stealthily along the side of the steep mud brick wall, stepping cautiously to avoid tipping off their prey. Archer and Debra continued to rain fire down on the remaining positions, giving Jacob more time.
The complex was about to be brought back to life after decades of slumber. The three amulet holders moved over to the small black pyramids in the floor, placed their crystal into the tops and waited. As before the amulet’s all but disappeared into the geometric stones, the obelisks ascended. Within a few minutes four jet black obelisks in the centre of the chamber, glowed with blue glyphs, each sitting on the corner of a square. Each one had an alcove cut into the side, two point five metres high and one metre wide, no alcove faced another so the people could not see each other when inside.
Augusta Fabiola, Dalio Maria, and Lucio Andres all stepped into the obelisks and a barrier came up over the entrance, like blue translucent glass.
Jacob knew they were all busy, but his curiosity was almost overwhelming, he asked Osvaldo Roderigo what the obelisks did.
‘Each obelisk has a separate purpose, but contributes to the whole. The one Kevin is in is for tracking all objects that surround or intersect the Earth with their orbits, it identifies threats. It also launches the cloud seeders for the preparing the storm.
‘Sorry, cloud seeders? You know how to modify the weather?’
‘We don‘t, whoever built this place did, and this complex uses that technology.’
‘So the other obelisks?’
‘Yes, sorry. The second sets the co-ordinates in space for any threatening object, all three dimensions. The third one the amount of energy that would be required to destroy it, taking into account the material and density of the object. The fourth manages the amount of energy coming into the complex and the ideal moment to release it.’