‘What happens Mathias?’
‘Now Vincent, you see the true power of the complex!’
FORTY TWO
Thorpe and Archer were striding through the jungle terrain, the wind and rain from the vicious storm lashed their camouflaged faces. Thorpe’s other men were going towards the river to secure transport, get ahead of Enzi, who had become disorientated by the environment and the weather. The darkness was now smothering the jungle. Thorpe allowed Archer to take point, and they were soon within sight of Enzi.
Archer levelled his gun at Enzi, but even with all the provocation he had, he could not shoot him in the back.
‘Chui Enzi, this is Archer Mathias!’
Enzi stopped and turned, firing his handgun wildly in the direction of the voice. Archer had his answer, and fired shots into Enzi’s left leg and right arm, disarming him and reducing his mobility. He walked over to the former security chief, now blooded and lying on the dank floor holding his damaged thigh, rain diluting his blood.
‘I see you do bleed after all.’
‘Why do you not kill me Archer? Why did you shout a warning?’
‘I could not shoot you in the back, I am not like you.’
‘And that will be your undoing.’
‘Get up Enzi. You have questions to answer, back in Mabalia.’
Enzi may have lost his gun, but he still had a knife, which he plunged into Archer’s thigh. The short blade penetrated his flesh. Enzi sadistically twisted it in up to the hilt. Archer cried out, and instinctively hit Enzi in the chest with his rifle butt. Thorpe had heard the scream, he was just behind Archer, but did not fire; instead he pulled Archer by the webbing of his kit, backing away from Enzi rapidly.
Enzi shouted back, his sarcastic tones overcoming the downpour, ‘You see Mathias, you fear the leopard! Everyone fears the leopard!’
Enzi was mistaken, Thorpe had seen a threat, and knew with Archer’s leg injury, he could not afford to linger. Behind Enzi, attracted by the movement and smell of blood was a group of Cayman crocodiles, the same species Enzi had laughed at as his boat struck their bodies on the way upriver.
He heard the hiss too late, and turned to see the first adult strike him, grabbing the arm he attempted to hit it with. The teeth sank into his flesh, grip unrelenting; a second crocodile bit his midsection and began to pull him back towards a pool of water. He screamed for help, but no one responded. Archer and Thorpe watched from a safe distance as the two other crocodiles joined their colleagues, dragging their meal back into the darkness of the voracious jungle. Enzi hit the animals with his other arm, striking blows onto their armoured heads, attempting to hit their eyes, anything to release their grip.
He was trying to fight two hundred million years of evolution; these animals could not be beaten in their own territory. His body had flooded with adrenalin and endorphins, in a vain attempt to let him function with the level of pain being registered in his brain. His left arm was almost torn off, as he resisted the dragging, and his midsection was badly gashed as the other crocodiles released and renewed their jaws to achieve better purchase. He looked down, and could see his own intestines among the bloody mess, and wanted to pass out, but his chemical cocktail would not let him.
Archer and Thorpe could hear Enzi screaming as the crocodiles started to eat him.
‘Thanks Thorpe.’
‘Call it professional courtesy, one thing I did learn in the Army, never leave a man behind.’
‘What did you get kicked out for anyway?’
‘They said I was inherently unsuitable for Army life.’
‘That is MP for violent and nasty, you don’t seem that type.’
‘I’m not. We were on a training exercise and our CO put us at risk, got two people killed. I punched him out.’
‘And they kicked you out for that, a bit harsh.’
‘Well it was a bit more than punched out, he retaliated and it was a bad fight. He walks with a stick now.’
‘Now that they will kick you out for.’
‘I suggest we leave before we become dessert.’
Archer was not going to disagree; he tore some of his t-shirt, covered his wound, applied pressure. The boat was not far ahead, and Thorpe’s team had it prepped and ready. Archer decided to leave with them, not wanting to risk returning to the complex with such a heavy wound. One of the team patched him up, while Thorpe’s group took him back to the Arcadia.
FORTY THREE
The storm reached its height, the strikes on the four towers were rapid, at forty-five kilometres a second, it would get from London to Paris in seven seconds. The crystals on the tops glowing as the temperature from the strikes reached twenty eight thousand degrees centigrade, hot enough to fuse soil or sand into glass, but only causing the blue crystal to glow with the force of raw violent energy.
The sky was black and grey, mixing and swelling as the rain precipitated persistently, huge droplets battering the undergrowth. There was no sign of it abating, La gente de la luz azul had assisted in unleashing a true leviathan of storms, it was spread over one hundred miles in diameter and reached fifteen miles into the atmosphere.
Augusta Fabiola knew that the levels of energy stored beneath them were rapidly approaching maximum, if they did not discharge soon, the complex would do so automatically. Why had Osvaldo Roderigo not initiated the fifth amulet?
Below in the chamber Mastasson was shouting furiously at Jacob, Osvaldo Roderigo and Katherine, ‘Get me down, this was not part of the deal, you tricked me!’
Jacob stood near the dome, knowing he had little time to explain, ‘Vincent, you have control of the complex now, your hand and connection to the fifth amulet is the trigger to fire it.’
‘Trigger? I can feel no trigger inside this stone block!’
Osvaldo Roderigo stepped in, ‘What Jacob means is that you ARE the trigger.’
‘What! Get me down, I’ve changed my mind!’
‘And that is exactly why the complex was designed this way. You cannot change your mind, this cannot be stopped.’
As Mastasson screamed his objections, the three spectators retreated up the stone steps which closed and retracted behind them, sealing Mastasson in.
Mastasson looked up and could just see the glowing obelisks, and far above, the keystone. Darkness outside disappeared as the lightning strikes ricocheted off the jungle. Beside him a curtain of thin blue translucent light was coming down from the hole in the roof above him, and fitting exactly round the dome in the floor. The curtain extended up to meet with the hatch that opened in the roof and allowed the keystone to leave. He looked down, and the walkway and dome he had stood on to insert the amulet began to retract.
The dome separated into two halves, slowly pulling apart and revealing a large blue crystal in the centre, metres across. The eyelids of stone disappeared into the floor. Below the crystal and unseen to anyone but Augusta Fabiola a second set of lids retracted connecting the crystal in the floor, with the contained energy of the complex. Mastasson realised what he had done, and what he was to become. He began to scream, a deep primal scream of absolute terror, rarely heard by anything but voracious predators during a kill.
Jacob, Osvaldo Roderigo and Katherine were standing near the entrance hatch on the right side of the domed chamber. Osvaldo Roderigo told them to look away from the centre of the room.
‘What about the people in the obelisks?’ Jacob was concerned for their safety.
‘They will be fine Jacob, the blue field protects them and there is another field which protects us from what’s coming.
They heard the violent scream issuing from Mastasson, the sound permeating through the vibration prevalent in the chamber.