She held the phone out to him once more and Ethan observed that in both cases the longest line from each image of the sun was in a slightly different location.
‘They’re markers,’ Ethan acknowledged. ‘They’re not pointing to each other, they’re both pointing to something else.’
Lucy whirled and set her phone down on the pedestal as she pulled from her satchel a map of the world and unfolded it alongside the images. Using a compass, she measured the angle at which the longest line of the engraving on the pedestal was pointed, and then plotted a line from the position of the Cambodian temple on the map toward the east across the Pacific. Then, she drew a second line, this time from the location of the Yonaguni temple toward the East.
Lucy stood up and looked down at the lines she had drawn on the map. Ethan moved to stand alongside her and his eyes travelled across the lines to where they intersected at a spot on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean.
‘Peru,’ he said. ‘How on earth would a civilization so old know anything about locations on the far side of the Pacific Ocean?’
‘Exactly,’ Lucy replied. ‘More to the point, how would they know about this particular location?’
‘What’s special about it?’ Ethan asked.
‘It’s a place called Nazca,’ Lucy replied. ‘It’s the site of the famous Nazca lines, enormous hieroglyphs in the desert that are only visible from the air. The civilization that created them is immensely ancient and had no access to aircraft. They could not see their own work in the desert, so why did they create it?’
Ethan shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’ He looked up at the darkening sky above. ‘We need to get out of here while we still can.’
‘You’re damned right,’ Lucy said as she packed her materials away into her satchel. ‘We’ve got a flight to catch if we’re going to figure out what’s over there.’
‘It’s going to be tough to get to Peru from here and not be observed or tracked.’
‘We’re not going to Peru.’
Ethan shot her confused look as she began descending the side of the pyramid, but he obediently followed her down toward the darkening jungle below. They reached the forest floor and Ethan jumped down alongside Lucy and was about to ask what she meant when he heard the click of multiple rifles, the distinctive sound of AK-47s as from the jungle around them emerged a group of men.
‘That’s far enough,’ one of them said as he aimed at Ethan.
XX
Ethan turned slowly and raised his hands as he looked at the nearest man aiming an AK-47 at him. He was clearly a native, his English broken and heavily accented. The teeth in his mouth were stained and gapped as he gestured to Lucy with the barrel of the rifle.
‘Get her down from there,’ he ordered.
Lucy jumped down from the pyramid. ‘You have no right to prevent us from climbing it,’ she protested.
‘I’ve got all the right I need,’ the man replied as he tapped his rifle’s barrel. ‘Leave this place now, or you’ll become a permanent part of it.’
The men had closed in around them and Ethan counted twelve, eight of them armed with the ubiquitous rifles, the other four apparently onlookers but carrying various weapons such as clubs or machetes. One of them carried a shuttered lantern that he opened to illuminate the gloomy forest in a dull yellow glow, the man setting the lantern down beside the foot of the temple. Ethan knew they were far too distant from any local habitation to have merely stumbled across the temple or indeed Ethan and Lucy. He could only assume that they been hired to protect the temple.
‘Who are you working for?’ Ethan asked.
‘We are working for nobody. We are simply protecting the heritage of our country from grave robbers.’
‘We are not grave robbers!’ Lucy snapped.
Ethan looked at the clothes the man was wearing, cheap slacks and a loose shirt that had seen better days. His hair was unkempt, his feet shoved into tattered sandals. He was holding the rifle in the grip of one hand without the shoulder strap in place and it wavered here and there, undirected and sloppy. A villager elder, Ethan surmised, probably quite poor and certainly not a soldier of any kind. And yet the weapon was perfectly clean, professionally maintained or perhaps even brand new.
‘Whoever paid you put those words in your mouth,’ Ethan replied to him. ‘They provided you with the weapons. Whatever they promised you, they won’t deliver.’
‘We are working for nobody. We are simply protecting the heritage of our country from grave robbers,’ the man repeated in a monotone voice.
Ethan glanced briefly at the other men in the crowd. They were all dressed in a similar manner to the elder and also holding their weapons at odd angles and with an insufficient grip to prevent the kickback that would drive the barrels upward into the air should they choose to fire. Ethan took a pace towards their leader and lowered his hands slightly as he puts a reasonable expression on his face.
‘Whatever they paid you, I’ll double,’ Ethan promised.
The village elder’s expression altered as he began to consider his options. Ethan moved a little closer. ‘We’re not grave robbers, we merely came here to study the engravings on the walls of the temple. You can even join us if you wish to ensure that we do not take anything from the temple with us.’
The old man regarded Ethan for a long moment, his eyes drifting up and down as he assessed the man before him, and then as Ethan had hoped he looked over his shoulder for support from his colleagues. As soon as his head was turned Ethan lunged forwards and grabbed the rifle stock with his left hand as he slammed his right forearm across the elder’s chest.
The older man’s weak grip was snatched away from the rifle easily as Ethan turned the AK-47 and pressed it against his chest. The entire movement had taken no more than two seconds and none of the men around them had either had time to fire or indeed showed any intent of doing so.
Ethan looked to the elder, whose face had crumbled in panic as he raised his hands either side of his head and began gabbling in his native tongue as he begged for his life. Ethan grabbed his collar to silence him and then looked at the watching villagers, none of whom could shoot without risking hitting the old man.
‘Who hired you?’ Ethan demanded.
‘Foreigner,’ the old man replied hurriedly. ‘Lots of money. They said to come out here and stop you both.’
‘Us?’ Lucy demanded. ‘Specifically us?’
‘Yes, you, the American man and woman.’
Ethan and Lucy exchanged a surprise glance. ‘How the hell would they know we were coming here?’
‘Did you get a name?’ Ethan demanded of the elder.
The man shook his head. ‘No, no name, but she was American woman, very friendly.’
‘A woman?’ Ethan asked in surprise.
He turned to look at Lucy, who in response appeared nonplussed until suddenly a realization dawned on her features. ‘When I was in Chicago I couldn’t find you so I went to…’
Before Ethan could apply a familiar voice spoke from somewhere behind him in the tree line.
‘Me.’
Ethan and Lucy turned as from out of the jungle strode a woman with a black ponytail, khaki shorts and hiking boots. Her dark eyes flashed exotically, a pistol held lightly in one hand down by her thigh. She looked like a cross between Michelle Rodriguez and Lara Croft.
‘Nicola,’ Ethan uttered in surprise.
Lopez gestured to the old man with a nod of her head. ‘Let him go and give him back his rifle before he has a heart attack.’
There was a determined tone in her voice that Ethan had often heard, one that had not really ever been directed at him but at the bail-jumpers they had often arrested on the streets of Chicago. Ethan turned the rifle over in his hands as he released the elder, and shoved the weapon into his chest.