A hundred and fifty feet in and she spotted the ascending passage above her head. She clambered up onto the first step of the ascending tunnel and waited until Sam and the rest of the group reached the same location.
She continued, passing the Queen’s Chamber as they went by.
Sam said, “You, Genevieve, and Elise wait here. Tom and I are going to quickly check out the Queen’s Chamber.”
“Don’t bother,” Billie said. “The stone tablet isn’t in there. It’s stored in the King’s Chamber.”
“So you said.” Sam’s piercing blue eyes met hers. Then, emphatically, he said, “We’re still going to check out the Queen’s Chamber first.”
“Why?”
“Because I made this mistake when we searched the temple we found in the Kalahari Desert. We got to the King’s Chamber, only to get attacked by someone hiding in the Queen’s.”
Billie shrugged with indifference. “Okay. Don’t take too long.”
She watched Sam and Tom’s lights disappear as they traveled farther down the horizontal tunnel and then returned her gaze upward, where she knew the temple guards would be waiting for them.
The firing switch on Genevieve’s Heckler and Koch submachine gun was set to F, for fully automatic. She shined her flashlight behind them and then up ahead.
Elise said, “I’ll keep an eye on the tunnel behind us.”
“Okay, good idea,” Billie said.
Genevieve asked, “Do you still believe this place is guarded by an army of Pirahã warriors?”
“Yes,” Billie replied without hesitation.
“Will they try to attack us?”
Billie thought about it for a moment. “I have no idea.”
Genevieve spoke with the candor of someone having coffee with a friend. “I think it’s safe to say they will. If the Pirahã simply let you take this ancient stone tablet they would be pretty much useless as guards, wouldn’t they?”
“Not if the Master Builders want me to take it.”
“So, the question is, do they want you to take it?”
Billie nodded. “And the answer to that is, I have no fucking idea.”
Genevieve squeezed her hand in a gesture almost resembling sympathy. “They really did a number on your mind, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. But what, specifically makes you say that?”
“I’ve never seen you doubt any decision before. Even when you left Tom to continue your search for the Master Builders, you did so with unwavering certainty that it was the right thing to do.”
Billie said, “It was. I had to leave.”
“I know. But it cost you the best man in the world.”
She leveled her gaze at Genevieve and smiled. “And you found him.”
Genevieve grinned. “Yes. How very lucky for me.”
“I would have done the entire thing over if I had it to do again.” Billie breathed in and sighed heavily. “Besides, you love him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Chapter Five
Billie spotted the first movement of light flickering from the horizontal passageway.
She waited until Sam and Tom were close enough to recognize and then said, “Find anything?”
“No,” Sam conceded.
She smiled. “I told you it was empty.”
Sam glanced up, toward the Grand Gallery. “All right. Now the hard part. Do you still think the Pirahã are going to let us steal this thing?”
Billie said, “Question of the day. There’s only one way to find out.”
She took the lead, stepping slowly and quietly. It was only sixty-odd feet before they reached the guards. The Pirahã warriors stood on either side of the Grand Gallery. They were so still that at first she mistook them for sculptures.
Her eyes glanced across the tunnel, taking everything in. The Grand Gallery was filled with temple guards. She and Sam were fooling themselves if they thought their team of five could defend against nearly four hundred warriors.
She lowered her weapon.
It was pointless anyway.
Billie tilted her head, studying the situation. Sam stepped up beside her. Billie saw their presence didn’t seem to have been detected. Everyone in the gallery was facing in the opposite direction. She couldn’t determine whether they were mostly men or mostly women, but as she stared she began to differentiate.
More than half grasped spears that looked to be almost six feet in length and carried blades of obsidian that were a foot or more long. Those with spears had what looked like rawhide strings around their waists, but were otherwise naked. They had intricate paint or tattoos covering their arms, legs, and backs. Some had headdresses of rawhide, decorated with feathers, braids, shells and other items she couldn’t identify. Those without spears wore the same strings around their waists, but had longer hair and more elaborate headgear. There didn’t seem to be any children present.
A cool breeze began to waft toward their party. In the distance, the Black Smoke curled down from the King’s Chamber toward them in serpentine movements. Billie stopped, and quickly donned her military-grade gas mask. Sam and the rest of their team followed. For nearly two years the strange, sweet smelling cloud of smoke, had enslaved her within the Amazon jungle. At the time it had provided her with the strength and endurance to work on the construction of this very temple, with the fervor of religious fanaticism.
And for two years, she had felt like she had been chosen to personally help out the Gods — the ancient Master Builders who were so far advanced from the rest of the world’s civilizations, that it was impossible to perceive them as anything else.
Since then, she had learned that the Black Smoke was nothing more than a very clever ruse to dominate the Pirahã, in order to provide intense labor in total secrecy for the construction of their latest temple. It relied on the smoke of a strange fungi that shared similar hallucinogenic effects with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide — more commonly known as LSD.
Using the drug and persuasive techniques, communicated through high frequency sound waves, the Master Builders were able to maintain absolute control of hundreds and potentially thousands of people against their will, simultaneously.
It was this ability that most frightened the U.S. Secretary of Defense, who had ordered Sam Reilly to investigate the Master Builder’s ability to utilize the weapon. If such a weapon could be mastered, then no one was safe. Military strength became irrelevant. And no one could be completely trusted.
Her eyes turned to the rest of their team. It was hard to imagine how to begin to fight an enemy that consisted of nothing more than a thick, sweet smelling, fog of smoke.
They’d discussed whether the masks would protect them, and the fact was, they didn’t know. But it was better to try and fail than not have a plan at all. The only person who didn’t don a gas mask was Elise, whose genetic anomalies and hyper-developed brainstem seemed to render her immune to the Black Smoke.
As the smoke touched each temple guard in the tableau in front of them, they turned one hundred and eighty degrees to face them. The warrior’s eyes remained fixed straight ahead, with no recognition or deviation toward her or any of her party.
When the last Pirahã turned to face them, the whistling started.
It was high-pitched and eerie. None of the warriors reacted to the presence of Billie’s party. It was impossible to imagine they simply hadn’t been spotted. But every one of the temple guard’s eyes were fixed and glassy, every mouth pursed and whistling the eerie tune.