He also noticed the almost precipitous drop off the west side of the ruins. One false step over there and it was Goodnight Vienna but not before a long and desperate rough and tumble all the way down to the Urubamba River hundreds of feet below.
“Maybe we should be a bit more subtle about this?” Luis said, looking at the tourists and guides.
Ryan scoffed. “Screw them.”
Hawke looked at him but turned away. The last thing Ryan needed now was someone getting too close. “We keep going,” he said, as Luis joined him at the front. “We must be nearly there by now.”
“So we’ve done the Fifty Tupus,” Luis said, causing Scarlet to laugh and shake her head in amusement. “Now for the Fifty Rikras.”
They headed to the Sacred Stone and Luis began to count out the distance as Lexi measured their progress on GPS. They left the citadel and started walking into the jungle.
The sunlight pierced the canopy of the mahogany and yarumo trees as they pushed through the subtropical vegetation all around them. Though a gap in the trees they saw a strip of páramo grass and then the low growling of a tiger heron drifted out from some hidden quarter. A hummingbird flashed past on its way to a vine.
“So you’re sure of how long a rikra was?” Hawke asked Luis.
The Peruvian nodded. “There’s no doubt. One rikra was just over a meter and a half. There are very clear descriptions of it in Incan architecture.”
“And which way are we going?” Lea asked,
“The line from the Mandala ran to the north, so the answer is we’re almost right on top of it.”
They walked on through the jungle and looked around for clues. The walk from Machu Picchu had been down hill, so now they could no longer see the ruined citadel jutting through the jungle canopy.
Dense jungle surrounded them on all sides. Hawke waved a sandfly from his face and surveyed the landscape. “Looks like mostly coca and even some coffee.”
“Please, don’t talk to me about coffee trees,” Lea said. “I had enough of those in Mexico to last me fifty lifetimes.”
“Talking of fifty,” Lexi said. “We’re now exactly fifty rikras due north of the Sacred Rock.”
They stopped and began to search for anything that might be a lead, but the only obvious answer was a broken slab of granite.
Lea kicked it with her boot. “This boy looks a little out of place, wouldn’t ya say?”
“It’s probably just a piece of stone rejected for the main construction,” Luis said, crouching to get a better look at it. “The city was made from granite and also some limestone, constructed with ashlar masonry, a technique to create square blocks which are then smoothed with sand. It was very precise work as you can see from the ruins and it looks like an error was made on this piece so they threw it out.”
“You guys are thinking what I’m thinking, right?” Lea said with a grin.
Hawke nodded and returned the smile. “Oh yeah.”
“What?” Luis asked innocently.
Reaper clapped his arm around Luis’s shoulder. “It’s not that we doubt your theory of the stone being rejected,” he said, roll-up bouncing on his lower lip as he spoke. “But we think maybe this is here for another reason.”
The young Peruvian archaeologist looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
“They used it to conceal the entrance to the tomb, Looo-is,” Scarlet said, still chewing the acullico. She was stepping from foot to foot, pumped by the coca and excited by what was going to happen next. “I take it we have the goods?”
Hawke nodded. “The usual — some C4 and a few blasting caps.”
“Wait,” Luis said, the horror slowly rising in his voice. “C4 is an explosive isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Scarlet said.
“We like blowing things up,” Ryan said. “Get used to it.”
“You can’t seriously be proposing to blow up this piece of granite just to see what’s underneath? This is part of one of the most important World Heritage Sites!”
Scarlet rolled her eyes. “Been there, done it, and stained the t-shirt.”
“We could destroy valuable archaeological evidence, not to mention the obvious criminal prosecution such an act would demand.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Lexi said.
Luis turned to her, hope returning to his eyes. “Really?”
“Of course not,” the Chinese assassin said. “If you’re frightened of loud noises I’d go over there behind those trees for a few minutes and put your fingers in your ears.”
“I am not frightened of loud noises so I’ll be staying right here with all of you.”
“With us?” Hawke said as he pulled the C4 out his bag and fixed it in the crack where the granite dug into the earth. “We’re going over there behind those trees with our fingers in our ears.”
“Ah.”
“All right, let’s go.”
They moved twenty meters to the west and crouched behind a low ridge for cover. When everyone was safe and Hawke knew the blast zone was clear, he detonated the explosives.
The sound of the explosion roared out in the heavy silence of the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu and echoed off dozens of neighboring mountainsides. Flocks of nightjars, hummingbirds and cinnamon flycatchers took to the air in terror as the violent noise rang out through the valleys below, but only when the shredded canopy of pisonay and alder fell to earth in a shower of splintered granite over their heads did they hear the sound of human screams in response to the detonation. The tourists back up in Machu Picchu were obviously panicking about what had happened, but they had all expected that response.
“Looks like the countdown has begun,” Lea said.
“So let’s get going,” Hawke said.
“What about death traps?” Lexi said.
Luis shook his head. “Incas were actually quite a peaceful people, which is why many speculate they were destroyed and vanished so quickly. They weren’t anywhere near as dangerous and bloodthirsty as the Aztecs.”
“That’s a relief,” Lea said. “I’ve had enough of Aztecs, thanks very much.”
They clambered to their feet and jogged back down the slope to where the granite block had been, but now they were looking at a smoking hole in the jungle floor.
“That’s our boy!” Lea said. “I presume you’re going first, Luis?”
“What?”
“You being the only fully trained archaeologist and all.”
“Well, I…”
“She’s pulling your leg,” Hawke said, pulling a Maglite from his canvas bag and switching it on. He shook his head with amusement as he lowered himself down in the black hole.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The tunnel was extremely narrow and in places their shoulders scraped against the carved walls as they moved through it. They quickly worked out they were walking uphill, and it became obvious where it was leading thanks to the due-south direction compass reading — back to Machu Picchu.
“It’s leading us right back to the citadel,” Hawke said, shining his flashlight into the pitch-black gloom. Walking up the hill was hard work because the tunnel seemed steeper than the path above them, but at least the tunnel was widening now.
“Thank heaven for small mercies,” Lea said, finally able to move up and walk alongside Hawke. “It was less than a hundred yards so we should be there in no time, and then — hang on.”
“What is it?” Lexi called out from behind.