replied. A man in a red beret pulled himself out of the shaft. Nobody followed him. But however many intruders had come through the tunnel, it was enough for the explorers to be outnumbered – and very definitely outgunned.
He was about to return to the others when he caught movement in his peripheral vision—
An RPG-7 warhead streaked towards him.
Kit dived as the rocket shot over the balustrade and hit the building sheltering the two Peruvian archaeologists. The explosion blew in one wall, stone blocks and the remains of the roof crashing down on top of them.
The rebel with the rocket launcher looked in satisfaction at the swelling cloud of dust from the partially collapsed building. The job wasn’t over, though. ‘I think there’s still someone up there. Help me reload,’ he said, kneeling so his comrade could reach into his backpack.
It contained another two RPG-7 rounds. One was taken out, its fuse protector being removed before the missile was loaded into the launch tube. The rebel looked through its sights. The cloud was clearing – he glimpsed someone behind the ruin and took aim—
Bullets tore into his body as Eddie opened fire from a rooftop several tiers above. The rebel fell, toppling over a wall to end up sprawled on a steep pathway, the launcher still clutched in his dead hands. The other man whirled, raising his AK – only to take a lethal round to the forehead.
Eddie hopped from one roof to another, then dropped down to the ground and ran uphill towards the plaza.
‘Macy! Leonard!’ Nina yelled across the plaza. She couldn’t see anything through the drifting smoke.
She heard coughing: Kit. The dust cleared enough for her to see him lying by the balustrade, a hand to his head. Chunks of broken stone were scattered around him. He was alive, but clearly hurt, hit by debris.
She was about to run to help him when Mac pulled her back. ‘Stay in cover!’ he warned. ‘The chopper’s coming in!’
A shocked glance at the cave mouth revealed that he meant it literally. The gunship was slowly advancing through the opening into the cavern itself.
It took all Stikes’s willpower not to show any outward signs of tension to his men as the chopper entered the cavern. The opening was easily large enough to accommodate the Hind – but helicopters were not designed to fly inside enclosed spaces. The enormous force of the rotor downwash could be deflected back at the aircraft in unexpected ways, throwing it into the ancient buildings – or even against the ceiling. He just had to hope Gurov was as good a pilot as he claimed . . .
Wind buffeted the gunship. Shielding his eyes, he leaned out of the hatch for a better view. They were now clear of the wall, and he saw Pachac’s men scurrying up through the city. But his attention went to the plaza, the only place the Hind could land - and to his anger he saw that the revolutionaries had already attacked it, the ghostly trail of a rocket-propelled grenade ending at a newly demolished building. If these communist cretins had killed the people he was after—
Bullets clanked off the helicopter’s flank. Stikes jerked back. Who was firing?
Somehow, he knew the answer: Chase!
Eddie reached the plaza, opening up with his AKM at the approaching Hind. He saw Stikes, his blond hair and tan beret instantly recognisable, duck into the cabin. ‘Everyone get out of here!’ he shouted. ‘Find somewhere to hide!’ Nina and Mac were behind a nearby building; across the paved area he spotted Macy, Osterhagen and Zender struggling upright. ‘Go on, run!’
He was about to follow his own advice when the helicopter swung in his direction—
‘Hold fire!’ Stikes shouted into the headset – but his voice was drowned out by a hissing roar as Krikorian unleashed an S-8 rocket.
In the time it took to blink, it shot down from the Hind’s wing pod and smashed into the plaza.
The explosion flung Eddie off his feet as broken stones were blasted into the air, thrown high and far enough even to hit the Hind. Part of a wall near him collapsed with a ground-shaking crash.
But the destruction didn’t end there. The plaza itself trembled, the foundations of its raised eastern end shifting. A great crack lanced across the slabs – towards Nina and Mac.
The cracks of falling debris were overpowered by louder, deeper crunches. Nina jumped back from the building as its blocks rasped and groaned against each other. ‘I don’t