A torch beam flashed across his face. Someone shouted in Spanish. The climber looked up, saw him – and dropped back down to the first step, reaching for the AK-47 across his back.
Eddie lunged, grabbing the stone jaguar and yanking it upwards – then rolled back as the Kalashnikov roared. Bullets smacked against the wall, sending ricochets screaming up the shaft. The noise was horrific in the confined space.
The thunder faded to echoes, then to nothing. The AK’s magazine was empty. He heard metallic clicks from below as the gunman kept pulling the trigger.
Not one of Stikes’s men, then – a professional would already be changing the mag. No time to wonder who he might be, though. Instead Eddie leapt and grabbed the rope, swinging round to plant his soles against the shaft’s side as he scrambled up. He couldn’t touch the trigger slab on the step above.
Kla-chack! The gunman had finally reloaded and pulled the AK’s charging handle, chambering the first round—
Eddie heaved himself over the ledge and swung sideways on the rope, thumping against the back wall as another burst of gunfire hammered up the shaft. He was barely an inch above the slab, his leather jacket brushing the stone. A sharp chunk of metal hit his cheek – a bullet had blown the tip off a spike. He flinched, almost falling, straining to hold on . . .
The firing stopped. The rope juddered in his hands as the man below grabbed it and started to climb after him.
Eddie jerked back into motion, pulling himself rapidly up the shaft. He clambered out and drew his knife. The rope was still bar-taut with the gunman’s weight; he sawed at it, threads fraying—
It snapped. A yell of fright came from below as the climber fell – followed by a terrible scream as he hit the spikes. The agonised shrieks continued as the man flailed, trying to drag himself off the spears tearing into his flesh. He succeeded – only to plummet down the shaft. The crack of shattering bone as his jaw caught the edge of a step was almost as sharp as the Kalashnikov’s shots.
The sound was followed by the real thing as the dead man’s companions fired up the shaft. Eddie ran – not because he feared being hit, but because he was only feet from the silver door at the bottom of the reservoir.
If the trap still worked, it would soon open.
The gunshots stopped, replaced by grunts of exertion. Another man was ascending, pulling himself up each step in turn. Shouts followed him as other men crowded into the tunnel to join the pursuit.
He reached the fourth ledge—
The slab tilted under his weight. Only by an inch . . .
But that was all that was needed to release the flap.
The heavy metal door, hinged at its top, flew open under the pressure of thousands of gallons of water. The escaping flood smashed against the great wall before finding an escape route – straight down the shaft.
The deluge swept away the men climbing the steps, dashing them against the spikes and driving the silver points through skulls and torsos. Those at the bottom fared no better, the surge of water pounding along the passage like a piston and flinging them to their deaths on the jagged rocks below.
Outside, Pachac stared at the plume of water gushing from the tunnel in horrified disbelief. He had been about to enter the passage himself – and now all the men who had gone before him were dead! Bodies surfaced and bobbed in the frothing pool, limbs snapped like broken dolls. The rest of his men were equally shocked. ‘Inkarrí!’ shouted one. ‘What – what do we do now?’
The force of the water was already falling. Pachac’s face set into an angry snarl. ‘As soon as the tunnel is clear, we go in – and make the bastards who killed our brothers pay!’
Eddie reached Echazu, the young officer having found a position in a small house overlooking the shaft. Chambi was not far away, crouched behind the wall of a terrace near their route into the city. ‘You got them!’ said the Peruvian.
‘Dunno if I got all of ’em, though,’ Eddie replied. The reservoir was now empty, the silver flap’s weight swinging it shut to reset the trap – but it would take hours, even days, for the streams running through the cavern to refill it. ‘If I didn’t, it won’t take long before they come through that hole. If