The Inca Prophecy (44 page)

‘I want sentries posted on top of all four pyramids,’ O’Connor said.

Huayta smiled. ‘It’s done,’ he said. Huayta’s men began scrambling into position.

O’Connor looked at his watch. Less than twenty minutes before the sun reached its zenith – not that you could tell from down here, he thought. Less than twenty minutes to find the third crystal skull and find out what to do with all three. The task seemed nearly impossible, and for a moment O’Connor thought it might be beyond them. He scanned the city, searching for a clue. ‘What do you suppose the towers are for?’ he asked Aleta.

‘I’m not sure, but there are steps leading up to the tops.’

‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ O’Connor replied. He moved carefully up the stone steps of the nearest tower, with Aleta close behind. When he reached the top, he whistled softly. A solid-gold flagstone block had been set at an angle in the middle of the stone parapet. Engraved in the centre was the Greek letter phi,
.

‘The Mayans weren’t the only ones to use the golden ratio in their buildings,’ Aleta mused in wonderment.

‘The question is, what does it mean?’ O’Connor replied, placing his foot on the symbol but without result. ‘Unless …’

‘What do you think?’

‘This is somehow related to the Fibonacci sequence,’ O’Connor replied. Aleta knew that the sequence was a mathematical formula considered by many to be the core of the natural world. From
the number of seeds in a sunflower to the spirals of shells and the branching of trees, the Fibonacci sequence was at the base of it all.

‘I’m wondering if instead of using the golden ratio, the Inca used the golden angle?’ O’Connor mused.

‘One hundred and thirty-seven point five degrees?’

‘And that might just be the clue we’re looking for,’ O’Connor said, his mind racing. ‘The Fibonacci sequence is embedded in nature and leaf patterns —’

‘The sunflower!’ they exclaimed in unison.

‘Exactly! The angle between the florets on the sunflower is 137.5 degrees,’ O’Connor said. Both knew the golden angle was obtained from two points on the circumference of a circle. The golden angle was easily calculated by dividing 3600 by
and subtracting the answer, 222.5, which produced the golden angle of 137.508.

‘And the sunflower originated from the Americas. The Inca might have seen a connection?’

‘We’ll soon find out.’ O’Connor whipped out his compass and aligned it with the centre of the gold symbol. ‘Sixty-eight and three-quarter degrees … half the golden angle!’

‘And if there’s a flagstone on the other tower, that’s the other half!’

‘The intersection …’ Again, they both spoke together.

‘Carlos! Quickly!’ O’Connor shouted. We’ve only ten minutes before the sun reaches the zenith. I need you on top of the other tower,’ and he doubled back down the steps to the plaza. ‘Line me up,’ he called when Huayta had reached the opposite flagstone.

‘Move towards Aleta more,’ Huayta commanded. ‘Yes … Okay, you’re in line with me.’

‘Come forward,’ Aleta directed. ‘Further … a little
more … stop,’ she called when O’Connor came into line with the direction of
.

O’Connor grabbed his knife and scraped away the moss from the tightly fitting plaza stone beneath him. The knife sank deep into the moss as O’Connor cleared the centuries of debris to reveal an indentation in the shape of a puma head. O’Connor dropped his pack and retrieved the solid-gold puma head they’d discovered in the tomb. It was the exact size and shape of the stone indentation. Making sure that Aleta and Huayta were safely off the towers, he slowly placed the head into the corresponding shape on the keystone. To his delight, it clicked home. The ground began to tremble as the front of the left tower sank into the earth, revealing dusty stone stairs that hadn’t seen the light of the jungle since the Inca had fled the Spanish invasion and established the city centuries before.

Aleta gasped. ‘The walls … they’re lined with gold!’

Huayta nodded. ‘Twenty-two-carat gold sheet,’ he confirmed. ‘Like the walls of the temple in Cusco. If the Spanish had found this city, they would have melted down everything in sight, but Paititi has lain hidden from their grasp.’

‘We don’t have much time,’ urged O’Connor. ‘Two minutes to the zenith!’ He grabbed the boxes containing the precious crystal skulls and led the way into the citadel, probing the encroaching darkness with his torch beam. The stairs descended and took a sharp turn to the right before leading towards a large, circular catacomb with a domed roof. The niches in the walls glinted in the light of the torch. They were crammed with priceless Inca artefacts: solid-gold statues inlaid with emeralds and other precious stones, miniature replicas of the Golden Sun Disc, corn with stalks of solid
silver and ears of gold, gold goblets and vases filled with emeralds and turquoise. But all of this paled in comparison with the inner sanctum. Here, the walls were lined with gold Inca mummies.

‘The Golden Sun Disc and the last crystal skull!’ Aleta exclaimed. ‘And look at the diamond in the middle!’ The gold jewel-encrusted sacred disc of the Inca, once suspended in the Coricancha, had been fitted into a perfect circular groove in the stone floor. Beside it lay ropes of golden thread. A huge diamond, the size of a billiard ball, was embedded in the centre. Directly beyond the disc, a crystal skull identical to the ones carried by Aleta and O’Connor sat in a small carved niche. An eerie blue light glowed deep within the crystal. O’Connor continued to shine his torch around the room and across the granite flagstones.

‘And look!’ Aleta shouted, barely containing her excitement. Just inside the entrance, a golden icon of a skull had been carved into a flagstone. ‘And there’s another one on the other side!’ O’Connor and Aleta carefully removed the crystal skulls from their carrying cases and placed them on the carvings, where they locked in perfectly.

‘Now what?’ O’Connor wondered aloud, but as he spoke, a thin beam of sunlight appeared through the ceiling.

‘See!’ Aleta exclaimed, pointing to a small hole in the gold sheet on the roof of the cupola. ‘There must be a gap in the canopy.’

‘Which the Yaminahua tribe have maintained for centuries, waiting for just this moment,’ Huayta said, the awe in his voice clear.

‘Then the Yaminahua were really on our side?’ Aleta asked, watching the dust particles in the growing beam of sunlight.

‘Yes, but they treated you as an enemy until you successfully killed several of their number. That was the sign they were looking for. Those that gave their lives did so willingly, allowing the remainder of the tribe to retreat. Far from wanting any revenge, they are overjoyed that this moment has finally arrived.’

The beam strengthened, moving towards the centre of the disc and the diamond. At over 1000 carats, it was bigger than anything in the known world, dwarfing the Golden Jubilee and Cullinan diamonds.

Suddenly, the cuts on the diamond split the sun’s rays in three directions, shining at the three crystal skulls.

‘The sun is at its zenith,’ Huayta observed calmly. ‘The Inca prophecy will now be revealed.’

The power of Inti, the Giver of Life, energised the skulls and all three were instantly connected. Slivers of deep-blue electricity connecting the crystal crackled around the walls.

‘Stand back and let the images appear,’ Huayta advised.

‘It’s just like a hologram,’ Aleta whispered in awe, as the first of the images appeared over the centre of the Sun Disc. ‘That’s the President of the United States, and the Prime Minister of Israel.’

‘They’re in the Oval Office,’ O’Connor agreed, unable to tear his eyes away from the image. ‘Just the two of them.’

‘As you’re aware, Mr President,’ the Israeli Prime Minister intoned, ‘when Eisenhower sat in this office before the Suez Crisis in 1956, my predecessor, David Ben-Gurion, was deceptive. He didn’t tell
Eisenhower about his secret meetings with the British and the French, and Eisenhower read about our invasion across the Suez in the newspapers. I don’t want to make the same mistake with you. A nuclear-armed Iran is simply unacceptable to Israel, and we’re going to attack the day after tomorrow. We don’t have a choice.’

‘Let me be blunt,’ said McGovern, his face set in determination. ‘An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will destabilise the entire Middle East, and that is not acceptable to the United States. Fifteen million barrels of oil a day – nearly a third of the world’s supply – passes through the Hormuz Straits and if you attack Iran, they will close them. That will double – quadruple – inflation overnight. The results would be disastrous for the US and for the world. You have to give diplomacy a chance.’

‘We’ve tried that, and it hasn’t worked. Neither have the sanctions.’

‘You don’t have many friends left in this world, Prime Minister.’ The President wasn’t pulling his punches. ‘After your disastrous attack on the Gaza aid flotilla in international waters, even Turkey’s against you – and in the Muslim world, they were the only friends you had. You attack Iran, and a billion Muslims are going to see this as an attack on Islam itself.’

The Israeli Prime Minister shrugged. ‘They said that when we attacked the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, and they said it again when we attacked the Syrian reactor in al-Kibar. The world has to understand that Israel will not stand idly by while her enemies arm themselves with nuclear weapons that can achieve what Ahmadinejad has vowed to do – wipe Israel off the map!’

The anger between the two leaders was palpable and the power
grid between the crystal skulls intensified as the hologram shifted to the massive Ramon Air Force Base in the Negev Desert of Israel, where Air Force Colonel Erez Rosenberg was briefing his F-15 and F-16 pilots.