The Vilcabamba Prophecy: A Nick Randall Novel (10 page)

Chapter
sixteen

Colonel Frank
Ackers
wasn’t a man you wanted to anger. His six-foot,
three-inch frame sported 227 pounds of solid muscle. His face held a
pencil-thin mustache that curved up slightly at the edges when he was amused,
which was rarely. His reflective sunglasses hid the deep-blue eyes of a
remorseless killer. The title of Colonel was one held in a previous life as an
officer in the British Special Forces—a previous life that he’d been
forced to leave in dishonor.

 
“What were you and your friend doing,
Professor?”
Ackers
asked coolly, walking up to
Samantha, his gun pointed directly at her face. “You weren’t trying to get
away, were you?” the Colonel’s smile belied the anger he felt at the assault
upon his men. “Do you know who these people are working for?”

Sam
remained silent, her eyes alternating between the barrel of the gun and the
recently deceased interpreter lying in a pool of her own blood.

“Cat’s
got your tongue, Professor? That’s okay.”
Ackers
sneered as he swung the butt of his assault rifle in a single, swift arc,
catching Samantha on the cheekbone. Caught off guard, Samantha tumbled backward
onto the ground.
Ackers
could see she was in pain as
she moved her hand to her cheek and felt a large welt forming where the gun had
struck. From the look on her face,
Ackers
could see
that Sam was weighing her options, perhaps even contemplating striking him in
retaliation. After a moment, the flash of anger left her eyes, and she instead
began rubbing her cheek, no doubt despising him.

“Get
up.”
Ackers
grabbed her under her right armpit, and
roughly pulled her to her feet. Sam recoiled at his touch. “Start walking,
Professor.”
Ackers
poked the end of his gun into her
side, giving Sam no choice but to walk in the direction of the compound.

As
they approached the compound, another person slowly came into view. Sam
recognized the familiar face.
One that she had grown to hate.
It was
Dumond
.

“I
see you found our guest,
Ackers
.”

“Yes,
she was with the translator, who was working for
Kristoph
.
My men and I neutralized their strike team, but there will be another. They
know your objective, Mr.
Dumond
, and they’ll follow
us to the ruins.”

“So
Kristoph
is behind this? How did you find out?”

“We
captured one of his men alive. I was able to convince him to disclose who he
worked for.”

“Where
is
Kristoph’s
man now?”
Dumond
asked.

“Sadly,
he met a tragic death.”

“How
many men does
Kristoph
have working for him?”

“If
his man was telling the truth, he started with a mercenary force of forty
soldiers.”

“Do
you have sufficient men to handle the situation, Colonel?”

“Yes,
experience has taught me to always be prepared for counterinsurgencies in
situations such as these. We’ll plan accordingly.”

Ackers
shoved Sam forward with one last
rough push of his assault rifle. “What do you want me to do with her?”

“Put
her back in her cell, we’ll be leaving shortly.”

Ackers
escorted the Professor to her cell
and returned to the command center to assess the damage that
Kristoph’s
men had caused.
Ackers
had lost a total of six men, leaving him with 18 remaining soldiers to repel
further attacks upon their group. Good fortune had smiled upon
Ackers
and his men. They had been able to catch the strike
team off guard as his group returned from the jungle ruins. In return for
killing six of his men,
Ackers
had dealt the other
team a serious blow, killing twelve of them in the firefight.

While
a two-to-one kill advantage over his opponent was a good ratio,
Ackers
knew he had to plan carefully to minimize future
casualties to his team. It was hard to gauge how many men
Kristoph
would utilize in an attack. However,
Ackers
and his
men had the advantage of knowing the jungle and the ruins area, while his
opponents had lost their greatest advantage: surprise.
Kristoph’s
men were undoubtedly licking their wounds right now and would not gamble
another attack on the compound. The next attack would likely be in the jungle
or near the ruins.

*
* * *

Kristoph
pounded the ship’s bridge with a clenched fist. His veins were popping from his
forehead in anger. Somehow,
Dumond
had outdone him
again. “How could this have happened? You told me we had the element of
surprise!”

“Sir,
we successfully attacked the compound and caught them by surprise. The woman
you had implanted into their group had relayed the location and size of their
force at the compound, but made no mention of the strike team in the jungle.
They caught my men on our rear flank, and before we knew they were even there,
they had cut my men to pieces. We were fortunate to get out alive.”

“Fortunate?
That’s a poor choice of words, Captain!
Dumond
still
has Randall’s daughter and his research notes while we have nothing!”

“Sir,
we killed six of their men, and their force has been reduced to eighteen. My
team is double that size, and we know where they are going. We will follow them
to the ruins and take possession of the girl and the research book. This is
only a minor setback, I promise you that.”

“You
had better be right, Captain. Your life depends on it.”

Chapter seventeen

When Randall
awoke, he was
lying
on the ground, the lump on his
head throbbing. He ran his hand across the bump and discovered dried blood
trailing down the side of his face. Disoriented, the professor was unsure of
where he was. Slowly, his eyes began to focus in the darkness, and he reached
for the flashlight in his zippered pocket. He shined it to one side and found
only sheer rock. As he turned the beam in the other direction, he was startled
to see the chasm he had jumped across, earlier.

Randall
stood and shook his head from side to side, trying to clear the cobwebs from
his mind. As he rubbed his aching skull, he walked over to the sheer rock face
where the path to
Vilcabamba
had been earlier. He
pressed his hand against the stony surface. It was as solid as the ground he
stood upon. Confused, he sat back down to assess his situation.

Had
he dreamt the entire episode with the creatures? In his
groggy
state, Randall was unsure of what to make of recent events. His encounter had
seemed real, but it was also entirely possible his experience was simply a
manifestation of his deepest desire to prove his theories. There was no way to
be certain, but Randall was sure of one thing. He needed to get back to Phil
and Mike and get them some help. He also needed to find out if Sam was in danger.

Suddenly,
all of his years of research and even the discovery of
Paititi
were secondary. Three people he cared deeply about were in trouble, and he
needed to help them. Strangely enough, even if his vision of Sam had been the
byproduct of a blow to the head, Randall could sense that his daughter needed
him. Call it father’s intuition, but his little girl was in trouble, and he was
going to be there for her. The real question, now, was how to get back to Phil
and Mike? When he had jumped across the chasm the first time, he had been able
to get a good running start. This time, he only had a few feet to get enough
speed to jump. Randall searched for anything that might help him get across,
but there was nothing except solid rock walls all around him. He only had one
choice, and he needed to get moving.

Randall
backed up as close to the rock face as he could. He estimated that he had about
six to seven feet to get up to speed for his jump across the large opening. If
he couldn’t get enough speed to clear the chasm, he had a long trip straight
down waiting for him. Taking a deep breath, he sprinted for the edge of the
opening and jumped. Randall felt as if he was moving in slow motion. A split
second into the jump, he realized that his arc wasn’t high enough to clear the
chasm. As he moved closer to the other side, he could feel that his body was
dropping too quickly. He wasn’t going to make it. Dropping his flashlight, he
reached out his arms as far as they could stretch, feeling for the ledge of the
other side. The rock outcropping hit him with such force that all of the air in
his lungs was immediately expelled from his body. His face didn’t fare much
better as it hit the sheer edge of the chasm. Somehow though, Randall managed
to get his hands high enough to grip the rock ledge.

He
dangled in midair, trying to catch his breath while hanging from the side of
the rock face. In the midst of his situation, the only thought that crossed his
mind was Sam. She needed him, and he wasn’t going to let her down this time.
Summoning all of the strength in his body, Randall pulled his torso up the rock
face until his head and shoulders were above the ledge. Straining with gravity
against his own weight, he struggled to keep his positioning, thinking to
himself that if he could only get a foothold, he could push his body over the
ledge. Randall searched for a foothold on the rock face with the toe of his
boot. First, he tried with the right foot, but it bounced off the rock. He
could sense the strength leaving his body. His arms were shaking under the
strain of holding up his weight. Randall kicked in the air, trying to direct
his left boot to the stony wall in the darkness. He managed to move it close
enough to the rock to feel his left boot bounce off, in futility. His arms, now
weak from holding his body up, could no longer support him. He was slowly
dropping lower as his grip on the rock face weakened. Randall realized that he
was not going to make it.

Dangling
over the edge of the chasm, he thought about never again seeing the people he
cared about. He had wasted his life pursuing this damn discovery, and now it
would end like this, falling to his death in some godforsaken cavern. Without
his help, Phil and Mike would probably never make it out. They would eventually
die of thirst in this underground tomb. Then there were Sam and John. If Sam
was
really in trouble, there would be no one to rescue her.
As for John, he didn’t even know that he and Sam were in Peru. John would lose
his father and his sister without ever even knowing what had happened.

“Goddamn
it!”

His
grip growing weaker, Randall knew that the end was coming quickly. As his
fingers slowly slid closer to the edge, he suddenly felt something gripping his
forearms. A mixture of relief and terror filling him, he looked directly up
into the darkness, unable to see what was holding him. A sudden bright light
peered over the edge, temporarily blinding him. Soon he found himself being
hauled over the ledge. Randall lay on the ground, trying to catch his breath,
unable to speak for a moment. Finally, he was able to manage, “Who are you?”

“Are
you Randall?”

“Yes,
thank you for saving me, but would you mind shining that light in another
direction?”

Suddenly,
Randall felt two hands grab him, one from each side. Someone was lifting him to
his feet. He could sense that there was more than one person in the cavern with
him.

“What’s
going on?”

“We
work for someone who has an interest in your research. We’ll need you to come
with us.”

“I
can’t leave now, my two graduate students are stuck in this cavern. One of them
has a broken leg and needs medical attention.”

“That’s
not our concern.”

The
two men who had helped Randall up were now pushing him forward. He could feel
the barrel of a gun pushing into his back.

“Where
are you taking me?”

“Our
employer wants a word with you.”