Temple (novel)

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Title Temple

Cover of Temple
Author	Matthew Reilly
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre(s)	Techno-thriller novel
Publisher	Pan Macmillan
Released	August, 1999
Media type	Print (Paperback & Hardback)
Pages	689 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-330-48248-3

Temple is a thriller novel written by Australian author Matthew Reilly and first published in 1999. Like Reilly's other books, Temple's major attraction is unbelievably complex action scenes.

[edit] Plot introduction

Deep in the jungles of Peru, the hunt for a legendary Incan idol is underway - an idol that in the present day could be used as the basis for a highly destructive and terrifying weapon.

Guiding the US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript which contains the location of the idol.

What they find is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it - and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened...

Temple is split into two stories, both set in South America: One set during the Spanish Occupation and one set in 1999. The main focus of the former story is the journey of a monk named Alberto Santiago who becomes a traitor to his country after witnessing Spanish atrocities among the Incan civilisation. Aiding an Incan Prince named Renco Capac to escape, Santiago begins a quest to protect a special Idol - 'The Spirit of the People', an idol carved from black stone with purple veins running through it, carved from a meteorite. Upon his return to Spain, Santiago records his story in a transcript in a monastery in France. Four hundred years later, a group of armed militia storm the monastery, execute the Jesuit monks living there and recover the Santiago manuscript and another party raids DARPA headquarters. Seeing the seriousness of the mission, DARPA sends Colonel Frank Nash to Peru with the aid of NYU linguistics professor William Race to recover the idol before anyone else can retrieve it. Along the way, Race has to deal with neo-Nazis, a powerplay between the three branches of the US armed forces, group of nihilistic Texan Freedom Fighters and terrifying rapas (large jaguar like cats). Their mission: to retrieve 'the Spirit of the People' (as the natives call it), carved out of Thyrium-268 a nuclear material from a binary star system that came to Earth via a meteorite. Thyrium has the potential to provide virtually limitless clean energy ... or fuel the Supernova, a next-generation weapon of mass destruction with the power to decimate a third of the Earth's surface and bring about Doomsday.

[edit] Plot summary

The story beings in a monastery on the French-Spanish border with a group of Jesuit monks held at gunpoint by a group of masked militia. After executing most of the order, the monks finally give in, surrendering their copy of the original manuscript (though neglecting to mention a copy that was made). The masked men open fire on the monks as half a world away, a second paramilitary team raid a US government facility and make off with an egg-timer shaped device.

Later that morning, Professor William Race is running late for work (again), having overslept and then being delayed by the subway. Upon arriving at his office at New York University, he is surprised to find two Special Forces operatives waiting for him. Ushered into his office, he is introduced to Colonel Frank Nash, who asks him to accompany Nash's team to an undisclosed location and translate a manuscript. Race mentions another academic who would be better suited to the job, though Nash argues that he doesn't have time to find him and Race reluctantly agrees after seeing the name of former girlfriend Lauren O'Connor on the list of staff. Once in the air, Race is given a photocopied manuscript and informed of both their destination and mission: Peru, to seek out an idol, the location of which is recorded in the manuscript Race now has possession of.

As Race begins reading, the story switches to first-person narrative in the year 1535 with a naive Spanish monk named Alberto Luis Santiago recalling a visit to a prison hulk in Peru where he is asked by a prisoner named Renco Capac to help him escape and to guard an Incan relic from the unscrupulous Hernando Pizzaro. Initially uncertain, Santiago eventually agrees after witnessing atrocities committed by Spanish soldiers against the Incans and - as Santiago is disgusted to note - against each other. Returning later that night with a young page, Santiago helps Renco escape and the two race for Cuzco, the Incan city currently under siege by its own people.

Arriving at the city, Santiago and Renco meet Renco's brother, the leader of the Incan peoples, who informs Renco of a hidden entry in the river. Renco thanks Santiago and gives him a choice: to come with him, or to seek refuge within the city. Santiago chooses the former and the two enter the city through the sewers. With the information given by his brother, Renco traverses the sewers of Cuzco to a hidden doorway where he receives the Spirit of the People and an emerald pendant before they are rudely interrupted by Hernando Pizzaro. Renco and Santiago flee back through the sewers, emerging in the dungeons where Renco seeks the help of the criminal known as Bassario, who instantly agrees to Renco's proposition. With Pizzaro's men closing in, the three escape in a hurry, ultimately blowing Cuzco's gates open from the inside with a cannon and riding out into the cheering masses of Incan warriors.

For the next eleven days, the small party journey north and east, Santiago remarking at the Incan peoples' faith; despite torture and rape at the hands of Pizzaro and his men, not a single Incan discloses the location of the idol. A brief stopover in a quarry town confuses Santiago before the three journey further north. Santiago does not detail every event of the journey, instead choosing to remark on those of importance - namely that Bassario does not sleep at the same campsite as Renco and Santiago and the correct order to a series of statues scattered throughout the jungle designed to confuse travellers. Santiago's story ends as the party arrives at the town of Vilcafor, noticing the streets are awash with blood.

The story reverts back to the present, with William Race being interrupted in his reading. Questioning Troy Copeland, one of the DARPA scientists as to the nature of the substance the idol is made of, Copeland reveals that thyrium-261 is not native to Earth; it came to the planet via a meteorite from the Plieades. Copeland remarks that since the Plieades is a binary star system, substances from the system have unforeseen chemical properties, properties that would make thyrium-261 ideal for providing clean power at a rate six hundred times greater than current energy production, and when dipped in water, thyrium-261 would hum (all radioactive substances vibrate slightly upon contact with air, and with greater frequency when dipped in water; because of its dense molecular structure, thyrium would vibrate and create a tone audible to the human ear). Race questions this as DARPA is a military outfit, and Nash confesses that they are after the thyrium for a fourth-generation superweapon with the capacity to destroy a third of the Earth's mass, citing a US Government plan that dictates "if we can't have it, no-one can" in the event of a foreign power attempting to remove American from its seat as the world's pre-eminent superpower. Race comments that that makes America the biggest sore losers in history as they arrive in Cuzco.

Following Santiago's directions, Nash's party follow the idols to the abandoned town of Cuzco, the leader making cryptic comments about someone named Romano. Upon arrival at the town, a Nuclear Resonance Imager is set up to find the location of the idol, the DARPA scientists determining that it is hidden somewhere up in the hills. A quick exploration reveals there to be a temple atop a finger of stone with an enormous crater nearby; the likely location of their objective. Venturing into the crater, the party finds a rope bridge running to the finger of stone, which the team's anthropologists comment was made recently as such a bridge could not have survived four hundred years and coming to the conclusion that there must be a local tribe nearby. Crossing the bridge, the DARPA party find a pre-Incan temple and are about to open it when they are attacked by a group of Germans.

Caught by this new force, Race and the others are escorted back to Vilcafor as the Germans open the temple to discover some doors are meant to remain unopened: the temple is home to a pack of jaguar-like predators known as rapas, later described by a German cryptozoologist the South American equivalent of Bigfoot. With Van Lewen's help to re-start the Humvee, Race, Lauren and the DARPA scientists attempt to escape the giant cats, but accidentally drive back into the adjacent river, home to vicious black caiman crocodiles in the horrors of the rapa attack. Their fall is broken by one of the DARPA helicopters, which slowly begins to sink, forcing the scientists back out. As one of their number is taken by the caimans, Race's small party scramble up onto the roof and call for Race's bodyguard, Leonardo Van Lewen, now working with two German agents having decided on strength in numbers. Race narrowly escapes the caimans as he escapes the sinking helicopter-Humvee, and is picked up by the soldiers before falling asleep in their All-Terrain Vehicle.

The next morning, Race meets the Germans; Karl Schroeder and Renee Becker from the German federal police, cryptozoologist Johann Krauss from the University of Bonn and Marc Graf, one of two surviving paratroopers. The Germans describe that they are not here to get the idol for a Supernova, but to get it before someone else does: a group of neo-Nazis led by Heinrich Anistaze, and request the Americans help them. Puzzled as to how to avoid the rapas, Race takes the initiative suggests that Alberto Santiago knew a way in and requests the German copy of the manuscript.

Santiago's story resumes in the town of Vilcafor, with Renco's party making their way to the town's citadel where they meet Renco's uncle, named Vilcafor (Santiago comments early in his text that each town is named for their leader). Vilcafor says he had heard of the Spanish chase, and ordered a path constructed through the jungle to escape, but in doing so encountered a forgotten temple. He theorises that this belonged to a man named Solon, head councillor to the leader of the Incan's forerunners, known only as the Moxe. Solon, a wise man, had been given a great treasure for his services and asked that a temple be constructed to store his horde. Within the temple, he ordered that a pack of rapas be placed to stave of people, thus making it the ultimate challenge of greed: those who succumbed to avarice would die at the claws and fangs of the rapas while those who left the temple closed would survive. Vilcafor, however, succumbed, and opened the temple, unleashing the rapas.

Santiago joins Renco on the roof of the citadel and relieves his friend from his watch for the rapas. As Renco returns to the citadel, a young woman and a small boy are escorted into Vilcafor by a group of Incan warriors. In the fading light, Santiago spots a rapa ready to strike and calls out; the woman and young boy making it as far as the citadel. Santiago pulls them up, but a rapa catches the woman's dress and pulls her back down. Powerless to do anything, Santiago dives down with them, trying to fend the cats off with an arrow to little use. It is then that the idol lands in a puddle next to him, and starts humming. The Spanish monk questions what prompted anyone to throw the Incans' greatest treasure down to him. It is here that the idol reveals one of its many properties: the capacity to soothe even the angriest of animals with the hum, allowing Santiago to retreat to the citadel with the woman and her son.

The woman, Lena, brings news of the Spanish pursuit and takes a liking to Santiago for his bravery. Believing Lena is Renco's wife, he admits he felt jealous of his friend until it is revealed she is his sister, and he listens to her report: Pizzaro will be in Vilcafor by daybreak. It is here that Renco reveals his new plan: he will take the idol into the temple and seal it and himself in with the rapas. Santiago's horror is redoubled when he is offered a gift from the people: a way to avoid the rapas in the form of monkey excrement. He is also told of the route through a quenko, a make-like passage out of the citadel.

William Race is interrupted again by Nash and gives him the necessary information about avoiding the rapas. Three American soldiers make their way up to the temple as the rapas come out, protected by monkey excrement. They manage to make their way into the temple and recover the idol, but they are cut off from the team in Vilcafor by the arrival of the neo-Nazis armed with Heckler and Koch G-11 rifles. Race volunteers to go up to the temple and report the new development, and the four Americans decide to try and evade the Nazis. In the resulting firefight, one is killed and a second badly wounded as the Nazis take the idol and cut the rope bridge. Stranded atop the finger of stone, Race and Van Lewen are forced two swing across a three-hundred-foot chasm to give pursuit to the Nazis.

Returning to the darkening town of Vilcafor, the Americans decide to split up; Race, Renee Becker, her superior, the lone German paratrooper named Molke, Van Lewen and Doogie Kennedy will give chase as the rest of the team wait in Vilcafor. Using the quenko under Vilcafor's citadel, Race's party chase Heinrich Anistaze to the Alto Purus river. Seizing some abandoned jet bikes, the chase begins. In the resulting carnage the Nazi fleet is decimated, with Race and Doogie stealing a Vietnam War-era patrol boat before Doogie moves to a Grumann JRF-5 seaplane. Renee and Van Lewen storm the control boat with Renee being captured and Van Lewen forced to escape via a speedboat. Race goes under his speeding riverboat to avoid the Nazis, careful to protect his New York Yankees cap and boards the control boat, also being captured. Molke is shot by the Nazis while Karl Schroeder is in danger of being left behind in the chase. After disabling the Nazi's G-11 rifles with an electromagnetic pulse generator, he sets off a DARPA-developed isotopic grenade that destroys most of the fleet.

The Nazis, under the command of Odilo Ehrhardt and Heinrich Anistaze, take Race and Renee to the Madre de Dios gold mine while Doogie and Van Lewen follow at a discreet distance. Ehrhardt reveals that he believes the old Nazi ideals to be defunct, and discloses his new plan: to blackmail one hundred billion US dollars out of world governments before floating it on the New York Stock Exchange at the price of one cent. The resulting economic collapse would mean the US dollar would not be worth the paper it was printed on, thus ushering in a new world order.

At the goldmine, a Nazi described as being "craterfaced" due to his pockmarked skin is sent to execute Race and Renee. "Craterface", however, shoots the Nazi sent with him, and reveals himself to be Uli Pieck, one of Renee's colleagues, and working from within the Nazi organisation. Race takes the dead Nazi's body armour, not realising what it is as Uli leaves to deal with Ehrhardt and fellow war criminal Fritz Weber, who have set the Supernova to detonate in a control booth suspended above the open-cut mine and accessible only by a pair of narrow bridges, and asking Race and Renee to deal with Anistaze. Race notices one of the Nazis has come to check on Uli and races to warn the BKA agent before Anistaze catches up with him. The psychotic Nazi catches Uli and shoots him in the stomach and is ready to kill him when Race tackles him from behind, the two falling into the open cut mine as Ehrhardt and Weber start the Supernova's detonation sequence.

Renee, meanwhile, is attakcing the warehouse where the helicopter landed, accidentally setting a converyor belt off and using a pair of grenades to take out two Nazis, one of them causing the helicopter to collapse, its rotors still whirring. Outside, race and Anistaze survive their ninety-foot fall courtest of the sloping sides of the mine and find themselves in a fight to the death before being pulled up into the surrounding earth by the conveyor belt Renee started. Easily the superior fighter, Anistaze quickly gains the upper hand and, noticing the still-spinning blades of the helicopter. Poitions Race in such a way that it will decapitate the professor of languages. Renee spots the two of them fighting and manages to halt the conveyor belt an inch before the blades would remove Race's head. Taken by surprise, Anistaze is slow to react when Race knees him in the groin and rolls under the blades, dragging the German head-first with him. Renee helps Race up and finds a fax from the White House revealing the President will not pay any ransom under any circumstances.

Without Uli, Race and Renee are forced to attack the control booth head-on, Race making his way around the mine to the southern side as Renee runs a the control booth from the north. Ehrhardt spots them and takes Weber outside, shooting the scientist in the head and letting his body fall, removing the only person who knew the disarm code and disconnecting Renee's bridge. Renee survives, grabbing onto one of the steel borads as the bridge falls, leaving Race to reach the control booth alone. Upon entering, he sets off a trap that will mix two hypergloic compounds together should the Supernova be defused. With two minutes to go, Race is taunted by the obese Nazi, prompting the American to shoot him. Noticing the idol lying near a pair of warhead transportation canisters, Race sets about trying to save the world in under two minutes. With Renee's BKA knowledge, they deduce that a high proportion of people use numbers that are significant to themselves as passwords. Initially suspecting Weber's date of birth, Race changes his mind when he remembers the scientist was supposedly executed and enters the date into the Supernova, disarming it with four seconds remaining (also arming the hypergloic compounds). Outside, a horrified Renee watches as the control booth is consumed in an explosion forceful enough to propel debris over the open-cut mine as Van Lewen and Doogie Kennedy arrive.

Renee's story of the events is interrupted as a canister falls from the trees, opening to reveal a bruised but live William Race complete with Yankees cap and the idol. Designed to withstand 10,000 pounds of pressure per inch for the safe transport of nuclear warheads, the canister easily protected Race from the explosion. A relieve party return to Vilcafor in the seaplane after retrieving the Nazi copy - the original copy - of Alberto Santiago's manuscript. Before reading it, Renee reveals to Race the nature of their mission: Frank Nash is not a retired Army Colonel working for DARPA's Tactical Weapons Division, but a very active member of the Army working for the Special Projects Office. With the US Congress looking to phase out one division of the armed forces by 2010, the Army, Navy and Air Force have since been attempting to out-do and/or undercut each other in everything they do, with the Army constantly coming last. Thus, the mission to Peru was authorised to secure a sample of thyrium-261 and guarantee the survival of the Army. The identity of the mysterious Julius Romando is revealed to be the head of the project Nash originally claimed to be from, his party lost after mis-interpreting the route to Vilcafor. Race also reveals the idol taken by the Nazis is a fake, and has a fair idea as to why. During the gunfire, the sprinklers went off, but although thyrium hums when it touches water, the idol didn't hum once since Race took it from the control booth.

Santiago's story begins again as Renco shows him Bassario's work during the trek from Cuzco: a copy of the idol. Bassario is revealed to have been the son of the Incan's Royal Stonemason, a man who surpassed his father in talent and skill by the age of sixteen. After indulging in gambling too often and unable to pay his debts, Bassario is forced to create replicas of idols thieves wish to steal and is successful for a year before being caught. Sent to prison, Bassario acknowledges that his punishment is just, but resents his people for punishing his family, and chooses to abandon Renco and Santiago. Saddened, Renco accepts, and leads the way to the temple and Lena escorts the survivors of Vilcafor through the quenko.

Atop the finger of stone, Renco uses the idol to lure the rapas in and has almost sealed the temple when Lena returns, escorted by Hernando Pizzaro. Renco surrenders Bassario's idol, forced by Pizzaro to proffer it on one knee before Pizzaro orders the tortured and executed when one of the rapas returns with the real idol in its mouth. In the resulting confusion, Santiago's executioner is killed and Renco and the monk are freed in a shower of arrows. Renco and Castino, Pizzaro's Chancha guide from the prison hulk, duel with sabres, Renco having been taught by Santiago and Castino by Pizzaros men. Ultimately, Renco decapitates Castino as Santiago attempts to recover and protect the idol. Pizzaro labels him a traitor to Spain and to his God before shooting him and wishing the monk a slow and unpleaseant death. Santiago, however, has been protected by his handwritten copy of the Bible, and quickly recovers, giving chase to Pizzaro.

Santiago tackles the ruthless conquistador, destroying a section of the rope bridge. Still carrying one of the rpes that bound him prior to his aborted execution, Santiago finds himself suspended above a three-hundred-foot fall, Hernando Pizzaro gripping the other end of the rope in one hand and the Spirit of the People in the other. Struggling to get a handhold, Pizzaro taunts Santiago, saying he would kill to own the idol. Santiago retorts Pizzaro's words mean nothing to him as he would give his life to protect it. Having untied the rope around his wrist, Santiago takes a handhold and releases Pizzaro, plucking the idol from his hands. It is implied that Pizzaro's final cry of "Nooooo!" is not so much for the loss of his life, but for the loss of the idol.

Struggling to climb back up onto the bridge, Santiago returns to the temple where he meets Renco, Lena and, to his surprise, Bassario, the archer who had freed him and Renco earlier. Lena kisses Santiago and Renco asks one more favour of them: to seal the temple behind him as he leads the rapas in. Santiago and the others comply, rolling the boulder over the temple's entry and Santiago carving a warinigng into the stone and lamenting the loss of his friend as he leaves Lena and South America for good.

William Race, however, is not so sure as to the ending, believing Santiago doctored the ending to protect the idol. Returning to Vilcafor, he reveals to Nash that the idol is fake. The pseudo-DARPA scientists set up the Nuclear Resonance Imager once more and traces the idol's location to somewhere in the cratre. Race embarrasses the Army's scientist when he applies simple trigonometry to the problem, revealing the idol is hidden beyond the crater, and hypothesising that it is under the protection o fthe local natives, most likely descendants of Renco Capac and Alberto Santiago.

The party sets out once more, Race swearing to stop Nash from taking the idol. Venturing above the crater, they arrive in a town and Nash immediately makes for the idol's location before begin stopped by the local tribe. Initially prepared to kill the party, the locals stop themselves when they see Race's birthmark, similar to one possessed by Renco Capac. Their language is translated by a Peruvian anthrolpologist, presumed missing until this point, who informs race that he will have to prove himself to the locals lest his friends be sacrificed to the rapas. Race is shows into a pit bordering the river and a black caimain let in with him in a fight to the death. Armed with only a grappling hook taken from an M-16, Race kills the crocodile by releasing the hook's claws in the caiman's mouth.

In the following celebrations, Race is elevated to near-God status and presented with a thin leather notebook that confirms his suspicions that Santiago doctors his manuscript. The next morning, their talk is rudely interrupted by the arrival of Julius Romano's Navy team and Nash's extraction team, both of whom got lost en route to Vilcafor. In the resulting confusion, Nash seizes the idol and flees with Lauren O'Connor and Troy Copeland. Fired by Nash's deception, Race gives chase with Renee and Van Lewen in tow, finally catching Nash's smaller team in Vilcafor where the Army Colonel executes Romano's team and Race comes face-to-face with Nash's inside man: Martin Race, Will's brother. Marty reveals he betrayed his project to finally get some respect in ihs life, and reveals that he is married to Lauren O'Connor. Will, having seen Lauren kissing Troy Copeland shortly after arriving at Vilcafor for the first time, tries to tell him otherwise, but Marty refuses to listen. Nash prepared to execute Race and Renee, but Leonardo Van Lewen steps between them. Ordered to stand down, Van Lewen protests that his orders are to protect Race. Nash executes him in cold blood before he escapes with Marty, Lauren and Copeland in a Black Hawk helicopter.

Joined by Doogie Kennedy, Race and Renee continue to give chase, witnessing Nash's Black Hawk being ordered to land and surrender the idol by a third party. They are greeted by Earl Bittiker, a psychotic ex-Navy SEAL dishonourably discharged for the rape of a female officer and the founder of the Texan Republican Army. Bittiker has ties to the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult of Japan and intends to use the stolen DARPA Supernova to bring about the apocalypse. Troy Copeland turns on Nash, revealing himself to be sympathetic to Bittiker's cause and the two shoot Nash, Lauren and Marty. Lauren O'Connor is killed instantly, Marty Race dies in his brother's arms and Frank Nash is shot in the stomach before being apprehended by the natives, who remove his hands for theft. As Bittiker's group flies away, Race, Renee and Doogie use the quenko to return to their seaplane where they find a sleep Uli, dosed-up on painkillers. Doogie pilots the plane in pursuit of Bittiker, following them back to Cuzco where they find an Antonov An-22 transport plane, an M1A1 Abrams Main Battle tank stored in its belly. Race's team arrive in time to see Bittiker and Copeland taking off.

Forced into action, race comes up with a daring plan: as the only uninjured member of the team, he intends to board the Antonov in mid-flight and attempt to stop the Supernova. Doogie pilots the seaplane under the larger An-22 as Race opens the top hatch to activate the cargo ramp's opening mechanism. Boarding the plane at close to fifteen thousand feet - and climbing - Race apprehends Bittiker as the Supernova's count-down draws closer to zero. The two exchange heated words before Copeland fires at Race, forcing the professor and Bittiker to dive for cover. Race returns fire and climbs into the tank, forcing the two technicians on-board to climb out. Using Van Lewen's knowledge of re-starting disabled American military vehicles, Race starts the 67-ton tank as Bittiker and Copeland taunt him. Seeking an end to the situation, Race fires the tank's main gun, the shell decapitating Troy Copeland and destroys the Antonov as Race backs the tank out of the plane at over 20,000 feet.

Trapped inside the falling tank with Bittiker and two minutes away from the end of the world - again - Marty's final words come back to Race as he attempts to disarm the Supernova. Marty, described by Race as the world's worst Elvis Presley fan, has a tendency to use the King's Army Serial Number as his passcodes, and having worked on the Supernova's ignition system, was responsible for overseeing the entry of the arm/disarm codes. Successfully saving the world, Race climbs out of the tank while it falls at terminal velocity towards the Peruvian jungles, despite not having a parachute. The tank implodes upon impact, killing Bittiker in an instant.

Race, however, survives the fall, New York Yankees cap and all. He finds himself thirty feet above the wreckage of the Texan tank courtesy of the body armour pilfered from the dead Nazi at the Madre de Dios goldmine. As he returns to earth, he recalls as story of an incident on the Baltimore freeway where a DARPA truck had been hijacked along with its cargo of chorine-based isotopic charges and sixteen working prototypes of the near-mythical J-7 jetpack, stolen by the Nazis. With the idol in one hand, he signals to Doogie as the seaplane flies overhead and they return to Vilcafor for one last mission.

Race returns to the village above Solon's temple, asking permission to use to idol to return the rapas to the den. Following in Renco Capac's footsteps, William Race uses the huming Spirit of the People to lead the rapas into the temple where he witnesses first-hand Solon's treasures. Depositing Bassario's false idol, he finds an answer to the question of the rapas' survival when he spots a pile of bodies in one corner; the local villagers had been giving their dead to the rapas for four hundred years. Exiting via a hidden underwater passage, Race returns the idol to the village and asks that they disappear with the idol, the people of the village declaring him to be the Second Coming of their Chosen One. As Race and Renee prepare to leave, they witness a bound and gagged Frank Nash - minus his hands - being escorted to a hole in the ground behind the temple. As the bodies of Lauren O'Connor, Marty Race and Leonardo Van Lewen are sent to the rapas, Nash is forced to watch his eventual fate; Race and Renee leaving as his screams echo through the canyon despite his gag.

Leaving Vilcafor for good in Doogie seaplane, Race opens the notebook given to him by the local villagers and reads the true ending of Santiago's adventure. The monk reveals that Renco Capac had emerged from Solon's temple shortly after they sealed it, and the small party established the village above the crater where they would live for the next twenty-four years. Santiago married Lena - requesting that the reader neglect to mention this fact to his breathen - and the two had children before Bassario, Renco and Lena passed away from old age. It is a saddened Alberto Santiago who decides to leave South America forever, deciding to record his story in a monastery until the end of his days. As his guides lead him from the unnamed town, Santiago recounts the prophecy of the Chosen One and bids the reader farewell.

Sitting with Renee asleep at his shoulder, William Race compares his adventure with that of Renco and the prophecy. Both bore the Mark of the Sun, the distincitve birthmark under their left eye. Both were possessed of cat-like grace and agility. Both wresteled with black caimans, and both enjoyed the company of bravehearted men. In the final line of the story, however, Race realises that Renco never fulfilled the final line of the prophecy: Renco Capac had never fallen from the sky to save the Spirt of the People ...