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They set off in a foggy drizzle at the first light of dawn, but within the hour they climbed into bright sunshine. Eberbach was surprised at the Earl's stamina; he kept up easily on the steep trail, although his two subordinates soon lagged behind.
Each day they wound higher, the air became colder and thinner, and the trail narrowed. Soon they were negotiating patches of snow, and crossing chasms where their guide warned them in whispers and gestures not to make any sharp noises.
They had to touch, to help one another up the steep inclines, but even Eroica could make nothing sexual out of grasping hands through double layers of gloves, while gasping for breath in the cold, thin air. For once the thief was properly dressed, although he had chosen an insulated climbing suit in his favorite flamboyant red. If he did fall, at least he would stand out clearly against the snow.
It was not difficult to refrain from talking, let alone shouting, when they crept through the dangerous chasms: it was all they could do to suck in enough air to keep moving. It was a relief when a late spring blizzard forced them to huddle under an outcropping until the wind died down enough to toil onward.
One day merged into another. Eberbach began to wonder if all his life before this long, uncomfortable climb had been nothing but a dream. He was cold, he was tired, and although it was far too cold to sweat, he felt dirty. He wanted a shower — and a pair of scissors to cut the snow-laden fringe of hair that fell past his brows to freeze to his eyelashes!
Then suddenly, like emerging from a nightmare, the snow ended, the clouds cleared away, and their guide panted out something in his native language that the four Europeans couldn't understand. They understood the outflung arm, though, and when they looked toward where it pointed, there in a shaft of sunlight stood a temple carved from the living mountain rock.
From here on, steps were carved in the mountainside. Their weariness still made it difficult, but with the goal in sight the travelers were re-energized.
The temple had no doors, but a series of rock baffles inside the entrance made them twist and turn until the bitter winds no longer reached them. It was actually warm in the interior of the mountain, the heat of Mother Earth herself. As it became less painful to breathe, Eberbach felt his steps grow lighter.
But it was Eroica who took the lead, playing his electric torch on the ever-widening rock walls until they emerged into a spacious cavern in which the torch was no longer needed. The walls glowed with luminescent lichen.
Eberbach felt the same hush fall over his soul that he knew upon entering a great cathedral. It was one of his best-kept secrets ... and, oddly enough, Eroica was the only person still living to whom he had ever confided that strange, spiritual need they shared despite their mutual claims of atheism.
He stepped up beside the thief, who gave him a sideways glance with nothing in it but a beatific smile. And when Eroica took his hand, he did not pull away, but let himself be led through the antechamber, and into the great hall where masses of glowing lichen brought to life the mosaic of the Sun God.
The journal photograph, taken with flash, in no way did it justice. The gold, which appeared flat and stylized in the illustration, in reality glowed with life. The sapphire eyes sparkled, and in the shifting light they seemed to look at each of the travelers in turn, while the changing lights and shadows in the swirls of hair made it appear to move just as Eroica's own curls did.
The Earl stared at it, drinking in the beauty of the artwork. Eberbach could not judge its artistry, but he was overwhelmed by the sanctity of this place. They could not desecrate it by removing that mosaic!
“Lord Gloria,” he whispered, even that sound overly loud in the silence of the cavern. “We can't -- ”
“Hush,” Eroica said softly. “I know we can't.” He turned, tears in his eyes — and then those sapphire eyes widened as they focused on something over the Major's shoulder. “Oh, blessed gods,” he murmured, put his hands on Eberbach's shoulders, and turned him gently around.
Again the touch was so completely asexual that the Major felt no need for even a token protest. He turned, and saw.
There was a second mosaic, silver to the Sun God's gold, with eyes of emerald and hair of night-black obsidian. “Brother Moon,” Eroica whispered. “Dark, mysterious, and ever-changing. It is so like you .... ”
“Don't say such things,” Eberbach replied softly. “It's sacrilege.”
“The sacrilege would be to try to move them,” said Eroica. “Or to allow them to be moved. For once you are absolutely right, my love: this is a treasure of Hualpa and his people. No one must be allowed to carry it away.”
“Not even you?” Eberbach asked.
“I will carry the memory in my heart,” the thief replied. “I don't need the mosaic — and if I were to take one, it would be that one.” He gestured toward the silver-and-black effigy. “But no, neither one should be moved. We must get to Lima as quickly as possible, and warn the Peruvian government that this great treasure is in danger.”
Eberbach stared at him. “I actually think you are sincere.”
“You don't think it; you know it,” Eroica told him. “And now you know why you were drawn here, don't you? Government officials aren't going to listen to me, but you, a NATO officer — ”
“I don't usually believe in such things,” Eberbach said doubtfully, “but I also don't usually go chasing you around the world when I'm not under orders to do so.”
Eroica smiled, looking frighteningly like the mosaic behind him. “Almost my fondest wish come true,” he said tenderly. But then he turned to Bonham and Jones, who were staring in awe bordering on terror from the two mosaics to the two men who could have modeled for them. “We all need a rest. We'll stay here tonight. See if there are any other chambers where we can sleep. Spreading our sleeping bags here would seem too much like camping in a church.”
Hualpa spoke again, words they didn't understand, but his gesture for them to follow was clear enough. He led them across the large chamber and through another passage in the rock into a room also lighted with the glowing plants. They could hear the sound of water.
There was a pool, with two small springs pouring into it. Hualpa tried to explain something in gestures, but Eberbach figured it out by thrusting a hand into the steaming water beneath one of the springs. “This one is hot,” he said. “Be careful — it could burn you.”
The other spring was cold, and they mingled in the pond so that each man could choose the temperature of his bath simply by moving to the spot that felt best to him. The other four lost no time stripping and jumping in. Eberbach reminded himself that he survived communal nudity in locker rooms, and managed not to delay long enough to attract undue attention.
Which he got anyway.
Eroica splashed happily, lathering up with, of all things, rose-scented soap! Soon his luxurious locks were a mass of bubbles, and the smell of summer flowers permeated the humid air.
Eberbach had also brought soap, of course; being of a fastidious nature, he never traveled without a plain, long-lasting deodorant bar. When he started to lather his hair with it, though, the Earl came up beside him, shivering as he approached the cold spring where Eberbach chose to shower. “Don't use that harsh stuff on your beautiful hair,” he said.
“My hair?” the Major said. “My hair's not beautiful.”
“You don't even know how beautiful you are, do you?” The blond's naked proximity was an annoyance Eberbach determinedly refused to dignify. But when his nemesis persisted, saying, “Let me wash your hair with my soap,” he was forced to slap the encroaching hands away.
“Stop that! You know I don't like it!”
“Ah, but you do, more and more as you get used to it.” Close to the spring, Eroica could speak low enough that none but the Major could hear. “I'll have you eventually, my love ... but don't be afraid. It will be seduction, not rape.” And he turned and dived back into the warmer water, in the process providing a clear view of his too-perfect backside.
Fuming, Eberbach finished his shower as quickly as possible, and gratefully pulled on clean clothes. Traveling as light as possible on the difficult climb, they each had only a single change of clothing. Soon all but Eroica were busy washing out the shirts and underwear they had just removed, carrying them outside to dry in the mountain sunshine. The Earl left his laundry to Bonham and Jones, but carried a cup of warm water out into the sunshine, where he proceeded to shave. “You don't have enough beard to bother with,” the Major told him.
“It's just too light to see. I'd scratch you if I kissed you.”
“Well, you're not going to, so don't bother.”
Eberbach's own beard was thick and black, giving his face some protection against the harsh mountain winds. Vanity, he chided himself when he looked into his shaving mirror and decided that it looked good. Might as well keep the warmth for the journey back. So he merely trimmed it, glad of the decision when his hands quickly became numb, for he could not handle the razor with gloves on. No wonder the Earl had retreated already.
When he came back inside, Eberbach found the thief seated cross-legged on the floor of the temple, between the two mosaics.
Again the Major felt that sense of safety and serenity he found in going to church. He knew the Earl would be respectful here, so he sank down beside him, soaking in the peace of this place of ancient worship.
Neither man spoke; there was no need. Shoulder to shoulder, they shared the moment. Eberbach wondered, not for the first time, why Eroica could not be satisfied with the mental and spiritual kinship he reluctantly recognized that they shared. Why did the man have to push for a physical relationship when what they had was so much more significant?
And then he stopped thinking, and let the peace of the temple permeate his soul.
“M'lord? Major?” Bonham's hesitant voice woke Eberbach out of his reverie. He rose, realizing they had been sitting there for nearly an hour.
The Earl blinked, as if coming out of a trance. The Major reached out a hand and helped him to his feet, receiving another beatific smile for his effort.
By the pool, Bonham, Jones, and Hualpa had laid out a veritable feast. On the climb, they had boiled snow water over Sterno lamps for soup and coffee. Here, though, there was a limitless supply of hot water. Dehydrated beef stew was brought to life, along with both soup and coffee, and even a compote of what had formerly been tough dried fruit.
“All we need now is a nice bottle of wine,” Eroica remarked.
“Or Scotch,” said the Major, remembering a much less inviting shelter he had shared with the Earl in the wilderness of Alaska. Again he was rewarded with Eroica's smile, this time tinged with his usual mischief.
But no annoying acts were forthcoming. They talked softly for a time, the Major doling himself out two cigarettes from his dwindling supply, then cleaned up their utensils, brought their clothing in from outside lest the night wind blow it away, and found themselves tired enough to seek their sleeping bags for the most comfortable night they had spent since their first night out of the village.
By the time Eberbach had counted the blessings of a level surface and no worry about waking with a frostbitten nose, he was sound asleep.
The next morning they took one more look at the magnificent mosaics, and began their long trek downward. It was faster traveling with than against gravity, and within the hour they negotiated a turn in the trail that took them out of sight of the temple.
And into an ambush.
Steel arrows thunked into the snow about them, weapons as lethal as bullets, but less likely to start an avalanche.
The five men dropped their packs and backed into a circle on the narrow ledge.
“Hell and damn!” the Major gritted between his teeth, wishing futilely for his magnum.
“I was hoping we'd be down before they thought we'd arrive,” Eroica completed his thought.
Even the whisper carried in the crisp air, and laughter floated from above them. “You didn't think we could track your movements, Herr Eroica?” a voice said in German.
The Earl spoke that language as well as he did English, so Eberbach had no need to translate. He asked in the same language, “What do you want?”
“Why, what you've stolen from our excavation site, that's all. You've done the work, and we'll reap the profits!”
“We didn't take anything,” said Eroica, “and neither should you. That's a temple to the gods of this land. You will be cursed if you desecrate it.”
“You're as famous a liar as you are a thief!” the neo-Nazi said. “What have you done with the mosaics — broken them up to fit in those packs?”
“He's telling the truth,” said Eberbach. “The mosaics are in the temple, where they belong.”
A head peered over the ledge above them. “Who're you? You're German!”
Uh-oh. He should have disguised his voice with an English accent, to seem one of Eroica's crew.
Another face appeared to survey them. “It's that NATO asshole!”
“He's got no authority here!”
“Dammit, now we've got to kill them all!”
The voices were rising. “Shut up!” someone else hissed. “Of course we'll kill them! Do it now!”
“Get back!” warned Eberbach, pointing toward the trail they had come down. “We can shelter on the other side of that outcropping.”
“Right!” said Eroica, gesturing to Hualpa to follow as he started toward the backtrail.
A shower of arrows blocked his way.
“Kill them!” one of the neo-Nazis shouted.
“Silence!” another roared.
“Let me use my gun!” said a third voice, all of them combining into a great noise in the cold mountain air.
“No! You idiot!” cried the second voice, presumably the leader. Eberbach, having led enough idiots in his own career, was sure the subordinate had drawn a gun he shouldn't have brought along. Let them fight among themselves — it gave him and Eroica time to get their group out of the line of fire. His mind registered but did not focus on a low rumbling sound.
Eroica was trying to pull Hualpa, who didn't seem to understand what was happening, back onto the trail to the temple. The boy broke loose and fled downward. “Bonham! Grab him!” the Earl shouted as more steel arrows flashed around them.
Both Bonham and Jones tried to block the fleeing boy, but he had panicked — Gott in Himmel, only sixteen! — and ran straight through them, nearly bowling Eberbach over as well. He snatched the boy by the hood of his parka, shoving him into the arms of the two English thieves.
As they struggled to control the Peruvian boy, Eberbach pushed past them toward the Earl, reaching back from that vantage point to give Jones a hand. A shadow fell across him and he looked up to see a gunman taking dead aim — not at him, but at Eroica!
“Lord Gloria!” He turned. The Earl's eyes were on him, not on the danger above. There was no time to explain. He made a flying tackle, caught the Earl's legs —
The world exploded into pain and fire, then collapsed into darkness.
Forward to Part Five
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