Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"It lives on, all right," Doc Miller sneered. "Billions of dollars in economic damage. Twenty-six thousand Peruvians dead, most of the victims the very peasants whose rights you claim to be fighting for-"

His words were cut off by a rifle butt that was jammed into his lower back near the kidney. Miller sagged to the stone floor like a bag of potatoes, his face twisted in pain.

"You're hardly in a position to question my dedication to the cause," Amaru said coldly.

Giordino knelt beside the old man and cradled his head. He looked up at the terrorist leader with scorn. "You don't take criticism very well, do you?"

Giordino was prepared to ward off a blow to his exposed head, but before the guard could raise his rifle butt again, Shannon stepped between them.

She glared at Amaru, the pale fear in her face replaced with red anger. "You're a fraud," Shannon stated firmly.

Amaru looked at her with a bemused expression. "And what brings you to that curious conclusion, Dr.

Kelsey?"

"You know my name?"

"My agent in the United States alerted me of your latest project to explore the mountains before you and your friends left the airport in Phoenix, Arizona."

"Informant, you mean."

Amaru shrugged. "Semantics mean little."

"A fraud and a charlatan," Shannon continued. "You and your men aren't Shining Path revolutionaries.

Far from it. You're nothing more than huaqueros, thieving tomb robbers."

"She's right," Rodgers said, backing her up. "You wouldn't have time to chase around the countryside blowing up power lines and police stations and still accumulate the vast cache of artifacts inside this temple. It's obvious, you're running an elaborate artifact theft ring that has to be a full-time operation."

Amaru looked at his prisoners in mocking speculation. "Since the fact must be patently apparent to everyone in the room, I won't bother to deny it."

A few seconds passed in silence, then Doc Miller rose unsteadily to his feet and stared Amaru directly in the eye. "You thieving scum," he rasped. "Pillager, ravager of antiquities. If it was in my power, I'd have you and your band of looters shot down like--"

Miller broke off suddenly as Amaru, his features utterly lacking the least display of emotion and his black eyes venting evil, removed a Heckler & Koch nine-millimeter automatic from a hip holster. With the paralyzing inevitability of a dream, he calmly, precisely, shot Doc Miller in the chest. The reverberating blast echoed through the temple, deafening all ears. One shot was all that was required.

Doc Miller jerked backward against the stone wall for one shocking moment, and then dropped forward onto his stomach without a sound, hands and arms twisted oddly beneath his chest as a pool of red oozed across the floor.

The captives all reflected different reactions. Rodgers stood like a statue frozen in time, eyes wide with shock and disbelief, while Shannon instinctively screamed. No stranger to violent death, Giordino clenched his hands at his sides. The ice-cold indifference of the murderous act filled him with a savage rage that was tempered only by maddening helplessness. There was no doubt in his mind, in anybody's mind, that Amaru intended to kill them all. With nothing to lose, Giordino tensed to leap at the killer and tear out his throat before he received the inevitable bullet through the head.

"Do not try it," said Amaru, reading Giordino's thoughts, aiming the muzzle of the automatic between the eyes that burned with hate. He inclined his head toward the guards, who stood with guns level and ready, and gave them orders in Spanish. Then he stepped aside as one of the guards grabbed Miller around the ankles, and dragged his body out of sight into the main room of the temple, leaving a trail of blood across the stone floor.

Shannon's scream had given way to uncontrollable sobbing as she stared with bleak, unwavering eyes at the bloody streak on the floor. She sagged to her knees in shock and buried her face in her hands. "He couldn't harm you. How could you shoot down a kindly old man?"

Giordino stared at Amaru. "For him, it was easy."

Amaru's flat, cold eyes crawled to Giordino's face. "You would do well to keep your mouth closed, little man. The good doctor was supposed to be a lesson that apparently you did not comprehend."

No one took notice of the return of the guard who had dragged away Miller's body. No one except Giordino. He caught the hat pulled down over the eyes, the hands concealed within the poncho. He flicked a glance at the second guard who slouched casually against the doorway, his gun now slung loosely over one shoulder, the muzzle pointing at no one in particular. Only two meters separated them.

Giordino figured he could be all over the guard before he knew what hit him. But there was still the Heckler & Koch tightly gripped in Amaru's hand.

When Giordino spoke, his voice wore a cold edge. "You are going to die, Amaru. You are surely going to die as violently as all the innocent people you've murdered in cold blood."

Amaru didn't catch the millimetric curl of Giordino's lips, the slight squint of the eyes. His expression turned curious, then the teeth flashed and he laughed. "So? You think I'm going to die, do you? Will you be my executioner? Or will the proud young lady do me the honor?"

He leaned down and savagely jerked Shannon to her feet, took hold of her flowing ponytail, and viciously pulled her head backward until she was staring from wide, terrified eyes into his leering face. "I promise that after a few hours in my bed you'll crawl to obey my commands."

"Oh, God, no," Shannon moaned.