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along on the expedition. The six Green Berets
accompanying them were down in the cargo hold, stowing and checking
their weapons.

Of the five civilians, Race knew two: Frank Nash and Lauren
O'Connor.

'We'll have time for introductions later,' Nash said, sit- ring
down next to Race and hauling the briefcase onto his

lap. 'What's important right now is that we set you to work.'

He began unclasping the buckles on the briefcase.

'Can you tell me where we're going now?' Race asked.

'Oh yes, of course,' Nash said. 'I'm sorry I couldn't tell you
before, but your office just wasn't secure. The windows

could have been lased.'

'Lased?'

'With a laser-guided listening device. When we speak inside an
office like yours, our voices actually make the win dows vibrate.
Most modern office towers are equipped to deal with directional
listening devices—they have electronic jamming signals running
through the glass in their win dows. Older buildings like yours
don't. It would have been way too easy for someone to listen
in.'

'So where are we going?'

'Cuzco, Peru-capital of the Incan empire before the Spanish
conquistadors arrived in 1532,' Nash said. 'Now it's just a large
country town, a few Incan ruins, big tourist attraction, so they
tell me. We'll be travelling non-stop, with a couple of mid-air
refuellings on the way.'

He opened the briefcase and extracted something from it.

It was a stack of paper—a loose pile of A3 sheets, maybe forty
pages in total. Race saw the top sheet. It was a Xerox of an
illustrated cover sheet.

It was the manuscript Nash had spoken about earlier, or at least a
photocopy of it.

Nash handed the stack of paper over to Race and smiled.

'This is why you are here.'

Race took the pile from him, flipped over the cover sheet.

Now, Race had seen medieval manuscripts before—-manu- scripts
painstakingly reproduced by hand by devoted monks in the Middle
Ages, back in the days before the printing press. Such manuscripts
were characterised by an almost impossible intricacy of design and
penmanship: perfect cal- ligraphy-including wonderfully elaborate
leading marks (the single letter that starts a new chapter)—and
detailed pictographs in the margins that were designed to convey
the mood of the work. Sunny and gay for pleasing books; dark and
frightening for more sombre tales. Such was the detail, it was said
that a monk could spend his entire life reproducing a single
manuscript.

But the manuscript that Race saw now even in black- and-white
photocopied form—was like nothing he had ever seen.

It was magnificent.

He flicked through the pages.

The handwriting was superb, precise, intricate, and the side
margins were filled with drawings of gnarled snaking vines. Strange
stone structures, covered in moss and shadow, occupied the bottom
corners of each page. The overall effect was one of darkness and
foreboding, of brooding malevolence.

Race flicked back to the cover page. It read:

NAF,AT/O VERI/ PRIESTO IN RUR/$/NCAR//$: OPERIS ALBERTO LIJ/S
SANTIAGO

ANNO DO.MIN/MDLXV

Race translated. The true relation of a monk in the land of the A
manuscript by Alberto Luis Santiago. It was dated

Race turned to face Nash, 'All right. I think it's about time you
told me what this mission of yours is all about.'

Nash explained.

Brother Alberto Santiago had been a young Franciscan missionary
sent to Peru. in 1532 to work alongside the con quistadors. While
the conquistadors raped and pillaged the countryside, monks like
Santiago were expected to convert the Incan natives to the wisdom
of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

*Although it was written in 1565, well after Santiago's eventual
return to Europe,' Nash said, 'it is said that the San tiago
Manuscript recounts an incident that occurred around 1535, during
the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors.
According to medieval monks who claimed to have read it, the
manuscript recounts a rather amazing tale: that of Hernando
Pizarro's dogged pursuit