Temple of Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

slowly.  His body resembled a four-pointed star doing cartwheels.
    “Brace yourself ,” said Shooter.  “I’m coming in.”
    Shooter reached out and grabbed Quiz’s left leg directly below the knee, stabilizing his body.  He was no longer tumbling, but now upside down.
    “What now?” asked Quiz.
    “I’m going to flip you right-side up.  When I do, pull your ripcord.”
    Shooter oriented Quiz’s body and then released her grip on the novice jumper.  “Now!” she said.  “Open your chute!”
    Shooter fell rapidly as Quiz disappeared from view.  He was far above her, his parachute deployed.
    “I still can’t see a damn thing!” repeated Tank.
    “Open your chutes!” ordered Hawkeye.  “Everybody!   Now!  We’re one thousand feet above the ground.  Contact alarms will sound in your helmets when you’re twenty feet from the surface.”
    Moments elapsed without communications from Titan Six.
    “Did they make it?” asked Caine .
    More silence.
    “Beatrice is causing some interference,” Touchdown said.  “That should resolve if we make it into the storm’s eye.”
    Agonizing seconds passed without contact from Titan Six.  Such missions were not without peril.  Although fully recovered, Touchdown had been paralyzed during a raid on a Somali pirate ship.
    “I’m down,” Hawkeye said at last.
    One by one, the members of Titan Six checked in.  All had landed on the desert floor safely.
    “Home in on my beacon, everyone,” said Hawkeye.  “When we rendezvous, we’ll look for the EFV.”
    Like ghosts, team members appeared from the dust and smoke as they gathered around Hawkeye.
    The ground shook ominously as a fissure opened up thirty feet away.  Flames thirty feet high erupted from the crack in the desert.
    “Run!” Hawkeye yelled.
    Titan Six ran blindly away from the fire rising from the earth.
     

Ops Center
Aboard the Alamiranta
     
     “This is Ops, Titan Six,” said Touchdown.  “Your Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is three hundred yards straight ahead.”
    “We’re on our way,” said Hawkeye.  “I don’t know what the hell happened here, but it looks like one of the post-World War Two sites where the government tested some kick-ass weapons.”
    “ Nevada used to be a testing ground back in the fifties, but at least there’s no radiation showing up on my scans,” said Touchdown.  “By the way, I’m showing one other life form in the area.  South end of the crater.   Seems stationary for right now.”
    “Any theories on who it might be?” asked Hawkeye.
    “Probably an old prospector who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “We’ll check it out if time permits,” said Hawkeye.  “Do you have any telemetry on what the terrain in the crater is like?”
    “Telemetry is cutting in and out because of Beatrice.  I’ve picked up some strange readings, but until we’re in the eye of the storm, the satellite feed is going to be erratic.”
    Titan Six started slogging through the sand, searching for their EFV.
    * * *
     
    With his parents having been killed in a car accident, Quiz had been raised by his grandparents, Charles and Mary Whittington, in Whittington Manor on Long Island .  He spent many long, lonely hours reading every tome in the family library.  To say he was well-versed in the classics would be an understatement.  To say that he had an ongoing relationship with Dante Alighieri would not.
    As he read and reread the Divine Comedy in his youth, the voice of the poet seemed to come alive in the boy’s mind.  The conversation between the Italian poet and Quiz had taken on a life of its own, one that he dared not share with any adult lest people think he was mad.
    Now in his early adulthood, Quiz regarded Dante as his closest confidante.  The dead poet had no hesitation in weighing in on matters that touched Quiz’s life, personal or otherwise.
    * We’re about to descend into hell.  Not that we   haven’t already