Temple (1999)

Temple is a thriller novel written by Australian author Matthew Reilly and first published in 1999. Like Reilly's other books, Temple's major attractions are the fast pace and the complexity of the action scenes.

At the time of publication, Reilly hinted at the possibility of a sequel starring the same protagonist, Professor William Race, but the release of such a book has never been officially confirmed.

Introduction

Temple is split into two stories, both set in South America: One set during the Spanish Occupation of South America and one set in 1999 at the same place.

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, actually carved from a meteorite that fell on earth, from the invading Spaniards. Upon his return to Spain, Santiago records his story in a transcript in San Sebastian Monastery in France.

Four hundred years later, a group of German armed militia known as the Stormtroopers raid the monastery, executing all but one of the Jesuit monks living there, recovering the Santiago manuscript. Meanwhile, another party raids DARPA (The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) headquarters in order to capture a new superweapon known as the Supernova. 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. Their mission: to retrieve 'the Spirit of the People' (as the natives call it), carved out of Thyrium-261, 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, which can 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.

Plot summary

William Race's adventure

Professor William Race is a young linguist, working for NYU is approached by a retired Col. Frank Nash, a physicist from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to translate a manuscript written in ancient Latin, to find an ancient Incan idol in the South American jungles. Race is told that his brother, Martin Race, was the one who suggested his name, and that his ex college sweetheart, Lauren O'Connor is also accompanying them. Race reluctantly agrees.

En route to Peru, Nash provides Race with photocopied pages of a copy of the Santiago Manuscript, which describes the adventures of Alberto Santiago, a Spanish missionary in ancient Peru, whilst also holding the key to the final resting place of a legendary Incan idol, allegedly made of thyrium-261, an element that, when combined with the mass destruction weapon called Supernova, would destroy a third of the Earth's mass throwing it off from its orbit and effectively killing the planet. The team travels to Cuzco, Peru with physicists Troy Copeland and Lauren O'Connor, archaeologist Gaby Lopez, anthropologist Walter Chambers and a team of six Green Berets, including Race's personal bodyguard Leo Van Lewen.

Race, translating the copy of the manuscript that Frank Nash's team had acquired prior to the flight to Peru, discovers that Santiago and his expedition ended up in Vilcafor, an Incan town deep in the Amazon. However, this was only a partially completed copy, so they didn't know what occurred after Santiago's arrival in Vilcafor. The team decide to use the information in the manuscript to make their way to Vilcafor and find out if the idol resides there.

After arriving in Cuzco, Race's team makes use of Huey helicopters to travel into the Amazon and find Vilcafor, making use of the totem pole clues detailed in the manuscript. After some time in flight, the team finds Vilcafor and lands in the town center. Using a Nucleotide Resonance Imager (NRI), the team discovered a source of Thyrium-261 to the west of Vilcafor, and headed for the source.

This led them to a finger of rock in the middle of a canyon, on which sat an ancient temple, which Lopez and Chambers deduced to be pre-Incan. Nash decided to blow open the temple's entrance with C-2 plastic explosive. However, as this was happening, the two Green Berets left to guard Vilcafor, Corporal 'Doogie' Kennedy and Corporal 'Tex' Reichart, were ambushed by a German assault team. The Germans took the town then with use of 'Apache' attack helicopters took the temple from Nash's team, taking them prisoner and putting them in the town.

The Germans decided to open the temple themselves. However, this unleashed the inhabitants of the temple known as rapas. Rapas, big cats likened to jaguars and previously considered no more than myth, emerged from the temple to first decimate the German temple team then descended on Vilcafor to tear apart the rest of the Germans. Nash's team, separated, had to take drastic option to avoid their own deaths, but were able to survive with only the loss of Walt Chambers to the caimans, crocodilians lurking in the river next to Vilcafor. They were also able to pick up five members of the German team; two soldiers (Lt. Marc Graf and Corporal Molke), two members of the German's equivalent of the FBI, the BKA (Bundes Kriminal Amt), which included Renee Becker and Karl Schroeder, and finally zoologist/cryptozoologist Johann Krauss.

Going on the assumption that the rapas would be averse to daylight, the team sent Green Berets Cpt. Scott and 'Chuck' Wilson as well as one of the German soldiers (Lt. Graf) to the temple to make a second attempt at getting the idol. This failed in a massive bloodbath, with all three soldiers being killed by the rapas after a rapa ambush. They had wrongly assumed, with the rapas using the shade to attack.