Nightrise

feeling.
    He crouched down and laid a hand on Pedro's shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked.
    A moment later, Professor Chambers arrived. She had thought to bring a bottle of water with her and she handed it to Pedro, who drank.
    "Como está?" she asked.
    How are you?
    Quickly, Pedro explained what had happened. The helicopter had been hit by a bullet. They had lost control and crashed. Richard looked into the cockpit and saw the young pilot — Atoc. He was belted into his seat, his hands resting on the controls. He was obviously dead. Pedro was still talking. His leg had been broken and he was unable to move. Matt had gone on his own to find Salamanda.
    ''You must leave me," he said, speaking in Spanish. 'You have to find Matteo. The gate opened. I saw…"

    He faltered and stopped.
    "What did you see?" Professor Chambers asked.
    "I can't talk about it. Just find Matteo."
    Richard had understood the gist of what Pedro was saying. He reached out and touched Professor Chambers on the arm. 'You stay here. I'll go on," he said.
    The professor nodded. Pedro pointed.
    "Allá…" Over there.
    Richard didn't take the jeep. He was afraid he would miss Matt if he drove too quickly. He was sure that he couldn't be far from the helicopter, but even so, it took him twenty minutes to find him, and when he did, it looked as if he had arrived too late. Matt was lying on his back and Richard had never seen anyone more broken or more still. The boy had wept blood. His face was completely white.
    He was dead. He had to be. There was no sign of any breathing, not the slightest movement in his chest.
    Richard had to blink back tears…not just of sadness but of anger. What had been the point? Had they come all the way from Britain just for this? The gate had opened. Pedro was wounded. And Matt was dead. Briefly, he wondered what had happened to Salamanda. He could see the wreckage of the mobile laboratory in the distance, but there was no sign of the man himself. Had he been responsible for this?
    But examining Matt, he could see no sign of any external injury. He hadn't been shot. It was more as if the life force had somehow been sucked out of him.
    Richard reached forward and took Matt's wrist in his hands. Matt's flesh was cold. But that was when he felt it — tiny, irregular, but definitely there. His pulse. Richard wondered if he was imagining it.
    Quickly, he rested his fingers against Matt's neck. There was a pulse there too. And although it was so faint as to be almost imperceptible, there was still some breath reaching his lips.
    But he needed help. He had to get to hospital — fast.
    Richard straightened up and set off, running back to get the jeep.

    ***
    Hong
    Kong

    The chairman of Nightrise was standing in his office on the sixty-sixth floor of The Nail, just down the corridor from the conference room where he regularly addressed his executives. He was watching the boats in the harbor and holding a glass of the most expensive cognac in the world.
    It was almost a hundred years old and came in a crystal bottle. It had cost five thousand American dollars. How much of the golden-colored liquid was he cradling in his palm? It seemed to him a strange thought, and a very satisfying one, that outside the window — in Kowloon — there were people who could barely afford to eat, women and children stuck in factories all day and much of the night, working for pennies simply to survive, while he could enjoy this vintage brandy at perhaps two hundred dollars a sip. That was how the world should be, he reflected. And very soon the gap between those who had and those who had not was going to be greater than ever. How fortunate he was to be on the right side.
    A sleek cruise liner slid past the window far below and the chairman turned away. He didn't like boats.
    More than that, he had a fear of them — and with good cause. He went back to his desk and sat down. It was time to consider the events of the night before.
    The Old Ones were back. That was all that really mattered. His agents in Peru had reported that the stars had aligned exactly as predicted ten thousand years before, and that the great gate, hidden in the Nazca Desert, had unlocked. He wished he could have been there. He had heard it said that you could be struck blind, looking into the eyes of the King of the Old Ones — but even so, it would have been worthwhile.
    Not all the news was good. At their last telephone conference, his colleague, the South American