'Bloody 'el! They're friggin' firing upon us!' yelled Adam as Georgio instantly responded by dropping the Iroquois to 13 000 feet in the hope of escaping their attacker.

They were not successful.

'Fuckin' hell!' screamed Georgio as the sounds of ripping metal brought gasps of fear from Gillian and Adam.

'If we don't get outta here, we'll die for sure!' shouted Adam.

'Don't you think I know that!' replied Georgio as he increased speed to the maximum 135 miles per hour. The machine climbed rapidly back up to 7000 feet with the G-force pushing Adam and Gillian backwards in their seats. Unfortunately, the shattered window acted like a vent and forced air into the helicopter at such a rapid rate that it became a whirlwind of noise and power. They struggled to breathe.

'Anyone good with a gun?!' shouted Georgio as both Adam and Gillian looked at each other in confusion.

'I'll do it!' gasped Adam bravely as he staggered to the gun door and viewed the mounted M60D armament subsystem with fear. He clearly had no idea what to do with it.

'Step aside, Adam! My father has shown me how they work!' panted Gillian as she mustered her energy and pushed Adam aside.

'But have you actually fired one?!'

'No!'

Gillian hoped her act of daring sounded more convincing that she felt. In truth she was shitting herself and knew that failure was not an option.

'For this to work, we need to fly no more than 600 feet from the ground!' shouted Georgio as the attackers had once again pulled up behind them. Georgio acted quickly and pulled the levers, dropping the helicopter to an angle that seemed to defy gravity. The Iroquois was pushed beyond what she was built to handle and the metal groaned in agony with only Georgio's experience stopping them from spiralling out of control. Gillian struggled to keep her balance and clung onto Adam for support.

Thankfully the pursuers lacked Georgio's finesse which gave Gillian the precious time to feed the weapon belt into the machine and ensure that the canvas bag designed to capture the ejected casings and links was correctly attached. She removed the safety catch.

Gillian's nerves were at their peak, but she was blessed with a rush of adrenaline that allowed her to pull the trigger when Georgio spun and placed the Iroquois level with their opponents.

Gillian responded instantaneously, sensing their movement as they repositioned themselves near their guns. Her shot missed, but she still managed to hit the rear of the helicopter just past the doors. The unexpected burst of rapid fire brought a shout of anger from their opponents who had been caught unawares. They returned fire immediately.

Her heart was pounding, but Gillian managed to duck behind the gun, avoid the hail of bullets and pull the trigger, all at the same time. Amazed by her stroke of luck, Gillian prepared to return fire when Georgio veered to the right without warning. It threw her off balance and without the support of Adam behind her, she would have smashed her head against the solid metal bars of the passenger seats.

An unconscious understanding passed between them and Adam moved to support Gillian as she knelt and pulled the trigger, spraying the bullets left and right. Their opponents dropped back for a moment as Georgio accelerated and directed the machine to the right of a mountain and down into a large valley. It was his hope that the dense basin would provide cover, and whilst the imposing canyon remained narrow, he was successful. Unfortunately the valley was also short and Georgio was quickly confronted with a successive gorge that was much too tight for his machine to fit.

Georgio swore loudly when he realised there was no option but to fly upwards and face their rivals who were undoubtedly waiting for them.

He was not wrong and the large black machine rose like a monster from the other side of the range, coming face to face with them in the air. Georgio braked hard in an attempt to avoid contact, but his severe action also threw Adam and Gillian into the wall of the front compartment.

'Crap!' yelled Adam who just managed to clasp Gillian's arms and avoid further injuries.

'You both okay?!' Georgio yelled.

'Don't worry about us! They're about to fire!' screamed Gillian as the assassins released a missile directly at them.

Georgio was caught unawares but brought their responsive machine to life by accelerating into the low-lying clouds. His gauges revealed that the trailing missile was frighteningly close, so he fired a decoy in reply and avoided the resultant blast by three feet.

'Fuck!' spat Georgio as he dropped from the protection of the cloud and found the black helicopter directly below them and another mountain range to his immediate left.

Georgio spun around and headed for the cradle-shaped cleft at the top of the precipitous rocky array but discovered that in a straight line, their opponent was slightly quicker. Georgio could not outrun them, so he dropped to less than 50 feet from the ground.

'Ready to fire!' yelled Georgio as he hovered momentarily, allowing the assassins to level with them before spinning horizontally and aligning their side door with that of their opponents.

Gillian steadied her posture and leant back on Adam as she levelled her gaze and fired. Her first hit was successful and a cheer rose to her throat at the realisation that their opponent took a direct strike in his right arm. It brought him to his knees as the injury rendered his arm useless, forcing him to be pulled aside by his companion, a man Gillian recognised as Samuel.

It was as if all of her nightmares had arisen at once and she blinked, desperately hoping the image would disappear, but Samuel stood strong and true as he grinned in delight and took aim. The shot was deadly, hitting just below the rotors and bringing about the failure of the entire upper fitting. Gillian looked at Adam and in a split second they both understood that a crash was imminent. They shared a moment of despair as the machine coughed and spluttered, eventually coming to a complete stop seconds later. The satisfied look on Samuel's face as he left them to die would haunt her for many years to come.

The helicopter was going down, but Georgio had cautioned them of this possibility. He was known for being overprepared for every possible scenario, quite often driving his colleagues insane with his pedantic nature. After the first attack at Uaxactun, Georgio had insisted both Gillian and Adam wear the small parachutes he carried for emergencies and they were immensely thankful for his foresight.

The jungle floor was closing in rapidly and they had to react instantaneously. The side door of the helicopter was still open and provided the obvious avenue for escape, but it suddenly occurred to Gillian that the pilot's seat did not allow room for Georgio to wear a parachute. One look at his face confirmed her fears. Adam also noticed her expression and followed her line of sight. Without allowing room for error, Adam placed himself between Gillian and Georgio. He was going to Georgio's rescue and left no time for her to argue.

'Go!' he screamed in a voice that she dared not disobey.

Gillian frowned but went to leap, turning just in time to notice Adam fly towards Georgio and push him out through the adjacent open door. Adam entwined his arms with Georgio's and locked his feet around his legs, grabbing hold of the rope Georgio had been holding and wrapping it around their waists.

Pushing away from the doomed helicopter, Adam pulled the chute with less than 150 feet to spare. Gillian had just over 200 feet before the helicopter slammed into the jungle floor.

The resultant blast sent shock waves, flames and debris into both the chutes as Adam and Georgio's white fabric collapsed in on itself and sank into the trees.

Gillian had no idea if they had survived, but she was forced to turn her attention to her own predicament. Her green parachute suffered three small holes and a large tear from a spray of metal shards. Fortunately, some of the air in the upper bowl of the fabric remained and this slowed her free-fall, allowing her to descend into the canopy like a deflated balloon.

Luck was on her side and the trees surrounding Gillian sported large limbs and broad leaves, decreasing the potential hazards to her and the parachute. Eventually Gillian was jerked to an abrupt halt ten feet from the ground.

A quick scan of her situation revealed she was unhurt with the exception of a few cuts to her hands, arms and face. She viewed the ground below and noted that the jungle floor was covered in leaves, moss and the odd stone. If she could free herself, there was every possibility of landing without injury. Gillian judged the situation carefully and began to untie the parachute. On releasing the last cinch, she closed her eyes and fell.

The impact was not as hard as she had expected, but every muscle and bone still ached and for the first time since this whole thing had started, she wished she could just give up. She was tired, sore and depressed, but the drive to find Adam and Georgio overwhelmed her and she painfully climbed to her feet.

She knew that her friends had come down on the opposite side of the helicopter, so the logical marker to locating them was to find the site of the helicopter crash. That task was not difficult with the stench of burning fuel and a distinct smoky haze filtering through the trees.

Gillian stumbled along the rough ground, coughing loudly as copious amounts of smoke necessitated the need to cover her mouth and nose. The flames had increased and she had started to find debris. Gillian was closing in, but she decided to veer slightly to the right in an attempt to avoid the immediate vicinity of the crash.

The going was difficult as unwieldy undergrowth hampered her progress, making the task that much more stressful, and then there was the nagging fear at the back of her mind. Snakes and spiders. Jungles were full of very large ones!

A good twenty minutes had passed since the crash and Gillian knew that she must be nearing the area her friends had come down in. She began calling their names, but there was no response.

Gillian sat dejectedly in the dirt with her head between her hands. It was starting to look hopeless when she felt an object hit the back of her skull.

'Ouch,' Gillian moaned but responded by looking upward. At first nothing was visible, but the glimpses of white in amongst the green foliage was a dead giveaway! Adam and Georgio were stuck high in the trees.

In a moment of relief and badly timed humour, Gillian laughed at their impossible predicament. How on earth was she going to get them down, considering they were more than ten feet high! Logic told her there were only two options. Either she scaled the tree and threw them a rope or she placed something on the ground that would cushion their fall. Her first option would prove to be an impossible task unless she was a monkey, so her mind turned to finding enough padding to protect them on impact. Leaves would not do it, but she did recall an inflatable raft Georgio had stored in the helicopter.

She prayed it was not burnt.

'I'll be back!' Gillian yelled as she scurried in the direction of the flames.

Adam and Georgio had come down much closer to the crash site than she had, leaving her in awe that they had survived at all. It really was a miracle!

The Iroquois was unrecognisable. A mass of smouldering ruins lay in place of the trusty machine and it took Gillian a few minutes to determine which was the front and back. The rear of the machine lay a short distance from the main cabin and the rotors had sliced through the nearby trees like a knife. They rested around sixty feet in the direction Gillian had fallen. The surrounding trees had begun to lose permanence and the ones immediately surrounding the helicopter had developed an inward lean, pointing towards an imminent instability. The possibility of a collapse was high, so Gillian had to think quickly. The raft was kept under the seat she had been sitting on and despite the pressure of the impact, the main cabin could still be identified.

Covering her face and mouth, Gillian jumped the burning debris and raced towards the wreckage. It was very hot and she could feel her face and hair burn as she approached. The shell lay in amongst a great deal of rubbish and did not allow access from her direction.

Gillian looked about. If she moved to the far side, she could possibly shadow the machine and make it around the front.

Gillian ignored the extreme temperature, leaping the debris until she reached the mangled cabin door. It was so hot that she could barely concentrate on the task at hand, but she collected her senses and located the fire retardant bag. It was intact with the silver material, designed for space travel, doing the job it had been manufactured for. It was also reasonably heavy, but Gillian was able to drag it out and lift it onto her shoulders, bringing about images of a pack animal. Despite her situation, she smiled and carefully picked the path she had entered through and struggled back to Adam and Georgio.

The raft was self-inflatable and upon the release of the tag, it blew up like a balloon. Clearly understanding her intention and noting that there was no other option, Georgio jumped first. He landed spread-eagled and face down. Adam was more ungainly, landing on his side, but nevertheless they both made it safely.

'You two scared me,' Gillian retorted in a pretense of anger but hugged both of them in relief.

Adam looked as white as a ghost, but Georgio smiled as if he had taken it all in his stride. 'Your father would be proud of you, young lady,' he said, rubbing Gillian's mottled hair fondly.

Adam grinned and pecked Gillian on the cheek. 'Geez, Mate. That beats my last theme park ride by a mile. Thanks for saving our arses,' he added.

'All right, that's enough niceties. Just before we crashed, my bearing showed us as being half a mile south of Tikal,' and with that he withdrew a tiny compass from his pocket.

'Always prepared,' Georgio continued as Gillian and Adam grinned at each other in amusement and fell in line.

Georgio made a cracking pace and despite her love of fitness, Gillian struggled to keep up with the man twenty-five years her senior. She wondered how he did it.

'If we are less than a mile from Tikal, why didn't your men come to our rescue?' asked Gillian as the revered pyramids of Tikal became visible over the treetops.

Georgio cleared his voice before he spoke. 'I don't know and quite frankly, it's got me worried,' the tension in his voice evidence that he was concerned.

They made good time, but with the setting sun, it became increasingly hard to see where they were going and there was also a noted quietness about Georgio. The nervousness he radiated made both her and Adam uneasy almost to the point that they had totally stopped talking to one another.

Various outer ruins of Tikal became obvious as they crept through the long forgotten buildings, stopping suddenly when Georgio put his hand up. He held finger to his mouth in a gesture of silence and motioned for them to drop to the ground.

They complied immediately and not a moment too soon as a man wearing army fatigues and carrying a large combat rifle approached their position. Gillian first thought that it was one of her Dad's men but the frown and angered look on Georgio's face confirmed that was not the case.

Georgio shook his head in fury and motioned to them to form a huddle. 'It appears my suspicions have been confirmed and that the group who shot down our helicopter have taken control of Tikal,' and with that he pointed through a small opening towards a troop of ten people no more than one hundred feet away.

'Shit. Now what?' asked Adam.

'Don't know, my friend, but without the use of a vehicle and time for Gillian to read the next part of the manuscript, we are screwed.'

'I know,' said Gillian excitedly. 'When Richard set up his last dig here, he used an old cave only minutes from the site to store emergency supplies and provide shelter to sleep. The area is reasonably well-protected and quite probably undiscovered.'

'Lead the way,' Georgio insisted as Gillian moved to the front and picked her way through the jungle to the approaching hillside.

The cave was located with the mouth facing away from the ruins. It had been discovered by Julia who had been looking for a private spot to wee when she accidentally slipped backwards into the opening. The cave had been empty, but the paintings on the walls depicted a number of 'coming of age' ceremonies which was most likely its original primary purpose. In normal circumstances, Gillian would have been fascinated, but today she barely noticed the elaborately coloured works as she pushed aside the low-lying bushes and located a small lantern on a crate inside the opening.

Gillian was about to flick the battery operated unit when Georgio stopped her. 'Not yet. Wait until we're safely inside.'

In the dull light they could determine that the cavern was approximately a hundred feet long and thirty feet at its breadth. It narrowed where the roof met the walls, but along the centre, anyone could walk around unimpeded and without having to duck.

A large amount of supplies lay near the entrance, blocking any shadow their small light would make, so it was without fear that they flicked the switch and the room came alive.

'Wow!' exclaimed Adam as they viewed the spacious surroundings and quickly located a number of camping mats and a crate of packaged food.

Gillian sank to the ground in relief, savouring the respite from standing on her aching legs and eagerly tucking into the can of cold ravioli and long-life chocolate milk. At the moment the food was as well received as a Sunday night roast.

'That was great!' exclaimed Adam and he rubbed his stomach in delight. 'All I need now is a nap.'

'Ha, ha, ha,' chuckled Georgio. 'No rest for the wicked. As much as I would love to sleep, we have only twenty-eight hours at best to save the archaeologists, and the cover of night will allow us to find an escape vehicle. In the meantime, Gillian can read the next diary.'

'Yes, although, I've yet to open the box and determine if our assumption about the book was correct. What if there is no next edition?'

'Well, don't keep us in suspense. Let's have a look,' said Adam eagerly.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

The second box was identical to the first, right down to the line that circumnavigated the outer casing. Gillian opened it swiftly and with great enthusiasm. Once again there were two inner boxes and an inscription on the inside lid of the second box. It read: 'If the gods allow it, it is my hope to hold the one who looks so much like me'.

Gillian sighed. 'I'd love to know who he was referring to,' she muttered as she lifted out the third box and quickly realised that it could not be opened with the same circlet they had used previously. This one had a small keypad that required the pressing of the digits in the pre-allocated order for the lock to be released.

Gillian threw up her hands in dismay. 'I have no bloody idea.'

'You didn't expect this to be easy, Gillian, not after all we've been through,' said Adam as he peered closely at the box.

'Come on ... think about it. Up to now, Kinix has left us a trail to follow. There is no reason why this would be any different, so it's most likely he has left the clue to this puzzle in the last box.'

Gillian nodded sheepishly, noting Adam's common sense approach.

'Didn't the first box have the hieroglyphs spelling "Way B'alam" surrounding the hollow in the centre?' noted Georgio.

'You're right! I'd forgotten about that. This one has nothing except for six dotted lines, so perhaps what is missing here is related,' muttered Gillian as she thoughtfully munched on her fingernails.

Adam slapped her hands in jest. 'That's a bad habit.'

Gillian scowled at him "Way B'alam" means "Spirit of the Jaguar", so you would presume this has something to do with a jaguar.'

'If I didn't know any better, I'd think this was an ancient version of hangman,' said Georgio in jest as Gillian looked at him in amazement.

'Bloody hell, Georgio. I reckon you're onto something. If Kinix has translated this to Latin like the rest of his script, then we are looking for a word that relates to a jaguar with no more than six letters. In Mayan, Jaguar is pronounced "Ba-h-lam", so it's my guess they are the six letters we need.'

'Isn't that a little too easy?' suggested Adam in confusion.

'It is for us because English stems from Latin, and Bahlum is written as it sounds. We forget that Kinix was the only Mayan who could read and write in Medieval Latin. Other than Kinix, no one else would have been able to translate the word Bahlum to jaguar.'

'Except for the person he learnt it from,' added Adam.

Gillian contemplated Adam's words for a moment. 'That's true. I wonder who the teacher was.'

'Wonder later, Gillian. Punch the letters into the keypad,' ordered Georgio dispassionately as she nodded and pressed in the letters 'b-a-h-l-a-m' one at a time.