Plot Introduction
Deep in the jungles of Peru, the hunt for a legendary Incan idol is underway - an idol that in the present day could be used as the basis for a highly destructive and terrifying weapon.
Guiding the US Army team is Professor William Race, a young linguist who must translate an ancient manuscript which contains the location of the idol.
What they find is an ominous stone temple, sealed tight. They open it - and soon discover that some doors are meant to remain unopened...
Temple is split into two stories, both set in South America: One set during the Spanish Occupation and one set in 1999. 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, carved from a meteorite. Upon his return to Spain, Santiago records his story in a transcript in a monastery in France. Four hundred years later, a group of armed militia storms the monastery, execute the Jesuit monks living there and recover the Santiago manuscript and another party raids DARPA headquarters. Seeing the seriousness of the mission, 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. Along the way, Race has to deal with neo-Nazis, a powerplay between the three branches of the US armed forces, group of nihilistic domestic terrorists, The Republican Army of Texas and terrifying rapas (large jaguar like cats). 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 ... or 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.
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