CHAPTER 55

Time seemed to slow down.

The only sounds in that clearing were Merck whimpering, the buzzing of bugs, some birds cawing, and the distant scrape of stone against steel as the warrior Supay sharpened the edge of his deadly blade.

“Stay put,” said Dad when fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds were finally up. He handed his tracker device and satellite phone to Tommy. “I’m going to borrow a page from Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Remind me to ask your mother to add that classic to your American literature reading list ASAP. Now then, Thomas, if this doesn’t go the way I’m hoping it will, you’re in charge. Go rescue your sister.”

“B-b-but—” stammered Tommy.

“That’s an order.”

Tommy nodded. “Okay. But be careful out there.”

Dad gave us all a smile and a wink. “Don’t worry. I have science and, of course, the moon on my side.”

None of us had any idea what the heck he was talking about.

Dad stood up and spread open the wall of ferns he’d been hiding behind. He boldly stepped into the jungle clearing.

“Begone from this place!” he bellowed.

The priest and his army spun around to see who would dare interrupt their sacred ritual.

“Infidel!” shouted the guy in the priest costume. “Intruder!”

His young warriors raised their primitive weapons and aimed them at Dad.

“You dare to raise your weapons at me?” Dad growled. He sounded like the mighty Mufasa from that movie The Lion King. Yes, I have a personal DVD player on board the Lost and I’m not afraid to use it. “Very well! Because you dare to threaten me, you leave me no choice. I must take the sun from the sky!”

He raised his arms.

“Begone, sun! May the moon smother you whole!”

The puzzled priest looked up to the sky and gasped.

The sun was starting to disappear behind a round shadow. It was going dark, blocked out by the moon.

“No!” cried the priest. “You cannot do this thing!”

Dad laughed his best diabolical-supervillain laugh. “I’m doing it, aren’t I?”

I grabbed the satellite phone from Tommy to do a quick search. I tapped in the words solar and eclipse.

Yep. Just as I suspected.

That was the science Dad had known was on our side. This was definitely our lucky day because it was the first total solar eclipse in this part of Peru in fourteen years, and it happened exactly when we needed it to. Well, we had to wait those fourteen minutes and thirty-two seconds, but, come on, that’s still pretty lucky.

“Give us back the sun!” shouted the priest. “Restore Inti!”

“Only if you release your captives and leave this place! Now!”

I was kind of hoping Dad would also ask the high priest to give back his rod, the Sacred Stone, and his headgear, but I could tell Dad didn’t want to press his luck, even though this was our super-lucky day.

The priest hesitated. He looked at the net with his squirming prisoners. He looked to the sky. The sun was slowly disappearing behind a shadow.

“Cut them down!” he ordered.

One of the young warriors sliced a rope with his knife. Merck and his trapped buddies tumbled to the ground in a jumbled ball.

“Flee!” Dad shouted to the Incan wannabes. Overhead, the sun grew even darker.

“You have not freed the sun!” shouted the withered old guy in the hat.

“And I will not until I know that you and your men are long gone from this place!”

Dad knew a total solar eclipse would last about two hours. Even he couldn’t rush it.

“Flee now, or I swear by Viracocha, I will extinguish the sun forever!”

Finally, they all fled. Fast!

When he was absolutely certain they were gone, Dad signaled for us to come out from our hiding places. The four of us marched over to where Merck and his thugs lay in a heap on the ground, still tangled up in that hunting net.

“Merci beaucoup, Dr. Kidd,” said Merck, grinning up at us even though his face was mushed in a mesh of rope. “We are most grateful that you rescued us. Now, if you will kindly cut us out of this netting.”

Dad shook his head.

“Not until you answer a few questions.”

“Very well. We are, as you say, in your debt.”

“Did Nathan Collier hire you to steal the Incan headpiece and rod from us on Cocos?”

“Oui,” said Merck.

“And the Sacred Stone?”

“Oui. This was also Monsieur Collier, aided, of course, by his scoundrel of a son Chet, who has a, how you say, satellite phone. He also suggested to his father that he should have these crazed cultists kidnap your daughter and bring her to him. Apparently the one you call Storm is the only one who knows precisely where to find the Lost City of Paititi, non?”

Dad didn’t answer. Instead, he asked a question of his own.

“An undertaking of this magnitude would prove quite expensive. Tell me: Who’s funding Nathan Collier?”

“Easy,” said Merck. “Juan Carlos Rojas!”