Black Sun

Zusatztext “Sizzles with tension and twists.” —Steve Berry! author of The Paris Vendetta ! on Black Rain     “A terrific read . . . smart! intelligent! and poised to shake up the whole thriller community. I loved it.”—Linwood Barclay! author of Never Look Away “Armchair travel for the adrenaline set . . . Brown infuses nonstop action with spiritual! scientific! and ideological elements without ever pausing for breath.” —Sophie Littlefield! author of A Bad Day for Sorry Informationen zum Autor Graham Brown Klappentext Following the action-packed debut "Black Rain!" brilliant researcher Danielle Laidlaw and her team are on the trail of a Mayan legend that takes them from Washington! D.C.! to Mexico and Hong Kong and back in a heart-pounding race against time. Original. Chapter One Southern Mexico, December 2012 Danielle Laidlaw scrambled up the side of Mount Puli?mundo, sliding on the loose shale and grabbing for pur?chase with her hands as much as her feet. The frenetic pace of the ascent combined with the thin mountain air had her legs aching and her lungs burning. But she could not afford to slow down. Thirty-four years old, attractive, and athletic, Danielle was a member of the National Research Institute, a strange hybrid of an organization, often considered a science-based version of the CIA. That they were currently searching for the truth behind an ancient Mayan legend seemed odd, but they had their reasons. The fact that another armed group was trying to stop them told Danielle that those reasons had leaked. She glanced back to one of the men climbing with her. Thirty feet downslope, Professor Michael McCarter struggled. “Come on, Professor,” she urged. “They’re getting closer.” Breathing heavily, he looked up at her. Imminent exhaustion seemed to prevent a reply, but he pushed forward with renewed determination. She turned to their guide, a twenty-year-old Chiapas Indian named Oco. “How much farther?” “We must get over the top,” he told her, in heavily accented English. “It is on the other side.” A few minutes later they crested the summit. McCarter fell to his hands and knees, and Danielle pulled a pair of binoculars from her pack. They stood on the rim of a volcanic crater. A thousand feet below lay a mountain lake with a small, cone-shaped island bursting upward at its center. The island’s steep sides were thickly wooded but unable to disguise its volcanic nature. Yellowish fog clung to it, drifting downwind from vents and cracks. “Is this it?” Oco nodded. “Isla Cubierta,” he said. Island of the Shroud. Danielle studied it through the binoculars. If Oco was right, this place would be the key to finding what they were searching for: a Mayan site that legends referred to as the Mirror, a reference to Tohil, the Mayan god of fire, who wore an obsidian mirror on his forehead. It was a symbol of power and might, and if Danielle, McCarter, and the NRI were correct, a symbol of far more than that. But so far the Mirror had remained hidden. To find it they needed help, help that supposedly existed on the Island of the Shroud. “Are you sure?” she asked. “The statue is there,” he insisted. “I saw it once. When I came with the shaman. He told me that the time was coming, the time when all things would change.” Danielle scanned the terrain. To reach the lake required a hazardous descent, down a steep embankment of loose and crumbling shale on the caldera’s inner cone. It would be rough, but much easier physically than the climb they’d just completed. She tied her hair into a ponytail to let the breeze cool her neck, then settled her eyes on McCarter. He’d managed a sitting position now, though his chest still heaved and fell. His loose linen shirt was open; the T-shirt he wore underneath was drenched in perspi...

Product details

• Authors: Graham Brown
• Publisher: Bantam Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.08.2010
• EAN: 9780553592429
• ISBN: 978-0-553-59242-9
• No. of pages: 480
• Dimensions: 106 mm x 175 mm x 24 mm
• Series: Hawker & Laidlaw; Hawker & Laidlaw
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense > Crime fiction, thrillers, espionage