by Rob Jones
Decker spoke without taking his eyes off the road. “So, your aim’s getting better.”
The men fired back and hit their front tire. This time, their faster speed meant Decker was unable to control the car. As the rubber flew off the tire and spun out into the street, the car swerved violently to the right and ploughed into a sidewalk café.
“Brace!” he yelled.
Slowed by the heavy iron tables and chairs, the car came to a stop when it grinded along the side of the café and then crashed into a perpendicular wall.
“Shit, my car!” Cade said.
“We lost them, Mitch!”
He put an arm around her. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
“They still have Dad!”
“I know, damn it! I can’t believe we lost them! I need a second here.” Decker was trying to clear his head when Selena’s phone rang.
She looked down at the screen. “It’s Diana…” she said, and took the call. After a long tense silence, she thanked her old friend and hung up. Paler now, and trembling, she looked up, first at Cade and then over to Decker.
“She said they got away.”
“Damn it!” said Decker.
“Don’t worry about it,” Cade said. “I have some buddies who were CIA. They might be able to help with flight plans.”
“That’s something, at least,” said Decker.
Selena was still paling. “That’s not all. She said the Snake King’s men fired on the SUV and forced it into a roll. She told me Charlie was knocked out and wouldn’t come around. They’re taking him to hospital right now.”
Decker and Cade exchanged a grim look.
“Shit,” Cade said. “Not good news.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Decker. “Which hospital?”
“Hermanos Ameijeiras,” she said.
“That’s good,” Cade said. “It’s a good, modern hospital. In Barrio San Lazaro.”
“How quickly can we be there?” Selena asked.
“With traffic, twenty minutes.”
Decker had already got outside and opened the trunk. “Then let’s get this tire fixed and get over there. Right now this whole mission feels like it’s falling apart and it’s about time we started to pull it back together.”
“I hope Charlie’s all right,” Selena said.
Decker slid the jack under the chassis. “He’ll be fine. He’s built like a brick outhouse.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am, and you two are heavy, so get out and let me jack this baby up. Quicker we get a new tire on her, the quicker we’re where we need to be.”
30
Decker opened his eyes to a white room filled with sunshine. Exhausted from the chase, and the long wait to see if Charlie would be discharged from hospital, they were all feeling bruised and hurt. He had presumed his old friend would be conscious by the time he got to the hospital and all would be well. That hadn’t happened. When they got there, a grim-faced Diana explained what the doctors had already told her: Charlie had suffered a severe head injury and was still unconscious. There was talk of comas. He would have to stay in overnight.
Now, Decker yawned and stretched his arms. The sun in the room grew brighter. They had forgotten to close the blinds last night and now the sunlight streaked across the room, projecting slats of shadow on the wall at the end of the bed. He yawned and pulled himself up until his back was leaning on the headboard. Outside, morning was already underway in Havana but there was no sign of Selena except a crumpled pillow beside him and the sound of a shower running in the en suite bathroom.
He yawned once again and contemplated the mission. He’d had no time to indulge in actual thinking since that dreamy afternoon in the convent back in Guanajuato. Turning to his right, he cast his eye over the view outside Cade’s house, available to enjoy through the slates of the open Venetian blinds hanging down over the window.
It was spectacular. The house was on the Via de la Mar, set just behind a line of low sand dunes. Beyond those, the playas del este were a long strip of bright gold sand punctuated with coconut palms and royal palms and thatched beach huts. Behind this, a strong ribbon of turquoise sparkled in the sun. This was the Straits of Florida, and like most days, it was buzzing with swimmers and jet skiers and windsurfers. Lively Spanish floated on the warm morning air. Laughter and shouts of joy. Children played with their parents in the warm sand. For a moment, Decker almost felt like he was on vacation.
He shifted in the sheets, comfortable and naked. He just slept better that way, he mused. Then, his thoughts returned to contemplating the mission. The revelation that Professor Nathaniel Danvers was suffering from the mother of all Napoleon complexes had been a bitter blow to the crew, but they had taken it in their stride. Even Diana had risen to some of the hard physical challenges the mission had presented.
The en suite door opened to reveal a semi-naked Selena Moore. She was wrapping a towel around herself as she stepped into the bedroom and flashed Decker a smile.
“Even more beautiful than the beach,” he said with a twinkle his eye.
She leaned forward and began brushing her wet hair. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“That’s what I was hoping. Good shower?”
“You can say that again. Back in the Lacandon Jungle I was starting to think I’d never be clean again.”
He laughed. “I know how you feel. Too bad I was too exhausted for one last night.”
“You weren’t that exhausted,” she said with a wicked grin.
“You can talk! And there was I, thinking you were an up-market lady.”
She flicked her hair back and walked over to her clothes on the chair. “Please Captain Decker, you’ll make me blush.”
He laughed but said nothing. Just relaxed into the sheets and enjoyed the moment. Then Diana knocked on the door.
“Come in!” Selena said.
“It’s just me,” she said. “I just got a call from the hospital. They say Charlie regained consciousness in the night and he’s okay.”
“Thank heavens for that!’ Selena said. “I was worried sick.”
“Any word on when he’s getting discharged?” asked Decker. “Don’t forget, we still have to rescue Atticus and Professor Diaz, not to mention secure the capstone. We might have to do the rest of the mission without him.”
“I don’t think this will be necessary,” Diana said. “They say he can come home today, so I guess that means here.”
Decker grinned. “Or the Avalon, right?”
Diana smiled and left the room, closing the door behind her.
“So, what’s next?” Selena asked.
“We pick up Charlie and get him out of there. Then, it gets tougher. Danvers is still holding your father and Professor Diaz hostage, for one thing. Think about Diaz for a second. He’s a renowned physicist and engineer specialising in waveguide technology and directed energy weapons. This much we definitely know. From this, it’s easy to work out he needs this man to operate the Stormbringer.”
Selena was doing up her jeans and reaching for a top. “The problem is, how do we know where he intends to use the device?”
“To know that, we have to wait and see if Cade’s CIA buddies can tell us.”
They finished getting dressed and stepped out onto the patio where Cade was already rustling up a breakfast of pancakes and syrup. “You guys sleep well?”
“Not really, Mr Thurman,” Selena said. “You might remember, that not only was an old friend of mine hospitalized, but also that my father was kidnapped by a lunatic who thinks he’s a Maya king with the divine right to destroy the world with a doomsday device.”
“And you don’t hear that every day,” Riley said, mouth full of pancake.
“Sorry,” Cade said. “Just being polite.”
“Of course you were,” Selena said. “I apologize. It’s just that after yesterday and the warehouse and everything, I really thought we were going to get Dad back. I’m still reeling from that a b
it, I think.”
“No problemo,” Cade said. “Coffee?”
She nodded and he poured out another cup. “I just wish we were doing something, anything, to get Dad back. I feel like I’m letting him down. I mean, he’s in the clutches of this Danvers man and I’m just sitting here drinking coffee.”
“And eating pancakes covered in syrup,” Riley said.
“Thank you,” she said, pushing the plate away. “Suddenly, I’m not hungry anymore.”
Acosta stepped out of the room with his phone in his hand. He saw the pile of fresh pancakes and his eyes widened. “Sabroso!”
“Any news about Danvers?” Decker asked Cade. “Your CIA friends come through for us?”
“Sure,” Cade said nonchalantly. “He flew out of Havana a few hours ago.”
Selena sat up on her chair, a nervous look in her eyes. “Destination?”
“Miami.” Cade swallowed the last of his coffee and belched loudly. “Which is my hometown. I can’t wait to show you guys around.”
Selena waved the foul air away from her face with a frown. “Thanks ever so much.”
“Welcome.”
Decker set his coffee cup down and pushed back from the table. “Let’s pick up Charlie and get to the airport as fast as we can. We can be in Miami around an hour after take-off.”
31
Miami Beach, Florida
Tarántula didn’t like the look in the Snake King’s eyes. The man from Acapulco was a hardened gang boss and there was nothing imaginable he had not seen or done. On his journey from the backstreets of Progreso to the luxury condominiums of Cancún, he had met every kind of man and woman and thought he had nothing new to learn. And yet this man, this Danvers, had a crazed look in his eye he had never seen before.
He lit a long Cuban cigar and leaned back on his recliner, studying the Canadian academic a little more closely, in the way he might examine an ant crawling around the inside of an upturned glass. They were sitting on the sun deck of the Holcan, the Snake King’s luxury yacht, moored in the Miami Beach Marina. At any other time, the atmosphere would be calm, relaxing. A good time to chill out and let the gentle bobbing of the yacht lull you into a soft, warm doze.
But no, not now.
Now, the Snake King had removed the tarp and was staring into the strange swirling metal once again, desperately mumbling to himself as he tried to see another snippet from the future.
“Why is it not working?” he mumbled. “Why are the gods denying me?”
Tarántula noticed a look of scepticism on the faces of his two most loyal lieutenants, Carlos and Miguel Mercado. The older of the two seemed more than sceptical. He looked like he wanted to kill the Snake King and throw his dead body overboard. But then, that was how he looked at everyone. More interesting was the look on the faces of the two kidnapped academics.
“You think the Snake King cannot read the future, huh?” he said to Atticus.
“I think he is quite insane,” Atticus said.
The Snake King was out of earshot at the end of the deck, still staring into the metal.
“He says he saw the future once before, old man. Back in the cave.”
“He saw nothing of the sort,” Atticus said. “As I say, he is out of his mind and so are you for following him.”
“Maybe you should stop wagging your tongue before I cut it out?” Tarántula said coolly. To emphasize the point, he pulled an old Mexican switchblade from his pocket and opened it up with a slick metallic click. The polished steel and ivory handle glinted in the sun. “You agree?”
Atticus said nothing.
“Why are you doing this?” Salvador Diaz said. “Just… why?”
“Ah!” called out the Snake King. “I am beginning to see again!”
He was crouched down close to the capstone, leaning into its strange surface only inches away and hyperventilating with excitement. “I see the future again! Your friends are on their way here… I see them, they are walking to the yacht.”
Tarántula and the Mercado brothers exchanged a look and readied their weapons. Novarro and Diablo flicked cigarettes into the water. “If they are, then they are dead,” Diablo said.
“We must work faster,” the Snake King said. “Professor Diaz, I require your services.”
The old man hesitated, but moved when Miguel Mercado pushed the muzzle of his gun up against his temple. “Move, you old fool.”
Diaz made his way over to the other side of the sun deck. “What do you want?”
“You will activate the device.”
“Are you insane? Here? In Miami Beach?”
The Snake King stared at him with dead eyes. “Miguel, give Sanchez a call. Tell him he can have his fun with the Professor’s niece, with my compliments.”
“No! Please!”
“Then make the device work.”
Diaz crumbled and walked over to the capstone, a broken man. “I will do as you ask, but I might need help. There are some inscriptions on here which I cannot understand.”
The Snake King turned to Atticus, staring at him through his mask. “Do it.”
“I will not!” Atticus said.
The response was instant. The Snake King looked at Diablo. No words were necessary. Diablo padded over to the old archaeologist and punched him in the face, knocking him back into his seat. The blow hurt like hell and made his head spin. Atticus knew further resistance was futile. If he failed to comply, Danvers would escalate from simply thuggery and make the same threat against poor Diaz’s niece. He sighed, got up from his chair and walked over to the capstone. Giving Diaz a sympathetic look, he began to work on the inscription.
“I can read this,” he said. “It’s telling us to remove the Huracan idol on top of the capstone if we want to operate it properly, or at least to its maximum potential. There are some other instructions here which I think relate to some of the levers inside the mechanism.”
“Then get to work!” the Snake King said. “Or your niece is dead, Professor Diaz!”
With the Mercados’ laughter in the air, Diaz dropped to his knees and began to operate the crude magnetron. The device buzzed and hummed and began to glow a bright reddish gold, just as it had back in the cave. When Diaz got to his feet, Carlos Mercado pulled him out of the way and gave the Snake King the room he needed to operate the Stormbringer.
Slowly the device grew in power. Then, a burst of energy ripped up from the center of the capstone and shot into the air. Pelicans screeched and flapped away. The yacht rocked back and forth violently as gray clouds began to form in the blue sky above them.
Tarántula made the sign of the cross and took a step back. “Dios mío!”
The Snake King laughed and watched the flow of energy grow in power. Now, a full storm was already building over Miami Beach. Confused beachgoers were packing up and heading back to their cars as the wind grew in strength. Smaller boats on the marina thrashed violently up and down as the water frothed and bubbled beneath them. The clouds swirled and the storm grew ever more powerful.
“It’s turning into a hurricane!” Atticus screamed. “For God’s sake turn it off!”
“Silence!” the Snake King yelled. “This is the will of Huracan!”
The wind tore at palm trees, biting at them and then ripping them from the ground. In the marina, several of the yachts were ripped to pieces, their masts torn out of the decks. Others were tipped over and capsized. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of sirens pierced through the noise of the raging storm, and wrapping around all of the chaos, the maniacal sound of the Snake King’s laughter.
Then it stopped when he positioned the carved head of Huracan over the hole at the capstone’s center and everything crashed into silence. The energy beam collapsed and the clouds began to dissipate.
“My God!” Diaz said. “This is the work of the devil!”
“And yet I used only a tiny fraction of its power,” the Snake King said. “Just think what full power will do! Tarántula, I have decided to c
hange the target of my next strike. Miami is not impressive enough. I want to make a much bigger impression when I strike. Tell the men to prepare the jet for flight. We leave immediately.”
32
“Miami Beach Marina.” Cade jutted his chin at the yachts bobbing up and down on the sparkling water. Moments earlier, the sky had been a swirling maelstrom of storm clouds and a fierce wind had battered the coast, but now it was once again a normal summer’s day. Local news and the internet was abuzz with intrigue and speculation about what had happened, but no one on the Avalon crew needed two guesses to know the truth.
They had just exited their hire car and were walking down a paved slope on the southwestern tip of the South Beach district. Felipe Acosta and Diana had volunteered to stay back at the hotel with a shaken and dazed Charlie Valentine, but Decker had assessed that the remaining crew would be enough to get on the yacht and do what they had to do.
Cade took in a deep breath of sea air and sighed as he took in the damage inflicted by the mini-hurricane. “It’s one of the most popular marinas in town, and with the closest mooring to the ocean. Now it looks like they have some rebuilding work to do.”
Selena watched as an ambulance parked up at the far end of the marina. Two paramedics got out and ran down a jetty toward a freshly battered yacht. On the far side of the marina, several people were clinging to the hulls of some upturned boats. She took in the billions of dollars’ worth of luxury vessels moored up on the Meloy Channel. Further south, a large white cruise ship had sailed into view from the northern shore of Dodge Island and was making its way out to sea along Government Cut.
“Where did your CIA buddy say the Holcan was moored?” Decker asked.
“It’s one of the more expensive moorings,” Cade said. “We’re almost there now.” He pointed to a white-painted metal gate leading down to a jetty, flanked by palm trees. “It must be behind this blue one, the Reina.
