by Steve Alten
Praise for The Mayan Prophecy
‘From the opening page to the stunning climax, Steve Alten has done it again. The Mayan Prophecy is a chilling, deeply researched peek into our ancient past. Jarring, frightening, thrilling … What more could a reader ask?’
James Rollins, bestselling author of The Doomsday Key
‘Alten draws clever parallels with Mayan myths in this rip-roaring space-age yarn equipped with a credible love story and Earthbound side plots’
Publishers Weekly
‘With the storytelling sensibilities of Crichton and Cussler, Alten sure knows how to write a thriller’
Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times
bestselling author of Dune: House Atreides
‘The Mayan Prophecy is an eye-bugging, white knuckle flight of a book that hurtles along with the velocity of an asteroid from the ancient world to the twenty-first century on an unforgettable doomsday mission’
Rocky Mountain News
‘Steve Alten has penned a rousing story. The research is phenomenal and artfully inserted into the plot. The way he eases factual info into fictional is beautiful’
Barbara Riefe, New York Times
bestselling author of The Ravaged Heart
‘Every now and then a book comes along that totally knocks your socks off. Steve Alten’s The Mayan Prophecy is such a book’
Gauntlet
‘An exciting, well-written science fiction-fantasy that works because the key characters seem genuine and the magical elements appear real’
BookBrowser
Steve Alten is the New York Times bestselling author of Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, The Loch and Goliath. He is also the founder and director of America’s nationwide Adopt-An-Author reading initiative. Steve lives with his family in Boca Raton, Florida.
Also by Steve Alten
Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
The Trench
Goliath
Meg: Primal Waters
The Loch
The Shell Game
Meg: Hell’s Aquarium
Grim Reaper: End of Days
The Mayan Prophecy
THE MAYAN RESURRECTION
STEVE ALTEN
Dedicated with love and respect
to my literary agent and friend, Danny Baror.
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Quercus
21 Bloomsbury Square
London
WC1A 2NS
Copyright © 2004 by Steve Alten
The moral right of Steve Alten to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
First published as Resurrection in 2004 by Tor,
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, New York, USA
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 85738 170 5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset by Ellipsis Digital Limited, Glasgow
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
For Kim …
… and to the courageous Men and Women of the 363rd
Expeditionary Airborne Air Control Squadron
and the Pacific Forces AEF 7
And there was war in heaven:
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon;
and the dragon fought and his angels,
And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more
in heaven.
And the great dragon was cast out,
that old serpent called the Devil and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world:
He was cast out into the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him.
—REVELATION 12:7
None of those who were born in the light,
Begotten in the light
Will be yours …
—THE HERO TWINS, TO THE LORDS OF THE UNDERWORLD
EXCERPT FROM THE MAYAN POPOL VUH
The Universe is not only stranger than we know, it is stranger than we can even imagine.
—J.B.S. HALDANE
A wisp of thought, in the consciousness of existence.
I am anger.
A black hole of rage.
Lost in eternity.
God’s abandoned child.
Seething with the mortar of indignation,
imprisoned within its invisible walls.
The confluence of bitterness ferments my soul.
I am the product of injustice, and self-servitude, and greed.
I am the void that tasted love and lost it forever.
Loathing existence.
Set adrift in my own ocean of hatred.
I am the end of humanity and its beginning.
I am One Hunahpu and the universe laughs at me.
I am … Michael Gabriel.
PROLOGUE
THE JOURNAL OF JULIUS GABRIEL
Excerpt taken from video recording at
Harvard symposium*
AUGUST 24, 2001
‘The End of Humanity. Who has time to contemplate such folly? Job security, the falling Dow, overdue bills, our diminishing retirement funds—these are the daily burdens that occupy our minds, not humanity’s extinction.
‘My name is Julius Gabriel. I am an archaeologist, a scientist who hunts humanity’s past in search of the truth. For the last 32 years, my family and I have been searching for the truth behind the Mayan calendar, a 2000-year-old instrument of time and space more accurate than its latter-day European counterpart. Believed to have been created by the mysterious Mayan wise man, Kukulcán, the calendar abruptly ends with humanity’s demise on a date equating to December 21 in the year 2012. As if to remind us of the event, the shadow of a giant serpent will again appear on Kukulcán’s pyramid in Chichén Itzá in 29 days, just as it has each autumn and spring equinox for over 1,000 years. Let me assure you, this baffling special effect was not intended as a tourist attraction.
‘Who was the great Kukulcán? The Mayans describe him as a tall, Caucasian man with long, flowing white hair and beard and blazing aqua-blue eyes. Quite the mystery, considering the first white men didn’t arrive in Mesoamerica until the early 1500s … 500 years after Kukulcán’s passing! Adding to this mystery is the fact that, in every successful ancient culture, there has been a great teacher whose description is almost identical to Kukulcán’s. In Giza, Egyptians worshiped this wise man as Osiris, at Stonehenge he was Merlin. In Nazca and Sacsayahuman, the Incas revered him as Virococha, and among the Aztecs he was Quetzalcoatl.
‘Mysterious wise men … each introducing science and civilization to their assigned peoples. The Bible describes them as giants, men of reknown. I’ve identified them as extraterrestrials, humans from another time, another place. And they came here to save us from the cataclysm that will arrive on the winter solstice of 2012.
‘I am not here to debate the existence of ETs and UFOs with Mr. Borg
ia. As archaeologists, we know real doomsday events have overwhelmed our planet’s inhabitants throughout its history. As scientists, we know our Earth lies within a cosmic shooting gallery of asteroids and comets. We know that 65 million years ago, an asteroid, seven miles in diameter, struck our world at the same ground zero that would eventually become the Mayan homeland, ending the dinosaurs’ 200- million-year reign. Was it predestined or an accident? Could such an event happen again? It’s been estimated that 2,000 such civilization killers continue to cross Earth’s orbit, though to date, we’ve only accounted for one in ten.
‘The Mayan calendar was left to us 2,000 years ago as a warning. Should we heed it, then perhaps we can save ourselves from whatever cataclysm lies ahead.
‘Or, as is the nature of our species, we could simply ignore the warning signs until something terrible happens …’
PART 1
CONCEPTION
Time is not at all what it seems.
It does not flow in only one direction,
and the future exists simultaneously with the past.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
We cannot change anything until we accept it.
—CARL JUNG
1
JANUARY 21, 2013: 30 DAYS A.N.D.E. (AFTER NEARDOOMSDAY EVENT) WELLINGTON, FLORIDA
The Dojo is sixty feet long and thirty feet wide, its walls covered in mirrors, its floor made of polished wood. Master Gustafu Pope, fifth-degree black belt and former karate champion of Argentina, turns to his ‘Bushi’ warriors, all seated along one wall in a lotus position. ‘Richard Rappaport. Andrea Smith.’
Hearing her alias, thirty-one-year-old Dominique Vazquez jumps to her feet. Like the rest of Master Pope’s students, the ebony-haired, Hispanic beauty is dressed in full Bogu—protective armor. Her chest and stomach is covered by the Do, her waist in the Tare, her hands and wrists by the Kote gloves. She slips the headpiece known as the Men over her long ponytail, the heavily padded base protecting her face, throat, and the sides of her skull.
In her hand is the Shinai, a sword consisting of four staves of bamboo, joined together at the handle and tip by leather straps. Designed to flex as it strikes an object, the Shinai, though infinitely safer than its predecessors, the Fukurojinai and Bokuto, is still a weapon that can kill.
She takes her place across from her opponent. Rich Rappaport is bigger, stronger, and more experienced than Dominique, but lacks her tenacity.
Master Pope calls out, ‘Rei.’
The two student combatants face each other and bow.
‘On your marks.’
Bracing their bamboo swords, each moves into a crouching posture.
‘Begin!’
Dominique attacks, shouting out, ‘Men!’ as she launches an overhead blow to her opponent’s head. Rappaport blocks the strike, but the woman’s furious barrage continues, her Shinai a blur as it lashes out at the man’s forearms and chest. Dominique calls out body-part names before each strike, her brown eyes focused intently on her fellow Kendo student through the bars of her headpiece.
‘Oosh!’ Master Pope awards Dominique a point for a strike to the top of the head.
The two students return to their spots.
‘One to zero. On your marks … begin!’
‘Kote!’ Dominique prances ahead, her Shinai raised to strike Rappaport’s forearms—
‘Men!’ as the tip of her opponent’s sword strikes her in the throat.
‘Oosh!’
Dominique drops to one knee, swallowing hard against the throbbing pain.
Master Pope bends to her. ‘Can you continue, Ms. Smith?’
She nods.
‘One to one. Back to your marks.’
She hustles back to her place, her blood pressure seething.
‘And … begin!’
Dominique is an erupting volcano, her anger raging, her arm and shoulder muscles bulging beneath her armor as she whirls the Shinai at the retreating Rappaport—
—who deftly blocks each of her strikes, then slices her across the midsection.
‘Oosh!’ Master Pope signals to Rappaport. ‘Two to one, point and match. Rei to me, to each other … and shake hands.’
Rappaport offers his hand, his face expressionless in victory.
Dominique shakes his hand, avoiding the eyes of the senior student.
‘Ms. Smith, may I see you?’
Dominique tucks her headpiece into her gym bag and joins Master Pope in his office. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘How’s your throat?’
‘Fine.’
Master Pope smiles. ‘It’s good you were wearing Bogu or you’d be speaking out of a second mouth.’
She nods politely, her cheeks flushing beneath her Hispanic complexion.
‘Andrea, you’re an excellent student, truthfully, I’ve never met anyone who trains so hard as you. But in battle, technique is not everything. Kendo teaches us to observe our opponent and devise the appropriate strategy in order to achieve victory. You fight with anger, you fight to kill, and in doing so, you reveal your weaknesses to your opponent.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘The Way of the Sword is the moral teaching of the Samurai. The art of Zen must go hand in hand with the art of war. Enlightenment is the realization of the nature of ordinary life.’
Ordinary life? Ha. I’d give my right tit to have an ordinary life …
Master Pope stares at her as if reading her mind. ‘The teaching of Ai Uchi is to cut your opponent just as he cuts you, to train without anger, to abandon your life or throw away your fear.’
‘Do I seem afraid to you?’
‘What I perceive is not important. Each of us has his demons, Andrea. I hope Kendo will help you to one day face yours.’
Dominique changes into an old Florida State tee shirt, shorts, and her cross-training shoes, then stuffs her equipment bag into a locker and heads for the weight room.
Chris Adair, her personal trainer, is waiting for her by the rack of dumb-bells, his dreaded clipboard in hand. ‘How was Kendo?’
‘Good,’ she lies.
‘Then it’s time for a little pain.’ He sets the bench press at an incline, then hands her the two thirty-five-pound dumbbells. ‘I want twenty reps out of you, then we jump to the forty-fives.’
*
Dominique emerges from the gym two hours later, her freshly showered and massaged body still trembling with fatigue. The gym bag filled with wet clothes and equipment causes her right shoulder to ache, and she leans on the heavy bamboo cane for support.
The older woman with the burnt-orange hair pulled into a bun is standing by her Jeep, the grin of a cultist pasted on her face. Her eyes are shielded behind the wide wraparound sunglasses preferred by seniors.
Dominique approaches warily, gripping the handle of the bamboo cane tightly in her right hand. Concealed within its false bamboo outer casing is a Katana, the double-edged carbon steel blade of the Japanese sword deadly sharp.
‘Hello, Dominique.’
‘I’m sorry, you must have me confused with someone else.’
‘Relax, my dear, I’m not going to hurt you.’
Dominique remains at sword-striking distance from the older woman. ‘Is there something you want?’
‘Simply to talk, but not here. Perhaps you could follow me to my home in St. Augustine.’
‘St. Augustine? Lady, I don’t even know you. Now if you’ll excuse me—’
‘I’m not a reporter, Dominique. I’m more of a messenger.’
‘Okay, I’ll bite. Who’s the message from?’
‘Maria Gabriel. Michael’s mother.’
In her peripheral vision, Dominique notices the two Homeland Security agents approaching, one from each end of the parking lot. ‘Sorry, I don’t know anyone named Michael, now I have to go.’ She turns and walks away.
‘Maria knows you carry her unborn grandsons in your womb.’
Dominique freezes, the blood draining from her face.
‘Maria’s en
ergy force reaches out across the spiritual world to contact you. You are in grave danger, my dear. Let us help.’
‘Who are you?’ she whispers. ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘My name is Evelyn Strongin.’ The older woman removes her sunglasses, revealing bright azure-blue irises. ‘Maria Rosen-Gabriel was my sister.’
Dallas, Texas
