“Tell you what,” Alicia said sweetly, patting Healey’s cheek. “Complain to your relevant politician. But don’t mention his expenses.”
With that, counting in her head, she pulled on the rope attached to the piton they’d fastened into the rock wall to double-check its safety, and then ran hard toward the edge of the terrace. Without a sound she leaped into thin air, sixty feet above the desert floor, and used the rope to swing out then back in toward the lower rock wall. A brief memory flashed through her mind—about the last time she’d fought using ropes during the Bones of Odin quest against Matt Drake—and then her body was jockeying to change the position of her flight as her feet kicked out, slamming into the chest of the stunned scout. The man folded instantly and stumbled back into the mountain, not even a grunt escaping his broken chest. Alicia let go of the rope, landing lightly and at a run, reaching him before he had a chance to draw a weapon.
“Surprise!”
She hefted him over her shoulder and threw him back toward the cliff edge. The man landed in a tumbling heap, reflexes finally catching up to his predicament and arresting his roll. By then Alicia was on him once more, lifting him by the straps of his utility jacket until she could stare into his eyes.
“Radio?”
The scout struggled in her grip, surprisingly strong. Twisting sideways he moved until the rising sun flashed and blinded her, pushed away and drew a knife.
“Won’t matter,” he said in a thick South African accent. “Boys are coming.”
Alicia heard the scramble as Healey and Russo made their way down the slope from the terrace above. She debated waiting until the sheer force of numbers intimidated the scout into submission then decided it just wasn’t in her nature.
“Let them come,” she said, striking at the knife-hand with one arm and the neck with a flying foot. “They’ll last about as long as you.”
The knife hit the gouged, rocky floor with a clatter; the neck jerked sideways. The scout fell to his knees, grasping for the deadly blade. Alicia drew one of her own.
“Come nicely,” she said. “Or I’ll feed your carved bones to the coyotes.”
Healey and Russo arrived, the latter bouncing off the rock wall, the former staggering as his foot caught in several deep channels cut into the ground. Exposed up on the terrace, Alicia had no time to dither. Her peripherals also noted the arrival of Crouch, Caitlyn and the others but her concentration focused solely on the scout and his whirling blade. The first thrust went under her arm, the second across her chest, missing by less than an inch. Alicia stepped in and broke the arm, now hitting hard with her own knife, jamming it into the soldier’s ribs to the side of his vest. Eyes opened wide, still uttering no sound, still coming at her, she drove the knife in again for good measure.
This time he staggered.
Alicia let go, allowing the body to fall heavily away. Healey and Russo raced up.
“Took your damn time.”
“It was that or fall off the bloody rock,” Russo returned, indicating the edge.
Crouch arrived with a worried frown plastered across his face. “I’m seeing bodies.”
Alicia stared out across the open plain, toward the distant hills where they had traversed Paria Canyon. There, antlike, were Coker’s crew, heading this way, purposeful and plentiful.
“I guess an hour, maybe more,” Crouch said. “Depends on how much this guy managed to tell them. We’re nowhere! We’re here, but we’re nowhere. Might as well be trolling around Vegas.”
“Hey,” Caitlyn called, staring down at them from the ledge fifteen feet above. “According to the Aztec scholars Huitzilopochtli was the god of war and the sun. Remember the greatest Aztec treasure—the Wheel of Gold shaped like the legendary Pieces of Eight. Well, that was a representation of him, that obviously upped its value. Huitzilopochtli required a blood sacrifice, not always in the form of human martyrdom. Sometimes a ritual bloodletting was used.”
Crouch stared up at her, the rising sun at his back. “What does that tell us?”
“The Aztec’s also called him the Hummingbird.”
Crouch swallowed drily. The poem’s last line stormed through his head—look between the Hummingbird and the Ritual for your final guidance.
The sun god and sacrifice.
Slowly, he turned around, saw how the rising sun developed, extending its rays in piercing beams, spectacular in the dawn. He saw how the fiery blush of the sun played against the walls of the mountain as it rose, marking a straight line as perfect as the one he’d drawn on his map.
Oh my God.
The straight and accurate line, their headstrong route of travel, had been a clue.
Then his mind switched to the Ritual and immediately sent his gaze downward to where the scout’s body lay at their feet, bleeding.
Blood trickled along rivulets that had been carved into the rock floor, seeping toward the mountain’s rock wall.
“Between the Ritual and the Hummingbird,” he said. “I know where the treasure is.”
TWENTY FIVE
Crouch scrambled at double speed up toward Caitlyn and let out a shout of exultation, quickly tempered.
“Rivulets, tracks in the floor, have been cut on every ridge,” he said, inwardly berating himself for his outburst. Though stupid, even as he rebuked himself he knew exactly why he hadn’t been able to hold the enthusiasm in.
Here was the culmination of a lifelong dream, a ridiculed fable he’d proven to be true, a treasure found that a murdered and imprisoned culture had once owned and lost, a vanished heritage that attested to their true greatness.
Spurred on by urgency and desire he raced for the next slope. “We have to find the one that leads to something more than the face of the mountain.”
“Between Hummingbird and the Ritual.” Caitlyn fixed the line of the rising sun in her mind as she pounded after him. “Between that line and these channels . . .”
Alicia and the rest ran in their wake, the force at their back immaterial now. What would happen was inevitable. Crouch needed his proof to initiate the call for help. When Alicia chanced one more glance at their backs she saw Coker’s force traversing the far slickrock ridge and two small specks above them, birds in the sky.
“Bollocks,” she intoned. “Coker has at least two helicopters with him.”
Russo kept his head down. “As soon as he realizes the scout’s been neutralized he’ll send ‘em in. Shit.”
Above them, Crouch reached the fourth, fifth then sixth tier of rock. The older man was starting to pant. Caitlyn disregarded etiquette and pushed at the small of his back, helping him over the more awkward parts. The seventh ridge passed and they were nearing the top, over a hundred feet high. Still, the rock face was solid, offering no sign of a niche, cave or even a tunnel in the floor.
Alicia, Healey and Russo caught up to them. “Still nothing?”
Crouch scaled the final slope, breaking free of the ascending mountain and emerging onto a wide rocky plateau. Before them a spacious escarpment ran back toward the ridged beginning of some expansive upland terrain, stretching as far as the eye could see.
Crouch wilted. “No. There’s . . . nothing here.”
Caitlyn felt her own passion wane. “But these grooves were made by somebody.” She kicked at the dead-straight furrows. “Oh dear, the sun isn’t as direct up here.”
As she said it, the line of the rising sun, clear against the mountain wall, had expanded and dissipated across the open landscape, making the Aztec’s guidance almost impossible to follow. It was only because she’d fixed the spot so firmly in her mind that she was able to point in all seriousness to the soft ridge that led to the plateau ahead.
“The troughs end right there.”
Crouch moved forward, every step a battle as he fought against elation and failure. When he closed in on the small ridge his steps grew smaller, less frequent. Any moment now he’d have to admit that their quest had been unsuccessful.
But we found the init
ial treasure . . . the words were already formed on his lips.
Maybe there was another cave, another room back there. Maybe it had been found previously and the sheets of gold left abandoned—its secrets lost between warring treasure hunters. Maybe . . .
The minor ridge was solid, a knowledge that fell heavily on his heart, but then he realized that it ran at a slight angle away from him and was formed of a series of bulges. They’d have to walk its entire length to check around every one.
Luckily, the grooves pointed them straight at the right one.
Caitlyn skipped past Crouch, unable to contain her high spirits. Alicia was merely surprised that Healey didn’t follow in her wake. When the girl bent down and then looked up, her face shiny and bright, she made Crouch’s heart skip a beat.
“What is it?”
“A narrow entrance, made against the rock wall and against the natural angle. Without the clues we followed this hole would be almost impossible to take seriously.”
Alicia reached the girl, staring down. The narrow hole was barely wide enough to admit a man, clogged now with debris and practically unnoticeable. There was something very cunning about how it had been formed behind the natural angle of the ridge; a person’s eyes would automatically follow the regular line.
“No time to waste.” Crouch fell to the floor and started to use his hands to dig out debris. “Spread this out in as regular a manner as you can. Coker won’t find this hole without help if he tried for a thousand years.”
In minutes the hole had been cleared and Crouch was chest-deep inside. Alicia evaluated the scene at their back, seeing nothing but the two distant specks in the sky, perhaps moving closer now. Crouch soon disappeared and then Caitlyn, Cruz and Lex. Alicia eyed the two remaining soldiers, none of them overly pleased about wriggling into a hole in the ground.
“Rock, paper, scissors again?”
“Fuck it,” Russo grumbled. “I’ll go.”
“Ah, shouldn’t you go last?” Alicia asked innocently. “Since you’re more likely to plug up the hole. I mean that in a good way.”
Russo ignored her and struggled through. Healey jumped up next and then Alicia grasped the edges and slowly lowered herself down. The curve of the hole fitted against her body like a small chute. She slid along carefully, using arms, elbows and knees to grip the sides. When she glanced up the last thing she saw was a small circle of daylight, blue wilderness sky unbroken by cloud or vapor trail.
Then, the darkness.
*
Crouch shone a flashlight over her as she located her own. In addition to the handheld version, she carried a weapon-fixed and head-mounted variation, the latter of which she also employed now.
In the glare of many flashlights, the age-old blackness reluctantly brightened. Dust and untouched debris coated the floor. Already the cave was larger, both ceiling and walls beyond reach. Crouch illuminated their surroundings.
“Nothing to see,” he pointed out. “Probably intentional in case anyone happened to stumble into this place by accident.”
Alicia read his mind. “Which means we’ve a long way to go and no hope of getting out of here before Coker arrives. How far down does that phone signal of yours reach?”
“I guess we’re about to find out.”
Time played tricks with their minds as they descended. Minutes felt like hours as each twist and turn, and even each footfall, needed careful attention. The initial shaft brought them into a sub-chamber that could be exited only through a similar tunnel. With no more clues to guide him, Crouch was thankful the chambers hadn’t been littered with a warren of tunnels. The tunnel fell at a comfortable angle until he estimated they’d dropped a hundred feet and were heading back toward the desert floor. It also occurred to him that each ridge’s set of troughs actually pointed toward this hidden place—a guide or a frustrating obstruction devised by the ancient warriors?
Still lower, and now the angle evened out, leading them into the heart of the great primordial mountain. The moment their going became easier, Crouch pointed to a carving on the wall.
“The first sign,” he said, “that our crazy quest is almost at an end.”
Alicia gave the picture a passing glance, taking in the now familiar stick figures and accompanying snakes, spears and swords. No doubt that these people were warriors and made of the hardest metal. Flashlight beams flew across the rock all around her, the sounds of their footfalls echoing through the surrounding perpetual dark. She might have imagined a deep feeling of isolation when trekking hundreds of feet below the earth, but the team she’d become a part of were close and the bonds they’d already formed were already easing her burden.
A dozen feet more and an archway materialized out of the gloom, its uprights covered in symbols.
Crouch heaved a great pent-up sigh. “This is it.”
TWENTY SIX
Beyond the archway there were no more secrets, no more pretense. Gold and gems, wealth and riches glittered in the lights of the flashlights as if a thousand campfires had suddenly been lit. Piled high around the chamber, stashed against the walls, a nation’s fortune beyond imagining lay in opulent abundance, catching and reflecting the new light with an eagerness that matched that of its discoverers.
Crouch fell among the strewn treasures. “This is so much more than I imagined.”
Alicia moved to his back, mouth open, still trying to wrap her brain around the sight before her eyes.
Caitlyn said, “It’s . . . wonderful.” Tears deepened her voice.
Alicia stopped trying to take it all in and focused instead on one area at a time. Here were Aztec gold coins, heaped, stacked and amassed in endless dunes. Over there was a huge lifelike solid gold alligator head, snarling in the shadows. Bird and snake sculptures occupied one entire corner of the vast chamber, only now revealing its scope as Lex and Cruz ventured further inside. Cruz was practically crawling, stunned, eyes shiny with pride, amazement and undiluted awe.
To her right sat objects studded with gems; emeralds, rubies and garnets of deep hue. To her left dozens of double-headed snakes. Masks of silver and deep turquoise lined the way before her, guides that formed a path through endless wonder. Ceremonial figures stood around the walls, clutching staffs, spears and swords formed of beaten gold.
Crouch found his feet. “I guess that now the cavalry can be called.”
“Wait,” Caitlyn said, reveling in the moment. “Just wait.”
Crouch didn’t need telling twice. Like an old pirate, gold digger or a treasure hunter from ancient days he dug his hands into the stack of gold coins and threw them into the air. Alicia couldn’t keep the smile off her face.
Then Cruz cried out and the whole team looked up.
It wasn’t through fear, it wasn’t pain or doubt; it was through that which he finally beheld—the wonder of all wonders.
There, fixed to the black rock at the rear of the chamber, hung the greatest treasure imaginable—the Wheel of Gold—and it was indeed a wonder, shaped like and as bright as the sun. The god for which it had been formed sat at its center, the circle around him made up of glyphs with square, triangular and circular shapes creating the outside, eight of them, which was how the cartwheel had earned the nickname—pieces of eight.
Intricately carved, gloriously finished, the Wheel of Gold was a wonder itself, but as a part of this vast treasure—mindboggling.
Caitlyn made her way to the back of the chamber, staring up as if in worship. All around her the Aztec treasures sat in state as they had for half a century; lost, lying spellbound in the darkness, a richness of wasted energy and effort, taken by chance, time and vicious circumstance.
“I don’t mind saying I doubted you, Michael,” Alicia said. “But after this . . .” she shook her head.
“First time out.” Crouch couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Wheel. “We all had a few doubts. But now . . .”
Healey and Caitlyn stood together, as close as possible without touching. Alicia blinked in won
der as the treasures that surrounded them seemed to catch fire, gold reflecting light.
“They should reproduce this cave for the eventual display,” she said. “It would make a great spectacle.”
Crouch shrugged himself into life. “Yes, yes, and we should get moving. Coker can’t be far behind us. He dug around for the satphone.
“How’s the signal?” Cruz asked him.
“Non-existent. God knows how far under the rock we are.” Their boss looked like he might never want to leave this place.
“Well, if we ever want to see sunlight again,” Russo rumbled, “the way is up.”
Lex, the only one of the team who had remained quiet during the staggering discovery, backed toward the cave entrance. “Yeah, and I guess even I can lead us out since there’s only one path.”
Alicia, engrossed in the surrounding riches until now, suddenly fixed the biker with a calculating stare. A small revelation hit her—that ever since they’d arrived in London she hadn’t had much time for Laid Back Lex. Small wonder, since she’d been put in charge of a new team and had been trying to prove she was worthy. Earning the respect of soldiers was one of the hardest things in the world. Alicia had moved everything else in her life to the backburner in order to lead. Not to fit in, she could never do that, but to become accepted as a team leader. Factor Lex and his moods into that and you eventually fashioned a ticking time bomb. On a good day Lex was self-destructive, stand-offish and aggressive. Alicia originally took the man under her wing after dozens of his friends were killed in action, determined at some level to save him from the terrible downswing she knew his exploits would begin to take. At least by her side, she could control his behavior.
Time to re-evaluate.
Instantly forgetting the treasure she moved to his side. “Let’s go.”
Lex eyed her. “What’s your deal?”
“No deal. I said let’s go.”
The biker had to be handled just right. Too much compassion would make him hostile. Too small an insult would make him suspicious. Alicia wondered briefly what the hell she was doing. Caring really wasn’t in her nature.
Alicia myles 1 - Aztec Gold Page 17
