‘Hold off a moment. I want to check what’s beneath this trapdoor first. You can boil me a kettle while you’re waiting. And scissor off the policeman’s shirt. We haven’t got time for any finesse. We’ll see if Mr Sabir likes eating parboiled copper.’
Oni pushed the packing cases aside. He wrenched at the trapdoor. It groaned a little, but didn’t give. ‘Hand me the Mini-Uzi. Now stand away, all of you, unless you want your teeth blown out.’
Abi clapped his hands over his ears. He had an inordinate fear of losing his hearing.
Oni let rip with the Uzi. Chunks of wood and metal shavings sprayed off the trapdoor. Oni tentatively kicked at it with the heel of his shoe. ‘Once more.’ This time the 9mm Parabellum slugs knocked a hole the size of a man’s head in the woodwork. ‘Okay. We’re through.’
Abi let his hands flutter down from his face. He watched as Oni manhandled what remained of the trapdoor onto the warehouse floor. ‘Go on down. I’ll follow you.’ He stepped brusquely across to the workbench and helped himself to a Maglite.
‘Jesus and Mary!’
Abi hurried after Oni. ‘What is it? What have you found?’
‘Come down here and take a look at this.’ Oni had located a light switch. The whole of the newly-revealed cellar area was now bathed in strip-lighting.
Abi ducked down the trapdoor staircase. He straightened up and then tossed the unused Maglite onto a nearby table. ‘Holy shit.’
Thirty industrial-sized vats took up a full third of the available cellar space. Another third was taken up by a forty-foot long by ten-foot wide pile of shrink-wrapped plastic bricks – some were packed in shiny green polythene, some in white, some in blue. The remaining third of the floor-space was taken up by an armour-plated Hummer H1 Alpha and a massive display case containing a series of gold-plated sub-machine guns, diamond-and emerald-encrusted pistols, and about a thousand platinum-jacketed slugs. Some of the pistols had images of the Virgin Mary tooled into their grips, while others had fake Versace logos.
‘This is no arms dump, Abi. This is a crystal meth factory.’ Oni was crouched down over one of the polythene-covered bricks – he had his knife out and was tasting the powder. ‘This is first-grade pure ice.’ He shivered as if someone had just walked over his grave. ‘Must be a ton and a half of the stuff here. Worth maybe five million dollars out on the streets.’ He stood up. ‘The narco-bling is probably worth an extra half mill on top. And how the hell did they get that Hummer down here? Must have a jump switch linking this place to the surface. Must have.’ He began checking around, like a child searching for Easter eggs. ‘Yeah. Here. Look.’ He hit the switch. A section of the roof began to fan open – a separate, driveable section unravelled itself like the outstretched palm of a hand and came to rest with its rubber shock absorbers onto the concrete surface of the floor. Daylight streamed in from outside. ‘Now that’s cool. That’s really cool.’ Oni was caressing the built-in servo-control mechanism as if it were a woman. ‘This is better than a thousand-dollar whore, Abi. We can truck this stuff out in the Hummer and stash it wherever we want. We’ve hit pay dirt at last.’
Abi shook his head. ‘No we haven’t. The watchman you killed lied to us. The bastard must have known all about this. His bosses weren’t ever up at the border on any fucking arms deal – they were preparing for a major methamphetamine shipment. Look at this.’ He pointed to a gold plaque screwed into the wall – the mountings were decorated with diamonds. ‘Listen to what it says. “It is better to die fighting head on, than on your knees and humiliated; it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. We don’t kill for money. We don’t kill women. We don’t kill children. We don’t kill innocent people, only those that deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.” Look. They’ve even made up their own personalized copy of the Bible, with extra pages tipped in – and I don’t like the look of the leather it’s bound in.’
‘What? You don’t think it’s made of human skin?’
‘It could be pig, but I’m not betting on it. The bastards who made it are probably waking up just about now after a night out on the tiles in Cancun. One failed call to our friend Pepito and they’ll be over here like a pack of ravening wolves. We get out of here, Oni. And we get out now.’
‘What? And leave all this?’
‘You can take a brick for your own personal use. How about that? But the rest stays put. What do you want to do? Rot your teeth out?’
99
The heavy machine guns opened up just as Abi reached the top of the stairs. He shook his head in mute acknowledgment of the instantly transformed status quo.
Asson straightened up from his perusal of the packing hoist’s block-and-tackle system. He had Calque’s arms stretched out behind him, and had already begun winching him partway up.
‘Leave the bastard hanging, Asson. We’ve got trouble. There’s enough crystal meth down those stairs to launch a spaceship. Berith. Rudra. Oni. You three go with Asson and arm yourselves. Dakini. Nawal. This is going to get very messy indeed. If you want to light out, then light out now. Crawl through the agave if you have to. Go straight to the airport any which way you can. Take the codex and the skull with you. Don’t wait for us and don’t look back. Nobody will think the worse of you for it. We’ll stay in touch by cell phone.’
‘We’ll stay and fight with you. You’ll need the extra guns.’
Abi stared at his sisters. Then he nodded. ‘Okay then. We’ll sort out the rest of this shit later. You’ll all need grenades and sub-machine guns and pump-action shotguns. Pistols won’t come into this. If they get that close to us we’re dead anyway. When we leave the building we charge straight at them, giving them everything we’ve got. Vau and Alastor will cover us with the heavy machine guns. If we get into a siege situation, we’re done for. They can call up reinforcements anytime they want and swamp us. So we have to sort them now. Before they know how few people they’re really facing.’
100
As soon as the Corpus made their sortie from the warehouse, Sabir crawled directly underneath Calque so that the Frenchman could rest his feet on his shoulders.
‘Christ Jesus! I couldn’t have held that position much longer. My shoulders were about to dislocate.’
‘Well you’re going to have to hold it again. I intend to go and get you that chair. Then we’re going to have to cut ourselves free. I have a funny feeling that any minute now this place is going to be riddled with incoming fire.’
‘You’re not going to leave me hanging here again, Sabir?’
‘I’ve got no choice if we want to get out of here. Now tense your muscles. Keep your arms in as close to your back as possible. If you loosen them your shoulders are going to pop out of their sockets like a stick puppet.’
‘ Oh putain!’
Sabir eased himself away from Calque. He needed to get up on his feet. He rocked onto his knees and then surged forwards, like a sprinter at the start of a race. At the third stride he missed his footing and fell headlong. He was unable to protect himself because his hands and arms were securely tied. At the very the last moment he twisted his head to the right, so that only his cheek and ear slammed into the concrete. It still felt as though he had been blindsided by a steam iron.
‘Get the chair, you damned fool. My arms are going.’
Sabir rolled over and over towards the chair. He shunted it hard, using both his legs like a scythe. The chair came to a stop just in front of Calque’s swinging body.
‘Quickly, damn you.’
Sabir rolled back the way he had come. He kicked the chair the last few feet.
Calque fished at it with one foot, and then pulled it towards him. He tottered for a moment, as if he was about to fall sideways, and then he somehow managed to regain his balance. ‘Oh God. Oh God. I think my right shoulder is out of its socket.’
Sabir rolled over onto his knees. This time around he gathered himself for a moment or two before trying to rise to his feet. He stood up, rocking in place like an emergent jack-in-th
e-box.
‘I can’t hold this position for very long.’ Calque was shouting in an effort to be heard over the gunfire.
The barrage from outside had redoubled in energy. Stray bullets began to thump into the warehouse. The ones that found their way in through the windows zipped and twanged through the warehouse’s interior space.
Sabir went in search of a knife. He tried the kitchen area first. A stray bullet smashed through the window in front of his head, showering him with glass.
He turned his back to the chest of drawers and began feeling around behind him. Third drawer down, he struck lucky. He got his hands on a serrated bread knife with a fair edge to it. He hurried over to Calque.
‘Here. Hold this between your knees.’
‘Cut me free, you imbecile.’
‘I can’t with my back to you. I can’t reach up that far. Do as I say.’
Calque scissored his knees together around the hasp of the knife.
‘Hold it tight now.’
‘What do you think I’m doing? I wish I’d pissed on your head while I had the chance.’
‘Watch your language or I’ll leave you hanging.’
‘Yes, you’d do that, Sabir. That would be just like you.’ There was an edge of raw humour in Calque’s voice.
Sabir worked his wrists against the bread knife. The knife popped out from between Calque’s knees and clattered to the floor.
‘I don’t believe this.’ Sabir dropped to his knees and felt around behind his back for the fallen knife.
‘I just felt a bullet tug at my shirt.’
‘Then hold the knife tighter. Imagine you’ve got diarrhoea and you’re trying to hold it in. If you tense your arse cheeks, your knees tense too.’
‘Very funny. I’ve got a dislocated shoulder, you bastard. You try and tense your arse cheeks with a dislocated shoulder.’
Sabir ignored him and replaced the knife between Calque’s knees. He began to saw away at his bonds for a second time. ‘I’ll shove this damned thing up your arse if you let it fall again. Do you hear me, Calque?’
‘I hear you. If we ever get out of this, Sabir, remind me never to turn my back on you.’
Both of the men began to laugh.
‘Damn!’
‘What is it, Sabir?’
‘I think I’ve jut been hit by a bullet.’
‘Where?’
‘I can’t tell. My middle, somewhere. It felt like someone just rabbit punched me.’
‘It was probably spent. Rabbits don’t punch that hard.’
‘Thanks. That’s very comforting.’ Sabir had his hands free now. His biceps were still bound, but he was able to bend one hand outwards, like a claw. ‘I need to stand on your chair. Otherwise I can’t reach you.’
‘No. I can’t take that again. I can’t take the weight on my arm.’
‘I’m going to do it anyway. It’s our only chance. I can feel something wet down the front of my pants. We may not have that long.’
‘You probably pissed yourself. Aaaahhhh!’
Sabir eased the chair out with his knee and positioned it behind Calque. He heaved himself up, balancing first on one leg, then on both. He twisted to one side and then stretched his forearm out to its full extent and began to cut.
101
Abi knew they were in trouble as soon as they emerged from the building.
Almost immediately, Berith jerked backwards and fell. The rest of them began to zigzag, firing as they ran.
The two heavy machine guns were still laying down covering fire. Then one of the machine guns abruptly stopped.
Abi could put two and two together as well as anyone. ‘They’ve got snipers. Disperse. Get under cover. We haven’t got a chance out here in the open. Get out wherever you can. Every man for himself.’ He grabbed Dakini with his free arm and dragged her towards the field of blue agave. He saw Rudra doing the same thing with Nawal.
Asson appeared to lose his footing, catch himself, and then trip again, spread-eagling himself flat on the ground. He lay there for a moment as if he was winded, and then his head exploded in a frenzy of blood, brains and bone matter.
Primary shot and follow-up – the bastards had semi-automatics.
Abi realized the snipers must be up in the trees overlooking the warehouse. Maybe they’d even placed deer platforms up there for just such an eventuality? He cursed himself for not having taken more pains reconnoitring the place. He’d simply assumed it was exactly what it looked like, and left it there. Now he and his siblings were paying for his slapdash ways.
‘We’ll make for the cenote. That’ll be outside their line of fire. We can regroup there.’
The second heavy machine gun stopped firing.
Abi was beginning to get a very bad feeling indeed.
102
Sabir placed his right foot in Calque’s left armpit, and grabbed the Frenchman by the wrist. ‘Are you sure you’re up for this?’
‘Of course I’m…’
Sabir jerked Calque’s arm towards him before he could finish his sentence.
Calque’s face went white. Then he let out a series of expletives under his breath. He was holding his left bicep with his right hand, tight to his side.
‘Did I do it?’
Calque exhaled. ‘You did it.’
Both men were lying pretty much flat on the ground in an effort to avoid any more ricochets.
‘Let me see your stomach.’
Sabir raised his shirt.
‘Spent bullet. I though as much. You’re lucky. If that had hit you in the face you could have auditioned for Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs.’ Calque glanced across the room. ‘There’s some tequila. We need to rinse your stomach with it. Then we need to get out of here.’
‘We’re never going to get out of that front door.’
‘Then we go down. To the crystal meth laboratory they were talking about. We can hide in one of the vats if we need to. We can get out later. When things have quieted down.’
Calque crawled over to the counter and made a grab for the tequila bottle with his good arm. The firing had died down a little outside, and there was now only the occasional shot. ‘How are you feeling, Sabir?’
‘As you said. It was only a rabbit. But he must have been a big one. Someone’s got it in for my stomach, what with the datura and the odd bullet. Do you think it’s still in there?’
‘It never was in there, you fool. The ricochet just messed you up a little.’ Calque pushed Sabir back and raised his shirt. ‘You’re not going to enjoy this.’
‘I suppose this is revenge for your arm?’
‘You suppose right.’ Calque upended the bottle.
‘Oh Jesus. Jesus.’
Calque took a swig from the bottle and then handed it to Sabir.
Sabir took a long pull, and then shook his head. ‘Come on. We can’t lie here forever. Someone will come back and find us. I don’t know who I dread more. The Corpus or the drug traffickers.’
Calque stood up. ‘If we get hit now, it’s fate.’
‘Wait. Look. They left the rucksack with the codex and the crystal skull behind them. I’m taking it.’
‘Okay. Why not? We might as well die rich.’
103
Abi knew they were near the cenote. But how near, he couldn’t tell. Dakini was a yard or two behind him. Also flat on the ground. Twenty yards away he could see Nawal and Rudra. He’d lost sight of Oni maybe two minutes before. He was probably dead too. The guy was so huge he’d have made an obvious target for the snipers.
‘We’re going to have to make a stand of it. If we keep the cenote behind us, it means they can’t get around and backshoot us. They’ll have to come in from the front. You all still got your weapons?’
The others nodded.
‘Okay. Let’s run for it.’
He stood up and took Dakini’s hand again. She’d never been a particular favourite of his, but now he felt a sudden protective urge towards her. It must be hard to be so da
mned ugly that people crossed the street to avoid meeting your eye.
They ran as fast as they could. For some reason the shooting had fallen away behind them. Then, as Abi ran, it redoubled in violence, but not, oddly enough, in their direction. Was Oni making a break for it? Were Vau and Alastor still alive?
Abi didn’t care. He needed the cenote. When they got there they could plan their next move.
He glanced back over his shoulder. Nawal and Rudra were making ground. So he’d have four guns.
Not a lot. But it would have to be enough.
104
Sabir had to help Calque down the trapdoor steps. Calque’s left arm hung uselessly at his side, and he was forced to descend the steps sideways, like a crab.
When they reached the bottom, Calque let out a soft whistle. ‘I think we’ve just found our way out of here.’
With its 130-inch wheelbase, the armour-plated Hummer H1 Alpha looked like some low-crouching animal, waiting to pounce on its prey.
‘Look at this, man. Gold-plated sub-machine guns. And how about these pistols. What sort of people gild their pistols?’
‘You’d be better off looking for the Hummer keys. The firing’s died down. Someone’s going to be coming in here soon. And this will be the first place they make for.’ Calque was staring at the bricks of crystal meth. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it? You’re looking at ten thousand ruined lives.’
‘The keys, Calque.’
Both men began to search feverishly through the collected paraphernalia in the display cases. Sabir’s military reservist training was beginning to come back to him. He selected two Heckler amp; Koch MP5Ks, because he knew how to use them, and also two of the gold-plated Smith amp; Wesson 469s. One had an engraving of the Mexican eagle figured into its grip, and the other an engraving of a Rottweiler.
‘I’ve got them.’ Calque snatched a set of keys off a communal hook set into the end of the display cabinet.
The Mayan Codex as-2 Page 39
