by David Gilman
“I don’ like the sound of these Serpent Warriors, cousin,” Xavier said.
Max’s hand trembled as he tucked the photograph away. He spoke directly to them as Flint translated. “My mother is dead. I know that. I want to know what happened to her. I need your help. I will not leave until I find the truth. Nothing else matters to me.”
As Flint translated, Tree Walker still seemed unconvinced, but he nodded when Setting Star touched his arm and answered Flint.
“They can take you only so far. They won’t go anywhere near the temples,” Flint said.
It was a small success. Max felt a surge of victory.
Three heartbeats.
One—Max saw a jaguar at the far edge of the clearing; then it disappeared into the forest.
Two—the birds fell silent.
Three—bloodcurdling screams shattered the stillness.
Then a sudden cacophony of conch-shell horns and wooden trumpets blasted the air as bass drums, like heart-stopping thunder, rolled through the trees. The forest edge shivered and changed shape as hordes of warriors yelled their battle cries and charged into the clearing. They were terrifying. Faces painted red and black, they wore plumes of feathers on greenstone-studded helmets and god masks of jungle creatures. All were armed with shields and flint-tipped weapons. Shrunken heads of victims slain in bygone wars dangled from their embroidered, sleeveless cotton jackets. It felt as if demons from hell had been vomited from the underworld.
Children screamed in panic. Tree Walker and Setting Star ran four meters in front of Max and stood firm, gripping their spears and bravely awaiting the charge—it was obvious they were going to defend Max.
Xavier ran, stumbled and tried to make himself small. Flint chewed through his cigarette, pulled his knife and awaited death. The blurred unreality of it all spilled across Max’s vision.
The horde of warriors surged forward, and Max did not flinch. Was it a moment of insanity? He was the eye of the storm. Still. Unmoving.
And then he yelled, “Don’t run! Don’t fight!”
Tree Walker and Setting Star turned at the sound of his voice. They did not understand his words, but the way Max stood—arms extended in a pacifying gesture, feet planted firm—told them everything. He was like a tree: rooted, un-moveable. Doubt momentarily crossed their faces. Then they shouted their commands. The children, and Flint, looked back to Max.
Somehow it all made sense. Why Max had stood his ground no one knew—perhaps pure instinct—but battle warriors would find no honor in killing someone who did not resist. Bloodthirsty slaughter may have been part of their heritage, but Max’s action stopped their leader from his advance. The surge stopped. The drums and trumpets fell silent.
Tree Walker and his sister ushered the children into retreat behind Max as a phalanx of warriors strode closer. Then they, too, stopped. The cave guardian pointed to Max, and a well-muscled warrior, who was obviously their leader, tentatively came a few paces closer. He lifted the wooden jaguar mask from his face and stared at Max.
The energy of the charge had eased into an uncanny silence. The warriors from the forest rippled as if the breeze brushed them. It was anticipation. Would their leader try to kill the Stone Serpent’s wayob?
Max’s fear seeped away. He felt strangely in control of his emotions. His legs had trembled when the attack started, his hands had sweated when he lifted the spear shaft, and his throat had dried seconds before he had spoken.
These were the Serpent Warriors—and they would know about his mother—and if their superstitions were intact, then they would take him as a prisoner to the temple pyramid.
The warrior signaled his men. They herded the children away from Max and began tying them with rope round their necks, ankles and hands. A dozen warriors surrounded Max, but he did not move. His back muscles prickled with the expectation of a spear being thrust into him, but he forced his mind—and his eyes—to stay locked on the devilish face of the Serpent Warrior in front of him.
The warrior reversed his spear and nervously bobbed forward, jabbing Max with the end, like someone scared of a corpse coming to life. Max was the unknown—how powerful was he?
Without the blood surge of the bellowing war cries, it was down to the warrior’s cold courage to determine whether Max could slay him with a look or a touch.
Max faced him down.
Keep your fear to yourself, son. You show you’re scared and you’ve given your opponent victory.
Dad’s voice. Uninvited. Contradicting his own cowardice.
Being frightened is natural, Max. We all go through it. See it for what it is. Be brave even when you don’t feel it.
Mum. Warm. Comforting.
This was all he could do. Everything else was out of his hands. Max stopped himself from saying something really stupid, like Take me to your leader. No sooner had the ludicrous thought flashed through his mind than he laughed aloud.
The warrior flinched. This boy-spirit had bared his teeth like a snake about to strike, in defiance of any fear. He raised his spear in an attacking thrust. And then nature saved Max’s life. The ground shook, rippling like a small wave, swaying trees, buffeting the grassland like a horse’s mane.
Earthquake.
Warriors and children flung themselves to the ground. The minor earth tremor threw those left standing to the floor. Except for Max. The shuddering energy below his legs made him instinctively brace himself. It felt like being on a snowboard running across uneven, broken ground on a ski run. He kept his balance. For a few brief moments, everyone lay facedown around him. The warriors looked up to see this manifestation from the Cave of the Stone Serpent standing above them—like a king. This wayob had power. He had laughed at their most ferocious warriors and then caused the earth to strike them down to the position of lowly servants, lying before him in subservience.
The tremor passed. The warriors got to their feet and—with a respectful distance between themselves and Max—gestured with their weapons that he should walk. Surrounded, he did as they wanted and followed the child prisoners into the forest.
Max felt an almost overpowering sense of anticipation. Every step now took him closer to finding the truth of his mother’s death and his father’s betrayal.
Ridgeway was collating his resources, calling in favors owed from civil servants and cabinet ministers, as well as discussing his fears with retired senior military officers. Someone had cleaned that private mortuary so well it raised suspicions to the point where he had instructed his team to go beyond their usual fastidious checks. He wanted to know what had happened to his man, Keegan, and why that building was shrouded in such secrecy. And the more he reached out for information, the greater the pressure that came from MI6. It would be a battle of wills between the two security services whether the truth was exposed or buried. One thing he was absolutely certain about was that his government, or rather the key people within it, were involved in some kind of cover-up.
Ridgeway sat with Tom Gordon in his room. Marty Kiernan hovered in the background as the MI5 man unfolded a large map of Central America across the table. He knew he was risking Tom Gordon’s health and mental stability by coming here, but he needed to pinpoint where the explorer and scientist had been with his wife when she disappeared. The room was tense with silence, and Marty could see the prickled sweat on his patient’s forehead as he gazed at the map.
“I have one of my people in the jungle. She has contacted me in the last few hours and believes she is close to an area that is exceptionally dangerous, guarded by armed men, and where your wife might have been before she died so tragically. Thanks to your son’s friend Sayid Khalif, we had sufficient information to convince us that an illegal covert operation is taking place. My agent volunteered for this. She wants to go in. She has no legal backing from me or our government, and I do not want to risk her life needlessly. There is a British Army training team based in the mountains of Belize, where our soldiers are taught jungle warfare. Right now there is a com
pany of Gurkhas there, and if I have to, I will put my job on the line and get those men in to support my agent. But I have to know if this is the place.”
Max’s father gazed at the contours of the map, each swirl a memory of steep climbs and rugged terrain. Like a badly edited video clip made on a handheld camera, snatches of pictures flashed through Tom Gordon’s mind.
Ridgeway spoke quietly. “The boy who died on the London Underground has been identified as having gone there, and his death is still a mystery. But we believe that it’s the information he gave to your son that triggered Max’s disappearance. And if Max has survived, then I’d be surprised if he wasn’t in the same area. So these troops would be put at risk to save your son and help my agent,” Ridgeway said.
There was absolutely no response from Tom Gordon. His eyes were locked onto the map; he was in a world of his own, letting his mind reveal whatever memory could be recovered.
“Was this the area your wife had been in? If Max is there, we think time might be running out for him.”
Tom Gordon’s finger traced a route on the map. “A runner found me.… He came from the mountains, through a cave. He was frightened. He took me to my wife. I tried to save her. I tried … She was so ill.… No doctors … no one … That’s why I ran.”
Ridgeway saw that Tom Gordon’s hand had covered the area where Charlie Morgan was sitting on the edge of violence as volatile as an unstable volcano. He knew he could squeeze no more from the man’s ruined memory, but it was enough. He shook Tom Gordon’s hand and turned to leave.
Marty Kiernan escorted him to the door. “I know this has to be something big for you to be taking these risks, sir, and if there’s any likelihood of Max being in that area, then he’ll be there. The boy’s got guts and stamina—he’s proven himself before. I think there’s a better way of getting armed men on the ground—unofficially—and if anyone can help your agent and Max, then these are the people you need.”
Marty Kiernan had spent a few hours on the telephone. The British government might well have a training team of specialists in the jungles of Central America, but to use them for a live operation could cause a diplomatic incident. If there was a chance to save Max, and if there was fighting to be done, then Marty knew who to call.
Over the years, British soldiers who had trained others in the specialist art of jungle warfare had stayed in the area, married local women and settled down to raise families in the environment that was second nature to them. Most had served fifteen to twenty years in the army and now received a modest pension to supplement whatever work they did. In the modern world of warfare, they would be considered too old to go on active duty—but when the call came from Marty, each of the dozen men went to that special place in his home where he kept his well-oiled and trusted weapons hidden.
Charlie Morgan winced. It was a ragtag army that arrived at the rendezvous point Ridgeway had instructed her to reach. Battered old pickup trucks, ex-army Land Rovers and a quad bike cut through the mud and bush. Some of the men were still close friends; others hadn’t seen each other for a few years, but the more she looked, the more she realized that these were hard-nosed veterans, their skin tanned mahogany from years in the sun. They might have been older than your regular squaddie, but she could see that the men had an understated, deadly efficiency about them. By the time they’d introduced themselves, made a few passing cracks about her being young enough to be their daughter and then started asking for tactical assessments of the target, she knew she was in business. These were the men who had taught others how to fight.
Charlie Morgan, ever practical and self-confident, believed she now had the resources, no matter how meager, to take on the gunmen and whatever else lay in that forbidden zone. Now all she had to do was find Max Gordon in that twisted jungle that ensnared its secrets like a poisonous spiderweb.
Like startled birds, two of the children ran. Somehow they had freed themselves. They ducked and weaved as warriors threw their spears and gave chase for a couple of hundred meters. The kids sprinted for some boulders where bushes hid what must have been a way through. Cries of encouragement turned to alarm, and then screams. Tree Walker and Setting Star tried to break free in their anxiety, but a Serpent Warrior yanked the rope round their necks and pulled them back in line.
“Why have they stopped chasing them? What’s wrong?” Max asked Flint.
“There’s a hummingbird god up there. These kids are too young to know about it.”
Tree Walker gave a final scream of warning—but it was too late.
Max saw the two escaping children suddenly thrown to the ground as if a massive invisible hand had slammed them down. Everyone fell silent.
It made no sense. What had killed those children? He stepped forward; the warriors threatened him with their spears, but he continued walking slowly. They kept him encircled but moved with him, calling for instructions from their warrior leader.
“Don’t be crazy. Boy! You ain’t no jungle god! They’ll kill you if they have to,” Flint warned him.
The Serpent Warrior’s leader ran forward and shouted a command. The spears jabbed closer. Max stopped. He had pushed his luck far enough. But now that he was closer to the children, he could hear a gentle hum of something in the trees.
The children’s bodies were scorched. Red welts across their arms, chests and legs. Max realized that the hummingbird god was an electrified fence hidden from sight. There was a power source somewhere, fueled by what? Was a generator powerful enough? Maybe there was something hidden underground or in one of those caves he could see. Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with ancient superstitions—this was modern-day technology being used.
Hours later, after stumbling along pathways hidden by the high canopy, a broad expanse of cleared forest, trapped on each side by mountains, opened up before Max and the others. Layers of mist and smoke hung in the air, seeping upward to escape the treetops. Shafts of sunlight angled into a collection of pyramid-like buildings. Max had been pushed through the trees into a lost city.
He scanned the ground as quickly as possible. How to escape when the time came? Water channels that led down from the mountainside to irrigate fruit and vegetable gardens seemed the best bet. Get across those, through the trees and climb! Young legs, fear and desperation could take you a long way in a hurry.
As the procession of captured children was stopped by the warriors, they saw women—also tethered—tending the vegetable garden and looking at the war party’s victims with expressionless faces. Their half-raised eyes told Max they dared not look too closely. It was fear that kept them under control.
Like bullying nightclub doormen, the guards chivied the children toward an overgrown entrance, an archway that looked like a short tunnel. Its stonework was intact, but, like an unrelenting virus, the jungle clawed at every stone, slithering across the limestone buildings, strangling them in a relentless embrace.
Max was still surrounded by his captors, so he was first through the archway, followed by Flint, Xavier, Tree Walker and Setting Star. Younger children were crying but were being comforted by the older ones. Max could hear the gentle, soothing tones of the Mayan language, which suddenly stopped as the prisoners emerged from the tunnel.
The main area was bigger than a couple of football fields. To the left and right were sloping stone walls, dotted with scowling gargoyles: squashed faces of ancient gods that reminded Max of the totem pole he had climbed in the British Museum—a couple of lifetimes ago, it seemed. Above these walls, steps rose up to create a low, flat-topped building. At the end of the field was a stepped pyramid that Max reckoned was fifty or sixty meters high. Smoke curled from the top, obscuring the summit. There were other buildings, most of them so ancient they were little more than ruins. The complex must have once been very impressive, with its brightly painted colors on smooth lime-plastered walls, but they were now worn away to reveal the underlying blocks, the structures subdued by the elements and the jungle. He could not recognize any
of them from his mother’s photographs. Despair squeezed his insides. He had to shake off any soul-destroying depression, or he would be helpless. There must be other buildings he had not yet seen.
Howler monkeys bellowed their supernatural-sounding cries from the dense vegetation that skirted the buildings, like gatekeepers to hell welcoming the condemned.
Max kept looking, scanning each building, each frieze or sculpture depicting scenes from ancient life. He wanted one of the stone-frozen figures to point out where his mother had stood, had her picture taken—had smiled.
The prisoners were brought to a halt. Max’s guards moved away, leaving him separated from the main body of children. Flint was close to him and spoke quietly.
“These were sacred cities. All these buildings were aligned to the heavenly bodies so they could pinpoint planetary cycles. Y’see that smoke up there? That’s where the Vision Serpent is. That’s where they make sacrifices. They spill enough blood, it releases the ch’ulel. Then the shaman goes into a trance and sees the smoke take shape. He summons up one of their gods from the underworld.” He took a wheezy breath. “The Maya sacrifice prisoners of war by cutting their hearts out.”
Max gazed up. A figure stood at the top of the pyramid’s steps. Iridescent feathers plumed out from his clothing, swathed in bands of color. He held a staff of some kind from which swung an incense-laden censer, like a priest in a church. A dull ache spread across Max’s chest. He had brought this on himself in an effort to find the truth; now it stared him in the face—he was going to die.
A chattering flock of red macaws darted across the open space, like droplets of blood splattering against the forest green. Something was happening next to one of the buildings. Other warriors had moved forward, like an advance party, but Max could not yet see who was following them. He heard a whisper. “Chico.”
Max dared a glance over his shoulder and saw Xavier huddled amid the others. His bound hands were raised slightly, trying to point at the new arrivals.
