by David Gilman
The downpour washed the blood from the wounds. He dabbed them dry as best he could, then, using his thumb, pushed the herbs carefully into the punctures. He bound each wound with the strips from his shirt.
He was still on his knees, wiping the flecks of dirt from her face, when he felt the forest change. The rain eased, the crimson mist shifted slightly in the wind, and the dense jungle undergrowth a hundred meters away fell silent for a moment. A shadow figure, the rosettes on its skin barely noticeable, had made the disrupted light alter. Max gazed through the foliage, into the dark patch that was unmoving. Two amber eyes gazed back. They blinked; small tufted ears twitched.
The stare was intense.
And then the jaguar bared its teeth.
Slushing rain and mud disguised the sounds behind Max.
But the vibration in the air had changed. His sixth sense was heightened, the link between jaguar and boy almost tangible. Max spun round in time to stop Riga’s lunge.
Like two beasts they grappled, rolling in the sliding mud. Neither spoke, neither yelled, both grunting in their fight for survival—and Riga was still by far the stronger. Max had a blurred memory of clawing the man’s back and trying to bite and scratch his way clear.
He reached out blindly for anything to strike Riga. His hand delved into the mud for a weapon, but all it found was tangled roots. And that saved his life.
The ground slid away, the force of the water creating a mudslide that swept Riga from him. Max clung to the roots, but he saw Riga’s face. A look of disbelief as he gazed into Max’s eyes. The killer knew he could not survive. He smiled. Max Gordon had won.
Max pulled himself clear, onto drier, firmer ground, and looked down the mud slurry to the valley thirty meters below. There was no sign of Riga’s body; it must have been swept farther away into the turmoil of the broken land.
In the end, the forces of nature had beaten the killer.
Max pulled the case to him and thumbed the beveled locks. All sixes—666. The mark of the beast. There was a handwritten notebook inside, as well as dates, numbers, names, a computer disk and a small picture clipped to an environmental-impact report. Max’s mum. This all started and ended with her. He placed the file back in the case with her picture still attached and closed the lid. Others would now know how she had triggered the unfolding events.
As the locks clicked back into place, it felt as though he was laying his mother’s memory to rest. And in this jungle hell he had found the truth about his father.
He slipped the attaché case’s handcuff onto Morgan’s wrist. If she lived, she could have the glory. He eased her body onto his shoulders. Then, grabbing her arms across his chest, forced himself onto his feet. He was surprised at how light the agent’s body was, not thinking for a moment that he had gained extra strength.
He looked into the jungle.
The jaguar was gone.
Max began a slow, loping run.
The authorities declared the forbidden valley a disaster area, but as so few people were involved in the confined and protected area, it was decided to send only medical teams and a few troops to clear out the last of the Serpent Warriors. The Maya resolved to stay in their villages, away from the ruined temples where cruel men had ruled their lives by fear. The imprisoned adult population that Charlie Morgan’s jungle fighters had found were the forest children’s parents.
Among the medical teams were British and American undercover intelligence officers, whose investigation into events in the reserve would confirm information contained in documents brought out of the disaster area by a young, courageous MI5 officer, who survived three gunshot wounds at the hands of a known assassin.
No one understood how Max Gordon could have run so far carrying her body. Paths were blocked, the land had shifted and the heat from the lava flows had increased dramatically. How anyone could have found their way through the dense jungle using barely recognizable animal paths defied logic. But Max Gordon had run, and had kept running, beyond exhaustion, until he found Charlie Morgan’s jungle fighters.
It was an amazing feat.
Robert Ridgeway could not disclose to Fergus Jackson what had actually happened in Central America, nor the connection between events in London concerning Danny Maguire. Neither could he mention that the remains of one of his officers, Keegan, had been found in a private hospital. Sayid had been sworn to secrecy, an oath he would honor to ensure his mother’s safety, but he would later share the information with his closest friend.
For years scientists had been hunting down organisms capable of triggering new diseases among the human population. Biosphere reserves such as the one in Central America had been set up by pharmaceutical companies to examine the often unknown healing qualities of the rare plants found there. There was now evidence that an independently run arm of the international company Zaragon had discovered a rare blood type among the adult population in the forbidden zone. Their blood carried the antidote for a genetically modified disease, created by scientists in express violation of the international treaty banning biological warfare weapons. Whoever controlled both the disease and its cure would wield unlimited power. Once Cazamind’s documents had been examined, governments moved swiftly to dismantle any laboratories located in their country. The computer disk in Cazamind’s attaché case revealed horrifying footage of other unknown victims who had died and whose bodies had been examined in the private hospital’s mortuary before being cremated. It was these images, Ridgeway reasoned, that Keegan had seen on the monitors before being killed.
How many others had died over the past few years was difficult to ascertain, but when hospitals had been closed because of uncontrolled and unidentifiable infections, Cazamind’s evidence revealed that a dozen or more victims had been taken to the private hospital and isolated before they died.
The mutated bacteria took the form of a worm that devoured its host.
The research on the bioengineered microbial agents secured enough information for the British chief medical officer to announce that new vaccines would be available in the next couple of years to destroy the hospital superbugs such as MRSA and the terrifying flesh-eating disease called USA300, traces of which had been discovered in the privately run hospital in London.
Important figures in MI6, the CIA, British and U.S. governments, U.S. drug enforcement agencies and big business quietly retired from their careers earlier than expected. Biological warfare was not to be mentioned. It was all hushed up. But the real power brokers, those men who lived in a shadow world and who had ultimately controlled Cazamind, they would never be discovered. Even he had not known who they were.
Finally, the MI5 report revealed that the assassin’s body had been found by search teams. It had been identified by tattoos on his wrist: Kunnia—Velvollisuus—Tahto. Honor—Duty—Will. It appeared from the claw marks on his body that he had fought with a jaguar, the sacred animal of the Maya—and lost.
Max’s physical wounds healed quickly. A few more scars creased white lines across his suntan, but the warm ocean soothed him. He walked out of the deep blue onto the bright sand. A U.S. Coast Guard cutter stood offshore as a Zodiac boat made its unhurried approach through the reef.
Sunlight glinted on a bling bracelet as a skinny kid raised a glass with a small umbrella stuck on the top.
“They’re comin’, chico.”
“I see them,” Max said.
“Maybe we should stay here, cousin?” Max took the drink Xavier offered. Their towels were laid out under the palm trees. “We got room service from them navy people; we got everything here. We kings, man, of all we behold. You been good to me, cousin. I don’ forget that. Not ever.”
Max smiled. Xavier shrugged. “That crazy Orsino Flint. He taught me that when we got put in a cage while you went off and destroyed half the world.”
“You think he survived?”
“He said he was stayin’ ’cause he was in a secret valley, that there’d be all them orchids and things he could smu
ggle out.”
Max nodded. Orsino Flint would make a small fortune.
“Those kids. Y’know, Setting Star and her bro, they got back with their parents. They were all prisoners. I dunno why, maybe ’cause they didn’ wan’ no one findin’ out what was goin’ on in there.”
“It had something to do with their blood. The bad guys needed it.”
“Like vampire bats?”
“Worse,” Max said.
Xavier made the sign of the cross.
“It’s good the kids found their parents,” Max said, and did not deny himself the sense of warmth from the memory of Setting Star.
“You better now? Y’know, you thin’ you find out about your mother an’ all?”
Max nodded. “She discovered they were buying every scrap of rain forest they could get. Huge no-go areas that protected them from what they were doing. Now it’ll be saved.”
The Zodiac boat was getting closer. “What about you, Xavier? You’ll miss your brother.”
Xavier nodded.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do with your immunity and new identity?” Max asked.
“I dunno yet. Bein’ an honest citizen might take some gettin’ used to. But, y’know, since I been in the jungle with you, I might open an exotic pet store. These creepy things? They don’ bother me no more.”
“What about driving around in fancy sports cars?”
“I was thinkin’ maybe that’d draw too much attention from the wrong people, yeah?”
Max finished the drink. “Yeah. Good thinking.”
“That’s right. Get smart, chico, I tell myself. After this loco trip. Get smart.”
The boat ran ashore. A sailor jumped into the shallows.
“Are you ready, sir?”
Xavier pulled his sunglasses on top of his head and gestured for the man to wait. “Y’see, Max, now they call me sir.” He smiled. “OK, cousin, I won’ be able to tell you where I’m going or my new name—witness protection an’ all that—but you ever want any birdseed, you look up Alfredo’s Pet Store in L.A.”
Max and Xavier hugged each other.
“You gonna be OK?” Xavier asked.
Max nodded. “The Royal Navy is coming for me in a couple of days.”
“No, I mean … inside. About everything.”
Max nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. “Bye, cousin.”
The ship eased from the bay, a brief blast of farewell from its siren, and then it was gone, leaving a rippled blemish on the calm water. The sky sucked in the light as a purple glow edged the horizon. The sunset would soon flutter and die beneath the surface.
Max knew there were still questions to be answered. Somewhere in the world were threads connecting his mother and father to a force that wielded enormous influence and control. Like an invisible disease, these people had penetrated positions of power throughout the world.
And Max had been drawn into it all.
Two rows of footprints led toward the white rock jutting out into the bay that he had found a few days earlier. A few meters into the jungle, a small area had once been cleared and sun-bleached stones collected to make a grave. The handmade wooden cross was strong and had already survived four years—his father’s hands had seen to that.
He gathered flowers from the jungle, then cut down and placed on the grave a traveler’s palm frond whose base held fresh water, in which he arranged the flowers. Then he carefully entwined the pendant around the cross. The disk glinted as the blood sun reached out its beams like a mother’s arms enfolding her child.
A jaguar sat on the white rock, deepening shadows disguising her presence, as Max felt himself drawn into the sun’s embrace.
Anything else could wait for another day.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The volcanic-rock carving of the jaguar in room 24 of the British Museum does not exist. Everything else is as described, but the beast lurks only in the shadows of my imagination.
Ach Puch in Mayan is pronounced with the ch sounding like the letter k. The location Max’s mother visited, Xunantunich, is pronounced shoo-nahn-too-nic, and means “Stone Woman” or “Maiden of the Rock.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Gilman has worked as a firefighter, a professional photographer, and a marketing manager and served in the British army’s Parachute Regiment Reconnaissance Platoon. He lives in England and has traveled the world, gathering inspiration for his Max Gordon novels along the way. Visit David at davidgilman.com.
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