The Mayan Resurrection mp-2

by Steve Alten

  What he lacks in physical stature Kurtz more than makes up in advanced gadgetry. His sleek wraparound ‘smart’ sunglasses contain tiny lasers embedded in the frames that beam light into his eyes, offering crisp wide-angle images from the miniature cameras. The camera lenses are telescopic, enabling him to zoom in on objects over great distances, using either day or night vision.

  Concealed beneath the former FBI agent’s shirt, strapped to his right forearm and powered by a waist-worn battery pack is a ‘pain cannon.’ Designed for riot control, the weapon fires pulses of millimeter waves at its target, heating the victim’s skin as if the subject had just touched a hot lightbulb. The pain cannon can scatter every living being within a three-hundred-yard radius or deliver a death blow to a specific target up to half a mile away.

  Driving the limo is Ryan Beck, an immense African-American, whose six-foot-six frame carries 285 pounds of sculpted muscle. The former Green Beret holds black belts in several martial arts, is an expert with guns and knives, and once took a bullet for California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The scar is still present beneath the man’s shirt collar.

  Affectionately known around the Oval Office as ‘Salt and Pepper,’ the duo have spent the last ten months guarding one client.

  President Ennis Chaney stares out the tinted rear windows of the limo, growling to himself. Security has been breached once more, despite Homeland Security’s having changed Dominique Vazquez’s identity three times over the last seven months, and the media has turned the event into Ringling Brothers meets the Second Coming. Terrorist threats, intercepted on-line by the FBI over NREN (National Research and Education Network) have forced the president to bypass the scheduled helicopter ride from Fort Lauderdale airport to the hospital, while a computer virus has crippled Homeland Security, causing the National Guard to be delayed by two hours.

  The president rubs sleep from his deeply set owl-shaped eyes as the limo rolls to a stop in front of a police barricade.

  Pepper, seated driver’s side, lowers his window.

  A cop reeking of garlic breath pokes his head inside. ‘Sorry, pal, this area’s closed. Now turn this boat around and get outta here.’

  Pepper holds up his I.D.

  ‘White House? Yeah, right.’

  Chaney leans forward from the backseat and shoots the cop one of his infamous ‘one-eyed-jack’ glares. ‘You need glasses, son, or you just stupid?’

  The cop’s complexion pales as he recognizes the heavy rasp. ‘Mister President? Geez, I’m sorry, sir-’

  ‘Shut up and let us through before we have to shoot you.’

  Pepper grins, shutting the window in the cop’s face. The limo proceeds past the barricade and continues north on Route 441 another three miles before turning onto a side street leading to the hospital.

  The access road is wall-to-wall people.

  Pepper shakes his head. ‘Look at all those freaks. This is worse than one of your damn Republican conventions.’

  Chaney leans forward, gazing out the windshield. Up ahead on the right is a mob of protesters, carrying signs that read: KILL THE ANTICHRIST.

  ‘Goddam Peter Mabus. Salt, clear ’em out.’

  ‘All of them? Cops too?’

  ‘All of ’em.’

  With a mischievous grin, Kurtz activates the moon roof and stands, his upper torso protruding out the hatch. He scans the crowd, his computer optics calculating distance.

  A sixteen-year-old Caucasian male with a blue goatee and a dozen facial piercings saunters over, a fourteen-year-old girl handcuffed to each tattooed wrist. The girls, high on Ecstasy, climb onto the hood of the limo. ‘Hey, Dr. Shades,’ the male calls out, ‘you here to witness the birth of the Messiah Twins?’

  Kurtz rolls up his shirtsleeve, revealing his weapon. ‘Yep. Me and the other two wise men in the limo brought the frankincense. Open wide, here comes the mirth.’

  Salt fires the cannon, its invisible beam of millimeter waves igniting screams from the crowd. Several dozen fanatics leap into the nearest canal, the rest disperse in every direction, yelping as if their skin was on fire.

  The tattooed teen cries out like a banshee as he and his girls tear at their scorching tongue rings and handcuffs.

  ‘It’s a school night, junior. Go home and study.’ Kurtz ducks back inside the vehicle as Pepper drives up to the nowdeserted hospital entrance.

  ‘I can see the first one’s head… easy while I turn the shoulders. Okay, push!’

  Dominique bears down, grunting as she squeezes the newborn from her birth canal.

  ‘Beautiful.’ Dr. Wishnov holds the blood-streaked, fair-haired child in both hands, momentarily dazzled by the infant’s bright azure-blue eyes.

  ‘Hey, no breaks here!’ Dominique yells.

  ‘Sorry.’ The obstetrician quickly runs a suction tube down the newborn’s mouth and throat, clearing the airway before cutting the umbilical cord and passing him to Steinberg.

  The rabbi places the wide-eyed child into the incubator as instructed. He mutters a prayer in Hebrew, watching as the warmth of the semienclosed chamber turns the infant’s skin a healthy pink.

  Incredibly, the newborn seems to be watching him.

  The rabbi shakes the ridiculous thought away, returning his attention to Dominique as her second son is birthed.

  Belle Glade, Florida 1:32 a.m.

  Forty-seven miles to the north, seventeen-year-old Madelina Aurelia thrashes naked beneath a sweat-soaked bedsheet as she cries out to her foster father. ‘Get this goddam baby outta me!’

  Quenton Morehead, Baptist Minister, squeezes the girl’s hand, his dark eyes lingering on the girl’s exposed pelvis. ‘Don’t blaspheme, child, the midwife’s on her way.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ Madelina claws his arms, drawing streaks of blood. ‘Where’s Virgil?’

  ‘I don’t know-’

  ‘Find him!’

  The minister cringes as the girl’s high-pitched screech penetrates his brain like a tuning fork. He hears the front door open and sighs a quick Amen.

  ‘Virge?’ Madelina stops thrashing. ‘Virgil, honey? That you-you cheatin’, whorin’ sonuva bitch!’

  A heavyset black woman enters. ‘Calm down, baby, everthin’ gonna be just fine.’

  Madelina tears at the mattress as another contraction grips her torso. ‘Vir… gil!’

  The midwife turns to the minister. ‘Go on and find him. I can handle things here.’

  Quenton backs out of the bedroom, then hurries out the front door of the sweltering stucco home and into the night.

  Madelina Aurelia, only child of Miguel and Cecilia Aurelia, was born in the small Mexican town of Morelos. Cecilia’s marriage to Miguel had been arranged by his uncle, Don Rafelo, a man feared by all as an Ojo mak (evil man), who had learned the girl’s maternal lineage was full-blooded Aztec, her ancestors dating back to the reign of Montezuma.

  Bad luck seemed to follow the young couple since Madelina’s birth. Cecilia had nearly died in labor, and Miguel suffered a debilitating stroke a month after his daughter was born. Relatives whispered that Don Rafelo had cast his evil eye on the Aurelias in hopes of obtaining their daughter. Secretly, they advised the young couple to move away from Morelos and the Ojo mak as soon as possible.

  The Aurelias held out until Madelina turned four, then joined a group of crop pickers bound for the United States. For the next two years, the illegal aliens would migrate from Florida to Texas, following the growing seasons.

  For the Aurelias, life in the States seemed just as bewitched as it had been in Morelos. Cecilia lost sight in her right eye because of a bee sting, and Miguel suffered a second stroke. When the Aurelias’ shanty burned to the ground, the superstitious couple departed Belle Glade, abandoning their daughter on the doorstep of the town’s Family Services office.

  A month later, six-year-old Madelina was placed in the foster home of the Reverend Quenton Morehead and his wife, Rachel.

  It soon became apparent that something was seriously w
rong with the young Mexican immigrant. Bizarre infantile behavior, including public masturbation and finger painting with her feces led the God-fearing Quenton to declare the girl possessed. His wife, being more grounded, suspected a chemical imbalance and made an appointment with a child psychiatrist.

  After two visits and a battery of tests, doctors diagnosed Madelina’s problem as a form of disorganized schizophrenia, probably inherited from one of the girl’s biological parents. Drugs were prescribed, therapy recommended.

  Two weeks later, Rachel Morehead found a lump on her left breast. She would not last the year.

  Deeply depressed over his wife’s death, Quenton was forced to endure the additional burden of Madelina’s illness alone. Unable to accept the doctor’s psychiatric ‘mumbo jumbo,’ the minister decided the best course of action was simply to exorcise the girl’s demons himself.

  Prayer, empowered by Quenton’s fire-and-brimstone delivery, would cleanse Madelina’s soul. Daily Bible readings and nightly services would fill her idle time after school, preventing her mind from wandering back toward Satan. Jesus would shine His guiding light into the girl’s valley of darkness.

  It was a long, exhausting ‘road to salvation,’ complicated by Quenton’s own disease: alcoholism.

  After staggering home drunk, the ordained minister would often strip naked and crawl into bed with his frightened nine-year-old foster child. On good nights, Quenton simply passed out.

  On a few terrible nights… he stayed awake.

  Weeks after the first episode, the girl began carrying on conversations with imaginary friends. The voices ‘stopped’ with Quenton’s beatings.

  By the time she turned sixteen, Madelina had been molested by her foster parent dozens of times. Meanwhile, the adolescent’s girl’s schizophrenia had grown worse, and the minister feared he might be stuck caring for his foster daughter the rest of his days.

  What he needed was a son-in-law to relieve him of his burden.

  Prior to the introduction of Lake Ockeechobee’s legalized ‘river boat gambling’ in 2009, Belle Glade had predominantly been a seasonal farming town, most of its worker force minorities, primarily African-American and Hispanic. The big sugar companies recruited strong backs, having little use for brains, a fact that reflected poorly upon the school district, which boasted the worst standardized test scores in the county. For most high-school males growing up in the area, college was not an option. In Belle Glade, you either labored in the fields, sold drugs, or played sports.

  Seventeen-year-old Virgil Robinson could play sports, especially football. After three years of high-school ball, he had earned the coveted title, ‘Nastiest Linebacker in the State.’ While Glades Central High might have had a bad reputation for standardized test scores, they were tops in the nation when it came to sports, producing more professional athletes than any other school in the country. Virgil was the cream of the football class of 2011, a 257-pound man-child standing an imposing six-foot-five, who could cover forty yards in just under 4.4 seconds and had a fifty-two-inch vertical leap. What’s more, the speedy junior middle linebacker loved delivering bone-jarring hits, the more savage, the better. ‘Don’t wanna just hit the dude, I wanna bleed him from the inside out.’

  Running backs trembled. College recruiters salivated.

  Young Virgil’s parents had died when he was six, leaving him to toil in his uncle’s fields ever since. He could barely read and write, and admittedly didn’t know ‘much about nothing,’ but what he did know was that football was his ticket out of Belle Glade. Now in his senior year, he was finally enjoying the first whiffs of success. The recruiting ritual had begun, the Division I-A college assistants luring him with promises of wealth, fancy cars, and beautiful undergrads. Virgil Robinson was the type of athlete who could turn around a losing program and bring home a national championship. Every coach knew about his inflated 2.13 grade point average and his third-grade reading level, but none seemed to care. Tutors were easier to find than All-Americans, and grades could be spoon-fed. At the very worst, the kid from Belle Glade would redshirt his freshman year.

  Of course, Virgil had no more interest in earning a degree than he did cracking open a book. A year or two of exposure in a top-ranked football program and he’d turn pro. A year or two and the money would be there. Shoe deals, sports drink endorsements, it was all part of the game. Millionaires didn’t need an education. As long as he maintained his appetite for violence, success both on and off the gridiron would follow.

  Unfortunately, Virgil also had an appetite for women and drugs, the latter amplifying his propensity for violence. On the eve of signing a letter of intent with the University of Florida, the high-school star decided to spend the night on the town partying with a few friends and teammates. After getting high, the boys headed to nearby Clewiston, intent on crashing their rival’s homecoming dance. One of the Clewiston cheerleaders had caught Virgil’s eye during their last game, and the star linebacker’s loins ached at the thought of seeing her again.

  The girl was there, dancing with her boyfriend, the team’s starting tailback. Virgil approached the couple, grinning his gold-capped smile. ‘Yo, hoochie, why don’tch ya’ll shake dat thing over here-I’ll show you how a real man handles it.’

  The tailback threw first, his punch impacting Virgil’s nose, drawing blood. Virgil never flinched, only his expression changed, morphing into an insane leer his defensive coordinator had dubbed ‘the Robinson Rage.’ In one motion the All-State linebacker grabbed the smaller teen by his neck and head-butted him twice, the latter blow knocking him senseless. A swift knee to the mouth finished the job.

  As the crowd backed away, Virgil turned his attention to the girl. Grabbing her by the wrist, he tossed her over his shoulder, carrying her out to the parking lot like a Neanderthal choosing his mate.

  Back in his truck, Virgil had to slap the girl twice before he could tear off her panties. By that time a small crowd had gathered around the vehicle, including Wes Hobart, the school’s wrestling coach. Hobart yanked open the door, only to have Virgil leap out and grab him by the hair, smashing him headfirst through another car’s windshield. Then he spun around to face his next assailant, the girl’s father, an English teacher – who was carrying a shotgun.

  The load of buckshot struck Virgil in his left knee, shattering the patella, blowing out most of the supporting cruciate ligaments and muscle. Six hours of surgery later, Virgil Robinson awoke in a hospital bed, his dream of playing professional football gone forever, the nightmare of adulthood about to begin.

  The former star left the hospital a week later and was sent to jail to await trial. The judge sentenced him to three years.

  When the Reverend Morehead read about Virgil’s fall from grace, he approached the judge and offered to take the youth in as part of the church’s work-release program. In the former high-school star Quenton saw yet another downtrodden youth whose soul needed to be saved… and a potential son-in-law in the making.

  And so Virgil Robinson moved in with Reverend Morehead and his foster-daughter, Madelina. Encouraged by their ‘matchmaker,’ the two began dating. After three weeks, the reverend promised Virgil he would use his influence to have the rest of his prison sentence commuted, but only if he agreed to marry Madelina.

  Faced with another two years of incarceration, Virgil wholeheartedly accepted.

  A quick Sunday ceremony and the deed was done. As a wedding gift, Quenton gave the young couple use of a dilapidated stucco home the church owned, but could find no one to rent. Before anyone could say ‘early parole’ the newlyweds headed off to begin their lives together, blessed with all the hardships poverty and a lack of formal education could offer.

  For a short while things seemed fine. With Quenton’s help, Virgil landed an assistant manager’s position with one of the big sugar companies. By day, he supervised sugarcane workers, by night, he would return home from the fields to find comfort in his young bride’s loins. As for Madelina, with Quento
n out of her life, the girl finally felt safe. Medication kept the ‘voices’ at bay, and she began saving money to purchase a nicer home. There was even talk of starting a family.

  And then Virgil’s drugging resurfaced.

  It started innocently enough-a few missed NA meetings here, a few hits of coke there. But drug addiction is a disease only abstinence can contain, and before Madelina realized what was happening, her husband had spent their savings on his all-night binges.

  Madelina was forced to dip into her medication money just to afford groceries. Depression set in, and with it, all of the girl’s old fears. ‘Remember girl,’ Quenton always said, ‘the Devil will take your soul if you’re not strong…’

  To make matters worse, the college football season was upon them, the time of year that stoked Virgil’s anger to its fullest. Watching the University of Florida’s games on TV, his internal rage would build until he had to lash out at something… or somebody.

  Madelina told Quenton she had broken her arm while mending the roof. The punctured lung-that had come from a nasty fall on her bike. She told the intern at the clinic that she broke her nose slipping in the bathtub.

  The beatings subsided briefly in late January of 2013 when Virgil learned his wife was pregnant. The news seemed to calm the former football star. A son could be put to work in the fields. A son could be taught how to play football. Virgil Jr. would live the life denied his father-he would return glory to his old man by making it in the NFL. Twenty years from now, old Virgil Robinson would be able to retire in wealth, living off the fortunes of his prodigal son.

  Life in the Robinson home stabilized… for the moment.

  And then the world seemed to lose its equilibrium, and sobriety was not an option.

  Reverend Morehead enters the strip club, his senses immediately seized by the smell of alcohol and smoke and sex. It takes him several minutes to find his son-in-law, who is in a back room, receiving a lap dance.