Jake Atlas and the Hunt for the Feathered God

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  Another streak of lightning offered a glimpse of the mountain top. Rainwater washed in streams into the small lake at the centre of the plateau, whisked by the wind into a whirlpool. Around the lake, trees creaked and swayed in the storm. It felt as if I was on the deck of a ship that was about to be wrecked.

  There was something else there, though, on the other side of the lake. It looked like a rise of natural rock or … a building!

  I ran for it, slipping over and staggering up. More lightning revealed a small temple, with stone steps leading to an entrance carved with patterns and symbols. Two stone creatures jutted from its corners, grinning snakeheads with glaring eyes and plumed feather collars. It was the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl!

  I scrambled up the steps and through the entrance into a dark chamber. I stood, breathing hard, waiting for another flash of lightning. When it came I saw that the chamber was empty other than a stone altar. Standing on the altar was a clay plaque carved with an Aztec symbol.

  “The marker!”

  It wasn’t heavy, but my arms were so tired I could barely even lift it from the altar. Instead I stood still as another flash of lightning – and then another – illuminated the mountain top. I stared at the marker, trying to carve its symbol into my mind.

  Another roar of thunder, this one so loud it caused the temple walls to tremble.

  And then a voice.

  “Jake Atlas! We know you’re in there.”

  Torchlight beamed through the entrance, catching me in terrified silhouette. The voice called again.

  “Come out with the marker and we might let you live.”

  I turned, staring around the temple walls. There was no other way out.

  I was trapped.

  24

  “Jake Atlas. Come out with the marker, or we will come in and take it from you.”

  You know what? I didn’t actually care who was outside the temple. I should have. These people had spied on us, shot us from the sky, killed Pedro, even. Who were they? How did they know my name?

  But I just didn’t care.

  I stood in the torchlight, soaked and shivering, and staring at the symbol carved onto the clay plaque on the altar. I’d risked my life to get to that marker. If those people saw it, all of that was pointless. They’d beat us to the tomb of Quetzalcoatl and the emerald tablet. I thought about Sami again, lying in agony in that bed. If he died he’d never know how much I’d let him down. But I would. I couldn’t let that be his deathbed. I had to find a way out of this with the marker.

  A different person spoke, a woman with a voice as rough as sandpaper.

  “Jake Atlas, this is your last warning.”

  “There’s no marker in here!” I yelled.

  “Don’t lie to us,” the man growled. “You’re out of your depth now, son. You don’t have to get hurt, but don’t think for one moment that we’d care if you did.”

  “You killed Alpha Squad, didn’t you?” I called.

  Like I said, I didn’t care, but I needed to buy time to think.

  “Who we are isn’t important,” the man said. “What’s inside that temple is all that matters. Bring it out now, son.”

  “There’s no marker in here,” I repeated.

  “This is getting tiresome,” the woman warned.

  “I promise you,” I replied. “There was a marker.”

  I rushed to the altar and picked up the plaque, my arms trembling from its weight. Then I hurled it as hard as I could against the temple wall. Clay smashed against stone, and the marker shattered. I sank to the ground, found the fragments with the carving, and crushed them against the temple floor.

  “But now there’s only bits of the marker,” I added.

  Torchlights bobbed and brightened. Boots thumped over stone.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I cried. “I saw the marker and I’m the only one that did. It only exists in my head now, so if you want to know what was on it, you’d better back off.”

  The boots stopped. I heard whispered arguments.

  “Let’s do a deal, son!” the man shouted. “You tell us what you saw and we’ll let you go. Then it’s just you against us to reach the tomb. An old-fashioned race.”

  “Why would I believe that?” I replied. “You killed Alpha Squad.”

  “Not quite, son. We are Alpha Squad.”

  That was a surprise, and there was something in the man’s voice that said he wasn’t lying. Now that I’d destroyed the marker, I wanted to know more.

  “I’m coming out,” I said.

  “No sudden moves,” the woman warned.

  I wasn’t capable of sudden moves. I’d got here on desperation and adrenaline, but now I mostly felt pain. My legs were bruised and stiff, and my left ankle wasn’t working too well. Cuts on my arms stung like someone had rubbed vinegar in the wounds, and one of my fingernails had split down the middle. It sounds silly, but it really stung.

  I gritted my teeth and hobbled out into the torchlight.

  A flash of lightning lit up the plateau, giving me a proper glimpse of the two figures that stood by the whirlpool lake. The woman looked like a mad pirate, with wild ginger hair undercut at the sides, and a patch over one eye. The man had a shaved head, bushy beard and a neck as thick as one of the tree trunks beyond the lake. They wore jungle suits and were armed with weapons that I recognized: crab-claw shaped guns with silver barrels poking from the middle. They were stun guns, but if they were the same weapons that the Snake Lady’s mercenaries had used in Egypt, they also fired bullets.

  “If you are Alpha Squad,” I said, “then we’re on the same side. We’re working for the People of the Snake.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” the man grunted.

  The woman raised her weapon. “What did the marker show?”

  “Stop pointing that gun at me,” I replied.

  “I’ll stop when you tell us.”

  “How can I think when you’re aiming a gun at me?”

  The man glared at her, and they did that thing Mum and Dad do, arguing with their eyes. I got the feeling they were a couple.

  The woman sighed and lowered her stun gun. I’m not sure she needed it anyway: she looked about ready to strangle me with her gloved hands.

  “Tell us!” she demanded.

  “All right, all right! I’m thinking…”

  “Tell us now!”

  “Stop yelling at me, then! It’s intimidating. See, now I’ve forgotten.”

  She raised the weapon again. “You’d better remember fast.”

  “All right!” I said. “I remember. The marker was a circle with two semi circles on the top. There were eyes in the circle, and a mouth…”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed, as she tried to picture the symbol. “I don’t recognize that,” she said.

  “I do,” the man replied. “Is he describing Mickey Mouse?”

  I grinned and tried not to look scared. “Maybe the tomb is in Disneyland?”

  The man smiled too. Two of his teeth were gold, and several more were missing. “I get it,” he snarled. “You’re trying to be brave. Well, I’m impressed. Now tell us what you saw.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

  “Yeah? What were you doing, then?”

  “Buying time.”

  There’s something I haven’t told you. As I stepped from the temple, I saw two other people in that lightning flash.

  Mum and Dad.

  The man turned and Dad socked him in the face! It was a great punch, sending the guy flying to the ground and knocking the smart-goggles from his face. At the same time Mum jumped at the woman and they tumbled to the edge of the lake. She grabbed the stun gun and hurled it so it caught the Alpha Squad guy hard on the nose as he tried to stand.

  Recovering, the Alpha Squad guy pulled a knife from his belt and charged at Dad. I’d seen Dad fight against the Snake Lady’s mercenaries, but this time his opponent was a trained hunter. All I saw were glimps
es in lightning flashes: the knife being kicked from his hand, punches, blocks, a spinning kick…

  I’d seen Mum in action before, too, and thought no one could touch her. She was in trouble here, though. She dodged a punch, but the Alpha Squad woman caught her with a flying kick and some nifty ninja moves. Mum looked dazed. Blood gushed from her forehead. Dad wasn’t doing well now either; he must have taken a big hit because he was down on his knees, swaying as if he might fall into the whirlpool. The Alpha Squad man stumbled around the side of the lake, looking for his knife.

  I had to help, but I’d never thrown a proper punch in my life. I breathed in, clearing my head. My mind went into that zone again, thinking clearly, making plans. In that moment I knew four things:

  1. Alpha Squad wore small backpacks.

  2. They hadn’t brought the bags to carry the marker. They wore smart-goggles, so they’d have planned to photograph it and then destroy it so no one else saw what it showed.

  3. They knew Mum and Dad were climbing the cliff below them, so would have planned a way off the mountain that avoided a confrontation.

  4. So they had parachutes in their rucksacks.

  Suddenly I was running. It was as if someone had hacked into my mind and downloaded a mad plan that I had no way of stopping. I charged around the edge of the lake, splashing through rainwater streams. I was going to hit the guy and grab hold, so we went over the cliff edge together. He’d have to pull his parachute, or we’d both die.

  I ran faster, my eyes fixed on the Alpha Squad guy’s back. I heard something thudding. Was it thunder or my heart?

  A light beamed at my face, so bright it was like a physical thing, causing me to stop and stagger back. It was all around me somehow, coming from above. The thudding grew louder and I realized that it was coming from the sky, too.

  A small helicopter descended over the plateau, aiming a searchlight at me. Shielding my eyes, I was just able to make out the pilot in the glass cockpit.

  Pedro!

  He’d survived and come to help! I grinned and whooped, waving my arms. I started to yell something – I can’t remember what – but I never got to finish. The words caught in my throat.

  As the helicopter came lower I saw that Pan was in it too. I signalled to her, but she glared back at me, frantically shaking her head. Her mouth was covered with duct tape. It looked like her hands were tied behind her back.

  She hadn’t been rescued.

  She’d been caught.

  Pedro was with Alpha Squad.

  The moment Mum saw Pan she dropped her fighting stance and raised her arms in surrender. Dad did the same, down on his knees, cut and bruised from the fight.

  The Alpha Squad man picked up his knife. His gold teeth glinted in the helicopter’s searchlight as he smiled at me through the driving rain.

  “Good try, son. But it’s over now.”

  25

  “Well, isn’t this something?”

  Pedro unfolded a camping chair and set it gently on the temple floor. He sat on it back to front and leaned on the back rest. I think he thought he looked cool, like a cowboy.

  He nudged his Stetson up to see us better in the gloom. “This is what I call an old-fashioned Mexican showdown,” he said.

  “It’s not a Mexican showdown,” Mum replied. “A Mexican showdown is a situation that neither party can win.”

  “It’s also not Mexico,” I muttered.

  “And it’s a racist term, you nob head,” Pan added.

  Pedro glanced at the two members of Alpha Squad, who both shrugged.

  “Well, whatever,” he said. “It’s a tricky situation.”

  I sat with my family on the rain-soaked temple floor. Our hands were bound behind our backs with cable ties, and Alpha Squad had taken our goggles and utility belts. The two hunters stood guard, clutching their crab-claw stun guns.

  To be honest I was glad for the rest. Every single part of my body hurt. It felt as if a rugby team had stamped all over me. Mum and Dad were in a bad way too. Dad’s glasses were cracked, and he had so many cuts on his face it looked like he’d lost a fight with a lawn mower. Mum had a gouge on her leg so deep her trousers were soaked with blood. She looked pained, but I didn’t think that was because of the cut. Alpha Squad had got the better of her; that was what hurt.

  The Alpha Squad man grinned, blood glistening in his beard from where Dad had got in one or two punches of his own. “You must be wondering about us,” he said.

  Dad looked up at him through cracked lenses. “Your name is Kyle Flutes,” he replied. “You were discharged from the SAS for assaulting an officer. You spent two years in prison for armed robbery after firing a bazooka at a bank vault door. It didn’t work. The explosion did, however, blind your wife in her left eye.”

  Mum took over, glaring at the lady with the eye patch. “And you are Veronika Flutes. You were a gymnast for the Dutch Olympic team until you fractured your ankle. You began to drink, and met Kyle at a group for recovering alcoholics. After your spell in prison for bank robbery you were approached by the People of the Snake. Your combined skills for acrobatics and survival make you well suited to the physical demands of treasure hunting. However, what you make up for in brawn you lack in brains. The fact that you used a bazooka on a vault door suggests you are both imbeciles.”

  Mum twisted her neck, getting rid of an ache with a sharp click. “So there is no need for introductions.”

  Go, Mum and Dad! I would have gone in for high fives if my hands weren’t cable tied. I wasn’t surprised they knew so much. They’d spent hours preparing to come out of retirement as hunters. Sami must have helped them swot up on their potential rivals.

  “Wait,” I said. “Your name is Flutes?”

  “So?” the man grunted.

  “It’s just… It’s not a very tough name.”

  “It’s just my name.”

  “I know. I just thought it would be Steel, or Hardfist, or something. Flutes… It’s not even a very cool musical instrument.”

  Kyle looked confused by all this, but Veronika was boiling. Her face turned as red as her hair, and wormy veins bulged at her temples. I was trying to wind them up, to keep their attention on me. I’d noticed Dad glancing around the temple and suspected he was looking for a way to escape.

  “I bet you wish you’d met someone called Trumpet,” I said. “Or maybe—”

  “Shut up!” Veronika snapped, aiming her stun gun at me. “Shut your mouth, you little brat.”

  Pedro clapped his hands. “This is great,” he said. “I knew you’d all get on.”

  “Get on?” Pan asked.

  “Of course,” Pedro replied. “This is a business meeting. We are all after the same thing.”

  “We’re here to save our friend,” Pan said.

  “But to do so, you must find the tomb of Quetzalcoatl. That is our goal also. So why not join forces? Alpha Squad and the Atlas Family. How could we fail? Whatever treasure we discover will be divided equally.”

  “You’re betraying the People of the Snake?” Mum asked. “That’s dangerous, Pedro. Did they not pay you enough?”

  “No, you misunderstand,” said Pedro. “My share of the treasure is not for me. It belongs to this country, to Honduras. For years I have supplied hunters with equipment. Rich white people who want to take home treasure. But it is not yours to take. The people of Honduras are among the poorest in the world. That wealth will feed families, build hospitals and schools. It is our right to profit from it.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “You want the treasure for charity? Doesn’t that make you the good guy?”

  “Good guy, bad guy. We are all on the same side. What do you say?”

  “Deal,” Mum said.

  Pan and I turned to her, surprised that she’d agreed so easily.

  “Pedro, you are welcome to the treasure,” Mum said. “We only need one thing from the tomb.”

  Kyle laughed, a surprisingly high-pitched noise for such a big man. “The emerald tablet
is ours,” he growled.

  “This is tricky,” Pedro said. “My original deal was with Alpha Squad. I get the treasure for my nation, and they get the tablet.”

  “Then you’ll have to renegotiate,” Mum insisted.

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate anything,” Veronika spat.

  “Actually we’re in a fine position,” Mum replied. “It’s obvious what’s happened. You searched for the first marker but couldn’t find it. So you contacted Pedro and told him you needed someone else out here, another team who actually had some brains. You made Alpha Squad ‘vanish’ and waited for us to arrive. Then you, Pedro, saw a chance. You knew the People of the Snake would come after you if you double-crossed them, but not if they thought you’d died in a plane crash. Instead you watched us, hoping we’d lead you to the tomb.”

  “And you were impressive,” Pedro agreed. “Everything they said about you is true.”

  “And now you’re going to take us to the tomb,” Kyle added. “If Pedro wants to give you half of his treasure, that’s his business. But the emerald tablet is ours.”

  “Why do you want it so much anyway?” I asked.

  Kyle looked at Veronika, as if seeking permission to answer.

  His wife shrugged. “Tell them.”

  “The group you called the People of the Snake,” Kyle said. “What do you really know of their operations?”

  “We know enough,” Pan said.

  “Ha! You know nothing at all.”

  “They’re trying to destroy particular tombs,” Pan replied, “to hide some secret history of the world. The people buried in the tombs were the survivors of an ancient civilization, far older than the Ancient Egyptians, which was wiped out. Those people were remembered as gods: Osiris in Egypt, Quetzalcoatl in Central America, and others. Their symbol was the snake eating its own tail. They were buried in crystal coffins, clutching emerald tablets marked with some sort of script. Together the emerald tablets form a map, although we don’t know where to.”