While he ate, he took stock of the types round him. There were about fifty men in the room, but Alberuque was not present. Only a handful of them had light enough complexions to be called whites, and these he assumed to be the more able priests who were hand in glove with Alberuque. The rest varied from light coffee to near-black and a number of them were, he thought, probably priests also. Nearly all of them were on the short side and he was a head taller than any of them, so he had no difficulty in locating Chela, who was in a far corner talking to one of the Militia officers. From a clock on the wall of the restaurant, he judged it to have been a quarter to eleven when he had radioed Hunterscombe, and it would take the best part of an hour for police and troops to get out there; so, while eating, he had been cudgelling his wits for a way to delay the proceedings. Seeing Chela again gave him an idea. Putting down his plate, he moved towards her.
From the time they had landed it had struck him as strange that Alberuque should not have surrounded him with more mystery—brought him there perhaps in a cloak and hood and kept him in a room apart—instead of allowing him to mingle freely with these other men, like an ordinary mortal. He could only suppose it to be because these people were the inner ring of the conspirators, so aware that he was only a stooge who, after he had played his part, was to be dispensed with, and Alberuque become their sole master. Nevertheless, the many covert glances cast at him held a suggestion of awe and, as he moved from the buffet, everyone in his path made way for him deferentially. So did the officer who had been talking to Chela. He gave her the sort of nod he might have given to any Mestizo youth, bowed to Adam and walked away.
‘Who do these people take you for?’ Adam asked in a low voice.
‘The Monsignor’s secretary,’ she replied.
He gave her a speculative look. ‘What will happen if I address the company and tell them you are a woman?’
‘I … I don’t know.’ Her eyes widened with apprehension as she spoke. ‘It’s certain there would be trouble. All the people here are educated men, but that does not prevent many of them from being superstitious. A lot of them would think that a woman being present could bring bad luck, so would strongly resent it.’
‘I thought as much, and Alberuque would find himself with a packet of trouble on his hands for having brought you here.’
She gave a little gasp. ‘No! Adam, please! I beg you not to. That would not prevent the ceremony from taking place. But think of me. The only way he could put himself right would be to sacrifice me to them—say that I had only recently joined his staff and had imposed on him—that he did not know I was a woman—then think what would happen. They would take me for a spy and might kill me.’
Adam saw that he was stymied and gave an angry shrug. ‘All right. You win again. No doubt you are mighty pleased with yourself about this night’s work.’
‘No,’ she said tearfully. ‘I’m not. I would have been if only you had carried out the promise you gave me in the first place, and played your part willingly. I hate your being compelled to it; but the future happiness of millions of poor people hangs on their believing that the revolution is divinely inspired. Thank goodness it will soon all be over now. We’ll go back to Acapulco again then; or … or if you want me to, I’ll marry you and we’ll make a home together.’
At that moment Adam felt a light touch on his arm. Turning, he saw that it was Father Lopéz, whom he had not seen before that evening. The priest bowed and said:
‘Be pleased to come with me. The Monsignor wishes to have a word with you.’
Adam looked again at Chela, and sadly shook his head. ‘I’m afraid things won’t pan out like that. You still don’t seem to realise that if this revolt once gets going it will lead to terrible times for everyone.’ He was about to add, ‘And I’ll be lucky if I’m not dead by morning.’ Instead, he said, ‘We can only wait now and see what happens.’ Then he turned away and followed Father Lopéz from the room.
Alberuque had installed himself in the restaurant manager’s office. An empty plate and a half-empty bottle of wine on the desk showed that he had supped there alone; beside them lay his automatic. When Lopéz had shown Adam into the room, he withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Taking from his pocket the piece of paper on which was typed the speech, Alberuque held it out to Adam and said, ‘Now, Gordon, there must be no more shilly-shallying. Please learn these few sentences off by heart, then repeat them to me.’
‘I have already refused,’ Adam replied quietly.
‘Very well. If you continue to do so, I must make the consequences clear to you. You will be aware that the old gods were always propitiated by human sacrifices. It was a barbarous custom which I do not intend to reintroduce and I can make our more primitive people accept that by telling them that it would lead to intervention by the United States and a resumption of their oppression by a new influx of white foreigners. But tonight a demonstration must be made.’
Adam paled under his tan as he thought, ‘I know what is coming now. He means to bribe me into making the speech with the promise of my life; afterwards, though, the treacherous devil will kill me just the same.’ Alberuque went smoothly on:
‘For this purpose a Chac-Mool is now being laboriously carried up to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun and, to be sacrificed upon it, I have had a dummy made. It is a very clever dummy, with a tape-recorder inside it that, when started, will scream. It also contains a bladder full of blood and a sheep’s heart that I can hold aloft. Of course, only my immediate followers are aware of this; but it is necessary to give the rank and file the sort of spectacle they expect. However, there is nothing to prevent my ignoring the dummy and using a human being instead.’
Passing his tongue over his dry lips, Adam said, ‘And you propose to use me. That’s it, isn’t it?’
‘Oh no, my dear Gordon, you are quite wrong there,’ Alberuque purred. ‘Had it not occurred to you that, however great a woman’s services had been to our cause, I am not the sort of sentimental fool who would ignore tradition by allowing her to accompany me here, unless I had a special use for her?’
‘You fiend!’ Adam roared, and raised his big hands to grab the Monsignor by the throat. But he was standing on the far side of the desk and Alberuque was too quick for him. Snatching up his pistol, he snarled:
‘No heroics now; unless you want your stomach full of lead. A very painful death, I’m told.’
Breathing heavily, Adam let his muscles relax and his hands fall to his sides as Alberuque went on, ‘Your guess is right, my friend. Should you continue to refuse to learn your speech, I shall have to make it for you. In that case it is the beautiful body of the Señorita Chela, which I am sure you have frequently enjoyed, that will repose in the lap of Chac-Mool when I wield the sacrificial knife.’
18
In Desperate Straits
Adam stared into the dead, black, pitiless eyes on the far side of the desk. His knowledge of Alberuque, as the High Priest Itzechuatl in the past, told him that this was not bluff. The tale about the dummy might be true, but Adam doubted that. It was probably no more than a concession to the canons of the present day thought up by the modern Alberuque to gloss over lightly the fact that he was still at heart Itzechuatl, the blood-lusting savage who was determined to take again this opportunity to enjoy tearing out the heart of a living human being. Dummy or no dummy, for the past four days Adam had not been able to rid himself of the awful conviction that, somehow or other, at the end of the ceremony, Alberuque would so contrive matters that he, Quetzalcoatl, should supply the heart to be offered to the gods.
After a silence that could be felt had lasted for some thirty seconds, Alberuque went on, ‘Please do not suppose that my companions would seek to prevent me from sacrificing the Señorita Chela on the lap of Chac-Mool. As a woman her presence at such a ceremony is a gross sacrilege. High Priests, as you may know, have the power to “smell out”, as it is termed, evil-doers and the guilty. I have only suddenly to declare
myself to be perturbed, fix upon the Señorita as the cause of my fears that some influence is obstructing the objective of the ceremony, then accuse her of being a spy who has recently entered my service under false pretences. Others will seize her, strip her of her clothes and reveal her sex. I will not have to say another word. Everyone will be howling for her death, and I shall simply accept their verdict.’
This was so exactly what Chela had feared when Adam had threatened to expose her imposture that he could not doubt that was the course matters would take. To allow her to be slaughtered in front of his eyes was unthinkable. Glancing at a small clock on a bureau, he saw that it was now ten past eleven. Hunterscombe and the police might get there by a quarter to twelve. But not before. All he could do was to pray that God would speed them on their way, and continue to play for time. Taking the piece of paper, he said:
‘All right, I’ll learn it.’
Five minutes ticked by, then Alberuque said, ‘You have had long enough. Recite it to me.’
Adam laid down the paper and did so, but deliberately muffed the words.
‘Enough of this mulishness,’ Alberuque snarled, his dark face now set in anger. ‘You are an educated man, Gordon. An author, used to words and phrases. These are easy ones to memorise and I have no more time to waste. Either you will now recite them properly or we will proceed to the pyramid. The sight of the Señorita Chela about to be thrown into into the lap of Chac-Mool may loosen your stubborn tongue.’
Seeing that he had no option, Adam spoke his piece. Still holding his pistol, Alberuque went to the door, opened it and said to Father Lopéz, who was waiting outside, ‘He has come to heel. Call an escort, then take him over to the museum.’
Two minutes later, Adam was marched between two guards, with Father Lopéz following, across a corner of the open space. The museum was divided into a number of bays by walls, upon which there were photographs of excavated ruins and big glass showcases containing pottery, weapons and other items from the long-dead civilisations of Mexico. In several of the bays, attendants were robing Alberuque’s principal lieutenants.
Occupied as Adam’s mind was with the danger in which he stood, the significance of the fact that several of the leading conspirators were changing into the barbaric vestments of a pagan priesthood did not escape him. Even the parody of Christianity combined with worship of the old gods, with which so many of the Indian and Mestizo priests had satisfied their parishioners for four centuries, was evidently now to be abandoned. Tonight there would be no mockery of the Mass to precede the ceremony of his ‘Elevation’, and he had counted on that to gain him a good twenty minutes. It brought home to him more sharply than ever how time was running out, and he began to fear that Hunterscombe might not now come on the scene before the dreaded pagan ceremony was well under way.
In a bay reserved for him, Adam found four men waiting. Laid out nearby was the gorgeous costume of featherwork and embroidery that he had worn at Uxmal. During his wild career down the Pyramid of the Magician and subsequent arrest by the police he had lost his great feathered head-dress, his shield and the wand crowned with his jewelled symbol of power. But he saw that replacements, probably stolen from one of the museums, had been procured for him.
To delay matters a little, he again demanded to be taken to the lavatory. Father Lopéz showed annoyance, but could hardly refuse his request; so he was led away to one just inside the entrance to the museum. Getting out the cigarette case, he repeatedly gave Hunterscombe’s call sign. As he had hoped, there was no reply. That cheered him a little, as it showed that the Wing Commander was not still in his apartment telephoning various authorities; the police could now definitely be assumed to be on their way.
Knowing that Alberuque would be extremely loath to proceed with the ceremony without him, Adam sat down and lit a cigarette. After a few minutes Lopéz rattled the door and called on him to come out. He ignored the shouts and went on smoking. But he was not allowed to do so for long. The door was kicked in and Alberuque stood outside. He was now dressed in the flamboyant robes of a High Priest, his face was painted with stripes and circles and he presented the same terrifying appearance as he had when in his incarnation as Itzechuatl. Glaring at Adam, he snarled:
‘We leave in five minutes. If you are not ready to accompany us, stay here and I will send you a pair of human ears that you may recognise.’
At this threat, Adam quailed and surrendered. Hurrying now, he returned with Lopéz to the bay where his vestments were laid out. As he passed the other bays, he saw that they were all empty. The men who had been changing in them had disappeared.
Suddenly seized with panic at the thought that Alberuque might carry out his threat to leave without him, and Chela pay the penalty, he refused to take off his suit and insisted that the men who were attending him should arrange the princely robes over it. Neither would he allow them to remove his shoes so that they could put on his feet the gilt leather sandals. In less than three minutes he was again feeling the weight of the solid gold breastplate, leg gyves and arm bucklers as he strode towards the entrance to the museum.
Alberuque was waiting there. Beside him stood another, slenderer figure, also berobed in splendour and with fans of gorgeous Quetzal plumes appearing to sprout from every limb. Only the blue eyes in the lavishly painted face enabled Adam to recognise Chela.
As they walked out on to the open space, Adam thought of trying to warn her that the evil priest to whom she had given such devotion would kill her without the slightest scruple. But he decided that there was no point in doing so at the moment, since, as long as he obeyed Alberuque’s orders, she would be in no danger.
Adam had expected to have to walk the quarter-mile to the base of the pyramid, then make the long, tiring climb to the summit; or, as had been the case in the vision he had had of himself some weeks earlier, be carried up it in a sedan-chair. He had counted on that to take not less than a quarter of an hour, and there would at least have been a chance that Hunterscombe, with the forces of law and order, would have arrived by then. But Alberuque had thought of a much more impressive way for the Man-God to make his appearance. Instead of turning right, in the direction of the pyramid, he walked straight ahead towards the helicopter.
As Adam realised that they were to fly up, his heart gave a sickening lurch. He had assumed that the ceremony would not start until midnight. Now it was evident that by midnight it might be over. In four minutes or less they would be on the top of the pyramid and the last chance of Hunterscombe’s arriving in time be gone.
This was the second time that Adam’s hopes of a delay had been unexpectedly disappointed. Now he could no longer hope to be rescued. When help did come, he would be marooned on the summit of the pyramid, at the mercy of men who would certainly murder him in their fury at seeing their followers down below being dispersed by police and troops.
Chela was leading the way, Adam walked just behind her, and Alberuque, his automatic again in his hand, brought up the rear. Realising that death stared him in the face, Adam was sorely tempted to break away and run for it. But the double threat of Alberuque’s pistol and what would happen to Chela if he did, kept him walking towards the helicopter. When they reached it, Adam saw that the pilot was now robed as a priest and his scarred face painted. They took their places as before: Adam beside him and Chela and Alberuque in the two rear seats. There was a whirr of blades and the ’copter lifted.
As it rose in the air, the bright moonlight revealed the scene below. In three open spaces scores of cars and small vans were parked. The men who had arrived in them were assembled on the pyramid and round its base. Its three terraces were packed with people and those who had arrived too late to get a place on them were grouped on the mounds and uneven ground where, weeks before, Adam had had his fall and knocked himself out. It was possible to arrive only at an approximate estimate of their numbers, but he guessed that the assembly could not be fewer than one thousand.
The helicopter went up high, ma
de a wide circle so that the car parks and crowds temporarily passed from view, then it returned, hovered and landed with a slight jolt that made it lurch sideways on the great square of tumbled stone blocks which had once formed the temple, and now rose in a tangled mass a few feet above the level of the flat summit of the pyramid.
When they alighted, Adam saw that only six of Alberuque’s lieutenants, including the pilot, had been granted the honour of donning priestly robes to assist him in the ceremony. With him that made seven, and it passed through Adam’s mind that seven was the magic number common to all ancient religions. Five of them had climbed the pyramid in advance and were standing on the broad, flat terrace that had once had the temple as its background. They now formed a line there and as Alberuque, followed by Adam and Chela, picked his way across the big, uneven stones towards them, they genuflected.
Alberuque halted for a moment to adjust his robe. The pilot quickly passed him and joined the group. It then divided, three on each side, and Adam saw that, while standing in a row, the bodies of the five had concealed the stone image of Chac-Mool. It reposed there, silent but infinitely menacing, the head turned sideways, the knees and shoulders raised, waiting as of old to receive a sacrificial victim in its lap.
But there was no cleverly constructed dummy to be seen. The absence of one confirmed Adam’s grim supposition that it had been only a figment of Alberuque’s imagination, invented to disguise temporarily his intention to sacrifice a human victim.
Unholy Crusade Page 33
