Ben looked on, furious, as Velázquez took up a position alongside her, lining up his men to ensure escape by other means was impossible.
“Valeria, this isn’t the time or the place. This place could be swarming with natives any second. You have the stones; it’s why you came here. We need to leave now. It’s already over.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Not yet. All my life my family have had to live in the shadow of the great charlatan. Even now, it is like a curse that can never be broken. A living nightmare from which I can never be free.” She moved forward, the gun aimed squarely at Juan’s heart. “Finally I have a way. I will not stand idly by while Abuela’s murderer still walks in the world above.”
“An eye for an eye.” Juan laughed without humour, cursing the change of circumstances. He remembered as a young boy, his father had stimulated his dreams by recounting tales of entering a great mountain, witnessing the lands his ancestor had also once seen with his own eyes. The city had always existed, hidden in a place in plain sight where the ignorant were too foolish to look. Not all great things were written in history books, he knew. The best were often reserved for the select few.
The chosen ones.
But bitter experience had taught him long ago how punishing life could be, be it from the actions of others or through the forces of nature. He knew from the moment he’d allowed himself to become captured that he was walking a tightrope. Still he cursed his stupidity, his recklessness. Only an idiot could be captured that way. He had lost his way and his men.
No amount of gold could repay that heavy price.
“The death of your grandmother was regrettable, but not without its satisfaction. If an eye for an eye is what you believe, then even you must understand the amusing irony. Your grandmother was herself a killer. Worse, she did it in cold blood. Long had I awaited the chance to avenge my father. Recently that old debt was repaid.”
Ben thought he was hearing things. “She killed your father?”
“Juan Pablo?” Pizarro was suddenly riled. “Is this true?”
“Had it not been for that woman, I daresay many things in life would have been better. Her meddling has poisoned you, as it has all around her.”
“Enough, Juan. Do not forget yourself . . .”
“Even in death, truth lives,” he interrupted Velázquez. “Your grandmother was evil. A demon from the old world. Her manipulation taught you nothing but greed. Soured your hearts . . .”
“How dare you speak that way of Abuela!” Maria grabbed him around the neck. “She did nothing to you.”
“She did nothing for you either. Throughout our time together, you spoke the real truth; how you had been robbed of your own mother by the selfish actions of a woman who never loved her the way she deserved. How she caused her to become isolated, unhappy, pushed to suicide. She never accepted the men of her daughter’s life; hated the one she married.”
“Juan, that’s enough,” Velázquez barked.
“For five years, you knew it was true. Until the day you finally forgot. Your mother died, she was a victim. A victim of a loveless monster whose only desire was gold.”
Maria’s eyes were reddening.
“Imagine if life had been different. Had she never interfered. Your own life may have taken a different path. The child you lost may have lived to become strong. Great things could have happened, damage been repaired. No blessed union dissolved by lawyers.”
Tears began to stream from Maria’s eyes, rolling down her cheeks on to the ground below. In recent days the swellings to her face had healed, the crying no longer mixed with heavy make-up.
Alongside her, Velázquez remained vigilant, ensuring the doorway remained blocked.
“Dominic, stand your men down,” Claude said calmly. “This is madness.”
“Madness would be doing something different,” the curator replied. “For over five hundred years my family have waited for the moment the great cloud would dissipate and at last we could finally take our rightful position at the top of the tree. All this time I have waited. All this time I have served.”
“From what I can see, nothing has changed,” Pizarro mocked. “Still you serve. Always you serve. Just like the first mate of the great Columbus, your family were born to serve.”
Velázquez smiled sarcastically. He rubbed his hand against the barrel of his pistol, keeping it raised. “The time for objections is over, Juan. As your friend here has already pointed out – it’s finished.”
The curator placed his mouth to Valeria’s ear. “Do it. Finish it here.”
Valeria’s gaze remained cold, yet strangely uncertain. “You dare insult Abuela’s memory in front of me.”
“She was a foolish old woman, and you are an even more foolish young one. Together we came; together we found. Less than one hundred metres away lies more gold than any one person can ever know. Enough for the desires of everyone here to be satisfied. It is you, not I, who has not had their fill.”
Valeria raised the gun, her eyes narrowing. Her hand shook slightly as she considered pulling the trigger. Standing alongside Juan, Ben was growing increasingly apprehensive.
“Juan,” he interjected, “you’re not exactly helping. Say something positive.”
“The slimy eel knows my feeling; I refuse to give her the satisfaction of watching her mirror image look back at her. Like my brothers before me, I accept the price of failure. The only thing I did not expect was the price of success.”
“Enough of your words.” Valeria’s tone was furious. There was fire in her eyes, but also darkness, a strange illusion caused by the reflection of the rivers of colour below off the rocky outcrops that filled the cavern like a fortress. “You have weaved, and you have deceived. Now you have lost.”
Juan smiled wryly, shaking his head. Ben detected a strange indifference in him. Resignation. Acceptance. The last of the long line had given up all hope.
But only on his own terms.
“Do it,” he said, his expression cold. “What are you waiting for? Send me back to the halls of my fathers.”
Valeria raised her hand further and stepped forward. Inexplicably the shaking in her hand had stopped, replaced by an iron grip. It was happening. At long last it was happening.
Abuela would be proud.
“No!”
Ben watched in shock as Maria darted quickly towards Juan, wrapped her arms around him tightly, and kissed his cheek and neck. When they finally parted, she held his face, weeping into his chest.
Finally they just faced each other.
“No.” She looked up at him, her eyes lost like a small child. “I cannot do this anymore.”
A gentle smile filled Juan’s face, generating a warmth Ben had never seen from him before. “Ah, my poppy. Too long I have regretted the mistakes of the past. Had I been an honourable man, perhaps also things would have been different. Perhaps I would have done things correctly.”
“Had life been boring, I would never have looked at you,” she replied tenderly.
Cortés leaned his head forward, kissing Maria on the forehead. In his native tongue he whispered softly into her ear, words inaudible to everyone else.
Looking on, Valeria was almost apoplectic with rage. It was as if a spell had been placed, an evil hex. As the seconds passed, her face contorted to a thunderous expression.
Then laughter.
And mocking applause.
“Abuela always said you were a fine actor, Juan Cortés. At long last you have the appreciation you deserve. I’m only too sorry there will be no Oscar.”
Juan ignored her. Instead his gaze remained fixed on Maria. Finally they separated.
“It’s over, Valeria,” Maria agreed. “Ben is correct. We all have what we came for. What we desire. An eye for an eye only stops us from seeing the truth. Please, lower your gun. Together we can all leave and never return.”
Valeria shook her head. “You say these things after everything he has put you through. After all the pain h
e has caused. Now you just forgive?”
“Hopefully one day, I will learn to forgive. Now, I am only willing to try. The journey, at last, is successful. The treasure is ours. But now we must leave.”
Ben listened to every word, astounded by the turn of events, but growing increasingly concerned that the longer they waited, the poorer their chances were of leaving the mountain alive. After several minutes among the fumes, he sensed himself becoming more and more light-headed.
“Valeria, it is time to move on. We must leave,” Maria went on.
“Listen to your sister,” Ben agreed. “The air in here is poisonous.”
Valeria’s arm had remained almost perfectly still, the gun aimed perilously close to Juan’s heart. Though the tears had stopped, her eyes were still steely, cold.
“Don’t do this.”
“It is for your sake I must,” Maria said. “I do not believe Abuela wanted you to become a murderer.”
“She wanted him dead.”
“Then Abuela was wrong. Every killer is wrong. And you too would be wrong. Perhaps that was the reason she died.”
Maria took a step forward, standing in front of Juan, lining herself up with the gun. “Please, sister. No more death.”
Valeria’s face had become strangely unrecognisable, as though her level of anger had reached a plateau. Though her tears had dried, her voice displayed nothing but venom. “I cannot believe you. With Abuela gone, I have no family left.”
Ben’s heart skipped a beat, if not several more. Juan was suddenly alarmed.
“Valeria, please,” Ben said.
Valeria barked loudly at Maria, “Move out of my way.”
Maria shook her head, her eyes overcome with emotion, her knees in danger of buckling beneath her. Through cloudy vision, she looked down the barrel at the revolver.
And heard a voice.
“Drop the gun, Valeria.”
*
Ben had never been so relieved. Chris was standing behind Valeria, the gun Cortés had given him pointed squarely at her back. Colts stood to one side of him, Kabil the other.
Both retinues backed them up.
“Drop your weapon, please,” Colts said to Velázquez.
“Who are you?”
“I said drop it.”
Velázquez dropped his gun and placed his hands above his head. As the seconds passed, all of the curator’s men relinquished their weapons, dropping them at their feet. Valeria remained unmoved.
Slowly she turned. “Chris, you are recovered.”
Chris pushed the gun uncomfortably into her back. “Which is more than can be said for you if you’re not careful. Drop your weapon and clear the way.”
Valeria’s lip trembled. “Chris, I saved you.”
“I know. Which is why I’m willing to let you take as much treasure as you can carry; I’ll even help you carry some. But nobody is going to die down here. Nobody. Now drop it.”
The final words stung, piercing, like a shriek echoing into the ether. Her nerves shot, Valeria lowered her arm and dropped the gun, finally collapsing against his chest. Ben saw Chris look at him, a wry smile crossing his stubbled features. As the seconds passed, he saw Valeria regain her composure, at last willing to leave.
In a sudden blur, a fast-moving projectile flashed by his sight line before striking the neck of the guard closest to the door. As the guard fell to the floor, Ben realised he had been struck by a poisoned dart. Seconds later another one hit the wall, accompanied by a hideous cry from somewhere lower down.
Then the madness began.
56
Flaming torches moved quickly along the ridge to their right, followed by a further barrage of darts. There were noises coming too from the passage they had entered from; fire and shadows appeared along the walls. No fewer than twenty tribesmen emerged in front of them.
The exit was blocked off.
Ben grabbed Juliet’s hand and sprinted down the pyramid-style stairway on to the highest of the three rings. With darts flying to his right, he headed rapidly in the opposite direction, relieved to see none of the Aztecah on that side.
The highest ring circled the walls all the way round the mountainside, reaching a width of approximately five metres from the walls. The same was true of both rings below. The only conclusion Ben could come to was that everything he saw had been carved out of the mountain over a period of several thousand years.
He stopped after about fifty metres, a dead end. Several large rocks jutted out from the ground like stalagmites, offering partial shelter from the volley of darts that rained down on them. They had made it almost a third of the way round the hollow; as best Ben could tell, the only exit was the same way they had entered. They now faced one of two choices. Find a way down to the ring below them.
Or destroy everything in front of them.
From his new position, Ben had a wider view of the surrounding area. In total, five multicoloured rivers followed a winding course through the centre of the hollow, around a major digging operation that appeared to be going down seemingly hundreds, if not thousands, of metres into the earth. Countless blurred figures moved primitive wheelbarrows and other apparatus, transporting mud to the summit of the wash plant. Ben was lost for words.
According to the experts, the Olmecs had been unfamiliar with the existence of the wheel.
Several bodies dived for cover behind the jagged rocks, narrowly avoiding a further onslaught. Ben saw Colts jump the nearest of the rocks, crashing down heavily. Blood seeped through his shirt.
His old wound had reopened.
Ben removed the gun Cortés had given him from his pocket and fired wildly at the area where he saw movement. Vague, almost ghostlike, figures moved swiftly across his sight line.
For now, it wasn’t clear whether his shots had hit their targets or not.
He looked at Colts. “I thought you said last time there were less than a hundred of them.”
“There were. But I never saw inside the mountain.”
Ben fired wildly until his magazine was empty and immediately reloaded. All around him, gunfire echoed deafeningly off the nearby walls, while directly in front, thick smoke billowed from the approaching flames.
The mysterious tribesmen were visible now, arriving in numbers from both the podium and lower down. Their appearances largely matched those in the pictures he had seen decorating the walls of the temple: each man was stripped to the waist, a woven kilt-like blanket covering their genitals and backsides. Their faces were partially covered by strange golden eye masks that bore a strong resemblance to the face of a jaguar; their eyes appeared dark and ominous through the narrow slits in the masks. Thick beads hung across broad shoulders and chests that matched well-toned arms equipped with dart shooters and spears.
Further reinforcements emerged suddenly from beyond the podium, then more from somewhere down below. Amongst the gunfire, the hollow echoed with the sounds of demonic chanting and footsteps, voices barking like a witch doctor in a trance. Darts continued to fly, the majority smashing into the rocks. At the front of the savage horde, half a dozen tribesmen hit the ground in a flash, taken down by a steady stream of bullets. To Ben’s right, he noticed Velázquez open fire with a rapid volley of shots before taking shelter alongside Claude.
Suddenly Ben was glad the man was armed.
He looked around in all directions, attempting to take stock of what had happened. The elderly Spaniards had done well to gather their men; one had fallen, his corpse lay untidily straddling the pathway.
Kabil had also made it; four of his men remained standing. He fired decisively with a semi-automatic rifle; Ben was still to see him miss.
Chris was also letting rip, crouched behind cover alongside Valeria, who was shaking head to toe, her eyes watering.
Two people were noticeably absent.
“Where the hell’s Juan?”
*
Juan felt pain down his left hamstring, like a dull pinprick from an acupuncturist’s needl
e. He felt hotter than before, his face flushed; he knew instantly it had nothing to do with the temperature. Running was suddenly difficult, as if a blade had ruptured a tendon.
Something was weighing him down, numbing him.
He had made it over thirty metres from the podium, following Ben’s lead. Everyone bar Maria had overtaken him; Kabil’s retinue had regrouped behind a random assortment of jagged rocks, unleashing return fire at the approaching tribesmen. He sensed the natives were getting closer; his ears felt strained from the raucous sounds of the barbaric onslaughts. Further darts were coming, the latest grazing the top of his head. Fearing his strength was leaving him, he dived to his right, holding his breath.
He found himself rolling, then falling. Eventually stopping. He looked up, his heart beating, his shocked body struggling to come to terms with the new sensations. He had fallen down to the middle of the three rings, his body partially protected behind a large quantity of uniquely shaped barrels, each filled with something unknown. On the ring above, the walls reflected the demonic glow of several fiery torches, whereas the middle ring was darker, deserted. As he scrambled to his feet, he felt arms around him, saw a face.
A beautiful face.
Maria was holding him. “You are hurt.”
“Not bad.”
“You’re lying. Let me see.”
Juan raised his leg and saw that a large dart had pierced his skin through his combat trousers. He felt her pull at it firmly; eventually it came loose. The first centimetre of the needle was covered in blood; the pain intensified.
He knew instantly he was in trouble.
“I need you to remove your combats. Let me see how bad it is.”
“Never mind that. Take these straps off my wrists.”
She removed a pocketknife from Juan’s pocket and cut through the lengths of material that bound him. With his arms free, Juan tore frantically at his combats, lowering them to below his knees. A pin-sized hole was visible near the centre of his hamstring. A purple bruise surrounded it.
He feared the poison would spread quickly.
The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation Page 102
