The Aztec Code

by Stephen Cole

  Motti grabbed the book and tucked it up his shirt-front. ‘After all this dicking around, we’re taking it with us whatever the hell it is.’

  ‘Uh, Mot?’ Patch felt his heart sinking into his shoes. ‘I think the Ugly Brothers there might have something to say about that …’

  A huge man stood framed in the bedroom doorway, an even bigger bruiser just behind him. They advanced into the room, fists raised and clenched.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Have you come to fix the lights, then?’ Patch asked brightly – as Motti hurled his torch at the first guy’s head. The guy ducked, so it smacked into his mate just behind him. The blow did nothing to slow him down; he lumbered on towards Motti while the first guy came running for Patch.

  Quickly, Patch flipped up his eyepatch, scooched out his false eye and rolled it into the man’s path. Face twisting in revolted surprise, the man slipped on the oversized marble and fell heavily to the floor.

  The other man had caught hold of Motti and was crushing him in a bearhug. Patch jumped on to his back, trying to grab him round the neck. Angrily, the guy shrugged him off – but as he did so Motti broke free of his grip, punched the guy twice in the mouth and gave him an almighty shove backwards. With a shout the man overbalanced and landed slap bang on his mate.

  ‘Come on, cyclops,’ gasped Motti, ‘we’re done.’

  ‘Where’d my eye go?’ Patch checked quickly about the floor. He liked that eye, it had his best picks inside. But he was too slow, one of the men grabbed hold of his ankle and twisted it round. With a yell of pain, Patch went down.

  As he fell he caught a crazy glimpse of long bare legs, blonde hair and a frying pan fleeting past. A second later there were two ringing clangs and the grip on his ankle relaxed.

  Patch pulled himself free to find Con was standing over him, one eyebrow raised, still wielding the pan. Both blokes were out cold, and looked set to stay that way.

  ‘’Ere she is,’ he said dreamily. ‘The domestic goddess.’

  She dropped the pan. ‘I think I am just practical, yes?’

  ‘That was such a dumb fight,’ said Motti grumpily. ‘Slipping them up, putting them on their butts, socking ’em with frying pans. That’s just embarrassing, man. Coldhardt should ditch us and hire Charlie Chaplin.’

  ‘Charlie Chaplin wouldn’t look as good in a skirt,’ said Patch, grabbing his eye from the floor. ‘He’s dead for a start.’

  ‘You two could well have joined him,’ Con said pointedly. ‘But was it worth it?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Motti patted the bundle beneath his shirt. ‘We got us some Aztec comic book or something. Big whoop.’

  ‘Where’s the sword?’

  ‘Ain’t here. Unless one of these jokers is hiding it up their ass.’ He glared at the fallen men. ‘They’re the guys I saw next door.’

  Con nodded. ‘And they had keys to get in here.’

  ‘Then I’m guessing they’re more than just caring neighbours,’ said Motti. ‘Next door must be a Sixth Sun hangout too.’

  Patch caught his breath. ‘Then maybe the sword’s in there?’

  ‘We go and see, yes?’ Con crouched beside the biggest guy and started rummaging in his trouser pockets.

  Patch sighed. ‘That git’s got further than I ever have and he never even bought her a drink.’

  Con produced the keys, then led the way back out of the penthouse and across the corridor. A few seconds later she had the door open, and Patch piled in after her and Motti.

  The hallway flickered with pale, greasy light from three oil lamps ranged at intervals. In the middle of the room, some slim and swarthy bloke stood angry and incredulous. ‘What the hell –?’

  Con skipped quickly forwards and high-kicked him in the chest. He gasped and fell backwards against the wall, apparently winded – but as she closed in to send him to dreamland he slugged her with a vicious uppercut to the chin. She tumbled to the floor. Motti leaped over her body and booted the guy in the family jewels, following it up with a punch to the jaw that floored the son-of-a-bitch. But as he knelt to check the guy would be no more trouble, a black girl swept out of the main bedroom in a silky white dressing gown and kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling.

  ‘Tye!’ Patch almost screamed. ‘Christ on a bike, it’s Tye! She’s here!’

  ‘Guys …?’ About a hundred emotions flickered over her features in turn – shock, pleasure, confusion, alarm … Patch started forward, ready to grab her and hug her, but hesitated when she crouched protectively over the bloke on the floor, cradling his head. ‘He’s out cold.’ She looked angry and baffled. ‘Motti, what the hell were you doing?’

  ‘What was I doing?’ he gasped, clutching his jaw. ‘Jeez, Tye, you nearly knocked my frickin’ teeth out!’

  ‘I heard Ramez shout, I thought someone was …’ She shook her head, like it didn’t matter. ‘What happened to Con?’

  ‘He happened to her,’ said Motti, dropping to check she was OK. Con was stirring now, a little dribble of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Ramez didn’t know who she was,’ Tye said defensively. ‘I mean, come on, this is his place, you guys just burst in here …’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I’m sure!’ said Patch, hurt and confused.

  ‘Where’s Jonah?’ Her wide dark eyes looked suddenly fearful. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No, he’s back with Coldhardt.’

  She looked back down at Ramez, flustered. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘It was Cortes’s sword we were sent after.’ Motti helped Con to her feet. ‘It was bought by Sixth Sun and delivered to their place next door. We just broke in, but it ain’t there.’

  ‘Do they keep it here?’ Patch added, glancing about nervously.

  ‘Sixth who? What?’ Tye put her hand to her forehead, looked genuinely lost. ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘Right,’ said Motti. ‘And when those two big guys who were hiding in here came over and tried to kill us –’

  ‘Ramez’s bodyguards?’

  ‘– that was a mistake too, huh?’ He straightened, his face sour. ‘You know, Tye, I’m getting the vibe you ain’t exactly overjoyed to see us.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Tye protested. ‘This is all so sudden, so crazy. I’ve been dying to get in touch but –’

  ‘Yeah, it musta been tough here,’ Motti sneered, ‘locked up in just your robe with the topless prettyboy.’

  ‘This is Ramez, we –’ Tye broke off. ‘We knew each other. Long time ago, back in Haiti.’

  ‘Looks like you been busy getting reacquainted.’

  ‘They are using him against you?’ Con dabbed at her split lip. ‘You are a prisoner here, yes?’

  ‘I … I don’t know for sure,’ said Tye. ‘I don’t get what’s happening.’

  ‘Neither do I!’ said Patch, ‘but I do know we need to get the bleedin’ hell out of here. So, Tye, do Sixth Sun have the sword or not?’

  ‘I’ve never even heard of Sixth Sun!’

  ‘Then here’s a refresher,’ said Motti. ‘Secret society – believes in old Aztec crap. They kidnapped you, nearly killed Jonah, cosied up to that scumball Kabacra in exchange for that dumb sword –’

  ‘And if this place belongs to your “old friend” Ramez, then chances are he belongs to Sixth Sun too,’ Con told her. ‘You’re being duped, sweets.’

  Patch had wandered back over to the front doorway. They’d left the door open, and through the moonlit gloom he thought he caught sight of movement within. ‘Guys, those gorillas are waking up!’

  ‘Hold on,’ Tye said, crouching beside prettyboy who was groggily propping himself up on his elbows. ‘Ramez? Come on, we’re getting out of here.’

  ‘We are?’ he said distantly.

  ‘The bodyguards can’t stop us. We’re going back to Coldhardt.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You need help,’ she insisted, ‘and if you come with me –’

  ‘I told you, I ain’t going nowhere,’ Ramez
said, hanging on to Tye’s arms. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘But you can.’ Motti looked at her. ‘Come on back home.’

  ‘Quick!’ Patch begged them.

  ‘Tye?’ Motti held out his hand.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Tye,’ Ramez pleaded, looking up at her, all puppy-dog eyes. ‘Sugar-girl, if you ever loved me, don’t make me face this alone.’

  ‘I can’t run out on Ramez,’ she whispered, cradling the boy’s head. ‘I just can’t. Not now.’

  ‘What?’ Con stared. ‘For God’s sake, sweets, he’s just a boy!’

  ‘Get out of here,’ Tye told them.

  Patch felt sick. ‘You mean you ain’t coming with us?’

  ‘I’m more use to you here. I’ll find out more about Sixth Sun, look for the sword. If I find it, I’ll get it to you somehow.’ She looked at them each in turn in the smoky, flickering light. ‘Now go.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Motti slouched away.

  Con tried again. ‘This is madness, Tye. You can’t just walk out on Coldhardt.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she protested.

  ‘It doesn’t look that way to –’

  ‘Will you just get the hell out?’ Tye screwed up her eyes. ‘If they know I spoke with you …’

  Con turned and left without another word, pushing past Patch who lingered in the doorway. There were definite groans and clomping noises coming from next door, and any moment now …

  ‘Patch, get going!’ she urged him. ‘And tell Jonah …’

  He cocked his head. ‘Yeah?’

  She looked down at Ramez, her features hidden by shadow. ‘Tell him there’s nothing like the sunset.’

  ‘Cyclops, leave her to it and shift your ass!’ hissed Motti from the end of the hallway.

  Feeling like his pounding heart was being tugged two ways, Patch pelted after Motti and tore down the emergency stairs.

  ‘I’ve hacked into the satellite’s programming,’ Jonah reported. ‘Ready to see what we’ve got at those coordinates?’

  Coldhardt was the other side of the hub. He turned as if surprised to find Jonah still there, then crossed to join him at the terminal.

  The image on the screen resolved only slowly. ‘It’ll take a while ’cause I hooked up through five different proxy servers. The images will take longer to load and refresh but at least we stay secure and untraceable.’ He paused and stretched noisily. It was later than he’d realised. The minutes seemed to tick away ten times faster when he was busting codes. ‘You can say, “Congratulations”, any time you like.’

  ‘I expect no more or less from you than complete success,’ Coldhardt murmured. ‘Ah, now that really is interesting.’

  ‘It is?’ Jonah stared at the image; it appeared to be a low, wide shed plonked down on a large patch of farmland. ‘Doesn’t look like much.’

  ‘It wouldn’t stay secret for long if it did, would it?’ Coldhardt pointed out. ‘If that is just an innocent farm building, why isn’t it marked on any map?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Jonah.

  ‘And look at that.’ He pointed to a large round area where the grass was neatly cut.

  Jonah felt a rush of realisation. ‘Could be a landing pad for a helicopter. Could be where they took Tye!’

  ‘I’ll make some enquiries. We have to know what’s happening there.’

  Just then a chime sounded from the intercom in the hub doorway. ‘Motti and the others are back,’ Coldhardt announced, moving a little stiffly over to an intercom device at the hub doorway. ‘Come down.’

  Jonah felt a tingle of apprehension go through him. A few minutes later, the sound of the concealed lift as it descended the levels from the ranch house above was thrumming through the hub.

  At last, Motti stood in the doorway, Patch and Con just behind him. Con looked like she’d lost a fight with a revolving door. There was blood on Motti’s face. He passed some kind of decorated book to Coldhardt.

  ‘You ain’t gonna like what we’ve got to say,’ he said.

  And as Motti started to describe all that had happened, Jonah decided that was the understatement of the decade. ‘Tye was actually there in the other penthouse?’ He couldn’t believe he was hearing about this second hand. ‘And you didn’t get her out?’

  ‘We couldn’t drag her away,’ said Con, and from the look of her blackened chin, she had tried.

  ‘Ramez was an active smuggler in Haiti at the same time as Tye,’ Coldhardt announced. ‘When I was looking for recruits in that sector, he was not under consideration. A big talker but no talent to back it up.’

  ‘Tye sure sees something in him,’ said Motti, with a knowing glance at Jonah.

  ‘I understand they were involved romantically when he was incarcerated for drug smuggling. I had thought he was in prison under sentence of death.’ Coldhardt spoke so casually he could have been discussing a game of cricket. He seemed more concerned with the strange book, running his fingers over the pictograms and characters on the ancient pages.

  Jonah cleared his throat. ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, that this Ramez guy should show out of nowhere and set up with Tye next to a Sixth Sun hideout? Like Con said before, it must be some kind of warning to you, Coldhardt.’

  ‘But why involve Ramez to do that?’ said Coldhardt reasonably. ‘Purely to keep Tye happy throughout her incarceration?’

  ‘He’s doing that all right,’ Patch muttered.

  Jonah could feel himself flushing. ‘We know Tye wouldn’t run out on us.’

  ‘And we also know she wouldn’t run out with us,’ said Motti. ‘She said she would keep looking for the sword –’

  ‘But it is him she stays for,’ Con said.

  The words felt like little bruises on Jonah’s insides. He remembered the way Tye had looked at him down in the wine cellar, just before the masked men came to the house. Imagined her looking at this Ramez guy in the same way.

  Then he tried not to.

  ‘She knew him before she knew any of us,’ Patch reflected. ‘Old loyalties run deep, I s’pose.’

  ‘Enough speculation.’ Coldhardt looked up from the book, a fresh vibrancy in his old, craggy face. ‘I’ll decide how best to deal with Tye later.’

  Jonah frowned. ‘Deal with her?’

  Coldhardt turned his wintry gaze on Motti, Con and Patch. ‘Your expedition may not have been fully satisfactory, my children, but it most certainly was not a wasted effort. I believe you have brought back with you a near-fabled relic of Aztec antiquity.’ He picked up the old book reverently. ‘The Azteca codex.’

  Motti frowned. ‘Co-what?’

  ‘A collection of ancient manuscript texts, over nine hundred years old. The conquistadors burned all Aztec books to demonstrate their mastery of the people.’ He smiled coldly to himself. ‘So little of worth survived.’

  ‘But this is worth much, yes?’ Con asked quickly.

  ‘Its value is inestimable …’

  Jonah looked down at the table. He felt a crushing wave of confusion surge through him. So, that was it for the Tye discussion? Vague threats and then back to the only thing that truly mattered to Coldhardt – the basic value of things, stolen things. To Jonah it felt as if Tye had been stolen away; that he’d been standing on the brink of something good, only for the ground to crumble beneath him. And now he was expected to just go on as if nothing was wrong and –

  ‘If I might invite you back to the debriefing, Jonah?’ Coldhardt’s hardest stare was fixed on him, and Jonah realised he must’ve looked miles away. ‘This codex contains information on temple etiquette. A sort of “what not to do” guide for the high priests, to ensure they did not disrespect the gods. But there were always rumours that other, rather more valuable information was added to it at a later date.’ He tapped the final page of the codex. ‘And now we have proof …’

  ‘What language did they use?’ asked Con.

  ‘One called Nahuatl.’

  ‘Nah-wattle?’ Patch sighed. ‘I can’t even say it, let alone re
ad it.’

  Coldhardt shook his head. ‘Before anyone can read it, Patch, it must be decrypted.’

  Jonah looked at Coldhardt warily. ‘It’s a cipher?’

  ‘In part. And that is the part that interests me, that raises its value beyond computation.’ The old man’s eyes seemed alive with light. ‘Do you think you can crack a code that uses both text and pictograms?’

  ‘I’ve broken a hieroglyph code before,’ Jonah admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘When I was in the Young Offenders Institution I studied the computational theory of writing systems …’

  ‘Someone had already picked up Playboy that day,’ said Motti wryly.

  ‘Finding the key won’t be easy though,’ Jonah warned Coldhardt.

  ‘There is a statuette in my collection of Aztec antiquities – a depiction of Coatlicue, Aztec goddess of life, death and rebirth. Certain pictograms are engraved upon its surface. Two of them were thought by experts to be unique, and couldn’t be translated.’ He placed both palms down flat on the ancient volume. ‘But three pictograms have been added to the final page of this codex, along with three lines of encoded Nahuatl. I don’t recognise the third, but the first two match those “unique” marks carved into the statuette. Clearly there is a link.’

  Despite himself, Jonah felt his interest rising. ‘Why’s it encrypted anyway? Any ideas what the message is about?’

  ‘I believe it may contain clues to the location of a fabled lost temple dedicated to Coatlicue – the Temple of Life from Death.’ Coldhardt paused, steepling his fingers. ‘It is said that when Cortes’s conquistadors ransacked the Mexican interior, a temple was constructed underground, filled with the Aztecs’ greatest treasures, and then concealed to stop the invaders ever getting hold of them. The temple has been searched for over the centuries, but never discovered.’

  ‘So that’s what Sixth Sun are after,’ Con said quietly.

  ‘Guess Tye must want a piece of it too,’ Motti added darkly.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Jonah snapped. ‘Like we don’t know how Cortes’s sword figures in all this.’ He looked at Coldhardt. ‘Right?’ The old man nodded slowly, and Jonah wished like hell that Tye was here to know if he was lying or not. ‘Now that you guys have told her what’s going on with Sixth Sun, that they’ve got the sword, she’ll be planning to find out more. Stuff that can help us.’