The policeman shrugged. ‘Is that all you have?’
‘The thieves …’ You also shrugged. But still, hidden inside your other shoe, was the remaining fifty-peso note. You prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe that the policeman would not ask you to reveal what was in that shoe as well. If he did this, you would be lost.
The policeman snapped shut his book. ‘Very well then.’ He dropped the bag with the codex onto the ground, as if by error. ‘You have paid your fine. You are free to go now.’
You quickly picked up the codex, bowed to the policeman, and turned away.
Now you knew you would certainly starve. You had just fifty pesos left to your name. And you still had to pass through Ciudad del Carmen, Champotón, and Hopelchén, before you reached your final destination at Kabáh, at the Palace of the Masks.
A friendly Indio had told you that there was a chance, if you waited for the ending of the market, that if one of the market traders had done particularly well, they might possibly agree to take you back with them in their empty truck. Many came from Ciudad del Carmen to the market in Villahermosa – almost as many as went to Campeche. If you were lucky, and had the patience to wait without complaining, you might find such a person.
In the meanwhile you knew you would be forced to loiter around the market all day, praying that you would not meet the policeman again, and that one amongst the many market traders might throw some of his rotting fruit away into the gutter. If this was the case, then you would be able to eat a little, and settle your stomach. For the fifty pesos that you had left in your shoe would doubtless be needed at Kabáh – as a bribe, maybe, in case the man at the main gate would not let you in to wait.
When you fell to thinking about this waiting, your stomach pained you even more than it had before. It was like the ache of a blow – your belly seemed to expand and contract with the pain at one and the same time. Originally, you had promised yourself eggs – in the form of salsa de huevo – for breakfast that morning, in a bid to keep up your strength. But now, because of the thieves, you dared not waste your remaining money on such luxuries.
Truly, this had been a bad day. Probably the worst day that you had ever suffered in your life.
41
‘Despite all that you say about her, Madame, my mother, is an honourable woman.’
Sabir checked out Calque’s response to Lamia’s statement in the Cherokee’s rear-view mirror. Calque was clutching his head as if somebody had just struck him a glancing blow on the temple with a meat mallet. Fortunately for Calque, Lamia did not appear to notice the movement.
‘What’s all this “Madame, my mother” bit? I’ve been meaning to ask you that for some time now.’ It wasn’t the smartest question in the world, but Sabir knew he had to do whatever was necessary to divert Lamia’s attention away from Calque, who was behaving as if he wanted to trigger a riot. Where it concerned the Countess, the ex-detective’s mind was unquestionably a no-through-road.
‘It’s a term of respect. All of us children use it. Monsieur, my father, was a very old man when we knew him – more like a grandfather than a father, really – and it seemed only right to show him respect. The usage then carried over to Madame, my mother. And we have never seen any reason to change it.’
‘So you still respect her?’
‘Of course. But I also disagree with her. In the strongest possible terms.’
Sabir pulled into a lay-by and switched off the engine. They were a little way short of Ciudad Madero and Tampico. The trucks and pickups on nearby Highway 80/180 buffeted the Grand Cherokee each time they passed, causing the vehicle to rock on her springs like a spavined old lady. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t possibly drive and concentrate on a conversation like this at the same time.’ He turned to Lamia. ‘Let me get this straight. You still respect the woman who had you drugged and tied up, and who would most probably have had you killed if Calque’s buddy hadn’t ridden in on his white charger and rescued you?’
‘Madame, my mother, would never have had me killed.’
‘Oh, really? Well she sicced Achor Bale, your brother, onto a bunch of entirely innocent Gypsies, two of whom he killed, one of whom he as good as crippled, and the other one of whom he tried to give permanent, screaming nightmares to. And that’s not to mention a security guard, his Alsatian dog, and Calque’s assistant, Paul Macron, each of whom suffered lethally in the fallout.’
‘Rocha thought they had information we needed.’
‘Oh. So that’s okay then?’
‘I don’t believe Madame, my mother, knew quite how out of control Rocha was. I don’t believe she wanted to have anyone killed. Rocha was working to his own agenda.’
Calque chose that moment to wade back into the conversation. ‘Rocha, or whatever you want to call him – I can’t think of him as anything other than Achor Bale myself – was definitely not working off his own bat. He was working at your mother’s instigation, and doing her bidding in everything.’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘Of course not. That has always been my problem. Which is why the Countess got away with her dirty little scheme. In any halfway decent society she would have gone down for at least five years as an accessory before the fact. But she was far too well connected for that, wasn’t she? My Commandant actually admitted as much to my face. Which is one of the reasons why I took early retirement.’
‘Perhaps you were wrong? Perhaps she was innocent all the time? Have you thought of that?’
Calque made a pfaffing sound through his nose, like an irritated horse. ‘I knew it then, and I know it now – she’s guilty as hell.’
Sabir turned to Lamia. He took a deep breath. One part of him felt he needed to pin Lamia down about her family – the other part felt he ought to cut her a little slack. The first part won. ‘And your twin brothers? Were they just out to have a friendly little conversation with me up there in Stockbridge? Just chewing the fat, so to speak? Did I misunderstand their intentions? Maybe they didn’t really intend to burn down my house. Maybe they were just joshing me?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lamia. What’s got into you? Are you regretting coming with us? Would you rather go take your chances back with the Corpus?’
Lamia turned on Sabir. The unmarked side of her face had gone a deathly white. ‘No, of course not. But I don’t want you to demonize my family either. They really believe in what they are doing. They really believe that the de Bales have been tasked with protecting the world from the thousand-year return of the Devil. We have been doing it – not unsuccessfully – for nearly eight hundred years now.’
‘Well thank Christ someone’s been on the job.’ Sabir’s patience was wearing thin. How could an intelligent woman like Lamia act so blindly when it came to her family? He felt like reaching out and shaking her.
‘Just how have you been achieving this?’ This from Calque, who had taken advantage of his companions’ temporary lapse of attention to light a cigarette. As he spoke, he puffed smoke busily out through the open window.
‘All right. I will give you one example. During the French Wars of Religion, the Corpus, being good Catholics, targeted the Huguenots. It was a de Bale who, alongside the de Guises, persuaded King Charles IX to agree to the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. It was a Corpus member, also, who tried to assassinate Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. This was done specifically to trigger the massacre. In this way, France was spared the greater horrors that would later be visited on the German princely states.’
Sabir shook his head in blank incomprehension. ‘So the Massacre of the Huguenots was a good thing, was it? The way I understand it, out-of-control French Catholics went on to slaughter thirty thousand innocent men, women, and children in the months following the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre. It was a bloodbath, Lamia. But now you’re belatedly claiming that it was actually done to guarantee peace further down the line. Have I got that right?’
‘But these were devil worshippers, Adam. C
ultists. People who thought the Pope was the Antichrist. They had to die.’
‘You can’t be serious?’
‘There are times when innocents must be killed in order to protect the majority.’
‘Oh, so they were innocent?’
‘Innocent in the sense of misguided. Yes.’
Sabir turned to Calque. ‘You’re a Catholic, too, I suppose?’
Calque gave an uncertain nod. ‘Yes. But I haven’t massacred anybody yet, so don’t look at me like that, Sabir.’
‘What do you make of what Lamia is saying?’
Calque hesitated. ‘I think the whole thing is a lot more complicated than it looks.’
Sabir pretended to fall backwards on his seat. ‘Oh, so now you’re in agreement with Lamia? The Corpus did do the right thing after all?’
Calque shook his head. ‘No. They didn’t do the right thing. It’s never right to massacre people, whatever you may think of their religion, or ethnicity, or point of view. But the Corpus thought they were doing the right thing. That’s the point that Lamia is trying to make. And that’s the point I realize we haven’t been taking into account about her mother.’
‘God God, Calque. If you carry on like this I may start suspecting that you have an open mind.’
‘An open mind? Perish the thought. But we do need to understand what actually drives the Corpus – the better, eventually, to defeat it. In my view Lamia has just made her own situation perfectly clear. She respects her mother’s viewpoint, but rejects it for herself.’
‘What are you saying? That we ought to share our information with the Corpus? Bring them into the loop?’ Sabir cradled his head on his hands, and gave Calque a sickly smile. ‘Perhaps you could offer the Countess a friendly hug when next you are passing Cap Camarat? I’m sure she would welcome you with open arms, Captain.’
Calque shrugged. ‘I’m not insane, Sabir. I remember only too well what that maniac Achor Bale was capable of. He killed my assistant, remember. A man no better than he should have been, perhaps. But a man, nonetheless, with a family, a fiancée, and a future. Achor Bale snuffed all that out without even pausing to draw breath.’
‘Then what are you suggesting?’
‘I’m saying that we need to understand exactly where the Corpus is coming from. What they are trying to achieve. Look, Lamia. You have to be considerably more open with us if we’re to have any chance at all of combating this thing. First off, does the Corpus still have the same sort of influence it appears to have wielded when France still had a king?’
Lamia hesitated. For a moment Sabir feared that she intended to duck the question. Then she shook her head. ‘No. All that ended with the Second World War.’
‘The Second World War? Explain yourself.’
Lamia took a deep breath. ‘Maréchal Pétain, the leader of Vichy France, was almost certainly a Corpus member. He attended both the St Cyr Military Academy and the École Supérieure de Guerre in Paris, both of which were hotbeds of Corpus activity towards the end of the nineteenth century. Later, Pétain became a close friend of the Count, my father. But he and the Count disagreed bitterly on the Maréchal’s policy of appeasement towards Germany. My father did not believe, for instance, that Adolf Hitler was the Second Antichrist. He thought, instead, that this particular distinction belonged to Josef Stalin. He disagreed, also, with the Vichy government’s policy towards the Jews. If he hadn’t been seriously injured in one of the early German bombardments, he might have been able to take all of this much further – made his influence felt behind the scenes in some way.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Very. He was convinced, for instance, that France was a natural ally of Russia, and not of Germany, and that we should never have tacitly allied ourselves with the Nazis against Stalin.’
‘So he was a communist?’
‘No. But he was prepared to use communists for his purposes.’
‘A nice distinction.’
‘My father’s injury put an end to France pursuing that particular line – in a way, you see, his injury paved the way for the eventual disintegration of the Corpus.’ Lamia glanced back at Calque. ‘A bit like the injury suffered by the Fisher King which diluted the power of the Round Table. You understand the parallels, Captain?’
Calque nodded. ‘Succinctly put. I understand you very well.’
‘Before that time we had been strong in the cadet schools, the military academies, and also in the civil service. Like a sort of Freemasonry, really. But the war changed all that. With Monsieur, my father, hors de combat, and taking into account his virulent dislike of the Hitler regime – which he privately believed to be devil-driven – all Corpus influence collapsed. Laval and Pétain had their revenge in the end, you see. By the time my father recovered from both the physical and the psychological damage that he had received, France had changed utterly, becoming riddled with retrospective guilt and denial. The Count simply withdrew from public life in order to allow the Corpus a dignified final disintegration. It was only with the advent of Madame, my mother, thirty years later, that the Corpus was to some extent renewed.’
‘In what form?’
‘In the form that you see before you now. The Count only allowed the Countess to adopt their thirteen children on the strict understanding that she, under the aegis of his still influential family name, would actively attempt to reintegrate the Corpus into public life. At his instigation, she would send each of their children out into the world to begin a new strand of the Corpus’s sworn duty. They would, within their ranks, incorporate all of the four great factors which determine aristocratic prestige – l’ancienneté, les alliances, les dignités, and les illustrations. They would represent ancient nobility, they would cement new alliances, they would hold high office, and they would perform great and noble actions. But none of this ever occurred. Society had changed too much. Monsieur, my father, had alienated too many right-wing establishment figures with his excoriation of Nazi Germany. We still had a certain degree of influence, but it was based upon nostalgia rather than on any real access to the corridors of power.’
‘So where does that leave the Corpus now?’
‘Working to a different stage of logic. What we cannot steal, we buy. And what we cannot have by right, we seize. With us, it has become a case of the law of the jungle.’ Lamia raised her head defiantly. ‘If you wish to defeat the Corpus, you will only do so by using the law of the jungle against them in return. Otherwise the Corpus will chew you up and spit you out like a piece of rotting meat.’
Sabir scrunched himself back into his seat, his neck against the window frame, his head against the glass, so that he could see both Calque and Lamia at the same time. ‘So now we come to the million-dollar question, Lamia. The one that secures the prize. Why are your people still pursuing us? What can they conceivably hope to gain? What do they figure to get from the lost prophecies of Nostradamus?’
Lamia looked shocked. ‘But it is obvious, Adam. I thought you knew this without my having to tell you? It is all about power. The need to know what the future holds. And for this they require three things.’ She marked the points off on her fingers. ‘They need to know the identity and whereabouts of the Third Antichrist, whom some people call the “Wilful King”. They need to know the identity and whereabouts of the Second Coming. And they need to know whether 21 December 2012 marks the true end of the world, or merely the start of the predicted thousand-year return of the Devil. If it is the latter, then the Corpus will protect the Antichrist and kill the Parousia – in this way they will effectively delay the advent of the Devil because he will no longer feel that he is under-represented on earth. In this manner, also, they will have fulfilled their ancient task. If it is the former, they will commit collective suicide, and be translated into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.’
Calque let his unlit cigarette flutter from his fingers. ‘Mary, Jesus, Joseph, and all the Saints. What? Like the Rapture?’
&nbs
p; ‘A little like that.’
‘But the Rapture relies on the Second Coming, Lamia. It relies on the Parousia. It’s not about killing Him, for pity’s sake.’
‘But the Pre-Wrath Rapture is, Captain. This is the moment when we are told the sun turns black and the moon turns red. An era of wars, famines, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis – what the Bible calls the time of the “abomination of desolation”. God’s wrath will fall on the unbelievers when the sixth seal is finally opened. There will be a long period of tribulation before the Second Advent.’ Lamia looked at her two companions. ‘Does any of this sound familiar to you, gentlemen? Does any of this ring a bell with you?’
Sabir felt as if his brain had been run through a clothes’ mangle. ‘You mean the eruption of Orizaba? The earthquake in L’Aquila? Global warming? The Indian ocean tsunami? The melting of the polar ice cap? That sort of thing?’
Lamia made a tired face. ‘Yes. And all the rest of it too.’
42
Abi was acting as look-out and Vau was driving. At first glance, the tracker had appeared to be misbehaving, which meant that the twins found themselves blundering past the stationary Grand Cherokee when they were least expecting it.
‘Christ. Did you see them? Did you see what they were doing? It was them, Abi, wasn’t it? Did they see us?’
‘Calm down, Vau. There’s no damage done. They were just sitting in their car talking. Or at least so far as I could see. We were moving way too fast when we passed them. Plus we’ve got a fresh car. Plus we’re wearing these stupid American baseball caps. They won’t have made us.’
‘I wish we’d planted a proper bug on them when we had the chance.’
‘Oh yes? And this from the man who couldn’t be bothered to break into their car when the opportunity was handed to him on a plate, but simply latched his tracker onto the fucking undercarriage in the fond hope that it wouldn’t fucking jerk off when they fucking went over their first fucking speed bump?’
The Mayan Codex Page 22
