The Mayan Codex

by Mario Reading

  Rudra and Oni had taken up their positions half an hour before, following Alastor’s all clear, at which time Berith and Asson had also taken their places in the Hyundai’s trunk. It was stiflingly hot in there, but the two men were used to waiting – they simply switched their brains on to autopilot and their lungs to shallow yogic breathing. The time passed quickly. It always did when action was in the offing.

  At exactly 6.15 a white Suzuki 4WD nosed its way down the Balancanché track. It paused at the entrance to the parking lot while the driver looked around. Then it engaged in a jerky three-point turn until it was entirely blocking off the parking lot’s only exit, with its nose facing back in the direction of the main road.

  Alastor smiled.

  Three men got out of the 4WD. The Mexican he had met in the cantina was flanked by two other Mexicans, both carrying Mini-Uzis. The first Mexican was holding what looked like a Glock 18 in the hands-down position.

  Now Alastor was full-on grinning. Three guns down – eight to go.

  He got out of the car with his hands held high. ‘You guys going to shoot me?’

  ‘Not if you give us the money.’

  ‘You got the guns we talked about?’

  ‘We got these. Will that do?’ The men were walking slowly towards Alastor. The two men flanking the first Mexican were looking around themselves just like they’d seen it done in the movies.

  ‘That’s three. I asked for eleven.’

  ‘Eh, man. That’s too bad. I must have forgot the rest.’

  Alastor hunched his shoulders. ‘Well okay then. Three is better than nothing, I suppose. But we’ll have to renegotiate the price.’

  ‘What will we have to do?’ The first Mexican raised his Glock to the firing position. He was ten yards away now.

  ‘Ah, shit. I see your point. Maybe we’ll just stick by our original agreement.’

  ‘Yeah. We do that. Where you got the money?’

  ‘In the trunk. You want me to open it?’

  ‘No. We open it. You stand to one side.’

  ‘Okay. Here’s the key. You press the middle one. The one with the open trunk drawn on it. The money’s in a cardboard box.’

  ‘What do think I am? Stupid?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ For one awkward moment Alastor thought the Mexican had changed his mind about opening the trunk.

  ‘You think I don’t know which button to press on an automatic key?’

  ‘Hell, man. No. I didn’t think that. I only wanted to make it easy for you.’ Now that the Mexicans were within three or four feet of him, Alastor could smell the liquor on their breaths. Maybe they’d needed to pump themselves up for the job of killing him? Give themselves Dutch courage? Either way, the alcohol would slow down their reaction times.

  The men with the Mini-Uzis were flanking Alastor now, while the first Mexican was moving forward to deal with the car.

  Alastor let the fighting batons slide gently down inside his sleeves, one into each hand. Then he crossed both hands in front of him, as if he had been handcuffed, or as if he were protecting his balls from a free kick at soccer. He could feel the adrenalin piping into his veins. Two at once. Christ. Could he do it? Could he pull it off?

  The first Mexican tripped the trunk. As the hatch rose, Berith and Asson rose with it. Oni and Rudra reared up from their dugout positions on either side of the car, their groundsheets, and the sand which had been covering them, erupting into the air like the aftermath of a grenade attack.

  Alastor threw his arms wide, the fighting batons at full extension. He felt the satisfying crunch of teeth and bone.

  He looked back. Both men were flat out on the ground. In front of him, the first Mexican, not knowing which way to look, had succumbed, first to a blow behind the knee from Rudra’s baton, followed by a second, straight-arm jab in the sternum from Asson. He was choking and gulping for breath.

  Alastor motioned for Oni and Rudra to pick up the Mini-Uzis. ‘Check out the car. Also back on the main road. They may have back-up.’

  The two men jogged off in the direction of the highway.

  ‘You.’ Alastor pointed at the first Mexican. ‘Are you left-or right-handed?’

  The man was still struggling to regain his breath. He shook his head, unable to string two words together.

  ‘Okay. You held the Glock in your right hand. I’ll assume that one’s the master. Berith, cut off this guy’s right hand. Just below the elbow will do.’

  The Mexican began to scream.

  Berith pulled a machete from the trunk of the car. ‘I’ve been sharpening this bastard thing all afternoon and I still can’t get a good edge on it. Why can’t they sell these things pre-sharpened? It wouldn’t take much, you know.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m not sure I can make the cut in one. I might have to chop a few times. Three maybe. Otherwise I won’t make it through the bone. I’m sorry, friend.’ He said this to the Mexican. ‘But you can see my problem, can’t you?’

  The Mexican, with one of his legs still dead from the baton blow, was trying to lever himself underneath the car.

  Asson grabbed both his legs and yanked him out. Then he strolled over to one of the fallen men who was struggling to get to his feet and smashed in the back of his head with a backhand blow of his baton. He checked on the other man. ‘You killed this one clean, Ali. Heck of a shot. Did you really get them both at once? Or did you one-two them? Be honest now.’

  ‘Left and right. Just like a brace of pheasants. They should have a social club for people like me. Dinners once a year. Designer blazers with crossed batons on the pocket. Two witnesses needed or you don’t get in. They’ve got one like that in London I hear – only it’s for left and rights at woodcock. I’m going to suggest they expand their remit.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ The Mexican was quieter now. Now that the two freaks – the fat one and the thin one – were talking amongst themselves, he was starting to think that maybe he could save his arm.

  ‘We’ll ask you after the amputation. Berith. Go to it.’

  ‘No. No. No. I tell you where everything is.’

  ‘What? You mean the rest of our order?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. We were going to fulfil it. We only wanted to check you hadn’t come armed.’

  ‘What? You mean armed like you three guys?’ Alastor pretended to think. ‘How were we going to come armed? We came to you to buy weapons, not to discharge them, you moron. Cut off his arm, Berith.’

  The Mexican thrust both his hands under his armpits like a child having a tantrum. ‘No. Listen to me. We got a warehouse. Just one guy guarding it. No alarms. I take you there.’

  ‘You’re not taking us anywhere. You’re going to be bleeding to death.’

  ‘It’s only ten kilometres from here. At Xbolom. You take the turning from Chandok. There’s a sign saying Agave Azul – El futuro de Yucatan. You turn off down there. The barn is two hundred metres on the right. Corrugated iron with a Juano palm roof.’

  ‘You’re sure of this? If you’re lying, I take both your hands off.’

  ‘No. No. I’m not lying. You go there and check it out. Take anything you want.’

  Alastor picked up the Glock and shot the Mexican in the head. ‘Don’t worry. We will.’

  71

  ‘This place is perfect.’ Abi looked around himself. The warehouse stood by itself down a country track, surrounded by a field of blue agave. Rifle, shotgun, pistol and ammunition cases were stacked haphazardly throughout the building. ‘Nobody will hear anything that goes on here. When we get hold of our three little piggies, we can take our own sweet time with them. What have you done with the stiffs?’

  ‘They’re in the car.’

  ‘And the watchman?’

  ‘He’s outside. He’s got a broken jaw, but he can still talk.’

  ‘Get him in here.’

  Oni brought the watchman in. The man was bleeding from his mouth. />
  ‘You got a cenote around here? You must get your water from somewhere. And it surely isn’t the national grid.’

  The man ducked his head like he couldn’t believe what he’d been asked.

  ‘Hit him, Oni.’

  Oni raised his hand, but the man slithered out of his grasp and tried to make a run for it.

  Abi raised the Glock and shot the man’s leg out from underneath him. ‘Oni. Go outside and ask Berith if he heard that shot.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Abi waited. The watchman was writhing around on the floor of the warehouse. A viscous pool of deep-crimson blood was oozing from his leg.

  Oni came back. ‘No. You can’t hear anything out there.’

  ‘Good.’ Abi shot the man in his other leg. ‘Now look here, my friend. It’s obvious you’re not going anywhere in a hurry with both your legs smashed. I’m going to shoot you in the arm next. Then in the stomach. Each time you don’t answer a question, I’m going to shoot you someplace else. You understand my Spanish?’

  The watchman nodded. His face was pale and his eyes were fluttering. It was clear that he was going into shock.

  ‘The cenote. Where is it?’

  The watchman indicated with his head. ‘North. Through the woods. About six hundred metres.’

  ‘Who else knows about it?’

  ‘Nobody comes here, if that’s what you mean.’ The man could hardly get the words out through his broken jaw. ‘Nobody dares. Bad people own this place.’

  ‘Yeah. And now they’re dead.’

  The watchman shook his head. ‘No. There are more. They come to get you. You people will die.’

  ‘How many more?’

  The man hesitated.

  Abi raised the Glock.

  ‘Six. Maybe eight. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  The man sighed. It was as if he knew that he was coming to the end of his life. ‘You going to kill me?’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Up at the US border. They got a big consignment of weapons coming in. They away for maybe six days. Pepito was just working something on the side when he made the deal with you guys. The boss left us here to watch this place. Pepito shouldn’t have left me alone here. But he said he’d pay me a hundred dollars if I watched the warehouse for an hour or two.’ The watchman was losing consciousness. His voice was fading away. ‘You going to kill me?’

  ‘Break his neck, Oni.’

  ‘Break his neck? Why should I break his neck? It’s hard to break somebody’s neck. Why don’t you just shoot him?’

  ‘Because I need you to keep in practice. That’s why. Okay?’

  Oni smiled. ‘Okay.’

  The watchman closed his eyes. He was pleased now that he’d lied to the gringo. Pleased that he hadn’t told him the truth about the boss, and the consignment, and how many people the boss had, and the number of days they would be away.

  When Oni broke his neck it was almost a relief.

  72

  Abi stared down at the cenote. You got to it through a thick stand of pampas grass. The sinkhole was maybe sixty feet wide, and situated fifty feet straight down, with sheer walls on all sides. It was shaped like a cylinder. Trees grew up from the vase of the cenote, and trailed their fronds in it, but none of them reached anywhere near the lip. Around midday the pool would probably be bathed in sunlight, but now, nearer to eight o’clock in the evening, it looked like the entrance to hell.

  A pipe had been let down one side, feeding a series of pumps that took water to the warehouse. Aside from the pipe, there was no way up or down to the cenote. What went in stayed in.

  ‘Strip the four stiffs and burn their clothes. Then put the stiffs in the Suzuki. Crack the windows about fifteen centimetres – enough to let the water in, but not enough to let anything leak out. Then drive it here and dump it in the cenote. Try not to disturb the grass too much.’

  ‘But the stiffs will spoil the water, Abi.’

  ‘We’ll drink bottled water while we’re here, Vau. We won’t be staying long enough to require baths.’

  ‘Okay. You’re the boss.’ Vau hesitated. ‘Are you going to bring Sabir, Lamia, and Calque out here to the warehouse?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll sweat everything out of them soon enough. Sabir will crack the moment we start in on Lamia. That’s what true love does to you, Vau. Makes you vulnerable. Some people admire that about it. I think it stinks.’

  Abi watched Vau negotiating his way through the pampas grass and back to the warehouse via the track alongside the agave field. He shook his head. Things couldn’t have fallen any better really. They’d lucked into the perfect base. They had more weapons than the CRS and the Foreign Legion combined. And they had the aquatic equivalent of a batch incinerator to get rid of any inconvenient cadavers that turned up as a result of collateral damage.

  ‘Collateral damage’. How it rolled off the tongue. Abi loved American euphemisms. When he was really bored, he would make up new ones, like ‘inadvertent blood donors’ and ‘residual throw-downs’. But ‘collateral damage’ was still the best. He’d never come near matching that one.

  Now all Abi needed to make his happiness complete was Madame, his mother’s, okay to go in and snatch Lamia, Calque, and Sabir and whatever else he could get his hands on, including the mestizo’s book and the crystal skull. Which, given the Countess’s recent form, would be easier said than done.

  Abi called up Athame’s cell phone. He knew that her position might be compromised if she answered the phone at the wrong moment, so he let the phone ring twice only, and then hung up. She would feel the vibration through her clothes and know that he wanted to speak to her.

  He sat on the lip of the cenote and stared down into the pool, waiting.

  When his cell phone finally rang, it took him a moment to respond. Dusk had fallen. The forest all around him was alive with the furtive movement of animals.

  ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘It’s fine. There’s so much noise coming from over by the temple that I could bellow like a bull and they wouldn’t hear me.’

  Abi smiled. The thought of the dwarf-like Athame bellowing like a bull tickled his sense of the absurd. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘They’re holding some kind of ceremony.’

  ‘Can you make out what it’s about?’

  ‘I can’t get close enough. You could try Aldinach for that. She’s up in a tree, over on the other side of the site. She might have a better view. I don’t know where Dakini and Nawal are hiding. It was a brilliant idea of yours to use us girls. If we get caught, they’ll just think we’re a bunch of New Age gringas trying to cop a view of the ceremony.’

  ‘What do you figure is happening?’

  ‘You want my guess?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think they’re discussing what to do with the skull and the book. They’ve got my sister and her two boyfriends up there with them on top of the pyramid. Maybe when they’ve made up their minds they’ll cut their hearts out and offer them up to the jaguar god? Then someone could dress up in their skins and go cavorting about the sanctuary like in the good old days. That would save us all a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Who’s running the show?’

  ‘The High Priest. If we can keep tabs on him, we’ll know where to find the book and the skull.’

  ‘Stay where you are. I’m coming over to join you with Vau, Asson, Alastor, and Rudra. I’m leaving Oni and Berith here to watch the warehouse.’

  ‘What warehouse?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. But we’ve got all the weapons we need. You can take your pick. Glock. Beretta. Heckler and Koch. Star. Walther. Smith & Wesson.’

  ‘I’ll take the Walther.’

  ‘Nice choice. It’s a P4. I’ll bring it to you personally.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I’m about to find out. I’m about to call our mother.’

  73

  Sabir followed the Halach Uinic up the pyram
id steps. He knew that every eye in the house was fixed upon him and his party. The crowd, for the most part, had fallen silent, but an underlying murmur remained, like that made by a distant swarm of bees.

  Dusk was only gradually falling, but the brightness thrown out by the candles, the bonfires, and the burning bowls of incense exaggerated its effect. The higher Sabir rose on the pyramid, the easier it became to discern the endless blanket of forest stretching in every direction around him. It was like a great murky ocean, with the pyramid as a fragile island of light at its epicentre.

  The wind picked at his clothes as he made his way up the endless stone steps. He turned his head briefly towards the west, relishing the cooler air. Was this why the ancient Maya had built themselves pyramids and not long houses? An understandable desire to compensate for the fearful heat of the Yucatan summers? The whole thing was probably as simple and as straightforward as that. All the rituals and the contrivances must have come later. Like the chaser to a glass of beer.

  Sabir smiled to himself, pleased at his capacity for lateral thought. After all, there was not a single mountain in the whole of the peninsula, nor a single volcano, nor a single hill worthy of the name. Surely the Maya would have had a race memory of travelling through the alpine lands of the northern Americas before they settled? Maybe they wanted to recreate the details of their journey in stone? Or perhaps they simply wanted to match the gods? Or was it subtler than that? Was it flattery they were after?

  Sabir had reached the halfway stage in his ascent of the steps. Some instinct made him glance to his left. He realized that he was exactly parallel with the woman whom he sensed had been telepathically communicating with the Halach Uinic. He took a step towards her.

  Acan put out a hand to stay him. ‘Adam,’ he whispered. ‘That is Ixtab. My mother. I told you of her. But we will see her later. You must come with me now. You cannot wait here. The Chilans are coming up behind us. They will be very angry if you disrupt the ceremony.’