The Mayan Codex

by Mario Reading

  109

  ‘What did Madame, our mother, say?’

  Abi shook his head.

  ‘What is it, Abi?’

  Abi sat up on his haunches and stared at his feet.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘What’s wrong? We’ve been played for suckers, that’s what’s wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She used us. That saint, our mother, used us as expendable camouflage.’

  There was a shocked silence. Then Nawal shook her head. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Abi eased himself onto his side. He crawled closer to Rudra, Nawal and Dakini. ‘Listen to me. First off, Lamia – our so-called “wayward sister”. Well it turns out she wasn’t so wayward after all. She was on the same side as us right from the start.’

  ‘No.’ Nawal shook her head. ‘That’s just not possible. I know Lamia. She might have passed back information to our mother, but she wouldn’t have given herself to that man Sabir on anyone’s say-so but her own. She was far too pudique. Far too conscious of her face.’ She avoided meeting Dakini’s tortured gaze – both she and Dakini had a great deal to cope with in that department themselves. ‘And anyway, she would have confided in Athame. Those two were like this.’ Nawal made a knot out of her hands.

  ‘It’s true, nonetheless. I’ve just had it from the horse’s mouth. Madame, my ever loyal mother, thought that by coming clean she might provide me with a titbit of comfort at my moment of death.’

  ‘You’re not going to die, Abi. None of us is going to die.’

  Abi laughed. ‘The whole thing was an elaborate honey-trap to sucker Sabir into giving out the names she wanted. The Countess set it up so that Calque and Sabir would reckon they’d saved Lamia from a fate worse than death. It’s a trick as old as the hills. They fell for it. And I fell for it, too. Hook, line, and sinker.’

  ‘It can’t be true. Our mother would have told us.’

  ‘And give the game away? No. She wanted us outraged, angry, and alert. And she got what she wanted, as she always does. Lamia is heading back to France to kill the pregnant Gypsy. And we’re the sacrificial lambs that helped get her there.’

  ‘You must tell Aldinach and Athame immediately.’

  ‘No I mustn’t. After Madame made us destroy all our personal cell phones and replace them with pay-as-you-go, I made damned sure that I never gave out Aldinach and Athame’s numbers to anyone. Just like I didn’t give out yours. I didn’t want people calling up at potentially sensitive times for a cosy fireside chat. So if those two don’t decide to call our mother – and I somehow suspect they won’t – that’s it. She’ll have no way of warning them off from killing Lamia. And they’re just about to board a charter flight to London. So they’ll have their cell phones switched off anyway while they’re in the air.’

  ‘To London?’

  ‘First flight they could get. Lamia got out on a marginally earlier fight via Madrid. They found out that much, at least. So the three of them should all arrive in Paris at just about the same time. There are only so many connecting flights available. All Aldinach and Athame have to do is wait. They’ll probably catch Lamia straight out of Arrivals. They might even kill her right there in the concourse. Aldinach can sting like a bee with that scalpel of his. He’s twenty metres gone before the person even knows they’ve been stabbed.’

  The others shook their heads uncertainly.

  Abi grinned. ‘Look around you. We’re probably surrounded by fifty invisible men, intent upon our deaths. And whose fault is that? Lamia’s, Sabir’s, and our mother’s. In the absence of a deus ex machina reaching down and plucking us up into the sky, we’re doomed.’ Abi gave a resigned shrug. ‘We can’t touch our mother, but we can touch Lamia. And through her, Sabir. What have we got to lose?’

  110

  ‘There’s my Cherokee.’

  ‘I figured as much.’ Calque glanced around the roof lot of Cancun International Airport’s long-term parking. ‘We’re going to have to break into it, you realize that? And they’ve probably got banks of CCTV cameras here.’

  ‘No we aren’t.’ Sabir felt in his pocket. ‘I have the spare keys. I remembered them back at Ek Balam after we handed back the skull and the codex. While Ixtab was busy strapping up your arm and measuring you for a new shirt. They were in my overnight bag.’ He dangled the keys in front of Calque’s face as if they were cherries.

  Calque rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s dump this white elephant of a Hummer then. We’re going to have to scrub it clean of fingerprints. I don’t want the maniacs we stole it from, and whose crystal meth laboratory we blew up, coming after us in France. I wouldn’t put it past them to have a cosy in with Interpol.’

  Sabir nodded. He tucked the Hummer away in a remote corner of the parking lot. With Calque’s left arm out of action, it was Sabir who ended up valeting the cab.

  When they were finished, Calque grinned. ‘When we get back home you can pay someone to come and pick up the Cherokee for you and store it somewhere. That way no one will associate it with the Hummer. You simply mail them your keys, the parking ticket, a false name and address, and some cash. Then, in a month or two, you can come back here and pick it up, with no one any the wiser.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘I am kidding.’ Calque sighed. ‘I think maybe neither one of us should ever set foot in Mexico again. In a few months’ time, when you haven’t reclaimed the car, the storage people will simply auction it off. That’s the way these things play.’

  ‘I liked that car. It held happy memories.’ The expression on Sabir’s face didn’t match his words.

  ‘Get over it, Sabir. She’s not worth it. She played us both for fools.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how she could have pretended to that extent. She was a virgin, man. I’m certain of it. Not some Mata Hari type, used to seduction. Not some courtesan. And her face. How could the Countess be sure I would go for her? It stretches the bounds of credulity.’

  Calque shook his head. ‘Because the Countess understands men and what drives them. She made a study of us without our knowledge. She realized that you were a bleeding heart from the word go. And that I suffer from absent daughter syndrome. Then she launched her perfectly primed cruise missile at us.’

  ‘Lamia told me she loved me. You can’t fake that.’

  ‘Oh yes you can. My ex-wife did it for years.’ Calque leaned inside the Cherokee and felt around in the lockbox. ‘We’re in business, my boy. Both passports are still here.’

  ‘So. And that’s another thing. Why would Lamia leave us our passports? Her passport was in with them. All she needed to do was dump the two of ours in the nearest garbage can.’

  ‘Why would she bother to do that, Sabir? She knew Abiger de Bale would kill us as certainly as night follows day. Leaving the passports would just facilitate the work of the Mexican police when they found our abandoned vehicle. That way they would have known for sure we hadn’t left the country.’

  Sabir slammed the Cherokee door and clicked the automatic lock. The expression on his face was bleak. ‘Come on, Calque. Let’s go and find ourselves a damned flight out of here.’

  111

  It started with the stun grenades. Emiliano’s foot soldiers had brought up bullet-proof riot shields, and they were launching the grenades from behind them.

  Abi, Rudra, Nawal and Dakini laid down as much blanket fire as they could, but it was clearly ineffective. Their ammunition was running out. The grenades were getting nearer by the minute.

  Then Emiliano’s men started in with the tear gas.

  Dakini was the first one to jump into the cenote.

  Snot and tears were streaming down Abi, Nawal, and Rudra’s faces.

  Nawal was the next to go. She felt semi-hysterical. She couldn’t breathe. All she could think about was how the feel of cool water on her eyes would be.

  Rudra watched both of the women leap into the pool. He dragged himself to the edge of the basin.
It was a fifty-foot drop. The girls had both survived it. He could see them bobbing around in the centre of the pool, violently rinsing their faces.

  He glanced back at Abi, shrugged, and then eased himself over the side. He dangled for a moment and then let himself fall. The feel of the water was an exquisite blessing. He let himself sink as deep as he was able, before scissoring his legs and making for the surface.

  Abi plunged in beside him.

  Both men scrubbed at their faces, desperate to see again. Desperate to get their weapons clear of the water before they became useless.

  Fifty feet above them, Emiliano’s foot soldiers were carrying their boss out of the Toyota on an improvised bier. The morphine had already started to give him hallucinations.

  Emiliano grabbed his physician’s arm. ‘Give me more.’

  ‘I can’t give you any more. It would be too dangerous. Intravenous morphine is an unstable drug. There is only so much the body can take. You will already be hallucinating. Later, you will be constipated also.’

  ‘To hell with the constipation. And I can stomach the hallucinations. Give me more morphine. I’m in pain, I tell you. My foot is burning up.’ Emiliano screwed up his face, as if he were trying to clear his head through the drug-induced mist. ‘But not so much that I become unconscious. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  ‘I can’t give you any more, I tell you. It might prove fatal.’

  Emiliano pulled a pistol out from underneath his blanket and shot the doctor. A single bullet, direct to the head. The doctor crumpled next to the bier like an empty suit of clothes. ‘Fatal? That’s what I call fatal, pendejo. Kick him into the cenote one of you.’

  Emiliano’s men were gathered in a ragged line just shy of the lip of the cenote. One of the men nudged the doctor’s body with the toe of his boot until it toppled over the side. He made very sure that he was not outlined against the sky while he was doing it.

  ‘Now pick up that syringe.’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  ‘Do you see this vein in my arm?’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  ‘Inject the morphine into it.’

  The man aimed the syringe at Emiliano’s vein.

  ‘Squeeze out a bit first, man. You don’t want air in there. When you think you’ve found the vein, draw a little back to check if there’s blood. Then shoot me up.’

  The man was sweating uncontrollably by this time. He dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. He found the vein, drew up a little blood, then forced the plunger home.

  Emiliano sighed. He laid down his pistol and pressed his finger firmly onto the spot. ‘You got the other bodies?’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  ‘Throw them in there too. The good doctor deserves some company.’

  The bodies of Vau, Alastor, Berith and Asson were dragged to the lip of the cenote and kicked in.

  ‘Anyone else still to come?’

  ‘None of our own. You were the only one of us injured, Jefe. And none of their people escaped, bar the two in the Hummer.’

  ‘We’ll deal with them later. They won’t be able to get out of the country without their passports. We can pick them up anywhere. They have to eat. They have to sleep. They have to take a shit.’ Emiliano raised his chin in the direction of the cenote. The pupils of his eyes were enlarged out of all proportion to their original size. ‘Constipation? That damn fool doctor. I told him to give me some more morphine. You heard me. Don’t people obey orders around here any more?’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  ‘The Hummer. It’s got a Snooper on board, hasn’t it? So when it next sends a text, we can fix its position by satellite?’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  ‘Okay. Now you and your men go and explain the situation to the floaters. With sound effects.’

  ‘Yes, Jefe.’

  Half a dozen of Emiliano’s men spread themselves out just shy of the cenote lip. Then they stepped forward in unison and began spraying the walls and surface of the cenote with bullets. After about a minute, they stopped.

  Abi, Rudra, Dakini, and Nawal were still floating in the water. They hadn’t been hit, just as Emiliano had intended, but they were confused and disorientated.

  ‘Now explain to the floaters that they have to let their weapons and their cell phones sink. In full view of us up here. If they don’t, we’ll bombard them with hand grenades. It’ll be like a butcher’s shop down there. If they’re not killed, they’ll be permanently deafened by the concussion.’ Emiliano snatched at something in front of his face. Then again. His cheeks were numb from the new hit of morphine. Mosquitoes were beginning to seem like hornets to him.

  One of his men called down the instructions. Then there was a pause. ‘They’ve done it. They’re just floating there.’

  ‘Now tell them not to go near the edge of the cenote. Not to try and climb up the sides. That if they do so, my snipers will kill them.’

  ‘It’s impossible to climb up the sides, Jefe.’

  ‘Say what I told you to say.’

  The man did as he was instructed.

  ‘Now carry me to the edge. And bring me a chair.’ Emiliano held out his arms and two of his men lifted him to the very lip of the cenote. Two other men brought him a fold-up director’s chair. One of the men held the full weight of Emiliano’s shattered foot in a loop made from another man’s shirt.

  Emiliano sat down. His foot was settled with fastidious care in front of him. After a brief lacuna, in which he stared across the cenote pit as if his eye had been caught by an unknown variety of flower, he leaned forwards and looked down at the pool below. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

  ‘You see. You’ve got all your friends down there with you now.’ He counted with his fingers. ‘One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.’ He snatched at the air again. ‘Eight Little Gringos who’ve destroyed five million dollars’ worth of my product. The question is, are you going to be able to repay me in some way? Right the wrong you have done me? With interest, of course. Two million dollars. And also two million dollars for my foot, let’s not forget that. We’ll call it an even ten for the sake of argument. Can you manage this? If so, I will winch one of you out of the pool to arrange it. If you can’t, you will all stay in there until you drown. The pump hose has already been drawn up. And there is no other way out of the cenote. The walls are sheer. We’ve done this before, you know. It takes between two and three days, as a rule of thumb, for the will to live finally to evaporate. Give or take a day or two. And depending on sex, of course. Women float for longer, usually, having more natural buoyancy.’ He lashed out at another mosquito.

  Some of Emiliano’s men were beginning to look a little concerned. But none of them wished to emulate the doctor.

  ‘I’m going to the hospital now. Call out, if you want to take me up on my offer. Otherwise there will be ten guards stationed here at all times. If you try and swim for the walls, they will shoot you. If you try and use the floating bodies as buoyancy aids, they will shoot you. Do you get my drift?’ Emiliano threw up one hand in an imperial gesture. ‘Drift. Did you get that? A pun. A very good pun indeed, in the circumstances.’

  112

  Oni had been wounded twice early on in the fire fight. Once through the groin, and once through the right buttock as he turned to follow Abi’s party towards the cenote.

  It was for this reason that he had repeated the trick he had used at the Balancanché caves. It was more difficult when you were wounded and when you had no one to help you, of course. But Oni knew without a doubt that he would die if he didn’t achieve it.

  So he crawled in amongst the agaves and dug himself a trench with the stock of his pump-action shotgun. Then he sank into it, levering the earth out of the way with his hands. When he was satisfied, he pulled the earth back in on top of himself. It didn’t need a heavy covering. He wasn’t about to move anytime soon. Fortunately, the earth in the agave plantation had been burned and turned over recently. It was as soft as thistledo
wn. More or less.

  He lay facing upwards, with the shotgun tight to his side. His hip area was numb, and growing more so by the minute. He had left himself a small air-hole through which to breathe. He only hoped that nobody would actually tread on him. He didn’t think he could maintain silence under those circumstances.

  He lay there for so long that he started to go to sleep. His whole body closed down on itself like the quiet time at the end of his hatha yoga class. Oni managed to get his breathing so well under control, that, by the end, he was only taking about three breaths a minute. His yoga teacher would have been proud of him.

  He heard the explosion at the warehouse. Then his cell phone vibrated. He ignored that for obvious reasons. Then he heard the stun-grenade attacks on the cenote. He knew exactly what was happening. He didn’t need them to draw him a picture. The nine of them had bitten off more than they could chew. It was as simple as that.

  After a further quarter of an hour, Oni stood up and brushed himself off. There was another flurry of gunfire from over by the cenote. Using his shotgun as a crutch, he limped past the burnt-out remnants of the warehouse and over to where he knew the Stoner had been positioned. It was still there. But Vau had gone. There was blood on the Stoner and sprinkled over the surrounding dirt. He’d liked Vau. He hadn’t been the brightest button in the bag, but then Oni knew that he was no Einstein either.

  Oni looked around for his stash of spare magazines. There were two drum belt containers left. He unclipped the existing magazine and replaced it with one of the drum belts. He put the other drum belt inside his shirt – 300 rounds – 150 rounds apiece. It wasn’t a lot, in the circumstances.

  He thought for a moment, and then picked up the used drum belt he’d discarded earlier and tapped it against his arm. Maybe another 50 rounds. Better than nothing. He put that inside his shirt too.

  He began to limp in the direction of the cenote.