by Rob Jones
THE AZTEC PROPHECY
(Joe Hawke #6)
Rob Jones
Copyright © 2016 by Rob Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
THE AZTEC PROPHECY is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and occurrences are entirely fictional products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you would like to share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, please go to an ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Other Books by Rob Jones
The Joe Hawke Series
The Vault of Poseidon (Joe Hawke #1)
Thunder God (Joe Hawke #2)
The Tomb of Eternity (Joe Hawke #3)
The Curse of Medusa (Joe Hawke #4)
Valhalla Gold (Joe Hawke #5)
The Aztec Prophecy (Joe Hawke #6)
The Secret of Atlantis (Joe Hawke #7)
The Lost City (Joe Hawke #8)
This novel is an action-adventure thriller and includes archaeological, military and mystery themes. I welcome constructive comments and I’m always happy to get your feedback.
Website: www.robjonesnovels.com
Facebook: http://bit.ly/RobJonesNovels
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @AuthorRobJones
DEDICATION
For My Family
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE
Joe Hawke crouched in the darkness and waited for a bank of cloud to move in front of the moon. It was full tonight – a blue moon – and lit up the landscape like a stage light. In the distance somewhere behind him he heard the sound of a stream, and further away was the long, low bellowing of a stag. But tonight he wasn’t hunting any red deer. His quarry was something altogether grander.
There was a bleak beauty up here in the Scottish Highlands that appealed to him, but sometimes it could push you hard, and tonight was one of those times. For days now, a heavy storm had blown in from the Atlantic and lashed the area with rain and howling winds. He had spent those days lying in a trench he’d dug out in the small hours of the first night, monitoring the security.
The trench ran north to south to minimize the summer sun which even up here could be a problem during the day. Using fallen branches from the woods as support beams he’d covered it over with peat and moss. The rest was nothing more than a waiting game – whatever the weather. He hadn’t once considered delaying the mission because of the weather – the SBS didn’t do things like that – but all the same he was glad when he woke that morning and saw the storm had blown out.
He pulled a Glock 22 from a holster inside his camo jacket and flipped the thumb lever to release the magazine. Making sure it was fully loaded he pushed it back inside the grip and pulled the slide back. As the spring-loaded action moved forward into position it automatically pulled a round into the chamber from the top of the mag. Now the weapon was cocked with a live round ready for business. There was no safety catch on the Glock once a live round was in the chamber, so now it was Showtime.
Exploiting a gap in the CCTV, he climbed over the perimeter wall with ease and lowered himself gently down onto the gravel on the other side. He was now standing on the outer rim of an impressive box-hedge maze which adorned the east topiary lawns of Earlskeep Castle. This was the ancestral home of James Stewart Sinclair Matheson, the former British Foreign Secretary, and just like the parabellum in the oily chamber, Joe Hawke had business to do.
He criss-crossed silently through the topiary lawn and skirted the maze until he reached a smartly maintained croquet lawn. After waiting for a cloud to obscure the moon once more, he jogged across the lawn and reached an old dovecot which looked like it had been converted into a small guesthouse for visiting friends or family.
How nice.
From here he ran into an expansive apple orchard which gave him cover all the way to the outbuildings within the inner grounds of the castle.
The castle was an impressive example of sixteenth century architecture, built in 1545 by Sir Robert Sinclair, and had over its long, winding life hosted many major figures of British history, from Mary, Queen of Scots to Edward VIII who had visited once for a weekend of stag hunting and baccarat. None of this mattered to the former SBS operative as he crouch-walked along the outer perimeter of the Victorian kitchen garden. He had only one thing on his mind as was ever the case with these missions – get in and get out.
Yes, it was impressive, but if James Matheson thought these castle walls could protect him from his fate then he was more deluded than Hawke thought. As the English former Special Forces man weaved silently through the shadows and drew ever closer to his target, he tried hard not to think about his wife, Liz, and how Matheson had ordered her murder. He tried hard not to think about how the old man had her gunned down on the streets of Hanoi on their honeymoon… about how this wicked old bastard had snatched away their happiness before it even arrived… but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t keep the ghosts out of his head. This was as personal as it got, and he was here to settle the account.
The final hurdle was a broad moat, full of water but merely decorative. Covered in Apache beads and water lilies, its defensive days were long gone and Hawke jogged easily along the narrow bridge to the main walls of the castle.
Smashing a small window on the outer wall, he climbed inside and found himself in what looked like former servants’ quarters but was now one of the kitchens. He saw a large table loaded with crockery and the remains of a roasted turkey sitting in a metal tray on top of the stove.
How cosy.
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Hawke knew where he had to go. As soon as he found out that Matheson had quit government and retired to his Scottish estate, his research work had begun in earnest. It hadn’t taken long to track down floor-plans of the castle from various planning applications made over the years, and then a short reconnaissance of the property over the last few days from his trench had revealed which lights were put out last at night.
Easy as pie.
Peering around the door, he saw a long empty corridor. This he knew would ultimately lead to the small room used by the security Matheson employed. It was far enough from the kitchens so they wouldn’t have heard the window breaking, but close enough that he was there in less than three minutes, moving silently along the sombre Persian rug-lined corridors.
There were only two men in the security office. They were both snoozing, soft bellies in soft chairs – one with a plate of beans and chips on his lap while the other was wearing Apple earbuds. Hawke sympathized with how boring it must be up here from a security angle and reflected on how this made things easier for both him and them. They wouldn’t enjoy being incapacitated by a former SBS man, and getting hurt in defense of a piece of crap like Matheson would have made it so much worse.
He wished them sweet dreams and continued on his path along the corridor until he reached the bottom of the servants’ stairwell. Treading on the sides of the steps by the wall to avoid making them creak under his weight, he made his way slowly to the top floor where he knew Matheson’s private apartment was located.
As he approached he could see the warm, cosy light of a flickering fire projecting under the apartment’s door, and from inside he heard the sound of avante-garde jazz music. So this was how James Matheson got down on a Saturday night…
He readied the Glock, deftly screwing a suppressor to the barrel and took a breath. He had waited a long time for this, and many people had died along the way – many decent, innocent people. Tonight they would all be avenged, but this was really about his wife – the woman he had met at Paddington while she was waiting patiently for a train… the woman he married on the coast in a small family ceremony… the woman he watched get killed in Vietnam on the first day of their honeymoon – and all because the monster behind this door had ordered her death.
Now it was payback time.
He kicked the door open and stormed into the room with the gun raised. He immediately saw Matheson – he was sitting in a leather wingback chair by the fire with a tartan blanket over his legs.
“What the hell?” the old man said, twisting uncomfortably in the chair. “Guards!”
“Forget about them, and forget about this shit music as well.”
Hawke aimed the gun at the stereo and fired a single shot at it. The bullet blew the top off the machine and after a puff of white smoke and a shower of sparks there was a new silence in the room.
Hawke gently closed the door behind him and stepped closer to Matheson. “Hands where I can see them right now or I take out a kneecap. Your men are asleep on the job and they won’t hear you even if you shout for help.”
“I very much doubt that!”
“You can always try it. It will be interesting to see if those two overweight bozos downstairs can climb five flights of stairs before I can squeeze this trigger and blow your head off.”
Matheson thought the matter over, but then a wicked smiled grew on his withered face. “I knew you were here, you realize…”
“Sure you did.”
“Not you specifically, of course, but I knew someone was creeping about up here. You tripped a laser alarm in between the pigeonnier and the orchard. It shows up here and in the security room. I knew immediately that something was up – the only problem is I presumed my security was rather better than it’s turned out to be.”
“Life’s full of surprises then,” Hawke said. “Even for a rich, decrepit sack of shit like you. Now, talk to me about Operation Swallowtail.”
Matheson made a long, silent assessment of the armed man standing before him and then spoke up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hawke fired the gun and the bullet struck the top of Matheson’s wingchair. A thick wad of cotton batting exploded an inch from the old man’s head. He almost jumped out of his skin, and now Hawke saw fear in his eyes for the first time.
“Operation Swallowtail… or the next one goes through your right eye.”
“Fine – just lower the gun.”
“The gun stays where it is. Start talking.”
Hate and fear fought for dominance in Matheson’s dark, narrow eyes. Hawke could see how much the former Foreign Secretary wanted to hurt him, or worse… but now the boot was on the other foot.
“Swallowtail was not my project.”
“Imagine my surprise.”
“I was ordered to initiate it.”
“By the Prime Minister?”
“Yes, but he was ordered to do it as well.”
“I want a name.”
Matheson’s eyes settled once again on the barrel of the Glock. “The Oracle.”
“The Oracle? Is this some kind of joke?”
“It’s the furthest from a joke you could possibly imagine. I’d tell you to ask Harry Donovan but then he was the cat whose curiosity got him killed.”
“What are you saying – this Oracle was involved in the murder of Lea’s father?”
Matheson shrugged his shoulders.
“I want a name, and a location.”
“Hunting the Oracle is a fool’s errand, Hawke… a one-way journey.”
“I asked for his name.”
“And I swear I don’t know it. No one does.”
Hawke looked in his eyes and saw the fear. He was telling the truth. “Then you’re of no more use to me.”
Sweating profusely, James Matheson held out a trembling hand and pleaded meekly for his life. “Please!”
Hawke wanted to torture him. His mind swam with Liz… her smile in the church as the sun streamed through the stained glass and lit the baby’s breath in her flower crown… the sound of her laugh on the Ha Long Bay cruise…
“You’re a fucking bastard, Matheson, and you’re lucky I’m going to make this fast.”
Hawke considered a T-box strike, but ended things with a Mozambique drill – a double tap into Matheson’s chest and a single shot in the forehead. He was dead in less than a second, but his words still hung in the air, mixing with the gun smoke – one-way journey, the Oracle, no one knows his name… Was the Oracle real? Was he really pulling the strings of world leaders? Who was he? If it was true, it was a chilling revelation that changed everything.
Alone now, Hawke padded over to the bottle of Glenmorangie and calmly unscrewed the metal cap.
For you, Liz.
He raised the whisky to his mouth and drank a long draft as his eyes wandered to the corpse slumped in the wingback beside the fire. Setting the spirit back on the drinks cabinet, he left the same way he’d arrived and was soon no more than a shadow in the night.
CHAPTER ONE
Keeping low in the tropical undergrowth, Ben Ridgeley raised the monocular to his eye. Tracking Morton Wade and his thugs through Mexico’s Lacandon Jungle for the past few days hadn’t been easy, but now things were looking up. Finally he would have something to report to ECHO HQ back on Elysium, and that meant Sir Richard Eden owed him fifty dollars. It might also help with his redemption after letting Lexi Zhang get the better of him that night and knock him out of the selection test with her paintball gun.
A few steps behind him were Alfie Mills and Sasha Harding. They were two former cops from the Met who Eden was thinking about bringing into Elysium, but they had already broken the cardinal rule and gone against the Boss’s word. Eden and Ben had both instructed them to stay in Acapulco, but less than twenty-four hours after he started tracking Wade into the jungle they’d caught him up. Sure, they were trying to impress everyone, but the order was given for a good reason. The jungle was one of the least forgivi
ng environments at the best of times, let alone when you were engaged with an enemy that wanted to kill you. Now they were just slowing him down.
“See anything?” Sasha said.
“Yeah,” Ben replied. “Looks like they’ve finally got what they were looking for.”
He watched the team of hired mercenaries and thugs approach the ruins they had been seeking. As far as he could make out from the accents, cigarettes and tattoos, they were mostly Mexicans, unlike their leader, the American Silicon Valley magnate and tech guru Morton Wade. Like Ridgeley, they were all tired after the trek, but Wade seemed energized by these particular ruins, and ordered his men to investigate. This place wasn’t on any map, but Wade sure seemed excited to be here.
Ben struggled to keep the team in view as they moved deeper into the ruins. Damn it, he thought, and moved cautiously closer. He told Alfie and Sasha to stay put and weaved through the sapodilla and allspice plants until taking cover behind the trunk of a Guanacaste tree. Above, through a canopy of magnolia and mahogany leaves he saw a darkening sky which threatened to soak him to his skin for the third time that day.
All around him the deafening cadence of cicadas and macaws mixed with the eerie calls of the howler monkeys. He thought about what he was missing back in the Caribbean hideaway – a cool drink and a comfortable bed – but he’d gone through worse in the Parachute Regiment, usually following Eden’s orders, and this was an important mission. How the two former cops were holding up was anyone’s guess.
Wade began to bark more commands and some of the men opened an equipment box and pulled out glow-sticks and ropes. “This looks promising,” Ben muttered, and zoomed in on the increased activity with the monocular.
Two of the men were now tearing vines and wild bromeliads from the ruins in order to access some kind of concealed entrance. Some of their colleagues were pacing around in a circle, looking out into the thick rainforest with Colt 9mm SMGs raised and ready for trouble. It looked like they were setting up some kind of perimeter and this told Ben they were planning on staying a while.
