by Rob Jones
“They have a pharmacy at the end of the block,” Scarlet said, leaning back in her chair with a wide smirk.
Ryan didn’t even look at her. “On the plane from Rome I kept thinking about the image Pavoni showed us before she was murdered and it was driving my crazy.”
“What image?” Scarlet asked.
“An image of a man in a canoe.”
“The one she said was similar to a drawing in a different codex?” Lea asked.
“Yep – an image of Aztlán in the Codex Boturini, only this one – the one the reflectographic imaging revealed under the paint showed more detail.”
“Aztlán?” Kim said.
“Spill the beans, mate,” Hawke said, and all eyes turned to the young man in the Iron Man t-shirt.
“Sure – I’m talking about the Aztec legend of Aztlán.”
“I failed Aztec 101,” Scarlet said with a sneer. “So dumb it down a notch.”
“I can’t dumb it down any more without crayons,” he said.
Scarlet scowled at him. “And you know what you can do with a crayon?”
Ryan ignored her. “The Nahuatl legend tells us that in the beginning there were seven tribes who lived in seven caves. They came together and dwelled in the land of Aztlán, but after their society turned into a tyranny they decided to flee south. The god Huitzilopochtli told them they would no longer be the Azteca people, but the Mexica people, and that’s where Mexico gets its name from. Huitzilopochtli told them to settle wherever they saw an eagle sitting on a cactus, and that turned out to be Tenochtitlán – the present day Mexico City.”
“And where was this Aztlán?” Lexi asked.
“As you might have guessed with a legend this old, no two descriptions of the place are alike, but its location is of more importance. Some claim it was situated just north of Mexico City, while others have made the case that it was further away on the Pacific coast. The really interesting part is that there is a debate about whether or not it’s an island thanks to a drawing of it in the Codex Boturini.”
Scarlet cracked open a lager and reclined on the leather couch before turning to Maria. “Is this how he talks when he’s warming things up in the sack?”
The Russian ignored her with a haughty, if vaguely suppressed smile and asked Ryan to continue.
“The picture in that codex shows the Aztecs fleeing from Aztlán, and it clearly shows them sailing away from an island in an Aztec canoe, fleeing some kind of tyranny, as I said. The drawing depicts a large island with a massive temple in the center of it, not to mention a number of other buildings, but the picture revealed in the Codex Borgia we saw in Rome was much more explicit about Aztlán being an island.”
“I see where this is going.”
“Right – some have argued that Aztlán was in fact an island, but until now we had no real evidence for it except for a couple of vague references by Plato. If you can’t see the connection between the words Aztlán and Atlantis then I can’t help you.”
At the word Atlantis an immediate silence fell over the room and all eyes were fixed on Ryan Bale.
Eden spoke first. “So you’re saying the Aztecs were the original Atlanteans?”
“Jesus,” Camacho said, and let out a low whistle of surprise.
“Partly. I think the Aztecs broke away from the Atlanteans – another sect if you like, or tribe.”
“This just gets more and more insane,’ Lexi said. “To think I gave up the Ministry for this madness…”
Ryan continued. “Through the prism of modern life, all of this looks like madness, yes – but as we now know, these ancient legends were often much more than myths. They’re the lens we look through to see how we really began.”
“Oh, someone get this boy a drink,” Scarlet said. “And quick… before he starts writing poetry, please.”
Ryan ignored her. “At the moment this is just speculation, and we should focus on the Aztec issue, but I’m just saying that there might be some kind of link and we should be ready for it.”
“Maybe Wade is looking for more than an Aztec temple?” Kim said.
“Maybe, but,” Hawke shook his head. “Maybe Mendoza is the one looking for more. I saw something in his eyes in London and again in Rome. He’s like a man possessed. I can’t see Wade indulging in myths.”
Eden nodded his head. “I agree. We know Wade is a lifelong admirer of Aztec culture and archaeology. His creation of the Order of the Sixth Sun backs this up too. I doubt he has any interest in Atlantis, which he probably regards as mythical.”
“All right,” Hawke said, leaping to his feet. “The sooner we get to the plantation the sooner we end this nightmare.”
“Right,” Kim said. “The plantation is too far away by road, so we’re going by air, courtesy of the CIA who have rustled up a couple of Lakotas. We leave in ten minutes so get ready.”
Hawke took the time to prepare a PSK, a personal survival kit. Like the other former Special Forces people on the team he knew you never went into a jungle theater without some basic preparation. Most of the stuff he got from his regular kit that he took on missions – compass, small multitool, magnesium firestarter, Fresnel lens and some duct tape. Then after a quick search of the hotel bathroom he grabbed some dental floss and dropped his iPhone in a plastic zipper bag just for good measure. He knew what jungle humidity could do to electronic equipment. It was all just a precaution, but spending so long as a Commando and former SBS operative had meant it was a habit impossible to break.
He felt a hand brush against his arm. It was Lea.
“You ready, cowboy?” she said.
“I’m always ready,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The fear flooded through Viktor Sobotka as he watched Morton Wade approach the rear of the Mercedes Atego. Unlike everyone else, the Texan was wearing a full NBC suit and in his hand he held a Geiger counter. They were standing in the loading bay of what looked like some kind of grain store on a plantation somewhere west of Mexico City, and for the first time since this nightmare began Viktor was starting to wonder if he was really going to make it through alive. With this on his mind, the flight down in Wade’s private jet had been one of silent, strained terror, especially given the knowledge of the U-235 bullet detonator Aurora had forced him to steal from Los Alamos. Those had only one use: activating fission bombs.
Silvio Mendoza and Aurora Soto shared a long kiss as Delgado and Garza opened the rear of the truck. Another man climbed out of the cab. He was wearing a greasy white shirt with a crumpled packet of cigarettes in the pocket. A few moments later a hard-looking young woman followed in his footsteps and slipped out of the truck. Viktor noticed a snake tattoo on her neck and a terrible black eye on her face. She looked at the man in the white shirt with nothing but hate in her young eyes. The atmosphere was one of tense excitement, which was insane given what he thought was going on.
Mendoza pushed Aurora away and walked over to his brother. “Jorge, all good?”
Jorge nodded and lit a cigarette as they spoke.
“Where is Alena?” Viktor said. “Why wasn’t she on the plane?”
Wade looked at him with contempt. “She’s fine. Keep it down.”
The Texan then ordered Jorge to pull a forklift up to the rear of the Atego while Delgado and Garza rode the forks up to the level of the truck. Inside they guided the forks under the steel pallet and then waved the forklift back. The depot was filled with the shrieking sound of the reversing alarm as Jorge pulled away from the Atego and turned the forklift around. He lowered the forks and set the metal container and steel pallet down on the polished concrete floor of the warehouse’s loading bay.
Wade ran the Geiger counter over the container. Juana Diaz took a step back from the action as Wade began prising off the lid. He cracked a wide grin. “Good work, everyone!”
By the look on Mendoza’s face he didn’t share Wade’s enthusiasm for whatever hellish project was unfolding, but Wade was too focussed to notice as he slowly c
ircled the mystery package, his eyes full of wonder and expectation. He glanced inside and gasped with pleasure. Viktor thought he saw an almost religious reverence on Wade’s crazed face. “She’s here at last. She’s finally here.” He turned to Mendoza and barked a string of orders in Spanish. Everyone left the room except for Wade and Viktor.
“May I introduce you to the Hummingbird, Professor Sobotka.”
Viktor walked a few paces forward and peered inside the container. Like Wade had done, he also gasped, but in horror not pleasure. “Just what the hell is this?”
“This is my new toy. She has the power of a god. I like to call her the Hummingbird, but you probably know her by another name – an RM-152C. In other words, one of the former Soviet Union’s cobalt bombs.”
Viktor shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand… this isn’t possible! Cobalt bombs are purely theoretical. They were never made, not even by the United States.”
Wade laughed. “How wonderful! You of all people – a nuclear weapons specialist – and you actually believe the official governmental doctrine when they tell you these weapons were never made.”
“It’s not possible…”
“And now you’re actually looking at one not a yard from your face and yet still you cannot bring yourself to question authority.”
“This is insanity! Fission devices salted with cobalt were never made, I tell you! I’ve worked in the industry for decades, first for the Soviets and now for the Americans. I can’t… I just can’t believe it.” He stared at the smooth metal casing of the bomb in abject horror. “When Leó Szilárd originally talked about such a concept back in the fifties no one seriously entertained the idea of actually constructing such a monstrous device. I refuse to believe mankind sank to this level!”
Viktor almost felt like crying.
“Well, it’s time to suck it up, Viktor, because they exist and even better than that I now have one of my very own!”
“But these weapons were supposed…” he changed his words now he knew they were real. “If they really exist then they are insanely dangerous. Salting the warhead with cobalt to increase its radiological fallout would…”
Wade cut him off. “Would not only mean the total flattening of whatever city I detonate it in, but a degree of nuclear fallout unparalleled in human history. Even the early Tadje tests conducted by the British in the Maralinga Range of South Australia showed tremendous potential, but the Hummingbird here is far more technically advanced than that. She’s the product of a much later Soviet design…a real beauty.”
“You’re insane. You’re looking at it like it’s alive.”
“In a way she is alive – but she represents everything I have grown to hate about this world. She is as high-tech a weapon as it is possible to have, and yet her own power can be used to send our planet back to the dark ages. A beautiful irony, don’t you think, Professor?”
“This weapon must never be used! Do you hear me? Never!”
Wade smiled. “Of course she will be used! Just like you and me – she was born to die, Viktor, and how she will die!” As he spoke, Mendoza returned to the room with Aurora at his side.
“We’re all set, señor,” he said.
“Great.”
“This is madness, Wade!”
“No!” Wade raised his voice, the dreamy complexion now gone from his face. “What we are doing to our world is madness. It is time for a new beginning. A new age! The Aztecs understood about the importance of new ages… about how a new sun would usher in a new age.”
“New Age?” Viktor stared at the Texan with incredulity. “What are you talking about?”
“For the Aztecs, we’re now living in the fifth and final age, Viktor. During the previous four ages, the sun was more of a god than anything else and now some believe the fifth and final sun must give up his life if humans are to progress to the next level of consciousness. Now, I shall deliver a new age to the world, and the people of this planet shall thank me for it when I liberate them from the shackles of our failed, burned-out era.”
Viktor shook his head and took a step back, but was kept in place by the barrel of Mendoza’s greasy revolver, which he jammed into the small of the scientist’s back.
Wade gave a knowing nod and smirk. “I know what you’re thinking, Viktor… you’re thinking what good can come of destruction on a scale like this? But the fear of death is just another feature of life in the modern West. The ancient peoples knew that death meant more life – this is why they burned the land to encourage new growth, and why they… sacrificed people.”
Viktor waited helplessly for Wade to continue, speechless with fear.
Wade continued in his sing-song Texan drawl. “Sacrifice was integral to ancient culture – they knew that without death there could be no rebirth. That is why they made live offerings to the gods.”
Viktor didn’t like where this talk of ‘live offerings’ was going, and now he saw that dreamy look back on Wade’s face once again. “What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t understand,” Mendoza said in Spanish.
“Yes, of course he understands,” Wade said sourly. “He knows what a live offering is – don’t you, Viktor?”
“Of course, but I don’t see the connection.”
“Then you must look harder.”
“If you think committing genocide with this cobalt bomb is the same thing as sacrificing a person on an altar then you really are crazy, Wade!”
“A single person on an altar? When the Aztecs opened a new temple dedicated to the mighty Huitzilopochtli they offered the gods over eighty thousand people as sacrifices, Viktor. Eighty… thousand… people. Now you just think about that for a minute boy! When I dedicate our new discovery to the true gods I will ensure they receive the greatest offering of all history.”
Viktor pulled himself together, straightening his shirt and tie and standing up to his full height. “All right them, where are you going to detonate it?”
“Hush, Viktor – and don’t ask impertinent questions. Let’s just say I chose a location where I’m going to get the maximum bang for my buck.”
Mendoza laughed, dropped the stub of his cigarette and crushed it out under his boot.
Viktor stared in horror at the Texan tech guru and wondered if any of this could be real. Maybe, he told himself, it was all nothing more than a nightmare and he would soon be woken by his wife with a cup of coffee – and the sun streaming in through the window of their Santa Fe home. Alena… where are you?
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the forklift truck starting up. He looked up and saw Jorge was now back in the warehouse and sitting at the wheel. Lurking behind him were the familiar figures of Aurora Soto, Delgado and Garza. The woman with the black eye was behind them all in the shadows, as quiet as a deer mouse.
“Not much time left, boss,” Mendoza said.
Wade beamed. “It’s time for you to go to work, Viktor. Don’t forget the part you’re playing in all this. Not even the Russians are crazy enough to let a complete nuke out in the world, which is why we needed you.” Wade ordered Aurora Soto to fetch the container Viktor had stolen from the lab at Los Alamos. “It would be a shame if your wife had to get hurt, wouldn’t it?”
Viktor nodded, the image of his wife locked away somewhere, frightened for her life, burned a hate-filled hole in his mind but he could do nothing to help her other than obey Wade’s insane instructions.
“Good job, Viktor. I want you to fit the trigger mechanism you stole to the Hummingbird, and connect a timing device to her. Now get to work – I want this thing airborne before the day’s done. Yes I do, boy.”
Viktor Sobotka did as he was told, carefully fitting the trigger into the device. A cobalt bomb was a regular fission bomb, but salted with cobalt in order to increase the lethality of the radioactive fallout. At the core of the weapon was a quantity of uranium-235, a fissile isotope capable of sustaining a chain reaction. This reaction was caused by firing a smal
ler quantity of uranium at the main load. That was where Viktor came in, and the trigger mechanism he stole from the lab in Los Alamos. Once fitted, he would rig up a digital timer designed to activate the trigger at any time Wade specified.
The hours passed, until eventually he wiped his hands and sighed heavily. “It’s done. You can set this timer to trigger the firing mechanism any time you like. Please… promise to leave me and my wife alone. I swear I won’t tell anyone what happened here today.”
Wade nodded in appreciation of the work. “I’m very satisfied with this, Viktor, but sadly I suffer from a fundamental lack of trust when it comes to scientists.” He turned to Mendoza, who was standing nearby with his pearl-handled Colt. “Kill him.”
Viktor’s eyes widened and he turned on his heel to flee the men, darting out of the grain store. Mendoza stepped casually through the double doors and raised the pistol, firing twice. Viktor fell forward and his knees smashed into the ground. The hot air rushed into the cavity made by the bullet and pushed down on his lungs, collapsing them. He struggled to breathe, but his lungs couldn’t expand against the weight of the external air, and now he felt the blood rushing into his lungs as well. A man of science, he knew this was called pneumohemothorax, and without immediate medical attention he would die.
He glanced over his shoulder as Silvio Mendoza nonchalantly strolled toward him, cocking back the revolver’s hammer with his thumb. The weapon’s front sight flashed in the sunshine. Something told him the Mexican wasn’t coming over to offer medical assistance. He knew he had only seconds left.
He heard Wade’s raspy drawl. “Finish him, and get this baby out to the airfield.”
Rubbing his forefinger over the bullet would, Viktor began to write the last thing he would ever write, drawing the letters in his own blood. He had to tell the world what was coming, but then the gun fired. A loud, vicious blast echoed off the jungle canopy on the far side of the hill and sent a flock of startled jacamars exploding into the hot, blue sky.
