Masks of the Lost Kings (Suzy da Silva Series)

by Tom Bane

  “Professor Piper.”

  “Piper and my father fell out years ago. My father told me Piper could be mean and manipulative. Maybe you should stop telling him what you are doing for a while, until we know what is going on.”

  “Why did they fall out?”

  “I think when my father first started to research the Mayans, he gave a lot of credence to the Mayan End Time being 2012 but he lost a lot of academic credibility in the process. He felt that Piper and a few other academics had ganged up on him. He was kind of an outcast for a long time. He couldn’t get any of his papers published in academic journals and life became very hard for him and my mother.”

  “So what are you going to do next?”

  “I’m going to Mexico, to Palenque, the last place Ben Sanders went before he disappeared.” Tom hesitated. “Suzy, I’d really like you to come with me. I could do with your help.”

  Despite her own work, Suzy couldn’t resist entertaining the prospect. She had always wanted to see the Mayan Pyramids and she had enough money left for a ticket. She realized she also wanted to see Tom again and didn’t want to be alone in Israel for any longer than necessary. She didn’t feel ready to go back to Oxford yet and she wanted to disentangle her thoughts while away from Piper and build her theory after everything that had happened over the past few days.

  “What are you hoping to find out?”

  “Well, I know it sounds farfetched, but I’m convinced that there’s a connection between my father’s death and Ben’s. And, if so, it must be something to do with what Ben was looking for at Palenque.”

  “You could be right. You did say your father was always trying to crack the Mayan code. Do you think maybe Ben managed it?”

  “That’s an obvious explanation, but it doesn’t tell us why they were both killed. Presumably someone doesn’t want anyone to crack this code.”

  “So that’s what you’re going to do then? Crack the code and visit the place where code-cracking tends to get you killed?” Tom couldn’t be sure if she was just being sarcastic. There was a moment’s silence. “OK, I’d love to come,” Suzy sighed.

  “Great. Well, get yourself on a flight to Villahermosa and I’ll meet you there. Have a safe journey.”

  As she drove away from the university, Suzy kept thinking about what Tom had said. His words had stirred doubts in her mind about the professor. Not only had Piper been the one who put her in touch with Horus, but everywhere where she had been in trouble, in Cairo or in Luxor, it was always he who had told her to go there, and had arranged for her to meet with people that he knew. He had always known where she was. But then, if it weren’t for him she would not have found out any of these fascinating things about Tutankhamun, John the Baptist or the two Messiahs. But what if he had intended for her to find all of this, she wondered. What if she was being fed these facts and theories by Piper in order to manipulate her? Was she just cracking a puzzle devised by him? Was this all a game?

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “We didn’t manage to get the whole conversation,” Christie admitted. “There was interference just before they hung up, so we’ve only got what you heard.” There was a long pause.

  “OK. Switch off Brooking’s cell phone. I don’t want him communicating with her. Together they’re going to cause us twice as much trouble. And make sure they never arrive in Palenque. I don’t want this going to Code Red in Mexico. We’re unlikely to get too many exemptions from the White House. There could be too many civilians involved to make it possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you can liquidate Simon Gurion whenever you need. We can’t take the chance that he might know too much at this point. We don’t want him coaching da Silva. Use a car bomb or something to scare her and do it soon, and make sure the blame falls on Hamas or Al-Aqsa. She’ll either be too scared to continue or be smart enough to realize it’s a warning. Either way she’ll be out of the picture.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Christie never made a habit of questioning the orders she received, but she couldn’t help but wonder why they were pursuing two innocent young students and why an archaeological quest had managed to become a matter of national security.

  “I don’t think we can assume that a car bomb will deter da Silva in her quest, sir. We killed two people in front of her in the pyramid and it’s only seemed to make her even more determined.”

  “I disagree. But if you really believe that, you have my permission to do a dry hit on the girl instead. Let’s get her so scared she won’t even dare to leave home again, let alone travel to Mexico. We need her off the trail.”

  “But, sir, what about Mossad? Using assassins like this could cause an incident on allied territory.”

  “It’s only a dry hit. The Israelis aren’t a problem.”

  “And what about this Horus Corporation? We’ve got some intel that they might be dangerous and they’ve been underwriting the girl’s expenses.”

  “Don’t worry about them either,” the boss growled. “I’ll deal with that. Don’t investigate Horus any further. You have your orders, General. Stop wasting time. I want you to execute today. That’ll be all.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Suzy needed to clear her head and work out a clear plan away from the noise and bustle of the Jerusalem streets. She decided to drive to the summit of the Mount of Olives, near the Church of Mary Magdalene. On the one hand she was feeling elation due to the way her thesis was shaping up, but she was struggling with the news that Professor Logan had been murdered. So many killings happening around her couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

  She pushed the reluctant car up to the peak, its engine groaning like a thirsty camel, reaching the brow of the hill, the engine calmed down as it started downhill, but slowing the descent was impossible as the pedal was useless, gripping like melted fudge against the brake discs. Engaging the handbrake, she juddered the car down the road in a series of fits and starts. A hundred yards down the hillside, she pulled into a cupped, low stone veranda wall at the road’s edge, halted the engine and parked at the viewing station. She got out of the car and peered through the haze across the city below. Beneath her spread the verdant beauty of musty olive groves and sandy soil beds, a band of fertility stretching across the Mount. Suzy could smell rosemary on the whispering breeze, the air fresh and warm against her face. Pointed cypress trees mixed with old white stone monuments spread across the valley below her. Golden teardrop domes pierced the tree line like a twinkling Kremlin; the Russian-inspired Church of Mary Magdalene seemed out of place. Suzy looked left to the turreted castellations of the Temple Mount that dominated the eastern skyline and felt a welling up of emotion. The beauty of the scene below juxtaposed with the excitement of her discoveries and the intense experiences of the past couple of days. She crouched, hugging her knees. The warm sunshine and panoramic scenery reminded her of the Sugar Loaf Mountain back in Rio de Janeiro, where she had climbed with her father and mother every Sunday to fly a kite in the ocean breezes and gaze at the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer dominating the landscape behind them.

  After ten minutes of quiet contemplation, Suzy got to her feet and walked back to the car. Lost in her own thoughts, she never saw the tiny red dot dancing across the driver’s side window as she reached for the handle. As the door latch clicked, the window exploded, shards scattering all over the inside of the car.

  “Damn car!” she hissed, jumping back. Grabbing a rag, she brushed the seat free of broken glass. The whole bloody vehicle was self-destructing. Was there nothing about this wreck of a vehicle that wasn’t collapsing? She dusted pieces of glass off her clothes and leaned forward to shake her combat trousers free of any tiny glass fragments. Her eyes lit on the front tire. It was completely flat. Surely, that couldn’t have been caused by a piece of glass? Coincidence. Suzy felt a frisson of fear slither through her. She looked around, half-panicked, expecting to see an assailant about to murder her. There was no one there.

 
; “Stupid, stupid” she chastised herself. “Get a grip, girl. This is getting ridiculous.” She shook herself and walked around to the trunk to search for the spare and the jack that she knew in her heart would likely not be inside. As she pressed the release, she saw it—a red dot on the rear window, jerking back and forth, searching. Searching for her head, she realized in horror.

  Dropping to the ground, Suzy rolled beneath the car out of sight, thankful she was driving a high-axle four-wheel drive, even if it was a wreck. Adrenalin pumping, she waited. Silence. Pivoting slightly, she peered around all four sides looking for any signs of movement. Again, nothing. She slid forward inching toward the passenger side and crawling underneath, where she hoped the car would lie between her and her apparent sniper. It was quiet as a graveyard, no signs of life. Even the breeze seemed to have stilled.

  Ping

  The high velocity bullet ripped through the passenger side tire and the undercarriage of the vehicle sank down on top of Suzy, pinning her under a ton of deadweight, the front suspension rods pressing her body like putty into the ground. Face down, she was unable to move.

  Phhht

  Suzy, too busy trying not to panic as the weight of the vehicle pressed down on her, never heard the dart as it fired from a fukiya blowpipe and struck its target with deadly accuracy. A man dressed in camouflage fell like a stone from an olive tree on her right, a sniper’s rifle falling out of his hands and onto the ground. Another figure, dressed in black with a mask, dropped from another tree and began to run.

  Phhht

  The man in black stumbled and grasped his neck in pain before falling to his knees. He pitched forward in the dust.

  Suzy started to hyperventilate. Her vision was starting to blacken and her ribcage felt like it was going to crack open like a lobster shell. Suddenly the pressure eased. Based upon her jiu-jitsu training, Suzy knew her body had likely reached its maximum capacity to resist. Using what little strength she had, she forced her head to one side. She blinked at the dim sight of two pairs of sneakers. An enormous pair of hands gripped the undercarriage and Suzy felt the pressure ease further.

  “Out,” a voice ordered her. “Out!”

  She hesitated, and then winced as she rolled free. Her body screamed in pain as the vehicle crashed to the ground behind her, springs groaning, metal grinding against metal. The man was huge, dressed in black combats, black-t-shirt, his face concealed beneath a balaclava. Summoning all her strength, Suzy viciously kicked him in the shin as hard as she could and he stumbled away from her, clutching his leg.

  The other pair of sneakers belonged to a second man also clad in a balaclava, who was peering down at her from a safe distance.

  “Konichi wa, Suzy San,” he said, bowing slightly. “Please give me the knife.”

  She immediately recognized the voice and gesture. It was Getsu. She pointed at her right shoe and, when he reached down, she kicked out at his face. Getsu caught her leg and swiftly extracted the knife.

  “Domo arigato,” he said. “And this is a present for you in return.” She flinched and closed her eyes.

  Getsu placed several small items on the ground a few feet away from her. Turning slightly, he executed three rear handsprings, back-flipping over the low viewing wall. His oversized accomplice strode after him, leaving her alone once more. Suzy opened her eyes. She was alone. She lay still for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside slightly, her breaths coming in short pants. She pulled herself onto her hands and knees and crept over to the wall. The drop on the other side was about twelve feet, she estimated. There was no sign of anyone. Wincing, she crawled back to the car and spied the things that Getsu had left on the ground: a small alabaster vase and an ancient green and red, round chinese bagua mirror, the glass surrounded by an octagonal wooden frame. She stared at them, perplexed. Why had Getsu and his companion not killed her when they had the chance? Was the Horus Corporation trying to warn her to cease her quest? Were they telling her to get out of the Middle East? Suzy slipped the vase and the mirror inside her bag.

  Suzy knew she had to get out of Israel as fast as possible. The car was useless with its two flat tires so she abandoned it, walking down from the mount, where she found a taxi driver to take her to Tel-Aviv airport. Sinking back into the lumpy seat, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Tom’s number. A digital voice recited it was impossible to connect to that number. Feeling very alone, she closed her phone and sat, lost in thought, trying to make some sense out of the day’s events.

  It was now only two days to the summer solstice. Suzy knew she was running out of time. And, yet, she was now jetting off to South America. She idly wondered if the Mayan tomb there might turn out to be hers as well. She thought about her research in the Middle East, and her thesis. She couldn’t help but wonder if anything would come of it. She closed eyes, hoping the driver would leave her in peace, and exhaustion overtook her. She slept.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “I don’t want her to make it to Mexico,” the familiar voice on the phone growled.

  “It’s a direct flight, sir,” Christie replied. “She is already on board.”

  “We have an operative on board?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Our two Jerusalem operatives were terminated doing the dry hit.” Christie steeled herself for the inevitable explosion. She had been stunned by the news.

  “This was a dry hit,” the frosty voice said. “A dummy hit, just to scare her. Who is responsible?”

  “We’ve launched an investigation. We have some satellite imagery. It looks like the Israeli Golani Brigade Special Forces may have caught our operatives in the act. Jerusalem is, admittedly one of the most difficult places to execute a hit anywhere in the world. We should have gotten clearance under the Termination Protocol.”

  “The Termination Protocol is only for extra-judicial killings.”

  “But the Israelis weren’t to know that we were doing a dry hit, sir. They might have thought we were terrorists looking to assassinate someone.”

  “We need another way to terminate Miss da Silva before she gets any further.”

  “I will dispatch another assassin to Mexico.”

  “You’re missing the point, General,” the venom in his voice poisoning his emphasis of her rank. She wondered how long he’d permit her to keep it. “I don’t want her to reach Mexico. No, something covert to stop her before she reaches Mexican soil. An accident or a fatal illness.”

  “It’s too late for her to become ill, sir. She’s already on the plane.”

  “How about silver iodide?” he suggested.

  Christie blinked, trying to comprehend what he was suggesting.

  “Cloud seeding?” she ventured.

  “If we use enough,” the voice pondered, “we’ll generate a colossal thunderstorm.”

  “But, it’s the Gulf of Mexico, sir. The pilots are accustomed to storms. They’ll just fly around it.”

  “No, I mean at the airport itself, at the moment she arrives.” Christie was tempted to point out that this way Suzy would have technically reached Mexican soil but bit her lip instead. He continued, “We can induce a microburst localized at the runway. Forget the silver iodide, it’ll be all over in five minutes. DARPA’s been playing with the weather for decades. We can cause a real accident by causing a microburst. At the moment of impact,” the voice chuckled, “it can be more intense than a force ten tornado.”

  “A microburst—how does it work?”

  “A million tons of air fall, like a faucet pouring into a sink. As the plane approaches, the wind rushes toward them at one hundred and seventy miles per hour. The pilots see a large spike in their airspeed, caused by the force of the headwind. Whether the pilot’s a rookie or a seasoned veteran, the natural reaction is to decrease their speed so they can land. And, by doing that, they fly right into the eye of the microburst, slowing down and everything appears t
o revert to normal again, until it continues on into a negative tailwind, causing a sudden decrease in the amount of air flowing across the plane’s wings. There is a drop in the amount of lift produced, and a crushing waterfall of air forces the plane down, requiring maximum engine power to maintain altitude. But, if the pilot has taken his foot off the gas during the first stage of the microburst, as he invariably does, then he’s toast.”

  Christie was impressed to think DARPA had the ability to make such a phenomenon happen.

  “A lot of innocent civilians involved here, sir,” she pointed out, thinking of the Boeing 747 plane carrying more than four hundred civilian passengers.

  “Regrettable,” the voice barked. “But we’ve reached critical point. We’re in real danger and we can’t afford to have things escalate any further.”

  “Sir, we need presidential authority or CIA counsel’s approval for any engagement that would cause this many civilian casualties.”

  “General, I’m giving you an order.” However, Christie knew she was risking a court martial. In the wake of Abu Ghraib, all officers were aware that they might be unwittingly crossing a bridge to career oblivion if they did not understand thoroughly why they were being asked to do something.

  “Sir, I’m sorry. But I don’t understand why these people are a threat to national security.”

  “You don’t need to understand, General,” the voice said, its pitch getting dangerously high. “You just need to know that it is necessary and obey your orders—now!”

  “Sir, we need a rationale in order to execute this mission.” She persevered, knowing it could be the end of her career. “We need to demonstrate that we have evidence of a threat to national security. It’s a prerequisite.” The voice on the telephone sighed in exasperation.

  “This is beyond national security, General. This is global security. I am instructing you to work with me on this. Must I remind you,” he added, “that you are the one who has created this mess by repeatedly sending incompetent operators into the field?”