In a hangar office in Málaga, Capt. Sanchez and his Scottish friends prepared for Raul’s liberation. Purdue had contacted his personnel in Edinburgh. After orders to keep his status under wraps, he had his assistant urgently charter a plane from Málaga to Lima via an independent charter company, so that his own affiliates would remain oblivious for the time being.
“Everyone ready to be chased by the biggest creepy crawlies in the world?” Sam asked in general, as he hid his collar camera under the foam rubber of his hard case.
He was met with a resounding negation voiced in groans from the other three. Barnard’s people had come for the relics, yet they’d neglected to remember that not all important historical artifacts were made from gold and gems. Sam’s collar-mounted camera that had been hidden in the steel post held ruinous evidence of the slaughter, not to mention the entire event of Vincent Nazquez’ murder in real time.
It was invaluable, and had Barnard known that it existed, Sam would have had no footage to edit a damning report—a report that was to be spliced together as soon as they’d finished saving the boy and preventing the Inca prophecy from being perverted.
In the meantime, between their trip back to land and their departure to Peru, the party had shared all of their experiences and information pertaining to the purpose of the trip. Sam and Purdue had been given copies of the prophecy as read over the transmission, just to keep everyone aware of what Barnard and Sabian might have planned. In turn, Nina and Sanchez had viewed the whole ugly scenario from the feed of Sam’s collar camera so that they could learn the importance of the golden woman statue and what its purpose was.
Viewing the footage also revealed Barnard, Maria, Isabelle and Hannah’s faces to Nina and the police captain, should they encounter them on the Amazon trail to Macchu Picchu.
“I can’t wait to meet Raul and Madalina in person,” Capt. Sanchez mentioned while they waited for confirmation to depart. Nina mumbled, “Aye, I can’t wait to meet the triple bitches.”
Sam and Purdue exchanged looks. Sam leaned back and teased, “Well, if you do run into them, make sure you get even in a jungle mud pit.”
Purdue chuckled, “And don’t forget to alert us first. On that note, Sam, will you be able to use the collar cam again?”
“No,” Sam shrugged, “I had trouble downloading the data onto my hard drive and almost lost the footage once when I tried an alternative override. So I decided to just use a normal handheld instead. The footage on the collar cam is just too important.”
“I agree,” Purdue replied. “Well, it looks like we’ll be flying overnight, thank God. An approximate ETA of twelve hours would be tedious otherwise. At least now we can get some sleep after that hellish experience.”
Nina looked at Purdue and Sam. Their spirits were high, but to her mind they were simply setting aside the true emotional trauma they had suffered until the coming rescue mission was complete. Their injuries aside, the two men were obviously drained in every way. Only she could see it, because she knew them so well. “So, where are we going, exactly?” Nina asked. “To Lima, I assume?”
“Actually, Capt. Sanchez said that the transmission conversation indicated that they were in a place called Pucallpa. Right, Pedro?” Purdue asked.
“Sí, Pucallpa. Although I’ve never heard of it,” Sanchez affirmed.
“The charter company informed me that the nearest airstrip of international standard is,” Purdue scanned over the itinerary to find the name of the airport, “FAP Captain David Abenzur Rengifo International Airport.”
“Geez, that’s a mouthful,” Nina muttered with a raised eyebrow. “And how far is that from Machu Picchu?”
“A stone’s throw,” the pilot explained. He was standing under the ‘Exit’ sign in uniform, ready to depart. “And a bit of an ascent, maybe. Macchu Picchu is south from Pucallpa, but we will take a helicopter from there towards Machu Picchu so that you don’t have to hike through the treacherous Amazon jungle.” The nerdy pilot cackled at his own silliness, but his attempt at humor found his audience mute. He just motioned for them to follow him.
“Seriously? A helicopter?” Sam complained as they followed the pilot to board their flight to Peru. On the tail of the small jet there was the usual registration mark, but on the body itself was written ‘Eagle,’ something Purdue found interesting.
“Come on, Sam,” Purdue said, patting his friend on the back, “hair of the dog, old boy. Also, we have to get there as fast as we can, and you know our friends at the organization have the same resources we do.”
“Oh shit, yes,” Sam realized. “I forgot about those friends meeting us there.”
They spoke in riddles so that the pilot would not decipher their intentions, just in case he was—connected. Nina shook her head in amusement, and was Sanchez striding next to her in deep thought. Purdue mentioned the Inca prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor flying together, as mentioned by Vincent Nazquez. It was just an amusing coincidence, he thought, but secretly he wondered if there was something more behind it.
On the flight they had a light meal and decided to share a drink from the first class bar on offer. Capt. Sanchez declined gracefully, as he wished to stay alert, even going without his jeropiga until further notice. But what he would accept was a bit of insight.
“Excuse me, Dr. Gould, for sounding like a complete layman, but what exactly is Machu Picchu? Is it a town or an historical site, or . . .?” he asked delicately, hands held in an open gesture.
“Oh,” Nina replied happily, her cheek still holding a grape she’d just popped in her mouth, “of course I can tell you a bit. The Inca Empire was born from the Cuzco Valley . . . there is a town called Cuzco too . . . and was most prominent in the fifteenth century and it lasted until, well, the fall of the kingdom, the very page in history we’ve been dealing with the past week.”
“How so?” he asked, sitting on the edge of his seat and folding his hands.
“This golden woman was reputed to be one of the last relics claimed by the Spanish conquistadors under a cruel and treacherous asshole called Francisco Pizarro, who’d ransacked countless villages for gold. You see, Pizarro had captured a powerful emperor, Atahualpa, and held him ransom. But even after Atahualpa’s people paid the ransom and then some, the conquistadors killed him anyway and went on a rampage, destroying the temples of gold devoted to Inti and other gods, among others.”
“Inti the sun god, right?” Capt. Sanchez guessed, and got a nod from Nina.
“So Machu Picchu was built high up in the mountains to protect the nobles from the Spanish raiders. It was like a stronghold, so high up that any would-be intruders would be detected while still ascending the mountains.”
“And that’s where they plan to kill Raul,” Sam asked.
“Sí,” Sanchez said, nodding.
“I have a suspicion they might hold the sacrificial ceremony in the Temple of the Sun. It is one of the main structures of Machu Picchu,” Nina speculated. “If the prophecy coincides with the solar eclipse, it would be the logical place to go.”
“But don’t you have a bug on them, Pedro?” Sam asked Sanchez.
“I did, but lost the signal. The bug’s battery was only good for a period of 48 hours, but I believe Dr. Gould is accurate in her assumption about the location of the sacrifice,” Sanchez explained.
“I think so too,” Purdue agreed. “I just hope we’re right. We have mere hours, if even a single day, to get there and find them before this happens. If we’re wrong, that poor child will die for nothing.”
“Are you going to arrest Madalina?” Nina asked Sanchez, bowling him over with something he’d been silently wrestling with. All eyes were on him in the mild hum of the plane.
“I honestly do not know,” he replied quietly. “She did commit a terrible crime, even if it was under the influence of someone else. I mean, that is what insanity pleas are for, but that won’t make her any more free, you know.”
“Maybe you can just ‘not find her
’,” Nina suggested with a wink. “She sounds genuinely good to me, and trust me, I’ve dealt with the most unsavory people you will ever come across.”
“As for Sabian, he shouldn’t be arrested. He should be executed,” Sanchez lamented, “but my job is not to assassinate. In a court of law he will just use his tactics to get off and he should pay for what he did to these people’s lives!”
“As should Barnard and his bitches,” Sam joined in.
“What worries me is how we will get the golden woman melted down for the second relic,” Purdue sighed.
“Hopefully we’ll not need her,” Sam said. With a mischievous smirk he grasped his Beretta’s butt in the holster of his belt. “After all, there is little that a few pelts of lead cannot fix when it comes to murdering fuckwits like those.”
31
Red Messiah
Solar Eclipse Imminent: 98%
Madalina was in no way restrained once they arrived at the base of the mountain. Raul and Dr. Sabian were traveling together, while she was accompanied by three women. They were ordered not to speak to her unless they had to convey Dr. Sabian’s commands, yet they did not hold back with snide remarks about Madalina’s figure or her profession. Normally she would have given them a piece of her mind, but she elected to act indifferent, almost slow-witted, in order to survey them objectively.
They were, in her opinion, easier to handle than the therapist who had betrayed her. Yes, they were tough women with oddly retrospective mannerisms and looks, but they couldn’t control her mind. Physically they could probably destroy her, but she also knew that they were not allowed to harm her before she’d fulfilled her role in the sacrifice. Had she traveled with Sabian, he may have rendered her powerless to her own actions while still forcing her to do his bidding.
Among all the unpleasantness, she had to concede that the landscape was breathtaking. She had never traveled before, and it was a potent experience to be on another continent amidst other cultures. When she looked up, she gasped in awe. All around them the jagged-faced mountains reached through the clouds like cathedrals of might. Their peaks touched the heavens like no mountain she had ever regarded, and where the rockiness hid, it was green as emerald and lime. When the drizzle started over the high regions, she could have sworn that the clouds circled the magical rainforest like a bird of prey.
The sky had already begun to dim, changing the hue of the terrain as far as she could see.
“Come, Madalina,” Maria snapped, pulling her by her upper arm. “I hope you’re fit.”
“I’m fit enough,” she replied casually, as they started up the winding path through the trees.
“You could be an Olympic track star, sweetheart, but the altitude here will knock you down,” Hannah said from the back of the line. “Hope you make it to the top before the mosquitoes kill you.”
They all snickered, but Madalina focused her attention on the route and she used unusual formations and branches as beacons. Not intending to go through with the sacrifice, she made mental markings of the way back so she would know where to to flee with Raul. Her eyes admired the beauty of the endless peaks and their silent power. She could almost feel the concentration of energy when the sun fell against the rocks were she hiked. The women with her were babbling incessantly about nonsense, from their favorite alcohol to their sexual achievements.
And I thought I was a slut, she thought to herself as she listened to them. In her heart she laughed at their conversation, and sometimes she almost chimed in, but she knew she could not get personal with them. They belonged to the wizards who kill children, and she would sooner set them on fire than socialize with them. She did, however, have one question, and she briefly glanced at Maria, walking next to her, before lowering her eyes to the pathway.
“Maria, where are we conducting this ritual? I mean, Machu Picchu is a tourist destination. How will we be able to kill someone during the daytime in front of everyone without being arrested?”
“You’d be the only one arrested,” Isabella laughed.
Maria ignored Isabella. “Do you think we’re going to do this in Machu Picchu? Are you stupid?”
“Apparently,” Hannah mumbled.
“Grow up, you subservient bitch!” Madalina shouted at her, an outburst she hadn’t been intending. She waited for a painful reprimand, but instead Isabella cracked up in her shrill, childish way, slapping Hannah mockingly. Maria was unfazed by Madalina’s reaction and told her what she wanted to know. She was going to die after she had killed the child anyway, so there was no reason to withhold it from her.
“We are going to the Forgotten Lake, a secluded rock pool inside the adjacent mountain face. Only the Children of the Sun knew about it, until we obtained the location from their scrolls during an excavation at Lake Guatavita in Colombia,” Maria told Madalina. Her plain tone of voice and demeanor made her almost seem seemed human. “There is a sacrificial slab, divided in three layers. You’ll see. When the eclipse comes, the sun will have fallen directly on the duct at the bottom of the slab.”
“A duct,” Madalina sighed. “For Raul’s blood, I suppose.”
The two women behind them applauded Madalina’s deduction, again provoking her rage with their juvenile attitude. “Yes,” Maria confirmed.
“But the rays will be gone when the sun darkens. Does that not thwart the whole ceremony?” Madalina persisted, adamant to find out as much as she could.
“Oh, Jesus, isn’t she just full of beans?” Hannah groaned.
“Be quiet, Hannah. You’re beginning to irritate me,” Maria warned. She sighed at Madalina’s relentless questioning, but she mustered one more piece of information. “It’s not about the heat of the rays, my darling girl, or the light being dimmed.” She shrugged. “It’s about the moment in time, the celestial alignment that is marked by the eclipse.”
“So it’s about timing?”
“The eclipse is only a marker, just so that we know when to do the ritual,” Maria disclosed. By the way she acted after this, Madalina knew that the husky-voiced Maria was done explaining; she was done being amicable.
Suddenly she pushed Madalina sideways, corralling her towards the right of the rising cliff face before them. The path went left, but Maria shoved the Spanish teacher into a clump of lush trees that grew from the cliff side. “What the fuck are you doing?” slipped out of Madalina’s mouth, but Maria gave her no explanation. The pathway was suddenly barely a few inches wide and to the sides, the rock they walked on fell away into two flanking drops so steep that they disappeared into chasms on each side.
Madalina felt her stomach contract and her heart hammered in her bosom. “Oh God, I’m going to fall.”
“Don’t,” Isabella said behind her, as the women progressed in a single file.
From somewhere in the mountain Madalina heard Raul’s voice. Her heart jumped. As she followed Maria, she listened keenly to ascertain his mood, but he did not sound distressed. Above them, the sunrays fell through the broken mountain rocks that split it into two cliffs. The sunlight highlighted a small area inside the shadow, like a spotlight on an operation table. A column of pure sun poured through the hole above and revealed Madalina’s greatest horror.
Raul was naked, tied to the slab face down, with leather restraints fastened to the rock by long, thin spikes. His face rested on a pillow of stone that elevated his head, curving his neck backwards. “Oh Christ, no!” she shrieked. “Raul! I won’t hurt you, sweetheart!”
“I know,” his shrill little voice answered, the sound muffled by the rock under his face. “But you do not make your own body move . . . and you will kill me.”
She started to sob uncontrollably, resisting what felt like a natural urge to tear his limbs from his tiny body. It was Sabian’s influence. The sensation had the same gentle drive she’d felt that night when she’d killed Mara. “No! No! I won’t!” she kept wailing, but she was dragged to the slab and made to stand between two men—Sabian and a grotesque stranger she did not know.<
br />
The light began to fade rapidly now, as the moon gradually slid over the sun to obscure it from sight. Sabian and the ugly man with the big teeth were chanting in a monotonous cadence, using words unknown to any modern tongue. Still, Madalina recognized the syllables as those used during her sessions with Sabian, and some she’d heard him use on Javier.
They were controlling her actions, and as long as she could hear, her mind would obey. The murderous charm was growing stronger inside her unwilling mind, but she thought of her darling Raul, she thought of her brother, her parents, and all the things she loved about her life.
Dr. Sabian reached out and gave her a stone athame, a sacrificial knife to draw the boy’s blood with. “Go on,” he commanded tenderly, “be the Last Mother of the Red Messiah!”
“Where is Hannah?” Isabella whined loudly when she realized that Hannah was absent. Maria looked around but saw no sign of the skinny acolyte. She shrugged apathetically, assuming that Hannah had lost her footing and fallen from the ledge they’d hiked in on.
Madalina saw them all look up as the sun lost its face, leaving only a thin circle of light in the mighty sky. Inside the cavern it was shadowy, looking dreary and haunted. The men kept chanting. In her childish screech, Isabella shouted and pointed to the disc in the sky. “Look! The Black Sun in all her glory!” Proudly, Maria and Isabella venerated the image, seeing the insignia of their clandestine organization displayed so regally by the very powers of the universe.
“Now! Madalina, now!” Sabian bellowed, his voice trailing through the chasm like the howl of a demon. Raul’s little body was shivering, but Madalina did not care if it was fear or cold that shook the boy. In fact, she did not care about him at all. Her hand tightened around the hilt of the stone weapon and inside her, she felt happy and strong. Words became commands from a language she did not know, yet understood.
The Inca Prophecy Page 18
