The Joshua Files - a complete box set: Books 1-5 of the young adult sci-fi adventure series plus techno-thriller prequel

by M. G. Harris

  I try telling myself to relax. But shocked limbs don’t want to move; it feels as though there’s a whole apple stuck in my throat. I can’t seem to make a sound. I retch and throw up. Briefly, I feel a little better.

  Then I hear another car brake and stop on the highway nearby. Voices carry over to me. The torch flashes around again, still searching for survivors. I force myself to my feet. And heading for the darkness of the forest, I run.

  I do pretty well for the first half hour – if “doing well” means managing to keep running forward through a dark forest. Staying on my feet, that’s job number one. It isn’t easy. Running in a straight line is impossible. The hardest job of all is trying not to remember that I’ve just seen my sister die.

  I keep thinking about what I’ve seen on TV survival shows. You’re supposed to sit down, stay calm, make plans. Well, that’s great, but what about when you’re on the run from secret agents?

  I must give myself away. No sooner do I stop, double over to catch my breath, than the shooting starts again. So I run, deep into the woods. Planning and “don’t panic” are not options.

  When I finally stop, it’s only because I can’t take another step. I sink to the ground and beg God to make it be over quickly. I lie there for hours; fall asleep from exhaustion, waiting for them to find me and finish me off.

  When I wake up, for a few seconds I can hardly breathe. I’ve never known a burning darkness like this – it’s as though I’m blind. The night sky of Oxford always has a slight glow. Even in the villages around the city, the sky never gets really velvety black. I’m stunned to realize that I can’t see my hand in front of my face. Night has well and truly fallen. After a few minutes my eyes adjust, and I can make out some outlines. I stare into the sky, but the stars are invisible.

  I’m still drenched from the swamp. The air is heavy, wet, thick. My clothes haven’t dried out and I doubt they will. I hear the distant rumble of thunder.

  The sound of the jungle is deafening. Birds, insects, reptiles and monkeys all chime in with clicks and chatters and whines. I think I can hear snakes sliding over rustling leaves, lizards crunching on beetles.

  Lying there I remember everything my dad taught me about the Yucatan jungle. Jaguars. Pumas. The brown “recluse” spider, whose harmless-looking bite turns into rotting flesh within days. The “ten-step snake” whose bite can kill you before you take ten steps.

  I fumble in my back jeans pocket for my mobile phone. I’m not surprised that it isn’t working. I drop it back into my pocket – I’ve heard that you can dry out a soaked phone.

  Thanks to Camila’s foresight, I should have everything I need in her backpack – or so I’m hoping. Until I notice that I didn’t fasten the top properly when I last opened it. The backpack looks empty. Furious with myself, I throw the bag to the floor and start swearing, until some part of me remembers that someone might still be following me. I force myself to calm down by slowly counting to ten in English, then Spanish. Then I have another rummage through the backpack.

  There are just two things left – the plastic envelope of money and the torch. The water or penknife would have been much more useful, but I’m grateful for what I have.

  I’m about to switch on the torch when I think of all the creatures the light might attract. And never mind the creatures – the guys who are after me. I half-expect to hear the clatter of helicopter blades. Alone out here, I’ll be an easy pick-up. I’ve seen TV shows where they chase bad guys in the dark using infrared goggles. The more I think about it, the weirder it seems that I haven’t been found.

  I test the torch under my T-shirt, just for a second. It works.

  Without any way of telling where I’m going, it’s too dangerous to keep walking. We came off Highway 186, heading east to west. From what I remember of maps, it is the only major road for hundreds of miles. Sure, there are dirt tracks. I might happen along one of them. But they won’t be easy to find. They won’t hum with the sound of faraway traffic the way a smooth highway does.

  It’s as though hours go by; hours in which I’m rigid, frozen. I can’t make a decision without changing it two seconds later. Stay put. (But I might be wasting valuable time. Tomorrow I’m going to be pretty thirsty. It’ll get hot. I’ll pass out before I can get closer to safety.) Keep moving. (But I might walk into a snake’s nest, or a jaguar. I might go in the wrong direction – even further from safety.) Keep the torch on. (It might attract creatures, or Blue Nissan and the other US agents.) Stay in the dark. (Spiders! Snakes!)

  Slowly, surely, the nightmarish quality of my predicament dawns on me. It’s like being suffocated. I feel the panic rising in me, swamping me. It takes hold of my legs and I literally can’t move. If a helicopter appears, I decide, I’m flashing the torch at it. I’ll take my chances with the NRO any day rather than face this jungle. What was I thinking, running? I must be crazy. Watching Camila’s motionless body sink under the water, seeing those headlights flicker and die; it must have sent me over the edge. Fight or flight and I’d automatically gone for flight.

  But the helicopter doesn’t come. The sky bulges with sounds, though: distant airplanes on their way to Cancun, the grumbles of thunder, the whoosh and flutter of bats. And a low humming, which I’m guessing is a swarm of bees or insects. But bees at night? It’s weird, but that’s the closest match to the sound.

  I can hardly even think about Camila. Every time my memory starts to revisit the horror of that crash, it seems like I’m quickly led away. Something inside my brain is taking me firmly by the hand, saying, Pal, you really don’t want to go there again.

  Come on, Garcia, I tell myself. Think of it as an adventure. What would Ray Mears do? Now that I’m feeling a bit calmer, I run through every detail I can remember from his wilderness survival TV show. I decide that he’d make a fire. He always makes a fire; it cheers you up and keeps you warm while you make a plan.

  Of course, he always carries a hefty knife and dry tinder. Camila packed that stuff, but it’s gone. I could go looking for it, but then we’re back in the whole to-move-or-not-to-move-that-is-the-question.

  Survival is all about making decisions.

  I can’t remember if Ray Mears said it, but it sounds like something he’d say. I take a deep breath and make my first survival decision.

  I turn back the way I came. I try not to think of the fact that I ran every which way I could, then fell over, then fell asleep. It’s a guess, based on a feeling, the faintest memory.

  I switch my torch on. The beam lights up a short corridor in front of me. Dark shadows twist around and behind it. I walk for about ten minutes but it’s impossible to walk in a straight line. I can’t see where I’m going or where I’ve been. There’s nothing to get a fix on in the cloudy sky. Every so often a tree completely bars my path and I make a turn. Pretty soon I realize I’ve probably turned all the way round. This was a stupid decision. I’ve taken a step closer to death.

  Then I hear an unmistakable sound – a twig crackling. A soft rustling; movement through leaves. I swing the torch around lighting up the trees in a circle around me. On an impulse, I switch the torch off. I realize that the hairs on my arms and neck are totally standing on end. I have to fight to stay still.

  Something or someone is out there in the jungle. And they know I’m here.

  There’s another sound. It seems low, close to the ground. I move backwards and then I hear an unmistakable hiss. That’s followed almost immediately by a bite. Just one – to the ankle. I fall to the ground screaming. I couldn’t care less if there’s a great big jaguar ten metres away. A snake’s bitten me and I’m probably a goner.

  The last thing I remember is like a hallucination. There’s a loud crunch in the undergrowth. Something rushes towards me. There’s another sharp pain as something new bites into my leg. The pain around the snakebite becomes intense, like someone’s holding a blowtorch to my skin. I see a flash of movement above me.

  Someone’s here.

  All I ca
tch is the golden-yellow of their shirt. My vision becomes blurry and my breath starts to come in shallow gulps. A hand grabs my leg and I feel a sudden burst of ice against my skin. The pain of the snakebite eases at once.

  There’s a soft voice, a girl’s voice.

  “Take it easy, keep still.”

  I try to move around to see her, but I can’t move . . . and then I fade out, fall into blackness.

  I wake up to find myself next to a roaring fire. A girl, not much older than twelve, throws a handful of something on the fire. The air fills with a sweet, lemony smell that takes me back to evenings on verandas of holiday homes with my parents, listening to crickets and Stan Getz’s saxophone; watching Dad smoke Cuban cigars while Mum drank gin and tonic.

  I sit up, look at the girl. She’s looking at me too.

  “You were bitten by a snake,” she tells me bluntly, speaking in Spanish.

  “Yeah, I know,” I reply. Obviously not the ten-step variety though – I seem pretty much alive.

  This seems like enough conversation for the girl. From a shoulder bag made of woven sisal cactus fibres, she takes out a bottle of water and offers it to me. “Muchas gracias,” I say, taking a long drink.

  She doesn’t answer – there’s no “You’re most welcome” or “It’s nothing”.

  We stare at each other again. There’s something odd about the way she looks me over. It actually makes me feel pretty uncomfortable.

  So – I check her out too. She’s taller and fairer-skinned than you’d expect for a local Mayan girl. Her eyes are rounder and her shoulder-length hair looks like it’s been conditioned and styled. She’s dressed in blue jeans, scuffed old Nikes and a soccer top – the golden-yellow shirt of the Mexico City Pumas.

  The more I look at her, the more suspicious I become. She’s no typical village girl.

  Who is she?

  “You saved me?”

  Without looking up, she nods.

  “You had antivenom?” I ask incredulously. For a second she flashes me with a contemptuous grin, as if to say, Sure, bozo; what kind of idiot goes into the jungle without antivenom?

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Ixchel.”

  “Ixchel,” I repeat carefully, pronouncing it something like Eeshell. “Is that Mayan?”

  She nods.

  “I’m Josh.”

  Again she nods.

  “You like the Pumas?” I ask.

  “Uh huh,” she replies, but she doesn’t sound convinced.

  “I prefer Chivas,” I tell her. Her only reply is a shrug that seems to say whatever. “I even prefer their kit. Y’know, stripes. They’re cool.”

  “My clothes are second-hand,” says Ixchel, breaking across my attempts to make conversation.

  I have sudden visions of charity collection bags and I’m embarrassed. I’m silent for a few minutes, trying to find another way in.

  “Where are you from?” I say.

  “From a place nearby.”

  “There’s a village close by?”

  “It’s not too far.”

  “Wow.” For a second I’m brought back down to earth. Looks like my terrified ravings about being miles from anywhere were way off.

  “How did you find me?”

  Ixchel doesn’t answer this, but rummages in her bag. She takes a Snickers bar from it, passes it to me.

  She watches me tear the wrapper, then says, “You were in a car accident?”

  I give her a confused look. “How did you know?”

  “I heard it.”

  “Well, yeah. A car ran us off the road. A guy driving a blue Nissan.”

  She mulls this over for about ten seconds. “You and who else?”

  And I literally can’t answer – the words stick in my throat, right under the chocolate. Ixchel just gives me a little nod, then goes back to looking all self-contained and impassive.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “Fourteen.”

  “Fourteen? Are you sure?” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. One look at her reaction tells me it was definitely the wrong thing to say.

  “It’s just that fourteen . . .” I mumble, “seems pretty young to be out here all alone.”

  Blandly, without a trace of irony or resentment, she comments, “I’m doing better at it than you.”

  I’m about to reply when she cuts in with, “How’s your ankle? Can you walk yet?”

  I stand up, test the foot. “I think I can, yeah.”

  I’m lying. My ankle is burning like crazy; walking on it will be torture.

  “We should get going, then,” she says. “It’ll be light in two hours.”

  She gathers up all the litter into her bag, carefully stamps out the fire and picks up my torch.

  I ask, “Where are we going?”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Your village?”

  “Is that where you were going?”

  “No.”

  “Then where were you trying to get to?”

  I hesitate for a fraction of a second. Can she be trusted? The dressing on my snake-bitten leg seems to say yes.

  “Becan,” I reply. It’s the only thing I can think of doing – to keep going, to find what my dad found, to discover whatever it is that Blue Nissan and his pals are so keen to stop me doing.

  “OK,” she says, apparently quite uninterested.

  “You’ll take me?”

  “Mm-hm,” she says vaguely. Her mind is already elsewhere.

  “Is it close?”

  “Maybe two hours.”

  “I hope it’s not out of your way.”

  “No.”

  “You really don’t mind?”

  “No.”

  I follow Ixchel through a maze of trees. I’m mystified as to how she’s keeping us walking straight until I notice that she keeps shining the torch on her wristwatch.

  “You’ve got a compass there?”

  There’s silence, which I take to be another of her famous nods.

  “You’re pretty well set up for this wilderness stuff,” I comment.

  “Yep.”

  “What were you doing out here, all alone, at night?”

  “Same as you,” replies Ixchel.

  “Hmm. I don’t think so. I was running away. . .” From a guy who killed my sister, I’m about to say, but I remember just in time that despite the way she talks, she’s still a kid, like me.

  “Yeah, you said – from the blue Nissan guy. Well, me too. Not from the same guy, but running away.”

  “From where.”

  “From home.”

  “I get it,” I say. “Hence the Dick Whittington set.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Guess you don’t know that story. Why are you running away?”

  “It’s long and complicated.”

  “I’ve got time.”

  “No . . . you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

  “Try me.”

  “It’s really none of your business,” she says, with such an air of finality that I shut up.

  And it’s like that all the way. Ixchel won’t talk about herself or her village no matter what. She has this world-weariness about her that seems practically oblivious to my presence. I get the definite impression that to her I’m just a huge chore, something standing between her and fun.

  I keep wanting to say, Hey, what’s your problem?

  We walk in silence for a long time. I think about Tyler and Ollie being interrogated by the NRO. Even though I try hard not to, I think about Camila, drowned in the lagoon.

  I can’t bear to think about what will happen to Camila. Reduced to being a body in a bag. At that moment I wish with all my heart that I were safely at home.

  But that wasn’t really much better. Watching my mum crack up, forever trying to make sense of my dad’s pointless death in Mexico.

  My breathing must give me away because Ixchel stops to look at me.

  “You’re crying,” sh
e says.

  “I’m not.”

  “Why bother to lie? I can hear you. What’s wrong?”

  Blood rushes to my cheeks and I realize that I’m in danger of serious blubbing.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, all right?” I shout. “Just lead the way!”

  For a moment I sense a crack in Ixchel’s expressionless mask. Her eyes grow wide, soften. It’s a disaster. The more sympathetically she looks at me, the worse I feel.

  “Come on!” I insist. “Who asked you, anyway?”

  Tears roll down my cheeks and I wipe them away quickly. Ixchel stretches out a hand to touch my arm, stops when she notices me flinching.

  I work hard on concentrating on the mission, to solve the mystery of Dad and the codex. I have to – it’s all I have left.

  As we walk, I feel for the Calakmul letter in my money belt. It’s still there. Probably soaked and ruined, but by now I have the whole inscription memorized. Looks like I finally obeyed Dad’s instruction to destroy the document.

  After my outburst, Ixchel stays quiet but keeps glancing at me. She asks me just one more question as we walk.

  “Why are you going to Becan?”

  “I’m looking for something,” I tell her. “A lost Mayan codex.”

  Her reaction is almost the last thing I expect. With a resigned sigh, she says, “Not you as well.”

  “You know other people who’ve been looking for a lost codex?” I ask, astonished.

  Ixchel stops again. Her clear eyes stare straight into mine. “Some things are just lost, you know. People, things, causes. Sometimes all that counts is knowing when to give up.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” I admit slowly. “But that’s the way I am about lost things. Even the word . . . lost. Doesn’t that make you want to . . . find? When I lose something, I can’t stop looking for it. It’s as though there’s a thread that connects me to everything I’ve ever cared about. Every now and then I’ll feel this tug from an invisible source. I can’t explain it any better. And I can’t give up, not now.”

  “You’re looking for something else, aren’t you?” she says. “Not just this codex.” Ixchel stares at me with an air of sadness. “Just look where it’s got you.”