by M. G. Harris
“I guess they don’t like these Mexican number plates. . .” Benicio says ruefully.
We probably look like a couple of thieving kids on some rich foreigner’s bike.
Benicio jumps the bike on to the pavement. I hold on even tighter. We zoom along, watching people dive out of our way. We outrun the traffic jam, but then so does the bike cop.
We try to shake him with another series of crazy turns into alleyways, down a flight of stairs, then out on to some scrubland behind a narrow street. We lose him just as we reach the edge of the city. Our headlamp beams straight ahead, lighting up scrub and occasional heaps of rubbish. There’s just enough ambient light from the glowing cityscape – we can make out trees in the distance.
Benicio activates the Muwan via remote. Shadowed behind some trees, the aircraft’s lights turn on. Not too far behind, I hear the familiar roar of the police bike, still looking for us.
Why doesn’t the cop just give up?
Close to the Muwan now, we slow to a halt. Benicio scrambles into the cockpit to start the engines. I take care to stow the Harley in the hold. When I close the door there’s a brilliant light beaming straight at me. It’s the other bike approaching through the trees.
“Hurry!” Benicio calls, jangling the rope ladder. I follow him into the aircraft, begin strapping myself in.
We take off right in front of the biker cop. Later tonight he’ll be the person that everyone will think is UFO-crazy. I mention this to Benicio as he engages the in-flight stealth mode, turning off all the outside lights.
Benicio is not so convinced that it’s going to be laughed away. “It’s bad when police see us. Police have to make a report, however dumb it sounds. The National Reconnaissance Office – they’re pretty high-tech guys, Josh. A joint organization of the United States Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency? Not short of a few dollars, the NRO. They have computer programs that can trawl all the data of all the police forces in the world. They’ve known about us for a long time now, believe me. They know what to look for. They’re gonna know we were in Natal.”
There’s no time to worry about the consequences of the NRO pinning down a Muwan sighting to Natal. We’re in the air for only five minutes. Benicio has set the navigation systems to lock on to a signal broadcast by the other two Muwans – both are the smaller Mark Is. They’ve already landed on the roof of the unfinished hotel. Benicio takes our Muwan down, lands in the remaining space with barely a whisper.
In the planning meetings, Montoyo was given information that the building is about twenty storeys high, but past the twelfth floor, only the outer walls have been built. There aren’t too many other buildings around, and nothing above five floors. It’s a commercial district, and it seems that most people have gone home.
The strike team from Ek Naab has already assembled on the roof. The two pilots stay in their Muwans. Four guys wearing balaclavas are dressed in black from head to toe. I don’t recognize any of them – but then I was never exactly given the keys to the city. One of them hands me a large bundle without a word.
It’s a bulletproof jacket and a gun. I pull on the jacket and stare at the gun.
“Ever used one?” he asks. I shake my head.
“OK. I wondered. We’ve been told you can handle yourself. Didn’t know if that was with a gun or without.”
I stare up at him, flushed with pride. I wonder – who told him that I could handle myself?
“You point, you shoot. Keep both eyes open to aim. Keep your arm really firm, and watch out for the kickback. Got that?”
I nod, biting my lip.
I’m the lookout guy. I patrol the roof and warn the pilots if anyone’s coming. The gun is only for emergencies.
The strike team lower themselves down the side of the building on fast-moving quick-release nylon rope winches. They enter around the empty windows of the sixth floor. The kidnappers are holed up in a space that was planned as a conference suite, on the third floor. The plan is that they’ll burst in on the kidnappers, shoot them and grab the hostages.
They’ll arrive silently, from above and not below, as the kidnappers would expect. They’ll strike with deadly speed and accuracy. “These are our best marksmen,” Montoyo promised me earlier today. “The kidnappers won’t stand a chance.”
Standing on the roof I listen out, tense with anticipation. I keep expecting to hear gunshots. But there’s nothing. Just the noises of a seaside city, calming down for the night.
I wander over to Benicio’s Muwan, calling up to him.
“What’s going on?”
Benicio is listening to a communication via his headset. There’s a tense silence. He finally breaks off. Staring at me, his eyes fill with astonishment and confusion.
“They’ve all gone!”
Benicio and I drop down to the third floor using the rope winch. It’s an adrenaline rush, but I’m too frazzled at what’s happened to enjoy the moment.
Montoyo and the four members of the strike team make a painstaking search of the space, hunting for clues. I just stand there feeling useless. I stare into the dark corners of the four bare walls that imprisoned my mother, best friend and Ixchel until less than an hour ago. It’s chilling to think of them here in this grey, empty place, tied up, not knowing how much longer they’d be held.
“My contact has double-crossed me,” Montoyo concludes. He stands still, his tone deadly calm. “He made the raid an hour sooner than we agreed. They must have disturbed the kidnappers. Now they’ve moved on and taken the hostages.”
“How do you know it was an hour ago?”
Montoyo indicates the floor near to him. “There’s blood here. It’s congealed but still wet. And over there, the floor and the wall. The concrete is still slightly warm. My guess is that’s where they had their portable power generator.”
I don’t take much in after “blood”.
“How much blood?”
“Someone’s been shot, but perhaps not fatally. They probably managed to stop the bleeding before they got out. The drops fall in a trail that reaches here. . .” Montoyo takes a few steps towards the door. “And then they stop. There’s a small pool. This is probably where the person stopped to be patched up.”
But who?
I remember the searing pain of the bullet that I took in the leg when Madison shot me last year in Tlacotalpan. It was like being stabbed with a red-hot poker. Thinking that the same may have happened to Mum or Ixchel makes me feel a powerful surge of rage. If the kidnappers have hurt either of them, I swear I’ll get revenge.
There’s a rustling sound from behind us, by the doorway to the elevator shafts. The four black-clad marksmen from Ek Naab turn in one fluid motion, assault rifles at the ready. One of them shines a powerful beam into the gloom.
A figure steps forward.
Standing in the doorway, his hands up, shaking, is Tyler. One side of his Brazil T-shirt is stained almost black.
I rush straight at my pal. Montoyo tells the strike team to lower their rifles. I grab Ty by the shoulders, but when he winces I pull away.
“I’m a bit shot, man.”
“No kidding.”
I look at Tyler. That’s when I notice his eyes – they’re glassy, staring. His teeth are chattering. He’s on the verge of passing out. He falters slightly, falls against me.
Montoyo and Benicio surge forward. They help me to catch Tyler and lower him to the ground.
“He’s going into shock.”
“I’ve got morphine,” Benicio says. He reaches for his backpack and starts fumbling around.
I pull my hand away from Tyler’s side. It’s sticky with his blood.
“He’s been shot in the side.”
There’s a makeshift bandage over the wound. Montoyo’s right – someone tried to patch him up. And then, what? Was it the kidnappers? Or someone from Gang B? Did they actually manage to rescue anyone? Did they just abandon Tyler?
Benicio injects Tyler with something. Then he dra
gs a piece of dark cloth from his backpack – a fleece blanket, which he places over Tyler’s shivering body. We squat in silence for a few minutes whilst Tyler starts to regain awareness.
“They’ve gone,” Tyler begins, speaking quietly, short bursts of laboured breath. “They got a tip-off . . . someone was coming. One of the lookouts got suspicious. So they packed everything up. Gaspar put his gun down to untie me from the chair. I saw a chance. I got in a few good kicks . . . then cleared off. Doing handflips so that they couldn’t easily shoot me. One of them caught me in the side. I didn’t get much further . . . staggered on a bit . . . fell down. They were so mad . . . they were really in a hurry. Gaspar slapped something on me to stop the bleeding. From that minute I could see – they weren’t that bothered with me. Wasn’t really me they wanted, was it?” He shoots me a tiny glance, eyes hooded with fear.
“They hustled everyone else downstairs. Didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye. The lookout called again. Gaspar got really mad then. He told me this. Tell Montoyo – you can have this one for free. And he can have the other two when he gives us the boy – Joshua Garcia.”
I’m frozen solid. Montoyo leans in closer. “Tyler . . . how did they know Josh’s name?”
Tyler shivers from head to toe, staring from me to Montoyo. “They know about all of us.”
Montoyo asks, “What did they do with the other hostages?”
“I didn’t see what happened after they went downstairs. A bit after that, some other blokes turned up, about ten of them. I hid in the elevator shaft. They didn’t stay long. They scarpered the minute they could see everyone had gone.”
Tyler’s eyes cloud over again. “This is about you, Josh. It’s not money. They want you. They were following our buggy cos they thought it was you, me and your mum. We was all wearing this same Brazil T-shirt, remember? You, me, Ixchel.”
In a hollow voice, Benicio says, “But Josh wanted to switch seats.”
I return Benicio’s cold, accusing stare. No. I’m not going to let him lay this all on me.
Tyler closes his eyes again. “I’m so tired. . .”
With effort, Montoyo stands up. “I’m finished playing games with these people. We’re taking you both back to Ek Naab.”
I stare at him open-mouthed. “What about Mum and Ixchel?”
Montoyo looks suddenly old, like something’s sucked all the life out of him. “These aren’t any ordinary kidnappers, Josh. I’m afraid your fears were justified. Unless I’m very much mistaken . . . what we’re dealing with here . . . is the Sect of Huracan.”
Montoyo wants to put me in a Muwan right away with Tyler and Benicio, send us all to Ek Naab. I don’t see that I have any choice. I won’t leave Tyler alone in this state.
I’m not happy to think of Montoyo back at the hotel, going through my mum’s things, packing them up. The whole idea makes my blood boil. Then there’s my John Lloyd Stephens books. At least I stashed the paper with the decoded message. I doubt that Montoyo will be looking too carefully at my books, not at a time like this.
I glance at Benicio. He’s concentrating hard, sitting in the pilot’s seat. After the way he looked at me, blaming me for the fact that Ixchel’s in danger, I don’t particularly want to be around him.
It’s the same old story – things have been taken out of my hands. All the time we’re flying to Ek Naab I keep thinking, how did I let this happen?
One minute I was making plans to travel back in time, to change the past so that my dad doesn’t die. I cracked a code that’s been sitting in a book for decades – some kind of chemical formula for making the Crystal Key. A massive step on the way to repairing the Bracelet.
And now . . . this. My mother and Ixchel snatched right in front of me. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know where they’re going. Something tells me that I may never see them again.
This is no ordinary kidnap. This is personal – as personal as it gets. There’s something about my genes – my DNA – that makes the Sect desperate to get their hands on me. This is about genetic experiments – experiments the Professor woman from the Sect muttered about in the tunnels under Becan. Marius Martineau – Madison’s father – had suggested that they kill me, but the Professor told him that I was more useful alive – as a test subject. They’re experiments that require someone with the Bakab gene. Most of the blokes in the Sect have one of the four Bakab genes, but these experiments, they didn’t dare to try on their own people.
I remind Montoyo of all this and he just nods. “We can’t risk you falling into their hands, Josh. I hope you’ll remember that and understand some of the choices I may be forced to make.”
Montoyo can talk all he likes about negotiating with the Sect, or even about mounting another rescue attempt. Deep down I know it’s pointless. The Sect wants me. They might even kill a hostage to get me. I imagine my mother tied up in some dark, dank cellar with a sack over her head, terrified that she’s going to be dragged away and shot. Even the mental image leaves me gasping for breath.
Ixchel, too . . . I still can’t stand to think about what I said to her. It was worse than what I said to my mum: I actually meant to hurt Ixchel.
How can I let that be the last thing Ixchel remembers about me?
I lose myself staring into the midnight purple of the sky. The last time I remember feeling this powerless was when, thanks to Madison, I almost drowned in the Caribbean Sea. At least I kept fighting until the end. Which probably saved me – a few minutes later and I’d have sunk too far under the waves for anyone to drag me out.
There’s only one thing I can think of doing.
I could give the Sect what they want. I could hand myself over.
Benicio doesn’t say more than five words to me on the way over. We’re all reeling from how deeply serious this has become. It’s as though the air is heavy with fear.
Tyler sleeps through most of the flight, woozy from a painkilling injection that Benicio gave him. I think about how much I’d be looking forward to showing Tyler Ek Naab, if only it was the three of us. The way it should be: me, Ixchel, Tyler.
Until I actually watch Brazil disappearing beneath us, I don’t realize how strong the link is to my mother and to Ixchel. It’s like I’m being torn away from an invisible anchor – a thread which connects me to them both. Deep inside my chest there’s an actual physical pain.
I think about the first time I met Ixchel. It was in the middle of the jungle, and she was dressed in a football shirt and jeans. She seemed so distant. Not angry with me, exactly, but as if leading me through the jungle was a chore. I remember trying to hide that I was crying about Camila’s death. I remember how Ixchel wouldn’t pretend not to notice.
Now that I think about it, that’s when it began: the instant that I felt Ixchel’s sympathy – sympathy which I turned down. Something was planted then, a seed of curiosity. I wanted to know more about this strange girl who appeared from nowhere with all her jungle knowledge.
Right at this moment, I think I’d do anything to have Ixchel beside me again. Just to know she’s safe, just to hear her say one more time, “Listen to who’s talking.”
Now there’s no way that can happen. The kidnappers will kill Ixchel unless I hand myself in. It’s literally her or me.
“You all right, man?”
Tyler’s voice snaps me out of my trance. When I look at him, I’m amazed to see him giving me a weak smile. I check the level of the blood bag that’s hooked up to Tyler’s arm. It’s almost half empty.
“That’s some hard-core medicine Benicio gave me,” Tyler mutters. “I feel exactly like I’m flying.”
I manage a chuckle. “They’ve got great doctors in Ek Naab. You’ll be fine in a bit.”
“So I’m finally going to see Ek Naab.”
“Yep.”
“Always reckoned you’d made it up, if I’m honest.”
“Ty, I couldn’t. Not even if I tried. You just wait.”
We fall silent then, both of us th
inking hard. Still looking out of the window, I say, “So, these kidnappers. What are they like?” When my gaze falls back on Tyler, I see that he’s staring at me with a mixture of dread and sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Josh,” he says quietly. “They’re . . . bad.”