‘Give me that,’ he instructed Ratty, taking the machine gun from his hands. ‘It’s not a goddamn water pistol.’
‘What are you doing?’ gasped Ruby.
‘Wait here,’ he replied, sprinting towards the Lost World Plaza.
Ratty and Ruby stood in silent bewilderment, unsure what had just happened and what they should do about it. A comforting arm found its way around Ruby’s neck and was indignantly shaken off.
‘Why don’t you love me?’ she heard whispered in her ear.
‘Ratty, this is not the time or the place to talk about this stuff. Matt could be in danger. Come on.’
She grabbed his hand, flooding his brain with endorphins from that simple contact, and dragged him to the stone wall that surrounded the Lost World compound. They crept behind the fortification looking for a place where they could climb up and gain a vantage point.
Immense stucco masks of the Mayan sun god gazed down serenely upon the dimly-lit plaza, their chiselled features worn by passing aeons into smooth ripples of stone. The pyramid at the centre of the Mundo Perdido complex, on which the masks were set, formed a tower of breath-taking grandeur. Millions of tonnes of stone squatted arrogantly in the landscape, part of an ancient astronomical observatory in slow decay.
‘The Lost World Pyramid and Plaza takes its nomenclature from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel of the same title,’ wibbled Ratty as they climbed a mound of overgrown rubble that provided unobstructed access to the top of the ancient wall. ‘The first archaeologists to study this area considered the green mossy pyramid and hanging vines to be a perfect evocation of the –’
‘Shush, Ratty. Look.’
She pointed at the scene immediately beneath them. Ratty stared down in horror. At the base of a series of weathered steps that had been out of bounds to the public even before the military takeover due to their treacherous incline, Matt was shouting. He was doing his best to intimidate, showing himself to be the leader of the pack. He threw himself into the role, acting the part. It was a tricky part to play, especially when the pack consisted of five Guatemalan privates lined up as an execution squad, intent on shooting their prisoner.
Nichols went quiet. Mountebank was in control now. Nichols’s fate rested with the famous, if enigmatic, officer who had shocked the firing squad into halting with an insane display of primeval belligerence. The performance had convinced the Guatemalans to lower their rifles. Nichols put his good arm over Matt’s shoulder, and the two of them began to edge backwards out of the plaza with Matt’s gun still aimed at the enemy.
The whole incident elevated Matt’s military experience on to a new stratum. Real soldiers practised scenarios like this, quickening their responses, toughening their nerves, but despite his false credentials, Matt felt comfortable with the shouting and screaming, with the hysterical and intimidating jumping up and down like a monkey on a trampoline. He felt completely prepared. This was a scene he had lived in his mind in intricate detail. He had studied the psychology behind tribal supremacy, leadership among simian groups, and he had written an almost identical scene in his book. And, unlike the medical scene where he saved an injured soldier’s life with a tourniquet, this chapter had not been the last-minute embellishment of an over-zealous editor. This was something he had worked out for himself, and the theory was translating into practice beautifully. He had carried out a high stakes rescue perfectly. This was medal-winning stuff.
He shouted an instruction at the Guatemalans to stay put as he and Nichols continued their slow reverse manoeuvre against the wall, four heavy feet dragging furrows through the dirt. Nichols was weakening, placing a greater strain upon Matt’s shoulder. The parallel with fiction was about to end. In his book, Matt had stolen a pick-up at this point and they had sped away to safety. There was no such opportunity for a rapid escape here, but, restricted by the tunnel vision response to the immediate threat, he hadn’t been able to plan that far ahead.
Something jabbed the small of Matt’s back. Nichols saw it through his fading peripheral vision.
‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘Company.’
Matt lowered his aim, and the five soldiers sprinted over to help the new arrival to take care of his captives. The pack had overthrown their leader. Matt was nothing now. All the manic chest-beating and hollering was quickly forgotten. Nichols was slipping in and out of consciousness. Amid the Spanish shouts, Matt heard him whisper one more thing.
‘Five minutes. They blow in five minutes.’
* * *
Despite his increasing jaundice, Orlando felt a degree of potency returning to his muscles as the drip steadily delivered more essential fluids to his veins and the local anaesthetic, grudgingly applied to his stomach, removed the gnawing agony of his injury. With a great effort, he pushed himself up onto his elbows in order to face Otto more squarely and to give himself a clearer view of his newly-discovered brother. He also had a chance to see the interior of this field clinic with its blue paint, bare shelves and unopened boxes of research materials. On top of one such box was a ring of keys.
‘I died this evening, my brother,’ Orlando said, looking at the padlocks that secured his sibling to the steel bed frame. ‘Otto brought me back. I always knew that I would survive death in most of its forms. That is what I had always believed, though I never realised at what price. But if he had not succeeded in bringing me back to this world, I now realise everything would have been all right. A copy of me would have survived. You are my immortality, my brother. I died already. I’m not immortal, and yet I will not truly die. I know there’s nothing to fear. I worked hard and took many risks. It has not been easy. Forty-five years up here, strutting in the sun, fulfilling that Mengele dream. You, meanwhile, never saw the sun, never experienced the world going on above your head. We could have shared the dream, shared our journey through those decades.’
The Patient stared calmly at his brother during this speech, showing no emotion. However poetic the words, the fact remained that he would shortly be put to sleep for ever and he had learned not to react visibly in response to any threat from Otto. He watched as his brother summoned more energy to his arms and pushed himself to a fully seated position.
‘You must lie back down,’ stated Otto. ‘Movement may cause further blood loss.’
Orlando breathed deeply, consciously trying to replenish the tiny reserves of strength that he had already depleted. With a cry of pain, he swung his legs off the edge of the bed. Otto tutted, frustrated by his patient’s pointless gesture.
‘What gives me the right to take the liver of my living sibling?’ panted Orlando, still short of strength. ‘Josef worked all his life for a result he would never see. Father, brother, I believe I have done the same. There is no shame in that. Many people contribute to great things that flower after they are gone. I have had my time. I have come close. It is my wish to hand over the baton to my brother, that he may blossom in the sun. I refuse to let you operate on me, Father. Brother, I hand you my name and my life. I have no further use for it.’
The Doctor had heard enough. He needed to regain control of his rebellious patient. He hit the button of the anaesthesia machine once again and yanked the tube of flowing gases towards Orlando’s mouth.
Summoning every molecule of energy in his muscles, Orlando ducked through the sweet outflow of the approaching mask, lunged for the set of keys and threw himself to the floor beside his brother’s bed, knocking it slightly askew, setting the anaesthesia machine spinning on its wheels and shaking up a tray of neatly arranged surgical instruments. He expected Otto to stop him immediately as he released the first padlock, but the Doctor was unable to prevent himself straightening the machine and then aligning the bed once more to be parallel with the wall. The Patient grabbed the keys with his free hand and set about unlocking himself while Orlando slumped, a dead weight, to the floor. By the time Otto had set all of the surgical tools back in their perfect positions the Patient had risen from his bed. He stepped over his brother a
nd stood facing Otto.
‘Get back on the bed!’ ordered Otto.
The Patient easily pushed Otto backwards, letting him fall on the plywood floor with a thump that rattled the tray of surgical instruments again.
‘Orlando,’ said the Patient, ‘we truly are a single soul dwelling in two bodies.’
There was no response. Orlando had begun bleeding once more, his strength completely gone. The Patient picked him up with strong arms and placed him gently back on his bed. He looked down at Otto; the Doctor’s face was contorted with anger. A sturdy foot applied to his chest was sufficient to prevent him getting up.
‘Listen to me,’ grumbled Otto. ‘You do not understand what you are doing. There is a global perspective to this. I must be allowed to continue. Listen to me.’
‘Otto,’ replied the Patient calmly, ‘I have been listening to you all of my life. I have been extremely patient. I have had no opportunity to do anything but listen to you. I feel I am ready to make my own destiny now.’ He picked up the hissing gas hose and rammed the mouthpiece onto Otto’s face, pushing it tight as he counted the seconds. By the time he reached number four, any sign of resistance had ceased entirely.
* * *
It looked like a piece of the night sky was falling. A black Ratty-shaped figure fell quickly above them, accelerating from the top of the wall and landing heavily upon two of the Guatemalans inside the Lost World Plaza. As faces turned towards the distraction, Matt grabbed the M9 pistol from his bag and fired at the two nearest soldiers, letting his arm spring back from the recoil after each shot. He was tuned back into his fictional alter ego, the fearless hero who could blast his way out of any scrape. The men dropped instantly, like characters written out of his book, annihilated by the hand of the omnipotent writer. The two who remained on their feet, sensing the return of Matt the raging animal, sprinted away from the epicentre of his wrath. Those knocked to the ground by the falling shape scrambled out from beneath it and stumbled away.
Matt inhaled deeply, then panted like a pop legend about to run onto a stage before fifty thousand fans. He was hyping up his strength, feeding his body with the power of success. One of the retreating soldiers appeared to be summoning assistance on his radio. Matt had seconds to get himself and Nichols out of Mundo Perdido to a place of relative safety before the Guatemalans regrouped and returned. He pulled Nichols’s limp arm across his back and tried moving. It was virtually impossible to carry him. Two hundred pounds of unconscious man plus heavy kit did not drag easily. Nichols had already lost his main rucksack, but the equipment still strapped to him weighed a considerable amount. Matt unhooked the grab bag and webbing and threw it on the ground.
‘Oof,’ complained a voice at his feet.
Matt looked down, concerned that one of the soldiers he had felled might be sufficiently alive still to be a threat.
‘Awfully sorry to drop in like that,’ continued the voice. ‘Lost one’s footing on the mossy stone. Bothersomely damp, don’t you know.’
‘Take his other arm,’ sighed Matt, yanked against his will from fictional hero mode back to the reality of being stuck in a jungle city with an incompetent aristocrat. ‘Help me get him outta here.’
In the shadows close to the Tozzer Causeway, Ruby was waiting for them out of sight. She leaned nervously against the flat surface of a crumbling stele, its ancient message long since lost to the ravages of nature. Without a word she picked up Nichols’s legs. With three now carrying him they were able to jog towards Complex N, a site of small temple mounds and ruins close to Temple IV, a place that had so far evaded the attention of the Guatemalan military.
Word of the fracas at Mundo Perdido was spreading. Soldiers not caught up in other skirmishes were directed to the complex. Paulo Souza received an order to cease his work at the Temple V research base and to take charge of the situation in the Lost World. He took the long route, preferring to avoid the central areas where there appeared to be more fighting. His path brought him face to face with Ruby and her companions. Despite the soft starlight, he recognised her immediately. She glared at Paulo with a harshness that released butterflies in his stomach. Her look reflected all of the wrongs he had committed against her: the deception he had crafted to persuade her to work for him in Guatemala; the remorseless manner in which he had carved the heart out of many of the Tikal monuments; and the placing of shackles around her ankles upon the temple. His guilt was not in question, and he accepted it, but there was no time to discuss his failings. He ran on past Ruby and the others at Complex N, heading towards a group of Guatemalan soldiers. He shouted to attract their attention and pointed with his arm.
He was pointing in the wrong direction.
‘What do we do, what do we do?’ sputtered Matt, laying Nichols down and exposing the shoulder wound.
‘Help me find where Orlando’s keeping the scrolls,’ Ruby replied.
‘I told you, forget the scrolls, Rubes. We got a man down.’
‘The field dressing,’ barked Ruby. ‘Treat the wound first. Stop any more bleeding.’
‘Right. Field dressing. Knew that,’ mumbled Matt as he dug into his grab bag and pulled out a medical pack.
‘Ratty, hold his neck while we put the dressing on. Ratty?’ She looked to where Ratty had been kneeling next to them and found him lying on his back among the low ferns, out cold at the first sight of the ugly flesh wound. ‘Oh God, come on, Ratty, wake up.’ Her attention turned back to Matt and his unconscious buddy. The field dressing was in place, but Matt was no longer cradling the patient. He had crawled a few feet away from them and was retching his guts out.
‘Not good with gore,’ apologised Matt, not accepting that he was simply a victim of the natural reaction to the aftermath of a life-threatening situation. He’d been through enough of those, after all, he figured.
‘Help me get him in the recovery position,’ sighed Ruby.
The two men turned Nichols onto his side and moved his arms and legs to a position that would maximise his comfort and circulation. His eyes opened weakly.
‘Where are we?’ he whispered.
‘Close to Temple IV,’ Ruby answered. ‘Who are you?’
‘How long was I out?’ he asked, ignoring her question.
‘A couple of minutes, I think,’ she replied. ‘It wasn’t easy to see everything from where I was standing.’
‘Mountebank,’ he said, confidence returning to his voice, ‘Temple IV is on the target list. We have to find shelter.’
Matt looked at the scene around him. Temple IV was invisible from their perspective, its two hundred and thirty feet of stone cloaked by trees. There was no indication that the tallest surviving pre-Columbian structure on the continent was only yards away. But Matt didn’t wait; he dragged Nichols by his good shoulder to the base of a low stone wall and laid him parallel to it. Ratty and Ruby wandered over, unhurriedly, motivated more by a concern to remain sociable than to seek shelter.
‘Get down,’ ordered Matt.
‘As in “and boogie”, or as in “assume a prostrate position”?’ asked Ratty.
‘Temple IV is on the target list,’ explained Matt. ‘If the rest of the team has done its job, it’s going to blow any second.’
Ruby stood up, furious. ‘What target list? What’s going on?’
‘I tried to tell you, Rubes. I’m part of a mission. Special Forces. We’ve been targeting the research stations Orlando cut into the temples.’
‘What does “targeting” mean?’ she asked accusingly.
‘Ma’am, we are not authorised to discuss mission objectives with civilians,’ stated Nichols.
Ruby poked her finger into the dressing on his wounded shoulder until tears filled his eyes.
‘Targeting means we get into each location,’ he cried, years of interrogation training crumbling under the force of a woman’s finger, ‘retrieve any research data possible, plant a timed explosive device, get the hell out of there.’
‘What? Haven’t those te
mples suffered enough damage? If you put bombs in them, you’ll destroy thousands of years of historical evidence.’
A distant blast pulsed through the air, a rumble of artificial thunder that sent a circle of shrieking birds high into the sky.
‘Get down, Ruby!’ shouted Matt. ‘Temple IV could be next!’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she replied, still standing, still fuming. ‘There hasn’t been any research here. Orlando hasn’t touched it.’
‘Every major temple is on the target list, regardless of whether Orlando’s actually excavating it,’ explained Matt. ‘We don’t know if the guys made it through, but if they did ...’
‘We should run away,’ said Ruby.
‘We can’t!’ snapped Matt. ‘Man down, remember? And soldiers everywhere. Gotta find shelter.’
‘Smithson,’ said Ratty, suddenly alert. ‘Harvard, 1967. This is Complex N, is it not?’
‘Group N, Complex N, whatever you call it, yes,’ said Ruby, ‘but what are you blathering about now?’
‘Smithson excavated a tomb. Wrote a thesis for the Harvard Department of Anthropology. Got himself a distinction, as I recall.’
‘So what, Lord Dumbass?’ asked Matt.
‘The entrance should be right here,’ Ratty replied, pointing at a semi-overgrown doorway cut into a temple mound.
Another explosion rocked the night, closer this time. No one needed further persuasion to get below ground. Nichols was dragged on his back, this time down rough-hewn steps into an excavated tomb. As Ruby looked back up through the entrance it was as if the scattering of stars peeping through the hazy night air suddenly exploded, lighting the interior of the tomb in a flash, leaving everyone with a retinal impression of the skeletons and spiders at their feet. Outside the tomb, Temple IV shattered into the sky above them. Splintered stone bricks rained down upon the whole of Complex N, burying the tomb entrance beneath a dusty layer of priceless rubble.
Thursday 6th December 2012
The morning sun ticked inexorably higher, pushing the Caribbean night westwards and waking Central America with an intense display of radiance. Sunlight dappled the tips of the rainforest, an emerald carpet spreading across the treetops of the Maya Biosphere. The forest canopy here was unbroken, primeval, a world renewed. There was no sign of the familiar stone chambers that, yesterday, had peeked above the trees atop ancient jungle pyramids. No sign of the temples that had sat like tiny stone islands amid a sea of green. From above there was simply no sign of Tikal.
The Sphinx Scrolls Page 31