Jake Atlas and the Hunt for the Feathered God

by Rob Lloyd Jones

  Kyle stared at her. Blinked. “Oh. You actually know quite a lot. Then you know how valuable that tablet is, far more than any gold or jewels. Wherever it leads, that’s the real treasure. So the tablet is ours.”

  “But if we don’t get it, our friend dies,” Pan said.

  Veronika Flutes jabbed her stun gun at my sister. “Right now you should be more worried about saving your own lives.”

  Mum sat up, snarling at the woman like a wildcat. “If you aim that gun at my children one more time, I will shove it—”

  Actually I won’t tell you what she said, but it wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. Veronika grinned, although she lowered her aim.

  “This is a business meeting,” Pedro said, “so let us negotiate. Alpha Squad, would you be prepared to reconsider your position on the emerald tablet?”

  “No,” Kyle replied.

  “Could you share it, perhaps? Alternate weeks?”

  “No,” Dad said. “You need us, Pedro. You won’t know how to use the third marker to find the tomb.”

  “And you don’t have that marker,” Mum added. “But we do.”

  They were on fire! Pedro gave me a sly wink that said what I was thinking: your family can be pretty cool.

  For a second I thought Veronika was winking too, but in fact her eyelid was twitching with rage. She raised her stun gun and aimed it right at my face. “You will tell us what you saw on that marker or else I’m going to—”

  I never found out what she would do, because right then Mum shot up. The top of her head smacked into Veronika’s jaw. There was a horrible crack, a spurt of blood, and Veronika collapsed to the temple floor.

  Mum sat back down, her hands still tied behind her back. “I warned her,” she said.

  Kyle roared, a proper wild animal noise. His stun gun clattered to the ground and he pulled his knife from his utility belt. Now Dad jumped up and got in front of Pan and Mum. I braced myself, ready to dive at Kyle’s legs. It was all about to kick off again, when Pedro rushed between us, waving his hat in panic.

  “Whoa there, cowboys! Kyle, Jane did warn Veronika. Your wife pointed a gun at her son’s face.”

  “A stun gun,” Kyle seethed.

  “At his face, Kyle.”

  Pedro crouched and inspected Veronika on the ground. She wasn’t moving, but her shallow breaths suggested she was just unconscious.

  “Kyle?” he said.

  Kyle was at boiling point. His knuckles were white around the handle of his knife as he glared at my dad.

  “Kyle!” Pedro snapped. “Help me take Veronika outside. I suggest we all take a bit of time to think.”

  Kyle’s grip finally relaxed on his weapon. He slid it back into his belt, and helped Pedro carry his wife from the temple. As he left he snarled a final warning.

  “The emerald tablet is ours. You’re not leaving until we have the marker. Not alive, anyway.”

  26

  “Stop wriggling, Jake.”

  “Mum, I’m trying to get free.”

  “Yes, and that’s exactly what it looks like. Pass me that tooth.”

  “What tooth?”

  “By your leg.”

  It was one of Veronika Flute’s teeth, which Mum had knocked from her jaw with her head-butt. Did Mum want it as some sort of memento? With my hands still tied behind my back, I scooped the tooth up and tossed it towards her.

  Mum knocked it against the stone ground, causing it to split, so one of the fragments was razor sharp. She began cutting her cable tie binds.

  We sat back-to-back on the temple floor. Rain sprayed through the entrance, puddling the ground, but the storm had begun to calm. The clouds must have started to clear, because slivers of moonlight beamed through cracks in the walls. Without the thunder, we spoke in whispers, scared we’d be heard by Pedro and Alpha Squad outside.

  “Jake,” Dad said. “Did you really destroy the marker?”

  Here they went! Our lives were at threat, but they couldn’t resist a chance to tell me off.

  “If I hadn’t,” I hissed, “Alpha Squad would have it now.”

  “I wasn’t telling you off, Jake. You did the right thing.”

  “Oh. I did?”

  “As long as you remember the symbol you saw.”

  Oh God. I’d been dreading this moment. I had seen the marker, but Alpha Squad were yelling at me, and I was yelling back, and dazed from the fall from the drone. I wished Pan had seen it; she had a photographic memory. I sometimes struggled to remember my own name.

  I won’t tell you everything that was said over the next twenty minutes, but it mostly involved Mum urging me to think, me insisting that I was thinking, Pan telling me to think harder, and Dad calming everyone down and then suggesting I think again.

  Mum groaned. “You smashed the marker so only you knew the symbol. If you can’t remember the symbol, then it wasn’t a very clever plan, was it?”

  “At least Jake got the marker,” Pan replied.

  “Your father and I were in control of that situation, Pandora.”

  “You knew Alpha Squad were ahead of you?”

  “Yes. Shortly into the climb it became obvious someone else had recently scaled the cliff face.”

  “Then why didn’t you say?” Pan complained. “We’re meant to be a team.”

  “No, we are not!” Mum shot back. “We are your parents. We don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Everyone calm down,” Dad said. “Jake. The marker?”

  I did my best, scrunching my eyes shut and picturing the symbol I’d seen on the plaque. Actually I was surprised at how much detail I was able to tease from my memory. Dad drew what I described into the temple floor using a fragment of the broken marker plaque, scratching out about ten different symbols until I was satisfied that one was right. In the half-light we could just make out the shape – another Aztec pictogram, this time in the shape of a wave.

  “Do you recognize it?” I asked.

  “It looks like the sign for water,” Mum replied.

  “Or flood,” Pan added.

  “Yes, good thinking, Pandora.”

  “But what does it mean?” I asked. “Water? Floods? The whole jungle is flooded every time it rains.”

  “The marker has to point to something permanent,” Pan reminded me. “Something the Aztecs thought would last. A river?”

  “That’s too vague,” Mum said. “Two major rivers flow through this jungle, and hundreds of tributaries. The marker would be more specific.”

  “Wait!”

  I sat up sharply, as if the rain-slicked ground had been zapped with electricity. Mum’s comment had jolted another memory loose in my mind. I hadn’t only seen that flood symbol on the marker.

  “There was something else,” I whispered, remembering that Alpha Squad was probably trying to listen. “Above the flood symbol there was a picture of Quetzalcoatl, like the one from your books, Pan.”

  “That makes sense,” Mum said. “It’s telling us that this marker will lead us to Quetzalcoatl’s tomb.”

  “But what does the marker mean?” I asked. “A river? The lake on this mountain?”

  “None of those,” Dad said.

  While we’d been talking, Dad had cut his wrist ties and scrambled to the side of the chamber, just out of view of our guards outside. Using another fragment of the broken marker, he drew on the wall. It was immediately obvious what he was sketching; the summit plateau and its crater lake, and the temple in which we were being held prisoner.

  “This is the Storm Peak we’re now on,” he whispered.

  He drew the other side of the mountain, another steep cliff beyond the temple. “This is the mountain’s east face,” he added. “We couldn’t climb this side because of the waterfall.”

  Dad looked at Mum and they had one of their “moments” – wide eyes, excited by a discovery.

  “Waterfall,” Pan said, realizing what Dad meant. “That’s what the marker means. It’s telling us to look for the tomb entrance u
nder the waterfall.”

  “No,” Dad disagreed. “I don’t think so, not quite.”

  “Not quite?” I asked.

  Mum turned to me, struggling to keep her voice low in her excitement. “Jake, you’re certain the image of Quetzalcoatl was drawn above the flood symbol?”

  “I… Yes.”

  On his drawing of the mountaintop, Dad scribbled swirling lines inside the crater lake. “This lake is the start of the waterfall,” he said. “The basin sucks rainwater down through a tunnel in the mountain, and sprays it out here, halfway down the cliff face.”

  “So?” Pan said. “Why can’t the tomb entrance be somewhere under the waterfall?”

  “Remember that Aztec pictograms were incredibly literal,” Dad explained. “Wherever possible they showed exactly what they meant.”

  “So?”

  “So, if the image of the god was above the flood symbol, then I don’t think the marker is telling us to look under the waterfall.”

  Dad stared at his drawing and slowly shook his head, as if he could hardly believe what he was about to say.

  “It’s telling us to go over it,” he said.

  27

  “OK, we’re coming out.”

  “No sudden moves,” warned Kyle Flutes.

  “What counts as a sudden move?” I cried.

  “You’ll know if I shoot you,” replied Veronika.

  “No one is shooting anyone,” Pedro insisted. “We’re all friends here.”

  “Shut up, Pedro!” Pan yelled. “No one is friends with anyone here.”

  Mum and Dad led the way, shielding me and Pan as we edged out of the temple and into the glare of Alpha Squad’s torch beams.

  I noticed Pan shaking and wondered if it was because of the cold wind, and the rain that had soaked our jungle suits, or just plain fear. Either way, I didn’t blame her. The plan Mum and Dad had hatched to escape this situation was almost as crazy as one of mine.

  They believed the final marker was telling us to jump over the waterfall that plunged down the side of this mountain. Dad was going to make the jump – that bit of the plan wasn’t up for discussion – but he wasn’t just going to leap off a cliff and hope. He needed two things: a utility belt and one of Alpha Squad’s parachute packs. It was my job to get them.

  I’d agree to tell Alpha Squad what I’d seen on the marker. As we all discussed it, I would deliberately be very annoying, so no one cared when I slipped away. I’d get what Dad needed, cause a distraction to get them to him, and then he would run and make the jump. Alpha Squad would think he’d either escaped or fallen to his death. They’d have no idea he was going after the tomb and the emerald tablet.

  Simple, right?

  We shuffled further from the temple.

  “Good luck, everyone,” Dad whispered.

  “No sudden moves!” Kyle Flutes barked.

  “Seriously, stop saying that,” Pan snapped.

  I shielded my eyes from the torchlight, and glanced around the plateau. The parachute packs were close by, at the side of the temple. Our utility belts, though, were in a heap by Pedro’s helicopter, which he’d landed on the other side of the whirlpool lake. Could I get them without being seen?

  “Everyone, stay calm!” Pedro called. “We’re all friends…”

  “Stop saying that too, Pedro,” Pan yelled. “They’re pointing stun guns at us! I’m better friends with the leech that got my eyeball than we are with Alpha Squad.”

  “Agreed,” Kyle Flutes snarled. “The Atlas Family ain’t exactly on our Christmas card list.” He raised his weapon higher. “Just come out slow and tell us what we need to know.”

  We shuffled further from the temple, and our plan began. Dad agreed that we’d take half of any treasure discovered in the tomb, making it more believable by trying to negotiate for three quarters. I described the marker exactly as I saw it, because Pedro had a gadget pointed at me that could tell if I was lying. Credit to Mum and Dad; they’d anticipated that.

  Pedro brought up the symbol on a portable holosphere and everyone crowded around it, like they were at a campfire. Light from the projections shone off flushed faces.

  Alpha Squad kept their grips on their guns.

  “Looks like a wave,” Kyle said.

  “I believe the symbol is guiding us to a river,” Mum said, lying.

  “Disagree!” I blurted. “It means swimming pool. Are there any swimming pools in the jungle?”

  Everyone stared at me, and then back at the holosphere.

  “Or maybe it means rain?” I continued. “We need to look for any place in the jungle where it’s rained in the past five hundred years.”

  “It’s a rainforest,” Kyle growled. “It rains everywhere.”

  “OK, smarty pants,” I replied. “What about a water slide? Is there one of those around here? A water park?”

  They all looked at me again.

  “Can I shoot him?” Veronika asked.

  “Be my guest,” Mum said, with a smile.

  She actually smiled! At Veronika Flutes! I knew she was faking, but that really stung. I realized then why Mum had given me this job: because no one took me seriously. I was the one with the stupid plans and silly ideas, who no one would notice slipping away…

  Pan pushed me gently away from the discussion. It was her way of reminding me of the plan, and it worked.

  I moved further from the group and around the edge of the crater lake. Just as Mum had predicted, Alpha Squad either didn’t notice me leaving or didn’t care that I had. They were just happy that I was no longer interfering with the effort to decipher the marker.

  I tried to walk casually, fighting the urge to make a sudden run for the utility belts, which would draw their attention. Even so, my heart was going like I was in a flat-out sprint, fearing one of Alpha Squad would spot me at any moment and open fire with stun darts. I made it to Pedro’s helicopter and leaned against it as if I was bored. I checked again that no one was watching, then crouched and grabbed one of the utility belts.

  So far so good. Now for the parachute.

  I set off again, the utility belt clipped around my waist beneath my sodden jungle shirt. I tried to act calm, but this time my legs betrayed me and I walked faster back to the temple.

  Veronika Flutes must have finally noticed I was missing – she glanced around, and her grip tightened on her stun gun as she spotted me.

  I sat on the temple steps. I was five metres from the parachutes, but Veronika was watching me. I reached under my shirt, pretending to scratch my belly as I felt the utility belt for anything I could use as a distraction. I hadn’t paid attention to which belt I grabbed, but knew now that it was Dad’s. It was equipped with a UED – an ultrasonic explosive device. Pan and I had used one of these little bombs to blow up a tomb in Egypt, although we hadn’t meant to. The explosion had helped us escape a trap and save Dad but, even so, Mum had made us swear we’d never touch a UED again. Only Dad carried two on his belt, for emergencies.

  Emergencies like this.

  I slid the device – which was round and flat like a hockey puck – from the belt, and gripped it in my palm. I planned to set it to detonate in five minutes, then get back to the group and somehow warn my family. When the bomb went off, I’d throw Dad the belt and he could grab the parachute as he ran for the edge of the plateau.

  I grinned at Veronika, who was still watching me, hand on stun gun. “You’re not so good with all the brainy stuff either, eh?” I called. “Wanna join me here on the stupid step?”

  Her eyes flashed with rage and her weapon rose, but she turned to rejoin the group.

  As soon as she wasn’t looking I tapped on the UED’s glass screen and set the timer to five minutes. I looked around for somewhere to fix it, but there was only this temple. Mum’s warning rang in my head.

  Jake, whatever happens, do not damage this temple.

  Sorry, Mum.

  I fixed the UED low down on the wall using its fastening clips, and pressed t
he activation button on its side. A five-minute countdown began on its screen.

  Four minutes.

  Three minutes.

  Hang on….

  “Oh, God,” I gasped.

  I’d set it to five seconds!

  I screamed, turned and ran, but didn’t even make two steps before the bomb detonated. The force threw me forward like a rag doll. My neck snapped back and my whole body twisted. I must have blacked out because when I came to I was lying among rubble from the temple. There was smoke and dust in the air, blood on my face. People were shouting, but the ringing in my ears was louder. The blast had caused part of the temple to collapse. Mum and Dad were fighting with Alpha Squad, and Pedro was screaming at them to stop.

  Pan grabbed my arm and helped me stand. Something hit the rubble beside us, and chips of stone flew up. She yanked me to the ground, screaming in my ear.

  “They’re shooting at us!”

  Alpha Squad had switched the settings on their weapons. They were firing bullets!

  “Get into the temple!” Mum yelled.

  Pan and I scrambled up and into the bomb-damaged temple. Mum and Dad bundled in beside us, and we hid behind a half-collapsed wall.

  Mum’s eyes were wild; I’d never seen her look so desperate. “Are either of you hit?” she demanded.

  I didn’t get a chance to reply before Mum grabbed my arms.

  “What were you thinking, Jake?”

  There was no time to explain, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I had screwed up again, and because of that they were now trying to kill us. My ears were still ringing from the blast, but I could hear Pedro hollering at Alpha Squad to stop shooting. Another bullet hit the side of the temple, causing an explosion of stone shrapnel.

  I snatched a look over the ruined temple wall, and spotted Pedro lying on the ground. Blood ran from the side of his head, trickling down into the whirlpool lake. Had Alpha Squad killed him?

  Right then it felt as if the storm had raged its way into in my head. Pedro had betrayed us, but he only wanted to help his country. He wasn’t a bad guy. I grabbed a chunk of stone and hurled it at our attackers. The shot caught Kyle Flutes in the chest, and he fired again.