The Mayan Codex

by Mario Reading

  The smaller woman nodded. ‘It’s them.’

  ‘They don’t look like much. I say we kill them now and have done with it. We’ve got most of what we need already.’

  ‘Do you want to wake up the whole camp?’

  ‘I could slit their throats with my scalpel. No one would hear that. The foot drumming would be lost amidst all the snoring.’

  Sabir was still dry-retching after his major evacuation of two minutes before. He pinched his nose between two of his fingers and snorted the final remnants of his stomach contents on to the ground. Then he looked up and shook his head fatalistically. ‘Are you two who I think you are? No. Don’t answer that.’ He reached inside his pocket. ‘How the heck did you find us again?’

  ‘Keep your hands out where we can see them.’

  ‘I only want my handkerchief.’

  ‘A bit of vomit never hurt anybody.’

  Sabir took his handkerchief out anyway. ‘Then shoot, why don’t you?’ A part of him didn’t care any more whether they killed him or not. He walked over to the water bucket he and Lamia had shared and began to rinse his face. Aldinach accompanied him, her pistol held casually at hip level.

  Sabir’s oddball mixture of acute oversensitivity and irrational bravado never ceased to amaze Calque. Sensing that the tall woman was getting ready to pistolwhip his friend, Calque raised his voice in an effort to deflect her attention. ‘They are who you think they are, Sabir. I’ve seen them before. At the Countess’s house. The smaller one is Athame. The taller one is …’ He hesitated, praying he’d got his timing right.

  Aldinach stopped what she was about to do and turned towards Calque. ‘Aldinach. I am Aldinach. The hermaphrodite. You remember? Half man, half woman. But today I am only a woman.’ Aldinach did a sarcastic little pirouette to show off her figure.

  ‘Where is Lamia? Have you taken her?’

  ‘Ah. Our elusive elder sister. Do you know where she is, Athame?’

  ‘She bolted. I think at the end, that she suspected my presence in the touj. I had only a split second to decide on my priorities. So I chose these two.’

  ‘Good choice.’

  ‘You were inside the touj? That’s impossible.’ Sabir sank to his knees beside the bucket. He could still feel the cramping effects of the datura at work on his stomach. ‘We would have heard you.’

  ‘All of you were as high as kites in there. You were busy screaming that your eyes were being torn out, and the other idiots were chanting like a bunch of Hare Krishnas. None of you would have heard a siren in a snowstorm. Later on, after you all left, I even crept to the entrance and listened to your absurd post-mortem discussion.’

  Sabir doubled up with another intestinal cramp.

  ‘Interesting about the identity of the Second Coming. I think a visit to Samois – for that’s where my brother Rocha told us your Yola Samana lives – will soon be in order. Shame you didn’t follow through with information about the Third Antichrist. It’ll make things harder for you. My brother Abi is still very unhappy about Rocha’s death. When he finds that you’ve been holding out on us …’ Athame stopped. ‘What do you think, Aldinach?’

  ‘I think both you boys will be gratified to know that we’ve reached a consensus. We’ve decided not to kill you for the time being.’ Aldinach waved her pistol at the two men. ‘Avanti. And don’t make a sound going through the camp. If you wake anybody up, we’ll kill them.’

  97

  Abi watched the four figures approach with a half-smile on his face.

  Everything had gone far more smoothly than he had expected. Vau, Rudra, and Alastor had secured the codex and the thirteenth crystal skull with no difficulty whatsoever. The priests, and the three Maya who the Halach Uinic had clearly detailed for guard duty, had all been fast asleep, with the two objects wrapped in calico situated plumb in the centre of their sleepover. Like presents left by Father Christmas.

  Now both Sabir and Calque, looking very much the worse for wear, were shambling towards him, flanked by Athame and Aldinach.

  Abi chucked his chin at Aldinach. ‘Where’s Lamia? You didn’t kill her, did you?’

  Athame approached him and began to whisper in his ear. Abi hunched down, nodding.

  ‘Right. I want you and Aldinach to take the fastest car we have. There’s only one possible direction she can have gone in, and that’s back towards the Cancun toll road. If she’s got any sense at all she’ll be heading out of the country. Fast. If you push it, you should be able to pick up her transponder signal after maybe fifteen or twenty miles. This whole country is as flat as a damned graveyard.’

  ‘But I thought you wanted me to question Sabir?’ Aldinach looked crestfallen, like a child who has unexpectedly been deprived of her fair share of the birthday cake.

  ‘We can manage all that. You and Athame are by far the best shadowers amongst us. I want you to follow Lamia wherever she is going. If she leaves the country, go with her. If you lose her, go straight to the Gypsy camp at Samois. My guess is that you’ll encounter her again there. There’s something more to this than meets the eye. But first things first. Calque and Sabir are going to come on a little trip with us. Put them both in the trunk of the Hyundai.’

  ‘So you did have a tracker in our car?’ Calque muscled his way a little nearer to Abi. By temperament he was unwilling to engage any further than was strictly necessary with those he thought of as the enemy, but, this time at least, his curiosity had got the better of him. ‘Where did you put it? We turned that vehicle inside out. I’m willing to guarantee that there was nothing concealed inside it.’

  ‘My brother Vau here is an electronic genius. You hear that Vau? I’m giving you a compliment.’ He turned to Calque. ‘He stuck it underneath the chassis.’

  ‘Underneath the chassis?’ Calque looked crestfallen. ‘But that’s the best way to ensure it gets knocked off over the first speed bump. Or in heavy rain. Or going through a field. We travelled thousands of miles in that vehicle. You people just struck lucky, that’s all.’

  Abi laughed. ‘I said Vau was an electronic genius. I never said he was smart.’

  Still shaking his head, Calque allowed himself to be manhandled into the narrow trunk. Sabir was unceremoniously tipped in beside him.

  ‘What? No conniptions, Mr Sabir? Rocha told my mother that you were terminally claustrophobic. That he’d seen you locked inside a wood box at the camp in Samois, and that you were half raving when they took you out of it. I understand that a similar event occurred around the time you murdered him. In a cesspit, wasn’t it?’ Abi’s words were lightly inflected, but his eyes were dead.

  ‘I’m not claustrophobic any more. Something happened in the touj. You can lock me in here as long as you want. I won’t care.’ Sabir put as much conviction as he could into the words. The truth was that he was scared witless they’d lock him up in an even tighter space than before. Give him the water treatment, maybe.

  ‘Oh, never fear. We’ll think of something else for you. We have time to spare for all of that.’ Abi slammed down the Hyundai lid.

  98

  Abi stepped out of the Hyundai sixty metres short of the warehouse. He programmed Oni’s number into his cell phone. Then he raised both hands above his head. The dawn was well up now, and visibility was improving by the minute. After ten seconds he cut the connection with a movement of his thumb.

  He knew all about Oni’s itchy trigger finger. And he also knew that two heavy-duty machine guns – the Stoner M63 and the notoriously unreliable AAT – were covering the approach road. He didn’t want Oni and Berith to think the Mexican owners of the arms dump had returned early from their border run, and commence firing. And neither did he want to walk into a trap.

  The cell phone cheeped. Abi put it to his ear. ‘Can you see us?’

  ‘I’ve got you.’

  ‘Any trouble?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘We’ll come in then.’

  ‘Yeah. Come on in. You’re a tempting target out t
here. I nearly let loose on you just for the hell of it.’

  Abi got back in the car and signalled to Alastor behind him. The convoy moved forwards. ‘We’ll go straight to the warehouse and get this over and done with. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to.’

  ‘You think the Mexicans are on their way back?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  Abi backed the Hyundai up to the warehouse and got out. He slung the rucksack containing the codex and the crystal skull over his shoulder. ‘Get the two of them out of the trunk. Be as rough as you like. They’re both for the cenote, whatever happens. Doesn’t matter what shape they’re in. Nobody will ever find them. I doubt the guys that own this place are sub-aqua enthusiasts.’

  Rudra and Asson manhandled Sabir and Calque out of the trunk of the car.

  ‘Vau. You and Alastor take over from Oni and Berith at the machine guns. They’ll be jaded and resentful by now. I’ll let them loose on our prisoners in compensation. Give them a little entertainment to take their minds off things.’

  ‘Okay. But do you really think we might have trouble?’

  ‘Unlikely for another few hours. Unless they’ve got access to a helicopter, that is. The guys that own this joint might not even have called in yet. Why should they? Who in their right minds would attack an arsenal? But at some point they will. And then they’re going to be very, very angry. Nobody likes cuckoos in their nest.’

  Abi joined the others inside the warehouse. He dumped the rucksack unceremoniously onto a nearby counter, as if its contents meant nothing to him at all. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have Lamia – that could have been really amusing. I love a quorum. We’d soon have found out whether Mr Sabir is the gentleman he likes to think he is.’ He stood for a while, weighing up his two prisoners. ‘String the policeman up first. Strappado style. Arms stretched behind his back. I don’t care if you dislocate the hell out of him. We’ll see if Mr Sabir enjoys watching his friends whimpering in pain.’

  Oni was beckoning to him from the corner of the warehouse. ‘Abi, have you got a minute?’

  ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘Seriously. I think you ought to come over here and take a look at this.’ Oni was pointing to a trapdoor, now only partially covered by some of the packing cases they’d plundered earlier. ‘I noticed this an hour or so ago when I came in for coffee. Didn’t have time to check it out then, because there were only the two of us here. Don’t you think we ought to take a look? Might be something of interest down there.’

  Abi glanced over at Calque. Rudra had just finished roping him to one of the packing hoists. Sabir was seated between Calque’s legs – his arms were tied behind his back at the wrist and the bicep.

  Asson grinned when he saw the direction of Abi’s gaze. ‘This way the policeman can piss on Sabir’s head when the pain gets too bad.’

  ‘Hold off a moment. I want to check what’s beneath this trapdoor first. You can boil me a kettle while you’re waiting. And scissor off the policeman’s shirt. We haven’t got time for any finesse. We’ll see if Mr Sabir likes eating parboiled copper.’

  Oni pushed the packing cases aside. He wrenched at the trapdoor. It groaned a little, but didn’t give. ‘Hand me the Mini-Uzi. Now stand away, all of you, unless you want your teeth blown out.’

  Abi clapped his hands over his ears. He had an inordinate fear of losing his hearing.

  Oni let rip with the Uzi. Chunks of wood and metal shavings sprayed off the trapdoor. Oni tentatively kicked at it with the heel of his shoe. ‘Once more.’ This time the 9mm Parabellum slugs knocked a hole the size of a man’s head in the woodwork. ‘Okay. We’re through.’

  Abi let his hands flutter down from his face. He watched as Oni manhandled what remained of the trapdoor onto the warehouse floor. ‘Go on down. I’ll follow you.’ He stepped brusquely across to the workbench and helped himself to a Maglite.

  ‘Jesus and Mary!’

  Abi hurried after Oni. ‘What is it? What have you found?’

  ‘Come down here and take a look at this.’ Oni had located a light switch. The whole of the newly-revealed cellar area was now bathed in strip-lighting.

  Abi ducked down the trapdoor staircase. He straightened up and then tossed the unused Maglite onto a nearby table. ‘Holy shit.’

  Thirty industrial-sized vats took up a full third of the available cellar space. Another third was taken up by a forty-foot long by ten-foot wide pile of shrink-wrapped plastic bricks – some were packed in shiny green polythene, some in white, some in blue. The remaining third of the floor-space was taken up by an armour-plated Hummer H1 Alpha and a massive display case containing a series of gold-plated sub-machine guns, diamond-and emerald-encrusted pistols, and about a thousand platinum-jacketed slugs. Some of the pistols had images of the Virgin Mary tooled into their grips, while others had fake Versace logos.

  ‘This is no arms dump, Abi. This is a crystal meth factory.’ Oni was crouched down over one of the polythene-covered bricks – he had his knife out and was tasting the powder. ‘This is first-grade pure ice.’ He shivered as if someone had just walked over his grave. ‘Must be a ton and a half of the stuff here. Worth maybe five million dollars out on the streets.’ He stood up. ‘The narco-bling is probably worth an extra half mill on top. And how the hell did they get that Hummer down here? Must have a jump switch linking this place to the surface. Must have.’ He began checking around, like a child searching for Easter eggs. ‘Yeah. Here. Look.’ He hit the switch. A section of the roof began to fan open – a separate, driveable section unravelled itself like the outstretched palm of a hand and came to rest with its rubber shock absorbers onto the concrete surface of the floor. Daylight streamed in from outside. ‘Now that’s cool. That’s really cool.’ Oni was caressing the built-in servo-control mechanism as if it were a woman. ‘This is better than a thousand-dollar whore, Abi. We can truck this stuff out in the Hummer and stash it wherever we want. We’ve hit pay dirt at last.’

  Abi shook his head. ‘No we haven’t. The watchman you killed lied to us. The bastard must have known all about this. His bosses weren’t ever up at the border on any fucking arms deal – they were preparing for a major methamphetamine shipment. Look at this.’ He pointed to a gold plaque screwed into the wall – the mountings were decorated with diamonds. ‘Listen to what it says. “It is better to die fighting head on, than on your knees and humiliated; it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. We don’t kill for money. We don’t kill women. We don’t kill children. We don’t kill innocent people, only those that deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.” Look. They’ve even made up their own personalized copy of the Bible, with extra pages tipped in – and I don’t like the look of the leather it’s bound in.’

  ‘What? You don’t think it’s made of human skin?’

  ‘It could be pig, but I’m not betting on it. The bastards who made it are probably waking up just about now after a night out on the tiles in Cancun. One failed call to our friend Pepito and they’ll be over here like a pack of ravening wolves. We get out of here, Oni. And we get out now.’

  ‘What? And leave all this?’

  ‘You can take a brick for your own personal use. How about that? But the rest stays put. What do you want to do? Rot your teeth out?’

  99

  The heavy machine guns opened up just as Abi reached the top of the stairs. He shook his head in mute acknowledgment of the instantly transformed status quo.

  Asson straightened up from his perusal of the packing hoist’s block-and-tackle system. He had Calque’s arms stretched out behind him, and had already begun winching him partway up.

  ‘Leave the bastard hanging, Asson. We’ve got trouble. There’s enough crystal meth down those stairs to launch a spaceship. Berith. Rudra. Oni. You three go with Asson and arm yourselves. Dakini. Nawal. This is going to get very messy indeed. If you want to light out, then light out now. Crawl through the agave if you have to. Go straight to the airpor
t any which way you can. Take the codex and the skull with you. Don’t wait for us and don’t look back. Nobody will think the worse of you for it. We’ll stay in touch by cell phone.’

  ‘We’ll stay and fight with you. You’ll need the extra guns.’

  Abi stared at his sisters. Then he nodded. ‘Okay then. We’ll sort out the rest of this shit later. You’ll all need grenades and sub-machine guns and pump-action shotguns. Pistols won’t come into this. If they get that close to us we’re dead anyway. When we leave the building we charge straight at them, giving them everything we’ve got. Vau and Alastor will cover us with the heavy machine guns. If we get into a siege situation, we’re done for. They can call up reinforcements anytime they want and swamp us. So we have to sort them now. Before they know how few people they’re really facing.’

  100

  As soon as the Corpus made their sortie from the warehouse, Sabir crawled directly underneath Calque so that the Frenchman could rest his feet on his shoulders.

  ‘Christ Jesus! I couldn’t have held that position much longer. My shoulders were about to dislocate.’

  ‘Well you’re going to have to hold it again. I intend to go and get you that chair. Then we’re going to have to cut ourselves free. I have a funny feeling that any minute now this place is going to be riddled with incoming fire.’

  ‘You’re not going to leave me hanging here again, Sabir?’

  ‘I’ve got no choice if we want to get out of here. Now tense your muscles. Keep your arms in as close to your back as possible. If you loosen them your shoulders are going to pop out of their sockets like a stick puppet.’

  ‘Oh putain!’

  Sabir eased himself away from Calque. He needed to get up on his feet. He rocked onto his knees and then surged forwards, like a sprinter at the start of a race. At the third stride he missed his footing and fell headlong. He was unable to protect himself because his hands and arms were securely tied. At the very the last moment he twisted his head to the right, so that only his cheek and ear slammed into the concrete. It still felt as though he had been blindsided by a steam iron.