by Rob Jones
He stared down at her with wide, deranged eyes.
“Say hello to Mictlantecuhtli for me.”
Maria kicked out against him but her legs were lashed down to the sacrificial altar as tightly as her arms. “Fuck you, you mad bastard!”
“Yeah,” Ryan yelled. “Fuck you!”
Wade ignored them as he concentrated on his work. He traced the tip of the volcanic blade along Maria’s stomach and then savagely tore open her top with it.
Mendoza looked at the obsidian blade and then down to Maria’s pounding chest, stripped back to her underwear. He swallowed hard with terror and took a step back away from the altar, but the other cultists held him in place. “You’re not going anywhere, Silvio, you god-damned traitor. You’re next, boy… so pay attention.”
Maria could see the very same fear she felt rising in Ryan’s young eyes as he struggled to comprehend the insanity unfolding around him.
And then Wade began to chant from the text he had stolen from the Codex Borgia. The words were alien to Maria – a strange mantra calling from the world’s deep past – and she shivered with fear as he continued to chant them, moving ever closer with the obsidian blade… summoning Mictlantecuhtli.
She strained against the ropes but it was no good, and her brain flooded with cortisol and made her thoughts irrational and wild. Her eyes bulged with fear as she looked around the temple and saw the same carved walls countless thousands of human sacrifices had seen just before their hearts were cut out of their chests. It was here that this nightmare had happened, she told herself. Right here, on this altar… and the stone font to her right was where they had placed those hearts after holding them aloft to the gods… still beating.
The fear grew inside her and she tried to swallow but her mouth was now completely dry with the terror of what was about to happen. Would she be conscious to witness the whole, terrible thing? Would her last sight be that of Morton Wade holding her own beating heart above her while he recited his insane chanting? She stared up at his crazed face, still a terrifying mess of black and blue paint, greasy with chia oil and flower dyes. She could smell the fear and excitement on him as he flicked her hair away from her face.
“Let me go, you bastard!” she screamed.
“Silence… silence.” His voice was distant, and cold.
“You won’t get away with this!”
His reply made her blood run cold. “Who says I want to get away with it?”
Through the black face paint she saw a smile on his face as he licked his lips and stared at her, unblinking. Gently he drew the obsidian blade up her body toward her heart that was now pounding like a jackhammer inside her chest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Jack Camacho strapped himself into the front of the chopper as Kim Taylor, Scarlet Sloane, and the others piled in the back. Seconds later the pilot lifted the collective and the Venom powered up into the air. Thanks to the possibility of accidentally detonating the cobalt bomb, President Grant had refused to authorize an air-strike on the island, and instead instructed Jack Brooke to order a helicopter assault followed by an incursion on the ground. Despite his strong protests, Jack Brooke himself had been rushed by his Secret Service detail back to his plane and flown to DC as soon as the nature of the threat had been learned. He never even knew Alex was in California.
Now, Camacho smacked the magazine into the housing of his submachine gun and breathed out slowly to calm himself as his eyes drifted over San Francisco’s evening skyline. Market Street was buzzing as usual, and then they were over California Street and Broadway. The peninsula sloped down at Russian Hill to reveal the Marina District and beyond it the famous Palace of Fine Arts Theater and the Presidio. All those people, he thought, shaking his head with disbelief at just how much shit could hit the fan tonight if they failed to retake Alcatraz and stop Wade’s Hummingbird.
But he had no time to dwell on it. At less than two miles from the mainland, they were approaching the notorious prison island before they knew it. If there were any doubts about Wade’s commitment to destroy the city they were wiped out when several of the Sixth Sun cultists opened fire on the Venoms with an RPG. The pilot jerked the chopper hard to the right and Camacho whistled as the grenade shot past them and arced down into the gray water of the bay.
Ahead of them now, Alcatraz Island rose up out of San Francisco Bay. From this distance it looked peaceful enough in the hour or so before sunset. The island was world-famous for its isolation, and although there were some controversial escape claims, the official story was that no one had ever escaped from Alcatraz. The same thing that made it impossible to escape from also made it so difficult to attack.
“What if they just set the damned thing off?” he said, almost to himself.
“Unlikely,” Alex said. “This is a cult, remember. These people are brainwashed to believe anything Wade tells them, and he’s made it clear the bomb is to go off at a precise time – when the sun sets in Mexico.”
“Unlikely?” Lexi said. “That’s just the sort of reassurance I would need if I ever had to storm a prison island full of insane cultists about to set off a nuclear bomb.” She turned to face Alex. “Oh, wait… I do.”
An accompanying Viper covered the two Venoms as they descended over the southern section of the island and the teams prepared to exit and start their assault.
Camacho and the rest of his squad jumped from the choppers. Their boots crunched on the broken asphalt of the old parade ground to the south of the island’s main complex. They sprinted through the rotorwash toward the safety of the cliffs and their rides spun around and headed back to the peninsula, but before they could get away the Sixth Sun blew one of them out of the sky with an RPG. What ten seconds ago had been a fully-functioning US Army Bell Venom was now a gnarled heap of useless metal which streaked out of the sky leaving a grim trail of flames and black smoke in its wake.
The shockwave of the explosion blasted over them but Camacho never flinched. He craned his neck up and saw the targets gathering in strength in front of the Warden’s house, and some had even broken into the lighthouse and were setting up an M2 on the gallery deck.
“It’s nearly six o’clock, Jack!” Kim shouted. “That means nearly sunset in Mexico!”
Camacho nodded grimly. Wade had chosen sunset as the time for his ritual slaughter of the eight million people in the Bay Area. “Exact time?”
Scarlet glanced at her watch and frowned. “Five forty-five, Jackie Boy. We have fifteen minutes to save the world.”
Camacho heard the words and visualized San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area getting nuked. Not on his watch, he thought.
Then Aurora Soto ripped the pin from a grenade and tossed it down the ridge. It exploded yards from Alex Reeve on the left flank to the north of the island. She flew through the air and landed with a heavy smack on the broken tarmac of the parade ground. She cried out as the jagged asphalt dug into her back but knew she had only seconds to get to cover. She rolled over and staggered to her feet, joining Camacho and the rest of the team at the guard block.
The grenade explosion had blasted a massive hole in the dirt wall of the cliff and killed two of the SWAT guys. She reloaded her gun and gave Camacho the signal that she was good to go, but there was that pain again, like a lightning bolt in her legs, and a strange numb feeling a second later.
Not now, damn it! she cried out.
But then it happened. Alex Reeve’s legs gave way and she fell to the floor like a marionette puppet with its strings cut.
“Jesus, no!” Scarlet said, running over to her. “Are you okay, Alex?”
The former SAS woman grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into the cover of the ridge. Bullets and dirt danced around them like fireflies.
“No!” she wailed in agony. “I can’t move my legs.”
“Shit – seriously?”
Alex nodded her head, tears of pain running from her eyes.
Scarlet said nothing, but heaved her up o
ver her shoulder. “Well if you think you’re going to get out of fighting that way you can think again you lazy cow.”
Even with the pain, Alex gave half a smile as Scarlet pounded across the gravel and got the two of them to safety. Empty shell-casings from the GPMGs rained down on their helmets. The short recoil-operated Browning M2s were a good choice by Wade, and now they were spitting .50 BMGs into the dirt and concrete all around them.
“The place is defended like Omaha Beach!” Kim yelled.
“I’ll buy that for a dollar!” Camacho screamed, and loosed a savage volley of fire from his weapon. Cultists tumbled over the edge of the ridge and crashed down behind them, but above their heads, the Sixth Sun members were still crawling all over the top of the ridge, almost playing with them. On the eastern slope of the island Camacho saw one of the SWAT teams had broken through a line of the cult’s defenses in the old residential building.
“This way!” he screamed, and they began to file up to the top past the residential building. The fighting grew less fierce as they gradually overwhelmed the cult and pushed inside the old prison building.
Inside was a vast cavernous space lined with cells stretching up several storeys, but the target destination was obvious. On the next floor of the west wing were the last survivors of the Order, including Aurora Soto, Jorge Mendoza and Juana Diaz. They were guarding the last frontier – a decrepit prison cell which now housed Morton Wade’s Hummingbird, the cobalt bomb capable of hundreds of times more destruction than any bomb ever detonated in history.
“Bastards are on the next floor!” Camacho yelled, reloading a fresh mag and giving more orders through the comms.
“How the hell did they get it up there?” Scarlet asked, gasping with the effort of running while holding Alex. She lowered her to the floor. “Just give me a second.”
“Leave me here…” Alex said.
“Are you kidding?” Camacho said. “This island is crawling with these crazies. You’re coming with us.” He heaved her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift.
“Otis Traction freight elevator,” Kim said. “Saw it when I was a kid.”
“Huh?” Camacho said.
“They got the bomb to the next floor on an elevator.”
“Well, we’re going up the old-fashioned way,” Camacho said.
They moved to the next floor on the south side of the building while the SWAT team fanned out and climbed the northern staircase. A burst of savage fighting saw the two teams cut through the last remaining members of the Order until they could see only Jorge Mendoza and Juana Diaz defending the cobalt bomb.
“Where’s that mad bitch, Soto?” Scarlet asked.
Camacho shrugged his broad shoulders. “Gone AWOL.”
“Give it up, Jorge!” Jackson shouted through a megaphone. “It’s over.”
Jorge grabbed Diaz and pulled her inside the cell with a gun at her head. Now he seemed to be striking the side of the bomb with his gun.
“What’s he doing?” Alex asked.
“I think he’s trying to set the thing off early,” Kim said.
“Not possible,” Camacho said. “I think.”
Scarlet gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve reassured me, thanks.”
Across the other side of the cavernous prison, Jackson raised his submachine gun and fired, but in the chaos he missed. Jorge dived for cover, and dropped his gun as he scrambled under the bunk.
Scarlet watched as Juana Diaz picked up his gun and pulled the slider to push a round in the chamber.
“Put the gun down!” Jackson yelled.
Juana ignored him, and instead pointed the gun at Jorge.
He shielded his panicky eyes with sweaty, greasy hands. The same hands he had beaten her with a thousand times. “No! Espera! Por favor!”
But the girl with the black eye didn’t wait. With a look of pure hatred on her tortured face she fired the gun at Jorge, point blank, brutally unloading the entire magazine into the monster under the bed. When she was finished, all that was left was a smoking gun and the echo of gunfire fading into the evening.
Knowing the gun was now empty Jackson and his men rushed her and a second later she was on the concrete floor of the cell with half a dozen SWAT men on her, pulling her hands into a pair of cuffs and dragging her from the cell.
“All yours,” Jackson said, staring at the monstrous device sitting inside the cell.
Jack Camacho stuffed his gun in his holster and ran a shovel-like hand over the stubble on his head. One yard in front of him was the most dangerous bomb on the planet, and the timer said they had less than ten minutes to live.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Hawke and Lea advanced into the underground Aztec labyrinth, only dimly aware of Reaper and Lexi disappearing into the south side of the maze in their pursuit of Garza. The Mexican gangster was making a spirited attempt to flee the complex, but Hawke had a hunch Lexi and Reaper would put an end to that.
The tunnel ahead of them was longer and steeper than anything they had ever seen before. He marvelled at the length of time it must have taken the Aztecs to carve it all those centuries ago… if it was in fact the Aztecs, he thought with a shudder. Lea was at his side, gun raised and not taking any chances.
“I think they must be through there!” Lea cried. She pointed the barrel of her gun at the familiar green radiance of Wade’s glow sticks as it emanated through a low arch carved in the rock.
When members of the cult burst through the arch and began firing at them, Hawke knew she must be right, and the two of them returned fire with a ferociousness he had rarely seen.
Members of the Sixth Sun fell like bowling pins as they kept up a relentless barrage of fire at the enemy – two highly trained former soldiers against Wade’s ragtag army of cultist loonies and undisciplined gangsters – but still the fight was hard.
Lea loosed another volley of fire, but was mindful now of her diminishing stock of bullets. She struck another member of the cult who had been trying to seek cover behind some kind of crude pillar, and they advanced another few yards toward the enemy lines.
As they moved deeper, Lea noticed what looked almost like crude batteries stacked in the dust. “What the hell are these?” she yelled at Hawke as the flying lead zipped around the chamber.
Hawke finished his magazine and turned to look. “What?”
“Those weird things over there.”
He glanced at them, and ducked his head to dodge another incoming bullet. “How the hell should I know?”
“Just a friggin’ question… Jesus.”
“Sorry, but, as you can see…” he ducked his head again as a bullet ricocheted off the wall beside his head and pinged into the dirt at his boots. “I’m kind of busy right now.”
“They look like they’re as old as everything else around here. I’ll ask Ryan – he’ll know.”
This did the trick, and seconds later Hawke rolled over in the dirt and collided with her on the other side of the tunnel. “Let me see – keep them busy for me while I look, yeah?”
He looked at what Lea had found while she covered him and saw she was right – they seemed as old as the underground complex, but they looked like something much more modern – the ultimate out-of-place artefacts. “No idea,” he said, shaking his head. “Ask Ryan – he’ll know.”
Lea rolled her eyes and smirked. Men. “Then get your arse back up here and help me, would ya? If we want to ask Ryan anything we have to save him first – and Maria!”
“All right,” Hawke said, taking out the last man and leaving the way clear. “Looks like we just progressed to the next level.”
*
At the other end of the underground complex, Lexi Zhang hunted Garza along another winding tunnel. The contempt she felt for men like him was indescribable. He was lower than a worm. He was poison, and she was the cure. To her right was the enormous Frenchman, Vincent Reno.
Despite his advancing age he was still as strong as an ox and barely breaking a sweat
as he pounded along the tunnel beside her. She surprised herself when she realized that she was glad he was with her tonight as she tried to navigate her way through this madness. Spies were one thing but death-worshipping cults were quite another. Not even the Ministry had trained her for this demented lunacy.
“There he goes,” Reaper said, pointing ahead. “I see the green glow. He tries to fly away like the little moustique…mosquito, n’est-ce pas?”
Lexi narrowed her eyes as she focussed on the fleeing Mexican. “Dragonflies eat mosquitoes.”
“I like that,” Reaper said matter-of-factly. “C’est très drole, mon amie.”
She couldn’t speak French, but she knew what mon amie meant, and she liked to hear it. It meant they were accepting her and that made her feel good. What made her feel bad, however, was Zambia. Was there a path that could lead Hawke to what she had done in Zambia? She thought maybe so, and that meant it was time to cover up that particular trail, however…
A gunshot.
They dived for cover behind a bend in the tunnel and returned fire. Garza was well concealed and after a short fire-fight things went quiet. “Bastard’s out of ammo,” Reaper said. “Me too, so just as well…”
“And me,” Lexi said, tossing her gun to the ground. “But I don’t need lead to do my fighting for me.”
They heard Garza’s footsteps shuffling away and gave chase once again, but moments later they turned a corner and saw their quarry in a dead end. He looked scared.
“You just ran out of luck, Garza,” Reaper said.
Garza pulled out a flick-knife and extended the blade. It flashed in the eerie light of the glow stick. “You come near me and I cut your throats.”
“Trapped like a mosquito with broken wings,” the Chinese woman said, advancing on the cornered gangster.
They leaped into action, starting with Lexi’s ruthless delivery of a high-velocity and unexpected slap kick to the Mexican’s lower left jaw. He staggered back, his eyes rolling up as he almost passed out with the trauma of the blow, but then an adrenalin burst must have snapped him back into the moment because he moved forward and slashed the blade at Lexi.