Costas heaved himself back beside Jack, his rebreather clunking against the ceiling and his body grinding through the gravel. “Something’s not right,” he said. “We were being pulled down by a current, and that’s got to go somewhere. And this gravel pile curves down at the sides, shaped by water movement. There has to be an outlet.”
He pushed himself down the right side of the gravel pile, into a narrow channel at the bottom, and pulled himself ahead until only his fins were showing. Jack closed his eyes, then opened them again, concentrating on little things, like the shape of a fossil in the limestone a few inches from his face. He looked down again to where Costas had disappeared. He could see that the crevasse was free of silt. Swept clear by the current. Costas was right.
“Jack. Follow me.” He did as Costas instructed, digging his hands into the gravel and heaving himself down the side of the tunnel. He felt the flow of water, saw light ahead. “It goes up,” Costas said excitedly. Jack followed slowly, squeezing through a boulder choke. There was hardly any room to move, and he was reduced to wriggling, his rebreather pack clanging against the stone walls. The tunnel beyond was narrower still, like a drainage pipe, smooth and rounded where the current had worn it down but only about three feet in diameter. Jack had never been in a space so narrow. It was beyond claustrophobic. There was no way they could go back, with the current pressing against them, and any blockage in the tunnel now would seal their fate. Costas’ fins were a few feet ahead of him. Jack checked his depth gauge, remained focussed. He stared at the rock inches from his face, then at his depth gauge. Forty-one metres. Thirty-seven metres. They were ascending, slowly but surely. Then the tunnel took a sharp turn upwards and they were in a chamber, a vast space filled with shadowy forms, great columns that towered upwards like white-robed giants, beckoning them up from the underworld. Far above, Jack could see a shimmer of green, distinct from the white beams of their headlights. He closed his eyes again, a wave of relief coursing through him, his heart pounding not with fear but with exhilaration. He rose beside Costas through the chamber, the water so clear that they seemed suspended in midair like figures from some scene of apotheosis. Then they were at the top of the cavern, only ten metres beneath the surface of the water, butting up against a crack in the rock where they could see the light of dawn shining through.
It was not over yet. The crack was a narrow squeeze, barely wide enough for one of them. There was no other exit from the chamber.
“Why does this always seem to happen when I dive with you?” Costas said. “Next time let’s do some open-water diving for a change.”
“If there is a next time.” Jack looked into the black chasm yawning below, then back up into the crack. He could see foliage, the wavering forms of trees overhanging the surface of the water. His heart was still pounding, but no longer with excitement. This was a ridiculous place to die.
“We’ll have to swim for it.” Costas said. “You go first.”
“No way. You’ll have the tighter squeeze, and I can help push you through.”
Costas unstrapped his rebreather and dangled it down beside him. He pulled himself as far as he could into the fissure, about two metres above Jack, then ripped off his helmet and dropped the rig. It went plummeting past Jack, disappearing into the darkness below. Jack pulled himself behind Costas and pushed up against his legs. Nothing happened. Suddenly he felt helpless, appalled that he might watch his friend die only a few metres from the surface, holding his legs. Then Costas kicked hard and erupted upwards. Jack paused to regain his breath, unbuckled his harness and dangled it beside him, took five deep breaths and then ripped off his helmet and dropped the rig. He heaved himself up through the rock, his eyes open to the blurry haze of daylight through the water, and pulled himself through. Another kick of his fins and he surfaced in a slurry of green algae, in a small pool sheltered by fronds of undergrowth.
Costas was panting on the edge of the pool, looking like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He wiped the slime off his face, submerged his head and shook it violently, then reared up out of the water and offered Jack a hand. “You might want to do the same. Don’t want to terrify the natives.”
After Jack was out and shaking himself off, Costas reached into the top of his wetsuit and extracted a slim metallic device, about the size of a pocket calculator. He tapped the front and pulled out an aerial, bringing the device to his ear.
“Sometimes you’re a surprising bag of tricks,” Jack panted.
“Combined GPS beacon and two-way radio,” Costas said. “All I need to do now is activate the mayday button and Ben’ll have us pinpointed. I can try to establish a radio link and talk to him when we know what the situation is.”
They had surfaced beside a rough jungle track. It was still raining, alternately drizzling and pouring. Costas activated the compass on his device and quickly took a bearing. Ten minutes later they crept up the limestone dome that covered the cenote and approached the overgrown temple. The jeep that had brought them was at the end of the track. Jack saw a boy, a local Maya, playing on the road, but he had not spotted them. They stealthily rounded the building and each took one side of the entrance, their backs flat to the wall, listening. They could hear nothing. Jack could taste the salt of his sweat joining the water on his face. He looked at Costas, nodded. They sidled into the chamber, keeping to the shadows, straining their eyes into the candlelit gloom. There was no sign of Maria or Loki. The only occupant was a man sitting with his back to them on a diving tank, cleaning a pistol. Jack gestured to Costas and returned to the entrance, vigilant. Costas crept up behind Reksnys and put his arm round his throat, clamping his mouth. The pistol dropped with a clatter. Costas drew the man close and spoke with a snarl.
“Now. Where were we?”
20
Twenty minutes later the noise of rain was drowned out by the shuddering roar of the Lynx as it came to a hover overhead, sweeping the jungle floor with its downdraught. Two men were winched down through the dense foliage, followed by a red first-aid crate. Once they were safely on the ground, the Lynx tipped forward and disappeared back into the cloud. Jack ran over from where he had been sheltering to pull the box from the undergrowth and then scrambled over to help Ben.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” Ben shouted above the downpour, holstering the pistol he had been holding at the ready. “When Costas radioed in the GPS co-ordinates we were only about three miles from you, flying a search pattern just off the coast. The cover story was an aerial survey for archaeological remains offshore. Jeremy came along as the only archaeologist on board. And because he insisted. You don’t want to fly uninvited into Mexican airspace bristling with weapons, especially at night, so it’s only me and my Glock. But now we’ve found you, the Lynx has gone back for a full security team and we’ve contacted the local police.”
“Loki’s gone,” Jack shouted. “Ordered by his father to follow us down into the cavern. Taken Maria with him. Didn’t trust us. But Reksnys is all yours.”
“I’ll need to do a perimeter sweep, priority. Jeremy’ll have to do prisoner detail.”
Jeremy pushed his way through the undergrowth from where he had landed, his glasses steamed up and kicking off a mass of vines. Jack led them through the tangle and out on to the rough track, then straight into the temple. At the entrance they shook off water and Jeremy wiped his glasses. Inside, Costas stood with the Luger aimed at a form lying gagged and face-down on the ground, his wrists and mouth roughly duct-taped. Jeremy bounded past them to the wall-painting and peered closely at the image of the menorah, now revealed, and at the battle scene. “Vikings,” he enthused, his glasses steaming up again. “You were right. Fantastic. And look. I’m sure that one’s a woman.”
“Time for that later.” Jack nodded to Costas, who gave him the Luger while Ben knelt over Reksnys and re-fastened his wrists with a plastic tie. “Costas needs to help operate the winch, Jeremy.” Jack passed him the pistol. “Can you handle this?”
“S
ix months in the ROTC at Stanford,” Jeremy said, taking off his glasses again. “A misplaced sense of duty after 9/11. Not really my kind of thing.”
Jack nodded. “Remember who this guy is. Remember what they did to O’Connor and Maria.”
“My grandfather brought one of these back from the war.” Jeremy replaced his glasses and took the Luger, pulling back the breech toggle to check the chamber and then releasing it. He knelt down and shoved the Luger into the small of Reksnys’ back, pulling his head up roughly and leaning behind his ear. “My friend Costas tells me you threatened Maria with this. A long, lingering death.” He pulled Reksnys to his feet and pushed him towards the door, disappearing with him into the rain.
Ben looked at Jack. “I don’t think we’ve got much to worry about there.”
“Okay. I’m going down to get Maria,” Jack said.
“Not alone.”
“No choice. There’s no way we can retrieve the rebreathers now. Reksnys had two scuba rigs here as backup, and Loki’s taken one. It looks like he used the octopus regulator for Maria, allowing her to breathe off the same tank. The rig we’ve been left with doesn’t have an octopus, and anyway the tank doesn’t have enough air in it for us to buddy-breathe to the chamber and back.”
“I could contact the Lynx and have gear airlifted in from the ship.”
“No time. We’ve pushed our luck as it is.” Jack heaved the air cylinder on to his back and clipped together the stabiliser jacket on his chest. “Loki’s already going to be in a rage. He would have been better off staying up here, and he knows it. The guy’s an independent. His father’s an evil bully but an amateur by comparison. Loki’s caught between blindly obeying all the nonsense about the felag and his better instincts. He’s been forced to a place where he’s not in control the way he likes. It’s our chance. But it also means he’s going to be volatile. And I need to act now. I don’t want him to come back into the chamber below us and work out what’s happened. Maria wouldn’t last a second. If she’s still alive.”
“You haven’t got a weapon.”
“I’ll improvise.”
“Torch?”
“Costas and I left chemical lightsticks to mark the route.”
“Good luck.”
Jack grunted as Ben looped the rope under his arms. Costas checked his air and weight belt and then gripped Jack by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eyes. “Battle-luck,” he said.
“Battle-luck.” Jack pulled down his mask, sat on the edge of the hole and then swung himself out over the dark pool far below. Costas and Ben immediately began winching him down. Jack was focussed, his whole being intent on his objective. He hit the water with his regulator in his mouth and immediately began swimming underwater towards the tunnel, following the trail of lightsticks they had dropped just over an hour before. The tunnel seemed less oppressive now, and as he looked ahead he saw the extraordinary luminosity of the calcite walls where they were lit up by the lightsticks, fantastic formations of stalagmites and stalagtites that loomed out of either side like abstract ice sculptures.
Ten minutes after entering the water he saw the pool of light ahead that marked the final chamber. The light was different, more intense than the chemical illumination. He reached the edge of the chamber, the bubbles from his exhaust cascading along the ceiling above him, and cautiously surfaced in a small side chamber just high enough for his head to be out of the water. In the centre of the cavern he could see the bizarre calcium formations of the islet, about twenty metres in front of him. The light was coming from the opposite side of the islet and shone in a wide beam against the ceiling.
The bubbles from his regulator would be a giveaway. For a moment he cursed their decision to ditch the rebreathers in the underwater river. He would have to swim on the surface, hoping not to be spotted.
He took off his mask and clipped it to his jacket, then looked around for something to darken his face, something to absorb the glare if a torch was shone at him. He reached out gingerly and rubbed a flat surface just in front of him. He sniffed his hand, and crinkled his nose. Potassium nitrate. Bat droppings. He took another swipe off the rock and rubbed it all over his face, careful not to make a noise.
He inflated his stabiliser jacket, blowing air into the mouthpiece to avoid the noise of the low-pressure feed from his regulator, then pushed himself off and began to swim slowly towards the outcrop.
When he reached the midway point, he could feel the tug of the underwater river, far stronger now than it had been when he and Costas had decided to follow it. A light swung round and caught his face. He froze. It swung back again, and he resumed swimming. If he was discovered now, he would have no chance. He assumed Loki was armed. Everything depended on surprise.
As he reached the edge of the islet, he heard a voice on the other side, magnified and distorted in the chamber, but unmistakably male. A snarling, menacing tone. Jack slipped off his tank and fins and sidled along to a place he remembered from his earlier dive, where he and Costas had seen the first extraordinary clue. He reached down into the shallows. It came away easily, unencumbered by accretion, as well preserved in the fresh water as the one he had found in the ice. Then he rose from the water, dripping and black in his wetsuit, and pulled the object up with him.
A Varangian battle-axe.
Jack made his way swiftly up the knobbled contours of accretion, thankful he was wearing neoprene boots that gripped the surface well. He passed over the fossilised Viking shield wall, the arching shape of the ship’s stem, the haunting form of the fallen warrior. From the top he looked down on the other side of the islet. Loki was there, no more than ten metres away. He was standing with his back to Jack, straddling Maria, who was lying on her back staring defiantly up. Loki was holding a pistol in his left hand, a Browning Hi-Power. In the other hand he held a blade against Maria’s heart, a sword. It was the Varangian sword Jack and Costas had seen in the water beside the axe.
Jack felt a chill of horror. History had never really stopped in this place. He was witnessing something ingrained in the stone of the Yucatan, impossible to exorcise. A human sacrifice.
With lightning speed Jack swept down on Loki, swinging the axe hard, severing the man’s left arm in one mighty swipe. The pistol flew into the water still grasped in the hand, spinning and disappearing into the blackness. Loki staggered, shocked, then spun round to face Jack, his face a contortion of surprise and rage. The stump was gushing blood. He dropped the sword, staggered, lifted his remaining arm to the scar on his face, then staggered back again, picking up the sword. Suddenly he exploded into action, lunging at Jack in a terrifying blur of speed and flashing metal. Jack was nearly caught off guard, raising the axe only just in time. Steel impacted against steel, clashing, grinding, ringing, a sound not heard here for almost a thousand years. Jack’s body quivered as he parried the blows, but he stood his ground. It was only a matter of time before his opponent would falter. Loki was already too weak to stop his body from following through the swing of the sword, lurching, swivelling as he struggled to regain his balance. He stood back again, in a frenzy of pain, snivelling and panting, goading Jack with the point of the sword, staggering back farther towards the edge of the water.
Loki’s rage had cast the shadow of his own downfall. He could have remained on the surface with his father, let his mind rule, retained his lethal efficiency.
Jack weighed the haft in his hands, just as he had done once before, when another long-handled, single-bitted axe had saved their lives in the iceberg.
Battle-luck.
He reared up and took two strides forward. As he swung the axe he thought he saw runes flashing in front of him, runes where Halfdan’s name had been on the other axe, runes that began with the same Norse letter.
The battle-axe of a mighty king. Thunderbolt of the North.
The axe came slicing through the air and struck Loki on the side of the head, then spun off from Jack’s hands and cartwheeled into the water above the undergro
und river. Loki’s head jerked back and then sprang forward, like a marionette. For a horrifying moment he seemed uninjured. Then the scar on his face parted, split wide open through his eye socket. Jack could see jawbones and teeth, grimacing horribly like the sculpted skulls at Chichen Itza. Then there was blood, thick, oozing drops that splattered on to the rock below.
Loki took one step forward, then slipped on the blood, falling heavily into the water with a crash, taking the sword with him. For a moment he was suspended in mid-water, one eye staring blindly towards Jack, still alive, clawing weakly for the surface. Then he dropped deeper and the current took him, dragging him down into the darkness, out of sight, sucked into the underworld.
Loki was gone.
Jack slid down beside Maria and they lay by the edge of the pool. He was shaking with adrenaline aftershock. She clung fiercely to him. The commotion in the water died away, and the only sound was dripping rainwater percolating through from above, the sound magnified in the cavern but soothingly rhythmic after the echoing clash of steel. As Jack’s shaking subsided, Maria stared into the crystalline water inches from her face. She reached in and pulled something out, a smooth chip of rock free of accretion. They could see marks on its surface, scratches. They both sat up. “It’s a runestone,” Maria whispered.
“Can you read it?”
“It’s crude, rushed,” Maria murmured. “Like the last entry in the diary of a doomed expedition.”
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