Adrian D'Hage - The Maya codex

‘Wait, we’ve got some breaking news here. The Austrian Bundespolizei and the Bundeskriminalamt are investigating the discovery of the body of a Sicilian national in a garbage truck.’ The Langley technicians switched the camera feed to a live media conference with Gruppeninspektor Hans Boehm. The square-jawed police inspector was standing outside Vienna’s state of the art waste-disposal unit near the Donaukanal. Its distinguishing landmark, a tall space-age silver tower, soared in the background. A large group of journalists were jostling for position.

‘ Die Stelle zu sein scheint, von Antonio Sodano, Sizilianer, der nun Wohnsitz -’

‘Translation!’ Wiley demanded.

‘The body appears to be that of Antonio Sodano, a Sicilian who is now resident in Rome.’ Ellen Rodriguez had not only served three years in Lima before working in the White House, she’d spent three years in Vienna and Berlin.

‘Haben Sie eine Idee von der Ursache der Tod, Inspektor?’

‘Do you have any idea of the cause of death, Inspector?’ Rodriguez translated.

‘It would appear that the deceased has been strangled, but we will not be able to confirm that until after an autopsy.’

‘Where did this take place, Inspector?’ another journalist asked.

‘That’s not clear either, although the truck in which the body was found had just completed its run through the Stephansdom Quarter in the city.’

‘O’Connor!’ Wiley muttered angrily.

‘Is there a motive, Inspector?’

Gruppeninspektor Boehm smiled patiently. ‘We do know that Mr Sodano was wanted in Rome by the Italian Guardia di Finanza for suspected drug-trafficking, so we haven’t ruled out that it might be drug-related.’

‘Fuck!’ Wiley turned to the six officers who made up Operation Maya. ‘Nefertiti represents a clear and present danger to the United States. So far, we have failed spectacularly to carry out what should be a simple elimination operation. It’s also clear that Tutankhamen has gone over to the dark side.’ Wiley turned back to the video feed. ‘Vienna, your asset on board the train has a green light. Deal with them!’

‘Both of them?’ the Vienna chief of station asked, taken aback. He had worked with O’Connor in the field.

‘Both of them!’ Wiley barked. ‘Sodano wasn’t some two-bit punk. He could handle himself. This has got O’Connor’s mark all over it.’

‘Why would someone like O’Connor go over to the dark side?’ Ellen Rodriguez asked. ‘We don’t have any evidence of that yet.’

Wiley turned, his eyes blazing. ‘I make the decisions around here, Rodriguez.’ The other officers looked uncomfortable, but no one else spoke up in O’Connor’s defence.

‘Berlin. I want assets to move at a moment’s notice,’ Wiley ordered, turning back to the video connection, ‘and get some observation on the Wurzburg Hauptbahnhof. I want timetables of every connecting train and bus. If we don’t get them on the train, I want to know where they’re headed.’ Wiley turned to Davis. ‘Get hold of Nefertiti’s movements in the last month. I want her cell phone connections, Blackberry, bank statements, credit cards, home-phone bills – anything that might give us a lead on why she’s in Germany. And,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘tell that bitch Rodriguez if she ever challenges me again, she’ll be serving coffee in the canteen.’

‘Watch your step, Rodriguez. The boss is pretty pissed,’ Davis warned, mopping his brow after Wiley had left.

‘ He’s pretty pissed? Jesus Christ, Larry. Have you thought about what we’re doing here? I’ve worked with O’Connor. He’s not the sort of guy to jump ship. And have you read the Weizman dossier? “Clear and present danger” got way overused in Iraq. Weizman’s an archaeologist, for Christ’s sake! Can someone please explain to me what threat she poses to Capitol Hill?’ Rodriguez glared at Davis, her green eyes flashing angrily. One or two of the younger male officers smirked. Larry Davis was only marginally more popular than Wiley.

‘Just get on with tasking Budapest to recover Sodano’s cell phone,’ Davis said. ‘The rest of you, get cracking on Nefertiti and Tutankhamen’s movements and phone calls. Let’s go!’

‘Asshole,’ Rodriguez muttered as she went back to her desk.

T hree hours into the journey, the train rocked smoothly on a superbly engineered hydraulic suspension. A vista of fields and farmhouses flashed past the windows.

‘My father escaped with just the clothes on his back and two maps,’ Aleta said, taking the first of the maps her father had managed to secrete out of Austria. ‘He always thought this one related to Tikal, but he wasn’t sure.’

O’Connor scanned the huun bark diagram. ‘A triangle in Tikal… That could mean anything.’

Aleta nodded. ‘And this one isn’t the original,’ she said, handing O’Connor the second map. ‘The original was given to my grandfather by some Maya elders and was also drawn on huun bark paper.’

‘Where’s the original now?’

‘When the family was arrested, it was confiscated, but my father made a copy from memory. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember all the figures and it’s very rough. He always thought the shape was similar to Lake Atitlan.’

O’Connor took the map and examined it carefully, a puzzled look on his face.

‘You don’t think so?’ Aleta asked.

‘It may well be Lake Atitlan, although I’ve never been there. The problem is that only one of the three lines on the map has what looks like a compass bearing on it,’ he said, pointing to the lines drawn across the yellow patch, ‘and if it is a bearing, it doesn’t match up with the north point on the map. Unless… unless… of course!’ O’Connor exclaimed. ‘It’s a backbearing!’

‘Backbearing?’

‘It’s an old military technique. We used it before GPS satellites took all the fun out of getting lost in the jungle. If you weren’t sure of your position, you found a high point and took bearings to three points, like the top of a mountain or the mouth of a river, which were marked on the map, and therefore accurately known. By reversing the bearings, you can produce a small triangle where they intersect, and you should be inside the triangle. The smaller the triangle the more accurate the resection. Are there any prominent landmarks around Lake Atitlan?’

‘The volcanoes! There are three of them, the largest of which is Volcan Atitlan.’ Aleta pointed to the southernmost point on the map. ‘Just to the north of Atitlan is Volcan Toliman, and to the east is Volcan San Pedro, which has a small village at its base. They’re all over 9000 feet, so you can see them from anywhere on the lake. Two of them are close together, and so are the lines on this map. They fit perfectly.’

‘Although it’s still not much help. There’s only one accurate backbearing, and the triangle of intersection is pretty big.’

‘‘That’s as best as my father could remember, and there’s not much around where the lines intersect,’ Aleta said. ‘The nearest village aside from San Pedro is San Marcos, where I was brought up, further to the east around this inlet. It’s mainly coffee and corn plantations. The people grow their own vegetables, chilli verde, tomatoes, onions, avocadoes, cucumbers, strawberries, pitahaya fruit… Life was simple until the death squads came.’

O’Connor nodded sympathetically. ‘So what would be here?’ he asked, pointing again to the triangle.

‘A big rocky volcanic outcrop that drops into the lake. The whole area is volcanic. Without the other two bearings, it would be needle in a haystack stuff.’

‘Are the volcanoes still active?’