Adrian D'Hage - The Maya codex

Cardinal Felici replaced Sister Lucia’s letter in its crimson folder and sealed it in the vault, where he was determined it would remain.

T he Galapagos was due to sail in three hours and all but one of the crew had returned from shore leave. O’Connor surveyed the Havana docks from his position beneath the port wing of the bridge. The traffic on Primer Anillo del Puerto, the main road connecting the ports on the south side of the harbour, was heavy. Containers were piled up on the concrete docks serviced by railroad and trucking companies. Beyond them, huge forklifts charged to and from three giant warehouses. The Galapagos was taking on cargo, and O’Connor watched as the crane operator eased a big thirty-tonne container of machinery into position.

Fifteen minutes later the last crew member, one O’Connor had not seen before, reached the bottom of the gangplank. O’Connor wandered over to the rail where the ship’s steward was standing, dragging on a cigarette.

‘New crew member, Alfredo?’

Alfredo shrugged and smiled. ‘ Si. One of the crew – too much fucking, too much to drink. This one’s Sicilian. He’s probably no better, and I’ve got to share a cabin with him.’ Alfredo stubbed his cigarette out on the rail and disappeared through the nearest bulkhead, leaving O’Connor to watch the new arrival negotiate the gangplank.

The Sicilian was thickset and muscled, with black hair and a thick black moustache, his face pockmarked and scarred. O’Connor was immediately on high alert.

‘We’ve got company again,’ he told Aleta as he closed the cabin door behind him.

‘Who? Where?’

‘It may be coincidence, but I don’t think so. One of the crew supposedly had too much to drink and they’ve had to replace him. It’s plausible, but it’s also a classic move in CIA asset substitution.’ O’Connor opened his bag and took out the small compact CIA toolkit he carried, as well as a heavy door-hasp. ‘High-quality hair dye is not the only thing they sell in Hamburg.’

‘What do you need that for?

‘Our new friend, if he’s one of Wiley’s buddies, will pick the lock on this cabin in an instant, but this one will be tougher to crack,’ he said, marking the spots for the heavy-duty bolts. Ten minutes later he shouldered the cabin door from the companionway outside, but it held fast.

O’Connor waited until just before sailing time. He instructed Aleta to remain in the cabin and made his way to the port bridge-wing. The last container was being loaded and two tugs were standing by, one for’ard of the bow and one aft of the stern. The captain was on the starboard bridge wing, barking orders to the deck crew through the tannoy system. The Sicilian had been assigned duty on the for’ard hawser. O’Connor made his way off the bridge, down a series of steep narrow companionways, reaching the crew quarters in less than two minutes. The door to Alfredo’s cabin was unlocked, but the Sicilian had secured his gear in one of two lockers screwed to a bulkhead in the cramped quarters. The brass padlock was child’s play for O’Connor. He chose a diamond-shaped lock pick and a small tension wrench and had it open in an instant.

The Glock pistol, complete with silencer, was in a small worn leather pouch at the bottom of the Sicilian’s kit bag. O’Connor sat on one of the bunks, quickly extracted the magazine, checked the chamber was empty, pulled the slide back, released the lock lever and removed the slide from the Glock. The countless hours of arms training at Camp Peary in Virginia kicked in and seconds later O’Connor had taken out the recoil mechanism and the barrel and put them to one side. He took a small punch from his bag, placed it between the firing pin and the firing pin sleeve and pressed down to take the pressure from the spring, allowing the slide backing plate to be prised free.

Suddenly the deck vibrated as deep in the bowels of the ship the massive drive shaft began to turn. Above decks, the crew had stowed the mooring hawsers and the Sicilian was making his way aft along the companionway that housed a maze of pipes beneath the containers. O’Connor removed the firing pin from the slide mechanism and pocketed it. He quickly replaced the slide backing plate, reassembled the barrel and recoil mechanism, replaced the slide on the pistol, rammed the magazine full of nine-millimetre rounds back into the butt and returned the gun to where he’d found it.

‘What’s the situation?’ Howard Wiley demanded over the secure video that linked Langley with the US Embassy in Avenida Reforma.

‘The asset has confirmed he’s on board, but the satellite images are showing the Galapagos has only just left Havana harbour. I’ll let you know as soon as we have confirmation of success,’ Rodriguez replied evenly.

‘How long before the ship reaches Guatemala?’

‘Six to seven days, depending on the weather.’

‘What?’

‘It’s 2000 nautical miles from Havana to Puerto Quetzal.’

‘They’re not on a tramp steamer, Rodriguez, those things do twenty knots.’

Rodriguez sighed inwardly. ‘Their route will take them west out of Havana and into the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico, where a gale warning is still current, which will prevent them doing more than eight or nine knots. From there they’ll head south to the Panama Canal, and that’s over eighty kilometres long. Depending on traffic, it will take about ten hours to navigate.’

‘Ten hours for eighty kilometres gives them a speed of less than four fucking knots.’

Rodriguez told herself to remain calm. ‘From the Caribbean side, there are three sets of locks at Gatun which will raise them eighty-five feet up to Lake Gatun itself, and at the far end they have to negotiate another set of locks at Pedro Miguel and another two at Miraflores, which will lower them into the Pacific. It’s not a racetrack, sir. And in any case I fail to see what the speed of the ship has to do with the mission.’

‘That’s why you’re in bumblefuck-nowheresville and I’m in Langley, Rodriguez. Has it occurred to you that the mission on board the Galapagos may not succeed?’

‘Based on O’Connor’s performance to date, that’s entirely possible

… sir.’

‘So what arrangements have you made for that eventuality?’

‘With respect, sir, we’ve only just managed to get an asset on board the Galapagos.’

‘What’ve we got in Puerto Quetzal?’ Wiley demanded of his chief of staff. Larry Davis shook his head. ‘Get someone there – now!’ Wiley glared back into the video camera.

‘The speed of the ship determines how much time we have to get another asset in position, Rodriguez.’

‘Might that not be better organised from here, sir – in country?’

‘No!’ With that, the video screen went blank.

Rodriguez leaned back in her chair. ‘ Mierda! ’ she swore, shaking her head.

‘These people don’t give up, do they?’ Aleta observed when O’Connor returned to the cabin.

‘Nope, but then, neither do we.’

Nine hours later, the Galapagos rounded Cape San Antonio, the westernmost tip of Cuba, and headed south into the Caribbean towards Panama. The gale warning was still in force, and the winds tore foaming white spume from the backs of angry, rolling waves, although the ship’s roll had abated. To the west the sun had set over the Mexican coast, and the bars and nightclubs were in full swing in Cancun and Playa del Carmen’s Fifth Avenue, the centre of the Mayan Riviera.

O’Connor wondered when the Sicilian might strike and he put himself in the hitman’s place. He would probably make his move some time after midnight, when the minimum number of crew would be awake and on duty. O’Connor resolved to turn the confrontation on its head, to provide the Sicilian an opportunity to strike, but on O’Connor’s terms. He looked at his watch. It had just gone 10 p.m. He turned to Aleta, who was sitting at the table beneath the porthole, working on her grandfather’s notes and the angles of deflection of the sun’s rays that a third figurine might produce. ‘I may be gone for some time,’ he said, ‘but don’t worry – unlike the British explorer, I will return.’