David Gilman - Blood Sun

“Like a computer,” Max said, remembering Sayid’s words.

“Yes. But if someone keys the wrong letters into a computer, then it will not make any sense. So these knots might be the same. Who knows what might have urged Danny to make up this message.”

“Dr. Miller. Please. Don’t you see? He was responding to my call for help for any information about my mum. He wouldn’t go to all this trouble if it wasn’t really important. I think Danny was killed because of something he witnessed or because of information he was given. But that bit of knotted string must have more information on it. He was there. Right there. Where Mum died.”

Max had raised his voice. He quieted, seeing the look of concern on the old man’s face. He lowered his voice. “I’m convinced Danny died trying to get this to me. I’ve already been attacked. Is there anything, anything else at all?”

Dr. Miller fingered the knots like Sayid fingered his misbaha, the prayer or worry beads inherited from his father.

“I can only speculate,” Miller finally said. “In truth, Max, I do not think this khipu has anything to do with your mother. There is nothing to suggest it. It has more to do with a state of affairs that is dangerous and involves children.”

He took Max’s hands and laid them on the khipu. “Close your eyes and feel the knots,” he said gently.

Max did as he was told. The man’s smooth palms brushed across the back of his hands and then lifted away. In his mind’s eye, Max saw the knots through his fingertips. In that moment of stillness, his mind caressed every fiber. Since he had received the khipu, he had been so focused on finding answers that he had not stopped and held the dead boy’s legacy.

There was a rhythm to the strands of cord. The looped and curled knots felt different from each other. The spaces between the knots and the lengths of each pendulum string felt like a pause in speech. It was deliberate. It carried meaning and inflection. But the mystery remained exactly that. He could have no hope of understanding.

Miller’s voice guided him like helping someone stumbling through a pitch-dark room. “That gap you feel there is, I think, a vast open tract of land. The curls and loops in the knots indicate disruption. Damage of some kind. Devastation. Perhaps now, perhaps then. I think it is near a volcano. Possibly the temple is near a volcano where the armed men are. I think there is also great fear.”

Max opened his eyes. The old man was gazing at the map, his finger hovering near the center of the land mass. “And your mother’s photographs could well have been taken in this area. There are pyramid temples hidden in the jungle there, and borders between the countries in the Yucatan Peninsula are imprecise. Those valleys and mountains in Belize and Guatemala, many of them are impenetrable. They’re dangerous areas where superstition and ancient beliefs can still hold sway.”

Miller turned to gaze at the stone lintel that depicted Lord Shield Jaguar pushing what looked like a needle through his tongue.

Body piercing was one thing; this was something else.

Miller sensed for the first time the seriousness of Max’s quest. “Blood sacrifice,” he whispered.

“Move!” Max yelled.

He pulled the startled Miller out of the grasp of the shadow that lunged from the darkness. A man dressed in black, eyes glaring, face covered by a balaclava, jumped at them.

Max realized too late that here was the source of the noises he’d heard earlier: the whispered rush of a search.

Dr. Miller fell. Max rolled across him to stop the harsh boot kick aimed at his head. The blow caught Max’s backpack. Hands snatched at him. He twisted and slid across the floor like a break-dancer.

“Help us!” he yelled. “In here! Help us!” He was already on his feet, desperate to find any weapon, but there was nothing. The shadow was coming for him. Max sidestepped, dug his shoulder into the man’s midriff and heard him grunt, but he knew from the hard muscle he’d made contact with that he’d barely caused the man any pain. It merely bought him a few seconds.

His attacker stumbled into the corner of a plinth. The man lost his balance, went down on the floor, rolled and came up ready to fight. But Max saw that the impact had injured his leg, and the man’s ragged breath told him he was hurting.

Max dived for one of the stone lintels, striking it with his fist. The alarm buzzed. Someone out there must hear that! He struck it again.

“In here!”

The man swung out at him. His fist connected with the backpack’s shoulder pad, but the shock wave tore into Max’s ligaments. Pain seared through his arm. He was lame. And defenseless. He went down, pushing himself backward across the floor as quickly as he could, trying to escape the onslaught.

His shoulders and neck hit the wall. Max felt the wave of agony suck him down into a whirlpool of blackness.

The last thing he saw was a jade-encrusted skull, cut-stone eyes gleaming madly, broken teeth leering at him.

Welcome to hell.

Marty Kiernan had no choice but to tell the police Max had been at the nursing home. It would be suspicious if the security tapes showed Max running across the open lawns and Marty hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

It was easy enough, though, to explain the man carried away in an ambulance under police escort as no more than an opportunistic thief. When Marty’s big fist had applied pressure to the conscious man’s nerve points, he’d squealed but told Marty nothing. He gabbled in a foreign language that Marty knew to be Serbian. The police had responded quickly, so the ex-Marine had gained no information of any use. Now at least he would be held long enough for his immigration status to be checked. It was a fair bet he was illegal, given that he was being used to attack fifteen-year-old boys.

Marty picked up the phone to call Fergus Jackson. He decided he would tell him that Max had visited his father but would say nothing more. Max was Tom Gordon’s son and had the same spirit as his father. Marty knew that no one could persuade him not to do whatever it was he’d set his mind on.

Jackson watched Sayid’s face. Khalif had that ability to appear totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

“I’ve had a couple of phone calls, Sayid,” Mr. Jackson said, handing the boy a mug of hot chocolate and nudging his old Labrador-lurcher away from the hearth of the study’s fire. “Max went to see his father. He was very upset-both of them were, actually-and he did a runner. People who are trying to help Max-”

“What? Like that horrible woman? Misery Morgana the Witch?”

“Now, Sayid,” Jackson chided gently, “she is an MI-Five officer who is trying to help find Max as a favor to me.”

“That’s not a powerful motorbike she’s riding. It’s a specially designed broom handle.”

Jackson smiled. “Yes, you’re probably right. She was certainly heavy-handed, but she is on our side. Anyway, we all thought Max was going to see the chap who came here to give that lecture. But he didn’t.” Jackson smiled again, and this time it seemed to say, Though you knew that, didn’t you ?

Sayid did his blank expression, something he found particularly useful when his mum had one of her agonizing “I’m a single mother doing the best I can for her son” moments, when it was no good saying anything. When her pain passed, he would let her hug him. That calmed her down and gave her some kind of assurance about something. So was there any way he was going to tell Mr. Jackson where Max had gone, that he was trying to find info on his dead mum?

Sayid shook his head. “Then where did he go?” he asked, forcing a note of surprise into his voice.