Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

‘ Touche, Captain.’

‘And I’ve not told you how I found her yet. What her family were about to do to her.’

‘You don’t need to. Her brothers’ words were good enough for me. You can’t fake attitudes like that. Mademoiselle de Bale is welcome to sit in on our conversation if she wants to.’ Sabir was aware that part of him was endeavouring, via a studied politeness, to compensate the woman for his blundering faux pas about her face and the disturbing content of his dream. Another part of him recognized that Calque had obviously committed himself to her in some way – heck, didn’t he have an errant daughter hidden away somewhere? Maybe she reminded him of her? – and that he still owed Calque.

‘Why did you let the twins get away? They were in your house illegally. Why didn’t you simply call the police?’

Sabir shook his head. ‘They were playing with me. They knew I wouldn’t shoot. They brazened it out, making it clear there’d been no breaking and entering of any sort. That I didn’t have a leg to stand on in terms of the cops. Then, when they’d worked out to their satisfaction how I’d managed to avoid their little trap, they left.’

‘You let them leave? Just like that?’

‘What was I going to do, Calque? Toss the shotgun at them? If you ask me, they’re holding fire until they can corner me somewhere private and wring out everything I know. When I haven’t got a shotgun in my hand, maybe.’ Sabir shrugged. ‘Things might pan out a little differently that time.’

‘Sabir was warned, Madame. I’m certain of it. The American knew we were coming. He was hiding outside the house with a shotgun. When we switched on the lights, thinking he was no longer there, he knew exactly where to find us.’

‘You think Lamia warned him? Through Calque?’

‘I’m convinced of it.’

‘Why didn’t he involve the police, then?’

‘He was scared to, Madame. We had entered his house through an open door – he slipped up on that one. Given that fact, and the existing relationship between our two families, he would have been hard put to accuse us of robbery. I think we can call this first round something of a stalemate.’

‘What are you going to do now, Abiger?’

‘We’ve flushed him out, Madame. He will go on the run now. We must follow him.’

‘Have you tagged his car?’

‘Impossible, Madame. He has it sealed up tight. And the garage is alarmed. When he leaves, he will leave fast.’

‘And Lamia?’

‘She is here with the policeman. They are all three sitting in the public rooms of the White Horse Inn. We can’t even get close.’

‘Will you be able to follow him?’

‘Of course, Madame.’

‘Abiger, you are talking arrant nonsense. Two men cannot follow a man twenty-four hours by twenty-four. It’s an impossibility. And once you’ve lost him, he is lost for good. I am sending your brothers and sisters over to help you.’

‘But, Madame ‘Be quiet, Abiger. I want to know exactly what he does, and why he is doing it. It’s not enough simply to deal with him any more in the way we discussed previously. There’s more involved. We’ve got Calque to deal with too. So all eleven of you will conduct a full surveillance on the three of them – if they split up, all well and good. If they stay together, even better. I want to know everything they do – everywhere they go. And I shall decide when it is the right moment for you to strike, Abiger, not you. Have I made myself clear?’

There was a brief hesitation.

‘Have I made myself clear, Abiger?’

‘Yes, Madame. But I’m still running this operation, aren’t I? I’m still in charge?’

‘Until I decide otherwise. Yes, Abiger. You are.’

At first, you were lucky. The travelling went well. A man taking chayotes down to Veracruz gave you a lift in his truck. Through Orizaba and Cordoba, as far as La Tinaja. He dropped you off there, and you stood on the Tierra Blanca road for three hours, hoping for another lift. But no one stopped. Everyone was going the other way. Towards the volcano. In order to see the free show, you supposed.

It was then you began walking. You had money for food, but not for buses. But there was no hurry. The volcano had done its worst. No one had been killed. A number of villages close to the summit had been damaged, some by lava, some by dust, but the people had had ample time to evacuate, even when on foot. Now the State had promised to rebuild their homes. All this you had heard on the radio of the truck.

The State was indeed a powerful thing, you said to yourself. When things went badly, it was the State which put things right. You did not fully understand this, nor how the State functioned, but you suspected that its benevolence was, as it were, inbuilt. That things had always been like that.

You clutched the thin cotton bag that held the codex to your chest. You were hungry. In the excitement of the eruption, and of knowing that you had a job to do, you had forgotten to eat. Now you stopped at a roadside shack and bought some tacos. You ate half the tacos immediately, and secured the remaining ones in a piece of rough paper for later. You suspected that you might have to sleep out in the open, and for this you would need energy.

You drank some Coca Cola for your stomach, and because, amongst your people, it was sometimes offered as a gift in the church. Somewhere, far back in your mind, you wondered how you would manage to live when you reached your destination, and the little money you had was exhausted. You had never been outside your own province before. What if there was no one there to welcome you? What if you were not expected? Perhaps, then, you should ask the State for help? But you did not know how to contact the State, or how to communicate with it. Perhaps, being all-powerful, it would try to take the codex away from you? Which would leave you with no function. With no reason to live.

No. You must keep away from the State. Something would arise. Someone would recognize you. The protection of the codex had gone on for far too long, and for far too many generations, to mean nothing at all.

‘Why are you doing this, Sabir? Why are you still sticking your neck out in this way? What’s in it for you?’

Calque had an unlit cigarette dangling out of his mouth. He had come to a grudging understanding with the staff of the inn that he wouldn’t, under any circumstances, actually light it, but simply suck on it for the taste of the tobacco. Lamia had had to do the translating for him, because Calque’s mastery of the English language was marginally inferior to that of the average first-grader.

‘But I thought you knew? I’m in it for the money.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Look, Calque. You’d better get one thing straight. The only reason I responded to Samana’s ad last May was because I thought there was a book’s worth of material in it. I write books. And I live off the money I make from writing them. I’ve put nearly six months of work into this project already. It’s cost me the ability to sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. It’s cost me part of my ear. And it’s turned me into a killer. Beyond that, I’ve been chased and intimidated and shot at, and an attempt has even been made to bury me alive. People have threatened to castrate me. I’ve had knives thrown at me. An effort has been made to burn down my house. The French police, in the guise of your good self, have even had me on their Most Wanted list. I think I’m entitled to some comeback after all that – some sort of a quid pro quo. And I am finally beginning to figure out a way to get it.’

‘Saudi Arabia, you mean?’