Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Abi didn’t care. He needed the cenote. When they got there they could plan their next move.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Nawal and Rudra were making ground. So he’d have four guns.

Not a lot. But it would have to be enough.

Sabir had to help Calque down the trapdoor steps. Calque’s left arm hung uselessly at his side, and he was forced to descend the steps sideways, like a crab.

When they reached the bottom, Calque let out a soft whistle. ‘I think we’ve just found our way out of here.’

With its 130-inch wheelbase, the armour-plated Hummer H1 Alpha looked like some low-crouching animal, waiting to pounce on its prey.

‘Look at this, man. Gold-plated sub-machine guns. And how about these pistols. What sort of people gild their pistols?’

‘You’d be better off looking for the Hummer keys. The firing’s died down. Someone’s going to be coming in here soon. And this will be the first place they make for.’ Calque was staring at the bricks of crystal meth. ‘Have you ever seen anything like it? You’re looking at ten thousand ruined lives.’

‘The keys, Calque.’

Both men began to search feverishly through the collected paraphernalia in the display cases. Sabir’s military reservist training was beginning to come back to him. He selected two Heckler amp; Koch MP5Ks, because he knew how to use them, and also two of the gold-plated Smith amp; Wesson 469s. One had an engraving of the Mexican eagle figured into its grip, and the other an engraving of a Rottweiler.

‘I’ve got them.’ Calque snatched a set of keys off a communal hook set into the end of the display cabinet.

‘Try them.’

Calque aimed the keys at the Hummer. There was an answering click-click. ‘We’re in business, Sabir. I hate to restate the obvious, but you’d better drive.’

Sabir threw the guns and the rucksack containing the skull and the codex onto the back seat. Then he helped Calque into his seat, and belted him in.

‘Wait. Let me out again.’

‘Are you crazy? We haven’t got much time left.’

‘Let me out, I say.’

Sabir unbuckled Calque from his seat and helped him from the vehicle.

‘Find me something flammable.’

‘For Christ’s sake. You don’t mean to burn this place down?’

‘I’m a policeman, Sabir. Have been all my life. I can’t let this filth get out onto the streets. If you don’t want to help me, leave. But I’ve got to do it. I’ve just got to.’

Sabir sighed long-sufferingly. ‘You’re right. I should have thought of it myself, of course. But I was too busy thinking about my own skin and yours to give much of a damn about ten thousand complete strangers.’

Both men began ferreting through the detritus surrounding the industrial vats.

Then Calque straightened up. ‘I saw hand grenades, didn’t I?’

‘Gold-plated ones. Yeah. They’re probably fakes. You can’t persuade me that anyone in their right mind gold-plates a live hand grenade. But we should be able to tell if they’re real by the weight.’

‘Worth a try, then. Crystal meth produces a highly flammable vapour. The slightest spark can ignite it. Chuck a grenade into one of those vats and the whole place would go up.’

‘The death grip. How opposite. Yes. With us in it.’

‘We’d have eight seconds. Isn’t that right? Particularly if you back the Hummer right up to the vats, Sabir.’

‘Five seconds, not eight. Just how long ago did you do your military service, Calque? The Franco-Prussian war? You like to live dangerously, don’t you?’

‘You’re the one to talk. Shall we do it?’

‘You take one vat and I’ll do a second. But I won’t have time to strap you back in. You’ll have to take your chances leaning out of the window. If you fall out, I leave you. Okay?’

‘Who did they torture, Sabir? You or me?’

‘You, I’m glad to say.’

‘Did you leave me then?’

‘Stupidly, no.’

‘Then you’re not going to leave me now.’

Sabir backed the Hummer up to the nearest of the industrial vats.

Both men removed the safety pins from their grenades, keeping their fingers tight down on the spoons.

‘You on the death grip, Calque?’

‘The death grip. How apposite. Yes. I’m ready.’

‘I’ll call it. Okay? To a count of three.’

‘Okay.’

Calque was half-in half-out of the Hummer’s front window. He had a six-foot throw to the nearest vat. Sabir’s throw was about eight foot. The Hummer’s engine was throbbing quietly beneath them.

‘One. Two. Three. Fire in the hole!’

Both men threw their grenades.

Sabir launched himself back onto the front seat, grabbing Calque by the shirt as he did so.

He engaged the Hummer’s automatic gearshift and aimed it up the ramp.

Then he began to pray.

Emiliano Graciano Mateos-Corrientes stood down his snipers. He had the entire eighteen-hectare warehouse site ringed with his men. No one could escape. The ones that had run, shooting, from the warehouse, were all being herded towards the cenote – that was the obvious place for them to go. The rest were dead.

It was still somehow inconceivable to Emiliano that a bunch of gringos should come all the way down to the Yucatan simply to take over his crystal meth factory. Were they insane? Didn’t they know he had fifty foot-soldiers under his command, all armed with the latest weapons? That he had snipers equipped with the most up-to-date ‘light fifty’ Barrett M107 rifles, complete with Leupold 4.5 x 14 Mark-iv scopes and AN/PVS-10 day/ night optics? And that these snipers knew how to shoot the nipples off a three-year-old?

Crazy. Crazy.

He spoke briefly into his walkie-talkie.

What annoyed him the most was that the gringos had managed to time their incursion exactly right. Normally, there would have been a minimum of fifteen men guarding the factory. But someone – that fucker Pepito, probably – must have tipped the gringos off that with the consignment now ready, Emiliano was treating his foot-soldiers to the best whores and liquor his brothel in Merida could provide. It was the Day of the Dead, man. His men expected to let their hair down once in a while. And he had the local police and most of the local politicians in his pocket. What did he have to fear? A bunch of gringos invading his territory? Jesus.

The Hummer burst out from the basement area of Emiliano’s warehouse and up the escape ramp. The Hummer appeared to hesitate, and then made straight for his command vehicle. Emiliano could see two men in the front seats.

His mouth fell open.

As he watched, he heard two explosions deep in the bowels of his warehouse. Then there was a brief silence. It was followed by the equivalent of a vast intake of breath, as the meth vats caught fire. Then the warehouse literally burst from its moorings, its corrugated iron roof rising on a crest of over-heated air. When the roof was about thirty feet up, it flipped over onto its side, as if a sudden gust of wind had caught it.

Emiliano instinctively ducked down beside his Toyota Roraima. As he did so he noticed the rear of the approaching Hummer rising on a tide of hot air, and then smashing down again.

The Hummer was coming straight for his Toyota.

He threw himself to one side, shrieking.

The Hummer clipped his foot as it passed, pulverizing the bone, and twisting the foot three times around on the remaining skin and gristle. Emiliano hit the ground and rolled himself into a ball. He knew something terrible had happened to him, but not quite what.

When he tried to stand up, his leg collapsed beneath him, and he caught his first glimpse of the disaster that had been his foot.