Mario Reading - The Mayan Codex

Calque rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s dump this white elephant of a Hummer then. We’re going to have to scrub it clean of fingerprints. I don’t want the maniacs we stole it from, and whose crystal meth laboratory we blew up, coming after us in France. I wouldn’t put it past them to have a cosy in with Interpol.’

Sabir nodded. He tucked the Hummer away in a remote corner of the parking lot. With Calque’s left arm out of action, it was Sabir who ended up valeting the cab.

When they were finished, Calque grinned. ‘When we get back home you can pay someone to come and pick up the Cherokee for you and store it somewhere. That way no one will associate it with the Hummer. You simply mail them your keys, the parking ticket, a false name and address, and some cash. Then, in a month or two, you can come back here and pick it up, with no one any the wiser.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘I am kidding.’ Calque sighed. ‘I think maybe neither one of us should ever set foot in Mexico again. In a few months’ time, when you haven’t reclaimed the car, the storage people will simply auction it off. That’s the way these things play.’

‘I liked that car. It held happy memories.’ The expression on Sabir’s face didn’t match his words.

‘Get over it, Sabir. She’s not worth it. She played us both for fools.’

‘I still don’t understand how she could have pretended to that extent. She was a virgin, man. I’m certain of it. Not some Mata Hari type, used to seduction. Not some courtesan. And her face. How could the Countess be sure I would go for her? It stretches the bounds of credulity.’

Calque shook his head. ‘Because the Countess understands men and what drives them. She made a study of us without our knowledge. She realized that you were a bleeding heart from the word go. And that I suffer from absent daughter syndrome. Then she launched her perfectly primed cruise missile at us.’

‘Lamia told me she loved me. You can’t fake that.’

‘Oh yes you can. My ex-wife did it for years.’ Calque leaned inside the Cherokee and felt around in the lockbox. ‘We’re in business, my boy. Both passports are still here.’

‘So. And that’s another thing. Why would Lamia leave us our passports? Her passport was in with them. All she needed to do was dump the two of ours in the nearest garbage can.’

‘Why would she bother to do that, Sabir? She knew Abiger de Bale would kill us as certainly as night follows day. Leaving the passports would just facilitate the work of the Mexican police when they found our abandoned vehicle. That way they would have known for sure we hadn’t left the country.’

Sabir slammed the Cherokee door and clicked the automatic lock. The expression on his face was bleak. ‘Come on, Calque. Let’s go and find ourselves a damned flight out of here.’

It started with the stun grenades. Emiliano’s foot soldiers had brought up bullet-proof riot shields, and they were launching the grenades from behind them.

Abi, Rudra, Nawal and Dakini laid down as much blanket fire as they could, but it was clearly ineffective. Their ammunition was running out. The grenades were getting nearer by the minute.

Then Emiliano’s men started in with the tear gas.

Dakini was the first one to jump into the cenote.

Snot and tears were streaming down Abi, Nawal, and Rudra’s faces.

Nawal was the next to go. She felt semi-hysterical. She couldn’t breathe. All she could think about was how the feel of cool water on her eyes would be.

Rudra watched both of the women leap into the pool. He dragged himself to the edge of the basin. It was a fifty-foot drop. The girls had both survived it. He could see them bobbing around in the centre of the pool, violently rinsing their faces.

He glanced back at Abi, shrugged, and then eased himself over the side. He dangled for a moment and then let himself fall. The feel of the water was an exquisite blessing. He let himself sink as deep as he was able, before scissoring his legs and making for the surface.

Abi plunged in beside him.

Both men scrubbed at their faces, desperate to see again. Desperate to get their weapons clear of the water before they became useless.

Fifty feet above them, Emiliano’s foot soldiers were carrying their boss out of the Toyota on an improvised bier. The morphine had already started to give him hallucinations.

Emiliano grabbed his physician’s arm. ‘Give me more.’

‘I can’t give you any more. It would be too dangerous. Intravenous morphine is an unstable drug. There is only so much the body can take. You will already be hallucinating. Later, you will be constipated also.’

‘To hell with the constipation. And I can stomach the hallucinations. Give me more morphine. I’m in pain, I tell you. My foot is burning up.’ Emiliano screwed up his face, as if he were trying to clear his head through the drug-induced mist. ‘But not so much that I become unconscious. Do you understand what I am saying?’

‘I can’t give you any more, I tell you. It might prove fatal.’

Emiliano pulled a pistol out from underneath his blanket and shot the doctor. A single bullet, direct to the head. The doctor crumpled next to the bier like an empty suit of clothes. ‘Fatal? That’s what I call fatal, pendejo. Kick him into the cenote one of you.’

Emiliano’s men were gathered in a ragged line just shy of the lip of the cenote. One of the men nudged the doctor’s body with the toe of his boot until it toppled over the side. He made very sure that he was not outlined against the sky while he was doing it.

‘Now pick up that syringe.’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Do you see this vein in my arm?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Inject the morphine into it.’

The man aimed the syringe at Emiliano’s vein.

‘Squeeze out a bit first, man. You don’t want air in there. When you think you’ve found the vein, draw a little back to check if there’s blood. Then shoot me up.’

The man was sweating uncontrollably by this time. He dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. He found the vein, drew up a little blood, then forced the plunger home.

Emiliano sighed. He laid down his pistol and pressed his finger firmly onto the spot. ‘You got the other bodies?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Throw them in there too. The good doctor deserves some company.’

The bodies of Vau, Alastor, Berith and Asson were dragged to the lip of the cenote and kicked in.

‘Anyone else still to come?’

‘None of our own. You were the only one of us injured, Jefe. And none of their people escaped, bar the two in the Hummer.’

‘We’ll deal with them later. They won’t be able to get out of the country without their passports. We can pick them up anywhere. They have to eat. They have to sleep. They have to take a shit.’ Emiliano raised his chin in the direction of the cenote. The pupils of his eyes were enlarged out of all proportion to their original size. ‘Constipation? That damn fool doctor. I told him to give me some more morphine. You heard me. Don’t people obey orders around here any more?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘The Hummer. It’s got a Snooper on board, hasn’t it? So when it next sends a text, we can fix its position by satellite?’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

‘Okay. Now you and your men go and explain the situation to the floaters. With sound effects.’

‘Yes, Jefe.’

Half a dozen of Emiliano’s men spread themselves out just shy of the cenote lip. Then they stepped forward in unison and began spraying the walls and surface of the cenote with bullets. After about a minute, they stopped.

Abi, Rudra, Dakini, and Nawal were still floating in the water. They hadn’t been hit, just as Emiliano had intended, but they were confused and disorientated.