Age of Aztec

SEVEN

9 Rain 1 Monkey 1 House

(Friday 30th November 2012)

“Mr Reston? There’s someone in the lobby for you. A Miss Malinalli Vaughn.”

“I don’t know any Malinalli Vaughn. Does she have an appointment?”

“Nothing down in the diary, sir, but she says you’ll want to see her. A matter of some urgency, she says.”

“I’ve a lot on my plate. Book her in for another time, Helen, whoever she is.”

“Of course, sir.”

Stuart resumed his perusal of the papers relating to the CCMM buyout. The owners of the Mount Etna lode were pushing for some kind of share swap deal with Reston Rhyolitic. This would materially advantage them but not him, and he was loath to accept it. He was already offering a decent price, well above market value, and what with that and the bribes for local officials he didn’t feel obliged to throw in any more sweeteners. If Signor Addario’s employers weren’t happy with the terms of the contract as it stood, all Stuart had to do was tear it up and walk away. Let them find another buyer with the financial leverage and pre-existing infrastructure he had. Good luck with that.

The intercom on his desk buzzed again.

“Sir. Sorry to trouble you.”

“What, Helen?”

The receptionist coughed and lowered her voice. “This Miss Vaughn. She’s very insistent. She’s, erm, she’s a Jaguar Warrior. Plainclothes. Says she’ll make a fuss, rather loudly, if she doesn’t see you immediately.”

“Jaguar? You’re sure?”

“She has a badge.”

“Did she mention what this is in connection with?”

“No, sir. Should I ask?”

“No. No, don’t. Just send her up.”

“Very good, sir.”

Stuart shunted the CCMM papers aside. He straightened his tie and smoothed down the lapels of his jacket. He clenched and unclenched his fists, then flexed all his fingers, like a concert pianist warming up to play some complex etude.

It could be nothing. Routine Jaguar business. They liked to poke their noses into other people’s affairs every now and then, just because they could. Rummage about. Throw their weight around. Remind everyone who was boss.

But if it wasn’t that…

He could front it out. Easily. They had nothing on him. He’d left no tracks.

At worst, this was a fishing expedition. And the Vaughn woman could dangle her line all she liked, she wouldn’t be getting so much as a nibble.

His PA, Tara, escorted the Jaguar Warrior from the lift, through her own antechamber office and into her boss’s much larger and plusher office. She enquired if she could fetch anyone anything. Drink? Snack? Stuart dismissed her.

“Mal Vaughn. Detective chief inspector, Metropolitan Jaguar CID.”

“Mind if I see credentials?”

“Of course not.” She showed him a gold badge in a wallet — the yowling cat’s head — with her photograph and warrant number on a card next to it. “Satisfied?”

“Looks authentic enough.”

“Believe me, Mr Reston, the person who carries a forged one of these is living on borrowed time.”

Chief Inspector Vaughn was broad-shouldered, short-necked, perhaps running to fat a little, but with a bosom and bum like hers that was no sin. She had fulsome lips and a close-cropped bob with a severe fringe. Her eyes were large and round, the irises steel grey. From first impressions she was, Stuart thought, his type. Intelligent without being cerebral, slightly dissolute, physically assured, in control of herself and well able to keep her neuroses in check. She was the polar opposite of Sofia, whom he had loved dearly and should never have married.

As he sized her up, he could see her doing the same to him. Her job demanded she look unimpressed, but she didn’t quite manage to pull it off.

“Nice place,” she said, glancing around. “Triple aspect. Amazing views. You’re a lucky man, Mr Reston.”

“I had a good start in life, but it’s my own acumen that’s kept me and my company on top. Luck’s had nothing to do with it.”

“Good thing obsidian is so popular with the regime. Where would we all be without it?”

“You wouldn’t have a sword, for starters.”

“True. Not that I carry one in the normal course of duty.”

“You leave that to the uniforms.”

“Right. I only wear mine on special occasions. Like, for instance, when I’m hot on the trail of a felon.”

“Pleasing to note you’re swordless right now.”

“Why would you assume I think you’re a felon, Mr Reston? Guilty conscience?”

“On the contrary. I’m merely pointing out that, by your logic, your lack of armament indicates that you don’t suspect me of anything.”

“Why am I here, then?”

“Aren’t you meant to tell me that? Or have you come just to admire the decor and the view?”

Chief Inspector Vaughn approached one of the massive tinted plate-glass windows and looked out. “Might as well, while I can. How the other half lives and all that. Don’t see anything like this when I’m stuck in my little cubbyhole at the Yard.”

London simmered. The ziggurat-shaped tower blocks of Canary Wharf, the apex of one of which was home to Reston Rhyolitic, seemed to pulse beneath the hard-beating sun. The palm-lined streets and avenues were strips of scintillating green. A storm was brewing to the east, purple-black thunderheads boiling up on the horizon, out over the North Sea. When the rain came, it would be a welcome antidote to the heat.

“You had a wife and son,” she said.

“That’s correct.”

“Sofia and Jack.”

“Jake.” But you knew that already. You’re not the sort to slip up on details.

“They’re not with us any more.”

“Yes. So?”

“Would you mind telling me how they died?”

“I would. I don’t see that it’s any business of yours.”

“Jaguar Warrior. Everything’s my business.”

“Perhaps if I knew why you want to know…”

“Perhaps if you could just answer the fucking question.”

They held each other’s gazes. Seconds stretched.

“Well,” said Stuart, “as it happens, they volunteered for sacrifice. I say ‘they.’ Sofia did.”

“Your son had no choice?”

“How could he? He was two.”

“And why did Mrs Reston put herself and your son forward for sacrifice?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“You don’t know?”

“Sofia was… not always a well-balanced individual. There were psychological issues. She was prone to mental disturbance, depression.”

“So to opt for sacrifice one must be mentally disturbed, is that what you’re saying?”

“No, chief inspector. I never said anything of the sort. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Most regard giving your life to the gods as the sanest, most rational act imaginable. Patriotic, what’s more.”

“Most do.”

“But you’re not one of them,” the policewoman said archly.

“I wouldn’t go in for it myself.” Stuart gestured around him. “Why, when I have such a good life?”

“Your wife, presumably, had a good life too. Being Mrs Stuart Reston, she couldn’t have wanted for much. A lovely home, I’d imagine. Plenty of disposable income. A respected, successful husband. A son.”

“Materially she had all she could wish for. But — perhaps you’ve heard this, Miss Vaughn — money can’t buy happiness.”

“Were you cruel to her?”

“Of course not. I resent you even suggesting it.”

“Why did you marry her?”

“What do you mean?”

“If she was unstable. Didn’t you sense that? Didn’t alarm bells start ringing before the wedding bells did?”

Stuart drew a deep breath. She was not going to rattle him, this lackey of the state. She was trying to, with her probing, her impertinence. She would not succeed.

“Sofia was a vibrant human being,” he said. “She was beautiful. When she was comfortable within her skin, when she was herself, she was a dream. She lit up a room. She had a way of drawing everyone around her to her and making them feel at home and at ease. She was also a woman of high standing, accomplished, eminently marriageable. She’d had a hundred proposals and turned them all down.”

“But then you came along, number one hundred and one, and she said yes.”

“It wasn’t easy. It was a long, drawn-out campaign. But I was persistent, and in the end she succumbed.”

“Campaign,” said Chief Inspector Vaughn. “Interesting use of military terminology.”

Stuart gave a light shrug. “A stint with the Eagles. You pick up a phrase or two along the way.”

The detective moved away from the window, closer to him. “You achieved your objective, then. Set your sights on a high-society lady and bagged her. Made a good match. And you had no reason to suspect there was anything wrong with her?”

“There was nothing wrong with Sofia,” Stuart stated adamantly. “She had her flaws, she wasn’t perfect, but then who of us is, chief inspector? You could say she was a bit tightly wound at times. At other times, perhaps not tightly wound enough. But it wasn’t until after Jake was born that the trouble really began. He was a difficult birth and an awkward baby. Sofia had a wretched time with him. He wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t feed properly. Colicky. Sick a lot. She had help, of course. Nannies, nurses, domestic staff, the best available, the costliest. But she insisted on doing the bulk of the work herself. She felt such a depth of maternal responsibility. She loved Jake as hard as any mother loved a child.”

“Could you have done more?”

The needling was persistent, he had to give her that. And accurate.

“Maybe I could have,” he admitted. “But I couldn’t neglect my job. I had responsibilities too. I blame myself for not spotting the cracks sooner. The changes in Sofia’s behaviour. The mood swings. The long periods when she was withdrawn and uncommunicative. I just thought she was exhausted, wrung out to the last drop. Had I been a little less preoccupied with Reston Rhyolitic, maybe I could have leapt in and saved her. Saved them both.”

“Was there any warning?”

“What of?”

“That she was going to do what she did.”

“No. None. Had Sofia discussed it with me, I’d have done my damnedest to talk her out of it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why would you try to talk her out of answering the call of the gods? If she felt a compulsion to be part of a blood rite, why would you not approve?”

“Because she was my wife and I loved her and I didn’t want to lose her. Or my son.”

“But children are especially blessed if they die under the priest’s knife. Their souls go straight to Tamoanchan, where they frolic at the feet of Quetzalcoatl all day and sleep in a dormitory next to his throne room all night. Jake could not be happier on earth than he is now, in the gods’ company.”

“Jake,” said Stuart, “belongs at my side. He would be four now, just starting school, and I would be with him every step of the way, teaching him what I know, giving him all he needs to become a man. Sofia took him from me, and herself as well, and the gods received what the gods did not deserve to have.”

Those grey eyes glinted like gunmetal. “Must make you pretty cross, that, huh? I bet you’re pissed off with your wife, but because she’s not around to be pissed off with, you resent the Empire instead.”

“That would be absurd. To transfer one’s emotions onto an abstract, unfeeling entity? What would be the point?”

“The blame’s got to go somewhere.”

“I told you, if I blame anyone, it’s myself. I could have been more on the ball. I could have been more sensitive to Sofia’s needs. A better husband.”

“Self-hatred has a way of turning outward.”

“I still don’t see what all this is about, Inspector Vaughn. What are you driving at? Why all these questions about my wife and son? Their deaths are a matter of public record. There’s no secret involved. I’ve nothing to hide. It happened while I was abroad on a business trip. Sofia chose her moment well. She was cunning, in the way that the mentally ill sometimes are. She knew if I’d got a sniff of what she was up to, I’d have moved heaven and earth to prevent it.”

“Business trip,” said the chief inspector. “Funny you should mention that.”

“Funny why?”

“Actually, you know what? I’m parched. Long day yesterday, late night last night. Could your PA whip me up a coca tea?”

“I’m sure it could be arranged.” Stuart pressed a button on the intercom and placed the drink order with Tara. Five minutes of smouldering silence later, in she came with a tray.

Vaughn noted the single cup. “Nothing for you?”

“I don’t partake,” said Stuart. “That’ll be all, Tara, thanks. Hold my calls for the time being. The chief inspector here seems to have a lot she wants to chat about.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were saying?” he prompted, after Tara had gone. “Something about a business trip?”

“Yes. Ooh, good coca. Classy stuff. Straight from the slopes of the Andes, if I don’t miss my guess.”

“They have the best plantations there. I’m told the home-grown strains don’t compare.”

“I speak as someone with a lifelong habit — this is seriously good shit.”

She meant it, too. Stuart could see this wasn’t some devious tactic of hers, designed to disarm. Chief Inspector Vaughn was genuinely taken with the quality of the coca on offer at Reston Rhyolitic.

He didn’t believe for one moment, however, that he had won the duel.

“Anyway, business trip, yes,” she continued. “Would I be right in thinking that you travelled to Italy recently, on business?”

“You would be wrong.”

“Really?”

“It was Sicily. Don’t ever confuse the two places, certainly not in the presence of a Sicilian.”

“But the date of the excursion was Six Vulture One Monkey, yes? I’m not wrong about that?”

“I believe it was.”

“I know it was. I checked. What’s curious is, that very same day His Holiness Priest Marquand was killed — nastily — at Heathrow, along with his bodyguards. In fact, I understand His Holiness happened to be on the very same inbound flight that you were on.”

“I don’t recall. In all likelihood he was.”

“I’m telling you he was, because the records back me up.”

“How do you know? Priests don’t have to log their comings and goings. They don’t have to register at customs.”

“True, but airlines are obliged by law to make a special note of every commercial flight that carries a priest. Should the aerodisc crash or go missing, the hieratic caste need to know if one of their own is aboard, so that steps can be taken as soon as possible to replace him. It’s not public knowledge that this happens, but it’s been official protocol for many years.”

Shit, thought Stuart.

He said, “So what if we were on the same disc? There were three hundred other passengers on the flight. Any one of them could have murdered His Holiness. As could any one of the hundreds of people who were airside at the time.”

“It’s an intriguing coincidence, though,” said Chief Inspector Vaughn. “You being there. A man with Eagle training, what’s more.”

“My Eagle days were long ago.”

“But the army taught you how to kill with your bare hands.”

“And the police taught you the same. Maybe one of your lot did it. Ever thought of that?”

“No motive,” she replied flatly. “The Jaguars exist to serve and protect the state, not murder its representatives.”

“But it is, after all, as you say, a coincidence. Just chance. That’s not enough to pin the guilt for it on me.”

“True. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the one crime for which nobody could lay a finger on you.”

“Implying there are others you can.”

“Where were you, Mr Reston, on the night of Seven Movement One Monkey?”

“Look, when the fuck was that?” said Stuart. “The tonalpohualli calendar is so damn confusing. Day-signs, trecena s, two different lengths of year… Why couldn’t we have kept the Gregorian? So much more bloody logical and easy to follow.”

“Let me simplify it for you, then,” said the detective. “The evening before last. Where were you?”

“Home.”

“That’s it? Home?”

“Home.”

“Is there anybody who can confirm that?”

“No.”

“You were just… home.”

“Yes. Alone. Catching up on a spot of paperwork.”

“You weren’t, by any chance, at the Regent’s Park outdoor theatre?”

“No. Should I have been? What was on?”

“A hell of a show, actually.”

“Really? Well, I’m sorry to have missed it.”

“So you can’t account for your whereabouts that night.”

“Yes, I can. I told you. I was home.”

“If you start getting obstructive with me, Mr Reston, we can always carry on this conversation down at the Yard. It’s a whole lot less congenial there than here, and the tone will be a whole lot less civil.”

“How am I being obstructive?” Stuart protested. “I’m giving you straight answers to your questions. What more do you want?”

“So you’re telling me that no one else can confirm that you were at your house all evening?”

“My flat. I’m a widower, a single man. I don’t need a house any more. And no, no one can corroborate my claim. What part of ‘alone’ are you finding so hard to comprehend, chief inspector?”

“It’s really not much of an alibi, is it?”

“Agreed, it’s not. Had I known in advance that I’d need to come up with an alibi for myself on the night in question, then I’d have made sure I had one. I simply didn’t realise it would be required. Sorry.”

The detective looked at him askance. “You are one conceited son of a bitch, you know that?”

Stuart gave her a blank stare in return. “Let’s get down to brass tacks, inspector. Are you or are you not here to accuse me of something? And if so, what?”

“You know full well what.”

“Clearly I don’t.”

“Am I going to have to come right out and say it?”

“I think you are.”

“All right.” She set her jaw. “Mr Reston, I have good reason to believe that you are the mass-murdering terrorist known as the Conquistador.”

Stuart hesitated. Then he burst out laughing. “Preposterous! What proof do you have? Give me a single shred of evidence that says I am.”

“Priest Marquand’s murder.”

“Was the Conquistador seen there? Are there any eyewitnesses who can place him at the scene?”

“No, but — ”

“There you go.”

“But it has all the hallmarks of a Conquistador attack. The only difference was, it was unplanned. You just didn’t happen to have your armour handy. You seized the moment, thinking you’d rack up another dead priest to add to your total.”

“Pure supposition. Assuming I was the Conquistador, would I really do something so rash? Why?”

“Because you’re cocky. You’re out of control. You’re so far into this, you just can’t help yourself any more.”

“And I’m killing priests for what reason, precisely?”

“Because priests killed your wife and son.”

“ Sacrificed them. Crucial distinction.”

“Same end result, though. They wound up dead.”

“My wife put herself on the altar voluntarily. It was her decision. Nobody forced her to do it.”

“Except the voices inside her head.”

“Crudely put, but yes. You could, perhaps, call it suicide by theocracy. But then to hate the entire hieratic caste for it, to want to seek revenge on them — it’s not logical.”

“Is it not?” said Chief Inspector Vaughn. “Grief isn’t logical, though. It takes all sorts of strange forms. Grievance is one of them.”

“You sound like someone who knows whereof she speaks.”

Bullseye. A tiny flinch of the policewoman’s eyes. Stuart had at last scored a hit against her.

“You think grief would compel a man to dress up in armour,” he continued, “and visit vigilante justice on his nation’s ruling elite?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. Past you. You fit all the criteria. You have the resources, the training, the capability, above all the motivation.”

“Ultimately a self-defeating course of action, though, wouldn’t you agree?” said Stuart. “Suppose I, as the Conquistador, manage to foment a revolution, as he intends to. The people rise up, stage a coup, throw off the shackles of imperial rule, declare an independent Britain. What then? I’m out of a job, for starters. What use is the obsidian trade in a country no longer run along Empire lines?”

“In answer to that, I’d say that you haven’t thought that far ahead. You want to satisfy your thirst for vengeance here and now. The rest — the further ramifications — can all take care of itself. You’re not bothered, so long as priests and acolytes and anyone else directly associated with the Empire die in their droves. Besides,” she added, “rich man like you, I reckon you’ve got enough money salted away in assets and savings that you could manage pretty well for yourself even without income from your company.”

“What this comes down to, Miss Vaughn, is that you’ve made your mind up about me. I’m the Conquistador, that’s decided, and you won’t be swayed from your opinion. Trouble is, other than the happenstance of me sharing a flight with His Holiness Marquand, there’s nothing to connect me to any of the Conquistador’s killings — and we’re not even sure Marquand was one of those. Therefore, unless you have actual concrete proof to back up these wild allegations of yours, I would ask you kindly to go away now and stop harassing me.”

The detective bridled. “You do not talk to a Jaguar Warrior in that way.”

“Oh, I think I do,” Stuart shot back.

“I could have you down the nick in three seconds flat. I could have a dozen of the burliest men on the force working you over, just on my say-so.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“You won’t, can’t, because you know it won’t fly. The Jaguars can get away with pretty much anything, but hauling in Stuart Reston for questioning? The Stuart Reston? On the flimsiest of hunches that he might be the Conquistador? I think not. I’m a public figure. I’m regarded as part of the state apparatus, much as you yourself are. Without something cast-iron against me, you’d risk making yourself and the force as a whole look pretty foolish. You’d be doing the Conquistador’s work for him. And once I got out of custody — and I would, you can be sure of that — I’d make sure the world knew all about it. A misstep like that, I doubt you’d ever recover from.”

“I have nothing to lose.”

“I think you do. Otherwise you’d have arrested me already.”

“All right. Granted. But…” Chief Inspector Vaughn leaned in close and lowered her voice to a lion-like growl. “You’d better pray I never get to the point where I do have nothing to lose. Because then, matey, you are well and truly buggered.”

Stuart stood his ground. The skirmish was over. He didn’t think he’d won but he had at least forced a stalemate.

“Perhaps you should leave now, chief inspector,” he said.

“Oh, I’m going,” she replied. “But this isn’t the last you’ll be hearing from me. Definitely not the last.”

She looked as though she was about to turn away. Stuart saw the punch coming. Her upper body tensed. She began to pivot on the ball of one foot.

He could have blocked it. He knew how. Every instinct told him to.

But a flash-thought said, It’s a test. She wants confirmation. You have to fail it.

So the punch landed, smack dab on his jaw, undeflected, and it was a cracker of a blow, carrying all her weight behind it, expertly swung. Stuart’s head exploded, and his legs crumpled. He had thought he would have to fake pain as he lay there on the floor of his office, so as to discourage her from giving him another wallop, but the pain was genuine and raw. His jaw fucking well hurt. Hurt like flames.

He looked up at her, wincing, smarting. “What the — what the hell was that for?”

“Just because. Think of it as a downpayment, Mr Tycoon. A promise of more to come.”

So saying, Chief Inspector Vaughn waltzed out. The door slammed behind her.

Stuart slowly picked himself up. He braved a smile, even though his jawbone was throbbing and it felt like there were splinters of glass embedded in it and smiling did nothing to alleviate the pain.

Being the Conquistador had just got rather more interesting.