The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER TEN

Aurora Soto drifted in and out of sleep, and when she woke she checked the sun for the time. It was a game she liked to play with herself, and then she would check her watch and see how accurate she was — today she was three minutes out.

So far so good. They had secured Sobotka and were only minutes away from achieving their mission. She had no doubt Viktor would play ball. After all, he knew his wife was gagged and bound with Delgado in the Vandura following behind them. She had chosen Delgado for that job because putting Garza with her would have been a very bad idea — like setting a fox to guard a henhouse. All the same, she knew what had to happen to the Sobotkas in the end, but there was no sense in wasting time thinking about that now. Now was about the moment, as her mother used to say.

Another quarter of an hour of tense silence and they had almost reached their destination — Los Alamos National Laboratory. Aurora stared through the windshield at the vast complex of office buildings, hangars and nuclear facilities as the car turned a bend on the highway and it loomed into view for the first time.

She wondered how much destruction the Hummingbird might bring. She cared about that — she wanted as much of this world annihilated as possible and only Wade could make that happen. The Big Boss was completely loco — his activities down in Guerrero left no room for doubt on that score — but when it came to smashing the Americans as hard as she and Mendoza wanted them to be smashed, she knew only Wade could deliver. For now, at least, they all had a mutual goal.

Garza rolled a quarter across his knuckles and sniffed hard. “Don’t forget, old man — screw this up and your wife is dead meat.” As he spoke, he pushed the muzzle of his gun into Viktor’s ribs. “And maybe we’ll have a little fun with her before we kill her — understand?”

Viktor nodded. He understood. Locked away deep in that building was something very precious that Aurora Soto’s mysterious boss wanted very badly, and Viktor was going to get it for them. He was going to drive the Prius down to the lab and bring home the bacon.

Or Alena would die.

Viktor Sobotka was old enough to remember the old regime. He remembered life long before the Prague Spring when the hardliner Novotný and his StB goons ruled his country with an iron grip.

The StB… he recalled them well. He remembered the night they came for his father when they lived in their little home in Ostrava. He was just ten at the time, and even now if he closed his eyes he could still see his beloved father kicking and screaming as the men coshed him and dragged him through the door. They all knew what it meant — false confessions forced by brutal torture and life imprisonment in a Soviet gulag. That was the last time he had seen his Dad.

He showed no fear then, and he would show none now. He would do as these monsters demanded of him, and then he would free his wife.

As he drew nearer to the entrance gates of the complex, he glanced in his rear view mirror and saw the black GMC Vandura parked up on the side of the road a mile or two in the distance. He gripped the steering wheel in rage as he visualized his wife tied up in the back at the mercy of those animals, but knew there was only one way he could help her.

He pulled up at the security gate and showed his pass through the windshield. He was expecting the guard to wave him through but instead he flagged him down and stepped out into the road in front of the car.

Victor felt a wave of panic flush over him. What if they knew something was up? What if they knew he was coming in here to steal classified technology? His heart quickened in his chest and it felt like it was going to burst. He worked hard to calm himself down. The life of the person he loved more than anyone in the world was riding on his performance over the next few minutes and he couldn’t risk blowing it now.

As the guard got closer to the car he recognized him as Norm Bennett. Bennett was a friendly sort of guy but good at his job. He was too close to his pension to risk his retirement now so he was very thorough.

Bennett tapped on the window and indicated that Viktor should wind it down.

Viktor took a deep breath and tried to look relaxed.

“Hey, Norm.”

Bennett smiled. “What are you doing here today, Professor Sobotka?” He said jovially. “I thought it was your wife’s birthday and you had the day off?”

“It is, yes.”

The guard smiled and nodded his head. “I thought you were planning on going out someplace?”

“Sure we are, yes.”

“Boy, I wish I could knock off early today.” He dabbed his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Jeez — this heat sure is something today, ain’t it?”

“Yes… it sure is.” Viktor glanced in the mirror at the Vandura and then at the little dashboard clock. The Soto woman had been very clear about not wasting time.

“You know, I remember back in the mid-nineties when we hit the record for the State. One hundred and twenty-two ball-crushing degrees that day my friend, Jeez… was that 1993 or 1994?”

“I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Victor said, his throat growing drier by the second. “I wasn’t here then.”

“Well this ain’t nothing like that, I’ll grant you, but all the same…”

“I’m in a little bit of a rush, Norm, actually…”

Norm Bennett pulled himself up and dropped the smile. He nodded his head as if Viktor had asked a question, and then peered through the back windows of the car. “Pop the trunk, please.”

Viktor did as he was told and watched nervously as the guard strolled around to the rear of the Prius. Hurry up you fool! he whispered to himself.

After a heart-stopping few moments Norm finally waved him through and he drove down the driveway toward the immense car park. He looked at his watch. Not long until Aurora Soto and those thugs killed his wife. He knew what he had to do.

A few hundred miles south of the border, Morton Wade trembled as he moved slowly into the dark obsidian chamber. So many times had he come in here but now it somehow felt different — like other more powerful gods were observing them.

All around him he heard the screaming cacophony of the cicadas as they sang in the jungle, but in here, deep in the dark, volcanic inner sanctum, the Texan focussed as the ancient god rose in front of him and cast him into his shadow. The awesome, terrifying figure of Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sun god, and great deity of war and sacrifice was finally standing before him.

“As ever, I bow to you, Great One,” he said, his voice trembling.

A long exhalation, somewhere between a hiss and a sigh. “You are late, mortal.”

Wade raised his fearful eyes to the deity’s powerful face. It was almost human, but the color was all wrong. The forehead, cheeks, chin and throat were Maya blue but the strip over the eyes was the darkest pitch-black he had ever seen. And the eyes inside that ribbon of black were faint slits of blood-shot madness. It was like he was staring into an abyss. The divine apparition was crowned with a magnificent headdress made of plumes of emerald-green quetzal tail-feathers. Wade dropped his eyes back to the floor after snatching the undeserved glance.

“I’m sorry, Great One.”

Huitzilopochtli growled, and Wade felt the floor move. It was all he could do not to run from the room screaming like a baby. This was the power he worshipped.

“You were right to kill the intruders, Tlatoani.”

“Thank you, Great One.” Wade shivered with pleasure as he heard the word Tlatoani reverberate in his head. Tlatoani… the one who speaks for the gods, a priest charged with making divine battle plans and expanding the gods’ empires. But was he really a tlatoani, or something more? Hush, you fool! Do not harbor such thoughts in the presence of… Him.

He growled again. “There are many more on their way. Kill them all. Offer them to me.”

“Yes, Great One.”

“Do you fear him?”

Wade knew who he meant but he was too frightened to mention his name.

“I fear all the ancient gods, Great One.”

A long silence was broken by the sound of a ringing telephone.

Wade spun around in rage and snatched up the receiver. “Who is it?”

“It’s Aurora.”

“What do you want?” he barked, looking nervously at the terrifying presence just a few feet in front of him. “I told you no one was to disturb me.”

“We have Sobotka. He’s in the lab right now.”

“Ah…” Wade glanced at the black and blue face. The red eyes… he looked away. “Good. You know what to do next. Make sure he knows what’s at stake.”

“You got it, boss.”

Wade didn’t like the way the woman had cut the call, and he didn’t much like the way she’d called him boss like that, in that not-give-a-shit manner of hers. She and Mendoza were lethal, he knew, but what were they when compared with the gods?

“It has begun, Great One.”

A low, long growl was the only response.