The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER ONE

Keeping low in the tropical undergrowth, Ben Ridgeley raised the monocular to his eye. Tracking Morton Wade and his thugs through Mexico’s Lacandon Jungle for the past few days hadn’t been easy, but now things were looking up. Finally he would have something to report to ECHO HQ back on Elysium, and that meant Sir Richard Eden owed him fifty dollars. It might also help with his redemption after letting Lexi Zhang get the better of him that night and knock him out of the selection test with her paintball gun.

A few steps behind him were Alfie Mills and Sasha Harding. They were two former cops from the Met who Eden was thinking about bringing into Elysium, but they had already broken the cardinal rule and gone against the Boss’s word. Eden and Ben had both instructed them to stay in Acapulco, but less than twenty-four hours after he started tracking Wade into the jungle they’d caught him up. Sure, they were trying to impress everyone, but the order was given for a good reason. The jungle was one of the least forgiving environments at the best of times, let alone when you were engaged with an enemy that wanted to kill you. Now they were just slowing him down.

“See anything?” Sasha said.

“Yeah,” Ben replied. “Looks like they’ve finally got what they were looking for.”

He watched the team of hired mercenaries and thugs approach the ruins they had been seeking. As far as he could make out from the accents, cigarettes and tattoos, they were mostly Mexicans, unlike their leader, the American Silicon Valley magnate and tech guru Morton Wade. Like Ridgeley, they were all tired after the trek, but Wade seemed energized by these particular ruins, and ordered his men to investigate. This place wasn’t on any map, but Wade sure seemed excited to be here.

Ben struggled to keep the team in view as they moved deeper into the ruins. Damn it, he thought, and moved cautiously closer. He told Alfie and Sasha to stay put and weaved through the sapodilla and allspice plants until taking cover behind the trunk of a Guanacaste tree. Above, through a canopy of magnolia and mahogany leaves he saw a darkening sky which threatened to soak him to his skin for the third time that day.

All around him the deafening cadence of cicadas and macaws mixed with the eerie calls of the howler monkeys. He thought about what he was missing back in the Caribbean hideaway — a cool drink and a comfortable bed — but he’d gone through worse in the Parachute Regiment, usually following Eden’s orders, and this was an important mission. How the two former cops were holding up was anyone’s guess.

Wade began to bark more commands and some of the men opened an equipment box and pulled out glow-sticks and ropes. “This looks promising,” Ben muttered, and zoomed in on the increased activity with the monocular.

Two of the men were now tearing vines and wild bromeliads from the ruins in order to access some kind of concealed entrance. Some of their colleagues were pacing around in a circle, looking out into the thick rainforest with Colt 9mm SMGs raised and ready for trouble. It looked like they were setting up some kind of perimeter and this told Ben they were planning on staying a while.

Wade leaned into the newly exposed entrance and poked his head inside. After a few short moments of contemplation, he pulled himself back out into the light of day. He was smiling but looked anxious. Singling out the perimeter guards and telling them to stay put, he ordered the other men into the ruins.

Ben’s concern grew as Wade and the chosen men made their way inside the ruins and disappeared into the darkness within. Time passed, and they emerged from the entrance hauling what looked like half a stone disc out into the daylight.

He made his way slowly forward to get a better look, trying not to draw attention to himself, but a dead branch gave way under his boot and the snap echoed around the area like a gunshot.

The men immediately spun around and began to search in his direction. Seconds later Wade ordered his men into the jungle. Ben knew he had to get himself and the others out of there, and began to scramble through the undergrowth. He missed his footing on a loose rock and pitched forward tearing his knee open on a jagged branch. He suppressed the scream but there was no time to check the wound — they were closing in on him every second.

“Get out of here!” he screamed at Alfie and Sasha. “Hide!”

He pushed himself up against a tree trunk and grabbed at the cell phone in his pocket. Like everything else, the incessant rainfall had given it a good soaking, and he prayed as he switched it on.

His prayers were answered — despite only one percent battery life remaining, the phone seemed to be in working order and he wasted no time in hitting the speed dial to connect with the ECHO headquarters.

“Ben!” the voice said. He recognised it at once as Eden’s. “Where have you been?”

“I’m in some trouble, Rich.” The sound of his voice — hurried and anxious — surprised even himself. “They’re closing in on me. They must have infrared tracking or something because no matter what I do they just keep coming… and there’s worse news. Alfie and Sasha followed me into the jungle.”

“What?! I told them to stay in Acapulco. All of you have to get out of there!”

“Easier said than done, Rich,” Ben replied, his heart beating hard in his chest. “I’m going to level with you… I don’t think I’m going to make it through this one, so listen carefully.”

“I’m listening, Ben, but don’t think we’re not going to do everything we can to get you out of there.”

A brief smile flashed on Ben’s face. This was just like the old man — never leave a man behind and so on — but now wasn’t the time. Behind the ridge he had just tumbled down he could hear the men closing in fast. Alfie and Sasha were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they got away.

“I think Wade found what he was looking for, Rich — looks like some kind of stone artefact — half a disc and covered in weird carvings. One for Bale I think.” As he spoke, the heavens opened and a torrential rainstorm smashed through the jungle canopy.

“Your safety is the priority, Ben.”

“Not this time… I’m shit out of luck, Rich and we both know it. You’ll be able to trace the coordinates of my phone via the GPS so at least that way the mission wasn’t in vain. I’m going to distract Wade’s men to give Alfie and Sasha a better chance.”

“Don’t be so bloody defeatist, Ridgeley, and that’s an order!”

Ben smiled again and tipped his head back on the trunk. The rain fell down from the canopy and ran down his nose into his mouth. Closer now, he heard someone fire a burst of submachine gun fire. It was followed seconds later by whoops of crazed joy and a gravelly voice screaming: “He’s over there!”

Ben considered the options as he let the warm rain wash over his face. If he tried to make another run for it, his knee was going to bring him down in a few hundred yards or less. If he stayed where he was, the men would be on him in just a few minutes. He could only hope Alfie and Sasha had gotten to safety somewhere, and he watched as a parrot, startled by the monstrous approach of his hunters, flew up into the canopy and disappeared into the stormy sky. If only I could fly away too, he thought.

His thoughts were smashed by the sound of the men hacking their way closer to him. He peered around the trunk and immediately saw the flash of their machete blades as they made their way toward him. Now it was time for him to make his final dash.

He leaped over the river and his phone tumbled out of his grip as he landed on the other bank in a clearing. He suppressed a scream of agony as his smashed patella pushed into the wounded articular cartilage, but his efforts were in vain. Seconds later he was sliding around in the mud on the far bank and he heard a scream of delight as the men behind saw him and gave chase.

The men waited on the bank of the river for a while and Ben wondered if he had a chance of escape after all, but then he heard the crack of a gunshot and felt the bullet tear into his good knee. They’d seen his limp and decided to take out his good leg as well. Now they no longer even had to run to catch him, and he watched in agony as they strolled casually over, led by Morton Wade himself.

Wade approached first and kicked him in the stomach. Ben doubled forward and wheezed, but the pain of his knees detracted from the agony of Wade’s boot as he drove it up into his diaphragm.

“Who sent you here, boy?” Wade said in his Texan drawl. “The CIA? The FSB? Or maybe the damned Brits?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you anything you can forget it, Wade.”

“I hold no expectations other than the imminence of your death.”

With his hands stuffed casually in his pockets, Wade made a small circle of Ben and surveyed the rainforest beyond the clearing. “It’s hard to believe, is it not, that what today is nothing but trees, bushes and tangled weeds was once a magnificent civilization.”

“What are you going on about?” Ben struggled against the men’s grip as they held him down but they were too strong for him.

Wade used a sweeping gesture of his hand to highlight the enormity of the rainforest. “This area here hasn’t always been a mere jungle. A thousand years ago a vast, ancient metropolis stood on this very spot where we’re talking right now. This here would have most likely been a crossroads in the heart of the city, and over there was a central boulevard leading to the most sacred temples. Sadly there’s nothing much left at this particular location.”

Ben watched as Wade seemed to slip into a strange reverie — perhaps he really thought he was back there in his precious ancient civilization right now instead of here in the rainforest. Ben could only speculate what went through a mind like Morton Wade’s.

“Whatever you’re planning, you will fail.”

The men burst out laughing but Wade was more pensive.

“I admire your optimism but we must agree to disagree on this point. My plans, as you put it, are already done and dusted. Now we are well into the end game — not that you’ll be alive to see it.”

“What are you talking about? If you’re going to kill me, then just get on with it!”

More laughter, but when the men saw the look on Wade’s face they soon settled down to a more serious silence.

The Texan pulled a black object from his pocket. It was twisted and black, mostly smooth but with a few sharp, jagged edges. “Do you know what this is?”

“Looks like your personality.”

Wade ignored the comment. “This is obsidian. Volcanic glass which is formed naturally when felsic lava is forced out of a volcano and then cools very quickly. Its significance to Mesoamerican culture cannot be underestimated, especially in Pre-Columbian civilizations.”

“In that case I’ll take two and can you gift-wrap them please. There’s a good chap.”

Wade drove his boot into Ben’s stomach again and he howled in agony.

“They used them for all sorts of purposes — making jewellery, blades, even religious idols and figurines.” Wade held the black obsidian to the sky and looked at it with reverence for a few moments. “Have you heard of Huitzilopochtli?”

“Of course,” Ben said, still struggling to get his breath back. “But I’ll only eat it with guacamole.”

“Silence!” Wade barked. “You blasphemer! Huitzilopochtli was a magnificent deity.” He stared at the black glass again, mesmerized. “Only your total ignorance allows you to mock the mighty Huitzilopochtli, the great god of war… the creator of the sun, but soon you will tremble before him.”

Ben strained against the men’s grip, staring up at Wade with confused eyes. “You damned coward!”

“The Aztecs were highly creative when it came to sacrificing humans to the gods. If I desired to offer you to Tezcatlipoca, I would give you a mock weapon and force you to fight the Jaguar Knights. If I were going to offer you to Huehueteotl you would be burned alive, and then there was the Huitzilopochtli ritual…”

“And what does that involve?” Ben said, stalling for time. “Being tickled to death with a feather duster?”

The self-satisfied smirk dropped from Wade’s face. “Typical smart-ass Limey — always with the gags. If you have to know, Limey, those sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli were laid on a slab of stone and had their hearts ripped out while they were still alive.”

“So definitely no feather dusters then?”

Wade barked more orders in Spanish and the men began to chant and whoop. They lowered their guns and pulled strange wooden swords from their belts. Wade emptied a Glock pistol and put the magazine in his pocket. “Some of my men see themselves as Jaguar Knights, serving Tezcatlipoca, others as Eagle Knights serving Huitzilopochtli. They will fight you with their macuahuitl, a kind of sword made from obsidian. It makes a terrible wound… more than enough to incapacitate you for the ritual.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Ben said, his heart sinking when he saw Wade’s men dragging Alfie and Sasha out of the jungle. They threw them down in the clearing at gunpoint. They had found their hiding place.

Wade dismissed Ben’s sentiment with a casual wave of his hand and then ordered his men to kill Alfie and Sasha. Ben watched in horror as a hail of bullets drilled into the two former police officers and cut them to ribbons. Seconds later their bodies sank down into the undergrowth and the sound of the cicadas returned.

“You murdering piece of scum, Wade!”

Wade nodded as if he was in agreement, but then his face turned sour. “I’ll see you in the next life. Attack him!”

The men piled in on him, stabbing him all over as he tried to fight back with the butt of the empty, useless gun. He felt the jagged blades of the macuahuitls tearing into his flesh all over his body, and then the strong taste of blood rising in his mouth.

He tried to flee but collapsed to the ground, and now they pounced like animals. He felt their steel toecaps driving into his body and head, striking against his ribs and skull. He felt and heard the sound of his own bones cracking under the relentless pressure and screamed out in terrified agony as the vicious assault of Wade’s thugs beat him into a stupor.

In the final moments of his life, he was only dimly aware of Morton Wade as he approached him, muttering some dark incomprehensible incantation. Then he saw the Texan raise his obsidian blade above his head, the tip pointing at Ben’s chest and he screamed for him to stop.

But Morton Wade didn’t stop. Still mumbling the chant, he plunged the blade down.