The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Last time I looked we had one sun, crackerjack,” Lea said, straining at the yachting rope binding her hands behind her back.

“Well ain’t that cute? Cute — but dead wrong, baby, because our solar system is binary. We have two suns. We might have only just worked it out, but the ancient Aztecs always knew this was the case. They were infinitely wiser than us — we’ve lost so much ancient knowledge now ’cause we’re always looking down into our little screens… The Aztecs described these two suns very clearly — the sun of the day — the young, fresh sun, and then there was the ancient, black sun. The Black Sun story is central to Mesoamerican Underworld mythology.”

“Sounds like you need a nice lie down,” Lea said.

If Wade heard her, he didn’t show it. “The Aztecs called them the Day Sun and the Black Sun, and yet today modern science would describe them as the Sun, or Sol to be more precise, and Gliese 229, a red dwarf around nineteen light years away. That is what makes our solar system a binary one. I know it’s hard for you to get your lil’ pinheads around it, but yeah, it’s true — we have two suns. The red dwarf is completely unobservable without modern, high-powered telescopes of course, which makes me ask the question: how did the Aztecs know of its existence?”

“Do enlighten us.”

“You’re too ignorant to understand.”

“Try me,” Lea said.

“I deal in dreams,” Wade said, drifting away again. “That is why I intend on reviving such a wonderful ancient cult…”

Hawke glanced at the clock. 11:58. “And I deal in reality, Wade. You and your men are nothing more than common terrorists.”

Wade chuckled as he looked at them. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You tryin’ to threaten me, boy? Trussed up like a Christmas turkey?” He kicked Hawke in the stomach and roared with laughter as the Englishman doubled over, gasping for air.

“Anyway, it hardly matters now. It’s all over. The bastards who gutted me are about to find out what happens when you screw with the ancient gods. Long before your unwanted presence arrived at my plantation, my little Hummingbird flew up into the sky. She’s long gone now, and can’t be stopped. It’s over… a done deal.”

“If your little hummingbird means the bomb, we know all about it.”

Wade looked at Lea sharply. “You know squat.”

“I know you’re a maniac with a cult who wants to sacrifice people to ancient gods, and that’s not crazy at all. Did I miss anything out?”

“You know nothing about me, you little bitch.”

“Hey!” Hawke shouted. “Watch your mouth.”

“Or what, Limey?”

“You’ll find out, Tex.”

Wade laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, little man. Eighty thousand people were sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli when a new temple was dedicated to him in 1487. Today, I will dedicate my new temple to him, and sacrifice over one hundred times more people. Does that sound like the actions of a man who can be easily intimidated?”

“A hundred times more?” Lea said, shocked. “That’s eight million!”

“There’s nothing wrong with your math, Irish.”

“Get fucked,” Lea said. “You need a psychiatrist!”

“Feisty,” Wade said with a grin. “I like that in a woman. It’s just a shame you’ll be dead in ten minutes.”

“You’re not going to get away with any of this, Wade,” she said. “It’s not just us who are onto you. The Americans are on your case too.”

“The Americans are on everyone’s case, but they’re gonna have a shitload more to worry about than me in a few hours.” He gave a low laugh and whistled. “Shit yeah, boy.”

“What does that mean?”

“Have you never wondered how these ancient civilizations knew so much more than us? Look at people today! Concerned only with buying their junk and getting drunk and living in total ignorance of their own world, and yet men and women who walked this earth centuries ago knew more than they do!”

“Oh, come off it,” she said sharply. “People like you think you’re so much cleverer than the rest of us, but you’re wrong!”

Hawke watched the clock.

Right about now…

Then Wade’s dreamy state was broken by a sudden explosion and the sound of submachine gunfire. “Right on time,” Hawke said, giving Wade his best piss-taking grin.

Wade leaped from his seat, panicked, but before he spoke the door smashed open. The scarred face of Silvio Mendoza appeared in the doorway. He was gripping a Nosler deer hunting rifle and looked rattled.

“What is it?!” the Texan snapped. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the favela, sir… it’s under attack.”

Wade looked alarmed for a moment, but then composed himself. “Send Soto and Garza and the men and kill them all. He turned to Hawke and Lea. “You take these two outside. You know what to do.”

Mendoza gave a businesslike nod and padded over to the prisoners. Raising his revolver above him, Hawke saw the pearl-handled weapon sparkle in the sunlight. Then he saw Mendoza bring it down hard on his head and he was out for the count.

Scarlet led the assault on the guardroom and a few short seconds later the melancholy peace of the favela exploded into a savage battlefield, with the former SAS woman and her team rushing toward the buildings and engaging with the enemy guards.

The plantation workers screamed and scattered like coffee tea leaves in a hurricane, hiding inside the shanties and slamming shut the plywood doors.

A man with a paramilitary uniform raced toward Scarlet, obviously shocked by the surprise attack but still ready for a fight. As he pounded closer to her he ordered the other guards into the fray and then raised his fist to strike her.

Scarlet sidestepped and dodged the blow, but returned fire with the butt of her gun which she plowed into the man’s jaw. She heard a cracking sound and he cried out, but not before she brought her left hand up and planted a vicious tiger punch in his windpipe. He crashed to the floor in a wheezing heap and she finished the job off with a solid kick in his face.

A guard saw the attack and raised his gun to fire at Scarlet, but Reaper ran forward and grappled him to the ground. The guard’s automatic rifle fired off a few rounds in a lethal, uncontrolled arc as the two men fought, but the former legionnaire brought matters to a conclusion with a devastating head butt which knocked the man out cold. Reaper then yanked the rifle out of his hands and emptied the magazine in the direction of more of Wade’s goons.

Lexi Zhang had decided to use the assault as a workout and was currently cutting her way through several armed men. They fought with knives but their efforts to keep her away from the favela were in vain.

Kim and Camacho were making their way toward the east end of the guardroom, but Alex Reeve was hanging back for a moment, fazed by heat of close-combat after so many years behind a desk. One of the guards saw her and clambered on a motorbike. He kick-started it and drove toward her with a pistol in his left hand.

This was the moment to prove herself ready for the field again.

She aimed her gun and fired at the serpiente as he raced toward. Her shot was good and hit the Michelin Scorcher tire on the front, tearing into the silica-enriched rubber compound and exploding it off the aluminum wheel rim in a burst of sparks and smoke. The bike spun out of control and skidded off the dirt track between the favela and the coffee fields. It smashed into a low fence and propelled the guard through the air in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes. He landed in the gravel with a heavy whack.

The former CIA agent had been out of the field a long time, but it looked like she hadn’t lost her touch. And proving it in this part of the world was extra sweet, because it was down here in Latin America that she had been shot and paralysed.

She recalled the mission with a shudder. She was part of a unit rescuing hostages from a FARC outpost south of Bogota when it happened. The mission had been a success, but she never got to celebrate. She was on a chopper to the nearest hospital and hours later awoke from an operation to be told she would never walk again.

And she hadn’t — not for years… not until Joe Hawke walked back into her life and handed her the mysterious elixir they’d found in the Ethiopian Highlands. If all that seemed like years ago, then the shooting in Bogota was another lifetime. Either way, it felt good to be back in the saddle, even if Richard Eden had taken some convincing that she was ready to go back into the field. She was trained for more than just intel work and she wanted to show it.

But then she felt the stabbing pain in her legs again.

It receded.

But came back… probably nothing, she told herself, and charged into the fray where Scarlet was deconstructing someone’s face with a ferocious salvo of heel kicks.

“Need a hand?” Alex shouted.

“Hardly, darling… but thanks for asking.”

Scarlet spun around once more, striking the man off his balance. He staggered back, dazed, but then yanked a gut hook from his belt. With blood pouring from his lips, he stormed toward Scarlet and Alex, swearing revenge.