The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER TWO

Alex Reeve took one more look at the sunset and strolled slowly back along the jetty toward the HQ building. She felt safe here in the knowledge that no one even knew the island existed — being here meant dropping off the grid completely.

The evening was warm and humid as ever, but not oppressively so. The trade winds — what the original French inhabitants of the island had called les alizés — brought invigorating breezes across the sea from the northeast and kept the climate stable and pleasant. The occasional hurricane swept across the island from time to time, but the ECHO complex was designed to withstand them, and then normal tropical island paradise was resumed. Tonight was no exception.

Except for the shadow that was following them all around.

The Athanatoi, or Immortals.

None of them knew who they were, or what they wanted. All Alex knew was their medicine… their magic had helped her walk again after years in a wheelchair. But every time she felt the stabbing, electrical pain in her legs she wondered for how much longer. She knew the immortals’ black magic was wearing out and soon she would be back in that damned chair.

The agonized thought of it made her head swim, and yet she had kept the full extent of her concerns to herself, not wanting to burden the others at such a critical time. Instead, she threw herself into her own research, poring over Dr Henry Donovan’s mysterious files, and even testing and retesting the last precious drop of the sacred elixir, but so far she’d found nothing in Lea’s father’s research except the erratic scribblings of a man possessed… and nothing in the elixir itself except strange electrical properties that none of them had yet decoded.

As she meandered her way back to the shore, she saw Lexi Zhang walking out from the complex. The Chinese assassin waved her hand in the air to get her attention.

“What’s the matter, Lexi?” she asked, noticing the look in her eyes.

“It’s the old man — something big is going down.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but he wants everyone together in a hurry.”

Alex knew something was wrong by the look on Lexi’s face and followed her back to the compound. As they stepped into the main area, Scarlet Sloane and Vincent Reno were walking through from the kitchen.

“What’s all this about?” Scarlet asked. “Vincent here was just about to show me his andouillette.”

Alex looked at Vincent. “Is that what they call it in Marseille?”

Before Scarlet could answer, her eyes widened like saucers. “Ooh — I know! Is this about Captain Kidd?”

“The pirate?” Alex said, bemused.

Lexi rolled her eyes. “Please don’t get her started. All I’ve heard for days is pirates and sunken treasure.”

Scarlet nodded and smiled, failing to catch the sarcasm in the Chinese assassin’s voice. “Now that’s excitement!” she continued. “Fleeing from English men-of-war he stashed treasure all over the place, including Gardiner’s Island as he hid in Oyster Bay… but the real kicker is the treasure they never found.”

“Sure,” Alex said nodding. “His story is so notorious it inspired stories like Poe’s God-Bug and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“So romantic,” Vincent said.

Scarlet gave him a sideways glance. “I was thinking more of the treasure, Reap — and that’s why I’ve been researching it.”

“Vraiment?” he raised his eyebrows with respect. “You and research are like chalk and peas, no?”

“Cheese.”

“Sorry, like cheese and peas.”

Scarlet let it slide. “Either way, I think there’s a lot more to his story than just gold — in fact it could have something to do with what we’ve been fighting. It’s a bloody trail leading all the way to Madagascar and some serious loot. I mentioned it to Rich the other day. Maybe I’ll get Bale on it after we finish cataloguing the Valhalla treasure — it’s worth our time, I know it.”

“Tell me more!” Alex said, officially interested. “I always wanted to go to Madagascar.”

“Captain Kidd was a privateer who…” But before Scarlet could finish, Sir Richard Eden descended the central stairs with a look of grave concern on his face. None of them had ever seen him like this before, not even the former SAS woman.

“It’s Ben Ridgeley,” Eden said distractedly.

Alex felt a wave of fear rush over her at the mention of Ben’s name. She didn’t know him well — since she’d joined the team he’d spent much of his time in Mexico tracking Morton Wade, but they’d shared some good times — not least the night they’d failed to stop Lexi from taking everyone out and reaching her mission objective of ‘assassinating’ Sir Richard.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“He’s in trouble,” Eden continued. “Worse than that, Alfie Mills and Sasha Harding followed him into the jungle and now it looks like they’ve been rumbled by Wade. He must have dropped his phone and the camera’s sending a live feed.”

“So not Captain Kidd then…” Alex said, disappointed.

“No,” Scarlet said with disgust. “The romance of privateer treasure-hunting just got barged out of the way by an American software billionaire.”

“By day maybe,” Eden said, “but a certified nutcase by night.”

“Why do you say that?” the Frenchman asked.

“We’re not entirely sure,” Eden continued. “One of my sources indicated I might like to pay Wade closer attention so I sent Ben, Alfie and Sasha over to see if there was anything worth looking at. The rumors are that he’s close to uncovering something of enormous archaeological importance from the ancient Aztec civilization.”

“So he’s interested in archaeology?” Scarlet asked, her voice the epitome of naïve innocence. “Same can be said for a lot of nerds… what’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with it is that there are other rumors about Mr Wade… very unsavory rumors about how he likes to spend his spare time.”

Vincent fixed his eyes on the old man. “What rumors?”

“Before he fell from grace, Wade’s business empire was massive — for a time he was of the richest men in America and had subsidiary companies all over the Western hemisphere. These included several sweatshops in Mexico, not to mention rumors of a sprawling coffee plantation somewhere in Guerrero but we’re not sure where that is.”

“But not exactly Vlad the Impaler then,” Scarlet said, arching an eyebrow.

Eden was silent for a moment, clearly wrestling with how much to say. “People associated with Wade have been going missing. A lot of people. We don’t know what’s happening to them but clearly something unpleasant is going on. Not only that but we know he’s expanding some kind of warped sun-worshipping cult.”

“An Aztec thing?” Lexi asked.

Eden nodded grimly. “Put all this together and it’s enough to have my interest.” He stared at them all before finishing. “And if it’s got my interest it’s got your interest, understand? This isn’t a holiday camp, remember. Now get that feed on the plasma screen, Alex!”

“On it.”

Eden paced the room as Alex hurried to patch the live video from Ben’s phone through to the plasma screen. After a few tense seconds an image of dense jungle filled the enormous screen and they watched with horror as they saw Ben running away from the camera toward some kind of clearing. Someone shot him, and then he was surrounded by men.

“That one’s Wade,” Eden said, indicating a tall man in a battered Reiner hat.

A short conversation followed and then things went from bad to worse when Alfie Mills and Sasha Harding were dragged into the frame.

Eden hammered his fist on the desk. “Why the hell did they go into the jungle?”

“Beats me,” Alex said. “They’re not jungle-trained.”

“No they’re bloody well not! They were trying to impress me.” Eden’s voice grew quieter at the thought.

“They look terrified,” Lexi said.

“Damn it all!” Eden shouted. “I told him to get out of there! I told him his safety was the priority, not the mission. Things are bad enough with half the team in London.”

Alex felt the anxiety rise. The whole scene was given a warped twist due to the phone being tipped at forty-five degrees, and she started to feel sick as she realized what was about to happen.

“Is there anything we can do to help them?” she asked.

Eden gritted his teeth and shook his head. “Nothing. They’re in the middle of the Lacandon Jungle.”

“Where’s that exactly?” Reaper asked.

Alex turned around and faced him, her face sombre. “In the Chiapas state of Mexico.”

Eden sighed. “Even if we fuelled a jet and took off immediately it’s a three hour flight to the nearest city and several hours by Jeep, not to mention even more hours hiking through the rainforest. They’re totally alone.”

For a moment there was another brief conversation between Wade and Ben, and then Wade ordered a man to shoot Alfie and Sasha. Alex watched in disbelief as both were gunned down and fell just out of the shot, dead.

“Did that really just happen?” Lexi said.

Eden said nothing, but Alex saw the tension in his jaw.

“Fake, maybe?” Lexi asked.

Eden shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so,” Reaper said quietly.

Now, Ben was struggling to free himself but he had no chance against the grip of so many men. Then Wade held something up to the sky and a look of deranged mania appeared on his face. Moments later he appeared to hand Ben a gun before taking a step back and ordering his men to attack the former Para.

Scarlet narrowed her eyes. “What the hell’s going on?”

“I can’t believe we’re watching this live,” Alex said. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“Ben works for me,” Eden said, his voice low and full of emotion. “I’ve known him since we were in the Paras together, and I sent him in there. You can all do as you please, but he’s in ECHO and if you think I haven’t got the courage to watch what he has to go through then you don’t know me at all. I need to know what happens because I need to know who to punish and how hard.”

After that, no one else spoke.

The feed beamed live into the ECHO headquarters and Eden and the rest of the team watched in horrified, stunned silence as the men pounded on their friend, stabbing and kicking him. Then Wade walked over and lifted the strange dagger above his head. The men gathered and obscured what happened next. A minute later, a bloodied Morton Wade saw the phone and walked over to it. The last image they received was the Texan smashing his boot down on the lens.

“Alex, get me that phone’s location right now.”

“No problem. The phone’s GPS tracker allows me to pinpoint it in seconds.”

Alex spent a few seconds on her laptop before looking back to Eden. “Done — I have the exact coordinates.”

Eden walked to the window wall and stared out across the Caribbean, speechless.

Alex slumped down in her chair and thought about what she had just witnessed — the brutal murder of three of their own. She felt sick, and now she looked at the others for some kind of mutual comfort. She was one of the newest members of the ECHO team and had never seen anything like this before. She lowered her voice to a whisper and turned to Scarlet. “What happens now?”

“This…” Scarlet said, pointing her chin at Eden.

Across the room, Sir Richard Eden turned around and faced them. Silhouetted by the brightness of the tropical day outside the window behind him, his body took on an ominous, ethereal form.

“I haven’t briefed anyone on this yet, but not long ago I was contacted by a man named Barton. He’s in London and claims to be part of Wade’s sun-worshipping cult, only he says something has changed, and he can’t be a part of it any more. He has information for us and he’s meeting Lea, Joe and the others in London today.”

“Jesus,” Scarlet said. “I wonder how bad things have to be for a sun-worshipping cultist to get nervous…”

Eden nodded grimly. “That’s what worries me. Barton’s defection is bad enough, but what we just saw on Ben’s phone obviously means that Wade is now onto the fact that someone is on his tail. He may or may not know that it’s ECHO, but we’re not taking any risks. If he’s onto us then we’re up against it, I can promise you.”

“The best defense is a good offense,” Scarlet said coolly.

“Exactly,” Eden said firmly. “But this time I think we’re going to need some help. My contacts in Mexico are limited but there is someone we can turn to.” He looked at Alex. “I appreciate your relationship with your father is rocky, but I think it might be a good idea to involve him with this. Wade is heavily connected with some of Mexico’s hardest drug gangs and that’s an area the Americans know better than anyone.”

“Sure. I’ll call him.”

Eden was silent for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was level and commanding. “Three of our own are dead, including a very dear friend of mine. I want Morton Wade punished and his cult shut down.”

“Got it.”

“And I want to know why he’s been spending so much time in the jungle as well — we’re going to need to analyse that video feed for a start and see if we can pull anything out of it.”

Scarlet stubbed out her cigarette. “Wheels up in ten minutes.”