The Mayan Codex

98

Abi stepped out of the Hyundai sixty metres short of the warehouse. He programmed Oni’s number into his cell phone. Then he raised both hands above his head. The dawn was well up now, and visibility was improving by the minute. After ten seconds he cut the connection with a movement of his thumb.

He knew all about Oni’s itchy trigger finger. And he also knew that two heavy-duty machine guns – the Stoner M63 and the notoriously unreliable AAT – were covering the approach road. He didn’t want Oni and Berith to think the Mexican owners of the arms dump had returned early from their border run, and commence firing. And neither did he want to walk into a trap.

The cell phone cheeped. Abi put it to his ear. ‘Can you see us?’

‘I’ve got you.’

‘Any trouble?’

‘Nah.’

‘We’ll come in then.’

‘Yeah. Come on in. You’re a tempting target out there. I nearly let loose on you just for the hell of it.’

Abi got back in the car and signalled to Alastor behind him. The convoy moved forwards. ‘We’ll go straight to the warehouse and get this over and done with. We don’t want to stay here any longer than we need to.’

‘You think the Mexicans are on their way back?’

‘Wouldn’t you be?’

Abi backed the Hyundai up to the warehouse and got out. He slung the rucksack containing the codex and the crystal skull over his shoulder. ‘Get the two of them out of the trunk. Be as rough as you like. They’re both for the cenote, whatever happens. Doesn’t matter what shape they’re in. Nobody will ever find them. I doubt the guys that own this place are sub-aqua enthusiasts.’

Rudra and Asson manhandled Sabir and Calque out of the trunk of the car.

‘Vau. You and Alastor take over from Oni and Berith at the machine guns. They’ll be jaded and resentful by now. I’ll let them loose on our prisoners in compensation. Give them a little entertainment to take their minds off things.’

‘Okay. But do you really think we might have trouble?’

‘Unlikely for another few hours. Unless they’ve got access to a helicopter, that is. The guys that own this joint might not even have called in yet. Why should they? Who in their right minds would attack an arsenal? But at some point they will. And then they’re going to be very, very angry. Nobody likes cuckoos in their nest.’

Abi joined the others inside the warehouse. He dumped the rucksack unceremoniously onto a nearby counter, as if its contents meant nothing to him at all. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have Lamia – that could have been really amusing. I love a quorum. We’d soon have found out whether Mr Sabir is the gentleman he likes to think he is.’ He stood for a while, weighing up his two prisoners. ‘String the policeman up first. Strappado style. Arms stretched behind his back. I don’t care if you dislocate the hell out of him. We’ll see if Mr Sabir enjoys watching his friends whimpering in pain.’

Oni was beckoning to him from the corner of the warehouse. ‘Abi, have you got a minute?’

‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘Seriously. I think you ought to come over here and take a look at this.’ Oni was pointing to a trapdoor, now only partially covered by some of the packing cases they’d plundered earlier. ‘I noticed this an hour or so ago when I came in for coffee. Didn’t have time to check it out then, because there were only the two of us here. Don’t you think we ought to take a look? Might be something of interest down there.’

Abi glanced over at Calque. Rudra had just finished roping him to one of the packing hoists. Sabir was seated between Calque’s legs – his arms were tied behind his back at the wrist and the bicep.

Asson grinned when he saw the direction of Abi’s gaze. ‘This way the policeman can piss on Sabir’s head when the pain gets too bad.’

‘Hold off a moment. I want to check what’s beneath this trapdoor first. You can boil me a kettle while you’re waiting. And scissor off the policeman’s shirt. We haven’t got time for any finesse. We’ll see if Mr Sabir likes eating parboiled copper.’

Oni pushed the packing cases aside. He wrenched at the trapdoor. It groaned a little, but didn’t give. ‘Hand me the Mini-Uzi. Now stand away, all of you, unless you want your teeth blown out.’

Abi clapped his hands over his ears. He had an inordinate fear of losing his hearing.

Oni let rip with the Uzi. Chunks of wood and metal shavings sprayed off the trapdoor. Oni tentatively kicked at it with the heel of his shoe. ‘Once more.’ This time the 9mm Parabellum slugs knocked a hole the size of a man’s head in the woodwork. ‘Okay. We’re through.’

Abi let his hands flutter down from his face. He watched as Oni manhandled what remained of the trapdoor onto the warehouse floor. ‘Go on down. I’ll follow you.’ He stepped brusquely across to the workbench and helped himself to a Maglite.

‘Jesus and Mary!’

Abi hurried after Oni. ‘What is it? What have you found?’

‘Come down here and take a look at this.’ Oni had located a light switch. The whole of the newly-revealed cellar area was now bathed in strip-lighting.

Abi ducked down the trapdoor staircase. He straightened up and then tossed the unused Maglite onto a nearby table. ‘Holy shit.’

Thirty industrial-sized vats took up a full third of the available cellar space. Another third was taken up by a forty-foot long by ten-foot wide pile of shrink-wrapped plastic bricks – some were packed in shiny green polythene, some in white, some in blue. The remaining third of the floor-space was taken up by an armour-plated Hummer H1 Alpha and a massive display case containing a series of gold-plated sub-machine guns, diamond-and emerald-encrusted pistols, and about a thousand platinum-jacketed slugs. Some of the pistols had images of the Virgin Mary tooled into their grips, while others had fake Versace logos.

‘This is no arms dump, Abi. This is a crystal meth factory.’ Oni was crouched down over one of the polythene-covered bricks – he had his knife out and was tasting the powder. ‘This is first-grade pure ice.’ He shivered as if someone had just walked over his grave. ‘Must be a ton and a half of the stuff here. Worth maybe five million dollars out on the streets.’ He stood up. ‘The narco-bling is probably worth an extra half mill on top. And how the hell did they get that Hummer down here? Must have a jump switch linking this place to the surface. Must have.’ He began checking around, like a child searching for Easter eggs. ‘Yeah. Here. Look.’ He hit the switch. A section of the roof began to fan open – a separate, driveable section unravelled itself like the outstretched palm of a hand and came to rest with its rubber shock absorbers onto the concrete surface of the floor. Daylight streamed in from outside. ‘Now that’s cool. That’s really cool.’ Oni was caressing the built-in servo-control mechanism as if it were a woman. ‘This is better than a thousand-dollar whore, Abi. We can truck this stuff out in the Hummer and stash it wherever we want. We’ve hit pay dirt at last.’

Abi shook his head. ‘No we haven’t. The watchman you killed lied to us. The bastard must have known all about this. His bosses weren’t ever up at the border on any fucking arms deal – they were preparing for a major methamphetamine shipment. Look at this.’ He pointed to a gold plaque screwed into the wall – the mountings were decorated with diamonds. ‘Listen to what it says. “It is better to die fighting head on, than on your knees and humiliated; it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. We don’t kill for money. We don’t kill women. We don’t kill children. We don’t kill innocent people, only those that deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.” Look. They’ve even made up their own personalized copy of the Bible, with extra pages tipped in – and I don’t like the look of the leather it’s bound in.’

‘What? You don’t think it’s made of human skin?’

‘It could be pig, but I’m not betting on it. The bastards who made it are probably waking up just about now after a night out on the tiles in Cancun. One failed call to our friend Pepito and they’ll be over here like a pack of ravening wolves. We get out of here, Oni. And we get out now.’

‘What? And leave all this?’

‘You can take a brick for your own personal use. How about that? But the rest stays put. What do you want to do? Rot your teeth out?’