The Mayan Codex

38

That morning saw the trio crossing the Rio Bravo at the Puente Nuevo, and driving through into Matamoros from Brownsville, Texas. They paid their $2.25 toll, and arranged for their temporary vehicle permit from the CIITEV office. Then they headed south down Highway 101 towards San Fernando.

Abi and Vau, who had crossed by foot earlier that morning, and secured a new, Mexican registered rental for themselves, picked up the Grand Cherokee about two miles out of town. The tracker was working fine, so they were able to follow the Jeep at a distance of about three quarters of a mile, with no possibility of a surprise sighting. The nine remaining members of the Corpus had been detailed to hire themselves two people carriers, one for the men and one for the women, and to keep in touch with Abi and Vau via cell phone. They would rendezvous every night near whatever motel the trio had chosen for themselves.

Abi had decided against concealing the existence of the tracker from his brothers and sisters for the simple reason that keeping a close tail on a car you don’t really need to follow is a smart way of asking for trouble. And to hell with Madame, his mother’s, worries about her children feeling she didn’t trust them any more. If the others didn’t tell her and trigger the predictable scene, then he certainly wouldn’t. And who in their right mind trusted anybody anyway?

Any further cock-ups, and Abi knew that the Countess would take him off the case. Christ, she might even give the job to Brain-of-Europe Vau – or, even worse, to the next man down the list in the seniority stakes. Mr Harelip himself. Bullshitter Berith. The world’s greatest Pseudologist.

Abi knew that his best bet with the Countess always lay in seducing her into liking him face to face. Alongside Oni and Athame, he was undoubtedly her favourite. But keeping in touch with her by cell phone was a sheer disaster. The Countess hated using telephones, and was always constrained in what she said. She started in on the offensive and stayed there. And wasn’t it always so much easier to cashier somebody when you didn’t have to look them in the eye?

Abi decided that he would tread very carefully indeed for the next few days. When the perfect moment came to move in on Sabir, he would be ready. He wouldn’t blow things twice in a row.