Alicia myles 1 - Aztec Gold (16 page)

Lex grunted. Alicia realized it had actually been an exuberant shout but thanks to Russo’s arm—as thick as an anaconda—the cry had escaped as little more than a mumble.

Crouch almost fell to his knees, the only thing stopping him the knowledge that Coker’s scout was undoubtedly watching them. He knew they’d already lingered too long. “Drink break,” he said. “I need some time. Just grab a perch and take a break.”

He refrained from breaking out the map, its contents already committed to memory. Still, he wanted to. He was a man of paper and files, and pen and ink; pre-Android. Yes, he could navigate his way around a mainframe universe with the best of them—but he didn’t really enjoy it. Comfort was holding the evidence physically in his hand, not something encased in plastic, metal or rubber.

Among the terraces,

Look between Hummingbird and the Ritual for your final guidance.

The guiding line he’d drawn, now firmly in his mind, dissected the cliffs in half. They should stay on track. He would leave the problem of Coker’s scout for Alicia and her crew to take care of. He took a swig from a water bottle and motioned Caitlyn across. “Any ideas?”

“Only that the Ritual clearly points toward the Aztec belief in sacrifice. Ritual bloodletting was an accepted norm at the time, as customary as vacation time and Sunday trading hours are to us.”

Cruz took over, remembering his lessons. “The Ritual stems chiefly from their primary god, Huitzilopochtli, god of war and symbol of the sun, built around a belief that every day the young Aztec warrior must banish from the sky the creature of darkness using the weapon of sunlight. But every evening he fails and the creatures are reborn. He needs sustenance for his fight and his diet is human blood.”

“And the people accepted this?” Caitlyn wondered. “Their fathers. Sons? Daughters?”

“The priests were a powerful ruling body,” Cruz said. “As were the kings. As the Aztec empire grew it ensnared more captives for human sacrifice. The increase in captives led to the need for more war. And retellings of gruesome, bloody ceremonies strikes terror into the hearts of their enemies.”

“A long-used method in the art of war,” Crouch said.

“Indeed. I have read that when the great pyramid in Tenochtitlan was enlarged in the fifteenth century the resulting ceremony and celebration comprised of so much killing that the lines of victims stretched out of the city and the massacre lasted four days. You think the Spartans were hardened and bloodthirsty? They had nothing on the Aztecs.”

“Non-stop sacrifice,” Crouch said. “And all to their gods.”

“But how does the Ritual help us now?” Caitlyn wondered

Cruz shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps we’ll find an altar up there. But an annual reaping of twenty to fifty thousand victims clearly means something to these people. And with most of them being sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, it is he who is of most importance.”

Crouch eyed the rising sun. “I have a feeling we should hurry. What more do you know of this sun god, Jose?” The boss rose, packing his water bottle away.

“My Aztec knowledge is unfortunately limited,” Cruz admitted. “Gleaned through only a few months of lessons under Carlos, browsing and speed reading. The Nahua tribe and their old ancestors are not my only job function, you know. And they had so many gods—” He shook his head. “Only a professor that devotes his life to their history would know more than a smattering about all of them.”

Crouch gave Caitlyn the eye. “Perhaps you could help?”

The young woman produced a tablet computer. “Equipped with the best signal boosters money can buy, though no doubt we’ll get a better signal out here than in Marble bloody Arch.”

Crouch shrugged into his pack. “Ready?” he called out, enquiring with that one word as to how they were planning to deal with the scout.

Alicia gazed on ahead. “He’s about thirty feet behind us. Used our snack time to creep up. He’s good, but not as good as us. Start climbing those . . . terraces, sir. We’ll bag him.”

Crouch set off, eager to stay well ahead of Coker. The rocky terraces didn’t pose a problem to the climbers, despite jutting out one above the other and rising for hundreds of feet; their sides were crumbled and eroded, and angled to provide enough purchase for scrambling—a technique not without its hazards but not terribly dangerous.

Crouch went first, pointing out the safe purchase points. Caitlyn paused in his wake, allowing tumbling rocks to pass her by before starting up. Lex came next, employing a similar tactic, and then Cruz; leaving the three soldiers to bring up the rear. Laughing aloud, Alicia shoved Russo ahead with an ass-jab that made the big man squeal. Healey declined her gracious extended offer and motioned for her to precede him. The scout behind would have no idea they knew of his presence.

On the first terrace, Alicia confirmed their suspicions were real. As they moved from its front to its back where the mountain rose, they effectively passed from the scout’s sight. Three terraces and they had carefully monitored his progress, learning his habit. On the fourth Alicia spoke quickly.

“Who wants to do it?”

Excitement lit Healey’s eyes and even Russo’s. Good soldiers. Alicia felt a similar eagerness to enter the fray. The battle called to her as much as it had to the ancient Aztecs. Maybe soldiers never changed.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Healey suggested.

Alicia groaned. Out here, among the stone terraces, on the trail of Aztec gold and with armed enemies at their back, the youngster wanted to play a game. So be it. Quickly she thrust her hand out three times and then held it palm down, the accepted sign for paper. Both Healey and Russo held out clenched fists.

“Whoa,” Alicia said. “I think we found our first battle contest. And I won.”

“Not next time,” Healey said a little hotly. Even Russo looked like he wanted to complain.

“Tell you what,” Alicia said sweetly, patting Healey’s cheek. “Complain to your relevant politician. But don’t mention his expenses.”

With that, counting in her head, she pulled on the rope attached to the piton they’d fastened into the rock wall to double-check its safety, and then ran hard toward the edge of the terrace. Without a sound she leaped into thin air, sixty feet above the desert floor, and used the rope to swing out then back in toward the lower rock wall. A brief memory flashed through her mind—about the last time she’d fought using ropes during the Bones of Odin quest against Matt Drake—and then her body was jockeying to change the position of her flight as her feet kicked out, slamming into the chest of the stunned scout. The man folded instantly and stumbled back into the mountain, not even a grunt escaping his broken chest. Alicia let go of the rope, landing lightly and at a run, reaching him before he had a chance to draw a weapon.

“Surprise!”

She hefted him over her shoulder and threw him back toward the cliff edge. The man landed in a tumbling heap, reflexes finally catching up to his predicament and arresting his roll. By then Alicia was on him once more, lifting him by the straps of his utility jacket until she could stare into his eyes.

“Radio?”

The scout struggled in her grip, surprisingly strong. Twisting sideways he moved until the rising sun flashed and blinded her, pushed away and drew a knife.

“Won’t matter,” he said in a thick South African accent. “Boys are coming.”

Alicia heard the scramble as Healey and Russo made their way down the slope from the terrace above. She debated waiting until the sheer force of numbers intimidated the scout into submission then decided it just wasn’t in her nature.

“Let them come,” she said, striking at the knife-hand with one arm and the neck with a flying foot. “They’ll last about as long as you.”

The knife hit the gouged, rocky floor with a clatter; the neck jerked sideways. The scout fell to his knees, grasping for the deadly blade. Alicia drew one of her own.

“Come nicely,” she said. “Or I’ll feed your carved bones to the coyotes.”

Healey and Russo arrived, the latter bouncing off the rock wall, the former staggering as his foot caught in several deep channels cut into the ground. Exposed up on the terrace, Alicia had no time to dither. Her peripherals also noted the arrival of Crouch, Caitlyn and the others but her concentration focused solely on the scout and his whirling blade. The first thrust went under her arm, the second across her chest, missing by less than an inch. Alicia stepped in and broke the arm, now hitting hard with her own knife, jamming it into the soldier’s ribs to the side of his vest. Eyes opened wide, still uttering no sound, still coming at her, she drove the knife in again for good measure.

This time he staggered.

Alicia let go, allowing the body to fall heavily away. Healey and Russo raced up.

“Took your damn time.”

“It was that or fall off the bloody rock,” Russo returned, indicating the edge.

Crouch arrived with a worried frown plastered across his face. “I’m seeing bodies.”

Alicia stared out across the open plain, toward the distant hills where they had traversed Paria Canyon. There, antlike, were Coker’s crew, heading this way, purposeful and plentiful.

“I guess an hour, maybe more,” Crouch said. “Depends on how much this guy managed to tell them.
We’re nowhere!
We’re here, but we’re nowhere
.
Might as well be trolling around Vegas.”

“Hey,” Caitlyn called, staring down at them from the ledge fifteen feet above. “According to the Aztec scholars Huitzilopochtli was the god of war and the sun. Remember the greatest Aztec treasure—the Wheel of Gold shaped like the legendary Pieces of Eight. Well, that was a representation of him, that obviously upped its value. Huitzilopochtli required a blood sacrifice, not always in the form of human martyrdom. Sometimes a ritual bloodletting was used.”

Crouch stared up at her, the rising sun at his back. “What does that tell us?”

“The Aztec’s also called him the Hummingbird.”

Crouch swallowed drily. The poem’s last line stormed through his head—
look between the Hummingbird and the Ritual for your final guidance.

The sun god and sacrifice.

Slowly, he turned around, saw how the rising sun developed, extending its rays in piercing beams, spectacular in the dawn. He saw how the fiery blush of the sun played against the walls of the mountain as it rose, marking a straight line as perfect as the one he’d drawn on his map.

Oh my God.

The straight and accurate line, their headstrong route of travel, had been a clue.

Then his mind switched to the Ritual and immediately sent his gaze downward to where the scout’s body lay at their feet, bleeding.

Blood trickled along rivulets that had been carved into the rock floor, seeping toward the mountain’s rock wall.

“Between the Ritual and the Hummingbird,” he said. “I know where the treasure is.”

Crouch scrambled at double speed up toward Caitlyn and let out a shout of exultation, quickly tempered.

“Rivulets, tracks in the floor, have been cut on every ridge,” he said, inwardly berating himself for his outburst. Though stupid, even as he rebuked himself he knew exactly why he hadn’t been able to hold the enthusiasm in.

Here was the culmination of a lifelong dream, a ridiculed fable he’d proven to be true, a treasure found that a murdered and imprisoned culture had once owned and lost, a vanished heritage that attested to their true greatness.

Spurred on by urgency and desire he raced for the next slope. “We have to find the one that leads to something more than the face of the mountain.”

“Between Hummingbird and the Ritual.” Caitlyn fixed the line of the rising sun in her mind as she pounded after him. “Between that line and these channels . . .”

Alicia and the rest ran in their wake, the force at their back immaterial now. What would happen was inevitable. Crouch needed his proof to initiate the call for help. When Alicia chanced one more glance at their backs she saw Coker’s force traversing the far slickrock ridge and two small specks above them, birds in the sky.

“Bollocks,” she intoned. “Coker has at least two helicopters with him.”

Russo kept his head down. “As soon as he realizes the scout’s been neutralized he’ll send ‘em in. Shit.”

Above them, Crouch reached the fourth, fifth then sixth tier of rock. The older man was starting to pant. Caitlyn disregarded etiquette and pushed at the small of his back, helping him over the more awkward parts. The seventh ridge passed and they were nearing the top, over a hundred feet high. Still, the rock face was solid, offering no sign of a niche, cave or even a tunnel in the floor.

Alicia, Healey and Russo caught up to them. “Still nothing?”

Crouch scaled the final slope, breaking free of the ascending mountain and emerging onto a wide rocky plateau. Before them a spacious escarpment ran back toward the ridged beginning of some expansive upland terrain, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Crouch wilted. “No. There’s . . . nothing here.”

Caitlyn felt her own passion wane. “But these grooves were made by somebody.” She kicked at the dead-straight furrows. “Oh dear, the sun isn’t as direct up here.”

As she said it, the line of the rising sun, clear against the mountain wall, had expanded and dissipated across the open landscape, making the Aztec’s guidance almost impossible to follow. It was only because she’d fixed the spot so firmly in her mind that she was able to point in all seriousness to the soft ridge that led to the plateau ahead.

“The troughs end right there.”

Crouch moved forward, every step a battle as he fought against elation and failure. When he closed in on the small ridge his steps grew smaller, less frequent. Any moment now he’d have to admit that their quest had been unsuccessful.

But we found the initial treasure . . .
the words were already formed on his lips.

Maybe there was another cave, another room back there. Maybe it had been found previously and the sheets of gold left abandoned—its secrets lost between warring treasure hunters. Maybe . . .

The minor ridge was solid, a knowledge that fell heavily on his heart, but then he realized that it ran at a slight angle away from him and was formed of a series of bulges. They’d have to walk its entire length to check around every one.

Luckily, the grooves pointed them straight at the right one.

Caitlyn skipped past Crouch, unable to contain her high spirits. Alicia was merely surprised that Healey didn’t follow in her wake. When the girl bent down and then looked up, her face shiny and bright, she made Crouch’s heart skip a beat.

“What is it?”

“A narrow entrance, made against the rock wall and against the natural angle. Without the clues we followed this hole would be almost impossible to take seriously.”

Alicia reached the girl, staring down. The narrow hole was barely wide enough to admit a man, clogged now with debris and practically unnoticeable. There was something very cunning about how it had been formed
behind
the natural angle of the ridge; a person’s eyes would automatically follow the regular line.

“No time to waste.” Crouch fell to the floor and started to use his hands to dig out debris. “Spread this out in as regular a manner as you can. Coker won’t find this hole without help if he tried for a thousand years.”

In minutes the hole had been cleared and Crouch was chest-deep inside. Alicia evaluated the scene at their back, seeing nothing but the two distant specks in the sky, perhaps moving closer now. Crouch soon disappeared and then Caitlyn, Cruz and Lex. Alicia eyed the two remaining soldiers, none of them overly pleased about wriggling into a hole in the ground.

“Rock, paper, scissors again?”

“Fuck it,” Russo grumbled. “I’ll go.”

“Ah, shouldn’t you go last?” Alicia asked innocently. “Since you’re more likely to plug up the hole. I mean that in a good way.”

Russo ignored her and struggled through. Healey jumped up next and then Alicia grasped the edges and slowly lowered herself down. The curve of the hole fitted against her body like a small chute. She slid along carefully, using arms, elbows and knees to grip the sides. When she glanced up the last thing she saw was a small circle of daylight, blue wilderness sky unbroken by cloud or vapor trail.

Then, the darkness.

*

Crouch shone a flashlight over her as she located her own. In addition to the handheld version, she carried a weapon-fixed and head-mounted variation, the latter of which she also employed now.

In the glare of many flashlights, the age-old blackness reluctantly brightened. Dust and untouched debris coated the floor. Already the cave was larger, both ceiling and walls beyond reach. Crouch illuminated their surroundings.

“Nothing to see,” he pointed out. “Probably intentional in case anyone happened to stumble into this place by accident.”

Alicia read his mind. “Which means we’ve a long way to go and no hope of getting out of here before Coker arrives. How far down does that phone signal of yours reach?”

“I guess we’re about to find out.”

Time played tricks with their minds as they descended. Minutes felt like hours as each twist and turn, and even each footfall, needed careful attention. The initial shaft brought them into a sub-chamber that could be exited only through a similar tunnel. With no more clues to guide him, Crouch was thankful the chambers hadn’t been littered with a warren of tunnels. The tunnel fell at a comfortable angle until he estimated they’d dropped a hundred feet and were heading back toward the desert floor. It also occurred to him that each ridge’s set of troughs actually pointed toward this hidden place—a guide or a frustrating obstruction devised by the ancient warriors?

Still lower, and now the angle evened out, leading them into the heart of the great primordial mountain. The moment their going became easier, Crouch pointed to a carving on the wall.

“The first sign,” he said, “that our crazy quest is almost at an end.”

Alicia gave the picture a passing glance, taking in the now familiar stick figures and accompanying snakes, spears and swords. No doubt that these people were warriors and made of the hardest metal. Flashlight beams flew across the rock all around her, the sounds of their footfalls echoing through the surrounding perpetual dark. She might have imagined a deep feeling of isolation when trekking hundreds of feet below the earth, but the team she’d become a part of were close and the bonds they’d already formed were already easing her burden.

A dozen feet more and an archway materialized out of the gloom, its uprights covered in symbols.

Crouch heaved a great pent-up sigh. “This is it.”