Exodus Code (33 page)

When Jack dragged Isla out to the airstrip, he reached down, threw her over his shoulder again, and ran towards the rear of the hotel.

Anderson rounded the corner. ‘Hey! What the—’ She lifted her rifle. ‘Stop!’

She fired a warning shot above Jack’s head.

Directly behind Anderson the helicopters began their descent, whipping up a tornado of dust, rocks and brush.

Anderson sprinted towards the hotel.

Jack could hardly see five metres in front any more. His vision was clouded with black and yel ow dots, his head clanging with strident chords of tinny music.

Dana pushed open the hotel gates. Jack charged through. Dana fired a series of shots at Anderson, who hurled herself behind a copse of brush.

Jack dropped Isela onto a lounge chair and helped Dana close and bar the gates.

‘Now what?’ asked Dana, freeing Isela.

‘I need you to give me the notebook, Isela. I know you have it,’ said Jack, his knees buckling. ‘Give me a minute.’

‘You can have five,’ said Cash, leading the others through the tropical gardens to the cabana where Jack was down, his eyes closed, his heart racing one minute then slowing, almost stopping, the next.

Gwen looked as bad as Jack felt. She was being carried between Eva and Vlad, taking two steps on her own then being dragged and carried for two.

‘What happened?’ When Jack sat up a wave of nausea pul ed his head back against the pil ows.

‘She punched Hol is,’ said Vlad. ‘Thought he was her husband, I think.’

Hol is was bringing up the rear of the line with Sam, each had assault rifles criss-crossed over their shoulders. ‘On my honour, I did not touch the lady.’

‘I upped her dosage,’ said Eva.

‘Hey everyone! It’s Jack,’ grinned Gwen. ‘I missed you, Jack!’

‘Why do you need to see my grandfather’s notebook?’ asked Isela, sitting on the edge of the lounger next to Jack.

‘It’s my notebook, Isela. A long time ago, on this mountain, your grandfather saved my life. He held on to the notebook for me.’

‘So you are
el cóndor
? From the stories my mother tel s?’ Isela sucked her upper lip, a movement so childish that Jack received a vivid flash of her sitting cross-legged on a dusty tiled floor, listening wide-eyed to her mother. Isela searched Jack’s face suspiciously – trying to reconcile this wild, infuriating stranger with the heroes of her childhood chronicles. Sensing his moment, Jack licked a finger, and traced in the air the pattern of overlapping circles.

Recognising the symbol, Isela grinned, and dug around in her garments, pul ing the notebook out of a pocket along with a handful of spare ammunition. She handed Jack the notebook.

‘Thank you,’ said Jack. As he closed his fingers over the book, he heard a deep sonorous boom.

‘The
cóndor
,’ said Hol is, ‘That’s a nickname with some cachet.’

‘Do you actual y know what a condor is?’ asked Cash, moving to the gates where Dana stood guard, the drone of the helicopters shaking the hacienda’s wal s while they loaded the wounded.

‘Four under par?’

‘It’s a bloody vulture, a bird that feeds on the dead,’ said Cash.

‘It’s a sacred bird to the Cuari, to my mother,’ said Isela. ‘We believe that the
cóndor
comes from the heavens and it can take messages back and forth between the three worlds. It is the key to keeping the universe in balance.’

Jack careful y unfolded the cloth, and was shocked to see that tucked in the back were a series of letters that Renso had written over the years to Jack.

‘Were you the friend that my grandfather wrote those letters to al those years ago?’

‘I loved your grandfather, Isela.’

‘He loved you too,’ said Isela. She stood and held out her hand. ‘Come. I’l take you to my mother.’

‘Thank you,’ said Jack. Before crossing the lush courtyard with Isela, Jack skimmed across the pages, tore out the relevant ones, and handed them to Vlad. ‘Do what you need to do.’

Cash sent Hol is and Sam to watch the other gates. ‘If the CIA want this girl bad enough, they’l charge in and take her. Jack, we have less than four hours to get you up the mountain.’

LEAVING GWEN STRETCHED on a lounger singing in Welsh to herself under the watchful eyes of Eva and Vlad, Jack trailed behind Isela inside the main house. His field of vision was contracting. Running ahead of him, Isela looked as if she was moving along a narrow tube. The ache in Jack’s joints and the drumming in his head had worsened. He hobbled across the foyer.

‘Jack,’ said Cash into his earpiece, ‘it looks like the helicopters are going to have to make one more run. We’re safe from Captain Anderson’s unit until then. She’s got a guard on the edge of the canyon. She knows we’re stil in the compound.’

Isela led Jack along a narrow side passageway decorated in blue and white-flecked wal paper and a plush carpeted floor.

‘The wal s and the ceiling in this part of the house are al soundproofed and shaded to make it easier on my mother.’

They stopped outside a pair of arched double-doors with the three-circle symbol that Gwen had carved on her forearm displayed in the centre.

‘What’s wrong with your mother?’ asked Jack, even though he already knew.

‘The doctors have a long list, but they say the main disease is vitiligo. She can’t go out in the sun. She has no… no…’ She was struggling for the word in English. ‘
Color en piel
?’

‘Pigment?’

Isela nodded. ‘She has no pigment, so she burns up in the sun. Oh, and she’s sensitive to sounds and touch and so many other things. It’s why I want to get away from this place.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is the mountain that’s making her sick and one day it wil make me sick too. My grandmother said so, and my mother says so. My father refused to name me after my mother and grandmother because he believes the name is cursed.’

‘What should you have been named, Isela?’

‘My Cuari name is Gaia.’

Jack flipped to the pages with the most writing in his notebook. There it was. Her grandmother’s name scribbled across the page, the guide Jack now recal ed had taken him into the mountain to sacrifice him to the Helix Intel igence, to the astral force locked inside the Earth’s core.

In the line under the name Gaia, Jack had scribbled,
means goddess of the
Earth
.

‘I wil go inside first to prepare her for you.’

*

When Jack entered the room, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Every noise in his head shut down. Then he realised his knees were no longer aching, his heartbeat had steadied itself, and the rock in his gut had gone.

The wal s were dressed in a similar flecked fabric to the hal way but inside, instead of blue and white, the colours were maroon and gold. The carpet was thick, soft and black, and the tal arched windows were made of smoked glass. The view of the mountain and a tiled fountain were visible from the draped four poster bed where Isela’s mother was propped in front of layers of soft pil ows.

‘I’ve been expecting you,’ said Gaia. ‘The mountain won’t wait much longer.’

‘Then you know what’s happening? To the world?’ asked Jack. He tasted ginger.

‘Of course, it has been marked in the mountain since the beginning of time, noted in the beads by my ancestors and written in the scrol s by yours. It’s part of the prophecy.’

‘But then you also must understand what has to happen.’

She smiled sadly at Jack and then at her daughter. ‘I’ve known my entire existence. It is what a star guide is born to do. There are so few Cuari left.

The prophecy must be fulfil ed this time.’

Jack walked closer to the bed. Gaia let out a painful ear-piercing wail. Jack quickly backed away.

‘Everything about you hurts me,’ she sobbed, her breath catching in her throat.

‘Sit there,’ Isela said, pointing to a long red velvet couch in front of a wal of cloth-bound books. Isela stroked her mother’s palm, calming her immediately.

Jack sat on the couch and studied the woman in the bed. She was painful y thin, but her beauty and sensuality were undeniable. Patches of her skin were as white as Jack’s and others were as brown as Isela’s, the mottled texture and the uneven tones of her skin only enhancing her radiance. Gaia’s hair was jet black, easily reaching her waist, but it was her eyes that Jack found so mesmerising, so enchanting. They were deep midnight black. The longer he stared at this woman – this being on the bed whose spirit was ancient and ageless, prehistoric and primal – the more clearly his memories of the mountain and its power fitted into place, and the more he doubted the success of his plan.

Jack had got some of it terribly wrong.

Swansea, same day
RHYS LEANED OVER Anwen’s cot, tucked her in, settling her stuffed bear close to her side. He kissed his finger and touched it to Anwen’s heart, and for a while he stayed in that position staring at the wonder of his daughter until she snuffled, rol ed onto her side, and high-kicked her blanket to the bottom of the crib.

Rhys smiled, lifting out the blanket. ‘You’ve definitely got your mum’s legs.’

Downstairs, he switched on the TV news, and stared at the footage of the tower of water shooting into the heavens. The scaffolding enveloping it looked as if an oil rig had been constructed around it, lights blazing from the navy ships, making it easy to watch the tower of rock slowly but surely engulfing the entire jet stream. The press, the crazies, and the curious had al stayed bobbing out there in the sea, as they had at the other geysers, despite most governments asking those closest to the chimneys to evacuate further inland.

And somewhere out there, Jack and Gwen were fighting to right the world.

Rhys sat down on the sofa, and prayed that the morning would come.

Southern Peru, same day
STANDING ON THE wide porch of the hacienda with his gun over his shoulder, smoking a Cuban cigar, Cash wondered how they were ever going to make it up the mountain given Jack’s deteriorating condition, never mind what he planned to do when he got there.

Savouring every puff of his cigar, Cash stared out at the Pacific. The late-afternoon sun was lingering over the horizon as if considering whether or not to be swal owed by the coming darkness.

According to Shel ey’s calculations, they had three hours until the vent chimneys would be sealed.

The climbing procession was organising with little fuss in the foyer when Dana alerted Cash in his earpiece that Captain Anderson’s team were preparing to breach the south wal .

‘If you’re going, love,’ she said, ‘I’d say now would be good. Sam and I can hold them off until you get out of the compound.’

‘Then what?’ said Cash.

‘Then we’l improvise.’

Cash waved at Dana, then pinched the end of his cigar, setting the rest of it on the edge of the veranda. ‘I expect everyone to be there when I return.’

Inside, he told Jack they had to move. Now.

Gaia insisted that the prophesied ritual be fol owed to the exact glyph.

Dressed in a black suede jumpsuit with padded earmuffs secured under her hood, she and Isela would lead them. After some trial and error, she was able to tolerate Eva more comfortably than any of the others, so Eva was positioned in front along with Isela.

Jack refused to wear the traditional Cuari tunic. ‘If the world is going to end tonight, I’m going out with my trousers on.’ He sent Vlad to retrieve his coat from the rear gates.

Jack was unsteady on his feet and close to incoherent for significant chunks of time, so Cash and Hol is decided they were the best equipped to handle him.

Vlad was travel ing with Gwen, who was more than a little wobbly on her feet. Al of them, including Isela, carried weapons.

Twenty minutes into their climb, they reached the steep canyon hiking pass, the trail that centuries ago had been used by the great Inca warriors leading their sacrifices up the mountain.

Jack’s field of vision looked like a Jackson Pol ock painting, dripping with dots and dol ops of blinding colours. Snarling voices were screaming in his head and he could hardly walk, his knees crippling him. With Cash and Hol is supporting him on either side, they tramped into the rocky jungle path.

Gunfire erupted from the compound below.

Eva stopped at the sound, but Cash urged her on.

‘Dana and Sam know what they’re doing. We need to keep moving, Eva.’

Eva was glad she had been put in the lead a good few metres in front of Vlad because she was afraid that her own heightening sexual desire, which was getting more intense the higher they climbed, would put Vlad in more danger than the soldiers snapping at their heels. Eva was breathing heavily when they entered a clearing at the top of the canyon pass.

The vol eys of gunfire echoing from the compound below were almost continuous.

‘They must have breached the wal ,’ yel ed Cash. ‘Let’s go, people. Let’s get this done.’

When they final y arrived at the deserted ruin of the Cuari vil age beneath the mountain’s plateau, the darkness had descended like a lid on the basin of the mountain only a few hundred metres above them.

With the descending darkness came a change in Gaia that was startling.

Her steps quickened, her breathing became less laboured. She shrugged off Eva and Isela and bounded towards the final leg of the canyon pass. Jack, on the other hand, was being dragged between Cash and Hol is. No one was speaking. Only the bursts of gunfire from the compound below punctuated their progress.