Thieves Till We Die (32 page)

The temple lurched downwards again. Jonah was thrown backwards to the cold, crumbling floor. He could see a huge rise of mud rucked up outside, parallel to the window where the others stood waiting. Coldhardt was about to jump for it when the whole of the wall beside him fell away. He lost his balance, mistimed his leap, landed heavily and scrabbled for a purchase in the mud. Motti and Con scrambled down to help him – while the temple went on sinking.

‘Jonah!' Tye screamed.

He climbed on to the edge of the broken wall – but Honor ran into him, dropping her pots and cups and
lumps of stone as she tried to pull him back. Jonah fought to get free, but a part of him feared it was already too late. It was getting darker as the giant mud banks eclipsed the low sun. He saw Motti and Con helping Coldhardt to the top of the rise – then they slipped from view.
At least they all made it
, he thought numbly. It felt like he was descending into hell in a huge stone elevator that was disintegrating around him.

‘Help me, Wish,' Honor snarled, scooping up shards of pottery and pushing them into Jonah's hands. ‘
Help
me!'

‘Help yourself,' he gasped, throwing the pieces back in her face; she recoiled on instinct, fell backwards. ‘What else have you ever done?'

Jonah climbed back up on to the wall – and his heart caught in his throat as he saw his chance had gone. The temple had sunk too far back into the split in the earth, the steep muddy bank would be impossible to climb. He felt a terrible coldness, too frightened even for tears.

Then he saw the broken blade and the hilt of Cortes's sword at his feet. He grabbed it, held it in both hands, and quickly backed away into the temple for a run-up.

He'd never been brilliant at the long jump. But then, his life had never depended on it before.

Jonah launched himself from one of the crumbling pillars in the inner circle and sprinted across the rubble-strewn floor. As he neared the broken wall, he saw Honor crawl from the shadows, her face twisted with spite, reaching for his legs to try to trip him.

He knew he couldn't afford to slow for a second. So at the last moment he jumped clear over her head. Her gasp of outrage was sweet in his ears, like a breath of wind at his back pushing him on. He hit his mark on the wall with perfect accuracy and leaped forwards into the void, both hands clamped tight about the hilt of the sword, stretching out with both arms like a diver …

The spike of the sword dug into the hard-packed mud. Jonah thudded into the bank a fraction later. He gasped as the air was whumped from his body but clung on to the sword hilt, praying the blade was wedged in deep enough to hold his weight. He shut his eyes tight, ears ringing as Honor screamed, as the doomed temple tore itself apart, deep in its centuries-old hiding place, in the lowest pits of the open grave.

Jonah clung on, but his fingers were already killing him. Any sense of triumph soon dissipated – he had only delayed the inevitable. How was he supposed to scale the wall of the pit? If he had two broken swords, he could use them like a climber used ice picks; maybe then he might stand a chance. As it was …

He heard something slap against the mud above his head. Fearfully, he looked up – and blinked in disbelief. Something flopped into view, just a half-metre out of reach. Maybe he'd already fallen. Or maybe he was dreaming, delirious and trapped down in the remnants of the temple.

Whatever, he was staring up at a white lacy bra.

It had been tied to the sleeve of a black polo-neck top. The other sleeve was tied to one leg of a pair of dark jeans.

‘Grab a hold, geek,' Motti shouted from somewhere way above.

A rope of laundry, dropped down to his rescue? Jonah figured he had nothing to lose. He reached up, grabbed hold of the bra strap with one hand and wrapped it round his wrist – then, with a muttered prayer to anyone who might be listening, he let go of the sword altogether. He gasped as he actually dropped down further into the pit as the fabrics stretched and knots tightened.

But the makeshift rope held his weight.

Jonah started dragging himself up, digging the heels of his boots into the mudface for extra support. Beyond Patch's jeans was Coldhardt's bloodstained linen jacket, in turn tied to Tye's jeans, in turn tied to Motti's black denim shirt, in turn tied to another bra, padded this time and patterned with little lilac flowers. He found himself smiling as he kept hauling himself up.

‘C'mon, Jonah, you can do it!' Motti shouted, closer now.

‘I'm just … hoping Patch's pants … aren't coming up any time soon,' Jonah called to them. The others started whooping, cheering him on. Arms burning, sweating with the effort, he scaled a pair of muddy trousers and Tye's pale blue blouse, and then the mud levelled out enough for him to rest for a moment. Panting for breath, Jonah pushed himself on, crawling up the looser mud until he reached the top of the rise.

A chorus of cheers went up. Motti was in his boxers, covered in bruises, arms raised above his head as he clapped. Con and Tye were dressed only in
knickers, Aztec pendants and precarious bikini tops improvised from cacao leaves, so they jumped around a little less. And Patch, though he should have been ashamed for wearing such a vile, flesh-coloured pair of Y-fronts was beaming all over his face.

‘Thanks,' Jonah told them simply, giving up to gravity at last and hugging the ground.

‘Jonah, mate,' Patch cried, his good eye straying back to the barely-clad girls, ‘you gotta fall down these dirty great holes in the ground more often.'

Tye changed quickly back into her muddy clothes behind a tree.
We came through it
, she thought.
Somehow, we all made it through
.

Even Ramez.

How far had he run already?

She pushed the thought of him from her mind and rejoined Jonah and the others, who had gone to find Coldhardt. She saw them in the light of the setting sun, crowded round a radio in a small clearing at the edge of the devastated landscape.

‘The hidden microphone in the amulet should still be transmitting.' Coldhardt stabbed at the radio's controls. He looked a far cry from his usual debonair self in his grimy, bloodied linen suit. ‘I must know if anyone is still alive down there.'

‘Hang on.' Jonah frowned. ‘Thought I heard something.'

Coldhardt turned up the volume on the built-in speaker, and they all crept in a little closer. Tye heard someone cough. ‘Michael? Is that you?' She barely recognised Honor's voice, tinged now with fear. ‘My head … Why is it so dark?'

A man coughed. One of the Sixth Sun priests.
‘What happened?'

‘I …' Honor paused. ‘What was that?'

Tye had been about to ask the same thing. She'd thought she could hear something in the background, a whispering noise. It started to build, like a wind blowing up to a gale. Tye felt a shiver run down her back.

‘Who's there?' the man demanded, his voice wavering.

‘What is it?' hissed Honor as the noise grew steadily louder. ‘What can you see?'

And then the speaker distorted with the sound of screaming. The weird, rushing wind blew louder, all but drowning out Honor's final, bloodcurdling shriek.

The radio fell silent. Then the ambient noise crept back up. They heard a little rock dust fall. No voices. No movement.

For a good half-minute, no one spoke or even looked at each other.

‘That could've been me down there,' Jonah said quietly.

Con bit her lip. ‘What the hell was that noise?'

‘Just interference,' Patch insisted, pale-faced. ‘Told you, this humidity sods up the circuits.'

‘So it wasn't the spirit of Coatlicue coming to call,' said Jonah darkly, ‘feeding on the poison in men – and women – a bit more literally than Traynor thought.'

‘Come off it,' Motti snorted. ‘That was just air forced out of some vent or something as the foundations fell in on themselves …'

‘Right,' said Con.

Coldhardt said nothing. The rest of them looked at
each other nervously, trying their hardest to be convinced by the explanation.

‘Weird though,' said Jonah, ‘how just about everything else in that codex prophecy tallied with something real. There was a kind of mechanism in the statue which needed the blade of a conquistador sword to be pushed in, or “wiped clean”, to unlock it. And that showed us the place where the priests had hidden the real treasure.' He reached in his pocket and threw a handful of gold jewellery down at Coldhardt's feet. Con instantly stooped to scoop it up for close study. ‘Though I don't understand how the ground in front of the statue dissolved like that.'

Tye frowned. ‘Solid stone just dissolved?'

‘It wasn't stone,' Coldhardt explained. ‘That area with the indentations was a kind of thick, layered paper – designed to
look
like stone. When perfect sacrifice was made – or rather, when enough blood was spilled at the statue's feet – it soaked into the paper, weakened it –'

‘And the weight of the gold discs from those dead attendants made it fall away,' said Jonah, ‘to reveal the treasure.'

‘To those who correctly unravelled the Nahuatl prophecy, yes,' Coldhardt agreed. ‘As a result, we have a modest haul of booty.' He retrieved several more pieces of jewellery from inside his shirt, together with two more of the weird Aztec folding books, and handed them over to Con.

‘But the rest of the treasure is still down there,' Con said sadly.

‘Yeah, soaked with a deadly poison,' said Jonah.
‘And there could be a fair few phials of it still intact as well.'

‘This whole part of the rainforest is totally screwed,' Motti remarked. ‘Ain't gonna be no covering this up.'

Coldhardt nodded. ‘Which is why, now I'm satisfied there's no one alive down there to mention my name, I shall make an anonymous call to the government explaining one or two home truths about Michael Traynor, his ambitions, some missing plutonium – and about what they can expect to find in that temple.'

Jonah nodded. ‘I guess then at least the authorities will go in prepared.'

‘But what about the treasure?' said Con, pouting. ‘It's ours by rights. Now it will end up in some dreary museum or something.'

‘So?' Patch shrugged. ‘They can clean it up for us. Least it'll be easier to steal from there.'

Coldhardt waved one of his Aztec books. ‘You never know,' he said, smiling faintly. ‘One of these codices could put us on to other secret treasure hauls.'

Tye slumped to the ground heavily. ‘Can't wait.'

Jonah looked at Coldhardt. ‘Planning on tracking down Coatlicue's presence to another likely spot?'

‘Planning on taking whatever I can get.' Coldhardt looked reflective, oddly at peace. ‘I asked whatever presence was there in the temple how to wrest life from death – and I was shown riches.' A slow, roguish smile spread over his craggy features. It made him look a good few years younger. ‘I take that to be a good omen. I've been a thief from the start, and it
looks like I'll die one too.'

Patch shuddered. ‘Any more jobs like this one, we probably
all
will.'

‘Well, we did manage to stop Traynor's global killing spree,' said Jonah. ‘That's kind of wresting life from death, isn't it?'

‘Gee, geek,' said Motti, ‘d'you think if we write and tell the President we'll get a medal?'

Jonah thumped him in the ribs, and Motti shoved him back. But they were both smiling.

Con started to strip off her bangles and necklaces, adding them to her pile of treasures. ‘At least these are worth something.'

Coldhardt considered. ‘In total we may have made a couple of million.'

‘And with Kabacra dead, we can rip off his place in Guatemala properly, yes?' Her eyes were gleaming.

‘And Traynor too,' Patch suggested. ‘I mean, his mansion is stacked full of goodies – including that horrible little green statue of yours!'

‘I think we have the makings of a plan.' Coldhardt straightened up stiffly, pushing his hands through his grey mane of hair. ‘Patch, share your knowledge of the place with Motti. I want the pair of you to come up with a business plan for clearing out Traynor's place by the time we've flown back to New Mexico.'

‘Understood, chief,' said Motti.

Patch grinned. ‘Gotcha.'

‘Coldhardt,' Con asked brightly, showing him a thick gold bracelet. ‘May I keep this? It is so pretty.'

He smiled indulgently. ‘Who am I to refuse the secret voice of Coatlicue?'

She blushed, clearly delighted. ‘You heard!'

‘An inspired distraction …'

Tye found herself walking away from the noisy, buzzing little group to a quieter spot in a nearby grove, some place she could think. Yes, they had survived; they had blundered through again somehow. But always haunting the back of her mind was the thought of getting caught. The image of herself in place of Ramez, dragged away by police, screaming for all the wrong things while someone scared watched her from the shadows.

She looked out over the cacao trees in the evening light, their branches weighed down with ripening fruit, as someone came up behind her. For a fleeting, frightened moment she thought it was Ramez. It wasn't, though. He had gone, she knew. Gone for good.

‘You could really lose yourself in a sunset like that,' Jonah ventured.

‘That would be cool,' she murmured.

‘You OK?'

Tye didn't turn round. Just took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

‘Something's missing,' she said at last.

‘What, now
he's
gone?'

‘Who?'

‘You know who.'

‘I didn't mean him.' She turned to face him, smiled to see how serious he looked. ‘I was actually talking about my bra.'