When dawn arrived, the air turned to steam. The guerrillas resumed their journey in better spirits than before, strolling along, chatty and cheery. Stuart himself felt his mood lighten with every step, and his clothes lighten too as they gradually dried out. When Chel paused to take a compass bearing, Stuart asked how much further they had to go and was pleased to learn that it was only another day’s walk. Tomorrow morning at the latest they would reach their destination. If it had still been raining, he wouldn’t have dared ask. Any answer would have been too depressing.
By the middle of the day, the heat had become ferocious, accompanied by a humidity that sapped the life out of you. Even the Mayans, who had struck Stuart as indefatigable, began to drag their feet. The air was a thick, unbreathable broth. Zotz collected some berries from a guarana vine and passed them round for all to munch on. The caffeine in the bitter-tasting fruit helped, giving an energy surge, but tiredness soon set in again. After a while every step was an effort. Clothing became wringing wet again, now with sweat.
Chel sensibly decided they should make camp early. A fire was lit — a minor miracle — and hot stew was consumed. For Stuart it was a pleasure beyond all reckoning just to sit on the forest floor, not moving, with his bare blistered feet stretched towards the flames, soles gently warming. None of the forced marches he’d undergone during his Eagle Warrior training could compare to the yomp he was on right now. He couldn’t find a part of his body that didn’t ache. It took all his remaining strength just to crawl under canvas and lay himself out on a blanket; he was asleep before he knew it.
And awake again, in the darkest part of the night. Someone was yelling frantically. Stuart scrambled out into the open. All the guerrillas were up, milling about. It took a while for the cause of the commotion to become clear.
One man, Tohil, had got up and gone to the edge of the campsite to relieve himself. Mid-flow, he’d spotted something between the trees. A shape. A person. Watching him.
Tohil had let out a cry of surprise and the watcher had fled.
No, not fled.
Kind of vanished.
Definitely vanished.
Melted into the darkness as though being swallowed up by ink.
And Tohil was sure — not absolutely sure, but pretty sure — that it had been a woman. The watcher had had a female silhouette. Not too tall. He’d glimpsed the contours of hips and breasts.
The other guerrillas scoffed. “A woman? You don’t think you just imagined it? You were maybe asleep and dreamed her?” Snide allusions were made to Tohil’s manliness and how long it had been since he’d last had a girlfriend.
Tohil became indignant, insisting he had seen something. But the more he protested, the louder the mockery grew. Eventually he stomped off to his tent, muttering under his breath.
Only Stuart considered his claims with any seriousness.
Was it possible? Could DCI Vaughn have followed him to Anahuac? Be on his trail now?
No. Absurd. How could he even think it? Vaughn was still in London. Had to be. There was, in fact, every chance that she was dead. If she hadn’t been killed when the Xibalba van hit the paddy wagon, the Jaguar Warrior code of honour would have swiftly remedied that situation. A high-profile murder suspect had been snatched from right under her nose. You couldn’t cock up an arrest that badly and expect to be allowed to live.
If Tohil was right and a woman had been spying on the guerrillas’ camp, it wasn’t Chief Inspector Malinalli Vaughn.
Which, Stuart was bemused to find himself thinking, was a pity.
FOURTEEN
7 Dog 1 Lizard 1 House
(Tuesday 11th December 2012)
The fourth and final day of the journey began innocuously enough. After a breakfast of maize cake and dried broad beans, Stuart and the guerrillas tramped off, reassured by Chel that there were ten miles remaining, perhaps less. Stuart’s inner compass told him they weren’t far from Lake Texcoco. They had more or less retraced his and Zotz’s river recce trip, overland.
The mood was genial.
That changed when one of the guerrillas spotted something overhead. Among the leaves. Too large to be a monkey.
It was there one moment, gone the next. Nobody else saw it.
“A jaguar?” Chel suggested.
It could have been. The big cats did sometimes lurk in trees, balancing on a thick branch, poised to pounce on prey below.
But whatever the guerrilla had seen was larger, he said, than a jaguar. And he could have sworn it had flown upwards as it disappeared from view. On wings that shimmered like a hummingbird’s. A hummingbird the size of a human.
Tohil was gleeful. “Hey, so I wasn’t imagining things last night, was I? There was someone watching us.”
“Something’s going on, that’s for certain,” growled Chel.
“We’re close to enemy territory,” said Stuart. “Your men are getting jumpy.”
“My men don’t get jumpy,” Chel snapped. “I’ve been feeling it since we struck camp. Haven’t you?”
“Feeling what?”
“That we’re being followed. Stalked.”
“By something up in the trees?”
“Not just there. Behind us as well.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He’s not,” said Zotz. “I’ve noticed it too. I didn’t want to say anything, so as not to spark alarm, but I’m convinced we’re not alone.”
“But who? A forest tribe?”
“Not round here.”
“Jaguar Warriors?”
“I don’t think so. They’re not nearly this subtle.”
“Serpents, then.”
“Again, I don’t think so. They’re good, but this isn’t their style. Why follow us when they could just as easily ambush us?”
“Maybe there’s only one or two of them. They’re waiting for reinforcements.”
“No,” said Zotz. “It’s something else. Something I can’t figure out. Whoever they are, it isn’t natural, what they can do. They’re as stealthy as spiders.”
“We have to keep going,” said Chel. “But we should break out the weapons.”
The guerrillas armed themselves from their backpacks. In addition to bolas and blowpipe, they had brought along more contemporary items, including a stolen lightning gun and several conventional rifles and pistols. Stuart was glad to strap his rapier on again and have his flechette gun holstered at his hip.
They carried on in silence, bunched together, aiming wary looks in all directions. The forest seemed denser and more oppressive. Every shadow held something. The moss on the tree trunks took on humanoid shapes. Leaves made faces.
One of the Mayans suddenly opened fire. A couple of the others joined in. They raked a thicket of rattan palm with bullets, scything the stems and spiky fronds. Chel ordered them to stop. As the echoes rumbled away across the hills he demanded to know why they were shooting.
“I heard a sound,” said the man who had started it off. “A rustling.”
“And I fired because he did,” said one of the others, and the third nodded in agreement.
Chel approached the demolished thicket and peered in. He gave a sour smile.
“Unless we’re being hunted by agoutis, I think we’re all right.”
Everyone took a look at the bullet-riddled remains of the agouti. There wasn’t much of it left, but it was still just identifiable as a harmless rodent.
Nervous laughter was accompanied by quips at the expense of the men who’d let rip with their guns. “Fancied some lunch, did you?” “What’s next, a big scary guinea pig?” and so on.
“Onward, men,” said Chel. “And less of the itchy trigger fingers, if you don’t mind. Those reports will have carried for miles, and who knows who might have heard them.”