“What?”
“They don’t fully trust you. After all you still remain a stranger to them. But me and my mentor, Rivera, they do trust. It is the only way forward, I’m afraid.”
Crouch clicked his tongue, frowning hard. Alicia watched the elder and the elder watched Crouch. Everything depended on their leader’s next few words and the whole village knew it.
“Of course we will take you, Jose. It’s not a problem. But will you come?”
Cruz signaled an affirmative to the elder. “If you’re asking me to join a legitimate quest to find a five-hundred-year-old legendary, priceless treasure then my answer is — damn, yeah!”
The leader held up the sheaf of papers. Alicia saw that they were very old and bound on one side. The man didn’t open the book, but indicated them as he spoke.
“This is the Codex Azcapotzalco as written in the sixteenth century. It is a pictographic, that is a writing system that consists mostly of logograms and syllabic signs. It is written on deer hide and is this village’s most valuable artefact, more valuable even than these elder’s lives.” Cruz bowed deeply. “Please respect that.”
Crouch bowed too. “Thank you for bringing it forward.”
Cruz went on. “Azcapotzalco is the name of the Aztec that wrote the codex, the one that returned. The Nahuatl have studied its meaning for many years and, at least this learned generation, can now decipher the pictures and translate them into words. It is… ” Cruz paused, creasing his brows. “A poem, I think.”
He clarified with the elder. “Yes, a poem. I think the word has been corrupted though. Either through the ages or by their literal translation. Poem could mean story or even map.”
Healey’s face lit up. “As in a treasure map?”
Alicia pressed on his shoulders. “Down boy.”
“Azcapotzalco returned many years after the first warriors. Most of the codex is an account of the subsequent lives of the Aztec warriors that decided to stay with the hidden caravan,” Cruz said. “And still more tells of those warriors that mixed with the local braves after the caravan was safe and the ones that returned. There is, however, deep within its pages, a passage that points to the place where the treasure was hidden.”
Crouch felt the corners of his mouth twitching and fought to keep them straight. “Go on.”
Cruz listened twice before repeating the elder’s words. “It’s a poem, I think, it has a kind of rhythm. Listen:
“Through the great, endless river you must travel,
“Past canyons and rocks of waves,
“The Shield Arch shows the way,
“But heed our warnings to the mushroom rock,
“Then beyond the known territory of the braves,
“Look between Hummingbird and the ritual for your final guidance,
“And betray the sacrifices of your loyal warriors not.”
Crouch blinked, digesting the information. “It sounds exactly like an original series of pictures translated into modern words, as the elder said. Fantastic.”
Alicia nudged Healey. “You wanna write that down.”
The young solider grunted. “Damn, if only I had one of those eidetic memories.”
“Oh yeah,” Alicia murmured. “Now there’s a thought I have every day.”
Healey caught the sarcasm and asked Cruz to repeat slowly as he jotted it down. Crouch was clearly mulling through the text. “But there’s no starting point,” he said. “It’s all very well to follow those directions, but where from?”
“North,” Cruz said. “The caravans traveled north. And the elder says the ancient Aztecs used to have a method of counting days. They indicated quantities using the requisite number of dots. A flag represented twenty, repeated up to four hundred, and then a sign like a fir tree signified four hundred. They can give us an accurate dateline for the entire march.”
Crouch smiled. “Then it looks like we’re ready to get started.”
EIGHT
It seemed the fates were aligned with them that day. The return trip to Mexico City passed without a hitch, the whole team newly energized by the thought of finally being able to pursue a real treasure. Slumped down in the passenger seat, Alicia allowed the team’s exuberance to enliven her whilst staying razor-sharp and objective in her head. The molten sunset gave way to pure, impenetrable black. Not even the stars proved their silent shimmer tonight.
As the journey continued, she tried to stay awake.
Crouch noticed her predicament. “You have to trust your team sometime, Alicia.”
Another reminder of how astute her boss was. “Doesn’t have to be tonight though.”
“Well look at it this way. My guess is that between now and when we find the treasure this is the least danger we’ll be in.”
“When we find the treasure?”
Crouch grinned in the gloom. “I’ve always been a pretty confident kinda guy.”
“Yeah. Combine that with your sentimentalism and you’re a hard act to keep up with.”
“You mean ‘get along with’?”
Alicia pursed her lips. “No, but if that’s what you like to think… ”
Crouch drove in silence for a while. As they breached the outskirts of Mexico City, Alicia thumbed the walkie that connected their car with the one ahead.
“Stay alert, you guys. No slacking. This ain’t the time to be missing something.”
No let up.
Back in their temporary HQ, they found a surprise waiting for them.
Caitlyn Nash.
With short black hair and piercing blue eyes, Caitlyn had a body created through regular visits to the gym and the quick, nervous smile of a geek. She was twenty one years old, completely untrained in combat, but one of MI6’s best real-time analysts. Part of her job had also included collecting any historical data relevant to the task at hand — an undertaking she had excelled at.
After meeting her Alicia wondered just one thing. Why the hell is she here with us? Not in a bad way, not because she doubted the woman’s skill, but quite the opposite. Twenty one was a damn young age to have burned out.
Still, Caitlyn was here and eager to prove her worth.
Alicia put Healey on watch and listened as Caitlyn outfitted the team with some new gadgets. There were Bluetooth comms, to be inserted in the ear, which worked full time unless you double-tapped to close the gadget.
“Just make sure you switch them off before you start doing anything umm… private,” Caitlyn said with a little blush.
Alicia turned to Healey. “Shit, the kid will de double-tapping every three hours.”
Even Russo laughed. Healey turned as red as Caitlyn. The new analyst continued in a hurry, “Once we have the new mini wireless cameras fitted into all your equipment we’ll have full-time, always-on documentation and analysis between site and base. Essential for proving providence and ownership, trust and true intentions. Those are the priority features for now, guys. Don’t worry, it won’t take long to set up.”
Alicia nodded, pleased. The idea of documenting everything they discovered through video link was sound as far as it went. She wondered how capable the link signal was but didn’t query it at this point. Crouch would have thought of pretty much everything. Even their new reluctant addition, Jose Cruz, accepted a comms system, clutching his hands together as he did so as if praying for good fortune. Once she’d outfitted all the earphones and connected them to the main network, Caitlyn set about installing the micro cameras.
Alicia watched her work. The young girl fairly whistled as her dexterous fingers flew between chores. Bent to her task she seemed happy, content. Perhaps she felt safe in her own world, surrounded by another world of highly trained men and women, insulated. Alicia thought that her pasty complexion might attest that she never got out much, but then remembered that she lived in England. Either way, Alicia thought, Caitlyn’s an odd package and worth keeping a close eye on.